Oral history interview with Irene Bors

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2000.91.13 | RG Number: RG-50.493.0013

Overview

Interview Summary: Irene Bors, born August 20, 1918, in Selezenivka, Ukraine, discusses her refugee parents Henrik and Helen Bekker; her family’s move to Lublin, Poland in 1921; growing up securely without antisemitism; being educated at home early on and then going to private university in Warsaw, Poland; meeting her husband Stanley in 1937 and getting married in 1939 when Germany had already taken over Poland; her parents staying; leaving with Stanley for a part of Poland occupied by the Soviet Union; trying to get back to her parents who were in the Lublin Ghetto which already being liquidated; her parents’ deportation to Treblinka and perishing at Majdanek; arriving at the Warsaw Ghetto, where Stanley worked in a bakery and she in a factory; their luck in escaping by jumping off of a truck on the way to work on a farm one week before the Warsaw ghetto uprising; getting in touch with her great-uncle in Grodzisk (a suburb of Warsaw) who they went with to Rembertów on the west bank of Warsaw to a villa; getting false Polish documents; being on the run after escaping from the villa once Germans arrived and murdered all who lived there; trying to get back to Lublin in January 1945 once Russian tanks came and finding out her parents were killed and Stanley’s parents were killed; settling in Berlin, Germany, where she became pregnant with her daughter Helene; finally getting papers after four years and going to the United States in August 1949; finding her husband’s family in Boston, MA and then moving to New York, NY and then Chicago, IL; buying a small chicken farm in Hebron, IN; selling the farm after five years and deciding to raise their family in Gary, IN; working for 16 years in a Methodist Hospital in Gary as a medical technologist after getting her license; and moving to California where their daughter had settled.
Interviewee: Irene Bors
Interviewer: Karen Robinson
Date: interview: 1992 July 26

Physical Details

Language: English
Extent: 1 videocassette (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

Rights & Restrictions

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

Keywords & Subjects

Topical Term: False certification. False personation. Holocaust survivors--Marriage. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Identification cards--Forgeries--Poland. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Warsaw. Jewish women in the Holocaust. Jews--Ukraine--Selezenivka. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Women--Poland. Women--Personal narratives.
Geographic Name: Berlin (Germany) California. Chicago (Ill.) Gary (Ind.) Hebron (Ind.) Kyïv (Ukraine : Oblast) Lublin (Poland) New York (N.Y.) Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945. Rembertów (Warsaw, Poland) Selezenivka (Ukraine) United States--Emigration and immigration. Warsaw (Poland)
Personal Name: Bors, Irene.

Administrative Notes

Holder of Originals: Orange County California Anti-Defamation League
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: Karen Robinson on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League, Orange County, California, conducted the interview with Irene Bors on July 26, 1992. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the copy of the interview from the Anti-Defamation League, Orange County, California on May 3, 2000.
Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive

Record last modified:: 2023-11-16 08:56:03
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511992

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Also in The Holocaust Oral History Project of the Anti-Defamation League, Orange County, California collection

Consists of 152 interviews of Holocaust survivors in the Orange County, California area

Date: 1992-1995

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