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
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Abraham P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abraham P., who was born in Mir, Poland in 1909. He recalls the rich, Jewish culture growing up in Bia?ystok; learning several languages; Jewish holiday celebrations; attending medical school in Lie?ge, Belgium; his leadership role in Po'alei Zion; his parents's and sister's emigration to Belgium in 1932; German invasion in 1940; his parents' flight to Lyon in unoccupied France, then the United States; obtaining papers under a false name; hiding in Brussels; smuggling himself to Lyon in unoccupied France in 1942; joining the Resistance; his sister's incarceration when...

  2. Abraham W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abraham W., who was born in Drohobych, Ukraine (then Poland), in 1906. Mr. W. describes the roles of Leon Reich and David Herzog in his admission to university in Graz; his association with Nobel laureate Victor Hess; transfer to Charles University in Prague in 1931 due to antisemitism; becoming a pharmacist in Rava-Ru?ska in December 1939; learning of his mother's murder by a Ukrainian; ghettoization; friendship with the Pole selected by the Germans to replace him; and sheltering a woman escapee from a deportation train to nearby Belzec. He recalls a Gestapo operativ...

  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. 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...

  5. Alfred B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alfred B., a non-Jew, who was born in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, Belgium in 1917. He recalls frequent visits to relatives in Paris and Normandy; attending school, then university, in Brussels; strong anti-Rexist feelings, resulting in active participation in a liberal student group; military enlistment; call-up in 1939; German invasion; capture; transfer to Emmerich; assistance from the Red Cross; forced labor in Alt Garge and Fallingbostel; a German official taking him to his home in Hannover; release; returning home; attending university; working with the r...

  6. 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;...

  7. Ann R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ann R., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1929. She recalls early happy memories; German bombardment; wearing the yellow star; expulsion from school; watching the Gestapo round-up her parents; and their wanton destruction, including the "evisceration" of a doll. She remembers informing the sanitarium where her brother was hospitalized that her parents had been taken away (they would not keep him anymore since there was no one to pay); giving him to a strange woman; wandering the streets with her sister; a nun offering to help them; moving many times; a visit from h...

  8. Anna G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anna G., who was born in Drohobych, Ukraine (then Poland), in 1929. She speaks of her prewar life, life under Russian occupation, and her experience of the German occupation of her town. She notes the worsening conditions under German occupation, culminating in the deportations and (as they learned only later) mass murder of Jews, including Mrs. G.'s mother, sister, and young niece. She tells of living with her father and brother in Drohobych; in the Gestapo camp on Janowska Street, where she had to hide in a closet for over a year and was finally discovered by a Germ...

  9. Anna R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anna R., a Lutheran, who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1918. She recalls her family's commitment to and activities on behalf of the Social Democrats; the rise of fascism; her arrest for anti-Nazi activities; two one-year jail terms; release; helping found a home for children of suicides; hearing the Gestapo was seeking her; hiding; illegally entering Switzerland with assistance from the Communist Party; acceptance as a political refugee; meeting her future husband, a German-Jewish refugee; receiving contraband from an unknown source; arrest; learning she was pregnant...

  10. 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 ...

  11. Beba L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Beba L., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1925, the oldest of four children. She recalls her father's emphasis on Jewish education; attending private school; aspiring to a university education; Soviet occupation; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; hearing about mass killings at Ponary; ghettoization in September 1941; her father arranging her escape with assistance from a Polish officer; obtaining false papers; hiding on a farm; returning to the ghetto to be with her parents, although she never saw her family again; working for the Judenrat; witne...

  12. Beba L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Beba L., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1925. She recounts her grandfather's partnership in Rom Publishing; attending private school; Soviet occupation; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; round-ups of people who never returned; ghettoization in September; being hidden with a non-Jewish family for three months; their priest's efforts to convert her (she did not care, if it led to her survival); visiting the ghetto, not intending to stay; finding her immediate family of seven gone; living with an aunt; receiving food from her former non-Jewish mai...

  13. Bernard O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bernard O., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1937, an only child. He recalls his familys' affluence; their insistence he speak only Polish; German invasion; his father's mother giving them gold coins; joining relatives in Warsaw; moving to the Piotrków ghetto; his mother obtaining false papers for herself and him; taking a train with her (his father was hidden with non-Jews); observing Gestapo inspecting papers; jumping off the train without their documents; entering the nearby Radom ghetto; his mother contacting his father; his father joining them; hiding during de...

  14. 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...

  15. 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...

  16. Celine P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Celine P., who was born in Zgierz, Poland, one of four children. She recalls her family's affluence; visiting relatives in Warsaw; a close and large extended family; attending a Polish school; antisemitic harassment; German invasion in September 1939; her father's flight east; exemption from deportation due to an uncle sending foreign visas to her, her mother, and siblings; assistance from a former nanny who worked for the Gestapo; transport to Belgium via Berlin; reunion with their uncle who had arranged their emigration; traveling to Paris where "everything was back...

  17. Charles P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Charles P., who was born in Olkusz, Poland in 1923. He relates his family's emigration to Palestine, then France in 1926; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; a printer's apprenticeship; German invasion; a futile attempt to join the Resistance in Poitiers; printing Resistance papers in his father's Paris print shop; fleeing to Lyon in 1943; acquiring false papers in Montluel; arrest by the Gestapo; declaring himself a Jew to avoid more torture in Montluc; transfer to Drancy; deportation to Birkenau; slave labor in coal mines in Jawischowitz; relations between prisoners ...

  18. Claire S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Claire S., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1935 to Polish parents. She recalls her parents' divorce; her father's remarriage; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; her mother requesting that non-Jewish neighbors care for Mrs. S.; her mother's deportation to Auschwitz (she never saw her again); her father visiting prior to being deported (he perished); a loving relationship with her foster family; not attending school for fear of discovery; and traveling to Lie?ge and Verviers to avoid Gestapo searches. She recounts her aunt's legal action to obtain custody o...

  19. Claire S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Claire S., who was born in Germany, the oldest of four children of Polish émigrés. She recounts her family's move to Brussels; attending school; working at fourteen to help support her family; joining the Bund; her father's arrest for debt resulting in his deportation to Germany; obtaining money to secure his return; German invasion; one brother hiding in a monastery; anti-Jewish restrictions; marriage in 1942; obtaining false papers; her sister's deportation; bribing officials to free an underground member from the Gestapo; her father's round-up and deportation; ar...

  20. Edith G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edith G., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1905 and adopted. She recalls living in Copenhagen; returning to Germany; her close family; marriage in 1928; and the births of her children. She describes her husband's arrest in 1935; his twenty-month incarceration; their move to Holland; German bombing of Rotterdam; moving to Zeist; not having to wear the yellow star, though her husband and children had to, because a Dutch policeman did not classify her as a Jew due to lack of information about her biological parents; arranging several hiding places for her children thr...