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Oral history interview with Selma Engel

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1994.A.0447.10 | RG Number: RG-50.042.0010

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    Oral history interview with Selma Engel
    Transcript

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    OK.
    You were just concluding with the family, who in a sense
    rescued you and Chaim by hiding you.
    You were telling me--
    Oh, yeah.
    --that you were poor.
    Yeah.
    Yes, we were.
    They were very poor.
    And they did the best what they could, really.
    And we felt so sorry for ourselves laying there.
    And on the end, I remember there was a little boy what
    was running after a bird.
    And it was already we heard already the Germans coming up.
    We hear already nearer coming the war coming, the front,
    we heard already bombs near coming to us.
    And a little boy went after this bird.
    And at once, he sees us.
    And thank god, a day later, were the Germans--
    we saw the Germans running away.
    And we got freed.
    And it was a very difficult time.
    We didn't have anything to do.
    Also once-- we were watching always
    the storks, the storks on the chimney.
    And we were watching the storks, we
    didn't have anything else to do.
    And the storks went away.
    And the farmers, they think it brings something to them.
    Or a fire, or something is coming to them
    when the storks going away.
    So one day, he said, what are you doing the whole day?
    Are you perhaps watching the storks?
    And we say, yes.
    So says already when the storks going away, you have to go.
    We cannot have you anymore because then is something bad
    will happen to us.
    So we stopped watching the storks.
    And thank god the storks came back.
    And I was very weak.
    I didn't know that I was pregnant.
    I didn't have my period all these years
    that I was in concentration camp and ever.
    And I was very weak.
    I couldn't walk any more.
    And I didn't get heavier.
    And I couldn't sit up almost, not anymore.
    And we didn't know anything what was going on.
    And the woman where we were hidden say that I was pregnant.
    I said, no, that's not true, and I don't grow.
    And when I didn't walk, and I was just laying.
    And she said, you have to go.
    We don't want you anymore.
    And later, we talked to the end that it was not so.
    And then in July, we went down.
    And then I found out I was six months pregnant.
    And that was-- we never told this in 40 years.
    And that was very bad, of course, when we thought,
    what will we do?
    We had nothing.
    We went, it was free, we were free.
    We had no money, we had nothing, absolutely nothing.
    No clothes.
    Only what we had on, and that was it.
    So we went to Chelm.
    We thought we were the only Jews alive, of course.
    We thought every concentration camp was really like Sobibor.
    But we found more people alive in Chelm.
    We came in a home in Chelm.
    And Chaim had to go in the army.
    And I was there in Poland all alone.
    I didn't speak Polish and I had no money.
    So Chaim started working in the hospital.
    We saw that helps.
    And I also never forget.
    They all went back to Sobibor.
    Did all the Jews went back to Sobibor
    because all the Jews put so much money in the ground.
    And everybody went back to Sobibor
    to take the money out of the ground.
    And they started fighting there and killing each other.
    So I said, Chaim, that's not worth it, you don't go.
    So we didn't go back to Sobibor to get the money out
    of the ground.
    Most Jews did it.
    And one Jew did.
    And one of the Jews--
    Chaim knows already a little bit around.
    He was always in business.
    And so he walked already a little bit around.
    And one give him $100 bill.
    And Chaim say, I know a place where I can change it for you.
    So perhaps I could change it for you.
    But of course, the number was gone,
    and that was not valuable.
    So we put it that night under our pillow.
    And middle in the night, somebody
    stole it under our pillow out.
    So the next day, Chaim told him, and he
    didn't believe it, of course.
    So the first money what Chaim made, I don't know made what.
    Made working in the hospital.
    Not to go in the army.
    When we thought that we get free in the army, and later that
    was not.
    Then he starts selling, I think, gasoline.
    I don't know what he did, really, exactly.
    I don't remember.
    And we paid this man off.
    So that was a very bad situation.
    I have to tell something done.
    20 years, 15 years later, we were in Israel.
    And we came together with all the Jews from Sobibor.
    And I said to the man, do you remember the $100 what
    they stole under our pillow?
    Said, yeah, you still owe me the $100.
    And the next day, he came with somebody,
    and we paid him the $100.
    Because he say-- my husband say, when he needs the $100
    so badly that he has to come to Israel to our house,
    then he needs it very badly.
    So when we went away from Sobibor, from this farmer,
    we stayed in Chelm a very short time.
    But you don't want to know that anymore.
    I want to ask you some other things.
    I want you to talk about how you lived
    from one minute to the next when you were in the camp.
    I want you to go back and tell me how you feel you survived.
    OK.
    I don't remember.
    We survived in Sobibor was most because we had each other.
    I don't think that--
    I would have been like all the Dutch people
    or died very quickly after that.
    I think that we had each other.
    And also, we were very close.
    I found a cousin there, first cousin.
    And a girl that came from Holland, Ula, Ursula Stern.
    We stick together and we helped each other very much.
    Because I got typhus and she took care of me.
    And I took care of her when she was sick.
    And we took care of each other.
    The tense atmosphere in Sobibor was so bad
    that I don't want even to think back on that how bad it was.
    Because every minute of the day, we
    were called to do something else.
    Like even when we walked from camp two to camp one,
    we never could walk regular, we had to [GERMAN],,
    we throw ourself off the floor.
    And we had to go up and a man with a whip on the back of us
    that we had to do that till we almost not could walk anymore.
    When we came on, we had to stay in line for food.
    And sometimes there was no food.
    And sometimes-- once, I remember,
    the cook, they killed him almost when
    he was sitting middle of the place in the middle
    from where we were sleeping.
    And we couldn't get food on that day.
    And I remember once, a young men, he was 16 years old,
    and he was the favorite of one of the SSes, really.
    And he was sleeping, and one of Wagner came into his room,
    and he said, go out, [GERMAN].
    And he hit a little bit so with his whip.
    And he had this whip next to it.
    And the SSer took him out and shot him.
    And that was-- every minute of the day was such in danger.
    A danger about your own life that we try
    not to think about it at all.
    Because I remember that we had to go in the woods
    once and pick blueberries.
    And on the end of the day, they had to show our tongue of we
    had of eat one of the blueberries.
    And we would have eaten one of the blueberries,
    they would have punished us with 40 whips, of 80 whips.
    And they didn't shoot so much woman, the more, the men.
    And everything what you did was scary and was dangerous.
    Also, we had to pick mushrooms in the woods, I remember.
    And I put it in my underpants all over.
    And they asked us, did you hide something?
    I was very heavy from the water, these things say, in the camp.
    So they didn't see it that I was full with mushrooms.
    But when they would have looked at it,
    they would have done something to punish me.
    But generally, and every time you
    saw somebody else got punished and got hit.
    And we have to look all the time when they give 45 whips.
    All the time, we had to look that they did things like that.
    And I think that we didn't got insane it
    was because we had each, Chaim and I. We were always together.
    We tried.
    Not when we worked, most of the time
    in daytime, when we had to go in the woods.
    But then I was a worry if I was here.
    Once we were on a roll call.
    And there was somebody had run away.
    So every 10 people, they took out of the roll call.
    And Chaim was number nine.
    And I was standing there, you know.
    You were always, always in danger.
    Many times, we had to stay the whole night on roll call
    because there was a dog or cat run on one of the mines,
    and they thought that we ran away.
    And Chaim and I, we always tried to stay together.
    And I think that that made us that we are, we stayed sane.
    I really think that saved our life.
    Before the war, tell me about--
    OK.
    Just one more.
    Good.
    I want you to tell me about the choices
    that you think the Germans and the Lithuanians had as guards.
    How do you mean?
    Did they do things of their own free will?
    Or were they following orders?
    And then what choices did the Jews have?
    The Germans could do with us what they want.
    They had no orders whatsoever.
    They could kill us, they could harm us, they could punish us,
    they could do anything they wanted.
    The Ukrainians, I don't know much about.
    Because I didn't speak Polish and I
    couldn't talk with them at all.
    And they were always more on the outside.
    I really don't remember much about it.
    But they were also such antisemites.
    They were there at free will.
    And the Germans were in Sobibor because of the free will.
    They didn't have to come.
    They didn't have to go in the war fighting on the front
    when they went to a concentration camp.
    So they went by themself to the SS.
    The Germans, they had free will.
    They could do anything.
    And they did.
    That was their biggest pleasure, to tell each other
    that we killed--
    one of the SSes told once that he
    could kill-- he had a very big whip made--
    that he could kill a Jew in 10 whips instead of 40
    for somebody else or 50.
    And once, he had a friend so telling
    that he shows babies in the fire from the transports what they
    came on, what was too much work to put them, perhaps,
    in the gas chamber.
    They could do anything they want.
    There was not such a thing humanity in these Germans
    at all.
    Perhaps one what give me the boots.
    But like Frenzel, and Wagner, and Wolf
    what was sometimes nice to us.
    Also he was eating bread and he said,
    you would like to have a piece?
    And we say no most of the time.
    And they let us singing and dancing all the time
    when the fire was there.
    We had to do.
    No, I don't think there was one decency in these people's blood
    whatsoever.
    But I don't.
    In the Ukraine, I don't know much about it.
    The Polish Jews, they know more about
    that because they could talk to their language.
    What about the Jews?
    Did they have choices?
    Talk about the choice to leave or not to leave.
    No, it was no choice.
    We had no choice for anything.
    We had no choice.
    I remember once, I walked.
    I don't know how come.
    I walked by myself.
    And I saw people from my hometown sitting there
    on the side, the cantor from our temple.
    And then I saw [INAUDIBLE].
    I say hi to them.
    And then I remember, I better don't say anything
    whenever he say hi to me.
    Then they will say, oh, you want to sit there, too?
    And that's the end of me.
    We didn't have anything.
    We just were like a hoarder of sheeps.
    And we had to do everything what they say.
    And god forbid.
    We did.
    We tried to do everything what the Germans say.
    I remember once, also through a window,
    that I saw a whole family from my hometown walking.
    Whole family-- father, mother, and children.
    And I just made sure that they wouldn't see me.
    When they would have seen me, what would I have said?
    And I know that I see them still walking.
    And after the years, I forgot the names.
    Many times, I saw people what I know
    from face walking to the death.
    We didn't have anything to say in the camp.
    Nothing.
    We just made sure that we were always in the background
    and that we didn't--
    and especially Chaim always told me, be in the background.
    Don't let them know who you are.
    And we tried that so much as possible.
    And I think that was one of the things
    that we were safe, that we were not [? martled ?] to death.
    Because a lot of them were [? martled ?] to death.
    Especially Dutch people.
    But somehow-- they saved a lot the Dutch women, the women
    somehow.
    The men was more in danger always.
    And Chaim always tried to push me.
    When I'm already quickly go in the front,
    and do things, and come up for people.
    But he always told me, stay out of it, stay out of it,
    leave it alone.
    And you couldn't do anything anyway.
    There was nothing that we could do.
    You could nothing do.
    Was nothing, nothing.
    You had to just take care of yourself
    and to sabotage against the Germans.
    Whatever to sabotage.
    Where we once were in the camp where we slept,
    that then was the only thing what
    you could do, stay in the background,
    and don't show yourself so much in the front.
    That's all.
    Before the war, can you tell me about the J on the passport,
    and how the underground removed yours?
    And then how you got found out?
    Tell me the whole--
    I don't remember much how they did it at the time.
    When I was home.
    And there came a Catholic priest what lived in our street.
    And he came to me and he say, how do you
    think you can save your life?
    And I say to him, the only way is it that I be as a non-Jew,
    that somebody takes me up.
    And somebody else came to pick me up early in the morning.
    That was a coincidence, my English teacher.
    And he picked me up early in the morning at 5 o'clock,
    and we went with the bicycle, and that was the last time
    that I saw my mother and my brothers, my family.
    I never saw them again.
    And I think I came to a nurse from my hometown.
    De Groot was her name.
    And she drew her--
    she knows when she was in the underground.
    And through her, they took the J from my passport.
    Because that's the only way that I was by a woman what was--
    where she was good.
    I went after three months of hiding with her.
    She took a whole family in.
    And I had to go to another family.
    And the other family were traitors,
    what I found out after the war.
    I didn't know.
    And I was hidden there three months.
    And they had 28 Jews hidden there.
    And they all got caught.
    And they didn't do anything to them.
    And you want to tell you about how I was caught?
    OK.
    When I was hidden there, I was all alone always in the house.
    And I was 19 years old.
    And I was very depressed.
    And had to clean the house.
    I was the maid there.
    And I was a spoiled brat from home.
    I never had to do anything.
    And I had to do everything there.
    And they went away the whole day.
    And I didn't get anything to eat.
    And there was not much food in Holland.
    It was really just starting to get no food,
    and people were very hungry.
    And I was alone.
    And there was in the street where a lawyer there
    were Jewish people hidden.
    And after that I was there a few months,
    they say I could go there and visit him.
    And when the minute I come in, the Germans come.
    Sort of was that somebody told the Germans.
    And the Germans-- and the police, the Dutch police came.
    And when I was there, I say to them--
    they asked me the passport.
    And I show my passport.
    And I say, oh, I am a nurse, and I come here
    to help these people.
    And they hold my passport to the light.
    And the light they saw there was a J from Jew was in there.
    And so there was nothing what they could do.
    So they right away took me.
    And also the family what was there
    was a father, and mother, and two children.
    And they all had asthma.
    I remember they were so sick.
    Asthma comes up when they are nervous.
    And they were so sick.
    And the woman where they were hidden
    was an older lady from 80 years old.
    So the Germans asked me where I was hidden.
    And I didn't want to tell them because the day before
    was came another Jewish family and living upstairs.
    And I thought when they find out that I was caught, that perhaps
    they have a chance to get away.
    And that was happened.
    They somehow got to know that the German took us,
    of the police.
    And they had time to get away.
    They, after the war, they sent me a letter that thanks.
    But the women were, the older lady when we were caught,
    she told the Germans where I was hidden.
    And they went later over there and they took--
    what it was, I don't know exactly.
    I went down to Utrecht in the police station.
    And I stayed there eight days.
    And I had a chance to get away.
    But somehow, I didn't.
    I didn't want to go away.
    First of all, I had no money.
    And I thought, I didn't know the underground was already
    that strong.
    And I didn't want to go out.
    The police gave me little note that say,
    your brother like to take you out.
    Your brother like to take you out.
    And I didn't get along with my sister-in-law.
    She's still alive.
    I didn't get along with my sister-in-law.
    And I visit once my brother.
    And they were locked up in a little room with the two kids,
    and it was dirty, and it was miserable.
    And I say, I'd rather go to my mother in Poland
    than go to my brother when I get out.
    I have to go to my brother and be there and help him
    with the little kids.
    I didn't know there was a gas chamber or something like that.
    I say, I go rather to my mother in Poland
    than I be locked up with my brother there.
    So I didn't get out of the police station.
    And from there, they sent me, we were in Amsterdam in jail.
    In three months, I was in jail.
    And we were with 10 women in a little room.
    And it was very interesting because everybody
    tells the life story.
    And they were all-- one was a professor's wife,
    and one was a girl from the street, and one was that.
    And it was-- we didn't feel any danger.
    And anyway, I didn't think anything.
    And we got my family from Amsterdam
    where we were sent me sometimes packages.
    And one of the guards would open the door, recognized somehow
    that my brother was in hotel school, and that she knows him.
    And from that time out, we can double food.
    All of us in the cell got extra food.
    So we didn't have it that bad in the jail.
    It was-- we had to walk every morning.
    So like you see in the Sing Sing where they always
    saw sometimes movies from.
    And we stayed there--
    I stayed there three months.
    And then I went out of there.
    And we went to a concentration camp.
    And in the office, I met a whole bunch of Dutch girls.
    I met these Dutch girls, we stayed together till Sobibor.
    And from there, we went to Vught.
    We were in a concentration camp in Holland three months.
    And I was also very lucky.
    There comes a man to me, and he say,
    are not the daughter from the Weinberg
    from the hotel in Zwolle?
    And I say, yes.
    Said he, I have a job for you.
    And he was there, a big shot already,
    and the camp was just opened.
    And he give me a job sorting clothes in the laundromat.
    And I worked in the laundromat.
    And it was very good because I was there.
    I had to tell people what they had to do.
    And I could get away from there, too.
    I could have gone in the laundry room,
    in the baskets sit in very easy.
    But I didn't know that there was an underground in Holland.
    And I didn't have money.
    When I would have had some money in my pocket,
    I would have done it.
    But I thought, when I come out of here, where do I go?
    They could right away see I'm Jewish.
    And I don't know why I thought this way
    that they right away could have seen that I'm Jewish.
    That's what I thought.
    Because in my hometown was a not so big town,
    they would have right away recognized me.
    And so from there out, after three months,
    I went to Westerbork.
    And in Westerbork, I told the story.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    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.
    Interviewee
    Ms. Selma S. Engel
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1992 February 12

    Physical Details

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

    Rights & Restrictions

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    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
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    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Selma Engel on February 12, 1992, in Bradford, Conn., in preparation for the making of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibition film, "Testimony." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History branch received the films and tapes of the interview in August 1994. The 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 08:08:45
    This page:
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    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 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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