Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 41 to 60 of 1,814
Country: United States
  1. 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...

  2. 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...

  3. Renate K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Renate K., a non-Jew, who was born in Stargard in Pommern, Germany (Stargard Szczecin?ski, Poland after 1945) in 1922. She recalls the important contributions of Jews to the community; cordial relations with the local Jews; her father helping a fellow Jewish physician emigrate in 1935; Gestapo threats against her father for his efforts on behalf of Jews and other victims of the Gestapo; and his succesful efforts to hide another Jewish family and arrange for the escape of their child to South America. Mrs. K. recalls replacement of local officials by Nazis; her marriag...

  4. Zofia D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zofia D., who was born in Brzeziny, Poland, in 1923. Mrs. D. recalls her extended family; living with her aunt and uncle when her family moved to Tomaszo?w Mazowiecki; receiving anti-Semitic threats as the only Jew in school in Koluszki; a volksdeutsche girlfriend who later joined the Gestapo; German occupation; angering police by trying to conceal her yellow star; buying her uncle out of a Gestapo jail; and joining her parents in Tomaszo?w. She relates ghetto conditions; execution of the Judenrat head and his sons (one of whom was her boyfriend); escape with her aunt...

  5. 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...

  6. 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'...

  7. 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'...

  8. Joseph and Dorothy B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph B., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1927. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; his father teaching in a Jewish school; attending a Jewish boys' school; participation in Maccabi; his father's trip to Palestine and return, thinking he could not make a living there; antisemitic harassment; being warned prior to Kristallnacht; his father leaving (he went to the synagogue to rescue a Torah); Gestapo coming to arrest his father; his father's return days later (they attribute his survival to the Torah); difficulties trying to emigrate; receiving exit visas outside o...

  9. 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 ...

  10. 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...

  11. Peter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter S., who was born in Chomonin, Czechoslovakia in 1923. He remembers antisemitic harassment; attending school in Mukacheve; membership in Hashomer Hatzair and Betar; Hungarian occupation; compulsory service in a Hungarian slave labor battalion in Uz?h?horod; German occupation; transfer to Baia Mare (Nagyba?nya), then Ditra?u; a beating by Hungarian police; futile escape attempts; transfer to Budapest; meeting his brother; escaping; producing false papers for the Swedish Red Cross; returning to the battalion since he was unable to hide; transfer to Szombathely; ret...

  12. 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...

  13. 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...

  14. Rachel S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachel S., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1923, one of five children. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; sneaking back to her former neighborhood and receiving food from non-Jewish neighbors; forced labor; her father losing his will to live; his refusal of an offer from a non-Jewish friend to hide their family; remaining in their apartment with one sister during a round-up (another sister and her parents were shot in a mass killing at Ponary); joining her brother who was hiding in a village; discovery; incarceration ...

  15. Simon M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simon M., who was born in Ziegenhals, Germany (now G?ucho?azy, Poland) in 1905. He recalls his impoverished childhood in a large family; his father's military service in World War I; completing eight grade; working as a peddler; marriage in 1928; his first son's birth in 1930; living in Breslau when Hitler came to power; serving as a liaison to the Gestapo; helping Jews emigrate; Kristallnacht; arrest and deportation to Buchenwald; release with assistance from an SS officer; receiving help from Jews in Leipzig; returning to Breslau; traveling to Shanghai via Italy in ...

  16. Celina F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Celina F., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1925, one of nine children. She recalls pervasive antisemitism; German invasion; the bombing of their home; beatings of Jews including her brother; moving to Koprzywnica with her mother; returning to Warsaw to rejoin their family; ghettoization; round-ups; deaths from starvation; deciding to escape despite not wanting to leave her family; traveling to Koprzywnica, then to Sandomierz; staying with a Jewish family; escaping during a round-up; hiding with a Polish family; returning to the Warsaw ghetto; learning her family had...

  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. Sonia R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sonia R., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1929 of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. She describes her father's anti-Nazi activities; Gestapo harassment; emigration to Italy, then France, in January 1933 because of her father's politics; her mother's art work; expulsion from France nine months later; her father's return to Germany and her mother's refusal, leading to their divorce; moving with her mother to San Remo; her third sibling's birth; receiving government orders in October 1939 to leave because they were foreigners; a German consular official helpin...

  19. 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...

  20. Paul H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul H., who was born in Bielsko-Bia?a, Poland in 1925. Mr. H. recalls German invasion; his family's flight to Krako?w; avoiding round-ups; traveling to Bielsko for business; arrest and imprisonment; Gestapo torture; release after two months when his sister bribed a guard; returning to Krako?w; escaping, with his brother, to the Soviet zone; visiting his family in Krako?w; remaining when the borders were closed; ghettoization in Tarno?w; execution of his parents and younger sister; deportation to P?aszo?w in 1943; separation from his other sister when he was deported ...