Eyewitness Accounts of the Holocaust. Collection, 1939-1945.

This collection consists of over 1900 testimonies written by Holocaust survivors, documenting their experiences in occupied Europe in the years 1939-1945. The testimonies are often very extensive, numbering in the dozens of pages. There are three series, corresponding with efforts to collect testimonies undertaken in the immediate postwar years (Series I), in 1954 (Series II) and since the 1960s (Series III). Testimonies with reference to Belgium are especially found in Series I. These testimonies were collected in displaced persons camps in Germany, Austria, Italy and also in Poland and other Eastern European countries from 1945 to 1948. With regards to Belgium, see testimonies nrs. 171, 458, 459, 460, 470, 472, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 481, 719 and 722. Series III, consisting of over 300 testimonies acquired by YIVO since the 1960s, contains several testimonies of survivors living in Belgium during the war; see nrs. 25, 26, 27 and 30.