Archival Descriptions

Advanced query tips

There are several ways to be more specific in your search query:

"Phrase"
Search an exact match of your query, e.g. "Member lists"
+Phrase
Given word has to be in the result, e.g. +Gestapo
-Phrase
Exclude given word from search, e.g. -Gestapo

Use the following syntax to restrict the search to specific fields:

field:"phrase"
For instance, you can find all descriptions that have the phrase "Auschwitz Birkenau" in their titles by searching for title:"Auschwitz Birkenau".

The following fields are currently available:

  • identifier
  • title
  • creator
  • person
  • place
  • subject
  • address
Displaying items 801 to 816 of 816
Search result ordering
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. 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 ...

  2. 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...

  3. Lisa H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lisa H., who was born in Essen, Germany in 1919. She remembers the gradual deterioration of the Jewish situation in Germany, including restrictive legislation as well as overt displays of antisemitism; being sent to London by her parents two weeks before the outbreak of war; working as a cook in Devon; switching from one domestic job to another in London; her emigration to America in 1946; studying Yiddish at the Jewish Institute; learning of the death of her family in Europe; returning to Germany on a visit in the 1950s, where she was able to locate the director of h...

  4. Frances S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frances S., who was born in Horocho?w, Poland in 1910. She describes her prewar family and religious life; her marriage in Yugoslavia in 1938; her studies at the University of Belgrade; and her arrest in 1938 before her stay was legalized. She recalls registering for emigration for fear of the Nazis; her flight, once she obtained her visa; her journey to Bombay via Greece, Iraq, and Karachi; and her forty-day trip to the United States, where she arrived in March 1941. She tells of her life here; her impressions of America's inertia with regard to receiving immigrants;...

  5. Ursula D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ursula D., a non-Jew, who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1938. She recounts her parents' anti-Nazi sympathies; her father listening to Allied radio broadcasts; Allied bombing; constant fear; arrival of United States troops; postwar hardships, including rationing; an influx of refugees; her sense that Germans refused to admit culpability for the war and considered themselves "victims"; visiting relatives in Belgium, where she first learned about the Holocaust; confronting her parents; their unwillingness to discuss it; moving to Israel in the early 1960s; marriage to ...

  6. Lucie W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lucie W., who was born in Bad Berleburg, Germany in 1924. She describes instances of Nazi-related antisemitism in public school; her family's experiences during Kristallnacht and its aftermath; her journey to Belgium, along with her brother and sister, on a children's transport; and her unsuccessful attempt to escape into France. She also relates her illegal entry into Germany in February 1941, in order to emigrate to the United States with her family, and her subsequent emigration to the United States via Portugal.

  7. Ruth K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth K., who was born in Niedermendig, Germany in 1935. She recalls hearing of her father's arrest on Kristallnacht; his internment in Dachau where he suffered a heart attack; his release; her mother selling the family jewelry to finance their departure from Germany in 1939; traveling through Portugal to Brazil; and their emigration to the United States two years later. Mrs. K. discusses what happened to members of her extended family; a memorial in Niedermending dedicated to her family; and her father never talking about Dachau.

  8. 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.

  9. 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...

  10. Rita M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rita M., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1920. She recalls her prosperous family's strong German identity; refusing to accept a sports award with a swastika; leaving school in 1937 when she was no longer allowed to sit with "Aryan" children; attending a Jewish school for one year; receiving affidavits from relatives in the United States; staying with friends for two weeks in Amsterdam; and leaving from Rotterdam for the United States in June 1938. Mrs. M. notes all her relatives who remained in Europe were killed.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. David K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David K., a researcher who specialized in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. He discusses the emigration of many Jews to Shanghai, their relationships with the already existing Jewish communities, the Chinese, and the Japanese. His book Japanese, Nazis & Jews : the Jewish refugee community of Shanghai, 1938-1945, is an authoritative study of this subject.

  15. Betty C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Betty C., who was born in Berlin in 1910. She tells of her happy life in prewar Berlin and describes the rise of antisemitism in Germany, culminating in Kristallnacht, after which she, her husband, and her infant daughter fled the country and emigrated to the United States.

  16. Gregory F. Holocaust testimony

    Video testimony of Gregory F., a non-Jew, who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1941. He relates experiences as a "displaced person" in his own country when he and his family were relocated by the Germans from Vienna to a small Austrian town.