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Displaying items 201 to 220 of 4,487
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Reverend John S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Reverend John S., a Jesuit priest who was born in Kos?ice, Czechoslovakia, in 1922. Rev. S. describes his good relations with his many Jewish neighbors; serving as a 'Shabbos goy' as a child; life in Kos?ice under Hungarian, Czech, and German rule and the corresponding shifts in attitudes towards Jews; his three year seclusion in a monastery in Budapest; his return to Kos?ice (where he hid a group of non-Jewish partisans who were slated for deportation); and his feeling that sympathetic gentiles were unprepared to deal with the evil of the Holocaust. Rev. S. also desc...

  2. Marek S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marek S., who was born in 1912 in Kamionica Strymonylova, a small town near L?vov, Poland. He describes his early family life; the outbreak of the second world war; his army transfer from L?vov to the battle front; and his return home to occupation by the Russians. He tells of the deportation of many Jews to Siberia; the German occupation in 1941; his flight to L?vov, where he was captured by Ukrainians; and his work in the L?vov ghetto, where his sister also lived. He recounts being jailed for several days; his work as a camp gardener in Janowska Road, a camp within ...

  3. Simon H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simon H., who was born in Salonika, Greece in 1910. He describes the prewar Jewish community; his widowed mother's efforts to support five children; his Jewish and secular education; leaving school in 1920 to support himself as a barber's assistant, then a barber; being drafted and discharged; his marriage; and the birth of his two daughters. Mr. H. relates the historical background of the German invasion of Greece; anti-Jewish measures; ghettoization and deportation; "volunteering" in Lancut in order to save his family (they perished); working as a barber; his relati...

  4. Herbert K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Herbert K., who was born in Peiskretscham, Germany in 1926. He discusses his prewar childhood; beatings and ostracism by classmates; damage to his family's business on Kristallnacht; their unsuccessful emigration attempt from Hamburg aboard the luxury liner St. Louis; the return to France, where he was separated from his parents; and life in a children's home in Montmorency, outside Paris. He relates his move to unoccupied France and employment in a bakery; internment in a camp in Creuse by French militia; and his escape and subsequent illegal life with false papers. ...

  5. Jolly Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jolly Z., who was born in Uz?h?horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1926. She tells of leaving her hiding place in order to be with her parents; their transfer to the ghetto shortly thereafter; and their deportation, a few weeks later, to Auschwitz. She recalls their total ignorance upon arrival; aspects of daily life in Auschwitz; her and her mother's transfer to Hamburg for slave labor; and the mistreatment she suffered; the birth of a child;and a German killing the baby. She relates her transfer to Bergen-Belsen, where she was put to work digging mass grave...

  6. Sonia M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sonia M., who was born in Dolginovo, Poland, near Vilna. Mrs. M. describes working in a labor camp near her town after the war's outbreak; the slaughter of one thousand people in her town in 1942; and a second massacre, in which her mother was killed. She recalls life in the town's ghetto; her and her father's escape; and their joining partisans hiding in the woods. She recounts scouting enemy movements for the partisans; liberation in 1944 by the Russians; and her return home, where she found only one surviving sibling of four. Mrs. M. relates her psychosomatic respo...

  7. Regina F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Regina F., who was born in Olkusz, Poland, in 1924. She speaks of prewar Jewish community life; the German occupation, which brought her mother's family to live with them; forced labor under German occupation; Polish antisemitism; and the ghettoization of Olkusz. She discusses being taken from her family (who later perished at Auschwitz) to Klettendorf, a camp near Breslau, in 1942; and her subsequent deportation to Ludwigsdorf, where she worked in an ammunition plant from 1943 until her liberation in May, 1945. Mrs. F. also tells of the hope she always managed to ret...

  8. Sylvia B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sylvia B., who was born in Velykyi? Bereznyi?, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine), in 1928. Mrs. B. speaks of her early family life; her Orthodox upbringing; and the absence of prewar Czech antisemitism. She recalls the effects of the Hungarian occupation in 1939, including anti-Jewish regulations and a Jewish census in 1942; and continued Czech benevolence under Hungarian rule. She recounts the German occupation, during which she had to hide; the rumor-filled environment of Passover in 1944; the round-up of the town's Jews in a synagogue; and her deportation with her...

  9. Martin L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin L., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1916. Mr. L. speaks of his childhood; his enlistment in the Polish army in 1938; the defense of Warsaw in 1939; and his prisoner-of-war status in Stuttgart. He describes his return to Warsaw, then to the ?o?dz? ghetto in 1940; Polish collaboration with Germans; deprivation within the ghetto; and the deaths and deportations of family members. He recounts voluntarily leaving the ghetto with his brother; their arrival at Auschwitz; witnessing mass burnings of inmates; the murder of H?ayim Rumkowski by camp inmates; and transfe...

  10. Miriam R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Miriam R., who was born in Zaleszczyki, Poland, in 1929. Mrs. R., the youngest of four children and the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust, recalls her happy childhood before the war. She notes prewar antisemitism in Poland and describes life under Russian occupation (1939-1941). Also detailed are the German occupation and subsequent acts against Jews which Mrs. R. witnessed and recorded in a diary. She tells of her escape from a group of Jews who were later massacred and of the refusal of the Jews of her town to believe her account of what happened. S...

  11. Louis B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Louis B., who was an American soldier in the 45th Infantry Division during World War II. Mr. B. describes being raised in New Haven, Connecticut; military training; being stationed in North Africa; the invasion of Sicily on D-Day; moving north through Italy and France; and the liberation of Dachau in Germany. He discusses the lack of knowledge regarding the camps and the "Final Solution;" coming upon thirty-nine boxcars filled with bodies on a railroad siding outside of Dachau; the horrendous condition of the prisoners; the American soldiers' efforts to assist them; a...

  12. Janet B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Janet B., who was born in Berlin in 1935 of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. Mrs. B. details her childhood memories of antisemitism; the divorce of her parents so her father could join the German army; and her friendship with a German boy with whom she went places where Jews were not allowed. She tells of her and her mother's arrest following the death of her father on the Russian front; her brief return home for provisions, enabling her to destroy possessions and leave a bucket of urine and excrement to be tripped over by anyone who entered the apartment to l...

  13. Bruce T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bruce T., who was born in L?vov, Poland in 1914. He speaks of prewar family and community life; the Russian occupation in 1939, followed by the German occupation; and the formation of the L?vov ghetto in the fall of 1942. He recalls Polish antisemitism and aid to the Nazis in hunting Jews; his activities with a resistance group based in Skole, on the Hungarian-Polish border; his capture and incarceration in Munkacs; and his transfer to Budapest as an alleged spy. Mr. T. relates his escape from Budapest, joining the Hungarian underground as a tactician; his attempts to...

  14. Solomon G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Solomon G., who was born in Nowogrodek, Poland, near the Russian border, in 1920. He describes family and community life before the war; life under Russian occupation; the establishment of German rule and the ensuing anti-Jewish legislation; round-ups and mass killings of Jews, including most of his family; and his confinement to a ghetto in his city. Mr. G. recalls the liquidation of the ghetto, during which most of the inhabitants were deported, and those remaining, including himself and his sister, were interned in two concentration camps established in the city. H...

  15. Sandor G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sandor Arye G., who was born in Cluj, Romania. He describes his active involvement in the Zionist organization in Cluj; his unsuccessful attempts to convince the people around him to flee to Palestine; the partition of Transylvania in 1940; and a trip to Budapest to prepare for emigration to Palestine. He tells of leading a Youth Aliyah group to Palestine via Romania, Istanbul, and Lebanon in 1941; joining the British army as a volunteer in 1942; and smuggling Jewish children from Egypt to Palestine. He relates being sent with his company to Italy, where he became fam...

  16. William P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dr. William P., who was born in Prague in 1906. Dr. P. describes his family's background; its move to Vienna in 1910, where he lived until 1938; and his education there. He recounts his involvement in Zionism; the rejection of his offer to Adolf Eichmann to transport Viennese Jews to Palestine; and his involvement in the illegal transport of Jews into Palestine. He relates the mechanics of these transports; British efforts to halt the smuggling; his repeated arrests by the British; and his moves to Greece, Italy, Portugal, Mozambique, and the United States. He recalls...

  17. Morris K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Morris K., who was born in Pruz?h?any, Poland. Mr. K. describes the Russian occupation, after which he was made the manager of a department store; the German occupation of Pruz?h?any; the Judenrat and confinement in a ghetto; and a confrontation between German officers and partisans which led to the liquidation of the ghetto and Mr. K's deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau. He details his injury during an enemy bombing and his subsequent narrow escape from the crematoria; the death march to Mauthausen; slave labor in Melk; his liberation from Ebensee; brief visits to Ger...

  18. Gunther S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gunther S., who was born in a small town near Poznan, then Germany, in 1908. Mr. S. speaks of his family's move to Berlin in 1918; his education; job training; and his work as an export salesman. He tells of the worsening situation for Germany's Jews; his departure from Germany in 1938; and the deportations and deaths of his parents and a sister, who had remained in Germany. He describes his emigration to the United States and his successful effort to help his other sister emigrate. He recounts joining the United States army; wartime transfers to France, Belgium, Holl...

  19. Helen S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen S., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1920. She speaks of her childhood; the rise of antisemitism in prewar Berlin; escape from Germany through Holland in 1938; her family's emigration to the United States after being detained in an internment camp in Bonaire, Netherlands West Indies; and her adult life in the United States.

  20. Eva and Frank S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva and her husband Frank S., both of whom are from Germany. Mrs. S. describes her childhood in a well-to-do assimilated Jewish family in Berlin; her vivid recollection of the day that Hitler came to power; the changes that took place in Nazi Germany, particularly as they affected her in school; Kristallnacht; her emigration to England, as part of a children's transport; and her life in England. Mr. S. speaks of his childhood and youth in Breslau; experiences with antisemitism in school, beginning shortly before Hitler came to power; and the patriotism of German Jews ...