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Oral history interview with Jaime Zilberstein

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2019.404.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.1049

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    Oral history interview with Jaime Zilberstein
    Transcript
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mr. Jaime Zilberstein on September 18,
    2019 in Merrick, Long Island, New York.
    Thank you, Mr. Zilberstein for agreeing to speak with us today
    to share your story to let us know
    of how the policies of the Nazi regime and their collaborators,
    possibly, impacted your life and the life of your family.
    I'm going to start from the very basic questions,
    and then we take things from there.
    So my first question is, can you tell me the date of your birth?
    I was born in September 1, 1937.
    Oh my goodness.
    So you were exactly two years old when World War II started.
    Exactly.
    Exactly.
    September 1, 1937.
    And the war starts September 1, 1939.
    What was your name when you were born?
    My name in Yiddish?
    The name that you were-- when you were born,
    how were you called?
    Jaime.
    Jaime.
    Jaime.
    Jaime.
    And Zilberstein was the same?
    Yes.
    Zilberstein was the same.
    OK.
    And where were you born?
    I'm born in a small town which name is Sarnaki.
    Sarnaki?
    Sarnaki.
    It is a small town very close to the Russian border
    about 60 kilometers from the Russian border.
    It's in the province of Siedlce.
    Sirdce.
    Siedlce.
    Siedlce.
    Siedlce.
    The Jews used to call it Shedlitz,
    but the correct name in Polish is Siedlce.
    Siedlce.
    This is the main city in this area.
    So Sarnaki in the region of Siedlce.
    Exactly.
    And so we take it this is Poland.
    This is in Poland?
    It's with Poland, and it's still now Poland.
    It's still Poland today?
    It's still Poland now.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And had your family been from Sarnaki for generations?
    Yes.
    My parents and my grandparents were born in the same town.
    OK.
    Did you have brothers and sisters?
    Yes.
    Now I have one sister.
    She's younger than me.
    She lives in Miami.
    And when was she born?
    She was born during the war in 1941.
    OK.
    And what's her name?
    Her name is Rebecca.
    Rebecca Zilberstein.
    Now she's Rebecca Novik because she's married to, uh--
    So her married name is Novi?
    Her husband's name is Novik.
    Novik.
    Novik.
    Novik.
    Novik.
    Yes.
    Novik.
    And did you have any other brothers and sisters?
    Yes.
    I had another brother, but unfortunately he
    died in the trip from Poland to Russia.
    What was his name?
    No.
    Unfortunately, I don't know his name
    because he was very little.
    Were you the oldest?
    I was the oldest.
    Yes.
    So you were two years old, and then there was an infant.
    Yes.
    Your brother who maybe didn't even have a name.
    Would that be possible?
    No.
    I think he had the name.
    Yes.
    But he died because of the very bad sanitary condition
    during the trip.
    My parents decided to flee from Russia when
    Germans invaded the country.
    We had to go in a farmer train where
    the sanitary conditions were very bad,
    so my brother died because of this.
    Like, the illness was different than what
    I had from my parents.
    Do you have any memories at all of Sarnaki?
    No.
    From Sarnaki, unfortunately not because I was two years old,
    and we didn't come back to Sarnaki
    after World War finished.
    All right.
    I'll step back a little bit.
    Let's talk about your parents.
    What was your mother's name?
    Maiden name as well as first name?
    My mother's name was Sarah, and her name was Nortman.
    Nortman?
    The last name.
    Yes.
    Nortman.
    And her family was also from Sarnaki for a long time?
    Yes.
    OK.
    And do you know the date of her birth?
    The date of her birth?
    She was born in Sarnaki, but I'm already not sure.
    I'm not sure.
    Do you know whether she?
    She died many, many years ago.
    OK.
    Do you know how old she was when she had you?
    I think that it was in a normal age between 20 and 17.
    You don't know whether she was a very young mother or an older
    woman?
    No.
    She wasn't a very young mother.
    No.
    OK.
    And did she have brothers and sisters?
    Yes.
    But unfortunately I don't know because it's possible
    that some of them were killed during the war.
    OK.
    But the other reason why I don't know
    is because they didn't like to talk about it with us--
    with the children.
    So they were silent during many, many years.
    This is one of the reasons why I don't know many, many issues.
    Not many.
    Well, the silence is also part of the story.
    You know, people lost living people,
    but they also lost their own family histories as a result.
    And so not knowing tells us as much as knowing, you know.
    I understand.
    Yes.
    I understand what you mean.
    Yes.
    It's correct.
    It's true.
    It's true.
    This is at least my case now.
    Yeah.
    So your mother is Sarah.
    And you don't know if she had brothers and sisters,
    or how many, or whether they were women or men?
    No.
    I don't know.
    OK.
    I'm trying to find out now.
    My family thinks my son-in-law in Israel
    is doing the best he can to find out
    from many different kinds of institutions.
    Here, also in the US, there are many institutions that
    are involved in this search.
    And I still try to find out what you asked me.
    Yeah.
    And I take it then you also did not know your grandparents.
    That is, her parents.
    No.
    I only know my grandparents from my father's side.
    We'll come to that.
    Yes.
    We'll come to that.
    But from mama's side, you don't.
    No.
    Do you know of them?
    Did she ever tell you about them?
    Your mother?
    Did she ever tell you about her own parents?
    Yes.
    She told us but not too much.
    Not too much.
    That's why I can't remember many.
    OK.
    Do you know what kind of a family she came from?
    That is, what kind of profession they
    might have had whether they were educated,
    whether they had a business, things like that?
    Did you know that?
    Yes.
    I only know that my mom and her family were businessmen--
    and my father from my father's side also.
    Like, most of the Jews in these small towns
    those years were merchants or businessmen.
    Do you know what kind of business they had?
    Your mother's parents?
    They had a store, but I don't remember
    exactly what they were selling.
    OK.
    So you don't know if it's dry goods, or foodstuffs,
    or groceries?
    No, it wasn't food, or groceries, or something to eat.
    It was fabric with clothes.
    If it wasn't with that?
    No.
    It was more related to clothing.
    Oh, I see.
    So it was like a dry goods store.
    It was a fabric store.
    For fabric.
    Yes.
    Textiles.
    Textiles.
    Yes.
    OK.
    OK.
    And do you know--
    did she ever say whether or not they were well to do?
    Sorry?
    Were they financially comfortable?
    Yes.
    They were financially comfortable.
    Yes.
    We had our own house.
    We were in a good economic condition.
    Yes.
    OK.
    All right.
    That's on your mother's side.
    Before World War II.
    No?
    Yes.
    Everything I'm asking you now is before World War II.
    That's what they told me.
    And I still remember.
    Yes.
    But not too many details.
    Yeah.
    Let's turn to your father's side then.
    What was his first name?
    His first name was Szaia.
    Szaia.
    In Hebrew, it's Yeshayahu, But in Polish they call it Szaia.
    Szaia.
    And in Yiddish it is Szaia
    OK.
    Could you spell it for us?
    Szaia?
    So that we know for sure.
    Is it S-H?
    But when you spell it in Polish, it's S-Z. S-Z,
    Szaia like in other Slavic languages.
    All right.
    So it's S-Z.
    S-Z-A-I-A. This is in Polish.
    This is in Polish.
    In Polish.
    But in Yiddish it is the same, which is Szaie,
    With an E at the end?
    With an E in the end.
    Yes.
    With an E in the end.
    OK.
    What language did you speak at home?
    The first language you learned?
    The first language I learned was Yiddish because at home I
    spoke Yiddish.
    And depend when, which age of my life,
    especially when we went to Russia,
    I spoke Russian and Yiddish at home.
    But when we came back from Russia
    after World War finished, I spoke outside--
    it was Polish and with my parents in Yiddish.
    So if I were to say, the languages
    that you learned in sequence, the first was Yiddish.
    The second was Russian.
    The third was Polish.
    Exactly.
    OK.
    And your father Szaia, do you know what year he was born?
    He was born in 1909.
    I only know that he was two years younger than my mom.
    So she's born in 1907.
    1907.
    Yes.
    We have a year for the date of her birth.
    You have?
    Now when you said that he is two years younger--
    She. yeah.
    --than your mother that means she was born in 1907.
    She was born in 1970.
    Yeah.
    This I'm sure.
    Yes.
    OK.
    But I forgot already exactly the date.
    OK.
    So that meant when she had you she was 30 years old.
    Mm-hmm.
    30 years old.
    30 years old.
    OK.
    I thought a little bit less, but yes, it's true.
    OK.
    And did your father have brothers and sisters?
    Yes.
    My father had, I know, brothers.
    One of them perished during the Holocaust.
    And the other one, which name is Shulem.
    He came to Bolivia two, three years before World War II.
    So he emigrated normally.
    He immigrated I don't know how and which way,
    but he could come to Bolivia two, three
    years before World War II.
    And his name was Shulem.
    Shulem.
    Yes.
    Did you ever meet him after the war?
    I met-- no, I met him in Bolivia after the war.
    Yes.
    Did you get to know him at that time,
    or was it just a one or two time meeting and that was it?
    No, I've heard about him because we were from Poland,
    and we immigrated to Israel.
    There's a little bit farther.
    No later.
    But I've heard about him when I was already a teenager.
    I see.
    So you didn't know that he existed
    until you were a teenager?
    No, I didn't know that he existed until I was a teenager.
    OK.
    And you say your father had another brother who
    perished in the Holocaust?
    Yes.
    That was my son-in-law from Israel.
    And he could find out that he perished.
    Did you know his name?
    Yes, his name was Berko.
    Berel.
    Berel.
    Berel Zilberstein.
    In Polish, it was Berko.
    Berko.
    Yes.
    And did you know of his existence
    as you were growing up?
    No, I didn't know anything.
    I didn't know anything.
    Did you find out about the fact that he existed
    from your son-in-law in Israel?
    Yes.
    Last month.
    Not maybe five, six months ago.
    You found out you had an uncle named Berko.
    Exactly.
    My goodness.
    When you think about that, that here's somebody--
    if the world had been normal, and the war hadn't happened,
    and his policies hadn't been enacted,
    and the genocide hadn't been perpetrated--
    you would have grown up with Uncle Berko and all
    of the aunts and uncles you might have
    had from your mother's side.
    Yes.
    Exactly.
    But unfortunately this is the one relative I know until now.
    Maybe I had other relatives also,
    but it's impossible to know.
    Very hard to know nowadays.
    Yeah.
    Because my son-in-law, he made the European--
    the Polish citizenship for his family, for his children.
    And the lawyer who made all this paperwork,
    he helped him to find out in the different offices in Warsaw
    that my father had a brother which name was Berko,
    and he perished during World War II.
    In Yad Vashem, you know Yad Vashem Museum?
    He headed also to this institution in which
    the lawyer from Warsaw.
    He could find out that my father had another brother.
    Yes.
    But maybe he had some others also,
    but that's what I don't know yet.
    OK.
    But you're actively searching?
    I'm still searching, yes with his help
    and also from here in the US.
    You have many, many institutions that may help to find out it,
    but it's not easy.
    No.
    This may sound like an obvious question.
    Why is it important to find out these things?
    For me it's very important.
    Yes.
    Tell me why.
    Because I think that family is the most important things
    in life for each person.
    And you must know even if they don't exist anymore,
    but it's a need of a human being to know about his ancestors.
    Do you know your grandparents' names?
    Yes.
    The grandfathers from my father's side was Herschel.
    And from my mother's side was Ya'akov.
    Her maiden name was Ya'akov?
    The first name.
    The first name.
    My mother's father was Ya'akov.
    Oh, I see.
    I see.
    So you knew at least your mother's-- so he was
    Ya'akov Nortman.
    If your mother was Sarah Nortman,
    he was Ya'akov Nortman.
    And on your father's side it was Herschel Zilberstein.
    Exactly.
    And do you know your grandmother's name
    on your father's side?
    His mother?
    My mother's?
    Your father's mother.
    Yes.
    Tempeldiener.
    Tempeldiener.
    That was her last name?
    And her first name?
    I don't know it.
    Do you know if you ever met them?
    If I ever met them?
    My grandparents from my father's side?
    Yes.
    From my father's side, I met them.
    Yes.
    OK.
    When you were an infant, or did they come with you to Russia?
    They came with us to Russia, and afterward they
    came back to Poland and from Poland to Israel.
    OK.
    So not only did you meet them, you knew them.
    I knew them.
    Yes.
    You knew them.
    They were part of your life.
    Yes.
    I only know that the wife of my grandfather
    was his second wife.
    Tempeldiener?
    Yes.
    And they came together with us.
    Both of them came together with us to Israel.
    And was she your father's mother or his stepmother?
    She was-- no.
    She wasn't my mother's mother.
    He wasn't your father's father?
    I'm talking about your father's side.
    The second wife of your grandfather--
    was she your father's mother?
    The second wife of my grandfather?
    Yeah.
    She was his second wife, but she wasn't.
    In other words, did you.
    She wasn't my grandmother.
    OK.
    So your father.
    She was the second--
    she was the second wife of my grandfather.
    OK.
    So that meant that the first wife was his mother?
    Sure.
    He was the child of the woman who no longer was there either
    died or divorced.
    Exactly.
    OK.
    Yes.
    But did she feel like a grandmother to you,
    the second wife, or not so much?
    It's hard to remember everything, you know,
    but I think it was a normal relationship especially
    after during and after the war.
    You know that the relationship between the grandchildren
    and the grandparents was a little bit different.
    And what was so different.
    In order to get adapted to the new country,
    to the new language, and to the new place, it was--
    for me, I think it involved a normal childhood compared
    to what children have now.
    Well, it doesn't sound like it.
    And certainly-- I mean, we haven't even
    talked about it yet.
    You understand.
    Yes, I know.
    But this is what I feel, you know.
    Yeah.
    I always have the opportunity to make the comparison with how
    it was before and how it's now.
    That's why I'm saying that it wasn't so easy.
    It wasn't so normal.
    And that affected your relationships
    with the grandparents and I would assume also your parents?
    You know, this is different though
    because the relationship to my parents--
    I was always very.
    I still remember that I was always very thankful
    for what they did for us.
    But the role of the grandparents was more distant.
    You can understand?
    Yeah, of course.
    So that's why it's hard to compare
    the relationship between what they felt to my parents
    and to my grandparents because they came with us.
    We took them with us to escape from Germans from Poland.
    But the feelings weren't the same-- couldn't be the same.
    No.
    OK.
    Were both sides of your family very religious?
    No.
    They were more secular?
    Secular.
    More secular.
    Yes.
    They were very traditionally good Jews but secular.
    OK.
    Did either side, your mother or your father,
    have higher education?
    No.
    If you mean higher education, they went to the university.
    I can say that not.
    But I think that they had a normal culture
    and normal education as it was possible in those times
    because especially in the small towns
    it wasn't very easy to get higher education.
    Yes.
    But they always gave big importance to education.
    OK.
    So it was important to them?
    To them, yes.
    OK.
    That was, they proved their whole life.
    We'll talk about those things.
    At this point, what I'm trying to do is establish--
    I'm trying to establish the world you came from.
    The world that doesn't exist anymore,
    and how much you knew about it, and how much you could either
    remember of it-- which would I assume not much--
    but how much also people could have told you about this world
    you were born into.
    And so do you know whether your father--
    well, he could not have served in World War I.
    He would have been a young boy.
    If he was born in 1909, did he ever tell you
    any stories of World War I when he was a child?
    No, I don't remember it.
    No, I don't think so.
    No.
    OK.
    It's interesting.
    I mean, he was older than you were when World War II started,
    but he was still a child.
    So in some ways, his childhood was during the war,
    and your childhood was during the war.
    His childhood was during World War I.
    Yeah, during World War I.
    No.
    Sorry.
    World War I was between '14 and '18.
    That's right.
    And in 1914, he was five years old.
    He was already-- oh yes.
    Yes.
    You're right.
    Yes.
    In '14, when World War I began, he was only five years old.
    So his childhood-- oh yes.
    You're right.
    His childhood was during World War I.
    And mine was during World War II.
    You were younger but not by much.
    Not that much.
    Three years younger.
    Yes.
    Three years younger.
    Still, those early years, they're very important.
    It's like a stamp in the rest of your life.
    Yeah.
    Do you think that your father had that stamp too?
    It is hard to remember and hard to know it
    if you had this stamp because there
    are different circumstances, different experiences also.
    Because when I was still two years old
    they had to flee from Poland to Russia,
    but I don't know what we're doing--
    his parents during World War I with him,
    and what he had to do, and where he had to go.
    All we can assume is that there were--
    if we talked geographically, that Sarnaki
    was 60 kilometers from the Russian border.
    There was probably some action.
    There was probably some kind of military action
    in that part of the world.
    In that part of Poland.
    Yeah, during World War I.
    During War I?
    Oh, I didn't know it.
    I don't know.
    For me, something new.
    Yeah.
    But I mean, I think of that.
    It was probably not a place that was peaceful during that time
    because you had the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
    You had the Russian Empire.
    You had Prussia.
    And they're all wanting these territories.
    That's the assumption I'm making.
    It's possible to think like that.
    It's possible.
    In the absence of really knowing?
    I don't know this part of the history.
    Unfortunately, I never think about it.
    I'm just throwing it out there as a supposition.
    This is all in the absence of really knowing
    what his experiences might have been as a young boy.
    We don't know.
    Now do you know whether or not Sarnaki
    being so close to the Russian border
    when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939--
    do you know?
    Oh yeah.
    Do you know whether or not that part was taken over by Germany
    or taken over by Soviet forces?
    Sarnaki itself in Siedlce.
    In year 1939?
    Yeah.
    Because Poland was divided.
    Yes.
    And part of it the Germans got, and part of it the Soviets got.
    So was Sarnaki in the Soviet part or in the German part?
    No, Sarnaki was in the Soviet part.
    Yes.
    But I'm not sure.
    Since we fled, I'm not sure if the German army entered
    into Sarnaki or not.
    I think that yes.
    Eventually, yes.
    Yes.
    Eventually, yes.
    Eventually, yes.
    Because many, many Jews were killed there
    before sending them to concentration camps here.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Did your father work in the textile business in Sarnaki?
    In Sarnaki?
    Yeah.
    How did he put food on the table?
    He was 28 years old when you were born.
    Yes.
    Your mother is 30.
    How did the family eat?
    What supported you?
    I only know that they were in a very good economic condition,
    and we had no problems with food or with the clothing.
    But exactly?
    I know also that they were involved in textile
    in the clothing and the fabrics.
    But how big was the store, and how much they were selling,
    how rich they were?
    You don't know.
    I don't know.
    I can't know it.
    But I only know that--
    I still remember that I don't know if my father or my mother
    told me that I was born in a golden cradle.
    So yes.
    That speaks of well being.
    Exactly.
    Speaks of well being.
    Speaks of well being.
    One of the reasons I ask is because when
    the Soviets arrive, they had a different system of classifying
    who were enemies of the people and who
    aren't enemies of the people.
    And if you're well to do you are not
    quite a friend of the people.
    So some people got caught by that.
    They were called bourgeois.
    And I wondered whether or not that
    could have happened to your family,
    but you don't know of it at all.
    No, I don't know it.
    It's impossible to know.
    How do you say the last French word?
    Bourgeois.
    Bourgeois.
    Bourgeois?
    That is somebody who is well-to-do, somebody
    who is a capitalist, somebody who maybe
    employs workers is bourgeois.
    Like a capitalist?
    Mm-hmm.
    Like a wealthy person?
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Thank you.
    Do you know the circumstances of how your family left Sarnaki?
    Yes.
    But not with many reasons--
    not with many details.
    No.
    But you already remember they told me
    that, among the Jewish people, there
    were two different ideas--
    two different sections.
    One of them was that they didn't believe how far can go Hitler.
    And in order not to lose their properties, and their stores,
    and everything, they preferred to stay
    and to wait what will happen.
    Unfortunately, this was part of the six million.
    Yeah.
    And the other Jews, they were very scared
    because they knew already what were doing Germans
    with the Jews in Germany.
    So they imagine that the same thing
    can happen also in Poland.
    That's why many of them decided to lose everything.
    They sold all the property and to escape but quickly.
    To leave everything but to escape quickly.
    Among these Jews were my parents.
    That's why they decided to lose everything
    and to escape to Russia.
    OK.
    Do you know where they escaped to to Russia?
    I only remember my parents told me
    that there was an agreement between both governments,
    with Poland and Russia, that the Russians let in refugees
    from Poland but with the requirement
    to work in labor camps.
    So they send us directly to Siberia.
    I don't remember even the place but in the deep Siberia almost
    in the middle of nothing.
    There were the woods and forests.
    And my father had to work cutting trees in order
    to send the wood to the army to build the sleepers--
    the sleeper for the trains for the railroads.
    You understand?
    The rails?
    The rails.
    The sleepers where they put it for the rails.
    With the wood of these trains they were cutting, they made.
    And this was more or less what my father
    had to do during our stay in Siberia.
    So do you remember leaving your home in Sarnaki?
    Do you have any memories of that?
    No.
    Because I was only two years old.
    I can't remember.
    Of course.
    But I know something about Sarnaki.
    Why?
    Because one of my daughters, she went to visit my birthplace.
    And what did she find?
    She found a small town with a square in the middle
    with the houses.
    And she was already 18, 20 years old when she went there.
    So she went, and she showed me some pictures.
    But the only thing I know from Sarnaki is from these pictures.
    30, 40 years later, one of my daughters went there.
    But she found no traces of your family there?
    No.
    Nothing.
    She went with a friend just to see how it looked like--
    how the town where her father was born.
    So the way your parents explained it,
    that the Soviets agreed to take in refugees from Poland
    with the proviso that they work in labor camps--
    and so your family was sent to Siberia to do that.
    Exactly.
    So that suggests that this was a voluntary agreement
    that your father and mother knew what they were signing up for
    and agreed to do it.
    I'm not sure if they knew exactly what they had to do.
    But I can remember this was the only one
    option they had in this moment.
    So without knowing what they will do there,
    they only want to leave Poland.
    Yeah.
    And do you remember anything of the train to Siberia?
    Because that's quite a train ride.
    That's quite a journey.
    It was a long journey.
    It lasted more of less one week and, as I told,
    with very bad sanitary conditions
    because it wasn't a train for passengers.
    It was a cargo train.
    How do you say in English?
    Cattle car?
    A what?
    Was it a cattle car?
    Almost like a cattle car.
    Yes.
    Almost like cattle without any comfort.
    Do you have memories of that?
    Not too much.
    Not too much.
    Were there other people in there?
    Sure.
    Many, many people because many, many Jews
    decided to do the same what my parents did.
    So many people, many Jews escaped,
    and they send us to Siberia.
    This was the first place where we
    lived in Russia in the Soviet Union,
    but we went afterwards to other places.
    OK.
    Do you have any memories of that first place?
    Some are memories, and some both my parents told me.
    I still remember that we left within barrack made from wood.
    More or less 20 families together in the same barrack,
    and there was, like, a passage in the middle.
    And the one side and the other side was rooms.
    In each room was the entire family.
    And I still remember they told me
    that in the end of this barrack there was the public restroom,
    so all of us had to use the same--
    Facility.
    --restroom.
    Yes.
    I also remember that it was very cold there.
    30, 35 below zero.
    And there was also a lack of food.
    The food was rationed.
    You know what's rationed?
    Mm-hmm.
    Each family got a special amount of food,
    and then usually it wasn't enough.
    So if the parents wanted a little bit more
    for their children, they must to buy it
    in the black market, which was punished by law and even
    with jail.
    But they took the risk sometimes in order not to--
    in order to feed us in the correct way.
    Sometimes they had to buy food in the black market.
    Is this what you're telling me from your own memory
    or from what they told you?
    Mostly from what they told me.
    Yes.
    Because I was really little.
    I was two, three four years old.
    Because World War II lasted six years.
    For Poland.
    Yeah.
    For Poland.
    Yes.
    But we didn't stay only in Siberia six years.
    We had to move to other places.
    One of them was a big city which name was Arkhangelsk.
    Have you heard about it?
    Yes.
    I have heard about it.
    It's a big port.
    In there was born my sister in '41.
    So that means that in Siberia would have been not more
    than two or three years.
    And so your parents left Poland very early.
    We could say in 1939 itself after the war starts.
    Exactly.
    And they come to Russia.
    And at some point most likely still in 1939
    you all are transported to Siberia.
    Yes.
    Were your father's parents with you at the same time?
    Yes.
    They were with us.
    OK.
    So when you were in Siberia in the one room
    that everybody had as a family, who was in that room with you?
    Who was?
    Who was in that room with you?
    My parents, me, and my grandparents together.
    And you're the only little one because your brother doesn't
    survive the journey.
    Exactly.
    And so when they go on the black market
    it is to buy food for you.
    Is that correct?
    Yes.
    It's correct.
    Did all four adults have to go to work as far as you know?
    No.
    I'm not sure because this work was more for men.
    But my mother, I think that she did something else,
    but I don't know exactly what.
    OK.
    And the older ones, your grandparents,
    do you know if they stayed in that room
    or whether they went to work too?
    No.
    They stayed in the same room, but I
    don't know what they did there.
    But they did maybe something similar as what my father did.
    But I don't remember really how old was my grandfather.
    Yeah.
    What I'm trying to establish is, were you left alone
    during the day, or was there someone to take care of you
    during the day?
    But you know.
    No, I can't remember it.
    But I suppose that my mother had to take care of me
    because I was a very little child.
    And, you know, the other thing is that with the ration cards,
    people generally got ration cards depending
    on what work they did.
    So if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card,
    which meant that--
    this is my understanding.
    I could be wrong.
    What do you mean?
    The ration card?
    The ration card which tells you how much food you're
    going to get.
    Oh, how much food.
    How much food you can get, it was
    depending how big was the family and how many children.
    OK.
    This was the amount of food that they gave us.
    OK.
    So you, yourself, would have gotten a certain amount
    just because you exist.
    That is, you're a child, and a child gets this much.
    Exactly.
    So much food, so much meal, so much meat, and bread,
    and everything.
    A certain amount of bread.
    A certain amount of butter.
    This is what I still remember.
    Do you remember eating butter?
    No.
    I don't remember exactly the butter,
    but I'm trying to give you an example of only how it works.
    Do you remember being hungry?
    It is a good question.
    I don't remember being hungry.
    And then you say you all left that place
    in the middle of Siberia where it was 35 degrees below,
    and your father, I believe, was chopping trees
    to make the rails.
    Chopping trees.
    Yes.
    And you went to Arkhangelsk.
    Exactly.
    Do you remember anything of the journey to Arkhangelsk?
    No.
    I only know that it was a very big distance.
    OK.
    Do you remember where you lived in Arkhangelsk?
    What kind of a place you lived in?
    No.
    I don't remember it.
    I only know that we've been there,
    and there was born my sister.
    But not too much about how was the place and where we lived.
    Do you know how long you stayed there?
    Not exactly because from there we
    went to another place of Russia, which name was--
    it was in the region of Kuybyshev.
    Kuybyshev.
    Kuybyshev.
    Now it's named Samara.
    They changed the name.
    And it was more closer to the European region of Russia.
    And there we lived in a small town which name was Melekess.
    Melekess.
    Melekess.
    And in this town, I remember I began to go to school.
    You were how old?
    I was six years old.
    So this is 1943.
    Something like that.
    Something like that.
    Yes.
    Because I still remember that I went to the second grade
    in Russia.
    OK.
    Yeah, that would make sense.
    That would make perfect sense chronologically
    by all the wars.
    Chronologically.
    Yes.
    That is why I still remember.
    And did you-- before you start school,
    did you have any kind of interaction with Russians?
    With people who were local?
    Yes.
    I had interaction with the Russian children
    and the Russian people.
    Yes.
    Others also.
    Because I still remember many words,
    many expressions that they used to talk.
    What are they?
    What are they?
    If you remember.
    Yeah.
    Some of them.
    In order to know.
    But we didn't experience any anti-Semitism among the people.
    Anti-Semitism was more with the government,
    but the Russian people usually were very friendly to us.
    But one of the things that I still remember in order
    to know if you was Jewish or not, they said,
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    And what does that mean?
    What that-- maybe he knows.
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    From the mountain of Ararat--
    Yeah.
    There is a big--
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    There's a big grape, red, in red color.
    And that's supposed to tell if you're Jewish or not?
    Sure.
    Because depending how you pronounce
    the R, [SPEAKING RUSSIAN],, because Jews didn't produce R.
    I see.
    It was a question of accent.
    Of accent.
    Of how do you pronounce the letter R.
    They say in Russian [SPEAKING RUSSIAN],,
    but Jews said [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]..
    OK.
    So those are the sorts of things.
    They said one other thing.
    And the other thing I still remember
    was [SPEAKING RUSSIAN].
    The [SPEAKING RUSSIAN] is-- you know [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]??
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]?
    Russian?
    Not Polish?
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    The button is ours.
    "The soup is not porridge, but the button is ours."
    That makes no sense.
    Why?
    That makes no sense whatsoever.
    What does it mean?
    What does it mean?
    Yeah.
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    Is a button?
    It's a button.
    So they played in breaking the butter out of the shell.
    OK.
    But what does that have to do with soup and porridge?
    Stew?
    Soup and porridge.
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    In Russia, it's like a rhym-- a rhythm.
    Oh.
    Like a rhyme.
    A rhyme.
    It's like a rhyme.
    [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
    OK.
    It's a rhyme.
    OK.
    Now I get.
    So these are the sorts of things that kids
    would say when you were meeting kids
    and you were playing with kids.
    This is one of the things I still remember.
    But many, many other maybe I'd forgotten,
    but I was very fluent in Russian because when we came back
    to Poland I spoke many words Russian.
    Yes.
    You said that you didn't experience any anti-Semitism
    from the people, but you made a distinction
    and said something about the government.
    What's the distinction?
    What's the difference?
    As I know, everybody knows that the communist was a--
    the communist government was against the ethnic minorities
    especially among the Jews where many scientists, many people
    that didn't think like them.
    And afterward they were sent to the gulag to Siberia.
    It was part of the Jewish history in Russia.
    Well, you know.
    During Stalin's era.
    Well, you were in Siberia during Stalin's era.
    Your family was there during that time.
    And I have to say that when you were telling me
    about what your father was doing and the circumstances,
    the barracks that you lived in, to me
    it does not sound like a voluntary trip to Siberia.
    To me it sounds like your family was deported
    in that they may have fled to Russia to escape Germany,
    but they may not have known what they
    were getting into when they were in Russia, or in the Soviet
    Union.
    Yes.
    Maybe.
    But since I was told by my parents,
    I remember that there was an agreement between the two
    governments.
    The Russian government let--
    People in.
    --people in because they needed cheap labor.
    Maybe this is one of the reasons.
    I'm not sure exactly.
    The thought that I have to say that I had as you were telling
    me this is that the parents are being very careful
    with the child, so that the child does not
    say anything that could be perceived as hostile.
    Because people were very careful about what
    they told their children as to what was going on.
    One of the reasons I say this-- and my point
    is not to influence your story, and I hope that what I say
    will not.
    But I have interviewed people who
    were Jews from the part of Poland
    that you were in who escaped eastwards.
    And when they were in the Soviet Union itself,
    they were given a choice.
    They could either return to Poland and stay Polish citizens
    or accept Soviet citizenship.
    And if they wanted to return back,
    and many did simply because their families were there,
    then they were almost tricked.
    They were put on trains, and the trains went East not West.
    But because they refused to accept Soviet citizenship
    they were deported.
    This is the experience of some not all.
    Not all.
    Others were deported straight from Poland,
    but they had a similar kind of end.
    That is, they end up in Siberia because there were also
    Jews, who ran, who didn't get deported,
    who didn't end up in Siberia, who still could be refugees
    but didn't end up there.
    And in 1941, people who were Polish citizens
    were released from the gulags because the Germans attacked
    the Soviet Union, and they were no longer allies.
    And then the Poles needed to be--
    those who were Polish citizens are no longer enemies.
    We can release them from the work camps.
    So I don't know whether your trip to Arkhangelsk
    is a result of that.
    There was an agreement between Sikorsky and Stalin in Moscow
    and general Anders is forming an army.
    Poland.
    In Poland.
    Well, for Poles in the Soviet Union.
    Yes.
    Or whether it's independent of that.
    But most people, who were deported to the gulags, who
    were not Polish citizens were not released.
    They stayed there in the labor camps--
    in the work camps.
    Or they could move from place to place,
    but they're still considered prisoners.
    They're still considered-- their circumstances might
    get a little better, but they have to ask permission
    for every place that they go.
    It is very varied.
    It is very, very varied what these experiences are,
    and it's one of the reasons why I was asking about
    whether your family was well-to-do because it mattered.
    It mattered.
    Sure.
    In that part of the world it mattered.
    Forgive me for this.
    No, it's interesting.
    I know that you have many sources of information.
    And this is-- maybe this is part of the history now.
    But in my case, I already remember
    that since we didn't accept the Russian citizenship,
    we could come back to Poland.
    They allowed us to come if we would accept the Russian,
    we couldn't--
    You wouldn't have been able to leave the Soviet Union.
    We would not be able to leave Soviet Union.
    So here is where I'm saying is that probably
    because you didn't accept it.
    Because we didn't accept it.
    In the beginning.
    We had to accept.
    But how do I know if we were obliged
    to accept it in the beginning?
    You may not know.
    That's what I don't know.
    It could very well be.
    And then when you say that your parents--
    the way your parents explained it to you
    sounds to me like a way of protecting, and shielding you,
    and not letting you know all of the various circumstances that
    could have been involved and why you end up going on that train,
    you know, where your brother dies and you end up
    in the labor camp.
    It could be that they declined to accept Soviet citizenship
    at that point when they ran, and that was the consequence
    of not accepting it.
    The consequence of not accepting the?
    Soviet citizenship.
    The Soviet citizenship.
    It could be.
    We don't know.
    But we can't be sure.
    We don't know.
    We don't know.
    But let's go back to Arkhangelsk.
    Yes?
    You're in Arkhangelsk.
    And then you go to from there to Samara.
    You say it was called Kuybyshev?
    It was called Kuybyshev.
    Yes.
    OK.
    What was your father doing in, or your mother both,
    or the adults in Arkhangelsk and then in Kuybyshev?
    What kind of work were they doing, or were they
    doing anything like that?
    In Arkhangelsk, I think that will be a very short time,
    but I don't know exactly what he was doing there.
    Afterward, when we came to Melekess,
    I'm almost sure that he was working as a carpenter
    somewhere.
    I don't know if in a factory or something related to carpentry.
    Carpentry.
    Yeah.
    Carpentry.
    And your mother, was she employed someplace?
    I don't know because in Arkhangelsk was born my sister,
    so she had to take care of--
    The baby.
    --both of us.
    But what she did apart from that, I don't remember.
    I don't know.
    And did I ask you, what kind of a place did you live?
    And what was the name of the small town?
    Melekess.
    Melekess.
    Melekess.
    Do you remember anything about that place?
    What it looked like?
    No, not exactly.
    Because I always remember that I went to school.
    The school was very far from my home.
    I had to walk to work a few kilometers to get there.
    I still remember I had to cross the wooden bridge,
    a narrow bridge.
    And I still remember that there was the river a very, very
    big distance.
    And also my nose was frozen because of the--
    It was cold.
    The cold weather.
    Yes.
    This is one of the things that I remember.
    And I went up to the second grade but not much more.
    Do you remember anything from the school itself?
    Any teachers?
    Any of the other kids?
    Any of the lessons?
    No.
    OK.
    Were there many children in the classroom?
    Exactly how many children?
    No.
    Because my primary and my secondary school,
    I made this something.
    I made in six different countries.
    Oh my goodness.
    Oh my goodness.
    OK.
    All right.
    And so this was just the first?
    It was the first.
    OK.
    And how long did you stay there?
    How long did the family stay in?
    Up to the end of World War II to '45.
    Up to the year '45.
    And I was told by my parents, since they didn't accept
    the Russian citizenship, they allowed
    us to come back to Poland.
    OK.
    And do you remember the return journey to Poland?
    I only know that it was by train not how long it took us.
    I don't exactly know.
    But it was all six of you then?
    Your parents, your grandparents, your little sister,
    and yourself.
    Exactly.
    Yes.
    This I know.
    OK.
    And where in Poland did you go?
    In Poland, we couldn't come back to our town
    because we were told that in this region in this area
    were hidden many Nazis and many bands of Nazi soldiers.
    And it was very dangerous to live there.
    So I don't know how my parents went
    to live in Niederschlesien.
    Niederschlesien.
    Niederschlesien is the German name,
    but it is the name which was Klodzko in Polish.
    It was Klodzko.
    It was very close to the Czech and the German border.
    Was this?
    Dolny Slask is in Polish.
    Dolny Slask.
    Dolny Slask.
    It's very close, 70, 80 kilometer from Breslau,
    which name in Polish was Wroclaw.
    It's a very big city in Poland.
    Yeah.
    So it's in the western part of Poland.
    It's more in the western part of Poland.
    Yes.
    The western part of Poland.
    Yes.
    And so you go there.
    We went to Klodzko.
    And there we lived almost six years.
    That's a long time.
    That's a very long time.
    It's a long time from '45--
    To '51.
    To '51.
    OK.
    So in those six years, you are now a child.
    You're eight, nine, 10 years old.
    That's when you begin.
    Yes.
    Tell me you have more memories of this place.
    I have some memories, but I don't understand why not more.
    OK.
    Well, share with me what you do know.
    What you do remember.
    Do you remember the place you lived?
    Yes, I remember the place.
    I remember the name of even the street.
    I remember how was the city more or less,
    the city was like a medieval city,
    with fortresses, with channels.
    With a moat?
    With the walls.
    With the walls.
    And nowadays a very touristic place.
    What was the name of the city again?
    In Polish it's Klodzko.
    Klodzko.
    Klodzko.
    Before World War II it belonged to Germany,
    and in Germany it was Glatz.
    Glatz?
    Glatz.
    G-L-A-T-Z?
    Exactly.
    Glatz.
    Glatz.
    OK.
    So it was part of that territory that Germany lost basically.
    Yeah.
    This is part of what the Germans lost.
    Yes.
    So what you were seeing was old German architecture probably
    from at the time, if it's medieval, it could be Teutonic.
    But it was a German influence.
    It was a German influence.
    Yes.
    Were there Germans left in the city?
    No, I don't think so.
    No Germans.
    Do you remember ever meeting anyone--
    No.
    --who was German?
    No.
    I don't remember seeing anyone who was German.
    What was the name of the street?
    The name of the street was Nizno.
    Nizno means "down."
    Means "down."
    This street.
    And what was the address?
    Do you remember the number?
    The number?
    No, not really.
    OK.
    Maybe somewhere it's written in some place because.
    You know, some people remember these things.
    They remember their telephone number.
    If their family had a telephone, they
    remember their phone number.
    But the memory of every person is different.
    That's right.
    I recognize that my memory is not the best nowadays.
    Well.
    But tell me this.
    Do you remember the kind of building you lived in?
    Was it a single family home?
    Was it an apartment building?
    What kind of a place was it?
    It was a single house.
    It was a single house.
    A single house.
    A small house not very big but a single house.
    Yes.
    All right.
    And can you describe it for me?
    Did it have two stories, three stories, one story?
    No.
    I still remember it was only one story.
    Only one story.
    But I don't remember exactly how many rooms or how was it.
    No.
    Did it have modern conveniences?
    That is, did it have electricity?
    Yes.
    We had electricity.
    We had water.
    Everything inside.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And who lived there?
    It was a comfortable house.
    Yes.
    OK.
    Who lived there with you?
    Who was in the house?
    Your parents?
    Yourself?
    Your sister?
    Were your grandparents there too?
    I don't remember already if my grandparents lived together
    with us in this house.
    That's what I forgot already.
    OK.
    I don't remember.
    Did you speak any Polish when you first arrived in Klodzko.
    When we first arrived to Kuybyshev
    I didn't speak any Polish.
    I spoke only Russian and Yiddish.
    That's not very popular.
    Why not?
    Well, in Yiddish maybe, but Russian would not have
    been very popular in Poland.
    And I'm wondering whether you got into any fights
    with children because of that.
    Sorry?
    I didn't.
    Russian was not very popular in Poland
    because the Russians occupied Poland.
    Now did you ever experience any difficulties
    because you spoke Russian and not Polish at that time?
    No.
    What kinds of difficulties I experienced,
    I don't remember already now.
    But I only know that in order to go to school
    I had to learn Polish.
    And did you?
    Sure.
    In a couple of months, I spoke already Polish
    because I went to school.
    I went to Hashomer Hatzair.
    This was a Zionist organization.
    But I was in school, a bilingual school,
    because I learned Hebrew in the school.
    In the afternoon, I learned Polish.
    Oh.
    So you went to--
    you didn't go to a public school?
    No, it was-- I don't know.
    It wasn't private.
    No.
    But I only remember that the same school
    I studied both languages, Hebrew and also Polish.
    So that suggests that there were more Jewish families who
    were living in Klodzko.
    Yeah, in that city.
    And was it a particularly special school
    that was geared for Jewish children
    if you were studying Hebrew in the morning,
    and then Polish in the afternoon.
    Yes.
    OK.
    I had assumed you'd gone to a school with other Gentile
    Polish children.
    No.
    I went to school when I learned Hebrew and Polish
    in the same school.
    Yes.
    And because it's Hebrew that suggests
    that there was a purpose.
    The purpose of learning Hebrew was for what reason?
    Because my parents were traditionally good
    Jews, and they were Zionist also.
    And they told me that we have to be good Jews at home
    and good citizens outside--
    outside the home.
    This was the way we were taught by my grandparents.
    Were they interested in leaving Poland?
    Was this school established for the purpose
    that there would be an eventual emigration to Israel?
    No.
    I didn't understand exactly the question.
    OK.
    Was the school established so that you would eventually
    emigrate to Israel?
    Was that the purpose of it?
    Was that the purpose of it?
    Yeah.
    It's hard to know if that's what the purpose of it because even
    now there are many schools in different countries
    that the purpose is not to go to Israel.
    Of course.
    Only to give Jewish education to Jewish families.
    A fair point.
    A fair take.
    I am making assumptions in my questions,
    and I shouldn't be making those assumptions.
    I am making assumptions that when
    you returned to Poland after World War II
    the purpose was to eventually leave Poland.
    And because you do go to Israel eventually,
    I'm making the assumption that there were plans already
    and that you going to the school is one of those plans,
    so forgive me.
    You are absolutely right.
    This wasn't the proposal because since when we came back
    to Poland, my parents wanted to establish themselves
    and to live and to stay in Poland.
    It was the first time, the beginning,
    but yes, with passing, the circumstances were changing.
    The communism began already in Poland.
    Up to year '50, '51, it was almost the same problem
    as in the Soviet Union.
    They began to confiscate private properties, stores,
    and factories from the Jews.
    Not only from the Jews.
    From everybody.
    From everybody, you know.
    And since my parents already recovered economically,
    they were doing well.
    They started to run a small factory, a shoe factory.
    And the economics in these five, six years, they
    were doing pretty well economically.
    But suddenly the rules of the game
    were so different that they began
    to think that it's impossible to live
    in these circumstances in Poland.
    That's why finally they decided to leave Poland.
    So this wasn't-- again, forgive me.
    I try not to ask leading questions,
    and this was one which was a leading question.
    When they first came back to Poland, it was with the idea,
    we're going to stay here.
    This is our home.
    We're going to live here.
    We're going to build our future here.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And you say they established a shoe factory?
    Yeah.
    This is one of the things I remember
    they had with a partner with somebody else.
    Yes.
    Did you ever go and visit that factory?
    Did you see where they did this?
    I don't remember it.
    Maybe yes.
    But I don't remember how it was.
    It was a small factory.
    But we made a good living with it after World War II in Poland
    again.
    And was there any talk?
    Do you remember now you're more conscious?
    Was there any talk about what happened
    to the Jews who remained in Poland during the war?
    Was there any talk going on at this time about the Holocaust?
    Yes.
    But not too much.
    My parents didn't talk too much about
    that because they felt not to make us sad
    because we were still children.
    But some things I remember but not too much.
    They preferred to be silent.
    Were they themselves sad?
    Did you notice that about them or not?
    If your parents themselves, were they sad?
    Did you notice this as a child?
    Is my question clear?
    No.
    I didn't exactly the question.
    I'm trying to get a sense of whether or not
    you noticed if your parents were weighed down by what they knew,
    but they didn't share with you.
    No.
    I couldn't realize that because all of us was busy,
    was occupied to get adapted to the new life
    to the new country.
    It was something like a new place.
    It was a new place.
    So in my case and myself with school, with the language,
    with the new friends, and my parents with the new business,
    the new work also.
    So that's why.
    And the main reason was that they
    preferred not to make us sad telling us
    what happened during--
    The war.
    They knew.
    They knew what happened, but they
    preferred not to talk about it.
    I had forgotten to ask this earlier.
    But can you tell me a little bit about your parents'
    personalities, your mother and your father?
    You know, what kind of people were they?
    What kind of people?
    Yes, it's a good question.
    My mother was especially a very good mother.
    She did everything to give us much more
    than we needed as children.
    She was a very good household.
    She knew how to run a household.
    Yes.
    She liked to have the best things in our home.
    Crystal from Waimea, carpets from Persia, and so on, and so
    on.
    And she was also a very, very good businessman.
    Even before the war, I still remember.
    But she told me.
    Even men, businessmen, sometimes asked her the advice
    what to do in certain--
    Circumstances.
    In certain circumstances.
    So she was a really good mother, and a very good household,
    and also a very good businessman.
    And my father, yes, he was also a businessman.
    He was very good to us.
    But the life, he was obliged to do many things completely
    different what he used to--
    what he has been because during the war
    he has to do everything in order to survive and to make
    survive the family.
    But they suffered.
    They suffered a lot.
    I still remember that.
    For all these reasons, they suffered.
    How did that suffering express itself?
    How did it show that they were suffering?
    Because they lost many things, and they
    had to begin from this--
    start from the beginning in different circumstances
    in the political circumstances was
    already hard and economically such
    like their life was broken.
    It was completely difficult, you know.
    You had mentioned two things earlier that caught my mind.
    One is that you remembered being grateful to them.
    And was that from a very, very young age?
    It sounded like it was from a very young age
    that you were grateful for what they were doing.
    Exactly as I remember it.
    That's not usually what a child thinks.
    I mean, children are wonderful, but they
    don't think in those terms of being
    grateful for what they've got.
    Yes, I agree.
    But I guess it's a little bit unusual maybe--
    some point of view.
    Afterwards, if you want, I can explain
    why I have this feeling that I state my gratitude.
    I'm still thankful for what they did for us.
    I very much want to hear it.
    That's why I bring it up.
    What is the reason for this point of view?
    I mean, it's clear.
    And most people eventually are grateful to their parents.
    But for you it was very, very pronounced and very young.
    First of all, during when in Siberia, they
    put at risk their life buying food in the black market.
    In Russia, it was a very big sin.
    It was punished by jail, and they did it.
    They take the risk only to feed us dinner.
    This is one of the things I can remember.
    And they made everything that were necessary in order
    to make us happy and not to suffer
    in these kinds of circumstances.
    It's hard to explain in a foreign language.
    Would it be easier for you to say it in Spanish?
    No.
    But if there is something else I can add, just ask me.
    But I prefer not to.
    OK.
    But she knows already, not many details.
    Even during a long time I prefer not to talk about it even
    with my wife and my family also.
    But nowadays everything is completely different.
    I always think that I will not be able to have the best
    listeners.
    Oh really?
    Nowadays, people like to hear more happy stories
    and not this kind of story.
    Well, you know, that is a concern.
    A lot of people didn't tell their stories
    or don't go into detail because they notice whether or not
    someone really cares or whether or not they really understand.
    And so sometimes it's just easier not to speak.
    This is more or less my case.
    More or less.
    So you know when you're--
    Because to speak is sometimes you open your wounds also.
    And in psychology we call it catharsis.
    You know what is catharsis?
    Sometimes it has a therapeutic effect,
    but I don't need this kind of therapy.
    Yeah.
    And that's not the purpose of these interviews.
    Because it doesn't solve me anything.
    The other thing that you said is that you were
    stamped very early, you know.
    That your childhood was different than other people's
    childhoods, and you can compare now.
    And I'd like to know if you can describe for me that stamp.
    What was stamped on you?
    No.
    This time, it was simply how I passed my childhood.
    My childhood was the first years of my life.
    Well, here's the thing.
    They sound-- I mean, when one describes
    what happened as historical events, it sounds horrific.
    You know, it sounds like these are
    sorts of things that maybe they lived through,
    but many people didn't survive--
    didn't live through.
    That is, they didn't survive those circumstances.
    And I also hear from you that the reason
    you're grateful to your parents is
    because you know how much they tried to protect you
    and to shield you.
    Yeah.
    And to some extent it sounds like they succeeded, you know,
    that they did shield you.
    They did protect you.
    And then my question is, but nevertheless, you're stamped?
    So what was it that they weren't able to protect you from going
    through all of these things?
    What was it that made that childhood different?
    One of the things I told you already--
    what happened during our stay in Siberia
    with the food and everything.
    And afterward when we came back to Poland,
    to give us the best education.
    But the main memory comes much later.
    OK.
    And maybe we'll get there.
    So if we go back now to the chronological part,
    we're talking 1945 to 1951.
    And you're going to school, and things are not bad, you know.
    Yes.
    They're doing OK.
    Yes.
    In those years, we had more or less a normal childhood
    because we didn't have a lack of food.
    We were getting a very good education.
    We were in a Zionist organization.
    I was a really good student in Hebrew and also in Polish.
    I still have the grades, you know.
    Your report card.
    Report card.
    Yes.
    I have it not from Russia but visiting from Poland.
    OK.
    From Klodzko.
    And that means that in those six years after World War II,
    I think that I would--
    except the problem of the adaptation,
    my childhood was a normal childhood.
    I have good memories from this period of my life.
    OK.
    Many Jews talked about anti-Semitism
    in Poland after the war.
    Did you ever experience anything like that?
    Did your family ever experience anything like that?
    In our case, no.
    OK.
    So that means that when they left for Israel,
    or they started to plan to leave for Israel,
    it was purely because of the Communist influence.
    Because communists takeover communist policies.
    Exactly.
    They were the main reason.
    Sure.
    OK.
    And do you remember leaving Poland?
    You were then 13, 14 years old.
    Yes, I remember.
    Tell me about it.
    Since my parents were already in a very good economic condition
    to leave Poland, we were obliged to leave almost everything--
    almost all the belongings.
    Would have been accumulated in those years.
    Yes.
    Would have been accumulated all those years.
    Especially my mother, she liked very
    much to have the best in the world.
    And so the government gave us a list
    of belongings we were allowed to take with us
    and such amount of shares, such amount of pants,
    such amount of clothes and everything.
    But towels or how many sheets.
    But the rest, you must leave in Poland.
    But since we had much more than the list, part
    of our belongings we had to leave.
    But my mother, apart of that, she
    took the risk in the border, and we took more than was allowed.
    And I still remember then when we got to the border.
    Of which country?
    To the border, it was when we left between Poland and Czech
    Republic.
    When we get right to the border, they
    begin to look for everything, and they began to take away,
    to take away, to take away.
    I still remember my mother asked us to cry.
    Maybe--
    That would help.
    --that would help to.
    I don't know the word exactly in English, but you understand me.
    Mm-hmm.
    Exactly.
    This is one of the things I remember.
    But anyway it didn't help.
    It didn't work.
    Didn't work.
    And we came to Israel almost with anything.
    With just the shirts and the pants.
    Just the shirts.
    Yes.
    But there's something anecdotic.
    Yeah.
    An anecdote.
    Anecdote.
    Many years later already in Buenos Aires in Argentina,
    we brought with us earlier the pillows.
    With puch.
    You know what is puch?
    The feather.
    The feather from the--
    The goose feathers?
    The goose feathers.
    Yes.
    The best feathers that there were.
    These were the best feathers.
    Yes.
    And my mother made some big pillows and also
    blankets made with these feathers very expensive.
    Very expensive.
    And my daughter in Buenos Aires, she
    wanted to make some jacket for one of his children,
    and she felt something hard among the feathers.
    And this thing, something hard, was a $5 bill bent inside.
    Oh my goodness.
    This is one of the things I still remember.
    So they had to hide at least something in order
    to go to Israel with something.
    Something so you're not completely.
    Sure.
    This is one of the things I still remember.
    When we arrived to Israel, we arrived almost with anything
    after being wealthy, wealthy people in Poland.
    Well, it sounds like really feast or famine but really
    those two extremes.
    Feast or famine.
    Feast meaning there's everything or famine.
    Or famine.
    Yes, I understand.
    You know?
    Your family is comfortable in Sarnaki,
    and then they're in Siberia where there's no food
    and you could have ration cards.
    And then they go on the black market
    to make sure the children are OK--
    you know, that they have enough to eat.
    When they have a chance, they re-establish their lives,
    and they have things again.
    They want to leave.
    They have to leave it all behind and end up with almost nothing
    when they end up in Israel, so it's
    like these two extremes going back and forth.
    Exactly.
    Do you remember how you got to Israel?
    If you were at the Czech border, where did you go from there?
    It was in year '51.
    Especially the economic situation
    in Israel in those times were very, very hard,
    very difficult. The government didn't
    have housing for the immigrants, so we
    had to live almost one year in tents
    in a camp in the middle of the desert not far from Tel Aviv
    because that time half an hour from Tel Aviv
    was already in the middle of the desert.
    So we had to live in this place almost one year in a tent.
    And the water and the restrooms were outside.
    And afterwards, later, we could rent a small house close
    to Tel Aviv since one of my relatives was leaving already.
    And they helped us to find a house.
    Was this from mother's or father's side, this relative?
    It was from my father's side.
    OK.
    And was this a cousin or a distant relative?
    Who was this?
    No.
    It was from my mother's side.
    A cousin.
    Second cousin.
    Not the first cousin.
    From my mother's side.
    Yes.
    From your mother's?
    Not your father's.
    From mother.
    From mother.
    Sorry.
    From mother's side.
    Yes.
    They were living already in Israel before the independence
    war.
    So they were established there.
    They had a store grocery.
    And they helped us to find a house close to them
    to their store.
    So now you have Hebrew added to your languages.
    Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Hebrew.
    And you started school while still living in a tent?
    No.
    I started school when we go to the house.
    OK.
    So for that one year, you don't have a new school
    when you were in the tent.
    I was studying Hebrew, but I don't remember exactly
    if I went already to school because my school was
    closer to the city to Tel Aviv.
    But the tents, the camp, was further far from the city.
    That's why I'm not sure where I began to study there.
    But I only know that I went to school, and I studied.
    I learned very quickly here.
    That's quite a facility.
    I mean, truly.
    I still remember that when if something goes later
    when my brother decided to leave Israel, but it comes later.
    Maybe we can kind of.
    Has it to do with Hebrew?
    Because you asked me about something else, and I I'm
    going too far.
    To something else?
    Oh.
    It's OK.
    You can go too far if you want to.
    What I just made now is a comment on language
    that now you have your fourth language.
    It's Hebrew.
    Yes.
    And that reminded you of something.
    Yeah.
    That reminded me.
    Yes.
    Since in those times the economic situation
    was really bad, and my father after being
    a successful businessman before and after the war,
    he had to work as a carpenter for somebody else.
    Again.
    Again.
    And the situation was really, really hard.
    And the only one brother, my father that survived the war,
    he was living in Bolivia as I told you.
    Shulem.
    Shulem.
    Yes.
    Very good memory.
    Congratulations.
    Thank you.
    He was in Bolivia already with a very big store
    and good economic situation.
    He asked my parents, if they want,
    he can make the paperwork and everything
    to take us to Bolivia.
    And they told, yes.
    And how long did they live in Israel for?
    We were leaving in less than two years.
    Less than two years.
    So we're talking about 1953.
    Yes, 1952.
    '52 even?
    '52.
    I still remember I learned so fast Hebrew
    that, when my parents decided to leave for Israel,
    I told my classmates that I'm leaving
    because I was 15, 16 years old.
    So they were really surprised.
    Why surprised?
    Because I was so perfect speaking
    Hebrew that they thought that I was a Sabra.
    You know what is a Sabra?
    Tell us.
    What is a Sabra?
    Sabra is a child who was born in Israel.
    So your accent was so good.
    My accent and my Hebrew was so perfect they didn't believe me
    that I was an immigrant.
    I had to explain to them that I'm leaving already 1 and 1/2--
    less than two years.
    So fast, I learned the language.
    That's an accomplishment.
    That's quite an accomplishment.
    I don't know if it's an accomplishment.
    Of course it was.
    That's the way it was.
    The way it was.
    Yes.
    And I was very, very integrated to a life in Israel.
    I was very happy there.
    Did you not want to leave?
    I had many friends there even my first girlfriend.
    But since my parents decided to leave,
    I had to go with him because I was less than 16 years old.
    Yeah.
    I want to cut here for a second.
    So before our break we were at the point in your story
    where you had moved with your family to Israel.
    You had uncle Shulem in Bolivia.
    Let's cut the camera.
    OK.
    So I'm sorry we were interrupted again a little bit.
    But yes, let's pick up the story from where we were.
    You had come with your family to Israel.
    You had been there for two years or so.
    And your uncle Shulem sends and arranges
    for your family to be able to come to Bolivia.
    And does that happen?
    Do you actually leave Israel for Bolivia?
    Sure.
    OK.
    When did you leave?
    1953?
    1922.
    1952?
    '52.
    OK.
    And was this a plane journey?
    A journey by plane or journey by boat?
    No.
    We came with the boat from Haifa from Israel to Genoa to Italy.
    And in Genoa, we had to stay about a month, a month
    and a half because there was some problem with the passports
    or something like that.
    We had to stay in a small hotel in downtown Genoa.
    And I still remember that the owner
    of the hotel, every night, he came to talk to us.
    But he spoke all only Italian, and we didn't.
    So in less than two months, I learned--
    A little bit Italian.
    No.
    A lot?
    A lot of Italian because when we arrived to Bolivia,
    it was very easy for me to learn Spanish
    because it's so similar to Italian.
    So it's something that I still remember.
    So it's number five and number six
    after Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish.
    Wow.
    OK.
    That's why I still remember that when we came to Bolivia,
    and I went to school, when the teacher made us dictate.
    You had to take dictation.
    You had to write it down.
    Yes.
    And my classmates, they were leaving--
    they sat down next to me to copy.
    What you were writing.
    My writing.
    My orthography was almost perfect after being
    there a couple of months.
    So if we were to talk today, if you
    were to rank your languages today by fluency,
    what would be the language that you are the most comfortable
    expressing yourself?
    Nowadays the most comfortable is Spanish
    because I am speaking Spanish already more than 60 years.
    Since I met my wife, and I've been with her more than 53
    years, I don't-- she doesn't speak another language
    but Spanish.
    But sometimes, seldom when I travel, when I go to Israel,
    when I come here, I can speak others languages also.
    And as the years were passing, I must learn English
    because for traveling in order to get in touch with my family
    I must speak English also.
    But I'm still not very happy with my English not enough.
    Well, I think your English is just fine.
    But for you it's fine, maybe.
    It's quite thick.
    But you learned that.
    Then you learned English as an adult already.
    Sure.
    So that's language number seven.
    Are there any more that come?
    Or is this the--
    I mean, this is quite a menu of what we've got here.
    No.
    I learned also German because Yiddish
    is very similar to German.
    This is true.
    And do you know that this is a dialect from old German.
    So when we came to Bolivia I still
    remember that I went to school to a private school.
    And the director, the owner of the school, was a German guy.
    Since I was the best student in German because of my Yiddish.
    And I still remember, as a gift when I finished school,
    she gave me a book, which name is Hansel and Gretel.
    Really?
    He gave you the?
    I still have it.
    I still have the book.
    Yes.
    Best German student, but--
    What was the name of that school?
    Do you remember?
    Pestalozzi.
    Pestalozzi?
    Have you heard who he was?
    No.
    He was a very famous pedagogue Swiss pedagogue.
    And the school was named after him?
    Yes, the school is named after him.
    Yes.
    Pestalozzi.
    I have a question that I'm a little self-conscious about,
    and it goes on again some assumptions.
    So forgive me for those assumptions.
    The image that we in North America
    have of some in South America is that the South American
    countries had German colonies that were almost exclusively
    Nazi colonies, and you mentioned that you
    go to school that was a German school
    or the director was German?
    But he was the best school-- the private school in this town.
    When I came to Bolivia, the name of the city was Santa Cruz.
    It was in the capital.
    It was almost more than 60 years ago.
    Bolivia was and still now a very undeveloped country.
    So the best place where I could study
    was in this private school.
    But was it true?
    I mean, did you?
    Yes.
    Were there other students there whose parents might have had,
    what we'd say, questionable backgrounds
    who might have fled from Germany because of their activities?
    Yes.
    I know what you are asking.
    But until now I don't know if the owner of this school
    was a Nazi or not because I don't
    know when he came to Bolivia if after the war or maybe
    he was there before the war.
    So if he was there before the war, maybe he wasn't a Nazi.
    But some people asked me if I knew
    or if my parents knew if he was or not Nazi.
    They wouldn't have done this school.
    But I think that they didn't have another option
    to send me to the school because, it was the best
    private school in this town.
    It was a small town.
    I still remember that the streets were paved with dirt,
    and the houses were very, very modest.
    So it was very--
    only 12 Jews were living there.
    And was your uncle one of them?
    Yes.
    My uncle was one of them.
    Sure.
    And what kind of-- how did he make a living?
    He sold the store.
    He had a store?
    A store.
    OK.
    He sold everything.
    Almost everything.
    Not food or groceries.
    Like, a hardware store or a dry goods store?
    Clothes, fabric, shoes, everything
    except food except hardware.
    Some hardware stuff.
    Was it more like a department store?
    Sorry?
    More like a department store like what we have here?
    These larger department stores?
    Or was it like Woolworth's?
    Yes, I know.
    Yes.
    More or less similar to that.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And what kind of--
    what did your family do when you got there to Santa Cruz?
    My uncle helped them install a store to make a store.
    Of their own.
    Of their own by their own.
    And then we rented a house, and they run this store almost
    like my uncle but a little bit smaller.
    So in other words, they're starting their lives
    over again, jeepers, the fifth time.
    The sixth time?
    I've lost count.
    After Sarnaki, there's the Soviet Union.
    After the Soviet Union, there's several places
    in the Soviet Union.
    Then there's back to Poland.
    Then from Poland, there's Israel and now once more
    a new beginning.
    Exactly.
    How did that go?
    How did that go?
    Yeah.
    In Bolivia?
    My parents and I always wanted to study
    in a more cultured place than Bolivia
    than the city was those times.
    So at the age--
    I helped them when we arrived.
    I helped them to work in the store to do many things,
    and I began to study at school.
    I was doing very well.
    I learned very quickly the language.
    But I wanted and my parents also wanted
    to give me a better place for my education.
    So before finishing my high school in age 17,
    by myself, alone, I went to study to Buenos Aires.
    To Argentina.
    To Argentina.
    I entered in fourth grade of high school, and then I gave--
    without studying, without going one year,
    I gave the exam to finish the last year.
    And I could enter to the university to study medicine.
    Was this complicated between countries in South America
    to move from one country to another
    to study from one country to another?
    No, it wasn't very hard.
    It wasn't very difficult. But in my case,
    since I wasn't-- in other words, I had to get special permission
    because I was--
    17.
    --under 18 years old.
    I had to get to somebody's help in a document
    to go to study in Argentina.
    And your parents stayed in Santa Cruz?
    And did they continue to live there?
    Yes, they continued to live there,
    but this is the most sad part of my life.
    When I was in fourth grade for the class of medicine,
    suddenly, I got the news that there
    was a robbery in their store, and both of them were killed.
    They resisted in the robbery to give the key of the safe
    where they had everything--
    money, and jewels, and everything--
    because they wanted everything for us.
    So they both of them were killed at the same time.
    I can't imagine that kind of news.
    I had to interrupt my studies in Buenos Aires.
    I went to Bolivia to bury them and to liquidate
    as much as I could.
    My uncle, in the beginning, helped me.
    But it was impossible to sell everything
    because I wanted to continue my career in Buenos Aires.
    And so I decided to liquidate and to sell what I could,
    and I came back to Buenos Aires.
    What was going on with your sister?
    My sister, she was studying in another city.
    In Bolivia?
    In Bolivia.
    Cochabamba is the name.
    And the school, like how do you say when you leave?
    A boarding school?
    A boarding school.
    Yes.
    A boarding school.
    So when it happened, she was studying there.
    How old was she?
    She was 16, 17 years old.
    So this is 1956, '57.
    Yes, more or less.
    Yes.
    But when she finished to study in the school,
    I brought her to Buenos Aires, and we lived together.
    And does that mean she finished the school year at that school
    or she finished her?
    No.
    She finished her studies in this school.
    OK.
    So that means she left with a high school diploma?
    Yes.
    With a high school diploma she left Bolivia.
    OK.
    I can't imagine what that must have been like for you.
    You lose your family.
    You lose your parents.
    That's why for me it's not very easy to speak about it now
    especially in this tragic way.
    They're safe from the Nazis.
    They're safe from the communists,
    and finally they lost their life in Bolivia.
    Did they ever catch who did it?
    Was the person or persons who committed this crime-- were
    they ever caught?
    We offered many, many compensation, many things,
    but I was 20, 21 years old.
    And I couldn't.
    Many people of the Jewish community wanted to help--
    wanted to give a kind of compensation to find the men,
    but it wasn't possible.
    So the police did not find anything?
    Did not do anything?
    Was this a rare thing to happen in Santa Cruz?
    Were these types of crimes a common occurrence
    or a very rare occurrence?
    No, it was very rare.
    It was very.
    It happened to my parents because they
    didn't took enough secure.
    Security.
    Security.
    And that's why they were managing
    dealing with a lot of-- not so much but with money.
    They did also exchange changing money.
    Does that mean, like, changing currency?
    Changing currency from dollars to local currency.
    And I helped them.
    Even from Buenos Aires, I sent to them.
    So they were too exposed, and they don't talk.
    They didn't take enough security.
    No protective measures.
    No protective measures.
    Yes.
    OK.
    Did this happen within the store itself,
    or in their back offices, or in their home?
    In the same store that we have in the backyard,
    we had a room where they sometimes they slept.
    In this room, they had a big safe.
    And the thieves wanted the keys for the safe.
    And they didn't want to give them.
    And I still remember when I came,
    the floor was full of blood of my parents.
    Oh my gosh.
    I can see why you're very grateful to them, you know.
    Still.
    Yes.
    Now you understand me a little bit better.
    I think that until now I feel--
    and to say I have a feeling of guilt that I am guilty what
    happened to them because they did everything for us,
    and even they gave their life.
    I'm sure they wouldn't want you to think that way.
    So the only thing I could do to honor them
    because since then I felt that my life didn't more
    any sense to be lived, you know.
    Did you feel despondent then that you can't go on?
    Yes.
    Many times, I felt this.
    Yes.
    But I also felt that I must keep living because the only thing I
    could do for them is to get good grades at the university.
    So is it that you feel that they paid
    a very high price for your education
    and that the least would be that you actually?
    For my education.
    For our happiness.
    Yeah.
    How did life--
    I mean, did you have any family left?
    Could you and your sister still be a family after this loss?
    Sure.
    After this loss, I had to be for my sister
    the brother, the father, the mother, and everything for her.
    Yeah.
    She was three, four years younger than me.
    And you say your uncle helped out in the beginning.
    Did that mean that later?
    He helped us in the beginning.
    Yes.
    But afterward, he had many problems,
    many economic problems.
    And I don't know if he was obliged or voluntary.
    Part of the money from my parents
    was for him-- was left it for him.
    OK.
    We made documents and everything.
    He would pay me every month such and such money,
    but suddenly he didn't.
    He didn't do it, and then he couldn't pay me.
    And the relationship was completely--
    with his family also.
    Well, what that suggests to me then
    is that you and your sister are really alone
    in the world at that point as far as family is concerned.
    Yes.
    Each of us has his own family.
    She has a husband.
    I have a wife.
    We have children and everything.
    But.
    At that point.
    At that point.
    Yes.
    And how did you go on?
    That is, you finished your schooling.
    When did you meet your future wife?
    When I was graduated already.
    We were living with my sister in an apartment in a very
    nice place in Buenos Aires.
    And once my sister made a party, and then she invited some
    friends of her's.
    And then some friends of her's brought to this party my wife.
    OK.
    And what year did you get married?
    When?
    We get married in Buenos Aires already 53 years ago.
    So let me see if I can do the mathematics.
    That's 1966?
    1960?
    She's not-- she's not here.
    But yes, 53 years ago.
    It was '63, '64.
    OK.
    Mid '60s.
    The mid '60s.
    The mid '60s.
    Mid '60s.
    And at that time.
    It's hard to-- yes.
    How much of-- how much of your early life
    followed you in the sense of, did you
    know anybody in Buenos Aires who was
    from Poland, or from Sarnaki, or who had been in Russia?
    Yes.
    Very close to our city where we lived outside
    from Buenos Aires 20 kilometers from downtown, we had--
    in Yiddish or in German it's called a Verein.
    A Verein.
    Mm-hmm.
    You know what's a Verein?
    An association.
    Huh?
    It's an association.
    Like an association for people originally
    from this town in the neighborhood
    and other small towns.
    OK.
    And we had like a country with a swimming pool with a barbecue,
    and every weekend, they met there.
    And many people were friends of my parents even before the war.
    And while I lived--
    the first time when I got to Buenos Aires,
    I still remember that I lived about a month
    with a family which were very good friends of my parents
    from Sarnaki.
    And afterwards I lived in different other places
    closer to University.
    But yes, many, many people from Buenos Aires
    were friends of my parents from Sarnaki.
    And did you find a community amongst them?
    Did you feel at home?
    Sure.
    I was going every weekend to meet
    them to talk with them, and socializing, and everything.
    And did the conversations there--
    you say your parents didn't talk about their past.
    They didn't talk about their lost siblings.
    They didn't talk about the war.
    But did some of these people talk about those things?
    Did they recall what life was like before the war?
    Did they talk about what had gone on there?
    Not too much.
    No.
    Not too much.
    At least with me maybe because I was 20, 22 years old.
    Maybe among them, they were adults.
    They maybe they spoke but not to me.
    OK.
    Was there news at that time again about German communities
    that were really communities of Nazis who had fled?
    Was that something that was in the news
    or part of public knowledge?
    Yes.
    I know much more about that after leaving Buenos Aires.
    But unfortunately, Peron, which was the president at that time,
    he was a very good friend of the Nazis or Germans
    because they made very, very good business with the Germans.
    And since he was military, the Argentine military
    got their education, the best education
    from the Nazi Germany.
    So that's why they allowed to come many Nazis like Mengele,
    like Priebke, like Eichmann with false papers to Argentina.
    And there are many places till now that some of them
    are still alive, especially in the South of Argentina
    where the nature and the weather is
    very similar to their homeland to Germany.
    Very nice places much more beautiful
    than the Rocky Mountains here even in the South of Argentina.
    Isn't that Patagonia?
    About.
    It is in the south of Patagonia.
    It's about 1,000 miles from Buenos Aires in the south.
    Very, very beautiful places like Switzerland.
    Much more beautiful than Switzerland here.
    Oh my.
    Yes.
    Have you traveled there?
    Many times, yes.
    Even, I built a house there also.
    Did you?
    But at first in the beginning, I didn't know so much.
    But as the years was passing I know more and more,
    especially when Eichmann was captured in Argentina.
    We almost didn't know what was going on with the Nazis
    in there.
    But later when we came to Uruguay,
    we heard every year much more and more about the Nazis.
    So wasn't he captured in late '50s, early '60s, Eichmann?
    I think I remember.
    Wasn't his trial in '61?
    In the late '50s or the beginning of the '60s.
    Yes.
    And you were already living in Buenos Aires.
    Yes.
    I was living in Buenos Aires.
    And this was a few years after you lose your parents.
    Yes.
    And you say there wasn't much news
    about it in the Argentine press about Eichmann's capture?
    Yeah.
    There was a lot in the papers.
    Yes because for them it was like a violation
    of the sovereignty of the Argentine sovereignty
    with what the Mossad did.
    You know the story of how it happened.
    Well, tell us.
    I know a little bit, but tell us.
    Tell us what the story was of--
    how you learned of it is really what I'm interested in.
    How you learned of.
    No.
    I know what the media knows because he came to Argentina
    with false documents with another name,
    and he was working like a mechanic in a company.
    And nobody knew about his past but the Mossad.
    And the reason, they knew that Eichmann came to Argentina
    with false documents.
    So they began to look after him.
    And once they came to Argentina, and when he came out
    from his house, they came with a car and put him inside the car.
    And that's it.
    That's it more or less.
    And they took him to Israel.
    And the community that you lived in, this community of Verein,
    and did you also have any other social circles
    besides that Verein that you told us about?
    Yes.
    I had another because I was studying in Buenos Aires.
    And how did people react when they heard
    of this arrest of Eichmann?
    I'm not saying what the government or what
    the newspaper said.
    But how did normal people react to this?
    Because they wouldn't really, you know.
    They were surprised.
    They were surprised, but it depended who they were.
    If they were Jews, they were happy that it happened.
    It was amazing how the Mossad could do it especially
    in such a country like Argentina.
    It was one of the most developed countries in South America.
    But many, many people nowadays know more and more about how
    Nazis came to Argentina with false documents.
    Priebke was, you know--
    he was one of them.
    And even many books here in the US
    were written about the bunkers and about the mansions
    that even Hitler made before being the governor of Germany.
    Just in case he lose the war, he wanted
    to have something somewhere in some place a safe place.
    To flee.
    To flee.
    And he built huge mansions.
    It was many, many white American writer
    wrote pretend to prove that he wasn't killed by the Russians.
    But there are different books.
    But the true version is that the Russians had the proof
    that he was made suicide, and they found even the skeleton.
    They match the DNA and everything.
    It's irrefutable.
    Also, only for money, that so many American writers wrote--
    These thing.
    --these things.
    These kinds of books.
    And many people, they know.
    But anyway, even now I still remember in my cell phone,
    I got a video about the Nazi tour in Bariloche.
    Bariloche is the name of the city where
    so many Nazis came to live.
    There is the name.
    A tour.
    A tour.
    In this tour, they are showing all the places
    of the bunkers or the buildings where
    the Nazis met each other and the meetings they
    had in this city in the south of Argentina.
    If you are interested, I still have the video.
    Somebody sent it to me.
    I mean, it feels very spooky.
    And it feels very spooky.
    It feels--
    Spooky?
    Spooky.
    It makes you feel insecure.
    Insecure?
    Yeah.
    I mean, what I'm trying to ask is, did it
    give you such a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity?
    That's what I'm asking.
    Yes.
    But it's possible.
    It's possible.
    I'm not sure if Hitler--
    if this property was by him.
    By many hierarch--
    In the hierarchy.
    Many in the hierarchy who were Nazis?
    Yes.
    Who were Nazis.
    There is another place in Argentina.
    Cordoba is a province in the center
    of the country that even now are still living
    many Nazis in this small town.
    And the government knows everything about them.
    But how does it feel as a Jewish person?
    How does it feel knowing that this is the situation?
    Sometimes there are political reasons,
    and sometimes there are social reasons
    why the Jewish community doesn't do anything.
    Because they can't do anything against the government.
    After you finished your studies.
    For example, when the [INAUDIBLE] the AMIA,
    when more than 80 people were killed
    in the Jewish community in Buenos Aires,
    there were two times.
    One of the embassy.
    The Israeli embassy-- were killed almost 90 people.
    And afterward, the Jewish community,
    also more than 80 people were killed.
    Christians and Jews.
    But until now no government did anything to make the justice.
    In Iran-- they are sure that Iran is guilty.
    And the government in those times
    were involved together with this, but until now there
    is no justice for that.
    For these crimes?
    Have you heard about what happened in Buenos Aires?
    But tell us.
    Explain in just a nutshell about what year and when.
    What year this was or if it was a several.
    It was 20 years ago more or less.
    21, 22 years ago.
    Yes.
    In Buenos Aires when that happened.
    And the president in that time was Arab descendant.
    The president Menem was the name of this.
    They were from Syria.
    From Syria and Lebanon.
    And they were anti-Semitic.
    This was 20 years ago more or less.
    So did you used to live in Argentina at that time?
    Because you told me eventually you left.
    Yes.
    I left Argentina in 1989.
    So about that same--
    well, no.
    20 years ago would be 1999.
    Before that.
    You left before that.
    Yeah.
    I left Argentina not only about that,
    but I have my personal reasons also here.
    But after you finished medical school-- let's
    just talk a little bit about your professional life.
    You were a physician.
    Yes?
    Yes.
    And what was your specialty?
    Pediatrician.
    Pediatrician.
    And you practiced for how many years in Argentina?
    28 years.
    28 years.
    And eventually you closed your practice, or you moved it.
    What happened?
    No.
    When I decided to leave Argentina
    about different reasons, especially
    the doctors, the medical situation,
    the main reason was the unions got involved,
    and they put the requirements in the condition
    how to work for the doctors.
    For someone who was in private practice.
    Yes.
    And the other reason was when I would
    have got paid for each consultation, converted
    into dollars into foreign currency,
    my consultation was very, very few. $1.
    $1.10.
    And I had already treated the children.
    The other reason was that we doctors
    were obliged to ask this and this test
    and not too long for each patient.
    And especially we would like exploited by the unions.
    I felt very bad because I felt that I couldn't practice
    my profession like I felt it--
    like I loved it.
    So even when you can't don't do anything else,
    you must keep going and keep doing this.
    But in my case, I had the opportunity
    to learn other things to do as part of medicine.
    When I was helping my father and my parents
    were they were working with them and when it happened to them,
    I must invest the money in order to be
    able to finish my studies.
    So I had to invest money in construction and in different--
    I bought some lots, and I sold them.
    Some real estate.
    And apart of working as a doctor,
    I was involved also in construction.
    But the inflation in those times was 50%, 60% a month,
    and I sold the apartments what they built.
    I sold in Argentine money.
    When I got the payment, it was nothing almost.
    Yeah.
    So I lost six, seven years of my life for free.
    And this more or less are the reasons
    why I got tried from Argentina.
    And especially I didn't see any future for my children.
    I told you-- when my oldest daughter came back from US,
    she couldn't get a job for $150 a month.
    So you moved then to Uruguay.
    Is that correct?
    Sure.
    And you've lived in Uruguay since 1989?
    Yes.
    I remember.
    So that's 30 years.
    30 years permanently in Uruguay in this small city.
    Yes.
    And what is the name of the city?
    Punta Del Este.
    Punta Del Este.
    It's like a peninsula.
    It's a resort.
    It's considered to be the most fancy resort
    in South America now.
    And I run the nursery ornamental plants.
    I do gardening and landscaping for the wealthy Argentine
    people that own properties in Punta Del Este in this place.
    So you have another business there.
    You didn't practice as a doctor anymore, or did you?
    No.
    I could practice as a doctor, but I couldn't do both things
    together.
    So I had to choose this one since my second passion was
    always nature, and trees, and shrubs.
    I was doing very well with this.
    It was hard.
    I can imagine.
    Hard, physical work.
    But you don't have to delegate it and you wonder.
    For them, it's the same to know or not to know.
    The workers, the labor there in South America is different.
    It's not easy.
    Did you find another community in Uruguay
    similar to Argentina?
    Again, I am trying to find out how much of your early life
    comes with you.
    Or is it really left behind?
    No.
    It's really left behind because I
    can continue the same style of life what
    I had during my childhood.
    Nowadays, everything is completely different.
    I have to get adapted to my children to my grandchildren.
    Yes.
    This is the future.
    This is so.
    I can't live only with the past.
    I understand.
    I understand, and I accept that.
    What my questions are going to, is how much of the past
    comes with you?
    As you live in the present, and you are with your children,
    and you're with your grandchildren,
    what part of the past is still there?
    My past is coming very, very frequently.
    I still don't forget.
    It's hard to forget.
    Did you talk much, or did your children
    ask you many questions about it?
    Almost never.
    First of all, of them are different countries.
    When they were little children, nobody
    allowed me to talk about it because they were too little,
    and it's not good to talk about sad stories
    when we were together with them.
    Afterward, every one of the daughters
    came here when she was 17 years old.
    The other one at age 18 went to Israel.
    And we came to--
    we moved to Uruguay.
    So we didn't have already almost the opportunities
    to talk about it.
    They just come to visit us--
    especially from Buenos to visit us.
    And we, three or four times a year,
    we go to visit them for a couple of days.
    But to be sincere with you, I don't see the--
    I don't see the need to talk about that.
    About my story with them.
    And yet at the beginning of the interview,
    I ask you about, why is it that you--
    what's important?
    What's important about finding out
    that there is a Berko Zilberstein whom
    you didn't even know existed?
    At the beginning of the interview when
    we were talking about how little you knew of your father's
    family and your mother's family, you
    mentioned that only five months ago you
    find out you had an uncle and that his name was Berko.
    Berel.
    And I asked you, why is that important?
    And you gave me a very, very deep answer
    as to why it's important.
    For me.
    For you.
    And so is it that, for yourself when
    you think of your own story, that it would
    be as important for the younger generations
    to know as it is for you to know that there was even
    this person who existed?
    You just said it's sort of like I don't see what's
    the point of talking about it.
    And yet talking about it is what tells people,
    well, this was part of my life.
    This is part of what the experience was.
    This is part of our family is.
    This is where you come from.
    Yes.
    But I see that, especially the grandchildren, their life
    or they needs are completely different now.
    They make a completely other life--
    completely other style of life that they are more
    worried about other things.
    It's not worrying them too much.
    Maybe they all of them said that it's not true.
    This is only my impression.
    My opinion.
    But that's what the life is currently showing me.
    Of course.
    Of course.
    And no one wants their children, their grandchildren
    to have to face any of these types of things.
    No one wants that for their children.
    And when they have, quote, normal problems, one
    is grateful that their problems are normal not of this nature.
    But I can tell--
    I can share with you why doing this kind of work
    and asking these kinds of questions is important to me.
    And that is how--
    you know, when a person has been through
    such extraordinary circumstances,
    extraordinary situations, sometimes they're an adult.
    Sometimes like you, they're a child.
    My question to myself is, how do you go on?
    How do you have a normal life?
    How do you still find meaning in living
    when such things have been the things that you've seen?
    Because people need guideposts for the future.
    If it happens again, what can I rely on?
    What can I count on?
    In my case, I only know that in order
    to get adapted to this world and to my family
    I must give an appearance of normality.
    Do you understand me?
    OK.
    I hope I do.
    This is what I'm trying to do to give
    an appearance of normality.
    And is there something?
    Is it only an appearance?
    It's not easy.
    No.
    Sometimes I feel happy.
    When I see them and everything, but not always is happiness,
    but in the average of my life, of my time,
    I feel that from my side, it's almost like appearance.
    Because all this suffering, what I had in my life,
    it's very hard, first of all, to be happy now.
    And when you are not very happy, it's
    hard to transmit it to other ones, even to your own family.
    But I'm trying to do the best, what I can,
    to give the appearance that I'm a normal person,
    and I feel well.
    I was doing everything to go on too
    and to get adapted to this life to this world.
    Thank you.
    Thank you very, very much.
    You are welcome.
    I very much appreciate it.
    And I see some of the cost.
    I'm sorry that is not a very pleasant story.
    Thank you for sharing it.
    I try to be--
    in all my life, I always try to be sincere
    with myself and with others.
    Thank you.
    And that's what we look for, and that's what we appreciate.
    It's not very easy.
    But sometimes it's necessary, you know,
    especially if I feel that I have a good listener.
    I hope you feel you did.
    Thank you very much.
    Is there something that I have not asked you
    that you would want to share with us before we close up
    the interview?
    Something that we didn't cover?
    No.
    I think that you did a very good job.
    You asked almost everything, especially
    the most important feature of my life.
    But in such a short interview it's
    really not easy to know everything because my life is
    many details.
    These were the headlines.
    Exactly.
    These were only the headlines.
    But between these headlines are many subtitles
    and many details.
    I can't tell you how right you are because in one interview,
    even no matter how long we take it,
    we know we're just scratching the surface.
    We're just scratching the surface.
    You're just scratching the surface.
    Yeah.
    But maybe if for you this is enough, I'm happy to know it.
    Well, it is a great gift, and we appreciate that.
    But yes.
    Go ahead.
    No.
    Go on.
    I lost my-- it doesn't matter.
    Sorry.
    I interrupted you.
    It's OK.
    I forgot my train of thought.
    Now I would like to know how it will we be published or made
    this interview.
    If everything will be told or some things you prefer to--
    No.
    --to leave.
    It will all be--
    why don't I do this, is that I will make a formal conclusion
    to our interview, and then I'll explain the circumstances
    for the camera.
    We can say that this interview will be available online,
    and it will be viewable through the USHM website.
    But at the moment, what I'll do is I'll say,
    this concludes the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Dr. Jaime Zilberstein on September 18,
    2019 in Merrick, Long Island, New York.
    Thank you.
    OK.
    So what happens is that in about three of-- what?
    OK.
    We're opening up the interview again.
    And the reason why is because your daughter would
    like to know, and probably you've
    spoken about this at other points,
    but is there something you'd want
    to share with other people?
    With, let's say, young people with a wider public about how
    you see the meaning of what it is that you went through,
    and that your parents went through,
    and that so many Jews went through during the Holocaust?
    Is there something you'd like to say
    about that to share about that?
    What meaning you draw from it?
    In my case, the message was I could give especially
    for young people and also for other people
    that in spite of many suffering that you experience
    in your life there is always somebody or something that
    is worth to keep living because you have always something
    to offer a subject to give to somebody.
    In this case, to my own family or to other people
    that experienced similar suffering as mine.
    There is always something in this world
    to keep living to be alive.
    That's an important message because a lot of people
    feel despondent when they go through just half
    of what you've gone through.
    And yeah, I mean, earlier, I asked you one of the reasons
    this is important for me is because to know how
    should we react if this happens again in some form or another.
    When people who have been through it, how
    did they go through it?
    How did they go through it?
    How do they keep on going?
    What helped them keep on going?
    And I think it is incredibly helpful, A, that you're here,
    and that you've built a life, and that you
    could pass on such a message and really mean it because you know
    what that suffering was like.
    And you know what the despondency was like.
    OK.
    Thank you.
    And that's all what I wanted to say.
    OK.
    Thank you.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Jaime Zilberstein, born in 1937 in Sarnaki, Poland, discusses being two years old when Germany invaded Poland; fleeing with his family eastwards; being sent to Siberia; the death of his brother during the journey; living in a labor camp in wooden barracks; conditions in the labor camp; moving to Archangelsk, Russia; moving to Samara Oblast, Russia; returning to Poland after WWII; and immigrating to Israel in 1951.
    Interviewee
    Jaime Zilberstein
    Interviewer
    Navazelskis, Ina
    Date
    interview:  2019 September 18
    Geography
    creation: Merrick (N.Y.)

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 digital file : MP4.

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Copyright Holder
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Zilberstein, Jaime.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Ina Navazelskis, on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, conducted the oral history interview with Jaime Zilberstein on September 18, 2019 in Merrick, NY.
    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 08:06:18
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn709049

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    Oral history interview with Chil Rajchman

    Oral History

    Chil Rajchman, born in June 1914 in Łódź, Poland, describes his childhood; leaving with his sister to go to Pruszków, a town near Warsaw, where they were interned in the ghetto there; working at a railroad labor camp while in Pruszków; being sent with his sister to Warsaw, where they obtained travel documents allowing them to go to Lubelski, Poland; being forced to travel by foot to Lubartów, Poland in October 1942; his deportation to Treblinka, where he worked as a barber shaving victims’ hair before they entered the gas chambers; escaping Treblinka and hiding with various people as he headed for Warsaw; moving on to Piastów, Poland, where he obtained false papers; remaining in Piastów, where he took part in the Polish uprising of August 1944; and remaining in hiding in Warsaw until he was liberated on January 17, 1945.

    Oral history interview with Nesse Galperin Godin

    Oral history interview with Nesse Galperin Godin

    Oral History

    Nesse Galperin Godin, born in 1928 in Siauliai, Lithuania, describes her family’s work in the dairy business; the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941 and the establishment of a ghetto in Siauliai; starting to do forced labor in 1943 when she was old enough to work; being deported with her mother and her brother to Stutthof in Danzig, Poland in 1944; working in various sub-camps of Stutthof until she was put on a death march in January 1945; her liberation by Russian soldiers in March 1945; and her immigration to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Eddie Willner

    Oral history interview with Eddie Willner

    Oral History

    Eddie Willner, born on August 15, 1926 in Germany, describes how his father had felt that his family would be safe because he had fought in the German Army in World War I; being separated from his parents and sent on a train to Brussels, Belgium, where a Jewish refugee organization placed him with a Dutch family; his parents’ move to Belgium in 1939 and seeing them on weekends until the war broke out in May 1940; the arrest of his father and his deportation to an internment camp in France; remaining with his mother and tracking down his father in the Pyrenees Mountains; living in the house of a French priest; getting caught with false identification cards with his family and being sent to Drancy; his deportation out of France and toward the east on September 12, 1942; arriving in Auschwitz, where his mother was immediately gassed while he stayed with his father; his transfer to a work camp in Lazy, Poland, where he worked on reconstructing bombed-out railroads; enduring harsh conditions, especially in the winter months; losing his religious faith after the war; returning from his work detail one day to discover that his father had been selected for the gas chamber during the day; the bombing of the train on which he was being transported to Buchenwald, escaping, and being liberated by American troops; staying in the Frankfurt displaced persons camp and then searching for his family in Brussels after the war; and immigrating to the United States in December 1947.

    Oral history interview with Lisa Dawidowicz Murik

    Oral history interview with Lisa Dawidowicz Murik

    Oral History

    Lisa Dawidowicz Murik, born on November 5, 1925 in Ostroh, Poland (Ukraine), describes her family; attending public school until the outbreak of war in 1939; the German occupation of Poland and having to endure forced labor; working on a labor detail to construct a railroad station; by 1942 having built a shelter in her family’s basement to hide from the Nazis who were rounding up Jews in the ghetto; later fleeing into the Polish countryside, where a poor Polish farm woman gave them refuge hiding in the potato bin of her barn for sixteen months; surviving on a daily ration of a quart of water and one potato each; finding out that they were liberated in 1944; returning to Ostroh and then going to Łódź, where she met her future husband, a refugee from the Soviet Union, during her stay; leaving for Germany, where she and her future husband spent time in German displaced persons camps in Berlin and Eschwege; and immigrating in 1949 to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Ernst Weihs

    Oral history interview with Ernst Weihs

    Oral History

    Ernst Weihs, born in 1908 in Vienna, Austria and describes his family; his father’s participation in World War I and returning to ask for a divorce from his mother; moving out to the country with his mother and having a difficult life; getting baptized and attending church at the age of 11; finding a job as a gardener to support himself; returning to Vienna in 1928 and living near his father and stepmother; being declared Jewish, having to wear the star, and quitting his gardening job; working for a summer with a Jewish Agency to train for living in Palestine; living in a Swedish mission house associated with the Lutheran church and managing its gardens; working with a Guildemester organization that brought food to people until 1942 when the Germans closed it; being deported to a ghetto in Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia and then to Auschwitz; his transfer to the Kaufering labor camp, where he worked farming nearby fields; remaining in Kaufering until the spring of 1945, when he had to evacuate toward Dachau; being liberated during the march to Dachau by American troops; getting married and having a baby after the war; and immigrating to the United States and raising his daughter as a Lutheran.

    Oral history interview with Agnes Vogel

    Oral history interview with Agnes Vogel

    Oral History

    Agnes Vogel, born on January 1, 1924 in Debrecen, Hungary, describes her childhood; attending a special school in a Catholic Convent in 1939; being rounded up in June 1944 and put on a transport to Auschwitz; ending up in Strasshof, a transit camp in Austria; starting on a transport toward Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, but turning back to Strasshof because of an air raid that destroyed part of the railroad; her liberation by Soviet troops in 1945; and immigrating to the United States after the war.

    Oral history interview with Dora Goldstein Roth

    Oral history interview with Dora Goldstein Roth

    Oral History

    Dora Goldstein Roth, born on February 1, 1932 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses her family and early childhood; her father’s participation in the Zionist movement; being forced to live inside the Vilnius ghetto; her deportation to the Kaiserwald-Riga, Dinenwerke, and Stutthof camps with her sister and mother; seeing her mother die from hunger; her sister's death in the camp; difficult memories including mass rape of camp inmates, forced labor, and struggling to survive from day to day; deciding while she was still in the camps that she wanted to immigrate to Palestine after the war because she wanted to be surrounded by Jewish people; her liberation by Russian forces; staying in a Jewish hospital for three years to recover from injuries and disease; immigrating to Israel in 1952; getting married and having children; her identity as a mother and Holocaust survivor; and working for the United Jewish Appeal.

    Oral history interview with Yocheved Arie

    Oral history interview with Yocheved Arie

    Oral History

    Yocheved Arie, born in Vilnius, Lithuania on February 15, 1928, discusses the German occupation of Lithuania; how her father and brother were taken away while she and her mother had to go to the ghetto; poor sanitation in the ghetto; aktions in the ghetto carried out by the Germans; the deportation of her mother to Estonia; reuniting with her mother in Estonia; being transported to Stutthof; going to Gdansk where she was forced to make railroad tracks; being liberated along with her mother and several others on the second day of a death march shortly before the end of the war; her postwar return to Vilnius where she and her mother found no survivors from their family; trying to immigrate to Palestine, but remaining in a displaced persons camp in Germany for three years; immigrating to Jerusalem; living with her mother for 40 years until her mother’s death; and her deep understanding about the heroism of Jewish mothers during the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Leo Hanin

    Oral history interview with Leo Hanin

    Oral History

    Leo Hanin, born in 1913 in Vilnius, Lithuania, describes his family; his parents’ decision to escape increasing persecution in Europe and move to Harbin, China, where they had a relative, in 1916; the lively Jewish community but not having many relations with the native Chinese; attending a Russian school in Harbin until 1929; moving with his brother to Shanghai around 1934 to attend a British school; getting married in 1936 and moving to Kōbe-shi, Japan to do work for a textile firm; assisting the Joint Distribution Committee in New York to arrange for funds to be sent to Japan to support refugees coming over from Europe; his participation in a Zionist organization and moving to Israel in 1948; staying in Israel for two years and then moving back to Japan; his experiences with helping people adjust to life in Kōbe-shi and immigrate to the United States; and dealing with the rumors that the Jewish leadership of Kōbe-shi stole money donated to them to help refugees.

    Oral history interview with Walter Schnell

    Oral history interview with Walter Schnell

    Oral History

    Walter Schnell, born on April 16, 1904 in Strehlen, Germany (Strzelin, Poland), describes his family and childhood; going to study crystal and porcelain in Berlin, Germany in the early 1920s; having to sell his family’s porcelain and glass business in 1937 because anti-Jewish business laws were becoming too strict; moving to Wrocław after the business sold with his sister and parents; working for a family friend in a wholesale business in Wrocław; his arrest during Kristallnacht and being sent by train through Weimar and on to Buchenwald; being forced to watch the hangings of those prisoners who had escaped from the camp and been caught; being called into the camp’s main office on the second day of Hanukkah and told that his parents had booked him a passage for Panama; finally securing a passage on a ship from Wrocław to Genoa, Italy after jumping through much red tape with Gestapo officials in Wrocław; staying in Genoa for a short time until he traveled on a boat to Shanghai because he did not need official papers to get in; settling in Hongkou, the Jewish suburb of Shanghai; Allied planes accidentally bombing the Jewish quarter of Shanghai; the creation of a Jewish community with its own traditions in Shanghai, including establishing nine hundred yeshivas, keeping kosher, and maintaining a synagogue; discovering that his mother and two cousins had made it to New York; and joining his family in New York after the war.

    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral History

    Erna Tebel Stern, born on October 28, 1901 in Krotoszyn, Poland, describes her childhood; her father’s experiences when he served in the German Army against Russia during World War I; moving to Wroclaw, Poland after the war; not experiencing much official discrimination when Hitler first came to power because her father had served in the German Army; her family’s decision to flee from their home in 1938 when they discovered that prison camps existed; her parents’ capture and deportation; managing to escape to Brussels, Belgium, where she, her first husband, and her brother boarded the S.S. St. Louis and fled for Cuba; her brother’s and first husband’s deportation to an internment camp in Gurs, France after the St. Louis had to return to Brussels; going into hiding from 1940 to 1942 in Brussels, where she met her second husband; attempting to flee in 1942 to Switzerland, where they were imprisoned for a short time and then released to the Salvation Army; moving to Bern, Switzerland, where she worked as a housemaid until the end of the War; returning to Belgium in 1945 with her second husband and opening a blouse manufactory; and marrying her second husband in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral History

    Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort, born on April 24, 1923 in Wrocław, Poland, describes her family and childhood; experiencing antisemitism and losing friends after Hitler came to power; her memories of the destruction of Kristallnacht; a cousin in Cuba attaining visas for her and her parents to immigrate to Havana, Cuba; booking a passage on the St. Louis and being forced to return to Europe after Cuba and the United States would not accept the ship; arriving in Antwerp, Belgium and signing papers that said they would not work and would accept their status as a refugee; living off a small budget from the United Jewish Appeal; crossing the Belgium border into France by foot but not finding a much better living situation; discovering a castle in the French countryside in which to stay for a few nights; returning to Belgium and moving back into their old apartment building, where they stayed for a couple of years; becoming a seamstress to make some money for her family; joining an underground group with her mother and crossing into France and then Switzerland; finding an apartment building in which to live; discovering that Hitler had died and that the war was coming to an end; and immigrating to the United States to create a new life for herself and her family.

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral History

    Gidon Arye, born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1928, describes growing up in an upper middle class family; moving into the Vilnius ghetto in 1941 and being separated from his family; living in the Vilnius ghetto throughout the war and sometimes hiding or working illegally; avoiding the early deportations; escaping roundups and going to the Kailis work camp; smuggling his way into the same work camp that his father; reuniting with his father at the Heeres-Kraftfahr-Park work camp, where they worked for an elderly German fixing automobile machinery; surviving in the camp for some time and avoiding Nazi Aktions and a transfer of inmates to Kaunas, Lithuania; Nazi soldiers retreating from the Allies throughout July 1944; going into hiding with a local carpenter who was an acquaintance of his father from before the war; leaving Vilnius through Poland, Germany, and then France in 1945 with his father and fiancée; and immigrating to Israel in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral History

    Carl Knuemann, born on November 15, 1922 in Bydgoszcz, Poland, describes his family and childhood; moving to Germany in 1932 because his father had German citizenship and was a businessman; his father not finding a job and contracting tuberculosis, which allowed him to get a pension from the government since he was a veteran of World War I; his father’s work with Doctor Goerdeler and Albert Einstein in plotting against Hitler; working as a courier in the underground movement; his memories of Kristallnacht; escaping to Hungary after the war broke out and then returning to Berlin once the Nazis invaded Hungary; meeting a Dane in a restaurant and joining the Danish resistance movement by running guns between locations; being drafted and sent to Denmark; his father being too ill to participate in the July 20 plot against Hitler; working in the German armament industry in 1943 and sneaking information out to Allied contacts; and his considerations on his participation in the resistance movement during the war.

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral History

    Michael Vogel, born on November 29, 1923 in Jacovce, Czechoslovakia, describes moving to and growing up in Topol'čany, Czechoslovakia; the takeover of Topol'čany by the Hlinka Guard in 1939; his deportation to the Slovak-run Novaky prison camp in 1942; his deportation to Auschwitz in late 1942; working in forced labor in camps around Auschwitz, first in the Buna works and then in the Birkenau "Kanada" detachment, where he unloaded incoming trains; his transfer by cattle car to Sachsenhausen and then to Dachau as the Allies neared in late 1944; his final transfer to the Landsberg sub-camp of Dachau; escaping during a death march from Landsberg by hiding in the woods; his liberation by United States forces two weeks after escaping; following the 74th Tank Battalion on their tour through Germany and Czechoslovakia; swearing himself into the United States Army at a G.I. Camp Home Run in Le Havre, France in November 1945 and receiving American citizenship; taking a position doing laundry at Camp Home Run; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral History

    Nina Schuster Merrick, born in Rokitno, Poland in 1929, describes growing up in a religious family; attending Hebrew school as a child; hiding with her family in the woods during the 1939 bombing raids; her family’s forced move into a ghetto in Berezdiv, Ukraine when the Germans invaded Poland; forced labor, including peeling potatoes for German soldiers; the SS raid of her home in August 1942 and jumping out a window to avoid getting caught; hiding in the woods and eventually being taken in by a sympathetic Ukrainian general, who was involved with a partisan group; learning to be a nurse and working in the partisan group; the General sending her to Moscow, Russia on February 18, 1943, so she could attend technical school; working in a Moscow factory, where she remained until after the war; going to a Jewish collective farm in Germany; an aunt from Washington, DC contacting her in February 1947; and immigrating to the United States to live with her aunt in late 1947.

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral History

    Eva Rozencwajig Stock, born on January 15, 1919 in Kozienice, Poland, describes her family; the establishment of the Kozienice ghetto in 1939 and moving into it; bribing officials to have her family taken together to Skarżysko-Kamienna, a forced labor camp in Poland, during the liquidation of the ghetto; managing to move her family to Szydlowiec and then to Pionki, Poland, where they worked in an ammunition factory; the deportation of her father and brother to Mauthausen, where they both died; being deported to Auschwitz with her mother and sisters; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen and then to Elsnig, a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Germany; returning to Poland at the end of the war and then leaving in 1949 for Israel; and immigrating to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral History

    Ivo Herzer, born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (Croatia) on February 5, 1925, describes his early childhood; the introduction of anti-Jewish, Serb, and Romani legislation in 1941 by the Croatian Ustaša government; his arrest at sixteen years of age by a Croatian official and going to a transit camp in the outskirts of Zagreb for a short period until an Ustaša officer told him to return home; escaping with his family in July 1941 to the Italian-Croatian border and ending up in Gospić, Yugoslavia (Croatia); being put onto a military train, returning them to Croatia; escaping the train with the help of smugglers; moving to Susak, Croatia, where they hid for one month; Italian authorities sending his family and about sixty other Jewish refugees to Crikvenica, Croatia, where they lived under Italian protection in the Italian zone in Yugoslavia; the Italian authorities placing the Jewish refugees in a camp in 1942 until 1943, when the Italians brought them and two thousand other Jewish refugees into one camp on the island of Arbe, Dalmatia (Croatia); the Italian surrender to the Germans in 1943 and fleeing to southern Italy to the Allied occupied part of Italy; traveling with his family to the Croatian island of Vis and getting picked up by a British military ship and taken to Bari, Italy; the British directing his family to Taranto, Italy, where they were placed in a camp under British control; leaving the British camp and traveling to Bari; working as a translator and typist for the British Army in Bari after he was liberated; moving to Rome, Italy to work for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee from 1946 to 1948; and immigrating to the United States in 1955.

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral History

    Boleslaw Brodecki, born in March 1921 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; the German invasion in September 1939; boarding a train with his sister and escaping to Rostov, Russia while she went to Prużana, Poland; rejoining his sister in Prużana after the German invasion of Soviet territories in June 1941; entering the Prużana ghetto and staying there until he was deported to Birkenau in the winter of 1941 or 1942; being marched to Auschwitz I and then to Swietochlowice, Poland, where he worked in a machine factory making parts for airplanes; being sent on a forced march as the Russian army approached; arriving in Mauthausen and working in a nearby factory; being marched to various camps including Gräditz-Bareza, Flossenbürg, and Theresienstadt; his liberation in Theresienstadt by Soviet forces in 1945; going to a displaced persons camp in Landsberg am Lech, Germany in 1945 and getting a job as a policeman; meeting and marrying his wife, Sonia Brodecki, in the camp in December 1945; having a son and then immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral History

    Irene Weber, born in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes her family; attending a Polish school until she was about 10 years old, when the war began; the immediate effects of the war on her family, including the closing of her father’s business and the German raids on her home; her father and brother secretly educating her at home; receiving a work card and having to cut thread at a factory; being taken from the factory and sent to the Gliwice labor camp; discovering that her father had died of a heart attack shortly before her deportation; staying in Gliwice from March 1943 to May 1945, when she and others were evacuated from the camp because the Russians neared; being taken care of by some of the older female prisoners; her liberation by the International Red Cross in May 1945; being taken to a hospital to recuperate; having no desire to return to her hometown and see the destruction there; staying on a farm instead of going into a displaced persons camp; going to school in Munich, Germany with the help of the UNRRA; and meeting her husband and deciding to immigrate to the United States with him.

    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral History

    Josef, born on June 25, 1915 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; moving to Przemyśl, Poland when he was a child; fleeing to Lwów, Poland after the war broke out in 1939; returning to Przemyśl, which came under Russian occupation when Poland was divided between the Russians and the Germans; the German invasion on June 22, 1941; German troops issuing decrees restricting the rights and opportunities of the town’s Jewish population; moving into a designated Jewish ghetto in Przemyśl; meeting his future wife Stefania Podgófrska, who helped his family by smuggling food and other supplies to them in the ghetto; losing both of his parents during a ghetto Aktion; his deportation from the ghetto on November 18, 1942; using pliers he had in his pocket to cut through the wires covering the small window in the train car and jumping out of the train; getting slightly injured but being able to walk to Lipowice, Poland, where a friend provided him with shelter for a night and smuggled him back into Przemyśl the next morning; immediately going to Stefania, who hid him in her apartment for several days until he could smuggle himself back into the ghetto to be with one of his brothers; Stefania obtaining false papers for him and a few of his friends in the ghetto and finding a small cottage where they could hide; leaving the ghetto to meet with Stefania and her younger sister and to construct hiding places; hiding in the cottage with thirteen people for almost two years; his liberation by Russian troops and marrying Stefania; moving to Kraków and then to Wrocław, Poland, where he graduated from dental school; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral History

    Stanislaw Soszynski, born on February 24, 1931 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his neighborhood in Warsaw on Swietojerska Street; the destruction of Warsaw and the Germans opening the Warsaw Ghetto; living in an apartment where the front part was on the Aryan side, and the back part was on the ghetto side, which helped smuggling operations later in the war; going out of the ghetto area to get milk and sell it to support his family; his memories of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; the massive destruction of the ghetto after the uprising; and the uprising in 1944.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral History

    Abraham Lewent, born in July 1924 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; entering the Warsaw ghetto after the German occupation; hiding in a crawl space during a 1942 German raid and witnessing the capture of his mother and sisters; being deployed for forced labor nearby but escaping to return to his father in the ghetto; remaining in the ghetto until the uprising; his and his father’s deportation in 1943 to Majdanek, where his father died; his transfers to Skarzysko-Kamienna, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and finally to Dachau; and his liberation by American troops.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral History

    Miriam Storch Lewent, born on June 26, 1926 in Zamość, Poland, describes her family and childhood; fleeing her home when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939; her family’s internment by Soviet forces and being deported to Siberia; cutting down trees to earn food rations near Tomsk, Russia; the Soviets releasing her and her family when the Soviet Union went to war with Germany in June 1941; her two brothers registering with the Russian Army and the rest of her family settling in Kazakhstan, where they lived for the rest of the war; her father teaching Hebrew to Jewish children in their new home; attempting to return to Poland after the war but encountering too much antisemitism; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral History

    Liane Reif-Lehrer, born in Vienna, Austria in November 1934, describes growing up in a middle-class family; obtaining a passport in 1938 to immigrate to the United States but not being able to go when her father, a dentist, killed himself because he had to close his practice; traveling with her brother and mother to Hamburg, Germany in 1939 to board the St. Louis, which was bound for Cuba; arriving in Cuba and having to return to Europe, where they ended up in France; getting a visa to immigrate to the United States after staying in France for two-and-a-half years; traveling through Spain and leaving Europe from Lisbon, Portugal on the S.S. Exeter and arriving in the United States on November 10, 1941; living with the sister of Liane's father and her children in New York; earning her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and working for many years as an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School; and now working as a consultant and a writer.

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral History

    Preben Munch-Nielsen, born in 1926 in Snekkersten, Denmark, describes growing up in a Protestant family; attending school in Copenhagen; the German invasion of Denmark in 1940; becoming a courier in the resistance and being one of the youngest resistance fighters; helping to hide refugees in houses near the shore and to get them on boats to Sweden once the Gestapo began hunting down Jews in Denmark in October 1943; taking refuge in Sweden in November 1943 and joining the Danish Brigade, in which he fought as a soldier for eighteen months; helping to smuggle arms into Denmark for resistance fighters; and settling in Denmark in May 1945 after the war.

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral History

    Anny Rubinstein Kast, born in Poland in 1926, describes moving to Belgium when she was two months old; her family and her childhood in Belgium; attending school in Antwerp before the war; the German invasion of Belgium on May 10, 1940; someone reporting to the Germans that her family was the only Jewish one left in their neighborhood and then being picked up a few days later; living with the aunt of a friend during her family’s deportation and taking on a false identity; studying German, English, and mathematics lessons during the war; her liberation in 1944 when the English troops entered her town; her uncle finding her and opening up a fur store in Antwerp to support her and other surviving family members; immigrating to Israel after the war; and getting married in 1967.

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral History

    Helen Waterford, born in Germany in April 14, 1909, discusses her 1933 marriage; her move to Amsterdam in 1934; working for many years to help Jews from Germany relocate to the Netherlands; going into hiding in October 1942 with her husband but without her daughter; the Germans discovering them on August 26, 1944 and interrogating them for two days about the network of people who assisted them in hiding; her deportation to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau; her husband’s death in Auschwitz; remaining in Birkenau until October 1944, when she was forced to work in the Kratzau factory in Czechoslovakia; going into a prisoner of war camp, where she remained until her liberation; traveling to a displaced persons camp at Plzen, Czechoslovakia; returning to the Netherlands, where she reunited with her daughter; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral History

    Thomas Ward, born on August 10, 1921 in St. Louis, MO, describes joining the army when he was twenty years old; serving in General Patton's Third Army; working as a part of a three-person reconnaissance team in the Third Cavalry division; liberating 18,000 prisoners from the Ebensee concentration camp on May 5th, 1945; liberating a neighboring camp for women several days later; taking photographs in the camps (which he sent to the Supreme Allied Command); and his views on Holocaust denial.

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral History

    Fred R. Wohl, born in 1914 in Baden-Baden, Germany, describes growing up in Germany after World War I; leaving to work on a farm in Switzerland in 1932 for four months; working in Athens, Greece in 1935 and trying to get a Greek passport for fear of what the Germans were planning; moving to Nicosia, Cyprus in March 1939 with the help of the British Ambassador to Athens; the German invasion of Greece and being interned with refugees in a camp next to the Nicosia prison; being sent to a hotel-camp in the mountains with his father but soon being released; the Nazi invasion of Crete in 1941 and preparing for evacuation; traveling to Tel Aviv, Israel and then to Mwanza, Tanzania; working in a gold mine and contracting black water fever in Tanganyika, Tanzania; and immigrating to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral History

    Norbert Yasharoff, born in 1930 in Sofia, Bulgaria, describes the anti-Jewish measures enforced by the Nazis when World War II began; Bulgaria joining the Axis Alliance in March 1941, allowing German troops to pass through Sofia; the expulsion of some Jewish families to Poland in March 1943 and a bloody protest soon after; leaving with his family to Pleven, Bulgaria in May 1943 and staying with family members; attending a Gentile school while in Pleven, where his teacher did not force him to perform the Nazi salute; his liberation on September 9, 1944 and returning to Sofia with his family; immigrating to Israel in December 1948; joining the volunteer air force, where he trained as a radar technician; graduating with a degree from Tel Aviv University in Political Science and residing in Israel for twenty years; and working in an American Embassy for nine years until he immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral History

    Frank Meissner, born in Třešt̕, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1923, describes his family; joining a Zionist youth group and traveling to Prague, Czech Republic to live with other members of the group in 1937; the group’s fear of anti-Jewish Nazi policies and subsequently leaving Czechoslovakia to settle in Denmark; attending agricultural school at the University of Copenhagen; receiving a call in 1943 from his landlady, who warned him to not return home because the Gestapo had been looking for him; being smuggled onto a fishing boat to Sweden, where he finished his education; traveling to England in September 1944 and starting to contact his family but learning that they had all been taken to Theresienstadt (Terezin) and eventually to Auschwitz, where they perished; returning briefly to Prague and then going to Denmark in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral History

    Mina Perlberger, born on December 25, 1918 in Tyczyn, Poland, describes growing up in a strict Hasidic Jewish family; the German invasion of Poland while her family was in the process of moving to Kraków in 1939; her family’s assignment to do forced labor outside of Tyczyn; working as a black market trader until 1942, when her family's home was seized by the Gestapo; being forced into the ghetto in Rzeszów, Poland; the deportation of her parents to Auschwitz in late 1942; escaping the ghetto with her younger sister and hiding with a Polish farmer in exchange for a payment; hiding with the farmer for 21 months until the Soviet Army liberated them in 1944; meeting her future husband, a Soviet Jew, in Blażowa, Poland; marrying her husband and moving to Austria after the war with the help of a Jewish organization; and immigrating to the United States soon after arriving in Austria.

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral History

    David Klebanow, born in 1907 in Barysaŭ, Russia (now Belarus), describes his family and childhood; fleeing to Kiev, Ukraine in 1917 after the Russian Revolution and then to Białystok, Poland; becoming a doctor in 1937 and then being drafted into the Polish Army in 1939; returning to Białystok when he was released from the army and then marrying his wife; being taken to Kaunas, Lithuania and then to Riga, Latvia with his wife; performing abortions to save the lives of pregnant women and staying in Riga for two years; his deportation to Stutthof and then to Danzig, from where they were liberated on March 10, 1945; his wife dying of tuberculosis; working at the Munich University Hospital as an obstetrician after the war; noticing genital abnormalities, sterility problems, and a higher rate of miscarriages among women who had survived concentration camps; and immigrating in 1951 to the United States, where he joined the obstetrics department at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral History

    Franz Wohlfahrt, born in 1920 in Velden am Wörthersee, Austria, describes growing up in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses; the arrest of his father in 1936 for peddling in the street as part of his activities as a Jehovah’s Witness; the German annexation of Austria in 1938; refusing to go to a Hitler Youth meetings and say the “Heil Hitler” greeting, which resulted in German troops monitoring his activities; the execution of his father on December 7, 1939 and his brother soon after because they refused to participate in the war and fight for the German state; the general persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses during World War II since they would not worship Hitler; agreeing to do work for the German state but not participate in military exercises, which resulted in his imprisonment in a dungeon for thirty-three days in 1940; being transferred to the Gestapo office in Graz for further questioning; his deportation to a work camp at Allweiter Rodgau, in the Hessen-Nassau province, because he would not fight for the German state; being saved by a camp commandant’s wife because he painted wall paper for her; his liberation by Allied troops while he was still in the camp; and returning home to find that few people he knew had survived.

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral History

    Tove Schöbaum Bamberger, born on October 8, 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark, describes growing up in a wealthy family; her father’s ownership of a men’s clothing business; attending first and second grade at a Jewish school before her family fled from Denmark on October 2, 1940; taking a train to the seaport in Snekkersten, Denmark and then traveling on a fishing boat until a Swedish ship intercepted them at sea and took them to Sweden, where they settled in Malmö; her father working in a chocolate factory and selling artificial teeth; her mother selling lingerie; attending school with her sister; returning to Copenhagen on May 28, 1945 to find her family home and store undisturbed; and immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral History

    Morris Gordon, born in Latvia, describes immigrating with his father to the United States; growing up in New York, NY; attending City College and Columbia University; being ordained as a rabbi in 1940; volunteering for the military in 1942; his participation in The Flying Tigers; going to India briefly then Burma; traveling through the jungles of Burma to get to different camps and getting lost three times; taking his Torah with him everywhere he went; arriving in Shanghai as a Jewish chaplain and being greeted by a large Jewish community; conducting a Bar Mitzvah with a boy; his memories of the Shanghai Jewish ghetto and its schools; and receiving a chalice from a Catholic chaplain during the war to help him perform his services.

    Oral history interview with Raya Markon

    Oral History

    Raya Markon, born in 1911 in Vilnius, Lithuania, discusses her childhood; going to college for one year in Toulouse, France; getting married in Paris, France in 1936; her husband's mobilization into the French Army in 1938; her escape from Paris two days before the German invasion in 1940; returning to Toulouse to take refuge with friends and the birth of her son; getting a visa to the United States and difficulties in obtaining an exit visa from France; and her and her family's immigration to the United States in November 1942.

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral History

    Ernest G. Heppner, born in 1921 in Germany, describes his experiences with antisemitism in his youth; participating in a Jewish youth organization; his father’s positive experiences running a factory in the mid-1930s; being kicked out of school and learning how to weld; losing any sense of hope for German Jews after his experiences on Kristallnacht; his family being forced to sell their house and considering immigration; he and his mother getting a place on a steamship to Shanghai, China by giving the captain of the ship some of their Impressionist paintings; arriving in Shanghai in March 1939; his mother finding a job with a youth committee; communicating through letters with his father and sister back home a few times before never hearing from them again; participating in the British Boy Scout Association in Shanghai; seeing the Imperial Japanese Naval Landing Party come into Shanghai after Pearl Harbor and acting as a British spy; the Jews of Shanghai being forced into a ghetto-like area of the city in February 1943; finding a job in a bakery and meeting his future wife in the ghetto; getting married shortly before the end of the war and going to work for the American occupying forces; his memories of life in the ghetto; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral History

    Emanuel Mandel, born in 1936 in Riga, Latvia, describes his family moving to Budapest, Hungary when he was three months old; his family; his father’s work as a cantor that led him to travel around and work in several synagogues in Europe; not understanding that he could not have or do certain things because he was Jewish; the German invasion of Budapest in early 1944; his deportation by cattle car in June 1944 to Bergen-Belsen with his mother; developing pneumonia and not having access to much food while in the camp; developing a sense of comic relief, like by calling a German troop “Popeye,” to survive; participating in a Red Cross inspection of Bergen-Belsen; in January 1945 being taken by German soldiers on a train towards the German-Swiss border and being released in Switzerland, where they were cleaned and fed; traveling to Saint Gallen and then to Caux, Switzerland to stay in a displaced persons center; reuniting with his father after the war; his mother’s decision to go to Heiden after the war to run a one-room school house for six- to fourteen-years olds to learn Hungarian; immigrating to Palestine by a British troop carrier in September 1945 and living in a kibbutz, where his mother took charge of the day shift cooking; and immigrating to the United States in March 1949.

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

    Leo Bretholz, born on March 6, 1921 in Vienna, Austria, describes his childhood; his father passing away in 1930 and becoming a father figure for his two younger sisters; long-standing antisemitic attitudes transforming into excessive violence after the Anschluss in 1938; the arrest of his friends and his mother encouraging him to flee to Luxembourg, where he had an aunt; being arrested three days after he arrived in Luxembourg, questioned for several hours, and released to a train station; returning to Luxembourg and staying with relatives until he had the opportunity to cross the border into Belgium on November 9, 1938 and go to Antwerp, where he found distant relatives and stayed until May of 1940; receiving an affidavit and visa from an aunt in Baltimore, MD to immigrate to the United States but being unable to leave because Pearl Harbor was bombed the day he was scheduled to go; obtaining the necessary documents to cross into Switzerland in October 1942, but getting arrested and taken to Rivesaltes; his deportation to Drancy, another French detention camp, where he stayed for a short time before he and other prisoners were loaded onto cattle cars for transport; escaping deportation by bending the bars covering one of the train’s windows and squeezing through and jumping out of the train; making his way to Paris, where he obtained a false identification card; his arrest in December and then being sent to prison for nine months until he went to a forced labor camp in Septfonds, France; escaping from the camp and contacting a friend who got him in touch with an underground resistance group in Saint-Vallier, France, which he joined in November 1943; helping children cross the border into Switzerland, making false ID cards, and relaying messages between various resistance organizations; working with the resistance after D-Day and helping the Allied forces; and receiving an affidavit from his aunt in Baltimore that allowed him to immigrate to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral History

    Paul Matasovski, born in Bacău, Moldavia (now Romania) in December 1933, describes his family and early childhood; his family getting a radio in 1933 to find out what Hitler was doing in Europe; the political situation with the Iron Guard and General Antonescu; the Jews having their radios taken from their homes but receiving news by passing around sheets of paper; attending a Jewish high school until the end of 1942, when he was sent to work in a textile factory; participating in sabotage activities until he was arrested in the spring of 1944; remaining in a prison near the Carpathian Mountains until Russian forces liberated him; his knowledge of transports and concentration camps during the war; the composition of the people in his underground group and their activities; and returning to his hometown to help clean up the mess after the war.

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral History

    Zelda Piekarska Brodecki (Americanized name, Sonia Brodecki), born on July 27, 1928 in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes her family; the German occupation of her town and her family having to close their business; entering the Sosnowiec ghetto and being forced to work in a factory; her deportation from the ghetto to a forced labor camp near Wrocław, Poland; her transfer in 1943 to another labor camp in Klettendorf, Germany (Klecina, Wrocław, Poland); Russian troops liberating her at an ammunition factory in Ludwigsdorf, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany; returning to Sosnowiec after the war and meeting her cousin there; moving to the Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp, where she met her husband, Boleslaw Brodecki; and living in Germany until 1949 when she and her husband immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral History

    Stefania Podgórska Burzminski, born in Lipa, Poland, describes her family and childhood; helping her parents run a farm until she decided to move with her sister to Przemyśl and work in a bakery; the Russian invasion and not noticing much of a change in life until the Germans ousted the Russians; living in an apartment near the ghetto and witnessing people being deported from it; developing a relationship with a young man named Josef, who was Jewish and lived in the ghetto; having to explain what a Jew was to her little sister; helping to smuggle food into the ghetto for Josef and his family; moving into a large apartment and taking Josef and twelve other Jews in with her; having an SS man insist upon taking a room in her apartment and always living in fear that he would kill the Jews living there; and her liberation by Russian forces.

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral History

    Rose Galek Brunswic, born in Sochocin, Poland in 1920, describes her family; learning Hebrew and participating in a Zionist organization in her youth; moving to Warsaw in the mid-1930s; being forced into the Warsaw ghetto and living with twelve other people; her parents being shot during a roundup; going into hiding with the underground in March 1941; leaving her hiding place and finding another one in the city with an old work friend of her father; being caught by the Germans during a raid and sent by cattle car to Berlin; using her false papers to get a job on a farm; pretending to be a Seventh Day Adventist and playing the organ for the church; getting in trouble for not having the proper identification and having to do translations for a judge as penance; her liberation by American soldiers in 1945 when she was still working on the farm; meeting a Jewish soldier and marrying him; staying in a displaced persons camp after the war until she immigrated to the United States to live with her uncle; and settling in Buffalo, New York, where she attended school.

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral History

    Renée Schwalb Fritz, born in 1937 in Vienna, Austria, describes her family; her father leaving for the United States in 1939 and fleeing with her mother to Belgium; the German occupation of Belgium in 1940 and going into hiding in a convent, where she remained for two years until the Germans became suspicious; the underground taking Renee to a Protestant family's farm and then to an orphanage; reuniting with her mother after the war and discovering that she had survived Auschwitz; joining her father in the United States five years later; going through high school in the US with much difficulty; attending Boston University; and marrying an American man soon after she graduated from college.

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral History

    Martin Spett, born on December 2, 1928 in Tarnów, Poland, describes his childhood; the German occupation of Tarnów in 1939; his family losing their apartment in 1940; hiding in an attic when the first massacre of Jews occurred; having to finally register as a Jew in May 1943 and go to Bergen-Belsen, where he was allegedly to be part of an exchange for German prisoners of war; being liberated on April 13, 1945 by Allied troops during his transport to Theresienstadt; spending some time in Belgium after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral History

    Niels Bamberger, born on October 21, 1928 in Würzburg, Germany, describes growing up in a religious family; fleeing from Germany to his mother's hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1932; his family being warned of imminent danger on Rosh Hashanah of 1943; their local grocer helping them to escape to the port town of Snekkersten, Denmark (the closest point between Denmark and Sweden); receiving help from the local resistance forces and hiding in houses until their group of over two hundred could be transported in row boats; a Swedish military boat intercepting his family at sea and taking them to Sweden; attending school in Lund, Sweden while his parents opened a small restaurant; his family’s return to Denmark on May 28, 1945 to find their old home undisturbed; and getting back on his feet after the war.

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral History

    Ray Buch, born on September 18, 1920 in New York City, NY, describes his parents and their emigration from Ukraine; joining the US Army in November 1942 and going into training in Louisiana and Texas for a year; being shipped to England in September 1944; fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and encountering fighting and violence; finding out about the concentration camps and death camps; his unit’s attempts to bury people who had died alongside the roads; arriving in Mauthausen on May 10, 1945 and the scenes of people and depravation he witnessed; forcing the German citizens to bury the dead; spending about thirty days in Mauthausen and then moving around to other camps, like Dachau and Ebensee; and the sacrifices his unit made for the sake of the freedom of Europe and the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral History

    Nina Kaleska, born on April 11, 1929 in Grodno, Poland (now Hrodna, Belarus), describes having a pleasant childhood; her family not being perceived of as Jewish because of their Aryan looks; experiencing antisemitism among her childhood friends in 1938; joining the Young Pioneers after the Russians invaded in 1939; her father’s imprisonment for three to four months for political reasons; the German invasion in 1941 and the formation of two ghettos in Grodno; the Germans selecting one of her cousins, who was considered an electronics genius, for forced labor but then killing him; peasant families offering to hide her and her sister but rejecting because she did not want to be separated from her family; being deported with her sister to Auschwitz in 1941; the death of her sister three months after they arrived; becoming sick in the camp several times and only being saved because of the help she received from a woman named Martha who worked there; being asked by Dr. Mengele if she was Jewish because she did not look Jewish; having to stand guard while the head of her lager had sex with some of the most beautiful women in the lager; going on a death march and being liberated by Allied forces on May 5, 1945; and her immigration to England and then to the United States with the help of the American Joint Distribution Committee.

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral History

    Judith Meisel, born on February 7, 1929 in Josvainiai, Lithuania, discusses her childhood; moving to Kaunas, Lithuania shortly after her father’s death; being forced into the Kaunas ghetto in 1941; her family’s deportation in 1944 to Stutthof, where her mother was killed; escaping with her sister from a death march out of Stutthof by hiding in a coal bin; receiving shelter in a Catholic nunnery; developing typhus and posing as a Christian in a hospital in Danzig, Poland to receive treatment; finding work on a farm with her sister; moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was sent to school; her liberation on May 5, 1945; living with a Jewish family in Denmark for some time after the war; immigrating to Canada in 1948; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral History

    Thomas Buergenthal, born in 1934 in Czechoslovakia, describes his family; moving with his family to Žilina, Czechoslovakia in 1938 and facing persecution from the Hlinka Guard; moving to Katowice, Poland and registering with the British Consul; leaving for England on September 1, 1939 but being stopped near the Russian border when their train was bombed by Germans; having to march with a group of refugees to Kielce, Poland and go into its ghetto; the deportation of his grandparents and twenty thousand other ghetto inhabitants in August 1942 to Treblinka while he and his parents were sent to a forced labor camp in Kielce; surviving a massacre of Jewish children and then being transported with his parents to a factory where they made wooden carts for the Eastern Front; his deportation in August 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he worked in the laundry as an errand boy; getting separated from his father and never seeing him again; being forced on a death march to Gliwice, Poland and then to Heinkel concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany in January 1945; his transfer to a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen; his liberation on April 27, 1945 by Russian soldiers; marching with the First Polish Division into Berlin, Germany and Siedlce, Poland and then being placed in a Jewish orphanage in Otwock, Poland; his mother finding him in 1946 and smuggling him into the British zone of Germany; living in Göttingen, Germany and attending high school there; immigrating by himself to the United States in 1951 to live with his uncle; his mother remarrying and staying in Europe; attending Harvard Law School and becoming a professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School; and serving on the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council’s Committee on Conscience.

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral History

    Leif Donde, born in 1937 in Copenhagen, Denmark, describes his upbringing in a religious but not Orthodox Jewish family; the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940; seeing the German police begin to arrest Jews in early October 1943 and fleeing with his family by train to the Danish city of Nykøbing Falster, south of Sjælland island; being smuggled by a fishing boat to safety in Sweden; arriving in Trelleborg, Sweden after an eleven-hour nighttime boat ride in October 1943, during which they passed through a German mine field; attending school in Sweden while his parents worked in a garment factory in Uddevalla, Sweden; his family returning to Denmark after the end of the war; and settling in Denmark, where he serves as the Consul General.

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral History

    Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig, born in Vienna, Austria on March 7, 1924, describes her family and childhood; enjoying the rich cultural life Vienna had to offer before the war; her father’s placement on the Nazi blacklist for being a liberal writer and journalist; attempting to leave Austria and go to France but getting arrested and sent to prison; escaping to Cologne, where her mother managed to attain three visas by giving up some of her jewelry; moving to Paris, where her father found a job as a reporter; attending art school in Paris and meeting her future husband; the deportation of her father and brother to concentration camps when Germany declared war on France; her father’s return home for a short period until he had to join the French Army; running away from Paris and going through several cities until she arrived in Blois, France and began to search for her father; getting separated from her family and asking about their whereabouts wherever she went; reuniting with her mother in Barcus, France; finding a teaching job in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France through a family friend who lived there; her family receiving special visas to move to the United States on December 7, 1941 because her father was an intellectual; attending college in the United States; and marrying Ernest, the man she had earlier met in Paris.

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral History

    Max Amichai Heppner, born on October 15, 1933 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes growing up as an only child; his parents’ escape from Berlin, Germany in 1933; the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands and missing a boat to escape to Sweden; losing several of his family’s possessions to the Nazis; his mother getting captured during a street raid but then being released by a Nazi commander in August 1942; escaping into the countryside with his parents and finding various hiding places with another family; going into hiding with underground forces and then with a farming family; dealing with frequent Nazi raids; meeting several downed Allied pilots while in hiding; his liberation by Scottish soldiers on September 24, 1944; his mother’s attempts to shield him from much of the devastation of the war; and immigrating to the United States to live with his mother’s family.

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral History

    Charles Bruml, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and the Prague Jewish community; being about 28 years old and working in an import-export firm in 1938 when German troops marched into Prague; his family’s deportation to Theresienstadt and finding a job in the camp’s Technical Department; making paintings during his internment that are displayed at the camps today; his deportation to Auschwitz on January 11, 1942 and getting tattooed; being transferred to Buna (Monowitz), where he worked as a painter for the SS men until January 18, 1945; being forced to walk to Gleiwitz, because the Russians neared, and then to Bergen-Belsen, where the Red Cross liberated him; and meeting his wife in Prague as they both tried to sort out the fates of their families.

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral History

    David Pollack, born in Prince Albert, Saskatechewan, Canada in 1922, describes growing up in a mildly Jewish family; enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 but not being accepted as a pilot because of his poor eyesight; being trained as a radar technician and stationed first in the Queen Charlotte Islands and then in England in 1943; joining a mobile radar unit outside of Weimar, Germany in 1945 and visiting Buchenwald, where he was shocked by the horrors of the camp; speaking, with the aid of a translator, to many prisoners, taking the names and the addresses of their relatives who were in other countries, and contacting these relatives to inform them that the prisoners would soon be arriving in displaced persons camps and contacting them for help; returning to Canada after the war; and keeping up correspondence with some of the survivors he had helped to reunite with their families.

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral History

    Rabbi Eugene Lipman, born in Pittsburgh, PA on October 13, 1919, describes his family; graduating from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio; being sent overseas as an army chaplain in April 1945; after the war helping Jewish survivors at Buchenwald and Dachau before being sent to Plzen, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); joining the Haganah, a group that cared for Jewish survivors and refugees as well as secretly transporting Jews to Palestine; continuing his work with the Haganah in Regensburg, Germany; going home to the United States for a short time in April 1946 but returning in late 1946 with his wife to continue to aid Jews by providing many with false identity papers for them to leave Europe; and returning to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral History

    Hetty d’Ancona de Leeuwe, born on May 1, 1930 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her family and early childhood; her father losing his business after the German invasion; the deportation of several of her friends and family in 1942; her father’s participation in the Dutch underground newspaper; leaving Amsterdam in October 1943 and separating from her parents to live with a Dutch Gentile family for two years; her liberation by American and British forces and staying with her foster family for a few months until she reunited with her father; and marrying a Jewish man and immigrating to the United States with him after the war.

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral History

    Marty Glickman, born in 1917 in the Bronx, NY, describes growing up with parents who were immigrants from Romania; attending Syracuse University, where he was a track athlete chosen to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Germany; being one of two Jews on the United States Olympic track team; arriving in the Olympic Village and being told that he and Sam Stoller, the other Jewish runner, were to be replaced in the 400 meter relay by Ralph Metcalf and Jessie Owens; hearing from the head coach of the Olympic track team that the substitutions were made because the Germans were said to be hiding their best sprinters but believing that he was really replaced because Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, did not want to further embarrass the Nazis by having Jews run and win a race; serving in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II; going to the Marshall Islands; and his friendship with Jesse Owens.

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral History

    Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz, born in 1931 in Schlüchtern, Germany, describes her family; moving to Dinxperlo, a village located close to the German border in the Netherlands in 1933; the German invasion of the Netherlands on May 10, 1940; Jews no longer being allowed to own businesses or to attend schools; going into hiding when they heard that the Jews would be rounded up for deportation in 1943; living with her mother in a barn attic that was barely big enough for them to both lie flat; beginning to write a cookbook-diary in 1944 to pass her time; becoming extremely ill because of a lack of ventilation in her living quarters; recovering from her illness but remaining weak; having to leave her hiding place toward the end of the war because of increased Nazi raids; her liberation on April 1, 1945 by Canadian troops; returning to their former village with food and money supplied to them by the farmers who had hidden them; returning to school as her family tried to re-build their lives; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral History

    Hessy Levinsons Taft, born on May 17, 1934 in Berlin, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her parents having her photo taken in 1934 and the photo ending up in a Nazi magazine labeled as a beautiful Berliner baby; her family’s decision to run away to Paris, France, where they were when it fell to the Germans; moving to the French coast near Bordeaux with her mother and sister while her father remained in Paris trying to find a way for the family to leave; her father securing visas for the family to travel to Cuba, where she and her sister began to attend a British school; immigrating to the United States in 1948 and settling in New York, NY; and eventually getting married and starting a family.

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral History

    Bella Jakubowicz Tovey, born on September 18, 1926, in Sosnowiec, Poland, describes growing up in a Jewish family; the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and losing her father’s factory and their family furniture; being forced to move into the Sosnowiec ghetto and to work in a factory there in 1941; her family’s deportation to the Bedzin ghetto in 1942; her deportation to the Graeben sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany in 1943 and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; her liberation in April 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral History

    Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz, born June 23, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her childhood; facing intensifying antisemitic measures that resulted in the loss of her father's business and the closing of her school in the late 1930s; her family’s deportation in 1943 to Auschwitz, where her father was killed; her selection for forced labor and being assigned to work on road repairs; working in the "Kanada" unit sorting possessions brought into the camp; her transfer to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany in November 1944; being sent to Malchow, where she worked in a munitions factory making bullets; her liberation by American soldiers in May 1945 during a death march from the Malchow camp in Germany; traveling to Frankfurt with her mother in August 1945 with hopes of finding the rest of their family; and immigrating with her mother to the United States in early 1947.

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral History

    Peretz Milbauer, born in Brooklyn, New York in October 1915, discusses his life up to World War II; teaching history before he was drafted into the United States Army; being sent overseas in July 1944 and arriving to his station in Remse, Germany on December 5, 1944; liberating prisoners from a death march in Wałbrzych, Poland in December 1944; gathering a list of names of survivors from the death march and sending the list to American newspapers and magazines in an effort to help survivors contact their relatives; and also liberating prisoners at Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen in Austria, in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral History

    Judah Nadich, born in 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland, describes his life until World War II and training to be a rabbi; enlisting in the army as a chaplain after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; serving as the senior Jewish chaplain with the United States Army in the United Kingdom and then in France during the war; having his first contact with survivors of Nazi oppression in France; helping Parisian Jews re-build their community; being ordered to Frankfurt, Germany as the Jewish affairs adviser to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and reporting on conditions in displaced persons camps; and returning to the United States in late 1945.

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral History

    Hana Bruml, born on May 30, 1922 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes her family and childhood; attending a Zionist elementary school; meeting Rudolph Schiff and marrying him on November 14, 1939; the German invasion of Prague and her father losing his business, receiving ration tickets marked with a “J,” and only being allowed to do certain things at specific times; the deportation of her parents in July 1942 to Theresienstadt followed three weeks later by her and her husband’s deportation to the camp; working in the camp hospital as a nurse; the death of her husband and the development of a romance with Bruno, who worked as an internist in the camp; the special treatment of Danish Jews and a few prominent Austrian and German Jews in Theresienstadt; seeing doctors perform several abortions in the camp to save women; her transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau in October 1944 and seeing Dr. Mengele; and remaining in Auschwitz until May 5, 1945, when she was liberated.

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral History

    Benjamin Meed, born on February 19, 1922 in Warsaw, Poland, describes his family; traveling with a friend in 1939 to Russian territory to escape Nazi persecution; returning to Warsaw because they could not support themselves; joining an underground movement that provided a library and schooling for children; smuggling people to the Aryan side of Warsaw when the ghetto was established; helping his family escape to Praga Południe, Poland, where they hid in a cemetery; beginning to work with a woman named Vladka who was also involved in underground activities; posing as a Christian with Vladka during the war in order to facilitate their work in the underground; moving his hiding place to a bunker which he had built after the Warsaw uprising; jumping onto a Red Cross truck after his liberation to escape persecution by Germans and Poles after the war; reuniting with his parents after the war; and marrying Vladka in Warsaw ten days after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral History

    Johanna Neumann, born on December 12, 1930 in Hamburg, Germany, describes her early childhood; her memories of Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938; her family’s decision to leave Germany as anti-Jewish measures intensified; obtaining visas for Albania and leaving Germany without many of her possessions; crossing into Italy and setting sail for Albania on March 1, 1939; remaining in Albania during the Italian and German occupations for a total of six and a half years; finally being liberated after a battle between the Germans and the Albanian partisans in December 1944; spending some time in an Italian displaced persons camp at the port of Tricase in the Lecce province of Apulia in southern Italy; immigrating to the United States in September 1946; and living briefly in Israel for three years from 1969 until 1971.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral History

    Alice Lang Rosen, born in 1934 in Lambsheim, Germany, describes her early childhood; the deportation of her family to the Gurs camp in France and then to Rivesaltes when she was six years old; the French Red Cross taking her out of the camp and hiding her from the Germans by placing her in a children's home, then in a convent, and then with various Catholic families; being sent to a children's home near Paris after her liberation; having her name put on a list of Jewish children from all over France, which was being compiled by a Polish rabbi; her father tracing her from this list and reuniting with her in Germany in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral History

    Jay Ipson, born June 5, 1935, in Slobodka (Vilijampolė), Lithuania, describes growing up in religious, well-off family; his father's attempts to move his family to Russia but being turned back at the border; losing their home in the move and moving in with his grandmother, whose house was in the Kaunas ghetto; witnessing the deportations from the ghetto; escaping the ghetto with his mother and father in November 1943; hiding in a farmer's hay wagon and then in one room under the care of a poor, religious Polish Catholic family; his father's construction of a hiding place under the Polish family's potato patch; hiding with all of his extended family in the underground bunker; being liberated by the Russian army; moving back to Kaunas with his parents; attending Jewish school; being forced to run away from Kaunas after his father was declared an enemy of the Soviet Republic; changing his last name to Butremovitch and getting false papers; hiding with a Jewish family in White Russia; leaving Warsaw, Poland and traveling to Germany; receiving help from a German man to cross the border to the American occupied-zone of Germany; living with a German family in Prinz Regenten Strasse in Munich for nine months; immigrating to the United States to live with his aunt in Richmond, VA in June 1947; and joining the US military during the Korean War and becoming a colonel in command of an aviation unit.

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral History

    Margaret Jastrow Klug, born on June 8, 1923 in Rogoźno, Poland, describes her family and childhood; her brother’s immigration to Scotland before the war; the beginning of the war and being arrested because someone had given them her name; jumping from a window of the jail to avoid deportation to Auschwitz but instead being injured and staying in a hospital for two months; being deported to Auschwitz, where she worked in a factory; getting married and having a daughter after the war; immigrating to Israel in 1949; returning to Germany soon after because the climate in Israel was too uncomfortable for her; and immigrating to the United States in the mid-1950s and settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral History

    Solomon Klug, born on July 9, 1923 in Krzepice, Poland, describes growing up in a religious family with one sister and three brothers; seeing his mother and brother shot in his backyard; his deportation in 1940 to Annaberg, Germany, where he worked building the Autobahn; being transferred in 1943 to Markstadt, Germany, where he built bridges, and then to Fuenfteichen, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, in March 23, 1944 to work in an ammunitions factory; his transport to Wolfsberg, another sub-camp of Gross-Rosen; being sent to Politz, Czechoslovakia, Bergen-Belsen, and finally to Barth-an-der-Ostee, a sub-camp of Ravensbrück; going on a three-day death march after his evacuation from Barth-an-der-Ostee; his liberation on April 30, 1945; going to Berlin, Germany after liberation and meeting his wife Margaret; immigrating to Israel, where they lived for four years, and then returning to Nuremberg to spend a year in a displaced persons camp; and immigrating to the United States in 1955 and settling in Atlanta, Georgia.

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral History

    Helene Baraf, born July 24, 1927 in Antwerp, Belgium, discusses her family and her childhood in Antwerp before World War II; her family's move to the United States in 1937; her return to Belgium with her mother and brother in 1940; traveling to France with her family by train and on foot after the Germans entered Belgium; her family's life in Lille, France; her brother's arrest by the Gestapo and eventual deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau for failing to properly display his Star of David on his coat; her and her mother's arrest by the Gestapo and their escape during a round up; their rescue from a small hiding place by the members of the underground resistance; her time spent hiding in a convent with other Jewish children in Lille; her attempts to conceal her identity with an assumed name and falsified identification documents; her move from the convent to a "Protestant community" in Roubaix, France, where she attended high school and remained with her mother until after World War II; her friendship with a girl from Roubaix whose family sheltered her and her mother for period of time during the war; the divorce of her parents shortly after the war; and her life in the United States after 1969.

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral History

    Morris Kornberg, born in Przedbórz, Poland on January 6, 1918, describes growing up as the youngest of seven children in a strict Orthodox family; the 1939 German invasion and being forced to work in a factory in the ghetto; his imprisonment in Końskie, a prison in Poland, and then in Radom, Poland and Jawischowitz, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; working in a coal mine and receiving special treatment by SS men because of his memory for numbers; his transfer to Troeglitz, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, in January 1945; the evacuation of Troeglitz on April 9, 1945 and escaping on a train with two others; getting caught and forced on a death march to Leitmeritz, a sub-camp of Flossenbürg, and then to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated; staying in a sanitarium outside of Stuttgart, where he met his wife; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral History

    Michael Diamond, born on July 10, 1919 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes his family; his draft into the Czech Army in 1939 but being forced to work in army camps clearing snow off roads and highways when the Slovak State was created; his transfer to Liptovský Mikuláš, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), where he repaired weapons and became a Slovak-German language interpreter; being moved to Vrútky, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), where he had to clean old uniforms; working as an electrician in eastern Slovakia; escaping into hiding in the forest but soon getting captured by the Gestapo; his transport to Sered, a "Sommerlager" in Slovakia; attempting to escape from a transport train and then being sent to Sachsenhausen, Heinkelwerke, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Neuengamme, and Mauthausen; working as an engineer and repairing railroad engines; ending up in Wurttemberg, Germany, where he was marched deeper into Germany as the Allied forces approached; and hiding in a peasant's empty house in Germany until he was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral History

    Abraham Malach, born on May 12, 1935 in Zwoleń, Poland, describes his family; entering the ghetto in Radom, Poland in 1940 and remaining there until 1942; spending 1942 through 1943 at work camps in Poland, where he worked as a messenger boy; his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; being removed from the group headed to the gas chambers at his first selection by a female Kapo, who molested him and bribed him to keep silent by giving him food for his family; running away to a monastery when Auschwitz was liberated; eventually being taken by nuns to a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency camp; reuniting with his parents in 1946 in Krakow, Poland; his parents sending him to Israel to finish his high school education; and immigrating to New York, NY after high school when he was admitted to Columbia University.

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral History

    Michael Bernath, born on February 14, 1923 in Szikszó, Hungary, describes growing up in a family with eleven older siblings; working in Budapest, Hungary as a furrier in 1943 and always getting harassed; joining the underground movement in Budapest and working for American and British intelligence services; the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 and Hungarian gendarmes rounding up five thousand Jewish people from his town and transporting them to Kassa, Czechoslovakia; being forced into a slave labor camp with about 35,000 other men; his deportation to the Schachendorf concentration camp in Austria in the winter of 1944 and being forced to dig trenches and train tracks in the Austrian Alps; Russian forces liberating him and returning to Budapest to live with his aunt and uncle; and his immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral History

    Kate Bernath, born in August 27, 1927 in Szikszó, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; living a decent life until March 1944 when the Germans occupied Hungary; dating a man to keep herself amused before the occupation; being rounded up and sent to a ghetto in Kassa (Košice, Slovakia); her deportation to Auschwitz in May 1944; her transfer to a factory in Augsburg, Germany to work in a Messerschmitt factory; hearing Allied bombings every night toward the end of the war; her transfer to Mühldorf, where she had to clean up debris from bombings; the guards disappearing one day and escaping to a farmhouse, where they were caught by an SS soldier; her liberation on May 1, 1946 and going to the Feldafing displaced persons camp; returning to Amsterdam and reuniting with her pre-war boyfriend; and getting married in Leipheim, Germany and then immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral History

    Paul Kovak, born on December 6, 1938 in Trenčín, Slovakia, describes being born a Jew but converting to Roman Catholicism with his parents; his father’s work as a professor at a small agricultural college; not having to wear the yellow star because of his father’s indispensable position at the school; going into hiding in the second home of a farming family in the mountains in late August 1944 at the time of the Slovak National Uprising; staying in hiding until April 1945, when they were liberated by Russian and Romanian troops; living in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia until 1981; and immigrating to the United States in 1981.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral History

    Abraham Kolski, born in 1917 in Izbica Lubelska, Poland, describes his family; the German occupation of Poland and going into the Czestochowa ghetto, where he did forced labor at a metal factory; his deportation on October 2, 1942 to Treblinka, Poland, where he performed forced labor searching for valuables in the clothing of gas chamber victims; participating in the Treblinka uprising on August 2, 1943 and escaping the concentration camp with nine other friends; hiding in a cellar of a home near Treblinka for the remainder of the war; eventually being liberated by the Russian Army; remaining in Poland until 1948, when he married and left for France; immigrating to the United States in 1954; and testifying as a witness to the events at Treblinka in the war crimes trials at Düsseldorf.

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral History

    Sylvia Kolski, born on September 15, 1925 in Tarczyn, Poland, describes her family and childhood; moving with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and parents into the Warsaw ghetto; working for a tailor in the ghetto; hearing rumors that the Jews would be killed on July 22, 1942; hiding money in her clothing, so she could bribe people to save herself; seeing several major deportations from the ghetto; escaping from the ghetto and staying with a family in the countryside; her liberation on January 16, 1945 and returning to Tarczyn; moving to Łódź, Poland, where she met her husband, and then to Paris, France in 1947; and immigrating to the United States when the Vietnam War began.

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral History

    Steven Springfield, born in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, describes his experiences as a child; the German occupation of Riga in 1941 and having to go into the ghetto; the massacre of about 28,000 Jews from the ghetto in late 1941 at the Rumbula forest; being transferred with his brother to a small ghetto for able-bodied men; his deportation to a labor camp near Kaiserwald in 1943; being moved to Stutthof in 1944 and forced to work in a shipbuilding firm; surviving a death march in 1945 with his brother and being liberated by Soviet forces; accepting a position as an interpreter for the Russian Army; his incarceration by the Russians for allegedly supporting the Nazis but being released when the charges were disproven; locating his pre-war girlfriend and marrying her; moving to Berlin, Germany with his wife and brother; and applying for a visa and immigrating to the United States on March 10, 1947.

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral History

    Liny Pajgin Yollick, born in 1924 in Hague, Netherlands, describes growing up in a wealthy family; the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940; her mother’s plans to escape after her father died; spending six months with her mother and sister trying to escape through southern France by pretending to be Protestant, obtaining visas to travel through Spain and Portugal, and going on one of the last trains to cross into Spain after the Germans took over southern France; boarding a Portuguese ship bound for Dutch Guiana and being placed into a refugee camp; the exiled Dutch government’s arrangement for her to finish her education; and immigrating to the United States, where she worked for some time in the Dutch embassy in Washington, DC before settling in Texas.

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral History

    Fred Bachner was born on September 28, 1925 in Berlin, Germany and describes his family; his brother’s and father’s deportation to the Polish border after Kristallnacht; moving to Poland in 1939 to join the rest of his family; his brother being taken to a work camp in Poland in 1940; his deportation to Markstädt, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, and then to Groeditz and Faulbrueck before he was sent to Auschwitz; loading and unloading coal and cement for I.G. Farben, a German industrial company; going on a death march out of Auschwitz to a camp near Dachau, where he found his brother; being placed on another train that was ambushed by British fighter planes; jumping off the train with his brother and hiding in the surrounding area until they located the American soldiers; staying at the Feldafing displaced persons camp after the war; reuniting with his father and immigrating to the United States with his father and brother on January 3, 1947; and being drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War.

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral History

    Murray Pantirer was born on June 15, 1925 in Kraków, Poland and discusses his childhood; the German occupation of Kraków in 1939; separating from his family on several occasions in an attempt to find food and other necessities; finally being confined to the Kraków ghetto; his and his brother’s deportation to Płaszów, Poland to do forced labor; his transport to Auschwitz in May 1944, then to Gross-Rosen, and finally to Brünnlitz, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, to work for German industrialist Oskar Schindler; his liberation on May 10, 1945 and discovering that he was only one of nine family members to survive; returning to Poland after liberation but deciding to leave because of the lingering presence of antisemitism; moving to a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria, where he met and married his wife; arranging to immigrate to America through the American consul in Salzburg, Austria; and immigrating to the United States on the S.S. Marine Fletcher in January 1949.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral History

    Barbara Marton Farkas, born on May 4, 1920 in Beliu, Romania, describes her family and childhood; living in Beliu until 1937, when her family sold their house and store and moved to Oradea, Romania; being refused entrance into the university in 1940 because of the anti-Jewish laws implemented by the Hungarian government, which then controlled the northern Transylvania area; training in a hospital laboratory and working there until the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; leaving the hospital, which was occupied by the SS, and starting work at a photo company; first wearing the Star of David on April 1, 1944 and going into the Oradea ghetto in May 1944; her family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where she lost her parents; her transfer to Weisswasser, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen in Germany, where she worked in a chemistry lab and then in the Cathode Workshop; staying there from October 1944 through February 1945; her transport through several camps after March 1945 to avoid the approaching Soviet army; ending up on the German-Danish border at Padberg, Germany; the Red Cross assisting the survivors with food and shelter; being taken to Malmö, Sweden the next day and then spending some time in a hospital in Landskrona, Sweden; returning to Romania to study in Cluj from 1946 to 1951; graduating as an industrial pharmacist; immigrating to Israel in 1961; and immigrating to the United States in 1968.

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral History

    William Farkas, born in 1916 in Arad, Romania, describes growing up as an only child in a middle class family; attending the Arad Jewish school and studying business administration after high school; joining the Romanian Army after school; not experiencing antisemitism until 1940 when he was expelled from the army because he was Jewish; the Iron Guard coming to power in September 1940; being ordered to report for deportation to labor camps in July 1941 and going to a work camp in Sighişoara, Romania, where he worked as a miner demolishing mountains for a new railway line; being sent home until 1942, when he was transported to Valea Homorod, Romania and then to Kinapist, Romania to do railway work; claiming he was an electrician in 1943 and going to a camp with three friends in Timişoara, Romania, where they worked as auto mechanics in a military garage for one year; his transport in 1944 to Doaga, a labor camp in Romania, where inmates built cement fortresses; hearing that Soviet soldiers were approaching Doaga and being liberated on August 25, 1944; returning home via Bucharest and reuniting with his parents in Arad; finding a wife and immigrating to Israel with her in 1954; and immigrating to the United States in 1961.

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral History

    Sheila Etons Bernard (née Sala Perec), born on February 18, 1936 in Chełm, Poland, describes her family and early childhood; her father’s deportation to a labor camp after the war began and never seeing him again; hiding in the shack of a Polish policeman for almost two years with her mother; her mother dying because of a blood clot in her leg; going to a children’s home in Germany for two years; immigrating to Palestine to live with one of her uncles; joining the military, where she met her husband; immigrating to the United States in 1963 because her husband had family in the US; and her thoughts on how the war has affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral History

    Frima, born in 1936 in Volochys'k, Russia (now Ukraine), describes her family; trying to escape to White Russia with her family after the Nazi invasion but being forced back to live with some distant cousins; her father’s capture by the Germans to serve as an interpreter for them; her sister and mother being forced to work at labor camps during the days; entering the Volochys'k ghetto; getting caught by Germans and claiming that they were not Jewish, which resulted in them going to jail; escaping with her mother and sister to hide in the attic of a barn, where they were almost discovered but managed to escape; the intensifying pogroms against the Jews by Russian and Ukrainian collaborators; pretending to be Christian and going into hiding with an old family friend; eventually reuniting with her mother with the help of several generous Gentiles and staying with her until the end of the war; going into displaced persons camps in Bavaria; going to school in Germany for two and a half years and then moving to France; immigrating to the United States in the 1950s and meeting her husband there; and her considerations on how the war has affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral History

    Esther Terner Raab, born on June 11, 1922 in Chelm, Poland, describes growing up as one of two children; the Soviet occupation of her town in 1939; the German invasion of Chelm in 1941 and her family being forced into a ghetto; moving to Siedliszcze, Poland and eventually moving into the ghetto in Siedliszcze; her transport to the labor camp at Staw Noakowski, Poland for a short time before she and her brother were sent to Sobibór in December 1942; arriving at Sobibór three days before Christmas in 1942 and being forced to work in a knitting factory in the camp, knitting woolen socks; witnessing the gassing of Jews at Camp III of the Sobibór compound; participating in the camp uprising of October 14, 1943 but getting wounded during the escape; fleeing to the countryside and getting sheltered by a former customer of her father; reuniting with her brother, who had escaped during a previous transfer; remaining hidden until 1944, when the region in which she hid was freed by the Soviet Red Army; following the Red Army to Berlin, Germany and settling there for a short time after the war; marrying a man in Berlin and then immigrating to the United States shortly after the end of the war; and serving as a witness at the trials of Nazi criminals in the 1965-66 trials in Hagen, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral History

    Guy Stern, born on January 14, 1922 in Hildesheim, Germany, describes growing up in a Jewish family; attending a German school, where he had many non-Jewish friends; losing several of his friends after 1933 when they joined the Hitler Youth; his family’s decision to move to the United States after they began to experience increased levels of antisemitism; leaving Germany with a group of children in November 1937 and arriving in New York, NY; moving to St. Louis, Missouri to live with distant relatives; graduating high school in June 1939 and trying to help his family immigrate to the United States; discovering that his parents had perished in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland; attempting to enlist in the US Army in 1941 but being turned away because of his German heritage; receiving a draft notice in 1942 and being trained in military intelligence because of his familiarity with the German language; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; working as an interrogator and uncovering the deeds of several war criminals; going to Buchenwald the day after it was liberated and seeing the horrible conditions there; returning to the United States after the war, attending Hofstra College, and then earning his Ph.D. from Columbia University in German Literature and Culture; and helping other survivors write about their Holocaust experiences.

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral History

    Toby Stern, born on July 15, 1920 in Vișeu de Mijloc, Romania, describes growing up as the youngest of six children; marrying when she was seventeen or eighteen; going into hiding with her family shortly after the war began; having one child and miscarrying another while in hiding; her deportation to Auschwitz with her mother and her three-year-old son; giving her child to her mother to carry, since both were guaranteed to be killed, which allowed her to survive; having to do forced labor making uniforms in the camp's tailor shop; going on a death march in early 1945 from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück and then to Malchow, where Russian forces liberated her; going to the New Bromberg displaced persons camp and then returning to Vișeu de Mijloc in search of her husband and family; finding all of her brothers but not her husband, who was rumored to have died in Russia; immigrating to Germany after the war and remarrying while there; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral History

    Ion Butnaru, born in 1918 in Huși, Moldavia (Romania), describes his family; working for a small newspaper before the war until he was drafted into the Romanian Army in November, 1939; being transferred to the military zone in northern Moldavia in the spring of 1940; his expulsion from the army in August 1940 because he was Jewish; being ordered to return to his regiment to work with the battalions in the Carpathian Mountains on September 1, 1940; being sent back to Huși to clean streets in the summer of 1941; his deportation to a concentration camp in Tîrgu Jiu, Romania, where he remained for four months; returning to Huși, where he was placed in a local camp in the courtyard of the Jewish community and had to wear yellow badges; witnessing the Iron Guard Rebellion in January 1941, during which many Jews were killed; his father being falsely accused of being a communist and getting badly beaten; being forced to clear the streets of snow until the summer of 1942, when he was sent to Bolgrad, Ukraine and then to several other villages in Bessarabia in a forced labor battalion; getting moved to another camp near Bîrlad, Romania in 1943; the Romanian Army surrendering to Soviet forces in August 1944; and immigrating to the United States in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral History

    Jeanine Gutman Butnaru, born on June 25, 1925 in Bacău, Romania, describes her childhood and family; moving to Bucharest, Romania in 1938; her involvement in the underground resistance movement in Bucharest; working as a volunteer in Jewish hospitals; witnessing the Iron Guard Rebellion of January 21-23, 1941, when Legionaries killed Jews and burned downed their houses and stores; the 1944 American bombing of the railroads that cut the Germans off from Ploiești, Romania, which was rich with oil; hiding in her family’s cellar during the heavy bombardments because Ploiești was near Bucharest; Soviet troops entering Romania at the end of the war; meeting her husband in the Writer's Union; and immigrating to the United States in 1976.

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

    Cecilie Klein-Pollack, born on April 13, 1925 in Yasinya, Ukraine, describes growing up as the youngest of six children in a Jewish family; the death of her father when she was nine years old; her expulsion from high school after the Hungarians annexed Ruthenia; being threatened with deportation and subsequently going into hiding in Budapest, Hungary after her mother and sister were briefly imprisoned there; fleeing to Horinc, Ukraine, where they stayed for a year until her brother was taken for forced labor; moving with her mother to Nyíregyháza, Hungary, where arrangements had been made for her to apprentice in a dental laboratory; traveling to Budapest when she heard that her oldest sister had been arrested and finding out that she had been sent to a labor camp in Bačka Topola, Yugoslavia; traveling to Bačka Topola to arrange for her sister’s release and then returning to Budapest, where she became engaged to her future husband Joe Klein; the German invasion of Budapest in March 1944 and joining up with her and Joe’s families in Chust, Ukraine; being forced into a ghetto and then transported to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz and being sent to Birkenau with her sister; being sheltered by the Blockältester who liked her because she was a talented poet; her and her sister’s transport to Nuremberg and Holleischen; their liberation from Holleischen by Russian troops and returning to Czechoslovakia, where she reunited with her fiancé and married him in Budapest on August 21, 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral History

    Fred Schwartz, born on October 30, 1928 in Kotaj, Hungary, describes his childhood; his father’s deportation to a labor camp in 1940; taking over his father’s job delivering seltzer water with his brother; knowing very little of what was happening in Europe from 1940 to 1944; the German invasion of Hungary; the organization of Jews into their town synagogues as the Germans prepared them for deportation; his deportation to Birkenau with his father, mother, and brother; discovering later after the war that his mother had died in Bergen-Belsen; his transfer to a work camp in Wolfsberg where he had to dig tunnels through mountains; being forced on a death march as the Russian forces neared; arriving in Mauthausen where he was liberated by American forces; staying a displaced persons camp for two years until he relocated to Paris, France; waiting to receive an American visa; going to the United States without legal papers and almost being sent back; and reconciling with his past.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

    Abraham Malnik, born on January 31, 1927 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes his childhood and family; the Russian invasion of Lithuania in 1940 and losing most of his family’s belongings; the brutal treatment of Jews by Lithuanians; the establishment of a ghetto in Kaunas that held about thirty thousand people; the Lithuanians beheading the local rabbis; being saved during a selection because his father knew the chief of police; his father’s work in the ghetto fire department; being forced to do several jobs like make toys for German children and clean dirty clothes from the front; the Germans and Lithuanians intensifying their battle against the Jews after the loss of the battle at Stalingrad; being on the last transport from the ghetto to Dachau, where he had to help build a factory for Messerschmitt and pick up dead bodies; his transfers with his father to Flossenbürg and then another camp; getting a German officer in trouble because he attempted to sexually abuse him; his transfer to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by Russian troops on May 8, 1945; immigrating to the United States without knowing anyone or speaking English; and settling in Washington, DC with his wife, who was a Belgian Holocaust survivor.

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral History

    Lilly Appelbaum Malnik, born in Belgium in 1928, describes her family and childhood; her father's move to the United States; waking up one morning in 1940 and discovering that the Germans had invaded; her sister who was taken into hiding by a farmer who later turned her in to the Germans because she would not have sexual relations with him; living with her aunt in the countryside after having her tonsils out; returning to find that her mother and brother had been deported; hiding her Jewish identity and doing odd jobs for the Germans; going into hiding with a Belgian girl with whom she had worked; being caught and deported on the second-to-last transport before the liberation of Belgium; arriving in Birkenau and receiving her identification number and work assignment to the kitchens in Auschwitz; a death march to Bergen-Belsen; the arrival of Allied soldiers at Bergen-Belsen; being taken away by the Red Cross to recover from typhus and physical injuries; returning to Belgium and reuniting with her aunt; and immigrating to United States to be with her father.

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral History

    Masha Loen, born in July 1930 in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes growing up in a religious family with three sisters; her father hiding her family and other Kaunas Jews under the wooden floor planks in his home; being separated from her family in 1941 and taken to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland; performing forced labor in Stutthof until 1945, when she was taken on a death march as Russian troops approached the camp; making it to a Russian hospital after the German soldiers abandoned the death march; traveling to Łódź, where she found her father who had been liberated from Dachau; taking a transport to Austria; and immigrating to New Orleans, LA in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral History

    Madeline Deutsch, born on April 29, 1930 in Berehove, Czechoslovakia (now in Ukraine), describes her childhood; Hungary taking over her town on November 9, 1938; living under the Hungarians until March 1944 when the Germans invaded; living in a ghetto for two weeks until her transport to Auschwitz, where she and her mother stayed in for one week; being moved near Wrocław, Poland to work at an ammunition factory; her and her mother’s liberation by Russian soldiers on May 8, 1945; discovering that both her father and brother had died; staying with her mother in a displaced persons camp for four years until March 9, 1949 when the two immigrated to the United States; and marrying and having two sons in America.

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral History

    Amalie Petranker Salsitz, born in 1922 in Munich, Germany, describes growing up in a Zionist family; moving to Stanislav, Poland (now Ivano-Frankivs'k, Ukraine) when she was a young child; the Russian occupation of Poland in 1939 and the loss of her father’s business; seeing her sister move to Palestine with her new husband; her family’s arrest by the Gestapo in October 1941; moving into the ghetto until her father was deported in 1942; escaping to Kraków, Poland, where she passed as Aryan; working as a chambermaid and finally obtaining employment at a construction firm in Kraków, where she remained until January 1945; traveling to Munich and Palestine after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral History

    Norman Salsitz, born in 1920 in Kolbuszowa, Poland, describes growing up in a Zionist Hasidic family; making a failed attempt to immigrate to Palestine in 1938; unsuccessfully trying to join the Polish Army in September 1939; the occupation and destruction of his town; escaping to Russian-occupied Poland for a short period until he returned to Kolbuszowa; going into the Lipie labor camp in 1940; running away from the camp; working for the Germans, building garages for the Wehrmacht; his deportation to the Pustków concentration camp in late 1940; being beaten; escaping from Pustków and moving to the Czechowice ghetto; escaping from the ghetto in November 1942 and helping to establish a partisan unit in the forest near Kolbuszowa; obtaining false documentation with which he joined the Armia Krajowa; fleeing to Germany after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral History

    Frederic Bernard, born on August 7, 1912 in Chernivtsi, Romania (Chernivtsi, Ukraine), describes his family; studying medicine at Karls University in Prague, Czechoslovakia; attempting to enter Hungary in 1941 but being turned away by the Hungarian gendarmerie and placed in a ghetto in Oleyëvo-Korolëvka, Ukraine with over 1,500 Jewish people; hiding during an Aktion in 1942 that exterminated most of the ghetto and then later escaping with his wife Gusti; finding a hiding place with a Polish man in a barn in the woods; the Polish man encouraging him to join a Polish resistance group; finding a new hiding place with Gusti in 1943 and joining a Russian resistance group; becoming a courier for the resistance because of his Romanian language ability; joining the Polish Army, where he practiced as a doctor; and immigrating to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral History

    Isaac Bitton, born on March 31, 1926 in Lisbon, Portugal, describes his family and childhood; the small Lisbon Jewish community in which he grew up that hosted thousands of Jewish refugees before and during the war; his family’s work running a soup kitchen to help the Jewish refugees; immigrating to Palestine with his brother aboard the ship Nisassa; being forced into an internment camp when he arrived in Haifa; joining the Palestine Police Railroad Division and then the Jewish Brigade; spending some time in Antwerp, Belgium for the Jewish Brigade but soon returning to Palestine to work for the British military; participating in a movement to encourage the illegal entry of European refugees into Palestine; working with the underground forces of the Haganah, a movement dedicated to preparing for Israeli independence; and his immigration to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral History

    Max Haber, born on December 31, 1904 in Essen, Germany, describes his family; attending an Orthodox Jewish school in Germany; moving to Hamburg, Germany and working as a businessman there until 1933, when he moved to Kolomyia, Poland to live with his brother and sister; moving to Katowice, Poland, where he was able to find work; joining the Revisionist party in 1939 and trying to immigrate to Palestine on an illegal transport through Romania; the British Ambassador to Romania telling the Romanians to withdraw his visa since the British were restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine; returning to Kolomyia and staying there until the Soviets invaded in 1939; trying to escape to Romania with his brother-in-law but getting caught and imprisoned; being moved to Kiev, Ukraine in March 1940; receiving a five-year prison sentence and getting transported to Yartsevo, Russia; his transfer to the Mostowits labor camp in Russia, where he was forced to cut trees; his liberation in March 1944 and taking a train to Kotel’nich, Russia with other prisoners; staying with several Russian Jewish families until he found a Ukrainian family who housed him for a short time in exchange for German lessons; traveling to the English zone in Germany; and reuniting with his brother in 1951 in Israel.

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral History

    Major General William P. Levine, born in Duluth, Minnesota on July 1, 1915, describes growing up as the oldest of four brothers; his draft into the United States Army in 1942 and completing Officer Training School in 1943; entering the Intelligence Unit as an Artillery Officer in 1944; being sent to England and later traveling with a unit that began in the Netherlands and worked its way south towards Dachau; moving into Dachau on April 29, 1945 and helping to give out food and medical care to the former prisoners at Dachau; and returning to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral History

    Leo Schneiderman, born on August 18, 1921 in Łódź, Poland, describes his family and childhood; the large Jewish population that had comfortably developed within Łódź before Hitler came to power; Poland preparing for war by drafting young men into the army and by digging trenches; the German invasion and fall of the Polish Army in September 1939; being tricked by the German government to head towards Warsaw with his younger brother and father; returning to Łódź and being forced into the ghetto with his whole family; the closing of the Łódź ghetto in 1940 and the realization that the community needed to organize its own services and methods of self-support; each of his family members taking a job in the ghetto, including his work as a tailor; illegally teaching Yiddish in the ghetto; not understanding why there had to be deportations from the ghetto without realizing the severity of the camps; his deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; his transport to Kaltwasser, a labor camp in Silesia, to do construction work for a short period until he was transferred to Lärche and then to Wolfsberg, where he worked in a hospital; being forced onto an open cattle car for a deportation and being thrown food while passing through Stará Paka, Czechoslovakia; his liberation by Allied Forces; and speaking for the prosecution against Herr Krison in a 1978 trial in Bochum, West Germany.

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral History

    Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf, both born in 1914 in Warsaw, Poland, describe their childhoods and families; Pela’s decision to study at a Warsaw law school before the war; getting married in 1936 and having a daughter in 1941; entering the Warsaw ghetto in 1940; escaping from the ghetto in 1942 by drugging their daughter, so she seemed to be dead; pretending to go to the Jewish cemetery outside of the ghetto to bury their daughter but never returning; their daughter getting tuberculosis and her six week treatment in a hospital; being helped by non-Jews; hiding on the Aryan side as Catholics; their daughter’s discovery that she was Jewish after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1947 on a United States Navy transport; Adam taking various jobs until he opened sporting goods factory; and getting involved in the Penny Project, which began in 1989.

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral History

    Carla Heijmans Lessing, born in 1929 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, describes her family and childhood; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 and experiencing harsh antisemitic measures; going into hiding with her mother and brother in August 1942 with the assistance of a Catholic priest who helped Jews find hiding places; leaving their first hiding place after three months but, with the priest’s help, finding a new shelter in Delft, in which they hid for thirty months; and her liberation in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral History

    Edward Lessing, born in the Hague, Netherlands on May 8, 1926, describes moving to the United States in 1929; returning to Delft, Netherlands in 1932 because of the economic depression in the US; entering trade school in 1942 to become a tool maker but having to leave because Jews could no longer attend public school after the German invasion; splitting up from his family after the invasion in October 1942 and finding a place to hide with a farmer, who employed him as a farm hand; relocating to hide in a convent in the Hague with his mother; the German raid of the convent in December 1943, during which he escaped, but his mother was taken to Bergen-Belsen; reuniting with his father and brothers in their hiding place in an abandoned cottage; remaining in this cottage through May 1945 when they returned to Delft; his mother’s liberation from Bergen-Belsen in late 1945; and immigrating with his family to the United States in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral History

    Werner Goldsmith, born in Erfurt, Germany on November 13, 1928, describes his family; the expulsion of Jewish children from German schools in 1938; the death of his father in 1938 and moving with his mother to Berlin, Germany; his mother placing him in the Auerbach Orphanage while she lived with another Jewish woman in West Berlin; his mother arranging for him to be placed in a transport to France while she traveled to England; living in the home of a French count until the invasion of France in 1940; the count being taken prisoner in Germany in 1940 and going into the care of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; unsuccessfully attempting to flee to southern France and getting separated from the other children when he was placed in the Rothschild orphanage, where he remained for nine months; moving to Marseilles, France in the spring of 1941; receiving an emergency visa in September 1941 to immigrate to the United States because he had relatives there; getting on a transport from Marseilles to Portugal and then embarking on a Portuguese freighter and sailing to the United States; and living in Jewish foster homes until he reunited with his mother in 1946.

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral History

    Beatrice Pappenheimer, born in October 1932 in Lauterbach, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her parents having to register with the local police; moving to Karlsruhe, Germany after her father had to give up his business in 1936; starting school in Karlsruhe but experiencing much antisemitism; being forced to leave school in November 1938 because of a law forbidding Jews from public schools; the Gestapo forcing her and her family from their house and onto a train in 1939; arriving in the Gurs camp and contracting dysentery; her transfer to the Rivesaltes camp; her mother placing her on a truck run by the Oeuvre de Secours des Enfants and moving into homes in France; reuniting with her sister, who had gone through terrible times in the camps; the bombing of France that picked up in 1943; receiving letters from her grandmother in Palestine, her aunts in New York City, NY, and her uncle and aunt in London, England; arriving in London to be with her uncle and aunt; immigrating to New York City in October 1947 to live with her aunts and attend high school; and her thoughts on her wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    John Komski, born in 1915 in Galicia, Poland, describes growing up in a Gentile family; having some Jewish friends at the Academy of Arts in Kraków, where he graduated from in 1939; leaving Kraków when the Germans invaded but returning to join the resistance; escaping to Czechoslovakia, where he was caught by Slovaks who turned him in to the Gestapo; being rounded up in 1940 with 756 other Poles and deported to Auschwitz, where he worked in the architect's office; helping to create the museum in Auschwitz in 1941, collecting items of interest from the incoming inmates; escaping from Auschwitz to a small village, where he received false documents from the underground and boarded a train to Kraków; getting captured in Kraków and sent to prison; his transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Buchenwald, where he worked as a kitchen chef; his deportation to Gross-Rosen, where he worked in the labor relations office; being transported to Hersbruck towards the end of the war and then forced on a death march to Dachau, where he was liberated; and his immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral History

    Curtis Whiteway, born in Newburyport, MA on November 3, 1925, discusses his draft into the United States Army in December 1943; his basic training in Fort Knox, KY and intensive training with Rangers; transferring to Camp Maxie, TX, where he joined the 99th Division and immediately went to England; crossing into France with his division and participating in several skirmishes with the Germans; fighting the Third Panzer Division, which helped to push American forces further into Germany through the Siegfried Line; fighting near Cologne, Germany and encountering several concentration camps; helping to liberate the few surviving prisoners at Ohrdruf; going south into combat after the arrival of the Red Cross; reaching Dachau 3-B and then liberating the Moosburg prison camp (Stalag VII A) in Germany, which had about 30,000 prisoners, including some American prisoners of war; going to the Landshut sub-camp of Dachau to meet up with English and Canadian troops; and his assignment after the war to work temporarily in Cherbourg, France.

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral History

    Lore Baer, born August 26, 1938 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses her childhood in Amsterdam; how her family moved from Germany to the Netherlands in 1933; developing a close relationship with her maternal grandfather, who was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Bergen-Belsen, where he perished; her family's relationship with Elsa and Sam Izaaks, members of the underground resistance; her time in hiding with the Schouten family and becoming friends with Cornelia Schouten; her memories of living as a Catholic in order to conceal her identity as a Jew; hiding in various places on the Schouten family farm in order to avoid the Germans; her difficult separation from the Schouten family at the end of the war and her readjustment to life in Amsterdam; immigrating to the United States with her parents and settling in the Bronx, New York; and returning to the Netherlands to visit with members of the Schouten family several years after moving to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral History

    Erich Kulka (né Erich Schön), born on February 18, 1911 in Vsetín, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his childhood and family; being raised as a conservative Jew; attending a trade school, where he studied forestry and then worked in the family lumber business; smuggling people through the woods after the German annexation of Austria; being caught, arrested, and tortured by the Gestapo in June 1939; being released from prison in August 1939 and resuming work with the underground; his second arrest in 1940, when he was taken to Dachau as a political prisoner and then transferred to Auschwitz, where he was assigned to a work detail with a group of five in the Birkenau camp; assisting in resistance activities in Auschwitz; going on a death march as the Soviets approached and then put on a train from which he escaped; fleeing from Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring in 1968; living in Vienna, Austria for three months; and how all his family now lives in Israel.

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral History

    Cornelia Schouten, born on January 21, 1920 in Huizen, Netherlands, describes growing up as one of five children of a Christian farming family in Oosterblokker, Netherlands; one of her brothers serve in the Dutch Army and fight against the Nazis in 1940; the arrest of her father and uncle during the German occupation of the Netherlands because they were striking in protest of the occupation; her family’s decision to harbor those who resisted the Nazis, including members of the resistance and men who were drafted for forced labor; sheltering the young Jewish girl, Lore Baer, for over two years; Lore’s parents emerging from hiding after the war and reclaiming their daughter; reuniting with Lore several times after the war; and eventually immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral History

    Drexel Sprecher, born on March 25, 1913 in Independence, WI, describes his family; his education at the University of Wisconsin, the London School of Economics, and at the Harvard School of Law; receiving a position on the Labor Board in 1938; his enlistment in the United States Army after the US declared war on Germany; being sent to London, England, where he was assigned to the Inspector General's office; later serving as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg Trials; and prosecuting Baldur von Schirach, the leader of the Hitler Youth.

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral History

    Bela Blau, born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) in 1910, describes his family; getting married in 1930 and moving to Zilina, Slovakia; serving in the army for eighteen months and then working as a salesman representing a photo company; having a son in 1937; being dismissed from his job in 1938 because of his Jewish background; being arrested by two Hlinka Guards one day after Yom Kippur in 1942; his and his family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where he was placed in Block 10 and worked on building a bridge above the River Sota; doing writing jobs for an illiterate German Kapo because he spoke German; being assigned to the Kommando Kanada until May 1943 when he became a scribe and met his future second wife Magda; going on a death march in January 1945 from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Mauthausen, where he spent one month until he was transferred to Gusen, where he worked as an engineer fixing petrol tanks, gas tanks, and the wings of Messerschmitt planes; his transfer to Gunskirchen on May 1; and United States forces liberating him on May 7, 1945 in Gunskirchen.

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral History

    Magda Blau, born on August 19, 1916 in Michalovce, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), describes growing up in a Jewish family; becoming a kindergarten teacher; the German invasion and her deportation to Auschwitz, where she worked scrubbing floors for three months until she became an assistant to the block supervisor; being put in charge of the barrack for medical experiments in the autumn of 1942 and becoming the protégé of Dr. Eduard Wirths, the garrison physician; later working in an office and becoming the concentration camp commander of the camp for Hungarian Jews; getting a job counting potatoes in a kitchen and then a job as a concentration camp supervisor in a fabric production facility; going on a death march on January 18, 1945 to Malchow, where they were liberated by the Soviet Army; settling in Prague, Czech Republic for a short time and then immigrating to Israel; and finally immigrating to Australia in 1965.

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral History

    Barbara Lederman Rodbell, born in 1925 in Berlin, Germany, describes her childhood; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1933 with her family; becoming friends with Anne Frank and her family; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; her boyfriend getting her false papers through his underground contacts; the deportation of her mother, sister, and father to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz; working for the resistance and surviving using her false papers; helping other Jews find hiding places; joining a ballet company for two years after the war; and immigrating to the United States in November 1947.

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral History

    Jerry Slivka, born on July 11, 1915 in Western Ukraine, describes his memories of the Soviet takeover of Russia; moving to the neighboring town of Povorsk, Ukraine with his family; participating with the Zionist movement and joining a kibbutz; moving to Łódź, where he worked as a manager of a village store from 1939 to 1941; entering the Polish Army in 1939 but settling in Soviet-held territory after the takeover of Poland; joining the reserves of the Soviet Army; escaping a German attack and seeking refuge at Soviet military headquarters; being sent to a labor camp in Stalingrad (Volgograd), Russia and then to the railroads east of the Volga because the Soviets were suspicious of him; working in a coal mine near Moscow, Russia for one-and-a-half years before he was freed; his interment in Italy until he could return to Łódź in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral History

    Rochelle Blackman Slivka, born in 1922 in Vilnius, Lithuania, describes growing up in a Jewish family; the German occupation of Vilnius in June 1941 and moving into the ghetto with her family in October; her mother’s death in the ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943 and being transported to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia and later to Stutthof; her father’s murder in an Estonian prison camp because he had served as a Jewish council member; her experiences in the camps until she had to go on a death march, during which the Soviet Army liberated her; beginning to make her way back to Vilnius with her sister but instead going to West Germany; separating from her sister while they both awaited permission to go to the United States; learning nursing during her stay at a German displaced persons camp; immigrating to the United States and arriving in Massachusetts on May 18, 1949; working as a nurse’s aide in an American hospital; and meeting and marrying a Holocaust survivor in the United States in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral History

    Francis Akos, born on March 30, 1922 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his childhood; attending a music academy, from which he graduated in 1941; becoming the concertmaster for the Budapest Jewish Community Cultural Center orchestra; being drafted for forced labor into the Hungarian Army in 1943; getting captured with other Jews in Budapest while on leave from the army to get fresh clothes; being sent by train to Neuengamme on November 4, 1944; playing violin in the camp; his evacuation from Neuengamme on May 3, 1945 and being transported by the ship Cap Arcona, a passenger liner that was evacuating refugees from West Prussia; the British mistakenly attacking the Cap Arcona and three other prisoner ships, which resulted in eight thousand deaths; returning to Budapest after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1954.

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral History

    Beno Helmer, born in 1923 in Teplice, Czechoslovakia, describes his childhood and family; using his foreign language skills to land small movie roles before the war; attempting to settle in Hungary with his family before the war; his family’s deportation to Łódź in 1939 because they did not have immigration papers; arriving in the Łódź ghetto and staying there until he had to begin doing forced labor outside the ghetto in 1942; securing a job posing as a non-Jewish German and collecting information for the underground and becoming an expert at derailing trains; returning to the ghetto when his father became sick and remaining with his family until they were deported to Auschwitz after the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto; his deportations to Gross-Rosen, Krupp Bertha-Werk at Laskowitz-Meleschwitz, Buchenwald, and Ludwigslust; his liberation by American soldiers while in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp; attempting to get back to Poland and on the way joining a Polish forced labor group that was later incorporated into the Russian Army; spending time hunting for Nazi war criminals after the war; and living in Europe for several years until he immigrated to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral History

    Jerry von Halle, born on December 2, 1922 in Hamburg, Germany, describes his family and childhood; learning the Hitler salute in school and having to fly the Nazi flag over his house on holidays; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands with his family in 1933 to get away from the Nazi party in Germany; the German invasion of the Netherlands; the Gestapo arresting and sending him to prison; being sent to Mauthausen with his brother and other boys but returning because he claimed to have tuberculosis; learning to be a shoemaker to avoid deportation; hiding in a house in the countryside with his family but returning to Amsterdam with his mother; going into hiding with his mother in the small apartment that belonged to one of his former teachers; his hider being caught and arrested four weeks before the end of the war and having to find a new place to hide; his liberation by Canadian troops; being arrested after the war with his mother because of their German passports but shortly being released when the authorities realized through what they had been; and immigrating to the United States in 1945.

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral History

    Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall, born in 1929 in Klyucharki, Czechoslovakia (Kliucharky, Ukraine), discusses her childhood; her father immigrating to the United States but being unable to arrange for her entire family to come over before the war began; no longer being able to attend school and experiencing increased tensions with her neighbors after the German annexation of Czechoslovakia; being forced to move into the ghetto with her family; being loaded onto a train after spending several weeks in the ghetto and arriving in Auschwitz two and a half days later; pretending that she was 15, so she would be old enough to work; her assignment to carry rocks between two places; being sent to the gas chambers during a selection but getting rescued just before she entered the gas chamber itself; working in an airplane factory with six hundred women; running into a forest with a friend and walking to a town that had been liberated by the Russian military; being given an apartment, food, clothing, and medical attention by the Russians; returning home to find her house destroyed; living in her grandmother’s house with other survivors and living off of the money her father sent her; learning that she had an uncle who had survived and sneaking across the border into non-communist Czechoslovakia to reunite with him; and immigrating to the United States in 1947 with her father.

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral History

    Ralph Codikow, born in 1930, in Kaunas, Lithuania, describes his family; the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941 and his brother shortly thereafter being shot at the Seventh Fort; his and his mother’s confinement to the Kaunas ghetto, where his mother saved them by pretending to be married to a male friend; his mother using her husband’s Lithuanian military service papers to forgo deportation to the Ninth Fort; being saved by his work in a ceramics factory when the children’s Aktions were decreasing the number of children in the ghetto; his and his mother’s deportation to Stutthof, where they were separated; his transfer to Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau in Germany, and then to Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau; contracting measles but being considered healthy enough to go on a forced march to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, in the winter; his liberation at Buchenwald in April 1945; moving to France after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral History

    Ruth Borsos, born in 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her family; moving to the Netherlands after Kristallnacht in 1938; her and her father obtaining permits to sail to the United States but not being able to do so when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940; her deportation to Westerbork in 1943 and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; being interned with her father in a camp near the Swiss border when an exchange agreement with the Allies broke down; being chosen to be traded for German prisoners because of their foreign passports; their liberation from the internment camp by French forces on April 23, 1945; spending some time in a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration camp after the war; returning to the Netherlands in 1947 and receiving a visa to immigrate to the United States; and marrying another Holocaust survivor, whom she met in Washington, DC.

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral History

    Simone Marguerite Lipman (née Weil), born on April 4, 1920 in Ringendorf, France, describes her family; participating in a Jewish scouting organization, Les Eclaireurs Israélites de France, with her brother; moving to Strasbourg, France, a city with a vibrant Jewish community; graduating from high school in 1938 and moving to southern France to care for her elderly grandmother; relocating to Blâmont, France because of fears of Nazi invasion; training in early childhood education and working at a private school in Paris, France for a few months until she returned to take care of her mother who was extremely ill; the German invasion of France in May 1940; packing up her family’s belongings and driving towards southern France; arriving in Périgeaux, France, where her family had to register as Jews; going to the Rivesaltes camp in France to work for the Organization for Children’s Rescue, for which she distributed food, cared for the children, and tried to find ways to get them out of the camp; helping to rescue hundreds of children with the Catholic Church after the Nazis began to round up children in late 1942; working to reopen many children’s homes after the war ended; receiving a scholarship from America’s National Council of Jewish Women for her work during the war; moving to the United States in 1946 to attend Tulane University, where she received a master’s degree in social work; returning to Europe, where she trained employees of children’s homes to deal with the special needs of young Holocaust survivors; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral History

    Shony Alex Braun, born on July 14, 1930 in Transylvania, Romania (possibly Cristuru Secuiesc, Romania), describes his family and early childhood; learning to play the violin at age five; the occupation of his town by Hungarian forces in 1940 and by the Germans in 1944; being deported to Auschwitz in May 1944; his transfer into the Natzweiler (Struthof) camp system in France and then to Dachau, where American forces liberated him in April 1945; his immigration to the United States in 1950; and becoming a professional composer and violinist.

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral History

    Doriane Kurz, born in Vienna, Austria in March 1936, describes her family and early childhood; moving to Maastricht, Netherlands and then Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1939 for her father’s business; experiencing several Nazi air raids over Amsterdam; Dutch Jews losing their businesses in 1942; her parents being imprisoned for trying to escape from the country and then getting deported to Westerbork; her father’s transfer to Auschwitz on November 10, 1942 and never being heard from again; her mother’s return to Amsterdam to take care of her and her brother; going into hiding with two farmers in the countryside; her capture and deportation to Westerbork with her mother and brother at the end of 1943; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen; contracting typhus in March 1944; being liberated by English troops while on a train ride; going to a displaced persons camp in Maastricht in June 1945; her mother’s death in March 1945 due to cancer; and immigrating to the United States in July 1945 with her brother to live with her uncle.

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral History

    David Lieberman, born in Częstochowa, Poland on December 31, 1925, describes his family; living through pogroms as a young child; having to move into the town’s ghetto and perform forced labor after the German occupation; seeing many of his family members deported to camps; his deportation to Treblinka, where he escaped after eleven days by cutting a hole in the fence with wire cutters that he had stolen; running with two friends to the house of a nearby farmer who put the three onto a train headed back to Częstochowa; reuniting with one brother, his sister, and his mother upon his return; being taken to another concentration camp, where he worked in a munitions factory as a bullet maker; the camp’s liberation and traveling by train to Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, where he entered a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency camp; traveling to Italy with the intention of taking a boat to Palestine but being returned to Karlovy Vary by the Italian government; and soon immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral History

    Laura Margolis, born in Constantinople, Turkey in 1903, describes her family; immigrating to the United States in 1908 and settling in Ohio; becoming a social worker for the Jewish Welfare Society of Cleveland after graduating from college; joining the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and going to Havana, Cuba, where she was in charge of sheltering and feeding Jewish refugees; her transfer to Shanghai, China in May 1941, where she aided over 8,000 Jewish refugees; her capture by Japanese forces after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and going into an internment camp; faking an illness to be transported to an American hospital, where she knew a doctor; the doctor lying about her health and refusing to release her from the hospital; returning to the United States as part of a prisoner of war exchange in 1944; being sent to Barcelona, Spain in 1945 by the JDC to aid Jewish refugees; helping to organize a parcel-sending program to former prisoners of concentration camps after their liberation; moving to Israel in 1953; and returning to the United States in 1983 to retire.

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral History

    Paul Strassman, born on January 24, 1929 in Trenčín, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), discusses his father’s work as an army officer for Austria-Hungary in World War I; the antisemitism his family experienced in the 1930s, which led them to consider escaping the country; his father divesting his share of his business; getting baptized, so they could avoid deportation; going into hiding in late August 1944; his father’s brief emergence from hiding and getting caught by the Gestapo, who sent him to Sachsenhausen; joining the Jegorov Brigade, a partisan group, in September 1944 and remaining in it until April 1945; joining the Czech Army in April 1945 as a noncommissioned officer and going to his station in Bratislava, Slovakia until the end of the war; remaining in Czechoslovakia but leaving just before the Communists took power in 1948; living briefly in Paris, France and London, England before immigrating to the United States in October 1948; and discovering that he was the sole survivor of his family.

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral History

    Ernest James, born in 1920 in Ord, NE, describes his family; joining the California National Guard in 1940; holding the position of sergeant and being called into active service in 1941; being stationed along the coast of San Francisco, CA and then going on to serve as platoon leader and company commander of the 238th Engineer Combat Battalion in the later years of the war; his unit’s attachment to the 1st Army and the 7th Corps; landing in Europe, where they swept through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany; reaching Nordhausen in April 1945 and finding workers from a V-2 missile and arms plant; ordering the German civilians to begin burying the large number of people who had already died; and assisting in the guarding of a nearby camp containing approximately 80,000-100,000 military prisoners of war.

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

    Chaim Engel, born in January 1916, describes growing up in Łódź, Poland; his experiences with feeling different as a Jew growing up; fighting in the Polish Army during the war and getting captured as a prisoner of war; being released and traveling to Lublin to work as a farmhand; his father’s and step-mother’s transport to Sobibór in June 1942; going to Izbica Lubelska with a friend to join a partisan unit; being caught and sent on a transport in September 1942 with about eight hundred people to Sobibór, where he worked sorting the clothes of people who had come into the camp; getting beaten for stealing pants on a couple of occasions; meeting his future wife Selma when they were both assigned to sort clothes; participating in the Sobibór uprising and escaping with Selma to a farm where they stayed until June 1944; his liberation by Russian troops and going to Parczew, Poland, where he and Selma had a child and started to re-organize their lives; moving to Holland, where they stayed until 1951 when they immigrated to Israel; and his and Selma’s immigration to the United States in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

    Selma Engel (née Wynberg), born in Groningen, Netherlands in 1922, describes her family and childhood; moving to Zwolle, Netherlands when she was seven years old; her family’s ownership of a kosher hotel; her father dying of a heart attack in 1941; the German invasion of the Netherlands and the confiscation of her family’s hotel; moving with her mother into the home of another Jewish family; receiving help from a Catholic priest in 1942 to hide in a non-Jewish family’s home; never seeing her mother and brothers again; hiding in a nurse’s home in Utrecht, Netherlands for a few months until she moved into another family’s house, where the police soon discovered her; being sent to an Amsterdam prison for three months; her deportation in 1943 to the transit camp in Vught, Netherlands, from which she went to Westerbork, where she worked in the laundry room; her transfer to Sobibór, where she had to sort clothes and clean the woods and railroads; contracting typhus; meeting Chaim, her future husband, when they had to dance in front of the Germans; escaping with Chaim from Sobibór during the uprising and hiding in the woods for several weeks; staying with a farmer in exchange for money for nine months; the farmer taking her and Chaim to Chełm, Poland in 1944; their liberation in July 1944; immigrating to Israel in 1951; and immigrating to the United States in 1957.

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral History

    Morris Engelson, born in 1935 in Paberze, Lithuania, describes his family; his father’s work in the grain business; the Soviet invasion in 1939; the German invasion in 1941 and forcing the Jews of Paberze into a ghetto; dressing up as a peasant woman with his mother to escape the ghetto that was soon liquidated by the Einsatzgruppen in September 1941; moving around and hiding in different farms with his mother; being smuggled to the Lithuanian-Polish border and ending up in another ghetto; reuniting with his father in April 1943 and hiding in a barn and then a farmer’s attic; moving westward towards the end of the war and arriving in the American zone in Germany; going to a Berlin displaced persons camp and later to the Gobrasa displaced persons camp in Bavaria after the war; and immigrating to the United States after four years.

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral History

    Lonia Mosak, born on July 20, 1922 in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland, describes her family; moving to Ciechanów, Poland when she was young; attending a separate Jewish school in Poland and serving in a Zionist youth group; completing her school education in 1936; becoming seriously ill with typhus after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 but recovering even though Jewish physicians could not use medicine to contain the epidemic; her internment in Neustadt, a labor camp in Germany; being split up from her family in 1942 and transported to Auschwitz, where she remained until January 18, 1945 doing forced labor; being forced on a death march to Gross-Rosen and then to Ravensbrück, where she was liberated by the Soviet Army on April 30, 1945; returning to Ciechanów after her liberation; residing for short periods in Łódź and Bialystok to await the return of her last brother from Russia; marrying in Austria after the war; immigrating to a Polish-Jewish neighborhood of Chicago, IL in 1946; and having two children and eventually bringing her brother to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral History

    Agnes Grossman Aranyi, born on May 2, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; her father being drafted into forced labor camps from 1939 until 1942 when he was finally deported; attending Jewish school until 1942 when the war began in Hungary; the restrictions on Jewish life in Budapest; being warned by a friend to disappear because he knew that the round-ups were to begin soon; meeting a woman who worked for the underground and who took them to live as Christians in a Swedish house set up by Raoul Wallenberg; the Germans invading their home and forcing them into a ghetto; the Russians arriving to liberate the Budapest ghetto; living under Russian oppression until 1956, when she escaped to Austria with her fiancé during the Hungarian Revolution; and immigrating to North Carolina shortly thereafter.

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral History

    David Bergman, born on May 3, 1931 in Beckov, Czechoslovakia (present day Velykyĭ Bychkiv, Ukraine), describes his family and childhood; the German occupation of his town, previously annexed by Hungary, in 1944; his deportation to Auschwitz in late 1944; being transferred with his father to Płaszow, Gross-Rosen, and then Reichenbach an der Fils; being among three of 150 people in a cattle car who survived a transport to Dachau; being placed on a train to Innsbruck, Austria three days before the Americans arrived in Dachau; his liberation while on a death march from Innsbruck toward the front line of combat between United States and German troops; going into in an American hospital and rehabilitating; traveling to his old family home and finding it occupied by a Russian family; discovering that everyone in his family except him had perished; immigrating to the United States, where he settled in Cleveland, Ohio; and joining the American military to fight in the Korean War.

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral History

    Lila Lam Nawakowska, born on November 24, 1924 in Stanislawów, Poland (Stanislav, Ukraine), describes growing up in a large family; the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Soviet occupation of Stanislav until June 1941, when the Soviets withdrew, and the Germans entered and constructed a ghetto; her father becoming the chairperson of the ghetto’s Judenrat because he was such an influential businessman in their community; remaining in the ghetto with her family until December 1942, when they were able to obtain falsified Aryan papers and escape on the eve of the ghetto's liquidation in January 1943; renting an apartment in Warsaw, Poland and remaining there until the Warsaw uprising, when she was transported to Mauthausen; briefly spending time doing forced labor in Steyr, a sub-camp of Mauthausen and in Znojmo, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); her liberation by Soviet soldiers in May 1945; and reuniting with her mother and future husband shortly after the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral History

    Yaffa Rosenthal, born in Solotvyno, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) on October 7, 1926, describes her family and childhood; her experiences with antisemitism as a child; the Ukrainians taking over her town in 1938 and learning in a different language in school; her father losing his job and having to work in mines and on a cattle farm to support his family; receiving a notice that her family would be taken away in the early summer of 1941; her deportation to Yasinya (IAsinia), Ukraine and then being marched toward Galicia, Poland; escaping from the Germans and going to live with her uncle in Oradea, Romania and then with her sister in Budapest, Hungary; having a somewhat normal life until the German occupation of Hungary in 1944; hiding in the Budapest ghetto until January 1945 when she was liberated by Russian troops; trying to survive after the war and receiving help from the Swedish Red Cross; reuniting with her sister in Debrecen, Hungary and then returning with her to Budapest; participating in the Budapest Zionist organization and immigrating to Israel in 1948; getting married to an American man in 1959; and immigrating to the United States to settle in New York, NY.

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral History

    Eve Wagszul Rich, born in Kovel', Ukraine, describes her family and childhood; the German invasion and having to move into the ghetto; the Germans bursting into her home one night and killing her father in front of her; immediately running away into the forest and going to nearby villages, where she met peasants who gave her some food; going into hiding with a group of Carmelite Nuns; the Germans discovering her and sending her to Majdanek; escaping with a friend during a transport and going to Bavaria to work on a farm; her liberation by American forces; and immigrating to New York to live with her grandmother’s sister.

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral History

    Magda Mezei Lapidus, born on July 18, 1923 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her family and childhood; attending the Commercial Academy of Budapest for two years; first realizing the danger posed by the Nazis when they invaded Austria in 1938; seeing several young Hungarian men shipped out to labor camps starting in 1941; her brother being taken away to a labor camp in 1943; the German invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944; being forced into the Budapest ghetto and living in the Star of David House; her father returning to live with them in June 1944; being forced on a march with her father to the outskirts of Budapest, at which point she was separated from her father and never saw him again; hiding in a bush on her march and ripping her identifying star off and returning to Budapest to reunite with her mother and brother; going to the Spanish Legation near the ghetto and receiving a safety pass to move into a house protected from German invasion; remaining in the house until January 18, 1945, when the Russians liberated Budapest; and discovering the fate of her father.

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral History

    Avraham Ronai, born on September 14, 1932 in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in a religious family; attending a secular public school and a Jewish school at night in Budapest; not experiencing many difficulties under the pro-Nazi Hungarian regime; the German invasion of Budapest in March 1944 but not really suffering until the Nazis took full control over Hungary in October 1944; the Nazis rounding up Jews into ghettos and deporting them; seeking help at the Spanish Embassy in Budapest and receiving a space in a Spanish safe-house due to the efforts of Giorgio Perlasca; remaining in the safe-house until the Soviets liberated Budapest in 1945; and immigrating to Israel in 1949 because of the oppressive Hungarian Communist regime.

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral History

    Eva Konigsberg Lang, born on April 1925 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her childhood and family; the Jewish community losing several of its rights when the war began; her relatives arriving from Czechoslovakia to live with her; being forbidden to attend school after March 1944; receiving a protective pass to get food; hearing that the wife of any man in forced labor would not be deported and getting married in 1944; hiding in a Spanish protective house on St. Paul Street and getting food supplies provided by the Jewish Council; the German occupation of Budapest; forging a telegram to prove that they were under Spanish protection and to save themselves from the Arrow Cross; and reflecting on how certain Spanish diplomats saved her life during the war.

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral History

    Cornelius Loen, born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) on May 2, 1922, describes growing up with a Jewish father and Gentile mother; the German invasion of his town on January 23, 1942 and German troops killing two of his uncles; escaping with his family to Budapest, Hungary, where they lived for ten months; his deportation to a forced labor camp in Hungary, where he remained until 1944; escaping to a nearby barn, where he hid for three days, during the liquidation of the camp; Russian troops liberating him while he hid in this barn; walking to a nearby displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife Masha; taking a Russian transport to Budapest and reuniting with his parents; discovering that his father had survived a concentration camp and his mother had helped to hide and save many Jewish people after her family was taken away; and immigrating to Los Angeles, CA in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral History

    Thomas Blatt, born in 1927 in Izbica Lubelska, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox family; the establishment of a ghetto run by the Germans after the war began in September 1939; working in a garage, which protected him from early ghetto roundups; trying to escape to Hungary with false papers in 1942 but getting caught; his and his family’s deportation to Sobibór, where his family was gassed immediately; the Germans choosing him as a laborer because of his mechanical skills; participating in and escaping during the Sobibór uprising on October 14, 1943 by escaping through the wire fences and avoiding the land mines; going into hiding with a friend on several farms; hiding in a stable and then in an abandoned brick factory; working as a courier for the Polish underground; and immigrating to the United States in 1959.

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral History

    Anita Magnus Frank, born on January 29, 1936 in Emmen, Netherlands, describes her family; her move to Breda, Netherlands, where her family was living when the war broke out; the German invasion of 1940 and being told to leave because the Germans were going to bomb the town; walking thirty kilometers to a farm, where they stayed for five days; returning to Breda and experiencing increased persecution; obtaining false passports and assuming Dutch names to shield their Jewish identities in 1942 (Verified from other sources, the name of the individual who assisted Anita and her family was Govardus Pinxteren, who was later honored as Righteous Among the Nations); going into hiding first in a non-Jewish neighbor's home and then in a Quaker family’s home in Bilthoven, Netherlands; living as “normal” Dutch schoolchildren except having to hide their Jewish identities and constantly being in fear; leaving their hiding place in August 1944 because the Quaker family was too scared to keep them; returning to Limburg with her parents; the liberation of Limburg in September 1944; returning to Breda in April 1945 and living in an uninhabitable, bombed house for six months until they could move into a bigger and better house in the same town; and immigrating to the United States on December 7, 1952 because antisemitism was still a problem after the war.

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral History

    Guta Blass Weintraub, born on January 22, 1924 in Łódź, Poland, describes her childhood and family; her experiences with antisemitism in her youth; attending a private, Jewish, all-girls high school until the German invasion in September 1939; moving from Łódź to Wierzbnik-Starachowice in December 1939 because of fears about what the Germans had planned; the formation of a ghetto and having to share a home with at least one other family; meeting her future husband when he came to her home in the ghetto asking for her father to make him a suit with special pockets; being rounded up in the ghetto’s marketplace and sent to labor camps; managing to smuggle out some pictures with her as she, her mother, and her father were taken to a woodworking camp; surviving several shootings and experiencing starvation; her deportation to Auschwitz in 1942 and staying there until 1944, when she was transferred to Ravensbrück; her liberation by the Swedish Red Cross; and traveling to Sweden to recover.

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral History

    Henry Schmelzer, born in March 1924 in Vienna, Austria, describes growing up as the youngest of four children in a middle-class family; graduating from a Jewish high school in 1938 shortly before it closed; his brothers fleeing, while he and the rest of his family endured Nazi raids on their home until they were evicted; his father losing his business and having severe depression; escaping to England on December 18, 1938 and finding refuge at a children's camp; remaining in England throughout the war and living with a group of young Zionists; enlisting in the British Army in 1943; being sent to a mountain unit, the 52nd Division; receiving his degree at the London School of Economics; spending 18 years in Israel; and immigrating to the United States in 1969.

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral History

    Helen Liebowitz Goldkind, born in Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia (Ukraine) on July 9, 1928, describes her childhood and family; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia and going into a ghetto in Uzhgorod, Ukraine; maintaining religious traditions in the ghetto; the Germans taking over the ghetto and deporting her and her family to Auschwitz; her transport to another camp and hearing bombs going off during the train ride; arriving in a German camp and working in a munitions factory; going on a truck with two hundred other girls to Bergen-Belsen, where English troops eventually liberated her; the Swedish Red Cross offering to take care of her and others in Sweden; discovering that only one of her sisters survived the war and had immigrated to the United States; and following her sister to the United States, where she settled in New York, NY and got married.

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral History

    Johanne Eva Liebmann (née Hirsch), born in 1924 in Karlsruhe, Germany, describes her family and childhood; her family’s deportation to the Gurs camp in southern France in October 1940; being rescued by the Children's Aid Society in September 1941 and hiding in a children’s home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France until 1943, when she obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland; discovering that her mother had died in Auschwitz; getting married in Geneva, Switzerland in 1945 and having a daughter in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral History

    Max Liebmann, born on September 3, 1921 in Mannheim, Germany, describes his family and childhood; attending school until December 1937, when he had to quit because of the antisemitism he was experiencing; his memories of Kristallnacht; his father travelling to Greece and Italy to do business since he could no longer do it in Germany; he and his mother being called into a Wehrmacht office shortly after the war began in September 1939; being made to do forced labor harvesting fields in East Germany; being deported with his mother to the Gurs concentration camp in France; playing the cello as part of several concerts given at Gurs; meeting his future wife in the camp through a connection his mother made; managing inventories for French camp officials; his transfer to the Talluyers camp in July 1942; escaping to Le Chambon, France to reunite with his girlfriend for a short period until they both had to find hiding places; finding a guide to take him through France and into Switzerland; arriving in Ouchy, Switzerland and receiving work papers on December 22, 1942; reuniting with his girlfriend in Switzerland on February 28, 1943 and marrying her in Geneva on April, 14, 1945; having a daughter in 1946; and immigrating to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral History

    Giorgio Perlasca, born on January 31, 1910 in Como, Italy, describes growing up with a father who worked for the Italian government in Padua; fighting in the Spanish Civil War and later taking a position in an Italian trade firm; working around Eastern Europe after Italy entered World War II in 1940; maintaining an official position with the Italian Trade Commission and living in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1941 and 1942; continuing to work for the Italian government until the fall of Admiral Miklos Horthy in 1944; his internment by the Hungarian government from April to October 1944 after the Germans took control of Hungary; escaping his internment with falsified papers provided by a member of the Swiss Diplomatic Corps; adopting a Spanish nationality because of his veteran status from the Spanish Civil War; posing as the Spanish Charge d'Affaires after the flight of the appointed Charge d'Affaires for Spain in December 1944; helping to establish of several safe-houses in Budapest to shelter Jews under Spanish protection; coordinating his efforts with representatives of other neutral nations, including Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden, and the representatives of the Vatican, Portugal, and Switzerland, to shelter and save Jews from deportation; and returning to Italy to start a family in February 1945.

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral History

    David J. Selznick, born in Anykščiai, Lithuania in 1912, describes growing up as the youngest child in a large family; going to Ukmergė, Lithuania to study at a yeshiva in order to become a rabbi; his father’s death shortly before his twelfth birthday and becoming the legal master of his father's estate; deciding to sell off his family's farm and livestock and move to Kaunas, Lithuania; attending a Yiddish night school in Kaunas and working during the day as a retailer of office supplies; his experiences with antisemitism, which hurt his business; selling his business to two Christians but remaining as a silent partner; receiving a visa to serve as a diplomatic envoy to New York because of his business connections but instead deciding to leave for Portugal; returning to Kaunas in 1936 because he was worried about his mother and sisters; his deportation to the Kaunas ghetto in 1941; performing forced labor until late 1944 because he had worked for the ghetto Kommandant; smuggling food to the Jewish prisoners in the ghetto; escaping during the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto in July 1944 and fleeing into the countryside, where he hid with some other Jews; his liberation by the Soviet Army; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral History

    Elisabeth Model (née Dittmann), born in Bayreuth, Germany in 1897, describes her family; getting married in 1922 and moving to Amsterdam, where she worked as a sculptor; returning to Germany after Kristallnacht to help her mother emigrate; helping her mother sneak into the Netherlands with the help of a Dutch underground organization; her husband being imprisoned for one month by the Nazis after being falsely accused of smuggling money into the Netherlands; bribing a woman at the Spanish Consulate to give her and her husband exit visas in 1941; traveling to Madrid, Spain; and eventually arriving in to New York, NY in 1942.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral History

    Joseph Levine, born in Molodezhnyi, Russia on July 20, 1907, describes the difficulties his family faced in World War I; his family’s immigration to San Francisco, CA on February 12, 1917 and then settling in New Haven, CT; attending Franklin and Marshall College and then the graduate school for Jewish social work; working with the Jewish Board of Guardians for six years until 1941; starting to work as a parole officer in 1941; joining the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in 1945 as a social worker; going to Schwandorf, Germany, where he worked with many Polish Jews; his transfer to Dachau in October of 1945, where he also worked closely with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; bearing witness to the war crime trials at Nuremberg; and returning to the United States, where he worked as the executive secretary of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society.

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral History

    Eugenia Blau Szamosi, born in Transylvania in 1914, describes her family, childhood, and growing up in Budapest, Hungary; her experiences with antisemitism in Hungary; marrying in November 1941 and having a son the following year and a girl the next; her husband avoiding forced labor by spending time in a mental hospital; having to move into the Jewish section of the town and wear the yellow star after the German invasion of Hungary; escaping from the Budapest ghetto and looking for a flat in town; pretending to be a Transylvanian refugee because she had Aryan looks; returning to the ghetto to work with her husband in a children’s home and await deportation; getting the supplies to make shutzpasses for people; getting Spanish passports for her and her husband, which helped to save them from deportation; her family’s liberation and her husband’s work for the International Red Cross after the war; and immigrating to Israel in June 1949.

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral History

    Irene Dynkiewicz Silver, born in January 1933 in Łódź, Poland, describes her family and the Jewish community in her town before the war; her family’s move to Warsaw just as the German bombardment of Warsaw began; the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto wall; learning how to read and write from one of her cousins; wearing a kerchief and putting on lipstick to look older and avoid deportation during ghetto-round ups; going into hiding in January 1943 with a woman who had managed to attain a Christian identity for her; not being able to leave the home in which she hid and reading to pass her time; attending school for the first time after the war; traveling to London with several other children to attend a boarding school established by a rabbi; and immigrating to Brooklyn, NY in January 1950 to live with her aunt and uncle.

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral History

    Alice Lok Cahana, born on February 7, 1929 in Sárvár, Hungary, discusses her childhood; her relationships with her parents, grandfather, and siblings; her experiences in the ghetto in Sárvár, which was situated in a brick factory; her work with children in the ghetto; her deportation by train to Auschwitz; her experiences in "C Lager" of Auschwitz; her memories of selections by Dr. Josef Mengele; her successful rescue of her sister Edith from the infirmary in Auschwitz; her survival of the Auschwitz gas chamber because of a malfunction in the chamber; her memories of camp guard Irma Grese; her transfer from Auschwitz to the Guben concentration camp where she worked in an ammunition factory; her participation in a death march with a group from Guben; her escape and subsequent return to the death march group; her separation from her sister in Bergen-Belsen; her evacuation from Bergen-Belsen and transport to a hospital in Sweden; her reunion with her father in Hungary; her illegal immigration to Israel by boat; her return to Sweden with her husband Moshe Cahana; the Cahana family's move to the United States; and her thoughts on the rescue efforts of Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral History

    Eva Brust Cooper, born in 1934 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; living on the Pest side of the Danube River; her memories of the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944; the various types of persecution experienced by the Jews in Budapest including the wearing of yellow Stars of David; her father receiving papers from Raoul Wallenberg to avoid deportation; the family's time in hiding in various locations around Budapest; her and her mother's attempts to appear Catholic by going to church, learning the Catechism, and acquiring false identification papers; her family's return to Budapest at the end of World War II; her father's participation in negotiations with Adolf Eichmann in hopes of reducing the number of Hungarian Jews to be deported; her family's immigration to the United States and their new life in New York City; and her activities with various Holocaust survivor groups.

    Oral history interview with Jacob Vogel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral History

    Frieda Belinfante, born in 1904 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, describes her family; being raised without a religion because her father was Jewish and her mother was Gentile; the death of her sister in 1915 after an appendectomy and the divorce of her parents soon after; the death of her father in 1923 from natural causes; not being surprised by the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands; getting married in 1931 and divorcing in 1936; becoming the first female conductor of a professional orchestra in Amsterdam; participating in the cultural commission of Amsterdam and receiving instructions from the Nazis about what artists should or should not do; making false identification cards to help save people; discovering her homosexuality but trying to keep it a secret during the war; living disguised as a man for three months; taking on a new female identity and fleeing to Switzerland; participating in several activities of sabotage with other gay and lesbian refugees; returning to Amsterdam after the war and discovering the fates of the members of the resistance group in which she participated; immigrating to the United States in 1947 for a change of scenery in her work; participating in a string of concerts in the US; and her life in America.

    Oral history interview with Philip Vock

    Oral History

    Philip Vock, born in 1929 in Paris, France, discusses his family background and childhood; the German invasion of France in 1940; the confiscation of the family business by the Germans; antisemitism that he encountered in the media and in personal contacts; leaving the occupied zone of France in 1941 and finding refuge in a town on the Spanish border; the German occupation of their town in November 1942; fleeing to Nice, France, which was occupied by the Italians; being denounced to and arrested by the Gestapo as they were preparing to move to another town; being transported to Drancy concentration camp in 1943; life in Drancy and the possibility of escape from the camp; his deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944; the intake process at Auschwitz and then his outside work detail; the black market within Auschwitz; a death march in January 1945 as the Allies were approaching the camp; life in Buchenwald and liberation; returning to Paris in April 1945; the return of his mother and uncle; and nightmares that he had after liberation.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Gatenio

    Oral History

    Joseph Gatenio, born in 1929 in Thessalonike, Greece, discusses his childhood; the German occupation of Thessalonike in 1940; his deportation from Greece with his family in 1943; the week-long journey to Birkenau; selections at Birkenau; the deaths of family members; his participation in the camp orchestra; how orchestra members helped him survive; being forced to leave the orchestra; the brutality of the SS and Kapos; being transferred from Birkenau to Henkel, then Sachsenhausen, Ohrdruf, Sachsenhausen again, Neubrandenburg, Ravensbrück, and finally Ludwigslust; the appalling conditions in the camps; staying in Ludwigslust until May 1 when they were transported to another camp; his liberation by American soldiers the next day; joining the Russian liberators and wandering throughout Europe for a few months; returning to Thessalonike in December 1945; and the long-term effects of his experiences during the Holocaust on his well-being.

    Oral history interview with Mariette Moscovici

    Oral History

    Mariette Moscovici, born on January 24, 1916 in Iasi, Romania, discusses her family; her father, Hani Garfiender, who was a merchant and owned a store for travel items; her mother, Cecile Garfiender, who was a housewife; attending Alexandru Labrian elementary school; attending Institute Notre Dame for high school; living in Iasi on Cuza Voda street and later on Ice Bratianu street; Rumania entering the war on June 22, 1941; German soldiers entering on the night of June 29, 1941 and taking away all the Jewish men from the shelter; going to the Jewish community the next morning to ask about the fate of the Jewish men and not receiving an answer; stopping at a friend’s house on the way home to warn the men in the family about the arrest of the Jewish men; being stopped on the way home and directed into a convoy; finding her mother and sister in the convoy; being taken to the police headquarters; more Jews arriving at the headquarters wearing pajamas and night gowns because they were taken without anytime to get dressed; the women and girls being released while the men and boys over the age 13 were detained; the chaos of the scene; her father arriving at the shelter in the afternoon; the numerous false alarms to concentrate the population in shelters; the German soldiers enter the shelter around 5pm and demanding their jewelry and money; giving one of the soldiers her money and being instructed by the soldier to go home and not enter the shelters; leaving her aunt’s house with her family the next morning (June 30, 1941) and going home; seeing posters on wall that state the “Communist Jews” of Iasi have been arrested and killed and the rest of the population can continue their lives; staying home and not knowing what happened to other people; going to a market with her cousin dressed like peasants and seeing dead bodies on the street; Jews not being allowed to travel; and the propaganda in the news.

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral History

    Henry van den Boogard, born in Holland in 1915, discusses his childhood in Tilburg, Netherlands; his early education and seminary days; his ordination to the priesthood and first mass in 1942; his memories of Jews being helped by non-Jews in the Netherlands; his personal activities with the resistance movement in southern Netherlands such as making false identification papers for various persons, smuggling children into the Netherlands for hiding, and finding hiding places in homes for Jews and other persons; his dealings with the black market in the Netherlands in order to clothe and feed people in hiding; his reflections on antisemitism in the Netherlands; the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940; the feelings of native Hollanders toward the "Dutch Nazis"; and his life after World War II in the United States where he worked to integrate Catholic churches in Virginia.

    Oral history interview with Jack Moss

    Oral History

    Jack Moss (né Jakuv Mozelsio), born in 1924 in Łódź, Poland, discusses his family background; his encounters with Polish antisemitism; his family's feelings about the possibility of a German occupation; the restrictions imposed on Jews by the Germans; the lucrative business that the Germans brought to his father's tannery; odd jobs that he did at the request of the Germans, including helping to tear down a statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko in Plac Wolności; a German friend who agreed to be a stand-in owner of the tannery, so it would not be confiscated; his uncle, aunt, and other family members fleeing to Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland for safety while he and his parents stayed in Łódź; the return of his sister and cousin from Tomaszów Mazowiecki; and how the rest of his family in Tomaszów Mazowiecki perished while he and the others who remained in Łódź were saved.

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral History

    Boleslaw Dytlow, born in 1932 in Pruszków, Poland, describes growing up in a Romani family; the German occupation in September 1939; moving to Warsaw, Poland with his family and earning money there as a musician; being captured on the streets in Warsaw in late 1942 and delivered into the Warsaw ghetto; meeting other Romanies in the ghetto and forming a plan to escape; escaping to the Aryan side in the spring of 1943; leaving Warsaw and only traveling by night; being ambushed by German soldiers on the outskirts of Kielce, Poland; successfully overpowering the Germans and escaping back to Warsaw; and remaining hidden outside of Warsaw until the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Mel London

    Oral History

    Mel London, born in 1923, discusses growing up in the Bronx, NY with immigrant parents; his awareness of the political situation in Europe before World War II; his concern for family in Europe; his identification with being Jewish; enlisting in the United States Army signal corps in May 1943; going to Officer Candidate School; antisemitism he encountered in the army and prejudice because of his friendships with black soldiers; seeing the aftermath of World War II in Europe; his knowledge of the Nuremberg war crime trials; becoming a documentary filmmaker; the request to interview Albert Speer after his book "Inside the Third Reich" was published in 1970; preparing for the interview; different attitudes towards Speer among Germans of different generations; and his perceptions of Speer.

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral History

    Henry Cohen, born in 1922 in New York City, NY, describes growing up in a family of Jewish immigrants; receiving a master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; enlisting in the United States Army in 1944 and fighting with the infantry during the German campaign; his appointment as the director of the Föhrenwald displaced persons camp in Germany in January of 1946; leading the camp until July 1946; and returning to the United States to teach at the City College of New York.

    Oral history interview with Gisela Feldman

    Oral History

    Gisela Feldman, born in 1923, discusses her first encounters with antisemitism in Berlin, Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933 and her political awareness at that time; her father's deportation to Poland in 1938 because he was a Polish citizen; the confiscation of her family's apartment; being barred from going to school; her mother obtaining visas to Cuba and booking passage on the SS St. Louis; her father not being able to leave Poland in time to join them on the SS St. Louis; departing with her mother and sister from Germany in 1939; the atmosphere on board the ship; their arrival in Cuba and the announcement that their visas were no longer valid; the desperation of some passengers on board; sailing near the coast of the United States during the return journey to Europe; her family being selected to disembark in England; her job as a domestic in a convalescent home for Jewish refugees in Broadstairs and then as a nanny for a family with two children in London; her involvement in war work, making uniforms and gunpowder bags; meeting and marrying her husband in London in 1943; her mother's attempts to get permission for her father to emigrate from Poland; and her life in England after the war.

    Oral history interview with Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming

    Oral History

    Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming describe how Bert grew up in Warsaw and Łódź; Bert’s family’s deportation to Hannover, Germany before Kristallnacht; Bert’s deportation from Hannover in 1938, receiving aid from the Joint Distribution Committee, and going through the camps; Irene witnessing people being smuggled from her ghetto and fleeing to Siberia; Irene holding on to her violin through her time in the camps; their experiences with Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski and his relationship with the Nazis in the Łódź ghetto; Bert having to shave his head and watch people steal food while in the camps; Bert’s work in several different factories and the transport of all of the goods he produced to Germany; and their immigration to New York and life after the war.

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral History

    Norman Belfer, born on September 27, 1922 in Wodzislaw, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family; the German invasion of Wodzislaw in 1939 and hiding in his family’s factory warehouse until they were discovered; the confiscation of his father’s feather and down business; being forced to clean roads around the town with other youth; going to work for a nearby German company while the rest of his family went into hiding in an underground shelter outside of Wodzislaw; his family’s capture and transfer into the Kraków ghetto; returning home, where he retrieved some of the money his family had buried before they had left; hiding for several weeks in his father’s former factory; joining his family in the Kraków ghetto; the liquidation of the ghetto on March 13, 1943; his family’s transfer to Płaszów, where an SS guard shot his father, and his mother and sisters were sent elsewhere; being transferred with his brother to Mauthausen, where they volunteered as carpenters until they were sent to Melk; digging tunnels and moving machinery for several months at Melk with his brother; going on a barge to Linz and then going on a death march to Ebensee; his liberation by American forces on May 5, 1945; walking to Salzburg with his brother but deciding to go to Palestine through Italy; and remaining and working in Italy until he immigrated to the United States in 1950.

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral History

    Carola Stern Steinhardt, born on March 8, 1925 in Nieder Ohmen, Germany, describes losing her non-Jewish friends after 1933; her experiences during Kristallnacht; attending a boarding school in Bad Nauheim until the Gestapo stormed it and harassed students; her father’s deportation to Buchenwald; her mother’s and sister’s arrival in Bad Nauheim; going to Berlin to do hard labor at an airplane factory until her deportation to Auschwitz in March 1943; her selection to be a camp “beautician,” which involved cutting the hair off of incoming prisoners; reuniting with her sister in August 1944 and learning that her parents had died; going on a march to Ravensbrück in January 1945; staying in Ravensbrück for four weeks until having to march to Malchow, where she worked in the camp kitchen; her liberation by American forces in May 1945; her internment in the Kammer displaced persons camp in Austria; and immigrating to the United States in July 1946 on an army transport.

    Oral history interview with Haim Shmueli

    Oral History

    Haim Shmueli (né Heinz Ruman Shmoll), born in 1935 in was born in 1935 in Usti nad Labem, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his family and childhood; his mother’s conversion to Judaism, which she renounced when Hitler came to power; moving to Germany in 1938; his father’s involvement in the underground movement; his deportation to Theresienstadt and his memories of the children’s part of the camp; participating in the propaganda movie filmed in Theresienstadt; his liberation from Theresienstadt in 1945; reuniting with his father after the war; and immigrating to Israel with his father in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Itka Zygmuntowicz

    Oral History

    Itka Zygmuntowicz, born April 15, 1926 in Poland (possibly Ciechanów), discusses her family and childhood in Poland before World War II; her experiences with antisemitism before the war; relations between her family and Gentiles in her hometown; her knowledge of politics as a child and involvement in the Zionist movement; the German occupation of her hometown and the restrictions that the Germans imposed on the Jewish population; the confiscation of her family's valuables; a beating that she and her mother suffered at the hands of the Gestapo for not revealing information; her family's deportation to the ghetto in Nové Město in 1941; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 and the mass deportation to Auschwitz; her arrival at Auschwitz and her separation from her parents and younger siblings who perished in the camp; finding a friend named Binna in the camp; her forms of spiritual, mental, and physical resistance as a prisoner; her contact with the guards in the camp; her experience sorting the belongings of dead prisoners in the "Kanada" warehouse; a death march in January 1945 to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then a transport to Malchow concentration camp; her liberation during Passover in 1945; recuperating at a hospital in Sweden after the war through the help of the Swedish Red Cross; living in a displaced persons camp in Sweden; leaving the camp with two friends and getting a job; meeting and marrying her husband and the birth of her son in 1948; and her immigration to the United States in 1953.

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Granirer Flor

    Oral History

    Gertrude Granirer Flor, born in 1921 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, discusses her childhood; the lack of antisemitism she encountered growing up; the Soviet occupation in 1940 and the confiscation of Jewish property; Soviet propaganda and the pressure to inform on others; the arrest and execution of her step-father; involuntary deportations by the Soviets to Siberia, including the deportation of her mother; escaping from a deportation and finding refuge at the conservatory of the Universitatea din Cernauți; meeting and marrying her husband, Sam; the German occupation of Chernivtsi; German restrictions and the establishment of the ghetto in Chernivtsi; the help that the mayor of Chernivtsi extended to the Jewish population; deportation by train to a stone quarry where she and her husband stayed for several weeks; her husband telling the Romanian authorities that he was a dentist, so that they would be transferred to a work detail in a hospital; being liberated by Russian partisans after being in hiding for several days; returning to Chernivtsi and joining the Czech Army; being part of the liberation of Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); immigrating to South America with a stopover in the United States on the way; living in Columbia with an uncle on his coffee plantation for six months and then immigrating to the United States; her feelings about her new country and the difficulties she experienced as an immigrant; and how her experiences during the Holocaust have affected her life.

    Oral history interview with Renee Scheuer

    Oral History

    Renee Scheuer, born in 1909 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood; antisemitism in Vienna before World War II; her and her husband’s arrest in November 1938 and the order to leave Austria in three days; traveling to Cologne, Germany and then to Belgium on foot; living in a refugee camp in Antwerp, Belgium; the occupation of Belgium by Germany in 1939 and their attempt to escape to France; returning to Belgium and living in Brussels where they had to wear Star of David badges; receiving a notice to report to a concentration camp; she and her husband going into hiding in Brussels in 1942 and staying in different hiding places until liberation in 1945; the feelings that she had during the events of the Holocaust; the resistance of the Belgian population against the Germans; the fates of her mother and sister; returning to visit Vienna in the 1970s; her immigration to the United States in 1950; and settling in New York City.

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral History

    Bent Melchoir, born in Denmark, describes growing up with a father who was a rabbi; the ease of relations between Jews and Christians in Denmark; the help that the Danish Christian community gave to the Jewish community to help them escape to Sweden; raising money with his brother to get Jews out of Denmark; the Danish resistance movement; leaving Copenhagen and arriving in Sweden by small boat; returning to Denmark three weeks after liberation; his surprise at the jubilant welcome given by the Danes when the Jews returned; the re-opening of the local synagogue for the fall holidays in 1945; and working on behalf of Soviet Jewry after the war.

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral History

    Renata Laqueur, born on November 3, 1919 in Brzeg, Poland, describes growing up in Amsterdam; never considering herself Jewish and attending a Christian school as a child; the German invasion in 1940 and registering as a Jew; her father’s decision to volunteer for the German Army as a medical research officer; her marriage to Paul Goldschmidt on December 24, 1941; becoming involved in the underground movement with Paul; her arrest on February 18, 1943, when the Gestapo took her to a prison for ten days until her transfer to the Vught transit camp in the Netherlands; her transport to the Westerbork transit camp, from where she was soon released because of her father’s connections; being arrested again in November 1943; her and Paul’s transport to Bergen-Belsen on March 15, 1944; writing a daily diary about her experiences in the camp; her liberation by the Soviet Army on April 23, 1945; recovering from illness in a field hospital outside of Dresden; spending a week in a displaced persons camp near Kassel; returning to Amsterdam on July 26, 1945; and immigrating to the United States through Canada in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Carl Hirsch

    Oral History

    Carl Hirsch, born in 1912, discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria and Chernivtsi, Ukraine; his schooling in mathematics and engineering in his university studies; his work as a civil engineer and service in the Romanian Army before World War II; his first experiences with antisemitism when Romania occupied Chernivtsi and when he lived in Bucharest; Soviet occupation of Chernivtsi from 1940 to 1941; the deportation of business owners in Chernivtsi to Siberia; the Soviet withdrawal in June 1941 and Jews fleeing with them; the takeover of the town by Germans and Romanians and the persecution of Jews; finding a job with the railway, so he would not be taken for forced labor; the establishment of the ghetto in Chernivtsi; his marriage to Lotte; witnessing deportations from Chernivtsi; the influx of Romanians into Chernivtsi; the return of many Jews who had fled with the Russians; the integration of Chernivtsi into the Soviet Union in 1945; leaving Chernivtsi and living in Romania from 1945 until 1961; and immigrating to the United States in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Hirsch

    Oral History

    Lotte Hirsch, born in 1918 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, describes her childhood; her encounters with antisemitism while she attended university; the Soviet occupation of Chernivtsi from 1940 to 1941 and having to stop her university studies and work in a factory; witnessing deportations to Siberia carried out by the Russians; Romanian and German troops taking over Chernivtsi and establishing a ghetto and several restrictions on the Jewish population; hearing about executions carried out by the German and Romanian soldiers; how her fiancé Carl was able to obtain an exemption from deportation because of his profession as an engineer; her marriage to Carl in a civil ceremony in the mayor's office; life under the occupation; witnessing more deportations in 1942; receiving better treatment after a new governor of Bukovina was instated; the return of Carl's cousin from deportation to Transnistria; her liberation by the Russians in 1944; and her immigration to the United States in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral History

    Walter Meyer, born on May 31, 1926 in Kassel, Germany, describes growing up as a Catholic in a diverse religious community in Düsseldorf; his experiences during Kristallnacht; joining the Hitler Youth in 1940 but then deciding to organize another group to oppose the Hitler Youth; his recruitment into a military academy, to which his father did not allow him to go; assisting French prisoners of war in 1943 until the Gestapo caught him and placed him in a Düsseldorf prison; his transfer to a prison near Frankfurt, where he remained until the spring of 1944 when the prison director recommended him for the army; his deportation to Sachsenhausen and then Ravensbrück; escaping from Ravensbrück and hiding with a farmer who lived nearby; returning to Berlin and then Düsseldorf; recovering from tuberculosis after returning home; and immigrating to the United States in 1958.

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral History

    Dora Kramen Dimitro, born on January 22, 1922 in Eišiškės, Poland (now Lithuania), describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home with her parents and three siblings; attending Hebrew and Polish schools and experiencing antisemitism; the Russian arrival in Eišiškės in 1939; losing their rights as Jewish citizens when the Germans invaded in 1941; the Germans ordering them to assemble at the synagogue, where they were kept for two days and nights before many were taken away and shot; escaping with her boyfriend with the help of a Lithuanian police officer; the murder of most of her family on September 25 and 26, 1941; going to the Radun ghetto, where she met up with her father, sister, and boyfriend and stayed for ten months until they decided to escape because of ghetto liquidation warnings; running into the woods and trading valuables for food and clothing; living in the woods until late 1942 or early 1943 when they moved into the Hrodna ghetto in Belarus because they had heard of its better conditions; the transports from the ghetto two to three months after her arrival; fleeing to the Nacha Forest in Belarus; joining Jewish and Soviet partisans and staying in their underground bunker through the winter; hiding in homes or in the forest until the Russians liberated her in July 1944; returning to Eišiškės but fleeing when a group of Poles attacked the few remaining Jews there; marrying her boyfriend and living in Vilnius and Warsaw before moving to Israel in 1957; immigrating to the United States in March 1959 with her sister's help; and giving birth to a son soon after her arrival in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Herma Barber

    Oral History

    Herma Barber, born in 1921 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood; experiencing antisemitism after the Anschluss in 1938; her and her parents' unsuccessful attempts to immigrate to the United States and their decision to go to Yugoslavia instead; their journey into Yugoslavia by foot; their arrest in Zagreb, Croatia and spending a week in jail; being confined to the town of Samobor after their release from jail; deportation by the Ustaša in 1941 to Mostar, which the Italian military occupied; being moved to Čapljina by the Italians; traveling to Split, Croatia without permission and being arrested and put in jail by the Italians for a week; being moved to Dubrovnik, Croatia, where she worked in a restaurant and also did knitting for a store; not having enough to eat; going to an Italian-run concentration camp in 1943; their escape from the camp to a partisan-controlled area of Yugoslavia; being in the same town as Randolph Churchill during a British diplomatic mission to the partisans in Drvar in 1944; moving constantly with help from partisans; she and her parents escaping separately to Bari, Italy in 1944 and 1945; her life in the refugee camp at Bari and her marriage in 1946; and her parents' immigration to the United States in 1946 and her immigration to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral History

    William Zeck (born on March 3, 1915 in New York City, NY) and Belle Mayer Zeck (born on February 22, 1919 in Port Henry, NY) describe their families and childhoods; Belle's work as a New York lawyer and getting a job working for the General Counsel of the Treasury and working on the Foreign Funds Control Bureau; helping the bureau to enforce the Trading With the Enemy Act, which forbade communication with and transmissions to German occupied countries; working on a book analyzing Yugoslavia’s financial laws and investigating Germany’s external assets in the United States; Belle becoming an unofficial expert on German financial affairs at the Department of the Treasury and attending the commission for the Allied nations to outline the principles of law for prosecution and trial of Europe’s major war criminals; Belle meeting William when they were both preparing for the Nuremberg Trials; the deterioration of Belle's health as she prepared for the trials and having to go home; Belle returning to Nuremberg in 1947 for the start of the trial; going back to work for the Department of the Treasury to organize the reconstruction loans for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany; their friendship with Telford Taylor; and William’s return to the United States after six years.

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral History

    Michel Reynders, born on June 29, 1930, in Uccle, Belgium, describes his experiences as the nephew of Father Bruno Reynders, who ran a rescue network that saved about 350 Jews; growing up in a tight-knit Catholic family; helping Father Bruno in his efforts to hide Jewish children by coercing local families to take them into their homes; being unaware of antisemitism until the war; helping a young girl who had fled from Fascist Italy; the German occupation and the following food shortages, imposed curfews, censored textbooks, and Jewish transports out of Belgium; beginning to observe the restrictions placed on Jewish neighbors in 1942 and realizing that it was primarily Jews who were being taken for forced labor in Germany; his introduction to the resistance movement around the end of 1942 and serving as an escort and messenger for his uncle's rescue service; initially having no idea that the children his uncle asked him to escort were Jewish or that Father Bruno was secretly hiding them throughout Belgium; eventually understanding what his family was doing and that his uncle's actions were secret and extremely risky; his family's decision to hide several Jews; graduating from medical school in 1959 and immigrating to the United States in 1961; and being named as the Honorary Vice-Consul of Belgium.

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral History

    Marthe Hoffnung Cohn, born on April 13, 1920 in Metz, France, describes her childhood; being forced by the French government to move out of Metz along with all of its other rich families; moving to Poitiers, France, where, in June 1940, Jewish refugees started coming; attending a Red Cross nursing school in Poitiers; escaping with her family to the unoccupied side of France in the summer of 1942; the arrest of her sister Stephanie, who later died in Auschwitz; becoming involved in resistance and rescue operations, which enabled her to get her parents, grandmother, two sisters, and a cousin to the unoccupied zone of France; finishing nursing school in Marseilles; leaving Marseilles for Paris, where she lived with one of her sisters and found a job with a family that did not know she was Jewish; joining the French Army after the liberation of Paris; doing intelligence work for the Army because she could speak German; going undercover as a German nurse and receiving two Croix de Guerre medals, signed by Generals De Lattre and De Gaulle, for her work; going to Vietnam with the French Army after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1956.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral History

    Miriam Kabacznik Shulman, born on June 26, 1918, in Eišiškės, Poland (Lithuania), describes her childhood; her father’s death of typhus during World War I and living with her mother and two brothers; the Russian arrival in Eišiškės in September 1939 and the nationalization of her family’s tannery business; the Lithuanian takeover in 1940 followed by the German invasion on June 23, 1941; the German implementation of edicts that restricted and isolated Jews; the murder of most of the town’s Jews by an einsatzgruppen squad between September 25 and 26, 1941; the help their family’s friends and co-workers gave them throughout the war by hiding money and providing information and hiding places; hiding from the Germans from 1941 through 1944, when they were liberated by Russian soldiers; returning to their home in June 1944 to find an elderly couple living there; deciding to allow the couple to stay and inviting about twenty other Jews to live in their home; living through a Polish pogrom in 1944; fleeing to Vilnius the day after the pogrom and never returning to her home; spending the next years of her life in several displaced persons camps; meeting her future husband Norman in an Italian prison; and immigrating with Norman to the United States, where they had two children.

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral History

    Anna Szyller Palarczyk, born on July 21, 1918 in Kraków, Poland, describes her family; studying law in Kraków before World War II; working for the underground organization Armed Struggle Alliance; the arrest of everyone in her underground group in June 1942 and their deportation to Montelupich, where they faced harsh interrogations; her transport on August 17, 1942 to Auschwitz, where she was selected as a cleaning woman for Lauder Kommandant Otto Schmidt; walking to the Birkenau camp and being admitted to the sick-room in Birkenau for flu-like symptoms; her experiences in camp with having little food and seeing dead bodies lying around her; the women guards, including Margot Drexler (Dreschel); Katya Singer, who was from Mariková, Slovakia and was appointed as a Raportschreiberin (assistant to the guards) and her activities in the camp; making friends in the camp, which helped her to survive emotionally; the roll calls and selections she went through; the black market in Auschwitz; the Red Cross sending packages to Jewish women in the camps; concerts that were played sometimes in the camps; discovering the fates of her family and friends after the war; and seeing the Russian Army unite with the American Army during liberation.

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral History

    Steven Galezewski, born on May 11, 1923 in Inowroclaw, Poland, describes his childhood; joining the Polish underground in Mińsk Mazowiecki, Poland; recalling that, in 1940, the Nazis ordered all the Jews to wear an armband with the Star of David; the relocation of his community into the Mińsk ghetto at the end of 1940; the liquidation of the ghetto on August 21, 1942 and the survival of only 282 tradesmen who were still useful to the Nazi war effort; participating in underground activities, which included blowing up buildings or means of transportation; his resistance unit being sent under Soviet command; being stationed in Lublin, Poland; providing security for the public hanging of five SS officers in Majdanek in 1944; remaining in Soviet hands from March to July 1945; being perceived by the Soviet Union as a potentially subversive element supporting the Polish government-in-exile and then receiving a prison sentence from the Soviets; his transport to Siberia, where Polish guerrillas freed him; escaping into the American zone; joining the Polish Army in Italy but returning from Italy in 1947 and joining the British Army; immigrating to the United States in February 1951; and joining the US Army in 1956.

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral History

    George Havas, born in 1929 in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), describes the Hungarian takeover of his town after the Germans took the Sudetenland; his father no longer being allowed to practice medicine; the German takeover of Mukacheve in March 1944; his transport to Auschwitz on May 15, 1944; learning after the war that his father had died in the Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz; being transferred to Mauthausen and then to Ebensee, where he stayed for one year until liberation; working in the tunnels at Ebensee, where he was able to make contacts and bring back news; the death of his brother and several of his friends in Ebensee; his liberation on May 6, 1945 and leaving for Prague on June 7; and immigrating to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral History

    Maria Rosenbloom, born on December 26, 1918 in Kolomyia, Poland (Ukraine), describes her Orthodox Jewish family; learning the violin and playing it every weekend in the Hatikva before the war; feeling increased antisemitic sentiments and fleeing with her family into the Carpathian Mountains; attending a special gymnasium for girls in Poland; starting university in 1936 in Lvov, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine) and never being allowed to sit down because she was Jewish; vacationing with a boyfriend in the Carpathian Mountains until the Soviet invasion on September 1, 1939; getting married in 1940; the Soviets taking away her father’s store because of nationalization policies; opening a pharmacy with her husband in 1940 in a small town called Glen-na-novaria [phonetic] and being pestered by the Russians for condoms; the Nazi invasion on June 21, 1941 and registering with the troops; contracting pneumonia and being treated with leeches; moving into the ghetto after Passover in 1942; working in the ghetto soup kitchen; escaping from the ghetto on Christmas in 1942 and going to live with her friend Blancka; discovering the fates of her family during the war and finding a job in a German hospital; taking a train to Warsaw, Poland in April 1943 and hearing rumors about what was happening to the Jews; living in fear that she would be caught because of her prominent Jewish features; joining the resistance movement; the chaos of the Warsaw uprising in 1944; having to join a Hitler parade in 1944 in an attempt to fit in; taking a train to Heidelberg, Germany hoping to reunite with Blancka; the German surrender of Heidelberg to the Americans and deciding to learn English; working for the US Army and then the Joint Distribution Committee; immigrating to the United States in September 1947; and becoming a social worker.

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