“The testimony you requested from the Fortunoff Video Archive cannot be viewed in Slovakia until 2026,” was the response we received when attempting to access a taped interview with a Jewish Holocaust witness from Sečovce (in Hungarian: Gálszécs), a small town in eastern Slovakia. A social historian of the Holocaust and an ethnographer who has Read More
Tag: Hiding
“They became my children too”: The Multi-layered meanings of family letters from the Jewish Maquis in France
Introduction On 6th June 1944, Robert Gamzon, the leader of the Jewish Scouts of France, wrote a letter to his wife, Denise Gamzon about a local underground scout group he’d visited. The group was situated near the southern French city of Castres, just across the Agout river from another team he had worked closely with Read More
Rescue and Parenting through Correspondence
“I give you my treasure. I beg you – you are also a mother – to save my child. God will repay you for everything, and I will too (…). My child will bring you luck, you will see. I beg you, yourself a mother, to have mercy on my child (…).”1 Thus begins a Read More
Recognising the ‘Anonymous’ Resistors: Everyday Heroes in Occupied Hungary
On 9th July 1944, Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest and began work on a rescue project that would protect thousands of Hungarian Jews. His efforts have been the subject of many books, monuments and films, rightly recognizing his heroism. Yet, while his operation has become the main example of rescue in Hungary, many other individuals Read More
A wartime diary of two Dutch Jews in hiding
“[T]he moment on 10 September 1942 we stepped out of the train in Aalten, I thought: ‘Is the war still going on? Does the persecution of the Jews still exist? Here, everything is so quiet and so different from what we have become used to recently. Here, we may be able to become even more Read More
Alter Ogień Testimony – the earliest testimony in the ŻIH collection
On August 29th, 1944, a group of Holocaust survivors gathered in Lublin to set up the Commission for the History of the Jews. It took place a month after Lublin was liberated from German occupation. The Jews living there had already organized the Jewish Committee, addressing a multitude of everyday problems. The next task, to Read More
