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Oral history interview with Frances Finkelstein

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1271.32 | RG Number: RG-50.119.0032

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    Oral history interview with Frances Finkelstein
    Transcript
    We're all started.
    You start.
    We're all started.
    OK.
    You want me to talk.
    I want each of you to tell me your name first.
    My present name is Frances Finkelstein.
    OK.
    In Europe, they called me Feigele Zankel.
    Zankel.
    Now, you'll have to spell that.
    Z-A-N-K-E-L.
    OK.
    And your mother's maiden name?
    Karger.
    K-A-R-G-E-R?
    Right.
    OK.
    Where did you grow up in Europe?
    Now, is this being recorded right now?
    Yes.
    It is?
    The tape machine is on.
    I would like to have first the date.
    Today's April the 13th, 1983.
    OK?
    OK.
    Because in case ever my grandchildren
    should come and look for it, I want
    them to know what date it is took place, this event.
    OK.
    I was born in a very small village in Poland.
    It's near Kolomea.
    But it's not important.
    That village was not on the map.
    As a little girl I had a fairly nice life.
    I went to school, and I loved school enormously.
    And then when Hitler came, the school came to an end.
    We could no longer go to school.
    Could you tell me a little bit about the town though?
    The town, it was mainly of--
    there were very few Jewish people, and mainly
    Polish and Ukrainian.
    But we lived there because my father had a business.
    And I went to public school.
    But for Hebrew we had a teacher coming into the house.
    So you were tutored in Hebrew at home?
    Tutor, right, that's what it was, a tutor
    for my brother and myself.
    And--
    The children were just and your brother?
    No.
    There was a sister.
    She was 10 years older than I. She was married.
    And she had a seven-year-old boy.
    And they were all--
    they're all gone.
    Her husband, she, her seven-year-old boy, my father,
    my brother, and the uncles and their children--
    I'm the only one that survived on either side.
    I think I have a slight amnesia because I don't
    remember my cousins' names.
    And many things I forgot, but the most important things I do
    remember.
    Did all the family live in the same town?
    No.
    Like, one brother of my mother's lived in the same town.
    And yet, I don't remember his children.
    And, as I said, when Hitler came in everything stopped.
    What I meant by stopped, that means
    education, freedom, business, no longer my father could conduct.
    They stripped us of our valuables.
    What was your father's business?
    We had a business where--
    I don't know-- everything was available there,
    cigarettes and the sewing and--
    really, it's like a general store.
    Everything was available.
    I really don't know how to describe it.
    It's not like here, you're assigned just
    for a certain area.
    But whatever anybody needed in the village,
    it was available there.
    And we got along well with the Polish people
    and the Ukrainian, which I will tell you later.
    And this is my main reason why I want
    to be interviewed because there's
    something very important that I want to come to as we go along.
    OK.
    OK.
    And that's why I don't feel to put
    too much emphasis on the beginning
    as much as on the end.
    Well, I'm just trying to get an idea of the setting.
    The town was not a very big town, you say?
    No.
    No.
    It was entirely-- a Jew was like a thorn
    that you can really identify because we were very few
    Jews there.
    Had your family been living there a long time?
    I was born there.
    Yes.
    Grandparents?
    No.
    I don't remember my grandparents.
    Nobody was living when I was a youngster.
    They were gone already.
    I'd like to bring up to the point of the time
    during Hitler's time.
    My-- as I said, my childhood is not important
    because it was fairly good up until Hitler came in.
    As I said, they stripped us of everything.
    Well, when the war first broke out,
    what was the situation in your town?
    Oh they started to throw rocks into our windows.
    The townspeople?
    We don't know who, but I suppose so.
    And breaking windows stealing, robbing,
    beating us-- beating up the Jews because they
    knew who the Jew is.
    And they kept beating us.
    Thank God that I didn't go through that, but it was done.
    And then finally, on a Saturday morning,
    we heard a knock on the window, and they're
    taking us into the ghetto.
    And when they took us into the ghetto, prior that let's say,
    my father made arrangements with our next door neighbors,
    the Polish people.
    Whatever we had left yet, he said to them, keep this
    and my children will escape from the ghetto.
    They'll come, and you will save them.
    So he knew for a long time what was going to happen.
    Oh, we knew that we are-- that it was a daily occurrences.
    We knew that we are going to be taken to the ghettos.
    There's no question about it.
    This ghetto was where?
    This was in Tlumacz, a different town.
    So he gave everything, whatever was left,
    to our next door neighbor with the agreement
    that my brother and I, when we escaped the ghetto,
    we should come and they should hide us and give us food.
    My father didn't want to escape the ghetto.
    He says-- he was religious.
    We were religious.
    In fact, I still am.
    And he said, I'm a man with a beard and payos and an old man.
    He was only 55, but in Europe, 55,
    he thought he was an old man.
    And he said, I have no choice.
    I'll stay in the ghetto.
    But you children-- my brother was, at that time, maybe 18.
    I was about 14.
    We should escape and save ourselves.
    My sister could not do that because she had a little child,
    and she didn't have a choice either
    because nobody would give shelter
    to someone who has a child.
    And so when we did come to that next door neighbor,
    instead of giving us shelter she wanted to turn us in.
    You did escape, and you went back to the neighbor.
    The escaping wasn't difficult. The difficulty
    was where to escape.
    Nobody would give you shelter because the danger was--
    the penalty was death for keeping a Jew
    on their premises, although there were possibilities.
    Like, if they kept us somewhere, in the barn where nobody
    would see us, it was possible.
    But nobody wanted to endanger themselves.
    And then again, Hitler's followers
    promised them that if they turn in a Jew,
    the price for a Jewish head was a pound of sugar,
    a pound of coffee.
    And Jewish life was very cheap.
    You could sell it for a pound of coffee.
    So instead of giving us shelter, they could have turned us in
    and received a great reward.
    So when we came to this next door neighbor,
    we couldn't stay there because that's what happened.
    They were going to turn us in.
    So we escaped from there.
    In the meantime, my mother managed
    to get out of the ghetto.
    And she joined us.
    And we were three.
    How did she find you?
    She knew that this is where this place would be
    that we would find each other.
    Because it was a village of people that we knew.
    I grew up there.
    So we knew approximately where we could find each other.
    The only way we traveled was by night, not through the streets
    because that was forbidden, that was dangerous,
    only through the alleys, through the--
    and not when the moon was bright because then, again,
    you could see.
    So it had to be only where nobody walks and nobody sees.
    And--
    Until you met your mother, where did you hide out?
    A day here and a day there.
    And then my mother came, and we split.
    My brother went to one family, and my mother
    and I were going from a day here a day there because nobody
    would give us shelter even if they wanted to
    because to take an older person in was a danger.
    In case of emergency, she could not
    run, although she wasn't that old.
    She was probably my age or--
    probably, yes.
    My brother was in a separate area.
    And my mother and I were struggling,
    as I said, a day here and a day there.
    I had a pair of boots.
    She had none.
    She only had a pair of rubber galoshes.
    Where I come from, the snows are deeper than--
    above your knees.
    And we had to walk at night, every night,
    to look for a different area who would give us
    shelter or a piece of bread.
    Were you staying in the same town?
    In the same area, yes.
    And she would walk, and the snow would get into her galoshes,
    and she would walk on ice because the snow turned
    into ice.
    And that's how we would walk by night,
    from one area to another, hoping that if we approached
    this Gentile family, maybe they will open their door
    and give us a piece of bread or even keep us overnight.
    Or, we would take a chance that he
    may turn us in for a pound of sugar, a pound of coffee.
    Did you have any way of--
    We never had no way of knowing which way it will turn out.
    It came to the point where nobody would take us in
    any longer because they heard here and there that they were
    catching Jews on Christian premises, and both of them
    were killed.
    So nobody would let--
    open the doors.
    One day my mother and I came and joined my brother
    where he was staying at this family, who
    happened to be Ukrainians.
    Why did they take my brother?
    Was because, when you do something for someone,
    it comes back to you somehow, someway, someday,
    which happened.
    This Ukrainian, his father needed money for a doctor
    to save a child that was very ill.
    And he came to my father.
    My father lent him money.
    We didn't know anything about it.
    But when my brother came to them and told who he, he says,
    oh yes, you can stay here because your father gave money
    to my father so he could take my brother to the doctor
    and so on.
    So he gave shelter to my brother.
    But what happened, on one day this man, where we are staying,
    he noticed that up on the hill the Gestapo
    had very well-trained German shepherds.
    To this day, I'm petrified of dogs.
    I can't go near a dog.
    I cannot have a dog near me.
    They were on top of the Hill with these dogs.
    And he came out, this man where we are staying only overnight.
    And he says to us, run into the woods
    because the Gestapo are on the hill searching.
    We ran into the woods.
    We had a code number, my brother and I.
    We said, instead of being caught by the Gestapo
    into their hands, it's much easier to be killed.
    So we made up that if we should ever
    have that situation, that we are being caught,
    we should run and be killed because that's much
    easier than being captured.
    We were sitting under a bush, the three of us.
    It was quiet.
    My brother was impatient.
    He says, you know, it's quiet.
    I guess they're all gone.
    But it was daylight.
    He shouldn't have done it.
    I sometimes feel guilty.
    I used to blame my mother.
    Why didn't you stop him by telling your son don't go out.
    Well, he just picked himself up, and he went over
    just a few feet away, beyond that bush.
    They never walked into the woods because they were afraid.
    You know, from the woods outside,
    you can see what's doing.
    But from the outside into the woods,
    you don't know what's doing.
    So they never went in into the woods.
    They would have never seen us.
    But he got out from that bush and went out.
    And all of a sudden, we heard a commotion, and I heard a shot.
    And I said, oh, thank God that he was shot because, as I said,
    it was easier to be shot than to be captured.
    So I said, OK, he is shot.
    And at night, I was walking through the woods
    and calling that code number that we had our agreement.
    I didn't hear any response.
    I said it's true.
    Then he was shot.
    However, when we returned at night to that person
    that we stayed overnight, he says, no, he wasn't shot.
    He was captured alive and taken.
    And ever since then, I always kept
    looking and looking and hoping maybe I'll find him, even he--
    even here now at the gathering.
    But he had red hair.
    And he wanted so much to live, more than I did.
    In fact, the following day, it was a Monday.
    He had plans to join a partisan unit the following day.
    And this happened, like, on a Sunday.
    I don't remember the day--
    on a Monday, I suppose.
    And on a Tuesday he was planning to join the partisans.
    So he was captured, and our life was useless
    because we didn't know what happened with my father
    in the ghetto, with my sister, brother-in-law,
    and everyone else.
    Now I am left only with my mother.
    And it meant nobody wanted to give us shelter.
    It meant, well, let's go out into the open, and here we are.
    You can do as you please.
    And so one day we came to this Polish family
    that they used to be just customers of ours.
    One of the daughters, the youngest,
    went to school with me.
    That's all we knew them as--
    fine, refined, intelligent, Polish people.
    Well, this is something that whatever the Polish people did,
    they made up for them.
    These people were such an ideal people
    that you can't find anymore.
    They took us in.
    And we were sitting there in the barn, my mother and I,
    in one corner.
    In the other corner there was another young fellow, probably
    your age.
    Another Jewish woman with two daughters used to come at night
    and boil some potatoes for herself.
    And-- and we were living there, like, from day to day,
    not knowing what will happen because if they did not
    take us in, we had no choice.
    Nobody and nobody would let us in anymore.
    And after losing my brother, there was no--
    there was no need of my existence because, as I said,
    he was the one that wanted so much to live,
    much more than I did.
    I wasn't a fighter for life.
    I felt that if everyone else died already,
    why should I go on living.
    And I really didn't fight for life.
    In fact, I used to go out because these Polish people,
    they had no food neither.
    I had to go out during the night and look for a piece of bread
    somewhere.
    What time was this?
    What year was this?
    Still in the same town where I was born,
    still in the same town.
    But this was 1940, though?
    This is 1942.
    In fact, one-- as I said, we weren't
    allowed to walk on when the moon was full because you can see.
    And the snow and the moon, that's very bright.
    And one time I ran into this guy that he took over our house.
    And I stood face-to-face with him, as I am with you now.
    And I said, this is the end of me.
    But I don't mind my end, but I left my mother behind.
    Well, I guess God wanted to protect my mother.
    So when this man saw me, instead of grabbing me and turning me
    in, he ran away from me.
    And he left me alive.
    When I used to go out for that piece of bread,
    I used to be followed by stray dogs
    because in Europe the dogs were running around loose.
    And they used to attack me.
    And I'm so frightened of dogs all the time.
    And somehow I came back safe because my mother needed me.
    She was there all alone.
    Every time I went out at night, I
    left her sitting there and endangering my life so I
    should come back safely to her.
    And God protected me that I should come safely.
    One time I brought two boiled potatoes--
    no, four.
    We ate two, and two we saved for the next day.
    It was so cold there that the potatoes got frozen.
    Or I brought the piece of bread, and I said to my mother,
    you eat it.
    And she said, no, you eat it because you are young.
    You have to survive.
    And I said, no.
    Because I'm young, I have more strength.
    But you're old, and you need it more than I do.
    So you eat it.
    How did you get the bread?
    How did you?
    I took my chances.
    I came through the back door to this--
    to any people that used to be our customers.
    And they would recognize me.
    And they would give me a piece of bread.
    But I took chances because I didn't
    know if they wouldn't turn against me, that they wouldn't
    turn me in.
    It was taking a big chance by going out
    for that piece of bread.
    This was the biggest danger that I would take,
    by going out and looking for that piece of bread.
    But what I want to specify mainly
    is these Polish people, what they did for humanity.
    They endangered their lives.
    There was a husband, a wife, three daughters, a son.
    The daughter was married with a little three-year-old girl.
    They taught that three-year-old girl
    that she is not allowed to reveal the secret that we
    are there in the barn because if she does, all of us
    will be killed.
    And she kept that secret.
    I still have a picture of her when she was three years old,
    not a picture, a painting actually
    because one of the sisters, her aunt, was a painter.
    They found-- those two daughters went out in December to pick
    some wood from--
    to make fire, and they found a Jewish girl.
    She was frozen.
    She was 10 years old.
    They brought her home.
    She had sores.
    She had lice.
    They put her in the bathtub with milk, and they bathed her,
    and they brought her to life.
    But then she insisted, the little girl,
    that she knows where her mother is.
    She wants to go out and find her mother,
    not knowing that her mother was turned in for a pound of sugar
    or whatever.
    Mother wasn't alive any longer.
    And so I don't know what happened to that little girl.
    But from that Polish people, that Polish family,
    there is this young boy who survived.
    He lives in Minneapolis.
    This mother and two daughters survived,
    who live in Los Angeles.
    My mother and I survived.
    My mother died three years ago at the age of 90.
    She never talked about the past as much as I do.
    She just turned it off.
    She just turned it off.
    And when I used to light a candle for my brother,
    a Yahrzeit candle.
    She never even asked me, who's it for?
    You know, although I lost my mother three years ago,
    that pain is not as strong as the one
    that I was 40 years ago.
    And you know why?
    Because my mother died in my arms.
    I held her in my arms when she let her last breath.
    But my brother, my sister, my father, and everyone
    else, I often wonder what kind of death did they have?
    What did they do to them?
    And this memory, although it's 40 years later,
    I guess it will never end.
    It's always there.
    It's always-- I always think, what could have happened?
    How did they go?
    What kind of death did they have?
    Were you able to find out any information
    while you were hiding out, to find out what was happening
    in the war?
    No.
    I just knew that that ghetto was--
    it used to be called Judenfrei.
    That means they got rid of the Jews.
    They cleaned it up.
    Where or what, I never found out where they cleaned them out,
    what they did with them.
    I don't know what they did with-- in that area,
    with the Jews.
    How long did you hide out?
    For over two years.
    So that's 1944, then.
    Yeah.
    I started-- I started, like, at the end of '41 until '44.
    And I never-- no, I never found out.
    In fact, I did go back to the village to see, to look.
    But I ran away immediately because--
    Why did you go back?
    I thought maybe I'll find somebody.
    When?
    When we were liberated.
    I was hoping maybe somebody is alive.
    But instead, I ran because I saw that the suspicion, the danger
    is still there.
    A lot of Jews were killed, even after the liberation,
    when they went back to their homes to look for survival.
    Did you stay in the barn until liberation?
    Yes.
    Then at the end, the Ukrainians and the Poles,
    they were always fighting with each other.
    And one night, the Ukrainians set a fire
    on the Polish people, including this barn where I was sitting.
    And it went up in flames.
    And so my mother and I, we ran out.
    And then right after we were liberated, liberated.
    It wasn't really.
    It was still a danger.
    And you know, this Polish family,
    I had lost them for a while.
    And then I found them.
    And ever since, ever since I came to America,
    I kept sending them money and packages.
    And last year in May--
    in fact, it took me three years I worked on it,
    that I went to Jerusalem and I had a tree planted at the--
    it's called the Trees for the Righteous.
    You know, there is a--
    Is that at Yad Vashem?
    At Yad Vashem, at the Jerusalem Memorial for the 6 million,
    there is a special assigned area that the trees
    are being planted for these special people.
    There are very few, of course, that saved Jewish lives.
    And I was determined, although they are deceased already,
    that family, and I'm only corresponding
    with their eldest daughter and the other children too.
    But I felt, although, that they made up the difference
    for what the others did.
    And they were that 1% of the majority who are
    trying to help Jews for no--
    I mean, we had no money or anything
    to give them or pay them or promise them.
    They just did it out of humanity to--
    because they knew that what was being done to the Jewish people
    wasn't human.
    And I felt that they endangered their life to this extent.
    So at least what I can do is remember them somehow,
    besides only by sending them a material
    way of remembering them.
    So I went to the extent as to have
    them honored by having that tree planted among the--
    it's called the Valley For the Righteous.
    It's in Jerusalem.
    I've been there.
    Do you know about it?
    I've been there, yeah.
    Yeah.
    So last May, I went there specially,
    to have that tree planted.
    This is about all of my story.
    Well, I have a few more questions
    I'd like to ask to fill in the information.
    But we're at the end of this side, so I'll forward us.
    In the town that you grew up in, and I can't
    pronounce the name of it, so--
    No, don't even try.
    No, nobody can pronounce it.
    You said there were very few Jews.
    Was there much of a Jewish cultural life among those Jews?
    No.
    No.
    We had to form our own cultural life.
    We were so isolated.
    Let's say, on Passover, I wasn't allowed to play with--
    my best friend was a Polish girl, and I was so--
    like I say, we kept to ourselves.
    The children, the Jewish children had to be separate.
    And the religion had to be enforced
    and all this environment.
    Was there a synagogue in town?
    No.
    No.
    No.
    Was there one in a nearby town?
    Yes, nearby.
    They had to go to a shtiebel, used to be called.
    But I'm a little-- you know, there's so many things
    that I don't remember.
    I think that all this living and reliving and nightmares
    and all that, I think I have a slight amnesia because I
    used to know the language, Ukrainian and Russian,
    perfectly.
    In fact, I was number one, a student in my class.
    And now I can't speak it.
    I barely understand.
    So I don't remember too well.
    Somehow, I don't know what happened to me.
    There's so many things that sometimes people say,
    you know this one or that one.
    I'm ashamed to admit, but I don't.
    It's just seems so many years went by, or perhaps all that--
    the memory or what blocked it.
    I don't know why it is.
    So most of the-- were there any other Jewish families
    that you would share some of the holidays with, go visit them?
    Yeah, my uncle, my mother's brother.
    Yeah, my uncle and the cousins, we would go.
    Were you able to keep up with the holidays
    because there was so few Jews--
    Oh, yes, definitely.
    --to get the matzah for Passover.
    Oh, sure.
    Oh, yes.
    We were very religious, very observant.
    Everything was-- although we lived,
    but when there is a will, there is a way.
    There is no such thing.
    In those days everything was observed perfectly,
    to the extent that even during those crucial days
    of my hiding, I never ate treif, even when
    we were by these Polish people.
    And if they did make a soup which
    consisted of potatoes and water, that
    was the soup, that was the entire food and meal.
    And she cooked for us in a separate pot
    because she knew us, that we are observant.
    And, yes, everything was kept very much so, very
    strong observant and dedicated to.
    Yes.
    Did your brother go to cheder?
    Religious school?
    No, we had a tutor come into the house.
    For both of you?
    Yes.
    And when he was in hiding, he used
    to carry with him the tefillin.
    [SIGHS] And he used to daven while we were hiding.
    He was tall.
    And when you have to stand [? sheminasa, ?] you
    have to get up to stand on your feet.
    He would endanger his life and walk down from the attic
    because he had to stand.
    That's how we were brought up, that it has to be just so.
    The attic where?
    When you were--
    We were-- like I said, we were wanderers.
    Oh, before you were--
    It was before, yeah.
    Because until we came to these Polish people,
    we were like one day here and one day there.
    We never knew what the next day will be
    and where are we going to wind up.
    There was no-- the only thing we had is hope.
    Maybe the next day, maybe.
    There was no radio or telephones or newspapers or anything.
    We didn't know.
    We only could hear the bombs, so we
    felt maybe something is happening there,
    that the Germans are getting defeated.
    This was our hope.
    Like, nowadays we live a week is the same,
    and a month is the same, and a year is the same.
    At that time, every day was different.
    I used to write a diary, like Annie Frank, because every day
    was something else.
    I used to write poems in different--
    in three languages, Jewish and Polish and Ukrainian.
    Do you still have the diary?
    No, I lost them.
    I thought I had it in the vault. It turned yellow.
    And I went to look for it one day, and it's not there.
    I had dates and everything was--
    I used to write.
    In fact, one time my mother was- my mother
    and I, we were sitting in bushes.
    And it seems like we moved, and the leaves made noise.
    And this Ukrainian was passing by, and he heard.
    And all of a sudden, he ran under the bushes,
    and he saw us sitting.
    And we felt, well, this is the end
    because he was the Jew chaser.
    He was the one given the authority to catch Jews.
    Like there are these that catch stray dogs,
    he was the one that was supposed to catch Jews.
    So when he saw us, this was the end.
    But I was writing poetry, and it happened
    so that I had in my hands the poem written in his language.
    And when he looked at it--
    and I was young, 16 years old with braids.
    And I looked nice.
    So when he looked at that poem, it was written in his language.
    And he looked at me.
    He ran away.
    I thought he ran away to get help and to take us away.
    He never showed up.
    Then in the evening, when we came to that place,
    to the home in whose bushes we were sitting,
    we said what happened?
    That chaser, he never came for us.
    And it didn't matter any longer because my brother was
    captured, and I didn't care for my life any longer.
    So he says, when he saw the way you write,
    he didn't have the heart to turn you in.
    Even he didn't have the heart.
    So there was always meant something
    that, no matter how close to death
    I happened to stumble into, somehow I got out of it.
    I don't know why it meant to be that way.
    I guess that it had to continue.
    Our life had to continue because my two sons and maybe
    grandchildren and to prove that Jewish life has to continue.
    What did your mother do before the war?
    Oh, she's just a housewife.
    She used to help out in the store.
    This was something like a dry goods store?
    Yeah, something like that.
    Yeah.
    Before the war broke out, what did you
    learn about what was happening in Germany?
    No.
    We didn't know about that.
    But when the war broke out, some Jews
    were running away to Russia.
    And we didn't know.
    So my father said, I don't have to run, I'm a religious man,
    and I'm not a communist.
    So why should I run away?
    This I remember distinctly.
    He said, being I'm not a communist,
    so why do I have to be afraid of Germany?
    We still were not aware what Hitler
    is doing to the Jewish people.
    We thought that he's only after Jews who are communists.
    And this is what threw us off.
    This is what my father made the mistake.
    Did you hear about Kristallnacht?
    Yeah.
    Well, no, not-- no,
    So you didn't hear about that?
    We didn't hear it.
    No we didn't know about it then.
    No.
    When did you find out?
    Oh, later, not really.
    When did you find out?
    Because there was no press where I come.
    Where we were in hiding, how would we know?
    We didn't know anything what was going on, Nothing at all.
    It was all we--
    we lived here.
    We waited from day to day what's going to happen.
    But we really didn't expect it.
    You know, you never believe.
    It can't happen to me.
    It can't happen to me.
    We didn't-- I mean, I can't say we because I didn't have what
    to say.
    But my father, he felt as long as he's not a communist,
    nothing will happen.
    And this is where the mistake was.
    How long were you in the ghetto for?
    In the ghetto, I wasn't long because we
    were thrown in there with so many families
    that we were like sardines.
    So to get out of the ghetto, it wasn't that difficult.
    It's only where to go.
    So I was there just a few weeks.
    There was no food.
    Every minute there was a call for more corpse to be taken out
    and send out wherever.
    I don't know where, but they were taken.
    And we used to hide every time we heard something.
    So we used to hide someplace in a corner.
    There was no food.
    There were-- people would go out and look for peels of potatoes.
    And from that we made soup.
    Like, before the war, I used to be such a poor eater.
    I would take the bread from around the rye
    bread, the hard area, and throw it away.
    I only ate the center.
    And during the hiding times, I'd say, oh,
    If I had that what I threw away--
    until this day, I hate to throw away bread.
    When I have leftover, I'll freeze it,
    and I'll carry it someplace where
    there are some birds that I can give it away to them.
    [SIGHS]
    How was your family set up for the short
    while you were in the ghetto?
    How was your family set up there?
    Very bad.
    It was very bad.
    It was, like I say, just waiting for who's next.
    There were-- every day, they was making speeches.
    That one day made a difference because one day meant so many,
    so many lives.
    You know, there was a quota, that they
    were expecting so many, so many people from this ghetto,
    to deliver.
    So every day there were people missing, missing.
    Do you know many, or any of the people,
    the other people [CROSS TALK]?
    Oh, my cousins.
    When we were taken to the ghetto,
    it was my mother's brother had an apartment.
    And we were thrown into his apartment, plus other families
    with their children, with their grandchildren.
    His daughter, one of the daughters,
    they started to take her child.
    And she started to scream, if you take my child,
    you take me too.
    So she went too.
    I mean, what was a Jewish life?
    Didn't mean as much as this pencil, doesn't mean anything.
    [SIGHS]
    But it's just it was all erased.
    And many times I wonder, it's unbelievable
    because on my father's side, there
    were so many that my father had brothers
    and sisters and their children.
    And on my mother's side, there were three brothers
    and their children.
    And every one was wiped out.
    I'm the only one left.
    It's something unbelievable.
    I can't comprehend how the almighty,
    what kind of a choice.
    He made.
    Why?
    Sometimes I just wonder why this had
    to happen, that I am the chosen one, that I was left.
    And I really didn't fight too much.
    As I said, there were many times that I was close to death.
    And yet one time my mother and I, we were very deep in a barn,
    where they keep food for the horses.
    It's called, I think--
    Hay?
    Hay.
    Hay, right.
    And we were so deep, but not deep enough for this Ukrainian
    to go with a--
    to dig in.
    If it was another inch, he would have picked us up with these--
    Pitchfork.
    Yeah, pitchfork, right.
    They were looking for Jews.
    And-- and we heard them on top, walking around
    with these pitchforks, looking for Jews.
    If he had maybe one more inch, he would have dug us up.
    And it would-- it--
    as I said, it was like a miracle that so many times we
    were in danger, in danger, and every time I got out of it.
    It's somehow miracles happen.
    What was the name of the ghetto were in again?
    Tlumacz.
    "Klumacz?"
    Tlumacz-- T-L-U-M-A--
    I think T-Z.
    What town was it in?
    That's the town.
    Oh, that's the town.
    Tlumacz, yeah.
    Tlumacz ghetto.
    There are few people, I think, left
    because I met someone in Israel that she's from there.
    But she was in Russia during the war.
    In the days immediately after liberation, where did you go?
    What did you do?
    That was another-- that was another calamity.
    We still had to keep running because we
    were liberated by the Russians.
    And then the Germans started to push them back again.
    So then we had to keep running already
    in the direction with the Russians
    so that we should not fall under the Germans again.
    But Thank God, it didn't take too long,
    and they were pushed back, the Germans.
    So we met a group of survivors, and we United together.
    And we already, like, found each other, like,
    people started to come out from the-- from wherever somebody
    was hidden, wherever they were--
    from each corner, and we started to find each other.
    And that's the way it started, our coming back to life.
    Where were you at the time?
    That time, it was again wandering from town to town.
    We even wound up in Romania because we
    had to flee the area where the Germans were coming back in.
    So we had to go.
    We had to follow the path of the Russians.
    So we went in as far as Romania.
    But then, Thank God, the Germans were cleaned out,
    bombarded out, and we were able to keep going in the direction
    where we intended to go.
    So how did you, after the war was all over,
    how did you get from Poland or wherever you were at the time?
    Then we had leaders.
    You know, somehow among us there were leaders.
    And they took groups of people, and they
    kept pushing us towards the areas as far as Germany.
    And we came to Germany, and they put us
    in a displaced persons camp.
    Do you remember the name?
    Yeah, actually, yeah.
    Today, this congressman-- forgot his name-- from Connecticut,
    in fact, he was born in that camp.
    And my son was born in that camp.
    Now he's a congressman of Connecticut.
    Your son is?
    No.
    Oh, this other guy.
    This congressman that I was listening to today.
    And so we came to Germany.
    And there, it wasn't--
    I mean to compare what we lived through,
    this was heaven already because we got food, we had a room,
    and my son was born there.
    And then from there we came to America.
    Was this camp administered by the US Army?
    By the US, yes, the UN.
    And how did you decide where you wanted to go from there?
    Well, the decision had to be because my mother had
    two sisters in America.
    And again, I wouldn't have known.
    But because my mother survived, and she had-- she remembered,
    probably, the address of her sisters here in America.
    And she started to correspond, and that's how we came.
    Where did they live?
    They lived where I live, in Passaic.
    Passaic, New Jersey?
    Yeah.
    So that's how I-- that's how I came to Passaic, because
    of my mother's two sisters.
    They, like, sponsored us.
    Did you come along with anyone else or anything else
    at the time?
    No, my husband and my son.
    Did you meet your husband in the camp?
    No, after the war.
    After the war happened, in Poland.
    And then we got married in Poland, in Warsaw
    because that's where he's from.
    And in Germany, in Aschberg, my son was born.
    And then we came here.
    We came with nothing.
    We came without a language, without a penny to our name.
    But we survived.
    The very first place you went when you got here,
    where was that?
    Right there, to Passaic.
    My cousin picked me-- picked us up from the boat
    and took us to Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey.
    And that's where we lived ever since.
    Did I put my address there?
    Yeah, on top.
    Your address?
    Yeah.
    Right there we have your name and everything else.
    We seem to have a little extra time.
    Is there anything else you'd like to add?
    No.
    You see, in Jewish we say--
    you understand Jewish?
    No, you don't.
    Hebrew, you mean.
    No.
    I don't know Hebrew, unfortunately.
    But they used to say, [YIDDISH] but I never believed it,
    which means, I wish I could tell about it
    under good circumstances, in freedom.
    I never believed it, during that time, that this day would come,
    that I should be able to talk about it.
    When we got off the boat here, I said to my husband,
    where are our papers?
    How are we going to enter a country?
    I don't have a paper.
    I don't have any ID.
    I have nothing.
    I'm scared.
    I was still frightened.
    I thought here you have to walk around with papers and papers,
    you know, to show every minute where you-- who you are.
    I thought that you can't even enter
    the-- you can't walk a street, a block, unless you have to show,
    you know, to identify yourself where you are.
    I was so frightened.
    It took a long time.
    That fear will never disappear, I suppose.
    The fear is still there.
    The nightmare is still there, even
    though so many years went by.
    It left us all with some kind of a deficiency.
    No, none of us are well.
    We all have this nightmare.
    We all have these memories, no matter.
    On the outside we laugh and we pretend.
    But it isn't so.
    It's like a nagging pain that it's there.
    It can't be forgotten because it's not natural.
    When somebody dies, like my mother died at the end of 90,
    I suffered greatly.
    But when I think about it, I figure, well, at least she
    died of natural cause.
    I was right there.
    I held her in my arms, and I watched when she left.
    Her last breath went out.
    But about them, I don't know how and when, by what means.
    Have you tried to pass your memories along to your son?
    No.
    In the beginning, I kept it.
    I didn't want to--
    I didn't want to tell him.
    Up until recently, my married son asked questions.
    Why do you keep it hidden?
    Why don't you ever talk about it?
    Why didn't you tell me?
    I said, I didn't want to--
    I didn't want you to know.
    So he started to inquire about it.
    In fact, he wanted to come, but he couldn't make it.
    He started to question, my oldest son.
    My youngest son was born in America.
    He's a little bit different than my oldest son.
    My oldest son was two years old when he came here,
    but somehow he got a deeper engraved in him, our past,
    rather than my younger son it seems to.
    So he questioned it.
    But I tried to keep it hidden.
    I don't know why.
    But I never talked about it until recently,
    the last few years when it became public,
    when he started to question it.
    But up until then, we never talked about it.
    Think it's better that you have now?
    If he hadn't asked, I don't think I would have told him.
    Perhaps because I wanted to protect him.
    I didn't want him to know of such horrible things that
    could happen to people.
    I really don't know why I did it.
    I think out of protection.
    It's like a nightmare, so why?
    You know, if something is good, you
    want to share it with your loved one.
    But when something is so horrible, why should
    I share it with you?
    So I never talked about it.
    Why do you think it's important, then,
    to record what you're saying now?
    Well, now it became public, and I feel perhaps someday--
    I see these young people, you, any, you are interested.
    And we don't want this to go, to be wiped out.
    When we are gone, we want that your children
    should know about it.
    So maybe this will go into a computer.
    Maybe my granddaughter will go somewhere sometimes
    and put it into the computer and get a readout on this
    so she shall know that her grandma went through this.
    The reason for it is it should be remembered by the public,
    that this was history that should not be forgotten
    because history, this kind of history,
    God forbid it should never be repeated.
    This is why I want it to be known.
    Otherwise, I felt it's my life, It's my story, I don't--
    it's not important.
    But it is important for the future.
    That's all.
    OK, that will be it.
    I thank you very much.
    Oh, I thank you.
    I thank you for sharing your story.
    Yeah, it was a privilege, really.
    And we really appreciate your concern about us,
    that you are giving so much of your time.
    It's really-- it's a good experience for you to pass it
    on to your children later on.
    Instead of reading them a Cinderella story,
    you will tell them a real story.
    But we appreciate what all of you are doing.
    You're giving so much of your time for this.
    Well, it's all.
    Thank you.
    God bless you.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Frances Finkelstein
    Date
    interview:  1983 April 13

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 sound cassette (60 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors conducted the interview with Frances Finkelstein on April 13, 1983, in Washington, D.C., during the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Conference. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Dept. received the tape of the interview in 1989. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tape by transfer in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:13:40
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    Also in American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors oral history collection

    Contains oral history interviews with 157 Holocaust survivors recorded during the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Washington, D.C., in Apr. 1983. The interviews contain information about persecution, life in the ghettos and concentration camps, and concentration camp liberation during World War II.

    Date: 1983 April 11-2083 April 13

    Oral history interview with Bella Adler

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    Oral history interview with Suzanne Agasee

    Oral History

    Suzanne Agasee, born in Paris, France on January 12, 1939, describes police coming to her home when she was two and taking her parents, leaving her grandmother, two brothers, and herself behind; a Jewish woman from an underground organization coming the next day to hide them; her grandmother being caught, deported, and dying in a gas chamber; being sent with her brothers to live with Catholic families; being taken to a Jewish orphanage after the war and living there for three years; searching for living relatives; she and her brothers becoming wards of the Jewish Congress and being sent to Canada to live with an uncle; being an atheist for years; marring a Jewish man; and deciding with her husband that having a strong Jewish identity was important in raising their two daughters.

    Oral history interview with Janet Applefield

    Oral History

    Janet Applefield, born Gustava Singer in June 1935 in Kraków, Poland, discusses her family; being sent with her mother to Wadowice, Poland when the war began; her father joining them and moving to Vynnyky, Ukraine, where they lived for several months; her family returning to the Nowy Targ ghetto; leaving the ghetto with her parents and going to Niepolomice, Poland; how her parents decided to give her away to a half Polish, half German woman; her parents deportation the next day; staying with a cousin under the name Christina Antoskevitch; her cousin’s arrest by Nazis during a raid; not know what had happened to her cousin; a soldier refusing to help her; how a Polish woman took care of her for several weeks and then sent her to her family’s farm; staying on the farm; returning to another cousin after the war; being treated in a home in Zakopane, Poland for jaundice; reuniting with her father; immigrating with her father to the United States on March 25, 1947; and marrying and having three children.

    Oral history interview with Idel Barth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Basem

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Adam Beer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack Begleiter

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Berger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mira Berger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Dan Berkovits

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Philip Bialowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paul Blank

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Blitzer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Morton Blumenstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Braksmajer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alice Braun

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Menucha Cale

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Werner Cohen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Giselle Friedman Cycowicz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Janet Davidson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jolan Deitch

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lillian Eckstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mariene Einhorn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Samuel Einhorn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Max Eisen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ida Ender

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joseph Fabian

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Susan Farkas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leo Fettman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Josef Feuereisen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rena Finder

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Finkelstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Curt Fondell

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Zimm

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Luba Frederick

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Freilich

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Izrail Frenkel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Szyja Frenkel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ruth Friedman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joseph Fruhman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Georgia Gabor

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Moshe Gimlan

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anita Graber

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ann Grauman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Greenspan

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mark Grunseid

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fay Guttman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gucia Haut

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joseph Heller

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marcus Heller

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ellen Hersh

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Celia Hershkowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fany Hoffman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Molly Ingster

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Itzcowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nathan Jacobs and Marvin Jacobs

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sol Zimm

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Jacoby

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Kahan

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Kanner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Moshe Kantorowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henia Karp

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Katalin Karpati

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Susan Karplen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Arnold Kerr

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irving Kider

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Klein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hilda Kober

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Emmy Kolodny

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joseph Korzenik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Adrienne Krausz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Josef Kreitenberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mary Kress

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sonia Krul

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lewis Lax

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Lefkovits

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rachel Lefkovits

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rosie Leibman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ida Lender

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Charles Lipshitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ilse Loeb

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Esther Lubochinski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Luftig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with George Lynn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Malcmacher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Judith Mandel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with John Marek

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tobie Markowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Marton

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sara Marton

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paulette Meltzer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sonia Meyers

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bernard Milch

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    Oral history interview with Lusia Milch

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sonja Milner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Seymour Moncarz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Felicia Neufeld

    Oral History

    The interview describes Ms. Neufeld's childhood in Berlin, Germany, her father's escape to Paris, France where she joined him and they lived until 1942, her father's arrest, and her move to a series of French orphanges. Ms. Neufeld describes an incident in which she was taken by the director of an orphange to see her mother, who had been transported to a prison in Paris from Berlin, where she had been hidden. Ms. Neufeld discusses the disappearance of the director of the orphange, escaping to northern France with other children from the orphange, and remembers air fights and struggling to survive in the countryside. Ms. Neuberg describes her life after the war, being sent for by relatives in the United States, and learning that both her parents perished in Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Edie Newman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leslie Niederman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Susan Niederman

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    Oral history interview with Judith Novak

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    Oral history interview with Anna Olivek

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    Oral history interview with Mayer Pasternak

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    Oral history interview with Sonia Pasternak

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    Oral history interview with Jill Pauly

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    Oral history interview with Lee Potasinski

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    Oral history interview with Lily Redner

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    Oral history interview with Edith Riemer

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    Oral history interview with Dora Riss

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    Oral history interview with Noah Roitman

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    Oral history interview with Sol Rolnitzky

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    Oral history interview with Barbara Rona

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    Oral history interview with Michael Ronay

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    Oral history interview with Celia Rosenfeld

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    Oral history interview with Helen Rothstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Aliza Rubin

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Meyer Rubinstein

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    Oral history interview with Hadassa Rublevich

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Charlotte Rudner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Salomon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gloria Salomon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Theodore Schwarcz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hilda Schwartz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Barbara Seligman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Shapiro

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Meyer Shnurman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ruth Gabriele Silten

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Claudia Sissons

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Isadore Small

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Klara Snyder

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Sochaczewski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ruth Sold

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Goldie Speiser

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Meier Stessel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Felice Stokes

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Norman Swoy

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Simon Taitz

    Oral History

    Simon Taitz, born in Königsberg, Germany, describes having a successful watchmaking business in the suburbs of Kaunas, Lithuania; hiding with a Gentile family after the German invasion; being in a motorcycle club before the war began and how it was taken by the partisans; being forced to do labor; being mistreated by the Germans; being sent to the ghetto; working in the nearby airport; being sent one day to another work place and writing a song (he sings it during the interview); witnessing the reactions of the parents during and after the roundup of Jewish children; the separation of the men and women in a camp and writing a song about a woman who saw the men dancing and was punished (he sings it and the interviewee reads the translation); his song about the daily life in the camp (he sings it and the interviewee reads the translation); more details about life in the ghetto; writing a song about the choices people made during the war; the journey on cattle cars to Dachau; being sent originally to Stutthof; being transferred to Dachau, where he was separated from his mother and never saw her again; details on his childhood (losing his father when he was very young and having two siblings); helping to save other Jews in the camp by giving them jobs in his watchmaking repair shop in Kaufering; and more details on daily life in the camps.

    Oral history interview with Halina Zimm

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Solomon Teichman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Tenenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Matthew Tovian

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Max Trompeter

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fela Unikel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Wakshlag

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Dobka Waldhorn

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    Oral history interview with Sidney Wapner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Martin Water

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    Oral history interview with Celine Weber

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Weinberger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alice Weinstock

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Weinstock

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Weisfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Weisfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sol Wieder

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Samuel Wisznia

    Oral History

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