Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 2,841 to 2,860 of 55,772
  1. CNN Story

  2. Jacques A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacques A., who was born in Germany in 1923. He recounts his mother's family's long history in Germany; their flight from Wuppertal to Nancy in 1933 due to antisemitism; moving to Romainville in 1936; arrest in 1941 for beating a Nazi sympathizer; escaping to Nantes; obtaining false papers; learning of his family's arrest in October 1942; his arrest in Nantes in 1943 as a Resistant; Gestapo interrogations; transfer to Drancy; deportation to Auschwitz; slave labor in "Lagischa Gruben" (Lagisza Cmentarna); transfer to Birkenau in July 1944; contracting typhus; friends p...

  3. Harry J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry J., who was born in Częstochowa, Poland in 1932, the second youngest of eight siblings. He recounts their relative affluence and orthodoxy; German invasion; ghettoization; hiding in a bunker with his family during round-ups; one brother's deportation to Treblinka; smuggling themselves into the small ghetto; hiding with his younger brother, then with his mother and younger brother; his mother ordering him to join his sisters at HASAG Pelzery, knowing the younger boy could not survive; slave labor in a munitions factory; visiting his sisters; their "release" in J...

  4. Jona J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jona J., who was born in Čaňa, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1928, one of six children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; attending public and Jewish schools; Hungarian occupation; a round-up by Hungarian police; deportation to Košice, then Auschwitz; remaining with one brother; learning of the gas chambers; observing huge fires and smelling a noxious odor; realizing his family had been killed; transfer two weeks later to Kittlitztreben; slave labor building bunkers; Polish non-Jews sharing extra food; hospitalization for pneumonia; obtaining a privileged...

  5. Orna B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Orna B., who was born in W?oc?awek, Poland in 1928. She recounts joining Hashomer Hatzair; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions and violence; deportations starting in December; her family traveling to Warsaw; staying in Krako?w and Tarno?w; her grandfather's murder in June 1942; ghettoization; forced labor; hiding in a bunker during round-ups; her father convincing Amon Goeth to bring them to P?aszo?w; a sadistic public hanging; her father providing extra food; their transfer to Wieliczka; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau with her mother (she never saw her father a...

  6. François J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of François J., a non-Jew, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1914. He recalls attending Catholic schools despite his and his parents' secularism; training, then working as a tailor; German invasion; traveling to Dunkerque with a friend, hoping to enlist; returning to Brussels; his uncle's open work in the Resistance; his own participation; marriage; his uncle's arrest, revelation of their network, and his arrest in 1943; incarceration in St. Gilles for ten months; designation as "Nacht und Nebel" (NN); transfer with about one hundred Belgians to Essen, Vechta, then K...

  7. Jack G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack G., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1938 to a Jewish father (whom he never knew) and a half-Jewish mother. He recounts his mother telling him of his father's arrest in 1939; hiding with his mother; deportation with his mother to Theresienstadt; his mother's forced labor; an unsuccessful attempt to transfer to another camp by train with a friend; being "kicked off the train" and spending two months in "a holding place" in Vienna; returning to Theresienstadt, where his mother taught him reading and arithmetic; receiving packages from his aunt in Vienna; liberati...

  8. Berthold G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Berthold G., who was born in Regensburg, Germany in 1921. He recalls a cheerful early life; attending a Jewish school until fourth grade, then a high school for engineering training; observing Jewish holidays, although not orthodox; antisemitic harassment, particularly after 1935; working for a German who was kind to him until 1938; his family receiving United States visas, planning to emigrate in December; his father's arrest on Kristallnacht; his arrest with his mother and grandmother the next morning; finding his father at the assembly place; their deportation to D...

  9. Joza K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joza K., a Catholic musician who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1949 and is presently on the faculty of the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford. Mr. K., who has dedicated the past several years to the study and performance of the music of Theresienstadt, details the history and development of musical composition and performance in the camp.

  10. Rudolf Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rudolf Z., who was born in Trnava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923, the youngest of three children. He recounts his family history; his father's work in the printing trade; his father's refusal to convert despite not believing in Judaism; moving to Bratislava in 1926; attending school; viewing himself as a humanist; antisemitic harassment; attending gymnasium; joining the Communist Party in 1940 as a student; HIinka guards preventing Jews from attending universities; forced labor in Ivanka pri Dunaji; arrest in Koliba; imprisonment; visits from his future ...

  11. Robert S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Robert S., who was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1919, the youngest of five children. He recalls attending a Jewish school; visiting his sisters and their families in Kraków; working in his family's business; an SS friend warning him of Kristallnacht; German invasion of Poland; one brother fleeing to Nice; his parents being trapped in Poland while visiting Kraków; four failed attempts to leave Germany; arrest and release in Zwieselstein, Austria during an attempt; moving to Berlin; being smuggled with his cousin to the Netherlands in November 1939; living at his uncle...

  12. Max H. and Johanna J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max H., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1933 and of Johanna J., daughter of Mr. H's rescuers, who was born in Deurne, Netherlands in 1932. Mr. H. recalls expulsion from public school in 1941; attending a Jewish school; being hidden by a non-Jewish neighbor during a 1942 search for his father; his mother's arrest; and his father procuring her release through his influence as a member of the Jewish Council. He describes hiding with his family in the countryside, at a Catholic camp, then in the chicken house at Ms. J.'s parents' farm; his father playing with an...

  13. Omar W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Omar W., who served as an officer in the United States Army during World War II. He recalls his unit's arrival at Dachau shortly after its liberation; boxcars filled with corpses; emaciated prisoners; rooms full of bodies stacked like wood; and crematoria. Mr. W. recounts serving for three months as commander of a displaced persons camp near Salzburg, Austria and discusses his thoughts on hatred between peoples and the importance of his providing eyewitness proof of the Holocaust.

  14. Kurt G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kurt G., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1907. He describes his family's orthodoxy; pervasive antisemitism; his father's death in 1930; marriage; German occupation; arrest in May 1938, then incarceration in Dachau in June, and transfer to Buchenwald in September; forced labor; his shock at being incarcerated simply for being Jewish; release after his wife obtained a visa for Shanghai for him; emigration with his wife to the United States via Zurich and Paris; arriving in February 1939; and his brother and mother joining them. Mr. G. emphasizes his continuing negati...

  15. Hildegard B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hildegard B., who was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1926 to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. She recalls her older brother and sister studying law in Prague; anti-Jewish restrictions after 1938; expulsion from school; her brother's emigration to the United States; her sister's marriage to a Czech military pilot; moving to Prague; expulsion from their home in March 1939; her father's escape to Yugoslavia, then Palestine; her mother's interrogations by the SS; living in her maternal grandparents' attic in Jablonec; hiding with paternal relatives in Liberec; r...

  16. Frima L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frima L., who was born in Volochisk, Ukraine in 1936. She recounts moving to a larger city; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; being caught in a round-up; waiting near the edge of a mass grave; a reprieve when her mother convinced a German they were Ukrainian; interrogations when it was suspected they were Jewish; escaping; hiding with non-Jewish neighbors; returning to the ghetto; escaping with her mother (her father was caught and killed); hiding with non-Jewish friends while her mother escaped to Romania; being asked to leave; buying a large crucifix to wear; ...

  17. Sali B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sali B., who was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1924. Mrs. B. recalls her childhood; German occupation in March 1939; anti-Jewish legislation; one brother's forced emigration to Poland; her father's execution in October 1941; deportation to Auschwitz of another brother and relatives; and deportation with her mother, younger brother, and sister to Theresienstadt. She describes relatively good conditions in their early incarceration; work in the kitchen; unsuccessful efforts to prevent her mother's deportation to Auschwitz in March 1944; deportation to Auschwitz with h...

  18. Andrew S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Andrew S., who was born in Potrete, Hungary, in 1929. This testimony includes and expands upon the information from an earlier interview (HVT-495). Mr. S. details his family history; the origins of prewar antisemitism; and increasingly severe anti-Jewish laws. He graphically describes the loss of privacy and dignity during deportation; local people's sympathy; intense feelings of being lost and humiliated upon arrival in Auschwitz; the importance of the prisoners' caring about each other; and longing for a normal life in abnormal circumstances. He reflects on his rece...

  19. Arnold and Lionel R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arnold R. who was born in 1928 in a town in Slovakia, and his brother Lionel R., who was born in the same town in 1926. Both brothers describe their Orthodox upbringing; the Hungarian and German occupations; their life in the ghetto at Munka?cs; the liquidation of the ghetto; and widespread violence and cruelty. They relate their transport to and arrival at Auschwitz; separation from their mother; their transfer, along with their father, to Mauthausen; and their slave labor in Melk and Ebensee. They also tell of their support of each other and their father during this...

  20. Yaffa U. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yaffa U., who was born in Švenčionys, Poland (presently Lithuania) in 1927, the youngest of three children. She recalls her large, extended family; their affluence; Soviet occupation in 1939; confiscation of their land and houses; her brother and sister leaving; German invasion in June 1941; Lithuanians taking her father (she never saw him again); giving their valuables to non-Jewish neighbors; forced labor in Polygon; living with her extended family; her uncle bribing a Lithuanian for their release (her mother remained and she never saw her again); returning to Šv...