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Displaying items 1 to 20 of 116
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Eva W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva W., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1937. She recalls her parents' comfortable, bohemian life; her father's residency at the Jewish hospital; moving into the hospital with the families of other staff members in October 1941; friendship with two girls (Eva and Rita); the Gestapo presence; monthly deportations; food shortages; her parents' strained marriage; remaining underground during the Battle of Berlin; spending a summer recuperating in Switzerland; her father's death in 1947 after delaying surgery, which she believes was a form of suicide; living in the hos...

  2. Madeleine D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Madeleine D., a Roman Catholic, who was born in Strasbourg, France in approximately 1923. She recounts attending Catholic school; German occupation; relocation with her family to Pe?rigueux for a year; returning home; working for an agency which enabled her to smuggle food, clothes and papers to French and English POWs for the underground; arrest in Saarebourg in 1942 and interrogation by the Gestapo; transfer to Schirmeck a month later; slave labor; the prisoners in her barrack surreptitiously praying at night; hospitalization; a prisoner-doctor smuggling her food; r...

  3. Susan M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susan M., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1925. She describes her happy childhood as a performer in a successful children's theatre; her parent's divorce; her rejection from the art academy due to the Jewish quota; the nonchalant attitude of the Jewish community until the German occupation in 1944; anti-Semitic legislation; hiding with her father with the aid of his non-Jewish fiancee; the establishment of the ghetto; and the reign of the Hungarian Gestapo. She relates working as a nurse while hiding on false papers; being recognized by a non-Jewish friend who tu...

  4. Renate K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Renate K., a non-Jew, who was born in Stargard in Pommern, Germany (Stargard Szczecin?ski, Poland after 1945) in 1922. She recalls the important contributions of Jews to the community; cordial relations with the local Jews; her father helping a fellow Jewish physician emigrate in 1935; Gestapo threats against her father for his efforts on behalf of Jews and other victims of the Gestapo; and his succesful efforts to hide another Jewish family and arrange for the escape of their child to South America. Mrs. K. recalls replacement of local officials by Nazis; her marriag...

  5. Harry B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry B., who was born in Gorlice, Poland in 1929, one of five children. He recalls his family's affluence; German bombardment; escaping to Jas?o; his father and oldest brother boarding a train which left before the rest had boarded; returning home; ghettoziation; a Gestapo shooting his brother; a friend on the Judenrat convincing the Gestapo not to touch the rest of the family; deportation of all Jews in 1941; remaining behind to clear bodies (he never saw his mother or siblings again); transfer to P?aszo?w; a privileged position caring for the Kommandant and his fam...

  6. Michel T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michel T., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland, an only child. He recounts moving to his aunt's home in Breslau, Germany (presently Wroc?aw, Poland) when he was seven; his bar mitzvah; attending high school; being accused of sabotage after Hitler's ascent to power in 1933; fleeing to Bordeaux; visiting his family in Poland in 1937; moving to Vienna; Austrians warmly welcoming the Germans during the Anschluss; anti-Jewish violence; fleeing with his fiance?e in late October 1938; interrogation by the Gestapo in Saarbru?cken; release by the Gestapo and their assistance crossi...

  7. Zofia D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zofia D., who was born in Brzeziny, Poland, in 1923. Mrs. D. recalls her extended family; living with her aunt and uncle when her family moved to Tomaszo?w Mazowiecki; receiving anti-Semitic threats as the only Jew in school in Koluszki; a volksdeutsche girlfriend who later joined the Gestapo; German occupation; angering police by trying to conceal her yellow star; buying her uncle out of a Gestapo jail; and joining her parents in Tomaszo?w. She relates ghetto conditions; execution of the Judenrat head and his sons (one of whom was her boyfriend); escape with her aunt...

  8. Lisbeth B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lisbeth B., who was born in Posen, Germany (presently Poznan?, Poland) in 1911. She recounts living in a small village; moving to Berlin for safety during World War I; returning to Posen which became Poland; attending a German school; her father's death in 1928; working as a tutor and in a German publishing house; assisting Jews deported from Germany in 1938; participating in Zionist organizations; German invasion in 1939; deportation in December to Ostro?w Lubelski; traveling to Warsaw; working as a tutor; her mother declining a non-Jew's offer to hide them; ghettoiz...

  9. Abraham W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abraham W., who was born in Drohobych, Ukraine (then Poland), in 1906. Mr. W. describes the roles of Leon Reich and David Herzog in his admission to university in Graz; his association with Nobel laureate Victor Hess; transfer to Charles University in Prague in 1931 due to antisemitism; becoming a pharmacist in Rava-Ru?ska in December 1939; learning of his mother's murder by a Ukrainian; ghettoization; friendship with the Pole selected by the Germans to replace him; and sheltering a woman escapee from a deportation train to nearby Belzec. He recalls a Gestapo operativ...

  10. Ervin S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ervin S., a non-Jew, who was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1927. He recalls his family's poverty; his father's communist activities; their anti-Nazi activities; his father's enlistment in the Czech military; his father's arrest by the Gestapo; having to join the Hitler Youth, then the Wehrmacht; capture in Italy by United States troops in February 1945; incarceration as a POW in Livorno and Naples; release in 1947; prohibition from returning to Czechoslovakia because he had served in the Wehrmacht; illegally crossing the border; reunion with his family; and recei...

  11. Ruth W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth W., who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1914. Mrs. W. recalls her childhood; her father's death in 1927; being legally barred from university attendance; working as a bookeeper for her uncle; marriage in December 1938; staying with their respective parents to avoid registering; and failing to obtain affidavits from American relatives. She tells of forced labor in a munitions plant; her mother's deportation to Ri?ga in August 1942; her husband joining her when his parents were deported to Terezi?n; hiding with a farmer when her husband's deportation seemed imminen...

  12. Margarete L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margarete L., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1924. She recalls her father's trip to the Soviet Union from which he never returned; expulsion from school at age thirteen; forced labor; a non-Jewish co-worker who provided them with extra food; destruction of her mother's business during Kristallnacht; receiving protection for herself, sister and mother from the Swedish embassy since they were Soviet citizens; arrest and torture by the Gestapo for refusing to name Jews in hiding; and transfer to Bergen-Belsen. She describes the pervasive fear; transfer of Soviet citi...

  13. 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...

  14. Paul S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul S., who was born in Witten, Germany in 1925 of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who converted to Judaism. He recalls participation in Zionist organizations; one brother's emigration to Palestine; being hidden by non-Jewish neighbors on Kristallnacht; his father's imprisonment in Sachsenhausen; living with his non-Jewish aunt in Berlin; attending school in Dortmund; living at Zionist, then labor camps from 1940 onward; his older brother's death in an aborted attempt to reach Palestine; avoiding deportation because he was a "mischling"; deciding to live "under...

  15. Erich K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Erich K., who was born into an observant family in Moravia. Mr. K. describes his happy childhood; the German occupation in 1939; his arrest, three months later, by the Gestapo for helping people cross the border; and his work in the camps of Dachau (1940), Neuengamme (1941), and Auschwitz (1942-1944) as a locksmith and plumber. He relates witnessing medical experimentation and other atrocities and his gradual desensitization; explains how he managed to survive, and help others, including his wife and son, to survive, even though he was labelled a "Geheimnistra?ger", i...

  16. Gertrud K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gertrud K., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. Mrs. K. recalls a comfortable life; strong Jewish identity; watching mass demonstrations when the Germans marched in; the plundering of her father's business two days later; ransacking of their home; and public humiliation of her father. She remembers Kristallnacht; her father and one brother's arrest; her other brother hiding; several weeks later her father's letter from Dachau; receiving permission to leave on a Kindertransport to Scotland; reluctance to leave with her father in prison; and begging a Gestapo offic...

  17. Viliam G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Viliam G., who was born in Hlohovec, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923. He recalls his father was principal and taught in an orthodox school; increasingly severe restrictions on Jews under the Hlinka guard; his sister's deportation; his father's influence obtaining his (Viliam's) position sorting the confiscated property of deported Jews, thus exempting him from deportation until 1944; a non-Jewish woman hiding him after the arrival of German troops; arrest; interrogation by the Gestapo in Trenčin, then incarceration in Sered; deportation to Auschwitz/Birke...

  18. Simon M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simon M., who was born in Ziegenhals, Germany (now G?ucho?azy, Poland) in 1905. He recalls his impoverished childhood in a large family; his father's military service in World War I; completing eight grade; working as a peddler; marriage in 1928; his first son's birth in 1930; living in Breslau when Hitler came to power; serving as a liaison to the Gestapo; helping Jews emigrate; Kristallnacht; arrest and deportation to Buchenwald; release with assistance from an SS officer; receiving help from Jews in Leipzig; returning to Breslau; traveling to Shanghai via Italy in ...

  19. Helga P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helga P., who was born in Charlottenburg, Germany in January 1939, the illegitimate child of a Jewish father, whom she never knew, and a half-Jewish mother. She recounts staying in a children's home in Eberswalde until the war began in September; living with her mother, uncle, and grandparents in Berlin; living briefly with her mother in Zedlitz; her Jewish grandmother hiding during Gestapo raids; her Protestant grandfather's efforts to save them; living in Brieselang; liberation by Soviet troops; resuming school; returning to Berlin; attending Jewish and Protestant s...

  20. Peter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter S., who was born in Chomonin, Czechoslovakia in 1923. He remembers antisemitic harassment; attending school in Mukacheve; membership in Hashomer Hatzair and Betar; Hungarian occupation; compulsory service in a Hungarian slave labor battalion in Uz?h?horod; German occupation; transfer to Baia Mare (Nagyba?nya), then Ditra?u; a beating by Hungarian police; futile escape attempts; transfer to Budapest; meeting his brother; escaping; producing false papers for the Swedish Red Cross; returning to the battalion since he was unable to hide; transfer to Szombathely; ret...