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Oral history interview with Harry Adler

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1989.228.2 | RG Number: RG-50.060.0002

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    Oral history interview with Harry Adler
    Transcript
    Harry, we would like you to start
    to tell us your full name, your place of birth,
    the names of your parents, and if there are any sisters
    or brothers.
    All right.
    I'm Harry Adler.
    I was born in Germany, in Berlin, in 1924.
    And my father was Abraham Adler.
    My mother was Malka Adler.
    Both Mom and Dad were originally from Poland.
    And they had spent some time in Austria after World War I.
    And by 1924, when I was born, they
    were well-established in Germany.
    And my brother Paul is three years older than I am.
    He was born in 1921.
    I have no sisters.
    So we're basically two brothers.
    And Paul is still alive and doing well.
    He lives in New York City.
    What kind of schooling did you have there in Berlin?
    Well, in Germany, the first thing that I remember,
    really, is at the age of seven.
    That's my first recollection of being alive,
    for all intents and purposes.
    I tried to find the little bits of things
    that I want to remember before that age.
    But I'm having a hard time.
    At that particular time, those were the first days
    of school in Germany.
    And at that particular time, we were
    living in a little place called Bad Freienwalde, which
    is just east of Berlin.
    It's now the Eastern Zone.
    And at that particular time, Dad was in the piano business.
    He had a piano factory, called the Adler Piano Factory.
    And it was a pretty well-known piano establishment.
    At that time, the upright pianos were coming into style.
    And he had a fairly good business going,
    from what I understand, and told by my mother that was so.
    So schooling, is that what you're asking?
    The first schooling would be the early grades at age seven.
    And after that, as we progress into the story,
    I'll tell you more about it, education, and friends,
    and then what education I had in the United States.
    Did you go to a public school?
    Oh, just very shortly.
    Sure.
    Because I was seven years old in 1932.
    And in 1932, the Nazis burned part of the factory.
    I still remember the fire.
    It was a very impressive kind of a thing.
    I was a kid.
    I was very impressed by all the commotion and what have you.
    That I remember well.
    I guess you remember those things better than others.
    And in 1932, we left Germany.
    We all packed, and did our thing,
    and went to Paris, France.
    So my schooling really began, if you will, in Paris.
    So I went to what they call the école communale,
    which is the standard--
    what do you call it in the United
    States, the early grades?
    Primary.
    Primary grades.
    And went to high school in France, in Paris.
    And those are the things, those are the years
    that I remember, from 1932 on, really.
    I don't remember anything before then.
    In France, how did your dad earn a living?
    My dad was an apprentice furrier from the Austrian days,
    when he was a youngster.
    He was an apprentice furrier.
    I mean, he had a craft.
    And he decided that he was going to be
    in the fur business in Paris.
    There was a facility for that because in the fur business,
    most of the exchanges are done in Yiddish.
    You didn't have to have a command of French.
    Or it really wasn't important.
    And he was able to function quite well.
    So we had this workshop in France,
    which was, by the way, the same place that we lived.
    Years ago, we had these very cavernous apartments.
    You had seven or eight rooms and two of the rooms
    or three of the rooms were converted to a workshop.
    I remember that.
    For years, I remember the smell of opossum [LAUGHS]
    in the house.
    We got up in the morning, we went to sleep.
    But he did well in Paris.
    And I went to school.
    We sort of settled.
    We were fairly comfortable in Paris from 1932, let us say,
    till about 1939, when the fracas really started.
    And I went through the normal French schooling, all the fun
    that youngsters had, you know.
    It wasn't too much part of the Jewish community.
    I don't remember us being very involved
    in the Jewish community.
    Didn't have much of a Jewish background.
    We did have the Shabbat meal.
    But I didn't go to cheder, per se.
    I really didn't.
    I'm surprised I didn't now, in retrospect.
    You had no education?
    Very little education in this direction.
    And when it was time for bar mitzvah,
    I got caught up in the war years.
    So I really missed that.
    I pass no judgment.
    I mean, I don't know whether it's good, or bad,
    or indifferent.
    I am not really concerned about it to any great extent.
    But it's interesting that, now that I think about it,
    there was no shul involved.
    And we didn't belong to a shul.
    But perhaps in Europe, it isn't like it is here.
    Yes.
    Perhaps because you were resettled.
    You were not natives.
    Yeah, but that's not the point.
    I don't think that in Europe, we have the same setup that you
    have here in this country.
    The shuls are primarily little synagogues
    that are supported by the local people, you know,
    the local neighborhood.
    We don't have these large edifices that we have here,
    where you have to have a building program
    and where you have to contribute to these bits.
    They're really not on the scale that we have them here.
    So I do remember going to the synagogue.
    I remember Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah.
    We certainly did.
    But they were always small shuls.
    They were always small, local synagogues
    in some basement, some apartment, some place
    where they had the minyan.
    And it was always on a small scale.
    And I think, in the main, except for some very large--
    there was a very large synagogue in Paris, certainly.
    But the local people tended to go to smaller shuls.
    So I went to I went to school, went to public school.
    And most of my education is French,
    like the classic education.
    The trunk of my education is certainly French.
    It's not English, by any means.
    Did you ever feel an outsider in public school?
    Or did you blend in?
    No.
    I blended in without any problems.
    In France, there was no antisemitism, per se.
    And if there were undertones of it,
    I was too young to really feel them.
    I guess I was a kid just like anybody, like any other kid,
    and blended right in.
    I was an average student, enjoyed public school, had fun.
    And this went on till 1939, when things really
    became a little heated.
    First of all, in 1939, my father decided to go to Poland.
    I think it was in '38.
    He had gotten an arrangement with some importers
    who required goose feathers.
    At that time, the shuttlecock was very popular,
    the shuttlecock in badminton.
    They used to make the balls with little feathers on top.
    You know, not the round ball that you play tennis with,
    but there was a little rubber ball.
    And attached to it was a bunch of feathers.
    So that flew.
    That was the bird that you played back and forth
    when you play badminton.
    And at that time, they used to use
    a specific grade of feathers that came from a goose.
    And where else but in Poland do you find geese?
    So my father, all of a sudden, decided, this was it.
    He was going to corner the market in geese feathers.
    And my mother, who had the connection,
    was going to be the sales lady.
    We had connections in London.
    We had connections in Paris.
    And there was a large market for that.
    And my father was convinced that he
    was going to be the king of goose feathers.
    So Mom and Dad went to Poland and settled in Poland sort
    of semi-temporarily.
    And my brother was shipped off to London.
    And so was I, for a period of time,
    where my father had a brother.
    And it was decided that Paul and I were
    going to go to what they call a private school
    and that the British call a public school.
    They got the roles reversed over there.
    The public school is really private school.
    And there we were, both Paul and I, what-- how old
    was I in 1939, 14?
    13.
    So there you have Paul and I in Slough,
    in England, in this public school, very British.
    We wore these blazers with a medallion here.
    And we had the little beanie hats and knitted tie.
    And we played cricket.
    Did you have a command of the English language?
    No.
    But at that age, it isn't difficult.
    You learn that real quickly.
    And amongst the kids, you learned
    to communicate real fast.
    And we do have, both Paul and I, my brother,
    have a facility for languages.
    We speak French, and English, and German fluently.
    We have a phonetic ear for it.
    So it wasn't all that trying.
    Some people have an accent for years and don't lose it.
    And other people are able to speak fluently
    without any traces of an accent.
    I would suppose that I speak fairly well.
    And if anything, it's the intonation, the way I speak,
    the manner in which I do the sentencing that
    is strange to the average American person.
    So anyway, where were we?
    We were in England.
    And we were playing cricket, right.
    And we ate the English food.
    And I was really--
    I was unhappy in that school.
    I didn't like the food.
    I didn't [like the environmnet.
    My brother felt comfortable.
    I wasn't.
    So it was decided that I was going
    to be farmed out from England, from London, back to Paris,
    and to live with a friend of my mother
    while my mother and dad were in Poland fooling around
    with the geese feathers.
    And so I came to live with this Russian family.
    And they were--
    I remember her name, Mrs. Litvak.
    Mrs. Litvak was Jewish, of course.
    But she always considered herself
    sort of as a piece of royalty.
    She was a White Russian, in the true sense
    of the word, very proper lady.
    And of course, you've got to put yourself back in, what was it,
    1939, shortly before the war.
    She was living in an apartment in Paris
    with her two sons and her husband, who was retired.
    And I got to live with that family for about a year.
    And they spoke Russian amongst themselves.
    So here I was, with a smattering of Russian.
    I can understand a little bit of Russian
    as a result of that experience.
    I don't speak it well.
    But I found myself alone again without my parents,
    living with that family, fairly comfortable, no problem.
    And then, of course, 1940.
    The Germans invaded France.
    My father and mother just barely extricated themselves
    from Poland and are able to come back to Paris.
    Don't ask me how, but there they are.
    I'm not clear on how that came about,
    whether they caught the last train out
    or whether they were--
    Hitler had invaded Poland before that, in 1939.
    So they must have been the last one out.
    The dates are a little confusing to me.
    But anyway, here we are, the three of us-- my mother,
    and my father, and myself--
    in Paris, France, when the war really
    started in Paris in France.
    Paul remained in England.
    And I didn't see Paul, my brother,
    until 1943, when I met him again in England,
    when he was an English soldier in the RAF,
    and I was an American soldier.
    So I didn't see Paul from '39 on, for a period of five years.
    Were you able to make contact when you
    were in Britain to find him?
    Well, no, we knew where he was.
    Oh, you knew where he was.
    And Britain was an open country.
    It was no problem.
    We knew he was in school.
    And we knew he was with my uncle in London.
    We felt comfortable.
    We felt that Paul was quite safe in England.
    So when France was defeated, they
    occupied the northern part of France.
    And Mother, and Dad, and myself, we
    ran away to the southern part of France.
    And we holed up in Marseille on the Mediterranean for a while.
    We were trying to get a ship out to the United States.
    That's easier said than done.
    And I've got to preface this by saying
    that my mother had her father in Fall River, Massachusetts.
    Now, how did that come about?
    My grandfather, my mother's father,
    left Poland at the beginning of the First World War,
    going back to 1914.
    And he left a wife and two children in Poland.
    The idea was that he was going to come back and pick them up.
    But the war started.
    And he was stuck in the United States.
    And his wife and the children were stuck in Poland.
    My grandmother died in 1916 from typhus fever,
    leaving my mother with her younger sister.
    And in 1918, after the First World War ended,
    my mother shipped her youngest sister
    to Fall River, Massachusetts, where
    my grandfather had settled.
    So on one hand, in 1940, you find us, my mother,
    and my father, and myself in Southern France, my brother
    Paul in England.
    My grandfather in Massachusetts remarried
    with other children and my aunt, I
    guess my aunt, my mother's sister
    in Fall River, Massachusetts.
    So what do we do in Marseille?
    In Marseille, we try to come to an American consulate
    to see if we could get visas to come to the United States.
    But things don't move that fast.
    We had made no attempts to get a visa earlier.
    I don't know if my father didn't realize
    the political implications of Hitler.
    And even after the fall of France,
    I don't think he quite grasped what was happening.
    I suppose many people didn't.
    It's hindsight.
    It's easy to say today what it was.
    But many people always considered,
    even after the war started, that this madman was going to die,
    or the things were going to go away,
    or things were going to straighten themselves out,
    and life would continue.
    He never realized that the catastrophe that
    was about to come at us.
    Anyway, the Germans decided that they were
    going to occupy all of France.
    Remember, there was a period of time where Maréchal Pétain
    decided he was going to run the Vichy government.
    And Hitler never trusted him.
    So he decided to occupy all of France.
    We were fortunate enough, at that particular time,
    to get one of the ships that was leaving for Lisbon.
    And we said to ourselves, let's go from Marseille
    to Lisbon, which was at that time
    a free country, a neutral country.
    And from Lisbon, we were going to do our thing
    about getting papers to come to the United States.
    So we embarked with a ship, a French vessel--
    I don't remember the name--
    to go to Lisbon from Marseille, which means
    we would have had to go through the Mediterranean,
    through the Strait of Gibraltar, into Portugal, into Lisbon.
    We had approximately 30 families or 40 families
    on board, maybe more than that--
    I can't remember the number--
    doing very much the same thing, running away.
    We had families with children.
    We were already the teenagers.
    I was already a teenager at that particular time.
    But there were little kids amongst the families.
    And we stopped temporarily in, let's see,
    Algiers, which is in Africa.
    The boat stopped to reprovision or whatever.
    Then it stopped in Oran, which is also part of Algeria,
    and finally got to Casablanca, Morocco.
    And in Casablanca, Morocco, the Vichy French government
    issued an edict that all French vessels which
    were flying the French flag were to remain
    in quarantine in French ports.
    And if you remember, Casablanca, Morocco
    was a colony of the French.
    And there we were in Morocco, not able to continue.
    The ship unloaded.
    And the Vichy French authorities in North Africa in Casablanca
    really didn't know what to do with us.
    They finally figured out that there was a Foreign Legion camp
    inland, almost at the edge of the Sahara Desert.
    It's a place called Oued Zem.
    And I remember it like today.
    It was nothing but a sandy, dusty, hot outpost
    in the middle of nowhere, where the Foreign Legion
    had a bunch of barracks.
    And they decided that they were going
    to put us in those barracks.
    So here were these people with their belongings,
    and with their releases, and schlepping all their worldly
    belongings into this godforsaken place, in Oued Zem.
    And we organized life as best as we could.
    There was rudimentary.
    It had barracks facilities and bunks.
    And some had double bunks.
    And some had single bunks.
    And the French really didn't do much to make
    us very comfortable.
    We had to make ourselves comfortable.
    Did you have any sanitation facilities?
    We had sanitation facilities, yes.
    There were toilets.
    And there was a kitchen.
    But like I said, what can you expect
    from a French Foreign Legion barrack
    in the middle of the desert?
    It really was right on the outskirt of the Sahara desert
    in the middle of nowhere.
    The war started to go sour for the Germans in North Africa.
    And the Vichy French had really no great desire to keep us.
    They really didn't know what to do with us.
    So they asked, who are the people that have papers,
    possibilities of going further?
    Where is there a chance for them to get out?
    They really didn't want to feed us.
    They really didn't want to keep us.
    They had no purpose in doing that--
    certainly weren't going to exterminate
    us, because that wasn't the ballgame.
    We indicated to the commandant at that time
    that we had a grandfather in Fall River Massachusetts.
    And if we were to go to another country,
    if we had an opportunity to get out,
    we would make tracks for the United States.
    So he let us out.
    And Mom, and Dad, and myself, and some of the other people
    who had visas to go to other places, we went to Casablanca.
    We stayed in Casablanca for, I would say,
    about four to five months.
    The year is 1941, late '40, beginning of 1941.
    And here we are in Casablanca, which is really
    a very lovely city and away from the war, if you will,
    waiting for some ship to come in to the Port of Casablanca
    to take us to Lisbon, which is, again, like I said,
    a free port, where we could hole up for a short period of time.
    As long as we knew that the ultimate goal was
    to go to the United States, we felt comfortable
    that we would eventually get there.
    And sure enough, we did have a Portuguese ship that
    came along and took us and a number of the families
    that had visas from Casablanca to Lisbon.
    So Mom, Dad, and myself, we were in Lisbon,
    which is, again, a very lovely city, like a travelogue.
    [LAUGHS] And in Lisbon, we went to the American consulate.
    That was an embassy, actually.
    And we said, my mother said, my father
    is an American citizen living in the Fall River, Massachusetts.
    We want to emigrate to the United States.
    This is an emergency.
    And we need the visas now.
    And sure enough, we got the visas
    to go to the United States.
    When we were in Lisbon, of course,
    we called my brother, Paul, and my uncle
    in London to find out if everything was OK.
    And sure enough, things were well.
    So we actually extricated ourselves from the war
    relatively well.
    So we arrived in the United States.
    We arrived in New York in 1941.
    I would say it was the month of October or November.
    Pearl Harbor was what, December 7, 1941?
    So we arrived shortly before Pearl Harbor.
    And we went directly to Fall River, Massachusetts,
    where my grandfather lived.
    My grandfather had a junkyard.
    That's what he started with.
    It was a very large junkyard.
    I had fun looking the place over.
    At that time, they were still buying up rags from peddlers.
    They had cottons, and rayon, and linen.
    And he had a sorting arrangement.
    And he had a big bale press.
    And he used to press all the cotton together
    and all the rayon together.
    And today, it doesn't mean anything.
    But I was most impressed.
    The peddler used to bring in metal--
    copper, and tin, and what have you.
    And again, they separated the material
    and pressed it all out into these bales.
    So he had remit.
    What's that?
    Really?
    Was your grandfather greet you as open up?
    Oh, yes, my grandfather was happy to see his daughter again
    after all these years.
    And we were introduced to his wife.
    It wasn't a new wife anymore.
    I mean, he got married, I think, in 1920.
    And we saw his son, his son, Yossi.
    Yossi was a big man.
    Boy, he was big.
    I was a little fellow.
    But this guy was a giant man.
    At that time, he was in high school.
    And he wasn't much older-- as a matter of fact,
    I think he was my age, if not perhaps a year younger.
    So when I arrived as a greenhorn, here
    was this guy that had a car.
    And he was driving in high school.
    And he had that Chevrolet and all the girls around him.
    To me, this was a revelation.
    He was a liberated kid already.
    Anyway, so we remained in Fall River, Massachusetts for about
    a month and a half, two months.
    We decided what we wanted to do, where we were going to settle.
    And Dad, of course, decided to go back to New York
    and try the fur business again, which was his trade.
    So we all wound up in New York, back in New York,
    in, I would say, 1942, if we're trying
    to put this in some chronological order.
    In 1942, then, I went to high school.
    I had a smattering of English.
    I didn't have too much trouble filling in the gaps.
    I graduated high school at night,
    worked during the day with Dad.
    And I graduated, I would say, late in 1942.
    And it was George Washington High School.
    We were living at that point, at that time,
    in Upper Manhattan, New York, where the rest of the refugees
    were.
    And a lot of people came in at that time.
    Everybody spoke German.
    And my father and mother didn't feel too bad.
    They were comfortable.
    The language came to them slowly.
    But they managed to do well.
    Dad opened up a shop, where he was making fur coats.
    We also had a retail store in the Bronx, New York,
    where we settled after.
    After we finally went from Manhattan to the Bronx,
    we opened up a regional store, kept the factory.
    And one of the reasons I graduated so quickly
    is because the school accepted credits, which
    I had from my French education.
    And they were really good about it.
    So I was able to graduate very quickly in 1942.
    And I guess I was all of 17 or something like that.
    So now comes the war at a rapid pace.
    And I am asked to register for the draft and all
    that good stuff.
    And I was in the army.
    I was in the army in '42.
    End of '42, I was in the Army.
    Went through basic training in Kentucky,
    then in Abilene, Texas.
    Finally, wound up, would you believe, in Phoenix,
    Arizona, 1942.
    And from Phoenix, Arizona, went to what
    they called the Desert Training Center, which was down in Yuma.
    And in Yuma, they ended basic training.
    And I became part of a field hospital.
    The closest thing to that today would be Mash,
    if you remember the Mash episode.
    That would be the type of unit that I was attached to.
    And I became what would be perhaps the equivalent
    of Klinger.
    I became a company.
    I became a company.
    What do you call it?
    A company clerk.
    Servant.
    A company clerk.
    So here I was, speaking English, and French,
    and German fluently, working as a company clerk in a Mash unit
    in Yuma, Arizona.
    And we went through field trainings.
    And we dug trenches in the desert.
    And we had tanks going over the foxholes.
    And people came to us with broken arms, and broken legs,
    and all this stuff.
    And we fixed them best we could.
    And I wanted to transfer because I felt I was in the wrong spot.
    First of all, this is very hot, very uncomfortable.
    And we were going on hikes in gas masks and all
    that nonsense.
    And frankly, I prepared myself for going to the Far East.
    I thought the unit was not going to go to Europe.
    I thought the unit was going to go
    to Asia because of the Desert Training Center
    and the hot climate there.
    I found a buddy of mine by sheer accident.
    One day, he was on leave.
    And I met him, I don't remember where.
    He says, what you doing?
    I tell him where I am.
    And he happened to be in the 29th Division, which
    was stationed back East, somewhere in Pennsylvania.
    And he was an interpreter.
    And he was saying that his group needed interpreters very badly.
    They were ready to go overseas.
    And it was important for them to have
    somebody that spoke languages.
    And what were you doing as a company clerk in a Mash unit
    in Yuma?
    And he managed to arrange with his commanding officer
    to arrange for my transfer to the 29th Division.
    So if you know anything about the army,
    this is a complex piece of machinery
    when you ask one corporal to be transferred from a Mash unit
    in part of one army to another army group
    someplace in another part of the world
    or in another part of the country.
    So the applications go up to divisions corps headquarters,
    and army, and from army, over to the other army, and down again.
    That's the way the transfer works.
    It's a lot of paperwork that gets shuffled around.
    But in this process, I got stuck.
    My application got stuck in a corps
    headquarters, a Third Corps headquarters, with a colonel
    who--
    his name was Maroney--
    who read this application.
    And he says, I need that man.
    I don't want him to go down any further.
    So we're going to transfer him here.
    So lo and behold, I got a notification one day
    that Corporal Harry Adler was going
    to be transferred to the Fifth Corps headquarters, which
    was, at that particular time, some place in Pennsylvania,
    ready to go overseas.
    And overseas meant England at that time.
    The year is 1943.
    In 1943, here I arrive at the Fifth Corps headquarters.
    And I become attached to what was then
    called the G2 section--
    excuse me, the G3 section of the corps headquarters.
    It's a very small section.
    It had a colonel, a couple of captains.
    It had a company clerk, and had a master sergeant,
    and another couple of people running around, and drivers,
    and what have you, and Harry Adler,
    who became the colonel's driver and the interpreter
    with the rank of sergeant in arms, [? Yekkes, ?] things
    got better.
    Colonel Maroney is a little short fella.
    He's a West Pointer.
    And he was in the same class with Eisenhower, gung-ho type
    of a person.
    Going to do his schtick.
    And we, would you believe, wound up
    about two weeks or three weeks after I
    got to the corps headquarters to a staging area
    to go to England.
    So it was Christmas of 1943 that I
    was on a ship with the corps headquarters
    with my small group going to England.
    And I arrive in January.
    I arrive in England.
    And we get billeted at the Fifth Corps headquarters
    in Taunton, England.
    And all of a sudden, it turns out
    that we are the group that plans for the invasion of France.
    When I was there, when I got there,
    it was because we were sequestered.
    In other words, we were cut off from the rest of the country
    because we were doing work that was very delicate.
    We couldn't blabber, couldn't get out.
    So for a period of about four months,
    we were stuck in Taunton.
    And we were analyzing the reports
    that came from the free French in France.
    We were getting reports all the time about the conditions.
    How are we doing timewise, by the way?
    Plenty of time.
    So we were getting reports about the conditions in France.
    And we were recording all this information.
    We wanted to know what condition the beaches were in,
    who the mayor was, who the people were.
    In other words, we had a very thorough documentation
    of the towns that we were planning to invade,
    if you will, before the invasion.
    We created what was called a civil affairs section.
    Remember that when we arrived in France as soldiers,
    we were not an occupying power.
    The game plan was to turn over the towns
    as they became free over to the free French, who were then
    going to start the administration
    of the towns going again.
    What we were was an advanced echelon.
    Our function was, at that particular time,
    to go with the front line and turn over
    the various towns that were part of that frontline
    to special groups, special detachments that were trained
    in England to begin the civil affairs
    operations in those towns as they became occupied.
    And we had, in England, detachments
    that were studying the conditions
    of those various towns as I was giving it to them,
    as the reports came in.
    So a detachment for the town of Caen,
    for instance, which was one of the towns
    that we were going to occupy after the initial invasion,
    we had a group of, I remember, some 40 people that
    were sitting in England, studying
    the conditions of that town.
    Who was the mayor?
    Who was going to be imprisoned?
    Who were the collaborators?
    Who were the people that we had to find?
    And as the war progressed, more and more information
    was turned over to these people.
    The corps headquarters landed on the Normandy beaches
    on D-Day plus one.
    That was one day after the initial shock wave.
    And the colonel and I were on the beach.
    We drove off the pontoons with that Jeep.
    And we set up headquarters about mile and a half
    in on the beach, mile and a half in.
    We stuck the tents up and put up our little thing.
    And we started to call in one of the detachments for one
    of the little towns that we had taken over.
    And I can't remember the name of that town.
    And for a while, we were stuck there.
    The front didn't enlarge to any great extent
    at the very beginning.
    We were consolidating the front.
    And we were bringing in more and more equipment
    before we made the push inland.
    When we had enough ammunition and we
    had enough troops landed on the beach,
    we then started to enlarge the war.
    The Germans were not prepared for us.
    Not to say that we were so best prepared, because the confusion
    was fantastic.
    But there we were on the beach, ready to face the Germans.
    We constantly remained with the front line,
    not in a shooting capacity, but more or less
    in an intelligence-gathering capacity more
    than anything else.
    And our detachment, the colonel, and the captains,
    and a couple of people that were with us
    stayed with the front line as a detachment of the Fifth Corps
    headquarters.
    Our job was to make sure that the detachments that we
    were calling in were ready to function.
    As the front expanded, we sent back
    information on the various towns as to just how
    badly damaged they were.
    So when the groups in the detachment came to take over,
    they already knew the condition of the town.
    The water tower was destroyed.
    Some of the houses were down, the extent of the damage.
    Was there drinking water?
    Was there a possibility of life to continue real quickly
    after the front passed?
    So when they arrived, they knew what was happening.
    But again, we were not an occupying power.
    We were civil affairs.
    We became military government only
    when we crossed into Germany.
    So our detachment was one of the first detachments
    to go into Paris.
    We were one of the first GIs into Paris.
    Actually, the American soldier was not
    involved in taking Paris.
    We gave that covet, if you will, to the French.
    The French General Leclerc, part of an armored division,
    French division, was placed in position to go into Paris.
    They were the first to go into Paris.
    But we as civil affairs officers were
    able to go into Paris with them.
    So we were part of that first group to arrive in Paris.
    It was quite a celebration.
    But we stayed in Paris only a short period of time
    the war went on.
    And before we go in end of '44, I would say,
    here we are in Germany.
    There, our roles changed.
    And we became an occupying power, rather than
    a friendly helper.
    And there, we had close cooperation
    with the intelligence facility.
    We were very close to G2, which we were G3.
    G2 is the intelligence section.
    And there, we made sure that we had, how would I say,
    occupying powers.
    We did it differently.
    Did you actually see action there?
    Yes, we saw action there, yeah, actually.
    I crossed the Remagen Bridge, which
    was the first bridge that broke the dam into Germany, which
    was a railroad bridge which the Germans did not manage
    to destroy across the Rhine there,
    over the Remagen Bridge, which was the first bridge that was.
    And we crossed into Germany.
    And then we became an occupying power.
    Those detachments that we had to take over these towns
    were now in power.
    They were the law.
    And we didn't turn that over to the Germans.
    We actually administered the town.
    And we had intelligence information.
    We knew who was who.
    Again, who was a Nazi, who was not a Nazi.
    And we found stragglers, Germans that had left their units
    and had tried to go back into civilian life,
    took off their uniforms.
    We found those.
    It was an interesting part of the military career,
    I would say.
    I found a general that was hiding under a pile of rubble.
    We put him away.
    And we worked closely with the G2 section,
    which was the intelligence gathering section of the army.
    The connection with the Holocaust
    came when we were in Weimar.
    And the Third Army--
    I was part of Second Army.
    The Third Army, which was Patton's army,
    really, it was on a roller thing.
    They were really on a drive into Germany
    and had passed the town of Weimar.
    And they had discovered the situation in Buchenwald.
    And when I heard about Buchenwald,
    I decided to go and see what it was.
    And I took leave from the colonel.
    Actually, the colonel let me go for a period
    of a day and a half.
    And I said, Colonel, I'd like to see this.
    By yourself then?
    By myself, yes.
    I had the Jeep.
    And I went into Weimar, which was really not my sector.
    It was part of the Third Army.
    And we were Second Army.
    And I crossed over for intents and purposes.
    And of course, I had a pass, able to go.
    And I got into Buchenwald, I would say, a day, perhaps a day
    and a half after it was taken.
    And what I saw there, of course, is the kind
    of things that you see in the movies today,
    and the things that we see on television, which
    is still an unbelievable sight.
    But I saw that.
    And I saw the bodies, which had to be gathered
    in mounds with bulldozers.
    There was sanitation to be concerned with.
    It was a terrible sign--
    cadavers all over the place.
    It takes a long time for a camp to be cleaned up like that.
    This, just Buchenwald, was a very large area.
    And of course, I saw the facilities
    that we were setting up to make sure that those people that
    were alive were given food--
    not too much food because they were groping for anything
    they could lay their hands onto.
    And then we had to make sure that sanitary facilities were
    being put back into place.
    Of course, I had no part of this.
    I was an observer.
    And I can only tell you that what I saw was terrible.
    It was awful, spectacle.
    And I stayed in the camp for a period
    of about six or seven hours.
    I saw that things were being put into place slowly,
    but with some degree of intelligence.
    I mean, we knew what we were doing.
    And we realized what had to be done.
    I don't know that we were prepared for this.
    I don't think the army was prepared
    for what they saw because that was for intents and purposes,
    the first camp that we saw.
    And so they had to put their heads together and say, now,
    what do we do with this mess?
    How do we handle this?
    They had to bring in food.
    They had to bring in the bulldozers.
    They had to bring in nurses and doctors.
    And they mobilized internally to do the job.
    As far as I'm concerned, they did it well.
    But the mass of humanity is overwhelming. the real problem.
    And that, again, is the connection with the Holocaust.
    I couldn't stay.
    I had to go on.
    The war was calling.
    So I had to go back to my unit and continued
    throughout Germany.
    As the war ended, I found myself in Czechoslovakia, in Pilsen.
    I didn't see another camp.
    That's really the only one that I saw.
    And I ended the war in Pilsen.
    The war ended, I guess, in '45.
    It was April or May.
    I don't remember what month.
    We walked.
    The Americans folded back from Leipzig and from Pilsen,
    from that entire area, gave it back to the Russians.
    And for a while there, I was attached
    to a detachment in Berchtesgaden,
    which was Hitler's hangout.
    Berchtesgaden.
    Yeah.
    And I was there for about two weeks
    or so before I had enough points accumulated to go home.
    I came back in November of 1945, went home,
    and started a normal life again in 1945 in New York.
    And that's really the story.
    You might also tell us when you started life, what you did.
    What happened in '45?
    Yes.
    Well, in '45, Dad was in the fur business.
    Mom and myself, I went back into the fur business with him.
    I went back to college.
    I went to New York University.
    I did it again at night.
    Did you have any GI Bill of Rights?
    Oh, yes, I did, yeah, bill of Rights,
    to go to school as a soldier, ex-soldier.
    And I remained with Dad and Mom in the business until 1954.
    Dad died in 1954.
    And we liquidated the fur business after he died.
    And Paul, by the way, came back also from England
    and joined us in the United States.
    So the family was reunited again in 1945, 1946.
    Was Paul safe from the war all this time in England?
    Paul was in the RAF.
    He was a navigator.
    And he flew the hump in Burma.
    So he had his moments.
    It wasn't all peaceful.
    But his war was in Asia, rather than in Europe.
    By the way, when I was in England, in Taunton,
    before the invasion, I did have a chance
    to see my brother Paul.
    I saw him again.
    And then I saw him again when he came to the United States.
    And I think he came in '46.
    So Dad died in '54.
    I was married in '51.
    I met Ella in New York.
    And so we liquidated the fur business after dad died.
    And I was sort of on my own.
    I wanted to see what other occupation I could
    find besides the fur business.
    I didn't like the fur business.
    It wasn't my bag.
    It gave us a living, you know.
    But it wasn't something that I wanted
    to do as a steady career.
    I was a cutter.
    I was a fur cutter.
    I was making pretty good money.
    I was part of the union.
    And I knew the mechanics well.
    Were you doing this while you were going to university?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    I made lots of money.
    I was earning then something like $250-300 a week.
    As a fur cutter, I was cutting up mink coats.
    I was good at it too.
    But I always thought that the fur business was not a means
    to a future.
    I always wanted to have something else.
    So after we closed down the business,
    I decided to go into the travel business.
    I wanted to be a travel agent.
    I enjoyed traveling.
    That's what I wanted to do.
    My brother, by the way, had already
    gotten himself settled in the travel business.
    And he did quite well.
    And I joined another company.
    And I got myself a job for--
    I think it was $65 a week.
    And I became what is called a hotel clerk, made reservations
    for a wholesaler, people that make group travel.
    So in about two weeks, I got to know all the hotels--
    class A, class B, class C. And I went to the boss.
    I said, I know all this information.
    I want a raise.
    He threw me out.
    So that was the end of my career in the travel business.
    Then I dabbled it a little bit in import-export in the toy
    business in New York.
    And finally, I met a man who started us off
    on a crazy adventure back in Europe again.
    Let's see.
    Let me try to put that together for you.
    1959, I meet a guy who was an officer in the Navy.
    And he put together what is called the Navy Ship Stores
    Afloat.
    What is that?
    The Navy Ship Stores Afloat are a PX--
    On the ship.
    --on board a ship.
    That's a naval ship store afloat.
    So if you were on an aircraft carrier
    and you wanted to buy a Kleenex, you
    went to the store that was on that ship that was afloat.
    And he had gotten some very good connections with a fellow
    by the name of Hans Ludwig [? Schmetzer. ?]
    This is after the war, remember, an ex-colonel in the Luftwaffe.
    I think he was a Nazi.
    Who now knows?
    Anyway, they germinated an idea that
    went a little bit like this--
    the American tourist that's abroad
    is entitled to bring back, at that particular time,
    $500 worth of duty-free merchandise, five bottles
    of liquor without paying any duty when he's physically
    outside of the United States.
    Today, the law has changed a little bit.
    And there were then a number of duty-free shops
    where you could buy the cashmere sweaters, the liquor,
    the Swiss watches, the German radios.
    You could even import an automobile
    for intents and purposes.
    If a family was going overseas and with the right guy,
    bring back an automobile, he would
    have $2,000 worth of duty-free.
    He wouldn't have to pay any duty on it.
    He could bring in a whole set of Rosenthal chinaware,
    for that matter.
    Whether you had it under your arm
    or whether you could have it shipped, it made no difference.
    Actually, due to the fact that you declared it
    when you came back to the United States,
    you were entitled to bring in what
    you bought overseas duty-free to the extent
    that you had an allowance.
    And the idea was that we should perhaps put together
    a catalog of duty free merchandise
    that we would hand to the departing resident, that
    person that's going overseas.
    Let us say, for argument's sake, that you, Magda
    went from Phoenix, Arizona to Mexico City.
    And while you were in Mexico City, you saw this catalog.
    And while you were there, you saw, in the catalog,
    a set of Rosenthal chinaware that sells in the department
    store here for $500.
    And you could buy that, shipped to your home, for $225.
    By sheer dint of the fact that you were outside
    of the continental limits of the United States
    and had this duty-free allowance,
    you could bring that in by simply paying us
    for the merchandise and paying for the shipping, no duty.
    And duty on chinaware at that time was pretty heavy.
    And that's why the set in the store
    would cost $500 because the duty was normal channels.
    So with this idea in mind, I went to Geneva, Switzerland,
    where we spent a year, in 1960, and Ella, and myself,
    and the kids.
    And we put together a Swiss company.
    And we put together such a catalog.
    And I went all over Europe to arrange
    for the packaging of all these things
    that we were shipping back to the United States.
    So if you were going to Mexico City,
    your travel agent would give you such a catalog.
    And such a catalog would have all the goodies
    that you would normally see in a duty-free store.
    And when you came back, you declared
    that while you were abroad, you bought
    chinaware, or a cashmere sweater,
    or a fancy Swiss watch, or a sewing machine, whatever
    it is that you wanted, and that this was part
    of your unaccompanied baggage.
    You would send us the money in Switzerland.
    And I would take your American dollars
    and would convert them in Swiss francs
    to buy the sewing machine.
    I would arrange for Elna, which is a sewing machine make,
    to package such a sewing machine and send it
    to you in Phoenix, Arizona.
    That package would arrive at your door.
    You would not have to pay any duty.
    And that's what you did.
    So I arranged throughout Europe to package
    all these sewing machines and 92-piece set of Rosenthal
    chinaware in a package that they made-- of course, that they
    made so it could go parcel post to the United States.
    We had somebody in Hong Kong doing
    the jade and all the goodies.
    And we were in Scotland.
    And we got cashmere sweaters.
    We went into the liquor business.
    We arranged for duty-free liquor to be shipped to the returning
    resident.
    We had a duty-free port in Amsterdam,
    where all the liquor came together.
    The scotch came from Scotland.
    The French cognac came from France.
    We were taking the bourbon from the United States
    and bringing it to--
    To Switzerland.
    --no, to Amsterdam, where we had a duty-free shop, where you
    had the duty-free storage area.
    And when you gave us an order that called for a bottle
    of scotch, and for a bottle of cognac,
    and for a bottle of Rémy Martin, all the things were in that
    place.
    And we could put it all in a carton.
    And we shipped the carton to the United States.
    The funny part, the bourbon, which
    came from the United States, came from Kentucky
    to the free port and went from the free port back there.
    That's the way it worked.
    Anyway, so I did that for two years.
    Were you successful?
    We were successful.
    Yes, we did quite well.
    But then I decided I wanted to come back to the United States
    because my kids were growing up.
    We were expatriates.
    We felt out of sorts a little bit.
    I wanted to have some kind of a more stable background.
    This business was a great business.
    But it was sort of a screwy situation.
    I was always afraid that somewhere along the line,
    because the balance of payments was
    going in the disfavor of this country,
    that they were going to tighten up the restrictions,
    that people that were going overseas
    would not have the $500 duty-free allowance anymore.
    I always thought that this was just a quirk in time
    and that it was time to get out.
    So we came back to the United States.
    And since we had all these connections
    with overseas people, people that were in were in the army,
    we decided to go into the automobile business.
    How did that work?
    The returning GI was entitled, at that time,
    to bring back a European car as part
    of his unaccompanied baggage.
    While he was over there, he could bring back
    a Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, what have you, free of duty
    at a price, delivered in a port in New York
    after he returned for considerably less than what he
    would be paying if he went to a normal dealer and say,
    I want to buy this car.
    It was probably a saving of approximately 30%.
    We made arrangements to have salesmen
    go, for instance, to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
    The Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean
    had about 120,000 people at one time.
    It rotated four times a year after the war.
    Imagine these large aircraft carriers that have,
    I don't know, 60,000 people or something like that, 50,000,
    unlimited number of people on these big ships.
    And they would make the calls on these various ports.
    They were in Toulon.
    They were in Marseilles.
    They were in Nice.
    They were in Genoa, you know.
    And the fleet was very visible.
    The Sixth Fleet was in the Mediterranean.
    And the Seventh Fleet was in the Hong Kong area.
    So we had salesmen going onboard these ships, selling cars,
    which the kids never saw.
    And we had catalogs.
    Would you like to buy a Mercedes-Benz?
    Would you like to buy a Bentley?
    Would you like to buy a Volkswagen?
    And we then went ahead and arranged
    for all these companies to ship the cars.
    And we sold a pot full of cars.
    We sold Jaguars.
    We sold Peugeots.
    We sold Fiats.
    And the kids, after they came back from their tour of duty,
    would go to the port.
    And they would be advised that their car is coming in.
    And we made it possible.
    I left the company in 1963, '64.
    Then I went into the drapery business in Houston, Texas.
    I always found something else to do.
    I was never concerned about what tomorrow brought because we
    always had a few dollars.
    There was no problem.
    But I changed careers.
    And so we were in Houston for a while.
    And we went into the drapery business.
    And we got into the schmatta business.
    Did quite well.
    And then since Houston expanded, we
    decided to go into a broader market.
    And we decided to go into Phoenix and Los Angeles..
    And so that's how I came to Phoenix.
    I came back to Phoenix in the drapery business.
    1964, I guess, is when I came here, and remained
    in the drapery business here-- in the wholesale drapery
    business, not that retail level.
    We used to sell the drapery material to retailers.
    We were converters of textiles.
    We took raw material, we wove it, dyed it,
    printed it, sold it by the yard to the retailer.
    I don't know if you remember Oscar [? LeGrand. ?]
    Yeah.
    Remember Oscar?
    Oscar, who is no longer here, was a very big customer of our.
    We used to sell a lot of the drapery material to Oscar
    and a lot of people in the Valley still.
    The name of the company was Fabrica.
    And I had partners.
    We did quite well.
    And then we had some words.
    There was problems in the company.
    I was unhappy.
    I decided to strike on my own.
    And I opened up the little Wall System store
    that you see in 1966, Christmas of 1966,
    and have remained with that ever since.
    Of course, that business also evolved from things
    that you hang on the wall, you know, shelves, and cabinets,
    and what have you to a factory facility,
    where we make our own furniture--
    you know, tables, cabinets, and what.
    And now, we're the distributors of Murphy beds.
    And we have a lot of stores in California.
    And we do better in California than we do in Arizona.
    So that keeps us happy and keeps us busy.
    Ella, on her end, came to Phoenix
    and went back to school.
    Kids grew up here, went to college.
    Ella got a degree at ASU and then a Master's degree.
    And she started her career in 1970, I would say 1974.
    She worked as a social worker.
    Well, you've heard the story.
    She worked as a social worker for 11 years or so
    before she retired.
    That's basically the end of my story.
    And you have how many children?
    I have Diane, who is in Israel now.
    She's been in Israel now for seven years.
    I have two grandchildren--
    a little girl that's going on four and a little boy that's
    a a little one-year-old now.
    They live on a moshav in Israel, quite comfortable.
    I'm very happy the way they've organized their lives.
    And I have a son, Alan, who's the big achiever.
    He's a Harvard Graduate.
    He's living in Santa Monica, living it up, comfortable.
    He's married, no children.
    We're happy with the way life has gone for us.
    I really am.
    I'll say that.
    Things have worked out for us fairly well.
    And you don't mind living in Phoenix?
    I don't mind living in Phoenix.
    I've got used this.
    It's good living.
    Give us a comparison as to how Phoenix
    looks for you in '64 as opposed to the time when
    you were stationed.
    You're talking '42.
    You're talking '42.
    Oh, '42, excuse me.
    Yeah.
    Well, I must say that as a soldier,
    you don't have the same priority.
    You don't have the same things.
    You don't look for the same things
    as you do if you're an older person.
    I seem to remember Union Station.
    And I seem to remember that Indian School Road was
    already-- you know, [INAUDIBLE],, it was the end of the road.
    There was nothing north of there, absolutely nothing.
    It was a dusty old town with a railroad track right
    through the middle, with swamp coolers.
    There was swamp coolers already.
    As a matter of fact, I was impressed
    with swamp coolers, those places that had swamp coolers.
    And when I came back to Phoenix, I really didn't--
    this wasn't planned.
    This just worked out that way.
    Maybe it's fate that I had to come back to Phoenix
    because when I was in the drapery business, when I was
    in Houston, Texas, which was miserable enough, talking
    about heat, and humidity, and whatever.
    When I was told that I would have
    to come to Phoenix, Arizona, I said, my god,
    who's going to Phoenix, Arizona?
    But I think, when I came in 1966--
    in 1964, the town was not that big.
    Town wasn't all that big.
    I sort of missed this growth.
    I saw this thing grow.
    And I feel, perhaps, bad that I didn't take advantage of it.
    Should have maybe bought a piece of real estate in 1964
    and let it rot.
    I guess I would probably be worth a lot of money today.
    But these are missed opportunities
    that you don't realize it.
    The town just grew around you.
    The kids got an education.
    They were part of the scene, part of the Jewish community,
    active in the Jewish community.
    We did our thing.
    And I knew everybody who was in town, certainly
    all the Jewish people.
    I belong to this congregation.
    And today, the Jewish community is far-flung all over
    the place--
    tremendous, tremendous Jewish community.
    And I don't know the people in it.
    OK?
    I think we're glad you became member of the Phoenix
    community.
    Thank you.
    Because you're a great asset to it.
    I appreciate that.
    And I thank you very much for telling us your life story.
    My pleasure.
    My pleasure.
    Thank you very much.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Harry Adler, born in 1924 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood; moving with his family in 1932 to Paris, France; attending school in France; moving with his family to Poland in 1938; his return to Paris, where he lived with a friend’s family; his parents’ return to Paris after the Germans invaded France; immigrating to the United States; settling in the Bronx, NY; graduating in 1942; joining the army in 1942; military training; being assigned to the V Corps Headquarters in the 1st Army; going to England; arriving in Normandy, France one day after D-Day; going to Germany; being in Weimar when he heard about Buchenwald concentration camp; visiting Buchenwald the day after it was liberated; going to Berchtesgaden, Germany; returning to New York in November 1945; going into the fur business with his father and attending New York University at night; getting married in 1951; his work in the US and abroad; moving to Phoenix, AZ; and his children.
    Interviewee
    Harry Adler
    Date
    interview:  1988 June 07

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
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    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Adler, Harry, 1924-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The interview with Harry Adler was conducted on June 7, 1988 by the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors' Association in affiliation with the Cline Library of Northern Arizona University as part of a project to document the testimonies of Holocaust survivors in the Phoenix, AZ area. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview in 1989.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:09:33
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    Also in Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association oral history collection

    Oral histories conducted by the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association

    Date: 1987-1992

    Oral history interview with Ella Adler

    Oral history interview with Ella Adler

    Oral History

    Ella Adler, born in 1924 in Krakow, Poland, discusses her childhood; the beginning of the war; life in the ghetto; life in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau; life in labor camps; liberation; returning home; and her immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Esther Bash

    Oral history interview with Esther Bash

    Oral History

    Esther Bash born in 1928 in Czechoslovakia, discusses her childhood experiences; the Hungarian occupation; being sent to live in a ghetto; life in Auschwitz and other work camps; liberation; and her immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Bash

    Oral history interview with Joseph Bash

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Been

    Oral history interview with Anna Been

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Aaron Bendetson

    Oral history interview with Aaron Bendetson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Erna Bindelglas

    Oral history interview with Erna Bindelglas

    Oral History

    Erna Bindelglas (née Stopper), born on November 13, 1930 in Amsterdam, Holland, discusses her childhood experiences; life in German occupied Holland; life in the underground system; the experiences of her mother and sisters in Bergen-Belsen; liberation; moving to Israel; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Fred Blau

    Oral history interview with Fred Blau

    Oral History

    Fred Blau, born in Vienna, Austria, discusses his family’s background in Vienna; his childhood experiences; life in Vienna following Hitler's invasion; the deportations of Jews from Austria; leaving Vienna and relocating to Switzerland; and his immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Marsha Botwinik

    Oral history interview with Marsha Botwinik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Solomon Cukier

    Oral history interview with Solomon Cukier

    Oral History

    Solomon Cukier, born in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his parents and siblings; his childhood experiences; the beginning of the war; being forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto; getting married in 1941 (his wife lived in the non-Jewish part of Warsaw); the deportation of his parents to Treblinka; being sent to work in Sedziszow, Poland; his experiences in work camps; being sent to Buchenwald concentration camp; liberation; living in displaced persons camps in Germany from 1946 to 1949; his children; immigrating to the United States; and his life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Dattner

    Oral history interview with Joseph Dattner

    Oral History

    Joseph Dattner, born in Austrian-controlled Żywiec, Poland in 1907, discusses the fate of his seven brothers and one sister; his father, who was a tailor; moving to Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine) when World War II began; working with his hands and sleeping in parks at night in Lvov; being put to work by the German Army to collect papers and bottles for no pay; leaving Lvov when the Ukrainian police came after him; fleeing to Warsaw, Poland, where he and his future wife Gerda purchased false Aryan identity papers; bribing police in Warsaw with a piece of fabric after they discovered that they were Jewish; being picked up by Gestapo officers but talking his designated murderer out of killing him; trying to enter the Lvov ghetto through a small hole but being caught and bribing the Gestapo officer with his rucksack; supporting Gerda and their child Barbara through various tailoring jobs; having a close call with his landlady once when one of his brothers arrived at their apartment; having his daughter baptized and inviting Jews pretending to be Aryans; and Gerda’s early death because she smoked so much out of stress during the war.

    Oral history interview with Meyer Dragon

    Oral history interview with Meyer Dragon

    Oral History

    Meyer Dragon discusses his family; his childhood experiences; moving with his family to Warsaw, Poland; working for the Jewish Committee in Warsaw; the German occupation; life in the Warsaw ghetto; escaping from the ghetto; his life in other ghettos before being sent to Auschwitz; being sent to other camps including Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, and Theresienstadt; liberation; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Sally Dragon

    Oral history interview with Sally Dragon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rae Freisinger

    Oral history interview with Rae Freisinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Geslewitz

    Oral History

    Anna Geslewitz (née Charoltte Gersten), born on September 17, 1923 in Lwow, Poland (now L’viv, Ukraine), discusses her childhood experiences; the Russian occupation of her town; the German occupation in 1941; life in a ghetto; working in tailoring shop for the army in the ghetto; escaping from the ghetto with her sister; registering to go to Germany for work; passing as Christians; never seeing her father again; traveling through Krakow, Poland and going to an employment agency in Regnitz, Poland; working in homes while her sister worked on a farm; being taken to dig ditches in a forced labor camp; working in an office because she could speak German; being liberated by the Russians; going east to Jarosław, Poland; finding her sister and moving to a town on the Baltic Sea; opening a store; continuing to pass as Christian; going to West Germany; getting married in 1948; immigrating to the United States in 1950; living in Brooklyn (NY), Pennsylvania, and Newark (NJ); her feelings on antisemitism; and her current views on American Judaism.

    Oral history interview with Daniel Geslewitz

    Oral History

    Daniel Geslewitz (né Gedoliah Geslewitz), born on August 14, 1924, in Lódz, Poland, discusses his siblings and parents; his childhood; the beginning of the war when he was 15 years old; the restrictions placed on Jews; life in the Lódz ghetto; starvation in the ghetto; his father’s death from starvation; the deportations; being deported with his family to Auschwitz in August 1944; the murder of his family except for himself and his three brothers because they were chosen for work; conditions in the camp, including the meager food and beatings; being sent after a week to Germany to do forced labor as a metalworker in camp Braunschweig; working in a village in a small factory that was making parts for trucks; being marched to the main camp; his brother Myer’s death from being forced to drink overly salted soup; being transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp; being sent to camp Wöbbelin, where they were liberated by American troops; recuperating in a German house with his brothers for many weeks; staying in a German town in the British zone for five years; immigrating to the United States in 1950; his life in the US; living in New York, NY and Phoenix, AZ; and his thoughts on Germans and Poles.

    Oral history interview with Adele Goldberg

    Oral history interview with Adele Goldberg

    Oral History

    Adele Goldberg, born in July 1921, discusses her childhood experiences; life in Lódz, Poland; her father’s diabetes; her father going into a diabetic coma and dying on December 31, 1939; life in the Lódz ghetto; being forced to work in German factory in Lódz; being deported with her mother to Auschwitz in 1944; the train journey with her mother; being separated from her mother when they arrived at the camp; working in a munitions factory; being sent to work in numerous camps; liberation; finding her brother in Italy; getting married; visiting Israel; and her immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Hyman Goldberg

    Oral history interview with Hyman Goldberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irving Goldstein

    Oral history interview with Irving Goldstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Handler

    Oral history interview with Helen Handler

    Oral History

    Helen Handler discusses her childhood experiences in Hungary; life in the ghetto; being deported to Auschwitz; the train journey and arriving at the camp; being sent to Stutthof concentration camp; seeing numerous dead bodies in the camp; being sent on a forced march; being liberated by Russian soldiers; recuperating in a Polish hospital and then a hospital in Budapest, Hungary; going to Prague, Czech Republic and then France; having tuberculosis; going to tuberculosis hospitals in France and Switzerland; her four-year recovery from bone tuberculosis; receiving assistance from various Jewish organizations; immigrating to Canada; getting married; her son; getting divorced from her husband; immigrating to the United States; and giving talks about her experiences during the war.

    Oral history interview with Sam Hilton

    Oral history interview with Sam Hilton

    Oral History

    Sam Hilton, born on September 23, 1929 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his childhood experiences; his mother’s death when he was 5 years old; his father’s remarriage; the bombardment of Warsaw and the German occupation; being forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto; conditions in the ghetto; the birth of his sister in 1942; deportations from the ghetto; the song in the ghetto about Treblinka; hiding in a basement bunker during one round up; the loss of his stepmother and sister; the ghetto uprising in 1943; being deported to Majdanek with his father; the selection process and lying about his age (he claimed to be 16 when he was only 12); being in Majdanek for three weeks; being sent to Buchenwald in June 1944; being sent to a work camp in November 1944; the liquidation of the camp in March 1945; being sent on a march; going to Theresienstadt; liberation; going to Prague, Czech Republic; going to Rotterdam, Netherlands and then Windermere, England to recuperate; going to Los Angeles, CA; and studying accounting at UCLA.

    Oral history interview with Rose Jaloviec

    Oral history interview with Rose Jaloviec

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pauline Killough

    Oral history interview with Pauline Killough

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Klinger

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Klinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Koenig

    Oral history interview with Anna Koenig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Berga Lechowitz

    Oral history interview with Berga Lechowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Judith Lederman

    Oral history interview with Judith Lederman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Lederman

    Oral history interview with Leon Lederman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Stephen Lerman

    Oral history interview with Stephen Lerman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lena Levine

    Oral history interview with Lena Levine

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sarah Marwick

    Oral history interview with Sarah Marwick

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marion Migdal

    Oral history interview with Marion Migdal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abe Morgenstern

    Oral history interview with Abe Morgenstern

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Nelson

    Oral history interview with Leon Nelson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mollie Nelson

    Oral history interview with Mollie Nelson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Carl Ofisher

    Oral history interview with Carl Ofisher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jacques Rajchgod

    Oral history interview with Jacques Rajchgod

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hy Roitman

    Oral history interview with Hy Roitman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Robert Ronay

    Oral history interview with Robert Ronay

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Esther Rosen

    Oral history interview with Esther Rosen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Samuel Rosen

    Oral history interview with Samuel Rosen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with George Schiffman

    Oral history interview with George Schiffman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Wella Schiffman

    Oral history interview with Wella Schiffman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fanny Schlomowitz

    Oral history interview with Fanny Schlomowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Samuel Soldinger

    Oral history interview with Samuel Soldinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Sontag

    Oral history interview with Henry Sontag

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Spitz

    Oral history interview with Anna Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Arthur Spitz

    Oral history interview with Arthur Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Harry Spitz

    Oral history interview with Harry Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Heddy Spitz

    Oral history interview with Heddy Spitz

    Oral History

    Heddy Spitz, born in 1920 in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (Mukacheve, Ukraine), describes her family’s business running a grocery, a dance hall, and a restaurant; being driven out of their homes with 30,000 other Jews to a ghetto area for three weeks in May 1943; being sent to Auschwitz, where her mother and two of her sisters were immediately gassed; marching with her sisters to the East where they were able to separate themselves from Nazi marchers by hiding in a barn; being saved by Russian workers who allowed them to stay in their homes and because they had no numbers on their arms and could speak Russian; working in the fields until the Russians liberated them; registering in Germany to go to the United States after the war; opening a business in Phoenix, AZ; and having four children.

    Oral history interview with Agnes Tennenbaum

    Oral history interview with Agnes Tennenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Larry Weidenbaum

    Oral history interview with Larry Weidenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Magda Willinger

    Oral history interview with Magda Willinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Al Wulc

    Oral history interview with Al Wulc

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bertha Wulc

    Oral history interview with Bertha Wulc

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Blanch Robin

    Oral history interview with Blanch Robin

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gertie Blau

    Oral history interview with Gertie Blau

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lillian Feigen

    Oral history interview with Lillian Feigen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nancy Fordonski

    Oral history interview with Nancy Fordonski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gisella Fry

    Oral history interview with Gisella Fry

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Shirley Lebovitz

    Oral history interview with Shirley Lebovitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marion Katzman

    Oral history interview with Marion Katzman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Radasky

    Oral history interview with Frieda Radasky

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Solomon Radasky

    Oral history interview with Solomon Radasky

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Maria Segal

    Oral history interview with Maria Segal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Silver

    Oral history interview with David Silver

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leo Smilovic

    Oral history interview with Leo Smilovic

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Risa Stillman

    Oral history interview with Risa Stillman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Adele Weisman

    Oral history interview with Adele Weisman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paul Weisman

    Oral history interview with Paul Weisman

    Oral History

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