Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 12,621 to 12,640 of 55,818
  1. Leon and Molly N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon N., who was born in M?awa, Poland in 1910 and his wife, Molly N., who was born in M?awa in 1923. Mr. N. tells of prewar life; German occupation; ghettoization in 1941; starvation; food smuggling; mass killings and public hangings; deportation to Auschwitz in 1942 with his first wife and four children; wanting to kill himself "on the wires" knowing his family had been murdered; work as a shoemaker for over three years one-quarter mile from the gas chambers; evacuation in 1945 to several camps ending at Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; meeting General P...

  2. Walter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter S., who was born in Steinbach, Germany in 1924. He recalls living in Mannheim from 1931 on; his strong sense of German identity; expulsion from school; attending Jewish school; Kristallnacht; learning his father was in Dachau; moving to a kibbutz near Berlin hoping to emigrate to Palestine; and Gestapo takeover of the kibbutz. Mr. S. describes extreme hunger while harvesting crops for the Germans; transfer to several camps; observing the bombing of Berlin; transport to Auschwitz; selection for work in Buna; being shaved and tattooed (#117,022); illness; transfe...

  3. 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;...

  4. Erena A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Erena A., who was born in Munich in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. She describes her Bohemian childhood in the town of Dachau; the early death of her father; her imprisonment with her mother, who had been arrested for communist tendencies; and her Catholic education in Vienna under the guardianship of her maternal grandparents, whom she discovered after the war to be Sephardic Jews. Ms. A. talks of life in the artistic communities of Berlin; the growth of politics within those communities from a peripheral to a central position; her underground activities as...

  5. Ladislas G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testiomony of Ladislas G., who was born in Munka?cs, Hungary, in 1906, one of six children. He discusses prewar Jewish life in Munka?cs; his father avoiding the draft during World War I; Hungary under Czech occupation; and his life in Khust, where he worked in the lumber industry. Mr. G. tells of his resistance to and conscription into the Czech army (1936-1938) and the Jewish brigade of the Hungarian army (1941-1943.) He recounts the ghettoization of Khust in April, 1944, following the German occupation, and the activities of the Judenrat, on which he served. Also noted are his b...

  6. Suzanne R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Suzanne R., who was born in Hungary in 1924. Mrs. R. describes prewar life in the large Jewish community of Debrecen; the gradual encroachment of antisemitism, which reached its peak after the German occupation in 1944; the formation and liquidation of the Debrecen ghetto; and her deportation, with her family, to Auschwitz. She tells of her arrival at Auschwitz; the physical and psychological conditions there, where she worked in the kitchens; a brief reunion with her father; and her selection, with several female relatives, for the labor camp in Allendorf. In Allendo...

  7. Stefan R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Stefan R., who was born in a small city in Romania in 1914 and spent most of his prewar life in Oradea Mare. He tells of his family life without his father, who died when he was six years old; his service in the Romanian army (1934-1936;) his conscription in 1942, after the Hungarian takeover, into the Jewish brigade of the Hungarian army, from which he repeatedly escaped; and his hiding in Budapest, at times with the aid of the Communist and Jewish undergrounds, and for a time in a Swedish safe house, until the city's liberation by the Russians.

  8. Menachem S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Menachem S., who was born in Krako?w in 1938. In this unusually vivid and insightful testimony, he outlines his family background and relates his earliest recollections, which date to 1942 when his family moved into the Krako?w ghetto ,then P?aszo?w concentration camp. He describes his March 1943 leavetaking from his parents (noting that they promised to find him after the war) and his mother's parting gift of her high school photo identification which sustained him throughout the separation. He tells of being smuggled out of P?aszo?w; his stay in a whorehouse, where ...

  9. Daniel F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Daniel F., who was born circa 1928 in Craidorolt?, a small town in Transylvania near Satu Mare. He tells of being educated in Craidorolt?, Huedin, and Satu Mare before moving to Oradea in 1941 after the Hungarian annexation of Transylvania. The transfer of the Jews of Oradea to the ghetto of Satu Mare, which took place in the spring of 1944, is related. Mr. F. describes life in the ghetto, where he and his family remained until their deportation to Auschwitz. He recounts his separation from his family upon arrival and his internment in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager),...

  10. Albert, Gina, and Kurt K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Albert K., who was born in Poland in 1903; Gina K., who was born in Vienna in 1909; and their son Kurt K., who was born in Vienna in 1937. Married in Vienna in 1937, Mr. and Mrs. K. describe their pre-war life in Vienna; the birth of their son; and the German invasion and conditions under German occupation. They tell of their flight from Vienna to Antwerp, where they remained until the German occupation of Belgium; their arrest in Antwerp; and an aborted attempt to deport them to Poland, which landed them instead on a farm in Belgium. They relate being sent back to An...

  11. Ludwig F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ludwig F., who was born in Poland in 1908. Mr. F. speaks of his education; his successful business in Cze?stochowa; his marriage in 1933; and the birth of his daughter in 1937. He describes the German occupation and the anti-Jewish measures which followed; the ghettoization of Cze?stochowa; and conditions and slave labor in the ghetto. He relates the liquidation of the ghetto, during which he smuggled himself out on a cart of corpses, then joined the group of laborers charged with burying the bodies; his work as a clerk for a German captain; and how, with the assistan...

  12. Lois and Abraham J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lois J., who was born in a small town near Vilna, Poland in 1927, and her husband Abraham J., who was born in a small town in Poland in 1921. Mrs. J. discusses prewar Jewish life in her home town; the Russian occupation in 1939; the German takeover in 1941 and the ensuing anti-Jewish legislation; ghettoization of her town and conditions under German rule; and her escape into the forest, where she lived with a group of 300 partisans and refugees from other ghettos. Mr. J. describes family life before the war; the displacement of his family following Russian occupation;...

  13. Jack P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack P., who was born in Koniecpol, Poland in 1915. He speaks of prewar family life; moving as a boy to the larger town of Częstochowa; his family's flight after the German occupation in 1939; and their return a short time later to the beginning of ghettoization. He relates his and his brother's flight to Russian occupied territory and his return to Częstochowa in 1941 to be with his parents. He discusses life in the ghetto; the liquidation of the Częstochowa ghetto; his selection for slave labor in factories in the remaining "small ghetto"; his unsuccessful attemp...

  14. Leo G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leo G., who was born in Be?dzin, Poland in 1923. He describes his childhood in a poor and very religious household in Be?dzin and in nearby Sosnowiec; prewar antisemitism; and his education and work experiences. He recalls the influx of German Jews into Poland; the German march through Be?dzin in September 1939, and the abuse by Germans of Jewish inhabitants; ghettoization, forced labor, and anti-Jewish regulations; and his transport to Germany in early 1942. He tells of his slave labor near Gleiwitz and in Bunzlau, a sub-camp of Gross Rosen, where he worked in a sawm...

  15. Michael R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael R., who was born in Wieliczka, Poland in 1911. He describes his childhood; his apprenticeship to a baker in Dzia?oszyce; the German occupation of his town; his marriage in December 1939; and the birth of his child in 1940. He speaks of his forced labor until the liquidation of his town in 1942; his and his family's unsuccessful attempts to hide; his brief stay with his wife and child in a labor camp near Krako?w; and their internment in the Krako?w ghetto, where he and his wife were separated from their child and his mother-in-law and taken to separate labor c...

  16. Martin F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin F., who was born in a small town in Poland in 1920. Mr. F. describes his childhood in Be?dzin; his involvement in Zionist youth organizations; his stay on a kibbutz near the Russian border until the outbreak of the war; and his unsuccessful attempt to escape to Palestine via Russia. He relates being sent from Be?dzin to Germany as a slave laborer; the typhus epidemic at Faulbruck/Gra?ditz where he, his father, and his brother were among the few survivors; and his transfer to Langenbielau, then to Gross Rosen. He speaks of his hatred and desire for revenge as a ...

  17. Rev. Michael V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael V., who was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1946 to a Christian father and a Jewish mother. He speaks of his mother's family, most of whom perished in Auschwitz; his parents' decision to raise him as a Christian; and his response to the Holocaust from the perspective of both a Jew and a Christian. He also discusses his decision to become a minister and his belief that his becoming a Christian is not a refutation of his Judaism.

  18. Leo G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leo G., who was born in Berlin in 1921. Mr. G. details his family history and speaks of his prewar life. He describes his experiences of antisemitism during the rise of Nazism, both in school and in his neighborhood. He relates the death of his father in 1933; Kristallnacht and other anti-Jewish actions which followed; his departure from his mother and three sisters, whom he never saw again; and his emigration to the United States. He recounts his enlistment in the U.S. Army in 1942; his training as a denazification expert; and his arrival in Normandy, where he witnes...

  19. Pincus and Sylvia S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pincus S., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1906, and his wife Sylvia S., who was born in Pultusk, Poland in 1922 and moved to ?o?dz? in 1937. Mr. S. tells of his prewar marriage to his first wife and his work as a furrier. Both Mr. and Mrs. S. speak of the German occupation of ?o?dz?; the torture and humiliation which followed; the ghettoization of ?o?dz?; ghetto life; their impressions of Rumkowski, elder of the Jewish Council of ?o?dz?; and round-ups and deportations from the ghetto. Mrs. S. describes the death of her father in the ghetto; her transport to Auschwi...

  20. Siegried K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Siegfried K., who was born in Danzig in 1930. He notes Danzig's unique place in Jewish history and speaks of his luxurious prewar life. He tells of the rise of Nazism and recalls shaking Hitler's hand during a visit to Berlin as a small child. The disturbances and attacks by the Brownshirts and his experiences with antisemitism, which continued in the United States, are also related. He describes his family's flight to England in 1938; the difficulty of leaving home and relatives, and, for him, leaving behind his beloved dog; the help given them by German non-Jews; hi...