Collected testimonies

Here you can see testimonies recorded by Holocaust survivors. The stories have been collected in various contexts, including in connection with Auschwitz Day – International Holocaust Remembrance Day – as well as through a number of other dissemination and documentation projects.

The testimonies provide a personal and powerful insight into the experiences that people endured during the persecutions of the Nazi regime. Preserving and communicating these stories is crucial so that future generations can be reminded of the atrocities of the Holocaust and understand the consequences of hatred, anti-Semitism and systematic dehumanization.

In the years 2023 - 2025, new testimonies were collected from Danish Jews living in Israel. The witnesses tell about their experiences during World War II, about the escape to Sweden and the subsequent stay as refugees, or their experiences in Theresienstadt. These are harsh, touching and sometimes surprising stories. Common to all of them is the fundamental fact that escape and persecution always have consequences.

The project is supported by the Danish Embassy in Tel Aviv in close collaboration with the Danish Jewish Museum. The 20 testimonies have all been recorded on video and the raw tapes are now part of the Danish Jewish Museum collection. Here they can be accessed by anyone interested by prior arrangement. See how you can access them right here

The Danish Embassy in Tel Aviv has also ensured that all the testimonies are also available in a short version, which can eventually be used in a dissemination or teaching context. In the videos you can hear an excerpt of Arjeh Kurzweil's, Poul Melchior's, Solveig Gelvan's or Jytte Israel's testimonies.

Testimony recorded for A-day

January 27th is an international Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked by the UN, the EU, around Europe and elsewhere in the world. In Denmark, the commemoration is called Auschwitz Day, where we remember the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides.

Information about the Holocaust and genocide is crucially important in national and international memory. This applies both to the professional work of uncovering the past and the events, but also to the stories from those who experienced and survived them.

For a number of years, the Municipality of Copenhagen and the Danish Jewish Museum have marked Auschwitz Day – International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a special commemoration in The Black Diamond. One of the regular points of the commemoration is testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides. Below you can see or re-watch a selection of testimonies dating back to 2021, when we began recording the commemoration.