Archival Descriptions

Advanced query tips

There are several ways to be more specific in your search query:

"Phrase"
Search an exact match of your query, e.g. "Member lists"
+Phrase
Given word has to be in the result, e.g. +Gestapo
-Phrase
Exclude given word from search, e.g. -Gestapo

Use the following syntax to restrict the search to specific fields:

field:"phrase"
For instance, you can find all descriptions that have the phrase "Auschwitz Birkenau" in their titles by searching for title:"Auschwitz Birkenau".

The following fields are currently available:

  • identifier
  • title
  • creator
  • person
  • place
  • subject
  • address
Displaying items 181 to 200 of 4,487
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English
Language of Description: Multiple
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Esther A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther A., who was born in Sevluš, Czechoslovakia (presently Vynohradiv, Ukraine) in 1928, one of seven children. She recounts attending school; Hungarian occupation; a brother fleeing to the Soviet Union and two sisters to Budapest; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school in 1942; round-up with her remaining family in spring 1944; deportation to the Ungvár (Uz︠h︡horod) ghetto, then six weeks later to Auschwitz/Birkenau; her uncle being shot in the head en route; separation with her sisters from her parents and youngest sister; seeing her father fr...

  2. Kazimiera B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kazimiera B., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1918, an only child. Ms. B. notes her assimilated household; involvement in communism from age fourteen leading to school expulsions and brief imprisonment in 1936; university studies in Warsaw starting in 1937; antisemitism; returning to Łódź with her mother on August 31, 1939; German invasion; traveling to Warsaw with her parents; their return to Łódź; illegally entering Soviet-occupied territory with her parents; attending school in Lʹviv while her parents taught in Białystok; German invasion in June 1941; working...

  3. Lilly W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lilly W., who was born in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1922. She recalls a happy childhood as one of seven children; Hungarian occupation; prohibition of Jewish business licenses, including her father's; ghettoization; transfer to a brick factory for a few weeks; deportation to Auschwitz in April 1944; selection with her two sisters (she never saw her parents again); seeing two brothers for one last time; a brief stay in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); helping her younger sister eat; their transfer to Torgau in the fall; slave labor in an ammuniti...

  4. Ernest H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest H., who was born in Munich, Germany in 1921. He describes his assimilated and wealthy family background; antisemitic incidents at school; his father's belief that Hitler's rise to power would not last long enough to impact them; the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933; completing his education in Switzerland; visiting his parents for the last time during the summer of 1938; internment in a Swiss camp after the German invasion of France in 1940; being chosen by a Joint representative for emigration to the Dominican Republic; and traveling via Fran...

  5. Walter L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter L., who was born in Ortelsburg, Germany (presently Szczynto, Poland) in 1922, the elder of two children. He recounts attending school; moving to Ko?nigsberg (presently Kaliningrad, Russia); antisemitic harassment; participating in Makabi ha-tsa?ir; his bar mitzvah in 1935; having to leave school; attending a Zionist agricultural school in Ahrensdorf; hospitalization in Berlin; apprenticing with a dentist; emigrating with his family to the United States via Hamburg in June 1938, with assistance from relatives there; marriage; and the births of four daughters. Mr...

  6. Dina B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dina B., who was born in Tylicz, Poland in 1922. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; the small, impoverished Jewish community's cordial relations with non-Jews; one sister's emigration to the United States; German invasion in 1939; antisemitic violence; her parent's arranging for her illegal emigration, with her sister, to Slovakia in January 1941; living in Bratislava and Humenne?; deportations; declining to be hidden by a Christian stranger in order to remain with her sisters; deportation to Auschwitz; reunion with her sister; their transfer to Birkenau after a few ...

  7. Helen G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen G., who was born in Belleville, France in 1924. She remembers moving to Metz; her brother's death, then her father's in 1935; another brother traveling to Romania (they never heard from him again); German invasion; fleeing to Paris, then Bordeaux, with her mother and one sister (her older sister remained with her husband and child); moving to Pleine-Selve; the German order to wear the yellow star; the mayor suggesting they not wear it so he could conceal their Jewish identities; her mother's arrest in summer 1943; hiding in the mayor's basement (he also hid thei...

  8. Margit F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margit F., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1929. She recounts living in Tolcsva; her family's orthodoxy; antisemitic harassment; attending Jewish schools locally and in Budapest; her father's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1943; his return; ghettoization in Sa?toraljau?jhely in 1944; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents; her father being beaten when he left the line to bless her; remaining with an aunt and her aunt's sister-in-law; their transfer to Krako?w; slave labor in a quarry; assistance from her aunt; the shooting of every...

  9. Lucy L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lucy L., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923, the second of three children. She recalls her family's leadership role in the Jewish community; their orthodoxy; attending a Jewish school; participation in an Agudat Israel youth group; the Anschluss in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; preparations to emigrate; Nazis forcing her mother to scrub the street; confiscation of their apartment; witnessing their synagogue and its contents being burned on Kristallnacht; her parents arranging for her and her sister to join a children's transport organized by Rabbi Solomon Schon...

  10. Hirsh A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hirsh A., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1914. He recalls his large, extended family; their affluence; attending Jewish schools; participating in a Zionist group; antisemitic harassment at university; German invasion in September 1939; ghettoization; his family remaining together due to their affluence; hiding in a bunkers during round-ups; being discovered; deportation to Majdanek; separation from his mother and sister; remaining with his father and brother; slave labor; encountering his sister and learning his mother had been killed; the deaths of his brother and...

  11. Martin F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin F., who was born in Ulano?w, Poland in 1921. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; his father's emigration to the United States; brief Soviet occupation; deportation to Belzec in spring 1940; slave labor digging ditches; release home six months later; deportation to Budzyn?; slave labor in a Heinkel airplane factory; a public hanging; transfer to Rzeszo?w, P?aszo?w, then Flossenbu?rg with Heinkel co-workers; improved conditions after transfer to Colmar; transfer to Oranienburg, then Watenstedt with Heinkel co-workers; slave labor in a munitions factory; Allied bo...

  13. Frank S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frank S., who was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1921. He describes his childhood in Breslau and the changes which he experienced, particularly in school after 1933. He also details his apprenticeship, at the age of fifteen, to a Nazi electrician; the experience of Kristallnacht, during which he was protected by his gentile cleaning lady; his emigration to England in 1938, where he, a German citizen, was confined as an enemy alien after the outbreak of the war; and the effect of these experiences on his personality.

  14. Aca S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aca S., who was born in Bačka Topola, Yugoslavia in 1923. He recounts his family's affluence; the Jews identifying as Hungarians; membership in Betar; Hungarian occupation in 1941; his father's immediate arrest and deportation; deportation with many Jews to Bečej; release after a few weeks; futile attempts to escape and join the partisans; German occupation in March 1944; incarceration in Bačka Topola concentration camp; his mother's arrival in April; deportation to Auschwitz in May; transfer shortly thereafter to Oberwüstegiersdorf; slave labor in a textile facto...

  15. John E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John E., who was born in Fulda, Germany in 1920. He describes living in a children's home from age eight to twelve; summer vacations with his mother and grandparents in Fulda (his parents were separated); harassment of Jews in 1933; his mother's decision to leave Germany; life in Paris; attending school; assistance received from HIAS and the Joint; and internment in 1939 as an "enemy alien." Mr. E. tells of poor conditions and forced labor in many French camps; rejoining his mother and brother in Marseille in 1942; help from the Joint; internment in Gurs for about a y...

  16. William U. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William U., who was born in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (later southeastern Poland) in 1913. He describes two older brothers emigrating, one prior to his birth; attending public school; antisemitic harassment; joining Zionist groups; attending school in L?viv and Warsaw; teaching; Polish military draft; German invasion; being wounded; hospitalization; German takeover of the military hospital; release after three months; traveling to the Soviet zone; arrest in Przemys?l; release when his identity was verified; returning home; teaching in L?viv; German invasion in Jun...

  17. Eva S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva S., who was born in the Piotrko?w Trybunalski ghetto in 1940. She recounts her mother's death when she was seven months old; her aunt smuggling her and a younger cousin (Naomi) out of the ghetto; placement with a Polish woman in Warsaw, who then left her on a doorstep in a suburb; the woman of the house accepting her as her own; being baptized; attending Mass weekly; her aunt claiming her after the war; her "mother's" refusal to give her up and her own desire to remain; her aunt's legal action leading to her "mother's" acquiescence; moving with her aunt, her husba...

  18. Jacov S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacov S., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1912. He recalls attending an Italian school; marriage; the birth of a son; working as a barber; German invasion in 1941; six months in a forced labor camp; returning home; deportation of his family (none returned); his deportation two months later to Auschwitz/Birkenau; disbelief upon learning of the crematoria; transfer to Warsaw; slave labor clearing rubble in the former ghetto; liberation by Poles during the 1944 Warsaw uprising; working as a barber for the partisans; posing as a non-Jew in a small village after t...

  19. Ernest P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest P., who was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1912. He recalls his father's death in 1918 serving in World War I; his mother's struggle to support him and two younger siblings; working at age sixteen to assist; the Anschluss; immediate anti-Jewish laws and violence; obtaining a forged passport in 1938 (his siblings had already left and his mother followed); living in Luxembourg for eighteen months; support from the local Jewish community; marriage to a Polish-Jewish refugee; the Jewish community organizing a group emigration to Cuba; traveling to Iru...

  20. 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.