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Oral history interview with Agnes Mandl Adachi

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1994.A.0447.2 | RG Number: RG-50.042.0002

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    Oral history interview with Agnes Mandl Adachi
    Transcript
    Boyd Harbor, Long Island, New York,
    reference tones minus 8 DB.
    Let's start with you telling me what
    it was like to hear that the war had begun
    and how everyday life changed wearing the yellow star, all
    the things that changed.
    Well, you know that the war started in 1939,
    and I was in Switzerland, minding my own business.
    And I just came back to Switzerland
    from a wonderful trip to France with other students.
    And when we arrived back to Geneva in '39,
    beginning of September, there was a Zionist Congress
    in Geneva.
    And the people took time out in the beaches.
    And we were all out in the beach with my friends.
    And suddenly the microphone blared that Poland
    was overrun by the Nazis.
    Well, you could have dropped a needle right there
    in the place.
    People, half naked bodies, they ran everywhere
    to call home and see what's happening.
    And this was my first inclination
    that there is really a war going on.
    But I wanted to stay in Switzerland,
    but we have very good friends, and they talked me into it
    to go back.
    In the beginning of 1941, I went home
    because my friend said that the Allies will not
    allow it to go on and on, and Hungary will not be in the war.
    And when I got back to Hungary, it was fairly quiet.
    The Arrow Cross, what is the Hungarian Nazi Party,
    did not really take over completely in '41 yet.
    And the only thing-- there were even American films still
    shown all over.
    And I was teaching English to a young lady who today
    is Congressman Lantos's wife.
    And she looked like Shirley Temple.
    And we used to walk on the street with our heads
    up and talking English.
    It was still allowed to speak English on the street.
    But then suddenly we got people in from Czechoslovakia,
    from Romania, from Poland, those who could get yet away.
    And they told us the stories.
    We didn't believe, not the Jews and not
    the Christians who were anti-Nazis.
    We just didn't believe that that's humanly possible
    that they do that.
    We were listening to the BBC.
    Now, on the end of--
    or let's say in the middle of '43,
    suddenly everything changed.
    Then the Hungarian Nazi Party took over.
    And suddenly they reminded us that we should put on the star.
    My father has been taken from the house
    and took in a labor camp.
    But in a couple of weeks, they let him come back home.
    We were not moved out of our house.
    And then they started to forbid to talk English, and therefore
    Annette, or Aggie was her name, too, we went out in the street
    and we spoke English, because we had a chutzpah or whatever.
    But nobody ever stopped us on the streets,
    because we didn't really look like two Jewish kids,
    and we did not wear the star.
    But we didn't go out too much.
    And then the BBC was not allowed to listen to it anymore.
    But of course, we did, because that was the only way
    to find out what's going on in the world.
    And I was lucky enough to have a huge, big radio
    my parents brought me for my 21st birthday,
    where we could have the whole world.
    So whatever news it came in was through our house, because I
    could get shortwave stations.
    And it was very exciting to hear what's going on.
    And in the very heart, we begin to believe that it
    can happen to us any moment.
    And then it did happen in '44 March, when in walked Eichmann.
    And immediately he killed almost 600,000 people in the country.
    In Budapest, however, they only went by list of people
    whom they should pick up.
    We were still not being picked up.
    And life began to be more and more difficult
    because we didn't dare to go out on the street.
    If possible, only to shop.
    And you didn't know what's happening next morning.
    And that was your question, what happened before.
    So that was the life just about.
    What-- were you afraid?
    What kinds of things did you witness?
    Well, I first witnessed-- and that was a horror for me--
    the Hungarian Arrow Cross wore green shirts.
    As you know, each of them had their own shirts.
    The Germans, they wore the brown shirts.
    The fascists in Italy wore the black shirts.
    And our Hungarian guys wore the yellow--
    the green ones.
    And I went out on the street one day,
    and I saw a priest coming out of a church.
    And he had a green shirt on and the Nazi sign
    on him, the Hungarian Nazi.
    And there was a little boy of three, and he killed the child.
    That was the first time the religion went out of me.
    No more religion, thank you.
    If a priest can do that, then I don't know.
    And I went home, and I cried, and I cried.
    And then this is something what we never can figure out.
    I worked in a wonderful hotel in Budapest.
    I don't know how many of you went there.
    Of course, these hotels are not there anymore.
    It was the Hotel Ritz.
    And as I spoke a lot of languages,
    I have been working there, and it was wonderful.
    And one Sunday morning, or a few days before,
    I got this letter from the Swedish embassy
    to come and visit them.
    And I had no time right then.
    It wasn't so very important.
    But it was a Sunday morning when a very excited neighbor ran
    into us, and he said, "Oh, just I
    heard on BBC that Admiral Horthy is
    going to give up being with the Germans,
    and he's going to be with the Allies."
    And my father was all excited.
    He was running for the champagne.
    And me spoke up, I says, "Papa, don't believe what you hear.
    Don't drink the champagne."
    "Oh, you young people!
    You don't know what you're talking about."
    And he brought the champagne, and we were just
    about drinking when Horthy came on the television-- on radio.
    And he said very beautifully that I now
    tell you that we are with the Allied forces
    and not with the Nazis anymore.
    And that moment, the German Horst-Wessel
    came over the radio, and we didn't hear Horthy's voice.
    I dropped my glass, and I ran out,
    because I knew I had to go to work to the hotel.
    And it was a gorgeous, beautiful March day.
    It was sunshine.
    Very cold.
    And I come out, and it was blackened by aeroplanes.
    And I thought they were Americans, or British,
    or Russians.
    And I was running all the way to the hotel.
    And when I get there, the porter said to me,
    "Mr. [? Marantis ?] wants to see you at once."
    And that was the manager of the hotel.
    He was a gentleman, huge, big gentleman, about 250 pounds.
    He spoke 12 languages.
    He was Yugoslavian, and he was the manager.
    And he took me in his arm, and he said to me in French,
    "child, go home.
    These are not British or Americans.
    These are the Germans, and Horthy was already arrested.
    Go home.
    I don't want them to take you from here."
    So I ran back home and Father, all he could say
    is "You were right."
    Now I decided I'm going to the Swedish embassy.
    And there was difficulty to go up there,
    because everybody was afraid to go to a foreign embassy.
    But my cousin had a very wonderful boyfriend
    who was a Christian, who had a big black Mercedes Benz.
    And he said, I'll take you up.
    And he arrived in a Nazi uniform.
    He had a Nazi flag on his car.
    He pushed me in there, and he took me up to the embassy.
    And the ambassador was quite surprised
    when they looked out and saw the Nazi flag.
    And I explained to him what happened.
    And then he explained to me the absolutely out of the world
    thing that I have a fiancee in Sweden.
    Well, that's a long story.
    Yes, I had a very dear friend in Sweden
    with whom I corresponded for 12 years.
    And he explained to me that this young man went to the King,
    and to the foreign ministerium and said that this woman would
    be my wife already but the war came and therefore
    she should be Swedish.
    And they handed me a Swedish passport.
    And I looked and I said "a what?"
    So I became a Swedish citizen.
    And you can see on those, I have that passport here.
    It says there "emergency passport."
    They also gave this to Swedish people
    if they didn't have the hard covered passport--
    hard-covered paper.
    And then the ambassador explained
    that he would like to keep me at the embassy.
    And I said, yes, but I have my parents home.
    And he said we will send somebody down to your parents
    and tell them what happened and why,
    but we are responsible for you.
    So I have been the guest of the Swedish government for three
    glorious weeks except my heart inside was hurting,
    what can happen to my parents.
    And I found out while I was up there that I
    wasn't the only one who was--
    Wait, wait.
    We have to change rolls now.
    We're changing film to camera roll 2 and same day.
    Number one is up.
    Can you explain to me about the edict
    to separate mixed couples, Christians and Jews
    who were married?
    Explain.
    Just tell me about that, so-- because people
    can't believe such a thing would happen, and then
    explain what happened.
    I will explain to you, because I had
    an uncle who was a Unitarian and an aunt who was a Jew,
    and they had a wonderful marriage.
    And suddenly the radio declared that all married couple mixed
    marriages either divorce immediately or both of them
    will be killed.
    And my-- many, many people, they were found dead together.
    They cleaned the house, and then they went into a clean bed,
    and they found them suicidal by themselves.
    My uncle and aunt called, too, and they said we want to die,
    because we will not separate.
    And I screamed at them.
    I said, you can't do that.
    By the time we already had Raoul.
    I said, I'll get you papers.
    And I did.
    And they got themselves false papers, too.
    And thanks God, they lived through the war.
    But it was thousands of people who killed themselves.
    So it was a very easy people to kill--
    easy time to kill people.
    Because most of them would not divorce.
    One of them Kodaly, you know, the famous Hungarian musician
    whose wife was a Jew.
    And he said, "I would never, never leave my wife."
    And they didn't touch him, and they
    didn't touch his wife either.
    But very few of them.
    Thousands and thousands, they died.
    What about converting?
    Could you convert from Judaism to save--
    Yes.
    Now, on the other day there was a phone call
    there that anyone who is not in the Jewish religion
    will be saved.
    Now, of course, we wanted to believe anything.
    And again, I was a very lucky girl,
    because I grew up as an only Jew in Budapest's best
    Protestant school.
    And our principal that time, and later on he
    became the bishop of Hungary, the Protestant bishop,
    he was also my best friend, because he had seven daughters,
    and I was always in his house.
    And he arrived to our house, what was then still
    the Christian house.
    And he said to my father, who was the same age,
    he says, "Uncle, I want to baptize your child,
    because she's my seventh daughter."
    Of course, Papa couldn't say no.
    We went down to the church, and my father cried very loud,
    and he kept on saying "Papa, don't cry.
    I have a lot of Jews down there whom I saved.
    And if the Nazis find out--" and he christianed me, because he
    believed that it will help me.
    Possibly the miracle helped.
    But thousands and thousands of people
    died because nobody cared that they
    were another religion-- that was just another off day, funny
    saying.
    Many time of course, many people survived with false papers,
    and who didn't look really Jewish, so.
    But it was also just a lie, like everything else.
    Explain to me more about those lies.
    How?
    How did they fool people at the beginning
    and keep it so you didn't believe what was happening?
    Well, you see, because every day there
    was something new in the radio.
    And also the threatening.
    "If you go out, we kill you.
    If you do this, we kill you."
    And also very quickly the bombing started,
    and that made them extremely angry that the Americans
    started to bomb us.
    And the American and the British bomb that went all the way down
    to the basement.
    The Russian bombs, they only took the last two floors up
    on the top.
    And so much so that while I was at the embassy,
    my friend who brought me up came one day
    and he said to the ambassador that I have to go home,
    otherwise they're going to kill my parents in the meantime,
    because of the Hungarian Nazis' anger.
    What they did, they made every second house
    in Budapest a Jewish house with a huge big Mogen
    David on the house because the idea was
    that the Americans will not bomb the Jewish houses.
    And therefore-- or the Christians will be saved.
    Of course they were wrong, because they
    bombed the Jewish houses.
    They bombed the Christian houses.
    But they found the headquarters, and they bombed there, too.
    And my parents had to move out from our apartment.
    And they moved in--
    thanks God, my grandmother's house wasn't too far,
    her apartment.
    And they moved.
    And the Nazis came every morning,
    and they were reading names.
    And my name was still on.
    So they argued for a while, and I told the ambassador
    that it is my job to go home to my parents,
    because they might kill the whole family.
    So he wouldn't allow me to go home with him.
    I had to go down in a street car with one of the diplomats who
    was sitting quite away from me, because he wanted to see where
    I'm going with the promise that whenever they allow us
    out on the street, because we were allowed every day
    two hours to go out and shop with the star on.
    And you were lucky if you came back from shopping
    without being killed.
    And if the telephones still worked, would I please call up?
    And I was hardly down there for two weeks when I called,
    and I was told to come back at once because there
    is something new happened.
    So I had to go down on my knees to my friend
    to take me up once more, promising that I will not stay.
    And there was Raoul Wallenberg.
    And he introduced himself.
    I didn't really know who he was.
    And he asked me in English at that time,
    would you like to work with me?
    And I showed him my star.
    And he started to laugh.
    And Per Anger was laughing.
    He says that's nothing.
    That's getting off.
    I said, yeah?
    How?
    So they told me how.
    They gave him-- they must have bribed the Hungarian police
    station, because I had to go down all by myself.
    I didn't find out only later on that actually they
    were around in case I'm not coming out,
    so they can pick me up.
    And I went down to the police station,
    and the police chief, whose name I can't remember,
    he took me in his arm, and he cried.
    He was a very good actor.
    And he said, "I'm so proud I am the one who cuts the star off."
    And he did cut it off.
    And he said, "remember my name when the Russians come.
    Or the Americans.
    How good I was."
    He must have gotten quite a lot of money.
    And as I walked out, I heard somebody say
    "here goes another bloody Jew."
    And I thought, "ah, now they're going to kill me."
    But they didn't.
    I made it all the way back.
    So now Raoul Wallenberg hands me another paper.
    He said get down to the house commission.
    By now, it was incredible.
    We had a housing commission.
    Because as soon as somebody got out of their beautiful home,
    somebody moved in.
    And he said, "get your apartment back."
    I said, really?
    He said, yes, really?"
    So by that time, I was all Raoul Wallenberg.
    I felt if he's that strong and has not to do it, I can do it.
    And I was a rather pretty girl, so I took up
    the best suit I had, and I walked with my paper
    in my hand.
    But inside, of course, I was twisting.
    And I sort of threw it to the head of the men,
    and he gave me a dirty look.
    But without a word, he gave it back.
    He said, here.
    I walked out, and I said, why?
    How come they just give it to me?
    Well, I forgot that it was actually in my father's name.
    So I walked back to our super, who
    was living on us like a leech for years and years and years.
    And his wife was delighted to see me alive, but not him.
    And I said, "I came to get my apartment back."
    Whereby, she said, "Oh, my daughter already has--"
    No, he said, "my daughter is going to have your apartment."
    And the wife spoke up.
    She said, "our daughter already has an apartment!"
    So I existed, sort of.
    And he said, "well, he can't give it to me.
    I have to go to the house's lawyer."
    And I said fine.
    And I walked all the way to the lawyer.
    And there was the same thing as with the policemen.
    "Oh, I give it to you, of course.
    But you must remember my name when they come in,
    to tell how much good I did."
    I said sure.
    And I had my finger like that.
    I said, "of course I will, naturally."
    So then I walked back to the super,
    who was very surprised that I got the signature.
    And we went upstairs, and funnily enough,
    the apartment was completely empty.
    Only one room.
    We had a maid's room, and that was closed.
    And when he opened it, I was terribly surprised
    to find all our paintings, furniture, everything
    was in there.
    So first I thought to myself, "gee, he isn't such a bad man."
    Until he opens his mouth and he said, "I'll get even with you
    yet."
    But at least right now I had it.
    So I did the terrible thing.
    My parents didn't have any papers yet,
    but I walked back to the house, and I said "out."
    and my father said, but how?
    I said just get out.
    I have already Schutz-Passes for you from Raoul.
    Just get out.
    And I brought them back home, and nothing happened.
    And then what I did with Raoul, every day I had to go up there.
    And I went on the streetcar, because they were over in Buda.
    And for a while, I was hostessing.
    You know, thousands and thousands
    of Jewish people and anti-Nazi people
    came up to ask for this paper.
    Because when Raoul arrived and he
    asked what the embassy has done, I said,
    we have given out 80 passports.
    And he said, 80 passports when there are 280,000 people
    to be saved?
    That's nothing.
    And that's when he designed this beautiful Schutz-Pass, what
    means "protective pass."
    And people still keep on saying passports.
    They were no passports.
    OK, we have to change rolls.
    [BEEP]
    There came a knock at the door, and it turned out
    to be a German soldier that you had--
    that you actually knew?
    Ah.
    Give me the background.
    OK, the background was that I was just
    about graduating from high school.
    And I got scarlet fever.
    So I never really graduated, but they just gave me the paper.
    And I was supposed to go to a German island at that time
    to very dear friends who were Jewish.
    And it didn't work.
    But then 1936 Olympic Games came.
    And that was about the last time that the Jews
    were allowed to be around, and they invited me to Berlin
    instead.
    So I went to Berlin, and I had a wonderful time.
    I watched Jesse Owens winning the gold medal for his flying
    instead of running.
    And I thought he was wonderful, because he
    was hated as much as we are, because he was Black.
    And it was wonderful.
    And then in the days what we took there,
    we went out to swim.
    And I met a lot of German youth.
    And one of them was a young man who we exchanged cards,
    and my name was Mandl.
    And then years go by, and there is the war,
    and the Nazis are in Budapest.
    And suddenly, the bell rings in my house.
    And I look out, and I see a uniformed man.
    And my parents were, I mean, shaking.
    And I said, "but Mommy, this is the boy from Germany."
    And I opened the door but didn't let him in.
    And he said, "Aggie, you remember me."
    I said, "yes, of course.
    I remember you.
    That was already we were back in our Christian house."
    And he said, "would you show me Budapest?"
    And I said, "sure, I'd be glad to.
    Goodbye, Mommy and Daddy," and out I went.
    I couldn't say I'm not going with you.
    Everybody in the house looked at me,
    and they didn't know whether I was taken or walking.
    And we walked around until we came to the synagogue.
    And this young man stopped there and he said, "do you
    see this synagogue?"
    I said, "yes, sure."
    He said, "that's where I'm going to kill every single Jew."
    So my stomach went all the way down.
    What am I going to do now?
    If I tell him I am one, he will kill me right on the spot,
    and I can't afford it.
    And I turned to him and I said, "did you ever know a Jew?"
    And he said, no.
    I said, "well, did any Jew ever hurt you?"
    He says, no.
    I said, "then why do you want to kill them?"
    He says, "Hitler told me."
    So now I had to think very fast, and I looked at my watch.
    I said, "Oh, you have to forgive me, but I am teaching English
    and I have to run to a lesson.
    It was wonderful seeing you."
    And I ran away.
    I never see him again, but it was
    a frightening couple of hours.
    And now I want you to tell me about Raoul Wallenberg.
    And I've never heard of him.
    I don't know who he is.
    So tell me very generally if you had to tell me briefly
    who he is and what he did.
    OK.
    Raoul Wallenberg is-- was then a young 32-year-old man
    from a neutral country.
    He was an architect.
    Everybody says he was the ambassador.
    He was a diplomat.
    He was not.
    He got his education here in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
    He became a top architect.
    And his uncle-- his grandfather, Wallenberg grandfather
    was a diplomat.
    He was an ambassador to Tokyo, and later on to Turkey.
    And he was the one who really brought Raoul up,
    because his father died three months before he was born.
    And this little boy was surrounded by love,
    and he grew up with always caring about other people.
    And his grandfather saw to it that he learned
    all the European languages, and that he's
    a well-educated young man.
    And he was funny.
    He was wonderful.
    He was a great actor.
    He usually imitated everybody, and he was just great.
    And when he came back from America,
    it was way in the '30s, and Hitler was already around.
    And he couldn't find anybody who wanted to build.
    So architect he couldn't be.
    So they sent him first to South Africa.
    His grandfather wanted him to learn
    the business of the Wallenbergs, what was banking mostly.
    And when he got to Africa, very shortly
    he wrote to his grandfather, "Why
    aren't you doing something?
    They are killing the Blacks here.
    They shouldn't do that.
    Those are wonderful people."
    And he was very disturbed, and he was wanting to come back.
    Then his grandfather sent him to Palestine, what
    was no Israel yet, to Haifa.
    And that's where he met first these people who
    came from Germany, Poland, those who could run away.
    And they told him the horror stories.
    So again, he asked his grandfather
    to come back, because he has to do something for humanity.
    So he came back to Stockholm.
    And of course, he couldn't do a thing for anyone.
    But he became a partner of a Hungarian Jew,
    who couldn't travel anymore, who had a big import--
    export-import business in food.
    And Raoul became his partner, because he could travel around
    still.
    And every time he came back, he said to his partner,
    "Kalman, they're going to kill everybody.
    You can't imagine what they do in Germany
    and what they do in Hungary.
    Let me go back to Hungary and bring your family out."
    And this Hungarian was laughing.
    He said, "Raoul, whom do you think you are,
    Jesus Christ or Moses?
    You can do nothing."
    In the meantime, finally, somebody
    went to Roosevelt, our president,
    and told him that Hungary was the last country where there
    still a Jewish population, and it
    looks like that the Germans are going
    in there to kill everyone.
    Would he please help?
    So the Hungarian-- the American Refugee Board has been erected,
    and a gentleman by the name of Olson
    has been sent to Sweden to find a person who
    would go with a mission to save people in Hungary.
    The Hung-- the American embassy was
    in the same house with Kalman Lauer, the firm Raoul worked.
    And they figured they go to a Hungarian Jew.
    Maybe he knows someone.
    And then they told him what they want.
    He started to laugh.
    He said, "Yes, I have a young partner,
    and he can talk of nothing else but saving the world."
    So I don't want to go in with you how many interviews he had,
    and probably because of these interviews
    it is that he's now 46 years in prison.
    Stockholm was a real spy center.
    There was a big coffee house there,
    where there were Russian spies, German spies, you name it.
    And Raoul had a lot of meetings there with this Mr. Olson.
    What turned out later on that he was a man of the OSS, what
    was before the CIA.
    But Raoul had absolutely no idea.
    He just knew that he was an American.
    And talking to Raoul and seeing how excited he was
    and what he wanted, they gave him the job to come to Hungary.
    He was 32-year-old.
    His demand was, of course, that he
    needed a diplomatic passport.
    Because without that, he couldn't travel.
    That's how he became the third secretary or fourth secretary
    of the Hungarian embassy.
    He also demanded unlimited money.
    And when they asked him why, he said "because I'm sure
    I will have to bribe the Germans and the Hungarians
    to save some people."
    And they said yes.
    And then the third one was that he
    wanted a free hand to do whatever he wanted in Hungary.
    Well, of course when he arrived to Budapest on July 9, 1944,
    they didn't look at him very happily, the embassy.
    Because there is someone who was never a diplomat, and he
    wants to take over.
    But it turned out that that's what happened.
    Raoul was the one who went to talk to people.
    Raoul was the one who saved the people.
    So now you know who Raoul is or was,
    a great, wonderful human being, whose only idea
    was to help the innocent.
    And for this, they took him.
    And for many other reasons.
    But the way he saved the people was so incredible,
    and I can only talk for myself, because I have not met anyone
    except the photographer Thomas Veres,
    who has the same feeling that Raoul gave us
    such an enormous strength to do the same thing, unafraid.
    Of course, we don't know either whether he inside himself being
    afraid, and we, too, maybe our stomach sometimes
    didn't work the same way.
    But we just said, no, we can do it.
    And we did the most incredible things,
    because Raoul wanted us to do.
    And that was the beauty.
    And he never thought of being afraid.
    He went out to the trains when the Germans
    took the people, to already to take them to Auschwitz.
    And his pockets were full of all kinds of papers,
    not just real Schutz-Passes but driver's license
    and this and that, because the Germans couldn't read.
    And before he even shouted, he first gave the Hungarian man
    some drinks, because they love cognac and all that that,
    and made them good and drunk, and asked them to help him.
    And he was shouting there, "come out, come out, all the people
    who have my papers!"
    And of course people suddenly realize
    that there is some angel who want to help them,
    and he just handed them papers out.
    And before the Germans could really start shooting,
    he had 100 people on our trucks, Red Cross trucks,
    to bring them home.
    And then Raoul looked back, another 100 people were killed.
    But you can't just save everyone.
    And then another day when in Hungary this year it
    was very early snowing in November, and even in September
    already, they were enormously cold,
    the coldest winter in 40 years.
    And they were marching people from Budapest all the way
    to Vienna.
    Even today in a car, it's five hours.
    You can imagine what it was walking old people
    and children.
    And he would scream.
    I had a girlfriend there, who was there with mother--
    Let's stop.
    Let's stop here.
    Changing film, camera four's up.
    Saying take three is up.
    Why don't you just continue and tell me
    some of the amazing incidents that Raoul did.
    Well, this one, I'm just shortening it down for you.
    That again, he went, and he had a big, black book.
    And this time, he went with Per Anger and another couple
    of even Swiss people, and of course, the Red Cross trucks.
    And he would shout at the German in German that I am a diplomat,
    and I will be sure that I will not
    help your people if you don't let-- these are all
    my protected people.
    Anybody with my papers, turn around.
    And my girlfriend with her mother and sister
    figured, we can be killed anyhow.
    And they turned around.
    They had no papers.
    And Raoul just gave them something.
    And they went on and they in the United States today.
    And then he was starting reading out
    names out of this black book.
    And of course, everybody caught on, and they just came.
    And on the way home, Per Anger says to him, Raoul,
    I didn't know we have a book with all the names.
    And he started hysterically laughing.
    He says, you didn't know?
    And he opens the book, and not a single word in it.
    But that's how he was.
    Then we already had hospitals.
    We had two hospitals what eventually
    was used by everyone because it was right in the middle.
    And if somebody was hurt from a bomb, they brought them in.
    But Raoul was marvelous in learning names.
    And what he did first.
    And he never forgot a name.
    He learned all the main Hungarian Arrow Cross
    officers' name and where they were sitting, in which office,
    because they were all over.
    And one of the officers were right near by our hospital.
    And he arrives to our hospital one day unshaven and hungry.
    And I was there, delivering mail to some patients, I remember.
    And he came in and there are these three little punks,
    13/14-year-old, with a gun, and the doctor with his hands up,
    and the patient sitting.
    And Raoul couldn't speak Hungarian,
    but boy, he could hit.
    And with all his might and half-German, half-Hungarian,
    he hit these guys.
    And of course, the guns fell down,
    and he says, get out of here and bring me your officer.
    Three minutes passed.
    The boys left because they got such a hit.
    I think one of them even had a bloody nose,
    but Raoul didn't care.
    And he pushed away the guns.
    In walks an officer and Raoul looks at him,
    he says, Simon, what took you three minutes to get here?
    And the men were so surprised that how
    do you know my name, Mr. Wallenberg?
    He knew that he was Wallenberg.
    He said, I know everybody's name.
    And I don't understand why you don't bring me medication when
    that's what I was asking for.
    And I think you better go because I
    understand that you killed a German Gestapo
    officer by mistake.
    And the guy says, no, I didn't.
    He says, oh, yes, you did.
    Because he died right here in our hospital.
    But before he died, he sent your name up to the headquarters,
    and they're looking for you.
    Without a word, Simon disappeared.
    And we all, you know, relaxed.
    And the doctor says, Raoul, what did you just do?
    And Raoul starts laughing.
    He said, I did nothing.
    He said, I knew it was a Simon who was the officer,
    and we were lucky because it was Simon.
    So the doctor said, Raoul, I never
    had a Gestapo officer here.
    Raoul sat down on the floor and started laughing.
    He says, of course not, but he killed
    so many people, one of them could have been an officer.
    You see, this was his mind.
    He was in danger.
    They could have killed him.
    Simon could have killed him.
    But no, he had to try with a big lie to help.
    And he did.
    And he was absolutely unafraid.
    We heard it in the radio that all young girls
    in the age of 18 and 25 have to go
    in such and such a sports palace and clean up Budapest
    after the bombing.
    Well, we knew exactly where they're going to go.
    And Raoul turned to us and says, let's
    get the pictures because all of you must have young sisters,
    and aunts, and so forth.
    And let's write the passes.
    And that time-- because we had to move all the time
    because Eichmann was after all of us, especially after Raoul.
    Raoul slept somewhere else every night.
    And this time, we were over in the Buda side,
    in a very beautiful villa.
    And as they bombed all the time, we had only candlelight,
    and we had the black curtains.
    And we were putting the pictures on.
    And the ambassador was sitting there, Ambassador Danielson,
    signing each of them.
    Around midnight, Raul arrives, again unshaven, tired,
    but with a big smile when he came to us.
    And said, well, how are we doing?
    By 3:00, we have to send out all these passes.
    And that time, we already had curfew in Hungary.
    Not just for the Jews, but for everyone.
    From 9 o'clock in the evening to 7:00 in the morning,
    no one was allowed out.
    And I was very surprised why in a gorgeous, cold, icy night,
    with stars out, why don't they bomb us?
    Maybe they knew what we heard in the radio
    and they didn't want to bomb.
    No bombing.
    Quiet outside, beautiful.
    And I was the first ready with 500 of my passes.
    But before we got ready, Raoul said, oh, I
    forgot to tell you a lovely, great news.
    But don't look up, it's not important.
    We have new neighbors in the other villa.
    And of course, we all looked up.
    He says, I told you, don't look up.
    It's only the German headquarters.
    Nobody cared.
    So I had my 500 papers, and Raoul came over
    and put his hand around me.
    He says, good luck, kid.
    And I walked out.
    In that time, I was very young and very much
    in love with an Italian.
    And all I could think of was the war will be over,
    and the moon is out, and you know how young women are.
    And I'm carrying this 500 passes.
    And I delivered each of them.
    And some of them was my friend who opened the door and says,
    Aggy, what are you doing out in the street?
    I said, don't worry about it.
    There is an angel who sent you the paper.
    I hope it saves your life.
    And only when I got home, finally,
    and I sat down on my bed around 4 o'clock,
    and I said, oh, my god, what did I just do?
    I could have been killed by the Nazis.
    And then, just like Raoul would think, he says, the Nazis,
    they are great cowards.
    They wouldn't dare to be out in a night like that.
    And I went to sleep.
    At 6 o'clock in the morning, I woke up
    that my two girlfriends made it all the way back
    with these passes.
    And they came to our house.
    Then we had--
    Raoul was away again when he heard,
    the last day, that the Hungarian Nazi party are taking people
    down to the river.
    I don't know if you've been in Budapest,
    however, Budapest is two cities, and in the middle
    is the so-called Blue Danube.
    For me, it is the Red Danube.
    But that's what it was.
    And they took people down there, the Hungarian Nazis.
    And they roped three people together.
    And they shot the middle one so they all fell in.
    And if they saw a movement, they shot again so they'd be sure.
    But many people by themselves somehow got out.
    But it was a terribly cold winter, as I said.
    And the Danube was frozen, with big slabs of ice.
    So Raoul came home the third night.
    And there was no moonlight, no stars, just cold and dark.
    And he turned to us the first time,
    usually only talked to the men and the Red Cross,
    and how many of you can swim?
    I have a big mouth, so I put up my hand,
    I said, best swimmer in school.
    He says, let's go.
    And as you saw me coming in like a teddy bear,
    that's how I was dressed, in a hat and a glove.
    And we went down.
    On the other side, the Hungarians
    didn't even hear us coming because they were
    so busy roping and shooting.
    And we stood on the left way over.
    We had doctors and nurses in the cars,
    and then we had people outside to pull us out.
    Four of us, three men and me, we jumped.
    And thanks to the icicles, the ropes hang on to it,
    and we saved people out.
    But only 50.
    And then we were so frozen that we couldn't do it anymore.
    But without Raoul Wallenberg, we wouldn't have
    saved even one single person.
    And you know, when 40 or almost 50 years going, sometimes,
    you think, do I dream this?
    Did it really happen?
    Until last year, I spoke in New Jersey.
    And I told them the Wallenberg story,
    and an old gentleman got up, and he said, young lady, hold it
    right there.
    Do you see this little hole?
    And I said, yes, sir.
    He said, that's where the bullet hit me.
    And you pulled me out.
    And I looked at him, I said, no, I didn't.
    He says, yes, you were the only girl.
    Because we met you after in the hospital.
    And it was--
    I was shaken up terribly.
    But some of us, Raoul--
    Per Anger had the same wonderful meeting one day
    when the Russians were in already,
    and they had the uprising.
    And some of the Jews escaped on boats.
    And he was already a consul in Vienna.
    And he suddenly thought, oh, why don't I do what Raoul did
    and help people out of the water?
    And he went down just with the little flashlight
    and helped people out.
    And one lady came over, and saw him, and ran to him.
    And he said, Mr. Per Anger you saved me from the Nazis,
    now you're saving me from the Russians.
    Well, you see, we wouldn't recognize those people.
    But they knew us because we were so few.
    But it is a wonderful feeling that because of Raoul, we
    could've done these things.
    And then his very last and huge--
    and these arguments, I have with many people.
    They say, ah, he probably saved 5,000 people.
    What is absolutely ridiculous.
    Because by that time, we had a real ghetto.
    And it was surrounded by the Hungarians--
    all the houses around the main synagogue of Budapest.
    And there were 70,000 people in there.
    And the Russians were already at the outskirts of Budapest.
    And Eichmann decided that this is the time
    that he should kill everyone.
    And he ordered to have the 70,000 people killed.
    And how we found out is some of these Hungarian Nazis,
    they wanted to help Raoul.
    Because they knew that the war is over.
    And he was like me, too.
    Oh, yes, I promise I help you.
    OK.
    But they came and one of them--
    We've got to change.
    We've got to change film.
    Sorry.
    I want you to go back to the beginning of the 70,000 story.
    So I want you to start with when people speculate
    about how many he saved.
    All right.
    So we had this beautiful, beautiful synagogue.
    And the houses around it became a ghetto.
    70,000 people were pushed in there.
    Only thing it was that the Swedish government
    went in at least twice a week to deliver some food
    and medication.
    And this one morning, one of the Hungarian officers
    who already thought that Raoul will help him
    after the Soviet comes in said, Raoul, Eichmann
    just ordered to kill the 70,000 people in the ghetto.
    And the guns are already standing there.
    Raoul, without batting an eye, said, oh, boy,
    and we have two of our Swedish girls in there now.
    They just delivered the medication.
    Go back to your headquarters and tell them
    the Germans have called off the killing.
    And then he looked at us all, we were in the office,
    and he said, listen to me, what I'm going to do.
    Because he was always full of ideas.
    And dangerous ideas because he could have been killed.
    He picks up the phone and he dials the German headquarters.
    And he says, I want to speak to General Schmitthuber.
    In beautiful German, he says, this is Lieutenant Kraus.
    So who dares to tell a Lieutenant Kraus that he
    can't speak to the general?
    And the general came to the phone.
    And Raoul introduces himself again,
    this is Raoul Wallenberg.
    Well, he couldn't hang up on him.
    And Raoul said, I don't understand what you are doing.
    I understand you are a highly decorated First World War
    general.
    How can you take it on your heart
    to kill 70,000 innocent people?
    Whereby he must have answered, Eichmann ordered.
    Now, Eichmann could have been standing right by the general.
    But Raoul had to try.
    And he starts laughing, and he looks at us,
    and do like this and that with his eye.
    He said, Eichmann told you?
    Didn't you know that he left town?
    I had lunch with him yesterday.
    Which was, of course, a lie.
    Whereby the man answered, I didn't know.
    So I said to him, in not simple words,
    that if you don't call off the killing immediately,
    I as a diplomat will be sure that you
    will be the first one hanged before your office.
    Within two minutes, he called off the killing.
    And therefore, 70,000 people, plus the two Swedish girl
    have been saved.
    So if he wouldn't have done anything
    more than that, that would have been enough, didn't it.
    But he did not.
    And that was that.
    And then, as you know, maybe before that we also had.
    Stop for a minute because there's a--
    all right.
    Let's go on from there and do another story.
    You want to do the having Eichmann to dinner?
    Oh, yeah, that was a wonderful thing.
    One day he decided he invites Eichmann for dinner,
    but he was so busy, he completely and wholly forgot
    about it.
    So frantically, he called other diplomats.
    Do you have any food?
    Do you have any drinks?
    I forgot I invited Eichmann.
    So they decided that they will go to another consul's place.
    No, he was then also third secretary Burg.
    And Raoul has been, of course, as usual
    just with an open shirt, very relaxed.
    And the little man Eichmann arrived
    with about seven or eight guns around him and two men.
    And they had a very pleasant dinner.
    And they had a very pleasant drinks there.
    And Raoul turned to him suddenly,
    and he said, look, Eichmann, I think what you're doing
    is crazy.
    You know that the Germans lost the war.
    Now, we were by candlelight, of course, they were.
    And he went to the window and pulled up the shade.
    And right then, they were bombing Budapest terribly.
    And he says, look, the whole beautiful city is burning.
    So give up your idea of killing the Jews.
    Because you will be killed anyhow.
    And Eichmann's answer was, I know that if they catch me,
    I will be killed.
    But I took it to my head to kill everybody, and I will.
    But you're disturbing me.
    Whereby Raoul looked at him, he says,
    I don't disturb you enough.
    And he said, but Mr. Wallenberg, don't forget,
    just a diplomatic passport doesn't really help.
    Diplomats are dying, too.
    And sure enough, in a few weeks, after a big, heavy truck rammed
    into Raoul's car.
    But thanks god, Raoul wasn't in it.
    And Raoul picked up the phone and screamed at Eichmann,
    you ruined my best car.
    Whereby he answered, I wanted to kill you.
    He said, that's not so easy to kill me.
    He wasn't afraid.
    The only thing he was afraid, yes, it was the bombing.
    Because there, he couldn't do a thing.
    And that, too, you know, we had two orphanages.
    Did you know that?
    That he had two orphanages.
    And in one of them there were 79 children.
    And they were so frightened when it was bombing.
    And so was Raoul.
    But instead of being afraid then,
    he picked up the children, and he
    started to tell them stories.
    And he would imitate little animals
    so that the children forgot to be afraid.
    And that was the most wonderful thing,
    to see how he cared for these kids,
    and they caught him Uncle Raoul.
    And this was his greatest and most horrible heartache,
    when one day he arrived home.
    Because we had these safe houses,
    what they called the international ghetto,
    what it wasn't.
    It was given to us, and not bought, by Christians and Jews
    who didn't wanted their houses and villas
    on both sides of the Danube to fall in Russian--
    in German hands.
    And they gave that to Raoul.
    And so immediately, these people with these passes
    were put in there, even if they were not comfortable.
    But at least they had Raoul Wallenberg,
    who came out twice a week.
    And there was medication and there was food.
    Otherwise, they were frightened and being there.
    But it was taken care of by young Aryan-looking Jewish boys
    who were dressed up in Nazi uniform.
    And so was one of these wonderful orphanages.
    And one day, Raoul arrived.
    He's always visited the orphanage.
    And he found all the children killed.
    And the young guard from outside could tell the story
    because he was hit in the shoulder
    that these young punks came in and just started
    to shoot the kids.
    But one little boy went under the chair
    because when he thought that he sees his mother last,
    the mother says, if anything happens, just try to hide.
    He went under the chair.
    And when it was all over, he climbed out.
    And he went out on the street.
    And the first person he met was his mother,
    who was by then in a Raoul Wallenberg safe house.
    He's also in this country today.
    And the other one who survived was a woman whom
    I hope you already interviewed.
    She is now professor of humanities
    and English in Mercer College in New Jersey.
    Dr. Vera Gutkin.
    She has been saved twice by Raoul.
    The second time, she had scarlet fever
    and she was in the orphanage.
    And Raoul had to give her some false papers.
    And she was in a hospital.
    That's why she wasn't killed.
    So these two people.
    And that was the only time I ever
    saw Raoul Wallenberg go down on his knees and cry bitterly.
    Because killing children was something
    he could have never imagined that anyone can do.
    But then he got up again and he was as tall as seven foot.
    And he said, I'm fighting on because I
    want to save the young.
    Because the young are going to make peace.
    That was his idea.
    And if anything, there was a young man
    who was then about 15.
    And his mother was taken.
    And they were crying.
    And he's today, he's a television and newspaper
    man in Israel.
    Teddy Lapin, I think, is his name, if I remember.
    And he cried very bitterly when his mother gone.
    And in about an hour, suddenly, his mother
    arrived back with all other women.
    And when they looked at each other,
    their mother, all she could say was Wallenberg.
    And what happened, he heard about it
    that they taking women from--
    they came in through the basement
    and they just carried people out.
    And they went to the Danube to kill them all.
    And suddenly, the car arrives and this one man
    in a coat and hat--
    they already knew that must be Wallenberg-- demanded
    that these are my people.
    And they are under my protection.
    And you Germans have absolutely no right to take them.
    And he brought them back home.
    So he was again with his mother.
    And he did thousands of thousands of things.
    And never, never, ever thinking that he shouldn't do it.
    And now, you really thought that he has done everything.
    Now there was the Russians coming in.
    And everybody told him, Raoul, don't go anywhere.
    But he said, yes, I want to go to the Russian headquarters
    because we need help for the people we saved.
    Now, there is a lot of stories about how he disappeared.
    But the real story I heard from the Swedish Red Cross
    man who was still in Budapest.
    And I met him later on.
    Let's stop.
    Let's wait.
    We had to reload.
    Change film, camera roll six is up, soon take.
    Seven is up.
    I want to go back and I want you to explain
    to me what the Schutz-Pass was.
    What it was, and how you did it, and how big an endeavor it was.
    Remember that I have never heard of it before.
    All right.
    As I told you before, that the first 80 of these real passes,
    passports, were given out.
    And Raoul was very annoyed.
    He said, that's not enough.
    And we have 280,000 people to save.
    And he said, I want to go to the Hungarian headquarters
    and talk to them.
    So he went to these Nazi people.
    And he offered them to take the Jews off they hand.
    Because they still could have trains going through Germany
    into Sweden.
    And he said, I put up big railroads
    and I just take them all out.
    And the Hungarians said, oh, that's wonderful,
    you can take 5,000 people.
    So he tipped his hat and said, thank you, and came home.
    And he said, 5,000 people, that's ridiculous.
    They will never allow us any other.
    And he sat down, as he was a great draftsman and architect.
    And he has designed a paper in the Swedish colors,
    yellow and blue, with the Swedish crowns there.
    And he explained that what we will write on it.
    And I already once translated it word by word
    to the New York Times, and yet they put it down all wrong.
    It says exactly that the bearer of this Schutz-Pass,
    what is protective pass, and the picture was
    up there with the person's signature,
    is protected by the Swedish government.
    And when and if we can go in a collective passport
    to Sweden, after two weeks, this paper will be invalid.
    That's all what it says in German and in Hungarian.
    And yet you're constantly that this was a passport,
    the people were Swedish citizens.
    No.
    So he went with this beautiful paper
    with the Swedish crown, the stamps on it
    from the Swedish embassy.
    And each of them were signed by the ambassador.
    Not by Raoul Wallenberg.
    Because that, too, they said, this was all fake
    and they were no good.
    It's not true.
    It wasn't fake.
    It was real.
    And with this paper, he went back to the Hungarians.
    And they said, all right, you can make out about 15,000.
    Well, of course, we made out 30,000 to 40,000 of this.
    And people came up to the embassy by the thousands
    to bring their pictures to put on and to do.
    Now, thousands and thousands of people, yes, have been saved.
    How much money Raoul gave the Germans, we don't know.
    But he blew them up as big as the wall on the streets.
    And it said that anybody who has these papers
    should be left free.
    Now, my two girlfriends, whom I told
    you came after being early morning there to report,
    the German officer must have heard
    that they had a German accent because they
    had a Hungarian father but they went back to Germany
    after he died.
    And he said them in German, you know
    what you can do with the paper?
    But the two girls turned around and ran,
    and he never shot after them.
    So they knew.
    The Hungarians were sort of different.
    They did that with my father, who was there
    when the girls arrived.
    And he cried bitterly because he loved them like his own.
    And he said, I can't see all this crying anymore.
    So on his pajamas, he put on his winter coat.
    And he said, I'm going down to buy bread.
    Within a half an hour, we got a little note
    what he scribbled and gave it to someone that he
    is in a Hungarian prison.
    So right away, I called Raoul, he
    was about going somewhere else, but he sent two diplomats
    with his car.
    And we went to look after my father all day.
    And we never found him.
    Next day, they came very early morning, around 5:30,
    and we went again.
    Finally, we came to a huge, big sports palace.
    And the two diplomats go in.
    And I see them saying, Heil Hitler.
    And they're running back.
    And they said, your father is home.
    Do we have a phone?
    I said, yes.
    So we called home, and papa was home.
    And he told us what happened.
    He went down, he had the pass in his pocket.
    And this Hungarian punk came up.
    He says, hey, you Jew, show me your paper.
    And papa pulled it out, and they said, what he can do with it?
    And took him in to the prison.
    A German officer walked in.
    My father spoke perfect German.
    So he showed it to him.
    He threw him out.
    This went on about 20 times that day.
    The Hungarian took him back and German let him out.
    Finally, the Hungarians won and marched them
    for eight hours to all this outskirt to the sports palace.
    They stood there all night, papa with his bread.
    And finally, in the morning, two German officers came.
    And they were telling each other some jokes and they laughed.
    And my father thought, good, this
    is the moment I can talk to them.
    And he walked up and he said, look
    what the Hungarians did to me.
    And he was thrown out.
    And before that, he gave his bread to an old man.
    And besides him was a young man who also had the same paper.
    And he was thrown out.
    And this time, papa made it all the way home.
    So whether again, whether Raoul bribed the Germans to do this.
    And not every German did, but the Hungarians absolutely
    didn't care.
    Now, the fake came in very easily
    because there was a Polish gentleman who
    saved people for two years.
    A Polish Jew in Poland.
    And when he was finished, he figured somehow
    he makes his way to Hungary, maybe he can help.
    Because by that time, he knew we were occupied.
    And he had a tiny little printing machine.
    And he found that there was an angel in Budapest
    who is doing this.
    Now, Mr. Danielson's handwriting was very easy to fake.
    And he started to make these passes.
    And he gave it out to people.
    And Raoul got wind of it and met him.
    And first, very angrily, he said,
    how dare you are doing this?
    Because we can get in big trouble.
    And then he put on his big smile, he said,
    but if you can save one human life, go ahead and do it.
    So we have the feeling that maybe another 100,000 people
    got saved with the fake paper.
    Because it was just the idea, save the people.
    And we did as much as we could.
    And of course, many people died with the same paper,
    too because the Hungarians don't care.
    So it was a very exciting time.
    And naturally, they only think--
    what was really neat, it was the real ambassador's handwriting
    on each of them.
    He was with us.
    He didn't like to do it, but he had
    to do it because Raoul would make him do it.
    And Raoul never signed those papers.
    What Raoul signed was our working papers,
    what you probably can see here.
    That is his handwriting.
    And he was just wonderful.
    And that, too, we were told all the time now here
    that they didn't believe it.
    Oh, this working paper saved her life.
    No, it didn't.
    Because in that time, everyone, even a shoe shiner in Budapest,
    had to have a working paper.
    Because you could not just go around,
    whether you were Christian or Jewish.
    And many people died with this paper.
    And many people, as I was lucky, I lived with this paper.
    Now, I want you to tell the story about the Danube.
    But I don't want you to refer back to telling it to me
    before.
    And I don't want you to talk about coming in
    like a teddy bear.
    I want you to tell it as though I've never heard it before,
    never met you before.
    All right.
    So it was the coldest winter in Budapest
    for already since the beginning of October.
    So much so that the Danube was frozen,
    with huge, big slabs of ice.
    And this Hungarian Nazi party decided
    that the best way to kill people is to take them down
    on the side of the Danube in a dark night,
    and rope three together, and shoot them into the Danube.
    And they did that.
    It was no moonlight, no stars.
    It was just a very black night.
    And Raoul wasn't around for two days.
    He was somewhere else saving people.
    And when he came home, he heard this,
    and he was besides himself, what will Eichmann think next?
    And he turned around to us this time.
    And he said, how many of you can swim?
    So I put my hand up, and I said, I can.
    And we went down together to the Danube.
    We were all dressed in our winter coats, and hats,
    and boots.
    And every time the Hungarians shot--
    four of us, there was three men and myself--
    we fell into the Danube the same time.
    And thank you for the big icicles,
    the ropes hung on to the icicle.
    And we knew where there is a rope, there is a body.
    And we pulled the people out.
    And the Red Cross trucks were waiting with hot soup
    and change of clothes.
    And there were doctors and nurses.
    And then we went to our hospital.
    But we only saved about 50 people
    because then we were so frozen that we didn't know whether we
    going forward or backwards.
    But 50 people, without Raoul Wallenberg,
    would not have been saved.
    But because of him, we did save those 50 people.
    And I was lucky enough to meet someone a few years after who
    was in New Jersey.
    And he asked me if I saw the hole in his finger.
    And I said, yes.
    And he said, that's where the bullet hit me.
    But you pulled me out.
    And I said, I didn't.
    He said, yeah, you were the only girl.
    We met you after in the hospital.
    So it was a very good feeling.
    Is that what you want to know?
    I think we're about to run out.
    Now I want to go back, and I want
    you to tell me what you think happened to Raoul Wallenberg.
    Well, what happened to Raoul Wallenberg?
    As I probably told you that he wanted to help the people whom
    he helped already.
    And he figured that the Soviet is our ally,
    so we have to go to them to get some help.
    And everybody told him not to do it,
    because let's wait how the Soviet will be with us
    the embassy said.
    But Raoul said, no, no, no.
    I have to go, and I have a five year plan for the Soviet
    how to help these people to get back their homes,
    and how we feed them, and we need medication.
    So nobody could talk to him.
    And he went with his driver, Wilmer Schlangfelder, together.
    And they went to that little city called Debrecen.
    That was the headquarters of the Soviet.
    In a week, he came back.
    And that's how I know the story, because the Red Cross head,
    the Swedish Cross head I met later on in Sweden.
    And he said Raoul came back, and behind him there
    were two Russian officers on motorbikes.
    And he said, as you can see, I have some Russians behind me,
    and I am invited back and I have no idea if I am invited back
    as a visitor or as a prisoner.
    But he said, I had a wonderful meeting on the way back.
    I saw an old lady carrying bread in a basket,
    and she still had a star on.
    And I got out of the car, and I went over,
    and I said, how wonderful to see that somebody is alive.
    My name is Raoul Wallenberg.
    And the lady pulled out the Schutz-Pass.
    She says, I know.
    I got one of your papers.
    And he said it was a very emotional moment for him, too.
    And then he emptied his pockets and he
    said to Mr. Langfelder, who was the head of the Red Cross.
    And he said, here I give you all the money and all the diamonds,
    because you will need it to feed the people whom we saved.
    But I keep $1,000, and I tell you
    that because in a few minutes I tell you
    what happened to the $1,000.
    Said I keep this just in case my trip takes long.
    And then he said goodbye and disappeared.
    Now, in 1945, the mother in Stockholm
    got a phone call from the Russian ambassador,
    Mrs. Kollontai telling her not to worry about Raoul.
    Raoul is in, uh, not captivity.
    She said he is in Russia, and we are taking care of him.
    So the mother was very happy.
    But Mrs. Kollontai wasn't happy, because every day she
    got phone calls, and she kept on saying,
    you better don't ask so much.
    He is all right.
    We're protecting him.
    But after a little while, Mrs. Kollontai was called back,
    and miraculously she died in a heart attack in no time.
    And then they started to ask where is Raoul?
    In the meantime, the whole embassy got back to Stockholm,
    and I arrived to Stockholm in 1945.
    And I said, where is Raoul?
    And they said, we don't know.
    They knew nothing about Raoul.
    And the Russian answer was that we never heard of him.
    He's not there.
    In '47, however, suddenly they said that, yes, he was there,
    and in Lubyanka Prison, he died in a heart attack.
    The heart attack they described is for a big, fat man.
    And Raoul Wallenberg was really not fat.
    And besides, I'm sure he didn't get fat in prison.
    So they ask for the autopsy papers, and they disappeared.
    They asked for the doctor.
    He wasn't alive anymore.
    So we knew that they lying.
    Then as you know, in '57, Mr. Gromyko
    said that he's very sorry, but yes, he's dead,
    and that's that.
    Now, the terrible thing is that we know now,
    and we can imagine why.
    I told you before that Stockholm was sort of a spy center.
    And this Mr. Olson, what even we didn't know,
    and I'm sure that Raoul had no idea, that he
    worked for the OSS.
    And when Raoul told the Russians that he
    was paid by the Americans, they must
    have had people in Stockholm to see
    him sitting with Mr. Olson, whom the Russians knew very well who
    he was.
    So they said, aha, Raoul Wallenberg is a spy.
    They also came up with stories what is not true,
    that Raoul once flew back home to Sweden while he was there,
    and he discussed things with the Germans,
    what was an absolute lie.
    He could not.
    The only person who ever went back
    was Per Anger, because his wife was pregnant.
    And the last train going, he went with her, and also a lady
    with her two little boys who was hidden with me.
    They went.
    And then Anger came back, and then they closed the curtain.
    That was it.
    Raoul never left.
    So he was not a spy.
    But the Russians took it in their head
    that he was an American spy, and also they didn't like the Jews
    more than the Nazis.
    So why this spy goes to Hungary to save the Jews?
    This was to save--
    So we don't know, as Mr. Wiesenthal said,
    the Russian mind, the Soviet mind, he said that time,
    is something you don't know what they thinking.
    And then the whole world really just didn't care about him.
    His own country didn't care.
    And I remember how people did not believe in 1945, September.
    I was already in Switzerland.
    And I was so excited to tell that story,
    because that wasn't a sorrowful story.
    This was a wonderful story.
    And my own family, my uncle, who was a very prominent gentleman,
    he turned to my aunt when he thought I don't hear,
    and they said, we better take this child to a psychiatrist.
    She's lying through her teeth.
    She's coming up with stories what are not true.
    And I was hurt.
    And every time the phone rang and my uncle gave it to me,
    and he said Oh, this must be the Russian--
    the Swedish ambassador.
    And they were very surprised when
    finally the Norwegian ambassador called and said that there
    was a Red Cross tank--
    truck what are going to take me and many other people away.
    And it was--
    I talked to newspaper people.
    And they thought I was lying.
    Such a person didn't exist.
    Then when I arrived to Sweden, I thought, well,
    now I can talk about Raoul.
    Nobody wanted to hear it.
    I was a lecturer in the camps where Count Bernadotte, who
    was also killed unfortunately.
    Count Bernadotte brought these very, very sick people
    in from Belsen-Bergen, from Auschwitz, from Treblinka,
    you name it, those who were still alive.
    He opened the most beautiful sanatoriums and schools
    to have these people.
    And I asked permission if I at least there
    can talk, at least to the Hungarians,
    about Raoul Wallenberg.
    Well, they gave me the permission to do that.
    And nobody listened.
    Absolutely didn't want to listen to the story.
    And I didn't know what happened to Raoul.
    And I-- then everybody was scared from the Russians.
    Everybody was learning Russian in Sweden.
    That was the only country there, and it
    looked like the Russians will run them over any moment.
    So I wanted to get out.
    I had enough from the Nazis and the Russians.
    And I brought my parents out.
    And they were in Sweden.
    And I went to Australia, because they didn't let me in here.
    And there I tried to talk about Raoul.
    And there some people listened.
    But still nothing happened.
    Then I came over here, and nobody did anything.
    And finally, in the beginning-- in '80,
    there was Congressman Lantos, who
    started to look for Raoul Wallenberg, he and his wife.
    And I told you that his wife was my little student
    back in Hungary.
    But I didn't know that until 40 years after that's her.
    And then they started to listen.
    My husband, whom I married in '60,
    we went on a three week honeymoon.
    And I told him the story, and he was crying for three weeks.
    He was the only one who ever listened.
    And from then on, we are trying, and trying,
    and nothing happened.
    Now they're working on it.
    And why I brought the $1,000 up for you,
    two years ago was the first time that his half-sister
    and half-brother was invited to go to Russia
    and help them look for Raoul Wallenberg.
    Before they arrived there, the Russian television,
    what is like our Good Morning America,
    but it's only on Saturday, goes out
    to something like 50 million people.
    They suddenly had Raoul Wallenberg's picture
    on the screen and a phone number under it.
    And it said, anyone who has any information about this person,
    and gave his name, please call this number.
    And every five minutes they showed that.
    The Swedish embassy was absolutely beside themselves.
    And from then on, they cared.
    They suddenly allowed to talk about Raoul Wallenberg.
    They renamed the only burn center in Leningrad.
    They renamed it the Raoul Wallenberg Medical Center.
    They now have documentaries.
    They have films.
    They have books.
    They came out with everything, and then they
    invited Guy and Nina.
    And they took Per Anger with them.
    Because after all, Per was the nearest one working with Raoul.
    And also they have a secretary who
    called Sonja [? Sonnenfeld, ?] who is Russian-born.
    And they took her, so that nobody can cheat
    when they talk in Russian.
    Sakharov was still alive.
    So he offered the family to help because he speaks English,
    and he speaks Russian.
    [BEEP]
    OK.
    If you can finish.
    OK, so the family arrived, and there was a tremendous crowd
    already at the airport.
    From the whole world, all the newspaper people
    came, because this was really the first time
    that they allowed them to come.
    And they went first to the Swedish embassy.
    And then they went to a part of where the KGB is.
    And Sakharov went with them everywhere.
    The KGB's question was, from Sakharov, how do we find?
    Where do we start?
    They have no idea, today's KGB.
    They are also all young people.
    So Sakharov said, as far as I know,
    there is a key what opens a big vault,
    a huge vault in the Kremlin.
    When you find the key and you open it,
    you will find little sacks, on each of them the people's name.
    You will find Wallenberg.
    They found it.
    They brought out.
    And what they gave back to the family
    was Raoul's passport, Raoul's personal papers,
    and the $1,000.
    That's why I mentioned the $1,000 before.
    They didn't even take that away from him.
    And in 1945, that was a lot of money.
    But that $1,000 was with him.
    Now, what the KGB man did, he wrote out the receipt,
    and he wanted Nina to sign it.
    And Sakharov got very angry.
    He said, hey, wait a minute.
    You arresting a man without any reason,
    you keep him in prison for 46 years, and you want a receipt?
    So the KGB man said sorry, and took the receipt
    and just gave everything back.
    And now we have an international committee in there, including
    two humanitarian Russians.
    We have a Canadian professor, a mathematics professor
    from Toronto.
    We have-- and I'm sure you heard his name, Dr. Martin Makinen.
    That was the young man who was taken in prison in Russia
    when Powell was there.
    Remember Powell?
    And they exchanged them.
    He went to-- and Powell came out.
    Two years he was in prison.
    He did nothing.
    He went to visit Moscow, but they said he was a spy.
    But today he's a professor in Chicago.
    And he is one of the men who is on this committee.
    And they found out fantastic things.
    Number one, every Russian citizen
    is now allowed to look for their dead person.
    It was written, they are also dead like Raoul.
    Now by the thousands they are walking home,
    the dead people walking home.
    So nobody believes that Raoul is dead.
    Somewhere he must be alive.
    They established absolutely for sure
    that he was never cremated, because they
    have one crematoria in the whole Soviet Union, or Russia today.
    And their paper is as long as from here to Manhattan.
    And that took about four months to go through all the names.
    It's like a long toilet paper.
    Raoul Wallenberg's name is nowhere on.
    So he was not cremated.
    If he was killed, they must find somewhere his bones.
    That's how they found these Polish officers.
    They opened one.
    They thought Raoul is there.
    They found all those Polish officers.
    So we don't give up.
    He must be somewhere.
    And as you know, this August he will be 80-year-old.
    And we want to make this year a Raoul Wallenberg
    international humanitarian year.
    And this idea come from a lady, whose name
    is Dr. Vera Parnes, who is Russian,
    who is a doctor of neurosurgery, who wrote lots of papers.
    And she never heard of Raoul Wallenberg until two years ago.
    And he made a Wallenberg Committee,
    and he also has a museum.
    And he's in this country now, medically and not medically.
    And now she doesn't have to rush back.
    It's a new country.
    But when she came out, it was still a communist country.
    Now it's free.
    And she is trying to ask the whole world
    for sending poems, essays, paintings, songs, anything what
    can make Raoul happy.
    And--
    Let me ask you something, generally.
    How important are heroes?
    And how important are heroes in connection with the Holocaust?
    Very, very, very important, especially
    for our American youth.
    As you know, we do not have any heroes.
    Because I don't believe that the great sports figures
    are heroes.
    They can be idols, but they're certainly not heroes.
    Hero is a man who does something for humanity
    without getting paid for it.
    And there are very few.
    And I think I could name just a few who
    were like Raoul Wallenberg.
    And these heroes are important because the whole youth
    of the world don't see the importance of being
    wonderful and caring people.
    And the only way they can learn when
    they listen to these stories about Wallenberg.
    I know I had the experience what children
    can do when they realize what one single person can do.
    If you're interested, I can tell you two wonderful stories.
    The one was we have a Raoul Wallenberg School,
    a public school in Brooklyn.
    And one little boy is--
    well, most of them are already in junior high school.
    And two years ago, I was invited to see Fiddler on the Roof.
    The teacher called me.
    She says it's all Wallenberg children
    from the school are playing it.
    And there was one little boy who was-- two hours he was Tevye.
    He sang.
    He ad libbed.
    He spoke Hebrew.
    He did everything.
    He was absolutely magnificent.
    Two hours nonstop.
    And when it was over, I knew I remembered
    something of the boy, but I didn't know what.
    So when the teacher called me, she said you remember Johnny?
    And I said, I do, but what do I remember?
    Well, I said first of all, the boy is a Christian,
    and look how beautiful he speaks Hebrew.
    The second is, he has a terrible asthma condition.
    And when he said to me, Mrs. Shapiro, I want to be Tevye,
    I didn't know how to answer him.
    And I said, but what's going to happen, Johnny,
    if you get a coughing fit?
    And he said, Aggie, the kid was like Wallenberg.
    He was not four feet.
    He was seven feet.
    And he looked at me.
    He said, if Raoul Wallenberg could do what he did,
    I can do it.
    You see what a mind?
    And if you can tell the children the right way what it means
    to be a person who cares--
    he wanted to make other people happy.
    So for two years, he never coughed for two hours.
    The other one happened when I was a school librarian
    in another public school.
    And in the last half an hour of the day,
    the teacher came up with a class and he said,
    I can do nothing with these kids.
    Maybe you tell them the Wallenberg story.
    So I did.
    And when the bell went, everybody just sat there.
    And the teacher said, don't you kids want to go home?
    And they said, no, could Miss Adachi talk a little longer?
    So I said, if you don't hurry, I don't hurry.
    And I told them that getting involved doesn't mean,
    if two people on the street killing
    each other that you go in the middle, because you get killed.
    Because use your noodles like Raoul used to.
    What can I do immediately?
    OK, they went.
    I forgot about the story.
    Three weeks after I'm sitting security at lunchtime,
    and suddenly I see one little boy coming in,
    takes my pencil and paper.
    The other one comes in, hands it to the secretary.
    And I said, what's going on?
    The secretary I hear calling the police.
    And before the principal walks out,
    I can hear the police arriving.
    Suddenly, three kids come in from this class.
    They all sixth graders.
    One is scratched.
    His shirt is all torn.
    I said, what happened?
    Well, the ball-- they were playing ball.
    The ball went out on the street.
    The boy went out to the street to pick up the ball,
    and there was a log.
    And he wants to pick up the log when a car comes,
    and a man opens the window.
    And he said, leave that log there!
    And the kid, like you would do or I would do,
    pulled up his shoulder and says OK.
    For this OK, the man came out of the car
    and brutally started to hit him, because he answered back.
    Now, what are my children doing?
    He came in.
    He picked up the paper and the pencil.
    He put down the license number.
    The other one ran and gave it to the thing.
    By the time, as I said, the principal went out,
    the man was arrested.
    Stolen car, crazy man.
    And then all three kids look at me and said,
    would Wallenberg be proud of us?
    So you see, I am sure that these three kids,
    whenever they will go out anywhere
    and they are now high school or maybe already in college, they
    will never do anything wrong.
    They will always look, how can I help other people?
    And that's why my committee is every year giving
    senior high school student Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian awards.
    I don't want a child who has high grades.
    I don't care what they do in school.
    I want to know what they have done
    four years outside the school.
    And you'll be surprised, the most magnificent things
    these children do.
    Looking after AIDS children.
    These are 16, 17-year-old kids.
    They are going to nursing homes.
    They are reading to people.
    They doing the most fascinating things.
    They walking blind people.
    They-- it is wonderful.
    I wish I could give them instead of just the frame, something I
    could give them, at least $100.
    But I don't have the money.
    But there again, I know that these children
    look for that every year, who can be the best.
    And they do work four years.
    That is the importance of a hero, if you ask me.
    OK, let's go.
    [BEEP]
    I want you to tell me what it feels
    like to have been a rescuer, and what it felt like then
    to be involved in this.
    I'll be glad to.
    For you personally, not for Raoul.
    Yeah.
    For you.
    Well, I-- when I was that young and I
    had someone like Raoul Wallenberg, it was nothing.
    It was a natural thing.
    Like it must have been for him.
    It was a wonderful feeling that I could save my parents,
    that I could save my cousins.
    Again, it was a miracle, because as I said,
    many people with the same papers died.
    But we were lucky.
    But it was a tremendous feeling to be there and be
    able to do something.
    I didn't know the meaning.
    I just knew that now I have the power to do it.
    And I did it.
    And because I was young, and because I
    wanted to live so badly, because the life was so short then,
    and we hadn't lived yet.
    So it was so important to be able to be doing this.
    And it was the most fantastic feeling
    that you know that you can hold somebody's hand,
    and that you saved it.
    Like a friend of mine trusted me with her child once,
    and that was when the Russians were already in,
    but they were still fighting.
    The Germans went to the Buda side.
    And from Buda they were shooting.
    And my friends came to me, and they
    said would you take our little girl to the nuns?
    And here we were walking on the street,
    where they were shooting.
    And the little girl was so frightened.
    And I said, well, what did Raoul do?
    He said stories.
    So I started a children's story.
    And in the meantime, we ducked.
    And somehow we survived.
    And I took the children, that child to the nuns.
    And next day, the parents went back, and under the window
    they brought her out.
    But you never thought of being afraid,
    because that was the strength.
    That was the most wonderful feeling,
    that you can do something.
    You never thought of it that you get paid for it
    or praised for it.
    It was a natural thing.
    But sometimes it was a horrifying thing, too.
    Like when as I said, they were already bombing--
    I mean, shooting each other.
    And we had shortage of water.
    And I remember that two houses from us there were a courtyard,
    and they had a--
    a-- what do you call it?
    A well.
    A well.
    Thank you.
    Sometimes I don't come to the words.
    And I wanted my father to be shaved,
    so I went down to get the water.
    And again, who cares what's coming around?
    You don't hear it, really.
    Only the last minute that shhh.
    And there was an old gentleman who came out of the house.
    And up there was his wife, and waving.
    And he came with the water.
    And suddenly we hear this.
    And the man besides me fell.
    And I was so shocked.
    Why not me?
    Why him?
    And he was killed right there before my eyes.
    And yet I had to go on.
    And his wife came down.
    There was-- we couldn't really stop.
    And I brought the water home.
    And I couldn't tell my parents because I was shaking.
    But then you had to go again.
    You know, and again.
    And you had to save a child here, a child there.
    Even when the Russians were in already.
    Now today it is a far more difficult thing.
    It upsets me much more.
    Why was I so strong?
    Why didn't I do it?
    Or how dare I was to do it, rather?
    That's a question.
    But I always come back to the same answer.
    Because we had such a wonderful hero,
    who wouldn't like it today if somebody would call him a hero.
    He was just a regular young man.
    But he was full of pranks and jokes.
    But he gave us that enormous strength.
    And I am trying today, even if I couldn't do such things anymore
    as jumping to the cold water--
    today if I just see cold water, I get frozen.
    That's why maybe I always need the boots.
    But what you have to go on teaching our children to be
    that strong, and that caring, and that their eyes
    should be open what they can do to others without prejudice,
    what also Raoul Wallenberg taught us.
    And I think I took that over.
    And I will always do it.
    And I am proud of it, if I can.
    I know my children had lots of wonderful Black friends
    who slept over in my house.
    And they all became lawyers and doctors and whatever.
    They're great kids.
    And my neighbor, who unfortunately came out
    with a terrible word.
    She's an Arab Jew from Persia, and she came and says,
    why do you let that nigger into your house?
    And I looked at her.
    I said, you of all people asking me this?
    And I said, besides I don't see their color.
    And then when I was at my door, I turned around
    and I said, interestingly enough,
    they put their slacks on the same way as my sons.
    And I banged the door.
    But this all what we have to.
    That's what Raoul said to us.
    He always talked about, I want to save the young,
    because only the young can make peace.
    And finally, once, while we were waiting for a Red Cross truck,
    I ask him.
    I say, Raoul, explain.
    I am young.
    What do you want us young people to do?
    Not that he was so much older.
    10 years or something.
    And he said, Oh, Aggie, it's so easy.
    Prejudice has to disappear.
    In my book, I am colorblind.
    I am religious-blind.
    I only know two kinds of people--
    the good and the bad.
    And if you good, try to make the bad better.
    That was all he said.
    But his dream was always that one day all the children
    will come out and hold hands.
    But you see, we can't do this unless we teach our children.
    Two years ago, I was invited to Brooklyn,
    in a junior high school.
    The principal called me.
    And he said, now, Agnes, I want you to know
    we have 99% Black children.
    The rest of it is kids in wheelchairs, Jews,
    and Orientals.
    I said, fine.
    Can I speak of all Holocaust?
    He said, what all Holocaust?
    I said, well, don't you know what they're doing in Africa?
    What happens in Central America?
    What happened to the 3 million people who Hitler killed
    besides the six million Jews?
    Well, he didn't know.
    I says, Can I or can I not talk?
    He said, yes, you can.
    OK.
    Now, what I didn't know that he invited
    the whole ward, Ward 22.
    And when-- the kids were wonderful,
    300 of them in a huge, big auditorium.
    And everybody looked at me, and when
    I was finished with the story, nobody moved.
    The kids were wonderful.
    And then I asked the Black children,
    do you know about the Ku Klux Klan?
    Blank.
    And I looked back at the board, and everybody pulls up
    the shoulder.
    I thought that's terrible.
    Then I looked at the little Jewish kids,
    whom I thought I said, did you hear about neo-Nazis?
    Blank.
    So I explained to the kids that they are both very bad people.
    And they are against us all.
    And if you kids don't look out for each other,
    then we all perish.
    But you can do it together.
    You can all do it together, and you can love each other,
    and forget colors, religions, anything.
    You will have to be just standing up very proud.
    And suddenly I see a Black and a white kid hugging,
    two boys holding their hands.
    And then suddenly, the 300 kids got up
    and gave me a standing ovation.
    And I cried.
    And the board says they had never seen this.
    I said, what is with you people?
    You teach nothing, absolutely nothing.
    You come to the Holocaust, and you
    say that many people were killed, and how they killed.
    Children are not interested that way.
    But teach them who else is out there.
    And if they don't look out for each other,
    they all get killed, because they're Black
    and because they're Jewish.
    Then the little boy in the wheelchair
    came up to and said, Miss Adachi,
    will you come to my ball game?
    I am great in playing.
    I said, of course I will.
    And you see, this is what--
    I am getting too old, and I wish a lot of young people
    would go out and talk to the children.
    I'm asking children to talk to other kids,
    to tell them that we are all one.
    And especially junior high school kids,
    they are really thinking themselves.
    They have a mind.
    The parents tell them, don't talk to him because he's this,
    and don't talk to him because he's that.
    And that's no good.
    And that was not Raoul Wallenberg's dream.
    But I think we do reach a lot of children.
    And if we don't reach more than five kid in every class
    at every school, then there is 5 better children in the world.
    And I think it's so important.
    And I'm going to meet--
    by chance, this Hungarian ambassador to the United
    Nations, and we ask him to try to have the United Nations
    accept this year as Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian year,
    and help us to read those poems, grown-ups and children will
    write, or have our beautiful symphonic poetry,
    what is written by an American com--
    American playwright and a Swedish composer.
    They should play that, because it's for Raoul.
    They are also trying to build a very great,
    the first in the world, a Raoul Wallenberg
    Center for the Arts in Florida, what we already
    started many years ago, and then all our money was stolen.
    I don't want to get into that.
    But these things happen.
    But now the Senate wants to help.
    So this would be one of the greatest 80th birthday
    present to Raoul Wallenberg.
    OK.
    Tell it to me as though you didn't tell it to me before.
    Well, you have to know that Raoul saved over 100,000
    people, but many times here in America,
    especially, people say, oh, don't tell me that.
    He didn't even save 5,000.
    Well, if he didn't do that, the very last act he,
    he saved 70,000 people.
    So even if he didn't save anyone else,
    70,000 would be quite enough.
    And how that happened is that the Nazis finally
    decided they have to make a big ghetto,
    and we have a very beautiful synagogue
    in the middle of Budapest.
    And all the houses around it became the ghetto,
    and they pushed 70,000 people in there.
    Now, the only way we could get in there was that our Red Cross
    people, the Swedish Red Cross, went in almost every week,
    twice, and brought them some food and medication
    and see what had to be done.
    But otherwise, we had not much connection, just
    try to take care of it that people won't be taken.
    One day, a Hungarian Nazi officer
    came to Raoul who thought that maybe Raoul will help him
    after the Soviet occupation because the Soviet was already
    on the outskirts of Budapest and said to him,
    Raoul, Eichmann ordered to kill the 70,000
    people in the ghetto, and the guards are already
    standing there.
    And Raoul said, oh my God, and our two Red Cross girls
    are just in there now.
    Go back to your headquarters and tell them
    that the German headquarters called off the killing.
    The Hungarian left immediately, and Raoul looks at us.
    It was in the office, in one of the offices
    where we worked on that day.
    And he said, now, listen to me what I'm going to do.
    And he picked up the phone, as he spoke beautiful German,
    and he called the German headquarters.
    And he said, this is Lieutenant [? Krauss. ?]
    I want to speak to the general.
    Naturally, to Lieutenant [? Krauss ?] they
    give to General immediately.
    And when the General came to the phone,
    Raoul said, this is Raoul Wallenberg.
    And the man was surprised, but he couldn't hang up.
    And Raoul said to him, General, I do not
    understand what you're doing.
    I understand you are a very highly-decorated First World
    War general.
    How can you take it on your heart and conscience
    to kill 70,000 innocent people, plus my two Swedish Red Cross
    girls who are in there, whereby he must have answered,
    Eichmann did it.
    Now, how daring Raoul was.
    Eichmann could have stood right next door
    to the general, but our Raoul--
    no, he had to think fast.
    And he said, Eichmann?
    Didn't you know Eichmann left town?
    I had lunch with him yesterday.
    Thereby the General said, I didn't know that.
    So Raoul said, all right, then you are responsible,
    and if you are not calling off the killing within five
    minutes, I, as a Swedish diplomat,
    tell you you will be the first one hanging before your office
    as soon as the Russians reach us here in midtown.
    In four minutes he called off the killing,
    and thereby he saved 70,000 people plus the two girls
    from the Swedish Red Cross.
    That was Raoul Wallenberg.
    One more story that was in your other transcript
    was about the curfew and a little child who
    was there one minute after curfew
    and the doctor were trying to help him.
    Do you remember that story?
    They were lined up and--
    That was not my story.
    OK.
    Can you talk to me a little more about how hard it was
    to believe what was happening?
    Yes, it was very hard.
    I don't know if for everybody, but for me, it
    was because I never knew cruelty or-- because I also
    had a father who believed that everybody's equal,
    and it was a horror to see that our young life can
    be snuffed out in one second.
    For what?
    Just because you were a Jew or just
    because you were an anti-Nazi.
    It was a horrible feeling that you never know
    what happens the next minute.
    And it was a very frightening thing
    to think, how can you get out of this, how can you save
    yourself and save someone else?
    And of course, after Raoul, it was
    much easier because somehow he was the head,
    and we were the body.
    But before he came, even in that three weeks in that
    heaven up at the Swedish embassy,
    you were thinking about, what's going to happen to my parents?
    How can I get them saved?
    So the constant worry because we didn't know what
    these crazy people are doing--
    it was a horrifying time and especially,
    as I said, because when you're so young to think of it that--
    what is in the future?
    Nothing.
    It's a very frightening feeling.
    It's an incredible feeling, what is very hard to explain.
    But the only help maybe was that big radio I had
    and that electricity was still on so that we could hear
    from those stations what's happening,
    and that always gave a hope.
    The Allies won't let us down, and the Allies will help.
    And the Allies didn't help, so it wasn't very easy.
    And I remember when we were down in the basement
    when we had bombing.
    And they made it as a joke, but it wasn't.
    That was one old lady who constantly said,
    oh my God, oh my God.
    Where are they?
    Because they were bombing.
    And somebody said, well, why are you so worried?
    They're taking care of us.
    And then suddenly the bombing started,
    and the old lady looked up, says, thank you, Americans.
    Now you're here.
    She was relieved.
    But that's how we all felt, that the Allies must be helping us.
    The Allies must be there.
    And they weren't always there, and it was frightening
    that we didn't know that, that actually the whole Balkan was
    given away to the Soviets.
    We didn't know that, and we were not expecting
    the Soviets to liberate us.
    Maybe if the Americans liberated us
    I would have never left Hungary, but I did leave.
    And many, many other people were like that, and it wasn't easy.
    When I went back to our home, for instance,
    when you went down to the basement when it was bombing,
    the faces were all new.
    Well, we only found out after the war
    that there were quite a few Jews there who had Christian papers,
    and that's how they survived.
    But there was also a very good-looking, orderly gentleman
    with a younger son, and a mother, and a wife,
    and he always looked at me.
    And I looked at him, and I had no idea who he could be.
    And then one day he asked me where I'm always going, and--
    I don't know why--
    I believed in the man.
    So you come out and telling him.
    He said, I wish I could go with you,
    and I said, well, who are you?
    And it turned out he was the only Hungarian general who
    got away from the Germans, and he took some false papers.
    But he gave me his real name, General [? Gutweih, ?]
    and he happened to come to our house and find an apartment.
    His son committed suicide, but-- thank God-- they put him back.
    And he was my ally.
    He had-- at that time, the radio upstairs didn't work,
    but he had a little radio with batteries.
    And in that one we heard the BBC telling us
    that Romania was already free, and it
    was occupied by British, French, and the Russians.
    And then he was the one who, one day,
    running and say, come out and see what's happening.
    And we looked out by our big port door,
    and the German weapons were lying on the ground like this.
    He said, the Russians must be--
    and then he and his son was the first one.
    Now, the Russians knew everything.
    They took them away, and we were so worried.
    And they came back after three days.
    The interrogation was incredible.
    Military girls interviewed them with caviar and drinks
    for three days.
    Of course, they both threw their drinks over their shoulders,
    and they wanted to know whether they really
    are the person who they are, and they
    were not Nazis, and all that.
    So it was a frightening time, but he was a great ally for us
    and wonderful.
    And it was a frightening time.
    It was a very frightening time.
    OK, we're finished.
    That's it.
    You need to do one thing, and that's--
    Can you just summarize for me the complexity
    of how it was a situation without choices
    for the peasants who were threatened
    and who-- so maybe they wanted to help.
    Maybe some couldn't help.
    OK.
    After our first mission against those collaborators,
    things had changed.
    People were less afraid to talk to us.
    There were some who were helping us, risking their lives,
    keeping our wounded and our disabled people in bunkers
    for the two years where we existed.
    They risked their lives, not get paid for a penny for it.
    And other people who were really against us
    were not any more open to be against us.
    The reason what happened before, why the situation was created
    as such was that there was no laws against harassing
    or killing Jews.
    Everything was free.
    Those hoodlums, collaborators jumped on the bandwagon.
    Everyone wanted to be in the act.
    What happened [INAUDIBLE] they became heroes for their people
    against unarmed Jewish people, you understand?
    And they were getting rewards for it.
    So there was no threat.
    They were getting rewards.
    They became heroes So that's why everything was--
    when we came into being and they saw
    that somebody is there to defend Jewish life,
    it became too expensive for them to go on and do those things.
    So they had to pay a price for their own life.
    There was no questions asked.
    If somebody killed a Jew, he was killed, no question about it.
    And that's why the whole situation changed.
    Even those who were, in heart, anti-Semitic,
    which mostly where--
    they didn't show because-- it's funny--
    let's say several weeks prior we got firearms.
    We used to go to a village.
    We were chased like dogs.
    We show them money.
    We want to buy food.
    When we came into some isolated places and the peasants had
    [INAUDIBLE], they sold us food.
    Some of them didn't want to take money.
    There were all kind of people, no question about it.
    Without their help, they could not succeed, let me tell you.
    So what happened when we came into the biggest enemy?
    We knew who the enemy is now.
    The only way why we succeeded in doing all those things
    and protecting ourselves is we knew exactly who is what.
    We did our homework.
    So we came into the biggest anti-Semite, said good evening.
    They took us in and gave us royalty, everything we wanted.
    They asked us, and they gave us food.
    They gave us shelter.
    Later on, what they did--
    they saw a way not to give their quarters or the contribution
    to the Germans because every farmer
    had to give some percentage of their farm products
    to the Germans.
    So we gave them receipts that we took so and so,
    and they showed to the Germans they were killing themselves
    pigs, cows and selling things on the black market.
    They gained on that.
    We really did not eat their food.
    We ate the food from the--
    it belonged to the Germans.
    And that's how things got organized that even
    those fascists got used to it.
    They didn't want to listen anymore to their leaders
    because their leaders had mind to kill everyone, Jew,
    not to stay alive, not to be able to testify like I
    have to say testimony today.
    They got orders from London, from their government in exile
    because when they caught some of them,
    they told us the truth what happening.
    So later on, they saw they can do nothing.
    They tried to liquidate us, but they couldn't.
    They wanted to get us in one place where they could--
    and they had the means.
    We were outgunned and outnumbered.
    Every peasant had arms, and they knew how to use it.
    And let me tell you a story.
    Once in May or June 1943, I went with a friend of mine--
    we went to a estate named Lukov, and this wonderful estate--
    what do you call-- the baron--
    we call it [NON-ENGLISH].
    He used to give us money every month
    for the wounded to buy medicine, things like that.
    And we came in.
    We announced who we are, and my friend of mine who I went--
    he was a commander for another Jewish group from [? Kushov. ?]
    His name was [? Issa ?] Eisenberg--
    no, Rosenberg.
    And there was a--
    what you call-- a doorman.
    A [NON-ENGLISH],, we they called it.
    He went to announce us to the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    He asked who we are.
    He came in.
    He knew him.
    He says, oh, hello, clapped him on his hand, come on in.
    And he says, I have a surprise for you.
    When we came in, there were about 24 from the AK group.
    Three were officers dressed in Polish uniform.
    They were sitting at nice dining room table,
    and they invited us, oh, hello, how are you, boys?
    We were looking for you.
    We want to help you.
    We heard that you're good fighters,
    you're doing a good job.
    So we had a few drinks with them.
    They tried to make contacts to make
    us believe that they are friend of us
    and tried to take us in one time.
    If they could liquidate us, they would do it.
    But the way we had a plan worked out to protect ourselves,
    we never went, the whole group, in one place, one time.
    We split it up.
    And they knew that the group who stayed behind
    knows where we going and will take revenge,
    and this was all about--
    and-- what's the name-- the owner,
    the [NON-ENGLISH] gave us money in front of them,
    100,000 zlotys [INAUDIBLE].
    We were not afraid of that because we needed the money.
    And later on, they tried very hard to try to get us
    in somehow, to make peace, and we knew a place was called
    Borów.
    It was south of Lublin.
    In 1943, there were a Jewish partisan group.
    26 Jewish boys were in contact with the AK,
    and they were naive.
    And they trusted them.
    So they were in good conditions with them.
    One day, they came throwing grenades to their bunkers
    and killed them all.
    There was even a song that time.
    The AL the People's Army, made a song in Polish
    about this story.
    Really, the way we operated is, luckily,
    that we did not trust nobody.
    To us, they were all enemies, even the friends.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Agnes Mandl Adachi discusses her time spent in Switzerland shortly before the start of World War II; her memories of the takeover by the Arrow Cross Party (Nyilaskeresztes Párt); how she obtained Swedish citizenship through the Swedish embassy in Budapest; the mistreatment of mixed-marriage couples in Hungary, and how many committed suicide instead of divorcing; her baptism by the Protestant Bishop of Hungary; her work with Raoul Wallenberg and his many heroic efforts to rescue Hungarian Jews, his work with children and orphans in Budapest, and his successful attempt to persuade Adolf Eichmann to call off a massacre of 70,000 Jews in the Budapest ghetto; Wallenberg's disappearance in 1945 and subsequent searches for him in Russia; her reflections on the honors given to Raoul Wallenberg since World War II; and her personal thoughts on her role as a rescuer working with Wallenberg.
    Interviewee
    Ms. Agnes M. Adachi
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1992 February 10

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    5 film reels : color ; 16 mm.
    5 sound tape reels : analog, mono ; 7 in..
    2 videocassette (D2) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Corporate Name
    Nyilaskeresztes Párt.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Agnes Mandl Adachi on February 10, 1992, in Lloyd Harbor, New York, in preparation for the making of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibition film "Testimony." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History branch received the films and tapes of the interview in August 1994. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the films and tapes of the interview via transfer from the Oral History branch in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:08:42
    This page:
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    Time Coded Notes (5)

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    Also in Testimony oral history collection

    Contains oral histories interviews with 32 Holocaust survivors from the United States

    Date: 1992

    Oral history interview with Gerda Weissmann Klein

    Oral history interview with Gerda Weissmann Klein

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    Gerda Weissmann Klein discusses her memories of the German invasion of Poland; her time in the Bielsko ghetto; her deportation to a transit camp in Sosnowiec, Poland; her time working in slave labor as a weaver and loom operator; her friendship with Susie Kuhn and the bet they made together while on board a transport train on their way to Bolkenhain concentration camp; her memories of Frau Kligler, a guard in Bolkenhain; how she and a friend wrote and performed a play in their barrack at Bolkenhain; her memories of crafting a menorah from potatoes and celebration of the Jewish holidays in the camp; how she used her imagination as a defense against her captors; her move from Bolkenhain to Maerzdorf concentration camp where she worked harvesting flax from a swamp for linen production; how she celebrated her 18 birthday; her experiences on a death march through Germany; the death of her friend Susie Kuhn, shortly before liberation; and her memories of her liberation by American troops at a camp near Volary, Czechoslovakia.

    Oral history interview with Edward Adler

    Oral history interview with Edward Adler

    Oral History

    Edward Adler, born in 1910, discusses his memories of the early days of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s and his involvement in anti-Nazi activities in Hamburg, Germany; his memories of anti-Jewish boycotts; his memories of joining a military training camp and one experience when he was assigned to a guard detail for Adolf Hitler; his discharge from the military camp when it was discovered that he was Jewish; his arrest by the Gestapo for having a relationship with a Gentile girl; his imprisonment in Oranienburg concentration camp from June 1938 and his release from the camp the following September; his memories of Kristallnacht in Hamburg, Germany in 1938; his flight to the Netherlands with his family shortly after Kristallnacht and their subsequent immigration to the United States; his reflections on how Jews were unable to "fight back" and defend themselves against the Nazis; his memories of antisemitism in Germany in the 1930s; his recollections of the fate of his parents during the Holocaust and how his mother died in Treblinka concentration camp; and his memories of a visit to Hamburg, Germany in 1982 and the emotions he experienced during his stay there.

    Oral history interview with Harry Alexander

    Oral history interview with Harry Alexander

    Oral History

    Harry Alexander discusses his memories of persecutions suffered by Jews in his hometown of Leipzig, Germany, and the events of Kristallnacht in 1938; his flight to Milan, Italy after Kristallnacht and his experiences there with other Jewish refugees; his memories of receiving a one-day visa through the French embassy in Milan and his attempt to escape to France by train; his memories of the "St. Vemo incident" when fisherman from the village of San Remo, Italy attempted to ferry the refugees around a blockade that stopped the train he was on from entering France; his arrest in France and time in prison; his time in Antibes concentration camp in France, and later in a Marseille prison; his escape from a transport between concentration camps; hiding in a forest and his arrest there; being in Di Agilis concentration camp and his transport from there to "Jaffa" (Djelfa) concentration camp in Algeria, where he and other prisoners worked to build a railroad passage across the Sahara Desert; the types of torture in Djelfa; his memories of the various acts of defiance by prisoners in Djelfa and the role that humor played in surviving the camp; his liberation from Djelfa by British troops and his time in British military intelligence after liberation; his reflections on the cruelty of camp and prison guards that he encountered; the role that his mother played in his survival; the loss of his entire family in the concentration camps; his thoughts on survival as a form of heroism; and his thoughts on why more Jews didn't "fight back" and defend themselves against the Nazis.

    Oral history interview with Sam Bankhalter

    Oral history interview with Sam Bankhalter

    Oral History

    Sam Bankhalter discusses his memories of antisemitism in Poland in the 1930s and the activities of "Endeks" or Polish Nazis; the various types of persecutions suffered by Jews in Poland; the German invasion of Poland in 1939; his time living in the ghetto in Łódź, Poland; his transport to Auschwitz in 1940 where he participated in the construction of the camp; his recollections of various aspects at Auschwitz including the gas chambers, the crematoria, and selections by Josef Mengele and other doctors in the camp; the mistreatment of rabbis and priests in Auschwitz; the gassing of Romanies infected with typhus; the suicide of his brother, Chaim, and his own attempt at suicide; his memories of the arrival of his parents and sister in Auschwitz in 1944 and seeing them just before they went to the gas chambers; his death march from Auschwitz through Germany to Buchenwald concentration camp; his thoughts on the systematic nature of extermination in Auschwitz; the massacre of many camp prisoners at Buchenwald shortly before liberation; his thoughts on Holocaust survival as a type of heroism; his thoughts on humor as a way of coping in the concentration camp; his memories of the Sonderkommandos in the ghettos and in Auschwitz; and his time working in the crematoria at Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman

    Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman

    Oral History

    Frank Blaichman discusses his memories of hard labor and various persecutions suffered by Jews when Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of World War II; his time in a ghetto in Poland; his escape to and time in hiding in a forest in Poland; his involvement with a group of Jewish partisan fighters in the forests of Poland where he was a key figure in acquiring firearms and organizing acts of sabotage against the Germans; avoiding capture by Germans and Polish collaborators; his memories of a visit by General Rolojemerski, head of the Polish Partisan Support; and his reflections on the choices Jews faced during the Holocaust and how those choices impacted survival.

    Oral history interview with Shony Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Braun

    Oral History

    Shony Braun discusses his transport by train to Auschwitz concentration camp and his encounter with camp doctor, Josef Mengele, during a selection; the death of his mother and younger sister, Golda, in the gas chamber at Auschwitz; his selection to work on a Sonderkommando; his transport to a camp in France with his father and his brother, Zolton, where they worked in an ammunition factory and his work to sabotage bullets in the factory by mixing sand with gun powder; his transfer to Kochendorf concentration camp, a subcamp of Natzweiller concentration camp in France, where he labored in a salt mine; the death of his father in Kochendorf after a severe beating from SS guards and Kapos; his transport to Dachau concentration camp; volunteering to play the violin for camp personnel in exchange for food; how he was shot in the chest during the confusion of Dachau's liberation; how mental and spiritual strength played a role in his survival; his thoughts on his acts of sabotage as a form of heroism; and his "Symphony of the Holocaust," and how composing it helped him cope while in the camp.

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

    Leo Bretholz discusses the underground resistance movement in France and its two parts, the Forces Françaises de l'intérieur (FFI) and the Francs-tireurs et partisans français (FTPF); his involvement in the Armee Juive; his various arrests and escapes from prison during his time in the Jewish resistance movement in France; his use of false identification documents to avoid deportation; his time in Rivesaltes concentration camp; his time in hiding in various locations including the attic of a cousin's home; his reflections on being transported by cattle car and the horrors endured by people on the transport; his memories of the Anschluss in Austria in 1938; his witness to the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in June 1944; his memories of Kristallnacht in 1938; and the fate of his immediate family during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

    Chaim Engel discusses his transport by train to Sobibór concentration camp; his time on a work detail to sort the clothing of gassed prisoners in Sobibór; his job cutting the hair of female prisoners in Sobibór before gassing; his thoughts on the differences between concentration camps and death camps; his experiences with the extreme cruelty of the Sobibór guards; his acts of sabotage while on the clothes sorting work detail; the massacre of an entire transport of prisoners from Belzec concentration camp; his participation in the murder of a German Kapo; the prisoner revolt in Sobibór in October 1943; his escape after the prisoner revolt and his time in hiding with other Sobibór escapees; his relationship with his girlfriend, Selma Engel, also a prisoner from Sobibór, and their time in hiding on the farm of a Polish farmer; his thoughts on the choices made by Jews in order to survive during the Holocaust; and his thoughts on heroism as part of the prisoner revolt in Sobibór.

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

    Selma Engel discusses her arrival in Westerbork concentration camp; her transport from Westerbork to Sobibór concentration camp; her participation in a work detail sorting the clothing of gassed prisoners in Sobibór; her first meeting with her future husband, Chaim Engel; her recollections of the three separate camp areas in Sobibór; the mistreatment of Dutch prisoners in Sobibór; the extreme cruelty of the SS guards in Sobibór; her acts of sabotage while sorting the clothing of the gassed prisoners; the prisoner revolt in Sobibór in Oct. 1943; her escape from Sobibór during the prisoner revolt; her time in hiding with Chaim Engel, her future husband, on the farm of a Polish farmer; her reliance on Chaim for survival; and her reflections on the German and Ukrainian guards in Sobibór and the choices they made to be cruel to the prisoners there.

    Oral history interview with Paulette Fink

    Oral history interview with Paulette Fink

    Oral History

    Paulette Fink discusses her involvement in the resistance movement in France during World War II and her sabotage activities; the French Jewish Scout movement in France (Eclaireurs de France); the saving of many Jewish children by a French Huegenot pastor and other citizens in the town of La Chambon-sur-Lignon, France; the amount of risk and fear that she lived with during World War II; getting fake ID cards made; her marriage in 1934 and the death of her husband, a member of the French resistance, in 1944; her thoughts on her resistance activity as a form of heroism; her involvement in the illegal immigration of thousands of Jewish displaced persons to Israel after World War II; and her continued dedication to and support of the State of Israel since World War II.

    Oral history interview with Sam Goldberg

    Oral history interview with Sam Goldberg

    Oral History

    Sam Goldberg discusses his use of the false name Sigmund Kamkowsky in order to avoid persecution; his time working with the underground movement in and around Warsaw, Poland; his time living and working in the Warsaw ghetto; his escape from the Warsaw ghetto to the Pietkov ghetto in order to locate family members; his acts of smuggling and encounters with the SS; the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and his subsequent transport by train to Birkenau concentration camp and his eventual move to Auschwitz; hearing about Josef Mengele's medical experiments in Auschwitz; working in the "Canada" commando, sorting the clothing and valuables of prisoners near the gas chambers in Auschwitz; working in the commando assisting prisoners upon arrival at the Auschwitz train platform; his experiences with Kapos and Blockälteste in Auschwitz; the prisoner revolt in the Auschwitz crematoria in October 1944; his evacuation from Auschwitz by train; his participation on a death march; his friendship with a young boy named Herbie; his time in Flossenbürg concentration camp after a death march and his memories of the various colored triangle badges he saw there; his transport to Mittendorf concentration camp near Munich, Germany via Prague, Czech Republic; his experiences during Allied bombing raids on Mittendorf; his memories of the liquidation of the Romani camp in Auschwitz; his acts of sabotage while working on airplanes; his thoughts on spiritual resistance; his liberation by American troops during a transport; how telling jokes and singing songs helped to lift the spirits of fellow camp inmates; his memories of the meeting between Josef Mengele and Chaim Rumkowski, head of the ghetto in Łódź, Poland upon Rumkowski's arrival in Auschwitz; his thoughts on the choice of German Kapos and soldiers to be killers; his reflections on the nature of humanity considering his Holocaust experiences; and the selection process that took place upon the arrival of new transports in Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Siegfried Halbreich

    Oral history interview with Siegfried Halbreich

    Oral History

    Siegfried Halbreich discusses his desertion from the Polish Army in October 1939 and his brief time working as a pharmacist in Oświęcim, Poland; his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the cruel treatment of prisoners that he witnessed there; his time in Gross-Rosen concentration camp and his work in a stone quarry near the camp; his experiences with Blockälteste in Gross-Rosen; his time in Auschwitz concentration camp and his work as a nurse in the camp hospital; his role as Blockälteste at one time in Auschwitz; his participation in a death march after the evacuation of Auschwitz; the camp personnel hierarchy in Auschwitz from the SS guards down to the Kapos; his thoughts on the role of mental resistance as a part of survival; the support he received from friends and family while in the concentration camps; his memories of religious practice and celebration in Sachsenhausen; his role as teacher and leader of young Jews for religious education in Auschwitz; the various types of torture he witnessed in Sachsenhausen; and his thoughts on taking revenge on Germans after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Isadore Helfing

    Oral history interview with Isadore Helfing

    Oral History

    Isadore Helfing discusses his arrival in Treblinka concentration camp and his work burying the bodies of persons who died during the transports in mass graves in the camp; his recollections of the physical layout of Treblinka and how prisoners were led through the gassing process; his recollections of many people dying inside the railroad cars while waiting to unload in Treblinka; his experiences with Kapos in the camp; his participation in the prisoner revolt in Treblinka and his escape to a nearby forest; his time in hiding after his escape from Treblinka; his witnessing the murder of a German camp guard by a fellow prisoner and his thoughts on the murder as an act of revenge; how German and Ukrainian guards in the camp made choices to follow orders; the attempts of some prisoners to pray in the camp; participating in soccer games on Sundays, a free day in the camp; the suicides of several persons from his barracks; the orchestra in the camp and a boxing match that took place one day; and the fate of his parents in Treblinka the day before his arrival in the camp.

    Oral history interview with Kurt Klein

    Oral history interview with Kurt Klein

    Oral History

    Kurt Klein discusses the political situation in Germany during the early 1930s and how Jews did not take the Nazi rise to power seriously; his thoughts on why the Nazi party gained power so easily; the persecutions suffered by Jews and the boycott against Jewish businesses in the early 1930s; his withdrawal from school and his apprenticeship in the printing business; his immigration to the United States in 1937; how he learned of Kristallnacht events through newspaper reports in the United States; his service with the Fifth US Infantry Division of the Third Army during World War II and his assistance to Jewish women abandoned by their German guards in a factory building in Volary, Czechoslovakia; his first meeting with his future wife, Gerda Weissmann Klein, in the factory and the development of their relationship after World War II; and his participation in the interrogation of Erich Kempka, a former chauffeur for Adolf Hitler.

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    John (Jan) Komski discusses the German invasion of Poland; his involvement in the resistance movement in and around Kraków, Poland; his imprisonment at Auschwitz concentration camp in June 1940; the different types of prisoners in Auschwitz and the various identification badges and triangles used to mark the prisoners; the museum and orchestra in Auschwitz; how he planned and prepared a successful escape from Auschwitz by disguising himself as an SS guard and using false identification documents; the types of mental and spiritual resistance used to survive in Auschwitz; his thoughts on how some Auschwitz prisoners utilized special talents and skills to survive in the camp; the gassing of children and their mothers immediately upon arrival in Auschwitz; his memories of Palietsch, the official executor in Auschwitz; the tattoos used to identify prisoners in Auschwitz and the tattoo he received when he entered Birkenau concentration camp; and how families were treated differently from individuals upon arrival in Auschwitz.

    Oral history interview with Stefa Kupfer

    Oral history interview with Stefa Kupfer

    Oral History

    Stefa Kupfer discusses the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the persecutions suffered by Jews during the German occupation; being 10 years old when the war started; her memories of the Gestapo and their dogs; how the Germans used citizens from her town for forced labor; the confiscation of Jewish property by the Germans; her mother's refusal to register the family with the German authorities, thereby saving them from a round up; her family's time in hiding in the attic and basement of an apartment building in Krosno, Poland, and how she and her family were protected and ultimately saved by Penny Olefska, a Christian woman; the various ways she and her family occupied themselves while in hiding; her thoughts on living in constant fear while in hiding; the assistance her family received from Mr. Vishbitsky, a Polish farmer; her thoughts on those who risked their lives to rescue and hide Jews during World War II; her recollections of the many possessions she and her family lost during the war; and the responsibility of each Holocaust survivor to tell his or her story in order prevent another Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

    Cecilie Klein-Pollack discusses the deportation of her family from the ghetto in Hust, Hungary (now Khust, Ukraine) to Auschwitz concentration camp; her and her family's experiences upon arrival at Auschwitz, encountering Josef Mengele, and the death of her mother and young nephew in the gas chambers shortly thereafter; her experiences with Kapos and Blockälteste in Auschwitz and Birkenau; her sister's desire to commit suicide and her attempts to keep her sister alive; her memories of a young ballerina in her block who was forced to dance for the SS camp guards; her witness to the beating death of the ballerina and a poem that she wrote to memorialize the young dancer; her many delousing experiences in Auschwitz and Birkenau; her transport to Nuremberg where she and other female prisoners worked in a munitions factory; her time in Holleischen concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; the types of spiritual and religious resistance that she experienced in the camps; the cruel beatings that she and other prisoners received from SS guards in the camps; her time in Budapest, Hungary after World War II; and her memories of her mother as she was before her death in the Auschwitz gas chamber. During the interview, Cecilie Klein-Pollack recites her poem, "Ballerina," and reads a letter she wrote to her mother (a copy of the letter is located in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives).

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

    Abraham Malnik discusses the German invasion of Lithuania; his family's life in the Kovno ghetto; how his father, Josef Malnik, rescued him and his mother from a selection of elderly, children, and handicapped persons, thereby saving them from the massacre at the Ninth Fort near the ghetto in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania; his time hiding in a cellar in the Kovno ghetto to avoid capture during a "Kinder aktion" by the Germans; the liquidation of the Kovno ghetto during which many of the remaining Jews were massacred by Lithuanian collaborators; his family's transport to Stutthof concentration camp and subsequently to Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Leitmeritz (Litomerice) concentration camps; how he and his father participated in forced labor in a mine in Leitmeritz; the yellow star and number insignia the Germans assigned to him in Leitmeritz; his experience with Polish Kapos in Leitmeritz; his time spent in the Leitmeritz hospital with typhoid fever; his "walk" to Theresienstadt concentration camp in April 1945 and his liberation there by the Soviet Army; his thoughts on taking revenge against the Germans for their brutality during the Holocaust; and the special bond he and his father shared throughout their Holocaust ordeal.

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral History

    Lilly Appelbaum Malnik discusses her time in hiding in Belgium; her forced labor in a factory; her neighbors in her apartment building who denounced her and her aunt and uncle to the Germans; her family's arrest and their time in the Malines detention camp in Mechelen, Belgium; her family's transport from Belgium to Birkenau concentration camp and her encounter with Josef Mengele upon arrival; the tattoo number she received on her arm; volunteering for work in Birkenau; her transfer to Auschwitz concentration camp and her work in the kitchen there; the transports of new prisoners into Auschwitz and how many prisoners were sent immediately to the gas chambers; contemplating suicide while in Auschwitz; how some prisoners in Auschwitz prayed as a form of resistance; her time on a death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; her friendship with a young girl named Christian while in Bergen-Belsen; Christian’s death from typhus; and her thoughts about how the young had a better chance of survival in concentration camps.

    Oral history interview with Ludmilla Page

    Oral history interview with Ludmilla Page

    Oral History

    Ludmilla Page discusses being arrested with her mother and members of the Polish intelligentsia in November 1939; their transport to Kraków, Poland, where they spent time in a fortress prison; her thoughts on the similarities and differences between the Kraków and Warsaw ghettos; her relationship with Oskar Schindler and how he protected the Jews working in his factory; how Schindler compiled his list of names of prisoners from the Płaszów concentration camp; Schindler’s attempt to persuade a fellow factory owner, Julius Madrich, to save the Jews working in his own factory; how Jewish workers in Schindler's Bruennlitz concentration camp factory sabotaged bomb shell casings; an incident in which she and other female Schindler Jews were transported to Birkenau by mistake instead of going directly to Bruennlitz; how some of the Schindler Jews used gold fillings to fashion a gold ring for Schindler on his birthday in April 1945; Schindler’s friendships with the Jews he rescued; and his designation as Righteous Among the Nations.

    Oral history interview with Leopold Page

    Oral history interview with Leopold Page

    Oral History

    Leopold Page discusses his first meeting with Oskar Schindler and Schindler's physical appearance; how Schindler rescued several female prisoners from Auschwitz (Birkenau) concentration camp and male prisoners from Gross-Rosen concentration camp after they were misrouted on the way to Bruennlitz concentration camp; the establishment of the Kraków ghetto and resistance activities he witnessed there; how he and his wife, Ludmilla Page, escaped from the Kraków ghetto during the liquidation action; how he and other prisoners kept statistics on the number of prisoners killed each day in Plaszów concentration camp; his memories of Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszów concentration camp; how the prisoners of Plaszów prayed as a form of resistance; how friendships among the prisoners helped them survive; how the Schindler Jews sabotaged bomb shell casing while working in Schindler's factory in Bruennlitz concentration camp; Schindler helping the Jews disarm and imprison their German captors in Bruennlitz; how Schindler attempted to persuade Julius Madrich to save the Jews working in his own factory; Russian soldiers liberating the Schindler Jews in Bruennlitz; Oskar Schindler receiving the award of Righteous Gentile for his efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust; his memories of Kristallnacht in November 1938; and how some prisoners in Bruennlitz fashioned a ring from gold fillings as a birthday gift for Schindler in April 1945.

    Oral history interview with Esther Raab

    Oral history interview with Esther Raab

    Oral History

    Esther Raab discusses her transfer from a forced labor camp to Sobibór concentration camp; how Sobibór commandant Wagner selected her and other girls to work sorting the belongings of people gassed in the camp; how the SS camp guards processed arrivals of new prisoners in the camp; the extreme cruelty of two camp guards, Frenzel and Wagner; how she and other workers found notes among the belongings of prisoners from Treblinka and Belzec concentration camps and how the notes mentioned revenge against the Germans; how she and other Sobibór inmates planned and executed the revolt in the camp; escaping into the woods near the camp during the revolt and receiving a gunshot wound during the escape; how the Sobibór camp guards punished prisoners who attempted to escape; her thoughts on the differences between a concentration camp and a death camp; how she and other Sobibór escapees received food and shelter from a Polish farmer; her memories of life in Poland before World War II; her time in "Stafnovushulke" forced labor camp; her thoughts on her actions during the Sobibór revolt as being actions of heroism; the types of spiritual resistance that occurred in Sobibór; and how her mother prepared her for World War II by telling her stories of life in Poland during World War I.

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral History

    Agi Rubin discusses being age 14 when she and her family were deported to Auschwitz; her family's arrival in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 and her separation from her mother during a selection; being registered and tattooed in Auschwitz; her work on a special commando sorting the belongings of recently gassed prisoners; how she and others in the commando sabotaged the clothing they sorted and tied into bundles; how the camp guards in Auschwitz singled out certain commandos for certain tasks; her observation of the gassing and cremation processes in Auschwitz and Birkenau; her experiences with a Kapo in Auschwitz; her memories of the "Garnerlager" or so-called "Gypsy" camp in Auschwitz; her observations of the selection process conducted by Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz train platform; her thoughts on how the crematoria in Auschwitz affected her senses; how some prisoners recited prayers on their way to the gas chambers; her experiences with lice; her time in Ravensbrück concentration camp; being sent on a death march in January 1945; and her thoughts on heroism as a part of survival. At the end of the interview, Rubin displays and discusses photographs from a family photo album.

    Oral history interview with Bart Stern

    Oral history interview with Bart Stern

    Oral History

    Bart Stern discusses his experiences on a cattle car transport from Hungary to Birkenau concentration camp with his brothers; his subsequent move to Auschwitz concentration camp; his time working in a coal mine near Auschwitz; how religious celebrations became a form of resistance in Auschwitz; how he and other prisoners told jokes as a way of coping; his experiences with Kapos in Auschwitz; his thoughts on humanity in light of his Holocaust experiences; his thoughts on revenge; and how many Jews resisted and did not go willingly to their deaths.

    Oral history interview with Tina Strobos

    Oral history interview with Tina Strobos

    Oral History

    Tina Strobos discusses her experiences during the German invasion of the Netherlands and how life changed for the citizens of Rotterdam; the role of Arthur Seyss-Inquart in the Nazi-occupation government of the Netherlands; the role of the Gestapo during the German occupation of the Netherlands; her involvement in an underground resistance group in the Netherlands lead by Johann Brower; her time in hiding and the hiding place she used inside her own home; the underground work of the "Lomlok Organization" to help Jews find hiding places; how she and her family rescued other Jews by letting them hide in their Rotterdam home; and how some Nazi sympathizers in the Netherlands denounced and betrayed their Jewish neighbors.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral History

    Emanuel Tanay discusses how life changed for the Jews in Miechów, Poland, after the German invasion in 1939; how the Germans increased persecutions against Jews with collaboration by Ukrainians and Lithuanians; his thoughts on the differences between Polish Jews and Jews from Western Europe; his family's time in the ghetto in Miechów, Poland; hiding in a monastery in Mogila, Poland, where he posed as a novice for the priesthood; the assistance he received from the monastery's prior, Father Kuhar; his flight from the monastery when the Gestapo raided his cell; how the Germans imprisoned Father Kuhar and other priests from the Mogila monastery in Auschwitz concentration camp for giving assistance to people in the underground resistance; his thoughts on how being a teenager helped him to survive; how he and his family fled to Hungary in 1943 using false identification papers; his time in a prison in Budapest, Hungary, and subsequent escape; volunteering to the Gestapo to be executed and how the Gestapo failed to carry out the execution; his brief time in the ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, just before the uprising; and his thoughts on what special qualities a person needed to be a survivor.

    Oral history interview with Bella Tovey

    Oral history interview with Bella Tovey

    Oral History

    Bella Tovey discusses how life changed in Sosnowiec, Poland, and persecutions increased for Jews after the German invasion; how the Germans established a ghetto in Sosnowiec; how members of the intelligentsia started to disappear and how others went to work camps; being taken to a work camp and her parents gained her release by having her younger sister, Pina, replace her in the camp; the liquidation of the Sosnowiec ghetto and her family's move to a smaller ghetto called Srodula; her time in Gräben (a.k.a. Gräen) concentration camp near Striegel, Germany, where the prisoners worked in a flax mill; her experiences with a Kapo in Gräben labor camp; how the Germans incorporated Gräben into the camp system of Gross-Rosen concentration camp; her time on a death march to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and her bouts with typhus and typhoid while in the camp; the various friendships that she had with other girls during her time in the camps; her thoughts on spiritual resistance in the camp; her reaction to hearing about what happened to Jews in Auschwitz; the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by British troops in 1945; and her loss of faith in God during the Holocaust and how she regained her faith and began her Jewish and religious studies later in life.

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral History

    Helen Waterford discusses her family's time in hiding in the Netherlands and how she and her husband decided to hide their daughter with another family; her family's relationship with Joe Fisch, a rescuer of many Jews in the Netherlands; her and her husband's arrest and deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp via Westerbork concentration camp; her experiences during a selection upon her arrival in Auschwitz; her thoughts on the lack of resistance in Auschwitz; how at one time she was in a barracks with Anne Frank and Anne Frank's mother; her memories of Josef Mengele in Auschwitz; her move from Auschwitz to work in a factory in Czechoslovakia; and her opinions on humankind in light of her Holocaust experiences and how she does not consider survival to be an achievement.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Webber

    Oral history interview with Ruth Webber

    Oral History

    Ruth Webber discusses her memories of the Germans invading Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland, in 1939; her time in Botsohov (Bodzechów) work camp with her parents; moving to the ghetto in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland with her mother; their escape from the ghetto and return to the Botshohov work camp; her time in Austrowiec (Ostrowiec) concentration camp; her time in Starachowice concentration camp; her transport to Auschwitz concentration camp; her arrival in Auschwitz and her memories of the registration process; her time in the Auschwitz infirmary suffering from measles; her memories of the Auschwitz crematoria and her realization of what was happening to the prisoners there; what it was like to be a child among mostly adults in Auschwitz; her move to the "children's block" in Auschwitz after her mother moved to another camp; the special care and protection she received from her mother while in Auschwitz; how she considers her mother to be a hero; and her thoughts on humanity in light of her Holocaust experiences.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Weihs

    Oral history interview with Ernest Weihs

    Oral History

    Ernest Weihs, born in Vienna, Austria in November 1908, discusses his conversion from Judaism to Lutheranism at age eleven; the changing situation for Jews in Vienna, Austria in 1938; the aid that he and his future wife received from Swedish missionaries in Austria; his imprisonment in Theresienstadt in 1942; his marriage while in Theresienstadt; his escape from a death march on the way to Dachau concentration camp; his experiences with Kapos; the religious practices that took place in Theresienstadt; his brief time in Auschwitz concentration camp; and his witness to a suicide while in Kaufering concentration camp.

    Oral history interview with Norbert Wollheim

    Oral history interview with Norbert Wollheim

    Oral History

    Norbert Wollheim discusses his parents' deportation from Berlin, Germany in 1943 and his deportation with his wife and son to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943; how some prisoners prayed and celebrated Sabbath while on the transport to Auschwitz; his arrival in Auschwitz and his separation from his wife and child; his registration and tattoo; the role of the SS in Auschwitz; his time working in the Buna factory near the camp; his work as a welder in Auschwitz; his friend Fritz Schaeffer who committed suicide while in Auschwitz; his experiences with Kapos; his thoughts on spiritual resistance in the camp; his memories of Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938; his involvement in a Kindertransport of children from Berlin to England shortly after Kristallnacht; his memories of life in Berlin before 1933 and how conditions changed for Jews after the Nazis came to power; his memories of the voyage of the St. Louis; his thoughts on revenge; his feelings at the time of liberation; his thoughts on the different types of concentration camps; his thoughts on forced labor and work camps used during the Holocaust; the choices he made in order to survive; how he relied on the friendships with other inmates for support and how he befriended British prisoners of war while in Auschwitz; how age and gender played a role in who survived the Holocaust; and his memories of the "Appel" in Auschwitz.

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