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Oral history interview with Ludmilla Page

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1994.A.0447.21 | RG Number: RG-50.042.0021

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    Oral history interview with Ludmilla Page
    Transcript
    Mrs. Page, tell me what happened when
    the Germans arrived at your door to arrest your mother.
    Describe to me that incident and what happened.
    I was in our apartment alone at the time.
    My mother went downstairs to attend to someone
    who was sick in the building.
    You know, my mother was a physician.
    And there was a tremendous knock on the door,
    and I went to open.
    This was very early stages of the war,
    so we were not used to it any--
    yet.
    This was November, 1939, early November.
    And I opened the door, and I saw one German,
    whatever he was, some kind of an officer,
    and three men dressed in black uniforms of the local Germans,
    who were, of course, the traitors to Poland.
    And they collaborated, and before the war,
    and with the Ger-- and collaborated during the war
    with the occupiers.
    And they came, and the man said that we
    are-- where is my mother?
    In the meantime, my mother ran up the steps
    and came to the apartment.
    And they said that she's arrested on political grounds.
    And they said to take just a few warm things
    and put all the valuables, money, jewelry on the table.
    And we didn't know.
    I was not on the list.
    So my mother told me, why don't you go to your boyfriend?
    I said, I don't want to go to my boyfriend.
    I want to go with you.
    You know?
    And she told me to put the valuables on the table.
    No, she did it.
    She did it.
    And then we went to the bedroom to collect our warm things,
    just a few things they let us have.
    And she said to me in Russian, my mother
    was Russian originally, she said to me, throw this--
    she had it in a little sack--
    throw it in the toilet and flush the water.
    And I, as an obedient daughter, did that.
    And they took us to--
    they closed the apartment.
    They sealed it.
    And they took us to a place which
    was actually my high school.
    And there I saw--
    I thought that we were only arrested.
    Because deportations were not with it--
    they were not-- we didn't know about deportations yet.
    This was just November, you know?
    And we realized that there were maybe--
    later we found out about a thousand people, both Polish
    Catholics and Jews from Poland.
    I would say that this was the intelligentsia of the city.
    They tried, the Germans tried to quell any kind of resistance,
    and they did the same thing in all the cities.
    The very beginning, they tried to get rid
    of the people who would provide, who
    would resist or something like that.
    And they put us in trains.
    At that time, there was passenger trains.
    There were no cattle trains yet.
    And they took part of us to the city of--
    part of the transport to the city of Czestochowa
    and the other part, which I was-- and my mother and I
    were in it, to Krakow, the city of Krakow.
    OK, let's stop for just a second.
    OK, Mrs. Page, I want you to tell me that same story again
    but as though you haven't told it to me before,
    so that's how the Germans arrived at your door
    to arrest your mother.
    Mhm.
    It was November, I think 11, 1939, early evening,
    and I was alone in the apartment.
    My mother had to go downstairs to attend to some patient
    in our apartment house.
    And I heard a knock or a ring, or the bell rang.
    I don't remember exactly.
    I went to open the door, and there were three Germans
    altogether.
    One was in a green uniform.
    I assume it was SS.
    In those days, I didn't distinguish it so clearly.
    You know?
    He was older-- and two younger men
    dressed in the dark uniforms of the local Germans,
    who were now within the German army,
    and who before collaborated with the Germans,
    and basically were traitors before the war.
    And one of them said that--
    my mother, in the meantime, came upstairs,
    running up because someone probably
    let her know that the Germans are knocking on the door.
    And they told her that she's arrested on political grounds.
    And I was not on the list.
    They said I can go.
    But my mother told me to go and see--
    to my boyfriend's house.
    First of all, I couldn't have gone anyway
    because there was a curfew, and I couldn't move from the house.
    But I wouldn't go anyway.
    I told her I want to stay with her.
    And they told us to take a few warm things, put
    all the valuables and jewelry on the table.
    And as we were getting ready, my mother,
    in those days, being aware of the Germans
    and trying to be ready just in case,
    had her jewelry in a tiny little sack.
    And she told me, take this, and throw it in the toilet,
    and flush the water.
    And I did it.
    Then we went out.
    They sealed the apartment.
    And they took us to a building, which
    was my pre-war high school which I graduated from,
    in the big gym, in the big, big room.
    I realized that there were many, many people.
    Later, we found out it was about a thousand,
    both Polish Catholics and Polish Jews.
    It was like an elite of the city.
    I realized that too over there, which was we--
    which we understood later that probably the Germans wanted
    to get rid of all the sources of resistance
    at first, the leaders.
    They did it in every city or every town that they were in.
    This was their-- the procedure they went by.
    And then they put us in--
    on the trains, passenger trains at the time
    because it was early days of the war.
    And they took us.
    Part of the transport went to the city of Czestochowa,
    which is famous for its Black Madonna.
    And our part of the transport went to the city of Krakow.
    We were put in an old Polish fortress in the city of Krakow,
    from medieval times, I think.
    And we were put on straw, on straw, not even mattresses,
    just straw.
    And we were received by the Jewish community
    representatives, and the Polish Catholics
    were received by the Red Cross.
    And of course, we had no money.
    We had just the basic, basic necessities.
    So we were uprooted.
    We were in terrible despair.
    We didn't know what deportation meant at the time
    because this was without precedent.
    This was the very first in our city and, I think,
    in whole occupied Poland, one of the very first ones.
    Describe the difference between the ghetto in Krakow
    and the ghetto in Warsaw.
    Well, oh, I know.
    We were in the ghetto of Krakow.
    But by that time, I was already married.
    And the ghetto of Krakow comparing to ghetto of Warsaw
    was not as terrible.
    When my mother could not stay with-- she
    stayed with us in Krakow during the pre-ghetto days.
    When ghetto was established, or even before that,
    people who came after September 1939
    to Krakow who were not before that
    then had to leave the city.
    And they could choose any city or town
    within the Generalgouvernement, which
    was not the Deutsches Reich, the German Reich proper.
    So she chose to go to Warsaw.
    And for maybe twice, I went to visit her
    with a special permission.
    In those days, you had to get a special permission
    to be able to.
    And I traveled by train.
    And even then, before the ghetto was not closed in Warsaw--
    I was not there when the ghetto was closed.
    I was there before it was closed--
    but all the Jews lived within a certain district.
    And it was just terrifying.
    People were already hungry.
    People were in rags.
    There was such a sense of despair over there.
    My mother was still practicing medicine over there all alone.
    We tried to bring her to Krakow to us,
    but it was absolutely impossible.
    In Krakow, like on the other hand,
    we were all working for the German war effort, of course.
    There were deportations, but it was not as terribly gloomy.
    And first of all, we were not that hungry.
    Somehow, everybody managed to eat
    in those days of the ghetto.
    In Warsaw, hunger was there from the beginning,
    even before the ghetto was closed.
    OK, we have to reload.
    OK.
    OK.
    So but don't worry about that.
    You don't have fill in the chronological details.
    Mhm.
    Now, I'm just going to ask you, who was Oscar Schindler,
    and what did he do?
    Describe him too.
    OK.
    Oscar Schindler was a German industrialist
    who came to the occupied city of Krakow in the early days,
    I think already maybe September 1939.
    I don't know exactly, maybe October.
    Like many Germans, he was not a military man.
    He belonged to the Nazi Party, but he was an industrialist who
    lived-- he was from Sudetenland in Czechoslov--
    which was the German--
    with the German population of Czechoslovakia.
    You see?
    He came to Krakow, I think, looking for possibilities
    to do business.
    This was occupied territory, and so on.
    Anyway, he took a small--
    he took over because each Jewish business
    had to have some kind of a German, like an overseer.
    I don't know the exact term for that.
    So he took over a Jewish enamel factory which produced
    pots and pans at the beginning.
    And he started to employ, first of all, Poles.
    And then I think he got acquainted
    with the bookkeeper, who was the main bookkeeper
    of that factory.
    And he kind of liked him.
    And I think that bookkeeper, and maybe Mr. Schindler himself,
    realized it would be very good to employ some Jewish labor.
    And he did so.
    He was a very, very warm man.
    And from the beginning, the Jews who worked for him
    worshiped him because he was kind and was such a contrast
    to everybody else.
    In the whole history of war, I didn't know anyone like him.
    I didn't work for him at the time.
    But those Jews who did--
    excuse me-- had this opinion of him.
    My mother-in-law had-- was an interior decorator.
    And this is I'm talking about pre-ghetto days.
    And one day, he came over to her apartment, recommended by one
    of--
    some other Jewish acquaintances of hers,
    that he had a new apartment.
    He moved into an apartment, and he would like
    her to decorate it for him.
    In Poland, before the war, you didn't buy ready-made things.
    Everything was made to order, like drapes, and tablecloths,
    and everything.
    And this gave my husband's family,
    his parents, his sister, and myself--
    you know, I was married to him in February of 1940--
    means of survival because he paid
    for all the services for everything
    and, besides, was very, very kind.
    So would you like me to tell you what hap--
    Why don't you describe him to me?
    What did he look like?
    Physically?
    Yeah.
    He was a very tall man, a little, I would say,
    kind of broad-shouldered, very blond, very blue-eyed, and had
    this air of such goodness emanating from him.
    I remember later on when we were in the camp, which
    he established in Sudeten at the very end of the war.
    You know, we were always freezing
    when we saw a German because it meant that either there
    would be shooting, or there would be beating,
    or there would be some other kind of torture
    of moral or physical.
    But when he came, all we could see was Herr Direktor.
    We used to call him Herr Direktor.
    And he smelled awfully good.
    And he was always dressed beautifully and always dropping
    cigarettes all over.
    He was smoking a cigarette and then put butts around
    so the people could pick it up and smoke it.
    Because, of course, they didn't have any cigarettes.
    You know?
    People loved to work for him.
    Later on, after this original period
    of time in Krakow in that factory, when the ghetto was
    established, he decided to have his people,
    his workers live on the premises.
    He had his camp, his own little factory.
    And on the premises, the workers were living.
    They worked very hard.
    Because to work with enamelware, I
    understand they had to carry these heavy enamel pots,
    and there was a night shift and the day shift.
    But they were fed.
    Even though it was not easy to feed people in those days,
    they were fed.
    They were never, never harassed.
    Because the Germans who guarded the camp
    were not allowed to do things which they didn't
    ask for permission to do in regular camps,
    because Direktor Schindler was bribing them, giving them
    presents, and so on.
    They were always treated humanely.
    So it was such a privilege to work for him
    that is was like a gift from God in those days
    to be able to work for Oscar Schindler in comparison
    to have to work in camps like we did in Plaszow.
    What was Schindler's list, and how big was it?
    At the end of the war, 1944, around October,
    we realized that the camp in Plaszow
    would be liquidated because the Russians were approaching,
    and the Germans were retreating.
    So they were liquidating all the camps around.
    But Schindler wanted to protect his people.
    He decided-- he went on kind of a fact-finding trip
    to Sudetenland, which was his home, to a small,
    like a-- it wasn't even a town.
    It was a village, almost, called Brnenec in Czech.
    In the German, it was Brünnlitz.
    And there he acquired two factories.
    We have to stop--
    Yeah.
    --for the helicopter, I think.
    OK.
    OK, so now, tell me how Schindler
    was going to try to rescue more people toward the end.
    First of all, he put on the list--
    this was how the--
    actually, not Schindler, but the administration
    of the Camp Plaszow to which his factory
    and the adjoining quarters were belonged to,
    they belonged to the Camp Plaszow,
    so the administration of the Camp Plaszow
    started preparing the list.
    The list consisted mainly of his workers
    which were employed at his enamel fabryk--
    it was Emalia, called Emalia.
    Then also there was another businessman
    in the camp of Plaszow called Julius Madrich, for whom I
    worked at the time.
    He was also very good to his workers, not like Schindler,
    by no means.
    And when the end of the war and the Russians
    started to approach and the Germans
    wanted to liquidate the camps and retreat,
    Schindler-- they were very good friends, Schindler and Madrich.
    And Schindler approached Madrich to do the same thing,
    to join forces and locate--
    relocate all the workers to the two factories in Sudetenland.
    But Madrich refused.
    He said, I did everything for my Jews, whatever was possible.
    But now, that's the end.
    I cannot do anything else.
    So Schindler went alone.
    But from the list of Madrich workers,
    he picked up also a number of Madrich workers.
    It was a very difficult process because everybody
    wanted to get on that list.
    And this way, he--
    I think, it was about 1,300 people
    that he was able to relocate to Sudeten.
    What did the list represent?
    If you were on the list, were you safe?
    Well, there was no safety under German occupation.
    There was no safety because these people had--
    they were torturers, murderers.
    There was no logic in it, no reason in it.
    This was just pure hatred and pure murder all the time.
    But Schindler assumed that if his workers
    would work for the war effort--
    and he changed it in Brünnlitz.
    He changed his production to production of shells
    from enamelware.
    Because he had to prove, really, because they arrested
    him twice because they didn't think
    that he was working for the war effort, and so on.
    So we were doing--
    making shells, and we were supposed
    to polish these shells.
    But all the production was faulty.
    Because we, on purpose, were sabotaging this.
    They were never as they ought to be,
    always was something flawed in those shells during our months
    in Brünnlitz.
    And this is how he could save us,
    proving that his factory was indispensable for the war
    effort.
    He had connections always.
    He knew how to--
    he was always very well liked by Germans as well.
    And he always used to give them presents
    and do favors for them.
    So--
    We have to reload.
    OK.
    I want you to talk to me a little bit more
    about the sabotage.
    Was Schindler involved himself into that?
    Oh, he knew about it, of course.
    He knew that the production was faulty,
    and he was absolutely involved in everything.
    Was he the mastermind?
    Tell me whether it was--
    I tell you the truth.
    I really don't know that much about it.
    I think that my husband would be able to give you
    more details on that because he himself was more involved
    in that than I was.
    I was just polishing my shells.
    But we knew that there was sabotage going,
    and this was about six months before the war when we--
    before the end of the war when we arrived there in Brünnlitz,
    and that's how it turned out to be.
    Cut the playing for a minute.
    Going out from Plaszow.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    In some time, the beginning of November, my husband and I
    found out that we were on the list.
    We were very happy.
    We didn't know what will await us.
    But we knew that we were going to go to something better
    than anything that we could conceive at the time.
    The men left a week before the woman did.
    And later, we found out that they did not go directly
    to Brünnlitz.
    They went to Gross-Rosen, which they stayed there
    I think a few days.
    And this was a very, very difficult camp.
    But they finally arrived in Brünnlitz.
    The woman, on the other hand, we left a week later.
    And we were in the cattle trains,
    of course packed like sardines.
    And we were going.
    We didn't know where we going.
    We assumed we're going to go to Brünnlitz directly.
    All of a sudden, we landed at this very famous now platform,
    train platform at a station in Auschwitz
    with the SS surrounding like mad people,
    with dogs barking all over.
    And they started to push us out of trains
    and run us to a selection, through a selection process,
    which was, by itself, terrible.
    We had to undress completely.
    I clutched-- in those days, I already wore glasses.
    And I clutched them in my hand.
    Because I knew if I don't have glasses,
    I won't be able to do any work.
    I won't be able to see very well.
    So I clutched.
    And thank God, no one ever discovered.
    Some woman had their heads shaven.
    I didn't, just cut short.
    So I don't know how they did it, probably
    just picked certain people.
    And of course, the Germans were making--
    laughing and making dirty jokes.
    And it was just terrible.
    We were completely not prepared for this
    because we thought we going to Mr. Schindler, to his camp.
    Then they took us to their so-called "sauna"
    to a delouse--
    you know, getting rid of lice, delousing process.
    We had to put all our clothes and our bundles, everything,
    in one room, get undressed, go through the showers,
    then go through to get our clothes.
    And the clothes were on the heap, and each one of us
    picked whatever we could.
    I remember I got some kind of a white shirt, some rag, which
    was probably from somebody dead already,
    and some kind of a dress, no underwear, and of course
    no shoes.
    I had to take the clogs, wooden clogs.
    Then we were led-- this was Birkenau.
    We were led to the barracks.
    We arrive there, everybody in despair.
    But at the moment when we were picking our clothes
    and we put them on--
    how strong human nature is in spite of everything
    you go through.
    Or maybe this was youth.
    We were young at the time.
    We started to laugh hysterically in that room
    where we were putting on those clothes.
    Because we couldn't see ourselves
    because there, of course, there were no mirrors.
    But we looked so ridiculous that we
    started to laugh hysterically.
    And I forgot to say that before that, in the sauna, of course
    there was no hot water.
    Forget that.
    But there was no soap of any kind, just freezing water.
    November in Poland is very, very cold.
    And so there were no toilet paper, no paper
    at all in the latrines.
    Then after we got dressed, they took us to the barracks
    in Birkenau.
    The mud in Birkenau at the time--
    and probably in Auschwitz maybe not so because the roads
    and the streets in Auschwitz, within Auschwitz
    were paved, more or less.
    But in Birkenau, you walked, and the clogs stayed in the mud.
    And you kept on walking.
    You know, it was just terrible.
    We arrived.
    And in Plaszow, we slept like two to a bunk.
    There, I think we were 10, or 11, or 13.
    We were sleeping like sardines.
    They give us some kind of an old, dirty comforter.
    And all of a sudden, in that barracks, somebody
    called my name.
    This was my friend.
    She was on the upper bunk.
    She came with a transport before us, a couple of months
    before us.
    And she was working for a German office, in the office anyway.
    And she gave me a piece of bread with honey at the time.
    I will never forget it because I never got it again.
    We didn't know anything about what happened to our men.
    We assumed the same fate happened to them
    in some other camp.
    And we were waiting.
    I think that all of us would have
    died even before being gassed because we were all
    terribly sick with dysentery.
    We were terribly hungry.
    And we couldn't-- the terrible food that they gave,
    some very watery soup with a few bits inside and a tiny piece
    of bread every day, which also caused our dysentery--
    this was this kind of bread.
    We were all sick.
    So I don't think if Oscar Schindler after three weeks
    through his trying to get us out,
    through his connections and presence
    that he gave all around and everything, I
    don't think we would have survived.
    So finally, after about three weeks--
    I think we lost the count of time over there--
    they told us someone came, probably a Blockalteste or some
    German, I don't remember exactly,
    and started to call our names.
    Well, that was already good because we
    knew we are the 300 womans and-- woman,
    and she called us by name.
    We didn't know what she wants us for.
    But they led us to a side, a train station
    like on the sideline, and they put us
    in the trains, again packed like sardines.
    Of course, no toilets.
    There was a pail in the middle.
    No food.
    We didn't get any food.
    I don't know if some of us had a little piece of bread
    from Birkenau we hid.
    And after a while, the train started to go.
    We were only guessing.
    We didn't know where we going.
    Because, first of all, there are no windows in the cattle cars.
    We stopped.
    I think, on the way, the German soldiers
    let us go out for a while to--
    and we had some snow that we took
    from the ground and kind of--
    instead of a drink.
    And finally, we arrived in some very desolate station.
    And it said Brünnlitz.
    It said Brünnlitz.
    So of course, we were terribly excited
    that finally we arrived at our destination.
    But in the background, we saw some very tall chimneys.
    And as we marched to Schindler's camp, which
    we assumed would be Schindler's camp, we marched by fives.
    And I was walking among other friends
    with a girl who came originally from Germany.
    But she was deported from Germany
    to Poland, and in Poland to camp in Plaszow, and with us
    to Birkenau and to Schindler's camp.
    Her name was Margot.
    And she said to me, oh, my god, now we going to die.
    Do you see these chimneys?
    And I said--
    I always get upset.
    And I said to her, Margot, we cannot die.
    Because if we would be destined to die,
    we would die in Birkenau.
    I was always an optimist.
    And finally, we were marching and marching.
    And we came to a building, which was--
    Mrs. Page, wait just a minute.
    OK?
    OK.
    I'm sorry.
    We have to put another--
    I get upset about it.
    You know?
    I just --
    Changing film.
    Camera four is up.
    Scene take six is up.
    OK, Mrs. Page, can you just back up
    to where Margot said, oh, no, where you saw the chimney?
    We saw the chimneys.
    And Margot said, look at the chimneys.
    Now I'm sure they going to kill us.
    Look at them.
    And I said to her, Margot, I'm positive they won't do it.
    Because if they wanted to kill us,
    why transport us to Brünnlitz, bring us here?
    And I'm sure they won't to do it.
    And we marched.
    We kept on marching until we arrived at the destination,
    which was Schindler's factory.
    It was kind of a--
    we saw a building, which was a two-story building,
    the lower floor, and then the upper was all--
    it had balconies all through the width of the building.
    And the door was open.
    The gates, rather, were open.
    And we marched in.
    And as we marched in, I saw men in the striped suits, you know,
    which they didn't wear in Plaszow.
    Because in Plaszow, one still could wear their own clothes.
    But all, everybody was shaven, a group of men standing
    on the balcony with shaven heads with the so-called "lausen
    promenade," which means a lice promenade,
    a shaved strip of hair--
    of skin, rather, completely shaved.
    And they were waving to us, and then crying, and laughing.
    First, they thought that we are in a terrible shape
    because we wore those rags, first of all, in which they
    never saw us before.
    And before we left Birkenau, they painted us with paint,
    like red, yellow, whatever, in order so we would not
    escape during our journey.
    And I saw among those men my husband.
    And of course, my happiness had no--
    you know, no limits.
    And then, but downstairs, we saw a group of SS men.
    But in the middle of them, Mr. Schindler,
    with his little Tyrolean hat with a little feather,
    and completely ignoring the Lagerführer--
    that means the head of our camp--
    and all the SS men and woman, he said, I greet you.
    Don't worry.
    Now you're going to be well taken care of.
    There is hot soup waiting for you.
    And don't worry.
    You are with me now.
    So then we proceeded to go to the big halls
    of the factory itself.
    And of course, there was hot soup,
    and a pretty good hot soup.
    And we somehow, subconsciously, we are not afraid anymore.
    Our living quarters were not ready yet.
    There were no bunks.
    Everybody slept on straw.
    But nothing mattered anymore because we
    knew that he will not--
    he will do everything.
    It was not absolutely sure.
    But we believed that he will do everything
    in his power to let-- to help us survive the war.
    OK.
    Tell me about--
    Seven.
    --some of the things that Schindler did for you,
    like getting fabrics at the end and then maybe getting even
    weapons.
    Yes.
    From the beginning, Schindler tried
    to do everything possible for us to make
    our life more comfortable.
    We didn't have very many clothes.
    I mean, we didn't have any clothes, only what we had on.
    So he managed--
    I think he allowed our men to steal
    some wool from a neighboring factory, which
    was kind of already empty.
    And I mean, they were not working anymore.
    Probably people left it.
    And so our men got that wool, and they made also
    on the machines and the factory knitting needles,
    and the women started to knit sweaters, and little mufflers,
    and so on.
    So then men wanted to smoke.
    I don't know how, but they got hold of some, next door also,
    from some onions, and they were really smoking
    the onion leaves, skins.
    Schindler, as far as food is concerned,
    all the surrounding areas were being slowly evacuated,
    so it was very difficult even for the Germans to get
    the food, but somehow, he got food.
    We were not-- we were always hungry, but not
    like in Auschwitz.
    You know?
    We were hungry but with hope for a better tomorrow.
    He tried to always give us a little piece of bread.
    I had a bunkmate who was really a master
    in cutting the pieces of bread.
    She cut it, I believe, in 13 very thin slices.
    The piece was like this.
    So I used to give my husband about eight,
    and I ate the five.
    Because for me, it was enough.
    He was bigger than I was.
    And then when the surrounding areas were getting evacuated,
    the factories were empty, he took a few men with him
    in a truck, and they went to a neighboring town
    and got some fabrics from an empty factory, which
    he put in our warehouse in our camp,
    and told the men who were in charge of the warehouse, when
    the war is over, remember to distribute these fabrics evenly
    so the people will have something
    to start their lives with.
    They can sell it.
    They can barter it.
    They can do something for them and then sell some clothes.
    But let's wait till the end of the war.
    Then also, without the majority of us
    knowing until the very end, he acquired some guns, a big--
    again, my husband can give you because he knew more
    about guns than I--
    a big, I think it was a machine gun, and some handguns,
    and some other arms, so we would be
    prepared if the Germans would try to kill us
    at the very end of the war.
    Because this is what they tried to do.
    We had a Lagerführer, the head of our camp,
    his name was Leipold.
    And he was already started--
    gave orders to dig trenches for us
    to be put and shut in case of the Russians
    approaching closer.
    And somehow, Schindler realized what's happening
    and ask Moshe Bejski--
    Moshe Bejski today is the Supreme Court justice
    in Israel.
    And at the time, he was a young man,
    very good in forging documents.
    He was kind of an artist.
    He knew how to forge documents.
    And he forged a telegram to Leipold telling him to go,
    calling him to the front, which Leipold very reluctantly did.
    But we got rid of Leipold.
    And we had another man who became the head of our camp.
    But he was a lower rank than Leipold,
    and he was not too bad.
    Because the Germans, at that time,
    realized the end of the war was near,
    and they knew they will be--
    they will have to account for their deeds.
    So that one was not too bad.
    But Leipold disappeared.
    And we had the guns.
    When Schindler wanted us to be prepared if the German either
    tried to kill us or retreating Germans would
    try to overpower us and also kill us,
    he wanted us to be prepared.
    Tell me about his birthday on April 28.
    On April 28, because May 8 was the end
    of the war, the liberation day, but April 28 was his birthday,
    and we wanted to do something for him for his birthday.
    So each one of us, of the prisoners,
    gave a little portion of their-- our bread and a little portion
    of our terrible jam or marmalade,
    whatever it was, and margarine.
    And someone who must have been very, very handy among us--
    I don't remember.
    I don't know who it was--
    made him a birthday cake.
    I mean, they didn't bake it but just make it out
    of the bread and this.
    And we all gathered in the big hall.
    And Schindler spoke to us.
    He told us-- and again, all the camp staff was there,
    all the woman SS, and the men SS, and the head,
    the commandant, and the commandant
    of the camp, the new one, everybody was there.
    But he was absolutely not afraid of them.
    And he told us, the end of the war is near.
    Please, think good thoughts.
    Because you will survive the war.
    But as you survive the war, try to be human beings.
    And that's how he--
    and, you know--
    Wait.
    Wait a minute.
    We have to reload.
    Let's back up.
    Talk a little bit about the speech,
    and then tell me about the present
    that you gave to Schindler on that birthday, that all of you
    gave.
    About the ring, right?
    OK.
    Go ahead.
    OK.
    We also gave Schindler, on his birthday,
    we gave him a present.
    One of our prisoners had some tooth, a tooth
    or two extracted.
    We had a couple of doctors in our--
    among us, and more than two I think, and a dentist.
    And he donated the gold from his tooth
    to make a ring for Schindler.
    And on it there was an inscription, "He who saved"--
    now, let me see.
    I don't want to make a mistake.
    He who saved a Jew, I think--
    One Jewish soul.
    "--one Jewish soul saved the world."
    OK, tell me that story again.
    Tell me about the ring.
    Just tell me that you-- he gave you a speech.
    So tell me--
    He gave us a speech.
    And also, we gave him--
    do you want me to talk about the speech itself?
    Yeah, tell me.
    Well, he told us to--
    that he assured us that we would be liberated.
    He assured us that we will survive the war.
    And as we survive the war, he asked us to be human beings,
    to behave like human beings.
    You know, he probably wanted to avoid
    the actions of people who were desperate, and so long
    in prison, and so on.
    So he asked us to behave like human beings, which we always
    remembered anyway.
    And also, one of our people donated gold
    from his extracted tooth to a jeweler who was in our camp,
    and he made a ring for Schindler which bore the inscription,
    "He who saves a Jewish soul saves the whole world," which
    is an old Talmudic, I think, saying.
    You one time said that you thought
    Schindler was trying to save a cross section of Jewish--
    Absolutely.
    He called it his Noah's Ark.
    Among us, there were doctors.
    There were teachers.
    There were locksmiths.
    There were carpenters.
    There were tailors, kind of a cross section, men, women,
    and also children.
    We had a few children.
    Unfortunately, some fathers, when
    they left Plaszow, a few fathers who were on Schindler's list
    were able to get their boys also on the list.
    And they came to Brünnlitz.
    But the Lagercommandant, Leipold,
    whom I mentioned before, gave the order for those children
    to go back, to be sent to Auschwitz.
    Of course, their fathers refuse the chil--
    for the children to go alone, and they all went with them.
    What was Schindler risking to do what-- what he do,
    and what did he risk?
    Well, first of all, he risked his life.
    Because under the Germans, helping a Jew,
    not saving him but giving him bread or whatever,
    endangered his life and also the life of his family.
    He was in danger.
    And he was arrested a few times by Gestapo,
    one time for, I think, some black market dealings, which
    he had to do in order to feed his people,
    and the one time, I think, for they
    discovered some kind of a sabotaging
    his production, something like that.
    But every time, he got out.
    Were you--
    That was not in Brünnlitz.
    This was still when we were in Plaszow, in Poland.
    Were you like a family to him?
    I think he did not come to Krakow
    with preconceived notions about it.
    It somehow developed.
    He formed very close relationships with his workers.
    He realized he liked them.
    He respected them.
    And as the time progressed and he
    realized what the Germans were doing,
    that it was a final solution process, that he was--
    there was-- that his people would
    be killed sooner or later, he decided
    he has to take some action and do something to prevent that.
    How many people do you think he saved in all, in rough numbers?
    And also talk to me about whether or not
    you feel he was a hero.
    He saved about 1,300 people, men and women,
    and then there were a few children
    who were a little older than the little boys who
    were sent back to Auschwitz.
    They were maybe teenagers.
    He saved those too.
    But in the total amount, I think, more or less,
    was 1,300 people.
    And definitely I think he was a hero.
    Yad Vashem recognize him as a Righteous Gentile,
    and he was one of the few and the very first Righteous
    Gentiles whom they gave the Medal of Yad Vashem
    and allowed him to plant a tree in the Alley of the Righteous
    Gentiles in Jerusalem.
    And I think very few Germans--
    there are a lot, many Poles over there,
    the Righteous Gentiles who helped the people.
    There are many, I think, Czech people, Swedish people,
    and so on, and Danish people, French people, but no Germans.
    Germans are very, very few, and Schindler
    was one of the first ones to be recognized
    like this by Yad Vashem.
    Talk about how you feel about how few people like him
    there were.
    Well, I feel that's why--
    I feel that the testimony about Schindler
    should not be understood as whitewashing
    of the rest of German people.
    Because German people as a whole are responsible.
    There are very few like Oskar Schindler.
    If I want to be very generous, I will say like 10, maybe,
    on the whole.
    Maybe they helped a single person, some of them,
    very rarely.
    But to save, to endanger your life and save 1,300 people,
    feeding them, fighting for their needs--
    we were talking about glasses before.
    Some people didn't have glasses.
    He went to some town, neighboring town,
    and got them glasses.
    So he was really very unusual.
    And the Germans, on the whole, were
    perpetrators of the most tragic murder
    of the history of humankind.
    And there was no precedent of his--
    in history of something like this on a scale like that.
    This was premeditated.
    This was done accordingly to a plan, step by step.
    Talk about resistance by being good human beings.
    This is in various experiences.
    You told an incident about an egg.
    You talked about sharing in camps and things like--
    talk to me about--
    Yeah, yeah.
    I came to the conclusion that we were actually
    very good human beings.
    I'm talking about people that I knew
    and in Plaszow and in Schindler's camp.
    We were helping one another.
    We were sharing.
    We were trying to be supportive.
    If somebody lost one of their close ones,
    we were very supportive.
    We tried to really--
    because we could have, under the treatment that we received,
    we could have very easily have become animals.
    It was very easy to become like this.
    But we were really very supportive.
    I remember one time in Birkenau, every morning and every night
    we had to stay not on the upper platz
    but in front of our barracks in the bitter cold
    and the bitter--
    and lined in fives.
    And the SS woman were going by.
    And if somebody looked a little pale or a little--
    didn't stand very straight or something,
    they pulled them out and put them
    to a barrack, which was designated to be sent
    to death in a very near future.
    So we tried to help.
    And I remember one time, we were standing
    like this, early hours of the morning, maybe 4 o'clock.
    And we were standing, and I could
    feel that my knees were bending and I would fall any time.
    My back was hurting.
    I don't know what happened to me all of a sudden.
    So the girl in front of me and the girl in the back of me
    kind of supported me.
    You know?
    And little things like this, we tried to--
    I shared my toothbrush.
    When I came to Brünnlitz, my husband had a present for me,
    several presents.
    He had the little old medal.
    Wait.
    We have to reload.
    OK.
    Camera roll six.
    Sync take nine is up.
    Mrs. Page, I want you to tell me again
    about roll call and your legs getting weak,
    and I want you to say I was on a roll call in Birkenau,
    it was cold.
    OK.
    OK, during one of the roll calls in Birkenau--
    we always had to stand on roll call early in the morning
    and in the evening.
    And I was standing.
    Weather was freezing, November in Poland.
    And we were standing by fives, and I had the feeling
    that something is wrong with me.
    My legs started to--
    my knees bent under me, my back started to hurt terribly,
    and I felt I will fall.
    And falling down meant being taken out of the group
    and put in a separate barrack supposedly unfit for work
    or unfit to live or whatever.
    So two of my friends, one who was standing in front of me,
    one who was standing in the back of me, were supporting me.
    And somehow-- sometimes we had to rouge our cheeks.
    We took the beets from our soup and we
    rouged the cheeks a little bit not to look very pale.
    We really helped one another in little ways
    trying to be human beings, not getting angry,
    even though everybody was very nervous,
    at the edge of their rope, so to say.
    And I remember in Bruennlitz, my husband
    prepared some gifts for me.
    He gave me a toothbrush, which was made, I think,
    from horse's hair or something like this,
    and that toothbrush I shared with my bunk mate
    because, of course, we had no toothbrush.
    Later in Schindler's camp we had some kind
    of a soap which was like not soap like a soda,
    you know what I mean?
    This is the powder.
    And of course cold water, but we didn't
    have lice because we were deloused when we came.
    Not right away, but later because of the lousing chamber
    was built after we came.
    How do you see goodness of humanity being resistance?
    I'm sorry?
    How do you see that goodness being a form of resistance?
    You talked about--
    Well, we unfortunately had no opportunity
    to resist in any other way because what happened to us,
    first of all, was unprecedented in history.
    We were very gradually--
    you know, the Germans did it gradually.
    Like in my city they took away, you
    know, our right walking on the streets,
    then the children could not go to school,
    the doctors could not practice and so on slowly.
    And we hoped-- everybody said the war will be over in two,
    three months, you know?
    We believed in that wholeheartedly.
    And then slowly they tightened the screws
    and deported to one place, deported to the next.
    This was absolutely a plan very designed for annihilation
    of people, of the whole people.
    So any means of trying to survive,
    even being good to one another, especially
    being good to one another, meant some form of resistance.
    Not giving up.
    It was very easy to give up, you know?
    Many people did.
    You told something about a child who
    saved a potato for his father.
    Can you tell me that?
    Yes, this was-- that happened when we were leaving Birkenau,
    as I told you, our train was standing on some side station.
    And all of a sudden, a very dear friend of mine who lives now
    in New York heard a whistle, familiar whistle, which
    she realized was her husband.
    And she thought, my god, what is--
    and it came from a direction of the camp.
    There was a fence near that side station.
    And on the other side of that fence
    there was a group of people standing in striped uniforms,
    and she realized that one of them was her husband.
    She couldn't understand what happened.
    He's supposed to be in Bruennlitz.
    How come he's not in Bruennlitz?
    He's in Birkenau.
    And they started-- she asked for permission to step down
    the train just in front of it and they started to shout
    to one another, and she found out that Leopold made her
    husband--
    he didn't want children so her husband and her little boy,
    who at the time--
    when the war was over he was about 13
    so he could have been maybe eight.
    No, no, this was 1944.
    Maybe 12, maybe 11.
    Something like that.
    So her little boy and her husband came to Birkenau.
    And somehow they found out, you know,
    through the grapevine-- in camp the grapevine
    goes all the time.
    They found out that the transport of woman is leaving
    and they went to that particular point
    and they realized that the transport the woman
    were the familiar woman, you know?
    He realized it's his wife.
    So they started to talk to one another, shout rather.
    And her little boy said, Mommy-
    Wait, let's cut.
    This motor is too much.
    [BEEP]
    OK, so they're yelling through the fence.
    They're yelling through the fence.
    And the little boy--
    his name is Alexander, Olek diminutive--
    says Mommy, Mommy, I am taking care of daddy.
    I saved a potato for him, you know?
    And there was another lady who was the mother
    apropos of the little boy that my husband told you about,
    Richard Horowitz, the photographer.
    And she saw her little boy with his father over there
    when she expected them to be in Bruennlitz.
    Of course these women were terribly, terribly devastated,
    you know?
    They thought they would be reunited with their family,
    and it didn't happen.
    So that little boy who later was liberated in Auschwitz
    was Richard Horowitz.
    He was also on the other side of the fence.
    They were cousin Al Rozner and Richard Horowitz.
    They are cousins.
    OK, is that noise all right?
    Yeah, it's all right.
    I want you to tell me again--
    I'm sorry to ask you to do this again--
    That's OK.
    --but I want to tell me again the Germans coming and knocking
    on the door to take your mother away
    because there was so much noise before.
    OK, all right.
    Tell it as though you haven't told me before.
    OK, in November 1939, Poland, of course,
    was under German occupation and we had
    some restrictions in the city.
    We had to wear the yellow armbands,
    we couldn't go walk on certain streets, and so on.
    But we still lived in the city, not in the ghetto,
    in our pre-war apartment.
    And one night in early November my mother
    went downstairs to attend to a sick patient
    in the same building, and I heard a strong knock
    on the door.
    When I opened the door I saw three Germans, one
    in the green uniform of the SS I think,
    it must have been SS, and two black uniforms of local Germans
    who already were part of the German Army
    and who before the war were traitors--
    Let's just stop.
    Oh.
    This plane--
    [BEEP]
    OK, let's just pick it up there.
    I opened the door and I saw those three Germans, one
    in the green uniform of the German SS,
    and the two other ones in black uniforms
    of the so-called Volksdeutsche which
    were the local Germans who sympathized
    with Hitler before the war and they were traitors to Poland.
    And when Germans occupied Poland,
    they all joined the German army or whatever unit they wanted.
    And the German in the green uniforms
    said, you are arrested on political grounds.
    Put together some a few warm clothes and all the valuables,
    your jewelry, your money, put on the table.
    And as my mother-- in the meantime.
    Let's stop.
    This plane is--
    [BEEP]
    So what did he say?
    He said, you are arrested on political grounds.
    In the meantime, my mother came upstairs running.
    Somebody notified her that the Germans
    are in the apartment, which was bad by itself
    without knowing what's going to happen.
    And he said, you are arrested on political grounds.
    Put together some warm things, and put all your jewelry
    and all the valuables on the table, otherwise
    that will be a death penalty.
    You'll be shot.
    And he also told my mother that I was not on the list
    if I want to stay.
    So I remember now, it dawned on me that my mother asked,
    can I stay in the apartment?
    He said, no.
    The apartment will be sealed.
    Anyway, I prefer to go with my mother.
    I didn't want to part with her.
    And as we were putting our things together,
    my mother had her jewelry put in a little sack which she carried
    because those are very dangerous and one never knew what
    the next minute will bring.
    So she carried that with her and she handed it to me
    and she said, throw it in the toilet and flush the water.
    So I did.
    Then they took us out, they sealed the apartment,
    and we went to a building which used
    to be my high school before the war from which I graduated.
    And there, to my great astonishment,
    I realized there were many, many people, many of whom
    I knew, some of my teachers, some of my friends.
    We have to stop.
    Let's put one more roll on.
    [BEEP]
    OK, after they took us to a building, which
    was my pre-war high school building,
    and as we walked to the big tremendous gym hall,
    I realized that I see many, many people there
    because there was no precedent before as far as deportations.
    We didn't know about it.
    This was the first one that we heard accordingly to the list,
    especially by names.
    And I realized there were many people that I knew.
    There were doctors, there were my teachers and my friends.
    And afterwards we found out this was a transport
    of about 1,000 people.
    It was a selected group Polish, Catholics,
    and Polish Jews selected, probably the elite of the city
    because the Germans always did that.
    They considered the intelligentsia,
    the leaders of the eventual resistance,
    and they tried to prevent that.
    So they transported-- they divided the transport.
    The one transport went to Czestochowa
    and the other one went to Krakow.
    I was taken to Krakow with my mother.
    All right, let's cut and--
    Also my husband because that happened when he--
    in his barrack, you know, in Plaszow when the Germans came
    in and during the prayers or something--
    All right, tell me about what you know.
    Yeah, but I don't know that much about it, no.
    Well, tell me about it--
    Yeah, I tell you.
    OK, go ahead.
    Oh, OK.
    First of all, you know, I come from a very assimilated family.
    And before the war, I never, you know,
    had an occasion to meet very religious Jews.
    And I remember-- never forget--
    when we were leaving our barrack in Birkenau, two of my--
    we were always kept in fives, you know?
    And two of my friends were twins.
    They didn't look alike at all.
    They were from a small town near Krakow,
    and I remember when we were leaving the barrack,
    one of them started to pray, you know, Shema Yisrael.
    At that time I didn't even know what it meant, you know?
    God is great, you know, and so on.
    They were very religious all the time.
    They always prayed.
    And there were many Jews who, in those circumstances,
    kept their prayers and tried--
    for instance, during Yom Kippur many of them
    wouldn't eat as hungry as they were, you see?
    Because you're supposed to fast that day.
    So that was-- many people showed a tremendous moral strength
    in the face of what was happening all around them.
    Was it punishable, praying?
    Oh yes, that was not allowed absolutely.
    This had to be done in a clandestine way,
    and that means that the Germans should not know.
    Always somebody stood outside and watched, you know,
    if they are approaching.
    OK, let's cut.
    Now we should maybe get quiet room tone or room tone
    with sheet metal?

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Ludmilla Page discusses being arrested with her mother and members of the Polish intelligentsia in November 1939; their transport to Kraków, Poland, where they spent time in a fortress prison; her thoughts on the similarities and differences between the Kraków and Warsaw ghettos; her relationship with Oskar Schindler and how he protected the Jews working in his factory; how Schindler compiled his list of names of prisoners from the Płaszów concentration camp; Schindler’s attempt to persuade a fellow factory owner, Julius Madrich, to save the Jews working in his own factory; how Jewish workers in Schindler's Bruennlitz concentration camp factory sabotaged bomb shell casings; an incident in which she and other female Schindler Jews were transported to Birkenau by mistake instead of going directly to Bruennlitz; how some of the Schindler Jews used gold fillings to fashion a gold ring for Schindler on his birthday in April 1945; Schindler’s friendships with the Jews he rescued; and his designation as Righteous Among the Nations.
    Interviewee
    Ludmila Page
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1992 March 11

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    3 film reels : color ; 16 mm.
    4 sound tape reels : analog, mono ; 7 in..
    2 videocassette (D2) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Use
    Restrictions on use. The interviewee restricts the use of the interview in all formats to educational purposes.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Ludmilla Page on March 11, 1992, in Beverly Hills, California, in preparation for the making of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibition film, "Testimony." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History branch received the films and tapes of the interview in August 1994. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the films and tapes of the interview via transfer from the Oral History branch in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-06-01 14:36:18
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    Oral history interview with Agnes Mandl Adachi

    Oral History

    Agnes Mandl Adachi discusses her time spent in Switzerland shortly before the start of World War II; her memories of the takeover by the Arrow Cross Party (Nyilaskeresztes Párt); how she obtained Swedish citizenship through the Swedish embassy in Budapest; the mistreatment of mixed-marriage couples in Hungary, and how many committed suicide instead of divorcing; her baptism by the Protestant Bishop of Hungary; her work with Raoul Wallenberg and his many heroic efforts to rescue Hungarian Jews, his work with children and orphans in Budapest, and his successful attempt to persuade Adolf Eichmann to call off a massacre of 70,000 Jews in the Budapest ghetto; Wallenberg's disappearance in 1945 and subsequent searches for him in Russia; her reflections on the honors given to Raoul Wallenberg since World War II; and her personal thoughts on her role as a rescuer working with Wallenberg.

    Oral history interview with Edward Adler

    Oral history interview with Edward Adler

    Oral History

    Edward Adler, born in 1910, discusses his memories of the early days of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s and his involvement in anti-Nazi activities in Hamburg, Germany; his memories of anti-Jewish boycotts; his memories of joining a military training camp and one experience when he was assigned to a guard detail for Adolf Hitler; his discharge from the military camp when it was discovered that he was Jewish; his arrest by the Gestapo for having a relationship with a Gentile girl; his imprisonment in Oranienburg concentration camp from June 1938 and his release from the camp the following September; his memories of Kristallnacht in Hamburg, Germany in 1938; his flight to the Netherlands with his family shortly after Kristallnacht and their subsequent immigration to the United States; his reflections on how Jews were unable to "fight back" and defend themselves against the Nazis; his memories of antisemitism in Germany in the 1930s; his recollections of the fate of his parents during the Holocaust and how his mother died in Treblinka concentration camp; and his memories of a visit to Hamburg, Germany in 1982 and the emotions he experienced during his stay there.

    Oral history interview with Harry Alexander

    Oral history interview with Harry Alexander

    Oral History

    Harry Alexander discusses his memories of persecutions suffered by Jews in his hometown of Leipzig, Germany, and the events of Kristallnacht in 1938; his flight to Milan, Italy after Kristallnacht and his experiences there with other Jewish refugees; his memories of receiving a one-day visa through the French embassy in Milan and his attempt to escape to France by train; his memories of the "St. Vemo incident" when fisherman from the village of San Remo, Italy attempted to ferry the refugees around a blockade that stopped the train he was on from entering France; his arrest in France and time in prison; his time in Antibes concentration camp in France, and later in a Marseille prison; his escape from a transport between concentration camps; hiding in a forest and his arrest there; being in Di Agilis concentration camp and his transport from there to "Jaffa" (Djelfa) concentration camp in Algeria, where he and other prisoners worked to build a railroad passage across the Sahara Desert; the types of torture in Djelfa; his memories of the various acts of defiance by prisoners in Djelfa and the role that humor played in surviving the camp; his liberation from Djelfa by British troops and his time in British military intelligence after liberation; his reflections on the cruelty of camp and prison guards that he encountered; the role that his mother played in his survival; the loss of his entire family in the concentration camps; his thoughts on survival as a form of heroism; and his thoughts on why more Jews didn't "fight back" and defend themselves against the Nazis.

    Oral history interview with Sam Bankhalter

    Oral history interview with Sam Bankhalter

    Oral History

    Sam Bankhalter discusses his memories of antisemitism in Poland in the 1930s and the activities of "Endeks" or Polish Nazis; the various types of persecutions suffered by Jews in Poland; the German invasion of Poland in 1939; his time living in the ghetto in Łódź, Poland; his transport to Auschwitz in 1940 where he participated in the construction of the camp; his recollections of various aspects at Auschwitz including the gas chambers, the crematoria, and selections by Josef Mengele and other doctors in the camp; the mistreatment of rabbis and priests in Auschwitz; the gassing of Romanies infected with typhus; the suicide of his brother, Chaim, and his own attempt at suicide; his memories of the arrival of his parents and sister in Auschwitz in 1944 and seeing them just before they went to the gas chambers; his death march from Auschwitz through Germany to Buchenwald concentration camp; his thoughts on the systematic nature of extermination in Auschwitz; the massacre of many camp prisoners at Buchenwald shortly before liberation; his thoughts on Holocaust survival as a type of heroism; his thoughts on humor as a way of coping in the concentration camp; his memories of the Sonderkommandos in the ghettos and in Auschwitz; and his time working in the crematoria at Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman

    Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman

    Oral History

    Frank Blaichman discusses his memories of hard labor and various persecutions suffered by Jews when Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of World War II; his time in a ghetto in Poland; his escape to and time in hiding in a forest in Poland; his involvement with a group of Jewish partisan fighters in the forests of Poland where he was a key figure in acquiring firearms and organizing acts of sabotage against the Germans; avoiding capture by Germans and Polish collaborators; his memories of a visit by General Rolojemerski, head of the Polish Partisan Support; and his reflections on the choices Jews faced during the Holocaust and how those choices impacted survival.

    Oral history interview with Shony Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Braun

    Oral History

    Shony Braun discusses his transport by train to Auschwitz concentration camp and his encounter with camp doctor, Josef Mengele, during a selection; the death of his mother and younger sister, Golda, in the gas chamber at Auschwitz; his selection to work on a Sonderkommando; his transport to a camp in France with his father and his brother, Zolton, where they worked in an ammunition factory and his work to sabotage bullets in the factory by mixing sand with gun powder; his transfer to Kochendorf concentration camp, a subcamp of Natzweiller concentration camp in France, where he labored in a salt mine; the death of his father in Kochendorf after a severe beating from SS guards and Kapos; his transport to Dachau concentration camp; volunteering to play the violin for camp personnel in exchange for food; how he was shot in the chest during the confusion of Dachau's liberation; how mental and spiritual strength played a role in his survival; his thoughts on his acts of sabotage as a form of heroism; and his "Symphony of the Holocaust," and how composing it helped him cope while in the camp.

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

    Leo Bretholz discusses the underground resistance movement in France and its two parts, the Forces Françaises de l'intérieur (FFI) and the Francs-tireurs et partisans français (FTPF); his involvement in the Armee Juive; his various arrests and escapes from prison during his time in the Jewish resistance movement in France; his use of false identification documents to avoid deportation; his time in Rivesaltes concentration camp; his time in hiding in various locations including the attic of a cousin's home; his reflections on being transported by cattle car and the horrors endured by people on the transport; his memories of the Anschluss in Austria in 1938; his witness to the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in June 1944; his memories of Kristallnacht in 1938; and the fate of his immediate family during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

    Chaim Engel discusses his transport by train to Sobibór concentration camp; his time on a work detail to sort the clothing of gassed prisoners in Sobibór; his job cutting the hair of female prisoners in Sobibór before gassing; his thoughts on the differences between concentration camps and death camps; his experiences with the extreme cruelty of the Sobibór guards; his acts of sabotage while on the clothes sorting work detail; the massacre of an entire transport of prisoners from Belzec concentration camp; his participation in the murder of a German Kapo; the prisoner revolt in Sobibór in October 1943; his escape after the prisoner revolt and his time in hiding with other Sobibór escapees; his relationship with his girlfriend, Selma Engel, also a prisoner from Sobibór, and their time in hiding on the farm of a Polish farmer; his thoughts on the choices made by Jews in order to survive during the Holocaust; and his thoughts on heroism as part of the prisoner revolt in Sobibór.

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

    Selma Engel discusses her arrival in Westerbork concentration camp; her transport from Westerbork to Sobibór concentration camp; her participation in a work detail sorting the clothing of gassed prisoners in Sobibór; her first meeting with her future husband, Chaim Engel; her recollections of the three separate camp areas in Sobibór; the mistreatment of Dutch prisoners in Sobibór; the extreme cruelty of the SS guards in Sobibór; her acts of sabotage while sorting the clothing of the gassed prisoners; the prisoner revolt in Sobibór in Oct. 1943; her escape from Sobibór during the prisoner revolt; her time in hiding with Chaim Engel, her future husband, on the farm of a Polish farmer; her reliance on Chaim for survival; and her reflections on the German and Ukrainian guards in Sobibór and the choices they made to be cruel to the prisoners there.

    Oral history interview with Paulette Fink

    Oral history interview with Paulette Fink

    Oral History

    Paulette Fink discusses her involvement in the resistance movement in France during World War II and her sabotage activities; the French Jewish Scout movement in France (Eclaireurs de France); the saving of many Jewish children by a French Huegenot pastor and other citizens in the town of La Chambon-sur-Lignon, France; the amount of risk and fear that she lived with during World War II; getting fake ID cards made; her marriage in 1934 and the death of her husband, a member of the French resistance, in 1944; her thoughts on her resistance activity as a form of heroism; her involvement in the illegal immigration of thousands of Jewish displaced persons to Israel after World War II; and her continued dedication to and support of the State of Israel since World War II.

    Oral history interview with Sam Goldberg

    Oral history interview with Sam Goldberg

    Oral History

    Sam Goldberg discusses his use of the false name Sigmund Kamkowsky in order to avoid persecution; his time working with the underground movement in and around Warsaw, Poland; his time living and working in the Warsaw ghetto; his escape from the Warsaw ghetto to the Pietkov ghetto in order to locate family members; his acts of smuggling and encounters with the SS; the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and his subsequent transport by train to Birkenau concentration camp and his eventual move to Auschwitz; hearing about Josef Mengele's medical experiments in Auschwitz; working in the "Canada" commando, sorting the clothing and valuables of prisoners near the gas chambers in Auschwitz; working in the commando assisting prisoners upon arrival at the Auschwitz train platform; his experiences with Kapos and Blockälteste in Auschwitz; the prisoner revolt in the Auschwitz crematoria in October 1944; his evacuation from Auschwitz by train; his participation on a death march; his friendship with a young boy named Herbie; his time in Flossenbürg concentration camp after a death march and his memories of the various colored triangle badges he saw there; his transport to Mittendorf concentration camp near Munich, Germany via Prague, Czech Republic; his experiences during Allied bombing raids on Mittendorf; his memories of the liquidation of the Romani camp in Auschwitz; his acts of sabotage while working on airplanes; his thoughts on spiritual resistance; his liberation by American troops during a transport; how telling jokes and singing songs helped to lift the spirits of fellow camp inmates; his memories of the meeting between Josef Mengele and Chaim Rumkowski, head of the ghetto in Łódź, Poland upon Rumkowski's arrival in Auschwitz; his thoughts on the choice of German Kapos and soldiers to be killers; his reflections on the nature of humanity considering his Holocaust experiences; and the selection process that took place upon the arrival of new transports in Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Siegfried Halbreich

    Oral history interview with Siegfried Halbreich

    Oral History

    Siegfried Halbreich discusses his desertion from the Polish Army in October 1939 and his brief time working as a pharmacist in Oświęcim, Poland; his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the cruel treatment of prisoners that he witnessed there; his time in Gross-Rosen concentration camp and his work in a stone quarry near the camp; his experiences with Blockälteste in Gross-Rosen; his time in Auschwitz concentration camp and his work as a nurse in the camp hospital; his role as Blockälteste at one time in Auschwitz; his participation in a death march after the evacuation of Auschwitz; the camp personnel hierarchy in Auschwitz from the SS guards down to the Kapos; his thoughts on the role of mental resistance as a part of survival; the support he received from friends and family while in the concentration camps; his memories of religious practice and celebration in Sachsenhausen; his role as teacher and leader of young Jews for religious education in Auschwitz; the various types of torture he witnessed in Sachsenhausen; and his thoughts on taking revenge on Germans after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Isadore Helfing

    Oral history interview with Isadore Helfing

    Oral History

    Isadore Helfing discusses his arrival in Treblinka concentration camp and his work burying the bodies of persons who died during the transports in mass graves in the camp; his recollections of the physical layout of Treblinka and how prisoners were led through the gassing process; his recollections of many people dying inside the railroad cars while waiting to unload in Treblinka; his experiences with Kapos in the camp; his participation in the prisoner revolt in Treblinka and his escape to a nearby forest; his time in hiding after his escape from Treblinka; his witnessing the murder of a German camp guard by a fellow prisoner and his thoughts on the murder as an act of revenge; how German and Ukrainian guards in the camp made choices to follow orders; the attempts of some prisoners to pray in the camp; participating in soccer games on Sundays, a free day in the camp; the suicides of several persons from his barracks; the orchestra in the camp and a boxing match that took place one day; and the fate of his parents in Treblinka the day before his arrival in the camp.

    Oral history interview with Kurt Klein

    Oral history interview with Kurt Klein

    Oral History

    Kurt Klein discusses the political situation in Germany during the early 1930s and how Jews did not take the Nazi rise to power seriously; his thoughts on why the Nazi party gained power so easily; the persecutions suffered by Jews and the boycott against Jewish businesses in the early 1930s; his withdrawal from school and his apprenticeship in the printing business; his immigration to the United States in 1937; how he learned of Kristallnacht events through newspaper reports in the United States; his service with the Fifth US Infantry Division of the Third Army during World War II and his assistance to Jewish women abandoned by their German guards in a factory building in Volary, Czechoslovakia; his first meeting with his future wife, Gerda Weissmann Klein, in the factory and the development of their relationship after World War II; and his participation in the interrogation of Erich Kempka, a former chauffeur for Adolf Hitler.

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    John (Jan) Komski discusses the German invasion of Poland; his involvement in the resistance movement in and around Kraków, Poland; his imprisonment at Auschwitz concentration camp in June 1940; the different types of prisoners in Auschwitz and the various identification badges and triangles used to mark the prisoners; the museum and orchestra in Auschwitz; how he planned and prepared a successful escape from Auschwitz by disguising himself as an SS guard and using false identification documents; the types of mental and spiritual resistance used to survive in Auschwitz; his thoughts on how some Auschwitz prisoners utilized special talents and skills to survive in the camp; the gassing of children and their mothers immediately upon arrival in Auschwitz; his memories of Palietsch, the official executor in Auschwitz; the tattoos used to identify prisoners in Auschwitz and the tattoo he received when he entered Birkenau concentration camp; and how families were treated differently from individuals upon arrival in Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Stefa Kupfer

    Oral history interview with Stefa Kupfer

    Oral History

    Stefa Kupfer discusses the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the persecutions suffered by Jews during the German occupation; being 10 years old when the war started; her memories of the Gestapo and their dogs; how the Germans used citizens from her town for forced labor; the confiscation of Jewish property by the Germans; her mother's refusal to register the family with the German authorities, thereby saving them from a round up; her family's time in hiding in the attic and basement of an apartment building in Krosno, Poland, and how she and her family were protected and ultimately saved by Penny Olefska, a Christian woman; the various ways she and her family occupied themselves while in hiding; her thoughts on living in constant fear while in hiding; the assistance her family received from Mr. Vishbitsky, a Polish farmer; her thoughts on those who risked their lives to rescue and hide Jews during World War II; her recollections of the many possessions she and her family lost during the war; and the responsibility of each Holocaust survivor to tell his or her story in order prevent another Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

    Cecilie Klein-Pollack discusses the deportation of her family from the ghetto in Hust, Hungary (now Khust, Ukraine) to Auschwitz concentration camp; her and her family's experiences upon arrival at Auschwitz, encountering Josef Mengele, and the death of her mother and young nephew in the gas chambers shortly thereafter; her experiences with Kapos and Blockälteste in Auschwitz and Birkenau; her sister's desire to commit suicide and her attempts to keep her sister alive; her memories of a young ballerina in her block who was forced to dance for the SS camp guards; her witness to the beating death of the ballerina and a poem that she wrote to memorialize the young dancer; her many delousing experiences in Auschwitz and Birkenau; her transport to Nuremberg where she and other female prisoners worked in a munitions factory; her time in Holleischen concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; the types of spiritual and religious resistance that she experienced in the camps; the cruel beatings that she and other prisoners received from SS guards in the camps; her time in Budapest, Hungary after World War II; and her memories of her mother as she was before her death in the Auschwitz gas chamber. During the interview, Cecilie Klein-Pollack recites her poem, "Ballerina," and reads a letter she wrote to her mother (a copy of the letter is located in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives).

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

    Abraham Malnik discusses the German invasion of Lithuania; his family's life in the Kovno ghetto; how his father, Josef Malnik, rescued him and his mother from a selection of elderly, children, and handicapped persons, thereby saving them from the massacre at the Ninth Fort near the ghetto in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania; his time hiding in a cellar in the Kovno ghetto to avoid capture during a "Kinder aktion" by the Germans; the liquidation of the Kovno ghetto during which many of the remaining Jews were massacred by Lithuanian collaborators; his family's transport to Stutthof concentration camp and subsequently to Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Leitmeritz (Litomerice) concentration camps; how he and his father participated in forced labor in a mine in Leitmeritz; the yellow star and number insignia the Germans assigned to him in Leitmeritz; his experience with Polish Kapos in Leitmeritz; his time spent in the Leitmeritz hospital with typhoid fever; his "walk" to Theresienstadt concentration camp in April 1945 and his liberation there by the Soviet Army; his thoughts on taking revenge against the Germans for their brutality during the Holocaust; and the special bond he and his father shared throughout their Holocaust ordeal.

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral History

    Lilly Appelbaum Malnik discusses her time in hiding in Belgium; her forced labor in a factory; her neighbors in her apartment building who denounced her and her aunt and uncle to the Germans; her family's arrest and their time in the Malines detention camp in Mechelen, Belgium; her family's transport from Belgium to Birkenau concentration camp and her encounter with Josef Mengele upon arrival; the tattoo number she received on her arm; volunteering for work in Birkenau; her transfer to Auschwitz concentration camp and her work in the kitchen there; the transports of new prisoners into Auschwitz and how many prisoners were sent immediately to the gas chambers; contemplating suicide while in Auschwitz; how some prisoners in Auschwitz prayed as a form of resistance; her time on a death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; her friendship with a young girl named Christian while in Bergen-Belsen; Christian’s death from typhus; and her thoughts about how the young had a better chance of survival in concentration camps.

    Oral history interview with Leopold Page

    Oral history interview with Leopold Page

    Oral History

    Leopold Page discusses his first meeting with Oskar Schindler and Schindler's physical appearance; how Schindler rescued several female prisoners from Auschwitz (Birkenau) concentration camp and male prisoners from Gross-Rosen concentration camp after they were misrouted on the way to Bruennlitz concentration camp; the establishment of the Kraków ghetto and resistance activities he witnessed there; how he and his wife, Ludmilla Page, escaped from the Kraków ghetto during the liquidation action; how he and other prisoners kept statistics on the number of prisoners killed each day in Plaszów concentration camp; his memories of Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszów concentration camp; how the prisoners of Plaszów prayed as a form of resistance; how friendships among the prisoners helped them survive; how the Schindler Jews sabotaged bomb shell casing while working in Schindler's factory in Bruennlitz concentration camp; Schindler helping the Jews disarm and imprison their German captors in Bruennlitz; how Schindler attempted to persuade Julius Madrich to save the Jews working in his own factory; Russian soldiers liberating the Schindler Jews in Bruennlitz; Oskar Schindler receiving the award of Righteous Gentile for his efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust; his memories of Kristallnacht in November 1938; and how some prisoners in Bruennlitz fashioned a ring from gold fillings as a birthday gift for Schindler in April 1945.

    Oral history interview with Esther Raab

    Oral history interview with Esther Raab

    Oral History

    Esther Raab discusses her transfer from a forced labor camp to Sobibór concentration camp; how Sobibór commandant Wagner selected her and other girls to work sorting the belongings of people gassed in the camp; how the SS camp guards processed arrivals of new prisoners in the camp; the extreme cruelty of two camp guards, Frenzel and Wagner; how she and other workers found notes among the belongings of prisoners from Treblinka and Belzec concentration camps and how the notes mentioned revenge against the Germans; how she and other Sobibór inmates planned and executed the revolt in the camp; escaping into the woods near the camp during the revolt and receiving a gunshot wound during the escape; how the Sobibór camp guards punished prisoners who attempted to escape; her thoughts on the differences between a concentration camp and a death camp; how she and other Sobibór escapees received food and shelter from a Polish farmer; her memories of life in Poland before World War II; her time in "Stafnovushulke" forced labor camp; her thoughts on her actions during the Sobibór revolt as being actions of heroism; the types of spiritual resistance that occurred in Sobibór; and how her mother prepared her for World War II by telling her stories of life in Poland during World War I.

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral History

    Agi Rubin discusses being age 14 when she and her family were deported to Auschwitz; her family's arrival in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 and her separation from her mother during a selection; being registered and tattooed in Auschwitz; her work on a special commando sorting the belongings of recently gassed prisoners; how she and others in the commando sabotaged the clothing they sorted and tied into bundles; how the camp guards in Auschwitz singled out certain commandos for certain tasks; her observation of the gassing and cremation processes in Auschwitz and Birkenau; her experiences with a Kapo in Auschwitz; her memories of the "Garnerlager" or so-called "Gypsy" camp in Auschwitz; her observations of the selection process conducted by Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz train platform; her thoughts on how the crematoria in Auschwitz affected her senses; how some prisoners recited prayers on their way to the gas chambers; her experiences with lice; her time in Ravensbrück concentration camp; being sent on a death march in January 1945; and her thoughts on heroism as a part of survival. At the end of the interview, Rubin displays and discusses photographs from a family photo album.

    Oral history interview with Bart Stern

    Oral history interview with Bart Stern

    Oral History

    Bart Stern discusses his experiences on a cattle car transport from Hungary to Birkenau concentration camp with his brothers; his subsequent move to Auschwitz concentration camp; his time working in a coal mine near Auschwitz; how religious celebrations became a form of resistance in Auschwitz; how he and other prisoners told jokes as a way of coping; his experiences with Kapos in Auschwitz; his thoughts on humanity in light of his Holocaust experiences; his thoughts on revenge; and how many Jews resisted and did not go willingly to their deaths.

    Oral history interview with Tina Strobos

    Oral history interview with Tina Strobos

    Oral History

    Tina Strobos discusses her experiences during the German invasion of the Netherlands and how life changed for the citizens of Rotterdam; the role of Arthur Seyss-Inquart in the Nazi-occupation government of the Netherlands; the role of the Gestapo during the German occupation of the Netherlands; her involvement in an underground resistance group in the Netherlands lead by Johann Brower; her time in hiding and the hiding place she used inside her own home; the underground work of the "Lomlok Organization" to help Jews find hiding places; how she and her family rescued other Jews by letting them hide in their Rotterdam home; and how some Nazi sympathizers in the Netherlands denounced and betrayed their Jewish neighbors.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral History

    Emanuel Tanay discusses how life changed for the Jews in Miechów, Poland, after the German invasion in 1939; how the Germans increased persecutions against Jews with collaboration by Ukrainians and Lithuanians; his thoughts on the differences between Polish Jews and Jews from Western Europe; his family's time in the ghetto in Miechów, Poland; hiding in a monastery in Mogila, Poland, where he posed as a novice for the priesthood; the assistance he received from the monastery's prior, Father Kuhar; his flight from the monastery when the Gestapo raided his cell; how the Germans imprisoned Father Kuhar and other priests from the Mogila monastery in Auschwitz concentration camp for giving assistance to people in the underground resistance; his thoughts on how being a teenager helped him to survive; how he and his family fled to Hungary in 1943 using false identification papers; his time in a prison in Budapest, Hungary, and subsequent escape; volunteering to the Gestapo to be executed and how the Gestapo failed to carry out the execution; his brief time in the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, just before the uprising; and his thoughts on what special qualities a person needed to be a survivor.

    Oral history interview with Bella Tovey

    Oral history interview with Bella Tovey

    Oral History

    Bella Tovey discusses how life changed in Sosnowiec, Poland, and persecutions increased for Jews after the German invasion; how the Germans established a ghetto in Sosnowiec; how members of the intelligentsia started to disappear and how others went to work camps; being taken to a work camp and her parents gained her release by having her younger sister, Pina, replace her in the camp; the liquidation of the Sosnowiec ghetto and her family's move to a smaller ghetto called Srodula; her time in Gräben (a.k.a. Gräen) concentration camp near Striegel, Germany, where the prisoners worked in a flax mill; her experiences with a Kapo in Gräben labor camp; how the Germans incorporated Gräben into the camp system of Gross-Rosen concentration camp; her time on a death march to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and her bouts with typhus and typhoid while in the camp; the various friendships that she had with other girls during her time in the camps; her thoughts on spiritual resistance in the camp; her reaction to hearing about what happened to Jews in Auschwitz; the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by British troops in 1945; and her loss of faith in God during the Holocaust and how she regained her faith and began her Jewish and religious studies later in life.

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral History

    Helen Waterford discusses her family's time in hiding in the Netherlands and how she and her husband decided to hide their daughter with another family; her family's relationship with Joe Fisch, a rescuer of many Jews in the Netherlands; her and her husband's arrest and deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp via Westerbork concentration camp; her experiences during a selection upon her arrival in Auschwitz; her thoughts on the lack of resistance in Auschwitz; how at one time she was in a barracks with Anne Frank and Anne Frank's mother; her memories of Josef Mengele in Auschwitz; her move from Auschwitz to work in a factory in Czechoslovakia; and her opinions on humankind in light of her Holocaust experiences and how she does not consider survival to be an achievement.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Webber

    Oral history interview with Ruth Webber

    Oral History

    Ruth Webber discusses her memories of the Germans invading Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland, in 1939; her time in Botsohov (Bodzechów) work camp with her parents; moving to the ghetto in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland with her mother; their escape from the ghetto and return to the Botshohov work camp; her time in Austrowiec (Ostrowiec) concentration camp; her time in Starachowice concentration camp; her transport to Auschwitz concentration camp; her arrival in Auschwitz and her memories of the registration process; her time in the Auschwitz infirmary suffering from measles; her memories of the Auschwitz crematoria and her realization of what was happening to the prisoners there; what it was like to be a child among mostly adults in Auschwitz; her move to the "children's block" in Auschwitz after her mother moved to another camp; the special care and protection she received from her mother while in Auschwitz; how she considers her mother to be a hero; and her thoughts on humanity in light of her Holocaust experiences.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Weihs

    Oral history interview with Ernest Weihs

    Oral History

    Ernest Weihs, born in Vienna, Austria in November 1908, discusses his conversion from Judaism to Lutheranism at age eleven; the changing situation for Jews in Vienna, Austria in 1938; the aid that he and his future wife received from Swedish missionaries in Austria; his imprisonment in Theresienstadt in 1942; his marriage while in Theresienstadt; his escape from a death march on the way to Dachau concentration camp; his experiences with Kapos; the religious practices that took place in Theresienstadt; his brief time in Auschwitz concentration camp; and his witness to a suicide while in Kaufering concentration camp.

    Oral history interview with Norbert Wollheim

    Oral history interview with Norbert Wollheim

    Oral History

    Norbert Wollheim discusses his parents' deportation from Berlin, Germany in 1943 and his deportation with his wife and son to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943; how some prisoners prayed and celebrated Sabbath while on the transport to Auschwitz; his arrival in Auschwitz and his separation from his wife and child; his registration and tattoo; the role of the SS in Auschwitz; his time working in the Buna factory near the camp; his work as a welder in Auschwitz; his friend Fritz Schaeffer who committed suicide while in Auschwitz; his experiences with Kapos; his thoughts on spiritual resistance in the camp; his memories of Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938; his involvement in a Kindertransport of children from Berlin to England shortly after Kristallnacht; his memories of life in Berlin before 1933 and how conditions changed for Jews after the Nazis came to power; his memories of the voyage of the St. Louis; his thoughts on revenge; his feelings at the time of liberation; his thoughts on the different types of concentration camps; his thoughts on forced labor and work camps used during the Holocaust; the choices he made in order to survive; how he relied on the friendships with other inmates for support and how he befriended British prisoners of war while in Auschwitz; how age and gender played a role in who survived the Holocaust; and his memories of the "Appel" in Auschwitz.

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