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Oral history interview with Maria Irmgard Weissenberg Barrows

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2018.224.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0972

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    Oral history interview with Maria Irmgard Weissenberg Barrows
    Transcript
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mrs. Maria Weissenberg
    Barrows on June 7, 2018, in San Luis Obispo, California.
    Thank you very, very much, Mrs. Barrows,
    for agreeing to speak with us today to share your story
    and to let us in on a little bit about how historical
    events impacted your life and that of your family.
    I'm going to start with very basic questions,
    and we'll develop our conversation and your story
    from there.
    OK.
    I'm honored, and I'm grateful.
    So are we.
    And the first question is, could you
    tell me the date of your birth?
    I was born April 8, 1925 in Vienna, Austria,
    and my father was a physician who practiced everything
    from dentistry to obstetrics and surgery
    in a suburb of Vienna called Voslau.
    Voslau?
    Yes, V-O-E-S-L-A-U. And he had been in the Austrian Navy
    as a physician lieutenant in the First World War when Austria
    still had a Navy out of Trieste that later became Italian
    or nowadays is part of Italy.
    Next question is, what was your name at birth?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    OK, hang on a second.
    Let me take that, yeah.
    What was your name at birth?
    Maria Weissenberg.
    And what was your father's first name?
    Eugene and middle name Henry Weissenberg, and my mother
    was Olga Waliscek Weissenberg.
    Waliscek?
    Her family were-- father was from Vienna.
    Mother was from the Sudetenland that
    changed sometimes being Polish, sometimes being Czech,
    and sometimes being German.
    Well, it is part of the Central European area and geography
    where a person could be born in one place,
    grow up there, spend their entire life
    and not moved, and yet have lived in three countries.
    Right, I hadn't thought about that, yes.
    So she was from Sudetenland?
    Yes.
    And her last name was Waliscek, which
    sounds more Czech than German?
    Right.
    And was her background more Czech than German?
    Probably.
    My maternal grandmother spoke with a little accent
    and was a loving person, raised three daughters,
    lost two of them to cancer, and lived in Vienna
    until 80-something in a urban setting
    and yet feeling very close to animals and nature.
    That's your maternal grandmother?
    And that's my Aryan side.
    So we'll establish this, then, right away.
    Were your parents-- you're not completely Jewish?
    No.
    My mother's family were Christian,
    and in fact, my father and his father
    had been baptized as children but were considered Jews
    by race.
    And I don't know what motivated grandfather,
    the Jewish grandfather, to be part of the Roman Catholic
    tradition.
    That was one of my questions, into which Christian
    denomination-- so it was Roman Catholic that they
    were baptized into?
    Yes.
    Let me focus a little bit then at the beginning
    on your mother's side of the family
    because you started to tell me about it.
    You say that she was not native to Vienna,
    she had come from Sudetenland, north of--
    The grandmother, yes.
    The grandmother had.
    Were there still relatives in Sudetenland?
    Not to my knowledge.
    She had a tragic experience of losing her first husband
    in maneuvers and was then a very young widow with an infant--
    During World War I?
    Before-- no, I'm sorry.
    This would be-- her date of birth
    would be around 1860-something, and she
    came to Vienna with her infant daughter,
    remarried, and had two other daughters, my mother
    being the youngest.
    And about when was your mother born?
    1896, and my father, 1892.
    So remind me again.
    Your grandmother's name was?
    First name.
    The--
    --maternal--
    --maternal grandmother was Hedwig, H-E-D-W-I-G, Waliscek.
    Waliscek-- and that would have been V-A-L--
    No, W-A-L-I-S-C-E-K.
    And did you know of your grandfather,
    your maternal grandfather?
    We did not have any close relationship to him,
    but we did have a much closer relationship
    to the paternal grandparents, Heinrich and Irma Weissenberg.
    We'll come to them in a minute.
    Focusing still on your mother's side, her mother, Hedwig,
    your mother, Olga, her mother, Hedwig--
    did you not have contact with both grandparents on that side
    or just the grandfather?
    Just the maternal grandmother.
    I didn't have--
    I don't remember meeting the grandfather on my--
    --mother's side.
    --mother's side, and my mother was very close to her in-laws.
    So had he passed away, do you think, by the time
    you are born?
    No.
    By the time I was born, probably.
    I don't have his death certificate.
    What was his name?
    I'm trying to remember his first name.
    The last name was K-O-W-A-R-Z--
    Kowarz.
    Kowarz-- again, that sounds more--
    Slavic, a Slavic name.
    --more Slavic than Austrian.
    But that was-- so how did they become Waliscek?
    Waliscek was the maiden name of my maternal grandmother.
    But your mother's maiden name would have been Kowarz,
    or would have that been the name of the first husband?
    No.
    It was Waliscek.
    I think that they were not married.
    I see.
    I see.
    At least I found no certificate.
    They were poor, and in order to be married,
    you had to have money.
    Well, you had to pay the priest for the ceremony.
    Did you know any of--
    your mother had only one full older sister
    and one half-sister?
    Yes, the half-sister married and was 10 years older,
    and we met her family occasionally.
    But we were not close, and she would have died long
    before the Second World War.
    Do you remember her name?
    I can't say it right now.
    That's OK.
    If it comes to you later, then we'll just say it later.
    Her first name was Angela.
    Angela?
    And I don't know her married name.
    But she would have--
    she would have been on Angela Waliscek?
    Yes.
    She would have been Angela Waliscek at birth,
    and your mother's full sister-- what was her name?
    Rosa Waliscek, and she later married Berkowitz.
    She was very gifted and had a modeling career,
    married a fashion designer, but died in her middle 30s
    from colon cancer.
    And it was my mother who took care of her
    and was very much impacted by that tragic early death.
    Were you already born when that happened?
    Yes, I was about three years old or four years old
    when Aunt Rosa died.
    Do you have any memories of her?
    Yes, she was beautiful and kind, and in her illness
    that lasted several years, she shared home with her mother
    and in a way that precipitated along
    with the death of my Jewish grandfather,
    very unexpected, from a heart attack
    in his middle 60s or early 60s.
    This precipitated a family dissolution
    because the Jewish widow did not want to live alone,
    and she had only two sons.
    One son became a professor and was at the Kaiser Wilhelm
    Institute as a peer and colleague of Einstein when
    Hitler first came to power--
    That would have been in Berlin.
    --in Berlin in 1933.
    So this is an uncle of yours?
    This is my uncle, and my father, Eugene,
    had a younger brother, Karl.
    And that's Karl.
    And Eugene became a physician, and Karl became a mathematician
    and professor.
    My father was fortunate in that when Hitler took over Austria
    in March 1938, his brother was already
    established at the University of Southampton,
    having left Berlin five years earlier.
    We'll come to this.
    I want us to still focus on some of the people--
    --the other generation, yes.
    --and the other side of the family a little bit
    because I want to make clear, if this is true,
    that your aunt Rosa's death did not
    precipitate the dissolution of the family.
    No.
    No.
    It was it was your grandfather on your father's side?
    Yes.
    You mentioned that Aunt Rosa was married to--
    her married name was Berkowitz?
    Yes.
    Did she also marry somebody who was Jewish?
    Yes, I assume that her husband--
    and I don't remember his first name.
    I never met him, but he was successful and affluent.
    And they had no children, and their marriage
    was relatively brief because of the premature death.
    And the other aunt whose name now I forgot, the older one--
    Angela.
    Angela married and had a restaurant in Vienna
    for many years and died of liver cancer.
    We were not close to them.
    Did you have siblings?
    I have one older sister, [? Lisilote. ?]
    [? Lisilote. ?]
    Yes, who was an exchange student when she was 15.
    When was she born?
    She was born August 30, 1922 in Voslau,
    and she and I had boarding school experiences
    because my Jewish grandmother was very much into education.
    And she wanted to make sure that we were well-educated,
    and she chose a Catholic convent boarding school that I loved
    and my sister despised.
    That may be [INAUDIBLE].
    Let's not be gentle about it.
    She hated it.
    Yes, because the nuns somehow enthralled me,
    and I was going to be a nun.
    And my sister wanted to be a dancer and an actress,
    and that was a little bit frowned upon in those days.
    So when an opportunity came as a result of close relations
    with American friends that date back to 1927,
    my sister lived with the Reese family
    in Torrington, Connecticut and had a student visa,
    which meant that she--
    Could we cut for-- excuse me.
    Can we cook for a second?
    We had a break because we have a kitty in the room,
    so occasionally if we'll hear a meow,
    that's because there is Christa on the mics.
    We were talking a little bit about your family background,
    and your sister, and your own experiences in Catholic school,
    which were quite divergent, and the older generation.
    I'd like to ask something.
    When you say that you weren't particularly
    close to your aunt, Angela, or other members,
    or, let's say, the grandfather you would have had,
    Mr. Kowarz, is it for--
    what were the reasons for that?
    Were there reasons for that?
    Well, I think that my maternal grandmother
    was focusing on her children, animals, and plants
    and, for whatever reason, was separated
    from that grandfather, so he really wasn't actively--
    Involved.
    --involved with our upbringing.
    And was your maternal grandfather--
    grandmother, excuse me-- a part of your early years?
    Yes.
    She was?
    Yes.
    Did she live close by?
    The closeness increased as she lost her husband because
    at that point, instead of she living in Vienna
    and we in a suburb, she persuaded my father
    to move into her spacious apartment.
    She did not want to live alone.
    This is your maternal grandmother or paternal?
    Paternal, father's family.
    Your maternal grandmother-- was she part of your daily life?
    Yes, after the separation because we
    lived in her apartment where she had nursed and lost
    her daughter.
    Rosa?
    Rosa.
    And by the time you were born, was she no longer poor?
    She had supported herself for some 20 years.
    When she came to Vienna, she came with her infant daughter
    and worked as a wet nurse in Weissenberg family,
    and the Weissenberg family was a large clan with two brothers
    and seven sisters.
    That is, your father had seven sisters,
    or was this another part of the family?
    Paternal grandfather had seven sisters and two brothers.
    Wow, that is large.
    And that set up the possibility of becoming
    acquainted for my mother Olga and Eugene
    because of Hedwig's involvement in his aunts and uncles.
    OK, because you anticipated another question that I had,
    which was, how did your parents meet?
    How was it that they came together?
    Yes, it was through the maternal grandmothers role
    as a in the Jewish clan, and also, my father
    was a physician and aware of the advantages
    of not marrying into close families because
    of the recognition of inherited disease,
    both physical and mental.
    And so whereas his Jewish mother might
    have chosen a well-to-do Jewish lady as a daughter-in-law,
    my father chose Olga, not only because she was beautiful,
    and simple, and bright, and gifted,
    but because she represented desirable genes, so to speak.
    Did he say that?
    Yes.
    And did your mother concur?
    My mother was in love with him, so she
    was very happy to be married.
    But she recognized that sharing the household
    of her mother-in-law would have squelched her.
    The mother-in-law was a leading, powerful, influential person,
    and Mutti was vivacious, and into music, and very interested
    in learning everything and anything and teaching.
    I remember her teaching other people how to write and read.
    Did she go through higher education?
    No.
    No?
    Not to higher education, but she just
    continued to learn all her life.
    She died relatively early, at age 67, and loved to travel
    and was very focused on my sister and myself.
    She did not remarry after the divorce.
    Oh, your parents did eventually divorce?
    We'll get to that.
    Yes.
    So when your parents married, was this after World War I?
    Yes, the war was over in 1918, and my parents
    married December 20, 1920.
    And by that point, was your paternal side of your family--
    were they converted into Catholicism?
    Had they converted, or was this a [? shine ?] kind
    of conversion?
    I have a feeling that it was a [? shine ?] because none
    of the family members attended church,
    and my Jewish grandmother was very supportive
    of the Jewish community, yet she did not attend a synagogue
    or kept a kosher kitchen.
    I see.
    But later on she was very loyal to the Jewish community
    and refused to leave them.
    She remained in Vienna until her death.
    OK, let's turn now to your father's side of the family.
    He had one brother?
    Yes.
    Karl?
    Karl.
    And Karl was younger?
    Yes.
    And what was your grandfather on your paternal family--
    what was his name?
    Heinrich Weissenberg, and he was involved in trading--
    not trading, but importing furniture from the Balkans.
    And that is how it happened that my father was actually born
    in Romania while they were on--
    while they were traveling on business, and that
    became a problem for him.
    The Romanian quota for immigration
    to the United States was one of the problematic ones.
    So he was not an Austrian citizen?
    Yes, he was an Austrian citizen, but when it comes--
    later in life, you want to escape Germany
    and you want to immigrate to the United States,
    it depends on where you are born as to what--
    --quota--
    --immigration quota you fall under.
    He did eventually succeed in 1944.
    By then he had re-married.
    So he was born in Romania.
    What year?
    1892, January 16.
    And his younger brother was born--
    do you know?
    Karl?
    I don't know Karl's birthday, but it was close.
    It was within a couple of years, and the boys were fun-loving.
    And in their upbringing I think they
    had a very happy childhood, but their education
    was actually instigated by their progressive mother in Germany.
    Oh, really?
    They had their undergraduate work in Jena, Germany, however,
    my father's medical studies were in Vienna.
    And Vienna was a hub for medicine in that era,
    so much so that a lot of people from other countries
    came to Vienna to be treated for various ailments.
    And that is how we had this personal connection
    to the Reese family that--
    The American Reese family?
    The American Reese family that later
    adopted me for the duration of the Second World War.
    What was your maternal grandmother's name?
    Excuse me, my mistake, paternal, your Jewish grandma.
    Irma Wiener Weissenberg.
    Ilma Wiener?
    Wiener, W-I-E, as the city, N-E-R, was her father's name,
    and her father was a temperamental financier.
    I never heard her speak of her mother,
    so I assume she died very young.
    Grandmother was the youngest of three daughters,
    and her oldest daughter is the one
    who built or had a business of providing dairy
    products to Vienna coffee houses, which
    were famous and numerous.
    And this was Aunt Ginny Wiener, and she built up this business.
    And when she died, she passed it on to my grandmother.
    So Irma became a business woman and was
    able to subsidize her physician's son's interest
    in research of neurologic disorders
    and physical medicine, the precursors
    of physical medicine.
    Wow, that's quite impressive.
    She sounds like she was quite a powerful force.
    She was very strong and bright.
    I don't know about her education,
    but she was interested in social reforms.
    She applauded the Montessori educational beginnings
    and did everything she could to help people
    with whom she had contact, particularly
    in the Jewish community as the politics became more and more
    problematic.
    You're talking the overall nationwide politics
    and the European-wide politics?
    Yes.
    Let's turn a little bit to your early years.
    Do you have any early first memories of growing up
    in episodic, maybe, events?
    Yes, I remember that our house--
    the decade that my father was in solo medical practice
    in Voslau, our house was large and had two or three stories
    so that patients could stay overnight or even longer
    periods of time, and my mother was able to assist my father.
    He did not have any nurses or other assistance,
    and again, Olga was energetic, and willing, and interested
    in her husband's career.
    But after the death of his father, he,
    I think, rather welcomed going back
    into the city with an appointment
    at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus--
    that's the main hospital in Vienna--
    and specializing in neurology and physical medicine
    because it wasn't nearly as demanding
    as having assisting babies brought into the world
    or surgical removal of appendices, or tonsils,
    or whatever the case may be.
    So there was this decade of childhood in Voslau,
    and then when the transition came to be in Vienna,
    there was the division of the family with the death
    or the illness of Tante Rosa.
    And my sister and I then associated more closely
    with my mother and the Aryan side of the family.
    Really?
    Because when-- so when you say the dissolution of the family,
    does that mean your mother and your father split?
    Yes.
    That was the point?
    Yes.
    I think my age-- about three or four years old.
    They were separated, and it was precipitated by the death
    of the paternal grandfather.
    So this would have been late 20s, early 30s?
    1928.
    Is when Grandfather died?
    Yes.
    Did you have any memories of him at all?
    Yes, I do have memories of him.
    In general terms, he was soft-spoken.
    He was always welcoming.
    You could sit on his lap.
    And we were never chastised.
    It was a happy childhood.
    My memories include the fact that my sister was
    the graceful one who took such good care of her toys
    while I was a little more of a tomboy and somehow
    or other whatever I touched I dropped and I ruined.
    So that was kind of a hard beginning.
    Did your mother and her mother-in-law--
    had they had friction all the time, or--
    I think it was more the fact that Irma,
    my Jewish grandmother--
    she was such a persona and such a leader.
    She organized everything, and she held the purse strings.
    And of course, that was intimidating to Olga,
    and I think the separation was good in the sense
    that there was no enmity between my parents.
    I never heard them speak ill of each other.
    And Olga came into her own.
    She then was independent and pursued her own education,
    later on worked for an attorney, remained in Vienna
    throughout the war, and immigrated in the later 40s
    to the United States.
    All my family were able to become citizens.
    US citizens?
    US citizens, yes, and it was my mother
    who arranged or managed to let me leave Europe
    in the middle of the war in 1940 in order for me
    to further by education, which was not permitted
    for people of mixed parentage.
    Wow.
    So that I understand clearly, the separation of your parents
    happened when you were three or four years old?
    Yes, and the divorce followed, I think, a couple of years later.
    So you continue to live in--
    what's it called, the residential area?
    We were in the ninth district of Vienna,
    and my father, then living with his mother, were in the 18th.
    Were they far apart?
    If you walked it, it would be 45 minutes approximately,
    and there was good public transportation.
    And did you see him often?
    Often-- I would say several times a month,
    and occasionally we would stay overnight
    at my paternal grandfather's spacious home.
    But we felt much closer to my mother and her mother.
    We had pets, and we had a simple household
    with plenty of challenges.
    They were enhanced by periodic separations
    from my mother arranged by my Jewish grandmother
    to expose us to educational opportunities.
    So you mean your Jewish grandmother insisted
    that you go to boarding school?
    Right, and she paid for, and arranged,
    and chose the schools as early as five, I think, or six,
    it was.
    Before I entered school, we had a six-month period in Tyrol
    ostensibly for health reasons.
    I think we had whooping cough, and immunizations were not
    so available in my generation as they are now.
    Let's talk a little bit about your parents' personalities.
    You gave me a certain insight into your mother,
    that she was very bright, loved learning, loved your father,
    was very interested in his career,
    and also continued to work after the separation and the divorce,
    and found a job with an attorney and your powerful paternal
    grandmother, Irma.
    What was your father like?
    What kind of a personality did he have?
    He was gentle, and I never saw him in a confrontational mood.
    He was a good peacemaker.
    On the other hand, he did not stand up to his mother
    when it came to supporting his wife,
    and I think, in part, that was the reason for the separation
    and the later divorce.
    But throughout it all, my parents
    spoke well of one another and were supportive.
    In fact, going ahead, when there were separation during the war,
    my mother would inquire, how is your father doing, even
    to include his second wife.
    And it is my mother who cared for her Jewish grandmother,
    fought the Nazis, was not intimidated
    by them because Grandmother didn't want to leave Vienna.
    Both of her sons, by then, were in England,
    and everybody wanted her to come to England.
    She didn't know English.
    She didn't particularly like her German daughter-in-law,
    and she wanted to staying with her peers.
    Did your grandmother like your mother?
    Yes, I'm sure she liked her, but she
    was possessive and controlling.
    And that was her nature.
    She meant well.
    I can recall when it came to shopping or buying clothes,
    my grandmother would always choose quality,
    but she had no understanding of fashions at that point
    or the preferences of my mother.
    Later on--
    She chose your mother's clothes?
    She would often just bring clothes.
    This is for you, this is for you, this is for you.
    And then we would look, and there
    were dark colors and heavy materials and coats,
    and what we wanted was fashionable, light.
    And my mother taught herself how to make clothes,
    and when my sister had her exchange student years,
    my mother sewed a hole.
    I can't think of the right word, but various outfits for her
    to travel to the United States, and she did the same for me
    before she put my name into a program
    that the Quakers brought to Vienna to help
    children of mixed parentage pursue their education.
    So my mother was very productive alone, and she thrived.
    But she would not have thrived in the same household with
    my mother-in-law--
    --because there could be only one queen.
    Right.
    Your aunt, Angela-- and what was the reason
    there was no real communication there?
    I think the fact that Angela was 10 years older,
    had married, and had an established restaurant
    business--
    so she was very occupied--
    and distances, and time constraints,
    certainly not dislike.
    It just didn't happen because life
    was busy with other things.
    Do you remember the name of her restaurant?
    No.
    Do you remember the name of the home that you had with--
    the address of the home you had when your parents were still
    together?
    Yes.
    What was the address?
    That was [? Hochstrasser ?] 20 in Voslau.
    There was this decade of their marriage from 1920 to--
    not quite a decade.
    '28, I think, is when we came to Vienna,
    and then the address for my maternal grandmother was
    in the ninth district, Nussdorferstrasse fünf, five.
    Nussdorferstrasse?
    Mm-hm.
    That actually means a village where you grow nuts, nüsse.
    Nussdorfer, that's right.
    Yeah, and we had--
    although it was an apartment on the fourth floor,
    it had two balconies, and my grandmother
    had a garden of plants on the balcony
    that would attract birds.
    She loved birds, and we dubbed her [GERMAN],,
    which means someone who mothers birds.
    She's the one that did the cooking and the shopping,
    and that freed up my mother to do sewing and work outside
    or bring people into--
    Was it a comfortable home?
    It had nice furniture from my aunt, Rosa,
    and yes, it was comfortable.
    And when money was tight--
    because there were years when my mother just
    had the child support--
    she would rent out one room to--
    Vienna always had a lot of foreign students,
    and I remember living in the presence of university students
    that were our renters.
    How large was the apartment?
    In square footage?
    No, I mean how many rooms?
    It was a large living room, a large bedroom,
    a smaller room that was my grandmother's, and half of that
    was dedicated to live plants.
    And then there was the kitchen, and the kitchen
    was the center of the apartment because all food was
    prepared with a cooking stove.
    And my grandmother's kitchen had space for eight or 10 bird
    cages.
    Oh my goodness.
    And she raised canaries or tended
    to any injured or ailing birds that neighbors or people would
    bring her, and she went out twice a day, taking her dog.
    She always had a dog because she was hard of hearing,
    and the dog would bark if someone was at the door.
    Otherwise, she wouldn't know that the bell had rung,
    and she would do marketing on--
    buying things on the open market, bring it home,
    and doing the cooking.
    Well, it sounds like a happy home.
    It was.
    Did you have modern conveniences, electricity,
    indoor plumbing, things like that?
    Yes, but no telephone.
    No telephone?
    And no refrigerator.
    Did you have a radio?
    Not until later.
    Not until later?
    And you say it was on the fourth floor?
    Yes.
    Fourth floor European?
    That is, it would be fifth floor for the American understanding?
    Yes.
    Was there an elevator?
    No.
    So it was a walk-up?
    Yes.
    It was a walk-up.
    And I remember my grandmother--
    I'm sure she had congestive heart failure because
    of her swollen legs and her difficulty in breathing,
    but she had her routine of walking with the dog,
    and doing the shopping, and keeping the household.
    My mother did the cleaning, and the sewing, and, of course,
    was focused on my sister and I in terms
    of what opportunities for education and travel
    and promoted that.
    Your paternal grandmother arranged that you two--
    oh, let me back up.
    I was going to ask about school, but I want to ask this.
    Was your mother a practicing Catholic?
    Or your grandmother?
    No.
    So you don't go to church.
    No, no.
    Nobody went to church until the Jewish grandmother selected
    this convent in a suburb of Vienna,
    and for me, it was actually quite a conflicting experience
    but while I loved being there, it
    was very hard to grow up with an intolerant belief system
    that condemned divorce.
    And where did that leave me as a second-grader?
    My parents don't get to go to heaven
    because they're divorced?
    You anticipated another question that I
    was going to ask, which was, what was
    your experience in that school?
    And of course, divorce is not allowed
    within the Catholic church, and certainly in those years
    there would have been-- it would have been far more orthodox
    than even today.
    Yes, yes.
    It was a grave burden that I carried with me
    for a long, long time, even past medical school.
    Can you tell-- can you articulate that burden?
    The Catholic Church is, on the one hand,
    forgiving but on the other hand, very intolerant,
    and the dogma was so--
    it was a heavy burden.
    On the other hand, as a second-grader--
    I still recall to this day the first homily I heard.
    It was given by a Franciscan [? Pater ?] Franz Bollinger who
    was then close to 80 years old, and he spoke about the reason
    for discipline.
    And he said that if you don't stake a young tree,
    it will be blown over by the wind,
    and it will not grow straight.
    So the discipline of no talking for a little chatterbox
    like myself unless it was recess,
    just across the board no talking, not in the hall,
    and not on the staircase, and not in the dormitory,
    and not in the dining room unless the bell rang and it
    was Thursday or Sunday, at which time
    you could have conversation--
    Still, the attention from the sister that was in
    charge of the sacristy--
    the chapel was such an attractive, quiet place.
    The fact that I was allowed to help change the altar cloths
    and bring the holy water and all these things,
    that just was such a magnet for me.
    I took to it like a duck to water, whereas my sister,
    who was there and two and a half years older--
    we were not even supposed to talk to each other.
    We had separate dormitories for age-related.
    We each had cubby holes of a bed, a chair surrounded
    by a curtain so we had our privacy, and up at 6:15,
    cold water to wash our face and brush our teeth,
    ready for mass at quarter to 7:00, breakfast at 7:30,
    10 minutes recess before our 8:00 class,
    and then a break at 10:00 where we would get either
    a piece of bread or some chocolate,
    and then a short recess, and class until noon,
    main meal at noon, and daily walks.
    But on the walk you were talking only in French.
    Really?
    On the way, the half-hour walk, you
    had to try to find French words to talk.
    On the way back, you were allowed to chat and speak
    your own mother's tongue.
    And I would say that the classes were very small.
    Let's cut for a second.
    So you were describing school and the daily routine.
    Were there any of the teachers-- were all your teachers nuns?
    Yes.
    Were any of them warmer or cooler?
    What was their manner towards the children?
    I remember three of them in particular,
    and Sister Imelda, or Soeur Imelda,
    as we used the French term, was very warm.
    And she was our dormitory person,
    so she would help us with clothing.
    And we made our own beds.
    I liked her very much.
    And then there was the sacristan, Sister Jan,
    who, for some reason, took a liking to me,
    and she allowed me to follow her and be involved in the chapel.
    And that was just-- for me, that was mesmerizing.
    I loved the quiet.
    I loved the music, and I loved the stories about the saints.
    So that was, I think, for whatever reason--
    And then there was Sister Ignazia,
    and she was very strict.
    And I remember her chastising me because I used--
    all our little cubicles had a name tag
    attached to the curtain, and at some point
    I needed a safety pin.
    Something had broken in my clothes,
    and I needed the safety pin.
    And it had-- it was the only access I had,
    so I used the safety pin and ingeniously
    made a hole in the curtain, drawing the thread
    through with cotton.
    And when she discovered that, oh, she
    said I had no business doing that.
    That was just wrong, as if I had stolen something or whatever.
    And that was a harsh chastisement,
    but then you just come to accept the various personalities
    of different people.
    And overall, the Mother Superior was
    the benevolent, quiet, loving peacemaker,
    and even though we had only one visitation a month--
    That was my next question.
    --and once a month we were allowed to go home.
    So during the five years, from the second grade
    to the seventh grade, that was my education, lots
    of separations from parents and other family members,
    and in 1938 when Hitler took over,
    private schools were closed.
    Even Catholic schools?
    Even Catholic schools, yes.
    I see.
    And I then transferred to public school,
    and then is the first time that I realized
    that I was part Jewish.
    I had no idea.
    I had enrolled in the public school,
    and it was in the fall of 1938 when the change of--
    youth organizations was rapidly taking hold,
    and while we had uniforms in the convent,
    public schools didn't have uniforms.
    However, Hitler Youth had uniforms and not only uniforms,
    but programs and challenging programs,
    so the second week, I think, that I was in public school,
    I came home, and I told my mother,
    I would like to join the Hitler Youth
    because they have meetings.
    And during vacation time, they get
    to go and help in the country.
    They actually get jobs, and I wanted to be part of that.
    And my mother said, I have news for you.
    You are not eligible because you're part Jewish.
    This is the first time that religion had even been raised.
    Let me pause here because I wanted to know whether or not
    the fact that one parent was Jewish
    when the other parent was not had ever, within your family,
    caused any issues.
    Not that I was aware of because nobody was practicing rigid
    rules of religious-- we didn't.
    In the convent, of course, we never
    had meat on Friday, but at home nobody
    really paid attention to it.
    Come Sunday, nobody went to church,
    but once I was in the convent, that all changed.
    So anyway, it was at that time that I realized, oh, I'm
    not going to be able to continue school beyond the eighth grade.
    How did you realize that?
    Was that a rule?
    Yes.
    Was that something that was said?
    Yes, that was made known.
    I don't know who told me, probably my mother,
    but she said, I can let you go to a private school.
    And she paid for me to go to a private school, which
    I absolutely loved.
    But if all-- convent schools were closed?
    Yes.
    But private schools were still able to operate?
    Yes, to some degree.
    There were the prep--
    what you call preparation for Matura in Europe
    is the equivalent of graduating.
    Like an Abitur?
    Like an Abitur in Germany?
    Yes, yes.
    And so my mother paid for me to go to a very informal school
    where people studied Latin, and mathematics, and science,
    and in preparation of the national Matura,
    we used to call it.
    And during that time, my mother began
    to search for ways of letting me emigrate to the United States,
    and fortunately, she found the help of the Quakers
    and a program that provided an immigration visa for me.
    And then I left in 1940.
    OK, we'll come to that.
    I want to back up a little bit.
    It's interesting that, A, your Jewish grandmother
    finds a convent school.
    That is truly a totally different religion,
    even if she is not particularly practicing,
    if she's prominent within the Jewish community.
    It's an interesting choice.
    And two, that she liked Montessori education--
    if she was somebody who was much more
    progressive in her thoughts, that she would have chosen
    a school system that is truly traditional, and orthodox,
    and far more rigid, what does that say?
    I think she was very progressive.
    She liked the fact that this convent was bilingual,
    that French was taught with some success,
    and when she actually chose a very liberal school
    after the convent was closed that my sister was
    in for a while, again, with--
    she was ahead of her times.
    The school that made the biggest impression on my sister
    was a boarding school that allowed
    us to mingle with royalty.
    No kidding?
    In 1933 or so, I think--
    yes, before 1933, there was the Tausend-Mark-Sperre.
    That meant that Austria and Germany were not
    able to travel back and forth freely.
    Each time you went, you had to pay 1,000 marks.
    That's a lot of money.
    That's a lot of money, and prior to 1933,
    the granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm--
    her name was Princess Frederica.
    She later became the queen of Greece.
    She had four brothers.
    Two were already adults, and two were my sister's age.
    And they wanted their children to grow up not just
    by being taught in private as--
    tutored one on one, they wanted them
    to mingle with other children.
    So there was a castle in [INAUDIBLE],,
    which is in the rural part of Salzburg or Upper Austria,
    and then that schloss, that--
    --castle--
    --castle was converted into a private school.
    And my sister was in the fifth grade,
    and I was in the second grade, and we
    traveled to some distance and enrolled in February of--
    I think it was, yeah, '32.
    It was before the Germans had to have this expense back
    and forth.
    So we were there only for six months,
    and my sister was in second heaven.
    She absolutely loved it.
    Her class had five students in it as well.
    But I was only second grade, and they didn't have
    instruction for second-graders.
    So I went with the Gardener's little girl
    to the village school, which meant
    that I had to get up a half hour earlier,
    and during the winter time, there was snow.
    And we could take a sled to go downhill to the village school,
    and then we had to kind of walk up together.
    But I was very intimidated in those surroundings
    because for the first time I was in the dark at night,
    except for moonlight, and I'd always
    remembered the street light coming in
    and the traffic noise of the city.
    And then all of a sudden then you're someplace where it's
    really, really dark, no night lights,
    and all these strange noises that you're
    trying to figure out, creaky floors, or windows, or doors
    that were not securely shut.
    Oh, I had lot of--
    Scary.
    --nightmares, particularly so because this castle
    was really a castle rather than a school.
    The school just happens to be there.
    For instance, to get from the sleeping
    area to the eating area, it not only
    meant that I had to go down two flights,
    but there was a long hall, totally empty, parquet floors,
    and the middle-aged suits of armors lined up
    in the periphery.
    So in order to get to the dining room,
    I had to go through this dark hall, and if I ran,
    then it would rattle.
    And I wasn't sure if there was anybody hiding
    inside the full suits of armor.
    It was really intimidating.
    It could be really spooky.
    Yes, spooky is the word.
    And the night did we arrived to start the school,
    it was wintery, and there was a funeral ongoing.
    I don't know who died, but the burial
    was in the crypts of the castle, so here was live music, somber.
    I still remember the tune of what was being played,
    and we arrived, and we were sort of in the way.
    So we just stayed at the back until the end of this service.
    I guess it was maybe 5:00 or 6:00, and then we had supper.
    And my mother stayed overnight the first night.
    Did your mother have any say into whether or not you got
    to this school or you didn't?
    No, no, because grandmother was domineering,
    and she held the purse strings.
    And we made the best of it.
    We--
    Did you miss your mother during these times?
    Very much so, very much so.
    And that was not the first separation.
    The first separation I wasn't even six years old.
    I was five years old, and we went to a--
    it's a combination, sanatorium and school because of illness,
    and the country was supposed to be healthier than the city.
    My sister always had trouble gaining weight,
    and I was the opposite during those--
    I don't know how many months we were there,
    but the dining room had white tablecloths.
    And you either had a brown [INAUDIBLE],, a--
    A cake?
    No, it's a round sign.
    It was just a piece of polished wood that--
    if you had a brown sign, then you got meat,
    and if you had a green one, then you got vegetables.
    So my sister was always getting meat,
    and I was always getting vegetables.
    And I'm the one that gained weight, and she didn't.
    And she had-- I think she increased by half a pound
    all the time that we were there.
    The funny thing that metabolism is.
    Outline, then, for me a little bit
    in chronology because I've gotten a bit confused.
    Your first separation from home was to the sanatorium, yes?
    Separation from your mother.
    Yes.
    Then came the convent or then came the castle?
    Then came the convent, and the castle was just in 1932.
    I was a-- wait a minute.
    No, the castle--
    I'm not sure.
    I'll have to look at my diary to sort that out.
    OK, but the convent, at any rate--
    how many years you went to school at the convent?
    Almost five years.
    Almost five years?
    Yeah, from second grade to seventh grade.
    And did you recall that the nuns ever talking about what's
    going on in contemporary life, or was this pretty much
    sequestered and secluded?
    I think they were focusing on religion and subject matter.
    I don't remember any-- and language
    to try to encourage us to progress in French.
    And we had music, as well.
    Did the Mother Superior know that your father was Jewish?
    Probably.
    Do if there were any other Jewish children in the--
    There were children who were not Catholic,
    but they participated in--
    they didn't go to communion, but they otherwise
    were included in all activities.
    When you were taught religion and Bible stories,
    do you remember how the story of Jesus Christ was handled?
    No.
    In fact, I think the focus was on catechism.
    Those Ten Commandments and what is right and what is wrong
    was the focus more so than the story of Christ's passion,
    although we had lots of celebrations
    that involved processions.
    And we had a large, beautiful compound
    that included a grotto, and during certain times
    of the summer, we would have a procession and mass
    in the grotto.
    And then the children would be given petals,
    and we would have flower petals marking the road.
    So those were very appealing to be.
    Anything that had to do with flowers and animals,
    although we were not allowed to have pets.
    My grandmother had a dog, as I said, because the maternal one,
    because of her hearing, but as a youngster,
    I was given a live Easter bunny for one year.
    And I had an Easter birthday, and this little white rabbit
    and the little doxie dogs made friends instead of--
    they're supposed to hunt hares, but I
    had the white rabbit in my hands and let the dogs sniff it.
    And I would stroke both of them, and I have
    a picture where they shared--
    the dogs' bed was largely occupied by the bunny,
    and then the dog would form a little rim.
    --a circle.
    --a circle around it.
    How sweet.
    How sweet.
    Yeah, animals were always--
    when I think of animals and my grandmother's care
    for the live and sick birds, in the communications
    during the war, we only had the Red Cross messages, which
    was 25 words, once a month.
    So you developed a telegraphic style,
    and yet, in the communication from my mother,
    she mentioned that the Nightingale had escaped.
    The Nightingale was one of the many birds
    that my grandmother had, and evidently she got out one day.
    And she also mentioned when our dog died.
    What was the dog's name?
    [? Waldi. ?]
    [? Waldi-- ?] did your parents, either mother or father,
    come visit you at school, or did you go to visit them at home?
    Once a month from the convent, on a Sunday,
    we were allowed to go home, and once a month, they
    could come and visit.
    If they came and visit, we usually
    stayed there, or went for a walk,
    or maybe got some ice cream.
    When we came home, we usually stayed with my mother,
    but my father might take us to a movie
    or have an outing with him.
    He would take us to his office, and I
    remember he had this elaborate examination
    table that allows the head to come up
    and the feet to go down.
    And that was a wonderful thing to climb on,
    and so we would have--
    he would let us climb and help us [INAUDIBLE]..
    And I had a good time in his office.
    Did the divorce impact you much?
    Did you feel it emotionally between your parents?
    I felt it because of the Catholic dogma.
    Otherwise, it would have been much, much easier.
    Much milder?
    Yes.
    How sad.
    Did the outside world in these years--
    and I'm thinking mostly the political world.
    Did it intrude itself into your world?
    Yes, it did because I was happy to follow in my sister's
    footsteps when my mother arranged for me to emigrate
    to the United States.
    I couldn't wait because my sister's experience had
    been so positive, and she loved everything
    that had to do with America because,
    of course, that's where Hollywood was.
    And yeah, and she had her own little dream world.
    She was in the convent for four years or five years, too,
    but it did not nearly influence her
    as much as it influenced me.
    She remained in her dream world, and she
    was going to be the dancer.
    And she did.
    Even though she was not permitted
    to perform under her own name, she
    managed to dance in public without being
    known, surreptitiously.
    Where was this?
    In Vienna?
    In Vienna.
    And she did this in what year, and how old was she?
    She came back from the United States as 17-year-old,
    and she attended private ballet and dancing classes.
    And then her class would be performing in various places,
    and she would substitute when somebody else couldn't
    go and take the name of that person.
    She couldn't go to all the functions.
    And this was because?
    Because she was part Jewish.
    So now let's come to something that you mentioned earlier,
    and that is the Reese family.
    You started to mention to me earlier how your parents came
    to know them, and it was through your father's practice?
    Yes.
    And detail that for me a little bit.
    While Papa was in practice, he tended to foreign visitors who
    came to Vienna to be treated.
    This is after your parents split?
    Yes, yes.
    And there were Americans, and there were Filipinos.
    There were two Filipino--
    Barredo and Lichauco were the families
    that were my father's patients, and for the Americans,
    it was the Haus family and the Reese family.
    And the Haus family and Reese family worked in Greece,
    associated with the YMCA, and right after my aunt died--
    Rosa?
    When Rosa died, Mutti was very distraught
    because both grandfather and Rosa had died in the same year,
    and it was 1928, a particularly harsh winter.
    The Danube froze over so that you could walk across.
    That was a very rare occurrence.
    Anyway, after this bad winter, my father
    contacted his American families in Greece
    to see if my mother could vacation and recover,
    and so he sent her for--
    it would have been maybe six or eight weeks
    to stay during this harsh winter time.
    And while there--
    --in Greece--
    --in Greece, in Thessaloniki, my mother not only recovered,
    but she became very close to the oldest daughter of the Reese
    family, my foster sister called Lois.
    Thessaloniki did not have a good school for Lois,
    so her mother, Dorothy, and my mother, Olga, decided that--
    my mother offered to take Lois with her back
    to Vienna, arranged for her to go to a boarding school.
    Vacation and weekends she would be staying with us.
    Actually, I think we were already--
    no, we weren't in boarding school yet.
    Anyway, that's how the friendship began.
    And Lois became fluent in German.
    Nobody ever could tell that she was not Austrian,
    and as a thank-you, she said, when Lisi is ready,
    I will bring her to the United States.
    By then, the Reese family were living in Connecticut.
    So that's how my sister got to go to the United States
    and be part of the Reese family.
    What year was this?
    That was 1937 and '38.
    And the reason for her going at that time?
    Was just because she wanted to learn English.
    She wanted to know the culture, and it
    was a thank-you from the Reese family
    for having brought Lois to Vienna.
    But with a student visa, she could not
    remain in the United States.
    Although Hitler had come during that year--
    1938.
    --1938, in the summer Lisi returned and was
    reunited with us in Vienna.
    And then she remained there for the duration of the war
    while I was able to leave two years later and emigrate.
    Wow.
    So at first she goes to this school, which by that point--
    where she studies dance and there are performances,
    and she then surreptitiously will perform but not
    under her own name because of, again, now anti-Jewish laws.
    Weissenberg was a Jewish name.
    Now, I believe Weissenberger is not Jewish.
    And you, at that point, when your sister returns,
    we're still in the convent school?
    Or had you--
    No, because the six months I left--
    let's see.
    Right, the convent was closed at the end--
    in June 1938.
    The takeover was March, and the Catholic schools
    were closed at the end.
    And then and the textbooks were changed.
    There was a lot of--
    our direction of driving used to be left side.
    Germany was on the right side.
    Overnight the transition came, and Austria was now on par
    with German driving on the right side of the road.
    That must have caused a few accidents in the beginning.
    They actually-- it was quite amazing because the street car
    traffic--
    I don't quite remember how come it worked,
    but the Nazis were efficient.
    They had a way of bringing change.
    Well, by the time these things happened, your sister
    is 15 or 16.
    You were 13 at that time?
    Yes.
    Had Hitler come in--
    had you heard his name before he marched into Austria?
    No, we were not--
    we were very isolated from politics.
    Now, my father would have because of his brother.
    So did you follow--
    did you know your uncle, Karl?
    Yes, he would come and visit, and he was very beloved
    and never wanted to have children
    because he felt the world after the First World
    War was such a bad place.
    And he was quite critical of my parents for having children.
    He said, how can you bring children into this world?
    But once we were here, he was very loving and supporting,
    and it was always a delight when he came to visit.
    But he never stayed with his wife, only a few weeks,
    and then there was--
    he wanted that independence from his mother.
    He did not want to be tied.
    So her reach could go quite far?
    Yes.
    And he had to put some physical distance between him and her.
    So he was married as you were growing up?
    It wasn't that he was a single uncle.
    Right.
    And what was your aunt's name by marriage?
    Lina.
    Lina--
    She was from Berlin, had a strong Prussian accent,
    and we didn't see her for very long.
    And she had a good marriage.
    The end was tragic because of her prolonged illness
    and Karli cared for her.
    And he also had a second marriage after that experience
    to a lady from--
    and they lived in Holland.
    I see.
    Well, describe for me what you know about his career in Berlin
    at the Institute.
    His interest in physics involved quite a bit of research,
    and I recently read some of his papers.
    There is something called reology, R-E-O-L-O-G-Y,
    and it has to do with the character of matter in fluid.
    And it has many applications, and Karli actually
    developed or invented a goniometer
    that carries his name.
    Both my father and my uncle had patents
    that were quite expensive to maintain,
    and it has to do which country your idea is protected.
    But his applied interest encompassed the production
    of rayon, as it is the artificial cloth of rayon,
    and also we were just learning about the complex mechanisms
    of clotting blood outside the body
    and not wanting blood to clot inside the body.
    --in the 30s.
    In other words, that was that what was being--
    --ongoing research.
    And I don't know if he and Einstein had
    any common projects, but I do know
    that their appointments at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
    were terminated at the same time because Jews were not
    allowed to hold academic positions or public positions.
    And more and more aggressive confiscations
    were carried out as Hitler advanced
    in his plan of taking over the world.
    But to my personal experience, it
    was so particularly shocking when
    I came to the United States to hear about the concentration
    camps because nobody talked about it in front of me,
    and the packet that I prepared for you of my father's cousin--
    I had no knowledge.
    I only came to it in retrospect many, many years later
    because people who experienced usually
    didn't want to remember, and my father--
    once he left, he never stepped foot again into Germany,
    and he would not buy any German goods.
    But his life became very productive
    in Puerto Rico, where he spent the last 10
    years of his medical practice, and overall,
    his retirement in Santa Barbara before his death.
    What I'd like to do--
    and we may not do all of this before having a break,
    but I'd like to take the trajectory of each
    of your family members and talk about that until we
    come to 1945 and then come back to your own story.
    So at this point, we were talking about your uncle, Karl,
    and then we'll talk about your sister, and your father,
    and his second wife, what happened
    to your paternal grandmother, what
    happened to your mother and your maternal grandmother,
    and then what will happened to you when you leave.
    But let's now finish with Karl, so I have a few questions here.
    First of all, you called him Karli ?
    Yes.
    His nickname was--
    Karli, the diminutive--
    --for Karl?
    --for Karl.
    K-A-R--
    --R-L-I.
    Karli, OK.
    Now, you say he and Einstein were
    dismissed at the same time?
    Yes.
    So that would have been in 1933?
    Yes.
    What does he do after he is dismissed?
    What does Karli do?
    He escaped by way of France but didn't stay in Paris long
    and settled in South Hampton.
    He was able to get an appointment at that university,
    and so he re-established himself,
    became a British citizen.
    And this is with his wife Lina?
    Yes.
    And I don't remember the year that Lina died,
    but it would have been much later.
    We can cut.
    Well, before our short break, we were
    talking about where your uncle, Karl, ended up
    after being dismissed from the Kaiser Wilhelm
    Institute in Berlin.
    And that was to Southampton.
    Where he went with his wife Lina?
    Yes.
    And was she a Jewish background?
    No, no.
    No?
    I don't think so.
    I don't remember her name, but her appearance
    was very blonde and very slender.
    And I'm quite sure that she would not have been Jewish.
    So their journey there--
    he did escape, you say?
    Yes.
    And was it 1933 or later?
    Yes.
    So '33 through France and then eventually to Southampton?
    Yes.
    Did they visit you in Vienna before leaving?
    No.
    So you were about eight years old at this time,
    and you recall that happening?
    Yes.
    Now let's talk about your father a little bit,
    and that will be--
    his difficulties begin when the Nazis march into and take over
    Austria in March 1938.
    By that point, was he already married again?
    No, no.
    He lived with his mother and housekeeper who
    became his second wife but not until after they
    went to England.
    And as I said, everybody tried to persuade grandmother
    to join them, and she would not.
    But my-- I lost my train of thought.
    My uncle's career was quite successful both in research,
    and he came to lecture in different places in the United
    States later in the 40s and 50s.
    He remained a British citizen, but he
    was able to help his brother by immediately
    sending a telegram with a ruse.
    You are requested to participate as a lecturer on Monday.
    So that would have been the first weekend.
    First weekend after--
    --after March 13 in 1938, and Papa, who at that time
    had a private office, fully equipped.
    He had his personal car, and he shared the very
    spacious apartment with his mother
    and her housekeeper, Francis, who became Papa's second wife.
    So Karl sent this ruse, and Papa left with one suitcase and one
    briefcase, left his office, left his car,
    left his home, left his mother, left us, never to return.
    Did you have a chance to say goodbye to him?
    Yes, we would have been--
    well, let's see.
    We were in the convent.
    We may not even have said goodbye.
    I don't recall because it wasn't publicized.
    The idea was the less said, the better,
    and to all intents and purposes, he just went for the weekend.
    He just never came back.
    So it wasn't even that he experiences his practice
    being closed down, or losing his license,
    or something like that?
    All of that-- once he left, I don't
    know how quickly the Nazis confiscated, but in effect,
    they did.
    And they notified his mother that she
    has to give up her apartment, and once Francis left,
    it's my mother who took over, and went ahead, and found
    a suitable lodging and a--
    the German way of pension was more than a hotel.
    It was more home-like, but meals were provided.
    And in the eighth district there was a popular pension
    that later became a refuge for Jewish elders,
    and to my knowledge, we helped Grandmother move.
    And I remember her room very well on the second floor,
    and she was quite happy there in terms of being with her peers
    and being supportive.
    And by that point, your father's second wife, soon-to-be
    or not yet, had already left?
    She did not leave immediately, and I don't--
    I should look at her passport to see exactly when she
    left, but it probably was--
    she was still there when I left, and that
    was a year and a half later.
    All the while we were trying to persuade grandmother,
    but she was determined to stay.
    And then it was my mother who took over and became
    her defender because my mother was the Aryan one.
    She was not intimidated by the Nazis.
    Francis was not Jewish?
    No.
    Or Francis was Jewish?
    No.
    But she left?
    Eventually she leaves?
    Yes.
    Eventually she leaves.
    And did you know that she and your father had this close--
    --relationship?
    I didn't.
    I was pretty naive.
    I loved Francis because she had been my nanny when
    my mother was recuperating in Greece
    and developing her relationship to the American family.
    It was Francis who was looking after me,
    and she was a lovable person, positive despite
    her own tragic first marriage--
    she had married an Italian rebel who was jailed
    for his political aspirations--
    and she had a loving mother-in-law
    who lived in northern Italy, not Genoa
    but near that part of Italy.
    And she had a beautiful son, lost him at age
    two or three to diphtheria.
    I don't remember his name, but she was then encouraged by her
    mother-in-law--
    Once that husband got out of jail, it took all of six months
    before he was dead.
    He was killed in a motorcycle accident,
    and so there she was, a young widow and having lost a child.
    I never saw her sad.
    She was very loving and transferred
    her maternal feelings to my sister and I,
    and it wasn't until--
    actually, it was Uncle Karl who said to my father,
    you bring Francis, you marry her, is how he put it.
    Really?
    Because they hadn't married in Vienna, and yet
    they then had very many happy years together.
    She was instrumental in supporting him during the years
    that he needed to be qualified to practice
    medicine in the United States, which happens--
    It takes a while.
    Yeah, happened after 1944.
    So at first your uncle is able to get your father out
    in March 1938 through this ruse of a telegram that--
    and your father already had a passport?
    Oh, yes.
    And he wouldn't have had a J in it
    because it still would have been the old Austrian passport?
    Yes.
    So he is safely in Southampton with your uncle.
    Is that the case?
    Until-- I don't know exactly how much later.
    When the British islands interned refugees--
    and Karl and Eugene both lived on the Isle
    of Wight, Isle of Wight or Isle of Man for several years.
    For several years, even?
    Yes.
    Yeah, the British stand for how to care for refugees,
    and evidently Karl had not reached citizenship
    by that time.
    But they were very constructive in the refugee camp
    because they were capable and were
    able to help a lot of other people.
    By 1944, my father had qualified to get an immigration
    visa for himself and Francis, and they
    came with the zigzag ships to avoid the U-boats
    and landed in New York.
    And they married in Britain?
    Yes, they married in Britain.
    I came across their certificate.
    And at that time Francis was able to support Papa.
    They had help, also, from one of my grandmother's close American
    friends, a Mr. Mayer, M-A-Y-E-R. I'm not sure if there was
    a blood relationship or just a friendship, but for years.
    I remember the visits of [? Iti Tante ?]
    and [? Sipi Tante. ?] Those were American spinster ladies who
    visited Vienna almost every year and would be hosted at our home
    and were somehow related to this Mr. Mayer,
    who was then able to provide the guarantee of--
    --of course, the affidavits.
    --of the affidavits.
    And Papa and Francis had a small one-bedroom apartment
    at 1022 Park Avenue, and there is when I really admired
    my stepmother for transforming this little place
    into a welcoming home, not just for paper
    but for other refugees who were in their circle.
    And she was able to prepare the best
    Wiener schnitzel and other delicacies
    in the kitchen that was within a closet, a two-burner stove
    within a closet.
    And my father had a ironed white shirt every day,
    and Francis did the laundry in the bath tub.
    She was an inspiration in her own right.
    And as I said, despite the personal tragedies,
    she seldom spoke of it and just seemed
    to have this strength of character and goodwill.
    Well, it's interesting that in both cases
    your father marries people who have become part
    of the household, that at first it's
    through your grandmother, Hedwig, in that family
    and not go outside that and seemingly happy both times.
    Yes, and I remember when we had a discussion with my father.
    My sister and I--
    we were standing outside of my grandmother's apartment.
    We had come to visit from the convent,
    and Papa was telling us--
    he was trying to reassure us that he loved our mother,
    he respected our mother, but that it was better
    to be separate at that point.
    And having never seen enmity and having never
    experienced rejection, I've often
    contemplated my good fortune.
    How did I deserve that?
    It's the luck of the draw.
    It's amazing what kind of models and lessons
    we see from those in another generation of how they handle
    these deeply personal ties and when they go wrong,
    how they then behave with that.
    It makes a huge difference for the children.
    Yes, yes.
    Certainly if there is anger or regret,
    the negative feelings become dominant,
    and they rob you of happiness.
    But you were able to be both loyal to your mother
    and still appreciate your stepmother?
    Yes.
    And they sound like all of them were
    people with moral character, that she
    would love, of course, her husband's children
    but also accept them as her own.
    Did she come from-- was she Austrian?
    No.
    Remember, she came from the Sudeten area.
    Francis did?
    Yes.
    Oh, I didn't know that.
    Yes, her father was a forester, and she
    and my maternal grandmother actually
    came from the Sudetenland part of Europe.
    And she was sent, as a young person,
    to a relative in Berlin to learn German,
    so she was fluent in German and then
    learned Italian during the brief time that she was married.
    And when she returned to Vienna, she
    was fully able to communicate, and she
    liked to live in Vienna.
    But late in life, both she and my father loved Puerto Rico
    and chose to communicate more often than not
    with a Spanish and German mixture.
    Was your father as multilingual as she was?
    Papa was good in German, English, and French,
    and Italian.
    Yeah, he was quite good, and of course, Latin and Greek
    was mandatory in those days.
    Of course, for studies and particularly the profession
    that he chose.
    So we know your father's trajectory.
    We know your uncle Karl's trajectory.
    They make it out.
    But your grandmother wants to stay because of the community?
    Is this the reason why she wanted to stay?
    The community and her reticence.
    She didn't like English, and she really
    didn't like her German daughter-in-law
    enough to be living together.
    Two of her sister-in-laws were in England at that time.
    They chose to emigrate, Aunt Mimi and Aunt Ida,
    and Aunt Ida is the mother of Friedel Pisco, the cousin that
    really experienced the Holocaust himself.
    And these were the wives of your grandmother's brothers?
    Yes, Grandfather's sisters because the Weissenberg clan
    had the two brothers and the seven sisters.
    And your grandmother marries into this family,
    and so it is her sisters-in-law?
    Yes.
    I see.
    And even with them as an example,
    we still couldn't budge her.
    Really?
    Because I remember talking about it, of her options.
    With her, or with your mother, or the three of you together?
    Individually, either with her or with my mother.
    Can we cut, please?
    Pretty, very nice.
    OK, rolling.
    Before the break, we were talking about--
    hello, kitty.
    We were talking about your uncle Karl's journey westwards
    to Southampton, your father's ability
    to join him immediately after the Nazi takeover of Austria,
    the subsequent, after some time, internment that both of them
    experienced in Britain.
    Do for how long they were interned?
    I don't, but it would have been probably
    between one and two years--
    That's quite a bit.
    --because there was a period when early on in the war
    when they were still free, as far as I know.
    And then in '44 when the visa was available for my father,
    I'm not sure if he had been previously released
    or whether he went from the internment
    directly to the United States.
    And I don't know--
    I think it's maybe seven years to become a British subject,
    so that might explain why Uncle Karly did not already
    have citizenship.
    And were there letters that your parent--
    were you able to get any communication
    from your father and your uncle during the time
    that they were in Britain?
    Yes, and I probably still have them.
    They would have ended before my father immigrated in 1944,
    and I think that was in the spring.
    Did he write to you and your sister,
    or did he also write to your mother?
    He couldn't write to my mother because once war was declared--
    unless he used Red Cross between Britain and Austria.
    I don't know how that worked.
    So it was when you were in the States.
    It was via-- my mother would inquire,
    how is Papa and Francis?
    And then I would try--
    I mentioned in those letters that they are well
    or they are able to emigrate and kept her informed.
    So let's now go back to Vienna.
    We have a number of people that we still
    need to find out what happened to them.
    Your grandmother stays in Vienna,
    and she then is told she has to--
    did she rent her apartment or own her apartment?
    She rented, and my mother is the one
    who found this pension that kept her comfortable,
    provided meals.
    And did we touch on her demise?
    Did we--
    So this is what I want to come to now.
    Your grandmother is in the pension,
    and your mother is the one who arranged that.
    And it was closer to where you lived, wasn't it?
    Yes, it was probably a half-hour walk.
    And you visited her there?
    Yes, before I left.
    And you so I left comfortable?
    Yes.
    So tell me, what then happened with your grandmother?
    She stayed in this pension?
    Was she disturbed there at all?
    I think early on she was quite happily situated.
    I only know from the Red Cross messages
    that my mother stated she died suddenly from a stroke,
    and she didn't elaborate.
    However, when my mother came to the States,
    she explained the circumstances that the whole community
    was to be transported to Theresienstadt.
    They were told the day before.
    Do you remember what year this would have been?
    This was 1942, and at least I found out about it
    through this message in 1942 that's it's dated.
    It's a bit confusing because it has
    the date of one message followed by the date of the message that
    was received several months later.
    And she had a second-story apartment
    with the French windows that open outwards, and somehow
    she managed to climb out the window, either jumped or fell.
    And below was concrete sidewalk.
    The injuries that she sustained at that time
    are the cause of her death.
    I don't know how long she lived with the injuries,
    but obviously she escaped being exterminated in Theresienstadt
    because she wasn't well enough to be taken there.
    Well, was she admitted to a hospital?
    I have no knowledge of it because my mother and sister
    had fled to the country and were not in Vienna at that time.
    So what they found out was probably
    already-- it wasn't that your mother
    was on the scene within an hour or two or could see it?
    No.
    I don't know how they found out.
    I have one childhood friend who was in Vienna at that time.
    She now lives in Chicago, and I have not
    been able to reach her recently.
    She was my only hope if she could recollect because she
    was the business partner--
    her family were the business partner in the dairy,
    and they continued to live on the side
    even though the diary had been shut down, was no longer
    a business.
    Were they Aryan?
    No.
    They were Jewish as well?
    They were mixed as we were, and [? Mitzi ?] [? Bressler ?] was
    my baptismal sponsor.
    And she was the Christian part of that family,
    but her two children were raised in the Jewish tradition.
    So their passports were stamped with a J
    even though they were of mixed parentage,
    so that was determined by religious affiliation.
    And they would have been the ones who
    would have known more closely what had happened
    to your grandmother, that is, how much time
    elapsed between the time she fell and the time she passed.
    Or where she might be buried.
    The burial plot for my grandfather
    I visited quite often with my grandmother,
    but I kind of doubt that she would
    have had that kind of a burial at the time
    that she passed away.
    And I was wondering if, through the Nuremberg trials,
    they followed any of these details,
    if they might be available.
    Do you possibly know?
    Personally, no, but it could be that there
    would be some records in Vienna that
    would have been kept at that time,
    though I couldn't guarantee it.
    It could be that the Jewish community in Vienna
    was able to find some documents that the Nazis would have left.
    It's a question to explore.
    I did not come across any death certificates
    for my paternal grandmother.
    You did not?
    No.
    And had you approached-- had you already inquired?
    No, I have not.
    I do have one form that I was given
    to do my friend in Chicago that is a possibility,
    or maybe now there are ways to do this online.
    But what it means is, to this date, you don't have details?
    Right.
    You don't know-- do you know whether the stroke played
    any role, or that was just an excuse to write in a letter?
    I believe that was just an excuse because my mother didn't
    want to upset me, but she did subsequently tell me.
    I'm wondering if that's--
    --the phone?
    --my alarm.
    Can we cut for a minute?
    So up until now your grandmother's death
    is just very fragmentary--
    Yes--
    --from what you were able to find out?
    --because my mother wasn't there.
    My sister wasn't there, and communications were poor.
    And I thought that it was towards the end of the war,
    but in fact, by the dates of the Red Cross messages,
    I know that it was in 1942.
    Now, you mentioned somebody off-camera and maybe
    a little bit even on-camera whose connection to your family
    we hadn't yet explored, and that was a cousin of one
    of the sisters-in-law of your paternal grandmother
    or the nephew.
    Alfred Pisco-- he was related, and the reason
    I have a lot of documents of his stay in Vienna and then later
    immigration is because my sister was executor of his estate.
    His wife preceded him in death by a number of years,
    but they had immigrated in the early 40s
    and were happily naturalized and assimilated
    in the United States.
    That's Alfred Pisco and his wife, Emma.
    And his mother's name was?
    Ida or Ida Pisco, and she, with her--
    But she was born Weissenberg?
    She was born Weissenberg, and she emigrated and spent
    her last years in England with one sister whose name was Mimi.
    And I don't remember her married name,
    and those two ladies also lived in Southampton.
    And that's what you mentioned earlier is that even
    their presence being in England wasn't enough to convince
    your grandmother to join them.
    Right, and it was an enigma of sorts
    because we really expected life being so miserable,
    but Grandmother was a strong person.
    And she was also a bit--
    she could be theatrical.
    She could exaggerate things, and I
    know that there were a couple of episodes
    when she threatened suicide.
    But this was long before Hitler and unrelated,
    and since I was not present, it's murky.
    Well, it could be a feature of someone's controlling-- sort
    of like, if you do this, then watch out.
    What did I want to ask now?
    So we know at least that her story
    ends in 1942, and the documents you have from her nephew,
    who would be your second cousin, third cousin, something
    like that--
    did you have a relative or any relatives who actually were
    arrested, and deported, and--
    I believe Alfred spend some time in one of the concentration
    camps, but he never spoke of it.
    When did he leave Austria then?
    I don't know.
    Well, let's see.
    I would have to research that.
    In the years between '38 and into the early 40s,
    Jews could leave the country but had to pay an exit tax,
    and that kept going up and up and up.
    So people who didn't have money were left behind,
    and they were the ones who were sent to concentration camps.
    Friedel had another brother, Alfred,
    who might have been able to pay for him to get out.
    I know they stayed in contact, and there are still
    some relatives around Liverpool.
    But I am not in contact with them at this point.
    So that leaves, at this point, your sister,
    who comes back after her year in the United States in 1938,
    and she starts going to ballet school.
    No, she had some private instructions,
    but she was mischling and therefore not eligible
    for any public education.
    But the dance classes--
    were these private, the private one?
    Yes, and as I said, her performances always
    had to be in lieu of someone else
    and using a fictitious name.
    So what happened with her?
    Did her life continue this way?
    She was able to find work during the war years.
    Both she and my mother worked in legal offices
    doing clerical work, and when the end of the war
    neared and the American occupation happened,
    we were fortunate that their residence
    was within the American sector.
    And because both my mother and my sister
    were fluent in English, they could find work easily,
    as a lot of translators were needed,
    and they benefited from working for the Americans
    because they had access to food.
    And I remember them talking about the American coffee,
    which--
    coffee, for several years, was just not to be had,
    and Vienna was such a coffee center.
    And that German word, ersatz--
    instead of coffee they had this brown barley mixture.
    And of course, it doesn't have caffeine in it,
    and it doesn't have the aroma of coffee.
    But that's what people drank during the war.
    In that time, was your sister discriminated against?
    Yes, she tried to-- she did not have to wear a star because she
    was not raised Jewish, but there were a lot of obstacles
    just as there would have been for me, had I stayed.
    What are some of those obstacles?
    Obstacles primarily to employment, and to marriage,
    and to education.
    I don't know.
    I think the rationing was across the board.
    Everybody had to use rations, so that may not
    have been very different.
    But Lisi had a good temperament.
    We called her Lisi for Lisilote.
    During the bombing raids, people would take a metal kettle
    as a protection for their head, and everybody
    would head for the cellars that were arranged to keep people
    during air raids until the sirens went off
    and you could return to your home.
    She used that time to study, and she earned a living
    by doing legal secretarial work.
    And they invested in postage stamps,
    which was one of the ways that you could transfer
    some value out of the country because by then, not only was
    there inflation, but you weren't allowed to take money out
    of the country.
    You're talking after the war or during the war?
    During the war.
    During the war-- were there people leaving the country
    during the war?
    I would think so.
    Anybody who-- in fact, my mother corresponded
    with an American friend who was interned along
    with her husband, and she would send them food packages
    because the sustenance was so bad in the internment camps.
    And eventually they were transferred to France,
    but I have many postage thank-you notes
    from while they were in detention
    for whatever food my mother was able to send them.
    So did your--
    I've heard the story of some other children
    of mixed marriages who were ordered
    to work in one place or another, and this order
    would come from the authorities.
    Was your sister under that kind of control or not so much?
    Not to my knowledge.
    She kept a pretty low profile, but the Nazis conscripted.
    And they duped a lot of Jewish population of Poland,
    particularly.
    I read one book on the Holocaust that
    describes the technique that--
    the Nazis said, if you are willing to work for us,
    we will look after you.
    We will not harm you.
    That was, of course, a deception,
    but they did get a lot of labor from Jewish people, slave
    labor, in munitions factories and--
    I don't know-- mines, wherever.
    Well, specifically there were some such factories
    around Vienna as well, and so there
    would be people assigned, mischling, young women
    assigned.
    That's interesting.
    I hadn't heard of that.
    But there was a lot of intermarriage,
    so we were not such a small group.
    Now, your mother, you said, stood up to the Nazis,
    or she wasn't afraid of them.
    Can you give me examples of what that
    meant, how that played out?
    Well, during the time when my grandmother was notified
    that she had to vacate her apartment
    and there were the [GERMAN],, the officials that
    were in charge of this and in charge of that.
    The agencies.
    Yes, and my mother would go, and she said,
    you want my mother-in-law to leave her apartment?
    Well, you have to give her a place to live.
    She hounded them until she found this pension,
    and then she helped my grandmother move.
    But she was not afraid or intimidated to go.
    And why is it that your sister was not
    able to leave for the United States again?
    Well, she would have needed an immigration visa,
    and that comes with a monetary guarantee
    that someone is promising, should you become ill
    or otherwise disabled, you will not become a ward of the state,
    you will not be a financial burden,
    and I believe it was $500.
    This amount of money the Quakers paid for me,
    and subsequently they turned me over to social services that
    then looked to religious persuasion
    to find a foster home to place us
    before I was able to contact our personal friends, the Reeses.
    As soon as I was able to be in touch with them
    without censorship to explain what had happened,
    the daughter and that family rescued me from New York City,
    and the agreement was they would look after me
    for the duration of the war.
    So let's come to this point now.
    Your sister has returned from the Reeses.
    Hitler has marched in.
    Your father has left, and you are not allowed
    to go to school anymore.
    The convent school has been closed.
    The public school is where you learn that you're Jewish.
    You know you're Jewish, but that it means something,
    that it has a difference.
    Do you remember being treated any differently in class?
    I don't because you didn't necessarily broadcast that.
    You kept that more or less secret
    and tried to blend in with activities as they were.
    When I found out that I could not
    participate in the activities of the Hitler Youth,
    I focused on other things, particularly with my mother's
    help, looking for an opportunity to leave the country
    and emigrate.
    And the Quakers--
    Excuse me.
    Was she looking that for both of you or just for you?
    Primarily for me because she didn't
    want to be separated from both of us,
    and she was focusing on letting me have the opportunity
    to live in America but with an eye
    to future immigration for the family.
    For herself, and for her mother, and for Lisi?
    Yes, yes.
    So tell me, how did her intersection and her contact
    with the Quakers come about?
    I have no idea except it's a small miracle.
    Somehow she heard that there was a list you could sign up
    if you were interested in studying in the United States.
    She put my name on the list, and lo and behold, a year later we
    were notified that there is a visa available,
    do I still want it?
    I see.
    So she put your name on the list in 1939?
    I don't remember the exact date, but there was quite a delay
    from the time that she said, well,
    this is a program you might be able to go.
    And I was enthusiastic, so we considered
    ourselves fortunate that it came to reality.
    It actually happened.
    Describe for me those two years that you're still in Vienna
    after Hitler takes over.
    How does public life change?
    What did you see when you went out on the streets?
    How did people behave to one another?
    The big propaganda machine that blared
    Hitler's lengthy speeches from loudspeakers
    in public intersections in the city--
    so there was no way of really escaping
    those news, the propaganda, and he
    spoke frequently and at length.
    And you've seen it in newsreels.
    He was always ranting and raving,
    and you sort of had to listen.
    People at home-- we didn't even have a radio,
    so that was our means of being informed.
    Plus they organized districts and appointed people.
    You are in charge of these many blocks.
    And they came, for instance, to tell us that--
    just into September when Britain declared war,
    the announcement was made that all attics have
    to be cleared and totally empty except for sand
    to be prepared for incendiary bombs,
    and I participated in the training of how
    to put out incendiary bombs.
    They were not necessarily the big explosions
    that would level half a block.
    They started almost as small fires,
    and it was a matter of trying not to let them spread.
    And most of the roofs in Vienna were not flammable,
    if I remember, so the order came that the spaces had
    to be cleared of all materials.
    And my maternal grandmother and I
    embarked on this arduous task.
    I took her two canvas shopping bags, and she had the key.
    And her little dog came up with us to inspect the situation,
    and the only thing that was in our attic
    was a disassembled tile heating stove.
    Oh, so one of those [? kohleofen ?]
    or something like that?
    They were the coal ovens that had these fancy tiles.
    Yes, right, people heated their apartments
    with coals in tile stoves or ovens, and my Aunt Rosa--
    when she moved into that apartment,
    she renovated, took one of these large tile stoves,
    and replaced it with a style that
    had a visible flame behind this special glass that
    doesn't burn.
    And the pieces of the old stove were the only things
    that were up in the attic.
    Well, I could lift about one in each of these sacks,
    and I think I counted 15 trips up and down.
    And the dog went with me each time.
    Grandmother only came the first time to open it up.
    And the next day, my thighs were just solid or frozen.
    I could hardly move, but we had complied with the order.
    Were there are a lot of apartments in your stairwell?
    There were three on each level, so there
    would have been three, six, nine, 12,
    25 apartments or 24 apartments with the caregiver
    at the very bottom.
    And all the debris or whatever was emptied
    was put in the courtyard, and we waited to be collected.
    I'm trying to remember the garbage collection.
    We must have had it, but it was also
    centralized in the courtyard on the bottom floor.
    And what were relations with the neighbors like?
    It depended.
    We had several people on our side
    that we were acquainted with on our floor,
    and not direct neighbors but with one apartment in between
    was a very sad story of a middle-aged woman who
    lived alone.
    And she must have been mentally ill.
    She was not Jewish, but she attempted suicide time and time
    again.
    And the only way she had was--
    we had gas stoves, and she would turn on the gas
    and try to breathe this toxic--
    but the neighbors above her, or below her, or somewhere
    would smell and call for help, and she
    would be rescued time again.
    And I felt so badly because her problems were not solved,
    but she was prevented from taking her own life.
    This attitude towards suicide stayed with me
    long before we voted for medically assisted suicide
    in some of the states as we now have it.
    When I was in practice, I also felt that we were forever
    rescuing, but we were not giving the support that these people
    needed, hence many tried again.
    And it's so obvious to me that this is a call for help
    that society is not yet addressing appropriately.
    And was this lady your first introduction
    to this kind of suffering?
    Yes, but it became more and more common for Jews
    to commit suicide because--
    for instance, the father of Lore,
    the girl that was one of the four children
    who came to the States at the same time in the same program--
    this was also a mixed marriage with
    a successful Jewish business man, his wife
    and four daughters.
    He felt that if he were to commit suicide,
    that his money would be going over legally to his family,
    and therefore they would not be destitute.
    They wouldn't have to deal with him being persecuted.
    He succeeded in suiciding.
    He'd shot himself.
    But the Nazis paid no attention to his intentions,
    and eventually the daughters and also the mother
    were able to emigrate to the United States.
    And the youngest daughter is the one that came in my program,
    and we were very good friends and very supportive
    of each other in the few months that we lived together
    in New York.
    Can you tell me, then, when you get
    that permission from the Quaker organization,
    was this the first time you actually have contact
    with them?
    I did not personally have contact, but they made this--
    somehow, whether it's in the newspaper or--
    how my mother found out I'm not sure.
    It was low-key.
    It did not have--
    it was a pilot project.
    There were only four children, and we
    waited for confirmation of where we would be going
    and who we would be living with.
    Instead, the Quakers managed to give us
    only the papers and the permission to emigrate,
    and then they turned over to social services
    in New York City on our arrival.
    But I want to talk about your departure.
    When you leave Austria, do you leave with somebody
    accompanying you from there?
    No.
    These four children-- we all met at the train station.
    We had our tickets on the Conte di Savoia out of Genoa,
    and we traveled together.
    But we had no adult chaperone.
    There were just four of us, and we had met just a few days
    before the departure.
    So in effect, we were certainly interested and supportive
    of each other, but we didn't have any adults with us.
    Was there still a US embassy in Vienna at that time?
    This was 1940.
    Yeah, I doubt it because I think--
    how did we get the visa?
    Exactly, because--
    There must have been--
    I assume my mother would have done the leg work.
    I don't remember.
    So you don't remember going to a US embassy, or a US consulate,
    or any kind of official visit?
    No, none, not in my memory.
    And you said goodbye to your mother at the train station?
    Yes.
    And with Lisi as well?
    Yes.
    And your maternal grandmother, or was she at home?
    No, the grandmothers did not come to the train.
    They were not that mobile at that time.
    They were distinctly elderly, walking slowly, using canes,
    that sort of thing.
    Did you think this was a temporary separation?
    Yes.
    It was all "until the end of the war"
    and an opportunity to study.
    I think we were quite optimistic,
    and there were no tears.
    Like when my sister left, the excitement of going,
    the fact that you just had your 15th birthday
    but you're an adult, you have your own passport,
    and you get to go on your own, and that was a big deal.
    It is.
    Yeah, I can imagine.
    It still would be a big deal.
    And were all of the four of you who were chosen for the pilot
    program mischling children?
    Yes.
    So this was not for full-blooded Jewish children?
    Right, and two of us had been raised Christian,
    and two had been raised in the Jewish tradition.
    And you are one of those who was raised Christian?
    Yes.
    Because you weren't very religious, you said?
    You didn't go to mass.
    You didn't--
    Right.
    By that time, I was because after the convent,
    I sought out my religion.
    I had a father confessor, and I really had a strong faith.
    And it gave me--
    it gave me quite a lot of confidence.
    I can also see, then, why it was such a heartache when
    the nuns told you when you were in second grade
    about divorced people because only if you then
    become close to the faith does that matter, what
    would have been said.
    Did your grandmother ever visit you,
    your paternal Jewish grandmother?
    Did she ever visit you at the convent school?
    She must have.
    I don't recollect, but after all, she's
    the one that found it and that chose it and felt that the--
    she was intrigued because of the two languages.
    She thought languages were very important in Europe,
    and the sooner you learn, the better.
    Well, she was right.
    She war right in that.
    So you have said goodbye to all the ladies in the family,
    to your two grandmothers, to your mother, to your sister,
    and you're on the train with three other girls or--
    One another girl and two boys.
    And you go to Genoa?
    Yes.
    And is it an immediate transfer to a boat,
    or do you wait there for a while?
    We had an overnight, and I don't really remember.
    We must have had tickets, and when
    we embarked on this huge ship, it was very exciting.
    And the weather was good enough.
    It was April, so it was a bit on the chilly side.
    But I remember loving wind in that time of my life,
    and Lore and I ran to the very front of the ship.
    And we loved to have the wind just blow us all the way.
    And there were-- the ship was--
    Italy had not yet entered the war,
    so this was the only way that people left Europe
    at that point.
    And we had-- it took about a day to go from Genoa to Naples,
    and then we stayed in Naples for a day--
    and I don't think we did any sightseeing,
    but it was just beautiful to see the vistas from the ship--
    and took on more passengers.
    And until we got through the Straits of Gibraltar,
    all was well, but as soon as we were out in the Atlantic,
    the waves became turbulent.
    And I got not only seasick, but I also
    must have had the flu because I never surfaced the 10
    days that we crossed.
    I had a lot of trouble.
    I had some medicine, but it didn't really work.
    But the others had a good time on the ship,
    and the cabins were certainly adequate.
    We were third class, but the dining rooms were elegant,
    and when we arrived about a week later, I was quite weak.
    I had to sit on my suitcase.
    We were standing to wait as the immigration
    people had come on board and were checking passports.
    I remember sitting there forever,
    and we did not have to go through Ellis Island.
    But at no point there is somebody who accompanies you?
    Excuse us.
    Let's cut for a second.
    Rolling.
    OK.
    Tell me, you were all about the same age?
    Yes, we all had our 15th birthday right around
    that because that's eight years.
    Eight years of education usually is six to 14,
    and then you're on your own.
    Do you remember the names of the other three?
    Not the last names.
    Lore [? Thorne ?] was the girl, and I stayed in touch with her.
    But Erich and maybe Leo were--
    as soon as we were out of the hotel,
    they were placed in another family, and we lost track.
    We did not keep in touch with them.
    So their names were Leo and Erich?
    Yes.
    Also from Vienna?
    Yes.
    And you still don't find somebody
    from the Quakers who's a representative who
    comes on board, who says, hello, I'm here to kind of--
    No, the only thing that I remember
    is that we were interviewed by a social worker who
    spoke good German because we did not speak English.
    We had been-- none of us had English instructions before we
    left, strange.
    But anyway, we were interviewed by this lady social worker,
    and the first thing she did is she offered us cigarettes.
    And none of us had ever smoked, and in those days
    it was not only fashionable, but I'm
    sure she thought that she would put us at ease
    and she would make us feel grown-up.
    I remember [COUGHS].
    Needless to say, that pack of cigarettes didn't get any help.
    However, Lore became a smoker and sadly died of lung cancer
    before she was 50.
    Young, very young.
    And so you are altogether.
    You don't have to go through Ellis Island, but you do have--
    do you have immigration interviews?
    Do you have--
    The interview that I remember was in the Pennsylvania Hotel,
    and it was largely to find out if we had particular likes
    or problems.
    And Lore and I were first placed with an Irish family
    in the Bronx, and it was a rough entry
    because we arrived in the afternoon.
    And the family hadn't had supper yet,
    but the two little dogs were eating when
    we came into their kitchen.
    And we were welcomed, and the first thing I did
    was focus on one of the dogs and petted it.
    It turned around and bit me, and it with me
    so that there was blood.
    So there was this commotion.
    Now what do we do?
    So they took me to a physician, I guess, in the neighborhood,
    and he cleaned the wound.
    But it was pretty sore, and they only had one bed for us.
    For the two of you?
    For the two of us.
    So with my sore arm, we didn't have a good night.
    However, the next day, we ventured out
    and into the neighborhood, went around the block,
    and found a grocery store that had fruit out on the sidewalk.
    And there was this sign, a big barrel of oranges, 25--
    Oranges is the same word in German and in English,
    and then there was 25 and the C with a line through it.
    Well, we didn't really know money,
    but Lisi had told me about dollars, and 100 cents,
    and a quarter.
    And she had somehow brought--
    I had $1, and this dollar was, of course illegal,
    but I had smuggled it in my prayer book between the cloth
    cover and the leather cover.
    And so we had a whole dollar between us,
    and we bought 25 oranges, and we got three quarters back.
    And we came home, and we sat down.
    And between the two of us, we polished off 25 oranges.
    And the next day we went to buy another 25.
    We didn't get sick.
    Oh, those oranges were so good.
    The lemons, by the way, I gave away,
    and I could not escape the smell until we get on the ship.
    And it was awful because I was so motion sick.
    Well, what about the lemons?
    This was--
    My classmates had come to say goodbye at the train station,
    and they brought the gift of one month's food ration,
    going-away present.
    Here's a lemon, and there is a lemon, and there's--
    three of them brought me lemons, and I stuck them
    by my suitcase.
    And the whole suitcase was fragrant with this lemon.
    Tell me, though.
    Your schooling-- did you continue that public school?
    We were now at the Bronx.
    No, no.
    Excuse me, before you leave Vienna
    because you say your classmates came to say goodbye.
    This was this very informal, private "prep" for Matura
    instruction, and it was--
    The castle?
    No, no, no, no, no.
    This was just a private enterprise, no certification.
    You would just get instruction, and then you
    would go to wherever the exams were held.
    And I wouldn't have been given permission, probably, to--
    but nevertheless, if was instruction.
    It was good.
    So that means that truly--
    this is something I forgot to ask before.
    You said that the convent school had been closed down,
    then you went to a public school.
    Did there come a time when you were not allowed
    to go to school anymore?
    Yes, by the summer of 1930--
    sorry, by the summer of 1939.
    So that fall, my mother arranged for me
    to attend this informal, private instruction that she paid for.
    And so you attend that for about half a year?
    Yes, and I did not mention the fact that I was Jewish
    or part Jewish.
    In that?
    OK, OK.
    And did you finish your school year at the public school?
    The eighth grade, yes.
    And then it was simply that you got a notice that
    don't come back, or--
    Well, the eighth grade was separate,
    and then there was the middle school.
    And I would have had to apply, and I would not
    have been admitted.
    So I didn't bother to apply.
    That's now clear.
    And one other thing that I forgot to ask
    is, did someone actually meet you at the boat
    when you came over?
    Must have.
    I just don't seem to have any recollection.
    After you're gone, I'll try to search my diary
    and see if there's any entry.
    It often happens, and in one interview
    we will never catch everything.
    So don't-- not to worry.
    Not to worry.
    I simply ask it so that, as much as possible,
    we have a full picture, but it's impossible to get everything.
    So it's all right.
    So at any rate, you are with Lore in the Bronx
    with this Irish family, and you have this drama
    happen right away when you get in there,
    that the dog, while he's eating, turns around and bites.
    Did anything happen health-wise, or did your arm heal?
    My arm healed.
    It took several weeks, but I did not have general infection.
    And the instructions were to watch the dog.
    If he showed any sign of illness,
    then there's the quarantine.
    And you would have to get anti-rabies shots,
    but I did not.
    And then the school began to come into the picture.
    We went to a local high school, and the teachers,
    especially one teacher who was able to speak German,
    immediately got interested in us.
    And she understood the situation that we were facing,
    and she lobbied for us to be moved.
    She didn't think that this was a good fit because we
    didn't speak English.
    The family didn't speak German.
    They had two younger children, and there
    were some mix-up with laundry.
    And yeah, she just felt it wasn't a good fit,
    and she evidently knew the social services system.
    And they found another home in Manhattan
    where it was actually a refugee family
    with a pair of twin girls that had
    room, an extra room for two other girls,
    and that was a better fit.
    And so we were transferred there.
    Was she right?
    Yes.
    And we then changed schools.
    This home was on 148th Street West,
    very close to the Hudson River, but the nearest high school
    was 186th Street West--
    40 blocks.
    --a long way.
    And believe it or not, we walked it, not every day,
    but they interviewed us and put us
    in an English class, a German class, a math class,
    and a civics class.
    And I couldn't for the life of me
    figure out what civics was all about.
    Anyway, those two months--
    because this was the end of April--
    May, June, end of school, we then
    had the summer more or less to ourselves.
    We became acclimated, and the best thing
    that ever happened to both of us was the fact
    that Lore had an aunt who had emigrated a few years earlier,
    lived within walking distance of the 148th Street
    in a tiny one-room apartment, worked hard in the factory,
    and became our mother on the scene.
    Her name was Honey [INAUDIBLE],, and she
    is one of my many mothers.
    Anyway, I then had another four months in New York City,
    and this summer we spent largely in movie houses
    because they were air-conditioned.
    And you could see the same movie over and over again, double
    feature.
    Nobody cared.
    $0.10 was all you had to pay, and I think it was probably
    Honey who gave us our pocket money.
    What little we had we put to good use,
    and actually, that's not a bad way
    to learn the language, to be immersed.
    And it's fun.
    Yes, it is, and this was the beginning when I then
    was able to communicate by letter with the Reese family,
    although they currently lived in Hawaii.
    And so from New York to Hawaii--
    I think the letters took about a week.
    So they no longer were in Connecticut
    where your sister had been with them?
    Right, they were transferred to work in Hawaii.
    Uncle Lou was in charge of the Army Navy YMCA,
    and Lois was in her first year as a linguistic teacher
    at Punahou, the now-famous school
    because Obama went there.
    Anyway, Punahou was within easy walking distance
    of the Reese's home, and Lois, as soon
    as she found out that I was in New York came that summer to--
    Teachers are forever spending time learning more,
    so she went to summer school in Quebec to, I think,
    enhance her French capabilities, French language,
    and then she came and picked me up and brought her saved money.
    She was living at home.
    It was $100 on the cross country for about four
    and a half days, Pullman sleeping cars,
    and then another four and a half days on the Lurline
    to get to Honolulu.
    And it was 1940 with two worlds exhibits in New York
    and in San Francisco, and she took me to see both of them.
    What a treat.
    In the middle of all of these things happening
    in Europe, in this dark place, and then coming here--
    And this was so exciting, and America was not in the war.
    And the propaganda hadn't quite reached me yet.
    I called it propaganda because as the United States got closer
    to war, the stories I just didn't want to believe.
    So I said to myself, this can't be.
    The Germans can't be that bad.
    What are those stories?
    What were those stories?
    The extermination, the killing of Jews.
    Of course, I had been sheltered, didn't see,
    and I didn't want to believe it.
    But it was the reality, and, interesting,
    1940 and 41, until the Japanese attacked,
    I just had this mentality, OK, I'm homesick,
    but I'm glad to be here because I can go to school.
    And when the war is over, I will go home
    and be forever grateful.
    But when the Japanese attacked and all of a sudden--
    I wasn't particularly worried because in Europe there
    were so many borders, and it was not that uncommon
    that people were caught in a conflict
    behind the wrong border.
    And so you were labeled, and you were
    interned for a period of time.
    And the day after Pearl Harbor I was
    interned of for seven weeks.
    How did that happen?
    Did they come to the Reese's home?
    They came to the Reese's home the day after,
    and that first day--
    first when we woke up to all this noisy overhead
    roar of airplanes and distant--
    it was like maneuvers, and I remember Lois
    and I shared a room, and she said,
    you'd think they'd pick some other time
    to do their maneuvers.
    The only day we can sleep in we were woken up at 6:00 or 6:30.
    Well, as there was more noise and commotion, we got up,
    and I remember a small yellow plane overhead and looking up.
    Of course, I didn't know what airplanes of war looked like,
    and I didn't recognize that the red spot was Japanese.
    But then there was a big explosion,
    and we looked out the window.
    And there was a lot of dust across the street
    and a big crater and no fire.
    And we ran downstairs, and other people came out.
    And some had the radio on, and then we
    knew that this was not maneuvers.
    And we did not have a fire, and fortunately, it
    landed on an empty lot across the street.
    So then announced--
    Excuse me.
    You're in Honolulu, yes?
    Yes, downtown Honolulu.
    And Pearl Harbor is at the corner?
    Pearl Harbor is about 7 miles away.
    But the noise-- and before long, I
    think we could see some distant smoke, too.
    And then came the announcements that all military personnel
    needed to go to their duty stations,
    and all civilians were asked to donate blood.
    And I was all set to go, and the age limit was 18.
    And I was only 16, so I couldn't donate blood.
    But I felt very useful because the island was
    going to be blacked out as of that night,
    and I knew all about covering windows or finding a way
    to close off your house.
    You couldn't even smoke outside.
    It was very strict curfew.
    So I went around the neighborhood,
    and for the first day I really felt that I could be helpful.
    And that made me feel good.
    I had a babysitting job at that time,
    and the family of this little Elizabeth,
    who was four years old, asked me if I
    would sleep at their house in the room with the baby
    because she was frightened.
    And so I did that on Sunday night,
    and Monday morning an official came to the house
    and said I needed to come down to the immigration station
    and bring my papers.
    And in Hawaii everybody went barefoot,
    so I was all set to walk out.
    And Aunt Dorothy said, Maria, I think you better put on shoes.
    So I went with my shoes, my passport, my purse.
    That was it, no toothbrush.
    And I didn't come back for seven weeks, and they couldn't visit.
    And it was during those seven weeks
    that I said to myself, a country that can treat their enemy
    aliens in such a civil away--
    we were under guard, but we were not abused in any way.
    And we were fed, and we were not given any information.
    And there might have been some spies among us
    because there were some Italians, and some Germans.
    And I was the only one from Austria,
    and there were not many Japanese because the Japanese
    are such a large segment of the population.
    They couldn't intern all the Japanese.
    Anyway, it was during that time that I thought maybe
    I would like to become a citizen.
    Isn't that interesting?
    And eventually I did, but I had to wait until--
    you have to be at least 18 to--
    when you're not with parents to signify your intent, and then
    you have to be 21.
    And you go through civics exam.
    Did you figure out what that was all about?
    Eventually, but it was a strange concept
    because I was just so totally unaware of these necessities.
    So the downtown Honolulu immigration station
    is where I was interned, and we weren't allowed to telephone.
    But the Reeses knew because announcements
    had been made online, and there was one other German detainee.
    And she was going to be a nun.
    She was a postulant in one of the Kaimuki convents
    that had a boarding school, and eventually
    when things kind of settled down the captain who
    was in charge of permanently placing the detainees--
    he thought to himself, well, Gertrude's got a place to go.
    She gets to go back to the convent.
    I can't let Maria go to the Reeses
    because there is all this military personnel,
    and you can't have enemy aliens fraternizing with servicemen.
    And that's a no-no.
    So he talked Reverend Mother into accepting
    the guardianship for me, and nobody paid any money.
    Reverend Mother agreed, but nobody told me.
    So seven weeks later, after some interesting experiences,
    comes the announcement, Gertrude and Maria, get your things.
    You're released.
    Big excitement.
    So we got our things together and were
    transported in the Jeep, and we went out to Kaimuki,
    to this convent.
    And Gertrude jumped off the Jeep,
    and ran into the arms of a Reverend Mother.
    And I sat in the Jeep waiting to be taken home to the Reeses.
    And the driver said, what are you waiting for?
    And I said, I don't live here.
    And his answer was, you do know.
    So big tears, and the Reverend Mother
    promised that she would call the Reeses
    and let them know that I was fine and I was there.
    And I then became part of their boarding students,
    and not only did I have regular high school instructions,
    but one of the nuns was teaching piano.
    And I got to take piano lessons.
    Did you like it there?
    Not as much as being with the Reeses,
    but I was appreciative of being there.
    And this was my senior year in high school.
    I actually didn't have a junior year as
    such because when I enrolled in Punahou--
    the fall usually has a physical exam for students,
    and the doctor discovered that I had a thyroid condition,
    and it was affecting my heart.
    And she said that I would need treatment,
    and no exertion, no swimming, no running.
    And so I prepared--
    it was difficult because in those days
    they treated hyperthyroid with surgery,
    and in order to have surgery on a minor
    you have to have permission.
    And so the Reeses tried to communicate with my mother,
    and since we were--
    Austria is goiter belt country because our water comes
    from snow, and it is deficient in iodine.
    If you're are not close to the ocean, you lack that.
    And a lot of people have enlarged thyroid
    my mother had my grandmother had, I had,
    but the toxic condition needs to be treated.
    So I was out of school that year,
    and again, my wonderful foster family
    arranged for me to have typing lessons, and piano lessons,
    and voice lessons and tried to make it as good as you can.
    This is the school year of 1940-1941?
    Yes, yeah.
    Let's step back a little bit.
    When you're taken and you're held in this internment place,
    where did you say it was?
    In the downtown-- it was called immigration station.
    And it had limited facilities, so initially we
    were all in this huge hall.
    About how many of you were there?
    Between 40 and 60 people.
    And there wasn't any place to sit, so we sat on the floor.
    And we thought we were going to be questioned,
    but nobody had time to question the day after the attack.
    They were too busy doing other things.
    However, they arranged for army cots to be set up.
    And if I remember correctly, the men were in one area,
    and the women were in another.
    And by nightfall pretty much cots
    had been set up with a blanket, and it's warm year-round.
    You don't really need much.
    And actually there were also smaller rooms,
    and there were three cots in the room that I was in.
    And we were next to a bathroom, and we just slept on the cot.
    And there was a shower and adequate toilets.
    And our room had a screen door, no air conditioning.
    And then there was a screen window at the opposite end,
    so there was some breeze, no fans.
    It got pretty warm.
    And when we went to the mess hall three times
    a day to be fed, we went single-file,
    and we were encouraged to be quiet.
    But it wasn't as though you were browbeaten
    into not being able to talk.
    You were allowed to converse.
    It wasn't convent school.
    It wasn't as strict as the convent school.
    And we ate on the military utensils or trays,
    if I remember correctly, and we could choose.
    We could say, I want some of this or not too much of that,
    unlike the convent.
    Everybody was served the same way, and you sat at that table
    until everything on that place was clean,
    even if your missed recess.
    I can remember canned peas.
    That kept me forever at that.
    It's very interesting and quite significant
    that it is during the time that you innocently
    are in detention as an enemy alien that you start thinking,
    maybe this is a good country to become a citizen of.
    It is a very ironic situation.
    But that's exactly what happened,
    and the people who were there, by and large,
    were grateful immigrants.
    And after the first week, we were
    allowed to have things dropped off,
    and so Aunt Dorothy brought change of clothes,
    and books, and some stationery, things to read and write.
    And one of the ladies who was there
    asked for a complete book of Shakespeare,
    and you wouldn't think that you'd
    be interested in 17 or 16th century tales
    from another country.
    But there wasn't much else to read,
    and this lady whose book it was so avid about learning
    and teaching.
    I remember being quite mesmerized and interested
    in listening to the works of Shakespeare.
    So I got to be there, no spiritual opportunity
    except for personal prayer.
    What about-- you said there could have been
    some spies amongst the group?
    Mm-hm.
    What makes you say that?
    Because it's a reality.
    I didn't get to know the people, but some of them
    were kept for the duration of the conflict
    and were sent to other camps.
    Really?
    Did you ever have any kind of formal interview?
    Yes, I had an interrogation after maybe two weeks or so,
    and that was quite intimidating.
    There was a long table and maybe five interrogators, all men,
    some in uniform, and by then my English
    was pretty good because I had had a year and a half of being
    immersed in it.
    And there were many questions.
    One of them was, do you listen to short--
    do you listen to German radio, or do you
    listen to shortwave radio, either one or the other?
    And I said, you can't get reception.
    So you tried?
    And of course, I had tried, but except for that one statement,
    it was pretty straightforward with the questions
    that they asked and they answered.
    But I did have that same passport,
    and I had the Japanese visa.
    And did they ask you about it?
    Yes, and I said I was homesick and I couldn't go home
    over the Atlantic.
    So I was planning to go home by way of Japan.
    This, of course, was before there was any attack,
    and then I would have gone by the Siberian rail road,
    and at that time the Russians were allies.
    And did you explain about your mixed parentage?
    Yes, but I had no proof.
    Except when I had first arrived a year and a half earlier,
    there was-- if I had my scrapbook with me,
    I could have showed them that "Refugee Child Joining
    the Reese Family," and it had an article about my being there
    and that the Reeses opened their--
    But I didn't have it with me, and I just told them about it.
    So there would have been a newspaper article about you?
    Yes.
    In the Honolulu paper?
    Yes.
    I think I still have it somewhere.
    And another irony is that, as you were there,
    chances are your father was in an internment camp
    at the same time in Britain.
    Yes, yes, but of course, there was no communication then
    at that point, although we had had communications
    right up regularly.
    And I would then convey what's happening
    in England to my mother by way of these Red Cross messages.
    Did your mother know at any point,
    until she came to the States herself,
    that you had been interned?
    She wouldn't have known at the time.
    She had to give permission for this operation, which
    was traumatic because in Vienna they wouldn't have operated.
    I had it from birth.
    Why do they want to operate?
    Well, she wasn't given the information in a telegram.
    It's hard to say.
    But it was necessary because it was toxic condition,
    and it was affecting my heart.
    And then the following year, between the first Christmas
    and the second Christmas, is when
    I did have a reasonable recovery and learned how to type
    and learned how to sew through the auspices of the Salvation
    Army, which I still always support because they
    had some wonderful programs.
    They were free.
    You didn't have to pay, and they had sewing machines
    that you could use.
    I got to make my very first dress.
    Well, it's quite impressive, particularly
    when you think that your mother had done that
    for both you and your sister.
    Yes, yes, of course, she didn't find out for a number of years,
    but then I still showed it off with great fright.
    Did you communicate with your sister
    as well during these years, ever since you left,
    or was everything through your mother?
    Well, my mother and sister--
    --lived together.
    --were sharing house, and the messages
    are always signed Mutti, and Lisi, and Oma [GERMAN]
    because the three of them were living together as long
    as my grandmother was alive.
    But 25 words don't go very far.
    No, they don't.
    They don't.
    And yet we were very grateful to have them.
    But they came at--
    they were meant to come once a month,
    but oftentimes you got two or three at a time,
    and then there was nothing for a long time.
    I hadn't even been aware that the Red Cross was
    able to maintain such a thing between warring countries,
    that there is this possibility that civilians would have a way
    to communicate.
    --way to communicate, yeah.
    I always thought that it was just broken, completely broken.
    Yeah.
    Well, even before the America entered the war,
    we had censorship, so all the letters
    that came in the first year were censored.
    And we were pretty careful what we wrote about.
    Was there a time--
    and I'm talking right around Pearl Harbor,
    after Pearl Harbor--
    when you came to believe the US propaganda,
    as you put it, about what was going on?
    Yes, yes.
    It was a very hard time.
    It was a very hard time to believe the--
    of course, I was too young to have studied history.
    Anybody who studies history--
    there are these horrendous, horrendous behaviors
    of humans against humans that are really, really
    hard to believe.
    And yet they did occur, and they still do occur.
    When you did-- when you were able to internalize this,
    who were your fears for, or did you
    have any fears about those you left behind?
    Well, only dead the general threat
    of war, famine, and bombings.
    You read about casualties.
    How the British ever lived through that blitzkrieg,
    the courage that they showed--
    yeah, you wonder how people can survive,
    but then there are these incredible leaders.
    Still, when you remember Churchill,
    he's not really an inspiring person,
    let's say, from a pacifist side, and yet he was so courageous.
    But the number of casualties--
    I just read in the encyclopedia recently
    the Second World War killed more people than umpteen wars
    altogether.
    How we ever recovered is really astonishing,
    and the whole fabric of society was primarily--
    well, towards the end of the war,
    everybody had huge casualties, but the number
    of lives of young men snuffed out or irreversibly
    damaged in one way or another--
    that whole generation--
    I still can't really grasp it, and it's not publicized enough
    to prevent us from repeating.
    The only way is we do it in a less personal way,
    no longer hand-to-hand fighting a lot of times.
    Did you become a pacifist?
    I always was, and I had trouble when I actually
    went through my application to the citizenship
    because there's one phrase, will you bear arms
    in defense of this country?
    And when I went to get what they call the first papers,
    I went alone, and I was 18 in Walla Walla, Washington.
    And when that question came, I couldn't answer it
    because I had focused on, I don't want to kill anybody.
    So I dissolved in tears and left,
    and Dorothy came to my rescue, as she often did.
    And she said, Maria, that's a figure of speech.
    It doesn't mean that you have to kill somebody.
    You could be a nurse, or a ambulance driver, or something,
    but you would support the defense of this country.
    And so then that was enough rationalization.
    The second time around, she came with me,
    and I answered in the affirmative.
    And then I got my first papers, and it
    was in 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
    during medical school, that I finally got my citizenship.
    So tell me, how did your life progress from Hawaii?
    How did you end up in Walla Walla?
    Again, my affiliation with the Reeses.
    Uncle Lou had been in charge of the USO
    and was transferred, of all places, to San Luis Obispo
    first, and from Fort--
    he served at Fort Roberts, and then he
    was transferred to Walla Walla, Washington.
    And I followed, and I was in my last year of high school,
    graduated.
    And then I was all set to work full-time.
    Jobs were so easy to get.
    I had two at the time.
    I went to college.
    I had a teaching assistantship in German,
    which paid for my tuition, and I worked in a grocery store
    after school.
    That's actually were my later husband also worked.
    At a grocery store?
    In a grocery store, the Green Park Grocery.
    And it was across the street from the campus
    in Walla, Walla.
    Whitman was originally--
    I don't know.
    One of the Protestant sects were the founders,
    and it was a liberal arts college.
    And during the war it had a big V12 program,
    so the language department, the German language department,
    was handled by Her Santler, who was Austrian
    and happened to live across the street from the Reese's home.
    And he needed help with correcting papers,
    and that was a wonderful opportunity.
    I had another offer of a scholarship
    from a family that I was babysitting for,
    and the grandmother was very domineering, like my own.
    And she said, now, Maria, this is a college town.
    You should go to college, and I will get a scholarship for you.
    And I thought, well, with the scholarship will come
    all kinds of strings attached.
    And I came home to Aunt Dorothy and said,
    I don't want a scholarship from Mrs. Kelly.
    She'll choose my husband next.
    You were sensitive to these things.
    I was.
    She just reminded me of my own grandmother.
    And so Aunt Dorothy introduced me
    to the head of the German department,
    and so that problem was solved.
    And my college was--
    during the war, it was quite short.
    I was there are only two and a half years
    but could go around trimesters, and the same
    was true for my medical school.
    Well, what did you major in for your undergraduate?
    Premed, chemistry.
    And why did you choose those?
    Was this Papa?
    Yes, Papa encouraged me.
    I just loved to go to school, and my best subjects
    were not science.
    By best subjects were philosophy, and religion,
    and geography.
    I loved all those things, but the draw
    of being able to help people was very strong.
    And my father had taken us to visit hospitals, and come
    Christmas time, Lisi and I got to go to the flower shop.
    And he would pick up flowers, and then we
    could visit his patients and bring flowers
    because it was another era of medicine, by far.
    And other relationship between doctors and patients.
    Yes, yes.
    But Papa said, if you enjoy your studies, go as far as you can.
    And he knew me, and so he said, try to get into medical school
    because it is more difficult to be a nurse
    than it is to be a physician.
    And he is right.
    Emotionally, the nurse is closer to the patient,
    and when she disagrees with the physician,
    she is supposed to follow orders.
    When you're a physician, you don't have those qualms.
    You're the decision-maker.
    You're the decision-maker.
    So anyway, I was in premed, and I had these jobs after school
    and was able to save money.
    I can remember the first time I said to Aunt Dorothy,
    I now can pay you some rent.
    And their household was not affluent by any means
    because they were on a single salary, much like--
    YMCA people are almost like pastors.
    They are never overpaid.
    And Aunt Dorothy-- she was my idol in terms of--
    she lived her faith.
    She had faith, and she lived it.
    And she took in--
    there was a family where there was mental illness and a very
    disturbed little boy.
    Both parents needed to be hospitalized.
    Guess where he ended up.
    With us, and she was able to promote education.
    She herself did not have a college degree,
    but she was a writer.
    She submitted pieces of editorials and travel pieces
    for the Christian Science Monitor for years.
    And although she wasn't Christian science,
    she was just--
    she was just such a good person and very encouraging
    to all her children and anybody else
    to get as much education as possible
    and be channeled into the right way when--
    During those years, you never heard
    of anybody misusing drugs.
    Of course, alcoholism was around,
    but it wasn't in the family.
    Both my sister and I--
    as much as we loved her own mother
    and loved our stepmother, Aunt Dorothy
    had great influence on us.
    She saw the world through pink-colored glasses,
    and she would tell you, if you give people
    the benefit of the doubt and expect the best from them,
    you will get the best from them, nine times out of 10 anyway.
    And that's how she lived.
    Very wise words because it speaks to faith in people.
    There was such a contrast from my European experience
    where religion is your very private domain.
    You don't never ask anybody, whereas in America,
    what's with this religion?
    It's all about social activities, meeting for women,
    meeting for young men, discussions.
    And then before long started my speaking career.
    Aunt Dorothy-- I don't think she advertised me in any way,
    but because I was a foreign student
    and I was willing to share, people
    asked me to come and talk to them.
    About what?
    About what I knew.
    Well, what did I know?
    I knew Austria, and I talked about my schooling,
    my experience in Europe, and I talked about the war.
    And then later on I talked about the Japanese attack,
    and it was in small communities, be
    it women's, group or Rotarian dinners, or Kiwanis clubs.
    And I got to know a lot of people,
    and I was always so well-treated.
    And I don't know how I deserved that.
    It was enjoyable to share my experiences
    and to be appreciated.
    I don't think I ever earned any money that way,
    but I earned money in other ways,
    either by babysitting or with the scholarship.
    I even tried factory work.
    Walla Walla has big canneries, particularly
    for harvesting peas.
    Which you like so much.
    I didn't like, but I thought, oh, this is good money.
    Instead of $0.40 an hour, I might have earned $0.60
    an hour.
    Anyway, I got a bright uniform, showed up for the night shift,
    and the heat, and the steaming caldrons, no air-conditioning,
    and the smell of the peas--
    and then my job was to be sitting next
    to a conveyor belt, and you have to pick out the bad ones.
    And as this moves past you, my queasy stomach
    was getting sicker and sicker.
    I didn't last but three nights.
    So that good money in the pea factory was for somebody else,
    not for me.
    And I learned how to ride a bike and get around from my classes
    to home or to my jobs.
    The town was small, so rarely was I longer en route
    than 15 minutes.
    And the winters we had snow, but they weren't all that severe,
    not like Milwaukee winters.
    Well, it also sounds like this was quite--
    from your telling I don't sense that there is a war going on.
    We were more distant, yes.
    We were more distant.
    Did you have rationing there in Walla Walla?
    Yes, we did, rationing for only a few things.
    Meat was rationed.
    I believe butter was rationed.
    We rarely used butter anyway because it was too expensive,
    and we would use the equivalent of trans fats
    and then put dye in it with a mixer
    so it was more like regular margarine.
    Aunt Dorothy was a good cook, and during the war
    we raised rabbits.
    It was hard to have them for food for me,
    but Gordon, my younger brother, who
    had the little hatchery in the backyard--
    he was good with the animals, and he would
    dispatch them quite humanely.
    There was only one bump, and that was it.
    We didn't have chickens, but later on in life
    I came to appreciate chickens, too, in third-world countries.
    My husband, who was my brother's best friend--
    Your adopted-- the Reese family's.
    The Reese family.
    They met in Walla Walla at the high school,
    and his mother had also gone through a divorce earlier on
    and was about to move into another town
    with the stepfather.
    And it was Frank's senior year, and the family was moving.
    And had he moved with them, he couldn't graduate with his--
    --friends?
    --with his friends and his class.
    So guess what.
    He talked his brother into asking Aunt Dorothy,
    could Frank move in with us?
    And Aunt Dorothy said, well, your room is large enough
    and has two beds in it, so if you
    want to share your room, that's fine with us.
    And that's how I met my later husband.
    She really seems to have taken care of so many people
    who crossed her path, and as you were speaking earlier,
    I also thought of this, how this one relationship of doctor
    to patient in Vienna in the 1920s
    evolved into something that saved people's lives.
    Yes, and that brought, almost, clans together
    in mutually supportive manner.
    I often think about the children that
    are born in to dysfunctional families and never feel wanted.
    It must be dreadful to grow up that way,
    and it's no surprise that many of our criminals
    have such early experiences, not all, but many.
    Yeah, yeah.
    It sounds like you are surrounded by people who
    were caring about each other.
    And then also there is the attitude,
    you have certain amount of choice.
    You can look at this.
    Is it half-empty, or is it half-full?
    Aunt Dorothy chose to think it's half-full,
    and her outlook was always, how can this
    be turned into something positive?
    And there are many, many inspirational people,
    and you can pick who you want to follow.
    You don't have to--
    and you can learn as much from despicable people as
    from good people because you say to yourself,
    oh, I don't ever want to act like that.
    I don't ever want to be like that.
    I don't ever want to feel like that,
    or I don't ever want to talk like that.
    But I don't know what's happened to our media.
    The prevailing winds, the culture for the last,
    I'd say, two or maybe even three generations--
    it's going down.
    It's not going up.
    I don't have an answer.
    I don't know what to respond to that
    because the basis of comparison for me is different,
    but I can see what you're saying in our public spaces.
    Well, I blame it on one topic that
    is not mentioned often enough, and that is overpopulation.
    If you learn arithmetic, you know
    that if you start with one acre of land
    and you have six children, they're
    only going to have one sixth of an acre.
    And I think ignoring the needs of children
    is contributing so much, and the people who rescue,
    who adopt children that have been either abused or just
    neglected--
    it's such an uphill road to rescue them
    and to reassure them and turn their lives around.
    But in America today, if we are honest and ask ourselves,
    how many minutes a day am I productive,
    and how many minutes a day am I allowing myself to just
    be distracted--
    to make believe is fun, but to make believe 50% of the time
    is ruinous.
    We can't afford to devote that much time to pretend,
    and fantasy, and fairy tales.
    The people who are--
    my sign says, no farms, no food.
    Who is supporting the farms?
    The people who have the land usually
    are the hardest working, and I think this inequality
    that is getting worse and worse where
    we don't concern ourselves with many, many things
    and we only focus on some--
    it's dangerous.
    Well, it reminds me of what you were saying
    earlier in civics lessons.
    It's the sense of, do we get engaged and involved
    in a society?
    Do we get engaged and involved in things
    that are beyond our own immediate circles,
    our own immediate families?
    How do we participate?
    What do we do?
    And how do we get the motivation that you want to be helpful,
    you want to be involved?
    Some of the quoted politicians--
    I think it was J.F. Kennedy who said, "Ask Not what
    your country can do for you.
    Ask what you can do for your country."
    That teaching or the joy of introducing little ones
    to the care of animals and plants instead
    of the mechanized racing and competition--
    I have to be better than you.
    I have to be richer than you.
    I have to be more beautiful than you.
    I have this funny saying that a lady from Eastern Europe
    once told me.
    I thought it was really cute.
    She says, picture two old ladies.
    They're sitting together on a bench.
    One looks at the other and says, you know,
    there aren't any pretty girls in the village anymore, just me,
    and maybe you a little.
    It sounds like you had--
    I'm sorry to interrupt myself, but you had people
    show you the fun in these things through the nun who helped you
    or who allowed you to be her helper when you were
    in the convent school, through your father who would gather
    flowers, and you're able to distribute them to the patients
    that he sees at the hospital during these holidays.
    Those were those kinds of examples
    that both show you to get engaged and show
    that it's enjoyable to do.
    Yes, I think my own mother is the one--
    one proverb that she quoted time and time
    again is, teach by example, and learn from good example.
    It is very helpful, and that's why
    the social conditions of infancy and childhood, whatever we
    promote or contribute--
    and even the first lady now, Melania Trump,
    is trying to pick that as a worthy topic to bring up
    and to devote ourselves as against the overcompetitive--
    Tell me-- I'm going to change the subject a little bit.
    What did you specialize in medical school?
    In medical school I chose to be a general physician,
    but once I was in my internship, my father made the suggestion,
    and I agreed.
    Actually, when I looked at my worst grades,
    they were in anatomy and pathology,
    so I said to myself, Maria, you need to learn more.
    So I signed up for a residency in pathology
    that would fill those voids, and it was a good choice
    because once removed from the patient,
    you are then a doctor's resource.
    And you have more regular hours.
    If you are going to have a family yourself,
    it will not be as chaotic as if you
    have to choose between the sick patient or the sick child.
    And I became very interested and became
    board certified in pathology, and in 1955, when I finished,
    there were not many pathologists around.
    So no matter where we went, I could find work,
    and there was always work as a general practitioner.
    But it allowed us to--
    my husband wanted to raise children
    who were aware of the world rather than just Daly City.
    And so when opportunity came to him to change careers--
    his first career was as a merchant mariner,
    and that meant long weeks of separation
    as he would have to go wherever the cargo ship went.
    And that depends on where the cargo is.
    So I am a good rationalizer, and I said,
    if he happens to have that profession and I love him,
    I'd rather have him part of the time than not have them at all.
    So I didn't feel badly about the separations
    because I knew they would be part of that life.
    However, a few years later, there was a typhoon,
    and Frank's sister ship was on its way to Japan
    when his ship returned.
    And the sister ship went down with all hands in a typhoon.
    That was really--
    That was close.
    That was close, and that was--
    it made us think that maybe there is another way.
    And if you had told Frank that he would be a teacher, never,
    because his mother was a teacher,
    and he wasn't about to follow his mother.
    Nevertheless, he had good talent for teaching,
    and when he went for a veterans interview,
    they suggested that he should get teaching credentials
    and go into industrial technology.
    And that's what brought us to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo,
    and it allowed him the freedom of taking on new challenges.
    He was invigorated by new situations, new places,
    and he felt that that was good for the children.
    They wouldn't grow up to think the whole world was
    like Daly City.
    So how many children do you have?
    We raised two, a son and a daughter,
    and they're just a year apart.
    Their names are?
    Lou and Anne, and now they're the Globetrotters.
    My son is a research pharmacologist
    at the University of Utah that, for the last 15 years,
    has had a reciprocal relationship
    with the University of Papua New Guinea.
    And now they exchanged professorships,
    and he has about three trips a year.
    And now the island states, like the Solomons, and Fiji--
    they all have their own universities,
    and as they proliferate, Lou's affiliation
    has changed from Papua New Guinea
    to, presently, the Solomons.
    And his expertise is in testing materials from marine resources
    or plant sources to develop new pharmaceuticals with--
    and he tests for anti-cancer or anti-viral properties.
    Both interesting and necessary.
    Yes and he's very challenged in his work, and his wife--
    Andrea is a wonderful daughter-in-law.
    She has a doctorate in pharmacy and is a retail pharmacist,
    and that part of the family is medically devoted.
    I have a granddaughter who is in her third year
    of medical school at the University of Utah,
    and their middle son is in a dual doctoral program
    in Chicago.
    He is going to devote his life to research,
    a little bit like my uncle, Karl, in physics, probably
    applied physics as used in diagnostic PET scans or--
    there's so many new developments down the line,
    but he's got several years to go.
    And I was delighted to have communication
    from the grandchildren because their lives are so packed full,
    not just with so many more things
    to learn than we had to learn years ago because so much more
    is known at this point--
    But he also has a tradition.
    Look at what started with your parents.
    Yes, except that they add the physical challenges,
    and Frank is a runner.
    Both of his grandfathers are called Frank.
    And he was born on St. Patrick's Day, so he's Frank Patrick.
    Anyway, this weekend he and his brother-in-law
    are running 50 miles somewhere on the trail,
    and hopefully they'll not get dehydrated.
    I want to touch on travel but, again, in a different way
    and kind of circling back.
    Did you ever go back to Vienna?
    Yes.
    My father never did, and I had three trips to Vienna
    since I left in 1940.
    After spending two years in Africa,
    we took a month or six weeks to--
    the children were nine and 10.
    So this was about what year?
    1966, the summer.
    This was 26 years after you left?
    Yes.
    And we took them to Vienna.
    Unfortunately, during that trip my daughter
    was quite ill with a febrile illness of, probably, typhus,
    and I was worried they were going to quarantine her.
    But they were not that strict, and so Frank took our son.
    And for the second year in Africa,
    since there was no television, the children
    were lonely for one of their American friends.
    And my husband and I, having been foster children,
    said, if you write to Rick and he wants to come and stay
    with us for a year, we'll write to his parents
    and promise to give him back after the year.
    And sure enough, Rick was 12 and a half, the youngest of four.
    His parents agreed and let him travel
    from San Francisco to Malawi, where we were then
    spending a couple of years.
    And Rick is a practicing physician, became a Mormon,
    raised a family of six, and I just saw him
    and his wife for Mother's Day.
    Yeah, that was a very influential year
    for him and for us because, as the youngest of four,
    you are treated differently than if you're the oldest of three.
    That's true.
    So anyway, I was delighted.
    I'm very proud of him because he is not only a cancer
    survivor himself, but their first born, who
    was named after our son--
    while Rick was in medical school,
    their first baby developed hydrocephalus,
    which is water on the brain.
    And if it hadn't been treated in that first year,
    it could have led to grave disability.
    Happily, his first son is totally recovered,
    notwithstanding the battles that it
    took in his first year of life, and is a computer engineer.
    That was your first trip back to Vienna, in 1966.
    Then any time after that?
    Yes.
    When my daughter and her husband were stationed
    in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, their first son, our first grandson,
    was born, and I went to be with her at that time
    and took her, before she had the baby, on a trip to Vienna
    and showed her our home and showed her our school.
    It was an introduction for her to see what I grew up with.
    And the third time I went to attend a medical conference
    in Vienna and--
    that was in 1976--
    arranged to meet my mother-in-law, and my sister,
    and my niece, and my foster sister.
    We had a big reunion in Vienna, and that was a little bit
    of the modern life.
    And of course, times have changed in Europe
    as they have in the United States,
    so life is very different today as it was when I was there.
    And of all the places we have lived,
    I've always been able to feel at home wherever--
    Aunt Dorothy used to say, blossom where you're planted,
    wherever you're planted, and so I
    have very fond memories of places like Dhaka
    in Bangladesh, which other people would
    consider not a choice, not a--
    but the greater the need, the greater the satisfaction.
    We need to be needed.
    As people, we need to be needed.
    And my husband's job there was very challenging,
    and it was during the Iron Curtain days, lots of politics
    with--
    we used to call Bangladesh the basket case
    because it really needed help.
    And yet my job was to set up a clinic as an outpatient clinic
    for the United Nations staff, local and expatriate,
    and, hands down, it was the most challenging job
    as far as variation of patients, and type of diseases,
    and personal satisfaction.
    A huge thing.
    That's a huge thing to have done.
    And those threads stay with you.
    The nurse that was trained by American nuns
    in a little hospital, Holy Cross Hospital, in Dhaka--
    when the country secularized, the nuns were sent home,
    but what they had taught stayed behind.
    And my nurse was [? Teresa Ribirow ?]
    who was not only a capable nurse but had enough faith
    to carry us over some hurdles that I don't
    think I could have faced alone.
    I'll share only one.
    There was a Peace Corps couple that
    had been out in the bush over the weekend
    and found an abandoned infant.
    They brought the infant to the clinic.
    It was a little girl, probably weighed 2 and 1/2 pounds.
    And when they brought her in, I looked at her, and I thought,
    she is moribund.
    She'll live maybe today.
    She was covered with scabby sores,
    and she couldn't have been more than a couple
    of weeks, if that.
    Well, Theresa was there with me, and she said,
    she'll be all right.
    She'll be all right.
    We have penicillin.
    And she said dead with such confidence,
    and I said to myself, where are you going to--
    how are you going to give this child penicillin?
    Oh, yes, I know how.
    I know how.
    And then she brought the smallest needle,
    and she picked up what little skin there was.
    Anyway, we fixed a suitable formula, a very weak formula,
    and encouraged the couple to bring the baby every day.
    And every day we gave her penicillin,
    and little by little, the scabs dried up, fell off.
    The skin gradually peeled.
    She began to gain weight, and by the time she was a year old--
    I'm sorry.
    I've been searching for her picture and haven't found it.
    She was the picture of health, and the couple
    adopted her and hopefully--
    I don't know.
    I lost track.
    She would now be in her 50s.
    Anyway, that was the story of this little infant,
    and I have stayed in touch with this wonderful nurse
    who is also a cancer survivor and who
    now has a son who is a permanent resident in on the East Coast.
    And she spends half her time in one place or another.
    I wonder what your father would have
    said, had he known that from him to you,
    through you, to your children, and your grandchildren,
    and the people that you met--
    He was still alive when I was in Bangladesh.
    It must have been unbelievably satisfying for him.
    I think so, and when we were in Africa, he and his second wife
    went to Puerto Rico, and he became the director.
    He had befriended a colleague through
    the national annual meetings of specialists
    in physical medicine and rehabilitation,
    which became his chosen field.
    This friend of his developed terminal cancer
    and could no longer carry on his position,
    so Papa took over and spent his last 10 years in Puerto Rico.
    He had worked for the VA in different places before then
    and utilizing the many things that he
    did learn during the Second World War in England
    because they were leading as far as rehabilitation
    and physical medicine is concerned.
    So I lost my train of thought a little bit.
    We were talking about--
    I was saying how your father is the first example of someone
    in the medical field in your family story
    that you shared with us today, and then you enter it.
    And then you have experiences, and you
    have younger generations who also enter one
    or another part of the field which
    all comes from their own interests,
    but of course, there is something that came before.
    And when we can build on other people's--
    we are that much farther ahead.
    And when my daughter married, she
    pursued international relations in college
    and thought she might go in to banking.
    But she became disillusioned with the banking industry
    and for a while was searching for a career,
    searching for a career.
    Well, she devoted herself to motherhood for her two sons
    but always was interested in languages and travel,
    and she had joined us--
    she had, actually, her high school year in the two years
    that we spent in Taiwan.
    From that time on she pursued Mandarin,
    and it became her major language so
    that when she and William were stationed in Beijing,
    she was able to make good use of that language
    and eventually pursued a career in the diplomatic Corps.
    When her husband retired, she became active,
    and she is currently--
    her first assignment-- well, they
    were in Bavaria early in their marriage.
    I mentioned that.
    But having served in Saudi, and in Korea, and in Beijing twice,
    and--
    I'm trying to think of where else.
    Well, they were in Germany, and they
    were in California at the language institute.
    They did their share of traveling,
    but nearing the end of her career
    she has ended up in Norway, and she absolutely
    loves it because it's such a culture
    difference between her last assignment, the three
    years in Dhaka, in Bangladesh, and prior to that she
    spent four years into Japan.
    The world is so amazingly different,
    and you can learn so much at each place.
    So the big difference between our overseas experiences
    and today's travel is communication.
    When you can FaceTime with the push of one button--
    and there she is.
    I know.
    It's a miracle, isn't it?
    It is a miracle, indeed, instead of having
    to wait two weeks, or three weeks,
    or, as it happened during the war, sometimes months
    before you had news.
    So that's a big plus.
    Well, we're coming to the end of our interview,
    and I am so grateful that you have shared
    such stories with us today and have painted
    a picture of so many amazing people who were in your life
    and who you then gave life to and have shared with us
    and showing us the generations and the main central purpose
    that had been our interview, of how these policies that
    were the Nazi policies during World War II
    can wreck havoc and upheaval and how people land from that
    and go on and rebuild their lives.
    it sounds like, in your family's case,
    aside from your grandmother, that they had a chance--
    the Jewish side had a chance of an opportunity
    and was able to take that and then still be productive
    after they reinvent themselves.
    I think that's a good way to put it.
    I would like to close with this awareness of time.
    The only thing that we all have in equal amounts
    is the 24 hours of the day, and if we consider this equality,
    it's our choice how we want to spend them.
    I would like to encourage people to be aware that time is
    perhaps the number one resource and to devote it along with all
    the like-minded people-- there are so many good people in this
    world--
    and to align themselves, and to kind of let the water
    shed like it does off a duck's back
    when it comes to the things that other people choose.
    That's their choice, but I don't have to devote myself
    to those things.
    And I can find solace in like-minded people
    and go to sleep with the thought,
    tomorrow brings another 24 hours.
    Let me spend it happily and in the service
    of our planet in some form, whether it
    is to water the plants, or feed the kitty, or pet
    the kitty, or--
    These days, if you adopt a parrot,
    you need to put it in your will because the parrots
    and the turtles are likely to outlive you.
    So just put in your will a designated care,
    and then there are all these wonderful rescue operations.
    My debt of gratitude--
    the Salvation Army in Hawaii, the Quakers
    to bring me to the United States, the American Red
    Cross for the communication during the war,
    and there's one more, the American Friends Service--
    --Committee?
    It was started after the First World War
    to bring peace by introducing young people to one another,
    American Field Service, AFS.
    AFS?
    Mm-hm.
    OK.
    Thank you.
    Thank you, Dr. Barrows.
    You're very, very welcome.
    And I will say that this concludes the United States
    Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Dr. Maria
    Weissenberg Barrows on June 7, 2018 in San Luis
    Obispo, California.
    Thank you, and God bless you.
    Thank you.
    We will now cut for a minute and then--
    Tell me when you're going.
    I'm going.
    OK.
    So, Dr. Barrows, who is this a photograph of?
    This is my mother, Olga Maria Waliscek Weissenberg Miller.
    When she became a citizen, she chose a name
    that everyone could spell, whether German or English.
    Didn't have to--
    And about how old was she when this picture was taken?
    It's a lovely, lovely photograph.
    I think it's in her later 30s.
    So were you already born by that point?
    Yes.
    And was she still married to your father at this point?
    Yes.
    So this would have been in the 1920s.
    Yes, yeah.
    I would say maybe '29 or '30.
    OK, thank you.
    And now we'll get--
    OK, Dr. Barrows-- whoops, excuse me.
    Keep on holding the picture, yes.
    Can you tell me, who is that a photograph of?
    This is my paternal grandfather, Heinrich Weissenberg
    with his two sons, Eugene--
    oh, I'm sorry, Eugen--
    and Karl.
    And then when they adopted the English language,
    it became Eugene, and Karl, and Henry.
    And this would have been before your grandfather's death,
    clearly, in 1928 or something?
    He died in 1928.
    I would think that this might have been '26 or so.
    OK, 1926 with the both of them.
    Thank you.
    We'll cut that.
    Are we rolling?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Can you tell me some of the people
    who are in this photograph?
    This is a family picture--
    The Weissenbergs?
    --of the Weissenbergs with Grandfather and Grandmother.
    Your grandmother is wearing the high-necked--
    She's the dark one.
    Let's see.
    If we go left to right, it's Eugene Henry Weissenberg,
    and in the back is Professor Karl
    Weissenberg and his brother, the physician, Eugene or Eugen.
    And in the middle is Grandfather with two friends of Papa
    and Karl's that were their peers from the college days.
    And in the front row is the oldest sister, Jenny Vina,
    with the white hair--
    and she's Irma's sister--
    with Olga in front--
    --of Grandfather?
    Is Olga in the middle in front?
    Yes, she is next to the dark Irma.
    So Irma is in the dark dress?
    Yes, and Jenny is in the light dress.
    And my mother, Olga, is in the center, and the others--
    in the second row there are some friends with grandfather
    in the very middle.
    And about when do you think this photograph
    would have been taken?
    I would think it might be as early as '21 or 2, maybe
    in the very early marriage before my sister
    and I were born.
    And so Jenny with the white hair and the light dress,
    except for the bodice, which has a bit of a dark knee.
    She is the one who had the dairy?
    Right, and she never married.
    She was very successful but had diabetes,
    and I think that was her cause of death.
    Thank you.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Maria Irmgard Weissenberg Barrows, born on April 8, 1925 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her father’s medical practice in Bad Vöslau, a suburb on Vienna; her father’s service in World War I; her mother’s family; her paternal grandfather’s conversion from Judaism to Catholicism and how her father, who was baptized and raised Catholic, was considered Jewish by law; the Anschluss in March 1938; her older sister; attending a Catholic convent boarding school along with her sister; her sister’s study abroad program in Torrington, Connecticut; her mother’s and father’s family histories; growing up in Bad Vöslau; her parents’ separation in 1928 and later divorce; her father’s move to his parents’ apartment in Vienna after his father’s death; her father’s work at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien (Vienna General Hospital); living with her mother and maternal grandmother in Vienna after the separation; staying at a sanatorium and school in Tyrol, Austria for six months when she was five years old; her thoughts on the teachings of the Catholic Church as a student at the convent boarding school; the school closing after the Anschluss and transferring to public school in fall 1938; asking her mother to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls) so that she could take part in meetings and helping on farms, only to be told that she was not eligible because of her Jewish ancestry; having to leave public school after eighth grade; her mother finding a group of Quakers who were helping children of mixed ancestry to get exit visas; securing a visa to the United States and leaving Vienna in 1940; her sister’s return to Vienna and dance performances under different names; making American contacts through her father’s medical practice, including the Weiss family; her father’s escape to England in 1938 with his brother’s help; her father and uncle’s internment on the Isle of Man; her father’s immigration to New York in 1944; her paternal grandmother’s death in 1942; her mother’s and sister’s clerical work in a law office during the war and later work as translators in the American zone after occupation; propaganda in the streets of Vienna; receiving training on how to put out fires from bombs; leaving Vienna in 1940 with three other children who had received visas from the Quakers program and taking the train to Genoa, Italy; traveling by ship first to Naples, Italy and then to New York; staying with an Irish family in the Bronx, New York with another girl from Vienna, Lori; a teacher in the Bronx who helped transfer her and Lori to a different family in Manhattan who spoke German; attending high school; Lori’s aunt who lived nearby in Manhattan and became a surrogate mother to the two girls; improving her English by going to the movies during the summer; beginning to communicate with the Weiss family; a member of the Weiss family coming to New York to get her and bring her back to Honolulu, Hawaii, where the family lived; hearing rumors of the killing centers in Eastern Europe; her experiences during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; helping the Weiss family and their neighbors to meet blackout regulations; being interned for seven weeks at the Honolulu immigration station after the attack and its impact on her thoughts on becoming a US citizen; the conditions of the internment at the immigration station; returning to the Weiss family; the bombing of London during the war; the loss of life during World War II and her pacifist views; gaining US citizenship in 1947; moving to Walla Walla, Washington with the Weiss family during her last year of high school; attending Whitman College; meeting her husband; studying to become a doctor; speaking about her wartime experiences from an early age; living all over the world; her son, daughter, and grandchildren; visiting Vienna multiple times; hosting an American family friend’s son for a year while she and her family were living in Malawi, Africa; setting up a clinic in Dhaka, Bangladesh and her experiences there; and how grateful she is for all of her life’s experiences. (Family photographs and descriptions follow the interview.)
    Interviewee
    Maria Irmgard Weissenberg Barrows
    Interviewer
    Navazelskis, Ina
    Date
    interview:  2018 June 07
    Geography
    creation: San Luis Obispo (Calif.)

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 digital file : MPEG-4.

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    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 Maria Irmgard Weissenberg Barrows on June 7, 2018 in San Luis Obispo, CA.
    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 08:05:52
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn614776

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    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.

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jacob Vogel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Philip Vock

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Joseph Gatenio

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mariette Moscovici

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jack Moss

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mel London

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gisela Feldman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Haim Shmueli

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Itka Zygmuntowicz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Granirer Flor

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Renee Scheuer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carl Hirsch

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lotte Hirsch

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Herma Barber

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral History

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

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