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Displaying items 121 to 140 of 4,487
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Elizabeth G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Elizabeth G., who was born ca. 1911 in Miskolc, Hungary. Mrs. G. recalls her pleasant childhood and adolescent life, marred by prewar Hungarian antisemitism; her marriage in Budapest in 1935; and her life in hiding with her husband and two sons during the Russian and German occupations (from 1942 until liberation.) She also speaks of her and her family's postwar emigration, first to Italy and later to the United States; her happy marriage; and the loss of her husband, who died four years before the interview.

  2. Irene G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Irene G., who was born in Warsaw. She describes Polish antisemitism and anti-Jewish legislation; the German occupation; the arrest and disappearance of her father; and the establishment of and life in the Warsaw ghetto. She relates being smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto into L?vov; her move to Brody, and her departure from there upon its ghettoization; living as a non-Jew with her mother, first in Przemys?l, then in a nearby town; and her sustaining hope that her small cousin would survive. Mrs. G. also tells of her liberation by the Russians; her postwar return home...

  3. Kathe P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kathe P., who was born into a large Orthodox family in Poland in 1909. Mrs. P. remembers growing up in Dortmund, Westphalia; ever-present antisemitism; working for the association of eastern Jews (Ostjudischer Verband) where she met her husband, whom she married in 1933; the boycott against Jewish stores; and violence, plunder, and cruelty by German soldiers. She recounts her attempts to get exit visas for herself and her husband, resulting in their departure for France three days before the mass deportations began; her emigration, with her husband, to Bolivia; and he...

  4. Paula J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paula J., who was born in Radom, Poland in 1921. She speaks briefly of her happy childhood and her work as a tutor after the completion of her education. She vividly describes the German bombardment, occupation, and ghettoization of Radom and tells of conditions in the ghetto, where she first taught children in exchange for food and later volunteered for forced labor in an ammunition factory in order to smuggle food into the ghetto for her family. She recounts her separation from her parents (who later died in Treblinka) when she was required to live in the ammunition...

  5. Alex P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alex P., who was born in Szerencs, Hungary, one of eight children. He speaks of his happy life before the war, when he ran his father's bakery. He recalls the rise of Nazism in Szerencs in the late 1930s and tells how, in 1938/1939, he was drafted into the Jewish slave labor brigade of the Hungarian army and separated from his pregnant wife, whom he never saw again. He talks of working in Galicia, Munkacs, and elsewhere in Poland; of his stay in a quarantine camp in Transnistria; and of accompanying his brigade to Budapest, where he was liberated in January, 1945. Mr....

  6. Pauline M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pauline M., who was born in a small eastern European village in 1903. Mrs. M. describes prewar life in the peaceful village of her childhood; its disruption by instances of German and Polish antisemitism during the first World War and her life in Kielce, where her parents moved after World War I, and in ?o?dz?, where she moved after she married in 1930. She speaks of the German occupation of ?o?dz? and tells how she, her husband, and their two young daughters escaped to Kielce on the day before they were to be deported from ?o?dz?. Life in occupied Kielce, both before...

  7. Herman P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Herman P., a psychiatrist who was born in Du?sseldorf, Germany, in 1892. He describes his childhood; his medical education; conscription into the army and service during World War I; his marriages; and his medical practice in Berlin, where he was Chief of Neurology at the Jewish Hospital. He tells of the encroachment of Nazi influence and anti-Jewish legislation; his attempt in late 1941 to inform the United States Embassy of the plight of the Jews in Poland; and going underground with his wife in 1943 after enabling his sons to flee the country. He recalls the help h...

  8. Max G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max G., who was born in Russia in 1908. Mr. G. describes his childhood in Lubarto?w; his family's move to Lublin, Poland, in 1918; his status as a violin prodigy and his conservatory training in Vienna; his move to Berlin after the first World War, and his eighteen years in Berlin, including his marriage and business successes. He also details his emigration to Belgium after Kristallnacht; life in Belgium; his arrest and internment in a concentration and a transit camp in Belgium; his deportation, with his wife, to Auschwitz; the death march, a year and a half later, ...

  9. Gitta L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gitte L., who was born in Vilna in 1893. Mrs. L. recalls the outbreak of World War I after her graduation from gymnasium; her training and years of work as a nurse in refugee camps; studying at the University of Leningrad; and her emigration to Vienna to marry her fiance?. She tells of her political activity in Vienna; antisemitism; Kristallnacht in Sassnitz, when her husband was beaten by a mob and interrogated, and she was imprisoned with him (but released after a short time); her husband's escape with the help of a Nazi soldier; their emigration to the United State...

  10. Abraham P. and Morris P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of brothers Abraham P., born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1913 and Morris P., born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1914. They recall their family of six children; their father's death in 1923; attending school a half day and working long hours as tailors; antisemitic incidents; German invasion; anti-Jewish measures; and ghettoization in 1940. They describe extreme hunger, forced labor and round-ups; transport to Auschwitz with their family; transfer ten days later to Dachau together with their older brother; conditions of hard labor, beatings, selections, cold and hunger; transfer to Kaufe...

  11. Emina N. and Miriam W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of sisters Emina N. and Miriam W., who were born in ?o?dz?, Poland. They describe their family of six siblings; anti-Semitic incidents in the 1930s; German invasion in 1939; forced labor; having to move to the ghetto; a variety of jobs there; and difficulties of life in the ghetto. They recall deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; Emina saving Miriam from selection; transfer to Birkenau; railroad transport to Harburg, a camp near Hamburg; removing brick rubble; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; the birth of a baby in their barrack the night before liberation; liberation by the Brit...

  12. Leon and Molly N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon N., who was born in M?awa, Poland in 1910 and his wife, Molly N., who was born in M?awa in 1923. Mr. N. tells of prewar life; German occupation; ghettoization in 1941; starvation; food smuggling; mass killings and public hangings; deportation to Auschwitz in 1942 with his first wife and four children; wanting to kill himself "on the wires" knowing his family had been murdered; work as a shoemaker for over three years one-quarter mile from the gas chambers; evacuation in 1945 to several camps ending at Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; meeting General P...

  13. Walter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter S., who was born in Steinbach, Germany in 1924. He recalls living in Mannheim from 1931 on; his strong sense of German identity; expulsion from school; attending Jewish school; Kristallnacht; learning his father was in Dachau; moving to a kibbutz near Berlin hoping to emigrate to Palestine; and Gestapo takeover of the kibbutz. Mr. S. describes extreme hunger while harvesting crops for the Germans; transfer to several camps; observing the bombing of Berlin; transport to Auschwitz; selection for work in Buna; being shaved and tattooed (#117,022); illness; transfe...

  14. David L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David L., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1920. He speaks of his happy childhood, religious education, and Zionist activities. Noting prewar, wartime, and postwar antisemitism, he describes the German occupation; the ghettoization of Warsaw; and conditions and daily life in the ghetto. He recalls his escape from the railroad station while awaiting deportation; the desperation and fear alternating with resignation that characterized his life in hiding on the Aryan side in Warsaw and its suburbs for the next year and a half; his marriage, while in hiding, in May 1943;...

  15. Erena A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Erena A., who was born in Munich in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. She describes her Bohemian childhood in the town of Dachau; the early death of her father; her imprisonment with her mother, who had been arrested for communist tendencies; and her Catholic education in Vienna under the guardianship of her maternal grandparents, whom she discovered after the war to be Sephardic Jews. Ms. A. talks of life in the artistic communities of Berlin; the growth of politics within those communities from a peripheral to a central position; her underground activities as...

  16. Ladislas G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testiomony of Ladislas G., who was born in Munka?cs, Hungary, in 1906, one of six children. He discusses prewar Jewish life in Munka?cs; his father avoiding the draft during World War I; Hungary under Czech occupation; and his life in Khust, where he worked in the lumber industry. Mr. G. tells of his resistance to and conscription into the Czech army (1936-1938) and the Jewish brigade of the Hungarian army (1941-1943.) He recounts the ghettoization of Khust in April, 1944, following the German occupation, and the activities of the Judenrat, on which he served. Also noted are his b...

  17. Suzanne R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Suzanne R., who was born in Hungary in 1924. Mrs. R. describes prewar life in the large Jewish community of Debrecen; the gradual encroachment of antisemitism, which reached its peak after the German occupation in 1944; the formation and liquidation of the Debrecen ghetto; and her deportation, with her family, to Auschwitz. She tells of her arrival at Auschwitz; the physical and psychological conditions there, where she worked in the kitchens; a brief reunion with her father; and her selection, with several female relatives, for the labor camp in Allendorf. In Allendo...

  18. Stefan R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Stefan R., who was born in a small city in Romania in 1914 and spent most of his prewar life in Oradea Mare. He tells of his family life without his father, who died when he was six years old; his service in the Romanian army (1934-1936;) his conscription in 1942, after the Hungarian takeover, into the Jewish brigade of the Hungarian army, from which he repeatedly escaped; and his hiding in Budapest, at times with the aid of the Communist and Jewish undergrounds, and for a time in a Swedish safe house, until the city's liberation by the Russians.

  19. Menachem S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Menachem S., who was born in Krako?w in 1938. In this unusually vivid and insightful testimony, he outlines his family background and relates his earliest recollections, which date to 1942 when his family moved into the Krako?w ghetto ,then P?aszo?w concentration camp. He describes his March 1943 leavetaking from his parents (noting that they promised to find him after the war) and his mother's parting gift of her high school photo identification which sustained him throughout the separation. He tells of being smuggled out of P?aszo?w; his stay in a whorehouse, where ...

  20. Daniel F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Daniel F., who was born circa 1928 in Craidorolt?, a small town in Transylvania near Satu Mare. He tells of being educated in Craidorolt?, Huedin, and Satu Mare before moving to Oradea in 1941 after the Hungarian annexation of Transylvania. The transfer of the Jews of Oradea to the ghetto of Satu Mare, which took place in the spring of 1944, is related. Mr. F. describes life in the ghetto, where he and his family remained until their deportation to Auschwitz. He recounts his separation from his family upon arrival and his internment in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager),...