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Oral history interview with Willy Manela

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2019.253.991 | RG Number: RG-90.063.0991

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    Oral history interview with Willy Manela

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Willy Manela, born June 10, 1925 in Kielce, Poland, discusses his parents; his three siblings; extended family; the German occupation of Kielce and co-opting homes and neighborhoods, instituting prohibitions on Jewish activities, and detaining residents for forced labor; the establishment of a fenced ghetto; being tasked with unloading bags of cement at a building supply warehouse; sharing the responsibility for the family with his brothers Marc and Motek; being rounded up with ghetto residents at the railroad; being separated from Motek, his mother, and his sister, who were sent to Treblinka; being sent to Schwarzburg ghetto; bunking with his Kielce friend Barnard Shulman; working in lumberyard while his brother Marc worked in a munitions factory in Pionki; being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in late 1944; being tattooed and assigned to Block 23; being taken within the week to Pszczyna to perform munitions-related work; being marched on the night of January 17, 1945 in a group on foot to an encampment at Auschwitz outskirts, from which several prisoners escaped; being made to walk to Flossenburg camp; being housed in Barrack 37 with his Kielce friends Warshovsky Bernigola and (Sevig) Rubin; being transported on April 18 with Sevig Rubin to another camp; evacuating from the camp on foot; encountering the US Army on April 23, 1945; finding other liberated Kielce friends and walking and hitching to Passau, Germany; going to Bergen-Belsen, where he and Rubin found their respective brothers; traveling in a group without papers on foot from Poland back to Germany via Czechoslovakia, where they were caught, arrested, jailed, and ultimately released; returning to Passau; reuniting with his brother and uncle in Liege, Belgium; joining the Zionist movement; immigrating to Israel and living in Tel Aviv until 1952, when he joined brother Marc in Patterson, NJ; learning the electrician’s trade; getting married to Cecile Klajman; moving to Fairlawn, NJ; his two daughters and one son; his volunteer work; and his participation in the Kielce Society, the Landsmannschaft, and the East Side Social Center survivors groups.
    Interviewee
    Willy Manela
    Interviewer
    Brad Zarlin
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Brad Zarlin

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    8 sound recordings : MP3.

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Manela, Willy.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Brad Zarlin donated his interviews to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in May 2019.
    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 09:54:29
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn701351

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