Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Annette Berman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1984.1.1.2 | RG Number: RG-50.157.0002

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Annette Berman
    Transcript
    The following is an interview being conducted
    with Mrs. Annette Berman at the Faith
    in Humankind Conference at the State Department in Washington,
    DC, on September the 18th, 1984.
    The interviewer is Phyllis Dreyfuss.
    Can I have your full name, please?
    Annette Kupfer Berman.
    Where and when were you born?
    I was born on May the 3rd, 1924, in France.
    Can I have your parents' names, please?
    My parents are Fela Kupfer and Henri Kupfer.
    Do you have any brothers or sisters?
    Yes, I have one sister--
    Danuta.
    Is she older or younger?
    She's younger than I am.
    We were discussing what phase of your experience
    you wanted to preserve for history.
    And you indicated that you would like to tell
    the tale of your rescuers.
    Perhaps you could give us a little bit of background
    about the occupation, how it affected you personally,
    and then move into that for us.
    The occupation affected us in Paris,
    as everywhere else in Europe.
    Slowly, our friends and the male relatives were disappearing.
    And the shortages were tremendous.
    But we continued to live normally.
    How old were you?
    I was 15 when the war started.
    And what was your father's occupation?
    My father had a fine leather tannery.
    And of course, his business was taken over
    by a French person in the same profession who
    took all the profits and ran the business.
    My father tried to leave Paris, but was
    caught on the demarcation line, put in jail.
    And the commanding-- the German commanding officer
    of the jail where he was put, as he was-- he
    was caught swimming a river with other men,
    had the same last name as my father,
    and called him into his office and indicated to him
    that at a certain time there was a chance for him getting out.
    And he escaped.
    Where were you and your mother at this time?
    We were in Paris.
    We stayed.
    We were still in our apartment.
    This happened in 1941.
    How were you surviving in terms of food and whatever?
    My father had just left.
    We had coupons for food, and we survived
    like any other French family.
    However, our neighbors were starting to show some hostility,
    mostly in the lines for food.
    My father returned to Paris, and we continued
    living for a short time.
    When the day-- when we were supposed
    to appear on the street with the yellow Star of David
    was a very worrisome day for me.
    I was 16, and I was worried on the reactions of my friends
    when I entered my classroom.
    So some of my friends looked and moved away.
    But my best friend, Josette Bernaille,
    who had been my best friend since kindergarten,
    burst into tears, came up to me, and hugged me,
    and asked me if I had another star
    so she could wear it when we walked
    back and forth from school.
    It was quite a long walk-- four times a day
    a half hour walk from our lycée to our homes.
    Josette was my best friend since kindergarten,
    but we were only best friends in school.
    Our families did not know each other.
    We knew each other by sight and said
    hello if we met on the street occasionally,
    but we had never spoken.
    She did not know I was Jewish.
    She must have gone home upset and told her parents about it.
    But we continued our walks.
    And as the restrictions became worse,
    when I was not allowed to go to the movies, on our little
    walks I would get the whole story of the movie.
    When I couldn't go to a museum, she
    would bring back postcards for me.
    And she was extremely solicitous of me.
    Then, when the curfew was put in effect,
    and Jews were not allowed on the streets after 8 o'clock,
    that day, shortly after 8:00, our doorbell rang,
    and the whole Bernaille family was standing there.
    Who was in the family?
    Father, mother, and two daughters.
    A very similar family to ours.
    What was his occupation?
    He was an agricultural engineer.
    I don't believe they had any Jewish friends
    or had any conception about Judaism.
    They were of Catholic background,
    but non-practicing Catholics.
    And it was very unusual for a French person
    to come into your home without being introduced and knowing you
    for a long time.
    They brought along a cherry pie and asked
    if they could share their dessert with us.
    What was your parents' first reaction?
    My parents' reaction was of great surprise.
    My parents are originally from Poland.
    And they just were extremely touched.
    I should say my parents had few close gentile friends.
    Our friends were-- most of them were Jewish.
    Were they aware of your close friendship?
    Oh yes, yes, yes, because I constantly talked about her.
    And we were very well known in our school
    because we were so close that we even took on the same mannerism,
    and people used to think that we looked alike, which we really
    didn't, that we were sisters.
    So from that day on, the Bernailles
    came quite often in the evening to share--
    When they came the first evening,
    did they give a reason for their arrival?
    No, they just came because we could not go out,
    and they wanted to keep us company.
    From that time on, they came quite often.
    And as things were getting worse,
    Monsieur Bernaille adopted the habit
    of stopping at our apartment to check if anything
    was new on his way home.
    They lived about four or five blocks away from where we did.
    Was it dangerous or difficult for him at that point in time--
    No.
    --to have a relationship with you?
    No, it was-- it was not difficult nor dangerous.
    It was certainly time consuming.
    And we lived on the fourth floor, and lots of steps.
    Then, on around the 16th of July,
    we had just finished taking the written
    part of the baccalaureate exam, Josette and I.
    When I came back home from school,
    my mother asked me to go to market for her.
    On my way back from market, I had
    to cross a very large boulevard.
    And the policeman directing traffic
    stopped the traffic when I--
    to let me through to his level.
    Then he started the traffic again and whispered to me
    that they were going to pick up the Jews that evening.
    Had there been any hint?
    No, we did not know.
    Some people might have.
    We had no idea.
    When I told my mother, immediately she
    sent me to tell the Jewish people
    we knew in the neighborhood what the policeman had said.
    And I came back home.
    And we waited for Monsieur Bernaille.
    And when he asked what was news that day, we told him.
    He immediately said, you cannot spend the night here.
    You have to come to our apartment-- just overnight.
    My mother said, maybe--
    it's dangerous.
    Maybe you would just take the girls.
    And he said, absolutely not.
    All four of you have to come.
    So we devised a way of going there.
    It was July.
    We did not want to attract attention nor carry packages.
    So we put a few layers of clothes on.
    My sister and I put on our Girl Scout capes to hide the star.
    And she and I went in first.
    How was she reacting to this?
    Was she scared?
    She was-- yes, my sister was very emotional.
    She was younger than I.
    How old was she at the time?
    She must have been about--
    I was 17.
    13.
    And she is a very sensitive and artistic--
    she's a doctor now, but she is sensitive, and--
    then.
    My reaction was, I was a healthy, athletic teenager,
    and I reacted very differently.
    So my sister and I went up to the Bernaille.
    Then my mother came and then my father came.
    They had a very nice, comfortable apartment.
    This was the first time we were in their apartment.
    But it was an apartment meant for four, not for eight.
    We settled down for the night, and the next morning,
    Monsieur Bernaille went to see what
    was happening in our apartment.
    Do you recall the night that you spent there.
    Was there a discussion among the adults as to any stories
    they had heard, or fears or concerns?
    No.
    It was actually-- no.
    I don't remember if there were any.
    I know that Josette and I were thrilled to be there.
    I slept on the floor of the living room,
    my sister slept on the couch, and my parents
    slept in their library.
    There was a couch that could be opened as a bed.
    He went to our apartment and found that it
    had been sealed already.
    They did come for us that night.
    Had the rest of the neighborhood didn't notice?
    Yes, everybody.
    The Jews had been picked up that night.
    I think this was the night of the 16th or the 17th of July
    where they had the big roundup of Jews in Paris.
    So they people that your mother had spoken with,
    they appeared not to take any action.
    They were all gone.
    They had no place to go.
    And so he came back and told us this.
    And we just were stunned.
    That's the last we went to our apartment.
    We stayed at the Bernailles for one month.
    They went on doing their business.
    And while we were alone in the apartment, we sat.
    We did not walk, because the windows--
    pass the windows, nor did we flush the toilets.
    We just sat and whispered to each other.
    When they came back, we started to live again.
    We had our food coupons for that month,
    but they ran out pretty soon.
    They fed us.
    They did our laundry.
    And we had a lot of us.
    There were six women in this apartment for one month.
    And never a word to make us uncomfortable or unwelcome.
    But my parents were getting very nervous and upset,
    and felt that we were endangering their lives.
    And they decided that it couldn't last.
    So they decided to get out, my parents,
    and make some other arrangements for my sister and me.
    So one day they went, and they had-- they made arrangements
    in a convent, which accepted to take us in.
    Had they been out during the day--
    My parents--
    --during that month, or they stayed there--
    No, that was the first time.
    What kind of preparations did they
    make to sneak out and not be--
    They just, they knew.
    I don't really remember why.
    But I know when they came back.
    And I have two pictures of my parents.
    They had a picture taken in a machine,
    thinking maybe they could get some false identity papers.
    So pictures could never be used, because they
    were so gaunt on the pictures that you could immediately see
    that those were hunted people.
    I do have the pictures.
    But when they came back at dinner,
    they announced that they had made arrangements
    for my sister and I to enter a convent,
    and that after we were in, they would just
    leave and be picked up.
    What did the friends have to say to that plan?
    Oh, Monsieur Bernaille said, I will never allow it,
    nor will I allow the girls to go into a convent.
    He said, if you don't come back, they might never
    come out of the convent.
    He said, just be patient.
    I have ideas, and I will do something about it.
    How old was Josette's younger sister?
    Josette had an older sister.
    An older sister.
    Josette's older sister was a year older
    than I. Josette was my age.
    And my sister was four years younger than I.
    Did the older sister appear to also be in agreement
    with the entire family--
    Yes, she was not as thrilled as the rest of the family, but--
    it was a great inconvenience.
    But this was a family thing.
    So Monsieur Bernaille had fought in the First World War
    as an officer, and in the Second World War.
    And in the Second World War, he was taken prisoner
    by the Germans in 1940.
    And in the prison camp where he was,
    he met a young schoolteacher from the country.
    Now after, when everything was settled and France was occupied,
    the Germans released certain prisoners of war.
    They released him because of his age.
    And I don't really know exactly why,
    but I think that was the reason.
    And they released school teachers and farmers.
    They did not want to disrupt the economy.
    So Monsieur Bernaille took a train,
    and went to see his friend, and told him about us.
    And the two of them rented an abandoned farmhouse
    in this village away from--
    is a center, on top of a hill, across from the cemetery.
    And he came back.
    He said, I have a place for you to live.
    Now we have to get you out of Paris.
    And this was a problem.
    So he came upon the idea that since our families were similar
    in age and size, he--
    my mother, my sister, and I, would leave Paris
    as if we were going on vacation, with their identity papers.
    What did your parents have to say to his presentation?
    At that point, he would not accept anything
    that my parents had to say.
    He did not want to hear that it was dangerous.
    He was the leader.
    So hopefully, since it was vacation time,
    and the trains were crowded, that whoever
    checked the papers would not look too closely
    at the pictures.
    And that's what we did.
    And we did get through.
    Our pictures were checked, our identity papers checked.
    We went through, boarded the train, got off at La Loupe,
    took the bus to the village.
    How long a trip was this?
    It was not too far from Paris.
    It was maybe an hour on the train,
    and then a 20-minute ride on the postal truck.
    This was your first trip outside of the apartment in a month.
    Yes, in a month.
    What were your impressions of the city
    as you left the apartment to go to the train station?
    We walked to the train station because--
    we took the subway to the train station.
    The city was the same as we had left,
    except you couldn't-- you didn't see as many people with
    the yellow stars.
    How strong was your fear during that walk?
    Were you terrified?
    My children often tell me, when I
    tell them things that happened to me during the war,
    they say, you never talk about the terror.
    I guess I blocked it out.
    I have spoken to many groups.
    I teach French in a high school.
    I have spoken to high school groups.
    And I'm a very optimistic person.
    I just, I'm sure I had fears, because I have ulcers
    which I developed at that time.
    I realize now.
    But I have worked with the underground for two years,
    and I have been in many dangerous situations.
    But I don't remember the fear.
    Do you remember how your parents were during that?
    Oh, yes, that I remember.
    My mother developed a nervous tic which pulled her eye up.
    And she had that nervous tic till she died.
    Oh, yes.
    My parents was-- I do remember.
    But I don't remember my fear.
    When you were on the train, did you have a separate compartment
    to try and keep hidden, or your sat--
    No, we sat like the family.
    We sat normally, and conversed.
    Then Monsieur Bernaille came back.
    Then they had to get my father out.
    And he decided that it would be very difficult to get him out
    alone, that it would have to be the same, the repetition
    of the same group.
    So that he endangered his wife and children
    to get my father out.
    They took the papers.
    His wife, his two daughters, and my father
    left as a family going on vacation.
    Why did he feel a stronger urge to get your father out?
    What was his--
    Not a stronger urge.
    He just could not feel--
    he could not get him out alone because a man alone,
    you look at the identity papers.
    But when four people present four identity cards,
    and you look, a man, a woman, two girls, and you
    let them through.
    So that's how my father came out.
    And I have often thought, how could you
    endanger your children's lives?
    Would I do it?
    Did you ask him?
    No, they never wanted to talk about it.
    We could never thank them.
    We could never talk about it.
    It was something that they don't want to talk about,
    that it was normal, natural.
    What are you talking about?
    When you reached the farmhouse--
    When we reached the farmhouse, we--
    it was empty.
    No water and no electricity.
    But we thought the war would be over before the end
    of the summer.
    Well, we spent two and a half years there.
    And not once were we abandoned, not only by the Bernailles,
    but now the family, the school teacher and his family,
    took over.
    He was also the secretary to the mayor,
    because the mayor was a farmer and almost illiterate.
    So he ran the business.
    If he knew a farmer killed a cow,
    secretly, he would refuse to give him
    his meat coupons, saying, they didn't get here this month.
    He got us identity, false identity papers.
    There was not a holiday that we were not invited to their home,
    like Christmas, or that we were not
    given a gift of soap or something
    that was impossible to find.
    How did he explain your presence there?
    Who are you?
    Yes, well, you see the French-- the farms were scattered,
    and of course the farmers knew there was a family there.
    But there was such shortages of food in Paris.
    He said, those are people-- he's retired.
    So my father was only 40 then.
    And they moved here because of the food shortage.
    And no one questioned [CROSS TALK]
    No one questioned it for about a year and a half.
    And then, when stories started coming in,
    one farmer decided that maybe it would be advantageous
    for him to denounce us.
    And he mentioned it to a family from Paris
    who had a summer home there.
    He said, you know, I think those people in the pink house
    are Jews, and I'm going to denounce them,
    because I'll be paid for that.
    And that woman came, stopped at our house,
    and she said, I don't know who you are,
    and I don't want to know, but there is a farmer.
    This farmer is suspicious and wants to denounce you.
    So immediately we told Monsieur Le Mitre, who called--
    who called Monsieur Bernaille in Paris.
    And he came.
    And the two of them wrote a letter to the farmer
    in the name of the underground, and Monsieur Bernaille
    took the letter to Paris so it would be mailed in Paris so it
    could not be traced.
    And threatening him that if anything happened to him--
    to us, his farm would be burned, and he would be killed.
    And we never heard from him again.
    You say the underground.
    Among the-- was there involvement?
    No.
    Well, not among the farmers.
    After we were there about nine months,
    an American plane was shot down.
    It was a Mustang, a fighter plane
    with only one person in it.
    And we saw clearly the pilot jump.
    And it seemed the plane crashed.
    It seemed very close.
    And we ran up.
    It was quite a few miles away.
    And when my father and I got to the plane,
    it was already burning, and the Germans were all around it.
    And so we came back home.
    And that afternoon, Monsieur Le Mitre came to our house
    with his bicycle, his daughter's bicycle.
    And he asked me if I would go on an errand for him,
    which I often did, and which I loved.
    And I got on the bike and went to the next village,
    to the bakery shop.
    And I told the baker what I came for,
    and the baker said, oh, I don't have it here.
    Come with me.
    And he took me to some place outside the village,
    to a big house.
    And there was the American.
    And I could speak English.
    I had English in school.
    At least they thought I could speak English.
    And I interviewed the American.
    How did you know what you were supposed to do?
    They told me what to ask him.
    And I did the best I could.
    And I was so thrilled.
    I had never seen an American before.
    And after the interview, the baker took me into the kitchen,
    took out a gun, and told me, you are now in the underground.
    How did you feel about that?
    I was thrilled.
    My whole attitude changed.
    I was fearless, suddenly.
    Suddenly, I could do something, and if I were caught,
    it was for a reason, and I didn't care anymore
    if I were caught or not.
    What have you been doing during those nine months before?
    Reading.
    Reading.
    They had a very well-stocked library which nobody used.
    And I had my school books, and I read a lot.
    And our family life was very close.
    We had no entertainment whatsoever.
    My father sang.
    He sang Viennese waltzes, and we waltzed in the kitchen.
    And we also had a friend who the Bernailles brought in,
    one of our friends, a friend of our parents,
    of my parents, a bachelor older than my parents.
    They found him roaming the streets.
    And they brought him out.
    What was his name?
    His name was Gabriel Albert.
    And he arrived how much after you?
    He arrived about two months after we were there.
    How did they explain his presence in the house?
    A friend who joined us.
    When I read the diary of Anne Frank,
    I am reminded of many things.
    I will stay there for one month.
    But also about our, friend because he
    was very much like the dentist.
    He was so petrified.
    If I went for milk, if I wasn't back
    when he thought I should be back, he would become frantic.
    I was caught and we will all be caught.
    And when I was in the underground,
    he almost lost his mind, because from that time on, they--
    I was ally as a agent, an interpreter.
    And my duties were, for example, if a bridge was to be blown up,
    I would carry the dynamite and hide it where I was told to.
    Going back one moment, you went to the bakery,
    and came home with a gun and a membership.
    No, not a gun.
    Just a membership.
    All right.
    Now what did your parents say?
    What was the reaction at home when you told them.
    Well, it's a reaction that surprised me.
    My parents were pleased.
    My parents were pleased that we were going to do something,
    that we weren't just sitting there
    and other people were risking their lives for us.
    And they supported me.
    My mother was very nervous.
    When I was out at night, she, of course, waited all night.
    And she had such wonderful intuition.
    For example, we had very little clothes--
    one pair of pajamas.
    And mother had decided that we may not wear our pajamas.
    We are to keep them in case we get caught
    and go to a concentration camp.
    We will have pajamas.
    So my sister and I slept in the same room in the nude.
    One evening, my mother said, you know,
    tonight I think you should sleep in your pajamas.
    So we did.
    It was a treat.
    And that morning, around 5:00 AM,
    we woke up, because we felt a presence in the house.
    And there were German soldiers who
    walked in through the window.
    There had been a whole division of Germans
    camping in the neighborhood.
    This was towards the end already.
    And--
    There was a division of Germans camping in the--
    Yes, and they were spotted from the air
    and bombed, so that every--
    they were assigned homes.
    We had a Panzer tank and the crew.
    They lived with us for five weeks.
    Did they question who you were or ask for papers?
    Again-- no, those were just soldiers.
    They did not question who we were.
    Immediately-- I had some German books at home.
    Immediately, it was decided that I was the only person who
    could speak German, but my parents could speak German, too.
    So they could hear.
    And they were very correct.
    They ate with us and slept with us
    in sleeping bags in the same two rooms we had.
    They brought food that they took from the farmers.
    And my mother cooked.
    However, after a few days, they told on each other,
    several of them had syphilis.
    And when my mother heard this, she boiled all the dishes.
    And we were so careful.
    And they were so appreciative of how very clean a family we were.
    And they were very indignant and shocked when
    I had to go out at night, because because of them, it
    was difficult for me to go out.
    At that time-- it was towards the end of the war--
    one of my jobs was to cut telephone wires if an Aktion was
    going to go on, or a parachuting,
    the telephone wires had to be cut
    so that their headquarters in Chartres could not be notified,
    and we would have time.
    They had a special line from the village
    to the headquarters in Chartres.
    Let me ask you something.
    The bureaucracy that developed in the area you lived in,
    were there many Nazis that were actually there,
    or was it friends--
    In the village?
    In the area where you really were.
    No, in that village there was just
    two patrols of Germans, maybe 16 Germans, and an observation
    tower, and this telephone line.
    All right.
    So the bureaucracy, the town was run by Monsieur Le Mitre,
    and he was my superior in the underground.
    We could see the school from our house.
    If he wanted to see me, he would put a white towel in the window.
    That meant I am to come for orders.
    If he wanted to come and give me orders,
    he warned us also by putting a different towel in the window.
    But with the Germans, I couldn't go out alone at night
    on a bicycle.
    So they provided me with a boyfriend.
    And he would come for me.
    And then the two of us would leave.
    Who was he?
    He was a young farmer whom I know--
    whom I knew, and who very early--
    when he joined the underground, I had been in it already
    for quite a while.
    And he told me that he had just joined.
    And I said, oh, that's wonderful because I
    have been in for a while.
    And he was so hurt that I hadn't trusted him.
    Well, how old were you at this point?
    At this point I was 19.
    [AUDIO DROP]
    Were you the only Jewish person in the area
    that was in the underground?
    Yes.
    Also, the group was larger than I knew.
    And I knew very little.
    How much did you know?
    What did they convey to you?
    A minimum.
    I knew my superior, Monsieur Le Mitre.
    I knew Pierre Montaudon, who came for me
    when I had to go out at night.
    And I knew the captain from--
    he was in another town.
    Monsieur Hermelin.
    And I knew another farmer, an old couple,
    retired farmers who helped us very much,
    because we ran out of money very,
    very soon after we were in the village.
    My father had some dollars that he had hidden.
    And when we ran out of money, he gave Monsieur Bernaille
    the dollars and asked him to sell them for him in Paris
    because we needed the money.
    And Monsieur Bernaille sent us money.
    And Monsieur Le Mitre lend us money,
    and the farmer would lend us money.
    After the war, when we returned to Paris, we had no place to go,
    we returned to the Bernailles.
    And after a few days, Monsieur Bernaille took out a box,
    and there were all the dollars.
    He didn't know what to do with them.
    So he had just said nothing but send the money.
    When my father, with the first earnings after--
    his first earnings after the war, he repaid his debts first.
    When he send the money, the farmer Monsieur [FRENCH]
    lend us, he knew we were Jewish, he became very upset.
    He said, you know I don't need it.
    Why do you rush?
    There is no-- there is no need to rush like this.
    So really, those three families saved our lives.
    When you were active in the underground,
    what was your sister's reaction to this?
    My sister-- nothing.
    Nothing specific that I can remember.
    My sister was terribly affected by the war, much more than I.
    She has all kind of psychological problems.
    For example, she became a doctor.
    I don't for what reason.
    Because of insecurity.
    She first was an anesthesiologist,
    and she could not bear being--
    leave her patients.
    Then she-- she's extremely brilliant.
    She is a cardiologist.
    She does research in hypertension.
    She has a certification in dermatology.
    She's a physicist.
    She's constantly studying and always
    searching for something she still has not
    found at the age of 55--
    a secure niche for herself.
    Did it occur to her, or was she the type of child
    that, when you became active in the underground,
    did it ever occurred to her that she
    would like to also follow you?
    No.
    She could not have.
    She could not have.
    She did not have that kind of temperament,
    nor physical resistance.
    Because it was physically very tiring, too.
    I never had a bicycle of my own that fit me.
    I always rode a man's racing bike.
    The countryside was very hilly.
    Going downhill, I could hardly reach the brakes.
    Going uphill, I could hardly reach the pedals.
    It was just horrendous.
    How often were you given a job to do for the underground?
    Oh, almost every other day, mostly towards the end.
    I helped changing the road signs.
    When we received arms from England,
    the parachuting of containers, we all waited in the fields.
    There were holes dug ahead of time by the men.
    When the containers were parachuted,
    the men cut off the parachutes, took the containers,
    and disappeared, and I was left behind to bury the parachutes.
    And believe me, it's a heavy--
    just to drag a parachute and put it in that hole,
    all this took time.
    When cutting the telephone wires,
    I did not have the strength.
    But they said they could not spare the men.
    They needed them for the battle.
    Was anyone caught?
    Yes, and one of the girls in another sector who was caught
    was terribly tortured and killed.
    It never occurred to me that I could be caught or--
    You were invincible.
    Yes, I was invincible.
    I was doing something.
    My day of glory came when we helped
    to liberate Nogent-le-Rotrou.
    We wanted to liberate it ourselves
    and not have the Americans liberate it.
    What was that?
    It was a small town where our headquarters were.
    And of course, we did not manage to liberate it by ourselves,
    because the Germans had a good position on top of the roofs,
    and many of our young men were killed.
    I was brought in, put on the--
    in front of a house on a stoop and told to wait.
    Then I was asked to go on the bicycle
    and ask the Americans who were waiting at the edge of the town
    to enter, to ask them to lend us a tank, which I did.
    But we did not get the tank.
    It had to be-- to go through official channels.
    But after the town was liberated,
    we had taken 11 German prisoners.
    And while everybody was celebrating,
    I was given a small machine gun and asked
    to walk the prisoners to our village--
    it must have been 10 miles--
    in my wooden shoes, to walk them to the village and have them
    locked up because they were our prisoners.
    How did you feel about the assignment?
    That was my moment of glory.
    And it never occurred to me that if they had
    turned around and killed me.
    But they were very, very exhausted
    and defeated at that time.
    So I walked into the village with 11 Germans with their hands
    on their head, and me carrying the machine gun in one hand,
    and limping in my wooden shoes.
    We only kept them a few days because we had no food for them.
    So we turned them over to the Americans after that.
    You said that at one point there were German soldiers actually
    staying in your home.
    Yes.
    How did you manage to get out for the evenings
    without raising tremendous attention?
    Well, I had a boyfriend who came to pick me up.
    And when I came back late at night, they were very indignant.
    And they asked me to translate for my mother
    that in Germany, a nice girl is not
    allowed to spend half the night out with her boyfriend.
    They were respectful of you and your sister?
    There was no problem?
    No, they did not--
    they did not interfere with us at all.
    They were just soldiers.
    But on June the 5th, the night before D-Day, late at night,
    they left.
    And we left also because the whole division
    left for the front.
    They did not do anything.
    They did not bomb our house or molest us at all.
    We just left and went into the fields.
    But they did throw grenades all over the village.
    They shot every dog because the dogs were wild,
    running after the tanks.
    And they did a lot of damage.
    As they were leaving.
    As they were leaving.
    But ours did not molest us at all.
    However, I had this reputation of being an interpreter.
    And one of the farmers who also housed a tank and its crew,
    one of the Germans of his crew took his bicycle
    and disappeared.
    So the farmer came to me, and I went to the headquarters
    with him, and he told me to tell the commanding officer
    that his bicycle disappeared, and that this soldier probably
    defected.
    And the officer became furious, and grabbed me by my clothes,
    and shook me against a wall until I lost consciousness.
    And all I did was interpret.
    That was the only time I personally was hurt,
    and not badly, by a German.
    Was it ever a question that it was
    a danger to the underground to have you
    in it because you were Jewish?
    No, because I knew so little.
    But there were lots of Jews in the underground.
    Once you are in the underground, it's--
    it was dangerous for my parents because I could, under torture,
    I could talk about them.
    I knew what I did, but I didn't know who prepared it.
    I knew very, very little.
    Just like when my friend told me he joined the underground,
    he should not have told me.
    Now after D-Day, did activities step up very heavily for you
    in the underground?
    Yes, in the underground.
    But most of all, we were in danger of Germans
    who were hiding, and who, several times,
    stray German soldiers came and asked us to take them in.
    What did you do?
    What was your response?
    We had nothing.
    We had nothing.
    We lived in an empty house with--
    we had nothing.
    We told them we were not the place for them to hide,
    that they would be better off at the farmers'.
    But they threatened.
    Some of them had guns.
    And we were very nervous.
    And we were liberated.
    Even though we were only 100 miles south
    of the coast of Normandy, we were liberated
    on the 15th of August.
    And during all the time we stayed in the village, my sister
    and I attended church.
    I taught catechism on Thursday.
    My sister played the organ.
    And the church was very poorly attended.
    Did the priest know?
    No, the priest did not know who we were,
    and he was very happy to have us,
    because I was teaching catechism and she played the organ.
    But when he did find out on the 15th of August, which
    is a Catholic holiday, and we did not come to church,
    and he saw us afterwards in this little village
    when the American troops were going through, and he said,
    you weren't in church today, and I told him we were Jewish,
    and he never, never talked to us again.
    That's an interesting reaction.
    Did you ever--
    I--
    --wonder why?
    I think he was a sympathizer.
    He, by himself, gave the metal, brass chandelier to the Germans.
    I don't know.
    He was very pleasant to us while we were at church, but very
    demanding also.
    For example, after the first Christmas,
    he didn't say anything.
    But when Easter came, he came to our house
    and said to my parents-- he was not
    surprised that my parents did not attend,
    because the French are not terribly religious.
    He said that we had not gone to confession for so long.
    And my mother immediately said, oh, Annette
    is going to Paris for Easter.
    So she will take communion in our own parish.
    And when Easter came, Monsieur Le Mitre was told immediately.
    I was expedited on a bus with a little suitcase
    to Monsieur Le Mitre's mother, who lived in another village,
    and locked up in the basement for five days
    so that the next communion time I absolutely refused.
    So Monsieur Le Mitre and Madame Le Mitre Mitre me,
    and I went to confession and to communion,
    and I enjoyed the services.
    I enjoyed the Catholic services.
    And I think they have made a great mistake
    when they dropped Latin.
    When you went to the mother's house to be hidden,
    she also was of the same persuasion as her son,
    more than willing to assist.
    Yes, yes.
    She was an old lady.
    She lived alone.
    But I was still put in the basement.
    And at nighttime, 11 o'clock, I was allowed out.
    Whose papers were you traveling on?
    I had false identity papers by then,
    that I was born in Algiers.
    My name was spelled differently.
    Instead of K-U-P-F-E-R, it was spelled C-O-U-P-E-F-R-T
    or something.
    However, when I look at my identity card now,
    it was a real card.
    It was not a fake.
    Monsieur Le Mitre had a member of the underground
    steal the cards from Chartres.
    Where was--
    Chartres was a-- we were in the Department of Eure-et-Loir.
    And Chartres was the seat.
    So they were real cards and signed legitimately.
    But the pictures, my sister and I
    had to go quite far to have our picture taken so that nobody
    could trace where it was taken.
    And it was very cold.
    And you can see how frozen our faces are.
    Also, during those two years, when
    we had to go to the dentist, we had to go very far, and never
    to the same dentist.
    My sister had an infected finger.
    We had to go on a bicycle.
    She had her fingernail removed without anesthesia,
    and then had to ride about 30 miles back on the bicycle.
    Even with the good false papers, at that point you were hesitant.
    Yes, yes.
    Before you got the papers, and you
    had to go take the photograph, whose papers
    were you traveling on?
    What did you?
    We had no papers.
    What do you remember of that trip?
    You see, we came with the papers of our friends,
    and then he took them back to Paris.
    But we were in the village.
    And the secretary of the whole village was Monsieur Le Mitre.
    So it worked out.
    It worked out very well.
    Nobody checked.
    He was the one who was supposed to check.
    Was there ever an incident where you
    went to a dentist or a doctor that you
    can recall that it came close to a question of who you really
    were?
    Was anyone suspicious?
    No, because we went to cities.
    We did not stay in villages.
    And people-- Chartres is not a big city maybe
    by American standards, but in France it's a substantial city.
    And there are many dentists, many people.
    And we just--
    Did you look Jewish, if there is such a thing as looking Jewish?
    No.
    If there is such a thing, no.
    As I said, I looked very much like my friend Josette.
    Did you have contact with them during those two years?
    Yes.
    Other than they sent money.
    They sent money.
    They sent letters.
    And they came.
    They did come.
    They came.
    Josette and her mother came.
    One time, Monsieur Bernaille came.
    And I don't know.
    I was feeling especially down.
    And when I kissed him, I started to cry.
    And he consoled me.
    And he said, don't cry.
    Don't cry.
    I'll do something nice for you.
    And two weeks later, Josette came.
    But you see, she stayed with us.
    We had a house without a bathroom, without an outhouse,
    with--
    the water was outside of the house.
    And she stayed with us.
    She could have stayed with Le Mitres.
    They had a bathroom.
    They had a bathtub.
    But she stayed with us.
    Were they aware of your underground work?
    Yes.
    Because-- yes.
    They did.
    I don't know if--
    no, not Josette.
    She did not know.
    The father knew.
    All right.
    After liberation, what was your-- when did you return?
    How quickly did you return?
    My father returned immediately to Paris.
    He followed the army, and, of course, he had no place to go.
    So he went to the Bernailles.
    My mother and I waited.
    And as September was approaching-- it was September.
    Paris was liberated August 27 or 25.
    It was September, and I was worried
    that knowing French red tape, that if I
    don't register for the university, I will not get in.
    And I persuaded my mother to hitchhike to Paris.
    And we did.
    Then we--
    Who picked you up?
    What people picked you up?
    Americans.
    Nobody had gasoline.
    We were picked up by a gasoline truck.
    And after a few miles, we were stopped by the military police
    and made to get off because gasoline trucks were not
    allowed to pick up civilians.
    Now you said you had false identity papers at this point.
    We had-- at this point we didn't care.
    It didn't matter.
    It didn't matter.
    But we had our papers.
    We had to have something.
    So we hitchhiked again.
    You were asked to depart from the gasoline truck.
    And we tried to hitchhike some more, and nobody picked us up,
    and it was getting late.
    So we crossed the road, and we were going back to the village,
    when we were picked up by a Jeep.
    And as I got on the Jeep, the driver
    said, where are you going?
    And I said-- we really were going to Paris,
    but nobody picked us up.
    And he looked at his gasoline gauge, and he said,
    I have enough gasoline to take you to Chartres.
    Would you like to go there?
    And we said, yes.
    When we got to Chartres, we asked people,
    is there any way of getting to Paris?
    And someone said there is a truck from Paris
    that came to pick up flour.
    And maybe he has room.
    So we ran to the truck, and it was piled with flour sacks.
    And the man said the cab was full.
    But he said, if you would be willing to lie down
    on your stomach and be roped on top of the sacks,
    I will take you.
    So both my mother and I climbed on top.
    And--
    Where was your sister?
    We left her there.
    She was incapable, uncapable of traveling.
    Who did she stay with?
    With [FRENCH],, the old farmer who knew who we were.
    And we had a dog and a cat that had to be taken care of.
    So we--
    Roped you on top.
    He roped us on top, and we went to Paris.
    But the roads were terrible.
    The Germans had passed through, the American tanks.
    Huge potholes.
    And every time the truck hit a pothole, the flour just flew.
    And we finally arrived in Paris.
    I was wearing a navy blue suit covered with flour.
    We immediately went to the Bernailles.
    And they greeted us warmly.
    And we said, have you seen our father?
    And Monsieur Bernaille said, there
    is some kind of Jewish holiday today,
    and he went to the synagogue.
    And my mother said to me, well, you go to the synagogue
    and tell him we are here.
    When I came to the synagogue, the service was over,
    and everyone was coming out.
    How many everyones were there?
    Well, not too many, but there were no services for soldiers,
    so the Americans brought the Jewish soldiers
    to the synagogues.
    And my father was talking to some American soldiers.
    And I approached them.
    And one of those soldiers (SOBBING) is my husband.
    Oh, isn't that lovely?
    That is a very nice ending to a not a wonderful experience.
    That's beautiful.
    I met him on Rosh ha-Shanah.
    Oh, isn't that lovely?
    That really is.
    And your father had fared well.
    He'd done fine.
    My father was just here last week.
    He's 86.
    Ah!
    When you were back home and had a chance to talk to people,
    had many others like yourself survived hidden?
    No, very few have survived.
    Very few.
    Did you know anyone that you had been
    friendly with that had, perhaps, taken the same route.
    Someone had helped them?
    Or you were it?
    No, in our family, I have an aunt who survived in Poland.
    But very few of my friends have been--
    have survived.
    If they survived, they survived the concentration camps.
    But they did not have a Josette.
    They did not survive.
    And that's why I am glad to tell the story of my friends
    today, because I guess I have told my story often to non-Jews,
    but never to Jews, because I had nothing to do with it.
    I did not survive a camp.
    I guess I feel guilty that I survived so easily,
    and that I survived with--
    as a whole unit with my parents and my sister.
    That kind of survival, however, is the miracle--
    Yes.
    --of the entire experience.
    And I'm thrilled that you told the story, because we
    wish there were more people that had done for others what
    your people had done for you.
    That is a story we would like many to hear.
    So if ever, in the future, someone needs help,
    we can understand why, and what would motivate someone.
    I think what motivated them was pure principle,
    human principles.
    Were they religious?
    No, not at all.
    Not at all.
    And it's very hard to explain to them that we are religious.
    I see my friend Josette very often, every time I'm in Paris.
    I eat with them most every evening.
    Since my mother died, I stay with my father.
    The last April I was there.
    When I came to dinner, she said to me,
    I made something very special for you.
    I said, what is it?
    Rabbit.
    I said, rabbit?
    She said, yes.
    When your son, Mark, was here, he
    told me Jews don't eat rabbit.
    So I made rabbit for you because you never eat it.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So it's very hard for them to-- for me to explain to her that we
    don't eat rabbit, because it's not religiously
    proper to eat rabbit, because she really would not understand.
    So their motives were the motives of people of principle.
    Yes.
    Which is interesting.
    Yeah, afterwards, when you were back in Paris, your father,
    what did he do?
    Well, first of all, we stayed with them again for a month.
    We could not find a place to live.
    How were conditions in Paris at that point in terms
    of food availability and--
    It was very difficult, again.
    Very difficult. Of course, we were free to go and come,
    but it was still very difficult.
    But finally we found an apartment,
    and they really supported us.
    And of course, we have been close friends
    with them ever since.
    Monsieur Bernaille and Madame Bernaille both passed away now,
    so the girls are--
    Did you ever go back to the village.
    No.
    No?
    No.
    Oh, I have-- I do see Monsieur and Madame Le Mitre.
    Monsieur and Madame [FRENCH] died shortly after the war.
    And I've never gone back to the village.
    I often wanted to, and I don't know why.
    I'm scared.
    But you maintain contact with them.
    Yes, yes.
    Not as much as with Josette, because they
    are getting older, and--
    but still, when I go to Paris, I always call.
    And they don't live-- they don't live in the village anymore.
    They have moved.
    And do you ever-- was there ever contact again with any of those
    you worked with in the other underground, other than him,
    or that just dispersed, and--
    Well, I really didn't know any of them.
    Just the few that you were in contact with.
    As long as my mother lived, my friend Pierre Montaudon
    used to come to the house.
    After she passed away, he hasn't come.
    Everybody's getting older, also.
    This is true.
    This is true.
    It's a wonderful story.
    I'm sorry that they aren't here to tell it,
    and I'm glad that you were able to, because it should be known.
    I'm sorry they are not here also,
    but I know they would not have told it.
    Well, you must tell them, and they will not be pleased,
    but you must tell them that the story has been told,
    and that others will hear it.
    I will.
    And that it will go into the museum.
    And it's it's something that should be remembered forever.
    And thank you for sharing it with me.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Annette Berman (née Kupfer), born on May 3, 1924 in France, describes extensive support given by Christian friends (the Bernaille family) after restrictions on Jews were put in place; the Bernailles managing to get her and her mother to a farmhouse, where they stayed for two and a half years; being supported by another farm family, while her father was caught while trying to leave and was jailed; becoming part of the underground, carrying out assignments (changing road signs, burying parachutes) even while German soldiers were staying at the same farmhouse; liberation in 1945 and returning to Paris to the Bernailles by hitchhiking; finding her father at the synagogue talking to soldiers, one of whom is now her husband; her feelings of guilt because she was not in a camp and survived; her family surviving as a unit; and the Bernailles' motivation for having done all that they did simply as a matter of principle.
    Interviewee
    Annette Berman
    Date
    interview:  1984 September 18
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Council

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 sound cassette (60 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Berman, Annette, 1924-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council interviewed Annette Berman on September 18, 1984 as part of the international conference "Faith in Humankind: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust" held at the U. S. Department of State, Washington, DC.
    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 08:18:38
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn510777

    Additional Resources

    Transcript (English)

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us

    Also in United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Faith in Humankind oral history collection

    Oral history interviews from the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Faith in Humankind collection

    Oral history interview with Eve Bergstein

    Oral History

    Eve Bergstein (née Nisencwajg), born September 12, 1936 near Krakow, Poland, describes her to a large, close-knit family, only two of whom survived Auschwitz; her mother living in the forest with a partisan group and father being caught and killed in trying to escape a labor camp; living with a Catholic family, the Szumielewicz’s, and being disguised as their orphaned niece; being taken to a convent to be hidden; the bombing of the convent; living under a downtown building with her uncle and many other people for nine months; turning to Catholicism, eventually being put in an orphanage in Schirmeck, France until arrangements were made for her to go to Canada to live with her mother’s sister and her family; moving many times and wanting to live a normal life; suppressing memories to the extent that she forgot how to speak Polish; believing that people can survive almost anything; her Canadian husband and having three children; returning to Judaism; organizing a Holocaust teaching group; and feeling that she has an obligation to continue her Jewish legacy.

    Oral history interview with Janny Blom

    Oral History

    Janny Blom, born October 16, 1915 in Almelo, Netherlands, describes living in 17 different foster homes starting when she was 10 years old; becoming aware of changes starting with the July 12, 1942 round-up of Jews; feeling closest to the foster parents with whom she lived for four years and learning from them about how to be thrifty, clean, honest, industrious, and good to all people; working as a dental assistant for Dr. Freidenburg (also spelled Vreedenburg) with whom she and her husband became good friends; hiding the Freidenburgs in their home; her husband carrying out assignments for the underground; moving to Michigan after the war; giving lectures about the war in schools, women’s clubs, and Methodist church circles; her children knowing about the rescue activities during the war; and how her message to children is never to have Nazism ever again and that totalitarianism is a bad state of affairs.

    Oral history interview with Sjouke Bouwme de Vries

    Oral History

    Sjouke Bouwme de Vries, born August 31, 1923 in a small friendly village in Holland to a very close working class family; how along with her family and fiancé, she helped in rescue activities during World War II; receiving support from members of the underground movement; having rescued 33 strangers altogether; the everyday pressures, risks, and the sense of it being unrecognized for their efforts; how after the war she and her family continued their commitment to helping others by feeding and providing clothes for survivors; not speaking publicly very much about her experiences but that she would do the same things again if needed; and how the most stressful time during the war was when they were hiding Jews in their house.

    Oral history interview with Knud Dyring Dyby

    Oral History

    Knud Dyring Dyby (alternative name Knud Dyring-Olsen), born in Denmark on March 28, 1915, describes being raised in a non-political Lutheran family; being aware of what was happening to the Jews after 1940 but not seeing any persecution until 1943; getting involved in the underground movement; his activities collecting weapons and making photographic engravings for the underground papers; being a boatman in the Copenhagen police department and asked to take Jews in his boat to Sweden; taking them to Swedish fishermen who were his friends; the logistics of transporting Jews to Sweden, which involved meeting Swedish boats outside of Swedish ports rather than going right into Sweden; not remembering names but ferrying 30 to 40 people; having many close calls during those runs; not being paid money for the rescues; how the refugees were given money by a Danish-Swedish rescue group and by other Jewish refugees and, later, the Swedish government; receiving thank you notes from many of the people he helped; and liberation on May 5, 1945.

    Oral history interview with Herman Graebe

    Oral History

    Herman Graebe, born June 19, 1900 in Solingen, Germany, discusses working for Organisation Todt as an engineer and being assigned to a project in Zdolbuniv, Ukraine in 1941; convincing officials that his secretary and interpreter, Rosalia Warchiwker, whose husband had been killed by the SS, was not a Jew and that she should not wear the yellow star; hearing reports of Jews being killed but being denied information by Organisation Todt; making ID cards for 500 of his Jewish employees that said they were contracted to work for him and could not be taken elsewhere; providing food for Jews who were, for their protection, listed as employees on a railroad project but were not actually employed; fearing he might be killed for helping Jews, but feeling it would be dishonorable to himself and his country to do nothing; hearing that there was to be a mass execution of Jews in Rivne, Ukraine and taking 130 of his workers to Zdolbuniv under the guise of having them treated for lice; being told by an official that there was to be no mass execution, but hearing of a conflicting report from another official; witnessing a mass killing in October 1942; and not being believed by other German citizens when he told them that Jews were being killed.

    Oral history interview with Annelies Herzl

    Oral History

    Annelies Herzl describes living in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1943 after getting out of a concentration camp and being hidden by a retired couple who were part of the underground resistors; being taken to Utrecht, Netherlands via train by Eric Braun [sic] to a home with five children and working as their maid; escaping just hours before the home was searched and staying with an elderly Catholic woman for several months until Eric Braun took her to a new house where she stayed until being liberated in May 1945 by the Canadians; and feeling that she would not be able to do what all of the rescuers did and be as courageous and generous.

    Oral history interview with Harry Jaarsma

    Oral History

    Harry Jaarsma, born June 3, 1914 in Balk, Netherlands, describes growing up in the Christian Reform Church and how his religion influenced his decisions during the Nazi occupation; losing his laundry business in Amsterdam when he was called to serve in the Dutch Army; being aware that patients and staff of the Jewish psychiatric hospital in Apeldoorn, Netherlands were taken away by the Nazis, but feeling he could not do anything to intervene; becoming an inspector of the Evacuation Service in 1943 and inspecting homes in the countryside to find places for people who had been evacuated by the Germans; encountering Jews hiding in homes and not registering them; obtaining a quarantine sign from a doctor to hang on the door of a home where Jews were hiding to deter the Germans from entering the house; working with the underground in various ways, including identifying hiding places for Jews and transporting Jews to safety, aiding those wanted for slave labor by the Nazis (including non-Jews), and hiding a Jewish woman in his home; hitting a car of SS officers while transporting two Jewish boys to a hiding place; stealing supplies from a German office, being investigated, and avoiding punishment because the detective was his friend; hiding his underground work from his family; not knowing the names of those he helped; being arrested by the German police but being let go on the recommendation of an officer whose bicycle he had helped fix earlier in the day; leaving the Netherlands in 1949 after failing to get financial help to restart his business; resettling in the United States; not keeping in touch with others with whom he worked in the underground; feeling that his experiences strengthened his religious beliefs; and sharing his story with his children.

    Oral history interview with Mary Schroder Moen Jacobs

    Oral History

    Mary Schroder Moen Jacobs, born in 1930 in a suburb of Utrecht, Netherlands, describes spending most of her life in Amersfoort, Netherlands beginning in 1940; hiding four Jews (a young man, a young woman, and a couple) in their house from 1942 until liberation; remembering that time as dangerous, tense, and very difficult; the two times that the Germans came to their house, once to search and the other to house two German soldiers, all while the Jews where hiding in one room next to the Germans; the network of 40 to 50 people who were involved in the rescue activities; how her mother was her role model because she always wanted to help the underdog or less fortunate and do all she could to sustain life; immigrating to Canada in 1955 after having first lived in the United States for a short while; and writing a book (as Maria Jacobs) about her experiences, “Precautions Against Death” (published in 1984 by Mosaic Press) along with a few other publications.

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Knottnerus

    Oral History

    Cornelia Knottnerus, born April 14, 1927 in Ermelo, Netherlands, discusses her experiences as a teenager during World War II in a family that worked with the Dutch underground; her family’s motivations for working with the underground, including their Christian beliefs and their community’s emphasis on helpfulness; the progression of their involvement from the beginning of the occupation through the end of the war; her older brother’s assignment to the police force, his refusal to follow orders to arrest Jews, and his sentence to a concentration camp for two years; her father, who worked for the railroad and helped people obtain coupons and papers; her family’s false closet in their home which was used to hide people; housing a Jewish girl, Netty van Maarsen; feeling like she was a sister and remaining in contact with her; housing a Dutch boy whose family had worked with the underground and had been betrayed; being aware of the risks of working with the underground; being taught by her parents to hide their activities; the search of her home by German soldiers, one of whom lingered at the false closet door and may have been aware of it, but moved on; the bombing of the house; her family going into hiding in a chicken coop along with a 16-year-old Jewish boy and others; using a bicycle light as an overhead lamp and taking turns using it to read; being liberated; feeling that her family did what they did “with God’s help” and that if everyone in her community had actively worked to protect the Jews many more people could have been saved; and talking with her children about her experiences and speaking at churches and schools.

    Oral history interview with Carl Heinz Kneuman

    Oral History

    Carl Heinz Kneuman, born in Bydgoszcs, Poland in 1922 (note that Mr. Kneuman dedicates his interview to Dr. and Mrs. Wolfgang Heubner), describes moving to Berlin, Germany in 1932; his sister getting married and moving to the United States; Dr. Wolfgang Heubner discovering that his institute was being used as a clearinghouse where humans were being used as guinea pigs for new medications; the country’s general strife at the time; hearing about the activities of Kristallnacht in 1938 from his sister, who arrived home completely upset by what she’d seen; how both his father and mother were active in helping Jews escape, as they could not tolerate injustice; the political terror at that time; his father being involved in the black market and how the highest-priced commodity at the time was saccharine since sugar was not available; becoming a journalist because of his experiences during the war; and helping French co-workers who were working with the Danish resistance groups.

    Oral history interview with Rose Koenigsberg

    Oral History

    Rose Koenigsberg, born in 1914 in Velichovky, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes her life teaching in Ralova until March 1939 when the Hungarians occupied the entire town; being arrested but then later being released to return to Velichovky where she lived fairly comfortably until 1944; going into hiding towards the middle of 1944 after they began to feel the pressures of being Jewish; being discovered and arrested by Hungarian guards and then going to Berehove, Ukraine before their transport to Auschwitz; staying with her sisters throughout her time at the camp; the terrible food and the poor clothing in Auschwitz; eventually moving with her sisters to Zittau (a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen), where she worked in an airplane factory; holding various positions at the factory until the camp was liberated by the Russians; returning home to Czechoslovakia and soon being reunited with the rest of her family; and moving to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Jane Laufer

    Oral History

    Jane Laufer (née Rosenblum), born in Poland on July 25, 1922, describes growing up with a younger brother; being aware of the war because so many people were coming from Austria; her memory of September 1, 1939 as a big propaganda day and being told to leave; walking with their luggage; hiding in the woods; Germans making them move to the ghetto starting in in May 1941; remaining in the ghetto until September 1942; the deportations of people to work camps; being helped by some nuns; a priest preparing a passport for her so that she could work in a restaurant, where she worked until 1944 when the restaurant closed; being liberated by the Russians on January 21, 1945; going home and finding that the Russians had taken all the food so there was literally nothing to eat; living in the Black Forest to hide from the Russians and eventually moving to Munich, Germany for a few years; going to the United States in September 1956; the effects of the Holocaust on her; experiencing nightmares, sleeplessness, and stress; and her reasons for never returning to her home town.

    Oral history interview with Margot Lawson

    Oral History

    Margot Edith Lawson, born April 3, 1909 in Mannheim, Germany, discusses her life in Germany leading up to World War II; growing up in a Catholic family with many Jewish friends; studying in England, Italy, and Spain; her family being aware of and concerned about the persecution of Jews; seeing Hitler Youth on her street; her family’s housekeeper’s husband being accused of speaking against Hitler by members of Hitler Youth; moving with her family to Amsterdam, Netherlands near the beginning of the war; witnessing the mistreatment of Jews in Amsterdam; being given American money by her father, a representative of General Motors, to use to buy her way out of conflicts with Nazis; working with an organization to forge papers for Jews and smuggle Jewish children out of Holland; delivering clandestine newspapers; being taken in for questioning by German authorities for criticizing the Nazi Party or for breaking curfew; being jailed after breaking curfew; witnessing poor conditions in the jail and the sexual abuse of prisoners; the ransacking of her house by Germans who were looking for papers she had hidden there; meeting with the head of the Dutch Nazis, criticizing Nazi policy, and telling him that the Germans would never win and that he would be a prisoner one day; encountering the same man after the war and testifying against him at his trial before he was hanged; her feeling that her faith made her willing to take risks because she was not afraid to die; and how she remembers her wartime experiences now that she lives in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Eva Lewin

    Oral History

    Eva Lewin (née Lipschutz), born in 1925 in Swinemünde, Germany (now Swinoujscie, Poland), describes having one brother, Hans, who was four years older; having a nice childhood until 1933 when they had to move to Berlin, Germany; how her family tried unsuccessfully to emigrate; trying to get papers so that she and her brother could go to a kibbutz in Palestine in 1939, but her papers did not go through; being contacted by a Quaker woman, Mrs. Landmann, in England who arranged for her to go to a farm in August 1939; going on the children’s transport to London and being taken in by a woman who ran a youth hostel; staying with a couple who ran a school; going to the United States after the war to become a nurse; continuing her connection with Mrs. Landmann, who is now 95 years old and has a tree planted at the Avenue of the Righteous in Israel; how Mrs. Landmann worked every day to get affidavits for children without being paid; and Mrs. Landmann’s sacrifice to save about 70 children.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Makuch

    Oral History

    Barbara Makuch, born in Russia in 1917, describes growing up mostly in eastern Poland, in a Catholic family; being approached beginning in 1942 by several Jews seeking help; sheltering Malka Glass, a six year-old girl, for approximately six months, telling neighbors that Malka was her cousin; how, as it became more dangerous, she found a convent that agreed to accept Malka; helping another Jew, Sophia Price, by buying her a train ticket to a large city; aiding a pediatrician, Dr. Olga Lilion, by telling the director of the school at which she worked that she had a friend who needed a job; helping to save another young Jewish boy, Stefan Jacobchek, by getting him enrolled at the school; joining an underground organization that provided false documents, money, and food to Jews in hiding; acting as a courier and being caught by the Germans; being held in prison for a month, but being released after the Germans were bribed; being sent to Ravensbrück, where she remained until the end of the war; making her way back to Poland and later traveling to Canada, where she met her husband; settling in Montreal; staying in touch with several of the people she saved during the war; and being recognized for her heroism by Yad Vashem.

    Oral history interview with Alice Meilof

    Oral History

    Alice Meilof (née Prviksma), born in the Netherlands 20 miles from the German border, describes being 14 to 19 years of age during the war; her brothers and sisters; her father, who took in three Jewish boys brought to him by the underground; having to move the boys from time to time; how the boys helped her father in his work as a butcher; the hiding place in their house, which was simply a hole in the floor with a carpet rolled over it; the Germans never coming to search the house; her father’s motivation to take in the Jewish boys because of his belief in the Christian Reformed concept of “to do something good is normal”; her mother providing farm food to people who had escaped the bigger cities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam; how her father was in command of a region of the underground; her work as a messenger; how nothing could be spoken out loud since neighbors or others might overhear and report their activities; the lack of food in the big cities such that people were eating tulip bulbs and their pets; housing five policemen for two nights; her emotions when they were liberated by the Canadians; and still feeling sorry for the German soldiers in their defeat.

    Oral history interview with Halina Melnyczuk

    Oral History

    Halina Sophia Melnyczuk (née Zahaikiewicz), born February 21, 1921 in Przemysl, Poland, describes her two brothers and one sister; growing up in a vaguely religious Ukrainian Catholic family that was not political; living in an apartment building where they were the only non-Jews; how when the war started in 1939 they had as many as 30 Jews living with them and their housekeeper threatened to turn them in to the Nazis; moving to another apartment in 1942 because the old one had heavy damage from shelling; how the new apartment was across from the police station; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943 and taking in a young couple, Edek and Eda Scheffler, whom they hid by camouflaging the pantry to look like bookshelves; sharing their rations and sometimes selling items from their apartment to buy meat; instances when it seemed they’d been found out; being on the list to be transported to a concentration camp in Siberia but deciding to emigrate instead; leaving everything behind, including the Schefflers, who now live in Israel; living in Kraków, Poland; fleeing to Vienna, Austria in 1944; how the war did not change her religious beliefs but left her more tolerant of other people; and her belief that the most important thing is to do good deeds.

    Oral history interview with Tjitske Mulder

    Oral History

    Tjitske Mulder (née Hoogeveen), born June 23, 1909 in Westermeer, Netherlands, describes growing up in a very close family with five brothers and two sisters; her father, who was a dairy farmer and a member of an anti-revolutionary party and the underground; her father teaching her that the most important attribute was to be independent and to ignore social class structures; getting married in Bergum, Netherlands in 1930 to a barber; having two sons in the small city of Sneek, Netherlands during the war years; how in Sneek Jews were always well thought of; her and her husband’s first rescue activity moving a Jewish girl from one hiding place to another; hiding the parents of the Jewish girl, whom the Gestapo were chasing; an interesting subterfuge they used when the Gestapo came to their house; remaining friends with the girl, Lydia; speaking frequently publicly about their activities; their children and grandchildren, who are as strongly supportive of what they did during the war; their willingness to help anyone, whether they knew them or not, and doing so without regret; the friendship that grew between the two families when they lived together, praying, singing, and arguing together; her husband’s belief that Hitler was doing wrong by the Jews and how his own inner voice told him to help, as the Bible was his guide; and how they were given no money to keep the Jews in hiding.

    Oral history interview with Wanda Ollbryska

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Opdyke

    Oral History

    Irene Opdyke, born in Kozienice, Poland, describes growing up in a close, Catholic family with four younger sisters, all of whom were taught always to keep an open heart, to be helpful; joining the Polish army then hiding in the forest after Poland was defeated; being very brutally treated by Russian troops and eventually being sent to an ammunitions factory in Poland, where she acted as a server; being sent to the front in Poland, close to the Russian border where she witnessed horrendous brutalities carried out on Jewish families; being moved again to work in the laundry room of about 300 Germans and the local head of the Gestapo in Ternopil', Ukraine; befriending 12 Jews working there and creating an information network; becoming the housekeeper to a German major and managing to hide Jews in the cellar in an underground area under the gazebo; the liquidation of the ghetto in early 1943 and taking the 12 Jews to the forest to join others in hiding; building a bunker where the Jews stayed until the Russian Army liberated them; joining the Polish partisans to help in the fight against the Russians and eventually being arrested and put in detention; escaping by jumping out a window; going to Krakow, Poland; going to the United States in 1949 and becoming a US citizen; working in the garment center in NYC; getting married to a man who worked for the United Nations; and the tree planted in her honor on the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Oversloot

    Oral History

    Jacob Simon Oversloot, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, describe growing up in a family that was not religious and not political; his six siblings; living in The Hague, Netherlands when the war broke out and working at a department store in the furs section; people arriving from Poland and Germany starting in 1938; the German occupation and Germans shipping staple goods to Germany, leaving nothing for residents; taking in his close Jewish business acquaintance (Leo Krell) along with his wife and son when they were going to be transported to Auschwitz and hiding them from 1940 to 1944; making fur coats with this man; the persecution and deportation of the Jews; never witnessing acts of violence against Jews; his hatred for the occupying Germans and refusing to follow their laws or do what they told him to; no one in their family knowing that he and his wife were hiding Jews; how they kept the Jews safe; getting foods from the black market and from the underground movement; restarting his fur business after the war, until 1950 when he moved to Canada; how his rescue activities strengthened his inner faith and that he would do the same now; and his lifetime friendship with the family he hid.

    Oral history interview with Alice Paulus

    Oral History

    Alice Paulus (née Rijskamp), born in 1915, describes being newly married with a five month old baby when she and her husband began their rescue activities; helping to rescue five people; one couple staying with them for two and a half years in hiding; how many of their friends would not help the Jews, thinking it much too dangerous; believing it was their Christian duty; the most stressful time during the war when her second child was born and there was no hospital, few medicines, and bombs dropping on the city; conducting rescue activities from October 1942 to the end of the war in May 1945, but continuing to host the couple because there was no place for them to live; how three of her husband’s brothers also hid Jews; speaking to church groups often when they first came to Ohio in 1957-1962; speaking in the pubic schools; the major influence religion now has on how she lives her life; and her admiration for Winston Churchill and the Holland leadership for being very honest.

    Oral history interview with Marion Pritchard

    Oral History

    Marion Pritchard, born November 7, 1920 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her apolitical family; her brother; her family’s Jewish friends; how her father was upset with the Dutch government because they didn’t just open their borders to refugees; her work finding foster homes for Jewish children and also hiding Jews; how her family did not know all of what she was doing, which was for their safety; the widespread antisemitism in Holland; being imprisoned for six months in a jail in Amsterdam after being caught with friends who put out an anti-Nazi newssheet; being threatened and intimidated, but not physically abused; leaving Holland in 1945 to work with the United Nations in displaced persons camps in Germany; becoming active with Zionists trying get to Israel; going to the United States in 1947; her thoughts on Elie Wiesel; her husband, who was a liberator at Buchenwald; and her belief that you must do the right thing if you can find out what the right thing is.

    Oral history interview with Mary Barys Szul

    Oral History

    Mary Szul (née Barys), born in 1928, describes being 15 years old and living in a little village in Poland with her mother, brother, and sister at the start of the war; rescuing a total of four people, the first being a widow with two small children, whom they hid in the attic in the summer and in a bunker built under straw in the barn in the winter; being caught by the Germans and being badly beaten then jailed for two weeks; being freed and finding her way home, a 70 mile trek; going to Austria to a displaced persons camp; going in 1948 to Canada, where she found the Jews she had rescued and ended up living with them as family; the reason she got involved in rescue activities; how her rescue activities started in May 1943 and continued for 18 months; her neighbors’ disapproving of her family’s rescue activities when they found out about them after the war; and her life now in London, Ontario.

    Oral history interview with Magda Trocme

    Oral History

    Magda Trocme, born in 1901, describes her rescue activities during WWII in the French village of Le Chambon sur Lignon; Philip Hallie’s book, “Lest innocent blood be shed,” which describes the French village Le Chambon as a safe haven for Jewish escapees; working with the Quakers; one of their first rescued Jews, Hanna Hirsch, and the quasi-underground arrangement for refugees, so that she eventually ended up in Switzerland and then Queens, New York after the war; how the French people got involved with rescue activities and inspired others to help; the daily routine during the war and the large numbers of refugees who were sharing their house; the difficulty in explaining the rescue activities to their children so that the refugees wouldn’t be discovered and how it was a matter of constant problem-solving and resisting in small ways; being very aware of the danger they were in but never considering not helping; her husband’s arrest because he was the organizer of the rescue activities and most responsible; her husband’s release after the war was over; leaving Le Chambon in 1960 and moving first to Versailles and later to Geneva, where her husband was a minister; and visiting Yad Vashem in Israel, where a tree was planted in her husband’s honor.

    Oral history interview with Andrew van Schilfgaarde

    Oral History

    Andrew van Schilfgaarde, born in 1933 in The Hague, Netherlands, describes growing up one of seven children; being members of the Christian Community Church but not being particularly religious or political, though they did vote; having many Jewish friends; being aware of the persecution against Jews as his friends dropped out of school and were deported; the vacated homes being looted or taken over by the Germans; his attempts to listen to the BBC and being caught with a radio, which was a forbidden item; stealing food to survive and selling the food back on the black market; hiding Jews for a few days in the attic before they went on to another house, then to France, and then to England; how his neighbors were a problem because they might report them; the role of resistance groups as the contact point for the rescue activities; how human values change due to starvation; leaving Holland in 1956 and going to the United States; having a landscape business then working in the food and drink business; not discussing his wartime experiences with his wife or friends; his life-philosophy to live day by day; and knowing that the past cannot be changed but something like the Holocaust should never happen again.

    Oral history interview with Ann van Veldhuizen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Johanna Vos

    Oral History

    Johanna Vos, born December 29, 1909 in Amersfoort, Netherlands, discusses her upbringing and the influence her parents had on her life; her family’s religious background in the Christian Reformed Church; moving frequently as a result of her father’s job as a military officer but living in Leiden for most of her school years; dating a Jewish boy at age seventeen despite her parents’ disapproval; leaving home at age 20 to go to Paris, France; studying at the Sorbonne and working in Paris as a freelance journalist and as a delivery person for a Dutch grocer; marrying a German artist against her parents’ wishes and later divorcing; living in Laren, Holland during World War II; marrying her second husband and having children; becoming involved in activities to help Jews, first by helping her Jewish friends and then joining the Dutch underground; wearing the Star of David in solidarity with the Jewish population; falsifying papers and smuggling the belongings of German Jewish refugees into the Netherlands; serving as a messenger; hiding more than 36 people in her home, most of whom were Jews but some of whom were intellectuals or others targeted by the Nazis; her husband picking up weapons airdropped by Allied forces for the resistance; the killing of an author by the Gestapo and the capture of a fellow member of the underground; being confronted by the Gestapo at her home; facing the challenge of hiding small children who did not fully understand their situation; coping with the mental breakdown of a woman hiding in her home; her husband’s pension through the Stichting 1940-1945 and his suffering from “Twenty Year Syndrome;” and her thoughts about her actions during the war.

    Oral history interview with Theresa Weerstra

    Oral History

    Theresa Weerstra, born August 6, 1907 in Wijckel, Netherlands, describes her father Hans Peopjes, who was a fisherman, and her mother Arendje Roskan; her eight younger siblings, who were all girls; growing up in a family that was not religious but taught her to be generous to everything that is living, from flowers to human beings and never to be prejudiced; living in IJlst in Freisland province when the war broke out; getting married to Martin in 1930 and moving to Chicago, IL that same year during the recession but returning home soon thereafter; living two miles from the Nazi headquarters for the Netherlands; living near a large antisemitic population; taking in an orphaned young Jewish girl, which opened the door to helping many, many more Jews, some of whom she remains in contact with; hiding places they created in their home; housing 18 Jews at one point; receiving help from friends, who got them extra ration cards; delivering a baby born to one of the Jewish couples; the large network of people working in the rescue effort and using codes to relay messages since as there was only one phone in town; and how she is still upset by the Holocaust and does not consider herself a hero.

    View All 30 Items in the Collection