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Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1994.A.0447.19 | RG Number: RG-50.042.0019

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    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik
    Transcript

    There is no transcript available for this track

    OK.
    And you have to back up to the beginning of that story.
    OK.
    As they got us congregated, it took us all out
    for the bunkers, all the people they could find.
    And tried to accumulate a transport
    for the last transport to ghetto because afterwards everything
    was burned down.
    I saw.
    I felt miserable.
    I felt miserable.
    They pressed.
    I didn't know at all what's going to happen next.
    I felt like--
    I saw a cat all of a sudden.
    I felt like a cat.
    The Germans also saw the cat.
    And the sicked the German dog to get the cat.
    The poor cat couldn't move.
    The cat was in the hand, in the throat of that German shepherd.
    And she started backing up.
    And when she backed up, she was against the fence, was all
    buckled up, she didn't know what to do.
    And all of a sudden the German told the dog to attack.
    He attacked and killed the cat.
    I felt the same way, like I was in the hands of the Germans.
    And any moment, they can kill me,
    they can do anything for my life the way
    the dog had done to the cat.
    We were nothing, we were worse than a cat,
    we were worse than anything else.
    We had no future, we had no life.
    We were, for Germans, we were next to nothing.
    A Jew was next to nothing.
    Then next day, they put us on a transport,
    put us in cattle cars, and they shipped us through on the way
    to Germany.
    We still did not know where we are going to.
    I tried to escape with a few more young guys from the cattle
    car.
    And I succeeded in cutting a hole
    and cutting the seal off up.
    And I opened slightly the door.
    But I couldn't jump out because there
    was other truck around a parallel with the train.
    So it was suicide either way.
    If you jump, you can kill yourself
    or wherever you were going.
    So on the way to Germany, we stopped for some water.
    And from the German Wehrmacht, for the soldiers
    showed us from the guards an article
    with the big headlines that Hitler's assassination did not
    succeeded.
    He said, you're very unfortunate because you could
    have been liberated right now.
    Is this kind of things, these kind of phrases
    still sticks in my head.
    If he'd be assassinated, thousands, maybe millions
    of people would have survived the war and other things.
    But it was not to happened.
    As we came further in Germany, we have landed in a place,
    a concentration camp called Stutthof.
    I was still, at that time, with my parents.
    They took us in trucks and threw us in that concentration camp.
    When I looked out, I thought I was dreaming.
    I saw lakes with swans swimming in that.
    But little did I know that behind my dream,
    a crematorium's over there with smoke and fire.
    This was the last time I have saw my mother.
    They have separated us.
    And my father always kept me under his guard,
    under his wing.
    A whole night they were unclothing us,
    they were shaving us, they were checking us
    to see if you're hiding gold.
    In all the places, they gave us other prisons clothes.
    And the whole life in ghetto to the concentration camp
    was, again, like day and night.
    We were going really in hell.
    In ghetto, we're still with our families
    and we can still survive day by day.
    Here, we survived hour by hour.
    We had no food.
    And if you said something wrong, they beat you, they killed you,
    they didn't care.
    You were a real nothing in the concentration camp.
    But I was slim and tall.
    And when they sorted me out with my father,
    they let me stay with my father.
    After being in Stutthof and being separated from my mother,
    they moved us also with cattle cars to Dachau.
    In Dachau, I worked very hard.
    I worked extremely hard.
    And my father, being a barber, got a job in the ghetto,
    in the concentration camp itself,
    without going outside the concentration camp.
    And he asked one of the Germans if they
    can give me a job to work also in the compound itself.
    After a few months, and after he was cutting the Germans' hair,
    he made sure that I should work in compound.
    And this was my lucky break because I could never
    survive working outside.
    My job in the compound was a privileged job.
    Was what I do every morning, me and other boy
    would take a wagon, like a rickshaw wagon,
    and go from barrack to barrack and pull up
    all the dead people who died, who starved,
    who was beaten to death, who were full of lice,
    and put them in, stack them up, and take them out,
    and dump them in ravine.
    We were doing it every morning but twice a day.
    Then in the evening, I was helping
    the work in the kitchen.
    And this made my life easier.
    I used to stay next to my father.
    He kind of protected me.
    And this is one of the parts, one of the reason I did not
    waste too much energy.
    I did not waste too much of my youth
    in that particular concentration camp until my luck ran out.
    They liquidated that particular concentration camp
    in Dachau, that part of it.
    And they wanted to separate my father and me.
    They wanted to send my father in a better place
    and me send someplace, I didn't know where.
    My father said, no, he won't leave me alone.
    Wherever I go, that's going to be his destination.
    Fortunately for me, he was with me.
    And they sent us to Flossenbürg, a concentration camp,
    and from there to Leitmeritz.
    Leitmeritz was a real hell.
    I heard from the other people, from my wife
    about Auschwitz, Birkenau.
    But nobody heard that much from Leitmeritz.
    When we came in there, we were around 500 people.
    When they were finished, we were 10 left.
    This was old camp already, and we were just new cannon fodder.
    They have put us in brigades, where
    nobody want to go over there.
    We got the worst jobs, the worst work.
    And we worked in mines.
    Not coal mines, but cement mines.
    But they were the same as coal mines.
    Was miserable, was foggy, was wet, was very little
    food, a slice of food.
    And every morning, they grabbed us in different brigades
    where to go.
    When I came first, my father also kept me next to him.
    I still looked pretty good because of my job
    in Dachau concentration camp.
    And as we stayed and we working in the coal
    mine-- in the cement mines, and we drilling, and we loading
    everything on the wagons to get the piece of stone out,
    I see a German in civilian clothes
    is walking past one time by us, a second time.
    I didn't notice him.
    In that particular concentration camp,
    there were all kinds of people.
    There were Pollacks, there were Germans,
    there were Russian prisoners, and some Jews.
    Not that many Jews.
    Maybe we were the--
    maybe a thousand, 500 plus.
    Maybe 1,000 Jews.
    And we were less transport.
    And there were different insignias.
    We wore a yellow star of David plus a number.
    Mine was 84,532.
    I had to remember it for the Appel.
    For the counting every morning in German and in Polish,
    I had to learn that.
    And some had already insignias-- criminals, green, homosexual,
    or whatever.
    I didn't know about that because in Dachau, where we were,
    they didn't have all that particular insignias.
    So as I was working with my father,
    that German keeps on looking at me, going back and forth.
    Then he comes to me.
    He says, [GERMAN],, meaning young boy or something,
    I should follow him.
    I looked at my father, but after all, he's a German.
    And he tells me--
    You know, we're going to run out, I think,
    during this story.
    We should wait and reload.
    When we came, we had transport with 500 people or more people.
    They assigned us different places.
    They grabbed us.
    And we wind up, my father working in the cement mines.
    And as I was working there, we noticed a German
    in civilian clothes walking and looking at us.
    When passed by one time, where I was, then a second time.
    I was very naive.
    I didn't understand what's happening.
    I was only at that time 15 and 1/2 years old.
    And I did not knew what he meant when he said to me, [GERMAN],,
    come here.
    I thought I should follow only German guards.
    But my father said, he's a German,
    you'd better do what he says.
    So I followed him deeper and deeper in the mines.
    And it was very hazy that, small little lights burning.
    And he was telling me he's a officer for the German Air
    Force.
    And I still did not have any inclination
    in what his mind is.
    All of a sudden, he comes close to me,
    and he starts hugging me.
    And I felt very awkward, and I start pushing him away.
    He started pulling his pants down and he wanted to kiss me.
    So I start screaming.
    And in the mines, usually the echo is so tremendous,
    and people start running with Germans, with guns.
    And the Polish Kapos start running after all the sights.
    And I start tell him, complaining
    that what he was trying to do.
    And they arrest us both.
    The Germans with the guns, with the rifles.
    And they passed by, took me down, passed my father.
    My father looked at me, I looked at him.
    I couldn't answer him nothing.
    And they took us down in the general staff
    from the concentration camp.
    And there, hell work hard.
    They put me down in the chair, and I
    said, tell him the whole story, and I told him.
    I told him he tried to hug me and kiss me.
    And they were out of their mind.
    How a German officer has tried to kiss a Jude, a Jew?
    And this is beyond their belief, I mean,
    he'll die if he'll kiss a Jew.
    And they sent telegrams to Berlin.
    And they took the position maybe 50 times
    and asked us questions day and night.
    And then they said, they tell me, you know,
    sorry to tell him that the German--
    I shouldn't say nothing.
    But I want to say the whole thing what
    happened because otherwise I'll be in trouble.
    So in middle of night, 12 o'clock at middle of the night,
    they dragged me out from my bunk.
    They kept me separate.
    They didn't let me go no more with my father.
    I thought they're going to kill me.
    They're going to shoot me, whatever it was.
    And he then bring me in an enclosing.
    Here, there's a German, completely undressed, staying
    under the shower, the shower coming down on him.
    Cold, ice cold water.
    It was winter.
    And a Kapo, a Polish Kapo with a hose,
    tried to put water in his mouth and tried
    to put water in and with other hose he's beating him.
    And they made me watch it, to see how they punishing him.
    And he was yelling, [GERMAN],, mother, help me, help me.
    And looked at me, and looked at them,
    and they were beating him.
    And I had to look.
    And this is really a child, he was only 15 and 1/2,
    16 years old.
    And with all my experience in concentration,
    in ghetto, I still didn't have no experience.
    Still everything new to me.
    And his head swole up twice the size.
    They told me to go back to my father in the barracks.
    And I understand, I heard, that in two days later, he died.
    And that's all.
    They didn't do anything to me.
    And I joined back my father.
    And we went back to work in the concentration
    camp in the mines over there.
    And we get weaker and weaker.
    Because the portions-- we had Polish Kapos, Polish leaders,
    you see.
    And the portions, we used to go column of 20,
    with bumpy loaf of bread.
    He used to cut it for 30 pieces and the rest of it,
    take for himself.
    So the portions and the soup, everything got less and less.
    And my father, being a barber, after a hard day's work,
    he used to steal shaved prisoners.
    And told me, my son, you're young, go in the bunk.
    Go ahead.
    And don't talk to nobody, don't use up your energy.
    And he used to bring me a bowl of soup,
    a little bit of water soup.
    Soup more than water.
    And he shared with me.
    I said, you eat, pop.
    He said, no, I've eaten already.
    And I knew later, I find out that whatever he had,
    he gave it to me.
    Because he said, you going to still grow,
    maybe you'll survive.
    And one time, we were laying on the bunk, we had a lot of love
    for each other, my father and I. And we kind of
    protect each other.
    And we are good for each other.
    That's the reason we survived.
    We can complement each other.
    In misery, you still need company.
    They say misery needs company.
    Believe me, we need company, we need each other.
    And may times, we used to lay in the bunk.
    We used to reminisce.
    Sorry.
    The holidays we used to have with the mother,
    with the family.
    And he used to tell me, my son, please don't remind, please
    don't talk.
    Let's continue our life together the way it is.
    And as we were laying, one time, people
    couldn't hold their bladders and couldn't hold.
    We were four stairs of beds, four bunks were on top each
    other.
    And people above us urinated on top of us.
    So the German thought, the German Kapo there,
    or Polish Kapo, thought my father urinated.
    So he jumped on him.
    And with a stick, started beating him.
    So I thought he's going to kill him.
    So I jumped on my father, protect him.
    And he almost killed me.
    And when he broke the stick on me, he started beating us.
    So as I say, we needed each other.
    I protect his health, he brought some food for me.
    And we were clinging to each other.
    Until one time, we were working both in the mines,
    and we were unloading the cement.
    And I get weaker and weaker.
    And the cement was a 50-pound bag cement.
    Maybe I weighed at that time maybe 75 pounds
    and I couldn't carry it.
    I fell down.
    And that the German came, he said, I'm going to kill you.
    You broke the bag cement and you sabotage.
    So he jumped on top of me, and with his heal,
    he was trying to kill me.
    Knocked me down and hit me, made me a mess.
    I was laying there, my whole bloody mess, my face, my body.
    And he walked away.
    My father there stayed next to me, couldn't help me.
    He couldn't help with nothing.
    In the evening, he picked me up.
    He and somebody else, other prisoner, and took me down
    in the so-called hospital.
    At that time, I had typhoid fever.
    I was so weak that I had typhoid fever.
    And they took me to hospital.
    Was hospital was no Jews over there.
    And they want to kill me in the hospital.
    I was delirious.
    They gave me a handful of aspirin
    and told me to swallow that, which I did without water.
    There were plenty of water.
    But still, they tried to torture me.
    And I had to swallow the aspirin.
    I became completely delirious.
    And I almost went out of my mind.
    I don't remember that I tried to hang myself.
    And I find a--
    thinking that I have exploded the mines,
    the Germans are after me.
    And I found a piece of wire, like a hanger,
    and I went in the toilet.
    And the toilets have these things in Europe on top,
    you've got to pull down.
    And I hooked at the wire on top of my neck and jumped down.
    And I start making noises.
    It wouldn't-- it wasn't a rope, was a piece of wire.
    And some prisoner came, saw that, and pull the wire off,
    and I ran away.
    Jumped in my bed under the cut.
    And I was laying there, hoping something will happen to me.
    They found me and put me in a cart with three more prisoners.
    We were four together.
    They were Russian prisoners.
    They wouldn't give me food, so each time somebody died,
    I ate his food until the third one died.
    I kept in a few more days.
    And then I ate his food, and then he starts smelling,
    and I told me he's dead.
    And this thing is the way we find ways to preserve
    ourself, ways to survive.
    Here was an innocent boy from 13 and 1/2 years
    old going in ghetto from a good life.
    And here, I am laying with dead people,
    which doesn't bother me.
    I'm laying, eating their food in order for me to survive.
    My father was out of his mind, he couldn't find me.
    He didn't know where I was.
    We have to reload.
    I'm sorry.
    That's all right.

    There is no transcript available for this track

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    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.
    Interviewee
    Mr. Abraham Malnik
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1992 February 27

    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

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Topical Term
    Concentration camp inmates--Medical care. Concentration camp inmates--Selection process. Death marches. Devintasis fortas Massacres, Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941-1944. Fathers and sons. Forced labor--Czech Republic--Sudetenland. Great Action, Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941. Hidden children (Holocaust)--Lithuania--Kaunas. Hiding places--Lithuania--Kaunas. Holocaust survivors--United States--Interviews. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Lithuania--Kaunas--Personal narratives. Hospitals--Czech Republic--Sudetenland. Jewish ghettos--Lithuania--Kaunas. Kapos--Czech Republic--Sudetenland. Massacres--Lithuania--Kaunas. Mines and mining--Czech Republic--Sudetenland. Revenge. Star of David badges. Typhoid fever--Czech Republic. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Lithuania--Kaunas. World War, 1939-1945--Collaborationists--Lithuania--Kaunas. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation--Czechoslovakia. Men--Personal narratives.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Abe Malnik on February 27, 1992, in Highland Beach, Fla., 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 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 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:
    2024-02-28 13:37:55
    This page:
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    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 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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