Oral history interview with Denise Siekieski

Oral history interview with Gertruda Bablinska

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gitta Bauer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Germaine Belline and Liliane Gaffney

Oral History

Germaine Belline, born in La Louvière, Belgium on July 23, 1908, describes her family and childhood; getting married in 1925 and having a daughter named Liliane; the arrest of her husband; helping local City Hall officials to get Jews to escape to Africa; going to Africa with a group of Jewish refugees; leaving Africa because of health reasons; her mother’s participation in the underground movement; not feeling like she did enough to help Jews during the war; immigrating to the United States in 1948 with her family; her daughter’s reflections on surviving the Holocaust; having difficulty trusting people today; and her and her daughter’s thoughts about current politics.

Oral history interview with Jean Berger

Oral History

Jean Berger, born in Kraków, Poland in 1909, describes her family and childhood; moving to the Ukraine when she was 18 years old with her six siblings and parents; trying to keep food around her house once the war started; hiding six people in the attic of her home; walking sixty blocks every day to go to work sewing; the fears she had during the war about hiding Jews; and being recognized for what she did during the war.

Oral history interview with Ivan Beltrami

Oral History

Ivan Beltrami, born on June 14, 1920 in Marseilles, France, describes his family and childhood; growing up in a Catholic family but seeing his Jewish friends experience antisemitism; his parents’ decision to hide Jews during the war; volunteering for the French Aviation in 1939 but never having to fly; studying as a medical student; joining the resistance in September 1942; relaying messages between resistance groups and providing medical care; getting married in 1944; his brother getting caught and tortured by the Gestapo on May 23, 1943; becoming a chief in the resistance; feeling that most of the French people acted cowardly during the war because they did not help save more Jews; being recognized for his wartime efforts by Yad Vashem in 1984; and visiting Israel for various reasons after the war and supporting the Zionist cause.

Oral history interview with Bert Bochove and Elizabeth Bochove

Oral History

Bert Bochove describes his rescue efforts during the war; being aware of the risks he took while rescuing Jews; getting married to Betty; wanting to pass on his values of respecting others to his children; moving to the United States; and his and his family’s life in the US. Betty Bochove discusses the rescue efforts during the war and adapting to life in the US after leaving Holland. Anne Marie, born in 1957, discusses her experience as the daughter of immigrant parents and how she learned of her parents' efforts to save Jews during WWII.

Oral history interview with Jean Boete

Oral History

Jean Boete, born in 1921, describes his early life and his Catholic family moving to Paris when he was young; his life as a student in Paris, France through 1940; fleeing to the countryside to avoid being deported to Germany; joining the French resistance forces under the influence of Alain Mosse, who served as the chief of the cabinet of the Prefect of France; planning to fight as a soldier in North Africa in 1942; taking a government post in Chambéry, France so that he could have access to papers and stamps to assist with the escape of the Jewish children; moving to Paris when the police found out what he was doing; fighting the Germans during the liberation; and serving in the French army in occupied Germany after the war.

Oral history interview with Sjoukje Bouwma and Rinze Bouwma

Oral History

Sjoukje Bouwma (born in 1923 and lived in Tzum) and Rinze Bouwma (born in 1916 in Tzummarum) describe their childhoods and growing up in religious families that were part of the Christian (Dutch) Reformed Church; Rinze’s involvement in the underground movement while Sjoukje and her parents hid Jews in their home; Rinze conducting acts of sabotage and stealing food for people in hiding; the shooting of a Jewish couple who had stayed at Sjoukje’s home and never learning who had shot them; searching for this couple’s daughter who had been hidden elsewhere in Friesland; Rinze being sent to jail several times after refusing to work for the Germans; Rinze fighting in Indonesia and returning to the Netherlands, where he married Sjoukje; immigrating to Canada in 1951; and having three children and being active in their church.

Oral history interview with Jan Brinkers, Willie Brinkers, and Andries van der Meer

Oral History

Jan Brinker, born in 1915 in Utrecht, Netherlands, describes his family and childhood; his family hiding Jews at the beginning of the war; getting married in September 1940; and finding out about what the Germans did to the Jews during the war. Willie Brinker, born in 1914 in Putten, Netherlands, describes his family and childhood. Andries van der Meer, born in 1921 in Rinowerden (possibly Renswoude, Netherlands), describes his family and childhood; growing up with little money; having to leave school at age 13 and find work to support his family; the antisemitism in his school; going to Utrecht when the war broke out; working in the resistance with the other men; and his and the other men’s experiences after the war.

Oral history interview with Agnieszka Budna-Widerschal

Oral History

Agnieszka Budna-Widerschal, born in 1900 in Poland, describes growing up in a town with a large Jewish community; her mother’s death when she was seven and moving with her father to Gdynia, Poland; the lack of antisemitism in her town; the death of her father when she was 11 years old; being sent with everyone in her town to Częstochowa to make room for Nazi expansion; going with some people to Siedlce; getting married to a Jewish man and helping him and his family hide; selling her personal belongings to pay for food for herself and the people she hid; her Catholic beliefs; giving birth to her child in September 1945; and immigrating to Israel after the war.

Oral history interview with Peotr Budnik

Oral History

Peotr Budnik, born in Poland, describes his childhood and Catholic family; witnessing Poland adopt increasingly antisemitic practices; seeing a Jewish ghetto built in his town in 1942; deciding to help hide a family of Jews, who he had been told to deliver to the ghetto; marrying a woman he had helped to hide and moving to Israel with her in 1957; delivering food and money to the families hiding the members of this Jewish family; having nightmares to this day about getting caught for helping Jews; the liberation of his town by Russian forces; and how he feels like he fits in well in Israel even though he is Catholic.

Oral history interview with Stephania P. Burzminska

Oral History

Stefania Podgórska Burzminski, born in Lipie, Poland, describes her family and childhood; knowing several Jewish children when she was a child; her views of Jewish traditions and customs as a child; antisemitic practices put in place in her town after the German invasion; bringing food and clothes to people in the ghetto; meeting her future husband, who had escaped from a deportation; helping to hide her husband and some of his family; having German soldiers move into her apartment building while she had thirteen Jews hiding in her apartment; her husband’s conversion to Catholicism, so they could marry; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Marie-Henriette Ceulemans

Oral History

Marie-Henriette Ceulemans, born in 1912 in Brussels, Belgium, describes her family and childhood; growing up in the Catholic tradition; attending school in Brussels; working as a visiting nurse doing social work with poor people; getting married in 1934 to a broker in the Brussels stock exchange; becoming the director of a crèche (child-care center) in Brussels in 1936; being asked to hide Jewish children in 1942; being denounced to authorities for hiding Jews but not getting caught; continuing to operate the crèche after the war because many of the children’s parents did not come back; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Malka Csizmadia

Oral History

Malka Csizmadia, born in Czechoslovakia (now Sátoraljaújhely, Hungary) on May 16, 1927, describes her family and childhood; being raised in the Protestant tradition; witnessing the German invasion and Jews being forced into ghettos; having to live in an apartment building with eight other families during the war because of the difficult situation; being curious about what was happening in the ghetto; her efforts to help Jews in the ghetto; helping her future brother-in-law to escape from the ghetto; and eventually immigrating to Israel.

Oral history interview with Adele Defarges

Oral History

Adele Defarges, born in 1910 in Crete, Greece, describes her childhood and family; growing up in a town with a small Jewish community; getting married at the age of 19 to a man with a Jewish sister and moving to Marceau; taking a young woman into hiding with her husband; joining an organization after the war that looked for people who hid Jews during the war; and creating a new life for herself after the war.

Oral history interview with Jan W. de Haan

Oral History

Jan W. de Haan, born in 1920 in Bussum, Netherlands, describes his family and childhood; living in the Spiegel neighborhood; his experience being honored at Yad Vashem for being a rescuer of Jews in the Netherlands during World War II; his father’s involvement in the Social Democratic Party; beginning to help Jewish families in 1941 by distributing ration cards; joining the underground movement in Amsterdam; doing espionage work for England; getting arrested for his work and being sent to Hague, Netherlands for interrogation; being sent to a prison camp in Hameln, Germany; becoming a radio announcer after the war; and getting married in 1948.

Oral history interview with Johannes de Vries

Oral History

Johan de Vries describes his life growing up in Friesland, Netherlands; becoming a coal miner in the southern part of the country in 1929 and working there for 16 years; he and his wife volunteering to take in a Christian child from Rotterdam for a year; agreeing to take in a Jewish boy in 1942 and later volunteering to take in about fifteen other Jewish people throughout the war; being warned by the police department and by neighbors when the Germans planned to make an inspection of their house; and Yad Vashem honoring him and his wife for their war-time efforts in 1977.

Oral history interview with Mary Diaczok

Oral History

Mary Diaczok, born on February 2, 1924 in Bialo-Kenitza, Poland, describes her family and childhood; the small Jewish community in her village; attending church as a child; the Nazi invasion and taking a Jewish woman and her two children into hiding; the Germans forcing her to peel potatoes in a camp for the local Nazi soldiers; selling salt to make money; discovering what the Nazis were doing to the Jews in the ghettos and camps; and speaking about her experiences as a rescuer after the war.

Oral history interview with Maria Dovrovich

Oral History

Maria Dovrovich, born in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; attending a modern art school when the war began in Europe; losing her family before the war; living with a Jewish family during the war; assisting Hungarian Jews by forging identification papers and by smuggling food into camps in and around Budapest; sharing food with her Jewish friends; the Jewish ghetto in Budapest; and immigrating to Israel after the war.

Oral history interview with Marc Donadille

Oral History

Marc Donadille, born in 1911 in France, describes his family and childhood; his Protestant beliefs; serving as a pastor in Cévennes from 1935 to 1945 and delivering sermons against antisemitism; getting married in 1935; buying food and supplies for Jewish refugees; producing false papers for Jewish refugees on the run; the birth of his first child in 1936; hiding 80 Jews over the course of the war; his opinion on the Vichy government; and being honored by Yad Vashem in 1981 for his efforts during the war.

Oral history interview with Arnold Douwes and Seine Otten

Oral History

Arnold Douwes (alternate spelling Douves; born in 1906 in Laag-Keppel, Netherlands) and Seine Otten (born in 1910 in the Netherlands) describe growing up in Christian families; the difficulty of hiding Jews during the war; Otten hiding six to eight people at a time in his small house; Douwes’s reflections on helping Jewish refugees escape; Douwes’s participation in the resistance movement; and wishing that they could have done more during the war.

Oral history interview with Kalman Dreisziger and Karolin Dreisziger

Oral History

Kalman and Karolin Dreisziger, born in Csorna, Hungary, describe living outside of the local Jewish ghetto; the inn and tavern run by Kalman’s family; Kalman’s family helping their neighbors to escape; hiding four Jews in their inn; being accused of helping Jews to escape but not being arrested because they were respected citizens; Kalman’s family immigrating to Canada in 1956; and their reflections on Kalman’s family’s decision to help Jews.

Oral history interview with Christina Zilverberg

Oral History

Christina Zilverburg, born in Papendrecht, Netherlands, describes her family and childhood; being raised in the Christian tradition; working as a phone operator until 1951 in Amsterdam; how on November 22, 1940 her Jewish colleagues were sent home from the phone office; hiding an old woman and a young boy during the war; her husband hiding for two and a half years with his whole family and a young Polish girl; her memories of liberation day on May 4, 1945; getting married in 1949; immigrating to Israel with her husband in 1951; planting a tree at Yad Vashem in memory of her efforts to help and rescue Jews during the war; and her children’s interest in what she did during the war.

Oral history interview with Gertrud Egloffstein

Oral History

Gertrude Egloffstein, born in Grünau, Germany, describes her family; doing an apprenticeship at a physical therapy center; moving to Berlin, Germany, where her brother got her to buy a drug store (eventually owning four); meeting her future husband in 1931; living openly as an anti-Nazi in the early 1930s; Nazis taking up a room in the hotel in front of her apartment; giving clothes, money, and food to Jews in need; hiding Jews between 1942 and 1945; running drugstores after the war; and her reflections on what it has meant and means to be a German.

Oral history interview with Benjamin Elias and Helen Elias

Oral History

Benjamin and Helen Elias (born in 1913 outside of Budapest, Hungary) describe their rescue efforts during the war; Helen receiving a medal in 1976 for her efforts; Helen’s family and childhood in Hungary and being raised Catholic; Helen’s feelings that antisemitism was directed at her as a rescuer; getting married in 1937; living in Yugoslavia when the war began; the Hungarian takeover of Yugoslavia; the Hungarian government asking them to leave their home, so soldiers could be put into it; making false papers for hundreds of Jews; immigrating to Israel in 1948 because they did not want to live with antisemitism anymore; and seeing the people who she helped escape from the country.

Oral history interview with Libuse Fries and Erna Fries

Oral History

Libuse and Erna Fries describe growing up in Czechoslovakia near Prague; being raised in the Catholic tradition; the normal relationships that Jews and non-Jews had in Prague; not understanding how the Germans could abuse young children as they did; sneaking around with a false identification card to help the Jews; Erna trying to escape to Switzerland and getting arrested and then transported to a prison in Prague, where she remained from 1942 to 1943; Erna’s transport to Auschwitz in 1943 and then managing to escape to Prague in 1945; and starting a family after the war.

Oral history interview with Robert Gachet

Oral History

Robert Gachet describes growing up in an orphanage after his birth in 1918 near Chambery; his father’s death during World War I; attending a Catholic boarding school; becoming involved in the resistance to get the Germans out of France; helping Jews as part of his duties in the resistance; knowing that the resistance forces were not large but not seeing his actions as heroic; getting married in 1947; and feeling that young people today are too complacent about war.

Oral history interview with Amfian Gerasimov

Oral History

Amfian Gerasimov, born in Russia, describes being raised in the Christian tradition but becoming interested in Judaism in 1925; having little contact with the Jews of his town as a child; getting married in 1928 and eventually having six children; becoming a Seventh Day Adventist; rescuing 14 people during the war; immigrating to Israel without his wife; and exploring his personal religious beliefs.

Oral history interview with Claudine Gilain

Oral History

Oral history interview with Marie Rose Gineste

Oral History

Oral history interview with Maria Grafin von Maltzin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Itzhak Grossman and Veronica Parochi

Oral History

Itzhak Grossman (born in 1924) and Veronica Parochi describe their families; Itzhak growing up in Budapest under the supervision of Veronica as his nanny; Veronica becoming aware of what was happening to the Jews in 1937; Itzhak’s family staying in Budapest while Veronica went to the Budapest ghetto to sneak in food and other supplies; Veronica finding a job in a hospital in 1944 because she could no longer work for the Grossman family since they were Jewish; Veronica getting Itzhak false papers to escape; Itzhak’s father dying in Buchenwald and his mother surviving; Itzhak’s immigration to Israel in 1949 and Veronica following him later; and Itzhak considering Veronica a mother-figure.

Oral history interview with Andree Geulen-Herscovici

Oral History

Andree Geulen-Herscovici describes her efforts to rescue Jewish children during the war; being raised as a Catholic but deciding that she did not believe in God at 12 years old; teaching in Brussels at the time the war began and many of her students being forced to leave school because they were Jewish; taking in Jewish children and hiding them when she was 20 years old; racing against the Gestapo to rescue children; choosing to take care of children rather than adults because they were easier to hide; keeping in touch with the children she rescued after the war; and her thoughts on talking about the war.

Oral history interview with Emilie Guth and Hermine Orsi

Oral History

Emilie Guth, born in a small village in Alsace, France in 1911, describes her family and childhood; working in a house that took care of war refugees in Marseilles in 1941 with the Unitarian Organization; her interactions with Jews coming through the town; increasing antisemitism around 1937; joining the resistance group, Combat, in 1943; hiding five people in her home for 22 months; helping to hide 200 children in Chambon, France; receiving a medal in 1985 for rescuing Jews during the war; how she was not always aware of the great risk she was taking; staying in touch with the people she helped to rescue; becoming a nurse after the war; and continuing to practice the Protestant faith after the war.

Oral history interview with Johanna Hak and Wilhelm Hak

Oral History

Johanna and Wilhelm Hak (born August 8, 1911 in Glessen, Netherlands) describe their family backgrounds in the Netherlands; Wilhelm’s family’s desire to help rescue Jews during the war; Wilhelm helping his father sell potatoes to make money for his family; Wilhelm not personally knowing any Jews; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; Wilhelm managing to get food stamps for local Jewish families; Wilhelm becoming involved with the underground movement; getting married in 1947; and talking about the war with his children and grandchildren.

Oral history interview with Esta Heiber

Oral History

Esta Heiber, born in Warsaw, Poland, describes her life growing up in Warsaw; moving to Liège, Belgium to attend university; meeting her husband, who was involved with Jewish refugee orphans before the war; getting involved in the underground Jewish Defense Committee during the war; her and her husband’s arrest in May 1943; their release and work in organizing two orphanages and an elderly home through the Council of Jews; doing this work for nine months until the British liberated Belgium in September 1944; and having difficulty sharing her story with young people.

Oral history interview with Fritz Heine

Oral History

Fritz Heine, born on December 6, 1904 in Hanover, Germany, describes his family and childhood; losing his mother during World War I; joining the Social Democratic Party in the 1920s; becoming the Joint Secretary of the Social Democratic Party when he was 21 years old; the Social Democratic Party being outlawed in 1933; the organization of the suppressed political parties in Nazi Germany; being chief of propaganda for the SDP; how the SDP continued during the Nazi reign; how his main effort was protecting the party, although he helped some Jews; helping about 100 to 150 people to escape; his efforts translating German newspapers, telegraphs, etc. for the British; his capture and internment for subversive political activities in 1940; escaping to Spain and then Portugal; attending the first conference of the liberated Social Democratic Party in October 1945; remaining as an executive member of the Social Democratic Party until 1958; and getting married to a politically active woman in 1961.

Oral history interview with Fela Herman

Oral History

Fela Herman, born in November 1914 in Poland, describes her family and childhood; moving to Brussels in 1937 and not being able to return home after the Nazi invasion; getting married in 1942; joining the resistance movement and helping to free 1200 Jewish children; working with the Jewish Defense Committee; the death of her husband during the war and getting remarried in 1945; keeping in touch with many of the children who she rescued; having children in 1946 and 1950; and the reasons why she decided to rescue.

Oral history interview with Took Heroma

Oral History

Took Heroma, born on April 18, 1908 in Arnhem, Netherlands, describes why she chose to hide Jews during the war; her childhood and family; attending a school for social work in Amsterdam and graduating in 1931; taking a job teaching uneducated women; getting married to a doctor; participating with the resistance movement; working with the United Nations; valuing community work; staying in touch with the people she helped to rescue during the war; and the difficulty therapists have with Holocaust survivors.

Oral history interview with Christine Hilsum

Oral History

Christine Hilsum, born in 1910 in Enschede, Netherlands, describes her family and childhood; being raised in the Protestant tradition; getting married to a Jewish man in 1933; hearing about increasing levels of antisemitism; working as an au pair in England and France for a Jewish family; having two children before the war; being scared for her family after the war began; her husband having to wear a star after the war began and soon going into hiding; working with the underground movement distributing ration cards and taking people into hiding; having nightmares about her experiences during the war; and being honored by Yad Vashem.

Oral history interview with Evelyn Hoogsteen

Oral History

Evelyn Hoogsteen, born in 1914 in Wommels, Netherlands, describes her family; taking in Jews to hide during the war; keeping a radio in the home to find out about the war; immigrating to Canada in 1950; and wishing that more people could be taught about the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Yvonne Jospa

Oral History

Yvonne Jospa, born on February 1910 in Bessarabia, Romania, describes growing up in Romania and then moving to Liège, Belgium to study; meeting her husband, who was also a Romanian Jew; joining the Communist Party with her husband before the war; working with refugees, especially those en route to fight in the Spanish Civil War; her husband’s efforts to set up a Jewish Defense Committee under the Front; becoming the head of the branch of the JDC that worked to rescue Jewish children; organizing the program that saved over 3,000 Jewish children by placing them with non-Jewish Belgian families; her husband being captured and sent to Birkenau, where he was in the clandestine political committee; the resistance efforts in Charleroi; continuing to work with refugees after the war; and still working to fight racism by speaking to young children in schools about its dangers.

Oral history interview with Antonin Kalina

Oral History

Antonin Kalina, born in Czechoslovakia on February 17, 1902, describes his family and childhood; joining the Communist party early in his life; serving as a secretary in Buchenwald; helping people in the camp get new identities or lying for them when they were about to be killed; helping the children in the camp by keeping them together and getting special materials for them; life in the camp for the prisoners; and trying to help the children left at the camp at the war.

Oral history interview with Jan Karski

Oral History

Jan Karski, born in 1914 in Lauch, Poland, describes the terrible situation of the Jews in Europe in the 1930s and his interest in the mechanisms of the Holocaust and how it happened; his parents and joining a semi-religious semi-secret organization the Sodlezia Marinaskia and following the teachings of the Jesuits; his education and his Jewish classmates; being a second lieutenant in the war; being taken as a prisoner of war by the Soviets and escaping their camp; joining the Polish underground movement and working as a courier; bringing the Jewish demands to the Allies and getting President Roosevelt to give the Polish underground twelve million dollars; being attached to the American embassy and writing to magazines about what was happening to the Jews in Europe; meeting his wife in the United States in 1949; Jewish children escaping from the Warsaw ghetto in 1942; the helplessness of the Jews in Poland; working at Georgetown University as a professor; being honored at Yad Vashem in 1982; and his childhood and family background.

Oral history interview with Yaraslaw Klymowsky

Oral History

Yaraslaw Klymowsky, born ca. 1907 in western Ukraine, describes his childhood and family; being raised in the Catholic tradition; playing with Jewish children as a child; leaving Ternopil in 1932 to get involved with theater; the arrival of the Germans in his town around 1942; being in Leview (possibly L'viv) during the war; he and his wife hiding a Jewish family (the Greenbergs) in his home; doing what he could to help anyone who needed aid during the war; his second wife’s rescue efforts during the war; and immigrating to the United States after the war.

Oral history interview with Stefan Korbonski and Sophia Korbonski

Oral History

Stefan and Sophia Korbonski describe helping Jews during the war by giving them Aryan documents; wandering all over Europe with his wife and being difficult to get in contact with; informing London about what was happening to European Jews through underground forces; Stefan’s family and childhood; getting married in 1938; Stefan’s participation in the underground movement; taking care of Jewish children during the war; his brief arrest after the war by Russian forces; his election as a member of Parliament in Warsaw on January 19, 1947; demanding amnesty for all of the members of the underground after the war; Sophia’s work for Voice of America and Stefan’s work for Radio Free Europe in Poland; and being honored by Yad Vashem in 1980.

Oral history interview with Henryka Kowalski and Julius Kowalski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Janina Kukulski

Oral History

Janina Kukulski, born in 1932 in Vilna, Poland (Vilnius, Lithuania), describes growing up in Vilnius where her father at one point hid 150 Jews in a building; only being seven years old in 1939 and not remembering too much about her father’s heroics; her father’s death in a concentration camp; only learning about her father’s story when she was an adult from a lady who had been saved by her father; how her brother managed to slip away from a Nazi aiming a pistol at his head; and immigrating to the United States in 1962.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Labruyere and Willem Labruyere

Oral History

Elizabeth Wilhelmina (born in 1909) and Willem Labruyere (born in 1910) describe their life growing up after 1910 in the Hague; helping two Jewish girls during the war; dealing with the first girl who came in 1942 and was very spoiled; asking this girl to leave because she was so careless and dangerous to the whole group; receiving Dora, a thirty-five year old woman from Vienna, in 1943; how Dora meant a great deal to them and eventually became part of the family; how they did not let their fears get in the way of saving a life; and how their belief in Christianity has served as more than just a way of thinking but also as a way of doing and being.

Oral history interview with Therese Lacroix and Marcelle Lacroix

Oral History

Therese (born on July 28, 1925) and her mother, Marcelle Lacroix (born in 1896 in Godogne, France), describe their childhoods; Therese being raised an Evangelical in Brussels, Belgium; Marcelle being raised Catholic; Therese’s house acting as a meeting point for Christian families wanting to help Jews; her participation in the resistance movement; taking in Jewish children during the war; staying in touch with the people they helped to save; and visiting Yad Vashem in 1968.

Oral history interview with Irene Landau

Oral History

Irene Landau (with the help of her children) describes her family and their decision to help hide Jews; growing up in Warsaw; meeting her future husband, who was married and had a family before the war; immigrating to Israel with her husband and his son in 1957; and her capture by the Germans during the war for attempting to smuggle food.

Oral history interview with Margot Lawson

Oral History

Margot Lawson describes antisemitism in Holland; being a Christian rescuer but having Jewish origins; pretending to be a Gentile during the war; being caught and sent to prison; worrying about her children’s fate; children being saved when resistance forces smuggled them across rooftops; her connections with the resistance; the birth of her children in 1933 and 1936 and how they staying in hiding in various places during the war; hiding a Jewish family; and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Gilbert Lesage

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gertrude Luckner

Oral History

Gertrude Luckner talks about her activities against the Nazis prior to the war; her connection to Leo Baeck before the war; going to Bern, Switzerland, where she wrote letters to British and American diplomats on behalf of Jews attempting to flee Europe; her arrest in March 1943 and going into the camp system; her liberation in May 1945 and going into the British zone of Berlin; traveling around Europe after the war with a Catholic relief organization; earning a degree from the University of Frankfurt; visiting Israel frequently after the war; and her general hatred of the Nazis.

Oral history interview with Orest Zahaikewicz and Helena Melnyczuk

Oral History

Orest Zahaikewicz (born in 1925) and Helena Melnyczuk Zahajkewicz (born in 1921) were born in Przemysl, Ukraine (now in Poland) and describe growing up in moderately religious families; Orest helping several young people to finish their education before the war; Ukraine going under Soviet control in 1941; Orest meeting several Jewish people at his father’s factory; creating a hiding place in a pantry to hide Jews; Orest’s arrest but later getting released with the help of his father; Helena and her family fleeing to Kraków, Poland; Orest returning to the Ukraine in 1950 and Helena returning in 1951; and their reflections on the Nazi atrocities.

Oral history interview with Sebastian Mendes

Oral History

Sebastian Mendes, born in San Francisco, CA in 1923, describes his Catholic family and childhood; his father’s work as the Consul-General for Portugal; moving to Bordeaux for his father’s work in 1938; being number 10 out of 14 children; staying with some of his siblings in Portugal after 1939 which his parents and older siblings went back to France; his father’s work issuing visas and false passports for and a half years before the war; his father losing his job in 1940 ; writing a book about his parents; having trees planted for his father in Israel; returning to the United States; and starting a family after the war.

Oral history interview with Eliahu Yakira and Irena Yakira

Oral History

Eliahu and Irena Yakira describe Irena’s work as a nurse in a hospital in Poland during the war; their decision to hide Jews; Eliahu’s work as the head of the hospital where Irena worked and the quota of Jewish doctors he was allowed to have in the hospital; hearing that all of the Jewish specialists were going to be killed; the murder of a Jewish family in hiding; meeting and getting married during the war and how Irena didn’t know Eliahu was Jewish at first; and emigrating from Poland at the end of 1945.

Oral history interview with Pieter Miedema and Joyce Miedema

Oral History

Pieter and Joyce Miedema were born in 1914 in the Netherlands; Pieter’s work as a teacher and adjusting to life in Canada; participation in the Dutch Reform Church and his decision to become a minister; how they grew up in the agrarian village Venwouden and met when they were 15 years old; beginning to realize the extent of Hitler’s plans in 1935; Joyce’s work in a hospital; helping about 50 Jewish adults and children as well as including resistance members and pilots; getting in touch with some of the people they helped to save; and immigrating to Canada after the war.

Oral history interview with Michael Mihaelov

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gustav Mikulai

Oral History

Oral history interview with Simone Monnier

Oral History

Simone Monnier, born in 1913 in Switzerland while her family was vacationing, describes her life in France, where she taught at a school (École de Beauvallon) for maladjusted children in central France; being a protestant; attending Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva, Switzerland; visiting schools in Europe for work and reading in English newspapers about the Nazi’s persecution of Jews in Germany; visiting the foreign Jewish children in Marseille and taking several children back with her; the evacuation of the school as the Germans approached and dispersing the children; the emotional aspects of her efforts and living through the war; taking in Jewish children and disguising them as Gentile students after France fell to the Germans in 1940; hiding the Jewish children in caves in the mountains at night; the roundup of Jews in the town; the town coming together to create fake papers for the children; being honored at Yad Vashem by these students years later; her life after the war and leaving the school in 1971; and still claiming that she is not a courageous person but one who only did what she had to do.

Oral history interview with Ivan Vranetic, Erna Vranetic, and Ella Schnitzer

Oral History

Ivan Vranetic, born in 1927 in Yugoslavia, describes his family and childhood; his traditional Catholic family; the occupation of his village by German troops; helping Jews during the war; and the liberation of the village by the partisans. Erna Vranetic describes growing up in Sarajavo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina); the German treatment of the Jews; the Rab concentration camp; her mother and sister having false documents to go to Italy but not being able to go with them; getting accused of being Jewish because of her physical features; disguising herself as a Turkish woman and escaping to Ivan’s town during the war; giving birth to her daughter Ella; and immigrating to Israel in 1948. Ella Schnitzer describes her childhood and wanting her parents to move closer to her.

Oral history interview with Marguerite Mulder

Oral History

Marguerite Mulder, born in 1921 in Groningen, Netherlands, describes growing up in a Christian family; her interactions with the Jewish people in her town; taking a six-year-old into hiding in 1942; seeing German soldiers beat Jews in her town; her parents never refusing to hide a Jew; the murder of her mentally disabled brother in October 1944; the arrest of her parents and sisters in 1945; the deaths of her father and brother in 1945; working as a courier in the resistance movement; immigrating to the United States in 1961; her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis in 1964; her reflections on antisemitism that still exists today; and her family receiving medals from Yad Vashem for their efforts during the war to rescue Jews.

Oral history interview with Irena Noskovicz and Shimon Noskovicz

Oral History

Irena (born in L'viv, Ukraine) and Shimon Noskovicz describe the Germans closing down schools in Warsaw, Poland; Irena having to finish her high school studies secretly even though she was Catholic; Shimon having to go into a ghetto; Irena’s father helping to smuggle supplies into the ghetto; Irena’s participation in the underground movement; the separation of Irena’s parents during the war; Irena’s father hiding seven Jews during the war; remaining in Warsaw until the uprising; meeting in Warsaw in 1956; Shimon’s draft into the Polish army after the war; immigrating to Israel; and raising their son as Jewish.

Oral history interview with Josefa Olshavang

Oral History

Josefa Olshavang, born on July 17, 1914 in Memel (Klaipėda), Lithuania, describes her family; attending school with Jewish students; not realizing that antisemitism existed around her; being raised in the Roman Catholic tradition; the death of her brother from tuberculosis in 1932; getting married to a Jewish man in 1938; the Russian invasion of Lithuania in 1940; the murder of her mother in a mass shooting; attaining a passport under her maiden name, so people would not recognize that she was married to a Jewish man; her husband being sent to fight in Russia in 1941; taking a Jewish girl into hiding; and her anger over the Catholic Church not helping the Jews more.

Oral history interview with Irene Opdyke

Oral History

Irene Opdyke and her daughter Jeanie (born September 25, 1957 in Phoenix, AZ) describe Irene’s rescue efforts during the war and how Jeanie learned of her mother’s efforts; Irene being raised Catholic; getting angry when people deny the Holocaust; her memories of antisemitism in Poland; meeting people who hated Poles; bringing food and clothes to Jews hiding in a nearby forest during the war; returning to Poland long after the war and visiting Auschwitz; and speaking to groups and organizations about her experiences during the war.

Oral history interview with Helena Orchon

Oral History

Helena Orchon, born in Kraków, Poland in 1903, describes her family; her father being the director of the Warsaw Drama School; being an actress; getting married in 1935; her father’s altruistic nature; going to Vilna, Poland (Vilnius, Lithuania) with her father to help inmates in a prison stage a play; the outlawing of the Polish language; the Nazis arriving in Warsaw; her family’s decision to hide Jews during the war; being a member of the Polish Socialist Party; looking for people to forge documents and to give them ration cards for the Jews they hid; her participation with the Polish underground; being sent to a prison camp with her husband after the 1944 Warsaw uprising; her liberation by a Polish unit and trying to find out about her relatives; her father dying in 1955 in Warsaw; immigrating to England and then to the United States after the war; working for the Voice of America; and her reflections on the current situation in Poland.

Oral history interview with Jacob Oversloot and Martha Oversloot

Oral History

Jacob Oversloot (born May 30, 1906) describe his family; living in Rotterdam, Netherlands; his parents transporting soldiers in their boat during World War I; his father’s death in 1916; working for his uncle when he was a teenager; finding a job farming beets for sugar; working in a department store in Amsterdam, Netherlands; being sent to work in Demmerik, Netherlands, where he began a family; the beginning of the war; taking in Jews to hide during the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1951; and his life in California. Martha Oversloot describes her immigration to the United States in 1939 with her husband, who was Jewish; not raising her two children Jewish; living in Holland before emigrating; and her life now with Jacob.

Oral history interview with Paul Pensis

Oral History

Oral history interview with Aliva Presman

Oral History

Aliva Presman was born in December 1941 while her parents were hiding in the small town of Koperchinze (possibly Kopychyntsi). She describes her family, including her Jewish mother and Polish father; living in the top room of a nice house with 17 other people; Germans living in the bottom portion of the house during the war; living in Poland until immigrating to Israel in 1957; being fearful of Russians and Poles after the war; her Jewish mother having to bribe an official to get passports; adjusting to life in Israel and forcing herself to go to a kibbutz; joining the Israeli army when she was 18; finding out about her parents were hiding Jews during the war; connecting with other people who now live in Israel and who helped to rescue Jews during the war; her parents’ disgust with religion; and immigrating to England with her sister and son.

Oral history interview with Marion Pritchard and Tony Pritchard

Oral History

Marion and Tony Pritchard describe their experiences at the beginning of the war; how they met while working in the displaced persons camps after the war; Marion working in England and Switzerland as a social worker in 1939 then working in Nijmegen, Netherlands, helping young children learn practical skills; her experience on May 10, 1940 when the Germans invaded Nijmegen; riding her bike to Amsterdam to check on her family and returning to Nijmegen; the gradual changes under the German occupation and the immediate influx of Nazi propaganda; the activities of Dutch collaborationists; Marion’s decision to start hiding Jews; Tony’s participation in the army, fighting from the coast of France to Thuringia, Germany; his division going into Buchenwald; being wounded and sent to London, where he applied to work in the displaced persons camps; going to the United States and talking about what they witnessed and experienced during the war; their lives after the war; and Marion working for a Jewish relief agency in Boston, MA.

Oral history interview with Semmy Riekerk

Oral History

Semmy Riekerk, born on February 26, 1916 in the Netherlands, describes her family; attending a Lutheran school; starting a taxi business with her boyfriend; getting married in June 1938; attending school on the Jewish side of town; joining the underground movement with her husband; hiding Jews in her home; keeping a book that listed the names of everyone she helped to hide; the arrest of her husband during the war and finding out that he had died in Bergen-Belsen; getting married again after the war; receiving a medal from Yad Vashem in 1982; and her current work speaking out against antisemitism.

Oral history interview with Shoshana Roscynski and Stefan Roscynski

Oral History

Shoshana and Stefan Roscynski (born in 1921) describe the mentality of the people who rescued Jews during the war; being taught to help others as children; Shoshana escaping the Vilmar ghetto after her parents were killed and going to a nearby village; meeting one another in 1942; the murder of Jews from a small town nearby called Nemenchini (possibly Nemencine, Lithuania) in 1941; building bunkers to hide Jews during the war; having their first child in 1948 and another in 1950; escaping from Russia and going to Israel; and getting little recognition as Christian rescuers until recently.

Oral history interview with Alexander Roslan and Amelia Roslan

Oral History

Alexander Roslan (born on November 7, 1909) and Amelia Roslan (born on January 6, 1907) describe growing up in a small village near Bialystok, Poland; Amelia’s parents who spoke Hebrew; the farm that Alexander’s family ran until the war started; getting married in 1928 and having their first child in 1931; hiding a boy named Jacob in their house; Alexander’s arrest for helping Jews and his escape from the prison; and their experiences at the end of the war.

Oral history interview with Alice Schiffer

Oral History

Alice Schiffer, born on March 3, 1908 in Ghent, Belgium, describes her family; being raised as a Catholic; taking two Jewish girls into hiding and sending them to Catholic school; buying an apartment in Brussels and smuggling in food for Jews; meeting a political prisoner, Mademoiselle Adrach, who worked with the underground; being sent to jail for two days under suspicion of hiding Jews but soon getting released; deciding to hide more Jews in a barn; getting married to a Jewish man named Peter in 1948; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Jan Sevinga-Brouwer and Janse Sevinga-Brouwer

Oral History

Jan and Janse Sevinga-Brouwer discuss their families which were originally from Friesland in the Netherlands; life in the 1930s and the rise of Hitler in Germany; being involved in the resistance during the war; Janse's father who was exceptionally active in finding hiding places for Jews; hiding two Jewish girls for two years; Janse's arrest along with her father in connection with possession of illegal rationing coupons and being held in a Dutch prison for seven months; Jan’s opinion that the churches did not much to help rescue Jews; Jan’s draft into the army and his service in the Netherland Indies (Netherlands Antilles) until 1948; their marriage in 1949; their four children; and their thoughts on whether the Holocaust could happen again.

Oral history interview with Pelagia Springer

Oral History

Pelagia Springer (born in a small village in Congress Poland) describes growing up in Vilnius, Lithuania; witnessing acts of antisemitism against the local Jewish population; running a factory with a German and hiring Jews to keep them from being deported; taking a 28-month-old child out of the ghetto to hide; and immigrating to Israel after the war.

Oral history interview with Louisa Steenstra

Oral History

Oral history interview with Berta Stenkes and John Stenkes

Oral History

Berta (born in 1920 in Veenwouden, Netherlands) and John Stenkes (born in 1918 in North Bergen, Netherlands) describe their families and growing up in the Netherlands; hiding people during the war; being raised as Baptists; getting married in 1940; the German invasion of Holland in 1940; Germans deporting Romanies at first; listening to the English radio station; hiding Jews in their home but having them live openly as Baptists; befriending a German soldier and how the soldiers were afraid of the SS too; surviving by buying goods and supplies off of the black market; being forced to hide five German soldiers in their home; and immigrating to Canada after the war.

Oral history interview with Wijbren Streekstra and Meike Streekstra

Oral History

Wijbren (born in Denhardt, Netherlands, in 1908) and Meike Streekstra (born in Bersens, Netherlands, in 1910) describe their families and growing up in religious homes; getting married in 1933 and having their first child in 1934; Wijbren’s participation in the army in 1929; deciding to hide Jews in their home located on a farm; having to send away some people because they were already hiding too many people; and reconnecting with some of the people who they had hidden.

Oral history interview with Tina Strobos

Oral History

Tina Strobos, born on May 19, 1920 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her childhood in Amsterdam; being raised as an atheist and a Social Democrat; the German invasion in May 1940 and being asked to take in Jews to hide; studying psychiatry at the beginning of the war and having to continue her studies in secret in 1942 when she refused to sign a loyalty oath to the Germans; participating in the resistance; joining a sorority to help hide Jews and to get them money and forged passports; the treatment of Jews during the war; building a hiding place for Jews in her home; the terrible conditions experienced by the citizens of Amsterdam; her house being raided eight times by the Gestapo; the arrest of some of her friends for hiding Jews; learning about the death camps after the war; getting married after the war; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Ala Sztajnert

Oral History

Ala Sztajnert, born in 1915 in Jabna in Eastern Galicia (now in Ukraine), describes her family and childhood; her antisemitic father and not getting along with him; being told by her father to not shop at Jewish-owned business but going anyway; receiving nurses training at a Jewish-owned private clinic in Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine); the Russian invasion of her town in 1940; working in a bakery and sending packages to a Jewish family in the Warsaw Ghetto; working at a restaurant and sneaking food out for some Jews; converting to Judaism after the war; assisting a Jewish family hide and get food; the lack of awareness about what was happening to the Jews; registering in the Jewish community in Łódź, Poland after the war and a pogrom in Łódź, during which she received a death threat; and spending two years in Italy and Cyprus before arriving in Israel in 1948.

Oral history interview with Marie Tacquet

Oral History

Marie Tacquet, born in December 1898 in Luxembourg, describes her family and childhood; being raised as a Catholic; her memories of World War I and studying at a Catholic school in Luxembourg; getting married when she was 20 years old; her husband being an officer in the Belgian army; moving to Düsseldorf, Germany in the 1920s; renting a castle from nuns in 1942 and taking in Jews to hide; being in charge of providing food and clothes to the children hiding in the castle; having a school in the castle; the liberation by American troops; and reuniting every year with the children she hid.

Oral history interview with Wilhelm Tarnawski and Mary Tarnawski

Oral History

Wilhelm (born in 1911) and Mary Tarnawski (born in 1921) describe their families; growing up in the same village in Galicia, Poland; Wilhelm being raised as a Catholic and Mary being raised as Jewish; getting married in 1939 even though marriages between Jews and Catholics were forbidden; hiding 18 Jews during the war, including six children; and immigrating to Israel in 1957.

Oral history interview with Wladyslaw Wyrwa

Oral History

Oral history interview with Klaas van Houten

Oral History

Klaas van Houten, born in 1904 in Groningen, Netherlands, describes her family; being raised as a Christian; attending university in Amsterdam and then opening a publishing business with a friend in 1929; driving in Berlin, Germany, in 1937 and witnessing the persecution of Jews; her memories of Kristallnacht; joining the resistance in 1940 and having Germans come after her; making false identity cards in her publishing house; beginning to take Jews into hiding in 1941; and staying in touch with some of the people she helped to rescue.

Oral history interview with Arie van Mansum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nienke Veenstra

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arie Verduijn

Oral History

Arie Verduijn, born in Oudshoorn (Alphen aan den Rijn), Netherlands, in 1911, describes his family and childhood; the local Jewish community; attending Church growing up; becoming an electrical engineer; getting married to a teacher in 1936; taking in a Jewish family during the war; falsifying papers for the family; convincing his minister to help hide people; immigrating to Canada in 1952; and his reflections on how the war affected his life.

Oral history interview with Gerrit von Lochen

Oral History

Gerrit von Lochen, born in Winterswijk, Holland, in 1916, describes his family; being raised as a Protestant; beginning army training in 1936; being in the Red Cross when Germany invaded the Netherlands and wanting to be in the infantry; his hiding Jews beginning in July 1942; his connections with the underground movement; being forced to house German troops in the last two weeks before liberation; and immigrating to Canada in 1947.

Oral history interview with Aart Vos and Johanna Vos

Oral History

Aart Vos, Johanna Vos, and Hettie Vos (born in 1936) describe their lives during WWII; Aart and Johanna working in the underground movement in the Netherlands; deciding to take in Jews to hide during the war; their families judging them because of the risk they took hiding Jews; Hettie’s experiences as a child during the war; struggling to find food during the war; immigrating to the United States in 1951; starting a summer camp for children; Hettie’s experiences attending school in the US; participating in their church; and being recognized by Yad Vashem for their war efforts.

Oral history interview with Aart Vos and Johtse Vos

Oral History

Oral history interview with John H. Weidner

Oral History

John H. Weidner describes his upbringing in the Netherlands; deciding to hide Jews; his participation in the underground movement; helping refugees who came into France from Germany when he lived in Lyon; helping Jews escape to Switzerland, France, and Spain; the anxieties over persecution that still remain with him; being arrested and traveling later with false papers; the physical effects of war; the arrest and murder of his sister in a camp because she had hidden Jews; helping Allied airmen who landed in Holland; and immigrating to the United States and settling in Los Angeles, CA.

Oral history interview with Zofia Avni, Irena Dem, and Barbara Rimone

Oral History