Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 321 to 340 of 4,487
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Helen H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen H., who was born in Polina, Czechoslovakia in 1924, the second of four children. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation; increasingly restrictive anti-Jewish regulations; ghettoization in another town in 1944; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her mother, father, and brother (she never saw her parents again); slave labor moving rocks; learning of the mass killing and crematoria; wanting to die; a friend encouraging her to care for her younger sisters; assignment to the Canada Kommando; smuggling clothing to the barracks; punish...

  2. Henry K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry K., who was born in Be?dzin, Poland in 1923. He recalls a sheltered childhood in a well-to-do family; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; deportations in 1941, including his father's; food shortages; ghettoization; his brother's deportation in 1943; hiding in the countryside; surrendering after his sister was arrested in his stead; deportation to a slave labor camp; transfer to Blechhammer about a year later; encountering his brother, cousin, and uncle; a public hanging; his privileged position in the kitchen; sharing extra food with his relatives; being ...

  3. Max F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max F., who was born in Poland in 1924, the second of five children. He recounts his family's move to Charleroi in 1929; attending public school; membership in Zionist organizations; moving to Brussels in 1938; apprenticing as a barber; German invasion in May 1940; fleeing with his older brother to Calais; returning home after encountering German troops; forced labor with two brothers in La Louvière, then another location; their escape and return to Brussels; learning their parents and sister had been deported (they never saw them again); placing their youngest brot...

  4. Rosel B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rosel B., who was born in 1916 in Warsaw, Poland. Mrs. B. describes her family's move to Berlin; visits to her grandparents in Poland; attending a Jewish school; their highly cultured lifestyle; warnings about Hitler from 1928 onward; attending secretarial school; forced sale of the family business; her engagement in 1936; marriage in Berlin; emigration to Amsterdam; and the birth of her daughter. She recounts German invasion; betrayal by their housekeeper; receiving a notice for deportation; fleeing with her husband and daughter, via Brussels and Bordeaux, to Nice; b...

  5. Sara W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sara W., who was born in Jaworzno, Poland in 1911, one of nine children. She describes her mother's death in 1935; antisemitic boycotts; her father's emigration to Palestine; marriage in Krako?w in January 1939; German occupation; one brother's murder in a mass shooting; ghettoization; her husband's and son's disappearance in October 1942 (she never saw them again); working in the Wieliczka salt mine; her brother smuggling her to Chrzano?w; fleeing to Sosnowiec during Chrzano?w's liquidation; hiding in a bunker her brother built with assistance from a Polish woman; ob...

  6. Barna K. Holocaust testimony

    Video testimony of Barna K., who was born in Debrecen, Hungary in 1912, the son of a Catholic mother and Reform father. Mr. K. tells of joining the merchant marines and experiences as a seaman; returning to Hungary after many voyages; being drafted; and attending officer candidate school. He describes his political naivete, particularly regarding Hitler; meeting his future wife (a Hungarian Jew) through friendship with her family; having to prove himself a "pure Aryan" to remain an army officer; commanding a Jewish labor battalion; and his efforts to protect those in his command from the ab...

  7. Rubin S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rubin S. who was born in K?obuck, Poland in 1926, one of six children in a poor family. His recalls that his father ran the mikveh and sold fish; prevalent antisemitism particularly at Passover; German occupation; ghettoization in 1940; supporting the family with the help of one brother and sister; his father and older brother hiding; deportation in 1942 to Marksta?dt; and praying while marching to work. Mr. S. describes transfer to Fu?nfteichen in June 1943; a two-month death march from camp to camp in late 1944; train transport to Bergen-Belsen in February 1945 (onl...

  8. Dora E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dora E., who was born in Pabianice, Poland in 1927 to a family of five children. She relates her prewar family life and happy childhood; German occupation; her family's deportation to the ?o?dz? ghetto; remaining alone at Pabianice; her own transfer to the ?o?dz? ghetto; conditions of starvation and isolation; hiding in a cellar; her father's death in 1942; separation from her family and deportation to Auschwitz; sorting clothing for a few weeks in Auschwitz; transfer to Frankfurt am Main; slave labor carrying sand and gravel; and liberation from Bergen-Belsen by Brit...

  9. Monique W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Monique W., who was born in Paris, France in 1934, one of four children. She recounts living in Villiers-sur-Marne; German invasion; her parents' arrest by the French police (they perished in Auschwitz); living with her grandmother in Paris; being shunned by children in school when wearing the yellow star; she and her siblings being placed in an OSE children's home; her youngest brother's transfer; hiding during round-ups; transfer to a non-Jewish foster family in Saint-Christophe-du-Bois; her siblings living with different families there; baptism as a Catholic; her f...

  10. Suzan D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Suzan D., who was born in Berehove, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1937 and raised in Banská Bystrica. She recalls baking with her mother for Shabbat; her brother's birth; her father's departure when she was five; her mother's sister coming to bring them back to the family in Berehove; her mother sending her, but remaining with the baby, hoping her husband would return; living with her maternal grandparents and aunt; being smuggled to Hungary with her aunt; her aunt placing her in a Budapest orphanage; her aunt's non-Jewish friend bringing her extra food at n...

  11. Bert L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bert L., who was born in Warsaw in 1910. He describes the formation of the Warsaw ghetto in 1940; life in the ghetto, which was characterized by sickness, hunger, and mass deportations; and the ghetto uprising, during which he, his wife, and his six-year-old daughter were sent by freight cars to Majdanek. He tells of his initial separation from his wife and child, witnessing their selection the following day; and his transfer, along with his brother-in-law, to a sub-camp fifty kilometers from Majdanek. He recalls the death by torture of his brother-in-law, which he wa...

  12. Fred S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred S., who was born in Stawiszyn, Poland in 1923, one of six children. He recounts his family's poverty; working at fifteen; participation in Betar; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; deportation to Kalisz in 1940; transfer to Koz?minek; deportation of all children including his younger siblings (they were killed); deportation with his brother and father to Poznan?-Schweiningen; slave labor unloading coal; public hangings; trying to obtain soup for his father from a cousin (he refused); his father's selection in 1942 (he never saw him again); transfer with h...

  13. Shary K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shary K., who was born in Travnik, Yugoslavia in 1918. She tells of her marriage on April 6, 1941, the day of the German invasion; living in Tuzla; leaving her mother behind (she never saw her again) to escape, dressed as a Muslim, to Mostar to join her husband; working as a nurse for the partisans; fleeing to Bari, Italy; emigration to the United States; life at Fort Ontario; and their return trip to Yugoslavia in 1991.

  14. Emmanuel F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emmanuel F., who was born in 1922 in Kosiv, Poland (presently Ukraine), the oldest of six children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending engineering school in Warsaw beginning in 1936; German invasion; returning home; Soviet occupation; military draft; German invasion before he could report for duty; forced labor with his father and brothers in a brick factory; his father's death; selection as a mechanic (the rest of his family was deported or killed); transfer to Kuty; escaping with assistance from a German soldier; capture; escaping; joining partisans in fo...

  15. Harry D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry D., who was born in Ri?ga, Latvia in 1928. He recalls a comfortable life as the only child of two members of the intelligentsia (his father was a concert pianist and music teacher); attending Jewish schools; drastic changes after Soviet occupation; German occupation in 1941; Latvian anti-Jewish violence; ghettoization; his grandfather's disappearance during a round-up; and taking his mother's advice to say he was older in order to accompany his father (he never saw her again). Mr. D. describes work in an SS hospital; arrival of German Jews; execution of Jewish p...

  16. Michesław G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michesław G., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1923, one of two children. He recounts his father's business transporting coal; their poverty; his sister's birth in 1930; assisting in his father's business; antisemitic harassment by Poles; German invasion; a futile attempt to flee east; working with his father delivering flour for the Germans; ghettoization; he and his father smuggling goods while making deliveries; both being interrogated and beaten but not confessing; their release; passing as a non-Jew outside the ghetto (he spoke perfect Polish and was blond); ro...

  17. Haïm A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Haïm A., who was born in Chișinău, Romania in 1923, one of three children. He recounts his family's move to Antwerp in 1929 due to antisemitism; attending Jewish and public schools; participating in Betar; his father's death in 1933; German invasion; fleeing with his brothers to Boulogne; doing farm work for a few weeks; returning home; living as non-Jews; several menial jobs; arrest with his family in 1943; imprisonment for several weeks; transfer with his family to Malines; deportation in cattle cars; separation from his mother (he never saw her again); arrival i...

  18. Ena L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ena L., who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1934. She tells of her life in Belgrade before and during the war and of her flight to northern Italy with her mother, sister, and other relatives. She explains how her family was able to live openly as Jews in a small village near Vittorio Veneto, aided, as were other Jewish refugees, by the Italian government. She describes her life in Amandola where her family fled after Mussolini's fall and where they remained, "passing" as Catholics, for about two years until just before liberation, when they hid in the mountains. ...

  19. Herman W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Herman W., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1919. He recalls attending Jewish and Catholic schools; expulsion from school in 1935 due to anti-Jewish laws; participation in Jewish athletic organizations; his employer's arrest on Kristallnacht; illegally entering Holland with a friend in December; traveling to Amsterdam with assistance from a Jewish organization; imprisonment through August; kindness from Dutch locals; transfer to Hellevoetsluis, Hoek van Holland, then Westerbork in February 1940; German invasion; evacuation to Leeuwarden; return to Westerbork; trans...

  20. Chana W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Chana W., who was born in Fiume, Italy (presently Riejka, Croatia) in 1928, the third of four children in an orthodox family. She recounts cordial relations with non-Jews; anti-Jewish restrictions beginning in 1938, including losing their Italian citizenship; her brother's emigration to Palestine in 1939; eviction from their apartment; her father's deportation in mid-1940; working with her mother and sister in the family store; evacuation of all the Jews to Lago di Garda for several weeks; returning home; correspondence from her father suggesting they join him; her mo...