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Oral history interview with Wiesław "Wes" Orlowski

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2018.384.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0980

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    Oral history interview with Wiesław "Wes" Orlowski
    Transcript
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Wes Orlowski.
    It's being conducted by Nancy Cooey on August 15, 2018.
    Wes, can you start off by you telling me your name at birth?
    I was born-- my original first name and last name sounded--
    and it still does--
    Wiesław Orlowski.
    My middle name is Józef In about 45 years ago,
    when I was already in this country,
    I acquired a nickname Wes, because it was easier
    for Americans to remember.
    So returning to my date of birth,
    I was born on May 17, 1935.
    I am 83 years old now.
    I was born, obviously, before World War
    II in a small Polish town which was about
    half and half Polish Catholics and Jews, mostly Orthodox.
    One of the most important things to know about this town that
    was a very historic town, which these two religions coexisted
    with the best harmony one can imagine.
    There are no recorded incidents of any conflicts
    between these two religions in that small town.
    And the town was located about 20 miles southeast of Warsaw.
    My mother came to this town in 1929 or 1930.
    My father was born nearby and live most of his adult life
    either in town, or in concentration camps,
    or in western Poland, where he resettled.
    Wait.
    What year were your parents born?
    My father was born in year 1905 and my mother was born in 1910.
    And my mother came to town, as I said,
    from southern Poland, which used to be called,
    before 1918, before Poland regained its independence,
    was called Galicia, which was part
    of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
    Those who know history would know that Poland didn't exist
    on the maps for about 125 years, and when it regain independence
    in 1918, was made up of three previously partitioned parts--
    Prussian on the west, Russia on the east, and Austro-Hungarian
    Empire on the south, which included Galicia.
    How did your parents meet?
    My parents met, most likely, if I can recall it well,
    in the post office of Góra Kalwaria.
    My mother was a teacher in a nearby village,
    and my father, at the time, was working at the post office.
    My father was a bachelor at that time
    and he had great ease of communication with people.
    So I am not surprised they met.
    They married in 1931.
    I have a beautiful picture showing their wedding.
    And I was born four years later.
    My father was an accountant.
    He worked in the bank for some time and also in post office.
    And my mother was grammar school teacher.
    She was really gifted and praised by many parents
    for having exceptional human skills
    and ability to communicate with children and motivate children.
    So my first memories were started
    with the age about three when my father was assigned
    a job, temporary job outside of our town,
    and I was sent to the store, and at I, already at that time,
    I had the good sense of humor.
    I was kind of cracking jokes, which
    I believe were told to me.
    And then I think I remember, but I'm not sure which was it.
    My first major shocking experiences
    were related to the war, because in 1939
    at the beginning of September, when Germans were bombing
    Polish cities, and they attacking Poland from the West,
    Warsaw was attacked relatively early by bombers.
    And although there was only 20 miles between Warsaw and Góra
    Kalwaria, German bombers apparently made a mistake,
    and they were looking for military objects.
    They bomb the residential part of our town,
    although there were military barracks on the other end
    of the town, they were all made of bricks
    covered with the yellow shingles made of clay.
    And from the air, they could have
    looked identical to the big hospital area which
    was next to my house.
    So they made a mistake and they drop several bombs.
    And one of them landed very near of my house,
    where family of 11 people, escapees from Warsaw,
    were hiding.
    The escapees from Warsaw, when they
    thought they saved their life by running from Warsaw,
    however, the German bomb dropped on that house,
    killed all of them.
    10 of them were killed, only one person was saved.
    Before we get too far into your memories of the war
    and the beginning of the war, can you tell me more about
    your family background, your father's family and where they
    came from as well as your mother's?
    So starting with my father, my father's family was--
    it's a long history, because one of my uncles
    was keeping the history of our family.
    Unfortunately, this book, which was
    handwritten book which was keeping notes,
    was destroyed after the war.
    But what I remember, what was read to me
    was that Polish kings nominated in 17th century
    one of our ancestors.
    He was a general, Józef Orłowski as a commander of an old town
    which had the medieval walls around there,
    and then there was water around--
    I'm missing terms--
    The moat.
    The moat.
    And this structure survive for several centuries
    defending eastern territories of Poland
    against the invasions of Tartars and other armies which
    were coming, trying to conquer Europe from eastern.
    Was it in Góra Kalwaria also, or elsewhere?
    No, Góra Kalwaria was more to the west, on Vistula River.
    Góra Kalwaria was in [? the east, ?] located
    on the western shore of Vistula River,
    which was the main river in Poland,
    running from the almost the border with Czech Republic--
    and now was Czechoslovakia, at that time--
    to Baltic Sea.
    So where did this ancestor live?
    Some of them, they lived in this area.
    Others lived in which is called Ukraina.
    And my great-grandfather was participant in 1970-71 uprising
    against Russians.
    1871?
    1870.
    There was called powstanie styczniowe, which is--
    in translation it's January Uprising.
    But was 1870-1871.
    And he was caught by Russians and sent to Siberia.
    He was very intelligent man.
    And he learned Russian quickly.
    He changed his physiognomy by starting a beard, sideburns,
    and hairstyle, and acquire false documents,
    and then ran away from this camp,
    and then was traveling mostly by foot,
    sometime working as a handyman on the way
    to earn some money for food.
    But it took him 11 and 1/2 months by foot
    to get from Siberia back to the area which
    he lived near Warsaw.
    Meanwhile, all his property, including
    quite an amount of land, was confiscated by Russians.
    So he had to start his life from square one.
    He managed to have two children, a boy and girl,
    which were raised by somebody else because he became ill.
    And he died very shortly afterwards.
    So I still visit his grave when I am in Warsaw.
    And it's one of the--
    What was his name?
    Pardon me?
    What was his name?
    His name was-- so the one which was nominated by Polish kings
    was Józef And my grandfather was Karel.
    And the one which is at the cemetery--
    my memory now escaped.
    I will recall, probably, during this conversation.
    So did your mother's family have a colorful past much like that?
    Just returning to my father--
    Oh, sure.
    --to my grandfather's, they came from impoverished nobility
    of medium kind of the level.
    They had their own coat of arms, and everything was a recorded.
    And my uncle was keeping these records, which
    unfortunately were destroyed.
    On my mother's side, my mother came--
    my mother was raised on a small farm in the mountains.
    I would call it--
    she was a mountaineer.
    I was visiting this area many times after the war,
    and I met all her cousins.
    Family was rather big.
    When my father was born he was the oldest.
    And he had three sisters.
    My mother had one sister and four brothers.
    And there were two or three who died
    because of the illnesses at the time and bad medical care,
    obviously.
    So it was, I would say, strange combination of the history
    of these two families.
    And I have to admit they--
    my parents were not the best matched couple
    as I see it, especially from the distance of time.
    However, I loved my both parents.
    And when my father was arrested in 1943 in Warsaw--
    he was traveling between Warsaw and Góra Kalwaria often
    and trading with different items.
    One of the most important items he was trading
    was golden coins, because those who know life in Poland
    during occupation-- they would know that everybody
    was trading, even children.
    It was either barter or cash.
    Everybody knew value of everything else.
    All was illegal.
    Germans absolutely didn't allow trading
    unless it was sanctioned by them, by stores
    which they would approve.
    And you have to be either confidant or some other--
    doing some other functions useful for Germans.
    All the trades was illegal.
    But everybody was really smuggling to survive.
    Jobs were very scarce.
    Food was difficult to obtain even if you had money.
    You couldn't enter the store and buy what you wanted.
    So my mother was in early--
    when my father was traveling between Warsaw and Góra
    Kalwaria my mother was very involved in social movements.
    My mother was involved in the trade--
    the labor union, the teachers' labor union.
    She was demonstrating in 1937-8, I know from her memories.
    I was too small to remember that.
    There were demonstrations for higher salaries,
    for better working conditions, and so on--
    partially successful.
    During the war my mother relatively quickly
    joined underground movement which
    was led by the Polish government in exile in London.
    Can you--
    That was pro-Western.
    It was called Armia Krajowa.
    In English-- The acronym was AK.
    In English was National Army.
    Yes?
    Can you tell me about your mother's occupation
    as a teacher-- what she taught and her role
    within the community?
    Before war my mother was teaching grades 1 to 5,
    I believe--
    4 or 5.
    And she was teaching all basic--
    usually teachers on that level, they will have specialties.
    So she was teaching history, geography, Polish language--
    less sciences.
    However, during the war Germans--
    it was very lucky that in our town
    they were somehow more liberal.
    And we had two schools.
    And each was-- had classes 1 to 7.
    However, what I heard--
    at the same time in different parts of Poland,
    they were allowed--
    the classes were only from 1 to 4.
    And obviously, they wouldn't teaching history, geography,
    anything which would enlighten people.
    They wanted Poles to just read and write
    and do the basic calculus.
    All middle schools, all universities
    were all forbidden.
    However, there was a lot of underground schooling.
    There were regular classes in people's houses.
    Some of them denounced.
    People were arrested, tortured sometime.
    There were all kinds of sanctions.
    But many, many of the schools, because of the solidarity
    between the people-- everybody was
    interested having the children educated in spite
    of German restrictions.
    Most of the schools, I would say, survive.
    And there were all different levels.
    Diplomas were given.
    Exams were passed.
    It was just very normal and popular for--
    and people were chipping in in different ways.
    For example, the parents of this-- for example,
    my mother was giving tutorials after the regular school hours.
    There are different kids are coming different days,
    different hours to my house.
    And my mom was teaching them, helping
    them to catch up to the level which was expected.
    And they were either less talented
    or they had harder conditions at home,
    parents which are uneducated and they couldn't help them
    with homework.
    So my mother was fulfilling that role.
    And she was paid with real goods, usually food
    like farmer's cheese, homemade bread, eggs, carrots, onions--
    chicken, sometime, which was already
    plucked and ready to cook for soup or whatever.
    So we are relatively--
    and there were periods of time when it was shortage of food,
    where there were no tutorials and they, depending
    on the tension and what was happening in outside world,
    especially at the beginning of the war
    and just before the end of war, when there were
    first uprisings in Warsaw ghetto,
    and then Warsaw Uprising of 1944,
    which were major upheaval for the Warsaw
    and near surroundings, where we lived.
    So starting at the beginning of the war,
    do you remember hearing about the war?
    Like, hearing about the tensions between the Germans
    on the radio, or the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany?
    We were not allowed to have radios.
    Before the war?
    Before war, yes.
    Oh, you're talking about before war.
    Yeah, just, did you have any sense that a war was
    coming before September 1?
    Yes and no.
    There were some talks.
    But most of the population were kept in the belief--
    and that included Jewish population.
    I mean, all citizens were kept under belief
    that if Germans attack--
    that was considered such a possibility--
    French and English are going to attack from the West,
    because there were international agreements signed
    between the governments where the Western powers declare
    that if Poland is attacked they're
    going to attack, as well.
    However, what we learned later--
    and obviously Hitler and his intelligence services
    had very good recognition of the mood
    and plans which French and German had.
    And that's what I learned was later, obviously.
    When I was 4, 5, 6 years old I didn't know that.
    But I knew it shortly after the war.
    Germans kept [? 93% ?] of the armies in the Eastern Front.
    And they were absolutely vulnerable from the West.
    And Poles, Polish army and civilians
    who were defending Warsaw for several weeks--
    Warsaw was encircled by German army,
    but there were organized resistance.
    And there were some war-- the ammunition and the arms
    to protect Warsaw against the German army.
    And it was very heroic defense.
    However, Germans had superiority in the air.
    They were bombing.
    And they have superior tanks.
    So in spite of the barricades and all these fortifications
    which were built around the outskirts--
    on the outskirts of center of the city,
    Warsaw was conquered after several weeks.
    So what was the response from your parents
    when the war began?
    Was there any talk about fleeing the area and going elsewhere?
    Yes.
    That's very good question, because what happened--
    after the first bombs were dropped on Góra Kalwaria there
    was real.
    It stopped to be just somewhere else--
    Germans are attacking and they come here eventually,
    or maybe Polish army would defend them.
    Maybe French and Germans would attack from the West.
    The whole resistance was hinging on that promise,
    because otherwise Poland realized,
    its population realized that they
    didn't have any chance, because the Germans with huge amount
    of the very well trained and well equipped,
    quite modern arms, artillery, airplanes, and so on.
    And so what happens here--
    that my parents, at the very beginning,
    after the first bombing organize a group of families.
    Perhaps was six, seven people in that group,
    plus the owner of the big truck--
    Mr. Viktor [? Habalitski ?] was his name.
    We packed our belongings within hours, packed our belongings
    on the top of the truck.
    And we are running towards Russia to escape Germans.
    On the roads-- and the roads were narrow--
    whole traffic was mostly towards East.
    And there were columns and columns.
    Sometime trucks, which were rarity.
    Smaller cars were also rarity.
    Mostly was carts pulled by horses and people
    loading their belongings.
    And there were cars as long as you can reach by sight.
    What German firefight-- the planes were doing,
    they were running along, flying along these roads.
    And from the machine guns and also smaller bombs
    they were dropped on these convoys.
    So whenever we heard--
    and we could distinguish between Polish aircraft
    and German aircraft.
    They were sounding differently.
    By the sound?
    Yeah.
    And my task, on the top of the track, was to look to the west
    and watch and listen for the sounds.
    And I was the one who was bringing
    attention of the adults.
    And then what people were doing--
    they running quickly to the left and the right side,
    leaving truck in the side--
    the center of the road.
    And they were hiding in between the potato or rye or wheat,
    whenever we could-- or trees, if it was nearby.
    Yeah, the fields.
    And we're sitting there waiting until they go away,
    because they came for a couple minutes and they were gone.
    And then maybe next time, whether it
    would be the same day or maybe three times next day--
    was nothing regular or not unpredictable.
    This way we reached Russian borders, which
    was Soviet Union at that time.
    But we call it Russian.
    And since Russians entered Poland from the east
    on September 17, we were at that time in Russia already--
    not deep.
    And we were ordered to go back towards west, towards Poland
    itself--
    which was still Poland, but there was already occupied
    by Russians, that territory.
    And not many people know that the Russia took more territory
    in 1939, September, than Germans took before that.
    However, the population density was much higher
    in the Western territories then were Eastern territories.
    Also, Eastern territories had much more minorities.
    And Russia started to resettle Poles
    to Siberia or towards the Kazakhstan and this--
    towards Siberia, towards-- they were less organized than
    German, but they had trains which were equipped with big--
    with cars adapted to transport pigs.
    There were no passenger cars.
    And they were sent to--
    which they later was called kulaks, right?
    Yeah.
    Gulags.
    So during this evacuation and when
    you were listening out for the airplanes coming,
    do you remember being scared?
    Weren't you frightened or--
    Well, scared is understatement.
    I had my shorts full of--
    almost.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Were you able to comprehend it?
    What's a child's reaction when sees
    front of the plane going towards you
    and the almost aiming at you?
    And they were coming very low sometime.
    So when they coming low we are definitely out of truck
    already.
    But it was very, very scary experience,
    and one which you cannot forget till the end of your life.
    Do you remember what your parents told you?
    Do you remember them communicating with you
    at this time?
    They were scared themself.
    So this is the time when children
    mature much faster than their chronological calendars.
    During the war my father was already in Auschwitz.
    My mother was part of this underground movement.
    And during the day, quite often, when she was at work
    my house looked normal.
    There's nothing unusual.
    But on occasion, once every week, every two weeks,
    on an irregular basis we have a crew coming to our house.
    Crew-- those are the members of the same underground movement
    which my mother belonged.
    Yeah, AK.
    And they were coming with the radio transmitter
    receiver in pieces.
    Some of the pieces were hidden in our house.
    Some they were bringing and putting together in minutes,
    literally.
    And they are starting communication
    by Morse code with a radio base which was located
    on the outskirts of London.
    And they were communicating forth and back
    information which is coded--
    also, besides the Morse code, they
    were also using some coded--
    so there was not easy.
    However, Germans knew about these stations,
    that they exist.
    However, they couldn't easily find them
    because there are villages, small towns.
    They couldn't be everywhere all the time.
    So my task was that as soon as this station was ready to go
    I was told to go outside.
    Although I remember sometime the Morse code,
    I can hear it today-- dee-dee-dee da, da, da,
    da are the key.
    My task was to go outside--
    and I had friends who were fulfilling similar role,
    although sometimes they didn't know all the details because we
    didn't talk among ourselves all the details
    for obvious reasons--
    and was to look for the German--
    they look like a pickup truck today,
    but it was a low truck, small truck which
    dipole antenna, antenna which allows
    to determine from which direction signal is coming
    from that station.
    So to determine where is exact location
    of that station of that transmitter
    they had to have two measurements
    from different angles.
    And then, on the map they could identify very exactly which--
    almost which house that this transmitter was located.
    So my task and my friends' task was
    to detect existence of these German trucks
    nearby and notify my mother--
    one to another one.
    We're standing on the corners of the streets.
    So within seconds my mother knew that there is a truck nearby.
    And my mother was running inside of our house
    and telling the crew.
    They were taking apart that radio station, hiding
    whatever they could, take the rest of them.
    And they-- obviously, they are not running along the streets.
    They were going in the back of our house
    through the orchards--
    orchard to orchard, orchard to orchard,
    never going to the town itself, but on the outskirts,
    through the dense--
    whatever the first forest.
    And usually there were no Germans in this area.
    Besides, they knew exactly where the concentration German were,
    police headquarters.
    When they're coming to town they knew exactly where to go
    and not to go.
    So how often-- well, how many times
    do you remember seeing a truck and having to warn
    your mother that it was coming?
    Fortunately, not even once we detected this truck at the time
    when a radio station--
    I saw these trucks.
    But at that time there was never that station in my house.
    So we were lucky.
    This same crew which came to us several times--
    we learned they were shot when they were jumping through--
    were escaping.
    And they were machine gunned.
    They were decimated, all of them.
    Two or three were coming to our house.
    Another crew was coming.
    But they were detected and killed
    in some neighboring small town.
    So it was in a different town that that happened?
    Yes.
    They were going from town to town,
    from different places on a regular basis
    unpredictable for anybody else.
    But they have their own system which
    allowed them to coordinate with the house owner
    and having a system of people who were protecting them from--
    this one case the system failed, obviously.
    And they were killed.
    So I'm sure you talked to your mother at some point,
    especially after the war, about her experience.
    Did she share with you how she got involved
    with the underground movement?
    Yes.
    My mom was very friendly with the principal
    of the school in which she was teaching
    and his wife, who was a teacher as well.
    And this lady-- she was the head of that women's division
    in support of other girl fighters,
    because my mom didn't have--
    she didn't train.
    She knew how to shoot, but she was not really
    specially trained.
    And there was not a role for the women.
    There was mostly role for men.
    The women had a lot of supportive roles.
    One of them, for example, was--
    and there was, as a part of underground movement
    but also as an interest of my mother--
    because as a teacher she had a lot of Jewish kids
    as her pupils.
    By average in her classes was around 50% of the kids
    were Jewish before ghetto was created in 1940.
    And it did existed for about half a year.
    So my mom had a lot of good acquaintances--
    I wouldn't say closest friends, but a lot
    of people who respected her from both religions,
    including orthodox Jews.
    Many of them, they were sending their kids not only
    to cheder, Jewish school, but they're
    sending them to the public schools
    to learn Polish because they were doing business.
    Most of the stores in our town were Jewish owned.
    There were excellent relationship
    between both religions.
    And as I mentioned, no accidents.
    So my mom was involved--
    at the very beginning, there was a lot of smuggling going
    on between Warsaw, which was the biggest center where you could
    get food, or from countryside farms to the ghetto in Góra
    Kalwaria.
    Ghetto in Góra Kalwaria was very unusual because it did have
    sections with the barbed wire fences, however,
    especially during the night the traffic was unbelievable.
    Somehow people were able to bribe the guards, which
    were part of Judenrat organization
    which was set up to communicate between Germans
    and Jewish populations.
    So the guards were mostly Jewish police.
    Jewish with the bands on the arm, a civilian,
    or semi-civilian dressed.
    But during the night was like a shift.
    And I had a friend who had--
    his house windows were looking at the ghetto fence.
    And I had to pass--
    my house was located less than half a mile
    from border of the ghetto.
    What streets was the ghetto on?
    Do you remember?
    Piarska.
    There are descriptions of that.
    For example, good friend of my mother
    is a gentleman who died recently.
    His name was Henryk Price.
    Here's article about him.
    And I always admiring him.
    He ran away from ghetto.
    And there's one recording in Holocaust Museum
    which you sent to me the URL.
    And his-- the gentleman's name is Felix Kartman.
    He describes in much better--
    in greater detail which I would be able to describe what was
    going on inside, because I was not inside,
    Polish of non-Jewish--
    non-Jews who are not allowed to enter.
    So can you tell me a bit more about your mother's involvement
    in the underground movement and some of the tasks
    that she was given to do?
    So one of the tasks my mother took, and also she
    was assigned later, officially, by the underground movement
    was to find people who would be actively involved in smuggling
    food to ghetto either from countryside, by her knowledge
    of the farmers who were parents of the children which she was
    teaching in the school, or people
    who were traveling regularly or willing to travel to Warsaw
    and bring some items which were not regularly
    available locally.
    And there's too many names to mention here.
    But they are people still alive, my peers,
    or people who already recorded in the archives of Holocaust
    Museum, like Mr. Felix Kartman and Mr. Abram Henryk Price.
    The YouTubes-- they are very detailed interviews with him.
    My mother was on very good terms with him.
    Last time I visited him about 10 years ago.
    And I spoke to his sister a couple weeks ago by phone.
    This gentleman died in the age of 101 and half.
    Unbelievable.
    And he's strong physically and mentally.
    He describes his life in great details.
    And there is so much to be learned
    about his life and the life of other people.
    So your mother worked with him?
    My mother work with him after the war
    in different organizations.
    And but my mother knew him.
    And he knew both my parents because I
    talked to him about my father, especially, from before war.
    He knew my father quite well.
    Did your mother ever go to the ghetto
    when she was trying to get food into the ghetto from all
    these farmers?
    As I mentioned, the non-Jews were restricted.
    They were not allowed to enter.
    So but through mutual friends and mutual acquaintances
    there was quite good communication.
    And again, in spite of German regulations
    people tried to conduct normal life.
    By normal life I mean people are working in ghetto.
    People are trying to preserve food, to sell items.
    Everybody believed in the ghetto that this just
    temporary solution, that they will be
    resettled to a different place.
    They will be saved from--
    people didn't want to admit that this
    is any of the organized massacre,
    and they are going to be killed.
    Everybody had hope.
    And as you well known, that kept people going and living,
    because once you remove the hope from human beings
    our life doesn't make sense.
    So obviously, there were moments when people becoming depressed
    or they stopped to be positive and optimistic.
    But there was role of others to keep their spirit alive.
    And so there were all kind of the preoccupations,
    including small theater, singing groups, educational aspects,
    organizations were getting together
    and having discussions.
    Outside the ghetto or inside?
    Inside.
    Inside the ghetto.
    Everything inside of the ghetto.
    And unbelievable overcrowding.
    People were living sometime 8--
    6, 8, up to 10 people in one room.
    Incredible.
    But this gentlemen, like these three people
    whom I am well familiar and I knew them,
    was Henryk Price, Felix Kartman, and Henryk Majewski
    So they were friends of yours who were in the ghetto?
    Those are the people who were able to escape, hide.
    And they were able to survive.
    And they returned to Góra Kalwaria after.
    Out of around three and a half thousand Jewish people who
    lived in pre-war Poland, that's what people who--
    were people who were able to--
    So did you have friends who were in the ghetto?
    Not in my age and not my classmates.
    But they were friends of my friends,
    a lot of people whom I knew because of my parents'
    acquaintance being of--
    there's very interesting story.
    One of my three or four best friends, they live in this--
    closer to center of town.
    And they had a house with several rooms.
    My friends-- and his last name is Ptak, Witold Ptak.
    How do you spell that?
    P-T-A-K, which in translation means a bird, a bird.
    Ptak.
    And his first name was?
    His name is Witold.
    W-I-T-O-L-D, Witold.
    I was quite often visiting him.
    And one of the reasons was that his grandma
    was doing excellent white borscht, which is made of--
    it's like a sourdough soup, kind of.
    I don't know how to translate it even in English.
    It's made of the sourdough bread, which
    was added some aging, some--
    like you make kefir or--
    Oh, it was fermented?
    Ferment.
    Went through the process of fermentation.
    So to get the essence of that I was coming to their house
    and bringing empty bottle, like one-liter bottle.
    I was paying for it whatever was asked.
    And then it was a broth for making soup, potatoes added.
    And one of my [INAUDIBLE] when my mother was in school,
    I was doing the cooking.
    I was preparing dinner.
    And my mother-- and I was six, seven, eight years old,
    but I was preparing dinner.
    My mother came from school quite often,
    either dinner was ready or not much left to finish the dinner.
    So my friend's uncle, which was brother of his mother's--
    mother's brother-- he fell with--
    in love with a Jewish girl.
    At the beginning of ghetto, when she was surrounded
    and she was forced to resettle and live in the ghetto,
    she escaped--
    like a lot of people did, but not high percentage.
    And it was interesting that people
    who were escaping from ghetto, they either
    tried to be in countryside, which was easier to hide,
    living with a farmer like this gentleman, Henryk Price.
    He was adopted.
    He got a false document and he was
    adopted by a family of farmers who had son of similar age
    who didn't return from war.
    He was part of the Polish army and he did not return.
    And this family adopted Mr. Price.
    So what happened to the uncle's girlfriend?
    When she escaped from Góra Kalwaria she went to another
    ghetto in a small town on the other side of the Vistula
    River.
    There was no bridge, so you had to be--
    there were some special people who, for a fee,
    they took you in the small boat.
    Oh, a ferry.
    One, two person-- three people they could fit on that ferry.
    So it was just basically like a major canoe, and a long stick.
    And that's the way they got on the other side of the river.
    The river was quite substantial.
    And you could get in troubles if you
    tried to swim through, across.
    Anyhow, so she went to another ghetto which was much more
    liberal, so to speak, much easier
    to get in and out and so on.
    And then, again, she escaped from there
    because he was able--
    he was working at the cemeteries of smaller towns.
    And he found, on the grave, a name of the Polish woman--
    and her name was Janina--
    fitting the age.
    He went to the priest and he got falsified document
    for the name of Janina--
    I forgot the name.
    And she was under that name till they got married, this couple.
    Wow.
    But meanwhile-- that was not the end of the story.
    Meanwhile, she was sent under that falsified name--
    and there was Jews not as much as non-Jews.
    They were sent to Germany to work on the farms
    because Germans were short of manual--
    menial workers.
    And so a lot of Poles, depending on the historian,
    but there are calculations--
    at least one million Poles work on the farms in Germany
    during the war.
    And were obviously all forced.
    They were paid a little bit, a tiny bit, given food
    and shelter.
    And many of them survive.
    And to the extent that the family of bakers
    who own the bakery, German, in the small town--
    they love her so much that they--
    being older, they wanted to give the bakery to her.
    However, she didn't want to stay in Germany.
    She returned after the war to Góra Kalwaria.
    And she married my friend's uncle.
    And her name is Salomea or Salika,
    they call her-- her real name.
    And again, I forgot her real last name.
    But they had two children.
    They had children again.
    And my friend was baptizing--
    you know, he was--
    A godfather?
    Godfather, exactly.
    He was godfather of one of the children of that Salika.
    So were a lot of people in your town sent to work in Germany?
    Of non-Jews?
    Surprisingly, I cannot recall many.
    But I know many others, including my cousins, which
    I visited later in Belgium.
    My cousin met her husband, who came from Belgium.
    He was of Polish descent.
    She was of Polish descent from Poland.
    They married and they settled in Belgium.
    They had two daughters.
    And I visited them after the war several times in Belgium.
    Not from our town.
    Somehow-- if they were I was not familiar with them.
    Small percentage.
    But I've heard about many, many others who went and returned.
    A lot of people in our town were in hiding.
    I wouldn't say majority-- definitely not.
    But in my family, one of my cousins was--
    most of the German occupation he was just hiding.
    He was not at home because if he showed at home,
    he would be either denounced or he would be sought by police--
    Why?
    --and he would be arrested.
    Because they had records.
    Either they beat somebody, some German, and they ran away.
    And police knew who was he--
    came home, he was gone.
    So luckily, they-- nobody got--
    Germans didn't [? kill ?] the other members of the family.
    But he was gone.
    And he's still alive.
    He's 90-something.
    What's his name?
    His name is [Vicek Kralewski.
    He was kin to my grandma.
    My grandma was Kralewska from her maiden name,
    before she got married.
    How do you spell his last name?
    Krawlewska.
    K-R-A-L-E-W-S-K-A, Kralewska.
    Zuzanna.
    Z-U-Z-A-N-N-A, Zuzanna.
    So that was your grandmother, was Zuzanna?
    Grandmother.
    What, on your--
    My father's mother.
    So we haven't talked about your father very much.
    That's right.
    So my father was arrested in Warsaw.
    And miraculously--
    But before that, he--
    so that was in 1943 that he was arrested.
    Yes.
    But before that, what was he doing
    during beginning of the war?
    He was traveling between Warsaw and Góra Kalwaria.
    But then, more and more, he was staying in Warsaw
    because he's--
    what trading he was doing involved presence of big--
    like a farmer's market in Warsaw.
    Góra Kalwaria had farmer's market where farmers were
    coming once a week with their horse-pulled car full of goods
    which they grew.
    Warsaw had market, but it was less farmers,
    but more middlemen and woman.
    And we could get a lot of interesting things
    that not everything was exposed.
    There are certain things which are shown
    and other things which were the behind counter or underneath.
    Only when you struck a conversation.
    And since people got familiar with you,
    they had some level of trust that they tell you,
    you know, I have this yet, I have that yet.
    I have other--
    And those were contraband materials,
    or black market kind of things?
    Definitely materials which Germans didn't
    allow, including cold cuts.
    Really?
    Unfortunately, there were not refrigerations.
    So you can imagine, they have to be fresh and sold.
    They couldn't take them outside.
    So by the end of day they were selling
    for less and less and less.
    Also, you could bargain.
    You could--
    Barter.
    Not only-- no, no.
    I'm talking about in selling and in Mid-Eastern markets,
    if this salesperson sells at nominal price
    they are not fully satisfied, although they
    got fully amount of money.
    You mean like haggle for things.
    Haggle is the word.
    You need to haggle.
    And the more you haggle, you know one another better.
    And there is a satisfaction for both sides involved.
    There is a more pleasant feeling about the transaction
    when you haggle.
    Yeah.
    So it feels like it's earned on some level.
    If you just pay what you are asked for it's--
    you don't get much respect from the salesperson.
    That's the psychology of especially small town, village.
    So your father was acting as one of these middle people
    of selling things?
    He was middle people because he didn't produce anything.
    He was buying and selling.
    But you need to know where to buy, at what price.
    You need to know where to go and sell.
    And you buy through your own trusted channels
    and you sell where it's a lot of people.
    And you, again, establish certain relationship.
    You sell certain items to strangers, maybe most of them.
    But you have your own customers who know you, come.
    And you are always standing in the same place.
    Or it is the same area.
    And people recognize one another, and they wave.
    And they go, sometimes, to decide--
    they don't do transaction when everybody
    is looking at their hands.
    Well, that's an--
    So there's the whole culture.
    That's an occupational shift for your father, right?
    Absolutely.
    Because he was an accountant.
    Absolutely.
    And then he moved into this.
    Why did he switch?
    Because the pay-- couldn't get a job at the very beginning.
    Pay was poor.
    And you could be much better off.
    And later, as I learn, my father--
    and those are--
    I don't have 100% proof, but I think
    my father was renting room from some people,
    and then, I think, from a lady.
    And there could have been some relationship
    there which he was obviously hiding from my mother.
    My mother-- you know, women have this instinct and can sense.
    However, we did not have proof.
    So this was in Warsaw that he was renting--
    It was Warsaw itself.
    So when he was arrested, barely anybody in our small town knew.
    Only-- that he was arrested, because he was not often coming
    to Góra Kalwaria.
    So he was not coming for longer time.
    He was arrested, sent to Auschwitz.
    And people didn't know about that.
    Only closest, trusted people knew about that.
    We didn't broadcast it.
    We didn't spread that information.
    Obviously, his mother, his sisters knew about that.
    And they, again, didn't talk to anybody about that
    because it was nobody's interest to talk about that.
    Right.
    It was too many questions.
    People were asking so and so and so on.
    Avoid unnecessary lying or making
    stories, people rather avoiding subjects.
    So why was he arrested?
    That's a big mystery which is mystery to me till today.
    I do not have 100% proof, but there
    are hypotheses which were my mother's hypotheses.
    And since my mother died thirty three years ago,
    they are my hypotheses.
    And I never met anybody who really knew my father
    in Warsaw who would get the--
    from the first hand.
    And your father wouldn't tell you either?
    My father had different theories.
    And he was avoiding the subject.
    And besides, in 1946 my parents divorced.
    So my father changed the location.
    He moved to so-called regained territories from Germany.
    He started a new family in [PLACE NAME]..
    He had two children there.
    And I maintained very loose relationship to the extent
    that when I immigrated--
    I left Poland in 1970.
    And he died in 1983.
    My mother died 1985.
    My mother died in my home in United States.
    My father died in Poland, 1983, in a town called [PLACE NAME]..
    And I was on his grave.
    However, I didn't maintain the relationship
    with his new family.
    So he was sent to Auschwitz immediately,
    or was he imprisoned in Warsaw?
    First he was tortured in Warsaw special headquarters
    where they specialized in torturing prisoners
    to get the information about the co-workers, what he knew
    about underground movement.
    They didn't get much because he didn't know much.
    The underground movement in Góra Kalwaria didn't accept
    my father.
    He did apply for it.
    And my mother would be--
    wouldn't agree for that because he was traveling a lot
    and he was talkative.
    And he might not keep the secrets.
    In underground movement most of the people who were members,
    they knew only pseudonyms of one another
    unless they knew themselves from before.
    But that was rather recommended that you work together
    with people who you didn't know before and use pseudonyms
    which were different from your real names.
    In the case you are arrested, you are beaten,
    tortured, you couldn't say if you didn't know.
    Right.
    Did your mother have a pseudonym?
    My mother had a pseudonym.
    Everything is written.
    I have books describing [INAUDIBLE]
    by a historian who wrote a book, Heroes of Two Towns.
    And it describes especially one--
    it's in Polish.
    [POLISH] in Polish, in original.
    And yes, she did.
    And so after the removal of the ghetto from Góra Kalwaria,
    as you can imagine, a lot of real estate left.
    There are 3,000 people very crowded.
    But it was a lot of empty housing
    which Germans didn't care, because they were not
    especially high quality housing.
    They are not office buildings.
    They did confiscate my school.
    And they keeping their hospital.
    They keeping, for a certain time,
    school for German children, families,
    German officials who were in town.
    And then there was a hospital for the German prisoners
    who were returning from Eastern Front.
    And I vividly remember when they were getting out the train
    and then walk through the town, and how
    they were wrapped around up to, sometime, barely their noses
    were sticking from the bandages around.
    Those were people who were-- the soldiers who were returning
    from Stalingrad, when Germans were--
    Russians defended themself.
    And then it was the--
    from the defense mode they started to press.
    And there was full winter.
    Germans absolutely unprepared to survive Russian, Siberian type
    of the weather.
    And many of them they lost parts of the body--
    noses, ears.
    They were all wrapped around when they were
    coming for the convalescent--
    for recovery.
    There was a military hospital there
    when they were staying for a couple months.
    And they were going back to Germany,
    because they were not-- many of them,
    they're not capable to fight anymore.
    And they had huge shortage of manpower
    by the end of the year.
    So there were German families living in Góra Kalwaria?
    Yes.
    But they were all implants.
    There were few German families who--
    Are native.
    --who are native.
    And most often, they were cooperation--
    they knew German language.
    And they are cooperating with authorities.
    But Polish underground movement's task
    was to watch, monitor, and eventually execute
    these traitors.
    And one of these German, his name is Müller.
    He was killed by underground movement.
    And there was one incident when, in the school,
    when I was attending, one boy came and he was crying,
    saying that Germans killed his older brother.
    It was quite an age difference.
    I knew it from my person who was temporarily living in my house.
    And they had these conferences and training sessions
    after curfew.
    In your house.
    In my house.
    So it was part of the activities of my mother.
    She allowed her house to be place
    when fighters, underground movement fighters were
    training, exchanging information, getting commands
    to do.
    And there was execution squad came.
    And it was reporting to this gentleman--
    his name was Jan Zawada It's written in that book--
    his pseudonym was.
    And he was pre-war officer which lived under pseudonym Jan
    Zavada But his name was [? Martoschewski-- ?]
    real name.
    And they were reporting that they killed two traitors.
    And they left a short note on the chest--
    this is a traitor who was warned twice.
    And by underground court decisions
    he was executed by AK, which was underground army.
    So this boy was crying, telling his colleagues
    that his younger brother-- older brother was killed by Germans.
    And that was not true.
    I knew the truth.
    He was killed because he was traitor.
    But obviously, was not interests of the boy to tell the truth.
    So a lot of stories which you hear and you read not always
    were truth, because for whatever reasons people
    were hiding the real reasons.
    And I saw it again and again and again.
    And it was in all the religions.
    Doesn't matter-- age.
    For different reasons people are having second mask, second face
    to survive.
    And there were different motives.
    But there was a fight for survival.
    First was life, to safe.
    And second was to get food.
    So the trainings that were hosted at your mother's house--
    do you remember that?
    And do you remember--
    Absolutely.
    --what kind of trainings they were doing?
    Quite often doors were closed.
    And my bed was literally one yard from the door.
    Door was thin.
    And they were talking regular voice.
    Besides, there was a keyhole which I could see through.
    And I-- many of the voices I recognized
    because they happened to be parents of my colleagues,
    or friends.
    They're coming to my house.
    And they were training, including this execution team.
    Do you remember any of their names?
    Of the-- oh, I do remember all of them.
    All of them.
    All of them, because they died.
    All of them.
    There were tens of names.
    I could-- and I remember many of them
    because I knew the voices, because I was in their houses
    and they were parents.
    Or they were just acquaintances.
    So if I didn't hear first time, when
    I could recognize the voice through the keyhole,
    I could see who was there.
    And I knew.
    And so I knew where are the places where
    the hidden maps were for the manual for training officers.
    So they hid things in your house, as well?
    In my house.
    There was--
    Where?
    --at least one dozen of the places.
    Usual-- we have two small attics on our level, which
    was like roof coming down.
    It was A-frame.
    And there were doors.
    A-frame.
    And then was main attic, and there
    was entrance from the kitchen.
    You had to have a ladder, enter in the attic.
    In the attic-- and is this related to the radio
    transmission--
    there was a metal wire spread between the rafters, one
    to another-- one very dense.
    And they were wrapped with the fabric.
    They pretending to be for drying clothing,
    the ropes for drying clothing.
    However, they were not used for that purpose.
    They were used as antenna.
    So that end of that wire went into the wall
    down to my kitchen and then came out
    in the form of power socket.
    But if you plugged the--
    your whatever, hairbrush or--
    you couldn't get any power there because there was no power.
    This transmitter was connected when this crew was coming.
    They had the plug.
    And they will plug it in that one outlet
    in entire house which they already knew and I knew
    is not for power.
    That was one of the reasons why coming to our house,
    because antenna--
    they will have to spread antenna outside.
    Antenna was already in the house, hidden,
    ready to be used whenever somebody
    came and knew that one outlet is the entry to the antenna.
    So you can plug in and be connected and transmit
    to London, or received from London.
    It seems like such a risk for your mother.
    Huge.
    Huge risk.
    Did she ever give you any explanation
    of why she saw the risk as worth it?
    My mother, from as far as I can recall--
    and then in reflection after the years--
    was what you would call today human rights activist.
    She very strongly believed in social justice, fairness.
    And she was a real patriot.
    She wanted to help the country.
    We already had huge sacrifice by having our father not
    to be supporting family anymore, being tortured.
    And certain point we stopped to get letters from him.
    We believed that he died.
    So when he showed up in 1945, was a huge surprise for us,
    because there was no communication, no letter.
    We didn't expect at all.
    Basically, everybody-- we buried him and say, end.
    And then when he show up we were shocked.
    Did you have an actual funeral for him at one point?
    No.
    No, but it was the--
    Just assumed.
    Since we didn't know anything, was nobody-- nothing done.
    But it was like, everybody and our friends--
    and at that time we were talking a little more about that.
    But still, till today I talk to several of my friends
    who survive, obviously.
    They didn't know that my father was arrested and in Auschwitz.
    So back to the training that they did,
    what kind of training activities were they doing in the house?
    So the training was to pass exams for the officers--
    how to set up traps, how to put dynamite on the railroad
    tracks to explode at the time when German train
    with German soldiers or tanks or whatever going
    East, towards Eastern Front.
    Trains in our town were a very--
    were narrow gauge.
    And it was going to Warsaw and then to another town, Grójec.
    So it was relatively--
    like, 20 miles one direction, 20 miles other direction.
    It was very local, not connected with the regular gauge,
    normal trains.
    But there were trains not far from us.
    And this unit which was training there--
    they were going different places, having different tasks,
    including--
    I was witnessing the report which they
    had a task in nearby forest.
    There was a big opening which could
    have been turned into the grass field runway for planes
    with the big tires which they were able to land and takeoff
    in the middle of the night.
    So their task was on the--
    it was a big forest.
    On the outskirts of the forest these units
    were guarding where the Germans are nearby
    The other units were starting the bonfires on two ends,
    beginning and end of the runway.
    And these planes coming from either Italy
    or some other basis of Western--
    Of the Allies?
    Allies.
    And they were bringing goods, money, and people
    and taking off, also, people.
    Wow.
    This way-- I'm not sure whether it was that airfield.
    A gentleman whose name was Jan Karski who
    visited two concentration camps and then
    was sent as emissary to England and he visited President
    Roosevelt-- and he gave eye witness testimonials what's
    happening in the concentration camps.
    And Polish government in exile was
    begging both leaders, Churchill and Roosevelt,
    to bomb the tracks leading--
    railroad tracks leading to concentration camps.
    Unfortunately, it did not happen.
    And this is history.
    There are people who are studying this subject.
    I have my own opinion.
    But this is my own opinion and doesn't count.
    But the historians should explain why this information
    was ignored by both leaders.
    So the people who were training in your house
    and were part of this underground movement--
    can you go ahead and tell me some
    of those names of those people?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    There was a father of my friend Witold Ptak.
    His name was-- first name--
    no, I cannot recall it now.
    It's 75 years--
    Sure.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Well, who else?
    --ago.
    But I knew them very, very well.
    I was in the houses, all of them, many times.
    And I absolutely knew them.
    I knew their voices.
    I could recognize when they were out of sight of the door.
    So not every night, obviously--
    I had to sleep.
    But at least one hour to two hours,
    sometimes, I was just not trying to not make noise
    on the other side of the door, and I was
    listening fascinating stories.
    And I knew so much.
    And I couldn't talk about that to anybody.
    I couldn't tell my mother that I knew
    because she would be terrified.
    However, just before end of the war my--
    the gentleman who was doing this training in conversation
    with my mother, they were talking
    about something about gun.
    And I said, yes, I know this was hidden there.
    They didn't know that I knew all these hiding places.
    And I knew how to load the gun, handgun, and how to unload it.
    I knew how to apart, how to clean it.
    I knew everything because, out of boredom--
    nobody was at home--
    I went to that hiding place where
    they're talking about to check whether this gun is still
    there.
    I self-trained myself.
    So after the war, when German army
    left certain amount of arms--
    whenever you went they were besides mines in the fields,
    where--
    a lot of arms here and there.
    Me and my friends were taking guns with ammunition.
    We went into the trenches.
    And there were nobody else there.
    And we were doing full shooting like on the shooting range.
    And we knew safely we could manage.
    And nobody train us.
    We were self-trained.
    So this was after the war, though?
    After the war, immediately.
    And a lot of young people died because farmers
    needed their fields.
    Before Soviet army came the people
    who were disarming mines in the fields--
    they wanted to plow the fields.
    And the mines here and there and there.
    And you never know where.
    So they were training mine--
    young people-- not training, paying
    young people who were foolish enough to go and disarm.
    And the friend of mine two years--
    three years older than me, brother
    of a good friend of mine--
    I just talked to him a couple days ago--
    he was learning how to disarm these mines.
    And similar, his friends and their friends
    were hired by farmers--
    which was, I think, cruel, to let young people go
    into the fields.
    And they were, many of them, successful.
    Many of them survived.
    But some, unfortunately, made mistakes somewhere,
    or they didn't know.
    They stepped on a mine, which were all
    hidden under the ground.
    And they didn't have electronic equipment to detect it.
    So your friend's brother died from--
    Died.
    Died.
    And there was-- on the day where I was--
    had appointment with him and his brother-- we're going together.
    And my mother locked me.
    And I didn't have key to open.
    We were living on the second floor.
    I didn't want to jump.
    So when my mother returned I was very angry that she did
    lock me, because I lost my ability to play.
    And my mother says, yes, yes.
    I saw Jaszo.
    They carried him in the bed sheet.
    I saw him.
    And he was killed.
    But I was shocked.
    But I could've been one of them.
    So I was lucky during the war, because every day
    when we're leaving home in the morning we were not
    100% sure that we were going to be back that evening.
    Threat of being killed was very real.
    And I saw many, many incidences where people were killed either
    because they didn't stop when they were told to stop,
    they had something hiding and they--
    under body or something and they want to be discovered,
    or simply Gestapo didn't like or already knew
    this person or whatever, and they were looking for--
    Gestapo was in my house many times.
    And it somehow happens that I cannot recall one instance
    where they mother--
    my mother was at home and Gestapo came.
    You were always alone?
    Each time I was alone.
    Wow.
    I don't know how happened.
    They coming during the day, my mother was in school.
    But they several times they came afternoon,
    when my mother was not in school.
    Obviously, she didn't know about that.
    They never announced, obviously.
    What I heard, only boo-boo-boo-boo on the steps,
    bang bang to the door, Gestapo, open.
    So I head to door, open.
    And they were walking around ransacking
    from all the drawers in the middle of the room
    and knocking the walls here and there.
    And they were asking me, tell us where
    these things are hidden, because they had some suspicion.
    But until they found they couldn't do anything
    about that.
    And I knew where things are hidden.
    However, I never blink my eye.
    Were they speaking to you in Polish or were they speaking--
    Sometime in German exclusively.
    And I knew German to that extent.
    I learn from German soldiers on the streets of Góra Kalwaria.
    And my mother knew some German.
    So she taught me some basics.
    It was a survival game.
    You need to knew how to communicate.
    And they knew a little Polish, including some of them,
    especially the regular soldiers of Wermacht--
    they were from Silesian region of Poland.
    They signed so-called Volks list,
    which is they had some ancestors of German origin.
    They spoke German at home.
    And how do you call it?
    Some of them very--
    I wouldn't say what's the proportion, I don't know.
    But there were volunteers.
    But most of them, they were--
    how do you call it?
    Inscripts?
    Oh, they were drafted into it?
    They were drafted.
    They were forced-- well, not forced, but--
    Yeah.
    I mean, they were obligated.
    Yeah, obligated.
    They didn't have a choice.
    So they spoke quite good Polish.
    Some of them, they are fluent in Polish.
    And those, we communicated first.
    So first words which I learned were mostly curses.
    I could-- I was able to curse in German for several minutes.
    That's my first encounter with German.
    So after the Gestapo left and your mother came home,
    I imagine you told her about it.
    Of course.
    How would she react?
    What was--
    She was shocked each time.
    But what she was able to do?
    There's no-- several people ask me,
    how come that your mother was not arrested?
    And I tell you why.
    Underground movement, which I think
    it's the main explanation--
    a lot of institutions which were--
    had German names and had to do with the Polish population.
    We had to do with rations.
    Food was available with coupons.
    You were getting coupons-- so many kilograms
    of sugar per month or per week, and one loaf of bread
    for week per head.
    These organizations were-- had employees
    which are of Polish origin.
    And many-- I wouldn't say majority,
    but some of these positions were infiltrated
    by Polish underground movement, people
    who secretly work for the Polish underground movement.
    And they would bring information.
    And early enough, my mother was informed
    there is an opportunity to get document
    to do the function which was collecting weather,
    like rain, snow amount, observation of the sky--
    when the clouds, how low, when sun.
    And she got a book written in German columns.
    And every day at certain hours you
    had to fill, sometime in German-- simple words.
    I don't remember now.
    And then numbers-- hours and the amount,
    how many centimeters of rain that night was and so on.
    And this information was collected
    by meteorological services, German,
    which were used by German Luftwaffe, German military,
    airforce.
    That gave my mother an ausweis, a document
    which we'd call an ID card today, with the picture
    all in German.
    And that, whenever she was traveling between Góra Kalwaria
    and Warsaw--
    and she was traveling sometimes to take big round yellow cheese
    which was--
    she was getting at very low price.
    And she was selling it in Warsaw at a certain place.
    Sometime that cheese had, inside, underground documents.
    Really?
    And my mother was having the suitcase.
    She was very fashionably dressed, had perfumes.
    She knew quite well German.
    And she was traveling.
    And she recalls one specific case
    when she was standing on the tramway stop.
    Tramway came.
    One section of the tramway, nur für Deutsche--
    German.
    Was German officer seeing a lady who's
    trying to lift the suitcase.
    So he helped her to enter Polish section, put her--
    that luggage on the shelf, above the head,
    and then went to nur für Deutsche section.
    He did not realize that he's lifting
    underground army's literature hidden in the cheese inside.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Yeah.
    Wow.
    I bet that made your mother very nervous.
    That's the life.
    Oh, yes.
    But she-- when it happens to you once or twice you become
    conditioned and you become less sensitive--
    which doesn't mean that in my kind--
    although, as I mentioned at the beginning,
    children are maturing during the war
    much faster than you ever imagined.
    And adults don't realize how capable and knowledgeable--
    children are a sponge.
    They listen.
    They might not have the answers, but they
    know what's going on beyond their expected maturity level.
    So I was nine or 10--
    10 at the end of the war.
    But I was 15, 16 if comes to the survival skills
    and associating--
    judging what's happening, whether it's
    dangerous situation or not, whether my life is in jeopardy,
    or how to read what eyes don't see, so to speak.
    There were no newspapers, no radio.
    Journalists were communicating with Polish population
    by hanging two-language posters explaining, such
    and such a day, new regulations.
    You were allowed to do that.
    But mostly was not what you were--
    what was forbidden.
    And that was the way.
    And there was no excuse of not knowing.
    You had to know it.
    So you had to read it, because your life depended
    on that-- what's on the poster.
    So we haven't talked about the deportation
    of the Jews from your town yet.
    Do you have any memories of that?
    On the day with deportation, it was taking place--
    I saw the pictures taken by father of my friend.
    And his name is Adam Marchocki.
    And if possible I would like him to be--
    I will recommend him to be interviewed
    by somebody from Holocaust Museum
    because he's very knowledgeable.
    His father-- about this period his house
    was also facing the wall.
    He is the same age as I am.
    His father was arrested in Góra Kalwaria.
    His father was a teacher and was sent
    to Auschwitz also, as well as another teacher, Mr.
    Piekarniak.
    Who was arrested in Góra Kalwaria and sent to Auschwitz.
    So those are people whom I knew well.
    And they were both teachers.
    Do you know what they were arrested for?
    Suspicion of being involved in underground movement, both
    of them.
    And they were.
    I mean, especially one.
    Another one--
    Which one was especially so?
    Piekarniak.
    Mr. Piekarniak.
    How do you spell his last name?
    P-I-E-K-A-R-N-I-A-K. Piekarniak.
    Oh, forgot his first name now.
    There was a whole family, but I cannot recall it.
    Did he survive?
    He survived.
    Both survived.
    So Adam's father was also sent to Auschwitz?
    Auschwitz, yeah.
    And what was his last name?
    Marchocki.
    M-A-R-C-H-O-C-K-I, Marchocki.
    Do you remember his father's name?
    First name?
    Edward
    Edward?
    Edward.
    Adam's father was Edward Marchocki.
    And so--
    So Adam took pictures during the deportation?
    No, Edward.
    Edward did.
    Edward.
    Edward.
    And these pictures are in the book which
    I couldn't find just before.
    I wanted to bring that book to show you, but I can't--
    I have at home, definitely, 100%.
    I didn't lend it to anybody.
    So you saw the pictures, but you weren't present for--
    you didn't actually see the deportation?
    Not on the day, because there was two days.
    Two days.
    A lot of people went to the station
    because they knew somebody or there was some relationships.
    People-- you know.
    Most of the population, although there
    was Hasidic Judaism mostly, but not
    all the Hasidic Jews in Poland.
    There were some like his father's, Mr. Price's father
    parents--
    they were of the--
    they went to synagogue a few times a year.
    They were--
    Assimilated.
    They assimilated partially.
    There's some people one leg in one world,
    another leg another world.
    And for them it was easier to survive,
    because they knew how to hide.
    This one didn't have Semitic features.
    He could-- got false documents.
    He could mingle and nobody would know it until some Germans--
    German would do what they were doing, taking a man on the side
    and asking him to drop his pants.
    That was a--
    To see if he was circumcised.
    Yeah.
    Because non-Jews were not circumcised in Poland.
    There was exception and there was a rule.
    And that, Germans-- for them it was last test.
    But sometime was not sufficient.
    There are all kinds of the relationships.
    German, to survive in Poland locally,
    they had to somehow relate.
    They couldn't be just shooting left and right.
    They needed food.
    They needed labor.
    The ghetto itself had assignments.
    The Jewish authorities, Judenrat, authorities
    had assignments.
    So many people they need for work.
    Every day different people.
    Sometimes people work two, three times a week.
    Sometimes was paid a little bit.
    Others were not paid.
    All varied thing.
    But assignment was they needed, so for road work,
    for some other repairs, for some help with bringing food
    here or there.
    Less with food, because with food people
    would be stealing food.
    So they tried to separate food from people.
    But they didn't have enough people of their own.
    Soldiers had tasks in the army or they went
    to the front, Eastern Front.
    They had to co-exist somehow.
    So they tried to bribe people by promises.
    But as you know, all the--
    most of the people who cooperated openly,
    or the Jewish police, which was guarding ghetto in Góra
    Kalwaria--
    they were the last one to be packed in the last cart.
    And they were sent to Warsaw ghetto
    and then to Treblinka and other--
    to gas chambers.
    Germans didn't feel loyalty towards those
    who were cooperating with them.
    But at the time when they needed they
    found, always, people who were willing to cooperate.
    Those were the times.
    It was interesting-- let me tell you just one thing.
    Sure.
    My mother had the observation that war time
    is the time when you have the opportunity
    to recognize who are good people, who are bad people.
    That among our acquaintances, friends,
    acquaintance of the acquaintances,
    people who we'd expect to be honest,
    to be fair, to be real human beings with empathy who
    were surprised.
    Those were expecting, they passed the exam, so to speak.
    And people whom we treated--
    we thought that they are not worth to have respect,
    they became real heroes, really honest people who, so to speak,
    passed the exam of humanity.
    And that was one of the major lessons which my mother and I
    learn, that the real people you recognize when the real test,
    real need comes in life, that people have different
    [NON-ENGLISH], different layers.
    And you really, to know the essence of a human person--
    it's to remove all these layers first.
    And the war is the time when real
    test for the characters of the people.
    So in 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto--
    before the Warsaw Ghetto uprising,
    I was in Warsaw several times.
    My mother was coming, doing some trading and visiting friends.
    We have some friends in Warsaw.
    And on several occasions my mother
    took me and we walk along the walls of the ghetto.
    It was a section--
    I forgot the name of the street, but I could reconstruct it--
    where the cobblestone pavement of the street,
    sidewalk on outside street paved.
    And then the wall of the ghetto was almost
    on the edge of the street, or a very narrow sidewalk.
    The wall on that section was--
    had no windows.
    And you can see the signs where windows were removed
    and the holes were filled with the brick.
    The walls were, I would say, about eight meters,
    eight yards, about, tall.
    I didn't see anybody on the top.
    There were barbed wires on the top.
    But at the bottom were--
    once in a while there were a small, narrow windows
    which had iron bars densely installed that a person--
    maybe cat could sneak in, but person couldn't.
    But often, when we're in the same area,
    we saw children's hands sticking out
    outside through that window.
    And they were either--
    they would see, quite often, people
    walking on the other side.
    And they were showing that, give me something.
    Give me something.
    And not far from there was a stand
    with vegetables where you can buy carrots, onions, celery--
    something which you can--
    a person can eat raw.
    And on several occasions my mother,
    with as little money as we had, were buying a couple carrots.
    And I exclusively-- my mother was
    observing when the gendarmes were walking their backs
    towards back another one.
    So it means they're walking away.
    Opposite.
    And they were not-- opposite direction.
    And they were not looking at us, being on the sidewalk
    on the other side of the street.
    And we are throwing these carrots.
    At these kids were grabbing them and eating them.
    You can see that they were very hungry.
    And every piece of carrot was consumed almost on spot.
    You can see how it was appreciated.
    So my mother--
    I think she did it for--
    because she could throw it ourself,
    but she was giving it to me to teach me,
    be empathetic and help other children-- children
    helping children.
    There was-- on several occasions I remember that we're doing.
    And also, by being in Warsaw we're
    standing on the tram stop.
    It was a raised area.
    And in one particular place there was ulica Puławska
    and there was tramway place when they were--
    like a hangar, where there were--
    several trains were ready to--
    they were stored there temporarily,
    and they were-- before they got on their routine trip.
    And this particular day, afternoon-- sunny day--
    a truck comes.
    And German soldiers come from the cabin,
    and the truck is covered and full of the prisoners.
    And they commanding them to get out.
    They putting them against the wall.
    And one, with the machine gun, kills the entire row.
    And other prisoners are ask--
    another truck comes and asked to take
    this body with hands and legs--
    one person holding hands, another--
    to throw them on that truck.
    And they were taking them away.
    After they left we couldn't-- we were encircled by the police
    so we couldn't go.
    I remember some of the women were putting their hands
    on children's eyes, not letting them to see it.
    But kids, even if they--
    they always between the fingers, or they managed to see it.
    There's no way.
    Did your mother try to do that?
    Did she cover your eyes?
    She didn't encourage me, but she was explaining that.
    And strangely enough, these people,
    as sometime was happening, they were not raising--
    they were not shouting.
    They knew they were being killed, but they didn't--
    they didn't shout [POLISH],, let's leave Poland free,
    or something like that they were shouting in Polish.
    That particular group-- and there
    were a couple trucks came.
    And I don't-- didn't count them, but they must have been several
    dozen people killed this way.
    Mostly men were killed.
    Do you think they were--
    were they Pole-- were they non-Jewish or Jewish?
    I have no idea.
    No idea.
    I have no idea, because nobody to ask, nobody to tell.
    Who knows?
    I didn't see David's stars on there.
    I would suspect they were non-Jews, rather.
    But I have no idea.
    And after all of that show, which
    was done purposely by Germans to scare people,
    to make demonstration--
    because they could take these people
    and kill them next to cemetery and bury them.
    They did it in public places purposely to spread fear,
    to spread the--
    to tell people, watch it, because if you don't behave you
    will be killed as they are.
    That was the message which they wanted to send.
    And so it was interesting reaction of the people--
    of the people who were watching that.
    Once-- because we were very close.
    We were, I would say, less than 100 yards from that, really,
    because not always every of these prisoners
    were killed on spot.
    Sometime they were moving.
    So Germans were still walking around,
    and they were shooting in their head here
    and there from the handgun.
    Once that show ended the trucks went and the police freed us
    to-- because trams were not moving,
    traffic was stopped for that execution time.
    There was, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes,
    something like that it lasted.
    Then they restored the traffic.
    And then people were going to the execution place.
    And the walls were full of blood.
    Blood was in the street curb where the rain normally goes.
    How do you call it?
    The rain--
    The drains.
    Drain.
    So and their behavior-- the people, these who are watching
    were behaving.
    Some people were laying down, some people crying.
    Some people were touching and kissing these places.
    It's like holy places.
    It was amazing.
    But I remember, seems like that in spite of being eight,
    nine, 10 years old--
    basically nine, because 10 years old was already--
    war is over.
    Do you remember talking about it with your mother?
    And does she have any--
    It was so shocking for her.
    She saw it.
    She didn't ask me what I saw because I was next to her.
    And she tried to screen me.
    But I saw.
    I saw everything.
    And I was like hypnotized.
    I didn't know when it started and when it ended.
    I don't know what hour it was.
    I was just--
    In shock.
    Shock.
    So the concept of PTSD--
    we didn't know the acronyms.
    Nobody knew about what does it mean at that time.
    But for young people like myself these things--
    you cannot forget it.
    And to the extent that--
    I think it's not enough of studying and knowledge
    what tragic situations like the war, like the memories
    of human beings treated worse than animals are treated quite
    often have impact on the psyche of young people.
    And I would like to be advocate for some studies
    to be done what impact war makes on young people.
    I know myself that after, when I go
    like I went today with my memories
    back to these awful, awful times I am shaken.
    I am shaken now.
    And I feel worn out.
    And I feel disturbed so much that crying
    wouldn't release that tension, will not be enough.
    That's why I not so easily return to these times
    and talk about that, because it just disturbs me
    so deeply that takes me longer time than
    to get back to my normal mental and psychic, so to speak--
    Do you have ways of coping--
    --state of mind.
    --with it and getting back to a normal--
    I did a lot in my life.
    I've never been in a psychiatrist's office--
    not for that purpose.
    No need.
    But I did practice a lot meditation,
    transcendental meditation, zen meditation.
    Till today, here, we have here zen meditation once a week.
    But I did it every day, twice a day sometime,
    just to restore my senses, because it's deeply, deeply
    disturbing experience just to talk about that.
    This is not somebody's else story.
    It's not the movie which one saw.
    This was my life, my childhood, which I basically
    didn't have because I didn't have normal play.
    Yes, we did try during the war sports.
    I was very achieved 100 meter dash runner, javelin champion
    and triple jump and long jump and high jump and--
    were my specialties.
    Yes, sports help a lot.
    But still didn't--
    I don't know what would be if was not that spot.
    I don't know if I had to be just with my thoughts.
    So yes, I did--
    I recognize the importance of physical movement,
    being in the nature, and so on.
    And today I'm struggling with my memories.
    So it's not easy experience.
    Not easy to talk about that.
    But I think it's important that other people of my age and even
    younger who still remember what similar
    experiences they had in their life--
    that is passed to the next generation
    so wars will be forbidden by law.
    I'm smiling at this point.
    But people will fully realize the consequences of the war.
    It's not that only people die on spot, that people are buried,
    that people lose their members of their families,
    they are injured physically, but the injury--
    the mental injuries, so to speak,
    which stays perhaps even more than one generation.
    Do you think it's affected your son?
    Somewhat.
    Somewhat.
    But I didn't talk details.
    And I hope that when he watches that he will understand me
    better, because a lot of things are difficult to express
    with words.
    Those are the personal experiences
    which people underwent.
    And others who didn't haven't been in my shoes,
    haven't been there.
    They didn't have a fear of losing their lives,
    or their mothers or fathers, or their cousins,
    or their friends.
    I can see it.
    It's impossible to visualize.
    You can be empathetic, but it's a degree
    to which you can be empathetic.
    It's still somebody's else life.
    Is not your life.
    It's his life, her life.
    And I think it's what Holocaust Museum is doing,
    saving for generation is so important, so important,
    because other places--
    there is some central archives here and there.
    But that needs to be made available
    for as much as possible, especially younger generations.
    That's my hope.
    That's my hope.
    All right.
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Wes Orlowski.
    We are meeting today on May 23, 2019.
    This is a second interview with Wes.
    The other interview was conducted in October 2018.
    Wes, we ended our last conversation
    talking about the end of the war.
    But we want to back up a little bit
    to talk about your father's experiences
    when he was deported to Auschwitz
    and then spent time in different camps.
    Yes, so my father was outside of our home, about 25 kilometers
    from us, in the center of Warsaw,
    when he was arrested by Germans, taken
    to the temporary headquarters where he was tortured.
    They didn't extract much from him
    because he didn't know what they were expecting him to know.
    And then he was transported to Auschwitz.
    Do you know when that was?
    Yes.
    I found the exact date when he was registered in Auschwitz.
    It was on 6 of July 1943.
    So a few weeks earlier he was arrested in Warsaw.
    In Auschwitz, depending on the period of time,
    but by the end of war, Germans were more lenient.
    It comes to the allowing families
    of prisoners and prisoners themselves to communicate
    between themselves.
    So we're allowed, by the end of war,
    to send some short letters written
    in German and small packages.
    Packages had to be limited in size and weight,
    and mostly vegetables, which he had
    to share with his inmates who were in the same room.
    A particular one which I visited many years later,
    they had nine beds in one room, 11 of them.
    And so when he received a parcel, as well as if they did,
    they had to share it with the inmates.
    Do you know which barracks he was in?
    Yes, I have all of that.
    It's written on--
    I have two letters from my father,
    authentic or original letters, written
    in German, one from Auschwitz and one from Mauthausen.
    And they are in span of two months.
    It means shortly before he was deported to Mauthausen
    and then shortly after he arrived to Mauthausen.
    So my father survived both camps because of several factors.
    One of them, he knew some German.
    But he was learning very fast due to the presence--
    he befriended some people there who knew German.
    And they were kind of teaching themselves.
    So my father was participating in these informal classes.
    Second, he was relatively healthy.
    He was entrepreneurial.
    Because in files, I found that he was listed as a gardener.
    I never knew that my father had any talent for gardening.
    But he was a gardener in Auschwitz.
    And then what I knew was that he had skills as an accountant.
    And they employed him in the office
    for keeping some records, probably suitcases, shoes,
    and whatever they--
    as we know, Germans are very systematic.
    And they were keeping records of everything.
    So my father survived.
    And also he had some access to the kitchen as a help.
    And then, if you are in the kitchen
    you try to steal as much as possible
    so you can have food later.
    Everybody was doing that.
    There are some reports my father didn't do that.
    But people were carrying bread in their pockets
    to the end of their life, long time after the liberation.
    And they were 50 years later, but they're still carrying
    bread in their pockets.
    You can imagine what kind of the insecurity people were going
    and what kind of fears they went through.
    What information did your father tell you about his experiences
    there?
    My father was telling me how he participated
    in the death march.
    So there were hundreds of prisoners organized in groups.
    And they with guards.
    They were chased by foot from Auschwitz camp,
    many, many, many miles along the streets and roads,
    to the railroad station which had
    the connection with Austria.
    And they were packed into the cars.
    And then unloaded in Vienna, in Austria, near the camp,
    Mauthausen.
    So I received--
    I still preserved one letter from before leaving
    the Auschwitz, and then I have one letter
    which was sent to sister of my mother.
    She lived in Silesian region, which was Southern Poland,
    much closer to Austria.
    Letters written, obviously, in German, with--
    both cases, there are his numbers which
    he had engraved on his hand.
    He mentioned also the exact place
    where he was located at that time, which block, which--
    how did he call it?
    Block and Stube, for example.
    So he left on the death march in--
    And he survived it--
    --in January?
    --because many-- no, it was before the end of 1944.
    Oh, OK.
    Thank God he survived this March.
    Because if anybody became weaker,
    and the neighboring prisoners working
    with him couldn't carry him holding his elbows,
    now he had to be left on the side of the road.
    And the last German guard who was passing him
    would shoot him.
    And then they would leave the body for the local--
    But he was strong enough to survive the march.
    My father was strong enough.
    And apparently he took care of himself.
    And one of the aspects which I didn't mention
    was that he became very strong believer in God
    and was praying a lot.
    And the claims that kept his sanity more or less stable.
    Because there were many cases that people
    couldn't take it anymore.
    So they were throwing their bodies on electrical fences
    and electrocuting themself to death.
    My father somehow was able to survive all these atrocities.
    And later he told me-- and I complemented my knowledge
    by reading more about that--
    the conditions for prisoners in Mauthausen
    were much, much worse than in Auschwitz.
    Mauthausen was considered one of the most severe German camps
    where first prisoners in the camp
    were sent already after the Anschluss of Austria in 1938,
    I believe.
    They started this camp in the quarry.
    They're digging huge, huge area of quarries
    in the side of the mountain to prevent this place
    to be bombed by the enemy's bombers.
    And there were the entire factories.
    The planes, they were built there.
    The ammunition was put together from the parts.
    And they're working to shifts, sometimes three shifts.
    They're taking turns.
    The prisoners had very poor average life span.
    For the prisoner in Mauthausen, it was two months.
    And my father survived seven months.
    And it was liberated in 1945, on May 5, by a unit of US Army.
    Do you know what kind of work he was doing in the camp?
    All kinds of activity.
    They were shifting them so that he
    was working with the ammunition for some time.
    Sometimes he was in the office, bookkeeping again.
    Which fortunately the knowledge of German by my father,
    his German was quite good to the extent
    that they were employing him in the less physically
    strenuous situations.
    The worst was for the people who had
    to push heavy carts filled of stones
    or where they were not enough people to--
    so they were overextended physically.
    And luckily for my father, he hasn't
    had to do a lot of menial work.
    Consequently, he walked from Mauthausen, in Austria,
    to Góra Kalwaria in Poland.
    Very rarely he was able to get on some freight.
    He was nearby of the railroad station.
    And the freight was just stopped.
    And so he could climb the train.
    But there was no regular transportation
    by train in 1945.
    Did he talk about liberation and his emotions at liberation?
    No, they're all ecstatic.
    But they were in such poor physical condition
    that joy was limited to the food which they could eat
    and the stomach problems they had.
    Because when they started to eat,
    they didn't know where to end.
    Then their stomachs were not accustomed to have
    normal food and plenty of food.
    So they were really suffering.
    Many of them had digestive programs.
    And so they were quickly learning how--
    both the prisoners and the people
    who were giving them food--
    to be very careful how they transitioned
    to their normal life.
    When your father got back home, do you
    remember seeing him for the first time after the war?
    Yes, obviously I remember that.
    When he came, he was dressed in very funny--
    because as he walked from Austria,
    they were able to enter the empty houses which
    were abandoned by German population
    in Western Polish territory.
    And so they take, sometimes, clothing which didn't fit them,
    or they were partially broken, or something.
    So he was very funnily dressed.
    That first struck me.
    And second, his behavior was considerably changed,
    and to the extent that my mother had
    a major conversation with him.
    And he went to live with his mother and his sister.
    And eventually my parents divorced
    because it was very difficult for my mother
    to raise me as a child.
    I was 10 and 1/2 at the time.
    What kind of personality changes did he have?
    Nightmares, short temper, sometimes kind
    of illogical statements.
    And there was no--
    one could not have a longer conversation with him quietly.
    Because he was very--
    level of anxiety, while he recovered physically,
    the level of anxiety gradually was increasing.
    And on the one hand, he was happy
    that he was liberated, obviously.
    But on the other hand, this lifestyle which they had,
    changed their--
    every person, obviously, every prisoner,
    was reacting in a different way.
    But their outlook of the world outside
    changed so radically that they didn't know, quite often,
    how to express it.
    They didn't understand what was going on with them.
    There were a lot of what you would call, today, PTSD.
    It was not known at the time.
    But all forms of that kind of the trauma was engraved deeply.
    There was not enough time to rest and recover for them.
    So they were still living, so to speak.
    They're waking in the morning.
    And they were surprised that they don't have to go to work,
    for example.
    Do you think, later in his life, he
    found ways of dealing with it, of coping with it, and changed?
    He must have.
    Because he started another family and eventually
    had two children.
    But I hadn't been in close contact with him
    at that time at the end of his life.
    He lived till the age--
    he was 79 when he died.
    He was born 1905 and died in 1983.
    And I've been to his grave, but I
    haven't seen in the last many years before his death.
    I will in the United States already, then, besides,
    for many years.
    So to return to our life, in 1944, we became refugees.
    What do you mean?
    You were kicked out of your home?
    We are told to leave our home at a short notice.
    Entire town, and neighboring villages,
    and the whole strip along the Vistual River.
    And the reason was that we live on the Western shore
    of the Vistula River.
    And on the eastern shore, Soviet army
    approached, chasing Germans.
    And the Vistula River became the border line
    between two armies--
    German army and Soviet army.
    And our house was on high shore of Vistula River,
    easily visible from the other shore of the river.
    And the snipers-- how do you call them,
    sharp snipers, with the lunettes,
    they could see any moving object.
    And they were shooting.
    So for a short time, we were living in our house.
    But we had to go with our head down and almost
    crawl because we could easily be shot
    like ducks during the hunting.
    Where did you go?
    So we went with two suitcases and my cat
    hanging in a bag on my neck, we walked for about several miles.
    And then, eventually, we hired, for a small fee,
    a farmer with his cart and horse and several families
    we share that vehicle.
    And we went to one of the villages
    when we rented a small place in the barn.
    And then we rented one room in the house.
    And then we went to another village.
    And that were Polish underground fighters from Warsaw uprising.
    It was 1944.
    We kept them from helping them to change dressings
    on their wounds.
    And after a few weeks, they left.
    They were taken by other units of underground movement
    during the night.
    But nearby there was a big artillery unit, German.
    And it was aiming, obviously, towards east,
    against the Soviets.
    Then, certain day, in the morning,
    we see they are turning their guns
    aiming to the west, 180 degrees reversal.
    We were completely shocked.
    Well, what's-- they're shooting their own unit?
    Then we realized that they were ready to defend
    against the encircling which took place.
    The Russians broke the front at the beginning of January.
    Eventually the liberation of Warsaw
    took place on January 17, 1945.
    But before that, this German units
    which were in our neighborhood in the countryside,
    they were aiming towards us.
    They are not shooting at that time,
    but they were aiming towards west.
    Because Russian army already encircled them from the West.
    The only open area they had is towards Warsaw, towards north.
    So eventually they put their stuff together.
    They hooked their artillery units to the trucks.
    And they left towards north.
    I don't know what happened to them, whether they
    were caught in encirclement or they were able successfully
    to go west.
    Did you return home at that point?
    At this point, we were free to go home.
    And we-- around the time of the liberation of the Warsaw,
    we came with our two suitcases to our home.
    And our home was really plundered.
    And whatever was able--
    people who were stealing the items, they did a good job,
    I have to admit.
    And we barely found any belongings,
    including the front door.
    When we were approaching our house, we saw a gentleman--
    well, "gentleman," who my mother knew,
    he was cutting on his back, from door of our house.
    So my mother told him, you better leave it here.
    [CHUCKLES] And he grabbed the door, apologized--
    because he didn't know whose house was it--
    and he--
    He didn't put it back on?
    And my mother was his teacher.
    So he recognized my mother as a teacher.
    And, well, anyhow, after the war, life--
    we are all ecstatic, obviously.
    But there were huge shortages of everything.
    And food was the most important.
    The farmers which were around did
    their best and to feed their families
    and have something to sell and feed us,
    people living in the small town.
    We quickly started to grow food in a small garden.
    I was one of the main providers there.
    I learned a lot of skills at that time.
    What were you growing?
    Oh, basic root vegetables.
    Which we had good soil.
    Because chemicals were unknown.
    We were getting manure from farmers.
    My mother was helping herself and helping children.
    A lot of children were behind the regular program
    in Polish language, math, biology, geography,
    all the basic subjects in the grammar school.
    My mom was doing tutorials at home,
    after the regular school classes.
    So these children, on the way home, they were stopping by.
    Not that many-- two, three, one sometimes.
    But quite often, after regular school,
    there was somebody in my house where my mother was teaching.
    And these children, most of them,
    they were children of farmers.
    And there was a barter agreement.
    And they were bringing eggs, a small can of milk,
    homemade cheese, a chicken, sometimes live,
    sometimes killed, but freshly.
    So we are trying to survive.
    Because stores were empty at the beginning.
    And also there was shortage of cash.
    I mean, the whole organization of the life,
    it took many months before people
    could function normally--
    so to speak, normally.
    How did her job change with the communists in power?
    Very interesting question.
    Because my mother and all her colleagues,
    they were pre-war teachers.
    So they knew the program.
    And some of them, they saved the books, or copies of the books,
    pre-war.
    They were not accepted officially
    by the communist authorities because they were--
    especially history books.
    In math or biology, you cannot change much.
    But history books, they were a no-no
    for the communist authorities.
    So a lot of teaching was based either from these fragments
    of the books which are saved by the teachers
    or from their memories, or teachers
    who are teaching one another some of that,
    depending who was behind the back, who was unofficial.
    And they were kind of the between the real facts
    and phantom history which communists wanted to teach.
    And the history-- as the older people
    knew, history is not only what's in the books,
    but what's in people's memory, especially older people's
    memory.
    So they were very difficult times.
    My mother was very involved in the teachers union.
    Before war, she was participating
    in demonstrations in Warsaw.
    But after the war, obviously the teachers labor union
    was penetrated by communists, open or secret agents.
    So we need to relearn quickly who
    to speak to, to what extent.
    We had to learn how to read between the lines what's
    in the newspapers.
    We had to learn quickly not to believe official propaganda.
    We have to relearn quickly how to man--
    or woman-- a radio receiver and how
    to listen to Radio Free Europe or BBC from England.
    Radio Free Europe stations were located just
    over the border between West and Eastern
    Germany, several transmitters on different frequencies.
    And to learn that the Polish authorities are having
    radio stations on the same frequency located in Poland,
    which those were sending huge noise, gobbledygook,
    mechanical noise.
    Which the purpose of that was just
    to squash the regular signals coming from Radio Free
    Europe from Germany.
    What programs do you remember listening to?
    Oh, they were all publicity programs.
    They were interviewing interesting people.
    And they were, you know--
    at the beginning we believed whatever was said there.
    Because it was so different and refreshing
    what was the official propaganda.
    Gradually we started to learn how to read and listen
    with some criticism.
    To the BBC and Free Radio--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    --and Radio Free Europe.
    They were a different type of propaganda,
    as we learned, after some time.
    And was that in English?
    No, it was in Polish.
    Everything was in Polish.
    No, no, it was directed to Polish population.
    OK, and the BBC was also?
    Yeah, but authorities were chasing it.
    So people were doing very secretly in the evening,
    not too loud so neighbors wouldn't hear.
    But a lot of people were doing it, even
    those who claim to be communists and believing
    in the theory of communism.
    We learned later they were listening to these radio
    stations as well.
    So I'm sure you had neighbors that you could trust
    and neighbors you couldn't trust.
    Yes, yes.
    During the war, from the very beginning,
    my mother had a saying that real friends,
    you recognized and distinguished from so-called friends when
    the people had to do the sacrifices
    and people have to do beyond their comfort zone.
    So the people-- many of our neighbors
    which we thought not very highly about them,
    they appeared full of sacrifices,
    ready to take their last shirt and give you
    if you needed, so to speak, symbolically.
    And people for whom we had high esteem
    appeared not worse, petty, so to speak.
    Because they became either selfish or they became agents.
    And they were ready to spy on you and report to authorities.
    So learning whom you can trust and to what extent
    was one of the major human skills which one had to learn.
    Did those neighbors change at all
    after the communists came into power?
    Were certain neighbors who you could trust during the war,
    could you no longer trust them after the war?
    This was an interesting process.
    That was a dynamic process.
    And to the extent that these things are written
    and I witness the situations like that, people
    who were discovered by the Polish underground movement
    in the war, that they were cooperating with Germans,
    and they were caught and proven, they
    were taken on the site somewhere outside of everybody's view,
    and they were shot and killed by the special units
    of Polish underground movement.
    And there was very obvious reason--
    to give a lesson to the rest of the society
    that's not the approved way of behaving.
    Plus they had to be removed because they
    are doing so much damage.
    So many people lost lives because of people like that.
    So yes, there are all kinds of the behaviors.
    There are people who were indecisive that
    then became very cooperative.
    People who were cooperative and they change their mind
    and they became selfish.
    There were trial periods for everybody.
    Everybody was, certain way, exposed and tested.
    And there was nobody basically who
    could stay in their comfort zone and stay unengaged in any way.
    So let's switch topics and talk about your education.
    So my education started from self-education.
    So when my mother was giving tutorials,
    I was sitting, playing with my toys, in the other room.
    Doors were open.
    I was on the floor.
    And my mother didn't know that I'm
    absorbing everything what she was teaching there
    like a sponge.
    To the extent that when I was ready to go to the first grade,
    teachers who where examining me, they said,
    no, you can go to second grade.
    You know more than that.
    So my mother herself was surprised.
    But I went to the second grade.
    And from that second grade to the end of my high school,
    I was always--
    to the last class, I was always the best student.
    I had the best grades.
    However, in the last two years of my high school,
    there was an--
    older than all of us--
    young man came.
    And he was studying at the seminary for priests.
    And he knew Latin like nobody else.
    He knew French like nobody else.
    And he was good, but not as good as I was in math.
    [CHUCKLES]
    But I had quite a problem.
    Because I was accustomed to being the best.
    All the kids were coming to me with problems to solve
    or something.
    I was helping.
    And I was not selfish.
    I was very helpful to other students.
    However, in that last--
    just before graduation, I had problem
    with competing with this young man.
    As I said, he was for four or five years older than us.
    And he had so much schooling in that seminary.
    So anyhow, I graduated from high school in 1952, the same year
    I applied to Warsaw Polytech, to the Department of Electronics,
    which was a direction--
    well, if young man ask older man where
    he should go in the movie The Graduate,
    I believe, he would say, "plastics."
    At that time, electronics was a popular direction.
    Everybody wanted to learn about electronics.
    And we had competitive exams.
    I went through that starting in--
    it was an 11-semester program.
    There was an experimental program
    where we couldn't get a BS, Bachelor of Science.
    We had to go for master's.
    So in one chunk, without interrupting
    there was the first course of that entire college.
    I had to go for master's degree.
    So after almost 10 semesters, when
    I was done with my regular study at the class, when
    it was the time to write dissertation, myself and two
    of my closest friends, we started
    to work in industrial institute for telecommunications.
    And it was semi-military institution.
    But there was a lot of work there for civilians.
    In our case we were doing parts for radars
    which were later installed on commercial ships,
    ocean-going ships.
    So when I was writing my dissertation,
    I had to do a lot of translations
    from literature, not only in English but in French.
    And I was fluent in French at that time, in Russian,
    in Italian, and obviously in Polish.
    So I had to be, from the technical translation
    point of view, fluent in five languages.
    Did you learn all these languages in school?
    Some of them in school.
    But like French, I was learning--
    my first exposure with French was
    there were two workers working for Germans in the shop which
    was repairing.
    It was 1943-44.
    My father, at the beginning of that,
    was still visiting us from Warsaw.
    But then he was taken to Auschwitz.
    That didn't prevent two contractual workers
    from France--
    one was Russian origin, and another was the Polish origin.
    I remember their names--
    Stanisław Malinowski and [? Lisen. ?] Mr.
    [? Lisen ?] was--
    had background.
    His ancestors were White Russians,
    those who were murdered mostly during the 1917 revolution
    in Soviet Union.
    So and his family escaped to Paris.
    And he was educated there.
    So he was fluent in Russian.
    And I remember he was talking a little bit of Russian
    to me, both of them talking French.
    And Mr. Stanisław Malinowski was knowing Polish,
    but kind of the broken Polish.
    So an interesting conversation at the table.
    They were bringing some food with them.
    We were cooking together.
    And they were-- for example, first time I
    ate frogs, the frog legs, fried on butter and so on.
    And they were delicious.
    But I wouldn't eat them today.
    Did they make you catch the frogs?
    I went with them.
    I showed them where they are.
    And they were catching them.
    I knew where they were, where they frogs were.
    So that's my first exposure with French.
    Then my mother's colleague, teacher of the French--
    it was 1944, '45, and '46--
    I was coming to her home and helping her
    with the chores, household chores.
    And she was speaking French exclusively to me.
    She wouldn't allow me to speak Polish.
    So I was quite fluent.
    I didn't know much grammar, but I
    was fluent in everyday talk, just simple sentences.
    And eventually I was learning, in school, grammar.
    So when I graduated high school I
    was good in Latin, four years of Latin,
    four years of formal schooling, in high school, in French.
    And learning Russian caught with me only in college.
    First time I had to go-- it was unusual.
    In my times, most of the high schools and the regular schools
    had to have Russian.
    Somehow my high school omitted--
    they were able to avoid teaching there.
    They didn't have teacher.
    And that was not popular, Russian.
    That was very helpful for me, French.
    But English, I started to learn preparing
    my dissertation, my master's degree dissertation.
    It was '56, '57, '58, '59.
    I graduated officially '59, with master's degree,
    from Warsaw Polytech.
    Did you have any mentors at that time?
    Yes.
    One of my colleagues--
    and we happened to live in dorms, in the same room.
    I was lucky.
    And I asked him a lot of questions.
    He had dictionaries.
    So kind of informal tutorial.
    Because my first English self-taught words were--
    the pronunciation of them, I found it in pictures.
    I didn't know how to pronounce the words.
    I knew what they meant.
    But I had to see them first before, realistically, I
    could comprehend.
    That was everything helpful until--
    all my life.
    Foreign languages were saviors many times in my life.
    I was lucky, I would say.
    Among other things, I was in the right place at the right time.
    That was part of the luck.
    But I developed the skills for languages.
    And also human skills.
    I think coming from that training during the war
    and after the war, and balancing act
    which we had to, all the time, whom to trust, to what extent,
    and how to build relationships and friendships,
    and how to value real relationships,
    the real friendships.
    Those are the skills you cannot easily learn or cannot learn
    at all in school.
    So tell me what life was like going
    from a relatively small town to Warsaw, which
    is a very interesting city.
    That's a very good question.
    Because I would assume that this country
    would be something of similar nature.
    Small towns are in kind of the dream certain way.
    Everybody knows everybody.
    They have expectations you have to follow.
    In big cities, people disappear.
    They don't really care for neighbors anymore.
    They could be on the same corridor, have doors,
    and they don't say good morning to one another.
    They pretend that they don't--
    they avoid other people.
    This is not the case.
    Warsaw, at that time, had a lot of population
    coming from smaller cities and from the countryside.
    So this people brought a culture of small town
    plus the experience, the older generations, you know, the war.
    People were much more friendlier, helpful,
    paying attention one to another, not
    being afraid to look into other people's eyes.
    When I came to this country, one of the first warnings
    I was told, not to look into the eyes of young men especially,
    being young man.
    Because that is considered as a challenge.
    And can end up being beaten up.
    [CHUCKLES] Do you think you were misled by that?
    I never experienced a beating in this country.
    But observing other people, I think
    that was not bad advice to be on the cautious side,
    not to be too trustful and direct people
    and to be too friendly.
    What advice did your mother give you when you moved to Warsaw?
    My mother, being born in the countryside
    and then living more years in a small city,
    never have much to offer in the sense of practical,
    how to behave.
    More helpful was to have some friends acquaintance
    of the acquaintances, or her pupils,
    or her co-workers who moved to Warsaw.
    So I could-- not to live with them,
    but I could come sometimes for advice, for--
    this times, there were huge problems
    with supply of basic goods.
    So having friends, acquaintances, always allow
    people to ask for favors and give favors.
    For example, if I was walking in the streets
    and I see the line of people in the front of this store--
    because it's not enough room in the store,
    so people are outside, long line, 20, 70, 40
    people standing in line.
    Most of the people, what they do, without asking,
    they will first stand up and take the place in line.
    And then they started to ask what they give here.
    "Give."
    Notice that.
    Not because you're paying with money obviously,
    but delivery was just coming.
    Truck came.
    And it was delivery of toilet paper, let's say.
    So you wouldn't buy two or three or a small block of paper.
    You bought 20 or 30 toilet papers.
    And you took a string, you put them through the string,
    and you'll make like a--
    Like a necklace?
    A garland?
    Like a garland.
    And you are hanging them, let's say, three times or four times
    around your head.
    And you are walking in the street
    like that, which looks funny.
    But you are not alone in the street.
    And then you came home and, to your good friend,
    you sold them half or whatever of your supply.
    So everybody was trading with everybody else.
    And life was full of activity.
    Nobody was bored.
    Because to survive, you had to be industrious, active,
    working with others, helping one another,
    not to be afraid to ask for help,
    but also be ready to give a hand or to share your goods which
    you received.
    And you consider yourself lucky.
    Did you have any interaction with the Jewish community
    in Warsaw after the war?
    Or did you have classmates who were Jewish?
    Only in Góra Kalwaria.
    And those are the people who incidentally
    are recorded already for the US Memorial Museum.
    I was listening to their testimonials.
    One is Mr. Heinrich Price.
    Another one is Mr. Kartman.
    Another one is Mr. Majewski.
    And did you know them?
    Yes, I knew them quite well.
    Especially Mr. Price was working some social organizations
    together was my mom in Góra Kalwaria in '50s, '60s.
    So I knew him.
    I knew his family.
    And he had one daughter, Malgosia.
    And she's one of the three people
    I'm going to recommend for the museum to interview.
    Mr. Price and the others died.
    Mr. Price had 101 years when he died.
    It's amazing.
    But you didn't have any classmates
    who were Jewish when you were going through college
    for your master's program?
    Several.
    Oh, there were several?
    Yeah, there were several.
    But as it happens, many of them, they had Polish names.
    And they were not--
    either they were converts or they
    were coming from mixed family, where mother was Jewish
    or father was Jewish but had Polish name.
    So several of them, I was friendly.
    And certainly only after I became friendly
    I learned that they were Jewish or had some Jewish background.
    Part of it was the country were--
    there were all kinds of the experiences.
    And it's just not the place now to--
    this is a longer story.
    But people of Jewish origin were involved
    whole spectrum of activities.
    Some of them, they were part of the communist establishment.
    Some of them they were against.
    They work in underground army.
    The ethnic origin was not enough to make any judgment.
    Depending how these people were behaving, what they were doing,
    were they doing something good for their environment,
    for where they live, for the people where they--
    or they were involved in arrests and other not-popular causes.
    So it was a judgmental call each time.
    Yes, but I have several friends, good friends,
    who are of Jewish origin, including the older friend
    of mine who came from France.
    And where he was part of the French underground movement.
    His brother became the owner of the major circles in Warsaw.
    And this friend of mine taught me how to make coq au vin.
    It means chicken in wine--
    how to cook--
    What was his name.
    --chicken.
    His name was-- it just escaped me this moment.
    Maybe I'll recall it.
    So when did you finish your master's program?
    I got the diploma which is dated 1959.
    But the program itself, I would say majority of my colleagues
    graduated--
    there was not the one day of graduation where we're done
    with our master's.
    Most of us were already working because we
    were stripped of money.
    We couldn't support ourselves.
    So we were looking for jobs, working as young engineers.
    And the salaries were poor, but they allow you to survive.
    And that's where it counted.
    I didn't have my apartment in Warsaw.
    I couldn't travel to my work in Warsaw from Góra Kalwaria
    because there was narrow-gauge train which took almost one
    hour and a half, like one hour and 20 minutes, one way.
    So I had to live in Warsaw.
    So what was your first job out of school?
    After the college, my first job was
    in that industrial institute, where
    I was doing research work, experimental research work,
    with the behavior of semiconductor
    devices in high-frequency electromagnetic fields.
    There were big-dimensional rectangular
    in cross-section tubes in which the electromagnetic signals
    were sent.
    And these semiconductor devices were put inside.
    And there were measurements how they were detecting
    that and all kind of--
    based on their really cutting-edge science.
    One of the funniest things is, which
    probably many people in the West didn't know,
    that there was an embargo on the communist countries.
    And normally you couldn't get the most modern equipment.
    And for the electronic engineers, having good--
    like today you have a computer.
    At that time, in '50s, you had to have an oscillator.
    And one of the best oscillators in the world
    was American tectronics.
    And we had the most modern tectronics,
    which were embargoed by the US.
    How it happened-- there were go-betweens
    in Switzerland which would, for cash,
    they would sell you that equipment.
    But what they would do, they would mechanically
    remove the serial number on that so that nobody could trace it
    back who sold to whom.
    So it was a lot of equipment which we had in our laps
    through the purchasing agents which
    were having cash with them.
    They went to Switzerland, purchased them,
    and brought them behind the Iron Curtain.
    And we had the most modern equipment.
    So what brought you to the US?
    A Fulbright Fellowship.
    Mm-hmm.
    When did you receive that?
    In 1970.
    I applied in 19--
    I was working then at the Polish Academy of Sciences
    in one of the institutes-- two institutes
    I worked for Polish Academy of Sciences.
    One, for a short time, was Institute of Basic Technical--
    I don't know how to translate it.
    Another one was called Institute of Electronic Technology, where
    I am doing support research because I do not have a PhD.
    And unofficially I have advanced work towards a PhD
    experimentally.
    But I didn't start the coursework yet at that time.
    So there was the work in that institute.
    Then I worked for a company which
    was managing communication in air corridors.
    So we're in charge of radio beacons
    in the corridors or instrumental landing system.
    I had several responsible positions.
    One of them was I was in charge of installation
    of the first instrumental landing
    system in Okecie International Airport in Warsaw.
    That was 1962, I believe.
    That was one of the first instrumental landing systems
    installed in Eastern Europe.
    It was a British equipment [INAUDIBLE]..
    That's where knowledge of English was helpful.
    Later, when I was working and had a little bit of time--
    my workday was ending usually at 3:00--
    for another hour or two, I was working another job
    with the same institution, which was paid separately.
    And there was research for some companies.
    And I had another job, which was the translation of the aircraft
    manuals, civilian aircraft, from English into Polish.
    And I had hand written, and then I
    have a typist who was typing it by conventional type--
    or electric maybe she had.
    That's a lot of pressure to have to translate that--
    I was doing it the evenings--
    It's very important information.
    --and weekends.
    And it requires a lot of technical knowledge involved.
    It is not just your regular English.
    No.
    [BOTH CHUCKLE]
    It is not an easy text.
    And so I have to consult with the aircraft engineer
    sometimes.
    But it allowed me to save enough money
    to buy apartment in Warsaw.
    Finally I had enough money to buy.
    And I got the bank loan obviously, the mortgage,
    for that.
    When I left for the United States in 1970,
    my mother moved from her apartment to this apartment.
    And I was sending her some money to finish paying that mortgage.
    And then I paid it to the end and became the owner.
    OK, we'll take a break.
    Yeah.

    There is no transcript available for this track

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Wiesław Orlowski, born May 17, 1935 in Góra Kalwaria, Poland, discusses his parents and how they met; his father's work as an accountant; his mother's work as a grammar school teacher and her role in the community; his first memories; his family's history in Poland; the beginning of the war in September 1939; the aerial bombing in Góra Kalwaria and the destruction of a neighbor's house; fleeing towards the Russian border after the initial attacks; being attacked during the journey; being ordered to return home; his mother's efforts to secretly continue educating the local children during the war; his mother's involvement with the underground movement, which included hosting trainings in their house and keeping a radio transmitter in their attic for communication with the Polish Government in Exile in London; Wes's role to keep an lookout for German soldiers who were driving around Góra Kalwaria in an attempt to locate the transmitter; listening in during the secret resistance movement trainings in his house; the ghetto in Góra Kalwaria; his mother's efforts to have food smuggled into the ghetto; his father's work in Warsaw, where he also lived during the first part of the war; his father's arrest and interrogation in Warsaw; his father's experiences in Auschwitz and on a forced march to Mauthausen, where he survived until liberation; witnessing a mass execution; having to leave their home in 1944 as Soviet troops approached; fleeing the city with his mother and their cat; returning home and finding it plundered; his father's return home after liberation and the changes he showed after his time in the camps; his parents' divorce in 1946; the mines left in the local fields after the war and the young people who were hired to find them (many of whom died); his mother's activities in the social movements; life under the Communists; excelling in school; attending the Politechnika Warszawska (Technical University of Warsaw); being kicked out of a communist youth group; earning his master's degree in 1959; working for several years in Warsaw before receiving a Fullbright scholarship to study at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1970; meeting his wife in Madison and getting married after returning to Poland; returning to the US; working at Yale University; his research and his feelings that his work was being used for purposes he did not ethically agree with; moving to Massachusetts with his wife and son; and his thoughts on education and the importance of bridging the communication gap between generations.
    Interviewee
    Wiesław Orlowski
    Interviewer
    Nancy Cooey
    Date
    interview:  2018 August 15
    interview:  2019 May 23
    Geography
    creation: Massachusetts
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    3 digital files : WAV.

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Corporate Name
    AK-Home Army (Poland)

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Nancy Cooey, on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, conducted the oral history interview with Wiesław "Wes" Orlowski on August 15, 2018 and May 23, 2019 in Massachusetts.
    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 08:05:55
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn623144

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    Time Coded Notes (2)

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    Contains interviews with Holocaust survivors, concentration camp liberators, rescuers, relief workers, former POWs, and people of different social and ethnic backgrounds who were targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators or witnessed the events of the Holocaust

    Date: 1989-2023

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    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

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    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

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    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

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    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

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    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

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    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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