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 1,461 to 1,480 of 4,487
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Annette E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Annette E., a non-Jew, who was born in Belgium in 1921, the second of six children. She recalls living in Rixensart, Schearbeek, and Brussels; her parents' communist beliefs; housing German and Spanish refugees, including Jews; participating in a socialist group; German invasion; clandestine socialist meetings evolving into a Resistance group; hiding Jews; arrest in June 1942 with her father and one brother; incarceration in St. Gilles, Aix-la-Chapelle, Essen, and Düsseldorf; deportation to Ravensbrück in December; remaining with two Belgian women and their enduring...

  2. Robert S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Robert S., who was born in Vilna in 1935. He discusses family life before the war; the Russian occupation in 1939; and his father's refusal to accept Soviet citizenship, for which the family was exiled to Siberia. He relates the journey to Siberia and his family's internment in an exclusively Jewish camp within the Gulag system. He tells of his transfer to Kotlas, then Arkhangel?sk and of his family's flight from there to a small village near Kirov where they stayed until the liberation. Returning to Poland after the war, they were taken to a displaced persons camp in...

  3. Harry T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry T., who was born in Giessen, Germany in 1921. Mr. T. describes growing up as the only Jewish boy in Zu?rbach, a farm village near Frankfurt; the rise of antisemitism and anti-Jewish activities; his training in Frankfurt to become a cabinetmaker; his return home after Kristallnacht; slave labor; and leaving his family in Frankfurt in 1941. He tells of his transport from Berlin to Barcelona, Spain; his imprisonment there and then in an internment camp near the French border; his release by the Quakers; and his emigration, via Portugal, to the United States. The ef...

  4. Helen C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen C., who was born in Lypcha, Ukraine (then the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) in approximately 1917, one of five siblings. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; working on their farm; becoming a seamstress; Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; moving to Budapest in 1942; working as a housekeeper; incarceration in a brick factory; deportation to Ravensbru?ck; slave labor; being subjected to painful medical experiments; sharing food with a fellow prisoner; transfer to Rechlin after one year; praying to herself; escaping from a death march; liberation ...

  5. Fred E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred E., who was born in Uz?h?horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1927, the oldest of four children. He recalls Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; German occupation; ghettoization with his family; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from his mother and sisters; his father volunteering as a metal worker (he was afraid to do so); transfer to Janina coal mines; slave labor; becoming numb; friendships with other Hungarians; a death march and train transport to Flossenbu?rg; liberation from a train; hospitalization in Nuremberg; transport to Prague; ...

  6. Edith S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edith S., who was born in Solotvyno, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1925, one of two daughters. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; attending Hebrew school; antisemitic harassment; her father's draft into the Czech military; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; her father's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; his return in 1943; her parents' arrest; ghettoization; her parents' return (her father had been tortured); her parents' re-arrest; her mother's return; bringing her father food (she never saw him again); deportation with her mother a...

  7. Clara R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Clara R., who who born in Mostiska, Ukraine (Austro-Hungarian Monarchy when she was born, later Poland) in 1904. She recalls the family's move to Sudetenland; return to Mostiska in 1918; marriage in 1933; the births of two sons; German invasion in 1939 followed by Soviet occupation; German occupation in June 1941; learning of the impending evacuation of Jews; and hiding with her family and others in a hole under the barn floor of a Catholic family for twenty-two months during which they fasted on Yom Kippur and read newspapers for war news. Mrs. R. describes liberatio...

  8. Susanne J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susanne J., who was born in Rajka, Hungary in 1927, one of three children. She recalls an affluent childhood; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending Catholic school, then gymnasium, in Gyo?r; being summoned home in spring 1944; forced removal with her family to Moson, then Gyo?r; their deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); her sister's assignment elsewhere; transfer to Lippstadt six weeks later; slave labor in a factory; evacuation; being surrounded by United States troops in Kaunitz; living in German homes ther...

  9. Edith M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edith M., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1926. She recounts moving to Cluj when she was eight; visiting grandparents in Košice and Chernivt︠s︡i; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; Hungarian occupation in 1940; visiting relatives in Budapest in 1943; a ban on Jewish travel preventing her return home; German invasion in March 1944; forced relocation to a yellow star house; briefly hiding with a non-Jewish woman; a round-up by Hungarians on October 19; a forced march to Harkakópháza; slave labor digging tank trenches; purchasing food from local peasants...

  10. Bernat F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bernat F., who was born in Vojvodina, Yugoslavia in 1921, the youngest of seven children. He remembers his childhood in Subotica; his family's orthodoxy; membership in Hashomer Hatzair; attending gymnasium; his communist leanings undermining his religious beliefs; his mother's death; Hungarian occupation; conscription into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1942; solidarity with those in his unit from Vojvodina; being moved to many locations ending in Bor; escaping four weeks later with others with assistance from a Serb partisan; joining a partisan unit and SKOJ; b...

  11. Dana S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dana S., who was born in L?viv, Ukraine (then Poland) in 1935. She recalls having a governess (her parents were both lawyers); the beginning of war; Soviet occupation; her father hiding from military draft; his eventual draft and return home; German invasion; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; her mother hiding her with a Christian former neighbor; their returning her after a week; her father obtaining false papers for her and her mother (as a male, he thought he would jeopardize them); seeing her father for the last time; going by train to Zakliko?w; living as C...

  12. Jacob B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacob B., who was born in Il'nitas, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) in 1922. He recalls moving to a small village in 1927; attending yeshivoth in a nearby town in Slovakia and in Munkacs; difficulties returning home after Hungarian occupation in 1938; abusive behavior by the police; increasing anti-Jewish restrictions; dealing on the black market to support his family; changing his last name to escape arrest; compulsory service in a Hungarian labor battalion from 1943 onward in O?zd, Moha?cs, Pe?cs, Koma?rom, and Budapest; efforts to observe the dietary laws; harsh condi...

  13. Violet S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Violet S., who was born in Berehovo, Czechoslovakia in 1928. She recounts Hungarian occupation in 1939; her father's mobilization into a Hungarian labor battalion (she never saw him again); German occupation; hardships encountered by her mother in caring for six children; round-ups of Jews from surrounding villages to a nearby brick factory; supplying food and medicine to the incarcerated Jews with other local youngsters; her own family's round-up; hunger; inadequate shelter; and her mother's efforts to provide strength and a sense of security. Mrs. S. tells of deport...

  14. Helga E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helga E., who was born in Braunschweig, Germany in 1923, the only child of a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father. She recalls her father was a published, well-known photographer; enjoying evangelical Christian classes in school; consciousness of her Jewish identity beginning in 1933; antisemitic incidents in school; disappointment at being prohibited from participating in Nazi youth groups; her father's refusal to help her mother's brother; notification of his death after Kristallnacht; expulsion from several schools; difficulty obtaining a job; working at age fifteen...

  15. Solomon S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Solomon S., who was born in Charsznica, Poland in 1926. He describes the town, his family and education; fleeing to a farm during the German invasion; increasingly harsh conditions; a mass shooting in September 1942; transport to P?asow with his father and cousin; frequent killings; their escape to the Krako?w ghetto, then Charsznica; and his father (whom he never saw again) sending him to a labor collection to escape transport. Mr. S. recalls moving between P?asow and the ghetto; surviving several times due to help from friends and a Jewish kapo; transfer to Mauthaus...

  16. David A. Holocaust testimony

    A follow-up, directed videotape testimony of David A., whose first testimony was recorded in 1982. Mr. A. discusses his reluctance to talk about the Holocaust, even with his children, prior to recording his testimony; attributing his survival to luck and kindness from others; the speculative nature of survival theories; inappropriate myths of heroism and faith; a kapo and others in his barracks hiding a sick friend, risking their own lives; and having to view the bodies of kapos who were shot attempting to escape. He recalls living with a friend in Berlin after liberation; returning to Pola...

  17. Gerard K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerard K., who was born in Paris, France in 1935, the oldest of three brothers. He recounts that his mother was born in England; his family's move to Montargis in 1937; attending school; German occupation; his father's deportation in June 1943; receiving a letter from him, which he reads; his mother obtaining funds from Jewish and Quaker organizations in Paris; the local priest warning them to hide prior to round-ups; traveling from Cha?lette to Clefmont; hiding with a non-Jewish woman from May to August 1944, using false papers; after liberation, being sent to a refu...

  18. Valerie S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Valerie S., who was born in Hungary in 1898. She recounts her family's move to Vienna when she was four; a wonderful childhood and schooling in an affluent home; very close relationships with her mother and sister; marriage in 1923; working as a typist for her husband's anti-Nazi newspaper; fleeing to Budapest with her husband after the Anschluss; learning of her father's arrest from her mother's letters (they were later deported and she never saw them again); fleeing to Paris in 1939 with her husband; his death in January; German occupation; returning to Budapest in ...

  19. Sam K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sam K., who was born in 1920 and served with the United States Army in World War II. He recounts serving in North Africa, then Sicily; transfer to the 3rd Infantry Division; fighting in Naples and Rome, through France, and into Germany; visiting Dachau for less than two hours shortly after its liberation; piles of corpses; not believing local Germans who claimed ignorance of the camp; and his state of shock at what he witnessed. Mr. K. notes having no previous knowledge of concentration camps. He shows photographs and items he obtained during the war.

  20. Yvonne P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yvonne P., a non-Jew, who was born in Havré, Belgium in 1912. She recounts her father becoming an invalid in World War I; completing teacher training in 1930; her father's death in 1933; marriage in 1935; moving to Antwerp in 1938; participating with her husband in anti-fascist activities; his military draft; German invasion on May 10, 1940; fleeing to Havré; her husband's return; participating in the Resistance; hiding using false papers; visiting her husband in Tertre; his arrest in December 1941 and execution in February 1942; hiding with a friend, then with an a...