Oral history interview with Fred Badower

Oral History | Not Digitized | Accession Number: 2019.125.22 | RG Number: RG-90.057.0022

Overview

Interview Summary: Fred Badower discusses the history of his Polish family; growing up in a big Jewish community in Lodz, Poland; his father who was a tailor and Fred became a tailor as well; his experiences in the Lodz ghetto; how his tailoring skills helped him during the war; being sent to labor camps and two concentration camps; returning to Poland after the war; reuniting with his brother; finding others who wanted to leave Poland; the death of his sister from typhus during the war; living in Germany and working as a tailor; his work with the US Counter Intelligence Corps; some of his siblings immigrating to Australia; immigrating to the United States in 1949 and settling in Des Moines, Iowa; getting a job in an Italian tailor shop; and his life in Des Moines.
Interviewee: Fred Badower
Interviewer: Jeffrey Winter
Date: interview: 1982 March 21
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Iowa Jewish Historical Society

Physical Details

Language: English
Extent: 2 sound cassettes.

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: No restrictions on access
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use

Keywords & Subjects

Topical Term: Antisemitism. Death march survivors. Death marches. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Lódz. Jews--Persecutions--Poland. Jews--Poland--Lódz. Jews--Social life and customs. Men--Personal narratives. Refugee camps--Germany. Tailors. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland.
Geographic Name: Dachau (Germany) Des Moines (Iowa) Lódz (Poland) Munich (Germany) Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945. Sweden. United States--Emigration and immigration.
Personal Name: Badower, Fred.
Corporate Name: Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Dachau (Concentration camp) United States. Army. Counter Intelligence Corps

Administrative Notes

Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The Iowa Jewish Historical Society donated audio and video recordings from the IJHS archive to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in March 2019.
Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive

Record last modified:: 2023-08-25 16:41:50
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn693437

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