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Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0088.44 | RG Number: RG-50.002.0044

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    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich
    Transcript
    Good morning.
    I'm Bernard Weinstein, director of the Kean College Oral
    Testimonies Project on the Holocaust.
    It's my pleasure today to interview Rabbi Judah Nadich,
    who was General Eisenhower's liaison
    to the displaced persons of Jewish faith at the end
    of World War II in 1945.
    Rabbi Nadich, I'd like very much to welcome you to our program,
    and I'd like you to begin by telling us
    a little bit about your background,
    how you happened to be in a position
    to get this great job to do.
    Well, it happened that I was the senior Jewish chaplain
    in the European theater, the first Jewish chaplain ordered
    to Europe, and therefore, later, the senior Jewish chaplain
    in the European Theater.
    During the year of 1944, beginning with the liberation
    of Paris in August of that year, I
    was at American army headquarters in Paris
    and serving the Jewish soldiers in the American army in Paris
    and throughout France.
    And in 1945, after the concentration camps
    were captured by the American army,
    during the summer of '45, in August to be exact,
    I got orders telling me to proceed from Paris
    to Frankfurt, to the American army headquarters
    there, where I was told that my job was
    to be Advisor to the Commanding General, that is,
    General Eisenhower, Advisor to the Commanding General
    on Jewish Affairs in the European Theater.
    And I quickly learned that the job
    had to do with my visiting the displaced persons
    camps regularly in all parts of the American zone of Germany
    to come back to our headquarters in Frankfurt to report,
    cutting through red tape, directly to General Eisenhower
    or, in his absence, to his chief of staff, General Walter Bedell
    Smith.
    Did General Eisenhower or his staff
    recognize that there was a difference between most
    of the other prisoners or most of the other displaced
    persons and the Jews?
    In the beginning, they did not because the actual situation
    had not been foreseen.
    As one might understand, the American army
    had made all kinds of plans long in advance
    as to what would happen when the American army would
    defeat the German army and then establish civil administration
    over a defeated Germany, what would happen
    with the survivors found in the German concentration camps.
    The plans were very simple and straight to the point.
    The plans directed the American army
    to return the survivors found in Nazi concentration camps
    directly to their home countries,
    and that part of the order was carried out rather efficiently
    by the American army.
    That is, non-Jewish French, and Greeks, and Belgians,
    and Czechs, and the rest, within 90 days after the capture
    of the concentration camps were sent back
    to the lands of their origin, to their home countries, where
    they wanted to go.
    Nobody had foreseen in the American planning
    some years earlier that there would be, among the survivors
    in these camps, Jews, Jews who would have no place
    to go back to.
    Why not?
    Because whether these Jews came from Poland, as most of them
    did, or Lithuania--
    many of them came from there--
    they knew full well what the Nazis had done together
    with their willing assistance from among
    the native populations in Poland and Lithuania,
    what had happened by these people to their own families.
    Their families had been destroyed.
    Their businesses had been taken over by others.
    Their homes were now occupied by their erstwhile neighbors,
    and the Jews now surviving in the Nazi concentration camps
    were even afraid to go back to their towns, and cities,
    and villages in Poland and Lithuania.
    They were afraid of what would happen to them if they
    went back because their former neighbors, who now owned
    their homes and their businesses that had belonged to the Jews,
    would certainly not welcome them back and would even, perhaps,
    attack them and kill them if they returned.
    That did happen to some Jews who did go back,
    so the result was that in the camps, now DP camps, no longer
    concentration camps-- the army had
    moved people out of the concentration camps
    to displaced persons camps.
    There were left in those camps tens of thousands
    of Jews who had no place to go back to,
    and the army planning had not envisaged this kind of problem.
    So in the beginning, these people
    were not being looked after.
    Now, what happened?
    Why was there a situation created
    that resulted in my being appointed
    to the position of Advisor to the Commanding General
    on Jewish Affairs?
    War reporters, foreign correspondents,
    had been tipped off about the condition of the surviving
    Jews in the DP camps.
    They visited these camps, and they sent back
    horrendous stories that appeared in the American press, New
    York, Chicago, elsewhere.
    And these stories did not reflect well
    upon the American army and its administration
    of affairs in conquered Germany and Austria for that matter.
    So the President of the United States
    was aroused, President Truman, and he sent a commission
    to inspect the DP camps to find out whether or not
    the stories of the war correspondents were true.
    The commission was headed by Earl G Harrison, who
    was the dean of the law school of the University
    of Pennsylvania.
    He was, fortunately, ably assisted by Dr. Joseph J
    Schwartz, who, at that time, occupied
    the position of European Director for the American Joint
    Distribution Committee.
    And the commission studied the situation in the DP camps
    where Jewish survivors were now living, the others having been
    dispatched to their homes, and came back from America
    and wrote a report.
    Dean Harrison submitted his report to President Truman,
    and the report painted a very black picture.
    The result was that the Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson,
    and even before him, General Marshall,
    who was the commanding general of the American armies
    throughout all World War Two--
    General Marshall sent a cable to General Eisenhower
    to warn him of what Dean Harrison's report was
    going to say.
    And then Secretary Stimson sent him a cable
    and set forth the major findings of the Harrison Committee.
    And it happened quite by coincidence that,
    before these findings reached-- the day before the findings
    reached General Eisenhower, he had been requested by Rabbi
    Stephen S Wise, who was visiting London for a Zionist
    conference, the first after World War Two to be held--
    Rabbi Stephen S Wise in London had
    been told by a number of American Jewish chaplains who
    took the opportunity of visiting London and the Zionist
    conference coming from the continent--
    they told Dr. Wise what was happening
    to the Jewish survivors in the DP camps.
    He sent a telegram through the American embassy in London
    to General Eisenhower suggesting that General Eisenhower appoint
    a Jewish chaplain to coordinate relief efforts on behalf
    of the Jewish residents of the DP camps.
    General Eisenhower replied immediately saying,
    no, he wasn't about to do that.
    The very next day, he got the findings from Washington.
    In the Harrison Report?
    The findings in the Harrison Report
    that had been sent to him first by General Marshall
    and then by Secretary of War Stimson.
    And Eisenhower sent back a cable to Washington
    that only yesterday he had turned down a request
    by Rabbi Stephen S Wise, but today he changed his mind,
    he said.
    He was going to appoint one of the American army
    Jewish chaplains to the post of advisor
    to him on Jewish affairs.
    And whoever this chaplain would be,
    he would be the person who would visit the DP camps,
    come back to Eisenhower, tell him what was happening,
    and make recommendations.
    And that was when I got the call in Paris to come immediately
    to Frankfurt because, since I had been
    the first American army Jewish chaplain ordered to Europe,
    I was consequently the senior Jewish chaplain in Europe,
    and Eisenhower ordered me forward
    to accept this position.
    Had you, yourself, been at the liberation of the concentration
    camps at the end of the war?
    Did you see any of what the first American ground troops
    saw who went to those camps?
    No.
    When the camps were liberated in May of 1945,
    I was still in Paris.
    Indeed, I didn't come forward to Germany until August,
    but I did see Dachau, of course, many weeks
    after it had been liberated.
    But it still had not yet been cleaned up.
    It was, of course, empty of its former hapless victims,
    but the concentration camp was there in its full horror.
    I saw the dog houses where dogs had
    been kept who would be sicked onto the inmates
    of the concentration camps.
    But more, I saw gas chambers, and I saw the crematory.
    And in the gas chamber--
    I remember to this day--
    the door on the inside that was, of course, slammed
    shut whenever the gas chamber was filled with victims--
    I saw the door completely covered from top to bottom
    with scratches, and I realized they were the scratches made
    by the victims inside the gas chamber
    when the gas was turned on, scratching at that door,
    trying in vain to get out as the gas came in, suffocating them.
    And in the crematorium, I looked inside the furnaces
    where the bodies were taken from the gas chamber to be burned,
    and in the corner of the room, I saw
    a sack that looked like a sack of flour from a distance.
    As I got closer, I looked into the sack,
    and I saw there were bits and pieces amidst the dust.
    And I realize that what I was looking at
    was what had been cleaned out of the bottoms of the furnaces
    in the crematory.
    And I plunged my arm deep down into that sack
    and ground the ash in the palm of my hand
    so that I would never forget that sight.
    The ash being the ashes of the cremated--
    The ashes from the victims.
    I forgot to tell you that, on the front of the sack,
    I noticed later that was printed in German
    the word "fertilizer."
    This ash was to be shipped out, as I'm sure hundreds of sacks
    had been done, to be used as fertilizer for German farms
    to enrich German soil to produce better crops.
    And Dachau was the only camp that you visited?
    Dachau was the only camp I visited at that time.
    And this was on your return-- on your trip
    to Germany from Paris?
    No, this was on my first trip to Bavaria
    to visit the DP camps in Bavaria.
    I see.
    So I made a tour from Munich up to Dachau,
    not too far away, to visit Dachau
    to be able to better to understand the people
    whom I would be meeting in the DP
    camps who had come from Dachau.
    In your book you describe your visit to Frankfurt.
    I remember there was a chapter about the tragedy of Frankfurt.
    What were your feelings?
    What were your memories when you--
    Well, Frankfurt, of course, in Jewish history
    had been a large, thriving cultural Jewish community
    which had boasted famous scholars and rabbis.
    Indeed, the German Orthodox renewal of the 19th century
    had centered in Frankfurt.
    And when I came to Frankfurt immediately after my having
    been ordered to come from Paris to American army headquarters
    in Frankfurt, I thought it would be
    good to find out what had happened
    to the Jews of Frankfurt.
    And out of the tens of thousands of Jews of Frankfurt,
    some 600 now remained.
    Most of them had been in hiding, or they had been in camps
    and were lucky enough to have remained alive
    when the war was over and had returned to their native city.
    I called upon the one rabbi who had survived.
    He had been in Theresienstadt, and luckily he
    had not been forwarded from there,
    as had happened with most of the residents of that camp,
    to Auschwitz.
    He had survived the war in Theresienstadt,
    and now he had come back to Frankfurt.
    He was the only rabbi left.
    And I called upon him to pay my respects
    and to find out what the situation was
    like in Frankfurt.
    The high holidays were approaching,
    and I found that a large synagogue that
    had been one of the principal synagogues in the city
    was still standing, luckily, because
    of its geographical location.
    It was near the opera house.
    And instead of burning down the synagogue,
    as had happened with so many other synagogues,
    the Germans had kept this building,
    had emptied it of all of its contents,
    including pews and the like, and had used the synagogue
    as a warehouse for the scenery and props of the opera house.
    So one of the first things I did upon my coming to Frankfurt
    was to order the local German administration
    to paint and repair the building and to bring back
    all of the pews which still existed in a warehouse,
    to bring them back, clean them up, paint them, and affix them
    once again to the floor.
    And the work was finished on the very eve
    of Rosh Hashanah of 1945 so that services could once again be
    held in what turned out to be, once again,
    a beautiful synagogue.
    And it was my privilege to preach there
    during the high holidays of 1945.
    Approximately how many Jews were there?
    Well, as I said, there were some 600 Jews who were local Jews,
    but in addition, the synagogue was
    pretty well-filled by American army soldiers who were Jews.
    Did you have any chance to talk to the surviving
    Jews of Frankfurt when you were in Frankfurt?
    Yes, I spoke to the Jews of Frankfurt to a number of them.
    And I lived in Frankfurt, you understand.
    I lived in Frankfurt from the time
    that I was first ordered to come from Paris to serve
    under General Eisenhower, and I lived in Frankfurt
    until I was ordered to leave, to go back home to the United
    States.
    So I met a number of Jews in Frankfurt.
    I even had the privilege of officiating
    at a marriage in a synagogue in Frankfurt
    of an American Jewish soldier with a local young woman
    of the Jewish faith.
    Their stories were so much like the stories
    I was to hear from the Jewish survivors in the DP camps.
    How did each one survive?
    Well, each one told a story that seemed incredible,
    and each one's story was different from the next story.
    Each one story was the relating of a series of miracles
    that had happened with each individual that
    had resulted in that person's remaining alive
    after the war was over.
    Were there any families that survived intact,
    or were they all individual--
    I don't recall meeting any families.
    I don't recall meeting any children in Frankfurt.
    These were either single adults or, in rare cases,
    a husband and a wife.
    But in most cases, they were single adults.
    Of about what ages?
    The ages varied, but principally they
    were middle-aged people if you define
    middle age of the 40s, 50s.
    Can you describe the conditions in some of the DP camps
    you saw?
    Were the conditions uniform in all of the camps you visited,
    or were there camps that were, quote, "better maintained"
    or worse maintained?
    Well, when I first came to Frankfurt,
    I spent the first few days in reading many reports,
    among them the Dean Harrison Report, which
    by now had arrived that Eisenhower's headquarters
    in its entirety.
    And in the report, Dean Harrison had praised the camp
    at Feldafing as being the best of the camps,
    and so it was my determination to visit Feldafing first
    to see what the best of the camps was like.
    And then when I would visit the other camps,
    I could measure the other camps in comparison to Feldafing.
    I went to Feldafing, and to my amazement,
    I was not pleased with those conditions at all.
    And I couldn't understand how that
    could have been described by the Harrison Report
    as the very best of the camps.
    The people there were living under terribly overcrowded
    conditions.
    They were getting insufficient food,
    and they had all kinds of complaints to give me.
    I met with the leaders of the Jews
    in Feldafing that created a camp committee of people whom they
    had elected to represent them, and they spent hours telling me
    of their complaints, among which, for example, was
    the complaint that their camp at Feldafing
    was surrounded by barbed wire.
    And they couldn't leave the camp, except that 20% of them--
    and no more--
    could obtain passes that would enable
    them to leave the camp for a brief while and to come back.
    And mind you, this was very damaging psychologically.
    Under the Germans, under the Nazis,
    they had been in camps surrounded by barbed wire.
    Now they had been liberated by the American army,
    and they found themselves once again
    in the camp surrounded by barbed wire.
    And they could look out to the road
    nearby and see the Germans, who had
    been the enemies of the Americans,
    walking free on the roads, going where
    they liked whenever they liked.
    They were not behind barbed wire.
    They didn't have to ask for permission to walk on that road
    or to go where they wanted to go as did they, the surviving
    Jews who had suffered at the hands of the Germans,
    the enemies of the Americans.
    And here it was the American liberators
    who were subjecting them to such conditions.
    But I understood why it was that Dean Harrison had
    praised Feldafing.
    In a number of the other camps, there
    were not only Jewish survivors.
    There were non-Jewish people as well.
    Who were these non-Jewish people?
    They fell into one of two categories.
    They were people from Eastern countries
    or Central European countries that had quickly
    been conquered by Germany at the beginning of the war,
    the early part of World War II, some of whom
    had been brought to Germany as slave labor
    to work in German industry.
    Many of them, however, belonged to a second category.
    They had come of their own free will
    to work in German factories because they
    sympathized with Nazi aims.
    They were Nazi supporters.
    They wanted to help the Nazi war effort,
    and of course, they would be remunerated for their work
    in German factories.
    So they, too, had come to Germany.
    Now America, the Allies, had won the war,
    and they were on German soil.
    So they claimed the right of displaced persons,
    and they were put in DP camps together with the Jews.
    But you can imagine what the result was.
    Number one, there were frequent fights between these non-Jewish
    workers in German factories-- formerly in German factories,
    now in the DP camps--
    and the Jews.
    But perhaps even more important--
    no special treatment could be accorded the Jewish residents
    of a camp when that were, at the same time at that camp,
    large numbers of non-Jews.
    Yet the truth required that a demarcation
    be made between the two because those
    who had been German factory workers had been
    well-fed and well-treated, had never
    been subjected to the kind of imprisonment
    and torture that had been the fate of the Jews now living
    in the DP camps.
    Why the barbed wire?
    Why this sense of imprisonment?
    I must say that General George Patton,
    who was the commanding general of the Third
    Army, in whose territory all of the DP camps of Bavaria fell--
    General Patton was not too sympathetic to the plight
    of the Jewish survivors.
    Naturally, the man he put in charge, a Major Schaefer,
    who was at his Third Army headquarters in Munich--
    sensing how his commanding general felt
    about the situation, Major Schaefer
    wasn't too interested in improving the lot
    of the Jewish survivors.
    So that's the way it remained.
    When I came back to Frankfurt, having
    visited Feldafing that time and reported
    on the barbed wire and the pass system,
    an order went forth immediately from General Eisenhower
    to General Patton to remove the barbed wire
    and to abolish the pass system.
    Well, I came back to Feldafing a week
    or so later, and to my surprise, the barbed wire was still
    there, and the pass system still existed.
    So upon my return to Frankfurt, I reported that.
    A few days later, I came into the anteroom
    to General Eisenhower's office one morning at 8:00,
    and to my surprise, I saw General Patton sitting there,
    waiting to be called into General Eisenhower's office,
    sitting there with his shiny helmet
    and his ivory handle pistols, one on each side,
    and the shiny boots.
    He looked at me, and I looked at him.
    And he knew that I was the reason for his being called
    there, and I quickly turned around and left that office
    as fast as I could.
    Later, I was told by General Walter Bedell
    Smith, General Eisenhower's chief of staff,
    that when General Patton came into the office,
    after the opening courtesies, General Eisenhower
    asked him, George, why aren't you
    doing something for these Jews?
    And Patton, remembering his long friendship with Eisenhower--
    they had been friends in the United States Military Academy
    at West Point--
    and thinking that he could be jocular, said, why the hell
    should I, whereupon Eisenhower lost his temper and said,
    well, God damn it, if for no other reason
    than because I have ordered you to.
    Now, shortly afterwards, General Patton
    was relieved of command of the Third Army
    and was assigned the command of the 15th Army
    with headquarters at Bad Nauheim.
    But the 15th Army was a paper army that existed
    only as a headquarters with no troops assigned to it.
    Of course, that was a signal demotion for General Patton.
    The story generally is and the story
    is reflected in the movie about General Patton
    that Patton was being punished by Eisenhower
    because he slapped--
    --a soldier.
    --an American army soldier in a hospital in Sicily who
    he thought was a malingerer.
    Patton thought the soldier was a malingerer, and he slapped him.
    But I've often wondered, why did it take so long for Eisenhower
    to punish Patton if the reason was
    Patton slapping an American army soldier a long time before?
    In my own mind--
    whether it be absolutely true or not I don't know.
    In my own mind, at least there is some connection
    between patterns open violation of an order
    directed to him by a superior, General Eisenhower,
    that that played some role in Patton's demotion.
    And thereafter, the barbed wire was quickly removed,
    and the pass system was abolished.
    Was this everywhere or just at Feldafing?
    I saw it at Feldafing.
    It was removed from Feldafing.
    When I visited other DP camps, I did not see barbed wire.
    I don't know whether it was because there never
    had been barbed wire or whether it had been removed.
    Again, I come back to the fact that Feldafing
    had been singled out in the Harrison
    Report as the best of the camps because it was a camp that
    had Jews only within it.
    Therefore, measures could be adopted
    to improve their condition without antagonizing
    non-Jewish residents of the camp because there
    weren't any in Feldafing as there were in other camps.
    Now, General Eisenhower, in an order of August 22, I believe,
    ordered that DP camps where Jews were residing
    should become camps for Jews only.
    Other residents should be taken elsewhere, to other camps.
    And as a result of my recommendations
    to him after my visits to the various DP camps.
    He improved the number of calories.
    He increased the number of calories
    that were to be given to each Jewish resident of a DP
    camp each day.
    And again as a result of recommendations by me,
    housing conditions were improved so
    that the camps should no longer be
    crowded as I saw Feldafing was and, indeed, the other camps.
    And in that connection, a new camp
    was opened, Foehrenwald, not far from Feldafing,
    to which Jews from Feldafing were
    brought in order to relieve the overcrowded
    conditions in Feldafing.
    Incidentally, in that connection,
    I was there the day the Jews were asked to move--
    some of them-- from Feldafing to Foehrenwald,
    and they refused to move.
    And the American army soldiers were
    ready to enforce the order, to compel them to move,
    to drag them on trucks to make sure that they would go,
    and I was afraid that there might be bloodshed.
    I quickly went to the commanding general of that local area
    and told him there might be bloodshed,
    and it would be very bad for the American army
    if that were to happen.
    And he empowered me to return to Feldafing
    to tell the commanding officer, Lieutenant Irving Smith, not
    to have his soldiers use force.
    I suggested that we take a small number of the Jews on a visit
    to the new camp at Foehrenwald to have them come back
    and report to the other Jews in Feldafing what they had seen.
    And then if what they had seen was good,
    other Jews would agree to go, and that's
    exactly what happened.
    And so Foehrenwald became another new, much better camp
    than camps generally.
    But I shouldn't dwell on Feldafing and Foehrenwald.
    I visited many other camps, and I refer particularly
    now to the camp at Landsberg.
    Landsberg, not too far from Munich--
    Was it the same place that had been a concentration camp?
    No.
    Landsberg had in it, as did other camps in Bavaria,
    Jews who had been in Dachau, had been removed from Dachau
    to Landsberg to Feldafing and elsewhere.
    But the interesting thing about the Landsberg camp
    was that there was an UNRRA team there as well
    as military administration, and they permitted workshops
    to get started under the very able leadership of Jacob
    Oleiski, one of the Jewish residents of Landsberg
    who had been the art supervisor of the workshop
    program in Lithuania before World War II.
    And so by sheer coincidence, there
    was found in Landsberg this man who
    was a veritable genius in setting up workshops,
    and the Jewish residents of Landsberg
    were very quickly put to work, learning new trades
    or practicing old trades that they had forgotten
    during the years of the war.
    Was the morale at Landsberg discernibly
    different from the morale in other camps?
    Absolutely.
    When the residents were put to work,
    they didn't have time to stand around and talk
    with other people about how bad the conditions were
    and to complain, as was true in other camps,
    so that another one of my recommendations
    was to create workshops in different camps
    such as obtained at Landsberg and to make sure that whatever
    was required for the workshops, tools
    and implements of all kinds, whatever was required,
    should be taken from the German population
    and put into the DP camps.
    And that was done by General Eisenhower's order.
    And this was carried over--
    the model of Landsberg of creating workshops
    was carried over to other displaced persons camps?
    That was carried over to a number of other camps.
    In addition-- I hesitate to say all the time
    "through my recommendations," but that's the way it happened.
    You couldn't expect American army headquarters
    to know, for example, that it would be a good idea
    to get sports and athletic equipment into the camps,
    but I recommended that because a number of the people
    wanted to play what they call football,
    what we Americans call soccer.
    They wanted musical instruments, many of them.
    Many of them had played these instruments before the war.
    They wanted to practice once again,
    and if possible, even to create little orchestras in the DP
    camps.
    And again, the army supplied the instruments,
    the musical instruments of all kinds
    so that the DP residents of the camps could make use of them.
    All of these things helped toward building
    the morale of the Jewish DPs.
    One of the biggest boosters of that morale
    was the arrival of David Ben-Gurion in the American zone
    of Germany.
    You met with him personally, didn't you?
    Yes.
    It happened that I was permitted to go to Paris for a day
    to receive the Croix de guerre that
    was to be given to me by General de Gaulle at the Hotel
    [PLACE NAME] in Paris.
    I knew that David Ben-Gurion was in Paris at the time
    because, prior to that, it had arrived at Eisenhower's
    headquarters a request by Mr. Ben-Gurion for permission
    to enter the American zone of Germany.
    I had been asked who this gentleman was
    who had requested this permission
    and my recommendation on the request.
    I supplied the necessary information
    that David Ben-Gurion was the head of the Jewish Agency
    for Palestine, that he was, in ordinary words,
    the designated head of the Jews living in Palestine,
    and that it would be desirable for permission to be given him
    because his very presence in the DP camps
    would elevate the morale of the people.
    Well, knowing that he was in Paris,
    when I came to Paris to get the metal from de Gaulle,
    I went to his hotel, chatted with him,
    and by coincidence, he had gotten permission
    to come that very night on the American military train
    from Frankfurt--
    excuse me, from Paris to Frankfurt.
    I was to be on that train, too.
    I made up that he and I should meet on the train platform.
    I arrived earlier, and I saw that I was assigned--
    because I was then a field rank, I was a major,
    I was assigned a bedroom to be shared
    with another American army major.
    And I went back on the platform, and I
    waited for Mr. Ben-Gurion, who soon appeared.
    I asked him where his ticket showed that he was to be,
    and he said his ticket showed that he was to be sitting up
    in the coach all night long.
    I looked for the train commander, who
    was an army captain, and fortunately, he
    was a Jewish army captain.
    I asked him, and I pointed at David Ben-Gurion.
    Do you know who that man is with that shock of white hair?
    And the captain said, no, and I explained who he was.
    I said, you can't let him sit up all night in a coach.
    He said, what do you want me to do?
    Sir, I said, well, in my bedroom there is another major.
    You tell him that there is a distinguished
    guest of the American army who is traveling on the train,
    and the mistake was made, and he wasn't
    assigned sleeping quarters.
    And you just tell that major he would
    have to get out of that bedroom, which he did,
    and then Ben-Gurion I brought into our bedroom.
    And we spoke together until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning.
    He wanted to know about the displaced persons.
    He wanted to know whether these Jews were a people who
    were battered, broken in spirit, poor human material,
    or whether they were people who potentially could become
    settlers in Jewish Palestine.
    I assured him that these people were not
    the kind he had feared they would be,
    that they were strong people.
    Had they not been strong, they wouldn't have survived.
    There were strong both physically as well
    as psychically and that he could be confident that they--
    in time, when they would get to Palestine,
    were most of them wanted to go, that they would make
    good citizens of that country.
    So when we arrived the next morning in Frankfurt,
    I took him to be registered and to have breakfast,
    and then I brought him to General Eisenhower's offices.
    The general was out on a field trip,
    but I introduced him to General Walter Bedell Smith
    and said something to the effect that, if there
    were a Jewish state now, I would be
    introducing its prime minister.
    And General Smith was very cordial.
    And later, general Smith told me that when
    he introduced Ben-Gurion to Eisenhower after Eisenhower's
    return from the field trip, Eisenhower
    was very much impressed, very much taken by David Ben-Gurion.
    He had asked Ben-Gurion to make a tour of the DP camps
    and to come back to him, to Eisenhower,
    with his recommendations, which later happened.
    I took David Ben-Gurion that same day
    to visit his first DP camp at Zeilsheim.
    The Zeilsheim camp was not too far from Frankfurt.
    I brought him into the camp, and he sat
    in the back of my army vehicle.
    I stepped out and chatted to a few of the Jewish residents
    of the camp.
    They were accustomed to my coming there quite often.
    But one of them happened to look into the car,
    and he saw something that he couldn't believe.
    He looked again.
    He saw this familiar face, familiar from pictures,
    but he suddenly screamed, Ben-Gurion!
    And the other Jews talking to me ran to the car,
    and they looked in.
    And they began to shout.
    And when others not far away heard the shout,
    they came running.
    And I was afraid that there would be a problem,
    a riot perhaps, so I yelled to the people,
    this is David Ben-Gurion, and he is going to speak to you.
    But you must first show him the discipline
    of which you are capable.
    You quickly run around the camp.
    Tell all the people--
    there were now about 6,000 people in the camp.
    Tell them that David Ben-Gurion is
    going to speak to you in the assembly hall,
    and have them come there.
    Well they quickly dispersed to do that.
    I drove up to the assembly hall, and I took Mr. Ben-Gurion
    into the rear area behind the stage.
    And within a short time, that assembly hall
    was packed to the rafters.
    All seats, all standing room was filled.
    The windows and the doors had been flung open
    so that the hundreds of people standing outside
    could hear what would happen.
    I led Mr. Ben-Gurion out on the stage, and the crowd of people
    rose to its feet.
    And the people began to sing "Hatikvah,"
    as did Ben-Gurion and I. And in the singing
    of the Jewish national anthem, the people broke down and wept.
    And I do not hesitate to say that Ben-Gurion and I sobbed
    as well.
    And when the "Hatikvah" was over,
    Ben-Gurion spoke to these people, and in his speaking
    to them, he told them that the day was not far distant
    when they would be able to join their brothers
    and sisters in Palestine.
    And they continued to weep throughout his talk
    because all during the hellish years of Nazi oppression,
    they had one dream, that perhaps they
    might remain alive, and go to Palestine,
    and join their brothers and sisters there.
    Perhaps one day there would be a majority
    of Jews in that country.
    There might even be Jewish self-government.
    It would be a place where they would no longer have
    to be afraid of persecution.
    And they had this dream of going to Palestine,
    and all of a sudden, Palestine was there
    in their midst in the form and the shape of David Ben-Gurion.
    And for the first time, they knew that they were liberated.
    For the first time, they had hope.
    They believed that they would have a future,
    and that's why they wept.
    It was an unforgettable experience for Ben-Gurion,
    and he mentioned it to me in later years
    when I visited him in Israel when
    he was prime minister, unforgettable for him,
    for me, for all of the hundreds of thousands of people who
    took part in that experience.
    Do you remember or do you do you know the date
    on which Ben-Gurion visited?
    I can't tell you the date exactly,
    but if you look up my book, Eisenhower and the Jews,
    you will find the exact date of our visit
    to Zeilsheim because that book was based on my diary
    that I kept each day.
    I see, yeah.
    About what percentage would you say of the DPs at Zeilsheim,
    just to use that as an example, emigrated to Palestine?
    Do you have any records on that?
    How many actually emigrated?
    Or how many went there, landed there?
    How many landed, arrived in Palestine?
    Arrived, arrived.
    I don't know, but I would venture
    to say the overwhelming majority.
    The reason I say that is, before I
    made my first visit to a displaced persons camp,
    when I first arrived in Frankfurt,
    one of the things I did after reading all the material
    was to prepare a questionnaire that I would fill out
    when I would visit each camp about food,
    and housing, and all other conditions pertaining
    to the camp, and an important question
    whose answer I wanted--
    where did the Jews in each camp want to go?
    Where did they see would be their ultimate destination?
    And I calculated the statistics afterwards.
    Approximately 75% wanted to go to Palestine,
    and the remainder wanted to go to the United States,
    to Canada, to Australia, to South America,
    perhaps to France, to England, to Belgium.
    But 75% wanted to go to Palestine.
    That's why I say most of them undoubtedly got there and are
    citizens of Israel today.
    This was largely as a result of his visit,
    or it was the result of general--
    No, no, no, no.
    Their answers to the questionnaire I
    got before Ben-Gurion came to Germany.
    There were a lot of marriages and births in these DP camps,
    weren't there?
    There were.
    It was as though the desire for life
    was very strong among them, precisely because they
    had witnessed death daily in the Nazi concentration camps,
    because they knew so many of their own families
    had died that they wanted to preserve life.
    And they married, and they had children.
    As a matter of fact, I even saw some children
    who had survived the Holocaust, who
    had been born in concentration camps
    or just prior to their parents and they being
    brought to concentration camps.
    I saw a full hospital ward of them
    at St. Ottilien, a Jewish displaced persons
    hospital run by Jewish DP doctors not far from Munich.
    The head of the hospital was Dr. Zalman Grinberg,
    who had been a physician in Lithuania.
    And he took me through the various wards
    of that hospital which had--
    before, that been a hospital for the German Air Force.
    And at the very end, he saved for the end my visit
    to a ward of children.
    And I looked around at the various beds,
    and I saw children bandaged in various places, skulls, arms,
    legs, bodies, eyes.
    And he said to them in Yiddish, children,
    we have a visitor, an American army officer.
    He is a rabbi.
    Won't you welcome him?
    And they sang a Hebrew song to me.
    They sang "Shalom Aleichem."
    And then when I asked Dr. Grinberg, how
    could these children have survived, he said,
    well, each one of them survived through some extraordinary way,
    that no one will believe the story that each one could tell.
    And then he asked the children to sing another song for me,
    and they sang an additional Israeli--
    what is now called an Israeli song
    but which was a Hebrew song, and I'll never
    forget my visit to that children's ward
    at St. Ottilien.
    Have you, in any sense, followed the lives
    of any of these children since that time?
    Well, I once lectured years ago at a Holocaust center
    in Brooklyn where Dr. Yaffa Eliach is the head.
    The Center for Holocaust Studies?
    The Center for Holocaust Studies.
    And when my lecture was over, she said to me,
    do you know that I was one of those children in that hospital
    ward at St. Ottilien when you visited there?
    And she remembered that visit of mine.
    So that really was a startling piece of news.
    I will send her a tape of this.
    I think she probably would like to have that.
    Let me just-- maybe we can pause at this point.
    There are a few other questions I would like to ask you,
    but we've almost run out of time.
    And I think you'd have to interrupt your answer to--
    so if you'll bear with me--
    In my own way, I could add to that.
    We were about to continue.
    I'd like you to talk a little bit
    about General Eisenhower or later President Eisenhower's
    feelings about Jews.
    Do you think that perhaps his attitude toward Patton,
    which you described before, regarding the mistreatment
    or neglect of prisoners, may have had anything
    to do with Eisenhower's own feelings regarding Jews?
    I think that may very well be so.
    You know that Eisenhower himself twice,
    at least twice and more often, undoubtedly
    was called a Jew by the Nazis.
    They also called President Roosevelt a Jew.
    And Nazi propaganda had it that the Jew Rosenfelt
    sent the Jew Eisenhower to torment the Jews of Germany.
    But Eisenhower himself, and I heard
    him say this, he said that when he was a little boy,
    he and his brothers were raised by their mother
    on the stories of what he called the Old Testament,
    what we Jews call our Bible, and that the figures
    in the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses
    and David and Solomon, were all figures with whom he was quite
    familiar because of these stories told him when
    he was a child by his mother.
    And that he also said at one time
    that actually, he believed that the Jews were
    the chosen people, that the Jews were closer to God
    than were other peoples.
    Some of these things he said publicly when after the war,
    he served as president of Columbia University.
    And during that time, he was given an honorary doctorate
    by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
    a neighbor of Columbia, and he said these things publicly.
    So I have a strong feeling that Eisenhower, if not
    a philo-Semite, at least felt sensitive
    about the sufferings of Jews, that once a situation was
    called to his attention, he acted upon it speedily.
    Yes, yes.
    There is a book that was recently
    published by, I believe, a Canadian,
    in which Eisenhower is accused of deliberately mistreating
    German POWs who were captured at the end of the war.
    You've heard about this?
    I haven't heard about this.
    I mean the book itself.
    I heard about the book.
    I've read about the book, but I cannot conceive that this has
    any truth in it whatsoever, first of all because I know
    Eisenhower so well.
    I know that he was a man of strong character
    without bigotry, without prejudice.
    He in addition was molded by the military form,
    and he was the kind of army officer who lived by the rules.
    He would never himself transgress military regulations
    which say very clearly that prisoners of war
    are not to be maltreated, and I'm
    certain he would not permit any officer serving
    under his command to mistreat prisoners of war.
    I myself played a little role in the prisoner of war situation.
    You see, in addition to the fact that I
    was in charge of Jewish affairs as a chaplain,
    I was also G3 on the staff of the theater chaplain, which
    means I was in charge of all religious supplies
    for the American army, for our priests,
    for our Protestant ministers, for our rabbis,
    that mass wine or mass kits, or crucifixes or rosary beads,
    or wine for the Kiddush, the Jewish services,
    were all shipped through my office
    to all the American Army Jewish chaplains
    in the European theater.
    Now, one of the interesting responsibilities
    I had during that time was to supply religious materials
    for German prisoners of war held in prisoner-of-war camps
    in France.
    And one of the things I had to find,
    and ultimately, I found them, were New Testaments
    printed in German for German prisoners of war
    and other religious supplies in German
    for those German prisoners of war
    in American military prisoner of war camps
    who wanted to study religion.
    Now, if Eisenhower and the officers under him
    were so concerned that I, a rabbi,
    should find New Testaments printed
    in German for German prisoners of war,
    I can't bring myself to believe that there
    was any kind of mistreatment of German prisoners of war
    under Eisenhower.
    I think that is an out-and-out lie.
    Thank you for giving your comment
    on that, because I think the book is certainly
    a disturbing one and one that is getting some currency right
    now, or notoriety.
    Well, that's too bad.
    Yeah, yeah.
    What has this experience with the camp, the DP camps
    and what you saw, what you encountered there,
    how has that changed your life or shaped your later life,
    both as a rabbi and as a person?
    Well, I must tell you that first of all,
    what I saw in the concentration camps
    completely colored my thinking to such a point
    that I was convinced I could never again serve as a rabbi.
    I had personal theological problems.
    How could I continue preaching about God and his beneficence
    and his kindness after what I had witnessed
    in the concentration camps?
    And it took a long time before I was
    able to make peace with myself.
    During that period of time, immediately
    after I returned home after the war, fortunately,
    I did not have to serve as a rabbi.
    I had agreed while still in Germany
    at my desk at American Army headquarters in Frankfurt.
    I had agreed after a visit by Major Edward Warburg, who
    was president of the JDC, the Joint Distribution Committee,
    that I would be employed by that committee,
    that after a month at home in the United States,
    upon my return, I would come back to Germany
    and serve as head of the JDC operations in Germany.
    In December of 1945 when I came home,
    I was asked to speak at the annual meeting of the JDC,
    and I did.
    And I spoke with great anger and great disappointment
    that the American Jews had done so little,
    not that they could have done very much.
    But the difference between what I
    had been living with for the past four years
    that I was in Europe and what I found among the American Jews
    was so great that I was filled with indignation.
    Well, after I spoke at that JDC annual meeting in New York,
    I was asked to speak again the following week
    at the UJA Annual Conference which
    was to proclaim an as yet unheard
    of goal of trying to raised $100 million
    to help the survivors in Europe as well
    as the Jews of Palestine.
    And I spoke with that conference in Atlantic City,
    and the following morning, I was asked
    to have breakfast with the leaders of the UJA and the JDC.
    They then told me that breakfast that I was transferred
    from the JDC to the UJA, that they wanted me,
    both organizations, to speak in the campaign
    for the $100 million that was to be operated by the UJA,
    the United Jewish Appeal.
    So over the following six months,
    I spoke in 40 different states of our country trying
    to raise money, and as a result of the meetings
    at which I spoke, I was told that $20 million was raised.
    Then they asked me to go to South Africa,
    first to go back to Germany and Italy
    to visit the DP camps again to be brought up
    to date as it were, and then to go to South Africa
    and what were then called Southern Rhodesia and Northern
    Rhodesia, and to speak to the Jewish communities
    there under the auspices of the South African Jewish
    War Appeal, again to raise funds for the Jewish survivors.
    I spent four months speaking in those countries
    and then came back to the States, got married,
    and spoke for six months in the New York City UJA campaign.
    By this time, having worked out my own personal problem
    as to whether I could again serve as a rabbi,
    and being tired of having no address of my own
    for so many years since the beginning of 1942,
    I accepted in 1947, in the fall of that year, a congregation
    in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kehillath Israel,
    where I served for 10 years, and then came to the Park Avenue
    Synagogue in New York in 1957.
    This is, I'm sure, a kind of personal question which I hope
    is not too intrusive, but let me ask you this.
    How do you deal with the question
    of God in the Holocaust in speaking to people about it
    today, in speaking to your congregations
    and to people who might ask you where was God when all of this
    happened?
    Well, I think that if anybody tries
    to give an answer to that question,
    that person is presumptuous.
    There are questions that we cannot answer,
    and this is one of the great questions that we cannot
    answer.
    Where was God?
    Of course, in Jewish theology, there
    is the concept of hastarat panim,
    that there are times when God is absent.
    Perhaps that was a time when God was absent,
    but I know that if I reject my belief in God,
    there are more questions that I won't be able to answer,
    many questions--
    questions like why should a man have sacrificed his own life
    to save another man in a concentration camp,
    and why should there be love and such beauty in the world.
    How can life be explained if I don't believe in God?
    Therefore, I still retain my belief in God.
    That there are lacunae here and there,
    yes, I freely admit that, but I live with those lacunae
    and with my faith in God.
    Do you think that the displaced persons camps where
    you found yourself in the days after the war
    have been sufficiently studied for their own sake?
    Do you think people know enough about those camps,
    or do you think that more effort needs
    to be invested to learn about that phase of the War
    and the Holocaust for future generations?
    I'm strongly convinced that there has to be much more study
    about the Holocaust to begin with,
    and about the whole era of the displaced persons camps.
    The Holocaust has to be studied in much greater depth
    than it has been because for the first time in human history,
    It shows the depths of human depravity,
    how far human beings can go in practicing evil
    toward other human beings.
    And if we are to learn how to face evil,
    how to try at least to eliminate some parts of evil
    in the human being, we have to study that time in history
    when evil was at its worst, when human beings
    were at their very worst.
    We have to study the period of the DP camps
    in order to learn how human beings can resist,
    how human beings can overcome the worst
    that other human beings can do to them, the strength
    of the human personality.
    All of that needs much more study.
    To end on a somewhat lighter note, we have a picture of you
    here as a young soldier, and I'm glad to say
    you haven't changed too much.
    You're very kind.
    You're very kind indeed.
    I know when I look in the mirror each morning
    to shave that I have indeed changed,
    as is quite understandable.
    That picture incidentally was taken in London in 1942
    by the Army Signal Corps.
    Rabbi Nadich, I want to thank you
    for sharing your experiences with us.
    I think you've added appreciably to our understanding
    of the aftermath of the Holocaust,
    and your remarks have certainly come home to us.
    Thank you very much indeed for asking me.
    My pleasure.
    Very good.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Judah Nadich, born on May 13, 1912, discusses his role as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's adviser on Jewish affairs and displaced persons camps in 1945; his role as senior Jewish chaplain in the European Theater; the plan for non-Jewish and Jewish displaced persons after the World War II; President Harry S. Truman's designation of Earl G. Harrison, Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, and a Commission to Europe to investigate the living conditions for displaced persons; Rabbi Stephen S. Wise's recommendation to General Eisenhower to appoint a Jewish adviser; visiting Dachau concentration camp in Germany shortly after its liberation in 1945; his time in Frankfurt, Germany, and his memories of meeting the only surviving rabbi of Frankfurt; visiting Feldafing displaced persons camp; General George S. Patton's feelings towards the Jews; General Patton's jurisdiction over displaced persons camps in Bavaria, Germany, and his demotion; the recommendations he made for improving the conditions in the displaced persons camps; visiting Landsberg displaced persons camp and the workshops that were set up in Landsberg for Jews; meeting with David Ben Gurion in Paris, France, and travelling with him to Zeilsheim displaced persons camp; Ben Gurion's emotional speech to the survivors in Zeilsheim; the singing of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem by the survivors; his book entitled, Eisenhower and the Jews; the percentage of displaced persons who wanted to go to Israel versus the percentage of those who wanted to go to other places; a tour of a hospital for children at St. Ottilien, Germany; the "religious problems" he experienced after his time in Germany; his departure from the rabbinate to become the Jewish Displaced Persons Director for Germany; working on a United Jewish Appeal campaign; returning to the rabbinate in 1947; and his reflections on the Holocaust and displaced persons camps. Also includes a photograph of Judah Nadich when he was the guest of honor at the Jewish Theological Seminary Dinner accompanies the interview.
    Interviewee
    Rabbi Judah Nadich
    Interviewer
    Bernard Weinstein
    Date
    interview:  1990 March 13
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Holocaust Resource Center at Kean University

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 videocassettes (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Copyright Holder
    The Holocaust Resource Center at Kean University

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The interview was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum along with other interviews between 1993 - 1997 by the Holocaust Resource Center at Kean College (now Kean University).
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 07:56:31
    This page:
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    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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

    Oral history interview with Manya Mandelbaum

    Oral History

    Manya Mandelbaum, on August 16, 1919, discusses her childhood in Debica and Kraków, Poland; the Jews' relationship with the Poles inside and outside of Kraków; antisemitism in Poland in the late 1930s; the start of World War II in 1939 and her memories of radio announcements urging the Jews to flee from Poland; her attempted escape east to Russia in 1939; the German bombings that forced her to return to Kraków; the anti-Jewish laws and Nazi proclamations in Kraków; her time in the Kraków ghetto; her marriage to Simon Mandelbaum in 1940; the deportation of her parents in 1940; her movement to Płaszów concentration camp; the gassing of children in Auschwitz concentration camp; her work for the Madritsch firm making blouses (Julius Madritsch’s factory in Płaszów); the deportation of Jews to Mauthausen and Auschwitz concentration camps; the shooting of her brother in 1945; her deportation to Auschwitz and the conditions there; her transport to Hamburg, Germany, in January 1945 to work in a plastic factory and a beating she received from a German guard there; her observance of Passover in the camp; her escape from the factory with four other girls and the help that they received from some Poles; the arrival of British and American soldiers in April 1945; her time in Bitterfeld, Germany and in Prague, Czech Republic after the war; her travel to a hospital in Wels, Austria to find her husband; her reunion with her husband in Poland; the help that they received from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; their immigration to the United States in 1949; their life after the war in Brooklyn, NY and Elizabeth and Hillside, NJ; her ability to talk about the Holocaust with her children and grandchildren; and her love for the United States and Israel.

    Oral history interview with Allen Moskowitz

    Oral history interview with Allen Moskowitz

    Oral History

    Allen Moskowitz, born on March 27, 1923, discusses his childhood in Brusnica, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); his family's move to Svidnicka, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1937; his time in Yeshiva in Šurany, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1939; his move back to Svidnicka at the outbreak of World War II in 1939; his parents' distrust of the Germans; antisemitism in Czechoslovakia; his family's obtaining false papers and hiding in Czechoslovakia; the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1944; his mother's hiding with a Gentile family who subsequently forced her to leave; his capture by the Gestapo in 1944; his imprisonment in Sered concentration camp as a Mischlinge; his interaction with Nazi Commandant Alois Brunner; his mother's work as a cook at an inn; his transport to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943 and his subsequent march to Heinkel concentration camp; his march to Siemensstadt concentration camp; his transfer to Ohrdruf concentration camp; a beating he received in Ohrdruf; his ongoing belief in God and religion; the morning roll calls in Ohrdruf; the Kapos in Ohrdruf; his march to Crawinkel concentration camp; the shooting of prisoners on their way from Crawinkel to Buchenwald concentration camp; falling ill with typhus; the liberation of Buchenwald by the Americans; his return to his home town and his reunion with surviving members of his family; his discovery of the fate of his father and 14 year old brother; his family's immigration to France and then to Palestine at the end of World War II; his later immigration to the United States via France after World War II; the role of Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel, his rabbi and “hero of the Holocaust”; the fate of his extended family members during the Holocaust; his life in Brooklyn, NY; his marriage and his life in Elizabeth, NJ; his decision not to talk about the Holocaust with his family; his feelings towards the Germans in World War II; and his thoughts on what can be learned from the Holocaust. Also contains a photograph of Allen in 1946 and a photograph of him in 1993.

    Oral history interview with Sonya Oshman

    Oral history interview with Sonya Oshman

    Oral History

    Sonya Oshman, born on December 17, 1922, discusses her childhood in Novogrudok, Poland (now Navahrudak, Belarus); growing up in a wealthy family; her family's near deportation to Serbia by the Russians; her Polish neighbors being sometimes helpful and sometimes antisemitic; her sister's death in a German bombing raid; the elderly and the very young being murdered first; young people being used in forced labor; her memories of her father before his death in a concentration camp; her family's escape from a ghetto through a tunnel; the "Aktion" in the ghetto following their escape; her brother's immigration to Israel following liberation; her five years in a displaced persons camp in Italy; and her move to the United States with her husband in 1950. Also contains two photographs of Sonya (one is dated June 1988 and the other is undated).

    Oral history interview with Liesel Mayerfeld

    Oral history interview with Liesel Mayerfeld

    Oral History

    Liesel Mayerfeld, born in 1933, discusses her early childhood in Frankfurt, Germany; her memories of pre-war life in Frankfurt; her memories of Kristallnacht in November 1938; her father's deportation to Buchenwald concentration camp during Kristallnacht; her move to the Netherlands with her sister following Kristallnacht; her life in the Netherlands with her uncle; her mother's work to get her father released from Buchenwald; her father's release from Buchenwald; her father's travel to England in July 1939; her mother's travel with an infant son to England in August 1939; moving to England in January of 1940; her family's move to Detroit, MI in 1940; her reaction to American culture and the English language; her brother's move to Israel; and her current life in Elizabeth, NJ.

    Oral history interview with Lisa Reibel

    Oral history interview with Lisa Reibel

    Oral History

    Lisa Reibel, born in 1930, discusses her childhood in Novogrudok, Poland (now Navahrudak, Belarus); her memories of her siblings, specifically her sister, Rae Kushner; her memories of the Russian occupation in 1939; the German occupation of 1941; the thriving Jewish community in Novogrudok; her reaction to her sister's murder; the murder of 5,000 Jews in December 1941; her plan to dig an escape tunnel out of the Novogrudok ghetto; crawling through the tunnel at night; hiding in bushes, barns, and underground bunkers; Tuvia Bielski's partisans; liberation by the Russians in 1945; her time in a displaced persons camp in Italy; her move to the United States in 1949; and her life in Brooklyn, NY, and in Elizabeth, NJ. Also contains photographs of Lisa Reibel in 1994 and one of her at an earlier date.

    Oral history interview with Paul Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Paul Schmelzer

    Oral History

    Paul Schmelzer, born September 3, 1916 in Gwoździec, Poland (Hvizdets', Ukraine), discusses his life before World War II; antisemitism in Poland; his time serving in the Polish Army from 1937 until 1939; being a prisoner of war in 1939; living in the Gwoździec ghetto; his time in the ghetto in Kolomyya (Kolomyia), Ukraine; being in numerous slave labor camps in Ukraine; his numerous escapes from the Germans throughout the war years; meeting his wife, Susan, in Tolstoye (Tovste), Ukraine, in 1941; hiding in the homes of many different Polish farmers; moving to Chernivtsi, Ukraine before liberation; his time in various displaced persons camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Germany and Czechoslovakia; moving to the United States with his wife and son in 1949; living in Bronx, NY from 1949 until 1970; and moving to Elizabeth, NJ in 1970. Also contains a photograph of Paul Schmelzer in 1988.

    Oral history interview with Susan Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Susan Schmelzer

    Oral History

    Susan Schmelzer, born on February 23, 1923, discusses her childhood in Zaleshchiki, Poland (Ukraine); antisemitism in Zaleshchiki; the Russian occupation of Zaleshchiki from 1939 until 1942; the German occupation of Zaleshchiki in 1942; the mass murder of 2,000 Jews from Zaleshchiki in November 1942; her secular, public school education; moving from Zaleshchiki in order to continue her education; her move with her family to the ghetto in Tolstoye (Tovste), Ukraine; performing slave labor in the fields outside of the Tolstoye ghetto in March 1943; meeting her future husband, Paul Schmelzer; the murder of her parents and sister along with 3,000 other Jews from the Tolstoye ghetto; her time hiding with her future husband and a girlfriend until they were liberated by Russians in March; moving with her future husband to Czernowitz (Chernivtsi), Ukraine after liberation; getting married to Paul Schmelzer in Czernowitz; moving to Germany; immigrating with her husband and son to the United States in 1949; and her life in the United States after 1949. Also contains a photograph of Susan Schmelzer in 1987.

    Oral history interview with Adela Sommer

    Oral history interview with Adela Sommer

    Oral History

    Adela Sommer, born in 1923 in Tluste, Poland (now Tovste, Ukraine), discusses her early life in Tluste; her education at Hebrew school; antisemitism in Tluste; relations between Gentiles and Jews in the Tluste area; the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941; the attacks against Jews before the Germans arrived in Tluste; the protests against anti-Jewish activities by two local priests; the setting up of a ghetto in Tluste; the restrictions on the movement of the town's Jewish population; the German Aktion of May 27, 1943, during which 3,000 people were killed; the family's construction of a bunker in an old attic; the help of Hungarian soldiers in disguising the crying of a baby hidden in the attic from the Germans; the deliberate introduction of typhus into the Jewish population in order to label them as contaminated and the effects of typhus; her work as a knitter in a neighboring village; the efforts of one German to protect Jews from an Aktion; her work with the sick; the death of her mother on February 17, 1944; the shooting of her sister and her sister's family; her liberation by the Soviets in March of 1944; her work as a bookkeeper in a Romanian brewery; her invitation to a displaced persons camp in Ulm, Germany, by her cousin, the camp's director; going to the displaced persons camp in Ebensee, Austria; going to Föhrenwald displaced persons camp in Germany; the birth of her twins in 1947; her immigration to the United States on March 13, 1951 with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; and her life in Elizabeth, NJ, and the need for survivors to speak about the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Jack Spiegel

    Oral history interview with Jack Spiegel

    Oral History

    Jack Spiegel, born on March 17, 1918, discusses his childhood in Łódź, Poland; his reaction to being the only surviving family member after the Holocaust; his family's life in the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland; smuggling food into the Warsaw ghetto; traveling secretly to Brzeziny, Koluszki, and Opatów, Poland; his reunion with family in the Warsaw ghetto; his deportation to Minsk and then Babruisk (Bobruysk) in Belarus; the Bobruisk concentration camp; the regular Sunday murders at Bobruisk; working in the camp kitchen; his work at Flossenbürg concentration camp; transports between camps; the walk to Dachau concentration camp; working in a V-2 rocket testing tunnel; being liberated by Americans on April 29, 1945; his convalescence in Lyon, France, for eight months; moving to Israel in 1948; immigrating to the United States in 1960; and his life on Staten Island, NY. Also contains a photograph of Jack Speigel and his family in the 1920s.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Zuckerman

    Oral history interview with Abraham Zuckerman

    Oral History

    Abraham Zuckerman discusses his childhood in Kraków, Poland; his memories of Jewish and Gentile relations before World War II; his memories of forced labor in Kraków after the Nazis took over; the establishment of the Kraków ghetto; his memories of rationing in Kraków; his move, with his family, to Dukla, Poland; his transport, with his family, to Biala Podlaska, Poland; his memories of forced labor in Biala Podlaska; his return, with his family, to Dukla; his family's transport to and subsequent dissapearance from Dukla; his transport to the Rzeszów ghetto in Poland; his transport to Plaszów, Poland; his transport to and time in Julag concentration camp in Plaszów, Poland; his work in Schindler's enamel factory, for a year, until Aug. 1944; his memories of Oskar Schindler; his transport from Schindler's factory to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria; his memories of forced labor in Mauthausen; his transport to and time in Gusen concentration camp in Austria; his liberation by Americans from Gusen on May 5, 1945; his move to Linz, Austria, after liberation; his life in Bindermichl displaced persons camp in Austria from May 1945 until May 1949; his memories of meeting and marrying his wife, Mina, in Bindermichl; his move, with his wife and the first of their three children, to the United States on May 29, 1949; and his life in New Jersey after 1949. Also contains a photograph of Abraham Zuckerman in 1935 and one of him in 1991

    Oral history interview with Paul Gast

    Oral history interview with Paul Gast

    Oral History

    Paul Gast, born in Łódź, Poland on November 16, 1926, discusses his childhood in Łódź; his reaction to being the only survivor in his family after the Holocaust; his father's murder in the 1939 Aktion in Łódź; his move to the Łódź ghetto in 1940; his work in a factory in Łódź; his memories of primitive ghetto conditions; his transport to Auschwitz; his separation from his mother at selection in Auschwitz; his transport to Braunschwieg concentration camp; his memories of Ravensbrück concentration camp; his memories of Watenstedt, a labor camp in Germany; his description of horrible conditions at Ludwigslust concentration camp; seeing Russian soldiers cook human flesh at Ludwigslust; his liberation by American soldiers in May 1945 from Ludwigslust; his move to England in 1945; his education in British schools and universities; moving to New York in 1952; his military service in Korea; his move to Oklahoma; and his life in Verona, NJ.

    Oral history interview with Mina Zuckerman

    Oral history interview with Mina Zuckerman

    Oral History

    Millie (Mina) Zuckerman, born in September 1925, discusses her childhood in Humniska, Poland; the German occupation of Humniska in 1939; the air bombings of local refineries in 1939; her work, from 1939 to 1942, in nearby Brzozów, Poland, carrying stones for roads; being forced to move, along with the rest of the Jewish population from Humniska to Brzozów in 1942; life in Brzozów; her school friend, Helena Kerda; hiding with her father, mother, and older sister in the home of Michalina Kerda, Helena's mother, in Brzozów from 1942 until 1944; her father's secret trade of goods for money with a Polish man named Krekovsky; the liberation of Brzozów in August 1944 by the Russians; moving to Budapest, Hungary with her family in the fall of 1944; receiving food and clothing from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and the Red Cross while in Budapest; her time, with her family, in Bindermichl displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria from May 1945 until 1949; meeting her husband, Abraham Zuckerman, in Bindermichl in 1947. At the conclusion of the interview, Mina Zuckerman invited her friend, Helena Kedra Bocon, to share her memories of Mina's time in hiding in Helena's mother's home in Brzozów, Poland. Also contains a photograph of Mina Zuckerman at age 8 and one of her at the time of the interview.

    Oral History interview with Henry Butensky

    Oral History interview with Henry Butensky

    Oral History

    Henry Butensky, born on August 12, 1922 in Harlem, NY, discusses his childhood in Bronx, NY; how his parents and siblings emigrating from Palestine; his Jewish home; his enlistment in the 71st U.S. Infantry in 1942; his memories of wanting to help his fellow Jews in Europe by fighting in the U.S. Army; his memories of traveling to Europe for battle; his memories of occupying the I.G. Farben factory following the German evacuation; his memories of General Patton's order to capture young Nazi resisters; his memories of Wels II concentration camp; his memories of emaciated prisoners in Wels II; his memories of communicating with a Wels II prisoner in Yiddish; his memories of Straubing labor camp in Germany; his memories of corpses in ditches at Straubing; his time in Gunskirchen concentration camp after liberation; his memories of the bodies of prisoners, who attempted to flee, in the woods around Gunskirchen; and his recollections learning of Auschwitz through a friend after World War II.

    Oral history interview with David Dorfman

    Oral history interview with David Dorfman

    Oral History

    David Dorfman, born on January 22, 1933 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his childhood in Brussels; crossing the English Channel enroot to Liverpool, England from Antwerp, Belgium; his move to the United States with his father in 1939; his parents' marriage of convenience; his mother's and his siblings' experiences in Gurs concentration camp in 1942; his mother becoming pregnant by a guard in Gurs; his mother receiving permission to leave the camp to give birth to his sister Claudine; his mother escaping along with the newborn Claudine; his mother joining the Maquis French underground group in 1943; his mother's second marriage to an Auschwitz survivor; growing up in New York, NY; his sister's move to the United States from Switzerland in 1947; expressing his Holocaust memories through his art; his mother's death being an inspiration for his art; his artwork of Bergen-Belsen, Chelmno, Nordhausen, Majdanek, and Ravensbrück concentration camps; expressing the human extremes of tenderness and cruelty in his artwork; and his life in Mine Hill, N.J. Also contains photographs of David Dorfman in March 1956 and in 1993.

    Oral history interview with Max Findling

    Oral history interview with Max Findling

    Oral History

    Max Findling, born in Zmigród, Poland on July 28, 1923, discusses his childhood in Zmigród; antisemitism in Zmigród; the formation of a Judenrat in Zmigród in 1940; performing forced labor during the winter of 1941; the Gestapo in Zmigród; his transport from Zmigród to Jaslo, Poland in 1942; his time in prison in Jaslo; being sent to Płaszów concentration camp in July 1942; escaping from Płaszów after two weeks; hiding in Poland; returning to Zmigród and hiding; performing forced labor in Jaslo; his sister's murder with 40 or 50 other prisoners in the forest outside of Warzyce, Poland; being transported from Jaslo to Julag I concentration camp in Płaszów, Poland; his bout with typhus in 1943 while in Julag I; his transport to and time in Jerozolimska concentration camp (most likely part of Płaszów); his brother's death from pneumonia in Skarzysko-Kamienna concentration camp in 1944; his transport to and time in Hasag concentration camp in Czestochowa, Poland; Georg Bartenschlager, a S.S. officer who was in charge of Hasag; being liberated from Hasag by Russians; returning to Zmigród; his time in Bucharest, Romania; his time in Padua, Italy; his time in Israel; his marriage in 1949; immigrating to the United States in 1955; his testimony in a trial in 1972 at the request of the American Jewish Congress in Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, against Germans accused of killing Jews; and his life in the United States. Also contains a photograph of Max Findling in 1949 and a photograph of him in 1976.

    Oral History interview with Lilly Gottlieb

    Oral History interview with Lilly Gottlieb

    Oral History

    Lilly Gottlieb, born in 1925 in in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood in Vienna; her recollections of antisemitism in Vienna; Kristallnacht in 1938; her mother's wool and yarn business; her uncle's deportation to Dachau concentration camp and the return of his ashes in an urn; getting a United States visa; her parents' money in banks in the US; her father's journey to Belgium and going to Belgium later with her mother; living in Antwerp, Belgium and experiencing antisemitism; the German invasion of Belgium; her father's time in St. Cyprien, Les Milles, and Gurs concentration camps; thinking that their escape was an adventure; leaving France for Casablanca, Morocco in 1942; traveling to Cuba via Jamaica in 1942; living in Cuba from 1942 to 1948; marching in solidarity with other Jews in Havana; moving to the United States in 1948; returning to Cuba in 1952; leaving Cuba in 1961 to escape Castro's regime; her recent visits to Vienna; and her life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Zygmunt Gottlieb

    Oral history interview with Zygmunt Gottlieb

    Oral History

    Zygmunt Gottlieb, born on December 9, 1923 in Kopychyntsi, Ukraine, discusses his childhood in Kopychyntsi; his orthodox upbringing; the poor conditions before World War II in Kopychyntsi; his memories of antisemitism in Ukraine; his memories of the Russian occupation from 1939 to 1941; his memories of the German occupation from 1941 to 1944; his recollections of the Kopychyntsi ghetto; his transport to the Kamionki labor camp; his recollections of 65 survivors of the original 5,000 to 6,000 Jews of Kopychyntsi; his memories of Aktions in Kamionki; his memories of the Ternopol labor camp; his escape during an Aktion; his memories of hiding in the barn of a Polish officer; his memories of hiding with his father and other relatives in an underground bunker; his liberation by the Russians in March 1944; his enlistment in the Soviet Army; his release from the army due to the fact he claimed to be a teacher before the war; his memories of testifying at a Mannheim war crimes trial; his travels to Vienna, Austria and Munich, Germany after the war; and his life in the United States after May 1951.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lefkovic

    Oral history interview with Alice Lefkovic

    Oral History

    Alice Lefkovic, born July 8, 1926, describes her childhood in Brezova Pod Bradlom, Slovakia; the antisemitism that followed Slovakian independence in 1940; her father's deportation to Majdanek concentration camp in 1941; attempting to flee to Hungary, her arrest, and her subsequent release due to the intervention of a mysterious benefactor; eventually arriving in Hungary with the help of a family member; reuniting with family members in Budapest, Hungary; deportations of Jews from Hungary in May 1944; being deported to Sered concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; her subsequent transport to Therensienstadt concentration camp; participating in forced labor while in Theresienstadt; her liberation by the Red Army; her life in Prague, Czech Republic following the war; her immigration to Israel after World War II; and her immigration to the United States in 1967. Includes photographs of Alice Lefkovic in 1947 and 1989.

    Oral history interview with Charles Levine

    Oral history interview with Charles Levine

    Oral History

    Charles Levine, born June 15, 1915 in Augustów, Poland, discusses his childhood; the immigration of his brother to the United States in 1923; being drafted into the Polish Army in 1939 and his wagon trip to the Soviet Union while in the army; his return to Augustów after his military service; his memories of Augustów under Soviet rule; the German invasion of Augustów on June 22, 1941; his time in the Augustów ghetto; his memories of Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski; being deported to Bogusze concentration camp on November 2, 1942 and his memories of the atrocities that took place in Bogusze; the transport of 6,000 Jews to Treblinka concentration camp and their murder there; being sent to Birkenau concentration camp in January 1943; building the crematoria; the killing of 24,000 Jews in the crematoria in Birkenau; the gassing of his sister and parents in Birkenau; receiving a tattooed number 85719 while he was in Birkenau; the extraction of gold from the teeth of dead prisoners; being sent to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in January 1945; a Romani camp in Gross-Rosen; the hanging of an escapee in front of the inmates in Gross-Rosen; being transported to Buchenwald concentration camp in February 1945; doing forced labor in Weimar, Germany; digging graves for German soldiers; being liberated by American soldiers April 13, 1945, and his memories of General Dwight Eisenhower's visit to Buchenwald shortly after liberation; traveling through Europe after liberation; the shooting of one of his friends by a member of the Armia Krajowa; his time in a displaced persons camp in Italy; his marriage in 1947 and his immigration to the United States in 1949; his life in New Jersey; and his personal reflections on the Holocaust. Photographs of Charles Levine in Italy in 1945 and in 1992 accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Eva Laks

    Oral history interview with Eva Laks

    Oral History

    Eva Laks, born in Ryki, Poland, on March 10, 1922, describes her family's move to Jankowiec nad Wisla, Poland, after a fire; antisemitism in Janowiec nad Wisla, Poland; the arrival of German troops in Janowiec nad Wisla in 1939 and the evacuation of the Jews from the city; living with her family in Zwoleń, Poland; being deported with her father to a concentration camp; her imprisonment at Skarzysko-Kamienna concentration camp and her work in an ammunition factory; the evacuation of the prisoners of Skarzysko-Kamienna and their forced march to Leipzig, Germany; being liberated by the Russian Army during the march; traveling to Kraków, Poland and staying in a house for concentration camp victims; her marriage and move to Prague, Czech Republic; moving to Landsberg am Lech, Germany; the birth and death of her first child; immigrating to New Orleans, LA in 1950; moving to New Jersey; and the death of her first husband and her second marriage. Photographs of Eva Laks accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Naftali Laks

    Oral history interview with Naftali Laks

    Oral History

    Naftali Laks, born on June 1, 1922 in Zmigród, Poland, discusses his childhood and his family in Zmigród; walking 60 miles towards the Russian border before being captured by the Germans; laying railroad tracks; the Germans burning and destroying synagogues and houses of study; the summer of 1942 when 60 percent of Zmigród's population was liquidated in a pogrom; the liquidation of the Zmigród ghetto in 1943; his sister's sexual assault by a policeman in Tarnów, Poland; his deportation to Płaszów concentration camp and subsequently contracting typhus; the Skarzysko-Kamienna concentration camp and staying alive with the help of his sisters; being transported between several concentration camps, among them Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, and Mauthausen; the terrible conditions at Mauthausen; his reaction to seeing American bomber planes; Passover in 1945 at Mauthausen; British Spitfires firing on transport trains; American troops liberating Mauthausen; his search for his sisters in Czechoslovakia; his journey to Israel with his sisters and his life there from 1952 to 1959; moving to the United States in 1959; his marriage in 1961 and his wife's death in 1969; and his remarriage in 1972 and his life with his new wife, also a Holocaust survivor. Also contains four photographs; one of Naftali Laks' family in 1938, one of his home in Zmigród, Poland, and 2 of Naftali at a mass grave site in August 1993.

    Oral history interview with Leonard Linton

    Oral history interview with Leonard Linton

    Oral History

    Leonard Linton, born on January 1, 1922, discusses his training in the Military Government of the United States Army; his language abilities; his service with the 82nd Airborne Division during the occupation of Ludwigslust, Germany; his memories of the Nazi mayor of Ludwigslust; his experience during and after the liberation of Wöbbelin concentration camp; helping nurse concentration camp survivors at a railway station; and his opinion that General James M. Gavin's crossing of the Elbe River saved the lives of the Wöbbelin prisoners. Photographs of Leonard Linton in the mid-1940s and 1993 accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Henry Lowenbraun

    Oral history interview with Henry Lowenbraun

    Oral History

    Henry Lowenbraun, born on August 1, 1922 in Lancut, Poland, discusses his childhood in Lancut; his imprisonment in the Rzeszów ghetto in 1942; the killings and Aktions that took place in Rzeszów; his illness with stomach typhus; his selection in the ghetto for labor; escaping from the ghetto to the forest near Lácut and his time hiding there; his voluntary return to the ghetto in the spring of 1942 to be with his sister; being transported to Szebnie concentration camp in the spring of 1943; the shooting and hanging of inmates by the commandant in Szebnie; the Appel in Szebnie, during which every tenth prisoner was executed; the commandant's receiving of a death sentence after World War II; his movement to Mordarka, Poland to a train station in 1943; the murder of a large group of Kraków Jews in Mordarka; the train ride to Auschwitz concentration camp in the fall of 1943; his interaction with Dr. Josef Mengele; a beating that he received in Auschwitz for not picking up a stone; his movement to Monowitz concentration camp, a subcamp of Auschwitz, to work in the I.G. Farben Buna factory; the bombing of the Farben factory; the hanging of two inmates at the Appel at Monowitz; a death march in January of 1945 to Glebowice, Poland; his 12 day cattle train ride to Nordhausen concentration camp, a sub camp of Dora concentration camp; his illness with pneumonic pleurisy; the liberation of the camp by troops led by General Dwight Eisenhower while he was in the hospital; his time in Degerloch displaced persons camp near Stuttgart, Germany from 1945 to 1949; his marriage to his wife in 1946; the fate of his family during the Holocaust; his immigration to the United States on April 6, 1949; his life after World War II in Brooklyn, NY and Newark, NJ; and his general reflections on the Holocaust. Also contains a photocopy of a document that certifies Henry as a concentration camp prisoner, a photocopy of a photograph of Henry in his concentration camp uniform dated 1946, and four additional undated photocopies of photographs.

    Oral history interview with Paul Monka

    Oral history interview with Paul Monka

    Oral History

    Paul Monka, born in 1920 in Bedzin, Poland, describes his childhood in Bedzin; his father's textile business; his time studying in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland; his memories of antisemitism in Piotrków Trybunalski and throughout Poland before, during, and after the World War II; his family's involvement in Zionism; his memories of a curfew and other anti-Jewish laws in Bedzin after 1939; his recollections of demeaning forced labor in Bedzin after 1939; his recollections of the Bedzin ghetto; his encounter with the Gestapo while working in a factory in Silesia; his subsequent arrest and time in solitary confinement in a Gestapo prison in Katowice, Poland; his time in the hospital after surviving solitary confinement and meeting Yanek; his acceptance into the Armia Ludowa resistance group by Yanek; his memories of selections from the Bedzin ghetto; his escape from Bedzin to the Armia Ludowa headquarters in the woods; his recollections of the formation of a Judenrat in Bedzin; his sabotage actions as part of the underground movement; his sister's illness and death from tuberculosis; his liberation by Russians; his memories of Zavatsky, the Polish General; his time as Security Chief of Silesia after the war; his memories of the Muselmänner who survived Auschwitz concentration camp; his recollections of the death marches from the camps at the end of the war; his feelings of bitterness toward the United States for refusing to accept his sister for immigration and for the lack of response in general; his time in Italy from 1945 to 1946; his work for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; his move to the United States on November 21, 1949; and his life in the United States after 1949.

    Oral history interview with Walter Nachtigall

    Oral history interview with Walter Nachtigall

    Oral History

    Walter Nachtigall, born in 1931 in Vienna, Austria, discusses the jubilation in Austria during the Anschluss on March 13, 1938 and the overt antisemitism that followed; his experiences during Kristallnacht in Austria on November 9, 1938; his father's imprisonment in Dachau concentration camp during Kristallnacht; going to England and Scotland along with his sister in order to avoid Nazi persecution; staying in Dysart, Scotland with a Christian family (James and Isa Salmond) during the summer of 1939; the release of his father from Dachau and his parent's immigration to Edinburgh, Scotland; his Jewish education by a Christian clergyman; reuniting with his parents and their immigration to the United States in 1939; and visiting Scotland in the late 1950s.

    Oral history interview with Herma Rappaport

    Oral history interview with Herma Rappaport

    Oral History

    Herma Rappaport, born in Vienna, Austria in 1924, discusses her childhood in Vienna; Kristallnacht; her family being put on house arrest for five days; a Gentile neighbor helping her family; moving with her mother to the Jewish section of Vienna after Kristallnacht; the release of her father and the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of the Germans; her father's stroke; being sent to England on a Kindertransport; arriving in London, England, and her life in the Woolwich section of the city living with a Jewish doctor and his wife; being in Wales at the outbreak of World War II; being in London during the German bombing raids; her mother's death in Theresienstadt in April 1944; her father's imprisonment in Auschwitz in May 1944 and learning of his death in the camp; and her immigration to the United States in 1948. Two photographs of Herma, one in 1939 and one in 1990 accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Robert Rothschild

    Oral history interview with Robert Rothschild

    Oral History

    Robert Rothschild, born on January 9, 1924 in Mellrichstadt, Germany, discusses his childhood in Mellrichstadt; his education in a Catholic high school; the increase in antisemitism after the Nazis took power in 1933; his forced resignation from the Catholic school and the completion of his education in a Jewish day school; his apprenticeship to his uncle as a tailor and his arrival at his uncle's residence on Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938; being arrested and sent to Buchenwald; being released and taking a train to France; boarding a ship bound for the United States and the diversion of the ship to the Isle of Man off the coast of Great Britain; his time in a camp on the island and his eventual release; working as the foreman in a bakery; moving to England; the immigration of his parents and brother to the United States in 1941; his immigration to the United States in March 1947; and his reflections on the Holocaust. Two photographs of Robert Rothschild, one at age 15and one at age 6, accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Morris Rubell

    Oral history interview with Morris Rubell

    Oral History

    Morris Rubell, born on January 16, 1930 in Barycz, Poland (near Krosno, Poland), describes his childhood and the small community of Jews in Barycz; his father's work as an innkeeper; the beginning of World War II; being transported with his mother to the Rzeszow ghetto and escaping from the ghetto with his mother; his transport to Płaszów concentration camp in 1942; his preoccupation with survival and sorrow in the camps; his time in Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943; his time in Melk concentration camp in 1944; being sent to Ebensee concentration camp in March 1945 and his liberation from Ebensee by American soldiers shortly thereafter; his memories of reuniting with his sisters in Italy; meeting his brother Mark, who survived the war in Russia, in a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria; his life in France in 1947 when the Polish immigrations quota to the United States was exhausted; his eventual move to the United States in February 1948; and his life since then in Vienna, NJ.

    Oral history interview with Aaron Schwarz

    Oral history interview with Aaron Schwarz

    Oral History

    Aaron Schwarz discusses his childhood in Zarowka, Poland; escaping deportation by jumping from a train and returning home to Zarowka; his arrest in Tarnów, Poland; his time in the Radomysl Wilki and Kraków ghettos; participating in forced labor in several forced labor camps in Poland; escaping a deportation train on the way to Treblinka concentration camp in 1944; his liberation by the Russians in 1944; traveling throughout Poland after liberation and experiencing antisemitism at that time; and his time in to Heidelberg, Germany, just before his immigration to the United States in 1949. Two photographs of Aaron Schwarz accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Ida Schwarz

    Oral history interview with Ida Schwarz

    Oral History

    Ida Schwarz, born on May 20, 1925, discusses her early life in Tarnów, Poland; the arrival of the Germans in Tarnów on September 4, 1939; the creation of a ghetto in Tarnów by the Germans in the summer of 1942; hiding in the ghetto in August 1942, first in a sewer and later in a cellar; her participation in labor for the Germans while in the ghetto; escaping from a deportation train in November 1942; returning to the ghetto with the help of a Polish peasant; the liquidation of the ghetto in September 1943 and her deportation to Płaszów concentration camp; being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1943; her participation in labor while in Auschwitz; the closing of Auschwitz and the death march of the inmates to a train taking them to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in January 1945; her experiences in Bergen-Belsen; being transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp and her liberation by American troops in 1945; returning to Tarnów and her subsequent travel to Heidelberg, Germany, in 1945; the birth of her son; and her immigration to the United States with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Sonnenberg

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Sonnenberg

    Oral History

    Gertrude Sonnenberg, born on February 1, 1919 in Hausberge (Hausberge an der Porta), Germany, begins the interview by showing a photograph of herself at age 19 and photographs of her and her father taken by the police; two rings made for her while she was in the Riga ghetto and a piece of paper given to her by a Jewish policeman as her parents were taken away. She continues by discussing her childhood in Hausberge; the changes that took place in Hausberge when Hitler came to power in 1933; antisemitism in Germany before 1933; her family's move to Hesse, Germany; the closing of high schools, universities, and professions to Jews in the late 1930s; her time in Dortmund, Germany, working as a dressmaker; Kristallnacht; the conversion of her house to a bank in 1939; the establishment of new laws in Hannover pertaining to Jews; the activities of the Kulterbund Deutscher Juden (Jüdischer Kulturbund); the bombing of Germany by the British; her family's time in hiding in an attic in Hannover before their deportation; her family's three day train ride to Riga, Latvia; participating in forced labor in Riga; the gassing and shooting of Jews who couldn't work by the Latvian SS; the establishment of a ghetto and an Appel in Riga; the atrocities that took place in Riga; the uprising in Riga on October 30, 1942, and the execution of the participants of the uprising; her memories of her parents' deportation from Riga; her attempted suicide; her sister's work as a nurse in a hospital and the abortions that were performed in the hospital in Riga; babies being sent away for experiments; the liquidation of the Riga ghetto; her and her sister's time in Kiel-Hassee concentration camp and their liberation from the camp by the Red Cross; their move to and time in Sweden after the World War II; their life in the United States after their emigration in 1948; and her feelings on speaking about the Holocaust. Includes two photographs of Gertrude, one as a young woman and one more recent, accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Weinbuch

    Oral history interview with Joseph Weinbuch

    Oral History

    Joseph Weinbuch, born in 1924 in Kurów, Poland, describes the antisemitism in Kurów; his memories of Kurów burning in 1939; living in the Kurów ghetto from 1939 until 1941; being in Majdanek concentration camp; being in Janowska concentration camp for four months in 1941; the Janowska Judenrat; escaping the camp and returning to Kurów where his mother secretly nursed him to health from typhus; his family's removal from their house in 1941; hiding in the woods and fields near Kurów from 1941 until 1944; Jews hiding in private homes in exchange for money; his memories of the Witkowskis, a Polish couple who helped him hide and find a job; a near-fatal encounter with SS officers; his father's murder by the Armia Krajowa after the war; his thoughts on Jewish-Christian relations in Poland and in general; his liberation in 1944; his time in the Polish Army after liberation; his time in Austria after leaving the Polish Army; and immigrating to the United States February 1949.

    Oral history interview with Sol Urbach

    Oral history interview with Sol Urbach

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Luba Zeidel

    Oral history interview with Luba Zeidel

    Oral History

    Luba Zeidel, born in 1914 in Vishkovo, Poland (possibly Vyshkovo, Ukraine), discusses her childhood; growing up in a religious family with nine children; her father's work as a locksmith; experiencing antisemitism in school and in town; the bombing and general confusion during the German takeover; the synagogue in Vishkovo burning to the ground; her family fleeing to Sarny, Ukraine; her family's murder by the Germans; escaping with her sister to ZHadova, Ukraine; meeting her husband in ZHadova; liberation by the Russians; life in the Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp in Germany; and her immigration to the United States in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Teddy Zweig

    Oral history interview with Teddy Zweig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Susan Lederman

    Oral history interview with Susan Lederman

    Oral History

    Susan Lederman, born on May 28, 1937, discusses her childhood in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); her mother's and father's education; the help that she received from Gentiles; her conversion by a priest for her protection; her uncle and his family who were shot as partisans; her time in Trnava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); the movement of two Jewish families into her home; her time with a family in Budapest, Hungary; the murder of the Hungarian family; her time with her godmother's family; her parents' hiding in a bombed-out factory; her time living with another Hungarian family in Bratislava; the family's willingness to take a chance in hiding her because she had blond hair, blue eyes, and could speak Hungarian; the way she needed to act as not to "blow the cover;" her parents' hiding in a rented room with her mother's aunt; her knowledge of the deportations of Jews; her father's exemption from the deportations because of his printing skills; the end of their hiding in 1944; their time living in an apartment before emigration; their immigration to the United States in 1948; her parents' decision to stop keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath; her education in the United States; her family's settlement in Queens, NY; her political sophistication during the Eisenhower era; the help her family received from the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America; her father's work for a Czech newspaper in NY and then for the United Nations Postal Administration; her encouragement to her friends to read the Diary of Anne Frank; and her belief that America is an open, accepting society.

    Oral history interview with David Altholz

    Oral history interview with David Altholz

    Oral History

    David Altholz, born in Krosno, Poland on May 26, 1928, discusses his childhood in Krosno and Chorzów, Poland; his experiences with antisemitism, especially stone throwing; his family's vacation in Poland in 1939; seeing the Jews of Chorzów evacuating around the time of the German invasion of Poland; the Germans executing educated and professional men; being rounded up with his family for a work detail; being imprisoned in Szebnie concentration camp; being transferred to Płaszów concentration camp where he reunited with his father and learned the fate of his mother and sister; the numerous prisoners who were sent to Auschwitz; the atrocities in Płaszów; his claims of being a watchmaker as a means of survival; his memories of the "Appel" in Płaszów, during which every tenth prisoner was shot; his transfer to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943; working in a factory in Ludwigslust, Germany; being liberated by American troops; going to Berlin, Germany; reuniting with his father in Lübeck, Germany; immigrating to the United States with his father and the aid they received from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America; being drafted into the US Army for service during the Korean War; his life in Maplewood, NJ; reflecting on his survival as being pure accident; and his thoughts on Germans and Poles.

    Oral history interview with Ann Schatz

    Oral history interview with Ann Schatz

    Oral History

    Ann Schatz, born in Brody, Poland (now in Ukraine) on March 3, 1922, discusses her family's move from their home to an apartment after the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland; her capture by a German soldier; her forced labor at the hands of the Germans and her eventual release from German custody; her father's arrest by the Germans and his return from captivity severely beaten and with his beard shaved; the establishment of a ghetto in Brody by the Germans in 1942; her father's bout with typhus fever; her brother's attempted escape from the Brody ghetto and his subsequent capture and death in Vilnius, Lithuania; the Germans killing her father in 1943; the deportation of her mother to Majdanek concentration camp; hiding from the Germans in a cellar and her discovery by a Polish fireman; her deportation to a labor camp; her liberation by the Soviets in 1944 and her marriage the same year; her time in a displaced persons camp in Frankfurt, Germany; and her immigration to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Aron Grynwald

    Oral history interview with Aron Grynwald

    Oral History

    Aron Grynwald, born on June 21, 1904 in Bedzin, Poland, discusses his pre-war life in Bedzin; attending a technical school in Wroclaw, Poland; his marriage, in 1939, to Gitla Grynwald; numerous cases of antisemitism in Poland; hiding in 1939 on a farm in Poland; his time in the Kraków ghetto; prominent members of the Kraków Judenrat; anti-Jewish laws imposed in 1939; having to wear a Jewish star; the confiscation of his Kraków factory by a Viennese man in 1949; his time working in this factory from 1940 until October 8, 1942 on a special work permit from the German Labor Department; his contact with family members in the Warsaw ghetto; escaping the June 3, 1942 selection of 6,000 Jews in the Kraków ghetto because of his special work permit; hiding with his wife, Gitla, to escape another selection, of 7,000 Jews from the Kraków ghetto on October 28, 1942; working in the Kraków ghetto from October 8, 1942 until March 13, 1943 after his special work permit expired; being transported to Płaszów concentration camp on March 13, 1942; his memories of Amon Goeth, the Commandant of Płaszów concentration camp; being transported to Mauthausen concentration camp in August 1944; forced labor in Mauthausen; the SS and the Gestapo officers in Mauthausen; being transported to Ebensee concentration camp in Austria in April 13, 1945; his liberation by American troops from Ebensee on May 6, 1945; returning to Kraków after liberation; his wife's time in Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp; the communist leadership of Wladyslaw Gomulka in Poland after World War II; and his time in the United States after 1961. Also contains a photograph of Aron Grynwald in 1940, one of him recent to the time of the interview, and one of him and his wife, Gitla, recent to the time of the interview.

    Oral history interview with Gitla Grynwald

    Oral history interview with Gitla Grynwald

    Oral History

    Gitla Grynwald, born on October 23, 1902 in Zawiercie, Poland, discusses her childhood in Zawiercie; her education; her work in a library until 1932; her marriage to Aron Grynwald on March 8, 1933; her time in Kraków, Poland after her marriage; the German invasion of Kraków on September 6, 1939; the subsequent establishment of a ghetto in Kraków; the Kraków Judenrat; her husband's work for the Gestapo in Kraków; her transport, with her husband, to Płaszów concentration camp in March 1943; conditions in Płaszów; being transported to Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1944; forced labor in Auschwitz; being transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany after three weeks in Auschwitz; conditions in Bergen-Belsen; her time in Raguhn, Germany from January 1945 until April 1945; being transported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in April 1945; her time in a hospital from May 1945 until July 1945; returning to Kraków in July 1945; and her life in the United States after 1961. Also contains a photograph of Gitla Grynwald in 1940 and a photograph of her, with her husband Aron, recent to the time of the interview.

    Oral history interview with Sally Chase

    Oral history interview with Sally Chase

    Oral History

    Sally Chase, born on November 28, 1928, discusses her childhood in Radom, Poland; being sent to the Radom ghetto; the murder of intellectual Jews by the Germans; how the Germans forced the Jews to wear the yellow Star of David; volunteering to work at the Wehrmacht Alpha A labor camp as a means of protection from persecution; the attempted liquidation of the Radom ghetto by the Germans and the deportation of Radom's Jews to Treblinka concentration camp, including her parents; the gassing of Radom's Jews at Treblinka; the liquidation of the labor camps and her deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp; selections of prisoners by Dr. Josef Mengele; her move after six months to an aircraft factory in Gebhardsdorf, Germany; marching from Gebhardsdorf to another work camp; her unsuccessful escape attempt from a work camp; being liberated by Soviet troops; returning to Poland and subsequently traveling to Czechoslovakia after World War II; and her immigration to the United States in 1947. Also contains three black and white photographs of Sally Chase. One dated 1946, one dated 1948, and one dated 1978.

    Oral history interview with Renee Cantor

    Oral history interview with Renee Cantor

    Oral History

    Renee Cantor discusses her early childhood in Brussels, Belgium; her move to a Sephardic orphanage in England at age 4; not remembering her own family; her experiences in the Sephardic orphanage; her memories of life in a British "evacuation town" with a Christian family; her memories of antisemitism in British schools and communities; her high school graduation at age 16; applying to go to Palestine; meeting her husband on the day he arrived in England to go to Manchester Union college; and her life in the United States after 1946.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Baum

    Oral history interview with Lotte Baum

    Oral History

    Lotte Baum, born in Essen, Germany on August 9, 1915, discusses her childhood and adolescent life in Essen; her parents' deaths prior to the Holocaust; the destruction of synagogues, businesses, and homes during Kristallnacht; moving to the Netherlands in 1941; the confiscation of her husband's factory by the Germans; being transported to Westerbork concentration camp; working in the Westerbork laundry facility; paying in gold money in order to remain at Westerbork; being transported to Auschwitz in 1944; learning of her husband's death in Auschwitz; her work in a munitions factory in the Sudetenland; her liberation by the Russians in March 1945; her second marriage to a member of the German underground; and moving to the United States in 1947. Also contains photographs of Lotte Baum in 1947 and in May 1991.

    Oral history interview with Aba Prawer

    Oral history interview with Aba Prawer

    Oral History

    Aba Prawer, born on January 1, 1922, discusses his childhood in Miechów Lubelski, Poland; his visits to Landsberg am Lech and Feldafing displaced persons camps in Germany in 1945; his father's imprisonment in Skarzysko-Kamienna concentration camp in Poland; antisemitism in Miechów after German occupation; the curfew and other anti-Jewish laws in Miechów after German occupation; performing forced labor under SS supervision on a railroad near Miechów; the financial and emotional support he received from a Volksdeutsche family friend; his time in a forced labor camp near Kraków, Poland; being transported to Rabka, Poland, and doing forced labor; returning to the Kraków ghetto in 1943; the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto in 1943; his numerous forced labor assignments while in Kraków; working in the Buna synthetic-rubber works factory at Monowitz (Monowice) concentration camp, a subcamp of Auschwitz; the crematoria at Auschwitz; being transported to Buchenwald concentration camp; prisoners falling ill from typhus in Buchenwald; his recollections of Ilse Koch, the wife of Buchenwald's Commandant, Karl Koch; his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945; his life after liberation and his move to the United States in 1951; receiving help from the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America; and his life in New Jersey after 1956.

    Oral history interview with Dina Weinreb Jacoud

    Oral history interview with Dina Weinreb Jacoud

    Oral History

    Dina Weinreb Jacoud, born on June 7, 1925 in Lavochne, Ukraine, discusses her childhood; the limited educational opportunities in Lavochne public schools; going to school in Stryi, Ukraine; the 1939 partition of Poland; a Volksdeutsche friend who took her from Stryi to be reunited with her family in Lavochne; her time hiding in the woods near Lavochne with her father in August 1944; moving with her father to Hungary in August 1944; hiding in Hungary; receiving false papers and her false identity as Stephany Warge, a Mischlinge; moving to Budapest, Hungary and her time working illegally there; her arrest as a political prisoner and her time as a political prisoner in Békéscsaba, Hungary, prison in 1944; the horrors of life in the Békéscsaba prison; her belief in the existence of extrasensory perception and memories of two incidents, one as a child in Lavochne and one as an adult in the United States in 1967, when she believes she possessed extrasensory perception; the SS and the Gestapo; being transported from Debrecen, Hungary to Auschwitz concentration camp and the conditions during the transport; being sanitized upon entering Auschwitz and receiving a red triangle, the marking of a Christian prisoner; performing forced labor at Auschwitz; performing slave labor at a bulb factory in Plauen, Germany, and her liberation from Plauen; life in Feldafing displaced persons camp in Germany, where she met her first husband, and her marriage there; moving her husband to Munich, Germany, and their later move to New Orleans, LA, on August 8, 1949; living in Miami, Florida, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey; her recollections of segregation while living in Florida; her memories of receiving assistance from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee while living in New York City; and her life in Newark. Also contains a photograph of Dina Weinreb Jacoud in 1947 and one of her in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Margie Appel

    Oral history interview with Margie Appel

    Oral History

    Margie Appel, born August 13, 1928, discusses her childhood in Klečenov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); her experiences in public school; her father's service in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938; her brothers being sent to forced labor; photographs of one of her brothers; her youngest brother's deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland; the gassing of her father at Auschwitz; her reunion with her brothers after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; her family's removal from their home; their placement in the ghetto in Munkács, Hungary (now Mukacheve, Ukraine); the atrocities that took place in the Munkács ghetto; the torturing of her brother for breaking curfew; the beatings of her five brothers in the ghetto; the train ride to Auschwitz; the disappearance of her mother; the "selection" of her and her sister for forced labor by Dr. Josef Mengele; the beating she received from the Kapos; her "close calls" with the gas chambers; her and her sister's transfer to Gelsenkirchen concentration camp in Germany to work on barges; the beating of Hungarian girls; their transfer to Essen concentration camp in Germany, to work in the Krupp factories; the bombing of the factory and the camp; her fasting on Yom Kippur; the mental state of her sister; the problems that she had with her sister and her desire for relief from the burden she caused; the train ride to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; the liberation of the camp by British troops; the atmosphere after liberation; the aid that they received from the Red Cross; her arrival at Celle, Germany, near Bergen-Belsen; the visit of Eleanor Roosevelt to the camp; the discovery of her brother's fate; the meeting of her future husband in Most, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); her marriage on Aug. 27, 1946; her time spent in the Gabersee displaced persons camp in Germany; her pregnancy and birth to twins and the death of one of the twins; her arrival in the United States in 1949; the help she received from the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society; her life in Lakewood, N.J.; the death of her husband in 1970; her marriage to her second husband; her trip to Israel; and her belief that people survived the Holocaust so that Judaism could grow again. Also contains a photograph of Margie in 1945 and a photograph of her in 1989.

    Oral history interview with Victor Wegard

    Oral history interview with Victor Wegard

    Oral History

    Victor Wegard, born in New York, discusses his enlistment into the United States Army after graduating from high school; his job as a reporter for the Army War College in Trinidad; his time in Sicily, Italy; volunteering for the paratroopers; his placement in the War Crimes Commission; being trained for entry into concentration camps at Cumberland University in Tennessee; his return to Europe in 1944, first to England, then to Holland, and finally to France; his placement into the War Crimes Commission, unit number 6832; his orders to secure the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany; his order to attach his unit to the 91st Infantry Division going to Flossenbürg concentration camp; his arrival at Flossenbürg; his learning of the fate of certain members of the SS; the investigation in a neighboring town called Namering; the claims of the townspeople of seeing or hearing nothing; the discovery of the bodies of recently executed people in Namering and the proper burial of the victims; his memories of the United States Army forcing the townspeople to look closely at the victims' corpses; the claim by the Germans that Flossenbürg had the most "efficient" gas chamber; the atrocities that took place in Flossenbürg; his discovery of a cousin at the camp; the discovery of Yugoslavs, Greeks, and German political prisoners including members of the White Rose resistance group; his thoughts that the prisoners in Flossenbürg were carrying diseases; the capturing of SS and Ukrainian guards; the interrogation of the SS and Ukrainian guards; the interrogation of SS Lieutenant Colonel Jochen Peiper; his experiences during the Nuremberg trials; the Dachau War Crime Trials; his memories of having to defend the criminals; the trial of Dr. Klaus Schilling; frustrations that occurred with the trials; the case against German commandant Andreas Müller; his reflections on his role as a Holocaust educator; and his reflections on Revisionists and deniers. Also contains a black-and-white photograph of Wegard in his army uniform in 1940.

    Oral history interview with Edith Farben

    Oral history interview with Edith Farben

    Oral History

    Edith Farben, born in Velká Polana, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) on April 9, 1925, discusses her childhood; her short stay in Munkás, Czechoslovakia (Mukacheve, Ukraine); the changes that took place when World War II broke out and the Hungarians occupied the area; the Jews being forced to wear yellow stars and other anti-Jewish laws; an incident that occurred where two Hungarian soldiers tried to help her family; her grandfather's inability to find papers to avoid deportation; the movement of her family into the ghetto in Munkás in 1944; her grandfather's beard being shaved off; her grandfather's death; her family's deportation by train to Auschwitz; arriving at Auschwitz; the separation of her brother and father; working in the "Kanada" commando sorting clothes; her relatively "easy" life in the camp; the beating of her aunt in Auschwitz; the entrance of inmates into the crematorium; an uprising in Auschwitz in October 1944; the forced labor of the inmates, especially on Jewish holidays; "blood-taking" on Tisha Ba'av; the gas chambers in Auschwitz; her mother's and sister's deportations to Bergen-Belsen, where her sister died; being deported to the Sudetenland (German-occupied Czechoslovakia) where she worked in a factory named Waisswasser (Mittelsteine concentration camp); her belief that her survival is due to the fact that she was nimble fingered; incidents where she helped her friends survive; the help that she received from Czech forced laborers; the long train ride to Bratislava, Slovakia, where she encountered Russian soldiers; reuniting with her mother, brother, and two sisters in Bratislava; finding out the fate of her father and sisters; moving back to Velká Polana where she found her house was occupied by neighbors; the shelters provided by the United Jewish Appeal; her marriage in October 1945; visiting her brother in Czechoslovakia; moving to Wasserburg, Germany in the spring of 1946; arriving in the United States in July 1947; her life in the United States with her family; her mother's experiences during the Holocaust; and her reflections on why she survived and not forgetting what happened in the Holocaust. Also contains a photograph of Edith at age seventeen and a photograph of her at age sixty.

    Oral history interview with Robert Mansfeld

    Oral history interview with Robert Mansfeld

    Oral History

    Robert Mansfeld, born in 1927 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses his childhood in Amsterdam; his father's career as a high-fashion manufacturer; his family's stay in Berlin, Germany between the years of 1930 and 1935; his time as a neighbor of Hermann Göring; moving back to Amsterdam in 1935; his parents' divorce; the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940; the posting of the Nuremberg laws; the protest of the occupation by the Dutch people; the disappearance of students from his school, probably to Westerbork, a Dutch concentration camp; the imprisonment of community and national leaders; his life while his father was incarcerated; the underground's destruction of files that the Germans had on Amsterdam residents; his inclusion in a roundup in Amsterdam; his inclusion in a selection at a gymnasium in Amsterdam; his uncle's "lease on life" as a member of the Jewish council; his family's contacts with the underground; his family's separation to different hiding places; his time hiding with a plumber and his family; his time in Friesland, Netherlands with a Dutch Reformed family of farmers; his falsification of his identity; his sister's hiding situation; Allied raids in the Netherlands; his interactions with Germans who were not suspicious of him; the roundup of school children for labor; his fear of being hit by V-2 rockets or Spitfire attacks; the Canadian liberation of the Netherlands; his father's stay in Amsterdam during the war; reuniting with his family after the war; the disappearance of aunts, uncles, and grandparents during the war; a request by Ferdinand aus der Fünten to his father to testify on his behalf and his father's subsequent refusal to testify; his life after the war; his immigration to Canada in 1952 and his later immigration to the United States in 1958; and his perspectives on the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Henry Yungst

    Oral history interview with Henry Yungst

    Oral History

    Henry Yungst, born on October 7, 1920, discusses his childhood in Ozorków, Poland; the change in attitude of the Poles towards the Jews at the beginning of 1939; the looting of his father's factory; his family's move and their experience living in a single room with no toilet facilities; the roundup of Jews in Łódź, Poland, on April 1, 1940; their movement into a movie house in Ozorków, Poland; the death of his father and older brother by starvation in a camp in Poznan, Poland; the gassing of his mother, sister, and younger brother in Chelmno concentration camp; his time in a forced labor camp in Danzig (Gdansk, Poland); his memories of being whipped by an officer; the help that he received from a foreman; his transport to Palemonas concentration camp in Lithuania; his memories of the transport of children to Paneriai, Lithuania, to be killed; his memories of the atrocities committed by "Peter the Terrible" and other Ukrainians; his transport to Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga, Latvia; a plane that crashed into Kaiserwald on a suicide mission; his transport to Stutthof concentration camp; his memories of criminals being unleashed by their captors on Jewish prisoners; his memories of a beating he received in Stutthof; his transport to Buchenwald concentration camp where he was reunited with his cousin and uncle; his transport to Bochumer Verein concentration camp; his memories of finding out the fate of his mother, sister, and younger brother; his return to Buchenwald concentration camp; his short time in Flossenbürg; his transport to Dachau concentration camp and on the way, his liberation by the United States Army; suffering from typhus; his time spent in two hospitals after liberation; his work for the U.S. Army in Straubing, Germany; meeting his future wife in Straubing; his unsuccessful search for his sister in Israel; his immigration to the United States in 1954; his life in New Jersey; his children learning about his experiences; and his warning to be "watchful." Also contains a photograph of Henry as a young man in Poland, a photograph of him at middle age, a photograph of a memorial with the names of his family on it, and a photograph of a memorial with the town Ozorków written on it in Hebrew.

    Oral history interview with Zelda Peters

    Oral history interview with Zelda Peters

    Oral History

    Zelda Peters, born on May 29, 1921, discusses her childhood in Sighet (Sighetu Marmației), Romania; her father's work as a butcher; attending Catholic school; working for an import-export business, a lawyer, and an architectural firm; the Hungarian occupation of Romania from 1940 to 1944; antisemitism in Hungary; the German occupation of Romania beginning in 1944; German antisemitism; Germany establishing ghettos and deporting Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp; receiving a bogus postcard from her parents enticing her to go to Auschwitz; life in Auschwitz; being in Ravensbrück concentration camp; developing tuberculosis while in Ravensbrück; liberation from the camp by the Russians; life at Gabersee displaced persons camp in Germany; meeting and marrying her husband; the birth of her daughter; immigration to the United States in 1951 with the help of the Society of Friends (Quakers); and her life in Highland Park, NJ, after 1951. Also contains two photographs of Zelda Peters in 1944 and 1992.

    Oral history interview with David Rosenblum

    Oral history interview with David Rosenblum

    Oral History

    David Rosenblum, born on May 13, 1925, describes his memories of his father purchasing forged documents for him; the creation of the ghetto in Kraków, Poland, in 1941 and his family's move to Szydlowiec, Poland, as a result; his stay in a Capuchin monastery in order to avoid capture by the Germans; his memories of being denounced as a Jew by a former classmate and his escape from the monastery to return to Szydlowiec; his memories of his brother's capture and deportation to a forced labor camp and his unsuccessful efforts to free his brother; his family's imprisonment in Treblinka concentration camp; the deportation and the killings on trains bound for Treblinka; his period of homelessness from 1942 to 1943; his escape from forced labor in Radom, Poland; his capture and torture by the Gestapo; his imprisonment in Jerozolimska camp and Montelupich prison in Kraków; his experiences in Auschwitz concentration camp; a death march to Kutno, Poland; his time in Mühldorf concentration camp; being placed on a forced labor detail building a forest camp (Waldlager VI camp); his liberation by the United States Army in April 1945 while on a train in the Bavarian Alps; and his life in the United States after World War II. A photograph of David Rosenblum in 1955 and a photograph of the Rosenblum family in 1939 accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Mila Bachner

    Oral history interview with Mila Bachner

    Oral History

    Mila Bachner, born on March 15, 1927, discusses her childhood in Chrzanów, Poland; antisemitism in Poland; the attacks on her father and grandfather by Poles in Chrzanów; the death of her grandfather from a beating; the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939; her family's attempted escape; living in the Chrzanów ghetto; the confiscation of her parents' business; the death of her brother in Gross Masselwitz concentration camp in Germany; her other brother's time in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria; her mother and aunt's inclusion in a roundup; her knowledge of the crematorium at Auschwitz concentration camp; her sister's transport to Auschwitz; her work making coats for the Germans; being transported to transit camp Dulag in Germany; her selection by Dr. Franz Novak to live; her time in Nova Sol concentration camp in Neusalz, Germany (Nowa Sól, Poland); forced labor in Nova Sol and the cruelty that she was forced to endure there; a death march to Flossenbürg concentration camp; passing through Potsdam, Germany, where Hitler Youth threw rocks at her; the help that she and a friend received from a German woman near Flossenbürg; wondering if there was a God; holding on to her pictures despite being beaten; her work taking clothes off of the dead; marching to a railroad station; being on a cattle car for eight days; arriving in Hanover, Germany, near Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; her work pulling dead bodies to the crematorium at Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British; possible reasons for her survival; her time shortly after liberation with a German family near Bergen-Belsen; reuniting with her brother; her secret crossing of the border to Austria; her time in a hospital in Austria; and her and her brother's immigration to the United States in 1947. Also contains two identical photographs of Mila in late 1939 or early 1940.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Bokor

    Oral history interview with Ernest Bokor

    Oral History

    Ernest Bokor, born on August 21, 1920, discusses his early life in Debrad, Slovakia; his childhood in Dubovec, Slovakia; the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Hungary in 1938; the antisemitism of the Hungarians; moving to Budapest, Hungary, in 1943; his use of green-dyed shirts to pose as a member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, or Nyialskereszets Párt; the altering of his identification papers from "Jewish" to "Catholic;" saving Jewish children in Budapest in November 1944; his encounter with a friend posing as a member of the Arrow Cross; his joining of a group headed by Raoul Wallenberg; the group's successful efforts to save Jews in Budapest; his chance meeting with his brother and his leaving Wallenberg's group; his realization that his mother had died at the hands of the Nazis, probably in Auschwitz concentration camp; his arrest by the Nazis and his deportation to Mauthausen concentration camp with his brother; their liberation by the United States Army; his brother's death; his return home and meeting with his sister; his marriage; and his immigration with his wife to Israel in 1949. Also contains photographs of Ernest in 1945 and the current day.

    Oral history interview with Jola Hoffman

    Oral history interview with Jola Hoffman

    Oral History

    Jola Hoffman, born in Leipzig, Germany on June 13, 1931, discusses her childhood in Leipzig; the establishment of the Nuremberg laws in 1936; her aunt and uncle's departure from Germany prior to the start of the World War II; the Gestapo forcing her family and others to leave their homes; their train ride headed for the Polish border in 1938; the family's ability to enter Poland because they had family in Łódź; her father's experiences traveling between England and Poland prior to World War II; her father's move to Lwów, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), under the advice of the mayor of Warsaw; the invasion of Warsaw by the Germans; her and her mother's trip to Lwów to join her father; the emigration of some of her family members; the deportation of the Jews from Germany between the years of 1938 and 1939; volunteers who were given the opportunity during the Russian occupation to leave for German-occupied Poland; her father's move to the Warsaw ghetto; her and her mother's dangerous trip to join her father in the ghetto; starvation and death in the ghetto and the deportation of Jews to Treblinka concentration camp; the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto; the help that her family received from friends and a priest in the Polish underground; her mother's ability to get false identification papers; her mother being taken to the Umschlagplatz (transport center); the help that her father received from a factory official from the ghetto to save her mother; the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; being hit by a car while leaving the ghetto in 1943 and needing to be hospitalized; hearing of her grandfather's suicide; her release from the hospital; her time with her family living in a peasant cottage; the last time she saw her father before his departure in the summer of 1943 and her memories of him; her time in an apartment near Warsaw with a landlady who was working for the Polish underground; her involvement with the underground delivering news from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); working in a hospital when Warsaw was bombed; being deported to a work camp in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland); her job in a factory in the city of Breslau; her mother's job as a French translator in Breslau; the liberation of the camp in 1945; seeing "ghosts in the street" from Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland; her and her mother's experiences in Germany and Poland after the war; the punishment of Poles who helped Jews during World War II; the help that she received from Gentiles during World War II; her immigration to England as part of Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld's mission to get children out of Poland; her immigration to the United States in 1949; her education at Kean College in New Jersey; her role as an anti-Vietnam activist; visiting Poland after the war and seeing a sculpture of Janusz Korczak; and her inability to talk about the Holocaust with her children. Also contains a photograph of Jola at age six vacationing in Yugoslavia, a photograph of her in the spring of 1944 in Warsaw, Poland, and a photograph of her in April of 1993.

    Oral history interview with Leon Bass

    Oral history interview with Leon Bass

    Oral History

    Leon Bass, born in 1925 in Philadelphia, PA, discusses his childhood in Philadelphia; his experiences with racism in the 1930s; his experience as a soldier in an African-American unit during World War II; his time in England in 1943 with General Patton's Third Army, 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion; his participation in the Battle of Bulge; his interaction with white soldiers during World War II; his unit's work putting up bridges and removing land mines in Belgium; his unit's move into Germany; his inability to assess the nature or character of the Germans; his memories of entering Buchenwald concentration camp and seeing "walking dead people"; his memories of entering the crematorium where the bodies were piled up and recollections that the ashes were used for fertilizer; his learning that there were many concentration camps like Buchenwald; his time in the Pacific War Theatre; his enrollment in West Chester State College and his desire to become a history teacher; his experiences with racism after World War II; his involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s; his experiences as a principal of two different African-American schools and one all white school; a visit to his school by a Holocaust survivor that led him to talk about the Holocaust publicly; and his reflections on the Holocaust as being a human problem. Also contains a photograph of Leon and another soldier in their army uniforms.

    Oral history interview with Michael Hersh

    Oral history interview with Michael Hersh

    Oral History

    Michael Hersh, born in Rakosin, Czechoslovakia in 1929, discusses his early life in Velikije Lucki, Czechoslovakia (Velyki Luchky, Ukraine); the confiscation of his father's grocery store by Nazis at the outbreak of World War II; his family's deportation to the ghetto in Munkacs, Hungary (Mukacheve, Ukraine) in April 1944; the family's subsequent deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp; the "appel" in Auschwitz; being transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp; being sent to Ebensee concentration camp and his experiences there; working in the aircraft factory in Schwechat, Austria; his participation in a death march; his transfer to Wels concentration camp in Austria; the liberation of Wels by American soldiers in May 1945; his bout with typhus after liberation; his return to Czechoslovakia after the war; his chance meeting with his brother, Albert, on a train and learning that his brother, Avaraham, also survived; immigrating to the United States along with his brothers; his enlistment and training in the United States Army; his career in the field of interior design; and the birth of his three children. Also contains three black and white photographs of Michael Hersch and others dating from late 1945 to 1983.

    Oral history interview with Jack Ring

    Oral history interview with Jack Ring

    Oral History

    Rabbi Jack Ring, born on September 14, 1916 in Pultusk, Poland, begins his interview by discussing and displaying Talmudic commentaries published in Shanghai, China, by Mirrer Yeshiva. He continues his interview by discussing his early life in Pultusk; the immigration of several family members to the United States; the movement of his mother and sister to Wyszków, Poland; the ordering of the town's Jews to meet in the village square by the Germans, who were assisted by an antisemitic school teacher; his family's deportation to East Prussia; a German officer's direction of his family back to Pultusk; his family's subsequent direction to the Russian-occupied area of Poland; his decision to go to Vilnius, Lithuania to avoid persecution; his re-entry into the Mirrer Yeshiva which had relocated to Vilnius; the death of his sister, her husband, and his mother at the hands of the Germans in 1942; the killing of his brother, Chaim and two of Chaim's sons by the Germans and the death of his brothers, Yuda Elizer and Moshe, along with their wives in the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland; his early education including his studies in yeshivas in Naveredok, Lomza, and Mir, Poland; the move of his Yeshiva to Deidanov, Lithuania (near Vilnius) in early 1940; the occupation of the Baltic States by the Russians; the splitting of the Yeshiva into four parts and his move to Krakes, Lithuania, with his portion of the Yeshiva; their need for transit visas and the provision of visas by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithuania; the provision of exit visas by the NKVD; his travel with his portion of the Yeshiva to Vladivostok, Russia, and on to Tsuruga, Japan; the provision of funds for the trip by Rabbis Abraham Kalmanowitz and Aharon Kotler of the Vaad Hatzala; the arrival of his group of students in Kobe, Japan; the subsequent removal of all foreigners from Japan; the Yeshiva's relocation to Shanghai, China; the beginnings of World War II in the Pacific; the origins of the Yeshiva's financial support in the United States; the German Government's influence in setting up a Shanghai ghetto in July 1943 and its subsequent dissolution is September 1945; the German's inability to get a European-style killing program established in Shanghai; the post-war immigration of students to the United States, Palestine, and Canada; the immigration of Rabbis Levenstien and Shmerelevitz of the Yeshiva to Palestine and their subsequent effect on Yeshiva education in Israel; his marriage to an American and the birth of his four daughters and ten grandchildren; his reflections on his belief that he was saved by divine guidance; his discussions of the Holocaust with his daughters; and the effect of Holocaust survival upon him.

    Oral history interview with Lee Merel

    Oral history interview with Lee Merel

    Oral History

    Lee Merel, born in Berlin, Germany on April 7, 1924, discusses his current life in Westfield, NJ; his childhood in Berlin; his education at an Orthodox Hebrew day school; his immigration to Palestine via Switzerland in 1935; his arrival in the United States in 1937; his relatives who remained in Germany and perished in the Holocaust; the Arab boycott that led his family to move to the United States; his time in Washington Heights,NY; his education at Adat Israel Day School; his time in New Brunswick, NJ, and his enrollment at Rutgers University; volunteering for service in the United States Army in 1941; the antisemitism that he encountered as an observant Jew in the military; his transfer from combat engineers to military intelligence; his time in various training camps before going to Europe; his time in England in 1942; his name change from Merel to Brewster in case of German capture; his time in Paris, France, in June of 1944; his blowing of the shofar at Rosh Hashanah services in Aachen, Germany, in 1944; his role as an interpreter at the investigation of the chief engineer of the Krupp Armaments factory in Germany; the things that he learned about the nature of the Germans; his time at Gardelegen concentration camp in Germany and photographs he has of the camp; his discovery in Gardelegen of a cousin who was one of the inmates near death and the cousin's later immigration to the United States; the condition of the surviving inmates at Gardelegen; his questioning of God during his time at Gardelegen and his struggle with his religious beliefs; and his feelings on teaching the Holocaust. Also contains two photographs of Lee in 1944, one of him in Paris, France, relaxing and one of him in his army uniform; a photograph of him in 1945 with three other soldiers; a photograph of him as a middle aged man; and a photograph of him with his wife and grandchild in 1996.

    Oral history interview with Harold Zelmanovics

    Oral history interview with Harold Zelmanovics

    Oral History

    Harold Zelmanovics, born June 11, 1921 in Svaliava, Ukraine, begins the interview by showing pictures he obtained in 1945 at Dachau concentration camp from the United States Army. He discusses his childhood in Svaliava; his father's imprisonment in a forced labor camp; the cremation of his mother, two brothers and one sister in Auschwitz; his memories of anti-Jewish laws and lack of food after Hungarian occupation; his work as an electrician; his time performing forced labor under the Hungarians; his transport by cattle car to a forced labor camp in Komárom, Hungary; his work in a tunnel; the food that he received each day; claiming to be an electrician as a means of survival; his transport to Budapest, Hungary for forced labor; his eighteen-day cattle car ride to Buchenwald concentration camp; his work repairing cattle cars; his march from Buchenwald to Dachau in April 1945; his liberation by the Americans; his travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); spending 2 to 3 weeks in a hospital; his travel to Sudetenland to live with his uncle; reuniting with his two sisters and one brother; his travel to Bavaria in the American zone; his work for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; his marriage in 1945; immigrating to the United States in 1949; his life in New Jersey; his willingness to talk about the Holocaust; and the effect that the Holocaust has had on his faith.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Lichtenfeld

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Lichtenfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Regina Faigenbaum

    Oral history interview with Regina Faigenbaum

    Oral History

    Regina Faigenbaum, born in Rzeszów, Poland on January 22, 1926, discusses her childhood and family in Rzeszów; her family's move to Sosnowiec, Poland in 1933 as advised by the Pinchever Rebbi; antisemitism in Poland; the school she attended, strictly for Jewish children; her membership in Gordonyah - Makabi ha-tsa'ir, a Zionist youth organization; the move of some of her family to Rzeszów; the Germans arrival in Sosnowiec in 1939; the murder of the most prominent Jews in the town and the transport of others in the town to Auschwitz concentration camp; her father's beard being shaved off during the invasion; her sister being taken for work by the Germans in 1940; a Polish family reporting her to the Germans; her transport to Parschnitz forced labor camp in Czechoslovakia along with her sister; the Appel and the sleeping conditions in Parschnitz; her selection for transfer to Auschwitz; a situation that caused her not to be shipped to Auschwitz; her work in a textile factory and then on a railroad; the dropping of leaflets by American planes just prior to liberation in 1945; staying in the camp until its liberation by the Russians on May 8, 1945; the help that she and her sister received from a Czech mechanic on their way back to Poland after liberation; returning to Sosnowiec after the war and the antisemitism that she experienced there; meeting her future husband in Sosnowiec in 1945; moving to Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp in the American Zone of Germany; the atrocities committed against the Jews after World War II; a visit by David Ben Gurion to the Landsberg camp to try to bring people to Palestine; her marriage to her husband in 1946; her immigration to the United States in 1949; the welcome she received from the United Jewish Appeal; her life in Newark, NJ; her two children; her current residence in Union, NJ; and her feelings on the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. Also contains a photograph of Regina in March of 1994 and photocopies of two additional undated photographs.

    Oral history interview with Enock Trencher

    Oral history interview with Enock Trencher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Lazarus

    Oral history interview with Rose Lazarus

    Oral History

    Rose Lazarus, born on February 15, 1922, discusses her childhood in Yzsina, Czechoslovakia (possibly in Slovakia); her secular and Jewish education in Yzsina; the Jews' relationship with the Gentiles in Yzsina; the unexpected effects that the "German problem" had on her town; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia; the forcing of all the Jews of Yzsina to leave their homes and gather in a field in 1943 and their subsequent transport to a ghetto in Mátészalka, Hungary; the beating of her mother by a member of the Gestapo; being transported to Auschwitz concentration camp with her family three weeks later; her experience during a selection where she survived, but her mother and younger siblings went to the crematorium; her work in Auschwitz picking up dead bodies; the nightmares that she still has about her time in Auschwitz; her time in Gelsenkirchen, Germany with six hundred other prisoners working in a munitions factory in 1945; the deaths of four hundred prisoners of Auschwitz from American bombs in 1945; going on a death march to Sömmerda, Germany in 1945; her liberation by American troops in April 1945 in Wallertheim, Germany; searching for her brother after liberation in Budapest, Hungary, and learning that he had already immigrated to Switzerland and then to Israel; the reactions of Budapest citizens to survivors after World War II; reuniting with her younger brother in Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1946; her time in Gabersee displaced persons camp in Germany; immigrating to the United States in 1948; the help that she received from the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America; her constant questioning of her faith due to her Holocaust experiences; and her decision to talk about the Holocaust with her children and others. Four photographs of Rose Lazarus accompany the interview.

    Oral history interview with Leonard Woloski

    Oral history interview with Leonard Woloski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hugo Princz

    Oral history interview with Hugo Princz

    Oral History

    Hugo Princz, born on November 20, 1922, discusses his childhood in Slivnik, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); antisemitism and the anti-Jewish laws in Slivnik; his memories of the Hlinkova Guard; his father's unsuccessful struggle to prove his American citizenship and emigrate from Czechoslovakia; the brutality of the SS; his transport with his family to Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin, Poland; his parents' transport from Majdanek to Treblinka concentration camp in Poland; his transport from Majdanek and time in Auschwitz concentration camp; his brother's selection due to a foot injury while in the Buna factory in Auschwitz III concentration camp; his work for I.G. Farben at Auschwitz; life in the Birkenau concentration camp; his work in the crematoriums at Birkenau; his memories of the gassings; his older brother's escape to Hungary with false papers; the lack of response of the Red Cross; his time in Waldlager concentration camp in Germany near the end of World War II; his liberation from Waldlager in April 1945; his time in Feldafing displaced persons camp in Germany; and his efforts to receive reparations from Germany since his move to the United States in 1946. Also contains a photograph of Hugo Princz as a young teenager and one of him at the time of the interview.

    Oral history interview with Roney Haliczer

    Oral history interview with Roney Haliczer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Halina Kleiner

    Oral history interview with Halina Kleiner

    Oral History

    Halina Kleiner, born on February 7, 1929 in Częstochowa, Poland, discusses her childhood in Częstochowa; her move, with her mother, to her maternal grandmother's house in Będzin, Poland, at the start of World War II in 1939; her return to Częstochowa; her memories of anti-Jewish laws enforced after 1939; her recollections of the Częstochowa ghetto; her memories of the Częstochowa Judenrat; the liquidation of the Częstochowa ghetto in 1942; her time hiding near Częstochowa; her recollections of obtaining false papers by trading a fur coat; her escape from Częstochowa to Będzin; her time in the Będzin ghetto; her memories of frequent selections; her memories of SS men harassing Jews, including her grandfather; her time in Bolkenhain work camp in Poland; her time in a weaving factory in Landshut, Germany; her time in Grünberg in Schlesien concentration camp in Germany; her memories of SS men abusing prisoners; the death march from Grünberg through Dresden, Germany, and into Czechoslovakia during the winter of 1944; her liberation by American troops in 1945; her time in a hospital in Czechoslovakia after liberation; her memories of American soldiers; and her time in Salzburg displaced persons camp. Also contains a photograph of Sala Parasol, Halina Kleiner's maternal aunt, before the war; a photograph of Itschak Silberschatz, Halina Kleiner's maternal uncle, before the war; a photograph of Hana Silberschatz, Halina Kleiner's maternal grandmother, before the war; a photograph of Bejrisch Silberschatz, Halina Kleiner's maternal grandfather, before the war; a photograph of Sarah and Leibel Silberschatz, Halina Kleiner's maternal uncle and his wife, in the early 1930s; a photograph of Halina Kleiner in 1938; a photograph of Halina Kleiner and her mother in 1939; a photograph of Halina Kleiner and an American soldier, one of her liberators, in 1945; and a photograph of Halina Kleiner, her husband, and her two daughters in 1993.

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral History

    Norman Salsitz (né Naftali Salsitz), born in 1920 in Kolbuszowa, Poland, describes his childhood; antisemitism in secular school; his religious education in Tarnów, Poland; his involvement in a Zionist youth organization; the turning point for Jews in Poland with the death of premier Jósef Piludski in 1935; his feelings of sympathy for his country despite the persecution of the Jews; the German invasion and destruction of Kolbuszowa; his father's role as a supplier of coffee to the Germans occupying Kolbuszowa; his escape to the Russian front when threatened with arrest; his move from the Russian front to Lʹviv, Ukraine; the establishment of a Judenrat in Kolbuszowa; his work for Dr. Leon Anderman, the president of the first Judenrat; working for Twardon, the Gestapo County Leader in Kolbuszowa; his successful efforts to keep his family in Kolbuszowa when Twardon ordered 50 percent of the town's Jews to be moved to Rzeszów, Poland in June 1941; his memories of the establishment of the ghetto in Kolbuszowa; the deportation of the Kolbuszowa Judenrat to Auschwitz concentration camp and their subsequent extermination; the establishment of a second Judenrat, headed by Pashek Rappaport; being transported to a camp in the woods in Pustków, Poland; his memories of V-1 and V-2 rocket experimentation near Pustków; his work for the second Judenrat; his trip from Kolbuszowa to Rzeszów to Kraków to receive an operation from Dr. Rabinowicz for an inner ear infection; his father's murder; Gestapo orders to the Kolbuszowa Judenrat to collect ransoms, back taxes, and debts from the Jews; the deportation of the Kolbuszowa Jews to the Rzeszów ghetto; his work with his brother, Leibush, in Kolbuszowa, for Twardon; his escape from being shot by promising Twardon 25 kilos of coffee; his relationship with and work for Twardon; the daughter of Halberstam, a Hungarian Rabbi, who helped to save Jews by producing falsified documents; the liquidation of the Rzeszów ghetto on November 18, 1942; escaping from the liquidation with Leiser Spielman; living in hiding; participating and leading underground Jewish partisan groups; participating in the Armia Krajowa; the Armia Krajowa leader, Stashek Augustin; his alias as a Christian Pole named Tadeus "Tadek" Jadach which he used to gain entrance into the Armia Krajowa; the liberation by Russians in September 1944; Jews being murdered even after liberation; his service to Poland as an officer in the 59th Army under Marshall Konieff; meeting his future wife, Amalie, in Kraków; the communist regime after World War II; moving to Germany, where he worked for Brichah; immigrating to the United States; his trip to Israel during the 6 Day War to see the liberation of the Western Wall in Jerusalem; his involvement in Jewish organizations; and his numerous trips to Israel between 1949 and 1987.

    Oral history interview with Amalie Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Amalie Salsitz

    Oral History

    Amalie Salsitz, born in Munich, Germany in 1922, discusses her childhood in Stanislawów, Poland (now Ivano-Frankivs'ka, Ukraine); her family's move to Poland; her parents' political activity; life in Stanislawów under Soviet control from September 1939 until June 1941; being indoctrinated into Marxism; her time as a physics and math teacher; the Hungarian invasion of Stanislawów after June 22, 1941; life in Stanislawów under the Hungarians; the mass murder of 12,000 Jews in Stanislawów on October 12, 1941; her mother's and sister's transport from Stanislawów; her life in the Stanislawów ghetto, established in 1941; the Stanislawów Judenrat; her friendship with a Karaite Jew named Mundek; her father's transport to Belzec concentration camp in Poland; her move with Mundek to Halitz (Halych, Ukraine) three weeks after her father's transport; her time in L'vov, Poland (now L'viv, Ukraine); her time in Kraków, Poland from Christmas Eve 1942 onward; meeting up with her father's former boss, Kasimir Jerzenicki, in Kraków; her work in a German household in Kraków; her time in a Kraków hospital for treatment for an inflammation; her time at an office job for the German company, Wilhelm Langert, near Płaszów concentration camp in Poland; a Gestapo man named Müller; obtaining false papers and the adopted name Felicia Milaszewska; her memories of Hans Frank, the Governor-General of Poland; her rise to a position of authority in the company in November 1944; meeting her future husband, Norman Salsitz, while in this job position; and her life, with her husband, in the United States after 1947.

    Oral history interview with Hans Fisher

    Oral history interview with Hans Fisher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mike Goldberger

    Oral history interview with Mike Goldberger

    Oral History

    Mike Goldberger, born on February 13, 1921 in Nova Mesto (probably Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Slovakia), discusses being the oldest of five children; his father dying young; going to live with relatives; going to Yeshiva for three years; how antisemitism was a part of life even before the war; being drafted in 1942 at age 21; life in the barracks in Kőszeg in western Hungary; working for the Third Battalion Second company which was actually a labor camp where they built railroads, mines, and bunkers as part of an engineering troop; hardships in the Carpathian Mountains, including no food and no shoes; seeing signs in 1944 that the German army was having problems; deciding to escape with three friends; moving to different villages, ending up in Varmohog [PH] and then Monache [PH] where he made money selling glass to replace all broken windows; spending a few days in a Russian jail before heading home, not really knowing any news about his family; getting married to his wife in March 1946 (they had known each other since they were both seven years old); running a vineyard; paying officers to take them across the border from Hungary to Vienna, Austria to a displaced persons camp; wanting to go to Sweden to see his sister who went there from Bergen-Belsen, but needing to know a trade; going to the Relief Organization in Mannheim, Germany to learn tool making and about blueprints; going to Sweden and then immigrating to the United States once his relatives sent an affidavit; his son who went to the University of Chicago; and his daughter who attend Harvard.

    Oral history interview with John Farinella

    Oral history interview with John Farinella

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Herb Carlson

    Oral history interview with Herb Carlson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with John Coulston

    Oral history interview with John Coulston

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gladys Helfgott

    Oral history interview with Gladys Helfgott

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Martha Eckstein

    Oral history interview with Martha Eckstein

    Oral History

    Martha Eckstein, born in 1937 in Kazimierz, Poland (near Warsaw), discusses her father who had a lumber yard; her mother (originally from Czestochowa) who was a pharmacist; living comfortably until 1939, when her family began planning their escape; leaving with their what possessions would fit in their car; being fearful of bombings as they traveled; traveling by train until they reached Siberia in 1940; living in a camp with other Jews in Siberia; the labor camps nearby that people feared; her mother being able to work as a pharmacist while her father stayed at home with Martha; leaving by train and ending up in Bukhara, Uzbekistan; living in one room of a house occupied by other families; attending school and taking piano lessons; her father working as a truck driver for the government until he was caught transporting people from Bukhara to Tashkent and was put in jail; her mother’s work for two years to free him; going to Poland and then Germany circa 1945-1946; receiving help from HIAS; living for a short period of time in Munich while gathering paperwork; going to a displaced persons camp in Bremen; leaving by ship, the “Maria Perch” from Bremerhaven, Germany; arriving at Ellis Island in 1947; staying with her father’s uncle in the Bronx until they were able to get their own apartment on St. John Ave; her father’s work at a sheet metal factory and as a truck driver; her parents later buying a small grocery store; attending Shalom Aleichem Yiddish School; and getting married to a fellow survivor.

    Oral history interview with Dora Schoen

    Oral history interview with Dora Schoen

    Oral History

    Dora Schoen (née Basch), born on July 10, 1919 in Sighet, Romania, describes her family and childhood; being one of six children, including Abraham (b. 1906), Kalman (b. 1909), Roze (b. 1910), brother (b. 1913), and Zelda (b. 1921); her father who was a butcher, and her mother who helped in the butcher shop; helping to deliver meats; working at a lawyer’s office; the Hungarian occupation of Transylvania at the end of August 1930; Jewish lawyers no longer being allowed to practice; the German invasion on March 19, 1944; Germans placing all Jews in ghettos within Sighet in April 1944; the confiscation of all their jewelry; how the Jews were put in groups and told they were being taken to Hungary to work on farms; being put in cattle trains and arriving in Auschwitz on May 14, 1922; being separated from her family and never seeing all but one sister again; going through the selection process; being given a tattoo of the number 87606 and placed in a working barrack; spending two months in Beendorf working in an ammunition factory; being liberated by the Red Cross at the Danish border where she was quarantined and fed; being transported to Landskrona, Sweden; Swedish people being very kind and bringing them clothes; her aunt in the United States sending her money and her surviving brother’s address (he had been in Paris at the time of the German occupation); how her brother and sister Zelda were both back home in Sighet; remaining in Sweden for three years and working as a house mother for 40 people at a clothing factory; receiving letter in 1946 from a relative in Palestine; getting married at the end of April 1948, five days before Israel’s Independence; living in Israel for eight years (1948-1956); not being able to have children; and immigrating to the United States to live near her sister and brother.

    Oral history interview with Elsie Brunstein

    Oral history interview with Elsie Brunstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Erlich

    Oral history interview with Henry Erlich

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bernard Ahrend

    Oral history interview with Bernard Ahrend

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with George Popper

    Oral history interview with George Popper

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Schwartz

    Oral history interview with Rose Schwartz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Libby Feit

    Oral history interview with Libby Feit

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hella Bailen

    Oral history interview with Hella Bailen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Shlomo Biezunski

    Oral history interview with Shlomo Biezunski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ida Borenstein

    Oral history interview with Ida Borenstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helena Bokor

    Oral history interview with Helena Bokor

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lisbeth Brodie

    Oral history interview with Lisbeth Brodie

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Buchner

    Oral history interview with Irene Buchner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sol Einhorn

    Oral history interview with Sol Einhorn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Fried

    Oral history interview with Frieda Fried

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lilly Goldberger

    Oral history interview with Lilly Goldberger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Reubin Weitzman and Milton Goldberg

    Oral history interview with Reubin Weitzman and Milton Goldberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pearl Gruenberg

    Oral history interview with Pearl Gruenberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eddie Harvit

    Oral history interview with Eddie Harvit

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Yomtov Herman

    Oral history interview with Helen Yomtov Herman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lucie Jacobson

    Oral history interview with Lucie Jacobson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marguerite Jeremias

    Oral history interview with Marguerite Jeremias

    Oral History

    Marguerite Jeremias, born in 1926 in Heidelberg, Germany, describes her family and childhood in Hoffenheim, Germany; the history of the Jewish community of Hoffenheim; her family’s ownership of a dry goods store adjoined to their home; her father’s store which was shuttered for months; their family dog which was shot by the SS in 1933; the store being allowed to reopen in 1935, but no customers would shop; her family’s discussion of immigrating to Palestine; a non-Jewish family that moved into the space above the dry goods store in 1936; commuting to a Jewish day school in Heidelberg by train in 1937; her older sister leaving for the United States after her uncle said he would sponsor her in 1938; Kristallnacht in Heidelberg; the burning of the synagogue in Hoffenheim; the arrest of six Jewish men, including Marguerite’s father; her father’s release from Dachau after five weeks; the violence against Hoffenheim Jews; the antisemitism from children; many Hoffenheim Jews being taken to Gurs concentration camp in 1940; the transfer of people with children from Gurs concentration camp to Rivesaltes concentration camp in April 1941; her father being sent to a men’s work camp; remaining with her mother; being allowed to leave Rivesaltes and live in a Jewish scout home in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne in April of 1942; officials at Rivesaltes calling for children to return; the Jewish scout leadership keeping the children in the woods in summer of 1942; receiving letters from parents in Rivesaltes; the children being held at a French convent for a month; being transferred to a new convent in Ussel, France; receiving monthly ration cards from the scout leaders; living with a French family and working as their maid; tending to six children; teaching herself French using the children’s school materials; the Nazi’s looking for Jews but Marguerite not being found; liberation in August 1944; receiving new papers; moving to a scout home in October 1944; contacting her sister in the United States; immigrating to the United States in 1946; living in New York City; working in the Garment District; and meeting her husband.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Pollack

    Oral history interview with Ernest Pollack

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Ricklis

    Oral history interview with Henry Ricklis

    Oral History

    Henry Ricklis, born in New Jersey, discusses his brief observations of the liberation of Dachau; being drafted into the US Army; going to basic training at Fort Knox; doing Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP); going overseas and arriving in Le Havre, France in the winter; moving eastward through France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany; arriving in Dachau in 1945; seeing emaciated people; speaking to a few former prisoners who spoke in Yiddish and Polish; seeing primarily men who were gaunt-looking and incoherent; and his feelings of revulsion, disbelief at the camp.

    Oral history interview with Justin Rothschild

    Oral history interview with Justin Rothschild

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mala Sperling

    Oral history interview with Mala Sperling

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Adam Spiro

    Oral history interview with Adam Spiro

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Cyla Stal

    Oral history interview with Cyla Stal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Stern-Szollosi

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Stern-Szollosi

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lee Weinberg

    Oral history interview with Lee Weinberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Werdiger

    Oral history interview with David Werdiger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ilona Werdiger

    Oral history interview with Ilona Werdiger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rosalyn Rueff

    Oral history interview with Rosalyn Rueff

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lillian Ettinger

    Oral history interview with Lillian Ettinger

    Oral History

    Lillian Ettinger, born in Przemysl, Poland on April 11, 1929, discusses her early family life and schooling; German occupation; her family being moved into the ghetto; working outside the ghetto weeding and digging; taking her sister and mother from the ghetto to Boryslav, Ukraine; traveling with a cousin to Drohobycz, Ukraine; hitchhiking back to Boryslav to stay with the Hirsch family; hiding in a chicken house, attic, and cellar; pretending to be a niece from Kraków, Poland of a gentile woman; Russians recapturing Boryslav, Ukraine; working in a refinery; doing office work; traveling back to Przemysl; meeting the man that became her husband; reuniting with her sister; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Jeanette Ehrlich

    Oral history interview with Jeanette Ehrlich

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Suzanne Winarsky

    Oral history interview with Suzanne Winarsky

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Francis Weisman

    Oral history interview with Francis Weisman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Dora Roth

    Oral history interview with Dora Roth

    Oral History

    Dora Lampell Roth, born in 1918 in Kraków, Poland, discusses her early life in Kraków; studying history in school and wanting to be pharmacist; getting married in 1937; the beginning of the war; the shooting of her grandmother; the Jewish section of Kraków, which became the ghetto; life in the ghetto; being sent to the Tarnow ghetto; getting food in the ghettos; receiving help from her family’s Gentile maid, who brought them food into the ghetto; the death of her son at the hands of German soldiers; the loss of her husband; being transported to Auschwitz; her arrival at the camp, receiving a tattoo and a striped uniform; life in the camp; conditions in Birkenau; an incident of cruelty in Auschwitz; the attitudes of female guards towards the inmates; giving birth to her son in Munich, Germany; her husband; still experiencing fear because of her experiences during the Holocaust; telling her story to her children; her daughter’s experience when she was hidden as a young child; and her mental state during the Holocaust and her determination to survive.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Friedman

    Oral history interview with Ruth Friedman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Cecile Seiden

    Oral history interview with Cecile Seiden

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Kamilla Ehre

    Oral history interview with Kamilla Ehre

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ann Monka

    Oral history interview with Ann Monka

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Edith Kornbluth

    Oral history interview with Edith Kornbluth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Kornbluth

    Oral history interview with William Kornbluth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Solomon Lasky

    Oral history interview with Solomon Lasky

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irving Gerenstein

    Oral history interview with Irving Gerenstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Zygmunt Lehman

    Oral history interview with Zygmunt Lehman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with A. Kevin Quinn

    Oral history interview with A. Kevin Quinn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Aaron Rosenblum

    Oral history interview with Aaron Rosenblum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joan Bonder

    Oral history interview with Joan Bonder

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ada Abrahamer

    Oral history interview with Ada Abrahamer

    Oral History

    Ada Abrahamer, born in Kraków, Poland, recalls the increased restrictions and frightening conditions for Jews until March 1941; her family being moved to the Kraków ghetto was put into forced labor; the liquidation in March 1943 of the ghetto and being taken to the Płaszów camp; continuing to work in the ammunition factory; the brutality of Amon Goeth, the commandant of the camp; the diary she managed to keep throughout these experiences, which she reads from and notes that it was taken from her three times; being sent in October 1943 to Auschwitz; the terrible conditions in Auschwitz and her lasting fear of "lists"; being in the camp for three weeks and then taken to Lichterwerden in Sudetenland for six months; being liberated by the Russians; travelling to Austria and ending up at the Linz displaced persons camp; and going to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Leo Laufer

    Oral history interview with Leo Laufer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Karolyn Freud

    Oral history interview with Karolyn Freud

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michel Thomas

    Oral history interview with Michel Thomas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pearl Shames

    Oral history interview with Pearl Shames

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elbridge Holland

    Oral history interview with Elbridge Holland

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Arnold Herzberg

    Oral history interview with Arnold Herzberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Kolber

    Oral history interview with Henry Kolber

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Morris Bergen

    Oral history interview with Morris Bergen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pearl Davis

    Oral history interview with Pearl Davis

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lillian Ross

    Oral history interview with Lillian Ross

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nathan Schwarcz

    Oral history interview with Nathan Schwarcz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Susanne Prager

    Oral history interview with Susanne Prager

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lien Con

    Oral history interview with Lien Con

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lauryann Friedman

    Oral history interview with Lauryann Friedman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nathan Glass

    Oral history interview with Nathan Glass

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Katzwer

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Katzwer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sarah Osak

    Oral history interview with Sarah Osak

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Julia Altholz

    Oral history interview with Julia Altholz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alter Pekier

    Oral history interview with Alter Pekier

    Oral History

    Rabbi Alter Pekier, born in October 1917 in Slutsk, Belarus, discusses being the oldest of five children; attending yeshiva led by Rabbi Aaron Kotler with his brother Berel in Kletsk, Belarus; moving with the yeshiva to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) at the direction of Rabbi Kotler after the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland; Rabbi Kotler splitting the yeshiva into three smaller yeshivas in March 1940 and dispersing them to smaller towns; Alter and Berel going to Salakas, Lithuania near the Latvian border; the Nazi Germany invasion of Eastern Poland and the USSR in June 1941; Alter’s parents and three siblings being murdered in killing actions in Slutsk; the Soviets deporting Alter and Berel together with other yeshiva students to Reshoti in Siberia; their work clearing forests and building railroads; the Soviets releasing prisoners in October 1941; Alter and Berel moving to Kazakhstan and staying there for five years; receiving care packages from the American Jewish community; getting married in Kazakhstan and returning with his wife to Poland; going to Lodz and organizing a yeshiva for survivors there; fleeing Poland after the Kielce pogrom; going to France; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Bennett Silberstein

    Oral history interview with Bennett Silberstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Albert Marzurkiewicz

    Oral history interview with Albert Marzurkiewicz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joel Frisch

    Oral history interview with Joel Frisch

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leo Stahl

    Oral history interview with Leo Stahl

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Herta Erreich

    Oral history interview with Herta Erreich

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Freida Yeager

    Oral history interview with Freida Yeager

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abraham Shlomowitz

    Oral history interview with Abraham Shlomowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fred Eisner

    Oral history interview with Fred Eisner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Aida Brydbord

    Oral history interview with Aida Brydbord

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Martha Klein

    Oral history interview with Martha Klein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Saul Weinberger

    Oral history interview with Saul Weinberger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eliasz Glanz

    Oral history interview with Eliasz Glanz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Wirtzbaum

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Wirtzbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Philip Lederman

    Oral history interview with Philip Lederman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Stella Rabner

    Oral history interview with Stella Rabner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Shlomo Weinglas

    Oral history interview with Shlomo Weinglas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Katz

    Oral history interview with David Katz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Laiter

    Oral history interview with Rose Laiter

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Maurice Rauchweld

    Oral history interview with Maurice Rauchweld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Faigenbaum

    Oral history interview with Leon Faigenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Raff

    Oral history interview with Helen Raff

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Musia Luttenger-Gross

    Oral history interview with Musia Luttenger-Gross

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack Chevlin

    Oral history interview with Jack Chevlin

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jerry Miron

    Oral history interview with Jerry Miron

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Richard Tisch

    Oral history interview with Richard Tisch

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nella Bergen

    Oral history interview with Nella Bergen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Stimler

    Oral history interview with Sam Stimler

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eugene Fried

    Oral history interview with Eugene Fried

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rosalie Klein

    Oral history interview with Rosalie Klein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alvin Weinstein

    Oral history interview with Alvin Weinstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Landsberg

    Oral history interview with Henry Landsberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Herschel Schacter

    Oral history interview with Herschel Schacter

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Celina Rosenblum

    Oral history interview with Celina Rosenblum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Idek Rosenblum

    Oral history interview with Idek Rosenblum

    Oral History

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