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Oral history interview with Steen Metz

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2016.296.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0898

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    Oral history interview with Steen Metz
    Transcript
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mr. Steen Metz on September 26, 2016
    in Lincolnshire, Illinois.
    Thank you very, very much, Mr. Metz,
    for agreeing to speak with us today
    and to share your story with us.
    Glad to do it.
    I think it's very important.
    We much appreciate it.
    I'm going to start the interview with the most basic questions.
    We'll talk a lot about prewar life.
    And from there, I know our story will develop.
    So the very first question I have, very simple one.
    What is the date of your birth?
    I was born on May the 5th, 1935.
    And what was your name at birth?
    Steen.
    And then I had a middle name, Axel Metz.
    And it was the tradition within the family.
    Axel, my middle name, was my father's first name.
    I see.
    So your father's first name was Axel Metz?
    That's correct.
    And where were you born?
    I was born in Denmark.
    A town I call Odense.
    And it's spelled O-D-E-N-S-E.
    And can you tell me a little bit about how far this town was
    located from, let's say, Copenhagen, which
    most people know about?
    Right in the middle of the country.
    It was probably about 130 miles from Copenhagen. In those days,
    it took about four, four and a half hours by train from Odense
    to Copenhagen.
    Wow.
    But now they have a bridge between two islands.
    And now it takes between an hour and a half and two hours.
    And of course, the trains run much faster than they used to.
    I see.
    I see.
    And how is it that you ended up being born there?
    Were your parents both from the town?
    No, not originally.
    My entire family was from Copenhagen.
    When my father got his law degree,
    he got married to my mother.
    They had a long engagement, because they
    didn't want to get married until he got his law degree.
    And he was an attorney.
    And then they moved to Odense.
    And he got a job in Odense.
    We're the only part of the family living
    outside of Copenhagen.
    I see.
    I see.
    And what was your mother's name?
    First name and maiden name.
    Her first name was Magna, M-A-G-N-A.
    And her maiden name was Hildesheim,
    H-I-L-D-E-S-H-E-I-M. And I just want to tell you a story that
    just comes to my mind about Hildesheim.
    The other day I saw an exhibit about the Berlin Olympic
    in 1936.
    And suddenly, I see a sign about Jewish people
    not allowed at a certain place--
    I can't remember where--
    in Hildesheim.
    That's right.
    There's a town in Germany.
    Yeah.
    And that sign was dated 1935.
    And it is amazing to think about even in '35--
    That's right.
    --Jewish people were not allowed.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Well, Hitler had been in power already a couple of years.
    Yes.
    And the Olympics were held in the capital.
    And--
    In '36, yes.
    Yeah.
    So was there any connection between your mother's family
    and the actual German town of Hildesheim?
    There may be.
    We've had never been able to find out.
    I have some cousins.
    And we all say, why don't you do the research?
    And I really don't have time to do it
    with all my Holocaust services.
    Tell me a little bit about the background of your family.
    How many generations lived in Denmark?
    How did they come to Denmark?
    Do you know these things?
    I think my father's side originated in the town Metz,
    M-E-T-Z. And Metz was either French or German,
    depending on who won the war, so to speak.
    And I think it originated there.
    But I've not been able to trace it.
    And I have not even tried to trace it.
    So you're saying that your family would have come from
    a place called Metz on the French-German border,
    depending--
    I think so.
    OK.
    My family also-- the early part of family came from another
    town in Denmark called Randers, R-A-N-D-E-R-S, which is--
    Randers, OK.
    Randers, which is in Jutland.
    OK.
    And Jutland is--
    A western part of Denmark.
    A peninsula.
    Did you know your larger extended family
    as you were growing up?
    Oh, absolutely.
    I was-- [COUGHS] excuse me.
    I was the only child in the family,
    but we made frequent trips to Copenhagen.
    We would go to Copenhagen--
    this sounds strange.
    My wife, Eileen, always says this was a strange family.
    But we did celebrate Christmas.
    Did you?
    Yeah, we did celebrate Christmas.
    And we would always go to Copenhagen.
    And I've since found out we were not the only Jewish family
    celebrating Christmas.
    So we would always take the train to Copenhagen.
    Well, this begs another question that I have.
    I have heard-- and I don't know if this is true--
    that the Jewish community in Denmark
    had a great desire to assimilate and integrate
    into Danish society as much as possible.
    Would you say there's truth to that statement?
    Oh, no question about it.
    I think a big difference-- and I often
    use that in my talk-- is in Denmark,
    you're first of all a Dane no matter what color skin you have
    or what religion you have, whether you're
    Jewish or Catholic.
    And my mother was interviewed by two young journalists back
    '95, which was a year before she died.
    And she was asked the question, did you feel Jewish,
    or did you feel Danish?
    And she said, of course I was Jewish.
    But first of all, I felt Danish.
    And I think that tells the story.
    And there's no question about what you're talking about.
    And I think this is happening more and more.
    OK.
    Could that have been a reason why
    not only your family, but others celebrated Christmas?
    Or do you think it would be another reason?
    It might be.
    Very few people in our family observed kosher food,
    as an example.
    And my father was brought up in the Jewish faith.
    But I don't know--
    his brothers were too.
    But on my mother's side, they were not
    brought up in the Jewish faith.
    So they were more secular.
    Yes, I think that's good description.
    As an example, when my father and mother got married,
    they did not get married in the temple or synagogue.
    They got married in my grandmother--
    my mother's apartment.
    Oh, really?
    Yes.
    Tell me--
    Which is-- when you think back, it's unusual.
    Yeah, I've not heard that before.
    No.
    I have not heard that.
    Tell me a little bit about your parents' personalities,
    about your father.
    First of all, what are your earliest memories of him?
    That's one question.
    And then we'll go to the personality.
    Well, one of the earlier--
    I can remember, is when I was out--
    wait a second.
    I lost my thought for--
    when I learned to bicycle.
    And in Denmark, you learn at an early age.
    Because in Denmark your use it as transportation.
    Not like here, where we use it--
    Recreation.
    Recreational.
    And he would run after me.
    He would have a stick in the visor.
    And he would almost run.
    He had asthma.
    So it was very difficult for him.
    He had trouble keeping up.
    [LAUGHS] So that I remember.
    I also remember, I was playing with my father.
    He was a lawyer.
    And during the fall we would collect chestnuts.
    And we would tie them together in a string.
    And my father would become the horse.
    [LAUGHS] And I would be driving.
    So those two things--
    So he played with you.
    Oh, yes.
    Yeah, I can remember a number of things.
    We lived in an apartment.
    We always lived in an apartment.
    And so we didn't have a garden.
    So we had an allotment, as we referred to it.
    And I would grow--
    he would help me.
    We would plant seeds, radishes, flowers, and so on.
    And I guess my business career started early,
    because I went back and collected the flowers
    and collected the radishes and sold them to my mother.
    Did you really?
    Yeah.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So that might be when my business career took off.
    That's kind of--
    So those are somewhat--
    That's cute.
    So great memories I have.
    So garden allotments, for those people
    who don't know what that is, could you explain--
    Yes.
    --what it means?
    We rented some space in a big garden.
    And we would get, say, 1/10 of the garden.
    And we rented it or leased it, whatever you want to call it.
    And then we were able to use that.
    And we would water the seeds.
    And in those days, you would grow everything from seeds.
    You would not start it with plants.
    And in addition to radishes, I think we had lettuce,
    and we had flowers, and maybe a few other things.
    Did you have--
    And we would go over there.
    It was very close to where we lived.
    But we would go over there maybe one evening,
    and certainly over the weekend to take care of the garden.
    Well, you answered one of the questions that I had,
    is, how far was this from your home?
    It was very close.
    OK.
    And this was typical for people in places
    where they had a flat, but no single family home?
    I don't know how common it was.
    But we had it and several other people had it also.
    Of course, especially in those days
    it was much more common to live in an apartment as opposed
    to owning a house.
    Tell me then about your father's personality.
    What kind of a person was he, from your memory?
    He was very gentle.
    Had a good sense of humor.
    He also had a temper.
    Did he?
    And unfortunately, I have inherited part of that.
    But he was very, very creative.
    When we had family gatherings, it was very common in Denmark
    when you had birthdays-- and they
    celebrate any kind of birthday.
    They call them round birthday.
    Round birthday?
    Birthday.
    50, 60, and 80.
    That's the round birthday.
    And they celebrate those.
    And when do you do that, you will sing.
    So you would have a poem.
    And my father would do the poem.
    Oh, would he?
    Yes.
    He would do the poem.
    So he'd make a poem up.
    Yeah, based on--
    That person.
    --the people that were in the room.
    He would make reference.
    And he was very good at that.
    Was he a jovial person?
    Yes.
    Yes, I think that's a good description.
    And as you mentioned before, if he was your horse, then
    clearly he liked playing with you.
    Yes.
    What about your mother?
    Tell me a little bit about your mother.
    My mother, as I mentioned, of course,
    my father also had a long engagement.
    She was very, very tenacious.
    Very strong woman.
    At times, maybe bordering on stubborn.
    Was he the gentler of the two?
    Yes, no question.
    No question about it.
    But as I mentioned, they had known each other
    for a long, long time.
    And I would imagine--
    I hadn't really thought about it, but at that time
    I don't think my father would be allowed
    to marry a non-Jewish person.
    I doubt that.
    Your mother was Jewish as well?
    Yes, she was Jewish.
    I don't think--
    OK, so despite assimilationist kind of directions,
    there was a limit.
    In this case, I think there was.
    And of course, the people that were orthodox--
    different there.
    You couldn't do it-- like, my father's brother,
    they kept kosher food at home.
    Let's talk a little bit about the larger family.
    Did you know your grandparents on either side?
    I only knew the grandmothers.
    The grandfathers had passed away?
    One had left the country.
    He was a stockbroker.
    He went bankrupt.
    He left the family.
    I think he went to South Africa, maybe Argentina.
    I'm not quite sure.
    I never knew him.
    So this was after the 1929 crash?
    You know, when the--
    It was in the '30s.
    It was in the '30s.
    It was in the--
    I can't remember exactly.
    Of course.
    No, it couldn't be, because-- no, it was earlier.
    It was before that, because my mother was born in 1906.
    And I think she was six or seven years old when he left.
    So it's much, much earlier.
    Also it had nothing to do with the crash.
    No, nothing, no.
    You would think it did, but it didn't.
    It was much, much earlier.
    And he left the whole family.
    And my--
    That's not nice.
    No, it's not.
    It's not very-- and they had a very nice apartment,
    a big apartment.
    And they had nannies.
    They had help.
    My grandma had a lot of help.
    And suddenly, he disappears.
    And I think it came as a shock to everybody--
    Of course.
    --that he went bankrupt.
    And how many siblings did your mother have?
    A total of five.
    So where was she?
    Mama, she had an older brother, older sister,
    and two younger sisters.
    Was she in the middle?
    She was the middle one.
    And remind me of her name again?
    Because I--
    M-A-G-N-A. Magna.
    Magna.
    I haven't heard it.
    This is the first--
    No, it's very unusual.
    OK.
    And so you knew your grandmother and these aunts and uncles--
    Yes.
    --on this side of the family.
    And on the other side, my grandfather,
    my father's father, died well before I was born.
    Let's talk about your mother's side of the family.
    Did you visit your grandmother?
    Did she still live in Copenhagen?
    Yeah, they all stayed in Copenhagen.
    I would visit my grandmother on my mother's side.
    I was closer to her than to my father's mother.
    And her circumstances, were they very reduced?
    Did she live very humbly?
    Because of, you know, having been left?
    Yes, she lived in a smaller--
    she had to live in a smaller apartment.
    I think she got some help when her parents were around.
    I think she got some help from her sister, who inherited a hat
    business, a wholesale hat business, which
    was very unusual for a woman--
    That's right.
    --to run it in those days.
    And she did quite well.
    So I think she helped out.
    OK.
    So did you know anybody from that generation
    besides your grandmother, like your great aunt who
    had the hat business or others?
    Oh, I was very close to her.
    As well?
    I was very close to her.
    After the war I was probably closer to her
    than her sister, who was my grandmother.
    Because she had been in business.
    And I was one of the few family members that was in business.
    They were attorneys or engineers.
    And so I always remember a saying my aunt had.
    And it was, Steen, you should always do more than
    expected of you.
    And was her hat business a retail one or a whole--
    It was a wholesale business.
    It was a wholesale business.
    But by that time, she had sold the business.
    Because there was nobody in the family to take it over.
    By that time, hats--
    it was both men's and women's hats.
    And men didn't wear hats that often anymore.
    That's true.
    And soon after that women stopped wearing hats.
    Yes.
    So it's not a very good business.
    Yeah.
    What was her circumstances during the war?
    Was she able to continue running this business
    under the Nazi occupation?
    At that time, she didn't run the business anymore.
    She retired from the business when she was 55 years old.
    Oh, OK.
    And she managed to escape.
    The whole family in Copenhagen managed to escape to Sweden,
    except my father's--
    one of his brothers and his wife and his mother and their son.
    They were caught while they were trying to escape.
    We'll talk about these things.
    OK, so by the time the war occurs,
    your aunt is no longer involved in the business.
    That's correct.
    And so she doesn't suffer ill effect from having a business.
    No.
    OK.
    Tell me about what it was that made
    this particular grandmother and this particular aunt
    closer to you, why you felt closer to them
    as family members?
    What did you--
    I think it was especially after the war.
    And it was probably because of my mother
    being closer to them--
    Of course.
    --than her mother-in-law.
    And I think--
    I mean--
    It wasn't before the war, in other words.
    No, no.
    It was not.
    And I still remember that Christmas-- here it
    comes again.
    After Christmas my father's mother
    would take me out shopping.
    And she would always say, what didn't you get at Christmas?
    I'll get it for you.
    And did she?
    Yes.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Was there a great difference between the two families,
    your mother's and your father's?
    Yes, I think there was.
    I think on my mother's side, certainly until her father left
    the country, I think they were probably better off financially
    than on the other side.
    But on the other side, your father's side of the family,
    were they comfortable?
    Were they middle class?
    Yes.
    They were.
    No, no, they were comfortable.
    OK.
    And he had how many brothers and sisters?
    He had two brothers.
    Two brothers.
    Yes.
    Older or younger?
    Younger.
    They were both younger.
    So he was the oldest in the family.
    Yes, he was the oldest.
    My mother was in the middle.
    All right.
    Did all three boys on your father's side
    get an education, a higher education?
    My father did as an attorney.
    A younger brother was an architect.
    The third one was in business.
    He had many different jobs.
    And he had a grocery store at one time.
    I don't know exactly what kind of education he had.
    Certainly wouldn't be comparable to an architect or an attorney.
    And did you visit-- before the war, did you visit them,
    your uncles?
    Oh, yes, absolutely.
    I would visit them in Copenhagen.
    And did they have children?
    And they didn't have Christmas.
    So it was my mother's side that had Christmas.
    So we would go and see the other part of the family
    either before or afterwards.
    OK.
    Well, it only goes to what you were saying, is
    that the others were more secular.
    Yes.
    And your father's side, then, was a little bit more
    traditional.
    Your grandmother on your father's side,
    was she very religious?
    I don't believe so.
    I don't believe so.
    But one of her sons kept kosher.
    Yes.
    Was this the son with the grocery store?
    No, it was the one--
    The architect.
    The architect.
    Did you have cousins?
    I had a number of cousins.
    On my father's side, I had two.
    On the other side, I had five.
    And your family's social life--
    No, I had three on my father's side.
    Three on my father's side.
    Three on the father's side and five--
    Yeah.
    --on your mother's.
    Was your family's social life really--
    did it center around the family, around the aunts
    and the uncles?
    Or did they have friends outside of this family circle?
    Because you have more than enough people.
    Yeah.
    No, it was really both.
    At the holidays, maybe in the summer also
    we'd go to Copenhagen. And then it would be family oriented.
    But in Odense it would be friends.
    And they had a number of friends in Odense.
    Was there a large Jewish community in Odense?
    No.
    Very, very small.
    Very, very small.
    As a matter of fact--
    I mean, there was no synagogue or temple in the town.
    Very small population.
    And who were their friends then, and your friends
    when you were in Odense?
    One family-- he was--
    they were Jewish.
    They studied together.
    And he was an attorney.
    Also?
    Yes.
    OK, so they had many things in common.
    Oh, yes.
    And from Copenhagen, yes.
    But he went to Odense also.
    I think that would be the only Jewish family they associated
    with.
    I know they associated with another one.
    He was a vet.
    What about non-Jews?
    Were they part of your family circle?
    Oh, absolutely.
    I mean, Jewish people that we associated with
    would be the exception in Odense.
    I can't think of any other than the attorney family.
    OK.
    And did you have any close friends
    as a little boy growing up in Odense?
    I had a lot of friends.
    And Eileen, my wife, can't understand
    when I tell her when it was my birthday I always
    had two birthdays.
    Of course, one birthday was for school friends.
    And the other birthday was from friends in the neighborhood
    that I played with.
    That's nice.
    Yes.
    So that was kind of unusual.
    Yeah.
    Had you started school before the war?
    Because you were born in '35.
    I started school in '41.
    So the war was on.
    And the war start--
    yeah.
    When was Denmark occupied by?
    In 1940.
    April the 9th, 1940.
    April the 9th, 1940.
    So it's half a year after they invade Poland.
    Just about half a year.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And before that date, did you take family vacations
    with your parents to any particular place?
    Yeah.
    Quite often we would go with the family of my mother's older
    sister and her husband and their two children.
    Would that be in Denmark someplace?
    Oh, yes.
    In those days [LAUGHS] you stayed in Denmark.
    I don't know of anybody who would go abroad, even
    before the war.
    But we also had vacations during the war, beginning of the war.
    We'll talk about that.
    We'll talk about that.
    I want to find out a little bit about your home in Odense--
    right?
    Is that how I say it?
    You're doing well.
    OK, thank you.
    How large was the flat, from your memory?
    No, I couldn't tell you in square foot or anything.
    But we had three bedrooms, I believe.
    I really don't know why we had three bedrooms.
    But we did.
    We had two balconies, which was most unusual.
    Must've been pretty.
    And then it was up in the third floor.
    Was it the top floor?
    That's where we-- we didn't move there--
    believe it or not, we moved there April the 9th, 1940.
    Really?
    I'll never forget that.
    Yeah.
    Well, tell me about it.
    Tell me about the move.
    We got a new apartment, much bigger apartment.
    We lived in a smaller apartment.
    And my aunt, my mother's sister, came over from Copenhagen
    to help us.
    And lo and behold, that was the day we were invaded,
    and the occupation started in Denmark.
    And you remember that?
    You remember the move?
    Yes, absolutely.
    How did you move?
    Was it by a lorry that they moved from one place
    to the other?
    That I cannot--
    You don't remember.
    I cannot remember that.
    Did-- now, these questions are going
    to be a little bit strange, but I'm going to ask them anyway.
    How was the apartment heated?
    Was it coal heating?
    Was it some other kind of heating?
    Did you have coal ovens?
    I think we had gas?
    You had gas even.
    I think we had gas.
    OK.
    And you had electricity?
    Oh, yes, absolutely.
    And indoor plumbing?
    Oh, yes.
    OK.
    Not everybody did.
    I know, but we did.
    Not everybody did, yeah.
    I know about the indoor plumbing.
    I know about the electricity.
    I'm not quite sure about the gas.
    OK.
    And were there modern conveniences
    in the home, in the sense that in the kitchen
    there was a refrigerator?
    No, we didn't have a refrigerator.
    You didn't have a refrigerator.
    No.
    OK.
    Did your parents have an automobile?
    Oh, no.
    No, we didn't--
    Everything was bicycle.
    Oh, yes.
    It was bicycle.
    Two bicycle--
    Or walking.
    Three bicycles.
    Three bicycles, one for each of you.
    Yes.
    All right.
    Were you far from the center of town?
    We could walk into town.
    It would probably-- if you walked reasonably fast,
    half an hour.
    You could take the bus in.
    More frequently, you would bicycle.
    And the building itself, your apartment building,
    how many floors did it have?
    It had three floors.
    Oh, so you were the top floor?
    Yeah, we were on the third floor.
    It was a huge apartment complex, a huge one.
    Was it new?
    Or was--
    Yes, it was very new.
    For that time.
    A couple of years old.
    I mean, I still remember when they had fields
    where they built the apartment.
    Oh, really?
    Yes.
    And I couldn't tell you exactly how many,
    but there would be several hundred apartments in it.
    OK, so that is huge.
    Yes.
    That is huge.
    And I have--
    And we had a place where we could play.
    I have in my mind, if they're no higher than three floors, then
    this is a very spread out complex--
    Oh, it was, yes.
    --if you have several hundred people.
    I mean, in those days we didn't build
    them much higher than that.
    Yeah.
    Thank God.
    [LAUGHS] And you're on the top floor.
    And you have two balconies.
    Yes.
    Which is nice.
    Two balconies is very unusual.
    Yeah.
    From the living room and then a kitchen?
    Or from a bedroom?
    Bedroom.
    Did you have any pets?
    No, no, I never had pets.
    And today, I'm not too fond of pets.
    Did you want them when you were little?
    I don't think so.
    OK.
    I, who has many of them, can very well sympathize with you.
    Because my furniture does not belong to me.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Let's see.
    You played with the neighborhood children in this new complex?
    Yes.
    Both girls and boys.
    Let's go back to April 9, 1940.
    How did your family learn that the Germans had invaded,
    that the Nazis had invaded?
    I'm not so sure, exactly--
    it's a good question, how we learned about it.
    But I certainly remember German soldiers
    walking in the streets.
    I remember the green uniforms.
    And I referred to them as the green ugly uniforms.
    And when I see pictures, I still get chills when I see it.
    Later on, I heard, maybe, that they--
    we got some bulletin that they threw out
    from the airplanes that were coming down.
    And how they were going to save us.
    They wanted to protect us from the British,
    because they thought the British would
    invade Denmark, which, of course, was a big lie,
    so to speak.
    Because they were our allies.
    My father might have heard it on the radio.
    You had a radio at home?
    Oh, I'm sure we did.
    OK.
    But you don't remember in particular listening
    to the radio for--
    No, I don't.
    No, I don't.
    I mean, I remember playing.
    And I remember going to school.
    And I don't remember spending a lot of time at home.
    But I must've spent some time doing my homework.
    And another--
    I was lucky.
    I had a lot of friends in the complex.
    Another question that I know is strange and unfair,
    but I need to ask it.
    And it is, do you remember your parents talking
    about the political situation?
    And the reason it's unfair is because you
    were five years old.
    And if someone asked me, do I remember my parents
    talking about politics at five, I
    wouldn't be able to answer it.
    But do you remember anything--
    No, I don't.
    I don't remember it at all.
    OK.
    Do you remember your life changing
    much after the green uniformed soldiers march in?
    It didn't change significantly.
    And Denmark was very, very unique
    compared to the other occupied countries.
    As a--
    In what way?
    As an example, I could continue to go to school.
    It was not a Jewish school.
    It was a public school?
    It was a private school.
    It was a private school.
    My father continued to practice law.
    It was not--
    That is unusual.
    It was not a Jewish company.
    In Poland I don't believe he could have done that.
    If he had had his own company, he
    would have continued to do that.
    So it's amazing that it was relatively normal.
    It was different from just about any other occupied country
    that I know of.
    And why was that?
    A couple of reasons for that.
    And I wasn't aware of that at that time.
    Of course.
    These are things I learned trying
    to find out what was going on.
    I'm not saying we didn't have antisemitism or informers
    in Denmark.
    We did.
    But to a much smaller scale than in Poland or in France.
    And in Denmark you're first of all considered a Dane.
    And then you happen to be Jewish,
    or you happen to be a Catholic or Lutheran.
    And what was the predominant Christian religion?
    It was Lutheran.
    It was Lutheran.
    At that time, it was probably close to 95% of the population
    were Lutheran, which is very unusual.
    It's a state religion, which you don't
    have in many other countries.
    That's true.
    So despite it being a state religion,
    which could then look at all other religions as not
    quite the same--
    Yes.
    --it didn't have that kind of effect.
    No, it didn't.
    I don't know if I mentioned earlier--
    stop me if I did.
    My mother was interviewed the year before she died.
    What year was this?
    This was 1995.
    We talked about this off camera, not on camera.
    OK.
    So let's talk about it on camera.
    By a young journalist.
    Danish journalist?
    Danish journalist.
    Very young.
    It was in '95.
    And that would be 50 year anniversary for the end
    of the war in Denmark.
    And she probably opened up more than she'd ever done before.
    And I'm very fortunate that I have a copy of the CD.
    One of the questions would be something along this line.
    Did you feel Jewish?
    Or did you feel Danish?
    And my mother would answer, first of all, I felt Danish.
    Of course I was Jewish.
    But I felt Danish first of all.
    And you know, the interesting thing and the sad thing
    is that many people in Germany who
    were German Jews felt the same until Hitler came to power.
    Yes.
    That they were German.
    Yes.
    They were part of--
    many fought in World War I and so on.
    So your life didn't change all that much.
    No.
    It's amazing.
    And the more I think about it, the more amazed I am.
    I have some pictures.
    We went on vacation.
    Where?
    In Denmark.
    Somewhere around.
    Yeah, at the beach.
    We loved the beach.
    So we would go.
    We often went with my mother's sister and her husband
    and their two children.
    And we'd go together.
    This is after 1940.
    Oh, yes.
    I have a picture.
    And I show it when I talk about my experiences.
    I believe it was taken the summer before we were arrested.
    And you wouldn't know that a year later we
    would be arrested.
    You look happy or carefree or--
    Oh, completely.
    Absolutely.
    And I asked this before, but another--
    I mean, are there other reasons why you were untouched
    in the larger society?
    Things that were going on, things--
    There are a few reasons.
    One being the percentage of the Jewish population
    was very, very small.
    At that time there were about four and a half million people.
    And we had 7,500 Jewish people.
    In total?
    In Denmark?
    In total.
    In total.
    So the percentage is 0.2 or whatever.
    In Poland, as I'm sure you know, it was 3 million.
    So I think it was about 10%.
    That's one reason.
    Another reason was we used to export all the good Danish food
    to Great Britain.
    We had a long agreement with them, arrangement.
    Now, of course, we had to ship it to Germany.
    And we had to feed the forces, the German forces.
    And they loved the food.
    And that was another reason why they
    were standing by and really--
    Not really--
    --treating Denmark a little different.
    The government continued to govern.
    The king continued to rule.
    So these were very, very unusual circumstances.
    Well, that is interesting.
    Because that factor of the behavior
    of the occupying forces towards the local officials,
    the local governments, the population at large,
    it was different country to country.
    And the further east you went, the worse it got.
    Yes, absolutely.
    But the factor that they liked the food
    and would then say, OK, let's not break something
    if it's not-- fix something if it's not broken.
    Plus Hitler didn't really want to have any more resources
    in Denmark than he needed to.
    Because he was busy on many different fronts.
    And Denmark-- which I didn't realize at the time,
    obviously-- was really strategically
    located as far as Germany was concerned.
    Because they continued to get iron from Sweden.
    So it would pass through Denmark and then go into Germany.
    That is probably another reason for it.
    Of course, why did they really need to occupy little Denmark?
    I mean, Denmark had been neutral in the First World War
    and really wanted to be neutral in the Second World War.
    But we didn't get the chance.
    Yeah.
    Not everybody had the luck that Switzerland did,
    of being able--
    not only wanting to, but actually
    being able to be neutral.
    I know, yeah.
    Yeah.
    Did you visit your relatives in Copenhagen still after the--
    Yes.
    It didn't change.
    Did life for them change?
    Did anybody-- no?
    Not that I know of.
    I don't believe so.
    I think-- all the years, I think we still went over there
    for Christmas.
    And at that time we had Christmas
    at my mother's sister's house.
    Did you remember ever on the street being singled out
    for being Jewish when you were in public places?
    No.
    Do you mean by the Germans?
    By anybody.
    No.
    So not the Germans and not the Danes.
    No.
    I'll talk about it later on, but I didn't
    know I was Jewish at that time.
    But I'll talk about it later on.
    So you didn't go to synagogue.
    You didn't go to temple.
    You didn't--
    You couldn't.
    Because there wasn't one.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And so I'll take it that your parents were also
    secular, your father as well.
    My father was brought up in the Jewish faith.
    But he couldn't do it while he was in Odense.
    And we didn't maintain the kosher menu.
    Did you hear or did you parents talk about people leaving
    the country during this time?
    Do you mean leaving Denmark?
    Or-- very few, if any, leaving Denmark at that time.
    I don't believe most--
    there were very, very few that left Denmark.
    I don't believe they started leaving until the fall
    or late summer of '43.
    And why would people start leaving at that point?
    Now we have to move forward.
    Let's do that.
    The Danish government was approached
    by the commandant in Denmark.
    And they got an ultimatum.
    And the ultimatum was, the saboteurs, the resistance
    movement, has to stop.
    And apparently it was really hurting--
    the young people, the underground movement.
    They were bombing factories.
    They were bombing rails.
    They were sinking ships.
    That were doing a lot of things to make
    it difficult for the Germans to transport iron
    from Sweden and through shipping food into Germany.
    They were doing all the right things.
    And that's why they gave the Danish government an ultimatum.
    And up to then, the Danish government
    had tried to cooperate with the Germans
    to the greatest extent possible.
    And I didn't mention that earlier, but as an example,
    they would not have any Jewish people in the broadcasting.
    They didn't want to make it too obvious.
    So there were things they agreed to do.
    But when they got the big ultimatum, they said, no way.
    And they resigned.
    And that became, as we referred to it, as the beginning
    to the Final Solution.
    And that's when the commandant went to Berlin,
    got approval to deport the Danish Jews.
    What was this commandant's name?
    West, W-E-S-T.
    Do you know anything about him that you learned of later on?
    What kind of--
    I don't know an awful lot.
    I think he was very, very ambitious.
    He wanted to make sure that life was going on as smoothly
    as it could in Denmark.
    Without any of the sabotage.
    Yeah.
    So he would have the trouble with the saboteurs and so on.
    And that's about all I can really tell you.
    Werner was his first name, W-E-R-N-E-R.
    So Werner West.
    Werner West, yeah.
    Werner West.
    And did you, before the Danish government resigned,
    ever have to wear a star?
    No, we never wore--
    that was another thing that was different.
    We never wore a star in Denmark.
    And there is a myth--
    and some people actually think--
    like this morning I got the question, which I often get.
    I understand the Danish king wore a Jewish star.
    So I said, it's a myth.
    And when I tell people it's a myth, they don't like it.
    Because they think it's a wonderful story,
    that he would--
    he didn't wear a Jewish star.
    He probably would have worn one, since he
    was a big supporter of the Jewish people,
    if the Jewish people had to wear a star.
    But we didn't.
    So where did the myth come from?
    How did the myth evolve?
    I think there was a cartoon in an American newspaper,
    American magazine, where they showed the star.
    On him.
    On him, yes.
    And what was his role?
    It was Christian, right?
    King Christian was his name?
    Oh, I'm very impressed.
    [LAUGHTER]
    King Christian X.
    Mm-hmm.
    And what public role did he play?
    He continued to be the king.
    His queen continued to be queen.
    Did he ever make a speech?
    Was there any speech that he made?
    He might have.
    He was involved in surrendering when we surrendered.
    It wasn't just the government.
    The king was involved in the surrender.
    So this would have been in the late summer of '43 as well.
    He would have been--
    No, when surrendered that was in April 9, '40.
    Oh, 1940.
    Yes.
    I see.
    OK.
    But he was involved in our surrendering.
    And that was April the 9th.
    That was April the 9th, yeah.
    Yeah.
    He was a big, big supporter of the Jewish people.
    No question about it.
    Do you think that that influenced Danish society,
    or it would have--
    he was just reflecting Danish society?
    I think that sentence, reflecting the Danish society,
    is a good one.
    I think that's a very good descriptor.
    When I talk to people and I show them
    a picture of the king on his horse, and always say,
    he was writing.
    He continued to write in defiance of Hitler.
    Apparently, Hitler sent him a telegram.
    Telegrams-- the young generation probably
    don't know what a telegram is.
    Sent him a telegram on his birthday, Hitler did.
    Oh, really?
    Wished him well and a couple other things.
    And I believe the king--
    I don't know if he answered, but if he answered, he just said,
    thank you, or something like that.
    And Hitler--
    He was dismissive.
    Yeah.
    And Hitler didn't--
    Like it.
    Hitler didn't like that.
    Yeah.
    Well, it's not everybody he sends telegrams
    wishing happy birthday too.
    Other kings and queens, you know.
    No.
    Of course, they had all escaped.
    They were all in England.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So how did life change after the government resigned?
    For--
    It changed dramatically.
    Werner West went to Berlin, got approval.
    They decided on a date.
    There was a leading Nazi officer in Denmark.
    Dane?
    No, German.
    But he had had ties to Denmark over a number of years.
    He went to the Danish administration, told them
    about the date of the final solution, the round up.
    The rabbi, the chief rabbi, was notified.
    The Jewish people--
    95% of the Jewish people in Copenhagen and surroundings
    found out about it.
    And during the next two weeks, there
    was a tremendous job done by everybody.
    About 7,000 Jewish people managed to escape to Sweden.
    Sweden was still neutral.
    So this is-- the day that the government resigned,
    do you remember it?
    Was it late August?
    Early--
    No, it was August 30th.
    August 30th.
    They resigned August 30th.
    The date for the final solution was October 2nd,
    which was Rosh Hashanah.
    And they had done that on purpose.
    And they thought they were very smart.
    Of course, they figured everybody would be home.
    Fortunately, most--
    So this one German, Nazi--
    Yes.
    --actually saved many people.
    Absolutely.
    What was his name?
    Duckwert.
    Duckworth?
    I think it was spelled D-U-C-K-W-E-R-T.
    Duckwert in German?
    I mean, if it--
    OK.
    I'm not sure.
    I'm not sure.
    But it's--
    It's a very unusual step.
    It's very, very unique.
    It's very, very unusual.
    There's been a lot of speculation--
    and this is a complicated story.
    But there's a lot of speculation that the commandant,
    Werner West was involved with it also, that behind the scenes
    he went to him and said, tell them about it.
    I don't want to be involved in it.
    But I don't want to deal with these saboteurs anymore.
    So it was really he didn't like the saboteurs,
    but he didn't want the full--
    well, that's the speculation.
    Yeah, but--
    That's the speculation.
    He wanted it to run--
    Can we cut for a little bit?
    We have to adjust the mic.
    Pausing.
    OK, we had a break just unexpectedly.
    Do you remember your train of thought?
    We were talking about Werner West and Duckwert, Mr.
    Duckwert.
    Yes, I remember what we were talking about.
    I think the commandant wanted everything to run as smoothly--
    maybe we were there--
    as possible.
    And he was looking out for his career.
    And he was afraid if conditions would be too difficult,
    and the saboteurs would hurt him too much,
    that that wouldn't be good for his career.
    So this is a very unique situation.
    I don't know if all this is true.
    I've heard-- it's most unusual for anybody to warn people.
    Yeah.
    Certainly in 1943, when they're really in the middle of it--
    you know, I don't know whether or not
    this was before or after the Battle of Stalingrad,
    which is when the war turned--
    Yes.
    --against Germany's forces.
    Yes.
    I can't remember whether it's before or after.
    But it's an interesting point.
    I'd like to Google it afterwards.
    Because I think that is significant.
    But what happened is these people left their homes.
    They went to stay with friends.
    The ambulance picked them up, and they stayed in hospitals.
    They entered hospitals under false names.
    They didn't want to have Jewish names in their hospitals.
    They were hiding in lofts in the churches, in private homes.
    And then they was shipped or transported
    to Sweden, which was neutral.
    And if you have Copenhagen here--
    That's right.
    --and you have Sweden just across here,
    it's just two miles.
    Is it really?
    Just two miles?
    Two miles, two and a half.
    If it narrows, it can be significantly more
    other places.
    And most often, they went in fishing boats.
    Well, this is, I think, if anybody knows anything
    about this part of the history in Denmark,
    that's what the image in their minds is.
    There's no question.
    The fishing boats.
    Yeah.
    And it was interesting, because I was talking to somebody.
    I play duplicate bridge.
    And one of the players came over, said,
    oh, all the Danish Jews went in rowing boats to Sweden.
    So I said, hold, let me explain it to you.
    So they were actually hiding in the hold of the fishing boat
    where they used to have fish.
    And then they would still put some ice or fish on top.
    So if ducks came to smell it, it would smell like--
    They smell the fish.
    They smell the fish.
    And the children were sedated.
    Because they wanted to make sure that they wouldn't cry.
    And I met a lady a couple of years ago.
    And she was a little girl.
    And she was sedated at that time.
    Really?
    And went on her way to Sweden.
    And some were caught.
    My uncle, his wife, and my father's mother,
    and my uncle's son, who was three years younger than me,
    they were caught.
    And they eventually ended up in Theresienstadt.
    But the rest of the family managed to escape to Sweden.
    How was it that they were caught?
    What were their particular circumstances?
    I believe they were staying at a pension, as we called it.
    And--
    Like a guest house.
    --somebody-- I'm sorry?
    A guest house.
    Yeah, a guest house.
    That's good.
    And I think one of the Nazis heard about it
    or thought they were taking care of them.
    And so they were caught.
    I know there was a family, a husband and wife up the coast.
    And they were taking in a lot of Jewish people.
    And they were also building boats, actually,
    to take them across.
    And they were found out by Nazis later on.
    And they were shot, both of them.
    Ah, the family that was building the boats.
    Yeah.
    They were shot.
    And they are part of the Righteous Avenue.
    It's not called avenue.
    It is in Yad Vashem.
    But here in Skokie at the museum there.
    So it's most likely an informer that led to the arrest.
    It could be, yeah.
    I mean, there were informers.
    There's no question about it.
    My cousin and his mother and father--
    she had remarried.
    And the father was Christian.
    And they were hiding on a loft in the church.
    Informer-- they said it was a girlfriend of a Nazi officer,
    informed them.
    And they were later on taken to a camp in Denmark.
    But they didn't go to a concentration camp,
    because her husband was not Jewish.
    And my cousin's father was not Jewish.
    So it was a mixed--
    It was a different definition.
    The Nazis had a different definition.
    Both parents had to be Jewish.
    The normal definition is, if the mother's Jewish,
    then you're automatic Jewish.
    So that was different.
    So yes, there were some informers.
    There's no question about it.
    Well, the children of mixed marriages
    were in danger, but only at the end of the war.
    Certainly in Germany there would be somebody
    who would be half-half.
    And I've conducted interviews with those who said,
    we were on the lists.
    But the lists were not-- they survived because the war ended.
    They were not high priority.
    Yeah, they were not high priority.
    Let's go back then.
    So of your family--
    I'm just going to repeat it, besides your own situation,
    which we'll come to--
    there was, on your father's side, his brother.
    The architect or the grocer?
    Architect.
    The architect.
    His wife and his son and your grandmother who
    were caught while they're in a pension, a guest house.
    And most likely an informer.
    And then arrested and eventually sent
    to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia.
    Another cousin from your mother's side--
    would be her sister and her Christian husband?
    Yes.
    And a daughter were in the loft of a church.
    Yes.
    And because the husband-- they were caught as well,
    most likely the girlfriend of a Danish Nazi who informs.
    But they're sent to--
    Could have been a Germany actually.
    I think it was.
    Could have been a German Nazi.
    Could have been a German Nazi.
    OK.
    They're caught, but they're sent to an internal camp
    in Denmark--
    Yes.
    --rather than outside of the country.
    And they were released.
    There was a lawyer that helped them release.
    And they were driven in a truck.
    And then the truck stopped.
    And they left the truck.
    And the Nazis said to them, if you
    look around, if you look back, we're going to shoot you.
    And they went to Sweden.
    And they went to Sweden.
    They didn't want to take any chances.
    So in September 1943, after the government collapses--
    resigns-- was your family, your mother, your father, yourself,
    back in Odense?
    Or were--
    Yes, were in Odense.
    OK.
    And so what happened to you?
    What happened to your family?
    This is the $64,000 question.
    My mother in her interview says they had not been warned.
    When they got arrested, they were shocked.
    She says they had talked the night
    before with the other lawyer, a Jewish person.
    And it was his brother who was well-connected.
    And he said, don't do anything until I connect--
    Get in touch with you.
    Unless I connect with you.
    I've been writing in my book, A Danish Boy in Theresienstadt,
    several pages wondering what really happened.
    I realized that communications were quite different
    in those days.
    When I talk to people, they don't
    understand that my parents hadn't
    known what happened in Norway.
    In Norway, one of our neighbors, the Jewish people--
    half of them escaped to Sweden.
    The other half went to concentration camps.
    It happened a year earlier.
    Did they not know what was going on in Germany?
    Did they not know what was going on in Poland?
    And of course, communications was so different.
    I always tell people.
    Today, if there is a bomb in Lisbon, Portugal,
    a second later the rest of the world knows about it.
    So all I can say is, when I talk to people, I always say--
    because I cannot explain it in detail.
    I say, to my knowledge, my parents had not been warned.
    But I am wondering what happened.
    A family member has told me that there was
    somebody that warned my father.
    But they didn't think it was serious.
    The conclusion I have come to is that I don't think--
    nothing happened after three and a half years.
    So why should something happen now?
    And maybe they didn't think it was serious.
    Well, a few--
    So very strange.
    Yeah.
    A few thoughts come to my mind.
    Again, they're suppositions, but they're the questions
    that come to my mind.
    And one would be, if you really have
    very few Jewish families in Odense,
    then they're very easy to find.
    This is not Copenhagen. This is not a network.
    And I don't know whether there is a process of people
    registering with the police every time they move
    and have an address.
    But in some European countries, that was the case.
    So it's easy to go and find where everybody lives.
    And it was even easier for the Nazis, because--
    this is amazing.
    My family was a member of the Jewish Society--
    Well, there you go.
    --at the synagogue in Copenhagen.
    And they had the names and addresses
    and I think phone numbers there.
    And a couple Nazis broke into that office and took the lists.
    Of course.
    They took the list.
    That's how they got it.
    I thought-- there were a couple of Germans nearby.
    And for years, I thought that one of the Germans
    was an informant and that he had told them about us.
    But they--
    Do you still think that?
    No, no, no, no.
    Now I know they had the list.
    But I didn't know that until years later.
    I see.
    OK.
    OK.
    And you answered one question I don't
    think I had asked, whether or not
    you had a telephone at home.
    We had a telephone.
    And so one thing that would be surprising,
    why wouldn't have relatives from Copenhagen
    phoned you and just said, this is what's happening here.
    I wonder about that.
    They do say that the Nazis were listening in--
    That's true.
    --on the phone.
    And at one time, I think they went to the phone company.
    And there was no phone service.
    And I don't know exactly when that happened.
    Well, do you remember the moment of arrest itself?
    Yes.
    Unfortunately, I do.
    Can you tell me what happened?
    There was a pounding on the door.
    On your third floor--
    On the third floor apartment.
    It was early in the morning.
    Was it dawn already?
    Yeah, 6 or 7 o'clock.
    And it was on October 2nd, as we talked about earlier.
    And my father answered.
    And later on I found out what was going on.
    And as I mentioned earlier, I didn't
    know why we were different.
    Because I didn't know that I was Jewish.
    I had not been brought up in the Jewish faith.
    And when I talk to students, especially--
    because I think that's very important--
    I always say something along these lines.
    Is it a crime to be Jewish?
    Is it a crime to be a Catholic?
    Is it a crime to be a Lutheran?
    Of course it's not a crime.
    But in the evil mind of Hitler, it was a crime.
    And I knew about being occupied, because I would bicycle
    to school every day into town.
    And I would see the soldiers stamping their feet,
    stamping their boots.
    So my mother asked if she and I could go down
    to the baker on the ground floor.
    I played with his daughter.
    We knew him.
    And we went down there, got a big sack
    Danish bread, rolls, pastry.
    And what's amazing-- and I didn't
    know that until I listened to my mother's interview.
    Apparently, the baker offered to try and help my mother and I
    escape.
    Technically, it might have been possible,
    because there was a basement, and there was a corridor.
    And we could have maybe gotten to the other side
    of the building eventually and disappeared.
    Of course, my mother couldn't accept it,
    because my father was up in the apartment.
    And he would probably have been shot.
    The baker could also have been shot.
    So we went back up.
    And then we were transported into the middle of--
    the center of town.
    In a lorry?
    Yes.
    Were there other people in the lorry?
    No.
    You were the only ones?
    Yes.
    Were you able to take anything else with you
    besides the bread and the pastries?
    Yeah, we took some clothes, took some clothes.
    And of course, like they tell every inmate,
    make sure you bring money.
    You would have chances to spend the money.
    And jewelry and so on.
    And they tell that to everybody.
    And what did the soldiers look like when
    they came into your apartment?
    All I can remember is the green uniforms.
    Had you ever interacted in those three years
    with any of the soldiers?
    No, no.
    Never.
    I mean, if I was walking, and there was a soldier there,
    I would cross.
    I would cross over.
    No, I never had--
    I mean, I'd seen them on the street.
    And when you say that you didn't know you were Jewish,
    is that metaphorically, in the sense
    that, you knew that you're Jewish,
    but you didn't know that being Jewish--
    No, I did not know I was Jewish.
    You mean you really didn't know you were Jewish?
    No, no.
    I didn't know I was Jewish.
    Oh my goodness.
    Oh my goodness.
    So you could have been easily-- if somebody
    could have told you you were a Lutheran, you said OK?
    I didn't know that before.
    Yeah, it sounds strange.
    But yeah.
    Well, I can't imagine what kind of a shock that was.
    I mean, if I was older, I know my father would
    have found a way--
    a bar mitzvah.
    So you must have been completely stunned
    as to why you're arrested?
    Yes.
    And who then told you?
    I think my mother.
    On the lorry as you're being taken away?
    I think in the house when we were arrested.
    And then did you have an idea of what it meant to be Jewish?
    No.
    Had you ever talked about--
    was there any talk about Jews in your family before,
    that you knew there were such a people?
    I don't think-- I don't remember it.
    I don't think so.
    You know, this is the first time I'm interviewing somebody
    who didn't know he was Jewish--
    This is a very unique situation.
    --until the date that he's arrested.
    Wow.
    Yeah.
    I didn't know.
    I can't imagine for a young boy what this all is.
    It's surreal.
    One minute, you're safe in your bed.
    You're sleeping.
    And the next minute, you're on a truck.
    And you're told the reason why is because you're something
    you never knew you were.
    Do you remember your reactions?
    Do you remember--
    No, not really.
    Because I think I was in total shock.
    What about your father and your mother?
    Do you remember how they were?
    No, but I think they were in total shock.
    And I think I mentioned before, my mother said,
    we didn't think it was serious.
    We didn't think it would happen.
    She said it was a total shock.
    And when you--
    It is a very--
    I mean--
    Yeah.
    It's very unusual.
    Yeah.
    When you get to the center of town,
    what do you remember happened next?
    A lot of shouting.
    The Germans were shouting and shouting.
    Were there more people?
    Counting and counting.
    There were about 60.
    It was kind of a hut maybe, a sample of about 60 people.
    I have a picture of it.
    Oh, you do.
    Which is most-- it's a very unique artifact.
    It's supposed to be the only picture of Jewish people being
    arrested in Denmark.
    And there's 60 people standing in the schoolyard
    in the center of town.
    Maybe we'll film it later if you have it.
    That's great, yes.
    Then what happened?
    Then the truck took us to the peninsula, Jutland Peninsula,
    western part of Denmark.
    And there we were herded into--
    I call it a cattle car.
    I think technically it's a boxcar, rail car.
    But I think most survivors called it a cattle car.
    And we were in that cattle car for three days and three
    nights.
    And as you know, it was completely dark.
    And there were no benches.
    There was no blankets.
    We got no food.
    We shared the Danish rolls, the Danish pastry, with everybody.
    We got nothing to drink, other than what
    other people have brought, some drinks and other food.
    We shared it all.
    And I was frightened.
    I think most of the adults were frightened.
    Atmosphere, I describe it as being very, very tense.
    And--
    Did you know any of the people in the car?
    No, no.
    Most of them were young people who
    had escaped Czechoslovakia or Germany earlier.
    And they were working on farmland in Denmark
    to learn Danish agriculture.
    And we were quite advanced.
    And then eventually, they would go to Palestine.
    And there were 16, 17, 18 years old.
    And I didn't know most of them were there.
    There was one family from another town that I didn't
    know, a judge and his sister.
    But most of them were from the farms.
    I see.
    And I have to tell you a story which is incredible.
    In Odense, the lawyer, the friend of my father--
    they studied together-- they were also pounded on their door
    early morning.
    They didn't hear the pounding.
    A couple hours after the Germans had
    left the neighbor came in and said,
    you'd better get out of here.
    You'd better escape.
    They escaped to Sweden.
    Much later, when I did research for my book,
    I found out that the Nazis had instruction
    not to break down a door.
    I'm not saying they didn't do it, but their instruction was,
    don't break down a door, which sounds incredible.
    And I've read it in some books.
    I know of another family in Copenhagen. Unfortunately,
    they were caught later on.
    So they managed to get to Sweden.
    So we made one stop in the cattle car.
    We got some fresh air.
    We got some-- to drink.
    Was there-- pardon me for saying.
    Were there toilet facilities?
    No, I was just going--
    I forgot that.
    There were no toilet facilities.
    We used buckets.
    So you can imagine the smell was absolutely awful.
    There was actually-- in another cattle car
    from Copenhagen, somebody committed suicide.
    And I didn't realize it until doing a lot of research.
    There were actually 15 Jewish people
    in Denmark that committed suicide
    rather than being arrested.
    Which is very, very sad.
    But you can understand it.
    So we ended up in Terezin.
    Theresienstadt.
    Theresienstadt, yeah.
    I use both words.
    The Czech word as well as the--
    Yes.
    So what is your first image when the doors open and there you
    are?
    Do you remember what you saw?
    I saw soldiers with guns.
    And they always seemed to be shouting.
    And of course, I couldn't understand German.
    So I didn't know exactly what was going on.
    And then we had to walk.
    There was no train station in Terezin at that time.
    So we had to walk from another station,
    I think about a mile, a mile and a half.
    Then we came in to town and had to empty our pockets.
    Of the money and the jewelry.
    Money and valuables that they had encouraged us to bring.
    They checked the luggage, if there was any jewelry in there.
    And then people always think--
    the perception is, and I'm sure you
    heard, that every survivor has a number on their underarm.
    But as far as I--
    I don't.
    As far as I know and I can determine,
    I think it's only the ones--
    "only" in quote-- from Auschwitz-Birkenau
    that has a number.
    And some of them don't have a number.
    And some of them don't.
    Yes, that's true too.
    Yeah, I know a couple that don't have a number.
    And then we were split up.
    So you weren't with your parents after that?
    I don't know how my mother was able to persuade the soldiers.
    She was quite tenacious.
    And she managed to--
    I stayed with my mother for the next 18 months,
    which was amazing.
    And your father was separated from you?
    Father was separate.
    My grandmother was separate.
    So when you were on your way to Theresienstadt,
    did you know about your uncle and his family
    having been arrested?
    Did you find them once you were in Terezin?
    No, we found out later about them.
    But we didn't know.
    And did you see them in Terezin?
    Yes, we saw them.
    They arrived the day after.
    They came from Copenhagen. And then
    they went to the southern part of Denmark.
    And then they took a ship to Germany.
    And then they went by cattle car the rest of the way.
    About how many-- from your research later on, about how
    many people from Denmark--
    472.
    --were deported.
    So you were--
    We're among the 5%.
    You were amongst these few, few people.
    Yes.
    472.
    That's right.
    So when you are separated from your father,
    were you able to go and see him?
    Or was he behind the barbed wire that you couldn't have crossed?
    No, I saw him.
    I saw him a couple--
    not very often.
    But I saw him sometime.
    Describe to me how people then were housed,
    if one could use that term.
    Where did you and your mother go?
    Where did some of the others go?
    In barracks.
    And we were in a loft.
    And in my PowerPoint I have a copy of the loft.
    And I think there were probably about 80,
    90 people in the lofts.
    And we stayed.
    We had bunk beds, wooden bunk beds.
    It was very hard, because while we had mattresses,
    there was hardly any straw.
    We were basically lying directly on the wood.
    And of course, there was fleas and lice.
    And I didn't quite understand.
    Apparently I asked my mother what--
    why am I--
    Itchy.
    I never had this before.
    Yeah.
    What was her manner like during this time?
    Was she more tenacious than usual?
    Or was she less so?
    She's your protector at this moment.
    Yeah.
    I don't know exactly how to answer that.
    I think she was always tenacious.
    I don't know that it was more or less.
    But I think she was always tenacious.
    And of course, she worked, so I didn't see her an awful lot.
    Oh, so you were alone in-- also--
    No, I also worked.
    But I didn't have to work.
    Tell me about that.
    Tell me about--
    It was volunteer.
    I did some volunteer work.
    My mother didn't like it at first,
    but then she thought this would be great.
    Because time would fly a little faster.
    So I worked about an hour in the morning,
    about an hour in the afternoon.
    And I would be going from one Nazi office to the other
    with messages and documents and passing them along.
    Did you get any more food for this or any other kind
    of benefit for it?
    Yes.
    I'm glad you asked.
    I'd almost forgotten.
    And I didn't realize at the time.
    This is from my mother's interview.
    I'm so lucky to have that interview.
    I think I got two or three extra slices of bread.
    And my mother said I was very proud to get that.
    So when you were in these barracks,
    you're kind of squished with other human beings
    in these barracks.
    And she then has to go to work.
    What kind of work did she do?
    She had a couple of different jobs.
    She worked with a mineral called mica.
    And mica is a mineral that comes from the mountains in the Czech
    Republic.
    Mica.
    M-I-C-A. Two C's-- no, M-I-C-A. You may know the other name,
    glimmer?
    G-L-I-M-M-E-R-- no.
    But anyway, I didn't know about it either.
    But it's a metal.
    And it's used as insulation material for their warplanes.
    And there were about 250 women on the floor.
    They would sit at work benches.
    And they would slice it up in thin layers.
    And then it would be sorted out.
    And then eventually sent to the factory
    where they put the insulation material into the planes.
    So this would be minerals that had already
    been mined from the quarry--
    Yes.
    --of some kind, brought to this facility.
    And they would do the rendering of it into--
    Yep.
    OK, OK.
    Did you ever see her at this work?
    Did you ever go there?
    No, I never-- no.
    The description I have and what she was doing I have that--
    she told me some of it.
    And some of it from the interview.
    And what kind of place was your father taken to?
    Do you know?
    Yes.
    I mean, he was in a loft similar to where
    my mother and I were staying.
    Only men?
    In a different barracks.
    And then he had some very hard work to do.
    And it was getting cold, because it was
    the beginning of the winter.
    What was his work?
    Do you know?
    It was roadwork.
    He was digging ditches.
    And he had a very hard time, because it was cold.
    And he wasn't used to it.
    He would normally sit in his office,
    or he would go to the courthouse.
    But here he had to dig ditches.
    And I'm very fortunate that there's a person
    that I met from Denmark.
    She lives outside Paris now.
    But she's doing as her thesis a report on Danes
    in Theresienstadt.
    And she's talked to a number of survivors like myself.
    And she talked to one person who happened
    to be working with my father.
    And he says-- he was younger.
    He was one of the ones that came from Czechoslovakia
    or came from Germany to escape the Nazi regime.
    And he said that when the guards weren't looking
    he would dig for my father.
    Because he was used to that kind of work.
    He also said that my father suffered a great deal.
    He had trouble with the work.
    And consequently, he was whipped and kicked.
    And he had a winter overcoat on.
    And apparently a guard came by and tore it off him and said,
    you don't wear that when you work.
    And my mother tells me that he lost about 50%
    of his body weight and ended up in--
    I don't know whether it's a hospital,
    but I call it infirmary.
    And he was there for several months.
    And they had great doctors, other inmates.
    But they didn't have the medical supplies.
    And they didn't have the tools.
    So he died of starvation.
    It was after less than six months in camp.
    How did you learn of this?
    My mother told me.
    While you were still in the camp yourselves?
    Oh, yes.
    How did she learn of it?
    I don't know who told her.
    I don't know.
    But I know-- and she took me with her--
    that she was asked to come and identify my father's body.
    And we went many different places
    before she identified his body.
    Did you see him?
    Yes, unfortunately, yes.
    Again, I can't imagine what that's like.
    I can't imagine what that was like for a young boy.
    No, it's tough.
    Yeah.
    When was the time-- do you remember now then
    when the last time was that you saw him still alive?
    Did you ever see him in the infirmary?
    Were you allowed to go to visit him there?
    In the infirmary, I don't believe--
    I don't remember being in the infirmary.
    I'm not saying I wasn't, but I don't remember it.
    But I do remember visiting him in the barracks.
    Which wouldn't be very long because, A,
    he worked these long hours.
    And B, I think there was curfew starting at 7:00 or maybe 8:00.
    Were these wooden barracks?
    Were these--
    No, some of them they had to add.
    Because originally, there was only room
    for about 6,000 people.
    And we were 60,000-plus.
    So they had to build temporary huts, I believe they're called.
    And they were wooden huts.
    And that's where you were with your mother, or where he was?
    No, no, no.
    We were in a barrack.
    So within six months of having come to Terezin,
    your father's gone.
    Yes.
    That would have been about mid 1944?
    It was March the 13th.
    March the 13th.
    Even less time.
    Even less time.
    Yes.
    Very soon.
    And he would have been working in the winter months.
    Yes.
    There were 51 Danish Jews that died in camp, 41 of them
    within the first six months.
    This you learned later?
    Yes.
    A lot of it I learned later on.
    I mean, I've done a lot of research.
    So I want to know--
    I mean, there was a time when my mother and I hardly
    spoke about it, which is very typical.
    And now I cannot read enough, or I cannot talk enough.
    Because it's changed completely.
    What happened to yourself and your mother
    after that, after you saw your father?
    Excuse me, I'm going to back up a bit.
    Was there any possibility of burying your father?
    Was there any funeral?
    Was there any cemetery?
    Was there-- do you know what happened?
    At that time, they had built a crematorium, not as
    a gas chamber, but to cremate all the bodies.
    Because they ran out of space in burying the bodies.
    So he was cremated and put in a paper cardboard box.
    Were you able to keep that box?
    No.
    We-- it's very strange.
    The kids were ordered to form a human chain
    later on from the crematorium to a river.
    And apparently close to 25,000 cardboard boxes
    were handed from one person to the other
    and eventually thrown into the river.
    And we're all kids doing that.
    And they all had a name and number on it.
    And there was a boy--
    and I learned that later on-- three years older than me.
    He knew that my father's name could suddenly show up,
    or his number.
    So he turned the box before it got to me.
    Which I happened to read about it.
    Somebody sent me Swedish newspaper.
    That's how I heard about it.
    So you were on that line?
    Yeah, I was on that line.
    And were you thinking to yourself, my father's box
    is going to come by?
    I'm going to be handling it?
    I don't know exactly what my thoughts were.
    Of course, it was just awful.
    I mean, to have children do that, it's just awful,
    when you think about it.
    Have adults do it.
    They shouldn't have children do it.
    Because it is their parents.
    Yeah.
    For them, it is their--
    Yeah.
    So this is a person who knew you, knew your father's name,
    and turned the box around so you wouldn't see it.
    Yeah.
    Did you ever make contact with the person
    who saw your father on the road working
    and who helped him work through the woman who
    is doing this research?
    No, I didn't.
    And I really wish I had.
    I don't think he lives anymore.
    I don't think he's alive anymore.
    But I don't know why I didn't make contact with him
    as soon as I heard about it.
    It's a good question.
    I don't know why I didn't.
    Well--
    Maybe I didn't want to hear anymore.
    I don't--
    Maybe.
    Yeah.
    Maybe.
    Subconsciously, I'd heard enough.
    But I'm glad I heard about it.
    Because it certainly confirms what
    you hear from other people the way the Jews were treated.
    So it's not a surprise.
    No, but the sort of precious few sentences that a person can
    learn about someone who was their loved one, it's--
    and sometimes it's all somebody has to go on.
    Sometimes they don't even have that.
    That's right.
    So how did life continue for you and your mother at the camp?
    My mother worked.
    There was one job she had.
    Another job was she was cleaning floors.
    And you can imagine that the Nazis didn't
    mark my father's death certificate dying
    of starvation or hunger.
    They put on pneumonia.
    My mother was working in the factory.
    One day, and officer came in and asked her how she was feeling.
    She said, not very well.
    I lost my husband a couple of weeks ago.
    How did you lose your husband?
    And she said, he died of hunger or starvation,
    whatever she said.
    He left.
    And the women on the floor all went around my mother and said,
    you could have been shot.
    This could have been serious for you.
    She said, that was the truth.
    So the next seven days, the same officer came around.
    And he asked the same question.
    Now my mother had to say, pneumonia.
    And it's so hard for me to understand
    how anybody can be so cruel.
    But they're really trying to set an example,
    dehumanize us, and take all our dignity away.
    And they did that in many different ways.
    Were you ever part or experienced
    any part of the Red Cross visit to Terezin where they
    were shown a model camp with--
    did you experience that at all?
    Yes.
    How did that happen?
    There's things I can remember.
    There's things I cannot remember,
    but I can tell you about, because I know quite a bit
    about it.
    The Danish administration wanted to see
    how the Danes were treated.
    At first, Nazi didn't want to have them visited.
    But then they thought, we can use this to our advantage.
    The propaganda machine went to work.
    They beautified the town.
    You saw this?
    Some of it I saw.
    Some of it I can remember.
    Some of it I heard later.
    So it's a--
    It's a mix of all of it.
    Yeah.
    The buildings were certainly-- they were washed.
    They were painted.
    They didn't look like a camp.
    They had a music pavilion.
    Had nice benches.
    They had fake store fronts with clothes in the stores.
    They had a cafe.
    They had a bank.
    In the back, they had nice looking new sinks.
    The problem was, if you turned the sinks on,
    nothing happened, because there was no plumbing.
    They transported some young French children
    who looked healthy and who had nice clothes.
    They were playing.
    The visit was delayed three times,
    because they wanted to make sure that they were ready.
    There was some music at Wunderbar played there.
    Children were playing.
    We had been told not to talk to the delegation.
    It was a delegation of two people from Denmark,
    one representing the Red Cross.
    Then there was a doctor from Switzerland.
    And then I believe there were a couple of Germans there also.
    And they were from the Red Cross.
    I believe they spent four to six hours in camp.
    Had a Gestapo officer with them the whole time.
    They had to walk a certain way.
    Had a nice lunch there also.
    But there was a certain path they had to take,
    so they didn't see the bad things in camp.
    We had been transferred from our loft
    to smaller but nicer apartments with more space.
    As soon as they left, we were moved back to the loft.
    Did you get anything to eat during these four, six
    hours that was better than what you normally--
    If we did, I can't--
    You don't remember.
    Yeah.
    But you were there.
    It wasn't that you were behind the scenes.
    You actually were there--
    I will say my mother was not there.
    And there were certain people they
    were afraid would talk to the delegation and tell them
    what was going on.
    And I guess my mother was one of them,
    because she had said he died of starvation.
    Because she's tenacious, yeah.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And so she was escorted with some other people way, way out.
    And it's amazing.
    I got a book.
    It's in Danish.
    The chief rabbi, who was also in camp, wrote the book.
    And he mentions that example.
    And he writes my mother's name in the margin.
    Oh my goodness.
    Which, when I got the book, I couldn't believe it.
    Oh my goodness.
    Yes.
    So you see this.
    And you're at that point 11 years old, something like that?
    Almost 10.
    Almost 10.
    Almost 10.
    That's right, excuse me.
    I mixed up the dates.
    Don't get me too old.
    Yeah.
    [LAUGHTER]
    I mixed it up.
    Wow.
    Are there other instances that stick
    in your mind of unusual things that happened?
    Yeah, there are a couple.
    And I think both of them I have from my mother.
    But I think they're a good example.
    I was growing, and I had outgrown my shoes.
    And my mother needed some shoes.
    So she bartered with a Czech lady.
    And the Czech lady got some Danish food.
    And my mother got used shoes for me.
    Did we talk about food at all?
    No.
    You said-- only when I asked about being a messenger
    did you get any extra rations.
    Yeah, that's right.
    I should tell you a little bit about food.
    Do tell us.
    It doesn't take long.
    We got some substitute coffee, ersatz coffee for breakfast,
    with some bread.
    And then at lunch we would stand in line.
    And we would get soup.
    Most days it was called potato soup.
    It was really boiled water with potato peel.
    And maybe they got the meat of the potato.
    And then we got that at dinner also.
    And then we would sometimes get a pasta.
    Some sort of little pasta in there.
    Yeah, pasta.
    Dumplings, dumplings.
    Typical German dish.
    But we were very lucky.
    After six months, we started getting packages
    from Denmark and Sweden.
    That's what I was going to ask, yeah.
    And much of the literature will tell you
    it was only the Danes that got packages.
    That's not true.
    All nationalities were able to get packages.
    We probably got more than anybody else
    because there was probably more support behind--
    That's right.
    --behind us.
    And even though the food was rationed.
    So we started getting packages.
    Unfortunately, too late to save my father.
    When you read literature, and most of it is in Danish,
    the historians always tell you that Danes got packages.
    But they never tell you that it wasn't until six months later.
    And this is why I mentioned earlier 41 of the 51 deaths
    were in the first six months, obviously,
    before we got packages.
    There's even one Danish historian
    who I had some email exchanges with--
    I'm also tenacious like my mother.
    And he wrote a book and said in his book
    that there wasn't a single Dane that died in Terezin
    from starvation or hunger.
    They died from the hardship.
    Most of them were old people.
    And they just couldn't handle it.
    So that I had a big problem--
    Yeah, of course.
    --a big problem with.
    And I'm not the only one.
    But we were fortunate to get all the packages.
    By the way, how old was your father when he died?
    He was 40 years young.
    He was 40 years.
    Yeah.
    And I always say, 40 years young.
    A young man in his prime.
    He was 40 years old in October 11, 1943.
    Just turned 40.
    And we talked about round birthdays.
    Normally, he would have had a birthday party.
    But obviously, he didn't have that.
    But those cruel guards, they took some of the food packages.
    One that was addressed to my mother
    was very heavy when she opened it up.
    And she couldn't understand why it was so heavy.
    And normally, the packages had food, vitamins, and clothing.
    And she couldn't find any of it.
    It was stones.
    Stones.
    Those guards had replaced it with stones.
    And I always get very upset when I talk about it,
    because just keep the package.
    Don't put stones in instead.
    That's even worse.
    Yeah.
    It's ridiculing the person.
    Yes.
    So people got packages addressed to them individually.
    I have even through the help of somebody else
    found out who sent those packages.
    Did you?
    Yeah, which is amazing.
    Well, who was it?
    It was friends.
    It was family.
    My aunt in Copenhagen, my grandmother's sister,
    lived in a nice apartment.
    And she was single all her life.
    She had a housekeeper.
    This is the one with the hats?
    Yes.
    She just mentioned the hats.
    And she had a Christian housekeeper.
    And she sent us packages.
    And she maintained the apartment while she was gone.
    What was your grandmother's name--
    your grand aunt's name, the one who had the hat business?
    Gerda, G-E-R-D-A, Michelson.
    Gerda Michelson.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And do you remember the name of her housekeeper?
    Oh, yes.
    What was that?
    Alla, A-L-L-A, Hoegdahl, H-O-E-G-D-A-H-L.
    Thank you.
    Thank you.
    Oh, yeah.
    I remember.
    She and I were friends.
    And I treated her as a member of the family, which
    everybody didn't do.
    And I loved food.
    And I would go down to her when I was hungry.
    [LAUGHS] And she would always help me.
    And she would end up sending you packages.
    And she sent us packages.
    And then after the war, I would go down-- she was at the end--
    and get food there.
    So the--
    And I would borrow--
    I would go out to the cemetery, because they
    have a plaque for all the Danish Jews that
    died in Theresienstadt.
    And my father's name is on.
    And I would go out there quite often when I was in Copenhagen.
    And I would borrow her bicycle.
    And of course, I didn't own a hat,
    but I had to wear-- so I'd borrow a hat of hers.
    [LAUGHS]
    I still have that image of the line of children that you
    told me about, and those boxes.
    Yes.
    What did they look like, those boxes?
    Cardboard.
    What color?
    They were square.
    OK.
    About how big?
    If you--
    About that.
    OK.
    What color was the cardboard?
    Neutral color.
    Brownish, maybe?
    Or gray?
    If you remember.
    More brownish than gray.
    Did they have the top?
    Did they have a top?
    Or were they--
    Yeah, there was a top.
    Oh, yeah.
    There was a top on it.
    So you could take the top off and look at the ashes
    inside if you wanted to.
    Yeah, yeah.
    But you didn't have time, because you had to pass it.
    Were they heavy?
    They were not very heavy.
    I mean, I didn't know there were 20--
    that there were-- oh, did this fall off again?
    OK, let's cut.
    I'm sorry.
    So one question I wanted to ask, when you were in Terezin,
    did you meet people who were from all over Europe?
    Or did you kind of stick with those who were from Denmark?
    How was the interaction between the prisoners?
    I would actually play more with Czech children
    than with Danish children.
    How did that come about?
    I don't know how it started.
    Number one, there were more inmates from Czechoslovakia
    than from any other country.
    So that might have had something.
    The odds were that you would meet some Czech--
    and we would play.
    But we also played soccer.
    And we found a gravel field where we could play.
    And we didn't have a real soccer ball.
    It shouldn't be a surprise they didn't give us that.
    Of course.
    But the mothers put together rags, clothing,
    tied them together.
    And we would kick it around.
    And I actually learned to speak the Czech language
    while I was there.
    I would think, you know.
    Phonetically, I learned it.
    And I told my mother I could speak the Czech language.
    And she didn't believe me.
    So I was tested by a Czech lady.
    And I passed the test, [LAUGHTER] which I think
    is quite funny.
    I wish I could remember some of it later on.
    But you know, you forget it as fast as you learn it.
    So that I remember quite clearly.
    I also remember one time these children, boys, didn't show up
    to play soccer.
    And I went back to the barrack and told my mother about it
    when she got back.
    And she said, don't worry about it.
    They were probably just ill, or they couldn't make it.
    They'll be back in a few days.
    What probably happened to those boys--
    and my mother never shared that with me,
    because she was shielding her 9-year-old boy at that time--
    they were deported to an extermination camp.
    And later on I found out there were
    90,000 inmates out of 140,000 that passed through Terezin.
    It was almost like a hub.
    90,000 deported to Auschwitz or other extermination camps.
    And 40,000 died-- starvation, illnesses,
    could be typhus or whatever.
    So while Terezin was not known as a death camp,
    it really was a death camp when you think about all the people
    that lost their lives.
    Yeah.
    I went to Terezin in the late '90s
    when it was all-- when the Czech Republic had already
    split from Slovakia, and when the country had regained
    its independence and so.
    And it had become a memorial site.
    What I remember is this feeling of a very soulless garrison
    town.
    And the parts-- and not just the camp, but the town.
    Can you describe a little bit the geography of it,
    how it looked?
    Because some of the buildings seemed to be 19th
    century buildings.
    Did you have--
    I was there in 2009.
    And it hadn't changed very much from the time
    we were there as I remember it.
    It was a garrison town, originally.
    It was a fortress.
    And it's very ironic.
    It was built originally to keep the Germans out.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And there were brick walls around.
    There were barbed wire.
    They had watchtowers around it.
    So that's how it was built originally.
    And maybe we talked about it earlier,
    to hold about 5,000 or 6,000 people.
    No, we hadn't mentioned that.
    Oh, it was built to hold 5,000 to 6,000 people.
    And we had up to 60,000-plus.
    Sometimes I think it went to 70,000.
    And of course, when the number went too high,
    then more and more people would be deported.
    And Terezin-- of course, it was both--
    I don't know if we mentioned that.
    It was both a concentration camp and a ghetto,
    because it was a town.
    And the museum was built exactly--
    there was one museum that was built
    exactly where the children's barracks used to be.
    And you saw some of the museum.
    And I think they became free in '90--
    it was in 1990.
    And then they built the museum.
    So I think they probably had most of it--
    That's right.
    --when you were there.
    And they sure had it when I was there.
    When you went there in 2009, was that the first time
    you had been back?
    Yes.
    Then that must have been quite a trip.
    Yeah, we were on a trip in Europe.
    We were on a river cruise.
    And it ended in--
    I forget where.
    It ended in Nuremberg.
    And I wanted to go in and see where
    they had the Nuremberg trial.
    Unfortunately, it was closed for whatever reason.
    And we went to Prague.
    Not that far away.
    Spent a couple of days in Prague.
    I told the museum I was a survivor.
    And they had somebody take me around and spent,
    I think, almost all day there.
    We just took a bus from Prague to the museum.
    It takes less than an hour.
    And then we walked around.
    Eileen didn't want to see it as much as I did.
    It's hard on her.
    Eileen, my wife.
    And I saw quite a bit.
    And I'm glad I did.
    I even went to the archives, got some certificates
    from each person in the family.
    Did anybody else in your family, your uncle or his side,
    did they survive it?
    Yes, my father was the only one that passed away.
    Even your grandmother, your maternal grandmother--
    My father's grandmother.
    Paternal.
    Paternal grandmother, yeah.
    She survived.
    And my father's name was Axel.
    And I still remember her saying more than once,
    it should have been me.
    She was 64.
    It shouldn't have been Axel.
    I mean, there's nothing worse than losing your child.
    That's right.
    So I'm glad I went back.
    Eileen was concerned that it would come back,
    the nightmares.
    But I'm glad I saw it for myself.
    I'm glad I did some research.
    And it was very, very helpful.
    You mentioned--
    I heard in my mother's--
    I'm sorry.
    In my mother's CD she was asked, did you
    ever go back to Theresienstadt?
    And she answered in a very stern,
    really my mother's typical--
    oh no.
    Once is more than enough.
    And I could just hear her say it again.
    You mentioned nightmares.
    Did you have them after the war?
    No, no.
    I was very lucky.
    I had and have some abandonment issues.
    Right after the war, my mother and I went back to the town
    where I was born, Odense.
    And without my father, I was afraid something
    would happen to my mother.
    So apparently I was hanging onto her skirt.
    And I still have some of those abandonment issues.
    But all in all, I've been very, very fortunate.
    I mean, I don't know that I could
    have talked to you 10 or 15 years ago or 20 years ago.
    I don't think I could have talked
    to students 15 or 20 years ago.
    But now I'm on a mission.
    And it's very important for me.
    What changed?
    What changed, yeah?
    I think the book changed.
    When you were doing your book.
    When the book--
    When you were researching and writing your book.
    That changed a lot.
    What really changed it was, after I'd written my book,
    my oldest daughter had a son in middle school.
    And she went to the teacher.
    And they thought I should talk to the students.
    And I didn't know how they would behave.
    Would they play around with their phones all the time?
    But I said, OK, I'll go.
    Didn't do a lot of preparation.
    Read some passages from my book and talked,
    but completely different to what I'm doing now.
    I couldn't believe all the students that came in.
    There were over 100 students in the library.
    They started asking questions.
    My grandson, who at that time was quite introvert,
    asked questions.
    Afterwards, my daughter thought it was terrific.
    My grandson came back to me and said one of his friends said,
    your grandpa was awesome.
    [LAUGHS] And maybe that clinched it.
    But that became what I call the beginning of a new career.
    I'm sorry if I jumped to the after--
    No, no, no, that's OK.
    --before we're finished.
    That's OK.
    We'll go back.
    We'll go back.
    I led you there.
    I wanted to know.
    We started with nightmares.
    Because your wife had been concerned that
    you might have some.
    Yes.
    And many people who went through such things did have them.
    Oh, yes.
    And there's some that don't want to talk about it.
    That's right.
    And I respect that.
    Now, your children, did you tell them as they were growing up?
    Or was it part of you that they didn't know anything about?
    No, they knew I had been in camp.
    They didn't know an awful lot, but they
    knew I had been in camp.
    And obviously they knew I was Jewish.
    They were--
    Because you knew at this point.
    Yes.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And Eileen and I, my wife--
    they were brought up in the Christian faith.
    And that was something we had decided when we got married
    or before we got married.
    Probably before we got married.
    And there was no disagreement on that.
    So they knew about it.
    But there was a lot they didn't know.
    And when the books came out, I made them read it.
    And they learned something new.
    There was no question about it.
    As a matter of fact, the way the book came out was I wrote--
    This was in 2011 that it came--
    Yeah, April of 2011.
    So a little over five years ago.
    I wrote a memoir for my family.
    It was more than 300 pages.
    I can't imagine.
    I couldn't do it today, but I did anyway.
    And it was important for me.
    And then I took--
    somebody suggested, take all the chapters about the Holocaust
    and put it in a separate book.
    And I did that.
    I put them in separate book, A Danish Boy in Theresienstadt.
    But when I started the book, I didn't think about the war.
    I didn't think about the Holocaust.
    I just took year by year and worked myself through it.
    And then, of course, I came to the war years.
    And then I did some research and wrote down
    what I could remember.
    I was very lucky.
    I got the interview my mother.
    And I got a couple of other things
    that have helped me a great deal.
    And was this, then, the first time you had really revisited--
    Yes.
    --everything?
    Yeah.
    And that would have been 60 years after the war end?
    Yes.
    Something like that.
    At least.
    At least.
    So October 2011, that's when I talk to my grandson's class.
    And that gave me inspiration, because they
    were so well behaved.
    They were so attentive.
    I just couldn't believe it.
    They weren't fiddling on their phone.
    No, no, they were not.
    They were amazing.
    And they told the teacher.
    And then we split our time between Florida
    and here, Chicago area.
    And then I started talking in Florida.
    And they were just as attentive.
    And now what a lot of teachers are saying--
    this is very important for you, talking to the students.
    Because you will be the last generation
    that will hear directly from the survivor.
    That's true.
    Yeah.
    It's true.
    And has this helped you?
    Oh, I think it's helped me a great deal.
    I could not imagine going to the grave
    without knowing what I know now.
    And I know so much more, not only from writing the book,
    but since then I've done more research.
    I've read books.
    I've talked to people.
    And you learn things all the time.
    So it's helped me greatly.
    This has become a passion of mine.
    I mean, I don't understand why I can't talk
    to every school around here.
    But it was the time--
    I mean, that's such a dramatic change.
    Oh, very much so.
    I mean, Eileen would probably-- if she was here,
    she'd probably say that I spend too much time in front
    of the computer and about this.
    But she understands.
    And she's very supportive.
    And I mean, I cannot imagine this happening some years ago,
    but I've been invited to Springdale,
    Arkansas to talk at the end of October,
    and be there for three days.
    And I've been invited to my hometown to speak in November.
    They also--
    In Denmark?
    In Odense, yeah, in Odense.
    Invited there.
    And I wrote a long, long article for them in Danish
    and sent them pictures.
    Has your book been translated into Danish?
    My book has not been translated into Danish, no.
    No.
    But they know of it.
    Yes, they know of it.
    But this article was in Danish.
    And it took me twice as long as if it was in English.
    But I wrote it.
    And then I'm going to make a presentation,
    several presentations in my hometown--
    also to the schools where I used to go.
    And those presentations will be in Danish.
    And when I walk in the morning I'm practicing.
    [LAUGHS]
    And then in April next year, after Florida,
    I've been invited to Colorado, Greeley, Colorado.
    Wow.
    So it has mushroomed.
    It's just amazing.
    Did you ever, after the war and in the decades since,
    have conversations in your head with your father
    and what you would have liked him to know
    about how life went on for you?
    No.
    No, I didn't.
    That's an interesting question though.
    Well, if you were to talk to him now,
    what would be the most important thing
    you think you'd want to tell him?
    Oh, the most important thing that I want to tell my father
    is that, in your memory and knowing your memory and the six
    million other Jewish people that were perished, I'm doing this.
    Let's go back now.
    OK.
    Let's go back to Terezin.
    And the last thing I remember asking you
    was about who are some of the other people in the camp
    and the nationalities.
    And you said you played mostly with the Czech children.
    Yes.
    There were also, obviously, Danish children.
    There were German children.
    There were Dutch children.
    Were there any non-Jews?
    No, they were all Jewish.
    They were all Jewish.
    Except-- and I don't know if you remember it from your trip
    there.
    There was something called little fortress.
    That was political prisoners.
    So you continue for about another year?
    When was Terezin liberated?
    Let's go back to the Red Cross visits,
    maybe, to put it in perspective.
    That was June--
    '44?
    --23rd of '44.
    Terezin was liberated by the Russians on May the 8th.
    '45.
    '45.
    The Danes gained something unique.
    We were liberated by the White Buses.
    Have you heard about the White Buses?
    No.
    Tell us about the White Buses.
    Coming from Sweden, Sweden being a neutral country.
    And the White Buses managed to liberate over
    15,000 inmates from many different camps,
    including Ravensbruck, where there were
    a lot of women in Ravensbruck.
    And they liberated-- at that time
    there were 421 Danish Jews left.
    And we were liberated.
    It was a convoy of about 20 buses.
    And you were still in Terezin?
    We were still in Terezin.
    And we couldn't believe it when we
    were told about it, because we had been there for 18 months.
    And now suddenly we would be liberated.
    So we didn't believe it until the buses arrived.
    So how did this happen that the Swedish buses
    come before the Soviet troops?
    What happened was the Danish administration
    not only wanted to inspect to see how we lived,
    but they still wanted to get the Danes out early.
    So there's a Swedish diplomat, being neutral,
    contacting the Nazis.
    And I believe they talked to Himmler and his staff.
    At that time-- say, it was in February of '45,
    which is probably about the right time.
    At that time, I'm sure Himmler knew that the Germans were
    going to lose the war.
    He wanted to save his skin.
    He wanted to save his reputation.
    And he thought he would be treated differently.
    So he wanted a direct pipeline, a direct line to the Allies.
    So they agreed to have the buses come into different camps
    and liberate not only the Danish Jews, but inmates
    from many other camps.
    We were one of the last buses that went through Germany.
    So this was before May 8th?
    Oh, yes.
    It was April-- I'm sorry if I didn't mention it.
    It was April the 15th.
    So you never saw a Soviet soldier.
    No, I never did.
    And when--
    April the 15th.
    It took us three days to come back.
    And we had to stop on the way.
    There was heavy bombardment, I think,
    on Potsdam, I think it was.
    It would be.
    It would be.
    So did you look out the windows as you were driving
    through all these territories?
    Do you remember things?
    I wasn't supposed to, but I did.
    I just glanced out.
    And I saw the youngest soldiers that I ever remember.
    They were in their teens.
    German soldiers.
    Yes.
    And our buses were white.
    They had Swedish flags on them and Red Cross on all sides.
    And of course, they were not supposed to shoot at us.
    And I heard later on that some of the Germans
    painted their trucks white so they wouldn't shoot at them.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Well, there's a logic to that.
    Yes.
    And it was probably the first decent food
    you had in over two years.
    Oh, yeah.
    We got sandwiches.
    And we got hot chocolate.
    We got chocolate.
    The adults got tobacco.
    But interesting about the Russian coming to camp.
    I didn't realize it until I started.
    May the 8th, they arrived.
    There were 17,000 prisoners left.
    There were some prisoners coming in from other camps.
    They couldn't leave for two or three weeks,
    because there was typhus.
    So they couldn't leave.
    And I also talked to another survivor from Terezin.
    She was Czech.
    She lives five minutes from here.
    And I like to talk to other people.
    I learn something all the time.
    I'd heard rumors they were building
    a gas chamber in Terezin.
    She confirmed on Hitler's order--
    his order was destroy all the Jews.
    Because he knew that the war was lost.
    And they were building the gas chambers.
    She confirmed it.
    And they were starting building them in April.
    They were supposed to be operational
    the third week of May.
    Oh my goodness.
    And the camp was liberated May the 8th.
    And we were liberated April the 15th.
    It's very, very, eerie.
    Very.
    Yeah.
    OK, when you get back to Denmark,
    do you go back to your hometown?
    Yes.
    Do you stay in Copenhagen?
    What happens?
    We spent a couple of days in Copenhagen with family.
    The entire family expected us to move to Copenhagen
    because my father wasn't alive anymore.
    My mother wanted to go back to Odense.
    She liked it.
    She had met some nice friends.
    And we went back.
    Our apartment had been rented out,
    which was very common because of a short of apartments.
    Contrary to what happened in many other occupied countries,
    the legal firm where my father worked
    had stored all our belongings for us.
    And apparently, this was done in many other Danish homes
    in Copenhagen. Sometimes I think the government had done that.
    And in many other countries, they
    were stealing left and right.
    Of course.
    So there are an awful lot of things
    that are unique to Denmark.
    Now, when you had moved into this apartment,
    was it as owners or as renters?
    It was a rental.
    It was a rental.
    It was a rental apartment.
    So did you find another one?
    Yes, my mother-- and I didn't think about it at the time.
    But it was apparent my mother got it very fast.
    Normally, you have to wait a long time.
    She got help, I think.
    The legal company may have helped her get the apartment.
    It was much smaller, but it was in the same complex.
    And you stayed there?
    That is, you and your mother stayed at this apartment?
    Yeah, we stayed there until my mother got married again.
    Oh, she did?
    No, actually, before she got married again
    we moved to a bigger apartment in a house,
    but still very close to the apartment complex.
    And when did that happen, the second marriage?
    '51.
    And you were at this time, then, 16 years old?
    Your math is good.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Was that, let's say, one of the more significant events
    in your post-war life?
    Depends whether it's good or bad.
    But--
    Well, I wanted to be neutral in asking it.
    It was not one of my happier moments.
    Apparently, I said to my mother, don't marry for my sake.
    And it was a difficult situation,
    which it often is, yes.
    I mean, we had been the two of us for a long time.
    And how many more years did you live with your mother
    and your stepfather?
    I lived there until '53 when I graduated from high school.
    And then I moved to a smaller town.
    I was there for a couple of years.
    That was really the last time I lived there,
    what I will call permanently.
    Later on I had to join the armed forces.
    And I was really upset, because I shouldn't
    join the armed forces.
    I had been in camp for 18 months.
    And there was nobody really--
    I think my father would have fought for me.
    But my stepfather was not interested in doing that.
    And I felt sorry for myself.
    And then I had some other jobs.
    And then-- but it was the last time I really lived there for--
    part of my time in the armed forces, I stayed there.
    And then I joined a Danish food company.
    And I joined them because I wanted
    to see part of the world.
    Denmark was a small country.
    And most of their business was abroad.
    So I went to England.
    And it turned out that Eileen, my future wife, so to speak,
    and I lived in the same area.
    I think we talked about it off--
    Off camera.
    --off camera.
    In Notting Hill Gate.
    And we probably went to the same grocery stores,
    maybe the same movies.
    Did you see each other there?
    No, no.
    Oh, you didn't meet each other there?
    No, we didn't meet at all.
    And then I was sent to Canada.
    And we met in Canada.
    Where?
    At a party.
    I was doing for the company, food exhibition for Plumrose,
    the Danish company.
    And a Dane that I didn't know came up, talked to me,
    and said, we're having a party on Saturday.
    Would you like to come?
    And it was still the beginning, almost, of my time in Canada.
    I didn't know that many people.
    Where were you based?
    Where was this--
    In Toronto.
    In Toronto, OK.
    We had a small office in Toronto.
    So I went there.
    Turned out to be a surprise party for Eileen.
    It was her birthday.
    It was the evening of September 30.
    Her birthday is October 1.
    Next Saturday.
    And we met there.
    And I guess the rest is history.
    How lovely.
    How lovely.
    I think we're kind of close to the end of our interview.
    OK.
    Is there anything I haven't asked
    that you think we've missed that is important, that you would
    like people to know about?
    Yeah, a couple of things.
    We talked about my passion for talking especially to students.
    And in those five years--
    it's really almost to the date five years since I started--
    I've covered about 30,000 people, mostly students.
    That's amazing.
    And probably about 260 groups.
    I keep track of every one of them.
    Typical ex-business person.
    And I know I've exceeded 30,000.
    I don't know when, but I started talking to the people
    how important it is that we never forget the Holocaust.
    And it's becoming increasingly more important,
    because there are more and more people that are denying
    that it took place, especially in Europe.
    And there's also anti-Semitism going on.
    And I want to make sure that everybody hears it directly
    from me.
    So I'm asking each person to share
    with at least four people.
    And if each person does that, that adds up to 120,000,
    if my math is right.
    So that's become very important to me.
    And I actually-- I wish--
    a lot of people think I just sit at the phone waiting
    for some-- or email for somebody to say, I want a presentation.
    But I have to work at it.
    I can imagine.
    I can imagine.
    I have to use some of my old salesmanship.
    So I think that's very significant.
    It is.
    And it's very significant--
    and I think we might have talked about it before--
    that I've changed completely from not really talking
    about it.
    Now I cannot talk enough about it,
    cannot read enough about it.
    I want to add one thing, which is important.
    And I think it's important for a couple of reasons.
    At the museum--
    Which--
    --in Washington D.C.--
    That's right.
    You have some big-- what do you call them--
    not statue, but-- where you write about events.
    Like in Theresienstadt, you wrote
    about what happened in Theresienstadt,
    what happened to the Danes and so on in big-- not tapers.
    I'm sorry.
    I can't remember the word.
    Oh, you mean-- that's part of the exhibition?
    Yeah, it's part of the exhibition.
    OK.
    On some panels or some--
    Panels.
    Thank you.
    I think you call them panels.
    And some time ago I found out some of the information
    I didn't think was correct.
    And I know how important it is for the museum to--
    Be accurate.
    --transfer the right information.
    And I was out at a school.
    And some of them talked about what
    they had read in the document.
    This also happens to be on the tape.
    So I worked with the museum.
    And they're going to change the panels.
    And I realized it takes some time.
    And I'm not always the most patient person in this world.
    [LAUGHTER]
    But it has to go--
    take the right steps.
    But within the next couple of weeks
    I believe the new panels will be on display in the museum.
    Well, congratulations.
    And it's very gratifying.
    Because-- also to the museum.
    Because I know they want the museum to be correct.
    Of course they do.
    And thank you for your efforts.
    It's through such efforts that we can be more precise
    and we can be more accurate.
    Mr. Steen, thank you so much.
    I shouldn't say Mr. Steen.
    Steen.
    [LAUGHS] Thank you so much for talking to us today,
    for sharing your story, for sharing also
    the hard parts of it, and letting
    us have a view of what your experience was.
    I will say that, for now, this will conclude the United States
    Holocaust Memorial Museum effort-- you
    want to say something else?
    Yeah, may I?
    OK, sure, go right ahead.
    Yeah.
    Thank you very much for conducting
    this in such a professional way, and your knowledge.
    And I'm glad to do it.
    And I really want the world to know
    what the Holocaust was like.
    Well, your voice will be able to be heard by anybody
    who clicks on the website.
    And that is one of the purposes of this museum.
    So thanks.
    Thank you.
    OK.
    This concludes the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mr. Steen Metz on September 26, 2016.
    And what we're going to do now is
    film some of your photographs.
    So let's cut now.
    And rolling.
    OK, so Steen, tell me, who is in this photograph?
    This is my father, Axel Metz.
    I don't know exactly when it was taken.
    But obviously, it was taken before we were arrested in '43.
    So I would guess it might have been taken in '40 or '41.
    At that time, my father would have been about 38 years old.
    And I think he looks a lot older than 38.
    But they do dress differently.
    Well, he does also seem like a young man, though, a very--
    Thank you, yes.
    --a young man who--
    and a gentle man.
    OK, thank you very much.
    And--
    OK, and tell me who is?
    This my mother, Magna.
    And she was married again, but I'll
    call her Magna Metz, because I like that name the best.
    And I believe she was about 85 years old
    when the picture was taken.
    It was taken during the summer when Eileen and I, my wife, we
    were in Odense, my hometown.
    And it's one of my favorite pictures.
    And she died five years later.
    She was 90 years old when she died.
    And she was amazed that she lived so long.
    And she said that in the interview,
    especially after what she went through.
    And I like to think that I got some of her good genes,
    so I continue to talk to students for a while longer.
    OK, thank you.
    Thank you very much.
    OK, tell us about this photograph.
    This is a very unique photograph,
    which I found on the internet some years ago,
    before I issued my book or published my book.
    This is the only photo taken of the arrest
    of Jewish people in Denmark.
    It was actually taken by a person
    from a balcony right opposite.
    And it shows 60 Jewish people being
    assembled in a schoolyard in the center of Odense.
    And you can see the truck in the picture.
    And we were driven there on the truck.
    And later on, we were taking the same truck
    to the western part of Denmark and then herded
    into a cattle car on our way to Terezin.
    So you're one of those 60 people.
    Yes, and I've looked with magnifying
    glass and everything, and I can't find it.
    Interestingly enough, the person that took the picture
    put it away.
    And his son found it.
    That happens sometimes.
    Yes, it does.
    Thank you very much.
    OK, so tell me what it is that you have in your hand.
    Last year when we were in Florida,
    I talked to a sixth grade school.
    The name of the school was St. Andrew Catholic
    School in Cape Coral Florida, just
    outside Fort Myers, Florida.
    These students were as attentive and as interested as anybody.
    And they tried the website of the Holocaust Museum
    in Washington, because they thought
    I would be on the website.
    I will be from now on.
    That's right.
    But they were very dear.
    And after the presentation, they wrote me a long, long poem.
    And I'd like to--
    I'll never forget it.
    I had tears in my eyes when I read it the first time.
    And it's amazing the things they remember from my presentation.
    So share some of that with us, could you?
    You're Steen Metz, a Holocaust survivor.
    You were born May the 5th, 1935 in Odense, Denmark.
    You were a happy boy who loved ice cream.
    You saw Nazi soldiers on every street corner,
    starting in April, 1940.
    You still enjoyed a vacation with your family.
    Your terror began the day the Nazis
    pounded on your apartment door.
    You had 30 minutes to gather your valuables.
    You wondered why only some families
    were taken by the Gestapo.
    You were afraid riding in the crammed cattle cars
    for three days and three nights as some died.
    And then the last one.
    We are sixth graders at St. Andrew Catholic
    School in Cape Coral, Florida.
    We love that you came to speak at our school.
    We believe that you're a lantern shining the light of truth that
    was the Holocaust.
    We are thankful for your book to read more of your story.
    We understand your idea to be an upstander, instead of
    a bystander.
    We say, we accept your challenge to be ambassadors to tell
    the truth of the Holocaust.
    We will never forget you, Steen Metz.
    That's lovely.
    Yeah, it is lovely.
    And they refer to upstander because in some of my talks,
    I use the word upstander.
    There were too many people that were
    standing by during the war.
    And we need more upstanders.
    And if you can have bystanders in the dictionary,
    you can have upstanders also.
    Absolutely.
    Thank you very much.
    And they actually gave me a lantern.
    Yeah.
    Thank you very much.
    And that's what some of the poems are.
    And we can pan from top to bottom.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Steen Axel Metz, born on May 5, 1935 in Odense, Denmark, describes growing up in a family of assimilated Jews; his father (Steen Axel Metz) and mother (Magma Hildesheim); living in an apartment; having many friends, who were mostly not Jewish; the occupation of Denmark on April 9, 1940; starting school in 1941; seeing German soldiers walking the streets; getting around town by bicycle; the lack of antisemitism from other Danes; the Danish experience during the war; the escape of 7,000 Jews from Denmark before a major roundup in Copenhagen; the fates of members of his extended family; being arrested with his parents and taken to a schoolyard along with 60 other Jews; being deported by cattle car to Theresienstadt, where they remained for 18 months; staying with his mother while his father was placed in a separate barrack; not seeing his mother often because she had to work; volunteering as a messenger, which allowed him to get additional food rations; the curfews; his father’s death in 1943 from starvation and his subsequent cremation; being part of a group of children who were forced to dump cremation remains in the river; the beautification efforts made to make Theresienstadt look good for visiting Red Cross representatives; receiving packages from Denmark; the deportations to Auschwitz; the liberation of Thereisenstadt by the Russians on May 8, 1945; being taken by bus with his mother out of the camp; staying in Copenhagen for a few days before returning to Odense; his mother’s remarriage in 1951; graduating high school in 1953; moving to another town and joining the armed forces; working for an international company and living in Toronto, Canada, where he met his future wife; visiting the Ghetto Museum at Terezín in 2009; writing a memoir (it was published in April 2011); and speaking to various groups about his experiences during the Holocaust.
    Interviewee
    Mr. Steen Metz
    Interviewer
    Navazelskis, Ina
    Date
    interview:  2016 September 26
    Geography
    creation: Lincolnshire (Ill.)

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 digital file : MPEG-4.

    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
    Metz, Steen Axel.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Ina Navazelskis, on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, conducted the oral history interview with Steen Metz on September 26, 2016 in Lincolnshire, IL.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:05:27
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn550878

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    Time Coded Notes (2)

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    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral History

    Josef, born on June 25, 1915 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; moving to Przemyśl, Poland when he was a child; fleeing to Lwów, Poland after the war broke out in 1939; returning to Przemyśl, which came under Russian occupation when Poland was divided between the Russians and the Germans; the German invasion on June 22, 1941; German troops issuing decrees restricting the rights and opportunities of the town’s Jewish population; moving into a designated Jewish ghetto in Przemyśl; meeting his future wife Stefania Podgófrska, who helped his family by smuggling food and other supplies to them in the ghetto; losing both of his parents during a ghetto Aktion; his deportation from the ghetto on November 18, 1942; using pliers he had in his pocket to cut through the wires covering the small window in the train car and jumping out of the train; getting slightly injured but being able to walk to Lipowice, Poland, where a friend provided him with shelter for a night and smuggled him back into Przemyśl the next morning; immediately going to Stefania, who hid him in her apartment for several days until he could smuggle himself back into the ghetto to be with one of his brothers; Stefania obtaining false papers for him and a few of his friends in the ghetto and finding a small cottage where they could hide; leaving the ghetto to meet with Stefania and her younger sister and to construct hiding places; hiding in the cottage with thirteen people for almost two years; his liberation by Russian troops and marrying Stefania; moving to Kraków and then to Wrocław, Poland, where he graduated from dental school; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral History

    Stanislaw Soszynski, born on February 24, 1931 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his neighborhood in Warsaw on Swietojerska Street; the destruction of Warsaw and the Germans opening the Warsaw Ghetto; living in an apartment where the front part was on the Aryan side, and the back part was on the ghetto side, which helped smuggling operations later in the war; going out of the ghetto area to get milk and sell it to support his family; his memories of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; the massive destruction of the ghetto after the uprising; and the uprising in 1944.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral History

    Abraham Lewent, born in July 1924 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; entering the Warsaw ghetto after the German occupation; hiding in a crawl space during a 1942 German raid and witnessing the capture of his mother and sisters; being deployed for forced labor nearby but escaping to return to his father in the ghetto; remaining in the ghetto until the uprising; his and his father’s deportation in 1943 to Majdanek, where his father died; his transfers to Skarzysko-Kamienna, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and finally to Dachau; and his liberation by American troops.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral History

    Miriam Storch Lewent, born on June 26, 1926 in Zamość, Poland, describes her family and childhood; fleeing her home when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939; her family’s internment by Soviet forces and being deported to Siberia; cutting down trees to earn food rations near Tomsk, Russia; the Soviets releasing her and her family when the Soviet Union went to war with Germany in June 1941; her two brothers registering with the Russian Army and the rest of her family settling in Kazakhstan, where they lived for the rest of the war; her father teaching Hebrew to Jewish children in their new home; attempting to return to Poland after the war but encountering too much antisemitism; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral History

    Liane Reif-Lehrer, born in Vienna, Austria in November 1934, describes growing up in a middle-class family; obtaining a passport in 1938 to immigrate to the United States but not being able to go when her father, a dentist, killed himself because he had to close his practice; traveling with her brother and mother to Hamburg, Germany in 1939 to board the St. Louis, which was bound for Cuba; arriving in Cuba and having to return to Europe, where they ended up in France; getting a visa to immigrate to the United States after staying in France for two-and-a-half years; traveling through Spain and leaving Europe from Lisbon, Portugal on the S.S. Exeter and arriving in the United States on November 10, 1941; living with the sister of Liane's father and her children in New York; earning her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and working for many years as an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School; and now working as a consultant and a writer.

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral History

    Preben Munch-Nielsen, born in 1926 in Snekkersten, Denmark, describes growing up in a Protestant family; attending school in Copenhagen; the German invasion of Denmark in 1940; becoming a courier in the resistance and being one of the youngest resistance fighters; helping to hide refugees in houses near the shore and to get them on boats to Sweden once the Gestapo began hunting down Jews in Denmark in October 1943; taking refuge in Sweden in November 1943 and joining the Danish Brigade, in which he fought as a soldier for eighteen months; helping to smuggle arms into Denmark for resistance fighters; and settling in Denmark in May 1945 after the war.

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral History

    Anny Rubinstein Kast, born in Poland in 1926, describes moving to Belgium when she was two months old; her family and her childhood in Belgium; attending school in Antwerp before the war; the German invasion of Belgium on May 10, 1940; someone reporting to the Germans that her family was the only Jewish one left in their neighborhood and then being picked up a few days later; living with the aunt of a friend during her family’s deportation and taking on a false identity; studying German, English, and mathematics lessons during the war; her liberation in 1944 when the English troops entered her town; her uncle finding her and opening up a fur store in Antwerp to support her and other surviving family members; immigrating to Israel after the war; and getting married in 1967.

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral History

    Helen Waterford, born in Germany in April 14, 1909, discusses her 1933 marriage; her move to Amsterdam in 1934; working for many years to help Jews from Germany relocate to the Netherlands; going into hiding in October 1942 with her husband but without her daughter; the Germans discovering them on August 26, 1944 and interrogating them for two days about the network of people who assisted them in hiding; her deportation to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau; her husband’s death in Auschwitz; remaining in Birkenau until October 1944, when she was forced to work in the Kratzau factory in Czechoslovakia; going into a prisoner of war camp, where she remained until her liberation; traveling to a displaced persons camp at Plzen, Czechoslovakia; returning to the Netherlands, where she reunited with her daughter; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral History

    Thomas Ward, born on August 10, 1921 in St. Louis, MO, describes joining the army when he was twenty years old; serving in General Patton's Third Army; working as a part of a three-person reconnaissance team in the Third Cavalry division; liberating 18,000 prisoners from the Ebensee concentration camp on May 5th, 1945; liberating a neighboring camp for women several days later; taking photographs in the camps (which he sent to the Supreme Allied Command); and his views on Holocaust denial.

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral History

    Fred R. Wohl, born in 1914 in Baden-Baden, Germany, describes growing up in Germany after World War I; leaving to work on a farm in Switzerland in 1932 for four months; working in Athens, Greece in 1935 and trying to get a Greek passport for fear of what the Germans were planning; moving to Nicosia, Cyprus in March 1939 with the help of the British Ambassador to Athens; the German invasion of Greece and being interned with refugees in a camp next to the Nicosia prison; being sent to a hotel-camp in the mountains with his father but soon being released; the Nazi invasion of Crete in 1941 and preparing for evacuation; traveling to Tel Aviv, Israel and then to Mwanza, Tanzania; working in a gold mine and contracting black water fever in Tanganyika, Tanzania; and immigrating to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral History

    Norbert Yasharoff, born in 1930 in Sofia, Bulgaria, describes the anti-Jewish measures enforced by the Nazis when World War II began; Bulgaria joining the Axis Alliance in March 1941, allowing German troops to pass through Sofia; the expulsion of some Jewish families to Poland in March 1943 and a bloody protest soon after; leaving with his family to Pleven, Bulgaria in May 1943 and staying with family members; attending a Gentile school while in Pleven, where his teacher did not force him to perform the Nazi salute; his liberation on September 9, 1944 and returning to Sofia with his family; immigrating to Israel in December 1948; joining the volunteer air force, where he trained as a radar technician; graduating with a degree from Tel Aviv University in Political Science and residing in Israel for twenty years; and working in an American Embassy for nine years until he immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral History

    Frank Meissner, born in Třešt̕, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1923, describes his family; joining a Zionist youth group and traveling to Prague, Czech Republic to live with other members of the group in 1937; the group’s fear of anti-Jewish Nazi policies and subsequently leaving Czechoslovakia to settle in Denmark; attending agricultural school at the University of Copenhagen; receiving a call in 1943 from his landlady, who warned him to not return home because the Gestapo had been looking for him; being smuggled onto a fishing boat to Sweden, where he finished his education; traveling to England in September 1944 and starting to contact his family but learning that they had all been taken to Theresienstadt (Terezin) and eventually to Auschwitz, where they perished; returning briefly to Prague and then going to Denmark in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral History

    Mina Perlberger, born on December 25, 1918 in Tyczyn, Poland, describes growing up in a strict Hasidic Jewish family; the German invasion of Poland while her family was in the process of moving to Kraków in 1939; her family’s assignment to do forced labor outside of Tyczyn; working as a black market trader until 1942, when her family's home was seized by the Gestapo; being forced into the ghetto in Rzeszów, Poland; the deportation of her parents to Auschwitz in late 1942; escaping the ghetto with her younger sister and hiding with a Polish farmer in exchange for a payment; hiding with the farmer for 21 months until the Soviet Army liberated them in 1944; meeting her future husband, a Soviet Jew, in Blażowa, Poland; marrying her husband and moving to Austria after the war with the help of a Jewish organization; and immigrating to the United States soon after arriving in Austria.

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral History

    David Klebanow, born in 1907 in Barysaŭ, Russia (now Belarus), describes his family and childhood; fleeing to Kiev, Ukraine in 1917 after the Russian Revolution and then to Białystok, Poland; becoming a doctor in 1937 and then being drafted into the Polish Army in 1939; returning to Białystok when he was released from the army and then marrying his wife; being taken to Kaunas, Lithuania and then to Riga, Latvia with his wife; performing abortions to save the lives of pregnant women and staying in Riga for two years; his deportation to Stutthof and then to Danzig, from where they were liberated on March 10, 1945; his wife dying of tuberculosis; working at the Munich University Hospital as an obstetrician after the war; noticing genital abnormalities, sterility problems, and a higher rate of miscarriages among women who had survived concentration camps; and immigrating in 1951 to the United States, where he joined the obstetrics department at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral History

    Franz Wohlfahrt, born in 1920 in Velden am Wörthersee, Austria, describes growing up in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses; the arrest of his father in 1936 for peddling in the street as part of his activities as a Jehovah’s Witness; the German annexation of Austria in 1938; refusing to go to a Hitler Youth meetings and say the “Heil Hitler” greeting, which resulted in German troops monitoring his activities; the execution of his father on December 7, 1939 and his brother soon after because they refused to participate in the war and fight for the German state; the general persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses during World War II since they would not worship Hitler; agreeing to do work for the German state but not participate in military exercises, which resulted in his imprisonment in a dungeon for thirty-three days in 1940; being transferred to the Gestapo office in Graz for further questioning; his deportation to a work camp at Allweiter Rodgau, in the Hessen-Nassau province, because he would not fight for the German state; being saved by a camp commandant’s wife because he painted wall paper for her; his liberation by Allied troops while he was still in the camp; and returning home to find that few people he knew had survived.

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral History

    Tove Schöbaum Bamberger, born on October 8, 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark, describes growing up in a wealthy family; her father’s ownership of a men’s clothing business; attending first and second grade at a Jewish school before her family fled from Denmark on October 2, 1940; taking a train to the seaport in Snekkersten, Denmark and then traveling on a fishing boat until a Swedish ship intercepted them at sea and took them to Sweden, where they settled in Malmö; her father working in a chocolate factory and selling artificial teeth; her mother selling lingerie; attending school with her sister; returning to Copenhagen on May 28, 1945 to find her family home and store undisturbed; and immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral History

    Morris Gordon, born in Latvia, describes immigrating with his father to the United States; growing up in New York, NY; attending City College and Columbia University; being ordained as a rabbi in 1940; volunteering for the military in 1942; his participation in The Flying Tigers; going to India briefly then Burma; traveling through the jungles of Burma to get to different camps and getting lost three times; taking his Torah with him everywhere he went; arriving in Shanghai as a Jewish chaplain and being greeted by a large Jewish community; conducting a Bar Mitzvah with a boy; his memories of the Shanghai Jewish ghetto and its schools; and receiving a chalice from a Catholic chaplain during the war to help him perform his services.

    Oral history interview with Raya Markon

    Oral History

    Raya Markon, born in 1911 in Vilnius, Lithuania, discusses her childhood; going to college for one year in Toulouse, France; getting married in Paris, France in 1936; her husband's mobilization into the French Army in 1938; her escape from Paris two days before the German invasion in 1940; returning to Toulouse to take refuge with friends and the birth of her son; getting a visa to the United States and difficulties in obtaining an exit visa from France; and her and her family's immigration to the United States in November 1942.

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral History

    Ernest G. Heppner, born in 1921 in Germany, describes his experiences with antisemitism in his youth; participating in a Jewish youth organization; his father’s positive experiences running a factory in the mid-1930s; being kicked out of school and learning how to weld; losing any sense of hope for German Jews after his experiences on Kristallnacht; his family being forced to sell their house and considering immigration; he and his mother getting a place on a steamship to Shanghai, China by giving the captain of the ship some of their Impressionist paintings; arriving in Shanghai in March 1939; his mother finding a job with a youth committee; communicating through letters with his father and sister back home a few times before never hearing from them again; participating in the British Boy Scout Association in Shanghai; seeing the Imperial Japanese Naval Landing Party come into Shanghai after Pearl Harbor and acting as a British spy; the Jews of Shanghai being forced into a ghetto-like area of the city in February 1943; finding a job in a bakery and meeting his future wife in the ghetto; getting married shortly before the end of the war and going to work for the American occupying forces; his memories of life in the ghetto; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral History

    Emanuel Mandel, born in 1936 in Riga, Latvia, describes his family moving to Budapest, Hungary when he was three months old; his family; his father’s work as a cantor that led him to travel around and work in several synagogues in Europe; not understanding that he could not have or do certain things because he was Jewish; the German invasion of Budapest in early 1944; his deportation by cattle car in June 1944 to Bergen-Belsen with his mother; developing pneumonia and not having access to much food while in the camp; developing a sense of comic relief, like by calling a German troop “Popeye,” to survive; participating in a Red Cross inspection of Bergen-Belsen; in January 1945 being taken by German soldiers on a train towards the German-Swiss border and being released in Switzerland, where they were cleaned and fed; traveling to Saint Gallen and then to Caux, Switzerland to stay in a displaced persons center; reuniting with his father after the war; his mother’s decision to go to Heiden after the war to run a one-room school house for six- to fourteen-years olds to learn Hungarian; immigrating to Palestine by a British troop carrier in September 1945 and living in a kibbutz, where his mother took charge of the day shift cooking; and immigrating to the United States in March 1949.

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

    Leo Bretholz, born on March 6, 1921 in Vienna, Austria, describes his childhood; his father passing away in 1930 and becoming a father figure for his two younger sisters; long-standing antisemitic attitudes transforming into excessive violence after the Anschluss in 1938; the arrest of his friends and his mother encouraging him to flee to Luxembourg, where he had an aunt; being arrested three days after he arrived in Luxembourg, questioned for several hours, and released to a train station; returning to Luxembourg and staying with relatives until he had the opportunity to cross the border into Belgium on November 9, 1938 and go to Antwerp, where he found distant relatives and stayed until May of 1940; receiving an affidavit and visa from an aunt in Baltimore, MD to immigrate to the United States but being unable to leave because Pearl Harbor was bombed the day he was scheduled to go; obtaining the necessary documents to cross into Switzerland in October 1942, but getting arrested and taken to Rivesaltes; his deportation to Drancy, another French detention camp, where he stayed for a short time before he and other prisoners were loaded onto cattle cars for transport; escaping deportation by bending the bars covering one of the train’s windows and squeezing through and jumping out of the train; making his way to Paris, where he obtained a false identification card; his arrest in December and then being sent to prison for nine months until he went to a forced labor camp in Septfonds, France; escaping from the camp and contacting a friend who got him in touch with an underground resistance group in Saint-Vallier, France, which he joined in November 1943; helping children cross the border into Switzerland, making false ID cards, and relaying messages between various resistance organizations; working with the resistance after D-Day and helping the Allied forces; and receiving an affidavit from his aunt in Baltimore that allowed him to immigrate to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral History

    Paul Matasovski, born in Bacău, Moldavia (now Romania) in December 1933, describes his family and early childhood; his family getting a radio in 1933 to find out what Hitler was doing in Europe; the political situation with the Iron Guard and General Antonescu; the Jews having their radios taken from their homes but receiving news by passing around sheets of paper; attending a Jewish high school until the end of 1942, when he was sent to work in a textile factory; participating in sabotage activities until he was arrested in the spring of 1944; remaining in a prison near the Carpathian Mountains until Russian forces liberated him; his knowledge of transports and concentration camps during the war; the composition of the people in his underground group and their activities; and returning to his hometown to help clean up the mess after the war.

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral History

    Zelda Piekarska Brodecki (Americanized name, Sonia Brodecki), born on July 27, 1928 in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes her family; the German occupation of her town and her family having to close their business; entering the Sosnowiec ghetto and being forced to work in a factory; her deportation from the ghetto to a forced labor camp near Wrocław, Poland; her transfer in 1943 to another labor camp in Klettendorf, Germany (Klecina, Wrocław, Poland); Russian troops liberating her at an ammunition factory in Ludwigsdorf, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany; returning to Sosnowiec after the war and meeting her cousin there; moving to the Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp, where she met her husband, Boleslaw Brodecki; and living in Germany until 1949 when she and her husband immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral History

    Stefania Podgórska Burzminski, born in Lipa, Poland, describes her family and childhood; helping her parents run a farm until she decided to move with her sister to Przemyśl and work in a bakery; the Russian invasion and not noticing much of a change in life until the Germans ousted the Russians; living in an apartment near the ghetto and witnessing people being deported from it; developing a relationship with a young man named Josef, who was Jewish and lived in the ghetto; having to explain what a Jew was to her little sister; helping to smuggle food into the ghetto for Josef and his family; moving into a large apartment and taking Josef and twelve other Jews in with her; having an SS man insist upon taking a room in her apartment and always living in fear that he would kill the Jews living there; and her liberation by Russian forces.

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral History

    Rose Galek Brunswic, born in Sochocin, Poland in 1920, describes her family; learning Hebrew and participating in a Zionist organization in her youth; moving to Warsaw in the mid-1930s; being forced into the Warsaw ghetto and living with twelve other people; her parents being shot during a roundup; going into hiding with the underground in March 1941; leaving her hiding place and finding another one in the city with an old work friend of her father; being caught by the Germans during a raid and sent by cattle car to Berlin; using her false papers to get a job on a farm; pretending to be a Seventh Day Adventist and playing the organ for the church; getting in trouble for not having the proper identification and having to do translations for a judge as penance; her liberation by American soldiers in 1945 when she was still working on the farm; meeting a Jewish soldier and marrying him; staying in a displaced persons camp after the war until she immigrated to the United States to live with her uncle; and settling in Buffalo, New York, where she attended school.

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral History

    Renée Schwalb Fritz, born in 1937 in Vienna, Austria, describes her family; her father leaving for the United States in 1939 and fleeing with her mother to Belgium; the German occupation of Belgium in 1940 and going into hiding in a convent, where she remained for two years until the Germans became suspicious; the underground taking Renee to a Protestant family's farm and then to an orphanage; reuniting with her mother after the war and discovering that she had survived Auschwitz; joining her father in the United States five years later; going through high school in the US with much difficulty; attending Boston University; and marrying an American man soon after she graduated from college.

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral History

    Martin Spett, born on December 2, 1928 in Tarnów, Poland, describes his childhood; the German occupation of Tarnów in 1939; his family losing their apartment in 1940; hiding in an attic when the first massacre of Jews occurred; having to finally register as a Jew in May 1943 and go to Bergen-Belsen, where he was allegedly to be part of an exchange for German prisoners of war; being liberated on April 13, 1945 by Allied troops during his transport to Theresienstadt; spending some time in Belgium after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral History

    Niels Bamberger, born on October 21, 1928 in Würzburg, Germany, describes growing up in a religious family; fleeing from Germany to his mother's hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1932; his family being warned of imminent danger on Rosh Hashanah of 1943; their local grocer helping them to escape to the port town of Snekkersten, Denmark (the closest point between Denmark and Sweden); receiving help from the local resistance forces and hiding in houses until their group of over two hundred could be transported in row boats; a Swedish military boat intercepting his family at sea and taking them to Sweden; attending school in Lund, Sweden while his parents opened a small restaurant; his family’s return to Denmark on May 28, 1945 to find their old home undisturbed; and getting back on his feet after the war.

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral History

    Ray Buch, born on September 18, 1920 in New York City, NY, describes his parents and their emigration from Ukraine; joining the US Army in November 1942 and going into training in Louisiana and Texas for a year; being shipped to England in September 1944; fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and encountering fighting and violence; finding out about the concentration camps and death camps; his unit’s attempts to bury people who had died alongside the roads; arriving in Mauthausen on May 10, 1945 and the scenes of people and depravation he witnessed; forcing the German citizens to bury the dead; spending about thirty days in Mauthausen and then moving around to other camps, like Dachau and Ebensee; and the sacrifices his unit made for the sake of the freedom of Europe and the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral History

    Nina Kaleska, born on April 11, 1929 in Grodno, Poland (now Hrodna, Belarus), describes having a pleasant childhood; her family not being perceived of as Jewish because of their Aryan looks; experiencing antisemitism among her childhood friends in 1938; joining the Young Pioneers after the Russians invaded in 1939; her father’s imprisonment for three to four months for political reasons; the German invasion in 1941 and the formation of two ghettos in Grodno; the Germans selecting one of her cousins, who was considered an electronics genius, for forced labor but then killing him; peasant families offering to hide her and her sister but rejecting because she did not want to be separated from her family; being deported with her sister to Auschwitz in 1941; the death of her sister three months after they arrived; becoming sick in the camp several times and only being saved because of the help she received from a woman named Martha who worked there; being asked by Dr. Mengele if she was Jewish because she did not look Jewish; having to stand guard while the head of her lager had sex with some of the most beautiful women in the lager; going on a death march and being liberated by Allied forces on May 5, 1945; and her immigration to England and then to the United States with the help of the American Joint Distribution Committee.

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral History

    Judith Meisel, born on February 7, 1929 in Josvainiai, Lithuania, discusses her childhood; moving to Kaunas, Lithuania shortly after her father’s death; being forced into the Kaunas ghetto in 1941; her family’s deportation in 1944 to Stutthof, where her mother was killed; escaping with her sister from a death march out of Stutthof by hiding in a coal bin; receiving shelter in a Catholic nunnery; developing typhus and posing as a Christian in a hospital in Danzig, Poland to receive treatment; finding work on a farm with her sister; moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was sent to school; her liberation on May 5, 1945; living with a Jewish family in Denmark for some time after the war; immigrating to Canada in 1948; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral History

    Thomas Buergenthal, born in 1934 in Czechoslovakia, describes his family; moving with his family to Žilina, Czechoslovakia in 1938 and facing persecution from the Hlinka Guard; moving to Katowice, Poland and registering with the British Consul; leaving for England on September 1, 1939 but being stopped near the Russian border when their train was bombed by Germans; having to march with a group of refugees to Kielce, Poland and go into its ghetto; the deportation of his grandparents and twenty thousand other ghetto inhabitants in August 1942 to Treblinka while he and his parents were sent to a forced labor camp in Kielce; surviving a massacre of Jewish children and then being transported with his parents to a factory where they made wooden carts for the Eastern Front; his deportation in August 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he worked in the laundry as an errand boy; getting separated from his father and never seeing him again; being forced on a death march to Gliwice, Poland and then to Heinkel concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany in January 1945; his transfer to a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen; his liberation on April 27, 1945 by Russian soldiers; marching with the First Polish Division into Berlin, Germany and Siedlce, Poland and then being placed in a Jewish orphanage in Otwock, Poland; his mother finding him in 1946 and smuggling him into the British zone of Germany; living in Göttingen, Germany and attending high school there; immigrating by himself to the United States in 1951 to live with his uncle; his mother remarrying and staying in Europe; attending Harvard Law School and becoming a professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School; and serving on the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council’s Committee on Conscience.

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral History

    Leif Donde, born in 1937 in Copenhagen, Denmark, describes his upbringing in a religious but not Orthodox Jewish family; the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940; seeing the German police begin to arrest Jews in early October 1943 and fleeing with his family by train to the Danish city of Nykøbing Falster, south of Sjælland island; being smuggled by a fishing boat to safety in Sweden; arriving in Trelleborg, Sweden after an eleven-hour nighttime boat ride in October 1943, during which they passed through a German mine field; attending school in Sweden while his parents worked in a garment factory in Uddevalla, Sweden; his family returning to Denmark after the end of the war; and settling in Denmark, where he serves as the Consul General.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig, born in Vienna, Austria on March 7, 1924, describes her family and childhood; enjoying the rich cultural life Vienna had to offer before the war; her father’s placement on the Nazi blacklist for being a liberal writer and journalist; attempting to leave Austria and go to France but getting arrested and sent to prison; escaping to Cologne, where her mother managed to attain three visas by giving up some of her jewelry; moving to Paris, where her father found a job as a reporter; attending art school in Paris and meeting her future husband; the deportation of her father and brother to concentration camps when Germany declared war on France; her father’s return home for a short period until he had to join the French Army; running away from Paris and going through several cities until she arrived in Blois, France and began to search for her father; getting separated from her family and asking about their whereabouts wherever she went; reuniting with her mother in Barcus, France; finding a teaching job in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France through a family friend who lived there; her family receiving special visas to move to the United States on December 7, 1941 because her father was an intellectual; attending college in the United States; and marrying Ernest, the man she had earlier met in Paris.

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral History

    Max Amichai Heppner, born on October 15, 1933 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes growing up as an only child; his parents’ escape from Berlin, Germany in 1933; the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands and missing a boat to escape to Sweden; losing several of his family’s possessions to the Nazis; his mother getting captured during a street raid but then being released by a Nazi commander in August 1942; escaping into the countryside with his parents and finding various hiding places with another family; going into hiding with underground forces and then with a farming family; dealing with frequent Nazi raids; meeting several downed Allied pilots while in hiding; his liberation by Scottish soldiers on September 24, 1944; his mother’s attempts to shield him from much of the devastation of the war; and immigrating to the United States to live with his mother’s family.

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral History

    Charles Bruml, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and the Prague Jewish community; being about 28 years old and working in an import-export firm in 1938 when German troops marched into Prague; his family’s deportation to Theresienstadt and finding a job in the camp’s Technical Department; making paintings during his internment that are displayed at the camps today; his deportation to Auschwitz on January 11, 1942 and getting tattooed; being transferred to Buna (Monowitz), where he worked as a painter for the SS men until January 18, 1945; being forced to walk to Gleiwitz, because the Russians neared, and then to Bergen-Belsen, where the Red Cross liberated him; and meeting his wife in Prague as they both tried to sort out the fates of their families.

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral History

    David Pollack, born in Prince Albert, Saskatechewan, Canada in 1922, describes growing up in a mildly Jewish family; enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 but not being accepted as a pilot because of his poor eyesight; being trained as a radar technician and stationed first in the Queen Charlotte Islands and then in England in 1943; joining a mobile radar unit outside of Weimar, Germany in 1945 and visiting Buchenwald, where he was shocked by the horrors of the camp; speaking, with the aid of a translator, to many prisoners, taking the names and the addresses of their relatives who were in other countries, and contacting these relatives to inform them that the prisoners would soon be arriving in displaced persons camps and contacting them for help; returning to Canada after the war; and keeping up correspondence with some of the survivors he had helped to reunite with their families.

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral History

    Rabbi Eugene Lipman, born in Pittsburgh, PA on October 13, 1919, describes his family; graduating from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio; being sent overseas as an army chaplain in April 1945; after the war helping Jewish survivors at Buchenwald and Dachau before being sent to Plzen, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); joining the Haganah, a group that cared for Jewish survivors and refugees as well as secretly transporting Jews to Palestine; continuing his work with the Haganah in Regensburg, Germany; going home to the United States for a short time in April 1946 but returning in late 1946 with his wife to continue to aid Jews by providing many with false identity papers for them to leave Europe; and returning to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral History

    Hetty d’Ancona de Leeuwe, born on May 1, 1930 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her family and early childhood; her father losing his business after the German invasion; the deportation of several of her friends and family in 1942; her father’s participation in the Dutch underground newspaper; leaving Amsterdam in October 1943 and separating from her parents to live with a Dutch Gentile family for two years; her liberation by American and British forces and staying with her foster family for a few months until she reunited with her father; and marrying a Jewish man and immigrating to the United States with him after the war.

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral History

    Marty Glickman, born in 1917 in the Bronx, NY, describes growing up with parents who were immigrants from Romania; attending Syracuse University, where he was a track athlete chosen to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Germany; being one of two Jews on the United States Olympic track team; arriving in the Olympic Village and being told that he and Sam Stoller, the other Jewish runner, were to be replaced in the 400 meter relay by Ralph Metcalf and Jessie Owens; hearing from the head coach of the Olympic track team that the substitutions were made because the Germans were said to be hiding their best sprinters but believing that he was really replaced because Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, did not want to further embarrass the Nazis by having Jews run and win a race; serving in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II; going to the Marshall Islands; and his friendship with Jesse Owens.

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral History

    Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz, born in 1931 in Schlüchtern, Germany, describes her family; moving to Dinxperlo, a village located close to the German border in the Netherlands in 1933; the German invasion of the Netherlands on May 10, 1940; Jews no longer being allowed to own businesses or to attend schools; going into hiding when they heard that the Jews would be rounded up for deportation in 1943; living with her mother in a barn attic that was barely big enough for them to both lie flat; beginning to write a cookbook-diary in 1944 to pass her time; becoming extremely ill because of a lack of ventilation in her living quarters; recovering from her illness but remaining weak; having to leave her hiding place toward the end of the war because of increased Nazi raids; her liberation on April 1, 1945 by Canadian troops; returning to their former village with food and money supplied to them by the farmers who had hidden them; returning to school as her family tried to re-build their lives; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral History

    Hessy Levinsons Taft, born on May 17, 1934 in Berlin, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her parents having her photo taken in 1934 and the photo ending up in a Nazi magazine labeled as a beautiful Berliner baby; her family’s decision to run away to Paris, France, where they were when it fell to the Germans; moving to the French coast near Bordeaux with her mother and sister while her father remained in Paris trying to find a way for the family to leave; her father securing visas for the family to travel to Cuba, where she and her sister began to attend a British school; immigrating to the United States in 1948 and settling in New York, NY; and eventually getting married and starting a family.

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral History

    Bella Jakubowicz Tovey, born on September 18, 1926, in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes growing up in a Jewish family; the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and losing her father’s factory and their family furniture; being forced to move into the Sosnowiec ghetto and to work in a factory there in 1941; her family’s deportation to the Bedzin ghetto in 1942; her deportation to the Graeben sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany in 1943 and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; her liberation in April 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral History

    Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz, born June 23, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her childhood; facing intensifying antisemitic measures that resulted in the loss of her father's business and the closing of her school in the late 1930s; her family’s deportation in 1943 to Auschwitz, where her father was killed; her selection for forced labor and being assigned to work on road repairs; working in the "Kanada" unit sorting possessions brought into the camp; her transfer to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany in November 1944; being sent to Malchow, where she worked in a munitions factory making bullets; her liberation by American soldiers in May 1945 during a death march from the Malchow camp in Germany; traveling to Frankfurt with her mother in August 1945 with hopes of finding the rest of their family; and immigrating with her mother to the United States in early 1947.

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral History

    Peretz Milbauer, born in Brooklyn, New York in October 1915, discusses his life up to World War II; teaching history before he was drafted into the United States Army; being sent overseas in July 1944 and arriving to his station in Remse, Germany on December 5, 1944; liberating prisoners from a death march in Wałbrzych, Poland in December 1944; gathering a list of names of survivors from the death march and sending the list to American newspapers and magazines in an effort to help survivors contact their relatives; and also liberating prisoners at Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen in Austria, in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral History

    Judah Nadich, born in 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland, describes his life until World War II and training to be a rabbi; enlisting in the army as a chaplain after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; serving as the senior Jewish chaplain with the United States Army in the United Kingdom and then in France during the war; having his first contact with survivors of Nazi oppression in France; helping Parisian Jews re-build their community; being ordered to Frankfurt, Germany as the Jewish affairs adviser to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and reporting on conditions in displaced persons camps; and returning to the United States in late 1945.

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral History

    Hana Bruml, born on May 30, 1922 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes her family and childhood; attending a Zionist elementary school; meeting Rudolph Schiff and marrying him on November 14, 1939; the German invasion of Prague and her father losing his business, receiving ration tickets marked with a “J,” and only being allowed to do certain things at specific times; the deportation of her parents in July 1942 to Theresienstadt followed three weeks later by her and her husband’s deportation to the camp; working in the camp hospital as a nurse; the death of her husband and the development of a romance with Bruno, who worked as an internist in the camp; the special treatment of Danish Jews and a few prominent Austrian and German Jews in Theresienstadt; seeing doctors perform several abortions in the camp to save women; her transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau in October 1944 and seeing Dr. Mengele; and remaining in Auschwitz until May 5, 1945, when she was liberated.

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral History

    Benjamin Meed, born on February 19, 1922 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; traveling with a friend in 1939 to Russian territory to escape Nazi persecution; returning to Warsaw because they could not support themselves; joining an underground movement that provided a library and schooling for children; smuggling people to the Aryan side of Warsaw when the ghetto was established; helping his family escape to Praga Południe, Poland, where they hid in a cemetery; beginning to work with a woman named Vladka who was also involved in underground activities; posing as a Christian with Vladka during the war in order to facilitate their work in the underground; moving his hiding place to a bunker which he had built after the Warsaw uprising; jumping onto a Red Cross truck after his liberation to escape persecution by Germans and Poles after the war; reuniting with his parents after the war; and marrying Vladka in Warsaw ten days after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral History

    Johanna Neumann, born on December 12, 1930 in Hamburg, Germany, describes her early childhood; her memories of Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938; her family’s decision to leave Germany as anti-Jewish measures intensified; obtaining visas for Albania and leaving Germany without many of her possessions; crossing into Italy and setting sail for Albania on March 1, 1939; remaining in Albania during the Italian and German occupations for a total of six and a half years; finally being liberated after a battle between the Germans and the Albanian partisans in December 1944; spending some time in an Italian displaced persons camp at the port of Tricase in the Lecce province of Apulia in southern Italy; immigrating to the United States in September 1946; and living briefly in Israel for three years from 1969 until 1971.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral History

    Alice Lang Rosen, born in 1934 in Lambsheim, Germany, describes her early childhood; the deportation of her family to the Gurs camp in France and then to Rivesaltes when she was six years old; the French Red Cross taking her out of the camp and hiding her from the Germans by placing her in a children's home, then in a convent, and then with various Catholic families; being sent to a children's home near Paris after her liberation; having her name put on a list of Jewish children from all over France, which was being compiled by a Polish rabbi; her father tracing her from this list and reuniting with her in Germany in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral History

    Jay Ipson, born June 5, 1935, in Slobodka (Vilijampolė), Lithuania, describes growing up in religious, well-off family; his father's attempts to move his family to Russia but being turned back at the border; losing their home in the move and moving in with his grandmother, whose house was in the Kaunas ghetto; witnessing the deportations from the ghetto; escaping the ghetto with his mother and father in November 1943; hiding in a farmer's hay wagon and then in one room under the care of a poor, religious Polish Catholic family; his father's construction of a hiding place under the Polish family's potato patch; hiding with all of his extended family in the underground bunker; being liberated by the Russian army; moving back to Kaunas with his parents; attending Jewish school; being forced to run away from Kaunas after his father was declared an enemy of the Soviet Republic; changing his last name to Butremovitch and getting false papers; hiding with a Jewish family in White Russia; leaving Warsaw, Poland and traveling to Germany; receiving help from a German man to cross the border to the American occupied-zone of Germany; living with a German family in Prinz Regenten Strasse in Munich for nine months; immigrating to the United States to live with his aunt in Richmond, VA in June 1947; and joining the US military during the Korean War and becoming a colonel in command of an aviation unit.

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral History

    Margaret Jastrow Klug, born on June 8, 1923 in Rogoźno, Poland, describes her family and childhood; her brother’s immigration to Scotland before the war; the beginning of the war and being arrested because someone had given them her name; jumping from a window of the jail to avoid deportation to Auschwitz but instead being injured and staying in a hospital for two months; being deported to Auschwitz, where she worked in a factory; getting married and having a daughter after the war; immigrating to Israel in 1949; returning to Germany soon after because the climate in Israel was too uncomfortable for her; and immigrating to the United States in the mid-1950s and settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral History

    Solomon Klug, born on July 9, 1923 in Krzepice, Poland, describes growing up in a religious family with one sister and three brothers; seeing his mother and brother shot in his backyard; his deportation in 1940 to Annaberg, Germany, where he worked building the Autobahn; being transferred in 1943 to Markstadt, Germany, where he built bridges, and then to Fuenfteichen, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, in March 23, 1944 to work in an ammunitions factory; his transport to Wolfsberg, another sub-camp of Gross-Rosen; being sent to Politz, Czechoslovakia, Bergen-Belsen, and finally to Barth-an-der-Ostee, a sub-camp of Ravensbrück; going on a three-day death march after his evacuation from Barth-an-der-Ostee; his liberation on April 30, 1945; going to Berlin, Germany after liberation and meeting his wife Margaret; immigrating to Israel, where they lived for four years, and then returning to Nuremberg to spend a year in a displaced persons camp; and immigrating to the United States in 1955 and settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral History

    Helene Baraf, born July 24, 1927 in Antwerp, Belgium, discusses her family and her childhood in Antwerp before World War II; her family's move to the United States in 1937; her return to Belgium with her mother and brother in 1940; traveling to France with her family by train and on foot after the Germans entered Belgium; her family's life in Lille, France; her brother's arrest by the Gestapo and eventual deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau for failing to properly display his Star of David on his coat; her and her mother's arrest by the Gestapo and their escape during a round up; their rescue from a small hiding place by the members of the underground resistance; her time spent hiding in a convent with other Jewish children in Lille; her attempts to conceal her identity with an assumed name and falsified identification documents; her move from the convent to a "Protestant community" in Roubaix, France, where she attended high school and remained with her mother until after World War II; her friendship with a girl from Roubaix whose family sheltered her and her mother for period of time during the war; the divorce of her parents shortly after the war; and her life in the United States after 1969.

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral History

    Morris Kornberg, born in Przedbórz, Poland on January 6, 1918, describes growing up as the youngest of seven children in a strict Orthodox family; the 1939 German invasion and being forced to work in a factory in the ghetto; his imprisonment in Końskie, a prison in Poland, and then in Radom, Poland and Jawischowitz, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; working in a coal mine and receiving special treatment by SS men because of his memory for numbers; his transfer to Troeglitz, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, in January 1945; the evacuation of Troeglitz on April 9, 1945 and escaping on a train with two others; getting caught and forced on a death march to Leitmeritz, a sub-camp of Flossenbürg, and then to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated; staying in a sanitarium outside of Stuttgart, where he met his wife; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral History

    Michael Diamond, born on July 10, 1919 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes his family; his draft into the Czech Army in 1939 but being forced to work in army camps clearing snow off roads and highways when the Slovak State was created; his transfer to Liptovský Mikuláš, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), where he repaired weapons and became a Slovak-German language interpreter; being moved to Vrútky, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), where he had to clean old uniforms; working as an electrician in eastern Slovakia; escaping into hiding in the forest but soon getting captured by the Gestapo; his transport to Sered, a "Sommerlager" in Slovakia; attempting to escape from a transport train and then being sent to Sachsenhausen, Heinkelwerke, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Neuengamme, and Mauthausen; working as an engineer and repairing railroad engines; ending up in Wurttemberg, Germany, where he was marched deeper into Germany as the Allied forces approached; and hiding in a peasant's empty house in Germany until he was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral History

    Abraham Malach, born on May 12, 1935 in Zwoleń, Poland, describes his family; entering the ghetto in Radom, Poland in 1940 and remaining there until 1942; spending 1942 through 1943 at work camps in Poland, where he worked as a messenger boy; his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; being removed from the group headed to the gas chambers at his first selection by a female Kapo, who molested him and bribed him to keep silent by giving him food for his family; running away to a monastery when Auschwitz was liberated; eventually being taken by nuns to a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency camp; reuniting with his parents in 1946 in Krakow, Poland; his parents sending him to Israel to finish his high school education; and immigrating to New York, NY after high school when he was admitted to Columbia University.

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral History

    Michael Bernath, born on February 14, 1923 in Szikszó, Hungary, describes growing up in a family with eleven older siblings; working in Budapest, Hungary as a furrier in 1943 and always getting harassed; joining the underground movement in Budapest and working for American and British intelligence services; the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 and Hungarian gendarmes rounding up five thousand Jewish people from his town and transporting them to Kassa, Czechoslovakia; being forced into a slave labor camp with about 35,000 other men; his deportation to the Schachendorf concentration camp in Austria in the winter of 1944 and being forced to dig trenches and train tracks in the Austrian Alps; Russian forces liberating him and returning to Budapest to live with his aunt and uncle; and his immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral History

    Kate Bernath, born in August 27, 1927 in Szikszó, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; living a decent life until March 1944 when the Germans occupied Hungary; dating a man to keep herself amused before the occupation; being rounded up and sent to a ghetto in Kassa (Košice, Slovakia); her deportation to Auschwitz in May 1944; her transfer to a factory in Augsburg, Germany to work in a Messerschmitt factory; hearing Allied bombings every night toward the end of the war; her transfer to Mühldorf, where she had to clean up debris from bombings; the guards disappearing one day and escaping to a farmhouse, where they were caught by an SS soldier; her liberation on May 1, 1946 and going to the Feldafing displaced persons camp; returning to Amsterdam and reuniting with her pre-war boyfriend; and getting married in Leipheim, Germany and then immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral History

    Paul Kovak, born on December 6, 1938 in Trenčín, Slovakia, describes being born a Jew but converting to Roman Catholicism with his parents; his father’s work as a professor at a small agricultural college; not having to wear the yellow star because of his father’s indispensable position at the school; going into hiding in the second home of a farming family in the mountains in late August 1944 at the time of the Slovak National Uprising; staying in hiding until April 1945, when they were liberated by Russian and Romanian troops; living in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia until 1981; and immigrating to the United States in 1981.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral History

    Abraham Kolski, born in 1917 in Izbica Lubelska, Poland, describes his family; the German occupation of Poland and going into the Czestochowa ghetto, where he did forced labor at a metal factory; his deportation on October 2, 1942 to Treblinka, Poland, where he performed forced labor searching for valuables in the clothing of gas chamber victims; participating in the Treblinka uprising on August 2, 1943 and escaping the concentration camp with nine other friends; hiding in a cellar of a home near Treblinka for the remainder of the war; eventually being liberated by the Russian Army; remaining in Poland until 1948, when he married and left for France; immigrating to the United States in 1954; and testifying as a witness to the events at Treblinka in the war crimes trials at Düsseldorf.

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral History

    Sylvia Kolski, born on September 15, 1925 in Tarczyn, Poland, describes her family and childhood; moving with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and parents into the Warsaw ghetto; working for a tailor in the ghetto; hearing rumors that the Jews would be killed on July 22, 1942; hiding money in her clothing, so she could bribe people to save herself; seeing several major deportations from the ghetto; escaping from the ghetto and staying with a family in the countryside; her liberation on January 16, 1945 and returning to Tarczyn; moving to Łódź, Poland, where she met her husband, and then to Paris, France in 1947; and immigrating to the United States when the Vietnam War began.

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral History

    Steven Springfield, born in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, describes his experiences as a child; the German occupation of Riga in 1941 and having to go into the ghetto; the massacre of about 28,000 Jews from the ghetto in late 1941 at the Rumbula forest; being transferred with his brother to a small ghetto for able-bodied men; his deportation to a labor camp near Kaiserwald in 1943; being moved to Stutthof in 1944 and forced to work in a shipbuilding firm; surviving a death march in 1945 with his brother and being liberated by Soviet forces; accepting a position as an interpreter for the Russian Army; his incarceration by the Russians for allegedly supporting the Nazis but being released when the charges were disproven; locating his pre-war girlfriend and marrying her; moving to Berlin, Germany with his wife and brother; and applying for a visa and immigrating to the United States on March 10, 1947.

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral History

    Liny Pajgin Yollick, born in 1924 in Hague, Netherlands, describes growing up in a wealthy family; the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940; her mother’s plans to escape after her father died; spending six months with her mother and sister trying to escape through southern France by pretending to be Protestant, obtaining visas to travel through Spain and Portugal, and going on one of the last trains to cross into Spain after the Germans took over southern France; boarding a Portuguese ship bound for Dutch Guiana and being placed into a refugee camp; the exiled Dutch government’s arrangement for her to finish her education; and immigrating to the United States, where she worked for some time in the Dutch embassy in Washington, DC before settling in Texas.

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral History

    Fred Bachner was born on September 28, 1925 in Berlin, Germany and describes his family; his brother’s and father’s deportation to the Polish border after Kristallnacht; moving to Poland in 1939 to join the rest of his family; his brother being taken to a work camp in Poland in 1940; his deportation to Markstädt, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, and then to Groeditz and Faulbrueck before he was sent to Auschwitz; loading and unloading coal and cement for I.G. Farben, a German industrial company; going on a death march out of Auschwitz to a camp near Dachau, where he found his brother; being placed on another train that was ambushed by British fighter planes; jumping off the train with his brother and hiding in the surrounding area until they located the American soldiers; staying at the Feldafing displaced persons camp after the war; reuniting with his father and immigrating to the United States with his father and brother on January 3, 1947; and being drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War.

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral History

    Murray Pantirer was born on June 15, 1925 in Kraków, Poland and discusses his childhood; the German occupation of Kraków in 1939; separating from his family on several occasions in an attempt to find food and other necessities; finally being confined to the Kraków ghetto; his and his brother’s deportation to Płaszów, Poland to do forced labor; his transport to Auschwitz in May 1944, then to Gross-Rosen, and finally to Brünnlitz, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, to work for German industrialist Oskar Schindler; his liberation on May 10, 1945 and discovering that he was only one of nine family members to survive; returning to Poland after liberation but deciding to leave because of the lingering presence of antisemitism; moving to a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria, where he met and married his wife; arranging to immigrate to America through the American consul in Salzburg, Austria; and immigrating to the United States on the S.S. Marine Fletcher in January 1949.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral History

    Barbara Marton Farkas, born on May 4, 1920 in Beliu, Romania, describes her family and childhood; living in Beliu until 1937, when her family sold their house and store and moved to Oradea, Romania; being refused entrance into the university in 1940 because of the anti-Jewish laws implemented by the Hungarian government, which then controlled the northern Transylvania area; training in a hospital laboratory and working there until the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; leaving the hospital, which was occupied by the SS, and starting work at a photo company; first wearing the Star of David on April 1, 1944 and going into the Oradea ghetto in May 1944; her family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where she lost her parents; her transfer to Weisswasser, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany, where she worked in a chemistry lab and then in the Cathode Workshop; staying there from October 1944 through February 1945; her transport through several camps after March 1945 to avoid the approaching Soviet army; ending up on the German-Danish border at Padberg, Germany; the Red Cross assisting the survivors with food and shelter; being taken to Malmö, Sweden the next day and then spending some time in a hospital in Landskrona, Sweden; returning to Romania to study in Cluj from 1946 to 1951; graduating as an industrial pharmacist; immigrating to Israel in 1961; and immigrating to the United States in 1968.

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral History

    William Farkas, born in 1916 in Arad, Romania, describes growing up as an only child in a middle class family; attending the Arad Jewish school and studying business administration after high school; joining the Romanian Army after school; not experiencing antisemitism until 1940 when he was expelled from the army because he was Jewish; the Iron Guard coming to power in September 1940; being ordered to report for deportation to labor camps in July 1941 and going to a work camp in Sighişoara, Romania, where he worked as a miner demolishing mountains for a new railway line; being sent home until 1942, when he was transported to Valea Homorod, Romania and then to Kinapist, Romania to do railway work; claiming he was an electrician in 1943 and going to a camp with three friends in Timişoara, Romania, where they worked as auto mechanics in a military garage for one year; his transport in 1944 to Doaga, a labor camp in Romania, where inmates built cement fortresses; hearing that Soviet soldiers were approaching Doaga and being liberated on August 25, 1944; returning home via Bucharest and reuniting with his parents in Arad; finding a wife and immigrating to Israel with her in 1954; and immigrating to the United States in 1961.

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral History

    Sheila Etons Bernard (née Sala Perec), born on February 18, 1936 in Chełm, Poland, describes her family and early childhood; her father’s deportation to a labor camp after the war began and never seeing him again; hiding in the shack of a Polish policeman for almost two years with her mother; her mother dying because of a blood clot in her leg; going to a children’s home in Germany for two years; immigrating to Palestine to live with one of her uncles; joining the military, where she met her husband; immigrating to the United States in 1963 because her husband had family in the US; and her thoughts on how the war has affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral History

    Frima, born in 1936 in Volochys'k, Russia (now Ukraine), describes her family; trying to escape to White Russia with her family after the Nazi invasion but being forced back to live with some distant cousins; her father’s capture by the Germans to serve as an interpreter for them; her sister and mother being forced to work at labor camps during the days; entering the Volochys'k ghetto; getting caught by Germans and claiming that they were not Jewish, which resulted in them going to jail; escaping with her mother and sister to hide in the attic of a barn, where they were almost discovered but managed to escape; the intensifying pogroms against the Jews by Russian and Ukrainian collaborators; pretending to be Christian and going into hiding with an old family friend; eventually reuniting with her mother with the help of several generous Gentiles and staying with her until the end of the war; going into displaced persons camps in Bavaria; going to school in Germany for two and a half years and then moving to France; immigrating to the United States in the 1950s and meeting her husband there; and her considerations on how the war has affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral History

    Esther Terner Raab, born on June 11, 1922 in Chelm, Poland, describes growing up as one of two children; the Soviet occupation of her town in 1939; the German invasion of Chelm in 1941 and her family being forced into a ghetto; moving to Siedliszcze, Poland and eventually moving into the ghetto in Siedliszcze; her transport to the labor camp at Staw Noakowski, Poland for a short time before she and her brother were sent to Sobibór in December 1942; arriving at Sobibór three days before Christmas in 1942 and being forced to work in a knitting factory in the camp, knitting woolen socks; witnessing the gassing of Jews at Camp III of the Sobibór compound; participating in the camp uprising of October 14, 1943 but getting wounded during the escape; fleeing to the countryside and getting sheltered by a former customer of her father; reuniting with her brother, who had escaped during a previous transfer; remaining hidden until 1944, when the region in which she hid was freed by the Soviet Red Army; following the Red Army to Berlin, Germany and settling there for a short time after the war; marrying a man in Berlin and then immigrating to the United States shortly after the end of the war; and serving as a witness at the trials of Nazi criminals in the 1965-66 trials in Hagen, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral History

    Guy Stern, born on January 14, 1922 in Hildesheim, Germany, describes growing up in a Jewish family; attending a German school, where he had many non-Jewish friends; losing several of his friends after 1933 when they joined the Hitler Youth; his family’s decision to move to the United States after they began to experience increased levels of antisemitism; leaving Germany with a group of children in November 1937 and arriving in New York, NY; moving to St. Louis, Missouri to live with distant relatives; graduating high school in June 1939 and trying to help his family immigrate to the United States; discovering that his parents had perished in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland; attempting to enlist in the US Army in 1941 but being turned away because of his German heritage; receiving a draft notice in 1942 and being trained in military intelligence because of his familiarity with the German language; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; working as an interrogator and uncovering the deeds of several war criminals; going to Buchenwald the day after it was liberated and seeing the horrible conditions there; returning to the United States after the war, attending Hofstra College, and then earning his Ph.D. from Columbia University in German Literature and Culture; and helping other survivors write about their Holocaust experiences.

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral History

    Toby Stern, born on July 15, 1920 in Vișeu de Mijloc, Romania, describes growing up as the youngest of six children; marrying when she was seventeen or eighteen; going into hiding with her family shortly after the war began; having one child and miscarrying another while in hiding; her deportation to Auschwitz with her mother and her three-year-old son; giving her child to her mother to carry, since both were guaranteed to be killed, which allowed her to survive; having to do forced labor making uniforms in the camp's tailor shop; going on a death march in early 1945 from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück and then to Malchow, where Russian forces liberated her; going to the New Bromberg displaced persons camp and then returning to Vișeu de Mijloc in search of her husband and family; finding all of her brothers but not her husband, who was rumored to have died in Russia; immigrating to Germany after the war and remarrying while there; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral History

    Ion Butnaru, born in 1918 in Huși, Moldavia (Romania), describes his family; working for a small newspaper before the war until he was drafted into the Romanian Army in November, 1939; being transferred to the military zone in northern Moldavia in the spring of 1940; his expulsion from the army in August 1940 because he was Jewish; being ordered to return to his regiment to work with the battalions in the Carpathian Mountains on September 1, 1940; being sent back to Huși to clean streets in the summer of 1941; his deportation to a concentration camp in Tîrgu Jiu, Romania, where he remained for four months; returning to Huși, where he was placed in a local camp in the courtyard of the Jewish community and had to wear yellow badges; witnessing the Iron Guard Rebellion in January 1941, during which many Jews were killed; his father being falsely accused of being a communist and getting badly beaten; being forced to clear the streets of snow until the summer of 1942, when he was sent to Bolgrad, Ukraine and then to several other villages in Bessarabia in a forced labor battalion; getting moved to another camp near Bîrlad, Romania in 1943; the Romanian Army surrendering to Soviet forces in August 1944; and immigrating to the United States in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral History

    Jeanine Gutman Butnaru, born on June 25, 1925 in Bacău, Romania, describes her childhood and family; moving to Bucharest, Romania in 1938; her involvement in the underground resistance movement in Bucharest; working as a volunteer in Jewish hospitals; witnessing the Iron Guard Rebellion of January 21-23, 1941, when Legionaries killed Jews and burned downed their houses and stores; the 1944 American bombing of the railroads that cut the Germans off from Ploiești, Romania, which was rich with oil; hiding in her family’s cellar during the heavy bombardments because Ploiești was near Bucharest; Soviet troops entering Romania at the end of the war; meeting her husband in the Writer's Union; and immigrating to the United States in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

    Cecilie Klein-Pollack, born on April 13, 1925 in Yasinya, Ukraine, describes growing up as the youngest of six children in a Jewish family; the death of her father when she was nine years old; her expulsion from high school after the Hungarians annexed Ruthenia; being threatened with deportation and subsequently going into hiding in Budapest, Hungary after her mother and sister were briefly imprisoned there; fleeing to Horinc, Ukraine, where they stayed for a year until her brother was taken for forced labor; moving with her mother to Nyíregyháza, Hungary, where arrangements had been made for her to apprentice in a dental laboratory; traveling to Budapest when she heard that her oldest sister had been arrested and finding out that she had been sent to a labor camp in Bačka Topola, Yugoslavia; traveling to Bačka Topola to arrange for her sister’s release and then returning to Budapest, where she became engaged to her future husband Joe Klein; the German invasion of Budapest in March 1944 and joining up with her and Joe’s families in Chust, Ukraine; being forced into a ghetto and then transported to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz and being sent to Birkenau with her sister; being sheltered by the Blockältester who liked her because she was a talented poet; her and her sister’s transport to Nuremberg and Holleischen; their liberation from Holleischen by Russian troops and returning to Czechoslovakia, where she reunited with her fiancé and married him in Budapest on August 21, 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral History

    Fred Schwartz, born on October 30, 1928 in Kotaj, Hungary, describes his childhood; his father’s deportation to a labor camp in 1940; taking over his father’s job delivering seltzer water with his brother; knowing very little of what was happening in Europe from 1940 to 1944; the German invasion of Hungary; the organization of Jews into their town synagogues as the Germans prepared them for deportation; his deportation to Birkenau with his father, mother, and brother; discovering later after the war that his mother had died in Bergen-Belsen; his transfer to a work camp in Wolfsberg where he had to dig tunnels through mountains; being forced on a death march as the Russian forces neared; arriving in Mauthausen where he was liberated by American forces; staying a displaced persons camp for two years until he relocated to Paris, France; waiting to receive an American visa; going to the United States without legal papers and almost being sent back; and reconciling with his past.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

    Abraham Malnik, born on January 31, 1927 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes his childhood and family; the Russian invasion of Lithuania in 1940 and losing most of his family’s belongings; the brutal treatment of Jews by Lithuanians; the establishment of a ghetto in Kaunas that held about thirty thousand people; the Lithuanians beheading the local rabbis; being saved during a selection because his father knew the chief of police; his father’s work in the ghetto fire department; being forced to do several jobs like make toys for German children and clean dirty clothes from the front; the Germans and Lithuanians intensifying their battle against the Jews after the loss of the battle at Stalingrad; being on the last transport from the ghetto to Dachau, where he had to help build a factory for Messerschmitt and pick up dead bodies; his transfers with his father to Flossenbürg and then another camp; getting a German officer in trouble because he attempted to sexually abuse him; his transfer to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by Russian troops on May 8, 1945; immigrating to the United States without knowing anyone or speaking English; and settling in Washington, DC with his wife, who was a Belgian Holocaust survivor.

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral History

    Lilly Appelbaum Malnik, born in Belgium in 1928, describes her family and childhood; her father's move to the United States; waking up one morning in 1940 and discovering that the Germans had invaded; her sister who was taken into hiding by a farmer who later turned her in to the Germans because she would not have sexual relations with him; living with her aunt in the countryside after having her tonsils out; returning to find that her mother and brother had been deported; hiding her Jewish identity and doing odd jobs for the Germans; going into hiding with a Belgian girl with whom she had worked; being caught and deported on the second-to-last transport before the liberation of Belgium; arriving in Birkenau and receiving her identification number and work assignment to the kitchens in Auschwitz; a death march to Bergen-Belsen; the arrival of Allied soldiers at Bergen-Belsen; being taken away by the Red Cross to recover from typhus and physical injuries; returning to Belgium and reuniting with her aunt; and immigrating to United States to be with her father.

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral History

    Masha Loen, born in July 1930 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes growing up in a religious family with three sisters; her father hiding her family and other Kaunas Jews under the wooden floor planks in his home; being separated from her family in 1941 and taken to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland; performing forced labor in Stutthof until 1945, when she was taken on a death march as Russian troops approached the camp; making it to a Russian hospital after the German soldiers abandoned the death march; traveling to Łódź, where she found her father who had been liberated from Dachau; taking a transport to Austria; and immigrating to New Orleans, LA in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral History

    Madeline Deutsch, born on April 29, 1930 in Berehove, Czechoslovakia (now in Ukraine), describes her childhood; Hungary taking over her town on November 9, 1938; living under the Hungarians until March 1944 when the Germans invaded; living in a ghetto for two weeks until her transport to Auschwitz, where she and her mother stayed in for one week; being moved near Wrocław, Poland to work at an ammunition factory; her and her mother’s liberation by Russian soldiers on May 8, 1945; discovering that both her father and brother had died; staying with her mother in a displaced persons camp for four years until March 9, 1949 when the two immigrated to the United States; and marrying and having two sons in America.

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral History

    Amalie Petranker Salsitz, born in 1922 in Munich, Germany, describes growing up in a Zionist family; moving to Stanislav, Poland (now Ivano-Frankivs'k, Ukraine) when she was a young child; the Russian occupation of Poland in 1939 and the loss of her father’s business; seeing her sister move to Palestine with her new husband; her family’s arrest by the Gestapo in October 1941; moving into the ghetto until her father was deported in 1942; escaping to Kraków, Poland, where she passed as Aryan; working as a chambermaid and finally obtaining employment at a construction firm in Kraków, where she remained until January 1945; traveling to Munich and Palestine after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral History

    Norman Salsitz, born in 1920 in Kolbuszowa, Poland, describes growing up in a Zionist Hasidic family; making a failed attempt to immigrate to Palestine in 1938; unsuccessfully trying to join the Polish Army in September 1939; the occupation and destruction of his town; escaping to Russian-occupied Poland for a short period until he returned to Kolbuszowa; going into the Lipie labor camp in 1940; running away from the camp; working for the Germans, building garages for the Wehrmacht; his deportation to the Pustków concentration camp in late 1940; being beaten; escaping from Pustków and moving to the Czechowice ghetto; escaping from the ghetto in November 1942 and helping to establish a partisan unit in the forest near Kolbuszowa; obtaining false documentation with which he joined the Armia Krajowa; fleeing to Germany after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral History

    Frederic Bernard, born on August 7, 1912 in Chernivtsi, Romania (Chernivtsi, Ukraine), describes his family; studying medicine at Karls University in Prague, Czechoslovakia; attempting to enter Hungary in 1941 but being turned away by the Hungarian gendarmerie and placed in a ghetto in Oleyëvo-Korolëvka, Ukraine with over 1,500 Jewish people; hiding during an Aktion in 1942 that exterminated most of the ghetto and then later escaping with his wife Gusti; finding a hiding place with a Polish man in a barn in the woods; the Polish man encouraging him to join a Polish resistance group; finding a new hiding place with Gusti in 1943 and joining a Russian resistance group; becoming a courier for the resistance because of his Romanian language ability; joining the Polish Army, where he practiced as a doctor; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral History

    Isaac Bitton, born on March 31, 1926 in Lisbon, Portugal, describes his family and childhood; the small Lisbon Jewish community in which he grew up that hosted thousands of Jewish refugees before and during the war; his family’s work running a soup kitchen to help the Jewish refugees; immigrating to Palestine with his brother aboard the ship Nisassa; being forced into an internment camp when he arrived in Haifa; joining the Palestine Police Railroad Division and then the Jewish Brigade; spending some time in Antwerp, Belgium for the Jewish Brigade but soon returning to Palestine to work for the British military; participating in a movement to encourage the illegal entry of European refugees into Palestine; working with the underground forces of the Haganah, a movement dedicated to preparing for Israeli independence; and his immigration to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral History

    Max Haber, born on December 31, 1904 in Essen, Germany, describes his family; attending an Orthodox Jewish school in Germany; moving to Hamburg, Germany and working as a businessman there until 1933, when he moved to Kolomyia, Poland to live with his brother and sister; moving to Katowice, Poland, where he was able to find work; joining the Revisionist party in 1939 and trying to immigrate to Palestine on an illegal transport through Romania; the British Ambassador to Romania telling the Romanians to withdraw his visa since the British were restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine; returning to Kolomyia and staying there until the Soviets invaded in 1939; trying to escape to Romania with his brother-in-law but getting caught and imprisoned; being moved to Kiev, Ukraine in March 1940; receiving a five-year prison sentence and getting transported to Yartsevo, Russia; his transfer to the Mostowits labor camp in Russia, where he was forced to cut trees; his liberation in March 1944 and taking a train to Kotel’nich, Russia with other prisoners; staying with several Russian Jewish families until he found a Ukrainian family who housed him for a short time in exchange for German lessons; traveling to the English zone in Germany; and reuniting with his brother in 1951 in Israel.

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral History

    Major General William P. Levine, born in Duluth, Minnesota on July 1, 1915, describes growing up as the oldest of four brothers; his draft into the United States Army in 1942 and completing Officer Training School in 1943; entering the Intelligence Unit as an Artillery Officer in 1944; being sent to England and later traveling with a unit that began in the Netherlands and worked its way south towards Dachau; moving into Dachau on April 29, 1945 and helping to give out food and medical care to the former prisoners at Dachau; and returning to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral History

    Leo Schneiderman, born on August 18, 1921 in Łódź, Poland, describes his family and childhood; the large Jewish population that had comfortably developed within Łódź before Hitler came to power; Poland preparing for war by drafting young men into the army and by digging trenches; the German invasion and fall of the Polish Army in September 1939; being tricked by the German government to head towards Warsaw with his younger brother and father; returning to Łódź and being forced into the ghetto with his whole family; the closing of the Łódź ghetto in 1940 and the realization that the community needed to organize its own services and methods of self-support; each of his family members taking a job in the ghetto, including his work as a tailor; illegally teaching Yiddish in the ghetto; not understanding why there had to be deportations from the ghetto without realizing the severity of the camps; his deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; his transport to Kaltwasser, a labor camp in Silesia, to do construction work for a short period until he was transferred to Lärche and then to Wolfsberg, where he worked in a hospital; being forced onto an open cattle car for a deportation and being thrown food while passing through Stará Paka, Czechoslovakia; his liberation by Allied Forces; and speaking for the prosecution against Herr Krison in a 1978 trial in Bochum, West Germany.

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral History

    Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf, both born in 1914 in Warsaw, Poland, describe their childhoods and families; Pela’s decision to study at a Warsaw law school before the war; getting married in 1936 and having a daughter in 1941; entering the Warsaw ghetto in 1940; escaping from the ghetto in 1942 by drugging their daughter, so she seemed to be dead; pretending to go to the Jewish cemetery outside of the ghetto to bury their daughter but never returning; their daughter getting tuberculosis and her six week treatment in a hospital; being helped by non-Jews; hiding on the Aryan side as Catholics; their daughter’s discovery that she was Jewish after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1947 on a United States Navy transport; Adam taking various jobs until he opened sporting goods factory; and getting involved in the Penny Project, which began in 1989.

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral History

    Carla Heijmans Lessing, born in 1929 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, describes her family and childhood; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 and experiencing harsh antisemitic measures; going into hiding with her mother and brother in August 1942 with the assistance of a Catholic priest who helped Jews find hiding places; leaving their first hiding place after three months but, with the priest’s help, finding a new shelter in Delft, in which they hid for thirty months; and her liberation in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral History

    Edward Lessing, born in the Hague, Netherlands on May 8, 1926, describes moving to the United States in 1929; returning to Delft, Netherlands in 1932 because of the economic depression in the US; entering trade school in 1942 to become a tool maker but having to leave because Jews could no longer attend public school after the German invasion; splitting up from his family after the invasion in October 1942 and finding a place to hide with a farmer, who employed him as a farm hand; relocating to hide in a convent in the Hague with his mother; the German raid of the convent in December 1943, during which he escaped, but his mother was taken to Bergen-Belsen; reuniting with his father and brothers in their hiding place in an abandoned cottage; remaining in this cottage through May 1945 when they returned to Delft; his mother’s liberation from Bergen-Belsen in late 1945; and immigrating with his family to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral History

    Werner Goldsmith, born in Erfurt, Germany on November 13, 1928, describes his family; the expulsion of Jewish children from German schools in 1938; the death of his father in 1938 and moving with his mother to Berlin, Germany; his mother placing him in the Auerbach Orphanage while she lived with another Jewish woman in West Berlin; his mother arranging for him to be placed in a transport to France while she traveled to England; living in the home of a French count until the invasion of France in 1940; the count being taken prisoner in Germany in 1940 and going into the care of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; unsuccessfully attempting to flee to southern France and getting separated from the other children when he was placed in the Rothschild orphanage, where he remained for nine months; moving to Marseilles, France in the spring of 1941; receiving an emergency visa in September 1941 to immigrate to the United States because he had relatives there; getting on a transport from Marseilles to Portugal and then embarking on a Portuguese freighter and sailing to the United States; and living in Jewish foster homes until he reunited with his mother in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral History

    Beatrice Pappenheimer, born in October 1932 in Lauterbach, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her parents having to register with the local police; moving to Karlsruhe, Germany after her father had to give up his business in 1936; starting school in Karlsruhe but experiencing much antisemitism; being forced to leave school in November 1938 because of a law forbidding Jews from public schools; the Gestapo forcing her and her family from their house and onto a train in 1939; arriving in the Gurs camp and contracting dysentery; her transfer to the Rivesaltes camp; her mother placing her on a truck run by the Oeuvre de Secours des Enfants and moving into homes in France; reuniting with her sister, who had gone through terrible times in the camps; the bombing of France that picked up in 1943; receiving letters from her grandmother in Palestine, her aunts in New York City, NY, and her uncle and aunt in London, England; arriving in London to be with her uncle and aunt; immigrating to New York City in October 1947 to live with her aunts and attend high school; and her thoughts on her wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    John Komski, born in 1915 in Galicia, Poland, describes growing up in a Gentile family; having some Jewish friends at the Academy of Arts in Kraków, where he graduated from in 1939; leaving Kraków when the Germans invaded but returning to join the resistance; escaping to Czechoslovakia, where he was caught by Slovaks who turned him in to the Gestapo; being rounded up in 1940 with 756 other Poles and deported to Auschwitz, where he worked in the architect's office; helping to create the museum in Auschwitz in 1941, collecting items of interest from the incoming inmates; escaping from Auschwitz to a small village, where he received false documents from the underground and boarded a train to Kraków; getting captured in Kraków and sent to prison; his transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Buchenwald, where he worked as a kitchen chef; his deportation to Gross-Rosen, where he worked in the labor relations office; being transported to Hersbruck towards the end of the war and then forced on a death march to Dachau, where he was liberated; and his immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral History

    Curtis Whiteway, born in Newburyport, MA on November 3, 1925, discusses his draft into the United States Army in December 1943; his basic training in Fort Knox, KY and intensive training with Rangers; transferring to Camp Maxie, TX, where he joined the 99th Division and immediately went to England; crossing into France with his division and participating in several skirmishes with the Germans; fighting the Third Panzer Division, which helped to push American forces further into Germany through the Siegfried Line; fighting near Cologne, Germany and encountering several concentration camps; helping to liberate the few surviving prisoners at Ohrdruf; going south into combat after the arrival of the Red Cross; reaching Dachau 3-B and then liberating the Moosburg prison camp (Stalag VII A) in Germany, which had about 30,000 prisoners, including some American prisoners of war; going to the Landshut sub-camp of Dachau to meet up with English and Canadian troops; and his assignment after the war to work temporarily in Cherbourg, France.

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral History

    Lore Baer, born August 26, 1938 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses her childhood in Amsterdam; how her family moved from Germany to the Netherlands in 1933; developing a close relationship with her maternal grandfather, who was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Bergen-Belsen, where he perished; her family's relationship with Elsa and Sam Izaaks, members of the underground resistance; her time in hiding with the Schouten family and becoming friends with Cornelia Schouten; her memories of living as a Catholic in order to conceal her identity as a Jew; hiding in various places on the Schouten family farm in order to avoid the Germans; her difficult separation from the Schouten family at the end of the war and her readjustment to life in Amsterdam; immigrating to the United States with her parents and settling in the Bronx, New York; and returning to the Netherlands to visit with members of the Schouten family several years after moving to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral History

    Erich Kulka (né Erich Schön), born on February 18, 1911 in Vsetín, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his childhood and family; being raised as a conservative Jew; attending a trade school, where he studied forestry and then worked in the family lumber business; smuggling people through the woods after the German annexation of Austria; being caught, arrested, and tortured by the Gestapo in June 1939; being released from prison in August 1939 and resuming work with the underground; his second arrest in 1940, when he was taken to Dachau as a political prisoner and then transferred to Auschwitz, where he was assigned to a work detail with a group of five in the Birkenau camp; assisting in resistance activities in Auschwitz; going on a death march as the Soviets approached and then put on a train from which he escaped; fleeing from Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring in 1968; living in Vienna, Austria for three months; and how all his family now lives in Israel.

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral History

    Cornelia Schouten, born on January 21, 1920 in Huizen, Netherlands, describes growing up as one of five children of a Christian farming family in Oosterblokker, Netherlands; one of her brothers serve in the Dutch Army and fight against the Nazis in 1940; the arrest of her father and uncle during the German occupation of the Netherlands because they were striking in protest of the occupation; her family’s decision to harbor those who resisted the Nazis, including members of the resistance and men who were drafted for forced labor; sheltering the young Jewish girl, Lore Baer, for over two years; Lore’s parents emerging from hiding after the war and reclaiming their daughter; reuniting with Lore several times after the war; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral History

    Drexel Sprecher, born on March 25, 1913 in Independence, WI, describes his family; his education at the University of Wisconsin, the London School of Economics, and at the Harvard School of Law; receiving a position on the Labor Board in 1938; his enlistment in the United States Army after the US declared war on Germany; being sent to London, England, where he was assigned to the Inspector General's office; later serving as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg Trials; and prosecuting Baldur von Schirach, the leader of the Hitler Youth.

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral History

    Bela Blau, born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1910, describes his family; getting married in 1930 and moving to Zilina, Slovakia; serving in the army for eighteen months and then working as a salesman representing a photo company; having a son in 1937; being dismissed from his job in 1938 because of his Jewish background; being arrested by two Hlinka Guards one day after Yom Kippur in 1942; his and his family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where he was placed in Block 10 and worked on building a bridge above the River Sota; doing writing jobs for an illiterate German Kapo because he spoke German; being assigned to the Kommando Kanada until May 1943 when he became a scribe and met his future second wife Magda; going on a death march in January 1945 from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Mauthausen, where he spent one month until he was transferred to Gusen, where he worked as an engineer fixing petrol tanks, gas tanks, and the wings of Messerschmitt planes; his transfer to Gunskirchen on May 1; and United States forces liberating him on May 7, 1945 in Gunskirchen.

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral History

    Magda Blau, born on August 19, 1916 in Michalovce, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes growing up in a Jewish family; becoming a kindergarten teacher; the German invasion and her deportation to Auschwitz, where she worked scrubbing floors for three months until she became an assistant to the block supervisor; being put in charge of the barrack for medical experiments in the autumn of 1942 and becoming the protégé of Dr. Eduard Wirths, the garrison physician; later working in an office and becoming the concentration camp commander of the camp for Hungarian Jews; getting a job counting potatoes in a kitchen and then a job as a concentration camp supervisor in a fabric production facility; going on a death march on January 18, 1945 to Malchow, where they were liberated by the Soviet Army; settling in Prague, Czech Republic for a short time and then immigrating to Israel; and finally immigrating to Australia in 1965.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral History

    Barbara Lederman Rodbell, born in 1925 in Berlin, Germany, describes her childhood; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1933 with her family; becoming friends with Anne Frank and her family; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; her boyfriend getting her false papers through his underground contacts; the deportation of her mother, sister, and father to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz; working for the resistance and surviving using her false papers; helping other Jews find hiding places; joining a ballet company for two years after the war; and immigrating to the United States in November 1947.

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral History

    Jerry Slivka, born on July 11, 1915 in Western Ukraine, describes his memories of the Soviet takeover of Russia; moving to the neighboring town of Povorsk, Ukraine with his family; participating with the Zionist movement and joining a kibbutz; moving to Łódź, where he worked as a manager of a village store from 1939 to 1941; entering the Polish Army in 1939 but settling in Soviet-held territory after the takeover of Poland; joining the reserves of the Soviet Army; escaping a German attack and seeking refuge at Soviet military headquarters; being sent to a labor camp in Stalingrad (Volgograd), Russia and then to the railroads east of the Volga because the Soviets were suspicious of him; working in a coal mine near Moscow, Russia for one-and-a-half years before he was freed; his interment in Italy until he could return to Łódź in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral History

    Rochelle Blackman Slivka, born in 1922 in Vilnius, Lithuania, describes growing up in a Jewish family; the German occupation of Vilnius in June 1941 and moving into the ghetto with her family in October; her mother’s death in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943 and being transported to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia and later to Stutthof; her father’s murder in an Estonian prison camp because he had served as a Jewish council member; her experiences in the camps until she had to go on a death march, during which the Soviet Army liberated her; beginning to make her way back to Vilnius with her sister but instead going to West Germany; separating from her sister while they both awaited permission to go to the United States; learning nursing during her stay at a German displaced persons camp; immigrating to the United States and arriving in Massachusetts on May 18, 1949; working as a nurse’s aide in an American hospital; and meeting and marrying a Holocaust survivor in the United States in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral History

    Francis Akos, born on March 30, 1922 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his childhood; attending a music academy, from which he graduated in 1941; becoming the concertmaster for the Budapest Jewish Community Cultural Center orchestra; being drafted for forced labor into the Hungarian Army in 1943; getting captured with other Jews in Budapest while on leave from the army to get fresh clothes; being sent by train to Neuengamme on November 4, 1944; playing violin in the camp; his evacuation from Neuengamme on May 3, 1945 and being transported by the ship Cap Arcona, a passenger liner that was evacuating refugees from West Prussia; the British mistakenly attacking the Cap Arcona and three other prisoner ships, which resulted in eight thousand deaths; returning to Budapest after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1954.

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral History

    Beno Helmer, born in 1923 in Teplice, Czechoslovakia, describes his childhood and family; using his foreign language skills to land small movie roles before the war; attempting to settle in Hungary with his family before the war; his family’s deportation to Łódź in 1939 because they did not have immigration papers; arriving in the Łódź ghetto and staying there until he had to begin doing forced labor outside the ghetto in 1942; securing a job posing as a non-Jewish German and collecting information for the underground and becoming an expert at derailing trains; returning to the ghetto when his father became sick and remaining with his family until they were deported to Auschwitz after the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto; his deportations to Gross-Rosen, Krupp Bertha-Werk at Laskowitz-Meleschwitz, Buchenwald, and Ludwigslust; his liberation by American soldiers while in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp; attempting to get back to Poland and on the way joining a Polish forced labor group that was later incorporated into the Russian Army; spending time hunting for Nazi war criminals after the war; and living in Europe for several years until he immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral History

    Jerry von Halle, born on December 2, 1922 in Hamburg, Germany, describes his family and childhood; learning the Hitler salute in school and having to fly the Nazi flag over his house on holidays; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands with his family in 1933 to get away from the Nazi party in Germany; the German invasion of the Netherlands; the Gestapo arresting and sending him to prison; being sent to Mauthausen with his brother and other boys but returning because he claimed to have tuberculosis; learning to be a shoemaker to avoid deportation; hiding in a house in the countryside with his family but returning to Amsterdam with his mother; going into hiding with his mother in the small apartment that belonged to one of his former teachers; his hider being caught and arrested four weeks before the end of the war and having to find a new place to hide; his liberation by Canadian troops; being arrested after the war with his mother because of their German passports but shortly being released when the authorities realized through what they had been; and immigrating to the United States in 1945.

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral History

    Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall, born in 1929 in Klyucharki, Czechoslovakia (Kliucharky, Ukraine), discusses her childhood; her father immigrating to the United States but being unable to arrange for her entire family to come over before the war began; no longer being able to attend school and experiencing increased tensions with her neighbors after the German annexation of Czechoslovakia; being forced to move into the ghetto with her family; being loaded onto a train after spending several weeks in the ghetto and arriving in Auschwitz two and a half days later; pretending that she was 15, so she would be old enough to work; her assignment to carry rocks between two places; being sent to the gas chambers during a selection but getting rescued just before she entered the gas chamber itself; working in an airplane factory with six hundred women; running into a forest with a friend and walking to a town that had been liberated by the Russian military; being given an apartment, food, clothing, and medical attention by the Russians; returning home to find her house destroyed; living in her grandmother’s house with other survivors and living off of the money her father sent her; learning that she had an uncle who had survived and sneaking across the border into non-communist Czechoslovakia to reunite with him; and immigrating to the United States in 1947 with her father.

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral History

    Ralph Codikow, born in 1930, in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes his family; the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941 and his brother shortly thereafter being shot at the Seventh Fort; his and his mother’s confinement to the Kaunas ghetto, where his mother saved them by pretending to be married to a male friend; his mother using her husband’s Lithuanian military service papers to forgo deportation to the Ninth Fort; being saved by his work in a ceramics factory when the children’s Aktions were decreasing the number of children in the ghetto; his and his mother’s deportation to Stutthof, where they were separated; his transfer to Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau in Germany, and then to Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau; contracting measles but being considered healthy enough to go on a forced march to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, in the winter; his liberation at Buchenwald in April 1945; moving to France after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral History

    Ruth Borsos, born in 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her family; moving to the Netherlands after Kristallnacht in 1938; her and her father obtaining permits to sail to the United States but not being able to do so when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940; her deportation to Westerbork in 1943 and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; being interned with her father in a camp near the Swiss border when an exchange agreement with the Allies broke down; being chosen to be traded for German prisoners because of their foreign passports; their liberation from the internment camp by French forces on April 23, 1945; spending some time in a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration camp after the war; returning to the Netherlands in 1947 and receiving a visa to immigrate to the United States; and marrying another Holocaust survivor, whom she met in Washington, DC.

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral History

    Simone Marguerite Lipman (née Weil), born on April 4, 1920 in Ringendorf, France, describes her family; participating in a Jewish scouting organization, Les Eclaireurs Israélites de France, with her brother; moving to Strasbourg, France, a city with a vibrant Jewish community; graduating from high school in 1938 and moving to southern France to care for her elderly grandmother; relocating to Blâmont, France because of fears of Nazi invasion; training in early childhood education and working at a private school in Paris, France for a few months until she returned to take care of her mother who was extremely ill; the German invasion of France in May 1940; packing up her family’s belongings and driving towards southern France; arriving in Périgeaux, France, where her family had to register as Jews; going to the Rivesaltes camp in France to work for the Organization for Children’s Rescue, for which she distributed food, cared for the children, and tried to find ways to get them out of the camp; helping to rescue hundreds of children with the Catholic Church after the Nazis began to round up children in late 1942; working to reopen many children’s homes after the war ended; receiving a scholarship from America’s National Council of Jewish Women for her work during the war; moving to the United States in 1946 to attend Tulane University, where she received a master’s degree in social work; returning to Europe, where she trained employees of children’s homes to deal with the special needs of young Holocaust survivors; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral History

    Shony Alex Braun, born on July 14, 1930 in Transylvania, Romania (possibly Cristuru Secuiesc, Romania), describes his family and early childhood; learning to play the violin at age five; the occupation of his town by Hungarian forces in 1940 and by the Germans in 1944; being deported to Auschwitz in May 1944; his transfer into the Natzweiler (Struthof) camp system in France and then to Dachau, where American forces liberated him in April 1945; his immigration to the United States in 1950; and becoming a professional composer and violinist.

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral History

    Doriane Kurz, born in Vienna, Austria in March 1936, describes her family and early childhood; moving to Maastricht, Netherlands and then Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1939 for her father’s business; experiencing several Nazi air raids over Amsterdam; Dutch Jews losing their businesses in 1942; her parents being imprisoned for trying to escape from the country and then getting deported to Westerbork; her father’s transfer to Auschwitz on November 10, 1942 and never being heard from again; her mother’s return to Amsterdam to take care of her and her brother; going into hiding with two farmers in the countryside; her capture and deportation to Westerbork with her mother and brother at the end of 1943; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen; contracting typhus in March 1944; being liberated by English troops while on a train ride; going to a displaced persons camp in Maastricht in June 1945; her mother’s death in March 1945 due to cancer; and immigrating to the United States in July 1945 with her brother to live with her uncle.

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral History

    David Lieberman, born in Częstochowa, Poland on December 31, 1925, describes his family; living through pogroms as a young child; having to move into the town’s ghetto and perform forced labor after the German occupation; seeing many of his family members deported to camps; his deportation to Treblinka, where he escaped after eleven days by cutting a hole in the fence with wire cutters that he had stolen; running with two friends to the house of a nearby farmer who put the three onto a train headed back to Częstochowa; reuniting with one brother, his sister, and his mother upon his return; being taken to another concentration camp, where he worked in a munitions factory as a bullet maker; the camp’s liberation and traveling by train to Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, where he entered a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency camp; traveling to Italy with the intention of taking a boat to Palestine but being returned to Karlovy Vary by the Italian government; and soon immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral History

    Laura Margolis, born in Constantinople, Turkey in 1903, describes her family; immigrating to the United States in 1908 and settling in Ohio; becoming a social worker for the Jewish Welfare Society of Cleveland after graduating from college; joining the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and going to Havana, Cuba, where she was in charge of sheltering and feeding Jewish refugees; her transfer to Shanghai, China in May 1941, where she aided over 8,000 Jewish refugees; her capture by Japanese forces after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and going into an internment camp; faking an illness to be transported to an American hospital, where she knew a doctor; the doctor lying about her health and refusing to release her from the hospital; returning to the United States as part of a prisoner of war exchange in 1944; being sent to Barcelona, Spain in 1945 by the JDC to aid Jewish refugees; helping to organize a parcel-sending program to former prisoners of concentration camps after their liberation; moving to Israel in 1953; and returning to the United States in 1983 to retire.

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral History

    Paul Strassman, born on January 24, 1929 in Trenčín, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), discusses his father’s work as an army officer for Austria-Hungary in World War I; the antisemitism his family experienced in the 1930s, which led them to consider escaping the country; his father divesting his share of his business; getting baptized, so they could avoid deportation; going into hiding in late August 1944; his father’s brief emergence from hiding and getting caught by the Gestapo, who sent him to Sachsenhausen; joining the Jegorov Brigade, a partisan group, in September 1944 and remaining in it until April 1945; joining the Czech Army in April 1945 as a noncommissioned officer and going to his station in Bratislava, Slovakia until the end of the war; remaining in Czechoslovakia but leaving just before the Communists took power in 1948; living briefly in Paris, France and London, England before immigrating to the United States in October 1948; and discovering that he was the sole survivor of his family.

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral History

    Ernest James, born in 1920 in Ord, NE, describes his family; joining the California National Guard in 1940; holding the position of sergeant and being called into active service in 1941; being stationed along the coast of San Francisco, CA and then going on to serve as platoon leader and company commander of the 238th Engineer Combat Battalion in the later years of the war; his unit’s attachment to the 1st Army and the 7th Corps; landing in Europe, where they swept through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany; reaching Nordhausen in April 1945 and finding workers from a V-2 missile and arms plant; ordering the German civilians to begin burying the large number of people who had already died; and assisting in the guarding of a nearby camp containing approximately 80,000-100,000 military prisoners of war.

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

    Chaim Engel, born in January 1916, describes growing up in Łódź, Poland; his experiences with feeling different as a Jew growing up; fighting in the Polish Army during the war and getting captured as a prisoner of war; being released and traveling to Lublin to work as a farmhand; his father’s and step-mother’s transport to Sobibór in June 1942; going to Izbica Lubelska with a friend to join a partisan unit; being caught and sent on a transport in September 1942 with about eight hundred people to Sobibór, where he worked sorting the clothes of people who had come into the camp; getting beaten for stealing pants on a couple of occasions; meeting his future wife Selma when they were both assigned to sort clothes; participating in the Sobibór uprising and escaping with Selma to a farm where they stayed until June 1944; his liberation by Russian troops and going to Parczew, Poland, where he and Selma had a child and started to re-organize their lives; moving to Holland, where they stayed until 1951 when they immigrated to Israel; and his and Selma’s immigration to the United States in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

    Selma Engel (née Wynberg), born in Groningen, Netherlands in 1922, describes her family and childhood; moving to Zwolle, Netherlands when she was seven years old; her family’s ownership of a kosher hotel; her father dying of a heart attack in 1941; the German invasion of the Netherlands and the confiscation of her family’s hotel; moving with her mother into the home of another Jewish family; receiving help from a Catholic priest in 1942 to hide in a non-Jewish family’s home; never seeing her mother and brothers again; hiding in a nurse’s home in Utrecht, Netherlands for a few months until she moved into another family’s house, where the police soon discovered her; being sent to an Amsterdam prison for three months; her deportation in 1943 to the transit camp in Vught, Netherlands, from which she went to Westerbork, where she worked in the laundry room; her transfer to Sobibór, where she had to sort clothes and clean the woods and railroads; contracting typhus; meeting Chaim, her future husband, when they had to dance in front of the Germans; escaping with Chaim from Sobibór during the uprising and hiding in the woods for several weeks; staying with a farmer in exchange for money for nine months; the farmer taking her and Chaim to Chełm, Poland in 1944; their liberation in July 1944; immigrating to Israel in 1951; and immigrating to the United States in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral History

    Morris Engelson, born in 1935 in Paberze, Lithuania, describes his family; his father’s work in the grain business; the Soviet invasion in 1939; the German invasion in 1941 and forcing the Jews of Paberze into a ghetto; dressing up as a peasant woman with his mother to escape the ghetto that was soon liquidated by the Einsatzgruppen in September 1941; moving around and hiding in different farms with his mother; being smuggled to the Lithuanian-Polish border and ending up in another ghetto; reuniting with his father in April 1943 and hiding in a barn and then a farmer’s attic; moving westward towards the end of the war and arriving in the American zone in Germany; going to a Berlin displaced persons camp and later to the Gobrasa displaced persons camp in Bavaria after the war; and immigrating to the United States after four years.

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral History

    Lonia Mosak, born on July 20, 1922 in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland, describes her family; moving to Ciechanów, Poland when she was young; attending a separate Jewish school in Poland and serving in a Zionist youth group; completing her school education in 1936; becoming seriously ill with typhus after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 but recovering even though Jewish physicians could not use medicine to contain the epidemic; her internment in Neustadt, a labor camp in Germany; being split up from her family in 1942 and transported to Auschwitz, where she remained until January 18, 1945 doing forced labor; being forced on a death march to Gross-Rosen and then to Ravensbrück, where she was liberated by the Soviet Army on April 30, 1945; returning to Ciechanów after her liberation; residing for short periods in Łódź and Bialystok to await the return of her last brother from Russia; marrying in Austria after the war; immigrating to a Polish-Jewish neighborhood of Chicago, IL in 1946; and having two children and eventually bringing her brother to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral History

    Agnes Grossman Aranyi, born on May 2, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; her father being drafted into forced labor camps from 1939 until 1942 when he was finally deported; attending Jewish school until 1942 when the war began in Hungary; the restrictions on Jewish life in Budapest; being warned by a friend to disappear because he knew that the round-ups were to begin soon; meeting a woman who worked for the underground and who took them to live as Christians in a Swedish house set up by Raoul Wallenberg; the Germans invading their home and forcing them into a ghetto; the Russians arriving to liberate the Budapest ghetto; living under Russian oppression until 1956, when she escaped to Austria with her fiancé during the Hungarian Revolution; and immigrating to North Carolina shortly thereafter.

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral History

    David Bergman, born on May 3, 1931 in Beckov, Czechoslovakia (present day Velykyĭ Bychkiv, Ukraine), describes his family and childhood; the German occupation of his town, previously annexed by Hungary, in 1944; his deportation to Auschwitz in late 1944; being transferred with his father to Płaszow, Gross-Rosen, and then Reichenbach an der Fils; being among three of 150 people in a cattle car who survived a transport to Dachau; being placed on a train to Innsbruck, Austria three days before the Americans arrived in Dachau; his liberation while on a death march from Innsbruck toward the front line of combat between United States and German troops; going into in an American hospital and rehabilitating; traveling to his old family home and finding it occupied by a Russian family; discovering that everyone in his family except him had perished; immigrating to the United States, where he settled in Cleveland, Ohio; and joining the American military to fight in the Korean War.

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral History

    Lila Lam Nawakowska, born on November 24, 1924 in Stanislawów, Poland (Stanislav, Ukraine), describes growing up in a large family; the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Soviet occupation of Stanislav until June 1941, when the Soviets withdrew, and the Germans entered and constructed a ghetto; her father becoming the chairperson of the ghetto’s Judenrat because he was such an influential businessman in their community; remaining in the ghetto with her family until December 1942, when they were able to obtain falsified Aryan papers and escape on the eve of the ghetto's liquidation in January 1943; renting an apartment in Warsaw, Poland and remaining there until the Warsaw uprising, when she was transported to Mauthausen; briefly spending time doing forced labor in Steyr, a sub-camp of Mauthausen and in Znojmo, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); her liberation by Soviet soldiers in May 1945; and reuniting with her mother and future husband shortly after the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral History

    Yaffa Rosenthal, born in Solotvyno, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) on October 7, 1926, describes her family and childhood; her experiences with antisemitism as a child; the Ukrainians taking over her town in 1938 and learning in a different language in school; her father losing his job and having to work in mines and on a cattle farm to support his family; receiving a notice that her family would be taken away in the early summer of 1941; her deportation to Yasinya (IAsinia), Ukraine and then being marched toward Galicia, Poland; escaping from the Germans and going to live with her uncle in Oradea, Romania and then with her sister in Budapest, Hungary; having a somewhat normal life until the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; hiding in the Budapest ghetto until January 1945 when she was liberated by Russian troops; trying to survive after the war and receiving help from the Swedish Red Cross; reuniting with her sister in Debrecen, Hungary and then returning with her to Budapest; participating in the Budapest Zionist organization and immigrating to Israel in 1948; getting married to an American man in 1959; and immigrating to the United States to settle in New York, NY.

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral History

    Eve Wagszul Rich, born in Kovel', Ukraine, describes her family and childhood; the German invasion and having to move into the ghetto; the Germans bursting into her home one night and killing her father in front of her; immediately running away into the forest and going to nearby villages, where she met peasants who gave her some food; going into hiding with a group of Carmelite Nuns; the Germans discovering her and sending her to Majdanek; escaping with a friend during a transport and going to Bavaria to work on a farm; her liberation by American forces; and immigrating to New York to live with her grandmother’s sister.

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral History

    Magda Mezei Lapidus, born on July 18, 1923 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; attending the Commercial Academy of Budapest for two years; first realizing the danger posed by the Nazis when they invaded Austria in 1938; seeing several young Hungarian men shipped out to labor camps starting in 1941; her brother being taken away to a labor camp in 1943; the German invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944; being forced into the Budapest ghetto and living in the Star of David House; her father returning to live with them in June 1944; being forced on a march with her father to the outskirts of Budapest, at which point she was separated from her father and never saw him again; hiding in a bush on her march and ripping her identifying star off and returning to Budapest to reunite with her mother and brother; going to the Spanish Legation near the ghetto and receiving a safety pass to move into a house protected from German invasion; remaining in the house until January 18, 1945, when the Russians liberated Budapest; and discovering the fate of her father.

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral History

    Avraham Ronai, born on September 14, 1932 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in a religious family; attending a secular public school and a Jewish school at night in Budapest; not experiencing many difficulties under the pro-Nazi Hungarian regime; the German invasion of Budapest in March 1944 but not really suffering until the Nazis took full control over Hungary in October 1944; the Nazis rounding up Jews into ghettos and deporting them; seeking help at the Spanish Embassy in Budapest and receiving a space in a Spanish safe-house due to the efforts of Giorgio Perlasca; remaining in the safe-house until the Soviets liberated Budapest in 1945; and immigrating to Israel in 1949 because of the oppressive Hungarian Communist regime.

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral History

    Eva Konigsberg Lang, born on April 1925 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her childhood and family; the Jewish community losing several of its rights when the war began; her relatives arriving from Czechoslovakia to live with her; being forbidden to attend school after March 1944; receiving a protective pass to get food; hearing that the wife of any man in forced labor would not be deported and getting married in 1944; hiding in a Spanish protective house on St. Paul Street and getting food supplies provided by the Jewish Council; the German occupation of Budapest; forging a telegram to prove that they were under Spanish protection and to save themselves from the Arrow Cross; and reflecting on how certain Spanish diplomats saved her life during the war.

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral History

    Cornelius Loen, born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) on May 2, 1922, describes growing up with a Jewish father and Gentile mother; the German invasion of his town on January 23, 1942 and German troops killing two of his uncles; escaping with his family to Budapest, Hungary, where they lived for ten months; his deportation to a forced labor camp in Hungary, where he remained until 1944; escaping to a nearby barn, where he hid for three days, during the liquidation of the camp; Russian troops liberating him while he hid in this barn; walking to a nearby displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife Masha; taking a Russian transport to Budapest and reuniting with his parents; discovering that his father had survived a concentration camp and his mother had helped to hide and save many Jewish people after her family was taken away; and immigrating to Los Angeles, CA in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral History

    Thomas Blatt, born in 1927 in Izbica Lubelska, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox family; the establishment of a ghetto run by the Germans after the war began in September 1939; working in a garage, which protected him from early ghetto roundups; trying to escape to Hungary with false papers in 1942 but getting caught; his and his family’s deportation to Sobibór, where his family was gassed immediately; the Germans choosing him as a laborer because of his mechanical skills; participating in and escaping during the Sobibór uprising on October 14, 1943 by escaping through the wire fences and avoiding the land mines; going into hiding with a friend on several farms; hiding in a stable and then in an abandoned brick factory; working as a courier for the Polish underground; and immigrating to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral History

    Anita Magnus Frank, born on January 29, 1936 in Emmen, Netherlands, describes her family; her move to Breda, Netherlands, where her family was living when the war broke out; the German invasion of 1940 and being told to leave because the Germans were going to bomb the town; walking thirty kilometers to a farm, where they stayed for five days; returning to Breda and experiencing increased persecution; obtaining false passports and assuming Dutch names to shield their Jewish identities in 1942 (Verified from other sources, the name of the individual who assisted Anita and her family was Govardus Pinxteren, who was later honored as Righteous Among the Nations); going into hiding first in a non-Jewish neighbor's home and then in a Quaker family’s home in Bilthoven, Netherlands; living as “normal” Dutch schoolchildren except having to hide their Jewish identities and constantly being in fear; leaving their hiding place in August 1944 because the Quaker family was too scared to keep them; returning to Limburg with her parents; the liberation of Limburg in September 1944; returning to Breda in April 1945 and living in an uninhabitable, bombed house for six months until they could move into a bigger and better house in the same town; and immigrating to the United States on December 7, 1952 because antisemitism was still a problem after the war.

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral History

    Guta Blass Weintraub, born on January 22, 1924 in Łódź, Poland, describes her childhood and family; her experiences with antisemitism in her youth; attending a private, Jewish, all-girls high school until the German invasion in September 1939; moving from Łódź to Wierzbnik-Starachowice in December 1939 because of fears about what the Germans had planned; the formation of a ghetto and having to share a home with at least one other family; meeting her future husband when he came to her home in the ghetto asking for her father to make him a suit with special pockets; being rounded up in the ghetto’s marketplace and sent to labor camps; managing to smuggle out some pictures with her as she, her mother, and her father were taken to a woodworking camp; surviving several shootings and experiencing starvation; her deportation to Auschwitz in 1942 and staying there until 1944, when she was transferred to Ravensbrück; her liberation by the Swedish Red Cross; and traveling to Sweden to recover.

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral History

    Henry Schmelzer, born in March 1924 in Vienna, Austria, describes growing up as the youngest of four children in a middle-class family; graduating from a Jewish high school in 1938 shortly before it closed; his brothers fleeing, while he and the rest of his family endured Nazi raids on their home until they were evicted; his father losing his business and having severe depression; escaping to England on December 18, 1938 and finding refuge at a children's camp; remaining in England throughout the war and living with a group of young Zionists; enlisting in the British Army in 1943; being sent to a mountain unit, the 52nd Division; receiving his degree at the London School of Economics; spending 18 years in Israel; and immigrating to the United States in 1969.

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral History

    Helen Liebowitz Goldkind, born in Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia (Ukraine) on July 9, 1928, describes her childhood and family; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia and going into a ghetto in Uzhgorod, Ukraine; maintaining religious traditions in the ghetto; the Germans taking over the ghetto and deporting her and her family to Auschwitz; her transport to another camp and hearing bombs going off during the train ride; arriving in a German camp and working in a munitions factory; going on a truck with two hundred other girls to Bergen-Belsen, where English troops eventually liberated her; the Swedish Red Cross offering to take care of her and others in Sweden; discovering that only one of her sisters survived the war and had immigrated to the United States; and following her sister to the United States, where she settled in New York, NY and got married.

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral History

    Johanne Eva Liebmann (née Hirsch), born in 1924 in Karlsruhe, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her family’s deportation to the Gurs camp in southern France in October 1940; being rescued by the Children's Aid Society in September 1941 and hiding in a children’s home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France until 1943, when she obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland; discovering that her mother had died in Auschwitz; getting married in Geneva, Switzerland in 1945 and having a daughter in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral History

    Max Liebmann, born on September 3, 1921 in Mannheim, Germany, describes his family and childhood; attending school until December 1937, when he had to quit because of the antisemitism he was experiencing; his memories of Kristallnacht; his father travelling to Greece and Italy to do business since he could no longer do it in Germany; he and his mother being called into a Wehrmacht office shortly after the war began in September 1939; being made to do forced labor harvesting fields in East Germany; being deported with his mother to the Gurs concentration camp in France; playing the cello as part of several concerts given at Gurs; meeting his future wife in the camp through a connection his mother made; managing inventories for French camp officials; his transfer to the Talluyers camp in July 1942; escaping to Le Chambon, France to reunite with his girlfriend for a short period until they both had to find hiding places; finding a guide to take him through France and into Switzerland; arriving in Ouchy, Switzerland and receiving work papers on December 22, 1942; reuniting with his girlfriend in Switzerland on February 28, 1943 and marrying her in Geneva on April, 14, 1945; having a daughter in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral History

    Giorgio Perlasca, born on January 31, 1910 in Como, Italy, describes growing up with a father who worked for the Italian government in Padua; fighting in the Spanish Civil War and later taking a position in an Italian trade firm; working around Eastern Europe after Italy entered World War II in 1940; maintaining an official position with the Italian Trade Commission and living in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1941 and 1942; continuing to work for the Italian government until the fall of Admiral Miklos Horthy in 1944; his internment by the Hungarian government from April to October 1944 after the Germans took control of Hungary; escaping his internment with falsified papers provided by a member of the Swiss Diplomatic Corps; adopting a Spanish nationality because of his veteran status from the Spanish Civil War; posing as the Spanish Charge d'Affaires after the flight of the appointed Charge d'Affaires for Spain in December 1944; helping to establish of several safe-houses in Budapest to shelter Jews under Spanish protection; coordinating his efforts with representatives of other neutral nations, including Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden, and the representatives of the Vatican, Portugal, and Switzerland, to shelter and save Jews from deportation; and returning to Italy to start a family in February 1945.

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral History

    David J. Selznick, born in Anykščiai, Lithuania in 1912, describes growing up as the youngest child in a large family; going to Ukmergė, Lithuania to study at a yeshiva in order to become a rabbi; his father’s death shortly before his twelfth birthday and becoming the legal master of his father's estate; deciding to sell off his family's farm and livestock and move to Kaunas, Lithuania; attending a Yiddish night school in Kaunas and working during the day as a retailer of office supplies; his experiences with antisemitism, which hurt his business; selling his business to two Christians but remaining as a silent partner; receiving a visa to serve as a diplomatic envoy to New York because of his business connections but instead deciding to leave for Portugal; returning to Kaunas in 1936 because he was worried about his mother and sisters; his deportation to the Kaunas ghetto in 1941; performing forced labor until late 1944 because he had worked for the ghetto Kommandant; smuggling food to the Jewish prisoners in the ghetto; escaping during the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto in July 1944 and fleeing into the countryside, where he hid with some other Jews; his liberation by the Soviet Army; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral History

    Elisabeth Model (née Dittmann), born in Bayreuth, Germany in 1897, describes her family; getting married in 1922 and moving to Amsterdam, where she worked as a sculptor; returning to Germany after Kristallnacht to help her mother emigrate; helping her mother sneak into the Netherlands with the help of a Dutch underground organization; her husband being imprisoned for one month by the Nazis after being falsely accused of smuggling money into the Netherlands; bribing a woman at the Spanish Consulate to give her and her husband exit visas in 1941; traveling to Madrid, Spain; and eventually arriving in to New York, NY in 1942.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral History

    Joseph Levine, born in Molodezhnyi, Russia on July 20, 1907, describes the difficulties his family faced in World War I; his family’s immigration to San Francisco, CA on February 12, 1917 and then settling in New Haven, CT; attending Franklin and Marshall College and then the graduate school for Jewish social work; working with the Jewish Board of Guardians for six years until 1941; starting to work as a parole officer in 1941; joining the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in 1945 as a social worker; going to Schwandorf, Germany, where he worked with many Polish Jews; his transfer to Dachau in October of 1945, where he also worked closely with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; bearing witness to the war crime trials at Nuremberg; and returning to the United States, where he worked as the executive secretary of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society.

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral History

    Eugenia Blau Szamosi, born in Transylvania in 1914, describes her family, childhood, and growing up in Budapest, Hungary; her experiences with antisemitism in Hungary; marrying in November 1941 and having a son the following year and a girl the next; her husband avoiding forced labor by spending time in a mental hospital; having to move into the Jewish section of the town and wear the yellow star after the German invasion of Hungary; escaping from the Budapest ghetto and looking for a flat in town; pretending to be a Transylvanian refugee because she had Aryan looks; returning to the ghetto to work with her husband in a children’s home and await deportation; getting the supplies to make shutzpasses for people; getting Spanish passports for her and her husband, which helped to save them from deportation; her family’s liberation and her husband’s work for the International Red Cross after the war; and immigrating to Israel in June 1949.

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral History

    Irene Dynkiewicz Silver, born in January 1933 in Łódź, Poland, describes her family and the Jewish community in her town before the war; her family’s move to Warsaw just as the German bombardment of Warsaw began; the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto wall; learning how to read and write from one of her cousins; wearing a kerchief and putting on lipstick to look older and avoid deportation during ghetto-round ups; going into hiding in January 1943 with a woman who had managed to attain a Christian identity for her; not being able to leave the home in which she hid and reading to pass her time; attending school for the first time after the war; traveling to London with several other children to attend a boarding school established by a rabbi; and immigrating to Brooklyn, NY in January 1950 to live with her aunt and uncle.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral History

    Alice Lok Cahana, born on February 7, 1929 in Sárvár, Hungary, discusses her childhood; her relationships with her parents, grandfather, and siblings; her experiences in the ghetto in Sárvár, which was situated in a brick factory; her work with children in the ghetto; her deportation by train to Auschwitz; her experiences in "C Lager" of Auschwitz; her memories of selections by Dr. Josef Mengele; her successful rescue of her sister Edith from the infirmary in Auschwitz; her survival of the Auschwitz gas chamber because of a malfunction in the chamber; her memories of camp guard Irma Grese; her transfer from Auschwitz to the Guben concentration camp where she worked in an ammunition factory; her participation in a death march with a group from Guben; her escape and subsequent return to the death march group; her separation from her sister in Bergen-Belsen; her evacuation from Bergen-Belsen and transport to a hospital in Sweden; her reunion with her father in Hungary; her illegal immigration to Israel by boat; her return to Sweden with her husband Moshe Cahana; the Cahana family's move to the United States; and her thoughts on the rescue efforts of Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral History

    Eva Brust Cooper, born in 1934 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; living on the Pest side of the Danube River; her memories of the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; the various types of persecution experienced by the Jews in Budapest including the wearing of yellow Stars of David; her father receiving papers from Raoul Wallenberg to avoid deportation; the family's time in hiding in various locations around Budapest; her and her mother's attempts to appear Catholic by going to church, learning the Catechism, and acquiring false identification papers; her family's return to Budapest at the end of World War II; her father's participation in negotiations with Adolf Eichmann in hopes of reducing the number of Hungarian Jews to be deported; her family's immigration to the United States and their new life in New York City; and her activities with various Holocaust survivor groups.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Vogel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral History

    Frieda Belinfante, born in 1904 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her family; being raised without a religion because her father was Jewish and her mother was Gentile; the death of her sister in 1915 after an appendectomy and the divorce of her parents soon after; the death of her father in 1923 from natural causes; not being surprised by the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands; getting married in 1931 and divorcing in 1936; becoming the first female conductor of a professional orchestra in Amsterdam; participating in the cultural commission of Amsterdam and receiving instructions from the Nazis about what artists should or should not do; making false identification cards to help save people; discovering her homosexuality but trying to keep it a secret during the war; living disguised as a man for three months; taking on a new female identity and fleeing to Switzerland; participating in several activities of sabotage with other gay and lesbian refugees; returning to Amsterdam after the war and discovering the fates of the members of the resistance group in which she participated; immigrating to the United States in 1947 for a change of scenery in her work; participating in a string of concerts in the US; and her life in America.

    Oral history interview with Philip Vock

    Oral History

    Philip Vock, born in 1929 in Paris, France, discusses his family background and childhood; the German invasion of France in 1940; the confiscation of the family business by the Germans; antisemitism that he encountered in the media and in personal contacts; leaving the occupied zone of France in 1941 and finding refuge in a town on the Spanish border; the German occupation of their town in November 1942; fleeing to Nice, France, which was occupied by the Italians; being denounced to and arrested by the Gestapo as they were preparing to move to another town; being transported to Drancy concentration camp in 1943; life in Drancy and the possibility of escape from the camp; his deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944; the intake process at Auschwitz and then his outside work detail; the black market within Auschwitz; a death march in January 1945 as the Allies were approaching the camp; life in Buchenwald and liberation; returning to Paris in April 1945; the return of his mother and uncle; and nightmares that he had after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Gatenio

    Oral History

    Joseph Gatenio, born in 1929 in Thessalonike, Greece, discusses his childhood; the German occupation of Thessalonike in 1940; his deportation from Greece with his family in 1943; the week-long journey to Birkenau; selections at Birkenau; the deaths of family members; his participation in the camp orchestra; how orchestra members helped him survive; being forced to leave the orchestra; the brutality of the SS and Kapos; being transferred from Birkenau to Henkel, then Sachsenhausen, Ohrdruf, Sachsenhausen again, Neubrandenburg, Ravensbrück, and finally Ludwigslust; the appalling conditions in the camps; staying in Ludwigslust until May 1 when they were transported to another camp; his liberation by American soldiers the next day; joining the Russian liberators and wandering throughout Europe for a few months; returning to Thessalonike in December 1945; and the long-term effects of his experiences during the Holocaust on his well-being.

    Oral history interview with Mariette Moscovici

    Oral History

    Mariette Moscovici, born on January 24, 1916 in Iasi, Romania, discusses her family; her father, Hani Garfiender, who was a merchant and owned a store for travel items; her mother, Cecile Garfiender, who was a housewife; attending Alexandru Labrian elementary school; attending Institute Notre Dame for high school; living in Iasi on Cuza Voda street and later on Ice Bratianu street; Rumania entering the war on June 22, 1941; German soldiers entering on the night of June 29, 1941 and taking away all the Jewish men from the shelter; going to the Jewish community the next morning to ask about the fate of the Jewish men and not receiving an answer; stopping at a friend’s house on the way home to warn the men in the family about the arrest of the Jewish men; being stopped on the way home and directed into a convoy; finding her mother and sister in the convoy; being taken to the police headquarters; more Jews arriving at the headquarters wearing pajamas and night gowns because they were taken without anytime to get dressed; the women and girls being released while the men and boys over the age 13 were detained; the chaos of the scene; her father arriving at the shelter in the afternoon; the numerous false alarms to concentrate the population in shelters; the German soldiers enter the shelter around 5pm and demanding their jewelry and money; giving one of the soldiers her money and being instructed by the soldier to go home and not enter the shelters; leaving her aunt’s house with her family the next morning (June 30, 1941) and going home; seeing posters on wall that state the “Communist Jews” of Iasi have been arrested and killed and the rest of the population can continue their lives; staying home and not knowing what happened to other people; going to a market with her cousin dressed like peasants and seeing dead bodies on the street; Jews not being allowed to travel; and the propaganda in the news.

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral History

    Henry van den Boogard, born in Holland in 1915, discusses his childhood in Tilburg, Netherlands; his early education and seminary days; his ordination to the priesthood and first mass in 1942; his memories of Jews being helped by non-Jews in the Netherlands; his personal activities with the resistance movement in southern Netherlands such as making false identification papers for various persons, smuggling children into the Netherlands for hiding, and finding hiding places in homes for Jews and other persons; his dealings with the black market in the Netherlands in order to clothe and feed people in hiding; his reflections on antisemitism in the Netherlands; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; the feelings of native Hollanders toward the "Dutch Nazis"; and his life after World War II in the United States where he worked to integrate Catholic churches in Virginia.

    Oral history interview with Jack Moss

    Oral History

    Jack Moss (né Jakuv Mozelsio), born in 1924 in Łódź, Poland, discusses his family background; his encounters with Polish antisemitism; his family's feelings about the possibility of a German occupation; the restrictions imposed on Jews by the Germans; the lucrative business that the Germans brought to his father's tannery; odd jobs that he did at the request of the Germans, including helping to tear down a statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko in Plac Wolności; a German friend who agreed to be a stand-in owner of the tannery, so it would not be confiscated; his uncle, aunt, and other family members fleeing to Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland for safety while he and his parents stayed in Łódź; the return of his sister and cousin from Tomaszów Mazowiecki; and how the rest of his family in Tomaszów Mazowiecki perished while he and the others who remained in Łódź were saved.

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral History

    Boleslaw Dytlow, born in 1932 in Pruszków, Poland, describes growing up in a Romani family; the German occupation in September 1939; moving to Warsaw, Poland with his family and earning money there as a musician; being captured on the streets in Warsaw in late 1942 and delivered into the Warsaw ghetto; meeting other Romanies in the ghetto and forming a plan to escape; escaping to the Aryan side in the spring of 1943; leaving Warsaw and only traveling by night; being ambushed by German soldiers on the outskirts of Kielce, Poland; successfully overpowering the Germans and escaping back to Warsaw; and remaining hidden outside of Warsaw until the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Mel London

    Oral History

    Mel London, born in 1923, discusses growing up in the Bronx, NY with immigrant parents; his awareness of the political situation in Europe before World War II; his concern for family in Europe; his identification with being Jewish; enlisting in the United States Army signal corps in May 1943; going to Officer Candidate School; antisemitism he encountered in the army and prejudice because of his friendships with black soldiers; seeing the aftermath of World War II in Europe; his knowledge of the Nuremberg war crime trials; becoming a documentary filmmaker; the request to interview Albert Speer after his book "Inside the Third Reich" was published in 1970; preparing for the interview; different attitudes towards Speer among Germans of different generations; and his perceptions of Speer.

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral History

    Henry Cohen, born in 1922 in New York City, NY, describes growing up in a family of Jewish immigrants; receiving a master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; enlisting in the United States Army in 1944 and fighting with the infantry during the German campaign; his appointment as the director of the Föhrenwald displaced persons camp in Germany in January of 1946; leading the camp until July 1946; and returning to the United States to teach at the City College of New York.

    Oral history interview with Gisela Feldman

    Oral History

    Gisela Feldman, born in 1923, discusses her first encounters with antisemitism in Berlin, Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933 and her political awareness at that time; her father's deportation to Poland in 1938 because he was a Polish citizen; the confiscation of her family's apartment; being barred from going to school; her mother obtaining visas to Cuba and booking passage on the SS St. Louis; her father not being able to leave Poland in time to join them on the SS St. Louis; departing with her mother and sister from Germany in 1939; the atmosphere on board the ship; their arrival in Cuba and the announcement that their visas were no longer valid; the desperation of some passengers on board; sailing near the coast of the United States during the return journey to Europe; her family being selected to disembark in England; her job as a domestic in a convalescent home for Jewish refugees in Broadstairs and then as a nanny for a family with two children in London; her involvement in war work, making uniforms and gunpowder bags; meeting and marrying her husband in London in 1943; her mother's attempts to get permission for her father to emigrate from Poland; and her life in England after the war.

    Oral history interview with Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming

    Oral History

    Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming describe how Bert grew up in Warsaw and Łódź; Bert’s family’s deportation to Hannover, Germany before Kristallnacht; Bert’s deportation from Hannover in 1938, receiving aid from the Joint Distribution Committee, and going through the camps; Irene witnessing people being smuggled from her ghetto and fleeing to Siberia; Irene holding on to her violin through her time in the camps; their experiences with Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski and his relationship with the Nazis in the Łódź ghetto; Bert having to shave his head and watch people steal food while in the camps; Bert’s work in several different factories and the transport of all of the goods he produced to Germany; and their immigration to New York and life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral History

    Norman Belfer, born on September 27, 1922 in Wodzislaw, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family; the German invasion of Wodzislaw in 1939 and hiding in his family’s factory warehouse until they were discovered; the confiscation of his father’s feather and down business; being forced to clean roads around the town with other youth; going to work for a nearby German company while the rest of his family went into hiding in an underground shelter outside of Wodzislaw; his family’s capture and transfer into the Kraków ghetto; returning home, where he retrieved some of the money his family had buried before they had left; hiding for several weeks in his father’s former factory; joining his family in the Kraków ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto on March 13, 1943; his family’s transfer to Płaszów, where an SS guard shot his father, and his mother and sisters were sent elsewhere; being transferred with his brother to Mauthausen, where they volunteered as carpenters until they were sent to Melk; digging tunnels and moving machinery for several months at Melk with his brother; going on a barge to Linz and then going on a death march to Ebensee; his liberation by American forces on May 5, 1945; walking to Salzburg with his brother but deciding to go to Palestine through Italy; and remaining and working in Italy until he immigrated to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral History

    Carola Stern Steinhardt, born on March 8, 1925 in Nieder Ohmen, Germany, describes losing her non-Jewish friends after 1933; her experiences during Kristallnacht; attending a boarding school in Bad Nauheim until the Gestapo stormed it and harassed students; her father’s deportation to Buchenwald; her mother’s and sister’s arrival in Bad Nauheim; going to Berlin to do hard labor at an airplane factory until her deportation to Auschwitz in March 1943; her selection to be a camp “beautician,” which involved cutting the hair off of incoming prisoners; reuniting with her sister in August 1944 and learning that her parents had died; going on a march to Ravensbrück in January 1945; staying in Ravensbrück for four weeks until having to march to Malchow, where she worked in the camp kitchen; her liberation by American forces in May 1945; her internment in the Kammer displaced persons camp in Austria; and immigrating to the United States in July 1946 on an army transport.

    Oral history interview with Haim Shmueli

    Oral History

    Haim Shmueli (né Heinz Ruman Shmoll), born in 1935 in was born in 1935 in Usti nad Labem, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and childhood; his mother’s conversion to Judaism, which she renounced when Hitler came to power; moving to Germany in 1938; his father’s involvement in the underground movement; his deportation to Theresienstadt and his memories of the children’s part of the camp; participating in the propaganda movie filmed in Theresienstadt; his liberation from Theresienstadt in 1945; reuniting with his father after the war; and immigrating to Israel with his father in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Itka Zygmuntowicz

    Oral History

    Itka Zygmuntowicz, born April 15, 1926 in Poland (possibly Ciechanów), discusses her family and childhood in Poland before World War II; her experiences with antisemitism before the war; relations between her family and Gentiles in her hometown; her knowledge of politics as a child and involvement in the Zionist movement; the German occupation of her hometown and the restrictions that the Germans imposed on the Jewish population; the confiscation of her family's valuables; a beating that she and her mother suffered at the hands of the Gestapo for not revealing information; her family's deportation to the ghetto in Nové Město in 1941; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 and the mass deportation to Auschwitz; her arrival at Auschwitz and her separation from her parents and younger siblings who perished in the camp; finding a friend named Binna in the camp; her forms of spiritual, mental, and physical resistance as a prisoner; her contact with the guards in the camp; her experience sorting the belongings of dead prisoners in the "Kanada" warehouse; a death march in January 1945 to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then a transport to Malchow concentration camp; her liberation during Passover in 1945; recuperating at a hospital in Sweden after the war through the help of the Swedish Red Cross; living in a displaced persons camp in Sweden; leaving the camp with two friends and getting a job; meeting and marrying her husband and the birth of her son in 1948; and her immigration to the United States in 1953.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Granirer Flor

    Oral History

    Gertrude Granirer Flor, born in 1921 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, discusses her childhood; the lack of antisemitism she encountered growing up; the Soviet occupation in 1940 and the confiscation of Jewish property; Soviet propaganda and the pressure to inform on others; the arrest and execution of her step-father; involuntary deportations by the Soviets to Siberia, including the deportation of her mother; escaping from a deportation and finding refuge at the conservatory of the Universitatea din Cernauți; meeting and marrying her husband, Sam; the German occupation of Chernivtsi; German restrictions and the establishment of the ghetto in Chernivtsi; the help that the mayor of Chernivtsi extended to the Jewish population; deportation by train to a stone quarry where she and her husband stayed for several weeks; her husband telling the Romanian authorities that he was a dentist, so that they would be transferred to a work detail in a hospital; being liberated by Russian partisans after being in hiding for several days; returning to Chernivtsi and joining the Czech Army; being part of the liberation of Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); immigrating to South America with a stopover in the United States on the way; living in Columbia with an uncle on his coffee plantation for six months and then immigrating to the United States; her feelings about her new country and the difficulties she experienced as an immigrant; and how her experiences during the Holocaust have affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Renee Scheuer

    Oral History

    Renee Scheuer, born in 1909 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood; antisemitism in Vienna before World War II; her and her husband’s arrest in November 1938 and the order to leave Austria in three days; traveling to Cologne, Germany and then to Belgium on foot; living in a refugee camp in Antwerp, Belgium; the occupation of Belgium by Germany in 1939 and their attempt to escape to France; returning to Belgium and living in Brussels where they had to wear Star of David badges; receiving a notice to report to a concentration camp; she and her husband going into hiding in Brussels in 1942 and staying in different hiding places until liberation in 1945; the feelings that she had during the events of the Holocaust; the resistance of the Belgian population against the Germans; the fates of her mother and sister; returning to visit Vienna in the 1970s; her immigration to the United States in 1950; and settling in New York City.

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral History

    Bent Melchoir, born in Denmark, describes growing up with a father who was a rabbi; the ease of relations between Jews and Christians in Denmark; the help that the Danish Christian community gave to the Jewish community to help them escape to Sweden; raising money with his brother to get Jews out of Denmark; the Danish resistance movement; leaving Copenhagen and arriving in Sweden by small boat; returning to Denmark three weeks after liberation; his surprise at the jubilant welcome given by the Danes when the Jews returned; the re-opening of the local synagogue for the fall holidays in 1945; and working on behalf of Soviet Jewry after the war.

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral History

    Renata Laqueur, born on November 3, 1919 in Brzeg, Poland, describes growing up in Amsterdam; never considering herself Jewish and attending a Christian school as a child; the German invasion in 1940 and registering as a Jew; her father’s decision to volunteer for the German Army as a medical research officer; her marriage to Paul Goldschmidt on December 24, 1941; becoming involved in the underground movement with Paul; her arrest on February 18, 1943, when the Gestapo took her to a prison for ten days until her transfer to the Vught transit camp in the Netherlands; her transport to the Westerbork transit camp, from where she was soon released because of her father’s connections; being arrested again in November 1943; her and Paul’s transport to Bergen-Belsen on March 15, 1944; writing a daily diary about her experiences in the camp; her liberation by the Soviet Army on April 23, 1945; recovering from illness in a field hospital outside of Dresden; spending a week in a displaced persons camp near Kassel; returning to Amsterdam on July 26, 1945; and immigrating to the United States through Canada in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Carl Hirsch

    Oral History

    Carl Hirsch, born in 1912, discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria and Chernivtsi, Ukraine; his schooling in mathematics and engineering in his university studies; his work as a civil engineer and service in the Romanian Army before World War II; his first experiences with antisemitism when Romania occupied Chernivtsi and when he lived in Bucharest; Soviet occupation of Chernivtsi from 1940 to 1941; the deportation of business owners in Chernivtsi to Siberia; the Soviet withdrawal in June 1941 and Jews fleeing with them; the takeover of the town by Germans and Romanians and the persecution of Jews; finding a job with the railway, so he would not be taken for forced labor; the establishment of the ghetto in Chernivtsi; his marriage to Lotte; witnessing deportations from Chernivtsi; the influx of Romanians into Chernivtsi; the return of many Jews who had fled with the Russians; the integration of Chernivtsi into the Soviet Union in 1945; leaving Chernivtsi and living in Romania from 1945 until 1961; and immigrating to the United States in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Hirsch

    Oral History

    Lotte Hirsch, born in 1918 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, describes her childhood; her encounters with antisemitism while she attended university; the Soviet occupation of Chernivtsi from 1940 to 1941 and having to stop her university studies and work in a factory; witnessing deportations to Siberia carried out by the Russians; Romanian and German troops taking over Chernivtsi and establishing a ghetto and several restrictions on the Jewish population; hearing about executions carried out by the German and Romanian soldiers; how her fiancé Carl was able to obtain an exemption from deportation because of his profession as an engineer; her marriage to Carl in a civil ceremony in the mayor's office; life under the occupation; witnessing more deportations in 1942; receiving better treatment after a new governor of Bukovina was instated; the return of Carl's cousin from deportation to Transnistria; her liberation by the Russians in 1944; and her immigration to the United States in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral History

    Walter Meyer, born on May 31, 1926 in Kassel, Germany, describes growing up as a Catholic in a diverse religious community in Düsseldorf; his experiences during Kristallnacht; joining the Hitler Youth in 1940 but then deciding to organize another group to oppose the Hitler Youth; his recruitment into a military academy, to which his father did not allow him to go; assisting French prisoners of war in 1943 until the Gestapo caught him and placed him in a Düsseldorf prison; his transfer to a prison near Frankfurt, where he remained until the spring of 1944 when the prison director recommended him for the army; his deportation to Sachsenhausen and then Ravensbrück; escaping from Ravensbrück and hiding with a farmer who lived nearby; returning to Berlin and then Düsseldorf; recovering from tuberculosis after returning home; and immigrating to the United States in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral History

    Dora Kramen Dimitro, born on January 22, 1922 in Eišiškės, Poland (now Lithuania), describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home with her parents and three siblings; attending Hebrew and Polish schools and experiencing antisemitism; the Russian arrival in Eišiškės in 1939; losing their rights as Jewish citizens when the Germans invaded in 1941; the Germans ordering them to assemble at the synagogue, where they were kept for two days and nights before many were taken away and shot; escaping with her boyfriend with the help of a Lithuanian police officer; the murder of most of her family on September 25 and 26, 1941; going to the Radun ghetto, where she met up with her father, sister, and boyfriend and stayed for ten months until they decided to escape because of ghetto liquidation warnings; running into the woods and trading valuables for food and clothing; living in the woods until late 1942 or early 1943 when they moved into the Hrodna ghetto in Belarus because they had heard of its better conditions; the transports from the ghetto two to three months after her arrival; fleeing to the Nacha Forest in Belarus; joining Jewish and Soviet partisans and staying in their underground bunker through the winter; hiding in homes or in the forest until the Russians liberated her in July 1944; returning to Eišiškės but fleeing when a group of Poles attacked the few remaining Jews there; marrying her boyfriend and living in Vilnius and Warsaw before moving to Israel in 1957; immigrating to the United States in March 1959 with her sister's help; and giving birth to a son soon after her arrival in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Herma Barber

    Oral History

    Herma Barber, born in 1921 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood; experiencing antisemitism after the Anschluss in 1938; her and her parents' unsuccessful attempts to immigrate to the United States and their decision to go to Yugoslavia instead; their journey into Yugoslavia by foot; their arrest in Zagreb, Croatia and spending a week in jail; being confined to the town of Samobor after their release from jail; deportation by the Ustaša in 1941 to Mostar, which the Italian military occupied; being moved to Čapljina by the Italians; traveling to Split, Croatia without permission and being arrested and put in jail by the Italians for a week; being moved to Dubrovnik, Croatia, where she worked in a restaurant and also did knitting for a store; not having enough to eat; going to an Italian-run concentration camp in 1943; their escape from the camp to a partisan-controlled area of Yugoslavia; being in the same town as Randolph Churchill during a British diplomatic mission to the partisans in Drvar in 1944; moving constantly with help from partisans; she and her parents escaping separately to Bari, Italy in 1944 and 1945; her life in the refugee camp at Bari and her marriage in 1946; and her parents' immigration to the United States in 1946 and her immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral History

    William Zeck (born on March 3, 1915 in New York City, NY) and Belle Mayer Zeck (born on February 22, 1919 in Port Henry, NY) describe their families and childhoods; Belle's work as a New York lawyer and getting a job working for the General Counsel of the Treasury and working on the Foreign Funds Control Bureau; helping the bureau to enforce the Trading With the Enemy Act, which forbade communication with and transmissions to German occupied countries; working on a book analyzing Yugoslavia’s financial laws and investigating Germany’s external assets in the United States; Belle becoming an unofficial expert on German financial affairs at the Department of the Treasury and attending the commission for the Allied nations to outline the principles of law for prosecution and trial of Europe’s major war criminals; Belle meeting William when they were both preparing for the Nuremberg Trials; the deterioration of Belle's health as she prepared for the trials and having to go home; Belle returning to Nuremberg in 1947 for the start of the trial; going back to work for the Department of the Treasury to organize the reconstruction loans for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany; their friendship with Telford Taylor; and William’s return to the United States after six years.

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral History

    Michel Reynders, born on June 29, 1930, in Uccle, Belgium, describes his experiences as the nephew of Father Bruno Reynders, who ran a rescue network that saved about 350 Jews; growing up in a tight-knit Catholic family; helping Father Bruno in his efforts to hide Jewish children by coercing local families to take them into their homes; being unaware of antisemitism until the war; helping a young girl who had fled from Fascist Italy; the German occupation and the following food shortages, imposed curfews, censored textbooks, and Jewish transports out of Belgium; beginning to observe the restrictions placed on Jewish neighbors in 1942 and realizing that it was primarily Jews who were being taken for forced labor in Germany; his introduction to the resistance movement around the end of 1942 and serving as an escort and messenger for his uncle's rescue service; initially having no idea that the children his uncle asked him to escort were Jewish or that Father Bruno was secretly hiding them throughout Belgium; eventually understanding what his family was doing and that his uncle's actions were secret and extremely risky; his family's decision to hide several Jews; graduating from medical school in 1959 and immigrating to the United States in 1961; and being named as the Honorary Vice-Consul of Belgium.

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral History

    Marthe Hoffnung Cohn, born on April 13, 1920 in Metz, France, describes her childhood; being forced by the French government to move out of Metz along with all of its other rich families; moving to Poitiers, France, where, in June 1940, Jewish refugees started coming; attending a Red Cross nursing school in Poitiers; escaping with her family to the unoccupied side of France in the summer of 1942; the arrest of her sister Stephanie, who later died in Auschwitz; becoming involved in resistance and rescue operations, which enabled her to get her parents, grandmother, two sisters, and a cousin to the unoccupied zone of France; finishing nursing school in Marseilles; leaving Marseilles for Paris, where she lived with one of her sisters and found a job with a family that did not know she was Jewish; joining the French Army after the liberation of Paris; doing intelligence work for the Army because she could speak German; going undercover as a German nurse and receiving two Croix de Guerre medals, signed by Generals De Lattre and De Gaulle, for her work; going to Vietnam with the French Army after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral History

    Miriam Kabacznik Shulman, born on June 26, 1918, in Eišiškės, Poland (Lithuania), describes her childhood; her father’s death of typhus during World War I and living with her mother and two brothers; the Russian arrival in Eišiškės in September 1939 and the nationalization of her family’s tannery business; the Lithuanian takeover in 1940 followed by the German invasion on June 23, 1941; the German implementation of edicts that restricted and isolated Jews; the murder of most of the town’s Jews by an einsatzgruppen squad between September 25 and 26, 1941; the help their family’s friends and co-workers gave them throughout the war by hiding money and providing information and hiding places; hiding from the Germans from 1941 through 1944, when they were liberated by Russian soldiers; returning to their home in June 1944 to find an elderly couple living there; deciding to allow the couple to stay and inviting about twenty other Jews to live in their home; living through a Polish pogrom in 1944; fleeing to Vilnius the day after the pogrom and never returning to her home; spending the next years of her life in several displaced persons camps; meeting her future husband Norman in an Italian prison; and immigrating with Norman to the United States, where they had two children.

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral History

    Anna Szyller Palarczyk, born on July 21, 1918 in Kraków, Poland, describes her family; studying law in Kraków before World War II; working for the underground organization Armed Struggle Alliance; the arrest of everyone in her underground group in June 1942 and their deportation to Montelupich, where they faced harsh interrogations; her transport on August 17, 1942 to Auschwitz, where she was selected as a cleaning woman for Lauder Kommandant Otto Schmidt; walking to the Birkenau camp and being admitted to the sick-room in Birkenau for flu-like symptoms; her experiences in camp with having little food and seeing dead bodies lying around her; the women guards, including Margot Drexler (Dreschel); Katya Singer, who was from Mariková, Slovakia and was appointed as a Raportschreiberin (assistant to the guards) and her activities in the camp; making friends in the camp, which helped her to survive emotionally; the roll calls and selections she went through; the black market in Auschwitz; the Red Cross sending packages to Jewish women in the camps; concerts that were played sometimes in the camps; discovering the fates of her family and friends after the war; and seeing the Russian Army unite with the American Army during liberation.

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral History

    Steven Galezewski, born on May 11, 1923 in Inowroclaw, Poland, describes his childhood; joining the Polish underground in Mińsk Mazowiecki, Poland; recalling that, in 1940, the Nazis ordered all the Jews to wear an armband with the Star of David; the relocation of his community into the Mińsk ghetto at the end of 1940; the liquidation of the ghetto on August 21, 1942 and the survival of only 282 tradesmen who were still useful to the Nazi war effort; participating in underground activities, which included blowing up buildings or means of transportation; his resistance unit being sent under Soviet command; being stationed in Lublin, Poland; providing security for the public hanging of five SS officers in Majdanek in 1944; remaining in Soviet hands from March to July 1945; being perceived by the Soviet Union as a potentially subversive element supporting the Polish government-in-exile and then receiving a prison sentence from the Soviets; his transport to Siberia, where Polish guerrillas freed him; escaping into the American zone; joining the Polish Army in Italy but returning from Italy in 1947 and joining the British Army; immigrating to the United States in February 1951; and joining the US Army in 1956.

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral History

    George Havas, born in 1929 in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), describes the Hungarian takeover of his town after the Germans took the Sudetenland; his father no longer being allowed to practice medicine; the German takeover of Mukacheve in March 1944; his transport to Auschwitz on May 15, 1944; learning after the war that his father had died in the Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz; being transferred to Mauthausen and then to Ebensee, where he stayed for one year until liberation; working in the tunnels at Ebensee, where he was able to make contacts and bring back news; the death of his brother and several of his friends in Ebensee; his liberation on May 6, 1945 and leaving for Prague on June 7; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral History

    Maria Rosenbloom, born on December 26, 1918 in Kolomyia, Poland (Ukraine), describes her Orthodox Jewish family; learning the violin and playing it every weekend in the Hatikva before the war; feeling increased antisemitic sentiments and fleeing with her family into the Carpathian Mountains; attending a special gymnasium for girls in Poland; starting university in 1936 in Lvov, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine) and never being allowed to sit down because she was Jewish; vacationing with a boyfriend in the Carpathian Mountains until the Soviet invasion on September 1, 1939; getting married in 1940; the Soviets taking away her father’s store because of nationalization policies; opening a pharmacy with her husband in 1940 in a small town called Glen-na-novaria [phonetic] and being pestered by the Russians for condoms; the Nazi invasion on June 21, 1941 and registering with the troops; contracting pneumonia and being treated with leeches; moving into the ghetto after Passover in 1942; working in the ghetto soup kitchen; escaping from the ghetto on Christmas in 1942 and going to live with her friend Blancka; discovering the fates of her family during the war and finding a job in a German hospital; taking a train to Warsaw, Poland in April 1943 and hearing rumors about what was happening to the Jews; living in fear that she would be caught because of her prominent Jewish features; joining the resistance movement; the chaos of the Warsaw uprising in 1944; having to join a Hitler parade in 1944 in an attempt to fit in; taking a train to Heidelberg, Germany hoping to reunite with Blancka; the German surrender of Heidelberg to the Americans and deciding to learn English; working for the US Army and then the Joint Distribution Committee; immigrating to the United States in September 1947; and becoming a social worker.

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