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Oral history interview with Harriet Mehl-Rottenberg

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2017.160.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0920

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    Oral history interview with Harriet Mehl-Rottenberg
    Transcript
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mrs. Harriet Kuna-Mehl in Aventura, Florida,
    on February 20, 2017.
    Thank you very much Mrs. Mehl.
    You've very welcome.
    We're very grateful that you are willing to share your story
    and your experiences with us.
    I'm going to start from the very beginning
    and ask the most basic questions.
    And we'll go from there.
    OK.
    OK.
    So the very first question I have is,
    can you tell me what was your date of birth?
    May 19, 1922.
    OK.
    And what was your name at birth?
    Hertha.
    Hertha?
    Hertha Kuna.
    Kuna.
    And where were you born?
    In Vienna.
    In Vienna?
    Austria.
    OK.
    Did you have brothers and sisters?
    No, I'm an only one.
    They threw them all away.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Tell me a little bit about your parents.
    What was your mother and your father's names?
    My father's name was Oskar Kuna.
    OK.
    And my mother--
    Adela [? Paschkis-Kuna. ?]
    So her first-- her maiden name was [? Paschkis. ?]
    Correct.
    So Oskar and Adela--
    Correct.
    --were your parents.
    Were they also from Vienna?
    No, they were from Niederosterreich, which is--
    lower Austria?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Yes, small town.
    What town was that?
    My father was Drosing.
    From Drosing?
    Yes, Niederrosterreich.
    And my mother was from Hauskirchen.
    Hauskirschen.
    Also Niederosterreich.
    But both met in Vienna.
    My mother went to school in Vienna.
    Mm-hmm.
    And my father was 16 years older than my mother.
    And he worked already when they got married.
    Do you remember the years that each of them were born?
    My mother was born in 1898.
    So he would have been born in 1882, if it's 16 year--
    your father would have been born in 1882.
    Yeah.
    This is interesting, in that there are very few people
    that I have interviewed from Vienna whose parents
    nevertheless were in Austria.
    That is, their roots were in Austria.
    Many, many Jews came from other places,
    whether it was Poland or Romania or Czechoslovakia
    or places like that.
    No, my parents were born in Austria.
    And did you still have family in the two towns, Hauskirchen,
    you mentioned, and Drosing?
    No more.
    OK.
    Did they have any brothers and sisters, your parents?
    My mother has a sister.
    Mm-hmm.
    Had a sister.
    And my father was one of 11 children.
    There was no television at that time.
    That's what people say.
    [LAUGHTER]
    One of 11.
    Oh, my.
    And he was the oldest.
    Oh, my goodness.
    The patriarch of the family.
    And did all of his siblings live in Vienna, or no?
    No.
    Where did they live?
    Well, when they grew up, they mostly came to Vienna.
    Because the little towns were little towns.
    Yeah.
    And they wanted to be in a bigger town,
    and they went to school in Vienna.
    And they grew up as teenagers, more or less, in Vienna.
    And do you know how your grandparents, how
    they supported their families, both on your mother
    and your father's side?
    No, my father's side I don't know.
    I don't know my father's father.
    I met my grandmother when she was sick and dying.
    OK.
    And I was very close to my mother's parents.
    OK.
    My grandparents.
    And I spent a lot of time in Mistelbach.
    Mistelbach?
    Mm-hmm.
    Is that close to Hauskirchen?
    Or is it--
    I wouldn't know.
    Oh, OK.
    I was never in Hauskirchen, but I was always in Mistelbach.
    OK.
    Because I loved it there.
    And when we had no school, when we had intersession,
    I went there, and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents.
    And describe Mistelbach for me.
    What kind of a place was it?
    It was a pretty big Jewish community.
    Mostly the merchants were Jewish people.
    My grandfather had a--
    no.
    He had pots and pans store, but a big--
    Like a Haus Wahlen?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    What do you call it here?
    Well, yeah, what do we call it here?
    Kitchen goods.
    No, no.
    All--
    All kinds?
    Yes, yes.
    Sort of like a-- was it like a Woolworth's type of store?
    Not really, no.
    OK.
    No.
    But--
    General goods?
    General goods, but no clothing.
    All kitchen goods.
    OK, OK.
    And that's what he had in Mistel--
    --bach.
    OK.
    Yes.
    And was Mistelbach in the mountains?
    No.
    No?
    OK.
    No.
    So what made it special for you when you would go there?
    To be with my grandparents, because they were
    very nice to grandchildren.
    And I had friends there.
    Mm-hmm.
    And I spent four weeks there.
    And my grandfather said when I became older
    I was allowed to travel by myself.
    And my father told me that I will be picked up by Grandpa.
    And he told me the station before Mistelbach,
    and then I got out, and he picked me up.
    And the same thing happened when I left.
    And one time he said, children, I love to see you come,
    but I love it even more when you leave.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And I came home and I cried, and I said to,
    my mother, I was such a good girl,
    and I don't know why Opi said that.
    Oh!
    But he did say it, and now I understand it fully.
    [LAUGHTER]
    You have grandchildren, too.
    Yes.
    OK.
    I have three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
    Ah.
    So.
    Well, tell me a little bit about your grandparents'
    personalities, your grandmother that you knew
    and your grandfather that you knew.
    My grandmother was a learned lady, lady
    in the real sense of a lady.
    My grandfather was funny as can be.
    And we got along fabulously.
    I think all girls get along wonderfully with their fathers
    and grandfathers.
    And I was not an easy child to raise, because I was a tomboy,
    and I brought home all kinds of animals.
    My mother was besides herself, but that's what I liked,
    and that's what I did.
    I'm very grateful to my parents because I am a sporty type,
    and I did a lot of sports, starting
    from swimming, and ice skating, and skiing, and horseback
    riding, and tennis.
    And were these all lessons that you took to learn those?
    Yes, yes.
    OK, OK.
    My father taught me how to skate.
    OK.
    But the rest I took lessons, yes.
    OK.
    Of the adults in your family, who
    had the greatest influence on you, would you say?
    My father.
    And in what way?
    I respected my parents.
    I was never hit by my--
    once I was hit because I misbehaved from my father.
    And I was only hit on my behind.
    OK.
    My mother was different.
    But I also was only hit on the behind.
    And I was sitting on the floor a lot.
    Because whenever my mother raised her hand
    I sat on the floor.
    So that she couldn't get to it.
    Exactly.
    And then we both laughed, and it was forgotten.
    OK.
    What kind of personalities did they
    have, your mother and your father?
    My mother had a wonderful personality.
    And she loved operas.
    She loved the concerts.
    She cooked.
    She baked.
    She was a real good mother and housewife.
    Was she an extrovert or a shy person?
    No, not a shy.
    Not a shy person.
    No.
    And what about your father?
    Strict.
    Excuse me?
    Strict.
    Strict?
    Oh, yes.
    He was an excellent businessman.
    He had his own factory.
    And-- I don't know-- about 50 employees.
    And he was strict.
    And what my father said went.
    Like typical European, whatever Papa says was done.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    And he was so much older than your mother.
    Yes.
    OK.
    Yes.
    And yet you're saying he's the one who
    had the most influence on you?
    Yes.
    And why would that be?
    How is that, that he has the most?
    Well, I grew up--
    like all men, I think, do want a boy.
    And I was a girl.
    And I had to get into the business when I grow up.
    And I went to Handelsakademie.
    So business school.
    To business school.
    I had four years of not high school.
    Gymnasium?
    Yeah, four years of Gymnasium.
    My father took me out after four years,
    then put me into business school,
    where you can matriculate.
    And I was 10 years till I ended gymnasium, and then two years
    in business school.
    OK.
    And the first thing is that I had to leave school.
    We'll come to that.
    OK.
    At this point, what I'd like to do
    is get a sense of what was pre-war life like.
    How did life go on before everything
    was turned upside down.
    It was wonderful.
    I had a very good youth.
    OK.
    Because as I told you before, I could do my sports,
    and I had friends, and I was outgoing.
    I still am.
    Tell me about-- let's start with your father's business.
    What was its name?
    What was the name of his business?
    No idea.
    [LAUGHTER]
    OK.
    It wouldn't have been named after--
    I know what he made.
    He made stockings for working women.
    No nylon.
    We didn't have nylon at that time.
    They were thick stockings.
    And then he made socks for men.
    OK.
    And he made--
    Garters?
    --garters for the socks to hold up and suspenders.
    OK.
    OK?
    And did you ever visit him?
    Oh, yes.
    What did the factory look like?
    Well, we had weaving stools to make the materials,
    and then sewing machines, and--
    Was it a large building?
    Was it in an industrial part of Vienna, or was it--
    Yeah, in the 5th district.
    OK, do you remember the address?
    Mollardgasse 50.
    Mollardgasse 50?
    Yes, M-O-L-L-A-R-D.
    Mollardgasse.
    Mm-hmm.
    50.
    50.
    And when you would visit him there,
    is anything that you would do?
    That is, did you start working part time there or--
    No, I didn't start it.
    I didn't start at all.
    OK.
    Never.
    And who did he sell this--
    He didn't sell.
    They took it away.
    They threw him out.
    I know, I know.
    What I'm talking about is before then.
    Who were his customers?
    Who did he sell to?
    Was it other-- was it a wholesale business,
    or did he have private customers who came
    and bought their socks there?
    Wholesale.
    Wholesale.
    Wholesale, OK.
    And had he inherited this business,
    or had he started it up himself?
    He started it up himself.
    OK.
    Did your parents talk much about their own childhoods with you,
    about their own growing up years?
    My mother did.
    My father didn't tell me much about it.
    Although it had 11 siblings, I did not
    hear anything about the siblings too much.
    He went into business with his brother-in-law.
    It was Polgram & Kuna.
    That's the name, Polgram & Kuna?
    Yes.
    And Kuna.
    Right.
    OK.
    And Kuna and Company.
    And Company.
    Right.
    OK.
    So did he serve in World War I?
    Yes.
    Did he ever talk about that service?
    Do you know what kind of rank he had in the military?
    Not a big rank.
    I don't think so.
    OK.
    We didn't talk about that.
    There were a lot of things they didn't
    talk when the child was there.
    Yeah, that's true.
    OK?
    Yeah.
    A lot of what I am asking--
    some families were such that everybody knew every story,
    and some were much more reserved,
    and the children didn't know much.
    Very reserved.
    My parents were very reserved.
    OK.
    They didn't talk in front of me things
    I wasn't supposed to hear.
    Did your father's siblings visit you often at your home?
    Not very often, no.
    The children came.
    Their children came.
    Yes.
    OK.
    I had a cousin, whom I loved.
    And he went to Australia, then lost contact.
    Mm-hmm.
    His sister went to London, lost contact.
    I have nobody anymore, no relatives that I love.
    Oh.
    Did any of your family, that is, of your fathers siblings,
    perish in the Holocaust, as far as you know?
    As far as I know, I really don't.
    OK.
    I really don't know.
    There were one in India, one in Canada, one in Australia,
    one in Jerusalem--
    all over.
    Got it.
    Got it.
    So it sounds like many got out.
    Many did get out, yes.
    OK.
    My family was very lucky, my father's family.
    I don't know who really perished in the Holocaust.
    OK.
    Did your mother's sister come to visit you much?
    Yes.
    My mother, Elsa Pisk, P-I-S-K.
    Elsa Pisk.
    Correct.
    And Adela Paschkis.
    Yes.
    So her married name was Pisk?
    Correct.
    OK.
    And was your mother close to her sister?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Very close.
    And so consequently, did you know this aunt better
    than you knew your others?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Was your family religious?
    No.
    My father a little.
    OK.
    My mother wasn't.
    OK.
    And as far as you knew, had the families on both sides been
    in Austria for generations, or had they
    come from somewhere else?
    No, they haven't come from somewhere else.
    But some married into Czechoslovakia.
    OK.
    All right?
    And I had uncles in Brünn and in Prague.
    OK.
    Well, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
    Yes, yes.
    Yeah.
    Oh, I just had a question, and it went through here.
    I'll come to it again.
    It'll come again.
    It'll come again.
    Did your parents have a wide social circle?
    No.
    OK.
    They had selected friends, but it was not a big circle.
    They kept for themselves.
    My father was-- we were pretty well to do in Vienna,
    but you wouldn't have known it, OK?
    Yeah.
    My mother didn't have a fur coat.
    My mother didn't go around--
    Showing it.
    No.
    OK.
    Describe your house to me a little bit,
    or your living quarters.
    Did you have an apartment or a house?
    Yes.
    No, we had an apartment in the second district,
    but not where all the Jews lived.
    Mm-hmm.
    It was in Prater, where the Ferris wheel was.
    I've heard of Prater.
    I've heard of it, yeah.
    Yes, it was there.
    And we had a nice apartment, nice.
    If I think of it now, it wasn't so nice.
    Because there were no facilities, no dishwashers.
    And we were bathed once a week.
    I mean, it was unbelievable.
    Well, you know, you anticipated some of my questions.
    I ask about such things.
    I ask if you have indoor plumbing.
    Did you have indoor plumbing in your apartment?
    Yes, yes.
    Did you have electricity?
    Yes, we had electricity, but in the kitchen we had gas.
    Really?
    A gas stove?
    Or gas--
    Gas light.
    Gas light, ah.
    So part of the house had electric, and part of it
    had a gas light.
    Just the kitchen.
    And how was the house heated?
    How was the apartment heated?
    We had a Dauerbrandofen, and I had a potbelly stove,
    a black potbelly stove.
    In your room?
    In my room.
    OK.
    Dauerbrandofen would mean an--
    Koks, Koks.
    Not--
    Not coal?
    No.
    Koks.
    Coke, I think.
    Koks, K-O-K-S.
    And what was that?
    That was what burned?
    Yes.
    And it was it made of?
    You put that in like coal.
    OK.
    And then you had a lever there, and it started to burn.
    I don't know how.
    You lit it.
    You lit it, and it lasted a long time?
    Yes.
    It warmed the whole apartment.
    We had it in the living room.
    Living and dining room was together.
    OK.
    And then a bedroom, and then my room, and a big foyer.
    Mm-hmm.
    And a kitchen, and a bathroom, and an extra toilet.
    And then we had a maid's room.
    OK.
    And my mother had a maid when she got married.
    Mm-hmm.
    And when I was born.
    And she was with us till Hitler took her away.
    What was her name?
    Maria.
    Maria.
    And was she Jewish or Gentile?
    No, she was from Austria.
    I loved her like a mother.
    Yeah?
    Yes.
    Well, then tell me a little bit about Maria.
    What kind of a person was she?
    Well, she cleaned.
    My mother cooked.
    My mother shopped.
    And she was a quiet, nice lady.
    And when my parents went out, which was not too often,
    she took care of me.
    And I loved her, and she loved me.
    Did she have her own family?
    No.
    No.
    No.
    Do you know anything about her life?
    No, I don't.
    I only remember that when Hitler came,
    she wouldn't put on a swastika pin.
    And we begged her to do that.
    Ah.
    Because we wanted her to be safe.
    Yeah.
    Now, when she could no longer work for you--
    She went back to where she came from, which I don't know.
    But it was in Niederosterreich.
    Also.
    It was not in Vienna.
    She came from a small town like my parents came.
    Yeah.
    Let's stay with your home for a little bit.
    Do you remember the address that you lived at?
    Of course.
    What was it?
    Venediger Au 4.
    Venediger Au 4?
    Yes.
    OK.
    And the street and your apartment building,
    can you describe that for me, what it looked like?
    We had three floors, walk-up, of course.
    OK.
    And a super.
    OK.
    And well, when we had to change linens
    when the washerwoman came, I mean,
    it was a whole to-do about it.
    My mother begged for them, and they would get fed,
    and they were down in the Waschküche.
    And where was the Waschküche, the laundry kitchen, sort of?
    In the basement of the house.
    And is that where laundry would be dried?
    Up and the roof.
    So you wash on the basement, and you bring wet things up
    to the roof.
    Uh-huh, uh-huh.
    That's heavy work.
    Uh-huh.
    OK.
    And we had that once a month.
    OK.
    They came and do that.
    That's a lot of work.
    And it was by hand, I take it.
    Yes, of course.
    With a [? romper ?]
    OK.
    With a washboard.
    Did your father have an automobile?
    No.
    Well, you were right you didn't show it.
    Because most people who were well-to-do--
    No.
    OK.
    Did you have a telephone?
    Yes.
    Did you--
    And achtundvierzig neun vierundfünfzig.
    Oh, my goodness.
    You remember your number!
    Achtundvierzig, neunundf--
    Vierundfünfzig
    Let's say it in English.
    I'm getting confused.
    It would be--
    Ahhh-- 48 9--
    9-- 54.
    48-9--
    54.
    Wow.
    Five-- five digits.
    Uh-huh.
    I'm impressed.
    I'm impressed.
    We had a modern phone.
    My grandparents in Mistelbach had one you had to crank up.
    OK.
    With a--
    With those that looked--
    Amplifier.
    Yeah.
    Terrible.
    Why?
    Because you couldn't hear anything?
    Or because--
    No, but it's so old fashioned.
    Yeah.
    So--
    Everything was so old fashioned.
    And it was good, believe me.
    And the phone you had at home, then,
    was much more modern than that.
    Yes.
    Did you have to go through an operator to call anybody?
    No, we-- I think we had a dial.
    OK.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And the building that you lived in,
    was it a residential building?
    , Yes it was a residential building.
    It has nice apartments, I told you.
    Yeah.
    We had a balcony, which looked out
    on the mountains in Keimberg.
    It was nice.
    Wow.
    And I had a riding academy across the street from me.
    So I had no houses.
    It was like a park and a riding academy.
    Oh, how beautiful.
    Yes, it was very beautiful.
    But we had all the noise from the Prater.
    Ah.
    From the-- the Riesenrad didn't make noise,
    but we had those other things that go around, and the music,
    and all that you heard.
    But after a while, you get used to it, and--
    Well, let's explain for those people who
    won't know what this is.
    Can you tell us what was the Prater?
    What was that?
    Amusement park.
    OK.
    A famous amusement park in Vienna.
    Yes, yes.
    The most famous.
    I even remember seeing images of it in films.
    Yeah.
    I think a post-war film had the Ferris wheel in it.
    That's right.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Well, it sounds like a lovely residential area.
    Yes, it was a residential area.
    OK.
    Did you associate with the neighbors, your parents
    and yourself?
    No.
    I associated with my school friends.
    OK.
    And were most of the neighbors non-Jewish?
    No.
    The neighbors-- mixed.
    Mixed?
    OK.
    Mixed.
    In our building, it was mixed.
    A few Jews and a few non-Jews.
    And the minute Hitler came, they came with--
    they wanted our apartment.
    We had to move.
    We'll come to that.
    We'll come to that.
    So there were both Gentiles and Jews.
    Yes.
    And about how many apartments were in your building?
    Well, there were three floors, and I had one, two, three,
    four, five--
    about six apartments to a floor.
    So about 18.
    Five or six apartments.
    OK.
    You know, a good sized building.
    Yes.
    A good sized building, talking about 15 to 18 apartments.
    Yes.
    OK.
    What was on the ground floor?
    Was there anything--
    The super.
    Uh-huh.
    Any businesses on the ground floors?
    No, no, no, nothing.
    It was just a--
    Residential street.
    Residential, yes.
    Was your school close by?
    Yes.
    And do you remember the name of it?
    That's OK.
    If you don't, it's OK.
    No, no.
    I don't.
    Did you walk to school?
    Yes.
    It wasn't too far.
    All right.
    Two blocks, I think.
    That was a public school.
    OK.
    When I was six years old.
    Tell me, I have two questions at once.
    Once would be-- what are some of your earliest memories
    in total?
    You know?
    And then also some of your early school memories.
    So--
    Well, you remember the good ones,
    and you remember the bad ones.
    Whichever you feel like sharing, I
    would be interested in hearing.
    Well, let's start with the bad ones.
    OK.
    I once went with my mother to Grado.
    That was in Italy.
    And I went to the beach.
    And we had those huts, and they were all alike.
    And I got lost.
    And I was about four years old.
    Yeah.
    And my mother was besides herself,
    because the ocean was right there,
    and I was not to be found.
    And I walked from one to the other, and I looked in,
    and I couldn't find my mother.
    That's terrifying for a child.
    Yes.
    Terrifying.
    Yes, that was not very good.
    And for both of us.
    Yeah, of course.
    Of course.
    So that was one thing.
    And well, I got hit once, I told you, from my father,
    for misbehaving.
    I was a very poor eater.
    And whenever we were on vacation,
    my parents and I were in a very nice place in Yugoslavia,
    in Bled.
    Mm-hmm.
    And I was a brat.
    OK?
    And I didn't eat what they gave me.
    And I wanted that one, whatever the other man
    in the other table had.
    And when it came, I said I don't want it.
    And by then, everybody looked at that table, our table,
    what the brat wants.
    And I took a glass of water, and I spit into it.
    Ooh.
    And my father said, get up, and let's go upstairs.
    That was the one and only time.
    All right, that's the bad.
    OK.
    The good.
    The good was when I had birthday.
    I had all my friends over.
    And my mother ordered an ice cream cake, huge with fruit
    on it.
    But it was all ice cream.
    A peach, an apple, a banana, and we could choose, OK?
    And I loved that.
    And what was school like for you?
    What do you remember from your early years in school?
    I was a good student.
    OK.
    I did not dare not to be.
    OK.
    Because of my father.
    I had all A's in all those subjects.
    Yeah, I failed in gym once.
    That's so surprising, given that you were so--
    Yes, I didn't go there.
    We had at 1 o'clock gym, and I wanted
    to go to Tresznjewski, which was a Russian store, where
    they had good sandwiches, and I didn't go to school.
    Mm-hmm.
    OK, so they failed me in gym.
    And that wasn't me.
    Yeah.
    But I had a very good friend, and she went with her father
    to the soccer games.
    And I never did go.
    So they asked me one question, besides I
    had to make a few exercise that how many to a team.
    So she stood there, and she showed me, so I passed.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So that was--
    I remember.
    And what were-- you said that before the people
    that you associated with, the friends you had
    were all from school.
    Yes.
    Did you have any best friend?
    Yes.
    And who would have that been?
    Well, I had one from public school, Stella.
    Mm-hmm.
    And I had Trudi in Gymnasium.
    You had Trudi in Gymnasium, you're saying.
    I beg your pardon?
    Trudi was your friend in Gymnasium?
    Yes, OK.
    Yes, and Stella, too.
    OK.
    Were these girls also Jewish?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Did you have any association, any close friends with anybody
    who wasn't?
    No.
    OK.
    And what about your parents, their circle?
    Jewish.
    Always Jewish, OK.
    Except for Maria, who was--
    I'm trying to establish how much contact you might have had
    with people who weren't Jewish.
    So it would have only been Maria,
    who was someone you had a close contact with.
    Yes, well, and of course my teachers were not all Jewish.
    Some were.
    Some were not.
    Did you like them?
    Were they-- or were you close to any of them?
    Everybody has a favorite teacher or not.
    Right.
    You know?
    Right.
    But in general, it would have been
    the neighbors in your building that you would occasionally
    meet?
    No, Trudi and Stella lived very close by.
    I could walk there.
    We did homework together.
    So that was OK.
    Now, what kind of programs would you listen to on the radio?
    I have no idea.
    You don't remember.
    Did you get news, outside news from that radio?
    Yeah, we got news.
    Yes.
    OK.
    Was that the main source of information about what
    was going on in the world?
    Or did your parents also subscribe to newspapers?
    We had newspapers.
    Did they talk much about political events at home?
    Not in my presence.
    OK.
    So when Hitler comes to power in Germany in 1933,
    you're 11 years old, but that's still a foreign country.
    That's not Austria.
    No.
    Was that something that people remarked about,
    or was it something that anybody mentioned anything?
    Or is that far away, it's in Berlin?
    Well, frankly, nobody said anything
    that I know of in my association in Vienna.
    However, my grandfather in Mistelbach
    had the hardware store-- thank you.
    Hardware.
    Hardware.
    Hardware store.
    OK.
    He had salesmen come from Germany, and Jewish salesmen.
    And they told him how it is in Germany.
    And they said it's not that bad.
    We still have our jobs.
    They still could travel, and so on.
    By the way, I have to go back and tell you something else.
    My father was the oldest of the siblings.
    That's right.
    And he had to go to work.
    And his name was Karpeles.
    Karpeles?
    Yes.
    OK.
    And he changed it to Kuna in Vienna.
    That's a very German-sounding name.
    Because he traveled to Germany.
    He was a salesman when he started out.
    And with the name Karpeles he did not want to go to Germany.
    So he legally changed his name to Kuna.
    It's a very German name.
    Yes, and Karpeles, is that something
    that someone would recognize as Jewish?
    Yes.
    I see.
    I see.
    I don't know.
    I wouldn't know that, but OK.
    And did he do this in the '20s or the '30s?
    The 1920s or the 1930s?
    No, before he got married.
    My mother never was Karpeles.
    Oh.
    But he was a young man, and he had to go to work,
    and he had to travel to Germany.
    He decided that not with that name he's going to Germany.
    He's going as Kuna.
    As a Kuna.
    Was Germany considered to be an anti-Semitic place--
    Yes.
    --and Austria was not?
    Or was it at both places were considered to be that way?
    Well, Austria, at the long run, was worse than Germany.
    But when you were growing up?
    When I was growing up, it wasn't.
    All of a sudden, they became very much impressed
    by the Fuhrer.
    And everybody wanted to be it I don't want
    to compare it to something.
    OK.
    I'm trying to get a sense of how did
    people view things in those days before he comes to power.
    Because if your father felt that he had
    to change his name because he--
    Well, there must have been anti--
    Yeah, there must have been.
    Of course.
    In Germany.
    But he changes it because that's the only way he feels
    he can do business in Germany.
    Does that mean that he could have used his own name
    in Austria, his own original name,
    and would he have felt freer there?
    That's what I'm trying to anticipate.
    And of course maybe not--
    I wouldn't know.
    You wouldn't know.
    How would I know what he thought?
    Most likely he thought because of his profession
    as a salesman, he has to change his name.
    Yeah.
    Otherwise--
    Before all of the political changes, did you feel,
    did you ever experience some anti-Semitism?
    No.
    At the school level?
    No.
    On the streets.
    No.
    From the day on when Hitler came.
    From then on.
    From then on.
    OK.
    Now, remind me again about your schooling.
    You finished Gymnasium at what age?
    10.
    At 10.
    And then you went to this Handels--
    Akadamie.
    Akademie.
    And you were there for how many years?
    Two.
    The second year I was thrown out.
    When you were 12 years old?
    No, no.
    [BEEPING]
    OK, let's cut for a little bit.
    OK.
    Sorry about the interruption.
    Not a problem.
    Not a problem.
    How old were you when Germany annexed Austria?
    16.
    And had you finished your Handelsakademie by then?
    Yeah.
    You had?
    I haven't finished.
    No, it was a four year course.
    And you graduate.
    You get a diploma and everything.
    OK.
    And you had finished only two years.
    I didn't finish two years.
    Hitler came in March.
    Oh, so during your second year?
    Mm-hmm.
    I see.
    I see.
    Was there any foreboding?
    I mean, did you have any idea that this was going to happen?
    No, no.
    So describe for me how your family experienced it
    in the most personal way.
    Where were you?
    What happened on the streets?
    How did you learn of it?
    Was it through the radio?
    Was it through neighbors?
    Radio, of course.
    And he marched in March--
    March 16 or something.
    OK.
    And they all yelled "Heil Hitler,"
    and it was on the radio.
    And we were listening to the radio, what was going on.
    And there was the SS and the SA.
    And all of a sudden, they all had uniforms on.
    They were all illegitimately prepared for it.
    Ah.
    Was there activity on your own street?
    I really don't remember, because we were glued to the radio.
    Oh.
    We didn't look out.
    But from that day on, we lived in fear.
    OK.
    OK.
    And whenever the doorbell rang, it wasn't so good.
    And you said the neighbors changed.
    Yes.
    Tell me--
    I had a professor on the second floor.
    We always said hello to them.
    Very nice people.
    The day Hitler came, he was in an SS uniform,
    and he came and he wanted our apartment.
    And I was surprised that my father was not arrested.
    Did this man just come into your home
    and say, I want your apartment?
    Or did he do something through other channels to get it?
    His son came with an SS uniform.
    And he said-- he said--
    Well, it was a few weeks later.
    Mm-hmm.
    It was not the right way.
    But right away he had the uniform on.
    OK.
    And the whole house, whoever was--
    my gym teacher in school, in the Gymnasium, had--
    Can we cut for a second?
    There's a little bit--
    OK, your gym teacher in school?
    She was Gentile.
    OK.
    And she had a boyfriend.
    And he was Jewish.
    Now, I always visited her, because she had a Kakadu.
    And I liked him.
    So I went down to visit her.
    The next day no more boyfriend, and she had the swastika.
    Oh.
    OK?
    That's how it changed immediately.
    Could you as a 16-year-old make sense of this?
    No, no.
    I couldn't believe it.
    I absolutely couldn't believe it.
    Did your parents and you start talking then
    about these things?
    Yes.
    My father said we had no one to give us a visa, an affidavit.
    We had to go only without a visa, illegitimately leave.
    Tell me what-- now let's go back,
    and you had mentioned before that he
    was thrown out of his business.
    Is this--
    Yes.
    OK, describe for me what happened.
    Were you there?
    Was he--
    No, I wasn't there.
    He was there, and he was told that from now on it's
    not your business anymore, and we are taking over.
    I guess the Gentile people or whoever they were.
    And they took over, and he didn't go to work anymore.
    And you couldn't come in, and that was it.
    And then he stayed at home?
    Mm-hmm.
    And was there a worry about how to live after that, how
    to support and pay for things?
    Did he talk--
    We had enough money to do it.
    OK.
    Did his manner change at all after this?
    Yeah, of course.
    He was only worried about the Kind.
    Me.
    This Kind, yeah.
    The kid has to get out of here.
    We didn't have any place to go.
    We didn't know anybody here.
    So we couldn't go here.
    Only illegally we could have gone.
    But we didn't.
    And then I got into a Kindertransport.
    Uh-huh.
    To London.
    But I didn't have to go.
    Because my father gave a big donation to the Kultusgemeinde,
    which was like here the HIAS.
    OK.
    And he gave a big donation, and he got three affidavits.
    But first we got a visa to Quito, Ecuador
    through my girlfriend from school.
    She went alone without her parents to Quito.
    Because her boyfriend was there, and he sent her a visa,
    and she sent us a visa.
    When she got there.
    Yes.
    Aha.
    But when my father got the affidavits for America,
    we chose to go to America, not to Ecuador.
    How did he get affidavits for America?
    From a complete stranger, a philanthropist.
    I don't think you will remember.
    You are too young.
    Benrus Watches.
    It was like a competitor to Longines.
    OK.
    And he was a philanthropist, and he gave affidavits
    to people he didn't know.
    How do I spell the name of that company, the watches?
    Benrus, B-E-N-R-U-S. Benrus.
    B-E-N-R-U-S, Benrus watches.
    No, I don't know of it.
    I've not heard of it.
    OK.
    And the man who owned this is the one who
    gave the affidavits?
    Yes, he gave us three affidavits.
    My father got three affidavits for the donation he gave.
    I have no idea how much he gave.
    And--
    OK, I want to step back a little bit.
    Maria, you said Maria had to leave.
    Yes.
    How did you get notice that she had to leave?
    Well, they said that Jewish families are not
    allowed to have any help, any Aryans working for them
    or whatever.
    Did anyone--
    She didn't want to go.
    She didn't want to go.
    But she went.
    Did you ever see her after that?
    Any correspondence with her?
    So you lost her.
    Mm-hmm.
    Aside from this son of this professor who came and said,
    I want your apartment, did the Nazis,
    whether they were SA or SS, come to your apartment?
    Mm-hmm.
    What happened?
    Well, they came with that guy from the professor.
    OK.
    I mean, they didn't hurt us.
    Thank God.
    Did they take anything?
    No, no.
    OK.
    They didn't take anything.
    We took what we wanted, what my mother wanted.
    I don't even remember what.
    And we had to move to the Jewish quarters, where
    all the Jews lived.
    And what kind of a place did you move into?
    Well, it wasn't as nice a home like we had before,
    but it was OK.
    OK.
    Did you share it with other families?
    No.
    OK.
    We had it for ourselves.
    So more or less when that young man came
    is when you had to leave?
    Were you given--
    No, no, no.
    We had time.
    OK.
    Were courts involved in this at all?
    Nothing, nothing.
    OK.
    Nothing.
    And of course you had to leave most of your belongings.
    Sure.
    We took the most important things-- the bed and the table.
    You know.
    That's very bitter.
    And I mean, in a very--
    it's distasteful to hear about a neighbor, somebody
    who is your neighbor for such a long time.
    That's what it was.
    Had you ever experienced any kind of betrayal before?
    Or was this the first time you really see betrayal?
    Yeah.
    No, I didn't.
    OK.
    Did you talk amongst your own generation
    with your own girlfriends about all of this,
    And what was happening to each?
    Yes, what was happening.
    We exchanged what was happening, yeah.
    OK.
    And how long from the time he came to the time
    you had to leave?
    Was it a week, two weeks, a day?
    No, it was about two weeks, I think, they gave us.
    OK.
    And what was the address of the new place you went to?
    [? Schaningasse. ?]
    [? Schaningasse? ?]
    But I don't remember the house number anymore.
    Do you remember what it looked like?
    Yeah.
    Tell me about that.
    It was a house.
    I don't know.
    We didn't have an elevator either.
    We walked up.
    It was a big apartment, bigger than what we had.
    And it was empty, so it looked bigger, too.
    And nothing.
    It was not our home anymore.
    You know what I mean?
    Did your parents decide early on that we're leaving,
    we're trying to get out?
    No.
    You want to get out, but where to?
    OK, so because there are some people who stayed, thinking
    it's not so bad.
    No, no, no.
    My father, from day one, "let's get out."
    OK, OK.
    What was with your grandparents, your mother's family?
    What was their situation like?
    Well, they had to leave Mistelbach,
    and they came to Vienna, and they got a little apartment.
    My mother's sister married in Vienna, one daughter.
    She is two years younger than I am.
    And after we got the affidavit and came to America,
    we asked the man, Benjamin Lazrus, his name,
    for more affidavits.
    And we asked him for my mother's sister, her husband,
    and daughter.
    And he gave it to us, and he saved their lives.
    They were interned in Marseilles,
    and they were in jail, and they were in Casablanca.
    They were all over.
    And they came here.
    And they--
    What about grandparents?
    And then the grandparents had to go to Vienna,
    and we did the same thing for the grandparents.
    Mm-hmm.
    And the grandparents were all packed to go.
    He gave us affidavits.
    And they came, and they took them away.
    And that was the end of them.
    So you did lose family in the Holocaust.
    Yes.
    You lost your grandparents.
    Yes.
    No, you asked me about my father's people.
    That's right.
    I did it.
    So it was your mother's--
    Yes.
    --that you-- right.
    And did you ever find out what happened to them?
    Yeah, they were burned.
    They were in Auschwitz?
    Yes.
    I think so.
    Ask Carol.
    She knows much more about it.
    She told me.
    Oh.
    Yeah, I lost my grandparents.
    OK.
    How long did you stay in Vienna bef--
    '39, December '39.
    Oh, so you were there not quite two years,
    but still almost two years.
    If he marched in on March '38, and then
    you lived for the majority of that time
    in now this new place, which was a Jewish quarter.
    Mm-hmm.
    Now, was there a lot more activity?
    In the sense that, did soldiers target
    this part of the city more, or the SA or the police
    because it was more Jewish and they would come there?
    Or did you--
    Well, they left us alone there.
    Really, more or less, we were left alone.
    [PHONE RINGING]
    OK.
    That's my phone.
    Can we cut, please?
    Yup. rolling.
    OK, before the break, we were talking
    about those very tough months of almost two years
    between the time Hitler annexed Austria and the time
    that you left in December 1939.
    Something that I did not ask before but I wanted to ask now,
    is we often hear that many Jewish women, girls,
    and sometimes men--
    [PHONE RINGING]
    Oh!
    OK, so we've heard that many, particularly women and girls,
    were taken out on the streets and made to scrub the streets.
    Mm-hmm.
    Did anything like that happen to you or your mother?
    Yes.
    Or your father?
    Yes?
    No, not my father.
    But you and your mother?
    Yes.
    Can you describe what happened?
    How this happened?
    Well, they came to the door, and they
    said that we have to scrub.
    Take a pail of water and whatever, brush,
    and you have to scrub the streets.
    And our good Maria said, "let me go instead--" not me,
    but instead of my mother.
    And my mother said, "no, you can't do that."
    So we went, and we scrubbed the streets.
    And we saw all the other people applauding and yelling.
    And some stepped on the hands of people scrubbing.
    It was a mess.
    It was degrading.
    And that's what they wanted, just
    to be-- which all the Jews should be degraded,
    and they should scrub streets.
    Was it your own street or another one?
    Our street.
    Your street.
    So the people--
    Who lived there were happy to see us scrub.
    OK?
    So that was one of the things my mother and I--
    Was it something that took the most of the day?
    Or was this--
    No, no.
    It didn't take too long.
    OK.
    The point was made, in other words.
    Yes, yes, yes.
    The point was made.
    That's what we're here for.
    Yeah.
    Was there a possibility that your father could get arrested?
    Oh, of course.
    Is there a reason why he was not?
    I wouldn't know.
    I think it is sheer luck.
    I want to tell you about a little story.
    I had an abonnement to go to the Burgtheater, which
    was from school.
    We had to see King Lear and things like that.
    By abonnement, you mean a subscription.
    A subscription, yeah.
    It was Saturday afternoon.
    OK.
    And I went.
    It was under Hitler already.
    And I went.
    Mm-hmm.
    And when I came out, we had all the SS and the SA
    all marching on the Ringstrasse.
    That's the main thoroughfare in Vienna.
    And they had other people on the sidewalk.
    So who were the other people?
    Not the Nazis, so to speak, and the Jews.
    So how do I get home?
    So I decided the best thing for me is to go in with them.
    In with the marching?
    Uh-huh.
    And were there other civilians who were marching along?
    Yes.
    OK.
    So I went in with the marching.
    And I didn't say a word.
    And I went as far as I could go towards my house.
    In the meantime, my mother sent out my Maria to look for me.
    But Maria never found me.
    But we both got home.
    Yeah.
    And that was a good thing I did this.
    Because they arrested people from the sidewalk.
    Really?
    Yeah.
    Just for standing there, or were they
    looking particularly for Jews?
    For Jews.
    For Jews.
    OK.
    Not the others.
    Did you have to where at this point--
    No, I didn't.
    OK.
    Was that introduced at any point during the time
    you were still there?
    Yes.
    I don't know why.
    I was never asked to wear that.
    How did you get food?
    That is, how did you do your shopping?
    Were there any certain hours of the day that--
    No, no.
    We could shop whenever we wanted.
    OK.
    Whenever the stores were open.
    OK.
    That didn't happen.
    All right.
    So there was no restrictions in that way.
    No.
    All right.
    One day I got a letter from the police department
    that they want me for some photographs.
    OK.
    And the photographs were in the nude.
    Uh-huh.
    And my parents went berserk.
    And my father, he bandaged my foot,
    so that maybe he'll go with me to the police
    and say I have a bad foot or something.
    Of course, that didn't happen.
    And they took me into the police station.
    I had to get undressed, completely nude.
    And there were other girls my age.
    And they took hair samples.
    They took fingerprints.
    And they took pictures.
    We were never touched by any man or by anybody.
    They left us alone.
    But they did this for their files,
    for their whatever they going to do with it.
    But you can imagine my poor parents.
    And I was not so happy, either.
    Of course not.
    Of course not.
    So that I went through also.
    Excuse us for a second.
    Yes.
    We'll stop.
    Go.
    OK.
    I have never heard of something like that happening before.
    They got me.
    Whether it was from the police station or from the SS,
    I don't know.
    Yeah.
    The police wrote to us.
    Did you ever have to go scrub the streets after that again?
    No.
    No.
    No, no.
    OK.
    And then came Kristallnacht.
    Tell me about that.
    Well, my father was still in the business.
    I mean--
    He still had his company?
    Or--
    He still worked.
    He had to show the other people what to do and so on.
    He was not the boss anymore, but they needed him.
    OK.
    So he still went there.
    And they started in the center of Vienna,
    in the first district.
    Mm-hmm.
    And then went around.
    Can we cut?
    So you say Kristallnacht started in the first district.
    Yes.
    First-- ersten Bezirk.
    Yes.
    And what was going on in that first district?
    Well, they broke all the windows, and especially
    the synagogues.
    Mm-hmm.
    And all the Jewish storage what they knew about,
    they broke the windows.
    And that is where the Kristallnacht came from,
    because everything was broken.
    Did it reach your area?
    Stores.
    OK.
    But my house was not a store.
    They left us alone, the three of us, Maria, and mother, and me.
    And my father called up and said I'm not coming home,
    but I'm going to be some place.
    Don't worry about me.
    So I don't know where.
    Up to the day, I don't know where he spent his night.
    Yeah.
    But somebody took him in, I think.
    Maybe one of his workers, maybe somebody else.
    I have no idea.
    And they came to our house to ask for my father.
    And I said he isn't here.
    Where is here?
    I don't know.
    So my mother, in the meantime, when the doorbell rang,
    fainted.
    So I had to tend to my mother.
    And Maria tended to her, whatever we could do.
    And that was it.
    But thank God, he came home the next day.
    And nothing happened to him.
    He was hiding someplace.
    Up to today, I don't know where.
    Very prescient.
    Very astute to stay away, because so many men
    were arrested.
    Of course.
    They came to their homes.
    Did you see any of that going on in the streets?
    No, I didn't see anything from the street.
    But my girlfriend Trudi, her parents
    had a haberdashery store.
    Mm-hmm.
    In the first district.
    So they locked them in.
    They didn't know they were there.
    And they put down the--
    The blind--
    The shutters.
    Sort of like Gitter, they're called.
    You know, the ones that it's hard to throw a stone through.
    Right.
    They're metal.
    A metal thing.
    They had no food.
    So I went and brought them food with Maria.
    Mm-hmm.
    We walked there, and I brought them food.
    I opened that thing.
    And it was not locked.
    It was just put down.
    And I opened it, and I shoved the food in.
    And there were three people in there, her parents, and HER
    and another man.
    And they had decided that it was safer to stay there?
    They stayed there for the night.
    And before dawn, they opened up and got out and went home,
    and put it down again.
    So that was--
    What did you see?
    As you were going with Maria to their store,
    what did the streets look like?
    Full of glass.
    Everything was full of glass.
    Every store front was broken.
    There wasn't a store, a Jewish store, where they know.
    It was a very, very bad night, I would say.
    And the next day, we walked on glass.
    Literally.
    Were the streets as full as they normally would be?
    No, were empty.
    The streets were empty.
    People were afraid to go out.
    So I put on a babushka, and I had
    blonde hair, real blonde hair.
    I didn't look extremely Jewish, so I got away with it.
    After such things, did you go out much of your house at all?
    Yes.
    Life went on.
    And I was a teenager.
    We had our own pool.
    They gave us a pool far out again.
    OK.
    What else I have?
    You said life went on.
    They gave you a pool.
    I beg your pardon?
    Yes.
    There was a pool you could go to.
    Yes, yes.
    Was this from the municipality, or was this part
    of the Jewish community?
    I beg--
    The pool.
    I don't know.
    OK.
    I really don't know.
    OK.
    We were told to go there.
    OK.
    And we were teenagers.
    We had a good time.
    Yeah.
    You say you were thrown out of school.
    Yeah.
    Is that correct?
    OK.
    Did you continue your schooling in another place
    under some other school auspices?
    Here.
    In the United States.
    Yeah.
    So it was completely interrupted.
    Yes.
    All right.
    And how long after Hitler marched
    in, after Hitler annexed Austria,
    did it take for them to throw you out of school?
    Oh, right away.
    Right away.
    Right away.
    A week or two later we were told not to--
    all Jewish people have to get out of school.
    I got no report card, nothing.
    Nothing.
    As it were I would never have been there.
    And I came here.
    I took my working papers, and I supported my family.
    My father couldn't speak English.
    My mother spoke English, and I spoke English.
    And I had plenty of jobs.
    I got working papers, and I made $8 a week for 48 hours.
    Oh, wow.
    Wow.
    That's not a lot.
    Were you studying English in Vienna?
    OK.
    English and French.
    Let's go back to--
    are there any other moments that you
    would like to share before you left Vienna, of things that you
    think are important for us to have for the historical record?
    You have--
    No, I think that's all.
    I [INAUDIBLE] pictures with me.
    That is all I had.
    Thank you.
    OK.
    So now let's move on to how you actually left Vienna.
    You got these affidavits from a total stranger.
    You said a man named Mr Lazrus who had this watch company.
    Good memory.
    And he sent those affidavits.
    Do you remember any of the bureaucratic official procedure
    you needed to go through in order
    to get the right to leave?
    No, I don't know anything about it.
    He went here, I think, to the HIAS.
    And they gave it to Vienna.
    To the Kultusgemeinde?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    So that was the meeting point for you,
    the contact point for you and your family was this.
    Right.
    All right.
    What kind of a passport did you get when you left?
    I didn't have a Jew stamped into it.
    You didn't?
    No, I don't think so.
    I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think so.
    I had a regular passport, but it had not a big Jew.
    It says "religion" is there.
    OK.
    So that was filled out.
    We left Trieste.
    I'd like to see.
    How did you get from Vienna to Trieste?
    With the railroad.
    OK.
    $5 each of our money.
    That's all you could take with--
    $5 we came here.
    So what happened with all of your father's assets?
    Nothing.
    It was taken away.
    Bank accounts as well?
    No, bank accounts were not taken away.
    The factory was taken away.
    The factory was taken away.
    Yes.
    Was he able to get any money out of Austria?
    Aside from the $5 that you were allowed to bring?
    No.
    Nothing?
    No, we got nothing.
    But he got his factory back after the war.
    OK.
    We'll come to that.
    OK.
    OK.
    We'll talk about that.
    OK.
    But when you had mentioned your family was well-to-do,
    and even when he lost the factory,
    I assume he must have had some funds.
    But he didn't have nothing in Switzerland.
    Nothing.
    He had everything in Vienna.
    But he got it.
    OK.
    They didn't get to the funds, and he got it.
    OK.
    But not at that point.
    No.
    At that point, it's $5--
    We had $5 each, and we went to Trieste, and we got into--
    what was the name of the ship?
    Saturnia.
    Saturnia.
    Yes.
    And what kind of ship was this?
    It was a liner, an ocean liner.
    A passenger ship.
    A passenger ship.
    We were all the way on the bottom.
    Why, I don't know, but that's what it was.
    My mother got that terribly seasick.
    And first we were in the Adriatic Sea, which was fine.
    Then we passed Gibraltar, and it got rough.
    It was December.
    And my mother got terribly sick.
    My father took me up to look far away.
    Don't look down.
    Look far away.
    And that's much better, of course.
    And I didn't get that sick.
    A little woozy, but not bad.
    But we were not far enough out--
    we were not at the Azores yet when a u-boot came.
    And three guys came with two pistols.
    Two pistols each they came on board.
    And they took 20 men off.
    And interned them in Casablanca.
    So you can imagine what was going on, on that ship.
    Were they random?
    Random.
    My father was spared.
    They took mostly young men.
    So my mother was so happy down in her cabin.
    She said, are we there yet?
    She didn't know what was going on.
    Under what flag did the Saturnia fly?
    Italian.
    OK.
    And we arrived well.
    And everything was OK.
    The HIAS took us over.
    And where was the first place you lived in the United States?
    HIAS.
    OK.
    I meant by, were you in New York?
    Were you in another--
    New York.
    In what part of New York did you live?
    Well, the HIAS was on Lafayette Street, all the way downtown.
    And they wanted to ship us to Pittsburgh.
    So what I learned in school, Pittsburgh has coal.
    I said, I'm not going to go to a state where there's coal.
    I want good air.
    So we didn't go to Pittsburgh.
    We stayed.
    And I like, I said, I supported the family.
    We bought corn flakes, which we never ate before.
    And we ate it three times a day, morning, noon, and night.
    Oh, my.
    Corn flakes were a nickel, and three bananas were a penny.
    My mother went shopping.
    There was a market there for a penny.
    And that's how we started out.
    And was this at Lafayette Street?
    That's where you first lived?
    Yes.
    OK.
    And then I brought home my $8.
    And parents gave me from that the car fare to go to work.
    And I had a boss, which I'm still looking for,
    but I couldn't find him anymore.
    And when the bell rang at 5 o'clock,
    I worked for a pocket bookstore.
    And I made French purses.
    You know those?
    With a clasp like that.
    With a clasp that closes that way.
    And my fingers were bloody from doing that.
    And then I had to stuff them with paper.
    And he brought me a whole big thing
    and said, for a nickel you finish that.
    I said, OK.
    What was the whole big thing that he brought you?
    A whole more to do?
    Those little purses, a whole mountain of it.
    So stuff them.
    So I stuffed them.
    He gave me a nickel.
    Now shall I go home by train or shall I get ice cream?
    What do you think?
    Who won?
    Ice cream.
    Of course.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So that was my beginning.
    So how did you get that first job?
    Was that through HIAS?
    I think I read it in the paper.
    I spoke English, and I could read.
    And I was there three weeks.
    Bye-bye.
    I got another job that paid better.
    They were nicer.
    So I stayed there.
    And after that, I think my father got some money out
    from Europe.
    I don't know.
    We got an apartment.
    And where was--
    In Washington Heights, naturally.
    A walk-up.
    And i slept in the living room.
    My mother made homework.
    And my father looked for a job.
    And finally he got a job.
    And here it was Exeter Hosiery.
    And it was a Gentile man who took a man from Switzerland.
    A very nice man.
    And he opened a factory for him, and he worked for him.
    Well, he had this expertise in hosiery.
    Exactly, exactly.
    OK.
    And what was his job now?
    Was it as a salesman again?
    Or?
    No, no, no.
    He was in the office.
    I mean, he showed everybody how to do and what to do.
    OK.
    He was an expert in this field.
    So he was more or less like a manager or director
    of that factory.
    Right.
    OK.
    Do you remember the name of the man who hired him?
    No?
    I do.
    It'll come to me, but right now, no.
    Exeter Hosiery.
    I remember the ad was in The Times.
    So it was a big, big thing.
    Exeter Hosiery.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    And did your father stay at this place?
    Yes.
    Forever until he retired or?
    Yes.
    Oh, so he found his place in the United States.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And did you continue living in Washington Heights?
    No, we moved to Elmhurst.
    New York, OK.
    And I went to school.
    And you went to high school or?
    I went to business school here.
    OK.
    You went to business-- and what business school was that?
    It was in Queens Plaza.
    I don't remember which one it was.
    I learned contometry, stenography, and typing.
    I wanted to be in an office.
    I wanted to be a secretary.
    The first one is fontometry?
    Contometry.
    Contometry?
    That is an adding machine, but it can do everything.
    Adding, subtracting, dividends, everything.
    Ah-huh.
    Not every-- it was very well paid.
    OK.
    So I took that.
    In stenography, I did very well in Handelsakademie.
    So what did I do my very first job?
    My boss called me in for a letter.
    I took it in German stenography, and then I translated it.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So that's about all I can tell you.
    Thank God it was a happy ending.
    My parents lived in Elmhurst till they died.
    Some people found it difficult to adjust to the United States.
    It's difficult to leave your home where you're born,
    and if it's a different language.
    I love Italy.
    I'm very tongue-tied.
    I went to school to learn Italian.
    It's hard.
    Besides that, you have to leave everything behind,
    and had all the fear all the time
    that something is going to happen,
    because you never knew from one minute
    to the next what can happen.
    Was there a time when you no longer felt afraid?
    Yeah, when I came to the--
    not when I was there.
    I mean, it was--
    When I was in Vienna, I always felt afraid.
    But of course it led up.
    After that Kristallnacht, it died down a little bit.
    And especially they were after the men,
    but of course they took the women, too.
    When you landed in the United States,
    is that when you felt secure again?
    When I first felt secure?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And how did you find out about what
    happened to your grandparents, your mother's parents?
    Well, we sent them the affidavit,
    and they were packed, I told you, to go.
    And then we didn't hear from them.
    And I think we called the Kultusgemeinde.
    Because that's where the--
    Affidavits would be.
    --came from.
    And of course they were not used.
    They had them.
    Why they didn't let them go if they have everything ready
    I don't know, but that's what it was.
    OK.
    And let's talk a little bit about after the war.
    After the war was over--
    oh, excuse me.
    I'm going to back up.
    When you left in December 1939, the war had already started.
    World War II started in September 1st.
    Did that change life in Vienna?
    Did things change when the country was on a war footing?
    I wouldn't know.
    I wasn't there when we went into war.
    No, no.
    You were still.
    No.
    On September 1, '39, the first three months of the war,
    you're still in Vienna.
    You said you left in December '39.
    Yes.
    I don't remember if anything changed.
    OK.
    I don't remember all.
    OK, OK.
    Now, after the war, you mentioned that your father was
    able to get his factory back.
    Mm-hmm.
    What was the process there?
    What was the experience that was involved with this?
    I don't know.
    You don't know?
    I don't know.
    My parents spent the whole summer in Vienna
    for that reason.
    They checked into a hotel, and they lived there
    for three months.
    And my father was every day in the factory.
    With whom he talked, I have no idea.
    How he got it back, I have no idea.
    But he got money back.
    But he didn't get the factory back?
    No.
    No.
    OK.
    And what about his other assets, anything from your home,
    or any bank account?
    Nothing.
    Nothing.
    OK.
    Have you been back to Vienna?
    Yes.
    When did you go?
    When did you visit again?
    '68.
    Almost 30 years later.
    I visited '68.
    What was that like for you?
    What was that like for you, to go back again?
    Well, there are a lot of people who said I will never go back.
    And I don't know, was it curiosity
    or whatever it was, I did go back.
    And I took my children back, and I showed them where I lived,
    and where I went to work, and I showed them Mistelbach.
    And my children understand German but don't speak it.
    And that's about--
    I was many times in Vienna, but just in the airport.
    And I went to Czechoslovakia.
    I was in Prague, and I was in Budapest and all that.
    But I am interested in the world, what it looks like.
    How did these things that occurred,
    these really catastrophic events occurred at a time
    when you were at almost the most impressionable age.
    You know, as a teenager, as 16 years old.
    [LOW TALKING IN BACKGROUND]
    I was saying that these catastrophic events occurred
    at a time when you were perhaps at the most vulnerable age,
    impressionable age that a teenager is, at
    around age 15 or 16.
    How did they affect you?
    How did they shape you?
    How did they affect your own character and personality?
    You know, when my granddaughter was 16 years old,
    it came back to me like, what did I think at that time
    and what is she thinking?
    And she had a Sweet 16 party.
    The parents didn't know what to do for her.
    And I was--
    So we can just try again.
    OK.
    Try.
    OK.
    They didn't know what to do for her.
    And--
    Yes.
    And you were thinking--
    And I was thinking, I was just wanting
    to have my life back again.
    And I was thinking, how are we going to get out of here,
    and how are my parents going to survive?
    And I had entirely different things on my mind than this.
    And I was blessed to see her happy.
    Yeah.
    There is a difference.
    You have to grow up too soon.
    We did.
    We can cut a little bit.
    I have.
    Thank you.
    You have it--
    Very soon.
    Did you share much of these things with your children?
    Yes.
    Did they ask many questions?
    Yes.
    My grandchildren.
    Your grandchildren did.
    My children, too.
    No, you see [?
    Carol is ?.
    And does that make a difference for you?
    Yes.
    In what way?
    They feel that their parents went through a lot,
    and it should never happen again.
    But unfortunately the world is so
    screwed up that it is very, very hard for them.
    And I'm thinking now of my great-grandchildren,
    what future do they have?
    It is pathetic.
    You worry about that?
    I beg your pardon?
    You worry about that?
    Yes.
    I'm not worried about myself anymore.
    Mm-hmm.
    I want to live as good as I can, and I have a good spirit,
    and I give it to others who are not so spirited.
    And I have a wonderful relationship
    with all my children.
    I mean, I only have two, but with all of them.
    Tell me.
    Tell me about your children, your children's names.
    You said--
    My Carol and Jeffrey.
    Carol and Jeffrey.
    And you said you had three grandchildren?
    Yes.
    And what are--
    Jared, Lisa, and Tara.
    And six great-grandchildren?
    Yes.
    And what are their names?
    I beg your pardon?
    And their names?
    Ari.
    They're very religious.
    OK.
    Extremely religious.
    Ari-- no Ari is the youngest.
    It's Zevi, [? Jori, ?] Aiden, Shayni, and Ari.
    And Jules.
    OK.
    One has one, and one has five.
    The religious one has five.
    He had six, and one passed away.
    Oh.
    Strangled.
    Oh, the baby did?
    Oh, dear.
    That's a tragedy for everybody.
    Yes.
    Are there any final thoughts you would like to--
    are there any final thoughts that you
    have as we are winding up this interview, anything
    that you would like others to know about your experience,
    how to view your experience?
    Look, everybody is different and thinks differently.
    I try to think positive and whatever
    happens to me, whatever God gives me is fine with me.
    I would love to stay a little longer, but who knows?
    And because I enjoy my great-grandchildren,
    I enjoy my children.
    They're all wonderful thoughts.
    I mean, like Carol is volunteering.
    My other granddaughter is working
    for a non-profit organization.
    She travels all over the world to make the world better,
    and the nature, and the water, and the air, and all of this.
    That's something to be very proud of.
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    She has seen the world.
    By that I mean the world.
    And Lisa is also working.
    She's working for a Jewish organization.
    So she married a Gentile and has a very good marriage.
    And she had a baby when she was 40 years old.
    And he's adorable.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And that's all I can say, and I wish everybody well.
    And everybody should look up, and let's hope to God everybody
    will be well and happy and healthy.
    And the world should change to a better world.
    We can hope.
    We can hope.
    We can hope.
    Yeah.
    I say with that, I will conclude the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum interview with Mrs. Harriet Mehl on February
    23, 2017 in Aventura, Florida.
    Thank you again.
    Thank you.
    It was a pleasure.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Harriet Mehl-Rottenberg (née Herta Keuhne, 1922-2021) was born in Vienna, Austria on May 19, 1922 as an only child to Adele Pashkas Keuhne (b. 1898) and Oscar Keuhne (b. 1882). Her parents were both born in Lower Austria. Harriet discusses visiting her maternal grandparents who owned a hardware store; enjoying sports as a child; her father owning a factory that produced stockings and socks, and having 50 employees; studying business for two years after gymnasium so she could work at the factory; her parents being reserved; having a maid, Maria, who helped care for Harriet; losing the family apartment and business after the German annexation of Austria; being forced with her mother to scrub the street; the windows of Jewish businesses getting smashed during Kristallnacht; her family, including her mother’s sister and daughter, receiving affidavits for immigration to the United States from the owner of Benrus Watches, someone they didn’t know personally; her grandparents also received affidavits but were deported before they could leave; immigrating to the United States in December 1939 aboard the Italian ship the SS Saturnia; being met in New York by HIAS, who wanted them to go to Pittsburgh, PA, but the family remaining in New York; getting a job because she already spoke English; moving to Washington Heights in Manhattan; her father becoming the manager of the Exeter Hosiery Factory; moving to Elhurst, NY; attending business school; and visiting Vienna in 1968.
    Interviewee
    Mehl-Rottenberg, Ms. Harriet
    Interviewer
    Navazelskis, Ina
    Date
    interview:  2017 February 28
    Geography
    creation: Aventura (Fla.)

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Genre/Form
    Oral histories.
    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

    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 Harriet Mehl-Rottenberg on February 28, 2017 in Aventura, FL.
    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 08:05:35
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn559280

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    Oral history interview with Leo Hanin

    Oral History

    Leo Hanin, born in 1913 in Vilnius, Lithuania, describes his family; his parents’ decision to escape increasing persecution in Europe and move to Harbin, China, where they had a relative, in 1916; the lively Jewish community but not having many relations with the native Chinese; attending a Russian school in Harbin until 1929; moving with his brother to Shanghai around 1934 to attend a British school; getting married in 1936 and moving to Kōbe-shi, Japan to do work for a textile firm; assisting the Joint Distribution Committee in New York to arrange for funds to be sent to Japan to support refugees coming over from Europe; his participation in a Zionist organization and moving to Israel in 1948; staying in Israel for two years and then moving back to Japan; his experiences with helping people adjust to life in Kōbe-shi and immigrate to the United States; and dealing with the rumors that the Jewish leadership of Kōbe-shi stole money donated to them to help refugees.

    Oral history interview with Walter Schnell

    Oral history interview with Walter Schnell

    Oral History

    Walter Schnell, born on April 16, 1904 in Strehlen, Germany (Strzelin, Poland), describes his family and childhood; going to study crystal and porcelain in Berlin, Germany in the early 1920s; having to sell his family’s porcelain and glass business in 1937 because anti-Jewish business laws were becoming too strict; moving to Wrocław after the business sold with his sister and parents; working for a family friend in a wholesale business in Wrocław; his arrest during Kristallnacht and being sent by train through Weimar and on to Buchenwald; being forced to watch the hangings of those prisoners who had escaped from the camp and been caught; being called into the camp’s main office on the second day of Hanukkah and told that his parents had booked him a passage for Panama; finally securing a passage on a ship from Wrocław to Genoa, Italy after jumping through much red tape with Gestapo officials in Wrocław; staying in Genoa for a short time until he traveled on a boat to Shanghai because he did not need official papers to get in; settling in Hongkou, the Jewish suburb of Shanghai; Allied planes accidentally bombing the Jewish quarter of Shanghai; the creation of a Jewish community with its own traditions in Shanghai, including establishing nine hundred yeshivas, keeping kosher, and maintaining a synagogue; discovering that his mother and two cousins had made it to New York; and joining his family in New York after the war.

    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral History

    Erna Tebel Stern, born on October 28, 1901 in Krotoszyn, Poland, describes her childhood; her father’s experiences when he served in the German Army against Russia during World War I; moving to Wroclaw, Poland after the war; not experiencing much official discrimination when Hitler first came to power because her father had served in the German Army; her family’s decision to flee from their home in 1938 when they discovered that prison camps existed; her parents’ capture and deportation; managing to escape to Brussels, Belgium, where she, her first husband, and her brother boarded the S.S. St. Louis and fled for Cuba; her brother’s and first husband’s deportation to an internment camp in Gurs, France after the St. Louis had to return to Brussels; going into hiding from 1940 to 1942 in Brussels, where she met her second husband; attempting to flee in 1942 to Switzerland, where they were imprisoned for a short time and then released to the Salvation Army; moving to Bern, Switzerland, where she worked as a housemaid until the end of the War; returning to Belgium in 1945 with her second husband and opening a blouse manufactory; and marrying her second husband in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral History

    Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort, born on April 24, 1923 in Wrocław, Poland, describes her family and childhood; experiencing antisemitism and losing friends after Hitler came to power; her memories of the destruction of Kristallnacht; a cousin in Cuba attaining visas for her and her parents to immigrate to Havana, Cuba; booking a passage on the St. Louis and being forced to return to Europe after Cuba and the United States would not accept the ship; arriving in Antwerp, Belgium and signing papers that said they would not work and would accept their status as a refugee; living off a small budget from the United Jewish Appeal; crossing the Belgium border into France by foot but not finding a much better living situation; discovering a castle in the French countryside in which to stay for a few nights; returning to Belgium and moving back into their old apartment building, where they stayed for a couple of years; becoming a seamstress to make some money for her family; joining an underground group with her mother and crossing into France and then Switzerland; finding an apartment building in which to live; discovering that Hitler had died and that the war was coming to an end; and immigrating to the United States to create a new life for herself and her family.

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral History

    Gidon Arye, born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1928, describes growing up in an upper middle class family; moving into the Vilnius ghetto in 1941 and being separated from his family; living in the Vilnius ghetto throughout the war and sometimes hiding or working illegally; avoiding the early deportations; escaping roundups and going to the Kailis work camp; smuggling his way into the same work camp that his father; reuniting with his father at the Heeres-Kraftfahr-Park work camp, where they worked for an elderly German fixing automobile machinery; surviving in the camp for some time and avoiding Nazi Aktions and a transfer of inmates to Kaunas, Lithuania; Nazi soldiers retreating from the Allies throughout July 1944; going into hiding with a local carpenter who was an acquaintance of his father from before the war; leaving Vilnius through Poland, Germany, and then France in 1945 with his father and fiancée; and immigrating to Israel in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral History

    Carl Knuemann, born on November 15, 1922 in Bydgoszcz, Poland, describes his family and childhood; moving to Germany in 1932 because his father had German citizenship and was a businessman; his father not finding a job and contracting tuberculosis, which allowed him to get a pension from the government since he was a veteran of World War I; his father’s work with Doctor Goerdeler and Albert Einstein in plotting against Hitler; working as a courier in the underground movement; his memories of Kristallnacht; escaping to Hungary after the war broke out and then returning to Berlin once the Nazis invaded Hungary; meeting a Dane in a restaurant and joining the Danish resistance movement by running guns between locations; being drafted and sent to Denmark; his father being too ill to participate in the July 20 plot against Hitler; working in the German armament industry in 1943 and sneaking information out to Allied contacts; and his considerations on his participation in the resistance movement during the war.

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral History

    Michael Vogel, born on November 29, 1923 in Jacovce, Czechoslovakia, describes moving to and growing up in Topol'čany, Czechoslovakia; the takeover of Topol'čany by the Hlinka Guard in 1939; his deportation to the Slovak-run Novaky prison camp in 1942; his deportation to Auschwitz in late 1942; working in forced labor in camps around Auschwitz, first in the Buna works and then in the Birkenau "Kanada" detachment, where he unloaded incoming trains; his transfer by cattle car to Sachsenhausen and then to Dachau as the Allies neared in late 1944; his final transfer to the Landsberg sub-camp of Dachau; escaping during a death march from Landsberg by hiding in the woods; his liberation by United States forces two weeks after escaping; following the 74th Tank Battalion on their tour through Germany and Czechoslovakia; swearing himself into the United States Army at a G.I. Camp Home Run in Le Havre, France in November 1945 and receiving American citizenship; taking a position doing laundry at Camp Home Run; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral History

    Nina Schuster Merrick, born in Rokitno, Poland in 1929, describes growing up in a religious family; attending Hebrew school as a child; hiding with her family in the woods during the 1939 bombing raids; her family’s forced move into a ghetto in Berezdiv, Ukraine when the Germans invaded Poland; forced labor, including peeling potatoes for German soldiers; the SS raid of her home in August 1942 and jumping out a window to avoid getting caught; hiding in the woods and eventually being taken in by a sympathetic Ukrainian general, who was involved with a partisan group; learning to be a nurse and working in the partisan group; the General sending her to Moscow, Russia on February 18, 1943, so she could attend technical school; working in a Moscow factory, where she remained until after the war; going to a Jewish collective farm in Germany; an aunt from Washington, DC contacting her in February 1947; and immigrating to the United States to live with her aunt in late 1947.

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral History

    Eva Rozencwajig Stock, born on January 15, 1919 in Kozienice, Poland, describes her family; the establishment of the Kozienice ghetto in 1939 and moving into it; bribing officials to have her family taken together to Skarżysko-Kamienna, a forced labor camp in Poland, during the liquidation of the ghetto; managing to move her family to Szydlowiec and then to Pionki, Poland, where they worked in an ammunition factory; the deportation of her father and brother to Mauthausen, where they both died; being deported to Auschwitz with her mother and sisters; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen and then to Elsnig, a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Germany; returning to Poland at the end of the war and then leaving in 1949 for Israel; and immigrating to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral History

    Ivo Herzer, born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (Croatia) on February 5, 1925, describes his early childhood; the introduction of anti-Jewish, Serb, and Romani legislation in 1941 by the Croatian Ustaša government; his arrest at sixteen years of age by a Croatian official and going to a transit camp in the outskirts of Zagreb for a short period until an Ustaša officer told him to return home; escaping with his family in July 1941 to the Italian-Croatian border and ending up in Gospić, Yugoslavia (Croatia); being put onto a military train, returning them to Croatia; escaping the train with the help of smugglers; moving to Susak, Croatia, where they hid for one month; Italian authorities sending his family and about sixty other Jewish refugees to Crikvenica, Croatia, where they lived under Italian protection in the Italian zone in Yugoslavia; the Italian authorities placing the Jewish refugees in a camp in 1942 until 1943, when the Italians brought them and two thousand other Jewish refugees into one camp on the island of Arbe, Dalmatia (Croatia); the Italian surrender to the Germans in 1943 and fleeing to southern Italy to the Allied occupied part of Italy; traveling with his family to the Croatian island of Vis and getting picked up by a British military ship and taken to Bari, Italy; the British directing his family to Taranto, Italy, where they were placed in a camp under British control; leaving the British camp and traveling to Bari; working as a translator and typist for the British Army in Bari after he was liberated; moving to Rome, Italy to work for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee from 1946 to 1948; and immigrating to the United States in 1955.

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral History

    Boleslaw Brodecki, born in March 1921 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; the German invasion in September 1939; boarding a train with his sister and escaping to Rostov, Russia while she went to Prużana, Poland; rejoining his sister in Prużana after the German invasion of Soviet territories in June 1941; entering the Prużana ghetto and staying there until he was deported to Birkenau in the winter of 1941 or 1942; being marched to Auschwitz I and then to Swietochlowice, Poland, where he worked in a machine factory making parts for airplanes; being sent on a forced march as the Russian army approached; arriving in Mauthausen and working in a nearby factory; being marched to various camps including Gräditz-Bareza, Flossenbürg, and Theresienstadt; his liberation in Theresienstadt by Soviet forces in 1945; going to a displaced persons camp in Landsberg am Lech, Germany in 1945 and getting a job as a policeman; meeting and marrying his wife, Sonia Brodecki, in the camp in December 1945; having a son and then immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral History

    Irene Weber, born in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes her family; attending a Polish school until she was about 10 years old, when the war began; the immediate effects of the war on her family, including the closing of her father’s business and the German raids on her home; her father and brother secretly educating her at home; receiving a work card and having to cut thread at a factory; being taken from the factory and sent to the Gliwice labor camp; discovering that her father had died of a heart attack shortly before her deportation; staying in Gliwice from March 1943 to May 1945, when she and others were evacuated from the camp because the Russians neared; being taken care of by some of the older female prisoners; her liberation by the International Red Cross in May 1945; being taken to a hospital to recuperate; having no desire to return to her hometown and see the destruction there; staying on a farm instead of going into a displaced persons camp; going to school in Munich, Germany with the help of the UNRRA; and meeting her husband and deciding to immigrate to the United States with him.

    Oral history interview with Josef

    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.