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 101 to 120 of 1,698
Search result ordering
Holding Institution: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

  1. Duquesne spy case; enemy agents in the US; Private Snafu cartoon

    Title on screen: Duquesne Case: Secret. The word "Secret" has been crossed out. Grainy footage, shot clandestinely, shows a New York City street and the interior of an office. Hoover's narration tells of Harry Sawyer [pseudonym for William Sebold], a naturalized German citizen who became a double-agent after he was approached by the Gestapo (in reality the Abwehr) in 1939. The footage shows Duquesne entering Sawyer's office. Spies talk with Sawyer and give him money and the blueprints to the ship SS America. Duquesne, "the most cautious of them all," looks around the room before removing di...

  2. Barbie Trial -- Day 10 -- Victims testify

    Lise Lesevre: Resistance member. She was arrested by the Gestapo on March 13, 1943 while she carried a letter addressed to Didier, the false name of a Resistance leader. She was then interrogated and tortured by Barbie: hung by hand cuffs with spikes, forced under freezing water in a bathtub, and beaten with a spiked ball against her back which broke a vertebrae. She was condemned to death by a German military tribunal for "terrorism" but was placed in the wrong cell and deported to Ravensbruck instead. Her husband died at Dachau and her son was killed in a detention center in Neuengamme at...

  3. Barbie Trial -- Day 12 -- Bailiff introduces witnesses; lawyers demand Barbie's presence in court; recess; Lanfranchi testifies

    Bailiff introduces witnesses who will testify on Day 12 (May 26, 1987); they stand before the court. The trial is suspended for ten minutes at 13:53:23; tape recording stops and skips to real time 14:03:12 where judges re-enter court. Lawyers plead for Klaus Barbie's presence in the courtroom. Jacques Verges, Barbie's attorney, demands that Barbie remain in prison which is his legal right. The judges recess to make a decision at 14:14:22 [14:24:05 real time]; tape recording stops again and skips to real time 14:48:52. The judges return to the courtroom and report that Barbie will be forced ...

  4. Barbie Trial -- Day 13 -- Victims testify

    17:15:00 Judges enter the courtroom to begin Day 13 of the trial. 17:17:30 Rene Wucher gives his account of the raid at Izieu. 17:26:24 Andre Wucher, Rene's brother, supports his brother's account of the children at Izieu. 17:30:51 Gabrielle Tardy testifies and speaks directly about the yellow star. 17:40 Court lawyers and judges examine Izieu document. Intense exchange between Verges and prosecuting attorney Rappaport at 17:45. 17:52 Perticoz - absent, deposition is read by bailiff regarding the Izieu raid. 18:07 Court examines photographs presented under testimony of Favet.

  5. Barbie Trial -- Day 18 -- Victims testify

    18:01:24 Kurt Hipser confronts Barbie on his imprisonment in Montluc and discusses his collection of Nazi propaganda. 18:27:30 Julie Franceschini, an invalid carried into the courtroom, was arrested in February 1944, spent four months in the Montluc Gestapo prison in Lyons, and was both beaten and held under water by Barbie and a French collaborator, Francis Andre. She says she witnessed several tortures and killings and discusses her arrest, interrogation, torture, deportation to Ravensbruck, and "Nacht und Nebel." 18:44:45 "Oh yes! Oh yes!" Franceschini cries, turning with difficulty to l...

  6. Jacoby family in Biecz and other small towns in SE Poland

    Traveling shot of Biecz, Poland (near Krakow). CUs, Grandmother and Grandfather Jacoby. Family portrait: Mark Jacoby (donor) stands at the left with his Grandmother and Grandfather seated, and his cousin, Ciela (12), next to his brother, Willis. Cousin playing. CU, Ciela and her mother. Family poses again. Various shots of Biecz homes and establishments. A small train station in Siepietnica village, sign reading "Siepietnica". More family portraits. Children play on horse; Mark with local boys. Group shot of a family in the neighboring Polish village of Raclawice, cow, fields, farmland. 00:...

  7. Orthodox Jews in Biecz, Poland

    In Biecz, Poland, 1936, pan of town, street scenes, CUs Jewish boys, including Mendel Halpern on left at 00:09:43 and 00:09:45 (boy with curls). Town hall, Orthodox Jews. Fast pan of shops, streets, pavillion, Jews, the boy Mendel Halpern (00:10:10), Hebrew writing on building EXT, Library. More pan of the village.

  8. Abba Kovner - Vilna

    Abba Kovner lived in disguise in a convent at the beginning of the German occupation in 1941. He was a central figure in the Zionist youth resistance movement in Vilna. He commanded an underground partisan resistance group throughout the war. He describes the way the Germans avoided panic among the Jews. Kovner maintains a poetic approach to Lanzmann's questions throughout the interview. This interview took place over two days in Kovner's Kibbutz Eyn Ha'horesh (between Nethania and Hadera). FILM ID 3236 -- Camera Rolls #2,3 -- 01:00:12 to 01:24:55 CR 2 01:00:12 Kovner sits outside on a park...

  9. Mordechai Podchlebnik - Chelmno

    Mordechai (Michael) Podchlebnik recognized the corpses of his wife and children when unloading bodies from a gas van at Chelmno. He was a witness at many postwar trials, including the Eichmann trial. He tells Lanzmann of his escape from Chelmno and how he tried to inform people about Chelmno, but he was not believed at first, until his story was corroborated by another escaped prisoner. FILM ID 3294 -- Camera Rolls #1-7 -- 01:00:16 to 01:32:27 Lanzmann is seated with Podchlebnik at a table surrounded by windows. Off camera is an interpreter, Fanny Apfelbaum. The tape jumps frequently and th...

  10. Czeslaw Borowi - Treblinka

    Czeslaw Borowi (Borowy) is a Polish peasant who lived his entire life in Treblinka. He describes the transports and the experience of living in the shadow of the camp. When the Germans were shooting at Jews, his family slept on the floor to avoid stray bullets. He repeats some of the common refrains about how rich Jews arrived in fancy trains and the Jews offered no resistance. Borowi makes the throat-slitting sign in "Shoah." See Lanzmann's memoir The Patagonian Hare for his reflections on Borowi and his role in the film. FILM ID 3348 -- Camera Rolls #46,47,48,56 -- 01:00:13 to 01:23:39 Re...

  11. Henryk Gawkowski and Treblinka railway workers

    Henryk Gawkowski was a locomotive conductor at the Treblinka station and estimates that he transported approximately 18,000 Jews to the camp. He drank vodka all the time because it was the only way to make bearable his job and the smell of burning corpses. He describes the black market and the prostitution that developed around the camp. This interview also includes conversations with several other Polish witnesses who were railway workers. FILM ID 3362 -- Camera Rolls #4-7 -- 01:00:00 to 01:13:26 Gawkowski and a Polish choir sing "W mogile ciemnej ?pij na wieki," a Gregorian-chant style fu...

  12. Resistance activities in Denmark

    Film title on screen: Le DANEMARK LUTTE POUR SA LIBERTÉ 1943-44 (Denmark's Fight for Freedom), followed by two screens of French text. The film depicts events in Denmark during the occupation. Some of the footage was shot clandestinely by the Danish resistance. Brief shot of a church and birds in the sky, followed by scenes of German soldiers and sailors marching through the streets. Different views of a building set on fire by the Danish resistance. A crowd of civilians in the street, many with bicycles, during a general strike. Large crowd of people outdoors at a funeral/memorial service ...

  13. British counter-propaganda short

    Cartoon titles: Official Films Presents... "Schichlegruber Doing the Lambeth Walk. Animated by the Gestapo Hep-Cats" Produced by Leslie Winik. Counter-propaganda film made to mock the Nazis by reversing and repeating newsreel shots of Adolf Hitler saluting and his troops goose-stepping from "Triumph of the Will" to create the illusion that Hitler and his gang were dancing to the popular British tune of the day, "The Lambeth Walk." Uses reverse, stop motion, and jump cuts. Footage reproduced in rhythmic sequnces by an optical printer. Adds appropriate slide whistle and Bronx cheer sound effe...

  14. Corfu

    Lanzmann filmed the few surviving Jews of Corfou, Greece. Many are craftsmen who experienced deportation to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Some interviews take place in the synagogue and the cemetery. Additional reels of location filming show local merchants and shops. FILM ID 3406 -- Camera Rolls #4-11A -- Armando Aaron -- 01:00:08 to 01:24:10 Surviving Jews of Corfu walk down a street in Corfu, Greece with Lanzmann. The four survivors walk towards the camera. 01:03:05 Armando Aaron explains (in French) that on June 9, 1944, the Jews of Corfu (numbering 1,650) were ordered by the Germans to gathe...

  15. Jews hiding in a nightclub in Amsterdam

    Film without text. An older couple stands and converses. An adolescent boy comforts a young woman [this scene is clearly acted out with the characters wearing stage makeup]. An older man then opens the door, enters the room, and converses with a girl. Several people arrive and are greeted warmly. They all wear yellow stars. INTs of the apartment. The table is set. A girl knits. People lounge about; others arrive. The boy and young woman look out the window onto the street below. Women carry food trays. Women in the kitchen, clipping rations, and washing dishes. One dish falls and breaks. 01...

  16. Jews hiding in a nightclub in Amsterdam (with text)

    Film with text. The film (as seen in Story 1315) repeats with added intertitles in Dutch (see linked document). Image rolls at 01:16:19 with an older couple stands and converses. An adolescent boy comforts a young woman [this scene is clearly acted out with the characters wearing stage makeup]. An older man then opens the door, enters the room, and converses with a girl. Several people arrive and are greeted warmly. They all wear yellow stars. INTs of the apartment. The table is set. A girl sits and knits. People lounge about; others arrive. The boy and young woman look out the window onto ...

  17. Jews hiding in a nightclub in Amsterdam (with prologue, added historic footage, and text)

    Film with prologue and text. Introduction and intertitles. Image rolls at 01:42:37 with two women crossing a canal bridge in the city of Amsterdam. The streets are mostly empty. View of houses, bridges and canals, pedestrians, cars, a statue of Johann Rudolph Thorbecke (nineteenth century Dutch politician), businesses, the club Alcazar, a street sign showing "Thorbeckeplein Centrum" [Thorbecke Square Center], the apartment address number "5", more shop windows for the Alcazar club, and the signs "Für Wehrmacht verboten" ["Prohibited for Army"] and "Joodsche Gasten niet gewenscht" ["Jewish g...

  18. Interrogation of suspected war criminal

    (LIB 6312) and (LIB 6313) Two German civilians, a man and a woman, enter a room and cremate a body, feeding the corpse into the flames. The narrator indicates that this is the crematory of the city cemetery of Hanover (Hanover-Ahlem, a subcamp of Neuengamme), where the bodies of slave laborers were cremated. The man has been doing this work [Heizer] since 1924 and will be interviewed by US Captain D.C. Nolan and an interpreter, Lieutenant A. Ackerman. An American soldier carrying a movie camera is briefly visible in the frame. After the body is cremated Nolan and Ackerman ask questions of t...

  19. Forced burial of victims by German civilians

    (LIB 6591) Estedt, Germany. German civilians smooth dirt over fresh graves in a fenced area, then pound grave markers (crosses) into the dirt. A group of Polish former forced laborers led by a man in a Polish army uniform, carries a large wreath with a red and white ribbon in a procession (Polish funeral march). Wreath inscribed with "Od Polaków z Estetu ku czci pomordowanych rodaków" [From the Poles of (in) Estet in honor of their murdered countrymen]. They wear small badges (the purple P on a yellow square) on their breasts. They enter the fenced area with the wreath. Several American sol...

  20. Public humiliation for violation of racial laws in Silesia, 1941

    Public humiliation of a young couple guilty of "Rassenschande" [racial shame or racial defilement] in Steinsdorf [present day Scinawa Nyska, Poland] in Silesia. Sexual relations between Germans and non-Aryans were forbidden and punishable by law in Nazi Germany. Bronia, a 16 year old Polish slave laborer, had been working with Gerhard Greschok (Krzeszczok), a 19 year old German, at the Adler family farm in Steinsdorf in the summer of 1941 when their forbidden affair was reported to the Gestapo. The film was discovered in an attic in Sturov, Slovakia in 1946. 01:00:00 Bronia and Gerhard are ...