Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 41 to 60 of 116
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Rudolf F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rudolf F., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1923. He recalls several generations of his family in Holland; German invasion; gradual implementation of anti-Jewish laws, including his expulsion from medical school; working in the Jewish hospital; the role of the Jewish council; forced relocation of Jews to south Amsterdam; frequent round-ups; incarceration with other Jews at Gestapo headquarters; his father's arrest and deportation (he perished); his sister hiding with her fiance with help from the underground; hiding elsewhere with his mother; deportation of t...

  2. Ire?ne Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ire?ne Z., who recalls evacuation with her family from Paris to the Nie?vre region after the outbreak of war; her father's death; living in a village for a year; returning to Paris; working with her mother in their boutique; her older brother's arrest and deportation (they never saw him again); hiding on July 16, 1942; arrest of her mother and brother; unsuccessfully trying to join them in the Ve?lodrome d'Hiver; learning they were sent to Pithiviers; arranging to hide her twelve year old brother; acquiring false papers in Lyon; joining the Resistance as a courier in ...

  3. 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...

  4. 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...

  5. Leopold Z. Holocaust Testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leopold Z., who was born in Bautzen, Germany, in 1922 and moved to Breslau as a child. Mr. Z. describes his childhood and religious education; the beginning of the war and his family's fatally passive reaction; forced labor in a factory near Breslau; and the deportation of his entire family, except himself and one of his four brothers, to a town near Lublin. He tells of being taken in by an orphanage, where he and his brother were given false French papers; their betrayal and subsequent arrest; and their year-long imprisonment while awaiting trial for treason. Mr. Z. ...

  6. Eli C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eli C., who was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1917. He recounts participating in Blau-Weiss; working at a Zionist summer camp with Teddy Kollek; his brother's emigration to Palestine in 1934; attending university; antisemitic harassment; Anschluss; warnings from their non-Jewish landlord of German raids; moving to Zurich, then Geneva; arrest in September 1939; expulsion from Basel to a Gestapo prison in Lörrach; transfer from prison to prison en route to Sachsenhausen; forced labor in a brick factory; beatings, hunger, and lack of sanitation; public ex...

  7. Ernest H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ernest H., who was born in 1925 in Neumarkt, Germany. He recalls moving to Fu?rth in 1938 so he and his siblings could attend a Jewish school (they were expelled in Neumarkt); his brother's emigration to the United States in 1941; deportation with his parents and sister to Jungfernhof, Latvia in December 1941; forced labor as a car mechanic, which he believes saved him from extermination; transfer to the Ri?ga ghetto in July 1942 (he notes the sadism of the Gestapo commander), then to Kaiserwald and Stutthof in 1943; and liberation from Rybno (Rieben) by Soviet troops...

  8. 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 ...

  9. 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'...

  10. 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...

  11. Magdalena N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Magdalena N., who was born in Ružomberok, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1920, one of two sisters. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; her strong Slovak identity; teaching Jewish students in L̕ubochňa; anti-Jewish restrictions, including the humiliation of having to wear the star; moving to Bratislava with her family; her father hiding them, then arranging for her and her sister to be smuggled to Hungary; interdiction in Senec; return to Bratislava; two strangers paying for their release; her sister's marriage to a man legally exempted from deportat...

  12. Eva W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eva W., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1937. She recalls her parents' comfortable, bohemian life; her father's residency at the Jewish hospital; moving into the hospital with the families of other staff members in October 1941; friendship with two girls (Eva and Rita); the Gestapo presence; monthly deportations; food shortages; her parents' strained marriage; remaining underground during the Battle of Berlin; spending a summer recuperating in Switzerland; her father's death in 1947 after delaying surgery, which she believes was a form of suicide; living in the hos...

  13. 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...

  14. Roziana B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Roziana B., who was born in Deštnice, Czechoslovakia in 1927. She recounts being the only Jewish family in town; their assimilated lifestyle; her mother's death in 1936; her father's remarriage in 1937; attending public school; moving to Žatec; German occupation; her father's friend, who was in the Gestapo, warning him to flee (he did); their arrest on Kristallnacht; being ordered to leave; traveling to the Czech border; being denied entry by Czech officials; incarceration by Germans in Kolešovice, then Karlsbad; release; returning to Žatec, then Deštnice; receiv...

  15. Ervin S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ervin S., a non-Jew, who was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1927. He recalls his family's poverty; his father's communist activities; their anti-Nazi activities; his father's enlistment in the Czech military; his father's arrest by the Gestapo; having to join the Hitler Youth, then the Wehrmacht; capture in Italy by United States troops in February 1945; incarceration as a POW in Livorno and Naples; release in 1947; prohibition from returning to Czechoslovakia because he had served in the Wehrmacht; illegally crossing the border; reunion with his family; and recei...

  16. 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...

  17. Hélène A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hélène A., who was born in Sevluš, Czechoslovakia (presently Vynohradiv, Ukraine) in 1926, one of seven children. She recounts a happy childhood; attending Czech public school; antisemitic harassment; Hungarian occupation in March 1939; her parents sending her with a sister to Budapest in 1942; working for a tailor; anti-Jewish restrictions; a Hungarian soldier from their hometown assisting them; obtaining false papers; hiding in their apartment during Allied bombings; denouncement; arrest and interrogation; transfer to Gestapo custody; deportation to Kistarcsa; re...

  18. Joseph W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph W., who was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1914. He recalls his parents' grocery business; their separation in 1931 (his father moved to Romania); celebrating religious holidays; attending business school; his belief that Nazi antisemitism would pass; Stuttgart's liberal atmosphere; exemption from wearing the yellow star due to his mother's Romanian citizenship; losing his job due to anti-Jewish laws; destruction of his mother's store during Kristallnacht; moving with his mother and sister into Jewish housing; working in a Jewish center processing emigration app...

  19. 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...

  20. Jacques B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacques B., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1923. He recounts his family's emigration to Paris in 1924; their poverty; membership in sports clubs; leaving school for an apprenticeship at age twelve; German invasion; antisemitic measures; arrest with his brother in 1942; Gestapo interrogation; incarceration in Romainville; their transfer to Compiégne and Drancy; deportation in February 1943 to Birkenau; transfer to Auschwitz; return to Birkenau; separation from his brother; learning his brother was in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); assignment as a chimneysweep, wh...