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Displaying items 1 to 20 of 4,487
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Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Jan V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jan V., who was born in Rumbeke, Belgium in 1922, the oldest of three children in a religious Catholic family. He recounts living in Louvain from age three; attending Catholic school; participating in Scouting; German invasion in May 1940; traveling with his cousin to Tournai, then Rouen to enlist; being shipped by train to Anduze, France; repatriation about six weeks later; living briefly in Tongeren; priesthood training in monasteries in Bocholt for two years, in Gits for two years, then in Thy-le-Château; arrest in July 1944 with thirteen others from the monastery...

  2. Isak and Ann F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Isak F., who was born in Wolbrom, Poland in 1922. He recounts his father's death when he was a baby; his mother supporting four children; her remarriage when he was ten; studying and working in Be?dzin and ?o?dz? beginning in 1936; returning home in summer 1939; German invasion; capture by SS men (he never saw his family again); slave labor in Rzeszo?w for a year; transfer to P?aszo?w, Wieliczka, Klinker, Flossenbu?rg, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Colmar, Hamburg, and Bergen,Belsen; escaping with a Soviet POW; capture; imprisonment in Hamburg; transfer to Sandbostel ...

  3. Menachem K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Menachem K., who was born in Berez︠h︡any, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1925. He recounts his father's death when he was an infant; his mother's remarriage; the births of two half-sisters; attending cheder, then public school; anti-Jewish boycotts; Soviet occupation; German invasion; Ukrainians killing Jews; working and living in his stepfather's factory; ghettoization; obtaining false papers to leave the ghetto; arrest and incarceration in a Ukrainian prison; his stepfather securing his release; hiding during round-ups; building a bunker at a Polish friend's home in ...

  4. Mila P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mila P., the fourth of five sisters, who was born in Chrzano?w, Poland, in 1926. She tells of her prewar life in this poor town, where her father was a tailor; the German occupation and anti-Jewish activities which followed; and life under German occupation, until the beginning of deportations from Chrzano?w in January, 1941. She relates her deportation, through Auschwitz to Ober Altstadt, a slave labor camp near Trautenau, Czechoslovakia. She describes the terrible conditions there, where, with three of her sisters, she worked in a factory until liberation by the Rus...

  5. Eldar B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Eldar B., who was born in Humenné, Czechoslovakia in 1924, one of four children. He recounts a wonderful childhood; participating in Betar; expulsion from school in 1939 due to anti-Jewish restrictions; working at a lumber mill; round-up for forced labor in 1942; deportation to Auschwitz via Žilina; transfer to Birkenau; slave labor building roads; guards beating a prisoner to death; being beaten for helping a friend obtain extra soup; volunteering for the Sonderkommando; digging trenches for mass graves and collecting corpses; public hangings; transfer to construct...

  6. Harry B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Harry B., who was born in Gorlice, Poland in 1929, one of five children. He recalls his family's affluence; German bombardment; escaping to Jas?o; his father and oldest brother boarding a train which left before the rest had boarded; returning home; ghettoziation; a Gestapo shooting his brother; a friend on the Judenrat convincing the Gestapo not to touch the rest of the family; deportation of all Jews in 1941; remaining behind to clear bodies (he never saw his mother or siblings again); transfer to P?aszo?w; a privileged position caring for the Kommandant and his fam...

  7. Rose G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rose G., who was born in Nasielsk, Poland in 1914. She recounts living with her husband's family in Serock; the outbreak of war; incarceration with her parents-in-law and children in the Nasielsk synagogue; a mass shooting of sick people behind the synagogue; transfer with her family to Kock via Warsaw; her child's and parents-in-law's death due to starvation; working with her husband on a Polish farm; her other children's denouncement while she was hiding in a different place; transfer with her brother to Parczew; then to the Mie?dzyrzecz ghetto; deportation after th...

  8. Maurice B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maurice B., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1939. He recounts his family observing the Sabbath and kashruth; feeling intimidated by German soldiers he saw from his window; his English grandmother living with them (his mother was born in England); their deportation to Westerbork in summer 1943; receiving food parcels; his father charging him to care for his mother, sister, and grandmother when he was deported (they never saw him again); surgery by an inmate physician when he was ill; his grandmother's toughness to the guards; transfer to Bergen-Belsen two mon...

  9. Chaya V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Chaya V., who was born in Kotelʹnya, Ukraine in 1909. She recounts her parents' premature deaths; living in orphanages in Z︠H︡ytomyr and Berdychiv; marriage to a non-Jew in 1927; her daughter's birth in 1928; her husband's draft in 1930; his discharge in 1935; living briefly in the far east; her husband's military recall in 1941; German invasion; a failed evacuation attempt with her four children; hiding her three older children with non-Jewish friends; moving into the ghetto with her infant; their escape during the ghetto's liquidation in September 1941; hiding with ...

  10. Gejza S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gejza S., who was born in Dolný Kubín, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1909, the oldest of nine children. He recounts brief service in the Czech military; moving to Žilina after enactment of anti-Jewish laws, then to Bratislava; marriage in 1941; his son's birth in 1942; his father's death; his mother sending him, his family, and his siblings to Budapest to avoid deportation; separation from his wife while saving their son; posing as a Catholic after German invasion; traveling to Stupava after liberation; and remarriage. Mr. S. notes his faith was...

  11. Jozef K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jozef K., who was born in Piešt̕any, Czechoslovakia in 1919. He recalls his father's death in 1925; the family's move to Bolešov; cordial relations with non-Jews; graduating from business school in 1940; conscription into the Jewish forced labor Sixth Slovak Brigade in March 1942; joining the "kosher" group; slave labor in many places; protection of the Brigade by General František Catlos; escape during the uprising in 1944; traveling to Banská Bystrica; joining the uprising with the partisans in many locations; hiding in forests; fleeing German forces with 300 pa...

  12. Jacques J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacques J., who was born in Tustanovitse, Poland in 1923. He recalls attending high school in Drohobych; the outbreak of war; Soviet occupation; German invasion on June 22, 1941; unsuccessfully attempting to escape to the Soviet Union; local Ukrainians killing Jews; forced labor with his father in an oil refinery in Boryslaw; deportation of his mother and sister (he never saw them again); liquidation of the Jewish quarter; hiding with his father during a round-up;, their discovery; his father's deportation (he perished in Janowska); bringing food to Jews hiding in bun...

  13. Peter L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter L., who was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1923 to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. He recalls his father's three-year imprisonment as a Trotskyite beginning in 1937; German occupation in fall 1941; inability to evacuate due to injuries; his mother obtaining a Ukrainian passport for him; his father not allowing him, his mother, and brother to join the ghettoization in a tractor factory in December 1941; his father's escape on January 2, 1942; hiding him in their apartment; hiding his future wife and her mother for a month; his future wife bringing his father ...

  14. Betsy S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Betsy S., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1928. She recounts that her parents were Polish immigrants; German invasion in May 1940; her father continuing his business until 1942; meeting her future husband who was involved in the Resistance; going into hiding with her family; their arrest in June 1944; incarceration in Malines; deportation to Birkenau; separation from her father and brother (they did not survive); the trauma of not recognizing her mother after they were shaved; singing French songs while marching to Auschwitz; separation from her mother (she did n...

  15. Marion P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marion P., a Christian rescuer who was born in Amsterdam in 1920. She discusses the situation of the Jewish community in Holland before the war; German occupation in 1940; and the anti-Jewish propaganda and legalized persecution that gradually followed. Mrs. P. tells of witnessing a round-up of Jewish children, which prompted her to become more active in the rescue of Jews and relates how, working through an unofficial network rather than a formal branch of the underground, she effected the rescue of Jewish children and adults. She notes problems arising from the clos...

  16. Julius O. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Julius O., who was born in Schwarzenborn, Germany in 1923. He recalls hostility toward Jews after 1933; attending public school until 1937; a carpentry apprenticeship in Kassel; repairing roads in Schwarzenborn after Kristallnacht; attending a Jewish trade school in Frankfurt; and factory work from 1940 to October 1941 in Frankfurt. He describes joining his family in Kassel when they received notice of deportation in November 1941; their transport to Ri?ga; his transfer to Salaspils; brutal beatings and killings of prisoners; work as a carpenter; repairing SS officers...

  17. Sibylle H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sibylle H., a non-Jew, who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1920. She recalls living in a wealthy area with Jewish families; moving to Wannsee at age eleven; her family's anti-Hitler sentiments; her father's death in 1933; her only Jewish classmate's emigration to England; attending the 1936 Olympics; her mother's death; working as a hospital nurse; and dismay when her friend (her guardian's daughter) was pleased by the Kristallnacht destruction. Mrs. H. recounts a former mental hospital where the patients disappeared; rumors of their suspicious deaths; marriage in 1941...

  18. Musya V. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Musya V., who was born in Brat?s?lav, Ukraine in 1927. She recalls finishing seventh grade; German invasion; Romanians organizing local police; the murder of Jewish hostages and others at the Bug River; ghettoization; forced labor; arrival of Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia; shootings of many during transfer to Pechora; transfer to a camp in Brat?s?lav; escaping with aid from a Russian girl; the girl's father hiding her (he helped many Jews); her parents hiding nearby; being caught while visiting them; their incarceration in Pechora; and liberation by Soviet troops....

  19. Aaron S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aaron S., who was born in De?blin, Poland in 1921. He recalls his family's relative affluence; attending public school and cheder; pervasive antisemitism; German invasion; fleeing with his family to Ryki, then a village; returning to De?blin; ghettoization; forced labor at the airport; moving into the adjacent work camp with his brother; deportation of two uncles and an aunt (he never saw them again); the arrival of Slovak Jews; arranging for his parents and sister to join him; his father's death from a beating in November 1942; the role of prisoners in running the ca...

  20. Herbert L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Herbert L., who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1917. He relates growing up in Vienna; working in Zli?n after graduating from the School of Electric Engineering; German invasion; eighteen months of slave labor; transfer to Terezi?n in March 1941; avoiding deportation by joining the Jewish police and designing furniture; his depression caused by observing the deprivations of the women and children, deportations, and typhus; artificial improvement of conditions during a Red Cross visit; and transfer to Auschwitz on October 3, 1944. Mr. L. describes witnessing a Ge...