Oral history interview with William Schiff

Oral History | Accession Number: 1991.A.0112.31 | RG Number: RG-50.045.0031

Some video files begin with 10-60 seconds of color bars.

Interviewee: William Schiff
Interviewer: James Pennebaker
Alan Griffin
Date: interview: 1991 October 22
Language: English
Extent: 2 videocassettes (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

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Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
Topical Term: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Europe--Personal narratives.
Confiscations.
Forced labor.
Jewish ghettos--Poland--Kraków.
Medical ethics--Moral and ethical aspects.
Escapes.
World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation.
Displaced persons.
Emigration and immigration--United States.
Geographic Name: Kraków (Poland)
Poland (Territory under German occupation, 1939-1945)
Poland--History--Soviet occupation, 1939-1941.
Personal Name: Schiff, William.
Corporate Name: Płaszów (Concentration camp)
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Holder of Originals: Dallas Holocaust Museum, Center for Education and Tolerance
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: James Pennebaker and Alan Griffin of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies conducted the interview with William Schiff on October 22, 1991. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History branch received the tapes of the interview from the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies on July 10, 1992. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the interview by transfer from the Oral History branch in February 1995.
Conditions on Access: No restrictions on access
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use
: Record last modified: 2022-07-28 20:09:41
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn506622

Also in Oral history interviews of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies

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Max Biderman, born February 11, 1917 in Luków, Poland, describes his family; growing up in Poland; the beginning of the war; his family hiding during the roundups; the execution of Jews by the German Army; being caught with two of his brothers and forced to walk to Siedlce, Poland, where they were put in jail; being marched to a town 20 kilometers away and escaping with one of his brothers; returning home and hearing of the deportations to Treblinka; the creation of a ghetto in 1942 during the New Year; hiding during a deportation and the death of one of his brothers; living in the ghetto; working in a German factory; avoiding another deportation by hiding in the woods; contracting typhoid; witnessing the shooting of one of his brothers; being hidden by a Polish couple; hiding with several other Jewish boys; being hidden by a Polish farmer named Bronkevitch; defending themselves against a group of 40 armed men (possibly the Armia Krajowa); hiding in the forest; his group taking revenge on a farmer who denounced hidden Jews; reading newspapers; the arrival of the Russian Army; returning to Luków; finding the Prengler family (he later married Helen Prengler, RG-50.045*0001); going to Brest-Litovsk (Brześć Litewski), Poland after the war; going to Katowice, Poland then Munich, Germany; immigrating to the United States in September 1949; his children and grandchildren; not sharing his story with his children until recently; visiting Poland in 1984 and showing his children where he hid; the importance and danger of having a gun during the occupation; and testifying against a war criminal.

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Helen Neuberg (née Chaja Miemacher), born December 12, 1926 in Ostrowice, Poland (possibly Ostrowiec in powiat sokołowski), describes her Orthodox family; growing up Jewish and her interactions with Gentiles; the German invasion; the restrictions placed on Jews; people being killed for breaking the curfew; her experiences in the ghetto; hiding during the deportation of her family, all of whom perished in Treblinka; witnessing acts of brutality and cruelty; obtaining false papers; moving to Warsaw, Poland; finding work as a waitress in Stuttgart, Germany, where she lived in fear of discovery; being aided by a Jewish American solider after the war, who assisted her in finding relatives in North America; meeting her husband, who was a survivor of concentration camps, in a displaced persons camp; and immigrating to the United States with her child and husband.