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Oral history interview with Henry Lipschitz

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1996.A.0586.64 | RG Number: RG-50.407.0064

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    Oral history interview with Henry Lipschitz

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Henry Lipschitz (also spelled Lipschutz), born on March 1, 1917 in Poland (possibly in Wieleń), discusses his father, Moishe, and mother, Zesu; his older brother and three younger sisters; his middle-class family’s two flour mills (still in existence); having a traditional Jewish life; the antisemitism among Poles of his village; speaking only Yiddish in the home; how most of his family remained in Poland after Hitler’s rise and ultimately perished; his surprise that the Zionist community also remained in Poland rather than leave for Palestine; being in the army infantry service in early 1939 and encountering antisemitism; after the German victory, witnessing the separation of Jews from Poles and execution of some Jews; being taken to Germany as a POW; being separated into national-religious blocks; being sent home to Poland after the Nazi-Soviet pact; working as a painter for the Nazi occupiers; being sent to the Łódź ghetto in 1942; being rounded up with thousands of Jews and being forced to hold many of them while a German officer named Grosmann shot them; wanting to be shot himself, and not understanding how he survived, but speculating that he was young and strong enough to work; watching his parents and sisters along with over 9,000 (out of a group of approximately 10,000) being sent to Chelmno by truck and hearing of this group’s extermination by gas; believing this story while others did not; not wanting to be interviewed for this story but being urged to do so by his children and grandchildren; joining the fire brigade in the Łódź ghetto; conditions in the ghetto, including starvation; urging mothers to hide their children; watching trainloads of Jews being taken away; not feeling guilty for his killing of about fifteen Germans after the war; Jewish cooperation in selections for transport; final liquidation of the Łódź ghetto in August 1944; being transported by train to Auschwitz; selections at Birkenau; details of existence and struggle for survival in the camp; being sent to Mauthausen and later to Ebensee camp and survival ploys in those places; liberation and brief return to Poland where he found almost no one he knew alive; leaving Poland for Germany, where he met his wife in 1947; immigrating to Australia in 1948; losing his belief in God; and advising Jews of today to fight. [Post-interview, shows various photos, prewar and postwar.]
    Interviewee
    Henry Lipschitz
    Interviewer
    Moshe Morris
    Date
    interview:  1996 July 14

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 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

    Personal Name
    Lipschitz, Henry, 1917-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre conducted the interview on July 14, 1996, in Melbourne, Australia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired the tape of the interview in July 1996.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:29:24
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn505847

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