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Displaying items 321 to 340 of 816
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Walter G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter G., who was born in Berlichingen, Germany, in 1924. Mr. G. recalls prewar life based on mutual respect between Jews and Catholics in his "conservative" village; the first antisemitic incidents in 1937; having to leave public school and attend a Jewish one in an orphanage near Stuttgart; Kristallnacht, when he and others at the school were beaten and Torahs burned; and returning home to care for his family's business when his father was briefly interned in 1939. He recounts coming to the United States to join his sister in May 1939; his parents arrival in Septem...

  2. Georges D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Georges D., a Catholic, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1920, one of three children. He recounts participating in a socialist group and demonstrations; contact with Jewish refugees from Germany; military enlistment in 1938; discharge; recall shortly before the May 10, 1940 German invasion; assignments to anti-aircraft units in several locations, ending at Dunkerque; incarceration in two prisoner of war camps; escaping; return to Brussels; joining the Resistance; sympathy for Jews when they were forced to wear the yellow a star; distributing illegal newspapers; an...

  3. Joan L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joan L., who was born in Lu?beck, Germany in 1920. She recalls her family moving to Berlin in 1926; increasing anti-Jewish restrictions and activities from 1934 onward; expulsion from school in 1938; destruction of the synagogue across the street on Kristallnacht; a store employee who provided food prior to legal Jewish shopping hours; one sister's emigration to England in 1939; sale of the family property; and receiving emigration papers in 1940. Mrs. L. recounts traveling via Moscow, Manchuria, Korea, and Japan, where she stayed four months; continuing to New York; ...

  4. Leo G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leo G., who was born in Berlin in 1921. Mr. G. details his family history and speaks of his prewar life. He describes his experiences of antisemitism during the rise of Nazism, both in school and in his neighborhood. He relates the death of his father in 1933; Kristallnacht and other anti-Jewish actions which followed; his departure from his mother and three sisters, whom he never saw again; and his emigration to the United States. He recounts his enlistment in the U.S. Army in 1942; his training as a denazification expert; and his arrival in Normandy, where he witnes...

  5. Jules W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jules W., who was born in Fürth, Germany in 1927. He recalls attending a Jewish school; his family attending synagogue and observing kashrut; antisemitic harassment; his uncle in the United States arranging their emigration to Cuba on the St. Louis; destruction of the family jewelry store and his parents' arrest on Kristallnacht; their return the next day; staying in Hamburg prior to embarkation on the St. Louis; the contrast between their treatment on a luxury liner and conditions in Germany; learning they could not debark in Cuba; returning to Europe; debarkation i...

  6. Marion L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marion L., who was born in Bielefeld, Germany in 1924 and raised in nearby Herford. Mrs. L. recalls her comfortable upper-middle-class childhood; playing in her father's tobacco warehouse; a non-Jewish girlfriend who refused to see her after joining a Nazi organization; a family employee's role in her home's looting on Kristallnacht; her father's return from incarceration at Sachsenhausen; being sent by her parents on a chidren's transport to Holland in 1939; and living in an orphanage with 100 other refugee children. She details the 1940 German attack; a prominent Ch...

  7. Margo B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margo B., who was born in Schkeuditz, Germany in 1925. She recalls attending school in Halle; antisemitic restrictions; her father's arrest in 1938 because he had Polish citizenship; his release provided he emigrate within four weeks; his emigration to Paris; joining him with her younger sister, mother, and uncle a month later; moving to Villeneuve-sur-Lot; attending school; her father serving in the military when war began; his return upon French surrender; obtaining false papers for himself from a military colleague; their family receiving false papers from a non-Je...

  8. Emma S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emma S., a singer who was born in Russia, emigrated to the United States in infancy, and at the time of her interviews lived in both Israel and the United States. She tells of her musical education and training and the beginning of her career. She details her motivation for joining a cultural delegation sponsored by the World Jewish Congress which toured displaced persons camps in Europe in 1946. She recalls the devastation she encountered upon arrival; the vitality of the survivors in the more than fifty camps where she sang, including Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Landsbe...

  9. Irving S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Irving S., who was born in Surawno, Austria (now U.S.S.R.) in 1907. He recounts attending cheder; his father's Austrian patriotism; fleeing to the Carpathians, Vienna, and Teplice during World War I; returning home where everything had been destroyed; attending school under Ukrainian, Polish, and Soviet auspices as governments changed; and his brother's return from Austrian Army service, having lost a leg. Mr. S. tells of living with his aunt in Teplice; activities in Zionist groups; returning home; graduation from university and law school in Krako?w; legal clerkship...

  10. Irving C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Irving C., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1915. He describes a childhood of extreme poverty; working as a tailor; German occupation; slave labor and beatings; fleeing to Bia?ystok; staying with his sister and brother in a synagogue; meeting his future wife and her father; registering to go to the Soviet Union; traveling with his brother, sister, future wife, and her father in cattle cars to Omsk; his marriage; living in barracks on the outskirts of Omsk; hard labor, then working as a tailor; his daughter's birth; a year's military service in Kalachinsk; returning t...

  11. Lilly G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lilly G., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1925, an only child. She recounts a close relationship with her Hasidic grandparents; German occupation; attending a Jewish school; Kristallnacht; expropriation of her mother's business; her parents obtaining false papers; their emigration to Brussels in spring 1939; living in Antwerp; obtaining visas for the United States; German invasion in May 1940; her father's arrest as an "enemy alien"; his deportation to camps in France; arranging to be smuggled to Paris, then Nice; living in Marseille; visiting her father in the cam...

  12. Niusia A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Niusia A., who was born in Krako?w, Poland, circa 1924. She describes the changes caused by the German takeover of Poland; her family's move to the nearby town of Bochnia; the ghettoization of Bochnia and the subsequent liquidation of the ghetto; and her and her mother's return to Krako?w to avoid deportation (her father had died before the war). She also tells of living on the Aryan side in Warsaw and her journey from Warsaw to Budapest, where she remained until the German invasion of Hungary; her capture while trying to escape to Romania; and her detention in a Roma...

  13. Fred B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred B., who was born in Krumbach, Germany. He recalls his family's roots there since the sixteenth century; attending high school in Ulm, then ORT training in Munich; rising antisemitism beginning in 1933; obtaining a visa to emigrate to Cuba; sailing on the St. Louis in May 1939 (his parents and sisters were to join him); socializing en route with Fred H. and others; all the passengers being prevented from disembarking in Cuba; sailing around the Caribbean and southern Florida; returning to Europe; passenger watches to prevent others from committing suicide; disemba...

  14. Gerta T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerta T., who was born in 1916 in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Austria), the younger of two children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; attending school; working as a salesperson; her brother attending medical school; her engagement; the Anschluss; antisemitic harassment; her brother's illegal emigration to France with his wife and her parents, with assistance from a SS doctor he knew; her parents unsuccessful attempt to join him; her fiance? obtaining an English visa for her; emigration to London in August 1938; working as a governess in Plymouth a...

  15. Arnost K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arnost K., who was born in Uherský Brod, Czechslovakia (presently Czech Republic) in 1921. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; participating in Maccabi ha-Ẓair; arrival of German-Jewish refugees in the mid-1930s; German occupation; a non-Jewish friend helping him save objects from their synagogue when it was burned; supporting resistance activities; a policeman warning him he was going to be arrested; illegally entering Slovakia in March 1942; hiding with a Jewish woman in Nové Mesto nad Váhom; arrest by the Hlinka guard; his friend obtaining his release; escaping ...

  16. Walter P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter P., who was born in Erlangen, Germany in 1926. He recalls his family moving to Berlin in 1933; attending public school until his expulsion as a Jew; attending a Jewish school; destruction of the store where his father worked on Kristallnacht; moving into a one-room apartment after his father lost his job; the outbreak of war; avoiding round-ups with the help of a friendly policeman; his bar mitzvah in 1940; his fear and humiliation after the introduction of the Jewish star in September 1941; learning Spanish and English in school in preparation for emigration; ...

  17. Ruth N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth N., who was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1928. She recounts moving to Swinemünde (now Świnoujście, Poland) with her family in 1932; her father's brief arrest in 1934; moving to Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland), then to Italy in 1935; living in Novara and Milan; their illegal entry into France in March 1939; brief arrest in Menton; attending Catholic schools in Lyon; German invasion; concealing their Jewish identity; illegally entering Switzerland with her mother and siblings in October 1942 (her father followed); internment in Geneva; transfer to a children's h...

  18. Fred H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred H., who was born in Stan?kov in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Czech Republic) in 1906. He recounts his family's move to Plzen? in 1909; attending public school; his father's service in the first World War; his Austrian patriotism; the transition to Czechoslovakia; studying in Paris and Prague; accompanying a cousin to the United States in August 1938; deciding not to return after the Munich agreement; illegally living in Toronto and Montre?al; receiving a U.S. visa; traveling to London; meeting his mother and brother in Paris in August 1939; their emig...

  19. Gerhart R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerhart R., who was born in Berlin. He discusses his pre-1933 career as a junior lawyer and state employee in Berlin; his dismissal when Hitler came to power; his departure from Germany in 1933; and his post as legal secretary for the newly created World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Geneva. He relates his struggle for the rights of the Danzig Jews; the successful WJC campaign in 1938 against the anti-Semitic government of Romania; his responsibility to inform WJC officials in Geneva and New York of wartime atrocities; and his sources of information about Nazi medical expe...

  20. Jenny S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jenny S., who was born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria, an only child. She recalls an comfortable and happy life; warm Sabbath and holiday observances; changes, particularly after the Anchluss; her father's arrest and release; eviction from their apartment; her father's second arrest (she never saw him again); her mother registering her for emigration to the United States; leaving Vienna in May 1941; spending three days in Berlin with her mother and her friend Louise prior to leaving; their painful departure (she never saw her again); traveling with Louise; a ship voyage f...