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Displaying items 41 to 60 of 116
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. 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...

  2. 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'...

  3. 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'...

  4. 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...

  5. 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 ...

  6. 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...

  7. 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...

  8. 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...

  9. 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...

  10. 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 ...

  11. 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 ...

  12. 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...

  13. 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...

  14. 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...

  15. 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...

  16. 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 ...

  17. Kurt S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kurt S., who was born in Krefeld, Germany in 1924. He recalls being barred from university in 1938 due to anti-Jewish restrictions; working on a Jewish training farm in Silesia; Gestapo dissolution of the farm in 1941; returning to Krefeld; and transport with his parents to the Ri?ga ghetto in December. Mr. S. describes unloading ships; refusing a ship captain's offer to smuggle him to Denmark in order to remain with his parents; work details in Ri?ga, Salaspils, Kaiserwald and other places; frequent deaths from starvation, hangings, and shootings; narrowly escaping e...

  18. Harry M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry M., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1920. He recounts his United States citizenship through his father; participation in Jewish athletics; pervasive antisemisitm; German occupation in March 1938; giving a Gestapo official their expired passport to ensure they could leave; leaving with his parents for Paris the same day; traveling to the United States three weeks later; arranging for relatives and his fiancee to join them; military conscription in 1943; infantry service in Europe; assignment as an interpreter in April 1945; choosing not to shoot German POWs wh...

  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. Serge B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Serge B., who was born in France in 1921. He recalls his parents were Russian immigrants; their assimilated, secular life in Paris; not feeling Jewish until German invasion; his father's escape from the July 1942 round-up with help from a police friend; being sent with his siblings to live with their uncle in Cannes; joining the Resistance; becoming head of his group; arrest in 1943; violent interrogations; the Gestapo discovering he was Jewish; transfer to a prison in Nice, then Drancy; digging an escape tunnel with fourteen prisoners; discovery of the tunnel; confin...