Oral history interview with Piotr Zettinger

Oral History | Accession Number: 2019.84.4 | RG Number: RG-90.047.0005

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Interviewee: Piotr Zettinger
Interviewer: Bernt Hermele
Date: interview: 2017 September 07
Geography: creation: Sweden
Language: Swedish
Extent: 1 digital file : MP3.
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Bernt Hermele

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Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
Personal Name: Zettinger, Piotr.
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: There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use
Copyright Holder: Bernt Hermele
: Record last modified: 2023-11-16 09:46:14
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn677796

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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.