Overview
- Interview Summary
- 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.
- Interviewee
- Pauline Kleinberg
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
3 sound cassettes : analog.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Jewish ghettos--Poland--Żarki. Death march survivors. Death marches. Dysentery. Escapes. Forced labor. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish families--Poland. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Sosnowiec (Województwo Slaskie) Jewish women in the Holocaust. Jews--Poland--Pilica. Refugee camps--Germany. Sisters. Women concentration camp inmates. Women--Personal narratives. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland.
- Geographic Name
- Detroit (Mich.) Pilica (Poland) Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945. Sosnowiec (Województwo Slaskie, Poland) United States--Emigration and immigration. Waldram (Germany) Żarki (Poland)
- Personal Name
- Kleinberg, Pauline.
- Corporate Name
- Föhrenwald (Displaced persons camp)
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
University of Michigan-Dearborn
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The University of Michigan, Dearborn conducted the interview with Pauline Kleinberg. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes in November 1992
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:23:06
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn513807
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Oral History
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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.
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 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 Regina Cohen
Oral History
Regina Cohen (née Schick), born in Chust, Czechoslovakia (now Khust, Ukraine) May 4, 1929, describes being the fifth child of nine in a middle-class Orthodox family; her family’s religious life; participating in Zionist youth groups; life at the beginning of the war and under the Hungarian occupation; the segregation of Jewish and Gentile children; her father’s service in the Hungarian Army; the deportation of Jews from Chust; the Judenrat (Jewish council); being sent with her family to the ghetto in Chust in May 1944; receiving help from a Hungarian grocer named Borosch; experiencing antisemitism and having to wear a yellow star; being deported to Auschwitz; the selection process in the camp; being sent to Birkenau; being treated with DDT and having her head shaved; seeing her brothers and father in the camp; daily routines in the camp and the roll calls; her work digging ditches and sorting clothes in the Kanada section of the camp; food rations and punishments in the camp; avoiding selections; religious practice in the camp; camp gossip; receiving a vaccination against typhoid fever; volunteering to change camps and going to work in a Siemens factory near Nuremberg, Germany; lying about her age; conditions in the camp; being moved to another camp (probably Mehltheuer); being liberated in April 1945 by American troops; returning home and finding one sister and one brother still alive; moving with her sister out of Russian-occupied Czechoslovakia into a displaced persons (DP) camp in Heidenheim, Germany, where they stayed for three years; continuing her education in the DP camp; learning English in order to move to Montreal to be a mother's helper for a Jewish family; post-war antisemitism; going to Canada; meeting her future husband on the ship to Montreal; going to the United States in 1952; sharing her Holocaust story; the loss of most of her family; and the reasons why she thinks she survived.
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 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 in Minkowice, prior to moving back to Lublin to live with an uncle; 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.