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Displaying items 4,361 to 4,380 of 4,487
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Leopold S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leopold S., who was born in Facimiech, Poland in 1920, the fourth of six children. He recounts living with an aunt in Kraków for two years, then with an uncle in Skawina to attend school; his family's move to Kraków; apprenticing as a barber and in a factory; assisting in his father's store; winning a scholarship to art school in 1939; German invasion; fleeing with his father and three brothers to Kaunas, then Soviet-occupied Lʹviv; finding jobs; their deportation by Soviets in spring 1940 to Arkhangelʹsk; forced labor; receiving one letter from his mother and siste...

  2. Abe K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abe K., who was born in Kraśnik, Poland in 1923, the third of three children. He recalls his family's Hasidism; attending cheder from age three; his mother's death when he was nine; completing seven years of public school; graduating as an accountant from business school in Lublin; working in the family store; German invasion; hiding during round-ups for forced labor; his father being taken in his place; paying someone to replace his father; his brother's escape to the Soviet zone; ghettoization; his father's deportation to Budzyń in October 1942; deportation of his...

  3. Adele B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Adele B., who was born in Bełchatów, Poland in 1925, the oldest of three sisters. She recalls her large and close extended family; German invasion; working in a factory producing German uniforms, her father thinking it would keep her safe; her deportation with other factory workers to the Łódź ghetto in 1942; deportation to Auschwitz in 1944, then to another camp a few days later; slave labor in a munitions factory; a forced march and train transport to Theresienstadt in April 1945; others helping her because she was one of the youngest; helping a dying friend by g...

  4. Mendel B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mendel B., who was born in Poland in 1921, one of three children. He recounts his family moving to Izbica that year; their poverty; attending Polish school and cheder; antisemitic harassment; his bar mitzvah; participating in Shomer Hatzair, Maccabi, and Ha-Poel Ha-Zair; their move to Łódź in March 1939; working as a watchmaker with his father; improved economic conditions; German invasion in September; briefly fleeing with his father to Izbica; ghettoization in February; forced labor in several ghetto workshops; pervasive starvation, disease, and death; deportation...

  5. Helga H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helga H., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1924, the elder of two sisters. She recalls her father's strong German identity (he was a World War I veteran); their assimilated lifestyle; attending a public school; participating in Catholic prayers and Christmas shows; friends snubbing her with the rise of Nazism; harassment in middle school (she was the only Jew); increasingly restrictive anti-Jewish laws including reduced rations for Jews; observing vandalism, theft (including at her family's store), and burning synagogues on November 9, 1938; learning her uncle had ...

  6. Henri D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henri D., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1930, one of three children. He recalls his family's affluence; attending a Jewish school; German bombardment on May 10, 1940; his parents paying and collecting all their debts; their flight with his uncle's family to Dunkerque, Paris, then Lacanau Océan; attending school; his father and uncle obtaining visas; traveling to Portugal; departing from Lisbon to the United States a month later; and joining relatives in New York. Mr. D. discusses the importance of luck to his and his family's survival; learning in the 1980s th...

  7. Walter P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter P., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in approximately 1919, the oldest of five children. He recalls their abject poverty; apprenticing to a tailor at age ten; pervasive antisemitism; military draft in 1939; German invasion; desertion; local farmers saving him from Germans; traveling to Lublin; imprisonment; transfer to Majdanek; transfer a year and a half later to Birkenau; privileged jobs as a tailor, then a barber; realizing he could be killed at any moment; exchanging his yellow symbol for a red triangle, to which he attributes his survival; transfer to Majdan...

  8. Rebecca P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rebecca P., who was born in Poland in 1920, one of five children. She recalls attending a village school; living with an aunt in order to attend school in Zamość; German invasion then withdrawal a week later, followed by Soviet invasion, their withdrawal, then German occupation; one brother leaving with the Soviets; another hiding with his wife and child as non-Jews; escaping with her mother from a round-up; hiding in the woods; neighbors bringing them food; round-up to Izbica; ghettoization; marriage; her husband's killing two months later; her mother's deportation...

  9. Gena T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gena T., who was born in Kraków, Poland, in 1923, the youngest of nine children in an affluent family. She recounts her father's death in 1934; her mother continuing to manage the business and family; German invasion; confiscation of their valuables and business; forced labor; ghettoization; her young nephew's selection for deportation (she never saw him again); her brother's killing in a failed escape; transfer to Płaszów with her mother and two sisters; public executions and frequent shootings; learning one of her sisters had been shot; slave labor outside the cam...

  10. Norman T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Norman T., who enlisted in the British military in early 1940. He discusses training; landing in Europe in June 1944; arriving in Celle, Germany on April 14, 1945; learning Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was nearby; arrival there on April 15; being overwhelmed with piles of rotting corpses and the condition of the prisoners; encountering Josef Kramer, the Kommandant; providing food for the prisoners, not realizing it would kill them; a large number of deaths; interrogating Kramer and others; wanting to shoot him and other guards but restraining himself based on his ...

  11. Ziggy S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ziggy S., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1930. He recounts his parents' divorce; living with his paternal grandparents; attending a Jewish school; his father escaping east immediately prior to the German occupation; ghettoization in spring 1940; working in a metal factory; constant hunger; attempts to obtain extra food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944; transfer a few weeks later to Stutthof; volunteering with friends in December when sixteen-year-olds were sought; transfer to Stolp; slave labor on a railway; his group of twenty Polish boys having d...

  12. Wolf R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Wolf R., who was born in Łask, Poland in 1914, one of three brothers. He recounts graduation from public school; attending university in Warsaw in 1932 in preparation for medical school in Berlin; returning home in 1933 due to the election of the Nazi government in Germany; his relatives in Berlin emigrating to London; active participation in Maccabi; attending Maccabi courses in Skole; becoming the bookkeeper for his father's and grandmother's businesses; attending university in Warsaw beginning in 1936; organized and random antisemitic harassment; one professor who ...

  13. David F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David F., who was born in a town in Poland (presently Ukraine) near Rivne. He recounts his family's comfortable life; attending private school; Soviet occupation in 1939; liquidation of his family's business; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; escaping a year later with his immediate and extended family to a forest the night before the ghetto was liquidated; building bunkers; escaping a Ukrainian police attack a month later; separation from the others; wandering for three days; assistance from local farmers; finding his family; building more bunkers; Ukrainian po...

  14. Shraga D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shraga D., who was born in Munkács, Czechoslovakia (presently Mukacheve, Ukraine) in 1930, the sixth of seven children. He recalls their comfortable life; attending public school and cheder; one brother's emigration to Palestine; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; his bar mitzvah; a brother and sister escaping to Budapest; German invasion in 1944; ghettoization; deportation with his family to Auschwitz; separation with his father from his mother and sisters; transfer a few days later to the former Warsaw ghetto; slave labor cleaning used bricks; a forced...

  15. Suzan D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Suzan D., who was born in Berehove, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1937 and raised in Banská Bystrica. She recalls baking with her mother for Shabbat; her brother's birth; her father's departure when she was five; her mother's sister coming to bring them back to the family in Berehove; her mother sending her, but remaining with the baby, hoping her husband would return; living with her maternal grandparents and aunt; being smuggled to Hungary with her aunt; her aunt placing her in a Budapest orphanage; her aunt's non-Jewish friend bringing her extra food at n...

  16. George Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of George Z., who was born in Katowice, Poland in 1933, an only child, and raised in Będzin. He recounts living with his parents and grandparents; their affluence; German invasion in 1939; fleeing to Kielce; returning home about a week later; finding their apartment ransacked; staying home while the adults worked; forced relocation; ghettoization in Kamionka; hiding with others during round-ups; his father purchasing false papers; escaping with his parents and grandparents to Budapest; his mother dyeing his hair blond; German invasion in March 1944; escaping to Bratisla...

  17. John S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John S., who was born in Stanisławów, Poland (presently Ivano-Frankivsʹk, Ukraine) in 1925, the younger of two sons. He recalls his family's upper-class, assimilated lifestyle; Soviet occupation in 1939; German/Hungarian invasion in 1941; ghettoization; his father's participation in the Judenrat; escaping with his parents and brother to the Buchach ghetto; his round-up for deportation; his father bribing a guard to let him go; his mother obtaining false papers for all of them; moving to Warsaw by himself; arrest for not having travel papers while on a train; imprison...

  18. 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...

  19. Margaret L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margaret L., who was born in Munich, Germany in 1922, an only child. She recounts her family's assimilated lifestyle; living across the street from Adolf Hitler and looking into his apartment with binoculars after his rise to power; anti-Jewish laws restricting her activities; attending high school despite the laws, since her father was a wounded World War I veteran; her parents' unsuccessful efforts to emigrate; her father's arrest on Kristallnacht; expulsion from school; learning her father was in Dachau; his return four weeks later; expulsion from their apartment; ...

  20. Irene F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Irene F., who was born in Satu Mare, Romania in 1925, the oldest of eight children. She recalls her grandfather's large successful farm, that he divided among his children, including her family; attending school; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish laws preventing her entry to high school; ghettoization in 1944; deportation shortly thereafter to Auschwitz; separation with her sister and six cousins from their families; a public hanging; transfer six weeks later to Gelsenkirchen; slave labor clearing bombing rubble; transfer after three months to a camp where they were a...