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Displaying items 181 to 200 of 816
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. 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 ...

  2. 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...

  3. 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 ...

  4. 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...

  5. Joseph F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph F., who was born in Missouri in 1919. He relates enlisting in the army in 1942; assignment to the 20th Armored Division; entering France in early 1945; hearing horror stories from Jewish refugees; starting a daily newspaper in his division; coming into the town of Dachau on April 30th, the day after the liberation of the camp (which he did not enter); viewing boxcars filled with corpses, the area littered with body parts, and the horrendous conditions of the prisoners wandering outside the camp; the disparity between the peaceful life in the town and the horror...

  6. Linda F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Linda F., who was born in Szyd?owiec, Poland in 1927. She recalls her large extended family; attending public school; helping her father in the family butcher shop; assisting German Jewish refugees; believing events in Germany would not impact them; and the shock of German invasion. Mrs. F. recounts round-ups of children and men; confiscation of the family business; secretly slaughtering meat for friends; her father's beating and arrest (she never saw him again); her mother's disappearance; reporting for forced labor in 1942 in her sister's place; transport to Skarz?y...

  7. Kurt R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kurt R., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1912. He recalls graduating from medical school in 1937; his brother's marriage and emigration to Palestine in 1938; his marriage; futile efforts to emigrate to Palestine; fleeing to Trieste in 1939, leaving his parents and wife in Vienna (his parents were deported to Minsk and killed); arrest and transfer to a camp in Eboli; working as a doctor's assistant; release with assistance from the camp doctor; living in Todi, then in Umbertide; German invasion; arrest; escaping to Todi from a train station in Perugia; local Italian...

  8. Hilda T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hilda T. who was born in Iglo?, Czechoslovakia (presently Spis?ska Nova? Ves, Slovakia) in 1904. She recalls her mother's death when she was five; studying in Brno; her family's move to Vienna; good relations with non-Jews prior to 1934; participating in Sportklub Hakoah; meeting her husband there; hiding a union leader after the Nazis came to power; her husband's arrest on Kristallnacht; his release providing he left Austria within two weeks; the union leader obtaining Swedish visas for them; and emigration to Sweden, then the United States via Norway. Mrs T. describ...

  9. Mennerem W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mennerem W., who was born in Paris in 1923 to Polish immigrants. He recalls his family's poverty; speaking Yiddish at home; lack of religious observance; attending French and Jewish schools; the absence of antisemitism; remaining in Paris with his mother and three sisters after German invasion; his father and brothers-in-law fleeing; participation in a Bund youth group; his mother joining his father in the unoccupied zone; joining his parents in Montauban; moving to Nice; meeting a friend who had been in Drancy; deciding not to register as Jews; planning an escape to ...

  10. Doris U. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Doris U., who was born in Tomaszo?w Lubelski, Poland in 1920. She recalls the warmth of family observances of Sabbath and holidays; her mother's death in 1933; her father's remarriage; cordial relations with non-Jews; German invasion; her father's humiliation when forced to cut his beard; hiding; discovery; the Germans fleeing; Soviet occupation; fleeing to Rava-Ru?ska; deportation to a forced labor camp in Siberia; her grandfather's death due to hunger; attempts at maintaining religious observance; moving to Bii?sk; marriage; her son's birth; assistance from Russian ...

  11. Ilse W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ilse W., who was born in Rotenburg, Germany in 1927. She recalls anti-Jewish harassment; her older brother attending a Jewish boarding school in Kassel; moving to Frankfurt in 1936 hoping it would be safer if they were in a bigger city; attending Jewish school (the Philanthropin) with her brother; increasing isolation; a former maid who smuggled food to them; and difficulty comprehending their changing situation. Mrs. W. recounts Kristallnacht; her father's arrest and incarceration in Buchenwald; his release and emigration to Holland; leaving for England in June 1939 ...

  12. Sherry G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sherry G., who was born in Utena, Lithuania in 1926. She recounts her father's emigration to the United States six months after her birth (he planned to bring her and her mother later); her mother's death when she was three and a half; living with her maternal aunt in Kaunas; being smuggled to Pastavy (then Poland) to live with her paternal family; attending school; active participation in Hashomer Hatzair; close relations with her young cousins; being smuggled back to Kaunas when her father sent for her in 1938 or 1939; traveling through Germany with her aunt's frien...

  13. Frank F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frank F., who was born in Miskolc, Hungary in 1917, one of seven children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; his mother's death when he was four; attending a state high school; antisemitic harassment; one brother's emigration to Palestine in 1934; attending school in Montreux in 1936, then in Antwerp and Brussels; visiting home in summer 1937; fleeing immediately upon learning he would be drafted; visiting his brother in London; German invasion when he was in Brussels; futile efforts to flee to France; observing the evacuation at Dunkerque; returning to Brussels; obt...

  14. Walter W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter W., who was born in Emmendingen, Germany in 1922. He recalls his family's strong German identity; cordial relations with non-Jews; his parents assuaging his and his sister's alarm when a Jewish neighbor was killed by a Nazi in 1933; former non-Jewish friends shunning him; his father's belief in Germany and that his status as a veteran would protect them; his bar mitzvah; expulsion from school; his father's disbarment; attending a Jewish school in Berlin; watching the synagogue burn on Kristallnacht; learning his father and uncles had been sent to Dachau; return...

  15. Ursula K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ursula K., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1919. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; a close relationship with her maternal grandparents; two brothers; frequent street fights between communists and Nazis; attending public school and lyceum; cordial relations with non-Jews; disappearance of Jewish teachers when Hitler came to power in 1933; leaving to attend a Jewish school (she did not have to since her father was a World War I veteran); under her older brother's influence, joining the anti-Nazi group led by Herbert Baum; her brother's arrest; his release in an am...

  16. Rachelle C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachelle C., who was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1919. Mrs. C. recalls attending Jewish schools; Hitler's rise to power; the Nazi boycott of her family's business; and imposition of the Nuremberg laws. She details events of Kristallnacht, including a teacher who hid her brother; seeing her father being taken away wearing his old army uniform and Iron Cross; and destruction of the family business. She tells of her mother proceeding with family emigration plans while her father was incarcerated; departure via Antwerp with her family in December 1938; arrival in San Sal...

  17. Helene J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helene J., who was born in Poland in 1918, one of six children. She recounts being orphaned (she does not remember her parents); her grandmother from Paris retrieving them; childhood poverty; marriage at eighteen; her daughter's birth in 1937; briefly evacuating when invasion seemed imminent; staying with a friend outside of Paris; German invasion; her husband bringing them back to Paris; evacuating to Saint-Laurent-de-Neste; locals welcoming them and providing food and other support; her son's birth; registering as a Jew with the mayor and later regretting it; her hu...

  18. Alfred S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alfred S., who was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1921. Mr. S. describes his family's strong sense of German identification and patriotism; the appearance of Nazis and antisemitism in his school; his growing sense of Jewish identity; alienation from his parents due to their refusal to recognize the danger of antisemitism; and participation in Jewish youth groups including Hashomer Hatzair. He recalls his father's death in 1934; non-Jewish friends protecting him from police; voluntary transfer to a Jewish school in 1936; attending the ORT school in Berlin from 1937 onwar...

  19. Paulette W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paulette W., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1934. She recalls a happy childhood; German invasion in May 1940; fleeing with her parents to Toulouse; living in a refugee camp; joining relatives near Pau; her father's incarceration in a labor camp; his visit in 1942; being hidden in several places by a Jewish organization; her brother's birth in 1943; being hidden in a convent; her mother working for farmers nearby; assistance from teachers who were partisans; not knowing she was Jewish; her father retrieving her after the war in May 1945; returning with her parents...

  20. Rudolf G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rudolf G., who was born in Wu?rzburg, Germany in 1912. He recalls attending Jewish and German schools; participating in anti-Nazi organizations; his brother's emigration to Czechoslovakia; being arrested in 1937 due to a letter from his brother critical of the Nazis; release after seven months in prison; escaping to Czechoslovakia with the help of socialist organizations; traveling through parts of Europe; secretly returning to Germany to obtain funds for emigration; departure for the United States on November 10, 1938; and learning about Kristallnacht while docked in...