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Oral history interview with Helene Goodman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.107 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0107

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    Oral history interview with Helene Goodman

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Helene Goodman (formerly Henia Flint), born in Łódź, Poland in 1913, describes studying piano at the Warsaw Conservatory posing as a non-Jew, and receiving her diploma in 1935; how the German invasion affected Polish Jews; having to move with her family in 1939 to the Łódź ghetto; her father’s death after the Kriminal Polizei (KRIPO) beat him; witnessing Polish-German cooperation and the murder of Jewish orphans in the ghetto; being transported with her mother to Auschwitz in August 1944 when the ghetto was liquidated; surviving a selection while her mother did not; being forced to play the piano at the camp commander’s birthday party; how the commander stabbed her when she was too frightened to play and her wounds were not treated; being put on a transport by a Jewish supervisor and going to Hainichen, Saxony, Germany; working as a slave laborer at Framowerke, an ammunition factory; the living and working conditions and how starvation affected her; the cruelty of the SS supervisor Gertrude Becker; sabotaging the output of her machine; hearing rumors that food was medicated to stop the workers’ menstrual cycle; going on a death march at the end of April 1945, guarded by SS officers who took off their uniforms and fled once they arrived at Theresienstadt; being liberated by the Russian Army on May 9, 1945; being treated by Russian women doctors; American soldiers taking her to a quarantine camp at Landsberg am Lech, Germany, where she tried to recover from the physical and emotional after effects of her experiences; getting married to her first husband, Jacob Gottlieb; living in Regensberg, Germany until they went to the United States; and her personal reflections on the Holocaust.
    Interviewee
    Helene Goodman
    Date
    interview:  1981 February 23
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (60 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Goodman, Helene, 1913-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive conducted the interview with Helene Goodman in Philadelphia, Pa., on February 23, 1981. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Gratz College in August 2003.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:36:34
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn515626

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