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Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1994.A.0447.20 | RG Number: RG-50.042.0020

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    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik
    Transcript
    M-A-L-N-I-K.
    But if you do--
    Wait a minute.
    Let's cut.
    Did we put a sign on the door, don't ring the bell?
    OK.
    All right.
    Let's go.
    I want you to tell me the story of how you ended up
    working for the factory owner and giving
    a manicure to the SS.
    So you probably want to tell me that you
    were in hiding in the country with your aunt and uncle.
    Sandy, I'm sorry, but something just
    came on before we got started.
    Is it the central--
    I'm going to start when you guys are slating.
    I want you to tell the story of how you ended up
    working for the factory owner and giving
    a manicure to the SS.
    And I want you to give a one line context,
    maybe my brother and mother had already been taken
    and I was in hiding--
    With my aunt.
    Yeah.
    Now?
    Do I start-- OK.
    My family was taken already while I
    was convalescing in my aunt and uncle's home
    after a tonsillitis operation.
    And I had nobody but my aunt and uncle, and I stayed with them.
    And I acquainted people that lived next door to us,
    which liked me very much.
    And they suggested that I should come and work
    for them while we were in hiding and nobody
    will know that I am Jewish.
    And the Germans, when they invaded Belgium,
    took his factory over.
    So I was doing camouflaged work in the factory.
    And the owner was very, very nice to me
    and was trying to help me so that we
    could stay in the apartment and live there.
    And the little bit of money I made there,
    I help my aunt and uncle to buy groceries.
    And while I was doing the work at night in the evening,
    there was another neighbor who knew I was Jewish,
    and he had a beauty shop.
    And they made connection with this gentleman
    there and asked for me to go and work
    there and learn the trade as an apprentice to do manicuring.
    And so I was learning to trade in the evenings
    to be a manicurist.
    And in the evening, I would practice
    on the owner of the beauty shops how to do the nails.
    And one day, the owner from the factory
    told me, Lilly, I request for you to do something for me.
    You don't go to work in the beauty shop,
    but come into our apartment and help me in the kitchen
    because we are entertaining German people who
    control the factory.
    And I said, how can I do that?
    I said, they'll know I'm Jewish and they'll take me away.
    And he says, don't worry.
    I promise you you won't come out of the kitchen.
    I'll come in and I'll give you orders in the kitchen,
    and you won't have to show yourself over there
    and please do it.
    And I couldn't refuse the man.
    He was so nice to me and he was trying to help me.
    So I said, OK, I will.
    And I went that night to his house, which
    was next door to our apartment.
    And the dinner-- everything went very good.
    And while I was finishing up, he came in and says,
    Lilly, please don't be nervous, but I
    told him that you were a manicurist
    and one of the German officers would like--
    and are requesting for you to give him a manicure.
    Well, I almost dropped dead right there
    because I was so frightened.
    And for an excuse, again, I told him,
    I don't have my tools with me.
    I can't do it.
    And I'm scared and I will cut his fingers.
    So he says, calm down.
    I have tools, and you'll go in there
    and you'll give him a manicure.
    I said, how can I?
    I'll be shaking all over.
    And he insisted I should do it.
    And so I went in.
    There was nothing for me else to do.
    I went in and I spoke very little.
    I pretended I didn't understand what
    they were saying because they were speaking
    German in between themselves.
    And I gave my manicure, and he gave me a generous tip yet.
    And how I didn't cut his fingers,
    I don't understand to this day because I was a nervous wreck
    inside of me.
    And that was one of the most terrible experiences
    that I had to experience before I even was caught in Belgium.
    Great.
    Tell the story of the tenant who denounced your aunt and uncle,
    how they left and you stayed with the factory owner,
    and overheard the Germans come to search.
    In that same apartment where I lived with my aunt and uncle,
    one night after work in the beauty shop,
    I came home and my aunt and uncle were crying
    and were very upset.
    And they told me, Lilly, we have to leave.
    Some neighbors came and told us that the new tenants
    that moved in--
    we lived in an apartment building,
    and we each had apartments.
    So they found out that we were Jewish and they denounced us.
    And had-- word came to them.
    I don't know to this day, but they
    knew that that night the Germans were coming to take us away.
    So I quick ran over to our next-door neighbor's, which
    was my boss from the factory.
    And I told him, and I said we were in despair.
    He says, take the keys of the factory.
    Tell your mother-- your aunt and uncle to go
    and hide there overnight.
    They can only stay there one night.
    You come and stay with us in our apartment.
    But tomorrow morning when they leave,
    they should not come back to the apartment.
    They should go out and find another place
    and never come back here.
    So I went back to my aunt and uncle that evening,
    and I gave them the keys of the factory.
    I told my aunt and uncle to take whatever they can with them
    and stay in the factory overnight and leave
    the next day in the morning.
    And I went to sleep over in my boss's apartment.
    Well, it didn't take long, maybe about midnight or 1:00.
    I really don't know what time it was.
    We heard the trucks come and--
    the squeaking of the trucks and they stopped.
    And it so happened that the apartment where
    I slept, the wall of the bedroom was
    the other side of the apartment of our living room from my aunt
    and uncle.
    We heard him come up.
    We heard him go in the apartment.
    We heard the screams and the hollerings,
    because they didn't find us.
    They were very angry and upset.
    They were throwing the furniture all over the apartment.
    The walls of the bedroom where I was sleeping
    was vibrating from the banging and throwing the furniture
    around.
    And then they left.
    But before that, the owner was so nervous and upset,
    he ran to the window and he looked down.
    And the wife was so nervous and upset, she grabbed my hand--
    we were laying in bed--
    and she said, Lilly, please, Lilly, pray to your God
    that they shouldn't find us.
    And otherwise, they're going to shoot us
    and they're going to take you away.
    Please pray to your God and that your God should hear you.
    And then she was hollering at her husband
    to get away from the window because she was afraid
    that they would see him and they would come upstairs.
    But thank God, nobody saw us and nobody told that I was there.
    And they drove off.
    And this is how they really saved my life.
    Because I wouldn't have been here because I
    was able to hide for two years like that
    until my aunt and uncle and I was caught.
    Tell me that story, how you got picked up.
    Well, when my aunt and uncle were in hiding,
    they went and found another neighborhood.
    The neighborhood was not a real good neighborhood.
    It was low-- working people live.
    And they took one room furnished,
    and they stayed in that little room.
    And I befriended a friend who I worked with in the factory.
    She was a girl about maybe two, three years older than me,
    and she liked me very much.
    When my aunt and uncle moved away from the neighborhood
    and I was in despair, I didn't know where to go.
    And I mentioned it to her, I said--
    and she knew I was Jewish.
    So she says, Lilly, don't worry.
    I'm going to tell my mother that you're going to come and live
    with me--
    with us.
    I says, how can I do this?
    I cannot-- I cannot.
    And they were working people that really had no money.
    And I said, your mother is not going to like that.
    She says, my mother will do it for you.
    And so she asked her mother and her mother
    agreed that I should come and stay with them.
    So the money that I was making I gave to her mother
    for me to help with the room and board.
    But then naturally, I started to worry about my aunt and uncle.
    And I knew--
    We have to reload.
    OK.
    Yeah, let's pick--
    OK.
    Why don't you pick it up I think you were--
    I was nervous and worried about my aunt and uncle.
    And I decided one morning on a Sunday early
    that I would go and visit them where they were in hiding.
    They naturally did not know that I was coming,
    and I surprised them and I came to visit them.
    Towards evening when I wanted to go back
    to the girl who invited me to stay with her,
    my uncle said, Lilly, don't go back, sleep over tonight,
    and I am worried for you to go through the section.
    Because the men that lived around there
    in that neighborhood in the evening, it was summertime
    and it was very hot, they would sit outside
    on the curbs of the street and drink beer
    and look at everybody who's walk--
    and naturally, they knew one another
    and knew everybody who lived in that neighborhood.
    So my uncle was worried for me to go back.
    And he said, stay already here and sleep over.
    My aunt was very upset.
    She said, no, the people who are keeping Lilly
    will worry where she is and why she didn't come back.
    Let her go.
    And there is no bed here anyhow.
    So my uncle wouldn't hear about it
    and he says, I'll make a bed for her
    on the floor in the kitchen.
    There was only two little rooms.
    And so-- and so my aunt finally gave in
    and I slept over that night.
    And early in the morning, I don't
    know what time it was, it was very early,
    I heard terrible banging at the--
    at the door where I was sleeping at the head.
    And I jumped up from the floor and I looked out the window,
    and there were the Germans with their rifles
    up in the air looking at the window.
    In case somebody was trying to escape, they would shoot you.
    And I knew right then there that we were caught.
    And this is how my aunt and uncle and I
    were arrested from Jette in Brussels
    where I was hiding with my aunt and uncle.
    And so then you--
    did you get transported right away?
    No.
    They took us by truck from that little small apartment,
    and they took us to a jail in Brussels,
    which was a lot of different little cells.
    And they packed us in each little cell.
    We were very, very crowded.
    We couldn't even turn around.
    We were standing like sardines in that cell.
    I remember we couldn't breathe.
    The smell was terrible, and the screams and cries
    that came from the other cells was very frightening.
    And we were very bewildered and exhausted from standing
    like this all day long.
    And finally at night, they took us out of those cells
    and put us in trucks and they moved us away.
    And after we traveled for a while,
    we arrived in a little town called Malines.
    Malines, what-- there was a detention
    place where they gathered all the Jews that they caught
    from Belgium, and they brought them to Malines,
    and they kept them there until they had
    enough people for a transport.
    And when they were ready to have the transport,
    they send them away to the concentration camps.
    So I was in Malines with my aunt and uncle, I would say,
    maybe six or seven weeks.
    I really have no idea how long I stayed there.
    It seemed to me a long time.
    And when we came in, naturally, they--
    right away they said we have to give up all the jewelry,
    and all the money, and all the--
    whatever we had personal belongings.
    And if you don't do it, you will be hurt
    and you will be punished.
    And again, we heard screams and cries and carrying-ons.
    And some people in other places over there,
    they-- behind doors, they were torturing for information.
    And we were very, very frightened.
    And that's how we arrived in Malines,
    and we stayed there in a big room.
    And I found out afterwards that Malines, before the war,
    was a caserne, which is from horses, an army--
    an armory.
    And that's that place they turned it
    into the detention place for the Jewish people that they caught.
    And from there, it was in the early fall,
    we were transported to the concentration camp.
    And we went into cattle wagons, and we did not
    know where our destination was going to be.
    And we left and--
    for good from Belgium.
    And I understand that afterwards that I was the 25th transport,
    which was the second class transport that left Belgium,
    and after that Belgium was liberated.
    Describe the transport and then the arrival for me.
    The transport was horrible, just terrible.
    They gave us a ration of bread, and the children
    got a can of milk.
    And we were herded into cattle wagons.
    The cattle wagon that I ended up with my aunt and uncle
    was a coal wagon.
    So the floor from the cabin was black.
    And I don't know how many people were in the cattle wagon.
    We were herded in with so many people,
    it was like in that other jail where we couldn't even sit,
    or we had to stand up most of the time and we couldn't move.
    They gave us two buckets on each side of the cattle wagon
    to relieve ourselves.
    And before we knew what the pails were turned over,
    and we laid like this in that dirt for--
    until we arrived into the camp.
    And we couldn't breathe.
    There was no air.
    There was a small little window with wires
    that were over the windows so that nobody could escape.
    And we went that-- like that for maybe three or four days.
    I don't know how many days we went.
    In between the-- we were riding--
    the trains had to stop because the sirens would come on.
    And then they wouldn't ride the trains when the sirens were on.
    And then we would start again and we-- and people
    were getting very, very restless and very nervous.
    And they got upset with one another
    because their tension of patience was running out.
    So they started arguing with one another and fighting.
    And there was noise, and all of a sudden,
    the German put his rifle in the window
    and he was just shooting at blank at people.
    And then he hollered we should be quiet.
    And he shot two or three people that way.
    And we settled down, naturally, because we were afraid
    that we were going to get shot.
    And this is how we arrived.
    And when we arrived, it was dawn.
    And I understand the camp was called Birkenau.
    And in Birkenau when I arrived, we
    were so exhausted and so tired, I only
    had eaten the bread in the train.
    And my aunt wouldn't let me drink the milk
    because she thought I should save it for later.
    But I had to leave all my packages and the milk
    on the side because they told us to drop all our belongings.
    And I was so upset that I couldn't drink my milk,
    I remember.
    And then we went into a line.
    They told us to go into a line.
    And we were facing Germans.
    The Germans were everywhere with dogs.
    The German shepherd dogs, they were sniffing at us.
    And I heard screams because certain dogs would
    attack people.
    And I would hear shots.
    But anyhow, we stayed in line.
    And as we came closer to the Germans,
    I saw this tall man, which I didn't
    know at that time who he was, and he directed us
    where to go--
    to the right or to the left.
    My aunt went to the left, and I had to go to the right.
    I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to my aunt
    because I thought she was just going to register us,
    to give our names and identification.
    And afterwards, I found that when I went into the camp,
    that she went to the left, and the left
    meant crematoria which meant the ovens.
    And I was going into the concentration camp.
    This is how I arrived in Ausch-- in Bergen-Belsen.
    No, no, no, excuse me.
    I made a mistake.
    In Birkenau.
    We're almost about to run out.
    I'll ask you a quick question.
    Who was the doctor, and how did you know who he was?
    I was told that the man who directed us from the left
    to the right, he-- with his finger, we went to the right
    or to the left, and he was Dr. Mengele.
    And each time afterwards when we saw him,
    we saw death in front of our eyes
    because they called him the angel of death.
    When we saw him, we saw hell, because we thought for sure--
    Why don't you describe registration,
    and start with from selection.
    And also, give your age at this point in time.
    Describe registration and then--
    What do you mean by registration?
    Going in and getting processed.
    OK.
    When we arrived in Birkenau, after we went to the right,
    they took us to--
    they called it Entlausung, which was the bathhouses.
    And we stayed there for hours after we showered.
    And then they cut our hair.
    And we gave them our name, although, that didn't matter,
    I don't think.
    And we stayed in the bath house for hours when it was freezing.
    The windows were covered with ice.
    We couldn't even look out.
    And we were waiting for our clothes to come back.
    And we stayed in a tremendous big room with no heat,
    and we were wet.
    And we waited like that for hours.
    And finally, when we got our clothes,
    they were not our clothes, they were inmate clothes.
    And we were hungry and we were very exhausted,
    because we had no rest from the train trip.
    And we still had no food.
    And finally, that's how they brought us to the barracks
    in Birkenau.
    And we had the bunks.
    The bunks were out of three layers--
    the bottom, the middle, and the top.
    And I received a top bunk.
    And there were about 14 people on each layer sleeping.
    And when one had to turn over, we all
    had to turn over because we were so packed.
    And there was no room on the bunk to sleep to make--
    so that we could lay down.
    And we were sleeping on straw mats and the wooden planks.
    And the next day, they called us back to the Entlausung house
    in the-- where the showers were, and they tattooed us.
    And that was really the registration
    that we went through.
    And they gave me a tattoo, and my number was A-5143.
    And-- I have to go back because we
    were the only 25th transport where
    they had given us this tattoo.
    And then the next day, they called us back
    and scratched it out and gave us that new number
    because they made a mistake.
    I understand it was because those people were dead already,
    I was told.
    And they told us we should never answer our name-- by our name.
    From now on, we are this number.
    This is our name.
    And I don't have to tell you the terrible feeling
    I had in my heart when at my age of a girl of 15 years old,
    that you were told that your name is a number.
    Forget your name.
    You don't have a name anymore.
    That your head is shaven off, and you're hungry,
    and you have no clothes, and you're freezing,
    and your family is taken away.
    It was very hard for me to accept that.
    And yet, I don't know how I made it,
    because I got a hold of myself, and I pushed all this
    behind me.
    And I says, I have to live, and I have to be strong.
    And at that young age, I felt like I was 90.
    I felt I had a lifetime already in those
    two days that I arrived in Birkenau.
    That was my first two days there.
    But the rest of the inmates that made it
    with me, because their families also went to the right.
    And we had decided, the young girls
    that were left, that we should all stay together and try
    to survive together because our families were taken together
    to the ovens.
    So they said, let us all stay together.
    Together we will be strong.
    And we will make it.
    We will lick them.
    They will not kill us.
    And we will come out and be free.
    Just let's hope till the war's ended.
    And that's what we tried to do until we
    were deported from Auschwitz.
    But we stayed together all, and that gave us strength
    to survive.
    Talk about volunteering for hard labor.
    Talk about some of the ways that you particularly
    used to survive.
    Well, we found out in Birkenau, that if you were idle,
    you were going to be taken by the trucks
    and sent to the crematoria.
    So we volunteered any job that came up.
    And in the beginning when we-- while we were in Birkenau,
    the jobs were very, very, very hard.
    And I don't know what they were trying to make us do,
    but we were carrying big rocks, tremendous stones.
    They told us to go from one hillside
    to the next with those rocks, and we had to carry them.
    We had no gloves.
    We had no working clothes, and we scratched our bodies
    from the scraping of the rocks.
    And we carried them back and forth.
    And our backs and feet were aching us,
    with no food, no water.
    And we did this all day long.
    And whoever fell and couldn't do it, they just whipped.
    And the dogs were walking next to us.
    And one day, a German officer came and told
    the Blockalteste, which is the woman in charge
    of the barracks, that he needed a group of people
    to work in a kitchen in another camp.
    And the Belgian girls I was with,
    we all decided to volunteer and to try
    and be picked for that job.
    So we stayed in a roll call and we looked the Germans
    straight in the face.
    Funniest thing is that in the--
    inside of us, it told us when we should not look at the Germans,
    or when we should look them straight in the face
    and show them that here we are.
    We want that job.
    And instinct told us when to do that and when not to.
    So we looked them straight in the face,
    the Germans should pick us.
    And sure enough, he took the whole row of those Belgium
    girls that we were with, and we were picked for that job.
    And-- because we knew if we were going
    to continue to do this volunteer work in Birkenau
    with those rocks, we were going to die.
    And we thought any job would be better than that.
    And this is how we arrived in Auschwitz.
    And Auschwitz was maybe three, four miles away from Birkenau.
    I really have no idea how far it was, the distance.
    But that was a new camp that opened up,
    and we were put into [NON-ENGLISH] Lager,
    which means 2B concentration camp.
    And we went into the kitchen.
    The old people who worked there showed us and taught us the--
    how to go.
    And two girls were picked for each stove, or Kessel, which
    meant there was a big tremendous room in that kitchen,
    and they had maybe 25, 30--
    I have no idea how many big ovens with round,
    big tremendous ovens.
    And we were supposed to do the cooking in them.
    And we scraped those ovens, and we
    put the ovens on, and the fire, and we had to make the soup.
    And then we had to make the coffee.
    And the coffee and the food, after we did it,
    we filled the big tremendous pails.
    There were big army pails.
    We had to carry them out two by two.
    And it was very, very heavy.
    And the labor was just as hard as those tremendous rocks
    that we were dragging.
    And I thought I was going to die.
    I cried myself to sleep every night, because I thought
    I couldn't do that hard labor.
    First of all, I was so young and malnutrition.
    But we thought when we heard kitchen, working in the kitchen
    that we would have extra food and that
    would give us strength.
    And we were trying to buy time to survive.
    But sure enough, we got used to the hard work,
    and I learned to carry those hard, big, heavy buckets
    of pails, and carry them out into the camp
    so that the inmates could carry them to their barracks.
    And this is how we worked there for about four or five
    months in the kitchen with the Belgium girls.
    OK.
    We're going to-- we're about to run out.
    Changing film.
    Camera roll four is up.
    Sync take five is up.
    Can you tell me about the transports?
    What you saw of them?
    What you knew about them?
    Who came on them what happened to them?
    The transports in Auschwitz?
    Yeah.
    Transports were coming in day and night constantly.
    The only thing that I knew of is of the people
    that came into the camp.
    Once they were in the camp, they were safe enough
    to live through until they were transported to another camp.
    And each one of them was directed to different works
    to do while they were in the camp.
    Once you had to go to the left, they were put on a truck.
    The children, the old people, the sick people--
    some people, they would whisper.
    The inmates who received us at the dock,
    as we came off of the cattle wagon,
    they had taken inmates to direct us what to do.
    Put the packages down.
    Stay in line.
    Don't cry.
    Don't do this, don't do that.
    Give your child.
    They would say-- they would whisper to us,
    nobody should see.
    Give your child to an old lady.
    We didn't know what they were talking about,
    and some mothers wouldn't give up their children.
    So Dr. Mengele, who told them to go to the right and the left,
    would tell the mothers with the children to go to the left.
    And this is how they ended up in the trucks,
    and they were sent to the crematoire.
    The crematoire-- there were six of them
    that was burning day and night.
    And at the end, there was five, because one was broken.
    And when the truck was filled up with the people,
    we had an orchestra with inmates that they formed.
    And the orchestra was accompanying the trucks
    with music while they drove off so that I presume--
    I don't know what the orchestra was doing there,
    but I presume to make the people not scared,
    or they shouldn't panic.
    And this is how they went to their death, with the music,
    going to the crematoire, saying that they
    were going to shower and go into the concentration camp.
    They went in thinking they were going to take a shower
    and go to the camp, but they were gassed and then burned.
    And this is what I found out when I came
    into the concentration camp.
    Then how I worked there, and I knew all this was going on.
    And one time a transport of Hungarian people
    came, and I understand--
    I was told that these people had no food for two days,
    and they put them in two barracks, and had no food.
    And they were going to send him to the crematoire.
    I don't know how this was told to me,
    but that was the word that went around in the camp.
    And they didn't know that.
    And I felt so terrible for them.
    I felt like I had to do something to make--
    at least they shouldn't be hungry before they die.
    So I made up my mind.
    I didn't tell anybody.
    I had made up my mind to steal a bucket of boiled potatoes
    because we always cooked one day in advance.
    And I filled that bucket up with potatoes.
    And at night, I risked my life, because I could have been shot.
    We're not supposed to be out of the barracks at night
    after a certain hour.
    And I went into one of--
    I snuck into one to one of those barracks,
    and quietly I gave a potato to each inmate in the beginning
    of the bunks as I came in.
    And not realizing, I started a terrible commotion,
    because all of a sudden, they found a potato in their hand.
    And so people started screaming and ripping me apart.
    They wanted a potato because they
    hadn't had food for so long.
    And when I was almost half empty with the potato pail,
    the lights all of a sudden turned on.
    And the Blockalteste, which is the--
    I mentioned before-- the person in charge of that barrack.
    She says, what are you doing here?
    And I got caught.
    So I said, I'm giving some potatoes away to the people.
    She says, give me that pail.
    Do you know I could have you shot right now?
    She says, and get back to your barracks.
    So she took the potatoes away from me.
    And I had to naturally leave, and I was lucky
    that she didn't turn me over to the Germans,
    because I would have been terribly punished.
    God knows what would have happened to me for what
    I did, not realizing how I could have really risked my life
    to do something like this.
    But I felt so terrible knowing what was going to happen--
    that these people were condemned,
    and that they were going to die--
    that I wanted to do something to help a little bit,
    to do something.
    And the next day, when I got up in the morning,
    the two barracks was empty, and they were gone.
    And that was a terrible experience for me.
    The Gypsies went right away from the transport.
    They didn't even go into the camp.
    They sent them right to the oven.
    And the old people, like I said, and children.
    I understand afterwards that children up to 16 years
    were sent away.
    Luckily, when I arrived in the camp,
    I always looked a little bit older, because I was tall,
    and I was developed.
    And evidently, Dr. Mengele made a mistake with my age
    because he probably thought I was older.
    Otherwise, I would have gone to the ovens, too.
    And God was with me that I survived that.
    Talk about the suicides of those who gave up,
    and how you felt yourself, and what you used to do?
    Every once in a while--
    we were human beings.
    We have ups and down feelings.
    As much as we fought them, and we try to keep our morale up,
    but there were times where it was
    so low that we couldn't bear anymore,
    and we would break down.
    And being that we stuck together with the Belgian girls--
    there were so many different nationalities in the camp.
    It was a melting pot.
    There were Russian, and Poles, and Belgium, and France,
    and Holland, and German people, and Czechoslovakian,
    and Hungarian.
    We were all mixed together.
    But each one of these different nations, whoever they were,
    formed little groups, and they were like little families.
    And this is what gave us the strength to go on,
    and to push, and to live, to survive.
    So naturally, every once in a while, when somebody could not
    make it, we would get up in the morning, and we would find
    one or two people who would end their life at the wires
    because the wires were electrocuted.
    It wasn't too often, but I did see about three or four
    in the time that I was in concentration camp in Auschwitz
    that I did see about three or four dead people that
    were clung to the wires because they could not stand it
    anymore, and they had to end their lives.
    And one of those times it was my turn,
    where I almost wanted to end my life,
    because I was for hours standing in Appell that day.
    Appell means "roll call," like you do in the army.
    And being that it was wintertime in Auschwitz,
    it was a terrible cold.
    I don't know what the degree was,
    but we were in constant cold, terrible weather,
    and everything was icy.
    And we were always in mud in Auschwitz,
    but that particular day, we were standing on ice.
    And we were standing for hours in Appell
    because there was one person that was missing,
    and not until they had the right count
    could we go into the barracks.
    And I don't know what happened.
    We were standing there for hours in roll call,
    and I was turning blue.
    And I couldn't-- the cold got to me, to my heart.
    And finally, after they let us go, I passed out.
    The girls were holding me while I was passed out,
    because if I would have fallen down,
    that would have been the end of me.
    They would have dragged me away, and I
    would have gone on the wagon, out from the camp,
    and into the oven.
    So they held me up.
    And when I came to, I was in the barrack.
    I was frozen.
    I was blue.
    They were working on me to massage me.
    We happened to be mixed with some Polish Christian people
    in the same barrack when I was working in the kitchen.
    Those people were at the end, and they had the better spots
    in the barrack.
    They used to sit around the oven because there
    was one long brick chimney.
    I don't know how to call it.
    There was a long one.
    And at the end, there was a little oven.
    That was supposed to heat the whole barrack,
    but they only had it on for maybe a half an hour
    in the morning.
    And the rest of the day, it was cold.
    But the Polish people--
    We're going to reload.
    OK.
    The Polish people were also inmates,
    just like we were, but they had better--
    they were not treated like the Jewish people were.
    And they resented us there, because in a way,
    they were antisemitic, too.
    They didn't like the Jews either,
    so they were knocking us around in the barracks.
    And they always hovered over that tiny little oven.
    There was always fighting going on
    because we wanted to warm ourselves, also,
    and they would push us away.
    But when they brought me in, as much
    as they didn't like the Jews, for some reason,
    they made room for me.
    And they let me go near the oven so I should warm up.
    And they were working on me and massaging me.
    So when I came to, I don't know what came over me.
    I was exhausted.
    I was cold.
    I was frozen, and I wanted to give up right there and then.
    I was terribly emotionally upset, and I started to cry.
    I couldn't stop.
    And I wanted to end it right there.
    And I screamed that I was going to run to the wires,
    and naturally everybody stopped me.
    And the next day I felt much better.
    And this is how we made it in the camp of Auschwitz,
    Because when you were down, your friends tried
    to pick you and lift you up.
    And the next day, it was my friend's turn.
    And then I worked on her, and tried,
    and helped her to bring her morale up.
    And this is how we survived.
    We played it day by day.
    We could never-- we never knew what the next moment
    was going to bring.
    And we never knew if the next day or next hour we
    were going to be whisked away by the trucks with the Germans
    and the dogs that would come in, and chase us on those trucks,
    and sent to the ovens.
    And that's how we lived there.
    The four or five months that we lived there wasn't months.
    To us, it was 5, 10 years.
    To us, every day was a year that we lived through
    in Auschwitz and in the camp.
    Did any of you--
    or did you see any acts of resistance
    of any sort or sabotage?
    No.
    I did not see any of that, but I will answer your question.
    It was impossible for us to do this because we had no weapons.
    They had the weapons.
    They would shoot us like we were dogs.
    And we had no weapons.
    We were weak, and you couldn't fight an army with bare hands.
    But I feel that every day that we lived in concentration camp
    and we survived it, to me, was heroism by itself.
    Because we made it, and we survived this terrible life
    we had there.
    By this, we resisted Hitler to show him
    that we are here to stay, and he could not finish
    the race of the Jewish people.
    And I feel, by that, we resisted,
    and it was very heroism right there and then.
    With our bare hands, we tried to fight for our lives.
    And I think that is your answer right there.
    What about religious resistance?
    Was there religious resistance in the camp?
    Well, some people were religious,
    and there was no way we could say prayers,
    so we said it to ourselves, whoever was religious.
    The food was only a piece of dry bread,
    and the soup, and the water that we could drink there,
    which was nothing but rust anyhow
    that came out of the spigot.
    But if anybody wanted to pray, so he said to himself,
    or they laid in bed in the bunks, and they prayed.
    I myself-- I questioned God, because I was very religious
    until I came into the camp, because my grandmother raised
    me, and she was an Orthodox old lady.
    And she made me say the prayers every morning.
    And when I came to camp, and I saw what was going on,
    and I saw I was living in hell, I said, where is heaven?
    And where is God?
    Well, how can he see what goes on here in this terrible hell
    and let it happen?
    So I questioned God, as young as I was.
    And I was terribly hurt, and I said, there must not be a God.
    Otherwise, that wouldn't happen.
    I would sneak out of the barracks at night in Auschwitz.
    And I was risking my life by doing
    that because we had watchtowers with the Germans
    with the rifles, and if they would see something
    in a shadow, they would shoot right away.
    But yet, there were times where I had to be all by myself
    and be with my own thoughts.
    And I would sneak out of the barracks when nobody knew
    and I thought everybody was sleeping.
    And I would go all the way in the back of the camp,
    and it seemed that--
    I liked that very much, to be by myself.
    And I would look up at the sky, because I
    would feel that was the only free thing I
    could look at that was out in the open, above the wires.
    And I would talk to the stars.
    And I would say, where is God?
    Why is he punishing us like that?
    And how long will that go on?
    And I would talk to the stars.
    And I would say, the stars are looking down at us in the camp,
    and they see what is happening.
    And the same stars are shining to the outside world
    where people are free, and they can
    do what they want to do, and be happy, and live
    a wonderful life, and we live here in a hell.
    And we don't know from moment to moment
    if we're going to live or die, and not to be human beings--
    worse than animals.
    A dog is taken better care of than we are.
    And how come the free world is allowing all this
    and is not stopping this terrible thing that goes on
    at this time in civilization?
    And then naturally the answers were never answered to me.
    And after I cried myself out real good,
    I would sneak back into the barracks.
    And life would start all over again
    in the morning with the terrible work
    that I had to face and hunger.
    I don't know if we have time to start the death march.
    Tell me about the death march out of Auschwitz.
    When Russia was coming close to Auschwitz,
    word came that we were going to be evacuated.
    And that is-- at that time, we were separated
    from the Belgian girls.
    There only was one young lady, which
    was one year younger from me.
    Her name was Christiane.
    She was the only one that stayed with me,
    and I promised the rest of the girls
    that I was going to watch out for her.
    And that's how we left the concentration
    camp of Auschwitz.
    And we started marching, and we marched for days.
    And I have no idea how many days we marched.
    Also, a couple of times we went into wagon cars again.
    And then we had to get off of them and start walking again.
    And it seemed that to each camp we
    arrived, they were already overfilled with people,
    because they condensed the camps as the Russians were
    coming closer.
    And there was no room, and we were just exhausted
    on the road, because we had very little food,
    and we were just exhausted from walking.
    And a lot of people--
    while we were walking through Poland, we tried to escape,
    thinking that they could speak the language
    the Polish language, and they would run away.
    But we used to hear shots all through the marching
    as we were walking.
    We heard shots, and we heard people being shot,
    and we saw how the people were falling in
    the ravines, in the ditches, behind trees, behind shrubs,
    on hills.
    It was like a war zone with wounded people and dead people
    all over on both sides of the roads.
    There were dead people who were trying
    to escape, and also for people who couldn't keep up
    with the March, because as we walked, and we got exhausted,
    and our feet were killing us, and people were falling behind,
    and the Germans were shooting everybody who couldn't keep up
    with the death march.
    And this is the reason why they call that the death march,
    because so many people died on that road
    before they arrived into a concentration camp.
    And this is how I arrived in Bergen-Belsen, from that death
    march.
    We have 11 seconds to run out.
    Change film.
    Camera roll six is up.
    Sync take seven is up.
    I want you to talk to me now about your friendship
    and your caring for Christiane, and what that gave you,
    and what it gave her.
    I just want you to think back on how important that relationship
    was and how it helped you, or hurt you, whatever it did.
    Christiane was a very sweet, young, naive little girl,
    and I actually grew close to her because of her--
    to me, she was a young child.
    As young as I was, but I felt that she was a baby,
    and I worried over her.
    And she was my sister I didn't have that I lost.
    And she does not know why she was taken.
    I'll be very honest.
    I think they made a mistake with her.
    She didn't even have a Jewish name.
    I mean, Christiane-- I don't know of any family--
    of any Jewish family would name a girl by that name
    because it's a Gentile name.
    It's not a Jewish name.
    Anyhow, Christiane does not know-- did not
    know why she was caught.
    She was picked up in the street, and she didn't
    know why she was in camp.
    And she came from France, so we spoke French always.
    And she was very--
    she was helpless, and I was the strong one-- supposed to be.
    So I took care of Christiane as much as I could.
    I watched over her.
    I urged her where she had to go to work with me,
    and I was her mother.
    And maybe that, in turn, gave me the strength
    to go on, because I worried over her.
    I kind of realized that afterwards.
    I didn't see it at that time, and I didn't understand it,
    but afterwards I put kind of two and two
    together, thinking that, because I worried over her,
    I had to be strong to watch over her.
    And that gave us the chance to survive as long as we could.
    And so that's how we were in Bergen-Belsen.
    I watched over her over the march,
    and urged her on to keep on walking because she
    wanted to fall behind.
    And I knew she would be shot, so I kept pushing her.
    There were times where I was angry and scolded her.
    And that's how she kept up.
    But then at the end, towards the end of the liberation,
    before that, Christiane got sick, because Auschwitz--
    I mean, Bergen-Belsen was just terrible.
    It was just the opposite of Auschwitz.
    In Auschwitz, we had to work in order to survive,
    and in Bergen-Belsen, we were sitting idle.
    There was no work there.
    And the decay of the camp was terrible.
    The whole camp stunk, and was dirty, and was full of decay,
    and typhus.
    And this is how Christiane got sick, and got the typhus,
    and got delirious.
    And one night, she was so delirious she saw her parents
    in front of her eyes, and she jumped up from the ground,
    because we were sleeping on the bare floors.
    And she saw her family, and she started running to her family,
    she thought.
    And she only was stepping on the sleeping people
    and made a whole big commotion.
    And I naturally tried to calm her down,
    and while I was trying to calm her down,
    the woman in charge of the barrack came and, with a stick,
    started beating on me because I was making a commotion.
    We were not supposed to be speaking.
    It was supposed to be quiet at night.
    And she hit me so hard until the stick was broken.
    And actually, I couldn't budge for two days.
    I was all broken up and bruised.
    And as sick as Christiane-- she knew
    something was wrong, because she did not give me
    any problems those few days.
    And naturally, Christiane got worse and worse.
    And Christiane died of typhus in my arms.
    I was trying to nurse her with a teaspoon of black coffee
    that I had gotten after standing for hours at the kitchen.
    Maybe somebody would take pity on me and give me some coffee.
    I was hoping somebody would recognize me in the kitchen,
    because I worked in a kitchen in Auschwitz.
    And it happened twice where somebody gave me
    a little bit of soup, and then one time,
    a little bit of coffee.
    And I would run back to the barracks
    and feed it to Christiane, but Christiane could not make it.
    She failed me, and she died in my arms.
    And when she died, I put her down,
    and I pretended she was asleep.
    And I covered her up, because people knew that she was sick.
    And I did not tell that she was dead for after two days,
    because I wanted to have her ration and her food.
    And I pretended she was asleep.
    And then I was afraid that they would
    discover that she was dead and that she would start smelling.
    And I told the Blockalteste, the lady in charge,
    that Christiane died, and they took her away.
    They took her away.
    In Bergen-Belsen, they did not take the people
    and burn them or bury them.
    They just piled them up outside of the barracks
    in front of our door.
    And the pile was as high as six or seven feet of corpses
    in front of each barracks.
    We lived with the dead people, and this
    is where Christiane was.
    And for days, I could not look at Christiane,
    because I knew she was laying there.
    And one day, my guilt was bothering me
    so because I knew she was there, and I wouldn't look at her.
    I decided to go see her.
    And when I looked up at her, I saw Christiane,
    but something worried me and puzzled me.
    And I didn't know what was wrong.
    And I said, somebody stole her skirt.
    And she was lying from waist down naked as a skeleton, which
    they called in Bergen-Belsen was a Muselmann, which
    meant, before you died, you were skin and bones.
    You looked like a Muselmann, which was skeleton.
    And she was a skeleton laying there.
    And she had a navy blue jacket, but the navy blue jacket
    wasn't blue.
    It was grayish or white.
    And it puzzled me.
    I said, why would somebody steal a skirt
    and change a jacket from a blue one to a white one,
    and not take everything, and just leave it there?
    So I leaned over closer to the pile of the dead people,
    and there I saw that Christiane's blue jacket
    was covered with terrible lice.
    The lice was as big as the black ants
    that you see sometimes on the ground.
    And they were just crawling all over Christiane's body
    and the jacket, and that made that blue navy jacket white.
    And I couldn't take it anymore.
    I almost fell on the dead people myself, I was in such shock.
    And I just ran away because I was in terrible shock.
    I saw the terrible lice eating her up,
    and it was just too much for me to take.
    And I never looked at Christiane again.
    And I was so disillusioned, and I
    was so despaired to see that beautiful young girl who never
    even knew if she was Jewish ended up in concentration camp
    and dying like that.
    And then I think that's when I gave up
    trying to fight for my life, and I came down with the typhus.
    And I was very, very sick.
    Besides being sick with typhus, I had a terrible accident
    in the barracks at the end, and I was bruised on my leg here.
    And my leg was on fire, because it was like a terrible big bump
    that I had there.
    And my foot was on fire.
    Between my foot, and the typhus, and the fever, I almost died.
    And this is how the camp was liberated from that--
    at that time.
    And they picked me up and wrapped me up in a blanket.
    And they took me into the showers, and the inmate--
    the Germans that they caught, they
    made them put white uniforms on, and they
    took care of the inmates who were very, very sick,
    who needed care right away.
    And they had built a hospital outside of Bergen-Belsen to put
    those terrible sick people--
    to help them to bring them back to health.
    And this is how they wrapped me up in a blanket,
    and showered me, and cleaned me.
    The German SS did that, and then brought me into that hospital.
    And I understand a Canadian doctor who looked at my leg--
    and I could see in his face that my leg was terrible.
    And he said-- he had a translator.
    And in French, they told me they were
    going to try and save my leg.
    And afterwards, I found out that I had gangrene in my leg.
    And he almost amputated that leg.
    And I was still fighting for two months in that hospital
    because I still had the typhus.
    And this is in the conditions that they found me.
    I don't know if I weighed 65 pounds when I was liberated.
    I was more dead than alive, and maybe another week I
    would have been gone, and I would have never survived it.
    Can you talk about the things you remember from your senses,
    like smells, like sounds?
    Are there things vivid in your memory from those years?
    Certain, a few.
    When we arrived in Auschwitz, it was always damp.
    The sun never shone there.
    It was never shining.
    If I saw it, maybe two, three times
    was the most in all the months I was there.
    It was always muddy and damp.
    And the grounds were always covered full of mud.
    We smelled a terrible smell because of the ovens
    from the crematoire.
    And at certain times, depending the weather,
    the climate, the winds, we also would
    have ashes falling down on us.
    And when-- tell you the truth, when Polish people say who
    lived around Auschwitz that they did not know--
    when they deny and they say they did not
    know what went on in Auschwitz, I know they're lying.
    Because if we smelled it, I know they smelled the terrible flesh
    of the people being burned.
    And this is what I remember in Auschwitz.
    And that's why I say it was a living hell over there.
    I remember as a young girl one time seeing a terrible movie.
    And it looked like cave people living.
    And there were slaves.
    And they were living in caves.
    And for some reason, I compared Auschwitz with that movie
    because we lived--
    instead of caves, it was Auschwitz.
    But we lived in the mud, like they did.
    And the fire and the ashes and the gray color of the sky
    was down on us.
    They never saw the daylight.
    And neither did we.
    And I thought I was part of that movie.
    And that was hell to me.
    And I used to think, if I ever die,
    no matter how bad of a person I will be,
    which I don't think I am--
    but if ever I am going to be a bad person
    and if there is a God, if he's going to punish me,
    I will never go to hell because I'm living it already.
    I've been in hell.
    So I know I will go straight to heaven.
    I always used to think that.
    And to this day, I really think that still
    because I've been there already.
    That's one of the feelings that I have.
    Now, in Bergen-Belsen, the decay and the dirt
    and the dead people we lived with because there we
    lived with the dead people.
    And the terrible odor we lived with because there
    was no toilets there.
    They had made ditches.
    And we had to go in the ditches to urinate there
    and to do our bowel movements.
    And it was never covered.
    And it stayed like this for months.
    And this is why people were dying like flies.
    And every day there's not a day that doesn't go by--
    even now to this day, there isn't
    something that reminds me of concentration camp.
    And if I go on a train and if I go on a trip
    and I hear the doors being slammed,
    I am back in the cattle wagons because I
    hear the motion of the trains and I hear the doors being
    slammed together.
    And if I go for a joyful trip to New York for a wedding or a bar
    mitzvah or a show in the theater and before we get into New York
    and we get into New Jersey and I see the factories
    with the tall chimneys with the fires, I see the crematoires.
    I will never forget that.
    I lived with the dead people all the time.
    I might laugh in the outside, and I might have a good time.
    And people don't know what goes on in my heart
    because I came from hell.
    And if I hear a siren, I'm back in Belgium
    and I'm back in the basement, trying to protect ourselves
    from the bombs.
    But your same heart kept you alive.
    And that held, didn't it?
    That same-- because of my youth, I feel, the will to live.
    I was not ready to die.
    And I am the only one who survived
    from my whole family who went into concentration camp.
    I was the youngest.
    And I was the youngest that came out.
    And the reason that I feel I am the one who survived
    was because of my youth, I had the strength to go on,
    and also because I was taken two years after my whole family was
    taken.
    My family was taken in 1942.
    I lost them all.
    And I was taken in 1944.
    My aunt was unlucky.
    And she had to go to the right by Dr. Mengele.
    He told her to go to the right and me to the left.
    And this is why she died.
    And my uncle never--
    he was taken to the men's camp.
    And I never heard of him afterwards.
    I had one more aunt that lived on
    in hiding in Belgium, my mother's sister.
    And for some reason or another, when
    word came to me in Auschwitz when Belgium was liberated,
    I had made up my mind.
    Right there and then I knew that my aunt Sarah was
    alive with her two children.
    And I was so happy for her.
    But I cried myself to sleep in the bunk,
    feeling sorry for myself that I was in Auschwitz.
    But I did not stop to think and realize that, God forbid,
    she could have been caught and sent to another camp.
    I didn't even want to think about that.
    And sure enough when I was liberated,
    she found me in Belgium.
    Talk about how important cleanliness was to you
    and what kinds of things you did to try to keep clean
    under those awful conditions.
    Clean, very much I was not, to be very honest with you.
    In Auschwitz, I kept clean, very clean
    because we were able to shower as much as we
    knew that the same showers were given gas to the people.
    But we were a little bit privileged
    because we worked in the kitchen.
    And the German people are very clean.
    So they would order us to go every so often and shower
    in the showers.
    And we knew that we were going to be showered.
    So we were not scared, although you never
    knew what kind of tricks they had up their sleeve.
    But we risked it.
    So in Auschwitz, it wasn't too bad for me to keep cleanliness.
    And for a piece of ration, I would
    exchange for a piece of soap so I could wash and keep clean.
    But in Bergen-Belsen, it was a different story.
    Back in Belsen was just terrible.
    I say even animal, a dog is cleaner.
    It was just terrible, the decay and the smell
    and the odor that was going on.
    And we had no water to bathe.
    And there was a sink there with some spigots
    at the barracks, which was--
    the water was not even running fluently.
    It was just drip, drip, drip.
    And you couldn't do nothing.
    You had to hold it like this to have a little bit of water.
    And then it was all red.
    It was all rusted because the pipes were all terrible
    and rusted up.
    And we couldn't wash.
    We couldn't bathe.
    And we were covered with lice.
    We just couldn't help it.
    And from the lice, we got the terrible typhus and diphtheria.
    And this was a terrible sickness.
    We couldn't control it.
    And we had accidents.
    And we couldn't wash ourselves.
    And this is how we lived in this terrible condition
    in Bergen-Belsen.
    How do you want the people you lost to be remembered?
    What can I tell you?
    How can you describe a whole family
    of 58 people or 60, I don't know exactly how many we were,
    who died in vain for nothing only because of one reason
    because they were Jews, who were not even--
    they did not even belong to a political party?
    They were minding their own business,
    trying to make a living for their families,
    living in peace, a loving family in Belgium who
    worked hard to survive not to be burdens to the country,
    and for no reason to be picked up in the middle of the night
    and to be taken on trucks and trains and cattle cars
    and to be beaten up and then die in concentration
    camps in ovens.
    What do I tell my children?
    How can I describe my family that I dearly loved?
    And I was taken away from them at the age of 15,
    that young to be left all alone.
    I'll be very honest with you, in the beginning when--
    [BEEP]
    Why don't you go back to where you
    said, I have to be honest with you,
    I didn't want to have children.
    I didn't want to have children because I was afraid
    that another war would come one day
    and that my children shouldn't have to live
    through the same thing I did.
    And then I said, no, I have to show the terrible people who
    wanted to kill us all that they cannot kill a race.
    And I have to build a new family because they
    took my family away.
    I have to have another new family growing.
    And our names should go on in the future.
    They cannot finish us.
    And I decided to have children then.
    And I have three beautiful sons.
    And when my sons were old enough to know
    what went on in the past and how we lost, and why.
    They asked me questions, where is
    my grandma and my grandfather and aunts and uncles?
    They didn't understand when they were tiny
    why they didn't have family.
    Little by little I told them.
    And I told them the experiences I had during the war
    and why they don't have family.
    And I urged them, one day you will have a family
    and you will tell your children what went on.
    And sure enough, my children know.
    And now their little children-- my little granddaughter
    wants to know what my number on my arm is.
    And I tell her in a certain way--
    I cannot shock her too much.
    But I tell her that it was from a camp
    where I was taken in detention.
    And I hope in the near future that all the schools and all
    the children will know so that they
    can fight and to see that it should never happen again
    because it would be doomsday if it ever, God forbid,
    happens again or another war should
    come and try to kill everybody just because they are a race.
    I'm not just saying Jews but that they are against a race.
    It should never ever happen again.
    Now, before you get up, when she talked to her numbers--

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    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.
    Interviewee
    Malnik, Mrs. Lilly
    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

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Lilly 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 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 13:39:37
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    Time Coded Notes (3)

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    Also in Testimony oral history collection

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

    Date: 1992

    Oral history interview with Gerda Weissmann Klein

    Oral history interview with Gerda Weissmann Klein

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Agnes Mandl Adachi

    Oral history interview with Agnes Mandl Adachi

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Edward Adler

    Oral history interview with Edward Adler

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Harry Alexander

    Oral history interview with Harry Alexander

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Sam Bankhalter

    Oral history interview with Sam Bankhalter

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman

    Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Shony Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Braun

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Paulette Fink

    Oral history interview with Paulette Fink

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Sam Goldberg

    Oral history interview with Sam Goldberg

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Siegfried Halbreich

    Oral history interview with Siegfried Halbreich

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Isadore Helfing

    Oral history interview with Isadore Helfing

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Kurt Klein

    Oral history interview with Kurt Klein

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Stefa Kupfer

    Oral history interview with Stefa Kupfer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with 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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