Oral history interview with Regina Cohen

Oral history interview with Hannah Fisk

Oral History

Hannah Fisk (née Hanka Monczyk), born on June 5, 1924 in Częstochowa, Poland, discusses her childhood; her six brothers and four sisters; the death of her mother when Hannah was two years old; her father and stepmother; her family’s religious life; antisemitism; participating in the Yiddish theater; traveling to Oświęcim to attend her sister’s wedding and staying in nearby Chorzów with her other sister for the rest of the summer; the German invasion and being prevented from returning home; being sent with her sister to the Sosnowiec ghetto; being sent to Gabersdorf, a female labor camp, where she stayed for the duration of the war; life in the camp; the liberation of the camp by Russian troops; living in Waldenburg (possibly Wałbrzych, Poland), where she met her future husband; settling in Stoffen, Germany (now in Pürgen, Germany) and having their first son; moving to the United States to be with her two surviving brothers; her experiences with antisemitism in Detroit, MI; and her views on faith.

Oral history interview with Nancy Fordonski

Oral History

Nancy Fordonski, born in Złoczew, Poland, describes her family and childhood; the importance of Shabbos in her house; the Jewish community in Złoczew; her secular and religious educations; relations between Jews and non-Jews; the Nazi invasion of Poland; fleeing with her mother, father, and several siblings to the nearby town of Zdunska Wola, where Nancy's two older sisters lived; staying in Zdunska Wola for a brief time before going with one sister and a brother to stay with their grandmother in Szadek, Poland; returning with her family to Zdunska Wola, where they remained in the ghetto until 1942; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 and being sent with two sisters to the Łódź Ghetto while many of her other family members were deported and killed; the liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto and being sent with her sisters to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being sent to Stutthof, where her older sister perished, and then to Dresden, Germany; the bombings of Dresden and being sent with her sister on a forced march to Theresienstadt; escaping from the march and hiding on a farm near Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) where they were liberated by the American Army; returning to Poland; immigrating to the United States; how only a sister and a brother survived the war out of her nine siblings; talking about her experiences; her thoughts on her survival; and the physical and mental reminders of the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Manya Feldman

Oral History

Manya Auster Feldman, born in 1923 in Dombrovitsa, Poland, discusses her large family (numbering close to 200); being raised orthodox; the outbreak of the war in 1939; the Soviet Union occuping Dombrovitsa; the German occupation beginning in 1941; the anti-Jewish measures put in place; the liquidation of the Dombrovitsa ghetto in August 1942; escaping into the forest with her father, brother, and eldest sister; the deportation of her mother and her two sisters to the nearby town of Sarny, where they were murdered; joining the Kovpak partisan movement along with her family; being separated from her father and siblings; spending the remainder of the war hiding in several small villages in the region and serving in different partisan units; the death of her father and siblings in combat; the end of the war; being placed in a displaced persons camp in Berlin, Germany; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Charlotte Firestone

Oral History

Charlotte Firestone (née Chari Schunfeld), born in 1913 in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (now Mukacheve, Ukraine), discusses her experiences in Czechoslovakia and Poland before, during, and after the war; her family life before the war; the German occupation of Munkacs in 1944; being rounded up with other Jews and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her mother and son were gassed upon arrival; being transferred with her sister to Stutthof; being relocated with her sister to Praust, a sub-camp of Stutthof; being made a Stubälteste (an aid to the barrack commander), serving as a senior inmate in charge of the barrack; their work building an airport at the camp; spending six months in Praust before being evacuated; escaping from the march and evading capture by posing as Hungarian nurses; going to Denmark; reuniting with her husband; having more children; living in Paris, France; immigrating to the United States; and becoming a US citizen in 1955.

Oral history interview with Joshua Fishman

Oral History

Joshua Fishman, born August 18, 1921 in Dombrowitza, Poland (now Dubrovytsia, Ukraine), describes his family and their religious practices; life before the war; the relations between Jews and non-Jews; the outbreak of war in September 1939; life in the ghetto in Dombrowitza; being placed on a transport to the camps with his family but escaping; hiding in the forest with his family; how most of his family was killed while in hiding but Joshua and his mother survived by following a group of partisans; being drafted into the Russian army towards the end of the war; deserting twice; being arrested for desertion and serving time in a Russian prison; the end of the war; immigrating with his mother to the United States; adjusting to life in the US; meeting his future wife; and how the his experiences still affect his life.

Oral history interview with Ann Eisenberg

Oral History

Ann Eisenberg (née Carla Subble), born in Slatinske Doly, Czechoslovakia (now Solotvyno, Ukraine), describes moving when she was a child with her family to Sighet, Romania; the Hungarian annexation of Sighet; her father and brothers being conscripted by Hungarian authorities and sent away for forced labor; being placed with her sisters and mother in the ghetto in Sighet in 1944; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where only she and one sister survived; being transferred to the forced labor camp Gelsenkirchen and then to Sömmerda; being liberated near Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1945; being placed in a displaced persons camp near Linz, Austria; returning to Sighet; immigrating to the United States; and her life in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Isaac Engel

Oral History

Issac Engel, born circa 1921 in Zwolén, Poland, describes life before the war; his family’s hardware business; his family; his family’s religious observations; relations between Jews and non-Jews; the Jewish community; antisemitism; the beginning of the war in 1939; hiding with his family from the Germans; the separation of his family; moving between local villages; his family leaving hiding in 1942 and going to the town of Ciepielów; the resistance movement outside Zwolén; the rounded-up of his family by the Germans and being deported to Treblinka; being sent to Skarzysko-Kamienna as a forced laborer for the Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft (HASAG); the conditions and forced labor he endured in Gross-Rosen, Nordhausen, Dora, and Bergen-Belsen; being liberated and living in a displaced persons camp in Celle; the fate of his family; immigrating to the United States; and talking about his Holocaust experiences.

Oral history interview with Eugene Feldman

Oral History

Eugene Feldman, born in the late 1920s in Glinka, Poland (now Hlinka, Belarus), describes his family; his education; his family’s religious observations; relations between Jews and non-Jews; the Jewish community; antisemitism; living in the Soviet zone of occupation from 1939 to 1941; the German invasion of the Soviet Union; being sent with his family to the nearby ghetto in Stolin, Belarus; hiding with his family during an Aktion; escaping from the ghetto and returning to Glinka; leaving the village and hiding in the countryside; following a band of partisans through White Russia (Belarus); going to Łódź, Poland after the war and then to a displaced persons camp in Freimann (Munich, Germany); immigrating to the United States; life in Detroit, MI and attending high school; and speaking about his Holocaust experiences.

Oral history interview with Lilla Denes

Oral History

Lilla Denes (née Seidner), born in Jászárokszállás, Hungary, describes the antisemitism in her hometown; her parents and siblings; her education; moving to Budapest, Hungary in 1940 with her husband; her husband’s deportation to labor camps several times between 1940 and the end of the war; the German occupation of Budapest in 1944; her two small children, Judy and George; using false papers, assuming the identity of an unwed mother, and being treated as such by the people around her; being in Budapest when the Soviet Army liberated the city; her husband’s return after liberation; using false papers again to flee Hungary after the war; and settling in Detroit, MI in 1955.

Oral history interview with Henry Dorfman

Oral History

Henry Dorfman, born in Glowaczow, Poland in 1922, describes being separated from his mother and siblings and placed on a transport to the Treblinka death camp; escaping the train with his father; the death of his mother and siblings en route to, or immediately upon arrival at Treblinka; hiding with his father in a barn and being given assistance by one of the workers employed by the Volksdeutsche aristocrat; serving in a partisan unit until the area was liberated by the Soviet Army in 1944; remaining in Europe for several years following the end of the war; helping his father establish two businesses in Łódź, Poland and establishing his own in Germany; moving to the United States with his wife, Mala, whom he met in Poland after the war; living in Topeka, KS; and talking about his experiences. [Note that the recording begins in the middle of the interview. See http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/dorfman/ for the full interview.]

Oral history interview with Luba Elbaum

Oral History

Luba Elbaum (née Lox), born on January 10, 1923 in Lublin, Poland, describes her family; her secular and Jewish education; Jewish life; antisemitism; the beginning of the war and life under the German occupation; doing forced labor; working on a farm for the Germans while her family was taken to the ghettos in Lublin and Belzyce; being deported in 1941 to Budzyn to be a housemaid for the Oberscharführer Felix; being deported a year later to Płaszów for a work detail, then to Auschwitz; being transported in 1944 to Bergen-Belsen, where she was selected along with 300 other girls to be deported to Aschersleben, Germany to work; being forced on a six-week death march to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia; being liberated on May 8, 1945; immigrating to the United States in 1951; and settling in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Simon Cymerath

Oral History

Simon Cymerath describes growing up in a close-knit family in Starowice, Poland; his siblings; his education; experiencing antisemitism as a child; religious observance in his family; the German occupation of Poland; having to register as Jews and wear armbands; being moved with his family into a ghetto; doing forced labor at an ammunition factory; being taken to a factory (Lipowa 7) near Lublin, Poland in 1940; life in the labor camp; an attempted escape from the labor camp; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where his parents and youngest brother perished; being separated from his two other brothers and sent to Auschwitz; life and inmate attitudes in the camp; working as a painter on a Monowitz (Buna) work detail; trading stolen paint for food; the evacuation of the camp and being sent on a death march with other prisoners; being liberated by American troops; working for several years with the American Army; reuniting with his only surviving brother; immigrating to the United States in 1950; and his thoughts on his survival and sharing his story.

Oral history interview with Bert Dan

Oral History

Bert Dan, born in Cluj, Romania January 9, 1916, describes attending school in Romania; serving as a soldier in the Romanian army at the outbreak of World War II; the Hungarian occupation of Romania; being arrested and imprisoned for a year; being released and drafted into various labor camps and work details throughout Eastern Europe; being sent on a forced march back to Hungary and escaping with a group of other prisoners; being found by Russian troops; being freed and eventually returning to Cluj; working with Jewish committees helping to locate and assist Hungarian and Romanian Jews returning to their homes from Poland; setting up a committee office in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), where he was reunited with his fiancée; getting married after the end of the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

Oral history interview with Clara Dan

Oral History

Clara Dan, born in Tîrgu-Mures, Romania on July 19, 1921, describes being the youngest of three siblings; her education; her family’s religious observations; relations between Jews and non-Jews; how in the spring of 1944, Clara, her sister and her parents were rounded up and placed in a makeshift ghetto in Koloszvar, Hungary (Cluj-Napoca, Romania); being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau; surviving the selection with her sister; being sent with her sister to work in a bullet factory in Hundsfeld; the evacuation of inmates when the Russians came close to the area; being marched to Gross-Rosen and then sent to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British Army; being placed with her sister in a displaced persons camp in Celle, Germany, where they were reunited with their brother; returning to Hungary; living in Munich, Germany; immigrating to the United States in 1949; her thoughts on her survival; and her life in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Franka Charlupski

Oral History

Franka Charlupski (née Weintraub), born in 1920 in Łódź, Poland, describes growing up in a middle-class Hasidic family; being the oldest child; attending public school; the German invasion of Poland; being moved with her family to the Łódź Ghetto, where they did forced labor; getting married in 1942; conditions in the ghetto; the deportation of her family to Auschwitz in August 1944; the journey to the camp in cattle cars; being sent with her sister were sent to a camp outside Bremen, Germany; cleaning up houses after bombings; the Kapos; German locals leaving hidden food for the inmates; surviving a bombing; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; the conditions in Bergen-Belsen; being forced to drag dead bodies into mass graves; stealing and punishments in the camps; being liberated in April 1945; her current religious practices; meeting and marrying her second husband; moving to the United States in 1949; settling in Detroit, MI; and sharing her Holocaust story with her family.

Oral history interview with Eva Cigler

Oral History

Eva Cigler, born in 1926 in Beregszász, Czechoslovakia (Berehove, Ukraine), describes her childhood; the Jewish community in Beregszász; the Hungarian annexation of the area; her family (her mother, father, four sisters, and one brother) experiencing antisemitism from the Hungarians; the curfew for Jews; working at a brick factory; having to wear yellow arm bands; the Jewish council in Beregszász; destruction to the synagogue; life in the ghetto; being deported with her family to Auschwitz in 1944; the murder of her mother, father, brother, and one sister; being beaten; conditions in the barracks; being transferred to Brzezinka in Birkenau; the women Kapos; jealousy amongst the inmates when individuals got better jobs or more food; their work sorting clothes; the smells of Birkenau; attempted escapes from the camp; working in the area next to the gas chambers; never warning the people entering the gas chambers because of the presence of the guards; the children's barrack; her work in the forest; emptying the ashes from the crematorium and finding large human bones; working in a subcamp approximately 30 miles from Birkenau; being taken to Bergen-Belsen; being beaten with her sister for stealing beets; contracting typhus; religious observances in the camps; being liberated and the shooting of a Kapo during liberation; spending some time in a displaced persons camp in Celle, Germany; returning to Beregszász for a brief time; going to Prague, Czech Republic; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Larry Brenner

Oral History

Larry Brenner, born in Vásárosnamény, Hungary in 1924, describes his childhood; his three brothers and one sister; his family’s background; his experiences with antisemitism; the outbreak of the war; his father being sent to a forced labor camp; going to Budapest, Hungary to help an aunt run her business; being deported in 1944 to a forced labor camp in Jászberény; sneaking away from the camp for a couple hours and visiting his aunts; being sent to several forced labor camps; being marched out of the camp through Sopron, Hungary to Fertorákos, where they dug tank traps and a bunker system; being marched north and then sent by train to Mauthausen; life in the camp; being marched to Gunskirchen; being liberated; spending the next several years trying to find family members and dodging the Hungarian Army draft; immigrating to the United States in 1948; working for the American Jewish Distribution Committee; visiting Hungary and Mauthausen many years after immigrating to the US; and sharing his experiences with his children.

Oral history interview with David Burdowski

Oral History

David Burdowski, born in Kłodawa, Poland on September 27, 1924, describes his childhood; the pogroms in Kłodawa; the invasion of Poland; the deportation of his immediate family members; being the youngest child and only survivor of his family; being taken to a forced labor camp called Buchwerder Forst to work on the Autobahn; being taken to work in a paper factory in Germany for a year and a half; being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943; being sent to Jaworzno, where he worked in a coal mine; the conditions in Jaworzno; being marched to Blechhammer in early 1945 and suffering from frostbite; being taken to Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Dachau; being liberated by American forces on a train outside of Dachau in Staltach, Germany; living in the Feldafing displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife; moving to the United States in 1949; living in Flint, MI for 16 years; his three daughters; moving to Southfield, MI and opening a barber shop; testifying against an SS Guard; still experiencing nightmares; his feelings about Poles and Germans; his wife’s experiences during the war; and the importance of continuing to discuss the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Morris Tuchendler Chandler

Oral History

Maurice Chandler (né Moszek Tuchendler), born in 1926 in Nasielsk, Poland, discusses his life before the war; not having any non-Jewish friends; his parents, who owned a textile store; the German invasion, after which Maurice and his older brother escaped across the Bug River and going to Bialystok, Poland, where they lived with a cousin until his brother became homesick; returning his brother to his parents, who were in the Warsaw ghetto, and becoming trapped in the ghetto as well; escaping the ghetto with his brother and some other young men; their work as farm hands; his brother’s death from typhus; adopting a Polish identity and continuing his work on Polish farms for the remainder of the war; his reflections on what kept him going during the war; and his thoughts on nuclear holocaust.

Oral history interview with Samuel Biegun

Oral History

Samuel Biegun, born on December 25, 1932 in Pinsk, Poland, describes his early life in Pinsk; experiencing antisemitism; the Russian occupation of Pinsk and being under house arrest with his family; being deported with his family to Siberia; the journey to Siberia; living in a village called Airtau in Kazakhstan (possibly Ayyrtau in Soltustik Qazaqstan oblysy) for the duration of the war; returning to Poland after the war for a short time before moving to displaced persons camps in Germany; going to Israel; going with his wife to Canada; and settling in Oak Park, MI.

Oral history interview with Joseph Birnholtz

Oral History

Joseph Birnholtz, born in Częstochowa, Poland, describes his childhood; growing up in a Chasidic community; the beginning of the war; doing forced labor in a factory with his twin sister; working for the Luftwaffe near the Jasna Górna (a monastery in Częstochowa); being forced with his family to live in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto and being separated from his family and forced to work at the HASAG factory near Częstochowa; the guards in the camp; being liberated by the Russians in 1945; joining a kibbutz in Poland; moving to the United States; and becoming a cantor.

Oral history interview with Eva Boros

Oral History

Eva Boros, born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1932, describes her childhood; growing up in a very religious family; the German annexation of the area; her father sending she and her siblings to Budapest, Hungary; being smuggled to Budapest in 1944 but returning to Bratislava after the German invasion of Hungary; being sent in September 1944 to Nitrianska Streda, Slovakia in order to go into hiding; the trauma of hiding; the end of the war; immigrating to Israel; attending Beit Benot Mizrachi, a girls' school in Jerusalem; the Israel-Arab War in 1948; living on several kibbutzes; and immigrating to the United States in 1969.

Oral history interview with Abraham Asner

Oral History

Abraham Asner, born in Nacha, Belarus in 1916, describes the beginning of the war; fleeing with his brothers to Alovė, Lithuania; going to Varėna, Lithuania; going to Eišiškės, Lithuania, where there was a Judenrat (Jewish council); returning to Nacha; being sent with his brothers to the Radun ghetto as part of a labor force; surviving the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 with his brothers; being in Stayes in 1943; joining a partisan organization based in the nearby forest, Natsher Pustshe; their partisan activities and missions, including sabotaging railroad tracks; meeting his wife during a mission to Mijantsi; going to the Naliboki Forest; going close to a place on the Neman River and hear about the Bielski group; the death of his youngest brother; being liberated in 1945; living in Poland then in Berlin, Germany after the war; and immigrating to Canada with his wife.

Oral history interview with Peri Berki

Oral History

Piroska "Peri" Berki, born July 2, 1900 in Hungary, describes her childhood; her family’s background in Hungary; the low-level of antisemitism when she was growing up; getting married and living on a farm in Kőkútpuszta (part of Sirok, Hungary); the Anschluss and restrictions placed on Jews; the deportation of her husband to a labor camp; having to wear a star; the confiscation of their farmland; living in the ghetto with her son and sister; living at one point with 39 other people in a one-bedroom apartment; how with the help of her husband and a Gentile innkeeper, they obtained false papers, moved to the Hungarian countryside (Kiskunlacháza), and assumed Gentile identities; avoiding detection and receiving help from several strangers throughout the war; reuniting with the rest of her family after the war; obtaining false papers to leave Hungary; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Miriam Biegun

Oral History

Miriam Biegun (née Rozwaski), born circa 1937 in Zdzieciol, Poland (Dziatlava, Belarus), describes her family’s background; growing up Orthodox; the Russian occupation; the German occupation beginning in 1941; the massacre of 120 well-educated people, including her father and uncle; the burial of the victims in two large graves; the establishment of a ghetto and the conditions there; fleeing with her family from the ghetto and going to the Lipiczanska forest; joining the Lipiczanska Puszcza resistance when she was a young child; living in the forest for three years; returning with her siblings to Zhetl (the Yiddish name for Dziatlava) in 1944 and finding it in ruins; moving after a few months to Łódź, Poland, where her siblings went to a kibbutz; going to Berlin, Germany in 1947; staying with her aunts and uncles in Ziegenhain and Jäger-Kaserne before ultimately travelling to Israel with an aunt, uncle, and cousin; meeting her future husband on the ship; getting married in Israel; living in Kfar Saba; going to Canada and living in Winnipeg and Windsor; and settling down in Oak Park, MI around 1970.

Oral history interview with Eva Ackerman

Oral History

Eva Ackermann, born in Budapest, Hungary in 1926, describes growing up as an only child; being part of a large extended family, most of whom perished in the war; her parents’ divorce when she was young; being raised by her mother; having a reasonably normal childhood, even after the war began; how after the German annexation of Hungary in 1944, Eva was separated from her mother and sent to Zurndorf, Austria; being transported to a labor camp in Landsberg, Germany, where she was later liberated; her father’s death in an air raid shortly before the end of the war; and her mother’s death in Bergen-Belsen.

Oral history interview with Olga Adler

Oral History

Olga Adler, born in Beregszász, Czechoslovakia (now Berehove, Ukraine), describes her family; her education; growing up assimilated and identifying more as Hungarian than Jewish; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938; the restrictions placed on Jews; her brother and future husband being sent to do forced labor; going to Budapest, Hungary and working as a clothing model; the German occupation and the deportations from Budapest; the mass murder of Jews at the Danube River; the bombings in Budapest; being sent to a camp; almost being shot; life in the camps; being sent back to the Budapest ghetto as a nurse; life in the ghetto; her father, mother, brother, and sister perishing in camps; liberation and her return to her hometown; getting married; and going to the United States when the Russians took over their town.

Oral history interview with Irving Altus

Oral History

Irving Altus, born August 15, 1920, in Czekanów, Poland, describes being the middle child in a family consisting of five children, his mother, and father, all of whom perished in the Holocaust; working as a paver; the Jewish community in Czekanów; the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and life during the occupation; being arrested and sent to various labor camps throughout Europe, including one in Königsberg, Germany; being transferred in 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau and assigned to an external Labor Kommando approximately 50 miles from the main camp; being forced to march westward towards Germany in 1945; arriving in Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by the Soviets after one day; returning briefly to his hometown; relocating to Munich, Germany; immigrating to the United States in 1949 with his wife and son; living in Albany, NY; and his family in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Eugene Arden

Oral History

Eugene Arden was a corporal during World War II. Arden's military government unit was attached to the United States 7th Army as it travelled into Germany. The unit was responsible for closing down Nazi labor camps and for establishing displaced persons camps. The unit eventually helped liberate Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau. After the war, Eugene and his unit spent the post-war period in Heidelberg, Germany.

Oral history interview with Natalie Zamczyk

Oral History

Natalie Zamczyk (née Haber), born in 1911 in Krakow, Poland, describes her early life in Krakow; her sister (Sela) and her brother (Max); attending business school for three years after high school; working as a German-language stenographer; getting married; having a son in December 1933; the German occupation of Poland; putting their business under the name of a non-Jew friend; the formation of the ghetto; moving outside the city to avoid going to the ghetto; being forced to live in the ghetto in 1941; the closing of the ghetto and having to give up their fur coats; the deportation of her parents; getting false papers that said they were Christians; moving to Międzyrzec Podlaski, Poland in 1942; being taken by a work colleague to witness the roundup and deportation of Jews and watching as women and children were shot; moving to a small town outside Warsaw, Poland; the arrest of her husband; getting a job in Warsaw; receiving help from a non-Jewish family (the Kazinski family); keeping her son at home and bringing him books from the library in order to continue his education; the Warsaw Uprising in 1944; sewing diamonds into her under clothes and selling one of the diamonds in Czestochowa; leaving her son with Mr. Kazinski; getting a job in Tomaszow, Poland in December 1944; returning to Warsaw after the Russians liberated Tomaszow; reuniting with her son; immigrating with her son to Canada and then the United States; and setting in Farmington Hills, MI.

Oral history interview with Zoltan Rubin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helen Solarz

Oral History

Oral history interview with William Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cyla Wiener

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Wimmer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nathan Weiselman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alex Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Emerick Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zwi Steiger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sally Tuchklaper

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jack Weinberger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Shaindel Shiffman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joseph Slaim

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mark J. Solent

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ina Silbergleit

Oral History

Oral history interview with Samuel Silver

Oral History

Oral history interview with Regina Silver

Oral History

Oral history interview with Felicia Shloss

Oral History

Felicia Shloss (née Taif), born in Piotrkow, Poland, discusses her family’s move to Łódź, Poland when she was a teenager; the beginning of the war; being forced with her family to live in the ghetto; the deaths of her parents and brother in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto; being taken with her remaining two siblings to Auschwitz; being taken with one of her sister to Bergen-Belsen and then Salzwedel, where they worked in an ammunition factory; being liberated in Salzwedel; her life after the war; getting married; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Sam Seltzer

Oral History

Sam Seltzer, born in Modzurów, Poland, discusses his family; his mother, father, and five siblings; the beginning of the war; his mother and siblings unsuccessfully attempting to flee east to the Russian border; his family staying with Sam's older sister in the small town of Zawiercie, Poland; returning to Modzurów, until he was rounded-up by the Germans; being sent to several forced labor camps, including Sosnowiec, Klettendorf, Geppersdorf, Brande, Gräditz, Faulbrück and Annaberg; being sent in 1944 to Auschwitz; being in Birkenau for several weeks; volunteering to work as a mechanic and being sent to a labor Kommando attached to Buchenwald; being liberated in Buchenwald in April 1945; being hospitalized in Feldafing, Germany, where he was reunited with his brother; and immigrating with his brother to the United States.

Oral history interview with Perry Shulman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edel Sandel

Oral History

Edel Sandel, born in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), discusses the beginning of the war; pretending to have tuberculosis in order to avoid being sent to do forced labor; going into hiding in her home; her family being forced to leave Medzilaborce; their move to Dobsina, Slovakia, where they stayed until the Germans approached; her family’s decision to hide in the forests; settling in a bunker outside of Brdarka, Slovakia, where they lived until liberation; starting a family after the war; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Marcel Sandel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alexander Schleifer

Oral History

Alexander Schleifer, born in Kosice, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), discusses growing up in Sobrance (now in Slovakia), where his father owned a bus concession; his family’s forced move in 1944 to Uzhhorod, Ukraine, where they stayed for a month until they were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being separated with his father from the rest of his family; being transported with his father to a labor camp in Longre, France; being moved to Kochendorf and then to Dachau, where his father died; being sent in early April 1945 to a town near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where he was liberated; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

Oral history interview with Sigmund Rubin

Oral History

Sigmund Rubin, born in Łódź, Poland, discusses the German invasion of Poland; fleeing to Warsaw, Poland with his family; being driven out of Warsaw by heavy bombing and returning to Łódź; the separation of himself and his brother from their family during a selection; escaping the transport with his brother; being separated from his brother; never discovering the whereabouts of any of his family members; spending the remainder of the war in hiding in various locations throughout Poland; living with his wife in Germany after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

Oral history interview with Rubin Greenspan and Lola Greenspan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Aaron Salzburg

Oral History

Aaron Salzburg, born on April 2, 1919 in Opatów, Poland, discusses life in Pre-War Poland and his experiences in many different ghettos, labor camps, and concentration camps throughout Poland and Germany during the World War II; Opatów becoming a ghetto after the German occupation of Poland; being sent in 1939 to the Sandomierz ghetto, where he eventually escaped and ended up in a camp called Kocina; falling ill with typhus; fully recovering and being selected to go to Skarżysko and then Częstochowa; working for HASAG; being moved to Buchenwald, where he stayed in Dora; being moved to Bergen-Belsen; and the liberation of the camp by the British Army on April 15, 1945.

Oral history interview with Eric Rosenon

Oral History

Eric Rosenow, born in Berlin, Germany, discusses life before the war; being an actor in theater and cinema; the banning of Jewish people from performing for Gentiles; starting an orchestra and performing for other Jews; moving with his brother in 1939 to Shanghai, China, and his parents and other brother followed shortly afterward; moving with his family into the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai, where Eric made a living performing in local night clubs; getting married after the war; immigrating with his family to the United States; and settling in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Simon Rosenweig

Oral History

Oral history interview with Berek Rothenberg

Oral History

Berek Rothenberg, born on January 3, 1921 in Sandomierz, Poland, discusses his childhood; belonging to several Zionist organizations including the Betar, Macabbi, and Akiva; the German invasion of Poland; being taken by the Germans for forced labor on the railroads; being releases and sent by the Judenrat (Jewish council) to work on a road crew; being sent in 1942 to work at the ammunition factory in Skarzysko; being transferred in 1944 to Buchenwald and assigned to work at Schlieben, a subcamp, where the Panzerfaust was being manufactured; being transferred to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated on May 8, 1945; traveling after liberation in Italy and waiting for a chance to move to Palestine; and his immigration in 1949 to the United States to be with his extended family.

Oral history interview with Rubin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Biema Roemerfeld

Oral History

Blema Miller Romerfeld was born in Plonsk, Poland.

Oral history interview with Alice Rosen

Oral History

Alice Lang Rosen, born in 1934 in Lambsheim, Germany, discusses her family’s move to Mannheim, Germany to open a textile store; their experiences during Kristallnacht, including the arrest and imprisonment of her father in Dachau for a short time; her father’s return home; the Gestapo raiding their home in 1940 and taking them on trucks to Gurs, a concentration camp in France; spending a year in Gurs; her family’s relocation to camp Rivesaltes; her father putting her in the care of the a children's aid society to save her; being sent to stay in a convent in the South of France, before being put into two foster homes with French families; the end of the war; staying in a Jewish children's home outside of Paris before her father found her; reuniting with her father in Heidelberg, Germany; her father’s remarriage; and immigrating with her family to the United States in 1949.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Rosenberg

Oral History

Elizabeth Rosenberg (née Kaufmann), born [on November 27, 1922] in Cologne, Germany, discusses growing up in Cologne; her experiences during WWII; moving to Holland in 1938 because of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany; the German invasion of Holland in 1940; hiding in an attic for three years; her immigration to the United States in 1946; and her marriage to Harry Rosenberg.

Oral history interview with Saul Raimi

Oral History

Saul Raimi, born in Mława, Poland, discussing being raised in a family of eight; being age 14 when the Germans occupied the town, which was turned into a ghetto; being deported with his family to the Lubartów ghetto; returning to Mława; his smuggling activities between the Mława ghetto and the Warsaw ghetto; being deported in the winter of 1942 to Auschwitz, where he worked as a bricklayer; the evacuation of Auschwitz as the Red Army advanced west in 1945; being forced to march to Buchenwald; being transferred to Flossenbürg, where he was liberated on April 23, 1945; being sent to a displaced persons camp; immigrating to Israel, then Canada, and finally the United States; and the loss of all his family during the Holocaust except for he and his brother.

Oral history interview with Brenda Reiss

Oral History

Brenda Reiss, born in 1923 in Kalisz, Poland, discusses the German occupation of Poland; being sent with her family to the ghetto in Koźminek; being taken with her sister to the Łódź ghetto and then to Auschwitz, where the sisters were separated; being sent to various forced labor camps before being liberated by the Russian Army; getting married; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Selma Rich

Oral History

Selma Rich (née Shulamit Rudnik), on March 15, 1923 in Oshmyany, Poland (now Belarus), discusses the German invasion of Poland; being forced with her family into the ghetto; being separated from her family, who were taken to Vilno (Vilnius, Lithuania), while Selma was moved to Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania); the liquidation of the ghetto; being transported to Stutthof; never seeing her family again; getting married a fellow survivor; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Esther Rose Posner

Oral History

Esther Posner, born on May 11, 1937 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses the German invasion; being forced along with her family to live in the Amsterdam ghetto; their contact with the Dutch underground; being hidden by several families in Enschede and Delden for the duration of the war; and the liberation of the Netherlands by the Allies.

Oral history interview with Esther Praw

Oral History

Esther Praw (née Mandelzys), born in Opatów, Poland, discusses the beginning of the war; fleeing Opatów with friends and staying in Starachowice, Poland; working in an ammunition factory in Starachowice before being transported to Auschwitz; being sent to Bergen-Belsen before finally being liberated by British troops; getting married to her first husband in Germany in 1946; moving with her husband to the United States in 1947; living in New York before settling in Detroit, MI; having two daughters before her husband died; and remarrying another survivor.

Oral history interview with Harry Prow

Oral History

Harry Praw, born in 1929 in Łódź, Poland, discusses growing up in a small apartment in the city with his parents, grandfather, five sisters, and three brothers; the German occupation of the city in September 1939; being deported with his family to the Jaslo ghetto; the separation of his family; being sent to work in various labor camps including Skarżysko, Częstochowa, Buchenwald, and Dora; being liberated by the British Army from Bergen-Belsen in April 1945; being the only person from his family to survive; and immigrating to the United States with his wife and son in 1949.

Oral history interview with Mr. Offman

Oral History

Mr. Offman (né Wolf Zarnowiecki), born in 1920 in Radomsko, Poland, discusses his experiences during WWII.

Oral history interview with Michael Opas

Oral History

Michael Opas, born in 1910 in Łódź, Poland, discusses his youth; learning the furrier trade before operating a shoe business; the beginning of WWII; fleeing with his wife and young son to Warsaw, Poland, where they were imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto; being sent to Majdanek concentration camp; being sent to Budzyn, a forced labor camp where prisoners repaired airplanes; being sent to various camps, including Ostrowiec and Auschwitz-Birkenau; being sent to Buchenwald, where he was liberated by the US Army; being grossly underweight at liberation; recuperating for two months in a makeshift hospital in Buchenwald until he regained some weight and his health; living in the Landsberg displaced persons camp; moving to the Stuttgart DP camp, where he re-married and started a family; and immigrating with his wife and one-year-old daughter to Detroit in 1949.

Oral history interview with Herman Opatowski

Oral History

Herman Opatowski, born in Kielce, Poland, discusses the German invasion of Poland in 1939; being placed in a ghetto in Kielce with his mother, father, and eight siblings; doing forced labor in the ghetto; being deported east with his family; being separated from his family before being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he remained until the camp was liquidated in early 1945; being sent on a forced march west, and escaping from the column; and going east and eventually encountering Soviet soldiers.

Oral history interview with Nathan Nothman

Oral History

Nathan Nothman, born on July 15, 1925 in Krakow, Poland, discusses the German invasion of Poland; being forced along with his parents, three brothers, and sister to move into the Krakow-Plaszow ghetto; working with his father for the Nazis as plumbers and being allowed to leave the ghetto for work; the deportation of his father to Auschwitz, where he was killed; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943; being sent to the Płaszów concentration camp; being sent to Gross-Rosen in 1944; being assigned to work detail on the Steinburg in both camps; being sent to Flossenburg to work on the railroads in 1945; escaping with his friends during a death march; walking to Laufen, Germany and being rescued by the US Army; staying in the Laufen displaced persons camp; transferring to the Ainring DP camp, where he met and married his wife; reuniting with his sister and mother after the war; and immigrating with his family to the United States in 1950.

Oral history interview with Sonia Nothman

Oral History

Sonia Nothman, born in 1922 in Chmielnik, Poland, discusses the beginning of WWII, at which time she was visiting family in Łódź, Poland; returning to Chmielnik, but due to her Polish language skills, was able to move between Chmielnik and Łódź; the creation of a ghetto in 1941 in Chmilenik; being forced with her family to in the ghetto; the deportation in 1942 of her brother and one sister to the Skarzysko-Kamienna forced labor camp; being sent to Czestochowa, Poland in 1944; being sent west into Germany proper, where she and her sister were marched to several labor camps, including Bergen-Belsen, Burgau, Dachau, and Allach; and being liberated by the US Army in 1945.

Oral history interview with Nathan Offen

Oral History

Nathan Offen discusses living in Kraków, Poland; the German invasion in 1939; being recruited along with his brothers Sam and Bernie and their father by the Germans as forced laborers; being sent to a nearby rock quarry to work; his mother and sister who were rounded up and deported; being sent with his brothers and father to camp Płaszów and then to Gusen I, a sub-camp of Mauthausen; being separated from his father and Bernie in Gusen I and never seeing his father again; being liberated with Sam in 1945 by the US Army; learning of a Polish unit in the British Army based in Italy and decided to join; living in a displaced persons camp in Italy; reuniting with his brother Bernie; moving to England with his brothers; and immigrating with his brothers to the United States in 1951.

Oral history interview with John Morris

Oral History

Oral history interview with Abraham Mondry

Oral History

Abraham Mondry, born in Mlawa, Poland, discusses the beginning of the war; the deportation of his family to the Warsaw ghetto; working as a smuggler on the black market before, during, and after the war; spending three years at Auschwitz, where he served as a nurse aid to Dr. Mengele; the evacuation of Auschwitz and being marched to Ebensee, where he was soon liberated by American forces; recovering from health problems; and living in Italy where he continued his black market activities until 1949 when he immigrated to the United States.

Oral history interview with Michael Nosenchuck

Oral History

Michael Nosanchuck, born January 21, 1911 in Rubel, Belarus, discusses his experiences during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Mermelstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lucy Merritt

Oral History

Lucy Glaser Merritt, born in 1920 in Vienna, Austria, discusses the German annexation (Anschluss) of Austria in 1938, after which Lucy and her family experienced increased persecution by both Austrian and German National Socialists; the arrest of her father on Kristallnacht 1938 and his release; her family’s decision to leave Austria; leaving Austria to work as a nurse in England; securing the passage of her family from Austria to England; and her family’s immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Sandra Segal and Yanka Miller

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helena Manaster

Oral History

Helena Manaster, born in 1917 in Poland, discusses her siblings, all of whom were adults at the beginning of the war; the German invasion in 1939, and the separation of her family; going with several siblings and her father to Lwów (now L’viv, Ukraine), which was under Soviet control at the time; the German invasion in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Lwów; the deportation of her father and brothers to Belzec, where they died in the gas chambers; being moved with her husband to Lesko, Poland and then on to Zamosc, Poland; her husband’s work as a doctor and the Germans sending them to a labor camp in Radymno, Poland; and escaping the camp and going to Kraków, where they remained in hiding until the end of the war.

Oral history interview with Herman Marczak

Oral History

Herman Marczak, born on January 25, 1920 in Złoczew, Poland, his childhood in Zduńska Wola, Poland; the beginning of the war, at which time Herman and his family were forced into the Zduńska Wola ghetto; working and earning money at a shoe factory for a German boss; being sent with his family in 1942 to Chelmno; his transfer to the Łódż ghetto; being sent to various labor camps, including Skarżysko-Kammiena, where he worked manufacturing ammunition for the Germans; being liberated from a military base outside of Bergen-Belsen on April 25, 1945; staying in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp; obtaining a letter from a doctor in the DP camp allowing him to move to Sweden, where he met his wife and had a daughter; and his family’s immigration to the United States in 1957.

Oral history interview with Simon W. Maroko

Oral History

Dr. Simon Maroko, born in 1923 in Tarnów, Poland, discusses his family’s move shortly after his birth to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia) and then to Amsterdam, Netherlands; his parents’ deportation in 1943 to Westerbork and then, most likely, to Auschwitz-Birkenau; going into hiding on a farm outside of Amsterdam; being liberated in May 1945; immigrating to Israel, where he served in the Israeli Army; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Rene Lichtman

Oral History

Rene Lichtman, born in Paris, France, discusses his parent, who moved to Paris from Poland in the 1930s; his parents hiring Ann Lapage to serve as Rene's guardian in 1937; spending weekdays hidden with the Lapages in a small town outside of Paris and returning home on the weekends; his father joining the French army shortly before the outbreak of the war and his father’s death in May 1940; the occupation of France, after which Rene's mother sent him to stay with the Lapages on a permanent basis while she was in hiding for the remainder of the war; returning to Paris after the war and reuniting with his mother; being introduced to his Jewish heritage; and his memories of the French Jewish community in Paris.

Oral history interview with Edward Linson

Oral History

Edward Linson, born in May 1919 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his childhood; being the second youngest of eight children; studying medicine before the war; the beginning of the war, at which time Edward worked in the Skoda Factory for the Germans; being taken to Poniatowa and later Majdanek; being transferred to Auschwitz; working in Chemical Kommando 98 at Buna-Monowitz; being taken to several concentration camps before being liberated by the Russians; getting married in Germany; and immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Herminia Lusopolus

Oral History

Herminia Lusopolus (née Greenberg), born in 1919 in Bucharest, Romania, discusses her mother, who died when Felina was two and a half years old; her father, who worked in the lumber business until he died at the age of 49; attending a boarding school; living with her grandmother in Chernowitz (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine); finishing high school and attending college; earning a degree in teaching; moving to Oradea to become a teacher; getting engaged to a Jewish lawyer who was sent to the Russian front; the creation of a ghetto in Oradea; being sent to Auschwitz; being transferred to camp Langenbielau-Biewala (a sub-camp of Gross Rosen) near Reichenbach and then camp Parschnitz; being sent to a camp in the Sudetenland, where she worked in a factory making airplane parts; being liberated by the Russians; starting her long journey back home to Oradea, where she found out her fiancé had died on his way home to see her; her job translating Hungarian movies left behind after the war into Romanian; getting married to a Gentile Greek professor and having one daughter; the imprisonment of her husband by the Communists after he told two jokes in his classroom that offended the regime; her husband’s death in 1957, three years after being released for prison; applying for a passport out of Communist Romania after her husband’s death; being granted the passport and moving to Paris, Belgium, and Germany; and immigrating to the United States where she moved in with her aunts in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Freda Magnus

Oral History

Freda Magnus, born in March 1917 in Łódź, Poland, discusses the beginning of the war; being sent with her family to Krakow, Poland; being allowed to return to Łódź, where they lived in the ghetto; her mother’s death in the ghetto; being deported with her family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being sent to work in Ravensbrück and Mülhausen; being liberated in Bergen-Belsen; being sent to Sweden to recover from tuberculosis; and living in Sweden for ten years with her family before moving to the United States.

Oral history interview with Stefa Kuper

Oral History

Stefa Kupfer discusses being 10 years old and living in Sanok, Poland when the war started; the murder of her father in the early days of the occupation; going into hiding with her mother and young sister instead of registering with the occupational government; being hidden in the house of a Polish woman, Mrs. Orlewska; and being aided by other Poles, some of whom knew they were Jews.

Oral history interview with Helen Lang

Oral History

Helen Lang, born in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (now Mukacheve, Ukraine), discusses the Hungarian annexation of the area; going to work in Budapest, Hungary, and supporting her family; visiting her family during Pesach in 1944, at which time the Germans came into the city and deported Helen and her family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; spending a month in Birkenau; being transferred with her sister to Stutthof, where Helen was made a Blockältester; being sent with her sister to Praust, where she was a maid for the SS guards; securing her sister as a Blockältester; the evacuation of the camp as the Russians neared Praust; being sent on a march and escaping with her sister and a friend; posing as Hungarian Gentiles; meeting a group of SS doctors who took them to Denmark to stay for the duration of the war; living in the Lübeck displaced persons camp in Germany; and moving to Prague, Czech Republic to reunite with her family.

Oral history interview with Fred Lessing

Oral History

Alfred Lessing, born in 1936 in the Hague, Netherlands, discusses his three brothers, one of whom died; his family’s move to Delft, Netherlands; his experiences living with other families as a hidden child in the Netherlands during the war; and the last year of the war when he was reunited with his father and brothers.

Oral history interview with Pauline Kleinberg

Oral History

Pauline Kleinberg, born in Pilica, Poland, discusses her childhood; attending school and helping her parents run their dry goods store; the beginning of the war; being forced with her sister to go to the Żarki ghetto, where she contracted dysentery; recovering and escaping with her sister; being captured and taken to the Sosnowiec ghetto; being sent to several labor camps; her sister’s death during a death march; being rescued by the Red Cross; living in the Fohrenwald displaced persons camp, where she was reunited with a younger sister; and her family’s immigration to the United States in 1950.

Oral history interview with Henry Konstam

Oral History

Henry Konstam, born in Łódź, Poland, discusses his five siblings; being sent with his family to the Łódź ghetto in 1940; volunteering to go to a labor camp in Gronow, where he remained for two and a half years; being sent to a labor camp in Posen; being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later to Jaworzno; surviving a march from Jaworzno to Dachau before escaping into the surrounding woods; crawling to a nearby farm for food; being captured and imprisoned in a German jail until the end of the war which occurred a few days later; and being reunited after the war with his only surviving family members, his brother and sister.

Oral history interview with Maximilian Kowler

Oral History

Maximilian Kowler, born in Vienna, Austria, discusses the Anschluss; escaping with his father to Venice, Italy; sneaking over the French border once his mother joined them in Italy; living in Lyon as refugees; being involved with the French Boy Scouts until he joined the French Army; being hospitalized after a bicycle accident; going with his parents went to Switzerland, where they were placed in a refugee camp; moving back to France after the war; getting married; and immigrating with his family to the United States.

Oral history interview with Emery Klein and Bernard Klein

Oral History

The Klein brothers, Bernard and Emery, discuss growing up in Humenné, Slovakia; their immediate family, which included their parents and a younger sister; the German occupation of the area in 1939; the deportation of the Jews in 1941; being saved from deportation until 1944 because their father was an important farming advisor; the deportation of the family to Auschwitz without Bernard, who had become separated; the immediate gassing of Mrs. Klein and her daughter upon their arrival at the camp; Bernard’s reunion with his brother and father at Auschwitz a month later; the transport of the three to Gleiwitz, where Emery and his father worked in a factory while Bernard worked in the camp kitchen; the evacuation of the camp in 1945 as the Russian army advanced into the area; being relocated to camp Blechhammer; the German guards fleeing the camp, abandoning the prisoners; walking with several others a few days later to Humenné; and the family’s move to Israel, Montreal, and eventually to Detroit.

Oral history interview with Freida Klein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Kandal

Oral History

Fred Kandal, born on May 25, 1931 in Berezne, Ukraine, discusses the German invasion of Ukraine; being relocated with his family to a ghetto; being sent to a work camp; escaping the work camp with his family and hiding in the forest; hiding in the forest with his family for the duration of the war; eventually joining a group of Russian partisans; liberation; living in several displaced persons camps in Austria and Italy; and eventually immigrating with his family to the United States.

Oral history interview with Ilya Martha Kessler

Oral History

Ilya Martha Kessler, born in 1930 in Dobrony, Czechoslovakia, discusses the beginning of the war; being sent to Kosice, Slovakia, where she lived with her aunt until the Germans occupied Kosice; returning home; living with her family in a ghetto; being sent with her family to Auschwitz; being separated from her family; the murder of her family members in Auschwitz; being sent to the work camp Freudenthal; being liberated by the Russians; returning home and living in an orphanage until she immigrated to Israel; and immigrating in 1957 with her second husband to the United States.

Oral history interview with Joseph Klaiman

Oral History

Joseph Klaiman, born May 20, 1925 in Łódź, Poland, discusses the Germans invasion of Poland; escaping with his father to Russia a month after the occupation; returning to Łódź to retrieve his mother and two brothers; being moved into the Łódź ghetto before they could escape; the deaths of both his parents in the ghetto; working in a factory in the ghetto; the deportation of his two brothers in 1941; being transported to Auschwitz; being sent to several camps including Gleiwitz I, Buchenwald, Holzen, and Blechhammer; escaping from a train transport just before the war ended and hiding alone in the forest for eight days; being liberated by British soldiers; staying in the Buchenwald displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife; immigrating to the United States; and settling in Detroit, MI in 1949.

Oral history interview with Simon J. Kalmas

Oral History

Simon Kalmas, born in 1915 in Drobin, Poland, discusses his childhood; learning the trade of tinsmithing as a boy; the German invasion of Poland; being taken along with the other men of his town and held in another city for five days before being returned home and told to move into the Drobin ghetto; moving later to the ghetto in Neustadt Oberschlesien (now Prudnik, Poland); having the chance to escape to Russia but choosing to stay with his family in Poland; his family remaining together until 1942 when they were deported to Auschwitz; being selected for work in the coal mines of IG Farben Industry before being selected for his tinsmithing skills to repair the roofs of bombarded barracks from 1944 until 1945; being forced to march to Gleiwitz in a snowstorm to catch a transport train to Buchenwald; being liberated in Buchenwald; immigrating to the United States in April 1949 and settling in Nashville, TN; and moving permanently to Detroit, MI in January 1950 because of the racism he saw happening against African Americans in the South.

Oral history interview with Louis Kreps Kay

Oral History

Louis Kreps Kay, born in 1925 in Wloszczowa, Poland, discusses the beginning of the war in 1939; being moved with his family into a ghetto; the deportation of his parents and most of his siblings to Treblinka, while Louis and two of his brothers were sent to Skarzysko; working in an ammunitions factory for two years until he was sent to Czestochowa and later Buchenwald; being sent to Dora-Nordhausen, where he was liberated April 11, 1945; immigrating to the United States many years after the war; and building a monument in 1969 in the United States to memorialize his family and his birth city.

Oral history interview with Alexander Karp

Oral History

Alexander Karp, born in Nyírmada, Hungary, discusses his family; his family’s move to Kisvárda; living with his family in Baktalórántháza in 1944; the German occupation, at which time his family was forced into the Kisvárda ghetto; living in the ghetto for two months; being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to a camp in France to do forced labor; being moved to Kochendorf and then Dachau; being liberated in Mittenwald, Germany, while on a death march from Dachau; returning to Hungary; and moving to Canada before immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Salvatore Katan and Livia Katan

Oral History

Salvatore Katan (born in Salonika, Greece) and his wife, Lili Katan (born in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia and raised near Budapest, Hungary) discusses their deportations to Auschwitz after the start of the war; meeting each other after liberation at a displaced persons camp; their relocation to Budapest, where they were married before settling in Italy; and their immigration to the United States after the birth of their twin boys.

Oral history interview with Lanka Ilkow

Oral History

Lanka Ilkow, born in 1920 in Novoseliza, Czechoslovakia (possibly Novoselytsia, Ukraine), describes her pre-war life; her family’s farm; the four Jewish families in her town and the relations with the non-Jews; being the oldest of her siblings; attending school; her religious life; getting married and living in Berezhany (Ukraine); the Hungarian annexation of parts of Slovakia and life under Hungarian rule; the deportation of her husband to Poland and never seeing him again; being sent to the ghetto in Uzhhorod (Ukraine) with her family in 1944; the fates of her family members; being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her father was gassed upon arrival; the conditions in the camp; her mother’s death in Auschwitz; being transferred with her sister to the forced labor camp Hundsfeld; the work and conditions in Hundsfeld; being marched out of the camp in January 1945; staying briefly in Gross-Rosen and Mauthausen before being sent to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British Army; going with her sister to Sweden; getting married; being sick with typhus while she was pregnant; the Jewish community in Sweden; immigrating to the United States in December 1951; speaking about her experiences; and dealing with her memories of the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Helen Jutkevicz

Oral History

Helen Jutkevicz, born in Łódź, Poland, discusses growing up in a family of eight; the beginning of the war; being forced with her family to move into the Łódź Ghetto; life in the ghetto; the deaths of her father and one of her brothers; working at a straw factory until she and the rest of her family were transported to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz; staying with her sister but being separated from their mother; being sent to Bremen to work; being transported with her sister to Bergen-Belsen, where Helen contracted typhus; being liberated; traveling with her sister from Bergen-Belsen to Gauting, Germany to find their brother, who had survived the war but had tuberculosis; living in the Feldafing displaced persons camp, where she met her husband; and eventually moving to Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with David Kahan

Oral History

David Kahan, born in 1928 in Gheorgheni, Romania, discusses being part of a large extended family; the German occupation beginning in April 1944; the full-scale persecution of Hungarian Jewry; the detainment of his family by the Hungarian Gendarmerie in a school room for several days; being sent with his family to an ad hoc ghetto in Szaszregen (Reghin), Romania; remaining incarcerated in a brick factory in Szaszregen for approximately four weeks; being deported to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz; being separated from his family, who were gassed; being shaved, deloused, and held for future use on work details; being sent after four weeks to the Mühldorf labor camp in Southern Germany; doing forced labor for Organization Todt, clearing trees for the construction of an underground airplane factory; contracting typhus after he was liberated; being hospitalized in the displaced persons camp at Feldafing; having no desire to return to Romania; immigrating to the United States; arriving in New York in May 1949; moving to Minneapolis; eventually moving to Detroit circa 1950; getting married in 1953; and his three sons.

Oral history interview with Magda Beer

Oral History

Magda Beer (née Szesz), born in Budapest, Hungary in 1915, describes her early life; the death of her father when she was two years old; getting married in 1941 (her married name was Haskovitch); having a son; life under the German occupation; the deportation of her father-in-law and husband; the creation of the ghetto and life there; working in a brick factory; obtaining false identification papers; life under the Russian occupation; her work after the war as an entrepreneur; moving to the United States in 1951; her life in the US; and her thoughts on her survival.

Oral history interview with Bernard Hirsch

Oral History

Bernard Hirsch, born in Petrovce, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1920, describes his parents, two brothers, and five sisters; his family’s religious practices; relations between Jews and non-Jews; being drafted into the Slovakian Army as a laborer in 1941; deserting the army; hiding with his Gentile friend; joining the partisans; life with the partisans; passing as a gentile; the Russians liberating Slovakia in January 1945; learning about his parents’ fates; moving to Košice, Slovakia, where he met his future wife; moving to the United States in 1949; his religious life in the US; and sharing his experiences.

Oral history interview with Abraham Jacob Holzman

Oral History

Abraham Jacob Holzman, born in 1925 in Łódź Poland, describes his life before the war; his brothers and sisters; his family’s business; the relations between Jews and non-Jews; his religious and secular educations; his experiences with antisemitism before the war; the Nazi invasion; being moved with his family to the Łódź ghetto; forced labor in the ghetto; stealing a carrot and being put on the list for deportation; being imprisoned for two weeks; his father’s death from starvation; working in a factory until 1944 when the family was deported to Auschwitz; life in Auschwitz; being sent with his mother were sent to Görlitz; his work in an airplane factory; the treatment of the prisoners; being sent on a death march for four weeks before returning to Görlitz; how his brother helped him survive the march; being liberated in 1945; returning to Poland; spending time in a displaced persons camp in Frankfurt, Germany; reuniting with his sister in Sweden; immigrating to the United States in 1953; adjusting to life in the US; talking about his experiences; his children; and his thoughts on Israel.

Oral history interview with Anna Greenberger

Oral History

Anna Greenberger, born in Koroml’a, Czechoslovakia in 1924, discusses her childhood; moving with her family to Sobrance, Czechoslovakia in 1932; her three sisters; the German invasion and hiding from the Germans; passing as Gentiles; avoiding the affection of a German officer; her father being taken to a labor camp in Russia; her fiancé’s participation in the army and visiting him in a labor camp in Kosice (Slovakia); the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; being sent with her mother and sisters to the Uzhgorod ghetto; being deported after two months to Auschwitz, where they stayed until August; the conditions in Auschwitz; being sent with her family to Lübberstedt forced labor camp, where they manufactured ammunition; stealing in the camp; the evacuation of the camp via trains; escaping the train while it was bombed by the Allies; being forced by the Germans to march; being liberated by the British; spending time in a typhoid hospital in Neustadt before returning to Sobrance with her family; reuniting with her fiancé and getting married him; starting a family; moving to Israel in 1949; moving with her family to Rome before moving to Argentina then Paraguay; her husband’s work for Germans in Paraguay; experiencing antisemitism; going to the United States in 1955; and her thoughts on Germans.

Oral history interview with Lola Greenspan

Oral History

Lola Greenspan, born in 1919 in Myszków, Poland, describes her early life; her parents and siblings; the German invasion; being taken in 1940 to the transit camp in Sosnowiec for two months before being transported to Gabersdorf, a work camp in Czechoslovakia; life in the camp; going to the doctor in Parschnitz labor camp and seeing her sister; remaining in Gabersdorf as a worker until the Russian Army liberated the camp in 1945; returning to Poland with her remaining sister; meeting her future husband; moving with her husband to Israel and living in Sha'ar Ha-'aliyah (a camp near Haifa); moving to the United States in 1961; and adusting to life in the US.

Oral history interview with Joseph Gringlas

Oral History

Joseph Gringlas (né Grynglas), born in 1926 in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland, describes his family; life in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski before WWII; relations between Jews and non-Jews; his family’s religious practices; the German invasion; the ghetto and Judenrat (Jewish council); being taken away to work on tracks; being separated from his family and transported to a forced-labor camp in Blizyn, Poland; life in Blizyn, including the work, punishments, and living conditions; being transferred after one year to Auschwitz-Birkenau then the sub-camp, Monowitz (Buna), where he was reunited with his brother; the conditions in Monowitz and the Kapos; the liquidation of the camp in 1945 and being sent a forced-march to Gleiwitz and then on to Dora-Nordhausen; the Allied bombing and being liberated along with his brother; returning to Poland and experiencing antisemitism; spending several years in a displaced persons camp in Landsberg, Germany; his brother’s wedding in Landsberg; his work bringing children from the Czech border to Germany; immigrating to the United States in 1951; life in the US; the effects of the Holocaust on his life; and talking about his experiences.

Oral history interview with Tola Gilbert

Oral History

Tola Gilbert, born in Sosnowiec, Poland, discusses her parents and childhood; experiencing antisemitism; the Jewish community in Sosnowiec; her secular and religious educations; life during the German occupation of Poland; being put in the ghetto with her family; resistance in Sosnowiec; the leader of the Judenrat, Moses Merin; being sent with her sisters to Ober Alstadt and Parschnitz to do forced labor; conditions in the camps; the liberation of the camp by Russians; being moved to a displaced persons camp in Bergen-Belsen; moving to the United States; meeting her future husband; and speaking about her experiences.

Oral history interview with Fred Goudsmit

Oral History

Fred Goudsmit, born on January 2, 1931 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses the German invasion of Holland in May 1940; helping his father run his butcher shop in the ghetto; going into hiding with his parents in the countryside; the killing of his brothers shortly before the war ended; staying in several Dutch homes during the war with help from underground organizations; returning home after the war to his parents and resuming his education; living in Canada and Jamaica; and living in several cities in the United States before settling in Detroit, MI.

Oral history interview with Erna Blitzer Gorman

Oral History

Erna Blitzer Gorman, born in 1935 in Metz, France, discusses the war breaking out in 1939 while her family was attending a wedding in Wisznice, Poland; being unable to return to France because her father was a Polish citizen; going with her family (mother, father, and sister) to her maternal grandparents' home in Monastyriska, Ukraine; the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; being moved with her family to a ghetto; escaping to a nearby farm; hiding for two years in a Ukrainian farmer's barn and being aided by the farmer; surviving in hiding until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944; her mother being wounded during an air raid and dying soon after; living in several displaced persons camps with her sister and father; and immigrating to the United States in 1953.

Oral history interview with Benjamin Fisk

Oral History

Benjamin Fisk (né Berck Fiszlinski), born September 26, 1922 in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes his family and childhood; his family’s religious life; the German occupation of Poland; working in a German factory as a carpenter until he was taken to the Srodula ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto; being sent to work as a carpenter in several camps including Sackenhoym, Bismarckshütte, Blechhammer, and Buna-Monowitz; working for IG Farben; conditions in the various camps; being injured and taken to Auschwitz; being liberated by the Russians; returning to Sosnowiec; getting married; settling in Stoffen, Germany (now in Pürgen, Germany); moving with his family to the United States in 1949; and his experienced with antisemitism in the US.