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Oral history interview with Heinz Bohm

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2006.70.48 | RG Number: RG-50.583.0048

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    Oral history interview with Heinz Bohm
    Transcript
    And for Holocaust studies.
    The person being interviewed is Heinz Bohm.
    My name is Gilda Manuel.
    The date is the 6th of May, 1989.
    Right, Mr. Bohm, could you give me your personal details
    your name, your full name, the year
    of your birth, the place where you were born,
    the country, and some of your family background details?
    My name is Heinz Werner Bohm.
    And I was born in 1922 in Duisburg, Federal German
    Republic.
    I spent my early childhood in Duisburg.
    I stayed in Duisburg until I was 16.
    And as a result of the destruction
    of the synagogues in November 1938,
    I went by children's transport of the Red Cross
    to Holland, where I was interned originally in a camp, de Kleine
    Haag, which was near Arnhem.
    Right.
    Before you go on with the Holland section,
    could you give me a little bit of detail about your family
    background and your life in Duisburg?
    What socioeconomic level were your family?
    Were they wealthy, were they not wealthy?
    Right.
    And also, what I'd like to know is
    what your young life was like.
    Were you Jewishly involved?
    Did you belong to you movements?
    Or did you go to synagogue?
    Right.
    That sort of thing.
    Well, both my parents were born in Poland.
    And they came to Germany shortly after the First World War.
    I attended two Jewish public-- a Jewish primary school.
    And in 1933, I went to the Realgymnasium.
    And we were members of the center of the Jewish community.
    We belonged to the Duisburg synagogue.
    And apart from my education at the Jewish public school,
    I had my education--
    I had lessons from our rabbi, Rabiner Dr. Neumark.
    In 1938, that was the year when Hitler came to power,
    I went to the Realgymnasium.
    What kind of school was that?
    That was a high school, where English, French, and Latin
    was taught.
    Basically, there were three categories of high school--
    the gymnasium, where Greek and Latin were taught
    and no modern language, the Realgymnasium,
    where modern languages and Latin, history, et cetera
    were taught.
    And then there was the old Realschule, also a high school,
    but without Latin.
    So this was not a Jewish school anymore?
    It was not a-- no.
    No.
    No, there was no Jewish high school in Duisburg.
    I belonged to Habonim.
    And well, my parents had their own furniture retail shop,
    a retail, and then ladies' and men's clothing.
    After 1933, my father sold the furniture section
    and conducted a business for men's and women's clothing
    and also drapery.
    Our clientele consisted mainly of mine workers
    so that my father had to do quite a bit of traveling.
    Every payday, he and another employee
    went out and then collect the installments due.
    So his clientele was not Jewish?
    No, no, no.
    But what about your social life?
    Was that involved with other Jews?
    Yes.
    What size was the community?
    The community would have consisted of a few thousand
    people.
    And there was a relatively high percentage
    of so-called Ostjuden.
    And as far as I was concerned, I was born in Germany,
    but most of our friends had a similar background,
    where the parents came from Eastern Europe.
    So even then, there was a certain division
    between Ostjuden and Westjuden.
    And as I mentioned, I belonged to Habonim.
    My parents belong to the Zionist organization.
    And as far as I can remember, practically all our friends
    were Jewish.
    We observed Shabbat.
    We observed the holidays, I mean, all the Jewish holidays.
    So you were an identifying Jew?
    Oh, yes, we were what would be called here traditional Jews.
    And as far as affiliation, the affiliation
    was similar to what is called Conservative synagogues
    in the United States.
    Or if I may use an example here, like the Lindfield or the Great
    Synagogues.
    Right.
    I see.
    Good.
    OK.
    So you lived there until you were 16, did you say?
    That's right.
    Right.
    And then what was your initial contact with Nazism?
    How did it first affect you personally?
    It affected me straight from the time when
    I was attending high school.
    Although being members of the Hitler Youth
    was not yet compulsory, there were already
    a few of my classmates who were members of the Jung Volk,
    as it was called.
    And they made life rather difficult.
    I had a certain--
    I suffered under a certain disadvantage.
    I was rather fat and not very sporty.
    And taunt-- I mean, normal taunting, but there
    were antisemitic undertones.
    It became worse from 1935, when it became compulsory
    to be a member of Jung Volk, or then, the elder group, Hitler
    Jugend.
    As far as my teachers are concerned,
    I was very fortunate that the teacher for the subjects which
    I really liked was a very devout Catholic, who
    imbued in me the love of fair modern languages
    and also classical language.
    Some other teachers made life very, very difficult.
    And as time went on, I was isolated.
    I had to sit at the back of the class.
    And I had dispensation from certain lessons dealing
    with the rise of the Nazi movement.
    I was not asked to join those classes.
    As far as physical attacks are concerned, no.
    But I was ostracized by my--
    and I was well made aware that I was Jewish.
    Were you the only Jewish boy in the class?
    No, there were two of us.
    Did he experience the same thing?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    So you were in one camp versus the others.
    That's right.
    Right.
    And until '35, I did not notice much of outside antisemitism
    because Duisburg book is a highly-industrialized area.
    And it was one of the strong points of the Social Democratic
    Party and also communist parties.
    The clients were, as I mentioned, all non-Jews.
    But then in 1935, after the so--
    excuse me, after the so-called Nuremberg laws,
    it became more difficult for non-Jews
    to come to our business.
    As far as personnel is concerned, we had domestic help
    and we had also office help.
    And they were-- well, they could not
    be German women or otherwise of German backgrounds,
    like Sudetenland, et cetera.
    So that obviously affected your father's business too?
    Yes.
    It must have started to go down once the people were not
    allowed to come.
    Yes, well, I was then 14.
    Of course, as far as we are concerned, I mean,
    business matters were not discussed at the table.
    But if I may anticipate that, when I started, then,
    lodging my compensation claim, then it
    was clearly noticeable how the business
    deteriorated from about '35.
    Right.
    And did you come from a large family?
    No.
    I had one brother.
    One brother.
    And did you have extended family in Duisburg?
    Yes, I had uncles.
    I had one uncle, two cousins in Essen, which is not very far.
    I had uncle and cousins in Cologne.
    So within two hours' travel, we were, I think, about 20.
    Right.
    And were they all-- did they all perish in the Holocaust?
    About half perished, either in a camp or by committing suicide.
    OK.
    Right, now, when you talk of that your first sort
    of encounter with Nazism, in what way did it affect
    the community as a whole?
    Did they all leave their place?
    A relatively high percentage left.
    Now, how it became noticeable is that Jews were not
    allowed to attend theaters.
    They were not allowed to go to parks.
    And later on, benches in parks--
    well, that was now für Juden verboten.
    But then about that time started the Jewish theater
    because the artists were not allowed to perform at theaters.
    And they created their own.
    And they created their own.
    Right.
    Then there were those things that, as I said,
    we were not allowed to go to swimming pools,
    and restriction to go to parks, restriction to go to theaters.
    Right.
    Now, were the people from your town
    actually deported to a ghetto or put in a ghetto at first?
    Were they rounded up at any stage?
    Through the-- I don't think that there was mass arrest.
    There could have been before '38 prominent Jews
    that they were arrested because they were politically active.
    That I don't know.
    But I know that quite a few prominent
    Jews migrated to Palestine, as it was called then,
    fairly early.
    The first mass arrests really started just
    before November '38, when Polish Jews were rounded up
    and then deported to Zbaszyn at the Polish-German border.
    And the Poles didn't want them.
    They were sent back to Germany.
    So they were used as a ping pong ball.
    You mean the Polish people in your community?
    Polish Jews-- yes, Polish Jews in Germany.
    Right, right, right.
    And they were sent to Poland.
    And then Poland sent them back.
    They were deported to Poland then and back to--
    but eventually, then, they were sent to Poland.
    Some of them, understand, escape to Russia.
    But the others all perished in Polish extermination camps.
    Two of my uncles were in that situation.
    They were sent to Zbaszyn.
    And then they were for a while in Poland.
    Then after that, nothing was heard of them.
    Right.
    So you were not actually in a ghetto for Jews?
    I was not in a ghetto.
    I was arrested on the morning of the 9th of November.
    And I haven't come to that yet.
    So on the 9th of November, fairly early in the morning,
    my father had a phone call from one of our non-Jewish friends
    that the synagogue was burning.
    Well, the synagogue was about 10 minutes,
    a quarter of an hour walking distance.
    So my father and I left the house
    to go to one of the suburbs where one of our employees
    lived.
    And on the way, we were picked up by the Gestapo
    and put into prison.
    After a week or 10 days, I was sent home.
    And my father was sent to Dachau.
    When I came home, our apartment was completely destroyed,
    I mean, completely.
    The only room which was left untouched
    was my mother's bedroom, who was ill at home then.
    But otherwise, all the furniture were--
    well, we lived on the second floor.
    And we had a large--
    how do you call it--
    [GERMAN]---- concert piano that was thrown out of the window,
    carpets, et cetera, et cetera.
    In other words, they cut the legs first, and then threw it
    out.
    My father remained in Dachau for about three or four weeks.
    If I may mention that in August '38, we went to Holland.
    Strangely enough, we had the permission to go there
    and came back.
    And my brother stayed, then, in Holland.
    So when this happened in 1938, my brother
    was in Holland already.
    So what did you go for at the time, just for a visit?
    Yes.
    I see.
    You didn't, at that stage, emigrate to Holland?
    No.
    And also, my parents went to Czechoslovakia,
    where we had relatives.
    Strangely enough, they came back.
    They came back, yes.
    So after coming back from Holland, how long were you--
    what happened after that?
    Well, then we-- well, between July and October, I mean,
    things were just as bad as they were before.
    I mean, I was still allowed to attend school.
    But the restrictions--
    Were getting more.
    --grew-- were getting worse and worse.
    And then, of course, after the destruction of the synagogues,
    I was not allowed to attend the school anymore.
    And as I said, my father was in Dachau.
    My mother was ill in hospital.
    And then I don't know who arranged
    any-- oh, the Dutch Red Cross organized a children transport,
    with which I went to Holland.
    And my father then was discharged from Dachau.
    And he and my mother then went to Holland illegally.
    And they lived there.
    They joined up with you and your brother or not?
    Yes, yes, yes.
    My brother was with a Dutch family.
    And my parents were in The Hague.
    My brother then joined my parents.
    And I joined them afterwards.
    After the occupation, then, we were evacuated to Utrecht.
    And I think it was in '42, all Jews had to wear stars.
    So I wore the star for about one or two months.
    And then deportation of young people,
    that is, my age group started about that time.
    They were sent to Mauthausen.
    And then my parents suggested that at least I
    should try to get away and try to help them, then,
    to get papers.
    So I left Holland, then, in May.
    Can I just ask you before you go on, how would they have
    known who to give stars to?
    Now, how would they know who the Jews were?
    Because like in Eastern Europe, the Jews dressed differently.
    But in Holland, did they?
    Did they look different?
    No, no.
    Did they look the same as everyone else?
    I think-- well, see, at that time,
    we still had German passports--
    Oh, it was not.
    --with a J in it.
    And then after the occupation, there
    was a Gestapo edict that we had to surrender our passports.
    So they had records.
    Yes.
    And I don't know how they had the--
    or where they got the records from.
    And I assume that there is--
    what is it-- a population register
    that each suburb or each commune has a register of.
    And might there have been a leader
    in the Jewish community who gave that information about them?
    I would be very surprised.
    I would be very surprised because the relationship
    between the Dutch Jews and the immigrants was not too bad.
    I never had the feeling that they resented it
    or that they felt that our presence would endanger them.
    They were sympathetic, in a way?
    Yes.
    I mean, of course, I suppose that it's
    typical from many migrants who said, ah, well at home,
    things were better, et cetera.
    Said, what are you doing here?
    OK.
    So they were sympathetic, or mostly?
    They were sympathetic and they were helpful.
    I understand that my brother stayed for a while
    with Dutch Jews.
    But then afterwards, he stayed with non-Jewish friends
    for a while.
    OK.
    So sorry, can you go back to where you were before?
    Yes.
    So I joined my parents and my brother in The Hague.
    And then after the occupation, we
    were evacuated to Utrecht, where we stayed until '42.
    Then we all wore stars with Jood written on it.
    Then later on, the deportation of young Jewish men started.
    And then my parents suggested that I
    try to get away in the hope that I
    would be able to help them, then,
    to get fake papers to migrate.
    So in May '43, I left Holland first to Belgium.
    I joined a group of Dutch Jews there.
    And then we had a guide who took us, via occupied France,
    to Switzerland.
    In Switzerland, I was interned because I
    had no consul to look after me.
    The Dutch Jews-- I mean, the Dutch consul
    or the French consul looked after them.
    For a while, I was in internment camp, which
    was an adjunct to a prison.
    So I just had to work over seven or eight
    days and eight hours per day.
    And then there were-- afterwards,
    I was sent to various refugee camps.
    And that internment camp, how were you treated?
    How we were treated?
    The same as the prisoners.
    So I mean, there was no cruelty.
    I mean, no one threatened us.
    But we were just ordinary prisoners.
    We were kept away from the criminals.
    But the way as the war-- as far as the wardens were concerned,
    we were prisoners and had very limited rights.
    I mean, I think we were allowed to write one letter a week
    or something like that.
    Right.
    And what was the food like?
    The food was prison food.
    Yes.
    Was it soup and bread?
    Soup and bread.
    And they had those famous little triangular cheese,
    which was like chewing gum.
    But at least it was enough to--
    I mean, we didn't starve.
    Yes.
    And how long did you stayed in that camp?
    I stayed in that camp, I think, for about two years--
    two months.
    And then I went to refugee camps,
    where we had deserters and refugees
    from various countries.
    And where was that?
    That was in Switzerland in Valais, which
    is a French-speaking canton.
    The treatment there was OK.
    Who was running those camps, Swiss people?
    Yes, Swiss ran that.
    But in the first camp, there were also Polish officers.
    And there were tensions between Jews and the Polish officers.
    And particularly, when they got drunk, I mean,
    we kept well away from them.
    So the attitude wasn't really sympathetic.
    No.
    No, unfortunately, the Swiss government
    had not a very, very good track record.
    But there was a stage when Jews were sent back.
    But the population was not aware of it.
    When the population became aware of it,
    there was such an outcry that that stopped.
    Sent back to wherever they'd come from?
    Back to Germany or France, wherever it was.
    I see.
    All right.
    So then how many of those refugee camps
    would you have been in?
    I was in-- so first, I was in internment camp.
    Then I was in two-- three refugee camps.
    And then I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship
    to go to Basel University.
    I see.
    And why did you keep changing camps?
    Did they make you do that?
    Did the authorities just--
    No.
    No.
    They just-- I don't know whether each camp served
    a certain purpose.
    Let's say that people were just arrived,
    that they were sent to camp A, or what happened,
    or maybe that a new-- well, this second camp, where
    it was a relatively new camp.
    And so we had to do some useless work there,
    getting rid of rocks, carrying rocks from one cone
    and put it down in another one.
    But the main thing, I suppose, was
    to keep us away from the cities and to keep us occupied.
    I mean, there was no attempt made
    to have some sort of social life or cultural life.
    And it was a mixed camp, men and women--
    No, no, no.
    --or just men?
    It was just men.
    There were some mixed camps, I mean,
    to keep families together.
    But we, in our camp, we had a few men who were married.
    And their women-- their wives were at the other end
    of Switzerland.
    But I think they were united, then, afterwards.
    Right.
    And the conditions in all the camps were the same?
    Conditions were the same, treatment-- the treatment was
    the same, food was the same.
    As far as liberty is concerned, we
    were allowed to, on Saturday afternoon,
    to go to the nearest township.
    But I mean, there was no barbed wire.
    But I mean, there were just rules
    that we were not allowed to.
    Did anyone try to escape from there?
    No.
    No, they stayed?
    Well, some tried to go to the nearest city.
    But Switzerland is such a small country.
    And even for the ordinary population,
    there such strict regulations.
    You had to register where you live.
    And so anyone who is not known, they
    would have been discovered straight away.
    So it wasn't worth their harm.
    No.
    And people realized, too, that if they tried
    that, they would be deported.
    Right.
    Now, you went to one internment camp.
    That was the first one when I came when--
    Then three refugee camps?
    Three refugee camps.
    Right.
    And after those, what happened?
    And well, after that, I was fortunate enough
    to get a scholarship to Basel University.
    And I stayed there.
    And did you go to university?
    Yes.
    But before I went there--
    I have to go back.
    Seeing that I left Holland in order to help my parents,
    I established contact with Central American consulates.
    I think Honduras was one of them which supplied papers or visa.
    And I had just about made the final arrangements
    when I received a letter from Dutch friends
    that my parents and brother had been deported
    from Westerbork to Sobibór.
    So after I left Holland, and my parents stayed in Utrecht
    for a while, then they were sent to Westerbork,
    which was like a transit camp.
    And where is that?
    And Westerbork is in Holland.
    Right.
    Right.
    And Sobibór was in Poland, wasn't it?
    And that was the trend--
    and then they were deported to Sobibór, which is in Poland.
    And now, I was able to ascertain from the Dutch Red Cross
    the dates.
    They were deported on the 18th of May in 1943.
    And they died in Sobibór on the 21st of May '43.
    So just a few days.
    Yes.
    Did you say the 18th of May--
    18th of May.
    And that is according to a letter from the Dutch Red
    Cross, which I still have.
    They were my parents and my brother.
    So they all three perished?
    Yes.
    I guess it's lucky for them that they didn't live longer
    to go through those--
    Yes.
    --things.
    Right.
    So now, there was no point in doing anything more for them.
    So did-- or you didn't know then?
    When did they reach you?
    I did not.
    Well, I didn't find out until after the war.
    I see.
    So you just continued to get papers through.
    Did you try and get for yourself as well, then?
    No.
    No, I was-- well, I was--
    I tried mainly to get them, to help them.
    I mean, I suspected something because I
    was in contact with my parents.
    Then I didn't see anything from my parents.
    Then I wrote to non-Jewish Dutch friends.
    And they told me that they had been sent to Westerbork.
    Then I wrote to Westerbork.
    I had one or two letters from them.
    All of a sudden, it stopped.
    It stopped again.
    And then I wrote to those non-Jewish Dutch friends.
    And I didn't hear anything from them.
    I see.
    So I really didn't know.
    Were they the friends that were hiding your family?
    No, they were other friends.
    They were friends which I had.
    They were personal.
    They knew my parents.
    Were they taken as well?
    No.
    No, no, no.
    But all of a sudden, I didn't hear from them.
    Right.
    So in the meantime, did you start university?
    Yes.
    And how long did you stay there?
    I stayed in Switzerland till '49.
    From when, sorry?
    Oh, when did I go there?
    I think end of-- early '49.
    I think from '44.
    I was in Basel till late '48.
    Then I went to Germany.
    Yeah.
    The war ended then while you were in Basel.
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes, yes, yes.
    I see.
    Right.
    Then I went to Germany because I had
    found out that cousins who had lived in Poland,
    they were living in Munich.
    I was so surprised to hear that they were alive.
    They said, well, why don't you come to us?
    So I went to Munich.
    And then-- but I didn't like the atmosphere.
    1949 was the Cold War, and the fear, and the uncertainty.
    And I wanted to get as far from Europe as possible.
    So even after liberation, one still felt?
    Yes.
    And I felt uncomfortable in Germany.
    I mean, when non-Jews, when they knew that I was Jewish,
    they started, oh, we-- of course, we
    didn't know anything about it.
    We were against it.
    There was one who was honest enough to say, yes,
    I was in the party.
    I believed in it.
    And I found that much more honest.
    So you could accept that.
    It was more reasonable.
    Accept that.
    And then one-- what really made my decision to migrate--
    what was it?
    Yes, I needed-- obviously, I needed paper to migrate.
    And so I went to the German authorities.
    And they said, well, you are entitled to a German passport.
    And I said, no, I don't want a German passport.
    They said, well, all the laws are--
    I don't take any moment till now.
    He said, oh, when you surrendered your passport,
    whom did you give it to?
    I said, to the Gestapo in Amsterdam.
    Did you get a receipt?
    And the question was asked in all innocence.
    But after a question like that, I said,
    no, look, there is no future for me in Germany.
    And then I decided to migrate to Australia.
    I see.
    And I just wanted to ask you, before we
    leave Europe, the years you spent in Switzerland,
    you were not affected in any way by anything--
    by Nazism or the war going on?
    You didn't feel anything then?
    Well, I felt--
    I felt worried.
    I felt threatened because I didn't
    think that Switzerland would be able to remain neutral.
    And the Swiss people themselves, what?
    [AUDIO OUT] For themselves, how did they treat you?
    How did you feel about them?
    The Swiss people were generally--
    they were supportive and understanding.
    There were a few exceptions.
    And there were-- maybe some of them felt threatened
    by the migrant invasion.
    Was it a large invasion to Switzerland?
    For them, probably.
    I don't know how many were there.
    But I don't think it was such a large number.
    And I only am aware of the numbers who were in camps.
    But there were a few emigres who had been there before.
    So I don't know what the total migrant population was.
    OK.
    So you left Switzerland in '48, end of '48.
    Right.
    And you migrated to Australia?
    Very soon or--
    From Switzerland via Germany.
    Right.
    And how did you accomplish all that?
    Through the ORT organization.
    Right.
    They arranged papers for you?
    Yes.
    They assisted.
    Now, I don't know whether they actually arranged that.
    I don't know which organization it was
    who arranged for a visa for me.
    I have an idea it was done here through my cousins,
    probably via the Australian Jewish Welfare
    or whatever body helped with visas.
    Did you choose to come to Australia
    because you had family here?
    This is a question which I've often asked myself.
    I have only one cousin here.
    And I have many, many more cousins in the States.
    And what made me pick Australia?
    I assume that it must have something
    to do with McCarthyism in the States at that time.
    I see.
    I don't regret that I came here.
    You don't regret, to boot.
    So you came to Australia then.
    And how did you build your life?
    And what did you-- did you finish your studies
    in Switzerland?
    Did you complete something?
    I studied pharmacy.
    I did the theoretical part.
    And the study involves one year practical work.
    I was not allowed to do that as a pharma
    because if I had finished that, that would have meant
    permit to work as a pharmacist.
    And foreigners, or refugees, were not allowed to work.
    I'm talking about refugees who came at about the same time
    as I did, not the ones who came after '33.
    They were allowed to work.
    So when I came here, I stayed with my cousins.
    And I inquired about the pharmacy course.
    That, again, involved one or two years' practical work
    at very, very low pay.
    And so I decided, no, I don't want to do that.
    And I just took any job that I could get.
    How was your English, would you say?
    My English-- well, before I left,
    I did a special course for interpreter--
    English, French, and German, of course.
    So your English was good then?
    My English was fine, except certain colloquial expressions
    were a bit difficult. And then I worked
    as a packer and a store man.
    That was my first job, was Elliotts & Australian Drug,
    which are now, I think, Drug Houses of Australia.
    And then I worked for in a garage as a claims clerk.
    And then I joined the federal public service in 1957
    in the taxation department.
    And I worked there until I retired in October '87.
    Right.
    So you came here, then, as the sole survivor of your family?
    Yes.
    And you married in Australia?
    I married in Australia.
    Yes.
    And was your wife from Europe too?
    My wife is from Switzerland.
    Right.
    Did you meet there when you were living?
    Yes.
    I see.
    So did she come out with you?
    Was she always--
    No, she came a year after--
    I see.
    --after me.
    And do you have family here?
    We have two daughters.
    One is in Brisbane now and the other one in New Zealand.
    I see.
    Right, well, how did you find the attitude
    of the Australians--
    the Australians generally and the Australian Jewish
    community-- when you came?
    To answer this question, I have to go back
    to my stay in Switzerland.
    As I said, I had a very traditional Jewish background.
    When I heard that my parents and brother had
    been killed in a concentration camp, for me, God was dead.
    And Judaism was dead.
    So for a few years, I was completely
    removed from anything Jewish.
    So when I came back, the first few years, first two or three
    years, my contact with Jewish people
    were limited to my cousins and their own group who
    came from Eastern Europe.
    And they had all survived the war.
    It was not until we moved to Willoughby
    and I joined North Shore Temple Emanuel
    that I became, again, a practicing Jew.
    Is your wife Jewish?
    Oh, no, no.
    OK.
    Did she convert?
    No, she did not wish to convert.
    Right.
    So what brought you back to the fold again?
    Was it the influence of some event or a particular person?
    It was the influence of a particular person.
    That was the late Maury Lewis, who was, at that time,
    the cantor of North Shore Temple Emanuel.
    And he was also-- well, I met him at the taxation office.
    He was a very dear colleague.
    And he introduced me to North Shore Temple Emanuel.
    And then gradually, well, my interest and my love
    for Judaism came back again.
    I took up my study of Judaism and Jewish subjects,
    which were interrupted in 1938.
    And I don't feel as a, in inverted commas, "reborn Jew."
    I don't like the concept of reborn.
    But I just felt the need and that there
    was something missing, something worthwhile, and something
    for which so many people have suffered,
    and something under which I have suffered.
    For survivors who were in concentration camps,
    it may be hard to understand that a person like I am,
    who was privileged to escape concentration camps,
    can still regard himself as a victim of the Holocaust.
    I'm not talking about the death of my immediate parents.
    But I'm talking about the lack of normal development,
    the lack of the person I would have become,
    and the lack of education facilities.
    I wanted to go to the Breslauer Seminary, which
    was a rabbinical seminary.
    And that, of course, was not possible.
    Right.
    Well, you-- as you say, you suffered all those things
    nevertheless.
    Yes.
    And things turned out very differently
    from the way they might have had the war not intervened.
    That's understandable.
    So do you feel, in Australia, that you
    feel free to-- that you can be Jewish and not be afraid?
    Yes.
    Yes, I feel that freedom.
    I mean, I can live a Jewish life if I wish to.
    I can live my Judaism in whatever form I choose.
    And I'm very privileged to have met so many wonderful people.
    Right.
    Well, that was very interesting.
    Is there anything else that you'd
    like to mention, anything relevant to the time
    or your experiences?
    No.
    I only hope that the work which the association does
    will continue and that, particularly, our young people
    are taught about the Holocaust without putting
    too much emphasis on the gruesome details
    because we are talking about young, impressionable people.
    I think the background should be given--
    how it started, how it was possible--
    and explain to our young people who are in the fortunate
    position here that they cannot understand how people could let
    that happen.
    It's most important that those children are made aware
    that it was possible, that it could happen.
    But spare them unnecessary gruesome details.
    Thank you very much.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Heinz Bohm, born October 8, 1922 in Duisburg, Germany, discusses his childhood; the religious community in her town; living in Duisburg until the age of 16; not much public antisemitism until after the Nuremberg laws’ implementation in 1935; the first wave of mass arrests of Polish Jews after November 1938; being arrested on November 9th and being held in prison for one week; returning to find his home destroyed, his mother sick, and his father having been shipped to Dachau; evacuating to Utrecht, Netherlands with his parents in a children’s transport; leaving Holland in May 1943; going first to Belgium, then to Switzerland, where he was interned in a work camp; moving to a refugee camp in Switzerland; being in three refugee camps before getting a scholarship to the University of Basel; getting papers from Central America so his parents could emigrate; receiving a letter saying that his parents and brother were deported from Westerbork to Sobibor, where they died; going to university in Basel, Switzerland from 1944 until late 1948; going to Munich, Germany but feeling uncomfortable in Germany, so deciding to emigrate from Germany to Australia; and his life in Australia.
    Interviewee
    Heinz Bohm
    Date
    interview:  1989 May 06
    Credit Line
    Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 sound cassette.

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Permission must be obtained from the University of Sydney, Archive of Australian Judaica for any type of use other than research.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Bohm, Heinz, 1922-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The Australian Institute of Holocaust Studies conducted the interview with Heinz Bohm for the Twelfth Hour Project. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview in April 2006 from the State Library of New South Wales where the collection is housed.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 09:03:15
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn43191

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    Oral history interview with Frida Milder

    Oral History

    Frida Milder, born December 1, 1924 in Bunkovce, Czechoslovakia, discusses her family background; changes after the Fascist takeover; living right on the Hungarian/Slovakian border; having soldiers billeted at her house; her disbelief upon hearing about pogroms and disappearances; instability on the border; hearing about men being deported to labor camps or work projects; her brother moving to the US; the Sudetenland invasion; being sent away to school; not fitting in with other Jewish students; being forced to leave normal school; having to get identification documents in Budapest; how almost all Jews were deported by 1943; living part time with her future husband’s parents; meeting her future husband, Emil; the 1944 German invasion; the SS occupying their house and putting her under house arrest as they were the only Jewish family on the border; her family living in Sobrance, Slovakia; hearing that her family was forced to move into the Uzhorod ghetto; bringing food and other supplies to her family; being transported to Auschwitz; becoming separated from her family and future husband; realizing that her parents had been incinerated; her determination and actions taken in an effort to survive; working in the food store; contracting typhoid; marching 40km then riding in wagons to Ravensbrück, then to Taucha; being liberated by Russian troops; receiving medical care; a chance reunion with Emil; marrying in 1945; moving to Košice, Slovakia; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Judith Nachum

    Oral History

    Judith Nachum, born July 7, 1928 in Teplice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses her family’s background; her schooling; rising antisemitism and the start of the occupation of Sudetenland; moving to Prague, Czech Republic for a while, then being sent to the country to attend a Czech school; acting as an interpreter for her mother whose Czech was limited; her father losing his job and attempting to go to Palestine; her family being declared foreigners by the Germans because of their strong Jewish identity; her mother’s efforts to help her grandmother in Vienna, Austria; her view of Benjamin Murmelstein; moving back to Prague; having to give up her belongings in 1942; being forced to move into the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1942; leaving her house without yet a sense of fear; her arrival at the ghetto; getting a job with her mother in the nursery growing vegetables for the Germans; contracting scarlet fever; stealing food; being deported to Birkenau and then to Oederan, a subcamp of Flossenbürg, in October and November 1944; how Gertrude Weniger, the SS woman in charge, tried to befriend her mother; working outdoors laying electric cables; being afraid because of the bombings; the impending German defeat; sabotaging her work in the factory; evacuating the camp in April 1945; Weniger confiding in her mother about the atrocities she committed; going back to the Theresienstadt Ghetto before going to Prague on May 4, 1945, the day before the ghetto's liberation; staying in Prague until leaving for Israel; and moving to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Alex Odze

    Oral History

    Alex Odze, born February 21, 1921 in Krasny-Brod, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), discusses his family and educational background; the Jewish community in his town; becoming aware of what was happening in Germany in 1936; the beginning of restrictions on the Jewish community in 1936; being taken away in a cattle car to Majdanek during April 1942; working to dig ditches; volunteering to work on a farm and being sent to work on a farm at Auschwitz; the responses of non-Jews to Jewish persecution; working in the stables with horses and becoming the private horse-hand to the SS chief; getting special treatment from the SS chief; getting punished for throwing an apple to his sister; being thrown naked in the cold after a bath; how before the crematoria existed, there were fires in big ditches and almost every alive person from transports except the young people were thrown into them; the decision to clear out Auschwitz in January 1945; being taken on horse and in a cart for one week in a death march to Czechoslovakia; being transferred via train to Prague, Czech Republic and then to Mauthausen; being taken to Gunskirche in a cattle car without being given food for about ten days; being liberated by American soldiers after ten days in Gunskirche; getting food from an Austrian farmer; going back to Czechoslovakia to look for his family; going back to his hometown; realizing there was no place for him there; moving to Israel; and later moving to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Margaret Odze

    Oral History

    Margaret Odze, born May 10, 1924 in Czechoslovakia, discusses her family and her background; her father’s business being destroyed and many turning against her family in 1938; being sent to another family who could feed her; receiving orders to report to the synagogue the Friday before Passover 1942; getting put on a cattle car to Auschwitz; the food and sleeping conditions; doing outdoor work at Birkenau; her kind German supervisor; getting chosen to be a red scarf commando to sort out the possessions of those sent to the gas chambers in 1943; her new supervisor falling in love with a Jewish girl and saving the girl’s sister but not her children from the gas chambers; being moved to work at Brezinka, next to the crematorium where she saw everything, and where, due to the volume of people being gassed, she worked both day and night shifts; being taken away from Brezinka in December 1944 as the Russians advanced; the death march; arriving and staying at Ravensbrück for two months; marching again to Malchow and staying there for about a month; being taken on another march with two SS men, one of whom fled while the other finally let them free; being found by the Russians; going to a displaced persons camp; going to register with the Red Cross in Prague, Czech Republic, and finding her brothers; marrying; moving to Israel and then to Australia; and life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Jerry Rind

    Oral History

    Jerry (Jaroslav) Rind, born March 12, 1924 in Sudoměřice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses finding out that he was Jewish at the age of ten; his parents’ background; the Munich Conference and start of the occupation; realizing that to be a Jew is to be alone, evidenced by treatment by neighbors; being transported to Theresienstadt in 1942; being put in the Ustecké Kasarny barracks; working in the crematoria; being transferred to Birkenau; the humiliation endured in the camp; his work in Gleiwitz; seeing US bombers; thinking that he would have welcomed them bombing Auschwitz; getting pneumonia and being put in the hospital; being told by patients about plans to evacuate the camp; how he was thrown on a truck to get shot but the guards suddenly left to avoid the Russians; the arrival of Russian forces; arriving in Krakow, Poland; later going to Prague, Czech Republic and finding his sister; returning to Sudoměřice; and moving to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Ignaz Roth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sami Schonberg

    Oral History

    Sami Schonberg, born in 1917 in Olmitz, Czechoslovakia (possibly Olomouc, Czech Republic), discusses his family background; moving to Belgium in 1919; not foreseeing the German occupation; the increasing restrictions and chaos for Jews; trying to go to southern France with his sister, but getting caught and imprisoned separately during August 1942; being moved around prisons until October 1942; someone discovering that he had false papers and sending him to deportation barracks; hearing about “what happens to Jews” and deciding to jump the train to the camp in January 1943; going to Brussels to receive help from Professor Perlman; receiving false papers; being taken into hiding with his cousin and his cousin’s girlfriend; renting a room in a pub for 3-4 months; disobeying the orders for Belgian Jews to come to the Gestapo headquarters and instead fleeing; going back to his cousin’s place to go back into hiding; being liberated by the British and American armies; having a hard time making ends meet until 1960 when he got a job near Lyon, France; and moving to Australia after being encouraged to do so by a relative.

    Oral history interview with Ruzina Schwartz

    Oral History

    Ruzena (Rose) Schwartz, born September 6, 1924 in Stropkov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), discusses her background; being in the first transport of girls from her town in 1942; going in buses and then in cattle cars to Auschwitz; her work at the camp; telling people new at the camp about the gas chambers; contracting typhoid; working at the gates and seeing new transports arrive; her will to survive; the selections; being evacuated from Birkenau; marching and then being put into a wagon to Ravensbrück, then to Neustad-Glewe prison camp; the SS disappearing suddenly; being liberated; various jobs that she had in the camps; seeing Mengele in the hospital; her reasons for wanting to survive; being in the Russian zone after liberation; arriving in Prague, Czech Republic after liberation; coming back to her hometown where she had nothing left; how a family invited her to stay at their house until her papers came; marrying the son of the family; returning to Belgium and living there for six years; and immigrating to Australia in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Edith Sheldon

    Oral History

    Edith Sheldon, born January 7, 1927 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses her family background; being expelled from her girl guides group and from school when they were under Nazi rule; the Jewish ghetto in Prague; the first transports to Theresienstadt in November 1941; living in the young girls’ barracks; punitive measures in the camp; how the lack of sanitation caused her to contract many illnesses; learning about the Russian advance from people transported from the east; staying with friends back in Prague after the war ended for a few weeks; how her mother remained in Theresienstadt taking care of older sick people; poor conditions under the Russians; finishing school; working and going to university part-time until the 1948 communist takeover when she was expelled from university for having a bourgeois background; being deprived of Czech nationality; her mother and sister being treated like Nazis because they put German nationality on their passports; deciding to leave Prague and immigrate to Australia in July 1949 without her mother; building a life in Australia; marrying in 1952 and having children; and the reasons for her survival.

    Oral history interview with Helen Shonberg

    Oral History

    Helen Shonberg (née Hoffman), born October 4, 1929 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses her background; her schooling; facing restrictions after the Nazi takeover; all of her family gradually being sent to Theresienstadt; accommodations and daily life in Theresienstadt; being sent to Auschwitz in 1943 after the Red Cross left and Theresienstadt was liquidated; being sent to a family camp in Birkenau; how she and her mother were almost sent to the gas chambers; being transported to Kratzau, a women’s labor camp with an ammunitions factory in Czechoslovakia in July 1944; doing washing and cleaning but no hard labor at Kratzau; being taken on a death march; seeing bombs falling; after 12 days arriving at a train station where they were put on cattle cars; arriving at Bergen-Belsen; working as a messenger until the SS disappeared; her mother being sick when British troops liberated the camp; her mother being taken to a hospital; going to see her mother after a few days after going to an orphanage where she gained employment as a translator; going back to Prague during August 1945; leaving Czechoslovakia after the 1948 communist takeover and eventually making her way to the United States with her mother; and moving to Australia in 1951 to be with her uncle and his wife.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Skalsky

    Oral History

    Gertrude Skalsky, born February 22, 1915 in Teplice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses her childhood and education; moving to Prague, Czech Republic in 1938; her father hiding with false papers until 1944 when he was taken to a camp and disappeared; getting a job in a pathology laboratory; seeing 1000 men taken to Theresienstadt and to the Łódź ghetto in November 1941; working in a nursery; being taken to the Theresienstadt ghetto in April 1942; getting a job in the ghetto hospital; the conditions in the hospital; the SS cleaning up Theresienstadt for inspection by the Red Cross; being taken to Auschwitz in October 1944 with her mother and sister; the selection on the platform by Dr. Mengele; staying at Auschwitz for a few days before being taken by train to Chemnitz, Germany and then to an ammunition factory 50 km from Dresden, Germany; being in the factory camp; being put on a train for days in April 1945; arriving at a chemical factory in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic; going back to Theresienstadt; leaving Theresienstadt on Russian tanks and arriving in Prague, Czech Republic; going to the Red Cross and getting an empty flat until 1947 when she got into nursing; and meeting her husband.

    Oral history interview with Magda Spira

    Oral History

    Magda Spira, born December 4, 1924, in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, discusses her family background; moving from a farm in a village to Kosice; how Hungary taking over the region in 1938 was a happy time for Jews; life going on undisturbed by the start of war in 1939; Jewish men having to wear armbands in 1943 when Milankovic was the commander of the labor camp; the Hungarians under German direction taking the Jews to the Kosice ghetto; transports beginning to leave the ghetto; her whole family being taken on the third transport on June 3, 1944; arriving in Auschwitz on June 5th; being told to stand away from her sister during selections because of their likeness; being transferred with her sisters to the Kaiserwald camp near Riga, Latvia; working sorting clothes; being transferred to Stutthof camp via Danzig by boat during the autumn of 1944; leaving after two days and going to Magdeburg by train; working in the Polte factory; having to march to Ladeburg in April 1945; the German guards fleeing; escaping into the forest with her sisters and eventually arriving in Kosice on May 7, 1945; and moving to Israel for three years and then to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Gisela Stein

    Oral History

    Gisela Stein, born July 21, 1926, in Stropkov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), discusses her family; her prewar life; not being affected by the events in Germany until Polish refugees arrived in 1939; officers being billeted at her house; Jewish refugees being taken first; young singles being taken in March 1942; her mother hiding her in the hospital; being hidden with her sister in Bardejov, Slovakia for two months; her family receiving special treatment because her father owned the town’s bank; her grandfather escaping from Treblinka in July 1942 and telling her family everything, causing her mother to decide to get the four older children to Hungary; staying in Nyiregyhaza; escaping from the ghetto to Debrecen; trying to get smuggled back home but getting caught without papers on the train; getting sent to Novaky work camp; prisoners fleeing to the partisans, who battled with the Germans during September 1944 and took the prisoners to Zlate Moravce, Slovakia; being taken to Auschwitz; joining a transport to Zittau; feeling that they were lucky because they neither froze, starved, nor were evacuated from there; the guards fleeing a week before the Russians liberated the camp; the bombing raids and other events during that week; crossing the Czech border with help by the Jewish Commandant of the Russian army; wandering from place to place before settling for a while in Kosice; her reasons for giving testimony; and her thoughts on survival.

    Oral history interview with Braham Stern

    Oral History

    Braham Stern, born October 8, 1930 in Svarlava, Czechoslovakia, discusses being sent to military quarters to receive treatment; making friends with an American soldier; taking the train back to Svarlava; moving to Frydlant v Cechach, Czech Republic; applying to the Jewish Welfare Guardian scheme to go to Australia and arriving in 1947; his life in Sydney; and reasons for giving his testimony. Note: this record is missing the first part of the recording; however, the summary for the content includes the following information: Braham Stern, born October 8, 1930 in Svarlava, Czechoslovakia, discusses traveling after the war; how his father immigrated to the United States and then returned to Czechoslovakia where he was less tolerant of Nazi discrimination; his home life; being more aware than most about the impending political situation, but choosing to stay rather than leave; his family being sent to the Mukacevo ghetto; staying in the ghetto for several months before being taken to Auschwitz; his daily routine; the camp’s demoralizing nature; being transferred to Mauthausen after about six weeks; having to work in stone mines; new arrivals being a constant feature in 1943; becoming aware that the war was going badly for the Germans in the beginning of 1945; being unable to walk and so staying in his bunk the last two or three weeks before liberation; and being liberated by US forces in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Marianna Weinberger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack Weiser

    Oral History

    Jack (Jacob) Weiser, born December 5, 1919 in Spisska Nova Ves, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), discusses his family background and education; being sent to learn a trade at Lucenec, Slovakia from 1937 to 1940; remaining in Lucenec during the start of the Hungarian occupation in order to complete his apprenticeship; returning home illegally in 1940; returning to Trencin, Slovakia to work with a non-Jewish boss for two years; returning to Trencin from visiting his mother for Passover to find that he missed registering there; his boss getting him exemption documents; how, one year later, his boss went to Bratislava and got him exemption papers but eventually all exemptions ceased; Germans arriving and intensifying round-ups of the Jews; going to Bratislava with fake papers; being helped by a non-Jewish couple when there was a round-up on Rosh Hashanah in 1944; getting a job using his fake papers and staying in the job until the end of the war; losing his fake papers and having to get new ones; liberation by the Russians; starting a business; leaving Czechoslovakia illegally when the communist regime began tightening restrictions; staying in Vienna, Austria for a six months before getting a permit; and leaving for Australia.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weiss

    Oral History

    Irene Weiss (née Berger), born October 31, 1914 in Ardanovce, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), discusses her family background; her schooling and working in Trnava, Slovakia; being transported with her sister via the Patronka collection depot in Bratislava to Auschwitz in March 1942; her arrival at Auschwitz and being processed the day after they arrived; being in the second Jewish transport to Auschwitz; working conditions in the camp; working cleaning bricks and in the fields; working in the Schreibstube office working to register new arrivals; her and her sister being transferred to Birkenau in August 1942; continuing to work to register new arrivals but when fewer transports began arriving the Schreibstube closed down temporarily; getting various jobs in the Stubendienst; she and her sister getting typhus; getting an order to go to Auschwitz and changing into an Aryan prisoner uniform; being placed to live in the Polish barrack; starting work in the new Schreibstube, registering prisoners ready to be sent to the gas chambers; living in the basement of Stabsgebaude and working in the Politische Abteilung as one of 60 women prisoners on staff; how the gassing stopped during November 1944; the SS officers preparing to flee Auschwitz; prisoners starting to equip themselves with warm clothing and being told to leave the camp; going to Bielitz (Bielsko-Biala, Poland), then on to Ravensbrück, Neustadt-Glewe, Mecklenburg, and Prenzlau; and finding a Stalag prisoner-of-war camp, in which was the nephew of the Czech president (Eduard Benes), who organized a bus to bring her back to Prague and then home.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Weiss

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Magda Winston

    Oral History

    Magda Winston, born June 23, 1914 in Topolcany, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), discusses her religious and personal background; studying languages in Vienna, Austria for two years; her reaction to the events in Germany while in Vienna; her Austrian relatives arriving in 1938 as refugees; knowing Slovakian President Tiso personally; having to wear yellow stars in 1941 under Tiso; deportations to Majdanek starting; her parents being saved from deportation because of papers given by Tiso; her husband being arrested in November 1942; incidents with the governess’s brother and with a government secretary; seeing the partisans arriving; the liberation of Slovakia in September 1944; hearing that the German Army was coming back and leaving town with her husband on false papers for Banská-Bystrica, Slovakia; staying two weeks in a peasant’s house; leaving for the forest to join partisans; being told to leave the partisans; Germans occupying her valley in November 1944; hearing that her parents and 28 others were shot in the forest by the Germans; seeing German soldiers looking for partisans in the nearby village in January 1945; running and finding her husband and staying in a different place until the end of the war; and walking back to her hometown.

    Oral history interview with Charlotte Dessen

    Oral History

    Charlotte Dessen, born September 18, 1925 in Gardelegen, Germany, discusses her family and educational background; her family being taken to a ghetto; arriving at Auschwitz; the selections; the conditions; no one working initially, then being placed for work in an ammunitions factory; an injury where she lost a finger; the time of recuperation in the hospital being dangerous because of selections; returning to work; undergoing full body searches; three girls being condemned to death for stealing ammunition to blow up the gas chambers; hearing the Russians were nearing in January 1945; the forced death march; arriving in Ravensbrück; having her toes amputated because of frost bite; hearing the Russians near, and staying behind when her block was cleared because she couldn’t walk; being liberated by the Russians on April 29, 1945; working as a clothes sorter in Auschwitz and finding money and a diamond in the clothing; being rescued from gassing; liberation and being moved to Berlin, Germany by train; returning with a friend from the camp to her hometown; getting her house back and being treated nicely by the townspeople; immigrating to South Africa via Paris, France; and living in South Africa for 19 years before moving to Australia in 1966.

    Oral history interview with Henry Dreyer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renate Harding

    Oral History

    Renate Harding, born March 21, 1930 in Recklinghausen, Germany, discusses her childhood and home life in Germany; going with her mother to South Africa in 1934; her father leaving Germany in 1933 when he was banned from practicing law; life in the small town Waschbank, South Africa; her family’s farm, Kameelkop; schooling at Dundee; going to boarding school at Moiriver (Mooirivier), where she was discriminated against as a German citizen; her Jewish home life; going to high school in Pietermaritzburg; her family moving to Johannesburg; earning a bachelor’s degree in dietetics from the University of Pretoria; going to the United States on a scholarship but coming back to Pretoria where she earned her masters degree; moving to Perth, Australia as she gained a position at the Royal Perth hospital; moving to Sydney in 1960 to work for the health department; and developing an interest in her Jewish roots.

    Oral history interview with Peter Schrader

    Oral History

    Peter Schrader, born December 9, 1936 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family’s background; his family being partly Jewish and partly non-Jewish; his connection to the Jewish community; his father getting killed by Nazis in 1939; his personal experience of the Nazis in 1942; receiving help from Gentiles; where his family lived during the war; his school in Berlin; being unaware of his Jewishness until later as he had Aryan papers; his awareness of the extermination of the Jews; his family members’ being exterminated; moving to Borkheide, Germany and staying there until after the war when he moved back to Berlin; the school in Borkheide; becoming aware later of the significance of his experiences; marrying; moving to Australia in 1968; and becoming an Orthodox Jew.

    Oral history interview with Ludwig Shonberg

    Oral History

    Ludwig Shonberg, born April 8, 1924 in Dortmund, Germany, discusses his personal details; his familial, educational, and social background; the boycotting of Jewish shops; his father and himself being imprisoned and their business being taken on Kristallnacht; being released from prison after one week; unsuccessfully trying to emigrate; having to do forced labor building roads and in mines from 1939 until 1940; being transported by train to Riga, Latvia in a normal train, not a cattle car; not being mistreated until he arrived at the Riga ghetto; after two days being sent to a labor camp; being sent to work at a furniture factory after four or five months; moving to another work camp where he sorted army equipment; going back to the ghetto in 1943; going to the railway workshop camp with his parents; how one week after the assassination attempt on Hitler, there was a big roll call, and that was the last time he saw his parents; the Russians nearing; going on a boat to Danzig and to Stutthof, then Stolp until February 1945; being brought back to Stutthof and being transported near Lubeck, where they stayed for two days; losing an eye when hit across the head at the field; going on a boat, and the boat being set alight, and saving himself by jumping overboard in May 1945; being hospitalized in Lubeck for four months; deciding what to do after liberation; going back to his home village, and working as a butcher before getting a visa and moving to Australia, where family helped him; and his life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Vera Sklan

    Oral History

    Vera Sklan, born April 29, 1924 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her family’s background; her schooling before the war; her extended family leaving Germany and her parents debating whether they would leave too; her father being imprisoned, then released after war was declared in 1939; her father doing forced labor; her family being notified to leave by train in 1941; arriving at Riga and walking to the ghetto; living and working in the ghetto; hangings in the ghetto; leaving the ghetto without her parents and working in a rubber factory for six months; the factory having better conditions than at the ghetto; being brought by boat to Stutthof in 1942; having no idea about people being exterminated in 1942; working in labor camps after 1942 and getting sick often; walking towards the German border to Koeslin, Germany in 1945 in a death march; being liberated by the Russian Army; what happened after the Russians arrived; living in an empty German village with Russian troops, who were there from March until September; taking a train back to Berlin; family friends looking after her for three years; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Charlotte Stern

    Oral History

    Charlotte Stern, born April 23, 1905 in Soest, Germany, discusses her family background; her school life; working in various jobs in different towns; marrying a lawyer in 1929; her husband being unable to practice law after 1933; antisemitism in Soest; immigrating with her daughter to Waschbank (Wasbank), South Africa in 1934; farm life at Kameelkop; going to Johannesburg in 1946; buying a delicatessen shop with a girlfriend after her husband died; and going to Sydney, Australia in 1961 to join her daughter.

    Oral history interview with Nessy Allen

    Oral History

    Nessy Allen, born February 8, 1937 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her extended family; her family’s lifestyle and accommodations; her family’s religious beliefs and practices; the death of her father in a work camp in Kiev, Ukraine; her father saying goodbye when she was four or five years old; the closing of her school; living with her mother; the restrictions she faced; staying with relatives outside of Budapest; a shortage of and her memories of food; sharing bath water; being taken on forced marches at night; marching on the streets of Budapest; her mother being taken away by soldiers; hiding in their flat when her mother was taken; being taken to a ghetto but being returned to her old flat with her grandparents until the end of the war; escaping bombardment during air raids; the rations; her knowledge of the camps; being told of her mother’s suicide when she made a return visit to Hungary; the Russian occupation; her fear of the Russian soldiers; the death of her grandfather; her grandmother’s immigration to Israel; her aunt and uncle going to Australia in 1939; deciding to go to Australia before she was ten years old; leaving on December 29, 1946; the voyage to Australia; and adjusting to life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Robert Barta

    Oral History

    Robert Barta, born October 20, 1927 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his childhood; his Jewish and religious activities in Budapest; the Jewish high school in Pest; his father’s status of PF Lieutenant being recognized; his father being in a forced labor camp and returning home after two months in the camp; his father considering immigrating to Australia in 1938; conditions changing as German troops marched into Budapest on March 19, 1944; the Hungarian militia pulling Jewish men off public transportation; his home turning into a “Jewish house” as two more families moved in; his father being taken to jail; being ordered to assemble with valuables in the middle of the night, and their valuables being taken from them; being sent in cattle cars to a camp; him and his brother being chosen for “police work”; the SS taking over the camp, with everyone being sent off in transports after ten days; being in the last transport because of his special duties; realizing he was in real danger; deciding to escape with his mother, brother, sister, and two girls through a corn field behind the camp; his mother returning home to Budapest, since she had Catholic papers, and keeping her three children hidden in her house; the arrival of the Russians in Budapest in early 1945; graduating from university with a degree in physical education; being a prominent sports personality until 1956 when he lost his job and party membership and left Hungary for Austria; settling in Landau, Germany in 1957; returning to Vienna in 1965; moving to Australia in 1968; and his brother and mother committing suicide because they were scarred by their wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with Clare Beutum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Laura Bogdany

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Robert Bogdany

    Oral History

    Robert Bogdany, born March 13, 1931 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses living in Budapest, Hungary, his family; at the beginning of World War II; living in a ghetto in Budapest from October 1944 until January 1945, when Hungary was liberated; staying in Hungary until December 1956; immigrating to Australia in 1957; marrying; and his family members who perished during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Frank Darvas

    Oral History

    Frank Darvas, born April 13, 1923 in Szentgal, Hungary, discusses his family and his background; antisemitism before and during the war; his employment from 1941 through 1944; being forced to work at a labor camp at Koszeg starting in March 1944; living in a ghetto starting in May 1944; being deported to Auschwitz in July; hearing about camp escapees and plans for resistance; escaping the death march to Germany; crossing to the Russian side of the front; returning to Veszprem and Szentgal at the end of the war; attending university in Budapest from September 1945-1949; being taken to a Communist labor camp for six months; illegally fleeing to Munich, Germany through Austria; immigrating to Australia in 1957; and marrying and having children.

    Oral history interview with Susanna Demeny

    Oral History

    Susanna Demeny, born August 1, 1916 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; going to business school and working; marrying in 1938; her husband working at a forced labor camp but being able to come home every week beginning in 1942; leaving the hospital one day after her daughter was born in June 1944 because she heard that deportations had commenced in Budapest; living in a designated Jewish house with her family until they were told to assemble; moving into a ghetto; how her baby survived the war without her; a failed escape attempt in 1948; escaping Hungary in 1956; and going to Linz and other areas of Austria before immigrating to Australia with her husband and children in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Denny

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Denny, born March 14, 1910 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her youth; marrying in 1935; her husband dying in a labor camp in 1943; working from 1939 to 1943; being sent to the Kunhegyes ghetto for six weeks; being transported to Austria, where she worked on a farm; being transported to Bergen-Belsen; being put on a train when the Americans were thought to be approaching; being liberated by the Americans on April 13, 1945; going back to her village but being unable to stay, so she returned back to Budapest; working for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; leaving Hungary after the 1956 revolution; immigrating to Australia; marrying in 1957; and her family members who perished during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Miklos Denny

    Oral History

    Miklos Denny, born September 17, 1910 in Sarospatak, Hungary, discusses his family and childhood; marrying in 1938; being put in a labor camp twice, once in 1939 and once in 1942; being transported to Briansk, Russia and then to Seredyna-Buda, Ukraine; experiencing shooting by Russian partisans from the forest when he was in a camp; moving to Brest-Litovsk (Brzesć Litewski, Poland); going to Warsaw, Poland in 1944; taking a train back to Hungary, ending up in Kosice, Slovakia; being taken into service by an officer on fabricated orders; arriving in Budapest in a Hungarian uniform in December 1944; finding his wife and child in a safe house run by Wallenberg; the arrival of the Russians in Budapest; the fates of his family members; and antisemitism after the war, especially after the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

    Oral history interview with Piroska Eckstein

    Oral History

    Piroska Eckstein, born November 11, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses the deaths in her family growing up; the unbelievable nature of the tales of atrocities that she heard; the start of the Nazi occupation in March 1944; leaving her home to live in a Jewish house; working in a factory; the Arrow Cross taking her to Ravensbrück; working at the camp shoveling snow; being taken to a labor camp outside Penig, where she manufactured airplane parts; the evacuation of the camp on April 13, 1945; escaping with others; reaching Czechoslovakia on May 8, 1945; returning to Hungary; reuniting with her mother; marrying in 1946; having a child in 1948; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Jean Fabian

    Oral History

    Jeanne Fabian, born November 12, 1921 in Pécs, Hungary, discusses growing up in a well-established family; her whole family being transported from a ghetto to a camp where Hungarian gendarmes were in charge; being transferred to Birkenau; the selections; the survival mechanisms she employed; being transported to Lippstadt, Germany on August 1, 1944; her work welding land mines at the camp; being told news from the outside by camp guards; the bombings and air raids; being liberated by the 9th Division African-American troops on April 1, 1945; her family members who perished during the Holocaust; returning to Hungary; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Tom Foster

    Oral History

    Tom Foster, born November 21, 1917 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses being in Pesterzsébet, Hungary from 1939 until May 1940; being in a Hungarian army labor brigade on the Russian front in Ukraine until November 1941; returning to Budapest from November 1941 to June 1942; working in a labor brigade on the Russian Front from June 1942 to February 1944; staying in Budapest from February 1944 to February 1947; living in France until July 1947; and arriving in Australia in September 1947.

    Oral history interview with Mary Gathy

    Oral History

    Mary Gathy, born March 15, 1925 in Nagyecsed, Hungary, discusses her family’s background; attending boarding school; how life went on normally until late 1943 when her family was forced off their property; qualifying as an Italian, German, and French language teacher at the Sisters of Sion Catholic school; being offered a nun’s habit so she could be saved in March 1944, but refusing to take it because she felt her family needed her; moving into a small house with her family at Aba, Hungary; being taken to the Sarbogard ghetto in May 1944; being transported to Auschwitz in June 1944; the conditions in the camp; being selected for work at Lippstadt, Germany; arriving at Lippstadt in September 1944; the death march towards Bergen-Belsen; the SS disappearing into the woods; being liberated; returning to Hungary; marrying in 1946; her family members who perished during the Holocaust; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Susan Gerofi

    Oral History

    Susan Gerofi, born November 11, 1916 in Debrecen, Hungary, discusses moving to Bratislava, Slovakia in 1922; her education, which she was forced to discontinue due to antisemitism despite not being from a religious family; going into hiding with her mother in Piszian when the deportations started in 1942; marrying in 1937; being deported to Ravensbrück with her mother in December 1942; volunteering to work in the camp hospital as an ex-medical student but being given the job of carrying corpses on stretchers instead; being humiliated by the German guards and prisoners; hearing airplanes and nearby gun fire at the end of April 1945 and hoping that it was the Allies advancing, but not being sure; being given a 5kg parcel the day after the Germans fled the camp; seeing a Russian soldier come to the camp on May 1, 1945; Russian soldiers arriving two days later with supplies and a doctor; identification documents being made and distributed; being taken to a hospital in Prague, Czech Republic before returning to Bratislava; reuniting with her husband who escaped deportation by jumped out of a moving train; divorcing her husband; meeting and marrying her second husband; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Frank Gipps

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Glass

    Oral History

    Helen Glass, born June 3, 1925 in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia (Uzhhorod, Ukraine), discusses the history of her hometown; her family’s background; her childhood and schooling; how antisemitism became prevalent as soon as the Hungarians took over her town in 1939; being sent papers to leave for England by a relative but being prevented by the start of the war; the establishment of a ghetto next to her house; being taken to a ghetto a few kilometers away as the ghetto near her house was full; being transported to Auschwitz; being saved by a German soldier during the first selection; the conditions of the camp deteriorating; her experiences with Dr. Mengele; being transferred to Guben, Germany, where she worked in an airplane factory; the death march to Bergen-Belsen in February 1945; bribing the blockältester for food; being liberated by American soldiers in April 1945; going to Sweden to be with her brother; working in Sweden for two years; going back to Czechoslovakia in 1947; marrying in 1948; moving to Paris, France to flee communism; and immigrating to Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Goldsmith

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Goldsmith, born July 13, 1918 in Mosonmagyarovar, Hungary, discusses growing up with Jewish parents, one of whom was baptized in 1919, but being brought up as a Presbyterian; enjoying state-sanctioned benefits as a convert to Christianity, so thought that the Holocaust would not affect them; being forced to move into a Jewish house once the Germans came; all Jewish men being called up; being called up as a Jew because she did not have at least three non-Jewish grandparents; Hungary being besieged by Germans on the West and Russians advancing in the east; the Arrow Cross taking over; being called up with her sister to be taken to a labor camp in October 1944; hoping to get exempt by her “Horthy exemption” documents, but the guards not looking at them; being marched towards the Russian border; her mother obtaining Swiss, Swedish, and Papal passports for the rest of the family, so they were able to stay in safe houses; her work digging trenches close to the Russian border; the guards hearing the approaching army; being forced to march back towards Budapest, Hungary and then towards the Austrian border; escaping when they marched through Magyarovar, Hungary, as her sister feared they were marching towards a concentration camp in Germany; receiving help and getting back to Budapest; being called up for the labor camps a second time, but being able to go when she showed her Swedish passport; moving to a Swedish safe house run by Wallenberg with her family; being rounded up and forced into the ghetto by the Arrow Cross; hearing that Eichmann planned to bomb or set fire to the ghetto but members of the Jewish community bribed the officials not to do so; life under the Russian occupation; life becoming difficult under Communism; being sent immigration documents by her brother; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Ellen Greenfield

    Oral History

    Ellen Greenfield, born August 12, 1924 in Petnehaza, Hungary, discusses her childhood; antisemitism and being aware of the rise of Nazism; men being conscripted to forced labor; being forced to wear the yellow star; the German occupation of Hungary; attempting to return to Marghita, Romania from Budapest, Hungary; the round-up in Marghita; being forced into the ghetto in Nagyvarad; being transported to Auschwitz; staying in Auschwitz for six months, working at the camp in Zittau, before being liberated by the Russians; searching for her fiancé, who stayed in Budapest when she went to Marghita; marrying; moving to Vienna, Austria; immigrating to Australia in 1952; and reflections on her war experiences.

    Oral history interview with Eugene Grunbaum

    Oral History

    Eugene Grunbaum, born May 26, 1928 in Jászalsószentgyörgy, Hungary, discusses his hometown and family; being taken to a Hungarian factory for a few weeks before being deported to Auschwitz in May 1944; being transferred to Buchenwald; the guards killing of many of the prisoners when they became aware of the Americans’ approach; being liberated on April 11, 1945; being taken to a sanitarium in Davos, Switzerland for a year; going back to Hungary to find out that only one of his cousins survived the war; going back to Switzerland to attend school and then work; and immigrating to Australia in May 1949.

    Oral history interview with Ivan Halasz

    Oral History

    Ivan Halasz, born February 12, 1911 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family, childhood, and school; working at the Bayerische Holzindustrie Gesellschaft in Munich, Germany; returning to Budapest after being laid off in 1931 due to the Great Depression; marrying in 1938; being called up into the Hungarian Army in 1939; serving driving army trucks; being allowed to keep his position in 1941 when Jewish soldiers lost their rank; serving in Ukraine on the Russian front; seeing Jewish Russians walked by the SS to Podosk, where they were killed; serving in Poltava when his company was ordered back to Hungary; rejoining his family; being exempt from forced labor because of his military service; the German invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944; moving into a Jewish house; being deported to Bergen-Belsen; being put in a special part of the camp as a hostage for exchange; seeing Allied planes fly over the camp; being taken to Lueneburg, Germany then to Berlin, Germany and finally to Theresienstadt; being liberated by the Russian army on May 8, 1945; returning to Budapest; how his wife was killed; his son immigrating to Australia in 1957; and how he and his second wife joined their son in Australia in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Kathleen Hay

    Oral History

    Kathleen Hay, born July 1, 1933 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her family’s background; her childhood; the early days of the war; the arrival of the Germans on March 19, 1944; being sent to the Czepel brickworks to work during the day in May 1944; being taken to a military compound in early July; being able to visit her family for a day before being deported to Auschwitz; being given food and rum by her family; drinking the rum during the transport; giving her food away to the prisoners; daily life at the camp; the advantage of being able to keep her own shoes; being transferred to Liebau camp in Germany; the liquidation of the camp; the German guards fleeing; being liberated by Russian soldiers; making the trip back to Budapest with a group of friends; reuniting with her parents; and her reflections on survival and for being interviewed.

    Oral history interview with Veronica Honig

    Oral History

    Veronica Honig, born March 12, 1927 in Mateszalka, Hungary, discusses her childhood and hometown; antisemitism in Hungary before the war; her schooling, wanting to study medicine; the Germans marching into her hometown; the establishment of the ghetto; moving into the ghetto; her family being on the second to last transport out of the ghetto to Auschwitz; arrival at Auschwitz; Mengele; life in the barracks; being in the sick bay with pneumonia, for which her mother sold her bread rations to buy medicine; her contact with the male inmates; being selected for work in Boizenburg, a subcamp of Neuengamme in Germany; working in the Tompson aircraft factory; the death march out of the camp at the end of April 1945; being liberated by the Americans after spending two weeks at Ludwigslust, Germany; returning home via Poland; the Russian troops and the Polish people; life after the war; attending university in Budapest, Hungary; marrying; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Nick Hunt

    Oral History

    Miklos “Nick” Hunt (né Hutterer), born May 14, 1913 in Vac, Hungary, discusses his childhood; his father’s death in 1938; marrying in 1936; the beginning of forced labor in 1941; the start of the German occupation in 1944; being sent with the 9th Battalion to Kiev, Ukraine; being sent to work in a factory at a work camp; the Vac ghetto; being transported to Bor in Yugoslavia; his work building a railroad line; the retreat of the German army; Jews being massacred; joining the Partisans; surviving in the mountains; crossing to Romania; being taken to Bucharest in 1945 where he was helped by the Jewish community; meeting his wife and doing business in Szeged, Hungary; returning to Budapest; opening a business in Budapest; escaping to Bratislava; working in the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna, Austria; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with George Hunter

    Oral History

    George Hunter, born May 7, 1922 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family background; attending an engineering high school; working in a German barbed wire plant and being exempt from labor camp until October 1943; being transferred to another camp where he did road work; staying in contact with his family through letters; being marched to the Carpathian mountains in Poland, and then back to Hungary after two months; being taken to Tiszalök, Hungary for a one month rest period in August 1944; not returning to the camp; walking east; going into the forest to hide; going back to a farmer who fed them before; being liberated by the Russians on the farm; going to Debrecen, Hungary, where he formed a family with other refugees; reuniting with his father in Budapest in May 1945; living in his family’s old apartment with his father until March 1947; living in Paris, France for six months; and immigrating with his father to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Irwin Imhof

    Oral History

    Erwin Imhof, born March 11, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family background; attending a Lutheran high school until 1941 when he was expelled; starting to attend a Jewish high school; being unaware of serious problems for Jews in Hungary until 1944 when the German occupation began; living in a Swiss safe house for a short time; the men being rounded up and brought to camps; being separated from his mother for a short period of time; his Christian friends organizing a place for them to go into hiding; the decree instructing Jews to leave their homes; his family’s possessions and furniture being taken away; being in hiding for two weeks before another Jew turned him in and he was taken away by the Arrow Cross; realizing the terrible situation they were all in; being interrogated and beaten; being taken to the ghetto, which was closed at that time; someone sneaking into the ghetto and offering to help his family escape, but not wanting to go as the Russians were approaching and there was fighting throughout the city; returning to his home; his father returning from a concentration camp, where he was sent during the German occupation; and rebuilding his life and returning to Jewish school.

    Oral history interview with John Jurman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Kalina

    Oral History

    Helen Kalina, born January 8, 1914 in Dolina, Hungary (present-day Slovakia), discusses her childhood and family; life in Beregszasz (Berehove, Ukraine) and Prague, Czech Republic; the beginning of the Hungarian occupation; her father’s shop being confiscated; marrying in 1940; going to Budapest, Hungary to nurse her father; the start of the German occupation; returning illegally to Beregszasz; the Beregszasz ghetto; life in the ghetto; the way in which the ghetto was organized; being deported to Auschwitz; the selections; her dialogue with Mengele; living in the C. Lager; the food laced with bromide; being in contact with a neighboring camp; advice given about survival; working as a garbage supervisor; being transferred to Stutthof and then Thorn Waldlager in August 1944; digging trenches for soldiers in Thorn (Torun, Poland); the sudden dismantling of the camp in January 1945; running away from the camp; being recaptured by the SS and jailed in Koronovo (Koronowo, Poland); being liberated on January 26, 1945 by Russian soldiers; being issued a travel permit and walking home with others through Poland; returning to Beregszasz in April 1945; reuniting with her father and husband; living in Prague; planning to immigrate to Israel; and immigrating to Australia instead.

    Oral history interview with Tom Keleman

    Oral History

    Tom Keleman, born September 7, 1929 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family background; being brought up as a German speaker; how anti-Jewish initiatives negatively affected his father’s career; his father being conscripted into the army as a Hungarian to lead a labor battalion, and then eventually being called up months later as a Jew; the start of the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944; various family members working with the Jewish council before and during the German occupation; travelling to the Gestapo headquarters as a courier for the Jewish council; hearing hostages in the headquarters’ cellars; being aware of the deportations beginning in April 1944; carrying verbal messages to Jews in hiding throughout the city; a close call with his identification papers being checked by a policeman; the plans being formulated for Jews with foreign protection papers to be able to leave the city and be saved in early July 1944; hearing about August 28-29 as the date for the deportation of the remaining Budapest Jews; various deals being considered about the Jews; the takeover by the Arrow Cross in mid-October 1944; safe houses being set up; men between the ages of 16 and 60 being taken for "labor service", including his father; his whole family getting Swiss protection papers; how women were taken away during early November; working for the Red Cross; hearing that his house was going to be raided and upon his mother’s request, moving into a Red Cross safe house; trying to save his mother and aunt since they were under protection of the Red Cross, but being unable to find them; moving around to various safe houses; the Arrow Cross raiding their house in December 1944; the siege of Budapest; his family returning to their home; getting a job with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; illegally crossing into Austria; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Iby Kery

    Oral History

    Iby Kery, born July 11, 1925 in Hajduböszörmény, Hungary, discusses her childhood and growing up; living and working in Debrecen, Hungary; the start of the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944; her parents being transported to Auschwitz; the ghetto; working in a factory; being taken to a brickyard for fifteen days, from which people were deported to different concentration camps; being deported to Auschwitz; the conditions of the camp; staying in Birkenau; the selections; being transferred to Allendorf during August 1944; the conditions at Allendorf being better than those at Birkenau; working making ammunition for the German army; bombings near the camp and factories; being evacuated to Buchenwald during March 1945; escaping from the march with two others into the forest, where she was with eleven others; the arrival of the Americans; some people dying from overeating; reuniting with her brother; travelling back to Hungary with the help of American soldiers and others; reuniting with her other brother and her uncle; her brothers moving to Israel; immigrating to Australia; and her reasons for giving testimony.

    Oral history interview with Susan King

    Oral History

    Susan King, born March 11, 1922 in Mohacs, Hungary, discusses her childhood in Siklos, Hungary; her secondary schooling in Pecs, Hungary; learning English so she could move to the United States, but being rejected by the U.S. Embassy; being unable to find a job or to gain admission to a university; her husband being called up to a forced labor camp; the start of the German occupation of Hungary; gendarmes coming for her family on April 26, 1944 and telling them to pack; being taken to a disused mill in Siklos, which immediately came under German command; being transported to Barcs, Hungary after a week; being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau; her mother and Susan being determined to stick together; discovering that the buttons on her dress were really diamond and gold rings; her and her mother being selected for the workers’ lager, Lager B; being transferred to Ravensbrück; being transferred again to Lippstadt in Westphalia, where they lived in proper dormitories and worked in factories making instruments for airplanes; hearing news that the Germans were losing the war; the many American air raids; being evacuated and only making it to Leipzig, Germany; escaping from the group; hiding in the woods with her mother on the Elbe River; staying for a few days in a village full of German evacuees; being liberated by two Americans; Russian troops replacing the American troops and taking her and her mother to Dreseden, then to Upper Silesia, then to Kovel, Ukraine, and then to Berdichev before arriving in Budapest in October 1945; going back to Pecs, Siklos, and then going back to Pecs again, where she saw her childhood sweetheart; marrying her childhood sweetheart; and immigrating to Australia with her husband.

    Oral history interview with Mathew Kiss

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Klein

    Oral History

    Elizabeth (Gitta) Klein, born August 31, 1924 in Sátoraljaújhely, Hungary, discusses her childhood; the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; life in the ghetto; being deported to Auschwitz; being transferred to Krakow-Płaszów and the work she did there; being beaten; being sent to Dachau for 10 weeks; returning to Auschwitz in a different lager for a few days then transferred to Wiesau (Laka, Dolnoslaskie, Poland); the work and conditions in Wiesau; being in two other camps, one of which was Reichenbach; being in Langenbielau; being liberated; returning to Hungary after the end of the war in 1945; marrying in 1949; and immigrating to Australia in November 1950.

    Oral history interview with Susan Kovendy

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Thomas Kramer

    Oral History

    Thomas Kramer, born August 18, 1934 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family and childhood; the early part of the war before the German occupation of Hungary; his ignorance of the Holocaust; the start of the German occupation on March 19, 1944; the people brought to labor camps, including his father in August 1944; hearing that both he and his mother were to be deported to a camp; going to an orphanage which was protected by either the Swedish or the Swiss rather than be deported; the Arrow Cross arriving and bringing everyone from the house to the ghetto; being rescued by Wallenberg; going with his mother into hiding with friends; the Russians arriving and moving in; learning about the death camps and the loss of family members; and immigrating to Australia with his family.

    Oral history interview with Catherine Lamb

    Oral History

    Catherine Lamb, born April 16, 1906 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; marrying in 1920; learning English; her work and starting a business in 1937; trying unsuccessfully to immigrate to England; being denounced to the police; her husband being called up to labor building roads; her building becoming a Jewish house after the start of the German occupation on March 19, 1944; being called up to go to a labor camp, but escaping from the group; trying to find refuge; going to a makeshift Jewish hospital; being injured and bleeding; finding herself in Bergen-Belsen without any recollection of it; returning to Budapest after the war; trying to find her husband; making preparations in 1946 to go to Paris, France via Austria and Switzerland; working as a postage stamp dealer and collector in Paris; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Agnes Lomb

    Oral History

    Agnes Lomb, born August 20, 1918 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her schooling; her middle class family; attending Synagogue and observing the Jewish high holy days; her social life; attending university for one year before leaving in 1938 to marry; working in a factory; not wanting to leave Hungary at the start of the war despite being worried about international events; her husband being sent to a labor camp in 1942, from where he was sent to work in Russia; wearing the yellow star only once; possessing false papers; giving birth to her daughter in August 1942; her husband returning in June 1943; the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944; being hidden in a pension for two weeks by non-Jewish friends when deportations of young women began; a non-Jewish family taking care of her baby; hiding places of various family members, including at the factory where she worked; leaving her safe house after being warned by the concierge; the Russians entering Budapest; her grandmother and two others getting sick and dying while in hiding; watching her husband and others being pulled out of the deportation lines by Wallenberg and being put in a Swedish safe house; building a factory after the war ended; the Communist takeover; leaving Hungary; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Helen Lowinger

    Oral History

    Helen Lowinger, born December 11, 1908, Nagyatad, Hungary, discusses growing up in Arad, which was occupied by Romania; moving to Vasvar and then to Budapest due to her father’s job issues; marrying a clerk in 1931; having a son in 1933; her husband getting called up to a labor camp in 1940 and returning; the start of the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944; the fates of her extended family; moving into her mother’s apartment at the start of the German occupation, which was declared part of the Jewish ghetto; being given food by a Christian friend; the proclamation on October 15 that the war was lost and a Hungarian Nazi taking over the Hungarian government the next day; all female Jews under 40 having to go to a stadium on October 30, from which they were marched to Isaszeg; digging trenches in Isaszeg for three weeks until the Russians started nearing; being marched to Sopron and then to Kópháza where they dug trenches; being taken to work in a factory in Lichtenwort, Austria on December 19th; a German soldier telling them that they were going to build a “bathhouse”, which she later found out was going to be a gas chamber, but it was too late to do so since it was March 1945; being liberated by the Russians on April 2, 1945; becoming sick with typhus and being hospitalized for six weeks; returning to Hungary; and moving to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Susan Mahrer

    Oral History

    Susan Mahrer, born November 28, 1924 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her parents’ careers as musicians; her schooling and her later job as a teacher; the start of the German occupation of Hungary; her father being sent to Austria as a forced laborer; her and her mother moving into a Jewish house in May 1944; increasingly restrictive laws regarding Jewish life and possessions; moving to work at a factory because she thought it would be safer; her mother being taken away; being taken with all the people in the factory to Ravensbrück in October 1944; having to stay in a tent just outside the camp as the camp itself was full; the registration process at the camp; her contact with French political prisoners; being transferred to Penig labor camp; bombings near the camp; evacuating the camp on foot during March of 1945; the SS disappearing on the third day of the march; reaching the town of Chemnitz, Germany, where they found a railroad wagon containing potatoes; marching east; arriving at Zwickau, Germany, where U.S. troops were stationed; working there until an incident occurred; going to live with a German couple; going back to Hungary and moving in with her aunt’s family; receiving news that her father died in a labor camp; knowing from a letter that her mother was in good condition at the end of the war in Bergen-Belsen, but never hearing from her; living and working in Budapest; marrying and having a child; escaping Hungary after the 1956 revolution; going to Austria from where she flew to Australia; and her life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Magda Malik

    Oral History

    Magda Malik, born May 27, 1927 in Sarvar, Hungary, discusses her large extended family and her life at home; the start of the German occupation on March 19, 1944; being taken with her family to a ghetto which was in a converted factory six weeks after the start of the occupation; being transferred to another ghetto; being taken to Auschwitz on July 7, 1944; being transferred from Auschwitz to Berlin, Germany and then to Ravensbrück in August 1944; staying in Ravensbrück for two weeks before being transferred to Altenburg, where she was forced to work in a factory; life in the camp and factory; being trapped for a day and a half after the factory was bombed until the German civilian population dug them out of the rubble in March 1945; being forced to walk to Waldenburg camp in April 1945; the camp guards disappearing, but Hitler-Jugend finding them; German aircraft shooting at them at night and wounding some women; being liberated by American troops; being taken care of by the Americans in Waldenburg until August 1945; travelling back to Hungary; reuniting with most of her family; moving with her family to Canada, then to Israel, where she met her husband; returning to Canada; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Irma Nemenyi

    Oral History

    Irma Nemeny, born January 18, 1925 in Tiszakarad, Hungary, discusses her family background; the start of the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; antisemitic incidents; being forced to leave her home and move into the Monor ghetto; being deported to Auschwitz; being transferred to Stutthof, to Thorn, and then to Bromberg; working at Bromberg digging trenches; being forced to go on a death march; Polish resistance fighters dressed in German officer uniforms taking over; being liberated by Russian troops, who gave the inmates food that was too heavy and caused a lot of them to die; working for the Russians in the forest before going back to Hungary; realizing that only her brother survived; marrying and moving to Israel with her husband in 1949; having a daughter in 1951; and moving to Canada and then to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Alosius Popper

    Oral History

    Alosius Popper, born August 3, 1912 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family and education; Regent Horthy killing Jews in 1923; the definition of being Jewish and Hungarian; his studies; working in the office of a flour mill 1930-1933; being called up to serve in the army in 1933; leaving the army; being called up into the Hungarian Army Labor battalion, where he was stationed first in Hungary and then in Ukraine in 1944; an incident on a train trip to Kiev where he was pretending to be an inspector; conditions in the work camp in the Ukrainian forest; being moved to Stanislawow in Poland (Ivano-Frankivs'ka, Ukraine), to Pinsk (Belarus), and then back to Stanislawow; being taken to Mohacs, Hungary, where he was demobilized and free to go home as a civilian wearing a yellow Star of David; being sent to Bor in Yugoslavia (Serbia); and going to Romania after the end of the war where he found relatives, whom he stayed with for three months.

    Oral history interview with George Reich

    Oral History

    George Reich, born September 21, 1921 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family and school; learning a trade; antisemitism at school; hearing about Dachau; contemplating leaving Hungary; being called up to Nagykáta labor garrison in 1942, where he worked building an air field for the Hungarian air force in Szentkirajszabadja; being marched to Ukraine, where he had to build bridges, and how the garrison was taken over by German soldiers; planning to escape; ending up in a hospital in Budapest, where he was issued a paper stating he was “unfit” so he did not have to serve as a laborer anymore; the start of the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944; joining and escaping a battalion; making his way back to Budapest, where he went into hiding; being taken to a railway yard on November 28, 1944 with 10,000 other people; Raoul Wallenberg arriving and calling for those who have Schutz passes to go with him, and how George went with him even though he did not have a Schutz pass; Wallenberg taking George and 100 others to a Swiss safe house; going back to his job of making bags after liberation; how most of his family survived; marrying on October, 7, 1945; and leaving Hungary and moving to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Georgette Reiszman

    Oral History

    Georgette Reiszman, born July 6, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood and family life in a Jewish household; her first experiences with antisemitism during the late 1930s; being trained as a nurse; the takeover of her father’s business in 1941; the jailing of her mother on the first day of the German occupation of Hungary; being forced to move into a Jewish group house; her family’s deportation to Auschwitz; the selections and conditions in the camp; a personal incident with Mengele; being transferred via cattle car to Bergen-Belsen; being transferred again to Braunschweig, and then to Ravensbrück; being brought into a gas chamber, only to be suddenly let out again and given a Red Cross parcel; being liberated by the Russians; sexual assault by Russian soldiers; returning to Budapest; leaving Hungary in August 1945; meeting her husband who worked for Americans in Berchtesgaden, Germany; meeting Henry Kissinger; moving to Belgium and having a son; moving to Australia; enduring financial hardship; and marrying her second husband.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Reti

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Reti, born May 27, 1912 in Dombegyhaza, Hungary, discusses her childhood; attending school until age 15; marrying in 1934 and having a son in 1936; learning photography, and working in a photography shop until the start of the German occupation; her husband being called up to work as a forced laborer, and dying at the Don river in Russia in 1943; contracting tuberculosis, and remaining sick for years; her whole family being forced to move into a Jewish house in 1944 after the start of the German occupation of Hungary; a prominent Hungarian Nazi couple who lived in the same house who helped Elizabeth and her father from being taken away by other Nazis; testifying as a witness for this couple after the war, which spared them from being hanged; having to move to a different room in the ghetto; seeing Hungarian troops herding hundreds of Jews onto the ghetto streets and shooting them dead before the Russians’ arrival; sanitation in the ghetto; the lack of news about the progress of the war while she was in the ghetto; being liberated by the Russians, who opened up the ghetto; returning back to their original home, where a Christian family was living; going to a sanitarium until 1946 when she was allowed to go back home and start working again; living in Budapest for the remainder of her life; and having a son, Robert Reti, who is a child survivor living in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Robert Reti

    Oral History

    Robert Reti, born April 29, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his life before the war; his first recollection of the war; his father being deported to a labor camp where he died; some of his other relatives who were deported; living in a Jewish house; a prominent Hungarian Nazi couple who lived in the same house and helped his grandfather and mother from being taken away by other Nazis; his mother testifying as a witness in a trial for this couple after the war, which spared them from being hanged; being moved into the ghetto on December 19, 1944; problems associated with moving back into the former Jewish house after the arrival of the Russians on January 15, 1945; going back to school after the end of the war; leaving Hungary in 1956; living in Vienna, Austria and then moving to the Dominican Republic in 1957, where he knew some relatives and studied industrial chemistry; moving to Australia in 1959; and marrying and having a son.

    Oral history interview with Eleonora Samu

    Oral History

    Eleonora Samu (née Drova), born October 21, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her family and life before the war; the start of the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; having to live in a Jewish house marked with the yellow star; her efforts to prevent being deported; being taken to Orszentmiklos (Őrbottyán, Hungary) labor camp near Budapest on October 15, 1944, where she dug trenches for three weeks; being forced to march on foot towards Germany for ten days, and then being taken via cattle car to Dachau; staying in Dachau for one week, before being transferred to Ravensbrück in December 1944; the arrival of inmates from Auschwitz; life in the camp; being taken to Berlin-Spandau camp; being hospitalized with an infected leg; being transferred to Oranienburg in early 1945, which held mostly members of the Communist party; Russians liberating the camp in April 1945; wandering from town to town after the Russians ordered the inmates out of Oranienburg with no organized transportation to get back home; being given money by a soldier, which made life easier; eventually making it back to Budapest in October 1945 and reuniting with her parents; getting married in 1948; having two children; escaping to Vienna, Austria in 1957; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Peter Schey

    Oral History

    Peter Schey, born September 13, 1934 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his family; his education; the beginning of the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944; his father being sent to work camps in Budapest and then deported; being forced to move to a Jewish house in Budapest; his mother obtaining a Swedish residential pass, after which his family moved to a Swedish safe house run by Raoul Wallenberg; seeing a Swedish official stopping the Hungarians from shooting Jews; the Russian army entering and liberating Budapest in early 1945; moving back to his original home; a food shortage; moving to Gyöngyös, Hungary until late 1949; his brother escaping to Austria, from where he migrated to Australia; his family’s failed attempt to escape to Austria, for which they were imprisoned by the Russians in Budapest; and his family’s successful attempt to escape to Austria, from where they sailed to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Schwarcz

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Schwarcz, born March 11, 1918 in Vac, Hungary, discusses her background and family; marrying in 1941; her husband being taken away in a Hungarian labor battalion to the Don Campaign where he was killed; the start of the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; living in the ghetto; the belief that the Hungarian government would do something; being transported in cattle cars to Auschwitz; being separated during Mengele’s selections from her mother and her baby; finding out later that her mother and her baby were both killed; feeling a sense of unreality; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; being transferred to Markkleeberg labor camp, where she worked twelve hour shifts in a factory producing parts for airplanes; the poem she composed while there about the poor conditions; her rations being reduced; her hopes of being liberated by the US Army being dashed when they were forced to walk for 21 days on a death march to Theresienstadt in April 1945; being liberated by the Russian Army; returning to Vac; receiving news of her husband’s death; marrying her current husband in 1946; immigrating to Australia in 1956; and running a kosher restaurant in Sydney.

    Oral history interview with Adrienne Schwartz

    Oral History

    Adrienne Schwartz, born June 7, 1932 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her family and schooling; her father’s job; early experiences with antisemitism; having good relationships with her neighbors, despite one of them belonging to the Arrow Cross party; her father being called into army service; her father being taken to a labor camp directly from the army; difficulties her family encountered after her father was taken away; watching the Germans march in during the start of the occupation in March 1944; being forced to move into a Jewish house with a yellow star on it in June 1944; the family who moved into her family’s house; her mother giving instructions every time she went out shopping in case she didn’t return; her father returning after escaping while journeying through Budapest on a deportation; a policeman and Arrow Cross youth coming to her house and forcing her family to move into the Budapest ghetto, while her father hid in their shed; witnessing the building of the ghetto walls; seeing all people between the ages of 16 and 65, including her mother, be forced to assemble in the courtyard of their building to for deportation; leaving with her sibling to live with her aunt outside the ghetto, until her aunt was deported too in October 1944, but returned soon after escaping deportation; moving into the ghetto with her aunt during late October; life in the ghetto; hearing Russian artillery; air raids; living in a Red Cross house for ten days; moving back into her aunt’s flat; liberation; and moving to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Jack Schwartz

    Oral History

    Jack Schwartz, born March 5, 1929 in Nyírcsaholy, Hungary, discusses his hometown and family; attending a Greek Orthodox school; leading a traditional Jewish life; how life was hard but normal until 1944; receiving little news on wider events in Europe and not believing what he did hear about the war; moving to Budapest with his brothers in 1943; his oldest brother being taken to a labor camp; the start of the German occupation of Hungary; being given the “Yellow star” edict but being warned by a fellow villager not to go; hearing later that those who reported were taken to a ghetto; getting a new job, for which he was given money and a pass; being able to move unrestrictedly due to his pass; getting a job clearing bomb rubble in June 1944; Jack and all of his coworkers receiving a Swiss Schutzpass; the Arrow Cross takeover of the government; looting; being taken to another house where he lived in the cellar; not being able to go to work anymore, but still going out without his yellow star; everyone in his house being transported via cattle car to Bergen-Belsen; conditions and food at the camp, which worsened as the end of the war approached; the German guards; being one of 1500 prisoners who volunteered to leave the camp on April 5, 1945; being liberated by American troops on April 13 near Zelle (Celle, Germany); being looked after by American doctors in Hillersleben, Germany; being taken to Buchenwald, where he spent two weeks; journeying via train with a group of other children to Paris, France, where they had a huge welcome and was hounded by the press; deciding to remain in Paris while the other children departed for Palestine; and visiting Hungary once before immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Eva Serdy

    Oral History

    Eva Serdy, born August 25, 1932 in Debrecen, Hungary, discusses her father’s job, her family, and growing up in Budapest; her father being taken as a forced laborer in 1940; her schooling; antisemitic incidents; attending a Jewish high school; the beginning of the German occupation in March 1944; her relatives getting deported shortly after the start of the occupation; her father being called up in June 1944 to a labor battalion; moving next door to a Jewish house; fleeing the house and moving around using fake papers; paying to stay at a policeman’s house for some time; living in hiding at a tailor’s house with 16 other Jews; the tailor, Foldvari, fleeing in mid-October when things got worse; obtaining a Portuguese Schutzpass and moving into a Portuguese house with her mother and grandmother; her father moving to a labor unit with other “Portuguese” and came back on weekends; her father being deported on November 27th; her grandmother being killed during the siege of Budapest when their flat was directly hit; fleeing the Portuguese house with her mother when police started taking people from it to the ghetto; going to another Portuguese house; escaping from that house when the Arrow Cross came to clear it out; returning to the first Portuguese house; liberation on January 16, 1945; returning to her own flat on January 18th; her father returning from Mauthausen and Gunskirchen on August 10th; returning to school; being rejected from university and facing problems finding employment because of her middle class background; and departing Hungary and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Tibor Siklos

    Oral History

    Tibor Siklos, born December 31, 1912 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his background; schooling; working; marrying; having a family; being taken to a labor camp in Transylvania and Budapest from 1939 to 1942; being taken to Poland with his labor battalion; returning to Budapest in 1943 for a while; being taken to Turka in Poland (now Ukraine) for the second time in 1944; marching towards Hungary after leaving Poland and encountering the Arrow Cross on the Hungarian border; escaping from the labor battalion to Ungvar (Uzhhorod, Ukraine), where he encountered Russian troops on October 27, 1944; arriving in Budapest on December 31, 1944; life and working conditions in Hungary after the war; escaping from Hungary to Kosice and then to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, and eventually arriving in Vienna, Austria in 1949; and living in Austria for a few months before moving to Sydney, Australia.

    Oral history interview with Augusta Singer

    Oral History

    Augusta Singer, born May 7, 1906 in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, discusses her childhood as one of 15 children; completing school; marrying in 1927; moving to Győr, Hungary and having a daughter; [gap in interview]; working until the end of May 1944, when she had to enter the ghetto; being forced to board a train to Auschwitz; spending six weeks in Auschwitz; arriving at Parschnitz camp in Slovakia; working at the Allgemeine Elektrische Gesellschaft at Trautenau (Trutnov, Czech Republic); staying together with her daughter; digging tank traps; being liberated on May 7, 1945; various incidents that occurred while in Parschnitz; watching the German guards discard their uniforms and run away right before liberation; walking to Oppen, where she stayed for six weeks; arriving via train in Budapest in July 1945; returning to Györ; and moving to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Margaret Somlai

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Stanbrook

    Oral History

    Irene Stanbrook, born April 28, 1926 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood in a German-speaking household; growing up in a sheltered environment; her first experiences with antisemitism in 1940 and 1941; her father handing his business over to his foreman; being banned from school in 1941; being sent to a factory where she got some protection from the Germans; the start of the German occupation; walking to the Megyer brick factory (possibly in Békásmegyer), where her parents were assembled; being transported in cattle cars to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz on July 1, 1944; spending six weeks in the camp before being transferred to Neusalz; her work pitching hay in the fields, then being sent to work in a cotton factory; being sent with 900 girls on a death march for six weeks starting on February 16, 1945 to Bergen-Belsen; getting frost bite; being liberated by the British Army; getting shot in the shoulder and being taken to a field hospital; being taken on a boat to Malmo, Sweden, and then to a sanatorium in Ekeberg, Sweden, as she was very sick with tuberculosis; spending two and a half years in the sanatorium, and then three more years studying microbiology in Sweden afterwards; and moving to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Ibolya Stark

    Oral History

    Ibolya Stark (née Szalvendy), born on April 11, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; the beginning of the German occupation; the subsequent Jewish persecution; living in a Jewish house after her property was confiscated by the Arrow Cross; leaving her town and being transported to Goed (possibly Göd, Hungary), where she was a forced laborer; liberation; and immigrating to and establishing her life in Australia in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Kathleen Steinhaus

    Oral History

    Kathleen Steinhaus (née Laszlo), born on August 7, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; experiencing the beginning of the German occupation in 1944; escaping the Gestapo with the help of Wallenberg; her fake Swedish passport; surviving the war living under a fake identity; traveling to Sweden post-war; emigrating; and establishing her life in Australia in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Symon

    Oral History

    Joseph Symon (né Steiger), born February 14, 1925 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the subsequent persecution of Jews; witnessing the deteriorating conditions in Hungary and the eventual German occupation; working in the fields in Jaszbereny, Hungary; being transferred to Chepol (possibly Csepel, aka XXI. Kerület) outside of Budapest; working at a Shell oil depot building bunkers; liberation; traveling to Israel after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Paul Szabo

    Oral History

    Paul Szabo, born September 2, 1921 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the subsequent persecution of Jews; working in a labor camp starting in October 1942; witnessing the unprompted Hungarian violence towards the Jews; performing forced labor in Ukraine digging trenches in the mountains; retreating with the approaching Russian army; escaping and taking a taking a train to Romania to hide; surviving the war and returning to Hungary; traveling to Cuba in 1969; and immigrating to Australia in 1981.

    Oral history interview with Tibor Vajda

    Oral History

    Tibor Vajda, born January 26, 1924 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Dombóvár, Hungary before the war; experiencing antisemitism as a child; witnessing the beginning of the war; living under German occupation; working in Jolsva, Hungary (possibly Jelsava, Slovakia) as a forced laborer; escaping from forced labor and returning to Hungary; obtaining false papers; joining the resistance movement; surviving the war in hiding; marrying his fiancée with whom he stayed together throughout the war; traveling to Austria post-war; and immigrating and establishing his life in Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Vamos

    Oral History

    Ernest Vamos, born December 31, 1911 in Rakoskeresztur, Hungary (XVII. Kerület, Budapest), describes growing up in Hungary before the war; acquiring his degree in Stuttgart, Germany in 1929; returning to Hungary after working a for a short time in Germany; witnessing the rise of Hitler; a failed attempt to flee Hungary in 1937; being sent to the Romania border to work as a forced laborer; returning home shortly after only to be called to perform forced labor again in Russia and then in Hungary; escaping forced labor and then acquiring Aryan papers; surviving the war in Hungary; leaving Hungary for Austria; and eventually immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Eva Varnay

    Oral History

    Eva Varnay (née Hubert), born July 3, 1931 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; experiencing antisemitism as a child in school; being forced to leave her home and relocate to a different area after Nazis forcibly inhabited her apartment; hiding in various places throughout the war to avoid deportation; surviving the war and returning to Budapest; emigrating; and establishing her life in Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Magda Verebes

    Oral History

    Magda Verebes (née Lebovits), born on April 1, 1924 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; the beginning of the war; the start of the German occupation in 1944; living in fear and seeking shelter in a cigarette factory; being transported to Ravensbrück; leaving Ravensbrück and going to Penning where she survived the war; returning to Hungary and marrying her husband; and living in Paris, France after the end of the war before emigrating; and establishing her life in Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Dalma Victor

    Oral History

    Dalma Victor (née Gyozo), born on July 24, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; realizing that conditions in Hungary were deteriorating; her failed attempt to flee Budapest; the beginning of the German occupation and the restrictive antisemitic laws that followed; being forced to dig anti-tank trenches; escaping from forced labor; acquiring a job as a maid in Budapest; surviving the war and performing medical duties to aid the Red Cross; living in Romania and Paris, France after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Thereza Waldner

    Oral History

    Thereza Waldner (née Schwalb), born on May 24, 1910 in Gyor, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; the beginning of the war; the start of the German occupation in 1944; leaving her town and working in a brick factory as forced laborer; being deported to Auschwitz; enduring the harsh conditions of Auschwitz; being transferred to Ravensbrück, Tachau bei Leipzig, and then to Altenburg, where she worked in an ammunition factory; being liberated in Altenburg; returning to Hungary; and immigrating to Australia in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weidler

    Oral History

    Irene Weidler (born Glück), born on February 24, 1915 in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, describes growing up in Budapest before the war; living in hiding with a Christian woman in Kiskunhalas, Hungary during the war; being transferred to an unknown concentration camp and then to Auschwitz after the Hungarian police found her while in hiding; being transferred to Horneburg and Berndorf (both in Germany); journeying towards Hamburg; being liberated by the Red Cross; living in Denmark, Sweden, Israel, and Hungary after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1959.

    Oral history interview with John Weiner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Weiszmann

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Weiszmann (née Braun), born on November 18, 1900 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; the beginning of Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1944; the start of Jewish deportations; living in the cramped confines of the ghetto; leaving the ghetto; working as a forced laborer in a brick factory in Bekasmegyer, a village just outside of Budapest; being transferred to Auschwitz in cattle cars; the harsh conditions of Auschwitz; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen and then to Magdeburg where she worked in an iron factory; liberation in Magdeburg; returning to Ujpest (IV. Kerület, Budapest) after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1962.

    Oral history interview with John Weiszmann

    Oral History

    John Weiszmann, born on September 29, 1926 in Ujpest (IV. Kerület, Budapest), Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the eventual German occupation; working in forced laborer in Bor, Yugoslavia (Serbia); being discharged from Bor; making his way to Turnu Severin, Romania and then to Timisoara, Romania; surviving the war and returning to Hungary in 1945; studying medicine in Hungary and working at the family business; moving to Austria; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Aniko Whealy

    Oral History

    Aniko Whealy (née Vago), born on June 12, 1908 in Kunszentmiklos, Hungary, describes growing up in Budapest before the war; the beginning of the Nazi occupation in 1944; her imprisonment; being transferred to Ravensbrück; being transferred to Meuselwitz and then to Buchenwald; living with a German family after Buchenwald was evacuated; leaving the German family and walking to Graslitz (Kraslice, Czech Republic), where she lived for a short period of time before returning to Hungary via train; communicating with her brother in Sydney, Australia; deciding to emigrate; and immigrating to Australia in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Susan Young

    Oral History

    Susan Young (née Vogel), born May 22, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Hungary before the war; experiencing antisemitism as a child; learning of the Nazis’ actions in Germany and Austria; contemplating emigration; the beginning of the war; the creation of the ghetto; living in the ghetto; the harsh conditions of the ghetto and leaving in secrecy to obtain extra food; surviving the war in the ghetto; and immigrating and establishing her life in Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Rosa Fridman

    Oral History

    Rosa Fridman (née Jazovski), born June 2, 1920 in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania, describes growing up in Lithuania before the war; leaving Vilkaviskis and going to Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania to study; losing her mother and brother during the war; living under the German occupation; the persecution of Jews under German occupation; being deported to Danzig and then to Stutthoff concentration camp; digging trenches during forced labor outside of Stutthoff concentration camp; escaping Stutthoff upon the approach of the Russian army; liberation; living in Poland, Germany, Italy, and Egypt after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Naftal Sieff

    Oral History

    Naftal Sieff, born October 24, 1924 in Schwekschna, Lithuania, describes growing up in Lithuania before the war and his family; experiencing the beginning of the war; the start of German occupation in 1941; moving near the East Prussian border on orders by the German army; experiencing German brutality; being transported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau; being transferred to the Warsaw ghetto after the ghetto uprising and liquidation in 1943 as a laborer to dismantle and flatten the ghetto; rumors of the Russian army’s approach; being forced on a death march to Dachau where he worked building underground hangars at Mulhdorf; being liberated by American troops; living in a private house that was part of a displaced persons camp for three years; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with David Brandon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Geertruida Finkelstein

    Oral History

    Geertruida Finkelstein (née Shapiro), born June 18, 1925 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, describes growing up in the Netherlands before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; fleeing Amsterdam with the help of the underground; living in hiding on a farm and working for the underground; almost getting caught once when Germans went to the farm; liberation; and immigrating to and establishing her life in Australia in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Jozef Frank

    Oral History

    Jozef Frank, born on February 26, 1907 in Groningen, the Netherlands, describes growing up in the Netherlands before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the German occupation; living in fear while in hiding in Zutphen, the Netherlands; mourning his family, all of whom perished during the war; surviving the war with his wife; and immigrating to Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Mary Frank

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Els Frankel

    Oral History

    Els Frankel (née de Beer), born on May 15, 1919 in Amsterdam, Holland, describes growing up in Holland before the war; experiencing antisemitism as a child; witnessing the beginning of the war and German occupation; leaving Amsterdam to go into hiding in Haarlem; working as a servant while in hiding; the end of the war; struggling to cope with her wartime experiences; living in South Africa, Rhodesia, and Israel after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1989.

    Oral history interview with Samuel Lissing

    Oral History

    Samuel Lissing, born March 2, 1921 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, describes growing up in Holland before the war; working as a diamond cutter before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and the German occupation; on November 11, 1942 being sent to a cinema in Amsterdam with other diamond cutters; being sent to a camp in Vught to build a diamond factory, which was never used; being transferred to Westerbork for a night then to Auschwitz; being sent to Monowitz to the music barracks; finding his brother there and staying with him for a few months; the purpose of the orchestra; being sent to Dachau and then to Mühldorf; liberation; returning to the Netherlands after the war ended; and immigrating to Australia in 1951; and establishing his life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Charlotte Melkman

    Oral History

    Charlotte Melkman (née Blokjesman), born April 13, 1920 in Paisley, Scotland, describes moving to the Netherlands as a young girl and growing up in Amsterdam before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and the German occupation; being transported to Westerbork concentration camp in Holland; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen where she worked collecting leather shoes; leaving Bergen-Belsen on a train through German where she was liberated by Russian soldiers; living in England, Indonesia, and the Netherlands after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Jacqueline Phillips

    Oral History

    Jacqueline Philips (née Spetter), born January 7, 1924 in Pontianak, Indonesia (the Netherlands East India), describes growing up in Voorburg, Holland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; obtaining false papers; fleeing her town; going into hiding in various homes and farms during the war; aiding the underground movement in the Netherland, thereby risking her life; surviving the war in hiding; living in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, and New Zealand after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1972.

    Oral history interview with Franka Berk

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Golda Blumner

    Oral History

    Golda Blumner (formerly Golda Sussman; née Stotter), born September 14, 1911 in Kroscienko, Poland, describes her childhood before the war; her family that consisted of her parents, three older sisters, two younger sisters, and herself; her time in Molotowska Oblasi, Czermoski Rayon, and Posiolek Gorki, all located in Russia; marrying and having two daughters; travelling to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Gedale Bosak

    Oral History

    Gedale Bosak, born July 1, 1915 in Dereczyn, Poland (Dziarechyn, Belarus), describes his childhood before the war; his family before the war; being in the Polish Army from 1937 to 1939 in the artillery; his experiences in the Dereczyn ghetto, where he stayed until 1941; being in hiding near Dereczyn in the winter of 1941 and 1942; joining a partisan group; the book, Sefer Derets'in, which tells the story of his town during the Holocaust; his time in the Lepiezanske Forest (Lipicanskaja pušca) working with the partisan movement; joining the Russian Army; travelling to Poland and Germany after the war and seeing Dachau; marrying in 1946; his two daughters; and immigrating to Australia in 1955.

    Oral history interview with Roman Curtis

    Oral History

    Roman Curtis (né Gross; later Kurtycz), born May 10, 1914 in Lwow, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes his family before the war; serving in the Polish Army; his time in Hemer, Görlitz, and Lublin, as a POW during the war; escaping from a POW camp to Warsaw, Poland, where he lived with his father; changing his name from Gross to Kurtycz in order to hide his true identity; the Warsaw ghetto uprising; the end of World War II; his time in London and Germany after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Stanislawa Curtis

    Oral History

    Stanislawa Curtis (née Ellenbogen), born October 4, 1911 in Rozwadów, Poland, describes her family before the war; moving to Lwów (L'viv, Ukraine) with her brother; the Russian occupation of Lwów; her first husband who was taken away and perished; working in a restaurant in Lwów; moving to Warsaw on Christian papers; meeting her current husband Roman; the end of the German occupation; liberation; her time in London after the war; and immigrating to Australia during September 1958. Note that the interviewee experiences problems with her memory during the interview.

    Oral history interview with Jakob Enoch

    Oral History

    Jakob Enoch, born May 31, 1926 in Krakow, Poland, describes his family before the war; the beginning of German occupation and the ensuing restrictions placed upon Jews; the creation of the ghetto in Podgórze; being transported to Płaszów concentration camp; being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944; being forced on a death march to Buchenwald in 1945; being liberated by American soldiers; his recovery in Switzerland; marrying in 1945; immigrating to Australia in 1948; and his children and family.

    Oral history interview with Laura Freedman

    Oral History

    Laura Freedman (née Wachs), born September 15, 1916 in Lwow, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes her family before the war; the German invasion of Lwow; the creation of the Lwow ghetto in 1942; acquiring a Polish birth certificate; escaping the Lwow ghetto with the help of a Polish acquaintance; being disappointed by the lack of help given to the Jews by her Polish and Ukrainian neighbors; her husband’s death; working as a kitchen maid in Germany; her false identity as a Pole during the war; her forced labor on a vegetable farm; being liberated by American and French armies; her travels to Austria, France, and South Africa after the war; marrying her current husband; and her eventual immigration to Australia in 1961.

    Oral history interview with Rubin Furgang

    Oral History

    Rubin Furgang, born September 22, 1923 in Lwow, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes his family before the war; his time in the Lwow ghetto; being transferred to Janowska concentration camp after the Lwow ghetto was liquidated; his time in hiding in Lwow; being liberated by the Soviet Army; his service to the Russian Army as a courier; his return to his family in Lwow; moving to Czechoslovakia and Vienna, Austria after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Tauba Furgang

    Oral History

    Tauba Furgang (née Lipszyc), born May 6, 1925 in Łódź, Poland, describes her family before the war; the arrival of the Germans; the establishment of the Łódź ghetto; the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto; being transported via cattle car to Auschwitz in August 1944; arriving at the camp in the night and the selection process; being forced to run naked; being transferred to Hoch-Tief concentration camp in Germany; working in the salt mines during her time at Hoch-Tief; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; the horrific conditions at Bergen-Belsen; being liberated; travelling through Germany and Italy post-war; immigrating to Australia; and her post-war struggles to cope with trauma from the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Masza Goldenberg

    Oral History

    Masza Goldenberg (née Pakula), born on December 28, 1921 in Chorszow, Poland and describes her family before the war; her family’s move to Łódź in 1936, where she worked and attended university, receiving a degree in business; the beginning of Nazi occupation; the construction of the Łódź ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto and her transfer to Auschwitz; being transferred to Christianstadt labor camp where she dug trenches for water pipes; the march from Christianstadt to Bergen-Belsen and the harsh conditions that it entailed; moving to Sweden after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Helena Goldstein

    Oral History

    Helena Goldstein (née Midler), born January 31, 1919 in Lublin, Poland, describes her life before the war; her family’s move to Warsaw, Poland; her law studies at the University of Warsaw; being forced to leave the university due to her Jewish identity; the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto; her experiences in the Warsaw throughout the war; her post-war travels to Germany and France; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Greene

    Oral History

    Jacob Greene, born May 29, 1925 in Bolechow, Poland (Bolekhiv, Ukraine), describes his life before the war; the German and Russian occupation of his town; his father’s involvement in the Judenrat; his father’s resignation from the Judenrat after 2,000 Jews were deported from Bolechow; his experiences in hiding in the Carpathian Forests; his time in the Russian army after Bolechow was liberated; escaping to Lublin, Poland in 1945; travelling to Hungary, Italy, and Israel after the war; and his immigration to Australia in 1945.

    Oral history interview with Helen Grosman

    Oral History

    Helen Grosman (née Futerhendler), born September 1, 1925 in Tomaszow-Maz, Poland, describes her life before the war; establishing of the Tomaszow ghetto; her father’s time in Buchenwald and eventual death in Stutthof; the ghetto’s liquidation, from where she was transferred to Blizin labor camp; being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp; her evacuation on a death march from Auschwitz-Birkenau and her short time in Gleiwitz, Mauthausen, and then Hindenburg concentration camp; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British army; her time in Germany, Poland, and France post-war; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Stanley Grosman

    Oral History

    Stanley Grosman, born April 9, 1924 in Tomaszow-Maz, Poland, describes his life before the war; his service in the Polish Army; the German occupation and subsequent establishment of the Tomaszow ghetto; his forced labor in Obrowiecz work camp; his return to the Tomaszow-Maz ghetto; being transferred to the Blizin concentration camp; his clandestine escape from Blizin; his postwar time in Riga, Latvia; Vilnius, Lithuania; Poland; Berlin and France; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Tecia Grynberg

    Oral History

    Tecia Grynberg (née Moskowitz), born November 3, 1908 in Kielce, Poland, describes growing up in Kielce, Poland before the war; persecution under the Nazi occupation; the harsh conditions of the ghetto; witnessing her children’s death; being transported to Auschwitz; survival in Auschwitz; being transferred to Ravensbrück and then to Malchow; traveling to Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Germany after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Bronia Hatfield

    Oral History

    Bronia Hatfield (née Goldstein), born November 4, 1924 in Lublin, Poland, describes life in Poland before the war; moving to Lutsk, Ukraine; experiencing the outbreak of the war in 1939; restrictions placed upon Jews; living in the Lutsk ghetto; hiding in various family’s homes during the war; acquiring false Polish papers; working as a housekeeper for a German family in Rodno; her decision to not live with hate in her heart; being liberated by the Russians in Barashovka; studying medicine in Kiev, Ukraine after its liberation; searching for family members post-war; moving to Vienna and continuing her medical studies there; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Arthur Heimberg

    Oral History

    Arthur Heimberg, born March 24, 1920 in Boryslaw, Poland (Boryslav, Ukraine), describes life in Poland before the war; the beginning of the war; the Boryslaw ghetto; being transferred to Płaszów, Auschwitz, and then to the Mauthausen subcamp, Ebensee, during the war; traveling to Austria, Italy, and the United States post-war; and immigrating to Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Herman Kamerman

    Oral History

    Herman Kamerman, born April 15, 1909 in Boryslaw, Poland (Boryslav, Ukraine), describes life in Poland before the war; the German occupation; the Boryslaw ghetto; hiding in a bunker in the woods of Boryslaw after the ghetto was liquidated; seeking help from a Russian soldier; returning to Borslaw in 1945; moving to Germany post-war; and emigrating and establishing his life in Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Jack Kappelmeister

    Oral History

    Jack Kapelmeister, born June 5, 1928 in Kielce, Poland, describes life in Poland before the war; the outbreak of war in 1939; the establishment of the ghetto in Kielce; his forced labor for the Germans during the war; being transferred to Radom and then to Auschwitz; the harsh conditions at Auschwitz; being transferred to Buchenwald where he was liberated; moving to Switzerland post-war; immigrating to Australia in 1950; building a life and family; grappling with the fact that he survived; and his Jewish identity.

    Oral history interview with Stefan Karp

    Oral History

    Stefan Karp, born October 7, 1917 in Łódź, Poland, describes life in Poland before the war; the outbreak of war; the establishment of the Łódź ghetto; being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp; being transferred to Braunschweig concentration camp; his forced labor in a factory in Büssing Nag near Wechelde concentration camp; his forced labor in a salt mine in East Germany; being transferred to Ludwiglust camp; the harsh conditions at the camp; liberation; traveling back to Poland to find his relatives; living in Germany and Poland; immigrating to Australia in 1948; and meeting his wife and establishing his life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Henry Kaswiner

    Oral History

    Henry Kaswiner, born February 26, 1928 in Stanislawow, Poland (Ivano-Frankivs'ka, Ukraine), describes life in Poland before the war; the start of the war and Russian occupation; witnessing the German invasion in 1941; the German occupation and the establishment of the Stanislawow ghetto; fleeing and hiding in a forest after the ghetto was liquidated; finding refuge in a benevolent Polish village; volunteering for the Polish army; leaving the Polish army and obtaining a job for a Russian farmer; returning to Stanislawow to try to find family members; moving to Gleiwitz and then to Wroclaw for academic reasons; and immigrating to Australia in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Rosa Kresner

    Oral History

    Rosa Kresner, born January 19, 1913 in Warsaw, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; witnessing the beginning of the war; the construction of the Warsaw ghetto; experiencing virulent Polish antisemitism; the January “Aktion” of 1943; obtaining false Polish papers and living in the Aryan side of Warsaw; hiding in various Polish homes throughout the war; surviving the war and receiving aid from Polish friends; and emigrating and establishing her life in Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Felicja Kurzer

    Oral History

    Felicja Kurzer (née Lipper), born July 26, 1925 in Lwów, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes growing up in Poland before the war; the beginning of the war; the Russian occupation; the establishment of the Lwów ghetto; obtaining false papers; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland with her brother; living with a Polish family under a false identity; surviving the war in Jaroslaw; liberation; and immigrating to Australia in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Leon Lehrer

    Oral History

    Leon Lehrer, born September 14, 1918 in Stryj, Poland (Stryi, Ukraine), describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing Russian and then German occupation when the war began; living in the Stryj ghetto; serving in the Russian army; returning to the Stryj ghetto; performing menial labor in the ghetto; hiding with a Polish lawyer and learning English during this time; being liberated by Russian soldiers; harboring anti-German sentiments today; meeting his wife; moving to Germany; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Schaul Lieberman

    Oral History

    Schaul Liberman, born April 2, 1920 in Łódź, Poland, describes being raised in Poland before the war; experiencing the outbreak of World War II; the Łódź ghetto; working in the ghetto’s kitchen; being transferred to Auschwitz after the liquidation of the ghetto in 1944; his forced labor at the Büssing Werke factory in Braunschweig, Germany; witnessing benevolence towards Jewish children; being transferred to Ravensbrück and then Rotenberg; being liberated by American troops; transferring to a Polish repatriation camp and then displaced persons camp; moving to Germany and Israel; and immigrating to Australia in 1966.

    Oral history interview with Isak Lips

    Oral History

    Isak Lips (born Lipszyc) born July 10, 1920 in Łódź, Poland describes life in Poland before the war; the rise of the Nazi Regime and the beginning of the war; leaving Łódź and traveling to Warsaw; deciding to leave Warsaw to move to Russia; experiencing German brutality; being forced to return to Łódź; being transferred to Auschwitz and then to Dachau; surviving the war; living in Munich, Germany and France after the end of the war; and immigrating and establishing his life in Australia.

    Oral history interview with Richard Merer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Nagler

    Oral History

    Eva Nagler (née Ginat), born October 28, 1926 in Łódź, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; witnessing rampant antisemitism; living in the ghetto; the dynamic of the Judenrat; coping with her father’s death from tuberculosis; being transported to Auschwitz, Stutthof, and then to Schippenbeil (Sępopol, Poland); the death march and then hiding; working as an Aryan in Pillau, Germany (now Baltiisk, Russia); being liberated by Russian soldiers; moving to Poland, Italy, and Israel after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1952 and establishing her life there.

    Oral history interview with Regina Neustein

    Oral History

    Regina Neustein (née Rosen) born on May 1, 1917 in a small town in Galicia, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; life in the Stryj ghetto; hiding in the Stryj forest during the war; surviving the war and liberation; living in Poland, Austria, and France after the end of the war; and emigrating and establishing her life in Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Moses Pearl

    Oral History

    Moses Pearl (né Perl), born on August 28, 1919 in Sucha, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; witnessing the beginning of the war; entering the Sucha ghetto; watching as his father, younger brothers, and sister were sent to Auschwitz never to be seen again; being transferred to Breslau-Gross Masselwitz; being transferred again to Bismarkhütte; working as a radio mechanic; being transferred to Freiburg and Waldenburg, Germany; liberation; living in Poland and France; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Marian Pretzel

    Oral History

    Marian Pretzel, born on June 28, 1922 in Lwow, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the establishment of the Lwow ghetto; working on a farm during this time; acquiring forged Polish documents and obtaining a job in Kiev, Ukraine; leaving Kiev and moving to Odessa, Ukraine and then Bucharest, Romania; witnessing the arrival of the Russians in Bucharest; fleeing to Palestine in January 1945; returning to Europe and living in Vienna, Austria for three years; and emigrating and establishing his life in Australia in 1949. [Note that the recording ends abruptly during the conclusion of the interview.]

    Oral history interview with Pola Price

    Oral History

    Pola Price (née Przytycka), born on December 15, 1923 in Jadow, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; moving to Warsaw, Poland during the outset of the war; being accused of being a spy; being forcibly taken to Siberia, where she worked in factory to survive; moving back to Poland after the end of the war; and moving to Australia and establishing her life there in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Michael Reed

    Oral History

    Michael Reed (né Morzesz Riesenberg), born on May 8, 1922 in Gorlice, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; leaving Gorlice after the start of the German occupation; walking to the Russian border; being picked up by the Gestapo; being transported by train to Lwów (L'viv, Ukraine), Kharkov, and Dnepropetrovsk; working in a labor camp for three years; traveling by train via Uchva Tchechova, Cotlas, Uzbekistan, and Jugurs; working on a cotton farm near the Aral Sea; reuniting with his brother after the war; living in Vienna, Austria for a short time; and moving to Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Helen Roan

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Kasriel Rosen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pepa Rosemann

    Oral History

    Pepa Rosemann (née Feuer), born in 1914 in Przemysl, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; establishing the ghetto in her town; leaving the ghetto in 1942 to live in Lwow (L'viv, Ukraine); being in contact with the Polish underground while in Lwow; obtaining false papers; traveling to Warsaw and living with a Polish family; the Warsaw uprising of 1944; living in Czechoslovakia and France after the war ended; and immigrating to Australia in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Rotkopf

    Oral History

    Abraham Rotkopf, born December 7, 1917 in Jaroslaw, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; studying to become a dentist; the beginning of the war and Russian occupation; the consequences of Germany invading Russia and breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; fleeing Poland through the forest to Sambir, Ukraine; traveling to Rostov and Stalinabad (Dushanbe, Tajikistan); working as a dentist in a local hospital in Dushanbe; moving back to Poland after the end of the war; and immigrating to and establishing his life in Australia in 1961.

    Oral history interview with Max Schein

    Oral History

    Max Schein (birth name Himmelschein), born January 15, 1928 in Warsaw, Poland, describes growing up in an orphanage in Poland before the war; attending school; experiencing antisemitism; returning home from the orphanage; witnessing the beginning of the war; living under German occupation; not wearing the Jewish star; escaping the Germans and hiding in the forest; working on numerous farms in order to survive; living in a displaced persons camp in Austria after the war ended; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Yolanda Schneider

    Oral History

    Yola Schneider (née Rawdin), born August 15, 1932 in Warsaw, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; the bombings during the beginning of the war; the construction of the ghetto; living in the ghetto; the impoverished conditions of the ghetto; escaping from the ghetto; passing as Poles in Piastow; living in Germany after the war ended; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Regina Schuldiener

    Oral History

    Regina Schuldiener (née Perl), born April 28, 1922 in Sucha, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the harsh realities of antisemitism before the war; fleeing Sucha when the war began and staying with her sister in Tarnów; being transported to Freiberg, where she worked in a factory; being transferred to Egersdorf, Germany (near Cadolzburg) in 1944; a death march to Kratzau concentration camp; liberation; returning to Poland; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Alina Schwarzbaum

    Oral History

    Alina Schwarzbaum (née Rotner), born May 15, 1924 in Miechow, Poland, describes growing up and moving to Sosnowiec, Poland before the war; leaving school early upon outbreak of the war; her family having to close their bookshop; being sent to the ghetto in 1942; deciding to not do what the Germans said; escaping a roundup of Jews by hiding in vegetable fields; spending time in Katowice and Königshuette (Chorzów, Poland) throughout the war; being arrested and convincing the guards not to execute her; surviving the war and returning to Poland; learning that she was the only survivor from her family; living in Katowice and Germany after the war ended; and immigrating to Australia in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Tola Shmerler

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Denise Sten

    Oral History

    Denise Sten (née Spiegel), born October 3, 1923 in Lwów, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes living in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and the arrival of the Russians; spending time in Warsaw, Krosno, Przemysl, and Łódź during the war; obtaining false papers that allowed her to pass as an Aryan; working in a Polish firm throughout the war; spending time in Poland after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Ronica Strauss

    Oral History

    Ronica Strauss, born February 12, 1913 in Tarnopol, Poland (Ternopil', Ukraine), describes growing up in Vienna, Austria before the war; attempting to escape Vienna and go to France; her inability to enter France and subsequently being transported to Rivesaltes camp; obtaining release papers and traveling to Lyon, France with her then-husband; escaping two raids by the Gestapo; surviving the war in Lyon; reuniting with her family, who all survived; and immigrating to Australia in 1918.

    Oral history interview with Herman Strykowski

    Oral History

    Herman Strykowski, born March 28, 1923 in Krosniewice, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; the antisemitism that was prevalent in his town before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; moving into the ghetto; performing work in a labor camp; being transported to Auschwitz; being transferred to the Eintrachthuette labor camp, where he worked in an ammunition factory; being taken to Gusen concentration camp in Austria in advance of the Russian Army’s approach at the end of the war; being liberated by the United States Army; traveling to Italy and finding his uncle in Constanz, Germany post-war; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Sonia Sznicer

    Oral History

    Zofia Sznicer (née Heliczer), born April 11, 1924 in Trembowla, Poland (Terebovlia, Ukraine), describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the Russian occupation; the later German occupation; fleeing Trembowla and taking a train to Zhmerinka in Russia (Zhmerynka, Ukraine); traveling from Zhmerinka to Stalinabad (Dushanbe, Tajikistan) and then Marghilon, Uzbekistan; working in a knitting mill to feed herself; traveling to Biewewai and then Tashkent where she met her future husband; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Adam Szumer

    Oral History

    Adam Szumer born on January 27, 1930 in Jaslo, Poland describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and the Nazi invasion; moving to Stanislawow and living under Russian occupation; leaving Stanislawow to move to Drohobycz, Ukraine; witnessing the occupation of Drohobycz; the establishment of the Drohobycz ghetto; acquiring false papers; traveling via train to seek refuge and avoid being captured; working in an oil refinery; the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Adam Szus

    Oral History

    Adam Szus (born Schüss), born September 1, 1917 in Brzostek, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and the German occupation; being transported to a camp in Lublin in 1940; escaping the camp and returning home; fleeing to Russia; relocating to Lwow after being caught near the Eastern front; and leaving Lwow and being transported to Janowska concentration camp.

    Oral history interview with Nathan Waigensberg

    Oral History

    Nathan Walgensberg, born January 2, 1919 in Łódź, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; witnessing the beginning of the war and fleeing in an effort to avoid the German Army; returning to Łódź after being caught by German soldiers; living in the ghetto; the harsh conditions in the ghetto; being transported to Sachsenhausen with his father and brother-in-law; being transferred to Koenigs Wusterhausen camp; being liberated; living in Poland and Germany after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Sigmund Werner

    Oral History

    Sigmund Werner (né Kott), born November 16, 1909 in Warsaw, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war and moving to Warsaw upon marrying; witnessing the beginning of the war and the German invasion and subsequently losing his job; leaving Warsaw and moving to Zamosc, Poland; performing office work for the German air force as a forced laborer; losing his wife and child; leaving Zamosc and being transported to Majdanek concentration camp; working on the black market buying and selling cigarettes; being transferred from Majdanek to Skarzysko to work in an ammunitions factory; experiencing the Russian offensive and being sent to Czestochowa; being liberated; traveling to Austria, Germany, and France after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Widawski

    Oral History

    Jacob Widawski, born May 21, 1921 in Wieruszow, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; being transported to Kalbsfelde forced labor camp, where he worked on the Autobahn; being transferred to Gutenbrunn camp; being transferred to Auschwitz, where he worked as a food carrier; leaving Auschwitz to work in a coalmine in Janino; liberation; and emigrating and establishing his life in Australia in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Mina Widawski

    Oral History

    Mina Midawski (née Laub), born on November 9, 1921 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; moving to a small apartment with her family on the outskirts of Krakow; being forced to move into the ghetto; being transported to Płaszów and working to build barracks in the camp; being transferred to Skarzysko labor camp and then to Leipzig; leaving Leipzig on a death march to Dresden and the harsh conditions it entailed; returning to Poland after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1962.

    Oral history interview with George Winston

    Oral History

    George Winston, born July 5, 1934 in Lwow, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; establishing the Lwow ghetto; living in the ghetto; the harsh conditions of the ghetto; fleeing Lwow and traveling via train through Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon; arriving in Palestine in 1944; living in France after the end of the war; and immigrating to and establishing his life in Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Sam Young

    Oral History

    Sam Young (né Szmul Jungzweig), born November 7, 1925 in Łódź, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; establishing the Łódź ghetto; the persecution and harsh conditions that he faced during the German occupation; working as a courier smuggling goods into the ghetto; being transported to Auschwitz after the liquidation of the ghetto; being transferred from Auschwitz to Kaufering, Landshut, and then Henschel; liberation; entering Feldafing and then Föhrenwald displaced persons camps; living in Paris, France after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Walter Ziegler

    Oral History

    Walter Ziegler (né Wof Cygler), born November 27, 1927 in Olkusz, Poland, describes growing up in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; working at a German police station as a shoe cleaner; being transported to Blechhammer forced labor camp; being transferred out of Blechhammer after a dysentery outbreak to a transit camp called Branden; being sent to Zwittau labor camp (possibly Brünnlitz); being transferred to Faulbruck, Peterswaldau, and then Langenbielau; liberation; living in Poland, Germany, and Switzerland after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Regina Zielinski

    Oral History

    Regina Zielinski (née Feldman), born September 2, 1925 in Siedliszcze, Poland, describes living in Poland before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the creation of the ghetto in her town; her time in Staw concentration camp, Sobibor death camp, and Frankfurt, Germany during the war; traveling to Wetzlar and Butzbach, Germany after the end of the war; and immigrating to and establishing her life in Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Benno Finger

    Oral History

    Benno Finger, born August 10, 1919 in Czernowitz, Romania (Chernivtsi, Ukraine), describes growing up in Romania before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; living in the harsh conditions of the ghetto; being deported to Ukraine and staying in a stable in a Kolkhoz; working on a farm to survive; going to Nikolayef doing road work; being liberated by the Russian army; serving for the Russian Army in Poland; living in Bucharest, Romania and Belgium after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Gisella Gold

    Oral History

    Gisella Gold (née Adlerstein), born on January 6, 1926 in Maramarossziget (Sighet), Romania, describes growing up in Romania before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war and German occupation; living in the cramped ghetto; being transported from the ghetto to Birkenau; realizing that she would never see her parents again; leaving Birkenau on a death march to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British Army; returning to Romania and reuniting with some of her family; traveling to Hungary and France after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Marton Hamor

    Oral History

    Marton Hamor (né Hirschl), born on March 24, 1913 in Oradea, Romania, describes growing up in Romania before the war; experiencing the beginning of the war; the introduction of antisemitic laws; participating in forced labor in Balatonaliga, Hungary and Kiev, Ukraine; retreating to Stanislau when the Russian troops began to approach; witnessing the German occupation of Hungary; being transported to Mauthausen concentration camp and then to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the American Army; living in Hungary after the end of the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Hedvig Hunter

    Oral History

    Hedvig Hunter, born July 27, 1920 in Oradea, Romania, describes his childhood and schooling; beginning his studies in law in 1938, but being forced to leave school after an antisemitic incident, after which he was warned that there would be more; his failed attempt to flee to Palestine; the Hungarian takeover of Transylvania in 1940 and the immediate imposition of antisemitic laws; moving into the ghetto in April 1944; offers to hide the family, which his father refused; being on the last transport out of the ghetto to Auschwitz; the work and general life at the camp; getting sick and being sent to the hospital; last minute reprieves from the gas chambers; attempting to commit suicide; survival during the last days before liberation; being liberated by Russian troops; being taken to a hospital in Katowice, Poland, where he recovered for some weeks; spending a short amount of time living in Sluck; returning back to Oradea; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Sarah Vogel

    Oral History

    Sarah Vogel (née Weintraub), born March 22, 1915 in Siret, Romania, describes her life in Bukovina before 1941; her whole village being evacuated in cattle trucks and shunted around for two weeks; the Romanians from her village being sent back to her town while the Jews were shunted around some more and sent to labor before being allowed to return home in 1941; being forced to march hundreds of miles to Ukraine in 1942; bribing authorities to be allowed to live with local peasants; being liberated by Russian troops in March 1944; bribing the Russian border guards to let her cross the border and go back home; arriving back home in July 1944 and finding everything destroyed; sending her children to Bucharest, Romania; getting forged documents and following her children to Bucharest; living with a wealthy cousin and then with her brother once he returned from Russia with another cousin; illegally journeying to Israel in 1947 but not arriving until 1948; and immigrating to Australia in 1955.

    Oral history interview with Alisa Brosan

    Oral History

    Eva Berger

    Oral History

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