Oral history interview with Emma Michel

Oral history interview with Ann Callman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lilo Callman and Ann Callman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Paula Ehrenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hannah Eisner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Feist

Oral History

Oral history interview with Richard Feist

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herta Freudenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edgar Friedberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Miriam Gerber

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rosemary Getrever

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Getrever

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ernest Hartog

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gerald Hirsch

Oral History

Oral history interview with Margit Hirsch

Oral History

Oral history interview with G. Hirschfeld

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Hockley

Oral History

Oral history interview with Regina Hoffman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irmgard Horn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Horn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herta Jacoby

Oral History

Oral history interview with Curt Jellin

Oral History

Curt Jellin, born October 22, 1908 in Herne, Germany, describes being one of six children; attending a Jewish school for two years, a Protestant school for another two years, and the Overreale schule; his father’s participation in WWI; living in Rahden, Germany for a time; the presence of French troops; the difficult conditions after the war; his father’s store; the election in 1932; living in Cologne, Germany; how life changed after Hitler came to power; antisemitism and being physically attacked at one point; the fate of his siblings during the war; moving to Munich, Germany; being on vacation during Kristallnacht and seeing the destruction in Munich upon his return; not returning home because he might be arrested and sent to Dachau; hiding with Gentile friends; experiencing antisemitism in Stuttgart, Germany; getting an affidavit from his sister in the United States; staying in the Netherlands and warning his friends there to leave; arriving in the US in 1939; living in Brooklyn, NY and getting a job in a factory; learning English; being drafted into the army and training at Camp Gordon in Georgia; being transferred to Army Intelligence at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; being sent on the Queen Elizabeth to Glasgow, Scotland in 1943; going to Clevedon, England for intelligence work; being trained in psychological warfare in broadcasting; going to Normandy, France in July 1944; going from Perrier, France to Verdun, France; going to Luxemburg and reporting to a British Navy Commander McLaughlin; being chosen to be a commentator and broadcaster; broadcasting every night between 12 A.M. and 6 A.M. to Germans; the editors and writers working with them; his knowledge of the camps; having to leave Luxembourg for a few days; being assigned to Bad Nauheim, Germany; helping to open Radio Frankfurt and having a program on Radio Frankfurt; the information they acquired; coping with the loss of some of his family members; returning to Cologne; interrogating German generals; feeling that he is more a part of the German Jewish community in the US; living in Washington Heights, NY; his wife, who was born in Hamburg, Germany and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Americans versus Germans.

Oral history interview with Miriam Knoepfler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Robert Lehman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irene Lewis

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tilde Lowenthal

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Marcus

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jacques Mayer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Vera Oppenheim

Oral History

Vera Oppenheim, born in 1924, discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; attending public schools until her expulsion; leaving for Switzerland with her family; returning to Berlin and being arrested as suspected spies; wearing the required yellow badge; seeing propaganda everywhere; Kristallnacht; family members being deported to Auschwitz; forced labor; being moved to the Riga ghetto in Latvia; performing forced labor on a farm; returning to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga; being sent to Stutthof by boat; liberation by the Soviet Army; conditions in the Soviet Army; walking to Berlin to look for family; immigrating to the United States, first to Boston then New York City; returning to Berlin on a free German government trip; spending time in Israel; and being questioned about reparations.

Oral history interview with Arthur Plaut

Oral History

Oral history interview with Elga Rosenfeld

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gretel Rothschild

Oral History

Oral history interview with Kurt Schloss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Erna Schutz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hermann Seligmann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Werner Solomon

Oral History

Oral history interview with Werner Solomon

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ada Speyer

Oral History

Ada Speyer, born January 31, 1893 in Bremerhaven, Germany, describes growing up in Hanover, Germany; attending a business school in Frankfurt for two years; moving to Burma in August 1911 and returning to Germany in November 1915; being prisoners of war under the British; volunteering during WWI at the city hall in Neuwied, Germany; visiting her uncles in England; the religious practices within her family; getting married; her social life in Frankfurt; the rise of Nazism and her desire to go to England; leaving Germany in February 1937; going to Montevideo, Uruguay and staying there 13 years; taking care of her husband’s nephew; her mother and mother-in-law coming to live in Montevideo as well; the Jewish community; organizing aid for the Jewish refugees who began arriving in Montevideo; founding children’s home with the Joint Distribution Committee; her husband’s death and deciding to leave Uruguay; immigrating to the United States in June 1948 with her mother; living in New York, NY; not wanting to return to Germany; and her view of her present life.

Oral history interview with Ernest Springer and Edith Springer

Oral History

Oral history interview with George Tobias

Oral History

George Tobias, born in 1923 in Danzig, Germany (Gdansk, Poland), describes his childhood in Germany; his education; experiencing antisemitism in his school; his father’s textile business; the Nazi rise to power; the Zionist youth movement; being in the Zionist boy scouts and sports groups; being an only child; his parents applying for visas to the United States in 1937; going to Besançon, France and the journey there; the anti-German feeling in France and being considered Austrian because of his Austrian father; life after Kristallnacht and his parents being forced out of their home in Danzig; being mistreated during a train journey to Paris, France; his parents fleeing to Italy in 1939 and sending their money to relatives in the US; working at a hotel in Evian, France; finishing hotel management school in 1940; being taken on his 17th birthday to an internment camp in Les Milles, France; remaining in the camp for two weeks and going to Nice, France; his father being sent to a camp in Calabria, Italy (possibly Ferramonti); his parents fleeing to Spain then Portugal; working in a French restaurant; his parents’ journey to the US; meeting his parents in New York, NY; being drafted in 1942; being sent to the Army Specialized Training Program and going to the University of Illinois for a few months to learn technical subjects; being put in the signal corps but requesting to be transferred to the intelligence service; volunteering for the Office of Strategic Services; landing in southern France with his team for four; their forged documents and hiding their identities; his attitude towards Germans; being reassigned as an interrogator in the regular army; being a second lieutenant in assigned to the seventh army division; interrogation styles; getting his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University after the war; being a travel agent; and identifying as an American.

Oral history interview with Ellen Wall

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Wertheimes

Oral History

Ruth Wertheimes, born June 6, 1931 in Monheim, Germany, describes not being allowed to attend school after two or three years because she was Jewish; her father’s death when she was a year old; her Polish mother’s antique store; the restrictions placed on Jews; her memories of Kristallnacht and the destruction of the synagogue; being rounded up and sent with her mother and brother (age 13 at the time) to the concentration camp in Gurs, France in October 1940; the conditions in Gurs; attending an OSE (OEuvre de secours aux enfants) school in the camp; going to a home run by Jews in central France with the help of the OSE; learning French; being hidden with the other children in the woods during a round up; being placed with a Gentile family in France and passing as a Christian; losing contact with her mother after 1942; being sent to a convent, where she stayed for a year; living with Jews again after liberation; learning of her mother’s death; immigrating to the US; living with relatives in Queens, NY; adjusting to the US; her friends within the refugee community; and sharing her Holocaust experience with her son.

Oral history interview with Edith Seligman Wingens

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Wittner

Oral History

Fred Wittner, born in 1913 in Berlin, Germany, describes working for a large coal mining corporation after finishing school; not experiencing antisemitism at work in the early 1930s; the relations between Jews and non-Jews at his school in western Berlin; participating in a Jewish youth group; the rise in antisemitism; his father’s business, reluctance to emigrate, and participation in WWI; joining a Zionist youth group (Hechalutz) and his desire to emigrate; quitting his job; being sent by the Hachshara to Denmark in 1935; going to Sweden, where his brother joined him; his older brother going to Israel; going to Argentina, where he lived on a farm in a Jewish colony; education and medical care in the colony; living in the colony for one and a half years; getting a job in a tree nursery; living in Buenos Aires until 1953; life under the Peron administration; going to the United States in 1953; his last correspondence with his parents, who died during the Holocaust; working and living in New York, NY, where one of his brothers lived; visiting Germany and Austria with his wife; his thoughts on modern Jewish politicians; and the biggest adjustments he had to make after he moved to the US.

Oral history interview with Gertrud Wittner

Oral History

Gertrud Wittner, born in Wittlich, Germany circa 1921, describes her education in Wittlich, where she attended Jewish and Catholic schools; the Jewish population in Wittlich; being friends with Jews and non-Jews; the changes in the relations with Gentiles after the Nazi rise to power; learning English and Hebrew in preparation for emigration; her parents sending her to Luxembourg in 1936 to live with relatives; her father’s shoes business and the effects of the anti-Jewish boycotts in 1933; her parents’ attempts to emigrate; her life in Luxembourg; going with her family to Palestine; getting a job in Haifa when she was 15 years old; being looked down upon as a German; having to become a member of the Histadrut; life in Palestine during the war; her parents’ adjustments to life there; leaving Israel in 1947 and going to the United States; her life in New York, NY; the differences she’s found between Israelis and Americans; and visiting Germany with her husband.