Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 141 to 160 of 4,487
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Arthur B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arthur B., who was born in Os?wie?cim, Poland in 1928. He recalls German invasion; an unsuccessful attempt to flee to the Soviet zone with his family; organization of the community by the Judenrat; the building of Auschwitz; forced relocation with his family to Sosnowiec in April 1941; Moshe Merin's leadership there; separation from his parents during a round-up in August 1942; deportation for forced labor in Gru?snberg; receiving packages from his parents until August 1943; transfer to Kittlitztreben; a death march beginning February 3, 1945; arrival at Buchenwald on...

  2. Samuel B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Samuel B., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1933. Mr. B. recounts his childhood perspective on the Russian occupation of Vilna; the arrival of the German army; and German anti-Jewish activities. He recalls arrival at Vilna's "old ghetto" with his parents; hiding outside of the ghetto in a monastery, through the arrangement of a baptized aunt; and being forced by circumstances to smuggle themselves back into the ghetto. He describes conditions within the ghetto; the ghetto's school; his own private education; his artistic activities within the ghetto; and his family's ...

  3. Paulina B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Paulina B., a Catholic Romani, who was born in Banská Bystrica, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1919, one of twelve children. She recalls her family's poverty; living on a farm; caring for the animals; her father's death; not attending school; working as a mason from age fourteen; marriage at seventeen; the births of two children; her husband's death three years later; persecution by Germans and Hlinka guard; Romanies helping each other; her children's deaths due to lack of medical care; hiding with her mother and sisters in the basement of a neighbor's home, ...

  4. Rabbi Henry B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rabbi Henry B., who was born in Fu?rth, Germany, in 1907. He speaks of family life before the war; antisemitism in Furth; his experience on Kristallnacht in Frankfurt am Main; and his 1940 departure for Cuba, from where he later emigrated to the United States. He stresses that antisemitism existed in Germany before Hitler, recalling the increasing repression and the persecution of German Jews before the outbreak of war. He also describes his return to Germany in 1950 to visit his father's grave; his brief stint as the head rabbi in Lima, Peru; and his anger at the Uni...

  5. Avraham H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Avraham H., who was born in Suceava, Romania in 1923, the youngest of eight children in a Hasidic family. He recounts working on the family farm; attending cheder and public school; one brother's emigration to Palestine in 1933; another brother's death in 1934; antisemitic harassment in school; attending the Vizhnitz yeshiva in summer 1938; Soviet occupation; anti-Jewish violence by Romanian troops in 1940; forced labor building roads; hiding valuables with German neighbors; a round-up of all Jews; train transfer to Ataki; incarceration in a synagogue; transfer to Moh...

  6. Rachel S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rachel S., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1923, one of five children. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; sneaking back to her former neighborhood and receiving food from non-Jewish neighbors; forced labor; her father losing his will to live; his refusal of an offer from a non-Jewish friend to hide their family; remaining in their apartment with one sister during a round-up (another sister and her parents were shot in a mass killing at Ponary); joining her brother who was hiding in a village; discovery; incarceration ...

  7. Edmund M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Col. Edmund M. (Retired) who was a first lieutenant in the 65th Infantry which liberated Mauthausen on May 5, 1945. Colonel M. describes stumbling upon the camp with no prior knowledge of it; the prisoners' condition; the pervasive stench; living conditions; the stone quarry; the gas chambers at the Hartheim castle; and his own desire for justice. He relates historical background on Mauthausen; shows many photographs; describes Franz Ziereis (camp Kommandant), atrocities committed by him and his deathbed statement which Colonel M. obtained from a nurse who helped reco...

  8. Fred M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred M., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1927. He recalls childhood awareness of danger around him; orthodox observances of holidays and Sabbath; his father's deportation to Poland in October 1938 (he never saw him again); Kristallnacht resulting in their realization they had to escape; his mother arranging to illegally send him and his sister away; the painful separation from her at the Dutch border (he never saw her again); staying in a children's home in Hoogeveen; being moved to Claydon, England (his sister remained and later perished in Bergen-Belsen); moving ...

  9. Magda S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Magda S., who was born in a farming town near Munkacs, Czechoslovakia. She recalls moving to Munkacs; her close, extended family's happy, observant life; attending Jewish school; Hungarian occupation in 1938; antisemitic measures; her brother's conscription into a Hungarian forced labor battalion; German invasion; ghettoization with her parents in April 1944; the trauma of witnessing her uncle's beard being cut; internment in a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); being forced to discard her photos; remaining...

  10. Viliam G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Viliam G., who was born in Hlohovec, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923. He recalls his father was principal and taught in an orthodox school; increasingly severe restrictions on Jews under the Hlinka guard; his sister's deportation; his father's influence obtaining his (Viliam's) position sorting the confiscated property of deported Jews, thus exempting him from deportation until 1944; a non-Jewish woman hiding him after the arrival of German troops; arrest; interrogation by the Gestapo in Trenčin, then incarceration in Sered; deportation to Auschwitz/Birke...

  11. Chava S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Chava S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovkia (presently Slovakia) in 1936, the younger of two children. She recalls increasing antisemitism in 1938; hiding during a round-up immediately after her brother's bar mitzvah in 1942; her father arranging their conversion to Greek-Orthodoxy in 1943; hiding in the suburban house of the non-Jew who had taken over their business; round-up in October 1944; deportation with her family and other relatives to Sered; transfer in November with her mother, aunt, two cousins, and grandmother to Bergen-Belsen; starvation, lice, an...

  12. Lee W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lee W., who was born in Chrzano?w, Poland in 1925. She recalls celebrating holidays with a large, extended family; German invasion in September 1939; ceasing school; forced labor; ghettoization; obtaining food from her father's non-Jewish friends; assisting her parents to escape from a deportation round-up; her parents hiding with non-Jews; deportation with her brother to Marksta?dt, then Klettendorf; receiving extra food from a supervisor; sending socks and gloves to her brother; transfer in July 1944 to Ludwigsdorf; slave labor in a munitions factory; smuggling brea...

  13. Zygmunt G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zygmunt G., who was born in Kopychynt?s?i, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1923. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending public and Hebrew schools; Soviet occupation; attending a Russian school; German invasion; a massacre of Jews; deportation to the Tarnopol ghetto; slave labor; returning home; incarceration in a prison in Chortkiv, then in Kamionka; escaping; returning home; round-up of his parents (his mother was killed, his father escaped); hiding in surrounding fields; returning to Kopychynt?s?i; escaping again with his father and other relatives; hiding with...

  14. Jenny L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jenny L., who was born in Aleksinac, Yugoslavia in 1927, the younger of two children. She recounts a kind kindergarten teacher; moving to Belgrade; her father's military conscription in spring 1941; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; a public execution; her brother's escape to Italian-occupied Croatia; reporting to a German round-up; escaping when she saw her friend killed, leaving her mother and grandmother; traveling to an aunt's home in Niš (she worked for the underground); obtaining false papers; living with her former kindergarten teacher; hiding partisa...

  15. Aba P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Aba P., who was born in Miecho?w, Poland in 1922, the oldest of five children. He recalls German invasion; forced labor; a German supervisor providing him with extra food; ghettoization; smuggling food to his family; a Jewish policeman saving him from execution; volunteering for slave labor in Krako?w, hoping to protect his family; working as a cook; occasionally visiting home; deportation of his mother and one sister (they did not survive); arranging for one brother to join him; learning his other sister and cousins had been killed; transfer to Pionki; encountering h...

  16. Ed H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ed H., who was born in Stanislav, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1929, an only child. He recalls attending Hebrew school; his grandmother joining them from Nazi-occupied Austria; Soviet occupation in 1939; his father's draft into the fire brigade; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; forced labor; a mass killing; narrowly escaping with his mother from a round-up (his grandparents were deported); returning to find his father had been shot; his mother making contacts with non-Jews when they worked outside the ghetto; smuggling themselves out of the ghetto with assista...

  17. Mark N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mark N., who was born in Soymy, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (Czechoslovakia after World War I, presently Ukraine), in 1908, one of eight children. He recounts cordial relations with non-Jews; joining the Czech army in 1928; serving for two years; Zionist agricultural training in Ostrava in 1936; emigrating to Haifa; returning home at his parents' request; military service in 1938; Hungarian occupation; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1940; slave labor at various locations; returning home on leave in 1941; learning that his family had been deported; findi...

  18. Sarah W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sarah W., who was born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1905. She recalls moving to Antwerp with her family; her mother's death; attending Hebrew school; marriage in 1927; her son's birth in 1928; moving to Luxembourg where her husband was a rabbi; German invasion in 1940; anti-Jewish measures; fleeing to Paris with her husband and three children; traveling by train through Spain to the Portuguese border; futile attempts to enter Portugal with assistance from the Joint; returning to France; internment with her family in Bayonne; her son's bar mitzvah in a local synagogue; trave...

  19. Peter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter S., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1938. He recounts moving to Prague with his parents in 1933, then to Amsterdam in 1938; attending a Dutch school; German invasion; anti-Jewish measures including expulsion from school, wearing the star, and having to move; obtaining Ecuadorian passports from relatives in Sweden; deportation to Westerbork in January 1944, then to Bergen-Belsen three months later; forced labor in a shoe commando; deteriorating conditions after prisoners arrived from Auschwitz; their transfer, three months prior to war's end, to Algeria as par...

  20. Shlomo P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shlomo P., who was born in Peine, Germany in 1925. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews until 1933; expulsion from school after the Nuremberg laws; the family's move to ?o?dz? in 1936; German invasion; fleeing to the Soviet Union with one brother; their separation; placement in an orphanage in Hrodna; draft into the Soviet military; capture by Germans in 1941; identifying himself as a Volksdeutsche while waiting in line to be shot in a mass killing; working as a translator/interrogator for the German 12th Armored Division; interrogating Stalin's son, Iakob Jug?a...