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Displaying items 41 to 60 of 4,487
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Harry M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry M., who was born, one of five children, in a small town in the province of Kielce, Poland, in 1925. Mr. M. remembers the constant antisemitism during his childhood; the German occupation of 1939; the brutality of the German soldiers; the deportations; the murder of his parents; his deportation to P?aszo?w, where he was a slave laborer; his two successful escapes from P?aszo?w; his return to the camp due to conditions outside; and his transfer to Flossenbu?rg in 1943 and Dachau in 1944. He also describes several incidents within the camps; the death march from Da...

  2. Selma E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Selma E., who was born in Groningen, Holland, in 1922 and grew up in Zuidwolde, Holland, where her family operated a kosher hotel. She recounts her prewar family life; the influx of German Jews in 1938; anti-Jewish legislation following the German occupation of Holland; going into hiding; her capture and internment in the Dutch camps of Vught and Westerbork; and her deportation to Sobibo?r. She describes her arrival at Sobibo?r; her gradual realization that she was in an extermination camp; her work sorting the clothing of the victims of gassing; and the circumstances...

  3. Lily L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lily L., who was born in Tolcsva, Hungary, in 1928. She describes prewar life in the small town where her family lived for generations; deportation to the ghetto in Sa?toraljau?jhely; experiences in Auschwitz and as a slave laborer in Latvia and Germany; her return to Tolcsva after liberation; postwar experiences in France; emigration to the United States; and the importance of her husband and children in her life.

  4. Oscar R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Oscar R., who was born in Vienna of Hungarian parents in 1910. He describes Vienna on the eve of the German invasion; his medical studies in an atmosphere of increasing antisemitism; his marriage to a fellow medical student in 1937; and his emigration to the United States (via Copenhagen) in 1938. He tells of his voluntary enlistment in the American army after he became a United States citizen and his 1945 arrival at Mauthausen, after the Germans had already fled, where he remained for a month. Showing photographs which he took at the time, he discusses the condition ...

  5. Leon S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon S., who was born in Krako?w, Poland. Mr. S. describes his childhood and vague identification with Judaism; the German occupation and its immediate effect on the lives of Jews; his family's move to Skawa, an outlying village, to avoid living in the Krako?w ghetto; atrocities during the liquidation of the village, including the murder of his grandmother, which he witnessed; separation from his parents and his selection for slave labor. He relates experiences in the concentration and slave labor camps of P?aszo?w; Skarz?ysko-Kamienna, where he narrowly escaped worki...

  6. Dori L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dori L., who was born in Czernowitz, Romania in 1937. Dr. L. describes the large population and rich cultural life of prewar Czernowitz; the Russian occupation; his brief stay in the Czernowitz ghetto; and his deportation, along with his parents, to a camp in Transnistria in spring, 1942. He recalls the five or six months he spent in this camp, a former Russian penal colony on the Bug River known as the "stone quarry". He describes the liquidation of the camp and tells how he and his parents were spared, noting their relative freedom as "illegals" in the deserted camp...

  7. Edith H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edith H., who was born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, in 1928. She describes her prewar life in Holland; her family's increasing awareness of trouble in Germany; their unsuccessful attempt to flee Holland in the wake of German occupation; anti-Jewish legislation and activities; her difficult and unpleasant life in hiding (on a farm with non-Jews), where she lived for three and a half years, first by herself and later with her parents; her life in Leeuwarden after the war; and the lasting effects of her wartime experiences.

  8. Paul D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paul D., who was born in Moldava, Czechoslovakia, in 1935. Mr. D. describes his joyous childhood and the death of his father when Mr. D. was three years old; his family's move to Humenne?, Slovakia, where his grandparents lived; being baptized in order to avoid deportation, and his feelings, then and now, regarding his baptism; and being smuggled into Moldava, which was then Hungarian territory, where he lived with his grandfather. He tells of the German occupation in 1944; a series of confrontations with an anti-Semitic teacher; the transfer of the Jews of Moldava to...

  9. Count Stanley M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Count Stanley M., a non-Jew, who was born in Mszczono?w, Poland, in 1925. He speaks of his childhood in a prominent family; the abrupt change in his life precipitated by the German occupation of Poland, and subsequent arrest of his anti-Nazi mother; his decision to join the Polish resistance, and his underground activities as a communications specialist. He also discusses the situation of both Jews and non-Jews in occupied Poland, and the lasting effects of his wartime experiences.

  10. Rene?e H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rene?e H., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, in 1933. She recalls her childhood in German-occupied Bratislava, where, as the "ears" of her deaf parents and younger sister, she gathered information and alerted them to immediate dangers. She speaks of her and her sister's flight from Bratislava and hiding with a farm family; the ordeal of finding shelter after being evicted from the farm following their parents' deportation; and their voluntary surrender to the police in hopes of locating their parents. She relates her disappointment when she and her sister we...

  11. Peter G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter G., a distinguished scholar and professor of history, who was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1923. Professor G. describes his childhood and education; his parents' atheism; the Nuremberg laws; the different opinions people held about the Nazis; his family's haphazard plans to emigrate; Kristallnacht; obtaining passage to Cuba; his two year stay in Havana; and his emigration to the United States. He also discusses the opposing theories of whether the Holocaust could happen again; the impact that the refugees had on United States intellectual life; and his thoughts o...

  12. Emma S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emma S., a singer who was born in Russia, emigrated to the United States in infancy, and at the time of her interviews lived in both Israel and the United States. She tells of her musical education and training and the beginning of her career. She details her motivation for joining a cultural delegation sponsored by the World Jewish Congress which toured displaced persons camps in Europe in 1946. She recalls the devastation she encountered upon arrival; the vitality of the survivors in the more than fifty camps where she sang, including Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Landsbe...

  13. Otto K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Otto K., who was born in Prague to upper middle class parents around 1921. He speaks of joining a Zionist youth movement at the outbreak of the war; the deterioration of the Jewish situation in Prague; and his deportation to Terezin in May, 1942. He describes living conditions there, where he worked in a vegetable garden and was a member of the ghetto's Zionist council. He relates his and his family's transport to Auschwitz; their stay in Birkenau family camp B2B; his job caring for children from a children's barrack until July, 1944, when he was sent to Schwarzheide,...

  14. Gustav R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gustav R., who was born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1929. He speaks of his childhood in pre-war Germany; differences in the attitudes of his parents towards Judaism; the rise of Nazism in Germany; his father's arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald in the wake of Kristallnacht; the difficulties encountered by his family in attempts to leave Germany; the family's eventual emigration to the United States after spending one and one-half years in Cuba; and the influences his wartime experiences had on his later life, particularly on his relationship with his children.

  15. Sigmund W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sigmund W., who was born in Berlin in 1921 and fled with his parents to Antwerp, Belgium in 1939. He tells of their flight to Brussels after an earlier failed attempt to flee to France; his flight to Vichy France that same year; and his capture and internment at Drancy. He recalls the journey in boxcars to Ottmuth in Silesia, from where he was sent to the Chevigner slave labor camp near Chrzano?w and his transfer to Annaberg, near Auschwitz in March, 1943, and to Blechhammer six weeks later. The conditions and organization of the latter, where Mr. W. remained until Fe...

  16. Mendel S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mendel S., who was born in Vienna and raised in Poland. He speaks of the Russian occupation of his home town; the ghettoization immediately following the German occupation; the killing of his family; his escape to the woods, where he remained in hiding for two years; his deportation to Siberia by the Russians in 1944; and his emigration from Russia, including his stay in a displaced persons camp.

  17. Rose and Aaron M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aaron M., who was born near ?o?dz?, Poland circa 1915, and his wife Rose M., who was born in ?o?dz? circa 1916. Mr. M. relates his conscription into the Polish army prior to the outbreak of the war; his escape from the army and, later, from deportation; the German takeover of his home town; and his transfer to the ghettos of Warta and then ?o?dz?, where he remained from 1942 until 1944. He describes life in the ghetto; his separation from his first wife and small daughter, whom he never saw again; and his own capture and imprisonment. Mrs. M. discusses the ghettoizati...

  18. Helen K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen K., who was born in Warsaw in 1924. She discusses the outbreak of the war in Poland, including the bombing of Warsaw; the formation of the Warsaw ghetto; the disappearance of her father; conditions and spiritual resistance in the ghetto; her marriage; and the uprising and subsequent liquidation of the ghetto. Mrs. K. vividly recalls the journey by cattle car to Majdanek, during which her brother died in her arms; her reunion in Majdanek with her mother, who was taken during a selection a few weeks later; and the death of her sister-in-law in Majdanek. She tells ...

  19. Dori K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dori K., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1939. Ms. K. relates her family's move to Brussels after Hitler's rise to power; her father's arrest and disappearance in 1942; hiding with her mother in her uncle's home for six months; and being sent alone to a small village to stay with a family of Catholic farmers for two years. She tells of staying briefly with her mother, then being sent to an orphanage outside Brussels, where she was very unhappy. She describes her postwar reunion with her mother, who at first failed to recognize her; their emigration to the United S...

  20. Isaac A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rabbi Isaac A., who was born in Galicia, Poland and grew up in the city of Drohobych. He speaks of the prevalence of antisemitism in Poland; the unwillingness of the Jews to perceive the Germans as dangerous; and his and his father's activities as rabbis and spiritual counselors in Boryslav/Drohobych after the German occupation. He details the miraculous survival of his father, who was protected by his fellow prisoners in Buchenwald because he was a rabbi; his own experiences in the P?aszo?w ghetto--slave labor in an oil refinery, hiding in a bunker, being caught and ...