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 47,921 to 47,940 of 55,889
Search result ordering

  1. Irving C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Irving C., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1915. He describes a childhood of extreme poverty; working as a tailor; German occupation; slave labor and beatings; fleeing to Bia?ystok; staying with his sister and brother in a synagogue; meeting his future wife and her father; registering to go to the Soviet Union; traveling with his brother, sister, future wife, and her father in cattle cars to Omsk; his marriage; living in barracks on the outskirts of Omsk; hard labor, then working as a tailor; his daughter's birth; a year's military service in Kalachinsk; returning t...

  2. Peter G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter G., a distinguished scholar and professor of history, who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1923. Professor G. describes his childhood and education; his parents' atheism; the Nuremberg laws; the different opinions people held about the Nazis; his family's haphazard plans to emigrate; Kristallnacht; obtaining passage to Cuba; his two year stay in Havana; and his emigration to the United States. He also discusses the opposing theories of whether the Holocaust could happen again; the impact that the refugees had on United States intellectual life; and his thoughts o...

  3. Fred F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred F., who was born in 1915 to an assimilated Jewish-American family. He recalls being drafted into the United States military; serving in the China-India-Burma theatre as a journalist; assignment to the ETO to report on Europe to U.S. troops in Asia; and entering Mauthausen shortly after its liberation. Mr. F. discusses lack of preparation for what they encountered; the stench; keeping a "stiff upper lip" for the sake of the surviving prisoners; the unique sound (because of their extreme emaciation) of the prisoners clapping for the Americans; shaking hands with a ...

  4. Rachel K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachel K., who was born in Sokoły, Poland in approximately 1921, one of two children. She recounts attending a Polish public school; antisemitic harassment; attending a Jewish gymnasium in Białystok; German invasion; Soviet occupation a week later; moving to Białystok; her father and brother fleeing to Vilna; she and her mother joining them; her father living in another town due to his immigrant status (she never saw him again); German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor cleaning German soldiers' quarters; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; her mothe...

  5. Zahava S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zahava S., who was born in Abau?jsza?nto?, Hungary in 1929. She relates her family's strong Hungarian identity; friendly relations with non-Jews; the impact of anti-Jewish laws; her father's draft into a Hungarian labor battalion; and the difficulty of believing stories of atrocities coming from Poland. Mrs. S. recalls deportation to the Kos?ice ghetto; childish concern for her cat; deportation to Auschwitz; separation with her sister from the rest of their family; incarceration in Block 26 of Birkenau which had housed typhus victims and was used to see how many would...

  6. Siegfried H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Siegfried H., who was born in Germany in 1910. He recounts his father had one Jewish grandparent; his father's career as an Evangelical-Lutheran pastor; living in Berlin from 1917; being asked to leave a Christian religion class due to his "Jewish" last name; learning then he had Jewish ancestors and relatives; yearly visits from Jewish cousins; studying law from 1929; being ineligible to take final exams in 1933 due to his Jewish ancestry; his father's removal from his position by the church which led to his collapse and death; his brother's emigration to Denmark in ...

  7. Luisa A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Luisa A., who was born in Polichna, Poland in 1938, the youngest of nine children. She recounts vague memories of her parents' business; visits with extended family; one brother's emigration to Bolivia in 1939; her father going to a labor camp in 1942 and returning completely debilitated; her mother and brothers finding a hiding place; digging bunkers near stables and hiding in attics; the murder of two older brothers in 1943 when they were out seeking food; her mother making clothes from potato sacks; a farm owner informing them the Soviets had arrived; running away;...

  8. Samuel P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samuel P., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1914. He recounts his father's death when he was an infant; working from age seven; a Jewish philanthropist enabling him to attend a Jewish school; working as a film projectionist; German occupation; being sent to forced labor; escaping; returning to Thessalonike? to be with his family (he could have hidden); learning his mother and two sisters had been deported (they did not survive); his deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; slave labor; surgery to remove one testicle as part of specious medical experiments; recuperat...

  9. Agnesa K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Agnesa K., who was born in Košice, Czechoslovakia in 1924. She recalls being raised in Prešov; close relations with her extended family; her Austrian nanny; minimal Jewish education; belonging to Hashomer Hatzair despite her father's anti-Zionism; Slovak independence; anti-Jewish harassment, including expulsion from school in 1940; attending sewing classes; deportations beginning in spring 1942; pretending to be sick during a round-up; her parents arranging her escape to relatives in Budapest; her uncle arranging to hide her in a convent in III. Kerület (Óbuda); v...

  10. Raquel D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Raquel D., who was born in Lida, Belarus in 1941, after German invasion. Ms. D. tells her story based on what she has learned from her sister, relatives, photographs, book, and documents. She relates being smuggled out of the ghetto and placed with a childless Polish family; being raised as their child; relatives reclaiming her after the war; traveling to Warsaw, Stockholm, then Montevideo by herself; a warm welcome by many relatives; adoption by a maternal uncle and his wife in San Isidro; attending public and Jewish schools; knowing nothing of her past; attempts to ...

  11. Eva L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva L., who was born in Reichenberg (Liberec), Czechoslovakia in 1933. She recalls her affluent family; vacationing in Belgium in 1938; moving to Prague with her parents in September; attending Jewish school; a last visit to her maternal grandparents; smuggling themselves into Hungary in 1939; six weeks in Budapest in her aunt's home; separation from her parents, when they were arrested while illegally entering Yugoslavia using false papers; telling the guards, as instructed, that she was Catholic; her release; brief stays in Zagreb and Mitrovica; attending school in ...

  12. Maurice F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maurice F., who was born in Sambor, Poland in 1923. He recounts moving to Belgium with his family when he was a child; his father's death; leaving school to help support his family; becoming a furrier; German invasion; fleeing to France with his mother and brother; their arrest; incarceration with his brother in Saint-Cyprien; their release due to his brother's musical talent; finding their mother in Toulouse; moving to a town near Agde, to Marseille, then Valras-Plage; arrest in summer 1942; incarceration in Rivesaltes, then Drancy; deportation with his brother to a ...

  13. Lilly G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lilly G., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1925, an only child. She recounts a close relationship with her Hasidic grandparents; German occupation; attending a Jewish school; Kristallnacht; expropriation of her mother's business; her parents obtaining false papers; their emigration to Brussels in spring 1939; living in Antwerp; obtaining visas for the United States; German invasion in May 1940; her father's arrest as an "enemy alien"; his deportation to camps in France; arranging to be smuggled to Paris, then Nice; living in Marseille; visiting her father in the cam...

  14. Erich S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Erich S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1929, the youngest of three children. He recounts his family observing Judaism, although not orthodoxy; moving to Nové Mesto nad Váhom in 1935; attending a Jewish school; their return to Bratislava in 1936; attending a Jewish school; participating in Maccabi ha-Ẓair; hearing Hitler's speech from Vienna after the Anschluss in 1938; increasing antisemitism; his father declining an offer to move to Bolivia; his sister's sham marriage to avoid deportation; his brother's draft for forced labor;...

  15. Art G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Art G., who was born in approximately 1929, in K?obuck, Poland. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; antisemitic harassment; German invasion; fleeing east with his siblings; being overtaken by the Germans in Radomsko; returning home; his father hiding from a round-up with a non-Jewish friend; his deportation (he did not survive); ghettoization in 1941; his bar mitzvah; he, two sisters, and his mother smuggling themselves to the Cze?stochowa ghetto; his oldest sister bringing him and his sisters to K?obuck concentration camp (his mother remained and did not survive); sl...

  16. Theodor G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Theodor G., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1912. He recalls a loving, assimilated home; withdrawing from gymnasium due to antisemitism; attending high school; his father's death in 1936 from an SS beating; selling his business in January 1939 due to anti-Jewish laws; menial jobs through an official Jewish agency; a coal company owner befriending him; arrest in August 1939; incarceration in Sachsenhausen; assistance from a guard who sent messages to his wife; a beating resulting in permanent injuries; escaping with two friends having notified their wives to meet th...

  17. Joyce H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joyce H., who was born in Vysna? Rybnica, Czechoslovakia in 1930. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation; attending boarding school; German occupation in 1944; her parents' ghettoization in Uz?h?orod; being hidden by a non-Jew; joining her parents; their deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents upon arrival (she never saw them again); transfer to Hamburg; slave labor removing rubble after Allied bombings; receiving food from a Dutch foreman and political prisoners; transfer to Bergen-Belsen in February 1945; receiving no food or...

  18. Fredka M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fredka M., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in approximately 1921, one of two sisters. She recounts her family's affluence; attending public school; participating in No?ar ha-Tsiyoni; skiing in Zakopane; working with Moshe Merin (future head of the Judenrat) to assist refugees from Germany; German invasion; her father fleeing east; fleeing with her mother, sister, and aunt; returning when overtaken by German troops; her father's return; working for the Judenrat, then in the Jewish hospital; organizing educational activities and food for children; traveling to Os?wie...

  19. Eva R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva R., who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1927. She recalls an idyllic childhood; cordial relations with non-Jews; vacations with her parents; German occupation in March 1939; anti-Jewish laws; expulsion from school; participating in a Jewish club; deportation to Theresienstadt with her father in August 1942 (her mother was on the next transport); working in the fields; cultural activities, including music and poetry lectures; Jewish leadership diverting resources to the young people; "dating" her future husband; a physician treating her serious illness; sham ...

  20. Klara S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Klara S., who was born in a small town near Vladislavovka, Ukraine in 1900. She recalls moving to L?vov; moving to the ghetto with her husband, daughter, siblings and other members of their extended families; avoiding deportation due to her husband's job; hiding her daughter with a Polish woman; the liquidation of the ghetto; hiding with her daughter and sister-in-law with a Polish family for fourteen months; receiving letters from her husband; the deaths of her husband and most of the other members of their families; and liberation by the Russians. She relates travel...