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 3,901 to 3,920 of 4,487
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Yvonne R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yvonne R., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in approximately 1929, the oldest of four children. She recounts living in the Baron de Hirsch neighborhood; German invasion; ghettoization; deaths from starvation; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her family (she never saw her mother or siblings again); slave labor in a textile factory; liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); transfer to Canada Kommando; sorting clothing of murdered Jews; trading "stolen" clothing for food; hiding a friend selected for death; assistance from a Polish, non-Jewi...

  2. Max S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max S., who was born in Iu?e, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1924. He recalls working as a carpenter for the Soviets in 1939; visiting an aunt in Baranvichy in 1941; German invasion; hiding in an attic during a mass killing in Iu?e; transfer to the Lida ghetto in December; forced labor as a carpenter; a Jew reporting him for leaving the ghetto; interception by a German; escaping back to the ghetto; fleeing to the woods with four others; joining a partisan unit of Jews and Russians; blowing up German trains; learning his family was killed; living in ?o?dz?, Berlin, and ...

  3. Michael G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Michael G., who was born in Kurenet?s?, Poland (now Byelorussia) in 1922. He recalls attending a local school until sixth grade; Hebrew school in Dolginovo for two years; brief cantorial studies in Vilna; Soviet occupation in 1939; attending high school and working in Novogrudok; his father's visits; and German invasion in 1941. Mr. G. describes unsuccessful efforts to return home (Germans were everywhere); an arduous six-month journey to Tashkent; transfer in 1942 to Tashkumyr and hard labor in the coal mines; returning to Poland in 1945; learning of the mass murder ...

  4. Joseph L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph L., who was born in Bielsko-Biala, Poland in 1921, one of four children. Mr. L. recounts attending a German school; training as a metal turner; German invasion; fleeing east with his mother and siblings to L?viv via Krako?w and Rava-Rus?ka; Soviet occupation; working in a Soviet government store; forced transport with his family by cattle car to Panino; forced labor felling trees, then cleaning chimneys; frigid temperatures and sparse food; receiving permission to leave; traveling with his family to Tashkent; encountering cousins and moving to the village where...

  5. Lola A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lola A., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1920. She recalls her large extended family; attending public school; Jewish refugees from Germany; receiving immigration papers from a relative in Los Angeles; not going due to the German invasion; anti-Jewish laws, violence, and property confiscations; forced labor in a brush factory; ghettoization; her parents' and younger sister's deportation, then her brother's (she never saw them again); transfer to P?aszo?w; her sister-in-law's abortion in the seventh month because they killed pregnant women; public hangings; burying ...

  6. Mina R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mina R., who was born in a Polish village near Minsk (presently Belarus) in 1928. She recalls her family's Zionist involvement; Soviet occupation in 1939; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; hiding in her uncle's bunker during round-ups; working in a neighboring town; her oldest brother joining the partisans; his arranging for their escape; going with one brother (her parents did not due to her sister's illness); begging in villages at night; liquidation of the ghetto; her mother's escape; living in the woods for about eighteen months; going to Radashkovichy, a ne...

  7. Ralf G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ralf G., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1919 to a Jewish father and Christian mother. He recounts his mother's death in 1921; his father's remarriage to a Christian; attending a Catholic school and gymnasium; his father withdrawing them from the Jewish community in 1932 to avoid communal taxes; his father's business failure in 1938 due to anti-Jewish measures; having to move several times due to anti-Jewish neighbors; draft into the German military in 1939; volunteering for the front; assignment to Zweibru?cken on the French front, then transfer to Poland; never r...

  8. Joseph and Renata S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph S. who was born in Korolevka, Ukraine in 1910 and Renata S. who was born in Lwo?w, Poland in 1924. Mrs. S. recalls childhood; Soviet occupation; German occupation; round-ups; fleeing to Skala; her father's deportation; meeting her husband; and their marriage. Mr. S. relates his privileged status as the only dentist in Skala; hiding family members with a patient; hiding with his wife in the Borshchov ghetto; a German officer warning them of round-ups; the killing of eight hundred Jews; and the mass grave exploding months later from decaying bodies. Mr. and Mrs. ...

  9. Chaya R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Chaya R., who was born in Utrecht, Netherlands in 1925, the fourth of five children. She recounts her family's farm in a rural village; her father working in the diamond trade; not being raised with a Jewish identity; attending a progressive school in Hilversum headed by Joop Westerweel; visiting an orphanage of German refugee children; acquiring her sense of being Jewish from that experience; joining a Zionist youth group; one brother's emigration to Canada; two Jewish girls from Germany living with them for eighteen months until their departure for the United States...

  10. Shoshana S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shoshana S., who was born in Wolin, Poland. She recalls her family's Zionist commitment; their move to Stryi? in 1935; Soviet occupation; suppression of Zionist groups; German invasion in June 1941; a mass killing; ghettoization; her mother's deportation in 1942; forced labor; being hidden during round-ups because she was under fifteen; their imprisonment in 1943; receiving money and her uncle's address in Palestine from her father, the last time she had contact with him; planning an escape with her sister; escaping from a truck; traveling to Morshin; living with thei...

  11. Tom K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tom K., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1929. He relates placement with a foster family in Tetetlen at age three; their orthodoxy; being sent to relatives in Budapest at age twelve (he never saw his foster family again); ghettoization; escaping when his family was deported; living on the streets for seven months; moving into a Swedish safe house; delivering Swedish passports for Raoul Wallenberg; hiding in bombed buildings for three months after the safe house was closed; and liberation by Soviet troops in 1945. Mr. K. recounts difficult conditions under the Sovi...

  12. John F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John F., who was born in Pruz?h?any, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1925. He recalls one brother's military draft in January 1939; brief German invasion in September followed by Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; forced labor; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau when the ghetto was liquidated; separation from his family (he never saw them again); slave labor constructing barracks; a privileged position as the kapo's assistant; assistance from a non-Jewish German prisoner; smuggling food with others; building storage rooms; trading with civilian wo...

  13. Danuta D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Danuta D., who was born in Lv?ov, Poland in 1930. She recalls Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; immediate disappearance of Jews, including an uncle and cousin (she later learned all were killed); forced relocation to the ghetto; being saved from forced labor by a Ukrainian friend; her mother sending her away to live with a Ukrainian family; learning her family was gone; her mother's Ukrainian friend providing false papers; and moving to an orphanage/school in Warsaw. She describes being chosen as a foster child by a Ukrainian general's wife; maintaining clan...

  14. Rose S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rose S., who was born in Gyo?r, Hungary in 1927, one of seven children. She recalls her family living with grandparents, an uncle, and cousins; their orthodoxy; cordial relations with non-Jews changing in the late 1930s; anti-Jewish laws; German invasion in 1944; ghettoization; her brother escaping to Budapest; deportation with her family in cattle trains to Auschwitz; her father praying in the train; separation with her sister from her family; meeting with her brother once; selection with her sister for transfer to Allendorf three weeks later; slave labor in a factor...

  15. George F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of George F., who was born in Abau?jsza?nto?, Hungary in 1925 and raised in Budapest. He recalls exclusion from higher education due to Jewish quotas; a printer's apprenticeship starting in 1940; forced labor in 1942; stealing letterhead to make false papers for others; German invasion in 1944; organizing an underground; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; organizing an escape; recapture; contacts by underground colleagues leading to planned sabotage; escaping to Budapest; posing as a non-Jew; forced labor for Todt in Austria; a death march to Mauthausen in Dec...

  16. Jaak S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jaak S., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1917, one of two brothers. He recounts his father's death when he was seven; a totally assimilated lifestyle; visits to his maternal grandparents in Leipzig; his older brother mentoring him; attending school to be a diamond cutter; working with his mother (she had a boarding house/restaurant/public bath), and in his uncle's diamond business; military service in the mid-1930s; recall when Germany invaded in May 1940; ruining as much ordnance as they could when defeat was imminent; surrendering at Bruges; arrest en route home...

  17. Sidi S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sidi S., who was born in Cerna?ut?i, Romania in 1926, one of four children. She recalls their relative affluence; attending Romanian school; Soviet occupation in 1940; German and Romanian invasion in 1941; anti-Jewish measures and violence; ghettoization; her family's return home after mass deportations in late 1941; street killings; deportation with her family in June 1942 to Transnistria; a camp manager observing her performing acrobatics; his exempting her family from deportation because of her performance; transfer with her family to Chetvertinovka; living in barn...

  18. Frieda J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frieda J., who was born in Piotrko?w Trybunalski, Poland, in 1937. She relates her early childhood memories of the Nazi entry into her town; hiding in a closet with a false back; and an assembly of people who were about to be deported. She recalls the public hanging of her father in the small town of Lututov; the deportation of her mother and brother to Treblinka; her own return to Pietrokow; and her frequent relocations under the care of several different extended family members. She recounts her experiences in Ravensbru?ck; her transport to Bergen-Belsen with other ...

  19. Manny B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Manny B., who was born in Cze?stochowa, Poland in 1926, the youngest of four sons. He recalls a wonderful childhood until German invasion; anti-Jewish regulations; forced labor; ghettoization; deportations and killings; a resistance member's futile attempt to shoot an SS; the execution of every tenth man who was there; transition of the ghetto into a concentration camp; volunteering as a carpenter; slave labor for HASAG; reunion with one brother (the rest of his family were killed); assistance from a German who admired his carpentry; liberation by Soviet troops; learn...

  20. Hanna U. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hanna U., a non-Jew, who was born in Poland in 1933, one of two children. She recounts living in Warsaw; her father's death when she was three; German invasion in 1939; observing starving people and bodies on the streets when traversing the ghetto by street car; her uncle's deportation for resistance activities; sending packages to him through the Red Cross; a public execution; observing the ghetto burning during the 1943 uprising; the Warsaw uprising in 1944; when most of Warsaw's population was forcibly evacuated, deportation with her mother and brother to Dzielna, ...