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Oral history interview with Nathan Kalman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0090 | RG Number: RG-50.106.0004

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    Oral history interview with Nathan Kalman
    Transcript
    The following is an interview with Nathan Kalman.
    The interview is being conducted on behalf of the United States
    Holocaust Memorial Museum, and is taking place
    in Rockville, Maryland on November 4, 1993
    by Gail Schwartz.
    Ready.
    What is your full name?
    Nathan Kalmonowitz.
    And where were you born?
    Łódź, Poland.
    And what year were you born?
    In 1909.
    And what was the date?
    5th-- October 5th.
    No, you have [? this right. ?]
    Let's talk a little bit about your childhood.
    Who was in your family?
    Tell me about your parents, your parents' names.
    I can't talk.
    When I'm talking about childhood, parents,
    it's very-- very choking me.
    Did you live in the city?
    Yes, in the center of the city.
    Uh-huh.
    And what kind of schooling did you have?
    What kind of school?
    I had a private school, like an everyday school.
    It was a school with [INAUDIBLE]..
    Half day school is religions and half like a school.
    But my father didn't like me to go that's in the --
    to be without a hat, Kippah, you know?
    And so on.
    So he tried to keep me on this Hebrew day school.
    So you changed schools?
    Is that what you're saying?
    No, no.
    You first went to a public school
    with other Polish children?
    It's happened once, yes, something from the Inspektorat
    came, and I had to leave.
    So I had very big trouble.
    I had payos Not so big, but the children,
    they was pinching and attacking, hey, Hasid, Hasid, and so on.
    So I tried the best to leave there and go back to the school
    where I was.
    It was very hard to do it, because this
    was on the inspector--
    from buildings inspector, this building.
    You see, he wasn't--
    all the schools, all the schools was under his supervision.
    - He was like a superintendent.
    Yeah.
    Like a superintendent.
    Yeah.
    What kind of neighborhood did you live in?
    Mixed, Poles and Jews, but there was some more Jews, I think.
    It was a nice neighborhood.
    I was there till the end, when then they came to the door,
    behind the shotgun.
    [NON-ENGLISH]
    So what else did you do besides go to school
    when you were a child?
    What kind of things did you do?
    Not too much, because I saw it was a harder life in Poland.
    It was a little harder in America.
    Father works hard.
    Mom helped him.
    So I feel I have to come home and help.
    I quit the school.
    I finished.
    I finished the school.
    How old were you when you finished school?
    16 years.
    You were 16 years old?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And then, well, did you have any brothers or sisters?
    Oh, was five brothers and sisters.
    Uh-huh.
    And where were you in the order of children?
    I'm the youngest one.
    I [INAUDIBLE] from [INAUDIBLE].
    Yeah.
    And so then you stopped going to school at 16.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And then you said you started to work for your father?
    Yes, helped out at home to make easier life.
    What kind of--
    We had--
    --work did your father do?
    In the beginning, he was manufacturing
    in a small amount, manufactured textile.
    But later on the time was changing,
    and Poland was the hard life.
    Very hard, very hard.
    So he went to work for somebody on this job.
    So we had to try the best to hold up the family.
    Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
    Did you live near your grandparents,
    and aunts and uncles?
    Did you have more relatives, other relatives?
    Yes, some, some of them was--
    one of us from [PLACE NAME].
    Like I said.
    In Łódź, was also a couple of cousins and so on.
    Yes.
    And you said you came from a very religious family.
    Yes.
    Very observant.
    Hasidic.
    Very-- a Hasidic family.
    Hasidic.
    It was not fanatic, but a very intelligent, knowledge
    man also.
    And were your friends when you were
    a child, were your friends only Jewish children?
    Mostly, yes.
    I had no feeling for Jewish friends.
    Later on, I start to come in the Zionist organization.
    I came in.
    This time I met Hannah.
    So God bless her.
    In Zionist organization.
    Yeah, yeah.
    So you stayed in the same house from the time
    you were born to the time you were 16?
    Almost, almost the same place.
    I was born a few houses in the corner.
    Then I remember like I helped the moving.
    How old were you then?
    I was then very young, 12, 13 years.
    I was less than this, but I helped out.
    I stood to help all the time.
    Mm-hmm.
    And you said you remembered some of these anti-Semitic incidents
    as a child, being teased.
    Yes, as a child.
    As a child, many times I was leaving.
    They beat me up.
    I was with blood.
    I remember like the [? stitches. ?] [INAUDIBLE]
    I remember the time like it was there.
    It was evening.
    Yeah, yeah.
    He came by with somebody and hit me with something or what.
    And I start yelling very, very loud.
    Came a [NON- ENGLISH].
    Came up a policeman.
    And he came.
    [NON-ENGLISH] This means, what's the thing?
    Moishe is not killed.
    What's happened?
    Went away.
    That's it.
    Many, many times it was like this.
    I went-- once I was going in the Christian [? pages. ?]
    In the stores, we had paper for paper and things.
    Stationary.
    Stationary and things.
    So I went, and my father, and the oldest brother.
    It was Constantine [PERSONAL NAME] was the name.
    Now I remember.
    I saw coming up three hooligans.
    We saw them coming to us.
    And they start knocking me and my father.
    My father starting yelling.
    He was how you say [NON-ENGLISH]..
    He couldn't talk.
    Speechless.
    Yeah.
    But nothing doing.
    No, it was no police.
    Nobody comes.
    It's over.
    There was many, many things like this in Poland.
    It wasn't news some Jews had some hits--
    was hit.
    Yeah?
    OK.
    Let's move along a little bit, then.
    And you said when you were 16 you left school.
    Yeah.
    And you went to work for your father.
    Yeah.
    And for the next three or four years,
    what do you remember of that time?
    Anything special?
    Not special.
    Then I took over -- like I said.
    I went to the Zionist organization.
    When was that?
    Do you remember what year, approximately?
    This was in 1930, something like this.
    OK.
    Uh-huh.
    Yeah.
    And what did you do for them?
    Like an organization.
    You know, I start--
    I loved Israel from being a little boy.
    Mm-hmm.
    So even a little later on, 1934 or five,
    I went to Krakow for kibbutz Hachshara
    Mm-hmm.
    But at this point you were still working for your father
    and doing this--
    It was really hard for me, very hard for me to leave home.
    Because I went to the Poles, they said to me in Polish--
    I know, I know in Poland, you're have a krimka.
    Krimka was the Jewish--
    Yiddish-- [NON-ENGLISH], this --
    And here when you come, you're wearing different way.
    This is nothing, but I came wearing this [INAUDIBLE]..
    I went in very, very Christian region.
    This is in Krakow you're talking about?
    No, no, no.
    This is in Łódź,.
    Oh.
    Out of Łódź, was a little bit Constantine, in a way.
    Oh, uh-huh.
    But when I went to Krakow, it was very hard decision,
    very hard decision.
    You moved to Krakow.
    Is that what you're saying?
    No, no, no.
    You just went to--
    I went in Kibbutz Hachshara.
    Oh.
    Only me.
    And I worked on myself very hard to say that-- to say this,
    yes, I'm going.
    I remember Mom [NON-ENGLISH].
    She said the same thing.
    He was such a lover for [INAUDIBLE]..
    He said, go, go.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
    [CRYING]
    So then you went to Krakow.
    Yes, and I was there almost a year ago, but I make it fast,
    should be longer than this.
    But I had-- I was there, and my head was at home.
    Right.
    My sister Hinda write me a letter.
    And she said, "Oh, the Polish was --
    if you would see how our parents working hard."
    I went to the Christians, and I was with them
    good for the Christmas time.
    I gave them presents and things.
    It was good.
    Good turn [? out. ?]
    But my head was at home.
    So I came home for--
    I made for like the Jewish vacation.
    I was stood three months at home.
    Mm-hmm.
    And then I went back, because I liked to finish up.
    It was '35.
    OK.
    And then came in some political.
    Always politic in the kibbutz came also in politic.
    And the kibbutz has to be closed.
    So closed, I went home without work,
    me and another friend was there with me together from Łódź,.
    You went back to Łódź, with your friend.
    Yeah.
    What did you do there?
    Well, I started working at home.
    When I came home, I started working right away.
    Yes, this was my goal.
    Mm-hmm.
    And then?
    And from [INAUDIBLE] questions was nothing.
    It was another year, another year.
    Then came the war, was everything like salt, salt--
    salt and water.
    Well, this one was the worsest thing when ti came.
    OK, so you went back, and you stayed with your family
    until the war started.
    Yes, yes.
    OK.
    Can you-- what do you remember about the war starting?
    What were your first memories?
    Yes, I remember it very well.
    OK.
    Very well.
    It was first day of war, I remember, Friday, 1939,
    the first September.
    Came big tragedy for us.
    But nothing was to do.
    We was lucky the town, Hitler picked Łódź,
    as a Stadt Reich Deutschland.
    Stadtreich a little later on he made it.
    But very shortly, two months, two or three months later.
    In the meantime, it was very bad time.
    Such impossible to stand.
    I don't know.
    I was the weakest one at home, the weakest one, the youngest
    one.
    How I came by this other thing, I was put on the wall
    to be shot exactly.
    What happened the very first day?
    Do you remember September 1st?
    What happened that day?
    I called up my older sister.
    She had a Łódź, Koska three, the Main Street.
    He was at a saloon, he had.
    How you say it, makes it--
    [WHISPERING]
    And this was over.
    It was before.
    We did not know.
    The landlord was a admitted Nazi.
    A admitted Nazi man.
    And the war broke out.
    It's the second day or the third day of this tragedy.
    He sent in a letter, "eight days you have to leave.
    The keys has to be in the Gestapo."
    It was just something to avoid.
    This is the landlord of your family?
    No, no, this was the--
    Of the beauty shop.
    Of the beauty shop.
    My sister's--
    Your sister's.
    My older sister, she lived there.
    She had a very big--
    I see.
    [? Storefront. ?] And to do it also was placed there.
    A nice, nice woman.
    She had two lovely children, such--
    I don't know where they got killed now.
    Yeah.
    OK, so it's the first week in September, and--
    First days, first days.
    First day.
    Yes.
    So I called her up.
    We didn't know what to say and how to act.
    I said, come over, let's be together.
    [INAUDIBLE] tomorrow.
    I'm sorry.
    I'm talking about this thing.
    I'm choking.
    So and came day after day, the troubles,
    the tragedy was growing more and more and more.
    they start-- they start--
    I remember like it would be now, my sister, the oldest came up,
    and she--
    "Dajczeszil brennt!"
    This was the-- over there was once--
    there was something.
    It wasn't in the paper in Europe.
    The Dajczeszil was called, very reformed.
    They brought some gasoline or what.
    And they were staying and making different jokes and things.
    And this was burning, burning, burning.
    So this was the first one, but in Łódź, was many,
    many synagogues.
    And all of them got-- one by one, one by one.
    When I came back after the war, I went.
    I was going to meet somebody from the family.
    I was lived at the Polonjewa 60 was the name
    [INAUDIBLE] Polonjewa.
    Over there was-- they made from a little synagogue was
    they made some place.
    Salt they keep there or what.
    This, this was not destroyed.
    This was the one in Łódź,.
    The whole Łódź, synagogues how --
    Was one-- [PLACE NAME],, it was called.
    It was something, what the talk about it.
    And this was burned.
    And they were standing around and making the --
    till this was the ground, everything.
    And the trouble was such, where they--
    each day after day, you had, how you
    say, all this, on the streets, on paper, written all this.
    Like what?
    Against Jews.
    Saying what?
    This one not to go after 5.
    We can go till 5.
    After 5, somebody will go out in the city, is a bullet in head.
    This was so.
    But in the meantime, it is now, she
    remembered-- she was from Novorobinsk.
    And this was like a resort or close to it--
    [PLACE NAME] People came there for summer, summer resort.
    And she was remembered for 1940, the Germans
    was very different than there.
    Mom went back and forth.
    She smuggled to help to keep up the family.
    This is your mother you're talking about?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    She went-- she--
    1 o'clock in the morning she came.
    And 6 o'clock in the morning she went to another train
    again to go back.
    Because she brought things, stuff over there.
    And she had work over there.
    She was very handy, God bless--
    God bless her.
    Who knows where she's- she's [CRYING]
    So are we still-- are we still in the first week of the war?
    No, this was a little later.
    A little later.
    This was some-- a month.
    A month, yeah.
    Or six weeks, something like this.
    I had my--
    I had married [PERSONAL NAME].
    In 1939, January 1931--
    19th is-- January, 1st, 1939--
    '8.
    When was the war?
    No, '9.
    1939.
    1939.
    So and I had a brother.
    He's died.
    He and the father from the whole family, I buried them.
    He was a very good carpenter.
    What was his name?
    David, Yacob David.
    And he was a premier--
    a very good carpenter.
    He made for me furnitures.
    Like I didn't need the--
    how you say--
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    But when this came on, the tragedy came,
    people start running to Russia.
    People didn't know what to do.
    They should run like crazy.
    It took a little time.
    I remember, I was home like--
    how it was with my wife.
    Comes in a German--
    a [INAUDIBLE], limping on a leg.
    I don't know if someone sent him up or he didn't know before.
    He looked out--
    He came to your house, you're saying?
    He came to the house, yes.
    And he liked it so much.
    And he say to me, look, [INAUDIBLE]..
    For this-- this mean for a drink, drink vodka,
    I can have this everything.
    But no, look he talk with the hand.
    I remember it like now.
    I'm not doing this.
    Don't worry.
    So we start dealing about--
    I don't remember how much was it, a few thousand zlote.
    At this time, the bank was closed.
    We couldn't take the zlote to buy bread.
    And he had come.
    I said, you know what, everybody runs to Russia,
    maybe we run too.
    Let's sell.
    OK.
    And we went down [INAUDIBLE] into with horse,
    and wagons and buggies.
    We go and drove in.
    And he has to give me some 5,000 zlote.
    And he was short in money.
    Not much, but a nice few hundred zlote was missing, maybe 1,000.
    My mother-- I taking one over the other one.
    My mother was at this time, she left to [PLACE NAME]
    to help us out.
    If she would be there, she wouldn't be able to stand it.
    But this time, we walked on [INAUDIBLE]..
    There was a snow, such a deep, frosty night.
    And he said, I take you with me, but don't talk.
    We had to go by a Wald Constantino Wald was the name.
    I came in over there.
    He was such happy his wife, he Kissed her and kissed her.
    Look what I bought for you.
    And she was-- she saw what--
    she was the same way.
    Then he say, I have to go borrow a few zlote, a few hundred,
    how much is missing.
    He went out.
    And I went by myself to talk.
    I had nothing.
    But I went by me.
    If he would not give me the money,
    he wouldn't give nothing, it would be also good.
    Because they took much-- more valuable things
    than my furniture.
    He comes, say, I'm sorry, I couldn't, they have no money.
    He opened up-- in Europe was a basement
    in home, such a big place.
    And start pulling out such big pieces, coal.
    This was like brilliance.
    It was so cold.
    It was freezing, cold, bitter cold was.
    Nothing to [INAUDIBLE].
    If you knocked the wood, the [INAUDIBLE] and so on went.
    So I say, OK.
    And made a big slit.
    Put them in our sack.
    It was there some rice, and red beets and things.
    At home, they meant well, God forbid,
    if I'm dead, [INAUDIBLE] to perspire wood.
    If my mother will be there, she wouldn't be able to send it.
    She had special off for me.
    So I came home.
    I did what he told me.
    Don't talk nothing on the way, go quiet.
    So we came home.
    Oh, the [INAUDIBLE],, how it was for my father.
    The family was only halfway.
    Halfway was who knows where.
    But there was-- the [INAUDIBLE] was such big, I came home.
    And I brought such--
    some food, some coal.
    And then the tragedy is gone away.
    It worked very, very, very--
    very, very much.
    It was-- it was very--
    day after day, it was new orders.
    Now I have to go back a little bit because the beginning,
    we had lived in this house some 26 or 27 years.
    And the landlord was a Christian baker.
    A bakery he had.
    I remember how he built. He brought [INAUDIBLE]
    and built them up.
    Then he made the American [INAUDIBLE],, the [INAUDIBLE]..
    So when it was the three days, four days well,
    four I went to bed.
    And I couldn't sleep.
    This is no news.
    But I couldn't lay on.
    And I say, I take a look what's going on.
    Something, I feel something.
    I going down-- I was on the first floor--
    on the second floor.
    But I see the bakery has opened the doors.
    With my heart start right away knocking, I looked in.
    It was empty.
    Bread was sitting in the oven, burning.
    And they have prepared--
    like bakeries having such big--
    I don't know the name of it.
    I take up a few steps to the street.
    Oh, something goes on.
    In all the streets, people, people going massively.
    What's do?
    What's to do?
    They had mens [INAUDIBLE] to go to Warsaw to fight.
    And here was, at this time was, and the day came,
    my older brother, where he was, came from--
    he was living in Pabianice he lived.
    And the other one-- the other one,
    the brother-in-law also, and me, and my brother.
    Your older brother's name was?
    Older brother was Zuk.
    Was what?
    Zuk, [Zuken The brother-in-law was Moshe.
    Two Moshes.
    One of the sisters--
    the two sisters' two husbands.
    And we was all together and had to leave.
    Dad and mom sat and crying.
    Only crying.
    What can they do?
    The streets were full with people,
    marching, marching very worried.
    So we start to march Main Street from the side street.
    More and more people.
    And called us such no --
    God in [INAUDIBLE] hate us or what?
    Who knows how it was the whole story?
    So we went and went.
    I was the youngest in this little group.
    When it came to the name Studenyanit I remember it.
    And I saw airplane then turns to fall down.
    He was shot down from the artillery.
    And I say to all of them, you know what-- where we are going?
    [INAUDIBLE]?
    Are we going to [INAUDIBLE]?
    Come home, let's go back.
    Back was easy to go like home because on the other streets
    was little by little people.
    Many was out of already to the main march.
    And they listened to me.
    We came home.
    You can-- each one can know how father and mother feel.
    They opened up the door.
    They cried, cried and laughed.
    Took a few minutes.
    We was [INAUDIBLE] there anti-Semitic peoples.
    Was a few minutes, they came to the door-- knock, knock, knock.
    So hey there what you doing here?
    By ourselves was hiding.
    They hide.
    They didn't like to go to pay what they had.
    So mom saw this.
    She took the brothers, brother-in-laws and send them
    away somewhere, not to stay here.
    Because it was dangerous.
    They could come in and kill them.
    And the landlord, the baker, was by a few days.
    He said, you know, Kalmonowitz you are the youngest--
    my oldest tenant [INAUDIBLE].
    Come down, you be a help in the bakery.
    I worked a few days.
    I was glad.
    I helped people.
    I helped them, the father, the brothers with the bread,
    which I could do.
    I did it.
    Thanks God.
    But went by a few days, each thing--
    Rumkowski was the manager from the ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski.
    So he said-- it was tragic jokes, but jokes.
    He said the jacket--
    the ghetto [NON-ENGLISH].
    Those words.
    And it was this way.
    What does that mean?
    The ghetto will be best form.
    Everything for work.
    Had the ghetto been formed by that time?
    What?
    Had the ghetto been formed by that time?
    No, no, this was in Łódź,, the first--
    You're talking in the beginning, right?
    The beginning, yes.
    First a-- it was two or three months, something like this,
    the three months it was some June, July--
    it is January, February, March, I think.
    In the meantime, we had to go to work.
    Was the Jewish [NON-ENGLISH] the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I don't know how to express it to you.
    They had to send out-- there came a letter,
    you have to be at work this day.
    This, I could have sometimes work to go again and again.
    The work was nothing worth it.
    But you have to go to work.
    What kind of work did you do?
    They gave work to scrape together from the trees--
    they fell down, things, different things.
    When we are going home, I remember I was with another--
    still today when I remember it, I feel sorrow for it,
    because I was almost at home and he
    had to go to the ghetto place, which was way down.
    Valik was the name.
    Poorer section.
    No gymnasium.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    High school.
    It wasn't a high school.
    Stays a German this way with the hand.
    Say, oh, now, what's going on now?
    I start talking.
    [INAUDIBLE] [NON-ENGLISH].
    Can you translate that?
    Mister-- mister, we are coming now
    from work, what you had to work, like [INAUDIBLE]..
    And no we have to go home.
    [GERMAN] this mean don't talk.
    Up on the truck.
    And we start running with the truck.
    He's driving.
    I see-- I see something.
    I knew all the places, because I was born there
    and I went there late to the customs, Polish customs,
    storekeepers.
    And I say for them, two of them besides me,
    you know what, he goes here to take coals.
    I feel it.
    Was such big places.
    And this was this way.
    He came to our place.
    He rode up very fast, the machine full with coals.
    And we have to go up.
    He goes back to the place where he catch up us.
    And at this time, I see some new thing, what's never I saw.
    It meant we have to work now to shovel and things to this.
    But he took some button on the truck.
    He took some button, pushed.
    And the truck start to go up, up,
    up, up, up, such mechanically.
    Mechanic is very good.
    Even the gas chambers they made also good, very good
    work for [INAUDIBLE].
    So this when we was free of it not to shovel the coals.
    [INAUDIBLE] was name.
    And fell down in the basement.
    So he let us free.
    I remember I did really feel sorry.
    I should take them to my place.
    Well, other one was closer to me.
    And one was in [INAUDIBLE] the ghetto, found later on.
    But he left.
    [INAUDIBLE] going farther and farther.
    Forgetting the same Yiddish.
    If you're getting used to the tsuris [INAUDIBLE]..
    So it was very bitter, very, very bitter.
    In the meantime, mom went-- this was--
    must be somewhere in February or what.
    Mom said she can't [INAUDIBLE] anymore.
    She remembered the time when she helped us.
    She helped a lot.
    She took-- I [INAUDIBLE].
    I don't know, my wife was sick.
    And I [INAUDIBLE] I couldn't take it,
    and my own to go to with her.
    She said no.
    So in the meantime, I came back, maybe five minutes took.
    Mom was gone.
    I run down such fast the steps, maybe no second.
    The sleds was away.
    And I didn't saw her anymore.
    This was it.
    And the first time we had--
    each one could write a postcard, a few words, something,
    for some--
    till 1944-- '3, I think.
    It was possible to do.
    But later on, nothing [INAUDIBLE]..
    So we heard how it is over there.
    Our brother, the oldest brother, Zuken that I say,
    he was in Pabianice by Łódź,.
    He came also to Łódź,.
    I went down.
    He couldn't stay by us.
    We couldn't keep him.
    We couldn't feed him.
    For two we had [INAUDIBLE].
    So I went down to the landlady and begged.
    Look, my brother-- she knew him.
    He was living with us, also together sometimes.
    She gave me two breads.
    I cut the bread such in pieces in a sack.
    And he was like a beggar.
    He had the sack and left in the way.
    We didn't hear from him nothing.
    Later on, after a nice little time, he wrote.
    It was impossible everything to write what he went by.
    On the way was--
    on the way was dead bodies.
    So many dead bodies, they had to bury them.
    They had to take them and [INAUDIBLE] with their hands--
    their hands to work.
    I reminding of things I have here a finger.
    It was 50 years and I have trouble from it
    by cutting my fingertip or the cold.
    It's terrible here [INAUDIBLE].
    How this came to me to think, I worked with the coals.
    Was also a coal working job.
    I start the work, very hungry, very nervous.
    That's the spring of 1940?
    No, this was the winter.
    I would think--
    It's still winter.
    It's still winter.
    Still winter.
    It's cold.
    Of 1940.
    1940, yes.
    OK.
    And I shovel [INAUDIBLE] the coals.
    All of a sudden I feel something on neck here.
    Stood-- they came from Walne-- ] a region, Walne.
    This is the Russian world.
    They chased them out from over there.
    Not like us.
    They've chased them out.
    They took everything with them and everything.
    They had a life.
    But they was very excited.
    [INAUDIBLE] say, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]..
    I showed with the hand works.
    And here it was blood-- blood, dark blood
    from the coal, the dust coal.
    And one telling to me, you know what, he watched me.
    Work.
    Come [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    This mean [INAUDIBLE] or you can't.
    Work, [NON-ENGLISH].
    None of it, arbeit, work.
    You know what you to do.
    I don't have even a handkerchief or what.
    Rip up something from the shirt and take some [INAUDIBLE],,
    not to let through.
    I hardly [INAUDIBLE] did it.
    I couldn't-- he watched me very well.
    I came home.
    I washed with a little water.
    There wasn't too much water also.
    And at this time was, but this was not in Łódź,.
    Was a little different.
    But was very hard.
    I feel such pain.
    Hold the hand.
    Here is no doctor.
    What can I do?
    What here to do?
    In the morning, somebody send me talk to a doctor.
    How was the name, the street?
    So, no difference.
    And I came in.
    He asked me, do you have pain here?
    You having pain here?
    I say like-- he know what's going on.
    And he took me.
    There was no-- there was nothing to do.
    No, what can you do?
    He did what he could.
    He cut the bone and things.
    I had very long--
    long-time trouble.
    Till now, almost 50 years.
    And still trouble.
    I can't use this finger, broken this way.
    This was this thing.
    Now comes a time, they day's moving.
    Comes further.
    And people start packing old --
    They were building ghettos.
    All of us will go to the ghetto.
    We have to wear wooden shoes and stripe clothing.
    But everything came true.
    Everything came true, like people said.
    And this was this way.
    It's almost February, close to March, or what.
    This came a-- if you're going down in the morning,
    it's on the walls.
    [NON-ENGLISH] in ghetto.
    Everybody have to leave to the ghetto until two days.
    But I think two days they give.
    Over there was pictures.
    I think Picasso wouldn't be able to make--
    to write pictures like this.
    People all made this museum.
    God bless them.
    They did a very big thing.
    People will know something, the future, children.
    But it's impossible-- [INAUDIBLE]
    what is impossible who wasn't there never in life
    can know how over there was.
    Terrible life, terrible life.
    People start running again.
    You saw pictures.
    Somebody took a table, turned over upside down,
    and push it under the floor with a string on the snows was--
    God himself was mad at us.
    I don't know what was in there, something.
    So we're at the ghetto.
    We are going to the ghetto.
    Was me and the sister.
    Hinda is her name, with the little child, a year
    and a half I think.
    Her husband was the one who got sent away.
    [CRYING]
    So we started to go.
    Father took-- the sister [INAUDIBLE] such a--
    on the back to take, to take it.
    Not where to go, even where to step in.
    People at least [INAUDIBLE].
    But people selfishness also.
    I had to step in.
    I remember my wife's, somewhere her family was living over
    there.
    [PLACE NAME]] was the name.
    What was your wife's name?
    Masha.
    Masha?
    My wife-- my wife--
    my wife, I heard a very [INAUDIBLE]..
    They took hundreds of girls, took in a ship
    and drowned them in Stutthof--
    Stutthof, Germany.
    This was then.
    But after the war, I met somebody, a girl.
    She said she know her.
    She talked to her.
    But she was [INAUDIBLE] behind dead people.
    [INAUDIBLE] She went out.
    So [INAUDIBLE] that happened like this.
    So I went in.
    Over there was [INAUDIBLE].
    I remember this and --
    19.
    And my father went in.
    The sister, Hinda, had her father-in-law living.
    This was in the ghetto, the place.
    She went-- she took in my father there.
    And over there was [INAUDIBLE],, a kitchen, not called--
    over there was a room in a kitchen.
    This was the whole--
    Arrangement.
    Arrangement, yes.
    Came in the evening.
    Maybe 15 people came in in there.
    Each one like to step in.
    And children included.
    At nighttime was, you saw only bedding.
    The whole thing was burning in the middle of the night.
    We can hear-- wake up, wake up.
    I couldn't stop [INAUDIBLE],, papa, papa, [CRYING]..
    In the morning I remembered, who could sleep?
    My father came.
    And he looked up finally.
    He start-- he [INAUDIBLE] crying.
    You're not crying, papa.
    Please stop crying like a baby.
    What can I answer?
    I answer him with crying also.
    So I brought him over back to the in-laws from my sister.
    And my brother, which has died--
    the younger, David, he died.
    He was working with friends.
    Those friends has to leave.
    He was a Polish--
    Polish man.
    And he had to leave his place.
    So he gave him the room.
    But the room was four walls and that's all, nothing else.
    Cold, and was behind the street, the that's how you call it.
    And father was there.
    I had-- oh, I forgot.
    In the meantime, I had already a place also.
    Rumkowski came out and said, go ahead in this place.
    [PLACE NAME] was the name.
    Open up the rooms and go in.
    Each can take a room.
    So I went there.
    I took a little ax and something else.
    I opened up a room.
    I have a room already, four walls.
    And opened up even for my in-laws over there also.
    So I opened up some-- three rooms I think.
    And they had rooms already.
    And here is bread, no bread, no heat, nothing, nothing,
    nothing.
    When we was there, start to get to working.
    I remember, he said, Rumkowski the ghetto will act--
    we'll be working like a good watch, a good clock.
    They had-- they start tearing up houses.
    In the Jewish section, there was four-five stories houses.
    They stripped the stone.
    [INAUDIBLE] why they did it.
    What they did it.
    People they had for nothing.
    So they did it.
    In the morning, when we went in there,
    stood a an SS man, by the door and Jewish policemen also.
    The ghetto was full of police and post office,
    money even was.
    Who has some money like this?
    Very wonderful now to have something like this.
    So when we start working, I said I
    will go there and take a look.
    In the ghetto you couldn't work like you like here,
    to pick what you want.
    They sent you-- the [GERMAN].
    So I worked.
    Went by a--
    I going by.
    It's straight, but this took time.
    But along came tsuris and troubles.
    And he started calling, who is a [NON-ENGLISH]??
    This mean a carpenter, a [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And I had them my mind, went by, here is only demolition.
    I don't have to be a carpenter to do it.
    I said I'm a [NON-ENGLISH].
    But he said right away, he said, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]..
    What's that?
    Don't, don't lie, if not this, hanging.
    So this was the way it goes.
    So I worked there some--
    a nice few months.
    It was very hard.
    In the morning, I went into the--
    I went in hungry.
    In the lunchtime, they came with a wagon, some soup,
    grass water, something.
    Very, very [INAUDIBLE],, very, very [INAUDIBLE]..
    So I worked maybe seven, eight months there.
    But over there was one boy.
    He made himself like a foreman.
    And he put an eye on me to put me out.
    Because each one liked to be worked up behind the roof,
    not in the outside, cold.
    But I was very afraid for it.
    But went by [PERSONAL NAME] and he caught me.
    And I said, now--
    now is the end.
    Now is the end.
    For I'd have to go.
    And they put me up on the fourth floor.
    The roof was only ripped up.
    But the rest start knocking down the bricks.
    And I was one, some like me, he told me, sit like on a horse
    and knock down one by one.
    Many fell down and was killed.
    They was already liberated.
    There was many falls like this.
    But I saw this.
    Everything I went by about this, I don't know if I can do it.
    I don't know how I did it somehow.
    I have good luck.
    I came back to the work, to the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    We made such-- the targets was called, to carry the --
    from place to place.
    They worked like horses.
    But later on, not long time, they took people [PLACE NAME]..
    [PLACE NAME] was a-- taking people.
    They brought in people from all over the world, Jews.
    And when they brought, we would know right away
    they will be sending out us.
    They looked all of over for people.
    Was not enough for them.
    If I would be there, I don't know, I wouldn't be alive.
    For two, three times they came.
    And the first was maybe 1,000 people working over there.
    But then was such lower, lower, lower.
    And I said, no, I will wait to the last.
    Is no good.
    I have to stop it.
    I went out from there.
    And I don't know by this everything, had a little luck
    maybe.
    I home my parents, helped me got some.
    So I went out.
    Where to go?
    A job to look for myself is very hard.
    And I went in to the [INAUDIBLE],, it was called.
    They made-- was over there so many woods.
    They cut out woods.
    Was the [NON-ENGLISH],, the [NON-ENGLISH] this had.
    I worked there.
    And I saw the group got smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
    But they gave three quarters of liter grass soup.
    If you're not going to work at this house or not.
    So I said--
    I went like a dummy in many ways.
    I come to [INAUDIBLE],, where the house he worked
    was something like this.
    I went like a dummy.
    I went.
    So what can I do?
    I had no other choice.
    Once they came.
    The first people, which was, I don't know-- they forget
    or they didn't know better.
    They stood by the big, big door.
    Trucks was moving back and forth.
    They looked in.
    And went away.
    When they was outside, they could do it.
    From inside, they couldn't do it.
    And I was in there.
    Because it was a very bad situation.
    I will not be no this little glass what else also not.
    Come the day which they came and they took me out.
    They caught me.
    So I went.
    They put us in a barrack.
    They give a piece of bread, each one, and this little soup,
    earlier.
    And thinned out.
    Nobody was killed, no barrack you can
    find a live from those people.
    And I was there.
    I had a brother-in-law.
    He worked over there.
    I don't know, he had some connections.
    He was there.
    And somebody went to him, look, look,
    I saw your brother-in-law going over there in the barrack.
    They send him in.
    He run and he took me out from there.
    I can say God--
    God helped.
    And he was the one who did it.
    If not, I would be who knows where.
    But this happened after you were hurt?
    No, no, no.
    You hadn't gotten hurt yet from the--
    Oh, yes, the hurt--
    Why don't you tell us the story about that.
    The hurt is before.
    Tell me the story of that.
    About the [INAUDIBLE].
    If you're going out-- if you're going out.
    even some toilet, has to be five together.
    Out from work, five in line.
    And we steal a little food, you know.
    [INAUDIBLE] but he stealed it back then.
    But later on, we saw what's going
    on-- the hit, almost dead.
    So they threw it out.
    How much would I could take to a [INAUDIBLE],,
    a little [INAUDIBLE].
    So we walked us out, five.
    And he was standing and came such a big, fat pig.
    Folkes was his name.
    And I don't know what he saw of me.
    He took the key He stuck on the tip of the key
    And so looking on the other side.
    And over the five, I was to the right side.
    And he over-- he hit me on the head.
    I don't know, I was closer to the outside,
    to the exit at this time.
    But I don't know how I made it to come back out.
    So this was that the production of them.
    Once I was-- my brother, who's died,
    he was working also by the what workers was called.
    This is Polish.
    Demolishing houses.
    He said, you know what, come bring me a little soup.
    And you will take home some wood.
    So I went.
    Was a little child at this time.
    Had a little child.
    He was hungry and cold.
    Flies was in the millions maybe.
    I told him, I made for him a little mattress.
    This was your child?
    Yeah, this was my child.
    He was born in 1940--
    1940-- yes, 1940, he was born.
    What was his name?
    Yitzak.
    And what can I tell you?
    He didn't recognize-- he didn't recognize
    in his life to even be satisfied with a piece of bread.
    Papa, papa, he start crying, papa.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    The neighbors from the other side [INAUDIBLE],,
    [INAUDIBLE] papa, papa.
    I made for him this was.
    How could I do it?
    I made for him in a corner a little mattress
    and a little curtain.
    There were so many flies, because was
    garbage and things was--
    millions of flies.
    So I went to the brother to bring a piece of the wood.
    And this was a strange, strange [INAUDIBLE] at all.
    I wasn't there never.
    In my soul, I had Jewish --
    The kids was over there, [INAUDIBLE]..
    He has over there kinderplaces, kindergarten,
    or something like this.
    He kept them there and they were singing and dancing.
    They learned and teach them some.
    And I see a policeman.
    a Jewish one.
    He say, go straight.
    And I went out fathers.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    In my hair already.
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    Oh, I say, no I am finished, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I start talking to him, he take a little [INAUDIBLE],,
    and something, in a paper, what?
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    What does that mean?
    Comes [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, kick them out.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    And so [NON-ENGLISH].
    So he showed me to raise the wires and to go by.
    And the big-- the shotgun, he takes down right away.
    So I went other side of him.
    What can I do?
    I went by, two hours.
    If somebody say gehennem there's nothing alike.
    He has-- he has--
    hours, was two hours to stay longer.
    Comes out, the engineer from the work.
    I say, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, help me, help me.
    [INAUDIBLE] some soup.
    And sometimes-- and this was a Volksdeutsche.
    This was the worstest thing.
    There was such murder on Jews, terrible.
    Volksdeutsche was the name.
    He tried to talk to him, give him a cigarette.
    Nothing-- he say, two hours somebody will change me.
    He has to stay.
    And he goes back and forth, back and forth, watching me.
    And I had--
    I had a good time.
    The two hours was years.
    The time went by.
    Comes [INAUDIBLE] two meters high, for sure.
    [INAUDIBLE] commander, death commando that was named.
    They had a dead skeleton on his head.
    He goes to him.
    Salute.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    He said something, that I was to escape, he say.
    But he said some word.
    I don't know if alive. i first wish him or what.
    So he doesn't think nothing.
    I'll take him to [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]..
    He told me not to [INAUDIBLE],, not
    to talk when he came down [INAUDIBLE] to change him.
    Don't talk, nothing, quiet.
    But if I heard--
    he told him to schlag to kill me, here.
    Salute and goes away.
    And he goes with the shotgun.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    I'm going never to [INAUDIBLE] with nerves.
    The pot with this little soup.
    In the meantime, I don't know, news, runs away.
    Goes out of wires.
    My brother hear from people they caught somebody, so and so.
    But he didn't know this, I am.
    So when I came, he brought me over some [INAUDIBLE]
    and [INAUDIBLE] and things.
    I remember a little kapichka a church,
    a little church, red bricks.
    I remember like now.
    He put me to the wall.
    Not by the side, but in the front.
    He take the shotgun to shot.
    And I don't know, he did want kill me.
    He did not want to kill me.
    Something wasn't there, so good luck or what.
    But he gave me--
    he came back a few steps, and -- back and forth, back and forth.
    I was such like a drunk, like I would be a narcotic.
    He threw me down a little head.
    I had such a rag on my head.
    But he hit me so much, this woke me up.
    Showed me to pick up.
    And this was in wires also.
    But the other side wires was the Jewish office.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, Go forward,
    But I fell down and took the wire,
    raised the wire a little bit.
    But the rags which I had on my dressing was hanging.
    And he hit me, hit me, and hit me.
    But for I was on the other side, I say, oh, I'm alive.
    I didn't know, but I'm alive.
    So when I was outside, I saw I am alive.
    So I am alive.
    I took a rest a few minutes and went-- and went farther.
    I came home.
    At this time, the father was alive.
    Mother was over there.
    The father was alive.
    I told him this, so he said to go.
    By myself, I had it in mind to go [INAUDIBLE] the Jews
    to make a blessing.
    But I say, no, after this, I'm not coming anymore there,
    What will be will be.
    I'm not going anymore there.
    Took some days and I came into a place.
    [PLACE NAME] it was called.
    I worked over at the baths and place--
    the things for the [INAUDIBLE] for the [INAUDIBLE]
    from up to there.
    Each time, twice a week or so, they came and took big trucks
    and loaded up.
    They had horses.
    They had horses for nothing worked.
    And wood, they had also.
    They cut the best woods.
    We was working.
    This was a place in an old cemetery in Łódż.
    But you were still living with your father?
    Yeah, yeah, my father--
    father and wife.
    And wife.
    Mm-hmm, child also.
    And child, right.
    So when I-- a little took a rest,
    I say I have to look for some work.
    When I came in, was the [INAUDIBLE]..
    The secretary, he was over there working.
    Children from eight years, they made them older, their parents.
    Because they said, they be older--
    10 years, they will work, they will be alive.
    Nothing happen.
    So I was--
    I was there.
    I came in.
    I got this position to work.
    I don't know-- really good work was this.
    And when I saw that the manager come,
    I don't know if he liked me or what.
    He put me by an elevator.
    Was three stories.
    The load was three people and six people,
    next from two people, and loading the wood,
    unloading, and loading, and unloading.
    And he put me on the part in the first floor.
    Each time he came with the--
    they come to look how the horses working.
    Achtung, Achtung
    Not a few [INAUDIBLE] behind him, of course,
    is the murderers.
    Looks like [INAUDIBLE] children, 8 years, 10 years.
    And many cut fingers.
    How they worked sometimes on such machining, and machinery,
    and things.
    It's happened, it's happened, so.
    And I start working there, but that luck
    played me a little bit.
    This man did me so much.
    I met him after the war.
    Vinograd was his name.
    He was from [PLACE NAME] town, I think.
    What was his first name?
    Vinograd
    His first name.
    I don't know the first name.
    But he [INAUDIBLE],, ah, Kalmanovich how you doing?
    Do you have some claims to me?
    I say, [NON-ENGLISH] Vinograd what can I have to your claims?
    Because he gave me all the forest, which was--
    I was working over there till then when they chased us out
    from ghetto.
    It was once they're giving-- they're giving--
    [INAUDIBLE] was the name, for hard workers.
    I was working hard too.
    I was not too much [INAUDIBLE],, but if I'm working,
    I'm working.
    I didn't look for it.
    Was the-- came all hard workers.
    becoming [INAUDIBLE] for [INAUDIBLE]..
    [PERSONAL NAME] was the name.
    He gives me a [? talon ?].
    And I say what's this, God?
    I went to pick it up for some [INAUDIBLE]
    for little bit sugar or something.
    This was a big, big help.
    This was twice.
    And then-- and then they made suppers.
    Like for eight days, they brought us over.
    I don't know how-- they then came in and brought us
    the bread all of us together.
    They see Jews sitting and needing, they give food.
    Because for long time, we didn't have such food,
    like over there and so much.
    So was the suppers, he gave me also, [INAUDIBLE],,
    reach med such a [INAUDIBLE] having for eight days.
    I was-- say, oh, my god, promised this?
    But I don't say I don't want it.
    We came back.
    Finished over there.
    We had a good work because they could come with trucks
    and load up all the people there.
    And now we came [? Urlaub ?] from the vacation named,
    a little flesh [INAUDIBLE].
    This took not long time.
    And the ghetto started booming, like before a war,
    before something going to happen.
    What month was this?
    This was in '44--
    no, '43 or '44?
    When was it? '44.
    In July, something like this.
    So now we're up to July '44.
    What?
    You're up to July '44 now?
    Yeah.
    So up to that point, you were you
    were living with your father--
    Yeah.
    --your wife--
    Yeah.
    --your child--
    --Yeah.
    --and working.
    Yeah.
    So at this time, by July I think was it--
    I remember all the things, but sometimes then I
    forget-- reminding.
    Came out a law, they had a law, lists.
    A list [INAUDIBLE] and papers.
    The [INAUDIBLE] papers, who-- who
    is-- who should be sent out.
    I remember they made this thing.
    I didn't went to the manager to beg him, because I know,
    who I am to him?
    What's he going to do for me to color me so much?
    Those lists was finished, hanging up on the wall.
    And I think, what should I go look for me?
    I'm sure I am in there also.
    I'm sure I'm in there also.
    But wasn't.
    Excuse me.
    One time, I was up on the list.
    Went by a short time, and the ghetto
    was a little smaller as well, like it's shrinking.
    People sending out.
    There was again a list.
    It was again the same story.
    And I think what's the use to go to read?
    Was a big list of people.
    These were lists for people to leave the ghetto.
    To leave.
    They took them--
    To be taken away.
    --from place to be--
    Taken away.
    --on this and this place.
    And from here, they send them farther to death.
    But the second time, I went what can I do?
    What can I do-- to spare my eyes and think to look.
    But the nerves working.
    They don't-- they all sting.
    I go.
    I wasn't again.
    I say, oh, my god, I think what's this?
    Who I have to thank for it?
    Him?
    I couldn't go to him, thank him.
    I don't know how to act.
    A short while went again.
    Couple weeks in the ghetto.
    And the ghetto was [INAUDIBLE].
    They sent out so many people from out [INAUDIBLE]..
    Again a list.
    But at this time, I was on the list also.
    I was on the list also.
    I think, what can I do?
    I had big-- a big--
    how you call it on the--
    Pack.
    Pack.
    I put in some thread and things.
    I went, oh, you're going to be somewhere working.
    You're going to exchange with Poles, something or what.
    It was a full sack.
    So I think, what can I do?
    But my wife, God bless her, said, no, I
    have somebody in [? Mechlin, ?] was the name.
    We're going to go to there.
    Somebody picked.
    We went over there.
    We went over there.
    And in this place, I didn't met this man.
    I couldn't met him.
    But at this place, I had--
    I never would like to pray for a person to die or be killed.
    Was this the place in the ghetto?
    In the ghetto.
    Yeah, another location?
    Another location, yes.
    No, this wasn't in the ghetto direct.
    Yeah.
    So at this time, I met, was a policeman there.
    He was killed [INAUDIBLE].
    He gave me such--
    I still did work, but [INAUDIBLE]..
    And his office was maybe farther than to the window.
    All of a sudden, he caught me by the neck.
    He was such a red neck, he had.
    He ate-- he had enough, everything.
    He had a wife working there and a boy, a little so, so.
    And caught me by the neck.
    I fell down.
    And he's dragging me to his office.
    And he just caused me more pain than the knocks He said,
    [INAUDIBLE],, like son of a bitch.
    You son of a bitch, you.
    I wiped up my face, and I said, God will pay you.
    God will pay you.
    And I went-- and I went with my wife
    to find somebody to help me and maybe
    to cut off the [INAUDIBLE].
    I see-- this was out of the ghetto [? Mechlin. ?]
    It was in the ghetto [INAUDIBLE]..
    I see a bunch of people staying.
    And over there, there was-- they had [INAUDIBLE]..
    [INAUDIBLE] was the growth, potatoes, a few potatoes.
    I did it myself on my place.
    And that be something, some vegetables.
    And someone say, oh, he has [INAUDIBLE] [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And I will say now, he's dead.
    I am not afraid.
    What's happened to him?
    He's stood on the-- on the-- was watching not to steal.
    Is two people-- how many came with a sack over the head
    and throwed him down such a--
    somewhere-- it was water there or what sometimes.
    Very deep.
    And I said, ah, God--
    God paid him.
    So I went home.
    But the trouble, [INAUDIBLE] the trouble.
    I have to be finished, to go.
    And outside in the ghetto, day after day
    was worser and worser.
    Impossible to stay alive, impossible.
    I don't know.
    And the child-- the child was--
    the main thing I forgot.
    I'm sorry, I forgot this.
    It was my brother on the Eve of Rosh Hashanah.
    My brother was there.
    And they took him to death in this time.
    It was 10 days.
    They closed up the ghetto.
    And they didn't give us nothing to eat.
    If somebody ventured out, a bullet in head.
    This you can hear very often.
    And it was this way.
    But I saved the child.
    10 days was this close up.
    And the 10th day was the Eve of Rosh Hashanah, 1942.
    He was there two months, two years--
    two months, something like this.
    Lucky born child.
    And this was sometimes to be on this [NON-ENGLISH]..
    This mean where we has to be, to meet, to take us.
    But in the meantime, they had--
    there was-- each [INAUDIBLE] pushed other one.
    They give other ones, it was a lot to talk about.
    But they took-- all of a sudden, all the ghetto flies.
    Everything must go.
    And [INAUDIBLE] was a bridge two stories high.
    There's this bridge to go by.
    Behind was snow.
    And we wooden shoes, it was [INAUDIBLE],, it snowed.
    Again, I got a--
    I had before a little bit--
    my sister, Hinda, she has a child from a year and a half,
    I think was it.
    The father was sent away in the very beginning.
    Who knows where, never did saw him anymore.
    And this woman had a life with a child.
    She has to go to stay in a line, I
    guess to cook a little water soup.
    [INAUDIBLE] the came up.
    This was [INAUDIBLE].
    So cold.
    A little oven.
    And the [INAUDIBLE] was froze, froze ice.
    And this was hitting us [INAUDIBLE]..
    Such a life, was.
    But she-- came a note.
    You have to be--
    you must be in the [NON-ENGLISH] this and this day.
    So they send away.
    This was that.
    But who knows, believes so far?
    And the child, she went with the child.
    Went by days, and the brother, the younger, was sick.
    All of a sudden-- he was a strong, healthy boy, a man.
    And he got lungs.
    How you call it?
    Tuberculosis.
    Tuberculosis, yes, from this everything.
    And he was not so bad maybe than me.
    I worked hard.
    And maybe he had a little better,
    because he was [NON-ENGLISH].
    This was mean somebody that has to be watched a room.
    They locked up a room to watch them not to run away, escape.
    So he has to watched.
    Not only he.
    So when she said, I must see my brother before I'm leaving,
    it was a hospital over there sometimes.
    And with the wooden [INAUDIBLE] with the [INAUDIBLE]..
    They called them hospital.
    I went over there.
    And I stood--
    I stood a long time.
    We called, and called, and called.
    All of a sudden, he came.
    I wouldn't believed a person can change so much in short weeks.
    Like dead, a skeleton.
    But later on, not long time, he died.
    Left such a lovely child and woman.
    And my sister, I had to bring.
    It was this Erev Pesach.
    Everything was happening on holiday time.
    I went with her.
    The last day I can say, this child wasn't afraid so much.
    How much cold and every time we went,
    we're going to change-- change something or this.
    Even a a pot she took.
    And I start walking on this bridge to go over.
    I said, God, [NON-ENGLISH],, everything took away.
    Just went over there.
    There, under, a man same there like
    me, but if you give me the child,
    and help me to bring over this bridge.
    We went by this [NON-ENGLISH],, which I think was a street.
    Over there was the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    From there, they took them to death.
    And I stood outside.
    And I came [INAUDIBLE].
    They opened up the doors.
    Took her and i couldn't even kiss her even.
    People started calling and calling names.
    And I called Hinda, Hinda, Hinda.
    No, nothing, nobody answered.
    After a long time, I heard such a voice, a weak voice.
    Nathan, go home.
    It's almost 5 o'clock.
    It's 5-- after 5, it was, after 5.
    How are you going to go home?
    And this was the end.
    I didn't saw, I didn't talk to her anymore.
    That was it.
    When I came home, dark, cold.
    Not a piece of matzah, not a piece of bread, also wasn't.
    And the child is crying a piece of bread.
    Go, give him.
    He had-- he had the same ration that I am,
    but a child, what he knows, he got a good appetite.
    This was from Slovakia, a doctor, a Jewish one.
    He said, [NON-ENGLISH].
    He had good bones.
    He will stay alive.
    He looked not too bad from this [INAUDIBLE] which he has.
    So this was Pesach I think--
    yeah, Pesach Eve.
    For such cold in home and dark.
    The window must be covered with the rags, with things.
    [INAUDIBLE] if it's coming.
    But we have to take our place.
    We have to take everything.
    What can I do?
    I can't say I will go home.
    So first eight days went by, came closer, and closer,
    and closer.
    Now I have no sister.
    The brother died also shortly after she left.
    I have the father and that's it.
    I tried to write a postcard to the brother to say Kaddish.
    That's [INAUDIBLE].
    I don't know if he received this or not.
    And here, the fire is burning.
    It's August-- August 15, was it.
    I don't remember the dates.
    Because we have no calendar, no dates, nothing.
    Is that 1940--
    1944.
    1944.
    This is August 19, 1944, yes.
    So I stealed somewhere a few potatoes, I remember.
    And my wife took it, cooked this in such a little--
    from iron, such a--
    Pot.
    Portable-- portable oven.
    And she put them there to cook.
    And while this was cooking came the policemen--
    out.
    This was the 10th day, the 10th day from the [INAUDIBLE]..
    He was closed up, he was closed up.
    Nothing, no food, no drink, nothing, nothing.
    So what you can do?
    We went.
    He took us with a truck.
    He take from all the houses every so people.
    He took them.
    And brought us on the way-- [? Mechlin ?] was the name--
    [? Mechlin. ?]
    From there he brought us straight to Auschwitz.
    We sit there for long hours.
    I took the few potatoes that was cooking a little bit or not.
    I took a couple with me.
    I think maybe a potato we will have to eat.
    We was sitting hours over there, long hours,
    on the ground, everybody.
    Came a little after noon, start moving.
    Come the trains, cattle trains.
    And they start loading us.
    They give bread.
    The bread, but many people didn't eat it up even.
    They didn't make it, because they was killed before.
    We was sitting in the train some 20 hours.
    At this time, I had a watch.
    And many times when the train went by, there
    was such a little opening over there, like wire things.
    This came in, a shine from light.
    And we didn't know where we were going, what's it going--
    You were with your father and your--
    No, no, father, he was died.
    My father-- my father was died.
    I forgot about it.
    He had such troubles.
    My father died, was six days in Hadar before Purim.
    Do you want to tell us about that?
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    So was the 10 days was years, like years was.
    But the 10 days was over.
    And then we was anyway chased out.
    But the child, the 10th day, when the--
    I heard-- was around 3:00, I remember.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
    I heard some trucks, noise, some trucks, something like this.
    I went to the window, tried to open up a little, think.
    I see driving in, two SS murderers on motorcycles.
    And after them, ride trucks.
    Said, oh, now is again the same tragic story.
    A few-- three times there was another place.
    And we had-- we had--
    hold him, this child.
    We had spared a little meat and flour.
    He was a good eater, but in those days, he could not eat.
    Like he feel like something comes up.
    And I went in.
    Three times-- that was before I put my wife on the hand, cheek.
    She kept him behind doors.
    Was very near the doorway.
    And it was safe.
    But I'm making it--
    we should, but wouldn't be--
    would be impossible to save him.
    So she stood behind the door again.
    And I staying outside.
    Outside stay, so a long line-- a long line with people--
    people--
    dead people, dead people, really.
    And they said, [INAUDIBLE],, come down, come down, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Don't try to save, to hide.
    So I came down.
    I was in my trouble.
    I see people stays a line.
    And in those days he didn't use this hand to touch us--
    with a stick.
    This was turned around.
    And our neighbor was hiding.
    And they found him.
    They found him.
    They brought him.
    Oh, yi, yi.
    This man had beating and kicking.
    And I don't know, the man must be dead.
    And he said, [NON-ENGLISH],, the [INAUDIBLE] is dead.
    Shoved with the stick, throw him up on this truck, on the truck.
    And over there on the same truck was my mother-in-law also.
    She was very sick.
    Such a-- such a--
    a fine woman.
    And the truck was such deep.
    But there was-- on the hand she holded my child also.
    He was cut.
    But I didn't show it.
    So and I saw he--
    how they kicked him with their high boots,
    and kicked him, and kicked him.
    Then threw up of the truck.
    And I was-- two people--
    the third one I was to him.
    And I think if I got to change now the place, it's no good.
    Right away, I get a bullet.
    So I have to stay.
    To go with the--
    [NON-ENGLISH] they say in Hebrew.
    So I came to him.
    And then I have such a feeling.
    I stood such attention.
    Stiff like, I would be held [INAUDIBLE]..
    Looked at me, looked at me.
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    This mean you can work.
    You can create.
    And he pushed me away with the stick.
    And I don't know even where he pushed me,
    to good side or wrong side.
    I saw stays over there, stays a group, a few people.
    And I went to there also.
    The street was very narrow.
    And I stood over there.
    Took a few minutes.
    I see a little face from my mother-in-law.
    The face was dead.
    That person been taking them out from the barrack worser
    than she.
    And at this time was my--
    my girl was also--
    she kept the little child on her lap.
    So she went in there.
    The truck was full.
    And he say, [NON-ENGLISH],, And it was command, so such--
    everything has to be very fast.
    Wasn't missing, hitting and beating also, was this.
    They went away with the truck.
    And she has-- I had the oldest brother-in-law,
    he was an orphan-- orphaned.
    And she took him.
    She raised him.
    And then he married the daughter, the oldest daughter
    from my mother-in-law.
    He said-- and at this time, they stood, they said,
    nobody can no--
    come out now.
    Somebody, a policemen or whoever, nobody
    can go out there.
    And send them away to deaht and that's it.
    But he said, I have to risk my head.
    And I must take out.
    And he did it.
    He went there.
    I don't know, God was with him.
    He came in there.
    She kept this child.
    I don't know how she let this child--
    she can break up a [INAUDIBLE].
    And she had-- she had the guts to give this child to somebody
    watch it.
    Who would watch him?
    The whole time was over there, beating and hitting.
    Many times, I'm lying, I can't sleep.
    I see like-- like he was laying on the floor.
    He was [INAUDIBLE] to death.
    All the time.
    And when he was lying on the floor, people stepped, people--
    might be he was dead already there from stepping on him.
    Because beating and hitting was over there very much.
    And he took her out.
    In the evening-- in the evening, we went
    into the mother-in-law's.
    So she said-- so she told me the story, how it was.
    I can't blame him.
    The life touches the life.
    But how she could give away this child, I don't know.
    It's happened.
    So now comes hour, the next.
    And we are on the trains.
    Did you want to tell me that-- since you've gone back in time,
    did you want to tell me about your father, the story
    of your father?
    Yeah, yeah, I forgot.
    So much trouble.
    My father [INAUDIBLE] for six days in other barrack.
    He was very, very sick.
    Very sick.
    He had got gangrene all over the body.
    In normal time, he would be alive.
    He was such a healthy man.
    He would live 100 years, for sure, he would live.
    But-- and I had a doctor.
    I made for him a--
    I don't how I did it, this, everything.
    I brought those the bricks and things.
    I made a portable oven.
    And he was such satisfied for I make.
    He gave me some [INAUDIBLE],, Kohlrabi, some greens.
    And went day after day, day after day.
    Then my father was at the brother's place.
    It was very cold over there.
    I took him over to me.
    Sick, he was sick, very sick.
    He was at my place some 10, 11 days ago.
    I saw it's very bad.
    I say, no.
    I had the doctor.
    Maybe he will help me.
    Maybe he will help me.
    So I went over to him.
    And went right away with me.
    Yes, I have to do for you this, he say.
    He came over you here?
    Yes.
    He came over.
    He uncovered the daughter's legs--
    the father's legs.
    He say, oh, [INAUDIBLE].
    All over the body is the gangrene.
    OK.
    Then he say, maybe another day he can't live anymore.
    A good thing to hear.
    Everything is gone.
    Only the father was.
    This was very hard.
    The night was very bad.
    I said myself, I--
    this was-- and I worked in the militias at this time.
    I'm not going to work.
    I have to stay by my father and see how he is.
    Exactly 5:30 in the morning, when I have to go to work,
    I said, I'm not going.
    I saw the father.
    Says, [NON-ENGLISH],, I say in Yiddish.
    I took his hand.
    He had died on [INAUDIBLE].
    So I called my brother.
    And he came over.
    He worked somewhere-- [PERSONAL NAME] was the name.
    He brought some-- a few boards for the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    The coffin?
    No coffin, no coffins.
    There was no coffins in the good time even.
    But he brought wood.
    And we buried him.
    Was me, and at this time was the sister, Hinda, and the brother,
    he had to do it.
    He was sick.
    But he was there still -- when we buried.
    You buried him in the cemetery?
    Cemetery, yes.
    What year?
    When was this?
    It first in 1940--
    '44-- '43.
    What month-- do you know what month?
    I feel it was--
    The spring.
    Not spring.
    It was-- [INAUDIBLE].
    Yeah, right, OK.
    Yeah.
    So we buried him.
    No father, nobody's around, finished.
    I'm looking around.
    I'm only one.
    My wife was with me.
    That's it.
    The child gone.
    And everything is gone, finished.
    Now we have to go to the [INAUDIBLE]..
    And he-- and they start loading.
    They loaded in such--
    cattle-- cattle trains.
    We sit on the floor.
    OK, we're moving ahead now to where you were--
    yeah, we're moving ahead in the story.
    This is-- this is to Auschwitz.
    Right.
    They sit on the floor, everybody, mens, womans,
    children, as it was.
    And they put in some--
    for the need-- big plastic, with some [INAUDIBLE],, something.
    But we didn't eat, we didn't drink,
    so we didn't need nothing.
    We drove so long, by 20 hours was.
    I think 18 or 20 hours was.
    We came to the place.
    In the meantime, when the train was running,
    we heard from time to time shots.
    Later on, we didn't know what this mean,
    but somebody tried to escape.
    If he had luck and could make, he's all right.
    If not, they shot him on the place.
    And that was it.
    So, but the train comes, after long hours, comes to Auschwitz.
    Open up-- open up, here's a very, very big [INAUDIBLE]..
    Open up very wide doors.
    And he opened up the doors from the doors to the murderers.
    He put on a bridge, like to go down, like the cows or what--
    they can't go--
    jump down.
    And was a [INAUDIBLE].
    How you say a [INAUDIBLE]?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    He [NON-ENGLISH].
    All this [INAUDIBLE] Oh, [NON-ENGLISH] mean everything
    leave here on the train.
    [NON-ENGLISH],, nothing to take with you.
    So you had to go, to listen.
    If you open up there, I don't know.
    I have to say, Picasso wouldn't be--
    wouldn't be able to write such pictures to mark.
    Came Jews was-- they was called [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Oh, this was such bad guys, murderers.
    [NON-ENGLISH]
    Throw in, throw in.
    We'll be, rather you be on the helikommando
    And they put it on the [INAUDIBLE],,
    on the [INAUDIBLE],, we will be right away.
    [NON-ENGLISH]
    I had some papers, [INAUDIBLE],, I remember.
    I had kept this all the time with me here.
    I stood.
    And hitting and beating wasn't missing there.
    There was over the head.
    I looked at, in the window.
    So it was the girls.
    They was beating the girls.
    And us, we stood on our place.
    And they're going around--
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    You will be [INAUDIBLE].
    This was the-- and they hit us not in the--
    In they took a nice-- a nice--
    a few hours, two hours, settling this.
    Then they say, we got to go into the shower, to take a shower.
    And somebody said, they're giving inside such cold water,
    like ice.
    If you're going to cry, yell, they're beating,
    they're hitting.
    Don't yell.
    Don't say nothing, but quiet.
    And by entrance to the shower, it
    was a little like a mikvah you know a mikvah.
    A little thing, some [NON-ENGLISH] or what,
    something.
    Because they said, you can take--
    you can take the shoes, eyeglasses, and the strap.
    This you can have with you.
    And I took a picture I had from the family.
    [PERSONAL NAME] was also in this picture.
    I put this in the shoe.
    And then when I was next to go in in the--
    too deep, the shoes, in the water, I don't know,
    I was two minutes without memory.
    Somebody pushed my head down.
    I went, oh, this is the end-- what?
    But went over, and I went to the shower place.
    So we start taking shower.
    The shower-- is again beating, hitting.
    And many times, somebody fell.
    He's dead, finished.
    He's over.
    When this was finished, we went out.
    To a barber.
    He very-- a person has some hair, they take off.
    Took off this.
    On the head, you could have such high--
    the hairs.
    But in the [INAUDIBLE],, we called it [NON-ENGLISH]..
    It was two fingers.
    naked.
    So we're going out.
    And stays on the other side, stays the guys.
    And they start giving the clothing.
    They had the underwear from [INAUDIBLE],, such things.
    Now [NON-ENGLISH].
    [NON-ENGLISH],, give a jacket, a a jacket--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    So tied up this, everything.
    We're going-- get in a line.
    Stays one-- two guys with the pales paint and making
    decoration on us, here, and here, in the back.
    I came out of this.
    And I had a friend over there.
    He lives in Tel Aviv.
    I all the time watched him to be together.
    The feeling about this, if maybe I will die,
    maybe he'd come back.
    And he will say at least to somebody where I am,
    but I got lost.
    I looked at him.
    He looked at me.
    Looking, we didn't recognize each other.
    But then came a long story, a room.
    We came in in a barrack.
    They brought us into a barrack.
    And they came out.
    After all this went by, he said--
    he stood a Jewish one-- he said, in fact Jewish.
    He went down to the first long barrack,
    maybe 30 feet of more length.
    In the middle was like an oven or what.
    And he walked around with a stick.
    He said, see, over there, here was hanging-- the last week,
    10 people was hanging.
    They had money they didn't give, gold.
    They didn't gave it.
    I stood like a stone.
    I stood.
    I heard him talking.
    And he took away from my right hand [INAUDIBLE]..
    But I was such like a stone.
    I couldn't touch him.
    He was dressed in this, everything.
    He found-- he found some--
    in a corner, he ripped a few deutsche marks.
    Oh, deutsche marks, you would think.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And from all this height, it's all over the heads, [INAUDIBLE]
    and things.
    They didn't care.
    Then they brought us our barrack.
    Here shall be the place.
    A full story again.
    Like start working.
    They called out, what's somebody's doing?
    What somebody did?
    What can work?
    I didn't have a special--
    a special trade.
    But he called the textile people and so on.
    And right away, [INAUDIBLE].
    He's right away shooting, hanging.
    This was the way.
    And I kept very tight with this friend.
    Wasserman is his name.
    To be together, even there.
    And they gave us a place--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And a sack with straw filled and [INAUDIBLE],, that's it.
    After a day, they brought us to work.
    Again, I had some work.
    He called out a [INAUDIBLE].
    I remember it was [INAUDIBLE].
    I think, I'm staying with him together,
    [INAUDIBLE] must be very hard work.
    And he said, it's hard there, it must be a bicycle.
    So what?
    Let's go on this.
    And I raised my finger.
    I know this work.
    So I was a mechanic on this.
    We went in.
    But that then starts again a long story with acclimatized,
    to be acclimatized.
    At this time-- at this time, you did not
    remember you had parents, you had brothers, sisters.
    Remember from time to time my brother.
    And at this time, I had luck.
    Once I went out in the evening to give coffee.
    It was black water.
    Nigger water we called.
    I gave the nigger water.
    And this one-- this one, the cans--
    to get back on the place in the kitchen.
    And I remember he caught me with a can to go.
    I couldn't-- the can was heavier than I am at this time.
    And I went in.
    And there came some again I say, hold on.
    That's to be sent away.
    Took a little time, maybe 15 minutes.
    Saying, oh, I was sick, sick in the barracks.
    This was our life.
    I was-- I was there.
    I was in the war.
    We was good luck.
    From the first to the last shot--
    May 9-- May 9, '45 I was liberated.
    Who would believe we going to come to it,
    and this, we going to be alive?
    But I was such, I couldn't walk.
    I walked worser than a baby which start walking.
    But 9, May 9, was the liberation, the Russian,
    the Russian people.
    None of us was liberated earlier,
    sometime in begins in April--
    April, something like this.
    April 16th.
    Yeah.
    And I had the good luck till the last shot.
    And this time felt even people that the Russian came close.
    I remember those two brothers from the ghetto.
    I knew them.
    And they was-- they was lying in the down floor.
    I was [INAUDIBLE].
    And we had lice, millions.
    We said the five-- the five [INAUDIBLE]..
    Such big ones.
    I don't know where from this came.
    They sucked out all the rest of blood from us.
    And I can't-- I can't--
    I can't have--
    I went-- I don't know how are we going to stand it.
    I went to drop off myself on the third floor.
    Because was so many lice, we--
    we shoved them down.
    So they nursed us in the second floor.
    And the main floor, they had more and more.
    And then came appels.
    It's been appels.
    Was again nothing.
    At this time I was thinking, I'm finished with this.
    I feel I can't talk anymore.
    And how weak I was, I used to stay--
    to keep myself, not to be-- to fall in the hands--
    to be hidden too long.
    Because they start beating.
    Many fell down dead after those beatings.
    So I feel such-- my legs not going, such stiff.
    And here someday happen in the morning.
    [INAUDIBLE] the count and things that needed--
    and I liked to be the first one rather than later.
    Then when it was finished, I come back.
    I took off the rags which I had on my legs.
    And said, oh, my god, the legs was straight
    like a round thing, swollen.
    Say, oh, no, no, it's finished, if this has come.
    But somewhere this has pushed me to do something.
    I went [INAUDIBLE].
    I went [INAUDIBLE].
    He gave me some pills and came up.
    Went away in days.
    They had such things.
    They gave-- they gave the Jewish boys--
    God should punish them where they are.
    They should give a half a liter soup in the evening after work
    when they're coming home.
    So good.
    I remember this, how it can happen, something like this.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    So he gave-- such a [NON-ENGLISH],,
    they call it in Polish.
    And I had water-- water, the--
    water, like not clean.
    Like something was cooked in there.
    I didn't know what.
    But later on, I walked by accidentally.
    I walked by.
    He opened up a can.
    They was watching very careful.
    They wouldn't like, because they can do it, everything.
    But the Germans doesn't care too much.
    [INAUDIBLE] can, noodles, full of noodles [INAUDIBLE]..
    I said, oh, my god, here was the noodles in this.
    I didn't have a sign.
    I was such pain again.
    It felt like why am I learning this now.
    I say, how this can be-- people.
    They was having-- they had--
    I was-- I having such papers [INAUDIBLE]..
    When you were sick, he gave me [INAUDIBLE] for a week I think.
    I was in good position if he gave me for a week to stay.
    It wasn't in a barrack.
    And over there was the--
    there was [INAUDIBLE],, like the pigs.
    They had one-- a German boy, a German born boy, a Jew.
    He was from somewhere.
    He went by-- he run with the horse--
    horse and the nice wagon.
    When we went from work, that, hungry, and [INAUDIBLE],,
    he drove the truck with the [INAUDIBLE],,
    with this, over there.
    I remember-- I remember they cooked potatoes.
    And the broth, they keep [INAUDIBLE]..
    And we were sitting.
    Everything was turning inside.
    But the smell of it.
    By sit down and eating such big things,
    I don't know how that could stay and not
    to give such dead people a piece of potato.
    Each one, I say--
    today I saying it, thanks God I didn't
    have a [INAUDIBLE] over there to be something.
    Because each one [INAUDIBLE].
    If he had the floor sweeped, it was [INAUDIBLE]..
    I told him, look, when you ready the potatoes,
    give me the water with, please.
    You didn't gave me.
    He didn't gave me.
    It's finished?
    Uh-uh.
    Such things to live by.
    Once I made up my mind from the ghetto not to steal.
    Because I see--
    I saw if somebody took something and they caught him,
    oh, it was very bad situation.
    So I-- I don't want to steal.
    I don't want [INAUDIBLE].
    I can't make it, what will be, it will be.
    So-- and I went by--
    until almost the end of the ghetto, was a [INAUDIBLE]..
    [INAUDIBLE]
    He was the first one of the five years--
    six years almost-- because six years, he gave me five whips.
    How was it to think?
    I was working in a factory, a big factory.
    It was like a big street.
    Trucks can go around.
    And the machine I stood, works.
    Here I made the thing.
    It was [INAUDIBLE] in sometimes was troublesome
    And is not good.
    And 12 o'clock, the gates--
    they told us like a quota something.
    And stood in the line and take the soup.
    Soon I come, my line is to him.
    I holding this way.
    He not taking it.
    He not taking it.
    I think, what should I do here?
    And he gave me the soup.
    I went with the soup such fast, such we was [INAUDIBLE] an hour
    at the lunch.
    So I went.
    I eat up fast.
    Sip the soup fast, and go back.
    And I did it.
    I come back.
    And I don't know the hell who know where he is [INAUDIBLE]..
    Such murderers.
    I go to him.
    And he caught me by the neck.
    Oh, you took the soup.
    And I didn't took the soup.
    He didn't gave me.
    He didn't took [INAUDIBLE].
    So the [INAUDIBLE] was finished.
    We were going to work.
    Standing by the machine.
    This was different nations was over there working.
    They're working.
    The Germans, a few of them.
    I think then there [INAUDIBLE].
    The foreman was such a [INAUDIBLE]..
    He caught me.
    [NON-ENGLISH] He caught me by the hand and was,
    how do you call it, like you're cutting saw, sawing wood.
    Falls down.
    And over there was some metal.
    And over there was a bunch of apple peels.
    I cut it so fast.
    Somebody shouldn't say and him take away from me.
    And this [INAUDIBLE] told somebody
    told him an apple or two.
    And I was fired.
    I think what should I do?
    Eat an apple?
    I said, no, I will [INAUDIBLE] business for a little soup
    to sell it.
    I came home.
    And I [INAUDIBLE],, oh, God bless him, if he is alive,
    let him stay alive.
    I didn't have faith for it.
    But [INAUDIBLE].
    And he came to my machine where I stood
    working and start knocking me.
    And my blood was very full.
    I was full with blood.
    And around, the people looked at me--
    what's going on here?
    They knew we are sort, five people worked on this place.
    What's going on here?
    What he wants from him?
    So I took a rag, because they gave us
    rags for the machine cleaning.
    I took a rag off.
    I pushed myself.
    Cleaned up a little bit.
    Back to work, was working again.
    After 15 minutes or so, comes the helper, his helper.
    You have to go to his office.
    Oh, I feel something no good.
    I come again.
    There's this [INAUDIBLE].
    I start telling him, look, I have [INAUDIBLE] to give you.
    Didn't took it.
    I didn't took the soup.
    What do you want from me?
    Stood, i remember father and son was--
    he begged him, leave him alone.
    You see he's such a weak person.
    He did nothing to nobody.
    Bothers nobody.
    Nothing helped.
    He has to give me--
    he give me two whips.
    One, a thin one, full, and another one, a thicker one,
    whole, like a pipe.
    Which one I like?
    Hell, no, I ain't going to tell him pick the tool.
    So he gave me five whips.
    Was the first one--
    the first one, almost six years I
    came by with a lot of beating because it
    was a very bad situation.
    And something happened.
    I had this beating also many times.
    Sometimes I remember, I went for glasses.
    He hit somebody with the whip.
    And he broke my glasses.
    And I couldn't work.
    Either way out of this, I couldn't do nothing.
    This was the manager.
    He went [INAUDIBLE] was named.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Remember, remember, sabotage.
    If something is wrong, sabotage.
    No other way.
    Watch yourself.
    So I watched.
    The time work good.
    The work was good.
    The work was good.
    And he caught me, this [INAUDIBLE],, he caught me.
    Five whips he gave me.
    In Łódź I was, before we left Łódź.
    The glasses.
    The glasses, I went--
    the glasses, I said he has to give me new glasses,
    because I have to work.
    Was [PERSONAL NAME] he was named.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    There was beating, so much beating.
    And just terrible.
    I went into him to say I had my glasses broken.
    He put his whole hand in my face.
    This [INAUDIBLE] many times, such.
    But this was a little nothing to them.
    That was from [PLACE NAME] You can go-- you can go on, and go
    on, you can go on for hours.
    [INAUDIBLE] to a doctor.
    He took you to a doctor for glasses.
    He took me to a doctor.
    I went, and he took me--
    me and another one also to town.
    [INAUDIBLE] we were living in a--
    around the hill.
    And we were sitting deep with the barracks.
    And he would open up the eyes, the running,
    and boys and girls, the [INAUDIBLE]
    they're playing around.
    They're [INAUDIBLE] and laughing so much.
    So he brought me into a doctor.
    I went.
    And there was [INAUDIBLE] that didn't say even the D--
    no Z. He called.
    I went to a doctor like this.
    He will ask me if I hungry.
    or having -- if the soldier was ready to go,
    so maybe he was afraid.
    I wouldn't know.
    But he didn't.
    Make for me the glasses.
    And that's it, hand me out.
    Many times I have--
    but this whole thing, I have even happening, but they took--
    they took people from Auschwitz.
    We called them the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And reminding us a little by little it's all the time came
    the [INAUDIBLE],, they [NON-ENGLISH] we called them.
    And now it was like to be together with this friend,
    Dossman I kept him all the time.
    Such-- such, such a mind.
    But what will God, to lose this one also?
    He was picked up.
    He was really a textile worker--
    a textile worker.
    So he-- they took him.
    And he said right away--
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    Right away, hanging [INAUDIBLE].
    They took him away.
    So I was such--
    I never risked.
    And at this time, when they took him away,
    I risked to run over on his side where he was staying.
    But somebody saw.
    He give me a knock.
    And that's it.
    They finished up the work.
    And the rest of the people opened up the barrack
    and let in.
    I, myself, I didn't saw-- we didn't
    have a mirror or nothing.
    But I saw faces from people saying, oh, my god,
    but I'm here.
    Dead people going around.
    They had picked out all of us can do something.
    Dead people going around.
    But what can I do?
    They locked up the door--
    the doors from outside.
    But then took long time.
    This why, because once--
    all the time I watched not to [INAUDIBLE] against the law.
    Went, murder wall.
    It opened up.
    I went out so fast.
    Auschwitz was a long, like a street.
    And I remember it was a barrack.
    I don't remember-- and across the street was a Pollack.
    And I say to him, [NON-ENGLISH].
    Do you know the--
    where the people, the 300--
    300 people, where they are put?
    He say, yes.
    Go down, straight back.
    Oh, straight back.
    But I ran.
    Something pushed me to go to risk this time.
    So I came over.
    In the barracks there's a few people.
    This was [INAUDIBLE] we called.
    And staying on the outside is somebody from outside,
    like to go in.
    I was one that liked to go in to meet my friend.
    And somebody went out.
    I caught a moment.
    I pushed myself through the door.
    And I'm in there.
    I kissed him, like would be after the war.
    We were talking about your stay in Auschwitz.
    Would you like to continue talking about your experience?
    Yes.
    I'd like some corrections and then some other points also.
    So they took, like I said, the friend, [? Lozman, ?] he
    is alive in Tel Aviv, I think he lives.
    I had a very bad experience.
    So much, so much I went, that right away by instinct I said,
    well the neighbors shout, they hung
    And he took out a-- him they took away,
    and I was left alone.
    I went, oh, now I'm finished.
    I don't have a friend, nothing.
    Nobody will know that I got lost.
    And I went to the-- like I said before, I haven't made up
    my mind not to risk from the ghetto.
    I saw what they do with people.
    Some would risk-- many people risk for a piece of food
    to steal to bring home in and they paid with the life.
    They sent them away and finished, never come back.
    And at this [? fall, ?] I saw such spikes.
    Don't worry, give me the courage.
    Go ahead.
    Don't stay in the place.
    When they opened up the door, big trucks went by.
    In the barrack, I really was such scared by my face.
    I couldn't see.
    We never had a piece of some mirror or what.
    Then took half an hour or more like
    this to open up this wide door.
    In the moment when they opened up,
    I start running right away to look for him, where they are.
    I came on this side and like a street.
    But it shouldn't be there anymore in life for people.
    So I came in.
    It was a Pollok.
    And I asked him, do you know where they are?
    The 300, it was called.
    And he answered me, go back the whole length.
    He say, over there, there's almost in the west barrack
    from the other side.
    And I take my way.
    I start running there.
    I went over there.
    I don't how I did it.
    I was such careful not to go against--
    they have right to hit me.
    And I came over.
    There stood a few people by the door, and each one packing
    like cigarettes.
    And I sort of lay down.
    There was one friend also.
    He was in there.
    He saw me, but he could do nothing.
    But I got a moment, which I could go through this door
    there.
    I came in.
    I was very glad when I saw him like before.
    I went, maybe this, a good friend is good to have.
    I lay down.
    I will come to it.
    I had many, many trouble when I was--
    not trouble, but dead points.
    I was in there.
    So I'm in here.
    So.
    This was sometimes late afternoon.
    We slept over, in the sleeping places what they had.
    I still remember good.
    The next day, in the morning, they're
    announcing you're going to be transferred from here, further.
    You have nothing to say.
    You had to stay and wait, and to listen to everything.
    He started the [NON-ENGLISH].
    This mean counted the people.
    He sent out the [NON-ENGLISH].
    This mean nothing to say.
    Stay quiet.
    What's happen in this moment takes half
    an hour or more even.
    He has two, three people more than they had.
    All the time, you are a [NON-ENGLISH]..
    They said, this was a number.
    You got No name.
    A number.
    Finished.
    Three people more, he stop tracking.
    Hey, get out.
    Are you [INAUDIBLE]?
    Nothing will be hurting you.
    But I saw how hard they did it.
    And I-- how do you say--
    touched this friend.
    What should I do?
    What should I do, I say.
    He answered, what he can tell me.
    But in this moment, one started running out in the alley.
    But they caught him and start beating him.
    I don't know how he could stay alive after this beating.
    And he has two more.
    I think I am one of those two.
    Took another long time.
    And he got they is not scared.
    It was talking very easily, smoothly for him.
    Back and forth it goes, with a stick in the hand.
    No, not going out?
    Three people see him off.
    I stood, but my inside, everything was jumping,
    the nerves.
    What should I do?
    To go out is very bad.
    Not to go out is also no good.
    But I stood.
    And again, somebody ran out.
    They're out.
    Same thing.
    They start attacking.
    He was with another one.
    They start knocking the people.
    I don't know how they was able to stand this beating.
    He say, look, I'm going from the list what
    they had made by bringing in.
    If somebody I will find him.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    He went away.
    Half an hour or so, he come back with a list.
    How I start shivering.
    He will find me now for a fact very easy.
    But this was a point when people--
    inside, somebody likes to run out, and from the outside
    they come in.
    He said, I'm going to read the list not by A-B-C.
    But my name is K, as I would do with the [INAUDIBLE]..
    But before he came to the K, a few went out.
    I don't know.
    I'm mistaking.
    He wrote and say, those people what is not count,
    has to go far side.
    Am I staying?
    In my mind here I don't know how to act with him
    But went by.
    Then he finished with everything.
    A nice few people stood on the side.
    I saw one, two, three people.
    More, five.
    it happen so I knew they came in secretly I
    think what [INAUDIBLE] were we?
    So he went by the whole list.
    It was a few over there, a nice few people.
    Maybe 10 people went out of the list.
    I went, so I will be one of them.
    And I said, what can I do?
    I have no other choice.
    He went by the list.
    The amount people was right, but the names not.
    So this one, he doesn't care.
    He let us go, so this way.
    [? Now ?] and so it was over, I can tell you,
    I don't know when the war we had,
    the lucky word, [INAUDIBLE] out, over,
    it wouldn't be more than at this time,
    because I wouldn't stand this beating which I had.
    So he has now the right amount.
    Now, how the people which having no names, that wasn't called,
    this is nothing.
    He has the amount.
    That's it.
    Started to give us some for the way a piece of bread,
    [INAUDIBLE] soup, and go ahead.
    This was everything.
    They're mostly to dead, but many of them was working also.
    I had by myself.
    And I witness everything [INAUDIBLE]..
    So get me a little--
    how you say-- some [INAUDIBLE].
    I was a little bit easier because I saw I'm in there.
    So they put us on the way.
    We walked, walked, walked a long time till trains upcoming.
    The trains come and put us in.
    This was Rosh Hashanah, I think, Erev Rosh Hashanah.
    It was the holiday.
    And we came into a place, Görlitz.
    And Görlitz is [? a ?] [? gym. ?]
    What year was this?
    This was in '44.
    '44.
    '44, yes.
    And there's the upper place.
    An upper place means that they did the counting.
    Everything was a big place [INAUDIBLE]..
    Came out the Haupt Lager Kapo, he himself was also
    a [NON-ENGLISH].
    But the whole command was in his hands.
    And he started asking who was in the ghettos.
    A couple others, something like this, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Sent out a few boys, one a big slob.
    He had a good life in the ghetto also.
    Those people that helped themselves good they give up--
    fend for the others, for him, for his life.
    How long did it take you to get from Auschwitz to Görlitz?
    A long time.
    Slowly.
    But I think over the night.
    I don't remember this point.
    But when we came over it was this act.
    They went [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    Then came out a few of them.
    He went to the [INAUDIBLE] a fat one,
    give him some [NON-ENGLISH].
    He and another one.
    He said, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    So he nominated kapo.
    Then he made some lower people under his hand.
    This was also the murders.
    Even I say to Hanna many times, now I'm
    glad I had no function over there.
    Maybe I would be the same for that, take their word.
    Because it was a little boy, a little nothing,
    he sweeped the floor in barrack.
    I told him, please.
    When he cooked the potatoes, I said,
    give me a little water of it, and you sipped it out.
    The [INAUDIBLE] they didn't give me.
    Such [INAUDIBLE] was over there.
    A little boy was nothing.
    Other ones which was the ranks, the bigger ones or so, they
    were much worse, I think, than this.
    But the little one had not so much power.
    But same thing.
    people lost the-- how you say--
    the humanity.
    Then he start asking, what you having--
    what kind of--
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    And he say he has two places for work, [GERMAN] and [GERMAN]..
    And I say to this friend, work I going to be a very hard worker,
    I think.
    Hard pieces and the outside.
    And [GERMAN] I figured this be the bicycle or so.
    But no, I worked in some kind--
    it was for ammunition.
    But I don't know till this moment what I did.
    So I came in this group.
    I came in this group.
    They took a day off they gave us,
    and then they start bringing the work.
    It was a far way to go.
    And over there was such snow, so many snow.
    And we had wooden shoes.
    The shoes, the snow goes down the soles.
    What kind of clothes were you wearing?
    Clothes.
    Clothes, it was my jacket was up the leg like a coat.
    Not very about the nice, but coat.
    I have to take in another point.
    They had so much clothing, they can give each one
    a few of each item.
    Pots and pans.
    Each one has a pot or two, or more.
    When I took my sister, she had aluminum pots,
    she said, from home.
    She take it with her.
    So this one we was carrying.
    There were such murders, such--
    terrible.
    When they give the soup, they start counting us,
    and so on, and so on.
    9 o'clock in the morning.
    Everything was five, five together.
    Standing was-- we were standing in line, but five he counted.
    And how can we, such wild, hungry people--
    the first one had the pot.
    The other ones, no.
    They gave him for five people.
    You can imagine how this was.
    Picture it.
    Believe me, I'm reminding now, the moment.
    One time was it--
    I heard this Saturday.
    I moved then aside because I had no soup there.
    The first one who took the soup, he run, zip, zip, zip.
    And then the other one was pulling him.
    Me too!
    Me too!
    When it came to the fifth one, was nothing for him.
    There was no more food for today.
    Only work.
    On Saturday I heard this.
    I said, oh, my god, this is Saturday?
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]?
    But what could we able to do?
    So we slept over the night.
    And what kind of sleeping conditions was it?
    Oh, we were sleeping under bridges.
    Bridges and then straw bags, a big straw bag.
    We filled up the straw bags, two on our bridge.
    So I kept this friend together with me.
    I watched to keep him.
    Not all the time I could make a place,
    but I could do it this time.
    What was your friend's name?
    [? Lozman. ?] He lives now in Tel Aviv.
    And we came to work in the morning, far away to walk.
    Cold, snowy weather.
    Now in Germany it was cold.
    And they start giving the places.
    You work here.
    You work here.
    They gave us a place that have five machines.
    It was like five or six.
    I remember it.
    This was a inside factory place, but so big!
    Could run around out there a few cars, trucks even.
    They brought us in a corner.
    You had a corner, I would say, cut off just like a circle.
    And stood five or six machines.
    Well, this work was a Frenchman, a young boy.
    They had it much better, joking with them, and they ran around.
    Sometimes he's run and the Dutchman was after him.
    But the Frenchman stood with us by half an hour or so.
    He showed what to do.
    Nobody could understand.
    I don't know French at all.
    But when the Frenchman left came the foreman,
    a German, an older man.
    And he [INAUDIBLE] by each thing you can hear,
    [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    Sabotage?
    He shows right away a stick on your neck, a shooting.
    But at this point I will tell myself, I am very handy.
    After the war, we had the rentals.
    I worked in the rentals.
    Very hard.
    I did electrical work and plumbing work.
    Everything I did, mostly by myself.
    So he showed me, and we started working.
    Here everything even-- this one was very bad.
    I think somebody [INAUDIBLE].
    They had to borrow it from [INAUDIBLE] region.
    They did not, like with Jews, they
    could take even the cat and the dog with them.
    But taking out from the place, you
    have to leave the place where you're living longer
    time is not such a tasty thing.
    And we start working.
    The thing it--
    I play down what was it happened.
    [INAUDIBLE] it was a such a go around.
    I think they said it's for the airplanes,
    to the wheels something.
    We put in [? truffles ?] was the name of it, aluminum things.
    And aluminum has the nature is scrubbing off.
    And here it was scrubbed off, the littlest a half millimeter.
    He took it right way for sabotage.
    And sabotage is dead right away.
    So I watched.
    The other people watched the same thing.
    With one, another one.
    There's such wheels, big ones.
    And each one has to be our number.
    I'm not finished up the wheel.
    I put down my number what I have here.
    What was your number?
    54 something.
    753, something like this.
    I remember this coming on my mind.
    And at this time, we worked.
    It was not too bad.
    The Germans is like a worm and this is very good.
    Outside who was working for this one,
    I was very, very mad because on purpose [INAUDIBLE]
    people watch it fall down.
    One was [INAUDIBLE] like a [? crane. ?]
    He was cut off a leg.
    But they take him to the hospital, and they made a leg.
    I met him in Frankfurt after the war.
    I said, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, something like this.
    He walked nice Yeah, noise [INAUDIBLE]..
    At this work, we worked day after day.
    Eight hours I think we worked there.
    And after the war, we walked back home.
    It's also by almost two hours we worked.
    So, must go on.
    I was very glad at this point I went there.
    I wouldn't be able to stay days, the frosty days.
    Snows that are deeper.
    One time, I had such a--
    he hit somebody with it, I think.
    They had such [NON-ENGLISH] coming, the whip.
    And I went to close it.
    He broke my glasses.
    And I said, oh, god, what should I do now?
    This one-- I will be able to work--
    unable.
    But this one, they marked off to go to--
    another one with also something happened, an accident.
    And so he broke the glasses.
    He brought us to the town.
    Oh!
    When I came to town, and I saw them
    laughing and playing around, boys and girls, streetcars.
    You can think, it's war goes on and somebody lives, hundreds
    of people, thousands of people.
    And these conditions are [? clear. ?]
    But he made me glasses, so I come back to-- but the glasses
    I have also, I paid for it.
    I was one of the first Hungarian people, Jewish.
    They was the Shrivers, was the name, they called them.
    And I told him something about the glasses.
    He didn't answer, but saw on my face that they hit so this way.
    They had the rope, big hand, the murder hands.
    And I went back to work.
    And then I remember the work was all right.
    And they gave us some what they call it, I have it
    and I have to give everything to my daughter.
    They gave marks.
    One marks, two marks, a mark and a half for good work.
    I had two marks.
    Two marks for the good work.
    And for those marks, on Sunday he did not work.
    I gave what I had left from there.
    Once even beer, Germans with the beer.
    You know beer, yeah?
    Sometimes they gave cigarettes.
    I wasn't smoking.
    It was people who was smoking.
    I found a piece that they threw out.
    It was some soldier there who threw it away.
    And for this I had a little piece of bread.
    These people, for the cigarette, gave away half a portion bread
    to have a cigarette.
    It was a very bad thing.
    For this I never smoked.
    I went and the doctor's asking if I smoking or drinking.
    I worked there till the end of the war.
    Can you describe what the end of the war was like?
    What happened that time?
    I remember the end of the war.
    The feeling is very hard to describe, very hard.
    But it come the day--
    I remember it was a German.
    He took me once by the arm.
    Nathan!
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    Apple!
    Apple!
    It was a big, big [INAUDIBLE] with a cup, aluminum.
    [INAUDIBLE] from wood, but this is aluminum.
    And I took out the chest, so nervous that nobody
    should take it.
    Somebody throwed in one or two little apples.
    I was such lucky.
    I start thinking what to do with this stuff.
    Eat up the apple or sell them for a little soup, the water
    soup.
    But one I ate up later on, and the other one I
    sold for a piece of bread and a soup.
    But I didn't-- if you live somewhere when God blessed.
    I didn't have faith.
    Now the end of the war.
    It was one time even a German manager.
    It was many of them.
    He came to me.
    Here, in normal life, I would never
    eat what a mouse or something else was touching.
    But he has this cannot be such but two pieces, was very thin,
    maybe one centimeter or so.
    The mice by the mouth he had to drop.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    I didn't even clean up or what, but I eat up, so.
    But all the time hungry.
    The thought of it with this fine thing.
    It went by a little time, it was almost--
    I was there 10 months, I think.
    It was such--
    10 months after the war?
    Or 10 months total?
    No, no.
    Total, total.
    This was in Görlitz.
    In Görlitz, was it.
    It was a very big space.
    Our trucks could drive around.
    And outside was lines for trains to go by.
    And we saw something.
    It was very close to the end.
    Something goes on.
    So many trains going by.
    It wasn't like normal.
    This is after liberation.
    No, no.
    This was before, very short to the liberation.
    May 9, I remember.
    This day I will never forget when I should live how long.
    Came in the kapo, oh!
    No more [GERMAN]!
    [SPEAKING GERMAN],, he said, [SPEAKING GERMAN]!!
    You can imagine people.
    It was over there 100 people on the bridges.
    They start running around.
    Myself also.
    Took a little later on in the same [INAUDIBLE] which
    the [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] beating and hitting came out an old
    German.
    He was also from the [? watchmen. ?]
    He brought a chair, went up on the chair, and say,
    no more [GERMAN]!
    So it's good.
    Many, many people, and I was between them.
    I was afraid to go out from the doors which
    we was locked in all the time.
    Three days I didn't went out.
    Many people had risks and they went out.
    It was over there big, big stores, nice stores.
    And they ran in there.
    They took different things.
    So let them be in good health.
    So it was over.
    And Görlitz was like a residence, such nice villas.
    Not on our place, a little further.
    I was five people was together to go back to Łódż.
    But I was such afraid, I couldn't go out.
    Again, the same story.
    I was shaking for the shadow.
    And we went in there in a nice villa.
    It was May.
    It was already the cherries, the white cherries
    was growing there, around.
    We was there--
    I walked like a baby which start walking.
    [INAUDIBLE] this way.
    The other ones also sick, not only me.
    So we sit there for five for six weeks.
    In the middle was another thing.
    We have to eat also.
    Then by a few days they started giving some bread.
    The Germans had no bread and they had such big eyes on us.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    The Germans have so much.
    So much they saved.
    They saved it.
    It was in the basements different confiture, jars
    with cherries or other things.
    Who find them, they was lucky.
    It went by two weeks, three weeks.
    We was such anxious to have some piece of meat.
    In the other villa was Russian soldiers.
    They brought foods and things.
    They had a cow.
    They killed a cow, opened up.
    I saw steam, like it was running.
    We had already--
    I remember the one time on those days when we went out.
    It was a big store.
    They brought us each day, if they
    worked, from work and to work.
    A windows like this far, very big.
    It must be a store from everything in there, food
    and other things.
    And all of a sudden came in some boys, Russians
    or what, civilians.
    And ripping out the door, breaking out the door.
    Window-- how you say--
    it was over there.
    It showed what they have to sale.
    And I jumped over there.
    [LAUGHS] No matter my legs was not too good.
    It was so many food over there, some different kind.
    Cookies and things.
    They sit me down in one place.
    They brought-- and we should bring out--
    better not.
    At this time I remember it was people took together.
    Came even a few Hungarian girls.
    They was much better situated than we are.
    They had clothing.
    The hair was growing back.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    But it came on my mind, I don't know where my wife is.
    I don't know where my kid is.
    Where we going to go?
    Leave it go.
    Better let's go home and meet our relatives.
    And they listened to me.
    So we had already some different kind--
    how you call them--
    peas and things, foods to cook and to eat raw.
    So I said, let them come back.
    The girls had brought some pails.
    Not boxes.
    Let them go back.
    Listen to me.
    And they listened to me.
    They gave back.
    We went and five boys was in there.
    Must be an SS man live there because [INAUDIBLE] a big SS
    man had--
    well, they had a nice life.
    And I was such anxious to go home.
    But then with everything, it was impossible
    because I was impossible to walk,
    like a little child which start walking.
    Not only me.
    It was very many, many like this.
    Hanna was in her camp.
    She was loaded with [? wallet. ?] She had many,
    50 [? living ?] or what.
    She said she start--
    when she had a doctor to give her some medicine,
    some help, then she lost water so much.
    Pails of water came out from her.
    And she was much thinner.
    How much did you weigh at the end of the war?
    Oh, I think maybe 35 kilos.
    When Hanna heard-- there was without the radio and things,
    all the news was even between people.
    So she heard something, you know who was alive?
    Nathan Kalmonowitz.
    The name was Kalmonowitz where everybody knows me.
    So he lives?
    Because in the ghetto they saw I was [NON-ENGLISH]..
    [NON-ENGLISH] means when a person has died,
    they had such big announcement in black in the state.
    He was such a [NON-ENGLISH] and he is living?
    Good.
    If he is alive, all right.
    Very good.
    And we stayed there five weeks.
    One Russian soldier or civilian brought little [NON-ENGLISH]
    in Polish, a newborn, like two, three weeks old.
    I said, I don't like to eat the meat,
    even I was very hungry for it.
    What kind of meat was it?
    In Polish, it's [NON-ENGLISH].
    But [INAUDIBLE].
    Came along one boy, exactly in the center, a religious boy.
    He took the [NON-ENGLISH] and cut, and throw.
    And somebody cleaned it up a little bit, the fur.
    They had meat [INAUDIBLE].
    So it went by, the time.
    It was closer to go home.
    He was such anxious [INAUDIBLE] such anxious
    to see if he has somebody.
    Myself the same way.
    And when we come home, it was a big tragedy.
    I went by my [INAUDIBLE] was living maybe a [NON-ENGLISH]
    kilometer, [NON-ENGLISH].
    And I went by.
    Did you saw somebody?
    Who else was living?
    Do you saw somebody there?
    And they say, no, nobody.
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    This mean nobody came back.
    How did you get back to Łódż?
    You walked?
    Or did you take the--
    No, no.
    By train, on the roof from the trains.
    And was [INAUDIBLE].
    You sat on the roof of the trains?
    Not staying.
    Lying.
    Lying on the roof of the train.
    Yeah, all many people, full, because the train was such
    loaded.
    Terrible.
    How long did it take you to get back on that train?
    Took, I think, two days, more than two days.
    But one accident, it was--
    I paid almost with my life.
    It was a boy.
    He was working in the same group.
    And went by a--
    how you call it--
    the train goes on the top.
    It was-- it was--
    A tunnel?
    A tunnel.
    A tunnel.
    Forgetting the word.
    And all of a sudden he sits up or what.
    And he fell, chased him down.
    He had knocked on the iron, on the bridges.
    Bridges.
    So we could do nothing.
    We couldn't hold it.
    A man has so much troubles went by, and now he's killed.
    But went by a little time.
    A nice day, late afternoon, before the house that I lived.
    He goes by!
    And I think, oh, gosh!
    Is this some shadow, or what?
    They took him to the hospital, he said.
    The train towed him away for far, and he was good wounded.
    But they took him.
    He came to Łódż, also from Łódż.
    But now, what's to do?
    I went around to the whole--
    two brothers, and two sisters.
    There was the third one from the brothers.
    But the older sister, I knew from before the war,
    like I said before, they chased her out from her apartment.
    She was living on [INAUDIBLE].
    I was working with my brother who stayed,
    helping him, building the place.
    And I helped by destroying the place.
    Took out everything was in the walls over there,
    [PERSONAL NAME] It was a hairdresser
    from the first hairdressers of the woman, and coloring.
    I don't know whether he got lost.
    But right in the beginning, two brother-in-laws, both of them
    was Moishe, the name and they sent them somewhere.
    No more we see it so in our life.
    So we got used to the tsurus.
    I went around to the whole places where they lived.
    I saw, oh, my god, what to do now?
    I'm walking around in a living cemetery.
    The life is such powerful.
    You have to watch yourself.
    I start-- I met--
    it was a very big place for paper, paper sale.
    Wholesale.
    He had what kind--
    I don't remember the state where he was,
    but at this time when he came back,
    the Germans took from him all.
    Out, out, and that's it.
    He could have the jacket on himself and walk out.
    Run out!
    Not walk out.
    Sometimes they shoot them after also, too.
    And he came back.
    It was on the [PLACE NAME] was the name some [INAUDIBLE]..
    He met the Germans there.
    They had a big wholesale paper.
    So he had the right to ask it with police.
    And he got it back.
    So I stopped in to buy some paper also.
    And I say, [NON-ENGLISH],, how is the work?
    I was living on the fifth floor.
    I met a brother-in-law, which I think
    I could thank God before, like they say in Jewish, and then
    he.
    He helped me-- my wife.
    And sent me out from the demolition place
    where I worked.
    I had taken [INAUDIBLE] full [INAUDIBLE] to catch it.
    He helped me at this time.
    And when he saw me, I came to watch,
    he opened up such his arms.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    Each one said the same.
    Each one was our own world.
    Come with me.
    I have a room.
    Come to me, and you will stay together.
    Here on the fifth floor of [PLACE NAME got a room,
    but it was rotten.
    Rain come in.
    Terrible.
    But I didn't look at this.
    And that's it.
    He took later on--
    and a short time was it.
    He took a nice apartment for two rooms or three.
    And this one was [INAUDIBLE].
    This one is not forever.
    Like one [INAUDIBLE].
    I will go by and that's it.
    When I went in, when I went by to pay the rent,
    she said to me, oh, now you come again.
    You're paying the rent.
    Then you are going to go to [PLACE NAME]??
    [PLACE NAME] is Germany.
    What you say?
    I like to stay.
    I like to straight out my back a little bit, like they say.
    But I had my thing in mind to meet somebody from our people.
    And so I sit there a few months, not too
    many months, maybe three, four months.
    I made money also too.
    I started to sell good papers.
    It could be a good business also.
    But even to make how much money I would like
    is no place to stay there.
    Like cemetery.
    And we starting to prepare.
    I met Hanna also, in the meantime.
    We came to the organization.
    It was one from different [NON-ENGLISH] it was named.
    They brought other people to Germany, the --
    I was very friendly with him.
    I helped out many people because we recognized each other
    from sometimes.
    I had helped before a group, maybe 10 or more people,
    to go to Germany for not much money.
    This costs money.
    This world, they'd like to make money, to have something of it.
    But later on, I think by three, four months,
    I saw it was no way to stay here, even to make money.
    You have nothing.
    So I start packing, like they say, packing the suitcases.
    I don't have nothing suitcases to pack either,
    but in the meantime I bought dressing, things, clothing.
    A little [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] also.
    I took myself on the way to go.
    And Hanna also.
    We went together to Germany.
    Again in Germany, it was another big [NON-ENGLISH]..
    They sit us in barracks, three barracks.
    Where was this?
    This was in Bad Reichenhall was the name.
    And over there, when we looked out the window
    from the barrack, we saw the hills, very big hills.
    Hitler had conferences there.
    [INAUDIBLE] was walking very high, where the steps would be,
    let's say.
    And he sit there, and in Bad Reichenhall
    had the conference over there with the other one.
    Who was it?
    I forgot the name.
    So over there--
    I would like to go further right away, not to sit in Germany,
    which is also a place which is [? burning like ?]
    [? hot coal. ?] But by not willing,
    we was in Germany four or five years, I think.
    In that same place?
    No, we went later to Bergen-Belsen.
    That was the name.
    Hanna was from Bergen-Belsen.
    Was came in and there are some not very good thing.
    When Hanna came to Łódż, they take her papers and give
    to somebody else to go to Israel.
    So they left.
    And she said, what's the difference?
    Give me now my card.
    How shouldn't be, each one had the right to go where he likes.
    It was not so easy yet all the time
    for us to make nice, little tsurus also.
    So they gave us--
    they find out the papers they gave her.
    But there is nothing to do.
    She is not in the picture.
    They found some cards for her brother and her sister.
    It was the name-- it was on the name--
    what was the name?
    Ai, yai, yai.
    But her brother and her sister--
    fill the name and in the meantime, I will remember also.
    I can't remind the name, how it was.
    But her brother and her sister, and was another name.
    In the meantime was born our son.
    This was another name.
    I said, if I am living here, if I am living now, went by this,
    everything should be my son in another name, I don't want it.
    This was not in Birkenau This was further up
    in Bergen-Belsen.
    Over there was like a [NON-ENGLISH],, was it.
    I can't remember it, but I will [INAUDIBLE]..
    So you have these two papers.
    And I am in the papers older, and Hanna also older.
    But this makes no difference.
    But to change my son's name--
    now, if I having him, let him live.
    It's their life.
    So somebody changed me up.
    But it was not right.
    I should do it more formal.
    But you can do nothing.
    The whole life was unformal over there.
    What was the name?
    Sort of forget.
    And went by times.
    Took over four years, almost five years.
    And it was many anti-Semitic things also.
    One time, they look for the butchers.
    Each one would like to get up to be a butcher at this time.
    Farmers-- Jews was not so many farmers.
    To do this way, this Jews will not come to America.
    Most America [INAUDIBLE].
    It was people which went to Israel, also.
    And they did not worth it.
    Once, after many, many of the troubles which they gave,
    came a commission from America to look over
    what's going on there, what helped at this time.
    After this, they gave papers.
    And we went at this time--
    I was [? interested ?] to Israel.
    But Hanna, all of a sudden--
    was Hanna's brother.
    He has died three years ago.
    He was wealthy.
    He bought some different things for the kitchen.
    I should buy a machine to do some paper things also,
    to make--
    but a little later on, all of a sudden, in the morning,
    she wakes up and say, Nathan, I had a dream.
    I'm not going to Israel.
    My father holding my hands.
    And he asks, where are you going?
    You sick?
    And she was sick.
    Me too, the same.
    My little brother was.
    So she had this dream, and she say is not going.
    If you like to, we will be in touch.
    I hope in your character.
    You like to go, go.
    I will not be against.
    But I am not going.
    As she saw, I see how it goes.
    I can't force it.
    So we registered to America.
    To be registered to America, it was a shame, really.
    It was over there I heard [INAUDIBLE]
    was the name, a big macher in the organization.
    And he went to America, also.
    He came to me.
    He liked it, gave me a good word.
    Nathan, don't think bad.
    In a little while, you will be able to go also where you like.
    So America's changed.
    It's not selling the things.
    He put nice money in this.
    So now we can do nothing.
    It sold for very less money, very much less money
    how it was the cost.
    So we're going to America, not to Israel.
    It was a song for all the--
    I'm going through America to Israel.
    And I was ashamed to sing with the same thing.
    I said, what can I do?
    The time, the most person which can help--
    I said to myself, I going to America,
    but I'm not forgetting Israel.
    And how it was.
    I have nothing against America.
    We built up our life in America, built up
    two children that high-educated, so I have nothing against.
    And we went to Israel.
    When did you come to America?
    I was in America 1950.
    1950.
    And where did you live in America?
    Oh, the beginning was also very hard, like beginners.
    They said the houses was with a cheap roof, the pitched roofs.
    The roofs.
    I was sitting at the table.
    I stood up.
    I hit my head.
    What city was this in?
    In Scranton.
    Pennsylvania.
    Scranton, Pennsylvania, yes.
    And then where did you go after that?
    So we was there a few weeks.
    We met a family.
    Weiss was their name, and he was a grocery man.
    So my children called him feta Moishe uncle.
    Uncle Moishe He brought us food.
    We had already--
    Hanna went to work before me even.
    Was some money, which we bought everything.
    The children shouldn't have a hard life.
    We tried the best.
    When was your second child born?
    Five years later.
    She is younger five years, the darling.
    And what are you children's--
    And she was born-- what?
    What are your children's names?
    The children is Max.
    [NON-ENGLISH] is the name from my father.
    He's calling Max in America.
    And the daughter is Malka Leah.
    Is also a very short making.
    Malka Leah, this is two grandmothers,
    Hanna's mother's and my mother.
    Her mother died when she was three years old.
    She didn't recognize-- but she was very good.
    She sold in the ghetto, later on, a piece of bread
    to buy for her a pair of shoes, when she was the lost weight,
    to dead, not to go barefoot.
    She did a lot.
    And I could not decide what to do.
    I said, you know what, I will go to the rabbi.
    I will ask.
    I came in to the rabbi.
    Was a very smart [INAUDIBLE].
    He was 50 years in Scranton rabbi.
    What was his name?
    Rabbi Guterman.
    So I said I will go to Rabbi Guterman and ask what to do.
    I came in, and I told him, Rabbi Guterman-- because this
    was over a little time.
    In the meantime, we came in to the shul, to the synagogue.
    He knew me.
    So-and-so, my wife [INAUDIBLE].
    What to do?
    My wife was two years her mother died,
    and she has a very good stepmother.
    But she didn't recognize the stepmother.
    He said, no question.
    She is the mother.
    She should be both names.
    I told him, I have to give Malka Leah.
    Malka and Leah.
    Malka is Hanna's names, and Leah is my mother's name.
    Go ahead and [NON-ENGLISH].
    Good luck, he said.
    And give her the name Malka Leah.
    So I listened to him.
    And Hanna listened also.
    She understood how it is.
    In Scranton, we start a little better living.
    Hanna said it's enough sitting under the third floor,
    on the pitched roofs with the things.
    We rented a apartment not far from there,
    but it was in a alley.
    It was not people, friends for--
    Max was already a growed-up boy.
    It was not friends for him.
    Because I saw he walks around with different kind things.
    It was not comfortable.
    So we rented the apartment.
    Not so high class, but we feel we're starting to grow,
    thanks God.
    And thanks America, too.
    We had the apartment.
    We sit there more comfortable, like it was there.
    And the feta Moishe like the children calling him,
    brought all this food each week to the place.
    It was also [INAUDIBLE].
    Went by a little time.
    We changed another one apartment.
    What was the name?
    I can't remember.
    Were you working by then?
    Yes.
    I went into work, in sewing operator I started.
    I don't know.
    Today I wouldn't be able to do it because my eyes is very bad.
    And Hanna, same thing.
    And I made, later on-- this was in another factory,
    the beginning.
    I went into the machine [NON-ENGLISH]..
    It was electric machines.
    Was one man, foreign, it was very delicate.
    And he gave me some rag to try the machine.
    I put then my foot on the pedal.
    And [HUMMING] run away.
    Once I stopped the machine with one times,
    I say, if it's possible to stop and to start so easy,
    so I will find my way.
    Because I did many things, later on many
    works very more complicated like this.
    And I cut the machine, the way how to work.
    I saw I can work slower, faster, and so on.
    Hanna has the same trouble by her.
    But one was over there from the management.
    He was a cut.
    A cut, really.
    Hanna has also something like this in her place.
    But went by this also.
    Took a little time to make it short.
    We was sitting in a nicer apartment.
    What was the name from the street?
    I don't remember.
    Nice, passable nice apartment.
    Later on, the got the work on.
    The work was going all right.
    I made nice dollar later on, a little more.
    Hanna, same thing.
    So we started-- because we wasn't used to pay rent.
    You'd like a drink?
    So we start to think.
    We never was used to pay rent.
    And Hanna said, we have to do everything to work hard,
    to put together a lot of dollar to buy some own place.
    Why not?
    So we bought a house on Vine Street.
    It was very close to the park.
    A nice place.
    The people around, I remember in the shul,
    the hazan He isn't alive anymore.
    I say, oh, Shabbas Came to America,
    as he saw on the paper.
    A house, a big house, three stories
    and a little in the back.
    So I knew the true.
    This is a mortgage.
    We have to work very hard.
    If the mortgage will be not paid,
    it's like losing everything.
    But things got-- was everything right.
    We worked.
    Hanna started working a little.
    She made a nice dollar, and me the same thing.
    So we went, made the step to buy this house.
    We was in this house.
    But sickness came after also, to me and Hanna,
    because we went by so much.
    It's very hard just to cover up this, but the best way.
    You were talking about your life in Scranton.
    Yeah.
    It's like the-- so it feel like we went to work.
    It was working and got used to it.
    The apartment was very decent.
    And Hanna she has a very good taste.
    She made nice places.
    So she furnished a few times.
    One time, one place, then we moved
    to further, which will come up.
    And she furnished up such nice places, really tasteful.
    In the meantime was born the daughter also five years later
    was it.
    She was born in Scranton.
    So now we have got a son and a daughter.
    God bless them.
    We had a little trouble with sickness.
    Hanna was sick, and sick, and working hard.
    She never missed a day of work.
    But what we can do?
    Our way was this.
    We had to go, no other choice.
    When was it?
    In 19-- in Scranton we had lived five years.
    I took sick.
    I took sick in Scranton.
    This, over there is very--
    how's that?
    How do you say it?
    Weather?
    Weather, it was very bad--
    rains and wet.
    And I was sick.
    And this was, for me, like-- like poison.
    We had a doctor from--
    a German Jew.
    He said once, we were sitting, me and Hanna.
    I said a Saturday for hours, not visit, for talking with him.
    He said, you know what?
    I will tell you, Hanna I reading a magazine.
    I'm not finished with him, a magazine.
    I read about the California.
    Over there would be the best way.
    And Hanna say, Dr. Bronstein, you know, our--
    but we haven't money.
    How I can go?
    I don't like to go in with the children in a black section.
    So he say, you know what, Hanna Take--
    change the mind.
    Go to Tucson, Arizona.
    This was such a place, healed me--
    healed me up.
    I was there--
    I was there twelve months I was coughing.
    The wall were shaking.
    I have emphysema and [INAUDIBLE]..
    Everything was-- and Hanna works like horse.
    Go there.
    I have-- I have a friend that's a little cousin or so.
    He was in same way like you, like Nate
    And they took him on stretchers to the airplane,
    to go to Scranton-- to Tucson, Arizona.
    And I hope this will be the place for you.
    We went into Scranton, go up to Scranton.
    It's a nice place, very dry.
    When we came to Israel I was a lot same thing,
    like in Scranton.
    How long did you stay in Tucson?
    In Tuscon we was 13, 14 years, I think.
    And then you moved to--
    To Tucson, Arizona-- from Scranton.
    No, no.
    And then after Tucson, you moved--
    After Scranton.
    Right.
    Yeah.
    We went to-- in Scranton we was not such long.
    But in Tuscon we was some 13 years, something like this.
    And then where did you move to?
    To Israel-- to Tuscon, I mean--
    Tucson, Arizona.
    In Tuscon we was like 13, 14 years.
    Mine sickness is gone.
    I stopped coughing.
    People was wondering without I didn't took
    any prescriptions, nothing.
    Each one will say, oh, when you came,
    we went who knows if you're going to be alive.
    But took two, three months, and everything is changed.
    I'm returning the [? hand ?] in that--
    it was such good, the climate for me--
    wonderful.
    So we were sitting in Tuscon.
    In Tucson was no work, very, very bad.
    Hanna was the supporter.
    She works for the life for us.
    And I have to look for something.
    What we should do?
    We looked over there.
    Was students business, was many students in the town,
    in Tucson.
    So we would look to buy some little houses,
    to make a living this way.
    So we stop in on this and bought a nice little house,
    and another one like this.
    You can buy there with mortgage, everything with mortgages.
    And I start working on them.
    I cut in--
    I am a little handy, but I went in such with power a drill.
    Everything I did myself.
    Hanna claims to me why I did it this way.
    And I had not so much tools.
    She said, at least we will buy you electric tools.
    Right, she's right on this part.
    When we are sitting in Tuscon, we
    were sitting 13 or 14 years to Israel.
    And I meant each day to make this change again for the--
    to stay in a place at least.
    I will be in Israel I will be [? lucky. ?] Hanna is
    very not far from Israel also.
    She loved Israel.
    It was an organization.
    But to run an again with the--
    to be like without of money and things, it's too bad.
    And I understood her.
    So we start settling in in Tuscon.
    We buyed one little house, another one.
    And I was-- Hanna's more the [INAUDIBLE]..
    She said she has to make claims why
    I stopped her Malka stopped.
    She say and Dad did not listen to Mom
    because the mortgages will eat us up,
    and then we lose everything.
    Hanna said, this was very close before leaving to Israel.
    She's-- in a year or two, she said, let's buy a nice house,
    and we're going to sell this.
    In Tuscon we lived in a nice house also,
    was a Spanish style.
    We-- let's-- we will sell this or rent this.
    But was my experience, we starting in the--
    in 1969 was it, we start to go the first time
    to- the first time to Israel.
    We had the-- we had a good [INAUDIBLE],, they say,
    from the Germans.
    So we collect some--
    Reparations?
    Reparations, some $6,000.
    We received the money very hard way.
    Hanna waited 19 years for it.
    And I waited 20.
    When this came to me, they said they found out
    I have no [? stash. ?] I have no year, a full year [INAUDIBLE]..
    And this puts me away.
    And I was such disgusted.
    My God, we went by so much in the concentration camps.
    We lost our health there.
    And now to be out of it?
    We did everything.
    They sent me to a doctor in college, and he helped me out.
    Was the 20th year I received my money, and Hanna hers--
    she for 19 years.
    She said, we're having $6,000.
    Now we make our trip to Israel.
    And I was such--
    is she a angel?
    Is she a angel or what.
    She's working so hard.
    And we say now to make a trip, this $6,000 was for us.
    From this we have to start building.
    I Everything from new.
    We had the houses, but the houses wasn't ours.
    When you're having a mortgage on a house, you can do nothing.
    And in Scranton was our place.
    And this one was our place.
    The students-- every time we met a student,
    it's such a angel or what?
    [? Delicate ?] people, but very far from it.
    Was different kinds-- different kind things
    with the students, so many fights.
    They came in, and they should stay nine months.
    We knew nine months.
    Then went in to rent.
    And when we left, we start going to Israel,
    was changed, the whole picture.
    They took in three, four people to it.
    And this costs money--
    water and things, and breaking.
    They were breaking so much.
    We lost in 1969, when we went to Israel the first time,
    for the--
    lady the real estate man.
    And she said, do you know what?
    I will take care on your place.
    I will watch it.
    And everything will be fine.
    We went for three months, 1969, a trip.
    When we came back, was very bad picture.
    They had break down these furnitures.
    They break down the room.
    Is not very hard to bring into the story, but going by,
    and Hanna said, what's the matter with you.
    You went-- it was here.
    You promised to watch.
    I was watching them.
    They was very fine to say, sometimes
    I drink a beer with them.
    It was very bad, very bad situation.
    When in '69, when he went to Israel, left, was the story,
    was we had again, I think, I have
    to fight with the students.
    The speech was bad, my English.
    I couldn't.
    But somehow, when we came to Israel,
    we was very lucky, Hanna me and Hanna.
    We liked liked Israel very much.
    I don't know, it took not long time.
    And I sat in Be'er Sheva.
    I came.
    We came.
    He went in in a place, Be'er Sheva.
    And Be'er Sheva is also a little bit wet, the outside.
    I was, I remember, we rented a place, a room, not a big place.
    And I was at the doctor.
    And the doctor, she asked where to go, a place, my mom
    has-- my husband emphysema and things like this.
    Where to go?
    He's look [INAUDIBLE] look.
    Look here, comes in our doctor from Poland.
    And she will answer you this question.
    And she went to this doctor.
    And she told her her story for the first--
    I'm so and so.
    I went by this everything.
    She say, you know what, don't think too much.
    And here is also the climate not too good.
    You go 45 kilometers, 40 kilometers from here
    is a named Arad, a little town.
    Go there, and for sure he will be healed.
    We took the suitcases and everything.
    We went again, there.
    So we went in in Arad, a little town, a new town.
    They fought, they had the 20 years-- some--
    what now will be 23 years, the town started.
    But we came and got in there.
    Arad was the same place like Tuscon, dry, no-- no--
    no this-- how do you say?
    The wet, what is it?
    Moisture.
    Moisture-- no moisture.
    It was good.
    Arad was better than even than Tucson, Arizona.
    We start over there.
    We looked around, rented a place to go in, but not
    for a long time.
    We both lay down.
    We bought a apartment.
    And everything was nice, smooth.
    Hanna worked and the work was too bad for the little town.
    She start sewing, was only one factory in the--
    from-- they're going to make now this [INAUDIBLE],, try to make.
    They worked for $0.50 an hour.
    And Hanna he handled better.
    He said, look, I give you $1, then $1.25.
    So it was a--
    was not a bad choice because the city was standing on his place.
    Business -- not --
    I can't this go--
    the speech is no good.
    So I worked in our business from Tuscon.
    I worked in the houses.
    The houses was troubles.
    But we lived with them.
    So it was a little money we maked.
    Was very bad [INAUDIBLE] with the students.
    Then we went to the Arad He said, no more work.
    You worked enough.
    Sit down and relax.
    And [INAUDIBLE] myself also.
    And Arad was also place to buy a house.
    But over there, we should recognize the place.
    And we-- get a
    Climatized.
    --climatized, then we will see what to do.
    So three months, we went by, here
    and around with the children, to give them the satisfaction.
    We was in different places.
    It was very good.
    In the meantime, they said--
    Malka said she will go.
    She will go to--
    she will be in Israel, to the college.
    Max start running around, having different kind places.
    And so, but Malka, we have to watch.
    I go different story.
    She said she likes to be in college.
    Hanna said, in college?
    If in college, we have to live close to Haifa.
    Haifa is the college.
    So we said in-- in--
    what was the name?
    I've forgotten the names.
    We said in-- in Arad.
    But over there, Hanna said, we've got to buy a house.
    We bought a house for Malka.
    It was a lot.
    We bought a lot.
    And the builder said what he will do.
    We made a contract.
    People was [? working ?] at least too.
    And they had-- we bought a house a lot
    And three-story house should be built up.
    But-- and that's good.
    But in the meantime, Max, he said, why should she
    have a house and me not?
    You like to live, we said to him, also,
    you like to go to college in Israel?
    You'd like to stay in Israel.
    We bought a house.
    So one for them and one for [INAUDIBLE]..
    Malka's house has to be finished, up.
    Has to take a year to build up.
    But Max's, we bought a house finished, ready.
    But both of them, they changed their mind.
    When Malka came to [INAUDIBLE],, she went in a kibbutz.
    And she lived with them.
    She was satisfied.
    But came to a little farther, then back to college,
    about college, she said, yes, I will do.
    Came a principal in--
    where was it?
    Also in Arad, when we came back.
    And she came in the vacation time visit,
    and we came to [INAUDIBLE] Malka, how she is.
    And she was very good.
    She was-- Malka was in college, and free.
    It doesn't cost us any money in America,
    because she has scholarships.
    Max is another question.
    He changed his mind also.
    And Malka, when should come to college, I went with Malka to--
    where was it?
    To Haifa.
    And came the principal special for her and start talk to her.
    She was 17 years old.
    And she was [INAUDIBLE] house, you know?
    And she, when it came to serious question,
    she said, no, I changed my mind.
    I said to, in Hebrew, how much I can talk,
    how many I-- how much I can talk on this to him.
    I said, look, sir, we came to her.
    We spent in-- and we thinking-- and we thinking about Malka
    to be in Israel.
    I should have those, and those, those, like they say.
    And she said, no.
    We promise her, look Malka.
    If we put in $1,000 in the bank for you, in your name,
    and if you feel too bad, you came back home.
    But we had to go home because the houses was alone.
    When we came back, we met very bad place.
    And she said, no.
    She has to change.
    She changed her mind.
    She can't-- she liked- doesn't like to stay in Israel.
    Nope.
    I can't [INAUDIBLE].
    We looked up this, with the school.
    And the time went by, three months, almost finished.
    And she doesn't like to stay in Israel.
    So we can't force her.
    She went home to us-- with us together.
    We had to run with the car with her first,
    because the school was--
    we were on the way.
    And tomorrow is starting school.
    And she has to be there.
    So we have to [INAUDIBLE] now to this situation.
    We came back from Israel, to Arad--
    from Arad, yes, to Tuscon.
    And she went to school.
    She started working.
    She was a very good student.
    She was a very good student.
    She made fine in school.
    She has, all the time, scholarships.
    Makes it look very fun.
    And she looked-- when we came in in Arad--
    in Tuscon, we made her a room.
    And 3 o'clock in the morning, she was on the books.
    We said, look, Malka, you're going to lose everything.
    And [INAUDIBLE] like to be.
    And here you stay not to sleep, it's too bad.
    But she didn't look.
    She learned very, very, very good, more than good.
    So she-- we came back from Arad--
    from Arad, yes.
    I'm mixing up Arad, Israel there.
    We came back, and Malka went into the school,
    was the last time.
    Places was broken and things.
    But we had now Israel in mind.
    And we have to watch for Malka too.
    She is a girl.
    So she went to school.
    Everything goes fine.
    She learned good.
    The houses, I worked on them.
    And Hanna started working for [INAUDIBLE],,
    but now I didn't care too much.
    Because this is a--
    I think was when [INAUDIBLE] fiddle with the oven
    sometimes, because I feel we, our place is in Israel.
    So did you move back to Israel?
    Later on.
    When was that?
    In 19-- first we had to settle Malka, because she's a girl.
    We have to watch her.
    In Tuscon, we had new friends and things in the synagogue.
    But Malka-- [INAUDIBLE].
    And now came a question where to make the marriage,
    to marry her.
    The boy was in Israel also.
    Two times she paid for it.
    And now is marriage question.
    So went by.
    We settled out Malka's--
    Hanna worked very hard to get through.
    But she did everything.
    We had many, many trouble with the tenants, things.
    And we bought Malka a house too in Tuscon--
    in Tuscon, yes.
    And now she going to go.
    And we have to watch this house.
    She took the money, God bless her.
    And the house, we paid everything.
    [INAUDIBLE] you know, [INAUDIBLE] for a house,
    it's happen.
    But she didn't look at this, the main thing
    now, to settle Malka.
    Then we'll see with us.
    Malka is-- Max is so.
    He's a boy.
    We can't force him.
    He had wild things, you know, only fun, fun, fun.
    But Malka was, she came the time she had married.
    They send her over the--
    in beginning time, something--
    days.
    Days.
    She has to be back on the-- on the--
    on the job, because the manager.
    Hanna has a good, a good ideas.
    She should start in social working.
    And she worked for it.
    And she came home crying because she came home and drunken
    thing, drunken people, and how it's happened.
    I see oh, i don't know he [? remarried. ?]
    So now Hanna told her, you know what.
    You can't work at the social working?
    Good.
    And she said, what should I do?
    Hannah said-- Hanna said--
    so when we came back to Arad, we tried to--
    to Tuscon, I mean--
    it was very much work to do, that break down the students,
    you now.
    But the main thing is now Malka to settle.
    She's-- they sent a letter to be in a place for the job.
    Because this-- how you say it?
    The main, the manager, the top manager--
    oh, really, I forgot.
    Well, anyway, continue.
    So she went back.
    She got the letter, and then what happened?
    And here some-- a few days only to go
    on the job, the professor.
    So the professor gave her a fine job.
    Until now where she is.
    She is-- she's a fine job.
    Malka went in now in big steps.
    Malka is a high official now even.
    Then we made a nice wedding.
    Then today, in two, three days, they gave her free honeymoon.
    Then she left for the job.
    We bought her a nice car.
    And she left on the way.
    Now Malka is on the job.
    And she starts working.
    She had a little trouble from her manager there.
    But it's over.
    And we have now to go to Israel.
    We tried the best.
    She should be settled.
    And they settled.
    Is a very [INAUDIBLE] very nice.
    Now comes-- I remember, she left.
    I went to them.
    And now--
    Then you went back to Israel.
    Back to Israel.
    Yes.
    And where did you settle, back in Arad?
    Back in Arad, sure.
    We came into our home in Arad.
    Closed up, and then we opened up.
    And that's it.
    And how long did you live in Arad?
    In Arad, we lived 21 year.
    Uh-huh.
    Yeah.
    And then when-- where--
    and then you came back to the United States.
    Then this happened to me, operations and things.
    I had took sick.
    I had a bypass.
    And this brought me back to America.
    When did you come back to the United States?
    In 19-- when was it, in '70--
    '70?
    Hanna speaking in background
    So you came back in 1989?
    No.
    No.
    '89, we was still--
    yes.
    Yes.
    Right.
    And where did you settle in 1989?
    We went in a place.
    Where we came?
    So now we're back in the States.
    About my father, I'd like to add something there.
    It's many years back.
    It was in 1940.
    My father was a-- we knew him with this nice, clear beard
    for all the years, all the time.
    All of a sudden he goes down.
    This was 1940, a day, stood the SS mens.
    They cause-- we had so much trouble.
    You know, my father went down and takes a few,
    a half an hour or so.
    He came back without a beard.
    They cut-- this SS mens, they stood with scissors and knives.
    They cut the beards, like-- like--
    like a piece of what.
    But my father, they handled good.
    They said [NON-ENGLISH] Beard, clear, [NON-ENGLISH],,
    it's over.
    [INAUDIBLE] went to a barber.
    And the barber took off that that whole beard, like shaved.
    A nice beard like Jews used to have--
    he came in in the home, I can tell you,
    we went by so much trouble.
    And we didn't know even how much trouble comes.
    This was 94 I'm talking.
    Brother in law, he is not-- was not yet
    a Hasidic man or [INAUDIBLE].
    But he saw my father, he start crying.
    He start crying [INAUDIBLE].
    Looked at the father really, what's happened to you?
    Well, nothing to do.
    Good they didn't cut the throat.
    That was later on.
    Let's talk a little bit today, now, about your experiences.
    How do you feel about being Jewish?
    I feel very good to be a Jew, having now enough trouble.
    I have six years concentration camp because I am a Jew.
    And I have to watch it, and watch it very carefully.
    I know my father and mother worked on me.
    I have had many times compliments.
    Now, because I remember so much about the home,
    I will never change it.
    I would never change it.
    This is, to me, too, too expensive, like as they say.
    And people honoring me, really because I now,
    we're having here a synagogue.
    It's very big difference than the [INAUDIBLE] sometimes.
    But I get you be used to it, you know.
    But me, it bothers me a lot.
    Hanna say, eh, you are a such--
    how do you say--
    not modern.
    So what can I do?
    I watching this.
    I'm watching--
    I remember very well, like my father worked on me
    and gave me knowledge, gave me knowledge.
    I have same thing like college.
    [INAUDIBLE] I have college in Jewish.
    Have you ever talked about your war experiences before?
    No, to-- to--
    how do you say?
    No, I didn't give-- on the tapes.
    I sent a [INAUDIBLE] when I can write
    If I would be able to write, I would be-- write a nice book,
    you know, a big book, an interesting book.
    But what can I do right now?
    I can go into the synagogue, you know.
    And I can pray.
    This is I pray in memory, yes.
    And I have again the same thing.
    My father learned me, to teach me.
    Gave me lots of knowledge in Jewish, and I'm keeping it.
    But to look in the book, which we're [? davening ?]
    now here is--
    I can't.
    I can't write.
    I can't read.
    I'd like to know, you know, that in Israel now,
    I would like to know what's going on there.
    I can't read a [INAUDIBLE].
    What can I do?
    How do you-- do you still receive--
    [PHONE RINGS] do you still receive war reparations?
    Yeah.
    And how do you feel about receiving reparations?
    Look, they can never repay it.
    Reparation-- they can never reparate us.
    They can fill out.
    It doesn't-- and pay money and red carpets They never would
    pay back.
    How can I forget [SOBBING] my brothers and sisters?
    Everybody is some place.
    Only [INAUDIBLE] on my hand [INAUDIBLE]..
    How I can forget something with this murder.
    I don't wheres she is.
    It just didn't-- [INAUDIBLE].
    I had the good luck.
    I don't know.
    Somebody nominate me to stay here
    and to [INAUDIBLE] to that.
    [SOBBING] How can I forget something like this?
    Is there anything else that you would
    like to share that we haven't talked about,
    anything you'd like to say.
    I [? want to ?] tell you more about it.
    I'm so nervous.
    I start-- I start thinking about,
    you know-- let me end it now.
    I am living in it.
    I see those five brothers and sisters, and they are alive.
    It was missing, and here I am alone.
    And I got [INAUDIBLE] and the children.
    That's it.
    So how is it possible to forget something like this.
    I'm sitting in the synagogue, and I can't read.
    I can't write.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    It's [INAUDIBLE].
    And I say it all the time, you know.
    I say, you are--
    you are old-fashioned.
    You're old-fashioned.
    All things, not about parents, but you can't, davening is not
    nice, you know.
    I was used to other thing.
    America is, ah, the davening is such-- such--
    like-- like-- [INAUDIBLE],, you know.
    You take a sentence, another take a sentence and read.
    And I can't get used to that.
    I can't get used to it.
    I would like to be-- believe it.
    I have nothing against America.
    [INAUDIBLE] my wife and growed up two children, high educated,
    and making a good living.
    But I would like to be in Israel, to be honest.
    Hanna not so.
    She likes-- she loves Israel very much,
    but she could complaining on me.
    Eh, you're old-fashioned.
    You stay so long in the--
    old things only.
    I can't give up.
    I can't give up, really, to be honest.
    [? America ?] [? is ?] America, no--
    I did in America many works, and many
    works I tried to remember it.
    I can't forget.
    I pulled up, I came on to America with nothing.
    And now I am built up.
    I had houses.
    People have such-- it was, obviously, jealous.
    So you just came to America.
    He has a lot of houses and things.
    And [INAUDIBLE].
    Fine.
    Worked on it very hard, and Hanna too.
    Hanna worked so much, and she would be working yet now even,
    in sickness and sickness, so much troubles and sicknesses.
    Anything that we've left out, that you want to include?
    So, as I mentioned to you, the last--
    before finishing the last tape, this was in Auschwitz.
    I had a friend.
    He was-- they took him for a special job.
    On a Sunday was it.
    And we had-- from time to time, they
    give a half a mark, deutschmark in papers, or a mark even.
    And for this, they came up once, they had beer.
    Once they say it's bread.
    OK, was a very big [NON-ENGLISH],,
    a piece of bread.
    So I took the cards.
    I said, with my friend, which I was so close with him from the
    get out.
    I told him, look I--
    here, if they will give something,
    I can save it for you.
    It was this way.
    And I went to the spread for the-- to line to stay.
    And I received for me a piece of bread.
    And then, I had to look [INAUDIBLE]..
    Then they gave a little--
    how do you call it-- such a frozen vegetable.
    And I was such a lucky with this,
    to have bread, I stood in the line, was behind a man, a boy,
    I don't know who he is.
    I not wishing him to be paid for this.
    And he stealed out both pieces of bread.
    It was maybe a--
    each piece has a 150 gram or so.
    What's happening, he took me out the bread.
    So I said to myself, now is finished my friendship
    with this man.
    He will come back.
    Maybe I will say him, look, [INAUDIBLE] also this way.
    But he come back.
    He didn't said nothing I told him,
    look I have a very bad experience.
    Here I have the vegetable.
    But the bread, somebody stealed out [? mice, ?]
    which I'm paying very much of it.
    A piece of bread was more than a diamond now.
    He didn't said nothing.
    He stealed me out.
    He meant I ate it up and then made up a story like this.
    So he did-- he turned his back, how they say--
    [INAUDIBLE] finished.
    But I told him one thing.
    Look, maybe I will do--
    act the same way like you're doing.
    But no matter how I going to say to you
    or so, you can't believe now a piece of bread
    is very, very big, more than a diamond.
    Maybe will come a day when we freed.
    This way, at this time, I will tell you the whole truth,
    how it it, like now.
    He didn't said nothing.
    He took another friend for.
    After the war-- I'll make it short.
    After the war was finished, the war, come that lucky day,
    three days was up.
    The change
    I was afraid to go out even.
    On the fourth day, they came out,
    and he said, let's go now a biergarten.
    We take a beer.
    We went in the biergarten.
    We had some piece of bread at this time.
    But there, the Germans was, at this point,
    not to good with bread.
    We were sitting such in a barrack, a [? light ?] room.
    And we are drinking beer.
    And I told him, look, landsman Harry was his name.
    His name-- he live in Tel Aviv I think.
    Now, I can do--
    now he will believe it, not like this was [INAUDIBLE]..
    I can tell my word, I didn't taste it.
    Your bread [INAUDIBLE] was, both of them stealed me out
    of the pocket, of the-- how do you say--
    pocket, yes.
    He start crying.
    He said, do you remember [PERSONAL NAME] when they came
    and [INAUDIBLE] German, after the war, we wrote the story.
    He was crying on it.
    But I was glad.
    I didn't touch his bread.
    And this was-- he went by the whole time, till the end.
    But he was from before, so [NON-ENGLISH],,
    like they say in Yiddish.
    So it's OK.
    But I had another bad experience with bread.
    And this time I could be killed, because a Jew who
    steals something from the Jew will kill him on the place,
    without further questions.
    And at this time was very tight.
    It went such a big transport.
    Half a block was empty.
    But that didn't put us there to lay on the floor.
    Came into German, he say, the kapo--
    [NON-ENGLISH] One and the other was squeezed in.
    And somewhere in the middle of the night, I could move.
    I stretched my arms.
    And I feel the tip.
    The tip is the wooden shoes he had behind the head,
    not to be stolen.
    If that is stolen, [INAUDIBLE].
    And came in in my hand.
    He had a piece of bread, maybe an ounce, maybe not.
    My heart start shaking like I would find a very big diamond.
    I wouldn't be such satisfied today.
    But I said to myself, no, this is his life.
    I will not take this piece of bad.
    And stuffed back the-- given back
    to the-- to put in the shoe.
    He woke up.
    You eat!
    In the Hungarian, they're saying it.
    You ate my bread!
    My bread!
    And I was such--
    here a meter, two meters, two meters maybe,
    was those murderer, the robbers, that they was sleeping there
    in one place.
    [INAUDIBLE] Everything is comfortable.
    And when he comes in, was such thing,
    like somebody made some noise in the middle
    of the night in the darkness.
    He came with a pail of water, [? iron ?] and start
    making in the darkness.
    But I begged him, look.
    I could turn over, maybe move a little bit from your--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And you wouldn't know who I was because the darkness was
    to touch it.
    Hardly I quiet him down.
    But if I would be otherwise I ate it up,
    and he's crying about, the German came in--
    I saw a fellow like this.
    They killed him.
    They shoot it.
    And the shoot it was such [INAUDIBLE]..
    They had a place with which they, say, from pigs they had.
    A piece was a big place, and they were--
    and was about many pigs there.
    They went to the other places, from Polish [NON-ENGLISH]..
    But there was many, many hundred percent of [INAUDIBLE]..
    Instead they brought in the barrels with the soup.
    So we-- so we can feel it from far away.
    And we start running.
    Many people runs over there to catch a dish of soup.
    You had, each one with the soup.
    Everything was on yourself, at this time.
    And he cames in-- cames by a German, so he said Halt.
    And he caught two.
    Was many of them, catch them everywhere together.
    He caught two of them and start bringing them over
    to the place where the garbage is--
    a deep hole, garbage.
    He put them down, spaced.
    One of was a tall man or a small one.
    And he starts shooting.
    It's the trigger.
    I don't know.
    It's a [? international ?] law of murder.
    Going to be hanged or shot if a string cracked.
    He fall down, so they let him alive.
    But he fixed it, the revolver.
    He shoot a man in the head, and he's lying a lot.
    Right after this, he goes to the other one.
    The other one doesn't know if he's
    been killed if [INAUDIBLE].
    [NON-ENGLISH]
    This was such a-- like--
    like this happenings, very very bad But with the piece
    of bread, which I did not ate it up, up to date.
    I'm very glad.
    If I had the guts not to take this piece of bread.
    I mean to eat, this is his life.
    If I eat it up, it's--
    what's he going to have.
    I've-- this-- not this gave him my life secured,
    if I will take the piece of bread.
    I said, no, I will not take it.
    And this was two times with bread.
    But the- the first one up to date,
    he lives somewhere in Tel Aviv, in Israel.
    He was right away [INAUDIBLE] and finished
    the whole friendship.
    What can I do.
    So I have lost more than a friend to this time in my--
    came out of it.
    It was the [INAUDIBLE] 10 days, 10 days closed.
    All right.
    We're talking about the ghetto now?
    The ghetto, yes.
    The Łódż ghetto.
    OK.
    If someone would go out at this time,
    wherever, they killed him on the place.
    I saw facts like this.
    Somebody was hiding the other one.
    He came-- lived over there at the sonder
    command, the Jewish one, police, which-- which he--
    they worked with them together.
    They helped them out.
    And he had some place with two room, he had.
    And stood a brick shelf.
    And he made a hole on the wall.
    And behind was a little, maybe, maybe a two-meters stove, worse
    than this.
    This was prepared to hide in a bad moment.
    So this was Erev Rosh Hashana, when they took away my kid.
    He was two years and three months old.
    He lived his life unrecognizing the fact
    that we satisfied from a piece dry bread.
    But this was the life.
    I was ready to go down, but my wife, she's down.
    That they put a whole ship, a few hundred girls, and men
    maybe too, in Stutthof, Germany.
    So I was ready to go down, because--
    but then by 10 days--
    nine days went by.
    And this was the 10th day from the end of [NON-ENGLISH]..
    It was Erev Rosh Hashana, 1942.
    And I went, the whole time, we saved a little flour,
    my wife too, to make something for the kids,
    make them a [NON-ENGLISH],, they're called.
    But he was as those days, he was only two years
    and some short months.
    He feel something comes up.
    He could not eat.
    All the time the neighbors in the small ghetto,
    there was a [INAUDIBLE]
    [PHONE RINGS]
    So on the 10th day, it was Erev Rosh Hashana,
    it was third time they came in places.
    They took [INAUDIBLE] from the ghetto, how small she was,
    this part, other part.
    And I heard something wrong--
    talks like this.
    I went to the window.
    I look out a little bit, a little space.
    I saw two on motorcycles, two murderers
    coming down, take out half a minute after him,
    trucks, everything ready to take the Jews.
    And it was very very--
    they killed so many peoples on the place also.
    I was ready to go down.
    I don't know.
    I didn't even think about myself.
    What's going to be will be, so.
    But my wife, she went in over there in this hiding place.
    And she yelled to me, don't go down.
    Don't go down.
    So I shoved in in this hole.
    And it was sitting in there.
    It was a little like a two-meters,
    not square meters, but a two-meters one.
    And one window went out to the street [INAUDIBLE]..
    I went and there was two children, my child.
    It was the last hours from our child,
    and the policeman's also.
    So went by after-- after a little while went by,
    we came out of there.
    It was such-- it was very terrible.
    It was eight or 10 people and two children in it with us.
    So they-- the two days before, was also three days before
    exactly--
    was also they came, take from this [? region. ?] I went down.
    My wife said, again, don't go down.
    Don't go down.
    I listened her.
    I went down.
    I did not listen, I mean.
    As they pulled out a neighbor it was from the same floor.
    He hided behind doors or someplace.
    The police, the Jewish police took him and dragged him down
    to the trucks.
    And those was standing in lines And the second
    was deciding dead or alive.
    He was-- I think this was Mengele or who.
    Which one wore the--
    with white gloves and a little stick in the hand?
    He didn't touch the Jew or that.
    He worked with a sick.
    Turned around and took him, exactly.
    So I saw how they're dragging down a person.
    He was three quarters dead, maybe, from before.
    But he did [INAUDIBLE] on his feet.
    He jumped like a tiger, a wild tiger--
    kicked him and kicked him, beat him so much really so he--
    not killing [INAUDIBLE] shoved on the truck.
    Dragged him a little while, then on the truck.
    OK.
    And I myself, I was a third one to the-- to the murder, which
    was selecting.
    And I think, what to do?
    So to pull back, he will kill me on the place.
    So I stood.
    I saw the whole tragic act, how it was.
    I came to him.
    I had some, like, stay like attention.
    He looks at me.
    He looks at me.
    The stick turns around.
    He said, [NON-ENGLISH],, which mean, you can work.
    He can suck some more blood from me.
    And he show me to go.
    I didn't know even how it is, if I am good and up.
    But I stood.
    A few minutes went by.
    And this was almost to the end on this place in this day.
    He said, [NON-ENGLISH].
    They said this way.
    [NON-ENGLISH] So I came home, and I didn't meet anymore
    my child.
    My child was in the truck already.
    This was Erev Rosh Hashana.
    When it come this day, I having--
    I'm paining a lot.
    But what can we do?
    Then we got a new story, when we came
    the way, going into Auschwitz.
    We sitting in a train, not a wagon, not for people.
    It was for animals.
    They'd load in how many people can
    be in, put in a hard box or so.
    We went on this train.
    We are 18 or 20--
    18 hours, I think.
    It was hot, terrible sitting there so many hours.
    After a long hours ride, they stopped the train.
    In the middle even, we had shooting also
    because somebody escaped.
    How they did it is--
    I don't know.
    But maybe they did.
    They looked, and they decided at this moment,
    either he will leave alive or be killed.
    So a bit of a [INAUDIBLE],, a [INAUDIBLE] and the Germans,
    they, [NON-ENGLISH].
    Oh, when I heard this, I saw, I'm finished now.
    This is finished.
    It's not no more.
    So he went out.
    He went to the--
    such a big [? world ?] to put down
    like animals going down from the-- to the-- from the train.
    He helped with some people, she couldn't go.
    He helped them.
    It was very polite.
    Oh, we came in in there.
    Looks-- if it's like an animal in this world,
    can't be any worser than this, for sure not.
    Start going-- this was Jews, Jewish boys.
    He -- a box -- a big box here.
    Here He start, [NON-ENGLISH].
    You will be on the himmel kommando right away.
    Himmel kommando means in the fire.
    I had at this time a watch.
    My wife [INAUDIBLE].
    It's a-- I ask myself, who knows how far this can go,
    something like this.
    But was nothing to hide, nothing to save.
    I had it in a shoe.
    I put it in a shoe when we came in in the place
    to take a shower.
    It was names.
    Till then, it was lots of beating and hitting.
    And I had some 17 [NON-ENGLISH] was the name.
    American-- America, it was the--
    word for this is [INAUDIBLE] papers.
    So the life goes.
    So I kept them all inside, in here, in the pocket.
    These are the certificates.
    The certificates, yes.
    And so it's nothing to hide, nothing to keep.
    I let them down on the ground.
    And I tired to move the way, maybe
    they will find me or what.
    I was afraid.
    We wasn't people with life at this time, to decide something.
    No, he start--
    [NON-ENGLISH] kommando.
    Took about two hours or so, and he is pushing back and forth,
    back and forth.
    Later on they took us for a shower.
    Oh, there stood a barber, he, with a machine,
    and he took wherever a hair is on the body, cleaned up.
    We're going a little father.
    They said-- somebody said, you going now to take a shower.
    Should be very cold water.
    But remember, who will be complaining or yelling,
    will be more and more the same thing, and worse.
    I remember this like I would be, God forbid, yesterday.
    It was a little like a mikvah, some [? charcoal ?]
    or what to put in the shoes.
    I said, [NON-ENGLISH] and leave them in the shoes.
    You can keep them.
    And the shoes must be put in in the water, which
    we are going over.
    And this moment, I came to the point, I took the shoes,
    put them in in this water.
    And this moment, someone took mine and [? down ?] [? my ?]
    [? head. ?] I was like that for my life I thought, oh,
    this is the end.
    I'm dead or not.
    But he pushed me further.
    I see I am alive.
    So I went by this.
    And we-- it wasn't such cold like people said.
    But beating and hitting was enough in the time
    when it was on.
    Took a long time till they fixed us up,
    maybe an hour, an hour and a half.
    And later on, they put us in five.
    That was everything goes in a line from five.
    Start from the-- oh, we came out in the other door.
    They start giving us dressing, concentration dressing.
    Once was sitting such hooligan.
    He had a little like underwear.
    From tallisim, it was sewed.
    Was the tzitzits.
    He said this way they knew may things Jewish.
    It was from Volksdeutsche.
    And the whole things, our jacket, our pair of pants--
    what do you call it now?
    Vest?
    Yeah.
    So it took a longer time.
    And we're ready.
    We are ready already--
    dressed.
    I did look at the whole time at myself
    in a mirror, what somebody has-- outside he found
    a piece of mirror.
    I said, let me take a look.
    I was afraid myself, if I was looking at this [INAUDIBLE]..
    Here is we had such--
    maybe we a quarter of a meter high.
    And in the middle was since here up to the neck.
    Was like here.
    We called this [NON-ENGLISH] already.
    Then came-- we came in in a barrack.
    We was such-- we were such--
    they checked and checked and checked.
    I don't know how somebody can have something hidden.
    He asked for money.
    [INAUDIBLE] was so much, in the meantime,
    when it went by a few minutes, he hit and hit and hit.
    He start knocking in the other side.
    It was two times, in two places in each barrack.
    Who is the he you're talking about?
    Kapos.
    Kapos.
    German or Jewish?
    They were Jews.
    He start talking to us Jewish.
    This is very painful to [NON-ENGLISH],, he said.
    Remember, he-- he was on such a big--
    the whole end was a division from like a stove or what.
    He went on this.
    This was barracks, was such the--
    to hold up the roof.
    Remember, here was-- yesterday was hung 10 people.
    Remember, I don't like to do it to you.
    But remember it, who you'll find something for him,
    something is finish, hanging or shooting, how they like.
    This took a long time also, a good two hours.
    When we was finished with this, he
    started providing us to a-- on a place in barracks.
    We came into the barracks.
    At this time I was with this friend, there,
    [PERSONAL NAME] was the name.
    We was-- I was looking only to keep him with me together,
    such in mind.
    You were talking about Auschwitz.
    Yeah.
    No, it is still Auschwitz.
    So they brought us on the place.
    After they had enough, many people
    was beaten and hit, blood.
    What was your feeling about the Jewish kapos?
    What kind of feeling can be?
    They said to us, you are [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Everything was in Polish.
    You are a number.
    Here was a number.
    And around, there was so many lice.
    Hard to talk about.
    So they brought us on the place.
    We went.
    They give to each two persons a bridge to lay down.
    It was a sack with straw.
    And two people should lay on this.
    So I picked out my friend together to be.
    This was before.
    It wasn't just [INAUDIBLE] with the bread [INAUDIBLE]..
    You said there was a number on your uniform?
    Here was a number.
    Did you get a number?
    57-- no, when we went to Auschwitz,
    it was such in hurry.
    They had so many transports, they couldn't do this.
    So they left without a number.
    But here was a number.
    No, the left side was the number.
    Do you remember your number?
    57.
    I remember some 57, and from there I forgot.
    When it was over the war, this came the lucky moment,
    I had it in the hand.
    A [NON-ENGLISH], was it.
    [INAUDIBLE] a hill from those millions of flies in there,
    I took my [NON-ENGLISH], was it.
    Stripes.
    And I held it in my hand, maybe to take it home or clean it up.
    But again picked up.
    I did not.
    But if I ever take it, people having it.
    A cousin has this and cleaned it up.
    And sits in a nice in a little, under glass.
    So they put us--
    we went to sleep.
    At least we are on a place.
    Next morning came another murders, two or three.
    They taking us to bring another place again.
    They made it out such like a carousel.
    They can do everything.
    What they gave, we had to take.
    And we stood there and the upper platz.
    It was the counting.
    The count.
    The count how many heads he has in there.
    So when the night was over, we slept over.
    In the morning, they wake us up which was very nice words.
    They had language.
    Bringing it out to the upper place.
    Upper place is like Hanna said.
    Over there, they count.
    Hitting and beating was all over.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    So we're on the upper place.
    Comes out the kapo.
    And he say, who is here was in the ghetto?
    Kapos or something like this, [GERMAN]..
    [INAUDIBLE] maybe we are [INAUDIBLE] 70.
    He was more than this.
    And the boy said they know him from Galicia.
    Galicia, Poland.
    He's from [INAUDIBLE] also.
    So he gave himself once and the other side some.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    So it was ordered for him because he then
    lived like a king in this time.
    So they counted again and again.
    Then he started to ask who is--
    how they said, I remember.
    The [GERMAN].
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]?
    It was [INAUDIBLE] one.
    And the other one was [GERMAN].
    And in this trouble, I took my mind a while to think about it.
    I talked with my friend quiet.
    Look, [GERMAN] is very hard work, looks to be.
    Were guns fixed, something like this.
    And [GERMAN] I meant, is--
    [INAUDIBLE] bike.
    Bikes.
    It will be much easier.
    And it was this way.
    But this was not [INAUDIBLE],, but it
    was in a big factory, very big like a few trucks
    could be going back and forth over there.
    Such big.
    And was working so many nations.
    So many nations was working over there.
    We went to the work over there.
    They wake us up very early, must be about 3 o'clock.
    Nobody knew the time exactly.
    We start walking.
    We had wooden shoes.
    It was a walk for a hour, an hour and a half to work.
    But one thing, I was lucky with this.
    I worked behind a roof.
    It was a very big hole.
    We had a corner.
    We stood with our machines.
    Five or six people was on this work.
    And they had-- first time I saw it--
    a oven to heat.
    Hot air came out.
    It was lucky they didn't kill us.
    All went down to thing.
    He shut off the heat.
    And we was cold all the time.
    He put on again, and it was running, like a funny play.
    He shut off and we put in.
    But he didn't kill the [INAUDIBLE] somehow.
    Somehow.
    So we start working.
    He gave me a Frenchman.
    I didn't know what he wants from me.
    If he wants to take a He stood a half an hour,
    and I have to be working only.
    After the half hour, and everything wasn't over.
    We worked.
    Something was the airplanes a piece with [NON-ENGLISH] was
    the name.
    We put the aluminum [INAUDIBLE].
    At this time, I put in my fingers
    and then it was nothing to help heat it.
    And the work was a little better because I
    was under a roof, warm place.
    At 12 o'clock, 12:00 to 1:00 was lunchtime.
    It was our lunch.
    It was something to see.
    And at this time, I don't know how this has happened.
    Each one received by 12 o'clock--
    before 12:00 a few minutes, the kapo give to each one
    a [NON-ENGLISH],, like a quarter, something like this.
    And with this, we went up to there, far,
    far away in the room, and they gave you the soup.
    All of a sudden, I keeping this to give him in the hand,
    and he didn't took it.
    I don't know why.
    He didn't took it.
    He didn't took it to give me the soup.
    I ran fast so I was eating very slowly to have
    it a little more good feeling.
    So I eat it up very fast, and I running back to him for a soup.
    And I don't know how the hell he recognized--
    I don't know.
    At this time, I was the first time.
    By the end he gave me a [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I heard it later on television.
    They hitting some in Jamaica.
    At first it's something [NON-ENGLISH] also.
    So he didn't gave me.
    Then is the gong.
    The bell is ringing.
    I have to go back to work.
    I going back to work.
    I staying there and start the machine working.
    And a few minutes later comes a murder --
    I wish I would kill him on the place when I see it.
    He was also from Łódż.
    So he start knocking me back and forth, back and forth.
    And I was full with blood.
    And they gave us special rags, white, pieces
    to wipe the machine, to clean.
    Here sits different incarnations, Germans,
    and French, and different.
    They know what's going on here.
    But what can I do?
    I wipe up the blood, and I get back to work.
    So it's over.
    And I think myself, what?
    I steal?
    I didn't steal!
    He didn't took the [NON-ENGLISH] from me, the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    But this was not the end of it.
    Maybe half an hour later or an hour, he send again.
    He has such a helper by himself in this room.
    The kapo calls you.
    I meant, what's going to be now?
    I come in there.
    I remember it was a father and son, an elderly man.
    He tell them, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] in Polish.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    He begged him mercy for me.
    No.
    And he gave me a sentence, five whips.
    And such and such a murderer he gave me-- he
    had two wooden, a thick one, a hole inside, rubber pipes.
    And the other one are full inside.
    I didn't tell them.
    Was I going to say this and this?
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
    He gave me five whips.
    He said, five.
    It must be five.
    I went back to work.
    And I meant, come sometimes an end of it or not?
    You wanted to add some more.
    Auschwitz also.
    Because these are important things.
    I had, like I said, I never risked to steal something,
    or what, a piece of pillow--
    from they take it a lot The pillows.
    The pills.
    So when we went in the room to take a shower,
    he said, all glasses, raiments, and shoes you can keep.
    But if somebody had nice shoes they took them away right away.
    And I had a good pair of shoes.
    I spared my piece of bread from the ghetto
    to buy the shoes, a bread and a half, I think.
    But I made it in [INAUDIBLE],, each time a piece.
    So when I went in the room to the shower, I knew how it is.
    I had a piece of bread from the way which they gave us up
    to Auschwitz.
    I put the piece of bread in the shoe,
    and a picture I had from the whole family, the room,
    even the furnitures was--
    I was liberated after the military.
    I made a [NON-ENGLISH].
    How you say it?
    Party,
    Party.
    It was a picture with everybody.
    Was only one brother that wasn't on this picture.
    He lived somewhere else, not in Łódż.
    So I put it in the shoe.
    And when I came to him, he got a little place.
    And here was a bench.
    He put right away the hand in the shoe like somebody
    would tell him.
    The bread he left me.
    He didn't say nothing.
    But he pulled out the picture.
    He said nothing but throw it.
    It's this [NON-ENGLISH].
    He's such a big--
    they ate like horses.
    They had a good life.
    So I couldn't hit [INAUDIBLE].
    Strong.
    So he throw it away.
    Now I have nothing from my whole family.
    I went, who can figure?
    It's so far how it still go, the troubles.
    So we start working.
    We get used to the work.
    It also was very complicated.
    There was a foreman, a German.
    He said, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    If something happened, the work was like a sabotage.
    Sabotage, he shall us hanging.
    But we worked good, me and the other friends.
    It was five or six people in this work.
    So the work was like we are going.
    Day after day, day after day.
    The days was long.
    Very long.
    Each day for himself was like weeks.
    You go and come.
    Once they said they will give soup in the evening.
    Have your dish ready.
    You're coming back from work, you're going to have a soup.
    They was such fresh, and such go on our nerves in our life.
    It's noodles.
    Noodles with water, so.
    And he worked this way not to catch a noodle.
    I had some water.
    I say, what kind of soup is this?
    The water not clean.
    That's all.
    Later on, somehow I went by.
    I didn't control them.
    They would kill me on the place if I were to say a word.
    They opened up the can.
    And the can was such high, funny with this milk.
    [INAUDIBLE] maybe.
    But I'll keep this.
    I saw a full can of noodles.
    I said, oh, my god, this was [NON-ENGLISH] in this noodles?
    How is this happen?
    I didn't saw even a centimeter from a [NON-ENGLISH],, nothing.
    No, that's good.
    After those days, I was sick.
    They give [NON-ENGLISH].
    If they sent somebody to [NON-ENGLISH],,
    it means not to work for eight or 10 days.
    I don't know.
    I had this number.
    I put it in cellophane paper.
    But this one went up.
    And so many years went by.
    Malka said it's up.
    The whole-- nothing to see.
    Only a pipe [INAUDIBLE].
    They was sitting in there.
    We was such hungry.
    It's no word for it.
    And they cooked.
    They had a German boy from--
    I don't remember.
    He had faith.
    It was after all.
    They killed him or not, some Jews.
    If they killed him, God bless them.
    He drive a horse with a buggy in the street.
    Free, alone.
    Nobody watched him.
    When we went back from work, he came back to the--
    how you call it?
    The hearth.
    He brought in a sack and opened up the window.
    He didn't know to watch this.
    He throw in a sack of potatoes, maybe 100 kilo so, for sure.
    If this is not enough, the next day he brought cow legs.
    And we're locked in there.
    We was sitting.
    Everything was working in there like wild.
    God, how this can be.
    People-- this is Jews!
    I remember I begged a boy.
    He was a little nothing.
    He was a little bit--
    maybe he had somebody know him or what.
    He was sweeping the floor.
    I said, look, when you pulling out
    the water from the potatoes, give me a little in my dish.
    He didn't answer.
    He didn't give.
    This was the life.
    When it's come we was liberated, I can't go so exactly line
    by line.
    After three days, three days I didn't came out.
    We was a few of them.
    It was not like going to [INAUDIBLE]..
    They worry such.
    And they worry.
    People went in the stores.
    They grabbed who was healthy.
    I could hardly walk.
    I don't know.
    If I would be another few weeks, I wouldn't be able to go.
    We went out on the street.
    Went a kapo.
    They went to work.
    So I went to them.
    What, I'm going to be ashamed with so much troubles I had?
    They pulled out a [NON-ENGLISH] they called it, a sandwich.
    So thick with eggs inside.
    Nice thing, but I told them danke schoen.
    Then came this kapo.
    He gave me the whips.
    Hey, [SPEAKING GERMAN]!
    What you doing here?
    Go ahead!
    And started pushing me.
    At this moment, my nerves took me.
    I said, go to hell!
    You think I'm ripping out the--
    you are lucky I have no [NON-ENGLISH] and not ripping
    got a stone from the brook and I give you over the head.
    It's not a little earlier, then he even he gave me the whips.
    Now you finished.
    The [NON-ENGLISH] is finished.
    But this was the life.
    And than, after a longer time, start coming--
    we called him the sachem.
    This is why I said about Mengele.
    But he was-- I don't know.
    Maybe he was also, I will say.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    We were bare.
    Naked.
    And I looked around who there was liked or not.
    This side or this side.
    By myself.
    They took my friend away.
    He said also, when you're lying, you're
    saying you are doing this or this and you can't do it,
    it shall right away hanging.
    So they took him away.
    I was such--
    I don't know.
    It's no good to be such that [INAUDIBLE]..
    And later on, he act this way with the piece of bread.
    He went I ate up his bread.
    So after 15 minutes or so, they pushed us back to the barracks.
    Oh, god, when we came into the barracks,
    myself I couldn't see.
    But I saw the other people, how they looked.
    Like dead people walking around.
    What can you do?
    And they locked up right away the door from this barrack.
    But I looked a way, where to come out here,
    where to look for the--
    he brought away some 300 people they picked out
    for different works.
    And how I made up my mind not to steal a piece of this or this.
    The door opened up, I right away was outside.
    I couldn't walk fast either, but I did it.
    And I start asking.
    It was like a [NON-ENGLISH].
    Auschwitz was it.
    I met a Polish kapo.
    He was the kapo from the barrack.
    If you know in Polish everything went, if you know,
    ask him where the people, the 300, was called.
    Yeah, he say.
    Work.
    Stayed back.
    And here, I don't know, it's not such a good thing to walk back.
    They can catch me.
    They can kill me.
    But the nerves was pushing me to do it.
    I start running.
    This was in the end.
    This was in the other end, where they went in in our barrack.
    Hurriedly, I came there.
    I see, from before, the entrance stays a few people looking in,
    looking out.
    And somehow-- I don't know how it was--
    I mixed in between, and I shove in the barrack.
    So I'm in the barrack again with the friend.
    I went over there, and this time he was going to help me.
    Or me, him, or the opposite.
    I told to him, look, I came in here.
    How to do now?
    You know how the take names or so.
    And he said, yes I will tell you.
    Here was two boys, brothers or red hairs
    I remember they sneaked out from here.
    Oh, if somebody sneaked out, maybe it
    will be a place for me.
    And sit there.
    OK.
    We slept over the night there.
    And the next day, they're making ready the people,
    to send them away of different works.
    Now I don't know what to do.
    I asking him.
    He said, yes, he made a list by name.
    And this would be very bad.
    But something, a feeling pushed me.
    Stay, stay.
    And the [INAUDIBLE] second.
    I was standing and seeing what will be the end here.
    So he say he has to have 300 people.
    And he has 302.
    Oh, it's no good.
    I must be one of them.
    I asking him-- and I has to be very careful,
    because the friend was ready to leave here,
    and I keeping him up because they're looking for specials.
    I said, look, I go for the list.
    But remember, if it will be something like this,
    we will have something.
    And he [INAUDIBLE].
    A few of them were standing outside the barrack.
    And one leans out of the house, starts
    hitting him over the head, very [INAUDIBLE],, from both side.
    And he's still waiting for another one.
    And I think, what should I do here?
    I will learn now this.
    This one I wouldn't be able to stand it.
    Somehow ran out another one.
    Also when and when the beating was, I catch my breath.
    And so, he has exactly the 300.
    Comes a little time.
    They start bringing us for different--
    this was summer.
    It was a little easier than the wintertime.
    This was already in May, I think.
    Sometimes like this.
    And they brought us to a place where we should start working.
    I took a job, and he took a job.
    At this time I was friendly with him.
    So we got together, slept together in one bridge.
    But how was further?
    Sometimes I forget it.
    It was lots of things of there.
    Thank you for telling us what you have remembered.
    This concludes the interview of Nathan Kalman.
    It was conducted on behalf of the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum by Gail Schwartz.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Nathan Kalman (b. Natan Kalmonowitz) discusses his early life in Łódź, Poland; joining a Zionist organization in 1930; living on a kibbutz in Krakow for a year; marrying in 1939; the beginning of the German occupation; his mother’s work smuggling food; moving into the ghetto; the deaths of his mother, father, and son; being deported to Auschwitz in cattle cars; keeping a photo of his family in his shoe; conditions in Auschwitz; being moved to Gurlitz; working in an ammunition factory; liberation; remarrying; immigrating to the United States; and living in Israel from 1969-1989.
    Interviewee
    Nathan Kalman
    Interviewer
    Gail Schwartz
    Date
    interview:  1993 November 04

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Genre/Form
    Oral histories.
    Extent
    5 sound cassettes (60 min.).

    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
    Kalman, Nathan, 1909-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The tapes for the Nathan Kalman interview were transferred to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in February 5,1995 along with other tapes from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum oral history volunteer collection, RG-50.106.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:11:52
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn504426

    Additional Resources

    Transcripts (5)
    Summary (English)
    Time Coded Notes (6)

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    Also in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum oral history volunteer collection

    Consists of interviews with Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators conducted by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Department volunteer staff. The interviewees, among them survivors from Hungary, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Poland, discuss their experiences of life before World War II, life in the ghettos, life in concentration camps, and life after the Holocaust.

    Date: 1993

    Oral history interview with Marie Schwartzman

    Oral History

    Marie Schwartzman discusses her early life in Paris, France; her large Polish family; her father’s arrest and imprisonment in Drancy; becoming the head of the family due to her mother’s illness; hiding house for three months; being arrested and sent to Drancy in October 1942; being deported to Auschwitz; living conditions in the camp; working in the crematorium sorting clothes; being marched to Ravensbrück in January 1945; living conditions in Prchin-Malkov camp; liberation by the Americans; turning in a German officer who was arrested; returning to Paris and Grenoble; immigrating to the United States in 1949; and marrying an American soldier.

    Oral history interview with Esthy Adler

    Oral History

    Esthy Adler discusses not knowing her real name or when and where she was born, noting that many of her childhood memories are vague; her papers that say she was born in Kaliningrad, Russia, where she thinks her parents had a summer home; staying with her mother’s sister in a compound where there were frequent bombings; her mother’s death during their stay; her father’s remarriage, despite the family’s disapproval; how the Germans found her, her father, and stepmother; the last time she saw her father; how she, her aunt, cousins, and stepmother were relocated to another compound where they slept on cots in places similar to bunkers; seeing a man digging a ditch and holding a machine gun; being lined up and fired upon, but surviving; finding her way back to the barrack where she found her stepmother and another woman; being loaded onto a cattle car and taken to another location (possibly Treblinka); escaping into the forest with her stepmother via a hole and tunnel dug by another woman; living with a partisan group that consisted of Polish-Ukrainian prisoners of war and Russian deserters; the death of her stepmother by machine gun fire in the winter of 1942; being shot; becoming ill from drinking poisoned water and being nursed back to health by a peasant; living with a woman named Margot who got her a job in a factory sewing pants; leaving her job after a man paid for her to go to a private school; living with the Katz family; becoming legally independent after she turned 18; attending graduate school and being accepted into a program where she was trained as a paralegal; meeting her future husband Jim Adler at the University of Heidelberg in 1954; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Tana Gelfer

    Oral History

    Tana Gelfer, born October 7, 1939 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her parents Herman George Reichman and Johanna Kahn and her family background in Gelsenkirchen, Germany; how her father lost his banking job after the Nazi party came to power; her father’s arrest on December 27, 1942; never finding out what happened to her father; her deportation with her mother to Theresienstadt; living conditions in Theresienstadt; sharing a bunk with her mother; how her mother worked in the fields harvesting crops and sorted through prisoners’ belongings; being hospitalized frequently; how a woman in the camp, Minnie Simon, gave birth to a son in secret; how Minnie Simon, her husband Fritz, and their child all survived; being made to watch, along with other small children, the cruel treatment of men who were brought into the camp from trains; her and her mother’s liberation by Russian forces; living with her grandmother in Berlin; immigrating to the United States; marrying and raising a family; and how her mother helped sponsor several people emigrate from Germany to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Maria Devinki

    Oral History

    Maria Devinki, born June 1, 1920 in Hannover, Germany, discusses her family’s move to central Poland; her parents’ successful business there; the Nazi invasion of Poland; how Jews were forced to live in a ghetto; having to give up her large house; her father’s deportation to Treblinka where he perished; marrying her fiancé and being hidden with family members by a Polish farmer in small underground space; traveling with her husband to Regensburg, Germany to wait for U.S. visas; and settling in Kansas City, MO.

    Oral history interview with Jerome Stasson

    Oral History

    Jerome Stasson (b. Jerome Stashevsky) discusses his early life in Detroit, Michigan; coming from a family of Polish immigrants; being drafted into the U.S. army in 1943; following General Patton to Germany from England; liberating Buchenwald; his first impressions of the camp; speaking Yiddish to the survivors; destroying the letters he sent home to his family due to their distress; and his memories of the smell of the camp.

    Oral history interview with Adriana Pacifici

    Oral History

    Adriana Funaro, born in Rome, Italy on July 28, 1923, describes her early life in Rome, Italy; being expelled from public school in 1938 and afterward attending a Jewish school and a Catholic school; her father’s decision not to emigrate; a doctor’s efforts to help her father avoid a roundup in 1943; hiding with her sister in a Dominican convent; living under a false name; learning prayers while hiding; working in a partisan group while in hiding; the arrival of American soldiers; marrying a childhood friend; immigrating to the United States; and her nightmares about the war years.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Kolben

    Oral History

    Ernest Kolben describes his early life in Vienna, Austria; feeling like an outcast at school; his brother’s arrest and imprisonment in Dachau on Kristallnacht; changing conditions for the Jewish community; being sent to Theresienstadt; living and work conditions in the camp; being moved to Auschwitz in September 1944; volunteering to move to Buchenwald; arriving instead at Kaufering, near Dachau; being force marched to Camp Allach; liberation by American soldiers; his 30 day hospitalization; working for the Counterintelligence Corps to find SS members; returning to Vienna; marrying; immigrating to Montreal; moving to Chicago; and splitting his time between Vienna and the US.

    Oral history interview with Henry Kolber

    Oral History

    Henry Kolber (b. Hirsch Kolber), born June 6, 1923 in Przysietnica, Poland, discusses his early life in Barcice, Poland; moving with his family to Nowy Sacz, Poland after the German invasion; how the Germans shot and killed 15 Jews and selected 100 other Jews, including his father, to be locked up overnight; working as a grave digger with his father after the Aktions; how he was selected by the Judenrat to go to Rabka, Poland; upon arrival he discovered it was a school to train Ukrainian volunteers to become SS; being assigned work to dig a shooting gallery in the mountains where the new recruits would learn to shoot; covering graves and filling them with dirt and antiseptic; the commander, Rosenbaum, whom he testified against in Hamburg, Germany in 1968; his parents’ deaths in Treblinka; being sent to Krakow to build Płaszów concentration camp; being transferred to Auschwitz; marching in December 1944 in the snow for two days then being taken to Buchenwald by train; living in the barracks with Elie Wiesel; being liberated by American troops; moving to Switzerland with the help of the Red Cross; immigrating to the United States in 1947; and his marriage and children.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Greifer

    Oral History

    Ruth Greifer (b. Ruth Dahl) discusses her childhood in Geilenkirchen, Germany, and Mastricht, Netherlands; her experiences during the German invasion of the Netherlands; her life in hiding during World War II; her reunion with her parents after World War II; and her life in the United States after 1948

    Oral history interview with Anna Wollner

    Oral History

    Anna Wollner (b. Jakab) discusses her early life in Nagy-Varad, Transylvania (Oradea, Romania); her fiance’s conscription into forced labor; his return and their marriage; being forced into a ghetto; her feelings about wearing the Jewish star; being sent to Auschwitz; being transferred to Stutthof; her friend Suzy, who taught her to sabotage the materials they were working on; being moved to Riga, Latvia by boat; building roads out of Jewish headstones; acts of violence by guards; being marched back to Germany (near Gdansk, Poland); liberation by Russian soldiers; witnessing rapes; returning to Budapest, Hungary; reuniting with her husband; leaving for Munich, Germany after the communists arrived; immigrating to the United States in 1949; divorcing and moving to Israel; returning to the United States; and her feelings about German reparations.

    Oral history interview with Kate Wacz

    Oral History

    Kate Wacz (née Katalin Kadelburger), born in 1932, discusses her childhood in Budapest, Hungary; her father’s death performing forced labor; going to the Jewish gymnasium; the Germans arriving in March 1944; the school closures; moving to the ghetto; anti-Jewish violence from members of the Arrow Cross Party; the Allied bombings in January 1945; living conditions in the ghetto; liberation; readjusting to life after the war; her mother becoming a Swedish citizen; getting passage to Sweden in 1951; and her life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Erwin Forley

    Oral History

    Erwin Forley (b. Feuerstein) discusses his childhood in Košice, Czechoslovakia, (now Slovakia) and Munkacs, Hungary (now Mukacheve, Ukraine); his life in the Munkacs ghetto; his family's deportation to Auschwitz at the hands of Hungarian gendarmes; his work in Budy, a sub camp for farming near Auschwitz; his experiences with Kapos in Auschwitz, some of whom he describes as homosexuals; the evacuation of Auschwitz and liberation by Russian troops; his return to Mukacheve; his reunion with his mother and sister; and the family's life in the United States after 1946.

    Oral history interview with Ernie Marx

    Oral History

    Ernie Marx (né Ernest Ludwig), born in Gelnhausen, Germany on November 8, 1925, discusses his childhood in Gelnhausen and Speyer am Rhein, Germany; his experiences during Kristallnacht; his arrest by the Gestapo and imprisonment in Dachau along with his father in November 1938; his father's work to organize Kindertransports of Jewish children from the Rhein area to France; his travel to France on a Kindertransport; his imprisonment in Gurs concentration camp; his involvement in the Maquis resistance group in France; his reunion with his mother and brother after World War II; and his life in the United States after 1947.

    Oral history interview with Doris Rauch

    Oral History

    Doris Rauch, born August 26, 1920 in Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses her childhood in Brno; the death of her father in 1936; the German invasion of Czechoslovakia; being unable to attend a German-speaking university because she was a Jew; attending a textile school; working in a factory; buying goods on the black market; her deportation to Theresienstadt on a passenger train; volunteering to work planting trees in Bohemia with her mother; returning to Theresienstadt after six weeks; avoiding transports to the East; being put on a transport in September 1942 along with her mother and boyfriend; being taken to Raasiku, Estonia and separated from her mother; being taken to Tallinn, Estonia in December 1942 to clear rubble for the Holzmann construction firm; being taken to a camp in Ereda at the end of 1943; how she and other women stopped menstruating; working in the forest; a romantic relationship between a prisoner and an SS commander; being given a ring by male inmate; contracting hepatitis in Ereda; being taken to Stutthof; how she had written in a diary every day in Estonia; being very sick; arriving at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945; taking another prisoner’s place to work in a factory; finding fliers saying that the Allies were approaching; being taken to the Danish border at the end of April 1945 and turned over to the Danish Red Cross who provided food, care, and new clothing; living in Sweden for two years working as a secretary for the World Jewish Congress; living with two women she met in the camps; moving to the United States in May 1947 and experiencing culture shock; marrying and moving to Chicago, then Pittsburg, and then to Washington D.C.; the effect of her experiences on her religious beliefs; and reparations from Germany.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Elman

    Oral History

    Joseph Elman, born February 5, 1922 in Pruzhany, Poland (present day Belarus), discusses the German and Russian occupations of Pruzhany; his memories of the murder of 11 Jews in Pruzhany by Nazis; being forced into slave labor; the relocation of his family into the ghetto; daily living conditions in the ghetto, which included starvation and crowding; his work in the ghetto’s food department; the liquidation of the ghetto starting in January 1943; his father’s membership in the Judenrat; his father’s suicide; how he and others built a bunker in the ghetto; his contact with a resistance group which was smuggling weapons into the ghetto; his escape from the ghetto with a large group of people during the liquidation; his experience living in the woods as part of a partisan group; forming family bonds with members of the group; liberation by the Russian Army; returning to his home in Pruzhany to find a family living there; living with this family for a period of time; moving to Bialystok, Poland to join his brother; settling in Łódź, Poland; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Gerald Rosenstein

    Oral History

    Gerald Rosenstein (b. Gerhard Rosenstein) describes his early life in Darmstadt, Germany; being attacked and beaten by a schoolmate’s father as a child; immigrating to Amsterdam with his family in May 1940; trying to leave for England after the German occupation; the persecutions Amsterdam’s Jewish community faced; being separated from his family in Westerbork; being sent to Theresienstadt; reuniting with his parents there; living conditions in Theresienstadt; partaking in propaganda for the Red Cross; being deported to Auschwitz with his father; being transferred to Gleiwitz; working conditions in camp; being marched to Blechhammer in January 1945; how he felt at liberation; traveling through Poland, Romania, and Odessa before boarding a Red Cross ship to Paris;

    Oral history interview with Ivan Becker

    Oral History

    Ivan Becker, born in 1929, discusses his childhood in Budapest, Hungary; his memories of the "hanging priest of Budapest" who killed Jews for refusing conversion to Christianity; the Nazi invasion of Hungary; harsh restrictions on Jews; his father who was sent to Buchenwald; being sent on a death march with his mother from Budapest towards Austria; being separated from his mother and never seeing her again; his life in hiding; his experiences in an unnamed ghetto; his return to Budapest after liberation; his time in a displaced persons camp in Bad Gastein, Austria; his immigration to the United States as a "war orphan" in 1946; and his adjustment to life after the Holocaust and success in business.

    Oral history interview with Romana Koplewicz

    Oral History

    Romana Koplewicz (née Margitte), born April 26, 1919 in Warsaw, Poland, describes her pre-war life in Poland; her parents and sister; her father’s dye factory; her education at a private Jewish school; her law school education at the University of Joseph Pilsudski in Warsaw; the antisemitism she experienced in law school; meeting her husband in 1936; her inability to complete law school due to anti-Jewish legislation; the beginning of the war and ghettoization in Warsaw; working in her father’s factory; her father’s arrest and return in the spring of 1940; the liquidation of the ghetto; her work sewing German uniforms; her escape with her family from numerous selections; the false papers she and her sister acquired in 1943; her work in the ghetto in a manufacturing factory; working as a housekeeper to survive; her time in Otwock Poland working as a chambermaid in summer 1944 at a convent; her escape to Grodzisko Mazovieckie, Poland because the Gestapo were looking for her; her time working for a German in Warsaw; the Warsaw ghetto uprising; the ghetto’s evacuation and her transfer to Piastów, Poland; her survival and return to Warsaw; her reunion with her husband and their marriage; leaving Warsaw for Germany with her husband; her time in Germany with her husband waiting for their visa to the United States; her immigration to the United States in May 1949; her master’s degree in social work; and her two children and her life in the U.S.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Koplewicz

    Oral History

    Joseph Koplewicz, born December 7, 1915 in Kielce, Poland, describes his pre-war life in Kielce; his parents and siblings; his father’s occupation as a businessman; his education in Kielce and law school education in Warsaw; his family’s religious attitudes; his experiences with antisemitism while attending law school; the beginning of the war; his arrest in Kielce for not wearing a Star of David badge; the ghettoization of Warsaw; performing forced labor in Warsaw; his father’s death due to health complications; his stay with his sister and her husband in a comfortable apartment; his marriage in 1942; being wounded in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; his transfer to Majdanek concentration camp; his transfer to Budzyn labor camp near Krasnik, Poland until February 1944; his transfer to Mielec, Poland where he worked as a draftsman until July 1944; his short time in Wieliczka, Flossenbürg, Litomerice, and Dachau; his transfer to Augsburg, Germany where he worked in airport construction; his time in Kaufering and Nuremburg; a forced march to Landshut, Germany where the SS guards in charge fled; the marchers subsequent scattering; his survival and return to Poland; his reunion with his wife; their decision to leave Poland and immigrate to the United States in 1949; and his post-war life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Irving Schaffer

    Oral History

    Irving Schaffer, born May 26, 1928 in Chust, Czechoslovakia (present day Khust, Ukraine), discusses growing up in an Orthodox family; his early education; a teacher beating him in front of the class in 1943; experiencing antisemitism before the war; his father’s arrest for receiving milk from a neighbor; the deportation of his father and brother to labor camps; his family’s eviction from their home and deportation to the Chust Ghetto; conditions of the ghetto, such as the Jewish leadership; his assignment as a messenger and pass to leave the ghetto; smuggling in bread from outside the ghetto; people being punished for being Hungarian; being transported by train from the ghetto after three weeks; how partisans blew up the train and told prisoners to jump off and escape; arriving at Auschwitz in the spring of 1944; his memories of Dr. Mengele; being separated from the rest of his family at Auschwitz; being sent to Warsaw, Poland after only three days at Auschwitz; working to clean out the Warsaw Ghetto; prisoners escaping from the Warsaw ghetto; being marched out of the ghetto in August 1944; arriving at Kutno on the German and Polish border; being transported by train to Dachau; living in Camp Seven and working in Mühldorf in an ammunition factory; stealing potatoes and bartering with other prisoners; being transported from Dachau; finding a train transporting sugar that had been bombed and eating the hot sugar; being transported to the Landshut camp; working in Landsberg, Germany; a bombing by American planes; being released by the Germans and then chased down and beaten into a coma; waking up in a German hospital; organizations that assisted in reconnecting families, such as UNRRA and the Joint Distribution Committee; being liberated in Feldmoching, Germany; finding his brother in Chust; how the Russians did not let him leave Chust; escaping across borders into Germany; attending school in Munich, Germany; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with William Klein

    Oral History

    William Klein, born in 1924, discusses growing up in Užhorod, Czechoslovakia (present day Uzhhorod, Ukraine), in a large family; attending Jewish school until the sixth grade, then entering a public high school; the friendliness between Jews and non-Jews in Užhorod; his two older brothers leaving in 1940 for Yugoslavia and Russia with the army; Jews being made to wear the yellow Star of David badge and comply with a curfew beginning in 1942; hearing rumors about Jews being killed in Poland; being forced into the ghetto in January or February 1944; being taken by train to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944; last seeing his parents and sister as they went through the selection process at Auschwitz; being advised by a kapo to volunteer for work outside the camp when he had the opportunity; being taken to what had been the Warsaw Ghetto along with his brother and brother-in-law to demolish buildings and clear debris; finding gold pieces in an abandoned house where he was working and hiding them in a belt; prisoners making up songs and singing as they worked; being forced to march to Dachau as the Russians advanced towards Warsaw; witnessing the death of a rabbi he and his brother had helped on the march; staying in Dachau for a few days; volunteering to work at a construction site; being seriously injured on the construction site and being helped by fellow prisoners, including one who was a doctor; escaping with his brother and brother-in-law from a train and hiding in a farmhouse as the Americans liberated the area; reuniting with his surviving family members in Bratislava and Užhorod; living in Sudetenland and then in a series of displaced persons camps in Germany (Wasserburg, Föhrenwald, and Bremerhaven) and applying to move to the United States; having his application delayed after being accused of being a communist; moving to Chicago in 1951; his pride in his Jewish identity; health problems caused by beatings he received during his time as a prisoner; telling his children about his experiences; and his response to the question of why he does not hate.

    Oral history interview with George Pisik

    Oral History

    George Pisik, born May 25, 1925, describes his experience as a soldier in the U.S. Army’s 15th armored division, 10th infantry battalion; entering Dachau in May 1945 without any prior knowledge of concentration camps; his battalion’s doctor trying to help the prisoners; searching a guard who was subsequently taken by prisoners and killed in the barracks; meeting a 19 year-old female prisoner in Dachau and giving her the mezuzah his grandmother had given him to wear; receiving almost 100 mezuzahs from his family and friends after writing them; giving these mezuzahs to chaplains to distribute and to his fellow soldiers, telling them they were good luck charms; entering Munich and seeing the giant swastika on Munich Stadium, which his commander ordered to be destroyed by tank fire; seeing Germans surrender; conflicts with German civilians; suffering from trench foot and impetigo; returning to the United States expecting to be sent to Japan but staying after the bombing of Hiroshima; after his homecoming, using a swastika flag as a doormat, which drew the attention of the neighborhood and the police when his mother washed it and hung it out to dry; bringing home pistols which his mother took to the army depot to be deactivated; returning to college; his frustration with Holocaust deniers, including a Catholic priest he met in 1950 in Louisiana; the failings of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust; his feelings towards the Germans; his belief that a holocaust could happen again; his level of religious involvement; and the importance of education in preventing another holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Rosicka

    Oral History

    Ruth Rosicka, born August 13, 1919 in Nowice, Czechoslovakia (present day Poland), describes her Polish father who was actively pro-Zion; escaping bombing in Bielsko, Poland; escaping through Krakow, Poland and being found by the Russian army; being deported to a camp in Siberia from which she was amnestied in 1941; being drafted by the Czechoslovakian army and working in the medical brigade, where in 1944 she met her husband; being taken to the Carpathian Mountains, to the war front, where they stayed until February 1945; being released from the Army in May 1945 because of her pregnancy; and living in Prague, Czech Republic after the war.

    Oral history interview with Salomon Cohen

    Oral History

    Salomon Cohen, born July 28, 1937 in Athens, Greece, discusses how his family escaped to the south of Greece in February 1943 with the help of partisans; hiding with his family in the mountains for six months; how the partisans obtained food from monasteries in the mountains for his family; using false names while in hiding; traveling to Izmir, Turkey then Syria; being captured by English troops; how the family was taken to British camps in the Gaza Strip; their escape with the help of a Jewish agency; traveling to Ted Aviv, Israel, where they lived from 1944 to 1952; going into the army as a tank fighter; going to Haifa, Israel after leaving the army; getting married and having children; and his visits to Greece.

    Oral history interview with Suzanne Foldes

    Oral History

    Suzanne Foldes (b. Zsuzsi Morvai) discusses her childhood in Miskolc, Hungary; her Jewish and Christian schooling; pre-war antisemitism; training as a gymnast but being denied entry into the Olympics because she was Jewish; her father’s conscription into Hungarian forced labor; getting married in 1942 to Paul Berkowitz; terminating a pregnancy; the German occupation of Hungary; being confined to a ghetto; being transported to Auschwitz by cattle car; learning of her mother’s death by gassing; moving to Buchenwald; how she was good at stealing coal; liberation; returning to Budapest after the war; reuniting with her father; learning of her husband’s death; marrying a friend from before the war; immigrating to the United States in 1956; and speaking about her wartime experiences beginning in the 1990s.

    Oral history interview with Tibor Vince

    Oral History

    Tibor Vince, born in 1910, describes his childhood near Budapest, Hungary; his medical studies in Italy; his escape to Cuba at the outbreak of World War II; his immigration to the United States; his work as a physician in the United States Army; his experiences at Dachau shortly after liberation; his medical treatment of Allied prisoners of war; and his life in New York, NY after 1945.

    Oral history interview with Elias Piorko

    Oral History

    Elias Piorko, born on May 15, 1919, discusses his childhood in Zambrów, Poland; his life in a kibbutz near Slonim, Poland (now Belarus); his experiences with forced labor in Russia; being in four different camps; his travels through Europe on the way to Italy after World War II; and his life in the United States after 1950.

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Hildesheim

    Oral History

    Benjamin (Beniek) Hildesheim discusses his childhood in Sieradz, Poland; his experiences with antisemitism and Jewish persecution in Sieradz before the Holocaust; his time in the ghettos of Sieradz and Łódź, Poland; his adoption by Chaim Rumkowski; his imprisonment at Auschwitz, Babice/Babitz (a small agricultural camp west of Auschwitz), and Buchenwald concentration camps; his participation in a death march to Theresienstadt, where he remained until liberation; his time in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), immediately after liberation; his immigration to Palestine in the first Aliyah after World War II in 1945; his participation in the Israel-Arab War of 1948 to 1949; and his life in Brazil and the United States after 1962.

    Oral history interview with Peter Masters

    Oral History

    Peter Masters (né Peter Arany), born February 5, 1922, in Vienna, Austria, describes his prewar life in Vienna; his Viennese mother and Hungarian father; his escape to Britain after the Anschluss in 1938; his family’s internment as “friendly aliens;” his family’s reclassification as enemy aliens in Britain; his experiences volunteering for special hazardous duty in Britain and being assigned the 3rd Group, 10th Commando, an elite paratroop unit mostly consisting of Jewish or political refugees; his identity being anglicized for his protection; his work to petition for the recognition of Austrians who perished fighting the Nazis; his many family members who perished during the war; and his 1997 book, Striking back: A Jewish commando’s war against the Nazis, which he wrote as a counterpoint to the idea the Jews did not fight back during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Wolke

    Oral History

    Joseph Wolke (Wolkeovich), born July 14, 1919 in Tomashov (Tomaszów Mazowiecki), Poland, discusses his family background and religious upbringing; his father’s successful farm outside the city; the rise of Hitler and antisemitism; racial laws against Jews; being deported during Rosh Hashanah; arriving in Krakow, Poland on a cattle train; his disbelief that the war would last so long; escaping from the Germans and returning to Tomashov by bus; how the farm provided for the family; increases in the deportation of Jews; living in the Tomashov ghetto; smuggling food into the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto on November 1, 1942; the mass burial of Jews in the ghetto for which he was forced to dig graves; being deported to Bergen-Belsen; being transferred on a cattle train to Auschwitz; forced labor digging ditches outside the camp; being relocated to Gross-Rosen camp; the death march from Rosen, which lasted over a week; starvation during the march; liberation by Russian forces; returning home to Poland; meeting his wife and having a child; immigrating to the United States in August 1950; living in Baltimore, MD with his wife’s family; adjusting to American life; creating a business; and learning the fate of his family members in the years following the war.

    Oral history interview with Ionel Ghelman

    Oral History

    Ionel Ghelman, born on March 27, 1929 in Bucharest, Romania, discusses his mother’s death in 1938 and being raised by his maternal aunt; experiencing antisemitism; seeing boys in 1936 practicing to be in the Iron Guard in the future; the German occupation in 1940; the events in January 1941, including pogroms, stores being burned, and Jews being killed; ration cards and how Jews’ ration cards were half of Rumanians’ cards; the Allied bombardments of Bucharest from late 1943 to early 1944; seeing Russian tanks and troops in August 1944; leaving school in 1946 to work in a locomotive factory; rejecting the Communist Youth Party and feeling a connection to Zionist Hashomer Hatzair; going to Bukovina to prepare for kibbutz in Israel; the banning of Zionist organizations in 1949; being a draftsman for oil pipeline company from 1948 to 1950; marrying a Romanian woman in 1956; his children; being expelled from the Communist Party because parents went to Israel; getting visas for Hungary, France, and Germany in 1976; going to New York in April 21, 1977 with the help of HIAS; and settling in Washington and working for Bechtel.

    Oral history interview with Irimia Solomon

    Oral History

    Irimia Solomon, born on November 3, 1924 in Dorohoi, Romania, describes his parents, who were divorced; how he and his mother lived with his grandparents in Falticeni, Romania; his granfather’s farm; the Jewish community in the town and his family not being particularly religious; Jews in Moldovan cities; his education; playing soccer with non-Jewish children; hearing about antisemitism; wanting to go to Palestine; going to school in Bucharest, Romania to learn a trade; his relationship with his father; an uprising in Romania in September 1940; the Iron Guard (Garda de Fier); returning to Falticeni in December 1941; going to Dorohoi; his father being taken away in June 1942; being taken to forced work, unloading rail cards and sweeping; being deported with his mother to Transnistria and conditions during the journey there; having to trade in their Romanian money for Russian rubles; arriving in Sharhorod, Ukraine; being housed in a synagogue for several weeks; staying in a room in a house of a Christian family with other Jews; being in a ghetto, where there was religious life but no cultural life; building roads and sleeping overnight in rail cars outfitted with bunk bed; typhus in Sharhorod and helping to bury the dead; his mother not working and staying indoors; being helped by a cousin’s Christian husband; being taken back to Dorohoi in December 1943; moving from house to house until they could contact relatives; not feeling relief or happiness; his mother being treated as a war widow and being allowed to sell certain items, such as stamps, alcohol, and tobacco; returning to school and going to the polytechnic in 1945; waiting from 1958 to 1972 to get a passport; going to Israel, where his wife did not like the heat; going to Canada, where they settled in Toronto; working as an engineer; and moving to Montreal.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Salus

    Oral History

    Lotte Salus (b. Charlotte Helena Cohen) discusses her childhood living near the Dutch border in Germany; working for a Jewish family; being arrested and pressed into labor after Kristallnacht; being sent to Amsterdam, Netherlands by her father; living with other Jewish teenagers in The Hague, Netherlands; learning her family had been deported to Westerbork; moving to Amsterdam in May 1940; receiving orders to register with the police; being deported to Westerbork; reuniting with her family; daily life in Westerbork; volunteering to go to Theresienstadt with her parents in 1944; her experiences in the camps Auschwitz, Stutthof, and Praust; being taken on a death march in March 1945; liberation by the Russians; sexual violence perpetrated by the Russians; returning to Germany; immigrating to the United States in 1949; and marrying and starting a family.

    Oral history interview with Irena Kirkland

    Oral History

    Irena Neumann discusses her childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); not having a Jewish identity or religious education; evacuating Prague before the Munich Agreement; returning to the city and learning she was Jewish; adapting to restrictions placed on Jews; her feelings about wearing the yellow star; being deported to Theresienstadt with her family; daily life in the camp; contracting encephalitis; being deported to Auschwitz; conditions in camps Auschwitz and Sachsen Chemnitz; returning to Theresienstadt in May 1945; reuniting with her parents; liberation by Russian soldiers; returning to Prague; beginning university; being arrested and released by communists; and immigrating to the United States in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Hans Hirsch

    Oral History

    Hans George Hirsch discusses his early life in Stuttgart, Germany; his father’s role as executive director of the German Jewish Community; graduating gymnasium in 1934; prewar antisemitism; the difficulties he experienced attending university and holding a job in Nazi Germany; visiting Palestine in 1937; receiving a visa to leave for the United States in 1937; working on farms in the U.S.; trying to get his parents out of Europe; teaching German prisoners of war farm management from 1943 to 1946; his career trajectory in food administration and policy; and his retirement from foreign agricultural service.

    Oral history interview with Milton Shurr

    Oral History

    Milton Shurr, born January 28, 1911 in the United States, describes his work with the Jewish Welfare Fund in Oklahoma City, OK in the early 1940s; his draft into the military and entering Officer’s Candidate School; being shipped overseas to England, where he worked in preparation for D-Day in June 1944; his recruitment by the Civil Affairs Unit of the Military Government to gather and identify medical supplies left behind on Omaha Beach, France; helping to provide food for the 15,000 survivors of Buchenwald and working with the Red Cross and Joint Distribution Committee; traveling to Bavaria, Germany to work has a health welfare officer; working to reopen schools, hospitals, banks, and other institutions in Germany; maintaining correspondence with his wife in America during the war; returning to the United States after the war and moving to Chicago as an assistant in health planning; and sharing what he had witnessed in Buchenwald after years of being unable to speak about it.

    Oral history interview with Ludwig Jacob

    Oral History

    Ludwig Jacob discusses his early life in Schmalkalden, Germany; being arrested with his parents on Kristallnacht; being imprisoned in Buchenwald for a month; leaving on a Kindertransport to Holland; living in a children’s home; the German invasion; moving to his brother’s home in Amsterdam; the arrest of his brother, who subsequently was imprisoned and died in Mauthausen; receiving a deportation notice; choosing to live under a false identity; moving to Paris, France and working with the underground; sabotaging the German defense organization where he worked; being denounced and arrested; spending time in Fresnes prison before being deported to Drancy; jumping off the train on the way to Buchenwald; rejoining the resistance; working for Americans in Paris; immigrating to the United States in 1947; and his marriage and life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Artman

    Oral History

    Barbara Feuerstein Artman, born September 12, 1923 in Kosice, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), discusses her parents Elizabeth and Henry Feuerstein and two younger brothers; her 14 aunts and uncles and 27 first cousins, who all perished in the Holocaust; her family’s move to Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), which in March 1939 was occupied by Hungry; the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944; being forced to live in a ghetto; conditions in the ghetto; her deportation with her family to Auschwitz; conditions in Auschwitz; the treatment of camp guards; being sent to a labor camp near Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) with her mother; their liberation by the Russians while on a march; walking, at the end of the war, to Krakow; reuniting with one brother; attending medical school but changing her major to chemistry; contacting uncles in United States who arranged for visas and transportation to the US for her, her mother, and her brother; and settling in Forest Hills, NY, where she married another refugee and had one son.

    Oral history interview with Fritz Schonbach

    Oral History

    Fritz (né Frederic) Schonbach, born in 1920, discusses his middle-class childhood in Vienna, Austria; attending private school until Jewish restrictions began in 1938; how life changed with the Nazi annexation of Austria; antisemitism in Austria and the terror campaigns; fleeing to Italy then to England in 1939; his family fleeing to Argentina while he remained in England; his internment in England because of his Austrian background; volunteering for the Australian army; daily life in the army; being discharged in 1946; enrolling in art school after the war; meeting his wife; reuniting with family in Argentina; immigrating to the United States in 1959; and discovering what happened to various family members in the war.

    Oral history interview with Charles Barber

    Oral History

    Charles Barber, born in 1932 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his father, who owned a liquor store; attending a public grade school, where some of the non-Jews wouldn't speak with him; his memories of the first bomb being dropped in Budapest in 1939; his father being drafted into the labor corps of the Hungarian army; his mother’s work as a tailor; being an only child; his father dying after two months in the labor corps; his mother being taken to a camp for eight months in 1943; living with several different people; his mother returning home; his memories of feeling guilty for telling his mother that he was hungry; the Jews being summoned to the courthouse in town and being separated from his mother by the officials; going to live in an orphanage with a Swedish flag out front; the Russian army and their activities in Budapest; his aunt sending him to the Red Cross then a Zionist orphanage in Sagat; returning to Budapest to work in a factory; attending law school but leaving when the revolution began; going to Austria and then the United States with the help of the Red Cross; living with an uncle in the US; becoming an accountant, attending Queensborough Community College and then Bernard Baruch College; working for ABC Transnational Transport; getting married to an Austrian Holocaust survivor; the effects of his Holocaust experience; losing his faith when he lost his parents; visiting Europe; antisemitism in Hungary; wanting to go to Israel; possessing a letter from his mother, which she wrote while she was in Bergen-Belsen, and a picture of his parents (which is in the USHMM Photo Archive); and his other family pictures.

    Oral history interview with Tibor Borsos

    Oral History

    Tibor Borsos, born on March 12, 1927 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his highly intellectual Catholic family; his family moving to Debrecen in 1936; having many Jewish friends; how he “looked Jewish” and was sometimes made fun of; his family’s possession of an American flag, National Geographic magazines, and a censored version of Time magazine; his family burning the American flag March 21, 1944 to be safe; his family storing carpets, silver, and jewelry for Jewish friends and hiding them in the university library; his mother being denounced, arrested, and released; his family leaving Debrecen in May 1944; witnessing Jews being rounded up; going to Budapest and living next door to a Swedish protected house; the closing of schools in the fall of 1944; his family going in December 1944 to Halle an der Saale, Germany, where his father taught in a medical school; being drafted into the Hungarian Army in March 1945 and riding on a train for two months to avoid finding his unit; finding his brother on May 8, 1945 in Mitterald; being rounded up by Patton’s troops and sent to Ludwigshafen, Germany; being sent to a POW camp in Heilbronn; going to Gottingen in the British Occupation Zone; sailing to the United States in December 1949 on the USS Harry Taylor; earning a Ph.D. in chemistry at Johns Hopkins; researching cancer at NIH; marrying a survivor of Bergen-Belsen; and his feelings about not being officially Jewish.

    Oral history interview with Robert Kertesz

    Oral History

    Robert Kertesz, born in 1933, discusses his childhood in Budapest, Hungary; antisemitism in Budapest; his family; his religious upbringing; being stuck in Hungary due to travel restrictions; his father being conscripted into the Hungarian Army; the Hungarian Nazis and Arrow Cross Party members in his neighborhood; the increasing antisemitism and abuse; how the ghetto grew in 1943; finding safe houses for children; escaping from the ghetto after his parent’s deportation; hiding in his Christian aunt’s home; returning to Budapest to escape violence; returning to the ghetto; living conditions in the ghetto; liberation by the Soviets; looting by the Soviet Army in the city; working as a guide and interpreter for Russians; his parents’ return; living in a displaced persons camp; immigrating to the United States in 1948; and his life in the U.S.

    Oral history interview with Fred Kahn

    Oral History

    Fred Kahn, born December 19, 1932 in Wiesbaden, Germany, describes being raised until he was six years old by an aunt (Rosa Nassauer) in Wehen, Germany; his older brother, Walter; his Christian friend, Walter Kaltwasser, who protected him from young Nazis; being raised religious by his aunt and uncle; his grandfather dying in 1938; being sent after the Munich Agreement to Aachen, Germany, where he crossed the border and joined his parents and brother in Verviers, Belgium; his father’s successful career as playing bridge; his aunt and uncle being sent to Łódź, Poland; starting school in Belgium; his parents and life in Verviers; going to Liege and Brussels in May 1940 with his family; returning to Verviers; Jews having to register; the small right-wing party, Rexiste, which collaborated with the Nazis; his father being interrogated; getting false identities with the last name Jejeune; being taught Catholic prayers; getting scarlet fever in the spring of 1942; leaving his school after getting in a fight; his principal helping him; going into hiding and the various ways he entertained himself; moving from village to village in 1943; getting a job in 1944, carrying milk; being liberated in September 1944 by the American Army; life when he was in hiding; his mother’s accused of being a German spy and arrested; the Battle of the Bulge; events he heard about involving the underground; factors that helped him survive; developing a sense of humor; and considering Verviers his hometown.

    Oral history interview with Susan Warsinger

    Oral History

    Susan Warsinger (née Hilsinrath), born in 1929, discusses her family and childhood in Bad Kreuznach, Germany; her memories of Kristallnacht; escaping to Paris, France; being homeless; fleeing to Versailles when the Germans invaded; going to Château des Morelles, a home for homeless children; her schooling; getting tickets to the United States from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; immigrating to the U.S. in 1941; her life in the U.S.; her feelings about returning home to Europe; and her life since the war.

    Oral history interview with Arnold Weiss

    Oral History

    Hans Arnold Wangesheim, born in Nuremberg, Germany on July 25, 1924, describes his parents divorcing in 1930; his mother placing him in a very strict Jewish orphanage in Furth; his encounters with Hitler youth; getting passage on a Kindertransport with help of Quakers in 1938; going to Chicago, IL then Milwaukee, WI; running away from a Jewish orphanage and being placed with a family in Janesville, WI; attending a watchmaker’s college; enlisting in 1942 in the Army Air Corps and being a B-17 tail gunner; his training plane crashing in Utah in 1943 and being severely injured; going to OSS (Office of Strategic Services) in Washington in 1944; going in late 1944 to Paris, France then Germany; crossing the Rhine with the 4th Division behind German lines picking up mail from agents; seeing Nuremberg bombed; going back to Furth; going in April 1945 to Dachau to get important political prisoners, including the former French Prime Minister Leon Blum; locating the prisoners in Innsbruck, Austria; his counterintelligence work for de-Nazification and working with Hugh Trevor-Roper to hunt down Wilhelm Zander; being assigned to trace enemy assets including Nazi treasures and Reichsbank gold; his work interrogating Germans, doing anti-Soviet intelligence, and being sent to Czechoslovakia as a contact for Hungarian agents; returning to the US, attending school, and working for the US Treasury; and working for a law firm.

    Oral history interview with Sia Hertsberg

    Oral History

    Sia Hertsberg (née Izrailewitsch), born June 8, 1927 in Riga, Latvia, describes her early family life and schooling; the Jewish community and the state of antisemitism in pre-war Riga; the 1940 Russian invasion; her family’s persecution at the hands of the Russian communists; the 1941 Nazi occupation and implementation of Nazi race laws; the burning of Riga’s synagogues; the help her family received from non-Jewish friends; the establishment and the later liquidation of the Riga ghetto; how a Latvian soldier attempted to rape her; avoiding the Rumbula massacre; working as a seamstress in a Reichskommissariat workshop; her family’s transport to the Kaiserwald concentration camp; how her father saved her sister several times by hiding her amidst the trash or in a pot of soup when the Nazis were looking for young children; the Nazis’ theft of her childhood; the normalcy of discussing death; her family’s transport via ship and cattle car to Stutthof; the typhus epidemic and her work carrying the dead to the crematorium; her mother’s death; her and her sister’s escape from a death march; seeking shelter and being turned away by Polish peasants; liberation by Russian soldiers on March 23, 1945; hospitalization and her sister’s death; her deep depression at losing her family; her hospitalization in Kolomna, Russia; her return to Riga and reunion with her father; falling in love with her future husband; their attempts to illegally immigrate to the United States and her father’s subsequent imprisonment by the Russians; the birth of her two sons; finishing her schooling; her husband’s death; her move to Chicago, Illinois and her post-war life in the United States; and her father’s death on the same day as her sister, thirty years later.

    Oral history interview with Chava Frajhof

    Oral History

    Chava Frajhof (née Geister), born September 20, 1923 in Belzyce, Poland, discusses her family; the German invasion of Poland in 1939; hiding from the Germans; paying the Judenrat to be assigned work in Będzin, Poland; working as a seamstress; being sent to Kraśnik, Poland in 1943; being liberated by the Soviets; fleeing to Lublin, Poland; having a family; going to Frankfurt, Germany then Berlin, Germany; and immigrating to Brazil in 1953 to join her family.

    Oral history interview with Israel Frajhof

    Oral History

    Israel Frajhof, born March 3, 1920 in Krasnik (near Lublin), Poland, describes experiencing violent antisemitism in 1933; the establishment of a ghetto in the fall of 1942; the typhus epidemic and conditions in the ghetto; working outside the ghetto; the deportation of old men, women and children deported to Majdanek and Treblinka in December 1942; trying to become a policeman but being declined permission; doing carpentry work for Germans making furniture; appels, beatings, and sleeping in the synagogue; meeting his future wife Chava Geister, who was in Krasnik camp; the Russians’ arrival in Lublin on July 22,1944; the death march to Germany and escaping into the forest for 10 days; meeting up with Chava and going to Krasnik; going to Lublin; getting married in January 1946; going to Berlin , Germany and being helped by the UNRRA; going to Frankfurt, Germany; going to Brazil in 1953; visiting Majdanek in 1986; and living for his wife and children.

    Oral history interview with Edward Novakoff

    Oral History

    Edward Novakoff, born in 1926 in Boston, Massachusetts, discusses his Ukrainian and Lithuanian immigrant parents; enlisting in the U.S. Army in December 1943; being shipped to Marseilles, France with the 90th Infantry Division; seeing his company wiped out in November 1944; fighting in southern Germany in January 1945; arriving at Flossenbürg in May 1945 and seeing the conditions and the survivors; his transfer to the 26th Regiment, 1st Infantry in August 1945; guarding prisoners for the Nuremburg Trials; having contact with Nuremburg prisoners; returning to the U.S. in December 1945; his life after the war; and helping to create the largest Jewish cemetery in the Boston area.

    Oral history interview with Celia Feldschuh

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nicole Yancey

    Oral History

    Nicole Yancey (née Guggenheim), born July 26, 1941 in Saint-Amand-Mont-Rond, France, describes having one sister, Nanette, born November 1938; being separated from her family when she was two years old and sent to a farm to live in a safe and secure environment; still today calling the farmer and his wife her real grandparents; members of the French Resistance coming in for meals because the farm was close to the demarcation line and there was lots of Resistance activity; her daily routine of working, hiding, and eating; how her relationships were all very harmonious; being moved back to Orléans, France when she was five years old and starting school; the severe personality changes of her parents because of their experiences during the Holocaust; the torment her father experienced because he was not able to save his brothers from being murdered; being sponsored by a French/American agency to attend William and Mary College, where she met her husband; remaining in the Tidewater, VA area; converting to Catholicism because her husband is Catholic as are her children; her position now as Consul for the French Embassy in Norfolk, VA; and her assertion that tragedies like the Holocaust will continue as long as people do not learn to accept each other and their differences.

    Oral history interview with Jaffa Munk

    Oral History

    Jaffa Munk (née Noemi Donath), born April 10, 1931 IN Ónod, Hungary, describes her father Philippe, who was a Rabbi, and her mother Olga Shick Donath; having one brother, Joseph, and one sister, Esther Judith; living a very normal life with a family that was religious yet open-minded and encouraged academics; the many changes that began in 1942 and 1943; being moved in May 1944 to the ghetto, where her father was put in charge; being sent to Auschwitz; the brutal arrival and her father’s last words to her: “Wherever you go, continue to believe in God;” being marched to Birkenau, which was the very last time she saw her mother; being selected by Mengele in September 1944 to go to Bergen-Belsen and the grim living situation there; the forced evacuation in January 1945 and a subsequent six week death march; escaping to a forest and being liberated May 8, 1945 by Russian soldiers; eventually returning to Budapest, Hungary, where she lived at an Orthodox refugee orphanage facility, which was started by Esther Eckstein with education as the primary goal; going with a Zionist group with 1800 refugees to Palestine on a boat leaving from Bucharest, Romania and the refusal of the British to allow them entry, but finally being allowed to land at Haifa, Palestine; the break-out of war in 1947 and the desperate living conditions during the war; being taken to Tel Aviv, Israel, where there was less danger and where she attended teacher’s seminary; meeting her husband, who was in the Army; the birth of her first son, Gabriel, which was the highlight of her life because it meant continuation of her family; her teaching positions, starting with 1st grade, where students came from 30 different countries; and how her personal strengths are her sense of hope and having a positive outlook.

    Oral history interview with Frances Hirshfeld

    Oral History

    Frances Hirshfeld (née Frieda Miriam Rosenbloom), born in 1918, discusses her family and childhood in Opatów, Poland; moving to Zawiercie, Poland and its local Jewish population; the beginning of the war; her religious life; antisemitism; Kristallnacht; going into hiding in Ukraine and returning to Poland; the Judenrat; adjusting to anti-Jewish laws; moving into the ghetto; living conditions in the ghetto; being deported to Auschwitz in 1943; living conditions in Auschwitz; being moved to Birkenau; contracting typhoid fever and scabies; lack of medical care; bombings near the camp; returning to Auschwitz; hearing about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; working in a munitions factory; being on a death march to Ravensbrück; escaping into a forest; liberation by the Soviets; immigrating to the United States in October 1946; her husband immigrating to the U.S. in 1949; visiting Poland; her feelings about Holocaust deniers; and her life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Moris Gluckman

    Oral History

    Moris Glukman, born in Suceava, Romania in 1924, discusses his childhood; the rise in antisemitism; deportation announcements; his arrival in Bessarabia (in Moldova and Ukraine) with his family and how the peasants took the belongings of the Romanian Jews; travel to Moravia, Czech Republic; living at the mercy of the Romanian Gendarmerie; the spread of typhus and diphtheria during the winter of 1941-1942; how the Ukranian police guarded the village in Moravia; the German entrance into Moravia; building bridges and excavating coal from open mines; his knowledge about events in Bessarabia and Russian positions and the approaching front; working in a Kolkhoz; being liberated by the Russians; his schooling in Bucharest, Romania; and immigration to the United States in 1983.

    Oral history interview with Margie Rosenthal

    Oral History

    Margie Rosenthal (née Margit Mary Miedzwinski), born July 19, 1927 in Gleiwitz, Germany (Gliwice, Poland), describes her prewar childhood; her family’s immigration to the Philippines after the Nazi invasion so that her father could continue in the lumber business; her pleasant life in the Philippines until the Japanese bombing in December 1941 and subsequent invasion; severe changes in their lives in Pasay City as Americans began bombing nearby Manila; the delay in her family’s move to the United States in 1948 as a result of immigration quotas; her life in San Francisco; and her marriage to her husband, Ernie.

    Oral history interview with Emma Mogilensky

    Oral History

    Emma Mogilensky (née Hubert), born May 22, 1923 in Kronheim, Bavaria, describes living in the house that had been built by her great-grandfather; having one brother and one sister; living in a friendly and peaceful community until Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938 when antisemitism became so violent that she was sent to Nuremberg, Germany; enrolling in a very strict, all Jewish high school; moving to Augsberg, Germany after her father was released from Dachau; the children’s transport, going to Munich, Germany and being transferred to a boat; finally arriving in London, England, where she and the other children were chosen for English homes such that not one of them would become a public charge; being sent to live with a couple, both physicians, who were extremely helpful; attending school again where English Literature became her best subject; being a Fire Watcher at St. Paul’s Cathedral and joining the British Army when she was 17; antisemitism in the Army; being a cook for 2,000 men; receiving her GED; subsequently attending college on the GI Bill; a trip to Israel with her children after her husband’s death; finding that the cemetery where her grandparents were buried was not desecrated and finding their graves; visiting her foster parents in England every year; and her serious commitment to speaking about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Isaiah Henig

    Oral History

    Isaiah Henig (né Yeshiah Henig), born in 1915, discusses his childhood in Szydlowiec, Poland; his family and the Jewish community; his religious upbringing; the absence of antisemitism before the war; changing anti-Jewish attitudes after the German occupation; the outbreak of the war and changes in daily life; being conscripted for forced labor; the creation of the ghetto; living conditions in the ghetto; working as a laborer in Starachowice, Poland; diseases in the camp; working to build replacement parts for machines; not believing reports about Jewish deaths; being deported to Birkenau in the summer of 1944; working in a factory; being moved to other concentration camps, including Mauthausen and Hannover; Allied bombing of the area; being deported to Bergen-Belsen; living conditions in the camp; his job building cannons; liberation by the British; moving to a displaced persons camp; immigrating to the United States in 1951; his life after the war; and his feelings about what happened.

    Oral history interview with Ida Henig

    Oral History

    Ida Henig (née Markowicz), born in 1924, discusses her family and childhood in Lódź, Poland; Łódź’s Jewish community and economy; not experiencing antisemitism before the war; changing anti-Jewish attitudes when the Germans invaded; fleeing to Częstochowa, Poland; working in the ghetto; not believing stories of mass murder; the Jewish police; liberation by the Soviets in January 1945; going to Germany; coming to the United States in the 1950s; the fates of her family members; and her feelings about the Holocaust and war.

    Oral history interview with Marcel Drimer

    Oral History

    Marcel Drimer (b. Marceli Drimmer), born in 1934, discusses his childhood in Drohobych, Poland (present day Ukraine); his family; his religious upbringing; life before the war; the Russian occupation; the German invasion in 1941; the looting of Jewish property; the deportations in 1942; moving into the ghetto; the fates of his family members; Ukrainian and German police; the Judenrat; hiding in an attic for a week; escape plans being postponed due to the death of his father; how his female relatives were saved by a woman who was recognized as a righteous gentile; their living conditions while in hiding; liberation by the Soviets; adjusting to life after the war; his education; difficult living conditions in Poland; post-war anti-Semitism; immigrating to the United States in 1961; his family going to Israel; and his feelings about the war, Poland, and anti-Semitism.

    Oral history interview with Michael Silberstein

    Oral History

    Michael Silberstein (né Mieczyslaw Silberstein), born in 1930 in Grudziadz, Poland, discusses his family; life before the war; the arrival of the German Army when he was nine years old; moving to Łódź, Poland; the establishment of the Łódź ghetto; being an errand boy and getting arrested in 1942; escaping arrest; living conditions in the ghetto; being deported to Birkenau in the summer of 1944; being sent on a death march in January 1945; arriving in Mauthausen; conditions and life in Mauthausen; liberation by the Americans; reuniting with his family; meeting family in England; immigrating to the United States in1952; being drafted into the U.S. Army; and his life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Joan Schwab

    Oral History

    Joan Schwab (née Nussbaum), born on March 24, 1926, describes living in the Tiergarten area of Berlin, Germany; her memories of Kristallnacht and how two men came for her father; being placed on a Children’s Transport to England on May 21, 1939; staying with Norman and Elsie Denham and going to secondary school and Hebrew school; her brother joining her in August 1939; evacuating in September to Chichester; conditions in the home, where she shared a bed with four girls and showered every two weeks; graduating from high school in 1944 and going back to Denhams in London; sleeping in an air raid shelter when V2 rockets attacked; going after the war to the Joint Distribution Committee in Munich, Germany and finding out that her parents perished in Auschwitz and her grandfather died in Theresienstadt; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Erwin Deutscher

    Oral History

    Erwin Deutscher, born on January 28, 1923 in Vienna, Austria, describes being raised with thorough religious training; being in the Zionist Youth group, HaShomer HaDati; how his maternal grandfather had gone to the United States in 1898 to Oklahoma City, OK; his Bar Mitzvah in 1936; hearing about Hitler’s arrival on March 11, 1938; his father’s dairy business closing; his mother being arrested; getting notice that his youth group was going to go to Palestine and meeting Eichmann at the emigration office with his father; conditions getting worse in Vienna; traveling with 25 others by train to Trieste and by boat to Haifa and arriving October 24, 1938; going to Mikveh Israel agricultural school for two years then to Bnai Akiva yeshiva for another two years; working for Haganah and meeting his wife; fighting in the Israeli War of Independence; his father being taken to Dachau after Kristallnacht and then to Buchenwald from June 1939 to January 1940; his parents immigrating to the United States; his life after the war working for a life insurance company; and getting a Ph. D. in Hebrew letters at Hebrew Union College.

    Oral history interview with George Pick

    Oral History

    George Pick, born in Budapest, Hungary on March 28, 1934, describes his very large extended family; his father losing his job in May 1939 and being sent on labor brigade in September 1940 for three months; seeing German tanks in the streets on March 9, 1944 and the subsequent anti-Jewish laws after including wearing the yellow star and not being allowed to attend school after April; his father having to leave again; being ordered to move to special Jewish houses in the summer of 1944; the air raids in Budapest and the massive bombings on July 2, 1944; his father’s return; he and his mother joining his father in hiding in a uniform factory building in November 1944; the factory being raided December 2, 1944 and bribing their way out; being taken to a Red Cross building and running away; going to the ghetto on December 14, 1944 and his father being in the ghetto police; the siege of Budapest; Wallenberg saving Jews from a massacre in January 1945; liberation; starting school; his Bar Mitzvah in 1947; attending university; going to Austria and then the United States, where his uncle lived; working for the Navy as mechanical engineer and retiring in 1996; his three marriages and not having children; and his commitment to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with Hedi Pope

    Oral History

    Hedi Pope (née Politzer), born March 18, 1920 in Vienna, Austria, describes her prosperous family, which was neither religious nor political; wanting to be a dancer as a child; the increase in anti-Semitism in Vienna; her memories, day-by-day, of Hitler’s invasion of Austria in March 1938; rising fears to speak out about Hitler’s actions; her memories of Kristallnacht; her father being sent to Dachau; the difficulty of getting all the documents to go to the United States; immigrating to the U.S. in January 1939; living in Newark, NJ; joining the Refugee Artist’s Group as a dancer; going to Miami University in Ohio and graduating in 1942; having two children; maintaining a dance studio in Alexandria, VA until 1980; and working with the volunteer corps at USHMM.

    Oral history interview with Bella Simon Pasternak

    Oral History

    Bella Simon Pasternak, born in 1928, discusses her liberation from Auschwitz by Russians; walking home to Hungary during the winter; being hospitalized with frostbite and starvation; living in a displaced persons camp in Innsbruck, Austria; immigrating to the United States in 1946; her first impressions of the U.S.; Americans’ disbelief at her experiences; meeting her husband, who was also a survivor; her religious views becoming more orthodox; desiring to immigrate to Israel; coping with the Holocaust many years after it occurred and still experiencing nightmares; and how important her grandchildren are to her.

    Oral history interview with Marion Friedman

    Oral History

    Marion Friedman (b. Traute Marion Julia Georgia Sulimas), born in 1922, discusses her childhood in Hamburg, Germany; being raised with her Christian mother and Jewish father; her parents’ upbringings; celebrating both Christian and Jewish holidays; her brothers’ immigrations to China and the United States; the Aryanization of her father’s bank; her mother’s resourcefulness; receiving a visa along with her mother to go to the U.S.; being sent to the U.S. on her own because her mother decided to stay with her father; learning of her parents’ arrest and deaths; adjusting to life in the U.S.; meeting her husband; returning to Germany long after the war; meeting her German family; and dealing with her losses on a daily basis.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Strassburger, born in 1938, discusses her childhood in a small town near Zakopane, Poland; her father’s arrest and imprisonment in Siberia; being forced into the Tarnow ghetto with her mother and grandmother; watching her grandmother being taken by the Germans; hiding under an assumed Christian identity; being drugged and hidden in a basement during dangerous times; the family who hid her and her mother; believing she was a Catholic; her Catholic schooling; liberation by the Russians; learning she was Jewish after the war; being smuggled out of Poland with her mother; living at a Jewish orphanage with her mother in Germany; learning her father was alive; moving to Italy to be with her father; immigrating to England with her family; immigrating to the United States; adjusting to life as a teenager in the U.S.; her marriage; studying social work in college; her volunteer work; and her family.

    Oral history interview with Jadwiga Dziekonski

    Oral History

    Jadwiga Dziekonski, born in 1919, discusses her family’s emigration from Kiev, Ukraine to Warsaw, Poland in 1921 because of the revolution; her Catholic upbringing; attending public school; following the political situation in Germany; meeting her husband; the German invasion and occupation; her father’s exile in London, England as a member of the Bank of Poland; moving to Warsaw with her husband; her husband’s role in the Home Army; her daughter’s birth in 1943; sheltering two Jewish women in her mother’s apartment; the Polish underground’s participation in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; the Warsaw Uprising; her husband’s arrest and imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen and Gross-Rosen; liberation; readjusting to life after the war; escaping to London through Sweden in 1947; leaving her mother behind; reuniting with her father; immigrating to Detroit in 1951; visiting Poland in 1988 to see her husband’s family; her feelings about being Polish; how she feels about Jewish people and German people; and her two visits to Israel.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Harvey

    Oral History

    Ruth Harvey, born in 1928, describes growing up with mixed Jewish and Christian heritage; her childhood in Berlin, Germany; being expelled from public school in 1938; attending a private Jewish school; witnessing the burning of Berlin’s temple during Kristallnacht; hearing Hitler’s speeches over loudspeakers; leaving Germany in 1939 with her mother to meet her father in Cuba; immigrating to New York in 1940 with her parents; growing up in New York City; moving to Washington, DC for a job with the State Department; getting married and having children; having a sense of confusion about her religious identity; why she chose not to visit any concentration camps; and volunteering at the USHMM.

    Oral history interview with Thomas B. Gardiner

    Oral History

    Thomas Brown Gardiner, born on March 26, 1920 in St. Louis County, Missouri, describes being raised by his widowed mother; life during the Depression; working for a house painter as a teen in St. Louis; getting married in 1940; working for a manufacturer that made small parts for the M1 rifle; being drafted in 1944; training at Camp Robinson in Arkansas; being sent to England in the fall of 1944; going to France; being assigned to the 45th Infantry Division; seeing action in the Vosges Mountains and Alsace-Lorraine; participating in the capture of Schaffenburg; going through Nuremberg and Munich; liberating Dachau as a member of L Company in the 157th Infantry Regiment; guarding the camp while waiting for the military police to arrive; billeting in apartment buildings outside of the camp, where the Nazi officers had lived; typhus in the camp and the high death rate of the survivors; speaking with the survivors and being shown the camp by them; going to Munich then Augsburg for a month; being sent to Le Havre, France; returning to the US; working in military camps in Texas until his release; the effect seeing Dachau had on him; and how he feels stronger in his Christian faith.

    Oral history interview with Roberta Jones

    Oral History

    Roberta Jones, born October 15, 1921 in St. Louis, Missouri, discusses growing up during the Great Depression; enlisting as a nurse in the United States Army; being commissioned as a second lieutenant with the 3rd Army and assigned to the 121st Semi-Mobile Evacuation Hospital; traveling by ship to England and helping in a hospital there; traveling to Luxembourg and then into Germany under dangerous conditions; going to Buchenwald; seeing a crematorium, stacked bodies, and starved prisoners still in uniforms; being offered bread by the prisoners; seeing a lampshade made of human skin in the office of a Nazi official; visiting a smaller liberated concentration camp and watching as American soldiers distributed clothing to naked prisoners; traveling with her hospital to a concentration camp near Linz, Austria (possibly Mauthausen); female nurses being kept outside of the camp fence as men worked inside the camp; meeting newly-liberated English prisoners of war who had been captured at the Battle of Dunkirk; returning to the United States and working at McCormack General Hospital in Pasadena, California; the difficulties of severely disfigured patients integrating into the community in Pasadena; marrying her husband; working at Camp Swift in Texas and Camp Polk in Louisiana, and, during the Korean War, in a military hospital in Michigan; encountering Holocaust deniers; and her insistence that her children know everything about her experience so that they can continue to spread the truth about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Christine Cohen

    Oral History

    Christine Cohen, born April 27, 1940 in the Warsaw ghetto, describes living in the ghetto until 1942 when they escaped; using forged papers showing that they were Christian; having one brother, born in 1948; being sent alone to live with a farm family; being helped and protected by an aristocratic woman, who had befriended an old German officer while she worked for the underground resistance; living with a series of families and caretakers; living in Walbrzych, Poland; not knowing she was Jewish until she was 10 years old and not admitting to it until she moved to Israel (seven years later) in 1957; visiting Germany and Poland after the war and going to Auschwitz, all of which was very difficult; wanting to stay in Israel but because of her parents, moving to the United States; the bitterness she still feels about having her entire extended family taken from her; the recurring nightmares and physical ailments that are all tension-related; and her current life in San Antonio, TX, where there are only a few survivors of her mother’s generation.

    Oral history interview with Hugh Jenkins

    Oral History

    Hugh Jenkins, born December 29, 1914 in Lester, England, describes being the youngest of eight siblings, whose father was a Welsh minister; working before World War II with Quakers and being a conscientious objector even before the war; moving to London, England in 1944 to take part in training at a Quaker institute; being sent to Antwerp, Belgium after the training to do relief work; going to Belsen, Germany on April 22, 1944, soon after the camp had been discovered and the horrific scene; the various response processes at the camp; setting up a hospital, known as the “new camp,” maintaining a first aid station, and finding food; eventually being sent to Poland to be in charge of another camp; how even now he has a sense of desolation in how war is used to settle problems; working as the overseas secretary for the British Friends Relief Service until 1948, when he went to Philadelphia, PA to work with the American Friends Service Committee; and being sent to Washington, DC to be the director of the Foreign Student Service Center.

    Oral history interview with Rene Edgar Tressler

    Oral History

    Rene Edgar Tressler, born April 16, 1927 in Strakonice, Czech Republic, describes his childhood in Strakonice; his parents and brother; escaping to Prague, Czech Republic to live with his grandparents; his brother’s selection to be on the Board of Elders at Theresienstadt; how Theresienstadt was used as a showcase for the Red Cross; his deportation to Auschwitz; his camp number; being moved to Birkenau; his movement to Blechhammer camp; his experiences on a death march in February 1945; his arrival at Buchenwald; reuniting with his parents and brother after the liberation; escaping Czechoslovakia in 1956; immigrating to the United States; and authoring several books.

    Oral history interview with Stefan Wohl

    Oral History

    Stefan Wohl, born February 4, 1934 in Vienna, Austria, discusses the Anschluss in 1938; leaving Vienna through Switzerland to Kraków, Poland; traveling with 14 family members in September 1939 to Jaroslav, Zloczow, and Kolomyja; being captured with his father in November 1939 while trying to cross the border; being released and going to Zloczow; being on a transport for six weeks with his mother, sister, and other relatives in July 1940; arriving in the Yakutsk, Siberia labor camp settlement; leaving in May 1941 by train through Moscow to Lvov where they were reunited with their father; the German invasion on June 22, 1941; going with his sister to a farm in Jaroslav; going to Budapest, Hungary via Monkacs, Hungary (Mukacheve, Ukraine) in the fall 1942; changing their name to Wolinski and pretending to be Catholic; going to Leanyfalu in 1943 and staying for a year; the family going to Seged (Szeged), Hungary; being captured and jailed; being released and staying with an uncle in Budapest; his father’s illness; being liberated by Russians in January 1945; going back to Poland in the spring 1945; going to Sweden in the summer 1946; sailing to Brazil in October 1946; attending school and a university in the United States; and being a film producer in Brazil.

    Oral history interview with Yehuda Adam

    Oral History

    Yehuda Adam (né George Strn), born on July 3, 1929 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses being raised in a reform Jewish household; being put into forced labor in Budapest; receiving a Schutzpasse and his family working for Raoul Wallenberg; being liberated by the Soviets in January 15, 1945; going to Palestine in 1949; going to the United States in 1962; and living in both Israel and the US.

    Oral history interview with Arlette de Long

    Oral History

    Arlette de Long, born June 15, 1937 in Brocourt, Somme, France; describes her parents’ medical practice; her early love of the church and uncertainly whether her family was Jewish; villagers’ willingness to maintain friendship with the family because her father was the only physician in the village; having no memory of life before the war; the liberation of France; moving to a suburb of Paris, where she attended Protestant churches rather than synagogue; father’s unwillingness to discuss the Holocaust; her own reluctance to discuss the Holocaust until her sixteen year old daughter insisted that she talk about it; moving to the United States; her work as a psychotherapist for underprivileged children; and her feeling that her story is one of hope, compassion, and gratitude.

    Oral history interview with Eva Adam

    Oral History

    Eva Adam, born September 3, 1932 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her Orthodox Jewish family; her family’s awareness of what was happening to European Jews; their reluctance to leave Hungary; her father and brother’s membership in the Jewish Legion; serving as adjunct personnel to the Hungarian Army; changes in their lives in the late 1930s and early 1940s; her family’s unawareness of concentration camps before 1944; the Arrow Cross Party taking over the Hungarian police; deteriorating conditions for Jews; the murder of Jews at the Danube River; conditions in the ghetto; her post-liberation search for family members; finding that only three of her thirty-six family members survived Auschwitz; leaving Budapest in 1949; living in Israel and then the United States in 1961; her plans to return to Israel in the future; her pride in being a Jew and a Hungarian; the value in caring about others; and her strong work ethic as an explanation of why she was able to survive.

    Oral history interview with Herbert Bitter

    Oral History

    Herbert Jerome Bitter, born August 4, 1919 in New York City, discusses his parents who were Romanian immigrants; growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in Manhattan; becoming more religious during his service in the United Sates Army from 1943 to 1945; his experiences at Ohrdruf in 1945 soon after the Germans evacuated the camp; seeing three U.S. generals, Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton, at the camp on April 5, 1945; the generals’ return visit on April 12, 1945 with photographers; how the freed inmates at Ohrdruf were eager to tell their stories to the American liberators; the effect of witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust had on his Jewish identity; and his reluctance to talk about his experiences during the war, especially to children.

    Oral history interview with Rachel Goldfarb

    Oral History

    Rachel Goldfarb, born December 2, 1930 in Poland (now Dokshytsy, Belarus), discusses her life following her liberation by the Russians and her time living in the forests near Bialystok, Poland with her mother; working and living on Russian trains; traveling to Prussia to find shelter provided by various Jewish organizations and the Red Cross; traveling to Italy’s southern coast; attempting to board a ship to Palestine but being blockaded by British authorities; eventually getting to New York City in November 1947 after two and a half years in Italy; visiting Washington, DC after graduation from high school; taking a job with the District Court; attending George Washington University at night; meeting her husband, also a Holocaust survivor, and marrying in 1952; raising two children, both of whom are architects; finally visiting Israel; her good life in the United States; and her advice about valuing what you have in life.

    Oral history interview with Tania Rozmaryn

    Oral History

    Tania Rozmaryn, born on June 16, 1928 in Vilnius, Poland (present day Lithuania), discusses her family as strong Zionists; the changes that took place after the German occupation; family’s escape towards the eastern Russian border; working in the house of an SS officer and being offered guidance on survival; frightening years in the Kovno ghetto; going into hiding until 1944 when the ghetto was liquidated; her deportation with her mother to Stutthof; her mother’s struggles and strategies, trying to make her look less like a child so that she would be chosen for work; being sent to various work camps until March 1945 when they were liberated by the Russians and taken to Central Poland to a displaced persons camp; being sent to Germany with false documents to a kibbutz in Munich; going to the American Zone and teaching at a school in Bergen-Belsen in 1947; getting married in 1949; immigrating to the United States in 1950; graduating summa cum laude from the Teacher’s Institute and receiving an M.A. from Queens College in 1960; moving to Maryland in 1990 where she received an M.S. in Marriage and Family Counseling; nightmares about her Holocaust experiences; and her feelings about her Jewish faith.

    Oral history interview with Frank Ephraim

    Oral History

    Franz Gunter Ephraim, born February 19, 1931 in the Schöneberg district of Berlin, Germany, describes his family and being raised Jewish but not Orthodox; living an integrated life in the community until 1937 and his participation in the 1936 Olympics events; how Kristallnacht was the impetus for his family immigrating to the Philippines; attending a Hebrew school in Manila before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines; the politics in Manila; experiencing an open Jewish life; their favorite playing areas, holidays, their several living spaces, and the daily routine in Manila; the attack on Pearl Harbor and his memories of the alarms, airplanes, gas masks, and lack of school for about a year; how after the US declared war there were more air raids and an exodus from the Philippines began; how the US was closed to Jews who still had family in Germany and Europe and his family could not go to the US; the Japanese invasion of the Philippines; the many wartime restrictions, including food shortages, looting, changes in currency, and a new governmental organization; how 1944 was the year when things were really deteriorated and the people were starving; the daily air raids from B24 bombers; the Japanese systematically burning down the city of Manila; how February 1945 brought total chaos and there was no food for several weeks; the liberation of Manila by US forces; leaving the Philippines on November 19, 1946; arriving in San Francisco, CA where relatives were waiting for them, along with HIAF; the closeness of the Manila Jewish community in San Francisco; attending UC Berkeley until the Korean War when he was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe as an interpreter; becoming a US citizen in 1952; his philosophy that the importance of Jews as a nation is far more important than Jews as a religion and that self-reliance is the most important quality to have; graduating from UC Berkeley in 1957; and working for a naval architect specializing in submarines, United Airlines, and the Maritime Administration in Washington, DC.

    Oral history interview with Peter Phillips

    Oral History

    Ernst Pieter Philipps, born December 5, 1931 in Essen, Germany, describes his twin brothers, who were three years younger; moving to Prague, Czech Republic in 1936 because of his father’s position with his company; life in Prague, which was normal until the Germans occupied Prague beginning April 1939; moving to Genoa, Italy and spending six months there; relocating by an Italian steamer to Quito, Ecuador, where living conditions were rather primitive and where at their second address they experienced antisemitism for the first time; spending two years in Ecuador; relocating to New York City, NY, where the instances of antisemitism directed at him were violent and ugly; his parents moving back to Rotterdam by 1950 while he remained behind in the house his parents had bought in Queens; attending City College of New York for five years and in 1955 joining the US Army and being sent to Germany where, among other duties, he worked as a teacher and Boy Scout leader for American and German boys; after leaving the Army, working first for the New York Times, a newspaper in Danbury, CT, and Business Week magazine; going to Washington, DC to work for McGraw Hill for 20 years; his experiences as a volunteer at the USHMM; and how he believes his experiences as a Jew have affected his outlook.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Ichiuji

    Oral History

    Joseph Ichiuji describes his parents as having immigrated to the US in the early 1900s; his father being a truck farmer and then owning a shoe repair business; working in a fish cannery and living in Fresno, CA until Executive Order 9066, which required that all Japanese Americans be evacuated to internment camps; being sent by train and truck to Flagstaff, Arizona, where they were assigned to barracks number three of the internment camp at Poston, AZ; conditions at the camp, which was run like an army installation with strict regimentation; volunteering for the 442 Combat Team, formed in 1943 and consisting solely of Japanese American soldiers who had families living in internment camps; fighting in Italy at the front lines north of Rome; liberating Livorno, Italy; helping liberate a subcamp of Dachau; conditions of prisoners still alive at the camp; helping two Lithuanian prisoners reconnect with important people in their lives; going home in December 1945 to find his parents released from the internment camp; helping his father with his business until May 1946 when he went to Washington, DC, where he worked in government service for 37 years; and the reunion of Japanese American soldiers in Los Angeles, CA, which a few of the survivors of Dachau attended.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Horowitz

    Oral History

    Ruth Horowitz (née Salzburg), born March 23, 1930 in Hamburg, Germany, describes her Polish parents Isaac Salzberg and Rose R. Kleinert and her sister; life in Hamburg, where they lived until November 1938; leaving Hamburg two days before Kristallnacht; how Hamburg was very open to Jews until Hitler’s regime, though she experienced many instances of antisemitism; being fascinated with the 1936 Olympics; how her father’s efforts to leave Germany began in 1936 and finally succeeded when he dramatically threatened to commit suicide at the US Consul if the visas were not granted; how crossing the Atlantic was very difficult, with cold and seasickness, but they arrived and went to Detroit, MI for a short while, then to New York City, NY, and finally to Washington, DC; learning to speak English by going to lots of movies; her father’s death at age 54; her mother’s transformation from being a housewife to running her husband’s jewelry business after he died; the wartime antisemitism, the problem of quotas, the Nuremburg trials, and the State of Israel; getting married in 1950; traveling to Germany in 1995; and her views on present day Germany.

    Oral history interview with Hermann Kosak

    Oral History

    Hermann Kosak, born May 2, 1924 in Vienna, Austria, describes his younger sister, Margaret; how antisemitism was pervasive and being involved in instances of physical violence as early as kindergarten; the growth of the Nazi movement in Austria; the Anschluss in March 1938; seeing Hitler arriving in Vienna in his car; how quickly the Jews were affected by the Nazi’s changes; Kristallnacht and being arrested the next morning; trying to get out of Vienna at age 14 and finally getting to Brussels, Belgium with his mother; the Germans attack on Belgium; how enrolling in art school after the invasion was the most important thing he did; learning survival, watchfulness, and self-reliance at age 16; beginning a diary on May 9, 1940, describing daily life, and keeping the diary until three weeks before liberation; how out of 50 family members, 43 were killed in camps; finally getting visas for him and his sister in November 1947 by forcing his way into the US Embassy and leaving for the United States; arriving in New York City, NY; being a painting instructor; being drafted, released to Reserves, working for a while, and being called back for the Korean War; being married and eventually getting a job with Boeing as an illustrator; and his views on the effects of the Holocaust on humanity.

    Oral history interview with Dolly Bestandig

    Oral History

    Dolly Bestandig (née Hirsch), born July 24, 1939 in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania, discusses her family, which had been in Lithuania for 11 generations; her father, who was a mathematical engineer, and her mother, who was a concert pianist; how her parents were both very religious and wealthy; being sent to the Vilna ghetto, the hardship of which marked the beginning of her mother’s psychological changes; the presence of 90 members of her mother’s family in the ghetto; how at age five, after living in the Minsk ghetto, she and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, where her mother managed to save her life by hiding her in a garbage can during the day while her mother worked; being moved to Bergen-Belsen with her mother and father after four months, where she was again hidden in a garbage can every day until liberation on April 15, 1945 by English soldiers; being sent to Sweden for medical care; being hospitalized in Gothenburg and then in Stockholm, where surgery on her palate was performed; leaving Sweden in 1947 and going to New York, where an uncle met her family; going to Mexico City, where two uncles were waiting; how her mother’s psychological state was deteriorating and she died in 1958; having flashbacks to her life in the camps; going to the Margaret Sanger Institute in New York City in 1967, where she received counseling help and tuberculosis was found throughout her body; recovering and adopting two children; being the Sub-Director of Hebrew instruction at the Yeshiva in Mexico City; and her feelings about her survival.

    Oral history interview with Goldie Gendelman

    Oral History

    Goldie Gendelman, born November 17, 1933 in Lechowichi (possibly Lyakhavichy, Belarus), Poland near Baranowichi (possibly Baranovichi, Belarus), discusses her parents, Chaim and Chana Wolochiwianski; growing up in an extremely Orthodox family; being raised to speak Polish and Yiddish; her family’s attempt to immigrate to the United States; how she and her family made it to Cuba and stayed there for 11 years; living in Regla, Cuba; her struggles to communicate in Spanish; being run over by a bus in Cuba; how she and her family finally were able to immigrate to the United States in 1948; her paternal uncle in the United States who assisted with the immigration process; her experience with antisemitism in Poland and Cuba; graduating from high school in the United States; volunteering at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and her feelings about leaving Poland, living in Cuba, and starting a new life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Rhoda Kuflik

    Oral History

    Rhoda Kuflik (née Ruzenka Husen), born in October 1937 in Kitev, Poland (now Kuty, Ukraine), describes living in the Kuty ghetto; escaping to Romania and hiding there; being liberated by the Soviets; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with William Hess

    Oral History

    William Hess was born William Verna on August 8, 1921 in Stuttgart, Germany. He was an only child and lived a pleasant life there. Despite the Nuremberg laws, he was permitted to continue his schooling as his father served during World War I. Nevertheless, they lost the service of their maid. William experienced little anti-Semitism in Germany but knew that Hitler made anti-Semitic speeches and had newspaper articles written against the Jews. His father's business suffered little from the boycotting but he sold it in 1938. Anti-Semitism was more severe in the outlying towns than in Stuttgart. William studied English for two years before immigrating to Danville, Illinois with his uncle's assistance in 1937. He had difficulty adjusting to the US so had an English tutor. Additionally, he had difficulty living on his wages of $12.50 as $9 went toward room and board and he also had to cover tutoring and transportation expenses. Kristallnacht and his father's internment in Dachau influenced his parents to leave Germany in 1939 for Danville.

    Oral history interview with Jutta Levy

    Oral History

    Jutta Levy, born in 1926 in Hamburg, Germany, describes growing up in a pleasant upper middle class family in a large Jewish community; listening to Hitler’s speeches on the radio and seeing him on a school field trip; witnessing Nazi book burning; learning of the death of Hindenburg; drastic changes in Germany after 1933; living in fear as children were taken from school and acquaintances disappeared; father’s dramatic pleading for visas to leave Germany; obtaining passage on the last train from Hamburg on November 6, 1938; traveling to Paris, France and then to Cherbourg, France, from which her family sailed to New York on the Queen Mary; arriving on November 11, 1938; learning about life in concentration camps from family members who survived the Holocaust; and her return to Hamburg and visit to Bergen-Belsen as an adult.

    Oral history interview with Wolfgang Mueller

    Oral History

    Wolfgang Mueller, born in Hanover, Germany on March 10, 1919, discusses his father’s role as a leader in the Jewish community and being head of B’nai B’rith; being aware of the Nazis at an early stage and seeing posters on kiosks denouncing Jews; refusing to say “Heil Hitler” in school and being advised by the principal to leave the country; going to London, England the summer after his Bar Mitzvah (1932); attending Ewell School and going back to Germany on vacations, pretending he was English; attending Cranbrook School with funding from a relative, Max Nordhaus, in the United States; receiving an affidavit from Nordhaus and getting a visa to the US; arriving in the US July 26, 1936 and moving to New Mexico; his mother and sister emigrating; hearing about Kristallnacht; being drafted in September 1941 and being sent to Florida; being in the Signal Corps; applying to officer’s candidate school and being in a group that called themselves the fighting 614s; being made into an MP after his superiors found out he was from Germany; being stationed in Tampa, FL and Jacksonville, FL; getting his American citizenship; volunteering to go overseas; being stationed in England as a technical supply sergeant and a liaison with the RAF; working after V-E Day in the Air Technical Intelligence Office; interrogating prisoners in Czechoslovakia and Austria and engineers at Zeiss works; being in Nordhausen for an hour; translating V-2 documents; being discharged on January 11, 1947; getting married; working in the meat business, real estate, and as a wholesale fish company; being proud to be Jewish; and his dedication to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with Klari Rudnai

    Oral History

    Klari Rudnai (née Takacs), born May 19, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her well-to-do family that was not at all religious; her older sister; her father, who was her hero, and her strict mother; how their cook was instrumental in saving their lives by getting counterfeit papers with non-Jewish names for them and by bringing them food as they hid in a one-room apartment in 1944; moving to a nice hotel and having to go to the hotel’s underground bunkers during all the bombing for almost nine months; her father’s seven siblings, who were all sent to Auschwitz; going back to the hotel, the Vadasqur, until it too was bombed; moving to a new villa in 1946; how when she was 19 years she was picked up by Russian soldiers in a jeep and had to fight her way out of an attack by them and was saved by American soldiers who took her to the hospital for a few days; marrying an American soldier and wanting to go to the United States; finishing high school; how the solitary military life and moving a lot to odd places didn’t suit her; divorcing her husband and moving back to Washington, DC; getting married in 1960 to a Jewish doctor, who had been in many concentration camps and was instrumental in getting her interested in her Jewish religion; volunteering at the USHMM in the Archives and Volunteer Services; enjoying all parts of talking to people and the volunteers in her job; and reading a lot of books and newspapers about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Jill Pauly

    Oral History

    Jill Pauly, born May 1, 1933 in Cologne, Germany, describes her large, very well-to-do country family; the efforts of her grandmother and uncle to get money to Holland and make arrangements for the family to get to Kenya, where they bought two cattle farms that eventually were very successful; wanting a more orthodox Jewish life after the war; moving to New York City then moving to Vineland, NJ; her family buying a chicken farm, which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1952; the death of her father when he was 66 years old; her mother being her guiding light in terms of religious practice; attending the Pierce School of Business in Philadelphia, PA; working for the Quakers and then for a synagogue; getting her real estate license at the University of Maryland; her two adopted children; retiring in December 1993 from real estate; volunteering at the USHMM in Visitors’ Services and in the Office of Survivor Relations; having very strong feelings about people having access to the Museum; and some of the artifacts that she’s donated to the Museum.

    Oral history interview with Jack Reuben

    Oral History

    Jack Ruben was born Yaakov Ruben on December 8, 1921 in Cincinnati, Ohio and after six months the family moved to LA. He was the only child to Joseph and Sarah Basha Ruben who came from Russia and were not religious. His mother was a garment worker and his father sold fruits and vegetables in a horse and cart in the local area. Due to an eye condition, Jack went to a health camp for a year. Jack's father left the family in 1927 and since lost track of him. Jack was placed in foster homes until the 11th grade and would visit his mother on the weekends. He graduated from high school and worked his way through UCLA by working part-time. In summer of '43 Jack volunteered for the Air Corps and was sent to Pomona College for nine months to study meteorology. He was not picked to be a meteorology officer so joined the infantry and was selected to be a coding clerk. He went to several camps and was shipped to Le Havre. His division had little information of the overall war and no details of concentration camps. From there he was part of the effort to form a bridge over the Moselle and next in a major assault at the Rhine River. Jack was in the Division furthest east in Germany which took many German prisoners as they quickly drove east. His company going east and meeting a surrendering German battalion who were permitted to march on their own. His company formed perimeters around villages and often stayed overnight in a civilian's home. They went through a rural area and saw dead prisoners and dead horses along the road without understanding the situation. They reached Ohrdruf Concentration Camp and saw a few emaciated prisoners leaving and many dead bodies piled up or laying on the ground. Jack did not realize it was a concentration camp at the time or that others existed until later when he returned to the US. The Army newspaper did not publish such information. From there, they went to the Czech border for 3 months which they guarded until VE Day. Then Jack was relocated to a relocation camp near Paris until Christmas '45 when he was shipped home and arrived in NY on New Year's Day '46. He was discharged and married a second time as his first wife was killed in an auto accident. Subsequently, he received a BA in economics, MA in family counseling and PhD in psychology and has practiced 10 years in the field. He has four children. Jack still does not understand how the crimes in the concentration camps could have been performed by fellow human beings.

    Oral history interview with David Bayer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tilda Finzi Cohen

    Oral History

    Tilda Finzi Cohen (née Mazel Tov “Tilda” Finzi) born in Split, Yugoslavia on July 11, 1933, discusses Germans passing through their city in early 1941; her father getting called into the army and returning after one month; the Italians occupying Split, closing businesses and setting a curfew; not being permitted to go to school and the formation of community Jewish schools in different locations around city; her uncle being imprisoned and bringing him food; the Italian capitulation in September 1943; her family joining other people fleeing to partisans in the mountains; going with her mother to Brac Island, to Vis Island; sailing to Bari two days before Yom Kippur; living in a camp then a private house; the Germans dropping gas bombs on ships on December 2, 1943; her family moving to a village near Bari and attending school; attending a Seder arranged by the Jewish Brigade in Bitonto, Italy in the spring of 1944; how after the war their relatives told them of the camps and atrocities and advised them not to return to Split; her family moving to Milan, Italy in 1948; her family immigrating to the United States in 1950; finishing high school and attending college; getting married; and feeling that she is not a part of any country and that she lost her childhood.

    Oral history interview with Zwi Golombek

    Oral History

    Zwi Golombek, born in Warsaw, Poland on September 15, 1934, describes his father’s large construction business; the formation of the Warsaw ghetto and his family moving into one room on Nowolipki Street; his father’s ability to exit and enter the ghetto because he possessed building permits; being aware of danger and seeing beatings; his father striking a German guard in early 1942 and being taken to a ghetto prison then Treblinka; his Uncle Mietek placing him with the Abramzuc family in Jozefow, Poland and his mother and sister disappearing from the ghetto two weeks later; staying hidden for three years and his uncle visiting often and playing the family to hide him; being called Henyek; his uncle placing him in a kibbutzim in Poland and Germany after the war; going to Israel on October 6, 1948; working in Tel Aviv and joining the Israeli army in 1952; fighting war in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982; getting married; and his two sons.

    Oral history interview with Samuel B. Hagner

    Oral History

    Samuel Hagner, born November 1, 1925 in Philadelphia, PA, discusses his Quaker parents; becoming a Quaker member at age 14; going to a Quaker work camp; being told about antisemitic events in Europe by a Jewish friend named Doris Weil and not believing her; his brother being a conscientious objector and working in a forestry camp during war; attending Oberlin College; being inducted into the army in January 1944 as a 1-A-O; training as a medical corpsman; sailing to Europe in December 1944; joining 7th Army in Germany and moving as the front moved; being made an armed guard at a billet even though he refused to carry a gun; going by truck to help liberate Dachau; the overwhelming experiences of seeing Dachau and feeling anger towards the SS guards; staying in the camp for one week; wavering about being a conscientious objector and writing to Doris to tell her she was right; going to a German hospital with nuns; going to France and the war ending before he was deployed to the Philippines; becoming a scrub nurse during plastic surgery on war victims in Indiana; being discharged and returning to college in the fall of 1946; practicing psychiatry for adults; living with his Dachau experience but not being at peace with it; and his continued abhorrence of war.

    Oral history interview with Werner E. Michel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Guta Jacobson

    Oral History

    Guta Jacobson (née Rogowitz), born on April 23, 1925 in Łódź, Poland, discusses her early life in Łódź; relations between Jews and Christians; her activity in a Zionist organization; various holiday celebrations; the German invasion of Poland and the implementation of Nazi race laws; food shortages; the establishment of the Łódź ghetto; her family’s indecision on whether or not to flee; life in the ghetto; losing her faith in God after seeing her parents give up their children; her father’s disappearance; the typhus epidemic; hearing rumors of Chelmno and Auschwitz; hiding from the liquidation of the ghetto and their eventual deportation to Auschwitz in August of 1944; her immediate understanding of what was happening in the camp; Dr. Josef Mengele taking her mother away; being transported to a camp in Birnbäumel, Germany (now Gruszeczka, Poland), to work digging anti-tank trenches; the differing conditions of various camps; hiding in the woods during a death march; her return to a liberated Łódź; marrying her husband; her reunion with her sister who had been recuperating in Sweden after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen; immigrating to the United States; the birth of her children; the death of her husband; her avoidance of discussing her experiences with her children when they were young; her motivations for sharing her story now; and her hopes that the world will never forget.

    Oral history interview with Helen Luksenburg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Luksenburg

    Oral History

    William Luksenburg describes going on a death march from Regensburg, Germany to Lebenau, Germany; a German farmer picking him up from the road, where he fell; being brought by the farmer to American troops stationed in the nearby town of Laufen, where he was treated for malnutrition; his cousin coming to the same camp a few months later; returning with his cousin to Bayreuth, Germany, where there were other family members; reuniting in Prague with his future wife, Helen, whom he met in the Blechhammer work camp; getting married in 1947; receiving money and support from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency; attending a technical school organized by the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training; immigrating to the United States in September 1949 with Helen; and becoming a mechanic and starting his own business. [Note: This interview focuses on the interviewee’s post-Holocaust experiences. There is an earlier interview focusing on the interviewee’s Holocaust experience. This interview can be accessed by requesting RG-50.030*140.]

    Oral history interview with Rose Weisfeld

    Oral History

    Rose Weisfeld (née Friedman), born on March 28, 1914 in Radom, Poland, discusses her early life and schooling; social integration between Jews and Christians at home and at school; keeping Jewish customs and traditions at home; her religious education; her brothers’ conscription in the Polish army; being badly injured and hospitalized for a year; her family’s forced relocation to the Radom ghetto; her father’s death; the liquidation of the ghetto; doing factory work; being transported to Auschwitz via cattle car; the process of selections; being transported to Ravensbrück in 1944; being liberated by Swedish soldiers and their compassion; weighing 32 pounds at liberation; her hospitalization in Denmark and Sweden; finding work in a factory and regaining her humanity; her marriage in Sweden to another survivor; the birth of her children; finding her brother through the Red Cross after four years; immigrating to the United States to be with her brother; the difficulties of adjusting to life in the US; and the importance of raising her children with Jewish traditions.

    Oral history interview with Ruth E. Greifer

    Oral History

    Ruth Greifer (née Dahl), born May 30, 1922 in Geilenkirchen (near Aachen), Germany, discusses her father, who was a cattle dealer, and her Dutch mother; attending a private Catholic school and experiencing antisemitism but being treated well by the nuns; how the plaque on father’s business was shattered in 1938; moving to Valkenburg, Holland in the spring of 1938; Germans occupying the city on May 10, 1940 and her family hiding in catacombs during the bombing; having to wear the yellow star and obey curfew; her father’s business being taken away; the Germans ordering them to leave in June 1942, but she was allowed to stay because she was sick; her brother and two aunts being taken to Auschwitz; how a Mr. Jansen from the underground arranged for she and her parents to go into hiding; going to a coal miner’s house, while her parents went to another; being thought of as a risk and being relocated to a doctor’s house to be a maid; going into hiding at the Robertson’s house near Treebeek and Hoensbroek with another Jewish woman; getting money from the underground organization; hearing about the June 1944 invasion; going to a house in Treebeek; the heavy bombing in the city and hiding in a potato bin for three days; being liberated September 17, 1944; returning to her parents in Valkenburg; the loss of all of her mother’s Dutch family; sailing to the United states in the spring of 1948; settling with her sister in Pittsburgh, PA; getting married April 8, 1951 and having three daughters; moving to Washington, DC in 1957; and her feelings about Germany.

    Oral history interview with Nesse Godin

    Oral History

    Nesse Godin (née Galperin), born on March 28, 1928 in Siaulai, Lithuania, discusses her life after the war; being liberated by the Russians in Chynowie (known as Chinow in German) near Wejherowo, Poland on March 10, 1945; suffering from typhoid and dysentery and weighing 65 pounds; joining her mother and brother in Feldafing DP camp; going to ORT and UNRRA sponsored classes; getting married to Jack Godin, who had escaped from the Vilna Ghetto and whose family was killed in Ponary; having her first child in Munich, Germany; immigrating to United States in 1950 and settling in Washington, DC; becoming a citizen in 1955 and working as a dressmaker for 26 years; raising her children; sharing her Holocaust experience; working with the UJA, Jewish Community Council and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and the US Holocaust Memorial Council; working on projects at USHMM, including the “Remember the Children” exhibit, the ID project, and within the education and development departments; and her thoughts on the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Maryla Korn

    Oral History

    Maryla Korn (née Orgel), born on June 10, 1938 in Kraków, Poland, discusses going with her mother first to Wieliczka and then to Bochnia between late 1940 and early 1941; hiding with a peasant family but crying so much that she was returned to her mother; going to a ghetto in Bochnia at the end of 1941; her mother working outside the ghetto in a factory; taking messages outside the ghetto and bringing back food; leaving the ghetto in June 1943 and separating from her mother; carrying diamonds and money, but no luggage and bribing Germans and the Judenrat; traveling by truck to the border then by foot at night; being guided by paid partisans; her grandfather being shot at Bochnia cemetery, her grandmother being taken to Auschwitz, and her uncle being taken to Belzec in the summer of 1942; being by Czech collaborators in Kosice, Slovakia; being released and proceeding to Hungary with help from the Joint; being caught and sent to a prison in Budapest and the Joint getting her out; going to Usod, Hungary in the fall of 1943 and staying there until April 1944 under name of Orglowska; living as a Christian; being treated for gangrene in her leg; the roundup of Hungarian Jews in April 1944; her mother stealing passes and going to Budapest; staying with a Jewish Polish friend and then going to Bucharest, Romania with help from the Joint; almost boarding two different ships in Constanta, Romania going to Palestine, one of which (the Merkur) sank and the other ended up in Cyprus; being liberated by the Russians in the spring of 1945; going to Budapest and staying in a children’s home while her mother went back to Poland to check on family; her mother setting up a business in Vienna, Austria with an uncle; her father returning traumatized from the war; going to Brussels, Belgium in the winter of 1946-1947; going to Israel in 1951; living in both Israel and Brussels until immigrating to the United states in May 1961; getting married in June 1961 to David Korn, who is also a survivor; visiting her parents in Germany; and her work translating for USHMM.

    Oral history interview with Michel Margosis

    Oral History

    Michel Margosis, born in Brussels, Belgium on September 2, 1928, discusses immigrating to the United States in 1943; being taken in by father’s cousin in Brooklyn, then to foster home; his parents coming to the US in 1946; graduating from high school in 1947; graduating with honors from Brooklyn College in 1951; enlisting in the army and being sent to Germany as an interpreter but requesting to be transferred; becoming a medic near Verdun; feeling very American, but did not speak about his childhood with other soldiers; his feeling about Germany; working at USHMM with the Speakers Bureau and translating materials; speaking about his past; and being featured in the book “The Triumphant Spirit” by Nicholas del Calzo.

    Oral history interview with Lena Jurand

    Oral History

    Lena Jurand (Salzberg), born in Przemysl, Poland on September 13, 1917, discusses being an only child, educated in a Catholic school then at a music conservatory; meeting her husband Julian Jurand in 1931 and getting married in May 1940; living in the Russian part of town; her father being chosen for the Judenrat when the Germans took over; Jews having to give up jewelry and wear a star; the ghetto being formed in July 1942; moving with parents and in-laws from Lvov; working in a factory disinfecting uniforms; her father being taken away and how she went to the Gestapo headquarters and saved him from deportation to Auschwitz; meeting a Polish woman in the factory who offered to hide her and Julian; hiding for 22 months in room off of kitchen in a woman’s apartment; being liberated by Russians in August 1944; living in an apartment with her husband and cousins; living in Munich, Germany with UNRRA staff of the Neu Freimann DP Camp; teaching music to child survivors in camp for one year; moving to Genoa, Italy, where Julian practiced medicine; visiting her uncle for six months in New York, NY; going to the United States in 1951; living in New Jersey, where Julian worked in state hospital as a psychiatrist; and Julian becoming the clinical director at St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, D.C.

    Oral history interview with Wallace Witkowski

    Oral History

    Wallace A. Witkowski, born January 12, 1928 in Kielce, Poland, discusses his escape from Poland on a ship to Goteborg, Sweden in 1948; going to the United States; how his sister was caught by the communists and imprisoned; his struggle to find his father who had immigrated to the United States earlier; settling in Detroit, Michigan and adjusting to American life; how his mother and sister arrived in the U.S. later; attending high school and then Wayne State University; getting married in 1951; working as a radio disc jockey using the on-air name Jan Alexander; earning a law degree; working in Washington, DC and traveling between the United States and Poland; working for the Federal Trade Commission; living and working in Micronesia; his thoughts on religion and how the Holocaust affected him; his identity as a Catholic; his work as a translator; and his work with the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission.

    Oral history interview with Peter Masters

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lena Gitter

    Oral History

    Lena Gitter (née Lieba Rosenblatt), born in 1905 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her life after the Holocaust; immigrating to the US in July 1938 with her husband and small daughter; her husband who worked as a physician; feeling guilty for many years about having escaped Vienna before the Holocaust; her long involvement with the Montessori schools both in Vienna and the United States; the Montessori method; working with people in Mississippi under Johnson’s War on Poverty program; the death of her husband in 1974; her plan to donate her collection of early childhood education materials to a library in Vienna; working under several Presidents of the United States.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Wiener

    Oral History

    Jacob Wiener (né Koppel G. Zwienicki), born March 25, 1917 in Bremen, Germany, discusses his experiences in the United States after World War II; the reaction to the war by the American media; his wife’s experience on the Kindertransport; his memories of watching Nazi war crime trials on television; his thoughts on Israel and Palestine; the Eichmann trial; how he was involved with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from its founding; Holocaust education in American schools; antisemitism in the United States; and how he founded a school for mentally disabled children in the 1950s.

    Oral history interview with Noah Roitman

    Oral History

    Noah Roitman, born in Baranowicze, Poland (Baranavichy, Belarus) on January 10, 1923, discusses his religious upbringing and schooling; being very athletic; receiving warnings from his Christian friends in November 1938; his town being under Soviet rule in 1939; people being deported and his house being burned down; the German invasion on June 27, 1941; the formation of a ghetto on December 12, 1941; wearing the yellow star and working in arms factory; joining the resistance group of Mome Kopelovitz; the first action in the ghetto in March 1942; joining the partisans led by Pougatchov in the forest in August 1942; his activities sabotaging trains and bringing others out of ghetto (saving approximately 80 people); being sent to Pinsk, Belarus in late 1943; joining a group led by Major Igor, attacking trains; being ordered into Russian Army in Slutsk, Belarus in December 1943; fighting Germans and seeing Warsaw destroyed; being wounded by a sniper outside of Berlin, Germany; running a canteen for the Russian Army at the end of the war; returning to Poland; helping Jews get to Czechoslovakia; being captured and jailed, but escaping to Łódź, Poland; meeting his wife; traveling through Germany and France to get to Israel; being detained in Cyprus for 3 to 4 months; having a construction business in Israel; and immigrating to the United States in October 1963.

    Oral history interview with Richard W. Peterson

    Oral History

    Richard W. Peterson, born September 29, 1925 in Iowa, discusses his family’s Danish background; growing up in a Baptist family; first learning about the war in Europe and his family’s concern for Denmark; antisemitism in Iowa; hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor; his involvement with ROTC and Boy Scouts; attending Drake University; joining the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program (ASTRP); reporting to Fort Crook for the reserve program and then to Camp Dodge in Iowa; being sworn into the U.S. Army; training at Camp Livingston in Louisiana with the 86th Blackhawk division; being assigned to A Company, 342nd Infantry; being sent to Le Havre, France; traveling through France, the Netherlands, and Germany; fighting in a battle in Attendorn, Germany; entering what appeared to be a factory in Attendorn and seeing starving people there; the reaction of his comrades to seeing the prisoners; the liberation of Auschwitz; being sent to the Philippines from September 1945 to March 1946; finishing his degree at the University of Iowa; graduating from law school in 1951; getting married; his father’s appointment to the Iowa Supreme Court; how he was a United States Magistrate Judge; his three children; and how he feels about American current events, politics, and world news.

    Oral history interview with Riane Gruss

    Oral History

    Riane Gruss (née Wohl), born on August 18, 1932 in Vienna, Austria, describes her father, who was a banker in Kraków, Poland and an industrialist in Vienna, and how her parents lived half a year in each place; she and her siblings being raised by a governess in Vienna; being in Kraków on September 1, 1939; going to Jaroslav, where there was bombing, then to Zloczow and to Kolomyja; her father and brother being captured at the border and her brother’s release; returning to Zloczow; being sent to Siberia by the Russians in July 1940; her younger brother getting scarlet fever; arriving in August 1940 near Yakutsk and Aldan and going to a labor camp; conditions in the camp; the hard physical labor for adults; how in April 1941 the NKVD said mothers and children could leave; their New York relatives getting them Bolivian passports; leaving in May and meeting her father in Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine); going to a farm in country for four months after the German invasion on June 22, 1941; her family following her uncle Joseph Stieglitz to Munkacs, Hungary (Mukacheve, Ukraine); getting Polish Christian papers; going to Budapest, Hungary; going to Szeged, Hungary, where her father had to be hospitalized; the children being hidden in the fall of 1944 in a caretaker’s house in Buda, Hungary; escaping when the Russians arrived and reuniting with her parents; going with her family to Mako, Hungary for four weeks then to Vienna; her parents returning to Kraków; going with a smuggler to Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) and then joining her parents in Kraków; going with her family to Stockholm, Sweden; going to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in October 1946; going to New York, in February 1951; and getting married in December 195 and having two children.

    Oral history interview with Regina Spiegel

    Oral History

    Regina Spiegel, (née Gutman) born May 12, 1926 in Radom, Poland, discusses her post-war experiences starting with her liberation; traveling with 3,000 other female prisoners by train from Elsnig, Germany to Dachau, Germany; how the train stopped on the way to Dachau because the railway line had been bombed; how the train itself was bombed by the Allies while stopped on the tracks; being able to escape during the bombing; traveling with 15 other women by horse and buggy to Poland; sleeping in German homes while traveling to Poland; avoiding large groups of Russian soldiers; promising her mother and her boyfriend that if they were separated during the war, they would meet in Radom, Poland; how she and her friends boarded a train in Poznań, Poland without any money; meeting a man on the train with whom she had been imprisoned in Pionki, Poland; returning to Radom where she was told that returning Jews were being killed; returning to the Radom Ghetto, where many displaced persons were gathering; writing her name on a list of displaced persons in the Radom Ghetto; traveling from Radom to Kozienice to reunite with her boyfriend, Sam; leaving Poland with Sam and traveling by train to Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); traveling with the Joint Distribution Committee from Prague to Pilsen, Czech Republic and then to Germany; staying with Sam in the displaced persons camp Föhrenwald; her marriage to Sam in 1946; moving to Stuttgart, Germany, where she learned to be a seamstress through ORT classes; her involvement with the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York; her religious beliefs and how they changed throughout the war; moving to Washington, DC; how she and Sam learned to speak English; working as a seamstress before giving birth to a daughter in August 1951; her thoughts on the Yugoslavian conflict; her work with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum during its early development; her activity with the Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Friends of Greater Washington; returning with Sam to Auschwitz in 1975; speaking publically about the Holocaust; receiving an award from the United Jewish Appeal; and how she and Sam take groups of 16 to 18 year olds to Poland and Israel through the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization.

    Oral history interview with Charles Stein

    Oral History

    Charles Stein (né Karl Robert Stein), born in Vienna, Austria, on November 28, 1919, describes his childhood; attending medical school at the University of Vienna; immigrating to the United States and arriving on December 18, 1939; his draft into the army on October 7, 1941; discovering that his parents had gone into the Łódź ghetto; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; going to Normandy, France with the 9th Infantry Division as the commander of a prisoner-of-war interrogation team; helping to liberate Nordhausen and interrogating its Ukrainian guards; becoming an Army captain and then the chief of the translation section in the Office of Military History at the Pentagon; serving in Korea and Tokyo for five years; marrying an Air Force lieutenant in Tokyo; returning to the US and settling in Washington, DC; working for the Air Force Intelligence and for the State Department until his retirement in 1978; serving as a foreign service officer and being responsible for the resettlement of refugees in Europe; and writing about his experiences during the war.

    Oral history interview with Hannah Kalman

    Oral History

    Hannah Kalman (née Hannah Finer Kalmanowicz), born in 1912 in Opoczno, Poland and describes her family; moving to Łódź, Poland when she was 12 and joining a Zionist organization; meeting her husband in the Zionist organization and getting married in 1937; moving into the Łódź ghetto in 1939; living with her son, sister, and nephew in a small room with bad conditions; being deported with her family on one of the last transports out of the Łódź ghetto; never seeing her son and nephew again after their arrival at Auschwitz; her transport to Waldeslust, Germany, where she did hard labor; going on a death march to Bergen-Belsen; conditions in the camp; being liberated with her sister on April 15, 1945; the death of her sister two months after liberation; traveling around Poland looking for relatives; reuniting with her husband later in Poland; moving to Germany and having a son; immigrating to the United States; settling in Scranton, Pennsylvania; having a daughter; and living in Israel for a short time but ultimately settling in the United States for medical treatment.

    Oral history interview with Morris Rosen

    Oral History

    Morris Rosen, born on November 10, 1922 in Częstochowa, Poland, describes his family; being forced to paint rooms for German troops during the war; his deportation to Theresienstadt; being forced on a death march to Buchenwald; receiving help from the Red Cross after the war; traveling around Poland and Germany trying to find his sister; his time spent in displaced persons camps; his memories of the Nuremberg Trials; immigrating to the United States and settling in New York; the mental stress with which he dealt after the war; attending the international law program at Columbia; moving to Baltimore, Maryland in November, 1949; getting married in 1953; collecting items from the World War Two era; and his reflections on the state of antisemitism in today’s world.

    Oral history interview with Sam Spiegel

    Oral History

    Sam Spiegel, born in Kozienice, Poland on August 23, 1922, describes his family and childhood; being forced into a ghetto; his father’s involvement in the underground movement; working for the Judenrat and getting papers to leave the ghetto and get extra food; his deportation to Auschwitz in 1942; meeting his future wife in the camp; the Ukrainian camp guards; conditions in the camp and how inmates helped each other; going on a death march as the Allies neared Auschwitz; returning home and experiencing antisemitism; spending time in displaced persons camps; working for the United Nations Relief Organization and the Joint Distribution Committee after the war; getting married; immigrating to the United States; and returning to Europe to visit the concentration camps.

    Oral history interview with Fred Gutter

    Oral History

    Fred Gutter, born on December 25, 1926 in Sanok, Poland, describes his family and childhood; his memories of celebrating the Jewish holidays and Sabbath services; attending a high school and experiencing antisemitism; increasing persecution against Jews in the 1930s; moving to Lwów because of the difficulties his family faced; his family’s capture by Russian troops and living under Russian control; being released by the Russians at the end of the war and briefly returning to Sanok; staying in several displaced persons camps; reuniting with his father after the war; receiving aid from the Joint Distribution Committee; spending some time in Palestine and fighting in the 1948 war; immigrating to the United States in 1959; and his feelings about American politics.

    Oral history interview with Henry Greenbaum

    Oral History

    Henry Greenbaum, born on April 1, 1928 in Starachowice, Poland, describes his family and childhood; his memories of his family celebrating the Jewish holidays; being too young to understand the persecution that was happening around him; his family deciding that one of his sisters should immigrate to the United States in 1937; the establishment of a ghetto in Starachowice; his deportation to a labor camp in October 1942; attempting to escape but getting severely wounded and having to stay in the camp; his transfers to Auschwitz and then Flossenbürg; going on a death march from Flossenbürg; his liberation by the U.S. Army on April 25, 1945; spending time in a displaced persons camp after the war until his sister in America could send papers for him and his brother; immigrating to the United States in June 1946; adjusting to life in America and finding a job at a department store; settling in the Washington metro area; and interacting with other Holocaust survivors who live in his community.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Alper

    Oral History

    Ruth Alper, born on February 18, 1932 in Germany, describes her family and childhood; experiencing little antisemitism as a child; her memories of Kristallnacht; receiving an affidavit from family in Detroit, MI in 1939 to immigrate to the United States; arriving in Cuba and staying there until 1941, when she and her family moved to Miami, FL; the small Jewish community in Havana, Cuba; listening to the progress of the war on the radio; experiencing antisemitism in Miami; her recollections of the response of the American Jewish community experiencing the war from abroad; and creating a new life for herself in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Michael Lin

    Oral History

    Michael Lin, born in Riga, Latvia on September 14, 1936, describes his family and childhood; the Jewish community of Riga; the beginning of the war in 1941 and his family being forced to leave their home to settle in Yaroslavl (IAroslavl' ), Russia; catching malaria and developing pneumonia in 1941 but not being able to get medication; moving to another small village in Russia, where he remained until 1944 when his family moved farther east; having to shave his head to avoid getting lice; his father’s draft into the Russian Army; the end of the war and preparing to return to Riga; his experiences with antisemitism in Russia; beginning school after the war in Latvia; his draft into the Russian Army in September 1955; attending school in Moscow after he left the army; immigrating to Israel in 1969 with his wife and children; immigrating to the United States a few years later; and his reflections on sharing his memories of the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Hannah Kalman

    Oral History

    Chana Kalman, born on January 20, 1912 in Opoczno, Poland, describes her family and childhood; her experiences with antisemitism; moving to Łódź, Poland when she was eighteen years old; participating in a Zionist organization with several other young people; working during the day and attending a Hebrew school at night; getting married shortly before the death of her father in 1937; giving birth to a child on January 25, 1939; moving into the Łódź ghetto in 1940 and struggling to find food for herself and her son; the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1944; her deportation to Auschwitz with her sister and being forced around by SS men; her transfer to Bergen-Belsen shortly before her liberation; finding out about the death of her husband and child; getting remarried in 1946 and having a son and a daughter; remaining in Germany as a displaced person until 1950, when she immigrated to the United States; settling in Scranton, Pennsylvania; spending some time in Israel once her children had grown up; and her reflections on life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Dorrit L. Ostberg

    Oral History

    Dorrit Liane Ostberg, born in Vienna, Austria on September 29, 1929, describes her family; her father fleeing to Paris, France after the Germans entered Austria; escaping to Paris with her mother and sister but discovering that her father had fled to Yugoslavia; arriving in Yugoslavia several months later; obtaining Yugoslavian citizenship and living in Slavonski-Brod and Zagreb (both in present day Croatia); fleeing to Crikvenica, Croatia after Croatian guards arrested her father; her family’s deportation to an Italian internment camp on Rab; attending school until she contracted hepatitis and had to stay in a hospital for four months; her liberation in September 1943; her family fleeing on a fishing boat to Italy and living openly as Jews in Bari, Italy with two Italian women; immigrating to Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York in July 1944; attending junior high school; moving to New York City after the war ended; attending university and becoming a math teacher; getting married three times and having one son; and her religious feelings.

    Oral history interview with Alice Eberstarkova Masters

    Oral History

    Alice Eberstarkova Masters, born in Trstená, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1925, describes her youth; her experiences with antisemitism before the war; immigrating to England in 1939 on a Kindertransport; working as a secretary for the Czech government-in-exile in London during the war; following the BBC broadcasts of the war’s progress; the end of the war and discovering that her parents had died in Auschwitz; her reflections on the Nuremberg Trials; participating in Zionist and Jewish organizations while in England; immigrating to the United States in March 1948; working for the International Monetary Fund; losing her religious faith; getting married and starting a family after the war; and telling her children and grandchildren about her experiences during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Martin Weiss

    Oral History

    Martin Weiss, born in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia) on January 28, 1929, describes his post-war experiences living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; receiving papers to immigrate to the United States in 1946 and living with a distant cousin; working at a butcher’s shop, so he could support himself; opening his own meat store later in life; eventually deciding to volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; and not participating much in his faith anymore.

    Oral history interview with Leonard Gordon

    Oral History

    Leonard Gordon, born on June 8, 1925 in Tilsit, Germany (Sovetsk, Russia), describes growing up in Siauliai, Lithuania; his family; attending Jewish grade school and high school; the German invasion of Lithuania in 1941; trying to escape to Russia but instead having to return home and go into the Siauliai ghetto; his family’s transport to Stutthof in 1944; being transported with his father and brother to Dachau, where they worked at Mühldorf; building the German underground airport, Messerschmitt; his father’s proposal that the three of them commit suicide; hearing about the invasion of Normandy; the liberation of Dachau in May 1945; staying in a displaced persons camp in Feldafing and planning to move to Israel; traveling to Italy and studying to be a radio technician; immigrating to the United States; becoming an electrical engineer and serving in the United States Navy; and rediscovering religion after the death of his wife.

    Oral history interview with Fritz Gluckstein

    Oral History

    Fritz Gluckstein, born January 24, 1927 in Berlin, Germany, describes the end of the war in Berlin; the food and housing shortages; cleaning up rubble from bombings with his father; the difficulties of re-starting his education after the war; immigrating to the United States in January 1948 and settling in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area; becoming a veterinarian; and volunteering for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with Brigitte Freidin

    Oral History

    Brigitte Freidin, born in Augsburg, Germany on June 3, 1930, describes her family and childhood; her memories of Kristallnacht; her father being arrested and sent to Dachau after Kristallnacht; her father’s release and her parents’ decision to try to immigrate to the United States; traveling to England while waiting for permission to go to the U.S.; immigrating to the U.S. in 1941; staying with relatives who were taking in refugees in Washington, DC; losing touch with much of her family left in Europe and then discovering that many had died; participating in American student clubs during the war; working as a salesgirl when she was fourteen years old to help support her family; getting married and starting a family; and speaking about her personal experiences during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Eva Kristine Belfoure

    Oral History

    Eva Kristine Belfoure, born on October 1, 1924 in Kraków, Poland, describes growing up in a Roman Catholic home; having many Orthodox Jewish friends in her childhood; teaching Catholic prayers to an elderly Jewish lady who was hidden in her home during the war; exchanging goods and delivering messages in the ghetto; being arrested in January 1942 and being taken to the Nordhausen concentration camp, where she worked in various labor camps; her deportation to the Rathsfeld firm, where she worked as a kitchen aide and remained until liberation; doing translation work in a field hospital in Nordhausen after the war; going to the displaced persons camps in Dora, Heilbronn, and Darmstadt; attending the university in Frankfurt after receiving aid from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency; immigrating to the United States in June 1950 and marrying a sailor in 1953; teaching languages in Baltimore County for twenty-five years; and translating for the Red Cross and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with George Hill Leonard

    Oral History

    George Leonard, a concentration camp liberator born on December 24, 1921 in Malden, Massachusetts, describes his childhood; his training in Alabama and California before he and his unit went to England; becoming the company runner, staying close to the captain and lieutenants; translating codes and delivering messages while at war; his memories of the fights at the Siegfried Line; receiving the Bronze Star after being wounded; traveling through parts of Germany along the Czech border and getting ordered to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria; helping to give the victims a proper burial; staying in the Mauthausen area for about six weeks until he went to Spital am Pyhrn, Austria in late July; leaving for America on December 15, 1945; getting married; and teaching at Harvard University after the war.

    Oral history interview with Kurt Roberg

    Oral History

    Kurt Roberg, born May 16, 1924 in Celle, Germany, discusses his childhood; attending a German school where he was the only Jewish student; his father Victor Roberg’s profession as a merchant for the firm Gebrüder Freidberg; his family’s religious practices; Kristallnacht; antisemitism in his hometown; details of German politics of the time; the boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933; how a retired teacher, Hal Lotheim, taught local Jewish students; the Hitler Youth in his community; his Bar Mitzvah; how his brother, Harry, immigrated in 1936 to Holland, the Netherlands to live with their maternal uncle, Wilhelm Marx; how his father had to close his business in 1937; his mother’s 1938 trip to Hamburg, Germany to visit the American consulate; how his father was sent to Oranienburg after Kristallnacht; his father’s release and experiences in Oranienburg; his journey to Holland to join his brother and uncle; how his mother and father used American visa applications to travel to Holland; how his mother, father, and brother immigrated to the United States from Holland in 1940; German attacks on Rotterdam, the Netherlands; being interned in Holland for his status as a German citizen; being sent out of Rotterdam to Gouda, the Netherlands; how a woman organized transports of children from Holland and Belgium to reunite with their parents; receiving his American visa in January 1941; leaving Holland in March 1941; traveling from Germany to Spain and then to Lisbon, Portugal by train with other children; traveling by American ship from Lisbon, Portugal to the United States; being held on Ellis Island for a month because of visa complications; living in New Rochelle, New York with his family; learning about Pearl Harbor; how he and his brother joined the army in 1943; experiencing antisemitism in the army; his experience in the Pacific during World War II; and his life with his family after the war.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Schnog

    Oral History

    Alfred Schnog, born January 25, 1931, discusses his childhood in Cologne, Germany; growing up in a relatively secular Jewish family on Universität Straße; his relationship with his grandparents who lived in Deutz, a suburb of Cologne; seeing Nazi parades and looking on with interest but feeling unwelcome; being harassed by Nazi Youth on his way home from school with his twin brother, Norbert; seeing signs in businesses barring Jews and learning that few business owners enforced this policy; spending Passover in a Catholic hospital after being injured in a car wreck and being provided with kosher food by the nuns; watching his father throw pieces of a gun into the Rhine when guns were banned for Jews; his father’s metal trade business being taken over by non-Jews; hearing about concentration camps but believing they would primarily affect immigrants (particularly Poles) and seeing Polish children taken out of his classes by the Gestapo; his parents’ search for a way out of Germany and eventual escape to the Netherlands in the summer of 1938; his family’s return to Germany in November 1938 to retrieve belongings; witnessing Kristallnacht from an upper-floor window of the Dome Hotel; his family being taken to jail as they tried to return to the Netherlands after the German borders were sealed, but eventually being allowed to go; attending Jewish school in Amsterdam and learning Dutch; applying to move to the United States and first going by plane to England in Jan 1940, then by ship (the Britannic) from Liverpool to New York City in April 1940; attending school in the United States; speaking Dutch with his brother because they did not want to be associated with Germans; experiencing discrimination in school when his third grade teacher admonished him and his brother for wearing an American flag pin on a holiday when they were not born in America; having his Bar Mitzvah and attending Hebrew school at the synagogue in Regal Park; experiencing antisemitism as his family vacationed in the Adirondacks, finding many signs restricting Jews from staying at hotels; learning that his grandparents had been killed in a concentration camp; graduating from Forest Hill High School and then receiving a degree in engineering from Cornell; going to Korea in 1954 to serve two years in the U.S. Army; starting and running a company; learning that a pair of his father’s cufflinks were given to his father in recognition of his Bar Mitzvah by Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer who later led an assassination attempt against Hitler; his reflections on the way those who did not experience the Holocaust and WWII view it; his children’s knowledge of his and his parents’ experiences and how it has affected them; and his thoughts on Israel.

    Oral history interview with Fred Taucher

    Oral History

    Fred Taucher, born on January 29, 1933 in Berlin, Germany, describes his half-brother’s suicide to avoid Nazi concentration camps; the destruction of his father’s store during Kristallnacht; moving to a ghetto in 1938; his father’s inability to leave Germany despite his United State’s citizenship; his family’s relationship with a high ranking Nazi member; his father going into slave labor and then being sent to Auschwitz in 1943; his family’s escape from arrest; living in subway stations to avoid Allied bombings; getting arrested, tortured, and sent to Dachau in April 1945; escaping from the Nazis with some Russian soldiers; his mother’s death during a crossfire between the Germans and the Russians; his 1946 Bar Mitzvah in Berlin; life in Berlin after the Holocaust; his 1946 arrival in America; his decision to join the U.S. Army; his experiences trying to obtain United States citizenship; his life in America as a citizen and his activism in Holocaust survivor networks.

    Oral history interview with Helen Goldkind

    Oral History

    Helen Goldkind, born in Czechoslovakia (near Volosyanka, Ukraine) on July 9, 1928, describes her early childhood; experiencing antisemitism as a child; her recollections of the Nazi occupation of her town in 1944; her deportation to Auschwitz; how her grandfather was beaten to death for not relinquishing a Torah scroll; being sent to work at a munitions factory in Germany; being with her sister when they were liberated by British troops in 1945; spending time in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp to recover; receiving help from the Swedish Red Cross and traveling to Sweden to recover; immigrating to the United States in 1946 with her sister; finding a job as a secretary in New York City; getting married and moving to Baltimore; the death of her sister and raising her children; and her reflections on the current state of the world.

    Oral history interview with Inge Katzenstein

    Oral History

    Inge Katzenstein (née Berg), born March 27, 1929 in Cologne, Germany, describes her family; having to move in with some of her extended family in Cologne after Kristallnacht; attempting to illegally cross into Holland; getting into Holland but immediately being captured and imprisoned; immigrating to Kenya but not being able to leave their home their without permission; attending stenography school to become a secretary; immigrating to the United States in 1951 and settling in Vineland, New Jersey; getting married and raising her children as Orthodox Jews; and returning to Germany twice and getting treated well.

    Oral history interview with Werner Katzenstein

    Oral History

    Werner Katzenstein, born in Wallensen, Germany on April 29, 1922, describes his childhood; having to leave school in 1933 after Hitler came to power in 1933; his father going to prison because he was Jewish but getting released after about a week; his father being forced to close down his business; buying property in Holland and immigrating there in 1937; immigrating to the United States in 1939 and settling in Somerville, New Jersey; being considered an enemy alien; registering for the draft and being called to service in March 1944; being sent for basic training to Camp Blanding in Florida; being classified for intelligence and reconnaissance work; joining the 100th Infantry Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina; his deployment to Europe; going through southern France and the Vosges Mountains; and getting wounded in combat; returning to his platoon in January 1945 and going through Germany; being in combat in Heidelberg; working for the military government; visiting family who had been in Theresienstadt; returning for New Jersey on April 30,1946; and getting married and settling in Washington, D.C.

    Oral history interview with Fred Goldman

    Oral History

    Fred Goldman, born in Fürth, Germany on September 6, 1915, describes his childhood; his memories of Hitler coming to power; finishing high school and moving to Berlin to train to be a cantor and teacher at a Jewish Teacher’s College; returning to Fürth after three years and moving back in with his mother and sister; immigrating to the United States in January 1939 because a distant cousin vouched for him; arriving in the U.S. with twelve dollars and taking a job as a busboy at a department store in New York; marrying Ruth Schuster, a Jewish women also from Fürth; working in a uniform factory until he was drafted into the army in March 1943; becoming a member of the medical corps but then being transferred into the military intelligence unit when the army learned he was fluent in German; going to Camp Ritchie in Maryland; interrogating prisoners in Europe; staying with the army until March 1946, when he returned to the United States and became a diamond setter; and settling in Silver Spring, Maryland after the war.

    Oral history interview with Paulette Stessin

    Oral History

    Paulette Stessin, born in Metz, France, discusses her family and childhood in France; her parents, who sold clothing in the market; keeping kosher; her understanding of events in Germany in 1938 when she was 17 or 18; her family’s move to Angouleme, France where they thought they would be safe; daily life in Angouleme; her work as a hairdresser in Brive la Gaillarde, France, where there was one Jewish family; being arrested near Brive in April 1944; being transferred to Drancy and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau; her memories of Auschwitz; working on a road hauling stones; “Pitchipoi,” a term referring to the imaginary place they would be sent to and used by the prisoners in Drancy; the addition of a chemical to the women’s soup to suppress their menstrual cycles, which did not work on her; deciding to join her “camp sister”, a Dutch woman in another barrack, who was being deported; arriving at Bergen-Belsen; her memories of the camp; being liberated in April 1945; traveling to Paris; her reintegration at the Hotel Lutetia; and her decision to return to Angouleme.

    Oral history interview with Margitta Cooper

    Oral History

    Margitta Cooper, born on June 10, 1929 in Speyer, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her relationships with her non-Jewish friends; her memories of Kristallnacht; her father being arrested and sent to Dachau after Kristallnacht; her family’s arrest in 1940 and being taken to the Gurs concentration camp; gathering with about 20 other children and being told they were to be sent to the United States; separating from her parents and seeing them for the last time; spending time in a small French town before her immigration; finally travelling to the United States by boat in 1941; taking a train to Baltimore, MD to recover with the other immigrant children; meeting an uncle in New York City; finding out about the fate of her family; settling into life in Baltimore and receiving a job at the Johns Hopkins hospital; and her reflections on what the world knew about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Erika Eckstut

    Oral History

    Erica Eckstut, born June 12, 1928 in Znojmo, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes her family; staying with her sister and brother-in-law at the end of the war; marrying a member of the Czech Army, Robert Kauder, on August 28, 1945; living in Freiwaldau (Jeseník), Czech Republic; how her husband was the big boss (Velitel) in the city, removing Germans from the Sudetenland area; moving to Prague, Czech Republic; having two children over the next few years; how her husband testified at the Nuremberg Trials; the death of her husband in 1957; immigrating to the United States; finally arriving in the United States with her children on April 11, 1960 and being greeted by a swarm of reporters because she was among the first to be allowed to leave Communist Czechoslovakia; attending technology school; living with her sister, her sister’s husband, and their children for a year before getting her own apartment; meeting her current husband in 1962; her diagnosis of lung cancer in 1989; participating in a cancer research study and being one of two survivors of the seventy-five person study; and volunteering at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with Tole Johannes Madna

    Oral History

    Tolé Johannes Hendricus Madna, born June 8, 1931 in The Hague, the Netherlands, describes his Indonesian father and his Dutch Protestant mother; living in Holland during the war; the divorce of his parents in 1936; living with his father and a nanny; hiding the infant son, Alfred Munzer, of family friends; the child staying with his family for three and a half years and calling him Bobby; moving to Belgium after the war; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Henri Dupuy

    Oral History

    Henri Dupuy, born June 5, 1920 in Thiviers, France and designated Righteous Among Nations, discusses his anger at the French government and Germany; his decision to join the Resistance; Constantin, nom de guerre Jambard, leader of the Armée Secrète (AS) who formed the Maquis in 1942 in Perigueux, France; how his mother, Helene, hid Maquis members in her home and procured ration cards; joining the police to avoid the draft; guarding the Perigueux Gestapo headquarters and stealing letters stamped “Dordogne,” denouncing French citizens; the November 10, 1943 Maquis attack in Perigueux and roundup and deportation of 350 Jews to Auschwitz; the arrest of the Gruska family and escape of their children; how his mother placed two Gruska sons with rural families and the daughter in a convent; how his mother secured forged identity papers with the complicity of Secretary-General Lafont, joining the Messignac Maquis; Maquis attacks from the woods; the supply of small arms by the Riberac police and by parachute drops; how the Maquis were denounced and attacked by Germans; hiding in Coursac, Dordogne, France and joining the Roland Maquis; a Maquis attack on the Neuvic-Bordeaux train carrying French francs to Germany in July or August 1944; and how the Maquis offloaded the francs in a truck to Saint-Alvere, a resistance center in the Dordogne, to support Maquis families and resistance activities.

    Oral history interview with Halina Peabody

    Oral History

    Halina Peabody (née Halina Janna Litman), born in Kraków, Poland on December 12, 1932, describes her childhood; taking on a false identity (Halina Litinska) during the war and pretending to be Catholic; hiding in Jaroslaw with her mother and younger sister; being injured on the day of liberation by a hand grenade; being liberated by the Russian Army; living in group homes with her sister after the war; traveling to Italy with her family and staying at a displaced persons camp; traveling to England and then going to Israel in 1957; taking a job at the American embassy in Tel Aviv; marrying a Bulgarian Jew who worked for the U.S. Information Agency; leaving Israel in 1968 with her husband and five year old son; immigrating to Palo Alto, California, where her husband could get a job at the Hoover Institute; moving to Washington, D.C., where Halina’s husband got a job working for “The Voice of America”; getting a divorce from her husband in 1972 and then marrying Richard Peabody; volunteering at the Holocaust Museum; and getting involved with survivor groups such as the Association of Child Survivors.

    Oral history interview with Marcel Bercau

    Oral History

    Marcel Bercau, born October 17, 1920 in Paris, France, describes his Romanian family; restrictions placed on Jews during German occupation; his deportation to Drancy in 1941; working in a locksmith's workshop and remaining in Drancy with his father and brother for a year before they were deported; going to Auschwitz, where he worked as an earth-worker and then as a bricklayer; working in the schlosser-electriker division, which allowed him to find a little bit of extra food; the evacuation of Auschwitz on January 17, 1945; going on a death march with 60,000 other prisoners and traveling through the snow and the cold with no food; arriving in Gleiwitz, Germany (Gliwice, Poland), where they were put in open cattle cars and transported to Oranienburg; how while they passed through Prague, Czech Republic people threw them bread and water containers; how four out of five people died during the transport; the German abandonment of Landsberg, where he was being held; being rescued and taken to Augsburg, where there was a repatriation camp; and returning to Paris to start a family.

    Oral history interview with Rolph Hammel

    Oral History

    Rolph Hammel, born on September 11, 1912, in Karlsruhe, Germany, describes his family; his involvement with a Zionist youth movement; being forced to do military service in 1933 in Dijon; getting scarlet fever; moving to Strasbourg, France and working in a hardware store before starting his own faucet and fixtures business in 1937; being allowed to remain in France because he had inherited citizenship from his mother who was French; working in the DCA during the war; helping to save 70 Jews in Périgueux, France; going to the ORT school; and his reflections on the treatment of Jews during the war.

    Oral history interview with Norbert V. Hilsberg

    Oral History

    Norbert Hilsberg, born on September 3, 1914 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; graduating college and serving in the Austrian military for three months; starting the forms to immigrate to the United States after the Anschluss; his parents’ immigration to Cuba, where they stayed until April 1941, when they attained visas for the United States; receiving his visa in June 1938 and traveling to the United States; living with his uncle in Philadelphia, PA when he arrived; learning about the invasion of Poland; working in the advertising department of the Litz department store in Philadelphia; volunteering for the US Army in February 1941; getting sent to an engineering camp, where he made maps; the attachment of his outfit to the general headquarters in DC; being forced to remain in the US when his unit went abroad because he was not yet eligible for his American citizenship; receiving his citizenship in April 1943 and working on plans for the invasion of southern France and Austria; living in North Africa for nearly a year; being sent to Hawaii; leaving the army in 1945; accepting a job with the war department; and settling in Washington, DC with his family.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Munzer

    Oral History

    Alfred Munzer, born in The Hague, Netherlands on November 23, 1941, describes his family; how his parents debated over having him circumcised; his family going into hiding in May 1942; his father being admitted into a psychiatric hospital and his mother working at the psychiatric hospital as a nurse’s aide; his two older sisters being taken in by a Catholic family; going into hiding with a family friend and neighbor, Tolé Madna; how he played in the backyard and was called Bobby; his parents being sent to a concentration camp on December 26, 1942; his mother surviving the war, working first as a seamstress and later as an electrician; how his father died soon after liberation; the death of his sisters in Auschwitz; immigrating to Brussels, Belgium in 1952 and to the United States in 1958 with his mother; settling in New York where he attended Brooklyn College; going on to attend medical school at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn; becoming a lung specialist and interning at several well known-hospitals before doing military service at Andrews Air Force base in Washington, D.C.; and settling in D.C. with his partner Joel Wind.

    Oral history interview with Maria Mandel

    Oral History

    Maria Myriam Mandel, born 1938 in Czerwinsk, Poland, discusses the assembly of the town's citizens in a square and their deportation; her family's escape through a bakery door; hiding from the Gestapo in granaries, cemeteries, and the woods; her parents’ execution by the Gestapo in 1942; her placement by her parents in a neighbor's home from 1942 to 1947; her new name, Katia Gortak; the kindness of her foster mother and brother; her Catholic education; her antisemitic feelings; the painful loss of her brother and sister who were placed in other families and abandoned; the arrival of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) at the end of the war; reuniting with her uncles in America and France; her shock at learning she was Jewish; her transfer to a Jewish orphanage in Czerwinsk, where she received a Jewish education; her recollections of antisemitism at the war's end; her life in the orphanage from 1947 to 1949; visits by her foster mother; her bitterness when visits ceased; how the JDC changed her birth date from 1938 to 1937 to allow her to travel alone from Poland to France; her arrival in Paris, France; her refusal to join her uncle in America; and her life in Perigueux, France with her paternal uncle and his family.

    Oral history interview with Yvonne Mignot de Royere

    Oral History

    Yvonne Mignot de Royere (née Roux), born in Clermont d’Excideuil, France on February, 22, 1925, describes how she and her father, Joseph Roux, saved 21 Jews during World War II; the evacuation of Jews in Strasbourg in 1939; working with her father, who was the mayor; taking in French Jewish refugees; how her work as a municipal clerk gave her access to forms and papers, which she used to provide the Jews with forged identity papers and ration cards; hiding Jews in the village rectory; one of the Jewish women giving birth to her daughter, Arlette Veil, in 1943; she and her father saving several families (last names: Robertso, Schwab, Wertz, and Veil); how three of the families were hidden in the caretaker’s house at the Chateau du Noyer and she helped them secure food; how she occasionally left the mayor’s office unlocked so that the families could secure additional ration cards; living in Excideuil from 1942 to 1944, after which the Jews returned to Alsace to rebuild their lives; staying in touch with the people she helped; and being honored with her father by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among Nations in 1982.

    Oral history interview with Susan Berlin

    Oral History

    Susan Berlin (née Suzanna Reichman), born on June 22, 1926 in Rožňava, Czechoslovakia (present day Slovakia), describes her family; her childhood in Rožňava; her memories of the rise of Nazi power; immigrating to the United States on August 3, 1939; settling in New York City, where she went to Julia Richmond High School; graduating in 1942 and attending Brooklyn College for her undergraduate degree and the University of Pennsylvania for her master’s degree; graduating in 1947 and moving to Washington D.C., where she got a job in the Army Intelligence Map Service as an Army Intelligence Research Analyst; marrying in 1950 and having three daughters; retiring from the Army Intelligence Map Service to raise her daughters; becoming an art teacher when her children got older; and volunteering at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in the Education Department.

    Oral history interview with John Bucur

    Oral History

    John Bucur, born in Youngstown, Ohio on March 5, 1925, describes his childhood; his Romanian-American parents; the multiracial community he grew up in; graduating high school in 1943 as the valedictorian of his class and receiving a scholarship to Ohio University; enlisting in the Army and being sent to Fort Sill, where he received training to be in Battery B of the 17th Observation Battalion; his first assignment watching a ship off the shore of Omaha Beach in France on D-Day; his unit’s move through England, France, and Germany and then going on a tour of Buchenwald at the end of the war; taking college courses at an American School in Biarritz, France after the war; returning home on December 7, 1945 and being discharged from the army; finishing his degree at Ohio University and graduating in 1948; going on to medical school and becoming a neurosurgeon; having five children with two wives; and moving to Arlington, Virginia to found Fairfax Hospital, Northern Virginia Doctor’s Hospital, and the National Orthopedic Hospital.

    Oral history interview with Lore Schneider

    Oral History

    Lore Schneider (née Heti Lore Koppel), born on October 10, 1924 in Bochum, Germany, describes her family; seeing the Nazi youth in her neighborhood; observing the Nazi parades from her home on the main street; immigrating to the United States in June 1934; settling in Washington, D.C. and attending public school; obtaining U.S. citizenship in 1939, five years after her family’s arrival; attending college at night and working as a stenographer at the Interior Department during the war; and marrying in 1946 and having three children.

    Oral history interview with Frank Liebermann

    Oral History

    Frank Nathan Liebermann (né Franz Natan Liebermann), born in Gleiwitz (Gliwice), Poland on January 19, 1929, describes his family; celebrating Jewish holidays; immigrating to the United States in October 1938 and moving to Dayton, Ohio, where his father set up his medical practice; his family’s involvement in the Jewish community and helping many European Jews to immigrate to the United States; attending Western Reserve University; meeting his wife during his sophomore year and marrying her soon after he graduated; working for a textile converting firm for many years before retiring and moving to Washington, D.C., where his two daughters had already settled; finding a job at a travel firm; and beginning to volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum after September 11th, 2001.

    Oral history interview with Marianne Liebermann

    Oral History

    Marianne Liebermann, born in Vienna, Austria on October 29, 1929, describes her family and childhood; her education; her father searching for ways to leave Vienna and immigrating to the United States after the Anschluss; her father’s efforts to convince a gentile American family, with whom he had previously done business, to vouch for his family; boarding a train to Cherbourg, France in September 1938 and transferring to the Europa ship, which took them to the U.S.; arriving in New York on October 3, 1938 and living there when the war broke out in 1939; graduating from Barnard University and later going on to get her master’s degree at Adelphi University; marrying Frank Liebermann on November 23, 1950; settling down in Great Neck, New York and having three children; becoming a teacher and spending many years teaching English as a second language; and settling in Maryland.

    Oral history interview with Thea S. Rips

    Oral History

    Thea S. Rips, born in Trieste, Italy on February 24, 1922, describes her childhood; her family moving to Rijeka, Croatia when she was five years old; growing up in a Catholic family but having many Jewish friends; witnessing the persecution of nearby Jewish families; aiding several families in their attempts to escape Italy; wanting to become a doctor and working in a shipyard infirmary in Rijeka; getting a job working on the Marshall Plan after the war in Rome, Italy; being offered a chance to move to the United States and work as an interpreter in 1955; meeting her husband, who she was engaged to for eighteen years before they married in February 1976; going to the United States and living in New York; moving to Washington, D.C.; and the death of her husband in September of 1994.

    Oral history interview with Andrew Glass

    Oral History

    Andrew (né Andrej) James Glass, born November 30, 1935 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his early childhood; spending time in his wealthy grandfather's house because of his mother's illness; his grandfather, Jacob, repatriating millions of dollars which had been deposited in Switzerland, New York, and London, back into zlotys in Poland because of a 1939 government decree; hearing planes and bombs exploding in September 1939; his father being forced to clear rubble and fill sandbags; supplying gas to a gentile taxi driver and two families driving east on September 13; going by horse and cart and then by train and on foot to Vilnius, Lithuania; his father getting picked up by a Lithuanian patrol but being released when he agreed with them that President Roosevelt was Jewish; his family receiving three Japanese visas from Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul; paying 600 dollars to get Soviet transit visas; traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway and arriving in Japan in December 1940; getting three residence visas to the Dominican Republic and a one week transit visa from the American Consul in Tokyo, Japan; sailing on the Kama Kumakara in April 1941 to San Francisco, CA; taking the train to New York, NY and staying there until 1943; immigrating to Canada; re-entering the U.S. under the Polish quota; his father working in a defense plant and his mother working as a seamstress in New York; how he determined to not feel different; working for the New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, Senators Javits and Percy, and Cox newspapers from 1974 to 2001; becoming a Fellow at Harvard and the managing editor of The Hill newspaper; and feeling that he is living on borrowed time, that life is precious, and that there is a randomness to who survives.

    Oral history interview with Renate Fischer Chernoff

    Oral History

    Renate Fischer Chernoff, born on June 25, 1929 in Breslau, Germany (Wrocław, Poland), describes her early childhood; moving to Racibórz, Poland with her family in 1934; being sent to Berlin, Germany to stay with her grandmother in 1937; her family choosing to immigrate to Canada since her father was a physician; arriving in 1938 and settling in Montreal; moving to New Brunswick; her parents adopting Saul Silvershein, a sixteen year old Polish boy from a displaced persons camp; attending college at Dalhousie University; meeting her husband while in graduate school at the University of Chicago; marrying in New Brunswick in 1953 and moving to Saint Louis, MO where her husband finished his residency and their first child was born; moving to Durham, NC, where they had two more children; and settling in the Washington, DC area in 1980.

    Oral history interview with Eli Dortort

    Oral History

    Eli Dortort (né Klemfner), born on August 30, 1920 in Zdachov, Galicia, Poland, describes his family and childhood; escaping his hometown a few hours before the Germans invaded; traveling with some Russian soldiers to Kiev, Ukraine and then to Starobielsk (Starobil's'k), Ukraine, where he volunteered for the Polish Army; his unit being sent to Israel, where he deserted and worked in a kibbutz; staying in the kibbutz for a year before he joined the British Army and was sent to Italy; later being stationed in Teheran, Iran and Egypt; returning to Israel after the war and fighting in the War of Independence; staying in Israel until the late 1950s, when he immigrated to the United States; and settling in New York City, where he met his wife and had a daughter.

    Oral history interview with Hilda Seftor

    Oral History

    Hilda Seftor (née Cohen), born in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 21, 1923, describes her family and childhood; finding out about the Nazi invasion of Poland; helping her local Jewish community and finding homes for thirty-five Jewish refugee children; her parents founding the Whittingehame Farm School; teaching the school’s Jewish children how to farm and giving them a traditional education; attending the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science and graduating with a degree in household and institutional management in 1943; working in the Edinburgh school system and later at a wartime nursery preparing meals for children; marrying after the war and immigrating to the United States; having four sons; moving to Washington, DC in 1994; and volunteering at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with Felix Nicinski

    Oral History

    Felix Nicinski (né Fievish Nicinski), born December 7, 1925 in Lochów, Poland near Lódź, Poland, discusses his early childhood; moving in to the fenced-in ghetto in early 1940; how the Germans bombed their city before entering it; being taken to a work camp in Lienzingen (Mühlacker, Germany) in late 1940 with the other 14 to 18 year old boys to dig ditches; slipping away on a march in the summer of 1941 to work and escape to the fenced-in ghetto in Kalisz, Poland; receiving the false identity of an escaped 27 year old; Kalisz Jews being sent to the Lódź ghetto in 1941; being forced to wear the yellow star and beaten by the German guards; working at an ammunitions plants in Skarżysko-Kamienna for 10 months in 1942; being sent to Dora in 1943 and then to Buchenwald in 1944 for six months; his transfer to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; being liberated by the British on April 15, 1945; living in Bamberg, Germany between 1945 to 1948 and learning how to be a barber; immigrating to Australia in 1948 and living there for ten years; immigrating to the United States in 1958; and marrying another survivor of Bergen-Belsen.

    Oral history interview with David Brombart

    Oral History

    David Brombart, born on August 3, 1933 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his childhood; the German invasion in May 1940 and being able to attend school until mid-1941; the deportation of his sister, Sarah, and his mother in August 1942; running away from a boarding school in Ikla (possibly Uccle in Brussels) and his father placing him in the home of business clients; going into hiding in Hornu, Belgium but visiting his father, who was in hiding in another city; his liberation in September 1944 and returning to Brussels with his father; finding out that his grandfather was a member of the Jewish Committee which made up lists for the Germans; returning to school at age 11 and learning how to write; serving in the Belgian Army from 1952 to 1954 and becoming the head of the Socialist Democratic Youth until 1958; having a full time job with the Young Socialist Guard and attending international conferences as the Labor Secretary from 1958 to 1964; living in Paris, France from 1958 to 1959; getting married in 1961; being offered a job to direct the African Labor Institute of the American organization AFL-CIO; moving to New York and advising labor movements in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia; becoming Deputy Director of the International Department of the AFL-CIO under Lane Kirkland; and being honored for his international labor work by the governments of Dahomey, Togo, and Senegal.

    Oral history interview with Gunter Haimann

    Oral History

    Gunter Haimann, born on January 26, 1922 in Koblenz, Germany, describes his childhood and family; his parents deciding that it was time to leave Germany in the beginning of 1937, when Jewish children were banned from public schools; immigrating to the United States and living with his aunt in Queens, New York; attending high school and night school to learn English; graduating in June 1941 and finding a job at an auto shop; his draft into the army at the beginning of the war and being trained as an interrogator; teaching interrogating techniques at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; his transfer into the 101st Airborne; going to England and jumping on D-Day and landing in Carentan, France; serving with the 101st for the remainder of the war; receiving a Purple Heart after being wounded in Bastogne, Belgium; not taking religion in to account while he was fighting; jumping onto Holland on Rosh Hashonah in 1944; going into Düsseldorf, Germany; finding Hitler’s stationary and using it to write letters; going to Austria and finding Mr. and Mrs. Goering and speaking with Mrs. Goering; seeing Holocaust survivors walking home; returning to the United States and starting a luncheonette business; and meeting his wife and having three children.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Lakritz

    Oral History

    Alfred Julian Lakritz, born on June 1, 1934 in Kiel, Germany, describes his family; narrowly escaping deportation to Poland in 1939 and moving to Antwerp, Belgium and then Marmande, France with his family; experiencing antisemitism from his peers in Marmande; how his father was arrested; speaking with the men who arrested his father many years later, and their regret; being sent with his brother to a Jewish summer camp in Creuse, France in July 1942; going into hiding in various safe houses for two and a half years after leaving the camp; ending up at a convent in Lourdes, France, where they met a Jewish French woman who took them in for the remainder of the war; being placed in a Catholic home in Tarbes with his brother after the war; reuniting with their mother in Marmande and applying for visas to the United States; immigrating to the United States in 1950 and settling in Oakland, CA; attending the University of California at Berkeley; completing his law degree; moving to Los Angeles, CA with his wife, whom he had met in law school; and raising a family.

    Oral history interview with Rita Rubinstein

    Oral History

    Rita Rubinstein (née Frieda Rifka Lifschitz), born on December 12, 1936 in Romania, describes her family and early childhood; her father’s draft into the Russian Army; going into hiding in Transnistria, Ukraine in September 1941; her liberation by Russian troops in April 1944; returning to their home in Romania and discovering that her father had died during the war; attending school for the first time and learning Russian and Ukrainian; traveling to Munich, Germany and posing as a Greek refugee; living in the Feldafing displaced persons camp for some time; developing tuberculosis in 1947 and having to go to a sanitarium in Augsburg, Germany; immigrating to the United States with her mother in September 1949 and settling in New York, NY; and getting married in 1959 and starting a family.

    Oral history interview with Anita Etzyon

    Oral History

    Anita Etzyon, born on October 4, 1941 in Boryslav, Poland (present day Ukraine), describes her family and childhood; being one year old when her mother died from tuberculosis; having few direct memories of the war but being told about her family’s life during that time; being taken away to live with a Christian family and getting baptized to better fit into her surroundings; returning to live with her father, who had remarried, after the war; living in a Jewish neighborhood and attending a Jewish school; moving to various cities around Poland with her father and step-mother; being the only Jew in her school in Swidnica, Poland; adjusting to life as a Jew after she had spent four years as a Christian; immigrating to Israel in 1951; learning Hebrew and adjusting to life in Israel; getting married to avoid serving in the Israeli Army; having a daughter; immigrating to the United States with her husband and daughter 1963; settling in Washington, DC and working for a Jewish Day School; and her reflections on being a Jew in the modern world.

    Oral history interview with Melvin Galun

    Oral History

    Melvin Galun, born on May 10, 1940 in Kowal, Poland, describes his parents’ participation in the Zionist movement; his mother’s stories about Jews being sent away to the camps; going into hiding in the nearby forests; his memory of his family’s liberation by Russian troops; staying in several German displaced persons camps after the war; his early education in the displaced persons camps; participating in Zionist youth movements in the camps; immigrating to the United States in November 1949; his studies in the United States at a Yeshiva school; traveling to Israel after graduating school and working in a kibbutz for a year; and getting married in 1963 and starting a family.

    Oral history interview with Magdalena Farkas Berkovics

    Oral History

    Magdalena Farkas Berkovics, born on July 15, 1919 in Cluj, Romania, discusses her childhood, schooling and musical training in a conservatory; experiencing low level antisemitism; getting married in 1939; living in her house in the Cluj ghetto with other women after the city’s Jewish men had been taken away for forced labor; conditions in the ghetto, including food scarcity and the black market; providing piano lessons to Christian children; being deported in June 1944; terrible conditions in the train car; her arrival at Auschwitz; being separated from her family except for one 25-year-old cousin; how her clothes were taken away and her hair removed; going to Stutthof in August 1944 and then digging ditches in Steinort (Sztynort, Poland), Elbing (Elbląg, Poland), and Groudentz; speaking about freedom with the other women and singing Hungarian songs; being liberated and traveling to Satu Mare, Romania, where Jewish volunteers helped her return to Cluj; how she found Christians living in her house and learned that she was the only survivor in her family; marrying, Zoltan Berkovics, in 1946; the birth of their son, Tiberius, who later changed his name to John Sylvanis because of antisemitism in Romania; how Communists nationalized her house and forced her to pay rent; teaching in the Romanian conservatory for 30 years; immigrating with her husband to the United States in the 1980s; and feeling very grateful for American liberty and democracy.

    Oral history interview with Sol Mackler

    Oral History

    Sol Mackler, born on January 15,1921 in Poland, discusses his childhood in a small village; visiting relatives in nearby Radom; being forced to live in a ghetto in 1939 with sixteen people in one house; wearing a yellow star; in late 1941 walking seven miles to Pionki labor camp, being given a striped uniform and the number 1058; working in a munitions factory, then laying railway tracks in a tunnel; escaping with four other prisoners to the forest and joining Polish Jewish partisans; being captured by Germans and being sent by train to Sachsenhausen; seeing his sister and her baby there; smuggling his one year old nephew into Pionki to the child’s father, a tailor who made Nazi uniforms; waiting for Russians at liberation; going back to his village and being severely beaten; living in Bad Nauheim displaced persons camp in Germany; working on the black market selling diamonds from Belgium; arriving in the United States in December 1949 after being sponsored by two Jewish Californian wine makers; moving to New York to work and getting married in 1956; working for his brother-in-law; and finding out his parents were executed in Treblinka.

    Oral history interview with Theresia Bauer

    Oral History

    Theresia Bauer discusses her involvement with the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel), which paralleled the boys’ Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugend); the Soviet occupation of Austria, a time period in which she was constantly hiding from soldiers; and her husband's experience as a prisoner of war in Russia.

    Oral history interview with Carolina Taitz

    Oral History

    Carolina Taitz (née Lena Knoch), born on February 24, 1929 in Russia on a train, discusses her childhood in Viesite, Latvia; having friendly relations with schoolmates in her Latvian public school; how her father, a tree doctor, lost his business and the family house and was temporarily imprisoned as a capitalist when the Russian Communists occupied the town; experiencing a lot of antisemitism; seeing Jews being shot on the street when the Germans came in 1941; being forced to live in the ghetto in Riga, Latvia with five people to a room and little food; getting hit in the eye when a German soldier caught her with a cooked potato; being forced to work in a shoe polish factory from 5 AM to 5 PM; going on a forced march with 30,000 people guarded by German soldiers; seeing and hearing people being shot in a ditch in the Rumbula forest; walking with her mother, sister, and 200 other women to Termini prison; staying on the roof in the cold for two weeks in November 1942 and the birth of a baby, named Termina; going back to the ghetto; dressing as a boy going to work and escaping during a second Aktion when she was 14 years old; taking off her yellow star; being sheltered by a Russian Evangelist priest, Vladimir Michko, and his sister for two and a half years; living in their cellar; going back to Riga at liberation; her mother returning from Auschwitz but dying soon after; attending acting school; getting married and having a daughter; trying for 10 years to go to the United States, and finally getting a visa with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt; arriving in New York in March 1966; working at the New York City Opera for 19 years in charge of costumes, wigs, and makeup for the productions; being widowed twice and moving to Washington, DC in 2008; and still seeing her mother and little brother in her dreams and herself running away from German soldiers.

    Oral history interview with Helen Schwartz

    Oral History

    Helen Schwartz (b. Hela Kirschner), born in 1925, discusses living in the Łódź ghetto in Poland from 1939 to August 1944; working in a laundry in the ghetto; being taken with her family to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944; being marched from Auschwitz to Stutthof; her liberation by the Russians near Gdansk, Poland; contracting typhus in an outbreak that hit a group of female survivors following liberation; returning to Łódź and reuniting with her sister; reuniting with her brother at the displaced persons camp in Ainring, Germany; immigrating in 1949 to Portland, Maine, where her husband worked in a clothing factory; opening a tailor’s shop in 1954; raising a family; volunteering at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and speaking at schools in Silver Spring, Maryland.

    Oral history interview with Irene Silver

    Oral History

    Irene Silver, born Irena Dynkewicz in Łódź, Poland on January 30, 1933, discusses raising her children in the Jewish tradition, being comfortable with friends who understand the Holocaust experience; her anger with people who ask why victims did not fight back during the Holocaust; being tolerant of strangers after having lived with strangers in the Warsaw Ghetto; her work as a social worker and how it was influenced by her wartime experiences; her sympathy with the civil rights movement; her membership in the Hidden Children group in New York where she feels a common ground; receiving Holocaust reparations which she used to help her children; her view that the world has not learned any lessons from the Holocaust; and her emotion at the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, feeling that the rain at the opening ceremony was the heavens crying.

    Oral history interview with Herman Taube

    Oral History

    Herman Taube (né Herschel Taube), born February 2, 1918 in Łódź, Poland, discusses his family; being orphaned by age nine; living with grandparents and later moving to Piyotrkov; attending a yeshiva; being encouraged by a Polish doctor to become a medic; returning to his grandparents in Łódź in 1935 and seeing antisemitic incidents; writing poetry; belonging to a literary society and meeting the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber; working in a military hospital in Alexandrov (possibly Aleksandrów Łódźki, Poland), arranged by Father Jagla, a Catholic priest; joining the Polish Army in August 1939; serving in a medical group that marched to the Bug River where the Soviet Army ordered the group to go to Volodymyr-Volyns'kyĭ, Ukraine to get educated so as to lose their capitalist mentality; accompanying a wounded soldier to Poltawa (Poltava), Ukraine, where an Ukrainian militia man arranged for him to take a new name, Grigori Arionowicz Taube, and live with a Jewish family; going to Samarra (Koibashov or possibly Kuybyshev) and getting more medical training; being sent to Tyumen (Tiumen') in Siberia and working in hospitals and in gulags; in November 1941 going to Tashkent, Uzbekistan and then to Andizhan, Uzbekistan; working in a malaria clinic; leaving the clinic after reporting that people were stealing food from the hospital; going to Seratov, Russia to the Polish Army; being assigned to the Kotsk offensive in June 1944; being badly injured by a mine explosion while riding in a truck; recovering enough by December 1944 and going to Lublin, Poland to the Polish Army headquarters in Majdanek; being assigned to Platte and opening a Red Cross repatriation station where he treated people with typhus; going to Keslin in Bessarabia in June 1945 to acquire more medicine from a CIBA warehouse; meeting a young woman, Susan Strauss, a survivor from Germany and traveling together to Potsdam, Germany; staying in a displaced persons camp in Halle-Merseburg, Germany, where he opened a Red Cross station; meeting a young Auschwitz survivor, Henry Rothfogel; traveling with Susan back to Platte, and getting civilly married and later religiously married; traveling with Susan and Henry in the summer of 1946 to Berlin, Germany with help from the Bricha; adopting a two year old child survivor, Mark; having first child in the Zingenheim displaced persons camp in September 1946; arriving in the United Sates on April 18, 1947 and being interviewed at the pier by the Jewish Daily Forward; going to Baltimore, MD to join Susan's father; writing for the Jewish Daily Forward; traveling to New York, NY to edit a Histadrut yearbook; returning to Baltimore and helping Susan run a grocery store; working for various Jewish organizations; obtaining accreditation as a journalist at the White House and in Congress; and continuing to write poetry, stories, and essays about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Regine Ginsberg

    Oral History

    Regine Ginsberg, born on November 19, 1925, discusses her childhood in Brussels, Belgium; her father’s work in the leather industry; religious observances in the household; speaking Yiddish at home and French in school; how her father wired money to Chase Bank in New York in the 1930s; her family abandoning their home in Brussels to travel by train to France; staying with a farmer in St. Gaudens, France; the family’s arrest in St. Gaudens; how her brother and father were sent to a prison near Toulouse, France and then released seven weeks later; how her mother returned to Brussels and brought back Sabbath candlesticks, prayer shawls, tefillin, and diamond jewelry which she used to bribe guards; how her father contacted a cousin in Pennsylvania; being on the last boat out of France from Marseilles; arriving in New York in June 1942; staying with cousins in Pittsburgh, PA and then settling in McKeesport, PA; her mother and father’s work in the leather industry; moving to Texas where she met her future husband Reuben Ginsberg in Athens, TX; her brother enlisting in the army and being sent to Belgium where he did intelligence work acting as a French interpreter; studying along with her husband at Columbia University in New York; becoming an art dealer and opening up a gallery in the 1970s; her emotional state after the war; and how her wartime experiences affected her life, her marriage, and the way she raised her children.

    Oral history interview with Ursula Guttstadt McKinney

    Oral History

    Ursula Guttstadt McKinney, born November 17, 1925 in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, discusses her family’s professional and religious background; her childhood and the troubles she faced obtaining schooling due to being half-Jewish; the difficulties her Jewish father and cousins faced; worrying about her father getting arrested; being able to say goodbye to her father when he was taken to prison and subsequently transported to Mauthausen in October 1942; receiving news that her father died; the Third Reich taking ownership of her family’s house; getting expelled from school in October 1942; moving to Berlin, Germany with her mother and sister; the psychological effects of the war, especially the bombings; her limited contact with the underground; working at a convent where there were some hidden Jewish children; her difficulties resuming a normal life after the war; her education after the war; feeling like an outcast because of being half-Jewish; immigrating, along with her sister, to the United States; not wanting to identify as German; her feelings on being a “mischling,” or having a mixed background; not identifying with one religion and being wed in an Unitarian church; and her work as a founding member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Rappaport

    Oral History

    Ruth Rappaport, born May 27, 1923 in Leipzig, Germany, discusses her parents, Mendel Rappaport, a Romanian subject, and Helene Rubinstein, who was born in Poland; how her mother’s cousin, also named Helene Rubinstein, was a well-known cosmetics businesswoman, attending an Orthodox Jewish school and an English language school in Leipzig, Germany; her membership in the Zionist youth group, Habonim; her Romanian passport, which did not identify her as a Jew; moving to Switzerland with her family shortly after Kristallnacht; staying in Zurich, Switzerland as a nanny for the Herzog family after her parents returned to Germany; selling nail polish, which her parents sent because they could not send money; being sponsored by her uncle, Carl Rubinstein, who lived in Seattle, Washington to come to the United States; leaving Europe in December 1939 on the Holland American Line boat, the Veendam; her parents’ attempt to leave Germany with Cuban visas; how her father died in Buchenwald and her mother in Ravensbrück, both in 1943; attending high school in Seattle, then the University of Washington, and finishing at Berkeley, majoring in sociology; working after graduation for a Jewish newspaper in Seattle and for the Zionist Emergency Council; working with Bartley Crum for UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) in San Francisco, CA; working in Israel during the War of Independence in 1948, where she exchanged gunfire with Palestinians; working with Golda Meir; helping establish the Israel Photographic Archives; returning to the United States and working for the Department of Defense as a librarian; living overseas in Okinawa, Japan; Taipei, Taiwan; and Vietnam; and retiring from the government after 19 years.

    Oral history interview with Edith Langer

    Oral History

    Edith Langer, born October 4, 1932 in Hamm, Germany, discusses living on a farm; her devout Lutheran mother; memories of the prewar Jewish community in her town; her early approval of Hitler because his support of public works; meeting Hitler as a member of her scout troop; attending a one-room school with 30 children, 10 of whom were Jewish; her father’s offer to hide the families of two of his Jewish customers in her family’s farm house; her mother’s feeling that hiding Jews was the right thing to do as a Christian; her father's murder by the Nazis for hiding Jews; being sent away from her family to work on a farm, where she stayed from 1941 to 1945 and had no contact with her family; being afraid of German soldiers; seeing murdered Jews in the streets; giving food to the Russian prisoners, who were living on the farm; emigrating from Germany to the United States in 1956; becoming an American citizen in 1961; her hope that more Nazis would be tried, including the one who shot her father; her membership in the Methodist Church; and taking part in protests against the American Nazi Party.

    Oral history interview with Marianne Milkman

    Oral History

    Marianne Friedenthal Milkman, born May 13, 1931 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her childhood in Germany; being baptized and raised as Christian to have more opportunities; changing schools and apartments in 1938 because of anti-Jewish laws; her aunt Lotte Friedenthal, who worked with Pastor Martin Niemӧller; her father’s deportation to Sachsenhausen in 1938; traveling to Switzerland in January 1939 and then flying with her sister to England on a Kindertransport in May 1939; living with relatives in Cambridge, England; the arrival of her parents in England and her father’s internment on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien; joining her father on the Isle of Man in May 1940; returning to Cambridge in May 1941, where she remained throughout the war; graduating from high school and Cambridge University; coming to the United States in 1957 to study biology; getting married and living in Iowa for 30 years; settling in Washington, DC; her Jewish identity; and her feeling that her experience during the war made her a stronger person.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Cohen

    Oral History

    Ruth Friedman Cohen, born April 26, 1930 in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia (present day Mukacheve, Ukraine), describes her life after the Holocaust; her prewar life in Czechoslovakia; her family’s religious beliefs; her family’s deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; her mother and brother’s death immediately after their arrival at Auschwitz; her transfer to Nuremberg, Germany and then Holachov; the painful effects of tuberculosis that she contracted in Holachov; her survival and liberation by the Russian Army; her and her sister’s return to Mukachevo, where they reunited with their father; her time in Budapest, Hungary and Prague, Czech Republic, where she recuperated from tuberculosis; her immigration to the United States in 1948; the various jobs she had to support herself; her marriage in 1952; her education at the New School for Social Research; and her struggle to recover from the damaging emotional and mental effects of the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Phillip Abraham

    Oral History

    Phillip Abraham, born August 10, 1931 in Podului-Turkului (Podu Turcului), Romania, describes his prewar life in Romania; his family’s religious beliefs; his childhood in a close-knit Jewish community; his family’s move to Tecuci, Romania in 1940; his father being taken away and then released in 1942; the lack of food available to the population; his education in a Jewish school; his town’s liberation by the Russian Army; his post-war Romanian education; his membership in Hashomer Hatzair, a Zionist youth organization; his time in Israel; his education at Hebrew University and Weizmann Institute, where he studied physics; his immigration to the United States in 1959; his careers at Raytheon and the Office of Naval Research; his marriage in 1964; and his two children.

    Oral history interview with George Arnstein

    Oral History

    George Ernest Arnstein, born September 20, 1924 in Stuttgart, Germany, describes his prewar life in Germany; the repercussions of the Nuremberg laws; his experiences with antisemitism; his father’s arrest on Kristallnacht; his father’s time in Dachau; his family’s decision to leave Germany and go to Geneva, Switzerland; his family’s immigration to the United States in 1938; the anti-German sentiment in America during World War II and its effects on him; his service for the United States Army beginning in 1943 and his duties as a crypto-analyst; his work in Germany helping to perform interrogations, monitoring anti-American efforts, and denazification; his return to Wisconsin after the war; his education at Berkeley and Geneva; and his life post-war.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Scarlett Epstein

    Oral History

    Gertrude Scarlett Epstein, born July 13, 1922 in Vienna, Austria, describes her early life growing up in Vienna; her Czech father’s belief in free thinking; how her family was not religious; her parents’ and older brothers’ experiences during World War I; her Uncle Willie, who became wealthy as a textile factory owner; how she began to notice antisemitism in Vienna when her family moved to a non-Jewish part of town in the 1930s; her father’s and oldest brother’s activities in the socialist movement; her memories of a strike in Vienna in 1934; her memories of the Anschluss; her brothers’ immigration to England; her experience securing visas for Czechoslovakia on the day Hitler entered Vienna; her feelings that her moral code shifted as it became necessary to lie; her father’s arrest and later release from jail in Czechoslovakia; the family’s move to Albania by train; help provided to the family by her Uncle Willie; how she smuggled money out of Austria and Czechoslovakia; her family’s life in Albania from November 1938 to April 1939; the reaction of native Albanians towards Austrian refugees; how the Joint Distribution Committee helped refugees in Albania; her experiences teaching German to Albanians and the Italian consulate; problems she and her mother had in securing passage from Albania to England; brutal treatment she and her mother received from German police at a fuel stop in Germany; her memories of learning about concentration camps in 1943 or 1944; and how she tracked down an Albanian family to whom she taught German.

    Oral history interview with Matilde Neuwirt

    Oral History

    Matilde Neuwirt, born December 26, 1930 in Belgrade, Serbia, describes her early life in Belgrade; how her parents spoke Serbo-Croatian and Ladino at home; her family’s upper-middle class lifestyle; her schooling at both a public and a Jewish school; the lack of apprehension she felt in the pre-war years; her mother’s decision that the family leave Yugoslavia in the summer of 1940; her family’s escape westward through Dubrovnik, Croatia and then to Italy; how her parents smuggled money out of Yugoslavia; her family’s arrival in Italy without visas; living in Vicenza, Italy; how her family was moved to a detention camp in Sandrigo by the Italian authorities; the unofficial schooling that families set up for the children in Sandrigo; how the Italian authorities encouraged families to leave Sandrigo when Italy capitulated to the Germans; the help Jewish families received from a government official to get false documents; her family’s experience traveling to Rome, Italy; her memories of German brutality on the streets; how she did not know what was happening to Jews elsewhere in the country nor the rest of Europe; her brother’s return to Yugoslavia to fight with Tito’s partisans; the anti-Jewish sentiment of the partisans; her brother’s disappearance and the lack of information about him from the Yugoslav government; her family’s decision to emigrate from Italy to the United States in 1949; her family’s arrival in New York, NY; her feelings about Americanization and leaving memories of Europe behind; her memories of the Eichmann trial; her experiences returning to Yugoslavia and Italy after the war; and her belief that her family was lucky in the way they lived through the war.

    Oral history interview with Susanne K. Bennet

    Oral History

    Susanne Klejman Bennet, born August 11, 1938 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses her memories of entering the Warsaw ghetto; seeing the brick walls being built in the ghetto; living with her grandparents, aunts, and uncles all together in one apartment; beggars asking for food in her building; how her father, a successful art and antiquities dealer, arranged with a non-Jewish friend to have a Polish policeman take her out of the ghetto to a farm in the countryside; how, just before the destruction of the ghetto, her mother escaped from her work group and hid with nuns who gave her a habit and a new name; how the nuns were later rounded up, but were saved on the train platform by a Catholic commandant; how her father escaped from the ghetto through the sewers right before the uprising and went into hiding throughout Warsaw; how as a young child, she knew not to talk about her parents; seeing the red sky in the distance when Warsaw was burning in 1944; her reunion with her parents; the death of most of her relatives during the Holocaust; moving with her parents to Stockholm, Sweden in 1947; receiving visas in 1949 from the Swedish ambassador to Mexico where she and her family stayed for nine months; immigrating to the United States in 1950; living in New York where her father opened up a store off of Fifth Avenue and became a major art dealer with John and Robert Kennedy, the Rockefellers, the Fords, and Greta Garbo as his clients; attending Wellesley College, where she received a masters in library science; meeting her husband Douglas Bennet, who later worked for Hubert Humphrey, Senator Abe Ribicoff, and was an Assistant Secretary of State, head of US AID and NPR, and president of Wesleyan College; their eldest son, Michael, a United States senator from Colorado; their second son, James, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Monthly; their daughter, Holly, a financial adviser; her feelings when visiting Germany with her husband; how her father never spoke about his wartime experience; and how she has only recently started talking about her childhood during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Marianne Roberts

    Oral History

    Marianne Roberts (née Marianne Cohn), born June 20, 1920 in Ludwigshafen, Germany, discusses her childhood in Ludwigshafen; experiencing antisemitism; her father's death from tuberculosis in 1933; her expulsion from school with her sister, Lottie, because they were Jewish; her mother's death in 1936; being photographed at the City Hall to show her "Jewish left ear" and being given the name ‘Sarah’; living with her sister until Kristallnacht; hiding in a basement for three days with no food while their apartment was being destroyed; moving into her sister's fiancé’s family's house for a few months and never going outside; going to the American Consulate to get visas their mother had applied for three years previously; leaving Germany in early 1939 with 4 dollars, pots and pans, and a family ring; sailing on the Cunard White Star to New York, NY; working in a doctor's office in Brooklyn; getting married and having two children; and speaking for past 20 years in schools and colleges about her wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with Harry Markowicz

    Oral History

    Harry Markowicz, born August 9, 1937 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood in Antwerp, Belgium; being hidden during the war with the Coons family in Brussels, Belgium, then in a children's home, and then in the Von der Linden's house under the name Henry Von der Linden; his parents who lived in hiding with another couple; how his father did not go outside for two years while in hiding; his brother, Mani, who was saved by Father Joseph Andre; how his mother found him after liberation; the removal of Allied flags at the time of the Battle of the Bulge because of fear that German forces would make their way to Brussels; arriving in the United States with his parents in March 1951; settling in Seattle, WA and going to high school and the University of Washington; traveling to Paris, France for a year for training as a French teacher; traveling to Israel to learn Hebrew; teaching French in Tacoma, WA; learning sign language and working at Gallaudet University for 29 years; feeling more comfortable among Holocaust survivors; and volunteering at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he feels a bond with the other volunteers.

    Oral history interview with Julie A. Keefer

    Oral History

    Julie Keefer (née Jula Weinstock Eisen), born on April 19, 1941 in Lvov, Poland (present day L'viv, Ukraine), discusses her family’s forced relocation into the Lvov ghetto; the escape of her grandfather, Aiski Eisen, from a camp in Janov; her grandfather finding help from Mr. Borecki, who told him in late 1943 that the ghetto was to be burned, and her grandfather’s rescue of her family from the ghetto; her memories of a tunnel or bunker in the forest, to which a few dozen people were smuggled out of the ghetto; her memories of her grandfather donning a Nazi uniform to smuggle people out of the ghetto; being taken out of the bunker because she and her baby sister, Tola, were endangering others by crying; being placed with Mrs. Szwarczynski, a Catholic woman; the arrival of the Russians in Lvov in June 1944; staying in three displaced persons camps in 1945; living in Camp Taylor in Linz, Austria; traveling alone at seven years old to the United States, where she lived in a series of Catholic orphanages, seeing relatives on weekends; being called a Nazi because she spoke German; being sent by the Joint Distribution Committee to the Bellefaire Jewish Children's Orphanage in Cleveland, OH; her adoption by Fred and Tea Klejstadt; attending Oberlin College; getting married and earning a graduate degree in education; feeling grateful to United States; and her desire to find out what happened to her hidden sister whose name became Antonina Noviska.

    Oral history interview with Erica Laufer

    Oral History

    Erica Laufer, born May 11, 1930 in Klagenfurt, Austria, discusses being the only Jewish child in her school, where she was taught by nuns; her mother denying her Jewish identity but her father being observant; an appearance by Hitler after the Anschluss; being forced to wear the yellow Star of David; being barred from attending school; moving into her grandfather's apartment in Vienna, Austria and living there in secret; SA attacks on Jewish homes; witnessing the events of Kristallnacht while hiding in a doorway; how her father obtained tickets to Trinidad; sailing on the Dutch ship Cotica with other refugees; establishing a life in Port of Spain, Trinidad; being forced, as refuges, to live in a detention center after England entered the war; going to a boarding school to be the companion to the daughter of the director; sailing to New York, NY with her parents in December 1940; moving to Washington, DC where she was discriminated against by other children because of her accent; her academic success; her work for the federal government; getting married and starting a family; not raising her children as Jews following an oath to her mother; the number of relatives she lost in Europe; and her attempts to suppress her feelings about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Goldberg

    Oral History

    Barbara Goldberg, born in 1943 in Wilmington, DE, discusses her parents, Emma and Erich, who received visas from the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes to emigrate from France to Portugal; their journey over the Pyrenees to Spain and then to Portugal; their arrival in the United States; her uncle Paul Brennan (born Pavel Briess) who had been in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz; how other relatives made it to Palestine, Australia, and South Africa; speaking only German in the house; how her parents’ personalities were shaped by the war; never discussing the past or other relatives' stories; feeling a connection to refugees; living with the memory of the Holocaust; and her discovery later in life that Aristides de Sousa Mendes had helped her family.

    Oral history interview with Liselotte Epstein Ivry

    Oral History

    Liselotte Epstein Ivry, born July 21, 1925 in Lichtenstein, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Lichtenstein, Saxony, Germany), describes her family, including her father Victor Ivry, mother Elsa Sicher, and younger brother Hans; the large families on both her father’s and mother’s sides; having heard of Hitler at age 12; being taken by truck with soldiers to live with relatives in a nearby village and then by train to live in Prague, Czech Republic; the many changes after the Germans marched in on March 15, 1939; having been set to go to Great Britain in 1939 on the Kindertransport but instead being sent first to a children’s facility in Prague and then to a private home; being sent to Terezin September 9, 1942 to work as a nurse in the hospital; the transport and death of her mother and brother on March 8, 1944; being sent on December 15, 1943 in a cattle car to Auschwitz, to Block 11; being given number 70663; how the will to live was what kept you alive; being sent to Hamburg, Germany to work first in a sand pit, then as a train switcher, and finally as a brick-maker; how their camp was bombed and they were moved to Bergen-Belsen; the ensuing chaos and then the emotion and celebration after being liberated by the British; eventually going to Canada in 1949 to stay with her uncle; marrying in 1950 to a Lithuanian, Sydney; her children; her attitude about Germany now and forgiving but not forgetting; her book, I Am Their Voice, which is a collection of poems, letters, and anecdotes by children from her 25 years as a speaker; and how now she is doing research for a work about Madeleine Albright.

    Oral history interview with Hans Ziegler

    Oral History

    Hans Ziegler, born June 12, 1925 in Brno, Czechoslovakia, discusses being raised as a Christian with a Jewish father; his parents divorcing in 1934; his father’s factory going out of business in 1937; attending a German elementary school; his father’s deportation to Terezin (Theresienstadt concentration camp) in 1942; being transported to Berlin, Germany in 1943 for forced labor; being sent in September 1944 to Postelberg (Postoloprty), Czech Republic; escaping in April 1945 with two others to the woods; hiding in Brno until the Russians arrived; getting repatriated and going to university for three years; being expelled by the Soviets in 1949 because his father was a capitalist and a diplomat; being in the military for two years; being employed as a chemist in an armaments factory; working in Egypt and Afghanistan; escaping to Germany in 1970 and staying until 1983; going to the United States and working in Warren, Ohio until 1990; going back to Germany; feeling more Jewish than Christian; and how he thinks more about his father and his war-time experiences.

    Oral history interview with Vera Levine

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Guenter Lewy

    Oral History

    Guenter Lewy, born August 22, 1923 in Breslau, Germany (Wrocław, Poland), discusses his childhood in a large extended assimilated family; his memory of seeing Hitler at the 1936 Olympics; belonging to a Jewish Zionist youth group; being attacked on a hiking trip by German storm troopers; his father’s three month imprisonment in Buchenwald after Kristallnacht; going with Youth Aliyah via Trieste to Palestine in March 1939; being met in Haifa by his uncle; living on Kibbutz Tzarad where he worked as a shepherd; his parents’ escape to the United States in late 1941; volunteering in early 1942 for the Palestine Regiment of the British Army; joining the Jewish Brigade and being stationed in Egypt; traveling to Italy with Montgomery's 8th Army in late 1944; traveling to Holland at the war’s end; his role in organizing illegal immigration to Palestine; interrogating German civilians in Berlin; returning to Palestine; traveling to the United States to see his parents in late 1946; graduating from college in 1951 and earning a Master's and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1957; teaching at Columbia, Smith College, and University of Massachusetts; teaching in Germany from 1961 to 1962; his feelings about German people today; the strong influence of his youth group on his resilience; his writings on the moral dimensions of history and the Nazi persecution of the Romani peoples; his current interest in writing about Holocaust perpetrators; reoccurring dreams about Nazis brutality; and feeling that some of the best Holocaust scholarship has being written by contemporary young German scholars.

    Oral history interview with Malvy Solomon

    Oral History

    Malvy Solomon (née Aizic), born in 1938 in Bacau, Romania, discusses pre-war violence against Jews; her father’s conscription into forced labor for the Romanian military in 1941; living with her mother and grandmother in the ghetto with little food; her father’s return in 1944; attending a Jewish primary school and learning Hebrew; surviving bombings; the Soviet arrival in Romania at war’s end; Soviet looting after the war; her school’s closure by Soviet authorities; post-war antisemitism and anti-Capitalist feelings; her father’s job working for the communist government after he was forced to close his store; finishing high school at 16; her medical schooling and career; her marriage; immigrating to Israel in 1961; attending medical school in Tel Aviv; getting divorced, treating soldiers and bombing victims; remarrying in 1971; immigrating to the United States; her education in the U.S.; working for the Department of Veterans Affairs; and her feelings about the war, communism, and her life.

    Oral history interview with Elia Miranski and Genia Miranski

    Oral History

    Elia Miranski, born on August 3, 1922 in Mir, Poland (present day Belarus), describes growing up in a poor, moderately religious family but experiencing no antisemitism until the German invasion in 1939; his parents’ deaths in the first few days of the occupation; escaping with his brother, Israel, from the ghetto which had been set up in a castle; joining Russian partisans in the forest; blowing up railroad tracks for two years; trains near Valozhyn, Belarus; planes dropping supplies; others taking the wounded away from the front lines; Russians mobilizing all partisans into the army; being wounded by the Germans; traveling back to Mir after the war; working on a dairy farm for seven years as a supervisor; moving to Minsk, Belarus and working as a house painter; getting married and having a daughter; going to Israel in 1972 and then to the United States in 1995; thinking day and night about his wartime experiences; and going back to Mir from Israel for a memorial ceremony in the cemetery. Genia Miranski, daughter of Elia Miranski, adds to her father’s interview by translating it into English and by describing Elia’s membership in the Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatzair; Elia’s parents and two younger siblings being shot by Germans; Elia building bridges and roads; witnessing his friend being mauled to death by a dog; living in the castle ghetto; Elia’s experience escaping and hiding in a swamp for three days and at times breathing through a straw when German dogs were nearby; joining Russian partisans; his return to Minsk at the end of the war and experiencing a significant amount of antisemitism; the Six Day War in Israel; going to an underground bakery at night to get Passover matzo; arriving in Israel in 1972; living in underground bunkers in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War; and her own arrival in the U.S. in 1985 and her parents’ arrival in 1995.

    Oral history interview with Maria Kordalewski

    Oral History

    Maria Kordalewski, born April 13, 1924 in Poland, describes her Ukrainian parents and her two siblings, Nicolai and Nadja; going to school and her Jewish friends; the Russians coming in 1939 and the subsequent food shortages; how people were being sent away to Siberia; the absence of antisemitism in their small town until the German occupation in 1941; how her family hid two boys until the boys escaped; how her brother was arrested in 1942, along with other young men, as a means of preventing an uprising; the Russians coming in 1945 when the war was over; being sent with her sister to Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine) to get away from the communists; being sent to a displaced persons camp in Regensburg, Germany and going to school to study pharmaceuticals; arriving in the United States in 1950 by herself; landing in New York City, NY; the various jobs she held at first; moving to Detroit, MI then to California, and finally to Miami, FL; and her feelings that the Holocaust should never be forgotten.

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