Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 161 to 180 of 816
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Peter A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter A., who was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1931. He recalls his father's prewar death; attending synagogue with his grandfather; expulsion from public school; attending the Philanthropin Jewish school; witnessing stormtrooper parades; his mother's reluctance to leave Germany because of the family business; being chased by Hitler Youth on Kristallnacht; and his mother selling the family business for one German mark after swastikas were painted on the windows. Mr. A. recounts difficulties obtaining visas for emigration; his brother joining relatives in England in A...

  2. Sonia G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape of Sonia G., who was born in ?ocho?w, Poland in 1912, one of ten children. She recalls working in Warsaw starting at age fifteen; moving to a hakhsharat from 1932 to 1933 to prepare for immigration to Palestine; increasing antisemitism; returning to ?ocho?w; emigrating to Brussels in 1938 (she never saw her family again); joining a Jewish socialist organization; a mock marriage to obtain Belgian citizenship; joining the Resistance; arrest; incarceration at Malines; deportation to Birkenau; useless slave labor; transfer to Canada Kommando; slashing clothing she sorted; close bonds ...

  3. Martin E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin E., who was born in Weinheim, Germany in 1929. He recalls anti-Jewish harassment; anti-Jewish laws, including expulsion from public school; attending a Jewish school in Karlsruhe; his father's arrest on Kristallnacht; his return from Dachau six weeks later; deportation with his parents and sister to Gurs in October 1940; obtaining extra food for his family because children could leave the camp; a French family offering to keep him; refusing to leave his family; removal of the children to an orphanage in Aspet a few months later (he never saw his parents or sist...

  4. Jacques B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacques B., who was born in Poland in 1933. He recalls living in Warsaw; vacationing in Otwock when the Germans invaded; fleeing to Sarny with his parents; Soviet occupation; attending school until the German invasion in June 1941; fleeing with his parents to Siberia via Kobyzhcha; living with his mother in Turksib and Dzhambul from the end of 1941 until 1946 (his parents were divorced); observing people starving to death; repatriation to Wroc?aw with his mother; pervasive antisemitism in school; joining the youth section of the Bund; and emigration with his mother to...

  5. 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...

  6. William N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William N., who was born in Ga?nsendorf, Austria in 1916. He recalls moving with his family, at the age two, to Czechoslovakia; antisemitic incidents; joining the socialist group "Red Falcon" in Steyr, and later a Zionist youth group in Vienna; being drafted into the Austrian army in 1937; one month's service in the German army after the Anschluss; persecution of Austrian Jews; Abraham Stern organizing illegal emigration from Austria; traveling from a port near Athens to Palestine via Belgrade and Thessalonike?; joining the Irgun, then the Stern Group; and organizing ...

  7. Rita K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rita K., who was born in 1924 in Memmelsdorf, Germany. She recalls the family's move to Wendelstein in 1930, then to Nuremberg in 1935; attending a Jewish school; participating in a Jewish sports group until 1938; emigration of family members to South America; and being part of the last confirmation class at the Great Synagogue in the spring of 1938. Mrs. K. remembers the destruction of friends' homes on Kristallnacht; leaving with a children's transport to England in January 1939; her parents' and brother's departure for the United States in July 1939; and her reunio...

  8. Gerda K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerda K., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1911. Mrs. K. recounts a happy childhood; antisemitic incidents; laboratory work in a Catholic hospital; she and her father losing their jobs when Hitler came to power in 1933; her father leaving Germany; joining him in Paris with her mother; her mother's death in 1934; obtaining jobs and adjusting to life in Paris, realizing they would not return to Berlin as they originally thought; German invasion; a round-up and two to three weeks in the Ve?lodrome d'Hiver; and transport to Gurs. She recalls over four months in Gurs; re...

  9. Joe W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joe W., who was born in Schweinfurt, Germany in 1922. He describes his family's business, established in 1833; a happy childhood; attending trade school in Berlin in 1937 after Jews were expelled from public schools; hiding with his friend during Kristallnacht; learning of his father's imprisonment and wanton destruction of their business; obtaining permission to go to Sweden with assistance from a Swedish counsel; obtaining a passport with assistance from a German officer; arriving in Sweden on April 30, 1939; and emigrating to the United States from Norway. Mr. W. r...

  10. Oscar E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Oscar E., who was born in Kos?ice, Czechoslovakia in 1930. In unusual detail, he describes his maternal grandfather's and other relatives' emigration to the United States; Hungarian occupation; antisemitic restrictions; moving to Bardejov in 1938; deportations in 1942; being smuggled with his sister to Budapest; their mother briefly joining them; her deportation (he never saw either of his parents again); living with families in Sze?kesfehe?rva?r, Gyo?r, in a village with his aunt, then in Pribeta; being rounded-up in Nove? Za?mky in May 1944; deportation with his sis...

  11. Harry E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry E., a non-Jew, who was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1921. He recalls employment in the immigration section of the Department of Justice in 1938; assisting his supervisor in Antwerp, Belgium on the St. Louis, when it returned to Europe (Holland had agreed to take a portion of the Jewish refugees); passengers passing him notes attempting to document connections to Holland; his supervisor choosing those who had high numbers for emigration elsewhere to minimize their stays in Holland; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions, including wearing the star; some n...

  12. Arnold K. Hocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arnold K., who was born in Suwa?ki, Poland in 1928, the second of four brothers. He recalls his family's affluence; vacationing with his mother and brothers in summer 1939 (he never saw his father again); German invasion; living in Soko??ka with his mother, brothers, and other relatives; moving to Vilnius; Soviet occupation; his relatives' deportation to Siberia; German invasion; ghettoization; forced labor with his older brother; smuggling food to his mother and younger brothers; hiding during round-ups; being found; separation from his mother and younger brothers; d...

  13. Fred B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred B., who was born in ?abiszyn, Germany (now Poland) in 1909. He recalls most of his large, extended family emigrating; his father's military service in World War I; apprenticing in 1924; working in a department store in Schneidemu?hl (now Pi?a) from 1927 on; the anti-Jewish boycott in 1933; moving to Berlin; his sister's and parents' emigration to Palestine; termination of employment; attempts to emigrate with help from Hilfsverein; synagogue burnings, round-ups of Jews, and his friend's shop windows being broken during Kristallnacht; subsequent social isolation; ...

  14. Jolana M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jolana M., who was born in Podwilk, Poland, one of six children. She recalls graduating from Gymnasium in Zakopane in 1932; not attending medical school due to a Jewish quota; attending nursing school in Warsaw; working at a Jewish hospital; joining Hashomer Hatzair; German invasion; fleeing to Soviet-occupied Białystok; returning to Warsaw; posing as a Catholic to travel home, then to Bratislava; working in the Jewish hospital; deportation of the hospital staff to Žilina; selection to work in an old-age home in Nové Mesto nad Váhom; her parents' arrival at the hom...

  15. Kathe K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kathe K., who was born in Breslau, Germany in 1915. She describes her father's death when she was two-and-a-half; realizing she was different, having been diagnosed with cerebral palsy; and her sheltered childhood. Mrs. K. recalls sudden change in 1933 when she was denied entrance to college because she was a Jew; learning to type with one hand; and going to Prague to study English. She related hiding with Christian friends on Crystal Night; her brother's departure for England on a children's transport; her family's attempt to emigrate to Shanghai, resulting in her jo...

  16. Daniel I. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Daniel I., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1932, an only child. He tells of his father's career as a writer and newspaper editor; his mother's as a teacher; an uncle, four aunts, and his grandmother emigrating to Palestine prior to his birth; German invasion in September 1939; destruction of their home by German bombs; fleeing to Soviet-occupied Białystok; moving to Moscow in summer 1940; attending school; visiting his aunt in Leningrad (presently Saint Petersburg); moving when his father found employment in Kaunas; attending a Yiddish school; German invasion; ghett...

  17. Alice B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice B., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1929. She recalls the Anschluss; her father's belief his World War I service protected them; his four-day arrest on Kristallnacht; futile efforts to emigrate; being sent with her brother on a children's transport to France; placement in a children's home in Paris sponsored by Baroness Rothschild; hearing from her parents until war in 1939; transfer to La Bourboule; difficulty parting from her brother; his arrival in Janaury 1943; his transfer six months later; transfer to an OSE home near Limoges; attending school; round-up...

  18. Frieda R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frieda R., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1920, one of three children of Polish émigrés. She recounts her paternal grandmother joining them from Poland; attending public school and a Bund school (her father was a Bundist); participating in Maccabi; her father's death in 1932; leaving school to help support the family; joining the Yiddisher Arbayter Sport Klub (YASK); friendships with young German refugees through the Freie Deutsche Jugend; her fiancé emigrating to the United States in 1939; fleeing to Baisieux with his family when the war began intending to go...

  19. Judith B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Judith B., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1923, the oldest of four children. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment and restrictions; apprenticing as a dressmaker; her parents obtaining affidavits from relatives in the United States; her father's three-month incarceration in Sachsenhausen beginning in June 1938; her mother registering the four children for a Kindertransport; assistance from a non-Jewish neighbor immediately after Kristallnacht; she and her siblings traveling to Stockholm on a Kindertransport in 1939; ...

  20. Henry S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry S., who was born in 1934 in Paris, France, the only child of Polish immigrants. He recalls boarding outside Paris since his parents both worked; their weekend visits; his father enlisting in the French military in 1939, partially to obtain French citizenship; his father's decommission after French surrender; he and his mother joining him in Montrabé; attending school; his father's military friends warning them in summer 1942 that Jews would be rounded-up; crossing to Spain; assistance from the Joint in Barcelona; HIAS sponsoring his emigration to the United St...