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Displaying items 21 to 40 of 116
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Emmanuel F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emmanuel F., who was born in 1922 in Kosiv, Poland (presently Ukraine), the oldest of six children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending engineering school in Warsaw beginning in 1936; German invasion; returning home; Soviet occupation; military draft; German invasion before he could report for duty; forced labor with his father and brothers in a brick factory; his father's death; selection as a mechanic (the rest of his family was deported or killed); transfer to Kuty; escaping with assistance from a German soldier; capture; escaping; joining partisans in fo...

  2. Pierre T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pierre T., a non-Jew, who was born in Brittany, France, in 1909. Mr. T. recounts serving as chief purser on the ocean liner Normandie in 1939; his capture at the defeat of the French army in 1940; escaping to join his family in Cha?teaubriant; shock at the execution of twenty-seven townsmen; obtaining a job which enabled him to issue false documents; and serving the Resistance as a guide for downed Allied fliers. He recalls his arrest in January 1944; Gestapo interrogations and torture; being transported naked (to deter escape attempts) in overcrowded boxcars to Mauth...

  3. Peter B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter B., a Russian Orthodox, who was born in Terijoki, Finland (now Zelenogorsk, R.S.F.S.R.) in 1916. He relates his family's move to Russia after the 1917 Revolution; living in Poland approximately two years; joining his father in Paris in 1925; earning a degree in chemical engineering; volunteering at war's outbreak; attending officers' school; being wounded and captured by the Germans in June 1940; and escaping in July. He recalls being demobilized; working for the Germans to avoid capture; marriage; assisting in resistance activities through his wife and brother-...

  4. Rosel B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rosel B., who was born in 1916 in Warsaw, Poland. Mrs. B. describes her family's move to Berlin; visits to her grandparents in Poland; attending a Jewish school; their highly cultured lifestyle; warnings about Hitler from 1928 onward; attending secretarial school; forced sale of the family business; her engagement in 1936; marriage in Berlin; emigration to Amsterdam; and the birth of her daughter. She recounts German invasion; betrayal by their housekeeper; receiving a notice for deportation; fleeing with her husband and daughter, via Brussels and Bordeaux, to Nice; b...

  5. Gertrud K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gertrud K., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. Mrs. K. recalls a comfortable life; strong Jewish identity; watching mass demonstrations when the Germans marched in; the plundering of her father's business two days later; ransacking of their home; and public humiliation of her father. She remembers Kristallnacht; her father and one brother's arrest; her other brother hiding; several weeks later her father's letter from Dachau; receiving permission to leave on a Kindertransport to Scotland; reluctance to leave with her father in prison; and begging a Gestapo offic...

  6. Renate R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Renate R., who was born in Berlin in 1923. Mrs. R. describes her family background; life in Germany; and their move to Yugoslavia in 1933; her father's illness and death in 1940; the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941; and the forced move with her mother and brother to a Jewish section. She describes living with a Yugoslav family and her mother's imprisonment by the Gestapo. Mrs. R. recounts working for the partisans; having to leave the Yugoslav family due to fear of betrayal; thinking of suicide; and being aided by the mother of a school friend who helped arrange...

  7. Fred O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred O., who was born in Hrubieszo?w, Poland in 1909. He describes his family life; growing up in an anti-Semitic environment; medical school in Montpellier, France and the pleasure of being away from the atmosphere in Poland; being compelled to repeat his medical education in Warsaw; and the stress involved with the return to Poland. He recalls the German invasion; working as a doctor in the Warsaw ghetto; the pervasive lice and resulting typhus epidemic; extreme hunger; returning to Hrubieszo?w; treating a Gestapo agent, then watching him shoot children and old peop...

  8. 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...

  9. 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...

  10. Simon R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simon R., who was born in Ozorko?w, Poland in 1916 to an orthodox family of six children. He recalls his family moving between Ozorko?w and ?owicz; working from age ten; disbelief that anything bad would occur; opening a store near Ozorko?w in 1939; German invasion; fleeing to Ozorko?w; learning the Gestapo was looking for him; hiding in a village; returning to Ozorko?w; and three months in jail in ?e?czyca. Mr. R. tells of his return to Ozorko?w; his brother's arrest; ghettoization; forced labor; the community saving a boy from public hanging for not wearing the yell...

  11. Rose S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rose S., who was born in Minsk, Byelorussia, in 1921. She tells of her family's move to Kon?skie, Poland; the outbreak of war in 1939 while she was nearby in Przedbo?rz; fleeing with her boyfriend to Ostro?w Lubelski in the Soviet zone; his return; and her marriage to a local artist/musician. Mrs. S. recalls the German invasion; ghettoization; her husband's murder in an Aktion; working as a housekeeper for German soldiers; hiding during a round-up in which her in-laws were taken; being forewarned of Aktions by a German soldier; and escaping with false papers to Zdolbu...

  12. Lisbeth B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lisbeth B., who was born in Posen, Germany (presently Poznan?, Poland) in 1911. She recounts living in a small village; moving to Berlin for safety during World War I; returning to Posen which became Poland; attending a German school; her father's death in 1928; working as a tutor and in a German publishing house; assisting Jews deported from Germany in 1938; participating in Zionist organizations; German invasion in 1939; deportation in December to Ostro?w Lubelski; traveling to Warsaw; working as a tutor; her mother declining a non-Jew's offer to hide them; ghettoiz...

  13. Robert R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Robert R., who was born in Mellrichstadt, Germany in 1924. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending a Catholic school; antisemitic harassment; attending high school with his brother in Bad Neustadt an der Saale; increasing antisemitism; expulsion from school in 1937; attending a Jewish school; having to leave town for defending himself against an attack by Hitler Youth; being beaten by Nazis; apprenticeship with an uncle as a tailor; Kristallnacht; his father's and uncle's arrests; his arrest and deportation to Buchenwald; a fellow prisoner assisting him; standin...

  14. 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...

  15. Carol W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Carol W., who was born in Stanis?awo?w, Poland (now Ivano-Frankovsk, Ukraine), in 1915. Mrs. W. relates her marriage; the birth of her son Clemens L. in 1937; Soviet, then German occupation; the shooting of some 10,000 Jews in an Aktion; ghettoization; believing her family safe because her father was in the Judenrat; hiding with other relatives during a September 1942 Aktion when her husband and father were taken; and escaping on false papers with her son, brother, and niece. She tells of taking her son to Lwo?w; a narrow escape en route; securing a job and sending fo...

  16. Morris R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Morris R. who was born in Cze?stochowa, Poland in 1922 and grew up in Da?browa Go?rnicza. He recalls traditional family life; attending public school and cheder; Jewish scout activities; German invasion; attempting to reach Warsaw with his older brother; returning home upon learning that the Germans were everywhere; anti-Jewish restrictions; imposition of forced labor on the Jewish community through a Judenrat; his sister's deportation to Gru?nberg; ghettoization in 1942; and his family's deportation in August. Mr. R. recounts receiving food from a Gestapo chief for r...

  17. 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...

  18. 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...

  19. 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...

  20. 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...