Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 101 to 120 of 816
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Gisele W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gisele W., who was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1934, the youngest of three children. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; her brother and sister caring for her while her parents worked; avoiding deportation to Poland in 1938 (her parents were born there) with assistance from a non-Jewish friend; going to her grandmother's home on Kristallnacht (she later perished in Theresienstadt); her father's arrest when escaping to Belgium in January 1939; her mother joining him when he was ill; placement in a orphanage; learning her father had died; being smuggled to Antwerp with ...

  2. Golda L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Golda L., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1935. She recounts her grandparents were orthodox, but her parents being atheists; not understanding she was a Jew; her father taking her to Frankfurt in 1939; travelling to Freiburg, then Paris where she lived with her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend (they married later); terrible loneliness and longing for her parents; fleeing south with her aunt and her boyfriend; two weeks in Gurs; living on a farm in Montauban; attending school; hiding in a convent one night, then entering Switzerland illegally in 1943 with the help of a...

  3. Gabrielle S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gabrielle S., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1914. She describes her childhood; the impact of the Nuremberg laws; emigration to the United States in 1938; and returning to Europe as a social worker in 1947 to assist Jewish refugees. Mrs. S. relates her deceased husband's story because she is the last one who knows it. Mr. S. was born in Galicia in 1912. She recounts his being sent away for schooling; attending medical school in Bologna, Italy; his return home; conditions under Russian occupation; the German occupation and being exempted from extermination because...

  4. Samson M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samson M., who was born in Poland in 1913 to a Hasidic family of seven children. He recalls their poverty; joyous holiday celebrations; antisemitic harassment at school; apprenticeship as a shoemaker in Seitesz; moving to Krako?w; German invasion; escaping east with his brother; Germans overtaking them; staying in Izbica; Soviet troops arriving; their withdrawal; leaving with them; living in L?viv; finding two of his brothers there; volunteering to work in a Soviet coalmine; harsh conditions; escaping with a friend; traveling to Kiev, then L?viv; volunteering for labo...

  5. Julius S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Julius S., who was born in Djursholm, Sweden in 1942 to refugees from Nazi Germany. He recounts placement with Swedish farmers, like many Jewish children, fearing German invasion; few memories prior to traveling to Erlangen, Germany in 1948 to join his father (his parents were divorced); his father's strong German identity; his position at the university; weekly Jewish instruction in Nuremberg; his bar mitzvah; attending boarding school in Berchtesgaden with many children of high-ranking Nazis, including Hess; attending university in Berlin and earning his Ph.D.; deve...

  6. Markus K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Markus K., who was born in Tarno?w, Poland in 1909, one of six children. He recalls attending Polish gymnasium; antisemitic harassment; attending pharmaceutical school in Czechoslovakia; his brother's death in 1931; working in Warsaw; his father's death in 1935; military draft in 1939; German invasion in September; discharge in Tyszowce; traveling with his brother-in-law to Li?u?boml?, Sokolya, and L?viv in the Soviet-occupied area; working in a pharmacy; trying to smuggle himself to rejoin his family in February 1940; arrest in Jaros?aw; a German releasing him at the...

  7. Auguste V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Auguste V., a Roman-Catholic, born in Mouscron, Belgium in 1920, one of eleven children. He recalls receiving his diploma as an auto mechanic in 1938; sheltering German Jewish refugees; twice daily prayers at home; working in Liège; German invasion; returning home; briefly fleeing to Bailleul, France; participating in the Resistance; his family hiding Jews; learning his arrest was imminent; fleeing to La Rochefoucauld in March 1943; arrest; incarceration in Angoulême and Poitiers; deportation from Compiègne to Buchenwald in June; remaining with one friend; slave la...

  8. Nokhim S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Nokhim S., who was born in Mahili︠o︡ŭ, Belarus in 1923. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; celebrating Jewish and Soviet holidays; his brother's military service in 1939; arrival of Polish refugees; German invasion in 1941; his brother's return; anti-Jewish restrictions; mass killings; his father serving on the Judenrat; his brother volunteering the two of them for a labor camp (he never saw his parents or sister again); slave labor as a blacksmith for two years; killings and hangings; transfer to Minsk, then Lublin; separation from his brother (he never saw...

  9. Martin D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin D., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1920. He recalls apprenticing as a furrier when he was fourteen; increasing antisemitism; warnings from non-Jews of a round-up; hiding with his father; applying with his sister to emigrate to relatives in London; obtaining a visa; emigrating with a cousin in January 1939 (he never saw his sister or parents again); his relatives refusal to assist him; futile efforts to obtain visas for his sister and parents; arrest as an "enemy alien"; transfer via Liverpool to an internment camp in Ontario, Canada; fights between German a...

  10. Aleksandar D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aleksander D., an only child, who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1923. He recalls his mother's death; his large, extended family; his father's positions as vice-president of the Belgrade Sephardic community and member of the city council (he was an attorney); German invasion in April 1941; he and his father traveling to Kotor, then Cetinje, thinking it safer under Italian occupation; assistance from his father's colleagues; his father's arrest on June 22; his release with assistance from a retired Yugoslav army officer; traveling to Budva; joining the Montenegro ...

  11. Rebecca L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rebecca L., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1908, one of ten children. She recalls her family spending World War I in London; the births of two siblings there; returning to Antwerp; working as a diamond cutter starting at age sixteen; marriage in 1933; her sister's incarceration in Wurttemburg in 1941 as an English citizen; some family members hiding, while others were deported; her husband encouraging her to join the resistance; arrest in 1943; imprisonment in Antwerp, St. Gilles, Luxembourg, and Aix-La-Chapelle, (presently Allach); singing resistance songs to ma...

  12. Esther G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther G., who was born in Kishinev, Romania (presently Chișinău, Moldova) in 1924, one of four children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; attending public school; Soviet occupation; her twin's death in 1939; her father's death in 1940; German invasion; fleeing with her mother and brothers; walking for three months; separation from her older brother; living a week with a Ukrainian villager; Romanian soldiers confiscating her mother's valuables; arrival at Berezivka; finding her older brother; transfer to Domanevka, then Bogdanovka; hearing shots from a mass kill...

  13. Felix W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Felix W., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1924. He describes antisemitic incidents; the Anschluss; expulsion from school; Kristallnacht; his father's incarceration in Dachau; confiscation of their apartment; his mother's decision that he was to leave while she waited for his father's release; attempting to enter France in December 1938 from Saarbru?cken, then crossing from Karlsruhe to Lauterbourg; being returned by French authorities; crossing from Freiburg to Basel; assistance from the Committee for Jewish Refugees; and joining relatives in Paris in July 1939. Mr...

  14. Hilda S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hilda S., who was born in Bochum, Germany in 1923. She recalls expulsion from public school in 1933; attending Jewish school; assistance from a German neighbor on Kristallnacht; her father's arrest; fleeing to Bergen aan Zee in December 1938; living in a Jewish orphanage in Amsterdam; returning to emigrate with her parents from Hamburg on the St. Louis; being denied entry to Cuba; returning to Holland in June 1939; living with her parents in a refugee camp in Heijplaat; attending school in Amsterdam; transfer with her parents to Westerbork; evacuation to the countrysi...

  15. Bedrich B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bedrich B., who was born in Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1924, the younger of two brothers. He recalls his parents were intellectuals and hard working (his father was a physician, his mother a piano teacher); cordial relations with non-Jews; a very assimilated lifestyle; antisemitism and anti-Jewish restrictions beginning with Slovak independence in 1938; leaving high school; training as an auto mechanic; brief imprisonments in Hungary and Slovakia, then in Nováky in April 1942, for attempts to illegally enter Hungary; learning his p...

  16. Werner C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Werner C., who was born in Essen, Germany in 1921. He recalls his parents' German patriotism; social barriers between German and "eastern" Jews; anti-Semitic incidents in school; expulsion in 1938; attending a Jewish school in Cologne; destruction of their home on Kristallnacht; imprisonment, then transfer to Dachau; help from a cousin; and release due to the intervention of a friend who was an influential Nazi and his promise to emigrate (his mother obtained a commitment from Erich Klibansky for Mr. C. to accompany a children's transport). He recalls studying in Lond...

  17. Sol P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sol P., who was born in ?uko?w, Russia (presently Poland) in 1907, the oldest of thirteen children. He recounts his successful hardware business; marriage in 1927; the births of five children; increasing antisemitism in the 1930s, including boycotts; German invasion; fleeing with his family to avoid bombings; returning alone two weeks later; hiding with his father and sister from a round-up; brief Soviet occupation; bringing his family back to ?uko?w; German reoccupation in October; anti-Jewish restrictions; random killings; arrest and incarceration in Lublin; release...

  18. Lili O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lili O., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923, an only child. She recounts attending school; antisemitic harassment; witnessing public humiliation of Jews after the Anschluss; being forced to leave their home on Kristallnacht; her uncle arranging her emigration to the Netherlands; her parents' emigration to Palestine; living on a Zionist kibbutz in Lokstreek; German invasion; living with a non-Jewish family in Amsterdam; working at a Jewish kindergarten; anti-Jewish restrictions; helping the underground remove children from the kindergarten to save them; deportatio...

  19. Yasha M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yasha M., who was born in Szczuczyn, Poland (presently Shchuchyn, Belarus) in 1920. He recounts attending school in Vilna; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; Soviet occupation; being sent to Lida to work in a factory; German invasion; fleeing with a friend to Baranovichy; traveling on a train with other Jews to the Warsaw ghetto; escaping; returning to Szczuczyn via Hrodna; forced agricultural labor; a round-up and mass killing of the Jews (he, his father and stepmother were selected for work); transfer to Lida in May 1942; working as a carpenter; escaping to the fore...

  20. Emil S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emil S., who was born in Zagreb, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy(presently Croatia) in approximately 1917, one of five children. He recounts his father's medical practice; his mother's death in 1926; his bar mitzvah; attending university; joining Hashomer Hatzair in 1933, then Akiva in 1935; expulsion from university due to anti-Jewish laws; working for Shalom Freiberger, chief rabbi of Zagreb; contacts with Zagreb's Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, who saved many Jews; visiting Palestine in 1939; marriage in 1941; his daughter's birth in 1942; receiving false papers from a no...