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Oral history interview with Charlotte Dessen

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2009.214.1 | RG Number: RG-50.617.0001

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    Oral history interview with Charlotte Dessen
    Transcript
    Now, Mrs. Dessen, I'd like you to tell me, firstly,
    about your parents and your childhood and youth in Germany,
    please.
    Well, I was eight years old when Hitler
    came to power, so my whole childhood was
    under this impression.
    I went to school, and in the small town
    where we lived I was the only Jewish girl.
    So I was always different than everybody else.
    And I had a few friends at first,
    and later on, they turned away from me.
    And I was always on my own.
    Well, at school, the one teacher I remember most--
    he was in the Party--
    In the Nazi Party.
    --in the Nazi Party, and I remember often
    he used to talk about the Jews, and how bad they were,
    and so on.
    And then everybody used to look at me
    when he mentioned the word "Jew," and then he used to say,
    oh, you mustn't look at Lottie Behrens
    because there are some exceptions, which
    really made it even worse.
    Were there many Jewish families in your town?
    There are about 15, I would say.
    And, well, eventually, there was November, the Crystal Night.
    Well, before we get to that, was your family
    in that town for a long time?
    Well, my grandfather already had lived
    in that house where we lived, and they were all
    very respectable citizens.
    And my father had been fighting in the war on the German side,
    and he had--
    In the First World War?
    In the First World-- and he had the Iron Cross.
    And he was very proud of it, and--
    First or Second Class?
    Not the one-- not the not the highest one.
    The second one was probably.
    But they were very respected.
    What did your father do then?
    We had a business with bicycles and repair garage
    for motor cars.
    He also sold cars and spare parts, a workshop,
    repair workshop.
    Anyway, there were nine sisters and brothers in that house.
    It used to be where my grandfather lived.
    He had nine children.
    And, well, they all married and moved away, and only
    my father--
    our family lived in that same house.
    And what else would you like to know then.
    Well, you had friends during the--
    from '33 onwards.
    You said they turned away.
    At first I had, yes, there was [? Franki, ?] this girl
    across the road.
    But as I say, she later on didn't want to know me.
    And there was one other Jewish girl
    in the town of my age group, but she went
    to the little higher school.
    She was a bit older than I.
    I went to the primary, and there was an in-between gymnasium
    in the primary.
    There was something else for girls
    mostly that we went if they didn't want to really study
    for a profession.
    And we were friendly, but they emigrated.
    At least the girl was sent away to Belgium to her family.
    So you didn't have any friends during the '30s.
    No.
    But I was very close to my parents and my aunts.
    And they all lived in Gardelegen.
    Yes.
    And I didn't really miss it that much.
    And that's how it went until the Crystal Night.
    Then I remember my--
    I remember like yesterday.
    You were 13 on Kristallnacht?
    Yes.
    Yes, '38.
    That's right.
    They took my father away and all the other men to the police
    station, and they smashed the window of our shop,
    and we were very scared and frightened.
    But eventually we were allowed to bring food to the men who
    were kept for 10 days, I think.
    They were first kept a few days there,
    and they were sent away then to concentration camps.
    Which camps were the sent to?
    One of the-- was it Buchenwald?
    Yeah.
    Buchenwald, that's right.
    And then my father came back.
    I don't remember now.
    He was about three weeks or something.
    And I only remember when he came back, he looked terrible,
    and the coat he had worn and still wore was filthy with mud.
    And he had his head shaved, her hair.
    Shaven.
    Shaven, yes.
    And had he been tortured or beaten?
    He must have.
    I don't know if he was beaten himself,
    but he must have been treated very badly because he
    didn't see a thing.
    And at night, he had nightmares.
    How did he-- was he freed?
    Did you--
    They let him free.
    A certain amount of people-- they
    let them out again after that.
    Yes, but most people had to take some step which
    show they would emigrate, such as getting a visa and so on.
    Yes, and he did.
    We did try very much after that to emigrate.
    You didn't have to send evidence of a visa to anywhere
    to get him freed?
    To let him get out?
    It could have been.
    I was a young girl at that time.
    And we might have had a letter from my uncle in South Africa
    that he wanted him to come out.
    But you don't remember anything specific.
    No.
    And then after that they tried very
    hard to get out, to emigrate.
    Where did you try to emigrate to?
    Before that, my father always said it can't go on like that.
    He said, the German can't be that bad.
    He just trusted them always.
    And living in a small town, we didn't
    have the facilities to make contact with other countries,
    you see.
    What do you mean?
    You could write letters.
    Yes, but how long did they take, those letters?
    But in Magdeburg, which was the nearest
    larger city, and Berlin, they had a committee set up
    who were looking after the people
    and helping them to get out and so on
    and to get hold of the money that they needed
    to be deposited somewhere.
    And that was very difficult in a small place, and as I say,
    my father just didn't think it could go on like that.
    He was just too optimistic and trusted the German people
    and thought they couldn't be led astray by this one man,
    [BOTH TALKING]
    Was he of all German Jewish stock?
    Yes.
    They were not Austrian?
    No, no.
    Pure German?
    --- We have got--
    what do you call it-- history of our family, back, 1500,
    written down.
    You have it?
    My brother has it in England, actually an old Bible we have,
    old Bible.
    And in that Bible the great-great-great-grandfather
    put a little saying, "I give this to my son,"
    and the son again put something in it up to my father.
    And he did say, "We have now to leave.
    We are being sent away.
    And I give this to my son, and I don't know
    what is going to happen to us."
    And how many children did your parents have?
    Just the two, my brother and myself.
    Was the older or younger?
    Yes, he was-- he is five years older.
    And we couldn't get the papers ready.
    We tried to emigrate, but that was between '38 and '39.
    The war started.
    And was your-- your brother then was 18 on Crystal Night?
    Yes.
    Was he taken away?
    No, he managed to emigrate.
    Before Crystal--
    Before just-- no, no, before the war started.
    But he wasn't taken--
    Crystal Night, he wasn't home.
    He was near Berlin an apprentice,
    in an apprenticeship as an electrician
    with a half-Jewish man, and that was another small place
    near Berlin.
    And I suppose because it was a small place they
    didn't take him at the time.
    But your town was not so small?
    It was also small, yes.
    But that was a smaller town, the other one was?
    Well, it was a small town near Berlin, you see, far away.
    That is 200 kilometers away from where we lived.
    I see.
    So maybe he wasn't on the list.
    No, he wasn't.
    I don't think they made a list in those smaller places,
    also because of the master where he was working was half-Jewish,
    and the wife wasn't Jewish at all.
    So they somehow didn't perhaps know that he was Jewish.
    And when did your brother go?
    In '39?
    Yes, just before the war started.
    What, in August?
    The it started in September.
    Well, I think it was April or something.
    My father's oldest brother was already in Johannesburg,
    and he tried very much to get all his other brothers
    and sisters out.
    But he needed a lot of money to be deposited,
    100 pounds for each person.
    Somebody had to guarantee over there for each person.
    So he managed to borrow 300 pounds,
    and he deposit that for my brother
    and the two sons of the other brothers.
    So the three cousins managed to get out
    and were supposed to then get the money for the parents
    to come out.
    But they didn't--
    [BOTH TALKING] No.
    They didn't have enough time.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And what happened to you then after Kristallnacht?
    I stayed at home for two months, three months out of school.
    We were thrown out of school.
    In November '38?
    Yes.
    Not before?
    No.
    And I had to then go to a Jewish school,
    and so I was sent to a school near Hanover, Arnhem.
    That was also--
    Well, this Arnhem was a Jewish horticultural school,
    and because I was interested to become a horticulturalist later
    on, I was sent there to--
    was the idea, when I finish my schooling
    to go into that horticultural school.
    In Germany?
    In Germany, near Hanover.
    Now, were you planning to do this in Germany?
    Yes, yes.
    Or to go to emigrate to Israel and--
    No, no, just because that was the one profession
    that I would have liked to do.
    Well, I went to the school there.
    When did you go there?
    In '38 still or in '39?
    Must've been '39, yes.
    It was about July, I would think.
    It must have been a bit earlier because I was out of school
    about two, three months.
    It must have been April, I would think.
    And in September, the war started,
    but I was still there at that place.
    And when I was 15, I--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    You were 15--
    I was--
    --in September 1940.
    Yes.
    Well, I was still there and there was a household school
    to train young girls.
    Well, you can say it in German.
    Yes, in a haushaltungsschule.
    So after I finished the schooling,
    there I went into that--
    Home economics.
    Yes, home economics.
    Because I wanted to go into the gardening department,
    but there were only boys, men.
    And it was a Jewish school?
    And there was only one girl there, Jewish, yes.
    All--
    They were all Jews--
    All Jews.
    --in the school.
    And the school was still going in 1940?
    Yes.
    In September 1940.
    Yes, because most of them wanted to immigrate to Israel,
    it was like a hakhshara camp.
    It was a hakhashara.
    No, not altogether, half-half.
    Those people who intended to go to Israel
    lived in different buildings and under different--
    --conditions.
    [INAUDIBLE], and so on.
    And we just had teachers and trainers for our department.
    So I suppose it was, at first, just a hakhshara place,
    but then later on they took all the other people in just
    to put them up somewhere, people who were thrown out
    of school like myself.
    And where they-- were your parents during that time,
    from Kristallnacht until--
    They were--
    --September 1940?
    Yes.
    They were not molested?
    They were.
    They had to get out of their houses, all
    those Jewish people, and they were all
    put into one big building out of town.
    In Gardelegen?
    In Gardelegen. And they each had a room for each family
    and were not allowed to go out without permission
    or had to be back at 5 o'clock or some time in the evening.
    We were very restricted.
    Did they-- what happened to their business?
    It was taken away.
    They had to--
    Did they get compensation?
    Well, they had to sell the house and the business
    and got hardly any money for it under, you know.
    [INAUDIBLE], that was in 1939.
    Yes.
    They were evacuated in '42, and [INAUDIBLE]
    had promised them that I would be
    able to go with them together.
    We knew we were all going to be sent away.
    When you say "evacuated," where were they evacuated?
    To Warsaw, eventually.
    What do you mean "eventually"?
    First tried to-- first to Magdeburg.
    They had to-- that was a collecting place, Magdeburg.
    That was the nearest--
    --large town.
    --larger city, yes.
    And how long did they stay in Magdeburg?
    I think a few days only.
    That I don't know because at that time--
    well, I think by that time I had already
    moved away again from Arnhem.
    --the school.
    That school was closed up.
    When was it closed?
    I can't think of it now, but it must have been '41, I think,
    because my parents were sent away '42,
    and when they were sent away I was already
    in another place which is Briesen.
    That is near Berlin or it's not far from Berlin.
    And what was that?
    A school?
    And that-- no, that was a sort of a forced labor camp there.
    They made use of us as laborers, of the Jewish people.
    Did all the students that were remaining go there?
    Some no.
    Some managed to still emigrate.
    Where to?
    Where to?
    And some went to their home places.
    Where did they immigrate, those who managed to--
    Perhaps to Israel, or to Shanghai, or--
    You're not sure.
    No, I don't know.
    Even before the school was closed they tried to get out.
    Well, [BOTH TALKING]
    I had to go home then after the school was closed.
    I was at home again for a little while, and then--
    In this forced residence or in your old home?
    I was already in the forced residence, too.
    It could have been that when I came back for a holiday
    I was there.
    I'm not sure now.
    I moved along with them.
    And anyway, I had to do work.
    You see, everybody here to work.
    And so they sent me to that place
    where there were other Jewish people doing forced labor.
    What did you do?
    I worked in a battery factory, and--
    And that--
    --in the forest.
    And in the forest we worked.
    I see.
    Batteries, what, for--
    Making batteries--
    --cars or for machines?
    No, for torches, torch batteries.
    Oh, small batteries.
    Yes.
    Was it any brand that you remember?
    Was it--
    Any what?
    What brand?
    What the name-- yes, yes.
    I'm trying to find what industrialist--
    Yes, that's right.
    [COMPANY NAME}
    And did you get paid for this?
    We got paid, yes, but then that covered our board and lodging.
    And we got some pocket money also.
    And then part of the time we had to work in the forest.
    Doing what?
    Planting trees and digging up--
    making holes for the trees and also weeding.
    And in winter, the soil was frozen, so it was pretty hard.
    You planted trees in winter?
    Well, in spring you have to do that.
    And to dig up the ground was pretty hard.
    But we had a young man there as well,
    and I remember at first when I came there my hands were
    completely full of sores.
    I had to go to the doctor.
    I couldn't work for a few days and had some plaster on.
    And eventually they hardened up, and we were quite happy there.
    Were all the people there Jewish?
    Yes.
    Or were they also [INAUDIBLE] people [BOTH TALKING]
    No, no, no, only Jewish.
    That was, again, all supervised by Jews.
    We had our own people in charge, and only the forest master--
    I don't know what you call it in Germany.
    In English you mean.
    A German, the people who used to be
    in charge of the forest, the Germans, the--
    The forester.
    The forester.
    He was sort of very much above the Jewish man
    who was in charge of us.
    But they were quite decent people, really.
    They weren't really Nazis sort of.
    Were you fed well?
    Yes.
    We had our own cooks and our own Jewish people in charge of us.
    And it was quite a good life under the circumstances.
    We weren't allowed to travel except on the special paths.
    When I had to go to the dentist, also I had a special pass.
    But they left us alone.
    And that was from when to when?
    The approximate dates.
    It must've been from '42 to '43, I would say.
    One year.
    Yes.
    You don't remember the month.
    Not really, no.
    Well, I have got a few dates in the diary which I put on there.
    The time-- the date, 20th of April, Hitler's birthday,
    we were sent away from there.
    From Briesen.
    Yes.
    20th of April of '43.
    The whole--
    1943?
    Yes.
    And where were you sent then?
    To Auschwitz.
    First to Berlin, and there we were kept again,
    I think, in the hospital, Jewish, in Hamburger Strasse,
    I think, Kleine Hamburger Strasser.
    That was [INAUDIBLE] lager.
    You know?
    Shall I put that down?
    Yes.
    That was a-- they made all those hospitals Jewish places--
    they made them for collecting camps where people--
    That was a Jewish hospital?
    A Jewish school.
    Do you remember what its name was before the war?
    I only know it was Hamburger Strasse
    and that everybody knew what it was, Hamburger Strasse.
    What do you mean everybody knew?
    That was a-- it was a hospital, I think,
    a Jewish hospital, and that was converted into a camp.
    And your parents, meanwhile, had gone to Warsaw in 1941?
    Yes.
    Yes, they had been taken to Magdeburg,
    and I still had-- and they were under the impression
    that I would be allowed to go with them.
    And they even sent a telegram and made a phone call to me
    in the camp.
    But I didn't manage to talk to them,
    but the other chap in the office did and say-- and we didn't--
    he didn't get permission to let me go.
    He said I am more needed there.
    So they had to go along with the rest of the people there.
    And they went to Warsaw, to the Warsaw Ghetto?
    Yes, because I had a few letters from there,
    and I even sent them a few little parcels.
    They sent me--
    And did they receive the parcels?
    Yes.
    You heard from them, and they received the parcel?
    Yes, yes, through the Red Cross, I think, with these later.
    What sort of things could you send?
    I sent spices.
    We couldn't buy much in Germany, foodstuff, at all,
    but like cinnamon and different things.
    And they could sell that there, and they got money for it
    in the camp.
    And they were always very hopeful.
    They said, we can work, and we want to work, and we go--
    And did they work?
    Did they work in the ghetto?
    I don't know.
    I think my mother must have been doing some cleaning
    work or something.
    They said they were willing to work,
    and I don't know what they did there.
    Do you remember where they were lodged, the address in Warsaw,
    or anything like that?
    No, no.
    And then one day they say in the letter
    that they're going to be sent away to Trawniki.
    Trawniki.
    And where was that?
    In Poland.
    It was a concentration camp.
    I don't think I ever had a letter from there.
    But somehow--
    But you had a letter later from somebody--
    --I knew--
    --who had known them there.
    That's right, who didn't know them
    but who knew what happened to the people of that camp.
    I don't know why I--
    And they reached you.
    And they reached you.
    And where did they--
    I heard of-- when I was in Auschwitz,
    I heard of all the time transport
    with people were coming in, and I heard
    there is a transport Trawniki.
    So I went to the place where they were situated,
    and I asked a woman.
    And she then told me what happened to the whole camp.
    And what did she tell you?
    I've got a letter here.
    No, she said that there were no survivors, survivors,
    perhaps a few only.
    And she said, if you want to know more,
    I give you a name of this-and-this woman
    and the address, and you write to her because--
    What, from Auschwitz?
    In Auschwitz-- I met this woman in Auschwitz.
    She must have given me the name because I
    wrote, when I came out of Auschwitz, to this one woman.
    And she wrote me a letter.
    What do you remember-- were you able to keep
    the address in Auschwitz?
    I wonder if it was--
    I know it--
    I didn't know how--
    well, I remember [BOTH TALKING]
    Well, tell me, perhaps, what--
    Yes?
    Tell me, perhaps, what you did in Auschwitz.
    You were rounded up so you went from Berlin to Auschwitz?
    Yes.
    In a cattle train or in a passenger train?
    Yes.
    No, in cattle trains, all the young people.
    From Briesen.
    We were all from the--
    we were all strong, healthy young people
    trained for hard work.
    All German Jews?
    Yes.
    And that, I think, is the reason why
    I've survived, because we were sort of trained already
    for this tough life.
    You'd been two years there, approximately.
    Yes.
    I was very friendly with a young chap there.
    He was-- how old was I then?
    18.
    You would've been 18.
    I was 18, and he must have been 20.
    And we were very fond of each other,
    and we were-- he wanted to get engaged to me.
    But I said, what is the point?
    We don't know what's going to happen.
    Anyway--
    Do you remember his name?
    Yes, because his brother came back.
    I met his brother once.
    Can you tell me his name?
    Alfred Roberts.
    And was that a German name, Roberts?
    Yes, Robert.
    And his father was there also.
    And anyway, they were wonderful.
    The men looked after the women under the conditions there.
    And when we arrived in Auschwitz, we--
    in Birkenau, not Auschwitz.
    You know the difference between Birkenau and Auschwitz?
    Yes.
    Well, we had to line up, and the men
    were taken to one side and the women to the other.
    And that is the last I saw of him.
    Well, and then we arrived--
    Just a second, when you say it's the last you saw--
    because-- were they selected for gassing or for work?
    No,
    For work.
    And your group were--
    Because we were all--
    [BOTH TALKING] sent to work.
    --young and able, yes.
    So we didn't know that at the time,
    but I heard afterwards that he survived till the end.
    In the end he didn't make it.
    Well, we had to see--
    So you would have arrived in, say, May 1943?
    '43, that's right.
    So [AUDIO OUT] he took a special interest in us.
    Why?
    Because he must have been said they could do sewing.
    We said we could work in the factory, we're factory workers.
    And that was our luck because they were building a munition
    factory there.
    And they said, you people will have
    to keep until the factory is ready,
    and then you work in the factory.
    That was the idea.
    That was one--
    What do you mean that was the idea?
    You knew about this?
    No, but that's what they told us.
    Who's "they"?
    What do you call-- the SS man in charge.
    He took a special interest in us.
    Why?
    Because he must have been in charge of that factory,
    and he wanted to staff it with some more trained people.
    So he said, this is what is going to be with you people.
    But somehow the scheme-- it took too long to finish the factory,
    and they lost interest on us.
    And we were just treated like anybody else.
    Did you work while the factory was being built?
    Yes, but very rough work.
    What sort of work?
    Like cleaning the ground, the grass, just carrying rocks
    just to keep us busy, tough work in the rain and in the heat.
    As we came, they gave us nice working suits,
    and so we thought, that's going to be something special.
    When you say "working suits--"
    Khaki overalls.
    That was different than everybody else who got
    a blue-and-gray-striped uniform.
    But that was all because it took too long,
    and that chap must have lost interest in us.
    And we were just put together with all the rest
    afterwards in the same bad condition.
    And a lot of--
    In Birkenau?
    In Birkenau, yes.
    What was your block?
    I don't remember.
    We went to different blocks all the time.
    Did you keep together as a group--
    Not the--
    --women?
    Yes, as much as we could.
    But I must say, the group that came out from the hakhshara--
    they were even there, some.
    They always kept together much better.
    They were fantastic to each other, really.
    But they didn't let any outsider sort of join them.
    And most of the people passed by the wayside
    until that factory really was established.
    What do you mean by "passed--"
    Well, they died.
    They got sick.
    I had one girl friend--
    one friend, one of our girls.
    She was a beautiful girl and very smart.
    And the minute they took her cigarettes away
    and they cut off her hair, she didn't want to live anymore.
    She sold all her bread and food for cigarettes,
    and she got typhoid and eventually--
    she died.
    And it happened to quite a few who
    weren't really strong enough or willing to fight.
    And you were willing to fight.
    Oh, yes.
    I was determined.
    I said, OK, I'm young, I'm strong and healthy, and--
    and how it is sometimes, one girl--
    she was-- she is 15 years older than I am.
    She was married and a little--
    a small person.
    And she had kidney stones on the way there.
    She had the most terrible attacks.
    And everybody said, look, we wouldn't give a penny
    for her life, the way she is.
    She survived because she was determined.
    Do you remember her name?
    Yeah, she's my best girlfriend.
    We're still in contact very much.
    What is her name?
    Margaret Schmidt.
    Do you want me to write that down?
    Yes, yes.
    Anyway, we were not that friendly at that stage
    because she was so much older than I,
    but I still remember that it's only
    that she survived and I survived afterwards
    that we met up again.
    And how long were you in Birkenau then?
    You stayed in Birkenau?
    Until it was cleared, until the Russians came.
    That was when?
    The end-- near the end of the war.
    In '45?
    It must have been January or February '45, yes.
    Did you go on any marches?
    Yes.
    Then we were sent to-- then the camp was cleared.
    And you never worked in a factory, in the rubber factory?
    Oh, yes, I did.
    Eventually that factory came apart.
    And those few that had survived were taken and put
    into a special block and got much better conditions.
    And [BOTH TALKING]
    What was the name of that block?
    You don't remember?
    No, I can't think of it just now.
    [INAUDIBLE] was the name of the factory,
    and that was also our kommando.
    We all had a name when--
    [? You would, yeah. ?]
    --we were marching out.
    That's right, we knew.
    And where you all German Jewish girls?
    Or were there others?
    No, there was Hungarians, [NATIONAL GROUP NAME] Polish,
    and Czech.
    Yes.
    And did you stay national groups, or did you mix?
    We stayed a little bit together, I think, in national groups
    more or less.
    But we were friendly with the others.
    And, well, so once we got into the factory,
    we were better off.
    We got better food and better conditions.
    And what did you make?
    Munition, ammunition.
    What sort?
    I was at a machine.
    I had quite a--
    Responsible?
    --responsible job at-- I was manning one machine, pressing--
    we are putting the lids on the little--
    Then what were you making?
    What was it?
    I don't know.
    I think for bombs.
    [BOTH TALKING]
    It was a little cylinder like this,
    a little cylinder like that, and I
    had to put the caps on with the machine.
    But I--
    Was it full already?
    No, it wasn't.
    It was--
    [INAUDIBLE] it.
    It was filled somewhere else.
    Yes, there were other machines where they
    were testing it afterwards.
    And--
    And what was it made of, steel?
    Yes.
    What you made.
    Metal.
    I put a cap on that.
    And I had a bit of an accident.
    Well, not an accident.
    Sometimes this thing broke.
    That's where I lost my finger.
    I had a little cut in the finger,
    and they didn't treat it properly.
    And it got septic, and they had to take that off afterwards.
    During the war?
    In the camp, yes.
    And how did they treat you?
    I was-- I was eventually-- well, they sent me to this place
    where they usually give bandages and so on.
    Infirmary.
    Yes.
    And they didn't know what it was until I kept on going there,
    and eventually somebody else said, look here,
    this looks very bad.
    And they sent me to Auschwitz, where the political prisoners
    were, and they had a better-equipped sort
    of hospital there.
    And I went there, and this chap said,
    look, if you don't want to lose your whole arm,
    I take that finger off.
    And he did that.
    Who was that?
    Was that a prisoner?
    Yes.
    They were prisoners.
    It was a doctor?
    Yes.
    A Jewish one?
    No, he was a Polish man, I think, or German.
    But they were inmates, They were all--
    Did they treat you kindly?
    Yes, very kindly.
    With anesthetic?
    Local anesthetic.
    And I never forget the nurse, a male nurse
    who was helping him there--
    he afterwards took his shawl off his neck which
    his mother had sent him in a parcel with his initials
    and gave it to me.
    To--
    To-- --of [BOTH TALKING]
    Yes, that size.
    He was a German, too.
    And were you given any--
    I even know his name, too.
    But he wasn't [BOTH TALKING]
    Well, it doesn't matter.
    He was a Polish Gentile?
    No, a German.
    He was a German man, German--
    A German Gentile?
    What was he?
    A political prisoner?
    Yes, yes.
    What was he?
    A socialist or communist?
    Yes, I would think so, yes.
    And what was his name?
    [GERMAN]
    That's how you remember names like that, isn't it?
    Well, it was significant in your life.
    Yes.
    And did you have any convalescent?
    Or did you have to go--
    No.
    --straight back to work?
    Straight back.
    They let me stay.
    They said I shouldn't work for a few days.
    But during those few days, they we are having selections,
    and whoever was in the block would have been taken away.
    So you--
    You preferred to work.
    A few times there were selections,
    and I just got away somehow.
    I sneaked out through the back and went back to the factory.
    It was the safest place.
    And were you fed any better than if you--
    In the factory yes.
    What sort of food--
    We had soup, but we did have soup every day,
    a thick soup with potatoes, and the peel in it,
    all sorts of things in it, and perhaps a little bit of meat
    sometime in it.
    But we worked 12 hours, and marching out and back,
    and standing for hours to be counted.
    But we did have a chance.
    At least they cared about us a little bit.
    And so was the population, the working population
    of the factory, fairly steady?
    Yes.
    They had the political people--
    no, they had even German people coming
    from the outside of the camp.
    To work in the factories?
    Yes.
    Hired people?
    Yes.
    And was there any mixing, or were they
    kept strictly in different parts of the factory?
    They came to see what we were doing.
    You know, --
    They were in charge?
    Or they were supervising?
    Supervising, yes.
    And so you were there from--
    so when do you think, approximately,
    the factory started?
    Would it have been still in '43 or in '44?
    No, not '43.
    '44, I would say.
    And the whole of '44 you worked in that factory?
    Yes.
    Doing the same work all the time?
    No, I think I was in different departments.
    Yes, definitely.
    I started off with a smaller job and eventually was
    put onto that machine.
    And tell me about the marches.
    Well, after that, when the Russians came near,
    they wanted to empty the place.
    The Germans wanted--
    They didn't want-- the Germans want us to be freed.
    So it went on and on.
    We were all loaded into wagons.
    I've got that written down in here, too.
    And we were first, I think, in the wagons
    for three days and three nights.
    They were open, and it was snowing into them.
    Just so -- your diary, did you write it then or later?
    I wrote it as I came out.
    So [? it's last year. ?]
    [BOTH TALKING] to come out.
    So it is-- it might be a lot more detailed, clearer.
    Is it in English, or is it in German?
    In German.
    Well, perhaps--
    I have intended--
    Would you like to read some of it, perhaps?
    Yeah, in German.
    Or --
    Well, tell me it first, and then-- no, you
    can read it in German because it would be more accurate.
    Yes.
    Yes, because we have a translation [BOTH TALKING]
    I've got dates sort of there.
    Yes.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    All right, well, would you like to read some of this?
    Yes.
    It was 1939?
    1943 to [? 19-- ?]
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    1946 and 1945.
    I better speak German.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    No, it couldn't be [GERMAN].
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    Just a second, who did that?
    Were they Jewish people?
    Yes, our own people who did do this.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]?
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    You know, banks, bank, the square.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    You read off that?
    Revier is a-- revier is a sort of hospital block.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    It meant when somebody got in there, he never came out.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    They just killed it.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    [GERMAN], what is that?
    A black spot.
    I see.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    For the first few months.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    You know, to kill the feelings.
    You had that in your food?
    Yes.
    You knew that or you just--
    We knew that too yes.
    It tasted very salty of it.
    The minute we got there, our period
    stopped I think also because of that.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    Just a second.
    Yes.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    I think that was Auschwitz.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    And what do you mean?
    I couldn't understand it.
    I mean they made use of their strength, of their force.
    [SPEAKING GERMAN]
    [GERMAN]
    Who was with you?
    The kapos.
    This was the camp police.
    [GERMAN]
    When you say gekauft, how did you buy?
    We changed it.
    Mrs. [INAUDIBLE] brought it, you know?
    Then this is from the stock that was bought
    from what people brought?
    Right, and people who worked to sort out that stock used to--
    Steal it.
    --steal it and threat, you know and change it for bread.
    Anyway.
    [GERMAN]
    The kapos, the camp police.
    They were also inmates.
    They were political prisoners
    But they had more power.
    Yes.
    And there were Jews among those too.
    When you say under threat, what was done under threat?
    The bowing was done under threat?
    Yes.
    If we were caught with it, they used to stick the pullover--
    I mean, they were somewhere here--
    Yes.
    --and in their coat, they were hit badly.
    [GERMAN]
    What is anstellen?
    To collect for appell, for--
    to be counted, you know?
    [GERMAN]
    They were hanged in camp?
    Yes, in front of us.
    And we had to stand in the front row
    because we worked in the factory so we could see this straight.
    To show you at the factory.
    Yes.
    When did this happen?
    Do you remember approximately?
    I have brought here newspaper cuttings where
    it's written about it too.
    After the war.
    And there might be a date.
    Yes. after the war.
    And were there Jewish girls?
    Yes.
    Were there German girls?
    No, Hungarian-- Greek and Hungarians, some Hungarians
    would have been.
    Yes, I think mostly one Polish girl
    I think well there were three girls
    Were hanged?
    Yes.
    [GERMAN] '45.
    That's when the transport was.
    [GERMAN] Soon after, you see?
    [GERMAN]
    Let's see.
    The hanging was on the 18th of January?
    No, no, the transport.
    But that was soon after the hanging.
    Oh, which transport was it?
    Where we evacuated from Auschwitz
    when the Russians came.
    That was the heading for this part.
    I see.
    18th of January, '45.
    [GERMAN] Because we had to work to the last minute.
    [GERMAN] Survival-- instinct of survival.
    [GERMAN] That is where we eventually landed.
    Oh, you don't have to write that.
    I mean, that's the spelling of that, we know.
    Yes.
    [GERMAN]
    What is a [GERMAN]?
    Where you usually have crops, in the--
    A barn.
    That's right.
    [GERMAN]
    But all 10 of them?
    Yes, and more.
    [GERMAN]
    And I have got newspaper articles about that.
    Are they much later or at the time?
    Afterwards.
    You don't have them here?
    Yes, I have that all here.
    Would it be possible to get photo copies of that?
    Yes.
    Very interesting-- they had put--
    the Nazis had already undermined our camp--
    In Ravensbrück?
    --in Ravensbrück.
    So how long were you in Ravensbrück altogether?
    You moved from 15th of January.
    And you were freed on the 29th of April.
    Yes, that's right.
    That's it.
    That's when I was there.
    So you were there?
    Only because I couldn't-- those who could work,
    they were sent away still further,
    but only those who couldn't work were left there.
    And I read here one of these articles that said
    that they had undermined it.
    And some of the inmates who were also too sick to be sent away
    crawled on hands and knees and cut those ammunition--
    what you call it, this, the--
    Explosives.
    --explosives.
    And that is why we are alive today.
    And how many sick people were left in Ravensbrück, just too
    weak to walk?
    I don't know.
    There were different blocks.
    But we heard how around us, we were blown up.
    And you were 19 and 1/2 then?
    Must have been.
    And when you were freed--
    you were going to tell me, first,
    how you-- what were your skills for survival, by what means you
    helped yourself to survive.
    The one thing was always to be in the background,
    never to do anything to be different.
    To be noticed.
    Yes, even not to work too hard, that they
    would take more notice of you or to vanish in that way.
    You did that on purpose.
    Yes.
    What made you decide on that policy?
    Well, we found that was the safest.
    Even there, there were some pretty girls, you see.
    And those kapos
    The kapos, were they men or women?
    Women.
    Those were women.
    They were in charge of the block where we lived.
    There was-- you see those, they were all a bit perverse.
    Lesbians?
    Yes.
    And they took a couple of our girls
    who were good-looking, and let them live with them,
    and gave them good food, and good clothing.
    But I mean, we didn't want anything of that.
    So we just stayed in the background all the time.
    And were you together with a group of friends--
    Were we, yes.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    How many else survived?
    We even teamed up with others that hadn't been in our group
    but with some of our background.
    And the 350, the 15 that survived, they
    survived till after the war?
    Oh, no, no.
    We were separated on this transport.
    I was all on my own then?
    Oh, you didn't have anybody else left from [? Wiesen? ?]
    Not in Ravensbrück.
    I did meet up with a few afterwards in Berlin again.
    I see.
    So were there any other ways by which
    you helped yourself to survive?
    Or that was it?
    How did you cope with the cold, for instance?
    Well, I was also-- we were also working, at one stage,
    to sort out the clothing.
    And we were also able to clothe ourselves a bit better.
    We could leave the old stuff there and get something better.
    And I always took a bit of a chance
    in pinching something and selling it for bread.
    And I had two good things happening to me.
    I was very keen, obviously, on keeping fairly clean.
    And I found a paste, a toothpaste,
    a tube of toothpaste.
    And when I tried to squeeze something, it was empty.
    But it was a bit-- and when I tried to squeeze something out,
    nothing came out.
    And I tried to open it from the back to get something out.
    And there were 100 American dollars in it.
    And I gave this to somebody in the factory.
    I knew there were people having connections
    with the people who worked out of the camp, you see.
    And through that, I gave this to this one Polish Jewish man.
    This was one note?
    Or different?
    No, hundred-- a whole bunch--
    Of a hundred notes?
    --hundred notes.
    How many, do you know?
    I don't know.
    It was a bunch of money.
    I mean, you had to keep this terribly secret.
    Yes, of course.
    I gave this to this man.
    And he promised me to give me bread
    whenever he hid any spare.
    And that lasted for months.
    And every day, I went to ask him.
    Sometimes, I got only once a week or twice a week a piece.
    But still, it helped.
    And what did he do with the money?
    He gave it to the people, I suppose,
    who went out of the camp.
    To work outside?
    Outside.
    What did they work at?
    They were in factory.
    In another factory?
    In this factory, supervising capacity.
    I see, like the Germans?
    Oh, yes, the Germans.
    There was a connection with the outside world
    through these Germans.
    And then another time, I found a diamond ring in a pair of shoes
    that was given to us or that I took.
    And I couldn't get my foot into it.
    And when I looked, there was a diamond rings wrapped up
    in paper.
    And I gave this also--
    I gave this to another place with dental surgery.
    There was a little setup.
    There was a dentist and a dental nurse.
    And somebody took--
    Who did they attend?
    Who's teeth were?
    These were also inmates.
    But whose teeth did they fix?
    Mostly to the SS people, but also to us
    people when there was something urgent, like a tooth
    had to be pulled out.
    They did that.
    They didn't pull teeth.
    But if there was really something bad,
    they did it there too.
    And I give it to them.
    And they always cooked food every day.
    And I could come every day for a hot soup there.
    And what was the help?
    And that helped me when I had typhoid.
    I had typhoid.
    I was very sick in there, in the Revier,
    where not many people came out.
    And I was so sick.
    And you don't feel like eating.
    And when you get that soup, you feel even less.
    But because I wanted to survive, I closed my nose
    with my fingers not to have the taste
    and I poured it down my throat because I
    knew if I wasn't going to eat it, that that would be the end.
    And I could hardly walk.
    But this person from the dentistry place told me,
    she had heard there's going to be a selection tomorrow.
    And she said, you must get out of here.
    And I said, I can't walk.
    She said, you have to.
    You've got to have somebody to help you walk out
    of here, which I did.
    And that was another chance to survive.
    And we had to stand for hours.
    And everything was going round right in front of my eyes.
    I was always dizzy, I remember.
    Then I always had a friend who carried me along.
    We helped each other.
    And so I had a few narrow escapes.
    And did your friend survive too?
    Some friends.
    I mean, we were in a group.
    I was quite close to one girl, she survived.
    But we were separated.
    And we did meet again afterwards.
    And then we weren't such good friends anymore.
    It's strange.
    But what was the other thing?
    There was one more thing.
    Oh, yes, so when I came out of that,
    really, I was looking terrible.
    I was skin and bones.
    And I had a terrible skin disease, which a lot of people
    had from the lice.
    Well, what were they doing in 1943 or '44 that you had that?
    Is it another part?
    No, in the earlier part, I think.
    Yes, because afterwards, we were better looked down.
    It was an earlier part, scabies, you know,
    a terrible skin infection.
    And I had that from top to toes.
    And we had to line up.
    And the SS doctor looked at us.
    And he looked at me.
    And he said, you look pretty bad.
    And I smiled at him.
    And I said, oh, I'm much better already.
    And he said, well, I'll give you another chance.
    Now, if I had cried, he would have said, that way.
    They were somehow susceptible, perhaps, to a bit of courage
    or whatever it was.
    And I was very strong and healthy.
    And then fate or whatever you can call this,
    luck, I don't know, is how I survived.
    And what happened then--
    oh, you were going to tell me about this Trawniki--
    Yes.
    --how you found out about your parents.
    Oh, I did know the connection that I got this address.
    I think I must have met this person in Berlin
    when I came out.
    I know there were two things just now how it comes.
    I remember now.
    I had always hoped that my parents would survive.
    But when I was in the camp myself,
    I knew there wasn't a chance for anybody over 35-40.
    So I didn't have much hope.
    But one day there was a transport from Trawniki.
    And I talked to these people.
    And they said the whole camp was shut down.
    And how did you know that then?
    They wrote to you before they left for Trawniki?
    Yes.
    They said-- or they must have sent me a letter from there.
    Or they said, we are going to Trawniki
    before they were sent away.
    I knew that they were there.
    Was that a labor camp?
    A concentration camp, a very new camp, I'm sure.
    And so I knew that my parents were not alive.
    And as I came out afterwards in Berlin,
    all the people went through.
    Somebody said they had been in Trawniki.
    And they had somebody else.
    And they gave me the address.
    I should write to that person because that person
    had a daughter who came out of that camp.
    And I wrote that person there.
    I've got the letter.
    You've got the letter.
    Would you like to read us that letter then?
    Well, that's the meanest letter.
    I've always put all these things away.
    It's very, very sad.
    Well, think of it that you help the history
    that this will not occur again.
    Yes, I know.
    Well, I had it yesterday.
    I read it yesterday.
    So that's OK.
    Would you like a cool thing, something to drink?
    No, let's do this first because I want to have plenty of time.
    Yeah, OK.
    That was the 5th of January, '47.
    That's just before I emigrated.
    [GERMAN] Fraulein [? Behrens ?]
    And now, it was written in Weimar?
    Yeah.
    [GERMAN]
    She was a Christian.
    Yes.
    [GERMAN] I never asked any more.
    [GERMAN] Because she was married to a German.
    In the end, they still killed the daughter.
    The daughter was half-- was a quarter Jewish?
    She was quarter Jewish, yes.
    That's right-- half-Jewish.
    Half-Jewish.
    Her husband must have been German and the--
    No, she said--
    The woman was German and the father was--
    this woman who writes it, she must have been--
    She was German and her husband was half-Jewish.
    So the daughter was quarter.
    Yes, that's right.
    And they still-- after they let her go from there,
    she still was [GERMAN] because she was married
    to a non-Jew or something.
    [GERMAN]
    I only thanked her for the letter and that was it.
    I didn't want anymore.
    I didn't even need to have this because it wasn't easy to.
    What was her name?
    Fraulein Pinkus Baden, Pinkus--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    [INAUDIBLE] [? Pinkus. ?] [INAUDIBLE] [? Pinkus. ?]
    [INAUDIBLE] [? Pinkus, ?] I suppose.
    I see.
    The one must be her name and the other her married name
    because she was divorced.
    I see.
    Weimar.
    Here, the-- there's the sender, even.
    I can't read it.
    Herbstrasse.
    Herbstrasse.
    21 on the street.
    And I can't read this.
    Yes, yes.
    I'm sure she is not alive.
    She must have been old already then.
    Yes.
    No, but for the historical record now.
    Yes, yes.
    So that's how you found out that your parents had--
    That's right.
    --perished?
    Yes, so I added those things together.
    Yes.
    Now, what happened to you when Ravensbrück
    was freed by the Russians?
    Were your toes healed?
    No.
    It's the halves of feet that eventually were taken off.
    And it was all full of pus.
    And it was that wide open.
    And they just put bandages on it and to draw out
    the pus, the dead cells.
    And they had nurses there and doctors.
    And what, prisoners?
    No, the Russians.
    Oh, the Russians.
    Oh, the Russians.
    Came in there.
    There was a commandant in charge who
    was seeing that everything went off in good order.
    And they looked after us and gave us good food.
    During that time, a lot more of the people
    died because they couldn't take the food.
    They got even more sick.
    And we all got sick at first.
    It was all too rich for us because we had
    been starving the last week--
    and even new water.
    But they looked after us very well.
    They entertained us with their troops.
    They came and sang for us and played music for us,
    the Russians.
    And they were good to us.
    And this was in Ravensbrück itself?
    In Ravensbrück.
    They made it like a hospital.
    They made it into a hospital.
    And how long were you there after liberation?
    Until I could sort of walk fairly well.
    How long was that?
    I must have been there two months, I would say.
    Till the end of June?
    Yeah, it would have been--
    yes.
    And then what happened?
    And then I made my way to Berlin.
    There were some trains going.
    And I don't know were there any trains.
    I don't think there were trains.
    But we managed to get lifts with truck drivers.
    In what sort, Russian trucks?
    I suppose Russian or even German.
    That was the only real transport we had at that stage.
    And I know I was-- one night, I was put up
    with some German people, who were
    trying to be very nice to me.
    How did you feel?
    You were born in Germany.
    How did you feel at that time?
    Well, I thought they were all Nazis.
    You know, I hated them.
    Well, because in the end, they were all bad to us, really.
    Well, how did you feel about-- you stayed just one night, or?
    Yes.
    Ah, well.
    They were forced to take you or they took you voluntarily?
    I think voluntarily.
    I think I must have been given the name by somebody that they
    were fairly decent people.
    There were some people who were quite decent also.
    And eventually, I ended up in Berlin.
    Where?
    In this-- again, we had these Jewish places,
    which was a synagogue or--
    I don't know the name.
    I know only Kleine Hamburger Strasse.
    I knew there were a few Jewish buildings, that there
    was a hospital and a synagogue.
    And that was--
    But you were back where you'd been before your deportation?
    I don't think it was the same place.
    But it was something very similar.
    They made it a [GERMAN],, they called it,
    where everybody's name was taken down in particular.
    So that relatives could find?
    That's right.
    And that was in the Aufbau publicated.
    And my uncle in South Africa saw it.
    But Aufbau is an American newspaper?
    Yeah.
    It was circulated in America.
    I see.
    In South Africa, my uncle read it, my name.
    Were you the only survivor of his family?
    Yes, yes, yes.
    And another cousin, actually, who
    had been in Holland, my cousin.
    But he had also been taken to Auschwitz towards the end.
    From Holland?
    Also from Holland.
    He had also survived.
    That was an uncle.
    Nine sisters and brothers my uncle had.
    There was one more aunt surviving because she
    was married to a German man.
    And they intended to take her to a camp.
    But when they had given her a day to come,
    they started bombing Dresden, where she lived.
    And the husband, who was a German,
    had to also work in a working labor camp, in a labor camp.
    And he stuck to her.
    He didn't get divorced from her.
    He was very decent.
    So they survived as well.
    That's all.
    Did they have children?
    Yes, they had a son.
    They've died by now, they both were aging.
    Yes, but did their child--
    Now, that son was from the first marriage of that German aunt,
    so he was completely German.
    He even got a [INAUDIBLE].
    One, I believe.
    Yeah, yeah.
    He was trained.
    He was young.
    But they didn't have children from your aunt's side?
    No.
    She didn't, no.
    But you don't remember the exact location of that camp--
    of that [GERMAN] in Berlin?
    In Berlin.
    But that's very common.
    I mean, everybody would know if you told them, yes.
    They would know it.
    Yes.
    And how long were you there for?
    I was there, I don't know, not very long, two weeks perhaps?
    And also, they tried to bandage my feet there.
    They didn't heal my feet.
    And they wouldn't heal you?
    They didn't close it.
    It wasn't going to close.
    And there, I met up with this one friend, the one girl
    who survived that I had known.
    But she was quite a bit older.
    And she had been there before me.
    She had carried on walking when I was stuck in Ravensbrück
    in the hospital wing.
    And where had they been taken?
    She was taken to many places, to--
    I forget now the names of the camp where she was.
    And when she was eventually freed,
    then the Russian soldiers made no difference
    if they're Jews or Germans.
    Really?
    What did they do?
    But they didn't think they did a bad thing.
    Some of them thought these women wanted it
    just as much as they did.
    Oh, I see.
    So they raped the women there.
    I didn't understand what you meant, yeah.
    Some women had to go to a hospital
    afterwards for treatment.
    They just wouldn't make a difference.
    But weren't these women so starved?
    They still appealed to them?
    By that time, they had already been living in houses
    that the Nazis and the Germans had vacated.
    And they had eaten.
    They didn't look that bad.
    Their hair had been-- we had our hair grown by that time.
    When we worked in the factory, the hair was growing.
    And we looked much better all the time.
    Oh, I see.
    Yes.
    I see.
    Later on, they let all the--
    So these extra concentration camp inmates
    were raped as well?
    Yes.
    But there were no consequences, no pregnancies?
    And if there were, they would take the--
    would give them an operation to the hospitals at that stage
    because it was so common.
    I see.
    Anyway, that friend of mine, she was already now before me
    in Berlin.
    And she had heard on the way that Auschwitz, everything
    had gone up into the air in Auschwitz, Ravensbrück.
    She knew I had stayed behind.
    And she thought you were dead?
    And she had gone.
    And she thought I was dead.
    And then a few days later, some more people came.
    And she said, where you come from?
    And I said, we come from Ravensbrück.
    And she was the one whose name you've given here?
    [? Margarete ?] [? Schmidt, ?] yes.
    So they said, we come from Ravensbrück.
    And she said, but I thought there was nobody left.
    And she says, well, yes.
    She said, I had a friend by the name of Lotte Behrens then.
    Oh, she's on the way.
    She's coming.
    So she was very happy.
    And she said, I must wait for her.
    And she waited for me.
    And there was also the brother of my boyfriend
    also there and a few other friends.
    Who was this man?
    Rudy Roberts-- Alfred and his brother is Rudy.
    And so happy reunion with a few more girls who had come back.
    And then this girl was--
    my friend was from Oberschlesien, Silesia,
    from Katowice, Gleiwitz.
    And she said, I can't go back there.
    The Poles are there.
    And she said, she would come back with me
    to my hometown, which was the Russian zone at that stage.
    So she looked after me.
    She cared for me.
    And I couldn't go--
    And you went back to your home?
    My hometown, yes.
    And lived in your house?
    Looked at my house.
    And there was a--
    You got it back?
    --Russian commandant in charge.
    And his secretary was Jewish, a Mr. [? Shternberg. ?]
    And he was very, very nice to us.
    He was a Russian, Shtern --
    And he was a Polish-- a Russian Jew
    or-- yes, I think he was Russian or Polish Jew.
    And he gave you your house back?
    Yes.
    The commandant actually-- the mayor, actually,
    gave us the house back.
    The mayor was a communist.
    All the communists were in charge then.
    And the Russians were in charge of them, holding them.
    And was your furniture there too anymore?
    No.
    Well, there was furniture there--
    But not yours?
    --not ours.
    A Nazi had bought that house for little money.
    And he still lived there with his mother.
    While you were living, while you were there?
    When I came back.
    So the mayor said, you just tell us what you want to do.
    And we will do it.
    You want the whole house or you want half, one flat?
    So we said, we would like one flat,
    the one upstairs, the sunny side.
    All right.
    Do you mind if the other man is still
    living downstairs with his mother
    until he finds something else?
    We said, no, we don't mind.
    And then he said, now, if you want furniture,
    there's a whole factory full of furniture
    that we took away from the Nazis.
    You go and choose what you like.
    So my friend did all that for me.
    She chose.
    She was much more fanatic than I was.
    What do you mean fanatic?
    She hated every German much more than I
    did because she lost her husband and she lost a sister
    with two little children.
    And she hated much more than I did.
    I was timid.
    I was brought up under this regime.
    And I wasn't--
    You didn't know anything else?
    That's right.
    So I was so used to be depressed, you see?
    And then she was 15 years older than I.
    She was a grown-up, normal person already.
    And so she had a different reaction than I.
    She was 35.
    She had had no children herself?
    No.
    They had only been married a short while.
    So she did all this.
    I was lying in bed.
    I went to the hospital then.
    They couldn't-- they sent me, eventually, to another place,
    Halle, to a hospital, where they gave me another operation,
    which meant they took a bit more of the bone off so it could
    heal better.
    But it never really healed well.
    Is it healed now?
    Oh, yes.
    And eventually, we got busy with our immigration
    and we learned a bit of English.
    You and your friend?
    My friend and I. We ate well.
    And everything was rationed, but we got as many cards,
    rationing cards as we wanted from the mayor.
    And so we sort of got back to health.
    And where did you want to immigrate to?
    To Central Africa to my brother, who
    had been there before the war.
    Oh, he didn't go to Johannesburg?
    No he still stayed in Zambia, in Northern Rhodesia.
    But your Uncle Alfred was in Johannesburg?
    Uncle was in Johannesburg.
    But the boys didn't get a permit to come to South Africa.
    They closed the borders.
    Ah, so then they could only go to Zambia.
    They could only go to Zambia, yes.
    That was Rhodesia.
    Yes, Northern Rhodesia.
    So then my uncle told my brother that I was alive.
    And then I wrote letters through the Red Cross.
    And I sent them letters.
    And then if we wanted to get out,
    we had to go away from Gardelegen and go to Berlin.
    Why was that?
    There were the people who would work at our immigration.
    We couldn't do in the Russians zone nothing.
    We had to go away with nobody knowing that we left.
    The Russians didn't like anybody to go over the border.
    Oh, I see.
    You left your house then.
    And we left everything behiind but a suitcase.
    And the truck driver, he put the cases
    somewhere under the goods.
    And we sat in the front.
    And he said, this is my sisters.
    How did you arrange that?
    People arranged it for us.
    What sort of people--
    Jewish people, German people?
    I think, well, I don't even remember who did it--
    German.
    It would have been German people.
    There was one other Jewish woman.
    She was a secretary for the Russian commandant.
    She had also been in the camp, very intelligent woman.
    And she was a friend of ours.
    I don't know if she helped us there.
    Tell me, before we get on to that--
    Yes.
    --I'd like to ask, once you moved back into your house,
    I mean, what were your relations with your former neighbors
    and the people you'd ]BOTH TALKING]
    We didn't see, yes.
    Well, that's when this teacher came back
    to me, the teacher I told you about,
    who talked about the Jews in bad terms and said--
    Before the war?
    Before.
    He came back.
    I was lying in bed and he came.
    Oh, I'm so happy you're back here.
    And oh, you were always my star pupil and all that.
    So I said, look, I don't want anything to do with you.
    Do me a favor, if you just go out,
    and I don't look at you anymore.
    You said that to him?
    I said that to him.
    And what was his reaction?
    Oh, but you were always such a good pupil.
    And I was never really a bad Nazi and all that.
    They crawled back to me.
    And then there was a neighbor across the road who had been
    quite decent to us, really.
    And he also came.
    And he wanted a certificate that he had been friends.
    And I did-- he wanted me to sign that he was never a Nazi.
    I said, I can't sign that because I knew more
    they all had to join the party.
    But I did give them a letter that he had been decent
    and that he had given my father some food, I know,
    in the evening.
    So I did that.
    For whoever deserved it, we did.
    Did you make any friends?
    I mean, what was it like when there?
    There was another neighbor who was always very decent to us.
    And they were bakers.
    And they gave us bread through the back window.
    And they were friends of ours.
    And they were good to us, old people.
    And old woman is still alive.
    She's over 90.
    And she's still writing with my friend in England.
    So there were very few people.
    And you said they gave you bread-- this was
    before the war, the Nazi era?
    Yes, yes, yes.
    Now, I must say, there was another thing happened.
    We must have-- might have-- somebody
    must have heard of that name Gardelegen
    because there was a whole train of inmates
    from some concentration camp burned
    up out of that little town.
    What do you mean, where?
    At the end of the war, there was a train full of camps--
    inmates from the camp.
    And they blew them up outside of our little town.
    That was when I wasn't there.
    That's what I heard.
    Before you came?
    Burned alive people-- survivors-- survivors
    were burned?
    Yes, blown up.
    But a few of those came out of that.
    And they were still in that town.
    They have a whole cemetery there with people who had,
    the last minute, been killed there.
    When you say-- oh, this was during the war or after?
    At the end, it must have-- no, just before the end of the war.
    And who had blown them up?
    The Nazis still.
    No, but from the town or from elsewhere?
    I don't know.
    Not from-- must have been some Nazis from the town, perhaps,
    or from somewhere.
    But it just happened to happen outside.
    It happened outside Gardelegen. I see.
    And from that, a few survivors had come to Gardelegen
    and stayed there.
    And we were friends with those also.
    A few people who had come through the town
    from other camps got stuck there.
    And we were friends with those.
    But I must mention one more thing.
    Where is that on the map?
    [AUDIO OUT] great satisfaction is when we came to our house,
    in the entrance hall, we had sort of marble.
    And there was a Magen David in there--
    In marble?
    --inlaid in marble.
    And as this man had bought the house,
    and we were still living upstairs
    before we had to leave it, he painted over it,
    over that Magen David.
    And that's how it was left.
    And when we came back, the first thing I said, [INAUDIBLE]----
    he came crawling to us.
    How are you?
    We are so pleased you're back.
    I said, look, I don't want to talk to you.
    All I want to ask you is to take that off again.
    I want to see that Magen David again.
    So the mother was sitting on her knees scrubbing away
    to make that come out.
    That was a little bit of satisfaction that we got.
    Did you have a tattoo number?
    Yes, I had a number, yes.
    Oh, there it is, you had a number.
    Cause that scar from ----[INAUDIBLE]..
    Yes.
    I didn't want it removed for the first few years.
    But eventually, you see, with my feet,
    when I then emigrated to my brother,
    then I went to South Africa, to Johannesburg.
    And there was a very nice Jewish doctor
    who operated first on one foot.
    And so if it was a success, he took a bit more of the bone off
    to get a bit more padding.
    And it was a success.
    And I went back to Northern Rhodesia.
    And then half a year later, I went back for the other foot.
    And when he did that, he looked at the number.
    And he said, you want me to take your number out
    at the same time?
    I said, no, I want to keep that.
    So I kept the number until I eventually got married and had
    children.
    You married in Lusaka?
    Yes.
    My husband was a friend of my brother,
    who was working in the business together with him.
    Your husband is still alive?
    Yes, yeah.
    He was a German Jew and the brother too?
    Yes, he had also come out just before the war like my brother.
    And they were--
    Where was your husband born?
    In Berlin.
    So I said no.
    But afterwards, nobody knew what this number
    was about in Lusaka.
    But you were the only concentration camp survivor?
    Yes, yes.
    We came out there with that.
    Really?
    That's unusual.
    Nobody came there into the middle of the bush, you know,
    except there was some relative.
    Oh, OK.
    And when I say, they asked me, what's that?
    And I said, that's my telephone number.
    They believed it.
    And I made a point of telling them what it was.
    But there was a time when I said, now, it's enough.
    If the people don't know by now what it is,
    I don't care to tell them any more about it.
    And when we went on a holiday with the children,
    already three children, I went to this doctor.
    And I said, could you take the number off for me now?
    And he said, yes, I'll do that.
    And he took it off.
    But why did it leave such a big scar?
    You've got to take a big piece of skin, otherwise,
    it won't heal.
    [AUDIO OUT]

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Charlotte Dessen (née Behrens), born on September 18, 1925 in Gardelegen, Germany, discusses her childhood and education; studying horticulture; her attempt to immigrate to South Africa prior to WWII; her deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she stayed from May 1943 to January 1945; her work in a munitions factory and losing a finger; her transfer to Ravensbrück; and her immigration to Northern Rhodesia in 1947; and her arrival in Australia in July 1966; and settling in Chatswood, N.S.W.
    Interviewee
    Charlotte Dessen
    Interviewer
    Ms. Sophie Caplan
    Date
    interview:  1980 October 23
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, acquired from Sophie Caplan

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Genre/Form
    Oral histories.
    Extent
    2 CD-ROMs.

    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
    Dessen, Charlotte, 1925-

    Administrative Notes

    Holder of Originals
    Ms. Sophie Caplan
    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sophie Caplan donated her interview with Charlotte Dessen to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Oct. 2009. The collection was transferred to the Museum’s Oral History Branch in 2010.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 09:18:17
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn50898

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    Also in Oral history interviews of the Sophie Caplan collection

    Collection consists of 88 oral testimonies, conducted in the early 1980s by Sophie Caplan and Konrad Kwiet, with Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Australia before and after the war. Collection includes supporting documentation about interviewees and outlines of each testimony, as well as supporting personal documents such as letters, newspaper clippings, and memoirs.

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    Oral history interview with Abraham Wajnryb

    Oral History

    Abraham Wajnryb, born October 7, 1912 in Kielce, Poland, discusses his childhood and education; his family’s background in Wislica, Poland; his Jewish education; attending medical school at Warsaw University; a pogrom in Kielce in November 1918; and antisemitism in Poland. [Note that the interview did not want to continue recording after this first interview.]

    Oral history interview with Henry Max Adler

    Oral History

    Henry Max Adler (né Heinrich Maximillian Adler), born January 17, 1914 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood and education; his family’s origins in Tarnow, Poland; the boycott of Israel's Department Store, where he worked; not experiencing antisemitism before 1933, except when he competed in rowing club competitions; applying for a landing permit in Australia in 1937; immigrating to Australia in 1938; sailing on the "Empress of Britain" and landing in Sydney in August 1938; his work in Australia; his relations with German friends in Australia; and his participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Ilse Walters

    Oral History

    Ilse Walters (née Trebitsch), born May 3, 1929 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood and education; her paternal and maternal grandparents; experiencing antisemitism; being forced to scrub cobblestones by the Nazis; her father escaping arrest; being sponsored by her mother’s sister to go to Australia; arriving in Australia in July 1939; her father’s timber business in Sydney; her experiences as the first Jewish refugee in her Australian school; the synagogue; visiting Vienna in 1979; her thoughts on Israel; and her participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Hilde C. Wolf

    Oral History

    Hilde Clarisse Wolf (née Erlanger), born February 27, 1915 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, discusses her childhood and education in Frankfurt am Main; working as a buyer in a warehouse; meeting her future husband in a hockey club; Kristallnacht, during which her fiancé was arrested and imprisoned in Buchenwald; getting her fiancé out of the camp; receiving a permit to travel from her cousin (Hannchen Goldschmitt); immigrating to Sydney, Australia in 1939; working as a maid and cook; her husband’s work; her two children; being widowed and remarrying; her life and work in Australia; and her involvement with the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Sidney Muller

    Oral History

    Sidney Muller (né Siegfried Muller), born in Berlin, Germany in 1920, discusses his childhood and education in Berlin; his Polish parents, whose families were from towns near Tarnopol (Ternopil', Ukraine); being raised an only child; attending an Orthodox synagogue (Kaiserstrasse); being dismissed from an apprenticeship because he was Jewish; the arrest of Polish Jews in October 1938 and his father’s deportation; getting to Antwerp, Belgium; obtaining a visa to Australia from Julius Rosenberg; leaving London for Australia in 1939; his work in Australia; visiting Germany many times after the war; and his participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Julius Wolff and Hilda Wolff

    Oral History

    Julius Wolff, born March 22, 1900 in Aurich, Germany, discusses his family’s background; how his ancestors were expelled from Spain in the 15th century then lived in Aurich for 500 years; his childhood and education; his older brothers participating in WWI; his work in the cattle trade and being forced out of the trade in November 1936; working for a Jewish cattle firm; receiving a permit to immigrate to Australia from Eric Hallenstein and leaving in 1936; going to Largs Bay in Adelaide, SA on July 14, 1939; spending six weeks at the Chelsea Park Training Farm (in Baulkham Hills, N.S.W.); his job on the Geurie homestead, working for Charles Shauner; and never returning to Germany. Hilda Wolff (née Engländer), born March 29, 1906 in Aurich, Germany, describes her family’s background; her childhood and education; her family’s friendship with Julius Wolff’s family; working with Julius and as a housekeeper; the antisemitism they experienced when Julius was forced out of the cattle trade; working for B. Willner; getting a permit to go to Jersey but not using it; receiving a permit to immigrate to Australia from Eric Hallenstein and leaving in 1936; arriving in Sydney on July 14, 1939; being sponsored by the AJWS (Australian Jewish Welfare Society) and going to the Chelsea Park Training Farm; living in several places in Australia; and contributing to the JNF (Jewish National Fund).

    Oral history interview with Jana Gottscholl

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Kurt Neubauer

    Oral History

    Kurt Neubauer, born January 22, 1909 in Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), discusses his family’s background in Lvov, Poland (now L'viv, Ukraine); his older sister; his childhood and education; training as a textile engineer; working in the textile industry in Czechoslovakia until 1940 when he was dismissed from his job; being forced to do labor on the railway; being sent to Terezín (Theresienstadt) in January 1942 and staying there until August 1944; his mother’s death in Terezín from tuberculosis; being in Auschwitz-Birkenau from August to October 1944; being transferred to Meuselwitz concentration camp; leaving Czechoslovakia illegally after the war; living in displaced persons game in the US zone of Germany; being sponsored by Ernest Morgensten to immigrate to Australia; arriving in Sydney on January 24, 1951; working for GM Holden, Ingot Mill (part of Alcoa Inc.), and Revlon Cosmetics; building a house in Northbridge (suburb in Sydney); and occasionally attending services at Temple Emanuel.

    Oral history interview with Werner F. Baer

    Oral History

    Werner Felix Baer, born April 29, 1914 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family’s background; his childhood and education; working in Jüdischer Kulturbund Berlin; marrying in 1938; being evacuated from Singapore in September 1940; winning an Australian song competition for composing “Sounds of Europe”; and visiting Germany several times after the war.

    Oral history interview with Peter Lom

    Oral History

    Peter Lom (né Löw), born July 26, 1920 in Brno, Czechoslovakia, discusses his family’s background; his childhood and education; the arrest of his father in July 1939; his imprisonment in Theresienstadt from January 1942 until December 1943; being sent to Auschwitz then Schwarzheide; being close to Rabbi Benjamin Béla Vojtech Gottshall during his time in the camps; the end of the war and receiving a landing permit to got to Australia from Karl Hofmann (his mother’s cousin); arriving in Sydney in 1949; his relatives in Melbourne; working at General Motors Holden; never returning to Czechoslovakia; and his support of Jewish organizations.

    Oral history interview with Emil Buckler

    Oral History

    Emil Buckler (né Buchler) discusses his birth in Budapest, Hungary in 1922; being sent to Ercsi; his experiences on a forced march to Budapest; being smuggled out of Hungary to Czechoslovakia; traveling to Vienna through Bratislava; and immigrating to Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Maria Sternhell

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Zygmunt Nebenzahl

    Oral History

    Zygmunt Nebenzahl, born March 27, 1900 in Kraków, Poland, describes his family’s background; his childhood and education; his father’s leather business; growing up Hasidic; antisemitism in Poland; getting married in 1928; leaving Poland on May 5, 1939 and going via London, England to Fremantle, Australia; arriving in Sydney on June 28, 1939; becoming a partner in a timber mill near Tamworth, NSW; his children and grandchildren; buying the firm that sold used Paul Ditisheim Swiss watches; visiting Austria and Germany after the war; his feelings towards Germans and Poles; visiting Israel several times; and his involvement in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Victor H. Bennett

    Oral History

    Victor Hyman “Chaim” Bennett (né Miseretzsky), born in London, England April 21, 1917, describes his family’s background in Ukraine; his childhood and education; moving to Palestine with his parents in 1930; living in Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Haifa; his schooling in Jerusalem and participation in Jewish youth groups; working on the Haffa port construction; being deported from Palestine in 1939 to the UK after smuggling arms for the Irgun; spending five years in the British Palestine Army; fighting for the Irgun in 1948; and immigrating to Australia in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Edith Kramer and Friedrich Kramer

    Oral History

    Dr. Edith Kramer (née Liebeck), born October 7, 1899 in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia), describes her family’s background; her childhood and education; her younger brother; studying medicine in Königsberg and Munich; doing an internship in Berlin and meeting her future husband; getting married in 1925; her husband losing his job at Charité Hospital and dying in 1937 of natural causes; keeping up her practice and being asked by German agents to do illegal things; being sent to work as a doctor at a camp in Posen, Germany (now Poznan, Poland) within the quarantine camp for women, Fort Radziwill; working in Antoninek (an area in Poznan); the suicide of her paternal aunt; taking care of prisoners; making daily reports of the three camps; accusations of sabotaging German work leveled against her; her arrest and imprisonment in the Gestapo Prison of Poznan, Berlin-Alexanderplatz Prison, and Theresienstadt; life in the camps; liberation; moving to Switzerland immediately after the war; receiving a permit to go to Australia in 1947; immigrating to Australia in 1948; studying medicine in Sydney; getting married to Friedrich Kramer in Melbourne, Vic. in 1951; visiting Israel; and her life in Australia. Friedrich Kramer, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1902, discusses his training as a violinist in Vienna, Austria; working for Shell Oil Company; leaving Vienna after the Anschluss and receiving a permit to go to Australia; immigrating to Australia in 1938; being a laborer in Melbourne; playing for the Victoria Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; and visiting Germany in 1970 and 1981.

    Oral history interview with Edmund Josephs

    Oral History

    Edmond Josephs (né Edmund Jozefowicz), born October 28, 1912 in Wanne, Germany (part of Herne, Germany), discusses his family’s background; his childhood and education; moving with his family to Grudziadz, Poland in 1918; his work as a bookkeeping clerk in an iron foundry; doing his military service in the military police; going to Konski to work in an agricultural cooperative under German control; being arrested on August 20, 1943 and sent to Auschwitz (his number was 138040); being in Birkenau and quarantined in Block 30 (B II d); receiving a landing permit from the government in 1949 and immigrating to Australia; meeting his future wife on the ship “Protea”; working in the Camp Bathurst in New South Wales for two years; working in a factory in Surry Hills, NSW; and how his feelings about Germans have changed over the years.

    Oral history interview with Fred D. Heim

    Oral History

    Fred Dagobert Heim, born November 13, 1930 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family’s background; his childhood and education; being beaten up by children in his neighborhood for being Jewish; wearing Jewish insignias; hiding with his parents in the cellar of hid grandparent’s flat; life underground from October 1943 to May 1945; his decision to go to Australia instead of the United States; obtaining a landing permit sent by his aunt and uncle; arriving in Sydney, Australia in 1947; getting a job in a factory; getting married in 1953; his three sons; working for the commonwealth public services for 11 years as a clerk; and his feelings towards Germans.

    Oral history interview with Sophie Barold

    Oral History

    Sophie Barold (née Singer), born on November 7, 1926 in Cologne, Germany, describes his family’s Polish background; his childhood and education; his religious upbringing; his father’s death in the late 1920s; experiencing antisemitism from his peers; being sent by his mother to Nancy, France in 1938 to live with her youngest brother (Charlie Rozenberg), returning to Germany, and then going to Paris, France; joining the Eaubonne Orthodox OSE home; being evacuated to Montintin (in Château-Chervix, France); being in Nexon, France and escaping a deportation; going into the French underground; her work to find and gather Jewish children hidden during the war; receiving sponsorship to go to Australia and immigrating to Australia in 1951; living in a boarding house in Woollahra (suburb of Sydney, N.S.W.); living in Rose Bay; her work; never wanting to return to Germany; and her participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Israel I. Weinbaum

    Oral History

    Israel Isidor Weinbaum (also known as Israel Wine), born September 16, 1912 in Nowy Korczyn, Poland, describes his family’s background, including his ancestor Elimelech of Lizhensk; his childhood and education; working in the textile industry beginning at the age of 17; getting married February 6, 1936; the births of his sons in 1938 and 1950; being hidden during the war in a bunker by Polish friends in Leka, Poland; life in the bunker; being liberated by the Russians January 14, 1945; leaving Poland in September 16, 1945; staying in a displaced persons camp for two months; living clandestinely in Paris, France for three and a half years; immigrating to Australia in June 1949; living in Kingsford (suburb of Sydney); his company, Wine’s Knitting Co.; and retiring in 1975.

    Oral history interview with Gerda Schott

    Oral History

    Gerda Schott (né Lewinnek), born November 23, 1914 in Berlin, Germany, discusses describes her family’s background; her childhood and religious education; being a member of a Zionist youth group; training as a dressmaker; remaining in Berlin during the war; the imprisonment of her fiancé (Bully Schott, RG-50.617*0027) in Auschwitz and sending him food; visiting her fiancé and helping him escape Auschwitz; and immigrating to Australia.

    Oral history interview with Rosalia White

    Oral History

    Rosalia White (née Fenster, later Weiss, now Michael), born May 23, 1924 in Vienna, Austria, describes her parents’ Polish background; her childhood; her secular and religious educations; the arrest of her brother (Samuel) and father during Kristallnacht and their imprisonment in Dachau; trying to emigrate; being imprisoned in several camps, including Gurs, Saint-Cyprien, and Rivesaltes; travelling through France, Brussels, and Israel after the war; immigrating to Australia in 1954; living in Bondi (suburb of Sydney); working as a salesperson in food shops; and her son.

    Oral history interview with Edward Dahl

    Oral History

    Edward Dahl (né Eduard Dahl), born June 23, 1921 in Elberfeld, Germany, discusses his family’s background; his childhood; his secular and religious educations; attending Geneva International School (April 1938-August 1939); being shunned in school; going to London, England on August 25, 1939; leaving for Australia on the “Dunera” and arriving in September 1940; being imprisoned in Hay and Tatura internment camps; living in Melbourne and Alice Springs; visiting Germany in 1953 and again in 1962 when he was invited by the City of Wuppertal; getting married in 1950; his two sons; and being more Orthodox now than his earlier life due to his experiences in Hay and Tatura.

    Oral history interview with Solomon Schonberger

    Oral History

    Solomon Schonberger, born October 19, 1929 in Velka Barezne, Czechoslovakia (now Velykyĭ Bereznyĭ, Ukraine), describes his family’s background; his childhood; being raised Orthodox; the fights between Jewish and non-Jewish children; Jewish businesses being taken away in 1941; hearing about the final solution; the creation of a ghetto on March 16, 1944; working in a factory in Uzhhorod, Ukraine; being deported to Auschwitz on May 30, 1944; being transferred in June 1944 to Bunzlau; being liberated by Russian troops in February 1945; returning briefly to Velka Barezne; spending two years in Liberec, Czech Republic; immigrating to Australia in 1948; being a merchant of ceramic tiles; getting married and his three sons; his feelings about Germans; and his participation in and support of the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Fritz H. Reuter

    Oral History

    Fritz Henry Reuter, born September 19, 1905 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family’s background; his childhood; his parents’ divorce in 1910; moving to Berlin, Germany with his mother; his education in Berlin, Thuringia, and Munich; attending Humboldt University in Berlin and Morabit Hospital; being unable to be appointed to an academic or research job because of his Jewish origins; immigrating to London, England in September 1933; being employed at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; going to Australia in 1938 to work in the Sydney University Department of Organic Chemistry; founding the journal "Food Technology in Australia" in 1949; being an associate professor of Food Technology, School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (1952-1970); and his wife and children.

    Oral history interview with Georges G. Bossak

    Oral History

    Georges Gedaliah Bossak, born July 1, 1915 in Dereczyn, Russia (now Dziarechyn, Belarus), describes his family’s background; his childhood and religious education; being an apprentice to a tailor; being a member of Hechalutz Hatzair; serving in the Polish Army (1937-1938); the endemic antisemitism in the Slonim area; being in the artillery in the Polish Army and hiding at home after the retreat; joining a partisan group led by Icheskel Atlas with three other Jews; joining the Bulak group; getting married in 1946; his two daughters; going to Israel in 1948; going to Germany in 1951; immigrating to Australia in 1955, sponsored by the American Jewish World Service; his feelings towards Poles and Germans; working as a building contractor; and his participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Hannah Witton

    Oral History

    Hannah Witton (née Schab, formerly Witkowski), born July 1, 1915 in Berlin, Germany, describes his family’s background; his childhood and education; getting married to Emil Hans Witkowski; not experiencing antisemitism on a personal level until Kristallnacht when her father’s business was destroyed; buying tickets to Shanghai, China; her brother and husband going to Australia in early 1938; her father leaving for Australia in May 1939; going to Australia in June 1939; living in Rose Bay (suburb of Sydney); visiting Germany in 1972 and 1982; not considering herself Jewish; and her thoughts on Judaism and Israel.

    Oral history interview with Harold G. Jensen

    Oral History

    Harold Geoffrey Jensen, born August 23, 1920 in Unruhstadt, Germany (now Kargowa, Poland), describes his childhood and education; attending gymnasium in Züllichau (Sulechów, Poland); moving with his family in 1934 to Schönebach, Germany; his experiences with antisemitism in Unruhstadt; learning a trade in Hamburg, Germany; his experiences in Hamburg during Kristallnacht; going to Bombay (Mumbai), India and arriving February 25, 1939; apprenticing as a textile worker; immigrating to Australia in 1947; his work in the textile industry; getting married; his children; visiting Germany briefly after the war; visiting Israel; his participation in the Jewish community; and being the president of a B'nai B'rith lodge in 1973.

    Oral history interview with William Link

    Oral History

    William Link (né Wilhelm Link), born June 30, 1905 in Berlin, Germany, describes his family’s Hungarian background; his childhood and education; working for an export firm; the religious youth movement ESRA; experiencing antisemitism in his work; the denouncement of his father to German police; receiving a special permit to train as a glass embosser in 1938; immigrating to Australia in 1949; visiting Germany in 1978; visiting Israel; and his participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Frederick Kahn

    Oral History

    Frederick Kahn, born October 15, 1908 in Bruhl, Germany, discusses his family’s background; his childhood and education; his studies in Cologne and Frankfurt; his membership in Kameraden, deutsch-jüdischer Wanderbund and becoming a leader of the group in Cologne in 1927; working as clerk in a feather and flower wholesale firm; being forced to end his legal studies; experiencing antisemitism; his experiences during Kristallnacht and being imprisoned in Dachau for five days; traveling through Paris, Le Havre, New York, and Vancouver; traveling on the “Niagara” to Sydney, Australia in 1939; getting married; buying a poultry farm in Milperra (suburb of Canterbury-Bankstown Council); being part of the 3rd Australian Employment Company; his various jobs; visiting Germany in 1979; and his limited involvement with the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Gitta Buchwald

    Oral History

    Gitta Buchwald (née Rosenbaum), born in 1933 in Eisenstadt, Austria, discusses her family’s background; losing her parents when she was a young child; being raised by her maternal grandparents in Eisenstadt, Austria; her grandfather’s arrest in March 1938; going with her grandmother to Vienna, Austria and receiving assistance from the Jewish community; contracting tuberculosis and being placed in a convent with a hospital; staying in the hospital for over two years; the deportation of her grandmother; the attack of the mother superior by Gestapo; being sent to Theresienstadt, where she survived until the end of the war; being sent to England and adopted by a German-Jewish couple; the early deaths of her adopted parents; getting married to an academic; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Leslie Korda

    Oral History

    Leslie Korda (né Ladislav Klein), born September 7, 1922 in Kosice, Slovakia, discusses his childhood and education; being prevented from entering higher education in Hungary because of the numerus clausus; being deported to Birkenau; being transferred to Falkenberg, Fürstenstein, and Donaueschingen; the death of his father; getting married in 1948; immigrating to Australia in 1950; never returning to Czechoslovakia; and his participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Fritz Katz

    Oral History

    Fritz “Fred” Katz (né Chaimowicz), born April 15, 1925 in Osmolin, Poland, describes his childhood and education; moving to Lowicz, Poland, where his father had a grain mill; his siblings; his imprisonment in several camps, including Inowraclaw, Gutenbrunn, Posen (Poznan), Zbaszyn, Auschwitz, and Fürstengrube; the conditions on a forced march from Dora to Bergen Belsen; liberation; moving to Switzerland; and immigrating to Australia in 1950; his three sons; his work in Australia; and his active participation in the Jewish community.

    Oral history interview with Stephen Horvath

    Oral History

    Stephen Horvath (né Istvan Horvath), born August 21, 1903 in Győr, Hungary, describes his family’s background; his childhood and education; studying engineering in Budapest, Hungary; being kicked out of the university because he was Jewish; working in a Hungarian labor battalion; being imprisoned in Mauthausen labor camp; leaving Hungary in 1948 for Zurich, Switzerland and immigrating to Australia in November 1948; receiving help from HIAS; living in Neutral Bay (suburb of Sydney); and visiting Hungary a few times since his immigration.

    Oral history interview with Michael Dobes and Ruth Dobes

    Oral History

    Michael Dobes, born November 7, 1909 in Kovarce, Slovakia, describes his family’s background; his childhood and education; his father’s death on the Russian front in Bukovina in 1915; attending school in Nitra and Topolcany; studying electrical engineering at a technical college in Brno and living in a hostel for war orphans as an atheist; passing as a non-Jew to avoid discrimination; being deported to Theresienstadt in April 1942; being transferred to Majdanek then Zamosc labor camps; escaping from Zamosc on July 23, 1942 and going through L'viv, Ukraine to Prague, Czech Republic; being imprisoned for three weeks on his way to Bratislava, Slovakia; passing as a Gentile in Bratislava until May 1945; and immigrating to Australia in 1949. Ruth Sureh “Barabara” Dobes (née Hornung), born March 14, 1918 in Vitkovic, Morawska-Ostrowa, Czechoslovakia (Vitkovice neighborhood in Ostrava), describes her family’s background; her childhood; getting married on June 30, 1938 to Michael Dobes; training as a dressmaker; being deported with Michael to Theresienstadt in April 1942; being transferred to Majdanek then Zamosc labor camps; escaping with Michael and going to Bratislava, Slovakia; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Kitty Fisher

    Oral History

    Kitty Fischer (née Haas), born July 12, 1927 in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), describes her family’s background; her childhood and education; attending a Jewish secondary school and a convent school during the German occupation; being taken to Sered, Slovakia on September 13, 1944; being transported to Auschwitz for four weeks in October 1944; being transferred to Merzdorf (Marciszów, Poland) and working in a weaving factory from November 1944 to May 1945; her decision to emigrate; studying sociology in Czechoslovakia; going from Prague, Czech Republic to Genoa, Italy and immigrating to Australia in 1949; being married from 1954 to 1960; having one son; working for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany from 1968 to 1970; living in Israel from 1973 to 1975; working in Darwin, NT from 1975 to 1976 after the cyclone; her relationship to Judaism; and settling in Sydney in 1984.

    Oral history interview with Anna Green

    Oral History

    Anna Green discusses her birth in Siegburg, Germany in 1909 and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Edith Lowbeer

    Oral History

    Edith Lowbeer discusses her birth in Senec, Slovakia in 1924; her imprisonment in the Senec ghetto, Nove Zamky, Auschwitz, and Trutnov camps; liberation; leaving Czechoslovakia in 1948; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Janka Nagel

    Oral History

    Janka Nagel discusses her birth in Ardanovce, Slovakia; her imprisonment in Patronka and Auschwitz; receiving a permit for Costa Rica and then Australia; traveling through Europe, Asia and Australia; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Hans Eisler

    Oral History

    Hans Eisler discusses his birth in Vienna, Austria in 1924; becoming stateless; leaving Vienna in 1938 for Frankfurt, Brussels, and London; and immigrating to Australia in 1939.

    Oral history interview with Israel Sevek

    Oral History

    Israel Sevek (b. Severyn Pejachowicz) discusses his birth in Radzyn Podlaski, Poland in 1912; deserting from the Soviet amry in 1939; his imprisonment in the Minksi ghetto; escaping the ghetto; going to Paris; and immigrating to Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Ursula Flicker

    Oral History

    Ursula Flicker discussers her birth in Łódź, Poland in 1926 and being deported to Siberia in 1941.

    Oral history interview with Gert Lippman

    Oral History

    Gert Lippman discusses his birth in Berlin, Germany in 1914; his time in the Vaguemestre camp; being released in November 1939; tranferring with this job to France and Strasbourg; and immigrating to Australia in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Albert Yacoel

    Oral History

    Albert Yacoel discusses his birth in Salonica, Greece in 1908; his imprisonment in Averoff, Haidari camp near Athens, and Auschwitz; being evacuated to Mauthausen; returning to Greece after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Enzel Pilcer

    Oral History

    Enzel Pilcer discusses his birth in Krakow, Poland; becoming stateless; and immigrating to Australia in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Steiner

    Oral History

    Alfred Steiner discusses his birth in Kosice, Slovakia in 1928; his imprisonment in Auschwitz; working in a brick factory; being evacuated to Buchenwald; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Joseph P. Merfield

    Oral History

    Joseph P. Merfield discusses his birth in Koln, Germany in 1903; leaving Germany in 1938; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Robert King

    Oral History

    Robert King (b. Robert Koenig) discusses his birth in Vienna, Austria in 1913 and his immigration to Australia in 1938.

    Oral history interview with Egon Forsher

    Oral History

    Egon Forsher discusses his birth in Moravska-Ostrava, Czechoslovakia; being deported to Theresienstadt in 1941; his deportation to Auschwitz; briefly living in the so-called "Gypsy" camp; receiving an Australian visa in 1949; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Hedwig R. Fixel

    Oral History

    Hedwig R. Fixel discusses her birth in Vienna, Austria in 1910; her parents' deportation to Theresienstadt; going to London in 1938; and immigrating to Melbourne, Australia in 1939.

    Oral history interview with Yechiel Ilowski

    Oral History

    Yechiel Ilowski discusses his birth in Kolo, Poland; his imprisonment in various concentration camps including Auschwitz; and immigrating to Australia in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Hella Matters

    Oral History

    Hella Matters (b. Hella Mattersdorf) discusses her birth in Breslau, Germany in 1915; leaving for London in 1937; working in a mothercraft training society; and immigrating to Australia in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Amelie Rauner

    Oral History

    Amelie Rauner discusses her birth in Essen, Germany; being a "refugi SARRORS" in France; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Ferdinand Fixel

    Oral History

    Ferdinand Fixel discusses his birth in Vienna, Austria; being called up for the army in Austria and leaving the country for France; moving to London; and immigrating to Australia in 1939.

    Oral history interview with Menne Scheingesicht

    Oral History

    Menne Scheingesicht discusses his birth in Antwerp, Belgium in 1928.

    Oral history interview with Regina Zielinksi

    Oral History

    Regina Zielinski discusses her birth in Siedliszcze, Poland in 1925; working in forced labor; her imprisonment in Staw and Sobibor; travelling to Germany on falsified birth certificates after the war; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with George Strum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Max Drummer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Max Schein

    Oral History

    Max Schein (b. Moniek Schein) discusses his birth in Warsaw, Poland in 1928; his imprisonment in a camp in Bialystok; liberation; receiving a visa to Australia from his sister; and immigrating to Australia in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Wolfgang Grunthal

    Oral History

    Wolfgang Grunthal discusses his birth in Gleiwitz, Germany in 1922 and his immigration to Australia in 1938.

    Oral history interview with George Szekely

    Oral History

    George Szekely discusses his birth in Budapest, Hungary in 1919; leaving Hungary in 1949; living in Paris for two years; and immigrating to Australia in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Katz

    Oral History

    Joseph Katz discusses his birth in Vienna, Austria in 1913; becoming stateless; being imprisoned in Drancy concentration camp, Auschwitz, Buna, Mauthausen and Gusen; liberation; living in Paris for two years; and immigrating to Australia in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Henry Hutt

    Oral History

    Henry Hutt (b. Heinz Hutt) discusses his birth in Vienna, Austria; being sponsored by his cousing to move to Australia; and immigrating to Australia in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Aron Blumenfeld

    Oral History

    Aron Blumenfeld discusses his birth in Rawa Ruska, Poland in 1913 and being liberated from Buchenwald.

    Oral history interview with Lotti Blumenfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Litzi Hart

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joe Rose

    Oral History

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