Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 4,341 to 4,360 of 4,487
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. William N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William N., who was born in Zawiercie, Poland in 1923. He recalls antisemitic harassment; German invasion; fleeing to Wolbrom; returning after several days; forced labor; one brother fleeing to the Soviet Union; his other brother volunteering for forced labor in Germany, hoping to protect his parents and William N.; deportation to Ottmuth, then Fu?nfteichen/Marksta?dt in 1942; receiving packages from his parents through a Polish factory worker; a severe beating after being caught with extra food; his brother's arrival in 1943; frequently helping each other; their tran...

  2. William P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William P., who was born in Cze?stochowa, Poland in 1923, one of eight children in an impoverished family. He recalls German invasion; forced farm labor in 1940; assistance from his brother; returning home; incarceration in a labor camp; escape; returning to Cze?stochowa; entering the ghetto; working as a tailor; deportation to Auschwitz; slave labor; liberation in 1945; recovering in Theresienstadt; returning to Cze?stochowa; hearing two brothers had survived; traveling to Warsaw, Poznan?, Prague, Budapest, and Vienna; living in Salzburg; emigration to the United Sta...

  3. William P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dr. William P., who was born in Prague in 1906. Dr. P. describes his family's background; its move to Vienna in 1910, where he lived until 1938; and his education there. He recounts his involvement in Zionism; the rejection of his offer to Adolf Eichmann to transport Viennese Jews to Palestine; and his involvement in the illegal transport of Jews into Palestine. He relates the mechanics of these transports; British efforts to halt the smuggling; his repeated arrests by the British; and his moves to Greece, Italy, Portugal, Mozambique, and the United States. He recalls...

  4. William R. Holocaust testimony

  5. William R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William R., who was born in Arizona in 1918. He recounts liberating Mauthausen as a member of the United States Army 11th Armored Division; his shock at seeing thousands of starved and sick prisoners; the pervasive stench; prisoners dying after liberation because they could not digest food; buildings that appeared to be shower rooms but were gas chambers; and hundreds of corpses. He describes an American general who had himself sprayed with DDT so prisoners would allow themselves to be treated for lice to stem the typhus epidemic and the policy of the United States Ar...

  6. William R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William R., who was born in Cze?stochowa, Poland, in 1918. He describes prewar Jewish life in his town; his happy childhood and young adulthood as part of a large, close-knit, religiously observant family; the German occupation and ghettoization of Cze?stochowa; his black market activities to obtain food for his starving family in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto and the destruction of his family; his unsuccessful attempt to save his younger brother and the sense of guilt at his failure; and his experiences in numerous concentration camps. Mr. R. speaks of hi...

  7. William S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Krako?w, Poland, one of three children. He recounts German invasion; fleeing east; receiving a gun from a Polish officer; arriving in L?viv; Soviets disarming him and sending them home; forced labor breaking rocks; ghettoization; clandestinely leaving the ghetto to smuggle food for his family; deportations including his parents, brother, and his girlfriend's family; marriage in the ghetto; transfer to P?aszo?w; separation from his wife and sister; visiting them; public executions; being beaten for defending a fellow prisoner; his wife's dep...

  8. William S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1937. He recounts his parents sending him to Brussels after the Germans came (he never saw them again); being hidden by a non-Jewish family; severe food shortages; liberation; living in orphanages; studying Judaism and Hebrew for the first time; a sparse diet; difficulty learning; visits from his mother's best friend; emigration to the United States when he was fifteen to join his father's sister; attending a yeshiva; continuing learning difficulties; working as a messenger; and marriage in 1973. Mr. S. discusses emotiona...

  9. William S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1918, one of three children. He recounts attending public school; working repairing bicycles; antisemitic harassment; German invasion; fleeing east with his father, brother, and uncles; returning; meeting his future wife; forced labor cleaning streets; working instead of his father; slave labor in a factory; smuggling chickens into the ghetto; his parents' deportation (he never saw them again); his brother's and future mother-in-law's deportation; marriage; transfer to P?aszo?w; brief visits with his sister and wife; a fe...

  10. William S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1920, the elder of two sons. He recounts his family moving to Prague when he was four years old; their relative affluence; summer vacations with grandparents in Bratislava and other locations; his and his brother's b'nai mitzvah; Passover celebrations in their home with extended family; attending a German gymnasium; German invasion on March 15, 1939; his father leaving for Hungary, due to his Hungarian citizenship, intending to send for them; having to vacate their apartment; deportation to...

  11. William S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia in 1928, the oldest of five children. He describes his orthodox, middle-class family; attending a Jewish school; assisting at his father's store; his bar mitzvah; cordial relations with non-Jews; anti-Jewish laws, including expropriation of his father's business; deportation with his family to Auschwitz in 1942; remaining with his father (the others were killed); thinking he "was in hell"; forced labor; public executions; assignment to the bricklayers' school in Birkenau; assistance from fellow prisoners; learni...

  12. 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...

  13. William W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William W., who was born in Uz?h?horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1920, one of six children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; working as a tutor from age fourteen to help support his family; Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; German invasion; ghettoization for three weeks at a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; his mother, father, and one sister being selected for killing; transfer three weeks later to Jaworzno; slave labor in a coal mine; civilian workers leaving him food and cigarettes; public executions of escapees...

  14. William Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William Z., who was born in Znacevo, Czechoslovakia in 1919. He recalls attending school until age thirteen; apprenticeship and working for his father as a cabinet maker; Hungarian occupation; forced labor in a Hungarian army battalion; visits to a local Jewish family; a promise of protection from a Hungarian general; and obtaining weapons for partisans with funds from the local Jewish family. Mr. Z. recounts obtaining a leave from the general; finding his home abandoned; learning his family was in the Munka?cs ghetto and joining them; smuggling his two brothers out w...

  15. Willy F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Willy F., who was born in Dzia?oszyce, Poland in 1928. He describes his parents' move to a small village to run a business; remaining with his grandparents and siblings so they could attend Jewish schools; his parents' return due to antisemitic violence; their move to Sosnowiec in 1936; traveling to Dzia?oszyce with his grandmother in 1939; German invasion; food shortages; his parents' and brother's return (his sister remained in Sosnowiec); hiding with his family during a round-up; joining an uncle in Pinczo?w; briefly returning to Dzia?oszyce; fleeing to Wodzis?aw, ...

  16. Willy K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Willy K., who was born in Mont-sur-Marchienne, Belgium in 1920, a non-Jew. Mr. K. recalls participating in a Protestant youth group; leaving school at age fifteen; working odd jobs; learning to be a baker from his father; military enlistment in September 1938; assignments in Florennes, Konigslo, Rossignol, and Bruges; a futile attempt to leave with British troops after German invasion; volunteering for the bakery when he was incarcerated; transfer to a prison in Bruges; escape; traveling to Brussels, then his home; joining an organization of war veterans; contacting a...

  17. Wilson C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William C., who served as a chaplain with the United States Army in World War II. He recounts graduation from a Methodist seminary in 1943; joining the military in 1944; deployment to Europe in spring 1945; entering Buchenwald after liberation; emaciated prisoners showing them the barracks, crematoria, gallows, and lampshades made of human skin; a Jewish prisoner requesting a religious service; locating a Jewish cantor in the chaplaincy; helping transport the former prisoners to a church in Eisenach where they had organized the service; his strong emotional response t...

  18. Winnie S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Winnie S., a non-Jew, who was born in the Netherlands in 1925. She recalls the German invasion; animosity toward women who dated German soldiers; confiscation of Jewish stores; round-ups of Jews, who were deported, and of Dutch men for forced labor in Germany; participating in resistance activities with her fiance; giving her identity papers to a Jewish girl, then obtaining new ones for herself; her job in city hall which provided the opportunity to take blank documents, which her fiance provided to the underground, and to remove files so people "no longer existed;" a...