Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 1 to 20 of 816
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Ruth W. and Maryann L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth W., who was active in New York in the wartime relief efforts of the Congregational Church, and her daughter, Maryann L., who has helped lead church groups through Germany since the war. Mrs. W. describes her work with refugees in Europe and the United States, including the rescue network operated by the churches, and the difficulty in assigning responsibility for the refugees. Mrs. L. discusses her group trips to Germany, noting the desolation that characterized Warsaw and Berlin. Both speak of their reactions during a visit to Dachau, of bringing information bac...

  2. Lucy F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lucy F., who was born in Odesa, Russia (presently Ukraine) in 1916. She recounts her mother's death during her birth; moving to Estonia with her father; his remarriage; living in Berlin; attending school in Switzerland; her father's death; living in France with her stepmother who had remarried; her conversion to Catholicism; the outbreak of war; visiting relatives in Estonia; attending university in London; traveling to France; expulsion for sheltering German Jewish refugees; moving to Portugal where her step-parents lived; working for a Portuguese Jewish organization...

  3. Sandor G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sandor Arye G., who was born in Cluj, Romania. He describes his active involvement in the Zionist organization in Cluj; his unsuccessful attempts to convince the people around him to flee to Palestine; the partition of Transylvania in 1940; and a trip to Budapest to prepare for emigration to Palestine. He tells of leading a Youth Aliyah group to Palestine via Romania, Istanbul, and Lebanon in 1941; joining the British army as a volunteer in 1942; and smuggling Jewish children from Egypt to Palestine. He relates being sent with his company to Italy, where he became fam...

  4. Olga W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Olga W., who was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1913. She remembers a pleasant lifestyle as an assimilated family; her perception of Frankfurt as having a liberal atmosphere and absence of antisemitism; participation in a "study group" to combat antisemitism in 1931; expulsion from law school in 1933; efforts to emigrate; marriage in 1933; and her family's emigration to Holland and hers to Porto, Portugal. Mrs. W. describes the small German-Jewish community; a 1936 visit to her in-laws in Germany; awareness of the imminence of war; bringing her parents, sister ...

  5. Henry C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry C., who was born in the United States. Mr. C. describes his Yiddish and Workmen's Circle background; attending college; being drafted into the United States Army in 1944; eight months of combat in Europe; working at the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Headquarters; discharge from the army in 1946; working for UNRRA as a civilian, managing Fo?hrenwald displaced persons camp; frequent problems maintaining the physical facilities resulting in poor sanitation; an incident when U.S. soldiers harassed Jewish refugees; his attempts to improve co...

  6. 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...

  7. Laura M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Laura M., who was a social worker for the National Refugee Service, then the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She recalls arriving in Havana, Cuba in February 1939; dealing with many German Jewish refugees; knowing in advance the St. Louis was arriving and its passengers would not be allowed to disembark; the staff not sleeping for the eight days the ship was in harbor in their efforts to assist; her colleague visiting the ship daily; arranging disembarkation in European countries other than Austria and Germany; transfer to Shanghai in April 1941; working...

  8. Anton and Marion P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anton and Marion P., who served in the administration of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Jewish displaced persons camps in Germany in 1945-1947. Mrs. P. reflects on her wartime life in Holland and the subtle effect of antisemitic propaganda on even anti-Nazi audiences; serving as translator in a postwar trial of fourteen Dutch Nazis in Wolfratshausen; being sent by UNRRA as a welfare officer to a Jewish displaced persons camp at Fo?hrenwald; learning Yiddish to better communicate with refugees; and the difficulties of dealing with v...

  9. Anton P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anton P., who was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1917. Mr. P., who served in the United States Third Army, tells of being wounded in France; evacuation to England; returning to the front to aid in the relief of Bastogne; his artillery unit's rapid advance across Germany in April 1945; passing through Buchenwald hours after its liberation; and dining with a German who denied knowledge of Buchenwald, but whose home overlooked the camp. He recalls being temporarily reassigned to serve with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), where h...

  10. Ben S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ben S. who was born in Ozeryany, Poland (now Ukraine) in 1920. One of nine children, he describes poverty in the shtetl; attending cheder where his father taught; the family's move to Goloby when he was eleven; attending yeshiva in Lutsk from 1933 to 1937; returning home to teach when his father became ill; increasing antisemitism; participation in Zionist youth groups to prepare for kibbutz life; Soviet occupation in 1939; and many refugees fleeing from German occupation. Mr. S. recounts the German invasion; fleeing east with three friends to Kiev; working on a colle...

  11. Claire K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Claire K., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1925 to Polish parents. She recalls increased antisemitism in 1933; their flight to Holland; moving to Poland in 1935, then Brussels, Belgium; unsuccessful emigration attempts; an influx of refugees after Kristallnacht; German invasion in 1940; anti-Jewish restrictions; round-ups and deportations; and her mother arranging for Mrs. K. to spend nights hiding with non-Jews. Mrs. K. remembers the deportation of her parents and one brother; receiving a postcard her mother sent from Malines (her last contact with them); her you...

  12. William K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William K., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1912. He recalls participation in Zionist organizations as a youth; his parents' divorce; joining his mother and sister in Berlin; employment at a department store; declining a promotion for fear of provoking antisemitism; the public hitting of the store's owner on April 1, 1933; loss of own his job; attempts to leave for Palestine; meeting his future wife and their engagement; and embarkation for Shanghai in October 1938. He recounts assistance from the Japanese upon their arrival; organization of the Jewish community i...

  13. W?adys?aw L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of W?adys?aw L., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1901. He recalls attending medical school in Vilna due to restrictions against Jews in Warsaw; transferring to Warsaw due to his high grades; practicing in Warsaw; German invasion in September 1939; fleeing east with his wife via Bia?a Podlaska and Kobryn; settling in Pinsk, in the Soviet-occupied zone; deportation with all refugees to Arkhangel?sk; working in hospitals; imprisonment in 1943 as an American spy; signing a false confession to spare his wife and to avoid additional torture; an eight year sentence to a labor...

  14. Gerald L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerald L., who was born in Gumbinnen, Germany (now Gusev, Russia) in 1929. He recalls his parents' divorce; living with his father and stepmother; moving to Ko?nigsberg (Kaliningrad), then Danzig (Gdan?sk, Poland); emigrating with his father, stepmother, and other family members to Shanghai in July 1939; his father's death six months later; living with his stepmother among the Jewish refugees in a Chinese working-class district; financial support from his uncle's dental practice; attending a Jewish school (the center of his social life); Japanese occupation; confineme...

  15. Ilse L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ilse L., who was born in Vienna in 1925. She recalls with fondness her childhood in Vienna; the change in the situation of the Jews beginning in the spring of 1938; being sent to Holland in November, 1938, by her parents, who later perished; her placement in two different foster families; the arrival of her brother in Holland at the end of 1938; and going into hiding in 1942 with the help of a cousin and his non-Jewish girlfriend. She describes living as a Dutch non-Jew by means of false papers; aid from non-Jews, including the Dutch police; and the day to day difficu...

  16. Tamar S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tamar S., who was born in Berlin, Germany. She recounts her family's Dutch citizenship; spending summers in Amsterdam, where she met Anne Frank; being sent to boarding school in Holland while her parents moved to Paris in 1933; joining the Scouts; assisting Belgian refugees through the Scouts, after German invasion; moving to Moulins with her family; attending school in Lyon; her parents and younger siblings being forced to move to Grenoble; joining the Jewish scouts which rescued Jewish children; the family's arrest; leaving her three-year-old sister in hiding with a...

  17. Peter K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter K., who was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1937. He recalls his family's affluent, secular life; German invasion; his father's arrest (he never saw him again); moving with his mother, brother, and other relatives to Ljubljana; smuggling themselves to Italy; internment near Brescia as illegal immigrants; receiving a stipend from the Italian government; living with relatives in Quarata; German occupation; hiding in a hut with relatives, then with peasant families; avoiding arrest with assistance from their landlord and the marshal after being denounced; moving seve...

  18. Frederick S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frederick S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1907. He recalls his family's financial instability; completing law school in 1931; supporting his mother after his father's death; arrest following the Anschluss in 1938; incarceration and receiving a severe beating; transfer to Dachau; his release after obtaining an English visa with assistance from his boss and the Quakers; traveling to England in March 1939; working for a committee helping Czech refugees; arranging for his mother and fiancee to join him; their emigration to the United States; marriage to his fiancee...

  19. Birgit N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Birgit N., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1923. She recalls her assimilated family; being allowed to attend public school as a Jew only because of her father's service in World War I; his emigration to Holland in 1935; her present guilt at not intervening when a Jewish student was harassed; emigration with her mother to Holland in 1938; attending a Quaker school; their departure by ship to Chile; the sinking of the ship by a German mine and their rescue (many passengers perished); remaining in England as disaster refugees; going to Shanghai via Canada in 1940, the...

  20. Karoline H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Karoline H., who was born in Barmen, near Wuppertal, Germany in 1911. Mrs. H. recalls childhood in a comfortable, non-observant family; lack of early exposure to antisemitism; attending the University of Freiburg, where she was mistaken for an "Aryan" by Nazi students; working in her parents' store after being barred from law school; her older brother's marriage to a Catholic in 1934; increasing antisemitic restrictions; her parents' naivete? about Nazism; and marriage to a naturalized Dutch Jew in 1936. She describes deteriorating conditions in Danzig (where her husb...