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Oral history interview with Trude Heller

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1263.16 | RG Number: RG-50.166.0016

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    Oral history interview with Trude Heller
    Transcript
    Yeah.
    OK.
    OK, we're going to start, and if I can just ask your name, where
    you were born, and when.
    I'm Trude Heller, and I was born in Vienna in 1922.
    OK.
    And if you could just start by telling us
    a little about your family life and what life
    was like growing up in Vienna.
    I was an only child, very spoiled.
    My parents doted on me, and I was like an only child.
    And they did so much for me that sometimes I
    didn't think they should do all that,
    and it was a wonderful, wonderful childhood.
    What sort of occupation was your father involved?
    My father and mother both had stores for tailors supplies.
    In Vienna, every suit was made to order,
    so the tailors had to buy 39 different things
    to go into a suit.
    And we had a couple of those stores.
    My mother was very active in the business, too.
    I see.
    And where in Vienna did you live?
    In the second district, and there were a lot of Jews
    that lived in the second district.
    But our neighbors were not all Jewish,
    and my friends were not.
    And I had--
    I was friendly with Everybody
    So it was a comfortable childhood?
    You remember it being happy?
    Very.
    Oh, very.
    We traveled, and my father loved traveling.
    And our passports were always ready.
    And for holidays we'd go to Italy or other places.
    In Europe people do that.
    Countries are so small.
    It's like going from state to state here.
    And so we were always ready to go.
    And do you remember any antisemitism?
    Some.
    And how early were you aware of that?
    Not very much but some.
    I knew, for instance, that when I started going to dances
    that it was mostly was my Jewish friends.
    My parents always went with me.
    I was chaperoned.
    I was chaperoned until the day I married.
    I was never let out of the sight of my parents.
    And that's how it was the day Hitler marched in.
    I was going to gym class.
    I was 15 years old.
    But I wasn't allowed to go by myself,
    and my parents always had somebody to go with me.
    And I went to this gym class, and the whole city
    was in an uproar because they were
    going to vote whether to be part of Germany or not.
    And all I-- I did not see one swastika on the way,
    and I walked through the streets of Vienna.
    But I saw all the other signs of the Three
    Arrows, and the hammer and sickle,
    and all different colored flags.
    And everybody was yelling for their party.
    The gym class was half an hour.
    When I came out, the city was a sea of swastikas.
    Just within that time?
    Every building had a swastika flag.
    Every policeman pulled out a swastika armband,
    and there was--
    everything else was gone, and it was--
    of course, I had to change, so maybe the whole thing
    was 45 minutes or an hour.
    But that's how-- this I'll never forget
    because it was such a shock to go in without a swastika
    and come out.
    And I came home, and every synagogue was burning.
    And my parents came, and my father said,
    our passports are ready.
    Let's go.
    And my mother says, are you crazy?
    What do you mean "let's go"?
    This is where we live.
    This is where we make our living.
    This is where our money is.
    What do you mean "let's go"?
    Where do we go?
    And what do we do?
    And how do we leave everything behind?
    And he--
    And this is actually--
    The day--
    --immediately after?
    The day, the day of the Anschluss.
    Do you remember that-- before the Anschluss
    was there much talk in the house of what might happen?
    Were you aware of Hitler?
    Was that something that--
    Very vaguely.
    I was so young, and I was having a wonderful time.
    I was going to dances, and I was--
    my life had not changed at all.
    And at that age, I just really didn't pay that much attention
    to it.
    And it didn't seem to be things that were discussed
    at school, for example?
    Not at all.
    I was going at the time to a they call Handelsakademie.
    It was a private high school that leaned toward commerce
    because in Vienna you had to decide at 14 what kind
    of college you wanted to go to.
    So if you went to a Medical College,
    you went to a high school that was for that.
    And I wanted to be in business, and I went
    to the commerce high school.
    And from that day on, I was never called on again,
    and then I had to quit.
    So at 15 and a half my education ended.
    That was it.
    And so you remember that your family--
    your parent-- was it your father and mother both who--
    did they both come to the conclusion
    that they had to get out or--
    Not at that moment.
    No, my mother said, no way are we
    going to leave everything behind,
    and my father wanted to.
    Your father was the one who wanted to.
    Yeah, he really did.
    And we had our passports and everything,
    and he said, let's go.
    And my mother said, no, you can't do that.
    Where are we going to go?
    And then it started.
    Where are we going to go?
    And things changed very quickly.
    But we still--
    I remember we had help in the house, and she had to leave.
    Nobody under 65 that wasn't Jewish
    could work for a Jewish family.
    And then we had stores, and all their help had to leave.
    And there were some friends we had,
    Jewish young people that were my friends who
    helped out in the store.
    They had nothing else to do.
    And so it was on Kristallnacht.
    Before that, the first week that Hitler had taken over they
    came and got our car, and they just--
    somebody came with a rifle butt and knocked on the door
    and said, car keys, and that was it.
    And what are you going to do?
    You hand them over.
    And so went the car.
    And then a little while later somebody wanted our apartment.
    My parents had bought it before they were married,
    and they put in bathrooms and made it very attractive.
    And within six hours--
    and they said, whatever is not out in six hours stays.
    And also, if you're not out then you get killed.
    So my mother went to look for an apartment.
    My father went to get boxes, and I started packing.
    And within six hours we were out.
    Of course, we had to leave most everything behind.
    But there were several buildings that were not so nice anymore
    where people like us could move to,
    and we moved to this place that had--
    an inner courtyard.
    And there were mostly Jews who had been displaced
    from their places living there.
    Still within the second district?
    Yes, yeah.
    And this is where we went, and this is where we lived.
    And then one day-- my father's still going to the store,
    and a friend of mine was helping in that store.
    And my father one day said, it's getting kind of dangerous.
    They were robbing people.
    They were coming in and taking everything from Jews
    that they could.
    And we had very nice cameras and things like that.
    He says, I'm going to take them to the store.
    So he took the cameras, and he took keys,
    and he took all kinds of things.
    And he left.
    And when he left, I got a call from a girlfriend,
    and she said, don't let your father leave.
    And she hung up.
    I didn't know what was going on.
    All of a sudden, my father came back, and he says, I'm lost.
    This is it.
    They were downstairs arresting people,
    and I knew the guy who arrested me.
    And I asked him, could I turn over the keys to my family?
    And he said, OK, I'll wait for you.
    And he says, I'm lost.
    I'll never see you again.
    This is it.
    So my mother went next door-- first she
    made him put on long underwear because it
    was winter, November.
    And she went next door, and a very elderly Jewish lady
    and her son, who wasn't well and was also maybe in his 50s
    were living there.
    And she said to her, would you let my husband hide?
    And they said yes.
    So my father went in there, and they came for him.
    And my mother said, he left this morning.
    And then he went next door and asked--
    and took the woman's son, and she didn't
    tell that my father was there.
    Then I called the store, and this friend of mine
    was in the store.
    And I said, we're coming there.
    And he said, why?
    And I said, you don't know what's going on?
    Well, that was Kristallnacht.
    That was the day the Jewish boy in Paris killed the German
    attaché.
    And the Austrians were given a hand--
    they could do with the Jews as they wished.
    I went down, and I got a cab.
    And my father was hiding on the bottom of the cab,
    and the cab driver did not give him away.
    We went to the store, and we then
    had these rolling shades-- you know-- the iron ones.
    The shutters, yeah.
    The shutters.
    We went in, closed it from the inside.
    There was no bathroom in there.
    And we stayed in there for 28 hours.
    They came, and they rapped on it.
    And we didn't move.
    And my girl friend called us.
    We had a telephone, and she told us when it was over.
    And we came back out, and we survived that night.
    It was a horrendous, horrendous night.
    And so did this young man, who also lives in North Carolina
    now.
    Really?
    Yes.
    When you remember coming--
    when the shutter finally came up and you came out into the--
    Well, that wasn't that easy.
    First of all, we were in there without lights,
    without toilets.
    It wasn't that easy to come out because they had put a swastika
    seal on the keyhole that we could see looking out.
    And if you tear a swastika, it's certain death.
    That's like defacing something.
    Well, it was up to me.
    And the keys at the time had those long fronts,
    and it was up to me.
    And I did it very gently, and we went out.
    And we survived.
    Did you-- what did you hear when you
    were in there all-- for over that day that you were there?
    We heard a lot of shouting going on.
    We heard voices.
    We didn't know what it was.
    And I didn't want to call my friend too often,
    and, after all, I didn't know what was going on there.
    But her father was very old, and they left him alone.
    But they were looking for my father
    and especially for that young man who was with us, hiding out
    with us.
    And I remember we were telling ghost stories at night
    to make the time go by, and we slept on the tables
    a little bit and had a pail.
    And that's how we survived that night.
    What did the streets look like when you finally came out?
    Not much different.
    Not much different.
    No, no.
    Was it a great deal--
    But a lot of people had disappeared that night.
    They took away so many.
    And that was-- our, really, first brush was this,
    and they were only taking men, no women or children.
    They were taking men.
    That wasn't the first thing that had happened to me.
    The first thing that happened to me
    was that they came to ask me to wash
    the streets with my mother, and we went to a place
    where they had Magen Davids, stars of David all over.
    And we had the scrub them.
    And I knew a lot of the people.
    After all, I grew up in that neighborhood.
    And they all spoke to me, and I didn't say very much.
    I was afraid to say the wrong thing.
    And then all of a sudden they send away all the other people
    and kept me there.
    I was a young girl.
    And they started surrounding me and touching me.
    And two German officers came in, army people, not SS, army.
    And they saw what was going on, and they broke it up.
    And I was very lucky.
    And I went home, and I cried for 36 hours.
    I had to have shots and all that because I couldn't--
    I was very brave while it was going on,
    but I was only 15 years old.
    Did it seem like--
    of course it is a nightmare now when you're talking about it.
    How did it feel at the time?
    Did it seem like it was unreal or--
    It was.
    You felt like, this can't be happening.
    Why would it be happening?
    How can men do this to men?
    It was worse than animals.
    And it was people I knew.
    I couldn't figure out--
    and I still can't--
    what happens to people.
    And I don't know of what can happen to people to bring
    something like that on.
    Yeah.
    So just to get back to after Kristallnacht and what
    happened, then did you all feel that was a turning point?
    Did you know that then?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Then our whole focus was on getting out.
    We had lost everything already, so.
    We wanted to get out, and we couldn't find any place to go.
    Nobody would have us.
    Even if you could get a visa in another country,
    if you had to go through another country
    they wouldn't let you because they
    were afraid you'd stay there.
    So we had no place to go.
    So one day in January my father got a letter
    to come to the Gestapo, and nobody ever
    came back from that.
    So the same friend is visiting, and my father said,
    I'm leaving.
    And my mother said, what do you mean you're leaving?
    He says, I'm going to get out.
    I'm not going to the Gestapo.
    I'll try to get to another country,
    and then I'll let you know how to do it.
    And this young man said, take me with you,
    and he said, OK let's go.
    And they took--
    I still had from my dolls the little suitcase,
    and they put in a shaving brush and a shirt each.
    And they left.
    And my father and I had made a language between us.
    And then a day later I got a call,
    and he was in Antwerp, Belgium.
    And how did you get to Antwerp?
    He says, OK, listen good.
    And the language we had made up between us--
    he went on the train without a visa anything
    heading towards Rotterdam.
    And when they came near the border,
    my father went to the dining room,
    and he gave one of the waiters.
    He picked one of the waiters, and he gave him money and said,
    will you hide me on the border and my friend?
    And he said, yes.
    They put him on the table in the dining car
    with the tablecloth over it.
    And they came to the border, and they went into the compartment
    where they went and found those two little suitcases.
    And nobody claimed them, so they started to search the train.
    And nobody claimed them.
    But all the waiters stood in front of the table,
    and they didn't find them.
    So they went on to Rotterdam, yeah.
    And my father said to this young man,
    when we get to Rotterdam they'll be looking for us because they
    found the little suitcases.
    He says, get off, stretch, light a cigarette,
    act like you're going to get back on,
    and then make for the nearest exit.
    And we'll find a place with a kosher sign,
    and they'll help us.
    And that's exactly what happened.
    And that's what happened.
    They went to the place with the kosher sign.
    They got him false papers to Antwerp
    because Antwerp gave 30-day permissions to stay.
    But if you weren't out then--
    if you didn't get another permission--
    A sort of transit visa.
    --then they send you back because he couldn't work.
    You didn't have any money.
    So they sent you away.
    So they did that.
    They sent one by train and one by car with false papers,
    and they got to Antwerp.
    So my father called me, and he already had an apartment.
    We had relatives in Poland.
    At the time, Poland was still all right,
    and they sent him money.
    And he took this apartment.
    He called me, and he said, OK, this is what you do.
    You do exactly that.
    He says, I told the waiter, I told the people in the store.
    And my mother was one of those hysterical people
    that-- all her emotions were on her face.
    And I was the leader.
    And so we shipped six boxes of stuff to my father in Belgium.
    Then my mother and I got on that train.
    We had the schedule of this waiter.
    We were put into a compartment that
    happened to have other refugees in it,
    and nobody knew where they were going.
    All they knew is they were going to the border,
    but nobody had any other--
    and I couldn't tell them what we were
    doing because I would jeopardize that, and I felt terrible.
    I didn't want to talk to anybody.
    And we went to the dining car, and I found the waiter.
    And I told him I had twice the money,
    and they had promised my father.
    And he said to me, don't speak to me.
    I'm being watched.
    And that was the end of that.
    So we went back into the compartment,
    and at the border in Cologne we had to get off.
    And here we were in Germany with the Austrian accent,
    which you immediately know, no ration cards--
    everybody had ration cards for food--
    and with several people who were all in the same boat.
    One of them produced a telegram from a friend
    that there was one hotel that would put you up in the eaves.
    Otherwise, every hotel had a "No Jews Allowed" sign on it.
    And we all went there, and there they
    had guides that came in the middle of the night
    to take you across the border if you paid them.
    Well, we still had my grandfather in Vienna,
    and he kept sending us enough money for a couple of days
    each time.
    And so we sat.
    Unfortunately, I was young and had
    a lot of problems fending off Germans
    who knew our predicament and figured it as an easy mark.
    But my mother was like a mother hen
    and helped me fend them off, but that was a hard thing.
    I found a cheese shop with a wonderful man who sold me
    cheese and bread without ration cards,
    so we had something to eat.
    And then came a parade of guides,
    and it took us five weeks and many tries.
    We were caught many times in the middle
    of the night in February, in ice and snow, in ditches.
    And it was a horrendous five weeks
    of being searched, and sent back, and caught.
    And they'd take the men away and left the women
    to go back, and each time back to Cologne.
    And they had Mardi Gras, and it was horrendous.
    And you were still living in this hotel,
    up in the eaves of the hotel?
    Right.
    And each time we came back there.
    And when you tried to, how far did-- how far did you get then?
    We'd get to-- we'd take a train to Aachen, which
    is on the border, and then the guide
    would take us like on railroad tracks or in the woods.
    And each time we were caught.
    I remember lying in the ditch, and the car coming,
    and the beam coming, and a rifle being stuck in my shoulders.
    And then they'd take us back and search us.
    And then the guides sometimes had paid these people
    off to let us through, and then one day we
    made it into no man's land.
    There was a farmhouse, and a lot of German soldiers
    were hanging out there.
    And I couldn't open my mouth.
    And one of them said he fell in love with me,
    and he handed me a note and said, I know exactly--
    you're trying to get out, he said to me.
    But here's my name and address. .
    I'm in love with you, and you must
    let me know when you get there.
    I will follow you.
    And I said, sure.
    And then they came--
    the border police came in, and I dropped this.
    I didn't want to be caught with that.
    And they sent us back again after we had walked
    all night in ice and snow.
    And the memory is the funny thing.
    I remember it vividly, yet I don't want to dwell on it.
    But it was a horrendous thing because, for instance,
    we couldn't go to the bathroom because there
    were just German soldiers all around that,
    and the pain of that is still in my mind.
    So I wonder why--
    do you know why you weren't then arrested rather
    than being sent back to--
    They didn't know what to do with women at the time.
    This was the beginning of '39.
    They did not have a place for women.
    They only took the men.
    And when we went back the fifth time,
    my father had heard about a guy in the Gestapo
    who wanted money outside just in case,
    and he sent him to us from Belgium,
    through somebody in Belgium.
    And he came and got us, and he drove us--
    had us searched everywhere.
    I mean we were searched from top to bottom.
    And then he took us in cars without lights into Belgium.
    And I was still fresh and young, and I said,
    and what if he doesn't pay you?
    And he says, you go right back.
    And he brought us to Antwerp.
    So you did-- and then you were reunited with your father?
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    And where was your father living at that time?
    He had an apartment in Antwerp.
    He had an apartment.
    Was he able to work?
    Was he--
    Oh, no, no, no.
    And every 30 days we got a permit to stay for 30 days
    because we had money coming in from Poland.
    Otherwise we couldn't have gone.
    You mentioned the guides.
    Did you did you ever know who they were or--
    you didn't.
    No.
    No, you didn't really speak or--
    you just followed, hoping you'd get out.
    So you didn't know exactly where they came from or what their--
    One day we were under the eaves of this hotel,
    and I had to go out to get some--
    my mother had the flu besides.
    She had 104 temperature, and I had to go get something.
    So I was nimbly walking down the steps, and as I always do,
    I fell down the stairs.
    And two German officers picked me up,
    and I was afraid to even say thank you because my German is
    so different.
    Even the--
    It was from the Vienna, the Vienna accent, yeah.
    Yes.
    You can even tell it in English because I
    have a different accent than the German have.
    What do you remember of Cologne at the time.
    What was--
    As little as possible.
    We didn't venture out.
    We just stayed put until another guide came along,
    and all I did was go for food.
    And it's a horrendous time why people would do this to people.
    Yeah.
    Do you know or did you ever find out
    who made the arrangements for the guides,
    how that came about?
    This little hotel we stayed in was infamous for that.
    But it also was raided regularly,
    and men were taken away.
    So it was obviously some sort of network
    that people must have known about.
    Right.
    And also the guide's paid off--
    don't forget-- so they knew they'd get paid off.
    And I know one of the places we tried to get out of-- a week
    later somebody was shot there.
    It was at night in the woods.
    Like I went back to Aachen not long ago.
    I said, I've never seen Aachen.
    I saw the woods, not the city.
    Yeah, you never even saw the city.
    Never.
    So if I could just take you-- so you were--
    you and your mother were reunited with your father
    in Antwerp--
    Yes.
    --and getting these-- living month to month
    when you got the visas renewed.
    What happened then?
    It so happened that the landlord wanted more money for the place
    then, and he couldn't get us out.
    So he went to the police and told him we were refugees
    and that we had no permit.
    And they came, and we did have a permit.
    And my father sort of flipped.
    He would have really done something to him
    if he had found him at that moment.
    We did move out.
    And then our whole focus was on getting out of there.
    And we found that the Chilean consul was out of town,
    and the vice consul was selling visas to Chile.
    So we went.
    I went in with our passports, and we bought visas to Chile.
    And we booked passage on a big ship to go to Chile,
    and I took--
    I found somebody that spoke Spanish,
    and I started learning how to speak Spanish.
    And the night-- the day our luggage
    went aboard, we went to sleep, and in the middle of the night
    we were awakened by the consul of Chile who
    came back, and found out, and came to cancel our visas.
    And I still have those.
    And we were very distraught because now we
    were back to square one.
    But the boat sank, and 500 people drowned.
    And so I always felt--
    fate.
    So it was a good thing those visas were--
    came in [BOTH TALKING]
    There are reasons for things, I suppose.
    Yeah, yeah.
    So--
    So then we continued, and we found
    that we had like a third cousin four times
    we moved in the United States.
    He was related through a relation, a relation.
    He was willing to send us some papers, and he did.
    But he had five unmarried daughters, no insurance,
    and $100 in the bank, which is not a good affidavit.
    No.
    Because he had to guarantee that the three of us
    would not be wards of the state.
    Right, yeah.
    Where was he living?
    He was living in New York.
    And so I went to the consulate, the American consulate,
    and the consul general was a really great man.
    His name-- had a French name, by the name of Leroux.
    And I said to him-- and I spoke a little English,
    and I said, believe me, we will work.
    We don't need help.
    We'll do anything.
    And I think maybe he believed me, and he said, OK.
    You and your mother will get a visa but not your father
    because he's different quota.
    My father was born in Krakow.
    So he was on the Polish quota.
    So he was on the Polish quota.
    My mother and I were born in Vienna.
    So we said, of course, whatever.
    And we got our visas, and a year to the day
    that we got to Antwerp my mother and I had to leave and leave
    my father behind.
    And we went to the channel, which
    was an interesting experience.
    The war had already started.
    That was in '39.
    And we got to the United States, and I
    started to work on papers for my father.
    And on May the 9th he wired us that he had booked passage
    on the 11th, that his passport was at the consulate.
    And--
    It must be '40 by now.
    Yeah, '40.
    And on the 10th Hitler marched into Belgium,
    and we did not hear anything for weeks and weeks.
    And on July 18, my husband, Max--
    we were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time--
    who lived in Greenville, South Carolina--
    and I was living in New York--
    surprised me and came to the door.
    And with him was a Western Union boy with a telegram
    from my father that he was alive.
    So he's always been my good luck person.
    And you were in New York at this time?
    Yes.
    What do you remember-- what ship did you take over?
    It was a Dutch ship called the Westernland.
    It was a small ship.
    We had to dock at night because of the floating mines.
    And it was in February, and it was terribly windy.
    And the whole ship was ill.
    And we watched all the mines go by,
    and we watched all these sunken ships go by.
    And we made it.
    But they took several people off on stretchers.
    It was so bad.
    But we made it.
    It was a long journey, yeah.
    So you landed in New York?
    Landed in New York, yes.
    Do you remember what your feelings were when you--
    Yes, lost.
    But we had-- my mother's brother had gotten to New York,
    and he took a room for us for $3 a week.
    And I had to stand on the bed to get dressed and undressed,
    but that was fine.
    And I went to work the same day.
    I got a job.
    I went through the paper, and I got a job putting flowers
    and hats and things like that.
    And my mother got a job, too, and we worked.
    Did you learn English in the meantime?
    Or what was your English like?
    Well, I learned English in school.
    I wasn't fluent, but I could read--
    I could read and write better than I could speak.
    And the speaking came.
    I don't think it's much better today.
    Sometimes I'd like to change it, but I can't.
    And so your father then--
    just take us back to when your father--
    My father was going to leave Belgium the next day when
    the Germans came in.
    They put all the political refugees into boxcars
    and sealed them and shipped them for three days and three nights
    into the French desert, and very many died on that journey.
    He got out-- they got out in the French desert
    where they had an old army camp from the Civil Spanish War,
    and they found rusty cans and things.
    And my father said he was a cook,
    so he figured if he's in the kitchen he'd have some to eat.
    And that's what happened.
    They kept him into the detainee camp in the French desert.
    And one day he escaped and made his way to Marseilles,
    and that's when he wired us.
    And then I got busy and got a lot of people
    to help bring him, and he finally came.
    But it took a long time.
    It took a long--
    Yeah.
    Another--
    But it must've been a great day when he finally got--
    You can imagine.
    But we were so lucky.
    Even my grandfather got out of Vienna.
    So we were very lucky.
    How did he--
    But we lost, between my husband's family and ours,
    over 100, maybe 200 people in the family.
    Those people that were in Poland, our relatives-- and we
    told them, get out.
    They would listen.
    They had big business and homes and said,
    what do you mean "get out"?
    They wouldn't listen.
    And then they killed most of them.
    I had an aunt with three little girls,
    and they took the little girls by the feet
    and smashed their heads against a tree
    in front of their mother.
    What makes people do that?
    That is something that I think scientists should study.
    What can happen to a person to be able to do that?
    So once your family, your immediate family,
    is finally all together in New York
    and both you and your mother were working, what happened--
    where did-- did you think you would remain in New York?
    Yes.
    You did, OK.
    Yes, until my husband came along and told me
    that I was moving to Greenville, South Carolina.
    Tell us about that.
    How did you first meet, and how, then, did you meet back?
    Yeah, we met in a summer resort near Vienna, and we were kids.
    And I was never allowed alone, so.
    In the resort I was allowed to walk away
    from my parents a little bit, and we walked and talked.
    And we danced.
    We danced a lot because everybody in Vienna--
    and especially in the summer resort
    you were dancing every night.
    And that's what we did.
    And then he wrote beautiful letters,
    and while I was in Belgium he was even
    going to marry me by proxy to bring me to the United States.
    So you were in touch all this time?
    Yes, yes.
    But my parents wouldn't even allow
    that, and even in New York I wasn't allowed alone.
    You were a well-brought-up young lady.
    Oh, very.
    So he-- and he was living in Greenville at this time?
    Yes.
    So did he come up to New York to get you?
    Yes.
    Is that how it happened?
    He came up to visit, and then he finally
    talked my mother and father into coming
    to Greenville for visits.
    And my mother and I came for a visit.
    And I wasn't very happy because he knew everybody here
    in Greenville, and I didn't know anybody.
    What were your first-- what were your first impressions of South
    Carolina?
    How did it appear to you?
    Well, at that moment the first impression
    was that I didn't know anybody there and I wanted to go home.
    But then I guess love conquers all.
    And we were married in Greenville.
    And you remained.
    Oh, yes.
    I love it.
    It's been wonderful.
    And so you were there then, and the war went on.
    And did your parents remain with-- did they eventually
    come to Greenville?
    They come-- they came with me to--
    oh, yes, they came with me.
    But after we married a while and they
    saw that we were doing all right,
    they went back to New York.
    And they remained then in New York.
    They remained in New York, yes.
    And you remained in Greenville.
    Yes.
    And as the war progressed, do you
    remember how you felt about being in America?
    Were you always very conscious of the fact
    that you were lucky to escape?
    Oh, yes.
    Yes.
    Oh, yes.
    We tried-- Max and I both tried always to bring people out
    and to talk to people about how you can save lives.
    It was very difficult because of the quota system.
    Very few people had any contact.
    I remember when I lived in Vienna my name was
    [? Schunthai, ?] which was not a very common name.
    I went to the library and got phone books
    from New York and places and even
    to Australia, and I wrote every [? Schunthai, ?] a letter
    and asked them to help me.
    And I didn't really get any responses, no.
    How long were you able to keep in touch
    with the Polish branch of your family?
    how long did that contact last, and how did you find out
    what happened to them then?
    It was horrendous because when Hitler marched into Poland
    we lost all contact.
    And they knew where we were, and then those that survived
    got in touch with us.
    And we helped bring them to the United States.
    My father-- some of them got into Cuba,
    and my father went and got them even and brought them
    to the United States.
    And we begged them beforehand to leave, and they wouldn't.
    And as we didn't believe the Germans--
    because you can't believe that people can really
    do this to people.
    Who could believe that?
    As I asked Mr. Heller, I'll ask you the same question.
    When did you-- when did you feel--
    well, first let me ask you another question.
    Did you-- did you ever feel homesick for Vienna,
    for Austria at all?
    Never.
    Not at all?
    Never.
    Not at all?
    And I really never wanted to go back, but we did.
    And it's funny you saying that because when
    we got to the airport in Vienna the fellow looked
    at my passport and said, oh, you came home.
    I said, oh, no.
    I said, I'm going home to the United States.
    I'll never forget that conversation.
    And Mr. Heller felt--
    I'm a tourist in Vienna.
    You're now a tourist in Vienna.
    And he felt that he became-- he started feeling American
    very early after getting here.
    Did you have the same feeling?
    Oh, yes.
    You, too?
    Oh, definitely.
    I always said, I'm sorry I wasn't born here,
    because I was very young and very happy to be here.
    So the adjustment was not terribly difficult for you?
    Not at all for me.
    It was harder on our parents because they were older.
    The language was harder.
    Everything was harder.
    But for us it--
    I can't even think of not being here.
    Do you remember very clearly when the war ended, how it felt
    and where you were?
    Oh, yeah.
    Yeah, we were jubilant.
    The wait ended.
    And people don't remember so much anymore.
    It's been so long.
    And that's why it's so wonderful to have
    an opportunity like this for children
    to learn what it was like.
    It was hard to even tell people about it,
    and to tell you the truth, as our children came along,
    we told them very little because we
    wanted them to have an open mind and not hate
    a people because it's no good.
    You can hate an individual for something,
    but don't hate a whole people because every person should
    be for--
    be their own person.
    And I've always-- we've always said that to our children,
    and that's what we're trying to do
    because hate will eat you up.
    After the war, then you started--
    you settled in-- you felt like you were at home.
    And how did-- how did you become involved with the community
    then?
    How did that all come about?
    Well, we always-- we had three children quite quickly,
    and we decided one of us had to be home more than the other.
    So Max did all the activities in the community at the time,
    and I did the activities with the children,
    including schools and whatever.
    And then as they got older and we had more time
    we both got very active in the community
    and always were very interested in what
    was going on and especially to help others.
    And so you remained doing that?
    Oh, yeah.
    And we still do.
    I would be very unhappy if I couldn't do that.
    Is there anything else that you'd like to add
    or anything else you'd like to say?
    Yeah, I'd like to say, if children see this,
    that they should be kind to their fellow man
    always, not do ugly things to them because that's
    how it started.
    And it becomes easier and easier to do it, I think.
    I think people see other people doing ugly things,
    and they all join them in doing it.
    And that's how posses are made.
    I think that people should treat people
    like they would like to be treated themselves,
    and I've tried to do that.
    Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Heller.
    Thank you.
    Appreciate it.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    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.
    Interviewee
    Trude Heller
    Interviewer
    Richard Irwin
    Date
    interview:  1991 September 19

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videotape reel (1" Type C) : sound, color ; 1 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The South Carolina Council on the Holocaust and South Carolina Educational Television conducted the interview on September 19, 1991. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview in April 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:21:08
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    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn505527

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    Also in South Carolina Council on the Holocaust oral history collection

    Contains interviews with 39 Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators from S.C.

    Date: 1991-1992

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    Oral history interview with Joseph Engel

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    Oral history interview with Margot Freundenberg

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    Oral history interview with Bert Gosschalk

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    Oral history interview with Tom Grossman

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    Oral history interview with Rudolph Herz

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    Oral history interview with Claude Hipp

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    Oral history interview with Gerald Jablon

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    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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 interview with Jadzia Stern

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Francine Taylor

    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 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 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 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 interview with John Drummond

    Oral History

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