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Oral history interview with Werner Sauer

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0087.46 | RG Number: RG-50.091.0046

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    Oral history interview with Werner Sauer
    Transcript
    He may have received more attention
    than people who want privacy might be interested in.
    This is the Holocaust Archive Project,
    sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women,
    Cleveland Section.
    I am Sidney Elsner.
    My guest is Mr. Werner Sauer of Middlefield, Ohio, a survivor
    of the Holocaust from Germany.
    He was born in the western part of Germany,
    in the Rhine-Ruhr area, was brought up
    as a child in very high status.
    And from Germany, he was taken in early 1942
    to Latvia, where he survived the war.
    He has had incredible experiences.
    Middlefield, where Mr. Sauer lives, is east of Cleveland.
    It is a small, rural community.
    Mr. Sauer, tell us please about your life as a child,
    your life in Middlefield, what you do now,
    what you did before.
    Go right ahead.
    Danke, Mr. Elsner.
    Oh, thank you.
    I spoke German.
    I'm that excited.
    I'm 66 years old.
    Presently I live in Middlefield.
    I was born in, like you said, in Gelsenkirchen.
    It's in the Rhine-Ruhr, where I visited the schools
    until I got kicked out because it was mentioned,
    it was renamed the Adolf Hitler gymnasium.
    And that was the end of that schooling for me in Germany.
    In 1942, in January, I was transported with my parents,
    with 1,000 other people, to Riga, Latvia,
    where we were originally in the ghetto.
    Today I am retired.
    And I'm married.
    I don't have any children.
    But I have animals and enjoy their company.
    I'll live the life of a retired semi-farmer,
    since there's all this lots of work on the farm.
    What was your work in Cleveland before you went to Middlefield?
    And how did you come to Cleveland?
    I lived, after the concentration camps and ghettos, in Berlin
    and arrived in '49 from Berlin in Cleveland,
    since I had the uncle and aunt who owned the Dornburg Hotel.
    In the beginning, I worked at the Carlings Brewing Company
    as a beer brewer.
    And later on, after three years, I
    started working with Ira E. Baker, a company where
    I installed boilers in private houses
    all over the city of Cleveland.
    I worked there until the company folded.
    And I retired when I was 62 years old.
    Mr. Sauer, could you tell us, please, what was your life
    like before the war?
    Tell us what it was like before Hitler came
    into power in your childhood.
    You're now 66 years old.
    At what age will you start?
    Well, my earliest childhood memories
    were when the Rhine-Ruhr was occupied,
    and troops were present.
    And I didn't like, even at that time, guns.
    I remember a short story I had when I
    saw the first occupying forces.
    I told my mother, I don't like any guns,
    and I don't like any shooting.
    The French troops?
    The French troops, which were occupying the Rhineland.
    Then I went to the Jewish Volksschule,
    which were four years.
    The school system in Germany is different,
    so it's hard to compare.
    But this is a grade school, where I went for four years.
    And after that, I went to a gymnasium, where they teach
    Latin, Greek, French, English.
    And until 1933, I was at that institution.
    And at that time, when I was 15 years old,
    that institution was renamed Adolf Hitler Gymnasium.
    And that was the end of that schooling for me.
    I was very active in sports, especially--
    not especially-- when the time was
    for soccer, when the time was for skiing,
    the time was for rowing.
    I was very active in sports.
    And at that time already, the whole situation in Germany
    changed.
    It was very-- there was no possibility
    of any further schooling.
    And since I had, in Germany, which is very rare,
    a driver's license with the 16 years,
    I got an occupation of driver, professional driver.
    Chauffeur, you would say.
    And then I worked in the building trade,
    since a friend of my father was an architect.
    At that time already--
    I'm talking now about the years after '39,
    when the so-called Kristallnacht took place,
    where all people were arrested, where all Jewish stores were
    smashed, all synagogues burned.
    Until that time--
    Tell us, please, what was your family like?
    Did you have many brothers and sisters?
    And the area you lived in, was it a big city?
    What big city was it near?
    What was the-- were there many Jews in the community?
    And how was your treatment there before Hitler?
    The city I was living in had 365,000 people.
    It is very close to what is more famous, Essen, Dusseldorf.
    All those cities are-- you get from one city
    to the other with the streetcar.
    So this is very, very crowded.
    I had my parents.
    I lived with my parents, and I had one sister.
    That sister got married in 1938 and emigrated to Kenya, Africa.
    She lives today.
    She's the only surviving relative I have.
    She lives today in Santa Barbara, in California.
    My parents, which went with me to Riga, came--
    were killed in 19--
    end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945.
    They were killed, the one in the concentration camp Stutthof.
    My father got killed in a camp by the name of [PLACE NAME]..
    Did you have anybody else in your family living with you
    in Germany?
    No.
    But other family members, I have approximately eight people
    who got killed in the concentration camp
    from my family.
    And the other part emigrated to either Brazil, Argentine,
    or like those relatives I had in the United States.
    In Gelsenkirchen, was there much of a Jewish population?
    We had 1,000 souls, it was called.
    Now, 1,000 souls, I think, is the equivalent
    of probably 3,000 people.
    Out of a population in the city of about--
    365,000.
    365,000 is about the size of Toledo, Ohio.
    Right.
    Big city.
    Right.
    Right.
    Right.
    And we had approximately, like I said,
    they called it "souls" at that time.
    They had a temple.
    We had a few congregation.
    Our was what would be here considered
    not Orthodox-- liberal.
    What was your father's work and your mother's?
    What did they do?
    My mother was, of course, not a housewife,
    but we owned an outfit, which was
    in the equivalent of Armour, the meat manufacturing and packing
    factory.
    And we employed approximately 75 people.
    And my mother ran the household.
    And that's about it.
    Well, we were an excellent financial situation
    until Adolf Hitler came to power, when my father tried
    to prove that he was more powerful than Hitler
    and he couldn't touch him.
    But of course he did.
    How did your family get along with your friends
    and neighbors, Jewish and non-Jewish?
    The--
    Was there any outward antisemitism in your childhood?
    There was, as far as I remember, never any antisemitism
    I experienced myself, neither my parents.
    It was probably due to the fact that my father was
    the founder and the financial godfather,
    I would say, of Schalke Field, which
    was, in soccer in Germany, the equivalent of the Yankee
    dynasty in baseball.
    And consequently, was extremely popular and well known
    all over.
    And I had only very few Jewish friends
    with whom I went to school.
    And most of them were Gentiles, through the sport,
    which I was very active in.
    And I didn't see--
    I had just limited episodes where
    I saw any antisemitism at all.
    One was when I was kicked out of the school.
    The other thing was an episode, which
    happened when I participated in a track and field meeting.
    As each runner came through the finishing line,
    he was given a number.
    And when I asked for my number, the man who handed it
    out, who was, I knew, an SS man, a member of the SS party,
    he says you don't get a number.
    He says it's all right all ready.
    So I knew that my time had come.
    But that was approximately 1936.
    Up until then, I never had any.
    Going backwards a little bit, was your family
    long established in Germany?
    We know of people who flit from country to country in Central
    Europe, Eastern Europe.
    How many years or generations back was
    your family in Germany itself?
    As far as I know, it's five generations.
    I know from where they lived and how they lived.
    And I never followed it any deeper.
    But as a norm, we were--
    we always considered ourselves, as a nationality, German,
    or religion, Jewish.
    As a matter of fact, on my birth certificate,
    in Germany in the time when I grew up,
    they were so much liberal that they called my religion
    Mosaisch, a member of Moses.
    They didn't even call them Jewish
    or Israel, Israelis or something like that.
    And of course, I was born in 1918,
    so I only lived in the Wiemar Republic until Hitler came.
    Did Zionism have any influence in your childhood,
    or socialism?
    No.
    I really was too young to be any--
    in any kind involved in politics or having
    any outlook like Zionism or--
    Was Yiddish spoken in your home, or any other languages other
    than German?
    No.
    But my mother and my father all went to--
    well, the German high schools, which are the equivalent
    almost like college, and absorbed them.
    They all spoke foreign languages,
    but not Yiddish at all.
    That was a language--
    the few phrases used in our household
    were actually Hebrew phrases.
    Like, if we talked about Hitler, we
    called him a kelev, which was the Hebrew word for dog.
    So that was the only Hebrew used.
    Did you have many non-Jewish friends?
    Yes.
    My father's and my friends and the family friends
    were 99% non-Jewish.
    There was, in my youth until Hitler
    came, never any idea of being different and [INAUDIBLE]..
    What kind of plans, as a youth, did you have for your future?
    Well, until I got kicked out of the gymnasium,
    I always wanted to become a lawyer.
    And of course that was all over with when Hitler appeared.
    What did you enjoy doing?
    You mentioned sports and soccer and your father's role
    in the town because of soccer.
    Did that shape your life under Hitler?
    Did it have its influence there?
    Well, as funny as it sounds, I participated once
    in a ghetto in a--
    not staged-- in a soccer game between the German Jews
    and the Latvian Jews, which was very heavily filmed
    and photographed by the Gestapo troops who saw that.
    And I played later on in another ghetto.
    But in another [NON-ENGLISH],, which was the out camps
    of a concentration camp.
    And it didn't influence it much, but maybe
    sport prepared me and made me a little bit tougher than the--
    I boxed, I lifted weights.
    Maybe that prepared me a little bit better for the hard times
    that were to follow.
    After the Nazis took over Germany,
    did your non-Jewish friendships continue?
    Did they help you, or did they drop you?
    Well, I only can say that the help continued.
    The worst cases were not antisemitism,
    but the people kept themselves separate.
    But I didn't see any turn of anybody
    to Hitler on that, to Hitler's point of view.
    They were still friends and helped us
    until the very last day.
    The war, which began in 1939, do you remember
    the beginnings of the war?
    Yes.
    I remember that beginning.
    But what had more influence on myself, the--
    '39 was the Polish war, which had very little to do.
    Of course, the last years, like I told you before,
    I worked in the building industry.
    And it had the following influence,
    that more and more bricklayers were
    working on the defense system and on the military system.
    And I was more and more the only bricklayer around.
    I remember one episode, the last job
    I had was in the Catholic-- the hospitals in Germany
    are grouped through religion.
    There was a Catholic hospital and a Protestant hospital.
    And I worked in a Catholic hospital.
    And I don't forget the last experiences I had,
    when I told the Mother Superior that I
    wouldn't be coming much longer.
    She says, oh, they drafted you too?
    And I told her, no.
    I said, I'm Jewish, which really threw her completely.
    And she says, now wait a second.
    She came back immediately with all kinds
    of stuff, which was hard to get in 1941 and '42.
    And she told me a word I never will forget.
    She said you, meant the Jews, will leave Germany,
    and it will be extremely dark because you
    take the moon and the stars and the sun with you.
    And those prophetic words I never forgot.
    And she was so right, since Germany, especially the part
    I came, was almost completely destroyed due to the war.
    What changes did your family make then because of the war?
    Well, to begin with, I tried to bring out before,
    and I said before, that my father thought he could force--
    he was stronger than Hitler.
    And the Hitler regime, within a short while,
    completely destroyed the whole business.
    But the only other change Hitler made was my occupation and--
    From driver, chauffeur, you became a bricklayer.
    Right.
    The reason was that 1939, all driver's licenses
    had to be given to the police.
    And there's an interesting sideline to the German order.
    Because years and years later, in 1945, '46,
    I was stopped in Berlin.
    I was driving a motorbike.
    And the police asked me for a driver's license.
    And I had a--
    I made a new driver's license.
    But I said, you know--
    which was not for the classification for a motorbike.
    So I told him, I said, you know, I had a driver's license
    since 1935.
    And he says, well, what happened to it.
    I said the German--
    I had to give it to the German police.
    He said, well, write for it.
    And in fact was I wrote for it, and I
    got the same German driver's license
    they confiscated before the war.
    I got the same driver's license back.
    That's what they call German order.
    And too bad that it was that orderly about the destruction
    of the Jews too.
    Tell us about your observations and feelings
    during the Nazi era, pertaining to the family
    life in your city, the changes in attitudes
    from before the war and through the war,
    until the time you went out of Germany into Latvia.
    Well, the whole attitude of my parents and our friends
    were that nobody thought that Hitler could or would continue.
    My father was especially-- there is--
    I just shortly--
    I got the history of the Jews in Gelsenkirchen.
    Young students were working on that project.
    And in that book is an advertising put up
    by the Jewish members of the First World War
    German Army, who thought that, consequently, they
    would have a different standing with Hitler.
    My father, being an officer in the First World War,
    was, of course, under the same impression.
    The whole outlook was that it won't last long, and it we'll
    go over.
    In our particular case, my father
    was, sorry to say, that much of a German that he never
    would have emigrated because he had that attitude I described
    before, that Hitler can't do anything to him.
    Now, the changes were, of course, gradual.
    The whole German-- the persecution in Germany
    started small and ended big.
    There was a new decree every two or three months.
    And it got progressively worse.
    Like I said, the real big turning point
    was, of course, the Kristallnacht 1939,
    where almost all Jews were arrested.
    And the Jews in Germany emigrated
    more or less and the congregation
    became smaller and smaller until the war
    with Russia, which changed, apparently,
    the whole outlook altogether since, as far as I know,
    there were no official killings in masses
    up until this war started.
    And the changes in life was kind of like unbelievable,
    and it will go over and nobody would put up with it.
    And we talked before about the occupation of the Rhineland,
    for instance.
    It was the thought of the people in Germany
    that the other countries, France, England,
    the United States, would not put up with the--
    with the occupation of the German troops in the Rhineland.
    And at that time, Hitler really wouldn't have any power,
    and Hitler would have been wiped out overnight.
    In 1935?
    In 1935.
    Because-- now, I only mention that--
    there was always something where the Jewish population thought,
    well, that is the end.
    It can't get any worse.
    And of course, we found out that it got progressively worse.
    What happened to your family then as the war continued?
    Well, I guess I mentioned before too that the largest
    part immigrated.
    And a few, there were--
    when we were sent to Riga, there were a few old, old relatives
    of mine left.
    Later on, from former employees, I
    found out that they were brought to a camp.
    And of course, were murdered.
    Well, did you have many changes in your daily life
    under the Nazi rule in your home city?
    Well really, like I say, now--
    Well, that is true.
    --in later years, we had to wear a star, the yellow star.
    Now, about this I remember two things.
    A, that you had to wear it, but it
    didn't say anywhere that you couldn't wear a briefcase
    and halfway covered it.
    And I remember when I had the first day
    with the star, the boy who brought coffee and donuts
    and so on the building site, he took my jacket
    and pedaled with his bicycle real proud
    around because he thought the Jewish star was not
    the degrading mark.
    But he thought it was a sign of honor.
    So it did change the life.
    You had to keep a secret.
    And you had, like I said, you had the habit
    of covering it and so on.
    And that is the major changes then.
    Well, did you walk around the city freely?
    Were you allowed to go into different stores?
    Were you barred from parks or cinemas?
    Well, that was, I would say, starting in 1940,
    '41, where they had certain restrictions.
    You weren't allowed to go there.
    You didn't-- you could only travel with the railroad unless
    you had a permit for that.
    Your steps were extremely limited.
    But it was not enforced in any big degrees.
    And I often took a risk, and I never--
    plus, this is personal.
    That's-- I can't talk about other people who might have
    suffered more on it because they took it more serious
    and followed orders more.
    I didn't follow too many of the orders,
    as long as I could circumvent them.
    That's what the word I mean.
    Was there much planning in the Jewish community
    to deal with the German orders?
    Or was it all on an individual basis?
    Well, there was no actual planning
    because I thought, I had the feeling,
    that the whole attitude was a little of unbelief
    and that it will go over, and this
    is the worst it ever will get.
    So I don't see that there was any big steps taken.
    And it was just a matter of living
    from day to day and thought that it would blow over.
    That would be the end of it.
    So tell us if you will, Mr. Sauer, about your father's
    status in the community.
    You said he was the leader in the soccer teams.
    Did this have an influence on how your family was treated
    as against other families?
    Yes.
    We had a very special status.
    I was always under the impression
    that, on the 9th of November, the Kristallnacht,
    I thought my father was the only one who was not arrested.
    When the Gestapo came to arrest me, I wasn't home.
    I was at work.
    My father says, why don't you take me?
    So they said, no, we don't have any orders to take you.
    And we will come back tomorrow to arrest
    your son, which would have given me plenty of time to disappear.
    Well, they arrested me.
    Now I understand from the history in Gelsenkirchen
    that they didn't arrest the rabbi of the city either.
    When it came to the picking up of the people who
    were being deported, the bus went around,
    picked up the people on board into an exhibition hall,
    where they were waiting for the transport.
    What month and what year?
    That was in 1941, in the beginning of 1941.
    It might have been the end of '42, too,
    because this episode I'm describing now
    was over two weeks.
    Part of the Jewish population left over, not all of them,
    were arrested for this transport.
    My father, too, didn't--
    walked even the city, and ran into the top man
    from the Gestapo, who told him, Mr. Sauer, you don't have to--
    oh, my father says, I better come now to the exhibition hall
    too.
    He says, no, Mr. Sauer, you don't have to hurry.
    There's plenty of time.
    The exhibition hall was the gathering place
    for all the Jews of the community.
    Right.
    From that transport, who were grouped together
    for the transport.
    Was this the first transport in the city?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And just to clarify the dates, it
    would have been the end of '41 and the beginning of '42.
    Right.
    Right.
    Anyhow, he says, don't come.
    You have plenty of time.
    Whereas, the transport left that morning at 5:00 or 6 o'clock.
    In the meantime, we had asked good friends--
    we had a neighbor who was a dentist, a Gentile dentist, who
    wasn't even our dentist, who usually was our dentist,
    but he, free of charge, checked and repaired our teeth
    for that transport.
    And since he was one of the leading men in the SS,
    he tried to find out what--
    with this immigration, what it really would be amounting to.
    And all the information he could get,
    that they would send us there.
    We have to settle on fields and work in agriculture
    and build up the territory.
    Now, this was the exodus of the Jewish--
    the Jewish Germans from Germany.
    They were being sent out of Germany
    to the north and the east, to the Baltic lands.
    And there was no hint of destruction or death
    or anything of that nature, which
    had been going on for several months in Lithuania, Latvia,
    and so forth.
    No, there was no--
    nobody expected that.
    And since you mention it, there's
    a fact that already, on the 30th of November 1941,
    the first transport of German Jews,
    this particular one from Berlin, was
    shot in the morning in Riga.
    And in the afternoon of the same day,
    the reports say 12,000 to 15,000 Latvian Jews
    were shot with a single shot in the neck
    by the German troops in a group--
    in a group in a trench, which Russian troops had dug.
    And during this one day, 12,000 to 15,000 people were shot.
    And the first of those were this group,
    which is the only known group, as far as I know,
    of German Jews who were transported already to Latvia
    and were killed on the spot.
    Three days later-- not three days.
    I'm sorry.
    It was on the 7th of December, a farther group
    of 12,000 to 15,000 used Jews from Latvia
    were shot on one day by the same troops,
    by the same German troops, on the same location.
    But this was already after the German-- after reports I have--
    killed approximately 37,000 Latvian Jews
    by the sonderkommandos.
    Now this shooting was, I described, those 30,000 Jews.
    They were settled in the so-called Riga
    ghetto, the grosse ghetto, which they eliminated.
    There were 4,000 Jews left in the kleinen ghetto.
    And then the German Jews were settled
    in what was called by the Nazis the German ghetto.
    In the German ghetto at that time,
    they had approximately 10 groups, each 1,000 people.
    From the day on, we came to Riga,
    there were aktion, which was called,
    which were groups of 2,000, 3,000 people
    were eliminated from those ghetto inmates.
    They had, for instance, one of the famous things,
    where one of the people who got caught later on,
    an SS Maywald, who got caught, who called it
    Dünamünde, which was a group of older people, which
    were told that they would work in fish canneries.
    And this group was put in trucks.
    On those trucks, the exhaust were led into the trucks,
    and the people were killed on that kind.
    In that connection, it is worth mentioning
    that those gigantic killings in Latvia alone,
    which were 178,000 Jews until the beginning of '42.
    In October '42, the first command
    came to dig out the bodies and burn them.
    This kommando was called, in our particular case, 1,001--
    1,0001.
    And in other cases, was 1,005.
    Mr. Sauer, let's go back a few years
    to establish this history.
    We know now that the training for the mass killings
    came from the German euthanasia programs,
    where they would destroy imbeciles
    in lunatic asylums, where they would
    destroy weaklings, handicapped.
    And they did it by early gas chambers.
    Now you lived in Germany, and all this that I've talked about
    started in Germany.
    It wasn't in Poland.
    It wasn't in Latvia.
    It wasn't in Estonia.
    It wasn't in the Ukraine.
    But it was within the borders of Germany.
    In those years, in the late '30s, did you at all,
    did anybody you know even hear about such things?
    Yes.
    There were what they were called rumors
    of the killings of mental patients.
    People described.
    There were rumors about it.
    And the fact is, they did disappear.
    But that was already very close to that time
    when the real killings I described now took place.
    This was not, as far as I know--
    this must have been 1940 or somewhere around that time.
    I don't think those killings--
    I forgot right now.
    What was it?
    Mercy killings?
    No.
    You used the correct word before.
    That was euthanasia or something like that.
    Yes.
    Killings were talked about.
    But really, nobody thought that this was the--
    let's say a harsh word-- kickoff for the big killings.
    When we were sent to Riga, I think--
    as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact,
    I even have under my papers reports
    from troops who killed those first Berlin Jews, who
    told them that where are we evacuated
    and what are we doing here.
    Until they were killed, there wasn't even
    a thought of killing of Jews outright.
    I understand.
    Let's pick up your story in the Ruhr.
    Tell us about the transport, the physical ride from Germany
    to Latvia.
    Who was with you, who of your family, what
    the conditions were, what you were told,
    what happened when you got to your destination.
    Well, the transport consisted of 1,000 people,
    500 from Gelsenkirchen and 500 from Dortmund, which
    was the city very close to--
    industrial city.
    We were on the railroad.
    We had regular-- not animal cars.
    Not cattle cars.
    Not cattle-- not cattle cars.
    We had the regular passenger cars.
    Coaches.
    The only trouble was that most of them didn't have any heat.
    And I said, it's the beginning, and it
    was in the winter time, deep winter.
    Most of them didn't have any heat.
    All of them didn't have any food.
    For drinking, we had to jump out of the-- whenever
    the train stopped, the younger people jumped out
    of the windows and grabbed snow and drank the snow.
    When we-- the train ride took six days.
    After six days, we arrived in Riga.
    The-- we had approximately four or five people who
    froze to death on that trip.
    We arrived in Riga, was the unbelievable blue sky,
    and nobody thought that what took
    place could have any connection with the sky and with nature
    being that beautiful.
    We were on our trains--
    This is January of '42.
    January of '42.
    All of a sudden, cries Raus.
    Raus.
    Raus.
    Schnell.
    Schnell.
    Schnell.
    The people who-- older people, I remember distinctly,
    who had a--
    walking on a stick, got his stick torn out of his hand
    and beaten with a stick.
    The package-- see, on all killings,
    the German always left the impression
    that it was only a resettlement.
    They always allowed so-and-so much baggage.
    In our case, I think it was 100 German pounds,
    with approximately 150 125 English pounds.
    All those baggage, which we thought,
    which we prepared thoroughly because it
    was of extreme importance, we thought,
    what we would take around under those weights limits,
    this package was all thrown out.
    No, we had to leave it in the train.
    And later on, people from the train had to throw it all out.
    It was all coming on one pile.
    And was transported to Riga, to the ghetto.
    Now, we, under beatings and kicking and screaming,
    were torn out of the trains.
    I remember one episode.
    The police officer, who was, until then,
    in charge of the train, was screaming
    in disgust, what is this?
    Are those men or animals?
    Until today, you know, my episodes
    I call it the same thing.
    Until today, I don't know if they were men or animals.
    I don't know whom he meant, the treatment we got
    or the people who beat us and kicked us out of the trains.
    Well, on that same evening, on that same day,
    I volunteered with my father to stay back.
    We had to clean out the trains, throw the baggage,
    like I said, on a pile, and being transported
    into the city, because my mother walked already to the ghetto.
    And we met her back in the ghetto.
    On the same train where, besides those frozen people,
    approximately three or four people
    were injured, who came on a sled.
    And there was the guy who was in charge on it, a Sturmführer
    Gymnich, by the way, who--
    well, who looked like--
    well, I think it's not important how he looked,
    but he looked like a-- if Hollywood
    would have made a good-looking SS murderer,
    he would have made him because he was extremely good looking.
    He had black eyes.
    You could kill a person just looking at him.
    Anyhow, he was on charge.
    He had those people in the sled.
    They were transported, and they were killed on the way.
    Do you know what units these Germans came from?
    We've heard of the various einsatzgruppen.
    Do you have any knowledge of who was doing what there?
    Well, they belonged to the Einsatzgruppe A.
    And in charge was the [GERMAN] and R-S-H-A group.
    Those people were not what--
    they were not even called SS.
    But they were called Sicherheitsdienst, which
    were the uniformed Gestapo.
    They were a different type uniform.
    They were in charge of the whole operation.
    And there they were in charge of.
    Partially.
    The German Sicherheitspolizei, SiPo,
    and the German Kriminalpolizei, Kripo,
    they also had at their disposal Latvian soldiers
    of the Latvian Army and Latvian volunteers who
    were, only to describe, of trained mercenary killers.
    The troops itself were all under the charge of one man
    by the name of Dr. Lange.
    How do you spell that?
    L-A-N-G-E. Now there is an interesting question.
    Professor Hilberg, who is very much known about,
    who wrote the book The Destruction of the European
    Jews--
    Raul Hilberg.
    Raul Hilberg-- called him Dr. Otto Lange,
    and writes in his book that after the--
    Otto Lange, by the way, was one of the 15 participants
    on the so-called Wannsee Conference,
    where it was decided the endlösung, the final solution
    of the European Jews.
    In January of 1942.
    Right.
    He had the lowest rank of all people there,
    comparatively, because there was only the real bigwigs.
    But this Dr. Lange--
    You were saying Hilberg called him Otto.
    Otto.
    Whereas, I found out, since I tried later on
    to follow up on lots of those stories,
    now the German [GERMAN] says they only
    know a man by the name of Ferdinand Erwin, Dr. Lange, who
    got killed later on in the war in Stettin.
    But I had experiences with other people who changed their names.
    I know, for instance, of the man who
    was as Fritz Shervitz, the Untersturmführer
    of the Sicherheitsdienst of the uniformed Gestapo
    and the leader of the camp I was later on in.
    He is today Elke Zarewic, born in Vilna, Polish Jews.
    And I cannot get, under all circumstances,
    the file which described his trial.
    So what you're saying is that--
    give me this man's name again.
    I talked last about Shervitz, Zarewic.
    All right.
    He was a high Nazi in the SS, and he's turned himself
    into a Jew and he's--
    Right.
    --he's known now as a Jew, and nobody
    knows his Nazi background.
    The real-- files of the real hearings,
    like I have hearings about other proceedings,
    were not attainable to me on the highest instance
    and the highest court because it was said that my research is
    not scientific enough.
    What is the basis for you saying that this man is the same one?
    Did this come out of testimony in a trial?
    Can you give us the name of the trial for the record here?
    Oh, I have the exact number and where
    it took place, in Augsburg.
    I should know it by heart, but I don't.
    I will look up that number, exact number of that trial.
    What happened is that I read first in the newspaper
    after the war, in Berlin, that an article of the Berlin
    Tageblatt, one of the leading papers there,
    said that the were occurrence of antisemitism.
    The car of the [GERMAN],, which means racist, persecuted--
    not prosecuted, persecuted--
    Dr. Fritz Shervitz was burned by antisemites.
    That was the first one.
    When I read that article, I knew,
    since he was an extremely smart operator,
    that it could be only him.
    Later on, when we take a break, you'll look up the records,
    and we'll read it into the record.
    But tell us please now what happened on your arrival
    in Riga.
    You were on the train.
    And you're saying that these members of Einsatzgruppen A--
    do you know what kommando of A?
    There were several-- 1, 2, 3, 4.
    1 and 2.
    1 and 2.
    EK Eins and EK Zwei-- that's-- we had kommandos,
    those people working for them to, EK Eins and EK 2, 1 and 2.
    And EK means E-K.
    Yeah.
    Now, as I understand it, these killers, these mass killers,
    had gone through Lithuania and Estonia and were now in Latvia.
    They'd worked their way north.
    And you were in Riga.
    So what was your camp like-- that was the labor camp--
    physically?
    And how long were you there?
    And what kind of work did you do?
    And what were the living conditions?
    There was yourself, your mother, your father.
    Your sister was now in Africa.
    And you had no other family members with you.
    No.
    But there were 1,000 other people.
    Right.
    Tell us what happened--
    We arrived in--
    --including the weather.
    --the ghetto to Riga.
    The Riga ghetto had a street dividing the Latvian ghetto
    and the German ghetto.
    In the German ghetto, where we came,
    each group had a different place of assortment
    of buildings, which were for that particular group.
    We came with approximately six people
    in one room in the German ghetto,
    where we were-- those were my parents
    and me, a lady and her mother, by the name of Baum,
    and a family with two daughters lived basically
    in one small apartment.
    To bring up something else, this was not the best living area
    of Riga to begin with.
    As a matter of fact, it was the worst living area of Riga.
    We live in this apartment.
    The other groups lived in their different houses, some of them
    only--
    I would say from our transport, the people
    were put in approximately six or seven houses total.
    But those were apartment houses.
    Had there been several-- had there
    been many transports from Germany into Riga previously?
    Were you very crowded?
    Were you one person on top of another?
    We were the 10th and last transport to go to Riga.
    As a matter of fact, under the circumstances, later on we
    found out, if it wouldn't have been a Sunday we arrived,
    we would have, like many other transports,
    a total of 60,000 German Jews were either
    right away liquidated, which was a favorite word of the Nazis,
    or they came in camps where, of 1,000 people--
    one of the most famous one was Salaspils.
    Salaspils was a camp, which was built
    by Jewish young men in the wilderness, in the winter,
    under the most cruel circumstances
    and had a loss of 700 out of 1,000 people
    within a time period of approximately four months.
    That was Salaspils.
    Now, all other people were settled in this ghetto
    by the groups they arrived.
    Like I say, divided by wire fence
    from the Latvian Jews, who were on the other side of them,
    so-called Latvian ghetto.
    We were, when we came, approximately 10 groups.
    And every week there was a so-called Appell,
    and another aktion took place.
    An Appell is a roll call?
    A roll call of the total ghetto, where people were picked out
    for, what we were told, I think I mentioned before,
    Dünamünde [GERMAN],, the factory where the old people
    were picked up for that.
    And I remember of this Dr. Lange, one sentence.
    I'll never forget it in my life, which was typical.
    He came out of the kommandantur, and I stood in order
    there very close by.
    And he came and he told to his--
    to the next of him.
    He says, there are 3,000 fresse too many.
    Now the German language has a two ways of eating.
    Keep going.
    And I think they have two ways of eating.
    The one is called eating, and the other one is called--
    essen--
    and the other one is called fressen.
    Animals fressen.
    So this Dr. Lange says there are 3,000 fresse too many.
    And he was right.
    Within two weeks there were 3,000 people coming in--
    Germany Jews, coming in.
    We'll stop there for a while.
    Thank you.
    OK.
    Well, I think we did good.
    I talked and talked and talked.
    That's one I felt.
    Please call this number.
    (SINGING) [INAUDIBLE] always has money to lend.
    In Cleveland, call 475-8171.
    Friends, this is giant John Lance Gordon Westlake,
    brand new Ford trucks cost less.
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    Brand new '84 F-150 with a camper top--
    $99 down and $189 a month.
    We are continuing our visit with Mr. Werner Sauer
    of Middlefield, Ohio for the Holocaust Archive
    Project of the Cleveland Council of Jewish Women.
    And we're going back for a minute.
    In the beginning, we were talking
    with Mr. Sauer about a Nazi, a high SS
    leader in the camp in Latvia, name of Fritz Scherwitz,
    who is said to have turned himself into a Jew
    to escape persecution in Germany.
    And Mr. Sauer now has the references, the case,
    and the trial, and the dates.
    And he will read those into the record for anybody
    who wants to follow them up in future years.
    The trial number is 4JS256-50.
    And after the trial, his name from Scherwitz,
    S-C-H-E-R-W-I-T-Z, changed to Elias,
    or on other information I have, Eleke, E-L-E-K-E, Sirewitz,
    born in Vilna, Poland.
    This trial was on the court in Augsburg.
    Thank you.
    Now, in our previous conversation,
    you had arrived at the concentration camp, the labor
    camp, and the ghetto in Riga by train.
    But on the way there, you had some unusual experiences
    with the German soldiers.
    Would you tell us about that and what happened on the trains,
    please?
    It-- at one occasion, the train stopped.
    And on the opposite side of the tracks
    was a German troop movement car.
    Those cars were marked clearly with the Red Cross.
    And actually, that might explain why some troop Red Cross trains
    were hit by the Air Force.
    Those troops were German soldiers
    who came from the hospital and went to the front.
    Well, we came--
    I came to talk with one soldier.
    And after a short while, we found out
    that we participated in similar sports events.
    And he got very--
    we got a little bit more better acquainted.
    And he asked me what we are doing there.
    So I says, well, we are Jews who are transported.
    We are evacuated.
    That was the proper name in the German language.
    And he disappeared.
    And I thought, originally, that it would
    be just another disappointment.
    But after a short time, he came back and threw us--
    he had collected between the other troop members cigarettes,
    candy, and all kinds of foodstuff, which he threw over
    to our train.
    Well, he asked us in there-- well,
    and we felt like human beings again.
    Anyhow, he asked us for matches, which they didn't have.
    And we made a short collection of matches between us.
    And believe me, if it would be the last matches we
    would have had, we would have gladly given them to him.
    Now, in the evening, we--
    I was talking.
    I climbed out of the railroad car.
    And I was talking with the same soldier in person outside.
    And one of the guards, of the German
    guards, a policeman came and he says--
    when he recognized me, what are you Jew talking here to the--
    to a German soldier, so--
    to the injured?
    And the soldier says, we are not injured.
    And we go into the front.
    And you disappear because I want to talk to him.
    I talk to him.
    So it was just a short episode.
    It showed that we still had some human beings we encountered.
    Now, had you and your father agreed
    that you would try to stick together
    throughout this period?
    What plans had you made for surviving the trip?
    Well, the trip itself was--
    we thought it would be easy to survive since, like I say,
    we had preparation.
    And despite that we didn't get any official food
    during the whole trip, we did have at our disposal
    our own food.
    What I meant to say before is that they send us
    on a six-day trip without even thinking of giving us
    some hot coffee or, I don't know what, anyhow,
    anything hot to eat.
    And the only supply we had was the stuff which we were--
    our careful selected 150 pounds of luggage, checking luggage.
    Well, had your family said you would stick together?
    Well, that was actually obvious because there
    was no mind about it, that the only support we
    would-- could give each other would
    be, of course, the own family.
    And we were only separated right on the railroad track
    since we cleaned out the trains and got the luggage together,
    where my mother marched with her Kolonne,
    with the rest of the people.
    We were approximately 10-20 people
    who cleaned out the train.
    And that was with my father.
    And then we met my mother right away in the ghetto,
    in the camp.
    And this was not the kind of a camp where they made selections
    on the platform for death?
    Was-- were any people taken out and killed?
    We were lucky.
    We came there Sunday.
    We were the last transport from Germany
    which went to the Riga ghetto--
    Riga ghetto.
    And from that same transport, which was [NON-ENGLISH],,
    a little railroad track, other transport marched as they came
    directly to the woods, where the ditches were dug
    for-- to receive the bodies of the killed people.
    And what was the ghetto where you were sent?
    And were you able to leave the ghetto to work?
    And was-- did you meet refugees from other cities and countries
    in the same ghetto?
    Well, this ghetto had strictly Jews from Germany and Latvian
    Jews.
    In our separate ghettos, we could move around.
    The population of the ghetto each marched daily to work.
    There were different groups.
    I personally worked the first few days at the Riga harbor
    and saw there that Russian soldiers who worked there too,
    prisoners of war who worked in the same Riga harbor,
    were starving to death carrying--
    I presume it must have been 200 bags of flour in,
    running, transporting them from one place to another
    under a terrific beating.
    And I noticed a Russian soldier who tore up a bag,
    and grabbed this flour, and as raw as the flour
    was, stuffed it in his mouth.
    And he got beaten like a dog by the troops who supervised that.
    There were other commanders.
    There were, for instance, young girls who cleaned up
    the kaserne, the place where the Einsatzkommando I
    and Einsatzkommando II stood.
    There were HKPE, which was the [GERMAN]..
    There were approximately 40-50 different groups
    went to different places for work.
    There also were, in the ghetto itself,
    groups who separated tin pots from other pots.
    The [NON-ENGLISH],, the pieces of--
    household pieces, clothing pieces from those 60,000--
    not 60,000 in the ghetto, the Latvian ghetto,
    the approximately 30,000 Jews who were killed,
    their stuff would be assorted by people
    who worked in the ghetto.
    And the clothes were-- the better clothes
    were sent to Germany.
    And the other clothes was probably
    used for the population.
    Anyhow, the way we could survive was--
    by the way, this was the resistance,
    which all camp members and all members of a concentration camp
    did the resistance executed by all people who came in the camp
    was stealing things, trying to trade them on those
    out commanders, on those--
    let's say in the harbor.
    You tried to steal a pair of pants
    and tried to smuggle them out, out
    of the ghetto, tried to trade it for two slices of bread
    on the harbor.
    Now, all those things were under strict death penalty.
    And those were executed too.
    People got shot for a dish, for a plate,
    got shot for a slice of bread going into the ghetto.
    Now, all those people survived those circumstances strictly
    because they put up this resistance,
    went against the German-made laws,
    and kept alive on account of that.
    So was the non-Jewish people who were
    helping to smuggle things in?
    No, the non-Jewish people made a profit out of buying a pair
    of clothes, which had a value of, let's say--
    just to say an amount of $20 to give a slice of bread,
    which had a value of $0.20.
    They profited by the trade.
    But they could have been shot for it?
    I don't think the Latvian population,
    the Christian population--
    Not on that side.
    --would have been shot.
    The Jews would have been shot immediately.
    There were all kinds of situations.
    And those possibilities, we used at all times.
    And those possibilities were the only thing which kept us alive,
    not the regular food we got into the ghetto
    or we got in concentration camps.
    Then what labor camp were you sent to?
    Well, I myself was picked up one of those days.
    This Scherwitz.
    We were talking about comes into the camp
    and must have asked for a bricklayer, put me in his car,
    raced me to a apartment building,
    where I met for the first time Latvian Jews, which
    were all excited because I was the first connection they
    had with--
    as well as the Latvian ghetto and the survivor of there.
    Because they had been in this place since the ghetto
    have been liquidated.
    Those were extremely well artisans.
    They were--
    Craftsmen.
    --craftsmen of the highest degree,
    collected from all over the east.
    They were people from Lithuania, Jewish people from Lithuania,
    Jewish people from Latvia.
    We had from the watchmaker down to a--
    what's the name of people who prepare leather,
    makes skin from--
    Tanners?
    --tanners.
    We had a tannery.
    We had about-- anything possible was produced and made
    for the RSHA, for the Reichssicherheitshauptamt,
    in we made-- at one time, we made the leather coats
    on the inside with the best expensive fur.
    I can't think of the name.
    Sable?
    Not-- this particular one wasn't sable.
    Not-- the mink, the inside filled
    with mink for Mr. Himmler.
    So those partisans were--
    they needed was-- was I as the bricklayer, those partisans--
    were in this men and women, by the way--
    were in there since the ghetto, the Latvian ghetto,
    the large ghetto, as it was called,
    was eliminated, which was, like I say, in the beginning.
    That was in November, end of November 1941.
    Now, when I came there, I was the first connection
    they heard of anybody being survivor
    outside of their group.
    Now, this camp, due to the fact this--
    let's call it factory was--
    due to the fact that the biggest experts in the east were there,
    had a extremely good treatment.
    But the führer, the leader of this particular group,
    was Scherwitz, who was smart enough.
    He had, for instance, the manager
    of everything, was a fellow by-- a Jewish fellow
    by the name of Litow.
    But he was-- took the status as an Aryan, as a Latvian Aryan,
    didn't have to wear a star and wear.
    And his bad luck in later years was
    he was, as a collaborator of the Germans,
    arrested by the Russian.
    And he's still in Russian jail today, probably.
    I don't know.
    Probably, today, he's out.
    Now, I worked there, had to form an order from this Scherwitz
    with my own group of people who prepared mortar
    and stuff like that and march from then on daily through Riga
    to--
    and work there until later on, a big factory was taken over.
    And I had to rebuild part of the factory or all of the factory
    for places where the Jews would sleep,
    would bathe, and also had the rooms
    where the tailors were working and where
    the shoemakers who made the famous German boots
    were making.
    Where we-- and we had one apartment which made
    women's socks and fur coats, a watch department.
    We had cabinetmakers who made furniture for those Gestapo,
    of uniformed Gestapo.
    That's all what I would say.
    And that was this.
    Did this camp have a name?
    The-- later, it was called Lenta because the first place was
    on what the Germans called Washingtonplatz, where also,
    the building from the rest of the Gestapo were.
    Later on, the name of the factory was Lenta.
    Who operated the factory, the Gestapo, the SS?
    Under the leadership of the SS or the supervision of the SS,
    it was strictly worked on operated by the Jews.
    Yeah, the labor by the Jews.
    The labor strictly by-- but this--
    Was it a commercial enterprise such as, say, Krupp?
    No, no, no, no, no.
    This was strictly-- this was strictly-- for instance,
    we supplied all the Ukrainian SS troops with the uniforms.
    We supplied all the Latvian with uniforms.
    We also supplied the high leadership the fancy uniforms.
    We had, for instance, one department,
    where I had a extremely interesting experience.
    There was a radio station, which sent the message--
    what would you call the radio station of that kind?
    Anyhow, it was a radio station under the supervision,
    leadership of a fellow by the name of Deibert, a high SD
    uniform--
    SD man, who was one of the few born sadists I met.
    Now, he had the Jewish man who ran the radio
    station was a extremely expert.
    For instance, on one of his smoker parties,
    entertaining his dog, he had the Jewish cleaning woman
    who cleaned for him nailed in a coffin alive.
    I mention only that to show you what kind of a sadist
    this man was.
    Anyhow, one day, he comes over.
    He was also on the Lenta, on the property of the Lenta.
    And he comes over.
    And I had to go over to his radio station
    and soundproof part of it, a room where they did the-- not
    receiving, the sending.
    Now, I have to mention in that connection to that,
    they always had me build all kinds of things,
    never gave me any material.
    I had to organize that myself, never any plans or anything.
    Anyhow, that idea was I had to soundproof this room
    to send messages from.
    Well, I built double wooden walls and put ashes between it.
    When he didn't act fair or unfair.
    He treated me correct.
    But now comes the episode I'd like to mention.
    After this room was finished, I was back to my own group.
    He comes.
    He says, come with me.
    Come with me wasn't too good, anyhow.
    So when we were in the room.
    He says, you soundproofed the room, yes?
    How did you soundproof the room?
    Well, I put in between the walls ashes, fly ashes.
    It's the only material we had available anyhow.
    So he says, you did?
    I said, yes, sir.
    He says, now, look this here.
    And he removed a electrical box and showed me
    where there was no ashes.
    Now, I described before the sadist so I could--
    you can imagine the feeling I had when there was no ashes.
    So then I looked over the construction.
    And I noticed that there was a cross beam running above that
    on--
    and on account of that, the ashes
    was running past this tree.
    I described it to him.
    I had a habit of always looking those people
    straight in the eyes.
    I stood at attention and described to him
    why there was no ashes in it.
    And surprise, surprise, he didn't say a word.
    He says, get lost.
    So that was an episode where I had even this regular sadist.
    I got by.
    And he saw that the reason I gave him
    were absolutely undisputable.
    Of course, he would have been right.
    There was no ashes in that place.
    Do you attribute the resistance of people in the camps,
    and especially your own experience,
    to being able to stand up to them, to look them in the eye,
    to say--
    do you ever tell them they're wrong?
    Did you ever get away with anything like that?
    Well, actually, this case was where
    despite that he was right, I explained to him that I--
    the reason for it.
    And I got away with it.
    Now, during all my times, I was, I would
    say blessed with two things.
    First of all, I looked, when I was younger,
    like the most German could look like.
    I was light, blond, blue eyes.
    And I never was afraid of anybody.
    My mother had a wonderful motto, which
    was be only afraid of God, and otherwise, of no human being.
    And I always stuck to that motto.
    And I think, there were counted people who could have--
    you can call it if you want to, bring up this chutzpah.
    I marched.
    I had a episode with this Scherwitz at one time,
    where he caught people where they're
    dealing something, which was-- which constantly was going on.
    And he threw them in the what he called bunker--
    bunker, which was a hole in the tower with water
    in it on the floor, with no food, with no clothes,
    or no place to lay, or food.
    And he had a whole Kommando stand to attention,
    a roll call for the whole Kommando.
    And he stood in front of us.
    And he says, the first one who even gets close to them
    and tries to help them, I shoot personally
    and without any hesitation.
    I think I was down there, this Litow, who was the--
    a Jewish non-Jewish leader of the camp,
    was the brother-in-law of one of the people who got thrown
    in this bunker, who came to me.
    He knew right from the beginning that if anybody would ever do
    anything, it would be only me.
    And he says, listen, please, he has food for them.
    Get food down to them.
    And approximately five-six hours after that
    Appell where Mr. Scherwitz said he would shoot personally
    the first guy who helps him, I gave them food.
    This brother-in-law is still a survivor.
    He is one of the biggest--
    he was, at the time, one of the biggest fur merchants,
    international merchants in New York.
    And I saw him after the war.
    And they are, by the way, the one who told me--
    they were sending packages.
    And they were talking that this was Rudow.
    I said Litow, I'm sorry.
    The name is Rudow--
    R-U-D-O-W. Litow was another fellow in the camp.
    That this Rudow was arrested by the Russian.
    On that-- they sent him packages for it.
    I only wanted to bring out, I think those were extreme cases
    because--
    How were you able to get food to him?
    Well, I just snuck into that camp and brought him the food
    this Rudow gave me.
    And that was it.
    And I never was afraid.
    I never even blinked.
    I never even have the thought.
    Actually, today, it sounds more like it was a rash decision,
    that this--
    by the way, two survivors of that
    survived who were in that bunker--
    I don't remember offhand who else was in there.
    Two survivors I met later on.
    And of course, they were extremely grateful.
    As a matter of fact, this--
    it's not Rudow.
    The brother-in-law's name is Priskin.
    I met him years later.
    He gave a big party for me in Palm Beach
    in the famous Breakers Hotel.
    And he told the other people who were around,
    if that guy wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have survived.
    So it's amazing.
    Priskin is this fellow's name.
    Like I say, I have all those names.
    I wrote down at one time my experiences.
    And those names, they--
    Litow, by the way, was the Jewish jeweler
    who, a short while before we left Riga, told me--
    I always made occasions to escape and so on.
    And this Litow, this jeweler asked me to let him escape
    and would escape with me in Riga before we were transported back
    to Germany.
    And I refused it at that time because he
    wouldn't take my parents who were alive at that time.
    He would take me along, but not my parents.
    What do you mean being transported back to Germany?
    Were they sending you back from Riga to Germany?
    When the Russian troops came and occupied Riga,
    they sent us back to--
    in my case, to Danzig in Germany,
    where we were sent to the concentration camp
    Stutthof near Danzig.
    And from there, I worked in the [NON-ENGLISH] which are today
    famous through the Polish resistance to their regime.
    The Solidarity.
    Right.
    The same geography, different names.
    The same wharf where I worked at the time, which
    became famous now today again.
    Now, from Riga, you went into a concentration camp, not
    a labor camp.
    No, from Riga, we went to Stutthof.
    Right.
    And from--
    How did the concentration camp differ from the labor camp,
    and what you did, and how you got along?
    I can only go from my case.
    And due to the fact that the Nazis needed us
    almost as much as we needed the Nazis,
    we had an exceptionally, exceptionally good treatment.
    As a matter of fact, there were Latvian Jewish people
    who paid this Scherwitz, the famous Scherwitz, a velvet
    bag of raw diamonds to get into that camp.
    That's how good it was.
    So our treatment was extremely good in Riga.
    Now, when we came to Stutthof, of course,
    there's a difference of day and night.
    Especially, Stutthof was not--
    was mainly a Polish concentration camp,
    where just one block from approximately 20 blocks
    was a Jewish block.
    Consequently, we got beaten not only by the so-called kapos,
    but we got beaten by anybody who can--
    could get another kick in on the Jews since they--
    Now, what period was this?
    What month, what year?
    October '45.
    I remember this date for very specific reasons.
    My father and I left the Stutthof camp.
    The Stutthof concentration camp, where my mother was
    in the woman camp, on the day--
    my mother's birthday was the 31st of October.
    Excuse me, that was--
    '44.
    '44.
    Yeah.
    On that day-- it could have been '43, I'm sorry.
    I'm not-- offhand, I'm not that sure.
    It could have been '43.
    It most likely was '44.
    But it could have been '43.
    If you're interested, I'll look that up too, of course.
    Well, I just want to get the transition from the--
    Right.
    Anyhow--
    --one location.
    --you asked me that.
    And the day sticks in memory for that reason
    because with all our suffering, that
    was the first time that we were separated, my father from me,
    from my mother.
    My mother stood in the woman camp.
    And we came to a camp by the name of Buchgarten.
    While we were in Stutthof, by the way,
    we worked on daily what's called Kommandos on the outside.
    We worked in the woods, where people got beaten
    to death and all kinds of it.
    The difference in my particular case was unbelievable
    because Stutthof was one of the worst concentration camps
    around, where people were-- which was new for us--
    were systematically burned and, I suppose, gassed.
    I'm not-- I couldn't--
    I suppose gassed.
    So we're in Latvia, in Riga, from the beginning of 1942
    to October of '43.
    It must have been '43.
    I think in '44, the Russians were already coming in.
    Well, you see, we went--
    when they came in, we--
    OK.
    If you just want, one second, I can tell you.
    I suppose, I can tell you.
    Oh, fine.
    OK, well, why do we take any time up.
    You see, I am sorry to say that most of my experiences
    in details, especially a date or something like that--
    it's 15 and 16.
    OK.
    I did-- Priskin, I just--
    the page I got here is Priskin, best
    friend of our master of the works, Rudow, and the letter
    gave me food for the tooth.
    It just happened that I got that page here.
    I see some kapos here.
    Now, I shall describe life in KZ Stutthof in general.
    Provision in the morning and afternoon.
    But still, we don't get to the date.
    Just the year.
    We don't want to lose a whole year.
    I'm sorry.
    I'm sorry.
    I can't--
    OK.
    No, wait.
    Wait a second.
    I was--
    It's all right.
    We'll go on to something else.
    It must have been '44.
    OK.
    October-- yes, October '44, I left that Stutthof
    concentration camp.
    We were there approximately two months.
    So we're getting closer now to that date you're talking about.
    So it must have been '44.
    That day, we went to that camp, which is called Buchgarten
    and worked in the [NON-ENGLISH] Daily,
    we were transported by train from this camp to the Stutthof
    [GERMAN],, the wharf, which I think the Leningrad Wharf
    or something like that, they have a Russian--
    Lenin Wharf or something like that-- the Solidarity, rather.
    It's on the sea coast by Danzig.
    Danzig, it's by Danzig.
    It's in Danzig.
    And how far a distance did they take you by train each day?
    I would say we rode at least half an hour to an hour.
    Again, I'm sorry to say, offhand, I couldn't tell you.
    I probably mentioned it somewhere there.
    Then we had to march approximately eight miles
    to the wharf, to the street.
    And at the latest--
    later stages of this game, I was that weak
    that the first time in my life, I was desperate.
    And I dirtied my pants marching.
    That's how weak I was in that short time only--
    Dysentery?
    --going through that.
    Well, it probably was the poorness of the--
    my intestines.
    We didn't get any food at that time at all to speak of.
    We had coffee and a slice of bread
    in the morning at this Buchgarten.
    We went to work.
    At this wharf, our food was a colored something synthetic,
    a colored water, I can only call it, which was called soup.
    And I have-- I remember, the German man
    I did the bricklaying for, which had a different commander,
    told me once, he said, apparently, you
    are not so hungry either.
    I never see you eat the soup.
    Said, I'm sorry, but what the soup does, it's--
    that gives me dysentery and nothing else.
    So I showed him once that soup.
    And he said, that's unbelievable.
    They expect you to work.
    The same man gave me what he got in his dining room as dog food,
    the scrapings of the dishes, including the cigarette butts,
    and the cigarette ashes, and the cigarette matches.
    He gave me this food, which was to me a salvation.
    And I shared that with other people.
    And I got beaten once almost to death
    by a guard who saw me with this thing waiting there
    for the food.
    My father dragged me away.
    So the conditions in that Stutthof between my experience
    in Riga were not on the same.
    Like I say, again, I was extremely lucky in Riga.
    Of all these experiences, which was the most painful for you?
    Meaning real pain?
    What?
    Yes, in physical pain and mental pain.
    I tell you, I had an experience later on.
    I was what was called a Stubenalteste in charge
    of the cleaning of the room where we went to Danzig.
    And a kapo--
    I don't know if you're familiar with it.
    In the concentration camps, the top men were called kapos.
    The real guard didn't get their hands dirty on the inmates.
    It was the kapo who run the inside of the camps.
    Now, there was a kapo who came in and found the room dirty.
    And he had-- which was not unusual--
    found one gloved there.
    And he was extremely tall and heavy guy.
    And he beat me down continuously.
    He knocked me out continuously, approximately 20 times
    in a row.
    And every time, I got up.
    And every time, I thought, if I get you,
    expression deleted, ever in my life, I kill you barehanded.
    And I would have.
    And that was, I think, the worst beating
    I got until maybe I think of something else.
    But this other thing was pretty bad.
    Now, any real penalty, I avoided until a much later date
    when I was escaped, when I got 50, which were not
    that bad either because I traded it gladly in for lice, which
    was full of.
    It was a much later experience after I escaped from the camp.
    But your ability to get up off the floor 20 times
    showed a strength of character and a strength of will
    that finally wore this man out.
    And he quit beating you?
    I was a physical-- extremely strong
    before I came in the concentration-- extremely
    strong.
    I wouldn't have been afraid.
    I boxed or lifted weight.
    I rowed.
    Just we were all in deep.
    I wouldn't have been afraid of anybody physically either.
    And this getting up was strictly physical--
    and maybe hatred too because this fellow, by the name,
    was a Jewish inmate.
    The kapo.
    The kapo.
    Was he a German?
    His name is-- no, he was a Latvian Jew.
    He was very bad.
    He beat another fellow--
    again, the name, I don't know.
    He beat to death because he called him
    a dirty pig, which we didn't even
    have water to wash in the camp.
    He was crazy about cleanliness.
    Of course, it was easy for him.
    The washroom itself, they were closed for the inmates
    during the whole day.
    And then they were open for half an hour.
    And everybody rushed in.
    You didn't dare to take your concentration clothes off
    because you were fear anybody else would steal it.
    I have, by the way, my concentration
    camp from the last camp still with me.
    Hold that up so the camera can get a good look at it.
    Now, I have to--
    Little higher.
    --make one explanation to it.
    This was a higher-class concentration cap.
    We didn't have any lining.
    Now, the higher-class concentration camp,
    after I escaped, I was caught again.
    And I simply, which also is worth mentioning--
    I don't have any tattoo marks, which in Riga wasn't given,
    and which it wasn't given in the concentration camp Stutthof.
    I got caught.
    And of course, as being caught as a Jew,
    I would have been killed immediately.
    I told him, I am a German marine deserter, which
    we had in Stutthof in Block 1.
    And there is a very--
    to me, until today, unquestionable
    thing what happened.
    After Paul Braunschild, a fellow with whom
    I escaped from the concentration camp,
    was caught the second time, when we
    were in where I got this concentration camp camp--
    cap, it was called Auffanglager, which means the stragglers
    from the Stutthof.
    At that time, the concentration camps
    moved around because the Russians
    came closer and closer.
    And we marched constantly.
    Anyhow, I was caught, brought in the jail,
    where I had an unbelievable-- the most unbelievable
    experience in my life, brought to this Auffanglager,
    receiving camp Stutthof, came in there, told them--
    which we told them in jail before--
    that we were German deserters.
    And one of the kapos-- and now comes this thing
    where I have my doubts.
    While we, two Jews, stood under the shower, both circumcised,
    which is not the case in Europe, this kapo comes by with a--
    with the SS man.
    And he says, I know him.
    And the fact is I had dealings in the camp as a Jew with him.
    And he says, I know him.
    He is the deserter from Block 1.
    Block is the explanation from that building--
    1.
    So until today, that's one thing I
    do not know if he did that to save our lives,
    which he obviously did or if it was mistaken identity
    that he thought I was one of the men from the Block 1.
    Tell us about your escape.
    Where did you escape from?
    And how did you manage to do it?
    And who was with you?
    And were there any victims who helped you
    with this escape, others in the plot?
    I had a Jewish inmate who was always under my labor groups,
    Paul Braunschild, who looked, if anything, more like a Gentile
    than I do.
    And we decided, when-- the condition were unbelievable.
    We decided we would escape.
    We told the other inmates that they should
    collect whatever they had.
    I'm sorry to say that today, but it wouldn't
    have made any difference.
    They should collect whatever they had.
    And we would try to go to the village
    and get all the food we could buy.
    The guard, we told, we had hidden clothes,
    which were civilian clothes-- not much,
    but which were civilian clothes, not the KZ uniform and told
    the guards that we had to fix--
    that our job was to fix fences outside.
    And the same guard, a German, at that time
    it was a Landwehrmann, not military.
    I think it was those old people they were taking in that group.
    Don't know the English translation for it.
    This guard turned to a fellow inmate,
    whom I met later on, who was, by the way,
    from Gelsenkirchen too--
    Helmut Schmacht, and told him, they are not building any fence
    or repairing any fences.
    Those two are escaping.
    And I wish them all the luck in the world.
    Why should I shoot them?
    Now, that was the help I got at that particular case.
    So we marched.
    And it took us, I guess, all of a day.
    The only food we could buy for our money, where we thought we
    were that rich, what was mustard.
    And Paul Braunschild and I filled ourselves up
    with mustard.
    And naturally, we didn't have any paper or anything.
    So they had streets blocked and examined paper.
    So the same evening, we got caught.
    They marched us to a local prison.
    I think it was in Lauenberg, but I have my doubts about it.
    They matched us to a local prison
    and threw us in that prison as marine deserters
    from that Stutthof.
    We were in this camp, in this prison
    for approximately two weeks under the worst
    human condition, for the first-- for one of the reason,
    it was in the wintertime, no heat.
    We were sleeping on blanket--
    on blank concrete floor.
    The only thing we had plenty, we had a perpetual [NON-ENGLISH]..
    We had from the clothes we had for our private,
    after the escape, I had a-- we had sweaters.
    On those sweaters, we picked the lice on one side
    and turned them around and picked them on the other side.
    We didn't do any work or anything.
    We were just sitting around, waiting for our ration, which
    was one slice of bread a day and coffee,
    which we got in the morning.
    Now, I always gave Paul my slice of bread.
    And I says, hold it because I wanted
    to eat it slow during the day.
    But it hardly took 5-10 minutes, I pestered him
    so much until he gave my part.
    And I stuffed it down.
    Now, those were extremely tough days.
    And in this jail cell, one day, the door opens.
    And a man comes in in civilian clothes
    with the most beautiful beard.
    I thought it was made like that.
    There was a German Kaiser, Franz Joseph--
    it was the most modeled beard I ever saw in my life.
    But that was his natural growth.
    He came in.
    One of his first question was do you guys have lice?
    We said, yes.
    Well, he says, so I have to take it.
    We slept from then on three this way, three that way
    for approximately a week.
    Every morning, we didn't have anything to do,
    which makes the waiting worse than anything.
    Nobody took us out of the cell or anything.
    Every morning, he told us his dream,
    which was always lucky, lucky--
    unlucky.
    And one morning, he told us his dream.
    Now, everything will work out all right.
    What happened is he escaped after almost his complete--
    part of the army he belonged to was completely
    wiped out by the Russian.
    He took civilian clothes and escaped
    and was caught the same way like we were caught.
    So this one morning, when he had the first good dream,
    he got the news, he had a hearing.
    They had him out of the cell every morning
    that he was condemned to die.
    He was shot.
    He was let out of our cell.
    He embraced me.
    He kissed me.
    He handed me which he had smuggled
    in a three or four golden ruble pieces
    and said, try to get it to my wife.
    And he says, from the first moment on,
    I knew that you two are not Germans.
    You are not German deserters.
    You are Jews.
    And I hope everything goes good with it.
    The man was let out of our cell.
    He never even attempted to save his life in denouncing us.
    That was the most heroic thing ever--
    I experienced ever in my life.
    And at least the attempt to make-- listen, don't.
    What are you doing?
    You shoot me, I'm a German soldier.
    But those guys, they say, they are German soldiers,
    they are Jews.
    They would have beaten us-- not shot us to death,
    but beaten us to death, I think.
    Anyhow, this man was led to be shot.
    I asked the German officer.
    Of course, I had all this chutzpah
    because I was another German soldier,
    according to what I said.
    And I asked him for writing paper to write to his wife.
    I had the address at that time.
    But like everything else, it got lost anyhow.
    He says, no, this pig, all my uniform was ruined.
    I had blood spattered all over when I shot him.
    So that was how humane he was.
    We were in this cell another maybe two-three days.
    One day, German soldiers marched in with a gun,
    with the safety off of their guns, one in front of us,
    one in back of us, march.
    We march, don't know what's going on.
    We knew that this man was led out to be shot.
    Those guys have the guns in their hands.
    We were led.
    We marched two or three miles at least.
    It probably was more than that.
    I tried to start a conversation.
    I said, excuse me.
    I have to do my business.
    I said, where are you leading us?
    [GERMAN]-- keep your mouth shut.
    He get me the butt of the gun in the back, well, march.
    So all of a sudden, we read this sign, Auffanglager.
    This was where the draggler from the concentration camp
    Stutthof.
    And the people in charge there were actually a--
    having the complete Red Cross food for all people who
    were in a concentration camp Stutthof,
    which had honor inmates, including
    the complete Danish police force.
    They got their Red Cross rations.
    Those fellows were in charge of it.
    Those fellows were in charge of all valuables stolen
    from the inmates in that concentration camp Stutthof
    and were living like hogs.
    This is where I got my cap too.
    This is where this experience first--
    I'm coming from one piece to the other.
    This is where that experience first
    happened with this guy who says, I know him.
    He is from the--
    he's the Block 1.
    Those fellows didn't even eat the food which they were
    getting, which was excellent.
    They warned us, when we came-- this
    was the worst stage of my life, when I was
    getting into this Auffanglager.
    I was approximately 95 pounds at the time.
    And I was always pretty solid built.
    Those fellows warned me to take it slow with the first food we
    were getting.
    That was not the good food, but what the kitchen
    handed out there.
    And I never forget this first food in my life.
    We tried to be slow.
    We stuffed ourselves.
    And I had an explosion.
    The food didn't come back out--
    I would say not only through my mouth, nose, and ears
    because the stomach was absolutely used
    to no food at all at that time.
    That's a double negative, no food at all.
    But that is-- this is this camp.
    Now, from that camp, we were living,
    like I say, high on the hogs.
    Then we marched again, always on the march from the Russian.
    And one day--
    Wait, so they believed you were German deserters?
    Absolutely.
    And they treated you as Germans after that?
    As a German deserter from the concentration camp.
    There were German deserters in the concentration camp.
    Sure.
    Correct.
    But I meant, you fooled them?
    Absolutely.
    And I wouldn't be alive otherwise.
    That's right.
    Approximately what month and what year now?
    This was in '45 in April--
    March, April, around the time of year.
    '45?
    '45.
    The spring of '45?
    Right.
    And this-- oh, then this group marched too
    because, like I say, they were always on the run
    from the Russian.
    And one day, the rumor spread, we will link up with the Jews
    from the concentration camp of Stutthof.
    Well, Paul Braunschild and I only
    had to hear that once when we took off the second time.
    And that was the final time because pretty soon,
    the Russians came.
    And I was liberated under some unbelievable circumstances.
    What happened in your second escape, the second time
    that you and Paul escaped?
    Well, this--
    So you took off.
    Right.
    We were hiding between farmers on a farm place, where
    they were Polish farmers and German refugees
    from the former eastern provinces of Germany.
    And you stayed there until the war was over?
    I still-- I stood there until one morning, the door opened,
    and the Russian--
    my liberators came in.
    And I never forget the first liberator.
    He looked like Hollywood would have
    made a Russian soldier, extremely handsome, a leather
    coat, machine gun over his shoulder like they all had.
    But he had the other soldiers were from the Siberian parts
    of Russia, Mongols--
    Mongols from that part.
    So that's the first I saw.
    And that was the first Russian.
    And we were liberated after that, so to speak.
    And then what happened under the Russians?
    Under the Russian, I had--
    This would have been about April of 1945.
    That was April/May.
    I didn't have any papers.
    I was arrested very soon with those gold rubles
    on the street, which they found on us and arrested us.
    At first, I had to straighten out
    the first inmates who found us, told the Russians that we
    were German deserters.
    Of course, in the meantime, we had to turn--
    told the Russians [RUSSIAN]--
    German Jews.
    Now, at that time, I didn't know that to the Russians,
    there is not a thing as a [RUSSIAN]..
    Either you are [RUSSIAN]---- you are a Jew or you are a German.
    And I had to stop them.
    But then I got arrested and got a very bad situation
    later on with the Russians on account of those gold pieces
    this man in jail had given me.
    This is Sidney Elsner in the Council
    of Jewish Women, Cleveland section,
    Holocaust Taping project.
    And we're back again with Mr. Werner Sauer of Middlefield,
    Ohio, who had just related to us how, at the end of the war,
    he'd been freed by the Russians and was now arrested
    by the Russians for having gold.
    Go right ahead, Mr. Sauer.
    Well, when they had a road block and looked--
    at that time, they didn't look for gold.
    They looked for guns all the time.
    They looked for guns.
    And they found my gold.
    And we got brought in a small booth of the NKVD
    and were interrogated.
    And the interpreter of the Russian officer
    was a Jewish fellow who communicated
    with me in Jewish, which I understood, but could not
    speak.
    So he brought out, first of all, that everything
    would be all right, which was his general phrase.
    And I said, listen, I can prove to you that I'm a Jew.
    Now, I tried to prove that later on.
    Everything was all right.
    Everything would be going fine.
    I asked him, I said, listen, what
    happened to the gold pieces?
    And they said, well, in Russia, we are not
    allowed to have any gold.
    Fine.
    We went into the answer room, Paul Brown, and I.
    We were talking.
    And I hear that this interpreter dictates.
    And all the phrases he uses is constantly "Nemetsky spy."
    So I jump up, disregarding the guard
    who was there with this submachine gun
    over his shoulder, rush into the room,
    and said, in my broken Yiddish, I said, listen,
    we are no German spies.
    I told you, we are Jews.
    And more yet, I can prove it to you.
    You want to see?
    I am circumcised.
    He said, well, everything is fine.
    He said, don't worry.
    Everything is good.
    Well, that was the end of it.
    The guard transported us in the cellar of the building.
    And in the night, I put this cap on, which saved twice my life.
    And Polish militia came into the basement
    looking where the German spies were to give them a little
    working over.
    When they saw my concentration camp,
    they used the Polish phrase, which [POLISH]----
    if I was in Stutthof.
    And I told them, yes.
    That was in the evening.
    So the next morning, we were transported
    from one small community to the next big place, which
    in that case, was Bydgoszcz, Bromberg,
    in the eastern part of Germany.
    And those guards changed since we
    marched, those militia, Polish militia
    guards changed from the small--
    from one small community to the other.
    While we were walking, I had my cap on again.
    A Polish Red Cross car stops and the customary [POLISH]..
    I said, yes.
    They said, what are you doing here?
    I said, well, I said, they bring us here.
    I said, they treat us-- they say, we are German spies.
    We are German Jews.
    So he asked me, do you speak Yiddish?
    I says, no, I don't speak Yiddish.
    I said, it's too--
    I understand it, but I don't speak Yiddish.
    So he smiled.
    And he laughed.
    And he says, hey, [YIDDISH],, you know?
    Kiss my rear end.
    I said, yes, that's one of the few things I know.
    So he says, OK, so what do you prove that you're Jewish?
    I said, I-- oh, he asked, do you speak Hebrew?
    I said, yeah.
    So I had to recite in the open sky in Poland at that time
    the actually only Jewish prayer I know,
    which is when I-- what I learned when I was bar
    mitzvahed, the taking out of the Torah roll, the berakhah,
    you say that.
    So I recited that.
    And this doctor, it satisfied this doctor.
    And he told them, he says, hey, this is a Jew.
    He is not German spy.
    So we were treated a little bit better and a little bit better.
    Finally, they came to the city Bydgoszcz,
    which we set out to get there.
    And one of the first women I met there in the kitchen was--
    she was working in the kitchen for the NKVD.
    Was Helga Lindeman, a woman who was transported
    on the same transport from Gelsenkirchen to Riga
    originally.
    Well, we start talking, of course.
    And I had an alibi, of course, too.
    And she says, oh, my god.
    You can't say here to those people German Jew.
    They don't know anything.
    Either you're a Jew or you're a German, as simple as that.
    He said, call yourself from now on a Dutch Jew.
    So starting from that moment, I was [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I also had a-- this was Passover time.
    I had an experience I never forget.
    They had-- the women--
    they were only women.
    As a matter of fact, they didn't even know at that time
    that there were any male survivors
    from the concentration camp.
    Those women were holding the Passover celebration
    and gave a Seder.
    And so everybody knows that on the Seder,
    you put a plate down for the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And in our case, an [NON-ENGLISH] came,
    a Russian soldier from a nearby hospital who didn't have a--
    they took away the pants of him, had only the upper clothes.
    And he sat down.
    And we had him for our Passover.
    And Paul Braunschild the fellow escaped with,
    and I felt like dummies because those Jewish women
    knew all the rituals and gave a perfect Seder.
    But that was the only Seder I ever attended to where
    an [NON-ENGLISH] is appeared.
    These were women from what, Lithuania, Latvia?
    Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, yes, a whole mixture
    from all former people who were in the Stutthof concentration
    camp in the women ghetto.
    But not German women?
    No.
    Except the one?
    There were few, probably, too.
    I mean, all survivors from that Stutthof concentration camp.
    The only one I knew, and probably the only one,
    was this Helga Lindemann.
    Anyhow, they told us-- they had a [POLISH],, a Jewish committee
    of the women in Bydgoszcz.
    And I got my first official paper,
    which they made [POLISH]--
    Jewish Dutchman.
    And on that same office, I met a woman
    who said, yes, your mother is alive.
    So what happened is she marched.
    She thought that was after the liberation.
    But what I found out later, it must have
    been before the liberation.
    She marched with her group of Jewish women
    from the concentration camp and heard behind women addressing,
    one woman, constantly, of Mrs. Sauer, Mrs. Sauer, Mrs. Sauer.
    So she turned around because the name
    of the commander in Riga, Kaiserwald,
    had the name of Sauer.
    And this woman turned around and said, are you the woman--
    the wife of the commander?
    So my mother said no.
    So she said, out of this situation,
    she is positive that my mother was alive.
    I told Paul Braunschild then, I said, listen,
    we get into trouble anyhow.
    You better take off for Germany, which he did.
    And I start looking around, looking for my parents, what
    became of them.
    And after-- later on, I found out--
    I went to a hospital where there were
    Jewish survivors from Stutthof.
    One of them was a Latvish Jewish woman by the name of Chatske
    who knew my mother very well.
    And I said, Mrs. Chatske, what happened to my mother?
    So instead of answering me right out,
    she start getting to talk with another inmate in Russian,
    which I didn't understand that good.
    And she keeps on talking Russian, Russian.
    I said Mrs. Chatske, I was in all kinds of trouble.
    Please, tell me the truth what happened to my mother
    because I won't give up before I find out.
    And then I found out from her that she
    was selected, as it was called, in the Stutthof, was gassed
    and burned in the end of 1944.
    And then about the outcome of my father,
    I learned quite a while later.
    And what he-- the way I got separated from my father
    was the following incident.
    My father, who got a rupture carrying
    bags of cement in the concentration camp,
    was put on a wagon since the march
    we were doing daily, escaping from the Russians,
    being ahead of the Russians was too heavy for him.
    He was put on a wagon.
    And late in the evening, we meet.
    And I says, Dad, come down from the wagon.
    He says, no.
    He says, we get all to the same place.
    His word, actually, are prophetic because we
    most likely go all to the same place.
    But we meant in the same camp.
    He was let into a camp.
    I think it was Rieben.
    But of course, offhand, I don't know.
    And in this camp, typhus had broken out.
    So the rest of the group was not let into that camp anymore,
    but was transported to another camp.
    When we were transported to the other camp, and after a day
    that I knew I wouldn't see my father again,
    I escaped the first time.
    Now, at approximately that time, I
    met people who were until the end with my father.
    And what happened to him was the following.
    He didn't give up either.
    He tried until the very last day.
    He tried to get out of that particular camp dressed
    as a native horse and wagon driver,
    was caught, was beaten badly, starved a few days
    after that day to death.
    That's the way how I found out about my parents there.
    And by that time, I was about ready to--
    I wasn't about ready, I had enough.
    And when I found that out, I went back to Germany.
    I met, going to Germany--
    I never went back to the place where I'm from.
    I never want to see that place again.
    I was on the railroad track with a few French soldier
    who were in prison camps.
    And we had to go-- one night, I remember,
    we had to go off the train because Stalin passed by.
    He was on the way to the famous Potsdam Conference
    after the war in Potsdam, by Berlin.
    And we will following.
    When--
    This would have been August of 1945?
    July of 1945?
    July, somewhere around that time, I was, I'm sure.
    And at that time, at that time, we got picked up on the street.
    The whole-- the Russian were extremely bad with--
    about everybody.
    And they had a [RUSSIAN],, going home project.
    What they really did, the survivor of a concentration
    camp or anywhere-- anything else,
    they drove them back to Russia.
    And when I heard [RUSSIAN] one day when we got caught--
    was in Potsdam, by the way--
    I took off in a hurry.
    And I disappeared from the Russian.
    And by the way, the Russian, when
    we started talking about the first Russians
    I met after my liberation, I said we were on a farm.
    This same farm, we were hiding in a barn.
    Nobody knew that we were there.
    When the Russians came, I said, now, we have enough about the--
    not the farm, I meant the barn.
    Did I say the barn?
    We were hiding in the barn.
    Say, I have enough of the barn.
    I have enough hiding.
    We go in the main building.
    In the main building were German farmers
    who were thousands and thousands fleeing from the advancing
    Russians.
    This farmer had his wife and his daughter.
    And I tell them, I said, listen, everything will be all right.
    And after about half a day, I told him, you see, I told you,
    the Russians are not that bad.
    The man start crying.
    And he said, that's fine.
    You're right.
    But how long will my daughter survive?
    Now, this whole morning, every Russian who came
    into the house-- and there was one group after another--
    had raped that daughter.
    I was in the same house and didn't have the slightest
    idea what was going on.
    And a hero like I'm always--
    and I told him, I said, listen, I protect her.
    So the next case who comes in, I said,
    leave this woman alone in my perfect Russian.
    So this guy was just a--
    he seemed at the time maybe between 16 and 18 years old.
    But he had a blank German dagger,
    which the officers of the written-- horse-written
    officers there.
    So with this blank dagger he used as a walking stick,
    he pointed that on my-- middle of my chest.
    And he said, get lost.
    Well, I was smart enough to get lost
    because that was a little bit too close for comfort.
    I had, later on, myself an experience
    when I was alone too with a Russian.
    And I had already those famous papers.
    At that time, I still was looking
    for my mother and my parents.
    I go through a place in the evening.
    And I stay with a Russian soldier.
    Well, he had a bicycle.
    I had two pieces of luggage, which I had
    organized in Danzig, clothes.
    And he tells me to follow him.
    I follow him.
    And we come to a deserted cemetery,
    where the bodies are laying left and right, and right and left,
    but not in graves, but outside the grave.
    So I see something is wrong.
    I said, hey, I got documents, which he says,
    I don't need documents, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I don't need any documents.
    And I start cursing at him, which I'm expert in Russian.
    And he said, put the luggage down.
    And I said, you son of a B. I wasn't afraid
    of the Nazis during that time.
    I'm certainly not afraid of you.
    So I turned around, take my luggage,
    and walk off the cemetery.
    And this guy takes his machine gun,
    which he had over his shoulder, takes it down, and says,
    [RUSSIAN].
    Stand-- stay or I shoot.
    And I say, [RUSSIAN]-- shoot.
    And I start cursing the best I could in the Russian language,
    and pretty rough, and marched off the cemetery.
    And if this Russian soldier would have folded his finger,
    I couldn't have told you this story.
    Where did you recuperate?
    You said you were down to 90 pounds.
    Yeah.
    And what happened physically right after the war?
    See, there was never--
    and the people who got liberated like I did by the Russians
    were very lucky.
    It was never anything like any support, food, or anything.
    I remember distinctly one of the first experiences
    with a Russian.
    I was lined up.
    And I got a speech about [RUSSIAN]----
    work.
    And their system was if you want food, you have to work.
    So I survived from plenty of stuff
    which was left over of the German houses.
    The German population was killed and left alone.
    That was what I survived.
    And I built up strength.
    And that's the way, more or less, I went back to Germany.
    And what kind of work did you have to do for the Russians?
    You worked in a hospital?
    Anything-- trade work, drive.
    And oh-- I at one time, at the time
    when I found out about the end of my mother,
    there was a Russian-occupied hospital.
    And in this hospital was an extremely nice gentleman.
    He was a-- most likely, was one of the best watchmakers
    in the world.
    He was a man who, at the Lenta in former times,
    made by hand a--
    I have to think now, the most famous lighter in the world
    is--
    I think it's Rollei, which only is made in gold and silver.
    He made by hand this lighter with a watch built in.
    And that was a present for Mr. Himmler in person.
    Anyhow, this man was there.
    And he says, listen, you are--
    This man had been a prisoner of the Germans?
    There was a Jew man in that Lenta,
    where they had all those artisans, where
    I met him and was very friendly to him.
    And I met him.
    He survived and was recuperating in this hospital.
    Since we were very--
    I knew by that time-- by the way,
    this is when I heard that my mother was dead.
    And I think at that time, I knew already too--
    yes-- that my father was dead.
    So he said, you don't have any family.
    And why don't we support each other?
    And I said, that's fine.
    And I was around this hospital.
    At first, I loafed around.
    I got-- there were other people from Riga, who also were there.
    It was a farm.
    And I hung around there for a while
    until the commanding officer says, hey, nobody hangs around.
    You get lost.
    And I says, no, I says, I like to wait
    for Tsivian was his name--
    Tsivian-- for Mr. Tsivian when he recuperates.
    And I want to go with him.
    So he said, all right.
    He said, what-- oh, first-- the first job
    I got, I was the on guard duty for the hospital.
    I got a Russian gun, got a Russian military coat.
    And I had to patrol the area.
    And later on, I was used as an interpreter for the Russians.
    Now, at that time, I already was for everybody a Dutchman.
    And I was asked how good my Russian
    is to interpret into German.
    And I said, well, my German is excellent.
    I speak excellent German, which, of course, was rare since I
    was supposed to be a Dutchman.
    So I went to that farm.
    And the first command I gave those farmers,
    they were farmers.
    I don't have to tell you what is to be done.
    So starting tomorrow, you do what has to be done.
    Of course, that interpreting was not enough.
    And after one day, I was fired.
    And they actually forced me, then, to take off from there.
    And that's when I went to Germany, by the way.
    And it was the last experiences.
    And you went to Berlin, East Berlin or West Berlin?
    I went-- you see, at that time, it really
    didn't amount to a bale of hay, east or-- as a matter of fact,
    that expression wasn't at all.
    Fact was that even at that time, the Berlin
    was divided between the different occupying forces.
    There was a Russian sector.
    There was a English sector, American sector,
    and French sector.
    Now, my tough luck was with those French officers.
    We settled-- first of all, their idea
    was to not come home to Paris after all
    those years as a prisoner of war with a empty pocket.
    They said, we have to organize to do something.
    By the way, I have to point out again,
    when you survived all those times, strictly,
    if you knew how to blow with the wind, organized.
    As a matter of fact, to say it more drastically,
    you had to know how to steal.
    You had to know how the black market is going.
    That was the only way to survive.
    Anyhow, those fellows, as we--
    we want to-- we don't want to go empty-handed to France.
    And let's start in the black market.
    And we started in the black market.
    And where we settled was, as a matter of fact,
    those two fellows found very fast two German girlfriends.
    And we settled in the eastern section of Germany.
    In that connection, that was an extremely interesting episode.
    Of course, I talked French with those two soldiers.
    And one of the fellows' name was Michel--
    Michel-- Michael.
    And one of those days, I called him Michel to a German person.
    Told me, he says, hey, you don't call him Michel,
    you call him Mr. See, the French uniform
    is that close to the American English uniform,
    he was under the impression those were not Frenchmen,
    but those were French--
    American soldiers.
    So that's how we landed in Berlin.
    And I stood in Berlin until I finally
    got the papers, which took a long, long time.
    And one of the few--
    the first group-- not one of the-- the first group leaving
    Berlin was in the time of the famous blockade.
    These were the papers to allow you
    to come to the United States?
    Right.
    And your uncle in Cleveland signed for you?
    Right.
    They had the affidavit for--
    What was his name?
    --the visa.
    Arthur Sauer.
    Arthur Sauer-- he died just 10 years ago.
    And he was the one who managed the Dornbrook
    Hotel on East 105th Street off Euclid Avenue, right?
    Yeah.
    And he was at the-- years ago, when tennis was almost unknown,
    he was here in Cleveland the Mr. Tennis.
    He organized the first tournaments, Clark tournaments.
    And what is the name, by the way, of the famous man
    who runs it now?
    Clark?
    He was on this.
    He was the president.
    Not Clark, the fellow, he is the lawyer,
    probate lawyer who runs all the big tournaments here.
    Well, I guess it has nothing to do with the Gestapo ghetto.
    Yeah.
    So you're on-- left Berlin.
    How did you leave Berlin?
    By airplane going to Bremerhaven,
    which were the last station on the troop ship
    coming to the United States.
    Now, this would have been 1949?
    Right.
    What was the political situation then?
    This was May.
    In Berlin?
    Yeah.
    Well, the-- Berlin--
    Was the Berlin blockade going on?
    Absolutely.
    But the blockade was going on.
    But the famous Mauer, the separation,
    the official separation happened much later.
    It was-- actually, it was, I think--
    it happened quite a bit later.
    They only had off--
    well, I'm wrong there too.
    This was actually-- up until that time,
    you could freely go from one sector to the other.
    At that time, it was already tougher.
    But I don't know.
    Well, historically, there was not yet the Berlin Wall.
    And not the Berlin Wall, but the--
    But the Russians had cut off land entry into western Berlin.
    Exactly.
    Because of a currency problem, a matter of devaluation
    of the mark.
    So everything was coming in-- all the supplies were coming in
    from the United States and France
    by airplane to support the million people in West
    Berlin, a million or less.
    Exactly.
    So all these planes were coming in with food, and cargo,
    and coal.
    Then what happened?
    I was, like I say, one of the first
    who were gotten the papers.
    There was a Berlin consulate, of course, which started
    giving the visa and so on.
    But the second step for the immigration
    was to go through a camp near Bremerhaven
    in Bremen, which was a main city.
    Well, how did you get from Berlin to Bremen?
    On this airplane, we were sitting in the coal section.
    What airplane was that?
    From the blockade, where they were flying the foodstuff in
    and coal--
    coal, in our particular case, that airplane
    was used to fly coal into Berlin.
    We were sitting the--
    I think not only Jewish so-called displaced persons
    at the time, all the displaced persons who had the papers
    to emigrate to the United States were--
    at that time the exit was only possible by this blockade.
    And consequently, we were the first one
    where they used the flying out to get people out
    to go to Bremen, Bremerhaven, where
    I got another lesson in my life, which is maybe worth
    mentioning.
    I'm an extremely strong believer in mind
    over matter, which probably saved my life lots of times.
    On this air-- on this way going to the United States,
    I saw the first people going seasick being on firm ground,
    looking out of the railroad cars,
    and seeing the boats waving in the ocean.
    So that's mind over matter, which, by the way,
    was extremely helpful.
    You ask before to survive--
    mind over matter is extremely important.
    So you took the boat across the Atlantic and came to New York
    and immediately to Cleveland.
    Right.
    And as a matter of fact, in New York, my parents--
    at that time--
    my parents-- my relatives at that time were fairly wealthy.
    And they had a room in the St. Moritz hotel for me.
    They meant extremely well.
    We stood about a week in New York, which
    just more or less was visiting.
    But on the same visit, I met survivor from Riga,
    including this man who was there at this--
    in the fur business and whose life I had saved there once.
    And I visited him.
    I remember that like today.
    That was the man that you got food to
    in the punishment bunker?
    Right, right, right, right, right.
    And I visited him.
    I don't know if it's right to say it.
    I used to be--
    I was quite a handsome man in my youth.
    I was good-looking, long, blond hair, curves.
    And this wife of his at that time was the former wife--
    they got married--
    but the former wife of this famous Rudow,
    who I said who was, during all that time, he run officially--
    even for the Nazis, he didn't never count as a Jew,
    being a Jew, having his father, his brother--
    his father, his brother, and the second brother
    in the same camp.
    As a matter of fact, his father who was a big storyteller,
    told me, he isn't--
    he's just a stepson of mine.
    Of course, he had to say because he didn't
    know how sure he was with me.
    And he had one son he was a doctor and one
    son who was a watchmaker.
    And from him, he learned to curse all my life.
    I learned the Russian language from him.
    Well, when you got to New York and then
    to Cleveland, what were your plans for the future?
    Well, I'm sorry to say, I--
    my relatives had the best plans.
    Their idea was the first thing is
    I should go to the university and have the education I never
    had.
    And they would have paid for that.
    Of course, I was always independent.
    I never would have heard anything of it.
    I was extremely anxious to get on my own feet.
    And you were fluent in English?
    Well, I learned English in school,
    which, for instance, didn't contain
    any tools or anything like that, which I found out later on.
    I didn't even know.
    We never learned in school what a hammer was.
    We didn't know what a plier, pair of pliers
    is, and things like that.
    I didn't know.
    I was fluent in English.
    There was no question.
    Anybody could understand me.
    But my English knowledge was limited strictly
    to the schooling.
    Anyhow, I didn't take the good advice.
    But I was the big mouth kid I am today.
    And I had to do it on my own.
    And I couldn't start working early enough.
    So I started working the second week I came to Cleveland.
    I didn't take any--
    didn't take the good offer and went to the university,
    but started working.
    And I worked for a man who manufactured a heating
    equipment, which that was one of the few fields I
    didn't know anything about, heating equipment
    for coal boilers.
    And we worked all over the United States for him.
    And it was interesting.
    I was extremely good and hard worker.
    But not knowing the language, I--
    this boss wasn't too satisfied the first week.
    Because if he would have said, go
    and bring me a bolt and a nut, I wouldn't have known
    what a bolt and a nut was.
    So after a week, later on, he said, he
    was the best worker I ever had.
    Because-- but the first week, he wasn't too satisfied.
    And my uncle told me, you have a pretty good big mouth.
    Said, he is not even-- he's glad.
    He only took him on because he wanted to do me a favor for me.
    So that was my humble beginning in the United States.
    When you got to Cleveland, were there any
    of the Jewish agencies in touch with you?
    Did you get any help from them or respect for your family?
    I really didn't look for them because any help I needed,
    I got it from my brother, this--
    The uncle.
    --uncle.
    And I never approached any Jewish organizations.
    The only thing is there was in Cleveland,
    there was a congregation, the Gates of Hope,
    which at that time, they had on 105th Street, their temple.
    So my aunt was one of the founders.
    There is here in Cleveland a very famous old people's home,
    Schnurmann Home, which is the general foundation for all--
    today, it has no--
    it takes on every religion.
    And the Schnurmann Home is quite famous.
    Anyhow, this lady-- and my aunt--
    they were all former members of Professor Strauss.
    And I belonged to that congregation in the beginning.
    I'm not-- I think I mentioned that before-- too religious,
    that's--
    never was.
    Well, that was 1949 when you arrived.
    Then how and when did you get married?
    And did you marry a survivor?
    No, I married 1951.
    And I married an American girl.
    And when my sister saw her the first time--
    A Jewish woman?
    No, she is a Gentile.
    But she has less religion than I have.
    And she runs around, which she is very proud of,
    this Jonetta Wolf, the lady who was on the International
    Committee of the Jewish Women, gave her once a big Ben Gurion
    medal on Star of David.
    And I said to my wife [INAUDIBLE]..
    But she is not Jewish.
    And but she is non-religious, I would say, which has nothing--
    neither anything to do because I'm sorry to say,
    in my estimation, lots of the misery in this world
    comes through religion since everybody thinks in opposite
    what my mother said.
    She says, who am I to say that my religion is the right one
    and the other religions are the wrong one?
    We wanted to find out now, Mr. Sauer, what
    were the effects of the Holocaust
    outside of the engrossing personal experiences?
    But how often now do you think about the Holocaust?
    And are you able to talk about it with people?
    And what thoughts-- after 40 years, what thoughts do
    you have about it historically?
    Well, it starts with historically.
    I'm sorry to say that I think nobody learned anything
    from it.
    Now, the other thing is man's inhumanity to man probably--
    will probably always be present.
    That's historically.
    I am sorry to say that there are plenty of survivors
    from the concentration camp who came out and are even
    today, after all what they suffered, prejudiced.
    Thinking of it, I-- actually, I have
    to say that almost until they came out with the movie
    Holocaust, I had the whole experience
    completely behind myself.
    But when I saw Holocaust and the Hollywood version
    of the persecution, I got a little bit hot about my collar
    because if the truth of the inhumanity
    ever is known in detail, it is unbelievable what happened.
    Of course, I didn't know at the time
    how the actual killings took place.
    They are such a gruesome nature that
    is unbelievable that a human being could do that.
    I don't know if I said.
    And it is one day, the first group--
    there were groups of thousands-- those facts I know from trials
    in Germany--
    groups of Latvian Jews were led by groups
    of approximately 1,000, starting at 9 o'clock from the ghetto,
    marched 8 kilometer to a what we call Bikernieki Wahl.
    In this world-- in these woods, they were--
    they had to put their clothes down--
    this, the first of those actions I'm talking about
    is in 30 of November, 1941.
    Their clothes down, like it is known.
    But what I didn't know until I read about it,
    there were three--
    I think I did say about it.
    There were three ditches were dug by Russian prisoners.
    They had to go under their own force, approximately 10
    at a time, laying face down in this ditch.
    It wasn't a ditch.
    It was much taller, of course.
    Because it held 30,000 people for three ditches.
    Now, they had smaller ones and larger ones.
    In the larger one, the shooting killer who used,
    which is interesting to know, a Russian submachine gun
    set on single shot, a single shot in the neck.
    And those 10 people, the next 10 had to lay on those still-warm
    bodies, got shot the same way, and so on for a full day--
    12,000 to 15,000 people in the estimate of the German troops,
    which [NON-ENGLISH].
    So the inhumanity-- you asked me historically--
    the inhumanity is unbelievable.
    The-- here today, how this group slaughters that group,
    if it is in India, if it is in other parts of the world,
    we hear how the same group of people,
    just for religion's sake fight in Ireland
    and kill each other in Ireland for years and years.
    So historically, I think, the biggest--
    the dumbest thing is to try to have Jews live with the Arabs
    in the same ground and expect them to be peaceful with it,
    see.
    Now, you ask me some more questions.
    I'm sorry to say.
    Sure.
    But I-- but what was besides historically,
    I don't think anybody learned anything.
    And what I think?
    Anything is possible at all times.
    The Germans were no exception.
    Well, how have the Holocaust experiences
    affected your outlook on life?
    I love animals.
    I love animals.
    And I think that has lots to do with it.
    I still couldn't see anything.
    I never-- I couldn't--
    I do not even kill a fly.
    But I wouldn't hesitate to kill a suffering animal.
    See, I wouldn't hesitate anymore because if one thing
    I've learned, it's how much a human being clings to life.
    There were groups, we called them Muselmann.
    They were not able to lift their legs anymore.
    And those people clung to life.
    One of the richest people in--
    without any doubt, one of the richest people in Riga,
    and they had extremely rich people.
    The-- Riga was called the Paris of the East.
    They had a-- the Jewish population in Riga
    was actually three groups.
    They had the Russian-educated, who spoke mainly Russian.
    They had the younger generation, which
    spoke Latvian, which was a fairly new language.
    And the masses spoke Yiddish.
    Neither one really was in full command of the other language,
    interesting to say.
    This was an experiment.
    You asked me, what did I learn from life?
    One of those days, this--
    he owned half of Latvia.
    One of those days, this man came to me and asked, Werner,
    do you have anything to eat?
    Now, of course, I didn't have anything more
    to eat than the rest of them.
    But what on the danger of life-- and this was in the period
    when I ate the dog food and divided what I didn't
    have to eat, he asked me.
    And I thought to myself, this is how human beings can sink.
    And I'm sorry to say, I couldn't have made a difference.
    The next day, this man was starved to death.
    But I thought, how a human being can sink.
    But I was wrong.
    I wouldn't have made any difference.
    What do you think are the reasons for your own survival?
    The very first thing is lots of luck.
    That's one thing.
    Because without luck, there wouldn't have been survived.
    The other thing is my looks, the command of the German language,
    a trade which was in demand--
    Bricklayer.
    --bricklayer, building-- I did--
    if it's concrete work-- you see, in the United States,
    everything is separate.
    I tell you, in that circumstances,
    it's interesting.
    When I came to Cleveland, I told you
    about my first work, which was very disappointing.
    Oh, the second day, I was to plaster a room.
    The plastering in German is done with a trowel
    to throw the mortar on the wall.
    So I started plastering, of course,
    like I knew it from Germany.
    After through the first three trowels, this man says, no, no.
    He says, forget about it.
    We find something else for you to do.
    Because he thought, he's nuts.
    The next day, we went someplace in Indiana
    where they build boilers.
    So this man asked me, do you know how to drive a car?
    I says, yeah, I have a driver's license since I'm 16 years old.
    So he said, do you drive a car, the same way like you plaster?
    And at that time, of course, I didn't know.
    So I drive a car a little bit better
    than I plaster the American way.
    So that was just a little-- well, why did I say that?
    Well, because I come from one story into the next.
    That's why.
    So what helped play a role in your survival
    through these vast experiences, Mr. Sauer?
    You told us were very physical.
    You were-- you had stamina.
    But how about your outlook on life?
    I like to put something in there.
    I said before that I'm not religious.
    I'm not organized religious.
    I'm a extremely strong believer in God.
    And I pray my own prayer in former times, almost
    every night.
    I am an extremely strong believer--
    not religious, but believer, if something like that
    is possible.
    That too-- I had a--
    I had an exceptional mother.
    Now, you talk about my English.
    My mother used to write letters in English.
    And it was unbelievable.
    She could have written here for a newspaper or anything else
    because that's how perfect the language she is.
    Oh, and this was her belief too.
    She used to say, I don't have to go to a temple to pray.
    The sky on the horizon is my temple.
    And I can say my prayers the way I feel.
    And I do.
    I believe that was part of my survivorship too.
    I would say my mother was a big part.
    When I was not being afraid and everything else what was--
    I try to blur out.
    What thoughts do you carry now in 1984
    out of all these experiences when you
    remember what you went through?
    Again, I'm sorry to say that people didn't learn anything.
    I'm amazed how hurt, herd-minded reporting is.
    Just want to bring out one thing.
    When the massacre in the Palestinian camps happened,
    the Jews were blamed by the whole world again, being there
    and allowing those things to happen.
    At the same time, all those reporters
    who wrote for years daily about the president of Lebanon--
    what is his name?
    Gemayel?
    Gemayel.
    They were all daily--
    he was in the newspaper.
    Until today, I miss one reporter asking
    the question, what he ever investigated
    who did the killing.
    And no reporter writes about it either.
    So I see just as black today as I see before.
    The people are not properly informed.
    And I said, while we had the intermission
    before, without radio, there never would have been a Hitler.
    Because the mass communication on Dorothy Fuldheim,
    the old-timer from Cleveland, said Hitler was the biggest
    salesman she ever heard.
    Without radio, there wouldn't have been a Hitler.
    The whole antisemitism didn't start and end with Hitler.
    It's as long as history.
    The first one, as far as I know, was a Greek poet, who
    was the first antisemitism--
    wrote about.
    What made you decide to share your experiences with us
    for this archive project?
    The feeling I have, it's, I'm sorry to say, not only feeling.
    Even people who deeply involved and knowledgeable people,
    not people like me, do not know enough, especially
    about the gigantic killings in Latvia
    or in the eastern-occupied territories of the Germans,
    which, of course, in my opinion, has one reason.
    First of all, the Russians are not
    too proud of what happened when they
    were allies of the Germans.
    And the Germans covered their tracks almost immediately
    from the--
    in 1942, they start covering their own tracks.
    So I think it is necessary that people know about it
    and know better about it.
    Tell us, what is an appropriate way
    to commemorate the memory of those
    who survived the Holocaust--
    rather, those who did not survive the Holocaust?
    Preach the ending of prejudice, as simple as that.
    Nobody-- if the Lord forget one thing--
    my famous saying, he forgot to make
    a mirror in front of the human being
    to see themselves for what they are.
    Do you think that survivors have a message
    that others need to understand?
    Absolutely.
    Absolutely.
    Absolutely.
    You-- obviously, things like that never should happen again.
    But if the few survivors don't talk about it,
    it is ancient history.
    And even today, in Germany, it's called
    the Big Lie, despite court hearings and court documents,
    they don't believe it happened.
    Mr. Sauer, we want to thank you again for a very gracious--
    You're welcome.
    --way of spending your time with us.
    I don't know if it's correct to say it was a pleasure.
    It was fascinating.
    Thank you.
    It was an experience.
    Thank you very much--
    Thank you.
    --again.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Werner Sauer, born in 1918 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, describes the Jewish population of Gelsenkirchen; his family considering themselves German and being financially well-to-do; his father’s meat-packing plant; attending a Jewish Volkschule (an elementary school) for four years and then a gymnasium until he was forced to leave in 1933 at age 15; having to relinquish his license in 1938; becoming a bricklayer with the help of his father's friend; the ruin of his father’s business; the gradual changes under the Nazis; Kristallnacht and being arrested; deportations in 1940; being deported with his parents to the ghetto in Riga, Latvia in the winter of 1941 along with 500 Jews from Gelsenkirchen and 500 from Dortmund; conditions in the ghetto; his family being taken to Stutthof concentration camp; going to a section called Lent a where the Nazis had gathered all the artisans and skilled laborers; living and working in the factory, which he was ordered to rebuild with virtually no materials; being transferred with his father to Buchgarten, a section of Stutthof where people were exterminated; escaping with a friend and being caught briefly and passing as marine deserters; escaping the deserters’ camp and hiding on farms; being caught by Russians and having to prove they were German Jews; obtaining identity papers; his parents’ deaths; walking toward Germany; working in a Russian-occupied hospital after the liberation; living in Berlin, Germany until he received his emigration papers in May 1949; flying out of Berlin in an empty cargo plane and then taking a boat to New York, NY; getting a job in Cleveland, OH, where he had an aunt and uncle who sponsored him; working for Carling Brewing Co. for three years; his work installing boilers for the Ira E. Baker Co. until the company liquidated and he retired at age 60; and living with his wife in Middlefield, OH.
    Interviewee
    Werner M. Sauer
    Interviewer
    Sidney Elsner
    Date
    interview:  1984 July 09
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the National Council of Jewish Women Cleveland Section

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    3 videocassettes (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Sauer, Werner, 1918-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The interview was acquired by the United Sates Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 from the National Council of Jewish Women Cleveland Section.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:11:14
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn504987

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    Summary (English)

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    Also in Oral history interviews of the National Council of Jewish Women Cleveland Section Holocaust Archive Project

    The interviews document the experiences of 136 Holocaust survivors, Righteous Gentiles, and former concentration camp liberators from the Cleveland, Ohio, area.

    Date: 1984-1985

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    Oral history interview with Emerson Batdorff

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    Emerson Batdorff describes being drafted into the American Army on May 18, 1942; being classified as “limited service” due to his health problems, but eventually being accepted to Officer Candidate's School; being sent overseas in 1943 as a member of the 103rd Division, 41st Infantry Regiment; being assigned to Casablanca, Morocco, where he became an instructor in a leadership and battle training school; experiencing battle for the first time in 1944 when his unit landed at Naples, Italy; being shot in the leg and spending a short time in a hospital; rejoining his unit in time to enter southern France one hour after the main Allied invasion; his unit going through Alsace and Strasbourg, and then into Germany; not actively participating in battle; being assigned to the 15th Corps' historical section; arriving at Dachau one day after it was liberated and staying for four hours; seeing a transport train filled with dead concentration camp inmates; his current life and retiring from his position as entertainment editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer; living in Cleveland Heights, OH; and his son, stepson, and stepdaughter.

    Oral history interview with Estelle Beder

    Oral history interview with Estelle Beder

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    Estelle Beder, born in Lutsk, Poland (Ukraine), describes her father, who was a tailor, and her mother, who sold hand-made clothes from a covered wagon; her two brothers and one sister; her family struggling financially; the German invasion and the restrictions imposed including curfews and mandatory armbands; the sexual abuse and fear during that time; the creation of a ghetto in 1942 and her family suffering terribly; her father being very ill and still sewing; helping her family by delivering clothes and procuring food; acts of great cruelty to the Jews while in the ghetto; her father being beaten and her brother being killed in public; she and her sister being separated from the family and sent to the Łódź ghetto, where they were treated very poorly; remaining in Łódź until 1944 when they were transported to Auschwitz; the great physical and mental cruelty at Auschwitz; being selected with her sister for death in the gas chambers, but the Germans ran out of their supply of gas; being sent with her sister to work in an ammunition factory for a short period, where they received better treatment; being moved from place to place without reason; passing through Bergen-Belsen and walking on thousands of skeletons, wondering if her family was among them; being selected with her sister to be exchanged for German soldiers in Sweden; enduring a perilous trip to Sweden and being nursed back to some normalcy; her entire family, except her sister, dying during the war; her cousin in the United States arranging for she and her sister to live in New York City; marrying another survivor, Sam Beder; having three sons and moving to Cleveland, OH, where she has enjoyed a peaceful life in a community of other survivors; still suffering from the physical and emotional effects of the Holocaust; and being thankful for her family and her community.

    Oral history interview with Adam Beer

    Oral history interview with Adam Beer

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    Adam Beer, born in Liptovsky Mikulas, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes his conservative Jewish family; his older sister, Gabriela, and his younger brother, Otto; his mother dying when he was very young and his father remarrying within a year of her death; his father owning a business in electrical contracting; the cultural amenities in Liptovsky Mikulas; the active Jewish community; the Slovaks separating from the Czechs in 1938; Tiso coming to power in 1939; finishing school in 1940 and problems for Jews beginning soon after; the restrictions placed on Jews; his grandmother being deported to Poland on April 2, 1942; his father losing his business in 1940 and preparing an emergency bunker in the mountains outside the town; partisans attacking the town and killing several Germans on August 28, 1944; his family and other families escaping to the bunker in the mountains; the Gestapo finding the bunker on December 15, 1944 and destroying it; his younger brother running away; building a second bunker; Russians finding them and taking them back to Liptovsky Mikulas; his family finding his brother hidden with a family; going to Bratislava, Slovakia to begin medical school; communists taking over the country in 1948; deciding to leave rather than finish his studies; going to Cleveland, OH with his fiancée; finishing medical school; opening a medical practice in Cleveland; and his wife and two children.

    Oral history interview with Susan Eisdorfer Beer

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    Susan Beer, born on May 14, 1924 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in Topolčany, Slovakia, describes being an only child of a physician; the family being very comfortable and Orthodox; the good relations between the Jews and the Gentile community; attending a Jewish public school and a gymnasium, hoping eventually to become a doctor; her studies being interrupted when the civil war broke out; Slovakia becoming independent and allied to Germany; the restrictions placed on Jews; her father being forbidden to practice medicine; her father arranging for her to be smuggled into Hungary, where she stayed with relatives; her parents later joining her; her father passing as a Gentile and being caught by the police; her father escaping the police and making plans for the family to Partisan-held Czechoslovakia; the family being arrested and held in a jail for three weeks; being deported to Auschwitz, and classified as political prisoners; her father working in the camp hospital; being sent with her mother to the "model camp," which was organized for the Red Cross inspectors who occasionally toured the camp; the evacuation of Auschwitz and being sent on a death march; being taken with her mother to Ravensbrück, where she worked as a camp translator; Ravensbrück being evacuated and being sent to a camp deeper in Germany, attached to a camp filled with French prisoners-of-war; the German guards running away and the French prisoners cutting the wires enclosing the camp; the prisoners discovered stockpiles of food; going to the nearby town; going with her mother to Bratislava, Slovakia, where a man recognized them in the street and told them that Susan's father was in Budapest; remaining in Budapest for a year; finishing her studies at the gymnasium; returning to Topolcany; beginning medical school in Bratislava; her family being anxious to leave Europe; going to Williamsburg, New York with her fiancé; moving to Cleveland, OH; her husband’s podiatry office; and their two children.

    Oral history interview with Sidonia Benedek

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    Sidonia Benedek, born in 1924 in Caraseu, Rumania in the region of Transylvania, describes her large, religious family; her father’s role as the spiritual leader of the community; her happy childhood, having many friends, and doing well in school; her family supporting themselves through a small family farm and being very well-respected by both Jews and gentiles; first seeing antisemitism when Jews in Bucharest, Romania, were killed in 1937; the lack of physically-threatening antisemitism in Caraseu; her teachers having to fight for her status as class valedictorian; the fear and sadness in the Caraseu Jewish community; Germany's influence in the region growing and the Jews suffering the loss of rights and privileges; her family being split up and deported in 1944; the deportation of her brother and brother-in-law to work camps (her brother-in-law survived and her brother did not); the deportation of others to a ghetto in Szatmar (Satu Mare, Romania); her family being transported after five weeks to Auschwitz; her parents, two sisters, and her sisters’ children being killed immediately; surviving the camps along with her younger sister and younger brother; another brother dying in a forced labor camp in Russia; being sent to work in Stutthof, and then to Prost to build an airport; being evacuated in a two-week march during January 1945; escaping with her sister and being liberated by the Russian Army; returning home and reuniting with her brother; reuniting with a childhood friend, Les Benedek, whom she married in September 1945; her brother-in-law (who survived the forced labor camp) moving to New York; her younger brother, Martin Lax, who left Romania in 1946 and lived in Austria for several years before moving to the United States (Cleveland, Ohio) in 1949; leaving Romania in 1965 with her husband and three children (Aliz Benedek, Michael Benedek, and Vera Benedek); and settling in Cleveland.

    Oral history interview with Alice Ben-Horin

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    Alice Ben-Hurin, born in Hungary (along the Danube between Budapest and Vienna, Austria), describes being the youngest of three children; her father working in the import-export business and her mother assisting him with the bookkeeping; her prosperous family; how education was very important to the family and several cousins stayed with them while attending school in the city; finishing high school in 1939; the German takeover and her father being temporarily arrested; working for the local Jewish committee with her older sister; her brother joining the army and disappearing in 1942; trying to persuade her family to escape from Hungary; being sent to the ghetto with her family the day after her brother returned; being sent to an old army post with Jews from the city and the surrounding countryside; her brother returning to the army and being the only survivor of the massacre of his unit; being deported to Auschwitz; the immediate killing of her family except for herself, her cousin, and her sister; being sent to Dresden, Germany, where she worked in a munitions factory; being evacuated in a march to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by American and British troops along the way; working for the Red Cross for a short time; going to Austria with a friend's brother who worked for the US Army; working as a high school teacher in Philadelphia, PA after coming to the US; living in Cleveland, OH; and her three children and three grandchildren.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Benson

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    Joseph Benson, born in Strasin in the Northern Bohemian section of Czechoslovakia (now in Czech Republic), describes his German mother and Czech father; having a happy life on a farm with his family and receiving a strong Catholic education; acquiring a love for aviation early in life; being a teenager when the Germans occupied the Sudentenland; being loyal to the Czech ideals and people at that time; becoming involved in anti-German activities; joining the underground movement when he turned 18; being smuggled to England to join the Czech Army in exile; eagerly volunteering for intensive combat flight training and mastering all facets in a short time; his plane being shot down over Germany during an early combat mission; being discovered by the Gestapo and imprisoned for interrogation; suffering torture and imprisonment in Nuremberg, Selenstrausse, and Stadelheim prisons; being in isolation for a great deal of the time; refusing to divulge any information; being transferred first to Dachau and then to Buchenwald; performing labor in aircraft component factories; being transferred to Schoenbeck and escaping with a friend to the American lines; his methods for survival; being a strong believer in personal freedoms; and lecturing to youths about the dangers of totalitarian governments.

    Oral history interview with Jack Beigelman

    Oral history interview with Jack Beigelman

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    Jack Biegelman, born in Łódź, Poland in 1930, describes being part of a large family, where music was the major vocational and recreational focus; being a young boy when the Germans invaded Poland; the turmoil and the powerful images of the German military force; life in the ghetto; doing forced labor; being transported with his family to Auschwitz in 1944; the death of his mother and younger brother; his father surviving several months, but dying from illness; enduring the horrors, starvation, and work at Auschwitz; being transferred to Glechamberg camp, where he was liberated by the Russians; returning to Łódź; living with an uncle in Germany; going to the United States and, with the aid of Jewish organization, being placed in the home of a retired school teacher; his studies in music; enlisting in the Air Force during the Korean War; getting married and having three children; his life in Cleveland, OH; and his commitment to Jewish organizations, especially those dealing with education and commemoration of the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Leah Binstock

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    Leah Binstock, born in Jaroslaw, Poland, describes the prevalence of antisemitism before the war; the large and active Jewish community; her parents’ candy factory; her sister; her family being very religious; attending a private Jewish school; belonging to a Zionist organization and hoping to someday go to Palestine; being 14 years old when the Germans invaded; the anti-Jewish measures; all the Jews in Jaroslaw being forced to move to Krakow, Poland; escaping with her sister and going to a work camp for Polish women; assuming the identity of two Ukrainian girls they befriended on a train; living as Christians in Terezin, Poland, where they worked for the telephone company; her sister learning to speak German and getting a better job; being denounced to the Gestapo by their co-workers; being deported to Auschwitz in February 1943; being evacuated on foot with the other prisoners; escaping on the second night with four others; being hidden by a priest for several days until the war officially ended in May 1945; returning to Jaroslaw with her sister; learning that their parents died in the Krakow ghetto; moving to Germany, where they opened a grocery business; meeting her husband through a girl she knew in Auschwitz; registering with a Zionist organization that helped refugees immigrate to the United States; settling in St. Louis, MO; moving to Cleveland, OH after experiencing antisemitism in St. Louis; living in Mayfield Heights, OH; working for her husband's business; and her three children and four grandchildren.

    Oral history interview with Elias Cala

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    Elias Cala, born in Dobrzyn (Golub-Dobrzyń), Poland, describes the Jewish population in the area; being the third of five children in a close, loving family; his father being extremely religious; the lack of anti-Semitism in Dobrzyn prior to 1934; working at a cousin’s shoe store in Łódź, Poland in 1936 when he was 16 years old; his father’s death in 1938; being drafted into the army in 1939; his unit being on the German boarder when Germany invaded; a fierce battle lasting several days; his unit being taken prisoner by the Germans; the Jews being immediately separated from the rest of the unit and pretending he was a gentile with the help of his fellow soldiers; the non-Jewish prisoners being released soon after their capture; staying with his cousin in Łódź; going to Dobrzyn, where the Germans were persecuting Jews; being expelled from Dobrzyn; settling in a town near the Russian border with his aunt and uncle and their children; getting married; being deported to a camp at Dzialdowo, and then sent to a ghetto in Piotrkov; escaping with his wife and going to Warsaw, Poland; going to Nalewaj, where they found his wife's family; working on a road crew, but getting sick and being hospitalized; being badly burned during a fire; his wife giving birth to a daughter; being deported to Auschwitz; being separated from his wife and baby; being sent to an I.G. Farben factory; the bombing of the factory; being evacuated and forced to move from camp to camp; going to Mauthausen and Oranienburg; being left at Flossenbürg; being transferred to a work-camp near Stuttgart, Germany; being evacuated from Stuttgart and traveling again from camp to camp; hiding in a haystack with 21 others; being discovered and many of them being shot; surviving and being taken in by villagers and given food and clothing; being liberated by the Americans on May 1, 1945; remaining in Germany, where he got married again; moving to the US in March 1949; living in Beachwood, Ohio; and his five children.

    Oral history interview with Vincent Cochrane

    Oral history interview with Vincent Cochrane

    Oral History

    Vincent Cochrane, born in 1919 in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, describes enlisting in the US Army in 1937 and serving until 1950; serving in Germany from 1944 to 1945; being a captain and commanding a medium tank company; being present at the liberation of three concentration camps in Ahlen near Hannover, Gardelegen, and Salzwedel; his unit only staying about an hour until back-up units and medical units arrived; how it took a while for the liberators to realize what they were seeing; becoming an operating engineer after his service; being the on the security staff of Cuyahoga County, OH; feeling that his experience in the war may have helped him become more sensitive person; and wanting to be interviewed to help make sure the Holocaust is never forgotten.

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    Oral history interview with W. Louis Cohn

    Oral History

    W. Louis Cohn, born in Berlin, Germany in 1925, describes having a younger sister, born in 1927 as well as an older brother; his father, Waldemar, who was an attorney with the German government; his father working from 1925 to 1931 in the German embassy in Nice, France; his mother, Lottie Epstein, who came from a prosperous family; his family moving to the outskirts of Berlin in 1937; being assimilated into German life and belonging to a Reform congregation; attending elementary school from 1931 to 1935 without problems and attending gymnasium from 1935 to 1938; being kicked out of school in November 1938 and attending an improvised Jewish school; antisemitism increasing; the deportation of men to concentration camps; his brother going to the US; being sent on December 10, 1938 with his 11-year-old sister and his ten-year-old cousin on a train to Holland, where his cousin's grandmother lived; missing the train and being sent to a refugee camp for two to three months, then a children’s home, and then to a camp near Utrecht; his mother finding then in May 1939 and taking them to Brussels, Belgium; attending school in Brussels for a year; being arrested by Belgian police in 1940; being sent to Paris, France then moved from camp to camp; finding his father in Gurs concentration camp; working in the censorship office at Gurs and being able to smuggle news out; getting caught smuggling letters; being deported to Mauthausen and escaping with some other young men in August 1942; going through France to Spain; being sent from Barcelona to Africa for basic training; going to England where he was trained in counter-espionage by the Office of Strategic Services; being assigned him to parachute into France and blow up wheels in a German motor pool; completing his task and searching for his sister and parents; finding his sister in a convent under the false name Elise Carpentier; returning to England and receiving further training from the US Army 82nd Airborne Division; parachuting into France on D-Day and being wounded on the beachhead; staying in a hospital for three days; fighting with the Allies in Northern France, Holland, and accompanying them into Berlin; going to his family's apartment building, which had been bombed and finding his family’s possessions, which were buried in the yard; losing all his family except his sister and his uncle’s family; going to Palestine, where he worked on a kibbutz and helped train the Haganah; having special status because he was a captain in the US Army and becoming a US citizen; going to Cleveland, OH in 1947 and attending college to become an engineer; marrying Lottie Wolff in 1951; believing he survived because he worked hard and took care of himself; receiving help from Quakers in Spain and counseling from Catholic chaplains during the war; and missing out on his youth but feeling that perhaps he learned something from the experience.

    Oral history interview with Peppi Dekker

    Oral history interview with Peppi Dekker

    Oral History

    Peppi Dekker (née Chajes), born in Apeldoorn, Holland, describes having a twin sister; her parents’ successful textile business; attending public school until the war began; Germany invading Holland and being forced one year later to attend the local Jewish school; her family escaping the first roundup of Jews in May 1942; her family being deported the following September; being sent with her sister, mother, and grandfather to Westerbork, where they found her father; her father becoming a "law and order officer" at Westerbork and the family acquiring special status; being sent in 1944 to Bergen-Belsen with a transport of Dutch orphans; staying at Bergen-Belsen for two years; being sick often; her mother’s strength and determination to survive and maintain the family's dignity; her mother’s cleaning job outside the camp; her mother being beaten and sexually assaulted; being evacuated from the camp and sent by train to Elba; being liberated by the Russian Army; her family being given a home which had been occupied by a German officer; moving to the American zone after several incidents with Russian soldiers; returning to Holland; receiving reparations from the Dutch government; her father sending she and her sister in 1957 to the United States, where they stayed with her father's brother and his wife; getting married and moving with her husband to Chicago, New Jersey, and then to Cleveland; living in Strongsville, Ohio; and her two children.

    Oral history interview with Maury Feren

    Oral history interview with Maury Feren

    Oral History

    Maury Feren describes being a member of the 2nd Infantry Division, 5th Division, Medical Detachment from 1943 until 1945; his unit being located near Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in early May 1945 when they suddenly came upon 75 emaciated, dying women between the ages of 20 and 35; how these women had been among a group of 500 who had started on a death march from Auschwitz and most had died along the way; the horror and pain of discovering human beings in such a state of suffering; how the army tried to help these women medically and emotionally in their struggle for recovery; being moved and disturbed by his role as liberator; and feeling heartened by the courage and devotion of those who tried to help the survivors.

    Oral history interview with Simon Fixler

    Oral history interview with Simon Fixler

    Oral History

    Simon Fixler describes being one of 16 children, born to a prosperous family in Kelca, Czechoslovakia; his happy childhood, with religious freedom and no sense of antisemitism; the introduction of antisemitism with the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Hungarians; the anti-Jewish atmosphere escalating; the Jews being forced to perform menial work in labor camps; evading conscription to the labor camps for a year and a half; being discovered by the government and sent to a parachute factory; getting married in 1943 and being able to see his wife after the work days; being sent in November 1944 to a more severe forced labor camp in one of Eichmannfs last transports; enduring terrible working conditions and witnessing mass murders and atrocities at the labor camp; being transferred to the concentration camp at Mauthausen in April 1945; he and his brother supporting each other physically and emotionally throughout this horrible ordeal; being liberated by the Americans in May 1945; wandering through the countryside with his brother; seeking the aid of the Jewish Federation in Prague, Czech Republic; moving to Budapest, Hungary, where they reunited with the six other surviving family members; moving with his wife to Germany, where they remained for three years; being selected for sponsorship to Cleveland, OH by a knitting mill; having several knitting jobs and building his life in the US; becoming interested in Jewish fund raising and Holocaust memorial activities; enjoying the freedoms of the US; believing that it is his duty to share his experiences; and believing the best investment in the future of Judaism is education.

    Oral history interview with Herman Frank

    Oral history interview with Herman Frank

    Oral History

    Herman Frank, born in Łódź, Poland, describes being the only child of a well-to-do family in the textile and fur business; having an active and happy childhood, attending concerts and the theater and vacationing abroad; the antisemitism in Łódź; his father’s death before the war and deciding not to emigrate; the German invasion; his mother’s preparations for the war; being moved to the ghetto; his mother’s death in 1942 when he was 17 years old; attending a textile engineering school in the ghetto; his various jobs in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto and the deportations to Auschwitz; being transferred to Gleiwitz; being evacuated in January 1945; escaping but being captured and sent to Gross-Rosen; being propositioned sexually by the camp commander; being evacuated to Buchenwald; being moved a few weeks later to Berga-an-Elste; being assigned to work in the kitchen because of an injury and getting more food; the evacuation of the camp and escaping with his friends; convincing SS that they were Polish civilians; how after liberation he went to the American zone in Weiden, Germany, and worked for the US Army; marrying another Polish survivor in Germany; the birth of their first son in Germany; his wife’s aunt sponsoring their entry into the US in 1949; the difficultly of adjusting to life in the US; owning his own carpet cleaning business; living in Pepper Pike, Ohio; and his two sons and two grandchildren.

    Oral history interview with Helen Fried

    Oral history interview with Helen Fried

    Oral History

    Helen Fried (born circa 1926) describes being the third of ten children in a large, orthodox family in Hust, Czechoslovakia (Khust, Ukraine); the Jewish community of Hust; her mother supporting the family by running a leather store, while her father was a Torah schlar; her grandparents living in an adjoining house and helping to raise the children; her family having good relations with their gentile neighbors; the start of the war and her family losing their store; the Hungarian invasion of Hust; the store being returned to her family under the Hungarian occupation and living a relatively good life; anti-Jewish measures being imposed when the Germans were in control again; the creation of the ghetto in 1943 and the deportation soon after to Auschwitz; her parents, four brothers, and one of her sisters being killed immediately; remaining in Auschwitz with her four sisters until late 1944 when they were sent to work on a farm; being evacuated and forced to march; escaping with her sisters and taking the identity of Polish maids who had worked for the German army; maintaining their identities until liberation but being separated; going to work in a factory with 60 Russian women; being liberated before the official end of the war by Russian soldiers; reuniting with several cousins and her sister in Dobrzyn, Poland; going to Prague, Czech Republic; living in a displaced persons camp in Leipheim, Germany to wait for a visa to the United States; marrying a man she met in Budapest, Hungary; going to the US in 1949; settling in New York, NY; the Joint Distribution Committee helping them find a place to live and a job for her husband; moving to Cleveland, OH; not telling her son about her Holocaust experiences; her feelings about Judaism; the effects of the Holocaust on her life; and her thoughts on why she survived.

    Oral history interview with Marcel Friedman

    Oral history interview with Marcel Friedman

    Oral History

    Marcel Friedman describes having a comfortable childhood with his family in Presov, Slovakia; his numerous non-Jewish friends; having a religious home life; his educational and recreational interests; being denied admission to the University of Bratislava in 1939 due to a Jewish quota; deciding to go to Palestine, as he had been an active Zionist; beginning his journey to Israel in 1940 and encountering political problems, a shipwreck, and bombings; being interned on the island of Rhodes in a tent camp; being moved to a camp in Southern Italy; being treated fairly well during his internment; being liberated by the British in 1943; joining the Czech Army and being part of the weather department; being transferred back to Czechoslovakia, where he was reunited with his brother and sister in 1945; his parents' fate in the concentration camps; being recruited for Palestine in 1948; joining the Israeli Army and serving in the weather service; determining that life was too difficult in Israel in 1953 and moving to the United States; his American family members sponsoring and financially aiding he and his wife and child; working in a travel agency in the US; joining a synagogue and becoming active in Jewish activities; believing his luck, personality, and religion contributed to his survival; his belief that survivors have a responsibility to make others aware of their experiences; still feeling some bitterness; and his interests in learning more about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Ann Frum

    Oral history interview with Ann Frum

    Oral History

    Ann Frum, born in 1925 in Zdunska Vola, Poland, describes her Orthodox Jewish family; experiencing antisemitism before the war, but enjoying a fairly stable, carefree childhood; the German invasion and fleeing for safety; being forced to live in a ghetto in her small town; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 and being sent to the large ghetto in Łódź, Poland; the terrible living conditions during her transport and her internment in the ghetto; being sent to work in a munitions factory in Czestochowa, where she met the man she later married; being transferred to a concentration camp in Ravensburg, Germany, where she was forced to dig trenches for the burial of other Jews; being sent to Bergau (Burgau) and Turkine (Türkheim), smaller concentration camps, where she again was forced to work amid horrible conditions; being liberated at Allach, near Dachau, by the Americans on May 1, 1945; reuniting with her future husband and getting married in 1946; going to the US in 1951 and settling in New Jersey; moving to Cleveland, OH; having three children, and creating an extended family of close friends in the Cleveland Jewish community; and her belief that it is essential that survivors tell others of their experiences.

    Oral history interview with Jack Gildar

    Oral history interview with Jack Gildar

    Oral History

    Jack Gildar, born in Tarnowa, Poland, describes his the strong Jewish community in his town; his close, loving family; his father’s death; going at the age of nine to attend school in Lomza; becoming an apprentice carpenter; antisemitism in Tarnowa; working in a town near the German border when the war began; returning home and discovering that Tarnowa had been bombed; the Russian occupation; the German occupation beginning in 1941; being sent to a ghetto in 1942 in Lomza; being sent to a camp in Zembrov (Zambrów); being sent with his family to Auschwitz; being separated in Auschwitz and never seeing his family again; being sent to Birkenau, then to another section of Auschwitz, where he worked in an SS hospital; being able to trade for extra food, medicine, and items such as soap and razor blades because of his work; sharing much of his good fortune with others, sending food and medicine to friends and cousins in other parts of the camp; remaining relatively strong and healthy; the evacuation of the camp in January 1945 and being walked for four days to the Czech border, where they boarded trains for transport to Mauthausen; volunteering for a transfer to Ebensee; being liberated by the American Army; spending June through November after liberation in an abandoned lake house in Austria; going to Germany, where he lived on a kibbutz in Landsburg; the closing of the kibbutz in 1949 and discovering relatives in Cleveland, OH; going to Cleveland in June 1949; living in Beachwood, OH and his work as a butcher; his wife Sara, who is also a Holocaust survivor; and their two children, Rochelle and David.

    Oral history interview with Ileen Green

    Oral history interview with Ileen Green

    Oral History

    Ileen Koslov Green (née Chaia Koslovsky), born on September 23, 1926 in Holsczaly, Poland (near Vilnius, Lithuania), describes being the middle child of three daughters in an orthodox Jewish family; her father owning a dry goods store and the family living in 13 rooms located behind the store; living with her parents, sisters, grandmother, aunt, and cousin; her father leaving in 1938 to live with his brother in Cleveland, OH; the family planning to follow her father later but their plans being interrupted by the war; the Russian occupation, during which the family's store was closed; surviving by trading merchandise for food with local farmers; the German occupation in 1941; being sent with her mother and sisters to a ghetto; Gentile friends supplying Jews in the ghetto with food; being sent to a labor camp in Lithuania soon after her sister was sent there; her work building streets; her mother and other sister arriving in the camp a year later; being sent to Dunjeje in Estonia, and then to Kaiserwald in Lithuania in 1943; going to Stutthof and life there; being beaten for stealing food; volunteering for farm work; being sent to Dresden, Germany, where she and her older sister worked in an ammunition factory; the bombing of the factory and being forced to march to Prague, Czech Republic; being liberated by French and Russian soldiers; returning home; going to Fahrenwart displaced persons camp and contacting her father in the US; immigrating to the US in 1948; living in South Euclid, OH; and her son, daughter, and five grandchildren.

    Oral history interview with Phillip Green

    Oral history interview with Phillip Green

    Oral History

    Philip Green describes his Orthodox family; his older sister and younger sister; the vandalizaton and boycotts of his family’s dried-goods store; being 14 years old when his family moved from their small Polish town to Łódź, Poland; the creation of the ghetto in 1939 and moving there soon after with his family; he and his sisters being forced to work in factories; his father dying after being attacked by the Gestapo in his home; surviving in the ghetto with his mother and sisters until 1944; returning home from a food search one day to find a note saying that his family was taken; surrendering himself and being taken to Auschwitz; being transferred to Braunschweig, a truck factory, where he worked under deplorable conditions and near-starvation for over eight months; being moved to the Hermann Goehringwerke airplane factory for a month's work; being transferred to Ravensbrück; being moved around until the Russians liberated Philip and his group of near-dying men on May 5, 1945 near Ludwigslust, Germany; being taken to a hospital for treatment and slowly began to recover their health and their lives; trying to locate his family in Łódź and finding no one; going to Munich, Germany, where he joined a displaced persons camp, and later worked in the office of an American aid organization; meeting his future wife, also a survivor, and going to the United States in 1948; getting married in 1951; working for a plumbing supply company; his daughter and son; and how he is a strong supporter of Israel.

    Oral history interview with Ervin Heksh

    Oral history interview with Ervin Heksh

    Oral History

    Ervin Heksh, born in a village 60 km northwest of Budapest, Hungary, describes how there were few Jewish families in his village; having a happy and active childhood; not being able to attend a university and going to yeshiva instead; entering his father’s grain business; the rise in antisemitism after 1935; his father being forced to take on a partner; the deportation of many Jews and his near deportation because he bought a house that a Hungarian gendarme wanted to buy; being sent to a forced labor camp in Crimea, Ukraine in 1942; witnessing many instances of brutality; being transferred to Belopolye, Ukraine in October 1942; working through a harsh winter, which few of the men survived; the cruel commander; a group of Italian prisoners joining his unit in Belopolye and the kindness they showed to Jewish prisoners; working at a hospital in the Bryansk forest; returning home that summer, where he found his family and his son, who had been born while he was in Russia; working for a while as a traveling salesman; the creation of the ghetto in Budapest, where his parents, wife, and son were confined; working in a mine; he and some friends being arrested and placed in the ghetto when they were caught sneaking in to visit their families; being taken out of the ghetto to work; being arrested and sent to a labor camp, which he escaped; finding his wife and child in a Red Cross community; being deported to Bergen-Belsen; hearing rumors that they would be sent to Switzerland as part of a special exchange; being evacuated to Theresienstadt in April 1945; their train being stopped between stations and the SS guards abandoning them; being liberated the next day; spending time in Hildenheim, Germany; returning to Budapest; learning that his parents died at Auschwitz and his wife died at Bergen-Belsen after liberation; finding his son in Budapest, living with his wife's parents; his son dying from illness when he was two years old; secretly crossing the border into Germany and living in several refugee camps; working for the UNRRA; eventually remarrying; going to the US in 1948; working at a plumbing supply company; his son and daughter; and his reasons for sharing his story.

    Oral history interview with Karel Hoffman

    Oral history interview with Karel Hoffman

    Oral History

    Karel Hoffman describes being 21 years old when he was ordered to report to Terezin, Czechoslovakia to help in the construction of a model prison camp; how Terezin was originally a fortress town from the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the many ironies and falsehoods of this model camp; how the Nazis touted Terezin as having many services, such as a bank, but money was totally worthless within the town; the outward appearance of Terezin versus the actual treatment of inmates within the concentration camp; the poor living conditions; the food rations and overcrowding; the inmates suffering beatings, physical abuse, and intimidation from the Nazis; remaining at Terezin for three years; being one of 5,000 taken to Auschwitz; the horrors of induction at Auschwitz, especially in the later years of the war; being transferred to Gleiwitz, where he participated in the construction of platforms for cannons and machine guns; being liberated at Gleiwitz in 1945; wandering through the woods, witnessing the chaos and confusion; returning to his home to search for family members and being unsuccessful in his search; moving to a displaced persons camp in Germany, where he remained until 1949; being sponsored for immigration to the United States by his aunts in 1949; pursuing furniture and carpentry work in the US; and getting married and having one son.

    Oral history interview with Al Horwitz

    Oral history interview with Al Horwitz

    Oral History

    Al Horwitz, born in Ohio, describes being part of an American Army division that liberated Nordhausen concentration camp; being drafted into the army in 1941; serving as a staff sergeant in the 104th Infantry Division, 387th Field Artillery; being stationed at Camp Adam, Oregon, went on maneuvers in the California and Arizona deserts, and spent time in Washington state; being sent with his unit in June 1944; landing in France and being part of the battle to free the port of Antwerp, Belgium; being active in Holland; moving into Germany through Aachen, as part of the drive to Koln (Cologne); going to Nordhausen, in the Hartz Mountains; how Nordhausen was attached to a German bomb factory, and the inmates were Jews and political prisoners; being there while Generals Eisenhower and Bradley toured the camp; moving on to Leipzig, Germany, where he helped set up the "Lucky Strike" displaced persons (DP) camp; being in Leipzig when the famous conference was held to divide post-war Germany; returning to the US in June 1945 and being discharged from the army shortly after; living in Cleveland, Ohio; working in the life insurance business; and his wife and three children.

    Oral history interview with Rose Ickowicz

    Oral history interview with Rose Ickowicz

    Oral History

    Rose Ickowicz, born in Vicovu de Jos, Romania, describes enjoying a pleasant family and community life as a child before World War II; being the oldest of seven children and raised in an atmosphere of strong devotion to family and pride in country; the invasions of Hungary in 1944 and life changed drastically for her family; being taken to a ghetto for three weeks and then sent to Auschwitz; arriving at Auschwitz near the end of the war; suffering the atrocities of the Nazi regime and also the cruelty and jealousy of other Jews who had been imprisoned much longer; believing she survived because of her strong faith, clear values, and what she calls "miracles"; doing manual labor; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated a year after she entered the camp; trying to immigrate to the United States and going to Canada with her husband; life in Canada; encountering difficulties; moving to the US; building an economic and social foundation; and retaining great pride in America and being grateful for the opportunity to start over in this country.

    Oral history interview with Munci Katz

    Oral history interview with Munci Katz

    Oral History

    Munci Adler Katz, born in Rakov, Czechoslovakia, describes her hometown, which had 60,000 people, was near the Polish border, and was later part of the Soviet Union; the large Jewish community in Rakov; belonging to Mizrahi, a Zionist youth organization; her very orthodox family; her father working in a factory and being financially stable; her mother dying when she was 13 and her father remarrying; her three sisters; attending a Czech public school for eight years; learning the trade of dressmaking; the increase in antisemitism in Rakov after the German invasion; the Jews of Rakov being ghettoized briefly; being were sent to the crowded ghetto in Matejovce (possibly Matejovce nad Hornádom, Slovakia); being deported four weeks later to Auschwitz; the death of her father, stepmother, and two sisters; being selected with her sister to go to a work camp in Geistlingersteiger, Germany; being the camp seamstress and receiving extra food and better treatment; being evacuated to Dachau then Allach; being the seamstress under the same commander from Geistlingersteiger; staying behind at the camp with her sister while most of the women were evacuated to the Tyrol mountains; being liberated on May 9, 1945 by a unit of black American soldiers; finding her father's brothers in Tsiget; being forced to get engaged to her uncle’s friend; returning to Rakov and finding a farmer neighbor living in their house; returning to Tsiget and going to Bucharest, Romania to escape her fiancé; getting engaged to Harry Katz; losing touch with her sister; received permission to emigrate in 1964; going to Cleveland, OH, where Harry had an aunt; working as a dressmaker; and their two children.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Klein

    Oral history interview with Joseph Klein

    Oral History

    Joseph Klein, born in Strabyczowa, Czechoslovakia (a small town in the Carpathian Mountains that was later part of the Soviet Union), describes being part of a large, orthodox family; his three brothers and three sisters; his father working in the lumber, sand, and gravel trade; his youngest sister dying in childhood and his father dying of liver cancer in 1943, one year before the family was sent to Auschwitz; how the Jews of Strabyczowa were among the last to be deported; being sent to the ghetto at Munkacs (Mukacheve, Ukraine); being sent to Auschwitz; the death of his mother and sister; being sent to work camps with his other sister; spending ten days in Buchenwald, then going to a work camp near Leipzig, Germany, where he repaired a bomb-damaged petroleum refinery; being evacuated by train and escaping the train with another prisoner; being recaptured several days later and returned to their unit; being marched back and his friend being shot by their Gestapo guards; being forced to march to Theresienstadt; remaining in Theresienstadt for one month; being liberated by the Russian Army on May 8, 1945; becoming gravely ill with typhus; obtaining a train ticket to Czechoslovakia when he was well enough to travel; returning to Strabyczowa and finding his brothers, uncle, and sister in Chop; crossing the border into Czechoslovakia before it was permanently closed; going to England in May 1946 through an orphan-refugee program; immigrating to the United States three years later; his surviving siblings settling in the US; serving in the American Army for 19 months during the Korean War; working as a printer at the Cleveland Press; travelling to Israel for the country's tenth anniversary and meeting his wife, Bela, there; living in South Euclid, OH and working as a property manager; and his two daughters, Audrey and Mona.

    Oral history interview with Paul Kuper

    Oral history interview with Paul Kuper

    Oral History

    Paul Kuper, born on December 31, 1933 in Brussels, Belgium, describes being the youngest of three children; having a sister who was four years older and a brother who was six years older; his mother, who came from a White Russian family; his Polish father; living in a small apartment with no running water; his father working long hours as a baker; the German invasion in 1940; hiding in a basement with his mother when the Germans bombed the city; the Germans establishing their headquarters in a school on their street; being required to wear the yellow star; Jews being banned from theaters, movies, and hospitals; the deportation of his brother and sister; being taken by his mother to the Tuberculosis Society, where the underground was active; being placed in a sanatorium in a suburb, under a non-Jewish name, and staying there in 1941 and 1942; his parents being sent first to Malines and then to Germany; staying with a non-Jewish family friend, Seline Sinn, in his old neighborhood; attending a Catholic school; living with Seline’s sister in a different neighborhood; being discovered by the Germans in 1943 and sent to a village near Brussels, which was controlled by Jewish youth; being sent to another camp in Aix-la-Chapelle, where he lived in an old castle; the liberation of Belgium and being told by underground members from nearby Peruwelz to run into the woods so the Germans would not use them as hostages; the children being taken to stay with families in Peruwelz; going back to Brussels; attending Catholic school and living with his godparents; immigrating to the United States on his 21st birthday; living with his godmother's cousins and becoming a truck helper for Dean Supply; settling in Cleveland, OH and being in the military; living in South Euclid, OH; and being married with four daughters.

    Oral history interview with Bertha Lautman

    Oral history interview with Bertha Lautman

    Oral History

    Bertha Lautman (née Berkovitch), born in Banska Stiavnica, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes her religious family; her Hasidic father; attending school in Swidnica; being taken by train to Auschwitz on March 23, 1942; her mother taking her out of hiding to send her to Auschwitz instead of her father; her parents, along with her youngest brother, being taken to Majdanek three months after her; the death of her parents and her brother’s survival; being a teenager and put to work digging ditches in Auschwitz; being moved to Birkenau in August 1942; working as part of the Leichencommando, taking care of the dead bodies; being taken from Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen on October 31, 1944; being liberated by American soldiers in April 1945; reuniting with her sister and brother; getting married another survivor; going to the United States in 1949; and visiting the concentration camps she was in three times over the years as well as Majdanek, where her parents were killed.

    Oral history interview with Dina Leiser

    Oral history interview with Dina Leiser

    Oral History

    Dina Leiser, born in Paris, France, describes her parents, who had immigrated to France from Poland to escape antisemitism and worked as tailors; her younger brother; her family not being religious; experiencing antisemitism from her schoolmates; wanting to be identified more as French than as a Jew; staying with her brother for several months on a farm in Souillé as part of a school-sponsored program; the war beginning in 1939 when she was 12 years old; her father enlisting; joining her brother on the farm; her mother obtaining false papers and joining them on the farm; the villagers in Souillé being very protective of them; remaining in Souillé for the duration of the war; finding out her father had been deported and learning only recently that he had been sent to Auschwitz; studying shorthand and typing; experiencing antisemitism at work and going to work for a Jewish firm; immigrating with her brother to the United States in 1947; her mother going to Canada and then the US five years later; teaching herself English by listening to the radio and reading; her brother being drafted into the US Army; getting married to one of her brother’s soldier friends in 1952; her son and grandson; living in University Heights, OH; and working for the Jewish France.

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Malcmacher

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Malcmacher

    Oral History

    Sylvia Malchmacher, born in Vilna, Poland (Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1926, describes the Jewish community in Vilna, including the many synagogues, Hebrew schools and universities, and the many Zionist organizations; her older and younger sisters; her father, who was a printer, and her mother, who kept house; experiencing antisemitism after 1939; living in the Russian zone of Poland; food rationing and being forced to work for the government; the German invasion in 1941; the collaborators in Vilna; the creation of the ghetto; her sister’s work in a fur factory; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943; being ordered to report with all the children under 18 and old people and going with her younger sister; being sent home because she was 18 and her sister never coming home; being deported on May 16, 1944 on trains to a camp in the Kaiserwald, where they remained for three weeks; being sent in August 1944 to Stutthof; remaining in Stutthof for two weeks under horrible conditions; selections for work and being sent to Milldorf, a camp near Mannheim; clearing the debris as tunnels were blasted into a mountain; washing clothes for the German camp staff; being liberated by American troops on May 2, 1945; going to a displaced persons camp; learning that her father, mother and sister had died; attending a training school and marrying Israel Malchmacher in 1946; going to Cleveland, OH in 1949, sponsored by the Jewish Family Service; and her two grown daughters.

    Oral history interview with Marguerite Morris

    Oral history interview with Marguerite Morris

    Oral History

    Marguerite Morris, born in Paris, France, describes her parents, who had emigrated from Poland; enjoying a comfortable childhood; keeping kosher, but not being orthodox; living in a predominantly gentile neighborhood; her father enlisting in the French Army and returning to Paris in October 1940; her father being sent to Beaune-la-Rolande concentration camp in 1941 and never seeing him again; fleeing with her mother to unoccupied France; going first to Limoges then Oradour; living on their savings; returning with a Gentile friend to Paris to retrieve family valuables they had left with a neighbor; staying with 20 other Jewish families in Oradour until liberation in August 1944; going to Limoges and returning to Paris after the war ended officially; her mother receiving government assistance to reopen the family business; attending an accelerated school; being depressed and deciding to move to the United States to live with cousins in Akron, OH; studying accounting and working for Firestone; getting married to an American, who had been stationed at Normandy during the war; her two sons; and becoming certified public accountant.

    Oral history interview with Anna Moses

    Oral history interview with Anna Moses

    Oral History

    Anna Felsn Moses, born in Milicz, Poland, describes her large, traditional, religious family; her family moving in 1933 to Krakow, Poland, where her father was a businessman; acts of antisemitism carried out by the Poles of Krakow before the war; the boycotts of Jewish businesses; the German invasion and life rapidly becoming more difficult for the Jews; "Black Monday," when Torahs were desecrated and synagogues were burned; her family being among the 10,000 Jews enclosed in a ghetto; living in the ghetto from 1940 until the end of 1942, when she became separated from her family and was sent to Płaszów concentration camp; remaining there for nine months; being sent to Skarszysko, where she worked in a munitions factory; being sent to Buchenwald, where she remained for nine months, working at making grenade timers; being marched for three weeks; escaping with eight others and being liberated by the Russian army several days later; returning to Krakow; meeting her husband in 1946; arriving in the United States in 1948; and living in Cleveland, OH, where her husband is a rabbi in Menorah Park.

    Oral history interview with Mimi Ormond

    Oral history interview with Mimi Ormond

    Oral History

    Mimi Ormond describes growing up in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia (Mariánské Lázne, Czech Reublic); the German community in Marienbad; switching from a German school to a Czech school; her family deciding to flee after Kristallnacht; the Jewish population of Marienbad; her brother, who was away at college when her family fled Marienbad; belonging to a Zionist organization; her parents’ lack of interest in Zionism; feeling isolated from other students during the Nazi salute and Catholic prayers; fleeing to an apartment in a small town called Kolín, Czech Republic; the German invasion; her father being a socialist and on a Nazi arrest list; leaving on a children’s transport to Palestine via England; living on a farm in England; being moved with the other children to unoccupied castles in 1940; learning Hebrew and receiving agricultural training; receiving a notice that her parents were going to Palestine; the British authorities declaring Jewish refugees over the age of 17 to be enemy aliens; being left alone in the castle; night bombing near the castle; moving to another castle and joining an Orthodox Mizrahi labor group when she was 15 years old; going to live with an uncle in London; studying early education at a university; meeting her future husband, who was an American soldier; having a temple wedding; visiting her parents in Palestine; living in Ann Arbor, MI then Indianapolis, IN; feeling isolated from other Europeans; moving to Cleveland, OH and meeting survivors from her hometown; having survivors guilt; and her feelings about Israel.

    Oral history interview with Dan Pavlovitch

    Oral history interview with Dan Pavlovitch

    Oral History

    Dan Pavlovitch, born in 1928, describes being the oldest of three children in a fairly unconventional family in Ploesti, Rumania; his parents and their attitude toward Judaism was one of respect for tradition rather than of religious belief; his grandfather, who was a rabbi; living in an enlightened household, which valued music and literature and open discussion with the children; his father working as an engineer for an American oil company and his mother owning a dress shop; the Iron Guard, a fascist organization, becoming powerful in the late 1930s and Jews beginning to suffer; his father being forced to resign from his job and the family being forced to go to Yugoslavia; being sent to Belgrade (Serbia); living safely in Belgrade until the German takeover; his father being sent to a labor camp and never hearing from him again; being put in a camp across the river from Belgrade in December 1941 with his mother and two sisters; conditions in the camp; his mother getting false identities for them and being released from the camp; going to Bulgaria and then Turkey; living as Christians in Turkey from 1943 until 1948; his mother working as a translator for the US consulate in Turkey; working at a YMCA hospital as a translator for the US War Information Office; working for a German film company in Yugoslavia; leaving Turkey and returning to school; attending Roosevelt College in Chicago, IL; his mother and sisters eventually settling in the US; going to the Cleveland area with his wife and two sons in 1963; and living in Cleveland Heights and working as a paint distributor and with wood and stained glass.

    Oral history interview with Hilda Prooth

    Oral history interview with Hilda Prooth

    Oral History

    Hilda Prooth, born in Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) in 1904, describes her father, who was a painter and chose to become a Czech citizen after WWI; having three brothers and two sisters; the fates of her siblings, some of whom died in concentration camps; going to Prague, Czech Republic to earn a living as a governess; teaching German to Czech children; becoming a seamstress after the German occupation; meeting her husband, Mike, in 1939 in the Jewish community and getting married in 1940; coming under the protection of the Swedish government after she was married to Mike, who was Russian; being deported to Theresienstadt in 1943; being considered a Russian internee; being sent to Prague in 1944 then by train through Austria to an internment camp in Vittel, France; being liberated by the French in March 1945; being evacuated with a group of about 100 internees to the French Alps, to a former resort for asthmatic children; returning to Paris, France in August 1946 to get permission to return to Prague to find her husband; being sent to Epernay, France and traveling for three weeks in cattle cars back to Prague; reuniting with husband in Prague; working in an old printing house while her husband taught at the university; crossing into Germany in 1947; her husband working as an interpreter between the Jews and the Americans in Munich, Germany; waiting for passage to the US in displaced person camps in Bremen and Hamburg; going to Cleveland, OH in 1948; life in Cleveland and her husband’s death in 1960; working in the needle trades at Keller-Kohn and being very active in the ILGWU (International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union); and her reasons for volunteering to be interviewed for the Holocaust Archives Project of the Council of Jewish Women.

    Oral history interview with Isidor Reisman

    Oral history interview with Isidor Reisman

    Oral History

    Isidor Reisman, born in 1920 in Bilka, Hungary (Bilky, Zakarpats'ka oblast', Ukraine), describes being the oldest of nine children; his father, who was a monument engraver and a good provider; the active Zionist movement in Bilka; being inducted into the army in 1941; the uniforms having yellow badges to identify the Jews; doing hard labor, building railroads, for two years; receiving word from his parents that they were moved about 37 kilometers from Bilka and visiting them in 1944 in the barracks where they were living; his division being walked in January 1945 toward Germany and told to go to a synagogue which was controlled by the Germans; living in a ghetto and working as an emergency volunteer for several weeks; being freed by the Russian Army; deciding to go to the United States; going to New York, NY, where he worked as a monument engraver for about two years; going to Cleveland, OH in 1952; living in Mayfield Heights, OH; teaching Hebrew at the Bureau of Jewish Education and consulting on religious education; getting married to Ann (née Zaremsky) and having two children; and rebuilding his life after the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Sally Rettman

    Oral history interview with Sally Rettman

    Oral History

    Sally Rettman, born in 1923, describes growing up in Bedzin, Poland; being 16 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939; her father, who was in the textile business and died suddenly in 1942; being sent to the ghetto in 1939; her mother being taken to Auschwitz and killed in 1943; being forced into another ghetto on the outskirts of Bedzin; getting married to Yakov (Jack) Rettman in the ghetto; her aunt being sent to Auschwitz; being moved to the Greenberg labor camp and being assigned to textile factory; her husband being sent to the camp also but not being allowed to see or talk to one another; being evacuated and marched to the Czech border at the end of 1944; their numbers dwindling from 1,500 female prisoners to 120; escaping from the transport with her sisters and two friends; being housed and taken care of by a Mrs. Schmidt living in Langesdorf; being liberated by American soldiers; finding her husband back in Bedzin; living in Hungary for five years then Germany; and going to New York, NY in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Ursula Rosow

    Oral history interview with Ursula Rosow

    Oral History

    Ursula Rosow (née Braatz), born in Berlin, Germany in 1919, describes growing up in a middle-class, gentile family; her parents being active socialists; her father, who was part Hungarian and was a laboratory technician; her mother, who was part Polish; the Nazis coming to power and street fights beginning all over Berlin; the SS shooting at her father in 1934 for making anti-Nazi comments in a local pub; her father’s imprisonment that same year for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda; her family belonging to an organization that helped Jews escape Germany with false identity papers; helping to obtain ration cards for Jews in hiding; hiding a Jewish dancer; leaving the city with her mother when the Allies beginning to bomb Berlin; going to Wurzburg while her mother went to Bad Kissingen; marrying a Jewish American soldier after the war; going to the US in 1948 with her husband; settling in Cleveland Heights, OH; being divorced; and her two children.

    Oral history interview with Leo Rzepka

    Oral history interview with Leo Rzepka

    Oral History

    Leo Rzepka, born in 1913 in Ruckzyn, Poland, describes the Jewish community in his hometown; being one of nine children (five girls and four boys); his father, who was a wagon-wheel maker; working with his father after finishing school at age 13; the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and his family fleeing to Russia, where they lived for several years; attending chauffeur's school, from which he graduated two days before the Germans invaded Russia; life becoming difficult for Jews in Russia; trying with one of his brothers and one sister to return to the home of one of his sisters in Poland; living for many months in the woods and staying with farmers in exchange for work; going to a small concentration camp in Zembrov in late 1942 with his sister, brother, and brother-in-law; remaining there for three weeks until January 1943 when they were deported to Auschwitz; working as a carpenter; spending time in Birkenau; being evacuated in January 1945 to Mauthausen and then to Ebensee, Austria, where he worked in the stone quarries; being liberated by the Americans on May 5, 1945; going to Israel illegally; being intercepted by the British and spending 21 months in Cyprus; being able to go to Israel, where he spent five months in the army; getting married; going to the United State in 1956; living in Cleveland, OH; having a wife, a son, a daughter, and one grandchild; and being retired.

    Oral history interview with Eva Sands

    Oral history interview with Eva Sands

    Oral History

    Eva Sands, born in 1940 in a Jewish ghetto, describes her parents, who came from Piotrkov, Poland; her father, Zev Wolfe, who was in the wood veneer business and was also a Talmudic scholar; her mother, Hannah, who died when Eva was seven months old; her father remarrying shortly after her mother’s death; her aunt Esther obtaining false papers and escaping the ghetto with two-year-old Eva and Eva's cousin, Naomi; Esther finding refuge for Naomi in a convent and leaving Eva on the doorstep of a woman named Maria Zaider; her parents remaining in the ghetto, having another child against ghetto rules, and being shot when this was discovered; living with the Zaiders throughout the war in Pustelnik, Poland (possibly the Pustelnik in Łódź Voivodeship) and not being aware of her Jewish identity; her Aunt Esther passing as a Polish Aryan until the war ended, and then reclaiming Eva from the Zaiders; being hysterical for several days after the separation from Maria Zaider and not wanting to be in the same room with her aunt; living first in a displaced persons camp in Germany, where her aunt was married; settling in Frankfurt, Germany; antisemitism in Frankfurt; attending a Hebrew school in Salzheim, Germany; growing up in Germany; moving to the United States in 1952 and spending a year in New York, NY; attending an Orthodox Jewish boarding school in England at age 14 and attending a finishing school in Switzerland; attending college at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, and meeting her husband, Barry Sands; going to Poland to find Maria Zaider in 1976 and her painful visit with her; living in University Heights, OH; and her two children.

    Oral history interview with George Sapin

    Oral history interview with George Sapin

    Oral History

    George Sapin, born in 1924, describes entering into the army in 1943; being a member of the 67th Signal Battalion, the 82nd Airborne, and the 1286th Engineer Combat Battalion; going to England and arriving before the Battle of the Bulge; antisemitism in the army; his life after the war, becoming an electrical engineer then a technical writer; being originally from New York, NY; moving south with his unit along the Rhine as the war drew to a close; his emotions during the war and not having developed a Jewish identity; being Jewish in the army; not being present at the actual liberation of any camps; having many experiences with German citizens and seeing physical evidence of Nazi atrocities, including pictures of torture and rapes; his experiences having a strong influence on his political and social philosophy; and his attempts to live according to his belief that one should be committed and active.

    Oral history interview with Freda Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Freda Schmelzer

    Oral History

    Freda Schmelzer, born in a small Romanian town in the region of Transylvania, describes her parents, who ran a small general store; being one of seven children; the beautiful Jewish traditions and the peaceful life among the gentiles during her childhood; her home life and learning homemaking by assisting her mother; the arrival of the Hungarians; the restrictions placed on Jews; her family’s last time together at their Passover meal in 1944; the great psychological distress of not knowing what was happening elsewhere or of what was going to become of her family; the Jews of her town being taken to a ghetto in Soluge (possibly Vynohradiv, Ukraine), where they remained for four weeks; being transported to Auschwitz and being separated from her family; the conditions in the camp; being selected to work in a grenade factory, where conditions were slightly better; being marched to an unknown location and detained for four weeks in a horse barn; being liberated by the Russians; and returning home.

    Oral history interview with Max Solomon

    Oral history interview with Max Solomon

    Oral History

    Max Solomon (ne Slomovitz), born in Drahova, Czechoslovakia (Drahovo, Ukraine), a small town in the Carpathian mountains; being the oldest of four boys and having six sisters; his father’s saloon and restaurant; being raised religious and being part of a relatively small Jewish community; being affected by the war in June 1941 when the Germans invaded; Jews being deported from his town and the remaining Jews being forced to work; being taken with his family to Kolomyja, Poland (Ukraine) and then to Horodenka, Ukraine; his family’s attempted escape and the women being successful while the men were captured and killed; escaping the massacre; passing as a Christian and going to Russia, where he lived as an adopted son on a communist co-op; a flood causing a famine in the area; meeting people who were looking for food and reported that many Jews were still living in Drahova; returning home and finding his mother and sisters; being sent to a Hungarian forced labor camp while his mother and sisters were sent to Auschwitz; escaping and joining the Yugoslavian underground; fighting until the war ended; returning home and finding two of his sisters; going to a displaced persons camp in Egenfelder, Germany where he married in 1945; going to the US in 1949 with his wife; living in Beachwood, OH; and being an active member of Green Road Synagogue.

    Oral history interview with Helen Stone

    Oral history interview with Helen Stone

    Oral History

    Helen Stone (née Kahan), born in Napszolok, Czechoslovakia, describes her life in Cleveland, OH with her husband and her son, daughter, and grandchild; growing up in Nagydobryn, near the large city of Ungvar (Uzhhorod, Ukraine); the Jewish population in Nagydobryn; being very close to her mother, but having a bad relationship with her stepfather; her five brothers and sisters; her stepfather sending her to an orphanage, but returning home at her mother’s request; antisemitism increasing in 1939; getting typhoid; being deported with all the Jews in her town shortly after Passover in 1944; being sent to Auschwitz and separated from her mother; conditions in the camp; witnessing medical experimentation on the inmates; being sent to work in a factory in either Altenburg or Waldenburg (Mrs. Stone is not certain); being forced to march with her fellow prisoners for many days; being liberated by American soldiers, but having to go to a Russian refugee camp since she was a resident of the Russian-occupied zone; returning to Nagydobryn; escaping with a friend over the border and getting married to him shortly after; going to the United States in 1948; her husband working in a meat market in Cleveland, OH; and feeling proud to be Jewish.

    Oral history interview with Inge Weiss

    Oral history interview with Inge Weiss

    Oral History

    Inge Weiss, born in 1923 in Hannover, Germany, describes her father, who was born in Warta, Poland and became a men's clothing manufacturer in Germany; her mother, who was born in Germany but lost her citizenship when she married; her younger sister; her family being active in the Jewish community and keeping kosher; attending public school and having a Jewish education; attending business school for a short time; her family’s plan to immigrate to the United States; antisemitism increasing as the Nazis rose to power; being ostracized in school; the vandalism of her father’s store; her family being deported to Poland in October 1938; staying in crowded stables in Spoczynek; living with relatives in Kalisz, Poland; not being able to speak Polish nor Yiddish; the war starting and her family being deported to Krakow where they lived under very poor conditions until 1941; escaping to Warta; the atrocities in Warta; the gathering of the Jews in the town square and being separated from her family; being sent with her father to the ghetto in Łódź, Poland, where they stayed from 1942 to 1944; being deported to Auschwitz and sent to Bergen-Belsen in September 1944; her job distributing bread, which she got because she spoke German; getting typhoid; being liberated by the British and living in the German officers' quarters until she recovered; returning to Hannover in 1946 and working for the Jewish community; getting married in 1947; getting half of her father’s business and running a notions business there; going to the US in September 1949; her son’s birth in 1948; going to Cleveland, OH; and receiving help from the Ratner family.

    Oral history interview with Jack Wieder

    Oral history interview with Jack Wieder

    Oral History

    Jack Wieder, born in Bozkov, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes being the fourth of 11 children in a happy, religious family; his father, who was a wood processor; the existence of some antisemitism but his family being treated well because of his father’s good reputation; the Ukrainians taking over in 1939; the situation improving temporarily when the Hungarians came to power in 1941; the deportation of some Jews; the Nazis arriving in Bozkov in 1943; his sisters fleeing to Budapest, Hungary and Belgium; his father and older brother being sent to a work brigade; his father returning in 1944; being deported with his remaining family to a ghetto in Matejovice (possibly Matejovce nad Hornádom, Slovakia), where they stayed from five weeks; being taken to Auschwitz and the death of his mother and six younger siblings; being sent with his father to Warsaw, Poland to work at clearing the remains of the Warsaw ghetto; being sent to Dachau to work the camps in Kaufering and Landshut; being sent back to Dachau; his father dying at Dachau four days before liberation; being evacuated from Dachau to Garmisch-Partenkirchen; being liberated by American soldiers; returning to Bozkov and discovering that his brother, Hermann, and sisters, Julia and Toni, had also survived the war; being inducted into the Russian army; serving in the army for one year and escaping to Hungary; working for a refugee assistance organization and meeting his future wife, Eva; going to Vienna, Austria; immigrating to the United States; and living in Cleveland, OH, as do Toni, Julia and Hermann.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Akst

    Oral history interview with Abraham Akst

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Roni Berenson

    Oral history interview with Roni Berenson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Berger

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Berger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Bergrin

    Oral history interview with Leon Bergrin

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Betty Berliner

    Oral history interview with Betty Berliner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Billys, Sophie Billys, and Millie Korman

    Oral history interview with Henry Billys, Sophie Billys, and Millie Korman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mayer Bitterman

    Oral history interview with Mayer Bitterman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Cik

    Oral history interview with Helen Cik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ann Cyncynatus

    Oral history interview with Ann Cyncynatus

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paul Cyncynatus

    Oral history interview with Paul Cyncynatus

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Madeline Dautartus

    Oral history interview with Madeline Dautartus

    Oral History

    Madeline Dautartus, born in Strasbourg, France, discusses her parents, two sisters, and one brother; being raised Catholic; attending a Catholic high school; the evacuation of the entire town to Perigueux in Dordogne 1939; her father and brother being drafted into the army; the German occupation; her family’s return to Strasbourg; the Aryanization of Alsace-Lorraine; the burning of books; participating in the resistance; refusing a job in Germany; working at the social security office and being given a pass to enter the POW camp; bring food, clothes, and information to the prisoners; her desire to join the French army in Africa; being caught in 1942 while attempting to escape from Strasbourg with two young men; swallowing the message she was carrying; being detained in prisons for a month; being interrogated; being taken by train to Schirmeck camp (near Struthof extermination camp); her work in the laundry and cutting trees; a rosary that was shared amongst inmates; contracting diphtheria and pneumonia; the doctor who visited the isolation unit regularly to see who should be sent for extermination; being released after a year; being required to sign a statement saying she would never reveal anything about the camp; returning to Strasbourg and her job; being warned that she was being watched; being arrested twice more and questioned about her resistance activities; being prepared to commit suicide when she arrested two months before liberation; the Gestapo building being burned by US bombers; her family hiding two wounded US soldiers and two Arab soldiers from the French army in their basement until liberation; her brother’s experiences during the war; the liberation of Strasbourg in November 1944; serving as civilian in the Bureau Militaire; enlisting in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in France; being posted in Stuttgart, Germany and then Freiburg, Germany for five years; her encounter with a former SS guard; preparing the papers for a Lithuanian scout, who later became her husband; serving as a secretary to General Jean de Lattre; and working as a civilian in the military until 1950 when she immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Eugene Davidovits

    Oral history interview with Eugene Davidovits

    Oral History

    Eugene Davidovits, born in 1930 in Satu Mare (Satmar), Romania, discusses being raised in an Orthodox family consisting of his parents, five brothers, and one sister; working at forced labor two days a week after the Hungarians occupied the county; being beaten by a teacher and others as antisemitism rose; Rabbi Teitlebaum influencing Jews against going to Israel; living in the closed ghetto for before being taken by cattle car to Auschwitz; going through selection; being separated from his father and his two older brothers; being taken to Krakow-Płaszów where he worked for four months; the Germans killing the leaders of a resistance attempt; being transferred to Gross-Rosen death camp where he witnessed a rabbi being beaten to death; being taken to a subcamp in Gorlitz where he did chores for the doctor who treated him decently, gave him food, and later arranged for him to work in the kitchen; getting caught giving food to other prisoner; being sent to work in the tank factory that was run by German civilians; being treated relatively well by civilians within the factory until a Gross-Rosen inspector enforced limitations on food; being sent to make bunkers for German soldiers in March 1945 as the Russians approached; witnessing weaker workers being shot and sometimes buried while still alive; returning to Gorlitz in May 1945; leaving camp with a friend when the guards were away; being given food and civilian clothes by a policeman; staying in a well-supplied former Gestapo building; returning to Satmar in hopes of finding his family; realizing that he was the only member of his family who survived; living in a Jewish hospital for one month; living with the son of the Cantor until he was placed in a Joint-supported orphanage where he stayed from 1945-1947; getting married; and moving to Cleveland, OH at age 36.

    Oral history interview with Karola Dorfberger

    Oral history interview with Karola Dorfberger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Dub

    Oral history interview with Helen Dub

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Louis Dub

    Oral history interview with Louis Dub

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Faigenbaum

    Oral history interview with Leon Faigenbaum

    Oral History

    Leon Faigenbaum, born in Gniewoszow, Poland in 1917 describes his life before the war; being taken to a labor camp near Radom; his father being buried alive when he was too ill to work; running away to rejoin his family in the Gniewoszow ghetto; being forced out of the ghetto in early 1942 and going to Zwoleń; being sent to labor camps in Deblin and Stawisk; getting caught while attempting to run away; being taken to Budzyn labor camp, run by SS Feix and a Jewish leader, Stockman; being saved by Stockman when Feix was about to kill him; being sent to Majdanek; being saved in December 1943 by the person overseeing the shoe makers when other Jews were gunned down at the edge of an open grave; being taken to Płaszów concentration camp, led by Göth; receiving daily beatings by non-Jewish Kapos; being sent towards Auschwitz in August 1944 but the train was sent onward to Mauthausen, a journey of eight days without food; surviving another selection and being put to work mining stones; volunteering to work as a toolmaker in St. Valentin, Austria, where an Austrian manager saved him by teaching him the skills he lacked; being moved to Ebensee in 1945 after US bombers destroyed the factory; being beaten so badly he could no longer work and then placed in a barrack with men waiting to die; witnessing cannibalism; being rescued by US forces in May 1945; spending six months in a nearby hospital; living in a displaced persons camp before returning to his hometown to search for relatives; fleeing to Łódź, Poland after being warned by an old friend that Poles would kill any Jews who remained; returning to Austria where he stayed at a DP camp in Linz, Austria; marrying his wife, a woman he knew from before the war; going to Palestine in 1947 with the help of the Haganah; serving in the Israeli Army and then working as a shoemaker; and immigrating to the US in 1959 so that his wife could be reunited with a brother and sister living in Cleveland, OH.

    Oral history interview with Helen Feig

    Oral history interview with Helen Feig

    Oral History

    Helen Feig, born in 1925 in Craciunesti, Romania, describes being the only child of Orthodox parents; the roundup of 500 Jews in 1941 who were taken to Galicia and killed; Hungarian soldiers chasing Jews out of synagogue on Rosh Hashanah; never seeing her father again after he was taken to the Kasho ghetto while he was out of town on business; being sent to the ghetto in Selo Slatina (Solotvyno, Ukraine) along with her mother and other women and children; being taken by cattle car to Auschwitz in 1944; being separated from her mother; running away from Block C-8 to be with her cousins; being transferred to Lübberstedt labor camp, near Bremenhof, Germany; being required to sew a different color sleeve on the left side of her dress; building bunkers to stay safe from bombing that was occurring at Bremenhof; being transported from place to place by train as the Germans were facing defeat; just missing a boat going to Mare Baltica and then being forced to walk until Ukrainians and Russians told them the war was over; being liberated by English soldiers who housed them in a summer resort near Neustadt; returning to her hometown where she stayed with family in a nearby town; neighbors who refused to return her family’s home or belongings; going to Frankfurt, Germany; getting married in 1948 and immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1949; living in Cleveland, OH until her husband became ill; living in Allentown, PA for two years while her husband was in a sanitarium in Colorado; and returning to build a life in Cleveland.

    Oral history interview with Lilly Feig and Helen Kormis

    Oral history interview with Lilly Feig and Helen Kormis

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Esther Friedman

    Oral history interview with Esther Friedman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nina Frankel

    Oral history interview with Nina Frankel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Art Gelbart

    Oral history interview with Art Gelbart

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Gelbart

    Oral history interview with Rose Gelbart

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Erika Gold

    Oral history interview with Erika Gold

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Wiera Goldman

    Oral history interview with Wiera Goldman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elaine Grunwald

    Oral history interview with Elaine Grunwald

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Maurice Grunwald

    Oral history interview with Maurice Grunwald

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Zev Harel

    Oral history interview with Zev Harel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jacob Hennenberg

    Oral history interview with Jacob Hennenberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Larry Hersh

    Oral history interview with Larry Hersh

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Kaplovitz

    Oral history interview with Rose Kaplovitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sara Kay

    Oral history interview with Sara Kay

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Phillip Wexberg

    Oral history interview with Phillip Wexberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack York

    Oral history interview with Jack York

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Lavon

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Lavon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ezra Lazar

    Oral history interview with Ezra Lazar

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Olga Lebovitz

    Oral history interview with Olga Lebovitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bella Lebowicz

    Oral history interview with Bella Lebowicz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lerer

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lerer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ruth Lidawer

    Oral history interview with Ruth Lidawer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Danny Lieberman

    Oral history interview with Danny Lieberman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Luedecke

    Oral history interview with Eva Luedecke

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rosette Lurie

    Oral history interview with Rosette Lurie

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Harold Mailman

    Oral history interview with Harold Mailman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ita Majzner

    Oral history interview with Ita Majzner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Isador Malcmacher

    Oral history interview with Isador Malcmacher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sandra Mandel

    Oral history interview with Sandra Mandel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William McKee

    Oral history interview with William McKee

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tibor Messinger

    Oral history interview with Tibor Messinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Miller

    Oral history interview with Henry Miller

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack Mintz

    Oral history interview with Jack Mintz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mark Moss

    Oral history interview with Mark Moss

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Louis Muller

    Oral history interview with Louis Muller

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ben Nebel

    Oral history interview with Ben Nebel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mark Newman

    Oral history interview with Mark Newman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marvin Newman

    Oral history interview with Marvin Newman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Esther Pinkas

    Oral history interview with Esther Pinkas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sally Pitluk

    Oral history interview with Sally Pitluk

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mike Prayzer

    Oral history interview with Mike Prayzer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alex Rabiner

    Oral history interview with Alex Rabiner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Reis

    Oral history interview with Eva Reis

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leslie Robicsek

    Oral history interview with Leslie Robicsek

    Oral History

    Leslie Robicsek, born in 1924 in Oradea, Romania, describes being the son of a kosher butcher; singing in the synagogue with a famous cantor; the destruction of a synagogue in 1933 during an Iron Guard riot; becoming an apprentice in in a plastics factory owned by Glick in 1937; the repressive measures against Jews being put in place after the Hungarians entered in 1940-1941; his brother and other Jews being removed from the army and sent as forced labor to Nagybánya (now Baia Mare, Romania); being sent to the ghetto in May 1944; being taken daily to a cadet training camp to do maintenance work; his father’s non-Jewish friend sending word to him that he’d help the family get out of the ghetto, but his father refusing; being transported to Birkenau where they went through selection; claiming he was a tool and die maker when volunteers were sought; his father being taken to work in the stone quarries at Melk where he died; being moved to Auschwitz where he was sent each day to work at Union Machine Works, an ammunition plant; watching famous actors and musicians perform at night; witnessing hangings after Sonderkommandos blew up a crematorium; beginning a death march on January 18, 1945; arriving at Gross-Rosen where he was selected to work as a Sonderkommando for three weeks; moving on to Flossenberg at the end of February and then to Pocking where he was put to work constructing an airport; being liberated by American troops on May 6, 1945; his wife who had also survived Auschwitz; his reluctance to dicuss the camps; and his thoughts on his Jewish identity and faith.

    Oral history interview with Celia Rosenfeld

    Oral history interview with Celia Rosenfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Celia Roth

    Oral history interview with Celia Roth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Roth

    Oral history interview with David Roth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rena Rubinow

    Oral history interview with Rena Rubinow

    Oral History

    Rena Rubinow, born in Kraków, Poland, describes being the oldest of three sisters; her mother dying when she was a child; one sister moving to Palestine in 1937; being a married mother of a two year old child when the war began in 1939; being forced into an open ghetto; fleeing to a small town 20 miles from Kraków in 1940 when the ghetto was closed; running away from the town and being hidden by a peasant in October 1942 when they were warned that Jews in the area were being killed; walking back to the ghetto in Kraków three weeks later as they believed it offered their best chance for survival; working in Madritch’s uniform factory outside of the ghetto and sewing bras in her spare time which she sold to female guards; arranging for her former maid to hide her young daughter; being taken to Płaszów concentration camp on March 13, 1943, her maid and child also being sent to the camp where her daughter was killed; being transported via cattle care to Birkenau with her sister, Rose, in 1944; her husband being transported to Mauthausen where he was killed; being sent to Lichtenburg at the end of the year; remaining there for five months before being liberated by Russians on May 5, 1945; receiving no assistance and walking to Kraków where they learned that none of their other relatives survived; supporting herself by sewing; remarrying in 1946 to a man who had served in the underground; moving to Sweden, then Montreal and finally to Canton, Ohio, where husband had two brothers; struggling financially and eventually moving in 1958 to Cleveland, where she had a grocery store; supporting herself and three children after her husband killed himself; remarrying and putting her two sons through college; and her daughter dying while she was a student at Boston College.

    Oral history interview with Freda Salick

    Oral history interview with Freda Salick

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Schneider

    Oral history interview with David Schneider

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Seas

    Oral history interview with William Seas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Edith Simon

    Oral history interview with Edith Simon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Julia Simon

    Oral history interview with Julia Simon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alfred Spitz

    Oral history interview with Alfred Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jetse Sprey

    Oral history interview with Jetse Sprey

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Milton Steinbock

    Oral history interview with Milton Steinbock

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eric Stern

    Oral history interview with Eric Stern

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Andrew Sternberg

    Oral history interview with Andrew Sternberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Teitelbaum

    Oral history interview with Sam Teitelbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hannah Rath Trabitz

    Oral history interview with Hannah Rath Trabitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Freda Traub

    Oral history interview with Freda Traub

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Harry Unger

    Oral history interview with Harry Unger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marcel Weintraub

    Oral history interview with Marcel Weintraub

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Malke Weiss

    Oral history interview with Malke Weiss

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Miriam Wexberg

    Oral history interview with Miriam Wexberg

    Oral History

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