Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 141 to 160 of 4,487
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Albert, Gina, and Kurt K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Albert K., who was born in Poland in 1903; Gina K., who was born in Vienna in 1909; and their son Kurt K., who was born in Vienna in 1937. Married in Vienna in 1937, Mr. and Mrs. K. describe their pre-war life in Vienna; the birth of their son; and the German invasion and conditions under German occupation. They tell of their flight from Vienna to Antwerp, where they remained until the German occupation of Belgium; their arrest in Antwerp; and an aborted attempt to deport them to Poland, which landed them instead on a farm in Belgium. They relate being sent back to An...

  2. Ludwig F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ludwig F., who was born in Poland in 1908. Mr. F. speaks of his education; his successful business in Cze?stochowa; his marriage in 1933; and the birth of his daughter in 1937. He describes the German occupation and the anti-Jewish measures which followed; the ghettoization of Cze?stochowa; and conditions and slave labor in the ghetto. He relates the liquidation of the ghetto, during which he smuggled himself out on a cart of corpses, then joined the group of laborers charged with burying the bodies; his work as a clerk for a German captain; and how, with the assistan...

  3. Lois and Abraham J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lois J., who was born in a small town near Vilna, Poland in 1927, and her husband Abraham J., who was born in a small town in Poland in 1921. Mrs. J. discusses prewar Jewish life in her home town; the Russian occupation in 1939; the German takeover in 1941 and the ensuing anti-Jewish legislation; ghettoization of her town and conditions under German rule; and her escape into the forest, where she lived with a group of 300 partisans and refugees from other ghettos. Mr. J. describes family life before the war; the displacement of his family following Russian occupation;...

  4. Jack P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack P., who was born in Koniecpol, Poland in 1915. He speaks of prewar family life; moving as a boy to the larger town of Częstochowa; his family's flight after the German occupation in 1939; and their return a short time later to the beginning of ghettoization. He relates his and his brother's flight to Russian occupied territory and his return to Częstochowa in 1941 to be with his parents. He discusses life in the ghetto; the liquidation of the Częstochowa ghetto; his selection for slave labor in factories in the remaining "small ghetto"; his unsuccessful attemp...

  5. Leo G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leo G., who was born in Be?dzin, Poland in 1923. He describes his childhood in a poor and very religious household in Be?dzin and in nearby Sosnowiec; prewar antisemitism; and his education and work experiences. He recalls the influx of German Jews into Poland; the German march through Be?dzin in September 1939, and the abuse by Germans of Jewish inhabitants; ghettoization, forced labor, and anti-Jewish regulations; and his transport to Germany in early 1942. He tells of his slave labor near Gleiwitz and in Bunzlau, a sub-camp of Gross Rosen, where he worked in a sawm...

  6. Michael R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael R., who was born in Wieliczka, Poland in 1911. He describes his childhood; his apprenticeship to a baker in Dzia?oszyce; the German occupation of his town; his marriage in December 1939; and the birth of his child in 1940. He speaks of his forced labor until the liquidation of his town in 1942; his and his family's unsuccessful attempts to hide; his brief stay with his wife and child in a labor camp near Krako?w; and their internment in the Krako?w ghetto, where he and his wife were separated from their child and his mother-in-law and taken to separate labor c...

  7. Martin F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin F., who was born in a small town in Poland in 1920. Mr. F. describes his childhood in Be?dzin; his involvement in Zionist youth organizations; his stay on a kibbutz near the Russian border until the outbreak of the war; and his unsuccessful attempt to escape to Palestine via Russia. He relates being sent from Be?dzin to Germany as a slave laborer; the typhus epidemic at Faulbruck/Gra?ditz where he, his father, and his brother were among the few survivors; and his transfer to Langenbielau, then to Gross Rosen. He speaks of his hatred and desire for revenge as a ...

  8. Rev. Michael V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael V., who was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1946 to a Christian father and a Jewish mother. He speaks of his mother's family, most of whom perished in Auschwitz; his parents' decision to raise him as a Christian; and his response to the Holocaust from the perspective of both a Jew and a Christian. He also discusses his decision to become a minister and his belief that his becoming a Christian is not a refutation of his Judaism.

  9. 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...

  10. Pincus and Sylvia S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pincus S., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1906, and his wife Sylvia S., who was born in Pultusk, Poland in 1922 and moved to ?o?dz? in 1937. Mr. S. tells of his prewar marriage to his first wife and his work as a furrier. Both Mr. and Mrs. S. speak of the German occupation of ?o?dz?; the torture and humiliation which followed; the ghettoization of ?o?dz?; ghetto life; their impressions of Rumkowski, elder of the Jewish Council of ?o?dz?; and round-ups and deportations from the ghetto. Mrs. S. describes the death of her father in the ghetto; her transport to Auschwi...

  11. Siegried K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Siegfried K., who was born in Danzig in 1930. He notes Danzig's unique place in Jewish history and speaks of his luxurious prewar life. He tells of the rise of Nazism and recalls shaking Hitler's hand during a visit to Berlin as a small child. The disturbances and attacks by the Brownshirts and his experiences with antisemitism, which continued in the United States, are also related. He describes his family's flight to England in 1938; the difficulty of leaving home and relatives, and, for him, leaving behind his beloved dog; the help given them by German non-Jews; hi...

  12. Juliana R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Juliana R., who was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (presently Serbia) in approximately 1927. She speaks of the death of her sister in 1940, due to an accident unrelated to the war, which still affects her deeply. She relates the antisemitic activities under the Hungarian occupation beginning in 1941 and the confusion, fear, and helplessness of the Jews during that time; her family's deportation to Auschwitz in 1944, where she was separated from her parents immediately upon arrival; the dehumanizing life in Auschwitz; and her transfer to a slave labor camp in Wu?stergier...

  13. Martin R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin R., who was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, in 1925. He recounts his prewar childhood; the Yugoslavian resistance to Hungarian occupation; his mother's decision to take her children to Baja, Hungary; the mass drowning of Communists and Jews of Novi Sad, including his father; and the attitude of onlooking Croatians. He tells of his brothers' conscription as slave soldiers on the Russian front; the forced removal of his family by Hungarian soldiers, while Hungarian civilians looked on in approval; and the transport to Subotica, where he was separated from his famil...

  14. Frank L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frank L., a former mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, who was an American infantry soldier in World War II. He speaks of the need to remember the Holocaust; his experience in combat; the bureaucratic nature of the Nazi regime; and the lessons which must be learned from history.

  15. Ruth W. and Maryann L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth W., who was active in New York in the wartime relief efforts of the Congregational Church, and her daughter, Maryann L., who has helped lead church groups through Germany since the war. Mrs. W. describes her work with refugees in Europe and the United States, including the rescue network operated by the churches, and the difficulty in assigning responsibility for the refugees. Mrs. L. discusses her group trips to Germany, noting the desolation that characterized Warsaw and Berlin. Both speak of their reactions during a visit to Dachau, of bringing information bac...

  16. Rachel R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachel R., who was born in Dzia?oszyce, Poland in 1910. Mrs. R. tells of her home town; the German occupation; her marriage in 1940; and the birth of her child in 1941. She describes her escape from the first Aktion in Dzia?oszyce; her capture a few weeks later; and her transfer to Krako?w, where she and her husband worked in P?aszo?w while her mother and son were interned in the Krako?w ghetto. The liquidation of the Krako?w ghetto, during which Mrs. R.'s mother and infant son were killed, is recalled. Mrs. R. also relates her husband's transfer to Flossenbu?rg; her ...

  17. Hans F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hans F., who was born in 1922, the youngest of three children, into an assimilated family in Breslau, and moved to Berlin at the age of seven. He is now a professor of Religious Studies and much of his testimony is suffused with a psycho-historical critique of the topics he discusses. From his personal experience, Professor F. tells of his early politicization; his parents' fear for the family; his education in England, where he became a religious Christian (while his father, still in Germany, renounced his own conversion and returned to Judaism as a political protest...

  18. Johanna C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Johanna C., who was born in Munich in 1919 of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. She tells of her well-to-do, nonreligious upbringing in Schwabing; her relationship with her parents and their attitudes toward Judaism; and her own feelings about not having a Jewish education. She describes prejudice within her school and the rise of Nazism as coinciding with her growing awareness of being Jewish; her attitude towards Hitler; and the conflict with her parents over her desire to emigrate. She was arrested twice and describes her feelings about those incidents as well...

  19. Esther R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther R., who was born in Poland and lived in a small town near Dolhinow, east of Vilna, from the age of six. She tells of her traditional religious boy's education, followed by non-religious high school. She describes life as a bookkeeper under Russian occupation; German occupation and increasing trouble with local police; anti-Jewish legislation; forced labor; hiding from mass killings, the sounds of which she could hear from her hiding place; and her subsequent reunion in the forest with surviving Jews. Aspects of her life in the forest, where she spent three year...

  20. Karl S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Karl S., who was born in Breslau, Germany in 1934. Stressing the isolation from other children and silence which characterized his entire wartime experience, he tells of being sent to Krako?w with his family in 1939; their being sent to Eastern Poland a year and a half later; and their 1941 move to a small town in the Carpathians which was under German control. He describes the ghettoization of the town; the cruelty toward his grandfather which he witnessed; and his flight from the town when his father was warned by an SS man. Mr. S. recalls his daily hiding in a labo...