Oral history interview with Tom Grossman

Oral history interview with Henry Allen

Oral History

Henry S. Allen, born on September 3, 1924 in Horry County, South Carolina, describes going into the army; training at Fort Bragg and Camp Shelby; being sent to Europe in January 1945; being a jeep driver and mortar gunner; going to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Harve, France; going through Germany to Mainz and Frankfurt; being assigned to liberate a prisoner-of-war camp near Arnsdorf in April 1945; being in Linz, Austria on May 7, 1945; going to Mauthausen after its liberation and the conditions there; the appearance of the camp survivors; linking up with the Russian Army and securing Hirshen airfield near Linz, Austria; the central receiving place for POW and camp survivors; his feelings about Mauthausen and its effect on him; and his message to young people.

Oral history interview with Felix Bauer

Oral History

Felix Bauer, born on January 2, 1914 in Vienna, Austria, describes his parents; growing up in an assimilated Jewish middle-class family; the pervasiveness of antisemitism; unsuccessfully trying to get work as a graphic artist; the events surrounding Anschluss; trying to emigrate; going to a Swiss border refugee camp; life in the camp, where he stayed for two years; his parents' imprisonment in Theresienstadt concentration camp; going to the Dominican Republic via Spain and Portugal; conditions in Spain and Portugal; how a Jewish-American relief organization paid for his journey; getting married and having children; going to the United States; and becoming a music and art teacher at Erskine College.

Oral history interview with Martha Bauer

Oral History

Martha Bauer, born in Kassel, Germany, describes being raised by numerous relatives after her parents’ divorce; the antisemitism in Germany before 1933; her first experiences with Nazis in Kassel; training to become a nurse in a Jewish hospital; the changes in Germany in the 1930s; being accepted as a nurse in England; Kristallnacht in Cologne, Germany and the 200 people hiding in the cellar of the hospital; how many of the patients were suicide attempts; going to England for a year; going to the Dominican Republic in October 1940; meeting her husband in a settlement; the development of a hospital in the Dominican Republic; giving birth in 1945; immigrating to the United States and settling in Due West, SC; and visiting Cologne, Germany in 1991.

Oral history interview with Peter Becker

Oral History

Peter Becker, born in 1929, describes his father’s death in 1935; being educated in a special "Hitler school" for future Nazi party officials in Potsdam, Germany; his time as a member of the Hitler Youth; life in the school; his reflections on his feelings towards Adolf Hitler when he was young; becoming a Nazi; hearing about concentration camps for the first time when he was 12 years old; the antisemitic sentiment of the Germans; Kristallnacht; changes in his school during the war and attending a normal school in Potsdam; the end of World War II and the destruction of Potsdam; his brothers; the Russian occupation; his arrest and interrogation after being denounced as a Nazi; the re-education process; his general reflections on World War II; going to the United States; being drafted into the US Army; attending college; and his life and career in South Carolina as a professor.

Oral history interview with Horace Berry

Oral History

Horace Berry, born in 1920 in Greer, South Carolina, discusses his childhood in Greer and his education at Clemson University; his brother and sister; serving with the 71st Infantry Division of the US Army; his experiences in Lambach, Austria near the end of World War II; his duties in the K Company; being order to Gunskirchen camp; sending camp survivors to a hospital in Wels, Austria; how SS troops were forced to bury the dead; conditions in the camp and an artist who was brought in to sketch the camp; and his experiences at Dachau concentration camp after its liberation. [Note that Mr. Berry shows a booklet entitled, "Album: Conc. Camp Dachau" during his interview.]

Oral history interview with George Chassy

Oral History

Reverend George Chassy, an Episcopal priest from Massachusetts, describes enlisting in the Air Force on December 29, 1941; being sent from Fort Devin to Missouri then California; being assigned to a group in 1942 and sent to England; being a P-51 crew chief and their duty to escort bombers; landing in Normandy, France 11 days after D-Day; his experiences at Ohrdruf concentration camp in the spring of 1945 shortly after the camp's liberation; conditions in the camp; the ordering of Germans to bury the dead; his reaction to what he saw; communicating his experience to high school students when he was a teacher in South Carolina; the impact of his experience in Ohrdruf on his life; and the lack of discussion about the Holocaust amongst the clergy.

Oral history interview with Leo Diamantstein

Oral History

Joseph Leo Diamantstein, born in Heidelberg, Germany on December 1, 1924, discusses his Polish parents; being the youngest of four children; his childhood in Frankfurt, Germany; his experiences with antisemitism and the Hitler youth; his father’s desire to emigrate in 1934; his family's move to Milan, Italy to escape antisemitism in Germany; attending a Jewish school for a year; the Alliance between Italy and Germany; being treated well by the Italians; the arrest of foreign Jews in September 1939; his family's arrest and imprisonment in Ferramonti concentration camp in Italy; life in the camp; his family’s transfer to a small town, Arsiero, for internment; the other Jewish families in Arsiero; going to Milan to buy a machine; the ousting of Mussolini in July 1943 and the German takeover; hiding in the mountains with Righteous Gentiles; going with his family to Milan; the bombing of Milan; his family’s contact with the Italian underground; escaping to Switzerland through the Alps and their experience at the border; being sent to a labor camp in Lugano, Switzerland near the German border; their life in Italy after the war; moving to South Carolina in 1967 and becoming a teacher at Furman University; and his reflections on the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Joseph Engel

Oral History

Joseph Engel, born in Zakroczym, Poland on October 9, 1927, discusses being one of nine children; growing up poor; attending public school; the antisemitism in Poland; Jewish life in Zakroczym; the beginning of the war in 1939 and the destruction of his town; his family’s move to Warsaw for a few months then to Plonsk; living in the ghetto in a synagogue with other families; his brothers having to do forced labor; the lack of education, resistance, and organization in the ghetto; the deportation of all the people in the ghetto in 1942; going in open cattle cars to Birkenau; arriving in the camp and being sent to Buna (Monowitz); life in the camp; being evacuated in January 1945 and jumping from the train; joining the partisans in Poland for two months and his work with them; being imprisoned by the Russians for 24 hours; avoiding Polish services by going to a displaced persons camp in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in July 1945; finding his sister, who survived Bergen-Belsen, and two of his brothers; going to the United States; settling in Charleston, SC; how life was lonely and he worked as a peddler; going to New York, NY; returning to Charleston and starting a cleaning business; and his gratitude for the freedom in the US.

Oral history interview with Margot Freundenberg

Oral History

Margot Freundenberg (née Strauss), born on August 8, 1907 in Hannover, Germany, discusses her life in Hannover, Germany before World War II; her older sister; attending school; getting married and moving to Essen, Germany; Jewish life in Hannover; the growing antisemitism in Germany and Hitler’s rise to power; trying to get her family to emigrate and her husband’s reluctance to leave; her education in Munich, Germany and graduating in 1927; being a physical therapist; the anti-Jewish restrictions and the confiscation of her husband’s business; the 1936 Olympics; finding a doctor to perform neck surgery on her son in secret in 1937; her experiences during Kristallnacht in 1938; being forced to clean streets; getting affidavits to the United States; leaving for England in June 1939 with her husband and son; living in England for nine months and working as an air warden; going to the US in March 1940 and conditions on the ship; living in New York, NY then Charleston, SC; her positive and negative encounters with Americans; her parents’ arrival in the US six months after Margot; her sister’s death in the US and taking care of her three sons; her husband’s death; and her feelings on giving her testimony.

Oral history interview with Bluma Goldberg

Oral History

Bluma Goldberg, born in 1926 in southeastern Poland, discusses her four sisters and brother; hearing about Hitler in 1937-1938; the German invasion in 1939 and the burning of their town, including her family home; living with her uncle until 1942; the roundups in 1942 and hiding in the woods with her older sister (Cela Miller RG-50.166*0024); the death of her mother and two younger sisters in concentration camps; working for two years in an ammunition factory with her sister in Kielce, Poland; working in a factory near Czestochowa, Poland; feeling that the presence of her sister is the reason she survived; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen in Germany and the terrible conditions there; being selected to go to Burgau, where she and her sister worked in an airplane factory; being sent to Turkheim; contracting typhus; being liberated in April 1945; being sent to a catholic hospital in Bavaria, where she stayed for 10 weeks; getting married in 1946; living in Landsberg, Germany until 1949; going to the United States and settlings in Columbia, SC; her life in the US; and her belief that people are stronger than they can imagine.

Oral history interview with Felix Goldberg

Oral History

Felix Goldberg, born January 2, 1917 near Kalisz, Poland, discusses being the youngest of five children; growing up poor; attending school; being drafted into the army when he war began; being a prisoner of war in Germany after the fall of Warsaw; being transported to a camp near Lublin, Poland and the terrible conditions there; being sent to Warsaw; removing his yellow star and being discovered by a German then beaten severely; finding his family in Turek in October 1941 and working there for year doing public works labor; the evacuation of Jews to Posen, Germany (now Poznan, Poland); men being made to do labor and many dying from typhus; being sent to Auschwitz at the end of 1942; conditions in the camp including the lack of food and selections; hearing rumors about the war; being sent to Gross-Rosen then Buchenwald from January to April 1945; being liberated from the camp by American troops; the first Sabbath service after liberation, which was organized by an American chaplain; his time in a displaced persons camp near Landsberg am Lech, Germany; meeting his future wife and getting married in the DP camp; going to the US in 1948; settling in Columbia, SC in October 1949; and working in the ceramic tile business.

Oral history interview with Luba Goldberg

Oral History

Luba Goldberg, born October 1, 1920 in Tighina, Romania, describes her childhood; her older brother and sister; attending school; getting scarlet fever when she was 11 years old; going to college in Bucharest, Romania; keeping kosher; graduating and going to Brăila, Romania, where her brother lived; her father’s death in 1938; escaping the Nazis in 1940 and going to Russia.

Oral history interview with Bert Gosschalk

Oral History

Bert Gosschalk discusses his childhood in Deventer, Netherlands; his experiences in hiding; his participation in resistance in the Netherlands; his time in Westerbork concentration camp; his liberation by the Canadians; and his and his family's immigration to the United States after World War II.

Oral history interview with Max Heller

Oral History

Max Heller, born in Vienna, Austria in 1919, discusses his childhood in Vienna; his parents and sister; his father’s business; being raised Orthodox Jewish; the prevalence of antisemitism; attending school; political turmoil in 1938; the German takeover and the forcing of Jews to clean streets; the immediate changes; the assistance that he received from Mary Mills and Mr. Salzburg of Greenville, SC, to immigrate to the United States in 1938; going with his sister to the US in July 1938; their arrival in New York, NY; his impressions of South Carolina; being warmly welcomed in Greenville; his parents’ arrival in the US; getting married in 1942; his children and grandchildren; the lack of knowledge in Greenville about the war; antisemitism in Greenville; beginning to feel like an American; his business and political career; and his reflections on race relations in South Carolina.

Oral history interview with Trude Heller

Oral History

Trude Heller, born in Vienna, Austria in 1922, discusses her childhood in the 2nd district of Vienna; her parents’ stores; antisemitism in Vienna; the German takeover and the burning of the synagogues; her mother’s reluctance to leave Austria; having to leave school; being kicked out of their home; her father’s arrest in November 1938; going into hiding; Kristallnacht in November 1938; being forced to clean streets with her mother after Kristallnacht; her father’s escape to Antwerp, Belgium; going with her mother to Cologne, Germany then Antwerp; the networking process for escape guides; reuniting with her father; getting visas to Chile, which were later cancelled; going to the United States with her mother while her father was left behind because of he was on the Polish quota; the difficult trip to the US; arriving in New York, NY; getting a job immediately; her father’s escape to France; the relatives she lost; meeting her future husband in Vienna before the war; getting married and moving to Greenville, SC; visiting Vienna later in life; her life in Greenville after the war; and the lessons she tried to teach her children.

Oral history interview with Rudolph Herz

Oral History

Rudolf Herz, born on August 23, 1925 in Stommeln, Germany, describes his family’s history in Stommeln; his experiences of growing antisemitism in Germany; being frightened as a child when he saw the storm troopers marching and heard them singing anti-Jewish songs; the Nuremberg Laws; moving to Cologne, Germany in 1938; his memories of Kristallnacht; the beginning of the war; deportations from Germany; the fate of his extended family; the bombing of Cologne in May 1942; being deported with his family to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia (Terezín, Czech Republic); his work digging graves; his grandmother’s death; how books were smuggled into the camp by new Czech Jews in the ghetto; being transferred to Auschwitz with his family; arriving in the camp and the selection process; life in the camp with his younger brother and father; how his brother kept a hidden book by Goethe and they memorized it; getting food in the camp; being sent to Schwarzheide in the late summer of 1944; his work unloading bricks from a railroad car; being transferred to Lieberose in October 1944; finding a scrap of paper that said the Allied troops were fighting the German army in the Hürtgen Forest; being sent on a death march; finding cod liver oil and sharing it with a friend; trying to steal bread from another prisoner; arriving in Berlin, Germany and being sent to Sachsenhausen, where he stayed for three weeks; being transferred to Mauthausen and the conditions there; being sent to Gusen to work in a factory; the humiliations he experienced in the camp; prisoner suicides; being liberated; his time with the American troops; his reflections on his Holocaust experience; and his life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Claude Hipp

Oral History

Claude Hipp, born in 1923 in South Carolina, discusses attending Clemson College; volunteering for the US Army; being assigned to 89th Infantry after graduating from Officer Candidate School in 1944; landing in Europe in Le Havre, France; going to Trier, Germany then Luxembourg; the capture of thousands of German soldiers; their limited contact with German civilians; their travels through Germany; finding a labor camp near Ohrdruf, Germany in April 1945; his experiences at the camp; his emotional reactions to the camp; the reaction of the local civilians to the camp; and being sent back to France then the United States.

Oral history interview with Gerald Jablon

Oral History

Gerald Jablon, born in June 1906 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), discusses his childhood and family in Breslau; his experiences with antisemitism in school; his apprenticeship in his family’s wholesale grocery business; living in Hamburg, Germany and London, England; the loss of the family business in 1937 because the bank would not do business with Jews; his memories of Kristallnacht and his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen; his memories of his parents' imprisonment in Theresienstadt concentration camp in Jan. 1939; his release from Sachsenhausen; his work and life in the camp; his wife sending him money while he was in the camp but never receiving it; his father-in-law getting him out of the camp; his parents’ deportations to Theresienstadt; immigrating with his wife to the United States circa 1939; and his life and various jobs in New York, NY; getting a job as an oboist in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in Charlotte, NC; working as an accountant in Spartanburg, SC; meeting numerous Germans in the Spartanburg army camp; and his children and grandchildren.

Oral history interview with Diny K. Adkins

Oral History

Diny K. Adkins (née Dientje Kalisky), born on May 20, 1938, discusses her first years and family life in Bussum, Netherlands; hiding with her parents in an Amsterdam apartment and the confusion she felt; her lasting fear of sirens; separating from her parents and her brief time in a Bussum children’s home; a man who hid Jews, including herself and her parents, only to turn around and give most people up to the Germans for money; staying for a short time with an older couple from Indonesia; the story of her doll, Annika; hiding in a nun’s cottage from February 1943 to May 5, 1945 and the physical and mental abuse she endured; thinking her parents were dead; being periodically hidden at the home of the nun’s brother, who was physically and sexually abusive; being baptized and getting her First Communion; watching the American tanks arrive on May 5, 1945 and receiving a chocolate bar from a soldier; her struggles after the war to accept that her parents were alive and that she was not Catholic; the fate of other family members; suffering from nightmares and flashbacks; the adoption of her younger sister and birth of her younger brother; leaving the Netherlands in the late 1950s; her hospitalization and therapy to cope with her wartime experiences; her hopes for future generations; and the dangers of Holocaust denial and neo-Nazism. (At the very end, Dientje reads a poem written by her youngest daughter and a clay figure, a collage, and family photos are shown.)

Oral history interview with Pincus Kolender

Oral History

Pincus Kolender, born in 1926 in Bochnia, Poland, discusses his childhood and education; the Jewish community and antisemitism in Bochnia; the beginning of the war; being confined to the ghetto in Bochnia and life there; enduring forced labor in 1940-1941; the establishment of the Judenrat (Jewish council) in 1940; the deportations from the ghetto in 1942; witnessing his mother being shot in the ghetto; being sent with his brother to Auschwitz on September 1, 1942; the journey to the camp, arriving in the camp, and the selections; going to Birkenau then Buna (Monowitz); the Kapos and life in the camp; the freezing conditions and how inmates behaved in the camp; the revolt in the Birkenau crematorium; being taken on a 10 day train ride to Nordhausen; going soon after to Dora; being evacuated in April 1945 and jumping off the train while they headed toward Czechoslovakia; receiving help from a farmer; being liberated by American troops in May 1945; living in a small town in Germany from 1945 to 1950; going to the United States and settling in in Charleston, SC; being drafted into the US Army in December 1950 and being sent to Germany; getting married after he was out of the army; his family in the US; and visiting Germany with his family.

Oral history interview with Renee Kolender

Oral History

Renee Kolender (née Renia Fuchs), born in 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes her childhood; her two younger brothers; attending school; the beginning of the war; the deportation of young men for labor; living in a closed ghetto; going with her father to the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland; serving on a committee to help poor families feed children; being sent to a camp; being transferred with her family to work in the ammunition factory in Skarzysko, Poland; being transferred to Tschenstochau (Czestochowa) and life in the camp; the death of her father and brother; her fear during liberation and dressing up her other brother as a girl to protect him; returning home for two weeks; the murder of Jews in Poland after the war; going to Stuttgart, Germany; immigrating to the United States with her brother in 1947 and settling in Charleston, SC; adjusting to life in the US; getting married; keeping in touch with people from her hometown; and her reflections on her experiences in the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Max Krautler

Oral History

Max Krautler, born on September 4, 1917 in Kraków, Poland, describes his parents, brother, and two sisters; attending school; his job distributing supplies to schools; experiencing and witnessing antisemitism; hearing about Hitler’s rise to power; the beginning of WWII; being picked up serval times to do forced labor; life in the ghetto and being strictly policed by the German and Jewish police; being sent to Gross-Rosen in 1942; the fates of his immediate family members; forced labor in the camp; being forced to march for several days to Flossenbürg; being sent to Buchenwald; being marched away from the camp; escaping the march and hiding in a barn; finding American soldiers who transported him to a hospital; living in Falkenstein, Germany near Regensberg, Germany; getting married; opening a textile store; going to the United States in 1956; his jobs in New York, NY; and his life in the US.

Oral history interview with Cela Miller

Oral History

Cela Miller (née Tyszgarten), born in 1923 in Pińczów, Poland, describes her five siblings; her father’s leather business; not experiencing much antisemitism; the German invasion in 1939; the looting of their homes; her family living with her uncle from 1939 to 1942; the roundups and deportations; the requirement for Jews to wear a Star of David on their sleeves; hiding with her sister (Bluma Goldberg RG-50.166*0010) in the woods; surviving in the woods; going to live with an uncle in Chmielnik, Poland; being sent with her sister to camp HASAG (Kielce); working in an ammunition factory; conditions in the camp; being sent to camp Czestochowa; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; the typhus epidemic in the camp; being selected to go to Burgau, where she and her sister worked in an airplane factory; taking care of her sister when she fell ill; being liberated by American troops; being taken to a hospital; being sent to a displaced persons camp; attending an ORT school; getting married in 1946; immigrating to the United States in 1949; and her life in South Carolina.

Oral history interview with Paula Popowski

Oral History

Paula Popowski (née Kornblum), born January 29, 1923 in Kałuszyn, Poland, describes the large Jewish community in Kałuszyn; attending public school; her two siblings and extended family; antisemitism and separation of Jews and non-Jews; government antisemitism and the pogrom in 1937-1938; the German invasion in 1939; the restrictions on Jews and her grandfather having to shave his beard; the detainment of Jews; getting typhus; rations cards; the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942; going to a labor camp to avoid deportation; going to Warsaw and getting a false ID (false name: Apolonia Borkowski); the underground network in Warsaw; going to Czestochowa, Poland with her sister Hannah; working in a glass factory and living in a boarding house run by nuns; life in Czestochowa; the fate of her immediate family; how after liberation she returned home; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Paul Pritcher

Oral History

Paul Pritcher, born March 16, 1922 in South Carolina, describes being the youngest of 12 children in a farming family; growing up during the Depression; graduating high school in 1939; being drafted into the US Army; entering Fort Jackson then going through basic training in Mississippi; being assigned to the 65th Division and sent to Le Havre, France in January 1945; going to Camp Lucky Strike and his assignment as a jeep driver and intelligence gatherer; checking out towns in Southern Germany and seeing prisoner-of-war camps; meeting up with Russian troops in Linz, Austria; seeing Mauthausen concentration camp and the conditions there; going to the POW camp in Ohrdruf; his limited contact with German troops; leaving Europe in May 1946; how the war changed him; and his message to children.

Oral history interview with Lon Redmon

Oral History

Lon K. Redmon, born in 1920 in Oklahoma, describes living on a farm and moving to Miami, FL; being drafted into the US Army on February 10, 1941; being assigned to the 31st Infantry Dixie Division; participating in the D-Day invasion; being ordered to Czechoslovakia in April 1945; the liberation of Flossenbürg and making the town’s civilians view the concentration camp; seeing Dachau and his reaction to the camp; being a commander of a displaced persons camp; and returning to the US in 1949.

Oral history interview with Lewis Rosinger

Oral History

Lewis Rosinger, born August 31, 1928 in Szahkoly, Hungary, describes his family background; his education; antisemitism; his father, who was a horse breeder and butcher, and his mother, who was a fashion designer; his three siblings; being sent to Budapest for school at the age of 13; living with an aunt in Budapest; the increase in persecution against Jews; correspondence from his father, who had been deported to a camp; being alone in Budapest after 1943; receiving help from the Hungarian Jewish Relief Agency; Raoul Wallenberg’s efforts to save Jews; Russians surrounding Budapest; going to work in a hotel; escaping a convoy that was caught in the crossfire from Russian troops; wearing the boots and clothes of dead soldiers and nearly being mistaken for a German soldier; trying to return to Szahkoly and getting caught by Germans and sent to Mauthausen; conditions in the camp and being assigned to clean up dead bodies; being liberated by American troops; befriending an American major; returning to Szahkoly; spending a year in a displaced persons camp; going to the United States in July 1946; attending school in Kentucky; living in Columbia, SC; his children; and the anger he still feels.

Oral history interview with Nathan Schaeffer

Oral History

Nathan Schaeffer, born in New York, NY, describes his time in the U.S. Army during World War II; his duties as a combat engineer; being sent to England, Germany, France, and Austria; his entrance in to Buchenwald just days after liberation; his ignorance of the camp’s purpose; experiencing depression after the war due to his experiences in the camps; his fellow soldiers’ compassion for camp inmates and willingness to help them as much as possible; his time in the Ohrdruf concentration camp; his time in the Weimar labor camp; and his pride in serving for the U.S. Army.

Oral history interview with Hugo Schiller

Oral History

Hugo Schiller, born in Würzburg, Germany in 1931, describes his family’s background in Würzburg; his father’s arrest after Kristallnacht and imprisonment in Dachau for six weeks; staying with his cousin for a year and a half; attending a Jewish school; his family’s efforts to emigrate; his family’s deportation by truck and train to Gurs, France in October 1940; conditions in the camp; staying with his mother in the camp; singing for food; Scandinavian Quakers offering to help children in the camp; attending a Quaker school; being taken with the other children out of France; the death of his family in Auschwitz; staying in Casablanca, Morocco for four weeks; being hidden with other children in Marseille, France; arriving in New York, NY when he was 11 years old; and his photographs of his family (which he shows during the interview).

Oral history interview with Ethel Stafford

Oral History

Ethel J. Stafford, born in 1923 in New York, NY, describes growing up in an immigrant neighborhood; attending public school; graduating from nurses training in 1944; entering the US Army as a nurse in June 1944; being sent to England and Wales then Normandy, France; going to Germany; her work as an operating room supervisor; not knowing about the concentration camps before April 1945; arriving in Gardelegen, Germany in April 1945 and taking over the German hospital; finding evidence of the Gardelegen massacre; finding some survivors in the nearby camp (Mittelbau-Dora); how the civilians of Gardelegen were forced to see the massacre and bury the victims; what the Germans in Berlin said about the US soldiers; her reaction to what they found in the camp; and the importance of remembering the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Leah Starkman

Oral History

Leah Starkman, born in Charleroi, Belgium in 1931, describes her family and childhood; the German occupation of Belgium; her family’s escape to France after the war broke out; her family’s forced ghettoization in South France; the paperwork that allowed her departure from the ghetto; health conditions that forced her to enter a special home to treat bronchitis; her doctor’s wishes to adopt her; her reluctance to be adopted because of her hope to find her family after the war; her departure from the doctor’s home to live with a farmer; troubles she encountered trying to locate her father after the war; reuniting with her father; her involvement in a Jewish youth group where she met her husband; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Ben Stern

Oral History

Ben Stern, born in 1924 in Kielce, Poland, describes being the youngest of four children; his family’s move to Łódź, Poland in 1930; his father’s work producing uniforms; life in Łódź and attending public school; experiencing antisemitism; how an Austrian refugee family moved in with his family in 1938; being in school the day the war began; the group Endecja (Narodowa Demokracja) promoting hate and antisemitism; the bombing of Łódź; being taken during a roundup and made to clean the school yard with other Jewish youths; having to wear the yellow star; moving with his family back to Kielce in December 1939; how life was a little easier in Kielce; the creation of a ghetto in 1940 and living there until 1943; life in the ghetto and the lack of food; sneaking out of the ghetto to get food; the policing of the ghetto by Jews; being caught by a Jewish policeman and an SS guard while smuggling potatoes into the ghetto; being beaten and threatened; being taken to work in a local forced labor camp (Henryków), making wagons for the German forces; the deportation of his family in 1943; having to clean the ghetto with other forced laborers; receiving food from a Polish girl who worked in the factory; the heat during the summer of 1943; being sent to Auschwitz and his arrival there; being constantly worried about the crematorium and the smell from it; the roll calls; being made to bring bodies to the crematorium; work details in Birkenau; being transferred to Sachsenhausen; losing his faith while in the camps; being moved to other camps, including Dachau; contracting scarlet fever; being left behind as the other prisoners were marched to Allach; being liberated by American troops; meeting his wife in 1945; living in Karlsfeld with a German family after sneaking out of a displaced persons camp; his children and grandchildren; going to the United States in June 1949; being proud to be an American; his early years in the US and living in Columbia, SC; working as a carpenter and as a foreman for a building supply company; and his belief that all racism and prejudice is wrong and all people can learn from the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Jadzia Stern

Oral History

Oral history interview with Francine Taylor

Oral History

Francine Taylor, born July 14, 1928 in Karczew, Poland, discusses her family moving to Paris, France when she was two years old; experiencing antisemitism; life in Paris in the 1930s; speaking Yiddish at home; attending public school; her family giving up their strict religious practices but observing the High Holidays; the beginning of the war and receiving correspondence from friends in Poland about the terrible conditions; the German occupation of France; her father’s participation in the French underground; having to wear the yellow star; the house searches, lack of food, black market, and ration cards; going to the French countryside in the summer of 1942 to recover from illness; her father’s deportation, while her mother and sister went into hiding; her journey to Toulouse, France to find her mother; finding her mother in Graulhet, France; obtaining false identification papers from a non-Jewish underground worker; her sister’s return to Paris, where she lived as a Christian with a false ID; going to Marseille, France in 1943 to live with her uncle and attend school; her life in hiding for a year; being recognized by a German collaborator who recognized them from Paris; hiding for five days in wine barrels; being liberated by American soldiers; returning to Paris; living in a hotel for a year; applying for war reparations through the French government; and the importance of recognizing the French people who helped Jews.

Oral history interview with Robert Turner

Oral History

Robert D. Turner, born July 22, 1919 in New Brookland (West Columbia), SC, discusses working for a phone company in 1940; being drafted into the US Army in November 1941; going to Le Havre, France then Germany; experiencing several weeks of artillery fire; going to near the Austrian border in April 1945 and finding the remnants of a concentration camp; conditions in the camp and his personal reactions; the burial of the camp victims; returning home a month later and never discussing his experience; and the importance of people knowing about the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Allen Wise

Oral History

Allen Wise, born August 18, 1918, describes being stationed in 1944 at Pearl Harbor; being sent to Camp Swift in Texas; being a medical doctor for 405th Regiment, 102nd infantry Division; being sent to Gardelegen, Germany in April 1945; being ambushed on a road side and taking the town fairly easily; finding the Gardelegen Massacre; how seven people survived the massacre and dug their way out of the barn where the massacre occurred; how the civilians of Gardelegen were forced to see the massacre and bury the victims; being discharged in January 1946; and never discussing what he had seen.

Oral history interview with Strom Thurmond

Oral History

Strom Thurmond describes his time in the Army during World War II; his unit’s duties at Buchenwald concentration camp; the hundreds of dead bodies he and his fellow soldiers found in Buchenwald; the ways in which prisoners were killed in the camp; difficulty distinguishing the living from the dead; and his lack of knowledge about the camps until he was in Europe.

Oral history interview with John Drummond

Oral History