Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 1,281 to 1,300 of 4,487
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Rabbi Anshel W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rabbi Anshel W., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1911. He recalls prewar Jewish life; his entry into the Yeshiva of Mir; the Russian occupation in 1939; the relocation of the Yeshiva to Kadom, then to Kaunas where the whole Yeshiva obtained visas to Curacao from the Dutch consul and to Japan from the Japanese consul. He describes the train trip through Siberia to Vladivostok, then by boat to Kobe, Japan; the treatment of their group of 350 by the Japanese during the six months there; and their transfer to Shanghai in 1942 where a group of German Jews and a group of R...

  2. Dan G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dan G., who was born in Wu?rzburg, Germany in 1928. He describes the family move to Munich in 1932; anti-Jewish laws; two older siblings' emigration to Yugoslavia and one to Palestine; loss of the family business in 1936; placement in a Jewish boarding school; his parents' deportation to Poland in 1938; his mother arranging for his illegal entry into Yugoslavia; living with his brother in Zagreb, then his sister in Subotica; learning his mother died in ?o?dz? in December 1939; correspondence from his father until June 1941; Hungarian occupation; his brother-in-law's d...

  3. Eugen J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eugen J., who was born in Mladá Boleslav in 1931, the older of two children. He recalls living in Prague; his family keeping kosher and observing Judaism; antisemitic harassment in school; visits to his maternal grandmother's farm near Bratislava; moving to a small village, Libošovice, in the hope no one would know they were Jews; having to register, which revealed they were Jews; his parents being sent for forced labor in 1941; his sister living with Christian farmers (she did not survive); working in a factory; assistance from many non-Jews; learning after the war...

  4. Sam S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sam S., who was born in Soko?o?w Podlaski, Poland in 1920, one of eleven children. He recalls his parents' butcher shop; attending cheder and Polish school; belonging to Betar; antisemitic harassment; German invasion in 1939, followed by a two-week Soviet occupation; leaving with the Soviets; traveling with a brother and sister to Maladzechna; German invasion in 1941; fleeing to Ivi?a?nets; a mass killing; the round-up of his brother's wife and children (he never saw them again); forced labor; transfer to Dvorets; slave labor; finding weapons abandoned by the Soviets;...

  5. Esther M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther M., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1923. She describes life as a Jew in an integrated community; college in Vilna; the outbreak of war in June 1941; hearing about a pogrom in Kaunas; her successful efforts to travel from Vilna to Kaunas to join her family; the formation of the ghetto; forced labor; starvation, selections, and mass shootings at the Ninth Fort; the black market created by smuggling food into the ghetto which enabled her and her family to stay alive; and the final liquidation of the ghetto in the spring of 1944. She tells of her family's bui...

  6. Hella R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hella R., who was born in Adamów, Poland in 1926, the oldest of six children. She recounts moving to Warsaw when she was four; summers with her maternal grandparents in Adamów; attending a Jewish school; German invasion; her mother and siblings returning to Adamów (she never saw them again); ghettoization; studying with a tutor; smuggling food into the ghetto; a Polish friend bringing a letter from her mother; hospitalization for typhus; escaping from a round-up; factory work with her father; hiding in a bunker during the uprising; discovery; deportation to Majdane...

  7. Moshe B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Moshe B., who was born in Semeliškės, Lithuania in 1931, the only son of seven children. He recounts his family moving to Slobodka when he was two; visiting relatives in Merkinė; antisemitic harassment in the streets; Soviet occupation; German invasion; fleeing briefly; ghettoization; having a private tutor; his bar mitzvah; two sisters' marriages; deportation of his mother and one sister (they did not survive); hiding in bunkers during round-ups; another sister being killed while hiding in a bunker; deportation to Stutthof; transfer with his father to Landsberg; s...

  8. Roma B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Roma B., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1926. She recalls German invasion in September; ghettoization; joining Hashomer Hatzair; her brother's bar mitzvah; hiding during round-ups; her father arranging her transfer to a farm in July 1942; learning her family was deported (she never saw them again); returning to Warsaw; transfer to a labor camp; returning to Warsaw in January 1943; hiding with relatives during the April 1943 uprising; their discovery; deportation to Majdanek; transfer to Auschwitz; assignment to Canada Kommando; public hanging of Mala Zimetbaum who ...

  9. Morris B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Morris B., who was born in Tarno?w, Poland in 1918. He recalls his family's poverty; primitive living conditions; pervasive antisemitism; a tailor's apprenticeship; German invasion; fleeing briefly to Przemys?l; returning home; forced labor; ghettoization; transfer to Pustko?w; return to the ghetto; transfer with a cousin to P?aszo?w; working as a tailor; public shootings of escapees; transfer to Zakopane, then Mauthausen; slave labor in the quarry; transfer to Melk, then Ebensee; observing cannibalism; liberation by United States troops; traveling to Salzburg, then R...

  10. William M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William M., an African-American who enlisted in the United States Army in May 1942. He recalls placement in the segregated 761st tank battalion; local prejudice during basic training in the south; being shipped to England in 1944; his unit's assignment to Patton's Third Army; participation in campaigns, including the Battle of the Bulge; plunging into Dachau by chance in spring 1945; eliminating German resistance; observing prisoners who were "walking skeletons"; the horrible stench; prisoners holding up their hands in gratitude; being warned not to feed them; and lea...

  11. Olga S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Olga S., who was born in Vilna, Poland. She describes her prewar life in Vilna; life under the Russian occupation from 1939 to 1941; and the German occupation, including anti-Jewish legislation, ghettoization, the massacre at Ponary, and deportations. She also relates her wartime experiences of hiding in a convent and on a farm; smuggling herself back into the ghetto when she faced danger on the Aryan side; working in a labor camp with false papers; and hiding in a bunker with her father and other Jews, where she remained until her liberation by the Russians.

  12. Joseph and Max H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph H. and his father, Max H., who was born in Hinterweidenthal, Germany in 1901 and moved to Fulda in 1902. Max H. recounts his father's death in 1918; his assimilated family; deteriorating conditions after 1933; losing his business in 1938; fleeing with his family to Frankfurt after Kristallnacht; incarceration in Dachau; returning to Fulda via Munich; his children leaving on a Kindertransport for England; deportation with his wife in 1941; separation from her when he was sent to Salaspils; mass killings; joining his wife in the Ri?ga ghetto; separation from her ...

  13. August H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of August H., a Catholic, who was born in Lebbeke, Belgium in 1921, one of nine children. He recalls attending Catholic schools; fleeing south with one brother during the German invasion; returning home; joining a small cell of the Resistance; providing information about train traffic and schedules; working in a factory in Opwijk; arrest; interrogation in Ghent for a week; deportation with his brother to Bochum; their transfer two months later to a prison in Hameln, then a year later to Gross Strehlitz; forced labor making chalk; separation from his brother upon transfer...

  14. Rabbi Abraham K. Holocaust testimony

    Video testimony of Rabbi Abraham K., who was born in Katowice, Poland in 1918. Rabbi K. describes his family; moving to Sosnowiec in 1942; formation of the ghetto; and deportation to Auschwitz with his fiancee's family. He relates conditions in Birkenau; interaction with other prisoners; being sick with typhus; selections; and being chosen for a special detail. Rabbi K. recalls transfer to Sachsenhausen, where forged English currency was inspected and sorted for a variety of uses by the German government. Rabbi K. recounts incidents of religious observance; working on a Gestapo archive whic...

  15. Yehuda A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yehuda A., who was born in Wu?rzburg, Germany in 1924. He recalls his family's liberal orthodoxy; attending school; antisemitic harassment and violence after Hitler's ascent to power; emigration with his family to Palestine in 1935; enlisting in the British army in 1941; smuggling arms and refugees to Palestine after his discharge; joining the Haganah in 1946, then the Palmah? in 1947; serving in the Israel-Arab War; meeting the poet Haim Gouri in the military; beginning to write poetry; marriage in 1949; and writing a novel resulting from his visit to Wu?rzburg and t...

  16. Larry S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Larry S., who was born in Hofheim, Germany in 1922. He recounts moving to Bamberg in 1934 or 1935 so his father would not be placed in a concentration camp; his father fleeing to Holland; attending gymnasium in Wu?rzburg with his brother; his father's return; attending school in Florence in 1936; his arrest during Hitler's visit; apprenticeship in a tool and die shop in Nuremberg; his father's arrest during Kristallnacht; being placed on a children's transport to England; living with an aunt and uncle; working as a tool and die maker; and emigrating to the United Stat...

  17. Susan F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susan F., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1919. She recalls moving with her mother to Prague in 1933 to join relatives, her father thinking it safer; anti-Jewish measures in 1939 including expulsion from the family home; her father telephoning to tell them he had to report to a transport (they never saw him again); deportation with her mother to Theresienstadt in May 1942, then to Estonia in September; their separation in Raasiku (she never saw her again); slave labor in Ja?gala, Reval, Narwa, and Kivio?li; close bonds with her fellow prisoners which saved her from...

  18. Sam C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sam. C., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1922, the younger of two sons. He recounts his father's death in the late 1920s; his mother working to support him and his brother; graduating from the French Lyce?e in 1939 with a degree in commercial studies; working for a Greek import company; his brother's military draft; bombings by Italy in October 1940; German occupation in April 1941; a one-day round-up to Eleftheria (Freedom) Square in late 1942; his brother's marriage; ghettoization; deportation with his friend in 1943 by train; slave labor building railroad ...

  19. Elizabeth D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Elizabeth D., a Jehovah's Witness, who was born in Germany in 1929 and grew up in Saxony. She relates her father's activities as a Jehovah's Witness; his repeated arrests beginning shortly after Hitler's rise to power; his final arrest in 1936; and her mother's arrest at that time. She speaks of the 1936 trial of Jehovah's Witnesses, including her parents; her mother's two and a half year sentence; her father's imprisonment; his refusal to renounce his faith; and his eventual death in Sachsenhausen. Mrs. D. recalls living with her grandparents during her parents' impr...

  20. Elly G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Elly G., who was born in Simleul-Silvaniei, Romania in 1929. She recalls her brother's birth in 1939; Hungarian occupation in 1940; anti-Jewish laws; her father's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion (they never saw him again); ghettoization in spring 1944; a woman giving birth and a man dying during transport to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her mother and brother (she never saw them again); remaining with a cousin; her cousin getting her a privileged kitchen job; transfer to another camp; slave labor in a factory; illness from fumes in the factory (she...