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 47,241 to 47,260 of 55,889
Search result ordering

  1. Louis E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Louis E., who was born in Kielce, Poland in 1923 to a religious family of four children. He describes childhood in an antisemitic atmosphere; German invasion; anti-Jewish measures; ghettoization; Jewish police rounding up forced laborers; deportations; learning about gas chambers from an escapee; the shooting of his parents and grandmother on the way to a selection; the ghetto's liquidation in 1943; transfer with his brother to Bliz?yn; escaping to Kielce with assistance from a Jewish policeman and a Pole; forced labor in Henrykowo; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau, the...

  2. Vera R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Vera R., who was born in Mainz, Germany in 1930. Mrs. R. relates antisemitism in school; her family's move to Le Ve?sinet, France in 1938; her father's refusal to emigrate to the United States to join his family because of their good life in France; his incarceration as a German immediately after war broke out; fleeing with her mother to southern France; her father joining them; and internment in Rivesaltes. She recalls boarding a train with her parents; being taken off by a friend of her parents; receiving a letter her mother wrote on the way to Drancy; being hidden ...

  3. Victor S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Victor S., who was born in 1910 in Kozienice, Poland. He recalls being raised in a Hasidic family; Polish army service in 1934; work as a cabinet maker in Warsaw when the Germans invaded; army service in several places; deserting; assistance from Poles in reaching safety in ?o?dz?; and returning to Kozienice. Mr. S. details leaving for Warsaw to join his girlfriend; their marriage in Kras?nik, her hometown; ghettoization; forced labor; his son's birth; finding his wife's mother, father and grandmother murdered; his incarceration in Budzyn? in late 1942; learning of a ...

  4. Tushia Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tushia Z., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1925. She describes her assimilated childhood; vacationing in Zakopane in summer 1939; German invasion; street killings of Jews; her mother's murder in November 1939; her father sending her to another city; a mass killing; returning to Krako?w; living with her father and brother in the ghetto; transfer to P?aszo?w when the ghetto was liquidated; working in Oskar Schindler's factory; benign conditions compared to P?aszo?w; deportation to Birkenau; transfer to Auschwitz; a death march to Buchenwald; forced labor at Hasag-Lei...

  5. Mor L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mor L., who was born in Davyd-Haradok, Russia (presently Belarus) in 1917, one of seven children. He recounts attending cheder, then a Hebrew school; participating in Hashomer Haleumi; living with a sister in Vilnius to attend a Polish gymnasium beginning in 1931; two sisters emigrating to Palestine; beginning university studies in chemistry; antisemitic harassment; a humiliating beating by Endecja members; Soviet occupation in 1939; completing university; a futile attempt to obtain emigration papers in Kaunus; returning to Vilnius; German invasion in June 1941; force...

  6. Kate F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kate F., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1914, the only child of a government official. She recalls her family's assimilated lifestyle; graduation from school in 1933; a teacher avoiding racial questions on Mrs. F.'s final oral exam; deteriorationg conditions; teaching German for a year in Paris; studying comparative literature at the Sorbonne; visiting her parents in Berlin; seeing broken glass the morning after Kristallnacht; her parents' emigration to Paris to join her; and transport to Gurs as an "enemy alien." Mrs. F. recounts her release after the Germans occ...

  7. Rita K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rita K., who was born in 1925 in Lauterbach, Germany. She recounts attending school; being shunned by non-Jewish friends; eviction from their apartment; restrictions resulting from the Nuremberg laws; antisemitic harassment by her teacher; briefly attending a Jewish boarding school in Bad Nauheim; her father traveling to the United States to convince relatives to sponsor them for emigration; an examination at the United States Consulate in Stuttgart; emigration to the United States via Hamburg/Cuxhaven in December 1937; her maternal aunt's emigration in 1938; and her ...

  8. Hyman K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hyman K., who was born in Kishinev, Romania (presently Chișinău, Moldova) in 1925, the oldest of eleven children, five of whom died prior to the war. He recalls extreme poverty; attending public school and cheder; leaving at age twelve to start a business with his grandmother; Soviet occupation; German invasion; fleeing east; separation from his family; imprisonment for a year; draft into the Soviet military; deserting after less than a year; traveling under trains to Turkmenbashy, Tashkent, then Kirgiziya; returning to Kishinev in 1944; learning his grandparents ha...

  9. Rose L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rose L., who was born in a small town in Poland in 1910. She describes growing up in an affluent family; studying with private tutors; marriage to a wealthy businessman; establishing their home in Tluste (presently Tovste); her daughter's birth; Soviet occupation; persecution as business owners, including loss of their house; her parents moving to Ozeri?a?ny to avoid her father being arrested; German invasion; ghettoization; mass killings; joining her parents in Ozeri?a?ny with her daughter; returning to Tluste with her daughter after learning that her husband was dep...

  10. Helen F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen F., who was born in Uz?h?horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1926. She recalls the warmth of her family's observances of Jewish holidays; her father's role as the cantor; cordial relations with non-Jews; sharing their home with relatives who had fled Germany; German occupation in spring 1944; ghettoization for four weeks; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents upon arrival; brutal camp guards; starvation; lack of facilities for personal hygiene; frequent selections; receiving extra food from a female guard; suicides; a death march in Dece...

  11. David L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David L., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1920. He speaks of his happy childhood, religious education, and Zionist activities. Noting prewar, wartime, and postwar antisemitism, he describes the German occupation; the ghettoization of Warsaw; and conditions and daily life in the ghetto. He recalls his escape from the railroad station while awaiting deportation; the desperation and fear alternating with resignation that characterized his life in hiding on the Aryan side in Warsaw and its suburbs for the next year and a half; his marriage, while in hiding, in May 1943;...

  12. Sima S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sima S., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1924, one of three children. She recounts attending Hebrew and Yiddish schools; a rich Jewish cultural environment; participating in drama, choir, and scouts; antisemitic harassment; Soviet occupation, then Lithuanian control in 1939; she and her family living with an uncle in Dokshytsy; their return to Vilnius; performing in a Yiddish theater; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; a round-up including her brother and father (she never saw them again); brief imprisonment; ghetto...

  13. Anne-Lise S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anne-Lise S., who was born in Mannheim, Germany in approximately 1922. She recalls incarceration in Drancy; forming friendships; train transport to Auschwitz/Birkenau; selection for a quarantine barrack; thinking she was in a camp for insane people; one friend dying because she refused to eat, despite urging from others; an Italian Communist explaining the camp to them; slave labor building roads, then a privileged position as a translator due to her friend's influence; being protected from selections by friends who worked in the main office; working near the Canada K...

  14. Allegra and Henry A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Allegra A., who was born in Salonika, Greece in 1910, and her husband Henry, who joins her for the last half hour. She recounts her youth as the oldest of seven children in an observant family; education in a French Jewish school; apprenticing as a seamstress; working in her family's textile dyeing plant; her arranged courtship and marriage; extensive volunteer work for the Jewish National Fund; the birth of her son in 1939; and escaping Italian air raids in 1940. She recalls the arrival of German troops; anti-Jewish measures; persuading her husband not to register fo...

  15. John F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John F., who served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. He recalls being assigned to an information gathering unit; traveling as a group of four to assignments and conveying their findings to their commander; assignment to visit Buchenwald; not being able to have imagined what they saw; being shown parts of the camp by an English-speaking guide, a former prisoner; disgust at the sights and smells; and continuing on to future assignments. Mr. F. discusses serving on the governor's Holocaust Committee and implementing Holocaust curriculum for sixth,...

  16. Lea W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lea W., who was born in Poland in 1921, and moved to Paris with her family in 1929 due to increasing antisemitism. She recalls active participation in Hashomer Hatzair; German invasion; her boyfriend's incarceration in Pithiviers in 1941; obtaining false documents verifying she was born in France; visiting her boyfriend; assisting him to escape to Toulouse, then their return to Paris; their marriage; moving to Dordogne, fearing discovery in Paris; non-Jews assisting her husband to obtain excellent false documents and local residence registration for them and her paren...

  17. Bart S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bart S., who was born in Uz?horod, Czechoslovakia and was twelve at the time of the Hungarian occupation in November 1938. He recalls Jewish refugees who fled from Sudetenland; being terrified that a Jewish community could disintegrate so rapidly; anti-Jewish laws; German occupation in 1944; suicides in the cattle car during deportation to Birkenau; transfer with his two older brothers to Auschwitz; slave labor in a coal mine in Jaworzno; his sense of complete hopelessness; transfer to a death block in Birkenau; hiding during evacuation in January 1945 (his brothers p...

  19. Sida S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sida S., who was born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in 1921. She recalls her family's move to Belgrade in 1934; involvement in Hashomer Hatzair; attending medical school; German invasion; hiding with her sister's non-Jewish friends; traveling to Tuzla with her boyfriend and brother to escape Ustaša killings; doing forced labor in her mother's place; sending photos of her parents to a relative in Mostar to obtain false papers; her father's and brother's arrest by Ustaša; receiving the false papers and a Muslim disguise; escaping with her mother to Italian-occupied Mostar; ...

  20. Morris K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Morris K., who was born in 1926 in ?o?dz?, Poland. He recalls German invasion; being caught in a round-up in December 1939; forced labor near Hamburg; transfer to Poznan? in March 1941 when it was discovered he was Jewish; transfer to the ?o?dz? ghetto in February 1943; reunion with his father; and deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau several days later. Mr. K. tells of a privileged work assignment obtained through a friend; two weeks in the punishment camp in March 1944; transfer to the Sonderkommando; working at the cremation pits into which guards threw living childre...