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Oral history interview with Henny Gurko

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1269.7 | RG Number: RG-50.470.0007

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    Oral history interview with Henny Gurko
    Transcript
    Rolling.
    OK, Henny, I want you to tell me about when you left one work
    camp and ended up in Dachau.
    Start with what time of year it was and how old you were.
    And then just start telling me what your life was like.
    What work you did, where you lived.
    After the ghetto, Vilna ghetto, was liquidated,
    they brought us to Kaiserwald, to Latvia.
    And it was a terrible camp.
    And we were there two days.
    And then they brought us to one of the camps.
    Now, I don't remember.
    OK.
    That's all right.
    Let's stop for a minute.
    That's so--
    Number two.
    Now, wait just a sec.
    OK.
    Now, go ahead.
    And then they brought us to Dünawerke.
    Dünawerke or verke, whichever way you pronounce.
    And we were there close to a year.
    The work was very hard, unbelievably hard work.
    There were people outside.
    There were all nationalities.
    There were even the Russians there that worked in all parts
    of Dünawerke.
    They didn't give us enough of food.
    We were always hungry, always cold, and always overworked.
    So tell me when you ended up in Dachau.
    Was it in the fall of 1944?
    Yes, it was 1944.
    They brought us to Stutthof.
    And then another selection was done
    to all the inmates, where everybody else was going,
    and where everybody else was sent to different camps.
    We were brought to Poniewiez.
    And we were there two months.
    And then they brought us to Landsberg, Lager Eins,
    which was one of the complexes of Dachau.
    It was an unbelievably terrible, terrible camp.
    The time of the year was the end of fall.
    The camp was in the woods.
    It was freezing.
    I didn't even have a jacket.
    I was trembling with a cold, and I ran into the barracks,
    and they started to call me.
    And I was just trembling.
    I couldn't.
    They asked me to sing.
    And I heard sounds of music.
    So somebody handed me a jacket and ordered me to sing.
    I went over.
    I was told to go over to the orchestra.
    There were about six musicians sitting
    in the middle of the camp.
    Nazis were sitting around on benches.
    The inmates were standing behind the barbed wires
    and waiting for the concert.
    They played the William Tell Overture.
    And they asked me what I'll be able to sing.
    I thought, they're Germans, I didn't
    want to sing Yiddish songs.
    I sang-- I told him I'll sing Schubert's Serenade in German.
    And from then on, we were like a unit.
    We were singing and entertaining,
    going from one camp to the other.
    On Sunday, when everybody was resting,
    we had to walk miles and miles from one camp to the other
    to perform.
    And it was you and these same musicians who did this?
    OK.
    After the liberation, yes.
    So tell me a little bit about what you did during the week
    when you were singing with them at this particular camp.
    And put your book down.
    We worked in Moll.
    M-O-L-L. It was a terrible, terrible place.
    We called it Egypt, like we were the slaves in Egypt.
    The work was very, very physically hard.
    And the whole surroundings, I can't even describe it.
    It was so unbelievable.
    There was a gigantic man-made mountain so high.
    And some people had to climb this mountain.
    We didn't know what it was.
    After the war, we found out that it
    was some kind of an atomic research center
    that they tried to camouflage.
    And we did all the work there.
    [INAUDIBLE] We had to walk up and down the highest mountain,
    carry stones, and rocks, and cement.
    Very hard work for young girls.
    For everybody.
    How long did you--
    what were your days like?
    And did you have friends there?
    My sister was with me.
    And of course, we all became friends
    because people were brought from all parts of the country.
    There weren't people exactly from my hometown
    because we were always sent to different places.
    But we lived in those unbelievable bungalows,
    which were more deeper in the ground there,
    on the top was damp, cold.
    We never had enough food.
    And no matter how little I had, I always shared.
    And the girls used to tell me, you'll kill yourself.
    Because we used to get such a tiny piece of bread
    for the day.
    And when somebody walked by and looked at me, I gave a bite.
    I just couldn't take it.
    I had to give it away.
    I'm sorry.
    It's all right.
    So was it from that camp that you left to go on the train?
    Yes.
    On the dead?
    One night, we came late at night from work.
    That day, we came late.
    I don't know what happened that they brought us late.
    And we saw the whole camp was in an uproar.
    The whole Landsberg camp was in.
    Like nobody was sleeping, usually they sleep at night.
    And we were told that the camp is being liquidated.
    And-- sorry.
    Please cut it up.
    Do you want to stop?
    Part.
    Do you want to stop for a minute?
    I don't know why I'm crying all of a sudden.
    So we had to take whatever belongings we had
    and start walking on the highway.
    We walked endlessly the whole night.
    And then we saw--
    it was when the sun started to come out.
    We saw a German pass us by.
    And he said, [GERMAN].
    You know what it means?
    Hold your head up high, freedom is coming.
    This was a civilian German.
    And then we walked, we kept on walking.
    And a German was standing behind the fence.
    And he screamed at the Nazis, [GERMAN]..
    We looked like little children, we were so starved, and hungry,
    and you know, underfed, and were so skinny that we
    looked like children.
    And he said, you're disgusting, let them go.
    What do you want?
    You're animals, let these children go.
    And then they brought us.
    Do you want details about this march?
    We were walking endlessly and we heard shots.
    And we understood we're on a death march.
    Whoever couldn't go on--
    whoever couldn't was being shot.
    And while I was walking and it was still nighttime,
    I fell asleep while walking, and I was exhausted,
    and I was very tired, and I walked off the road.
    And somebody grabbed me fast.
    One of my people-- you know, we were walking in fives.
    And she dragged me in or they would
    have they would have thought that I'm trying to run away.
    Because I went off the road.
    And I woke up.
    And then they told us to lie down, to rest.
    The minute they told us to rest, right away, we had to get up.
    It was so cruel.
    Like they didn't give us a chance at all
    for the body to rest.
    Then all of a sudden, we saw from far away barbed wires
    again.
    A camp.
    It was already-- the sun came out already.
    And we could see clearly that it was a camp.
    And we walked in there.
    It was a Ukrainian camp.
    And we, the girls, were very scared of them
    because they are a very rough people.
    And we were trying to keep away from them as much as we could.
    OK.
    OK, Henny.
    Now, we're going to go back to when the girl pulled you back
    into the line.
    And tell me what happened from there.
    So we went into this Ukrainian camp
    and then we heard the next morning
    that the Americans are coming.
    And then all of a sudden, we start hearing shots.
    We never knew if the shots is killing inmates or the American
    Army.
    But we heard shots.
    And the leaders of the camp started
    to run because they knew if the Americans are coming,
    they will be punished.
    But they were busy with their stuff because the next morning,
    we saw that the leader of the camp
    was hanging on a high pole, his body swaying in the wind.
    They hung him because he was pro-Nazi.
    He was very cruel to the people in the camp.
    And from all this walking, I was so weak
    that I was laying on this kind of a cot.
    And all of a sudden, I heard--
    and I was like passed out from being very tired.
    And then I heard unbelievable screams.
    And somebody said, American is coming.
    An American tank came into the camp.
    He walked in to our bungalow and came over to me
    while I was lying on this cot.
    And I said to him, why did you let us wait so long?
    And I passed out.
    And of course, they left.
    And then we took off from there.
    We started-- we wanted to start a life after that, if possible.
    If it was possible at all to live after that.
    But life is stronger than everything.
    We had to go on.
    And little by little, we got on our feet.
    I was called by the orchestra of the six--
    of the few musicians, that they found more musicians
    that survived.
    They formed an orchestra.
    And we were appearing before the audiences, in front
    of the survivors, for years.
    Let's go back a little bit to when you were in the camp
    and the Americans came.
    Do you not remember much of that because you
    were in such bad shape?
    Completely weak.
    That's what I just said, that the American came.
    He gave everybody a piece of chocolate and he left.
    And the whole tank left because they were meeting somewhere.
    But that meant that this area was taken over
    by the Americans.
    Can you put your purse just down there?
    So the tank came and left.
    And nobody came in to help all of you get organized?
    And so all of you were left there with no help.
    Is that right?
    Tell.
    We tried to organize as much as we could.
    But we were so wiped out, we were so
    exhausted physically and mentally,
    you know, from everything that we went through,
    that it took a while till we got on our feet.
    Did you get taken to a hospital or anything?
    Were brought to St. Ottilien.
    This was a church.
    That is where a lot of people were brought
    to be restored to health.
    They brought us there.
    The orchestra came there, the few people.
    And when we came in that day, the last Germans
    were leaving the camp.
    This hospital.
    After that, they brought us to Fürstenfeldbruck,
    which is about 20 miles from St. Ottilien.
    And after that, all the DP camps started
    to form in Bavaria, in Germany.
    So how long were you in St. Ottilien?
    And about what-- do you know what months you were there?
    No.
    I don't remember the months, but we must have been there
    about two years.
    And we were going from camp to camp,
    from one DP camp to another.
    Every function.
    The first Zionist Congress, everything.
    Ben Gurion came to Germany.
    We appeared on every major political and not political
    happening.
    As a matter of fact, in 1948, Leonard Bernstein
    came to Germany and heard about the orchestra.
    By then, we were already a bigger orchestra
    because they found more musicians.
    More of them survived.
    And it wasn't that big one.
    It was only 18 people.
    And Leonard Bernstein conducted the orchestra.
    Accompanied me on the piano.
    This was something to remember.
    When you were back at St. Ottilien,
    was that sort of like a home base where you came?
    And then you and the orchestra went out to the DP camp?
    Yes.
    And did you know Rabbi Klausner?
    Did you run across him when he was there?
    He was an American.
    He was in St. Ottilien?
    He must have been the rabbi there, then.
    I think so.
    Tell me about the sort of day-to-day life
    that you had with the orchestra.
    Were you happy or was it just a way
    to pass the time while you waited to get out?
    After everything that we went through,
    we couldn't have been happy.
    But we did the best of it.
    We cannot change things.
    Things that happened happened.
    We had to go on with life and we made the best of it.
    Did you live in any of the DP camps,
    even just for a short time?
    Can you tell me what the conditions were like?
    It was not a comfortable life in the DP camps.
    But at least they were free and they
    could do what they want to do.
    Because they had their rules and regulations,
    but they are allowed to do.
    Because it's a camp.
    But they had enough food.
    And they did some work.
    Everybody was assigned to a different kind of work.
    And everybody was waiting to get papers to immigrate.
    What about looking for your family other than your sister?
    My brother was killed in Kloga, which is Estonia.
    The most horrible camp ever.
    My brother, whose name, whose Hebrew name was Shimshon Zeev,
    and was Vladimir known to the world.
    Vladimir Durmashkin was a great conductor.
    He was the conductor of the philharmonic orchestra in Vilna
    at 25 years of age.
    He was a child prodigy.
    He was on stage since he was six years old.
    And he was brilliant.
    He finished at Conservatory of Music in Vilna.
    Then he went to the Warsaw Conservatory.
    And he started to conduct.
    At first, he was a fantastic pianist.
    But he turned to conducting because some of his fingers
    became like a little numb.
    So he turned to conducting.
    And he was right away assigned to be the conductor
    of the philharmonic.
    It was on a very, very high level, the Vilna Philharmonic.
    And when the ghetto was liquidated, they were brought--
    the men were brought to Kloga.
    K-L-O-G-A. And it was a terrible camp.
    Some people survived.
    It just so happened that before the Russians were coming
    from the East and the Americans were pushing
    from the West, an hour before liberation,
    they burned them to death.
    They burned them.
    I think we're about to run out of film.
    So we'll just wait.
    Did you experience a feeling related
    to being free finally after all that time of being a prisoner?
    Or could you not sort that out from your losses?
    I feel that with everything we went through, you know,
    it was very hard to be happy because we
    didn't have our families.
    And we went through so much that we couldn't even feel it 100%.
    Me especially.
    I don't know about the others.
    There was no outrageous happiness.
    But of course, when we saw the first American,
    we knew that we are free.
    And the feeling, it takes a while to appreciate.
    The shock in itself of being from this camp on to freedom,
    it takes a while to realize that you're free.
    That we had to wake up in the morning every day and think
    are we free?
    Or are we still in camp?
    You know, it takes a while to adjust.
    What about in those months after liberation?
    Did you witness other people finding their families?
    Did you witness any things that stand out
    in your mind of people finding parents,
    or children, or brothers, or sisters
    who they hadn't expected to find,
    and they had looked and looked?
    Everybody was trying to find out whether somebody
    survived because we were so--
    you know, we were like away from our hometown.
    And people were from all over the country.
    There were very few, hardly any from the same part,
    from the same country or city.
    So it took an awful long time to find out whether somebody
    survived or not.
    How did people do it?
    We didn't have-- they tried.
    There was like a DP camp newspaper that
    came out like once a month.
    And they couldn't advertise it, you know.
    But some did.
    But it didn't go all over.
    It was just a local paper.
    It wasn't a huge paper.
    It was a little tiny paper.
    But little by little, we used to hear that guess
    what, this and that happened.
    Somebody came from the same hometown.
    And they tried to inquire whether somebody survived.
    Most of the time, they didn't.
    But I think once or twice, I did hear
    that they met somebody from the family, members of the family.
    Ben Gurion's visit, you remember that.
    Yes.
    Where were you when you--
    were you at the same place that was?
    And which camp was it?
    It was not a camp.
    They had it somewhere outside of a camp.
    And we had to travel by bus, naturally.
    We were constantly traveling by bus to get there.
    Ben Gurion was a very powerful speaker.
    And after his speech, we performed.
    I sang Hebrew songs.
    The orchestra played a medley of Hebrew songs
    beside all the classical pieces that they usually played.
    And I remember once--
    please cut it out.
    I remembered from my childhood something that I wanted to add.
    OK.
    Just saying, we're getting a little bit
    of the paper, the tissue.
    Oh, yeah.
    I am nervous.
    It's OK.
    Can you tell me about playing at the Nuremberg trials,
    or singing there?
    While the Nazis were on trial, we
    were asked to come and perform in Nuremberg.
    As a matter of fact, I have the program here
    if you're interested to see.
    There was the media from all over the world.
    We're sang in striped--
    we appeared in striped jackets, like the ones
    we wore in the camps.
    And after they were trying the Nazis, the concert took place.
    I hear the plane.
    Why don't we wait for this one?
    Let's cut.
    Five.
    Tell me again how you sang and played at the Nuremberg trials.
    When they were, of course, they were trying the Nazis,
    and after this trial was over, they
    asked us to perform in the big hall.
    There was the media from all over the world.
    The orchestra played.
    We all appeared in striped jackets with our numbers
    on the left side of the chest.
    And I sang ghetto songs.
    I was very fortunate that I remembered all these words
    from the ghetto, where in my ghetto,
    these songs were written, and they became popular
    throughout the camps.
    And this is when I started to sing the songs in Yiddish.
    I don't know how many people understood
    in this huge hall in the opera house in Nuremberg.
    And the concert was a great success.
    What was the reaction of the people on trial?
    Or was there any?
    Could you see any reaction?
    Do you remember anything in particular?
    Just that he tried to, you know, like--
    I don't remember exactly who was tried at the time
    that we were there.
    One of the ex-Nazis.
    And the trial was going on like in any other court,
    but in a huge, huge way because it was such a tremendous place.
    And he tried to defend himself.
    He couldn't.
    Tell me again about the Germans who
    spoke to you on the death march and told you
    that liberation was near.
    These were people from the villages that we were passing.
    And I'm sure that they were anti-Nazi,
    otherwise they wouldn't have told us.
    And by saying what they did, gave us a lot of courage.
    Because we were like in the unknown,
    we didn't know what is going on.
    And that gave us, you know, hope that maybe we will survive.
    We appreciated it very much.
    OK.
    We're just about to run out.
    I think we only have one minute left.
    And I want you to sing some of your songs.
    In one minute?
    No, not in one minute.
    Why don't we just--
    why don't we all be very quiet and record
    room tone of the jet.
    Which song?
    OK.
    You must be almost out right there.
    I can't even sing.
    Yes, you can really sing.
    I can do the sing?
    Yes, you can do it.
    Roll four, slate six.
    [YIDDISH SINGING]
    I done.
    And tell me how you came to be called.
    Resele, because they love this song so much.
    And when I'm on the stage, I act like a little kid.
    And they loved it, because there were no children left.
    We didn't have any children.
    They were all killed.
    And this brought them back the memories of childhood.
    Please, I'm terrible.
    I can't handle this.
    OK.
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    OK.
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    Now talk to me for a minute.
    Tell me.
    You talked to Diana about a little skit
    that you did in the DP camps that made fun of Hitler.
    Is that right?
    Did you do a satire?
    I don't think it was me.
    No?
    Yeah?
    Which camp?
    You may have forgotten, but you told me about how
    you made fun of Hitler--
    Did you make fun of Hitler--
    --on the stage.
    --on the stage?
    No?
    I don't recall.
    OK.
    OK, let's sing another song.
    [NON-ENGLISH],, "Eins, Zwei, Drei," Diana.
    Can you stand?
    Can you bear to sing "Eins, Zwei, Drei"?
    Shall I stand and do it?
    No.
    I say, can you--
    Oh.
    --too much for you to sing [INAUDIBLE]..
    Yeah, it is.
    Wait.
    No, don't stand.
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    I mixed up the whole thing.
    I'm too nervous.
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    No.
    Oh, I sang this part.
    What am I doing?
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    [CLEARS THROAT] Excuse me.
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    Eight [INAUDIBLE].
    [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
    Tell me about that song.
    What does that song say?
    It's "The Ghetto Song."
    We're standing near the walls.
    And our hearts are clamped up with heads
    that are bowed down like a weeping willow,
    like the branches of a weeping willow.
    And eyes that stare far look all the way outside
    of the ghetto with so much pain.
    It's like foreverness.
    Ghetto, I'll never forget you.
    [NON-ENGLISH] is lamentations.
    It's the only song that we can sing in the ghetto.
    [NON-ENGLISH] is lamentations.
    I see your little streets in pain and in hunger.
    And I hear your cries.
    What will be?
    What will the end be?
    I have no room in this narrow, little street.
    Ghetto, I will never forget you.
    It's like a vow.
    I'll never forget you.
    Tell me about the other songs.
    Yisrolik?
    This little kid was left alone.
    His parents were killed, his sisters and brothers.
    And he has to make a living.
    So he's selling saccharine and cigarettes in the street.
    He has nothing to wear, a mantle and--
    everything that he wears is like--
    whatever the jacket he has is torn up.
    The pants are made out of rough material.
    He has no shoes, but only galoshes.
    Whoever is trying to laugh, I'll show it to them.
    In other words, don't you dare laugh at me.
    Tell me again about Rosaline, "Little Rosie."
    "Little Rosie"?
    It's a little kiddie song that was sang in my ghetto.
    And I brought it to the world.
    And I'm so glad that I did, because it's such a cute song.
    It sings about little Rosie.
    She's a little girl.
    She got a little-- how do you say?
    Oh, god-- a little lamb with long ears, a toy with long ears
    and short legs.
    And she's trying to imitate this little lamb.
    And together, they make a whole play of it.
    Why was that an especially important song?
    Because there were no little kids.
    And it brought to us back childhood.
    All the kids, all the little ones, were killed in our town.
    This is why it was so important, this kiddie song,
    to memorize the little girls.
    And the other song, tell me.
    Pardon?
    Tell me about the other song.
    "One, Two, Three."
    I have to look.
    OK.
    It's beside one and four.
    "One, Two, Three."
    Where is this?
    I can't see without my glasses.
    Life called us, a life of sunny days.
    And yet everybody in the land was
    walking with a lot of courage.
    One, two, three, one, two, three,
    we were walking with happiness and courage to work.
    Every step had a sound.
    And every sound-- and also a song, wherever you went.
    And you knew where you're walking and why.
    And now, all of a sudden, they forbade
    us to walk on the sidewalk.
    We have to walk in the middle of the street.
    Only everybody else is allowed to walk, but us.
    We walk on the stones where not-- were paved in rocks.
    And it was very hard to walk on the streets, in the European,
    not like here, the cement street.
    And we were hit while we were going.
    One, two, three, one, two, three,
    they only left us the street, the road.
    Every step has his sound and different kind
    of sound, a different kind of song, when you go
    and you're forced.
    Why?
    Where and why?
    For a hundred generations, will lived with hope
    till a sword with these kind of people
    came and washed everything down of the Earth
    and led us like the sheep, like sheep.
    One, two, three, one, two, three, they led us like sheep.
    Where's your wife?
    Where's your child?
    Where's your whole family?
    They were leading us where?
    Why?
    Can you tell me that one now without looking at the words,
    just sort of summarizing in your own words, without reading it
    and exactly translating it?
    You'll leave some out.
    Just sort of tell me it.
    Still "One, Two Three"?
    Life called us.
    And we were all walking, happy and sure, to work with a good--
    with a sure step, with a lot of rhythm and sound,
    because we knew where we're going.
    But now, they forbade us to walk on the sidewalk.
    We have to walk in the street.
    And the sound, every sound is completely different now,
    because you are forced in your beat while you're walking.
    For a hundred generations, we built our lives
    till a sword of this kind came and washed everything away.
    Where's your wife?
    Where's your child?
    Where is your family?
    They led us where?
    Why?
    Yeah.
    We're almost out of film.
    I think we're--
    It's not done.
    There's more to it.
    [INAUDIBLE]

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Henia (Henny) Gurko (née Durmashkin), born in 1926 in Vilnius, Lithuania, discusses being deported from the Vilnius ghetto to Kaiserwald concentration camp for two days and then to Dünawerke for nearly a year; being sent to Stutthof, Ponewesch, and Landsberg; being forced to sing at Landsberg with six other musicians in front of the SS and others; singing the Schubert Serenade in German; walking with the orchestra for miles on Sundays to other camps and giving concerts; performing forced labor in Moll, where she was made to walk up and down a man-made mountain carrying rocks and stones; being with her sister during this time; being sent on a forced march; hearing encouragement from anti-Nazi people on some of the farms they passed; arriving at a Ukrainian camp, where the men were very rough; being liberated by the Americans; the hanging of the camp’s leader; the orchestra continuing on for years after the war; being taken to St. Ottilien, a church in Eresing, Germany; going to Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany and staying there for two years; participating in the orchestra; hearing David Ben Gurion speak; Leonard Bernstein conducting the orchestra in 1948; conditions in the displaced persons (DP) camp; learning that her brother Shimshonzaev (Vladimir Durmashkin) had been killed in a camp; finding it difficult to be happy after so many losses; the orchestra performing during the Nuremberg trials in striped jackets; and singing songs from the ghettos about children, because so many of the children were killed.
    Interviewee
    Henny Gurko
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1995 February 13

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (D2) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Henny Gurko on February 13, 1995 in preparation for the exhibition "Liberation 1945," which opened in June 1995. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a copy of the interview on August 25, 1995.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:41:32
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    Also in Liberation 1945 oral history collection

    Contains oral history interviews with 25 Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators recorded in preparation for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition, "Liberation 1945," which opened in June 1995. The collection includes interviews with: Boleslaw Brodecki, Sonia Brodecki, Jim Cacioppo, Helen Fagin, Suzanne Foldes, Nesse Godin, Henny Gurko, Irving Heymont, John Holmes, Joseph Kahoe, Henry Kanner, Abraham Klausner, John Komski, Pat Lynch, William McWorkman, James Moncrief, Judah Nadich, George Salton, Richard Seibel, Milton Shurr, Alfred Sundquist, Fella Warshau, Nick White, and Alan Zimm

    Date: 1995

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral History

    Boleslaw "Bud" Brodecki describes being an inmate in Theresienstadt at the time of liberation; being wakened in the middle of the night to people screaming; how people did not know the war had ended; hollering to the prisoners that they were free; how the prisoners were numb and did not react; how the people still did not have food and many continued to die from dysentery and other illnesses; being taken care of by the Red Cross; being liberated by the Russians; being treated for louses; getting soup and clothing; registering to go to Russia because he did not want to return to Poland; going to a displaced persons camp in Landsberg, Germany; becoming a police officer in the camp; meeting his future wife in the camp; courting his wife while they were in the displaced persons camp; getting married in the camp and how 300 people attended, bringing food and instruments; how they got legally married in Landswood, Germany before the religious ceremony; having a son two years later; immigrating to the United States and having to get married a third time because of a legal technicality; additional details about the wedding in Landsberg; welcoming David Ben-Gurion to the camp; and trying to go to Palestine illegally.

    Oral history interview with Sonia Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Sonia Brodecki

    Oral History

    Sonia Brodecki describes how she was in three concentration camps during the Holocaust, including camps in Kindabricka, Kletendorf, and Ludwigsdorf; how in Ludwigsdorf she made ammunition and her whole body was blue-green from the powder; how she was warned on May 7, 1945 that they were going to blow up the camp, but the Russians liberated them the next day; how she had kept up her hope in the camps by envisioning her return home; how she and three friends went to Waldenburg, Germany; going home and learning her immediate family was dead; details on how she felt when she first arrived in her home city; going to the displaced persons (DP) camp in Landsberg, Germany; knitting items in the DP camp to be sent to Israel; meeting her future husband in the DP camp and their courtship; how he wrote her poems; how they married after knowing each other three months; her wedding in the camp on December 21, 1945 and how people brought baked goods and played music; their initial legal marriage in Landshut, Germany; and how the wedding was like starting over again.

    Oral history interview with Jim Cacioppo

    Oral history interview with Jim Cacioppo

    Oral History

    Jim Cacioppo describes being in Linz, Austria when there was a false report of the war’s end and how there was a celebration; driving Major Tuthill to Mauthausen; arriving at the Mauthausen concentration camp; the physical condition of the prisoners; how many of the prisoners died from eating food that was too rich; seeing bodies in the quarry; how the surviving inmates were happy to see them; being shown around the gas chambers and crematoriums by the survivors; seeing piles of weapons; guarding three of the survivors who had killed a German guard; how the engineers dug graves and civilians brought wagon loads of bodies to bury; seeing the German guards imprisoned and how he wanted nothing to do with him; and the number of surviving prisoners in the camp.

    Oral history interview with Helen Fagin

    Oral history interview with Helen Fagin

    Oral History

    Helen Fagin discusses being in her house in Radomsko, Poland when it was bombed on September 1, 1939; living in the Radomsko ghetto until the liquidation in 1942; her parents had already been sent to Treblinka; being with her two sisters until she escaped during a march to the railroad station; staying in the Warsaw ghetto and getting out with Aryan papers; being caught and released back into the ghetto; wandering in western Poland for a period of time; the arrival of the Russians; moving further east; being liberated on February 14, 1945; reuniting with her sisters after a long search and returning to their home town; feeling like they could no longer stay in Poland; not getting their possessions back from friends they had left them with; a group of young Israeli boys who had organized to help survivors and take them to Palestine; travelling through the Carpathian mountains to Czechoslovakia, then to a camp complex in Bratislava (Slovakia), and then to Austria; going to the American zone from the Russian zone; pretending to be Jewish refugees from Greece to pass over to the American zone; taking a boat on the Danube to American sector; living in the Wels displaced persons (DP) camp for a few months; going to Linz, Austria, where the DP camp was full; going to Bad Gastein, Austria administered by UNRRA in the fall of 1945; meeting a kind US soldier in Bad Gastein, Lt Kyle from Dayton Ohio, who brought her a blanket; working in the office because she spoke fluent German; being declared stateless; experiencing a period of feeling empty and depressed; learning English and becoming politicized after she heard the British would not let them into Palestine; her sister’s work at the Bad Gastein hospital; and getting a ticket to travel from Bremerhaven to New York.

    Oral history interview with Suzanne Foldes

    Oral history interview with Suzanne Foldes

    Oral History

    Suzanne Foldes (née Zsuzsi Morvai), born in 1921 in Miskolc, Hungary, discusses being separated from her mother when they arrived at Auschwitz in 1944; her mother’s death in the gas chambers; doing forced labor at the end of the war at a Buchenwald kommando run by I.G. Farben; hiding in the woods with eight others when the guards began fleeing the camp; going into the nearby village (Mishgots?) and hiding in a barn; being fed and hidden by the owner of the barn; the arrival of American troops; the mayor of the town giving them places to sleep; her memories of hearing that FDR had died; being moved into a hotel; GIs visiting them in the evenings; one Jewish GI who brought candles and Challah on a Friday night; some of the group returning to Budapest, Hungary; travelling to an area of south Hungary; going to Prague, Czech Republic and getting back her citizenship; returning to Budapest; finding her aunt and reuniting with her father; traveling on a train when Russian soldiers sexually assaulted some younger women; and getting some of their belongings back from a man who had been in the military security forces and had been kind to her family.

    Oral history interview with Nesse Godin

    Oral history interview with Nesse Godin

    Oral History

    Nesse Godin (née Galperin) discusses living from age 13 to 17 in various ghettos and concentration camps; being on a death march with about 600 women when the group was pushed into a barn, where they stayed for three weeks; being liberated by Russians on March 10, 1945; her physical condition upon liberation; being sent to a hospital in Chinow (Chynowie), Poland for six weeks; suffering from typhoid, dysentery, and frostbite; going with another Lithuanian woman to Łódź, Poland in May 1945; receiving help from various organizations; meeting a woman from her town who said she had been with Nesse’s mother in a camp near the Polish/German border; going to look for her mother; reuniting with her mother in Łódź; reuniting with her brother Yaheskiel Galperin in Feldafing displaced persons camp; meeting her husband Jack in the DP camp; spending five years in Feldafing, during which time she had two children; conditions in the DP camp; her memories of the formation of Zionist organizations in the DP camp; David Ben Gurion’s visit to the DP camp; the response after the creation of Israel; immigrating to the US; and settling in Washington, DC, where her mother’s sister had a small grocery store.

    Oral history interview with Irving Heymont

    Oral history interview with Irving Heymont

    Oral History

    Irving Heymont describes coming upon a sub-camp of Mauthausen, Gunskierken, in Austria with the United States Army 5th Infantry Regiment, K Company; visiting the camp and the conditions of the surviving inmates; not knowing about the concentration camps before seeing one; testifying to a board proceeding in Paris, France in September 1945; going to Landsberg, Germany where his unit was stationed; going to a German displaced persons camp, which was created for the survivors of Dachau’s sub-camps; the poor conditions in the camp; receiving orders from General Anslau Ralph to clean up the camp; his efforts to improve it; making the camp an all-Jewish DP camp; tensions between Jews and non-Jews; the survivors creating a camp committee, which established a hospital and schools; the nationalities of the camp’s Jews; the role of Dr. Jake Wallaisky who was part of the committee and worked for the Jewish Organization for Rehabilitation; the black market in and around the camp; preparing the camp for the winter; the crowding of the camp and the resistance of the residents to spread to another camp; his relations with the camp residents and the local Germans; holding elections in the camp; sanitation in the camp; the treatment of children in the camp; visitors to the camp, including Rabbi Abraham Klausner; the trouble caused by the camp’s truck drivers; and helping a man find his son.

    Oral history interview with John Holmes

    Oral history interview with John Holmes

    Oral History

    John Holmes, of Chicago, IL, describes coming upon a labor camp with his unit after fighting in the Hartz mountain sector; conditions of the surviving inmates; the German’s abandonment of the camp; his role as a tank commander; exchanging fire with German soldiers while saving the 14th Reconnaissance Platoon; hearing that German troops were scared of black American soldiers; delivering a letter for a woman he met in the camp to her sister in Illinois; being ordered not to feed the inmates; the impact of the experience on his life; and his combat experience.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Kahoe

    Oral history interview with Joseph Kahoe

    Oral History

    Joseph Kahoe describes being with the United States 761st Tank Battalion in Austria when he and his unit saw individuals coming out of a prison camp; being the liaison officer between his company and the regimental headquarters; the conditions of the inmates and being warned not to feed them by his superiors; only seeing male inmates; and being the commandant of the Polish displaced persons camp near Nuremberg, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Henry Kanner

    Oral history interview with Henry Kanner

    Oral History

    Henry Kanner discusses being in Auschwitz working in the laundry when he was 15 or 16 years old; the death of his family members in the Belzec gas chambers; being taken in January 1945 on a death march; conditions during the march, including the extreme cold and the deaths of many of the prisoners; killing a pig on the second day and eating it raw with other prisoners; being put in an open-air train car; arriving at Mauthausen; encountering a prisoner who had once worked for Henry’s father; the man saving Henry’s life by changing his information in the registry and telling him to pose as a Polish Catholic; noticing the SS officers either disappearing or changing into regular Wehrmacht uniforms in May 1945; three American soldiers who were shot down, beaten, and thrown into the gas chambers; the day of liberation; the capture of many of the German guards; leaving the camp on foot with another boy; walking to Linz, Austria; going to Passau, Germany, where they were captured by German farmers and escaping before being shot by the farmers; staying in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Passau (possibly Pocking DP camp); going to a DP camp in Nurnberg, Germany; working in the office with a US Army captain, who was a representative of UNRRA; conditions in the DP camp; details on the emigration of people from the camp; immigrating to the US, where he had relative; getting married and having three sons; and feeling lucky as well as guilty to have survived.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Klausner

    Oral history interview with Abraham Klausner

    Oral History

    Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner discusses being attached to the 116 Evacuation Hospital during WWII; entering Dachau concentration camp in May 1945; arriving at night, and seeing the devastation in the morning; the efforts they all made to bring the survivors back to life; helping to organize lists to name survivors as well as their places and dates of birth; how people were helped to get to Italy where they could get on ships to Palestine; finding Hungarian women survivors in a displaced persons (DP) camp in the Alps; learning how former inmates hid prayer books while living in the camps; finding a Polish Hebrew library in Munich, Germany that had been confiscated by the Nazis and taking a few books at a time and distributing them to people; finding the Klausenburg rebbe in Dachau, nursing him back to health, and bringing him to Feldafing DP camp; seeing Jewish and non-Jewish survivors in the DP camps; the administration of the camps; the DP camps Feldafing and Landsberg am Lech; the issues with the mixed nationalities in the camps; segregation in the camps; the lack of freedom in the camps; the compulsion people felt to find their family members; a center that was set up in Munich where people could search for family on lists; the efforts to reconnect children with their parents; finding a printer in Landsberg and getting books published and distributed; helping to establish a newspaper in Feldafing along with journalist Shalatin Levy from Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania); meeting with David Ben Gurion in Munich, and taking him to St. Ottilien hospital, Landsberg, and Feldafing; and working near Dachau for several years with the US Army.

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    John Komski discusses being taken to Dachau concentration camp from camp Hersbruck and staying there for 20 days; being made to shower, but not being given anything to wear except a blanket; being in an area separated from the rest of the camp; finding on April 29, 1945 that the camp gates were open to the rest of the camp; finding clothes and standing for 2-3 hours for roll call, but no SS came; how the fighting began in the afternoon and then there was silence; some prisoners running to the gates, and some getting guns; a US soldier who came into the area and commanded that the guards surrender or be shot; how thousands of prisoners gathered and many had flags of different countries; seeing a glorious sunset with dark clouds in the east; some people lighting fires and cooking food; many of the former inmates dying from eating too much; being moved to a displaced persons (DP) camp; not being allowed to leave the DP camp; being very sick and moved to an American hospital; going to a DP camp outside of Munich in June 1945; UNRRA officials forcing people to be repatriated to their native countries; going to Garmisch, Germany; meeting an artist who was a former prisoner of Auschwitz, and receiving help from him; meeting his future wife; drawing and painting scenes from the concentration camps; and immigrating to the US.

    Oral history interview with Pat Lynch

    Oral history interview with Pat Lynch

    Oral History

    Pat Lynch discusses being an American nurse attached to the 123rd Field Evacuation Unit during WWII; being near a subcamp of Dachau; how the nurses did not go into Buchenwald because the conditions there were too terrible; going into the camp and being shocked by how horribly sick the survivors were, with typhus and TB; Germans from the area who were conscripted to work in the kitchens and laundries of the various DP camps; the young Hitler youth who marched in cemeteries; moving from tents to real buildings in the summer of 1945; praying often to St. Jude about the conditions; seeing a big difference in some of the survivors between March and August as they regained some strength and bodyweight; seeing a lot of Russian children in the summer; treating some pregnant women; being told that the women officers in the camps were often more cruel than the men; and her long working days during that time, which prevented her from speaking more with the patients.

    Oral history interview with William McWorkman

    Oral history interview with William McWorkman

    Oral History

    William McWorkman discusses being with the 12th Armored Division during WWII; going through Weilheim, Oberau, Innsbruck and south to Bringer Pass; entering into Landsberg concentration camp; seeing hundreds of dead prisoners; interacting with the former prisoners; the arrival of the 493rd Field Artillery Battalion; being told not to get too close to the prisoners because of typhus; giving the former prisoners clothing and food, but not too much food; the battalion surgeon who said not to overfeed them or they would die; the attempt to triage the survivors; General Allen, commander of the 12th division, entering the camp and later ordering all males in nearby village to walk through the camp; and his regret that they did not spend more time comforting the living.

    Oral history interview with James Moncrief

    Oral history interview with James Moncrief

    Oral History

    James Moncrief discusses being a Lt. Colonel during WWII; working as a staff officer in general headquarters when the 11th Army overran Buchenwald; leaving supplies and a medical company at the camp; being sent to the camp by Captain Bennett; conditions in the camp; the crematoria; and the US soldiers’ awareness of the camps.

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral History

    Rabbi Judah Nadich discusses being a chaplain in the US Army during WWII; being stationed in Paris, France, where among other activities, he helped 600 Jewish survivors go from Germany to illegal ships in Marseilles to get to Palestine; being asked to be the liaison officer to General Eisenhower to coordinate efforts to help the Jewish survivors in August 1945; being stationed in Frankfurt; the Jewish survivors in the American zone and the displaced persons camps (DP camps); differences between the DP camps; the unforeseen problems in the DP camps; inspecting the DP camps in August-September 1945; food and medicine in the DP camps; the running of the camps by UNRRA ,the Joint, and the military; immigration of the refugees; and visiting camps with David Ben Gurion.

    Oral history interview with George Salton

    Oral history interview with George Salton

    Oral History

    George Salton discusses being a prisoner of the Nazis; being liberated from camp Wöbbelin in the spring of 1945 and his memories of that day; the prisoners’ fears that the Germans would return; a soldier who shared his rations with George; his attempts to contact his relatives, including his brother; going to the British zone in Lübeck; staying in the Neustadt displaced persons camp (DP camp); the different refugees in the camp; being sponsored by his relatives for immigration to the United States; living in Deggendorf, Germany until his paper to the US came through in 1947; and seeing German teenagers in Deggendorf before he emigrated and his feelings envy, pain, and loneliness, knowing he would never have normal teenage years.

    Oral history interview with Richard Seibel

    Oral history interview with Richard Seibel

    Oral History

    Colonel Richard R. Seibel, US Army veteran and participant in WWII, discusses being on a patrol when he came across the concentration camp Mauthausen; his lack of knowledge about concentration camps before seeing Mauthausen; reporting back to General Daiger who asked him to take supreme command of camp; the two Americans in the camp, one of whom was Lt Jack Taylor of the OSS; his memories of the camp; seeing corpses piled up; the unrest in the camp and division between the inmates; a former prisoner, Premislav Dobius, who was the interpreter for army; how the Jewish survivors wanted to be separated by their religion, not by nationality as the others were; members of a Swiss Zionist organization who arrived demanding the Jewish survivors be given their own space; the prevalence of typhus and TB; the deaths of hundreds of people after liberation; 400 Wehrmacht soldiers who were brought in to repair the sewage and water system; the conditions of women prisoners; the camp’s former SS commander Franz Ziereis who was absent from the camp before liberation; and the capture of Ziereis.

    Oral history interview with Milton Shurr

    Oral history interview with Milton Shurr

    Oral History

    Milton Shurr, US Army veteran and participant in WWII, discusses being part of a displaced persons team (DP2 unit) attached to the 1st Army beginning in the fall of 1944; being in Verviers, Belgium; his previous work as the head of a Jewish community counsel in Oklahoma City; the approximately 500 displaced persons; contracting hepatitis; rejoining the regiment in April 1945 in Wetzlar, Germany; going to Buchenwald; seeing barracks with two-story bunks and 6 people in each slot, buildings full of clothes and shoes, and piles of bodies; disinfecting survivors with DDT; the high rate of death for survivors; one of his colleagues who spoke German and acted as an interpreter, and how this affected the officer’s mental health; his work with administrative tasks; Allied prisoners being sent home; the desire for many survivors from eastern countries to not return home; the work of the Red Cross to reunite families; being told by the Joint to take care of about 2000 children; being in Buchenwald until the area of Thuringia was turned over to the Russians; and paying the Poles in the DP camp with cigarettes to run trucks.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Sundquist

    Oral history interview with Alfred Sundquist

    Oral History

    Dr. Alfred B. Sundquist, a major and physician with the XVIII Airborne during WWII, discusses being stationed a few miles from Ludwigslust, Germany; being instructed to go to a small concentration camp (Wöbbelin) and report back; arriving in a jeep, and seeing that the Germans had already left; conditions at the camp, which took up a few acres and had no crematoria and a couple of barracks; seeing corpses piled up and prisoners with striped uniforms who were too weak to get up; seeing the physical results of starvation in the former prisoners, including the loss of teeth and swollen legs; seeing evidence of cannibalism; writing a report recommending survivors be sent to apartments in Ludwigslust; many survivors dying from complications from starvation; the 82nd Airborne connecting to the 18th Airborne; the civilian Germans from the town being made to dig graves and attend funerals for the camp’s victims; taking pictures of the camp (he donated these pictures to USHMM); his thoughts on the local Germans of Ludwigslust; and his thoughts on Hitler’s mental health.

    Oral history interview with Fela Warschau

    Oral history interview with Fela Warschau

    Oral History

    Fela Warschau discusses being in a labor camp outside Hamburg at end of March 1945; being forced to clean streets after the city was bombed; being taken by train to Bergen-Belsen; the conditions in the camp; staying together with two friends and her sister; sharing a single potato amongst themselves for several days; liberation; survivors being disinfected and given different clothes; staying in Bergen-Belsen for two months; German doctors and nurses who were brought to the camp to work; her feelings of satisfaction seeing Germans being forced to help bury the dead; finding two of their cousins; hearing that her father had died at Auschwitz; going to Feldafing displaced persons camp; life in the DP camp; signing up for ORT courses; the tendency for survivors to marry each other; getting married in 1946; the differences between the American and British leaders of the DP camps; the children in the DP camp; and her thoughts on emigration.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral History

    Irene Weber discusses being liberated from a prison in Czechoslovakia at the end of WWII; the Russians who liberated the prison; being deloused and sent to a hospital; being given a change of clothes and a little money; her decision to not return to Poland; staying in an apartment with a friend; registering as a Czech citizen; going to Prague in an attempt to leave the country after the communists took over; going to the American Zone of Germany; staying in Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp; the crowded conditions in the DP camp; living in Rosenheim, Germany; working on a farm to pay rent; attending an ORT school for nursing in Föhrenwald; graduating and then working in a hospital in the DP camp in Pokcing where she cared for survivors; continuing to live in Rosenheim and taking the train to get to her job; and receiving assistance from UNRRA and the Joint even while she was working as a nurse.

    Oral history interview with Nick White

    Oral history interview with Nick White

    Oral History

    Nick White discusses being with the VI Corps, part of 7th Army, when he saw Dachau for the first time on April 29, 1945; going to the camp with his colleague Englehardt, who was a photographer and took pictures of the camp; seeing a trench in the camp filled with dead SS soldiers killed by American infantry which had been in the camp before them; being overrun by the survivors who were joyous to see them; giving out caramels and k-rations to the survivors; conditions in the barracks; a large room that led from the gas chambers where several thousand bodies were stacked up; the high rate of mortality for the survivors after liberation; finding 39 boxcars with corpses inside; and his incomprehension of the inhumanity they found.

    Oral history interview with Alan Zimm

    Oral history interview with Alan Zimm

    Oral History

    Alan Zinn discusses being sent from Buchenwald in January 1945 to Dora concentration camp; conditions in the camp; seeing American planes at end of March going to bomb Nordhausen; being taken by train for six days to Bergen-Belsen; the Russian POWs who set up a tribunal in the camp after liberation and executed about 50 SS guards; being liberated on March 29, 1945; the delousing of the inmates; the deaths of many survivors from typhus and other diseases; returning to Łódź, Poland in June 1945; meeting his future wife in Łódź; going with his wife and her two sisters to the displaced persons camp in Landsburg, Germany; reuniting with his brother; and immigrating to the United States.

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