- OK, this is January 22nd, and we're
- at the home of Helga Gross for an interview for the Holocaust
- Museum.
- Would you tell us about where you grew up,
- what your family was like, your parents, your siblings, you're
- background?
- I grew up at my parents' home.
- I was a very happy child until Hitler changed everything.
- And he changed my life.
- It was very rough.
- Did you know about Hitler and his policies?
- When did you become aware of Hitler and his policies?
- He was president of--
- in Germany, Interbruck-- oh, at the Hindenburg.
- President Hindenburg, when he died, Hitler took over.
- We were all shocked that that happened.
- Before, we didn't know.
- My grandmother was crying.
- My mother and father--
- what's going on?
- We had no idea.
- How old were you at the time?
- I think it was 1933 when he took over, so I was 13 years old.
- I remember it well.
- When I saw my parents and my grandmother,
- they were all crying.
- I didn't understand yet.
- I was still too young, and I was deaf.
- So interviews were very difficult.
- How did you communicate in your family because--
- well, first tell us--
- I'm sorry.
- First tell us about your family and were they all deaf?
- Or were your parents deaf?
- Or-- give us a little bit more about what
- your family was like.
- My parents were hearing.
- My father was awkward.
- He really didn't have good communication with deaf people.
- My mother was a singer.
- And she really taught me how to speak, and play the piano--
- and with intonation, using the piano.
- I practiced a lot and that's one reason I spoke well,
- the German language, that is.
- Every morning at breakfast, we would
- sit with paper and pencil.
- And I would try and talk to my parents
- using a different language.
- My parents thought that I was using a wrong language.
- They said, you must speak properly.
- If it was wrong, then we would write down
- on the paper the correct way.
- And they told me I must read a lot of books
- and learn the language correctly.
- So it was your mother who really was
- the communicator in the family?
- Yes.
- What about with your--
- They never ignored-- my mother never ignored me or my brother.
- The two of us were deaf, and she always paid attention to us.
- I have another brother and sister as well,
- and they're hearing.
- And they played music.
- I couldn't hear anything, but we were very happy as children.
- Always music in the house.
- Music's in our blood, all of us.
- T--t--tell-- go ahead.
- When people would come to visit or to eat,
- there were-- we were always playing
- and they would ask us questions.
- They would say the alphabet.
- For five minutes we would have to write-- or I would write--
- until I got everything right.
- And if the names were wrong, it would be like a game--
- who could remember the names and who could spell them right?
- And I would win.
- I remember being so happy.
- We would go out after dinner for a walk.
- My father taught me, what's the name of that tree?
- And see that bird?
- Here's the name of this bird.
- Always trying to teach me, my father was--
- all of the children, actually.
- He would use gestures and he would move his mouth.
- How did she understand what he was saying?
- Did she read lips, or--
- Yes, I read his lips.
- [PHONE RINGING]
- My mother could see in my mind, but the German language, I
- hadn't learned it.
- It was a hard process.
- [PHONE RINGING]
- Can you tell her to stop the telephone ringing?
- [SIDE CONVERSATION]
- Ask her again because the phone--
- because the phone rang, if she would tell us again
- about how she and her father communicated.
- Again?
- Start from what I said before?
- What do you mean again?
- Yes, from what she said before about what she
- would walk with her father--
- [PHONE RINGING]
- We have to unplug the phone.
- [SIDE CONVERSATION]
- [PHONE RINGING]
- Phone's ringing again.
- We're rolling again.
- OK, so I'm trying to understand if her family--
- did they sign?
- Or did they just read lips?
- Or how did they communicate?
- We read lips and signed too.
- My parents didn't have anything against signing.
- They thought signing was beautiful.
- Signing has helped to relax with deaf people.
- It's hard to just--
- and stressful to just read lips, so they
- preferred us to be relaxed.
- Some other people's parents were against signing.
- And they really forced them to speech read,
- and the children got very frustrated.
- But I was very relaxed and very happy
- because my mother and father had a lot of music in the house,
- and they understood the arts.
- And there was a lot of love around us always.
- I was very lucky to have the parents I had.
- Tell us about your school--
- what kind of school you went to.
- It was a deaf school.
- Did you read about--
- deaf and dumb is what it means.
- A long time ago, they used to refer to deaf as deaf and dumb.
- Deaf-- stumm, in German.
- And I would be silent.
- I would just say deaf, not dumb.
- Now it's like handicapped.
- That's much better than long time ago,
- when they said deaf and dumb.
- I would go back and forth from home to school.
- It was about a 30-minute walk.
- I was very happy with my classmates at school.
- We played around, we talked.
- Signing was not allowed in school.
- The teachers forced us to speech read.
- But when we were outside, we all signed together.
- And how long did you go to this school?
- Was it-- did she start school in this school?
- Until I was 14 years old, I went to that school.
- Maybe-- I went--
- my mother took me to school, I think first
- to a hard of hearing school.
- And they found out that I didn't hear well enough,
- so then they put me in the school for the deaf.
- I was nine years old--
- eight or nine at the time.
- Stayed there until I was 14.
- Then I stayed home with my parents.
- I was like a house-daughter.
- I cleaned, I cooked.
- They taught me how to speak, and how to do a lot of things.
- Was this--
- When I was-- two years later, when I was 16,
- this house-daughter learned to cook and sew and everything,
- so then I went to work.
- I went to work as a weaver.
- I learned art.
- I went to school with hearing people, of course.
- It was really difficult for me.
- I was frustrated.
- I didn't really understand what the teacher was saying.
- My mother talked with the administrators about my problem
- and being deaf.
- Bibliotheque-- I went into the library, got books,
- and it still didn't satisfy me enough.
- I needed to have that one-on-one education.
- But I had to accept that I was deaf, so they just went ahead
- and let me go to work.
- I think when I was 17 or 18 years old,
- the boss where I was doing weaving, he really liked me.
- I was kind of his pet.
- They liked my designs.
- A very small town, where he lived,
- the boss invited me to their house to work.
- There was one town, then Hamburg, and another town.
- The bombs started happening in Hamburg,
- and destroyed everything.
- My parents evacuated.
- They went south.
- I stayed in the island--
- I stayed in the island--
- on the island.
- I begged my boss to contact my parents, but he refused.
- He just told me to stay put, and I cried so much.
- I hoped that my parents were still alive.
- I didn't know if they were dead or alive.
- There was no contact for a month.
- And finally, we received word that my parents were alive.
- Then my boss allowed me to go and see my parents.
- I stayed in the south, in Bavaria.
- Ask her how old was she when she left school,
- and how old was she when she left--
- I was 14 when I left school.
- And when did you leave home?
- Around 16.
- Our house was destroyed by fire.
- My father had many, many books.
- And the fire destroyed all of them but one.
- My brother and I--
- the three of us, my deaf brother and I--
- the other brother and sister were gone.
- One was in the army.
- My other sister was gone.
- My deaf brother and I, we were with my parents,
- and we saw what was left.
- A lot of people died from the bombings and the fires.
- Can we go back when she was in school,
- and talk about what happened when the steriliz--
- how they were told by their teacher
- when the sterilization law took effect?
- One moment.
- [SIDE CONVERSATION]
- So again, my question is when did she--
- how did she find out about the sterilization law?
- And how did they talk to her about it in school?
- In the class, a teacher came into the room
- and said, good morning.
- There were six boys and four girls.
- And I was one of the girls.
- We were all sitting in like a semicircle
- and the teacher was standing up by the window, just looking.
- We were just waiting.
- The teacher didn't teach anything.
- We were wondering what was wrong.
- Then came a man from the government.
- It was very interesting.
- And he said to all of us, school students--
- he was explaining to us how to breathe--
- and you must go to the hospital for sterilization.
- And we said, what?
- Why?
- What do you mean go to the hospital for sterilization?
- He explained that when you grow up and get married,
- you won't be able to have a baby.
- We said, huh?
- It means we can't have a baby?
- We all looked at each other.
- We really didn't understand.
- Then he left.
- I went home, and I told my mother.
- My mother really didn't explain it to me.
- Later I found out that my mother had gotten a letter from them.
- No, wait-- forget-- just a moment.
- They chose an 11-year-old girl from my class.
- She had deaf parents.
- They took them all to the hospital at one time,
- and sterilized them.
- When they came back--
- we were young, we really didn't understand.
- Especially clearly, we didn't understand what it all meant.
- Well, we just thought nothing of it and continued playing.
- My father, I was like his pet, he really loved me.
- And I felt funny.
- I told my mother, why is my father so affectionate
- and loves me so much as compared with my other sisters
- and brothers?
- Why, what's wrong?
- Mother said, oh, your father likes you just
- like everybody else.
- Everybody's equal.
- We love to see you smile though.
- He called me sunshine.
- Then as the time became near, I remember
- very well, I was in the kitchen and I was cleaning.
- My mother came and said, Helga, sit down.
- And she explained, you have to go to the hospital in two days.
- I said, I have to go to the hospital to get sterilized?
- I was calm.
- I kind of accepted it.
- My mother must have thought something was wrong
- or that I was going to run away or get crazy,
- but I was very calm.
- She said, how come-- later she asked me,
- how come you were so calm?
- And I said, well, the other girls had it done,
- so I just accepted it, that it was fair.
- If they did, I guess it was my turn.
- My father cried.
- He refused to see me.
- He didn't want to hug me before I left home
- to go to the hospital.
- It was a very small, cute hospital-- a very nice place,
- actually.
- Babies-- only babies were born there.
- A woman did the surgery, gave me anesthetic and a shot.
- Everything was good and clean.
- After the surgery, I woke up.
- I was throwing up, and I could feel something heavy
- on my stomach.
- My mother was sitting next to me.
- And I tapped her, she was like sleeping.
- I said, Mummy, Mummy.
- The second sister underneath me opened the door
- and looked in and said, hi.
- Her big eyes looked in at me, and I was laughing.
- She was so funny-- to see her, just these two big eyes
- poking through the door.
- Oh, but the pain when I laughed, oh-ho, great pain.
- I said, go away.
- Where was my father?
- He couldn't come.
- He was so embarrassed because he was crying for me.
- Later, two of my schoolmates came, and the three of us
- just sat and cried.
- Did she know-- well, to go back a little bit, when--
- how old was she when that man first came in?
- And then how old was she when the operation happened to her?
- I was 11 or 12 years old.
- The other girl was 11 when she went to the hospital.
- I hadn't gone to the hospital until I was 16.
- They were hoping that I wouldn't have to go,
- but I wanted to become a grandmother, you see.
- And that's the reason-- oh, they wanted to become
- a grandmother if I had a child.
- And that's the reason my mother was crying and my father too.
- Did she-- did you understand why this was happening?
- Why they were doing this?
- Not until later-- years later.
- When I moved to the United States in 1954,
- five years later, I went back to Germany for a visit.
- I saw my baby sister.
- She had a beautiful baby.
- The baby was so beautiful and I got to hold the baby.
- And that morning, my sister was feeding the baby.
- And then I realized what I felt when I realized
- I couldn't have any children.
- I started to cry.
- And I ran into the bathroom and just cried and cried.
- When I came back out, my sister said, what's wrong?
- What's the matter?
- I said, oh, I'm just crying because I'm happy for you
- because you have a beautiful child.
- Then the next day I saw other people with babies and I cried.
- And as I got older, I tried to forget about it.
- How old was she when this-- when this happened,
- when she took this trip?
- Was she married?
- Or was she single?
- Or--
- I was married then.
- I was 35 years old, about.
- Did the officials, the government officials,
- or your family explain why this had
- to happen to you, why this operation was going to happen?
- My mother's brother was a judge, and he
- was trying to help us to prevent the operation.
- He was not successful.
- Oh, he was not a member of the Nazi regime, so it didn't work.
- My father was the same way.
- I was a Girl Scout, and they were
- trying to force me to become a member of the Nazi party.
- I said, oh, no.
- They said, you must.
- I said, why?
- Because you can speak with hearing people and other--
- and children.
- Well, my mother taught me how to speak.
- They gave me the paper, told me I had to go to the flag--
- where the flag was, and sign some papers.
- I refused.
- My weaving boss invited me to the island to stay.
- And I went there and I told the teacher,
- I'm leaving for the island, they invited me.
- I don't know how long I'll stay.
- She said, bring the papers with you.
- You must go in there with your papers
- and take them with you everywhere.
- My heart sank.
- I felt so much fear for a very long time.
- I would sleep, and then I would walk to work.
- The Nazis, two of them would stand there with their flags
- as I walked by.
- I had the papers with me all the time.
- Should I go or not?
- Should I go or not?
- I would pass them.
- I was afraid they would pull me back by my hair.
- But they didn't.
- I'd say, no.
- And every day this would happen.
- And I'd be filled with fear as I walked past these two men
- with their flags.
- And they were bombing Hamburg.
- And I needed to rest.
- And I thought I needed some relief.
- But I heard later that our teacher
- was dead from the bombs.
- Then when I went to the south to join with my father and mother,
- I still had those papers with me.
- Then during the war, then we saw the white flag.
- Bombs were everywhere.
- And now I could claim--
- come to-- from south, I went to-- could go to America.
- Before I came to America-- in Germany--
- the Americans, the Germans--
- we lost the war.
- Hitler died.
- That was good.
- When we saw the white flag, it meant
- that we had given up, that there was no more war.
- The American soldiers saw us, and they tore the papers,
- threw them away--
- threw them in the fireplace and burned them up.
- Boy, did I feel relieved.
- And years later, when I wanted to come to the USA,
- my husband's uncle helped us.
- They-- to support us for five years.
- And after five years, I became an American citizen.
- Before, in Germany, in Hamburg, my husband and I
- asked his aunt and uncle.
- They lived in Michigan--
- Detroit, Michigan.
- We came as an immigrant-- as immigrants.
- And they were very happy to help us, to support us.
- But the aunt and uncle went to the American Consulate.
- And at the consulate they asked for papers,
- and they told them about my husband and I,
- that we were deaf.
- They turned us down.
- They said deaf was not allowed to come to the United States.
- I was very disappointed.
- Two years later, one American man from Boston--
- he was deaf himself--
- we became good friends.
- We told him about wanting to come to the States.
- And we said we were looking for freedom.
- And I had read books about America,
- and I was so impressed.
- This man said, good.
- He helped us go to the American Consulate,
- and asked for our papers.
- And he said, I will support them.
- They turned us down again.
- Second time I was disappointed.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- OK.
- So the gentleman went to Washington DC,
- and he typed out everything, and finally, they
- allowed us to come to the United States,
- thanks to this gentleman from Boston.
- We'd been waiting for two years on a list.
- There were many people.
- Finally, they called us.
- Well, actually, it is less than two years.
- They called us to come to America.
- The first and second times, there were so many questions.
- And there was a list, and one of the questions
- that they asked had you been a member of the Nazi party?
- And I answered, no!
- And in my mind, I looked back, and I thought, oh,
- if I had said yes, they wouldn't let us come to the US,
- if I had joined way back when.
- This is true.
- So I'm so happy that that never took place,
- that they didn't force me.
- So they swore us in.
- You have to obey the laws in the United States,
- and they explain some of the rules.
- We said, yes, yes I do.
- I do.
- OK.
- Let's go back, and again, I need to know
- if they explained why this operation needed
- to happen to you deaf children.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- She has to start the answer with my question.
- They explained to the deaf children
- that they didn't want deaf children--
- that they had to be sterilized, because they didn't want
- deaf children to have children who would
- grow up and be deaf as well.
- So this is how they explained it to us.
- My brother was deaf, as well as me.
- So a long time ago, in the generation,
- it just happened to the two of us.
- We don't know why.
- This other classmate of mine, her parents were hearing,
- and she was free from it, because her father
- was a member of the Nazi party.
- Did you think, because there was so much time
- that passed from the time that they first told you--
- so you were 16, and they took you for the operation.
- Did you think all that time that you were still possibly going
- to get this operation?
- Well, really, I wasn't even thinking about it.
- My mother didn't explain it to me enough,
- and the teachers certainly didn't explain it to all of us.
- Once was enough.
- That was all, once they told us and not more than that.
- So I really didn't give it much thought.
- Did anyone, either in your family or in the school
- try to stop them from doing these operations?
- The school, people from the school but not my family.
- OK.
- She has to, again, nobody's going to know what I asked her.
- The men that came from the government to our school
- told the teacher to choose which children that we
- should send to the hospital for sterilization.
- But did anyone try to stop them from doing it?
- My uncle who was a judge tried to stop it from happening,
- but he failed.
- OK.
- After-- no that's [INAUDIBLE] after the war,
- how did the operation affect your plans to marry?
- My husband, I felt sorry for my husband.
- He was sterilized too, and he had gotten the letter.
- And they sent him to the hospital, and he refused.
- He rebelled against it.
- Then, he got a second letter, and he rebelled again.
- The third time, they came and took him to the hospital
- without any anesthetic.
- They just tied his hands down, and they sterilized him,
- and he screamed.
- But he was very strong in his mind, very wonderful.
- He was a good sportsman.
- He was in the Olympic swimmers.
- He was an Olympic swimmer.
- After the operation, no, he went downhill.
- So he was looking for a woman, and then he found me,
- and I was a good swimmer too.
- So we had peace of mind neither of us could have children.
- So it was a good marriage in that sense.
- How old was her husband when they did this to him?
- I think he was 17 or 18 years old, I think.
- He was 17 or 18 years old what?
- When they sterilized him.
- His aunt from Michigan had come to see him.
- My husband must have gone to the hospital for sterilization,
- and his aunt said, come with me.
- Come with me, and he said, no.
- He was in the headlines, because he
- was a famous swimmer, like Johnny [? Wissmiller ?] was
- in the States.
- He kept all of these clippings together, and his aunt did.
- And his father said to him, you have to play with girls,
- before you have a baby, before you get sterilized.
- And he said, no, I don't want to play with girls.
- But it failed.
- They took him anyway.
- So even though he was a famous, admired athlete,
- that didn't keep them from doing this to him?
- No.
- I don't know why, but they didn't ask him any questions
- really.
- I really don't like to think of the past so much,
- and he didn't think about it.
- We now have to look forward.
- I feel sorry for thousands of people who died.
- In the camps, they had it worse than I did, actually.
- I'm thankful.
- I'm very thankful.
- I'm still alive.
- I'm 80 years old.
- I can climb.
- I can do lots of things.
- I have a question.
- It sounds like your family life was wonderful.
- Yes.
- So to your parents, there was nothing wrong with you,
- but you couldn't hear, except you couldn't hear.
- Right.
- And then, the government--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- And then the government comes and says, you're defective.
- Defective?
- M parents were very proud of us, and they were proud
- that I could come to the United States.
- They applauded that, without an interpreter, just
- the two of us, ourselves.
- Because that world is certainly different,
- and I learned English.
- In Germany, I learned English there too.
- I could say goodbye.
- I love you.
- Thank you, just a little bit of English, and then I progressed.
- But my question is, when you were
- a child there, in the school, when they were doing
- these operations, did you suddenly feel like something
- was wrong with you that you--
- before, you didn't feel like anything was bad about you,
- and then now somebody is telling you you're no good.
- Later, I woke up, when I realized
- it was because I couldn't hear.
- I was really very innocent when I was younger.
- So in fact, she didn't know why they were doing the operation?
- I knew that they were doing the operation
- so I couldn't have children to perpetuate deafness.
- So she did know that.
- Yes.
- I knew why they were doing the operation.
- OK.
- Do you have any more questions that you'd
- like to know about this?
- Because really, I pretty much got everything.
- No, I'm asking you.
- I have one.
- OK.
- Yeah.
- I had a few, but--
- There was a conversation in some papers
- that she carried with her for a long time
- and then were torn up, and I never quite
- understood what those papers were.
- But apparently they were bad papers.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Explain what the papers were.
- It said that I was a member of the Nazi party,
- because I was a Girl Scout.
- So those papers that I carried said
- I was a leader of the Girl Scouts,
- and so I had to carry those papers that said I
- was a member of the Nazi party.
- I really wasn't, but that's what the paper said.
- They were forcing me to join, but in the back of my head,
- I knew.
- God helped pull me back.
- I would not go in.
- I had the papers to become a member, but I wouldn't do it.
- And every day, when I would walk from the house to the job,
- and I would pass by the soldiers.
- I would just feel the fear that they
- might ask if I was a member or not,
- and for years this went on.
- After America claimed Germany, that's when I felt like a bird,
- free, I could fly free.
- But the papers said she was a member of the Nazi party?
- They weren't filled in.
- The papers were not filled in.
- I just carried them with me.
- There were no answers, and I hadn't signed the papers.
- So they didn't really say anything.
- I didn't sign them.
- An American soldier said I must go to my boss
- and ask for a file to see if I had anything on my record,
- but I had a clean record.
- The Nazi had a huge file in the basement,
- and they found papers on them, because I
- knew some of the people.
- Some of my friends' uncles or nephews,
- they came from Bulgaria to the United States, and they said,
- do you remember?
- And they asked them, were you a member of the Nazi party?
- And they denied it.
- They said, OK, you're accepted, and then they
- could support these people when they came to America.
- When you went to the American consulate,
- you had to take an oath two to tell the truth.
- And they asked, are you a member of the Nazi party,
- and somebody confessed to saying, yes.
- They took their file.
- They put their name in the file.
- So I was afraid that that same thing would happen to me.
- So I never signed those papers.
- Do you have any questions that arose during this?
- As a deaf woman, did you know German sign language,
- and then how, when you came to America,
- did you learn American Sign Language?
- I would meet friends and I asked them to help me.
- And I picked up a dictionary, English,
- German, German and English, so I could learn different signs.
- And the Lutheran preacher at the church,
- I asked him to come to my aunt and uncle's house
- to teach me finger spelling and sign language for one year,
- and that's how I learned.
- What happened to your brother with regard
- to the sterilization?
- Was he supposed to be sterilized also?
- No, they didn't sterilize him.
- He has twin daughters.
- They're both hearing, beautiful girls.
- He was lucky.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- He didn't avoid it.
- He was supposed to go to the hospital,
- but the hospital was full.
- And it was wartime, and many soldiers and people
- were being rushed to the hospital.
- There was no available space for him, so he didn't go.
- So they did not sterilize him.
- He was very happy.
- I was happy.
- People would ask me, do you feel bad
- that your brother has two children
- and you don't have any?
- I said, no, I'm very happy that he has twins.
- I'm just happy that I have two beautiful nieces.
- Did any health officials or anyone
- come to your family to explain that they thought
- deafness was hereditary?
- No, nothing.
- There was no discussions about that?
- When I was 28 years old, I came to the United States.
- Germany, during wartime, was different.
- It was a very rough life over there,
- but it was different here.
- But when you were going through this operation,
- or when they took you for this operation,
- did anybody explain that deafness was hereditary,
- and this was something that they had to do?
- No, nothing, nothing was explained.
- Only once did the teacher tell us that you can't have babies.
- We're going to make you not have babies, so
- that the deafness doesn't become perpetuated.
- And that was it, just one time, and we didn't have any time
- really to focus on it.
- It was a very confusing time for all of us,
- all the time confusion.
- Now, you're making me look back on it more in depth.
- I didn't realize about the deaf world itself back then.
- They would call some of the mentally retarded.
- They would mainstream them in a church.
- All of us deaf people, mentally retarded people,
- they would put them--
- there was a church, and a lot of the people died from fire.
- Most of them were mentally retarded.
- They would take them away to this church,
- and years later, some of the kids were still alive.
- Most, if they were deaf, they were
- allowed to go to the church.
- They were healthy, except they just couldn't hear,
- and so they would send them off on their way.
- You know, to the gas chambers, to the camps.
- I didn't know where they were really taking them.
- One boy came from Guatemala, South America.
- His father sent him to school for the deaf.
- He was two or three years older than me.
- He went out of class from school.
- He liked me.
- He explained all about the Nazis and how bad it was,
- and I learned a lot from him.
- And I said, how do you know, and he said
- his uncle took care of him.
- His father stayed in South America,
- and his uncle took care of him.
- His uncle told him about the Nazis,
- and they said they will kill everybody, all the German kids.
- They'll sterilize all the German kids.
- He knew so much.
- That's when I started to become afraid,
- and he was fearful as well.
- I talked to my father, and he would just
- try to pacify me and calm me down.
- He'd say, don't worry, don't worry.
- My father was very sensitive.
- My father's sister, my aunt, and I asked my aunt, I said,
- is Hitler bad?
- I went to Munich for a visit with another aunt,
- and I learned from them that Hitler was bad,
- and we should all be against Hitler.
- But we had to do it very quietly,
- and they'd listen to the radio.
- And if they'd hear out of their county, like from England
- or out of their country what they
- were saying against Germany, they'd listen very carefully.
- They'd have to be careful, because there
- would be a knock at the door, and they put them in jail.
- So I learned from my aunts.
- Then, I told my father.
- They told me, Hitler's bad.
- My father said, sh, sh.
- He was frightened.
- He said, if you talk against Hitler, they'll put you away.
- They warned that the enemy could hear you all over.
- It didn't matter where you were.
- So you needed to be careful, if you said anything
- in front of anybody, because they could take you and send
- you to the camps.
- So I learned a lot from my two aunts and from the boy
- from Guatemala.
- Ask her how old she was when this happened.
- I was still in school.
- Maybe I was 12 years old, 11 or 12 years old.
- I'm trying to remember.
- I kind of forget some things about the past.
- OK.
- I think we're done.
- OK.
- We need to sit and be quiet for 30 seconds.
- Room tone.
- All right.
- OK.
- We have the [INAUDIBLE].
- That's right.
- The date's on the back of it.
- 1977, I think.
- Right.
- She was born what year?
- 23?
- [INAUDIBLE]
- This is [? Helga ?] Gross at age 14 in front
- of the School for the Deaf.
- And that's in Hamburg?
- In Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I can do this.
- I might be able to give you a little squeeze in.
- Did you give me the wide one?
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I don't want to go in any farther, because the picture's
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Well, yeah, we're just way beyond
- the limits of magnification.
- OK.
- I can't do any moves on the [INAUDIBLE]..
- Right.
- OK.
- So [? Orville, ?] you can tell us what's going on here.
- OK.
- This is Helga [? Gross ?] with her mother and father.
- Helga is on the left, and her sister
- is on the right on her mother's lap.
- Helga's on her father's lap, and her sister's
- on her mother's lap.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- OK.
- It's turning.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Helga's father died at 90 in 19--
- 61.
- 61.
- Let's see if we can get--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- [INAUDIBLE]
- She talked so much about her father.
- My father was in England for 26 years and was married there,
- and then his first wife died.
- He met a second English woman for years,
- and then there was the first world war.
- My father moved out of England.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- So the two of them together have five children?
- My mother was very young.
- She was only 23 years old.
- My father was 50.
- Wow.
- OK.
- Here we go.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- If people come by, and they watch,
- and they see video tape rolling, and they see her signing,
- you can have captions.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- So this is Helga, Helga's mother.
- Helga is on the bottom left on her mother's lap.
- Standing up is her sister, and the baby
- is her hearing brother.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Helga is the one holding the baby.
- To her right--
- Left to right in the picture.
- OK, left to right.
- Here we go.
- The young man is Helga's deaf brother.
- Then the second oldest sister and Helga, her brother
- and the baby on Helga's lap.
- And the order, Helga's the oldest.
- Helga is the oldest.
- Next would be the sister, then the brother on the right.
- Then the deaf brother--
- On the left.
- On the left, far left.
- And then the baby on Helga's lap.
- It's a baby girl.
- Yes, a sister.
- There's three girls and two boys.
- And this is Helga's, this is again
- a nice one of Helga's deaf brother.
- Excellent.
- OK.
- What else do we have?
- Who's who in this one?
- Yeah.
- But of course the edge is still going to tilt.
- Yeah, I know, but--
- OK, so this is the sister and Helga?
- Yes, this is Helga is on the right holding the baby doll,
- and her sister--
- Whose name is?
- What's her sister's name?
- Ursula.
- Ursula.
- Ursula.
- It's her sister, Ursula.
- OK.
- We got that.
- There's no way you can adjust it vice versa.
- Helga is next to her mother.
- Ursula is to the right.
- The youngest sister is between the two girls.
- Then the deaf brother is in the front
- and the oldest brother is next to the mother
- to the left of her.
- So on the extreme left is the oldest brother,
- second from the left is the deaf brother, then the mother, then
- Helga, then two of her sisters,
- Elizabeth is the baby, and then Ursula.
- Let's see also when you're done this series.
- Is there a three shot of [INAUDIBLE]
- This next shot is Helga on the right and her deaf brother
- on the left and their mother in the middle.
- It was the only shot we have the two of them together.
- This is kind of nice.
- Helga is in the red.
- Is where?
- In the red in the middle.
- And to her left is her next sister.
- You can't do it, just go left to right.
- OK, let's go from left to right.
- Elizabeth is the youngest.
- Then is the deaf brother.
- Then the wife of the guy in the middle, who
- is Helga's oldest brother.
- Then Helga in the red.
- The gentleman in the red next to Helga is the husband of Ursula.
- In the white shirt on right.
- OK, this is Helga with her deaf brother.
Overview
- Interview Summary
- Helga Gross, born in 1923 in Hamburg, Germany, discusses being diagnosed as Deaf when she was a child; her memories of when Hitler came to power in 1933; her parents’ attention to her and her siblings’ educations; a brother who was also Deaf; the presence of a lot of music in the house; her parents' encouragement to sign and not always lip-read; going to school until she was 14; working as a weaver at age 16; the bombings in Hamburg; the destruction of her home in a fire; being told when she was 11 that she would have to be sterilized; her forced sterilization at age 16; the surgery and her parents’ reactions; not realizing the significance of being sterilized until moving to the United States in 1954 and seeing her sister's baby; refusing to join the Nazi Party; carrying the papers to join the Nazi Party but never signing them; the end of the war; being prevented from coming to the U.S. at first because she and her husband were Deaf; her husband, an Olympic swimmer; how her husband had been sterilized without anesthetic; learning American Sign Language; and her Deaf brother who was not sterilized and his children. The recording includes pictures from her childhood in Hamburg.
- Interviewee
- Helga Gross
- Interviewer
- Stephen Stept
- Date
-
interview:
2003 January 22
Physical Details
- Language
- American Sign Language English
- Extent
-
3 videocassettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
- Copyright Holder
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- American Sign Language. Deaf--Germany. Deaf--Nazi persecution. Eugenics--Germany. German Sign Language. Involuntary sterilization--Germany. National socialism and medicine--Germany. National socialism and science--Germany. People with disabilities--Germany. Women--Crimes against. World War, 1939-1945--Children--Germany--Hamburg. Young women--Germany--Societies and clubs. Women--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Germany--History--1933-1945. Hamburg (Germany) Hamburg (Germany)--History--Bombardment, 1940-1945. United States--Emigration and immigration.
- Personal Name
- Gross, Helga.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum produced the interview with Helga Gross in preparation for its exhibition "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race." The interview was transferred to the USHMM Oral History Branch from the Museum's Institutional Archives in April 2013.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:29:09
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn60511?fbclid=IwAR29P6-OIElxvr6pfO7Q6QFZtR6e2bPYo6sGT-kAAs3OJuaskQrUMst5xuM
Additional Resources
Transcripts (4)
Time Coded Notes (3)
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