Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 81 to 100 of 4,487
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Estera K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Estera K., who was born in what was to become Poland in 1915. She recalls pervasive antisemitism; trying to persuade her family to emigrate (they had lived there for generations); joining a cousin in the Netherlands; enjoying the lack of antisemitism; receiving mail from her mother until 1941; deciding to go into hiding when ordered to report to Westerbork; hiding with her husband's non-Jewish friends in the Hague; placing her two-year-old son elsewhere; visiting him occasionally; moving several times; obtaining false papers from the underground; reunion with her son ...

  2. Zlata G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zlata G., who was born in Kostopol, Poland in 1921. She recalls the German invasion in September 1939; Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; fleeing with her brother upon the advice of retreating Soviet soldiers; finding her sister at the Soviet border; traveling to Voronezh where they had a cousin; two months later traveling east by freight train to escape the advancing German army; her sister and brother-in-law leaving the train in Kzyl-Orda due to their son's illness; living with her brother in Samarqand; extreme deprivation; a typhus epidemic; her brother-in...

  3. Israel R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Israel R., who was born in Piotrko?w Trybunalski, Poland in 1924. Mr. R. recalls his childhood in a predominantly Chrisitian neighborhood; the outbreak of the war; his family's forced relocation to the ?o?dz? ghetto; slave labor under the Germans; the liquidation of much of the ?o?dz? ghetto and the resulting formation of the small ghetto; sneaking food to his parents in hiding; the death of his sister; the Jewish police; and his father's death in a mass shooting. He describes his evacuation in September 1944 to Cze?stochowa; slave labor in a bullet factory; liberatio...

  4. Georges J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Georges J., who was born in 1927. He recalls growing up among extended family in Oradea, Romania; Hungarian occupation; little impact on his family from anti-Jewish laws; German invasion in March 1944; ghettoization; deportation with his family to Birkenau in May; selection for labor with his father (he never saw his mother and brother again); their transfer to Buchenwald, then a nearby camp; forced labor in a petrol factory; sharing extra potatoes with other prisoners; their return to Buchenwald; separation from his father (he never saw him again); posing as a Russia...

  5. Henri K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henri K., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1926. He recounts his parents' and their siblings' emigration from Poland during World War I; speaking Yiddish at home; a priest espousing antisemitic ideas during religious instruction in public school; German invasion; fleeing with his family to Revelles, France; after three months, round-up with other non-citizens in Cape la Hague for six months; internment in Rivesaltes; release in February 1942 due to his Parisian aunt's bribes; returning from Vierzon to Brussels, using false papers; his sister's deportation (he neve...

  6. Trude S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Trude S., who was born in Gmunden, Austria in 1929. She recalls being ordered to leave Gmunden a day after the Anschluss; her father's incarceration in Buchenwald; living with relatives in Vienna; her father's release based on his promise to emigrate; his departure for Italy (she never saw him again); briefly living in an orphanage; her sister's emigration to Palestine; deportation with her mother to Theresienstadt in 1941; her mother's death in 1943; a man from the orphanage delaying her deportation to Auschwitz by almost a year; deportation to Auschwitz in late 1944...

  7. Oscar F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Oscar F., who was born in Zawalo?w, Poland to a family of seven children. He recounts Soviet occupation at the outbreak of war; German invasion in 1941; his oldest brother's draft into the Soviet army (they never saw him again); hiding with his brother to avoid round-ups; escaping to the woods with his brother after his family was taken into the ghetto; joining a group of Jews; digging bunkers in various locations; avoiding Ukrainian partisans who killed the Jews in hiding; liberation by Soviet troops in March 1944; traveling with Soviet troops to Buchach; fleeing wit...

  8. John L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John L., who was born in 1925 and served with the United States Army 45th Infantry Division in World War II. He recalls participating in several major battles; approaching Dachau on April 29, 1945; railroad cars overflowing with emaciated corpses outside the camp; the soldiers' responses, including silence, disbelief, tears, and anger; capturing Wehrmacht and SS troops; observing inmates killing German guards; "ghostlike" inmates emerging from barracks; piles of dead bodies; the sickening stench; and advancing toward Munich the next day. Mr. L. notes he was totally un...

  9. Hanoch V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hanoch V., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1920, the oldest of five children. He recounts attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment; working in a leather store; active participation in Hashomer Hatzair (Abba Kovner was his group's leader); Lithuanian independence; fleeing briefly to relatives in Lida and Maladzechna; returning home; German invasion; killing of Jews; fleeing to Ashmi︠a︡ny; returning when he was caught; ghettoization; forced labor in a dairy factory; smuggling food; obtaining a pistol; participating in the organiz...

  10. Nina K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Nina K., a non-Jew, who was born in 1923 in Malines (Mechelen), Belgium. She describes involvement with the Resistance from the beginning of the war; working as a courier between Brussels and Malines; arrest in June 1942; imprisonment in Antwerp for six weeks; transfer to Aachen, then Essen; sabotaging her assigned work; discussing survival strategies with friends; transfer to Zweibru?cken, then Esterwegen; her trial; being sentenced to forced labor; transfer to Gross Strehlitz; an aborted escape attempt with a friend; being helped in solitary confinement by a friend'...

  11. Martin S. Holocaust testimony

    A follow-up, directed videotape testimony of Martin S., whose first testimony was recorded in 1986. Mr. S. notes his first testimony was primarily for his children; hope that future scholars can discover the basis for extreme cruelty; meaninglessness of time in concentration camps; being kept alive in Skarz?ysko as a model factory worker because he ran so many machines at once; an SS officer saving his mother and brother to reward him, but randomly killing others; believing "they made an animal out of" him which still governs much of his present behavior; becoming completely introverted, ob...

  12. Renee G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Renee G., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1923. She recalls her happy youth; German invasion; ghettoization; hiding in bunkers; her parents' deportation to Treblinka in 1940; living with her brother and posing as his wife; hiding in a chimney during a round-up; her brother's arrest; joining the underground; arrest with her sister while hiding in a bunker following the Warsaw ghetto uprising; two days on the Umschlagplatz followed by deportation with her sister to Majdanek; slave labor and selections; transport to a HASAG ammunition factory, then to Leipzig at the en...

  13. Girsh K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Girsh K., who was born in Minsk, Russia in 1914, the fourth of seven children. He recounts his family moving to Moscow in 1916 to avoid the German invasion; returning to Minsk in 1918; hardships under German and Polish invasions; attending a Jewish school; Soviet elimination of Jewish cultural and religious institutions in the 1930s; training as an engineer in Moscow; working in a shoe factory in Minsk; his brothers serving in the military; German occupation; ghettoization with his parents and sisters; round-up of all Jewish men; a mass shooting of all professionals i...

  14. Leon B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon B., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in approximately 1915. He recalls his large family; attending Italian school; working with his father and uncle; deteriorating conditions beginning from July 1942; the Jewish community raising funds to ransom people from labor camps; ghettoization in February 1943; the role of the Judenrat and its president, Rabbi Zvi Koretz; deportations beginning in March 1943; his family's arrival at Auschwitz/Birkenau on May 2; separation from his parents; slave labor paving a road; transfer a month later to Zgoda (S?wie?toch?owice); ...

  15. Nachman Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Nachman Z., who was born in Łęczyca, Poland in 1918, one of eight children. He recalls attending cheder; his brothers moving to Łódź; joining them with the rest of his family in 1933; joining Betar; attending their summer camp; working with his brothers in Ruda Pabianicka; German invasion in 1939; fleeing with his brothers as far as Pszczonów; hiding there briefly, then returning to Łódź; entrusting some of their valuables with two non-Jews; forced labor for a day in Kochanówka; a German warning him of a round-up; hiding with a friend; ghettoization in May 1940...

  16. Albert E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Albert E., who was born in Slavonski Brod, Yugoslavia in 1929 and was raised in Zagreb. He recalls expulsion from gymnasium in 1941 due to the anti-Jewish laws of newly independent Croatia; his father's deportation to Jasenovac (they never saw him again); a Croatian neighbor alerting them that the Ustaša were looking for them; he, his mother, and sister hiding with Croat friends; returning home; hiding several more times; an uncle sending them false papers; moving to Mostar in the Italian-occupied area; Italians helping the Jews to leave, knowing the Ustaša would so...

  17. Vida K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Vida K., who lived in Thessalonikē, Greece. She recalls speaking Ladino and French; her father's death in 1936; marriage in 1938; her son's birth; the rabbi encouraging the Jews to cooperate with deportation orders; wanting to escape, but her husband's refusal; their round-up to the Baron de Hirsch quarter; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her son and husband upon arrival (she never saw them again); a Blockälteste giving her a privileged assignment to the kitchen because she spoke French; assignment to Block 10; working with her friend Beinvenida M. in the ...

  18. Leon J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon J., who was born in Cze?stochowa, Russia (presently Poland) in 1916, one of seven children. He recalls attending public school; antisemitic harassment; living with his mother in Gdan?sk for business reasons for eighteen months; his bar mitzvah there; participating in Maccabi; draft into the Polish military in 1938; German invasion in September 1939; being taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans; his release, traveling to Warsaw, then home; ghettoization; one brother who did not "look Jewish" smuggling merchandise for the family butcher shop; forced labor in a m...

  19. David K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David K., who was born in Praszka, Poland in 1921 and moved to Wielun? at age seven. He recalls his oldest brother's emigration to Palestine; German bombing of their home; fleeing to Piotrko?w Trybunalski, then Radom; Germans burning Jewish books and scrolls in Be?chato?w; returning home; forced labor clearing bombing rubble; deportation to Poznan?; slave labor building roads in Loebau, Z?abikowo, and Kreising for Organization Todt; transfer to Kreuzsee, then Eberswalde; slave labor in a munitions factory; assistance from one German guard; transfer to Auschwitz/Birken...