Oral history interview with Karl Wolff

Oral history interview with Richard Boeck

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rudolf Vrba

Oral History

Rudolf Vrba, born in Trnava, Slovakia, describes growing up in Bratislava, Slovakia; identifying as a Slovak; being allowed to attend only eight grades of school because he was Jewish (he was 14 years old when he was no longer allowed to attend school in 1939); anti-Jewish laws that were passed; Jews having to wear a yellow star; the Jewish council, which was in charge of dealing with government agencies; the Zionists; being sent to a transit camp in 1942; the terrible conditions in the train cars on the journey there and the death of some of the passengers; his experiences at Majdanek, where he saw children killed, women clubbed, and bones broken; spending 14 days in the camp then volunteering in June 1942 with 400 other men to go to Auschwitz; the selection process in the camp; his friends who had been in the Sonderkommando before him and were killed; how each day was a fight for the possibility to live another day; the separation of the Sonderkommando from the general prisoners; the attitudes of the Sonderkommandos while they were working; hearing in January 1944 that a large extermination action was being planned and making plans to escape; escaping with his friend Vecla Margovich; being questioned by the Jewish Council in Bratislava, who did not believe at first what he said about Auschwitz; receiving help from the Communist group in Trnava; his return to Bratislava; living with the partisans for about two months (possibly in the fall of 1944); and his thoughts on the war crime trials for Auschwitz guards.

Oral history interview with Siegmund Weltlinger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Van Raalte

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stefan Solarczyk

Oral History

Oral history interview with Wynford Vaughan-Thomas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Wanda Marossanyi

Oral History

Oral history interview with Konrad Morgan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Dov Paisikowic

Oral History

Oral history interview with Avraham Kochavi

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rita Boas-Koopman

Oral History

Rita Boas-Koopman describes life in the Netherlands between 1940 and 1943; the attitude towards the German invasion of the Netherlands; the marking of Jewish identity cards by Germans; how her brother saved the son of Dutch Nazis from drowning, which postponed her family’s deportation; being in Vught Concentration Camp from 1943 to 1944; being a prisoner in Auschwitz Concentration Camp from 1944 to 1945; the train journey to Auschwitz and her impressions upon arrival at the camp; the reception from a Jewish girl dressed as a SS women; seeing prisoners fighting for bread; civilian workers questioning the nature of the camp; seeing that the Germans were fearful; her personal attitude towards survival; being on a death march away from the camp in 1945; being in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945; arriving in Bergen-Belsen; the discovery of food whilst clearing a SS woman’s room; the reaction to the cutting of hair; and hearing about the end of the war in train heading for Sweden in May 1945.

Oral history interview with Primo Levi

Oral History

Primo Levi (1919-1987) describes the history of antisemitism in Italy; experiencing almost no antisemitism until 1943; the ghettos in Italy that existed until 1848; antisemitism in his childhood; the racial legislation introduced in Italy after Mussolini met with Hitler in 1938; studying chemistry at the University of Turin then working as a chemist for two years; going with his mother and sister to the mountains outside Turin; meeting with non-Jewish friends and trying to start a partisan group; being caught in December 1943; being interrogated and declaring himself a Jew; being sent to the internment camp at Fossoli and the conditions there; being sent after a month to Auschwitz and the journey there; entering the camp and the selection process; being sent to Monowitz labor camp; the conditions and his work there; his memories of hunger in the camp; the mental states of the inmates and the social dynamics in the camp; the disorientation caused by not comprehending the numerous languages in the camp and the importance of learning German; hearing the Russians approach in December 1944; going to the infirmary after contracting scarlet fever and avoiding the death march out of the camp; the bombing of the camp; staying alive during the 10 days after the Germans left and before the Russians arrived; receiving a meat ration after the arrival of the Russians; and the collaboration he experienced upon liberation and how human relations changed.

Oral history interview with Adolph Gawalewicz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Shmuel Gogol

Oral History