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Displaying items 81 to 100 of 816
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Walter L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter L., who was born in 1921 in Breslau, Germany (presently Wroclaw, Poland). He recounts graduating from a German gymnasium in 1938; leaving Germany on November 9, 1938; emigrating to Palestine; closely following events in Europe; and the killing of his parents and relatives during the war. Mr. L. discusses what average Germans, and the rest of the world, knew about the murder of European Jewry during the war as documented in his book The Terrible Secret. He notes a novel he wrote led to his research.

  2. Fred H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred H., who was born in Ulm, Germany in 1919. He recalls a two-year apprenticeship in Freidrichshafen; his mother's death in 1931; realizing that Germany was no place for Jews when the family store was vandalized in 1933; his two sisters' emigration to the United States in 1936 and 1937; his sisters arranging his passage to Cuba; embarkation on the St. Louis in Hamburg; learning they could not disembark in Cuba; efforts by the Joint to assist them; kindness from the crew; returning to Europe; debarkation in Antwerp; living in Brussels; his family arranging exit paper...

  3. Susan B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susan B., who was born in 1920, the youngest of four children. She recalls childhood in an affluent, traditional family in Warsaw; attending private school; her parents' disbelief that the events in Germany would affect them; German invasion in September 1939; her brother and fiance? fleeing to L'viv in the Soviet zone; illegally traveling to L'viv with her sister in December 1939; marriage in 1940; fleeing to Vilna with her husband; obtaining a Japanese transit visa from the Japanese consul, Chiune Sugihara; traveling to Moscow, then Japan, in January 1941; obtaining...

  4. Helen S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen S., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1920. She speaks of her childhood; the rise of antisemitism in prewar Berlin; escape from Germany through Holland in 1938; her family's emigration to the United States after being detained in an internment camp in Bonaire, Netherlands West Indies; and her adult life in the United States.

  5. Sophie S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sophie S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1920. She recounts her family history; antisemitic incidents at school; her family's efforts to emigrate to the United States after German annexation; violence and terror during Kristallnacht; her father's arrest and incarceration in Dachau; emigration, with her younger brother, to the United States in 1938; her father's release; and her parents' arrival in 1939. Mrs. S. discusses the importance of an aunt in the United States to her family's ability to emigrate; the deaths of extended family members during the Holocaust; ...

  6. Solomon R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Solomon R., who was born in Jerusalem in 1908. He describes traveling to Ulm in 1946, representing the Joint; working with displaced persons, Allied forces, HIAS, and UNRRA; providing food, religious services and supplies, schools, and recreational activities to displaced persons in camps and in the area; cigarette rations functioning as currency; diverse political and religious groups; relations with local Germans, non-Jewish eastern European refugees, and Allied personnel; and the efforts of army chaplains to raise morale.

  7. Lillian A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lillian A., who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1925. Mrs. A. discusses her family history; prewar Berlin life; experiences of antisemitism during the rise of Nazism; relations with her parents and their attitudes towards Judaism; attending Jewish school; Kristallnacht; the impact of the Nuremberg laws; and departure for Cuba in 1940 with her parents, from where they later emigrated to the United States. Mrs. A. tells of her life in New York and assistance received from HIAS.

  8. Georg P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Georg P., who was born in Rakovni?k, Czechoslovakia in 1921. He recounts attending high school; visiting Prague frequently; his family's desire to leave after the Munich agreement; arranging to attend New York University with assistance from his uncle in New York; obtaining a visa from German authorities in Prague in September 1939; emigration to the United States; and corresponding with his family until the United States entered the war in 1941. Mr. P. discusses learning from a cousin that his parents and sisters were killed in Auschwitz; receiving his sister's diary...

  9. Karolyn F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Karolyn F., who was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Austria) in 1909. She recounts attending public school; cordial relations with non-Jews; the Anschluss; observing a speech by Hitler; assistance from their non-Jewish building superintendent; joining a group emigrating to Palestine; their failed attempt to enter Italy, then a difficult ship journey to Palestine; reunion with a brother on one of the ships; living on a kibbutz; difficult relations with the British; attacks by Arabs; the births of two sons; and emigration to the United States to joi...

  10. Herbert F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Herbert F., who was born in Michelstadt, Germany in 1910. He recalls the family moves to Bad Mergentheim, then Gelsenkirchen; his father's enlistment in the German military during World War I; attending the Hebrew School of Gelsenkirchen; joining his father's business in 1928; and his fear after hearing Hitler speak. Mr. F. recounts the 1933 Nazi takeover of his father's business; the family's move to Frankfurt; his decision to emigrate to Palestine; seeing his sister in Genoa on his way; and living in Petah? Tik?v?ah, then Haifa; his parents' emigration to Palestine ...

  11. Wadja K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Wadja K., who was born in Granice, Poland in 1896. He recalls the first World War; Germans confiscating food in 1915 and 1916; working on road construction; his family's move to Z?elecho?w; working briefly in Warsaw; returning home; working with his father making leather boots; marriage; six weeks compulsory army service; participation in the Jewish Worker's Party; and attending their night school classes. Mr. K. describes emigrating to Luxembourg in 1928 to escape antisemitism; visiting his parents in Poland in 1935; assisting his brother to emigrate to Argentina (an...

  12. Alice S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1913, the youngest of three children. She recalls many injured veterans from World War I; active participation in a Zionist youth group, despite her parents' disapproval; completing studies at a private gymnasium, then medical school; her older brother and sister emigrating to join relatives in the United States; pervasive antisemitism; the Anschluss; the transformation of most Austrians into Nazis; the non-Jewish superintendent of their building protecting them during a round-up; emigration to the United States; training a...

  13. Werner G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Werner G., who was born in Breslau, Germany (presently Wroc?aw, Poland) in 1920. He recalls antisemitic harassment in school; participating in socialist Jewish youth movements; his father's incarceration in Buchenwald; leaving school to help support his parents; an aborted attempt to escape to Czechoslovakia in 1936; traveling to Amsterdam via Luxembourg with assistance from a Jewish organization; his parents' emigration to Bolivia; his mother obtaining a Bolivian visa for him; emigration to join them; participating in anti-Nazi movements; his career as a publisher an...

  14. Harry T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry T., who was born in Giessen, Germany in 1921. Mr. T. describes growing up as the only Jewish boy in Zu?rbach, a farm village near Frankfurt; the rise of antisemitism and anti-Jewish activities; his training in Frankfurt to become a cabinetmaker; his return home after Kristallnacht; slave labor; and leaving his family in Frankfurt in 1941. He tells of his transport from Berlin to Barcelona, Spain; his imprisonment there and then in an internment camp near the French border; his release by the Quakers; and his emigration, via Portugal, to the United States. The ef...

  15. Joseph Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph Z., who was born in Vienna in 1918. He describes his childhood and youth, relating instances of antisemitism; the political situation in Austria before the Anschluss; the German occupation of Austria (which forced him to leave medical school); his subsequent training in tailoring and English and work in his father's tailor shop; his emigration to the United States via Paris and London with his parents and two younger sisters; and his service in the American army (he was drafted in 1942) interrogating German prisoners.

  16. Gitta L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gitte L., who was born in Vilna in 1893. Mrs. L. recalls the outbreak of World War I after her graduation from gymnasium; her training and years of work as a nurse in refugee camps; studying at the University of Leningrad; and her emigration to Vienna to marry her fiance?. She tells of her political activity in Vienna; antisemitism; Kristallnacht in Sassnitz, when her husband was beaten by a mob and interrogated, and she was imprisoned with him (but released after a short time); her husband's escape with the help of a Nazi soldier; their emigration to the United State...

  17. Gertrude M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gertrude M., who was born in Germany in 1915. In addition to information included in a previously cataloged testimony (HVT-1368), Ms. M. recalls living in Hilversum after German invasion of the Netherlands; a non-Jewish friend arranging her hiding place in Haarlem; and staying there from August 1942 to January 1943. She notes improved communications today enable people to help during genocides such as in Cambodia.

  18. Gejza S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gejza S., who was born in Dolný Kubín, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1909, the oldest of nine children. He recounts brief service in the Czech military; moving to Žilina after enactment of anti-Jewish laws, then to Bratislava; marriage in 1941; his son's birth in 1942; his father's death; his mother sending him, his family, and his siblings to Budapest to avoid deportation; separation from his wife while saving their son; posing as a Catholic after German invasion; traveling to Stupava after liberation; and remarriage. Mr. S. notes his faith was...

  19. Martha E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martha E., who was born in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland in 1937. She recounts her family's affluence; German invasion; fleeing to the Soviet Union; living in Siberia; her aunt joining them; privileged status because her mother was a pharmacist; moving to Bukhoro; attending school; her father's two-year imprisonment; returning to Warsaw after the war; reunion with a cousin; moving to Munich; antisemitic harassment; moving to the Bremen displaced persons camp; emigration to the United States with assistance from HIAS; attending school; and marriage to a survivor.

  20. Erna S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Erna S., who was born in Lich, Germany in 1913. She recalls attending high school in Giessen; visiting relatives in Ludwigshafen when Hitler came to power; her parents' business being ruined due to antisemitism; traveling to Venice in 1934, realizing there was no future in Germany; moving to Rotterdam three weeks later, then to Amsterdam; her father's death in 1936; her mother and siblings leaving for the United States by 1938; and her emigration to join them. Ms. S. notes her brother was beaten by Nazis and briefly incarcerated in a concentration camp before she went...