Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 1,761 to 1,780 of 3,433
  1. Gertrud K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gertrud K., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. Mrs. K. recalls a comfortable life; strong Jewish identity; watching mass demonstrations when the Germans marched in; the plundering of her father's business two days later; ransacking of their home; and public humiliation of her father. She remembers Kristallnacht; her father and one brother's arrest; her other brother hiding; several weeks later her father's letter from Dachau; receiving permission to leave on a Kindertransport to Scotland; reluctance to leave with her father in prison; and begging a Gestapo offic...

  2. Viliam G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Viliam G., who was born in Hlohovec, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923. He recalls his father was principal and taught in an orthodox school; increasingly severe restrictions on Jews under the Hlinka guard; his sister's deportation; his father's influence obtaining his (Viliam's) position sorting the confiscated property of deported Jews, thus exempting him from deportation until 1944; a non-Jewish woman hiding him after the arrival of German troops; arrest; interrogation by the Gestapo in Trenčin, then incarceration in Sered; deportation to Auschwitz/Birke...

  3. Simon M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simon M., who was born in Ziegenhals, Germany (now G?ucho?azy, Poland) in 1905. He recalls his impoverished childhood in a large family; his father's military service in World War I; completing eight grade; working as a peddler; marriage in 1928; his first son's birth in 1930; living in Breslau when Hitler came to power; serving as a liaison to the Gestapo; helping Jews emigrate; Kristallnacht; arrest and deportation to Buchenwald; release with assistance from an SS officer; receiving help from Jews in Leipzig; returning to Breslau; traveling to Shanghai via Italy in ...

  4. Helga P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helga P., who was born in Charlottenburg, Germany in January 1939, the illegitimate child of a Jewish father, whom she never knew, and a half-Jewish mother. She recounts staying in a children's home in Eberswalde until the war began in September; living with her mother, uncle, and grandparents in Berlin; living briefly with her mother in Zedlitz; her Jewish grandmother hiding during Gestapo raids; her Protestant grandfather's efforts to save them; living in Brieselang; liberation by Soviet troops; resuming school; returning to Berlin; attending Jewish and Protestant s...

  5. Peter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter S., who was born in Chomonin, Czechoslovakia in 1923. He remembers antisemitic harassment; attending school in Mukacheve; membership in Hashomer Hatzair and Betar; Hungarian occupation; compulsory service in a Hungarian slave labor battalion in Uz?h?horod; German occupation; transfer to Baia Mare (Nagyba?nya), then Ditra?u; a beating by Hungarian police; futile escape attempts; transfer to Budapest; meeting his brother; escaping; producing false papers for the Swedish Red Cross; returning to the battalion since he was unable to hide; transfer to Szombathely; ret...

  6. Itzhak D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Itzhak D., who was born in Vilna, Russia (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1916, one of five children. He recounts participating in Hashomer Hatzair with Abba Kovner; Soviet occupation; working with the writer Szmerke Kaczerginski; German invasion; anti-Jewish violence; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; forced labor in a military fuel depot outside the ghetto; selling stolen fuel to purchase food; escaping; hiding with a German guard who had befriended him in the fuel depot; sneaking back into the ghetto; hiding with his family during the liquidation; capture; t...

  7. Sonia R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sonia R., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1929 of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. She describes her father's anti-Nazi activities; Gestapo harassment; emigration to Italy, then France, in January 1933 because of her father's politics; her mother's art work; expulsion from France nine months later; her father's return to Germany and her mother's refusal, leading to their divorce; moving with her mother to San Remo; her third sibling's birth; receiving government orders in October 1939 to leave because they were foreigners; a German consular official helpin...

  8. Eva V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva V., who was born in 1922 in Oradea Mare, Romania. She recalls her family's high position in local society; their sense of Hungarian identity; graduation from a convent school in 1939; Hungarian occupation; compulsory service for Jewish men in Hungarian labor battalions; the Gestapo commandeering their home; living with her grandfather in the ghetto; refusing to leave her family to escape to Romania; her grandfather's death; and deportation to Auschwitz. Mrs. V. recounts separation from her parents, whom she never saw again; transfer to Kaiserwald, Danzig and Stutt...

  9. Leon H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon H., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland, in 1919. Mr. H. tells of prewar antisemitism; becoming a carpenter like his father and brothers; his family's move to the ?o?dz? ghetto in 1940; starvation; a German soldier who refused to believe that Jews could be tradesmen; witnessing atrocities while doing carpentry at the local Gestapo headquarters; his mother's death after a beating; and surrendering to join his father and siblings when they were rounded-up. He details conditions on the deportation train; separation from his father and sister at Auschwitz; selection and t...

  10. Claire S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Claire S., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1935 to Polish parents. She recalls her parents' divorce; her father's remarriage; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; her mother requesting that non-Jewish neighbors care for Mrs. S.; her mother's deportation to Auschwitz (she never saw her again); her father visiting prior to being deported (he perished); a loving relationship with her foster family; not attending school for fear of discovery; and traveling to Lie?ge and Verviers to avoid Gestapo searches. She recounts her aunt's legal action to obtain custody o...

  11. Abraham P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abraham P., who was born in Mir, Poland in 1909. He recalls the rich, Jewish culture growing up in Bia?ystok; learning several languages; Jewish holiday celebrations; attending medical school in Lie?ge, Belgium; his leadership role in Po'alei Zion; his parents's and sister's emigration to Belgium in 1932; German invasion in 1940; his parents' flight to Lyon in unoccupied France, then the United States; obtaining papers under a false name; hiding in Brussels; smuggling himself to Lyon in unoccupied France in 1942; joining the Resistance; his sister's incarceration when...

  12. 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...

  13. Fredrika L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fredrika L., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1917. She recalls attending pharmacy school; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; marriage; paying large sums in 1942 for false papers to travel to Switzerland via Belgium; the Gestapo arresting her husband en route to Switzerland (she never saw him again), but releasing her; returning to warn her parents not to take that train (they had already left and were detained and deported); hiding in many places, often with her brother; a Belgian family who took them in; contemplating suicide, but deciding against i...

  14. Otto L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Otto L., who was born in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland in 1909 and raised in Konstanz, Germany. He recounts his family's long history in Germany and Switzerland; his parents' non-involvement with Judaism; active participation in gymnastics, swimming, and scouting; never experiencing antisemitism until an encounter with a non-local scout group; his bar mitzvah; an apprenticeship in Nuremberg for two years; friendship with a police officer who provided him with information that later saved his life; working in Bochum for thirteen months, then for his father; a job in Augsbur...

  15. Lepa M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lepa M., a non-Jew who was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1914. She describes the political atmosphere and situation of the Jews in Belgrade before the war; her marriage in 1935; the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941; and the anti-Jewish legislation and mass deportations which followed. She relates that in 1943 she and her husband hid five Jews in the basement of their house in Prokuplje, and that several months later they were discovered, and, along with Mrs. M.'s husband, were taken away and shot by the Gestapo in Nis?. Mrs. M. speaks of her life in Belgrade after ...

  16. Margot H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margot H., who was born in Mainz, Germany in 1918. She recalls growing up in Gau-Algesheim where she was the only Jewish child her age; pleasant relations with townspeople until 1933; encounters with Nazi teachers and youth groups; her father conducting business at night to avoid the Gestapo; working near Frankfurt; returning home to escape violent antisemitism; entering a Catholic sewing school; and moving with her family to Wiesbaden where they were not known. Mrs. H. recounts working in a dress shop; her brother-in-law's suicide and her sister's death; her brother'...

  17. Alexander R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alexander R., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1908. Mr. R. recalls his youth in a prominent, assimilated family; loss of the family shoe store during the 1919 Communist regime; suppression of the Communists; return of the family business; antisemitism in school and university admissions; law studies; and receiving his doctorate in 1930. He recounts his law apprenticeship with a Jewish politician; military service starting in 1931; attending officer candidate school; antisemitic incidents; discharge in 1932; return to law practice; the political shift to the right...

  18. Paul M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul M., who was born in Berlin, Germany to Polish immigrants in 1922. He recalls involvement in Zionist organizations; attending a Jewish school; the decision of some relatives to emigrate in 1933; a beating by Hitler Youth in 1934; his parents' decision to leave following a Gestapo interrogation in 1936; their journey to Palestine via Austria and Trieste (his parents had money smuggled to them in Italy); their emigration to the United States in 1938; attending high school; cessation of communications from family in Europe after 1939; being drafted in 1942; encounter...

  19. Joseph W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph W., who was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1914. He recalls his parents' grocery business; their separation in 1931 (his father moved to Romania); celebrating religious holidays; attending business school; his belief that Nazi antisemitism would pass; Stuttgart's liberal atmosphere; exemption from wearing the yellow star due to his mother's Romanian citizenship; losing his job due to anti-Jewish laws; destruction of his mother's store during Kristallnacht; moving with his mother and sister into Jewish housing; working in a Jewish center processing emigration app...

  20. Rudolf F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rudolf F., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1923. He recalls several generations of his family in Holland; German invasion; gradual implementation of anti-Jewish laws, including his expulsion from medical school; working in the Jewish hospital; the role of the Jewish council; forced relocation of Jews to south Amsterdam; frequent round-ups; incarceration with other Jews at Gestapo headquarters; his father's arrest and deportation (he perished); his sister hiding with her fiance with help from the underground; hiding elsewhere with his mother; deportation of t...