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 48,681 to 48,700 of 58,928
Search result ordering

  1. Lily B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lily B., who was born in Trautenau, Czechoslovakia (presently Trutnov) in 1923. She recalls her family's affluence; cordial relations with non-Jews; German annexation of Sudentenland; fleeing to Hradec Kra?love? in September 1938; moving to Prague; German occupation in March 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother's emigration to Palestine; not believing rumors of atrocities in Poland; deportation with her parents and grandmother to Theresienstadt in August 1942; her grandmother's death shortly thereafter; constant lines for food, washrooms, and toilets; overcrowd...

  2. Rachel and Rafael A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachel and Rafael A. Mr. A. was born in Pirot, Serbia in 1920. He recounts his family moving to Belgrade, Niš, Jagodina, and other places; attending high school in Belgrade; speaking Ladino at home; participating in Tchelet Lavan and Hashomer Hatzair, including a training camp for emigration to Israel; and cordial relations with non-Jews. He discusses his family's Sephardic history and traditions and shows photographs. Rachel A., was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1926. She recounts her family's move to Slavonski Brod; participating in Hashomer Hatzair and another Zion...

  3. Robert K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Robert K., who was born in Holland in 1940. He describes his mother and father and some of his childhood memories; his father's strategy for the family's survival; his life with a foster family and the incidents where it was suspected that he was Jewish; and his disbelief when his real parents came to claim him after the war. He speaks of his postwar memories of the people who came through his home in the Hague, which served as an informal gathering place for returning Jews; the subtle ways in which his postwar experiences affected him; and the rage he feels is pent u...

  4. Chaim K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Chaim K., who was born in Sa?toraljau?jhely, Hungary in 1926, the youngest of eight children. He recalls extreme poverty in an orthodox home; attending yeshiva; pervasive antisemitism; two brothers serving in Hungarian forced labor battalions; German occupation in March 1944; ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz in April; separation from his parents upon arrival (he never saw them again); transfer to Mauthausen four days later; slave labor constructing underground factories in Gusen; assistance from a German guard; being carried by a friend on the death march to Ma...

  5. Sol S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sol S. who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1914. He recalls anti-Semitic incidents in public school; becoming a tailor at age thirteen; German invasion in 1939; fleeing with his brother and neighbors to Sandomierz; hiding in the synagogue; transfer to Opato?w after they were discovered; the murder of many Jews; and returning to Krako?w. Mr. S. recounts bodies on the streets; forced labor in coal mines; ghettoization; burying women and babies murdered in the hospital; transfer to P?aszo?w; finding his mother, sisters, and their children there; mass killings; deportation...

  6. Kalman W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kalman W., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1920. He recounts attending a local Bundist school and summer camp in Vilnius; joining Bundist protests against antisemitic laws; an accounting apprenticeship in 1938; German invasion in September 1939; orders to report for military service with his father in Warsaw; German bombings; returning home; ghettoization; teaching in a ghetto school; his family concealing his grandmother's death to obtain her rations; round-ups and deportations; work in the ghetto finance office; listening to a clandestine radio and disseminating t...

  7. Mildred W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mildred W. who was born in Kielce, Poland in 1919. She recounts attending a private Jewish school; believing events in Germany could not impact them; German invasion; not fleeing in order to remain with her parents; marriage in 1940; a typhus epidemic; ghettoization in spring 1941; smuggling food; mass killings during deportations in August 1942, including her husband; emotional numbness; slave labor in Kielce; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau in August 1944; slave labor; transfer to Ravensbru?ck in December; meeting a cousin who provided her with extra food; hiding a f...

  8. Jeanette A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jeanette A., who was born in Radom, Poland in 1925, one of six children. She recalls her older brother attending medical school in France; his return immediately prior to the war; German invasion; ghettoization; slave labor in a leather factory; her mother and youngest sister joining her brother in another town; transfer to barracks at the factory; return to Radom; her brother, mother, and youngest sister joining them; selection of her parents for a mass killing from which her oldest sister escaped; transfer to Pionki; slave labor in an ammunition factory; transfer to...

  9. Alice I. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice I., who was born in Rhodes, Italy (presently Greece), a twin and one of five children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; their affluence; cordial relations with Italians; attending an Italian school; expulsion in 1938 due to racial laws; attending a clandestine school; many Jews emigrating; her two older sisters living with uncles in Brussels and Paris; Allied bombings; her sisters returning because her uncles believing it safer in Rhodes; living in Ialysos for a month to escape bombings; German occupation; round-up in July 1943; a friend (an Italian officer)...

  10. Naomi B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Naomi B., Who was born in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia in 1924, the youngest of nine children in a Hasidic family. She recalls attending Czech school; Hungarian occupation in 1938; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; her brothers' draft into Hungarian slave labor battalions; her mother's death; German occupation in March 1944; ghettoization; the Judenrat encouraging obedience; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in May; separation from her family, except one sister; their transfer to Stutthof, then to another camp; slave labor in a munitions factory; Allied POWs instructing...

  11. Malka R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Malka R., who was born in Brzeziny, Poland in 1919. She recalls her family's relative affluence, orthodoxy, and closeness; attending Jewish and public schools; loss of her father's business due to antisemitism in 1937-1938; one brother's military draft in August 1939 (he eventually traveled to Israel); German invasion in September; ghettoization; visiting her brother's family in ?owicz (she never saw them again); pervasive hunger; a public hanging of ten innocent people; the ghetto's liquidation; separation from her father (she never saw him afterward); transfer to ?o...

  12. Zipporah S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zipporah S., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1938. She tells of German occupation; her family's move to the Bochnia ghetto; her father buying false papers; being smuggled into Hungary with a paid guide; registering as Christian Polish refugees; receiving help from a Hungarian woman (she did not know they were Jews); moving to Budapest; the woman arranging for her, her sister, and cousin to live in a Swedish convent while her parents remained in hiding (no one knew they were Jews); liberation by Soviet troops; reunion with her parents; moving to Prague; emigrating t...

  13. David F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David F., who was born in Sosnowiec in 1924. He recalls attending public and Hebrew schools; anti-Semitic incidents; participating in Zionist activities; German invasion in 1939; round-ups of Jewish men including his father and uncles; and volunteering for forced labor to fill his family's quota. Mr. F. describes road building, rail work and other assignments in Koch?owice, Brande, Gross Masselwitz, Sebezh, Novosokolniki, Sakrau, Annaberg, and Marksta?dt (building a Krupp factory), always with his friend Harry; kindness from a German worker; arrival of his father; tra...

  14. Zoltan L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zoltan L., who was born in Liptovský Mikuláš, Czechoslovakia in 1927. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; his mother's singing talent; attending a Jewish school, then gymnasium; his mother singing at Jewish and non-Jewish weddings; he and his brother learning songs from her; anti-Jewish measures, including expulsion from gymnasium, following Slovak independence; attending a Jewish gymnasium; his father attacking a man who painted antisemitic slogans on his bakery; their arrest by Hlinka guard and transport to Košice; returning home; his bar mitzvah; his fa...

  15. Vera Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Vera Z., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1925. She recalls attending Lithuanian school; Lithuanian friends; Soviet occupation; Lithuanian violence against Jews prior to the arrival of German troops; a Lithuanian neighbor who saved them; her father's death in a mass shooting at the Seventh Fort; ghettoization; hiding her younger sister during round-ups; forced labor; escaping and staying with Lithuanian friends during mass killings; a Jewish policeman saving them from selection; hiding during deportations after warnings from the policeman; smuggling food for her f...

  16. Tibor B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tibor B., who was born in Sa?toraljau?jhely, Hungary in 1924. He describes his family's move to O?zd in 1931; attending high school in Putnok; his perception that the effects of the war were limited until 1944; German occupation in March 1944; serving in a labor battalion with his brothers; his parents' deportation; a failed escape attempt; a forced march toward Austria; transport to Buchenwald, then Schlieben; forced labor in a munitions factory; receiving food from non-Jewish prisoners; punishment for exchanging numbers with another prisoner, in order to join his br...

  17. David B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David B., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1919. He recalls pervasive antisemitism; belonging to the Zionist organization Gordonyah; German invasion; deportation for forced labor three weeks later; escaping from a train in 1940; returning home; transfer with his family to Kielce; ghettoization; deportation of most of his family to Treblinka; forced labor with his brother in Ludwikow; a German foreman who saved many Jews; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from his brother and a later reunion; transfer with his brother two weeks later; bombings at Klinkerwerk; a dea...

  18. Miriam K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Miriam K., who was born in ʻEin Ḥarod, Palestine in 1928. She recounts her parents had emigrated from Germany in 1922; their return to Berlin in 1930; living with relatives; her parents joining the Communist Party; feeling isolated in school after 1933 because she was Jewish; staying home for weeks after Kristallnacht; attending a Jewish school where she made friends; emigration to England in May 1939; living in Cornwall where her parents worked as domestics; wonderful treatment by their employers; forced relocation to London after war broke out because they were Ger...

  19. Aaron W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aaron W., who was born in Mie?dzyrzecz, Poland in 1914. He describes his family and their brush business; ghettoization; forced labor; mass killings and deportations including family members; being hidden for a short time by a volksdeutsch whom his brother paid; transport to Majdanek; encountering his brother who was killed soon after; transfer after three months to Auschwitz where he spent time in Birkenau and Monowitz; becoming seriously ill; efforts of one doctor to help him recover; undergoing surgery without anaesthesia; dreaming of his mother for which he credit...

  20. Willi F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Willi F., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1923 to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. He recounts the excitement of Nazi rallies; learning his father was Jewish (though he had converted to Catholicism) in 1932 when he was harassed at school; anti-Jewish laws barring him from an apprenticeship; working for a Communist Party member; the impact of anti-Jewish laws increasing after Kristallnacht; forced labor in a munitions factory; sabotaging his work; traveling to Konstanz, planning to enter Switzerland illegally; a guard accosting him; traveling to Lustenau to ente...