The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Kristallnacht Reports (coll. 1375), B. 307. Original in German.
A letter from an unidentified person and their mother after they emigrated from Czechoslovakia to New York City in December 1938 following the events of the November Pogrom. The author describes the destruction of synagogues and Jewish properties…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 633. Original in French. Translated for the Wiener Library by Sue Boswell.
Testimony of an anonymous Jewish refugee from Belgium. He was arrested on the street in Brussels in 1942 and interned in the Malines internment camp, before being taken by train to Russia, near Stalingrad. He was forced to work in a camp probably run…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 158. Original in German.
Testimony of Renate Lasker-Allais, who was deported to Auschwitz in December 1943 after one and a half years in prison. She was arrested for helping French POWs escape. She describes in detail life and death in Auschwitz. Lasker-Allais had knowledge…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, Eyewitness testimony Collection (coll. 1656), 176. Original in German.
Detailed report of a teenage girl describing her flight from Prague to Slovakia with her mother after her father committed suicide. They escaped over the border in the summer of 1939 with help from members of the Gestapo (for payment). This is a very…
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), 540. Original in German
Testimony of Julia (Maria) Abraham-Stern, a trained seamstress. Her husband and son were deported, while she and her daughter were sent to the Lwów Ghetto with her parents. Her mother committed suicide to allow her to go into hiding with her daughter…
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, coll. 532, protocol no. 3. Original in Yiddish.
Testimony of a fifteen-year-old youth, recorded on 15 November 1939 and describing the German invasion of Wyszków and surrounding areas. Y. M. Sh. describes refugees, including many Jewish refugees, who fled from occupied areas into the village and…
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, coll. 532, protocol no. 4. Original in Yiddish.
Testimony of Leyb Rozentsvayg, recorded on 14 October 1939 and describing his flight to Lublin and eventually Warsaw in an attempt to escape the German invasion. He describes the devastation wrought by bombardment and witnessed Jews being rounded up…
