Overview
- Interview Summary
- Benjamin Lesser, born in 1928 in Krakow, Poland, describes his childhood and spending summers in Munkacs (Mukacheve, Ukraine) with his mother’s family; his father’s successful chocolate factory and wine and fruit syrup factory; the Nazi invasion of Poland and life changing drastically for the Jews; most Jews being put into the Krakow ghetto, while his family decided to leave the city; how this was the first of several escapes that saved his life; being temporarily safe in Hungary in 1943; the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944; being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps; surviving a death march; ending up in Buchenwald; and being in Dachau when he was liberated by the Americans in April 1945.
- Interviewee
- Ben Lesser
- Interviewer
- Esther Finder
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Esther Toporek Finder
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 digital file : MOV.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- Restrictions on use. Restrictions may exist. Contact the Museum for further information: reference@ushmm.org
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Concentration camp inmates. Death march survivors. Death marches. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives. Jewish families--Poland. Jewish refugees--Hungary. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Poland. Jews--Poland--Kraków. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Hungary. Men--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Kraków (Poland) Mukacheve (Ukraine) Mukachivsʹkyĭ raĭon (Ukraine) Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945. Thuringia (Germany) World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Poland.
- Personal Name
- Lesser, Ben, 1928-
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Esther Toporek Finder, President of Generations of the Shoah - Nevada, produced the oral history interview with Ben Lesser in partnership with Raymode Fiol, President of the Holocaust Survivors Group of Southern Nevada, Brett Levner, film professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), and Sun City Anthem TV in Henderson, NV.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:34:49
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn608171
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Esther Toporek Finder collection
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Oral history interview with Lydia Lebovic and Willie Lebovic
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Oral history interview with Judd Nissanov and Magda Nissanov
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Oral history interviews with Raymonde Fiol
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Oral history interview with Sabina Callwood
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Oral history interview with Sasha Semenoff
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Oral history interview with Stan Rubens
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Oral history interview with Stephen Nasser
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Stephen Nasser, born in Budapest, Hungary in 1931, describes his family’s jewelry store; his pleasant childhood and their friendly neighbors; experiencing some antisemitism before the Nazis came in March 1943; conditions changing dramatically when the Nazis arrived; the laws changing and the Jews losing their citizenship so they were no longer protected by the Hungarian government; he and his brother getting into fights with boys who tried to bully and intimidate them; being forced with his family into a ghetto towards the end of 1943 or early 1944; only being in the ghetto a few days with his brother before a Christian friend took them to work in his factory, where they separated from the family; being deported in the spring of 1944 to an internment camp in a brick factory; being transported with his mother and some other relatives being transported from the brick factory in a cattle car to Auschwitz-Birkenau; witnessing the murder of some of his relatives in Birkenau; staying with his brother in Birkenau for less than a week until they were sent to Muhldorf, a subcamp of Dachau in Bavaria, Germany; building a bomb-proof munitions factory; remaining there until liberation on April 30, 1945; and being liberated from a death train by General Patton’s 3rd Army.
Oral history interview with Tamas Foldes
Oral History
Tamas Foldes, born on March 20, 1938 in Budapest, Hungary, describes the invasion of the Nazis when he was celebrating his 6th birthday in 1944; his family having Shutzpasses (protective passports) issued from Spain; how these passes were not as secure as Swedish passes and sometimes Jews with such passes were still taken out, shot, and their bodies were dumped in the Danube River; his family being kicked out of their home and having to find shelter in dangerous circumstances; living in the international ghetto, also known as the little ghetto; the Hungarian fascists rounding them up one night and the people in his building bribing someone to help them get to the big ghetto, where they might be slightly safer than where they were living; his mother, who was an actress and was saved from deportation by a guard who was one of her fans; and the takeover of Budapest by the Soviet troops in January 18, 1945.
Oral history interview with Tom Figueras
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Tom Figueras (né Nadelstecher), born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia (Ukraine) in October 1927, describes changing his last name after the war; his father, who was a dentist; his one brother, who was a musical prodigy and played the violin in the orchestra in the Buchenwald concentration camp until he was sent to Bergen-Belsen; his other brother, who was a heavy smoker and traded his bread for cigarettes in the concentration camp; no one in his immediate family surviving the war; the Nazis arriving in his town in March 1944 and being sent within two months to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he stayed three days; being transported to the Gross-Rosen cluster of camps in Germany; his leather shoes wearing out and being forced to wear ill-fitting wooden clogs, which damaged his feet; staying in a hospital for three months; being force-marched to Bergen-Belsen and how most of the other prisoners with him did not survive; getting himself on a transport to Hildesheim, Germany; the housing of the Jewish laborers in a synagogue in Hildesheim; his job pulling dead bodies out of bomb shelters; often finding food in those shelters; American bombers destroying the town; marching back to Bergen-Belsen; how conditions there had deteriorated in the weeks he had been away; and being liberated by the British on April 15, 1945.
Oral history interview with Joseph Frank
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Joseph Frank, born in Bavaria, Germany in March 1937, discusses his father's prewar cattle business; dramatic changes for Jews in Germany following Kristallnacht; his father's arrest and deportation to Dachau concentration camp for three months; his father's release under the condition that he and his family would leave quickly from Germany; finding temporary refuge in England; the suspicion of German spies in Britain; his family being separated; being placed in an orphanage at two years old; and his family's immigration to the United States in March 1940.
Oral history interview with Gary Rosenthal
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Gary Rosenthal, born in Vienna, Austria in 1933, describes his father, who was a publisher of a pharmaceutical magazine; the Anschluss in 1938; life changing dramatically for the Jews after the Nazis took over; his parents having different opinions about what to do before the Anschluss: his father wanting to stay and his mother wanting to leave; how after the Anschluss all the Jews wanted to leave, but nobody at that time had any idea what was about to happen to the Jews in Europe; his parents writing to strangers and relatives with the name Rosenthal and Blaustein (his mother’s maiden name) in order to find someone to help them leave Austria; getting help to go to the United States; his family leaving in September 1938 and boarding the SS Washington; crossing the Atlantic; and arriving in the US on October 8, 1938.
