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Oral history interview with Irene Hizme and Rene Slotkin

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1992.A.0125.56 | RG Number: RG-50.233.0056

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    Oral history interview with Irene Hizme and Rene Slotkin
    Transcript
    Ready?
    Relax, Rene.
    The tape is rolling.
    Your name first?
    My name is Rene Slotkin.
    This is now April 9, 1992.
    I was born Rene Guttman in 1937 in Teplice-Sanov,
    which is in Czechoslovakia.
    What's your specific birth date?
    December 21, 1937.
    And I'm not sure how long we actually lived,
    or how long I stayed in Teplice-Sanov.
    But my first recollection is living in Prague.
    Irene, you have something?
    Oh, sure.
    My name is Irene Hizme, and I was Renatta Guttman.
    I'm born the same day, but I'm half an hour older than Rene.
    I remember-- I don't remember Teplice-Sanov either--
    Sure.
    --whatever.
    But I do remember Prague that we lived upstairs in an apartment.
    We had a terrace the overlooked a yard.
    I don't think it was a very big apartment.
    I kind of remember a lot of things being in one room.
    Our crib, we slept in a crib, and it was in the room
    where our parents' bed was as well.
    And some place down aways was a table.
    That's all I remember.
    But it was a long flight of steps to get upstairs.
    Yeah, the staircase.
    I remember that, too.
    A very long flight of steps.
    The stairs, I remember, because I
    remember falling on the stairs once and cutting my chin
    and having a burning sensation full of--
    when I was treated for it.
    And lo and behold, years after-- after the war when I first
    remembered this, I looked and there's a little scar there.
    And you recently took a trip where you recalled
    a certain streetcar or trolley?
    Well, after the war, I returned to Prague
    because we had some friends who had some documents and pictures
    of us when we were much younger, before the war,
    with our parents.
    I do remember then seeing a trolley car with the number 22.
    I didn't know it was 22 at the time, but the images are 2-2.
    And we followed the route of the tram at that time of 22,
    and I was somehow able to locate this particular apartment
    building.
    It turned out to be the right one, so that was very exciting.
    But even more exciting was being able to, at that time, to get--
    this must have been in 1948 just before I started
    my trek to the United States--
    to be able to get actual pictures of myself
    and Irene and my parents together.
    It really gave me some roots for the first time ever,
    something tangible to be able to look at and know
    that I had a beginning and parents like everybody else.
    Right.
    I have very sporadic memories of our childhood,
    but I do remember that we were beautifully clothed.
    We had beautiful clothing, matching.
    It was always--
    I remember, particularly, we had these--
    not [INAUDIBLE],, with bells on them
    so our mom could hold us with a leash?
    Not a leash.
    Do you know what I'm--
    I don't know how you-- how do you call those?
    Harness.
    Harness.
    Harness.
    A harness.
    And they had these little bells on them.
    I remember that very clearly.
    I remember also very often going to a park which must have been
    near our home with our parents.
    And most vividly I remember one time there was a huge storm,
    and we went to the park afterwards.
    And all these trees had fallen down,
    and we were climbing, you know, like kids do on them, walking
    along the trees.
    And it was really a lot of fun.
    The pictures are of us, our parents, and ourselves--
    We even have pictures--
    --in the the park.
    --in the park.
    Yeah.
    And I remember-- this is just something that came to my head.
    There was a candy that we used to get.
    It was like a marmalade--
    it was like the Passover candy they make.
    You know, those jelly--
    Jelly.
    --jelly kind of candies.
    I remember that for some strange reason.
    Do you remember what they tasted like?
    Yeah, kind of orangey.
    Mm-hmm.
    It's so weird.
    I just--
    Now, from that time--
    We also had-- we had a certain number of toys
    that we used to play upstairs in the apartment.
    And one specifically I remember, we
    had punchers like conductors on a train,
    and we would play train a lot.
    We'd punch tickets.
    And I also remember having a doll which
    Rene very nicely threw down from the balcony
    and smashed to smithereens.
    Yes.
    Is that one of those celluloid dolls from the time, or--
    Yeah.
    It was big.
    It was a big doll.
    It 's a big doll.
    From that period, what I remember is being in the yard
    of this building and being-- stepping on bee--
    Yeah, he was bitten.
    And I was bitten by a bee.
    And even now when I think about it, my foot starts itching.
    It was right on the bottom of your foot.
    One of those, yeah.
    I remember that so clearly.
    That's funny.
    Were you taken to a hospital or just taken care of at home,
    do you remember?
    I think it was just taken care of the way you would
    take care of a bite today.
    Right.
    And the other thing that I remember so clearly
    is when our mom used to put us to bed, we played a game.
    She would put our hands in a certain order,
    and we'd see if we could wake up in the same position.
    Do you remember that?
    No.
    Yeah.
    I remember that.
    So you shared a crib?
    Yes.
    We shared a crib.
    You were on-- right.
    What have you learned now about your parents,
    in terms of what your father did, what his occupation was?
    My father was in the export import business.
    And I think this somehow led to his accusation of being a spy,
    because I imagine he had dealings
    with foreign countries.
    He was originally from Germany.
    The whole family's from Germany.
    So this is what he was accused of,
    and I think on the basis of that he was jailed and sent
    to the camps.
    My mother, I don't know.
    Our mom, she also worked.
    She was very good in math, and so I
    think she had something equivalent to possibly
    an accounting job.
    Which, of course, once the laws that you couldn't hire Jews
    came about, she was laid off.
    But she did have a good job.
    Do you know if you were a fairly well-off family or middle
    class, typical middle class, or--
    I can only judge by the clothing that we
    wore from the photographs that we have.
    We could show you.
    We seemed very well-dressed
    We seemed well dressed, and our parents also-
    By that time, well, our parents had fled from Dresden
    to Czechoslovakia where we were born.
    But I think our aunt in Dresden kept sending us clothes.
    It was our aunt who sent us--
    Really?
    Yeah.
    Because our parents could not buy anything,
    because by then our father was out of work and so was our mom.
    Or in other words, after when we left Germany--
    when they left Germany, that was the whole down--
    They no-- right.
    They no longer had any source of support
    and it was our aunt who sent.
    When did they leave Germany?
    Well, we were born '37, so it must have been around then.
    I see.
    Hmm.
    There's a series of letters between their father
    and the aunt in Germany, about 10 letters
    that we have, describing the children's behavior and how
    they--
    Yeah, that's terrific to have.
    Their worries for the future
    That's terrific to have.
    I bet.
    Yeah.
    They're wonderful.
    They're in German.
    You don't know specifically what your father imported
    and exported?
    No?
    But he was arrested in Czechoslovakia?
    Mm-hmm.
    I see.
    Do you have any recollection of his being taken, or--
    I do
    You do?
    I definitely-- there was--
    again, not clearly, but one night
    there was a knock on the door, very loud knock.
    And there were soldiers who had come,
    and they came to take our father away.
    I remember our mom was crying.
    We didn't know what happened.
    It was late at night.
    And we never saw him again after.
    At least, I don't--
    that was--
    I just remember what she's saying now
    is a disturbing event that did happen, but that's about it.
    About how old were you at that time?
    I would say four.
    And you're the only children of your parents?
    No brothers or sisters?
    Any other memories that you'd like to talk about?
    Something in the letters maybe?
    I can't recall the letters.
    I do remember at some point that we used
    to stand on line to get food.
    I sort of remember that.
    In Prague or was that later on?
    No, in Prague.
    The people stood on line.
    Do you know if your family was religious?
    I have no recollection.
    None at all.
    Did relatives ever come to visit you in Czechoslovakia
    that you recall?
    Not that I know of.
    No.
    I do remember once, though, we went in the summer--
    must have been summer time.
    I don't know when.
    We went someplace where there was water, like a beach.
    That's all I--
    It'd have to be lake, most probably.
    Maybe a lake, I don't know.
    But I remember-- yes.
    I remember being at--
    I don't remember that.
    See what 30 minutes makes?
    Big difference.
    Yeah, right.
    One of those memories [LAUGHING]..
    Well, you have good recollections of being injured.
    What do you recall about changes in Prague
    or changes in your life once the Germans occupied?
    What is the first significant memory you have
    of a real change in your lifestyle?
    Well, my first significant memory
    is waiting to get on this train to go someplace.
    It was a nice train, though.
    I mean, it was like a sleeper or some-- it was a--
    with windows.
    I think that was Theresienstadt that we were going to.
    That's what I remember, too.
    Chronologically speaking, that's the next--
    That was the thing.
    --memory after.
    Because the previous memories, we all-- we lived in sort of--
    it wasn't good existence, I don't think.
    It was-- I think I sensed--
    as a child, I sensed something was not right.
    Right.
    But I--
    Yeah.
    Right, that's what I'm saying.
    --that our mother was rather sad.
    Right.
    Because we I don't remember my father, but I--
    obviously, my mother, she would have to have been sad.
    I remember certain sadness.
    But the next thing, as I said, is really this train ride
    to someplace else to live.
    That was Theresienstadt.
    That was Theresienstadt.
    Do you remember taking anything with you in particular?
    Well, we did have some stuff.
    I-- this is--
    I don't-- the only thing I recall, I had a locket.
    I had a locket that I--
    a heart.
    And I remember having that for a long time, even when I
    arrived in Auschwitz.
    And I was very brazen, because we
    would stand on line for the showers
    and you had to strip naked.
    And I had enough presence of mind
    to know that I had to take this thing off,
    and I would hold on to it.
    And I don't know how I did that, but I did it.
    I lost the locket, however, at some point.
    What did the locket look like?
    It was a heart-shaped locket.
    Did it have pictures inside of anyone?
    I don't recall.
    It was a gift from your mother or-- yeah.
    probably.
    Must have been.
    Probably.
    You don't recall taking a toy with you, or--
    The only thing I remember is my mother's shoulder
    and the texture of the dress that she wore--
    On that day?
    --on-- not on that day, but from Theresienstadt,
    that's one of the things--
    since you asked for something tangible,
    this is what I do remember.
    And I think we were-- there was a picture taken.
    You remember that because a picture was taken of us
    A picture was taken of us at that point in time.
    And--
    We have the picture.
    Yeah.
    We got the picture [INAUDIBLE],, and it confirms this shoulder
    which I was leaning on.
    We have it right here.
    And-- but I don't remember taking anything with me,
    like a personal toy or anything like that.
    No, I don't.
    Do you remember how her dress felt or--
    Yeah.
    It was coarse.
    It was--
    But I do remember that our mom did have--
    did carry a bag with something, that I remember.
    But I don't know what was in it really.
    Do you remember anything about the train
    journey itself and getting to the station
    outside Theresienstadt?
    Actually, the train ride was kind of--
    I don't know.
    I enjoyed it.
    I think it was maybe our first train ride.
    We were like, it's a pretty nice train ride.
    Wasn't bad, as I recall, to Theresienstadt.
    I'm a blank on that.
    You do?
    You don't remember the march to Theresienstadt or no?
    What are your first memories of Theresienstadt?
    Unfortunately, I think I have very minimal memories
    of Theresienstadt.
    Again, only-- I remember cobblestone roads, pavements,
    brick buildings.
    Brick buildings.
    I always see these bridges over water.
    I don't know if it's from there, but I don't know.
    But that comes to mind.
    Were you staying with your mother there?
    Were you still with her?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    I remember you being sick there.
    It's possible.
    I was sick a lot.
    Over there.
    I do remember you being ill.
    Was she taken away to the hospital in camp?
    To some infirmary, but she didn't
    stay overnight or anything.
    She would just go there for, I guess, medication
    and come back.
    And then Theresienstadt, I also remember standing on line.
    And I remember carts with dead bodies.
    Yeah.
    On the cobblestone
    On the cobblestones.
    Yeah
    It just-- yeah.
    Hard pushing.
    The wheels would get stuck between these rocks
    and everything would come to a halt,
    and they'd have to get everybody on the side
    to get this thing started again rolling.
    And they lost a few bodies every once in a while, slid off.
    Yeah.
    What was-- do you recall your day to day life was like there?
    Did you-- there was an underground school.
    Do you recall ever--
    I can't recall it.
    I think we were too young for the school.
    I'm not sure we attended, but I don't know.
    I don't recall.
    I don't recall it at all.
    Well, recently there was a film made about Theresienstadt,
    and in the film footage, which we saw in the village
    just this year, there was a kindergarten.
    And on the bottom steps, I spotted Rene in the film.
    So they were part of a kindergarten group.
    Whether they were active or not, I don't know.
    It was part of the Nazi propaganda film footage.
    Oh, I see.
    I don't recall.
    I don't recall either.
    It's possible.
    It's possible.
    And I don't know if you recall this,
    and I don't know if it's mixed up in time for me.
    But at one point, do you remember
    standing in a field just for hours and hours
    and hours on end for--
    I don't know for what.
    No?
    I don't know.
    That's just something that kind of flitting
    in and out of my head lately, but I can't exactly
    recall where.
    I remember something.
    I'm not sure it was fields.
    It was dark.
    it was dark.
    I think it was-- we were waiting for the train
    to take us to Auschwitz.
    No, that's a different--
    That's a different?
    Because I remember taking quite a walk towards that train.
    Oh, yeah.
    I remember that, too, but no.
    This was just a lot of people were there
    and we're just kind of standing around, waiting.
    That did happen.
    There was an occurrence like that where many people were
    taken out of the camp and held in a field in a forest
    outside of Theresienstadt.
    Really?
    Yeah.
    Oh, my god.
    This is what I've read and what I've
    heard from other survivors.
    Really?
    Yeah.
    And what was the purpose of that?
    Well, actually last night, Inge Auerbacher
    talked about it, too.
    From what she remembers, she was she was an older child--
    Yes.
    --that it looked as though they had plans to kill everybody.
    She put Babi Yar style, shoot people in mass graves.
    But that it didn't materialize for some reason luckily,
    and everyone went back to the camp,
    go back into Theresienstadt.
    So that might have been--
    might be that that you recall.
    Well, on occasion that's how they handled epidemics.
    If there was some kind of disease running
    through the camp and they couldn't handle it,
    well, that would be their medical solution.
    Right.
    And actually before the film they
    did deport many people also before they
    filmed that-- the propaganda movie,
    because they knew it was too crowded.
    So do you remember if your mother was with you all day,
    or did she leave you during the days
    as if to go to some kind of labor detail or--
    I don't think she was with us all day.
    But I--
    I do remember running wild in the place.
    I do.
    And throwing things into windows and from windows down.
    And I'm sure that that happened while I was unsupervised.
    Do you remember if you were with other kids?
    Yeah.
    Yeah?
    Yes.
    War games, I guess you'd call them.
    Don't you remember drawing?
    Some inkling of memory in thinking of what's
    mentioned to me.
    I don't know .
    It doesn't come to me this moment.
    The head of the children's school was in your transport
    from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.
    And his name, I forgot, but it'll come to me in a minute.
    Very influential person because he
    kept such a wonderful spirit among children there.
    And I think when I mentioned this to you once,
    you remember-- you did remember drawing.
    Maybe.
    Do you remember any thoughts you had about these wagons
    with dead bodies?
    I mean, did you think it was interesting, or as a child,
    do you recall any thought you had then?
    My thoughts were that I didn't understand it.
    I just didn't understand what it was.
    I looked but I--
    I don't think it made the emotional impact that it
    would to somebody a lot older.
    Because it was just something=-- we were learning new things,
    and I think it's just--
    another thing for something for us to learn.
    Part of life, whatever it was.
    That's what happened to some people.
    Do you have any memory of wearing a star?
    I don't.
    I do.
    What do you recall about that?
    Do you recall getting it or do you recall just
    remembering it--
    I just--
    --that you were wearing it?
    --had it.
    I don't know where even.
    I don't know.
    Where would that have been?
    Probably in Prague.
    In Prague, yeah.
    Yeah.
    It was very small, but it was there.
    I-- Juden.
    I remember people pointing to us because of it,
    but it's the first time I ever--
    You just mentioning Prague, I just remembered something.
    And probably maybe this didn't even happen,
    because Prague was never bombed, was it?
    But I remember sirens.
    I remember sirens, and I remember
    we would go downstairs.
    Must have been Prague, because where else would i
    have gone downstairs?
    Was this a large building you lived in?
    Many apartments, or do you know?
    Not terribly.
    I would think maybe like seven--
    six, seven story.
    Right?
    Yeah, something like that.
    So during these sirens, you remember--
    Going down
    --going to the basement--
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    Something.
    And all the other people in the building went down, too?
    There were other people there, too.
    Yes.
    Was there food down there or any provisions?
    Could this fit?
    It could, yeah.
    I don't know.
    I don't know offhand, but it might.
    That's very vague.
    Very misty.
    In your home, did you speak German Do you remember?
    I think we spoke German.
    Because I seem to understand Yiddish after the war,
    and I couldn't figure out how so had to be.
    Right.
    An early implant.
    An early implant someplace.
    See, the grown ups thought I didn't understand what they
    were saying, but I understood.
    Yeah, seemingly we understood, but I
    don't remember what language.
    But whenever somebody spoke, especially the Germans, we--
    I knew exactly what they were saying.
    So that would have to be.
    But I'm sure since we grew up in Czechoslovakia,
    we must have learned that, too, the first few years.
    oh, you don't think that we were out all that much?
    I don't think we were out.
    And I think you learned Czech after the war.
    Yeah?
    Because I have no recollection of Czech at all, but German,
    yes.
    Well, I don't remember the language.
    I just remember understanding it.
    Do you remember you have any memories about any of the SS
    guards or the soldiers, and what they looked like or treatment
    of other people or of Yourself
    Well, the first recollection I have of the SS--
    I guess-- or soldiers or whatever, was when we were--
    took this very long walk in Theresienstadt
    to the train that was to take us to Auschwitz.
    There were dogs there.
    And they had dogs there.
    It was a long column of people were marching.
    It was at night.
    There was snow on the ground.
    Mm-hmm.
    It was very bitterly cold.
    Mm-hmm
    And if people didn't walk quickly enough,
    they'd just shoot the people.
    There were shots that rang out and then
    I just saw bodies falling.
    I don't know.
    Again, I don't think I really understood that they were dead
    or they weren't going to get up again.
    And there were dogs.
    And I remember I was tired.
    I didn't want to go on this trip.
    But my mother was--
    Our mother held us by our hands.
    She was pulling us.
    And held us so tightly.
    And was pulling us--
    I remember that.
    --to--
    You were being roused awake, or--
    Well it was at night.
    No, it was at night.
    But it started in the evening, most probably.
    It wasn't an arousal in the middle of the night.
    It was something that was ongoing in the evening.
    And it seemed like a very long--
    It was, yeah.
    --walk.
    But then that might have been because we were so little,
    and--
    Little legs.
    --little legs.
    It seems that the transport card, which
    was posted on the wall and Theresienstadt and that
    was when you knew your time was--
    had come to go.
    We've recovered these transport tickets.
    They're in a museum in Israel, in a kibbutz.
    Givat Chaim
    Givat Chaim.
    Yihud.
    Really?
    Givat Chaim Yihud.
    They had a whole slew of things about Czech--
    all the Czech families who were in Theresienstadt.
    And that's, in fact, we are, Rene and I,
    found an affidavit that indicated that our mother had
    died in Auschwitz.
    And our names and our--
    And our names--
    --our dates of birth are there, everything is there.
    And what transport-- the numbers we
    had on the transport to Theresienstadt and then
    from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz and the dates.
    December--
    It's all there.
    December 15th.
    --15th to Auschwitz 1943.
    And to Theresienstadt it was--
    It's about a year prior to.
    August 9, 1942.
    Or September 9th.
    I'm not sure.
    I always get confused.
    It was-- August is about right.
    Yeah.
    I think August.
    So it was a little over a year.
    There's also another artist who was on that same transport,
    and he's drawn account after account
    of what happened that night.
    And you can see in his black and white drawings
    the pitch black of night, the entrance into Auschwitz,
    the spilling out of the prisoners from the cattle
    cars and all.
    And it's a very clear image of what they actually
    went through.
    Bernard-- I forgot his name.
    OK.
    This photograph of you two and your mother,
    where was this taken?
    Do you remember?
    Theresienstadt.
    Theresienstadt.
    Theresienstadt.
    Was there-- do you remember why it was taken,
    or was there just happened to be a photographer
    in Theresienstadt?
    They were doing these things.
    Doing these things, and I think they sent it out to family
    members to say, we're fine.
    Everything's great.
    Do you think this was probably done early?
    Do you recall-- did it happen shortly after you arrived
    in the camp, or--
    I couldn't say.
    We were there over a year, Empirically knowing this now,
    I don't recall.
    It's hard to tell.
    Right.
    But looking at us, I would say we look pretty good there.
    So it might have been early.
    Do you have any memories of the clothes you were wearing?
    No.
    I remember her-- my mother's outfit, though.
    You remember the way this--
    Yeah.
    --felt.
    But I remember my hair.
    Oh, I remember your dress, that dress.
    I remember that dress.
    Colors.
    Yes.
    Sort of a reddish--
    Purplish.
    --purplish, right.
    Right.
    Yeah.
    Unbelievable.
    And I remember--
    And those are yellow lines, right?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    So these squares were purplish?
    Yeah, basically a purplish background,
    but they were like squares.
    And this is yellow.
    Mm-hmm.
    See that?
    But obviously, this is just the first time
    ever that I'm remembering this.
    But I remember my mom always made me a thing on top of my-
    Yeah, right.
    The long--
    And long hair.
    Yeah.
    And she always had-- and--
    right.
    What was your mother's name?
    Ita.
    Ita.
    And so you recall walking to the transport, to Auschwitz,
    and the dogs and the guards shooting people
    who were straggling, I guess--
    Or beating them or yelling, and the dogs barking.
    We just had to get the trains loaded.
    It was horrible--
    Yeah.
    It was the first real--
    display of real force against the people
    there that I remember.
    It was horrible.
    And your mother was pulling you along?
    Pulling us, yeah.
    Yeah.
    Had you by the hands--
    Yeah.
    Which means she had two of us, she
    couldn't carry much of anything else, right?
    But she also did--
    she still had something that had to be carried, yes.
    A small parcel of some sort.
    What do you recall about the transport itself?
    That was horrible.
    That I remember.
    You had the floor.
    That I remember.
    We were absolutely jammed into this car.
    I can smell the stench of what went on in there.
    Everything went on in there.
    We were there for a very, very long time.
    People were trying to faint and fall down, but they almost
    couldn't because they were--
    there was--
    It was so crowded--
    The cars were so crowded.
    --you couldn't turn around or anything.
    It seemed like an endless journey, just
    an endless journey.
    You were all together in a car?
    Right, with lots and lots of other people.
    There was nothing to eat.
    I remember being very thirsty.
    I remember biting my hand.
    What did biting your hand do?
    I don't know.
    I wanted to cry, but I knew that--
    I didn't dare cry.
    And I think I--
    There was really a strange environment.
    We really didn't know what was going on.
    This was so unnatural.
    I totally didn't understand what was happening.
    Heard the clickety click of the train rolling just
    on and on and on.
    Do you remember anything about your mother
    during the transport, anything she was doing or saying to you?
    She was up there.
    I was down.
    She was up there somewhere, and she was holding us close.
    That's all I remember.
    Wasn't any contact.
    I kind of remember hanging onto her leg.
    Yeah She was-- yeah, right.
    I remember I wanted to sit down.
    i wanted to sit, but there's no space.
    I couldn't turn around.
    Do you remember other children on the transport?
    No.
    No.
    Did your mother have any food with her?
    Do you recall her passing any bread to you or potato or--
    I would think she must have had something, but I--
    I don't remember.
    --don't remember.
    So this journey took quite a while, several days.
    At least a day, I would think.
    You arrived December 18th.
    Oh, so it took several days.
    Three days.
    This is our historian.
    I think there were people who died on that ride.
    Oh, there were.
    Because they were lying when they opened the doors,
    they were lying there.
    there was no movement there.
    You remember that?
    Yeah.
    There was-- the stench was unbelievable.
    That I can smell every once in a while, actually.
    Raus.
    Again, there was German, again, and the dogs and schnell.
    Mach schnell.
    Mach schnell, right.
    And again, your mother had you.
    You were thrown out of the train.
    And miraculously, in Auschwitz we stayed with our mother.
    There was a whole Czech Lager, special family Lager
    for the Czech families that everybody stayed together,
    men, women, and children.
    There was a special--
    From December to March, they stayed together.
    So other twins have recounted hearing them yelling
    for twins, Zwilling, Zwilling.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Do you recall that?
    Oh, yes.
    You do?
    We heard that also, but it didn't mean anything-- well,
    maybe it did.
    But I don't-- because I remember that we went with our mother
    to the hospital to be, whatever, to be checked out.
    And the reason I remember this--
    Rene, I love to tell this story.
    The reason I remember this is because he was such a crybaby
    when it came to doctors, and I was
    scared that he was going to cry and that they were going
    to beat him up or hit him.
    Because I was such a stoic.
    So they-- so somebody examined you two and your mother?
    I remember she was with us one time.
    She was there with us.
    So that might have been when they knew that we were twins.
    Did you two-- did you know you were twins?
    Did-- it might sound like a silly question,
    but I was just--
    I don't think so.
    No.
    We just--
    No.
    Yeah.
    It had no meaning.
    That took on meeting later, I think, when we were separated,
    when I first got into the group of the male twins
    that I realized I was a twin.
    Even then, I wasn't sure that I knew--
    it was different than being just a normal kid, what it really
    meant
    So after it was "raus, out of the cars,"
    you were taken directly to this Lager?
    This barrack.
    Yeah, this Lager where all the other Czech families were.
    And my recollections of them are really--
    again, we were with our mother.
    There was very little food.
    I remember we used to get a piece of dark, black bread
    and some kind of slop to drink.
    I don't know.
    Something that tasted awful.
    But I recall seeing people beaten in that in that Lager.
    I don't know why, but--
    Were there just women and children in that Lager,
    or did they seem like whole families were together?
    I think it seemed like whole families were together.
    But I'm not--
    I think, yeah.
    What do you recall?
    I don't have any recollection of any
    of this til we were separated.
    Then I start to pick up memories,
    because I was totally on my own by then.
    I really had to--
    see, it's like we were really guarded,
    or I just don't remember any of the outside things that
    happened.
    I remember sometimes we had to stand outside in the mornings
    or something or other.
    I don't know where our mother was there.
    I don't know what-- roll call.
    The Appell?
    I don't know.
    Don't know.
    Any other recollections of your day in this Lager?
    Do you think it was just-- you were in there the whole day,
    or until these-- possibly these Appells came about?
    I have no--
    I don't--
    Not in that period.
    I only-- I start remembering after we were separated.
    Then I have day activities.
    Then I start remembering our morning roll calls.
    I remember the bigger and the older were taken off to work.
    Where were you taken, then?
    You were removed-- you were--
    at some point, I think it was in March of that year or April
    or whatever--
    '44.
    Maybe in June-- no, it was '43.
    No '44.
    We got--
    Oh, right.
    December '43, and it was-- right.
    So sometime in 1944, I recall one particularly terrible day
    when I just recall that we were like ripped away
    from our mother.
    And I recall a loud scream.
    And I knew something had happened,
    something was happening that was terrible.
    Was it your scream that you heard, or--
    I think it was my mother's.
    I think it was my mother's, too.
    She was trying to hold on to us, and we were just--
    Pulled away from her.
    Pulled away from her.
    And--
    This was within the Lager?
    Yeah it was inside.
    And then the next thing I knew was that I was in some place
    different with just other women and girls,
    and Rene wasn't there anymore and my mom wasn't there
    anymore.
    How were you taken to this new place, do you remember?
    Were you walked, or did they put you on a truck or--
    I don't recall.
    Are your recollections about--
    Same?
    Same.
    Very same.
    And then I was just there in this new surrounding.
    It was very close to one of the ovens, the crematoria.
    Because I saw people walking in constantly.
    One way.
    And that's where I started remembering how my days were,
    hunting through garbage for potatoes
    and seeing these daily beatings on the roll call
    line in the mornings.
    Also, very vividly I remember prisoners.
    The Russian soldiers and the Polish soldiers,
    they were shot.
    They were lined up against the ditch and they were just shot.
    And then as children, I was just six years old,
    we would look over the pit and see
    some of them still twitching.
    And I remember pulling--
    not me, but some of the other older boys,
    they pulled one fellow out who was obviously still alive,
    but he did have a big swelling in his head, which had
    to be a bullet, most probably.
    And I remember they took him into the barracks
    and put him on one of the bunks.
    I don't know what happened to him.
    But these things happened almost daily, the shootings.
    Somebody was always being shot.
    There, I remember also, the sirens.
    That was a very-- more frequent occurrence as the war grew,
    the sirens and the--
    Airplanes.
    --hum of the airplanes above.
    And always an SS trooper staying in front of the barracks
    at the time outside.
    Let's pause just for one second.
    So Rene, you were taken from mother
    and brought this to Lager B2B.
    How were you initiated into this new Lager?
    What do you remember first about coming there?
    Did anybody show you--
    Yeah.
    There was concern by older people
    who were like me in that they were twins.
    This I know now.
    And one of their big concerns was getting me a pair of shoes.
    You were barefoot at the time?
    I must have been, or I needed-- or maybe they
    didn't fit or something.
    I needed shoes.
    And somehow, they managed through the black market
    to get me shoes for a loaf of bread.
    I don't know.
    I remember the color of the shoes.
    They were a yucky brown up to here.
    They covered the knee--
    not the knee, the ankle.
    And they were like a caramel color brown,
    but they were like almost like brand new.
    And so I felt like I was being taken care of,
    but it was a totally different existence.
    That was really-- my eyes were opened.
    I questioned a lot.
    What's going on?
    Is this-- who's the master of this, I remember asking.
    Who's in charge here?
    Like, who can I ask?
    Who can I talk to?
    And all in the background, always, the mornings, the call,
    the hunt for the potatoes in the garbage, and the endless lines
    of people walking into this--
    in--
    Would you go around with other twins or the other people
    in the--
    the other children, looking for scraps, or--
    I always remember being alone, totally alone.
    I know they were there, but it was always--
    the hunt was always alone.
    Do you remember a time when you were
    especially successful in finding something to eat?
    A substantial piece of bread or a whole potato?
    These moments happened, and I had
    to go inside and have it cut up so I could warm it
    on that stove inside.
    You'd warm a potato?
    A potato, yeah.
    Yeah.
    There were moments-- I mean, there
    were wonderful moments when you found something
    that you could really eat.
    But nothing really substantial, like finding a box of anything
    like that, no.
    It was just maybe a big potato that wasn't totally rotten.
    That was a find.
    You mentioned that you were questioning many things.
    What did people tell you or what did you
    ask about this procession going into the gas chambers?
    I never asked that.
    That was just something that was happening.
    But I asked who is the master of this--
    who's the master of the world, I think I asked.
    I was told Hitler.
    OK.
    I mean, that was satisfied.
    It was an answer, and I'm just--
    These were other-- other prisoners answered you?
    Yeah.
    And part of, I guess, daily activity, I have to retell
    is the sleeping thing at night on these bunk beds.
    And that was so close to the wood,
    smelling it, and also getting pushed.
    And many times just being able to squeeze in some place
    to have a space.
    But alone.
    Alone.
    Did you always sleep in the same approximate spot, or--
    I was just asking myself the same question.
    I don't remember if I did.
    I don't recall.
    You remember anything about that in your--
    Well, again, my memories are a little different than his.
    But we did have bunkbeds as well,
    and there was this long oven down the center.
    And I think we were somewhat assigned to beds,
    but I'm not sure that everybody always went to these same beds.
    I particularly remember one night having to get out
    and having to go to the--
    well, bathroom.
    Not that they had bathrooms, but outside in the back.
    And then coming back and getting totally confused
    on which side of the barrack my bed was on.
    And I really got into a state of panic,
    but I knew I had to get into a bed.
    And I kept going over--
    I would go over and ask somebody if I could just
    come in next to them.
    And I remember being pushed away, saying,
    this is not your bed.
    And the more this happened, I just was panicking.
    So then I remember climbing over the oven
    and saying, well, maybe I--
    I was so confused.
    And finally somebody had pity on me
    and let me come in with them.
    But--
    Was anybody-- take-- did anybody adopt you or--
    No.
    There was just no of organization of any sort.
    It seemed to me that most of the girls were older.
    I didn't really see too many--
    certainly not younger than me, I don't recall.
    And no one seemed to be in charge.
    And I remember particularly being extremely, extremely
    lonely.
    That was the worst thing.
    There was no one.
    And I remember we would receive bread and some soup,
    and I tried to save my piece of bread.
    Because I figured if I held on to it longer then
    I'd have it for the whole day.
    But then I-- somebody always stole it from me at night.
    Now I don't know if it was somebody else
    or if it was rats who ate it, or--
    but I never had it in the morning.
    And did I learn?
    No, I did this--
    did I learn?
    No.
    I remember there were two girls there with me,
    and they had little pouches.
    And they used to hid their bread in the little pouches.
    It was a separate pouch?
    Yeah, a little thing--
    and I said, oh, I wish I had one of those, but I didn't.
    I vividly also remember going to the hospital.
    I was one of them being sick.
    And I remember saying--
    that's when I remember standing for roll call.
    That was in Auschwitz in the mornings, almost every morning.
    Once you were in that Lager, you remember standing?
    Yes.
    Definitely.
    And I remember it distinctly, because I always
    tried to hide behind somebody big
    so that I wouldn't be seen so I wouldn't
    be chosen for anything.
    I was beginning to--
    I didn't question.
    I hardly spoke to anyone, but I was
    beginning to comprehend from what
    I was hearing that terrible things were going on.
    Or that whatever was happening was terrible.
    Although, to me at this time it was still--
    this was life.
    I didn't know any-- i don't-- didn't remember anything else,
    didn't think this was wrong, right, or otherwise.
    I just knew that if I wasn't spotted,
    I wouldn't maybe get chosen for something.
    And I remember that I could--
    out of the door from my barrack, I--
    at some point I learned--
    I remembered that I had a brother.
    And I remember that he was to the right, this way.
    If I looked at this way, then his barrack was there.
    And I remembered this on a night in particular
    when there was some kind of an explosion
    and there was a big fire.
    And I was terrified that his barrack
    was the one that was on fire.
    I remember often seeing people run into the fence
    and get electrocuted.
    And I remember on one particular--
    and there were dead bodies on the ground there.
    I remember one time trying to hide among these dead bodies.
    I don't know exactly why.
    I don't know what I was scared of.
    I think I just wanted to disappear,
    and I thought, well, maybe this was a good convenient way
    to do it.
    These are bodies outside the barracks stacked up?
    Yeah, yeah.
    Just-- right.
    And I thought that this way I could hide somehow
    and it would all be over.
    And I don't really know what went through my mind.
    It was a child's idea.
    Be still like everybody else.
    They'll never notice me.
    What about other children in that particular Lager?
    There were some older children, but I-- again, it
    seemed like they hung around with each other.
    And so now, I mean, later on I knew
    that they were either twin girls,
    so I guess they hung around with each other.
    I didn't have my twin because he was--
    we were not of the same sex so it was a little harder.
    But throughout all the time in the hospital
    and through experiments and through horrible times,
    I always felt that Rene was alive.
    And I said, I have to stay alive to take care of him.
    This was like my mission in life.
    And I very clearly remember standing on line always--
    it was always cold, of course, and we
    were going into the shower, standing naked.
    And, again, I bring up the locket.
    For a long time I was able to miraculously hang
    on-- hide the fact that I had this locket
    and always put it back on after I came out of the showers.
    But I also remember that somehow I also knew already
    that not everybody came out of the shower.
    So every time we were lined up like this,
    I remember that fear like, oh my God.
    Is this the last time?
    After the shower, you'd be lined up?
    No, before.
    Before the shower.
    I see.
    What happened when you got sick?
    I was in the hospital.
    Did you get yourself to the hospital, or did--
    No, I think somebody must have.
    Periodically, I was taken to the hospital
    because I had certain medical procedures, I guess,
    done to me.
    Again, I don't remember exactly why or what
    for and the very detailed specifics.
    But I can remember that at one point, they
    I had blood taken out from my neck.
    I don't-- but it's vivid because it was extremely painful.
    And another time, I was strapped to a table of some sort,
    and there was a doctor.
    He was in white and he had a scalpel.
    Well, I didn't know it was a scalpel then.
    I realize now that it was, and he cut me.
    And I remember also being X-rayed.
    I remember a lot of X-ray stuff, and, of course, being measured
    and stuff like that.
    But I also, I remember--
    and I don't know what this has to do with anything--
    but wires, wires attached to me and something to the left.
    I don't know.
    And I remember seeing in one room--
    in some room, I don't know, there were eyes.
    Don't ask me.
    Like just independent eyes?
    Eyes.
    In jars?
    Don't know.
    Don't know.
    I also remember getting injections
    that made me very sick, because then I was--
    then I found myself in a hospital bed or something.
    And I remember throwing up a lot and having diarrhea
    And I was extremely sick.
    And I remember, though, that there was some nurse there
    who looked after me.
    And I think there was one point when they were cleaning out
    the hospital.
    I don't know.
    Again, now it was probably to just kill everybody.
    I'm not sure.
    But there was it was a very hurried kind of thing.
    There was a big commotion, and this person
    grabbed me and just stuck me under her skirt.
    And suddenly it was really--
    it was all dark, and she just said, be quiet.
    You don't have to tell me twice.
    And I think she saved me.
    I think she saved me from something.
    I don't know.
    When the doctor cut you, do you remember
    anything else about that?
    I just remember I must have fainted, or--
    I don't remember anything else after that
    except waking up in a lot of pain.
    I don't--
    And during any of those examinations,
    you were never with Rene?
    No.
    No.
    Just that only time I remember being with him
    was when we went with our mom that time.
    I don't ever remember being there again with Rene,
    because I never saw you again after that.
    At least I don't remember.
    I was there a couple of times, but nothing like--
    at least, I don't recall anything.
    The only thing I recall is being measured,
    the touch of the very cold instruments, and Rontgen,
    the word Rontgen. That's X-ray, I think, in German.
    I remember that, so there was a lot of that going on,
    but that's about all.
    What were the measurements?
    Were they--
    Around the head, I remember.
    Everything.
    Body.
    Body, everything.
    Because they were sort of trying-- they were putting you
    in between something to see how, I guess, how big that is.
    Caliper of some kind.
    Yeah.
    I mean, it wasn't like they were taking a tape measure.
    They put against something cold, steel--
    It was steel.
    It was always cold.
    It was very cold.
    Who was the person doing the procedure?
    Did they talk to you or ask you anything?
    I just remember being terrified, and I
    knew that I had to just not cry and just
    do everything I was told, no matter what.
    When you were-- how was it that you knew
    or were taken to be examined?
    Did one morning somebody--
    a soldier came in and took you, or did
    you know on a particular day you were going to go,
    or anything like that?
    I was walked over by one of older boys.
    I'm sure i was the youngest kid there.
    I was walked over by one of the older boys and that was it.
    Do you have recollection of the twins' father,
    of the gentleman--
    Spiegel.
    Spiegel?
    He could have been--
    Could have been the one?
    --the one, but I know of him only--
    1995 I've learned of him.
    And I met him in Israel, Mr. Spiegel, and--
    Did he remember you, specifically?
    No.
    I think his mind was sort of on the blink at that point.
    But there was somebody else in 1985
    who remembered me which was very heartwarming.
    And he was part of Spiegel's group.
    And he was part of that group, so obviously I was there.
    Some of the other male twins have described seeing other--
    seeing the Soviet prisoners in the next half of the barracks.
    Do you recall any older men there?
    Yeah they only-- the Soviet--
    soldiers, I remember, they were periodically shot.
    They were the ones that were always taken and disposed of,
    the partisans and the--
    but the--
    Do you remember Otto?
    No.
    The only one I would remember is that young kid, that one
    other one that I met in Israel.
    Peter Greenfield?
    Yeah, Peter, very vaguely.
    I met this man in Israel.
    And he was the only one that would have been my size.
    Yeah, he was about a year younger.
    And that was extremely young, because I don't think
    the older boys would even--
    socially, they wouldn't associate with us,
    because I think the next step was at least
    three or four years older.
    And at that point, that's a big difference.
    So we were all alone, except I was
    told that I played with him.
    And looking at him, I sort of-- it starts some memories,
    but nothing specific, nothing specific really.
    What I was going to say as you were asking about who
    did some of the experimentation, the museum at Auschwitz now
    has documents, which we've got copies of, of our names and--
    both our names and numbers, matching, and all that.
    Then Irene has a document where there's
    a signature of blood testing and Mengele's signature
    on the bottom of it.
    So he could have been one of the gentlemen who participated
    in this, I'm pretty sure.
    They took blood from you as well?
    I don't recall them take taking blood from me, no.
    But you recall some X-ray procedures?
    All X-rays and measuring, I remember.
    Them, I remember.
    The other things, Irene remembers.
    Would these X-ray procedures take a long time?
    Or--
    Time didn't have much meaning to me.
    It just happened.
    You both have numbers?
    Yes.
    You're both tattooed?
    Yes.
    What do you recall about receiving those numbers?
    Was that when you first entered Auschwitz?
    Or was this when you were transferred
    to the separate lagers?
    Since our numbers are so different,
    I would imagine it must have been when we were separated,
    because we're not--
    we have totally different numbers.
    Yeah.
    My number, I remember it being put on.
    It hurt.
    There was an awful stench all around me.
    It was muddy.
    And it was a needle pricking me.
    But in terms of time, when they put it,
    I just can't put it anywhere.
    So it was muddy.
    It was done outside?
    It was muddy when I walked up to where-- yeah,
    it was done outside.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Whoever it was, they were sitting
    at a desk with a cover over it.
    But I stepped through it from the outside.
    My number-- want to see my number?
    I have a very clear number.
    Reads this way, 169061.
    And that's confirmed by--
    Some of the records that--
    --the records.
    When I first saw that number with my name next to it--
    also only in the last few years--
    that really gave me the chills, again confirming dreams,
    memories of long, long ago.
    It still affects you, I guess.
    I'm sure they do.
    Did anybody tell you that you had
    to be accountable for this number in some way?
    Well, after the war, which is really, for children,
    I think, the hardest part of-- this is like another Holocaust
    starting for us.
    That's how I look at it.
    I took an awful lot of beatings because of this number,
    because it identified me as a Jew in Czechoslovakia.
    This is after the war when everything was supposedly
    very nice and good.
    Right.
    There was no relief to children who--
    here I am, seven years old, all alone.
    Parents could appreciate this sort of thing.
    And when you become a parent, you'll understand.
    Right.
    Irene, your recollection of receiving a number?
    I draw a blank on that.
    I do remember just vaguely this needle jabbing my arm.
    But I didn't make anything of it.
    I just figured everybody had one of those.
    So I wanted one also.
    I wanted to be like everyone else.
    All right.
    You described an explosion you heard.
    Yes.
    Do you recall this explosion of fire?
    No?
    No.
    No.
    But my feelings about Irene being alive, the way she felt,
    I felt that too.
    And I do remember seeing her once through the wires.
    And I knew it was her.
    It had to be.
    Some time had elapsed since we were separated.
    I think it was towards the end.
    But I knew that she was alive because of that.
    I just knew that she was alive.
    That just confirmed the whole thing for me.
    She never died in my thinking.
    She was always alive in my consciousness
    until we met in the States many, many years later.
    What are your next memories about Auschwitz?
    Well, just prior to liberation, there
    was this incident of us being taken and almost done
    away with by another officer, other than Mengele.
    And very clearly do I remember this incident.
    Another doctor this was?
    I don't know if it was a doctor.
    I see.
    Just some--
    An officer?
    An officer.
    And I remember Mengele coming in just
    in the nick of time in his green convertible
    and stopping this whole procession.
    And I also remember--
    and Irene, I guess, had that feeling many times--
    I knew that this was going to be deadly.
    This fear instinct, I guess--
    I had a feeling this could be the end for me.
    And it's a horrible feeling.
    So Mengele stopped this.
    And also, towards the end of the war,
    there was this march that we all went on.
    They marched us out of--
    I mean, the last week or so, weeks--
    again, time is meaningless.
    But I do remember a lot of excitement
    among the German soldiers and distant artillery fire
    coming, getting louder and louder,
    and them taking us out to this march.
    And that was a pretty gruesome type of affair,
    because they again shot anybody or just--
    anybody who wouldn't, couldn't continue, they just--
    This was January '45?
    This was January.
    Right.
    And that was a long, long haul, if I remember.
    I can't put it in terms of hours.
    Then, all of a sudden, the German soldiers were gone.
    And the Russian soldiers were around us in white uniforms.
    I remember one officer being on a horse.
    I still remember.
    I think it was a pink horse, a very big, huge animal.
    But they were all dressed in white.
    And that was the liberation.
    No, no, I think so.
    So you were en route on the march.
    You hadn't reached anywhere in particular.
    No.
    I see.
    No.
    No.
    And you realized that people were being shot
    if they were straggling behind.
    Yeah.
    Do you remember making a conscious effort to--
    Oh, yeah, had to keep going.
    And she was my strength, because I
    knew I had to make it for her, as was
    the case for many of my other hardships
    that came about later.
    She gave me the strength to keep going.
    Did you have a blanket with you or anything?
    Don't recall.
    Do you recall getting any bread rations before the march?
    Nothing.
    Nothing.
    I do remember the Russians marched us
    into a warehouse of some kind after this
    happened, and a tremendous scramble for food.
    And I wanted to get in on this.
    I do remember getting a can of some kind and rolling it.
    And then I finally got somebody to open it.
    It was sauerkraut.
    Oh, really?
    That's my memory of this thing--
    a big, yellow, golden can.
    It was huge to me then.
    I don't know how big it really was.
    But I had to roll.
    I couldn't lift it.
    Surely, you ate it.
    I had something of it.
    A lot of people really didn't do so well, because they overate,
    I understand.
    That was liberation from Auschwitz.
    And for you, Irene?
    I went-- I must have been at a different camp.
    Towards the end, before liberation, as I know it now,
    I sensed something had changed.
    Suddenly, there wasn't this order in the day anymore.
    We weren't being put outside.
    We weren't standing.
    Somehow, there was no water anymore.
    And I, at that point, was--
    I must have been quite sick, because I remember
    just I was on the ground.
    I couldn't get up.
    I couldn't get up.
    And there were other people also lying on the ground.
    I don't know if it was we were hungry, or sick, or what.
    But I do remember something had changed.
    I wasn't quite aware of what.
    But there seemed to be people who were a little bit saying
    that we're saved, or were--
    I didn't know what that meant.
    And the next thing I knew was I was picked up
    by some Polish lady.
    And she took me.
    So that--
    Within the camp?
    You were still within the camp?
    I was in the camp.
    But she took me out of the camp.
    So I was not part of this march or any of--
    that was not me.
    I was already gone.
    And I was with her for awhile.
    Where did she take you?
    It seems she lived in Auschwitz in the town proper.
    And she took me to her house.
    And for how long did you stay with her?
    I was there until Rescue Children extricated me.
    This is--
    It must have been--
    --an organization?
    Yeah, an organization to get back Jewish children.
    I see.
    I remember Christmas very vividly, so--
    So at least a year.
    --I was there at least a year, because I remember her telling
    me, Santa Claus is going to come and bring you presents out
    of the moon, she says to me.
    I believed her.
    Yeah, right.
    Did she have other children?
    No.
    No.
    It was just her?
    Was she married?
    Or--
    I think she was married.
    But I was the only child.
    I guess I suppose you learned Polish.
    I learned Polish, yes.
    And when did this relief organization
    find you and take you?
    I guess about a year later.
    And I first went to Prague to an orphanage.
    And then I went to France to an orphanage, and then
    a different orphanage, and blah, blah, blah--
    a lot of orphanages.
    I got shuttled around a bit.
    And Rene, after liberation and the warehouse, what was your--
    Next recollection I have, I understand
    I was in a hospital in Bratislava, so I am told.
    And I had some--
    TB.
    --TB, tuberculosis, a touch of it.
    And next memories for me really began in Czechoslovakia
    in a town called Kosice, Kaschau,
    in an orphanage, big orphanage in a hospital complex.
    Is this a specifically Jewish orphanage?
    No.
    No.
    No.
    There were nuns, mothers around, taking care.
    And there was an administrator there,
    a Dr. Kalina who, after some time,
    took me out with his wife.
    They had no children.
    And I lived with them.
    Subsequently, they had a child.
    Did they have a child?
    I'm mixing up with the other one.
    They didn't have any children.
    They didn't.
    No, they did not.
    I'm mixing him up with his brother.
    So I lived with him for a while.
    And they had to flee, because somehow the communists--
    somebody made some statements regarding this man.
    And he just got wind of it.
    And he had to flee.
    So he left me with his sister.
    And that's the family--
    the Mann family.
    And I lived with them for a good number of years.
    They're the ones that had those other children, Bebe and Otto.
    And they treated me very well.
    And there, I went to school in Czechoslovakia.
    But again, I was the only visible Jew.
    And they were waiting for me every day
    after school with stones.
    The other Czech children--
    yeah.
    There was one other Jew, I remember.
    But we both had to run for our young lives at the time.
    It's a good thing that we were still young,
    and the people that were waiting for us
    couldn't do all that much harm.
    They were still youngsters also.
    But they were serious.
    And they were mean.
    So we had to run.
    I mean, after we were let out--
    Sprint home?
    --sprint home very fast, sprint a long way too,
    because I lived very close to the school.
    And I almost-- they knew--
    they blocked my way.
    So I had to go somewhere else.
    It was always a big circle.
    Sometimes it led into the fields.
    It was a small town, one main street at the time.
    What was the name of the town?
    Kosice.
    Kosice.
    And the family's name?
    Mann.
    M-A-N-N?
    M-A-N-N yes, Joseph Mann and-- what's her name?
    Edith.
    Edith, yes.
    This was the--
    The sister.
    --sister.
    Sister.
    OK.
    Sister.
    Of Dr. Kalina.
    Dr. Kalina.
    This is an interesting point that, later on, we
    found out from people in New York City
    here, that the search for the Jewish children that
    had been taken for a million reasons into Polish homes,
    Christian homes--
    the way they discovered who was Jew in these homes
    was that the rescuers would go to the town bishop,
    or whoever was the religious cleric in the town.
    And they'd ask for the baptismal certificates
    of all the children.
    And if there were four children in one home and only
    three baptismal certificates, the fourth one was a Jew.
    And they exchanged moneys, or whatever the town needed.
    And the bishop, I'm sure, was paid also.
    And these children were rescued.
    So because of that, the American Jewish organizations
    were trying to raise funds to have monies
    to pay for these children.
    And through one of these organizations,
    called Rescue Child, they were having dinners after dinners.
    It was called Rescue Children.
    Rescue Children--
    Children.
    --right, Incorporated.
    One of the prime movers of this was
    a gentleman from Long Island.
    And he went into Europe to one of his orphanages
    that had been set up from all these rescued orphans.
    And he found Irene in one of them.
    And he said, oh, you would be perfect to come back to America
    and just help us raise funds.
    This is your picture perfect orphan with beautiful banana
    curls and a sweet face.
    And somehow, he convinced her that she should
    come to America with him.
    And subsequently, she was made part
    of this Life Magazine article, November 17, 1948,
    all about these--
    1947?
    1947, right.
    That's how Irene was taken out of the Polish home,
    by the way, one of these emissaries of Rescue
    Children, Incorporated.
    Well, I'm not sure.
    There were other organizations that worked in Poland.
    I think Rescue Children came in to the forefront
    later on when many of these children were in France
    and they were trying to find their parents here in America,
    find relatives for them, or else ship them to Israel,
    or whatever.
    And I think that's what--
    But when I was in Poland--
    Renee, talking about school.
    I was in-- she was obviously a Catholic lady.
    And of course, I was enrolled in Catholic school.
    And I went to church.
    So did I. I went to church.
    I had to go.
    Did you know you were Jewish?
    Yes.
    But I knew I was--
    I knew.
    I went to the end of the line.
    I knew I was too.
    Many times, I snuck away when they went to church.
    But many times, I did go, and went through the whole--
    whatever they went through.
    I went to church.
    And I knew I was Jewish, because I had this number on my arm.
    I also was-- as Rene said, I was also
    in the beginning very sick, because I think I lay in bed.
    I remember doctors coming and vague flitting in and out
    of fever, or whatever.
    And she was a very strict lady.
    I had to feed her bunny rabbits.
    She had rabbits that she would then cook.
    I couldn't eat them, because I was taking care of them,
    so they were gross.
    And in the summer, she had family that lived on a farm.
    And I remember she would--
    it was a very long walk.
    It took almost half a day to get there.
    And there were other children there.
    And I hated going there, because they made fun of me,
    because I had this number.
    And nobody defended me.
    And I had to--
    I cried.
    I cried a lot.
    What would they say to you?
    They made fun of me, because I had this number.
    That I'm a prisoner of some sort, they kept saying.
    I cried a lot.
    But with everything, when the Jewish organization, which
    might have been the Joint Distribution--
    I don't know, Distribution, whatever--
    came to pull me out of that home,
    I had really come to like being Catholic.
    I thought it was nifty.
    It was pretty, the church, the whole bit, rosary beads.
    And I didn't want to leave.
    I really did not.
    I was very upset.
    And I remember, the first orphanage where I came to,
    I met somebody who I'm still friends with to this day.
    Her name is Miriam.
    She lives in Israel.
    And she was about seven years older than me.
    And she became my mother figure.
    But she also was from Poland.
    And we were both sitting there with the rosary beads,
    plotting our escape from this orphanage, because we
    wanted to go back.
    Back to Poland.
    Right.
    This is when you were in Prague?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    So they removed you to Prague.
    And then, from Prague, you were taken to--
    To France.
    In Paris?
    Or--
    Yeah.
    I was outside of Paris.
    It's close to Blain.
    And that's where I was selected, actually, by Herbert Tenzer.
    He used to be a congressman from here.
    And he chose me to come.
    And he promised me he'd send me back--
    promised.
    He didn't keep this promise.
    So you came to New York at that time?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And Rene, your exodus--
    you had an exodus out of Europe also?
    Well, my exodus is really tied to--
    It's related to me.
    --related to her being taken in by somebody who lived out here
    on Long Island, a friend of Herbert Tenzer,
    was widely active in the organization.
    Mayer and Dina Slotkin--
    which is my name now, Rene Slotkin--
    they took Irene in.
    And that had to be, maybe, '48.
    Yeah.
    It was at one point, before I came to them.
    I was with the Novicks.
    And at one point, they dragged out of me
    that I had a brother, because I'd never spoken about it.
    And--
    So they took Irene in to their homes,
    right here in the Five Towns.
    And then they start to search for missing Rene.
    And it's a long and fascinating story, but take hours.
    It takes a long time.
    But anyway, Life Magazine was--
    Life Magazine was somehow instrumental in locating me,
    because this Dr. Kalina that I mentioned, that had escaped,
    he had gone to Israel.
    And somehow, he--
    Was he Jewish?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And he had gotten hold of this Life Magazine.
    That Life Magazine.
    And in it, he saw Irene as--
    He put two and two together.
    --Irene Guttman.
    The names clicked.
    And he put it together.
    So he got in touch somehow with somebody here in New York
    and told them that I was living in Czechoslovakia
    with his sister.
    And they, the Slotkins, sent somebody over into Europe
    to get me out.
    And there was a lot of red tape.
    I had to go through Germany and documentation.
    And--
    And you were in Switzerland for awhile.
    Switzerland for a while.
    I had to take a--
    not a direct route.
    Circuitous route.
    What?
    Circuitous route.
    Circuitous route.
    And I finally ended up, in--
    1950.
    --1950, March 29 in Idlewild Airport, rainy night.
    I'll never forget that.
    Then we were reunited on that evening.
    So you remembered your last name.
    There was no reason why you should
    remember your last name was Guttman,
    but I suppose you did--
    Well, why?
    --or somebody told you.
    He remembered it, I guess.
    That was my name all the way through until--
    I guess he remembered.
    Yeah, it was always my name.
    I knew my name.
    The Polish lady changed my name from Renatta to Ivanka.
    Ivanka.
    This is-- yeah.
    So that's how Irene came.
    That's how Irene came to be.
    Zvi Spiegel also reinforced everybody's identities
    in the camp for the boys.
    He would have the boys--
    a newcomer come in right away.
    And they'd be greeted in a circle.
    And everybody would introduce themselves.
    So their names were constantly being reinforced,
    and who they were.
    It's the end of the tape.
    It's only in retrospect now that June
    is talking about it a little, but I
    do remember when I was in Poland that every once in a
    while we would take this long, seemed like a long walk to me,
    and we'd sift through these mounds of ashes looking.
    She told me I should be looking for gold.
    And I couldn't stand doing it.
    These were the crematory ashes then, possibly.
    It was just the worst, the worst.
    It was horrible.
    And in the town where she lived, right across the street,
    her apartment faced this kind of village square--
    I don't know, everybody is to the right of me--
    but to the right down the road was where the Russian soldiers
    who are housed.
    And I recall that she would sometimes
    send me there with things to--
    They would get--
    Trade or-?
    I don't know what.
    Was always wrapped up and she would make me go there.
    And I hated going there because I was terrified
    of these Russian soldiers.
    Although they were very nice, but I was scared of soldiers.
    It was a soldier and my recollection of soldiers
    was not something I wanted, somebody I wanted to deal with.
    Not after Auschwitz.
    So it was very scary for me, but she would make me go.
    I have no idea what transpired here.
    I do want to say one thing about the Slotkin family.
    That it's amazing to me now that I'm a parent
    and have children that they had the willingness and the charity
    to extend themselves to a war orphan like Irene.
    And then not knowing at all what I'd be like,
    certainly a questionable background.
    And to spend these huge amounts of funds
    to send somebody to Europe to get me, to bring me over here
    and to adopt me at the age of 12.
    I'm not sure I could do it knowing where I came from,
    I just don't know.
    I really have to say that these are the most marvelous people
    to be able to do such a thing.
    And I think there are other stories like that, too.
    I think the Jewish community really went out at that time
    once they knew what was going on really into the open.
    And it's things like this.
    And I think this should be known.
    I think the atrocities of what happened should be known,
    but I think some of the good things that
    came of it should also be publicized.
    When did you learn what became of your mother?
    Did you seek out the information to confirm
    what happened to her?
    Well it was confirmed in 1985 when we went to this museum
    and give l'chaim in Israel.
    But I think I knew right then and there when it happened.
    What about your father?
    Did you ever find out where he was sent?
    Was that ever attainable?
    It was found out.
    Yes, sometime in December 1941 he
    was taken into Auschwitz because the records came back.
    One record that we have of his demise says December 1941.
    And he might have been one of the earliest prisoners who
    actually helped build Birkenau.
    That was when it was being built.
    They sent in political prisoners at that time
    and he fit that bill.
    Because of his import-export background?
    And therefore the accusation of spy activity.
    It seems that he was first sent to the Petschkuv prison, which
    was actually the Petschkuv palace
    and the Nazis turned it into an interrogation prison
    where no one ever returned.
    We learned about this from other people
    who lived in Czechoslovakia at the time
    and we met them in 1985.
    I do remember going with our mother
    to a place with packages.
    Maybe you went to visit.
    I think so.
    I don't remember ever visiting but seeing him.
    But I do remember going to this very sound,
    fortress-like structure bringing packages.
    There's a marker outside the Petschkuv
    now with the names of all the people who went through there.
    So it's possible their dad's name is on it.
    What was his name?
    Herbert Guttman.
    There are some documented stories
    from some of the other twins about, at least for the boys,
    being taken to a field to play soccer.
    Do you have any recollection?
    Obviously, I wasn't big enough to be picked on either team.
    I would do well playing--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    --courtyard where they did play in between two buildings.
    I played soccer after the war in Czechoslovakia a little bit.
    It's the national pastime like baseball is here.
    One of the older twins talk to us in 1985
    and you just mentioned that Rene was shepherded
    by this communist [GERMAN] that each person
    kind of in the pecking order this twin had
    to take care of that twin or this person
    had to take care of that twin.
    And since Rene and Pepe, Peter Greenfield, were the youngest
    they were given an adult male.
    And this fellow was named Otto and he
    was the one who kind of kept Rene away from the wires
    and kind of taught them--
    My mother, Mrs. Slotkin.
    Come on in.
    Come on in.
    How are you?
    We were just talking about you in glowing terms.
    Look at this.
    Look at this.
    Oh, my goodness.
    It's gorgeous It's unbelievable.
    A beautiful skirt.
    Well, I hope we get married soon, so
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    This is a gentleman from the Holocaust museum in Washington,
    and he's making Irene and Rene part of the permanent archives
    and exhibit.
    And you're part of it too now.
    I don't want to be quoted.
    I want to forget about it.
    I can't go through that every time.
    Yes, it takes time.
    I know what you told me.
    This is years and years and I still can't get over it.
    Well, it was a horrible thing.
    But you did your share.
    Yeah.
    I'm going to get a chair.
    I get through enough
    Yeah Mom, sit down.
    How are you feeling?
    Well, I'm tired.
    Probably because you're cleaning, huh?
    Because I'm cleaning for Passover and I'm--
    There's a bunch of tools for Ellie, electric tools.
    I have a bag for her in the car.
    Go get them.
    They're in back seat.
    And also candy.
    Oh.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Twins, Rene Slotkin (born Rene Guttman [Gutman]) and Irene Hizme (born Renatta [Renate] Guttman), describe their stories and memories, starting from their birth on December 21, 1937 in Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia (Teplice, Czech Republic), and continuing through their early lives in Prague; their father, Herbert Guttman, who was arrested as a political prisoner in December 1941 and eventually sent to Auschwitz, where he died; being deported with their mother, Ita, to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and then later to Auschwitz, where the family was separated and where their mother perished; their experiences in Auschwitz, where they were kept separate and subjected to Mengele’s medical experiments on twins; their reunion several years after liberation, thanks in part to an article in Life Magazine that contained a profile of Irene; Operation Rescue Children which brought Irene to the United States; her adoption by the Slotkins; the Slotkins’ search for Rene, eventually finding him living in Czechoslovakia; and Rene’s adoption by the Slotkin family who brought him to the United States in 1950.
    Interviewee
    Hizme, Irene
    Rene Slotkin
    Interviewer
    Kevin Wayne
    Date
    interview:  1992 April 12

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (90 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Topical Term
    Child concentration camp inmates--Poland--Oswiecim. Concentration camp guards--Poland--Oswiecim. Concentration camp tattoos--Poland--Oswiecim. Holocaust survivors--Psychology. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Czechoslovakia--Personal narratives. Human experimentation in medicine. Jewish children in the Holocaust--Czechoslovakia. Jewish orphans--Poland. Jews--Czech Republic--Teplice. Jews--Czechoslovakia. Mass murder--Poland--Oswiecim. National socialism and medicine. National socialism and science. Orphanages--France--Fublaines. Orphanages--Slovakia--Košice. Roll calls--Poland--Oswiecim. Twins. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. Men--Personal narratives. Women--Personal narratives.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Kevin Wayne, of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ID Card Project, conducted the interview with Irene Hizme and Rene Slotkin in Oceanside, N.Y., on April 12, 1992.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:23:47
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    Time Coded Notes (2)

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    Oral History

    Abraham Bergman, born June 15, 1924, in Krasnik, Poland, describes his prewar life in Lublin; his experiences with violent antisemitism; the German occupation of his town; his work at menial jobs assigned by the Judenrat; the first deportations in 1941; how, by September 1942, the town was “Jedenrein,” cleansed of Jews; the “Judenkarde,” the legal document which allowed Jews to remain; his transport to Budzyn labor camp; the Ukrainian and SS guards in the camp; doing forced labor for the German company Henklewerk; and being transported to Majdenek in 1944 where he became the foreman of a group of shoemakers.

    Oral history interview with Hans Bergman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alice Bogart

    Oral History

    Alice Bogart (née Winternitz), born May 7, 1926, discusses her childhood in Prague, Czech Republic; her parents and her brother, Peter Winternitz; restrictions placed on Jews after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia; her and her brother’s involvement with the Zionist youth group, “Helping Hands;” going to the countryside to help farmers as unpaid laborers; how her brother was sent on one of the first two small transports, Arbeit Kolona 1 and 2, to build Terezin; how she and her parents joined her brother at Terezin in July 1942; the death of her parents and brother in Terezin in March 1943; doing forced labor at Terezin during the rest of the war; being sick with typhoid when Russian troops liberated the camp 1945; returning to Prague, where she continued to recuperate; and how after eventually managing to contact her uncle in New York; and going to the United States in July 1946.

    Oral history interview with George Brieger

    Oral History

    George Brieger describes his familly’s experience during the Holocaust; his father Anno Brieger, who was born in Nyathalas, Hungary in 1925; his mother and grandmother who came from Munkatch; his grandfather Adolph Brieger; his family’s prewar life in Nyiregyhaza; changes as Hungary took control of Nyireghaza in 1938; the ghettoization of their town; his father and grandfather’s deportation to Auschwitz; his grandfather’s liberation by the Russians and subsequent deportation to Siberia, where he perished; his father and uncle’s forced march to Bergen-Belsen from which they were eventually liberated by the British and then relocated to Sweden; his father’s arrival in the United States in 1977; and how his father remained the only survivor of his five siblings, his parents, and grandparents.

    Oral history interview with Maria Brieger

    Oral History

    Maria Brieger (née Deutsch), born December 19, 1931, discusses her childhood in Budapest, Hungary; her extended family; speaking German at home; studying Hebrew and English at school; attending an orthodox Jewish school and then gymnasium; antisemitism in Hungary; the start of the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944; her father’s store getting taken over by Prime Minister Miklos Kallay’s brother; Raoul Wallenberg organizing fake Red Cross homes in Budapest; caring for children in a home; recovering from an illness brought on by dirt and lice; the death of her mother and father; the liberation of Budapest by Russian forces on January 18, 1945; living with her maternal grandmother after the war; her husband, who was liberated from Bergen-Belsen; living in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary for 25 years; and the Communist government takeover of her family’s store in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Claude Brunswic

    Oral History

    Claude Brunswic (born Kurt Braunschweig), born ca. 1921 in Heidelberg, Germany, describes his life in Germany before the war; his father’s medical practice; the lack of antisemitism in Heidelberg before the war; the German army arriving in Heidelberg in January 1933 and the subsequent persecution of the Jews; his family’s decision to leave Germany and move to The Hague, Holland; his membership in the Hachshara in The Hague; his father’s acquisition of French nationality due to his French grandfather; the family’s move to France in 1936; working as a cabinetmaker at the piano factory, Pleyel; enlisting in the French Army in the fall of 1939; being transferred to the Maginot Line, where he was captured by Germans in 1940; being sent from Bacharach and to Trier as a prisoner of war; doing forced labor in Laufeld; experiencing forced marches until liberation in January of 1945; his demobilization and reunion with his parents after the war; being employed for the United States Relief and Rehabilitation Administration as a messing officer; and his immigration with his wife to the United States in January 1946.

    Oral history interview with Rose Brunswic

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renee Carasso

    Oral History

    Renee Carasso, born August 15, 1919 in Preveza, Greece, describes her happy childhood; her father’s textile store; attending school in Iōannina, Greece; the Jewish community in her town; her siblings; playing mandolin; the German invasion of Greece; the restrictions placed on Jews; Germans billeting in their home and bringing prostitutes with them; being deported with her family on March 25, 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; her three brothers being selected to work in the crematorium; the uprising in Birkenau; her various jobs in the camp; being transferred to Ravensbrück and Malchow; having to work at night on parts for pistols; her friendships in the camps; religion in the camps; her physical condition in the camps; liberation; going with other Greek Jews to a displaced persons camp run by UNRRA; finding her sister; living in a city near Berlin, Germany; returning to Greece with her sister in 1945; getting married; going to the United States; and settling in Baltimore, MD.

    Oral history interview with Magda Cox

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jacek Dabrowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paula Dash

    Oral History

    Paula Dash (née Garfinkel), born in 1920 in Łódź, Poland, describes life in Łódź; the beginning of the war and the German invasion; the roundup of Jews and deportations; having to turn in their valuables and wear the star of David; being moved into the ghetto and living in one room with her family; rations in the ghetto; the death of her father from starvation in 1942; the deportation of her sister and brother; the atrocities in the ghetto; learning of the mass killings; a Kinder Aktion in the camp when the Nazis rounded up and killed all the children they could find; being sent with her mother and youngest brother in August 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being shaved upon entering the camp but not receiving a tattoo; the emotional torture the guards subjected the inmates to; the heavy bombardment to the camp and being crammed into a barrack with hundreds of other people; life in Bergen-Belsen; seeing piles of corpses and the mass graves; being sent briefly to work cleaning bombed out houses in Bremen, Germany, where she found a towel that she managed to keep in the camp; witnessing cannibalism; contracting typhus; receiving help from her friends in the camp; being liberated by the British in April 1945; and her immigration to the United States in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Ani Davidovics

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Juliusz Deczkowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Aron Derman

    Oral History

    Aron Derman (né Dereczynski), born on May 5, 1922 in Slonim, Poland (Belarus), describes his life before the war; his parents who were shopkeepers; his experiences with antisemitism before the war; his involvement in the Zionist movement and membership in the Hashomer Hatzair; the boycott of local Jewish businesses towards the end of the 1930s; being on a date in Oftryn when the war began; the arrival of Russian soldiers; his journey to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) in hopes of immigrating to Palestine that came to no avail; the ghettoization of Slonim; the liquidation of half the ghetto and his escape from the round-up; his escape from a German “Aktion”; his decision to leave the ghetto and travel to Grodno; being sent to Auschwitz, escaping the train, getting caught, and being sent back to the ghetto; hiding in the Grodno ghetto and hopping a train headed to Vilna with several friends (including his future wife Lisa Nussbaum); joining the FPO; leaving the ghetto and going to the Narocz forest; joining the Nakamah partisan group, which was disbanded; being in the Kalininski partisans and his activities; being liberated by the Russians; getting married in Rome, Italy in 1947; immigrating to the United States in 1947; and his life after the war in Chicago, IL.

    Oral history interview with Henry Drobiarz

    Oral History

    Henry Drobiarz, born in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes growing up in Kozlow, Poland; attending public school and cheder; his siblings; his family’s religious practices as Orthodox Jews; apprenticing as a tinsmith with his uncle in Sosnowiec; the German invasion and continuing to work as a tinsmith; being sent to Krakow, Poland in 1940; staying in town to work as a tinsmith as other Jews were sent to Slomniki in 1942; hiding with his parents in Kozlow during roundups; the separation of his family to various places; working in Krakow-Jerozolimska (Płaszów) concentration camp; being sent to Mielec concentration camp; his work making airplane parts in the camp; working in Sandomierz concentration camp; being taken to Wieliczka concentration camp in June 22, 1944; being sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp and the terror experienced by the inmates when they thought they were going to be gassed; working in a quarry; being transferred to Leitwezil, Czechoslovakia (possibly Litomerice, Czech Republic) to a carbide mine for six weeks; being sent to Dachau concentration camp for three days then Augsburg to work in a Messerschmitt factory; daily life in Augsburg; being transferred in December 1944 to Leonberg concentration camp; being taken to Kaufering concentration camp for three weeks; being taken to Allach concentration camp; being liberated on May 1, 1945; going to the nearby town; going to Munich, Germany; working for the US Army for a few months; meeting his future wife; going to the United States in December 1949; living in New York, NY; and his life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Maria Efes

    Oral History

    Maria Efes, born on July 15, 1909 in Kopys', Belarus, describes living in Orsha, Belarus; going to Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) in 1924; graduating from the Gertson institute in 1933; working as a speech therapist in a Russian-occupied area of Finland; her parents’ backgrounds; her siblings; being a child psychologist in the 1930s; her studies on school children in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia; going to Crimea, Ukraine in 1936; being a graduate student, studying foreign languages; the German invasion in 1941; her sister’s experience during the German invasion; the bombings; the experiences of her siblings during the war; taking a group of children to Siberia in September 1942; working at a children’s house in Siberia for two years; returning to Leningrad when the war ended; and her husband. [Note that the interviewee describes her early life approximately half-way through the interview.]

    Oral history interview concerning Abraham Ellenbogen and Hanna Ellenbogen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

    Selma Engel discusses her early childhood and family life in Zwolle, Holland; her three older brothers; attending Dutch public school and Hebrew afternoon school; how her parents ran a kosher hotel; the death of her father in 1941; how in 1942, the Germans threw the family out of their hotel and placed them in a small house with no electricity or bathroom; saying goodbye to her mother and brothers and going into hiding in July 1942; being sent to Sobibor the following year when her mother was sent to Poland; two of her brothers being sent to a work camp, while the third remained in hiding; how at the beginning of the war and in 1945 their hotel was used as a place to hide German Jews who were smuggled to Belgium; her observation that all small towns in Holland have memorials to the Jews who were killed during the war.

    Oral history interview with Lonia Fishman

    Oral History

    Lonia Fishman (née Goldman, born on May 3, 1920 in Wegrow, Poland) and her husband, Sevek Fishman, discuss Lonia’s childhood and her family; attending public school and a Hebrew school; making and selling quilts in Warsaw, Poland with her sister; her family’s move to Warsaw; getting married; the German invasion; how some Jews committed suicide; Sevek’s experience getting shot in the ghetto; stocking up on supplies with the family; the resolve of the family to remain together and not separate; Sevek’s mother; the Jewish police in the ghetto; Sevek witnessing his father being shot to death; and her sister Edith Goldman.

    Oral history interview with Sevek Fishman

    Oral History

    Sevek Fishman, born on July 14, 1918 in Kaluszyn, Poland, describes his childhood and attending a Jewish school; religious observations in his family; apprenticing as a tailor; the Jewish community; the German invasion; antisemitic propaganda; the roundups; going to the Warsaw ghetto with his whole family; smuggling in food for his family; his work removing corpses from the ghetto streets; his work for Organisation Todt; being sent briefly to a small camp; hiding with his wife during another roundup in the neighboring suburb Wegrów, Poland; escaping from the ghetto; people hiding out in the woods outside Warsaw; hiding in a hole in the floor of a house with his wife for 18 months; being liberated by Jewish soldiers and sent to a field hospital; and his reflections on the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Jack Frenkel and Henry Frenkel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Freund

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with John Friedmann

    Oral History

    John Friedmann, born on born October 19, 1913 in Vrbove, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), describes growing up in Vienna, Austria; his apprenticeship as a salesman in a linoleum business; the German annexation of Austria; being arrested and sent to a jail in Linz, Austria in August 1938; being taken by cattle car to Dachau concentration camp; the work and various prisoners in the camp; being sent to Weimar before being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp; his work in the camp; hangings in the camp; his mother’s attempts to write to the camp officials and get John out; being released and returning to Vienna; Kristallnacht in November 1938; going to Shanghai, China in December 1938; his mother joining him in Shanghai; working as a supervisor for the trash dumps; working for the Shanghai Bus Company; having to live in the ghetto; working for Citroën Motors; getting a job in the Toyota Company, which allowed him a pass to leave the ghetto; the arrival of American troops and being hired as a foreman in the ATC (Air Transport Command); flying to Alaska with a Jewish organization in 1949; going to Vancouver then Toronto; working for Austin Motor Company; getting married in 1950; and moving to California in December 1950.

    Oral history interview with Irene Frisch

    Oral History

    Irene Frisch (b. Bienstock), born in 1931 in Dohobyz, Poland (Drohobych, Ukraine), describes her life in pre-war Poland; her parents; her father’s occupation as a businessman; her family’s housekeeper, Frania Osobokowa, who helped save her life; the beginning of the war and ghettoization of Dohobyz; the harsh conditions her family endured while in the ghetto; Frania’s willingness to house and feed her, her mother, and her sister during the war; the murder and persecution of Jews after the liquidation of the ghetto; her survival in hiding and liberation by the Russian Army; antisemitism in Poland after the war; her miraculous reunion with her father on a train; her experience with antisemitism in high school and her struggles with her principal; her family’s decision to immigrate to Israel and the painful goodbye with Frania; her emigration from Israel to the United States in 1961; her life in the United States; and her lasting relationship with Frania.

    Oral history interview with Andrzej Garczynski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bozenna Gilbride

    Oral History

    Bozenna Gilbride, née Urbonowicz, discusses her childhood in Wolyn, Poland (present day Volhynia, Ukraine); her Christian farming parents; how her father hid Jews in a shed on his farm early in World War II; escaping after Ukrainians burned her family’s farm and their village; immigrating to Germany, unaware of what was happening there; working in a factory making leather goods for German soldiers; working in a slave labor camp in Chemnitz; contracting TB; how her mother was suspected of being in the Polish underground and was sent to Ravensbrück, where she was sterilized; how her mother was sent to Gross-Rosen; her feelings about being separated from her mother; the arrival of American troops; the behavior of German citizens; living in a displaced persons camp in Leipzig from 1945 until the beginning of 1947; immigrating to the United States; and her mother’s difficulty in obtaining a visa to join the family in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Marian Gnyp

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alma Goldberg

    Oral History

    Alma Goldberg (née Bressler), born on March 22, 1930 in Czernowitz, Bukovina (Chernivtsi, Ukraine), describes her younger sister (Lydia Bressler Goldring); her father’s import business; her religiously traditional family; attending soccer games with her father; attending a Romanian school and learning Hebrew from a private teacher at home; experiencing antisemitism from other children; living in an integrated neighborhood; hiding during the pogroms committed by Romanians, Ukrainians, and Cossacks; going with her family to Bucharest, Romania; the bombardments in Bucharest; having to leave a cinema once because of the bombing; attending school in Bucharest; sending family heirlooms to relatives in Israel and hiding other possessions; going to Switzerland with her family then Milan, Italy; going with her family to Cuba in 1948; attending business school and being a secretary, using six languages; living in Havana; moving to the United States; and her life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Charles Goldberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Goldkind

    Oral History

    Helen Goldkind discusses her grandmother, who was 80 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz; her childhood in Volosyanka (Ukraine); her extended family, most of whom were deported to Auschwitz; growing up as one of seven children; the Hungarian occupation of her town in 1939; her limited access to education; speaking Czech and Yiddish; restrictions under Hungarian rule; how her parents were forced to close their store; her brothers’ deportation to a Hungarian labor camp; the arrival of German forces in her town between 1942 and 1943; the establishment of a ghetto in a brick factory in Uhzgorod; being forced to move into the ghetto in 1943, where she lived for a few months; her deportation to Auschwitz; the commotion and confusion she experienced during her arrival at Auschwitz; the deaths of family members; staying together with her sister in the camps; being sent to Bergen-Belsen with her sister; and how her sister aided in her survival.

    Oral history interview with Philip Goldstein

    Oral History

    Philip Goldstein, born in 1922, discusses his childhood in Radom, Poland; his secular and religious education in Poland; joining the youth Zionist movement; participating in Hashomer Hatzair in Radom; the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and his family’s house arrest; forced labor; being marched to many towns in Poland including Belzec, Lublin, Annapol, and Krasnik; seeing his family for the last time in 1942; his deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau with his brother; life in the camp; contracting typhus; walking from Auschwitz to Birkenau; living conditions in Birkenau; mass killings in Birkenau; building the gas chambers and crematoriums; the uprising in Birkenau in October 1944; returning to Auschwitz; evacuating Auschwitz-Birkenau; being forced to march to Gross-Rosen; rumors about war’s end; being liberated by U.S. troops; his relatives who survived; living in a displaced persons camp; immigrating to New York in 1945; and his family and life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Sally Goldstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Monique Goodrich

    Oral History

    Monique Goodrich (née Jackson), born on October 29, 1937 in Paris, France, describes her Russian father and Polish mother, who were both orphans of World War I; spending most of the war years in Saint-Laurent-de-Neste, France; her family’s escape to the Pyrenees at the beginning of the war; receiving help from people in the town; speaking Basque; her brother’s birth in 1941; Germans coming into the town and rounding up people; sensing the danger but not understanding it fully as a child; instinctively knowing as a hidden child that she shouldn’t call attention to herself; living for a while in an orphanage in a convent when she was four; the regimented life in the orphanage; the severe rationing; living on a farm apart from her family; her mother getting false identity papers from the policeman who was helping her; her father’s garden; her father going to Spain and living in Miranda de Ebro concentration camp; smugglers in the area; the resistance in Saint-Laurent-de-Neste; her mother’s despair when she learned of her sister’s deportation; being in Paris during the liberation; her father coming back from Spain; being sent to the countryside; living in Paris for six years before going to the United States; attending school in the US; feeling that she knew more about the Catholic religion than Judaism; making more time for Judaism in her life; and her appreciation for all the things the people in Saint-Laurent-de-Neste did for Jews during the war.

    Radio broadcast about Karl Gorath

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Edit Gredinger

    Oral History

    Edit Gredinger (née Grinsphun), born on March 2, 1922 in Kishinev (Chisinau, Moldova), describes her parents and little brother; living well on their own land; her father farming and working for the railroad; being sent at the age of 11 to Tigina (Bender, Moldova) for gymnasium; graduating in 1940; not being allowed to discuss the war nor read newspapers while she was at school; the rise of fascism in 1938 and the subsequent pogroms; not being affected by the pogroms; studying at the Teacher Institute in Kishinev; the Russian occupation; going to Bulboka to get her parents so they could evacuate together; traveling east with her parents and brother; going to Pervomaysk, Ukraine; being caught by the Germans and assembled in a church in Bogopol (Bohopil); being separated from her family and taken with other people to work; the murder of her mother, father, and brother; escaping with a friend across the frozen river; hiding in pigpens; passing as a Romanian Christian; being sent to a ghetto camp in Otmechatka; the hard labor she performed in the camp; getting married in 1942 to Matvey Gredinger (RG-50.233*0042); working on a farm with her husband; her husband being sent to other places for two years; her husband’s return in 1944; having her daughter in the camp; returning to Moldova; and the communal grave at Pervomaysk.

    Oral history interview with Matvey Gredinger

    Oral History

    Matvey Gredinger, born June 2, 1921 in Moldavia, discusses his prewar family life; his home town in which 500 Jewish families lived; studying Hebrew and the Jewish religion; antisemitic groups at school; visiting in parents in Versoka, Romania in 1940; the murder of his parents in Versoka by the Germans; being shot in the neck in his home along with his father; marching through Moldova until reaching Soroka a week later; being marched to a concentration camp in Vertajan (Vertiujeni, Moldova)at the end of September 1941 with over 20,000 prisoners; how mostly Romanians guarded the prison with some Germans; being forced to carry rocks to build a road; his fellow prisoners who were Romanian, Moravian, and Ukrainian Jews and political prisoners; his liberation by the Russians in April 1944; his arrest by the Russians in 1947 and his time in Siberia; and his arrival in the United States in March 1990.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Green

    Oral History

    Bernard Green, born March 6, 1911 in Rozwadow, Poland, discusses his family members, several of whom survived the Holocaust with false papers; attending a private Jewish school and completing three years of college for engineering; his awareness of antisemitism when he was unable to finish his education; working for Germans in a factory; being recruited into the Polish Army from 1934 to 1937; being stationed in Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine); attending school in the army; running the canteen in the army for two years; the head of his outfit who was a Jewish mayor; events following the German occupation of Rozwadow; the camp in Pisznica, Poland; and his return to Rozwadow after the war.

    Oral history interview with Sabina Green

    Oral History

    Sabina Green (née Low), born on March 23, 1922 in Ulanow, Poland, describes her childhood; her parents; her two brothers and sister; her parents taking in a young Jewish boy from Frankfurt, Germany; attending public school and Jewish school; the Jewish organizations in Ulanow; the German invasion in 1939; doing forced labor; the looting committed by local non-Jews; the Judenrat (Jewish council) choosing people for work details; her brother’s deportation to a work camp in 1941; visiting her brother at the camp and bringing him food; her brother’s release from the camp; the murder of her uncle and his family; being ordered to go to Saklikov; getting false papers with the name Zofya Jamowa; going with her future husband to Stryj, Poland (now Stryĭ, Ukraine); the death of her sister and younger brother; passing as a non-Jew and attending mass; witnessing the destruction of the whole Jewish community in Stryj in 1943; the massacre of the Jews in Stryj; how the Polish people in Stryj helped the Jews; visiting Ulanow after the war and finding no survivors in her family; leaving Poland in 1957 and going to Israel; going to the United States in 1960; and living in Brooklyn, NY.

    Oral history interview with Henry Greenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Blanka Gross

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elias Grossman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gerald Grossman

    Oral History

    Gerald Grossman, born on December 20, 1923 in Rovno, Poland (Rivne, Ukraine), describes his Jewish parents; his three brothers and one sister; his father’s work as a tailor; attending public school and cheder; attending a specialized ORT school in 1936; speaking Yiddish at home and Ukrainian and Polish elsewhere; the relations between Jews and non-Jews in Rovno; belonging to a religious Zionist organization; discussions in the 1930s about Hitler and the Nazis in Germany; the beginning of the war and the Russian occupation in 1939; living with his family in the nearby town of Abarro; continuing his education in a Russian-controlled school; going to a railroad school in Zdolbunów (Zdolbuniv, Ukraine); graduating in 1941 and working as a locomotive engineer in Kamionka Strumilowa (Kam'ianka Buz'ka, Ukraine); the German invasion in June 1941; traveling by train east during the bombardment; returning to Rovno; being sent to Russia as part of a special reserve transport group for the military; going to Harkov (Kharkiv, Ukraine) in 1941; living in Zagorsk (Sergiev Posad), Russia circa 1942, working on the railroad near Moscow; deserting his railroad job with four Ukrainian men and going to east; the harsh winter and his experiences in Gorki (Nizhniĭ Novgorod), Russia; going through Kuibyshev (Samara), Russia to Tashkent, Uzbekistan; being afflicted with lice and typhoid; living in Tashkent for about nine months working as a machinist; throwing away all his documents and pictures that would identify his real name for fear of being discovered as a deserter; going to Cuzar with his uncle to sign up with the Polish Army to fight the Germans from the English side; being rejected because he was Jewish; going by the name Grisorus; returning to Poland and going to Krakow; not knowing what happened to any of his family; and his efforts to help other survivors find family members.

    Oral history interview with Robert Gruber

    Oral History

    Robert Gruber, born on December 6, 1933 in Kosice, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), describes having few memories before 1938; the Hungarian occupation and watching the Hungarian victory parade; his parents and their backgrounds; going to his mother’s hometown, Michalovce, Slovakia; the anti-Jewish laws; attending a Jewish school; the views of his relatives on Zionism; the deportations beginning in 1942; the Jewish council; how luck and chance influenced one’s survival; his parents hiring a smuggler to get them to Uzhhorod, Ukraine; being detained in a prison in Uzhhorod for a week with his family; being returned to Slovakia; going into hiding; the prevalence of false conversion papers; passing as Christians; living in a boarding school in Miskolc, Hungary for a year; going to Budapest, Hungary with his sister when she needed a tonsillectomy; his mother removing he and his sister from the boarding school soon before all the students were deported; hiding in a pigsty with his family for a few days; moving west to Nitra, Slovakia; the hiding place close to their apartment; avoiding a roundup; getting sick and having a severe fever; liberation of the town; the family members who perished and those who survived; attending gymnasium after the war; the communists' coup d’état in 1948; and going to the United States with his family in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Grudzinska

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Laura Gruenbaum

    Oral History

    Laura Gruenbaum (née Ellenbogen), born in 1911 in Rozwadów, Poland, discusses her brother Abraham Ellenbogen and her sister Hanna Ellenbogen; the family’s six-room house built outside of Rozwadów about two years before World War I; Abraham’s education in Czechowice and Krakow; his move to Prague to attend medical school; his return to Poland to attend law school in Krakow; his thriving general law practice at the family home outside of Rozwadów for two years before the Germans invaded Poland; Hanna and Abraham’s travel to Russian-controlled Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine) after the German invasion of Poland; her family’s eviction from their house by the Germans; finding her siblings in Lvov where they lived together until she and her parents were sent to Russia; being separated from Abraham and Hanna; and her attempt after the war to find out what happened to Abraham.

    Oral history interview with Lutz Haase

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irving Hass

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Margot Heuman

    Oral History

    Margot Heuman, born on February 17, 1928 in Hellenthal, Germany, describes her pleasant childhood in Lippstadt, Germany, where her family moved in 1932; her family’s large home; attending public school and Hebrew school; her family’s religious observations; living briefly with her grandparents in Euskirchen, Germany; moving with her family to Bielefeld, Germany around 1937; her memories of the day Jews were no longer allowed to attend school in 1938; having to wear a Jewish star; the restrictions placed on Jews; the deportations of other Jews, including many of her friends; her grandfather’s death from starvation; being deported with her family to Theresienstadt on June 29, 1942; life in the ghetto/camp; the theatrical and musical performances; the Zionists in Theresienstadt; meeting her very good friend Dita in Theresienstadt; her father’s work for the post office in Theresienstadt; being deported with her family to Auschwitz in May 1944 after her father was caught stealing; the journey to Auschwitz; witnessing the murder of an infant when they arrived at the camp; being placed with her family in Birkenau; being tattooed with a number; her friend Dita arriving after a month; the death of her grandmother; the pain of hunger in the camp; roll calls, during which the prisoners stood naked outside; being sent to a labor camp in Hamburg, Germany with Dita; living in a warehouse on the harbor (probably Hamburg-Geilenberg); digging ditches; her friendship with Dita in the camp and sharing everything with her; the bombings at the camp; being sent to Neugraben concentration camp and the conditions there; a German soldier who gave her his lunch every day because she reminded him of his daughter; being physically abused a few times in the camps; being transferred in February 1945 to Tiefstack and the terrible conditions there; their mixed feelings about the bombings; being sent to Bergen-Belsen in March 1945; being liberated by the British on April 15, 1945; being very ill upon liberation and her will to live; going to Sweden, while Dita went to England; living with Marta Dandenell in Stockholm for over a year; attending private schools; corresponding with Dita; the loss of most of her family; going to the United States, where she had uncles; her dislike for New York when she arrived; working in an advertising agency as a systems analyst; getting married; and feeling obligated to have many children to replace her lost family.

    Oral history interview with William Himmelfarb

    Oral History

    William Himmelfarb, born on July 19, 1927 in Koprzywnica, Poland, describes his siblings; his parents; speaking Yiddish at home; attending school; the German invasion in 1939; living with three other families in their house; doing forced labor; the Judenrat (Jewish council); the restrictions placed on Jews; the formation of ghettos; being taken with others to Skarzysko-Kamienna; his work in the camp; hearing that the Jews in Koprzywnica were annihilated; suffering from typhoid; his kind supervisor; the dangers of working with ammunition; being taken by cattle train to Czestochowa; being placed on trains soon after and sent through Leipzeig, Germany to Buchenwald; arriving in the camp on July 18, 1944; the processing of prisoners; the Kapos; working in a quarry; being sent to Schlieben; working in a factory for anti-tank grenades; an explosion in the factory and how he still doesn’t know if it was due to sabotage or an accident; rebuilding the factory that had been destroyed; the difficult conditions in the camp; being sent out of the camp by cattle cars in April 1945 towards Theresienstadt; being abandoned by the guards during an air raid of their train; getting to Theresienstadt, where he received medical care in the hospital; being liberated by the Russians; going to Prague, Czech Republic then Windermere, England; being sent by the British government with other Jewish youths from city to city; staying in a boys’ home with 15 other boys in Winchester; living in England for five years; going to the United States in 1950; serving during the Korean War; getting married in 1951; and never returning to Poland.

    Oral history interview with Irving Horn

    Oral History

    Irving Horn (né Isachar Herszenhorn), born in February 1927 in Radom, Poland, describes experiencing significant antisemitism as a child; the integration of schools when he was seven years old; how he and the only other Jewish boy at his new school were severely beaten by some of their schoolmates; the war breaking out and his father losing his job; his brother being accused of spying and temporarily jailed; attending a secret Jewish school for two years until Radom became a ghetto; the ghetto in Glinice; how upon the liquidation of the Radom ghetto, he and his father volunteered to work on the Waschnik estate; surviving encounters with the SS; working in a weapons factory, where he encountered Jacob Holz, a ruthless security guard against whom Irving later testified; how around July 25, 1944 he marched to Tomaszów because the Russians were approaching Radom; being deported by train to Auschwitz; being chosen with his father and two brothers to do work in Vaihingen an der Enz near Stuttgart; being sent by a guard to work on the Nazi Secretary of State’s sister-in-law’s estate for two weeks, where he received food and regained his strength; being sent to Camp Unterriexingen, Kochendorf, and finally to Dachau; being in Tyrol, Austria at the end of the war but being taken back to Germany and almost shot into a ravine; how before the killing was to take place, the SS men changed into civilian clothes and left; ending up in a military hospital in Mittenwald, Germany due to severe hunger; spending several years in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart; immigrating to the United States in 1948; and being in the US Army between 1950 and 1952.

    Oral history interview with Molly Ingster

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Katalin Karpati

    Oral History

    Katalin Karpati, born in 1912 in Újpest, Hungary, discusses growing up in a large, modern house in a gentile neighborhood; her father Izidor Dicker, who was the director of a lumber factory in Újpest, and her mother, who was well-educated and helped her husband with his business; how her family was not religious; marrying her first husband Lajos Nagy, a wealthy businessman who owned a store and mines; how Lajos received a degree in diplomacy from the University of the East in the late 1920s but was unable to find work due to anti-Jewish laws; how in 1940, all Jewish men in the village were sent to a labor camp, but Lajos received a medical exemption and was permitted to relocate to a family villa in Újpest; the birth of their first child Shandor Michael in January 1944; how on April 23, 1944, Lajos was taken to forced labor in Felsőgalla, where he died in an air raid; being sent with her son to live in the ghetto; their deportation to Auschwitz; how six-month old Shandor Michael was killed immediately upon arrival; her second husband, Joseph Karpati; how in May 1944, 25 members of the Karpati family were taken from Buj to Auschwitz, where they were killed; how her current husband Joseph and his brother spent four years in forced labor, but survived the war; and how two of her nieces survived and settled in Israel.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Kirzhner

    Oral History

    Joseph Kirzhner, born January 7, 1916 in Odessa, Ukraine, discusses his four brothers; his father who was killed fighting in war; his mother who also perished; his experience driving tanks in the Russian Army; being captured after fighting in Nikolaiev (Mykolayiv), Ukraine and becoming a prisoner of war in 1942; being sent to a concentration camp; his transfer to three or four concentration camps, partly because he tried to escape several times (twice from Auschwitz); how, after being caught, Kapos used sticks to beat his bare feet, and then made him walk until his feet bled; undergoing surgical experiments in Auschwitz; his memory of constant beatings, wire all around, and German soldiers trying to shoot inmates as the liberating Russian Army approached; his liberation in April 1945; his hospitalization and surgery following liberation; his return to service in the Russian Army; his immigration with his wife to the United States in 1978; and persistent health problems in the years following the war.

    Oral history interview with Michael Kishel

    Oral History

    Michael Kishel (né Majlech Kisielnicki), born in Kaluszyn, Poland, describes his family; his childhood; growing up Orthodox; his great-grandparents who had a bakery; completing grade school at age 14 and attending trade school in Warsaw, Poland for six months; working in the family business and saw his friends in the evening; attending camp in the summers with other teenagers; going to the Russian border for a short time and the German occupation of Poland shortly after his return; the formation of a Judenrat (Jewish council), which his father was part of; living in an open ghetto; being on the sanitary committee to prevent typhus; getting papers, along with his brother, to live on the Aryan side of Warsaw; moving in with their cousins in the ghetto; being deported on a cattle car to Treblinka; jumping out of the train and returning to their cousins; hiding in a basemenrt when the Germans came; being deported to Majdanek; going to a hospital and recuperating after being sick; being deported to Auschwitz, where he remained for two years; being beaten numerous times; being transferred to various subcamps, including the coal mines (Waldenburg subcamp); being evacuated on January 18, 1945; being on the road until they were liberated in May 1945; returning to Kaluszyn; immigrating to the United States in 1948; getting married in 1949; settling in Queens, NY; working in the export business with his brother until they retired in 1988; and his belief that his father helped him survive.

    Oral history interview with Ingrid Kisliuk

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Kupfer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Walter Lachman

    Oral History

    Walter Lachman (b. Wolfgang Louis Lachman), born May 26, 1928, discusses his family background and comfortable childhood in Berlin, Germany; his grandfather’s service in WWI as a master sergeant; his father’s service in the German army and participation in the Spartacus movement; his early school days during which he would sing the German anthem and National Socialist anthem; changes in Germany in 1935 and 1936; the banning of Jewish children from public schools; attending Jewish school in the backyard of an old synagogue; Jewish doctors and attorneys who were no longer allowed to practice their professions; broader restrictions placed on Jews in Germany; his father’s gentile customers who stopped shopping at the family’s business; his experiences with antisemitism and daily harassment from non-Jewish children; his memory of Kristallnacht, during which his father’s business was vandalized; his small Bar Mitzvah in an orthodox synagogue in 1941; his mother’s death from Leukemia; his father’s death from tuberculosis; his last memories of Berlin; being taken by open truck to a railroad yard; his journey east by freight car which took seven to eight days; the conditions in the freight car; his arrival in Riga, Latvia in several feet of snow; his relocation to the Riga ghetto with his grandmother; daily conditions in the ghetto; the murder of his grandmother who was gassed along with other older people inside a truck; the formation of the Council of Elders; the ghetto’s hospital where abortions were performed; the ghetto’s small synagogue; becoming a messenger for the Council of Elders; being sent to Pleskau (Pskov), Russia to cut down trees; the liquidation of the ghetto and his relocation to Kaiserwald concentration camp; working in a factory in Riga where he repaired uniforms for the German Army; harassment from the factory’s guards; conditions in the factory from which there were several failed escape attempts and subsequent hangings; being punished after he was caught attempting to steal shoes; pro-German and anti-Russian sentiment among Latvians; being forced to work 12 hour shifts while unloading ammunition at Riga harbor without protection from the elements or Russian air raids; being taken to Libau (now called Liepaja), a port on the Baltic Sea, to load and unload ships and dismantle tin roofs to send back to Germany; bombings from the Russians; evacuating Liepaja and being taken back to Germany in a freight boat; his confinement in a crowded jail in Hamburg, Germany for three to four weeks with little food; being forced to collect shell fragments from A.A. guns; his relocation to Bergen-Belsen; contracting typhus; the abandonment of Bergen-Belsen by German guards as British forces approached; his liberation by the British on April 15, 1945; how the British used German guards to bury the dead and then burned down the camp; medical care from the British Red Cross; working for the British Red Cross as an interpreter until late 1945; working for the United Nations in Munich, Germany; sailing to the United States on the S.S. Marlin; living in New York and Massachusetts; working as a stock boy; advancing in sales and becoming the president of several successful department stores before his retirement; and returning to Bergen-Belsen in the 1990s and seeing young German citizens who were interested in what happened there.

    Oral history interview with Aaron Laro

    Oral History

    Aaron Laro, born March 23, 1919 in Zdzieciol, Poland (now Dziatlava, Belarus), describes the prevalence of antisemitism in Poland; the signs posted in 1937 demanding a boycott of Jewish-owned shops; the beginning of the war; the confiscation of Jewish property, including the Laro’s six-room house; working with others to hid weapons in the woods; the creation of a ghetto in January 1942 in Novogrudek (Navahrudak, Belarus), and Jews being forced to move there and wear the yellow Star of David; two massacres in Navahrudak, including one in April 1942 when 800 people were killed; escaping from the ghetto and joining partisans in the woods; being a machinist and repairing tanks and other vehicles they found; finding Jewish families hiding in the woods; the attitude of the Russian Army towards Jews; making a detonator that derailed a train going to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) and helping to derail three more trains; being incorporated into the Russian Army; fighting in numerous battles; being wounded and still having a bullet near his heart, a piece of shrapnel in his head, and a leg injury; spending a month in a hospital recuperating from a bullet wound; being made a sergeant; deserting from the Russian Army in the autumn of 1944; immigrating to the United States in June 1947 with the woman who had been with him throughout their time in the woods; getting married; and his thoughts on the actions he took during the war.

    Oral history interview with Anthony Lazar

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lillian Lazar

    Oral History

    Lillian Lazar (née Guzenfiter), born in Warsaw, Poland on June 16, 1924, discusses her family life in Poland prior to World War II; rebelling against wearing the yellow star and being beaten by Polish children; being sent with her parents to a small ghetto in Prosta; her father’s acquisition of papers listing him as Aryan; working in the ghetto’s factory that made German military uniforms; working 12 hour days for one bowl of soup, which she shared with her mother; her mother’s weak health from starvation and subsequent death from German gunfire; how most of her family died in the ghetto from starvation; memories of her grandfather when the Germans surrounded the ghetto; witnessing a German soldier shoot a mother with a baby in her arms; her attempt to defend herself when the Germans surrounded the factory; being sent with the remaining few hundred factory workers in cattle cars to Majdanek; being beaten at Majdanek; escaping by hiding in a large sewage pipe; boarding a train going to Skarzysko (Skarzysko Kamienna), where she worked making bullets for rifles; performing sabotage by approving several bushels of bad bullets; her liberation by Russian forces in January 1945; Russian soldiers’ harsh treatment of women, including sexual assault; marrying a man she had known in the ghetto, traveling to Italy; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Fanny Lebovits

    Oral History

    Fanny Lebovits (born circa 1923) describes the backgrounds of her father (Herman Judelowitz born in Aizpute, Latvia) and her mother (Sarah Gamper Elterman born circa 1899); her father’s efforts as a liberation fighter for Latvia and his capture by the Germans during WWI; growing up in Liepāja, Latvia; speaking German, Yiddish, and Latvian at home; antisemitism in Latvia; attending a Jewish school; being raised by her parents as a Zionist; attending school in Riga, Latvia when the Russians came in 1940; the deportations of wealthy Latvians to Siberia before the Germans arrived in 1941; working in a hospital; the death of her father in the forest with other Jews; the Latvians who collaborated with the Germans; the creation of the ghetto in 1942; conditions in the ghetto; being send with her family to Riga-Kaiserwald camp in October 1943; and being separated from her younger sister and mother [note that the remainder of the interview concerns the interviewee’s family’s background].

    Oral history interview with Emmi Lehner

    Oral History

    Emmi Lehner, an Austrian-born Catholic born March 7, 1913, discusses her childhood in Vienna before the war; her sister Helene who became mentally ill in her late teenage years and spent most of her time in different hospitals until she was most likely killed by the Nazis after the Anschluss; her family’s experiences during World War I; leaving Austria with her Jewish husband for England in April 1940; and settling in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Isabella Leitner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lilly Levinson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Johanna Liebmann

    Oral History

    Hanna Liebmann (née Hirsh), born November 28, 1924, discusses her childhood in Karlsruhe, Germany; attending public school, where Jews were harassed; being forced in 1936 to transfer to the Jewish school which was shared with mentally-challenged students; the damage to her home and burning of her synagogue on Kristallnacht; her arrest in 1940 along with her mother, three aunts, and grandmother at the home they shared; spending three days on a train and arriving at Oloron Sainte-Marie, France; being sent with her family to the Gurs camp; the tremendous cultural life at Gurs despite knee-deep mud and raging dysentery; working in the camp’s office, where she met her future husband; food from the Swiss Red Cross; being sent in September 1941 by a social worker to the village Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where young people were helped to survive; hiding with villagers when Germans came to Le Chambon; escaping, alone, to Switzerland; living with an aunt’s the family; nearly having a nervous breakdown; traveling to Geneva where she reconnected with her future husband and worked as a maid; having a daughter and remaining in Switzerland until 1948 when the Swiss declined to let them stay; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral History

    Max Liebmann, born on September 3, 1921 in Mannheim, Germany, describes growing up in a comfortable household that was not particularly religious; beginning to play the cello when he was eight years old and having hopes of going to a conservatory in Zurich or Jerusalem; attending public school until 1937 when he left due to the harassment he experienced as a Jew; attending a private school from early 1938 until Kristallnacht; his mother, who was trained as a concert pianist, and his father, who was in the textile business; how his father was forced to give up his business in 1938 and moved to Greece to build a business there; moving with his mother to live with his grandmother; his father’s illegal move to Nice, France, where he remained until the end of the war; the outbreak of the war and being called to perform harvesting work in East Germany; returning to Mannheim in late autumn 1939; volunteering for emigration offices in Berlin and working there until his deportation on October 22, 1940 to Gurs internment camp; being separated from his mother at the camp; remaining in Gurs for 20 months, working in the office of the camp block; being given a pass that allowed him to move about the camp more easily because he played the cello; seeing his mother and his new girlfriend daily; the closing of his block and moving into the camp hospital, where he ran the office; being removed from the camp at the end of June 1942 by the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants to a farm outside of Lyon run by the Boy Scouts of France; saying goodbye to his mother before he left; being dispersed from the farm when they learned that a raid was planned; being hidden on another farm for about three and a half weeks with the help of Mireille Philip; being given false papers and trekking with others over the mountains into Switzerland; being arrested by the Swiss patrol and told that they would be escorted back to France; escaping capture with another man and returning to Switzerland; being interned in Switzerland; and remaining in Switzerland for five and a half years until he was able to immigrate to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Margaret Lipton

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Arlette de Long

    Oral History

    Arlette de Long, born in 1937 in Brocourt in Picardy, France, describes living under the German occupation; her mother’s Russian immigrant status; receiving a baptismal certificate from a priest; being raised as Christian but also being vaguely aware of her true Jewish identity; how the house was taken and the family moved in with a widow until the end of the war; her memories of Americans arriving with two tanks and Germans immediately being made prisoners; moving to Paris, France around age 11; becoming a practicing Jew; her memories of driving to Brittany, France before the German invasion and hiding from bombings with her grandmother; living for a year in London, England and working as an interpreter after the war; moving to the United States; her daughter; experiencing survivor guilt and nightmares; her Jewish identity and lack of faith in God; and her thoughts on Israel.

    Oral history interview with Alexandra Lorenz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Lubell

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Lubell, born December 9, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood in Budapest, where she was not aware of antisemitism; Hitler’s rise to power; the large Jewish community in Budapest; being forced to wear the Star of David; her deportation to Poland in 1941; her father’s background as a military officer for which he earned the Iron Cross; the murder of 40,000 Jews in Kamieniec Padolski; living in the ghetto of Kolomjya, Poland; escaping from the ghetto and returning to Budapest; hiding in the woods from the Germans; using Catholic documents to pass through the area safely; her capture and transfer to the camp at Sarvar; being saved by Raoul Wallenberg who placed her under Swiss protection; liberation by the Russians; continued attacks by Germans after liberation; traveling to Israel to visit her brother; and immigrating to the United States on the RMS Mauretania.

    Oral history interview with Henry Lubell

    Oral History

    Henry Lubell, born in 1911 in Dombrova, Gornicza (Dabrowa Gornicza), Poland, describes his family of eight; his family’s move in 1916 to Rawicz and later to Katowice; his father, who worked as a hazan (cantor) and shochet (mohel or kosher butcher); how his family kept kosher, but was not religious; not experiencing antisemitism before World War II; how on the first day of the war, the family sent the mother and two sisters to Kielce, farther from the German border; walking with his father eastward with other refugees until a Jewish peasant gave them a ride in his horse-drawn buggy; living with his wife and his parents in a ghetto (unclear which one) with about 25,000 inhabitants; the clearing of the ghetto of all but a few hundred people after inhabitants were marched to a train station for deportation; seeing a Jewish woman hand her baby to a Polish woman as they left the ghetto; his memories of 70 to 100 people being shoved and beaten into cattle cars; how he loosened a wooden bar from the window, and he and several others jumped from the train; hiding with about 20 men and women in the woods with partisans; being sent by the partisans on sabotage missions, including putting bombs under train tracks; “liberating himself”; and going to Budapest, Hungary to look for his wife, whom he found and rejoined.

    Oral history interview with Trude Ludwig

    Oral History

    Trude Ludwig (nee Gertrud Grunbaum), born on March 26, 1917 in Vienna, Austria, describes her Catholic mother and Jewish father; being baptized and reared as a Protestant; the high level of antisemitism in Vienna even before the rise of Hitler; attending a children’s conservator in Vienna along with her younger brother Otto; dancing and acting in the theater by the age of seven; her stage name which was Trude Hermann; how her career took her to Italy in September 1937 and her mother’s warnings immediately after the Anschluss to remain in Italy; her mother, who managed to get to Prague, then to Paris, and eventually to the United States; her father, who was in Switzerland on business, and later went to Paris; helping her brother get a transit visa by writing him a letter saying she was very sick and needed him to visit her; her brother, who eventually to Paris, where he studied under pianist Claudio Arrau; Otto receiving help from the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who got Otto a student visa for the U.S. in 1939; Otto’s studies in New York City with Arthur Schnabel, until he joined the U.S. Army in 1944 and served in Germany; being visited by her brother in post-war 1945, and his death a month later in an accident; her life during the war; the expiration of her Austrian passport and managing to get a German passport without the “J” mark that would have officially identified her as Jewish (she credits a “nice guy” officer in Germany’s consulate in Rome for granting a non-Jewish passport despite her Jewish last name); how she did not see antisemitism in Italy, and did not think she was in danger; going into hiding in 1944, just ten days before American troops arrived on June 4, 1944; returning to theater work, and then becoming an interpreter for the Americans until 1948; immigrating to Argentina with her non-Jewish German husband, who had been a POW of the Americans, and their child; and receiving a visa in 1951 to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nathan Magier

    Oral History

    Nathan Magier, born in Bedzin, Poland on May 4, 1925, describes living with his mother, father, and two brothers when the Germans invaded; the several days of bombings; his brother being sent to a camp and never seeing him again; being put to work on various labor projects before being sent to the nearby Komyunki ghetto; being separated from his father in the ghetto and never seeing him again; hiding during the deportations in a wall with his mother; being sent in 1943 first to Birkenau and then to Auschwitz; working as a tailor in Birkenau; being put to work outside the camp while he was imprisoned in Auschwitz; escaping from Auschwitz and joining the underground resistance; being wounded; joining the Russian Army, but deserting and being arrested for his desertion; getting married in Italy, and going to Montreal, Canada in 1951; going to the United States in 1955; and living in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helena Manaster

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Judith Mandel

    Oral History

    Judith Kalman Mandel describes growing up in Hatvan, Hungary, where her family identified as Hungarians who happened to be Jewish; the German occupation of Hungary beginning in March 1944; Jews having to wear the Jewish star; being spit on by other children; being moved with other Jews into a ghetto; being forced to march with 50 other Jews in the middle of a gutter, kissing the ground filled with horse-dung, while civilians in the town watched and cheered; being beaten by Hungarian police; destroying their valuables before they could be confiscated; her mother’s refusal to be separated from her child; being sent to Auschwitz and arriving on June 15, 1944; being separated from her mother; conditions in the barrack; never stealing from fellow inmates; being sent after three weeks to Płaszów concentration camp in Krakow, Poland, where she worked moving large gravestones; the Gestapo constantly beating and torturing people; the use of dogs to punish people; seeing children burned alive; surviving typhoid fever and being helped by a friend who sneaked her out of the hospital; surviving blood poisoning and pleurisy; being beaten so many times that she often thought about killing herself; one of her friends who grabbed the fence and electrocuted herself; reciting poetry and singing for food; being sent back to Auschwitz on a three day journey with no water; being under 50 pounds when American troops liberated her train on May 1, 1945 at Seeshaupt, Germany; being taken to Munich, then to Dachau; being found by a friend, Dr. Gatheish Gabol, and taken to Partenkirchen, Germany to a hospital for a week; being in an UNRA camp until September 1945; finding out that her mother, grandmother, and cousins perished; returning to Hungary and finding her father, who had been liberated in January; getting married and immigrating to the United States; and her belief that her survival was due to luck.

    Oral history interview with Lily Margules

    Oral History

    Lily Margules discusses her family’s experiences during the Holocaust; the three layers of Jewish society in her village of Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania); learning Yiddish in the ghetto; her mother's death from cancer in 1939; moving from Vilna to Soły (Salos), Lithuania; the 1943 liquidation of the ghetto in Soły; being sent with her sister to the labor camp Dünawerke; her father’s deportation to the Kaiserwald concentration camp; surviving the labor camp with her sister and staying at a displaced persons camp in Italy after the war; how her uncle secured papers for Lily and her sister that stated they were Protestants; immigrating to Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1948; marrying and raising two sons; and immigrating to the United States in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Manon Marliac

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Margit Meissner

    Oral History

    Margit Meissner, born in Innsbruck, Austria in 1922, discusses her childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); her mother’s wish to have her children baptized; her parents’ differing views about being Jewish and the difficulties it caused the family; how, before World War II began, her mother often invited impoverished refugees from Germany and Poland or Russia to their house for lunch; her father’s job as a banker; living in a large house with many servants and a governesses; her father’s death of natural causes before World War II; being sent in 1938 to the outskirts of Paris, France to live with a French family; being baptized in France as a Lutheran, but always identifying as a Jew; attending dress design school; how her mother eventually joined her in France; her mother’s arrest and deportation to Gurs; living in Paris when the Germans advanced; how, as an Austrian citizen, she was declared an enemy alien and was forbidden to leave Paris; defying this order and riding a bicycle to Étampes, north of Lyon; spending the night with fellow refugees at a school, which was bombed two hours after she left; obtaining a train ticket to Brittany to join friends; how her train was diverted to Bordeaux, near Gurs, and she was reunited with her mother; getting arrested as she walked with her mother over a mountain to get to Spain; how friends in Barcelona helped get them out of jail and into Portugal; becoming a dressmaker to refugees in Portugal; immigrating to the United States with her mother in April 1941; how she, her mother, and all three brothers survived the war; working two jobs in the U.S., dressmaking and assisting the U.S. Office of War Information; and being part of the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

    Oral history interview with Ellen Mendel

    Oral History

    Ellen Mendel, born in Essen, Germany in 1935, discusses her comfortable childhood with her parents, Ernst and Jella Hocher Mendel; how her grandfather, great-uncle, and father were all physicians; her father’s preparations for her family’s immigration to the United States; living in Brussels, Belgium from 1939 to 1940 while they waited for visas for the United States; how the boat on which they emigrated, the Van Dank, was torpedoed and sunk on its return trip; how her maternal grandparents, Eva and Ferdinand Holchherr, were killed at Sobibor; how other family members were killed at Auschwitz and Theresianstadt; her aunt Ella Holchherr, who survived the Holocaust; her aunt and uncle, Erica and Franz Josef, who fled Holland by disguising themselves as French peasants; and her occupation as a teacher and then a guidance counselor in the New York City schools for 32 years.

    Oral history interview with Arthur Menke

    Oral History

    Arthur Menke, born on February 23, 1927 in Hamburg, Germany, describes how Jews were starting to suffer from persecution around 1935, and had severe restrictions after 1938; being forced with his family, like other Jews, to move from their nice neighborhood; being forced to wear the Jewish Star of David; being prohibited from sitting on benches, going to movies, or shopping in regular stores; events during Kristallnacht and how his father’s small factory (which made rubber signs) was not destroyed because the Germans did not realize he was Jewish; the arrest of his father, who was a World War I veteran, and his imprisonment in a concentration camp near Berlin for six weeks; the return of his father who was hardly recognizable after his time in the camp; the Nazi takeover of the family’s factory and bank account; working as a laborer, packing shoes in a factory; his mother, who wanted the family to leave Germany and how they waited too late in the 1930s to leave; being deported in 1940 with about 1,000 other Jews to Minsk, Belarus; his memories of the journey; being forced to walk in the snow to a school in the Minsk ghetto; seeing dead bodies inside the building; the murders of his mother, father, and sister; and daily life in the ghetto. [There is a break in the audio for around 15 seconds at 31:30]

    Oral history interview with Semyon Menyuk

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Merrick

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abe Morgenstern

    Oral History

    Abraham Morgenstern, born in 1923, discusses his Russian Jewish parents and family life in Lublin, Poland; attending Polish public school and a Jewish school; graduating from business school at 16 years old, just before war broke out in 1939; the Russian invasion of Poland and feeling that they were protected under the occupation; the German invasion of Poland; how German forces shot 99 percent of Lublin’s best educated, professional Jews; how two ghettos were established in April 1942 during which he and his family moved into one of them; the lack of food in the ghetto; the death of his father and sister during the first of four actions; how no Jews from his town were taken to concentration camps, but instead, shot in the woods and buried in mass graves; reporting to the Judenrat for work assignments but eventually just staying home; digging a hole with eight other ghetto residents and hiding there until Russian troops liberated the area; immigrating to Italy with his mother after the war; planning to go to Palestine where relatives lived, but ultimately immigrating to the United States; and how only about 200 of Lublin’s estimated 10,000 Jews survived the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Betty Migdol

    Oral History

    Betty Migdol, born December 19, 1927, describes her childhood in Ruscova, Romania; her large family’s Hasidic orthodox life; her memories of the Hungarian invasion; her brother’s conscription into forced labor; how her life changed with the 1943 German invasion; her sister’s experiences passing as non-Jewish in Budapest; her deportation to a nearby town where she was put in a ghetto; Jewish relations with Ukrainian neighbors; wearing the Star of David badge; her deportation and life in Auschwitz; her separation from her family; her memories of fasting in Auschwitz during Yom Kippur; her deportation to the Weisswasser labor camp in Czechoslovakia in October 1944; conditions in the work camp run by the Wermacht; liberation by Russian forces on May 9, 1944; her experiences being smuggled into the American zone in Germany; life in displaced persons camp; and her return to Ruscova in 1984.

    Oral history interview with Israel Milkow

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Munzer

    Oral History

    Emanuel Munzer, born February 26, 1920 in Berlin, Germany; discusses living in a neighborhood of mixed population in the district of Schöneberg; his memories of Hitler’s rise to power; living under an assumed name in a sublet in Berlin; being placed with his grandmother in 1934 when his parents fled to France; living in a Jewish orphanage from 1934 until early 1937; never having to wear the yellow Star of David badge; joining his father and stepmother in France in 1937; attending a training institute for mechanics in Paris; working for Hispano-Suiza in Paris in 1938; being classified as an enemy alien in 1939 and taken to harvest sugar beets in the Touraine; conditions of work; joining the French Foreign Legion in 1940; the disbanding of the Legion by the Germans in 1941; forced work on a German railroad project; his father’s payment to free him from labor; living in Nice where there was a large Jewish population; being sent to Auschwitz in cattle cars on Convey 69 from Drancy in March 1944; the death of his parents in the gas chambers in Auschwitz; working for Siemans Works as a mechanic and living on site; his transfer to the Siemans Arbeitslager in Berlin, the location of the main factory; his relocation to Buchenwald after Russians forces were close to Auschwitz; Allied bombing raids; his relocation to Oranienburg when the labor camp was destroyed by bombing; being treated well by Russians who discovered him and other forced laborers in the forest when they were marched from the camp; recovering in a hospital in the British zone; returning to France; and immigrating to the United States in 1947 after his uncle furnished an affidavit.

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Murawski

    Oral History

    Sylvia Murawski, born July 10, 1928, describes growing up in Warsaw, Poland with her well-known and well-to-do, assimilated parents; the bombardment of Warsaw in September 1939; the beginning of deportations to the ghetto; moving with her family into the ghetto; the term “szmugiel” (smuggling between the Aryan population of Warsaw and the Jews in the ghetto); leaving the ghetto on August 16, 1942; living in hiding with her parents for two years in Milanowek with the Sokolowski family; the emotional effect of living in hiding for so long; and how she eventual finished school, completed a law degree, and got married.

    Oral history interview with Eugene Miller

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pola Nirenska

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nathan Offen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Miki Pear

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Peker

    Oral History

    Eva Peker, born March 18, 1921, discusses her childhood and family life in prewar Vertuzhaniye, Saroka district, Romania (now Vertiujeni, Moldova); her large town in which there were about 500 families, including Jews and Russians; moving with her family in 1936 to Visoka, where there were fewer Jews; learning to become a seamstress; marrying in 1940; the presence of Russians before the war began; witnessing some of the richer townspeople being sent to Siberia; her husband being taken to the front in 1941 when she was pregnant; Romanians coming to her village and taking her family to the Village Council from which they never returned home; walking three days with her family of eight with no food or water to a ghetto in Soroka; leaving there with about 1,000 others who were marched from village to village; how those who could not walk were shot; reaching the forest Kosauts and staying there for six weeks; the living conditions in the tents in the forest; the death of her newborn; being marched to a work camp in Torkanivka, Ukraine, where they worked on a beet farm; being taken out of the camp by friends of her parents; liberation by the Russians in 1945; going back to Soroka after liberation; taking courses in bookkeeping and being employed in government work; never finding out what happened to her husband; working for 30 years in a textile factory in Chernovitz; and immigrating to the United States in 1980.

    Oral history interview with Catherine Polak

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack Polak

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Janina Prot

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fred Raymes

    Oral History

    Fred Raymes, born February 6, 1929 in Hoffenheim, Germany, describes experiencing serious antisemitism in school and in the neighborhood; changes after war broke out; his forced exodus from Germany and eventual arrival in Vichy France, in Gurs; being taken by the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, Children’s Aid Society (OSE) in December 1941 to an orphanage in Aspet, France, run by Swedish Quakers; being sent during the winter of 1943, first to a school in Toulouse and then to a children’s home in Montsec, France; and going to the United States in December 1946.

    Oral history interview with Moses Rechnitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Zofia Reginiewicz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral History

    Liane Reif-Lehrer, born in 1934, describes living in Vienna, Austria after her Polish father’s medical training was completed; her father’s home-based dentistry practice and their well-to-do life in a 14-room apartment; her mother, Klara Gottfried, who was born in Poland; political changes that began in 1933, resulting in her father having to close his practice in 1938; her father’s suicide; her memories of Kristallnacht; escaping to France with her mother and brother, and living with other refugees in Limoges, including two girls who were her closest friends: Ruth Isner Kissinger and Bella Isner Uhlfelder; her mother’s deteriorating personality and eventual diagnosis with Alzheimer’s; and the voyage to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Reiser

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Berta Rivkina

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Robertson

    Oral History

    Henry Roberston (né Heinz Rosenberg), born September 15, 1921, in Gottingen, Germany, describes his prewar life in Germany; the devastation that occurred during Kristallnacht; his brother’s transport to Sachsenhausen; his family’s deportation in November 1941 to the Minsk ghetto; the liquidation of the Minsk ghetto and his last time seeing his wife and parents; his transfer to a series of camps, including Treblinka, Płaszów, Wielicza, Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, and Bremen from which he was liberated on April 15, 1945; numerous postwar ailments from which he suffered; his transport to Sweden to recuperate; and his immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Coenraad Rood

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Izy Rosenblat

    Oral History

    Izy Rosenblat, born January 8, 1914 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his family life before the Holocaust; his two brothers Eli and Herschel; his family’s move to Radom; at nine years old becoming a tailor apprentice to his future father-in-law, Yanka Fishman; courting his wife Hanna Taube, born in Radom in 1917, for 13 years; being forced to pay for protection against antisemitism in school; opening his own shop and becoming registered as a master tailor; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Mengele did the selection; being transferred to another camp where he worked as a tailor; his memories of German disorganization; his liberation by the French on April 5, 1945; living for a short period on a farm; being taken to Dusseldorf and then to Stuttgart to a displaced persons camp; and arriving in the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Pal Rozsa

    Oral History

    Pal Rozsa, January 20, 1925, discusses his memories of early pre-war life in Budapest, Hungary; his family life; his father who was a freemason and language teacher; how his family celebrated high holidays and Sabbath despite being non-religious; his oldest sister’s activities in the Communist movement, which led to her arrest; his sister’s contraction death from TB; his inability to attend university in 1943 because of laws restricting enrollment; his memories of the German invasion on March 19, 1944; his memories of forced labor beginning in June 1944 in Northern Transylvania; his work on a railroad with other Jews, Romanians, and Serbs in the camp; liberation by Romanian and Russian forces on October 19, 1944; his return to Budapest; the Arrow Cross takeover; the death of family members during and after the Holocaust; and his time in university after the war.

    Oral history interview with Eva Roth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marsha Rozenblit

    Oral History

    Marsha Rozenblit discusses her father Mendel Rozenblit (born November 3, 1907 in Lukow, Poland): his life in prewar Poland; his father Avraham Rozenblit, mother Masha Markusfeld Rozenblit, and five brothers and one sister; his family’s religious observances; his two children with his first two wives; his time in the Warsaw ghetto from which he escaped during the uprising in April 1943; his arrest and internment in Auschwitz; his experience on a death march from Auschwitz to Dachau from which he was liberated in April 1945 by American forces; his work for the UN Relief and Restitution Agency; his immigration to the United States in December 1947; his marriage and birth of his daughter Marsha Rozenblit; his trauma from losing his first two children and the atrocities he experienced during the Holocaust; and his emotional struggles post-war.

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozsa

    Oral History

    Eva Rozsa (née Muhlrad), born October 13, 1924 in Ujpest, then a suburb of Budapest, Hungary, describes her pleasant family life until anti-Jewish laws and restrictions were in place in 1939; the German occupation of Hungary; drastic changes in living conditions and being deported on the last transport to Auschwitz; the revolt of the Sonderkommando, the crematoria workmen; her mother being sent to Bergen-Belsen then to work in a light bulb factory; being assigned to work in potato fields where she became very ill; remaining at the camp when the forced march began and subsequently being liberated by the Russians on October 27; being ill with tuberculosis and being taken to Cracow, Poland, where she spent ten months recovering; enormous difficulties in getting home to Hungary because she had neither money nor official papers; and finishing university in Hungary in 1955.

    Oral history interview with Sophie Salerno

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Charlene Perlmutter Schiff

    Oral History

    Charlene Schiff (née Sulamit Perlmutter), born December 16, 1929 in Horochow, Poland (now Horokhiv, Ukraine), describes a secure and happy prewar life in a large Jewish community governed by the kehillah (Kehilla); her family members who were town leaders; the Russian occupation of Eastern Poland; the German invasion in June 1941; the ghettoization of her town and the desperate living conditions therein; her mother’s arrangement for her and her sister to escape the ghetto and hide in farm houses across the river; the disappearance of her mother; the rejection of an agreement by the farmer, leaving her abandoned and alone; her attempts to find her mother while hiding in the woods; her eventual discovery by Russian troops; her hospitalization; her time in various displaced persons camps in Germany; her education at the University of Heidelberg; her immigration to the United States in 1948; living with her aunt in Columbus, OH; and her life post-war.

    Oral history interview with Michael Scislowski

    Oral History

    Michael M. Scislowski, born September 30, 1922, in Siedlce, Poland, describes his life in prewar Poland; his school years in Siedlce and in Wilaka (now in Lithuania) until September 1, 1939 when the war began; his attempts to escape the Soviets; learning English; his membership in the ZWZ (Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej), the underground group that preceded the AK (Armia Krajowa); his arrest on March 19, 1943; his time in the Poliak prison; his transport by cattle car to Auschwitz; his forced march to Dachau after time in Flossenbürg; his liberation on April 24, 1945 by Patton’s Third Army on the third day of the march; witnessing medical experiments that were conducted in Block 10 of Auschwitz; working for the US Army from 1945 to 1950 serving the Labor Service Company; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Ida Segal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rubin Segal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lewis Shabasson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Shapiro

    Oral History

    Irene Shapiro (née Hass), born in 1925 in Berezhany, Ukraine, describes her life in Gludjan until 1938 when her family moved to Bialystok; Russian propaganda; her strong Zionist beliefs; the Russian occupation of Bialystok, which became part of Soviet Byelorussia; the ghettoization of Bialystok during the second German occupation; her involvement with the Jewish underground; her time in Treblinka, Lublin, Majdanek (where her father was killed), Blitzen, and in May 1944, Auschwitz Birkenau; how she survived in the camps; her liberation; her immigration to the United States in 1946; and her work with American and British forces after the war.

    Oral history interview with Flora Mendelowitz Singer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Dr. Laszlo Sokoly

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Peter Somogyi

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Harold Spear

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Vera Sprecher and Robert Sprecher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Morris Steiman

    Oral History

    Morris Steiman, born August 5, 1918 in Bodzanow, Poland, describes being the youngest of 14 children in an Orthodox family; fighting with Polish boys on his way to school; antisemitism in Poland; speaking Yiddish and Polish at home; attending Yeshiva in Tutusk for two years; being in Tutusk during the German invasion; being taken out of school to dig ditches; not being allowed in the street; being forced to wear a yellow Star of David badge in the fall of 1939; working in a tailor shop for a German until being relocated to a ghetto with approximately 1,200 people; receiving help from some Poles while in the ghetto; deportations but no killing during the first year in the ghetto; being taken to Dzaldowo, and the brutality of a camp there (Soldau concentration camp); and then to a ghetto in Chestochowa; reuniting with his family in Yaldodov, where there was another ghetto; getting married in 1941; being in the ghetto synagogue when the ghetto was liquidated on Yom Kippur of 1941; his transfer to a smaller ghetto; an unsuccessful escape attempt; the ghetto’s liquidation and being taken to work in an ammunition factory in 1943 with his wife; being taken to waiting trains just before liberation; arriving in the United States on March 3, 1947 with his wife; his post-war life including the birth of his daughter and grandchildren.

    Oral history interview with Matylda Szymaniak

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Florence Tabrys

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Harry Tabrys

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Walter Taranowicz

    Oral History

    Walter Taranowicz, born July 22, 1918 in New York City discusses his parents who were Polish-born Catholics; his father’s American citizenship; how during the Great Depression his father took the family to a ranch they owned in Lublin, Poland; his father’s return to the United States for work and subsequent inability to return to Poland; attending Polish schools in the 1930s; planning to get an European education then returning to the US to become an engineer; the outbreak of war in Poland; the arrival of the Russians and loss of the family farm; the family’s attempt to reach the American Consulate in Warsaw, Poland; staying on the German side of the border; his mother and sister’s deportation to Siberia in 1941; his arrest on January 13, 1940 because the Nazis thought he was an American spy; his brutal treatment by the Nazis; being taken with 5,000 Polish men on trucks to Auschwitz; building Birkenau; working as a cabinet maker, making soldier beds, rifle racks, tables, and benches for German army supplies; volunteering in 1942 to transfer with 4,000 others to Mauthausen, where he worked as a cabinet maker with the camp architect; his liberation on May 5th, 1945 by American forces; being taken to Regensburg, Germany to recover; becoming an interpreter in Italy and being stationed in Verona then Milan for seven months; his transfer to the US in the fall of 1945 on the Marine Falcon; the liberation of his mother and sister from a work camp in Siberia; working as a cabinet maker in New York; marrying his wife Sabina; and details about her life.

    Oral history interview with George Topas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jack Trompettor

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Edward Unkiewicz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Solomon Urbach

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Moishe Weiner

    Oral History

    Moise Weiner, born in May 24, 1927 in Vakhnivka, Ukraine, discusses his prewar life in Vakhnivka; attending Ukrainian school instead of the Jewish school; his memories of people’s reaction when Molotov announced war with Germany; escaping on a train with his sister; managing to escape when the Germans attacked the train; making their way to Orsk in the Urals; working different jobs until he was called into the army in 1945; the Russian Civil War and pogroms of that time; how his brothers and sister became Communists during the war; becoming a writer after the war; translating novels by Jewish authors from Yiddish into Russian; and living as a Refusenik for ten years.

    Oral history interview with Paul Wos

    Oral History

    Paul Wos, born December 22, 1920 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his life in prewar Starowka; his Catholic family; his membership in the Polish Army; his experience helping Jewish families hide during the German occupation; his membership in the resistance movement; the Warsaw ghetto uprising; his family’s deportation as political prisoners; the family’s relocation to several concentration camps until they were finally taken to Flossenbürg; conditions at Flossenbürg; his feelings that he owes his survival to his friend Jan Shienitski and to the power of prayer; and his immigration to the United States in 1961 with his wife and two children.

    Oral history interview with David Yegher

    Oral History

    David Yegher (né Jegher), born in December 22, 1920 in Rona de Jos, Romania, describes his life in Romania before World War II; early institutionalized antisemitism throughout Europe; his displacement in a ghetto in Slotyna, Czechoslovakia (now Solotvyno, Ukraine); transporting goods from nearby towns to Jewish families in the ghetto; his experiences in Auschwitz and Gleiwitz and subsequent hardships in the labor camps; being liberated by the British Army; his post-war hospitalization; immigrating to the United States; his encounter with the American Nazi Party; and the importance of trying to overcome contemporary antisemitism.

    Oral history interview with Eva Young

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frances Zatz

    Oral History

    Frances Zatz, born in May 4, 1932 in Warsaw, Poland, describes her early childhood in Poland before World War II; the siege of Warsaw by German troops; the outbreak of the war; the building of the Warsaw ghetto and subsequent hardships there; her mother smuggling ammunitions into the ghetto; plans for the Jewish uprising; being smuggled out of the ghetto and living with a Christian family; her reunion with her mother and sister after the Warsaw uprising; working in the factories making uniforms for German soldiers; her time in a German detention camp; being liberated by the Russians; moving to Berlin, Germany after the war; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Trude Ludwig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Magda Rein Cox

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Roth

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Zoberman Kupfer

    Oral History

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