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Displaying items 861 to 880 of 4,487
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Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Helen B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen B., who was born in in 1923 in Łódź, Poland, one of four sisters. She recalls her family's affluence and modernity; their enthusiasm for opera and dancing; German invasion; deportation with her family to Dębica; moving to Radom; living with an aunt; all of them contracting typhus; ghettoization; forced labor outside the ghetto; her mother's deportation; hiding when her work group was deported; smuggling herself back to the ghetto; marriage; deportation with her family to Majdanek in January 1944; transfer with two sisters to Płaszów in March; a prisoner doct...

  2. Ralph F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ralph F., who was born in Kabalnik, a small town 80 km. east of Vilna, Poland. Mr. F. tells of his Orthodox childhood and his education in both a cheder and a Polish primary school; the rapid increase of antisemitism; the egalitarianism of the Russian occupation; disappearances in the middle of the night; the German occupation; and the precautions which he took to avoid being rounded up and deported. He describes the acts of extreme barbarity and cruelty which he witnessed; antisemitic legislation; his narrow escape from the liquidation which took place on Yom Kippur,...

  3. Esther G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther G., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1944. She recounts her parents' marriage in 1943 in Kastoria; her birth in Thessalonike? on April 1, 1944; a non-Jewish nurse befriending her mother in the hospital; the nurse taking her to live with her family; being raised as their child (her mother was shot and her father deported); learning she was not their child and was Jewish when she was twelve; visiting her mother's home in Kastoria and meeting her mother's friends; attending university in Thessalonike?; marriage and divorce; moving to Athens; helpful therap...

  4. Toby K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Toby K., who was born in Vis?eu de Sus, Romania in 1922. In addition to information included in a previously recorded testimony (HVT-2856), Ms. K. recounts being hidden from police by non-Jewish friends in 1939; the wedding of the rabbi's son in the Oradea ghetto; never losing hope of survival in camps; praying silently every day in Auschwitz/Birkenau and other camps; assistance from the Swedish Red Cross after liberation; and challenges of living as othodox Jews in Stockholm and O?rebro. She discusses the importance of being with her sisters to their survival; contin...

  5. Serge B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Serge B., who was born in France in 1921. He recalls his parents were Russian immigrants; their assimilated, secular life in Paris; not feeling Jewish until German invasion; his father's escape from the July 1942 round-up with help from a police friend; being sent with his siblings to live with their uncle in Cannes; joining the Resistance; becoming head of his group; arrest in 1943; violent interrogations; the Gestapo discovering he was Jewish; transfer to a prison in Nice, then Drancy; digging an escape tunnel with fourteen prisoners; discovery of the tunnel; confin...

  6. William N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William N., who was born in Ga?nsendorf, Austria in 1916. He recalls moving with his family, at the age two, to Czechoslovakia; antisemitic incidents; joining the socialist group "Red Falcon" in Steyr, and later a Zionist youth group in Vienna; being drafted into the Austrian army in 1937; one month's service in the German army after the Anschluss; persecution of Austrian Jews; Abraham Stern organizing illegal emigration from Austria; traveling from a port near Athens to Palestine via Belgrade and Thessalonike?; joining the Irgun, then the Stern Group; and organizing ...

  7. George C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of George C., who was born ca. 1922 and served in the United States Infantry during World War II. He recalls encountering German soldiers eager to surrender; entering Wo?bbelin concentration camp a few hours after its liberation; seeing hundreds of corpses in sand dunes and railway cars; encounters with survivors, one of whom turned down an opportunity to kill a guard; and a German religious group that buried the dead in the camp. He discussed the destruction of prisoners' dignity; his abhorrence of war; and his fear of a recurrence.

  8. Rita K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rita K., who was born in 1924 in Memmelsdorf, Germany. She recalls the family's move to Wendelstein in 1930, then to Nuremberg in 1935; attending a Jewish school; participating in a Jewish sports group until 1938; emigration of family members to South America; and being part of the last confirmation class at the Great Synagogue in the spring of 1938. Mrs. K. remembers the destruction of friends' homes on Kristallnacht; leaving with a children's transport to England in January 1939; her parents' and brother's departure for the United States in July 1939; and her reunio...

  9. Gerda K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerda K., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1911. Mrs. K. recounts a happy childhood; antisemitic incidents; laboratory work in a Catholic hospital; she and her father losing their jobs when Hitler came to power in 1933; her father leaving Germany; joining him in Paris with her mother; her mother's death in 1934; obtaining jobs and adjusting to life in Paris, realizing they would not return to Berlin as they originally thought; German invasion; a round-up and two to three weeks in the Ve?lodrome d'Hiver; and transport to Gurs. She recalls over four months in Gurs; re...

  10. Samuel F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samuel F., who was born in Konstancin-Jeziorna, Poland in 1926, the oldest of four children. He recalls his father's service in the Polish military; attending public school; antisemitic harassment; being financially comfortable, but not rich; trips to Warsaw; German invasion; staying with relatives in Warsaw; returning home; transfer to the Warsaw ghetto; smuggling food from Jeziorna; ceasing after his arrest; escaping with a cousin to Czubin; singing and begging; briefly living with his family in Magnuszew; their deportation (he never saw them again); a German family...

  11. Gabriel M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gabriel M., who was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1934. Mr. M. recalls his prewar neighborhood; close family ties with Jews and Christians; German occupation; his family's strong Polish sympathies; daily life in the ghetto; his sense of loss at the death of a friend; the "nightmarish, unreal" feeling of the occupation; the role of war news as a tenuous link with reality; relocating when the Germans reduced the ghetto's size in mid-1942; his father's role in the ghetto uprising; and escaping with his mother in early 1943, aided by a Polish policeman active in rescuing Jew...

  12. Klara A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Klara A., who was born in Bosnia (then Yugoslavia) in 1918. She recounts being the only Jewish family in town; attending a Catholic high school in Travnik and living with her uncle; cordial relations with non-Jews; her family's move to Sarajevo in 1929; leaving college to work so her three brothers could attend; working for a bank until 1941; her brothers fleeing; remaining with her mother; being warned of a Ustaša round-up of Jews; hiding with her mother; leaving possessions with a Muslim neighbor (she returned them after the war); joining her uncle in Travnik; obt...

  13. Judy G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Judy G., who was born in Kiskunmajsa, Hungary, in 1938. Mrs. G. tells of moving at five months to Budapest with her mother and sister when her father was drafted into a Hungarian labor battalion; being sent to her maternal grandparents in Ja?szalso?szentgyo?rgy in 1943; returning to her mother after German occupation; deportation of her sister and paternal grandparents; her father's last visit; living with her mother and cousins; a doctor who placed the children in a Swiss Red Cross safe house after her cousin was taken; and her mother almost being killed. She relates...

  14. Joe W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joe W., who was born in Schweinfurt, Germany in 1922. He describes his family's business, established in 1833; a happy childhood; attending trade school in Berlin in 1937 after Jews were expelled from public schools; hiding with his friend during Kristallnacht; learning of his father's imprisonment and wanton destruction of their business; obtaining permission to go to Sweden with assistance from a Swedish counsel; obtaining a passport with assistance from a German officer; arriving in Sweden on April 30, 1939; and emigrating to the United States from Norway. Mr. W. r...

  15. Adolphe F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Adolphe F., who was born in Paris, France in 1926. He recounts a sheltered childhood; his parents' unionism and communism; he and his parents hiding with a French family in July 1942; fleeing with an uncle to Vierzon, using false papers; their denouncement; imprisonment in Orle?ans; transfer to Pithiviers, Drancy, and then back to Pithiviers; deportation as hostages to Cosel, then a labor camp; brief escapes to obtain food; transfer to Blechhammer in December 1942; beatings, slave labor, appels, and public hangings; sharing food received from his parents; assistance f...

  16. Oscar E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Oscar E., who was born in Kos?ice, Czechoslovakia in 1930. In unusual detail, he describes his maternal grandfather's and other relatives' emigration to the United States; Hungarian occupation; antisemitic restrictions; moving to Bardejov in 1938; deportations in 1942; being smuggled with his sister to Budapest; their mother briefly joining them; her deportation (he never saw either of his parents again); living with families in Sze?kesfehe?rva?r, Gyo?r, in a village with his aunt, then in Pribeta; being rounded-up in Nove? Za?mky in May 1944; deportation with his sis...

  17. Annelies H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Annelies H., a twin, who was born in Ko?nigsberg, Germany (presently Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1922. She recalls a happy childhood; her family's affluence; antisemitic violence; her father doing humiliating forced labor; joining relatives in Ri?ga in an attempt to emigrate; returning home at the urging of their relatives; her father's suicide; her mother sending her younger brother to Ri?ga after Kristallnacht (they never saw him again); forced factory labor with her mother; her mother sending her and her twin sister to Berlin in 1941; forced labor in a munitions factor...

  18. Benjamin D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Benjamin D., who was born in Soko??ka, Poland in 1915. He tells of serving in the Polish army; retreating from the German invasion; capture by a German officer; transfer to a prisoner of war camp in Germany; changing his name to avoid detection as a Jew; and internment in a Stalag at Alt-Grabow. Mr. D. describes conditions of starvation and brutal treatment; forced labor; deportation of some prisoners to a death camp (he learned this later); letters from his brother in a ghetto dated February 2, 1943 and December 13, 1943; and not knowing the whereabouts or fate of hi...

  19. Harry E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry E., a non-Jew, who was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1921. He recalls employment in the immigration section of the Department of Justice in 1938; assisting his supervisor in Antwerp, Belgium on the St. Louis, when it returned to Europe (Holland had agreed to take a portion of the Jewish refugees); passengers passing him notes attempting to document connections to Holland; his supervisor choosing those who had high numbers for emigration elsewhere to minimize their stays in Holland; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions, including wearing the star; some n...

  20. Sarah W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sarah W., who was born in Nowy Korczyn, Poland in 1930, the third of four sisters. She recounts her family's affluence; attending public school, then afternoon Hebrew school until third grade; German invasion; confiscation of the family business; her parents arranging to hide relatives, including one sister, with Polish friends; other Poles hiding the rest of them in a sub-basement hole under planks; living in the dark with very little food; her father teaching them Bible stories; three others joining them; Germans living in the house above them for the last six month...