Archival Descriptions

Advanced query tips

There are several ways to be more specific in your search query:

"Phrase"
Search an exact match of your query, e.g. "Member lists"
+Phrase
Given word has to be in the result, e.g. +Gestapo
-Phrase
Exclude given word from search, e.g. -Gestapo

Use the following syntax to restrict the search to specific fields:

field:"phrase"
For instance, you can find all descriptions that have the phrase "Auschwitz Birkenau" in their titles by searching for title:"Auschwitz Birkenau".

The following fields are currently available:

  • identifier
  • title
  • creator
  • person
  • place
  • subject
  • address
Displaying items 601 to 620 of 4,487
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Jack R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack R., who was born in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia in 1928. He describes his very loving parents; attending Czech public school; Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish measures; deportation of non-Hungarian Jews to Poland; clandestinely studying for his Bar mitzvah with a Polish rabbi in 1941; German invasion in 1944; ghettoization; his brother's draft into a labor battalion (he never saw him again); separation from his mother and sisters upon arrival at Auschwitz on March 26, 1944; transfer with his father to Buchenwald and Zeitz; forced labor at the Brabag factor...

  2. Arnold R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arnold R., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1920. He recalls graduating from a technical school in 1938; German invasion; anti-Jewish measures; moving to the ghetto area with his family; escaping to Tomaszo?w Mazowiecki in 1940 (he never saw his parents again); working as a painter; ghettoization; smuggling food into the ghetto in a network organized by the ghetto leaders; liquidation of the ghetto in November 1942; avoiding deportation with assistance from a German officer; forced labor in the remaining small ghetto; transfer to Bliz?yn in 1943; slave labor in an am...

  3. Morris (Miklos) D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Morris D., who was born in Ka?llo?semje?n, Hungary in 1919. He describes his orthodox childhood and education; leaving the Yeshiva in 1939 to join the family business; being drafted into the Hungarian army in 1940; two years in a slave labor brigade in Transylvania and Yugoslavia, during which they wore army uniforms with yellow armbands indicating they were Jews, did menial labor, and could not bear arms; returning home to see his parents with the aid of a Hungarian officer in 1942; increasing antisemitism and abuse by the Hungarians; and transfer to the Russian fron...

  4. Idek R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Idek R., who was born in Proszowice, Poland in 1922. He recalls his close extended family; attending public school and cheder; German invasion; forced labor through 1941; fleeing with his friend to the Kraków ghetto to escape the liquidation of Jews in Proszowice (he never saw his parents again); transfer to Płaszów, then to Auschwitz in 1944; working in the Unionwerke until January 1945; a death march to the Czechoslovakian border; travel on freight cars to Mauthausen; working for Messerschmitt in Gusen II; and liberation by United States troops in 1945. Mr. R. rec...

  5. Peter B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter B., who was born in Bushtyna, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1929, the oldest of four children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; his father's position as a deputy mayor; attending cheder and a Czech school; anti-Jewish restrictions after Carpatho-Ukrainian independence in 1938, quickly followed by Hungarian occupation; attending school in Oradea; his family's identification with Hungary; his mother hiding his baby sister with a Ukrainian neighbor, who brought her to the police; a policeman returning her to them; hiding in a nearby village for several w...

  6. Chaia P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Chaia P., who was born in Kaminʹ-Kashyrsʹkyĭ, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1922, one of three children. She recounts attending a Polish school; participating in Hechalutz; Soviet occupation in fall 1939; a Soviet soldier, who lived with them, offering to take her family when the Soviets retreated; her father's decision to remain; German invasion; a round-up that included her father and brother; a relative on the Judenrat ascertaining they had been shot; ghettoization; a Ukrainian friend smuggling food to them; exemption from a mass killing due to their jobs; Romanie...

  7. Richard W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape recording of Richard W., who was born in Ludwigshafen, Germany in 1931. He recalls his father's arrest and vandalizing of their home on Kristallnacht; his father's incarceration in Dachau and subsequent release; outbreak of war; Allied air raids; deportation with his family to Gurs in 1940; placement with his brother in a children's home in Aspet by the Quakers and others; his mother's death from cancer; attending her funeral; receiving letters from his father; their last visit; their sea voyage to Casablanca with other children, then to Baltimore via Bermuda on a Portuguese ship;...

  8. Bela M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bela M., who was born in Sharkowshchyna, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1931, the oldest of three daughters. She recalls her father was a Lubavitch Hasid; attending a Jewish school, then Polish school; antisemitic harassment; Soviet occupation; German invasion; ghettoization; a group escape; separation from her family; walking to Pastavy; her father finding her and bringing her to the Glubokoye ghetto; rumors of liquidation; a non-Jew hiding her family; returning to the ghetto when it became too dangerous; hiding in a bunker; escaping when the Germans bombed them (her ...

  9. Pearl P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pearl P., a twin, who was born in Chynadiyovo, Czechoslovakia in 1921, the youngest of ten children. She recounts most of her siblings had left home before she was born; attending public school and teacher's college; her mother's death in 1942; forced relocation to a brickyard in 1944; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; selection as twins; the trauma of learning about gassings and crematoria; working one week stacking corpses; living in a hospital; injections that made them ill, daily blood drawings, and other "experiments" by ...

  10. Magdalena S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Magdalena S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1920. She recalls attending gymnasium; annual visits to relatives in Kostolné Moravce; Hlinka guard breaking into her graduation dinner; not being able to enter university due to anti-Jewish laws; her grandmother moving in with them when her apartment was confiscated; confiscation of her father's law office; starting a kindergarten in their residence in 1940; confiscation of their apartment ten months later; living with a family in Ivanka pri Dunaji when forced to leave Bratislava; her p...

  11. Frank K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frank K., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1915. He recalls his comfortable youth; antisemitic incidents; the Anschluss; the public humiliation of cleaning streets with his father; fleeing to Berlin after receiving an anonymous warning of his arrest; wandering through Germany unable to stay in one place without identification; returning to Vienna after learning his passport was available; marriage; leaving for Larnaca; his wife joining him four months later; teaching in Nicosia; internment by the British as an enemy alien in 1939; evacuation via Haifa to Tel Aviv; l...

  12. Anna W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anna W. who was born in Hungary in 1938. She recounts events told to her by her mother, but does remember times of fear and terror. She tells of living on an estate; anti-Jewish regulations in 1939 resulting in their move to Budapest, then a rural vineyard in 1941; her father's conscription into a forced labor battalion; remaining with her mother and sisters; German occupation; being forced to return to Budapest in 1944; hiding with her mother and sisters in several places in the ghetto; their detection, arrest, and release; possessing false papers; her mother's arres...

  13. F. M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of M. F., who was born in Dunajská Streda, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1921 and raised in Bratislava. He recalls his family's assimilated, middle-class lifestyle; cordial relations between ethnic and religious groups; attending school in Brno; anti-Jewish laws in March 1939 after Slovak independence; confiscation of his parent's home; their move to Nitra; his arrest on July 5, 1940; harsh interrogations and beatings for four months, transfer from Bratislava to Leopoldov; release in Galanta; returning to Bratislava; re-arrest and a thirty-day imprisonment; dra...

  14. Milton S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Milton S., who was born in Sa?rospatak, Hungary in 1926. He recalls his paternal family's emigration to the United States; traditional observance of Sabbath and holidays; anti-Jewish laws; his father's death in 1941; German occupation in 1944; violent harassment of Jews; transfer to the Miskolc ghetto in March 1944; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his mother and younger brother (he never saw them again); transfer to Dachau, then Rothschwaige; slave labor for Organisation Todt; transfer to Allach; slave labor at a BMW plant; a grueling appell on Chri...

  15. Paul and Rudi O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul and Rudi O., brothers who were born in Berlin, Germany in 1928 and 1931 respectively. They recall an assimilated lifestyle, not celebrating any Jewish holidays; attending public school; emigrating to join their father's brother in England; attending school in Kilburn; their sister's birth; moving to Heedstede, Netherlands for their father's employment; German invasion in May 1940; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced relocation to Amsterdam in 1942; their Jewish identities becoming important to them; their protected status due to their sister's British citizenship; i...

  16. Olga L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Olga L., who was born in Lučenec, Czechoslovakia in 1921. She recalls three much older siblings and one younger brother; a very happy childhood; living in Filakovo; attending school in Lučenec; her sister's marriage; moving back to Lučenec in 1936; Hungarian occupation; meeting her future husband in a sewing workshop; her brother's and fiancé's draft into Hungarian slave labor battalions; visiting her fiancé in Rimavská Sobota; marriage in December 1943 when her fiancé was released; his recall; ghettoization; her father's refusal to escape; her sister (who was ...

  17. Benita H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Benita H., who was born in Liepāja, Lithuania in 1922, one of two daughters. She recounts her mother's family had converted to Protestantism to obtain privileges; their affluence; their move to Danzig (Gdańsk); her sister's birth; their move to Spa then Brussels in 1930; being tutored at home; attending a private school, then never returning due to antisemitic harassment; German invasion in spring 1940; a vain attempt to reach England; anti-Jewish restrictions; her father's illness and surgery; receiving a notice for deportation to Malines in July 1942; obeying desp...

  18. Olga W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Olga W., who was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1913. She remembers a pleasant lifestyle as an assimilated family; her perception of Frankfurt as having a liberal atmosphere and absence of antisemitism; participation in a "study group" to combat antisemitism in 1931; expulsion from law school in 1933; efforts to emigrate; marriage in 1933; and her family's emigration to Holland and hers to Porto, Portugal. Mrs. W. describes the small German-Jewish community; a 1936 visit to her in-laws in Germany; awareness of the imminence of war; bringing her parents, sister ...

  19. Eva D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva D., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1928. She recounts her father's British citizenship; her family's traditional religious practices; friendly relations with non-Jews; German occupation in May 1940; her father's one-month flight to France; anti-Jewish actions; her father's incarceration in Bourg-Leopold prison; visiting him three times; his one-week release when her brother was born; help from non-Jewish neighbors; her family's work in the Maquis; their detention in Mechelen (Malines) for two months in 1942; imprisonment as resistants by Belgian collaborators...

  20. Lore F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lore F., who was born in Thu?ngen, Germany in 1931. She recalls pleasant memories as the only child in a wealthy home; fond relations with cousins; brief attendance at a school for the deaf in Berlin; withdrawal from school after a few weeks because her mother thought she was too young; return to school in 1937 for six months; and withdrawal again because of rumors that handicapped people were being sterilized. Mrs. F. describes observing expressions of fear everywhere; neighbors being taken to jail; her father's emigration to the United States; a physical examination...