Oral history interview with Alice Rosen

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 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 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 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 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 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 Norma Gorman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Goudsmit

Oral History

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Franka Charlupski

Oral History

Franka Charlupski (née Weintraub), born in 1920 in Lódz, 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 Lódz 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 Morris Tuchendler Chandler

Oral History

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 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 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 Manya Feldman

Oral History

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 Lódz, 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 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 Anne Eisenberg

Oral History

Anne 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 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 Plaszów 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 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 Lódz, 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 Lila Denes

Oral History

Lila 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 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 Helen Solarz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zolran Rubin

Oral History

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 Eva Wimmer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cyla Wiener

Oral History

Oral history interview with William Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Emerick Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alex Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nathan Weiselman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jack Weinberger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sally Tuchklaper

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zwi Steiger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mark J. Solent

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joseph Slaim

Oral History

Oral history interview with Chandall Shiffman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Regina Silver

Oral History

Oral history interview with Samuel Silver

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ina Silbergleit

Oral History

Oral history interview with Perry Shulman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Seltzer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Felicia Schloss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alexander Schleifer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Marcel Sandel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Adel Sandel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Aaron Salzberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rubin Greenspan and Lola Greenspan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sigmund Rubin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rubin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Berek Rothenberg

Oral History

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 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 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 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 Lodz, 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 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 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 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 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 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 Simon Rosenweig

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eric Rosenon

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herminia Lusopolus

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edward Linson

Oral History

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 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 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 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.

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