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Displaying items 121 to 140 of 816
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Paul G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul G., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1922. He tells of family moves to Budapest, France, then Berlin before he was five; being the only Jew in public school; the cosmopolitan Berlin lifestyle; being sent to his grandmother in Hungary from 1933 to 1935 due to the rise of Hitler; and increased antisemitism upon his return. Mr. G. recalls emigrating to the United States with his parents in 1936 rather than Hungary (his parents were Hungarian); their adjustment; the experience of being an immigrant; learning of family members who perished in concentration camps; an...

  2. John M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John M., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921. Mr. M. recalls his family background and education; not being permitted to finish school because he was Jewish; pro-Hitler demonstrations; activities in an anti-fascist organization with his brother and friends; Austrian support for the Anschluss; anti-Jewish violence; and the forced dissolution of his father's business. He describes having to move; sadness at leaving his childhood home; working for the Jewish community, which gave him some protection; warning friends or family of impending deportations, thus saving th...

  3. Alice M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice M., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1928. She recollects a strong Jewish influence in her childhood; the enthusiastic welcome for German troops in March 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; an uncle in Venezuela who arranged for their family to go to Trinidad; SS men coming to their home in the middle of the night on Kristallnacht, kicking her father down the stairs and arresting him; her mother arranging for his release; their departure on November 20th; and her confusion and fright. Mrs. M. tells of travel to Amsterdam, then to Trinidad; help received from the s...

  4. Margit R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margit R., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1915 while her father was serving as a medical officer at the front in World War I. She describes her family's German patriotism; their assimilated and affluent life; activities in a Social Democratic youth organization; anti-Semitic propaganda; her desire to leave Germany beginning in 1933, despite her parents' pro-German sentiments; the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses and professionals, including her father; fleeing to Switzerland with her mother; returning to Berlin; going to England with a Quaker group; and ...

  5. Mary M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mary M., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1913. She recalls attending school in ?o?dz? and university in Vienna; her assimilated, wealthy and cultured family background; her mother's death in 1934; cordial relations with non-Jews; her sense that events in Germany were distant despite contact with German refugees; and marriage on July 1, 1939. Mrs. M. recounts German invasion; learning from a co-worker that Germans were taking Jewish hostages; escaping to Warsaw with her husband and father; the walling-in of the ghetto; her job in a factory through which she had the u...

  6. Marianne B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marianne B., who was born in Breslau, Germany. She recalls family participation in the city's high culture; her father's strong German identity; the importance of music in the family; their affluent lifestyle; emigration to Paris to join her future husband; and her sister's marriage in England in 1938. Ms. B. describes learning of her father's incarceration in Buchenwald; his release as a broken man; her parents emigrating to England; her father's hospitalization in a mental institution; his release; subsequent suicide attempts; and his internment on the Isle of Wight...

  7. Hedi S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hedi S., who was born in Mainz, Germany in 1904. She recalls her sheltered life as the only child of a prosperous, assimilated family; attending a Jewish elementary school; traveling with her parents; marriage and divorce; and cordial relations with non-Jews. Mrs. S. recalls the anti-Jewish boycott in Berlin; her father's death in 1935; deciding to emigrate for her son's sake; obtaining a visa through American relatives; being searched when leaving in 1937; and learning of her former parents-in-law's suicide. She describes several jobs after arriving in New York; her ...

  8. Zoltan G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zoltan G., who was born in Nagykaroly, Hungary (presently Carei, Romania) in 1908. Mr. G. recalls his orthodox home as one of ten children; briefly attending Yeshiva; cordial relations between Christians and Jews; joining an older brother in Paris in 1922 to become an apprentice in the handbag industry; building a successful business employing over 1,000 people; marriage in 1936; his son's birth in 1937; and the birth of twins in 1940. He describes leaving Paris for Vichy France prior to German occupation in 1940; living in Toulouse and Grenoble; buying visas from the...

  9. Stephanie R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Stephanie R., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1922. She recalls her father's strong German identity; losing his bank in 1933 due to anti-Jewish legislation; her expulsion from school in 1938; convincing her father to hide on Kristallnacht to avoid arrest; her wish to emigrate; her father's refusal until August 1939; and the painful parting from her parents. Mrs. R. describes difficulties adjusting in England; communications with her parents prior to the war; a nine month incarceration on the Isle of Man as a potential German spy; return to London; the trauma of Ger...

  10. Margot S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margot S., who was born in Berlin, Germany to Polish parents. She recounts attending a Jewish school; losing her job in 1934 due to anti-Jewish measures and in 1938 after Kristallnacht; her parents' return to Poland (her five siblings all emigrated); joining them in Tarno?w in 1939; ghettoization; forced factory labor; hiding with her future husband during round-ups; seeing her sister and niece for the last time; incarceration in P?aszo?w; selection for Schindler's factory; transfer to Auschwitz, then Brne?nec; reunion with her future husband; liberation by Soviet tro...

  11. Ruth G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth G., who was born in Katowice, Germany (presently Poland) in 1909. She recounts moving to Bytom in 1921; working in her father's insurance business; his death in 1930; managing her mother's candy store; marriage in 1936; anti-Jewish restrictions; moving to Brzeg; her son's birth in 1938; her mother joining her in Brzeg; her son's illness; bringing him to the Jewish hospital in Wrocław; his recovery; Kristallnacht; having to sweep the street; her husband fleeing with her brother; their incarceration in a concentration camp; her brother's release and emigration to ...

  12. Anne C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anne C., who was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1919, the middle of three children. She recounts her family's affluence; participating in a Zionist youth group; removal from school in 1934 due to anti-Jewish laws; attending a Jewish school; her parents' emigration to Luxemburg in 1935; attending a boarding school in Munich; emigration to London in 1937; seeing one brother on his way to the United States; visiting her parents in France; her other brother's emigration to Palestine in 1939; marriage; living in Scotland; her husband's death in 1946 (he was killed w...

  13. Ralph M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ralph M., who was born in 1922 and served in the United States Army. He recounts military draft in November 1942; landing at Omaha beach; the Battle of the Bulge; assisting displaced persons; entering Dachau; emaciated prisoners; locating a mass grave near Regensburg; forcing the local townspeople to rebury the dead; working at Straubing displaced persons camp; friendships with refugees; returning home; and military discharge. He shows photographs and a drawing of himself by a former camp prisoner.

  14. Ernest S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest S., who was born in Hildesheim, Germany, in 1925. Mr. S. recalls the gradual development of the Nazi ideology and program in Hildesheim; his public school education; the initial absence of anti-Semitic acts against his family; and the Nuremberg laws which partly influenced his parents' decision to emigrate. He relates his father's arrest in 1938 for attempting to send money out of the country; the killing of an uncle during Kristallnacht; the burning of the local synagogue; seizure of the Jewish-owned bank where his father worked; and his transfer to the local ...

  15. Julius K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Julius K., who was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1915. He recalls exclusion from university and athletic clubs due to anti-Jewish laws; working in his father's business; traveling to the United States in spring 1938; his father's reluctance to leave; his uncle and father's arrests on Kristallnacht; his parents' and brother's emigration to Chile; his father's death a year later; enlisting in the U.S. ski patrol; serving with the Fifth Army in Italy; acting as a translator for General Lucian Truscott; and discharge in 1945. Mr. K. discusses marriage to a woman from his t...

  16. Walter F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter F., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1919. He recalls his close family; deciding to leave Austria immediately after the Anschluss; antisemitic harassment by brown-shirted boys; traveling to Italy with a cousin; working in Albanian oil fields; moving to Tirana before receiving their visas; a brief reunion with his father (he was waiting to leave for England to join his wife); emigration to the United States; enlisting in the army; and visiting his parents in London when he was stationed in England. He discusses his desire to forget everything prior to emigrati...

  17. Leon S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon S., who was born in Germany in 1905. He describes moving to Cze?stochowa, Poland in 1910; involvement with a Zionist youth movement; living in Palestine from 1923-1926; returning to Cze?stochowa at his father's request; marriage and the birth of two sons; and his prosperous business. He recounts increasingly restrictive legislation against the Jews by the Germans; escaping round-ups in the ghetto; cooperating with the Germans to save Jews; activities in the underground; escaping deportation to Radom because he was considered valuable by the Germans; constant effo...

  18. 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 ...

  19. Gaston S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gaston S., who was born in Metz, France in 1933. He recalls his mother's death in 1938, his father's remarriage in 1939; fleeing to Angoule?me at the outbreak of war with his sister, father and stepmother; learning of round-ups and deportations in Paris which included family members; living in Montbrun, Brive-la-Gaillarde, Tho?nes, and Charavines-les-Bains; hiding during raids on local resistants and the Maquis; and his brother's birth while in Tho?nes. Mr. S. describes fleeing to Aix-le-Bain in March 1944; being left there with his sister; crossing the Swiss border; ...

  20. Esther K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther K., who was born in 1935 in Split, Yugoslavia. She describes the Jewish community; Italian occupation including parades and expulsion of Jews from public schools; an influx of refugees; a book burning and destruction of the synagogue in June 1942; denial of official responsibility by the Italian government; and rebuilding of the synagogue. Mrs. K. recounts Nazi occupation; her father, brother and oldest sister joining the partisans; being warned of a Nazi round-up by a non-Jewish friend; hiding with her mother and another sister in a mountain village for severa...