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Oral history interview with Harold Stern

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.22 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0022

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    Oral history interview with Harold Stern

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Harold Stern, born August 31, 1921 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, describes being the only child of middle-class Jewish parents; his father, who came from an Orthodox background, and his mother, who was raised in a non-observant home; belonging to a large liberal congregation, the Westend Synagogue in Frankfurt; the educational system and antisemitism before and after 1933; the Kultusgemeinde, his Jewish education, and his upbringing; his studies at the Philanthropin (a Jewish secondary school), which he attended in 1935 due to increased antisemitic experiences at the public gymnasium; his mother continuing the family business after his father’s death in 1930, but having to give it up in 1937 as a result of the Nuremberg Laws; the “aryanization” of a shoe manufacturing company and other businesses; having an early quota number; how his attempts to immigrate with his mother to the United States were thwarted because their affidavits were not accepted by the American Consulate in Stuttgart; leaving in March 1939 for England through the aid of family friends in England and Bloomsbury House, while his mother remained in Frankfurt; life in London, working as a factory trainee; residing among the British (non-Jewish) working class until June 1940 when he was picked up and interned in Huyton, a camp near Liverpool with other German Jewish refugees; volunteering in July 1940 for transport on the Dunera, a ship supposedly bound for Canada but re-routed to Australia; the desperate conditions at sea, the harsh treatment by British soldiers, and the refugees’ behavior during the 10 week voyage; being transferred from Sidney to a barbed-wire enclosed compound in the Outback, in Hay, New South Wales; the internal camp leadership that emerged and the development of cultural and educational activities; help given by the Australian Christian Student Movement (under Margaret Holmes), the Jewish Welfare Board, and the Jewish people of Melbourne; moving to a camp in Tatura, Victoria that had better conditions; joining the Australian Army after 20 months of internment; being part of the 8th Employment Company, where he did transport of munitions; being discharged in 1946 or 1947, after serving four and a half years in the army; keeping contact with his mother and knowing that she reached the US in late 1941; the fate of his mother’s brother and sister; immigrating to the US in 1947 under the German quota; and moving to Philadelphia, PA in 1959.
    Interviewee
    Harold Stern
    Interviewer
    Dr. Nora Levin
    Date
    interview:  1981 September 10
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    3 sound cassettes (60 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Stern, Harold, 1921-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive conducted the interview with Harold Stern in Philadelphia, Pa., on September 10, 1981. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Gratz College on September 26, 1997.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:36:02
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn508643

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