Jewish Museum in Prague, Terezín Collection, inv. no 343. Original in Czech.
Testimony of Edita Ornsteinová, which became a part of the “documentation campaign” in Prague. Ornsteinová describes the history of Theresienstadt from its beginning to the liberation of the ghetto by the Red Army. The core of her testimony revolves…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 458. Original in German.
Testimony of Ursula Finke, who describes the increasing discrimination after 1933 and the blackmailing of her father. She finished school early and learned dressmaking. Finke was assigned to forced labor in a coat factory and moved to a “Jewish…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 707. Original in German.
Testimony of Anita Wallfisch, who describes forced labor in a factory in which there were also French forced laborers and POWs. She and her sister organized fake papers for POWs to escape. Both were arrested. Wallfisch was sent to Breslau prison…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 771. Original in German.
Account of Magda Szanto on the rapid decree of antisemitic regulations in Budapest and how they affected daily life, for example shopping and robbery by German soldiers and ethnic Germans. She describes the difficulties of communicating with her…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 413. Original in German and English (summary page).
Testimony of Emil Carlebach, a communist activist from a prominent rabbinical family. He was instrumental in the resistance in Buchenwald. Carlebach describes corruption amongst the guards, how political prisoners gained a certain control over the…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Persecution of Jews in Poland: reports and statements (coll. 532), 171. Original in Yiddish.
Testimony of Suwałki resident and homeowner Pese R. on the transfer of power from the Soviets to the Germans, the subsequent German occupation of Suwałki, and incipient persecution of Jews. She retells her flight from Suwałki with her children being…
Yad Vashem Archives, Testimonies, diaries and memoirs from the Holocaust period and regarding the Holocaust (O.33), file no. 9392546.Original in English.
Letter from Anna Schorek describing her experiences in Theresienstadt, the Christianstadt camp, and on a death march.
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Persecution of Jews in Poland: reports and statements (coll. 532), 200. Original in Yiddish.
Testimony of a 21-year-old yeshiva student, originally from Goworowo but studying at a yeshiva in Białystok and Ostrów Mazowiecka at the outbreak of the war. Upon the German invasion of Poland, he returned to his hometown Goworowo and experienced the…
Ilya Ehrenburg (ed.), Merder fun felker (Moscow: Der emes, 1944), pp. 10–18. Original in Yiddish.
Report of Maria Markovna Sokol, an Ukrainian Jewish woman from Kharkiv, who recounts her survival under Nazi occupation in Kharkiv, imprisonment with all the Jews from Kharkiv in barracks outside the city, massacres of Jews, and how she ran away and…
JHI, 301, Relacja Maksa Rösslera (301/36) Original in Yiddish.
Testimony of Maks Rössler, who describes the liquidation of the Wieliczka Ghetto, the mass execution of Jews near Niepołomice, and the living conditions and forced labor in the concentration camps in Rozwadów and Stalowa Wola.