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Oral history interview with Ze'ev Galperin

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.324 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0324

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    Oral history interview with Ze'ev Galperin

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Ze’ev Galperin, born in Kaunus, Lithuania in 1927, describes being one of five children; his very close family; attending Jewish schools; his bar mitzvah; the Soviet occupation; transfer to a public school; German invasion; briefly fleeing east with his parents and brothers (one sister fled to Russia, another to Vilnius); finding their home occupied upon their return; moving to his grandfather's home (his grandfather had been killed); a non-Jewish neighbor bringing them food; moving to the ghetto in Slobodka; his sister's return from Vilnius; his father's privileged position as a painter; working with his father; receiving assistance from German soldiers; an “action” and how people were taken to Fort Nine; songs and jokes from the ghetto; sabotaging the machinery in the factory where he worked; transferring to Šanciai with his family (Kauen-Schanzen concentration camp); being deported to Stutthof one year later; separation from his mother and sister; being transferred to Dachau; his youngest brother's selection with a group of 130 children and deciding to join him; the refusal of the children to be gassed and the German relenting and returning them to a barrack; teaching the children to line up for roll call; being transferred with the children to Auschwitz/Birkenau; his illness and the outbreak of scarlet fever; separation from the children; his transfer to Lieberose, then Sachsenhausen; a German prisoner convincing the officers that Ze'ev was not Jewish; calling himself Vitas Chemalsky so that people would not think he was a Jew; his assignment working with prisoners of war; transfer to a steel mill; Allied bombings destroying the facility, thus saving him from discovery as a Jew; returning to Sachsenhausen; a death march towards Hamburg, Germany; being rescued by the Red Army in a forest near Schwerin, Germany (Skwierzyna, Poland); receiving assistance from the Red Cross; returning home; learning his family was in Vilnius and joining them; learning his youngest brother was in Israel (he thought he was dead); becoming an engineer despite anti-Jewish restrictions; his marriage in 1955; the births of his two children; immigrating to Israel to join the rest of his family (his brother remained in Vilnius); and having reunions with the surviving children he was with in Auschwitz/Birkenau. He also sings ghetto songs and shows photographs.
    Interviewee
    Ze'ev Galperin
    Date
    interview:  1997 February 07
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Genre/Form
    Music.
    Extent
    4 videocassettes (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Galperin, Ze'ev, 1927-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Ze'ev Galperin in Israel on February 7, 1997. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview on December 3, 1997, as an accretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer in February 1995.
    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 08:16:12
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503238

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