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Oral history interview with Ernest Fontheim

Oral History | Digitized | RG Number: RG-50.030.0450

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    Oral history interview with Ernest Fontheim
    Transcript
    This is an interview with Ernest Fontheim on March 12, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    And this is tape one, side A.
    My name is Ernest Gunter Fontheim.
    I was born in Berlin, Germany on October 23, 1922.
    Tell me a little bit about your family
    and your life before the war.
    My father was a lawyer and notary,
    which a notary is in Germany a more sort of official position
    than here in this country.
    And it also requires legal training.
    And my mother was actually trained as a French teacher
    but didn't practice it.
    She actually spoke fluent French.
    But she didn't teach school.
    I also had a sister, five years younger than I.
    Her name was Eva Irene.
    She was born in 1927.
    My family background was that I--
    my parents were completely assimilated in German culture
    and the German way of life.
    And there were very few sort of Jewish observances.
    My mother went with us to the synagogue on the high holidays.
    That is the only thing I remember.
    I remember much more distinctly, however,
    that we celebrated Christmas.
    We had a Christmas tree every year.
    Santa Claus came and distributed gifts.
    And I woke up really knowing very little about being Jewish,
    except I knew that I was Jewish.
    Also my father had a very extensive library.
    He was actually generally very widely read
    and widely educated.
    I do not remember any Jewish books.
    The books that we had were just general literature,
    German writers, Shakespeare, of course.
    And the particular pride of my father
    was a 54 volume edition of the collected works of Goethe,
    the German playwright and philosopher
    of the early 19th century.
    And we were, as far as I can tell, relatively well-off.
    We went on summer vacations every year.
    And I particularly was sent during the summer vacations
    from maybe the age of 10 on or so to a camp.
    These camps were usually all Jewish camps.
    They were headed usually by a Jewish sports teacher
    and were located--
    they were different from American camps
    in that they didn't have a specific camp location.
    But instead, the head of the camp, the sports teacher,
    would contract with some vacation owner of a building,
    of a vacation house in the mountains
    or near the sea to rent that house for a period of about
    four weeks, I guess, or six weeks.
    And then he would take the kids to that place and, of course,
    with a number of assistants and so on.
    I personally would have liked much better
    to be going on vacations with my parents.
    But my father worked very hard.
    And I was always told that my father
    needed sort of complete rest and relaxation.
    And that it was just too much of a commotion
    if we kids would also come along.
    And usually what happened was after a few days of being
    homesick, then I got sort of sucked
    into the activities of the camp, made some friends.
    And then in some of the cases actually some school friends
    of mine from the school in Berlin were at the same camp,
    so I had already ready made friends there.
    And from then on, I usually enjoyed these vacations.
    My contact with Judaism really became stronger basically
    as a result of two events.
    The first one was Hitler's assumption
    of power in January 1933.
    Where-- in the school where I was,
    I was made to feel that I was different.
    Although the first year, there was very little Nazi activity
    in the school.
    The school I went to, incidentally,
    was the Mommsen Gymnasium, named after the German historian
    of the Roman Empire Theodore Mommsen
    who actually personally was a very liberal-minded historian.
    And gymnasium or gymnasium in German
    means really classical high school.
    I-- that school received, got a new principal in the year 1934.
    He was a retired Army Colonel who had fought the First World
    War and also was a through and through convinced
    Nazi ideologue.
    And right after his assumption of the principalship,
    he announced in a school assembly
    that it was his goal to make the school
    a sort of a sample for Nazi ideological indoctrination.
    At that point, many Jewish kids were
    taken out of that school by their parents
    and sent for other schools.
    I stayed in.
    And after one year of that principal, only two kid--
    Jewish kids were left, another boy and I.
    The principal introduced all kinds of new activities.
    Like, for example, before the beginning of the school
    day, the entire school had to assemble
    for a sort of like a war military roll call.
    Behind the school building, there was a big sports field.
    And we assembled there and had to stand at military attention
    and while the principal read a particular paragraph that he
    had selected for that day out of Hitler's book Mein Kampf,
    as sort of motto for the day.
    And during lunch hour, after we had eaten our food,
    we usually marched, the entire school, in military formation
    through the streets of the neighborhood singing
    Nazi songs.
    [CLEARS THROAT]
    After one year of his principalship, as I said,
    there were two kids left.
    And he asked us to come into his office.
    And that-- in Germany where the principal in general
    is a fellow of a much more fearsome authority
    than he is here now, in addition to that, of course,
    we know where he stood for, though it was a somewhat
    intimidating experience.
    When we were in his office, he told us
    that he could not really see having Jewish children
    in his school, which he wanted to make as a purely
    Germanic or Aryan school, as serving
    as a sample for all other schools in Germany.
    But he also had no legal way to expel us from the school.
    So he thought about it and came to the following conclusion
    that there were basically two options,
    either our parents withdrew us voluntarily
    or he would simply resign the principalship because he
    would not be able under those conditions
    to carry out his goals.
    And with that message, we were sent home.
    Our fathers got together on the telephone
    and discussed that this was obviously a veiled threat.
    And we were never sent back to that school.
    I was surprised when you mentioned that you
    were sent to a Jewish camp.
    Oh, yeah, well, after 1933, there
    was increasing pressure really for to keep Jews and non-Jews
    apart.
    I think maybe in '33 or '34, I may still
    have been in a mixed camp.
    But after that, such camps simply didn't exist anymore.
    Actually there was an additional reason,
    that all youth activities for Germans
    were progressively taken over by the Hitler Youth Organization.
    They went on summer excursions, on hikes, and so on.
    And German children, initially, were just sort of
    socially pressured to participate.
    But I think in the mid-'30s, I don't remember the year,
    maybe '36 or so, it was actually made compulsory that every
    German kid as a boy had--
    so sorry, had to be in the Hitler Youth.
    And it had a parallel growth organization which was called--
    well, it was a German word.
    Bund Deutscher Madel means association of German girls.
    And girls were compulsory in that organization.
    And if there were any organization outside
    of the Hitler Youth, they definitely
    would not be permitted to have any Jewish children in them.
    So that was not a religious thing.
    These camps-- actually I remember
    one camp where I was where the head was actually
    a woman sports teacher.
    And she was a very strong Zionist.
    And she would have Friday evening
    sort of Shabbat ceremonies and carry
    on other Jewish activities.
    And in all the other camps, they were
    Jewish only to the extent that both the head and teachers, as
    well as all the kids, were Jews.
    But otherwise, there were no Jewish-related activities
    there.
    Now prior to Hitler, do you remember any instances
    of anti-Semitism?
    Did you get along well with your neighbors and your schoolmates?
    Yes.
    No, I mean, I don't remember such instances.
    I always got along.
    The strange thing is that practically all,
    with one exception, all of my friends
    were always Jewish kids.
    That happened somehow naturally, I don't know.
    There was surely no--
    I wasn't told by my parents to have
    Jewish friends exclusively.
    But that's the way it turned out.
    And but even after Hitler came to power, I had--
    I mean, I had no--
    I do not remember any incidents where
    I was either attacked or had any violence on the part
    of my German schoolchildren.
    In fact, initially my reaction to the Nazi seizure of power
    was that I felt sorry for myself for not being an Aryan,
    I mean a German kid, that I couldn't participate in all the
    what I considered fun things that they were doing,
    you know, games and so on.
    And it was really only after I was expelled
    from the German school--
    actually, let me back up.
    I said earlier that my relationship to Judaism
    changed drastically for two reasons.
    I mean, one was Hitler's accession
    to power, which basically forced me to confront my Jewishness.
    The other was my bar mitzvah, which
    came up in 1935, which required me to take several times
    a week preparatory lessons both for the Parsha which
    I was going to read from the Torah
    on the Shabbat doing services on my bar mitzvah,
    as well as additional sort of Jewish history and some Hebrew.
    And that-- and then on top of it also in 1935
    was my expulsion from the Mommsen Gymnasium
    by this anti-Semitic principle.
    And my parents then transferred me
    to a very Orthodox Jewish school.
    That has always been a puzzle in my mind.
    My parents never explained it.
    There were other Jewish schools, which were much less orthodox.
    But they transferred me to the most orthodox of Jewish schools
    in Berlin.
    In fact, it was a school associated with a sort
    of separatist congregation.
    All of the rest of the Jewish community
    was in one large sort of super congregation.
    I think that is in most European cities
    like that where Jewish communal life is handled
    by one big congregation.
    And that congregation also is responsible for building
    synagogues according to different needs.
    I mean, there were one or two reform synagogue--
    oh--
    Sorry.
    There were one or two reform synagogues in Berlin
    and many what was called liberal synagogues.
    That was a sort of predominant denomination.
    In spite of the name, the liberal synagogues
    were about very close to what is called conservative here
    in this country.
    The service was almost entirely in Hebrew
    with only one or two prayers in German.
    However, in most liberal synagogues,
    organs were also present.
    And otherwise the service, also the selection of prayers,
    was basically the same as that in the conservative synagogues
    and a much more extensive than in reform
    synagogues in this country.
    But all of the synagogues were essentially the responsibility
    of the central congregation.
    And also there were a number of orthodox synagogues.
    But the school into which I was transferred to
    was from a separatist, very orthodox congregation,
    affiliated with the Agudath Israel,
    which is a worldwide sort of umbrella organization
    of orthodox congregations.
    I think the reason was that school
    had an excellent reputation.
    While it obviously taught a lot of Judaism, Hebrew
    and Jewish history and so on, but there, of course,
    they still--
    they were governed by the German education law
    and had to provide, therefore, all of the curriculum
    that regular German schools had to offer
    in mathematics and science and literature and so on.
    But obviously, that was a tremendous change for me,
    well, of a change of cultures coming
    from that militaristic Nazi school,
    now to a very Orthodox Jewish school, which
    at the beginning when I came there
    seemed to be without any semblance of discipline.
    I myself have always been somewhat of a rebel
    in the sense that I resented authority.
    And even in the Mommsen Gymnasium,
    which was governed, I mean, by this Prussian ex-officer,
    there were a number of boys to whom I also
    belonged to that have tried to get away with things.
    Now when I came to the Jewish school,
    I really revelled in the fact that there seemed
    to be no discipline at all.
    And people even talk back to their teachers.
    And I must say I enjoyed that very much.
    And in spite of that, the funny thing is I learned.
    You know, the thing is that the excuse for extreme discipline
    is always that it is needed in order for the kids to learn.
    I mean, I realize there has to be
    a certain amount of discipline.
    But in the German schools, at least at the Nazi time,
    that was an ideology by itself to in its own right,
    discipline, of course, as a provocation for later military.
    Now didn't you experience anti-Semitism
    from your schoolmates at the Mommsen school?
    I don't think-- no, I didn't.
    In fact, one--
    I remember that one of my non-Jewish,
    we weren't really friends, but we sort of spend some time
    together frequently in school doing inter--
    doing intermissions and so on, recess
    is the word, doing recess.
    He was-- he had joined the Hitler Youth.
    And he had given me a small Hitler Youth
    pennant with a swastika which I proudly displayed.
    And unfortunately, it turned out that on that day
    we had at home a party, I forgot what the cause was.
    There were relatives there.
    And of course, all the people who came were Jews.
    And in the middle of it, I burst with my swastika flag
    and holding it proudly and marched in there.
    And I remember that my mother took me
    very forcefully by my arm, took me out to my room,
    and gave me a horrific beating, and told me that I should never
    dare to bring that flag home.
    Then she tore it up.
    And I felt terribly sorry for myself
    and thought of as a victim of--
    but as I said, that was in the beginning
    when I felt that being Jewish was basically a punishment.
    And it took a number of jolts for me
    to realize really what was behind that and also what
    my Judaism really meant to me.
    The anti-Semitism that I encountered
    was mainly from the teachers.
    That principle I-- maybe I forgot to mention that.
    He also taught.
    That was common in German schools.
    And he was our math teacher.
    And he made frequent anti-Semitic remarks
    and derogatory remarks about Jews in his mathematics class.
    And then we had a German teacher who
    was, if anything, even worse.
    And on the other hand, some of the older teachers
    were very Democratic.
    Our Latin teacher, who was an elderly gentleman, in fact
    was the only teacher with whom--
    to whom my mother took me after I
    left school [? very ?] from one day to the next to say goodbye.
    And he lived only a few blocks away from us.
    And we went there.
    And he was, I still remember it, very nice to me
    and shook my hand and wished me all best of luck for my future.
    So I think some of the older teachers
    were definitely not Nazis.
    And most of the younger ones were.
    And in addition, of course, the principal,
    who was an elderly gentleman, he must have been already
    in his late 50s at that time.
    How did you feel hearing these remarks by your teachers?
    Do you remember?
    I felt hurt basically.
    And I mean, I felt that, I mean, it was really
    like a physical slap in the face,
    except this was not physical but emotional.
    And I mean, I felt, even at that time,
    that the men had no reason to attack me that way.
    Did you talk about this with your parents?
    Did they make some sense out of it for you?
    I don't remember it.
    But it's possible that I did.
    I don't-- I mean, there are many things that I don't really
    understand about my parents.
    And I feel in a way terrible about it.
    Of course, in the beginning, I was too little.
    But later on, I was a teenager and then
    finally an upper teenager and even 20 years old by the time
    they were arrested.
    And but I don't--
    I don't really understand many of the actions they took
    and their motivations.
    And I've-- that is one of the things I've been trying
    for years and years sort of to reconstruct,
    no understanding now how they thought and what their mental
    sort of outlook was to explain, you know,
    why they acted the way they did.
    It's very different.
    I mean, for example, my father's decision
    during the first year of Hitler not to emigrate was based--
    that is one thing, one of the few things I can understand,
    as strange as it may sound.
    But the thing was that Jewish lawyers,
    the large group of Jews-- or the majority of Jewish lawyers
    were disbarred within a few weeks
    after the Nazis took power.
    There were two groups of lawyers which were exempted,
    one were the frontline soldiers from World War
    I, which my father was not.
    And the other one were lawyers who had already
    been admitted to the bar under the Kaiser, that
    means before the--
    before the outbreak of World War I. And that's the category
    my father fell in.
    And many of the lawyers who were then disbarred
    lost their livelihood overnight.
    And the only thing they could do,
    unless they wanted to dig ditches in Germany,
    was to emigrate.
    And most of them did.
    And on the other hand, my father always
    considered himself lucky that he was exempted.
    Because he-- at each stage of the Nazi development
    of the anti-Semitic policies, the Jews
    always were under the illusion that this is the way.
    OK, the Nazis want to do business and that's--
    but we can live with it.
    And that's the way it's going to remain.
    In retrospect, the fact that my father
    was in one of the exempted groups was not his luck,
    but it was his death sentence.
    Because otherwise he would have left Germany.
    He-- in fact, one remark I still remember vividly,
    when others urged him to emigrate, he would say,
    here I am a lawyer.
    If I go to New York, all I can become is a dishwasher.
    And what should I do with German law in New York?
    And, you know, logically that made total sense.
    In '35, who would have ever thought of gas chambers.
    And plus the thought also was that since Hitler
    was constantly breaking agreements
    with the Allies, particularly Britain and France,
    that one of these days they would have enough and just take
    care of him.
    At that time, their military force
    was still much bigger than that of Germany.
    And my father thought, if I stay here,
    then I'll just pick up where I left off in '33.
    And all of that, if I think back,
    really made sense and the framework--
    I mean, putting myself into the framework of my parents
    at that time and, of course, ignoring
    the history that occurred later, which is just hindsight.
    I mean, obviously, my parents also were--
    and that may have been in general in those days--
    very, what should I say, sort of withdrawn
    in terms of say financial things and so on.
    I mean, they never discussed any of these things
    with us, even as I got older.
    But I am now certain looking back
    that the income of my father from his law practice
    must have plummeted.
    Because, I mean, first of all, many of his clients
    were Gentiles.
    And there was to--
    if a German Gentile, so-called Aryan,
    appeared in court with a Jewish lawyer,
    that already was not one strike but 10 strikes against him.
    And most of the judges were fierce Nazis.
    So who would want a Jewish lawyer?
    And so I'm sure that most of the non-Jewish clients
    must have left him.
    Of course, he may have picked up some Jewish clients
    because-- from those lawyer, Jewish lawyers,
    who were disbarred.
    I don't know how that evened out.
    But I'm fairly certain that his income
    must have declined after '33.
    He had actually a very well going practice.
    He had a member--
    he used to talk about one of the most famous German movie
    actresses he represented in her divorce.
    And then he had some members of the Hohenzollern family,
    that was the family of the last German Kaiser.
    In fact, the nephew of the Kaiser and his mother,
    who was a sister-in-law of the Kaiser, were his clients.
    And in fact, they stuck with him till the end.
    That's very interesting.
    But his-- their cases did never involve court appearances.
    He sort of drew up personal worlds for them
    and made property arrangements and advice and things
    like that, where he didn't really
    appear in public for them.
    Let me see.
    Well, why don't-- let me ask you.
    Oh, yep.
    Hitler came to power.
    Can you kind of describe to me the progression of the events
    and regulations and--
    Well--
    --policy that altered your life and your lifestyle?
    In the beginning, I mean, I must say also
    one thing is my parents, in retrospect,
    made-- must have made heroic efforts to insulate us children
    from all of these events.
    Initially, we didn't notice anything.
    In fact, that is a little story that I didn't really
    plan to tell you.
    But I was-- in January '33, I was 10 years old.
    And I had scarlet fever.
    It's a childhood disease which doesn't exist anymore.
    But in those days, kids had it.
    And our pediatrician, who was also
    a distant relative, it was still in the days of house calls,
    came every day and looked me over, looked into my throat,
    and so on.
    And he came at a certain time, in the morning at some point.
    And it was sort of a regular routine.
    The bell would ring.
    My mother would come into my room with him.
    And then he would examine me.
    On one day, and now I know it was the 30th of January 1933.
    Instead of coming in, my mother and he
    were outside the door of my room, but with the door closed,
    and sort of in a low voice, which I couldn't understand,
    kept talking and talking and talking.
    And finally, they came in.
    And I was very sort of disappointed,
    not only because of the change in routine
    but somehow I wasn't that important.
    And they talked.
    And then I asked them, what's the matter?
    And my mother said in a grave voice,
    Hitler has just been appointed chancellor.
    And at that time, it sort of went in here, out there.
    It didn't mean anything.
    I knew I was 10 years old.
    So as a German.
    There had been several elections before.
    So the house walls and public places
    were plastered with election placards.
    And so I remember having seen, Vote for Hitler and Vote
    for Thalmann, who was a Communist Party
    leader, and Vote for this man.
    And Germany also had many parties.
    And so vaguely the name Hitler rang a bell.
    But I had no idea basically who he was,
    what he stood for, and so on.
    Now coming specifically to your question,
    the first real change was that eviction
    from the Mommsen Gymnasium.
    Before that, the laws, you know, there were laws, of course,
    as I said, about disbarring lawyers.
    Well, it didn't affect me.
    And it didn't-- unfortunately, it did not affect my father
    either.
    And then there were many other--
    there were not too many laws until '35.
    In '35, the so-called Nuremberg laws
    were passed, which actually defined Jews
    as second-class citizens.
    But that also had no immediate effect.
    The main effect was also that Jews not only could not
    marry a Gent--
    I mean, Aryan Gentiles.
    But even the act of intercourse without being married
    was a punishable offense.
    And but obviously, I was 12, 13 years old,
    that was the last thing on my mind.
    So and second-class citizenship had, of course,
    trickled through and had many other effects,
    which at that point did not affect me yet.
    But as I said, the eviction from the school did.
    But also our lifestyle never changed.
    I mean, we went on-- my parents went on their summer vacations.
    And my sister and I went to our camps.
    And we had, I mean, we were clothed.
    We had food to eat.
    And in fact, oh yeah, big change also
    was that the Nazis were totally obsessed, I mean, with the idea
    that the Jews were sort of spoiling the German race.
    And most Jewish families, at least
    middle and upper middle classes, had maids.
    And in those days, maids were usually live-in maids.
    And as one of the outgrowth of the Nuremberg laws
    was that any Jewish household which
    has a male, a Jewish male in the household,
    was forbidden to have a German maid who
    is below 45 years of age.
    So we had--
    I think we had one at a time.
    So we had to dismiss her and took an older woman.
    You could take an older one.
    I mean, that was all that obsession
    with-- that maybe a Jew would then
    father an illegitimate child with such a maid.
    I don't even know whether maybe there were such cases.
    But they were-- it was almost a sickness with the Nazis.
    Well anyway, I then started at the Jewish school.
    And I remember there were several kids besides myself
    in my grade who started new there.
    Now, we were up to grade level in all the general subjects,
    like math, German, and so on.
    But in the Jewish subjects and particularly in Hebrew,
    our classmates were already freely translating
    the Torah, the Tanakh, the entire Bible from English--
    from Hebrew into German.
    And I could barely sort of read stammeringly
    and so did the others.
    So they instituted a sort of second track Hebrew
    for us assimilated kids.
    And for the first class, the principal, a Dr. Schlesinger,
    came in to give us a little pep talk
    about the importance of knowing Hebrew for Jewish children.
    And after he was finished, he said, OK, tomorrow
    will be the first--
    now he dismissed us.
    Tomorrow will be the first real class.
    And we are supposed to bring, he wrote on the board,
    a certain grammar by so-and-so, which
    you could buy at some bookstore that he named,
    and a copy of the Chumash.
    And as soon as he said that, my arm shot up.
    And he pointed at me.
    And I asked, what is a Chumash?
    And that question completely floored that principal.
    He couldn't imagine a Jewish boy asking,
    being so unbelievably ignorant that he wouldn't
    knowing what a Chumash is.
    And so all he could-- he sort of walked--
    and also he was a short, very thin, wiry man
    with a reddish goatee, a bald head but a fringe of red hair
    onto his back of his head.
    And his entire head, as I remember it,
    turned red, just as his beard.
    He walked toward me.
    And finally, I guess, he took some time
    to think about what to say.
    And then he said, you are a Jew.
    And you don't know what a Chumash is.
    And of course, that question totally demolished me.
    And I sat down and felt as if I had said something that--
    This is an interview with Ernest Fontheim on March 12, 1997.
    Tape one, side B.
    Yeah, my immediate reaction was that I was totally embarrassed
    by the principal's remark.
    And but soon, as a result of the very strong Jewish education,
    which was part of the curriculum in that school,
    I started to become more and more interested in that.
    The name of the school actually, that is very important,
    was Adas Israel.
    It means Jewish congregation or Jewish community.
    And it came to the point even where
    I decided that I wanted to become a rabbi when I grow up
    and--
    which very much upset my father particularly.
    I started to go regularly to a Shabbat services.
    And Berlin had many synagogues.
    And as I said before, there was only one congregation which
    ran all of the synagogues in Berlin and also the rabbis,
    therefore, were not confined to one synagogue.
    So one didn't have to put up with the same rabbi Shabbat
    after Shabbat, the way it is here, for example,
    in this country, where each congregation has its own rabbi.
    But instead, the rabbi circulated.
    But obviously, Berlin is a big city.
    And it was taken for granted that they
    would take public transport to go
    to the various synagogues, which were widely scattered
    in different parts of the city.
    So I particularly became very fond
    of two rabbis who were both very dynamic
    and also gave me a lot of moral support in their sermons.
    One was a Dr. Max Nussbaum who later emigrated to this country
    and became a rabbi in Hollywood, California.
    And the other one was Dr. Manfred Swarsensky
    who came to this country and actually founded a synagogue
    in Madison, Wisconsin.
    I never saw Nussbaum again.
    But Swarsensky, I visited in the mid-60s
    when I went to a scientific conference in Madison.
    I knew he was there, so I contacted him before.
    And we set up a luncheon where we
    spent several hours together, just talking and reminiscing.
    I-- yeah, in that, so the years went by from '35 to '38.
    And by 1938, I must have been in about the 10th grade.
    And in October 1938, the German police
    arrested all Jews who had Polish passports overnight
    without any prior warning.
    In fact, they came in the early morning hours and put them on--
    into railroad cars which were already prepared beforehand.
    And they were shipped off to Poland.
    And the only thing the Germans saw to it
    was that they had their Polish passports with them.
    Because by international law, the Poles
    had to admit anyone who had a valid Polish passport.
    And there were quite a number of kids from my class
    affected by that and even a few teachers who
    didn't appear on the next day.
    What did-- what were you thinking
    when all this was happening?
    That was terrible.
    I mean, I still remember--
    I mean, these kids that was actually the first foretaste
    of the later deportations.
    I mean, people just vanished overnight.
    They didn't-- the day before, nobody knew anything.
    They didn't know.
    We didn't know.
    And on the next day, they just didn't appear in school.
    Our Hebrew teacher was one of them.
    And then several kids--
    one of them, but that's besides the point here,
    I met again 30 years later in Israel
    where he is, oh gosh, by now he must be retired.
    He was a professor of classical languages at Hebrew University.
    What's surprising me about what you're telling me is that
    you're-- what I'm understanding here is that, until 1938,
    your life went on pretty much the way it had before except
    for that you changed schools.
    You haven't described any real hardships
    or laws or regulations that affected you personally.
    Is that true?
    That's true.
    I mean, that was my--
    I mean, first of all, it's 50, 60 years later,
    what I remember now.
    But I think my memory is pretty good
    as far as that is concerned.
    That doesn't mean that these regulations didn't exist.
    They-- but they didn't really touch me personally.
    And as I said, after I've read a lot of what happened
    in those days, and I see now that my parents must
    have made a sort of monumental effort
    to keep things away from us.
    That's the only explanation I have.
    Well, one thing that I noticed also maybe in my life and that
    was that earlier I think in either late '37 or early
    '38, all Jewish stores were required to put the names
    of their owners in letters of a prescribed size on the store
    window and not in an artistic way as an--
    so in a way that identified the store as a Jewish store
    because no other store, in white paint, of a prescribed size.
    But again, we didn't have a store.
    I just-- I noticed that this is what
    happening-- what was happening.
    Another thing that's happened also
    was that all Jews were forced to adopt
    an additional middle name, males, the name Israel,
    and females, the name Sarah.
    I guess here in this country, there
    are many non-Jews, Jewish women, who are called Sarah.
    But in Germany, the name Sarah is totally unknown.
    It was purely a Jewish name and Israel, anyway.
    So and also, the law stipulated not only
    that we had to take those names but that we
    had to use it, particularly in all communications
    with government agencies, also with commercial enterprises
    and so on.
    Like I had to call myself Ernest Israel Fontheim, written out.
    And my father had to do the same thing.
    It was of course also a humiliation.
    And in addition to that, it was a sort
    of signal for the recipient, ah-ha,
    this is a Jew who's writing to me.
    Could you play in public parks?
    Could you ride--
    Yeah.
    --on buses?
    Yeah.
    You could do all of that stuff.
    Right.
    At that time, there were no restrictions
    of any sort to our life.
    We could go to movie theaters.
    I could go to-- now, there were places which on their own
    initiative had posted signs, Jews of [GERMAN] Juden
    Unerwünscht in German.
    That means Jews are not desired here, actually,
    to translate it literally.
    But what it means really it means for Jews forbidden.
    That was already there were, for example, many benches on parks.
    Because, again, the Nazis with their obsession with sex
    had that idea that maybe a German woman might
    sit on a park bench and then some Jewish man
    might sit next to her and start to some dirty business with her
    on that.
    And that was-- and so a German woman cannot be expected to sit
    next to a Jew on a park bench.
    But whatever, that started up.
    And then, as I said, certain maybe some restaurants but--
    and we didn't go much to restaurants anyway so.
    It might have--
    Did you-- did you know about the book--
    that huge book burning earlier?
    At that time, I don't remember it.
    I remember, obviously, having heard about it.
    But that happened, I think, in '33 or '34.
    And I was 10 or 11 years old then.
    So--
    So your family insulated you to the extent
    that you weren't particularly distressed or fearful.
    That's correct, yeah.
    Could you sense any change in your parents or, I don't know,
    relatives or friends?
    Yeah.
    Oh yeah, I mean that I should mention.
    I mean there was a stream of people who emigrated, you know,
    some uncle, some cousin.
    You know, there was well and always the farewells.
    And friends of mine, the parents emigrated.
    And of course, the kid then went along.
    I should say I had a best friend in the--
    this Adass Jisroel school.
    He was a boy, a very interesting boy.
    In fact, we became best friends initially
    because we both were new in that class
    but from totally different background.
    He came-- his parents had moved from Vienna to Berlin.
    They were Austrian Jews.
    But the parents were, of course, born before World War I,
    like all of our parents.
    And before World War I, the Austria Hungarian Empire
    included southern Poland and particularly most of Galicia,
    in Poland.
    And his parents actually were orthodox
    Jews from Galicia, who had, however,
    left there I think before the war already,
    had settled in Vienna.
    And so they were then by citizenship,
    they were-- they were Austrian Jews.
    And they came to Berlin.
    It might sound strange, since Austria at that time
    was still a democracy.
    But his father had some business.
    I think, he sort of administered buildings.
    And as an Austrian, he was not subject.
    He was a foreigner.
    Foreign Jews were not subject to all these anti-Semitic laws.
    And so we-- and in fact, I--
    that was, this friend also influenced me in that.
    And then I took him also to services,
    to a liberal synagogue with the organ.
    And he found that very impressive.
    And so we influenced each other.
    And we stuck together.
    He was a very bright boy.
    And on the 13th of March 1938, that was the day
    Hitler marched into Austria.
    I never forget that.
    I visited him.
    I saw his father sit in the dining
    room with his head in his hands like that and crying.
    Because he knew that his game was up now.
    Now, he was also German and subject to all the laws.
    And to see a father cry is a incredibly powerful experience
    for--
    and also a devastating experience for a boy,
    totally devastating.
    And then the parents then finally decided
    to send their boy out to England.
    As you may know, the England had relatively liberal immigration
    for Jewish children.
    And they [INAUDIBLE].
    They were, of course, orthodox.
    And they enrolled him in a yeshiva
    in Scotland and ostensibly for him to become a rabbi,
    which he never did.
    But that was the rules under which he
    could get out and into England.
    And that was actually the first personal blow in my life.
    And also for that reason, I never forgot the date.
    It was January 18, 1938.
    And I was at the railroad station
    together with his parents, of course, to say goodbye.
    And he was my best friend.
    And I had lost him.
    And, but of course, the year 1938 then
    had many other horrible things happening.
    I mentioned the arrest and deportation of the Polish Jews.
    And then, just a few weeks later,
    two or three weeks later, came the infamous Kristallnacht
    pogrom.
    Of course, the two events were not unrelated.
    Among the people who were arbitrarily
    arrested and shipped to Poland was an elderly couple,
    Greenspan, who entered.
    And the Poles, of course, claimed
    they didn't know what to do with all those Jews,
    so they put them into camps in inhuman conditions.
    And they had lived in Germany, I'm
    not sure whether in Berlin or some other city.
    Anyway, they had a son, Herschel,
    whom they had sent to Paris to relatives because it became--
    Berlin became too oppressive.
    And he lived with an uncle in Paris.
    And when the parent-- when the parents wrote
    to him a letter of desperation, and he became so furious.
    He obtained a gun and decided to assassinate
    the German ambassador to Paris.
    But, you know, if a 16-year-old boy enters an embassy and says
    he wants to talk to the ambassador, that's not whom
    he's going to see, obviously.
    And so they ushered him in to some underling, some consular
    secretary or someone.
    His name was Ernst vom Rath.
    And history probably would never know him
    if it hadn't been for Grynszpan to pull his pistol
    and assassinate him there.
    And the German government, on the other hand,
    used that as a pretext to stage these pogroms.
    And that was a starting at night from November 9th
    to 10th for several days.
    I mean, synagogues were burned.
    Jewish shops and now, of course, you
    see, since the Jewish shops all had
    to be labeled with the names of the owner,
    it never said Jewish shop.
    But it was known that the stores which
    had the name of the author, of the owner
    in this particular prescribed way these
    were the Jewish stores.
    So it was clear for the mob which
    windows to smash and loot.
    And--
    What were you doing during the time of Kristallnacht?
    What were you-- what did you see?
    Yeah.
    I am-- on that day in the morning,
    where we lived there were, at least on my way
    to the whatever, what's it called,
    the station that I had to take a commuter train to--
    into the city to that school, I didn't pass any shops.
    They were all just apartment houses.
    So I knew nothing.
    That was the morning of the 10th now.
    It was a Thursday.
    So I took the train.
    And I went to school.
    And as soon as I was in the school,
    I realized what was then--
    first of all, many kids weren't there.
    And those who were there told horror stories
    of passing shops that had been smashed and looted.
    And then the next thing that was unusual is that, you know,
    the school day starts at 8:00 sharp.
    The bell is ringing.
    And then the normal thing would be
    that the teacher would appear at the crack of the bell.
    Well, no teacher, not just in our class
    but in the neighboring, in no class any teacher
    was to be seen.
    And after some time, I don't remember,
    it was half an hour or whatever.
    All the teachers came from the teacher's conference then
    with the following instructions, that there was unrest
    all over Berlin.
    And the safety of the school cannot be guaranteed.
    And furthermore, we should go home.
    But we should go home alone.
    If we go in groups, that might attract mobs.
    And just a single boy can sort of slip under unrecognized.
    And also, we should not go to friends.
    Because our parents might get worried.
    We should only go at the shortest way and fastest way
    home, so the parents know we are safe.
    And there won't be any school for the time being.
    We'll be notified when the school will start up again.
    And then--
    So you went home?
    Yes.
    The commuter train was an elevated train.
    And it passed by the synagogue where--
    sorry-- where I had my bar mitzvah.
    And what I saw there was really one of the worst
    horrible shocks in my life.
    I-- it was a beautiful building with huge,
    three huge domes sort of in moorish style.
    And from the central dome came a huge thick column of smoke.
    And when I saw that, I became so obsessed
    that I forgot the warning that was given
    to us to go straight home.
    At the next train stop, I left the train.
    And I raced back to the building and to the synagogue.
    And what I saw there is there was
    a mob of people across the street held back
    by a police line.
    And the fire department was there,
    hosing down adjacent buildings so
    to prevent the flames from doing damage to German property.
    And no hose was directed at the synagogue.
    And that-- I just stood there.
    I was-- I was totally sort of hypnotized almost by it.
    That was something.
    That I couldn't even imagined that something like that
    could happen.
    And-- and then there were many anti-Semitic sort
    of shouts from the mob.
    I mean like, I don't know, like throw out the Jews
    or kill the Jews.
    And it never occurred to me that I was one
    and in the middle of that mob.
    And then suddenly somebody said that in the house against which
    the mob was sort of standing looking at the synagogue,
    on the ground floor, somebody knew there was a Jew living.
    So there were immediate shouts, let's get him.
    And then the mob turned its back to the synagogue
    and was [? open ?] to the house itself.
    And then I heard sort of heavy blows
    against the apartment door.
    And I was way outside.
    I couldn't see what's happening there.
    And all I could think was I hope that the door is going to hold.
    And I remember that was sort of as if I was trying
    to influence the door to hold.
    But of course, it didn't.
    And I could hear sort of splintering wood.
    And then after that, there was total silence.
    It lasted for minutes, not a sound.
    And then I heard again shouts, like get him, get him.
    And then there was an elderly man at home.
    All I remember seeing, he had a huge bald head.
    He was probably 60 or I don't know how old he was.
    And then from all sides, there were blows and at
    his face soon was completely bloodied.
    And suddenly there was a young man who shouted,
    you cowards, so many all fighting
    against one single guy.
    And then some others tried to attack that man
    and sort of pushed him away.
    And then once he was pushed through the crowd,
    there was police already waiting in the car
    as if this was all staged.
    I have no idea.
    And he was pushed awfully into the car
    and the police drove him off.
    And after I saw that, I turned around and went back
    to the train and went home.
    So the year 1938 was really, for me, was a big turning point.
    It started out with the emigration
    of my best friend, which was a tremendous personal loss
    for me, then the arrest of the Polish Jews,
    [BLOWING NOSE] where I also knew quite a number, including
    some of my teachers, and then the Kristallnacht.
    So I stayed home as we were told on Friday.
    And on Saturday, one of my friends
    had a birthday party that already was long planned.
    And so I went there.
    And we had hardly come there when
    somebody, I think one of the boys,
    came in saying that his father had just
    been arrested by the Gestapo.
    And that the-- and that the Gestapo
    is arresting Jewish men.
    So the party never took place.
    We all immediately raced.
    In those days, Saturday was a weekday.
    So my father was in his office.
    And actually, it was not too far.
    It was several blocks from where the birthday party was
    supposed to take place.
    So I raced to his office.
    And just when I came in, he said he had just
    received an urgent telephone call
    from a colleague, a German, I mean, Aryan colleague,
    to see him immediately on an important matter.
    And he asked me to come along.
    I was at that time 16 years old.
    And so we went to that colleague.
    It was two blocks from my father's office.
    And it was a certain Dr Külz.
    He was a few years somewhat younger than my father.
    And his father, Dr Külz father, had also himself been lawyer.
    But more importantly, he had been minister of the interior
    in one of the pre-Hitler governments of the Weimar
    Republic.
    And in Germany, like I think in many European countries,
    the police is within the interior ministry, sort
    of an agency, I mean, like somewhat comparable to the FBI
    here, which is in the Justice Department.
    But there the police, the entire police organization
    is national.
    It's not local like in this country.
    And anyway, the father still had close contacts
    to high police official and had learned, therefore,
    of this action against--
    for the arrest of Jewish men.
    And in those days also everybody was paranoiac but probably was
    justification that the Gestapo was
    listening on telephone calls.
    So therefore, the son, who my father actually
    knew the son better than the father,
    had I think done legal cases together with him.
    And the son did not say anything over the phone,
    just told my father to see him in his office
    on an important matter.
    And my father then was ushered in
    and asked me to stay outside of the waiting room.
    And they were quite a time together there.
    And then they came out again.
    Then my father told me that that lawyer
    had warned him not to go back to his office
    or, of course, not to his home apartment and to--
    it is safe, however, to stay at places where
    there are no Jewish males.
    Well, fortunately, my father's sister, who was a widow,
    and she had three children, two daughters and a son.
    One daughter had already emigrated to Argentina.
    And the son had just left a few months
    or so before Kristallnacht also for Argentina.
    So it was just his sister and their remaining daughter.
    So in other words, there were no males in that household.
    So my father immediately went there.
    The Gestapo came both to our apartment
    and also to the office to inquire.
    And of course, we told them he left and didn't tell us
    where he was going.
    And in those days, the Gestapo still took these relatively
    stupid excuses and just reappeared a few random times,
    maybe hoping to catch him but didn't.
    And that was the second great stroke of luck
    that my father had after having been permitted to practice law.
    The thing was that the Gestapo immediately
    let it be known, yeah, those Jews who were arrested
    were put into concentration camps, for the Berlin Jews
    mainly in the camp Sachsenhausen, which
    is north of Berlin.
    And the treatment, of course, was horrible, full of sadism
    and physical brutality.
    However, in those days at least, there
    were no killing, no mass killings.
    I think a few Jews actually did die off
    due to just mistreatment, I mean,
    which is horrible enough in it's own right.
    But at least, most survived.
    And the Gestapo let it be known that anyone who's
    family can produce an immigration
    visa to another country will be immediately released
    and will have to leave the country within one month,
    giving him one month's time to wind up affairs and so on.
    So but as I said, my father was lucky he was warned.
    He was never arrested.
    And of course, a Jewish relief organizations
    forms the Joint here in America to the local ones in Germany
    now put high pressure on and the first priority
    to get those Jews immigration visas to somewhere, anywhere
    in the world, just to get them out.
    I mean, those who were in concentration camps,
    to save their lives to get them out.
    So--
    Was there-- was there a strong Nazi presence in the streets?
    I mean, were there marches?
    Oh yeah.
    Were there Gestapo?
    Oh yeah, yeah.
    I mean, that is--
    no, Gestapo, by its very nature, is a secret police.
    They weren't civilian.
    And they were, I mean, not conspicuous, even though they
    themselves were everywhere.
    And they had a whole army of informers who were not actually
    Gestapo but reported to them.
    And that was a network, so all Germany.
    I mean maybe I neglected to say that that belongs much earlier.
    As soon as Hitler assumed power, there
    were frequent marches by the SA around.
    They had a fascination with marches, as I said.
    This Mommsen Gymnasium, after that Nazi officer took over,
    one of the things he introduced, as I explained,
    was that during the lunch hour, after eating lunch,
    we always marched onto streets singing songs.
    But the SA, at every whatever occasion and even no occasion,
    they would march around.
    And one of their favorite songs, incidentally,
    was [GERMAN] from [GERMAN] which translated means,
    if Jewish blood squirts from the knives, then things
    will go quite as well.
    I mean to sing a song like that, I mean,
    I listened to it even at that time.
    But the older I get, the more incredible
    it seems to me that somebody, I mean, even
    who hates someone, to sing--
    makes that into a song is so unbelievable
    that it defies description.
    Another song which was their favorite
    was, I'll say it in German first.
    [GERMAN]
    That means, we will continue to march.
    And even if everything breaks down and falls into pieces,
    because today Germany belongs to us
    and tomorrow the entire world.
    And so the-- and then they had all kinds of other songs,
    obviously.
    I mean, these are the things that I never forgot.
    So even if you were insulated, this had to be fairly alarming.
    Yeah, somehow I was--
    I mean, I found it--
    I mean, there were other things that were alarming also.
    There was a weekly newspaper called Der Stürmer,
    as well as the [GERMAN].
    Maybe you heard of it.
    It was published by the Nazi governor
    of the province of Franconia, a man
    named Julius Streicher, which was
    full of anti-Semitic articles and also
    totally fixated on the sexual aspect of anti-Semitism.
    The paper, I mean, that apparently according to that,
    Jews had infinite sexual appetites
    and particularly for little innocent blonde German girls
    to seduce them.
    That was somehow a Jewish command to do that.
    I mean, this is just incredible.
    I mean probably the man must have been sick himself who--
    well, whoever holds these stories.
    And of course, you know, sometimes they were truth.
    They would intermix it with some true stories.
    You know, sometimes a Jew was convicted of some crime.
    Usually, the crimes Jews were convicted of
    were such things as smuggling money out.
    In Germany, foreign exchange was strictly controlled.
    Because the whole economy was managed and controlled.
    And but, you know, Jews, rather than letting the Nazis take it
    all away from them, sometimes tried
    to smuggle some money out.
    And in some cases, they succeeded.
    In other cases, they were caught.
    And that was then always touted as a big crime
    against the German nation.
    That's a Jew.
    And of course, the story always was that the Jew,
    they came with nothing.
    And now, they are rich.
    So that is all just taken away from the--
    from the Germans.
    And you know, there's stories like that.
    And then, of course, there were also
    true stories of where a Jew somehow
    was caught having had a relationship
    with a non-Jewish girl.
    And if that happened, then the Jew
    usually was then came to a concentration camp.
    And those Jews who were there for-- there was actually
    a term, a German term, for that which translated
    means that of defilement of the race.
    And they were mercilessly tortured and punished
    and usually, if they weren't shot outright,
    just died of torture.
    So that newspaper was not just sold in newsstands
    but they had sort of display cases on very strategic points,
    like on busy railroad stations and so on.
    And usually, I ignored it.
    But sometimes I sort of went and read it.
    And somehow I did not relate it to me.
    It's a funny thing.
    But, yeah, and then of course there were--
    Let's stop here.
    Yeah, OK.
    This is an interview with Ernest Fontheim on March 12th, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    This is tape two, side A.
    What affected me actually more than these vicious articles
    in the [NON-ENGLISH] were anti-Semitic articles
    in the general press.
    And I also felt at that time-- and still feel today--
    that they probably were much more effective in influencing
    people than [NON-ENGLISH] articles because the articles
    in [NON-ENGLISH]--
    most of them at least--
    were so outlandish that--
    and also, they were always accompanied
    by horrible caricatures, where a Jew looked
    like a mixture of awe of a gorilla and a human being
    and totally distorted, that I'm sure many people just
    couldn't take it seriously.
    On the other hand, the anti-Semitic articles
    in the general press, which were more subdued and not
    as outwardly ridiculous, and therefore also probably
    appeared more reasonable, probably
    influenced many more people toward increased anti-Semitism.
    And they were-- for example, I have to admit that to some
    extent, even I was influenced by--
    a constant refrain of the German press
    was that the Jews were in charge of all the countries
    that were fighting against Germany, particularly,
    of course, the United States.
    And there was a whole succession of names that always appeared.
    One was that of course of Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court
    justice.
    Another one was Herbert Lehman, the governor of the state
    of New York, I remember.
    And there were one or two other-- oh yeah,
    of course Bernard Baruch, the financier.
    And they made it appear as if these people were
    behind the scenes manipulating.
    And of course, Roosevelt himself,
    whose name was often distorted, as Rosenfeld,
    implying that if he wasn't a Jew, at least he
    was of Jewish descent.
    And after the war, particularly after meeting
    American soldiers--
    and many of them Jewish--
    I was surprised actually, to hear
    that there was large-scale anti-Semitism in this country,
    and that the influence of these Jews was relatively minimal.
    I forgot one name, of course, that
    was Henry Morgenthau, the Secretary of the Treasury
    at that time.
    He was, partly I would say--
    from what I can judge reading history--
    the most influential, in the government at least,
    of the United States.
    And I think he was fairly close to President Roosevelt.
    But it was nothing like that.
    And as the Nazis--
    and I was, I have to admit now, disappointed
    because somehow that part of the Nazi propaganda
    I had started to believe somewhat.
    And by the way, the same thing in the Soviet Union,
    there were lots of Jewish names--
    many of these were actually exterminated by Stalin himself,
    and particularly many of the original revolutionaries,
    starting with Trotsky, of course.
    And there too, actually the fact that there was widespread
    anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union
    and never made it into the German papers.
    It wouldn't have fit their purposes.
    Now the Kristallnacht was not only
    just a devastating, horrible event in my personal life,
    as well as the lives of all Jews in Germany,
    but it represented a watershed because that
    was followed by a avalanche of new laws and regulations
    totally restricting Jews.
    What affected us first of all was
    that the remaining Jewish lawyers were now disbarred.
    So suddenly my father was not only living
    in an anti-Semitic hotbed, like Germany, but on top of it
    he was unemployed here.
    And my parents made, from then on, really desperate efforts
    to get out of the country.
    But by that time, everybody had woken up.
    And I remember once standing in front of the British consulate
    in Berlin, which was in the embassy compound,
    arriving there at 6:00 in the morning,
    just to get some form to fill out.
    And I think by 11:00 or 12:00 or so, finally it
    was my turn to receive those forms.
    I don't know whatever happened.
    But I don't think--
    but obviously, we didn't go to England.
    But neither did I. So I had stood there for nothing.
    And then also that was followed by laws making
    it illegal for a Jew to visit any place of amusement
    or entertainment or general culture.
    That included the whole spectrum, from see a theater,
    symphony, opera, to circuses, county fairs,
    that kind of thing, or you name it-- also public beaches,
    public swimming pools, movie theaters, public parks even--
    parks were much more popular in Germany
    than they are here because most people in this country--
    or at least a high proportion-- live in their own homes
    and have their own gardens.
    In Germany the vast majority, at least at that time,
    lived in apartments.
    And so parks were visited by people just regularly just
    for recreation, just like people here might just
    sit in their backyard.
    Anyway they were now outlawed for Jews.
    From the beginning, I and all of my friends
    totally ignored that law.
    And we just kept going.
    I remember one humorous incident in the summer of 1940.
    The Rome State Opera from Rome, Italy,
    gave a one-week guest appearance at the Berlin State Opera.
    And I had been an opera fan.
    And on the day when the ticket sales started
    for the Rome Opera, everybody knew you had to be there early.
    So I was there I think at 5:00 in the morning or so.
    And there was already a long line.
    And while do you stand in line, of course, for hours, sort
    of treading from left leg to right leg and vise versa,
    you start also with people around you,
    to get acquainted and talk and so on.
    And the advantage of that was that you could then
    ask somebody to hold your place while you--
    it's just easier to take a little walk
    than to stand at the same spot.
    So I did that also.
    While I then took my walk, I walked along the line.
    And I saw three other boys for my Jewish high school class.
    And it was sort of an unwritten law, one Jew might get away.
    Two Jews is already like a synagogue.
    So we just waved at each other with a grin
    without really getting together.
    And most people I knew did that.
    But there was a danger.
    If the Gestapo caught somebody, the least thing
    was a concentration camp.
    But as a young person, first of all,
    I was always defying authority.
    And plus a young person is always
    more reckless than older one.
    Actually in my personal life, what happens then,
    finally the schools were permitted to operate again.
    But then shortly-- that was probably late
    '38, that date I don't quite remember anymore precisely--
    but then in early '39, most Jewish schools
    were closed by the Gestapo, including the [INAUDIBLE]
    school to which I was going.
    And there was only one Jewish high school left operating.
    And that was the official high school of the Jewish community
    of Berlin.
    But by that time, my parents were really in high gear, time
    to emigrate.
    And they had the idea that it would be good
    for me to go to the American School in Berlin.
    The American School in Berlin also
    was very close to where we lived.
    It was run by an American principal.
    And it mainly served children of diplomats--
    not just Americans, obviously, but also British and others
    who would know English--
    and also children of businessmen who were stationed in Berlin.
    And therefore the tuition was correspondingly very high.
    And I remember that was the first time I heard about
    that this was a big sacrifice for my parents
    to put me in that school.
    And actually I was scared because I
    would be thrown suddenly into a totally English environment.
    The teachers were all Americans.
    Some may be British actually.
    But English was the language.
    Most kids had English as their native tongue.
    And I had had three years of English
    at the [INAUDIBLE] school.
    But fortunately, things turned out to be not quite as bad.
    As it turned out, the school followed the curriculum
    of the basic American school system.
    And that was a German gymnasium, was really
    a much more rigorous and elitist school
    and was at least a year, if not more, ahead of it.
    So many of the things-- for example, in Latin and biology,
    I remember--
    we had had already much earlier.
    So the material itself was often just for me a review of things
    I had learned earlier.
    And therefore that made it easier
    for me to concentrate on the language then.
    And I think I made quite a bit of progress there.
    I don't know exactly how long--
    I wasn't there very long, probably
    from about February, March, '39 until the start of the summer
    term, which was, I think, May or June '39.
    And '39 also was the first summer in my life
    where my parents didn't send me to a summer camp.
    And on the 1st of September, 1939, of course,
    the German Wehrmacht entered Poland, attacked Poland,
    and I listened to Hitler's speech
    to the Reichstag, in which he explained this rationale.
    And I never forget the words, which he said.
    Since 5:00 this morning, we are shooting back.
    The fairy tale that the Nazis told the world
    was that Poland had attacked Germany.
    And that had been going on already for days and weeks,
    while he patiently tried to look the other way
    and tried to come to a peaceful solution.
    And finally he is not taking it anymore and shooting back.
    It's unbelievable.
    Anyway that was a Friday, September 1.
    And I should say, actually, two days before, on August 30th,
    that was my father's birthday, 1939--
    must have been his 57th birthday.
    And at that time already, everything
    was much more subdued.
    And we didn't have a party at home.
    We just went out to some nice restaurant downtown.
    And while we were sitting there, suddenly newsboys
    came in with stacks of news-- extra editions shouting,
    extra, extra.
    Every table bought a paper.
    And a big fat headline was, "General Mobilization
    in Poland."
    and so everybody knew already.
    See in Germany, general mobilization
    was never officially announced because the Nazis had already
    quietly mobilized.
    And then on the 1st, as I said, Germany attacked Poland.
    That was a Friday.
    On Sunday, the 3rd, we took our customary Sunday excursion.
    We walked through the forest near where
    we lived to one of the cafes at the river bank of the Havel
    River.
    And at that time also most, if not all, restaurants in Germany
    were wired for public address systems.
    And while we were sitting there--
    it was early afternoon, I think--
    the public address system went on
    with a important announcement from the German government.
    And it said that the British ambassador had, at 11:00--
    I still remember the time--
    submitted a diplomatic note, requesting
    that German troops be taken back to the original German-Polish
    border within a certain number of hours.
    If Germany refused to do that, then Britain in line
    with its treaty obligations to Poland
    will consider itself at war with Germany.
    And the French ambassador had submitted a similar note also.
    As we were sitting there, I remember that my father
    broke out into tears.
    And that was the first time that I saw him cry.
    And he said, this is a second world war in his lifetime,
    and that he was not going to survive it.
    What prompted that remark, I never--
    the Holocaust was still so far away as to be unbelievable.
    But obviously he must have sensed something.
    And then we went home.
    And then the outbreak of the war was followed then
    by many more restrictions.
    One was we had to turn in our telephones.
    We had to turn in all appliances.
    Of course, all these, people had much fewer than today.
    But still that included such things
    as vacuum cleaners, phonograph players--
    I don't know what else one had in those days.
    It was before washing machines and dishwashers.
    But whatever one has, it had to be turned in.
    In addition to--
    Radios?
    Oh yeah, radio?
    Yeah, I think radio's too.
    And then up to that time, I think Jews religiously
    obeyed all these things.
    And that was the first time where
    people started to sort of balk.
    And not everything was turned in.
    I know of many cases where people
    didn't turn in everything.
    Also jewelry, valuables, gold, silver, diamonds,
    things like that had to be all turned in.
    And it was just turned in for a receipt.
    There was no thought of for the government to buy it.
    It was just stolen.
    And of course one victim of the outbreak of the war
    was the American school in Berlin,
    which did not reopen because even though America
    itself at that time was not yet in the war,
    but Germany was in the war, and Germany was considered a war
    zone.
    And there was a possibility of air raids and so on.
    So the school didn't reopen.
    And then at that point, I wanted to go back and do
    my high school graduation.
    So I went back to the high school of the Jewish community
    and graduated there in March, 1940.
    That's a big difference between a high school
    graduation in Germany--
    I think in any European country, also England--
    and that in America.
    In America, it is simply an automatic thing
    after completing 12th grade of school, you graduate.
    And there, there's a rigorous examination.
    I still remember it was a fearful thing.
    And I studied day and night.
    And passed it, of course, but it was--
    it ranks in my memory together with my PhD prelims,
    each one at their own level.
    Also it's a state-administered exam.
    So they are from the State Education Authority,
    a high official appeared there.
    And the way the evaluation examination goes
    was the following.
    There was first a set of written examinations, each three hours
    long.
    One was a German composition, which incidentally, we
    had several essay topics to choose from.
    And the topic I chose was the discussion and evaluation
    of the work of a leading personality of modern times.
    And I chose Theodor Herzl, the founder of Modern Zionism.
    And later on, my father chided me for it
    and said, since it will be read by a German examination
    commission, it was a mistake that I did that.
    It might harm me.
    And then I said, the people know who I am.
    I am a Jew.
    And they know that that's a Jewish school.
    So my father was always really concerned for something.
    And actually I got a very good grade for that.
    And mathematics and so on, and that takes place
    over a period of about a month-- these various exams spaced.
    And then after that about--
    I think after the last exam, maybe two or three weeks
    [INAUDIBLE].
    And the German examiners, they get all the written tests.
    And then one of them appears for the final oral examination.
    And the oral examination was handled in such a way
    that the examination commission, which
    consisted of all the teachers that we
    had in 12th grade, the school principal,
    and the German official, were sitting in the examination
    room, and we were called in one by one.
    We were 13 or 14.
    I forgot-- I think 13.
    We were called in.
    And before that started, we were all called in together.
    And the German official made a little speech.
    And he was a tall, good looking guy
    with a white thick mane of hair and such a huge swastika party
    member button here, which didn't particularly made us--
    or at least me-- feel easy.
    And he said a few things.
    But then he went on to say that he has read so
    far our written examinations.
    And he wanted to make us a compliment.
    He said, they are far above the average of what he has seen.
    And he wanted to particularly compliment us
    because he is aware of the difficult circumstances
    under which we are living.
    And then he dismissed us.
    And that man was obviously, you know,
    must have been hold over from the Weimar Republic.
    He was old enough anyway for that.
    And many of these guys were pressured
    into joining the party or losing their job.
    And so they all--
    not all, I guess, but many compromised
    and joined the party.
    But that man obviously, to have said that took already courage.
    So anyway that was the examination.
    And then after that, I was, anyway really as I understood,
    claimed.
    So I volunteered for one of the preparatory camps
    for emigration to Israel--
    or Palestine in those days.
    And they were named by the Hebrew name [HEBREW]----
    means preparation.
    But I discovered that I was totally unsuited
    for communal living.
    I felt totally unhappy.
    The living there was to simulate kibbutz-style living.
    And I was constantly homesick and didn't like it at all.
    And then for me, fortunately, actually, that camp
    was dissolved for some reason.
    And people were distributed partly to other camps
    and partly to a work camp in a suburb of Berlin.
    And that's where I was put in.
    And that was in a southern suburb of Berlin.
    And we were just a small group of boys--
    maybe wasn't more than 10--
    detailed to work in a forest, which
    was managed by a forestry official,
    to cut down certain trees that were diseased.
    And I still remember that.
    That must have been the healthiest time of my life.
    It was by that time midsummer 1940.
    And we were working bare chested, just some shorts
    on, and sawing down.
    And of course, that was in the days
    before chainsaws and all that.
    It was really hand sewing these long band saws,
    where one man grabs a handle on one
    end, and the other on the other, and you go back and forth.
    And then after the tree has been felled, with an ax,
    all the branches had to be cut-- apparently they were deceased,
    but still could be used for some purpose
    because we had to hack off with axes all of the branches
    and then with a special peeler, peel the bark off so that just
    the bare trunk remained.
    And the local forester was a fairly decent guy.
    He got us as Jews--
    I should have said that with the outbreak of World War II,
    of course, immediately food was rationed.
    And not only food, also clothing, everything, shoes--
    everything you can think of-- all consumer goods
    were rationed.
    And Jews from the beginning got less than the--
    the ration system was a three-tiered system.
    The lowest was called the general consumer.
    And then higher, the next step up was [NON-ENGLISH]..
    These are factory workers.
    They got certain items more, like fat, milk, maybe meat.
    And then the highest category was heavy labor.
    These were people like construction,
    miners in the coal mines-- this sort of thing.
    But first of all Jews were not entitled to any [NON-ENGLISH]
    even if they did do some work where Germans would have
    received them.
    And then our rations were actually
    shortened even compared to the general consumer.
    But the forester there, since he wanted also
    to get work out of us, and he knew hungry people are not
    as strong, so he got--
    I actually saw the local Nazi [INAUDIBLE] as a farmer
    leader--
    peasant leader, whatever-- extra rations for us
    of farmer's bread and sausages, which were actually delicious.
    And it was sort of a really nice little community there.
    And I spent the summer there.
    And occasionally we had furloughs,
    where I could go into the city to visit my parents.
    And so that was over, I think, about in the fall of 1940.
    And then my parents, still hoping
    that maybe something will come of the immigration-- my parents
    did all kinds of things that I never really
    was aware of fully.
    And there was in Berlin a mechanic school
    from ORT, O-R-T, that exists still today in many countries.
    And they had a school for mechanics and machine working.
    And so I started down sometime in the fall of 1940.
    And by that time, however, already the Germans
    started to draft Jews into factories,
    namely to replace German workers who
    had been drafted into the army, to the Wehrmacht.
    But my parents were lucky.
    Somehow they were able to produce doctor's certificates
    to exempt them from the Arbeitseinsatz.
    That means forced labor, basically.
    And then I was exempted because I
    worked in that mechanic school.
    I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.
    Yeah?
    What was your sister doing throughout all of this?
    Was she just at home with your parents?
    Actually, there must have been telepathy [INAUDIBLE]
    my sister [? was. ?] First of all when she went to school,
    initially she started in the German public school,
    but was then transferred by my parents
    to a Jewish school, but a much less
    religious Jewish private school.
    And when all of these schools were dissolved in early '39,
    just like the school I was in, she
    was transferred to another Jewish school
    of the Jewish community.
    And there she was until--
    but that came later I think in '41--
    all schooling for Jewish children
    was simply outlawed by the Gestapo.
    But until then, she went to school and had her friends.
    And in fact, she had already a little boyfriend.
    Your sister was a little bit younger.
    So at the point when schools were outlawed,
    were there underground schools?
    Or people just stopped going?
    When schooling was forbidden, no, I think first of all,
    she was then sent also to the country for--
    there was some young Jewish kids were
    sent to help in harvesting things in the country.
    And then by that, when she came back from there,
    the deportations were already going strong [INAUDIBLE]..
    And your parents in--
    were they supportive of your going
    to these little Zionist camps?
    Yeah, they were supportive-- by that time,
    they wanted to get me out.
    In fact, we already applied for a passport.
    And in fact, they let us-- one incident I remember,
    where we went the passport office--
    it was actually part of the Jewish emigration office, which
    was headed by Adolf Eichmann.
    And we applied there for a passport for me
    and for somebody here to come along, partly
    because I was a minor person.
    And while we were standing in line,
    you went from one position to the next,
    filling out forms of answering questions or whatever.
    While we were standing in line, two
    tall and very good looking SS officers
    walked across that waiting room where
    people were standing in line.
    And for some reason, one of them just
    got pulled to my father for some reason and walked toward him
    and asked him why we were waiting there.
    And my father answered that, this is my son.
    And he is preparing to emigrate to Palestine.
    Oh, and then he asked my father, is he going with
    [NON-ENGLISH]--
    in perfect Hebrew.
    And my father said, yes.
    And then he just turned around and walked away.
    And I don't think--
    my father didn't seem nervous or so on.
    But I'm sure it must have been extremely nervous.
    That guy was-- he looked very aggressive
    and like the image of an SS officer.
    In fact that passport I still have.
    That's one of my cherished memories-- with a big J, which
    after the war I found out we actually owe the Swiss more
    than the Germans.
    Did you ever read about that, that the Swiss pressured
    the Germans to put the J because Germany and Switzerland
    had a treaty for tourist visas not to need visas for tourism?
    But that apparently Jews discovered and went
    as tourists with their German passports
    but then didn't leave.
    And Swiss didn't like that.
    And so they told the Germans to do something,
    put a J in or whatever, so that they can immediately recognize
    the passport of a Jew.
    And then they can refuse him.
    These nice, neutral Swiss.
    Anyway coming back, where was I?
    Oh yeah, I went to ORT to learn mechanic.
    And actually that turned out to be
    one of the more useful things I learned in my life,
    probably more useful than Latin.
    But I learned how to operate a lathe--
    although that, I have never done later--
    and operate various tools.
    And as I said, at that time also,
    they started to draft Jews.
    And on April 30th, 1941--
    oh no, I'm sorry.
    I have to pick up there.
    I want to say that in February, 1941,
    we received a notice that we have
    to vacate the huge apartment that we still occupied
    on the Kaiserdamm, one of the major boulevards of Berlin,
    within a few days.
    That was an action that was actually
    originated by Albert Speer, who was a German armaments minister
    and also in charge of construction in Berlin.
    And he always tried after the war
    to pretend that he was just a professional
    and did a thing for the armaments,
    but had nothing to do whatsoever with persecution of Jews
    or other minorities, which is a big lie.
    That was one of the things which he did, to kick Jews out
    of their apartments.
    And Jews who were kicked out in this way, had to move in--
    then we were expected to move into so-called Jew houses.
    These were apartment buildings where at least 50%
    of the tenants were already Jews.
    And then also you couldn't, by any means, of course,
    displace the German family in such a house.
    But you had to move into a sublet,
    into an apartment already inhabited
    by another Jewish family.
    And that was a big blow.
    We had a huge apartment.
    Of course, I never had mentioned that so far.
    But it was an eight-room apartment.
    And there were many art pieces in there that my parents had
    collected-- of course, in better times--
    many oriental rugs, and I did mention the big library
    that my father had.
    And so I mean just to design-- and, of course, I think today,
    for example, if we had to move out
    of our house, which I think in square footage may be smaller
    than that apartment, it would be a nightmare--
    within a few days.
    You accumulate so many things, personal things, documents,
    pictures, and--
    but in addition to that, a new apartment had to be found
    or a new room that was in another apartment.
    To make a long story short, we thought
    we had an ideal solution, moving into the apartment
    of an uncle of my mother.
    Now the man was the brother of my maternal grandfather--
    and his wife.
    And it was a much smaller apartment.
    And they were living there.
    Then they had a son in their mid or late 30s.
    And then two single women were already living there also,
    who had been kicked out somewhere.
    Else
    This is an interview with Ernest Fontheim, March 12th, 1997.
    Tape two, side B.
    Of course, we were not the only family living
    under such circumstances.
    It was throughout the Jewish community
    that Jews were cramped together.
    That I guess was the equivalent of a ghetto in Berlin.
    That would have been impossible for the Nazis
    to institute a real ghetto in an area, where only Jews lived
    because Jews never were concentrated in one area
    to such an extent.
    So they would have had basically to clear some area
    of non-Jewish Germans.
    And that would have been too disruptive.
    So instead they cramped then the remaining Jews
    at that time simply and into a much smaller number
    of apartment buildings.
    That immediately led to innumerable conflicts.
    First of all, I think I indicated before,
    that food was rationed.
    And so it was very important for each family
    to keep its food supply identified and separate.
    And there were frequent suspicions, and sometimes even
    accusations, that somebody else ate somebody else's sausage,
    or at least part of it, or that something
    was missing that should have not been missing.
    And in fact the kitchen became known throughout the community
    as the battlefield of the apartment
    because it wasn't just the problem of keeping
    the food supplies separate.
    Then there was a problem of preparing dinner, for example.
    Usually people eat more or less at the same time.
    And they don't eat dinner at 4:00
    when nobody needed a kitchen.
    And so there was a source of friction in that respect
    and then, of course, with cleanup.
    Particularly these things all might seem to be petty.
    But at that time, the nerves of all or most Jews at least were
    so frayed already by years of oppression and innumerable Nazi
    anti-Jewish measures, that it never took much for people
    to fly into a rage and to--
    that was really actually a very tragic outcome of that.
    But that's what's happened in many families.
    It happened in all--
    the fact that we lived with relatives that had absolutely
    nothing to do with it.
    And I think my mother and her aunt
    became fierce enemies while we lived there.
    I would like just to back up briefly
    to a somewhat earlier time when we were still
    in the big apartment on the Kaiserdamm Boulevard.
    And when I mentioned that after the outbreak of the war,
    the telephones were taken away from Jews,
    a few days after that measure was instituted,
    our doorbell rang.
    And when we opened the door, the men
    who lived in the apartment upstairs above us
    was at the door.
    He was a wealthy bachelor--
    middle-aged-- I have no idea, but the way I remember him,
    he was probably then around 50.
    And he asked to talk to my father in private [INAUDIBLE]..
    So my father and he went into our father's study.
    And they spent some time there.
    And we were all puzzled because there had never
    been really any social or any other contact with him.
    And then after some minutes, he reemerged.
    And both gentlemen were chatting pleasantly.
    And our upstairs neighbor said goodbye and left.
    And my father then turned to us with total surprise
    in his face, saying that Mr. [? Kopf-- ?]
    that was his name--
    just offered that we could use his telephone.
    He just heard that our phone was taken away.
    And he felt that was terrible.
    And if we had the need to call somebody, we should feel free.
    And not only that, but he even gave us permission
    to pass his number on to a few absolutely reliable people, who
    may have a need to call us.
    In that case he would send his maid down.
    And someone could come up and answer the call.
    And that-- in those days under those circumstances--
    was extraordinary because the man surely risked, particularly
    in the second part of the offer.
    So there were sometimes such cases also.
    Another thing that I wanted to mention
    is that in the same building on the first floor,
    the ambassador of a small Central American country
    was living.
    I am not 100% certain anymore, but I'm
    fairly sure that it was Costa Rica, I can't swear it.
    My parents, when the situation became worse and worse--
    particularly after Kristallnacht--
    my parents decided maybe an approach to that man
    might be helpful in opening some doors.
    And although we barely knew him, except when we crossed paths
    on the stairs or so on, my father made an appointment
    and went to see him.
    And all I know is that nothing ever came of it.
    And back now to February, 1941, after our eviction
    from the big apartment and our move
    into that much smaller apartment.
    That was February of '41.
    Two months later in April--
    precisely on April 30th, 1941--
    the apprentice workshop of ORT, where
    I was apprenticing for mechanic and machine shop work,
    was ordered closed by the Gestapo.
    And all students in there were supposed
    to report to the Labor Office.
    The Nazis incidentally had instituted a special Labor
    Office for Jews shortly after the outbreak of the war,
    whose task it was to deal with Jews exclusively and to give
    Jews jobs mainly in the defense industry or also in other
    generally considered unpleasant work, like for example,
    the city garbage department-- garbage pickup--
    and similar things-- and also [INAUDIBLE] railroads--
    and certain unpleasant jobs in connection with the railroads
    and tracks or so on.
    Many Jews had already been drafted to work.
    My parents succeeded in getting exemptions by doctors--
    certificates from doctors.
    And neither one of them really was very healthy by the time
    anymore.
    And now for our advantage was--
    I mean our meaning the students, the apprentices,
    at the ORT school--
    that we were considered to be already trained
    mechanics and therefore could get some better jobs.
    And all of us wound up at one of the Siemens factories.
    Now before the war, the central Siemens factory was in Berlin.
    Although they did have factories in other parts of Germany.
    But in Berlin was a central factory and also
    the central administration building of Siemens
    was in Berlin.
    And it was a huge complex.
    It was many square miles large, fenced in,
    of course, many buildings manufacturing
    all kinds of things.
    In general Siemens is an electrical equipment
    manufacturer, along the same lines as General Electric,
    maybe--
    at least used to be before they started building such things
    as jet engines or so.
    Of course they were entirely into war production
    at the time.
    And one day after the ORT school was dismissed,
    we had to report to this Labor Office.
    And there we were given pieces of paper telling us
    where to report the next day and at what time and so on.
    And so that's how I wound up at Siemens.
    Did you have any choice in this?
    None whatsoever.
    In fact the Labor Office also was run strictly
    along Nazi lines.
    We were treated very badly there in the sense of words.
    Nobody was beaten there, but just insulted.
    And we were just told where to work.
    Some others, by the way, were told to work also
    and sent to other factories.
    But I happened to end up at Siemens.
    Did you feel a bit safer because they needed your output?
    At that time the deportations hadn't started yet.
    So actually I felt, for two reasons--
    to put it mildly-- disappointed.
    One was that I had just been about seven or eight
    months at the ORT school and was just getting into it,
    learning all kinds of aspects of the trade of being a mechanic.
    And that would be interrupted now.
    And the second thing, of course, that I knew I
    would be working for the German war production, which didn't
    really make me obviously happy.
    At Siemens, the Jews who worked there--
    and I think that is true of all other defense plants also--
    did not work scattered around throughout the factory, here
    maybe a one machine operated by a Jew and next to him
    by a German worker.
    Instead the Jews were all in one particular department,
    where all workers were Jews, except for the foreman,
    of course.
    And in this way we also could be easier controlled.
    Number two, we were not permitted
    to walk through the factory area unescorted.
    Now that meant the shift started at 6:00 AM.
    And it was already quite a walk from the factory gate
    to the building where we were working.
    So we had to be at the gate at 5:45
    to be picked up by a guard, which then led us
    to our department, where we then punched in-- we
    had to punch in before 6:00.
    If somebody missed that guarded walk from the gate
    to the department, then a separate guard had to be sent.
    And the foreman made a point of waiting after 6 o'clock.
    And the person had no way to get to the department.
    And then he would send somebody down.
    The person then would come and, of course, punch in after 6:00.
    And there was a rule that every late appearance has
    to be reported to the Gestapo.
    And so that was a very powerful incentive
    to be on time even at that time, at which deportation hadn't
    started yet, because nobody wanted to get entangled
    with the Gestapo.
    Furthermore since we were not permitted
    to walk through the factory alone,
    that also meant that there was no way
    how we could walk to the toilets or restrooms
    whenever the individual need arose for a person.
    Instead twice a day, we were also
    under guard conducted to the toilets.
    One was at 9:00.
    And the second time after the lunch hour at 1:00
    between 1:00 and 2:00.
    That meant if somebody, for example,
    needed to go in between, that person
    had to report to the foreman.
    And depending on the foreman's mood
    at that particular instance, he could either
    tell the person, well, you just have to wait, sorry,
    until the [INAUDIBLE].
    Or he could give him a dressing down and say,
    I'll detail somebody to take you down there.
    At this point, by the way, all the Jewish workers were men.
    Later on I will mention that we also got many Jewish women.
    And of course that was particularly
    humiliating in that case if a woman
    had to go to that male foreman and tell him
    that she has to go to the restroom, and then for him
    possibly to sneer and to detail somebody
    to take her down to the ladies room.
    What was the actual work you were doing?
    We built a part of electromotors called commutators.
    We didn't know what they were used for.
    There was a rumor these were motors
    which were built into submarines for the electrical supply.
    But whether that was true or not, we didn't know.
    And it these commutators represent an essential part
    of an electromotor.
    Were there any attempts, to your knowledge,
    to sabotage in subtle ways the production?
    To my knowledge, not--
    I gave it a brief thought and rejected it outright
    because while being there, of course,
    I also acquainted myself with the system.
    They had a very thorough and sophisticated quality
    control system, whereby any part that
    was produced before it left the factory
    went to a controller, somebody who checked it out
    electrically and so on.
    That would mean anything that I would have done to make it
    misfunction would have been discovered by that person.
    So first of all, it wouldn't have achieved anything
    because it would have never gone to a place where
    it could have done damage.
    And secondly as far as I remember,
    they could trace who made it.
    So I would have wound up in some horrible way
    without even achieving any purpose in doing so.
    The atmosphere, there were still a few German workers
    in that Jewish department, actually some even women.
    They had started to use women in factories,
    which used to be also unheard of in Germany.
    But simply because of the labor shortage after the war
    broke out--
    since most of the able-bodied males,
    of course, served in the Wehrmacht, in the army.
    And also German workers, some actually were quite nice,
    I have to say.
    And some others were very hostile.
    So it varied from person to person.
    Indeed as I said before, that happened
    on the 30th of April 1941.
    And in the summer of 1941, there was a rumor running around
    we are going to get Jewish women.
    And so obviously there was big excitement,
    notwithstanding the fact that for these women,
    probably was not so much of a pleasure.
    But at least we looked forward to some positive divergence.
    And the rumor turned out to be true.
    And so later on that day, I think
    in the afternoon, a whole group of girls and women--
    led again by a guard, of course--
    came in.
    One of them particularly caught my eye immediately.
    She was in appearance, exactly what I had always
    looked for in a woman as far as appearance is concerned.
    So dark brown, close to black hair and brown eyes,
    curls, and looking in general had
    a very pleasant facial expression, and a very
    Semitic expression in her face, which
    I always enjoyed in a woman and still do, in fact.
    And it turned out--
    so I concentrated my attention to the first few days on her.
    I found out that her first name was [? Margot. ?]
    And I also found out that she had a steady boyfriend, which
    didn't surprise me.
    So this immediately cooled my interest,
    at least for the time being.
    And we worked then together.
    We were really interspersed.
    There may have been a woman here and a male here and so on--
    several males, and so on.
    And among ourselves a real camaraderie developed.
    The chief foreman was a man.
    His name was-- I'll never forget--
    Alexander [? Ziegel. ?] And he was about, retrospectively
    guessing, in his late 30s, I would say--
    possibly 40-- and a real roughneck,
    extremely nice to all females, who also after the war really
    didn't find much reason to complain about him--
    and very gruff two males.
    And myself, I again started to rub him the wrong way
    and me the wrong way.
    So I was on his list to bark at whenever he
    found a pretext for doing that.
    I also met there, that is very important, a male--
    in fact that was already on the first day
    that I started to work there--
    a man a few years older than I. His name was Hans Fabisch.
    And we became really extremely close friends.
    It was my first close friend since I
    lost the one whom I had in high school,
    who emigrated to England.
    And we really went through thick and thin.
    We became close personal confidants.
    We shared our recreational hours and did a lot together
    and talked a lot.
    And he was probably one of two or three best friends
    that I ever had.
    He was, as I said, a few years older than I.
    And he had decided to study medicine and was already--
    he had all kinds of medical books at home
    and had started to self educate himself
    in anatomy and other similar medical subjects.
    Oh yeah, that reminds me of something else.
    Since we graduated from high school,
    there was really no educational outlet for us.
    Universities, of course, we were prohibited
    from enrolling in or even attending classes.
    And there was really nothing else except my apprenticeship
    to become a mechanic.
    So with a group of other friends and also
    particularly former classmates from my high school graduating
    class, we developed a set of informal talks, which
    were held in different apartments of us, sort
    of moving around.
    At that time I didn't use that word.
    But later on it occurred to me it was almost
    like an underground university.
    First of all, our German teacher,
    who was actually a very highly educated man also
    in philosophy, he taught us a course in philosophy.
    And it was partly that he talked.
    And partly it was done already in seminar style,
    where he would assign certain topics to one of us.
    And that person had to report back at the next time
    and give a little talk on that.
    And this Hans Fabisch, whom I just mentioned,
    he had connections to various medical doctors.
    And we got talks from various medical subjects
    of general interest and so on.
    And then somebody else--
    I forgot who that was--
    knew a Jewish architect.
    These were all, of course, Jews who talked.
    And they were also happy because they
    were thrown out of their professions
    and had nothing to do.
    But particularly this former German teacher,
    whose name incidentally was called [? Leibenstein ?],,
    the others rotated.
    But he consistently, week after week-- he never took a penny--
    and he taught was extreme enthusiasm, which
    was infectious even.
    And that was a tremendous intellectual outlet for us,
    which otherwise we had really no outlet for.
    Another person that I would like to mention
    is a girl who was a few years older than I--
    I think about four years.
    Her name was Ruth Pearl.
    And she was part of that circle that also went to classes.
    And she became somewhat close to my friend Hans
    Fabisch and myself and as time went on,
    I think closer to myself.
    And we started to strike up a friendship.
    And we occasionally went to movies together
    and developed that--
    we came quite close.
    And she was my first girlfriend.
    And we shared a lot of both personal thoughts,
    general thoughts, and everything--
    also entertainment, and so on.
    An important factor, by the way, also was music.
    All of us in that circle and in various other circles
    were lovers of classical music.
    And that went also for Ruth.
    And it was in wartime practically impossible
    to buy your records.
    So people in private apartments--
    also many non-Jews-- started business
    swapping records, used records, that is.
    And so I enriched my collection by--
    and by the way, not just swapping, but also selling.
    So I bought quite a number of records in those days
    that I didn't have before.
    It should be remembered, of course,
    that the quality and the kind of phonograph
    was a totally different world from what we have today.
    There was obviously no Wi-Fi.
    Obviously there was only one speaker
    out of an inferior phonograph.
    And a phonograph was sometimes even hand driven
    by winding it up.
    And if it was electric, then it was kept illegally,
    by the way, because it should have been turned in.
    But we managed to have house concerts also
    periodically, where we actually made up a program.
    So like for Philharmonic concert,
    say some Beethoven symphony, and maybe a piano concerto
    by somebody else, and different people would then
    brings those records.
    And then we would all assemble in somebody's living room
    and listen to it just the way one would
    have gone to a Philharmonic concert, which
    of course was also forbidden for Jews to go to.
    And a drastic change in the situation of the Jews
    occurred with the introduction of the yellow Star of David,
    as of September 19th, 1941.
    The law was very specific that every Jew,
    as defined by the Nuremberg laws,
    has to wear such a yellow star on his outer closing,
    over other clothing, whenever the person is in public.
    And it specified even exactly where it had to be worn.
    It had to be worn on the left-hand side,
    about at the level of the heart.
    And also it couldn't be tacked on by pins or safety pins,
    but had to be firmly sewn on.
    And this way they wanted to avoid
    that people might put on a star and then later on take it off
    again.
    And the Gestapo was known to walk up to Jews with a star
    and try with their fingers to get under it,
    to see whether there was a space between the star
    and the garment, to make sure that it was firmly sewn on.
    They did this to you?
    No, not to me.
    But they have done it to people.
    That made it finally almost impossible for Jews
    to go to all the entertainments and cultural offerings that
    were forbidden after Kristallnacht
    three years earlier.
    My friend, Hans Fabisch, and I devised--
    it was his original idea--
    a method even to get around that.
    And it was based on the following, that
    in those days double breasted suits and coats were
    fashionable.
    And if you buttoned it the men button their suit jackets,
    then the left side where the star was on
    was, of course, on the outside and visible.
    But if you changed the buttoning,
    and most were also sewn in such a way
    that there were button holes and buttons,
    you could button it either away--
    and the way say women's usually buttoned them
    with the right part over the left--
    then the star would be automatically covered up.
    It was important to have it that way
    because upon leaving one's apartment, and also walking
    in one's own neighborhood, it would
    have been much too dangerous to walk around without a star
    because people know you.
    And you would have been immediately reported
    to the Gestapo.
    So what we did is we left our neighborhood,
    as good Jews with our yellow stars, walked many blocks--
    maybe 10--
    to an area where nobody knew us, then
    ducked into an entrance of some apartment building,
    and quickly changed the buttoning of our jacket or coat
    and reappeared as Aryan Germans.
    And then we could go to a movie or anything without detection.
    Weren't you a little bit afraid of doing this?
    No.
    In fact, it actually got me excited,
    like getting my adrenaline flowing,
    that I was doing something like that.
    My father, I should say, was horrified and forbade me
    strictly to do that because not only did I endanger myself,
    very often the Gestapo would then also
    arrest the rest of the family.
    But I just didn't want to listen to any advice of caution.
    And also, I couldn't stand being so cooped up.
    I should make a reference incidentally in connection
    with culture and movies.
    There existed a Jewish [NON-ENGLISH],,
    or culture society.
    That actually existed already since long
    before the Kristallnacht, namely since a time
    when Jewish artists were summarily thrown out
    from all German theaters and movie production companies, et
    cetera.
    And it was founded originally, of course,
    to give Jewish musicians, actors, et cetera,
    a way of earning a living in their craft.
    And it was always fairly well visited.
    As I remember and in the summer of 1939,
    I saw an excellent performance of a Kálmán operetta--
    Kálmán was a Hungarian operetta composer--
    Grafin Mariza, Countess Maritza, which
    was staged by the Kulturbund very professionally.
    And I enjoyed it very much.
    And I've seen other things too.
    And then after Jews were prohibited
    from going to other general cultural events
    and entertainment, et cetera, then of course
    the Kulturbund became in addition to providing
    an outlet for fired Jewish artists,
    became also the only legal way, at least,
    for the Jewish population at large
    even to see a movie or a play or a symphony.
    They had a very nice symphony orchestra,
    by the way, all consisting of Jews.
    But I considered it simply a challenge
    to do something that I was prohibited
    from doing by the government.
    And so we did that.
    And my girlfriend Ruth went one day to a beauty parlor.
    [INAUDIBLE] even beauty parlors were forbidden for Jews.
    So of course, she didn't wear a Jewish star.
    And along the way, she was stopped by a policeman.
    There was a regular policeman in uniform and asked for her ID.
    And when he saw that she was Jewish,
    the way she told it to me was evidently embarrassed
    and told her in an apologizing way
    that unfortunately, he is forced by law to report that
    to the Gestapo.
    Any transgression by a Jew had to be reported to the Gestapo.
    And he had no way to avoid that.
    And so we were terribly scared.
    And then for weeks, we didn't hear anything.
    And so our scare slowly subsided.
    Although I told her that if they really get after her,
    that she should simply go underground.
    And then she told me she would definitely not
    do that because she has no way to sustain herself
    and doesn't know anyone where to go to.
    So on one day, in fact, on the 9th of September, 1941--
    was it the 9th of September or 9th of October?
    It doesn't make a difference.
    We always met in the morning on the way to the factory.
    My train actually--
    I had to change trains at a certain station
    and joined another train, where she already was sitting in it.
    She always sat in the same car.
    And from there on, we always rode together.
    And on that morning when I came into the railroad car
    where she was sitting, and I took one look
    and knew what had happened, she--
    her eyes were totally red from both probably
    having cried and having been sleepless.
    And she pulled, without saying a word, a letter from her pocket
    book, which had the dreaded Geheime
    Staatspolizei, the complete word for Gestapo,
    which is just an abbreviation.
    And it asked her to appear on that morning at 9:00
    in their offices, of whom, such and such.
    That's all, just to appeal for an interrogation.
    But everybody knew what that meant.
    And I haven't really talked about the deportations.
    But the deportations had started a month earlier.
    And Jews working in defense plants
    were understood to be exempted from deportations.
    So she had come to work mainly to show our foreman,
    [? Alexander ?] [? Ziegler, ?] the summons to see what you
    could do for her.
    But he coldly told her that there was nothing
    that he could do for her because the Gestapo does have
    the complete lists of all Jews employed there by Siemens,
    and they know also of the agreement
    that Jews working in defense plants are to be deferred.
    However they can do what they want.
    And there's nothing more that he can do.
    And then we talked a little bit.
    The atmosphere was so unbelievably stifling,
    that I almost felt like somebody choked my throat.
    And then she said goodbye to our mutual friend, Hans Fabisch,
    and to me and just walked out.
    It was the last time I saw her.
    Back up briefly, in September, just about
    a month before this happened, the first deportation train
    left for the east.
    And that was characteristic of all transports to the east.
    Nobody knew where these people went to.
    It was just said it goes to the east.
    Now the--
    Who was deported, what kinds of groups or categories?
    I don't think it was any particular category,
    with the exception that those working in defense plants
    were exempted.
    But otherwise they just--
    I think the Jewish community was enlisted in putting together
    lists for deport--
    Interview with Ernest Fontheim on March 12, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    This is tape three side A.
    The deportations-- the mechanism of the deportation
    was handled, of course, by the Gestapo at the command level.
    But it was carried out under orders of the Gestapo
    by the Jewish community organizations.
    And they put together the lists of Jews to be deported.
    Sometimes the Gestapo would make particular demands--
    for example, at one time the Gestapo
    was afraid that Jews who lived along the elevated train tracks
    might give flashlight signals to allied bombers,
    and thus directing them to bomb the tracks, which on its face
    is ludicrous, because they would have then also directed
    the bombs to themselves, living right next to the tracks.
    But anyway, be that as it may, the Gestapo ordered
    the Jewish community to provide such a list
    and get these people on the deportation trains.
    But in general, that was one exception.
    The community picked the people.
    It was initially a process where people were notified,
    sometime ahead of time, by a letter which
    only said that their apartment has
    been designated to be cleared.
    It was sort of as if that was all there was to it,
    that the apartment was to be cleared.
    But everybody knew what it meant, of course.
    And with a set of detailed questionnaires
    where all the assets had to be filled in, and so on.
    And then another questionnaire where all the
    contents of the luggage--
    there were detailed instructions how much
    luggage in terms of size and weight could be taken along,
    which items should be taken along,
    and which could not be taken along.
    Among those not to be taken along, for example,
    were anything negotiable-- values, securities, money,
    cash, jewelry.
    And it had to be filled out exactly
    what the contents of the luggage was,
    that was to be taken along.
    Now, the result of that was that there
    was a wave of suicides, many people who were too scared
    to go through the deportations, since nobody knew what really
    happened to these people.
    And so after a while, the Gestapo
    discontinued that and then went over
    to a system where people were just being picked up
    without any prior notification.
    And anyway, they had to be kept in a transit camp
    before being shipped out because the cattle cars and freight
    cars that were used for deporting Jews,
    such a train was holding upwards of 600, 700 people,
    even up to 1,000 and 1,100.
    And it took more than a day or two
    to pick up that many people.
    So they were housed in a transit camp.
    At first, the transit camp, in fact,
    was one of the synagogues that, until the military--
    that synagogue, by the way, had been only lightly damaged
    during Kristallnacht and had been repaired afterwards.
    So that was first used for a transit camp.
    And then the military sort of made a demand
    to have that synagogue for, I think, storage of some sort
    or other.
    And then it was shifted to an old age
    home of the Jewish community.
    And Jews were collected there until they had enough people
    in there to fill a transport.
    Then they were taken away.
    During this process, were you very
    aware of what was going on?
    Yeah, at that point, yes.
    And in fact, this group of people
    that I mentioned who were also having various
    lectures and so on, at that point
    we decided that we have to somehow do something, at least
    first of all, to find out what is happening,
    because people were being picked up and then
    never heard from again.
    Now that in itself has a tremendously terrorizing
    effect.
    Somebody-- your neighbor or maybe even
    your brother or somebody close to you
    who you still saw yesterday, today he was gone, or she.
    And not only was that person gone,
    but I mean, except for the fact that you
    knew they were transported East, otherwise you had no inkling.
    There was never a letter or postcard coming back.
    There was never any sign of life, even.
    So that in itself has a terrorizing effect.
    But we were all very, very naive about the whole process.
    We sat down and had a big sort of session
    where we threw out all kinds of ideas.
    Then we came away with a great idea that whoever of the group
    is the first one to be deported, then has to see,
    after getting to the East, to contact maybe German soldiers
    or somebody who can get a message back to one of us
    describing what was happening.
    In the light of how the deportations were handled,
    it was just unbelievably naive.
    And of course, the first one of our group-- there was a girl.
    I still remember her.
    And of course, she vanished exactly like everybody else.
    And nothing was ever heard from her.
    She obviously had no chance to contact anyone.
    I mean, Jews who were deported immediately--
    of course, that was not really known at that time--
    but they were immediately put into either ghettos
    or extermination camps.
    And in the extermination camps, many were immediately
    on the spot gassed.
    And those who were not gassed were
    kept in that camp for hard labor and had no way
    to communicate with anybody outside of that camp.
    That was just totally impossible.
    And your family, they were all fine?
    Yeah.
    Of course, again, the thing was that my father considered
    himself lucky originally because he
    was exempted from the forced labor because of a doctor's
    certificate.
    But now that labor was the only thing
    that exempted you from deportation, that turned out
    to have been not so lucky.
    He went through several stages of such real ironies.
    Now, of course, he would not have
    been in a position, really, to do factory work.
    However, he knew one of the personalities
    at the center at the congregation offices.
    And in fact, there was a woman who
    was in charge of the sort of deportation decisions
    and so on.
    And she gave him an unpaid job there for the community.
    What he did he, never really talked about.
    And yeah, he was--
    I mean, like in all other things, very closed mouthed.
    But I know he had some work at the Jewish Community.
    And that may have exempted him for some time.
    Now in April '42--
    oh.
    I have to back up, actually.
    Now I remember I made a mistake when
    I talked about the arrest of my girlfriend, Ruth.
    I know that I said it was in either September
    or October of '41.
    It was actually '42.
    In '41, the deportations had barely started.
    And it wasn't in October of '42 or September
    then, I don't know, that her arrest took place.
    OK, coming back, my parents were actually
    arrested in April of '42.
    And by the Gestapo.
    And--
    Now, I want to interrupt you a second, because on your notes
    I see that you said they were imprisoned in December '42.
    Yeah, well, I'm coming to that.
    Oh, I'm sorry.
    Excuse me.
    And they were taken to the collection point,
    to that synagogue that I referred to.
    But the Gestapo officers who arrested them said-- oh, yeah.
    What happened was that my father had
    agreed with his personal physician
    that he would either commit suicide or take
    some strong sedative which would totally knock him out.
    And the physician prescribed to him something called
    [?Veronal?].
    I don't think it exists, at least not under this name.
    So I don't know what it would be here.
    But he immediately took that and was sort of like in a coma.
    And so he was [INAUDIBLE],, and they couldn't take him along.
    So they put in a phone call.
    And I had the Jewish hospital pick him up.
    And then my mother and sister were taken.
    And they told me to come along because they said it's likely
    that if the father is not capable of being transported
    that my mother and sister would be sent home again.
    So that is also one of the sort of weird examples
    where occasionally they add something
    that might almost sound like humane in all
    this murderous brutality.
    At any rate, I spent several hours in that transit camp.
    And it was a horrible sight, also.
    And the Jews there-- it was a synagogue.
    And the people who were to be sort of
    awaited their deportation, they were all at the balcony.
    I mean, European synagogues at that time--
    and I think still today, in fact-- separate the sexes.
    The men pray downstairs and women in the balcony.
    And so they had all of the people for deportation
    in the balcony.
    And you could see sort of people up wandering
    around absent-mindedly and so on and in a daze.
    And then on the ground floor, which
    was the area where men used to pray,
    that's where the Gestapo--
    they had their offices and they would periodically
    call somebody down fill out forms
    and for interrogation and so on.
    So anyway, after several hours, my mother and sister
    were told they could go home again.
    And so that's what we did.
    And they handed our luggage back, their luggage,
    and then we went back.
    Did you think that when you were in that synagogue
    that you might all be leaving and that it was just a ruse?
    No, I didn't.
    That you weren't--
    No.
    I didn't [INAUDIBLE].
    But maybe that was just my habitual optimism.
    I don't know.
    As time went on, the situation became
    more and more unbearable.
    I remember one co-worker in the factory from the Jews,
    he was probably about five years older
    than I. He appeared one morning with a totally lost expression.
    The night before, when he came home from work,
    he found the apartment empty.
    He had a wife and a little baby girl, I think.
    And they were gone.
    I mean, he couldn't even say goodbye to them.
    They were gone.
    And he was supposed to continue working.
    And there were many similar horror stories.
    And they were constantly, of course, circulated.
    And in fact, since Jews were also no longer permitted
    to buy newspapers, by the way-- and as we discussed before,
    also had to turn on their radios.
    So there was a new way to sort of spread the news.
    And that was called sort of radio by mouth or mouth radio.
    And I mean, the psychological situation
    became just unbearable.
    It was sort of a combination of fear of the worst to come
    and being trapped into something where one has no control
    and mixed with a desire to do something about it.
    I mean, many of my friends-- also my friend Hans and I
    and so on--
    we talked about going underground.
    But to go underground, that means going
    into hiding with forged papers.
    Seemed like such an enormous undertaking.
    I mean, first of all, to get forged IDs,
    it would cost a lot of money.
    And then food would have to be procured on the black market.
    And of course, none of us had any money to speak of.
    So it was mainly a lot of talk.
    And now some people-- mainly those who were politically
    engaged--
    they were able to go underground and be protected by politically
    like-minded people.
    That was true especially of communists.
    Yeah, and talking about communists,
    there was a Jewish communist cell actually centered
    in one of the other Jewish departments at Siemens
    and headed by a man named Herbert Baum and his wife,
    and Marianne Baum--
    B-A-U-M. And they had been apparently an underground cell
    for years only of Jews and basically just meeting and sort
    of like holding seminars about Marxism and the dangers
    of capitalism and fascism and so on.
    And then at some point they decided
    that wasn't really enough and something
    had to be done really to fight back against the Nazis.
    And it was also sort of in the summer,
    I think, of 1942, in the center of Berlin.
    The Nazis staged a vast exhibit under the name
    "the Soviet paradise."
    And of course, they meant it sarcastically.
    And the exhibit was devoted to materials
    which they had uncovered in their process of conquering
    large parts of the Western Soviet Union.
    And much of it may have been true.
    Much of it was lies, whatever.
    Then the exhibit apparently was quite successful.
    There were songs visiting it.
    So they decided to burn it down.
    But of course, they were not experts at anything.
    I mean, they were not experts in sabotage and technical things,
    and so on.
    So it was a big tragedy.
    They succeeded in putting in a small fire.
    So the damage was so minimal that the Germans even could
    keep it out of the newspapers.
    There had been a major fire.
    They would have had no choice but to at least report it.
    But it wasn't even reported in the press.
    And not only that, but immediately they
    didn't catch anybody.
    They thought of-- they scattered certain delayed incendiaries,
    which you put somewhere and then it takes five minutes or so
    for the flame to break out.
    So they were gone by the time--
    so nobody was caught.
    But the Gestapo had apparently a network
    of undercover agents also in the underground communist movement.
    Anyway, the details I don't know.
    The fact is that they got on their trail.
    They were arrested, all of them.
    And the first thing that the Gestapo did
    is to tell the Jewish community that they want
    500 Jewish men immediately.
    250 of them will be shot on the spot.
    And another 250 will be immediately deported
    to concentration camps.
    And if any sabotage where Jews are involved happens again,
    they will take 10 times as many people.
    And that was all that immediately
    spread through this mouth radio, of course.
    And I knew some of the people involved, incidentally,
    because it was centered at Siemens,
    the bombs were at Siemens.
    And so that contributed to the demoralizing effect.
    As a sideline, I want to say that they became great heroes
    in the now defunct German Democratic Republic, formerly
    East Germany.
    And there was a street named after them.
    And books were written, and so on.
    But of course, they are all dead.
    Actually, one of the members of the group
    was a girl who graduated with me from that high school.
    She was in my class.
    And in fact, I remember that after graduation, I once
    had a long discussion.
    She was then already a communist.
    And she tried to convert me.
    All I remember is that we had a very lively, hard-hitting
    discussion.
    And I didn't convince her and she didn't convince me.
    But it never occurred to me that she would belong to them.
    If she would have convinced me, who knows.
    Maybe I would have been in that group, also.
    Anyway, yeah, they were all tried by the so-called People's
    Court.
    That's the same court that also convicted those plotters who
    tried to assassinate Hitler two years later, in July '44.
    And of course, most of them were executed.
    A few got some jail sentences.
    Right.
    This is basically the atmosphere.
    Now also, I mean, I should say about Siemens,
    coming back to that.
    I said already that we got no worker food ration
    stamps, and even less than the general consumer.
    We got paid less than the German workers who did similar work.
    And I said we couldn't go to the toilets.
    And also, we couldn't use their cafeteria.
    We had to bring our own lunch and sort of eat it
    at our work desk.
    And of course, we had no right to vacation time.
    But my friend Hans Fabisch, whom I mentioned earlier,
    who was training to become a physician,
    he sort of advised me on certain back symptoms,
    which cannot be traced by a doctor,
    which are purely subjective, but make you incapable of working.
    And it has to hurt at a certain point.
    And when the doctor pushes this way,
    it hurts more, and that way it works less.
    And so I feigned that.
    And so I received an official sort of a statement.
    As a Jew, one couldn't just call in--
    I'm sick today.
    You had to have a physician certified a written statement
    that Ernest Fontheim has blah, blah, such and such a sickness
    or disease, and is not capable to come to work.
    So anyway, I got that following his instructions.
    That was in the latter part of December.
    So on December 24, then I was at home.
    I wanted to come back.
    I said earlier in this interview that Christmas played
    a special role in our family.
    And I meant that in many ways.
    It played a role as I grew up because we always
    had a Christmas tree.
    And Santa Claus came and we had gifts.
    Well, on the 24th of December, 1942,
    my parents were arrested and my sister.
    And it happened this way.
    I was actually-- that was when I was on that fake sick leave.
    And I had left the apartment to make a phone
    call for a public phone.
    I said, we don't have phone.
    Public phones were also prohibited to Jews.
    But by walking a few blocks and hiding my star,
    I could then go into a booth.
    And I was making a call to the parents of Margot, whom
    I had met some time earlier.
    And they had a phone because they
    were subletting an apartment that
    was in the name of a Hungarian Jewish woman.
    And since she was not a German citizen,
    these anti-Semitic laws did not apply to her,
    even though she was a Jew.
    So anyway, so they had that phone.
    And I called them up.
    I don't even know why anymore.
    Doesn't make a difference.
    But when I went back, we lived now
    in that apartment with these relatives of ours
    that I described earlier, which was a second floor apartment.
    And as I approached the apartment,
    I noticed my sister, Eva, leaning out the window
    and waving me away.
    And I knew immediately-- in those days,
    you knew always what was happening on a signal.
    And so I walked away.
    I knew that the people were there to pick my family up.
    So I walked just maybe 50 yards or so back so
    that I was still in view and watched what was going on.
    And then after a while, the janitor--
    the janitor actually happened to be also a Jew,
    but lived in a mixed marriage and was protected, therefore,
    by the Nazi laws.
    And he came and said, I should come up.
    The people who came for the pick up
    were actually Jewish orderlies.
    And they go strictly by lists.
    My name-- that was just the names
    of my both parents and my sister.
    So I went up and there was a total frenzy at home,
    of course.
    And my father was again out.
    He had done the same thing.
    And one of the orderlies had already
    gone down to call the Gestapo to say that he was not-- could not
    be transported.
    And he came back after 10, 15 minutes
    saying he was told that my father has
    to be brought under whatever circumstances,
    even if they have to carry him down the stairs in a chair.
    And then my parents were frantically packing.
    I mean, most people had already have most of the things packed,
    and so did they.
    But there's some last minute things.
    My father was not completely out of a coma
    but in a very weakened state.
    And he took my hands and said, we will never
    see each other again.
    And then my sister suddenly, out of the blue,
    threw her arms around my neck and had
    an incredible crying spell.
    Her whole body shook.
    And I kept her close.
    And I frequently thought to myself,
    why I simply did not take her and walk out with her?
    That is a question which I have asked myself ever since.
    Then when the preparations were done,
    my father was actually really carried down the steps
    in a chair.
    And the picking up of Jews was done
    by a moving van from a company that I never forget.
    The name was [? Sheffler. ?] Of course, the Gestapo,
    they don't release those vans.
    And inside the vans, they had long benches
    where the Jews were picked up, were sort of lined up.
    And then sitting until it was full
    and then the van would go to the transit camp.
    By that time, the transit camp had
    shifted from the synagogue where it
    used to be still and able to a former old age
    home of the Jewish community.
    And your sister, your mother, and father?
    Yeah.
    And actually I decided to ride along
    in that van for some blocks to be together
    with them some more.
    And then, at the corner of [GERMAN],,
    I said goodbye and jumped out of the back.
    And that was the last time I saw my parents and my sister
    on December 24, 1942.
    Christmas Eve.
    And the next day, our doorbell rang.
    And when I opened, I was surprised to see
    my former mathematics teacher, Dr. [? Behr ?]
    from the Jewish school.
    He told me that he was serving as an orderly in the transit
    camp and had a message for my mother.
    And he added that it was strictly forbidden
    for orderlies to make any communication between people
    in the transit camp and people outside.
    But since I had been a student for quite a number of years
    that he knew me already as a smaller boy,
    he did it out of a gesture of friendship.
    He told me, first of all, that my mother had forgotten
    certain things that he offered to bring in
    and they would also be glad if I could
    pack some additional food.
    And then he added that my mother also told him
    that she was interrogated the day they arrived there
    by the Gestapo.
    And the Gestapo showed particular interest in me.
    They wanted to know what hours I work,
    when I come home from work, et cetera.
    And I knew immediately that that was a message.
    And obviously the message was never to go back.
    So that's what I did.
    At that point, I had no place to stay.
    But as I just mentioned earlier, the parents of my co-worker
    Margot, whom I had been interested in first, live--
    sublet an apartment that was actually
    registered in the name of a Hungarian Jewish woman,
    and therefore was not on the Gestapo list.
    And they had a small sort of a maid's room inside
    of the apartment that belonged to it which
    they used for storage.
    But they said I could stay there and sleep there, also.
    So that's what I did.
    On New Year's Eve, December 31, first of all,
    I knew at that time that no transport had left Berlin.
    So I knew that my parents were still there.
    And I was there with Margot and her parents
    and also with a friend of theirs.
    I forgot his name.
    He was sort of an elderly man, about 60--
    in his 60s.
    And his entire family had been arrested.
    But he had some contact to the Gestapo
    and was negotiating with them to bribe
    them to get his family out.
    And he was supposed to meet his Gestapo contact the next day.
    But he also knew the Gestapo had power to do anything.
    They could just take whatever he had to offer, arrest him,
    too, and laugh in his face.
    And that New Year's Eve was the most horrible New Year's Eve
    that I ever had in my life.
    My parents and sister were in the transit camp.
    My girlfriend, Ruth, was already long gone.
    And I didn't know what would become of me.
    And that man was there with this horror story.
    The atmosphere was so unbelievably gloomy.
    And it's even hard to describe.
    I kept in touch with my friend, Hans Fabisch, of course.
    And he actually had met a physician, a Jewish physician,
    who he was going to marry.
    She was a few years older than he and she was Austrian.
    So that's why otherwise a person of that age
    wouldn't have had a medical degree in Germany
    because in Germany, a Jew couldn't study anymore
    since 1933.
    But coming from Vienna, she could study till 38.
    Anyway, she had a medical degree.
    And her name was [?Valli?].
    And they got married in the first week of January,
    [INAUDIBLE].
    Yeah.
    And Hans and I discussed the possibility maybe
    of going underground together.
    But a basic difference of opinion
    developed between Hans and myself.
    His philosophy was that as long as we were employed at Siemens,
    we were protected and deferred from that deportation.
    On the other hand, if he went underground and were caught
    on some ID check on the street without a star,
    that meant immediate deportation.
    Therefore, he felt at this point it
    was much safer if we stayed legal, quote, worked at Siemens
    and were protected that way, and then go underground
    whenever the deferment would no longer be valid,
    or Siemens might lay us off, or whatever.
    I, on the other hand, argued that the Gestapo was not
    going to offend us printed invitations
    or announcements saying, now you're no longer
    protected and deferred.
    That is going to come overnight.
    Without that, anybody knows it.
    And then it's going to be too late.
    It is true right now it is safer to be walking around
    with a star and working at Siemens,
    because that is protection.
    But because of the uncertainty of how long
    that is going to last, there's no--
    that risk we have to take.
    And there was another point, in fact,
    which leads me to briefly a flashback
    to our time at Siemens.
    I had forgotten to mention that already,
    since the fall of 1942, we received
    in our department forced laborers
    from German occupied territories.
    It started out with a group of French women.
    And after a while, we also got Polish women
    to work in our department.
    These were all people who were deported, obviously,
    against all international law and without their consent
    into Germany to work for war production.
    And I also referred to that in talking to Hans
    that it's very obvious.
    First of all, the Germans have millions and millions
    of people in the occupied territories
    and tens of thousands of Jews.
    So why do they need a few tens of thousands of Jews
    if they can be replaced from a pool that
    has millions of people?
    And they have already started to introduce these people
    in our department.
    And they know already how to do the things that we are doing.
    So I think that probably the time is imminent,
    even that these deferments for our work and defense plans
    are going to lapse.
    But we did not obviously resolve that difference of opinion.
    Hans, himself, felt that, for the time being,
    he was safer that way.
    He did, however, do one thing, and that
    is to order forged IDs, a forged ID, at least for himself,
    to go--
    it was practically impossible to live in Germany
    without some sort of an ID, because there
    were frequent checks for identification on the streets.
    There was a whole spectrum of agencies
    who could do that, in addition to just the ordinary police.
    There was a Gestapo, of course, which was essentially
    a political police.
    There was the so-called criminal police.
    These were detectives looking for common criminals.
    There was the military police.
    There was a so-called labor police, and probably
    other agencies that I wasn't even aware of.
    So basically, it was definitely necessary to have forged
    identification papers, because if you
    were asked for an identification by any one of these agencies,
    and you were not able to identify yourself
    to their satisfaction, that meant immediate arrest.
    Margot's father had a contact that
    could provide a forged identification
    as an employee for an organization
    called Deutsche Arbeistfront, which means in English German
    Labor Front.
    This is tape three, side B of an interview with Ernest Fontheim
    continued on March 13, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    This organization, the German Labor
    Front was the Nazi answer, basically, to labor unions.
    They had smashed, of course, the labor unions
    and declared them illegal.
    And also they declared that in their ideology,
    this whole idea of class warfare and of a sort
    of adversarial relationship between management and labor
    is not in the sense of a Germanic nationalism.
    Instead, they formed this German Labor Front,
    which contained members both of the employed laborers
    and employees, and of management and owners.
    And the supposed idea was that in this forum,
    before conflicts arise, all issues will be discussed
    in a cooperative way, because both sides are obviously
    interested in the flourishing of the company.
    This whole idea might have sounded good on paper,
    but it was, of course, done mainly in order
    to smash the voice of the workers
    and to enable German industry to increase production, and mainly
    war production, without any disruptions.
    So Margot's father had, through some contact,
    and for roughly the sum of 1,500 German reichsmark, which
    was the currency at the time, the opportunity--
    1,500 a piece, of course--
    to obtain IDs as an employee with the German Labor Front.
    This was, of course, a very prestigious organization.
    And so the ID also contained a passport picture
    of the person, the obviously name, birth date, address,
    and so on, and then a rubber stamp
    numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, to be stamped,
    I think, semiannually, so that it also
    had the impression of being updated on a semiannual basis.
    The rubber stamp came-- was just a number came with the ID
    itself.
    So we could sort of revalidate it every six months
    for ourselves.
    Hans also agreed to buy this ID and sort of put it away in case
    when the situation is [? ripe?] he considers ripe to go
    underground.
    In the meantime, as I had mentioned earlier,
    I was already no longer living in our apartment
    because of the hidden warning that my mother
    had conveyed to me.
    And I lived in a small maid's room of the apartment
    of Margot's parents.
    But during the day, commuted to our apartment
    because I had decided to save as much as possible.
    And incidentally, I should also add that at that time,
    my parents and sister were still in the transit
    camp in that former Jewish old age home.
    Only after the war-- in fact, fairly recently with
    publications of the history and so on--
    did I learn of the brutal conditions in that camp.
    I mean, I never thought that there would be nice conditions.
    But at least I thought since it was an old age home,
    there would be beds in there.
    And they would at least have some form of amenities.
    I learned now that some so-called specialists
    in Jewish immigration from the Vienna SS
    had been gotten to Berlin on the orders of Adolf Eichmann,
    and also to speed up the deportation of Jews.
    And the first thing that the man in charge was a man
    named [? Alois ?] Brunner, incidentally.
    His rank was SS Hauptsturmführer.
    The fact that he was in Berlin, in fact,
    was known at that time.
    But what was not known is that his first act
    after arriving and looking at the transit
    in that former old age home that he
    ordered that all furniture be thrown out the windows.
    And that was literally done.
    They were thrown out of the window,
    even though even there was a shortage of furniture
    for Germans.
    And there were just bare floors so
    he could pack more Jews into the building.
    And so even in that transit camp already,
    they must have lived under very miserable circumstances.
    And let me see.
    How long was your family in that camp?
    That comes to-- their transport left on the 12th of January.
    It was a Tuesday, and an unbelievably,
    unusually cold day, even for Berlin.
    And the departure of a transport became known within hours
    always in Berlin, because that couldn't-- you know,
    there were, what, 1,000 people were marched from the transit
    camp to the nearest--
    they didn't go to a regular railroad station
    but to a freight yard where they were loaded on like cattle.
    As I had said earlier, the arrest of my parents
    took place on December 24.
    And I guess in order to allow the SS some Christmas vacation
    from their strenuous activities, no transport
    went away from Berlin between December 24 and January 12.
    So they were there almost three weeks, 2 and 1/2 weeks.
    Were you at work when they left?
    No.
    As I explained earlier, I was on that faked sick leave.
    And I simply never went back.
    The sick leave, of course, was limited to--
    I forgot what it was-- a certain number of days, maybe a week.
    But by never going back then, I was
    hoping that my absence wouldn't be immediately noticed,
    because obviously if somebody was just absent,
    they would immediately send orders
    for the arrest of that person.
    So where were you when the transport left?
    Did you see this procession?
    No, no, no.
    I didn't see-- I just heard that also through the mouth radio
    that I had mentioned also at some point,
    that when I was actually considering how primitive it
    was and that we didn't even have telephones
    was incredibly efficient, how it went from these things meant
    for mouth to mouth.
    Let me see where--
    During that time, as I said, we--
    I lived, then, in that maid's room
    at the apartment of Margaret's parents,
    which was really very far away and a distance
    from our apartment where we lived.
    So every day, I went there to pack things.
    And my plan was to have as much of personal effects and so on
    picked up by a moving company.
    That moving company had been a client of my father's
    when he was still practicing law.
    I still remember the name was [NON-ENGLISH] Zimmerman,
    which means brother Zimmerman.
    The owner, actually, was a Mr. [? Schutt, ?] who was very,
    I must say, was a fantastic man.
    And he knew, of course, that we are Jews.
    And he stuck with us.
    He had already from our nice apartment
    that we-- where we were thrown out a lot of furniture
    stored in a storage place under a different name
    so that it couldn't be traced.
    And I went to him and told him that my parents had been
    arrested and would be deported.
    And I wanted to save more things.
    And he immediately agreed.
    And the pick up van was supposed to come on January 19.
    And I was supposed to designate all the pieces that
    were supposed to be picked up.
    And there were certain pieces of furniture
    that I thought maybe at one time I might want to sell,
    and also a trunk full of all kinds of personal articles.
    It also contained the diary of my sister.
    And she had kept a diary for a long time,
    and also particularly the letter that my sister had
    written to me when she was as a harvest helper
    away from Berlin.
    And I had written to her of the arrest of my girlfriend, Ruth.
    And so I was busy then every day for a few hours
    in the apartment.
    And always left considerably earlier
    than I would have come back had I
    worked so that I wouldn't be running into some trap
    by the Gestapo.
    On the 18th of January--
    it was one day before I had ordered the van--
    the moving van-- to come, I was, again, doing some last packing
    fit to finish up for the pick up on the next day when
    one of the women I had mentioned earlier that there were
    quite a number of people living--
    had been living in that apartment.
    One of the women came and reported
    that the infamous pick up moving van
    was in the Brandenburger Strasse.
    That is a street where my friend, Hans was living.
    I think I had mentioned that the pick-ups of Jews
    for deportation was done by a furniture--
    a furniture moving van of the firm [? Scheffler. ?]
    And Brandenburger Strasse, as I said,
    was the street where my friend Hans was living.
    Also that was in mid-morning.
    And I knew that Hans was at work at Siemens.
    But his wife, [?Valli?] did not work and might be at home.
    So I immediately grabbed my coat and raced
    towards several blocks away from where our apartment was.
    And then I turned the corner into Brandenburger Strasse
    and saw that van parked right in front of their house.
    And it struck me like a lightning.
    I stopped for a few seconds, considering-- now that house
    also, like all houses where Jews lived, of course,
    was a so-called Jew house, which meant
    that there was a large number of Jewish parties.
    And I figured that the probability that they were just
    in their apartment is probably small.
    And at any rate, I would never be
    able to face my friend if I didn't do anything
    I could to get his wife out.
    So they lived in a-- it was a walk up on the fifth floor.
    I raced up the steps, rang the bell,
    and they had sublet one room just in an apartment, which was
    rented by a Mrs. [INAUDIBLE].
    And Mrs. [INAUDIBLE] opened the door.
    Her face looked horrible, as white as--
    even more whites than this wall here, like this cup.
    I've never seen her like that.
    And she looked completely dejected.
    And all she said, what are you doing here?
    Get away quickly.
    And then, instead of turning and running, I asked,
    is [?Valli?] I want to talk to [?Valli?]..
    And then she repeated, and get away.
    And upon that, I saw behind her a man
    in an SS uniform appearing.
    And at that point, I turned around
    and raced down and was on the landing
    below when I heard a thunderous voice in a Viennese dialect
    saying, halt immediately.
    And I turned around.
    I saw an SS officer leaning over the balustrade
    with a drawn pistol pointing at me.
    And I got such a shock of scare that almost my knees
    buckled under me.
    And I walked back up.
    And he got me in, closed the door.
    And the first thing-- your papers.
    And then I pulled out my forged ID
    from the German Labor Front, which he looked at carefully
    and compared my face with the picture on the ID.
    And then he barked at me what I was doing there, you know,
    because there was supposed to be no contact
    between so-called Aryans and Jews.
    And of course, the question totally caught me by surprise.
    And I was so devastated and fearful anyway
    that I couldn't think straight.
    So all I could blurt out was that, there's
    a Jew who lives here still owes me some money, which
    in retrospect was stupid.
    And the guy didn't even catch it,
    because if he owed me money, that meant that I
    must have loaned it to him.
    And if I loaned him money, what business did
    I have loaning money to a Jew?
    But he didn't pursue it, but instead, he took my ID,
    put it in his uniform pocket, and said,
    I want to ask you some more questions tomorrow.
    I want you to come to my office at Gestapo headquarters
    such and such street address room number so-and-so.
    I forgot that.
    But I do remember at 9:00 tomorrow morning,
    I want to see you there.
    And then you'll get your ID back.
    And then I left.
    And I felt as if I had sort of escaped from hell.
    That was one of the two or three scariest
    episodes in my entire life.
    I went down.
    But at least one thing, while we were standing,
    that little conversation took place inside their door
    in a little sort of like a vestibule.
    And the various rooms went over it.
    And in Hans' room, I didn't see a person.
    So it seemed to me that [?Valli?] wasn't there.
    So as I raced down as quickly as possible-- because I thought,
    maybe the guy changes his mind.
    I decided to-- then I walked out of the house to the street.
    And to the next corner was several houses.
    So I walked to the next corner and around the corner.
    But then I positioned myself there around the corner
    so that I could see who approached the house.
    And I was hoping that if [?Valli?] would come,
    that I could signal or shout at her and get her away.
    It was also a cold winter day, the 18th of January.
    And I stood there.
    In the meantime, that van had already left.
    But it was known that sometimes if a person that they
    were looking for wasn't there, they left somebody behind.
    So that's why I stuck there until my legs were really
    like just columns of ice and I couldn't stand it anymore.
    And at 4:00 also was shift change.
    I felt I had to notify Hans.
    And of course, that was a tricky thing, because I
    was by that time away without--
    from work-- without permission.
    So I couldn't be seen there.
    So I went to the elevated station
    that we went to when we went to work at Siemens,
    and then walked towards the factory,
    but didn't walk all the way but sort
    of hid in the entrance of an apartment building
    which was still a block or two away from the factory,
    but where people at the shift change
    would sort of stream past.
    And of course, by that time, it was winter.
    It was already fairly dark.
    So I stood there and then when Hans came by, I whistled to him
    and he stopped and was surprised to see me.
    And I told them the events of the morning.
    And of course, he got very depressed and agitated by that.
    And we went together back.
    And then when we arrived in front of his house
    and looked up--
    there was also in wartime, windows
    had to be darkened in order not to give away locations
    to enemy airplanes.
    But often-- I mean, not often.
    Always there was sort of a small slit of light coming just
    from the edge where the curtain just quite didn't hit the wall.
    And we saw some light coming out of his apartment.
    So we both felt, oh, somebody must be home, at least.
    So we rushed up.
    And on the floor below, Hans turned to me and said,
    you know, why don't you wait here?
    I'll go up and if everything is clear, I'll call you.
    So I stood one floor below and watched him.
    And he put the key into the lock,
    but hadn't turned it when the door opened from the inside.
    And I saw a tall, gray-haired civilian opening
    the door who didn't belong there, never
    seen before in my life.
    And he immediately looked down and shouted to me, who are you?
    And then I turned around and ran as fast as I could.
    I never ran as fast in my life, I think.
    And that was the last time I saw Hans
    And it is sort of a sideline, that
    was the 18th of January, 1943.
    Exactly to the day five years later that my high school
    friend from that orthodox high school on the 18th of January
    '39--
    four years later-- left Berlin to emigrate to England.
    So I left, I guess, the two best friends that I had in my life.
    I lost them on the same day, on the 18th of January.
    The only thing is the one who left
    for England, left for life.
    And he's still alive.
    He's in Jerusalem now.
    So then I went back again to Margot's parents.
    And there was a terrible argument.
    Her father accused me that I was reckless,
    that I should have never--
    by having that ID confiscated, that
    means now that ID may even be useless now
    because the Gestapo knows--
    they are obviously going to find out that this is a forged ID.
    And I was endangering everybody else.
    And so we had a big argument about that.
    And then-- and not only that, but I probably overreacted
    and overestimated the efficiency of the Gestapo.
    But at that time, I thought they could probably lift
    my fingerprints from that ID.
    And all Jews had been fingerprinted already
    years before.
    So they had a fingerprint file of all Jews.
    And experienced criminologists can match fingerprints.
    So it occurred to me that what if they match my fingerprint,
    find out who that owner of that ID
    really was, and then come to the apartment?
    And if the moving van is just there, that will be--
    they will immediately find out that this is being picked up,
    you know, by that firm of [? Zimmerman. ?]
    And that will lead them to me somehow.
    So I called up the firm and canceled the pick up.
    And that was one of the most horrible mistakes in my life.
    It wasn't the furniture but it was the personal things--
    sorry.
    The personal things that were contained in the trunk.
    The trunk contained my sister's diary, her letters,
    including the letter that she had written
    to me after the arrest of Ruth.
    And I never went back to that building,
    simply because I was afraid that it might be staked out,
    while the Gestapo--
    as far as I know-- never looked just
    for Jews who were in hiding in particular.
    But in a case where there was a forged
    ID from an important Nazi agency,
    they would surely be interested in finding out
    how that ID was obtained, from whom, et cetera, et cetera.
    So that would have been worthwhile to stake
    that address out.
    I just, in retrospect, don't believe
    that they were that efficient that they
    would have had all of that figured out within less than a
    day.
    But at that time, I felt strongly
    that it was too unsafe to go back
    and also too unsafe to have the moving company come
    because that would have led them to me.
    The result of it is that I have no personal belongings
    of my sister whatsoever.
    I have pictures, of course, but that's all.
    We intensified now the search for a place
    to hide Margot's parents.
    And incidentally, of course, I immediately
    had to practically move mountains to get another ID.
    Margaret's parents were also planning to go underground,
    but didn't--
    had one or two possible sort of options, none of which
    was ideal.
    Then I came up with an idea.
    And that was the former office supervisor of my father's law
    office was a Mrs. Frida [INAUDIBLE]..
    She was actually a marvelous person.
    She had been in his office as far back as I can remember.
    I don't know whether she was there since before I was born
    or since I was a little boy, but as long
    as I remember, as a little boy, whenever
    I was taken to the office, she was already
    working for my father.
    And then in the last years, she was his office supervisor.
    And she held to us even after my father
    lost his license to practice.
    And of course, then she lost that job.
    And she visited us frequently.
    And I remember often she brought us
    food, even, that she had taken from her own not very
    generous rations.
    And she owned a primitive weekend cottage in a village
    about roughly 35 miles southeast of Berlin.
    And all I knew was that she owned that place.
    I had never been there, what it was like, or so.
    But I went to her.
    And of course, I told her also that my parents and sister
    had been arrested.
    And I told her that whether we could make some arrangement
    that I and also a family of friends there--
    that's the couple and her daughter--
    could live in that cottage.
    And she said that because my father
    was such a marvelous boss for decades for her,
    and she also considered herself as a friend of the family,
    that she would do anything to save my life.
    On the other hand, she wasn't so sure
    whether that cottage really was the right place.
    And she repeated again that it was very primitive.
    And maybe we ought to look at it.
    So first of all, of course, I introduced her
    to Margot's parents.
    I think it was even the next day we all went to her apartment
    and sort of got acquainted.
    And then we agreed on a day when we would together travel out
    and look at the place.
    She said she hadn't been there even for a year or two,
    and maybe in a fairly rundown state.
    So we went out there.
    And it was sort of a settlement.
    This is sort of a German custom, actually,
    that there were settlements of colonies--
    sort of colonies of cottages with very small pieces
    of land-- like gardens--
    around them, which sort of, say, lower middle class Germans
    would own to have a place to go there on weekends.
    And so we went there and looked at the place.
    It was, again, a cold winter day.
    And the first thing we noticed was that the roof was leaking
    and the cottage was really very primitive.
    There was, of course, no inside running water.
    There was a pump in front of the house in the garden.
    And of course, there was no electricity.
    There was an oil lamp there, but for that, one
    had to buy sort of a particular kind of petroleum, which
    was almost impossible to get.
    Or also one could use candles, which also were hard to get.
    And then for heating, basically there
    was a kitchen stove, which served
    both as a stove for heating and as a stove for cooking.
    It was sort of a cast iron sort of rectangular body on cast
    iron legs.
    And on top, there were sort of concentric rings of iron, which
    could be taken out, and pots of different sizes
    put in there to heat things and cook things.
    And that was all there was.
    And the furniture, I guess, was very primitive.
    There were two rooms and a sort of a veranda.
    But we were desperate.
    So anyway, we said we would have to make do.
    And she agreed to let us have the place.
    And of course, she impressed on us the need
    to be extremely careful.
    But I mean, we were aware of that ourselves.
    Our punishment would have been Auschwitz if we
    would have been not careful.
    It would have been discovered.
    And she would have probably also wound up
    in a concentration camp.
    And--
    What about the neighbors?
    Yeah.
    I'm coming to that.
    I mean, that was just [INAUDIBLE]..
    So she let it.
    And she didn't take--
    she took a small rent.
    I forgot what it was anymore, maybe
    it was the order of 40 to 50 mark per month,
    which at that time was nothing.
    And the garden, incidentally, contained
    a number of marvelous fruit trees, some cherry and also
    plum trees.
    And she told us we could use the harvest.
    And the harvest was so rich that, in terms of black market
    money, that was almost more than the 40 or 50 mark
    that we paid her for the rent.
    Yeah, OK.
    So then that was agreed upon.
    And then we decided we would move out there
    as soon as possible.
    I mean, you know, we had to settle certain affairs.
    Well, I didn't.
    I was out of our apartment.
    And that was it.
    And everything in there was gone,
    as far as I was concerned.
    But the only things I had taken, of course,
    personal items like clothing along already
    to the maid's room at Margot's parents' house.
    So I was all set up to move there.
    But they had to pack their things yet.
    And that took a few days.
    And then actually, on the 30th of January, 1943,
    we moved out to that-- the name of the village,
    incidentally, was Senzig.
    S-E-N-Z-I-G. And now a completely different life
    started for us.
    I considered it at the time a real adventure.
    First of all, I was finally off that continuous pressure
    that was increasing by the month of whether to be picked up
    and to be deported.
    And I felt for the first time in years like a free person.
    And I also felt that I somehow I want control of my life
    now, which I wasn't before.
    And furthermore, I mean, the threat was lifted.
    And I could do what I wanted to do.
    Not exactly, actually.
    But at least in a limited way.
    Yeah, there were obviously many, many things now to consider.
    The first item was money.
    I have to, again, sort of backtrack a little bit.
    My father had stored away some what
    was called black money in the years before his arrest,
    because all Jewish assets, even if they were not confiscated,
    were blocked by the German authority, basically
    the German equivalent of the IRS, the Treasury Department.
    That meant that these assets still
    belonged to the particular Jewish owner,
    but he could not-- he or she could not freely
    dispose of them.
    Each family had-- was given by the Gestapo
    a maximum amount of money it could spend per month.
    And that was all from the bank account.
    Obviously, that was all in preparation for confiscation.
    They wanted to prevent the Jews stash away money.
    And that was based entirely on the size of the family.
    Like, we were four people, so I don't know what the amount was.
    But my father had a certain amount of money--
    maximum amount that you could spend.
    And anything that he sold or so on
    had to be paid into that blocked account, also.
    But my father did particularly, at the time when
    our big apartment was given up, he
    sold many items under the hand and established black accounts
    with a number of friends--
    basically three.
    Two of them were former--
    no.
    One of them was a former client.
    That was a very interesting man whom I
    talk about a little bit later.
    He was a furrier.
    And in fact, he had the largest and most prominent fur business
    in Berlin.
    One of his customers, in fact, was
    none other than Hermann Goring, one of the top Nazis
    and commander in chief of the Air Force,
    in addition to many other offices that he held.
    And his name was Walter [? Lange. ?]
    And in fact, he had a Jewish wife.
    And he told us that Goring called him up
    in the summer of 1939 telling him,
    if you want your wife to be safe, get her out now.
    And I'll see to it that anything that she wants to take out,
    she can.
    At that time, an ordinary Jew who emigrated
    could take out only very limited amounts of valuables and so on.
    And he shipped his wife out with, I don't know,
    oriental rugs and other valuables to England.
    And they had a son, by the way, and the son also.
    And so they were now in safety in England--
    safety except for German air raids, maybe.
    But of course, he conducted--
    kept conducting his business.
    And I forgot what the exact amounts of money were,
    but it was a fairly sizable amount
    that he kept in a separate account for my father.
    And my father had told him and also the others
    that if anything happened to him, then
    I should have access to these assets.
    The second person was actually the father of the German lawyer
    whom I had mentioned earlier, who
    had warned my father of his imminent arrest
    after Kristallnacht.
    And I think I mentioned at the time
    that the father of this lawyer had
    been a minister of the interior in one
    of the pre-Hitler governments of the Weimar Republic.
    The son, the lawyer himself, who had warned my father,
    was by that time, of course, drafted and was
    an officer in the Wehrmacht.
    But the father was an elderly gentleman.
    And he kept also a sizable amount of money for my father,
    and also was informed that I should have access
    to these assets.
    The third person was my father's former accountant and tax
    advisor.
    He actually had the smallest amount, but also--
    I think it was somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000
    Deutsche Reichsmarch, which was, at that time, fairly sizable.
    The interesting thing is that he was the only one who cheated me
    of the money.
    Obviously because of the danger for them and for us,
    no receipts were exchanged.
    I mean, it was all just by word of honor.
    And when I came to claim, actually, part of the money,
    he told me with a straight face--
    and in fact, that was at the time
    when my father was still in the transit camp.
    And he told me-- and it was a straight face--
    that unfortunately, my father did not follow his advice
    to let them keep the money.
    But he picked the money up about three, four months ago.
    And he advised my father that it was not a good idea
    and that he should--
    it would be better for the safety of the money
    if he would keep the money.
    This is tape four, side A, of an interview with Ernest Fontheim
    on March 13, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    Yeah, then my father asked about--
    as I explained earlier, my former mathematics teacher
    Dr. Baer was an orderly employed in that transit camp.
    And he brought messages back and forth
    between my father and myself.
    And also, every day I made sandwiches for them,
    and he would take them in.
    And I sent a sort of, obviously, a cloaked message just saying
    that the accountant said that he had picked everything up.
    And my father sent a message back,
    that is definitely not so, and he has everything.
    So I went back to the accountant for a second time
    and told him the message of my father.
    And he became, then, at first, just unfriendly,
    but when I kept persisting, he pointed to the telephone
    and said if I don't leave him alone,
    he has one phone call to make to the police,
    and then I can explain to them that he owes me money.
    Well, at that point I turned around and left.
    I guess that's one of these unfortunate experiences.
    So money was a problem.
    Another problem was, of course, how to arrange our lives there.
    These plots in the settlements were very close together.
    You cannot live there literally in hiding and avoid people.
    In fact, that would have aroused suspicion.
    Neighbors are traditionally, in these settlements,
    very close-talk to each other.
    And so we decided, we first of all
    have to have a believable story, who we are and so on.
    So we concocted a whole curriculum vitae for ourselves.
    And the story was our papers incidentally
    all were made in the last name of Hesse, mine too.
    H-E-S-S-E. And the story was that this was a couple with
    their daughter, Margot, and I was a nephew,
    in other words the son of Mr. Hesse's brother.
    And my parents had been killed in an accident
    while I was still a baby.
    And I had been raised by my aunt and uncle.
    But they were almost total strangers to me.
    I just met them a few months before,
    so I had to train myself to address them
    in the familiar German Du form.
    And also, instead of calling them Mr. or Mrs. Hesse,
    I had to call them Uncle Hermann and Aunt Lucy.
    And incidentally, the name Hermann Hesse also
    was chosen because from the telephone book,
    Mr. Hesse found out there existed a real Hermann
    Hesse at a Berlin address, and that
    was the address that we gave.
    So if somebody just made a cursory check, say with our ID,
    there existed such a person at the address that we gave.
    OK, we also had to have credible stories
    of what our lives were like.
    For example, in my case, a German,
    which I pretended to be, would normally
    be inducted into the army.
    And of course I was a civilian.
    And after my ID was taken away by the SS
    from the German Labor Front, I acquired, after a few months,
    another ID as a technician in one of the major German defense
    plants in Berlin.
    And that, of course, was in itself an excellent alibi
    because a person of such technical expertise
    would be deferred for military service.
    However, I should also add that the ID requirements
    were much more rigorous.
    For example, every male of military age--
    and I don't remember any more up to what age that was,
    but surely much more than my age at that time, which was 20--
    every such person had to have military papers.
    If the person was actually a member of the Wehrmacht,
    it means of any one of the three branches-- army, navy,
    or air force--
    the person had to have a Militarpass, military pass,
    with picture identifying the unit, et cetera, et cetera.
    If the person was exempt from military service for whatever
    reason, then also a military paper with a picture and other
    personal information stating that reason--
    be it deferment for job reasons or maybe for health reasons,
    somebody may have had only one leg for example--
    the paper would have to state what the reason was.
    And that also had to be carried on the person
    and shown on request.
    In the case of job deferment-- in fact,
    that paper was only issued for a limited time.
    I forgot exactly, but I believe it was six months.
    So after, it had to be revalidated every six months.
    That made it very difficult to obtain forgeries.
    First of all, forgeries of military papers
    were very real hard to get in the first place.
    And then it was only valid for six months.
    Then it had to be revalidated.
    And as I said, I had now obtained an ID
    as a technician for a defense plant in Berlin.
    And with that, I lived for the rest
    of the war showing it the many times
    that I was asked for an ID.
    And in fact, it was convincing enough so that there was never
    a follow-up question.
    But I was aware of the fact that each time the official asking
    me to identify myself, could have asked,
    where is your Wehrmacht ID?
    And then I had already prepared one fall-back,
    and that was that I would actually
    go through the pockets of my jacket
    and pretend to look for the paper,
    and then was surprised in my face and say,
    ah, I must have left it in the coat that I wore yesterday.
    And at that point, the official could
    have said, well, I believe you this time,
    but be sure don't forget it again.
    He could, however, also have told me, in that case,
    I have to take you along to check you out, in which case,
    I would have been done.
    And in fact, that never occurred.
    And in all of my cases where I was controlled for ID,
    that ID that I had and the one that I obtained later--
    that I discussed, then--
    were sufficient.
    I think that also had to do with the fact that I had learned--
    while living in Nazi Germany since '33 and by being in that
    Nazi gymnasium, or high school, for two years from '33 to '35--
    I had learned exactly the correct Nazi demeanor.
    They were in many ways very naive,
    almost bordering on the childish.
    For example, whenever I was asked for an ID,
    before I did anything like showing my ID,
    I would, and with military demeanor, click my heels--
    I had special heels for that with sort of iron or steel
    plates to provide the impressive military click
    that German soldiers had--
    stretch out my right arm, say a snappy, Heil Hitler, and then
    I would show mine.
    And such silly little things would
    make just the right impression and would
    dispel, in most cases at least, any suspicion
    that I could be anything but a convinced and truthful Nazi.
    Yeah, that was my case.
    Then the case of Mr. Hesse, Margot's father.
    He was actually by profession a tailor and pattern maker
    and had owned a woman's coat factory
    in earlier years in the '30s.
    And then when forced labor came, he
    was actually drafted into a military uniform factory
    and had also, even though he was a Jew, a position of sort
    of supervisory position there because of his background
    and knowledge.
    So he carried that, continued that, and also
    said that he was in such a factory.
    And in addition to that, of course,
    he had the ID of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront,
    which was sort of like a secondary position he
    pretended.
    Margot's mother had an undefined office job in Berlin.
    And Margot herself actually was by training a baby nurse,
    and she worked in sort of a German nursery.
    These started to spring up now.
    Today they would be called daycare centers
    because many German women were not exactly forcibly drafted
    to work in factories, but they were strongly coerced and urged
    because there was a tremendous need, obviously,
    for factory workers because German males were in the army.
    And because of the fact that many of these women worked,
    there was a need for a daycare center.
    So Margot pretended to work in one of those.
    But that alone, to have kind of a job, wasn't really enough.
    I mean, the thing is that village where we lived
    was about three to four miles away from the nearest commuter
    station to Berlin.
    And people either bicycled from the village
    and parked the bicycles--
    at the railroad station they were bicycle racks--
    or they took a postal bus that went down the country
    road which the village was.
    And certain schedules-- I forgot what it was--
    but not very frequently.
    I think once an hour or so.
    And now I went in to Berlin, actually,
    twice a week to maintain contact with black market sources
    to obtain food.
    And so I made it a point, then, always to take--
    there was a bus and people saw me at the bus stop.
    And of course, I pretended to go to work to my factory.
    On other days when I did not go there,
    since it was also known that I had a bicycle
    and I would bicycle out in the neighborhood,
    I simply spread the word that whenever I had a chance
    I liked to bicycle.
    I would take the bicycle to that commuter line station
    and park it there so that people wouldn't wonder
    why I wasn't there regularly.
    I forgot what Margot's father's alabi was, but he and his wife
    also went into Berlin twice a week
    to catch up there and keep contact with their black market
    sources.
    Margot herself was number one as a most Jewish-looking
    of the four of us.
    And on top of it, she was at that time always
    extremely nervous and afraid.
    And so she stayed out there and never went into the city.
    And that created somewhat of a problem, but what she had to do
    was to stay inside the house.
    I mean, people didn't check up really literally.
    And she just stayed inside the house all day
    and only appeared outside after, I don't know, five or six,
    when people normally would be home from their jobs.
    Another very important issue was that of police registration.
    In Germany at that time-- and, I believe, even today still--
    every person has to be registered
    with the police at his or her place of residence.
    And a person can only have one place of residence.
    Now, all the people out there who lived in these houses--
    I mean, these cottages, some were as primitive as ours,
    others may have been a little bit more fancy--
    they actually had apartments in Berlin
    where they were registered with the police.
    And they moved out there because, just
    about the time when we went underground,
    air raids increased tremendously,
    particularly the American Air Force, which
    was stationed at airfields on the British Islands,
    and would regularly attack Berlin.
    Later on, actually on a daily basis in early '43,
    it wasn't that frequent, but still frequently enough
    for people to be scared.
    So therefore, people preferred the safety of some village--
    which surely wouldn't be bombed--
    to being in Berlin and being trapped
    in an apartment building.
    But that, of course, posed a problem for them
    because, as I said, by law everybody has to be registered.
    And a person can only be registered
    at one place with the police.
    So if a person moved, there was actually
    also a de-registration form.
    The person had to de-register at his or her old residence,
    and then the person actually received
    a copy of the de-registration form
    to present at the new place where
    then the person would register.
    Well, if the people would have done that,
    would have de-registered in Berlin,
    they would immediately have lost their apartments,
    since as a result of the air raids,
    many people lost their apartments.
    And there was practically no new building going on
    because of wartime conditions, and all of the war materials
    and labor were really put into the war effort
    to build tanks, planes, and whatever else was needed.
    So there was an acute and increasing shortage
    of apartments, so if somebody moved out of his apartment,
    the first thing was that it would be snapped away
    by the housing authority, and the apartment
    would be given over to some bombed-out family.
    And, of course, people wanted to maintain their apartments.
    To make a long story short, the result
    was that all of these good Germans who lived out there,
    lived there essentially, quote, "illegally."
    They did not register there because they couldn't
    because they didn't want to de-register
    and give up their Berlin apartments.
    The local police, which was in charge of that, of course
    knew about that and simply looked the other way
    because it was understandable.
    You know, people didn't want to lose their city apartments.
    And that was a perfect argument for us
    because we couldn't register for different reasons.
    We were underground Jews.
    But we had that perfect argument.
    Of course we had our apartment in Berlin,
    and as I mentioned earlier, the address that we gave--
    the fictitious-- there was actually
    a Hermann Hesse living there.
    So somebody could check us out in the telephone book,
    and we were there only for a few of the air raids.
    So actually, I always felt that was the first time in my life
    that the Americans came and helped me.
    Yeah, and then what we did in the beginning was,
    we had several sessions in that little cottage
    where we interrogated ourselves on all of these issues--
    I mean, who I was, and I was a nephew and that my parents had
    died while I was still a baby, and I was raised by my aunt
    and uncle and where I worked and where they worked--
    so that it became part of our nature.
    We constantly asked ourselves these questions
    so that nobody would ever make a slip up or give
    some long answer or even an answer
    contradicting somebody or somebody
    else who said something.
    I should say also, by the way, the date
    that we moved out there, I mentioned earlier,
    was the 30th of January 1943.
    It was an extremely interesting date.
    First of all, it was the 10th anniversary
    of Hitler's assumption of power that he
    was named Reich Chancellor.
    And secondly, and more important for us,
    it was a day in which Field Marshal Paulus, commander
    of German 6th Army in the Ukraine,
    surrendered his army in the city of Stalingrad.
    The huge Battle of Stalingrad, which had raged
    from October through January--
    that means four months--
    the Germans had lost and was the first major military loss
    for the Germans.
    And that made us unbelievably ecstatic.
    In fact, we decided that after that loss,
    the war can last longer than next summer,
    meaning summer '43.
    I think it was that optimism that made us keep going.
    If we would have known it'd last another over two years,
    I don't know whether or what we would would have--
    I guess we had no other choice anyway,
    but it kept our spirits up.
    Yeah, then the food situation.
    Well, as I had mentioned earlier,
    also food was rationed.
    The ration coupons were given out
    to people who were registered with the police.
    The food rationing officers had actually
    a duplicate of the police registration file,
    so obviously since we were not registered with the police,
    we couldn't get food ration cards,
    and therefore, we had to buy all of our food
    on the black market.
    The black market does not mean that there was actually
    a market somewhere where people traded.
    I mean, that would have immediately
    been exploded by the Gestapo.
    Black market simply means that people
    were trading in rationed food but without ration coupons.
    Who were these people?
    Well, there were all kinds of people.
    First of all, fellow underground Jews.
    For example, somebody might have had a terrific source
    for baked goods and breads but nothing else,
    but that person would then trade in breads
    and sell them at a profit for him
    and use that maybe to buy sausage from somebody
    else who had that source.
    And so I mean, we were quite a circle of underground Jews.
    And so that was also a source for black market food.
    Then various sympathetic gentiles--
    I had, for example, a housemaid of my maternal grandparents.
    In fact, my maternal grandmother died fortunately
    a natural death, only a few months before the deportations
    started.
    And her last maid, she had been with my grandmother
    for many years.
    And she was a very faithful family friend.
    And she was the last one who could afford even
    to buy black market food, but she
    was a very modest and simple person.
    And she claimed she didn't even need all the food that she was
    getting on her ration cards.
    So I went there.
    One of the stops that I did on my Berlin visits
    was her little apartment.
    And she always had some food.
    First of all, she always fed me a warm meal.
    And then she also gave me something
    that she had saved from her rations.
    Then there was the butcher of the Hesse
    family near where they lived.
    Now, they were very decent people,
    very strongly anti-Nazi.
    And when they told them that they were going underground,
    they immediately promised to supply them
    as much as they could with meat, but the problem
    was they couldn't really go there because they
    were known in the neighborhood.
    They lived around the corner there from that butcher.
    And everybody knew them.
    If they would appear there without a star,
    somebody would surely denounce them.
    So before we actually went underground,
    I was introduced to them.
    And as I had mentioned earlier, our family
    lived in a totally different part of Berlin.
    So not a soul knew me there.
    So I was introduced, and there was also
    a ruse agreed upon how I would go about getting food from her.
    But people were very jealous in those days.
    And so I would come into the store
    and say to her that my mother was in here this morning
    and left an order for sausage and meat
    and gave you already the food stamps.
    And she would say, yes, that's right.
    I have your order ready.
    Then she would go in the back and pack whatever
    she felt like up and charged me just the regular amount
    of money for these items which were all under price control.
    I should have said earlier, on the black market,
    roughly the price of food was 10 times the regular price
    controlled price.
    It varied a little bit.
    It also depended on what kind of food,
    but that was a good average.
    And she could have made a lot of money with that.
    Instead she sold it to me exactly at the price
    that was under price control.
    And that was also purely, I mean, out of support.
    And then another important item incidentally
    which people never think about is shoe repair.
    Not only were shoes rationed, but shoe repair was rationed.
    In other words, if you needed a new sole,
    there was a ration coupon that you
    had to hand in for a sole for a shoe.
    And we didn't have that.
    Well, here our old shoemaker from our area
    had agreed to support us.
    And the thing was, he was actually a secret communist.
    And, of course, he was not active
    in the underground Communist Party,
    but he had been a Communist earlier
    and maintained his sympathies.
    And his shoe shop was not as close to our old apartment
    as that butcher was to the Hesse's apartment,
    so I could go there without fearing to run into anybody.
    So we had all our shoe repairs.
    And in the long run that is as much a life saver as food.
    What are you going to do if your shoes fall apart?
    You can't get new shoes.
    You can't repair them.
    That basically condemned you to stay at home,
    so we solved that problem with him.
    And then there was a whole bunch of people who
    we relied on to obtain food.
    And for the money, as I said, we paid.
    I used the money gradually that I obtained from the assets
    that my father had that I talked about earlier.
    Let me ask you a question here.
    Was there any difficulty in figuring out which people
    you could trust or not trust?
    No, I mean the difficulty might have
    been in somebody whom I ran across sort
    of unexpectedly somewhere.
    But the people that we had contact with,
    we knew we could trust.
    But what about people you ran across,
    like your old family friends?
    Yeah, I mean, that Berlin was a city at that time still
    close to five million people.
    In a sense, even though New York is much bigger,
    it's also similar in the sense you don't run into people.
    And, of course, one thing, we had
    to be very careful where we went.
    I mean, I never went into our old neighborhood,
    and they never went into theirs.
    And also, then there were certain areas
    I come to discuss a little bit later where Jews were sort of,
    quote, "known" to be often, and we tried
    to avoid these areas also.
    But there was a possibility, and you didn't trust anyone at all.
    What about in this village where you were living?
    Yeah, OK.
    In the village, OK, that was--
    I sort of said already how we concocted our story there.
    And we decided from the beginning,
    then, to just act like normal neighbors,
    and anything else would have been impossible anyway.
    So we actually started a whole social life there.
    We met people and invited each other-- we were invited.
    We invited people for, I don't know,
    a game of cards or whatever.
    The most interesting person, actually, we
    met was the local Nazi party chieftain for that village.
    Margot's father was a very good accordion player,
    and he played often.
    And I guess in this cottage the walls are thin anyway.
    Somehow it became known that he played the accordion.
    And that Nazi, actually his name was Harry [? Gladenik-- ?]
    a very nice, charming fellow, in spite of the fact
    that he was a rabid Nazi.
    He came over and said he heard that here someone plays
    accordion, and he loves accordion music.
    And they have actually every Saturday evening a party
    at his house with dancing and so on
    and why don't we come over sometime and participate
    in that.
    So we were frequent guests, then, at the home of that Nazi,
    dancing with some of the women there.
    And what was for me most important,
    more important than the dancing at least, was the food.
    They had, what seemed to me, limitless supplies of food.
    I don't know what their sources were.
    But part of the source, in fact, was
    the sister of Harry [? Gladenik, ?] that Nazi.
    She lived with them, but her husband
    who was also a real professional Nazi ideologue,
    was an official in the German occupation of the Soviet Union
    and had his ways there of obtaining meat and sausages
    and all kinds of other goodies that
    were, even for good Germans, hard to get in Germany.
    And he sent regular packages.
    And so that was all served there,
    and we always enjoyed going there
    and had a wonderful time with these people.
    And when you went to these parties, you felt comfortable?
    Yeah, totally.
    I totally sort of divorced myself from my real self
    and chatted with them.
    And later on I think I felt sort of elation
    that I was able to put up such a front.
    I mean, this whole--
    in the beginning, I changed [INAUDIBLE]
    in the later part of the war.
    In the beginning, this whole life of deception
    sort of had some tremendous attraction for me.
    Now it sounds almost childish, but I felt somewhat
    like a secret agent in enemy territory
    trying to pretend and something that wasn't the case
    and fooling all the enemies.
    But there certainly is an element of risk there?
    Yes?
    Well, the element of risk was there anyway.
    I mean, there-- but, I mean, after having lived by that time
    a year and a half before we went underground with the threat
    of deportation--
    which was a constant risk and something that
    was out of my control, even--
    I felt like a free person then.
    Did anybody there know of your situation--
    No.
    --other the person whose house it was?
    No.
    And she wasn't really known too well.
    She had just bought it a year before
    and was there a few times.
    So she obviously knew us, but, no, nobody else knew us.
    During this period, were you in contact
    with other Jewish people who had gone underground?
    Yeah.
    Right.
    There was one fellow--
    actually, he was an interesting fellow.
    Unfortunately, I lost contact with him after the war.
    His name was Heinz Jacobius.
    He was the most versatile person, underground Jew,
    that I encountered.
    He lived in the middle of the city with an Aryan girlfriend.
    And of course, he also was not registered.
    In the city, it was even more complicated
    than in the country where we were
    because the janitors of buildings,
    sort of, were legally obligated to see to it that every tenant
    was registered with the police.
    In fact, he had to countersign the registration form
    that one he had to fill out.
    And if somebody regularly comes by,
    the janitor was supposed to watch out.
    So they were somewhat like spies also.
    They were supposed to notice it and report that person.
    But that Heinz Jacobius, he was a tremendous black market
    artist, and he just fed that janitor
    so well that he surely had no interest in killing the goose
    that laid his golden eggs.
    Yeah.
    Actually, and then his house was hit by incendiary bombs
    during an air raid.
    And of course, that scared him because if that house would
    have burned down, then that would have destroyed
    the whole arrangement.
    And during wartime, incidentally,
    the fire department-- and that was made known also--
    never did anything to protect or put out
    fires in ordinary apartment houses
    because they were needed for war, important objects,
    either government or military installations and so on.
    And so the whole population had been
    trained in extinguishing fires.
    And he apparently distinguished himself, went out of his way--
    and I don't know whatever he did--
    that, anyway, the local party organization
    gave him a special order of merit
    that people got for going out of their way,
    beyond the call of duty in putting out
    the fire, which they did.
    The reason I asked you about your knowledge of other Jews
    who had gone underground, is I was wondering whether there
    was any sort of informal network for information
    purposes for any sort of political or sabotage
    purposes or anything else.
    No, I mean, there was what you might call an informal network.
    I knew some, and then others knew some others.
    But it had nothing to do at all with any attempt at sabotage.
    We were totally devoted to only surviving and not being caught.
    I mean, sabotage would have endangered us even more.
    But what about access to information?
    Yeah, well that's what that served.
    But on the other hand, you had to be very careful if you--
    I'm coming to something that I haven't mentioned yet,
    but the Gestapo employed a number of Jewish spies.
    And if you met a Jew whom you had not
    seen on a, more or less, continuous basis,
    you didn't know whether that person was legitimately
    underground--
    like I was-- or whether that was a spy working for the Gestapo
    and ready to hand me over.
    So for that reason, the unwritten law
    was, first of all you did not disclose to anyone where
    you lived.
    And secondly, if you met somebody, say just
    on the street, from earlier times,
    you would try to avoid that person.
    This is tape four, side B, of an interview with Ernest Fontheim.
    It is March 13, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    Another important aspect of our stay
    there was the total change in lifestyle.
    I mean, I was even in the apartment
    where we were forced into in this Jewish house.
    We had running water.
    We had running water toilets, even
    running hot water, central heating, and all
    these amenities.
    And suddenly, from one day to the next,
    transferred into that primitive cottage.
    It was a tremendous, I don't know,
    culture shock is probably the wrong word.
    So living style shock would be probably better.
    We had to, as I said, get our water from a pump outside.
    And we learned that if it freezes,
    then the pump freezes, and we had
    to do all kinds of shenanigans to unfreeze the pump,
    like pouring hot water through a priming hole.
    We had, obviously, no water toilet,
    but an outhouse which was very primitive and in winter
    very cold.
    And as I also said, there was of course no electricity.
    We had, for a lot of money, to buy petroleum
    on the black market to run one petroleum lamp,
    and also had candles, which we had to pay a lot of money.
    And so it was a total change in lifestyle,
    and I found that at the time very romantic
    and felt that living in a big city apartment house
    with running water and central heating
    made us only degenerate.
    And now, at least, these horrible times
    had one advantage-- they make us return to nature
    and that we really appreciate what is heat.
    Heat is not just some pipes that radiate heat, but in our case,
    wood has had to be cut with an ax and with hard work.
    And that's how you create your heat.
    And water had to be obtained from a pump,
    and sometimes you had to unfreeze it.
    And I remember at the time, I was very romantic
    about all of this.
    And thought I was a great thing that
    was happening to me that I was returning to nature, some form.
    OK, let me see.
    Yeah, I had mentioned earlier also
    these so-called black accounts that my father
    had with various people.
    Now, it turned out that the black market prices
    were continuously increasing.
    There was an inflation even in the black market.
    And so I was aware of the fact, a fixed sum of money
    would shrink in purchasing power over the years.
    And I wanted to avoid that.
    So the money, which I had with that former client,
    a furrier, client of my father, I
    decided to invest in something that would keep its value,
    at least would increase with inflation-- they would
    keep its purchasing power.
    And through a friend, I had the opportunity
    to buy a women's evening handbag made out of high carat
    gold and platinum, little elements like in the chain.
    And for that handbag, I paid 12,000 Reichsmark.
    And then I gave it back to the furrier
    because I didn't want to have it for fear
    of something happening.
    And so he kept it.
    But he also offered me to do some work on his estate.
    He had a fantastic estate outside
    of Berlin, East of Berlin, in a very fancy area
    with big mansions.
    And he said he needed any way some workers,
    and if I came he would feed me for the day and pay me also.
    And in addition, he also dealt on a large scale
    in black market.
    There would be always some things
    that he could give me along.
    So once a week, I went out to his estate.
    Now, on the estate, he had actually three workers already.
    One was a Polish couple.
    They were real peasants.
    And in fact, he detailed me to that Polish guy.
    And he told me what to do.
    And his wife was, I think, sort of a cleaning
    woman in this house.
    And then he had a single Polish girl, a young woman.
    Her name was Maria.
    And she was the cook and also, sort of, homemaker.
    And incidentally, I have to add, that he
    had all these workers was only a result of his connections.
    I said earlier, he supplied Goring with furs,
    because according to the law at that time,
    forced foreign laborers could be used only in either agriculture
    or defense plants.
    And agriculture meant not for the people
    for their own backyards, as he did,
    but agriculture in the sense these
    were suppliers of food for the population.
    So he was legally not entitled to them, but had them anyway.
    But I mean, the system under the Nazis
    was shot through with corruption,
    and anyone could get anything he wanted.
    And incidentally, the film Schindler's List
    is an excellent example of how Schindler, even in Auschwitz,
    with a number of diamonds gets his workers out
    of the concentration camp again.
    So as I said, I went there once a week
    and worked under the supervision of the Polish peasant.
    And that peasant, he talked German haltingly,
    but fairly well.
    And he was obsessed because he was a great Polish patriot.
    And he was obsessed with, I mean,
    the terrible fate of Poland.
    And in his theory, the cause for the terrible fate of Poland--
    it had two causes.
    One was the communists or the Soviets,
    and the other one was the Jews.
    The Germans for some reason never
    occurred to him, even though they
    were the ones to attack Poland.
    And so I had to listen to his anti-Semitic tirades
    and sort of appear to agree with him.
    And another aspect there was that Maria, the maid,
    every time when I was ready to leave,
    she called me to her room to give me some food and also
    something to eat right there and something to take along.
    And I was convinced that she must be secretly
    in love with me, but I didn't want
    to have anything to do with her, I mean, for many reasons.
    First of all, I wasn't attracted to her.
    And secondly, I felt any involvement of that kind
    can only be dangerous.
    One of the other underground friends--
    we had a whole circle of people who were underground,
    not a circle in the sense that we actually lived together,
    but we kept in touch with each other.
    And one of them was a fellow from my high school graduating
    class.
    His name was Gerd Cohn.
    He lived also with non-Jewish girlfriend,
    and he had all kinds of contacts also for black market
    foods and necessities.
    And one day, he told me that he met
    a group of foreign forced laborers
    who were a tremendous source of black market food.
    And in fact, there was a plant somewhere
    to illegally slaughter a pig and sell it off by the way.
    He was going there.
    He had to commit himself, however,
    to a given amount of pounds of meat.
    And I discussed it at home, and I gave him a certain order--
    I forgot what it was--
    x number of pounds.
    And incidentally, the listener to that will from that,
    I guess, gather that I don't eat kosher, which is true.
    I never did eat kosher, and actually I always enjoyed ham.
    But at that point, we didn't even
    have the luxury of being very choosy.
    Anyway, to make a long story short,
    on the appointed day when I was supposed
    to come to pick up the meat, his girlfriend was in hysterics.
    He didn't come back.
    And the next day he didn't come back either.
    And of course, there was no way--
    where do you go to find out?
    Now, this other underground Jewish friend of mine,
    whom I had mentioned earlier, Heinz Jacobius, who
    also did all kinds of things in the underground--
    he had some sort of a line--
    and I didn't know what it was, really-- to the Gestapo,
    where he could find out things.
    And I asked him to make some inquiries whether this Gerd
    Cohn ever appeared.
    The thing is that all Jews who were arrested for deportation
    ultimately wound up in the transit camp.
    And he made those inquiries, and there was no Gerd Cohn
    who ever appeared there.
    So it was clear that he must have
    been the victim of a crime.
    And there was actually a German newspaper article
    about two weeks later or so that a torso with a head
    missing and the hands missing.
    And these would be the identifiers, the hands,
    because of the fingerprints, and obviously they
    had because of the facial features.
    It was found floating in a river.
    Oh yeah, and the article mentioned a certain scar--
    I forgot from some operation--
    and friends of his knew that he had such a scar.
    So apparently, he must have had some horrible fate.
    And the suspicion was that these foreign laborers, apparently--
    He had, first of all, a large amount of money with him
    to purchase that large amount of meat that he had ordered.
    And in addition to that, he had some excellent forged ID,
    which could always be reforged into a different name
    or different picture and maybe other things
    that we were of value to those guys.
    So the opinion among people who knew him and the circumstances
    was that this was a trap.
    There never was a pig and that he
    was murdered-- that he was lured into that trap
    and lost his life that way.
    A horrible fate.
    Let me ask you something, since you had mentioned
    a few minutes ago, that most people who were arrested
    went initially to transit camp.
    Yeah.
    Were there random crimes or murders by the SS
    or against Jews, or was it all done in an organized fashion?
    No, they actually--
    Deportation?
    Yeah, no, that's a good question.
    No, the Germans somehow abhor random violence.
    And in fact, the Kristallnacht even,
    which was a case of random violence,
    was criticized within the Nazi circles very much.
    In fact, actually at the ministerial meeting,
    the cabinet meeting, two days afterwards,
    Goring severely criticized, I think
    Goebbels was mainly behind that, because of all the destruction.
    It turned out that the kind of glass
    that is used for shop windows was, at that time, a glass
    that was not even made in Germany.
    They had to buy it in Belgium.
    It meant they had to use foreign exchange.
    And then Goring turned to Goebbels and said,
    it would have been better if you would have killed a few more
    hundred Jews rather than cause all of that destruction which
    now we have to, you know.
    Anyway, to come back specifically to your question,
    that process was very orderly.
    The Jew was arrested.
    He was put into that camp until enough people were together
    to put together a transport, and then they were shipped off.
    I mean, they may have been beaten up maybe
    in some sadistic urge by some SS men, but--
    But this isn't in camps or ghettos
    where if you said something wrong,
    you could have been shot?
    This didn't really happen in Berlin?
    No, I mean, if you did something wrong,
    I mean, they had a bunker there, which
    was a nickname for part of the basement.
    I think it was only four feet high and only a few square
    feet.
    People were put in as punishment,
    particularly if there were escape attempts,
    that sort of thing.
    But they were not shot randomly like you saw on the film
    in Schindler's List.
    That was not-- they were always shipped for orderly killing.
    Let me see.
    Yeah, I had mentioned already that if one
    met some Jewish person in the underground who one hadn't seen
    for a long time, the initial reaction was always
    to be suspicious.
    Coming now probably to the saddest chapter
    of the underground, and these are the Jewish catchers,
    or spies.
    The Gestapo kept a small herd of them.
    And they operated also out of the transit camp.
    Incidentally, the transit camp had shifted in the meantime.
    It was no longer in the old age home.
    I think the old age home was then
    used for other governmental purposes.
    And the transit camp was shifted to the Jewish hospital
    of Berlin, which was then the last Jewish-owned building
    in the city.
    And part of one wing of the hospital
    was turned over to the Gestapo to maintain the transit camp.
    And the spies also had their rooms in that transit camp.
    And they lived there, but they could come and go
    as they wanted, of course.
    And more importantly, they obviously
    didn't wear the yellow star as they normally
    would have had to.
    And their task was to track down other Jews who
    were underground.
    And the sad story is that first of all,
    they were incredibly more effective than the Gestapo
    because the Gestapo basically, in tracking down a Jew,
    was sort of like a blind person trying to find something.
    They had really nothing to go by,
    while the spies, all of them had themselves been underground
    and hadn't been caught.
    They knew many of the tricks and trades of underground Jews.
    They knew where to go to and so on.
    And they had a much better nose.
    Plus many of them of course knew other underground Jews anyway
    and would just give those names to the Gestapo.
    Now, the most notorious of these was a woman.
    Her maiden name was Stella Goldschlag
    And unfortunately, I knew her fairly well.
    Part of the time that I was at Seimens,
    she also worked for Seimens.
    At that time she was married to a man whose last name was
    Kübler, so then her name was Stella Kübler.
    Stella was a strikingly beautiful woman.
    She was tall, slender, had long, golden blond locks, wavy hair,
    and blue eyes, and a very pretty face.
    At Seimens also she was sort of the center of attention.
    I came to know her even though she was not in my department
    but in a different one.
    In fact, she was in the same department where some members
    of the Baum group--
    this underground Jewish communist group--
    were working that I had mentioned earlier.
    But in my class, in the orthodox school
    that I went to in the '30s, was a boy named Klaus Goldschlag.
    In fact, I remembered him very well.
    He was a top student in our class.
    And I know he left and emigrated to Canada.
    And Goldschlag is not exactly a common name,
    so when I met her first I asked her
    whether she is related to him.
    And then she said that yeah that's her cousin.
    And so we talked several times about him, and then
    also sometimes about other things.
    But otherwise I had not much in common with them.
    I don't think she had, to my knowledge,
    any intellectual interests or music interests.
    And the circles that I circulated in,
    she surely did not belong to.
    But through the mouth radio, sometime in the maybe
    mid-'43, I heard that she is working for the Gestapo
    as a catcher and that really scared me.
    And in fact, I know that at one point I almost encountered her.
    What happened was the following thing.
    Even in walking around in Berlin,
    I developed various strategies to avoid being recognized.
    And one was, in a big city, of course,
    there's a lot of pedestrian traffic, people
    walking this way, people walking that way.
    And when I walked down a street, I
    would look at the faces of the people
    not who would just be in front of me,
    but three or four people down behind them,
    so that I could possibly recognize others before I
    was recognized by them.
    That was one.
    The other strategy was that I always
    had a handkerchief at hand.
    And if some real emergency arose,
    I would pretend to have to blow my nose, but in such a way
    that I covered most of my face with my handkerchief,
    and I wouldn't be recognizable that way.
    So one day, I was walking down the street--
    I even remember the name, Pfalzburger Strasse--
    and I saw, again looking back several people
    beyond the one that immediately faced me,
    and I saw what seemed to be Stella.
    I couldn't 100% identify her, but obviously I
    didn't want to take a chance to get closer to her.
    I immediately decided turning around or running away
    would be the worst thing to do.
    And I was lucky.
    Just at that point where I recognized her,
    I passed a store, so I just went into the store pretending--
    and I remember it was a green grocer,
    so he had potatoes, vegetables, and things like that.
    And I turned my back to the window
    and pretended to look at various items in the store.
    For a while, the saleswoman, or probably the owner,
    already asked me what I wanted.
    And I said, well, I just want to see what you have and so on.
    And then after quite a while, after she
    must have long passed, I excused myself and looked out,
    and she was gone.
    I mean, there has been a book written about her,
    and she has really caused the deaths of many people.
    Now, she was, after the wars, tried in a German court, where
    first she was tried by the Russians who everybody hoped
    would just finish her off.
    Instead they gave her just a 10-year sentence from '46
    to '56.
    Then she reappeared, and then there
    was an unbelievable clamor for her to be put away.
    And then the Germans meticulously said, well,
    a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice.
    But they were in the meantime, many other arrests
    that she made which had not been covered by the Soviet trial.
    And she was then tried for those cases,
    and then she was found guilty.
    And the judge gave her another 10 years.
    But applying the 10 years that she already
    served under the Soviets, she was immediately set free.
    And it is known that she lives now under an assumed name
    somewhere in West Germany.
    That is some of the worst.
    And she should have been done away with, preferably hanged,
    immediately after the war.
    Supposedly, after some research that other people did,
    she is guilty of hundreds of lives
    that she gave over to the Gestapo.
    Let me ask you a few questions here.
    Do you think that while you were working together
    at Seimens that she was involved in this kind of activity?
    No, not at all.
    It was later?
    It was later, yeah.
    She--
    What sorts of stories did you hear at the time
    about what she was doing?
    What kinds of things was she doing?
    Well, I mean, what she was doing was to walk around Berlin,
    and she knew where Jews were likely to go.
    And for example, it became known that a very safe place
    was, of all places, the Berlin State Opera.
    And the Gestapo would never bother with that.
    And most Jews were music lovers, so you
    could have a pleasant evening even listening to good music
    and be safe.
    The problem was that Stella knew that, too.
    So she appeared there one day, and they
    arrested the whole family of a middle-aged couple
    and teenage son, or something.
    That was exactly the--
    And she would pull--
    She had a small revolver that she would pull on people
    if they didn't exactly--
    And then one person tried to run away,
    and she shouted, stop him, it's a Jew.
    And there were some men who just grabbed that person.
    You knew her a little bit.
    What motivated her to do such evil things?
    What was it about her?
    What was she like?
    What was about her?
    It was self-preservation.
    I mean, that's how she survived the war, I mean,
    by having others killed.
    Now, as she claimed after the war
    also that she did it mainly to protect her parents.
    Yeah, well she had a bargain initially
    with the Gestapo and SS official who commanded the transit camp.
    And the bargain was that her parents could stay also.
    They got a room there.
    And they could stay there with her.
    She was an only child.
    And then at some point--
    I forgot when that was.
    I think late '43, maybe early '44.
    The Gestapo told her that they can't
    protect the parents any longer.
    And then she managed to have them
    transported to Theresienstadt instead of to Auschwitz.
    But they were then transitioned later to Auschwitz.
    I mean, the parents are sort of a tragic thing.
    I mean, they can't be blamed for what the daughter did.
    But she maintained her own life that way, by killing others.
    Now, there were many other people-- a good friend of mine,
    Ismar Reich, who was underground and was caught.
    And he was immediately offered freedom
    if he could name some others.
    And he simply refused.
    And he said he wasn't even beaten.
    I mean, it was fine.
    You don't want to?
    Fine.
    You go to Auschwitz.
    Now, he was a very clever, resourceful guy.
    He was with some friends there, and somehow they
    succeeded in smuggling some tools with them.
    And then why the train rolled, they started to saw--
    these freight trains are basically wooden siding.
    They sawed some planks off, and when
    the train slowed down somewhere, they jumped out
    and saved themselves that way.
    Were there a great number of these catchers?
    I mean, too many probably.
    I don't know how many, but maybe 10, 15 or so.
    But you knew of others?
    Yeah, oh yeah.
    There were others, too.
    Maybe this is a point where I might indicate
    an incident that we had.
    We decided that in the long run it
    may not be safe if we stayed just at one point all the time.
    So we decided we ought to look for a substitute place,
    in case we had to leave.
    So I contacted--
    I'm not sure whether I mentioned that, or maybe I did,
    my father's, one of his clients, were members
    of the Hohenzollern family.
    It was actually the sister-in-law
    of the last German Kaiser and her son.
    And they had an estate halfway between Berlin and Potsdam,
    a suburb which used to be the summer
    residence of Persian kings.
    And they were very good friends of our family.
    And we made an appointment and Margot, her mother,
    and I went there and discussed.
    And I knew apparently something, that she had separate servant's
    quarters somewhere.
    And I discussed with her the possibility
    whether there might be some place for us
    to spend maybe not long periods, but maybe a week
    or so at a time.
    And it was somewhat inconclusive and so on.
    I mean, she also had to be careful, obviously.
    So on the way back from there--
    that estate was off of a country road
    connecting Berlin and Potsdam and where a bus only came,
    I don't know, once every hour, if that much.
    And we knew when the bus was coming
    and maybe there was another half hour left, or so.
    And there was a little country inn,
    and we did have also illegally-obtained ration
    coupons, so why don't we go in and then
    maybe have a piece of cake and a cup of coffee and talk there.
    So we went in, and Margot's mother immediately-- there
    was a revolving door, I remember.
    You go through the revolving door and then you walk in.
    She, instead of walking in, right away revolved back out.
    And that immediately rang a bell,
    so I didn't ask any question, and then Margot didn't either.
    We immediately revolved out, and then the mother
    said that there was a couple sitting that she knew.
    They were Jews.
    She doesn't know what their background-- who they are.
    But one has to be careful.
    So we walked out, and then walked along and decided maybe
    to walk to the next bus stop in order not
    to wait right in front there.
    And as we walked, and we walked fairly briskly,
    we heard footsteps coming from behind, closing in.
    And it was the man.
    And he said he saw us come in, and he had the impression maybe
    we were afraid of him, but there was no reason.
    We shouldn't be afraid.
    He is himself in hiding.
    And we should just feel free to come in.
    That of course was a giveaway already.
    No Jew at that time would have told somebody else whom he
    hadn't known-- like, he didn't even know me--
    that he was in hiding.
    He should have been as mistrustful of me
    as I would have been of him.
    Anyway, he implored us to come back,
    and we just refused, and as an excuse we gave,
    we only discovered that we are actually late.
    We have to get back to Berlin to meet somebody,
    or some excuse like that.
    And we were walking to the next bus stop.
    And the man then gave up and returned to the restaurant
    where there was actually the previous bus stop was there.
    And we were hurrying up because it was already getting
    the time for the bus to come.
    And we were still some distance away from the next bus stop,
    when we saw the bus coming.
    And so we speeded up, but never made.
    But as the bus passed us--
    in those days, buses were not closed where you entered.
    It was sort of open.
    And there was an open platform at the back.
    And as the bus passed us, we saw that man standing on that bus,
    so then it was obvious that he was trying to follow us
    and was to trying to take the same bus with us.
    So we were glad we didn't make it to the next stop.
    Instead, after the bus had cleared there,
    we walked off this country road.
    There was a forest.
    Now, I had the basic map of Berlin fairly well in my head.
    We didn't have a map along because it didn't
    occur to us that we needed one.
    But I knew that in the direction that we
    walked-- that was walking east from there, just
    through forest.
    I mean, it may have been several miles--
    we would come to a suburban commuter line
    where you could catch a train because we were sure
    that if we would have taken the next bus,
    he would have alerted police at the next suburban station
    for that line, which was actually Wannsee.
    So that's what we did.
    We walked for hours through the forest,
    roughly keeping in the direction,
    until we came to that suburban line, which
    was a totally different line.
    And there we boarded the train and got back.
    But such incidents, I mean, of that kind
    happened fairly frequently.
    Another incident that just occurred to me
    now was for heating our stove.
    Of course, we bought firewood which was expensive,
    and even some coal.
    And in addition to that, I went and collected dead wood
    branches from the forest around that village there.
    And even for that one, needed an official permission
    of the forestry department.
    I still have that.
    It's almost like a joke.
    It permits the bearer, Gunter Hesse-- it was my name then--
    to collect dead branches that are lying on the floor.
    But of course I didn't confine myself to dead branches.
    I often just broke off live branches and even small trees,
    and we would then hack them into pieces
    and let them dry out before using them in our oven.
    The problem was that I was once observed by the Forester,
    but he didn't stop me.
    I never saw him, even.
    And he didn't stop me, and so I didn't
    know that I was observed.
    But one of the settlers in our settlement
    was a good friend of his.
    And the Forester told him that he
    noticed that I was violating the law and taking live branches
    and he would have to report me.
    Now, basically that was probably a kind
    of offense with a little fine.
    But the problem was, if it was reported,
    I didn't exist legally, and that would have immediately
    endangered our existence there.
    But we had a tremendous source for cigarettes.
    Cigarettes were of course rationed.
    Margot's father was a chain smoker,
    and so he spent a lot of his money on cigarettes.
    And he went to that other settler
    and told them again a lie story.
    I mean, the story was that if I got fined for that,
    then my military exemption will immediately
    be taken away from me, and I'd be
    shipped to the Eastern Front.
    And by that time, the Eastern Front
    was by everyone considered sort of like a death sentence.
    And people had understanding for that.
    And if he can do something about it,
    we'll supply the necessary cartons of cigarettes.
    And the Forester had a certain price.
    I forgot what it was, several cartons.
    And of course, the guy had to get his cut, too.
    And in this way we avoided that I
    was cited for that offense of taking live branches.
    And then another incident occurred, once
    in splitting wood with our ax.
    We didn't really have a proper base for splitting wood,
    but just sort of a relatively soft wood stump.
    And once, when I apparently hit the wood
    that I wanted to split particularly hard,
    I split not only the wood but also the stump,
    and the ax went right into my foot at my ankle.
    And there was a really big, open wound,
    which obviously, first of all needed to be sewn up.
    And secondly, also probably my bone
    would have had to be X-rayed in case the bone was damaged.
    So one of the neighbors there who had a car,
    drove me to the nearest hospital.
    And then, of course, we were afraid.
    If they say I have to stay overnight,
    then again there was a need for identification and so on.
    So I was X-rayed, and fortunately, they discovered
    that the bone wasn't damaged.
    This is tape number 5, side A of an interview with Ernest
    Fontheim on March 13, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    So all that needed to be done was to sew up the wound
    and send me home, I thought.
    But Margaret's father was with me.
    We were in a sort of a holding area.
    And a nurse approached with a needle.
    And he knew something my--
    I mean, Margaret's father-- that I wasn't aware of, namely
    that after such an injury, one needs a tetanus shot.
    And the tetanus shot is given into a person's rear end.
    And so he knew immediately they would ask me to lower my pants,
    and that would surely have been a 100% giveaway to anyone
    in Germany who I really was, once they would have
    discovered my circumcision.
    So he had a quick presence of mind,
    and I was lying on a stretcher, and he turned me around
    on my belly and then pulled my pants off
    before the nurse could get to me.
    And so I got the shot into my rear end.
    And nobody saw anything else of me.
    And then I was sewn up.
    And since hospitals anyway were short of beds,
    obviously because of the large demand for wounded soldiers,
    they were glad that I didn't have to stay.
    And we were glad that I didn't have
    to stay for different reasons.
    I also want to mention a cousin of mine.
    He was actually the son of the couple
    where we stayed in that apartment in the Jew House.
    He was several years older than I. He was by that time,
    I would guess, in his mid or late 30s.
    I was just 20 or 21 then.
    And he lived with his girlfriend, Bella [? Rittov. ?]
    His name was Albert Mark.
    And Bella [? Rittov's ?] husband had already
    been arrested and had been for years in a concentration camp.
    And she lived now with my cousin.
    And they decided to go underground in Bavaria.
    And he told me that before they left
    that he considered Berlin too dangerous because he had lived
    there much longer also as an adult.
    And they had figured out a way, apparently, that they thought
    was foolproof.
    And that was that he had some medical sort of statements
    from doctors that he was suffering from some lung
    disease, which required his recuperation in the country.
    And then he had some ID, I guess,
    on the name that matched it and so had his woman friend.
    And we decided we wanted to keep in touch, of course.
    And that was a big problem because he
    was planning sort of to move around
    from different sanatoriums.
    And I didn't want to give anyone my address.
    So the solution was that is something
    that can be done in Germany.
    I don't know that exists here.
    You can address a letter to somebody
    under a code name at general delivery at a given post
    office.
    I still remember my code was the letter F,
    like in Fontheim, 58, F58.
    And at the particular post office in Berlin.
    I mean, that was also a risky thing
    because if somehow he had been found by the Gestapo
    with such a letter, they could have waited for me there.
    But I guess one did all kinds of stupid things.
    So anyway we corresponded that way.
    And then one day the correspondence stopped.
    And then I got a letter from Bella, his friend,
    that something happened to him, and he is very sick.
    And she is returning to Berlin alone.
    So that immediately told me that he was arrested.
    And was a big tragedy actually because what happened,
    she told-- and we met in Berlin, and she told me that he--
    apparently, there were some questions
    raised at the place where they were staying.
    But they were still able to get away.
    But they left all of their assets.
    I mean, they had to carry with them always certain valuables.
    I don't know what they were.
    But what they needed to sustain their life.
    And he said he had to go back quickly
    to retrieve these things.
    And she had warned him and tried to keep him from doing it.
    His point was that without the assets,
    how can they even continue living.
    And she felt somehow they'll make it.
    Anyway, the result was that he went back and never returned.
    So obviously, he walked into a trap there.
    So she was now alone in Berlin.
    And we kept in touch.
    We saw each other periodically.
    And when the time came that she mentioned to me several times
    that she had a very good friend who was a jeweler.
    And I needed some money from that furrier
    where I had converted all of the money
    into that lady's evening handbag.
    And so I wanted to sell it.
    And she said that man gives very good prices and so on.
    Anyway, my first intent was not even to sell it immediately
    but just to get it appraised.
    So I gave the handbag to her, and we then
    agreed to meet the next day.
    And she would bring the handbag back and the appraisal
    price from her jeweler friend.
    Well, guess what?
    She never appeared there.
    I couldn't believe that she would cheat me out
    of that handbag.
    I mean, it was just incredible.
    And as I found out shortly thereafter, she didn't.
    The problem was, Stella Goldschlag It turned out she--
    that Stella actually transferred from Siemens where she worked
    and where I had met her to a different factory
    for some reason.
    And at that factory, Bella had worked.
    So they knew each other.
    And apparently, Bella must have run into Stella
    and got snatched away.
    And she was arrested, transported to Auschwitz
    and never came back.
    Can I ask you something here?
    Was there a different feeling about being betrayed
    by fellow Jews than there was by being arrested
    and deported by the Nazis?
    Oh, totally.
    I mean, as absurd as it may sound,
    but that's what I expected from the Gestapo
    to do, if they arrest me, that they would deport me.
    But for a Jew to do that, to turn on other Jews,
    that was such an unbelievable act of betrayal
    that, I mean, it just--
    I mean, if you ask any Jew who lived underground
    in Berlin whether they knew her or not,
    everybody knew her by name at least.
    There's not one that I can think of who would excuse her
    or even say that she should have gotten anything less
    than execution after the war.
    I mean, she just didn't deserve to live
    her life is based on the lives of hundreds
    of people who are not alive anymore because of her.
    I mean, to think of it, even now still,
    drives me crazy that she is alive
    and she has apparently a pleasant life
    and has some sort of a government pension.
    Yeah.
    One thing, I have to back up a little bit.
    On the 27th of February 1943, that was just about a little
    bit less than a month after we went underground-- remember,
    we went underground on the 30th of January '43--
    on the 27th of February, the SS made a general sweep
    of all factories which employed Jews, under extremely
    brutal conditions.
    The 27th of February, of course, was a winter day.
    And it was a cold day.
    The Gestapo simply collected the Jews,
    without giving them the opportunity
    to go back to their dressing rooms
    to pick up their outer wear of coats or whatever they had.
    They were just like that taken to various transit camps that
    had been readied for that because that regular transit
    camp obviously wouldn't have taken these thousands
    and thousands of people.
    And then they were shipped out in a series
    of transports in the first week of March, 1943.
    And after that, Berlin was essentially judenrein.
    It's a tragedy because, I mean, it's a tragedy for everyone,
    but I also have to think back again at my good friend
    Hans Fabisch who had hoped that he
    was safe working in a factory.
    Well, he himself wasn't safe anyway,
    but even if he would not have been arrested on that day,
    it was the 18th of January '43, he
    would have been arrested a little bit later
    and without announcement.
    None of these people knew it.
    And incidentally, Stella Goldschlag in that factory,
    she was smart enough, when the Jews were herded down,
    apparently nobody thought of bringing up the rear.
    And she stayed back.
    She worked there, by the way, with her mother.
    She and her mother stayed back and walked slower
    and then ducked into one of the ladies' restrooms
    and then left at the end of the shift,
    at the end of the day when thousands of workers
    sort of streamed out of the factory gate,
    and that way they escaped being deported.
    And that day, then they went underground
    and then sometime later she was caught,
    actually by another catcher for the Gestapo.
    Do you want to just--
    I know this is jumping forward, but because we're
    talking about Stella, I understand
    she was caught after the war.
    How did that come about?
    That is all explained as a book was written about her.
    I mean, she wasn't caught.
    I mean, she voluntarily went to the Jewish community
    to get papers as a victim of fascism
    and to take advantage of many of the sort of restitution
    measures that were then taken or given to the Jews.
    And that was an unbelievable act of naivete,
    how she could have thought to get away with it.
    I ought to say one other thing.
    You know, there were Jews also during the years
    when Jews were deported and picked up,
    there were Jews who picked up other Jews.
    Like, my parents were picked up by Jews.
    That can't be compared to what Stella
    did because these Jews picked up Jews who were not in hiding,
    who were basically you might say at the disposal of the Gestapo.
    I mean, the Gestapo knew where they were,
    and they could have picked them up.
    Just through those Jews made life easier for the Gestapo.
    But nobody believes that the Gestapo would have given up
    the Holocaust or the murdering of the German Jews
    even if these Jewish orderlies would have refused the pickup.
    I know that quite a number of authors, even Raul Hilberg,
    and particularly Hannah Arendt, have criticized very strongly
    the collaboration by Jews in the deportation process.
    And not only in Berlin but in the Eastern ghettos
    and in other places.
    However, I think each case has to be judged individually.
    And many of these orderlies were simply not given any choice.
    They had a tragic task to fulfill.
    Similar, in fact, you can compare it
    to the so-called Sonderkommandos,
    or special commandos, in the concentration camp.
    These were the Jews who serviced the gas
    chambers and the crematorium and extracted gold teeth
    from the corpses and so on.
    They could have refused and would have been shot probably.
    And the Gestapo still would have or the SS over there
    would have obtained everything they wanted to obtain.
    In the case of Stella, these were
    people who otherwise in all likelihood
    would have survived the war.
    So it is a totally different thing.
    And in the strongest terms, also in moral terms,
    make a strong difference between her actions
    and the actions of the orderlies who
    had the tragic task to pick up Jews for deportation.
    This is a continuation of an interview with Ernest Fontheim
    on June 4th, 1997.
    This is tape one, side A. For the record,
    why don't we begin again with your stating your name,
    date of birth, and city of birth, if you don't mind.
    My name is-- my full name is Ernest Gunter Fontheim.
    I was born on October 23, 1922 in Berlin, Germany.
    I might add that my father was a lawyer.
    He was born in 1881.
    So he was already over 40 years old when I was born.
    And he was one of the best known lawyers in Berlin.
    And I grew up in a very comfortably
    and in a very assimilated home, assimilated to German culture
    and with very little awareness of my Judaism.
    OK.
    Do you want to pick up where we left off before?
    Yeah.
    I would-- I would like to say that the transition from--
    to the life underground, undergone meaning simply
    with forged papers and under a different identity,
    meant, of course, for me also a radical transition in family.
    My parents had just been arrested and deported.
    And now I am living--
    I was living with a completely different family.
    And the family atmosphere was totally different.
    Where my parents were both actually highly educated
    and very intellectual, the family
    of Margaret and her parents, family
    Haas, were, on the other hand--
    I mean, Mr. Haas was a tailor and designer of women's clothes
    and actually had owned a factory,
    until the Nazis took it away from him.
    He was a man who was much more folksy than my parents,
    had a tremendous sense of humor, and was a very warm person.
    And of course, there were frictions now and then.
    I guess, that is always unavoidable.
    But in general, I felt comfortable and, of course,
    also grateful that I was accepted practically
    as a family member by this new family.
    Also another big difference was the age difference.
    As I said, my father was actually quite old.
    And for a boy of my age, I mean, my mother
    was 10 years younger than he.
    But Margaret's parents were--
    they were both of the same age, 20 years younger than my father
    and 10 years younger than my mother.
    And I think that also made a difference in the relationship.
    What kind of difference are we talking about in terms
    of your rapport with them?
    To some extent in terms of rapport and then also in terms
    of how they took life.
    I mean also, I have to say that my parents had
    gone through unbelievable agony, I mean, starting in 1933.
    Probably, to some extent, they took it much harder.
    They surely lost much more because they had more to lose.
    They were, in those 10 years, starting in 1933,
    they were robbed of all of their possessions, everything
    that my father had worked for.
    And also their social standing and everything
    had been taken away from them.
    And by the time that the deportations started,
    they were totally devastated.
    And the atmosphere therefore at home also was always--
    oh, how can I describe it?
    I mean, morbid maybe and just extremely negative.
    While in spite of all the hardships, Margaret's parents,
    first of all because they were younger
    and, secondly, because, I guess, they
    didn't go quite through the same amount
    of tremendous radical turmoil and change
    had retained their sense of humor
    and also their sort of some sense of adventurism and so on.
    And I think, to that extent, I felt comfortable there,
    in spite of the fact that the loss
    of my parents and my sister continued
    to be a tremendous weight.
    I mean, by that time, of course, I always
    hoped that they would be in some camp which will be liberated
    at some point in the future.
    So you have-- it was a more fun atmosphere.
    Well, fun-- yeah, I mean, to some extent, that is also true.
    We, for example, we had brought along a phonograph player.
    We played records, both classical as well as
    dance music.
    I didn't know how to dance.
    And so Margaret, who was an excellent
    or still is an excellent dancer, taught me how to dance.
    And yeah, as I said, there was a certain amount of humor
    and also lightheartedness.
    And, of course, that went together with the fact
    that I and none of us, in fact, was
    wearing the yellow star anymore, which made us outcasts.
    We felt sort of, at least I felt, liberated by that.
    And I mean, all of that contributed to a more
    positive mental outlook.
    In addition, I want to say that we
    tried to keep, as much as possible, the Jewish holidays.
    I don't remember anymore how we even knew the dates.
    We surely didn't have any Jewish calendars.
    There were none printed in Germany.
    But we did know, for example, when Yom Kippur was.
    And we fasted on it.
    We did know when Pesach the date was.
    And we even kept ornamental Seder.
    Margaret's father, who was in general an excellent cook
    and baker, baked some approximation
    of a matzo, which we ate.
    And, of course, we didn't even have a Haggadah.
    But we talked about the exodus from Egypt
    just from out of our memory.
    I did have a handwritten copy of the Kiddush.
    And so every Friday evening, we lit candles and made Kiddush.
    If we didn't have wine, we used some other liquid,
    whatever came handy even if it had to be water.
    And if we didn't have two candles,
    we could cut one candle into two.
    And I derived a lot of strength, I think, from the fact, I mean,
    of the Jewish religion.
    And that was actually one important pillar of strength.
    I had looking back sort of three pillars of strength.
    One was my Judaism.
    The second was my unshakable trust in the future.
    I had almost certainty that Germany
    would lose the war, even at a time when Germany was still
    seemed to be winning.
    And in fact, I had taken along some books.
    I had already decided to study physics later.
    I took a book for self teaching of calculus along,
    which I worked through from cover to cover in those years.
    And I had a physics book, which I studied every week.
    I located some time to do that.
    And in addition to that, by the way,
    there was-- in a local bigger town,
    there was a public library, which we joined, of course,
    under our assumed names.
    And so we checked books out, novels and other things.
    And I already said that we played music.
    So we tried to maintain as normal an atmosphere as
    possible.
    So and incidentally, I and, in fact, none of the four of us
    ever had the intention after the end
    of the war to stay one day longer in Germany
    than absolutely necessary.
    And we had, at that time already,
    always dreamt about coming to America.
    That was sort of a dream, like almost
    like a castle in the sky.
    And so it was the Judaism and my trust in the future, the two.
    The third pillar of strength was actually Margaret.
    As I had indicated earlier, I had at one time,
    while we were still working at the factory at Siemens,
    started to fall in love with Margot
    only to hear that she had a steady boyfriend.
    Well, by that time, I forgot what happened to the boyfriend.
    I think he also went underground actually.
    And anyway, he was not available.
    And there was no contact.
    And so my interest in Margot was of course rekindled.
    And at that time, finally, it was reciprocated.
    And actually she was the person really closest to me
    and who gave me much of the inner strength.
    Also she was sort of the third leg
    in that, what kept me going emotionally, I mean,
    mentally going.
    I should also say that one thing that I was not
    aware of at the time but that, with the arrest of my friend
    Hans which I had mentioned earlier, all people
    that I had known in my earlier life were gone.
    Some of them of course had emigrated.
    The rest had been deported.
    There was nobody from my immediate family,
    my first girlfriend, school friends, factory friends,
    you name it, relatives.
    There was nobody.
    I was totally alone in the world.
    And the funny thing is or the strange thing
    is that I was totally unaware of it at that time.
    It occurred only years after the end of the war
    when I sort of went through my memory.
    It occurred to me that's what actually was the case.
    And and she was the only one who was close to me and who,
    as I said, who sustained me.
    Then I had talked about the primitive nature
    of the house we lived in.
    That house is probably a euphemism, maybe a cottage
    or a hut.
    I had mentioned the pump in the garden.
    What I didn't say is people might
    assume it was an electric pump.
    It wasn't.
    It was a hand pump.
    And you had to work really hard to get water up, pumping it.
    And as I also mentioned, in winter, sometimes it froze.
    The hut itself was built of wooden boards
    with fairly wide slits of what I would say 1/8 of an inch or so.
    And that made it obviously very uncomfortable in winter.
    Through our Nazi friend, whom I had also mentioned before,
    we had--
    we made contact to people where one
    could get building material.
    Building material, of course, were severely rationed
    and practically impossible to get.
    And we got sort of insulation plates.
    And even nails were hard to get.
    And so we could completely insulated the house
    from the inside with sort of some plastic type material.
    I don't know what it is anymore.
    And we got all that material really through his connections.
    Then one day during our city there,
    Sundays, the local village policeman
    came and fortunately while I was out of the house.
    I was probably in Berlin.
    And he said he wanted to find out who was living there
    and asked Margaret's father all kinds
    of questions, where he worked.
    And he wanted to see the ID, which he showed him,
    and where everybody else worked and whatever other questions.
    And then-- and he was fairly--
    he wasn't outright unfriendly but very businesslike,
    which is in a rural setting, in that village,
    is really unusual.
    People were more like a family there.
    And at the end, he said, well, I hear there's
    a young men living here also.
    And then Mr Haas said, yes, that's my nephew.
    And his name is so-and-so, Gunter Hessem,
    and, of course, my assumed false name.
    And the policeman then said, well,
    I want to ask him some questions.
    When-- and he was also told that I'm working in a factory.
    And then he asked when I am home.
    And he was told I'll be back on the weekend.
    And he said then, well, tell him I'll be here next Saturday.
    I forgot probably 10 or whatever in the morning.
    And I want to ask him some questions.
    And then he left.
    And we felt very threatened by that.
    And, of course, I was the most vulnerable
    because I was of military age.
    And I did not have, as I explained earlier,
    the complete set of required papers.
    So Margaret's father went immediately
    to our Nazi district leader friend
    and complained bitterly about it there
    that the village policeman--
    I remember his name even.
    His name was Mueller, good German name,
    had come and interrogated him almost like a criminal.
    And he felt very indignant.
    After all, he is an honest, honorable citizen and so on.
    And Harry, the Nazi's name, said, ah, don't worry about it
    Herman.
    He's a good friend of mine.
    I'll take care of it.
    And a few days later, Harry came, paid us a visit,
    and said, Mueller isn't going to come anymore.
    I had a beer with him yesterday at the village pub.
    And I told him that you guys are good friends of mine.
    And I have known you for years.
    And you're honest, honorable people.
    And there was no reason to--
    and we never saw Mueller again.
    So unwittingly, the guy possibly might have saved our lives.
    I had once a close brush with arrest in Berlin.
    As I mentioned also earlier, trips to Berlin
    were necessary to keep up with our black market contacts
    and to get food.
    And I should say also, by the way, that most of the food
    was obtained by Margaret's father and his wife.
    They had, of course, many more contacts.
    They had lived longer.
    They knew more people.
    And but I had a number of people also that I visited usually
    once a week, sometimes twice a week.
    So and I was always extremely careful.
    I think I mentioned some of the strategies
    already that I used to avoid detection.
    And when I was riding in the subway, I always rode--
    sat on the bench, sort of midway between the doors which
    were on either end and watching the people who would enter.
    And if somebody would enter whom I suspected or even knew,
    on the door to the right, I would
    get up and leave to the left, not that it ever came.
    But at least that was my strategy.
    Well, on that particular day, it was rush hour.
    And I entered the train at the Wittenburg Platz station
    in Witten, in the part of the busiest part of western Berlin
    business district.
    And since it was rush hour, the train
    was packed with people, of course.
    And I never got to the center.
    I just was sort of next to the entrance door
    where I entered, sort of squeezed in between people.
    And as I stood there, as the train rumbled and rumbled
    along, incidentally, after Wittenburg Platz,
    the train emerged from the tunnel
    and became then an elevated train.
    I saw a chubby short man next to me
    say thank you to a soldier, who was also standing next
    to him, handing back his ID.
    And I immediately knew that was a some sort
    of a secret policeman.
    And by that time, it was-- obviously, first of all,
    I couldn't get out of the train.
    And if I would have made one move, that would have even
    arranged-- aroused suspicion.
    So I just looked into the air, trying
    to look as harmless and innocent as I could.
    But the guy sort of swung around and fixated me with his eyes
    and said, your papers please.
    And he made me very nervous.
    I had been controlled, I must say, several times before.
    And usually, it went very--
    people looked at my ID.
    And I greeted them with a snappy Heil, Hitler,
    and that did the job.
    Well, he looked at my ID.
    And I-- the more he looked, the more
    he noticed he must have been a real professional.
    He looked back between me and the picture.
    And it was, of course, my picture.
    Then he tried to lift the picture up
    to see how it was fastened to the material of the ID
    and asked me one or two questions.
    And I got so unbelievably nervous
    that I noticed that my artery in my neck
    started really to pump very hard.
    And that was something that I couldn't control.
    But he must have noticed it.
    Because he constantly gave me sharp looks.
    And then I was already expected to be
    arrested or at least taken along for further interrogation.
    Instead, he handed me the paper back and said thank you.
    And I had the distinct feeling that guy wasn't satisfied.
    And the reason why he didn't arrest me is he
    had decided it might be smarter to follow me,
    because that might lead him somewhere
    where he could get maybe a bigger catch or something.
    So at the next stop which then, as I said,
    was an elevated stop, Nolendorf Platz, he left the train.
    He left the car.
    And I decided immediately that guy didn't leave.
    There are two possibilities.
    Either he had another man with him,
    whom I didn't know who it was, whom we might give him--
    have given some wink to follow me.
    Or he would just have gone to the next car
    and wait where I would leave.
    So I quickly, in my mind, made a plan
    of how to shake off either him or somebody
    whom I may not even know.
    And the next stop was Buellerstrasser.
    It was one of the busiest intersections
    in Berlin, Buellerstrasser corner Putstamastrasser.
    And I left the car then and walked down.
    And the stairs from the elevated ended in a median strip
    between the two lanes of traffic, you know,
    going one way on one side and the opposite way
    in the other side.
    And at the bottom of the stairs, I knew the area
    like my own pockets.
    At the bottom of the stairs was a newspaper kiosk.
    So my plan was, and that's what I did.
    I stopped at the newspaper kiosk and pretended
    to read newspapers and headlines and so on,
    while out of my-- the corner of my right eye
    I peered up who was coming down the stairs.
    And I figured that if somebody whom I didn't know
    was going to follow me, that person
    would sort of linger around.
    And I could sort of make out who it was.
    Well, the guy himself, of course, I would know.
    And lo and behold, I had hardly stopped and started
    looking at the newspaper when I saw that guy come down.
    So he obviously did what I had suspected.
    He was in another car and waited for me to leave.
    So I ignored him and just kept reading the newspapers.
    And that was probably not part of his plan,
    because he had to follow me surreptitiously.
    And if he had lingered around there,
    I would have been aware of it.
    So he didn't-- he stayed, I don't know, maybe 10,
    20 seconds or so.
    And then he crossed over to one side.
    And that was exactly what I had anticipated.
    I should say also there was a traffic
    light at that corner of Buellerstrasser
    and Putstamastrasser.
    So once he crossed over to one side, I waited for the light
    to be such that traffic was going.
    And then I made my way, sprinted between cars,
    to the opposite side so that there were now
    two lanes of moving traffic between him and me.
    And then I walked along, not to the busy street
    which was Putstamastrasser but to the next block, which
    was a sort of a residential street with very few people
    only walking there.
    And but I, in order not to arouse suspicion, I didn't run.
    I just walked briskly, the way one
    walks purposefully in a city if one goes after some appointment
    or so.
    And as soon as I had turned the corner,
    I raced as fast as I could.
    And it was about a 100 meter dash to the next corner.
    And there I looked around.
    And I saw that guy come around also, following me.
    Then I walked.
    I turned again the corner and came back
    at a different block of Putstamastrasser,
    to that busy street, jumped on a moving trolley car.
    In those days, trolley cars had rear platforms without a door.
    So you could, just by grabbing the handlebars and jumping on,
    you could even jump on a car while it was--
    they didn't go very fast, while it
    was in the middle of riding or driving.
    And in this way, I shook that guy off.
    I am still convinced that he had some suspicion
    that he was not-- my paper was not that perfect.
    I should also say that over the, by that time now,
    we are into 1944.
    And many of my friends and acquaintances
    who had gone underground or had-- one after another
    had been caught by the Gestapo.
    I mentioned that cousin of mine who
    had gone to Bavaria and his girlfriend.
    There were various schoolmates from my high school class
    who got caught.
    Then that other friend, Galcoun, who wasn't caught
    but who was murdered.
    And of course, that--
    that had an effect on our mental outlook, obviously.
    But I guess, there's a German saying,
    which sounds really cool, but it was really
    the case in our case.
    It's [GERMAN].
    It means, you walk forward over graves.
    And that was all the time what happened to us.
    We lost a tremendous number of friends.
    Some of them came back but most did not.
    During that period of time, of course,
    also the military situation changed more and more
    against Germany.
    And that gave us a tremendous morale boost.
    I mean, by that time, in 1943.
    Italy had already capitulated.
    And and then in early '44, there were continuous rumors
    of a landing of the Allied forces somewhere in France.
    And that happened finally on June 6, 1944.
    I still remember the day distinctly.
    Of course, we didn't have any radio in our hut,
    so we didn't know anything.
    But Margaret's parents were in the city,
    in Berlin, on that day, on their various errands
    to contact black market sources.
    And they had bought extra editions of newspapers.
    So when they arrived out in our house,
    in our cottage in the evening, they came with the news
    that the Allied had landed in the Normandy.
    And for Margaret, that was such a shock of joy
    that she broke out into tears.
    I never forget that.
    And we were just unbelievably happy.
    Of course, as the Allies then continued to make progress,
    and I should say also, incidentally,
    on the eastern front, the successes were tremendous.
    Even before that, in 1943, I think
    the biggest tank battle of all time
    took place in the area of Kossk and Owell
    in the Western Soviet Union and where Germany
    suffered a decisive defeat.
    And by that time, by 1944, when the Allies landed--
    the western Allies landed in the Normandy,
    the Russians had already taken Warsaw.
    And from both sides, the Allies were approaching, finally,
    German territory.
    And so one response of the Nazis was
    to create a new unit called Volkssturm, best translated
    as militia.
    And all Germans who were not--
    all German males, I should say, between 16 and 60
    who were not in the armed forces were immediately conscripted
    into that Volkssturm.
    And the conscription, since they didn't
    want to create a new bureaucracy,
    was the task of conscription was given to the Nazi party
    organization, which was already an existing organization
    with officers and so on.
    But now it became necessary to have IDs.
    Because if you're not in the Wehrmacht,
    in the armed forces, or any of its branches,
    you had to be in the Volkssturm.
    It was either one or the other.
    So fortunately, Margaret's father
    had a colleague from earlier days, also--
    a Jewish colleague, I mean, from the garment line
    who was underground.
    And he had access to blank IDs for the Volkssturm.
    And but what he couldn't supply was the rubber stamp.
    It was stamped by the Nazi party district
    in which one was mustered in--
    into the Volkssturm.
    And then I remembered that I knew a stamp maker.
    So I went to-- and he moved me only also
    under my forged and assumed name, not who I really was.
    And of course, for stamp makers, it
    was strictly forbidden to make official stamps.
    Because they can be used for all kinds of purposes,
    illegal purposes.
    So I went to him and told him a long story.
    The story basically was that my uncle
    was working in a local party district,
    registering Volkssturm members.
    And that in the crush and the busy work there, somehow
    the stamp got lost.
    He thinks it may have fallen off the table into a wastebasket
    and then emptied out.
    But he simply didn't know what happened to it.
    And he reported it immediately to the local,
    to his boss, the district leader.
    And the district leader was very unhappy about that and said,
    if it got into the wrong hands, you know,
    anything can be done with forgeries.
    And he holds him personally responsible.
    He better look within two days, if he doesn't--
    if he has not found the stamp, then he
    has to face consequences.
    So and, of course, the consequences in those days
    usually were that the party would fire him.
    And then he would be immediately subject to military induction
    and be shipped to the eastern front.
    And so I told that stamp maker, then finally said,
    I would like to have that stamp within a day.
    I can give him, first of all, the actual cost, whatever
    it is, in addition to that, 300 cigarettes, 100 immediately
    and 200 when I get the stamp.
    And in those days, cigarettes were almost worth
    their weight in gold.
    And so the guy agreed.
    I had the stamp within less than two days.
    And then Margaret's father went back to his friend.
    And they made a deal that he would give us,
    free of charge, two Volkssturm membership blanks.
    And we, in turn, would stamp his own
    with a party stamp that we had, also
    free of charge [INAUDIBLE].
    So that's what happened.
    And, of course, women didn't need an ID, as I said,
    because only males were inducted into the Volksstrum militia.
    So we had-- in fact, I still have my Volkssturm ID.
    And to have that ID was actually terrific
    because that obviated the need for any military papers.
    Because only people who were not in the armed
    forces were inducted into the Volkssturm.
    And since-- and the party, of course,
    had all of that background material.
    So by being in the Volkssturm, that automatically
    implied that the military status of that person
    was OK, whatever it was.
    And also, of course, as the situation became more desperate
    for the Nazis, there were more and more ID checks
    on the streets.
    I mean they were looking, first of all, for German deserters.
    They were looking for Allied spies.
    They were looking for--
    they had millions of foreign workers in Germany also
    that had been forcibly deported to work
    in the armaments industry.
    And many of those were on the loose.
    They just ran away.
    So anyway the thing was that having that paper I'm sure
    saved my life.
    Because I was then frequently controlled,
    particularly by military police.
    Now, on the other hand, as the situation worsened,
    it also became more and more difficult to get food.
    I should say, whether we had black market food prices,
    I believe I mistakenly said in an earlier interview
    here that the black market prices where
    10 times regular prices.
    That-- I have to take that back.
    It's closer to 100 times.
    In other words, any, say, a pound
    of meat or whatever which price may
    have been one mark regularly bought in a store,
    with food ration stamps would be 100 mark on the black market.
    But because of increasing shortages,
    because Germany, of course, used to get a lot of its food
    from the occupied areas, and they were no longer occupying
    them, obviously, the scarcity grew higher.
    And as the supply dwindled and the demand
    either stayed the same or increased,
    obviously, the price increased.
    So just at that point, that problem was solved for us.
    What happened was is that on a-- on one day,
    I was also in Berlin using the subway.
    And as I sat there a girl, I mean, young woman actually,
    a year or two older than I, whom I
    had known from before, in fact, she
    was a counselor in a vacation camp
    that I went to in the 1930s, in the mid '30s.
    And then later I met her again at Siemens, where
    she was also forced labor.
    And she approached me and said, hi, how are you?
    And I'm so happy to see you.
    But since one didn't trust anyone
    whom one hadn't seen continuously, I said,
    my name isn't Fontheim.
    And then she said, well, don't you have a smaller sister?
    I said, no and gave her some fictitious name.
    Say like my name is [? Erich ?] [? Bueller ?] and I only have
    an older brother.
    And she sort of left the train puzzled.
    And at that point, I decided she is obviously not
    working for the Gestapo.
    Because she wouldn't be put off by such a rude, crude lie.
    OK.
    But anyway, about a week or two later,
    I ran into her again on the same sort of line of the subway
    where I met her the first time.
    And then I admitted that her memory was really correct.
    And then she said, oh, that's marvelous.
    And let's sit down at a cafe and have a little talk.
    And I said, that's a great idea, but I don't
    have any food ration coupons.
    And in restaurants and cafes, you also
    had to pay, obviously, the price and mark,
    but, in addition, what was much more important,
    give the food coupons equivalent for whatever
    you were ordering, even if it was just a piece of cake.
    And she said, don't bother, I invite you.
    So OK, so since I was always hungry,
    I accepted the invitation.
    So we sat down in a cafe and talked.
    Of course, I have to say that I didn't tell her a thing, where
    I was actually living.
    We were just talking sort of in general terms.
    And then she said, yeah, I mean, I
    asked her whether I couldn't pay for the stamps, coupons
    that she used on me.
    She said no.
    She didn't pay for hers either.
    And in fact, she'll show me how to get them free of charge.
    And all one had to do is find out where the last air raid--
    and there were daily air raids now--
    where the last air raid was centered at.
    And that was easy that spread through Berlin like fire,
    the news, you know, last night this district
    was hit or that district.
    So we went to where last night--
    Finish your sentence.
    --where last night the Allies had bombed and looked up
    a house that was destroyed.
    This is tape one, side B of a continued interview with Ernest
    Fontheim on June 4th, 1997.
    So we arrived at the part of town
    where last night's air raid had done most of the damage.
    And then my friend, her name, by the way, is Ursula.
    She said, what we need to do is, first of all,
    write down the address of a house that's completely
    destroyed or at least remember and note it down.
    So that's what we did.
    And then the German sort of air raid support system
    was by years of experience, of course, very well organized.
    Each house had, I mean, the people who lived in each house
    knew exactly where to go if that house became destroyed.
    It was usually a public--
    usually a school nearby, sometimes
    a church or some such public building.
    So and that was posted also in and near the building.
    So after noting the address of the place of the house that
    was destroyed, of course, that was just one of many houses,
    and also discovering where to go for further support,
    we went there.
    And, of course, it was a school I remember.
    And it was in the main auditorium.
    And the place was mobbed with people
    who had been bombed out the previous night.
    Some with some of their belongings
    still saved and others with nothing.
    And they were-- and the place was run, again,
    by a subsidiary of the Nazi party organization.
    And then I stuck with her.
    And we, first of all, registered at a desk,
    where a man in full Nazi party regalia was sitting.
    And she would give some fictitious name
    and that address and saying that she lost all of her belongings,
    including even her papers.
    And so they immediately did two things.
    They gave a person a temporary ID,
    identifying that person as a bombed out person
    and also asking then all agencies of the government
    to sort of give any support possible.
    And for people who had lost their food ration cards, they--
    Oh no, wait a minute, I'm sorry.
    I take that back.
    They did not hand out any food ration.
    They simply noted down the--
    listed the person as totally bombed out.
    And then they supplied people with sandwiches and cigarettes.
    And if they needed also an overnight, a simple cot,
    although people were urged, if possible, to move in
    with friends or relatives.
    But those who didn't have either could also
    stay overnight there.
    So, of course, I followed her example, gave a different--
    I did not give my name that I had adopted on my papers.
    I didn't want it to appear there.
    So I chose just some arbitrary name
    that came to mind but the same address.
    And I also got an ID identifying me as bombed out.
    Now the point was, with that ID, one
    could go then to any food rationing office
    and get a set of food ration cards.
    And the idea, of course, was you couldn't do it
    in the same district as the building was located.
    Because they had, of course, a complete card
    catalog of people who were living in that district.
    And of course, neither one of these people even existed.
    But with the bombed out ID, one--
    any other food ration office, suppose
    one moved to a different part of Berlin
    than was required to hand out a set of food ration cards.
    And of course in another district,
    they wouldn't have the set of registered people living
    in that district.
    Comes to my mine, I'm glad that the tech--
    that today's technology didn't exist in those days.
    Because today, all they would have to do is, on a computer,
    access a database and look up anyone from any other district.
    But fortunately, the Nazis didn't have that capability
    yet.
    Otherwise, they would have used it.
    So what we did is we took the subway
    to a different part of Berlin.
    Went there, got our set of food ration cards,
    and then took off.
    And that was now the first set, and I enjoyed that game
    so much.
    I should add also, by the way, that the sandwiches
    they handed out were terrific.
    I had not had such good salami sandwiches in years, in fact.
    And that alone was even worth it.
    So I start practically every time when I was in Berlin,
    since there were daily air raids, there were-- every day,
    there were houses destroyed the preceding night.
    So all one had to do was sort of ask
    and find out in what part of the city to go there,
    look up an address of a destroyed, I mean,
    house from last night, and then go to the local sort of air
    raid support facility where people
    were helped with their first needs
    and so on, get another ID.
    And so I kept doing that.
    And finally, at the height of the thing, I got--
    I got food ration stamps for 16 people
    without paying a penny for it.
    So we could just go into stores and buy food
    at the regular price, controlled prices, which was peanuts.
    And that, obviously, was a tremendous help also in our,
    you know, for our budget.
    Wasn't there any chance that there was going to be
    duplication?
    Yeah, I mean, I am sure that these card officers, food
    coupon officers, where I went under an assumed name
    then would forward my name and address that I gave to the food
    office in that district.
    And then within days, they would find out that person never
    existed there.
    But by that time, I was gone.
    And when you are-- the food ration coupons
    themselves didn't have a name of a person on it.
    So you didn't have to be afraid that they knew already
    that this was-- the whole thing was a fake.
    I mean, I could use the stamps without being
    afraid to be identified.
    It was a marvelous thing.
    And yeah, also, of course the continuous air
    raid, by the way, the air raids started,
    I should say, really to become severe shortly
    after we moved there.
    I think I discussed that even, that
    helped us in our fictitious story that we told people.
    And of course, it got worse as the war went on.
    And usually it was a British bomber fleet
    coming at night and the Americans during daytime.
    And it was sometimes an awful--
    awesome not awful, an awesome sight during daytime.
    The Americans were flying in like on a sort
    of military exercise, in close formation.
    And the roar of the bombers, there were hundreds usually,
    filled the heavens.
    It was, for us, almost a shout of liberation.
    And they were just coming.
    And we could see the anti-aircraft guns
    of German flock firing at them without much effect.
    And then when they start dropping their bombs,
    the bombs sort of had made a whistle sound
    as they fell down with tremendous speed.
    And the whistle sound then was followed
    by seconds of silence and then a tremendous explosion.
    And, of course, there were hundreds of them.
    It was an unbelievable experience.
    And at night, of course, one couldn't see the bombers
    anymore.
    But the noise was the same.
    And then, of course, the flames that
    engulfed large parts of the city would always be a--
    present a ghostly scene of fire and destruction.
    And obviously, that had also a tremendous effect
    on the population.
    And people reacted differently.
    But, by that time, it was obvious,
    I think, to most sane people at least that the war was lost.
    And if the war was lost, then all that destruction
    and all of the German soldiers who were still
    falling on all fronts were just a total waste, a wasted loss,
    which wouldn't really do anything for Germany.
    And so many-- there was a lot of dissatisfaction
    expressed with the government.
    But it was all sort of below the surface.
    And the reason was, there was a tremendous government terror.
    And it increased.
    There wasn't just the Gestapo, but, I mean,
    the employed agents of the Gestapo.
    But there was a much larger army of either paid or unpaid
    informers, or people who are sometimes just out of spite
    were informing on others.
    And obviously, that kept people in line.
    And they would often grumble only between their four walls
    or to--
    only to people whom they definitely
    knew to be OK and safe.
    But there was increasing dissatisfaction
    as the war came closer to the German borders.
    And the German government and particularly the propaganda
    machine of Goebbels had another weapon given to them,
    and that was actually by the Russians.
    While it is understandable that the Russians who
    had suffered unbelievably under German occupation
    were not very kindly disposed towards the Germans,
    but the atrocities committed by the Russians
    and the totally wanton destruction
    in the wake of the Soviet army was such
    that Goebbels was able to whip up enthusiasm
    for continuing the fight by basically threatening
    the Germans with the Russians.
    And of course, the worst part of the terror
    probably were the unbelievable rapes.
    I must admit that I did not believe the stories at first
    and thought they were just an outgrowth of Goebbels
    propaganda, I mean, in the same way
    how the anti-Semitic press for years
    had smeared the Jews with all kinds of sexual innuendos
    and so on, which were just inventions.
    But it turns out, I mean, the Russians-- incidentally,
    the Russians did not only do that in Germany.
    I mean even in areas that they liberated, countries
    that were supposed to be allies, like Czechoslovakia, Poland,
    there were unbelievable rapes in those countries.
    And so it can't be just explained by the fact
    that there was an accumulated hatred against the Germans.
    But, of course, that contributed to it.
    But, be that as it may, they handed the Germans
    a tremendous propaganda weapon.
    And occasionally, it would happen
    that the German army would make a counter-offensive and sort
    of reoccupy some locality which the Russians had already
    taken before.
    And then they would immediately send in the entire press
    corps and interview people.
    And they would get then sort of firsthand horror stories
    of how the Russians behaved.
    And I'm sure that was part of why the Germans put up
    resistance to the very end.
    But the fact is that resistance didn't give them
    any better results anyway.
    And I would say that any building that was destroyed
    and any German that was killed fighting
    in the latter part of '44 and '45 was just a waste.
    Of course, not to forget that during that time also,
    hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Russians,
    still were killed.
    And also Jews were killed in the Holocaust,
    which continued unabated.
    I should say on that subject incidentally,
    the fact that a Holocaust was going on
    was totally unknown to us.
    We did-- occasionally we had opportunity to listen
    to foreign broadcasts.
    And incidentally, that was strictly forbidden.
    And it was under death penalty that if anyone listened
    to foreign radio broadcasts.
    But sometimes we had the chance to.
    And there were reports finally, mainly
    from BBC, the British radio, that the Nazis were killing,
    at that time it was said, hundreds of thousands of Jews.
    And that while it filled us with fear
    at the number, hundreds of thousands,
    was so huge that it staggered our imagination.
    And that was not even 10% of the truth,
    but we didn't know it then at the time.
    Had you heard of some of these notorious extermination
    centers?
    Well, we definitely had heard of Auschwitz.
    And because that was the--
    that was the camp that most Jews from Berlin were deported to.
    And at least in the later stages, in the beginning,
    there were also deportations to Riga and other ghettos.
    But starting, I think, about in the middle of 1942,
    maybe early fall of 1942, all deportations went to Auschwitz.
    Even that was not really officially announced,
    but it somehow became known.
    So Auschwitz became known as a destination
    for the deportations.
    But the term extermination camp was not known.
    I mean, what was believed in general,
    that Jews were worked extremely hard under inhuman conditions.
    And of course, people die under such conditions also.
    But that they were sort of murdered in a mass production
    style, the way it was actually done, was not known to us.
    It may have-- now that I have to add
    that German soldiers, hundreds of thousands,
    if not millions of them, were in one way or another witnesses
    of all of these extermination.
    And of course, they, in most cases,
    were too fearful to even report or tell.
    They were even told to keep that silent.
    But we were, I mean, in a certain amount of isolation
    there.
    And to some extent, I have to say,
    that it may also have been simply
    that we, or at least I myself, I can really only
    talk of myself--
    about myself, simply refused to believe
    that, that it was so horrible.
    And all the people who were close to me
    were involved in these deportations.
    And maybe, to some extent, it was wishful thinking
    that I did not believe in what really happened in those camps.
    But all I can say is that I hoped till the victory
    and even after that to see my family again.
    Was there-- was there, I mean, you
    said people were fearful to even talk about them.
    So was there much conversation at all about these places?
    No.
    I mean, even in earlier times, in Siemens
    I mentioned, for example, that after the Kristallnacht,
    Jewish males were arrested.
    They were all told that, unless they wanted to come back there,
    to keep their mouth shut.
    And so people only whispered about it.
    Some didn't talk at all about it and some
    only to their closest friends or family members
    what really happened.
    And these were not extermination camps.
    They were just sort of, quote, everyday brutalities
    committed by the SS.
    What I'm try-- what I'm trying to get a sense of is,
    since you were amongst German people, not Jews at this point
    and for quite a long time, did there
    seem to be any horror expressed or any remorse of what
    was going on, other than the fact
    that the war had inconvenienced them terribly?
    No, it was terrible.
    The horror was only at the impending loss of the war
    and what might become of Germany and of them personally.
    I didn't, of course, as I said, people had to be careful.
    But the people that we associated with,
    and we had a certain social life there, as I had said earlier.
    They-- the cruelties against the Jews never even came up.
    Now that's actually there's one exception.
    There was one family, an elderly couple
    with a son who was about six, seven years older than I
    and was an officer in the Wehrmacht.
    They were politically 100%.
    They often even talked to us.
    And that surprised us.
    Because they should have been somewhat mistrustful.
    But they openly expressed their opposition and their hatred
    of the Nazis and Hitler.
    They were-- one thing, they were a very devout Catholic family.
    And in northern Germany, where Berlin was located,
    the vast majority of people, of course, are Protestant.
    But I don't know whether that was--
    but they were, these people actually then played
    a role in our final survival.
    And that's the story I'm coming to now.
    In March, in March 1945, about six weeks
    before the end of the war, we heard
    through one of our friends that we sort of were socializing
    a really strange story.
    He met Mr Haas, Margaret's father,
    and said he has to tell him something very funny.
    A pensioner, who lived in our area
    and who earned himself some additional money
    by working on people's property, and he worked also often
    on a property of our neighbor, and he
    was known as a fanatical Nazi.
    And that pensioner had told him to be careful with us
    and stay away from us, because there is something not OK.
    We-- he is convinced that we are either foreign spies or Jews.
    And and then when that man said, you know,
    what makes you think so?
    The man said, well, they have a Berlin address,
    where Herman Hesser lives.
    And there is actually a Herman Hesser living.
    He checked the phonebook.
    But he decided to really look into it himself.
    And so he-- and being a pensioner, you know,
    he had nothing better to do.
    He took the subway and went to that address
    and actually rang the bell.
    And there's indeed a Herman Hesser living at that place,
    but it's a completely different person.
    And we simply used that person's name to legitimize ourselves.
    And he told that fellow to be careful
    and not to say anything to us of stay.
    And that guy, again, he was also,
    by the way, secretly very much against the Nazis
    and made comments.
    And he interpreted it as saying that now
    that the way is obviously lost, that fanatical Nazi is
    sort of becoming--
    going out of his mind, losing his mind,
    and didn't take it seriously, in fact, found it really funny.
    And when Margaret's father came back to us,
    he didn't find it funny at all, nor did we.
    And we were thinking about what to do now.
    Now, we knew that that guy probably
    would, within a day or two, notify the police
    if he hadn't already done so.
    And that we had to get out of there.
    And in fact, we had to get out sort of seemingly
    just as if we go into the city, in other words,
    without luggage in order not to allow suspicion.
    But we had all of our personal belongings there.
    And many of them were also necessary for survival.
    I mean, we-- in those days, it was practically
    impossible to buy anything, clothes, gloves, clothing,
    anything you need, shoes, and so on.
    So we-- and, of course also, we didn't really know where to go.
    So our first reaction was to talk to that elderly couple
    that I just mentioned.
    And their son, he was a first lieutenant in the German army,
    was actually home during that week on furlough.
    I think he had some sort of a sick leave.
    He had a slight injury.
    And we knew that all of them are totally OK.
    So the plan was that I-- but we wanted to talk to the son alone
    first.
    So I went over and asked the son,
    we'd like to have a card game with him.
    We sometimes played cards.
    And he said, yeah, gladly, he'll be over in a few minutes.
    So in a few minutes, he came.
    And we both decided, among the four of us,
    that the two women would stay in the back room.
    And Margaret's father and I and he would sort of play the game.
    So Margaret's father started out, [INAUDIBLE],,
    to mix the cards, to distribute the cards to play the game when
    he suddenly put down the cards on the table and said,
    actually, we invited him not to play cards
    but to discuss some serious business with him.
    And then he told him right [INAUDIBLE]
    that our name isn't actually Hesser.
    We are Jews who live here in hiding.
    And our name is so-and-so.
    And we-- and then he told them what
    happened with that pensioner, and that we
    have to get out immediately or within a day at least,
    and also possibly save some of our belongings.
    And the officer was in full uniform.
    His name, incidentally, his first name is Heinz.
    He listened in stony silence.
    Then he got up and said he'll discuss everything
    with his parents.
    And we'll be back as soon as possible.
    After some time that, to us, seemed like an eternity,
    it was probably not more than 15, 20 minutes, I don't know.
    They lived just one block over from us.
    He came back not alone but with his mother.
    His mother was a gray-haired, sort
    of gray-haired, dignified lady, came with a huge basket of food
    which she plunked on the table with a thump and an angry face
    and said, listen, you have known our politics for years now.
    We have known each other close enough.
    We could have helped you all that time.
    How come you didn't have confidence
    in us to tell us that before?
    And the food basket contained things
    which were worth a fortune on the black market, sausage,
    eggs, and all kinds of things.
    And their behavior was just incredible.
    So then they, right, they said, OK,
    what they would like to, first of all,
    support us in hiding some of our belongings.
    And after some discussion, we made the following decision.
    As I had mentioned earlier, every night
    the British Air Force, the Royal Air Force, bombarded Berlin.
    And of course all surrounding areas had airplane alert
    and so people would be up.
    And then after the all clear siren, people,
    obviously, would go immediately to sleep.
    Because they had to get up early in the morning to go to work.
    So the decision was to wait about half an hour
    after the all clear, hoping by that time everybody will
    be sound asleep and, in the meantime,
    have suitcases with certain necessities packed.
    And Heinz said he would help us carry them over to their place.
    And they have a shed behind the house where
    they could lock them up, and it would be safe there.
    And then Heinz said he had a room in the southern borough
    of Berlin, Tempelhof.
    It became known later on during the air lift of '48, '50,
    because there was also an airport that
    played an important role in the air lift.
    But anyway in Tempelhof he had a room where he could--
    all four of us could at least temporarily stay but or some
    of us.
    And Margaret's mother knew--
    had a girlfriend, I mean, a woman friend
    who was also underground.
    Now she had succeeded in totally legalizing herself with police
    registration and so on.
    And she said that the next day she and Margaret
    would try to go there.
    And Margaret's father and I would go to the room
    that Heinz had.
    And then before leaving, Heinz turned around,
    pulled out his service revolver, gave it to Margaret's father,
    and said, here's my service revolver.
    If they should come tonight, just finish them
    off in self-defense.
    The war is over soon anyway.
    And then they left.
    That was an incredible thing that he did.
    And and then the next day, I mean, then at at night, right,
    everything worked out the way it was planned.
    We carried the luggage over.
    And I don't know whether we got any sleep done or not.
    We probably didn't feel like it.
    The next morning, we left, you know,
    as if going to work with no particular luggage on us
    and never came back.
    And I just want to say that, after--
    the few weeks after the Battle of Berlin,
    I came back to visit the place.
    And neighbors told us that the following day the Gestapo
    came looking for us.
    So that really saved our lives.
    So I-- yeah, and then in that room where we stayed,
    incidentally, Heinz knew that the superintendent
    of the house, the janitor, was a secret Communist.
    I never knew how he actually knew that.
    Because that was itself subject to execution.
    But anyway, he knew.
    And he said he will talk to him about us.
    Because he would-- in the city, apartment house janitors
    were responsible to have every new person who appears
    registered with the police.
    I discussed that earlier.
    So-- but he said, if-- he would not
    tell him that we are Jews, that doesn't fly well
    with Communists.
    We are-- he'll just tell him, tell him
    that we are some Socialist activists and have to hide out.
    And so that's what he did.
    And we were introduced.
    In fact, I remember the janitor's name,
    [? Kochinski, ?] sort of a Polish name.
    And but I mean, he was a German.
    And but [? Kochinski ?] himself had
    access to black market pistols.
    And so I bought a pistol from him
    and for my own self-protection.
    And I had never had a gun in my hand in my life.
    And I decided if I ever have to use it in an emergency,
    I don't even--
    I barely knew where to pull the trigger but not
    how to aim and so on.
    So I bought additional ammunition,
    and that was also expensive.
    Each bullet cost, I forgot, a substantial amount of money.
    And from a piece of paper, I made myself
    sort of a goal to aim at with concentric circles.
    And then I traveled out into a forest near Berlin
    and nailed it to a tree, of course,
    in a solitary place where no people were around.
    And then I sort of practiced shot.
    And I-- and, you know, in those days,
    these are more old-fashioned guns.
    I think today-- they had a tremendous sort of a backlash.
    And all I remember is I never even
    hit the outer circle, not to speak of the inner circle.
    But at least I knew a little bit of how to handle the thing.
    And actually, I never had to use it.
    But at least it gave me also some self-confidence just
    to carry it with me.
    In the meantime, as I said, Margaret's mother and she
    herself were with that woman friend of Mrs. Haas.
    And in the meantime, they knew some other people
    through whom they finally found a place in Potsdam.
    Now Potsdam is a suburb and used to be the summer
    residence of Prussian kings.
    And there's particularly one famous castle,
    the one of Frederick the Great, called
    Sanssouci, which is French, of course,
    means without worries or no worries.
    And that summer, he was actually a great Francophile
    and basically even talked mainly French and had his castle,
    and also his garden surrounding the castle, designed
    in imitation of Versailles, on a much smaller scale, of course.
    And it also contained an orangery,
    like the park in Versailles does.
    The orangery basically served to keep plants
    in winter, which were-- which were not durable during winter
    and also as servants' quarters for their gardeners.
    And that orangery had been turned into a huge sort of camp
    for people who were bombed out and also for refugees.
    I forgot to say that actually.
    As the Soviet army moved westward and came
    into areas which were inhabited by Germans,
    the Germans were systematically evicted from everywhere.
    And even that was started already before,
    I am now talking about March and early April '45.
    Even in midwinter, the Germans were evicted.
    And day and night, you could hear on the country road that
    passed by near that cottage where
    we lived horse-drawn carriages with German refugees
    under them.
    And although that obviously was tremendous personal misery
    for these people, it filled me with a tremendous joy
    to see finally the hardships of the war hitting back
    at those who had caused all the misery to us
    but also to other peoples.
    And so there were millions and millions
    of German refugees who were streaming westward
    into the still unoccupied areas of Germany, including Berlin.
    And so that orangery, as I said, was
    a huge camp for such people.
    And so people whom the Haas' knew, who were themselves
    out bombed and lived there, they were introduced simply
    as a family that was bombed out.
    But they said also they knew of my existence.
    That it is too unsafe to have me there.
    Because why would a young 20, 22-year-old or so man
    be living there.
    I mean, he would be normally in the Wehrmacht fighting.
    So I stayed then alone in that room of Heinz in the city,
    in the district of Tempelhof.
    And they were our there.
    Of course, I had a bicycle.
    And I commuted, I forgot, what, once or twice a week out there.
    One reason also is I had all these food coupons that I
    collected and kept collecting.
    And so I also bought food out there,
    as the war slowly sort of wound down to an end.
    Now the Battle of Berlin--
    oh, I should say one other thing before the battle.
    That the Germans made--
    Why don't you finish that thought and then--
    No, but that's a totally new subject.
    OK.
    Then why don't we stop here.
    This is tape two, side A, of an interview with Ernest Fontheim
    on June 4, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    Yeah, as the war finally came home to Germany,
    we were delighted to see in the official Wehrmachten,
    armed forces report, that was issued at the end of each day.
    Finally, German place names, names like Argen,
    Koln, and so on, instead of names like Zabororja, Minsk,
    Halokoff, Kiev, and so on.
    That already felt like a liberation.
    And there were more and more German
    place names now in the official army reports.
    And all that happened, the government maintained
    the official line that the war will be won,
    that there will be a final victory.
    As the fronts on all sides collapsed,
    of course, preparations were made for the defense of Berlin.
    I have to say that of all the insanities, that may have
    been probably the biggest one.
    There was no reason really to defend Berlin.
    And the Germans should have done what the French did in 1940,
    declared an open city and surrendered.
    But of course, that was not to be.
    Instead, throughout Berlin, tank traps were built,
    ditches were dug, and the Folkshdum
    was called up finally for participating
    in the defense of the city.
    And often, they would even grab civilians from the street
    and just incorporate them in some unit.
    The battle itself began in earnest on April 16, 1945.
    I never forget that day because even though the Russian front
    was on the east side of the Oder River, which runs north-south
    and about 50 to 60 miles east of Berlin,
    so it was pretty far away, but the artillery barrage was such
    that the ground under Berlin, under the city
    was rumbling and slightly shaking.
    And of course, in battle reports,
    which I read long after the end of the war,
    I can see the reason why.
    That was the biggest concentration of artillery
    ever.
    The Russians spent about two months
    getting ready for that assault on the city.
    And they had assembled a density of artillery,
    which was unheard of.
    And they raked the entire German front for hours and hours.
    As I said, at that time, I was living in the Berlin borough
    of Tempelhof.
    And so the communist--
    I mean, secretly communist-- janitor of the house
    that I lived in, I also got some information
    of how the Folkshdum members were called up.
    And in fact, he showed me such a call up
    order that a friend of his got.
    So I kept a copy of that and then
    typed on a typewriter that I had available my own call up order
    every day so that, if I had to have
    an errand to a certain part of the city,
    I would write myself a call up order that I
    had to report there for duty.
    The reason was that there were groups of Folkshdum people
    either grabbing civilians from the street
    or also sometimes just confiscating their bicycle.
    I did almost all of my commuting by bicycle.
    Public transport had all but ceased to exist.
    There were still a few subway lines
    that I thought would run intermittently
    between a few stops until they came to a place
    where there was an artillery or bomb crater shutting down
    the rest of the line.
    So that was surely not reliable transport.
    But the Folkshdum did have the power
    to confiscate bicycle for service,
    so I always wrote my marching order always in such a way
    that it would say I have to appear with my bicycle which,
    for purposes of my service, is confiscated
    by the Folkshdum, the militia.
    I kept visiting a number of friends,
    and there was a peculiar atmosphere then.
    By that time, the Russians were still far away from Berlin.
    But nobody knew how the Russians would take the city, what
    would happen afterwards.
    After all, the city was still totally dominated by the Nazis.
    Not just the military, also propaganda-wise,
    Goebbels's voice was everywhere-- in newspapers,
    on the radio.
    And it seemed as if a deep chasm sort of separated us,
    our today, from what would happen tomorrow
    after the Nazis are gone.
    And nobody could really imagine how it would be like.
    From day to day, of course, the Russians worked their way
    closer to the city.
    And in fact, the way they planned their attack,
    instead of entering the city from the east,
    their units passed by Berlin to the north
    and south and then closed the pincer west of Berlin
    and then entered the city from the west.
    And then the joy of hearing German city
    names in the official army report
    was replaced by the even greater joy of hearing subdivisions
    and districts of Berlin mentioned in the army report,
    like parts of Shallotenburg, which
    is a well-known borough of the city,
    had fallen into Russian hands, or the suburban railroad
    station of Erkner has been taken by the Russians.
    It simply seemed unbelievable that these place names where
    I had been sometimes only days before
    were already in Russian hands.
    In fact, there was a curious situation developing.
    People could make telephone calls
    into parts of the city which were already
    occupied by the Russians, which were behind the Russian lines.
    That was a weird thing, really.
    And visiting people-- one usually parted never knowing
    whether they would see each other again,
    and instead of the German auf wiedersehen, which means,
    really, see you again, one would say goodbye--
    we'd say [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    That means, survive it.
    And as I said, nobody could even imagine
    how life would be once the Nazis were gone.
    Berlin was, of course, under constant bombardment,
    and in the beginning, when the first artillery shells fell
    on the city and in the inner parts of the city,
    Goebbels distributed a news release saying that these are
    not enemy artillery bombardment, but trial
    runs of a new German miracle weapon which
    is going to be used any day now to throw the Russians
    back again.
    And there were people who believed this nonsense.
    Yeah, so there's a city-- and of course, also, electricity
    slowly stopped being supplied, and water stopped
    being supplied in Berlin.
    Even though it had already been drained by evacuation
    of children and infirm people, there were still,
    I think, between three and four million people
    in the city, and to imagine that city was headed
    into chaos without running water, without, at least,
    reliable electricity.
    And the gas lines in many places had been, of course, hit,
    and so there was no gas supply anymore for cooking.
    For me, the crucial day was Sunday,
    and I remember distinctly Sunday, April 22, 1945.
    By orders of Goebbels, who, besides all his other officers,
    was also in charge of the defense of Berlin--
    on his orders, all fruit stores were ordered to be open.
    Now, anyone who knows Germany and German mentality
    must be aware that the closing of stores on Sunday,
    of all stores, was something absolutely holy.
    There was nothing.
    There was always one day, one Sunday--
    that was the Sunday before Christmas--
    where stores were open.
    That was a tradition.
    But on all other Sundays, nothing.
    The world had to go under in order
    to be issued for stores to be open, and that, of course,
    exactly was what was happening.
    Their world was going under, and it was obvious
    then that what Goebbels wanted to avoid
    is that the food stores and the shops
    might be maybe taken by Russian troops
    and rather than have that happen have it distributed
    to the population.
    And in fact, there was enough food
    there that he also announced the distribution
    of all kinds of special rations, the ration coupons.
    And of course, most coupons were dedicated--
    like it would say for 100 gram of butter, or 100 gram of meat,
    or whatever, this and that, but there were certain coupons
    always which were un-assigned.
    They were just labeled with a letter,
    like A, B, C, or something, for special occasions.
    And so he announced that on coupon A,
    everybody would get so much of this food and on coupon B,
    so much of that food.
    There was a tremendous amount of these special rations
    announced.
    Now here I was with my 16 food ration card for 16 people,
    so I basically went wild.
    I went for-- and of course, that was in the days
    before the supermarket, so you had to go to the butcher
    separately, and to the baker, and to the dairy
    for each particular type of food.
    And so I was busy for a long time buying all that
    and bringing it into the room which I occupied in Tempelhof
    and thinking how I can get most of it out to Potsdam
    to my friends.
    And then-- but even more overpowering
    was that on that day, finally, beaten German army units
    started to stream in to Berlin, and that is a sight
    which I will never forget.
    I think that made that day--
    I can say without equivocation may
    be the happiest day in my life.
    Anyone who has seen German soldiers in ordinary life,
    or during the war, or on parades,
    they always looked spick and span.
    There was not a button missing.
    There was not a spot, and they looked well-shaved, clean
    and was a certain aggressive stride and demeanor.
    These guys who came back--
    they were dirty, unshaven.
    Their uniforms had buttons missing.
    Many had bloody bandages around their head
    or their arms in a sling.
    None of them bore any weapons, and they had that dull look
    of defeat in their eyes.
    When I saw those guys, I finally--
    even though I knew the war was lost for Germany, of course,
    somehow, intellectually and mentally,
    but now I saw it with my own eyes.
    And I almost lost my mind.
    I got on my bike, I remember, and bicycled along
    and felt almost like--
    thanking each of these soldiers for the way they looked.
    I am somewhat of a history buff, and I
    had read reports of Napoleon's army streaming
    back from Russia after their defeat in 1812.
    And these guys looked exactly like those descriptions
    of Napoleon's defeated army, and then the eerie thing was that,
    now and then, truckloads of newly-outfitted soldiers who
    looked clean and fresh and with weapons drove into the opposite
    direction towards the front, which was probably just--
    I don't know--
    10 or 20 miles or so away, if that much.
    But then I finally grabbed a hold of myself,
    and I went back to the house.
    And these German apartment houses
    are always sort of built with a courtyard in the back.
    And the rumor spread that there was one person, apparently,
    who, for some reason, owned a horse,
    and he couldn't feed that horse anymore.
    And so he decided to have it slaughtered
    by a professional butcher, but of course, there
    was no refrigeration either.
    So he couldn't, say, keep the meat forever,
    so he invited just anyone from the house to serve himself.
    So it was incredible.
    I got myself a long, sharp knife,
    and went downstairs, and cut a big chunk out
    of the upper thigh or the rear end of the dead horse
    that was laying there as another sort of trophy.
    And then another rumor spread that there was a huge freight
    yard of the German railroads about less than a mile away
    from that apartment building, and the rumor
    spread that the Wehrmacht, the German army, had just abandoned
    and was thrown from the freight yards
    and that there were many freight cars loaded with food.
    And I got on my bike with a knapsack
    and bicycled to the freight yard,
    and I saw already people screaming there from all over.
    And then the freight yard was periodically
    raked with machine gun fire from deep-diving Russian fighter
    planes, and to avoid being shot, I sort of scoot the bicycle
    away.
    And I had to--
    anyway, I wasn't on my bike.
    It was, of course, tracks, so I walked, pushed it.
    And then I threw myself down, pressed myself against the--
    what are these-- wooden ties, I guess,
    the railroad ties until the planes had gone,
    and then I would get up.
    So then I came to a railroad car which
    was loaded with big of vats full of butter, so each one
    maybe 50 pounds or so on.
    And so how do you-- and it was solid butter,
    so how do you grab solid butter?
    I had a huge screwdriver in a tool kit on my bike,
    so I got the screwdriver out, and sort of staked
    out a huge cube of butter, and took it with my hand,
    and threw into my knapsack, which at other times
    I had taken potatoes in with dirty peels,
    and coal, and so on.
    So what I decided--
    if the outer layer of the butter is covered with dirt,
    I'll just cut off a layer and inside it should be clean.
    Anyway, so then I took that back,
    and my room that I had in that house
    was like a veritable food storage place.
    Incidentally, as a sidelight, when I came back after the war,
    I was told that maybe half an hour
    or so after I left that place, the Folkshdum turned up there,
    collected all males, put them on trucks,
    and drove them out to the front.
    So I was spared having to fight the Russians.
    And then I decided I better get out--
    on the one hand, I didn't want to get out
    of Berlin because I felt a tremendous inner excitement.
    To see the fall of a major capital which
    had a sort of world-dominating role played
    was, to me, like, say, witnessing the fall of Rome
    to the Germanic tribes, whatever,
    2,000 years or so earlier, and that filled me with excitement.
    But on the other hand, I really felt
    that I wanted to spend these hours with Margaret, and so I
    finally--
    what I did is I wrote myself a marching order
    for the Folkshdum which said that my battalion that I
    belonged to had to report for duty in Potsdam, which--
    I had earlier mentioned the suburb
    where Margaret and her parents had found a place.
    And I put as much into the knapsack as I could--
    I mean the most vulnerable things, of course,
    were the butter, and also, the chunk of horse meat,
    and then a few other things.
    I forgot what it was.
    Anyway, it was a knapsack just full with food,
    and by that time, also, the army had taken over traffic control.
    And at each major intersection, there
    were transportation officers directing traffic.
    Of course, what there was was the traffic
    was all military by that time, military trucks, and jeeps,
    and this sort of thing.
    And there was a major intersection
    near the house where I lived, and I
    went up to the officer in charge and told him
    that I had been ordered to report to Potsdam
    and whether he knew whether the highway to Potsdam
    was still open or whether the Russians had cut it.
    By the way, the Russians then were always
    referred to by their nickname, Ivan, so Ivan in English.
    So that's how you talked about them
    was the Ivan because nobody really knew it,
    and the officer's answer was that he knows only
    what goes on within a radius as far as he
    can see in each direction.
    And he didn't-- it was just total chaos,
    and those idiots were still fighting and defending
    the city.
    And by the way, at each of these intersections,
    like that also, there were heavy guns put into place so
    that in case Russian tanks would appear,
    they would immediately be subject to heavy artillery
    fire.
    So anyway, I decided to see whether I can get through
    to Potsdam.
    There were rumors that the Russians had already
    cut that highway.
    And I got on my bike with my marching orders and everything
    and set out, and that trip to Potsdam was a major experience.
    The highway was mobbed.
    Potsdam was in a direction sort of southwest of Berlin,
    and now they were sort of away from the Eastern Front.
    And it was full with people and all kinds.
    There were groups of allied soldiers, British and French,
    who were obviously prisoners of war
    and which you had seen throughout the war
    always in groups but under heavy German military guard.
    These guys-- they were simply walking down there.
    Nobody even-- they were part of the population.
    Nobody even gave a damn that they
    were supposed to be under German military guard.
    I suppose they were trying to get home or something.
    There were foreign laborers.
    There were people who pushed some belongings they wanted
    to save in baby carriages or in little wagons
    that they pulled and then now and then
    a fancy, big Mercedes with a driver leaning on the horn
    to make way while slowly making its way getting
    some big shot out of the city before the Russians
    would take it.
    And then in the midst of all of that,
    periodically, Russian fighter planes
    would swoop down and rake the street with machine gun fire.
    And then everybody, as if blown away by the wind,
    would vanish to the sides of the road--
    and they are sort of rain water ditches on each side--
    and lay down there until that danger was over
    and then get back up and walk.
    It was the most incredible--
    I bicycled part.
    I pushed.
    There were some areas where there was a--
    one area, I think, where a water main was broken,
    and the water was almost knee-high.
    So you had to wade through that.
    And then finally, I arrived at the bridge which
    connected Berlin to Potsdam.
    There was actually-- at the Western outskirts of Berlin,
    there's a River Havel, spelt exactly, by the way,
    the same way as the name of the President of the Czech
    Republic, H-A-V-E-L. That river also separates Berlin
    and Potsdam.
    There's a bridge leading over it,
    and that's how you get them from Berlin into Potsdam.
    The name of the bridge is Glienicker Brücke,
    which became famous several decades later,
    which I couldn't have known at the time, of course.
    It's famous because that's where often spies were exchanged--
    yeah, that was, of course, West Berlin there,
    or it became later West Berlin.
    And among others, for example, the Jewish Refusenik Anatoly
    Sharansky, now an Israeli minister and Natan Sharansky,
    was exchanged there and given freedom on that bridge.
    Well, anyway, that bridge I saw already at the distance
    was completely--
    there was like a chain across the bridge
    of SS checking carefully everybody's papers,
    but I had my Folkshdum ID and my marching orders
    to report to Potsdam.
    So I figured nothing can happen.
    I had in my breast pocket, also, the gun
    which I had bought on the black market through that janitor,
    but I was hoping not to have to use it.
    And of course, there was such a sea of humanity,
    they obviously didn't really have the time anyway
    to do very thorough checks, but they found my papers
    to be in order.
    And then I passed through, and I had
    to still bicycle through a major part of Potsdam
    because a [INAUDIBLE] where that orangery building was located
    was on the other side of Potsdam.
    And then I appeared, and they had already almost
    given up hope that I would be able to get out of Berlin.
    So that was the 22nd, but I had still a lot of food
    left in the apartment, so I decided
    the next day I ought to go back and pick up some more food.
    And when I arrived at the Glienicker Brücke to bicycle
    across, the commanding officer told not just me but everybody
    else that Russians were reported nearby.
    Oh, yeah, and of course, all bridges
    had been supplied with explosive charges
    so that at the approach of Russian troops
    they would be blown up so that they couldn't use the bridges.
    That was another part of the insanity
    because while the Russians could have used the bridge,
    these bridges also were part of the German infrastructure,
    which, at that time, was already almost totally destroyed
    and under those conditions, with a lack of war materials
    and so on, wasn't easily rebuilt a bullet in those days.
    But the Germans and particularly the Nazi party
    were so fanatic that they completely
    disregarded the needs of their own population, even.
    But they had it coming.
    With all of that, my thoughts always
    go back again to the period of the deportations
    and how brutally the Jews were treated,
    and nobody gave a damn about them either at the time.
    And furthermore, I didn't even know yet
    what had become of my parents and everybody else who had been
    close to me or whom I had known, and I was still
    hoping to see them back once that whole thing was over.
    And I decided to go across the bridge anyway,
    hoping that they wouldn't dynamite it soon.
    But then I was finally stopped.
    As I said, when I came to Potsdam the day before,
    there was a place where a water main had broken,
    and the water was almost knee-high.
    Well, when the next day I came back, it was even higher,
    and it was under a bridge.
    And it was practically impossible to--
    you'd have to swim across, and of course, I
    would have been completely wet then.
    And anyway, I didn't have the stomach to do it,
    and how would I have taken the bike through it?
    So I just returned without having
    been able to get into the city again.
    There was constant artillery bombardment, of course.
    The 22nd by that time was over.
    That was the day when I went out.
    The day where I made the unsuccessful attempt to return
    was the 23rd, so that is over now.
    Then there were several days--
    there were several days of fighting, and finally, on the--
    and finally, yeah, what we had to do, also, is--
    we finally decided-- we meaning all of the people who lived
    there as refugees--
    to transfer to the basement.
    There was a huge basement that was full of simple benches
    and, actually, no electricity, only some candles
    we had occasionally.
    And we just sort of hoped to wait out the worst danger.
    On the 27th of April, there was still no change.
    There was still artillery rumble,
    but we didn't know what was going on.
    So I decided I ought to go out, and look, and see
    what's the situation as I went out and didn't see
    a soul until I finally saw a man in what looked
    to me like the uniform of an engineering-- the German army
    had engineering battalions which had
    brownish-type uniforms, which were used in support
    of the troops to build, quickly, bridges over rivers
    and things like that.
    And so I shouted at the guy and wanted
    to know whether he knew where Ivan is.
    His response was to point his gun at me,
    and shout back at me in a language
    that I had never heard before, and run toward me as I stood
    there with my raised arms.
    And then he grabbed my left arm, saw the watch,
    gave it a strong jerk, pulled the watch off,
    and vanished again.
    So from that I knew that the Russians had arrived,
    which I related downstairs.
    And from then on, we frequently were
    visited by Russians who came down there.
    They were interested only in two things.
    One was women, and the other one was possessions of any value.
    They took everybody's watches, of course, and other valuables,
    and many women were taken not just once, but innumerable
    times.
    And so that went on for a day or two
    and, of course, caused everyone to be totally demoralized.
    And then I think on the second day
    or so there was an artillery unit actually stationed
    in front of the orangery building.
    Fighting was still going on in the neighborhood,
    and that artillery unit was under the command of a colonel
    who made a more educated impression than
    the run-of-the-mill Russian soldiers and in particular,
    he spoke fairly fluent German.
    And so Margaret's father went up to him,
    and introduced himself, and told him that we are Jews.
    That's the first Russian word that I learned.
    Jew means yevrey in Russian.
    And we were treated just like the Germans,
    even though we had suffered under them,
    just the same with the Russians.
    So the coronel pulled out a piece of paper
    and wrote something down in Russian
    and said, in the future, Russians sort of tried
    to attack us or molest us, to show that paper.
    And then he got orders to move on, which he did.
    And then, now, unbeknownst to me, also, by the way,
    the Russian commander in the area
    had called on all German forces to surrender.
    And furthermore-- in that order, also--
    had declared that any German who tries
    to evade-- any German soldier who tries to evade captivity
    by putting on civilian clothes will
    be treated by the Soviet armed forces
    exactly the same way as he would have been
    treated by the German forces.
    And as the German-- because the German forces--
    I mean that was already going on for a month.
    Any deserter was, after a brief, cursory so-called "military
    tribunal" was immediately hung from a tree
    and with a sign around his neck, "I
    am too much of a coward to fight for my country
    and for our women and children" and something of that nature.
    In other words, what it meant is that if a German civilian was
    found, he could be immediately executed by the Russians
    because he would interpret that as the guy being a deserter
    trying to evade captivity.
    So I was out on that day, and that was,
    what, I think a day after that colonel came,
    either the same day later or the next day.
    And again, a Russian soldier was in the neighborhood.
    As soon as he saw me, he pointed his gun at me
    and pointed me toward a tree.
    As I said, it was in a park there.
    And I saw immediately that he was going to execute me,
    so I shouted down into the basement for Margaret's father
    to come up because he had that paper that the Russian colonel
    had given him in Russian.
    And he came running up and handed the paper
    to that Russian soldier.
    He looked at it and made a motion with it
    as if he was wiping his rear end with it, put it in his fist,
    and crumbled it up, and threw it away,
    and told him to wait there, too.
    Then I stood at the tree while he aimed at me,
    and at that moment, the only thing I could think of
    is, I survived the Nazis, and now I end up like this.
    And I could hear the click of the trigger,
    but nothing came out.
    And he did that two or three times, and then he got mad
    and sort of threw his gun on the floor
    and shouted to me in Russian, which I didn't understand,
    and pointing at the tree where it obviously
    meant that I should wait for him there at the three
    to be shot when he comes back with a different gun.
    And of course, then Margaret's father and I--
    we immediately ran-- there were some bushes not too far away--
    and hid right at the bottom there.
    And it wasn't long--
    I don't know, maybe five minutes, maybe less--
    when he came back, and you heard him shout.
    And I was just sweating with fear
    because it wouldn't be long until he found us.
    And all we heard is he kept shouting,
    and then new voices appeared, more voices,
    which, since we didn't know Russian,
    I don't know what all these voices were saying.
    But apparently they had to move on
    because the voices became more and more distant
    and then finally ceased, but we decided that maybe the guy
    is just lying in wait for us.
    So we waited there for at least an hour if not more,
    and I was completely silent until we were sure that he
    really had left the area.
    This is tape two, side B of an interview with Ernest
    Fontheim on June 4, 1997.
    So we finally emerged from there,
    and there was not a soul around.
    Then we went back into the basement,
    and there was a tremendous shot of relief.
    Apparently downstairs somebody must
    have seen the Russian soldier pointing his gun at me,
    so the rumor had spread that both of us had been shot.
    And so when we appeared alive, obviously the joy was great.
    So then finally came the 1st of May, 1945, and the 1st of May,
    of course, is a big Russian holiday, a Soviet holiday,
    and it was for the soldiers.
    By that time, things had quieted down a little bit, although not
    too much, and a large group of soldiers visited us.
    It somehow spread around that Margaret's father, who
    was in general very handy, was also very good
    in some simple dressing up wounds and things like that,
    and we had, of course, for our own purposes
    all kinds of medical supplies.
    And there were some soldiers who had--
    I don't know what it was anymore,
    some open flesh wounds somehow.
    And anyway, he treated them.
    And then that was also a piano around for some reason,
    and he played the piano.
    And to celebrate them, he played the song
    "The Internationale" which is the international Communist
    Party song.
    And that made them all very happy,
    and they became somewhat friendly.
    And then I remember one soldier--
    he was a giant of a guy--
    pulling out of a dirty pocket some equally dirty photographs
    of obviously family pictures, wife, children, or something.
    And with some tears streaming down his face,
    he said they were all killed by the Germans,
    and then after a while, they said
    they needed all of the women to come along.
    And so obviously we were very uneasy about that,
    and then we said what they wanted--
    there was very difficult communication, obviously.
    None of us spoke Russian, and they only
    knew sort of a smattering of some German words.
    Anyway, it turned out they had nearby
    some battalion or regiment camped,
    and to prepare for their meal, they
    needed people to peel potatoes.
    And so we immediately-- all of our males volunteered to go,
    and so they took the women and the men along to about--
    I don't know.
    It wasn't far away, a quarter of a mile or so--
    where they were camped and put us down.
    And they had piles and piles of potatoes,
    and so we peeled potatoes for them.
    And in fact, they had discovered,
    apparently, somewhere a storage shed
    that was full with potatoes, and they needed more from there.
    One of the Russian soldiers took Margaret's father along
    to help him carry them in a sack or something,
    and when they opened the door of the shed,
    the first thing before they even saw the potatoes--
    there was a dead German woman lying,
    so the soldiers just kicked her away was his foot
    and said something like kaput, which is
    a German word for broken down.
    And then they gathered the potatoes and brought them back,
    and then we peeled potatoes.
    And then we were actually taken back by them.
    Oh, while we peeled the potatoes,
    they had accordion players there.
    They played the accordion and sang songs, so for a while,
    it became even somewhat romantic.
    And they also gave us some meat dishes to eat,
    which was hearty and even if not exactly gourmet style.
    But we were always hungry in those days
    and would have eaten anything.
    And then we were taken back by them again to the orangery
    where we all stayed.
    But there were also, still, less pleasant incidents,
    and robberies, and so on, so a day or two later,
    I decided that we need, really, some more firm protection
    and that by now, since the city--
    there was no more fighting, even nearby.
    There must be a city commander, and so I got out
    and said that I will try to find where
    the commander is and see whether we can get some protection.
    And of course, I had no idea--
    the city picture was totally changed.
    A few days before, the last time I walked in the city,
    it was full with Nazi Party uniforms,
    SS, Wehrmacht uniforms.
    All of that has vanished as if swallowed up by the Earth,
    and all one saw was Russian uniforms.
    And the traffic was the traffic police.
    They were all women, usually very hefty-looking women.
    The most prominent feature-- they were all
    unbelievably heavily bosomed, and they
    carried two colored sticks, I remember,
    I think one red, one yellow, which they waved
    and some prescribed form with the left hand
    and with the right hand, indicating
    which direction could move and which had to hold.
    And actually, they did it in a very snappy military fashion.
    I enjoyed, actually, looking on, just seeing
    them perform these duties.
    Now, in the meantime, in order to find
    where the kommandatura was--
    kommandatura is a Russian word, actually, meaning the command
    office for the city commander.
    And I was always pointed in some direction,
    so I just kept going in the direction
    that I was pointed at until I arrived
    in front of a huge villa.
    And that villa was beleaguered, actually, by two huge throngs.
    As I found out in a minute, one were Germans,
    and the other one were foreigners,
    practically all of them forced laborers
    who had been deported to Germany and who obviously went there
    for help in trying to get back to their home countries.
    They were Frenchmen, Belgians, Poles, everyone.
    And the other throng were Germans.
    The one person I remember was a German medical officer
    who was in charge of the local military hospital
    where the Russians left him in charge.
    These were all soldiers with fairly heavy wounds.
    He came to complain that his nurses were being constantly
    raped and therefore could not fulfill their duties
    to the patients.
    And I decided immediately not to identify myself as a German,
    so I stood with the foreign laborers.
    Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, also,
    when we left that village overnight,
    we had taken along also all our real identification
    because obviously we knew the war would end within days
    or weeks, that we could then establish our true identities.
    And among other things, I also had saved my Jewish star,
    which I then put on, and as I said-- and I
    waited there together with all the foreigners.
    And so it was, of course, a slow process,
    so finally, it was my turn.
    I was ushered in, and I was in some sort of a front room,
    entry room, a waiting room, whatever, and was told to wait.
    And then one from behind it, apparently,
    was the real office, and then one officer
    came and took a look at me with that star and sort
    of shouted something in Russian to the back.
    And then an officer with more stars and so on, who seemed
    to be the commander, came out-- he was a short, stocky,
    heavyset guy--
    took one look at me, and then asked me in fairly good German,
    you're a Jew?
    And I said yes, and then he went toward me, embraced me, and--
    sorry-- told me that I was the first Jew
    whom we saw in weeks or months.
    There was no Jew left anywhere.
    Then he asked me in his office, and sat down,
    and told me to tell him how come that I wasn't killed.
    So I briefly told him what had happened to me
    and also that I was actually together
    with a family of friends and that we needed
    some personal protection.
    And then he told me I should, as soon as possible,
    bring the whole family.
    He wants to meet him.
    Oh, and of course--
    I forgot.
    His name was Major Shike, and of course, he was a Jew himself.
    So yeah, the only thing, then--
    before I left, he asked me-- he said
    he wants to keep my yellow star as a souvenir,
    so I gladly gave that to him.
    And then I went back, and I forgot.
    These are the same day or the next day.
    All four of us went there and met Major Shike again,
    and he awards us a piece of paper in Russian.
    That one was not thrown away by anyone.
    In fact, I still have it among my souvenirs,
    and in fact, I never knew what it really said.
    And of course, with the Russian immigration to this country
    here during the last decade or so,
    we made some Russian friends in Ann Arbor,
    and I had that guy translate it to me
    for the first time, what, 40 years after Major Shike
    gave it to me.
    And it simply said that every possible protection is
    to be given to the [INAUDIBLE].
    He wrote it in one word.
    I guess he didn't realize that it
    was a first and the last name--
    family and also that we are supposed
    to be supplied generously with food.
    Oh, yeah, he told us also that the Soviet army was soon
    going to start handing out food to the population,
    and there will be very small, restrictive rations,
    like so many grams of bread, and this, and that.
    And so there will also be long lines,
    but with that piece of paper, first of all,
    we did not have to stand in line,
    but we could right away go to the counter.
    And also, we should buy whatever we
    sought or needed to buy and regardless of what
    the official nations are.
    And you can imagine the pride.
    After years of being always kicked to the back,
    now we could go to the front, and the Germans
    had to stay behind and wait.
    And so that went on for--
    then our life got much better, and we were not
    molested anymore.
    But the next thing was, of course,
    he wanted to get back to Berlin, and so I
    guess we had to find out whether there's a suburban railroad
    line going from Potsdam to Berlin.
    And so I suggested I go to the railroad station, which
    was also several miles--
    that castle was somewhat out of town of Potsdam--
    and to check the railroad station
    and where the trains are going.
    And when I got to the railroad station,
    it was an incredible picture of destruction.
    Somebody should have painted or at least photographed it.
    But of course, in those days, we didn't have a camera,
    and I didn't have a talent for a painter.
    But the railroad-- there was hardly
    any railroad car that was standing on its wheels.
    They were laying on their sides.
    There were bomb craters all over,
    and one locomotive apparently, due to some force
    of some explosion, was standing on its heads, on the front end,
    with the wheels on the side, a totally grotesque picture.
    And wires were hanging, and single lights
    were dangling down or overturned.
    I mean you had to take one look and know not only that nothing
    is running now but nothing would be
    running for weeks, probably, or months, or longer.
    So I walked back to give that report, and on the way back,
    along one of the streets I saw a sizable group
    of Germans coming under guard by two Russians,
    one Russian in front with a gun over the shoulder and one
    Russian behind.
    And they were wearing not the usual army uniform.
    It looked similar to the army uniform,
    except that their military hats were green.
    And these were actually the NKVD troops,
    which-- they were the forerunner of what later became KGB.
    And so I walked along, and they came toward me.
    And as they passed me, the soldier in front
    asked me for my papers, and I had my Jewish ID.
    And naively I thought the guy knows immediately that--
    it didn't say "Jew."
    It just has a J printed on top of it.
    And furthermore, of course, it was
    in Roman letter which are used in German and not in Cyrillic,
    which the Russians use.
    Anyway, he didn't even look at the ID.
    He took the ID, put it in his uniform pocket,
    and told me only a few words he knew in German.
    One of them was come.
    It means come.
    And then I tried to tell him that ya yevrey,
    and he just waved me off.
    So then I suddenly found myself a prisoner of the NKVD,
    and we walked for several blocks.
    And I noticed it seemed totally random.
    There were some Germans whom we let pass by and then,
    again, one he would take along.
    I couldn't figure out what, if any, principle governed his--
    and by now, having seen the Russians operate, I'm sure
    it was random, that there was no principle involved.
    So anyway, we finally stopped at a large villa which
    had been confiscated by the Russians,
    and on the side of the-- we walked over to the side.
    On the side of the villa a table was set-- sorry.
    A table was set up, and behind that table
    there was an officer, also with a green hat,
    next to a civilian.
    And we were lined up in front on the other side
    of the table at a certain distance,
    and then we were called up one by one to sit down.
    There was one chair across from them
    to sit down and being asked questions.
    When it came to my turn--
    and by the way, the interrogating officer
    looked exactly like a brutal SS man,
    except the uniform was different.
    When it came to my turn, he asked--
    the questions were asked by him in Russian, by the way,
    and the civilian next to him was an interpreter.
    Then he gave it to me in German, and they
    were all very standard, harmless question, my name, my address,
    my father's name, that sort of thing, date of birth.
    And after the last question, then he
    turned that thing that he had filled out,
    that sheet of paper, over to me and asked
    me to sign at the bottom.
    Now, not only was everything that he filled out and so
    on in Cyrillic, but then there was a long paragraph below the
    filled out part of text.
    So I pushed that thing over to the interpreter
    and asked him politely to--
    I wanted to know what I'm signing--
    interpret it to me.
    But instead of translating it into German,
    he told the officer that I wanted to translate it,
    and then the officer barked something that didn't
    sound very appealing to me.
    And then the interpreter said--
    he said, my boss says if you don't sign it right away,
    he beat you to death right here on the spot.
    So I signed it and was convinced at that time and somewhat even
    today still that I probably signed that I'll
    volunteer to go to Siberia.
    And so then-- and actually, a few
    of the people, after that interrogation ended,
    were sent home.
    Others were not, and of course, I was in the latter group.
    Then after he was through with all of them,
    we were led around to the back, and in the back yard
    there was an air raid shelter ditch
    which the Germans had dug during a war
    to protect against air raids.
    And what it was is--
    it's a ditch about, I would say, 3 yards wide and about 5 feet
    deep, at most, maybe a bit less.
    And then over it was a sort of pre-cast concrete arch
    that extended the length of the ditch,
    and that pre-cast concrete arch then would be covered
    or was covered with Earth and something planted on it so
    that it was camouflaged.
    But you could go in for protection,
    as I said, against bombs, or artillery, and so on.
    And they used it now as a prison.
    Of course, it was totally damp, and there were benches in them.
    But it was very damp and unpleasant.
    And then there was a guard with a gun at the exit,
    and the only reason for anyone to go out
    is if somebody had to do some business.
    And to guard who stood there knew only one German word, we
    were told, and that is scheisse, which is the German slang word,
    actually, the total equivalent of an English, means shitting.
    So if somebody had to go, then he was taken out,
    and what they had rigged up there is, between two trees,
    they had fastened a horizontal boom
    at about sitting height, chair height.
    And you just had to sort of sit over that boom, holding on
    with your hands, and do whatever you had to do, and then
    go back again into the ditch.
    And after a few hours, we were even brought some food.
    It was in a bucket, which is used in Germany
    or, I guess, here, too, for washing floors,
    and they had in there some nondescript soup
    with a few pieces of meat sort of floating around in it.
    Yeah.
    Then later that day--
    that was all still in the morning,
    and then we get something at noon, that food.
    And then the afternoon, somebody shouted down, all Germans out.
    Again, there were Germans and non-Germans
    that they had collected.
    The non-Germans were always the forced laborers
    that the Germans had deported into Germany.
    But anyway, all Germans were called out,
    and I immediately decided, I'm not a German.
    And so I stayed in there.
    And they were actually taken out to peel potatoes
    for the Russians.
    It was a fairly large group of policemen,
    and investigators, and so on.
    And after they were finished, they
    were told, OK, now they can go home.
    Then I thought I could hit myself over the head.
    If I would have gone out with the Germans,
    I would be out and free now.
    Well, it was the wrong guess.
    And then a night came, and we had
    to sort of sleep sitting up on that bench
    in that damp atmosphere there as well as one could,
    and the next day, various people were called up
    for more interrogation.
    Yeah, and then I had started up some sort
    of talking acquaintanceship with a Czech engineer who
    had been taken by the Germans to work on some war plant.
    And so he was called up, and he was brought down by the guard
    after, whatever, maybe half an hour.
    And he was hardly down and had sat down,
    and he looked already very disturbed
    when another officer who looked also extremely brutal
    appeared with a--
    he had sort of a baton, a sort of wooden stick, in this hand,
    waved it in front of the Czech guy,
    and shouted at him in Russian something that
    didn't sound very pleasant.
    And when he was gone, the Czech guy
    told me that the Russians doing the interrogation
    told him that they have evidence that he was not
    forcibly deported but that he volunteered
    to work for the Germans.
    And of course, he denied that, and it wasn't true, he said.
    And that guy who came down shouted at him,
    if you don't admit the truth that you volunteered
    to work for the Germans, you'll stay down here
    until you starve of hunger.
    And then he told me--
    by the way, he knew Russian, also, that Czech guy.
    He told me--
    I told him a little bit about my story,
    that they probably won't believe that you are a Jew, either.
    Anyway, later that day, before I was even interrogated,
    we were all called out and marched off.
    And I thought now, actually, that we
    are headed toward some place where we were being shipped off
    into the Soviet Union, and I was sort
    of looking around whether there would be away
    to make a quick escape.
    There was just-- there were two soldiers, one in front
    and one bringing up the rear, each one with a gun,
    and it would have had to be somewhere
    where they couldn't immediately-- anyway,
    it never came to that.
    We only walked about two or three blocks,
    and then we were asked to sit down
    on the street in front of an even bigger villa which
    was also occupied by these same green-headed soldiers.
    And then we were called up one by one
    into the building for interrogation,
    and some people actually, after they came out, left.
    Apparently, they were told to be free.
    And others came back and joined us.
    And when I was called in, there were two interrogators,
    and they struck me immediately totally different.
    The Russians, which I had come across so far,
    all looked pretty uncivilized and brutal
    in sort of a raw way.
    These two guys-- they also looked brutal,
    but they were well-shaved.
    They looked brutal, maybe--
    it sounds funny to say--
    in the SS way.
    They had elegant uniforms.
    They talked fluent German.
    They seemed to be very educated but made a ruthless impression
    that way.
    But anyway, they wanted to know who I am, which I told them,
    and then exactly as that Czech had predicted,
    they told me that they won't believe that I am Jewish
    and, in fact, that they have some evidence that I was
    working under orders to blow up bridges
    to delay the Russian advance and how
    I could prove that I'm Jewish.
    And then I told them, well, you have my papers
    because they confiscated-- then they both laughed, indicating,
    these days, anyone has forged papers.
    And then I was sent down into the basement of that villa.
    The basement was, of course, concrete floor
    covered with a thin layer of straw,
    and I was greeted there by a chorus of other Germans,
    a new one coming in.
    And of course, in lying there with those guys,
    I found out one of them was the local Nazi party district
    leader.
    That's sort of the same position as that guy that we had there,
    and I said to myself, what an irony.
    Here I am in prison now with guys like that.
    And then we will also, again, fed some nondescript food,
    and people were constantly being called up
    for interrogation upstairs.
    And then night fell, and then the guard
    would periodically come into the cellar
    and shine a flashlight into people's faces,
    looking for a particular individual,
    and then gave him up.
    In the next morning, I was called up again,
    and the same two guys were there.
    And they immediately took me into sharp questioning
    and said whether I had changed my mind
    and I'm willing to tell the truth now.
    And I told them that that is the truth,
    and one guy walked up to me and said,
    you know, I tell you one thing.
    We have too many of your types of Jews in the Soviet Union,
    and you are all the same.
    You don't want to work, but you want others to work--
    you want other people to work for you.
    If one thing, we'll teach you guys how to work--
    and then with that, he lifted his jackbooted foot
    and gave me a powerful kick into my rear--
    and now get down.
    And the guard took me down again,
    and then other people were called up.
    And I forgot whether there was a third night or not,
    but anyway, the next time I was called up,
    the guard who did the bringing up came into the basement,
    pulled his pistol, and shouted into the room.
    Usually he called by name.
    Now he shouted, where is the Jew?
    So I got up, and he pulled his pistol and said,
    you're going to be shot now.
    And that didn't sound real to me because they
    weren't shooting people there.
    And anyway, as I walked ahead of him,
    he sort of pressed the muzzle of his gun into my back.
    But somehow, at that point, I wasn't afraid.
    I felt that was just a ruse.
    And when I came up, there were these same two guys,
    and they again asked me whether I had a change of mind
    and whether I'm ready to tell them the truth.
    And I said, that is the truth.
    Then they asked, well, how can you prove that you're a Jew?
    So I said, well, I know some Hebrew, upon which one of them
    rattled something in Yiddish.
    Then I said, well, that wasn't Hebrew.
    That was Yiddish.
    Then he said, oh, what's the difference?
    So I explained the difference to him, and then he smiled
    and then he said, well, what Hebrew do you know?
    In that moment, the only thing I could think of
    was a Shema, which I recited.
    And then they both laughed, and then it suddenly struck me,
    these guys are Jews.
    And then they were just instantaneously switched.
    They were extremely polite, told me to sit down,
    and I must be hungry after that ordeal.
    And they barked some orders at some guy outside,
    and it was in five minutes he came with delicious rolls
    with sausage and salami.
    And then we had a conversation that day.
    He asked me what I want to do, and I told him of it.
    And then he said, well, OK, I should get out of there
    and go home.
    Now, the thing is this--
    on the day that all started, when I was looking for the--
    when I was looking for the railroad station and I
    had a light coat on--
    and that coat, of course, I had left downstairs in the cellar,
    in the basement.
    But during the days that I was down there,
    you hear all kinds of stories.
    They were telling of somebody who
    was released by the guys upstairs who also had forgotten
    some personal belongings in the basement
    and said he wants to retrieve it,
    but the guard had a change of mind and just told the guy,
    he's not letting him out again, even
    though the officer upstairs-- so I
    figured, to hell with my coat.
    I'm free, and that's more important.
    But of course, in those days, even a simple coat
    was somewhat of a fortune, but my freedom
    was even more valuable.
    I forgot to mention, by the way, on the first day when
    those Germans asked to peel potatoes and then released,
    I managed to tell one of them the address where the Haas
    family were living there in the orangery,
    and to notify them where I am because they had no idea.
    So when I came back, they knew.
    That guy had actually notified them,
    and they had gone to Major Shike in hoping
    that all that needs to be done that he has to pull
    some strings to get me out.
    And when they told him where I was,
    he immediately backed off and said, well,
    there's nothing that-- these guys know what they're doing,
    and he cannot interfere.
    So that's an interesting sidelight on--
    the system was exactly the way was the Gestapo in Nazi
    Germany, of course.
    So anyway, after all of that, we knew
    that no trains were running to Berlin,
    but that's where we wanted to get to.
    And then in the meantime, my bicycle, of course,
    had been stolen by the Russians.
    That was after the watch.
    It was the next thing.
    So I couldn't even bicycle to Berlin,
    but I suggested that I walk to Berlin--
    it was about 25 miles or so--
    and go to the Tempelhof district where I had that room
    and see what's going on.
    So I walked there, and right when I got there
    I found out, first of all, that the Russians had already
    instituted a German civilian administration,
    and in the borough city hall--
    Berlin has 20 boroughs.
    In that borough of Tempelhof, where that apartment was in,
    then had its own city hall.
    And so I went up there, and I found out
    that they have lists of Nazis, particularly Nazis who
    had more prominent positions.
    And their apartments are available for people
    who are returning from concentration camps
    or were persecuted.
    So the guy told me that all I have to do is ask for a list,
    and I can pick the apartment I want to have.
    And of course, I didn't want to make a decision,
    so I just stayed one night and then walked back again.
    And then there's another one or two days,
    and then I walked with Margaret's father, Mr. Haas
    to Berlin.
    There we had another incident where
    we were walking on this major highway that
    also goes through suburban city streets toward Berlin.
    We saw already at a distance there was a big hospital there,
    and the Russians, you could see, were busy there
    carrying the equipment out.
    But as you come closer, you could
    see that they were basically Russian guards
    and German civilians carrying equipment,
    and so as we got there, the Russian guard immediately
    enlisted us to also help carry out equipment from--
    they were dismantling the entire hospital,
    and we had to go in and carry out whatever medical supplies
    and so on.
    This is tape 3, side A of an interview with Ernest
    Fontheim on June 4, 1997.
    The interviewer is Randy Goldman.
    OK.
    Yeah.
    So, um-- I mean, we were not exactly excited
    by this prospect, particularly since we figured
    if they need us here to load their truck,
    somewhere they must have a railroad
    siding where the truck then has to be
    unloaded into railroad cars.
    And we didn't want to be taken there.
    Now again, I had [CHUCKLES] a really unbelievable stroke
    of luck.
    It turns out that one of the nurses in that hospital
    was a nurse who--
    at one time, my grandmother had--
    I forgot for what reason, my grandmother
    was paralyzed towards the last years of her life.
    And anyway, she knew me and she knew our family.
    And so I told her-- we had a chance to chat,
    and then she told us to--
    when we co-- to bring down know whatever we were taking down--
    told to take down.
    And when we come up to see her in a certain room number.
    So that's where we went.
    And then she conducted us to some rear staircase
    in the rear of the building that the Russians apparently
    hadn't been aware of, and which led out
    some rear door to a side street away from that main highway.
    And then she told us to walk down that street
    several blocks, and then turn right, and to--
    where we come back again to the main highway,
    but sort of out of sight of those guards there.
    So that's what we did.
    OK, then we continued.
    And then when we came to Berlin, I went with my--
    with Margaret's father to the city office where
    I had been a few days before, and we were given the list.
    And then we started to look at one or two apartments,
    and actually liked one.
    There was a mother with--
    I guess she must have been probably late 30s, maybe
    around 40, with two relatively small children.
    Maybe sort of-- around--
    maybe a young teenager.
    I think a boy around 13, and a girl a few years younger.
    And we identified ourselves as-- that we are Jews,
    and that the Nazis are taking everything we--
    away.
    Oh yeah, by the way--
    I'm sorry, I have to back up.
    The official in the City Hall also told us that the--
    people whose apartments are vacated
    are not permitted to take anything with them unless we
    give special permission.
    And then Margaret's father sort of conducted the conversation.
    And he told her that we are, of course, not like the Nazis,
    and any personal--
    I mean, we don't want our clothing,
    or that of other family members, and/or personal items.
    But all furnishings or kitchen utensils and those things
    have to stay in the apartment.
    And we do it sort of on an honor code,
    and we'll be back the next morning to claim the apartment.
    So that's what we did.
    We came back the next morning, got the set of keys,
    and then took possession of the apartment.
    And then I think through Major Shike
    or somehow we got a Russian military truck
    to take us along who was going to Berlin anyway, also
    with all our luggage.
    I mean, you couldn't have--
    yeah.
    I mean, I skipped several things.
    When I said-- discussed when we suddenly
    had to leave that village there overnight
    and we hid all of our suitcases in the shed
    of this elderly couple, Dwuzul.
    I don't whether I mentioned their name,
    but their name is Dwuzul.
    Anyway, I picked those up by meeting them
    at a certain railroad station.
    So we had all our things with us by that time.
    And of course, there was no way how
    we could have gotten to Berlin with all that stuff if we--
    so anyway, that's how we got to Berlin.
    And then one sort of interesting after-development, I
    had discussed quite a bit earlier the former client
    of my father who was also a furrier,
    and where I went to work once a week on his estate,
    sort of as a gardener in the fields.
    And I mentioned that he had three Polish forced laborers
    there.
    A Polish couple, and then a single woman Maria,
    who always, every time I came, invited me to her home
    and fed me and gave me food alone.
    And well, I sort of suspected that she
    might have a crush on me.
    Well, when I visited the furrier,
    Walter Lange, after the war, he told me an amazing story.
    He said when the Russians came--
    and he lived, of course, in an area of big mansions.
    And they were going everywhere just emptying places out.
    Maria went and sort of got ahold of the first Russian officer,
    and had a long conversation in Russian with him,
    as a result of which the officer ordered all of his troops
    away from his house.
    And on and he was--
    nothing happened to his place.
    And then he asked Maria, what did you tell them?
    And, I told them that you are one of the few decent Germans,
    that you helped enemies of the regime and Jews.
    And then he said, what Jews did I help?
    Well, I went--
    I think I mentioned, I went also under an assumed name.
    And the name I used there, by the way, was Tsarini.
    There was some reason for that, but it
    doesn't make a difference here.
    And she said, wasn't Tsarini Jewish?
    And he laughed and said, of course he was.
    But how did you know?
    Then she said, I know because I'm Jewish.
    My name is not "Maria" at all.
    I got Polish papers.
    It was better to be deported to Germany for forced labor
    than to some concentration camp.
    And I immediately recognize a Jew.
    And when he told me the story, I felt really dumb.
    That is-- that never occurred to me.
    And I often wondered what became of Maria,
    or whatever her real name is.
    But it's an interesting sidelight.
    I want to ask you a question.
    At what point did you start hearing
    about all of the atrocities?
    OK.
    In-- we heard from British Broadcasting, BBC,
    that we occasionally-- yeah, they--
    we had a chance to listen to BBC at the house
    of this elderly couple, the Dwuzuls, who are the--
    related-- who were insulted that we
    hadn't informed them earlier.
    We were-- because they--
    we had--
    Even before that, when we still pretended
    to be good German Aryans, we had often
    been at their house listening to foreign broadcasts,
    mainly BBC, actually, with them.
    And in fact, I have to say that that was a big morale-booster
    just to listen to the BBC.
    They did a lot for us just by having these broadcasts.
    And their signal was always distorted out
    with the Morse code signal for the letter "V"
    for "Victory", and [HAND DRUMMING]..
    And by coincidence, these are also
    the first taps of Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony".
    And just listening to this signal
    was already a big morale-booster.
    And of course, we heard all kinds of stories
    that the Nazis kept from the population.
    And of course, as I had also said before,
    that was punishable by execution if they found out
    someone was listening to foreign radio broadcasts.
    So in a way, the Dwuzuls had a point, you know?
    They were totally in our hands, you know?
    We listened to these broadcasts there was them at their radio.
    No, my question is--
    Yeah.
    --after you were with the Russians,
    did people start streaming back?
    Oh, no.
    Did you start hearing stories?
    No, not-- I mean, all I was going to say,
    that come from the Brit-- from BBC,
    we heard for the first time, I think
    maybe I said that before already,
    that hundreds of thousands of Jews are being killed.
    Then, um-- no.
    It took quite a while.
    Actually, people slowly dribbled in.
    There was a central registration place for Jews
    right after the war.
    In fact, that was at the Jewish hospital,
    which was the last sort of collection center for Jews
    for deportation.
    Then that was turned over, and then
    was the first place where Jews could--
    free Jews could collect again.
    But since there was no public transport
    and that was at the opposite end of Berlin,
    Templehoff was in the southern part of Berlin,
    and that hospital in the northern part,
    it was a long walk of many miles.
    I went there once a week, hoping to see a well-known name,
    but didn't discover anyone.
    The first person who returned, whom I knew, from Auschwitz,
    was a high school friend of mine who, in fact,
    later also came to this country, and was an-- before his
    retirement, a professor of mathematics at Ohio State
    University in Columbus, and--
    where he is living now.
    But he was in Auschwitz, and he came back
    and he told me basically a lot of the things-- also
    a lot of the things that Elie Wiesel
    discussed in his book Night.
    And I mean, the fact that millions of Jews
    had been systematically killed--
    I mean, because then also other Jews came back.
    Not just German Jews.
    Also East European Jews who were chased out then
    from their own countries, mainly from Poland.
    As you may know, there were pogroms in Poland
    against returning Jews.
    And so I don't know how soon we found out,
    but within maybe weeks or months we found out.
    Although-- I mean, the total extent of it
    probably might have taken longer.
    I don't know.
    But the stories--
    Yeah, right.
    How bad it was?
    Yeah, right.
    That came out.
    I would like to make a few postscript comments concerning
    the period of time before the start of World War II.
    Because I remember, you had also asked me a question,
    how that time affected me.
    At that time, I was just a teenager.
    And of course, the Nazis were then in power since 1933.
    And what I would like to say is that there was an increasing
    atmosphere of hostility against the Jews
    in all-- in the media, and in newspapers, and the radio,
    and so on.
    And we were, I mean, that I know I discussed also,
    pictured as the worst criminals, and as a--
    sort of trying to undermine the German nation.
    Yeah.
    For example, one incident in the apartment building where
    we lived, the beautiful one, we had that large apartment,
    there were only two parties on each floor.
    And on the same floor, there was another couple,
    and the husband was also a lawyer.
    But they were Aryans and Germans.
    And they had a daughter, just one single child.
    The daughter, my sister's age.
    And the grandmother, one of the grandmothers,
    also lived with them.
    And my sister and that girl were very close friends.
    They played together, and of course, they
    went to school together.
    Then when they came to school, and so on.
    And one day, the girl told my sister
    that her grandmother had forbade her from now on
    to have a Jewish friend.
    So she's sorry, but she can't come over anymore,
    and can't have her over.
    Things like that.
    Then each apartment building was assigned a Nazi party
    representative for that building.
    And the man who was representative in our building,
    for example, made it a point whenever we crossed paths
    with him, the house entrance, or the elevator,
    or wherever, to ostensibly sort of look in a very hostile way
    and ignoring us, not greeting us.
    And a few other tenants, not all of them,
    but a few other tenants followed suit.
    Then as the '30s wore on and the Nazis really started openly
    to prepare for war, they also started an extensive air raid
    protection system, with building air raid shelters
    in basements and so on.
    And one of the early orders was that Jews are not
    permitted to join the other tenants in an air raid shelter.
    So we had to go-- each tenant also
    had a little lockable area, sort of separated by wooden planks,
    to store things for storage.
    And we had to sit in there like pariahs
    while the rest of the tenants walked by there into their air
    raid shelter, which was--
    with benches, and so on.
    And there was--
    I mean, there were constant speeches,
    of course, which were insulting and hostile to us.
    And even people who were not ill-meaning felt that it was
    dangerous even to be seen--
    to associate with Jews.
    And then there were--
    they had frequent Nazi holidays, or other holidays they--
    every opportunity, they-- there were the Olympic Games,
    and so on.
    And of each time, they made a big fuss about marches.
    That was sort of one of their favorite activities.
    SS units, SA units, Hitler Youth units would march,
    looking really snappy and snifty, with flags flying
    and with bands playing, and singing their songs.
    And it was sort of, in retrospect,
    almost like a-- almost continuous holiday atmosphere.
    And by that time, of course, as the '30s went on,
    everybody was employed.
    Germany had a tremendous unemployment rate before,
    as part of the worldwide Great Depression.
    And of course, they were all employed, basically,
    rearming Germany.
    But we didn't know it at the time.
    But that was a--
    that's how they solved the unemployment problem, and also
    their own military, what they conceived as inferiority.
    And--
    You mentioned the Olympics.
    Yeah.
    Did you go to any of that?
    Yeah.
    Well actually, I went to two events.
    I went-- one was the final for the gold medal of Soccer.
    I went with my mother.
    My mother was very interested in sports.
    My father couldn't have cared less.
    So she went with me.
    And the final game was between Italy and Austria,
    and it was a very exciting game.
    They were, at that time, the powerhouses in soccer.
    And actually, Germany also had a pretty good team,
    but was already out of the running by the time.
    And what happened, see-- at that time, of course,
    Austria was still an independent country.
    Otherwise, they wouldn't have had a team.
    But the Germans, of course, felt kinship with the Austrians.
    So the stadium sort of rooted for the Austrians.
    The Italians had bought blocks, large blocks of seats,
    where they were sitting in their black fascist uniforms,
    and were waving Italian flags.
    And they must have had some sort of a cheerleader.
    They would, at some particular moments,
    maybe when Italy was on a drive, they
    would jump up, like on a command,
    and shout in Italian, Italia, Italia, Italia!
    And waving their flags.
    And then the rest of the stadium would thunder back,
    [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    That's the German word for "Austria".
    [SPEAKING GERMAN] So it was that constant back-and-forth
    between these blocks of Italians who shouted "Italia",
    and most of the rest of the stadium
    shouting [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    And, um--
    Was that alarming at all?
    Or was it exciting?
    No, that wasn't exciting.
    It wasn't exciting.
    I mean, of course, there were political undertones.
    But Italy was, by that time, already an ally of Germany.
    So there was no--
    it wasn't as if, say, Britain had been.
    And--
    Well, there was a certain energy at the '36 Olympics.
    Yeah.
    Oh yeah.
    I mean--
    Maybe you can talk--
    Yeah.
    I mean, that was--
    I mean, incredible.
    First of all, they toned down somewhat their anti-Semitism.
    That was probably pressure from the West.
    Although there wasn't much of that pressure, as far as
    I can see.
    But the whole city was sort of--
    was, first of all, renovated.
    The elevated lines got totally new trains.
    It's that line that went by that synagogue
    also that was burned down a few years later.
    And in fact, those cars are still in use now,
    that is now 60 years later.
    Unbelievable.
    I mean, now they look worn and so on.
    And several stations, likely--
    in Central Berlin and Western Berlin,
    the central station is the Zoo station,
    because it's near the zoo.
    And that was totally rebuilt. And lots of other things
    were done to the city.
    I mean, the Nazis used that--
    went out of their way.
    And then interesting, when I came to this country
    and went to college here in the year 1949,
    so that was only 13 years after the Olympics,
    I was at a small college in Missouri
    who had a scholarship, Southwest Missouri State College
    in Springfield, Missouri.
    And my German-- not "my German".
    She was a German professor there, a woman,
    and I was actually-- at her request,
    I was active in the German Club.
    They were-- there was a club before students
    who wanted to major in German and practice German.
    And she had asked me to go there too so they could sort
    of converse with me in German.
    And then I often talked with her also.
    She said she was in Germany in '36 through the Olympics.
    At that time, she was a young--
    I don't know, whatever.
    Assistant professor or something.
    And she said she was impressed.
    The courtesy.
    The w-- how well everything was planned.
    The efficiency.
    And also, the party.
    The party organs were also enlisted.
    They were all very nice.
    You know, they-- it's probably hard for people to understand.
    I mean, you can--
    you could-- even SS officers, and sometimes
    the most brutal types, could be very charming,
    and courteous, and polite.
    And they were all double-faced.
    And so the Olympic Games, from that point of view,
    were a huge success.
    I mean-- and of course, also Germany did really well.
    I mean, the Nazis had a tremendous system
    of physical training, and sports facilities, and so on.
    And I think in medals, they won that game for-- at least
    they claim to have.
    I forgot the details.
    But anyway, coming back to that soccer game, they--
    the way soccer was played at that time, at least,
    it was a draw at the official end of the game.
    And I think it was 1 to 1.
    And then the rule was that the game
    is extended until sudden death.
    In other words, one party shoots a goal, and that ends the game.
    And that party, of course, wins.
    And it was Italy that shot that additional goal,
    so it was 2 to 1 for Italy.
    And they got the gold medal, and the Austrians
    got the silver then.
    But my father was--
    my mother was very interested in sports.
    Not just a spectator of sports, but she
    did a lot also to entice me to--
    I was originally totally averse to any sports,
    and didn't like it, and often was afraid of things.
    And she had a tremendous energy and thought of--
    practically forced me out to learn how to swim,
    to ski, and to skate.
    I mean, ice skate.
    And bicycle.
    And I do most of these things.
    For swimming, I don't care too much anymore.
    I find it too boring just to swim back-and-forth in a lap.
    But I'm able to swim.
    But I still love skiing.
    Why don't you continue?
    Oh.
    Incidentally, the Olympics was the first occasion
    when I saw Hitler in-person.
    We lived-- the street we lived on, in that apartment,
    was a major east-west sort of boulevard that cut through--
    it started at the center of Berlin,
    actually, near the Vice Chancellory,
    and then went for several miles to the western outskirts
    where we lived.
    And the Olympic stadium was also near where we lived.
    So Hitler passed by there on Opening Day to open the games.
    And of course, his trip out to the Olympic stadium
    itself was planned as big theater.
    They had the streets lined with enthusiastic crowds,
    and SS sort of in formation, holding them back.
    And then Hitler would ride in an open Mercedes-Benz in uniform,
    standing stiffly upright, and periodically
    raising his right arm to the Hitler salute,
    greeting the masses.
    And as I stood on the balcony just looking straight
    down at Hitler, the thought occurred to me
    how easy it would be just to assassinate him from here.
    The next time I saw him was exactly about a year later,
    when Mussolini played a state visit to Berlin in 1937.
    And in fact, during that state visit,
    the Berlin-Rome axis was sort of cemented.
    And Mussolini-- the arrangement was also for them
    to ride into town, so in the opposite direction now
    from the-- from a suburban railroad station which
    was, in fact, just half a mile away from where our house was.
    And then they rode into town, again,
    greeting the masses that were lined up behind all of SS.
    And there was an interesting contrast.
    Hitler, the unsmiling, stiff despot.
    And Mussolini, the typical jovial Italian.
    He also raised his hand, but he raised it
    in a much more informal way.
    His mouth was widely open, and laughing and smiling.
    And his body would sort of, in body language,
    wave back-and-forth from one side to the other,
    acknowledging crowds on both sides.
    There was a tremendous difference
    in the appearance of these two dictators.
    I'm not trying to make Mussolini appear any--
    like a nice uncle, but there was a tremendous difference
    between these two men.
    Both were equally brutal.
    In summary, I must say that I--
    the years in the '30s leading up to World War
    2 and the Holocaust, I felt basically like an outsider,
    like being pushed away from the main body,
    and from all the festivities that the Germans enjoyed,
    from which I was excluded.
    But on the other hand, I had found
    my inner Jewish belonging, mainly
    as a result of the school that I went to, and--
    which gave me inner strength, and to some extent,
    compensated for that.
    One final remark I would like to make concerning the question
    of the deportations.
    The deportations, of course, were ordered by the Gestapo,
    and go back directly to an order by Heidrish,
    who was ordered by Hitler--
    was given by Hitler the order to carry this out.
    But the-- at the local level, the deportations
    were organized by the Jewish community organizations.
    And of course, that has been a big problem
    ever since it happened.
    For me personally, I felt, first of all, totally abandoned,
    I would say, by the--
    knowing that the Jewish organizations
    were organizing the transports.
    In fact, it got to the point where I actually
    considered the leadership of the [SPEAKING GERMAN],,
    that was the sort of umbrella organization of Jews
    in Germany, I considered them as part of the enemy.
    And they had to be considered that way.
    On the other hand, of course, we know now
    much more there were very difficult moral decisions,
    and there were very difficult also options available.
    I certainly would never want to be in a position
    to make those choices.
    But it-- but the fact remains that for me, at the time,
    I felt really as being abandoned by my own leadership, and--
    and it probably needs to be considered more deeply now
    where we have some distance what the options were
    that these people had, and what they
    could have done other than what they actually did.
    I'm wondering how long you remained in Berlin,
    what your plans were, and how easy or difficult
    it was to realize those plans.
    Yeah.
    Briefly, my first priority was to get on with my education.
    And I immediately enrolled in the Technical University
    in Berlin, and then later took courses also
    in the main University, or Humboldt University,
    as it was then renamed, taking lectures
    in mathematics, physics, and so on.
    There were many famous professors
    who had still survived the war.
    And of course, there were then also a number of Jews
    who had returned.
    Or some of them actually had survived in Berlin as mixed--
    children of mixed marriages, where one parent was Gentile
    and the other one was Jewish.
    And of course, there was a large number of German army veterans.
    And that, in fact, was a very sore point.
    Many of them were still very nationalistic,
    in spite of that huge defeat.
    So I enrolled in those courses.
    And actually, Margaret's mother immediately
    opened a sort of office on her own for social help for Jews
    returning from concentration camps.
    And she worked closely together with the American official
    who was in charge of that borough, Templehoff, a--
    I think a Captain or Major Davidhoff or Davidhoff.
    It turns out, supposedly, that that man was a communist,
    and was then later rotated out and sent home.
    And when the first possibility arose
    for emigrating to the United States, that was in '46,
    and we registered, it turned out that Margaret's mother somehow
    was on the blacklist because she had closely collaborated,
    and that Major Davidoff, also, for example, was
    helpful in providing apartments for returning Jews,
    and et cetera, et cetera.
    And so we were, for about a year,
    subjected to a lot of chicanery by the American consulate.
    I remember the consul himself was a Mr. Haney, and--
    who was a very unpleasant character.
    And I was once, I'm sure on his orders,
    although I can't prove it, interrogated
    by an officer of the CIC.
    The CIC is the army's Criminal Investigation Commission,
    or something.
    And that interrogation took place in the following way,
    that the interrogating officer sat behind the desk,
    and next to him was a growling German Shepherd who
    was here just to intimidate me.
    And they wanted to know about--
    wanted me to incriminate Margaret's parents,
    basically, as communists.
    And when I couldn't say anything incriminating,
    he let me go finally.
    But it was a very unpleasant interview.
    Or "interrogation" is a better word.
    I did receive, finally, my visa.
    But the house family did not.
    And at that point, since we had lived through thick and thin
    through the war, I decided to let my visa lapse,
    even though I was told by the--
    and I told the consul I will go when the other three go.
    The consul said that there's no guarantee
    that I will ever get my visa renewed if I let it lapse once.
    And I had an uncle here in the United States
    who also implored me to come and let--
    wait here for them.
    Anyway-- and by the way, that's an interesting thing.
    My first connection to friends--
    there was no postal connection, of course, between Germany
    and any country outside.
    So we went to--
    there was a huge barracks of American soldiers
    near where we lived.
    And I remember, I went to the guard soldier outside
    and asked whether he could tell me whether there
    was a Jewish soldier somewhere.
    It's such an outlandish idea.
    So he directed me, pointed to some particular room.
    And it was a Sergeant Roth, R-O-T-H.
    So I went to that Roth and told him who I was,
    and that I survived, and I had an address of a school friend
    in Connecticut, and my uncle.
    And actually, I didn't--
    he was in New York, but I didn't have his exact address.
    But I had some connecting address in London
    who could then forward it.
    And so he also conversed with me, the Roth,
    and he asked me what--
    no, he didn't ask me, he warned me not
    to try to emigrate to the United States
    because there were already too many Jews there,
    and there was rising anti-Semitism.
    And now that the Nazis were gone and the war was over,
    it would be much better for me also if I stayed in Germany.
    And I found that so unbelievably preposterous.
    He was an American Jew telling me not to come here.
    But anyway, I didn't follow his advice.
    But what he did do is he did forward my mail.
    And the letter that I wrote to my school friend
    wound up as an article.
    He submitted it.
    There's a German Jewish weekly called Oufbow.
    By now, it's a biweekly.
    And it was published in there.
    And my uncle then also supported me finally.
    We did get visas.
    The joint was extremely helpful, really.
    The joint opened offices in Berlin, and with their help,
    the three of us finally got visas.
    And we arrived on the 22nd of June, 1947.
    And then my first priority again here was to study.
    This is tape 3, side B, of an interview with Earnest Fontheim
    on June 4, 1997.
    Yeah, um-- after my arrival, my first priority, as I said,
    was to continue my studies.
    My uncle provided some financial support in the beginning,
    for a few months.
    And then-- I lived in New York then.
    He had rented for me a furnished room in the Upper West Side,
    and then I took a job as a messenger boy
    on West 48th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues,
    for an outfit called Action Messenger Service.
    We were a whole bunch of young guys who were lined up.
    And the boss would always call one after the other
    to run certain errands.
    For me, that was great.
    That's how I got to know New York.
    He sent me to one address to pick up a package
    to be delivered to a second address,
    and I got to know New York from downtown Wall Street,
    to Midtown, and even further Uptown.
    And I really fell in love with the city at that time.
    In the evening-- incidentally, I earned $0.50 an hour.
    And in the evening, I took two or three courses, I forgot,
    in city college.
    And I took some elementary physics,
    which I already had in Germany, just
    in order to get up-to-speed also with English language
    and with the technical expressions.
    And I also had a course in calculus, which also mostly
    was just a review of what I had already learned in Germany.
    And I-- my goal, of course, was to become a full-time student.
    And financially, that wouldn't have been possible for me.
    So through a friend of mine, I was
    referred to a committee with an interesting name, American
    Committee for Immigrant Writers, Scholars, and Artists.
    And it was sort of an interesting outfit.
    Basically, what they did is they did not
    have any money themselves.
    They served as a clearinghouse for available grants,
    fellowships, and so on.
    So I registered with them.
    And after, I forgot what it was, a few months--
    I should say also I had only A's for my first two
    semesters in city college.
    So that obviously helped along.
    And they told me that they had a rotary at the National
    Scholarship for Southwest Missouri State College
    in Springfield, Missouri.
    I never heard of the place before,
    and of course, I didn't know at that time
    that there were such huge disparities
    between different academic institutions.
    But anyway, I went there.
    And I credit my two years in Springfield, Missouri,
    and at that college, mainly with my Americanization.
    And one thing that bothered me in New York
    is that the only social contact I had
    was not just with other German Jews,
    but mainly only with Berlin Jews.
    Former Berlin Jews, I should say.
    And I realized that if I want to become acculturated
    in my new country, I can't just have a social life
    only with people from the old country.
    But it was very difficult. In city college, you need to--
    I tried several times, unsuccessfully.
    It's a commuter college.
    People come take classes and usher away.
    Go back into the subway and go to Brooklyn,
    or God knows where.
    And so it's not really a campus atmosphere.
    So when I got that scholarship, I took a train off
    to Springfield, Missouri.
    And I should say that my friend's host family,
    they, after some initial difficulties,
    settled in New York.
    And Margaret's father got several jobs,
    improving as time went on, in the garment industry.
    As designer, pattern maker, and so on in ladies' garments.
    Of course, we stayed in contact as I went to Springfield.
    And there, I was received by the dean,
    who felt that it would be a good idea if I would be put--
    housed in the barracks, which had
    been built on campus for GIs.
    That was the time of the GI Bill of Rights, after World War 2.
    And there was such an influx of students
    that they needed to do something to house them.
    And so these barracks were built.
    They were relatively primitive, but as far
    as I was concerned, totally sufficient.
    And of course, there I learned all the slang
    that I hadn't learned in all my years
    of English in the German high school,
    including all the four-letter words which
    I hadn't known before, and in general, got
    sort of acculturated to life in a small Midwestern town.
    As coincidence would have it, also, the dean right away
    set me in touch with the local rabbi.
    And it turned out that rabbi also was a former German Jew.
    He was-- he had been rabbi in the Bavarian city of Oxbourg
    before the war, and now he was rabbi in Springfield, Missouri.
    And he and his family took me somewhat under their wings.
    I was often invited to Shabbat evening dinners at their house,
    and obviously, each time for the theater.
    And so I lived with them.
    Not lived with them.
    I mean, I socialized with them.
    And on the other hand, I also had American contacts,
    and I even made dates with American girls.
    And so-- and my school performance
    turned out to be very well.
    I did very well in all classes.
    So when I graduated in 1950 with a bachelor's degree,
    I got an offer--
    actually, several offers.
    But the one that I accepted for graduate school
    was from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
    Admission to graduate school, plus a guaranteed teaching
    assistantship in the Physics Department.
    And so in the summer of 1950, I got my bachelor's degree.
    That was in July.
    But I remained a bachelor then for less than a month.
    Well, on the 6th of August, Margaret and I
    finally got married.
    And that was in New York.
    And then we moved together to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
    where I started my graduate studies.
    The graduate studies turned out-- unfortunately,
    extended for more years than I had originally anticipated,
    and is customary, for a number of reasons.
    I had some bad luck with my first thesis subject,
    and so on.
    I don't want to go into that, you know?
    But I-- of general interest, as maybe that in Dec--
    in my first summer there, it was the summer of '51,
    I had a summer job at Bethlehem Steel
    Company, which was in the same city as Lehigh University.
    And the company-- in fact, the steel plant--
    I think the company still exists.
    But the steel plant doesn't exist anymore.
    But I saw a steel plant from the inside,
    and I found all of that very interesting, how
    steel is being made, and so on.
    And then two years later, in '53,
    I had a summer job at White Sands Proving Ground.
    That was a rocket proving ground,
    before anyone even knew that the United States was
    deeply involved in rocketry.
    At that time, they just shot--
    captured German V2 rockets.
    And some clever physicist had gotten the idea to,
    while these rockets are being shot with harmless warheads,
    just to test their flight characteristics.
    Why not put some instruments in the warhead
    to measure properties in the upper atmosphere, ionosphere?
    And actually, I was hired partly to write
    a sort of research paper on certain aspects on how
    to detect cosmic rays.
    And so that filled my summer.
    And I didn't realize at that time
    that, in fact, space physics would at one time
    become my life's profession.
    In 1954, the following summer, I spent--
    I had a special fellowship for--
    to Brookhaven, a national laboratory, which at that time
    was the foremost laboratory for-- in the world, not only
    this country, for high-energy physics.
    And there was a machine that could accelerate particles
    to unheard of, at the time, energies,
    and cause all kinds of interesting effects
    and collisions.
    And I worked with some famous physicists
    that I met, among others there.
    Enrico Fermi, who-- the famous Italian Physicist and Nobel
    Prize Winner, and several others.
    And then I wrote a thesis back at Lehigh University
    in a fairly esoteric, purely mathematical subject
    in theoretical physics, involving fundamental particles
    and field theory.
    I graduated in 1960.
    And by that time already, we had two children.
    I should have mentioned that after we married in August 1950
    and moved to Bethlehem, Margo worked for a number of years
    in an office.
    And in 1955, she was pregnant with our son, Claude,
    who was born in August '55.
    And then in October '59, our daughter, Eva, was born.
    And in '60, she was less than a year old,
    we moved from Bethlehem to Ann Arbor, Michigan.
    And in Ann Arbor, I had worked--
    actually, I was for two years in the radiation laboratory.
    And the radiation laboratory sort of
    started to fold and go downhill.
    And then I obtained an offer from the Space Physics Research
    Laboratory in 1962, where I stayed until my retirement
    in 1992.
    During that time, I had a--
    also a very interesting career.
    I attended many international meetings, including one in 1971
    in Moscow, which interested me very much.
    And I should add, incidentally, that I
    taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet during my two years--
    postwar years in Berlin, from '45 to '47.
    Because the Russians-- immediately after
    their arrival, one of the first things,
    they put under the German street names--
    they named in Russian, in Cyrillic letters,
    so that their soldiers could orient themselves in the city.
    And simply by comparison, and also
    by knowing the Greek alphabet, which I
    knew from the gymnasium.
    I could figure out the entire alphabet.
    So going to Moscow in '71, at least I wasn't lost.
    I could read street names and so on.
    In '72, I attended an international conference
    in Warsaw, which--
    and just shortly before that time,
    I had read several diaries and reports about Warsaw ghetto,
    including the uprising.
    And the visit to Warsaw was an emotionally very shattering
    experience for me.
    I spent every free minute that I was not
    at the meeting walking around the streets of the ghetto,
    and--
    which I all knew from the books that I'd read and observed.
    And of course, as is well-known, the ghetto
    was totally destroyed by the Germans after they captured it.
    And then the Poles completely leveled everything
    that was left, and then built sort of workers' apartments
    in a style which I call "socialist modern," which
    means modern lines but shoddy construction.
    And I just walked through the streets.
    And in my mental, I saw in front of me
    the Jews who lived there only a few years before.
    It was just 30 years later that I was there,
    which is nothing in history.
    In '70-- let me see.
    In '78, I spent a year--
    I'm sorry, I spent a summer in Paris.
    A former student of mine, actually,
    who got his PhD under my supervision in the late '60s,
    was a French fellow with whom I had an also
    personal friendship, and we stayed in touch.
    And he was probably one of my most successful students.
    By now, he is director of a big laboratory in Toulouse.
    But at that time, he was already head of a group.
    And he invited me to spend the summer of '78 there.
    And I went there with Margot and our daughter, Eva,
    who at that time, '78-- what was she doing then?
    She must have been a college freshman.
    And that was-- well, we lived, really, like French people.
    We entered a furnished apartment.
    And Margaret and Eva, during the day,
    went, of course, to visit museums and the sights
    on the streets.
    And on weekends, we did things together.
    It was one of the best summers we had.
    And in '76, by the way, I had a summer position
    at the Space Physics Laboratory of the University of California
    in Berkeley.
    That was where we made a cross-country trip by car,
    which is the only way to see this country,
    is really by driving through it.
    It's fascinating how the landscape changes,
    the architecture changes, and so on.
    And on the 4th of July--
    actually, we first visited friends
    in San Diego and Los Angeles.
    And on the 4th of July, we drove up from LA to San Francisco.
    And of course, the 4th of July is Independence Day, obviously.
    In '76, it was the 200th anniversary
    of the United States.
    But in addition to that, it was also the day
    where Israeli commandos liberated the prisoners
    in Entebbe.
    And we were driving along and listening to the radio
    just for diversion, when suddenly a news flash came on
    that Israeli commandos had liberated the passengers over--
    I think it was an Air Force plane with Israeli,
    and also other citizens on it.
    And so that was a perfect way for us
    to celebrate Independence Day.
    And then in the evening, after we arrived in Berkeley, we
    were told that already, ahead of time,
    that there's always a big firework over San Francisco
    Bay, and the best way to view it is from the eastern side
    of the Bay, from Berkeley.
    In other words-- the Space Physics Lab
    is on a mountain where also the Radiation Lab is located.
    And it was a tremendous experience
    to see the fireworks over San Francisco
    Bay on the 4th of July, 1976.
    But--
    Let me ask you a few questions, OK?
    What-- when you look back--
    I mean, you've now had a lot of time,
    and you-- you're rel-- you're fairly reflective.
    What sort of long-term impact did these early experiences
    have on you, on the way you've lived
    your life, on your general outlook,
    or the way you've raised your kids?
    Can you talk about that?
    Yes.
    I mean, it had a tremendous impact.
    And in fact, the impact increased as the years went by.
    I mean, the fact that my parents, my sister,
    and my first girlfriend, plus innumerable other people
    I knew or I didn't know just vanished and were brutally
    murdered because of some unbelievable ideology which
    somebody cooked up is so--
    it's even, for me today, not understandable
    how that could have happened.
    And I have been sort of totally more and more absorbed
    by it as the years went by.
    I read-- I have innumerable books, some of them
    I haven't even read yet, on the Holocaust.
    I mean, starting with the standard works
    by Hillburg and--
    what's her name?
    Yahyah Hill, the Israeli historian, and also
    Lucy Dawidowicz, and so on.
    But in addition to that, all kinds of special
    works by authors on special subjects
    like the Warsaw ghetto.
    I have a whole number of diaries,
    including Rhea Blumes' notes, and so also on German Jews.
    And of course, fascinated particularly
    by the fate of German Jews, because that's what I am.
    And I was totally raised in Germany.
    And how that could have happened, of all countries,
    in that country is something that I
    have wrestled with all the-- for years and years,
    and have not really come to a conclusion.
    What that really was that gave rise
    to this unbelievable crime, and--
    you know, that was--
    also, it was committed by people who are mostly highly-educated.
    And although there were some uneducated at the lower levels.
    But at the higher levels, they were often--
    Goebbels was a PhD, and many other people in--
    who are not that well-known, but were in high positions,
    were highly-educated.
    And to plan a mass murder on that scale and carry it out
    is totally mind-boggling.
    And then another thing is that the fate of my immediate family
    is--
    I'm trying to picture my father, even on the deportation train.
    I mean, how--
    I mean, going into such the detail as--
    each railroad car where people were transported,
    and they were basically freight or cattle
    cars, had just somewhere--
    a big bucket where people could relieve themselves.
    I couldn't-- I can't even believe how anyone would even
    be able to relieve themselves in public with everybody standing
    around, and a bucket in the middle.
    The idea, to humiliate Jews to such an unbelievable extent.
    And how my father even-- and then on the day that he left,
    the temperatures were--
    I mean, Berlin in winter, it was anyway cold.
    I think now it is not as cold anymore.
    But at that time, it was much cooler.
    But that was an unusually cold day, even for that time.
    I checked the meteorological records again to--
    and have that at home, actually, to reconfirm
    that it was just my memory.
    But these were extremely cold days.
    And of course, the cars were unheated.
    And all my family was treated after they
    arrived at Auschwitz.
    That they went to Auschwitz, that is a matter of record,
    and my friend, Ruth, I think was deported to Riga.
    And from what little I know, it may
    have happened that they were immediately
    transported by truck into some forest and shot.
    And so I have been--
    as the years went by, I have more and more
    occupied myself with that.
    For example, I was instrumental in Ann Arbor
    to start an annual observance of Yom HaShoah, which has been
    now going on for over 10 years.
    And I was also involved--
    Ann Arbor has a statue now commemorating the Holocaust,
    where I was involved in--
    both in raising the money and in getting the idea through to--
    the artist who made the statue is Leonard Baskin,
    who, by the way, also made one of the statues of the new FDR
    Memorial.
    So I'm-- I must say that I'm--
    you asked me how I raised my--
    what affect of raising my children.
    And in two ways.
    First of all, I have always talked to them
    about that period.
    And in 1981, in fact, that was when our son graduated
    from law school in Michigan.
    And our daughter was actually still
    a year away from graduation.
    But we proposed for them a joint graduation gift,
    that's a trip to Europe, as students like to do it,
    sort of to bum around.
    They could select where they wanted
    to go, sort of in youth hostels, and so on, with one proviso.
    In '81, I was at an international meeting,
    I think, in June or so, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
    And I suggested that we meet in Berlin on a certain week
    so that Margo and I could show them where we grew up,
    respectively, and also where we went
    to school, and other places of relevance to our lives.
    And so that's what we did.
    We actually-- after from Edinburgh, we flew to Berlin.
    The kids had already left earlier.
    They had decided first to make a brief swing
    through parts of Scandinavia.
    They were in Copenhagen, then southern Sweden.
    OK?
    And then they went into Berlin.
    We met there and spent a week there.
    And we showed-- went also to the cemetery where
    some of our forebears, gros grandparents, and so on are
    buried, and some famous German Jews.
    In Germany, the gravestones are also more descriptive.
    I mean, you can really see who somebody was.
    I mean, it explained somebody may have been professor of this
    or that at this university, or may have been an architect,
    or whatever.
    Anyway.
    And then the rest of the time, well, they
    continued then on their own.
    So coming back to your question, I mean, I saw to it.
    But also, we wanted to make them also
    very conscious of their Jewish heritage.
    And Margo and I often feared that in that respect, maybe
    we didn't do too great a job there.
    We sort of totally relied--
    we are members of a conservative synagogue.
    And of course, money constraints being what they are,
    they can't really hire first-rate teachers.
    So they usually use college students
    who come from more or less religious homes
    to teach the standard things in elementary Hebrew,
    and biblical history, and so on.
    But they still-- our daughter now even taking now
    here a course in Basics of Judaism, I think, at the DCJCC.
    What I'm asking is maybe a little bit more subtle.
    It's, do you think that you acted differently
    than you might have?
    Do you think that you have certain values,
    or you instilled certain certain values--
    Oh, OK.
    --as a result of your experiences?
    Yes.
    OK, let-- thank you for raising that question.
    I was never only concerned exclusively
    with the Jewish faith, although this is obviously
    the one that's closest to me.
    But I was always appalled, for example also,
    with the treatment of Blacks in this country,
    or Afro-Americans.
    And I have been always quite active in Ann Arbor.
    I mean, today-- seems long ago, but there was at one time
    strict housing segregation.
    And there was a large group in which
    I was involved for passage of city ordinances
    to make such segregation illegal, particularly
    by real estate agents, and loan practices by banks, and so on.
    And I took the children sometimes
    along to demonstrations, just to--
    and they are both--
    and both of our children--
    Eva, our daughter, is involved now in the Hunger Coalition
    here, which incidentally, my wife is also very much
    involved in Ann Arbor.
    And our son is involved with the Anti-Defamation
    League and such organizations.
    So we always instilled in them that it
    is important for everybody to work for equality.
    Not just for yourself, for your own group, but for all groups.
    Were there certain-- or are there certain
    fears that have stuck with you as a result
    of your experiences?
    Very, very seldom.
    I have some dreams, or some thoughts.
    I mean, just recently when I woke up earlier in the morning
    than I should have, probably, I thought of that incident
    with that civilian police guy who stopped me on the subway.
    And where I asked myself the question, what
    if my assessment was wrong, and my lingering
    around there would have caused him--
    he could have-- any time while I was at the newspaper
    kiosk pretending to look at newspapers,
    he could have tapped on my shoulder
    and said, why don't you come along?
    I want to ask you some more questions.
    And then that would have been the end of me.
    And I elaborated on that, and my fantasy have--
    I mean, there are people who wouldn't
    have gotten that-- wouldn't ride a subway today.
    Do you know what I mean?
    Yeah.
    I'm trying to--
    Oh, yeah.
    No.
    If there are certain images, certain
    sounds that really trigger memories for you--
    Yeah--
    --in a very powerful way.
    Well actually, it's not a memory, it's a--
    sirens.
    For two reasons.
    First of all, they signaled air raids.
    But they also--
    My father was basically abducted.
    That's what the correct word for that would have been.
    And normally, you would call the police
    and they would come with their sirens blaring.
    And whenever I hear sirens, particularly on a police car,
    sometimes I have actually tears are welling.
    Thinking of it, they should have come and rescued my parents.
    They were being abducted in broad daylight.
    And, um-- and, um--
    I visited, um--
    I visited, um-- by now Auschwitz four times.
    And, um-- that is also something I still have not come to--
    to grips with.
    But in general, I, um--
    [CLEARS THROAT] in my day-to-day life, fortunately,
    I have not had any--
    I mean, to my knowledge, at least,
    any real strong emotional effects.
    I mean, like you said, not wanting
    to ride subways or things.
    Is there anything else you want to add?
    Because I think we've covered a lot.
    Yeah.
    I mean, actually, one thing that I wanted to say
    and forgot, in one of the earlier tapes--
    I think I made some mistakes in two dates.
    One is a high school friend of mine, at one point,
    I said left Berlin to emigrate to England on January 18, 1938.
    Now in context, that, of course, could not have been.
    And as I explained at the time, his parents were Austrians.
    And in January '38, Austria still
    was an independent country.
    [COUGHS] Excuse me.
    Austria was occupied in March '38, and--
    so then they lost their protection.
    And he left actually Berlin on January 18, '39.
    In other words, about 3/4 of a year after Austria
    lost its independence.
    The second date correction, the arrest of my girlfriend,
    Ruth, I said at one time it's November 9, '41.
    Also in November--
    I'm sorry, September 9, '41 I said.
    The first deportation left Berlin only
    at the end of September '41, and she was
    deported on September 9, '42.
    Not '41.
    I mean, that's just--
    that doesn't change anything but to correct the misstatement.
    Any overall thought or statement you'd like to make?
    Well--
    Doesn't have to be specific, but just any--
    I would think, really, two or three things.
    And one of them is that there is a lot
    of basic value in Judaism, and that it's
    sort of incumbent on us to really familiarize ourselves
    with it.
    I mean, there-- for many Jews in this country,
    there has been sort of--
    the Holocaust has been treated almost
    like a substitute religion, particularly in recent years.
    And I think that is almost sick.
    I think the Holocaust must be remembered, of course.
    But not as a-- in the sense of a religion.
    But in the sense that we, first of all, should remember always,
    just like really remember other events in our history,
    going back to Masada, to the destruction of the two temples
    and so on.
    And also to learn from it.
    Learn what to do and also what not to do.
    The other thing is that aside from Judaism,
    I also don't believe that one should be focused
    100% on one's Judaism, like--
    I know there are such Jews.
    But that since we are living in a broader world,
    that it is also the duty of everyone
    to involve him or herself in the daily politics
    to fight for what is right, and to fight for--
    against injustice.
    Also, against other groups.
    I think that is one thing that it is important.
    I mean, there is a famous, by now it's a cliche quote,
    I think it is from the German pastor Niemoller
    that, at first, they came after the communists--
    I mean, the Nazis.
    I didn't particularly care, because I wasn't a communist.
    Then they went after the Jews, and it didn't bother me either.
    I'm not a Jew.
    Then they went after homosexuals and it didn't bother me.
    I'm not a homosexual.
    Then they went after Catholics.
    That didn't bother me.
    And when they came after me, there was nobody left.
    Thank you.
    You're welcome.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Ernest Fontheim, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood in Germany; Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and attending an orthodox Jewish school; his experiences with antisemitism before World War II; his difficulty understanding his parents' decision to not emigrate from Germany; anti-Jewish laws that were enforced after 1933; the first deportations that happened in 1938; his best friend's immigration to England on the Kindertransport in 1938; his memories of Kristallnacht; a German colleague warning his father about his possible arrest by the Gestapo; perceptions of Jews in Germany and foreign countries; the closing of all Jewish schools in 1939 and briefly attending The American School in Berlin; his graduation from high school and his joining a preparatory camp for immigration to Palestine; working at a labor camp on the outskirts of Berlin after the dissolution of the Hachshara; attending an ORT school in Berlin and avoiding forced labor with his parents; his family being forced to move out of their apartment and into a Jewish apartment house; the closing of the ORT school and being sent to do forced labor at a Siemens factory; the underground university that he formed with some former teachers and friends; the introduction of the Star of David badge in 1941 and ways he and his friends subverted that law; the deportation of his first girlfriend in 1942; his parents' and sister's arrest on Christmas Eve 1942; going into hiding in a co-worker's apartment and obtaining a forged identification card; hiding in a family friend's summer cottage on the outskirts of Berlin; his liberation by Soviet forces; going to the United States and getting married in New York; and living in Bethlehem, PA.
    Interviewee
    Ernest Fontheim
    Interviewer
    Randy M. Goldman
    Date
    interview:  1997 March 12
    interview:  1997 June 04

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Genre/Form
    Oral histories.
    Extent
    8 sound cassettes (74 min.).

    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
    Fontheim, Ernest, 1922-
    Corporate Name
    World ORT Union

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Randy M. Goldman, on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, conducted the oral history interview with Ernest Fontheim on March 13, 1997.
    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:
    2023-11-16 08:02:56
    This page:
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    Time Coded Notes (8)

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    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral History

    Erna Tebel Stern, born on October 28, 1901 in Krotoszyn, Poland, describes her childhood; her father’s experiences when he served in the German Army against Russia during World War I; moving to Wroclaw, Poland after the war; not experiencing much official discrimination when Hitler first came to power because her father had served in the German Army; her family’s decision to flee from their home in 1938 when they discovered that prison camps existed; her parents’ capture and deportation; managing to escape to Brussels, Belgium, where she, her first husband, and her brother boarded the S.S. St. Louis and fled for Cuba; her brother’s and first husband’s deportation to an internment camp in Gurs, France after the St. Louis had to return to Brussels; going into hiding from 1940 to 1942 in Brussels, where she met her second husband; attempting to flee in 1942 to Switzerland, where they were imprisoned for a short time and then released to the Salvation Army; moving to Bern, Switzerland, where she worked as a housemaid until the end of the War; returning to Belgium in 1945 with her second husband and opening a blouse manufactory; and marrying her second husband in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral History

    Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort, born on April 24, 1923 in Wrocław, Poland, describes her family and childhood; experiencing antisemitism and losing friends after Hitler came to power; her memories of the destruction of Kristallnacht; a cousin in Cuba attaining visas for her and her parents to immigrate to Havana, Cuba; booking a passage on the St. Louis and being forced to return to Europe after Cuba and the United States would not accept the ship; arriving in Antwerp, Belgium and signing papers that said they would not work and would accept their status as a refugee; living off a small budget from the United Jewish Appeal; crossing the Belgium border into France by foot but not finding a much better living situation; discovering a castle in the French countryside in which to stay for a few nights; returning to Belgium and moving back into their old apartment building, where they stayed for a couple of years; becoming a seamstress to make some money for her family; joining an underground group with her mother and crossing into France and then Switzerland; finding an apartment building in which to live; discovering that Hitler had died and that the war was coming to an end; and immigrating to the United States to create a new life for herself and her family.

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral History

    Gidon Arye, born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1928, describes growing up in an upper middle class family; moving into the Vilnius ghetto in 1941 and being separated from his family; living in the Vilnius ghetto throughout the war and sometimes hiding or working illegally; avoiding the early deportations; escaping roundups and going to the Kailis work camp; smuggling his way into the same work camp that his father; reuniting with his father at the Heeres-Kraftfahr-Park work camp, where they worked for an elderly German fixing automobile machinery; surviving in the camp for some time and avoiding Nazi Aktions and a transfer of inmates to Kaunas, Lithuania; Nazi soldiers retreating from the Allies throughout July 1944; going into hiding with a local carpenter who was an acquaintance of his father from before the war; leaving Vilnius through Poland, Germany, and then France in 1945 with his father and fiancée; and immigrating to Israel in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral History

    Carl Knuemann, born on November 15, 1922 in Bydgoszcz, Poland, describes his family and childhood; moving to Germany in 1932 because his father had German citizenship and was a businessman; his father not finding a job and contracting tuberculosis, which allowed him to get a pension from the government since he was a veteran of World War I; his father’s work with Doctor Goerdeler and Albert Einstein in plotting against Hitler; working as a courier in the underground movement; his memories of Kristallnacht; escaping to Hungary after the war broke out and then returning to Berlin once the Nazis invaded Hungary; meeting a Dane in a restaurant and joining the Danish resistance movement by running guns between locations; being drafted and sent to Denmark; his father being too ill to participate in the July 20 plot against Hitler; working in the German armament industry in 1943 and sneaking information out to Allied contacts; and his considerations on his participation in the resistance movement during the war.

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral History

    Michael Vogel, born on November 29, 1923 in Jacovce, Czechoslovakia, describes moving to and growing up in Topol'čany, Czechoslovakia; the takeover of Topol'čany by the Hlinka Guard in 1939; his deportation to the Slovak-run Novaky prison camp in 1942; his deportation to Auschwitz in late 1942; working in forced labor in camps around Auschwitz, first in the Buna works and then in the Birkenau "Kanada" detachment, where he unloaded incoming trains; his transfer by cattle car to Sachsenhausen and then to Dachau as the Allies neared in late 1944; his final transfer to the Landsberg sub-camp of Dachau; escaping during a death march from Landsberg by hiding in the woods; his liberation by United States forces two weeks after escaping; following the 74th Tank Battalion on their tour through Germany and Czechoslovakia; swearing himself into the United States Army at a G.I. Camp Home Run in Le Havre, France in November 1945 and receiving American citizenship; taking a position doing laundry at Camp Home Run; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral History

    Nina Schuster Merrick, born in Rokitno, Poland in 1929, describes growing up in a religious family; attending Hebrew school as a child; hiding with her family in the woods during the 1939 bombing raids; her family’s forced move into a ghetto in Berezdiv, Ukraine when the Germans invaded Poland; forced labor, including peeling potatoes for German soldiers; the SS raid of her home in August 1942 and jumping out a window to avoid getting caught; hiding in the woods and eventually being taken in by a sympathetic Ukrainian general, who was involved with a partisan group; learning to be a nurse and working in the partisan group; the General sending her to Moscow, Russia on February 18, 1943, so she could attend technical school; working in a Moscow factory, where she remained until after the war; going to a Jewish collective farm in Germany; an aunt from Washington, DC contacting her in February 1947; and immigrating to the United States to live with her aunt in late 1947.

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral History

    Eva Rozencwajig Stock, born on January 15, 1919 in Kozienice, Poland, describes her family; the establishment of the Kozienice ghetto in 1939 and moving into it; bribing officials to have her family taken together to Skarżysko-Kamienna, a forced labor camp in Poland, during the liquidation of the ghetto; managing to move her family to Szydlowiec and then to Pionki, Poland, where they worked in an ammunition factory; the deportation of her father and brother to Mauthausen, where they both died; being deported to Auschwitz with her mother and sisters; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen and then to Elsnig, a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Germany; returning to Poland at the end of the war and then leaving in 1949 for Israel; and immigrating to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral History

    Ivo Herzer, born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (Croatia) on February 5, 1925, describes his early childhood; the introduction of anti-Jewish, Serb, and Romani legislation in 1941 by the Croatian Ustaša government; his arrest at sixteen years of age by a Croatian official and going to a transit camp in the outskirts of Zagreb for a short period until an Ustaša officer told him to return home; escaping with his family in July 1941 to the Italian-Croatian border and ending up in Gospić, Yugoslavia (Croatia); being put onto a military train, returning them to Croatia; escaping the train with the help of smugglers; moving to Susak, Croatia, where they hid for one month; Italian authorities sending his family and about sixty other Jewish refugees to Crikvenica, Croatia, where they lived under Italian protection in the Italian zone in Yugoslavia; the Italian authorities placing the Jewish refugees in a camp in 1942 until 1943, when the Italians brought them and two thousand other Jewish refugees into one camp on the island of Arbe, Dalmatia (Croatia); the Italian surrender to the Germans in 1943 and fleeing to southern Italy to the Allied occupied part of Italy; traveling with his family to the Croatian island of Vis and getting picked up by a British military ship and taken to Bari, Italy; the British directing his family to Taranto, Italy, where they were placed in a camp under British control; leaving the British camp and traveling to Bari; working as a translator and typist for the British Army in Bari after he was liberated; moving to Rome, Italy to work for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee from 1946 to 1948; and immigrating to the United States in 1955.

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral History

    Boleslaw Brodecki, born in March 1921 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; the German invasion in September 1939; boarding a train with his sister and escaping to Rostov, Russia while she went to Prużana, Poland; rejoining his sister in Prużana after the German invasion of Soviet territories in June 1941; entering the Prużana ghetto and staying there until he was deported to Birkenau in the winter of 1941 or 1942; being marched to Auschwitz I and then to Swietochlowice, Poland, where he worked in a machine factory making parts for airplanes; being sent on a forced march as the Russian army approached; arriving in Mauthausen and working in a nearby factory; being marched to various camps including Gräditz-Bareza, Flossenbürg, and Theresienstadt; his liberation in Theresienstadt by Soviet forces in 1945; going to a displaced persons camp in Landsberg am Lech, Germany in 1945 and getting a job as a policeman; meeting and marrying his wife, Sonia Brodecki, in the camp in December 1945; having a son and then immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral History

    Irene Weber, born in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes her family; attending a Polish school until she was about 10 years old, when the war began; the immediate effects of the war on her family, including the closing of her father’s business and the German raids on her home; her father and brother secretly educating her at home; receiving a work card and having to cut thread at a factory; being taken from the factory and sent to the Gliwice labor camp; discovering that her father had died of a heart attack shortly before her deportation; staying in Gliwice from March 1943 to May 1945, when she and others were evacuated from the camp because the Russians neared; being taken care of by some of the older female prisoners; her liberation by the International Red Cross in May 1945; being taken to a hospital to recuperate; having no desire to return to her hometown and see the destruction there; staying on a farm instead of going into a displaced persons camp; going to school in Munich, Germany with the help of the UNRRA; and meeting her husband and deciding to immigrate to the United States with him.

    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral History

    Josef, born on June 25, 1915 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; moving to Przemyśl, Poland when he was a child; fleeing to Lwów, Poland after the war broke out in 1939; returning to Przemyśl, which came under Russian occupation when Poland was divided between the Russians and the Germans; the German invasion on June 22, 1941; German troops issuing decrees restricting the rights and opportunities of the town’s Jewish population; moving into a designated Jewish ghetto in Przemyśl; meeting his future wife Stefania Podgófrska, who helped his family by smuggling food and other supplies to them in the ghetto; losing both of his parents during a ghetto Aktion; his deportation from the ghetto on November 18, 1942; using pliers he had in his pocket to cut through the wires covering the small window in the train car and jumping out of the train; getting slightly injured but being able to walk to Lipowice, Poland, where a friend provided him with shelter for a night and smuggled him back into Przemyśl the next morning; immediately going to Stefania, who hid him in her apartment for several days until he could smuggle himself back into the ghetto to be with one of his brothers; Stefania obtaining false papers for him and a few of his friends in the ghetto and finding a small cottage where they could hide; leaving the ghetto to meet with Stefania and her younger sister and to construct hiding places; hiding in the cottage with thirteen people for almost two years; his liberation by Russian troops and marrying Stefania; moving to Kraków and then to Wrocław, Poland, where he graduated from dental school; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral History

    Stanislaw Soszynski, born on February 24, 1931 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his neighborhood in Warsaw on Swietojerska Street; the destruction of Warsaw and the Germans opening the Warsaw Ghetto; living in an apartment where the front part was on the Aryan side, and the back part was on the ghetto side, which helped smuggling operations later in the war; going out of the ghetto area to get milk and sell it to support his family; his memories of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; the massive destruction of the ghetto after the uprising; and the uprising in 1944.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral History

    Abraham Lewent, born in July 1924 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; entering the Warsaw ghetto after the German occupation; hiding in a crawl space during a 1942 German raid and witnessing the capture of his mother and sisters; being deployed for forced labor nearby but escaping to return to his father in the ghetto; remaining in the ghetto until the uprising; his and his father’s deportation in 1943 to Majdanek, where his father died; his transfers to Skarzysko-Kamienna, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and finally to Dachau; and his liberation by American troops.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral History

    Miriam Storch Lewent, born on June 26, 1926 in Zamość, Poland, describes her family and childhood; fleeing her home when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939; her family’s internment by Soviet forces and being deported to Siberia; cutting down trees to earn food rations near Tomsk, Russia; the Soviets releasing her and her family when the Soviet Union went to war with Germany in June 1941; her two brothers registering with the Russian Army and the rest of her family settling in Kazakhstan, where they lived for the rest of the war; her father teaching Hebrew to Jewish children in their new home; attempting to return to Poland after the war but encountering too much antisemitism; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral History

    Liane Reif-Lehrer, born in Vienna, Austria in November 1934, describes growing up in a middle-class family; obtaining a passport in 1938 to immigrate to the United States but not being able to go when her father, a dentist, killed himself because he had to close his practice; traveling with her brother and mother to Hamburg, Germany in 1939 to board the St. Louis, which was bound for Cuba; arriving in Cuba and having to return to Europe, where they ended up in France; getting a visa to immigrate to the United States after staying in France for two-and-a-half years; traveling through Spain and leaving Europe from Lisbon, Portugal on the S.S. Exeter and arriving in the United States on November 10, 1941; living with the sister of Liane's father and her children in New York; earning her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and working for many years as an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School; and now working as a consultant and a writer.

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral History

    Preben Munch-Nielsen, born in 1926 in Snekkersten, Denmark, describes growing up in a Protestant family; attending school in Copenhagen; the German invasion of Denmark in 1940; becoming a courier in the resistance and being one of the youngest resistance fighters; helping to hide refugees in houses near the shore and to get them on boats to Sweden once the Gestapo began hunting down Jews in Denmark in October 1943; taking refuge in Sweden in November 1943 and joining the Danish Brigade, in which he fought as a soldier for eighteen months; helping to smuggle arms into Denmark for resistance fighters; and settling in Denmark in May 1945 after the war.

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral History

    Anny Rubinstein Kast, born in Poland in 1926, describes moving to Belgium when she was two months old; her family and her childhood in Belgium; attending school in Antwerp before the war; the German invasion of Belgium on May 10, 1940; someone reporting to the Germans that her family was the only Jewish one left in their neighborhood and then being picked up a few days later; living with the aunt of a friend during her family’s deportation and taking on a false identity; studying German, English, and mathematics lessons during the war; her liberation in 1944 when the English troops entered her town; her uncle finding her and opening up a fur store in Antwerp to support her and other surviving family members; immigrating to Israel after the war; and getting married in 1967.

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral History

    Helen Waterford, born in Germany in April 14, 1909, discusses her 1933 marriage; her move to Amsterdam in 1934; working for many years to help Jews from Germany relocate to the Netherlands; going into hiding in October 1942 with her husband but without her daughter; the Germans discovering them on August 26, 1944 and interrogating them for two days about the network of people who assisted them in hiding; her deportation to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau; her husband’s death in Auschwitz; remaining in Birkenau until October 1944, when she was forced to work in the Kratzau factory in Czechoslovakia; going into a prisoner of war camp, where she remained until her liberation; traveling to a displaced persons camp at Plzen, Czechoslovakia; returning to the Netherlands, where she reunited with her daughter; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral History

    Thomas Ward, born on August 10, 1921 in St. Louis, MO, describes joining the army when he was twenty years old; serving in General Patton's Third Army; working as a part of a three-person reconnaissance team in the Third Cavalry division; liberating 18,000 prisoners from the Ebensee concentration camp on May 5th, 1945; liberating a neighboring camp for women several days later; taking photographs in the camps (which he sent to the Supreme Allied Command); and his views on Holocaust denial.

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral History

    Fred R. Wohl, born in 1914 in Baden-Baden, Germany, describes growing up in Germany after World War I; leaving to work on a farm in Switzerland in 1932 for four months; working in Athens, Greece in 1935 and trying to get a Greek passport for fear of what the Germans were planning; moving to Nicosia, Cyprus in March 1939 with the help of the British Ambassador to Athens; the German invasion of Greece and being interned with refugees in a camp next to the Nicosia prison; being sent to a hotel-camp in the mountains with his father but soon being released; the Nazi invasion of Crete in 1941 and preparing for evacuation; traveling to Tel Aviv, Israel and then to Mwanza, Tanzania; working in a gold mine and contracting black water fever in Tanganyika, Tanzania; and immigrating to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral History

    Norbert Yasharoff, born in 1930 in Sofia, Bulgaria, describes the anti-Jewish measures enforced by the Nazis when World War II began; Bulgaria joining the Axis Alliance in March 1941, allowing German troops to pass through Sofia; the expulsion of some Jewish families to Poland in March 1943 and a bloody protest soon after; leaving with his family to Pleven, Bulgaria in May 1943 and staying with family members; attending a Gentile school while in Pleven, where his teacher did not force him to perform the Nazi salute; his liberation on September 9, 1944 and returning to Sofia with his family; immigrating to Israel in December 1948; joining the volunteer air force, where he trained as a radar technician; graduating with a degree from Tel Aviv University in Political Science and residing in Israel for twenty years; and working in an American Embassy for nine years until he immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral History

    Frank Meissner, born in Třešt̕, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1923, describes his family; joining a Zionist youth group and traveling to Prague, Czech Republic to live with other members of the group in 1937; the group’s fear of anti-Jewish Nazi policies and subsequently leaving Czechoslovakia to settle in Denmark; attending agricultural school at the University of Copenhagen; receiving a call in 1943 from his landlady, who warned him to not return home because the Gestapo had been looking for him; being smuggled onto a fishing boat to Sweden, where he finished his education; traveling to England in September 1944 and starting to contact his family but learning that they had all been taken to Theresienstadt (Terezin) and eventually to Auschwitz, where they perished; returning briefly to Prague and then going to Denmark in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral History

    Mina Perlberger, born on December 25, 1918 in Tyczyn, Poland, describes growing up in a strict Hasidic Jewish family; the German invasion of Poland while her family was in the process of moving to Kraków in 1939; her family’s assignment to do forced labor outside of Tyczyn; working as a black market trader until 1942, when her family's home was seized by the Gestapo; being forced into the ghetto in Rzeszów, Poland; the deportation of her parents to Auschwitz in late 1942; escaping the ghetto with her younger sister and hiding with a Polish farmer in exchange for a payment; hiding with the farmer for 21 months until the Soviet Army liberated them in 1944; meeting her future husband, a Soviet Jew, in Blażowa, Poland; marrying her husband and moving to Austria after the war with the help of a Jewish organization; and immigrating to the United States soon after arriving in Austria.

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral History

    David Klebanow, born in 1907 in Barysaŭ, Russia (now Belarus), describes his family and childhood; fleeing to Kiev, Ukraine in 1917 after the Russian Revolution and then to Białystok, Poland; becoming a doctor in 1937 and then being drafted into the Polish Army in 1939; returning to Białystok when he was released from the army and then marrying his wife; being taken to Kaunas, Lithuania and then to Riga, Latvia with his wife; performing abortions to save the lives of pregnant women and staying in Riga for two years; his deportation to Stutthof and then to Danzig, from where they were liberated on March 10, 1945; his wife dying of tuberculosis; working at the Munich University Hospital as an obstetrician after the war; noticing genital abnormalities, sterility problems, and a higher rate of miscarriages among women who had survived concentration camps; and immigrating in 1951 to the United States, where he joined the obstetrics department at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral History

    Franz Wohlfahrt, born in 1920 in Velden am Wörthersee, Austria, describes growing up in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses; the arrest of his father in 1936 for peddling in the street as part of his activities as a Jehovah’s Witness; the German annexation of Austria in 1938; refusing to go to a Hitler Youth meetings and say the “Heil Hitler” greeting, which resulted in German troops monitoring his activities; the execution of his father on December 7, 1939 and his brother soon after because they refused to participate in the war and fight for the German state; the general persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses during World War II since they would not worship Hitler; agreeing to do work for the German state but not participate in military exercises, which resulted in his imprisonment in a dungeon for thirty-three days in 1940; being transferred to the Gestapo office in Graz for further questioning; his deportation to a work camp at Allweiter Rodgau, in the Hessen-Nassau province, because he would not fight for the German state; being saved by a camp commandant’s wife because he painted wall paper for her; his liberation by Allied troops while he was still in the camp; and returning home to find that few people he knew had survived.

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral History

    Tove Schöbaum Bamberger, born on October 8, 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark, describes growing up in a wealthy family; her father’s ownership of a men’s clothing business; attending first and second grade at a Jewish school before her family fled from Denmark on October 2, 1940; taking a train to the seaport in Snekkersten, Denmark and then traveling on a fishing boat until a Swedish ship intercepted them at sea and took them to Sweden, where they settled in Malmö; her father working in a chocolate factory and selling artificial teeth; her mother selling lingerie; attending school with her sister; returning to Copenhagen on May 28, 1945 to find her family home and store undisturbed; and immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral History

    Morris Gordon, born in Latvia, describes immigrating with his father to the United States; growing up in New York, NY; attending City College and Columbia University; being ordained as a rabbi in 1940; volunteering for the military in 1942; his participation in The Flying Tigers; going to India briefly then Burma; traveling through the jungles of Burma to get to different camps and getting lost three times; taking his Torah with him everywhere he went; arriving in Shanghai as a Jewish chaplain and being greeted by a large Jewish community; conducting a Bar Mitzvah with a boy; his memories of the Shanghai Jewish ghetto and its schools; and receiving a chalice from a Catholic chaplain during the war to help him perform his services.

    Oral history interview with Raya Markon

    Oral History

    Raya Markon, born in 1911 in Vilnius, Lithuania, discusses her childhood; going to college for one year in Toulouse, France; getting married in Paris, France in 1936; her husband's mobilization into the French Army in 1938; her escape from Paris two days before the German invasion in 1940; returning to Toulouse to take refuge with friends and the birth of her son; getting a visa to the United States and difficulties in obtaining an exit visa from France; and her and her family's immigration to the United States in November 1942.

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral History

    Ernest G. Heppner, born in 1921 in Germany, describes his experiences with antisemitism in his youth; participating in a Jewish youth organization; his father’s positive experiences running a factory in the mid-1930s; being kicked out of school and learning how to weld; losing any sense of hope for German Jews after his experiences on Kristallnacht; his family being forced to sell their house and considering immigration; he and his mother getting a place on a steamship to Shanghai, China by giving the captain of the ship some of their Impressionist paintings; arriving in Shanghai in March 1939; his mother finding a job with a youth committee; communicating through letters with his father and sister back home a few times before never hearing from them again; participating in the British Boy Scout Association in Shanghai; seeing the Imperial Japanese Naval Landing Party come into Shanghai after Pearl Harbor and acting as a British spy; the Jews of Shanghai being forced into a ghetto-like area of the city in February 1943; finding a job in a bakery and meeting his future wife in the ghetto; getting married shortly before the end of the war and going to work for the American occupying forces; his memories of life in the ghetto; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral History

    Emanuel Mandel, born in 1936 in Riga, Latvia, describes his family moving to Budapest, Hungary when he was three months old; his family; his father’s work as a cantor that led him to travel around and work in several synagogues in Europe; not understanding that he could not have or do certain things because he was Jewish; the German invasion of Budapest in early 1944; his deportation by cattle car in June 1944 to Bergen-Belsen with his mother; developing pneumonia and not having access to much food while in the camp; developing a sense of comic relief, like by calling a German troop “Popeye,” to survive; participating in a Red Cross inspection of Bergen-Belsen; in January 1945 being taken by German soldiers on a train towards the German-Swiss border and being released in Switzerland, where they were cleaned and fed; traveling to Saint Gallen and then to Caux, Switzerland to stay in a displaced persons center; reuniting with his father after the war; his mother’s decision to go to Heiden after the war to run a one-room school house for six- to fourteen-years olds to learn Hungarian; immigrating to Palestine by a British troop carrier in September 1945 and living in a kibbutz, where his mother took charge of the day shift cooking; and immigrating to the United States in March 1949.

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

    Leo Bretholz, born on March 6, 1921 in Vienna, Austria, describes his childhood; his father passing away in 1930 and becoming a father figure for his two younger sisters; long-standing antisemitic attitudes transforming into excessive violence after the Anschluss in 1938; the arrest of his friends and his mother encouraging him to flee to Luxembourg, where he had an aunt; being arrested three days after he arrived in Luxembourg, questioned for several hours, and released to a train station; returning to Luxembourg and staying with relatives until he had the opportunity to cross the border into Belgium on November 9, 1938 and go to Antwerp, where he found distant relatives and stayed until May of 1940; receiving an affidavit and visa from an aunt in Baltimore, MD to immigrate to the United States but being unable to leave because Pearl Harbor was bombed the day he was scheduled to go; obtaining the necessary documents to cross into Switzerland in October 1942, but getting arrested and taken to Rivesaltes; his deportation to Drancy, another French detention camp, where he stayed for a short time before he and other prisoners were loaded onto cattle cars for transport; escaping deportation by bending the bars covering one of the train’s windows and squeezing through and jumping out of the train; making his way to Paris, where he obtained a false identification card; his arrest in December and then being sent to prison for nine months until he went to a forced labor camp in Septfonds, France; escaping from the camp and contacting a friend who got him in touch with an underground resistance group in Saint-Vallier, France, which he joined in November 1943; helping children cross the border into Switzerland, making false ID cards, and relaying messages between various resistance organizations; working with the resistance after D-Day and helping the Allied forces; and receiving an affidavit from his aunt in Baltimore that allowed him to immigrate to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral History

    Paul Matasovski, born in Bacău, Moldavia (now Romania) in December 1933, describes his family and early childhood; his family getting a radio in 1933 to find out what Hitler was doing in Europe; the political situation with the Iron Guard and General Antonescu; the Jews having their radios taken from their homes but receiving news by passing around sheets of paper; attending a Jewish high school until the end of 1942, when he was sent to work in a textile factory; participating in sabotage activities until he was arrested in the spring of 1944; remaining in a prison near the Carpathian Mountains until Russian forces liberated him; his knowledge of transports and concentration camps during the war; the composition of the people in his underground group and their activities; and returning to his hometown to help clean up the mess after the war.

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral History

    Zelda Piekarska Brodecki (Americanized name, Sonia Brodecki), born on July 27, 1928 in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes her family; the German occupation of her town and her family having to close their business; entering the Sosnowiec ghetto and being forced to work in a factory; her deportation from the ghetto to a forced labor camp near Wrocław, Poland; her transfer in 1943 to another labor camp in Klettendorf, Germany (Klecina, Wrocław, Poland); Russian troops liberating her at an ammunition factory in Ludwigsdorf, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany; returning to Sosnowiec after the war and meeting her cousin there; moving to the Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp, where she met her husband, Boleslaw Brodecki; and living in Germany until 1949 when she and her husband immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral History

    Stefania Podgórska Burzminski, born in Lipa, Poland, describes her family and childhood; helping her parents run a farm until she decided to move with her sister to Przemyśl and work in a bakery; the Russian invasion and not noticing much of a change in life until the Germans ousted the Russians; living in an apartment near the ghetto and witnessing people being deported from it; developing a relationship with a young man named Josef, who was Jewish and lived in the ghetto; having to explain what a Jew was to her little sister; helping to smuggle food into the ghetto for Josef and his family; moving into a large apartment and taking Josef and twelve other Jews in with her; having an SS man insist upon taking a room in her apartment and always living in fear that he would kill the Jews living there; and her liberation by Russian forces.

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral History

    Rose Galek Brunswic, born in Sochocin, Poland in 1920, describes her family; learning Hebrew and participating in a Zionist organization in her youth; moving to Warsaw in the mid-1930s; being forced into the Warsaw ghetto and living with twelve other people; her parents being shot during a roundup; going into hiding with the underground in March 1941; leaving her hiding place and finding another one in the city with an old work friend of her father; being caught by the Germans during a raid and sent by cattle car to Berlin; using her false papers to get a job on a farm; pretending to be a Seventh Day Adventist and playing the organ for the church; getting in trouble for not having the proper identification and having to do translations for a judge as penance; her liberation by American soldiers in 1945 when she was still working on the farm; meeting a Jewish soldier and marrying him; staying in a displaced persons camp after the war until she immigrated to the United States to live with her uncle; and settling in Buffalo, New York, where she attended school.

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral History

    Renée Schwalb Fritz, born in 1937 in Vienna, Austria, describes her family; her father leaving for the United States in 1939 and fleeing with her mother to Belgium; the German occupation of Belgium in 1940 and going into hiding in a convent, where she remained for two years until the Germans became suspicious; the underground taking Renee to a Protestant family's farm and then to an orphanage; reuniting with her mother after the war and discovering that she had survived Auschwitz; joining her father in the United States five years later; going through high school in the US with much difficulty; attending Boston University; and marrying an American man soon after she graduated from college.

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral History

    Martin Spett, born on December 2, 1928 in Tarnów, Poland, describes his childhood; the German occupation of Tarnów in 1939; his family losing their apartment in 1940; hiding in an attic when the first massacre of Jews occurred; having to finally register as a Jew in May 1943 and go to Bergen-Belsen, where he was allegedly to be part of an exchange for German prisoners of war; being liberated on April 13, 1945 by Allied troops during his transport to Theresienstadt; spending some time in Belgium after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral History

    Niels Bamberger, born on October 21, 1928 in Würzburg, Germany, describes growing up in a religious family; fleeing from Germany to his mother's hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1932; his family being warned of imminent danger on Rosh Hashanah of 1943; their local grocer helping them to escape to the port town of Snekkersten, Denmark (the closest point between Denmark and Sweden); receiving help from the local resistance forces and hiding in houses until their group of over two hundred could be transported in row boats; a Swedish military boat intercepting his family at sea and taking them to Sweden; attending school in Lund, Sweden while his parents opened a small restaurant; his family’s return to Denmark on May 28, 1945 to find their old home undisturbed; and getting back on his feet after the war.

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral History

    Ray Buch, born on September 18, 1920 in New York City, NY, describes his parents and their emigration from Ukraine; joining the US Army in November 1942 and going into training in Louisiana and Texas for a year; being shipped to England in September 1944; fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and encountering fighting and violence; finding out about the concentration camps and death camps; his unit’s attempts to bury people who had died alongside the roads; arriving in Mauthausen on May 10, 1945 and the scenes of people and depravation he witnessed; forcing the German citizens to bury the dead; spending about thirty days in Mauthausen and then moving around to other camps, like Dachau and Ebensee; and the sacrifices his unit made for the sake of the freedom of Europe and the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral History

    Nina Kaleska, born on April 11, 1929 in Grodno, Poland (now Hrodna, Belarus), describes having a pleasant childhood; her family not being perceived of as Jewish because of their Aryan looks; experiencing antisemitism among her childhood friends in 1938; joining the Young Pioneers after the Russians invaded in 1939; her father’s imprisonment for three to four months for political reasons; the German invasion in 1941 and the formation of two ghettos in Grodno; the Germans selecting one of her cousins, who was considered an electronics genius, for forced labor but then killing him; peasant families offering to hide her and her sister but rejecting because she did not want to be separated from her family; being deported with her sister to Auschwitz in 1941; the death of her sister three months after they arrived; becoming sick in the camp several times and only being saved because of the help she received from a woman named Martha who worked there; being asked by Dr. Mengele if she was Jewish because she did not look Jewish; having to stand guard while the head of her lager had sex with some of the most beautiful women in the lager; going on a death march and being liberated by Allied forces on May 5, 1945; and her immigration to England and then to the United States with the help of the American Joint Distribution Committee.

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral History

    Judith Meisel, born on February 7, 1929 in Josvainiai, Lithuania, discusses her childhood; moving to Kaunas, Lithuania shortly after her father’s death; being forced into the Kaunas ghetto in 1941; her family’s deportation in 1944 to Stutthof, where her mother was killed; escaping with her sister from a death march out of Stutthof by hiding in a coal bin; receiving shelter in a Catholic nunnery; developing typhus and posing as a Christian in a hospital in Danzig, Poland to receive treatment; finding work on a farm with her sister; moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was sent to school; her liberation on May 5, 1945; living with a Jewish family in Denmark for some time after the war; immigrating to Canada in 1948; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral History

    Thomas Buergenthal, born in 1934 in Czechoslovakia, describes his family; moving with his family to Žilina, Czechoslovakia in 1938 and facing persecution from the Hlinka Guard; moving to Katowice, Poland and registering with the British Consul; leaving for England on September 1, 1939 but being stopped near the Russian border when their train was bombed by Germans; having to march with a group of refugees to Kielce, Poland and go into its ghetto; the deportation of his grandparents and twenty thousand other ghetto inhabitants in August 1942 to Treblinka while he and his parents were sent to a forced labor camp in Kielce; surviving a massacre of Jewish children and then being transported with his parents to a factory where they made wooden carts for the Eastern Front; his deportation in August 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he worked in the laundry as an errand boy; getting separated from his father and never seeing him again; being forced on a death march to Gliwice, Poland and then to Heinkel concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany in January 1945; his transfer to a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen; his liberation on April 27, 1945 by Russian soldiers; marching with the First Polish Division into Berlin, Germany and Siedlce, Poland and then being placed in a Jewish orphanage in Otwock, Poland; his mother finding him in 1946 and smuggling him into the British zone of Germany; living in Göttingen, Germany and attending high school there; immigrating by himself to the United States in 1951 to live with his uncle; his mother remarrying and staying in Europe; attending Harvard Law School and becoming a professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School; and serving on the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council’s Committee on Conscience.

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral History

    Leif Donde, born in 1937 in Copenhagen, Denmark, describes his upbringing in a religious but not Orthodox Jewish family; the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940; seeing the German police begin to arrest Jews in early October 1943 and fleeing with his family by train to the Danish city of Nykøbing Falster, south of Sjælland island; being smuggled by a fishing boat to safety in Sweden; arriving in Trelleborg, Sweden after an eleven-hour nighttime boat ride in October 1943, during which they passed through a German mine field; attending school in Sweden while his parents worked in a garment factory in Uddevalla, Sweden; his family returning to Denmark after the end of the war; and settling in Denmark, where he serves as the Consul General.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig, born in Vienna, Austria on March 7, 1924, describes her family and childhood; enjoying the rich cultural life Vienna had to offer before the war; her father’s placement on the Nazi blacklist for being a liberal writer and journalist; attempting to leave Austria and go to France but getting arrested and sent to prison; escaping to Cologne, where her mother managed to attain three visas by giving up some of her jewelry; moving to Paris, where her father found a job as a reporter; attending art school in Paris and meeting her future husband; the deportation of her father and brother to concentration camps when Germany declared war on France; her father’s return home for a short period until he had to join the French Army; running away from Paris and going through several cities until she arrived in Blois, France and began to search for her father; getting separated from her family and asking about their whereabouts wherever she went; reuniting with her mother in Barcus, France; finding a teaching job in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France through a family friend who lived there; her family receiving special visas to move to the United States on December 7, 1941 because her father was an intellectual; attending college in the United States; and marrying Ernest, the man she had earlier met in Paris.

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral History

    Max Amichai Heppner, born on October 15, 1933 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes growing up as an only child; his parents’ escape from Berlin, Germany in 1933; the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands and missing a boat to escape to Sweden; losing several of his family’s possessions to the Nazis; his mother getting captured during a street raid but then being released by a Nazi commander in August 1942; escaping into the countryside with his parents and finding various hiding places with another family; going into hiding with underground forces and then with a farming family; dealing with frequent Nazi raids; meeting several downed Allied pilots while in hiding; his liberation by Scottish soldiers on September 24, 1944; his mother’s attempts to shield him from much of the devastation of the war; and immigrating to the United States to live with his mother’s family.

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral History

    Charles Bruml, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and the Prague Jewish community; being about 28 years old and working in an import-export firm in 1938 when German troops marched into Prague; his family’s deportation to Theresienstadt and finding a job in the camp’s Technical Department; making paintings during his internment that are displayed at the camps today; his deportation to Auschwitz on January 11, 1942 and getting tattooed; being transferred to Buna (Monowitz), where he worked as a painter for the SS men until January 18, 1945; being forced to walk to Gleiwitz, because the Russians neared, and then to Bergen-Belsen, where the Red Cross liberated him; and meeting his wife in Prague as they both tried to sort out the fates of their families.

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral History

    David Pollack, born in Prince Albert, Saskatechewan, Canada in 1922, describes growing up in a mildly Jewish family; enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 but not being accepted as a pilot because of his poor eyesight; being trained as a radar technician and stationed first in the Queen Charlotte Islands and then in England in 1943; joining a mobile radar unit outside of Weimar, Germany in 1945 and visiting Buchenwald, where he was shocked by the horrors of the camp; speaking, with the aid of a translator, to many prisoners, taking the names and the addresses of their relatives who were in other countries, and contacting these relatives to inform them that the prisoners would soon be arriving in displaced persons camps and contacting them for help; returning to Canada after the war; and keeping up correspondence with some of the survivors he had helped to reunite with their families.

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral History

    Rabbi Eugene Lipman, born in Pittsburgh, PA on October 13, 1919, describes his family; graduating from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio; being sent overseas as an army chaplain in April 1945; after the war helping Jewish survivors at Buchenwald and Dachau before being sent to Plzen, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); joining the Haganah, a group that cared for Jewish survivors and refugees as well as secretly transporting Jews to Palestine; continuing his work with the Haganah in Regensburg, Germany; going home to the United States for a short time in April 1946 but returning in late 1946 with his wife to continue to aid Jews by providing many with false identity papers for them to leave Europe; and returning to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral History

    Hetty d’Ancona de Leeuwe, born on May 1, 1930 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her family and early childhood; her father losing his business after the German invasion; the deportation of several of her friends and family in 1942; her father’s participation in the Dutch underground newspaper; leaving Amsterdam in October 1943 and separating from her parents to live with a Dutch Gentile family for two years; her liberation by American and British forces and staying with her foster family for a few months until she reunited with her father; and marrying a Jewish man and immigrating to the United States with him after the war.

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral History

    Marty Glickman, born in 1917 in the Bronx, NY, describes growing up with parents who were immigrants from Romania; attending Syracuse University, where he was a track athlete chosen to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Germany; being one of two Jews on the United States Olympic track team; arriving in the Olympic Village and being told that he and Sam Stoller, the other Jewish runner, were to be replaced in the 400 meter relay by Ralph Metcalf and Jessie Owens; hearing from the head coach of the Olympic track team that the substitutions were made because the Germans were said to be hiding their best sprinters but believing that he was really replaced because Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, did not want to further embarrass the Nazis by having Jews run and win a race; serving in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II; going to the Marshall Islands; and his friendship with Jesse Owens.

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral History

    Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz, born in 1931 in Schlüchtern, Germany, describes her family; moving to Dinxperlo, a village located close to the German border in the Netherlands in 1933; the German invasion of the Netherlands on May 10, 1940; Jews no longer being allowed to own businesses or to attend schools; going into hiding when they heard that the Jews would be rounded up for deportation in 1943; living with her mother in a barn attic that was barely big enough for them to both lie flat; beginning to write a cookbook-diary in 1944 to pass her time; becoming extremely ill because of a lack of ventilation in her living quarters; recovering from her illness but remaining weak; having to leave her hiding place toward the end of the war because of increased Nazi raids; her liberation on April 1, 1945 by Canadian troops; returning to their former village with food and money supplied to them by the farmers who had hidden them; returning to school as her family tried to re-build their lives; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral History

    Hessy Levinsons Taft, born on May 17, 1934 in Berlin, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her parents having her photo taken in 1934 and the photo ending up in a Nazi magazine labeled as a beautiful Berliner baby; her family’s decision to run away to Paris, France, where they were when it fell to the Germans; moving to the French coast near Bordeaux with her mother and sister while her father remained in Paris trying to find a way for the family to leave; her father securing visas for the family to travel to Cuba, where she and her sister began to attend a British school; immigrating to the United States in 1948 and settling in New York, NY; and eventually getting married and starting a family.

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral History

    Bella Jakubowicz Tovey, born on September 18, 1926, in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes growing up in a Jewish family; the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and losing her father’s factory and their family furniture; being forced to move into the Sosnowiec ghetto and to work in a factory there in 1941; her family’s deportation to the Bedzin ghetto in 1942; her deportation to the Graeben sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany in 1943 and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; her liberation in April 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral History

    Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz, born June 23, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her childhood; facing intensifying antisemitic measures that resulted in the loss of her father's business and the closing of her school in the late 1930s; her family’s deportation in 1943 to Auschwitz, where her father was killed; her selection for forced labor and being assigned to work on road repairs; working in the "Kanada" unit sorting possessions brought into the camp; her transfer to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany in November 1944; being sent to Malchow, where she worked in a munitions factory making bullets; her liberation by American soldiers in May 1945 during a death march from the Malchow camp in Germany; traveling to Frankfurt with her mother in August 1945 with hopes of finding the rest of their family; and immigrating with her mother to the United States in early 1947.

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral History

    Peretz Milbauer, born in Brooklyn, New York in October 1915, discusses his life up to World War II; teaching history before he was drafted into the United States Army; being sent overseas in July 1944 and arriving to his station in Remse, Germany on December 5, 1944; liberating prisoners from a death march in Wałbrzych, Poland in December 1944; gathering a list of names of survivors from the death march and sending the list to American newspapers and magazines in an effort to help survivors contact their relatives; and also liberating prisoners at Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen in Austria, in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral History

    Judah Nadich, born in 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland, describes his life until World War II and training to be a rabbi; enlisting in the army as a chaplain after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; serving as the senior Jewish chaplain with the United States Army in the United Kingdom and then in France during the war; having his first contact with survivors of Nazi oppression in France; helping Parisian Jews re-build their community; being ordered to Frankfurt, Germany as the Jewish affairs adviser to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and reporting on conditions in displaced persons camps; and returning to the United States in late 1945.

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral History

    Hana Bruml, born on May 30, 1922 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes her family and childhood; attending a Zionist elementary school; meeting Rudolph Schiff and marrying him on November 14, 1939; the German invasion of Prague and her father losing his business, receiving ration tickets marked with a “J,” and only being allowed to do certain things at specific times; the deportation of her parents in July 1942 to Theresienstadt followed three weeks later by her and her husband’s deportation to the camp; working in the camp hospital as a nurse; the death of her husband and the development of a romance with Bruno, who worked as an internist in the camp; the special treatment of Danish Jews and a few prominent Austrian and German Jews in Theresienstadt; seeing doctors perform several abortions in the camp to save women; her transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau in October 1944 and seeing Dr. Mengele; and remaining in Auschwitz until May 5, 1945, when she was liberated.

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral History

    Benjamin Meed, born on February 19, 1922 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; traveling with a friend in 1939 to Russian territory to escape Nazi persecution; returning to Warsaw because they could not support themselves; joining an underground movement that provided a library and schooling for children; smuggling people to the Aryan side of Warsaw when the ghetto was established; helping his family escape to Praga Południe, Poland, where they hid in a cemetery; beginning to work with a woman named Vladka who was also involved in underground activities; posing as a Christian with Vladka during the war in order to facilitate their work in the underground; moving his hiding place to a bunker which he had built after the Warsaw uprising; jumping onto a Red Cross truck after his liberation to escape persecution by Germans and Poles after the war; reuniting with his parents after the war; and marrying Vladka in Warsaw ten days after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral History

    Johanna Neumann, born on December 12, 1930 in Hamburg, Germany, describes her early childhood; her memories of Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938; her family’s decision to leave Germany as anti-Jewish measures intensified; obtaining visas for Albania and leaving Germany without many of her possessions; crossing into Italy and setting sail for Albania on March 1, 1939; remaining in Albania during the Italian and German occupations for a total of six and a half years; finally being liberated after a battle between the Germans and the Albanian partisans in December 1944; spending some time in an Italian displaced persons camp at the port of Tricase in the Lecce province of Apulia in southern Italy; immigrating to the United States in September 1946; and living briefly in Israel for three years from 1969 until 1971.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral History

    Alice Lang Rosen, born in 1934 in Lambsheim, Germany, describes her early childhood; the deportation of her family to the Gurs camp in France and then to Rivesaltes when she was six years old; the French Red Cross taking her out of the camp and hiding her from the Germans by placing her in a children's home, then in a convent, and then with various Catholic families; being sent to a children's home near Paris after her liberation; having her name put on a list of Jewish children from all over France, which was being compiled by a Polish rabbi; her father tracing her from this list and reuniting with her in Germany in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral History

    Jay Ipson, born June 5, 1935, in Slobodka (Vilijampolė), Lithuania, describes growing up in religious, well-off family; his father's attempts to move his family to Russia but being turned back at the border; losing their home in the move and moving in with his grandmother, whose house was in the Kaunas ghetto; witnessing the deportations from the ghetto; escaping the ghetto with his mother and father in November 1943; hiding in a farmer's hay wagon and then in one room under the care of a poor, religious Polish Catholic family; his father's construction of a hiding place under the Polish family's potato patch; hiding with all of his extended family in the underground bunker; being liberated by the Russian army; moving back to Kaunas with his parents; attending Jewish school; being forced to run away from Kaunas after his father was declared an enemy of the Soviet Republic; changing his last name to Butremovitch and getting false papers; hiding with a Jewish family in White Russia; leaving Warsaw, Poland and traveling to Germany; receiving help from a German man to cross the border to the American occupied-zone of Germany; living with a German family in Prinz Regenten Strasse in Munich for nine months; immigrating to the United States to live with his aunt in Richmond, VA in June 1947; and joining the US military during the Korean War and becoming a colonel in command of an aviation unit.

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral History

    Margaret Jastrow Klug, born on June 8, 1923 in Rogoźno, Poland, describes her family and childhood; her brother’s immigration to Scotland before the war; the beginning of the war and being arrested because someone had given them her name; jumping from a window of the jail to avoid deportation to Auschwitz but instead being injured and staying in a hospital for two months; being deported to Auschwitz, where she worked in a factory; getting married and having a daughter after the war; immigrating to Israel in 1949; returning to Germany soon after because the climate in Israel was too uncomfortable for her; and immigrating to the United States in the mid-1950s and settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral History

    Solomon Klug, born on July 9, 1923 in Krzepice, Poland, describes growing up in a religious family with one sister and three brothers; seeing his mother and brother shot in his backyard; his deportation in 1940 to Annaberg, Germany, where he worked building the Autobahn; being transferred in 1943 to Markstadt, Germany, where he built bridges, and then to Fuenfteichen, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, in March 23, 1944 to work in an ammunitions factory; his transport to Wolfsberg, another sub-camp of Gross-Rosen; being sent to Politz, Czechoslovakia, Bergen-Belsen, and finally to Barth-an-der-Ostee, a sub-camp of Ravensbrück; going on a three-day death march after his evacuation from Barth-an-der-Ostee; his liberation on April 30, 1945; going to Berlin, Germany after liberation and meeting his wife Margaret; immigrating to Israel, where they lived for four years, and then returning to Nuremberg to spend a year in a displaced persons camp; and immigrating to the United States in 1955 and settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral History

    Helene Baraf, born July 24, 1927 in Antwerp, Belgium, discusses her family and her childhood in Antwerp before World War II; her family's move to the United States in 1937; her return to Belgium with her mother and brother in 1940; traveling to France with her family by train and on foot after the Germans entered Belgium; her family's life in Lille, France; her brother's arrest by the Gestapo and eventual deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau for failing to properly display his Star of David on his coat; her and her mother's arrest by the Gestapo and their escape during a round up; their rescue from a small hiding place by the members of the underground resistance; her time spent hiding in a convent with other Jewish children in Lille; her attempts to conceal her identity with an assumed name and falsified identification documents; her move from the convent to a "Protestant community" in Roubaix, France, where she attended high school and remained with her mother until after World War II; her friendship with a girl from Roubaix whose family sheltered her and her mother for period of time during the war; the divorce of her parents shortly after the war; and her life in the United States after 1969.

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral History

    Morris Kornberg, born in Przedbórz, Poland on January 6, 1918, describes growing up as the youngest of seven children in a strict Orthodox family; the 1939 German invasion and being forced to work in a factory in the ghetto; his imprisonment in Końskie, a prison in Poland, and then in Radom, Poland and Jawischowitz, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; working in a coal mine and receiving special treatment by SS men because of his memory for numbers; his transfer to Troeglitz, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, in January 1945; the evacuation of Troeglitz on April 9, 1945 and escaping on a train with two others; getting caught and forced on a death march to Leitmeritz, a sub-camp of Flossenbürg, and then to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated; staying in a sanitarium outside of Stuttgart, where he met his wife; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral History

    Michael Diamond, born on July 10, 1919 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes his family; his draft into the Czech Army in 1939 but being forced to work in army camps clearing snow off roads and highways when the Slovak State was created; his transfer to Liptovský Mikuláš, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), where he repaired weapons and became a Slovak-German language interpreter; being moved to Vrútky, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), where he had to clean old uniforms; working as an electrician in eastern Slovakia; escaping into hiding in the forest but soon getting captured by the Gestapo; his transport to Sered, a "Sommerlager" in Slovakia; attempting to escape from a transport train and then being sent to Sachsenhausen, Heinkelwerke, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Neuengamme, and Mauthausen; working as an engineer and repairing railroad engines; ending up in Wurttemberg, Germany, where he was marched deeper into Germany as the Allied forces approached; and hiding in a peasant's empty house in Germany until he was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral History

    Abraham Malach, born on May 12, 1935 in Zwoleń, Poland, describes his family; entering the ghetto in Radom, Poland in 1940 and remaining there until 1942; spending 1942 through 1943 at work camps in Poland, where he worked as a messenger boy; his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; being removed from the group headed to the gas chambers at his first selection by a female Kapo, who molested him and bribed him to keep silent by giving him food for his family; running away to a monastery when Auschwitz was liberated; eventually being taken by nuns to a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency camp; reuniting with his parents in 1946 in Krakow, Poland; his parents sending him to Israel to finish his high school education; and immigrating to New York, NY after high school when he was admitted to Columbia University.

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral History

    Michael Bernath, born on February 14, 1923 in Szikszó, Hungary, describes growing up in a family with eleven older siblings; working in Budapest, Hungary as a furrier in 1943 and always getting harassed; joining the underground movement in Budapest and working for American and British intelligence services; the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 and Hungarian gendarmes rounding up five thousand Jewish people from his town and transporting them to Kassa, Czechoslovakia; being forced into a slave labor camp with about 35,000 other men; his deportation to the Schachendorf concentration camp in Austria in the winter of 1944 and being forced to dig trenches and train tracks in the Austrian Alps; Russian forces liberating him and returning to Budapest to live with his aunt and uncle; and his immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral History

    Kate Bernath, born in August 27, 1927 in Szikszó, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; living a decent life until March 1944 when the Germans occupied Hungary; dating a man to keep herself amused before the occupation; being rounded up and sent to a ghetto in Kassa (Košice, Slovakia); her deportation to Auschwitz in May 1944; her transfer to a factory in Augsburg, Germany to work in a Messerschmitt factory; hearing Allied bombings every night toward the end of the war; her transfer to Mühldorf, where she had to clean up debris from bombings; the guards disappearing one day and escaping to a farmhouse, where they were caught by an SS soldier; her liberation on May 1, 1946 and going to the Feldafing displaced persons camp; returning to Amsterdam and reuniting with her pre-war boyfriend; and getting married in Leipheim, Germany and then immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral History

    Paul Kovak, born on December 6, 1938 in Trenčín, Slovakia, describes being born a Jew but converting to Roman Catholicism with his parents; his father’s work as a professor at a small agricultural college; not having to wear the yellow star because of his father’s indispensable position at the school; going into hiding in the second home of a farming family in the mountains in late August 1944 at the time of the Slovak National Uprising; staying in hiding until April 1945, when they were liberated by Russian and Romanian troops; living in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia until 1981; and immigrating to the United States in 1981.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral History

    Abraham Kolski, born in 1917 in Izbica Lubelska, Poland, describes his family; the German occupation of Poland and going into the Czestochowa ghetto, where he did forced labor at a metal factory; his deportation on October 2, 1942 to Treblinka, Poland, where he performed forced labor searching for valuables in the clothing of gas chamber victims; participating in the Treblinka uprising on August 2, 1943 and escaping the concentration camp with nine other friends; hiding in a cellar of a home near Treblinka for the remainder of the war; eventually being liberated by the Russian Army; remaining in Poland until 1948, when he married and left for France; immigrating to the United States in 1954; and testifying as a witness to the events at Treblinka in the war crimes trials at Düsseldorf.

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral History

    Sylvia Kolski, born on September 15, 1925 in Tarczyn, Poland, describes her family and childhood; moving with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and parents into the Warsaw ghetto; working for a tailor in the ghetto; hearing rumors that the Jews would be killed on July 22, 1942; hiding money in her clothing, so she could bribe people to save herself; seeing several major deportations from the ghetto; escaping from the ghetto and staying with a family in the countryside; her liberation on January 16, 1945 and returning to Tarczyn; moving to Łódź, Poland, where she met her husband, and then to Paris, France in 1947; and immigrating to the United States when the Vietnam War began.

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral History

    Steven Springfield, born in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, describes his experiences as a child; the German occupation of Riga in 1941 and having to go into the ghetto; the massacre of about 28,000 Jews from the ghetto in late 1941 at the Rumbula forest; being transferred with his brother to a small ghetto for able-bodied men; his deportation to a labor camp near Kaiserwald in 1943; being moved to Stutthof in 1944 and forced to work in a shipbuilding firm; surviving a death march in 1945 with his brother and being liberated by Soviet forces; accepting a position as an interpreter for the Russian Army; his incarceration by the Russians for allegedly supporting the Nazis but being released when the charges were disproven; locating his pre-war girlfriend and marrying her; moving to Berlin, Germany with his wife and brother; and applying for a visa and immigrating to the United States on March 10, 1947.

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral History

    Liny Pajgin Yollick, born in 1924 in Hague, Netherlands, describes growing up in a wealthy family; the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940; her mother’s plans to escape after her father died; spending six months with her mother and sister trying to escape through southern France by pretending to be Protestant, obtaining visas to travel through Spain and Portugal, and going on one of the last trains to cross into Spain after the Germans took over southern France; boarding a Portuguese ship bound for Dutch Guiana and being placed into a refugee camp; the exiled Dutch government’s arrangement for her to finish her education; and immigrating to the United States, where she worked for some time in the Dutch embassy in Washington, DC before settling in Texas.

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral History

    Fred Bachner was born on September 28, 1925 in Berlin, Germany and describes his family; his brother’s and father’s deportation to the Polish border after Kristallnacht; moving to Poland in 1939 to join the rest of his family; his brother being taken to a work camp in Poland in 1940; his deportation to Markstädt, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, and then to Groeditz and Faulbrueck before he was sent to Auschwitz; loading and unloading coal and cement for I.G. Farben, a German industrial company; going on a death march out of Auschwitz to a camp near Dachau, where he found his brother; being placed on another train that was ambushed by British fighter planes; jumping off the train with his brother and hiding in the surrounding area until they located the American soldiers; staying at the Feldafing displaced persons camp after the war; reuniting with his father and immigrating to the United States with his father and brother on January 3, 1947; and being drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War.

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral History

    Murray Pantirer was born on June 15, 1925 in Kraków, Poland and discusses his childhood; the German occupation of Kraków in 1939; separating from his family on several occasions in an attempt to find food and other necessities; finally being confined to the Kraków ghetto; his and his brother’s deportation to Płaszów, Poland to do forced labor; his transport to Auschwitz in May 1944, then to Gross-Rosen, and finally to Brünnlitz, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, to work for German industrialist Oskar Schindler; his liberation on May 10, 1945 and discovering that he was only one of nine family members to survive; returning to Poland after liberation but deciding to leave because of the lingering presence of antisemitism; moving to a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria, where he met and married his wife; arranging to immigrate to America through the American consul in Salzburg, Austria; and immigrating to the United States on the S.S. Marine Fletcher in January 1949.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral History

    Barbara Marton Farkas, born on May 4, 1920 in Beliu, Romania, describes her family and childhood; living in Beliu until 1937, when her family sold their house and store and moved to Oradea, Romania; being refused entrance into the university in 1940 because of the anti-Jewish laws implemented by the Hungarian government, which then controlled the northern Transylvania area; training in a hospital laboratory and working there until the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; leaving the hospital, which was occupied by the SS, and starting work at a photo company; first wearing the Star of David on April 1, 1944 and going into the Oradea ghetto in May 1944; her family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where she lost her parents; her transfer to Weisswasser, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany, where she worked in a chemistry lab and then in the Cathode Workshop; staying there from October 1944 through February 1945; her transport through several camps after March 1945 to avoid the approaching Soviet army; ending up on the German-Danish border at Padberg, Germany; the Red Cross assisting the survivors with food and shelter; being taken to Malmö, Sweden the next day and then spending some time in a hospital in Landskrona, Sweden; returning to Romania to study in Cluj from 1946 to 1951; graduating as an industrial pharmacist; immigrating to Israel in 1961; and immigrating to the United States in 1968.

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral History

    William Farkas, born in 1916 in Arad, Romania, describes growing up as an only child in a middle class family; attending the Arad Jewish school and studying business administration after high school; joining the Romanian Army after school; not experiencing antisemitism until 1940 when he was expelled from the army because he was Jewish; the Iron Guard coming to power in September 1940; being ordered to report for deportation to labor camps in July 1941 and going to a work camp in Sighişoara, Romania, where he worked as a miner demolishing mountains for a new railway line; being sent home until 1942, when he was transported to Valea Homorod, Romania and then to Kinapist, Romania to do railway work; claiming he was an electrician in 1943 and going to a camp with three friends in Timişoara, Romania, where they worked as auto mechanics in a military garage for one year; his transport in 1944 to Doaga, a labor camp in Romania, where inmates built cement fortresses; hearing that Soviet soldiers were approaching Doaga and being liberated on August 25, 1944; returning home via Bucharest and reuniting with his parents in Arad; finding a wife and immigrating to Israel with her in 1954; and immigrating to the United States in 1961.

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral History

    Sheila Etons Bernard (née Sala Perec), born on February 18, 1936 in Chełm, Poland, describes her family and early childhood; her father’s deportation to a labor camp after the war began and never seeing him again; hiding in the shack of a Polish policeman for almost two years with her mother; her mother dying because of a blood clot in her leg; going to a children’s home in Germany for two years; immigrating to Palestine to live with one of her uncles; joining the military, where she met her husband; immigrating to the United States in 1963 because her husband had family in the US; and her thoughts on how the war has affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral History

    Frima, born in 1936 in Volochys'k, Russia (now Ukraine), describes her family; trying to escape to White Russia with her family after the Nazi invasion but being forced back to live with some distant cousins; her father’s capture by the Germans to serve as an interpreter for them; her sister and mother being forced to work at labor camps during the days; entering the Volochys'k ghetto; getting caught by Germans and claiming that they were not Jewish, which resulted in them going to jail; escaping with her mother and sister to hide in the attic of a barn, where they were almost discovered but managed to escape; the intensifying pogroms against the Jews by Russian and Ukrainian collaborators; pretending to be Christian and going into hiding with an old family friend; eventually reuniting with her mother with the help of several generous Gentiles and staying with her until the end of the war; going into displaced persons camps in Bavaria; going to school in Germany for two and a half years and then moving to France; immigrating to the United States in the 1950s and meeting her husband there; and her considerations on how the war has affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral History

    Esther Terner Raab, born on June 11, 1922 in Chelm, Poland, describes growing up as one of two children; the Soviet occupation of her town in 1939; the German invasion of Chelm in 1941 and her family being forced into a ghetto; moving to Siedliszcze, Poland and eventually moving into the ghetto in Siedliszcze; her transport to the labor camp at Staw Noakowski, Poland for a short time before she and her brother were sent to Sobibór in December 1942; arriving at Sobibór three days before Christmas in 1942 and being forced to work in a knitting factory in the camp, knitting woolen socks; witnessing the gassing of Jews at Camp III of the Sobibór compound; participating in the camp uprising of October 14, 1943 but getting wounded during the escape; fleeing to the countryside and getting sheltered by a former customer of her father; reuniting with her brother, who had escaped during a previous transfer; remaining hidden until 1944, when the region in which she hid was freed by the Soviet Red Army; following the Red Army to Berlin, Germany and settling there for a short time after the war; marrying a man in Berlin and then immigrating to the United States shortly after the end of the war; and serving as a witness at the trials of Nazi criminals in the 1965-66 trials in Hagen, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral History

    Guy Stern, born on January 14, 1922 in Hildesheim, Germany, describes growing up in a Jewish family; attending a German school, where he had many non-Jewish friends; losing several of his friends after 1933 when they joined the Hitler Youth; his family’s decision to move to the United States after they began to experience increased levels of antisemitism; leaving Germany with a group of children in November 1937 and arriving in New York, NY; moving to St. Louis, Missouri to live with distant relatives; graduating high school in June 1939 and trying to help his family immigrate to the United States; discovering that his parents had perished in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland; attempting to enlist in the US Army in 1941 but being turned away because of his German heritage; receiving a draft notice in 1942 and being trained in military intelligence because of his familiarity with the German language; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; working as an interrogator and uncovering the deeds of several war criminals; going to Buchenwald the day after it was liberated and seeing the horrible conditions there; returning to the United States after the war, attending Hofstra College, and then earning his Ph.D. from Columbia University in German Literature and Culture; and helping other survivors write about their Holocaust experiences.

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral History

    Toby Stern, born on July 15, 1920 in Vișeu de Mijloc, Romania, describes growing up as the youngest of six children; marrying when she was seventeen or eighteen; going into hiding with her family shortly after the war began; having one child and miscarrying another while in hiding; her deportation to Auschwitz with her mother and her three-year-old son; giving her child to her mother to carry, since both were guaranteed to be killed, which allowed her to survive; having to do forced labor making uniforms in the camp's tailor shop; going on a death march in early 1945 from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück and then to Malchow, where Russian forces liberated her; going to the New Bromberg displaced persons camp and then returning to Vișeu de Mijloc in search of her husband and family; finding all of her brothers but not her husband, who was rumored to have died in Russia; immigrating to Germany after the war and remarrying while there; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral History

    Ion Butnaru, born in 1918 in Huși, Moldavia (Romania), describes his family; working for a small newspaper before the war until he was drafted into the Romanian Army in November, 1939; being transferred to the military zone in northern Moldavia in the spring of 1940; his expulsion from the army in August 1940 because he was Jewish; being ordered to return to his regiment to work with the battalions in the Carpathian Mountains on September 1, 1940; being sent back to Huși to clean streets in the summer of 1941; his deportation to a concentration camp in Tîrgu Jiu, Romania, where he remained for four months; returning to Huși, where he was placed in a local camp in the courtyard of the Jewish community and had to wear yellow badges; witnessing the Iron Guard Rebellion in January 1941, during which many Jews were killed; his father being falsely accused of being a communist and getting badly beaten; being forced to clear the streets of snow until the summer of 1942, when he was sent to Bolgrad, Ukraine and then to several other villages in Bessarabia in a forced labor battalion; getting moved to another camp near Bîrlad, Romania in 1943; the Romanian Army surrendering to Soviet forces in August 1944; and immigrating to the United States in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral History

    Jeanine Gutman Butnaru, born on June 25, 1925 in Bacău, Romania, describes her childhood and family; moving to Bucharest, Romania in 1938; her involvement in the underground resistance movement in Bucharest; working as a volunteer in Jewish hospitals; witnessing the Iron Guard Rebellion of January 21-23, 1941, when Legionaries killed Jews and burned downed their houses and stores; the 1944 American bombing of the railroads that cut the Germans off from Ploiești, Romania, which was rich with oil; hiding in her family’s cellar during the heavy bombardments because Ploiești was near Bucharest; Soviet troops entering Romania at the end of the war; meeting her husband in the Writer's Union; and immigrating to the United States in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

    Cecilie Klein-Pollack, born on April 13, 1925 in Yasinya, Ukraine, describes growing up as the youngest of six children in a Jewish family; the death of her father when she was nine years old; her expulsion from high school after the Hungarians annexed Ruthenia; being threatened with deportation and subsequently going into hiding in Budapest, Hungary after her mother and sister were briefly imprisoned there; fleeing to Horinc, Ukraine, where they stayed for a year until her brother was taken for forced labor; moving with her mother to Nyíregyháza, Hungary, where arrangements had been made for her to apprentice in a dental laboratory; traveling to Budapest when she heard that her oldest sister had been arrested and finding out that she had been sent to a labor camp in Bačka Topola, Yugoslavia; traveling to Bačka Topola to arrange for her sister’s release and then returning to Budapest, where she became engaged to her future husband Joe Klein; the German invasion of Budapest in March 1944 and joining up with her and Joe’s families in Chust, Ukraine; being forced into a ghetto and then transported to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz and being sent to Birkenau with her sister; being sheltered by the Blockältester who liked her because she was a talented poet; her and her sister’s transport to Nuremberg and Holleischen; their liberation from Holleischen by Russian troops and returning to Czechoslovakia, where she reunited with her fiancé and married him in Budapest on August 21, 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral History

    Fred Schwartz, born on October 30, 1928 in Kotaj, Hungary, describes his childhood; his father’s deportation to a labor camp in 1940; taking over his father’s job delivering seltzer water with his brother; knowing very little of what was happening in Europe from 1940 to 1944; the German invasion of Hungary; the organization of Jews into their town synagogues as the Germans prepared them for deportation; his deportation to Birkenau with his father, mother, and brother; discovering later after the war that his mother had died in Bergen-Belsen; his transfer to a work camp in Wolfsberg where he had to dig tunnels through mountains; being forced on a death march as the Russian forces neared; arriving in Mauthausen where he was liberated by American forces; staying a displaced persons camp for two years until he relocated to Paris, France; waiting to receive an American visa; going to the United States without legal papers and almost being sent back; and reconciling with his past.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

    Abraham Malnik, born on January 31, 1927 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes his childhood and family; the Russian invasion of Lithuania in 1940 and losing most of his family’s belongings; the brutal treatment of Jews by Lithuanians; the establishment of a ghetto in Kaunas that held about thirty thousand people; the Lithuanians beheading the local rabbis; being saved during a selection because his father knew the chief of police; his father’s work in the ghetto fire department; being forced to do several jobs like make toys for German children and clean dirty clothes from the front; the Germans and Lithuanians intensifying their battle against the Jews after the loss of the battle at Stalingrad; being on the last transport from the ghetto to Dachau, where he had to help build a factory for Messerschmitt and pick up dead bodies; his transfers with his father to Flossenbürg and then another camp; getting a German officer in trouble because he attempted to sexually abuse him; his transfer to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by Russian troops on May 8, 1945; immigrating to the United States without knowing anyone or speaking English; and settling in Washington, DC with his wife, who was a Belgian Holocaust survivor.

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral History

    Lilly Appelbaum Malnik, born in Belgium in 1928, describes her family and childhood; her father's move to the United States; waking up one morning in 1940 and discovering that the Germans had invaded; her sister who was taken into hiding by a farmer who later turned her in to the Germans because she would not have sexual relations with him; living with her aunt in the countryside after having her tonsils out; returning to find that her mother and brother had been deported; hiding her Jewish identity and doing odd jobs for the Germans; going into hiding with a Belgian girl with whom she had worked; being caught and deported on the second-to-last transport before the liberation of Belgium; arriving in Birkenau and receiving her identification number and work assignment to the kitchens in Auschwitz; a death march to Bergen-Belsen; the arrival of Allied soldiers at Bergen-Belsen; being taken away by the Red Cross to recover from typhus and physical injuries; returning to Belgium and reuniting with her aunt; and immigrating to United States to be with her father.

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral History

    Masha Loen, born in July 1930 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes growing up in a religious family with three sisters; her father hiding her family and other Kaunas Jews under the wooden floor planks in his home; being separated from her family in 1941 and taken to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland; performing forced labor in Stutthof until 1945, when she was taken on a death march as Russian troops approached the camp; making it to a Russian hospital after the German soldiers abandoned the death march; traveling to Łódź, where she found her father who had been liberated from Dachau; taking a transport to Austria; and immigrating to New Orleans, LA in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral History

    Madeline Deutsch, born on April 29, 1930 in Berehove, Czechoslovakia (now in Ukraine), describes her childhood; Hungary taking over her town on November 9, 1938; living under the Hungarians until March 1944 when the Germans invaded; living in a ghetto for two weeks until her transport to Auschwitz, where she and her mother stayed in for one week; being moved near Wrocław, Poland to work at an ammunition factory; her and her mother’s liberation by Russian soldiers on May 8, 1945; discovering that both her father and brother had died; staying with her mother in a displaced persons camp for four years until March 9, 1949 when the two immigrated to the United States; and marrying and having two sons in America.

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral History

    Amalie Petranker Salsitz, born in 1922 in Munich, Germany, describes growing up in a Zionist family; moving to Stanislav, Poland (now Ivano-Frankivs'k, Ukraine) when she was a young child; the Russian occupation of Poland in 1939 and the loss of her father’s business; seeing her sister move to Palestine with her new husband; her family’s arrest by the Gestapo in October 1941; moving into the ghetto until her father was deported in 1942; escaping to Kraków, Poland, where she passed as Aryan; working as a chambermaid and finally obtaining employment at a construction firm in Kraków, where she remained until January 1945; traveling to Munich and Palestine after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral History

    Norman Salsitz, born in 1920 in Kolbuszowa, Poland, describes growing up in a Zionist Hasidic family; making a failed attempt to immigrate to Palestine in 1938; unsuccessfully trying to join the Polish Army in September 1939; the occupation and destruction of his town; escaping to Russian-occupied Poland for a short period until he returned to Kolbuszowa; going into the Lipie labor camp in 1940; running away from the camp; working for the Germans, building garages for the Wehrmacht; his deportation to the Pustków concentration camp in late 1940; being beaten; escaping from Pustków and moving to the Czechowice ghetto; escaping from the ghetto in November 1942 and helping to establish a partisan unit in the forest near Kolbuszowa; obtaining false documentation with which he joined the Armia Krajowa; fleeing to Germany after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral History

    Frederic Bernard, born on August 7, 1912 in Chernivtsi, Romania (Chernivtsi, Ukraine), describes his family; studying medicine at Karls University in Prague, Czechoslovakia; attempting to enter Hungary in 1941 but being turned away by the Hungarian gendarmerie and placed in a ghetto in Oleyëvo-Korolëvka, Ukraine with over 1,500 Jewish people; hiding during an Aktion in 1942 that exterminated most of the ghetto and then later escaping with his wife Gusti; finding a hiding place with a Polish man in a barn in the woods; the Polish man encouraging him to join a Polish resistance group; finding a new hiding place with Gusti in 1943 and joining a Russian resistance group; becoming a courier for the resistance because of his Romanian language ability; joining the Polish Army, where he practiced as a doctor; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral History

    Isaac Bitton, born on March 31, 1926 in Lisbon, Portugal, describes his family and childhood; the small Lisbon Jewish community in which he grew up that hosted thousands of Jewish refugees before and during the war; his family’s work running a soup kitchen to help the Jewish refugees; immigrating to Palestine with his brother aboard the ship Nisassa; being forced into an internment camp when he arrived in Haifa; joining the Palestine Police Railroad Division and then the Jewish Brigade; spending some time in Antwerp, Belgium for the Jewish Brigade but soon returning to Palestine to work for the British military; participating in a movement to encourage the illegal entry of European refugees into Palestine; working with the underground forces of the Haganah, a movement dedicated to preparing for Israeli independence; and his immigration to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral History

    Max Haber, born on December 31, 1904 in Essen, Germany, describes his family; attending an Orthodox Jewish school in Germany; moving to Hamburg, Germany and working as a businessman there until 1933, when he moved to Kolomyia, Poland to live with his brother and sister; moving to Katowice, Poland, where he was able to find work; joining the Revisionist party in 1939 and trying to immigrate to Palestine on an illegal transport through Romania; the British Ambassador to Romania telling the Romanians to withdraw his visa since the British were restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine; returning to Kolomyia and staying there until the Soviets invaded in 1939; trying to escape to Romania with his brother-in-law but getting caught and imprisoned; being moved to Kiev, Ukraine in March 1940; receiving a five-year prison sentence and getting transported to Yartsevo, Russia; his transfer to the Mostowits labor camp in Russia, where he was forced to cut trees; his liberation in March 1944 and taking a train to Kotel’nich, Russia with other prisoners; staying with several Russian Jewish families until he found a Ukrainian family who housed him for a short time in exchange for German lessons; traveling to the English zone in Germany; and reuniting with his brother in 1951 in Israel.

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral History

    Major General William P. Levine, born in Duluth, Minnesota on July 1, 1915, describes growing up as the oldest of four brothers; his draft into the United States Army in 1942 and completing Officer Training School in 1943; entering the Intelligence Unit as an Artillery Officer in 1944; being sent to England and later traveling with a unit that began in the Netherlands and worked its way south towards Dachau; moving into Dachau on April 29, 1945 and helping to give out food and medical care to the former prisoners at Dachau; and returning to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral History

    Leo Schneiderman, born on August 18, 1921 in Łódź, Poland, describes his family and childhood; the large Jewish population that had comfortably developed within Łódź before Hitler came to power; Poland preparing for war by drafting young men into the army and by digging trenches; the German invasion and fall of the Polish Army in September 1939; being tricked by the German government to head towards Warsaw with his younger brother and father; returning to Łódź and being forced into the ghetto with his whole family; the closing of the Łódź ghetto in 1940 and the realization that the community needed to organize its own services and methods of self-support; each of his family members taking a job in the ghetto, including his work as a tailor; illegally teaching Yiddish in the ghetto; not understanding why there had to be deportations from the ghetto without realizing the severity of the camps; his deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; his transport to Kaltwasser, a labor camp in Silesia, to do construction work for a short period until he was transferred to Lärche and then to Wolfsberg, where he worked in a hospital; being forced onto an open cattle car for a deportation and being thrown food while passing through Stará Paka, Czechoslovakia; his liberation by Allied Forces; and speaking for the prosecution against Herr Krison in a 1978 trial in Bochum, West Germany.

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral History

    Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf, both born in 1914 in Warsaw, Poland, describe their childhoods and families; Pela’s decision to study at a Warsaw law school before the war; getting married in 1936 and having a daughter in 1941; entering the Warsaw ghetto in 1940; escaping from the ghetto in 1942 by drugging their daughter, so she seemed to be dead; pretending to go to the Jewish cemetery outside of the ghetto to bury their daughter but never returning; their daughter getting tuberculosis and her six week treatment in a hospital; being helped by non-Jews; hiding on the Aryan side as Catholics; their daughter’s discovery that she was Jewish after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1947 on a United States Navy transport; Adam taking various jobs until he opened sporting goods factory; and getting involved in the Penny Project, which began in 1989.

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral History

    Carla Heijmans Lessing, born in 1929 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, describes her family and childhood; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 and experiencing harsh antisemitic measures; going into hiding with her mother and brother in August 1942 with the assistance of a Catholic priest who helped Jews find hiding places; leaving their first hiding place after three months but, with the priest’s help, finding a new shelter in Delft, in which they hid for thirty months; and her liberation in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral History

    Edward Lessing, born in the Hague, Netherlands on May 8, 1926, describes moving to the United States in 1929; returning to Delft, Netherlands in 1932 because of the economic depression in the US; entering trade school in 1942 to become a tool maker but having to leave because Jews could no longer attend public school after the German invasion; splitting up from his family after the invasion in October 1942 and finding a place to hide with a farmer, who employed him as a farm hand; relocating to hide in a convent in the Hague with his mother; the German raid of the convent in December 1943, during which he escaped, but his mother was taken to Bergen-Belsen; reuniting with his father and brothers in their hiding place in an abandoned cottage; remaining in this cottage through May 1945 when they returned to Delft; his mother’s liberation from Bergen-Belsen in late 1945; and immigrating with his family to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral History

    Werner Goldsmith, born in Erfurt, Germany on November 13, 1928, describes his family; the expulsion of Jewish children from German schools in 1938; the death of his father in 1938 and moving with his mother to Berlin, Germany; his mother placing him in the Auerbach Orphanage while she lived with another Jewish woman in West Berlin; his mother arranging for him to be placed in a transport to France while she traveled to England; living in the home of a French count until the invasion of France in 1940; the count being taken prisoner in Germany in 1940 and going into the care of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; unsuccessfully attempting to flee to southern France and getting separated from the other children when he was placed in the Rothschild orphanage, where he remained for nine months; moving to Marseilles, France in the spring of 1941; receiving an emergency visa in September 1941 to immigrate to the United States because he had relatives there; getting on a transport from Marseilles to Portugal and then embarking on a Portuguese freighter and sailing to the United States; and living in Jewish foster homes until he reunited with his mother in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral History

    Beatrice Pappenheimer, born in October 1932 in Lauterbach, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her parents having to register with the local police; moving to Karlsruhe, Germany after her father had to give up his business in 1936; starting school in Karlsruhe but experiencing much antisemitism; being forced to leave school in November 1938 because of a law forbidding Jews from public schools; the Gestapo forcing her and her family from their house and onto a train in 1939; arriving in the Gurs camp and contracting dysentery; her transfer to the Rivesaltes camp; her mother placing her on a truck run by the Oeuvre de Secours des Enfants and moving into homes in France; reuniting with her sister, who had gone through terrible times in the camps; the bombing of France that picked up in 1943; receiving letters from her grandmother in Palestine, her aunts in New York City, NY, and her uncle and aunt in London, England; arriving in London to be with her uncle and aunt; immigrating to New York City in October 1947 to live with her aunts and attend high school; and her thoughts on her wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    John Komski, born in 1915 in Galicia, Poland, describes growing up in a Gentile family; having some Jewish friends at the Academy of Arts in Kraków, where he graduated from in 1939; leaving Kraków when the Germans invaded but returning to join the resistance; escaping to Czechoslovakia, where he was caught by Slovaks who turned him in to the Gestapo; being rounded up in 1940 with 756 other Poles and deported to Auschwitz, where he worked in the architect's office; helping to create the museum in Auschwitz in 1941, collecting items of interest from the incoming inmates; escaping from Auschwitz to a small village, where he received false documents from the underground and boarded a train to Kraków; getting captured in Kraków and sent to prison; his transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Buchenwald, where he worked as a kitchen chef; his deportation to Gross-Rosen, where he worked in the labor relations office; being transported to Hersbruck towards the end of the war and then forced on a death march to Dachau, where he was liberated; and his immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral History

    Curtis Whiteway, born in Newburyport, MA on November 3, 1925, discusses his draft into the United States Army in December 1943; his basic training in Fort Knox, KY and intensive training with Rangers; transferring to Camp Maxie, TX, where he joined the 99th Division and immediately went to England; crossing into France with his division and participating in several skirmishes with the Germans; fighting the Third Panzer Division, which helped to push American forces further into Germany through the Siegfried Line; fighting near Cologne, Germany and encountering several concentration camps; helping to liberate the few surviving prisoners at Ohrdruf; going south into combat after the arrival of the Red Cross; reaching Dachau 3-B and then liberating the Moosburg prison camp (Stalag VII A) in Germany, which had about 30,000 prisoners, including some American prisoners of war; going to the Landshut sub-camp of Dachau to meet up with English and Canadian troops; and his assignment after the war to work temporarily in Cherbourg, France.

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral History

    Lore Baer, born August 26, 1938 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses her childhood in Amsterdam; how her family moved from Germany to the Netherlands in 1933; developing a close relationship with her maternal grandfather, who was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Bergen-Belsen, where he perished; her family's relationship with Elsa and Sam Izaaks, members of the underground resistance; her time in hiding with the Schouten family and becoming friends with Cornelia Schouten; her memories of living as a Catholic in order to conceal her identity as a Jew; hiding in various places on the Schouten family farm in order to avoid the Germans; her difficult separation from the Schouten family at the end of the war and her readjustment to life in Amsterdam; immigrating to the United States with her parents and settling in the Bronx, New York; and returning to the Netherlands to visit with members of the Schouten family several years after moving to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral History

    Erich Kulka (né Erich Schön), born on February 18, 1911 in Vsetín, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his childhood and family; being raised as a conservative Jew; attending a trade school, where he studied forestry and then worked in the family lumber business; smuggling people through the woods after the German annexation of Austria; being caught, arrested, and tortured by the Gestapo in June 1939; being released from prison in August 1939 and resuming work with the underground; his second arrest in 1940, when he was taken to Dachau as a political prisoner and then transferred to Auschwitz, where he was assigned to a work detail with a group of five in the Birkenau camp; assisting in resistance activities in Auschwitz; going on a death march as the Soviets approached and then put on a train from which he escaped; fleeing from Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring in 1968; living in Vienna, Austria for three months; and how all his family now lives in Israel.

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral History

    Cornelia Schouten, born on January 21, 1920 in Huizen, Netherlands, describes growing up as one of five children of a Christian farming family in Oosterblokker, Netherlands; one of her brothers serve in the Dutch Army and fight against the Nazis in 1940; the arrest of her father and uncle during the German occupation of the Netherlands because they were striking in protest of the occupation; her family’s decision to harbor those who resisted the Nazis, including members of the resistance and men who were drafted for forced labor; sheltering the young Jewish girl, Lore Baer, for over two years; Lore’s parents emerging from hiding after the war and reclaiming their daughter; reuniting with Lore several times after the war; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral History

    Drexel Sprecher, born on March 25, 1913 in Independence, WI, describes his family; his education at the University of Wisconsin, the London School of Economics, and at the Harvard School of Law; receiving a position on the Labor Board in 1938; his enlistment in the United States Army after the US declared war on Germany; being sent to London, England, where he was assigned to the Inspector General's office; later serving as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg Trials; and prosecuting Baldur von Schirach, the leader of the Hitler Youth.

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral History

    Bela Blau, born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1910, describes his family; getting married in 1930 and moving to Zilina, Slovakia; serving in the army for eighteen months and then working as a salesman representing a photo company; having a son in 1937; being dismissed from his job in 1938 because of his Jewish background; being arrested by two Hlinka Guards one day after Yom Kippur in 1942; his and his family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where he was placed in Block 10 and worked on building a bridge above the River Sota; doing writing jobs for an illiterate German Kapo because he spoke German; being assigned to the Kommando Kanada until May 1943 when he became a scribe and met his future second wife Magda; going on a death march in January 1945 from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Mauthausen, where he spent one month until he was transferred to Gusen, where he worked as an engineer fixing petrol tanks, gas tanks, and the wings of Messerschmitt planes; his transfer to Gunskirchen on May 1; and United States forces liberating him on May 7, 1945 in Gunskirchen.

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral History

    Magda Blau, born on August 19, 1916 in Michalovce, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes growing up in a Jewish family; becoming a kindergarten teacher; the German invasion and her deportation to Auschwitz, where she worked scrubbing floors for three months until she became an assistant to the block supervisor; being put in charge of the barrack for medical experiments in the autumn of 1942 and becoming the protégé of Dr. Eduard Wirths, the garrison physician; later working in an office and becoming the concentration camp commander of the camp for Hungarian Jews; getting a job counting potatoes in a kitchen and then a job as a concentration camp supervisor in a fabric production facility; going on a death march on January 18, 1945 to Malchow, where they were liberated by the Soviet Army; settling in Prague, Czech Republic for a short time and then immigrating to Israel; and finally immigrating to Australia in 1965.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral History

    Barbara Lederman Rodbell, born in 1925 in Berlin, Germany, describes her childhood; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1933 with her family; becoming friends with Anne Frank and her family; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; her boyfriend getting her false papers through his underground contacts; the deportation of her mother, sister, and father to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz; working for the resistance and surviving using her false papers; helping other Jews find hiding places; joining a ballet company for two years after the war; and immigrating to the United States in November 1947.

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral History

    Jerry Slivka, born on July 11, 1915 in Western Ukraine, describes his memories of the Soviet takeover of Russia; moving to the neighboring town of Povorsk, Ukraine with his family; participating with the Zionist movement and joining a kibbutz; moving to Łódź, where he worked as a manager of a village store from 1939 to 1941; entering the Polish Army in 1939 but settling in Soviet-held territory after the takeover of Poland; joining the reserves of the Soviet Army; escaping a German attack and seeking refuge at Soviet military headquarters; being sent to a labor camp in Stalingrad (Volgograd), Russia and then to the railroads east of the Volga because the Soviets were suspicious of him; working in a coal mine near Moscow, Russia for one-and-a-half years before he was freed; his interment in Italy until he could return to Łódź in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral History

    Rochelle Blackman Slivka, born in 1922 in Vilnius, Lithuania, describes growing up in a Jewish family; the German occupation of Vilnius in June 1941 and moving into the ghetto with her family in October; her mother’s death in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943 and being transported to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia and later to Stutthof; her father’s murder in an Estonian prison camp because he had served as a Jewish council member; her experiences in the camps until she had to go on a death march, during which the Soviet Army liberated her; beginning to make her way back to Vilnius with her sister but instead going to West Germany; separating from her sister while they both awaited permission to go to the United States; learning nursing during her stay at a German displaced persons camp; immigrating to the United States and arriving in Massachusetts on May 18, 1949; working as a nurse’s aide in an American hospital; and meeting and marrying a Holocaust survivor in the United States in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral History

    Francis Akos, born on March 30, 1922 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his childhood; attending a music academy, from which he graduated in 1941; becoming the concertmaster for the Budapest Jewish Community Cultural Center orchestra; being drafted for forced labor into the Hungarian Army in 1943; getting captured with other Jews in Budapest while on leave from the army to get fresh clothes; being sent by train to Neuengamme on November 4, 1944; playing violin in the camp; his evacuation from Neuengamme on May 3, 1945 and being transported by the ship Cap Arcona, a passenger liner that was evacuating refugees from West Prussia; the British mistakenly attacking the Cap Arcona and three other prisoner ships, which resulted in eight thousand deaths; returning to Budapest after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1954.

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral History

    Beno Helmer, born in 1923 in Teplice, Czechoslovakia, describes his childhood and family; using his foreign language skills to land small movie roles before the war; attempting to settle in Hungary with his family before the war; his family’s deportation to Łódź in 1939 because they did not have immigration papers; arriving in the Łódź ghetto and staying there until he had to begin doing forced labor outside the ghetto in 1942; securing a job posing as a non-Jewish German and collecting information for the underground and becoming an expert at derailing trains; returning to the ghetto when his father became sick and remaining with his family until they were deported to Auschwitz after the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto; his deportations to Gross-Rosen, Krupp Bertha-Werk at Laskowitz-Meleschwitz, Buchenwald, and Ludwigslust; his liberation by American soldiers while in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp; attempting to get back to Poland and on the way joining a Polish forced labor group that was later incorporated into the Russian Army; spending time hunting for Nazi war criminals after the war; and living in Europe for several years until he immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral History

    Jerry von Halle, born on December 2, 1922 in Hamburg, Germany, describes his family and childhood; learning the Hitler salute in school and having to fly the Nazi flag over his house on holidays; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands with his family in 1933 to get away from the Nazi party in Germany; the German invasion of the Netherlands; the Gestapo arresting and sending him to prison; being sent to Mauthausen with his brother and other boys but returning because he claimed to have tuberculosis; learning to be a shoemaker to avoid deportation; hiding in a house in the countryside with his family but returning to Amsterdam with his mother; going into hiding with his mother in the small apartment that belonged to one of his former teachers; his hider being caught and arrested four weeks before the end of the war and having to find a new place to hide; his liberation by Canadian troops; being arrested after the war with his mother because of their German passports but shortly being released when the authorities realized through what they had been; and immigrating to the United States in 1945.

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral History

    Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall, born in 1929 in Klyucharki, Czechoslovakia (Kliucharky, Ukraine), discusses her childhood; her father immigrating to the United States but being unable to arrange for her entire family to come over before the war began; no longer being able to attend school and experiencing increased tensions with her neighbors after the German annexation of Czechoslovakia; being forced to move into the ghetto with her family; being loaded onto a train after spending several weeks in the ghetto and arriving in Auschwitz two and a half days later; pretending that she was 15, so she would be old enough to work; her assignment to carry rocks between two places; being sent to the gas chambers during a selection but getting rescued just before she entered the gas chamber itself; working in an airplane factory with six hundred women; running into a forest with a friend and walking to a town that had been liberated by the Russian military; being given an apartment, food, clothing, and medical attention by the Russians; returning home to find her house destroyed; living in her grandmother’s house with other survivors and living off of the money her father sent her; learning that she had an uncle who had survived and sneaking across the border into non-communist Czechoslovakia to reunite with him; and immigrating to the United States in 1947 with her father.

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral History

    Ralph Codikow, born in 1930, in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes his family; the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941 and his brother shortly thereafter being shot at the Seventh Fort; his and his mother’s confinement to the Kaunas ghetto, where his mother saved them by pretending to be married to a male friend; his mother using her husband’s Lithuanian military service papers to forgo deportation to the Ninth Fort; being saved by his work in a ceramics factory when the children’s Aktions were decreasing the number of children in the ghetto; his and his mother’s deportation to Stutthof, where they were separated; his transfer to Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau in Germany, and then to Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau; contracting measles but being considered healthy enough to go on a forced march to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, in the winter; his liberation at Buchenwald in April 1945; moving to France after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral History

    Ruth Borsos, born in 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her family; moving to the Netherlands after Kristallnacht in 1938; her and her father obtaining permits to sail to the United States but not being able to do so when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940; her deportation to Westerbork in 1943 and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; being interned with her father in a camp near the Swiss border when an exchange agreement with the Allies broke down; being chosen to be traded for German prisoners because of their foreign passports; their liberation from the internment camp by French forces on April 23, 1945; spending some time in a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration camp after the war; returning to the Netherlands in 1947 and receiving a visa to immigrate to the United States; and marrying another Holocaust survivor, whom she met in Washington, DC.

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral History

    Simone Marguerite Lipman (née Weil), born on April 4, 1920 in Ringendorf, France, describes her family; participating in a Jewish scouting organization, Les Eclaireurs Israélites de France, with her brother; moving to Strasbourg, France, a city with a vibrant Jewish community; graduating from high school in 1938 and moving to southern France to care for her elderly grandmother; relocating to Blâmont, France because of fears of Nazi invasion; training in early childhood education and working at a private school in Paris, France for a few months until she returned to take care of her mother who was extremely ill; the German invasion of France in May 1940; packing up her family’s belongings and driving towards southern France; arriving in Périgeaux, France, where her family had to register as Jews; going to the Rivesaltes camp in France to work for the Organization for Children’s Rescue, for which she distributed food, cared for the children, and tried to find ways to get them out of the camp; helping to rescue hundreds of children with the Catholic Church after the Nazis began to round up children in late 1942; working to reopen many children’s homes after the war ended; receiving a scholarship from America’s National Council of Jewish Women for her work during the war; moving to the United States in 1946 to attend Tulane University, where she received a master’s degree in social work; returning to Europe, where she trained employees of children’s homes to deal with the special needs of young Holocaust survivors; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral History

    Shony Alex Braun, born on July 14, 1930 in Transylvania, Romania (possibly Cristuru Secuiesc, Romania), describes his family and early childhood; learning to play the violin at age five; the occupation of his town by Hungarian forces in 1940 and by the Germans in 1944; being deported to Auschwitz in May 1944; his transfer into the Natzweiler (Struthof) camp system in France and then to Dachau, where American forces liberated him in April 1945; his immigration to the United States in 1950; and becoming a professional composer and violinist.

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral History

    Doriane Kurz, born in Vienna, Austria in March 1936, describes her family and early childhood; moving to Maastricht, Netherlands and then Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1939 for her father’s business; experiencing several Nazi air raids over Amsterdam; Dutch Jews losing their businesses in 1942; her parents being imprisoned for trying to escape from the country and then getting deported to Westerbork; her father’s transfer to Auschwitz on November 10, 1942 and never being heard from again; her mother’s return to Amsterdam to take care of her and her brother; going into hiding with two farmers in the countryside; her capture and deportation to Westerbork with her mother and brother at the end of 1943; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen; contracting typhus in March 1944; being liberated by English troops while on a train ride; going to a displaced persons camp in Maastricht in June 1945; her mother’s death in March 1945 due to cancer; and immigrating to the United States in July 1945 with her brother to live with her uncle.

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral History

    David Lieberman, born in Częstochowa, Poland on December 31, 1925, describes his family; living through pogroms as a young child; having to move into the town’s ghetto and perform forced labor after the German occupation; seeing many of his family members deported to camps; his deportation to Treblinka, where he escaped after eleven days by cutting a hole in the fence with wire cutters that he had stolen; running with two friends to the house of a nearby farmer who put the three onto a train headed back to Częstochowa; reuniting with one brother, his sister, and his mother upon his return; being taken to another concentration camp, where he worked in a munitions factory as a bullet maker; the camp’s liberation and traveling by train to Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, where he entered a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency camp; traveling to Italy with the intention of taking a boat to Palestine but being returned to Karlovy Vary by the Italian government; and soon immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral History

    Laura Margolis, born in Constantinople, Turkey in 1903, describes her family; immigrating to the United States in 1908 and settling in Ohio; becoming a social worker for the Jewish Welfare Society of Cleveland after graduating from college; joining the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and going to Havana, Cuba, where she was in charge of sheltering and feeding Jewish refugees; her transfer to Shanghai, China in May 1941, where she aided over 8,000 Jewish refugees; her capture by Japanese forces after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and going into an internment camp; faking an illness to be transported to an American hospital, where she knew a doctor; the doctor lying about her health and refusing to release her from the hospital; returning to the United States as part of a prisoner of war exchange in 1944; being sent to Barcelona, Spain in 1945 by the JDC to aid Jewish refugees; helping to organize a parcel-sending program to former prisoners of concentration camps after their liberation; moving to Israel in 1953; and returning to the United States in 1983 to retire.

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral History

    Paul Strassman, born on January 24, 1929 in Trenčín, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), discusses his father’s work as an army officer for Austria-Hungary in World War I; the antisemitism his family experienced in the 1930s, which led them to consider escaping the country; his father divesting his share of his business; getting baptized, so they could avoid deportation; going into hiding in late August 1944; his father’s brief emergence from hiding and getting caught by the Gestapo, who sent him to Sachsenhausen; joining the Jegorov Brigade, a partisan group, in September 1944 and remaining in it until April 1945; joining the Czech Army in April 1945 as a noncommissioned officer and going to his station in Bratislava, Slovakia until the end of the war; remaining in Czechoslovakia but leaving just before the Communists took power in 1948; living briefly in Paris, France and London, England before immigrating to the United States in October 1948; and discovering that he was the sole survivor of his family.

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral History

    Ernest James, born in 1920 in Ord, NE, describes his family; joining the California National Guard in 1940; holding the position of sergeant and being called into active service in 1941; being stationed along the coast of San Francisco, CA and then going on to serve as platoon leader and company commander of the 238th Engineer Combat Battalion in the later years of the war; his unit’s attachment to the 1st Army and the 7th Corps; landing in Europe, where they swept through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany; reaching Nordhausen in April 1945 and finding workers from a V-2 missile and arms plant; ordering the German civilians to begin burying the large number of people who had already died; and assisting in the guarding of a nearby camp containing approximately 80,000-100,000 military prisoners of war.

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

    Chaim Engel, born in January 1916, describes growing up in Łódź, Poland; his experiences with feeling different as a Jew growing up; fighting in the Polish Army during the war and getting captured as a prisoner of war; being released and traveling to Lublin to work as a farmhand; his father’s and step-mother’s transport to Sobibór in June 1942; going to Izbica Lubelska with a friend to join a partisan unit; being caught and sent on a transport in September 1942 with about eight hundred people to Sobibór, where he worked sorting the clothes of people who had come into the camp; getting beaten for stealing pants on a couple of occasions; meeting his future wife Selma when they were both assigned to sort clothes; participating in the Sobibór uprising and escaping with Selma to a farm where they stayed until June 1944; his liberation by Russian troops and going to Parczew, Poland, where he and Selma had a child and started to re-organize their lives; moving to Holland, where they stayed until 1951 when they immigrated to Israel; and his and Selma’s immigration to the United States in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

    Selma Engel (née Wynberg), born in Groningen, Netherlands in 1922, describes her family and childhood; moving to Zwolle, Netherlands when she was seven years old; her family’s ownership of a kosher hotel; her father dying of a heart attack in 1941; the German invasion of the Netherlands and the confiscation of her family’s hotel; moving with her mother into the home of another Jewish family; receiving help from a Catholic priest in 1942 to hide in a non-Jewish family’s home; never seeing her mother and brothers again; hiding in a nurse’s home in Utrecht, Netherlands for a few months until she moved into another family’s house, where the police soon discovered her; being sent to an Amsterdam prison for three months; her deportation in 1943 to the transit camp in Vught, Netherlands, from which she went to Westerbork, where she worked in the laundry room; her transfer to Sobibór, where she had to sort clothes and clean the woods and railroads; contracting typhus; meeting Chaim, her future husband, when they had to dance in front of the Germans; escaping with Chaim from Sobibór during the uprising and hiding in the woods for several weeks; staying with a farmer in exchange for money for nine months; the farmer taking her and Chaim to Chełm, Poland in 1944; their liberation in July 1944; immigrating to Israel in 1951; and immigrating to the United States in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral History

    Morris Engelson, born in 1935 in Paberze, Lithuania, describes his family; his father’s work in the grain business; the Soviet invasion in 1939; the German invasion in 1941 and forcing the Jews of Paberze into a ghetto; dressing up as a peasant woman with his mother to escape the ghetto that was soon liquidated by the Einsatzgruppen in September 1941; moving around and hiding in different farms with his mother; being smuggled to the Lithuanian-Polish border and ending up in another ghetto; reuniting with his father in April 1943 and hiding in a barn and then a farmer’s attic; moving westward towards the end of the war and arriving in the American zone in Germany; going to a Berlin displaced persons camp and later to the Gobrasa displaced persons camp in Bavaria after the war; and immigrating to the United States after four years.

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral History

    Lonia Mosak, born on July 20, 1922 in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland, describes her family; moving to Ciechanów, Poland when she was young; attending a separate Jewish school in Poland and serving in a Zionist youth group; completing her school education in 1936; becoming seriously ill with typhus after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 but recovering even though Jewish physicians could not use medicine to contain the epidemic; her internment in Neustadt, a labor camp in Germany; being split up from her family in 1942 and transported to Auschwitz, where she remained until January 18, 1945 doing forced labor; being forced on a death march to Gross-Rosen and then to Ravensbrück, where she was liberated by the Soviet Army on April 30, 1945; returning to Ciechanów after her liberation; residing for short periods in Łódź and Bialystok to await the return of her last brother from Russia; marrying in Austria after the war; immigrating to a Polish-Jewish neighborhood of Chicago, IL in 1946; and having two children and eventually bringing her brother to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral History

    Agnes Grossman Aranyi, born on May 2, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; her father being drafted into forced labor camps from 1939 until 1942 when he was finally deported; attending Jewish school until 1942 when the war began in Hungary; the restrictions on Jewish life in Budapest; being warned by a friend to disappear because he knew that the round-ups were to begin soon; meeting a woman who worked for the underground and who took them to live as Christians in a Swedish house set up by Raoul Wallenberg; the Germans invading their home and forcing them into a ghetto; the Russians arriving to liberate the Budapest ghetto; living under Russian oppression until 1956, when she escaped to Austria with her fiancé during the Hungarian Revolution; and immigrating to North Carolina shortly thereafter.

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral History

    David Bergman, born on May 3, 1931 in Beckov, Czechoslovakia (present day Velykyĭ Bychkiv, Ukraine), describes his family and childhood; the German occupation of his town, previously annexed by Hungary, in 1944; his deportation to Auschwitz in late 1944; being transferred with his father to Płaszow, Gross-Rosen, and then Reichenbach an der Fils; being among three of 150 people in a cattle car who survived a transport to Dachau; being placed on a train to Innsbruck, Austria three days before the Americans arrived in Dachau; his liberation while on a death march from Innsbruck toward the front line of combat between United States and German troops; going into in an American hospital and rehabilitating; traveling to his old family home and finding it occupied by a Russian family; discovering that everyone in his family except him had perished; immigrating to the United States, where he settled in Cleveland, Ohio; and joining the American military to fight in the Korean War.

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral History

    Lila Lam Nawakowska, born on November 24, 1924 in Stanislawów, Poland (Stanislav, Ukraine), describes growing up in a large family; the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Soviet occupation of Stanislav until June 1941, when the Soviets withdrew, and the Germans entered and constructed a ghetto; her father becoming the chairperson of the ghetto’s Judenrat because he was such an influential businessman in their community; remaining in the ghetto with her family until December 1942, when they were able to obtain falsified Aryan papers and escape on the eve of the ghetto's liquidation in January 1943; renting an apartment in Warsaw, Poland and remaining there until the Warsaw uprising, when she was transported to Mauthausen; briefly spending time doing forced labor in Steyr, a sub-camp of Mauthausen and in Znojmo, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); her liberation by Soviet soldiers in May 1945; and reuniting with her mother and future husband shortly after the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral History

    Yaffa Rosenthal, born in Solotvyno, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) on October 7, 1926, describes her family and childhood; her experiences with antisemitism as a child; the Ukrainians taking over her town in 1938 and learning in a different language in school; her father losing his job and having to work in mines and on a cattle farm to support his family; receiving a notice that her family would be taken away in the early summer of 1941; her deportation to Yasinya (IAsinia), Ukraine and then being marched toward Galicia, Poland; escaping from the Germans and going to live with her uncle in Oradea, Romania and then with her sister in Budapest, Hungary; having a somewhat normal life until the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; hiding in the Budapest ghetto until January 1945 when she was liberated by Russian troops; trying to survive after the war and receiving help from the Swedish Red Cross; reuniting with her sister in Debrecen, Hungary and then returning with her to Budapest; participating in the Budapest Zionist organization and immigrating to Israel in 1948; getting married to an American man in 1959; and immigrating to the United States to settle in New York, NY.

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral History

    Eve Wagszul Rich, born in Kovel', Ukraine, describes her family and childhood; the German invasion and having to move into the ghetto; the Germans bursting into her home one night and killing her father in front of her; immediately running away into the forest and going to nearby villages, where she met peasants who gave her some food; going into hiding with a group of Carmelite Nuns; the Germans discovering her and sending her to Majdanek; escaping with a friend during a transport and going to Bavaria to work on a farm; her liberation by American forces; and immigrating to New York to live with her grandmother’s sister.

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral History

    Magda Mezei Lapidus, born on July 18, 1923 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; attending the Commercial Academy of Budapest for two years; first realizing the danger posed by the Nazis when they invaded Austria in 1938; seeing several young Hungarian men shipped out to labor camps starting in 1941; her brother being taken away to a labor camp in 1943; the German invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944; being forced into the Budapest ghetto and living in the Star of David House; her father returning to live with them in June 1944; being forced on a march with her father to the outskirts of Budapest, at which point she was separated from her father and never saw him again; hiding in a bush on her march and ripping her identifying star off and returning to Budapest to reunite with her mother and brother; going to the Spanish Legation near the ghetto and receiving a safety pass to move into a house protected from German invasion; remaining in the house until January 18, 1945, when the Russians liberated Budapest; and discovering the fate of her father.

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral History

    Avraham Ronai, born on September 14, 1932 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in a religious family; attending a secular public school and a Jewish school at night in Budapest; not experiencing many difficulties under the pro-Nazi Hungarian regime; the German invasion of Budapest in March 1944 but not really suffering until the Nazis took full control over Hungary in October 1944; the Nazis rounding up Jews into ghettos and deporting them; seeking help at the Spanish Embassy in Budapest and receiving a space in a Spanish safe-house due to the efforts of Giorgio Perlasca; remaining in the safe-house until the Soviets liberated Budapest in 1945; and immigrating to Israel in 1949 because of the oppressive Hungarian Communist regime.

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral History

    Eva Konigsberg Lang, born on April 1925 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her childhood and family; the Jewish community losing several of its rights when the war began; her relatives arriving from Czechoslovakia to live with her; being forbidden to attend school after March 1944; receiving a protective pass to get food; hearing that the wife of any man in forced labor would not be deported and getting married in 1944; hiding in a Spanish protective house on St. Paul Street and getting food supplies provided by the Jewish Council; the German occupation of Budapest; forging a telegram to prove that they were under Spanish protection and to save themselves from the Arrow Cross; and reflecting on how certain Spanish diplomats saved her life during the war.

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral History

    Cornelius Loen, born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) on May 2, 1922, describes growing up with a Jewish father and Gentile mother; the German invasion of his town on January 23, 1942 and German troops killing two of his uncles; escaping with his family to Budapest, Hungary, where they lived for ten months; his deportation to a forced labor camp in Hungary, where he remained until 1944; escaping to a nearby barn, where he hid for three days, during the liquidation of the camp; Russian troops liberating him while he hid in this barn; walking to a nearby displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife Masha; taking a Russian transport to Budapest and reuniting with his parents; discovering that his father had survived a concentration camp and his mother had helped to hide and save many Jewish people after her family was taken away; and immigrating to Los Angeles, CA in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral History

    Thomas Blatt, born in 1927 in Izbica Lubelska, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox family; the establishment of a ghetto run by the Germans after the war began in September 1939; working in a garage, which protected him from early ghetto roundups; trying to escape to Hungary with false papers in 1942 but getting caught; his and his family’s deportation to Sobibór, where his family was gassed immediately; the Germans choosing him as a laborer because of his mechanical skills; participating in and escaping during the Sobibór uprising on October 14, 1943 by escaping through the wire fences and avoiding the land mines; going into hiding with a friend on several farms; hiding in a stable and then in an abandoned brick factory; working as a courier for the Polish underground; and immigrating to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral History

    Anita Magnus Frank, born on January 29, 1936 in Emmen, Netherlands, describes her family; her move to Breda, Netherlands, where her family was living when the war broke out; the German invasion of 1940 and being told to leave because the Germans were going to bomb the town; walking thirty kilometers to a farm, where they stayed for five days; returning to Breda and experiencing increased persecution; obtaining false passports and assuming Dutch names to shield their Jewish identities in 1942 (Verified from other sources, the name of the individual who assisted Anita and her family was Govardus Pinxteren, who was later honored as Righteous Among the Nations); going into hiding first in a non-Jewish neighbor's home and then in a Quaker family’s home in Bilthoven, Netherlands; living as “normal” Dutch schoolchildren except having to hide their Jewish identities and constantly being in fear; leaving their hiding place in August 1944 because the Quaker family was too scared to keep them; returning to Limburg with her parents; the liberation of Limburg in September 1944; returning to Breda in April 1945 and living in an uninhabitable, bombed house for six months until they could move into a bigger and better house in the same town; and immigrating to the United States on December 7, 1952 because antisemitism was still a problem after the war.

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral History

    Guta Blass Weintraub, born on January 22, 1924 in Łódź, Poland, describes her childhood and family; her experiences with antisemitism in her youth; attending a private, Jewish, all-girls high school until the German invasion in September 1939; moving from Łódź to Wierzbnik-Starachowice in December 1939 because of fears about what the Germans had planned; the formation of a ghetto and having to share a home with at least one other family; meeting her future husband when he came to her home in the ghetto asking for her father to make him a suit with special pockets; being rounded up in the ghetto’s marketplace and sent to labor camps; managing to smuggle out some pictures with her as she, her mother, and her father were taken to a woodworking camp; surviving several shootings and experiencing starvation; her deportation to Auschwitz in 1942 and staying there until 1944, when she was transferred to Ravensbrück; her liberation by the Swedish Red Cross; and traveling to Sweden to recover.

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral History

    Henry Schmelzer, born in March 1924 in Vienna, Austria, describes growing up as the youngest of four children in a middle-class family; graduating from a Jewish high school in 1938 shortly before it closed; his brothers fleeing, while he and the rest of his family endured Nazi raids on their home until they were evicted; his father losing his business and having severe depression; escaping to England on December 18, 1938 and finding refuge at a children's camp; remaining in England throughout the war and living with a group of young Zionists; enlisting in the British Army in 1943; being sent to a mountain unit, the 52nd Division; receiving his degree at the London School of Economics; spending 18 years in Israel; and immigrating to the United States in 1969.

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral History

    Helen Liebowitz Goldkind, born in Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia (Ukraine) on July 9, 1928, describes her childhood and family; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia and going into a ghetto in Uzhgorod, Ukraine; maintaining religious traditions in the ghetto; the Germans taking over the ghetto and deporting her and her family to Auschwitz; her transport to another camp and hearing bombs going off during the train ride; arriving in a German camp and working in a munitions factory; going on a truck with two hundred other girls to Bergen-Belsen, where English troops eventually liberated her; the Swedish Red Cross offering to take care of her and others in Sweden; discovering that only one of her sisters survived the war and had immigrated to the United States; and following her sister to the United States, where she settled in New York, NY and got married.

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral History

    Johanne Eva Liebmann (née Hirsch), born in 1924 in Karlsruhe, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her family’s deportation to the Gurs camp in southern France in October 1940; being rescued by the Children's Aid Society in September 1941 and hiding in a children’s home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France until 1943, when she obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland; discovering that her mother had died in Auschwitz; getting married in Geneva, Switzerland in 1945 and having a daughter in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral History

    Max Liebmann, born on September 3, 1921 in Mannheim, Germany, describes his family and childhood; attending school until December 1937, when he had to quit because of the antisemitism he was experiencing; his memories of Kristallnacht; his father travelling to Greece and Italy to do business since he could no longer do it in Germany; he and his mother being called into a Wehrmacht office shortly after the war began in September 1939; being made to do forced labor harvesting fields in East Germany; being deported with his mother to the Gurs concentration camp in France; playing the cello as part of several concerts given at Gurs; meeting his future wife in the camp through a connection his mother made; managing inventories for French camp officials; his transfer to the Talluyers camp in July 1942; escaping to Le Chambon, France to reunite with his girlfriend for a short period until they both had to find hiding places; finding a guide to take him through France and into Switzerland; arriving in Ouchy, Switzerland and receiving work papers on December 22, 1942; reuniting with his girlfriend in Switzerland on February 28, 1943 and marrying her in Geneva on April, 14, 1945; having a daughter in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral History

    Giorgio Perlasca, born on January 31, 1910 in Como, Italy, describes growing up with a father who worked for the Italian government in Padua; fighting in the Spanish Civil War and later taking a position in an Italian trade firm; working around Eastern Europe after Italy entered World War II in 1940; maintaining an official position with the Italian Trade Commission and living in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1941 and 1942; continuing to work for the Italian government until the fall of Admiral Miklos Horthy in 1944; his internment by the Hungarian government from April to October 1944 after the Germans took control of Hungary; escaping his internment with falsified papers provided by a member of the Swiss Diplomatic Corps; adopting a Spanish nationality because of his veteran status from the Spanish Civil War; posing as the Spanish Charge d'Affaires after the flight of the appointed Charge d'Affaires for Spain in December 1944; helping to establish of several safe-houses in Budapest to shelter Jews under Spanish protection; coordinating his efforts with representatives of other neutral nations, including Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden, and the representatives of the Vatican, Portugal, and Switzerland, to shelter and save Jews from deportation; and returning to Italy to start a family in February 1945.

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral History

    David J. Selznick, born in Anykščiai, Lithuania in 1912, describes growing up as the youngest child in a large family; going to Ukmergė, Lithuania to study at a yeshiva in order to become a rabbi; his father’s death shortly before his twelfth birthday and becoming the legal master of his father's estate; deciding to sell off his family's farm and livestock and move to Kaunas, Lithuania; attending a Yiddish night school in Kaunas and working during the day as a retailer of office supplies; his experiences with antisemitism, which hurt his business; selling his business to two Christians but remaining as a silent partner; receiving a visa to serve as a diplomatic envoy to New York because of his business connections but instead deciding to leave for Portugal; returning to Kaunas in 1936 because he was worried about his mother and sisters; his deportation to the Kaunas ghetto in 1941; performing forced labor until late 1944 because he had worked for the ghetto Kommandant; smuggling food to the Jewish prisoners in the ghetto; escaping during the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto in July 1944 and fleeing into the countryside, where he hid with some other Jews; his liberation by the Soviet Army; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral History

    Elisabeth Model (née Dittmann), born in Bayreuth, Germany in 1897, describes her family; getting married in 1922 and moving to Amsterdam, where she worked as a sculptor; returning to Germany after Kristallnacht to help her mother emigrate; helping her mother sneak into the Netherlands with the help of a Dutch underground organization; her husband being imprisoned for one month by the Nazis after being falsely accused of smuggling money into the Netherlands; bribing a woman at the Spanish Consulate to give her and her husband exit visas in 1941; traveling to Madrid, Spain; and eventually arriving in to New York, NY in 1942.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral History

    Joseph Levine, born in Molodezhnyi, Russia on July 20, 1907, describes the difficulties his family faced in World War I; his family’s immigration to San Francisco, CA on February 12, 1917 and then settling in New Haven, CT; attending Franklin and Marshall College and then the graduate school for Jewish social work; working with the Jewish Board of Guardians for six years until 1941; starting to work as a parole officer in 1941; joining the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in 1945 as a social worker; going to Schwandorf, Germany, where he worked with many Polish Jews; his transfer to Dachau in October of 1945, where he also worked closely with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; bearing witness to the war crime trials at Nuremberg; and returning to the United States, where he worked as the executive secretary of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society.

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral History

    Eugenia Blau Szamosi, born in Transylvania in 1914, describes her family, childhood, and growing up in Budapest, Hungary; her experiences with antisemitism in Hungary; marrying in November 1941 and having a son the following year and a girl the next; her husband avoiding forced labor by spending time in a mental hospital; having to move into the Jewish section of the town and wear the yellow star after the German invasion of Hungary; escaping from the Budapest ghetto and looking for a flat in town; pretending to be a Transylvanian refugee because she had Aryan looks; returning to the ghetto to work with her husband in a children’s home and await deportation; getting the supplies to make shutzpasses for people; getting Spanish passports for her and her husband, which helped to save them from deportation; her family’s liberation and her husband’s work for the International Red Cross after the war; and immigrating to Israel in June 1949.

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral History

    Irene Dynkiewicz Silver, born in January 1933 in Łódź, Poland, describes her family and the Jewish community in her town before the war; her family’s move to Warsaw just as the German bombardment of Warsaw began; the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto wall; learning how to read and write from one of her cousins; wearing a kerchief and putting on lipstick to look older and avoid deportation during ghetto-round ups; going into hiding in January 1943 with a woman who had managed to attain a Christian identity for her; not being able to leave the home in which she hid and reading to pass her time; attending school for the first time after the war; traveling to London with several other children to attend a boarding school established by a rabbi; and immigrating to Brooklyn, NY in January 1950 to live with her aunt and uncle.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral History

    Alice Lok Cahana, born on February 7, 1929 in Sárvár, Hungary, discusses her childhood; her relationships with her parents, grandfather, and siblings; her experiences in the ghetto in Sárvár, which was situated in a brick factory; her work with children in the ghetto; her deportation by train to Auschwitz; her experiences in "C Lager" of Auschwitz; her memories of selections by Dr. Josef Mengele; her successful rescue of her sister Edith from the infirmary in Auschwitz; her survival of the Auschwitz gas chamber because of a malfunction in the chamber; her memories of camp guard Irma Grese; her transfer from Auschwitz to the Guben concentration camp where she worked in an ammunition factory; her participation in a death march with a group from Guben; her escape and subsequent return to the death march group; her separation from her sister in Bergen-Belsen; her evacuation from Bergen-Belsen and transport to a hospital in Sweden; her reunion with her father in Hungary; her illegal immigration to Israel by boat; her return to Sweden with her husband Moshe Cahana; the Cahana family's move to the United States; and her thoughts on the rescue efforts of Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral History

    Eva Brust Cooper, born in 1934 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; living on the Pest side of the Danube River; her memories of the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; the various types of persecution experienced by the Jews in Budapest including the wearing of yellow Stars of David; her father receiving papers from Raoul Wallenberg to avoid deportation; the family's time in hiding in various locations around Budapest; her and her mother's attempts to appear Catholic by going to church, learning the Catechism, and acquiring false identification papers; her family's return to Budapest at the end of World War II; her father's participation in negotiations with Adolf Eichmann in hopes of reducing the number of Hungarian Jews to be deported; her family's immigration to the United States and their new life in New York City; and her activities with various Holocaust survivor groups.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Vogel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral History

    Frieda Belinfante, born in 1904 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her family; being raised without a religion because her father was Jewish and her mother was Gentile; the death of her sister in 1915 after an appendectomy and the divorce of her parents soon after; the death of her father in 1923 from natural causes; not being surprised by the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands; getting married in 1931 and divorcing in 1936; becoming the first female conductor of a professional orchestra in Amsterdam; participating in the cultural commission of Amsterdam and receiving instructions from the Nazis about what artists should or should not do; making false identification cards to help save people; discovering her homosexuality but trying to keep it a secret during the war; living disguised as a man for three months; taking on a new female identity and fleeing to Switzerland; participating in several activities of sabotage with other gay and lesbian refugees; returning to Amsterdam after the war and discovering the fates of the members of the resistance group in which she participated; immigrating to the United States in 1947 for a change of scenery in her work; participating in a string of concerts in the US; and her life in America.

    Oral history interview with Philip Vock

    Oral History

    Philip Vock, born in 1929 in Paris, France, discusses his family background and childhood; the German invasion of France in 1940; the confiscation of the family business by the Germans; antisemitism that he encountered in the media and in personal contacts; leaving the occupied zone of France in 1941 and finding refuge in a town on the Spanish border; the German occupation of their town in November 1942; fleeing to Nice, France, which was occupied by the Italians; being denounced to and arrested by the Gestapo as they were preparing to move to another town; being transported to Drancy concentration camp in 1943; life in Drancy and the possibility of escape from the camp; his deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944; the intake process at Auschwitz and then his outside work detail; the black market within Auschwitz; a death march in January 1945 as the Allies were approaching the camp; life in Buchenwald and liberation; returning to Paris in April 1945; the return of his mother and uncle; and nightmares that he had after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Gatenio

    Oral History

    Joseph Gatenio, born in 1929 in Thessalonike, Greece, discusses his childhood; the German occupation of Thessalonike in 1940; his deportation from Greece with his family in 1943; the week-long journey to Birkenau; selections at Birkenau; the deaths of family members; his participation in the camp orchestra; how orchestra members helped him survive; being forced to leave the orchestra; the brutality of the SS and Kapos; being transferred from Birkenau to Henkel, then Sachsenhausen, Ohrdruf, Sachsenhausen again, Neubrandenburg, Ravensbrück, and finally Ludwigslust; the appalling conditions in the camps; staying in Ludwigslust until May 1 when they were transported to another camp; his liberation by American soldiers the next day; joining the Russian liberators and wandering throughout Europe for a few months; returning to Thessalonike in December 1945; and the long-term effects of his experiences during the Holocaust on his well-being.

    Oral history interview with Mariette Moscovici

    Oral History

    Mariette Moscovici, born on January 24, 1916 in Iasi, Romania, discusses her family; her father, Hani Garfiender, who was a merchant and owned a store for travel items; her mother, Cecile Garfiender, who was a housewife; attending Alexandru Labrian elementary school; attending Institute Notre Dame for high school; living in Iasi on Cuza Voda street and later on Ice Bratianu street; Rumania entering the war on June 22, 1941; German soldiers entering on the night of June 29, 1941 and taking away all the Jewish men from the shelter; going to the Jewish community the next morning to ask about the fate of the Jewish men and not receiving an answer; stopping at a friend’s house on the way home to warn the men in the family about the arrest of the Jewish men; being stopped on the way home and directed into a convoy; finding her mother and sister in the convoy; being taken to the police headquarters; more Jews arriving at the headquarters wearing pajamas and night gowns because they were taken without anytime to get dressed; the women and girls being released while the men and boys over the age 13 were detained; the chaos of the scene; her father arriving at the shelter in the afternoon; the numerous false alarms to concentrate the population in shelters; the German soldiers enter the shelter around 5pm and demanding their jewelry and money; giving one of the soldiers her money and being instructed by the soldier to go home and not enter the shelters; leaving her aunt’s house with her family the next morning (June 30, 1941) and going home; seeing posters on wall that state the “Communist Jews” of Iasi have been arrested and killed and the rest of the population can continue their lives; staying home and not knowing what happened to other people; going to a market with her cousin dressed like peasants and seeing dead bodies on the street; Jews not being allowed to travel; and the propaganda in the news.

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral History

    Henry van den Boogard, born in Holland in 1915, discusses his childhood in Tilburg, Netherlands; his early education and seminary days; his ordination to the priesthood and first mass in 1942; his memories of Jews being helped by non-Jews in the Netherlands; his personal activities with the resistance movement in southern Netherlands such as making false identification papers for various persons, smuggling children into the Netherlands for hiding, and finding hiding places in homes for Jews and other persons; his dealings with the black market in the Netherlands in order to clothe and feed people in hiding; his reflections on antisemitism in the Netherlands; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; the feelings of native Hollanders toward the "Dutch Nazis"; and his life after World War II in the United States where he worked to integrate Catholic churches in Virginia.

    Oral history interview with Jack Moss

    Oral History

    Jack Moss (né Jakuv Mozelsio), born in 1924 in Łódź, Poland, discusses his family background; his encounters with Polish antisemitism; his family's feelings about the possibility of a German occupation; the restrictions imposed on Jews by the Germans; the lucrative business that the Germans brought to his father's tannery; odd jobs that he did at the request of the Germans, including helping to tear down a statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko in Plac Wolności; a German friend who agreed to be a stand-in owner of the tannery, so it would not be confiscated; his uncle, aunt, and other family members fleeing to Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland for safety while he and his parents stayed in Łódź; the return of his sister and cousin from Tomaszów Mazowiecki; and how the rest of his family in Tomaszów Mazowiecki perished while he and the others who remained in Łódź were saved.

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral History

    Boleslaw Dytlow, born in 1932 in Pruszków, Poland, describes growing up in a Romani family; the German occupation in September 1939; moving to Warsaw, Poland with his family and earning money there as a musician; being captured on the streets in Warsaw in late 1942 and delivered into the Warsaw ghetto; meeting other Romanies in the ghetto and forming a plan to escape; escaping to the Aryan side in the spring of 1943; leaving Warsaw and only traveling by night; being ambushed by German soldiers on the outskirts of Kielce, Poland; successfully overpowering the Germans and escaping back to Warsaw; and remaining hidden outside of Warsaw until the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Mel London

    Oral History

    Mel London, born in 1923, discusses growing up in the Bronx, NY with immigrant parents; his awareness of the political situation in Europe before World War II; his concern for family in Europe; his identification with being Jewish; enlisting in the United States Army signal corps in May 1943; going to Officer Candidate School; antisemitism he encountered in the army and prejudice because of his friendships with black soldiers; seeing the aftermath of World War II in Europe; his knowledge of the Nuremberg war crime trials; becoming a documentary filmmaker; the request to interview Albert Speer after his book "Inside the Third Reich" was published in 1970; preparing for the interview; different attitudes towards Speer among Germans of different generations; and his perceptions of Speer.

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral History

    Henry Cohen, born in 1922 in New York City, NY, describes growing up in a family of Jewish immigrants; receiving a master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; enlisting in the United States Army in 1944 and fighting with the infantry during the German campaign; his appointment as the director of the Föhrenwald displaced persons camp in Germany in January of 1946; leading the camp until July 1946; and returning to the United States to teach at the City College of New York.

    Oral history interview with Gisela Feldman

    Oral History

    Gisela Feldman, born in 1923, discusses her first encounters with antisemitism in Berlin, Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933 and her political awareness at that time; her father's deportation to Poland in 1938 because he was a Polish citizen; the confiscation of her family's apartment; being barred from going to school; her mother obtaining visas to Cuba and booking passage on the SS St. Louis; her father not being able to leave Poland in time to join them on the SS St. Louis; departing with her mother and sister from Germany in 1939; the atmosphere on board the ship; their arrival in Cuba and the announcement that their visas were no longer valid; the desperation of some passengers on board; sailing near the coast of the United States during the return journey to Europe; her family being selected to disembark in England; her job as a domestic in a convalescent home for Jewish refugees in Broadstairs and then as a nanny for a family with two children in London; her involvement in war work, making uniforms and gunpowder bags; meeting and marrying her husband in London in 1943; her mother's attempts to get permission for her father to emigrate from Poland; and her life in England after the war.

    Oral history interview with Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming

    Oral History

    Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming describe how Bert grew up in Warsaw and Łódź; Bert’s family’s deportation to Hannover, Germany before Kristallnacht; Bert’s deportation from Hannover in 1938, receiving aid from the Joint Distribution Committee, and going through the camps; Irene witnessing people being smuggled from her ghetto and fleeing to Siberia; Irene holding on to her violin through her time in the camps; their experiences with Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski and his relationship with the Nazis in the Łódź ghetto; Bert having to shave his head and watch people steal food while in the camps; Bert’s work in several different factories and the transport of all of the goods he produced to Germany; and their immigration to New York and life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral History

    Norman Belfer, born on September 27, 1922 in Wodzislaw, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family; the German invasion of Wodzislaw in 1939 and hiding in his family’s factory warehouse until they were discovered; the confiscation of his father’s feather and down business; being forced to clean roads around the town with other youth; going to work for a nearby German company while the rest of his family went into hiding in an underground shelter outside of Wodzislaw; his family’s capture and transfer into the Kraków ghetto; returning home, where he retrieved some of the money his family had buried before they had left; hiding for several weeks in his father’s former factory; joining his family in the Kraków ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto on March 13, 1943; his family’s transfer to Płaszów, where an SS guard shot his father, and his mother and sisters were sent elsewhere; being transferred with his brother to Mauthausen, where they volunteered as carpenters until they were sent to Melk; digging tunnels and moving machinery for several months at Melk with his brother; going on a barge to Linz and then going on a death march to Ebensee; his liberation by American forces on May 5, 1945; walking to Salzburg with his brother but deciding to go to Palestine through Italy; and remaining and working in Italy until he immigrated to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral History

    Carola Stern Steinhardt, born on March 8, 1925 in Nieder Ohmen, Germany, describes losing her non-Jewish friends after 1933; her experiences during Kristallnacht; attending a boarding school in Bad Nauheim until the Gestapo stormed it and harassed students; her father’s deportation to Buchenwald; her mother’s and sister’s arrival in Bad Nauheim; going to Berlin to do hard labor at an airplane factory until her deportation to Auschwitz in March 1943; her selection to be a camp “beautician,” which involved cutting the hair off of incoming prisoners; reuniting with her sister in August 1944 and learning that her parents had died; going on a march to Ravensbrück in January 1945; staying in Ravensbrück for four weeks until having to march to Malchow, where she worked in the camp kitchen; her liberation by American forces in May 1945; her internment in the Kammer displaced persons camp in Austria; and immigrating to the United States in July 1946 on an army transport.

    Oral history interview with Haim Shmueli

    Oral History

    Haim Shmueli (né Heinz Ruman Shmoll), born in 1935 in was born in 1935 in Usti nad Labem, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and childhood; his mother’s conversion to Judaism, which she renounced when Hitler came to power; moving to Germany in 1938; his father’s involvement in the underground movement; his deportation to Theresienstadt and his memories of the children’s part of the camp; participating in the propaganda movie filmed in Theresienstadt; his liberation from Theresienstadt in 1945; reuniting with his father after the war; and immigrating to Israel with his father in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Itka Zygmuntowicz

    Oral History

    Itka Zygmuntowicz, born April 15, 1926 in Poland (possibly Ciechanów), discusses her family and childhood in Poland before World War II; her experiences with antisemitism before the war; relations between her family and Gentiles in her hometown; her knowledge of politics as a child and involvement in the Zionist movement; the German occupation of her hometown and the restrictions that the Germans imposed on the Jewish population; the confiscation of her family's valuables; a beating that she and her mother suffered at the hands of the Gestapo for not revealing information; her family's deportation to the ghetto in Nové Město in 1941; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 and the mass deportation to Auschwitz; her arrival at Auschwitz and her separation from her parents and younger siblings who perished in the camp; finding a friend named Binna in the camp; her forms of spiritual, mental, and physical resistance as a prisoner; her contact with the guards in the camp; her experience sorting the belongings of dead prisoners in the "Kanada" warehouse; a death march in January 1945 to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then a transport to Malchow concentration camp; her liberation during Passover in 1945; recuperating at a hospital in Sweden after the war through the help of the Swedish Red Cross; living in a displaced persons camp in Sweden; leaving the camp with two friends and getting a job; meeting and marrying her husband and the birth of her son in 1948; and her immigration to the United States in 1953.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Granirer Flor

    Oral History

    Gertrude Granirer Flor, born in 1921 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, discusses her childhood; the lack of antisemitism she encountered growing up; the Soviet occupation in 1940 and the confiscation of Jewish property; Soviet propaganda and the pressure to inform on others; the arrest and execution of her step-father; involuntary deportations by the Soviets to Siberia, including the deportation of her mother; escaping from a deportation and finding refuge at the conservatory of the Universitatea din Cernauți; meeting and marrying her husband, Sam; the German occupation of Chernivtsi; German restrictions and the establishment of the ghetto in Chernivtsi; the help that the mayor of Chernivtsi extended to the Jewish population; deportation by train to a stone quarry where she and her husband stayed for several weeks; her husband telling the Romanian authorities that he was a dentist, so that they would be transferred to a work detail in a hospital; being liberated by Russian partisans after being in hiding for several days; returning to Chernivtsi and joining the Czech Army; being part of the liberation of Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); immigrating to South America with a stopover in the United States on the way; living in Columbia with an uncle on his coffee plantation for six months and then immigrating to the United States; her feelings about her new country and the difficulties she experienced as an immigrant; and how her experiences during the Holocaust have affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Renee Scheuer

    Oral History

    Renee Scheuer, born in 1909 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood; antisemitism in Vienna before World War II; her and her husband’s arrest in November 1938 and the order to leave Austria in three days; traveling to Cologne, Germany and then to Belgium on foot; living in a refugee camp in Antwerp, Belgium; the occupation of Belgium by Germany in 1939 and their attempt to escape to France; returning to Belgium and living in Brussels where they had to wear Star of David badges; receiving a notice to report to a concentration camp; she and her husband going into hiding in Brussels in 1942 and staying in different hiding places until liberation in 1945; the feelings that she had during the events of the Holocaust; the resistance of the Belgian population against the Germans; the fates of her mother and sister; returning to visit Vienna in the 1970s; her immigration to the United States in 1950; and settling in New York City.

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral History

    Bent Melchoir, born in Denmark, describes growing up with a father who was a rabbi; the ease of relations between Jews and Christians in Denmark; the help that the Danish Christian community gave to the Jewish community to help them escape to Sweden; raising money with his brother to get Jews out of Denmark; the Danish resistance movement; leaving Copenhagen and arriving in Sweden by small boat; returning to Denmark three weeks after liberation; his surprise at the jubilant welcome given by the Danes when the Jews returned; the re-opening of the local synagogue for the fall holidays in 1945; and working on behalf of Soviet Jewry after the war.

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral History

    Renata Laqueur, born on November 3, 1919 in Brzeg, Poland, describes growing up in Amsterdam; never considering herself Jewish and attending a Christian school as a child; the German invasion in 1940 and registering as a Jew; her father’s decision to volunteer for the German Army as a medical research officer; her marriage to Paul Goldschmidt on December 24, 1941; becoming involved in the underground movement with Paul; her arrest on February 18, 1943, when the Gestapo took her to a prison for ten days until her transfer to the Vught transit camp in the Netherlands; her transport to the Westerbork transit camp, from where she was soon released because of her father’s connections; being arrested again in November 1943; her and Paul’s transport to Bergen-Belsen on March 15, 1944; writing a daily diary about her experiences in the camp; her liberation by the Soviet Army on April 23, 1945; recovering from illness in a field hospital outside of Dresden; spending a week in a displaced persons camp near Kassel; returning to Amsterdam on July 26, 1945; and immigrating to the United States through Canada in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Carl Hirsch

    Oral History

    Carl Hirsch, born in 1912, discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria and Chernivtsi, Ukraine; his schooling in mathematics and engineering in his university studies; his work as a civil engineer and service in the Romanian Army before World War II; his first experiences with antisemitism when Romania occupied Chernivtsi and when he lived in Bucharest; Soviet occupation of Chernivtsi from 1940 to 1941; the deportation of business owners in Chernivtsi to Siberia; the Soviet withdrawal in June 1941 and Jews fleeing with them; the takeover of the town by Germans and Romanians and the persecution of Jews; finding a job with the railway, so he would not be taken for forced labor; the establishment of the ghetto in Chernivtsi; his marriage to Lotte; witnessing deportations from Chernivtsi; the influx of Romanians into Chernivtsi; the return of many Jews who had fled with the Russians; the integration of Chernivtsi into the Soviet Union in 1945; leaving Chernivtsi and living in Romania from 1945 until 1961; and immigrating to the United States in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Hirsch

    Oral History

    Lotte Hirsch, born in 1918 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, describes her childhood; her encounters with antisemitism while she attended university; the Soviet occupation of Chernivtsi from 1940 to 1941 and having to stop her university studies and work in a factory; witnessing deportations to Siberia carried out by the Russians; Romanian and German troops taking over Chernivtsi and establishing a ghetto and several restrictions on the Jewish population; hearing about executions carried out by the German and Romanian soldiers; how her fiancé Carl was able to obtain an exemption from deportation because of his profession as an engineer; her marriage to Carl in a civil ceremony in the mayor's office; life under the occupation; witnessing more deportations in 1942; receiving better treatment after a new governor of Bukovina was instated; the return of Carl's cousin from deportation to Transnistria; her liberation by the Russians in 1944; and her immigration to the United States in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral History

    Walter Meyer, born on May 31, 1926 in Kassel, Germany, describes growing up as a Catholic in a diverse religious community in Düsseldorf; his experiences during Kristallnacht; joining the Hitler Youth in 1940 but then deciding to organize another group to oppose the Hitler Youth; his recruitment into a military academy, to which his father did not allow him to go; assisting French prisoners of war in 1943 until the Gestapo caught him and placed him in a Düsseldorf prison; his transfer to a prison near Frankfurt, where he remained until the spring of 1944 when the prison director recommended him for the army; his deportation to Sachsenhausen and then Ravensbrück; escaping from Ravensbrück and hiding with a farmer who lived nearby; returning to Berlin and then Düsseldorf; recovering from tuberculosis after returning home; and immigrating to the United States in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral History

    Dora Kramen Dimitro, born on January 22, 1922 in Eišiškės, Poland (now Lithuania), describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home with her parents and three siblings; attending Hebrew and Polish schools and experiencing antisemitism; the Russian arrival in Eišiškės in 1939; losing their rights as Jewish citizens when the Germans invaded in 1941; the Germans ordering them to assemble at the synagogue, where they were kept for two days and nights before many were taken away and shot; escaping with her boyfriend with the help of a Lithuanian police officer; the murder of most of her family on September 25 and 26, 1941; going to the Radun ghetto, where she met up with her father, sister, and boyfriend and stayed for ten months until they decided to escape because of ghetto liquidation warnings; running into the woods and trading valuables for food and clothing; living in the woods until late 1942 or early 1943 when they moved into the Hrodna ghetto in Belarus because they had heard of its better conditions; the transports from the ghetto two to three months after her arrival; fleeing to the Nacha Forest in Belarus; joining Jewish and Soviet partisans and staying in their underground bunker through the winter; hiding in homes or in the forest until the Russians liberated her in July 1944; returning to Eišiškės but fleeing when a group of Poles attacked the few remaining Jews there; marrying her boyfriend and living in Vilnius and Warsaw before moving to Israel in 1957; immigrating to the United States in March 1959 with her sister's help; and giving birth to a son soon after her arrival in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Herma Barber

    Oral History

    Herma Barber, born in 1921 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood; experiencing antisemitism after the Anschluss in 1938; her and her parents' unsuccessful attempts to immigrate to the United States and their decision to go to Yugoslavia instead; their journey into Yugoslavia by foot; their arrest in Zagreb, Croatia and spending a week in jail; being confined to the town of Samobor after their release from jail; deportation by the Ustaša in 1941 to Mostar, which the Italian military occupied; being moved to Čapljina by the Italians; traveling to Split, Croatia without permission and being arrested and put in jail by the Italians for a week; being moved to Dubrovnik, Croatia, where she worked in a restaurant and also did knitting for a store; not having enough to eat; going to an Italian-run concentration camp in 1943; their escape from the camp to a partisan-controlled area of Yugoslavia; being in the same town as Randolph Churchill during a British diplomatic mission to the partisans in Drvar in 1944; moving constantly with help from partisans; she and her parents escaping separately to Bari, Italy in 1944 and 1945; her life in the refugee camp at Bari and her marriage in 1946; and her parents' immigration to the United States in 1946 and her immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral History

    William Zeck (born on March 3, 1915 in New York City, NY) and Belle Mayer Zeck (born on February 22, 1919 in Port Henry, NY) describe their families and childhoods; Belle's work as a New York lawyer and getting a job working for the General Counsel of the Treasury and working on the Foreign Funds Control Bureau; helping the bureau to enforce the Trading With the Enemy Act, which forbade communication with and transmissions to German occupied countries; working on a book analyzing Yugoslavia’s financial laws and investigating Germany’s external assets in the United States; Belle becoming an unofficial expert on German financial affairs at the Department of the Treasury and attending the commission for the Allied nations to outline the principles of law for prosecution and trial of Europe’s major war criminals; Belle meeting William when they were both preparing for the Nuremberg Trials; the deterioration of Belle's health as she prepared for the trials and having to go home; Belle returning to Nuremberg in 1947 for the start of the trial; going back to work for the Department of the Treasury to organize the reconstruction loans for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany; their friendship with Telford Taylor; and William’s return to the United States after six years.

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral History

    Michel Reynders, born on June 29, 1930, in Uccle, Belgium, describes his experiences as the nephew of Father Bruno Reynders, who ran a rescue network that saved about 350 Jews; growing up in a tight-knit Catholic family; helping Father Bruno in his efforts to hide Jewish children by coercing local families to take them into their homes; being unaware of antisemitism until the war; helping a young girl who had fled from Fascist Italy; the German occupation and the following food shortages, imposed curfews, censored textbooks, and Jewish transports out of Belgium; beginning to observe the restrictions placed on Jewish neighbors in 1942 and realizing that it was primarily Jews who were being taken for forced labor in Germany; his introduction to the resistance movement around the end of 1942 and serving as an escort and messenger for his uncle's rescue service; initially having no idea that the children his uncle asked him to escort were Jewish or that Father Bruno was secretly hiding them throughout Belgium; eventually understanding what his family was doing and that his uncle's actions were secret and extremely risky; his family's decision to hide several Jews; graduating from medical school in 1959 and immigrating to the United States in 1961; and being named as the Honorary Vice-Consul of Belgium.

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral History

    Marthe Hoffnung Cohn, born on April 13, 1920 in Metz, France, describes her childhood; being forced by the French government to move out of Metz along with all of its other rich families; moving to Poitiers, France, where, in June 1940, Jewish refugees started coming; attending a Red Cross nursing school in Poitiers; escaping with her family to the unoccupied side of France in the summer of 1942; the arrest of her sister Stephanie, who later died in Auschwitz; becoming involved in resistance and rescue operations, which enabled her to get her parents, grandmother, two sisters, and a cousin to the unoccupied zone of France; finishing nursing school in Marseilles; leaving Marseilles for Paris, where she lived with one of her sisters and found a job with a family that did not know she was Jewish; joining the French Army after the liberation of Paris; doing intelligence work for the Army because she could speak German; going undercover as a German nurse and receiving two Croix de Guerre medals, signed by Generals De Lattre and De Gaulle, for her work; going to Vietnam with the French Army after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral History

    Miriam Kabacznik Shulman, born on June 26, 1918, in Eišiškės, Poland (Lithuania), describes her childhood; her father’s death of typhus during World War I and living with her mother and two brothers; the Russian arrival in Eišiškės in September 1939 and the nationalization of her family’s tannery business; the Lithuanian takeover in 1940 followed by the German invasion on June 23, 1941; the German implementation of edicts that restricted and isolated Jews; the murder of most of the town’s Jews by an einsatzgruppen squad between September 25 and 26, 1941; the help their family’s friends and co-workers gave them throughout the war by hiding money and providing information and hiding places; hiding from the Germans from 1941 through 1944, when they were liberated by Russian soldiers; returning to their home in June 1944 to find an elderly couple living there; deciding to allow the couple to stay and inviting about twenty other Jews to live in their home; living through a Polish pogrom in 1944; fleeing to Vilnius the day after the pogrom and never returning to her home; spending the next years of her life in several displaced persons camps; meeting her future husband Norman in an Italian prison; and immigrating with Norman to the United States, where they had two children.

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral History

    Anna Szyller Palarczyk, born on July 21, 1918 in Kraków, Poland, describes her family; studying law in Kraków before World War II; working for the underground organization Armed Struggle Alliance; the arrest of everyone in her underground group in June 1942 and their deportation to Montelupich, where they faced harsh interrogations; her transport on August 17, 1942 to Auschwitz, where she was selected as a cleaning woman for Lauder Kommandant Otto Schmidt; walking to the Birkenau camp and being admitted to the sick-room in Birkenau for flu-like symptoms; her experiences in camp with having little food and seeing dead bodies lying around her; the women guards, including Margot Drexler (Dreschel); Katya Singer, who was from Mariková, Slovakia and was appointed as a Raportschreiberin (assistant to the guards) and her activities in the camp; making friends in the camp, which helped her to survive emotionally; the roll calls and selections she went through; the black market in Auschwitz; the Red Cross sending packages to Jewish women in the camps; concerts that were played sometimes in the camps; discovering the fates of her family and friends after the war; and seeing the Russian Army unite with the American Army during liberation.

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral History

    Steven Galezewski, born on May 11, 1923 in Inowroclaw, Poland, describes his childhood; joining the Polish underground in Mińsk Mazowiecki, Poland; recalling that, in 1940, the Nazis ordered all the Jews to wear an armband with the Star of David; the relocation of his community into the Mińsk ghetto at the end of 1940; the liquidation of the ghetto on August 21, 1942 and the survival of only 282 tradesmen who were still useful to the Nazi war effort; participating in underground activities, which included blowing up buildings or means of transportation; his resistance unit being sent under Soviet command; being stationed in Lublin, Poland; providing security for the public hanging of five SS officers in Majdanek in 1944; remaining in Soviet hands from March to July 1945; being perceived by the Soviet Union as a potentially subversive element supporting the Polish government-in-exile and then receiving a prison sentence from the Soviets; his transport to Siberia, where Polish guerrillas freed him; escaping into the American zone; joining the Polish Army in Italy but returning from Italy in 1947 and joining the British Army; immigrating to the United States in February 1951; and joining the US Army in 1956.

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral History

    George Havas, born in 1929 in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), describes the Hungarian takeover of his town after the Germans took the Sudetenland; his father no longer being allowed to practice medicine; the German takeover of Mukacheve in March 1944; his transport to Auschwitz on May 15, 1944; learning after the war that his father had died in the Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz; being transferred to Mauthausen and then to Ebensee, where he stayed for one year until liberation; working in the tunnels at Ebensee, where he was able to make contacts and bring back news; the death of his brother and several of his friends in Ebensee; his liberation on May 6, 1945 and leaving for Prague on June 7; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral History

    Maria Rosenbloom, born on December 26, 1918 in Kolomyia, Poland (Ukraine), describes her Orthodox Jewish family; learning the violin and playing it every weekend in the Hatikva before the war; feeling increased antisemitic sentiments and fleeing with her family into the Carpathian Mountains; attending a special gymnasium for girls in Poland; starting university in 1936 in Lvov, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine) and never being allowed to sit down because she was Jewish; vacationing with a boyfriend in the Carpathian Mountains until the Soviet invasion on September 1, 1939; getting married in 1940; the Soviets taking away her father’s store because of nationalization policies; opening a pharmacy with her husband in 1940 in a small town called Glen-na-novaria [phonetic] and being pestered by the Russians for condoms; the Nazi invasion on June 21, 1941 and registering with the troops; contracting pneumonia and being treated with leeches; moving into the ghetto after Passover in 1942; working in the ghetto soup kitchen; escaping from the ghetto on Christmas in 1942 and going to live with her friend Blancka; discovering the fates of her family during the war and finding a job in a German hospital; taking a train to Warsaw, Poland in April 1943 and hearing rumors about what was happening to the Jews; living in fear that she would be caught because of her prominent Jewish features; joining the resistance movement; the chaos of the Warsaw uprising in 1944; having to join a Hitler parade in 1944 in an attempt to fit in; taking a train to Heidelberg, Germany hoping to reunite with Blancka; the German surrender of Heidelberg to the Americans and deciding to learn English; working for the US Army and then the Joint Distribution Committee; immigrating to the United States in September 1947; and becoming a social worker.

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