Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 29,881 to 29,900 of 33,302
Language of Description: English
  1. Ernest S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest S., who was born in Hildesheim, Germany, in 1925. Mr. S. recalls the gradual development of the Nazi ideology and program in Hildesheim; his public school education; the initial absence of anti-Semitic acts against his family; and the Nuremberg laws which partly influenced his parents' decision to emigrate. He relates his father's arrest in 1938 for attempting to send money out of the country; the killing of an uncle during Kristallnacht; the burning of the local synagogue; seizure of the Jewish-owned bank where his father worked; and his transfer to the local ...

  2. Paul G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul G., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1922. He tells of family moves to Budapest, France, then Berlin before he was five; being the only Jew in public school; the cosmopolitan Berlin lifestyle; being sent to his grandmother in Hungary from 1933 to 1935 due to the rise of Hitler; and increased antisemitism upon his return. Mr. G. recalls emigrating to the United States with his parents in 1936 rather than Hungary (his parents were Hungarian); their adjustment; the experience of being an immigrant; learning of family members who perished in concentration camps; an...

  3. Nadia R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Nadia R., who was born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1938. She recalls moving with her mother and grandparents to an area designated for Jews after the German invasion; the atmosphere of fear and anxiety; conversion to Christianity in 1943 as a means of protection; her grandfather arranging hiding places for them in 1944; arrest with her mother in December 1944; their transfer to Sered;? deportation to Terezi?n with her mother in January 1945; an emotional theater performance in the camp; the departure of Danish prisoners, arranged by the Swedish Red Cross, in April 1945...

  4. Shmuel M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shmuel M., who was born in Stakčín, Hungary (presently Slovakia) in 1926, one of three children. He recounts his maternal grandparents living with them; attending public school and cheder; his bar mitzvah; attending gymnasium in Snina for three years; Hungary allying itself with Germany; deportation with his family to the Kolomyi︠a︡ ghetto; their transfer to Horodenka; arrest with her father while attempting to smuggle themselves to Slovakia; imprisonment in Sanok and Tarnów; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; slave labor hauling cement bags; his father being kille...

  5. 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...

  6. Arie R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arie R., who was born in Mezőkovácsháza, Hungary in 1922, the oldest of six children. He recounts his family's poverty; attending public school and cheder; his bar mitzvah; studying in Békéscsaba; living with an aunt in Budapest; working in a factory; visiting his father in a work camp; German invasion; working with the Ṿaʻadat (Relief and Rescue Committee) under Fülöp Freudiger, a member of the Judenrat, arranging to smuggle Jews to Romania; German invasion; traveling to Szentes, then Szeged; obtaining blank documents to make false papers; returning to Budape...

  7. Esther J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther J., who was born in Wielun?, Poland in 1918. Mrs. J. recalls her close family of nine children; their religious observances; antisemitism after 1933; her engagement; her father's death immediately before the war; her fiance serving in the Polish army; German invasion in September 1939; fleeing with her family to join her fiance in the Soviet zone; and returning home to find their estate looted by Poles. She describes her family being fingerprinted by the Gestapo; leaving for ?o?dz? with her fiance and mother; marriage; fleeing to Kovel? in the Soviet zone; tran...

  8. Leonard S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leonard S., who served in the United States Army in World War II. He recounts fighting in Germany; liberating Nordhausen; transfer to Patton's 3rd Army; entering Dachau; seeing the crematoria and piles of human bones; liberating Eger; seeing severely emaciated prisoners and corpses stacked on flatbed trucks; and administering Bamberg displaced persons camp where they distributed Red Cross supplies meant for U.S. prisoners of war. He shows documents and objects from the war.

  9. Lilly S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lilly S., who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1924, one of six children. She recalls twenty-five Jewish families in her town; her parents' grocery store; cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; German occupation in spring 1944; deportation to Irshava, the Munkács ghetto, then Auschwitz; separation from her parents and siblings (she never saw them again); remaining with three cousins; transfer to Płaszów; having to undress and burn corpses after a mass shooting; pointle...

  10. Rachel L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachel L., who was born in Zduńska Wola, Poland in 1926, one of six children in a Hasidic family. She recounts attending public school; cordial relations with non-Jews; vacationing in Andrzejów; returning to Łódź; German invasion; her parents hiding their valuables; eviction from their home; ghettoization; living with an aunt; retrieving their valuables; trading them for necessities; her privileged position in the kitchen; sharing extra food with her family; deportation of her parents and siblings, except one sister; brief hospitalization; hiding with her sister d...

  11. Hella H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hella H., who was born in Breslau, Germany in 1919. She recounts her father's death prior to her birth; attending a Catholic school; her mother's remarriage; anti-Jewish regulations and deteriorating conditions after Hitler became chancellor; her brother's emigration to the United States in 1938; Kristallnacht; emigrating with her parents to Sarpsborg, Norway in October 1939; relocating to Fredrikstad; German invasion in 1940; a brief hospitalization in Oslo; her stepfather's arrest; visiting him in prison; his release and death shortly thereafter; escaping deportatio...

  12. Seymour O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Seymour (Sam) O., who was born in Hrubieszo?w, Poland in 1911. Mr. O. recalls his childhood experiences; memories of World War I; law school in Warsaw; the German invasion; his family's move to Soviet territory; his parents and sister's return to his brother Felix in Warsaw, then to Hrubieszo?w; and his move with his brother Felix to Soviet territory. He describes work as head of a school board and as a translator for the Soviet army; the German invasion of Russia; working as a"middleman" between the Judenrat, Ukrainians and Germans; fleeing when they heard about the ...

  13. Bronis?awa W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bronis?awa W., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1919. Ms. W. recalls her family's assimilated lifestyle; her father's death and mother's remarriage; beatings by her alcoholic stepfather; transferring to a Jewish school to avoid antisemitic harassment; helping support the family after her mother's divorce; ghettoization with her mother and sister in 1940 (her brother escaped to the Soviet zone and survived); selling their store to Poles who refused to pay them; working in the children's hospital which provided access to food, medicine and passes to leave the ghetto; e...

  14. Vera B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Vera B., who was born in a small town in Slovakia in 1918. She relates moving to Mukachevo in 1924; a happy childhood; attending college in Brno; expulsion in 1939 due to German occupation; Hungarian occupation of Mukachevo; conscription of males into Hungarian labor battalions; German occupation in 1944; and formation of the ghetto. Mrs. B. describes four weeks in the ghetto; Hungarian cruelty toward the Jews; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents who were murdered immediately; her inability to mourn for them then; her strong will to survive; collecti...

  15. Zev H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zev H., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland, in 1924. In this vivid and detailed testimony, Mr. H. recalls his family's refusal to flee east with retreating Polish troops in 1939; moving to Kielce to escape restrictions in ?o?dz?; sexual molestation by volksdeutsche; forced labor in a quarry; brutal conditions; his mother, sister, and grandmother disappearing in the summer 1942 liquidation; digging mass graves; and an SS man killing an infant, which continues to haunt him. He describes incarceration in a factory; resistance in the ghetto; deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; ...

  16. Samuel S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samuel S., who was born in Sni︠a︡tyn, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1920. He recounts his family's move to Vienna the following year; antisemitic harassment in school; Austrians warmly welcoming German occupation in 1938; attending Jewish school due to anti-Jewish restrictions; his father's arrest (he was in Dachau for four months, then Buchenwald for four months); his release upon promising to emigrate; obtaining documents in 1939 for three to emigrate to Palestine; his father, mother, and younger sister emigrating there; his emigration to Belfast with assistance fro...

  17. Max L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max L., who was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1921, the younger of two children. He recounts attending public and Hebrew schools; antisemitic harassment; participating in a Jewish scout group; anti-Jewish boycotts and restrictions; his bar mitzvah in 1934, the last time his extended family was together; his sister's emigration to the United States in 1936; his emigration in 1937; his parents' arrival in 1938; military draft in 1942; training as a dental technician; marriage; and the births of two children. Mr. L. discusses planning a ten-day visit to Germany in 1987; ...

  18. Lola L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lola L., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland in 1924. She recalls living with her family in a Jewish section; membership in Betar, a Zionist youth movement; constant fear of antisemitic incidents; German invasion in 1939; an unsuccessful attempt to flee with her family; anti-Jewish measures; the role of the Judenrat; her mother's brief imprisonment in Be?dzin; public hangings, selections and deportations; her deportation to Schatzlar in 1942 (she never saw her family again); slave labor, starvation and selections; learning of mass extermination from the inmates deported...

  19. Ruzena V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruzena V., who was raised in Sečovce, Czechoslovakia, one of six children. She recounts a Hlinka Guard advising her father to hide his daughters; not heeding him in order to remain together; relocation to Poprad; deportation to Auschwitz with two sisters; slave labor; obtaining a privileged position in the political department; sharing extra food with her sisters; transfer with them to Birkenau; their selection for gassing in January 1943; her privileged position in the laundry; brief transfer to the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); its liquidation; assignment to the new...

  20. Salek H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Salek H., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1919. He recalls his tightly-knit, observant, Jewish neighborhood; working in a factory; German invasion; fleeing to ?o?dz? with his family; joining the Polish army; serving in an anti-aircraft battery; bringing an injured soldier to Warsaw; the siege of Warsaw; incarceration in a German POW camp; escape; joining his family in ?o?dz?; ghettoization; working as a streetcar driver; smuggling rotting food by mixing it with coal; driving Polish civilians to work in the ghetto; frequent deportations and arrivals of Jews from othe...