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Oral history interview with Lola Krause

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.88 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0088

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    Oral history interview with Lola Krause

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Lola Krause, born March 1, 1916 in Vitebsk, Belarus, describes her father, who was a successful movie photographer, and her mother, who was an accomplished pianist from Latvia; growing up as a non-observant Soviet Jew; studying music with her mother; learning German from her governess and attending public school in Vitebsk; being rejected by the local Soviet college because of her father’s upper-class status; moving to Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia to study engineering; working in film and scientific instrument factories; getting married in 1938 and having a son in 1939; the siege of Leningrad; the German bombardment; conditions in the city, including the diseases, lack of food, and loss of all public services; her husband’s death from starvation; her weight dropping to 60 pounds and how, at three years of age, her son weighed only seven-and-a-half pounds; how her factory was relocated to Samarkand (Temirtau), Kazakhstan in 1941 and she traveled with her son in a cattle car for six weeks, stopping in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; meeting up in Tashkent with her uncle, a doctor, who insisted that her fragile child remain with him in the hospital; her son joining her a year-and-a-half later in Samarkand, where she worked until 1946; getting married again and moving illegally across European borders, living in Jewish Agency camps in Wroclaw, Poland and at Wasseralfingen, near Stuttgart, Germany; having another son; surviving on food packages from American relatives; immigrating in 1949 to the United States; their adjustment to life in the US; settling in Bradley Beach, NJ and in Philadelphia, PA; working in factories and establishing their own cleaning business; selling her valuable bracelet to buy a piano; suffering ridicule from poor neighbors because she believed children had to learn to play an instrument; sending her sons to Hebrew school and observing Jewish holidays; and how visiting Israel in 1972 further heightened her Jewish consciousness.
    Interviewee
    Lola Krause
    Date
    interview:  1981 October 17
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 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
    Krause, Lola, 1916-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive conducted the interview with Lola Krause in Philadelphia, PA on October 17, 1981. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Gratz College on October 17, 2000.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:36:27
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn508729

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