- Can you first tell me when and where you were born
- and a little bit about what your childhood was like?
- OK.
- I was born in a town called Memel or Klaipeda,
- a seaport on the Baltic Sea.
- I come from an educated, middle-class family.
- My father was a flax export business.
- He bought flax from the local farmers,
- graded it, sorted it, and baled it and then shipped
- to Ireland, Czechoslovakia, any place that manufactured linen.
- I was an only child amongst a family
- of two sets of aunts, an uncle, my parents, a grandmother.
- As a result, I was badly spoiled.
- I had a maid that took care of me.
- I was brought up like a little prince in some respect.
- My aunts would take me--
- I did more with my aunts than I did with my mother and father
- usually.
- They took me to cafes and my one aunt
- was a little more interested in sports, so she took me skating
- and to the beaches.
- We had beautiful beaches in Memel.
- I went to a secular Hebrew public school, which
- was totally not religious.
- It was basically a Zionist type of school.
- But they taught us modern Hebrew and Jewish history,
- not Bible studies as such.
- And at the time it was an unusual education also.
- We lived in a very nice house.
- We had a whole floor of a three-story house.
- I had my own room overlooking the river that
- passed through the town, saw ships going by all the time,
- and as a result I still like them.
- I am now involved in sailing.
- Sundays and weekends I remember being
- taken to the little ferry.
- Across the bay from where we lived
- was a place called [? Zankou, ?] and
- I would be taken with my family and lots of older people
- always to cafes.
- I really did not have much opportunity
- to play with other children because I was always
- entertained with adults somehow.
- It was just a very pleasant life in general.
- And then how did things start to change?
- What do you remember that you saw and heard?
- Well first of all, we had a radio at home
- and my father would be glued to the radio
- and you kept already hearing of what was going on in Germany.
- Even though Memel was half German-speaking,
- it was not a German town, it was a Lithuanian town.
- And eventually we heard of invasions of Czechoslovakia.
- And I could, even as a child, sense
- the uneasiness of my parents.
- Also, I had an uncle and an aunt who had already
- come to the United States and they
- kept writing because they were trying to bring us over
- and trying to bring us over, but there
- was struggle in getting affidavits
- and somehow that never materialized.
- And then finally, this whole beautiful existence
- stopped a few months before Hitler invaded.
- I don't know exactly the date, but Hitler
- invaded, took over Memel, and that's
- before the war with Russia started.
- And we had to move to Lithuania proper
- and my parents, even though we live in Lithuania,
- had German citizenship and we were not
- allowed for some reason to live in the capital of Lithuania,
- which was Kovno, Kaunas at the time.
- So we ended up first and Siaulai and then in Panevezys
- And suddenly from this where I had my own bedroom,
- we had a dining room.
- The living room, breakfast room, it wasn't but it certainly
- was near that, we lived in very cramped quarters
- in a backyard near my father's somehow either competition
- or colleague in the business.
- And things just changed drastically.
- However, my school, I continued going
- to the same type of a secular Hebrew public school
- in Panevezys and kept getting this rather interesting
- education.
- I also remember, I must have been 10 at the time,
- the day the Russians invaded Lithuania and the tanks coming
- through and the first time I saw people from other--
- I saw Kyrgyz, who looked like Chinese people,
- and so as a child for me this was a great thing
- to see all these tanks rolling through town.
- But my father, even though he was a German citizen,
- was born in Russia and escaped prior or just
- after the revolution and was very--
- I think he was more concerned at the time of what
- the Russians would do to him than what the Germans might
- do to him.
- So he was really quite worried.
- And I mean as a 10-year-old you always
- try to have fun and go around with your friends,
- but you sense this unease in the family at that time.
- And then when the Russians came, again being German citizens
- they did not want us to live in the provinces
- so they made us go to Kovno or Kaunas proper.
- And now the whole family, two aunts, another uncle, we all
- got crammed into even tighter quarters in Kovno
- under the Russians.
- The Russians did not allow Hebrew or Yiddish or any sort
- of education that was other than Lithuanian or Russian,
- so I was put into a Lithuanian school
- and I didn't know what was going because I
- didn't speak Lithuanian.
- And mainly you could get by with German, which is what we spoke,
- and the Russian which my father spoke with his sisters.
- Again, as a child you have funny experiences.
- I mean, in this house that we lived,
- in the backyard Russian soldiers were quartered.
- And once I knew enough Russian then the Russian soldier
- call me over and say, you want to have a smoke?
- In Russian, [SPEAKING RUSSIAN],, she says.
- And I said sure.
- And he rolls the cigarette with the stem of tobacco
- and he and I smoke.
- And I come home and I threw up the whole afternoon,
- and my mother said, what did you eat?
- Finally, I told her I smoked with a Russian
- and she let me have it.
- I mean it's a--
- But that was still under Russian occupation.
- Then I clearly remember the day when the Germans invaded
- because it's the first time I heard planes overhead
- and bombs falling.
- So you know just this gorgeous life
- that we had in Memel slowly and surely deteriorated
- to the point where--
- And a lot was hidden from me, but I always saw my parents
- talk in hushed voices.
- And [? Eva ?] is coming, stop talking and this kind of stuff
- I still remember.
- So even though I wasn't told the specific details of what
- was going on, I sensed the fear and the worry of my parents
- at that point.
- And then the next thing, once the Germans
- had invaded it didn't take long that I don't quite
- remember how but the next thing I know I'm in a ghetto.
- And now we are really cramped, maybe the whole family
- in a room, one or two rooms.
- And that's again the two aunts, an uncle.
- And interesting enough, there was a refugee from Germany
- to Lithuania by the name of [? Karnatkan ?] who
- became involved in the ghetto gatekeeping
- police of some sort.
- And he was a German Jew who knew his way around this Germans.
- And he was married to a non-Jewish woman who
- maintained--
- He was rather wealthy the guy.
- He lived with us and he sort of became
- like a protector of the family because he
- was involved in the administration of the ghetto
- and was friendly with the Germans, knew how to bribe them
- and so--
- But anyway, things were really crowded, tight.
- I always had enough food because I
- guess as a child they gave me all the food that they
- didn't have, that the others didn't have.
- So this protective life in the way continued for me.
- Marker.
- Marker 20, or camera roll 20, marker one.
- So in the first few months of the ghetto,
- describe how you felt. Were you afraid?
- You know, my reaction was always in watching
- my parents and my surroundings.
- Because much was hidden from me.
- I was, at the time, about 10 and 11 years old.
- And I could see, of course, by the way my parents were,
- that they were in a constant state of fear,
- and that, really, a catastrophe had befallen us.
- And so I was, of course, frequently not allowed out
- on my own or at all.
- There was obviously a shortage of food.
- Although we were not starving yet.
- It was not at a point where--
- and I know that my mother always finagled something.
- And the food ended up on the table somehow.
- But the food--
- I mean, there was no meat.
- There was always, I remember, like,
- fake, chopped liver made out of peas and things like that.
- Today, that's considered good.
- But as a child, I also remember, occasionally,
- when things calmed down in the ghetto, I would be allowed out.
- And I would have friends, and we would go play,
- we would play soccer.
- And as a child, we tried to maintain
- things in as normal a fashion.
- And my parents sort of helped me in that.
- At some point during this period,
- I ended up in this workshop, where
- to the best of my knowledge was a continuation
- of the old schools which had existed in Russia and Lithuania
- before the war, which were basically vocational schools.
- And I was trained to become like a locksmith and a machinist.
- And in some instances--
- I mean, I remember having to--
- we were being given a large block of steel,
- and having to file the thing till it's perfectly square
- on all the corners.
- You begin with a big block, and you finally end up
- with something rather small.
- I remember having to hand-fashion a lock
- and make it out of metal.
- And then, we did some routine work.
- I would guess some production for the Germans.
- Now, from what I understand, in retrospect,
- is that, because I was in this workshop,
- doing some of the selections and so on,
- while these were occurring, I was in the workshop and worked.
- And therefore, was not--
- so this was something that eventually helped me,
- saved my life.
- And yet, as kids, we did nonsense, too.
- Right in this ghetto.
- I mean, they had welding equipment.
- And there was some material called carbide, which is not
- the same as carbide here.
- We mixed it to snow in the winter and threw matches in it,
- and the darn thing would explode, you know.
- And I mean, I think we made believe we were
- fighting the Germans with that.
- But that was of course silly.
- Of course, at the beginning--
- I remember, as things went on, frequently being hidden.
- We had a hidden chamber in the house, which was behind
- like a big chest with a very narrow passage between two
- walls.
- And in the house that we lived in, there were, I don't know,
- at least four or five other families cramped in.
- And during some of the selections, I was down there.
- And there were, I mean, maybe I was 12 at this point.
- And we were told to be absolutely quiet.
- Yet there was a woman there with a baby, and the baby would cry,
- and you know.
- And this is where this guy, Karl Notkin came into the picture.
- During the selections, apparently, one person
- was always allowed to stay in the house, sort of to watch it
- or something.
- And when the Germans came by, he spoke perfect German,
- and he bribed them with alcohol and whatever else.
- And the Germans would just come in and very quickly leave
- the house.
- So in a way, this guy protected us.
- And probably, I owe my life, amongst many other people,
- to him also.
- The worst thing that I remember was a hanging
- where everybody had to show up.
- And I don't remember the cause.
- But I mean, this was the first time I really saw.
- I must have been 12 or so at that time.
- People just being hung.
- And you had to--
- the whole ghetto was in this open field
- and had to watch that.
- And I think at that point, things really
- dawned on me that things were not just bad, but horrible.
- What about the Ninth Fort?
- Did you know the Ninth Fort was there?
- I did not know that of the Ninth Fort, no.
- I mean, that probably was just kept away from me.
- And tell me a little bit more about the trading
- and the organizing for food.
- Were you ever able to do anything?
- No, I think my parents and this--
- mainly, we depended very much on this guy Notkin, who
- was a bit of a wheeler dealer.
- And he brought in the food and arranged
- that both my uncle and my father were
- on work details, which were--
- I don't know if they were better or worse,
- but they certainly were involved in them.
- So I do not remember that personally.
- And what about books and school?
- That's interesting.
- My mother was educated in Germany.
- And she bought into the ghetto a lot of books.
- And she made me read Goethe and Schiller.
- And so I as a child knew--
- here, the Germans were persecuting us.
- At the same time, she taught--
- those were the books she had.
- So that's what she made me read.
- Even the Nibelungen, you know, the whole story of Ziegfried
- and then all the Wagnerian operas were there from.
- I mean, it's what my mother sort of taught me at that time.
- And I mean, looking back upon that, it's ridiculous.
- My family was not a particularly religious family.
- My father was what you would call a Yom Kippur Jew.
- I mean, went once a year to synagogue.
- But I was approaching my 13th birthday.
- And I remember being sent to a rabbi
- and being taught, be prepared for my bar mitzvah.
- And then I remembered that the Germans did not
- allow any synagogues.
- But there was some sort of an apartment complex.
- And in it was a--
- they had a hidden synagogue.
- And I was bar mitzvahed in front of the whole ghetto
- amongst this whole horror going on.
- And then my mother continued teaching me
- mathematics and whatever she could.
- And of course, I was in this workshop, where--
- the machine shop trade, sort of.
- And so my education--
- I mean, it was not education in the classic, traditional sense.
- But it sort of continued.
- At least until about just until the bar mitzvah.
- After that, things started to really deteriorate
- in the ghetto.
- I mean, there were frequent selections.
- And I started to become more cognizant of what was going on.
- And when was that?
- When was the bar mitzvah?
- Well, that would have been in August of 1947--
- 1943.
- OK.
- I mean, my birthday's in August.
- And 13th birthday would have been August, 1943.
- And tell me more about the changes
- that you noticed then in the ghetto.
- Well, there was you know, here, I came--
- I was a kid who came from a family
- where I had custom-made clothes.
- And the clothing started to be ragged and dirty.
- And my parents looked and wore ragged and dirty clothes.
- I mean, that certainly was something that I noticed.
- There was less food.
- I mean, when there was food served,
- I remember that my plate was always fuller than everybody
- else's.
- There were just the bare, bare minimums of food
- that were available.
- And I mean, as a child, I just felt this constant fear of--
- Mark?
- Three marker.
- Set.
- Take me back to a couple of those times when
- you got hidden.
- Was it like a sudden frenzy and everyone scurried?
- Or did you know what was-- just describe it to me.
- Or described a couple of them.
- Well, I think that because we had this guy Notkin enough who
- knew sort of what was going on, it was not
- a sudden frenzy usually.
- It was-- we knew that we had to go down and hide.
- But from just watching everybody around me,
- I mean, I could see this incredible fear
- of everybody of being discovered in that hiding place.
- And I distinctly remember this woman with this baby.
- Because I mean, she almost smothered the child
- because if anybody would have heard that baby,
- that would have been the end of maybe 15 or 20 people
- that were hidden in that place.
- I remember being in there.
- I mean, I couldn't tell you how many hours,
- but it certainly felt like sometimes more than a day,
- I think.
- I mean, but ending up there in the morning,
- and then probably staying there a day or two.
- And I also remember that some food
- was kept in reserve down there just for that eventuality.
- So that when one had to go down, there
- was something to keep everybody nourished.
- I mean, it was like you were huddled.
- And you had to be quiet.
- And you there was no place to sit or to sleep.
- I mean, we slept on--
- it was just plain ground.
- Describe the place that you hid most often.
- Well, I remember the house being just
- like a little Russian peasant house, almost.
- And there was, from what I remember, like a big cabinet
- against a wall.
- And I think they had constructed the wall, widened the wall,
- taking space away from both sides.
- Inside the wall was a stairway that
- went into this basement or whatever that was,
- into this dugout.
- And everybody would go down there.
- And then this armoire would be put back again.
- And the man that stayed up there was this guy, Karl Notkin,
- who then placated the Nazis as best as he could from more
- and kept them from really searching the place too much.
- And how big was the actual dugout,
- and how many people would be in there?
- I would guess about 15 to 20 people how big
- maybe 10 or 10 by 15 feet.
- It was very, very small.
- I mean, you were just body to body in there.
- It was not that--
- it was almost no room to walk or anything.
- Could you stand up?
- Well, I could.
- I was very short.
- You know, I did all my growing after the war.
- And the Jewish police, what did you think of them?
- I don't know much about them.
- I mean, as kids, there were people
- that we are told to stay out of their way, you know.
- Jewish police, from what I remember.
- And you just didn't.
- But I didn't really have any contact or feeling about it.
- So I wouldn't know.
- And tell me a little more about incidents
- you remember that were fun, like pranks that you pulled
- or games that you played.
- Well, that must have been still in the early part, time
- of the ghetto, like probably '41, '42.
- Somehow, in the workshop, we located long, metal tubes.
- And we were able to get hold of peas, dried peas.
- And we would use as a pea shooter.
- And there was an old lady in the house.
- And we would shoot it against her window.
- I mean, I remember that distinctly.
- I mean, the stupid stuff like this, you remember.
- And then she would come out, and we would hide in some ditch
- nearby or run away.
- And I mean, this was--
- and I remember playing soccer with others.
- You know, as a child, you are a child.
- You know, and you behave like one,
- even when things are horrendous, I guess.
- Unless you are starving, as happened much later to me.
- And then the playing is gone and over with.
- And so now, let's go to when things got very bad at the end
- and what happened to you toward when the ghetto was--
- Well, I just remember that everybody
- was more and more despondent.
- And really, sort of was like a hopelessness
- in the whole family.
- Additionally, at that point, one of my aunts
- died of cancer in the ghetto.
- And whatever resources the family
- had, like there was still some jewelry that was not
- given to the Nazis was sold to try to save her with whatever.
- There were some decent doctors, but they obviously
- had not much medication.
- And she was a very beloved aunt of mine.
- And so that was part of the hopelessness,
- that she couldn't be helped at all.
- And it was just that everybody--
- I mean, by now, I realized that the chances of surviving
- were rather slim, I would think.
- I don't clearly remember every day
- of the last few months of the ghetto,
- except that you saw fewer people.
- I mean, when I first got into the ghetto,
- the streets were full.
- At the end, you hardly saw any people in there walking around.
- I wasn't allowed out virtually at all,
- except when I was at the workshop.
- So it was just not good.
- And then how did you leave the ghetto?
- Well, that I remember rather clearly.
- Because I remember the whole family being put
- into one of these cattle cars.
- And that was everybody.
- It was my one aunt at this point, and my uncle,
- and my father, my mother, and myself.
- And at this point, I mean, even my parents still
- tried to say you've got to hope for the best,
- and you'll survive, you'll be all right,
- and that kind of stuff.
- I mean, you could see amongst the people
- that you were there-- that you had nothing but talk
- of being sent to the concentration camps
- and of being exterminated.
- How did you get to the cattle cars?
- Do you remember that?
- I think we walked.
- And do you remember being ordered to go?
- Or you just remember that one day you ended up walking there?
- I remember just one day going there and walking there
- and being on the trains.
- The real things, when I really realized
- that things were horrendous was when we finally ended up
- in Stutthof after a few days.
- I don't know if it was a day or two or whatever.
- And at that point, my aunt and my mother were taken away.
- And I mean, this is where--
- I mean, I spent virtually all my time crying from that moment
- on.
- And the train then continued to Dachau,
- where I ended up with my father, and the uncle, and this Notkin.
- And within probably a week, there
- was a selection of about 120 kids or so at that point.
- And they were in Landsberg, my father and uncle.
- And we were sent to Dachau proper.
- And oddly enough, that was a very neat camp, somehow.
- We had beds and stuff like that.
- So it was-- but I mean, all I remember is crying.
- I mean, I was at that point 13 or 13 and 1/2 or so.
- Almost 14.
- And I think I was in Dachau maybe a week
- and then was put on another transport to Auschwitz.
- And I do remember going through the selection.
- Did not know what was right or left.
- And ended up in one of the camps in Auschwitz,
- where they put the number on me.
- And then I had some luck, because I was put
- to work on a farm in Birkenau.
- And I was given the responsibility
- to take care of a horse, of all things.
- So I ate the turnips that the horse was given.
- And that sort of kept me alive.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Ivar Segalowitz
- Interviewer
- Sandra Bradley
- Date
-
interview:
1997 May 27
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Ivar Segalowitz on May 27, 1997 in preparation for the exhibition "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto," which opened in November 1997. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a copy of the interview on July 11, 1998.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:41:40
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511021
Additional Resources
Transcripts (3)
Time Coded Notes (2)
Download & Licensing
- Request Copy
- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
In-Person Research
- Available for Research
- Plan a Research Visit
Contact Us
Also in Oral history interviews of the Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto collection
Contains oral history interviews with sixteen Holocaust survivors recorded in preparation for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition, "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto," which opened in Nov. 1997. Collection includes interviews with: Brigitte Altman, Miriam Gershwin, Eta Hecht, Henry Kellen, Tamar Lazerson, David Levine, Jacob Lewin, Esther Lurie, Ted Pais, Avraham Pnina, Abraham Rodstein, Ivar Segalowitz, Avraham Tory, Helen Yermus, Celia Yewlow, and Berel Zisman. The interviewees discuss their experiences of living in the ghetto in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, during the Holocaust
Date: 1997 May-1997 July
Oral history interview with David Levine
Oral History
Oral history interview with Celia Yewlow
Oral History
Oral history interview with Brigitte Altman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eta Hecht
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Kellen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Abraham Rodstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Miriam Gershwin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ted Pais
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jacob Lewin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Berel Zisman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helen Yermus
Oral History
Oral history interview with Avraham Tory
Oral History
Avraham Tory (né Golub), born in 1910 in the small town of Lazdijai, Lithuania, discusses hiding in Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) when the war broke out on June 22, 1941; keeping a diary for three years; life in the Kovno ghetto and life in hiding for four and a half months; leaving Kovno to go to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania); escaping in February 1945 and going to Lublin, Poland; his escape route through Bucharest, Romania as well as Czechoslovakia and Hungary; crossing the Austrian border and subsequently going to Italy, where he became active in the illegal immigration movement; arriving in Tel Aviv on October 17, 1947; his early years in Palestine; and the sequence of events that led to the publication of the “Surviving the Holocaust: the Kovno Ghetto diary” (see https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib2956).
Oral history interview with Pnina Tory
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Lurie
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tamar Lazerson
Oral History