Oral history interview with Sofie Löwenherz
Some video files begin with 10-60 seconds of color bars.
- Interviewee
- Sofie Löwenherz
- Interviewer
- Dr. Edith Ehrlich
Dr. Leonard H. Ehrlich - Extent
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1 sound cassette : analog..
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Carl S. Ehrlich
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Record last modified: 2018-01-22 10:41:34
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn607580
Also in Oral history interviews of the Leonard and Edith Ehrlich collection
Oral history interviews of the Leonard and Edith Ehrlich collection, created in the late 1970s during the Ehrlichs' research for the book "Choices Under Duress of the Holocaust," about the fate of the Jewish Community of Vienna during the Holocaust era. Contents include interviews related to key figures in the Jewish Community of Vienna during the Nazi era, including Benjamin Murmelstein, rabbi and member of the Jewish Council of Theresienstadt and Josef Löwenherz, leader of the Jewish Community of Vienna under Nazi rule and subsequently the Jewish Council of Theresienstadt. Other interviews include Sofie Löwenherz and Siegmund Levarie, the wife and son of Josef Löwenherz; Willy Stern who worked for Benjamin Murmelstein in Vienna; H.G. Adler, Holocaust survivor and author of "Theresienstadt 1941-1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft;" Rudolf Bunzl, who headed the economic department in Theresienstadt and who was friends with Franz Kafka and his sister; and some still unidentified interviewees. In addition to interviews, the collection includes the lectures given by the Ehrlichs, among them a conference at Yad Vashem in the 1970s on the role of the Council of Elders at which Isaiah Trunk and Raul Hilberg also spoke.
Date: 1974-1979
Oral history interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein and unidentified interviewees
Oral History
Recordings include a portion of Professor Leonard H. Ehrlich and Dr. Edith Ehrlich's interview with Benjamin Murmelstein as well as interviews with unidentified interviewees.
Oral history interview with Margaret Feiler
Oral History
Part 1: In the office of Dr. Margaret Feiler (a Holocaust survivor and former Jewish community staffer from Vienna, Austria) at the Joint Distribution Center in New York, Leonard and Edith Ehrlich read English translations of historical documents which they have obtained from the Joint Distribution Committee that relate to Austrian Jews, including telegrams, newspaper articles, letters, and reports. Part 2: The interview begins with discussion of the respective relationships and contacts between Kultusgemeinde and Zentralstelle and Gestapo Leitstelle. Dr. Feiler describes her work in the community's translation department and the functions Benjamin Murmelstein had within the community. Part 2 ends with Leonard Ehrlich continuing to read aloud English translations of historical documents. Part 3: The interview continues with Margaret Feiler describing the relationship between Murmelstein and Rabbi Jung (most likely Rabbi Leo Jung of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee); her correspondence with Murmelstein in the 1970s, which she reads from (in German); how she went to the Joint in Lisbon, Portugal with "the children"; arriving in New York, NY; Murmelstein's son; Dr. Josef Schwarz, who was the Director-General for Overseas Operations; her last visit to Vienna in 1973 when she met Jonny Moser (a Holocaust survivor and well-known Austrian historian of the Holocaust); her speculation that Murmelstein to some extent has a "persecution complex" and she is someone Murmelstein trusts; how Murmelstein got into the organization; who did what in the community's office and/or Murmelstein's office, including Mrs. Margarete Mezei. Part 3 ends with Leonard Ehrlich continuing to read aloud English translations of historical documents. Part 4: Tape begins with Leonard and Edith Ehrlich reading aloud English translations of historical documents. The interview continues with Margaret Feiler describing her work on emigration issues while in Vienna and continuing this work in New York after she arrived there in December 1940; the emigration department and how the emigration process worked; communication with HICEM, JDC in New York, the Committee in Australia; payments of monies by the Joint's Transmigration Bureau; her work for Irwin Rosen; details on how she escaped Vienna on November 30, 1940 and the reluctance of her parents to leave; the interviewing of volunteers for the transports and how Dr. Fenzberg was chosen because Murmelstein was too disliked within the community; being hired in 1939 exclusively for the Australian correspondence then taking over all of the emigration correspondence; how the Gestapo asked Murmelstein to write a history of the Jews and she helped him with the manuscript along with other projects he did for the Gestapo; their interactions with the Gestapo; an "American Committee for Children" that arranged for 30 children whose fathers had died in the concentration or labor camps and whose mothers were Hungarian, Romanian, or Polish to be taken in by foster parents in the United States; escorting 10 of the children to the US via Lisbon; writing an article in the Gemeindeblatt about the rescue of the children; Murmelstein's anxiety about his own emigration; and her interactions with Rabbi Jung. Interview concludes.
Oral history interview with Mr. Bunzel and Mrs. Bunzel
Oral History
In part one of the interview an unnamed man and a woman, both survivors from the Czech Republic (possibly Mr. and Mrs. Rudolf Bunzel), discuss Theresienstadt and their interactions with Murmelstein and Eckstein; and Adolf Eichmann. In part two of the interview an unnamed man and later an unnamed woman (possibly Mr. and Mrs. Rudolf Bunzl) discusses arriving in the United States in 1954 after living in Vienna, Austria from 1949 to 1954; originating in Prague; and being deported and incarcerated in Theresienstadt. In part three of the interview Rudolf Bunzel (note that H.G. Adler's authoritative book on Theresienstadt lists him as "Bunzl"), a survivor and former Jewish official at Theresienstadt, discusses his associations with the literary circle of Kafka; his friendships with Max Brod and Franz Kafka, whom he met during the period of World War I; his life during the Holocaust and his relationship to the Jewish community in Prague; how he agreed to be transported to Theresienstadt as the designated head of the economic department ("Wirtschaftsabteilung") but how he was appointed instead as the head of the finance department ("Finanzabteilung") in Theresienstadt; how all the departments, with exception of the technical department, were a "bluff”; life during the post-war period in Vienna; the many former Nazis in post-war Vienna; anti-Nazi jokes told by Fritz Gruenbaum and Karl Farkas; his internment and the administrative organization of Theresienstadt; the names of department leaders; the inventing of work in order to protect inmates from deportation; various types of "Schutzlisten" (protective lists); being appointed head of the transport department and resigning as soon as the deportations started; daily work of the financial department; creating ghetto currency; the model ghetto charade for the Red Cross visit; discouraging Desider Friedmann from applying to head the bank; former banking officials at Theresienstadt who he tried to protect; financial matters at Theresienstadt and his interactions with Murmelstein; discrepancies in the finances; visiting the Nazi commandant Karl Rahm along with Murmelstein; becoming a close confidant of Murmelstein; the two visits to Theresienstadt by the Red Cross and the translator during both visits, a Mr. Guralek [?], who survived and ended up marrying Murmelstein's secretary; how positions in the Jewish administration were filled; the prominent Czech Jew Dr. Josef Beck who became keeper of the protective list of Czech Jews until he was denounced and deported; the Nazi commission which decided who would be deported; 200 Theresienstadt male ghetto inmates being commanded to remove the rubble from Lidice and were deported afterwards; the three commandants; his thoughts on Sudeten Germans; and Greta Polatschek.
Various presenters at a conference
Oral History
Oral history interview with Benjamin Murmelstein
Oral History
Benjamin Murmelstein (Mrs. Murmelstein and their son Wolf Murmelstein also contribute to the conversation) discusses Robert Prochnik, who worked for him; the decision Murmelstein had to make in 1938 whether to do good or bad and he believes he chose to do the former; the postwar period and how authorities did not know what to do with him; being formally placed under arrest in the Dresdner barracks (Dresdner Kaserne in Theresienstadt) but was allowed to go in and out as he pleased; the other people detained along with him; his interactions with Prochnik after the war; Rudolf Slansky (originally Salzmann) and how he was helpful to Murmelstein by preventing organized protests by the Communist party against Murmelstein; the orchestrated protest against him by survivors; his views on Prochnik’s witness statement about him at his trial; the Czech nationalists in Theresienstad and the difficult choices he had to make during the war; "Postvollmacht" which were mail certificates by which someone gave someone else the right to receive their mail after they died or were no longer able to receive it; the bartering of stolen food with local peasants in exchange for cigarettes which, in turn, would be sold to Theresienstadt inmates in exchange for food; his interactions with the Nazi commandant Karl Rahm and the Red Cross visit to the camp, which he states was his idea; Eichmann’s visits to Theresienstadt; how the inmates at Theresienstadt learned about the realities in Auschwitz; his thoughts on Nazi commandant Anton Burger and Council of Elders member Paul Eppstein; the murder of children by gas; his thoughts on Otto Zucker (a Jewish leader of Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation who was interned at Theresienstadt and deported at the end of 1944); Heinrich Himmler and the destruction of the gas chambers in Auschwitz; Robert Stricker, who was a member of the Council of Elders in Theresienstadt; being able to take Stricker and Desider Friedmann out of multiple deportation transports; the conflicts he felt about who to deport; his relations with Friedmann; how Frantisek Weidmann was appointed head of the Jewish Community Prague; using orphaned children as placeholders on deportation transports; his thoughts on and interactions with Dr. Leo Janowitz; his thoughts on Dr. Emil Tuchmann and his position as the 'Vertrauensarzt der Geheimen Staatspolizei'; Josef Löwenherz's relationship to Alois Brunner and Eichmann; Tuchmann’s regime of terror in the hospital in Vienna; his thoughts on Mrs. Feldsberg (possibly Zerline Feldsberg, the wife of Ernst Feldsberg), who was poisoned due to work she had to do for a Mr. Süss; Wolf Murmelstein’s thoughts on the psychological pressure they experienced in Theresienstadt; the power of the Council of Elders; Mrs. Murmelstein’s thoughts about Löwenherz and that there were expectations that he write an authentic history; H. G. Adler's book about Theresienstadt; his thoughts on Karl Löwenstein; getting back some of his documents after his trial; meeting with Eichmann and discussing the Heydrich assassination and the bombing attack; his view of the German non-Jewish population and their views on the plight of the Jews; his interactions with Eichmann in Theresienstadt; and the class system in Theresienstadt.
Oral history interview with Benjamin Murmelstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Benjamin Murmelstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Siegmund Levarie
Oral History
Oral history interview with Benjamin Murmelstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mr. Shek
Oral History
Oral history interview with Benjamin Murmelstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dr. Wilhelm ("Willy") Stern
Oral History
Dr. Wilhelm "Willy" Stern (1920-1999) discusses his work for the Jewish administration in Vienna, including his work for Benjamin Murmelstein in "room 8" of the Jewish community headquarters in the Seitenstettengasse, and his almost daily interactions with the Central Office for Jewish Emigration and the Gestapo; the activities of Jewish community officials who worked for Murmelstein as well as of those who worked for the Central Office for Jewish Emigration; the compilation of name card files and statistical reports; the Nisko transports; and his friendship with Kurt Mezei, who was murdered by retreating SS during the Förstergasse massacre in the last hours of the war.
Oral history interview with Mr. Kapralik
Oral History
Oral history interview with John Renner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mrs. Jonas
Oral History
Mannit W. Groag "What I know about Murmelstein"
Oral History
Oral history interview with Clara Caro
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rabbi Forhand
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hans Günther Adler
Oral History
