Overview
- Interviewee
- Michael Meschke
- Interviewer
- Bernt Hermele
- Date
-
interview:
2018 May 02
- Geography
-
creation:
Sweden
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Bernt Hermele
Physical Details
- Language
- Swedish
- Extent
-
1 digital file : WAV.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
- Copyright Holder
- Bernt Hermele
Keywords & Subjects
- Personal Name
- Meschke, Michael.
Administrative Notes
- 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.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:46:38
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn677785
Additional Resources
Download & Licensing
- Request Copy
- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
In-Person Research
- Available for Research
- Plan a Research Visit
Contact Us
Also in This Collection
Oral history interview with György Fenyö
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hania Gross Rosenberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Piotr Zettinger
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.
Oral history interview with Adele Schreiber
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mala Maroko Freund
Oral History
Oral history interview with Egon Brill
Oral History
Oral history interview with Regina Naftaniel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jozef Bornstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alexander Rothman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tamara Nussbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Boleslaw Kalinski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Janina Ludawska
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leon Weintraub
Oral History
Oral history interview with Isak Fligman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rosa Bornstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hans Baruch
Oral History
Oral history interview with Valeria Nagy Seidel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerold Propper
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marika Deutsch Brenner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Herbert Weiss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dora Appel Antonsson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ewa Kabacinska Jansson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leo Kramár
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henryka Wieser Septimus
Oral History
Oral history interview with Oskar Tojzner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jozef Reich
Oral History
Oral history interview with Judith Popinski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Roza Itman Lekach
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Kadar
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leon Rytz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Vasilis Papadopoulos
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lisa Granér
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nadja Nagler Praquin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Norman Gleiss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Pollak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Zofia Flajszman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Genia Litwin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hanus Weber
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elise Reifeisen-Hallin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hilde Back
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Solyom
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marga Margulies
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hanna Dahlgren
Oral History
Oral history interview with Toni Gass
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ernst Halfen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Josef Frischer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alexander Margulies
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mirjam Pollin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gabriella Kassius
Oral History
Oral history interview with Bela Czitron
Oral History
Oral history interview with Kiwa Zyto
Oral History
Oral history interview with Stefan Zablocki
Oral History
Oral history interview with Debora Schwartz Katina
Oral History
Oral history interview with Folke Schimanski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Cecilia Pordes Granquist
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Neufeld
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Hadda Rogulla
Oral History
Oral history interview with Harriet Isaksen Borg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Georg Sessler
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ester Huberman Miska
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hellis Breslauer Sylwan
Oral History
Oral history interview with Erica Josefson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Judit Horvarth Lindberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Juliana Weiss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Renate Josefsberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Katalin Kadelburger Vacz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Egon Wolsner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hannelore Levit Melchior
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dina Rubinstein Haglund
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lea Posner Gleitman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Efim Roitenberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nelia Poliak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hans Rosenberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Edgar Cohn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Else Grubel Wolgast
Oral History
Oral history interview with Berta Andersson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eva Spielberger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Vasilis Platidis
Oral History
Oral history interview with Benjamin Grünfeld
Oral History
Oral history interview with Estera Jablonski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jan Kupacz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nikolaus Grüner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Viola Tabák Vig
Oral History
Oral history interview with Josef Klima
Oral History
Oral history interview with Wicia Mutto
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eva Lecerof
Oral History
Oral history interview with Perla Pola Heller Figur
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helena Dunka Biharijova
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Pizyc Berlinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dov Marmur
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fredzia Marmur
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jytte Israel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Siggi Korn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mona Levin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jan Huldt
Oral History