Oral history interview with Hannelore Levit Melchior

Oral History | Accession Number: 2019.84.95 | RG Number: RG-90.047.0095

Some video files begin with 10-60 seconds of color bars.

Interviewee: Hannelore Melchior
Interviewer: Bernt Hermele
Date: interview: 2018 October 21
Geography: creation: Sweden
Language: Swedish
Extent: 1 digital file : WAV.
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Bernt Hermele

Expand all

Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
Personal Name: Melchior, Hannelore Levit.
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: Bernt Hermele donated his oral history interviews to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in March 2019. Mr. Hermele conducted the interviews for his podcast Överlevarna.
Funding Note: The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Conditions on Access: No restrictions on access
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use
Copyright Holder: Bernt Hermele
: Record last modified: 2022-10-27 09:58:42
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn677756

Also in This Collection

Oral history interview with György Fenyö

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stella Grünspan Tjajkovski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hania Gross Rosenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Piotr Zettinger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Susanna Lukács Christensen

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tobias Rawet

Oral History

Oral history interview with Franciska Levy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cila Trus

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zsuzsanna Reisch

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lydia Gerstel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Landau Weiner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joost Lakmaker

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eleonore Diamant

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sara Fransson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rosa Pajkin Tankus

Oral History

Oral history interview with Janina Nilsson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Dora Schreiber Bodlander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Aleksander Kwiatkowski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Monika Kischinowsky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lili Jodelsohn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Marian Wroblewski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bruno Frister

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tauba Katzenstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Julian Better

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Frankenstein

Oral History

Walter Frankenstein, born on June 13, 1924, in Flatow, East Prussia (now Złotów, Poland), discusses mother Marta (born October 28, 1885) and his father Max (born in 1882); his parents’ general store and inn; being raised Jewish and keeping Kosher; his father’s death in 1928; his good relationship with his mother; having had an idyllic childhood; his older half-brothers, Manfred and Martin; learning Jiu-Jitsu; the raise of the Nazis; his memories of the anti-Jewish boycotts; watching as the Hitlerjugend marched through the streets; an SA group firing gunshots into their store and losing his faith in God after this experience; his mother keeping their store open until 1938 when it was confiscated by the Nazis; someone painting on their store front an image of a gallows with a Jewish star hanging from it; being shot in the back with an air gun by the shoemaker's son, injuring a disk; attending public school until 1936 until he was expelled by the antisemitic principal; attending a Jewish school in Berlin, Germany while living in the Jewish Auerbach orphanage; enjoying the anonymity of the city; attending three days of the Olympics in 1936 with his uncle; being athletic; his teacher Erna Samuel, whom he admired and her bravery during the deportations of the students later in the war; his friend Egon Strassner, who was deported to Riga and later died in a concentration camp; his mother’s move to Berlin in early 1939 and the forced labor she had to do at the Schaub radio factory; Jews having to wear yellow stars beginning in September 1941; the deportation of his mother to Auschwitz (she died March 3, 1943); meeting his future wife Leonie; working as an apprentice bricklayer; doing repairs for the Jewish congregation; being summoned by the Gestapo to turn the former Freemasons lodge into the Gestapo headquarters; receiving a document that exempted him and his family from deportations; getting married even though Jews were not allowed to marry; the birth of their son on January 20, 1943; moving in March 1943 and avoiding deportation; being hidden by the chemist Dr. Artur Ketzer on Königsallé 23 in Grunewald; Leonie staying with her mother in Leipzig, Germany; the arrest and deportation of Leonie’s mother (she later died in Auschwitz); Leonie’s return to Berlin where she stayed with a friend, Edith Berlow; Leonie and the baby hiding with him in Ketzer's basement for four months; Ketzer’s deportation to a camp and his release; Leonie’s relocation to Landsberg an der Warthe (now Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland), where she lived on a farm; Leonie giving birth to a second child; Walter’s life in Berlin in 1944 and his work as a machinist; living with Leonie again in Berlin; looting stores during air raids; the destruction of their home by a bomb; going to live in another home; hiding in an air raid shelter for five days as the Allies approached Berlin; celebrating with Russian soldiers; going briefly to Landsberg before returning to Berlin; staying in the Neukölln borough; life in Berlin under Soviet rule; the continued antisemitism in Germany; going to Sweden and working as a brick layer and tiler; his Swedish friends; his dreams about the war; his thoughts on why he survived; and his identity as a Swedish Atheist and not as a Jew.