Oral history interview with Adela Sommer

Oral history interview with Martin Radley

Oral History

Martin Radley, born in 1924 in Beuthen, Germany (Bytom, Poland), describes his childhood; encountering antisemitism in 1933; attending Hebrew day school; his experiences during Kristallnacht; traveling to England as part of the Kindertransport; his host family in London's West End; the death of his parents and extended family in Beuthen at the hands of the Germans; his induction into the British Army in 1943; changing his name on the advice of his superior officer; his service as a translator; his contact with survivors from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; hearing about the death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen; assisting a rabbi chaplain at Jewish funerals; his experience watching survivors beat a Kapo; the assistance of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid and Sheltering Society to survivors of Bergen-Belsen; getting married to a Czech survivor and adopting her son; their two sons born after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1951; his wife's death in 1961; his conversations about the Holocaust with his children; and his feelings toward Jewish policemen and Kapos. Also contains photographs of Martin Radley in 1939 and 1993.

Oral history interview with Miriam Spiegel

Oral History

Miriam Spiegel discusses her birth on May 8, 1931, and early life in Janów Lubelski, Poland; the bombing of her home; being identified by a Polish boy as a Jew; being attacked and having her teeth punched out by German soldiers; her father's moving of the family into the forest; the killing of two cousins during a trip into a village for food; her memories of the conditions in her family's forest hut; a fire that burned the hut and killed her grandmother and aunt; their leaving the forest near the village of Bulka Rateuska; their travel to a forest near Sułowiec, Poland; their meeting with partisans in the forest and the attacks on Jews by partisans in the forest; the death of her mother and the separation of the family as a result of a shooting attack on the forest and a wound she received as a result of this attack; an attack she suffered at the hands of young Polish men while she hid in a barn; her begging for food at the home of a Polish family and the kindness of the family in feeding her and hiding her in a barn for five years; the liberation of Sułowiec, Poland, by the Russians, ca. 1944; her baptism and agreement to be adopted by the family that hid her; her reunion with her family; her stay in Kránik, Poland; her move to a children's home near Lublin, Poland; her sister's move to Bergen-Belsen, Germany; her family's move to Bergen-Belsen to join her sister there; her move to a children's home in Hamburg, Germany; her immigration to Palestine in 1947; her marriage in Israel in 1950; the birth of her children; her immigration to the United States in 1959; and the effect of the Holocaust on her faith

Oral history interview with Margit Feldman

Oral History

Margit Feldman describes her childhood in Tolcsva, Hungary, near the Czech border; recollections of antisemitism in Tolcsva; memories of the Jewish men of Tolcsva being taken for forced labor in 1943; her internment in a ghetto; her memories of transports of many Jews from the ghetto to a forced labor camp; her transport to Auschwitz; her memories of Joseph Mengele; the gassing of her relatives shortly after arriving in Auschwitz; her work in a quarry in Kraków, Poland; her memories of girls being conscripted for prostitution by the Germans in Auschwitz; her time in Grünberg where she met Gerda Weissmann Klein; her participation in a death march leaving Grünberg; her time in Bergen-Belsen; her liberation by British troops at Bergen-Belsen; her move to Sweden after World War II; and her life after immigration to the United States in 1947. Also contains a photograph of Margit Feldman at age 8 and two photographs of her in 1992.

Oral history interview with Pepa Gold

Oral History

Pepa Gold, born in 1924, discusses her childhood in Buczacz, Poland (Buchach, Ukraine); recollections of occupation by the Russians in 1939 and occupation by the Germans from June 1941 until March 1944; memories of life under Russian occupation; her memories of living under German occupation; her memory of a two-day "Aktion" in February 1942 after which 1,000 people were taken away and typhus was introduced; her time hiding in several Polish homes; her escape from detection by Germans by hiding in abandoned Jewish home in February 1944; her liberation by Russian soldiers on March 24,1944; her return to Buczacz after liberation; her move to the Russian side of the front; her move to the Russian-Polish border where she lived for three months; her return to Buczacz in July 1944; her move to Kraków, Poland, in July 1945; her time in Breslau, Germany (Wrocław, Poland), with two of her brothers from July 1945 until May 1946; her recollection of the confiscation of her father's candy factory by Germans to sew soldiers' caps; her time in Berlin, Germany, from 1946 to 1948; her memories of support by United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; her life in Munich, Germany from 1948 to 1951; her move to the United States in 1951; and her life in the US after 1951.

Oral history interview with Ernest Gottdiener

Oral History

Ernest Gottdiener, born October 13, 1920 in Hajdúnánás, Hungary, discusses his life in Debretzen (Debrecen), Hungary and Hajdúnánás; his recollections of his father's death from cancer in 1935; his memories of secular and religious elementary education; his Yeshiva education; his business education and business career; his memory of the outbreak of war in 1939; his brother's army service and death from typhus; his brother's experience as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union from 1944 until 1947; his relatives hiding in a monastery as well as Hungarian homes with Wallenberg and their Gentile papers; hiding in Wallenberg's "Swedish House;" his brother's move to Palestine in 1939; his many relatives who were murdered in Auschwitz; forced labor units; the change in Jewish lives after March 19, 1944 when Germany became dominant in Hungarian affairs; his several escapes from Nazi capture; his "Swedish papers;" his memory of ghettos in Budapest after liberation; his life in Debretzen and Hajdúnánás from March 1945 to 1948; his marriage to Judith Gottdiener in Budapest, Hungary, in 1948; his memory of communist domination of Hungary; his move to Vienna, Austria, in 1948; his immigration to the United States in 1959; and his life in Elizabeth, NJ, after 1961.

Oral history interview with Judit Gottdiener

Oral History

Judit Gottdiener, born in 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her early childhood in Budapest; her recollections of enjoyable family life and religious experience; the Royal Air Force bombing Budapest; her father's tobacco accessories store; her memories of wearing a yellow star; her family's attempt to escape to Palestine; her transport to Bergen-Belsen; participating in the daily counting; her memories of Yom Kippur in Bergen-Belsen; her transport to a Red Cross Camp in Switzerland; her memories of her grandparents' deaths in the Budapest ghetto; her marriage to Ernest in 1948; her move back to Vienna, Austria, from the United States in 1958; and her permanent move to the United States in 1961.

Oral history interview with Arie Halpern

Oral History

Arie Halpern, born in 1918, discusses his life in Chorostkow (Khorostkiv, Ukraine); recollections of Polish occupation of the area in 1920; Hasidism and Zionism in Chorostkow; his public school education and "cheder" education; his career as a bookkeeper; his eldest’s brother's move to Lemberg, Galicia (Lʹviv, Ukraine) in 1934 to work in a Zionist organization; his conscription by the Soviets in 1941 into an army construction battalion; his memory of the Russian-German war beginning on June 22, 1941; the German occupation of Chorostkow in October 1941; the Judenrat in Chorostkow and in Terebovlya (Terebovlia), Ukraine; hiding in Poland and in Ukraine; performing manual labor for the German labor force; his memory of "Chol Hamoed Succot" in October 1942; his proposition to the parents of Mary Schwartz, a local survivor, to build a secret tunnel together; his memory of an "Aktion Night" in Chorostkow; his escape to Terebovlya in November 1942; his memories of the Terebovlya ghetto; the murder of his family by Germans in April 1943; his time spent in a labor camp outside of Terebovlya in April 1943; his time in hiding with his brother Sam in the barn of a Polish-Ukrainian farmer from July 8, 1943 until March 22, 1944; and returning to Chorostkow after he came out of hiding.

Oral history interview with Gladys Halpern

Oral History

Gladys Halpern discusses her childhood and family in Zólkiew, Poland (ZHovkva, Ukraine) and those family members who survived; the Russian occupation between 1939 and 1941; her memories of pogroms, murders, and selections when the Germans arrived in June 1941; the Jews being moved to Belzec, Poland, and their murders; the murder of her father and the remaining Jewish population of Zólkiew in March 1943; the Jews buried in three mass graves outside of L'vov, Poland (now L'viv, Ukraine); hiding for 18 months in L'vov; meeting her future husband in Poland; living in Bayreuth, Germany, between 1946 and 1949 with her husband; going to New York, NY in 1950; and establishing contact with the daughter of the Halitskys, a Polish couple who hid her family during World War II.

Oral history interview with Samuel Halpern

Oral History

Samuel Halpern discusses his childhood in Chorostkow (Khorostkiv, Ukraine), near the Polish border; his memories of a diverse population of Jews, Polish, and Ukrainians; his interactions with Gentiles at school and in business; his memory of the Nazis killing one of his brothers; his survival with his brother, Arie; his memories of a second brother's death before World War II; the liquidation of the family's business; his father working for the occupying Russian government; his memories of Jewish reactions to Adolf Hitler's propaganda; the ghetto in Kam'iane Pole (Kamenka), Ukraine; the liquidation of the Khorostkiv ghetto in October 1942; his father's deportation to the Belzec concentration camp; the transport of his mother and brother to the ghetto in Terebovlia, Ukraine; his mother's death in the Terebovlya aktion of March 1943; joining with his brother, Arie, in Kam'iane Pole; his escape from Kam'iane Pole; his time in Ivanovka, Ukraine; his time in hiding on the farm of a Polish family; his memories of Russian liberation in March 1944; his move to the United States in 1949; his feelings of obligation to tell the story of the Holocaust for those who died; and his feelings of bitterness at the failure of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin to address the plight of the Jews during World War II.

Oral history interview with Luna Kaufman

Oral History

Luna Kaufman, born in Kraków, Poland in 1926, discusses her childhood and pre-war life in Kraków; her pre-war Catholic school education; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; the Germans' use of psychological tactics and violence to undermine Kraków’s Jewish community; the gradual degradation of the Jewish community in Kraków; the German brutality toward Orthodox Jews; her move to Bramovitz for one year; her life with her family in the Kraków ghetto from approximately 1941 until 1943; the Jewish efforts to resume cultural life and maintain intellectual stimulation in the cramped and uncomfortable conditions of the ghetto; her work in a nearby brush factory; her reflections on the Judenrat in the Kraków ghetto; the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto; her march to and life in Płaszów concentration camp; acts of resistance in the camp; efforts to maintain culture amidst the camp's unsanitary and inhumane conditions; her reactions to the Red Cross's visit to and inspection of Płaszów; her escape from Płaszów at the end of World War II; her shipment to Leipzig, Germany, to the Hasag ammunition factory in the spring of 1945; her sister's time in Auschwitz concentration camp; her sister's transport to Stutthof concentration camp and subsequent drowning on a ship in the last days of war; her father's extermination in Auschwitz in May 1944; her evacuation from Hasag and the death march that followed; her memories of Russian soldiers raping and killing women; her return to Kraków with her mother and a friend; her life in Kraków from 1945 to 1950; her move to Israel in 1950; her life in the United States after 1952; and her current activism through lecturing about the Holocaust to school children and her efforts in a national project to pay tribute to liberators. The recording also includes one photograph of Luna Kaufman in 1938 and one of her in 1993.

Oral history interview with David Kempinski

Oral History

David Kempinski, born on July 21, 1921 in Praszka, Poland, describes his youth in Wieluń, Poland from 1927 until 1939; hiding during the bombing of Wieluń on September 1, 1939; a roundup of Jews in Wieluń on August 9, 1941; his transport to Poznań, Poland; his time in a "Reichsautobahn" labor camp; his transport to Regensburg concentration camp; his life in Kreising (Krzesinki), Poland; his time working in a lumber mill in Rzepin, Poland; his transport to Britz; his transport to in Birkenau concentration camp; his transport to and work at I.G. Farben from September 1944 until January 1945; selections in the camp; his time spent in Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, and Flossenbürg concentration camps in Germany; liberation from Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945; his time in Feldafing and Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camps in Germany from 1945 until 1949; his move to Switzerland; his life in Israel from 1949 until 1957; and his life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Eva Kempinski

Oral History

Eva Kempinski, born in 1925, discusses her childhood in a Polish shtetl; her family; the bombing at the beginning of World War II in her town on September 1, 1939; her public school education; her move to Warsaw, Poland from Łódź, Poland in December 1939; life in Warsaw; her father's transport to Treblinka concentration camp; her move to Majdanek concentration camp with her mother in 1943; her mother's extermination in Majdanek; being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp and her life in the camp; working in a munitions factory in Czechoslovakia from December 1944 until her liberation by Russians on May 8, 1945; her emotions at the time of liberation; her feelings about the United States and the response of American Jews to the war; her return to her shtetl; her move to Slovakia and Austria; her move to Palestine as part of the first group of Agudat Israel; her life in Palestine; her move to Switzerland in 1958; her move to the United States in 1964; and her ideas about her children, her grandchildren, and the concept of continuity.

Oral history interview with Clara Kramer

Oral History

Clara Kramer (born in 1927) discusses her childhood in Zholkva, Poland (now ZHovkva, Ukraine); her memories of a "vibrant" Jewish life in Zholkva before German invasion in 1939; antisemitism in the 1930s; her recollections of the slow changes to Jewish status in the town after 1939; the April 1942 Aktion in Zholkva; the curfew in Zholkva and transports to Belzec concentration camp, starting in the summer of 1942; her time helping people who jumped off transport trains; her time hiding for 22 months after the November 22, 1942 Aktion with her family and others in the home of a Polish family, the Becks; her memories of Mr. and Mrs. Beck and their daughter; her trip to the Zholkva ghetto with her mother and Mr. Beck and his daughter; the Judenrat (Jewish council) in the Zholkva ghetto; the March 1943 Aktion; a fire in the Becks' neighborhood on Palm Sunday, April 20, 1943; her sister's death on April 20, 1943; liberation by the Russians; her time in a displaced persons camp in Germany; descriptions of her diary that she wrote in throughout the Holocaust; and her post-Holocaust American-Jewish activism. Also contains a photograph of Clara Kramer at age 15.

Oral history interview with Rose Kramer

Oral History

Rose Kramer, born on January 21, 1921 in Beuthen, Germany, discusses her childhood in Bedzin, Poland; her father's death before she was born; the death of her mother when she was eight years old; her recollections of the importance of economic survival; her family not paying attention to the Nazis; her three years in a ghetto; her transport to Auschwitz concentration camp; her transport to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then to Neustadt-Glewe; her memories of liberation from Neustadt-Glewe concentration camp; her time in Feldafing displaced persons camp; her memories of learning of one brother's survival; her travel to the United States in 1949; and her divorce from her first husband after ten years and her marriage to Mr. Kramer.

Oral history interview with Rae Kushner

Oral History

Rae Kushner, born on February 27, 1923 in Novogrudok, Poland (Navahrudak, Belarus), discusses her childhood community of Novogrudok; her family's middle class life style; her father's fur business; the Russian occupation in 1939; the Russian deportation of wealthy families to Siberia; her memories of Jewish parents hiding children to protect them from deportation; her memories of the German occupation in 1941; her memories of the establishment of a ghetto in a suburb of Novogrudok by the Germans; her recollection of the number of Jews (350 of the original 30,000) who survived the ghetto; the murder of her mother; the digging of an escape tunnel in the ghetto by 70 young men and her brother, Chonon; her brother getting lost after leaving the tunnel; her family joining a partisan group led by Tuvia Bielski; living in a forest for nine months; fleeing to Czechoslovakia at the end of the war; her marriage in Hungary; her memories of secretly crossing the Italian border; life in a displaced persons camp in Italy; her family's journey to the United States in 1949; and her reflections on the role of the United States and other counties in preventing Jewish immigration from Europe before, during, and after the war.

Oral history interview with Mayer Lief

Oral History

Mayer Lief, born August 18, 1908 in Lemberg, Galicia (Lʹviv, Ukraine), discusses his childhood; his schooling in Lemberg; experiencing antisemitism; his experiences in the Polish Army; his family's attempts to emigrate from Poland to the United States in 1939; the Russian occupation of Lemberg and Eastern Poland in 1939; the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and Mayer's capture that same day; digging mass graves for the Germans; the issuing of armbands and the establishment of the ghetto in Lemberg by the Germans; living in the ghetto beginning in November 1941; his move to and stay at German Army facilities until June 1943 due to his skills as a locksmith and safe cracker; his imprisonment in Janowska concentration camp in Ukraine in June 1943 and his eventual escape from the camp; his purchase of false papers in August 1943 in order to avoid capture by the Germans; his life in a suburb of Lemberg until the liberation by the Russians in 1944; traveling to Poland in 1946; his time in a displaced persons camp in Germany around 1946; immigrating to the United States in 1949; his time in Boston, MA and New York; arriving in Elizabeth, NJ and reuniting with his mother; his marriage in 1954; and his work since his arrival in the United States.

Oral history interview with Isak Levenstein

Oral History

Isak Levenstein discusses his childhood in a town near Lublin, Poland; moving to Kraków, Poland to live with his uncle after his parents' deaths; his education in Kraków; his work as the owner of a pots and pans factory; getting married on December 29, 1931; the size and professions of the Jewish population in Kraków; his membership in Mizrachi and Hechalutz Zionist organizations; antisemitism in Kraków in the mid-1930s; the banning of ritual slaughter in Kraków; Polish collaboration with the Nazis; the murdering of 1.2 million children by the Nazis during the Holocaust; the saving of Jews by very few Poles; the hiding of his wife's family in a bunker near Kraków and their eventual murder; his and his wife's move into the Kraków ghetto in 1941; his memories of the instructions given to the Judenrat by the Nazis; the deportation of Jews from Kraków to Treblinka and Auschwitz concentration camps; his memories of Jewish religious observances in the ghetto; his time in hiding in order to escape selections; a comprehensive round-up that took place in the ghetto in 1943 and the hiding of his family in a bunker during the roundup; his imprisonment in Płaszów concentration camp; his effort to save his family by bribing a German commander; the hiding of his children in the bunks of Płaszów concentration camp for 14 months; his inability to save his children; his qualifications as a metal worker; his time in Oskar Schindler's Gross-Rosen and Brünnlitz factories; his memories of Oskar Schindler; his wife's time in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps; his and his wife's search for relatives after the war; his thoughts on the differences between the Poles and the Czechs after the war; his and his wife's visit to Theresienstadt concentration camp; his separation from his wife between October of 1944 and August of 1945; their immigration to the United States after World War II; visiting Israel 25 times; and starting of a construction company with two other Schindler Jews in New Jersey.

Oral history interview with Sally Levenstein

Oral History

Sally Levenstein, born in 1909, discusses her childhood in Kazimierza Wielka, Poland; the Jewish community in Kazimierza Wielka; the death of her father in 1918; her education in Kazimierza Wielka and in Kraków, Poland; the relationship between the Gentiles and the Jews in Kazimierza Wielka; getting married to Isak Levenstein in 1931 and moving to Kraków; the size and level of religious observance of the Jewish community in Kraków; her social life in Kraków; her involvement with the Jewish National Fund; the birth of her two children in 1932 and in 1937; the start of World War II in 1939; the betrayal of her sister by a Polish neighbor; the arrival of Jews in Poland, deported from Germany; the establishment of the Kraków ghetto; her work in a factory making stockings for German soldiers; her memories of selections that took place in the ghetto; the Judenrat and the Jewish police in the ghetto; the establishment of Płaszów concentration camp in 1942; the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto in 1943; hiding in a bunker with her children for 70 days near Kraków; her husband's imprisonment at Płaszów concentration camp; her memories of searching for food for her children while in hiding; her husband's smuggling of the children into Płaszów to be with him; her time hiding in the factory where she worked; her voluntary movement to Płaszów concentration camp to be with her family; the help that she received for her children from Mrs. Rosner; the roundup of all the children in Płaszów; her and her husband's inability to save their own children; the move of her husband and other family members by Oskar Schindler to his Brünnlitz factory in Czechoslovakia; her deportation to and time in Birkenau concentration camp; her memories of selections by Dr. Josef Mengele for the gas chamber; her aimless work while she was imprisoned in Birkenau; Dr. Menegle's experiments on inmates in Auschwitz; her transfer from Birkenau to Auschwitz; being in a death march to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the shooting of those prisoners who stopped marching; her experiences in Bergen-Belsen and her bout with typhus while in the camp; her time in a hospital during the time of liberation; the death of inmates from over-eating after liberation; an invitation to the survivors by the Queen of Portugal to come to Portugal after World War II; her search for her family after the war; her reunion with her husband in Kraków and their return to their apartment there; the help that they received from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency; their time in Vienna, Austria and in Bindermichl displaced persons camp; the birth of her daughter in Bindermichl; her family's immigration to the United States in 1949; their life in New York and their move to New Jersey where her husband started a construction company; and her reflections on the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Manya Mandelbaum