In Memoriam: Renee Hartman (1933-2025)
Renee Hartman was one of the first four survivors to give testimony to the Fortunoff Archive's predecessor organization in 1979. In this pod...
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Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust
Survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust are the subjects of “Those Who Were There,” a new podcast from Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. The podcast is na...
Episodes
20 of 35 episodesChapter 10: Aftermath
In this final chapter of "Remembering Vilna," several of the survivors whose stories we've featured tell of their journeys to safety and new...
Chapter 9: Judgment and Revenge
At war's end, Vilna's survivors struggle to regain their health, look for missing family members, and search for ways to leave Europe for th...
Chapter 8: Nazi Defeat
July 1944. For nearly two weeks, the Nazis and the Soviets fight for every street and block in Vilna. When the smoke clears, Jews hiding in...
Chapter 7: Liquidation
When the Nazis liquidate the Vilna ghetto, they send thousands of Jews to their deaths or to forced-labor camps. Others escape to the forest...
Chapter 6: The Underground
Young people in the ghetto organize an underground group with the hope of leading an uprising against the Nazis. They risk their lives to bu...
Chapter 5: Ghetto Life
Life in the Jewish ghetto demands vigilance and adaptation. Families improvise spaces for hiding. Food is smuggled at the risk of execution....
Chapter 4: The Ghetto
They are given minutes to pack. A suitcase, a sheet-wrapped bundle, whatever they can carry. Thousands of the city's Jews are marched at gun...
Chapter 3: Nazi Invasion
When Germany attacks the Soviet Union in 1941, the Nazis occupy Vilna and begin imposing their harsh antisemitic rule, banning Jews from sid...
Chapter 2: In the Shadow of War
With the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the country is split between the Nazi invaders and the Soviet Union. Vilna winds up...
Chapter 1: Childhood Memories
Recollections of life before 1939 evoke the rich diversity of Vilna's thriving Jewish community, including its multiple synagogues and polit...
Introduction: Remembering Vilna
"Those Who Were There" co-producers Nahanni Rous and Eric Marcus introduce a few of the voices that, over the course of 10 episodes, will br...
Preview: Into the Stacks at the YIVO
Join co-producers Nahanni Rous and Eric Marcus on a research trip to the YIVO Institute in preparation for the upcoming season of Those Who...
Episode 10 — Judith Perlaki
Teenaged Judith Perlaki recalled cheating death twice after being deported from Hungary to Auschwitz. But most of her family wasn't so fortu...
Episode 9 — Elias Recanati
When the Germans took control of the Greek city of Salonika, Elias Racanati's family had one chance to escape—his mother's family hail...
Episode 8 — Malka Baran
Malka Baran expressed her love of children by caring for a toddler hidden in the barracks of a concentration camp and teaching first grade a...
Episode 7 - Leon Pommers
Fleeing Warsaw ahead of the invading Nazis, concert pianist Leon Pommers was propelled into a perilous journey around the world in hopes of...
Episode 6 - Esther Schwartzman
As Polish Jews fled across the border into Hungary bearing stories of Nazi atrocities, Esther Schwartzman's family and community didn't beli...
Episode 5 - Abram Merczynski
When Abram Merczynski's brother organized an orchestra in the Lodz ghetto, Abram promised himself that if he survived the war, he'd learn to...
Episode 4 - Helena Jonas
Deported to the Plaszów concentration camp, Helen Jonas faced almost certain death. Instead, she was chosen by Amon Göth—t...