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 1,301 to 1,320 of 4,487
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Lauryann F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lauryann F., who was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1928, an only child. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; visits to Paris; moving to join her mother's family in Gyulaha?za, Hungary; an idyllic childhood; attending Catholic school; harassment by the Arrow Cross beginning in 1938; moving to IV. Keru?let, a Budapest suburb; German invasion in March 1944; forced relocation to Jewish-designated housing; attending a private art school; declining a rescue offer by a priest in order to remain with her parents; round-up to a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz; separati...

  2. Isaac K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Isaac K., who was born in Košice, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1925, the middle child of five. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation in 1938; his bar mitzvah shortly thereafter, which was sad due to the occupation; his father losing his business permit; learning cantorial and opera singing; German invasion in spring 1944; his arrest as a hostage in place of his father; his father obtaining his release after two weeks; ghettoization at a brick factory; a severe beating which left him unable to process information for some time; dep...

  3. Eva L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva L. who was born into a well known Hasidic famiy in ?o?dz? in 1924. She remembers the outbreak of the war; the actions against Jews which followed; and her brother's wedding, which took place just before the family was transferred to the ?o?dz? ghetto, where they led a relatively privileged life due to family connections. Mrs. L. describes life in the ghetto, including the constant round-ups and raids; widespread starvation, disease, and dehumanization; slave labor; spiritual resistance and religious observance; and the closeness of her family throughout their orde...

  4. Selma S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Selma S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1925, one of four children. She recalls her family's focus on Zionism and culture; their orthodoxy; spending time with her large extended family; her paternal family's bookstore, a cultural center; attending German and Jewish schools; her father having to transfer his bookstore to a non-Jew; arrest and deportation of her parents and brother by Hlinka guards (she never saw them again); incarceration with her younger brother in Žilina; their release through her uncle's intervention; staying with an aunt in Nové M...

  5. Hildegard W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hildegard W., who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1912. Mrs. W. describes her liberal Protestant childhood; unfamiliarity with Judaism and antisemitism before marrying a Jew in 1931; early Nazi anti-Semitic acts which they and others did not take seriously; their reluctance to abandon their successful business; the birth of her sons in 1933 and 1935; and a vacation in the Hartz mountains in 1936 during which an encounter with Nazis convinced her husband to emigrate. She recalls increased intimidation; the arrest of a homosexual employee; preparations to leave; and the...

  6. Michael B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael B., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1931. He recounts his father's death when he was a year old; visits to his grandparents in Budapest; the Anschluss in 1938; antisemitic propaganda; his mother withdrawing him from school; their conversion to Roman Catholicism, hoping for safety; futile attempts to emigrate to the United States; traveling to Budapest in spring 1941; German occupation in March 1944; anti-Jewish measures; forced relocation in June; their housemate, Béla Vihar, entertaining the children; Allied bombings; forced labor with his scout troop; hi...

  7. Zvi S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zvi S., who was born in Komaro?w, Poland in 1931 one of nine children. He recalls German invasion; the murder of a friend; the outpouring of mourning at the funeral which still haunts him; killings whenever Germans entered town; his family hiding; ghettoization; digging a bunker under their room; hiding when Germans came; being attacked by a German dog; hiding with his family during the final liquidation; escaping one at a time; meeting one brother, one sister, and his father in the woods (the rest of the family was killed); hiding in a village; receiving food from Po...

  8. Serge H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Serge H., who was born in Ti?rgu Ocna, Romania in 1928, one of two children. He recounts moving to Podu Iloaiei in 1931, then Ias?i in 1936; antisemitic harassment in school; having his bar mitzvah in their apartment during a violent round-up on June 28, 1941; not being included in the round-up due to the configuration of their housing complex; resuming "normal" life; his father retaining his business through "partnerships" with non-Jews; forced labor digging trenches; his mother's injury during Allied bombings; liberation by Soviet troops in August 1944; moving to Bu...

  9. Claire G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Claire G., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1923, one of four children. She recounts moving to Paris in 1925; her family's assimilated lifestyle; German invasion; anti-Jewish laws; hiding with friends after the July 1942 round-up; illegally entering the unoccupied zone with her cousin, using false papers and posing as Christians; benign conditions in Italian-occupied Nice; one brother's arrival (her parents and other brothers were arrested); German occupation; hiking to Italy; returning to Nice; denunciation and arrest; transport to Drancy, then Auschwitz/Birkenau; e...

  10. Joseph and Dorothy B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph B., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1927. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; his father teaching in a Jewish school; attending a Jewish boys' school; participation in Maccabi; his father's trip to Palestine and return, thinking he could not make a living there; antisemitic harassment; being warned prior to Kristallnacht; his father leaving (he went to the synagogue to rescue a Torah); Gestapo coming to arrest his father; his father's return days later (they attribute his survival to the Torah); difficulties trying to emigrate; receiving exit visas outside o...

  11. Barbara G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Barbara G., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1924. She describes her happy childhood; attending a private Jewish school; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother fleeing to Soviet territory; traveling to Cze?stochowa via Warsaw in December 1939; ghettoization; learning from her mother's letter about her grandparents' deaths from starvation in the ?o?dz? ghetto; losing contact with her parents in May 1942; deportations from the Cze?stochowa ghetto; her marriage; forced labor in a factory; public executions; the small ghetto's liquidation; transfer with h...

  12. Eva G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva G., who was born in 1923 in Liepa?ja, Latvia. She recalls secular and Jewish life in Liepa?ja; attacks on Jews by Latvian Nazis beginning in 1936; Soviet occupation in 1939; loss of the family business and residence; German air raids for a week starting June 22, 1941; German occupation on June 29th; immediate forced labor and mass killings; round-up of her father and grandfather on July 8th (they were shot); ghettoization of the last 860 Jews (out of 9,000) in one square block; and liquidation of the ghetto on Yom Kippur, 1943. Mrs. G. describes transport to Kaise...

  13. Eric E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eric E., who was born in Rastatt, Germany in 1921. He recalls anti-Jewish laws resulting in loss of the family business; moving to Westphalia where his father worked for former employees; his terror when hiding in a haystack alone during Kristallnacht; his father's incarceration in Buchenwald; his mother arranging for him to join a kindertransport to England; leaving the day of his father's release; living in Harwich for several months; an apprenticeship; living with a family; learning his parents had gone to Belgium; emigrating to the United States in 1940, believing...

  14. Raphael E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Raphael E., who was raised in Lyon, France. He describes the formative influence of participating in scouting; fleeing with his older brother after German invasion in 1940; returning to Lyon after the armistice; graduating from technical school in 1942; participating in Resistance activities through the scouts; working with Sixie?me and Organisation juive de combat; fabricating false documents; arrest in January 1944; imprisonment in Montluc; torture during interrogations; transfer to Drancy; meeting and falling in love with his future wife; deportation to Auschwitz; ...

  15. Saul C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Saul C., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1925. He recalls his family's relative poverty; attending Bund summer camps; German occupation; the family's move to Cze?stochowa; forced labor in the ghetto; transformation of the ghetto into labor camps (his mother, sister, and one brother were deported to Treblinka); hiding during a round-up; capture and escape; rejoining his father in the camp; separation from his father; escaping with a friend; building a bunker in a forest; hostile Polish partisans (AK); returning to camp because he feared death; denunciation; imprison...

  16. Charles L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Charles L., who was born in Paris, France in 1929. He recalls the outbreak of war; moving with his family to Montargis; living with cousins; returning to Paris; antisemitic regulation, including wearing the yellow star; his father's arrest in August 1941 (he never saw him again); his brother's arrest and release (he went to Vichy, the unoccupied zone); being warned by non-Jews of the July 16, 1942 round-up; hiding with his mother; being smuggled to Vichy France; a station master in Angoule?me helping them avoid detection; boarding a train for Saint-Junien; being force...

  17. Julia S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Julia S., who was born in Velyikyy Bychkiv, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1925, one of eleven children. She recounts Hungarian occupation; a brief trip to Budapest; an older brother's draft into a slave labor battalion and an older sister's emigration to Belgium; transfer with her family to the Ma?te?szalka ghetto; deportation four weeks later to Auschwitz; separation from her parents and siblings; finding one sister and a cousin in the barrack; sharing food; visits from her younger brother; selection of her sister and cousin for death; the Blocka?lteste light...

  18. Roger B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Roger B., a Catholic, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1921. He recounts attending school; working as an accountant; contact with Jewish refugees fleeing to the United States; German invasion; military draft; service in France; capture by Germans; escaping with others; returning to Brussels; his father's participation in the underground; notification of his draft for labor in Germany; hiding; observing a killing of Jews from his hiding place; remaining in hiding despite obtaining false papers; liberation by British troops; joining a Belgian section of the British ...

  19. Regina P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Regina P., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1925. She recalls her comfortable childhood; German invasion; anti-Jewish regulations; ghettoization; working in a brush shop; one sister's deportation to Treblinka; a Passover seder; hiding in bunkers during the uprising; deportation with her family to Majdanek; separation from her father; transfer ten weeks later with her sister to Auschwitz (her mother remained in Majdanek); digging ditches; separation from her pregnant sister (she never saw her again); her emotional state during selections; working in potato fields and ...

  20. Leo L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leo L., who was born in 1924 in ?o?dz?, Poland, one of eight children. He recounts his family's Hasidism and extreme poverty; antisemitic harassment; work from age fourteen; cutting his payis (sidecurls) and buying non-Hasidic clothing; his older brother's death in 1938; German invasion; ghettoization; smuggling food with assistance from a non-Jew; denouncement in October 1940; arrest, interrogation, and severe beating; hospitalization; release three weeks later; returning to smuggling; deportation to Poznan?; pervasive deaths resulting from filth and cold; a prisoner...