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Oral history interview with Maria Niederkofler-Wierer

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2009.402.7 | RG Number: RG-50.654.0007

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    Oral history interview with Maria Niederkofler-Wierer

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Maria Niederkofler-Wierer, born in 1922 in Ahrntal, South Tyrol, discusses the August 1944 arrest of her family following her brothers’ desertion of the local police regiment in South Tyrol; her family’s farm which was later plundered by local Nazis; her cousin, who as a soldier, participated in her family’s arrest along with local citizens from the Südtiroler Ordnungsdienst (SOD) and Ortsgruppenleiter Jakob Oberhollenzer, the owner of the local inn; her family’s interrogation in a prison in Brunich; their transfer to Bozen (Bolzano); the different types of prisoners at the camp, including political prisoners, Jews, Italian intellectuals; and some English pilots; conditions in the camp, including starvation and disease; names of some of the camp’s guards which included local Italians, Ukrainians, and Germans; the barracks for Italian intellectuals; the disappearance and murder of the Italian intellectuals who were taken away by truck loaded with machine guns; working outside the camp, cleaning offices of the guards; witnessing frequent beatings of prisoners; hearing about the death of one of her brothers who was shot by a guard; hearing about and seeing physical evidence of the torture of female prisoners in Fossily; witnessing a hanging in January 1945; frequent transports of trains taking prisoners to Auschwitz and Mauthausen; witnessing donkey carts transporting bodies from the camp hospital; a guard who, because he felt guilty, confessed to her that he had shot an Italian prisoner in the camp; her liberation from Bolzano in February 1945; accidental meetings with former members of the SS who were in hiding in Brixen and Arntal valley while they arranged for transport to South America; hearing about her cousin’s participation (for money) in organizing transports of former members of the SS; her mother’s refusal to the war with their cousin; and her thankfulness for their survival.
    Interviewee
    Maria Niederkofler-Wierer
    Date
    interview:  2009 December 08
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    German
    Extent
    1 videocassette (DVCAM) : sound, color ; 1/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    This is a witness interview of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Witnesses: The Jeff and Toby Herr Testimony Initiative, a multi-year project to record the testimonies of non-Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust. The interview was directed and supervised by Nathan Beyrak.
    Funding Note
    The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 09:21:34
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn45405

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