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Displaying items 241 to 260 of 4,487
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Aliza R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aliza R., who was born in Zbaraz?, Poland (presently Zbaraz?h?, Ukraine). She describes life in a wealthy, politically aware family; attending secular school; attending law school at the University of Krako?w; marriage to another attorney; and life as a successful professional couple in the Warsaw area. She relates her journey from Warsaw to Zbaraz? at the outbreak of the war during which her daughter was born in a farmer's house; living in Zbaraz? under the Russian occupation; her feeling they should leave Poland prior to the German invasion; her refusal to register ...

  2. Mira B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mira B., who was born in Vilna, Poland. She describes her parents who were both teachers in Jewish schools; her and her brother's education; their Zionist activities; the difficulties of life as Jews in Vilna; the outbreak of war; Russian occupation; the return of Vilna as capital of Lithuania; having to learn Lithuanian at the university; German occupation two years later; the first round-ups of Jews, including her brother, when they were taken to Ponary, forced to dig their own graves and shot; formation of the ghetto and the Judenrat; obtaining a job outside the gh...

  3. Meir S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Meir S., who was born in Na?sa?ud, Romania in 1925 to a family with fourteen children. He describes his father, a biblical scribe; his very religious upbringing; moving to a small village in Hungary as a young child; German occupation, ghettoization, and transfer of all Jews to another town; his father's humiliation at having to shave his beard; and transport to Auschwitz. Mr. S. recalls the treatment of the prisoners as numbers, not humans; not knowing what happened to his family and not being able to comprehend that he was in a death camp; volunteering as a mechanic...

  4. 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...

  5. Mary E. Holocaust testimony

    Video testimony of Mary E., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1909. Mrs. E. describes her comfortable childhood; observance of the Jewish holidays; a year of university in Brussels; pharmacy school in Warsaw; and her marriage before the war. She recalls the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939; moving to the ghetto; working as a pharmacist; witnessing atrocities, particularly the round-up of children; hunger; the Judenrat; ghetto humor; and the deportations. Mrs. E. recounts being deported with her husband; separation from him on the train; arrival in Ravensbru?ck; forced labor repairing bo...

  6. Rabbi Alexander A. Holocaust testimony

    Video testimony of Rabbi Alexander A., who was born in Hungary in 1906. Rabbi A. recounts moving to Salzburg, Austria, then Trier, Germany where his father served as rabbi. He relates studying at Yeshivas in Cologne, Bratislava and Berlin; receiving his Ph.D. and rabbinical ordination in Berlin; serving as a rabbi at orthodox synagogues in Berlin; his marriage in 1932; and the difficulties he and his congregants experienced as Hitler rose to power. Rabbi A. describes Jewish community life; the attempts of almost all Jews to leave Germany; the cultural responses of the Jewish community which...

  7. Blanche C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Blanche C., who was born in Oster, Russia (presently Ukraine) in 1906, one of six children in a wealthy family. She recalls attending gymnasium; graduating from nursing school; cordial relations with non-Jews; marriage in 1929; traveling with her husband in Italy and France; her brother-in-law's role as an attorney in the Beilis trial; the births of three children; German invasion in 1941; her husband dying of a heart attack when the Germans entered their home; escaping from a mass killing with her two year old daughter (the rest of her family was killed); forced labo...

  8. Fay S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fay S., who was born in Zwolen?, Poland in 1919, the oldest of five children. She recalls her family's affluence; antisemitic violence; marriage in 1937; moving to Radom; her son's birth; German invasion; moving to Zwolen? to avoid bombings; staying with a non-Jewish farmer; returning to Radom; ghettoization; living outside the ghetto due to her husband's job; rumors that children and women were to be relocated; paying a non-Jew to take her son; visiting him frequently; slave labor in a munitions factory; learning her mother had brought her son to Zwolen? (she never s...

  9. Dina G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dina G., who was born in Zolochiv, Poland in 1921, one of four children. She recalls her family's Zionism; Soviet occupation in 1939; her older brother's draft into the Soviet military (she never saw him again); German invasion; a mass killing of Jews; round-up with her mother, sister-in-law, and infant nephew (her father and brother hid); a soldier brutally killing her nephew; removal from the deportation train by a German solider; returning home; forced labor in a nearby camp; meeting her future husband there; bringing her father and brother food; ghettoization; a m...

  10. Harry F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry F., who was born in Lublin, Poland in 1919. He describes attending public school; antisemitic violence; German invasion in 1939; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; joining his younger brother at a work camp (he never saw his parents or older brother again); escaping; his brother joining him in Lubarto?w; living briefly in the Majdan Tatarsky ghetto; obtaining false papers from the underground; being caught escaping; getting into a work group (his brother was deported); traveling to Tereszpol; working in ?uko?w; secretly sharing his food with Jews in the ghe...

  11. Miland B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Miland B., who was born in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1927 to a Hasidic family of five children. He recounts antisemitic violence; Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions, including confiscation of the family business; apprenticeship to a watchmaker; clandestinely observing Jewish holidays; three-week ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his parents and younger brothers; encountering his sister; urging her to stay alive; slave labor on a vegetable farm; public hangings; the suicide of a friend's father;...

  12. Esther K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther K., who was born in Lypsha, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in approximately 1920, the second of eleven children. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; cordial relations with non-Jews; working in Budapest; returning home by train in spring 1944: removal from the train in Sa?toraljau?jhely; deportation to Auschwitz; transfer to Dachau, then Bergen-Belsen; liberation; returning to Czechoslovakia seeking relatives; learning one brother was in Israel; marriage in Chomutov; and emigration to the United States. Ms. K. discusses slave labor in the camps; prisoners he...

  13. Leon W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon W., who was born in Zwola, Poland in 1919. He recounts his father's bakery business; attending yeshiva until age thirteen; destruction of the town in the German invasion; living briefly with relatives in Radom; returning home; Germans killing Jews; escaping to a forest with his younger brother; working for a Polish engineer; returning home; deportation with his brother to Skarżysko-Kamienna in fall 1942; encountering his sister once and giving her bread; being sent to Majdanek to bring back clothing for the prisoners; deciding against escaping, fearing his broth...

  14. Samson M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samson M., who was born in Poland in 1913 to a Hasidic family of seven children. He recalls their poverty; joyous holiday celebrations; antisemitic harassment at school; apprenticeship as a shoemaker in Seitesz; moving to Krako?w; German invasion; escaping east with his brother; Germans overtaking them; staying in Izbica; Soviet troops arriving; their withdrawal; leaving with them; living in L?viv; finding two of his brothers there; volunteering to work in a Soviet coalmine; harsh conditions; escaping with a friend; traveling to Kiev, then L?viv; volunteering for labo...

  15. Saba B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Saba B., who was born in approximately 1926. She recalls incarceration with her sister in Skarz?ysko-Kamienna and Cze?stochowa; her sister saving her from a selection for death; working in her sister's place which saved her sister's life; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; useless forced labor; transfer to Burgau; forced labor in an airplane factory; fasting on Yom Kippur; transfer to Tu?rkheim; a death march; her sister engineering their escape; hiding in the woods with other escapees; seeking food in a nearby town; liberation by United States troops; living with Germans; tr...

  16. Genia H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Genia H., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in approximately 1927 to a wealthy family of six children. She recalls their orthodoxy; her father, mother, and three younger siblings fleeing German invasion (she never saw them again); remaining with a sister and brother to safeguard the family money; ghettoization; slave labor in a factory; her brother burying their uncle and grandfather after they died; her older sister giving birth; hiding during selections for deportation; the ghetto liquidation in 1944; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her brother (he did not su...

  17. Mark F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mark F., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in approximately 1919. He recalls many older siblings who were married; his family's orthodoxy; attending yeshiva; learning typesetting; joining his brother-in-law's business; military forced labor in Podolinec; buying his way out; confiscation of the business; forced relocation; coworkers hiding him, his brother, and two friends; arranging train transportation to Switzerland; betrayal; moving to another town with his friends; exposure as Jews; deportation to Sered; exemption from transports due to his brother-in-law...

  18. Leon M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leon M., who was born in Zaleschiki, Poland (presently Ukraine) in approximately 1933. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews, despite some "name-calling"; Soviet occupation in 1939; his father's draft into the Soviet military (they never saw him again); German invasion; hiding with his younger brother whenever German or Ukrainian police appeared; hiding during a mass killing which included his grandmother; moving to his other grandmother's in Tolstoye (Tovste); obtaining food from farmers in Lezhanovka, his mother's birthplace; his mother bribing someone to repla...

  19. Mitchell B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mitchell B., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1924, the youngest of eight children. He recounts antisemitic harassment; German invasion; ghettoization; deportation to Poznan? in May 1941; slave labor building the autobahn; public hangings; transfer to Auschwitz in August 1943; prisoners from ?o?dz? advising him to try to leave; transfer to Jawischowitz; slave labor building barracks; hospitalization in January 1945; surgery without anesthesia; friends saving him from a selection; a death march to Blechhammer, then train transport in open cars to Theresienstadt; liber...

  20. Marcel L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marcel L., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1920, one of five children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; his father selling their stores in 1936 to emigrate to Palestine; one brother emigrating there; increasing influence of Hungarian fascists; his father's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1939; his return after two months; he and his brothers being drafted in 1941; his brothers being sent to the Russian front (they did not return); a Hungarian Nazi, who was his father's friend, helping them avoid deportation; visiting his family in 1944 in the Bu...