Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 1 to 20 of 816
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Salomon R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Salomon R., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1925, one of three children of Polish émigrés. He recounts his father's death in 1933; attending public school and weekly Yiddish lessons; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; increasing antisemitism by right-wing extremists; housing German-Jewish refugees; German invasion in May 1940; registering as Jews when required to do so; recruitment by his brother-in-law to the Resistance at age fifteen; obtaining false papers; assignments delivering underground newspapers and smuggling people to northern France via Kortrijk (C...

  2. Fredka M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fredka M., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in approximately 1921, one of two sisters. She recounts her family's affluence; attending public school; participating in No?ar ha-Tsiyoni; skiing in Zakopane; working with Moshe Merin (future head of the Judenrat) to assist refugees from Germany; German invasion; her father fleeing east; fleeing with her mother, sister, and aunt; returning when overtaken by German troops; her father's return; working for the Judenrat, then in the Jewish hospital; organizing educational activities and food for children; traveling to Os?wie...

  3. Fredrich H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fredrich H., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1919. He recalls participating in a socialist youth group; his sister's marriage to a non-Jew; pervasive antisemitism; the Anschluss; a futile attempt to smuggle himself to Czechoslovakia; obtaining a visa for Luxembourg; being refused entry; brief imprisonment in Germany; release on the condition he leave Germany; smuggling himself to Luxembourg; his parents joining him; moving to Brussels with his parents, sister, and her husband; arranging emigration to the Dominican Republic; German invasion preventing their departur...

  4. Rivka K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rivka K., who was born in Rzeszów, Poland, in 1920, one of two children. She recounts her family's Zionism; attending Hebrew schools; participating in Zionist youth groups; her family's move to Kraków in 1933; attending a Hebrew gymnasium; participating in Ha-No'ar ha-Ivri-Akiba led by Yoel Dreiblatt; antisemitic harassment; working for Akiba in Warsaw; being sent to establish Akiba in Bydgoszcz, Skarżysko, and Starachowice; assisting German-Jewish refugees in Zbąszyń; returning to Kraków as a leader with Shimon Draenger, Adolf Liebeskind (Dolek) and others; eng...

  5. Eli C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eli C., who was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1917. He recounts participating in Blau-Weiss; working at a Zionist summer camp with Teddy Kollek; his brother's emigration to Palestine in 1934; attending university; antisemitic harassment; Anschluss; warnings from their non-Jewish landlord of German raids; moving to Zurich, then Geneva; arrest in September 1939; expulsion from Basel to a Gestapo prison in Lörrach; transfer from prison to prison en route to Sachsenhausen; forced labor in a brick factory; beatings, hunger, and lack of sanitation; public ex...

  6. Alfred F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alfred F., who was born in Breslau, Germany (presently Wrocław, Poland) in 1920, the older of two siblings. He recounts his father's pro-German sentiments based on his military service in World War I; anti-Jewish laws resulting in his expulsion from school in 1934; attending a Jewish school; moving with his family to Berlin in 1935; participating in Hechalutz; attending their summer camp; hearing Martin Buber speak; non-Jewish neighbors hiding his family during Kristallnacht; his sister's emigration to England, then his to Wieringen, Netherlands with a hachsharah in M...

  7. Tobias S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tobias S., who was born in Tarn?ow, Poland in 1925, one of two children. He recounts his family's move to Antwerp in 1926; attending a Jewish school; a one-year visit with relatives in Poland in 1935; attending a Jewish school there; attending a Talmudic high school in Belgium; German invasion; fleeing with his family to France; returning after encountering German soldiers; anti-Jewish restrictions including closing of his school and wearing the star; his sister's disappearance (he never saw her again); illegally traveling with his parents to Paris, then south using f...

  8. Uziel L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Uziel L., who was born in Z?uromin, Poland in 1916, the youngest of three children. He recalls his family's affluence; his father's leadership role in the Jewish community; attending Jewish and public schools; moving with his family to ?o?dz? in 1929; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; his sisters' emigration to Palestine in 1934 and 1935; training as a textile engineer; supporting his parents; his leadership role in No?ar ha-Tsiyoni; enlistment in the Polish military in 1938; attending officers' training school; German invasion; capture; imprisonment in Stalag II A; ...

  9. Shaul S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shaul S., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1924, the second of three children. He recounts his father's service in World War I; attending a Jewish school; his father purchasing property in the Netherlands; moving to Oosterbeek after Adolf Hitler's 1933 election; moving to Arnhem; joining Maccabi Hatzair; attending the Berlin Olympics in 1936; his maternal grandparents joining them after Kristallnacht; his grandparents' relocation to Westerbork as German refugees; their release to Amsterdam; working in his father's poultry business; moving to Amsterdam; German invas...

  10. Alfred K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alfred K., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921, the youngest of three brothers. He recounts attending public school; antisemitic harassment; participating in socialist and Zionist organizations; Austrians welcoming the Germans during the Anschluss; one brother emigrating to relatives in the United States, the other, as a physician with a Kindertransport, to England; the concierge protecting him and his parents during Kristallnacht; fleeing with an aunt and uncle to Belgium; living in Antwerp; placement in Merksplas refugee camp; German invasion; fleeing to France;...

  11. Henri K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henri K., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1926. He recounts his parents' and their siblings' emigration from Poland during World War I; speaking Yiddish at home; a priest espousing antisemitic ideas during religious instruction in public school; German invasion; fleeing with his family to Revelles, France; after three months, round-up with other non-citizens in Cape la Hague for six months; internment in Rivesaltes; release in February 1942 due to his Parisian aunt's bribes; returning from Vierzon to Brussels, using false papers; his sister's deportation (he neve...

  12. Michael I. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael I., who was born in 1917, one of seven children. He recalls his family's business in Warsaw and Falencia; attending yeshiva until age fourteen; participating in Akiba; becoming head of the Otwock branch; antisemitic violence; living on training farms (hachsharah) in Be?chato?w and Siemiatycze; German invasion; fleeing to Ostro?e?ka, then ?omz?a; returning to his family in Otwock; fleeing to Soviet-occupied territory; traveling to Vilnius via Bia?ystok and Hrodna; working at a hachsharah in Garliava; living in Kaunas; German invasion; fleeing to Ukmerge?; posin...

  13. Israel R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Israel R., who was born in Rzeszów, Poland in 1926, the younger of two brothers. He recounts his family's 1929 emigration to Antwerp to join relatives; their orthodoxy; attending Agudat Israel on weekends; the births of two younger siblings; attending a commercial school in Berchem; German invasion; fleeing with his family to Brussels via Ostende, then to De Panne and Adinkerke, intending to leave for France; not being able to cross the border because they were Polish citizens; traveling to Eeko, Bruges, then Ghent; working in Brussels; anti-Jewish restrictions; visi...

  14. Boris B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Boris B., who was born in Częstochowa, Poland in 1918, the youngest of ten children. He recalls his father's death; joining his brother in Saverne in 1928; attending rabbinical school in Paris; working in his family's business; military draft in 1939; German invasion; capture as a prisoner of war in Brest; incarceration in Coëtquidan, Loudéac, Compiègne, then Saint-Just-en-Chaussée; escape; returning to Paris; joining his mother in Caluire-et-Cuire via Lyon; employment as a glass-cutter; a year later, working for Father Alexandre Glasberg, OSE, and Sixièmè (Jew...

  15. Binjamin M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Binjamin M., who was born in Włocławek, Poland in 1917, the oldest of three children. He recounts a happy childhood in an affluent, assimilated home; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; increasing antisemitism in the 1930s; studying engineering in Warsaw; German invasion; fleeing to Brest in the Soviet Union; corresponding with his family; assistance from a family friend; working as an electrician; his brother's arrival; moving to Lʹviv to work as an electrical engineer; arrest with his brother as non-Soviet citizens; using his influence to have his brother sent home, ...

  16. Emil L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emil L., who was born in Berehove, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1920, one of four children. He recounts attending cheder; emigration with his family to Antwerp in 1930; moving to Brussels; attending a Flemish school; cordial relations with non-Jews; his bar mitzvah; participating in the Young Socialists (JS); participating in a meeting in Louvain to unite socialists and communists; arrest at an anti-Rexist demonstration; release; briefly fleeing to France; apprenticeship as a tailor; German invasion; fleeing with his family to France; his aunt's death and his...

  17. Edith C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edith C., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1928, one of two children. She recounts her family's poverty; their orthodoxy; moving to Genoa in 1937; initiation of anti-Jewish "racial" laws after the German-Italian alliance; traveling to Nice illegally via Ventimiglia; obtaining political asylum in April 1939; assistance from a refugee committee; attending school; her father's incarceration as an enemy alien after the outbreak of war; German invasion; his release; his and her brother's incarceration in Gurs, then Rivesaltes; her brother's escape; hiding him on a nearby...

  18. Joseph H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph H., who was born in Boryslav, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1921, the youngest of three children. He recounts his brother's death before his own birth; his family's orthodoxy; attending cheder; participating in Zionist groups; brief German invasion; Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; hiding his family during Ukrainian anti-Jewish violence and killings; ghettoization; hiding his parents during round-ups (he and his sister had jobs which exempted them from deportation); his later deportation to Janowska; escape with assistance from the camp underground; ...

  19. Simone C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simone C., who was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1922. She recalls fleeing to Paris in 1933 when the Gestapo came to arrest her father and brother; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; her older brother's emigration to Palestine in 1934; German invasion; her father volunteering for the French military; fleeing with her mother and younger brother to Toulouse; their return to Paris; her internment in the Ve?lodrome d'Hiver, then Gurs; her mother and brother moving to be near her; a guard allowing her to visit them; not returning; living in Pe?rigueux with her family (her ...

  20. Elazar S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Elazar S., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1924, the elder of two children. He recalls his sister's birth in 1931; attending private Hebrew schools; antisemitic harassment; his father's communal leadership role, including in Zionist organizations; attending a Zionist congress with him in Switzerland in 1935; assisting German-Jewish refugees; German invasion in September 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions; his father briefly fleeing; his arrest a week after his return; notification of his death in December 1940; Mr. S. receiving assistance from his Polish nanny; his mot...