Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 1 to 20 of 4,487
Language of Description: English
Language of Description: Multiple
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Ernest B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest B., who was born in Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Czechoslavakia (presently Slovakia) in 1924, an only child. He recalls his parents not discussing Judaism with him until he was seven or eight; acquiring his Jewish identity through active participation in Maccabi; Slovak independence resulting in anti-Jewish restrictions; being baptized in order to attend school; his family's exemption from deportation due to his father's profession; an uncle warning them to leave in 1944 when the Slovak uprising began; hiding with his parents in several locations with non-Jews; tryi...

  2. Henry C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry C., who was born in the United States. Mr. C. describes his Yiddish and Workmen's Circle background; attending college; being drafted into the United States Army in 1944; eight months of combat in Europe; working at the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Headquarters; discharge from the army in 1946; working for UNRRA as a civilian, managing Fo?hrenwald displaced persons camp; frequent problems maintaining the physical facilities resulting in poor sanitation; an incident when U.S. soldiers harassed Jewish refugees; his attempts to improve co...

  3. Samuel O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samuel O., who was born in Gorlice, Poland, in 1930. He recalls the death of his mother early in his youth and being raised, as a result, by both sets of grandparents; his first awareness of antisemitism; German occupation; his transfer to the Bobowa ghetto and conditions there; and the liquidation of the ghetto in August, 1942, which he was able to escape. He tells of assuming the false identity of a farm worker; being taken in by a Polish family, with whom he remained until the end of the war; and his sustaining friendship throughout this time with a non-Jewish woma...

  4. Gregory B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gregory B., who was born in Rovno, Poland (presently Rivne, Ukraine) in 1930, an identical twin. He recounts his family's move to Radziwiłłów (presently Radyvyliv) in 1933; having a governess; attending Hebrew school; Soviet occupation; his father's arrest in April 1940 (they never saw him again); deportation three days later with his mother, twin brother, older sister, and paternal grandparents to a small village in Siberia; his grandparents and sister returning to Poland prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union (they did not survive); his mother's vain atte...

  5. Zoltan G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zoltan G., who was born circa 1925 and grew up in a town in eastern Slovakia. Mr. G. describes his childhood and religious upbringing; the Hungarian occupation; his move to Budapest, where he worked as a cabinet maker; being forced, with his family, to the Sa?toraljau?jhely ghetto in 1944; and their deportation to Auschwitz. He relates his experiences as a laborer on a farm near Birkenau, where he was the favorite of an SS man; the death march in 1945 from Auschwitz to Gleiwitz, then Buchenwald; his liberation by the Americans; and his physical recovery. He also refle...

  6. Ras?ela P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ras?ela P., who was born in Yugoslavia. She recalls her father was a rabbi; being rounded up with her family in Sarajevo in September 1941; train transport to Lobograd; return to Sarajevo (there was no room in Lobograd); transport to Djakovo in October; receiving food from Jewish youths from Osijek (Jews were still safe there); singing about conditions; many deaths (the singing stopped); being taken to a convent in Osijek by herself when she was due to give birth; giving birth (the child did not survive); living in the Jewish old age home; Ustas?a harassment of Jews; ...

  7. Frances H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frances H., who was born in Opato?w, Poland in 1918, the younger of two sisters, three months after her father's death. She recounts living with an aunt in Zawiercie; her mother's remarriage; visiting her and her half-sister in Sosnowiec where they had moved; her aunt's death; German invasion in September 1939; fleeing with her uncle and cousins to Volodymyr-Volyns?kyi?; returning to her mother in Sosnowiec, then her relatives in Zawiercie; ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1942; separation with her cousin from her uncle and younger cousin (they were...

  8. Paula K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paula K. who was born in Cze?stochowa, Poland in 1924, the oldest of six children. She recalls her father building a bunker prior to the war; German invasion; ghettoization; family members hiding from aktions in their bunker; deportation of many relatives; selling clothes for food; and forced labor in a munitions plant. Mrs. K. recounts episodes when she was almost killed; carrying bombs for partisans; liquidation of the small ghetto when her mother and three siblings were killed; working with her father, brother and sister in HASAG-Pelzery; hiding with her sister dur...

  9. Tugomir B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tugomir B., who was born out-of-wedlock in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1932 to a Jewish father and Serbian-Orthodox mother, a physician. He recounts having no contact with his father; German invasion; his mother joining the Chetniks to protect him from Nazi anti-Jewish persecution; moving to Požega; traveling around with Chetnik groups (some knew he was Jewish); his mother instructing Chetnik medics in Gorobilje; placement with a family in Druzetici; hiding in the mountains during German raids; liberation; learning his mother was saved from reprisals against Chetniks by ...

  10. Hilda S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hilda S., who was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1930. She recalls her brother's emotional illness; attending a Jewish school (the Philanthropin) due to the Nuremberg laws; Kristallnacht; her father's arrest; his release since he had a United States visa; and leaving with her brother on a children's transport to Brussels. She describes living in an orphanage; her brother's transfer to Ghell, a town which cared for handicapped people; German invasion; her guilt thinking she endangered the orphanage (there were six Jewish children there); leaving school in 1942 when it b...

  11. Herbert K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Herbert K., who was born in Peiskretscham, Germany in 1926. He discusses his prewar childhood; beatings and ostracism by classmates; damage to his family's business on Kristallnacht; their unsuccessful emigration attempt from Hamburg aboard the luxury liner St. Louis; the return to France, where he was separated from his parents; and life in a children's home in Montmorency, outside Paris. He relates his move to unoccupied France and employment in a bakery; internment in a camp in Creuse by French militia; and his escape and subsequent illegal life with false papers. ...

  12. Tomas K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tomas K., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1929, the younger of two children. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; harassment by Hitler Youth starting in 1939; a German neighbor warning him when it was dangerous to go out; expulsion from school; not wearing the yellow star after being harassed for having it; eviction from their apartment in 1940; their landlord allowing them to stay briefly, then reporting them to Hlinka guard; confiscation of the family business; his sister being smuggled to Hungary when deportations started; ...

  13. Hugo P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hugo P., who was born in Slivni?k, Czechoslovakia in 1922, one of eight children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; their successful businesses; an older brother's accidental death; Slovak independence; anti-Jewish laws; confiscation of the family businesses; his father's futile efforts to go to the United States (he was an American citizen); imprisonment with one brother for a month by the Hlinka guard; deportation with his family in 1940; separation from them upon arrival at Lublin; learning masonry; a German supervisor bringing him extra food; transfers to Buna/Mo...

  14. Marcel K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marcel K., who was born in Stara? Lubovn?a, Czechoslovakia in 1924, one of six children. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; attending public school; increasing antisemitism beginning in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions after Slovak independence in March 1939; confiscations of family property by Hlinka guardsmen; deportation to Z?ilina, then Auschwitz/Birkenau in March 1942; slave labor with his brother; assistance from a Polish kapo; witnessing his brother's murder by guards in May; public executions; assistance from fellow-prisoners when he was sick; assistanc...

  15. Pavla K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pavla K., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1913. She recounts her family's move to Prague in 1914; living in Bubeneč ; attending Czech school; German invasion of Poland; her father's and brother's arrest as Poles; visiting them in Ostrava; their deportation to Poland; marriage in December 1939; the birth of children in 1940 and 1942; deportation of her mother and sister to Theresienstadt; obtaining false papers in December 1942; her husband traveling to Budapest with the children; joining them; their move to Lučenec; her husband's draft into a forced labor battali...

  16. Anita S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anita S., who was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1930. She recalls her family's affluence; German occupation; confiscation of their house; her mother bribing an official to avoid the family's deportation; her uncle's suicide in 1940; deportation with her family to Theresienstadt in 1942; living with her mother and brother; participating in organized activities, including an opera; their transfer to Auschwitz in 1943; assignment to Birkenau's family camp; her father's transfer to Germany in 1944; separation from her mother and brother (she never saw them again); trans...

  17. Josef K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Josef K., who was born in Lask, Poland in 1927. He recalls his father's military service; antisemitic harassment; visiting relatives in ?o?dz?; attending school for three years; spending summers in Kolumna; his father's refusal to emigrate to join relatives in Palestine; German invasion; his father's deportation to a labor camp (they never saw him again); forced labor; public hangings; ghettoization; deportation of the Jews in August 1942, including his mother and sister; being selected with his other sister for transfer to the ?o?dz? ghetto; slave labor; helping each...

  18. Arthur H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arthur H., a non-Jew, who was born in Angleur, Belgium in 1913. He recalls his happy childhood; socialist activities; working as a journalist; marriage; his daughter's birth; German invasion; fleeing to Poitiers, then Toulouse; returning home in August; participating in the socialist Resistance; traveling to Paris as part of the Resistance; surrendering to save his family from arrest after a colleague was caught with his name; incarceration in St. Gilles; transfer to another prison where nuns assisted him; deportation to Mauthausen as a "Nacht und Nebel" prisoner; wit...

  19. Shmuel Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shmuel Z., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1928, one of two children. He recounts attending a Mizrahi school; antisemitic harassment; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor in a tobacco factory; moving with his family to a village; slave labor constructing an airport; forced relocation to Krzeszowice, then moving to the Kraków ghetto; a non-Jewish friend assisting them; continuing to work at the airport; smuggling potatoes into the ghetto; his father's German boss hiding them during round-ups; separation from his family when he was sent to Płaszó...

  20. Klara A. and Donald W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Klara A., who was born in Amsterdam in 1915, and her son Donald W., who was born circa 1939. Mrs. A. describes her family and community life before the war; anti-Jewish legislation; the deportation of her husband to Westerbork in 1942; her decision to entrust Donald, then three years old, and her eight-week-old younger son to the underground for hiding; her work for the Jewish organization in Amsterdam; and her deportation to Westerbork in 1943, where she was reunited with her husband and where both remained for one year. She discusses conditions in Westerbork; its li...