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Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0089.18 | RG Number: RG-50.155.0018

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    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen
    Transcript
    --from 1931-- not exactly sure of the exact date--
    and just briefly, where were you during the war.
    Well, the first was the ghetto, which was in Kraków.
    And then I was shipped to Plaszow, which
    was not too far from Kraków.
    And then Julag, which was another camp nearby,
    near Plaszow.
    Then I was sent to Mauthausen.
    From Mauthausen, I was sent to Auschwitz.
    From Auschwitz, which was Birkenau,
    I was sent to Landsberg.
    And that's where I was liberated by the American army.
    This was in 1945, in May.
    1945.
    Now can you tell me a little bit about your family life
    before the war?
    How many people were in your immediate family
    and then maybe in the extended family, and what you remember
    as a child from Kraków.
    Mm-hmm.
    Well, my immediate family was six people--
    my two brothers--
    Nathan, Sam, and my sister Miriam,
    and my mother and father.
    There were six of us.
    My extended family, at the last count--
    my brothers and I were recounting, recalling names,
    and we were just under 50 people in the family,
    including cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents.
    So my brothers and I are the only survivors.
    Were you a religious family?
    I believe we were religious in we were--
    I would not call us very observant.
    Yes, my father went to the synagogue.
    I went with him to the synagogue.
    But in terms of--
    I think we were a religious family.
    You kept a kosher home.
    Kosher home, definitely, kosher home.
    Synagogue was just down the block.
    And I went to cheder for Yiddish lessons.
    We were a religious family.
    We are poor, too.
    Did you go to school with Polish children and non-Jewish children
    as well as Jews?
    Yes, I went to a Polish school.
    And basically that was for reading, writing, arithmetic.
    And it was only, as I recall, it was about two years of schooling
    before the war started.
    And that was about it as far as my Polish education.
    Can you just tell me a little bit--
    do you remember anything about your family as a family unit?
    Were you a close family?
    Did you spend a lot of time together?
    What kind of person was your mother and what kind of person
    was your father?
    Do you remember anything about them?
    Sure.
    My father was a shoemaker by trade.
    He did not do that till the war started.
    Prior to the war, he was a salesman, a traveling salesman.
    He was selling billiard tables and supplies,
    and basically he was a--
    whatever he could carry with him in his travels to sell to--
    there was different people.
    And that's-- he was like a peddler.
    Every Friday, I remember, he used to come home,
    and we used to wait for him to begin the Sabbath.
    As a matter of fact, if he did not get back on Friday night
    in time, then we didn't have enough money
    to get all the foods for Sabbath.
    Fortunately, for us, grandmother lived in the same apartment
    house.
    So we never had a lack.
    We never went hungry.
    We were a very close-knit family.
    We were poor.
    There were six of us in one room.
    And I clearly remember that--
    feeling love, feeling love from my parents.
    I think that is one of the reasons
    that I was able to survive the camps,
    that I was able to put myself in the place of remembering
    my family, and the happy times, and being loved.
    That was one of the very important survival
    factors for me.
    When the Germans came in to Kraków,
    do you remember where you were, or do you
    remember first seeing them?
    Yes, I remember that.
    Before that happened, what I remember was that my father,
    we've been hearing all kinds of news,
    what they do to Jewish people.
    So my father tried to run away to Russia.
    So he left.
    He left, and within two or three days he returned.
    The borders, apparently, were closed,
    and he could not get to Russia.
    So we were reunited again.
    I also remember my Uncle Ignatz.
    He was in the Polish army, and he was issued his boots,
    I remember.
    He got two left feet, literally two left shoes.
    Those are some of the beginnings I
    remember before the Germans marched
    into Kraków, into Podgórze.
    On the day they started marching in, there was a curfew imposed.
    And I, as a nine-year-old, was very active
    and liked to do things.
    I snuck out from the apartment house, and I ran to the corner
    to look at the German troops marching.
    They were marching for a whole day just down the main street,
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    So when I ran to the corner, a German soldier fired at me.
    Fortunately, he missed me.
    So when I went back on the visit to Poland, which was this--
    in June of '81, I was looking for that place
    in the wall that had a-- where the bullet struck.
    That wall does not exist any longer.
    But I remember that quite vividly.
    Were you frightened-- not by the shooting at you,
    but by the presence of the Germans?
    It was a mixture of fright and excitement.
    I, literally, I did not understand what was happening.
    It was excitement.
    It was fear, too.
    I did not understand what was happening.
    Were there changes at home?
    Were they afraid at home?
    There were no changes for the next few months that I remember.
    My brothers were still with us.
    There were shortages of food.
    Nobody was starving as yet.
    There was hunger.
    Malnutrition was already happening.
    But that's about where I recall within those few months
    after they marched into Kraków.
    When did it start to get serious?
    Starvation and disease, and the repressive regulations and laws?
    When did that begin, and how do you remember it, first of all?
    Well, my recollection of it is not
    that good about those details.
    Like, my parents were taking care of me,
    and they were taking care of all those details.
    I was just a child that was there.
    I remember being issued a bread ration, and other--
    for their staples.
    And my mother, one particular time she went to a bakery
    to get some bread.
    And she was severely bitten by a dog, by German Shepherd dog.
    It is interesting that--
    it was just a few years ago, a couple of years
    ago, as a matter of fact, that my brother mentioned that.
    And I actually literally forgot that incident.
    But I recall that that's what happened.
    And yet I blocked it out for all these years.
    I thought it was something that my brother remembered,
    but I clearly was there.
    Did the family stay intact for the whole time in the ghetto?
    No.
    No.
    My brother Sam and Nathan were sent to this salt mine,
    which was called Wieliczka.
    And we did not hear from them for quite a while.
    The ghetto became smaller as the transports--
    people were being sent for resettlement
    is what was said, that it's being sent east.
    And it became smaller, the ghetto.
    So we had to move from our apartment to a different house.
    And-- I'm not quite sure if I answered your question.
    Well, your brothers were sent first?
    Yeah, they were sent first.
    Yes.
    And then my father and I were working in a shoe factory
    while we're still in the ghetto.
    And that's when my father started using his trade to,
    as a shoemaker.
    And we started--
    I started learning to repair shoes.
    So that's another way that helped us in--
    how to survive.
    We were able to get some extra money.
    I was smuggling food into the ghetto a lot.
    It was on one of those trips, when I was out of the ghetto,
    that my mother and my sister, Miriam,
    disappeared on one of the transports.
    So I was gone one morning.
    By the time I came back, at night, they were gone.
    They disappeared.
    How did you find out?
    My father told me about that.
    We did not know what happened to them.
    Our information was that they were sent
    to the east for resettlement.
    We personally did not receive any letters from our family,
    but there were neighbors that received letters,
    that essentially the letter said, we're OK.
    Things are very hard, but we're OK.
    And we're working hard.
    That was the essence of the letters.
    What we found out later--
    and that is towards when we were already in--
    well, after liberation is when I found--
    I found this out, that those letters were--
    they were made to write those letters,
    and they were dead by the time people received the letters.
    They came from Auschwitz?
    I don't know where those letters were addressed from.
    I'm not clear where they were addressed from.
    How did orders for the transports
    get passed on to Jews in the ghetto?
    Did your brothers receive orders one day from Germans,
    or was it from some other group?
    Were they just picked off the street?
    Do you know how that took place?
    Well, there were both methods.
    They were picked off the street.
    I'm not sure whether Sam and Nat were just picked off the street.
    There were also orders from the Jewish police--
    they were from the Judenrat--
    to report to the Umschlagplatz for transportation someplace.
    And I'm not sure as far as how it happened for them.
    All I know is that they disappeared one day.
    Do you remember anything about the Jewish police?
    I remember about-- a friend of my brother's
    was a policeman in Kraków.
    And he did not last very long.
    I don't know what happened to him.
    But quite a few of them were brutal, too.
    And they figured that that's the way for them to survive.
    And that's what they did.
    The family then was dismantled.
    And you and your father were left still in Kraków.
    Yeah.
    And were you still in Podgórze?
    Podgórze, yeah.
    That's the district you lived in?
    Yeah.
    When did you and your father get sent?
    When?
    Do you know approximately the date?
    Well, now I'm not certain of the date.
    I think I have some documentation that
    tells me the approximate dates.
    Dates are pretty fuzzy for me.
    I remember events more than I remember dates.
    I believe it was '42, something like that.
    It was already '42.
    The ghetto became smaller, and they
    were closing down the ghetto and shipping everyone to Plaszow.
    I was picked up and separated from my father.
    My father was sent to Plaszow.
    I went to Plaszow, too, but not together with my father.
    And then I was reunited with my father in Plaszow
    and worked in a shoe factory, which was just below the hill
    where there were mass executions.
    And one day they rounded up a whole bunch
    of boys, young people, and they put us on a horse-drawn wagon.
    And from what I heard, they were taking us back to the ghetto.
    That's what I heard.
    When I was in Poland just recently, what I found out
    was that the--
    we were heading towards a Jewish cemetery
    where they were executing all the kids.
    We were not heading for the ghetto, in fact.
    This is my information now.
    Anyways, on the way back to wherever that was we were going,
    I jumped into a ditch.
    And I was able to get in touch with an uncle of mine,
    Uncle Mayer.
    I knew he was working in a construction site.
    So I hid on a construction site and got in touch with him.
    He did not know what to do with me.
    I knew of a Polish family that some friends of my brother's,
    my brother Sam.
    So I got in touch with them.
    And they-- I stayed with them just one night.
    And they could not keep me any longer.
    They said that their life is in danger.
    Of course, they would have been shot if they would have--
    if I would have been found there.
    So they hid me for one night, and they gave me some food,
    and I had to just leave.
    I had no idea where to go.
    So I got in touch with my Uncle Mayer
    again at the same construction site,
    and he said to remain there and he'll see what to do.
    So he decided that the thing for me to do
    was to go into this camp that he was in, which was called Julag,
    which was near Plaszow.
    It was like across the road from where Plaszow was.
    So that's what I did.
    There was, while-- going into the camp was not hard.
    I walked in between the lines of the men and got in.
    However, I did not have a--
    I could not be registered as yet for--
    to draw rations for me.
    So I was hidden in the barracks, in the barracks' rafters.
    And someone was-- died, or I don't
    know what happened to them.
    And I was, like, put on the rolls as being registered.
    It was also, in Julag, that I contracted typhoid fever.
    My uncle was taking care of me.
    I don't know how I got by.
    The whole thing seems like a miracle
    when I look at it right now.
    Well, before I contracted typhoid,
    when I was hidden in the rafters, everyone left for work.
    The whole barracks was quiet.
    I had to remain curled up, real curled up, and totally silent.
    There was a window below me.
    And there were--
    I was going to say hundreds of executions under that window.
    But there were not hundreds.
    There were dozens and dozens of executions
    that I saw from the window.
    And they were the Ukrainians.
    They were wearing black uniforms.
    They were not Germans.
    The executors.
    The executioners.
    So that's where I was hidden for--
    it was a couple of weeks.
    I did not want to remember that.
    That's what was happening for me for a long time.
    It's not till the past few years that I
    started looking at that within me and recalling that.
    It was too painful to look at.
    It still is.
    But I see that as the healing process
    is to look at and remember, and not to deny it--
    not to myself certainly.
    Had you ever seen anyone shot before?
    Prior to that?
    Yes, I did.
    In the ghetto, in the round up in the ghettos.
    There were people-- each time there was a round up,
    there were corpses lying all over the streets.
    There were half a dozen, a dozen corpses just
    lying around for days--
    at least a couple of days.
    I saw one old man that was shot on the same street I
    was living in.
    There was a kind of a brush factory.
    I looked at the house when I went back to Poland.
    Just remember the whole scene.
    It was painful to look at it again.
    But I saw that as a healing process,
    to confront it and go back.
    What happened to the victims of the executions?
    Do you remember seeing what the next step was, at Julag?
    At the Julag--
    At the camp.
    They were buried right behind the barracks.
    They were buried there.
    Were there any mass burnings of corpses or anything
    like that that you remember?
    Not at Julag.
    I remember that clearly in Plaszow when I was working.
    Julag was being closed up, so all of us
    were transferred back to Plaszow.
    So once again, I was reunited with my father.
    And it was then that I saw, on the top of the hill, the--
    where they executed lots of people.
    It was a circular ditch.
    I believe it was a fortification from World War
    I. It was just huge, the size of a football
    field in circumference.
    And it was a steep ditch running--
    just a very steep ditch.
    Must have been about 20 feet across.
    It was down in the pits that they were executing people
    and then burning them.
    It was after they got through with their executions
    and burned them that I wandered over there,
    because it was open, like.
    I was still curious.
    But when I saw the bodies burning,
    it was then that I really picked up a lot of fear
    and started like having blinders on me, not wanting to see,
    not believing what was happening.
    And I started not seeing what was happening around me.
    I started-- just be fearful.
    How old were you then?
    [SIGHS] I was about 13 then.
    Now you were in-- reunited with your father in Plaszow.
    Did you talk to him about seeing the bodies in the ditches?
    Did you ever confront him or ask him
    if he had seen the same things?
    I don't believe that we ever discussed that.
    It was just kind of a thing that we don't talk about.
    When you see it, there's no point
    in discussing it, no point in getting into it.
    It was just kind of a shutting out, shutting down
    our minds about that, just kind of being with each other.
    I remember him being protective of me in terms of holding me.
    And we were sleeping together again.
    And just being with each other.
    I also remember in the shoe factory,
    where we're building shoes for the German army.
    And many of the shoes had a defect in them.
    The defect was not visible.
    When you looked at the shoe, by the boot,
    it was perfectly good-looking boot.
    But after some short time of usage, the heel came off.
    And there was a cut inside of--
    from just below-- starting from here, under the heel,
    not going to the other side.
    Just partly.
    So after some usage, then the heel just came off.
    So that was part of the resistance
    that we saw that we could do.
    Sabotaging the army.
    Sabotage, right.
    It was about the only thing that could--
    we could do.
    I didn't recall that till last year.
    Do you remember approximately how long you were in Plaszow?
    Well, it was approximately six to nine months.
    Again, other people recall the dates.
    I don't.
    But where did you go from there, or how
    did you get to where you went?
    From Plaszow we were shipped to Mauthausen.
    Mauthausen was in Austria.
    So we were put aboard cattle cars.
    And it was about four days.
    Took us about four days to get there.
    Many people died on the way.
    How many do you think were in that car?
    All I remember is that there was no room to move.
    We were lying on each other.
    There was no food given.
    There was one stop that was--
    in which I was allowed to go out and get bucket of water.
    It was summertime.
    I remember that.
    That was before going--
    on the way to Mauthausen.
    We were in Mauthausen about two weeks.
    We heard from people we met there
    that they saw my brothers, that they were in Mauthausen, too,
    and that they were sent some other place,
    the place called Gusen.
    It was a stone quarry.
    From Mauthausen, we were sent to Auschwitz.
    In a cattle car again?
    Yeah.
    It was a cattle car.
    Cattle cars were kind of open.
    And this was a wagon.
    It was pretty well sealed up.
    You couldn't see where you were going.
    There were maybe little peep holes someplace,
    they could see something.
    But [SIGHS] again, we were--
    I don't remember the exact--
    how many days it took us to--
    or where we were going, to get to Auschwitz to Birkenau.
    But when the cars were opened, we
    were confronted with some prisoners that were
    wearing the striped uniforms.
    And they chased us out from the cars.
    And we were made to line up.
    This is at Auschwitz.
    This is at Birkenau.
    What kinds of sights, sounds, smells, memories
    do you have of that initial moment?
    [SIGHS] Well, I remembered the wires,
    and the guard towers on both sides of the railroad tracks.
    And that we were forced to line up.
    And that the line was moving, like, towards the right.
    Were you with your father?
    I was still with my father.
    And I was--
    [SIGHS] I was hanging on to my father.
    I didn't know what was happening.
    I think my father had a larger sense of what was happening.
    I was holding his hand.
    I know that some prisoners came and told me to lie about my age,
    to tell, to say what my age was--
    not what my true age was, to hold myself up, and run, and--
    So the line was getting narrower,
    and pretty soon I was in a line.
    I was behind my father.
    And I was in front of this German who was dressed up
    and polished up.
    And he was just waving his fingers, the one--
    his thumb, one way or the other.
    I don't know what happened in that moment,
    but I know that when I looked back, I saw my father.
    Already he went-- he was to the left, and I went to the right,
    and kind of--
    we kind of looked at each other.
    Kind of not looking up, but just kind of seeing each other.
    That that was the end for us, and we
    wouldn't see each other again.
    So it was kind of knowing that that was the end.
    I didn't know whether it was for me or for my father,
    but we just knew, just knew that.
    Then I was marched off.
    And [SIGHS] I was put into some barracks with some other men.
    I was with men all the time.
    I could see some women across from the railroad tracks.
    And the barracks I was in, I was picked by the Block--
    Blockalteste, the Kapo of the block, to sleep with him.
    I didn't know that that's what I was picked for.
    So-- [SIGHS]
    Was he German?
    I believe he was.
    He had a green triangle.
    I believe it was a green triangle.
    So I stayed with him for a couple of nights.
    I could not perform for him.
    So he just turned me out.
    And I was put the--
    I was with the rest of the prisoners in the bunks,
    the three tiers of bunks.
    I don't know what it was, but I remember
    that I was being helped by some of the other men that
    were there.
    I must have represented a son or someone else in the family.
    And I'm clear that they helped me
    because that was that kind of feeling that they must have had.
    Because I felt that I was protected in some way.
    I was given some extra piece of clothing or some food.
    And the Kapo, too.
    He kind of treated me.
    There was a selection, I remember, in the barracks
    itself.
    And he told me what to do, to just run across,
    and to hold myself up tall, like.
    This was after he had turned you out.
    After he turned-- yes, yes.
    So he helped also.
    He helped.
    And I don't know why.
    So I was helped by some people.
    I guess there must have been some hope of me surviving,
    perhaps if they couldn't.
    Because I remember being given pieces of food or clothing.
    And that's the-- and that, in fact,
    is what contributed to my survival.
    There was another thing that was very important that was--
    and I got to realize that quite recently, is
    that I put myself in other places
    other than where I was in, emotionally,
    remembering my family, imagining that I
    was in some other place other than where I was.
    So I was, in fact, visualizing myself in other places
    other than I was at.
    I feel that that's a very, very strong contribution
    to my survival.
    The rest of it, I don't know.
    Maybe it wasn't-- it was also my hate and anger.
    I'm sure that contributed to my survival.
    I was so angry that I could not believe that this was happening.
    Where was God in all of that?
    And that I wanted to survive to tell about this.
    So in effect, here I am.
    You said before you tried to block out, put blinders on,
    is that related to this putting yourself in another place,
    that you didn't really look carefully
    at what was going on around you, that you set up
    another world that you walked through to block out Auschwitz?
    I did, in fact, create another world.
    In a brochure that I have shown you,
    I imagined myself to be a bird.
    And I imagined myself that I was able to fly out of Auschwitz.
    And I wished I was a bird.
    Could you see birds at Auschwitz?
    Yes, occasionally a bird--
    some birds landed here and there, that they were around.
    But not many.
    Not many.
    But I was clearly remembering wishing I was a bird.
    And I was dreaming a lot.
    A lot of the dreams were about food, about--
    that this was going to end soon.
    My father always was telling me, it
    can't get any worse, till the day he disappeared.
    And I also-- it was like, that was,
    my internal message was that it can't get any worse.
    It's going to be over.
    We can hear the guns in the distance.
    The war is coming closer.
    It's going to end.
    Hold on one more day.
    One more day.
    It was this, that--
    The factors are so varied, and what helped me to survive.
    But they still come, keep coming back
    to the visualizing myself with my family, feeling, being loved.
    I really experienced that.
    I was loved by my mother and father.
    Did you know what had happened to your father?
    I was told what they did to people who went to the left.
    What were you told?
    They said that they ended up in the gas chamber.
    And in fact, the prisoners that were there for a while,
    they said, you see those chimneys there?
    And that's where they ended up.
    And still, I could not get it into my head that that in fact
    was happening, despite the people dying in the barracks
    overnight, and having to be dragged out
    in the morning to be counted.
    I still did not want to believe that that
    was happening, that people were being gassed and burned.
    My mind did not want to get that.
    What was a routine day like there?
    Were you working?
    While I was in Auschwitz, I was not.
    I was there a short time.
    It could not have been any more than about a month.
    And I was not working.
    We were in the barracks, and going outside someplace.
    I don't remember what part of Auschwitz I was in.
    That was Birkenau.
    Was there regular Appells?
    Oh, yes.
    Do you remember anything about the Appell?
    Well, [SIGHS] I remember the cold weather.
    I remember having to stand at attention for a long time.
    Like, my feet were just locked into place,
    so I was literally standing like stiff, like, like,
    balancing myself, and just holding on, that this is not
    going to last much longer, that it's--
    just hold on.
    It's like my father's message was always coming through.
    Were you ever punished?
    No.
    Did you see others being--
    I saw others being punished.
    I saw hangings.
    I saw-- oh, twice I saw hangings.
    But I personally did not get punished.
    I got hit.
    I got kicked.
    But I personally was not beaten and punished.
    This was in the winter, then.
    Had you been shaved and--
    Yeah.
    Deloused.
    How did that come about?
    Well, when we first came to Auschwitz, we were shaved.
    And they sprayed the powder on us.
    This was after you had been separated from your father.
    Yes, after.
    After.
    And were you tattooed as well?
    Yeah, that's when I was tattooed.
    I was given the number B7815.
    And that was a painful process for me.
    It's something that is with me.
    And I thought about having it removed or something like that.
    But I decided not to do that after all these years.
    [SIGHS]
    You said you were there for a month.
    Did you march out of Auschwitz?
    No, I was-- it was by trucks we were taken to Landsberg.
    I don't remember exactly how many trucks of people
    were taken to Landsberg, but I ended up in--
    there were a number of camps around Landsberg.
    I was sent to one of those work camps.
    We were working on a construction site.
    They were building some roads and some railroads.
    And I was in a--
    working for a blacksmith.
    Another prisoner, the blacksmith?
    There were-- no, he was a German.
    He was a German.
    He was a German civilian.
    So I was given a fairly light job.
    I don't know why.
    How did he treat you?
    He treated me decently.
    He brought me some extra pieces of food, I think.
    It was those little extra pieces that helped me to survive.
    I was given light work.
    It was, being in this work camp, which
    we marched to every morning and back at night,
    it was just a few kilometers away from the work site.
    And the job was not really hard.
    I was doing little things, assisting him
    in the blacksmith shop.
    His name was Mueller.
    That helped me to survive.
    So there were many, many small incidences of something
    that was--
    that I avoided, or someone helped me,
    like being given extra food, that helped me to survive.
    I can't really pin it down to any one thing.
    Were you liberated at Landsberg?
    Actually, it was not in Landsberg.
    Actually, it was a town called Wolfratshausen, near Munich.
    They started marching us to I don't know where,
    but there were hundreds and hundreds of us
    that were on this forced march from Landsberg.
    And we marched for about three days and nights.
    I don't know exactly where we were.
    But whoever couldn't keep up with the march
    was just shot right there.
    It was a desperation, like we were being marched deeper
    into Germany someplace.
    I don't know exactly where.
    But we could hear big guns going off in the distance.
    One day, we were actually attacked
    by American planes on the road.
    We were marching.
    I presume that they thought we were the German army
    marching or something.
    But we were strafed.
    A number of people were killed.
    But after the first pass, I think they saw what we were.
    So they stopped.
    We were apparently close by to some military installations.
    They were bombing the woods nearby.
    So it was at that point in time that a number of prisoners
    escaped.
    I did not escape.
    I think it was that night that we were put into some barracks,
    and when we woke up in the morning,
    the guards were all gone.
    And I was curious what was happening.
    So I looked around.
    And I went back into the barracks.
    And I was one of the kids, being able to move around
    a little bit more than most of the other people.
    So they suggested that I start walking back
    towards from the way in which we had come.
    I remember there was a little town there.
    So I started walking.
    There was a blown-out bridge over--
    so I had to go downstream, like, and find a place
    to get across the river.
    And [SIGHS] when I walked into this little town,
    I hid in this bombed-out house.
    And I was watching some tanks and some other--
    some soldiers.
    I did not know what to expect, I had no idea
    what the Americans looked like.
    And so not till I was sure that they were not Germans--
    I did not know whether they were Russians or what, or British--
    when I knew that they were not Germans,
    I started walking out of the house
    and started shouting and waving.
    And I talked in Polish and Yiddish.
    And I could not make myself understood to the soldiers.
    But someone figured out that I was speaking in Polish,
    so they got a GI that could speak in Polish.
    So I was able to tell him what--
    who I was and where I had come from,
    and that there were other people in the barracks
    that needed their help.
    So they sent two GIs to go back with me.
    So we retraced our steps.
    They took some satchels of food with them.
    It was about two or three days before they
    were able to send in trucks and medical attention to all of us.
    I stayed in the barracks there for about a month.
    I became a mascot for a tank unit.
    And it was--
    I experienced a lot of love and attention
    to me from the soldiers, from the GIs.
    It was then that I started thinking
    about the rest of my family, and if any of them
    survived, and started to think beyond my own survival.
    Since then, you said that you thought that one of the reasons
    to survive was to talk about it, to tell the world that--
    and then you said that you had, only in the last few years,
    remembered things.
    Had you had difficulty up to then discussing this, telling
    others about it, telling strangers or family about it?
    Was it hard to talk about?
    It was very hard to talk about it.
    It was just like I mentioned it, or brought up some little item
    to talk about the camps.
    But it was not discussing it in depth
    about any of the experiences that I have had.
    And it wasn't till two years ago that I
    started to realize that the healing process for me
    is to be able to remember and talk
    about it, to not to be afraid for me to look
    at it within my own mind.
    To recall.
    It's all there.
    I blocked it out for all these years.
    And it is absolutely essential, if I'm to heal myself,
    that I'll be able to talk about it.
    It's a numbing.
    It's a total denial of the whole experience,
    as if it didn't happen.
    I feel that many of us survivors,
    we don't talk about it because we
    say it is too painful to talk about.
    It is painful to talk about, but it is more painful,
    and it is produces ill health.
    Many of us have cancer and other sicknesses because we buried it
    within ourselves.
    I felt as if I'm going to explode
    if I don't talk about it.
    It's a denial.
    I don't think people in the community, Jewish community
    and the Christian community, want to hear about that.
    They're made to feel guilty about that whole experience.
    It's a denial, as if it never happened.
    The denial of 3,000 people being gassed at one time--
    3,000 people deliberately gassed.
    This is why we're able to talk about the nuclear stuff,
    of millions of people, of dropping nuclear bombs.
    Just a Holocaust.
    We're talking about a planetary Holocaust.
    I think we, as survivors, have a duty to talk about that.
    I think what Wiesel said, that we have not been heard.
    Our testimony has not been heard.
    It's because we say it's too painful to talk about.
    We cannot-- that's a luxury we can no longer afford,
    that it is too painful to talk about.
    We must talk about it.
    As a matter of fact, it ceases to be a pain,
    and we are able to talk about it.
    We are able to talk about it when we open up
    and accept the fact that, yes, it is uncomfortable, yes,
    it is painful to talk about, but it
    is that which has denied that the whole Holocaust happened.
    We don't have too many years left for survivors,
    and if we don't open up and talk about it--
    not in accusing terms, but in terms of our own experience
    of what happened to us individually,
    to connect with other people on a heart level, that yes,
    that's what was done to human beings--
    [AUDIO DROP]
    --and accept the fact that, yes, it is uncomfortable, yes,
    it is painful to talk about.
    But it is that which has denied that the whole Holocaust
    happened.
    We don't have too many years left for survivors,
    and if we don't open up and talk about it-- not
    in accusing terms, but in terms of our own experience of what
    happened to us individually, to connect
    with other people on a heart level, that yes,
    that's what was done to human beings,
    and that the treatment that we, as Jews, have been getting
    throughout the ages, and especially the Holocaust,
    is the treatment that is waiting in store for all human beings,
    and that is the nuclear issue.
    We're building bombs that will blow away
    people, will leave property intact,
    in place, for the next occupant.
    Who are going to be the occupants?
    Not even the birds and bees are going to survive.
    We are insane.
    We are absolutely insane that we can entertain
    that kind of a ideology, that kind of a position of building
    more nuclear weapons.
    I consider it a Zyklon B--
    an updated version of Zyklon B, where we
    don't talk about 3,000 people.
    We have all been made Jews, in effect, in treatment.
    Do you think then that survivors talking will help prevent
    another sort of Holocaust?
    I think it will.
    I think it is the only thing that is hopeful, to me, that we
    need to talk about that in terms of sharing
    our own personal experience, and connect
    on a heart level with other human beings,
    where we don't deny what happened.
    This denial has gone on for almost 40 years.
    OK, thank you very much.
    I hope it will help.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Mr. Bernard Offen
    Interviewer
    Sidney M. Bolkosky

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 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

    Holder of Originals
    University of Michigan-Dearborn
    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The University of Michigan conducted the interview with Bernard Offen. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Archives Branch received the tapes by transfer from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Oral History Branch in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2024-01-05 13:15:34
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn508481

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    Also in Oral history interviews of the University of Michigan-Dearborn Holocaust survivor oral history project

    Twenty-three Holocaust survivors from the Dearborn, Mich., area discuss their experiences during the Holocaust. The interviews were conducted from May 11, 1982, to Jan. 26, 1993.

    Date: 1982-1993

    Oral history interview with Irene Hasenberg Butter

    Oral history interview with Irene Hasenberg Butter

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    Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter, born in Berlin, Germany in 1930, describes moving with her family to Holland, Netherlands in 1937; being deported with her family in June 1943 to Westerbork, a transit camp, and then in February 1944 to Bergen-Belsen; how her family managed to be included in an exchange transport in early 1945 using falsified Ecuadorian passports; the death of her father during the transport; the release of the rest of the family, who went to North Africa; and moving to New York, NY after the war ended.

    Oral history interview with Erna Blitzer Gorman

    Oral history interview with Erna Blitzer Gorman

    Oral History

    Erna Blitzer Gorman, describes her experiences as a child when she and her family were in Poland at the time of the Nazi invasion and were unable to return to their home in France; living in various ghettos; escaping the ghetto; hiding for more than two years in a barn by a Ukrainian farmer until the area was liberated by Russian soldiers.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Kent

    Oral history interview with Ruth Kent

    Oral History

    Ruth Kent, born in 1930 in Łódź, Poland, describes her life before the war; her family; living with her family in the Łódź ghetto until it was liquidated in 1944; being deported to Auschwitz where her family was separated and some family members were immediately put to death; being sent with one of her sisters to Stutthof, where they were later separated; surviving a forced march as the Germans evacuated the camps in the face of the advancing Russian Army; being liberated by the Russians; and reuniting with two brothers after the war.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Lessing

    Oral history interview with Alfred Lessing

    Oral History

    An interview with Alfred Lessing, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, Professor of History at the University of Michigan--Dearborn. Mr. Lessing recalls his experiences living with other families as a hidden child in the Netherlands during the war. He talks about the last year of World War II when he was reunited and lived with his father and brothers

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral History

    Abraham Pasternak, born in Betlan, Romania, relates his experiences in Romania during the Nazi occupation and his internment in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, Schlieben (a satellite of Buchenwald), and in Zeitz, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral History

    Agi Rubin, born in Monkacs, Czechoslovakia (Mukacheve, Ukraine), describes being deported with her family in 1944 to Auschwitz, where her mother and younger brother were killed; working in a sorting shed in the camp until it was evacuated in January 1945; surviving a forced march of several months; being liberated in Germany when she was 15 years old; and reuniting with her father.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Muschkies Webber

    Oral history interview with Ruth Muschkies Webber

    Oral History

    Ruth Muschkies Webber, born on June 28, 1935 in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland, describes her childhood; her family’s limited religious observance; the beginning of the war; learning years after the war that her aunt was sexually assaulted during the German invasion; her sister’s piano studies in Warsaw and placement with a Gentile family to continue her education; the creation of a ghetto around 1942; her family attempts at convincing her to hide with a Gentile family and her refusal; her feelings upon seeing the Germans in their town; her parents getting work at the nearby labor facility (Bodzechów camp) and secretly bringing her along; hiding while her parents worked; sneaking out of the camp with her mother during the selections for transfer; her memories of the winter of 1942 and walking all night long so they wouldn’t freeze; her various hiding places; playing with rodents; her daydreams while in hiding; being separated from her father in 1942-43 when she and her mother were sent to Starachowice; witnessing the German camp guards argue over what to do with she and another child and eventually being allowed into the camp; her work in the camp, peeling potatoes and taking messages around the camp; seeing many deaths; the tension and anxiety she felt in the camp; being in Sandomierz concentration camp; returning to Bodzechów; the effects she still feels from her Holocaust experiences; having to internalize all her emotions while she was in the camp; being sent to Ostrowiec concentration camp then Auschwitz; the journey to Auschwitz; arriving in the camp with her mother; going through the showers with the other women and laughing as they left and searched through the available clothing; how they dealt with corpses; teaching each other how to knit; the gas chambers and crematoriums; contracting measles and pneumonia and going to the hospital; the measles epidemic in Auschwitz; the various blocks in the camp; her camp tattoo; living with other children in her block; the twins being taken and returned continuously; her mother being sent away for a few weeks; being liberated by the Russians in January 1945; being in some of the photographs the Russians took; reuniting with her mother and sister in Krakow, Poland; how her relationship with her mother and sister was more complicated after the war; staying in a children’s home with her sister in Bielsko-Biala, Poland; going to Toronto, where they had family; the complexities of speaking about her experiences after the war; finding out about her father’s fate; her thoughts on being one of the few children to survive concentration camps; and her three children.

    Oral history interview with Franka Charlupski

    Oral history interview with Franka Charlupski

    Oral History

    Franka Weintraub Charlupski, born in 1920, describes living with her family in Łódź, Poland; being in the Łódź ghetto from 1940 until August 1944 when they were transported to Auschwitz and separated; the death of her mother Auschwitz; the death of her father in a labor camp; spending three days with her sister in Auschwitz before being moved to a labor camp outside of Bremen, Germany; the closing of the camp on April 7, 1945 and being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; and being liberated by the British Army on April 15, 1945.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral History

    Dr. Emanuel Tanay, born in Vilna, Poland (Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1928, describes living in Miechow, Poland before the war; living in the Miechow ghetto; escaping with his mother and sister just before it was liquidated; how his father did not escape and was later executed by Amon Goeth; spending part of the war living in a monastery as a novice and passing as a converted Jew; and using false Aryan papers as he moved around Poland and Hungary.

    Oral history interview with Stefa Sprecher Kupfer

    Oral history interview with Stefa Sprecher Kupfer

    Oral History

    Stefa (Sarah) Sprecher Kupfer, describes being 10 years old and living in Sanok, Poland when the war started; the death of her father in the early days of the occupation; going into hiding with her mother and young sister instead of registering with the occupational government; how a Polish woman, Mrs. Orlewska, played a significant role in their survival by hiding them in her house; and being aided by other Poles, some of whom knew they were Jews.

    Oral history interview with Shari Weiss

    Oral history interview with Shari Weiss

    Oral History

    Shari Weiss, born on April 28, 1929 in Herina, Romania, describes going to live with an aunt and uncle in Cluj, Romania at age nine; remaining in Cluj until 1944; the German occupation in 1944; being sent to a transit camp in a brick factory for three weeks; being transported in May 1944 to Auschwitz; living in Auschwitz with her aunt stayed for about five months; being transferred with her aunt to a labor camp in Altenburg, Germany; working in a factory until April 1945; being marched out of the camp with the other inmates; being liberated with her aunt by the American army two days later; and learning that her uncle did not survive the war. [Full transcripts available at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/]

    Oral history interview with Leon Salomon

    Oral history interview with Leon Salomon

    Oral History

    Leon Salomon, a born in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland, describes living in Maków Mazowiecki with his family until Poland was occupied by the Germans in 1939; moving with two of his sisters to Kobylnik (Narach, Belarus) to live with their brother; a school teacher who was later killed when the Germans took over the area; the massacre of the town’s Jewish residents by the Germans in a nearby forest in 1942; escaping the shooting and hiding in the forest; being the only member of his immediate family to survive; joining a partisan group fighting in the Vilnius, Lithuania and White Russia area; joining the Soviet Army near the end of the war; and fighting until he was wounded in east Prussia.

    Oral history interview with Martin Adler

    Oral history interview with Martin Adler

    Oral History

    Marton Adler, born in 1929 in Volové, a village in Sub Carpathian Ruthenia (now Mizhhir'ia, Ukraine), describes growing up the oldest child and his two brothers and one sister; his father; the Jewish community in Volové; the Hungarian occupation in 1939; the conscription of his father into a labor unit in Russia from 1941 until the end of 1942; the anti-Jewish laws and his family losing their store; the German occupation in March 1944; being deported with his family to a ghetto in Sokirnitsa, Ukraine; being sent to Auschwitz and the deaths of his mother and siblings; being sent with his father to Buchenwald; being sent to Dora; his father’s death in Dora; and being liberated by the British from Bergen-Belsen. [Full transcripts available at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/]

    Oral history interview with Alexander Ehrmann

    Oral history interview with Alexander Ehrmann

    Oral History

    Alexander Ehrmann, born in Kralovsky Chlumec, Czechoslovakia (Král'ovský Chlmec, Slovakia), describes his family; being deported with his family to a ghetto in 1944 and then to Auschwitz, where his parents and a sister and her son were killed; being transferred to Warsaw after the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto ended in order to salvage materials from the ghetto; spending five days in Dachau; being transferred to Muhldorf, where the inmates were building an underground aircraft factory; being evacuated from the camp and put on a train; being and moved back and forth in the unoccupied area until they were liberated by American troops; and reuniting with two sisters and his younger brother after the war ended.

    Oral history interview with Hilma Geffen

    Oral history interview with Hilma Geffen

    Oral History

    Hilma Geffen, born in Berlin, Germany in 1925, describes being an only child; her father serving in the German Army during World War I and being awarded the Iron Cross; moving with her family in 1931 to Rangsdorf, Germany, where they were the only Jewish family in town; her father, an accountant, continuing to commute to Berlin for work; how a couple of nights after Kristallnacht SA (Sturmabteilung) men came to the house and smashed the furniture; moving with her family in 1939 to Berlin because Jews could no longer own property; returning home after work in October 1941 and being told by her mother to run away because people were there to pick them up; using false papers and going into hiding; living with a German couple, who knew only that she was Jewish, until the end of the war; immigrating to the United States; living in Miami Beach, FL, where she had relatives; and how her parents were deported to Auschwitz and did not survive the war.

    Oral history interview with Leo Liffman

    Oral history interview with Leo Liffman

    Oral History

    Leo Liffman, born and raised in Wiesbaden, Germany, relates his experiences with antisemitism as a child and young adult during the closing years of the Weimar Republic and the early Hitler years; being arrested during Kristallnacht and imprisoned for several weeks at Buchenwald concentration camp; fleeing Germany in 1939, leaving his parents behind; and being the only member of his family to survive the war.

    Oral history interview with Helena Manaster

    Oral history interview with Helena Manaster

    Oral History

    Helena Manaster, born in Poland, describes being one of eight children, all of whom were adults at the beginning of the war; the separation of her family after the German invasion in 1939; going with her father and several siblings to Lwów, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), which was under Soviet control at the time; the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the occupation of Lwów; the deportation of her father and brothers to Belzec, where they died in the gas chambers; being moved with her husband to Lesko, Poland and then Zamosc, Poland; the Germans sending she and her husband to a labor camp in Rokitna because her husband was a doctor; escaping the camp; and making their way to Kraków, Poland, where they remained in hiding until the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Nathan Offen, Bernard Offen, and Samuel Offen

    Oral history interview with Nathan Offen, Bernard Offen, and Samuel Offen

    Oral History

    The Offen brothers, Nathan (born December 15, 1922), Bernard (born April 17, 1929), and Samuel (born August 7, 1921), describe growing up in Kraków, Poland; the beginning of the war and life in the Kraków ghetto; being sent to the Płaszów labor camp; Bernard describes being transported with other children out of camp Płaszów, escaping, and being smuggled into another sub-camp to be with an uncle; reuniting as a family at Płaszów; being transported to Mauthausen; the separation of Bernard and his father from Sam and Nathan; the transfer of Sam and Nathan to Auschwitz; the death of their father in Auschwitz; Sam and Nathan going to Italy after the war ended; and Bernard finding his brothers in Italy. [Full transcripts available at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/]

    Oral history interview with Marton Adler

    Oral history interview with Marton Adler

    Oral History

    Marton Adler, born in 1929 in Volové, a village in Sub Carpathian Ruthania (possibly Mizhhir'ya, Ukraine), describes being the oldest of his two brothers and sister; the Hungarian occupation of his village in 1939; the conscription of his father into a labor unit in Russia from 1941 until the end of 1942; how the family eventually lost their store due to the anti-Jewish laws; the German occupation of the area in March of 1944 and being deported with his family soon after; being sent first to a ghetto in Sokirnitsa (Sokyrnytsia), Ukraine and then to Auschwitz, where his mother and siblings were gassed; being sent with his father to Buchenwald and then to Dora, where his father was killed; and being liberated by the British from Bergen-Belsen.

    Oral history interview with Nathan Roth

    Oral history interview with Nathan Roth

    Oral History

    Nathan Roth, born in Veliky Bereznyy, Czechoslovakia (Velykyĭ Bereznyĭ, Ukraine), describes being deported with his mother, father, and eight siblings to the ghetto in Ungvár (Uzhhorod, Ukraine) in 1944 after the German annexation of his town; the split up of his family; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Jaworzno, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; working for I.G. Farben at Jaworzno on an excavation project; being liberated by the Russians while on a death march following the evacuation of the Jaworzno camp; returning to Veliky Bereznyy after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Zolton Rubin

    Oral history interview with Zolton Rubin

    Oral History

    Zolton Rubin, born in Kapúsány, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), describes being the youngest child in a large family of eight sons and three daughters; how his family was fairly well off since his father owned a large farm and several mills; being protected with his parents from deportation because of an economic exemption until 1942 when the exemption was eliminated and his parents were deported; avoiding deportation because he used Gentile papers given to him by friends; being captured with a group of partisans in 1944 and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Jena, Germany, where he was part of a forced labor detail digging tunnels for the Germans; escaping towards the end of the war with three others and living off the land for about six weeks until the American Army arrived in the area; and reuniting with an older brother, who was a doctor with the Czechoslovakian Army.

    Oral history interview with Martin Schlanger

    Oral history interview with Martin Schlanger

    Oral History

    Martin Shlanger was born in Vel'ke Kapusany, Czechoslovakia (Velké Kapušany, Slovakia), describes moving to Budapest, Hungary in 1942 to work in a factory; the German occupation of Budapest in March 1944; acquiring false papers but being identified soon after as a Jew and arrested; being sent to Jaworzno, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; surviving a death march to Blechhammer in 1945 as the Russian Army invaded the area; hiding when the Germans left Blechhammer and being left behind at the camp and eventually encountering the Soviet Army; reuniting for a short time with his brother, who was serving with the Czechoslovak Brigade in the Soviet Army; and returning to his hometown where he lived until 1949 when he immigrated to Detroit, MI.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral History

    Abraham Pasternak, born in 1924 in Beclean, Romania, describes his parents and siblings; the religious practices in his family; the Jewish community; the Hungarian occupation; restrictions placed on Jews; being forced out of Beclean and sent to Daiysh (possibly Dej, Romania); the forcing of Jewish men to shave off their beards; being sent to Auschwitz and life there; being sent to Schlieben and his work there; his work in Zeitz, Germany (Tröglitz concentration camp); being sent to Buchenwald for two months; being separated from his brothers; life in Buchenwald; religious practices in the camp; being beaten by a SS woman; food rations in the camp; life in Theresienstadt and reuniting with his brothers; liberation; returning to Beclean; going to Hungary and then the United States; and settling in Detroit, MI.

    Oral history interview with Szymon Binke

    Oral history interview with Szymon Binke

    Oral History

    Szymon Binke, born in 1931 in Łódź, Poland, describes how shortly after the Nazi invasion his family was moved to the city's Baluty district, which became the Łódź ghetto; being deported with his family in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where his mother and sister were gassed; being placed in the Kinderblock; escaping from the Kinderblock to join his father and uncles in the main camp of Auschwitz; and being transferred later to a series of forced labor camps until he was liberated in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Noemi Engel Ebenstein

    Oral history interview with Noemi Engel Ebenstein

    Oral History

    Noemi Engel Ebenstein, born in 1941, retells the stories told to her by her mother about how the family survived the Holocaust; the deportation of her father being to a forced labor camp when she was a baby; being deported in May 1944 with her brother and mother from Subotica, Yugoslavia to several camps; going to Strasshof labor camp; and being sent to Moosbierbaum, where she and her family were liberated by the Soviet Army.

    Oral history interview with Alexander Karp

    Oral history interview with Alexander Karp

    Oral History

    Alexander Karp, born in Baktaloranthaza, Hungary, describes moving into the Kisvarda ghetto with his mother and 15 year old sister in 1944 when he was about 19 years old; the arrest of his father in Russia in 1942 and how they did not know if he was alive or dead; being transported with his family to Birkenau, where he was separated from his mother and sister; spending four months with an uncle in Birkenau; how he and his uncle claimed to be tool and die makers and were sent to several different camps; eventually ending up at an underground airplane factory in the Kochendorf area (Bad Friedrichshall, Germany); being evacuated in March 1945 to Dachau and then to Mittenwald, Germany, where they were liberated; and being reunited with his father in August 1945.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Klein and Emery Klein

    Oral history interview with Bernard Klein and Emery Klein

    Oral History

    Bernard and Emery Klein, brothers born in Humenné, Slovakia, describe their immediate family, including their parents and younger sister; the German occupation in 1939 and the deportations of Jews in 1941; how their family was not deported until 1944 because their father was an important farming advisor; Emery being sent with the family to Auschwitz without Bernard, who had become separated; the immediate gassing of their mother and sister; Bernard being reunited with his brother and father at Auschwitz a month later; being sent with their father to Gleiwitz, where Emery and his father worked in a factory while Bernard worked in the concentration camp kitchen; the evacuation of the camp in 1945 as the Russian Army advanced into the area and being sent to Blechhammer; how the German guards fled the camp, leaving the prisoners; walking with their father and several others back to Humenné; moving to Israel and Montreal, Canada; and eventually going to Detroit, MI.

    Oral history interview with Michael Weiss

    Oral history interview with Michael Weiss

    Oral History

    Michael Weiss, born in Kascony, Czechoslovakia, chronicles his experiences under the Czechoslovakians, Hungarians, and Germans, both prior to and during World War II; being transported with his family to the Hungarian ghetto of Beregszasz (Berehove, Ukraine) in 1944; being deported with his family to Auschwitz, where his mother was gassed by the Germans; and being sent with his father to Buchenwald and then on to Zeitz, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Manya Feldman

    Oral history interview with Manya Feldman

    Oral History

    Manya Feldman, born in Dombrovitsa, Poland (Dubrovytsia, Ukraine) in 1923, describes her large Orthodox family; the Soviet occupation of her town in 1939; the German invasion in 1941; how the Jews in Dombrovitsa immediately felt the effects of the German’s antisemitic measures; the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1942; escaping with her father, brother, and eldest sister into the forest; the deportation of her mother and her two sisters to Sarny, Ukraine, where they were murdered; joining the Kovpak partisan movement with her family; being separated from her family and spending the remainder of the war hiding in several small villages in the region and serving in different partisan units; the death of her father and siblings in combat; being placed in a displaced persons camp in Berlin, Germany following the end of the war; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with David Kahan

    Oral history interview with David Kahan

    Oral History

    Born in 1928, in Gheorgheni, Romania, David Kahan was part of a large extended family, consisting of his mother, father, several siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. In April 1944, the Germans invaded Hungary and immediately began the full-scale persecution of Hungarian Jewry. The Kahan family was detained by Hungarian Gendarmerie and placed in a school room for several days. After their initial detainment, the family was shipped to an ad hoc ghetto in Szaszregen (Reghin, Romania). The family remained incarcerated in a brick factory in Szaszregen for approximately four weeks. They were then shipped to Auschwitz. Upon arrival in Auschwitz, David was separated from his family, who were gassed, and David was shaved, deloused, and held for future use on work details. Of the camp itself, David remembers very few details. After approximately four weeks, David was shipped to the Mühldorf labor camp in Southern Germany. While there, David worked for Organization Todt, clearing trees for the construction of an underground airplane factory. David contacted typhus after he was liberated and was hospitalized in the displaced persons camp at Feldafing. Following his recovery, David showed no desire to return to Romania and made his way to the United States, arriving in New York in May 1949. From New York, David moved to Minneapolis and eventually made his way to Detroit around 1950. He married in 1953 and had three sons.

    Oral history interview with Henry Krystal

    Oral history interview with Henry Krystal

    Oral History

    Henry Krystal, born in Sosnowiec, Poland in 1925, describes the escape of his brother and father to the Soviet occupied zone of Poland shortly after the Nazi invasion while he and his mother stayed in Bodzentyn, Poland; being sent to a labor camp in 1942; his mother’s deportation to Treblinka, where she died; being a member of a labor Kommando sent from place to place, including Starachowice, Bobrek, Birkenau, Siemensstadt, and Sachsenhausen, from 1942 until the end of the war; working in a factory operated by the Siemens company; being in the city of Schwerin (Skwierzyna, Poland) in the British occupied zone of Germany at the end of the war; immigrating to the United States in 1947; settling in Detroit, MI, where he lived with an aunt and uncle; and attending school and becoming a psychiatrist.

    Oral history interview with Rene Lichtman

    Oral history interview with Rene Lichtman

    Oral History

    Rene Lichtman, born in Paris, France in 1937, describes being the only son of Polish immigrants who arrived in France in the 1930s; his father joining the French Army shortly before the outbreak of World War II; the death of his father while in combat just outside of Paris in Compiègne; how after the fall of France his mother sent him to stay with a family in the countryside, where he was kept hidden from the Germans for the remainder of the war; his mother going into hiding in Paris in 1942; the survival of he and his mother and the death of most of his maternal and paternal family members in Poland; and his mother’s marriage in 1950 to an American Orthodox Jew, after which the two moved from France to Williamsburg, NY.

    Oral history interview with Jack Gun

    Oral history interview with Jack Gun

    Oral History

    Jack Gun, born in Rozhishche, Poland (Rozhyshche, Ukraine), describes living in Rozhishche with his father, mother, older brother, and sister; the annexation of Rozhishche to Ukraine by the Soviets at the outbreak of the war in September 1939; how after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 his family was forced into the ghetto and were used as forced laborers; the liquidation of the ghetto in August of 1942 and the murder of his father, mother, and sister; fleeing with his brother and receiving help from their father's non-Jewish friend; how upon this man's urging he and his brother hid first in the woods and then in a bunker they dug in a field; several near-misses with the occupation authorities; and hiding in a non-Jewish Ukrainian household, where they remained until the Russians liberated Ukraine in 1944.

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