Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 21 to 40 of 116
Language of Description: German
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Claire S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Claire S., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1935 to Polish parents. She recalls her parents' divorce; her father's remarriage; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; her mother requesting that non-Jewish neighbors care for Mrs. S.; her mother's deportation to Auschwitz (she never saw her again); her father visiting prior to being deported (he perished); a loving relationship with her foster family; not attending school for fear of discovery; and traveling to Lie?ge and Verviers to avoid Gestapo searches. She recounts her aunt's legal action to obtain custody o...

  2. Abraham P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abraham P., who was born in Mir, Poland in 1909. He recalls the rich, Jewish culture growing up in Bia?ystok; learning several languages; Jewish holiday celebrations; attending medical school in Lie?ge, Belgium; his leadership role in Po'alei Zion; his parents's and sister's emigration to Belgium in 1932; German invasion in 1940; his parents' flight to Lyon in unoccupied France, then the United States; obtaining papers under a false name; hiding in Brussels; smuggling himself to Lyon in unoccupied France in 1942; joining the Resistance; his sister's incarceration when...

  3. Esther J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther J., who was born in Wielun?, Poland in 1918. Mrs. J. recalls her close family of nine children; their religious observances; antisemitism after 1933; her engagement; her father's death immediately before the war; her fiance serving in the Polish army; German invasion in September 1939; fleeing with her family to join her fiance in the Soviet zone; and returning home to find their estate looted by Poles. She describes her family being fingerprinted by the Gestapo; leaving for ?o?dz? with her fiance and mother; marriage; fleeing to Kovel? in the Soviet zone; tran...

  4. Fredrika L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fredrika L., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1917. She recalls attending pharmacy school; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; marriage; paying large sums in 1942 for false papers to travel to Switzerland via Belgium; the Gestapo arresting her husband en route to Switzerland (she never saw him again), but releasing her; returning to warn her parents not to take that train (they had already left and were detained and deported); hiding in many places, often with her brother; a Belgian family who took them in; contemplating suicide, but deciding against i...

  5. Otto L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Otto L., who was born in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland in 1909 and raised in Konstanz, Germany. He recounts his family's long history in Germany and Switzerland; his parents' non-involvement with Judaism; active participation in gymnastics, swimming, and scouting; never experiencing antisemitism until an encounter with a non-local scout group; his bar mitzvah; an apprenticeship in Nuremberg for two years; friendship with a police officer who provided him with information that later saved his life; working in Bochum for thirteen months, then for his father; a job in Augsbur...

  6. Lepa M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lepa M., a non-Jew who was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1914. She describes the political atmosphere and situation of the Jews in Belgrade before the war; her marriage in 1935; the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941; and the anti-Jewish legislation and mass deportations which followed. She relates that in 1943 she and her husband hid five Jews in the basement of their house in Prokuplje, and that several months later they were discovered, and, along with Mrs. M.'s husband, were taken away and shot by the Gestapo in Nis?. Mrs. M. speaks of her life in Belgrade after ...

  7. Margot H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margot H., who was born in Mainz, Germany in 1918. She recalls growing up in Gau-Algesheim where she was the only Jewish child her age; pleasant relations with townspeople until 1933; encounters with Nazi teachers and youth groups; her father conducting business at night to avoid the Gestapo; working near Frankfurt; returning home to escape violent antisemitism; entering a Catholic sewing school; and moving with her family to Wiesbaden where they were not known. Mrs. H. recounts working in a dress shop; her brother-in-law's suicide and her sister's death; her brother'...

  8. Alexander R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alexander R., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1908. Mr. R. recalls his youth in a prominent, assimilated family; loss of the family shoe store during the 1919 Communist regime; suppression of the Communists; return of the family business; antisemitism in school and university admissions; law studies; and receiving his doctorate in 1930. He recounts his law apprenticeship with a Jewish politician; military service starting in 1931; attending officer candidate school; antisemitic incidents; discharge in 1932; return to law practice; the political shift to the right...

  9. Paul M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul M., who was born in Berlin, Germany to Polish immigrants in 1922. He recalls involvement in Zionist organizations; attending a Jewish school; the decision of some relatives to emigrate in 1933; a beating by Hitler Youth in 1934; his parents' decision to leave following a Gestapo interrogation in 1936; their journey to Palestine via Austria and Trieste (his parents had money smuggled to them in Italy); their emigration to the United States in 1938; attending high school; cessation of communications from family in Europe after 1939; being drafted in 1942; encounter...

  10. Joseph W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph W., who was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1914. He recalls his parents' grocery business; their separation in 1931 (his father moved to Romania); celebrating religious holidays; attending business school; his belief that Nazi antisemitism would pass; Stuttgart's liberal atmosphere; exemption from wearing the yellow star due to his mother's Romanian citizenship; losing his job due to anti-Jewish laws; destruction of his mother's store during Kristallnacht; moving with his mother and sister into Jewish housing; working in a Jewish center processing emigration app...

  11. Rudolf F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rudolf F., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1923. He recalls several generations of his family in Holland; German invasion; gradual implementation of anti-Jewish laws, including his expulsion from medical school; working in the Jewish hospital; the role of the Jewish council; forced relocation of Jews to south Amsterdam; frequent round-ups; incarceration with other Jews at Gestapo headquarters; his father's arrest and deportation (he perished); his sister hiding with her fiance with help from the underground; hiding elsewhere with his mother; deportation of t...

  12. Ruth W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth W., who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1914. Mrs. W. recalls her childhood; her father's death in 1927; being legally barred from university attendance; working as a bookeeper for her uncle; marriage in December 1938; staying with their respective parents to avoid registering; and failing to obtain affidavits from American relatives. She tells of forced labor in a munitions plant; her mother's deportation to Ri?ga in August 1942; her husband joining her when his parents were deported to Terezi?n; hiding with a farmer when her husband's deportation seemed imminen...

  13. Margarete L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margarete L., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1924. She recalls her father's trip to the Soviet Union from which he never returned; expulsion from school at age thirteen; forced labor; a non-Jewish co-worker who provided them with extra food; destruction of her mother's business during Kristallnacht; receiving protection for herself, sister and mother from the Swedish embassy since they were Soviet citizens; arrest and torture by the Gestapo for refusing to name Jews in hiding; and transfer to Bergen-Belsen. She describes the pervasive fear; transfer of Soviet citi...

  14. Margo B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margo B., who was born in Schkeuditz, Germany in 1925. She recalls attending school in Halle; antisemitic restrictions; her father's arrest in 1938 because he had Polish citizenship; his release provided he emigrate within four weeks; his emigration to Paris; joining him with her younger sister, mother, and uncle a month later; moving to Villeneuve-sur-Lot; attending school; her father serving in the military when war began; his return upon French surrender; obtaining false papers for himself from a military colleague; their family receiving false papers from a non-Je...

  15. Paul S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul S., who was born in Witten, Germany in 1925 of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who converted to Judaism. He recalls participation in Zionist organizations; one brother's emigration to Palestine; being hidden by non-Jewish neighbors on Kristallnacht; his father's imprisonment in Sachsenhausen; living with his non-Jewish aunt in Berlin; attending school in Dortmund; living at Zionist, then labor camps from 1940 onward; his older brother's death in an aborted attempt to reach Palestine; avoiding deportation because he was a "mischling"; deciding to live "under...

  16. Leopold Z. Holocaust Testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leopold Z., who was born in Bautzen, Germany, in 1922 and moved to Breslau as a child. Mr. Z. describes his childhood and religious education; the beginning of the war and his family's fatally passive reaction; forced labor in a factory near Breslau; and the deportation of his entire family, except himself and one of his four brothers, to a town near Lublin. He tells of being taken in by an orphanage, where he and his brother were given false French papers; their betrayal and subsequent arrest; and their year-long imprisonment while awaiting trial for treason. Mr. Z. ...

  17. Ernest H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest H., who was born in 1925 in Neumarkt, Germany. He recalls moving to Fu?rth in 1938 so he and his siblings could attend a Jewish school (they were expelled in Neumarkt); his brother's emigration to the United States in 1941; deportation with his parents and sister to Jungfernhof, Latvia in December 1941; forced labor as a car mechanic, which he believes saved him from extermination; transfer to the Ri?ga ghetto in July 1942 (he notes the sadism of the Gestapo commander), then to Kaiserwald and Stutthof in 1943; and liberation from Rybno (Rieben) by Soviet troops...

  18. Thea S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Thea S., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1935. Her mother was Catholic and her father Huguenot. She recalls little change during the first two years of German occupation; her father joining the Dutch underground and falsifying passports for Jews; hiding a Jewish woman and her son in their attic; frequently talking to the boy late at night; being told they would all be killed if she told anyone they were hiding Jews; her uncle's execution by the Germans as a spy; her sister's hospitalization and evacuation to Belgium after the hospital was bombed; her father'...

  19. Rena G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rena G., who was born in 1936 in Thessalonike?, Greece. She recalls her family's move to Athens in 1940 due to the German occupation; hiding in a basement; her father's activities in the resistance; posing as non-Jews; extreme hunger; attempting to reach Turkey by boat in 1943; and capture by the Germans. She recounts their interrogation in Mou?dhros on Lemnos Island; her father being taken elsewhere; being jailed with her mother and uncle for three months; her mother's influence with the Gestapo commander, resulting in Mrs. G's release from prison to live with a fami...

  20. Imrich H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Imrich H., who was born in Prešov, Czecholslovkia (presently Slovkia) in 1923, the youngest of three children. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; a wonderful childhood; antisemitism beginning in 1938; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; his father's death from illness in 1940; expulsion from school as a Jew in 1941; keeping a diary; hiding after deportations started; obtaining false papers as a Slovak; moving to Bratislava in June 1942; finding a job; living with a family (they did not know he was Jewish), then in his workplace; visiting his parents in Sabino...