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 1 to 20 of 116
Search result ordering
Language of Description: German
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. 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...

  2. 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;...

  3. Aharon C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aharon C., who was born in Opoczno, Poland in 1921, one of seven children. He recounts attending cheder, public school, then Tarbut school; participating in Gordonyah; antisemitic violence; his older brother's emigration to Palestine in 1935; two brothers' conscription; German invasion; one brother's return; anti-Jewish restrictions; Germans taking community leaders for ransom, including his father; the community paying the ransom; his father's appointment to the Judenrat; ghettoization; working in the family bakery; volunteering in a soup kitchen; his assignment to b...

  4. Shmuel G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shmuel G., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923. He recounts attending a Jewish German language school; participating in the Bar Kochba swim club; his sister's emigration to England in 1939; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; studying plumbing; his father's death in 1940; slave labor for the Hlinka guard; release after four months; deportation to Sered; his mother hiding with non-Jews; bringing her to Sered with assistance from Alexander Pressburger, the head Jew of the camp; moving her out to a Czech family; his privileged position ...

  5. Wili G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Wili G., who was born in Olomuoc, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Czech Republic) in 1914, the oldest of three brothers. He recounts his family's affluence; attending the local German gymnasium; completing engineering studies in Belgium; draft into the Czech military; German occupation; military discharge at the end of 1938; one brother's emigration to Palestine; moving to Prague with his grandmother; participating in Maccabi; teaching at a Zionist school; joining a hachsharah; marriage to a woman he met there in October 1941; joining his parents in Olomouc; a no...

  6. 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 ...

  7. Roziana B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Roziana B., who was born in Deštnice, Czechoslovakia in 1927. She recounts being the only Jewish family in town; their assimilated lifestyle; her mother's death in 1936; her father's remarriage in 1937; attending public school; moving to Žatec; German occupation; her father's friend, who was in the Gestapo, warning him to flee (he did); their arrest on Kristallnacht; being ordered to leave; traveling to the Czech border; being denied entry by Czech officials; incarceration by Germans in Kolešovice, then Karlsbad; release; returning to Žatec, then Deštnice; receiv...

  8. Henri D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henri D., who was born in Ploies?ti, Romania, in 1910, the youngest of six children. He recounts his close relationship with his grandfather; his father's leadership role in the Jewish community; his grandfather's death in 1918; receiving his grandfather's teffilin at his bar mitzvah; attending a Romanian school; a beating from the principal because he was Jewish; leaving school, vowing never to return; being sent to live with an aunt in Paris; attending the Sorbonne; working as a journalist and novelist; the death of his fiance?e; attending the Max Reinhardt-Seminar ...

  9. Michel T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michel T., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland, an only child. He recounts moving to his aunt's home in Breslau, Germany (presently Wroc?aw, Poland) when he was seven; his bar mitzvah; attending high school; being accused of sabotage after Hitler's ascent to power in 1933; fleeing to Bordeaux; visiting his family in Poland in 1937; moving to Vienna; Austrians warmly welcoming the Germans during the Anschluss; anti-Jewish violence; fleeing with his fiance?e in late October 1938; interrogation by the Gestapo in Saarbru?cken; release by the Gestapo and their assistance crossi...

  10. Jenny L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jenny L., who was born in Aleksinac, Yugoslavia in 1927, the younger of two children. She recounts a kind kindergarten teacher; moving to Belgrade; her father's military conscription in spring 1941; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; a public execution; her brother's escape to Italian-occupied Croatia; reporting to a German round-up; escaping when she saw her friend killed, leaving her mother and grandmother; traveling to an aunt's home in Niš (she worked for the underground); obtaining false papers; living with her former kindergarten teacher; hiding partisa...

  11. Robert M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Robert M., a Catholic, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1921. He recounts a half-brother from his mother's previous marriage to a Jew who was killed in World War I; visits with his half-brother to his mother's first mother-in-law; his father's death in 1929; participating in a Boy Scout group; assisting Jewish refugees from Germany; attending university; German invasion; fleeing to Rouen, Les Sables-d'Olonne, and Toulouse; his brother joining the French army; returning home; participating in the resistance through Group G; giving his identity card to a Jewish woma...

  12. Georges D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Georges D., a non-Jew, who was born in Ixelles, Belgium in 1911. He recounts his mother's death in 1918; his family's move to Brussels; training as a mechanic in a technical school; military service beginning in 1931; working as a policeman; marriage in 1936; the births of two daughters; German invasion on May 10, 1940; military draft; fleeing to France on May 16; encountering Germans; returning home the day after Belgian capitulation; joining the Resistance; delivering underground journals; hiding individuals sought by the Gestapo; obtaining false papers for Jews; ar...

  13. Harry B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry B., who was born in Gorlice, Poland in 1929, one of five children. He recalls his family's affluence; German bombardment; escaping to Jas?o; his father and oldest brother boarding a train which left before the rest had boarded; returning home; ghettoziation; a Gestapo shooting his brother; a friend on the Judenrat convincing the Gestapo not to touch the rest of the family; deportation of all Jews in 1941; remaining behind to clear bodies (he never saw his mother or siblings again); transfer to P?aszo?w; a privileged position caring for the Kommandant and his fam...

  14. Azriel L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Azriel L., who was born in Klaipėda, Lithuania in 1923, and raised in Skaudvilė, the oldest of four sons. He recounts his family's affluence; his father's Zionism; attending cheder, public school, yeshiva, then a Hebrew gymnasium in Tauragė; the family moving to Kaunas; Soviet occupation; remaining in Kaunas when his family returned to Skaudvilė; clandestinely participating in a Zionist youth group; visiting Vilnius; German invasion; Lithuanian violence against Jews; receiving a letter from his parents (he never saw them again); ghettoization; forced labor at the ...

  15. Jacqueline F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacqueline F., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1921, an only child. She recalls her family's affluence; close relations with grandparents; emigrating to Strasbourg with her family in April 1933 after her uncle's arrest and torture; moving to Tours in 1934; her father's business success; relatives en route to the United States urging them to leave; her father's refusal; the outbreak of war; incarceration with her family in Gurs as enemy aliens; liberation in 1940; living in Limoges; moving alone to Grenoble; studying law; participating in the communist Resistance; ...

  16. Victor W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Victor W., a Catholic, who was born in Belgium in approximately 1925, one of three brothers. He recounts living near Namur; his family's focus on religion, family, and patriotism; attending a Catholic school; participating in a Catholic youth group; German invasion; helping to bury Belgian soldiers; joining the Resistance in 1941; printing and distributing leaflets; obtaining weapons; a friend who worked for the Gestapo warning him of his imminent arrest; a futile attempt to escape to England via France; arrest in Buxy; interrogation and torture in Chalon-sur-Saone; t...

  17. Jules T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jules T., a non-Jew, who was born in Bois d'Haine, Belgium in 1916. He recounts his father's work as a miner and his union activities; apprenticing as a printer in 1930; his own union activities; military draft; visits from his father in Diepenbeek; capture in Rumbeke on May 28, 1940; escaping on May 30; returning home; working as a printer; union and Resistance activities; organizing a strike in September 1942; imprisonment in Mons for ten days; sabotaging trains; arrest in December; being brought to Gestapo headquarters in La Louvie?re; transfer to Charleroi, then B...

  18. Magdalena N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Magdalena N., who was born in Ružomberok, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1920, one of two sisters. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; her strong Slovak identity; teaching Jewish students in L̕ubochňa; anti-Jewish restrictions, including the humiliation of having to wear the star; moving to Bratislava with her family; her father hiding them, then arranging for her and her sister to be smuggled to Hungary; interdiction in Senec; return to Bratislava; two strangers paying for their release; her sister's marriage to a man legally exempted from deportat...

  19. Saul C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Saul C., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1925. He recalls his family's relative poverty; attending Bund summer camps; German occupation; the family's move to Cze?stochowa; forced labor in the ghetto; transformation of the ghetto into labor camps (his mother, sister, and one brother were deported to Treblinka); hiding during a round-up; capture and escape; rejoining his father in the camp; separation from his father; escaping with a friend; building a bunker in a forest; hostile Polish partisans (AK); returning to camp because he feared death; denunciation; imprison...

  20. Werner R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Werner R. who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1927. He recalls his father losing his job in 1933; moving to Zagreb; attending public school; their Zionist, rather than Jewish, identity; his father's death in 1940; German invasion in 1941; being baptized with his sister; living separately from his mother and sister because it seemed safer; his sister's escape to Italy; working with the partisans; and arrest by the Gestapo in 1943. Mr. R. tells of jails in Graz and Vienna; transport to Terezi?n; cabarets and opera; German efforts to preserve Jewish books; and transport t...