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Displaying items 1 to 20 of 116
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Ernie M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernie M., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1916, one of three children. He recounts his father was an American citizen, thus he was as well; attending Jewish school; working as an auto mechanic; participation in Habonim; becoming a counselor at a Youth Aliyah camp outside of Berlin; police confiscating the identification papers of everyone there in November 1938; traveling to Berlin; arriving on Kristallnacht; observing Jews being beaten and synagogues burning; visiting a friend who had just been released from a concentration camp; returning to the youth camp; lear...

  2. 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...

  3. Libiena E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Libiena E., who was born in Nová Paka, Czechoslovakia (presently Czech Republic) in 1923, the youngest of five children. She recounts her family moving to Pardubice; attending school; their move to Prague in 1935; German occupation in 1939; surprise when her parents informed them they were Jewish; an uncle's arrest by the Gestapo (they never saw him again); anti-Jewish restrictions; expulsion from school; a non-Jewish teacher's offer to remain; choosing to work; removing her star to attend movies and swim; deportation with her parents to the Łódź ghetto; working in...

  4. 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...

  5. 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...

  6. 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...

  7. Leonard B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leonard B., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1926. He recalls his father's high position in a German company and his mother's as a school principal; living with his grandparents due to his parents' work situations; attending a private school; German invasion; closure of all schools; moving with his parents and grandparents to the ghetto area; an uncle being summoned by the Gestapo (they never saw him again); his aunt working in the hospital; his mother arranging a tutor for him in their home; hospitalization three times; his aunt saving him from a hospital deportatio...

  8. Ellen P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ellen P., a non-Jew who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1925 and who was involved in the Danish Resistance during the war. She describes the German occupation of Denmark in 1940; her involvement in underground politics in high school soon after the occupation; planning for increasingly active means of resistance; and the activities of the Resistance in warning and hiding Jews, as well as smuggling them by boat to Sweden. She speaks of collaboration with the Swedes for the rescue of Jews, including methods of sabotage and blackmail; her brothers' involvement in resc...

  9. 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...

  10. Mary L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mary L., who was born in Zagreb, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (now Croatia) in 1910. She recalls the beginning of World War I; her father's military service; living in Vienna from 1916 to 1918; the family's move to Berlin in 1926; working for an insurance company; Hitler's ascent to power; losing her job due to anti-Jewish laws; the anti-Jewish boycott in April 1933; returning to Zagreb; studying English in Britain in 1935; marriage to a Catholic; German invasion in April 1941; moving to the United States Consulate where her husband worked; anti-Jewish measures; denuncia...

  11. 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...

  12. 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...

  13. 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 ...

  14. Walter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter S., who was born in Steinbach, Germany in 1924. This testimony includes all of the information in an earlier interview (HVT-146). Additional topics discussed include his father's release from Dachau; his sister's emigration to the United States under Quaker auspices in 1941; his parents' deportation to France; being beaten by the Gestapo (he could not speak of this for years); and being forced to submit to homosexual advances by veteran prisoners in a concentration camp. He recounts returning to Steinbach after liberation; meeting his wife in a displaced person...

  15. Jacqueline F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacqueline F., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1921, an only child. She recalls her family's affluence; close relations with grandparents; emigrating to Strasbourg with her family in April 1933 after her uncle's arrest and torture; moving to Tours in 1934; her father's business success; relatives en route to the United States urging them to leave; her father's refusal; the outbreak of war; incarceration with her family in Gurs as enemy aliens; liberation in 1940; living in Limoges; moving alone to Grenoble; studying law; participating in the communist Resistance; ...

  16. Ela L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ela L. who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in approximately 1924. She recounts German invasion; wearing the yellow armband and forced labor clearing rubble; Germans killing 100 Jews as retribution, including her grandfather; non-Jewish friends hiding her father; obtaining false papers; traveling by train with her parents and sister to the Toplice region in November 1941; living in Kurs?umlija; assistance from non-Jews; leaving in 1942 when Germans were approaching; living in a village with a Serb for more than a year; leaving when warned the Gestapo knew of them; fle...

  17. Robert M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Robert M., a Catholic, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1921. He recounts a half-brother from his mother's previous marriage to a Jew who was killed in World War I; visits with his half-brother to his mother's first mother-in-law; his father's death in 1929; participating in a Boy Scout group; assisting Jewish refugees from Germany; attending university; German invasion; fleeing to Rouen, Les Sables-d'Olonne, and Toulouse; his brother joining the French army; returning home; participating in the resistance through Group G; giving his identity card to a Jewish woma...

  18. 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...

  19. Victor W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Victor W., a Catholic, who was born in Belgium in approximately 1925, one of three brothers. He recounts living near Namur; his family's focus on religion, family, and patriotism; attending a Catholic school; participating in a Catholic youth group; German invasion; helping to bury Belgian soldiers; joining the Resistance in 1941; printing and distributing leaflets; obtaining weapons; a friend who worked for the Gestapo warning him of his imminent arrest; a futile attempt to escape to England via France; arrest in Buxy; interrogation and torture in Chalon-sur-Saone; t...

  20. 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...