Overview
- Interview Summary
- Salvator Moshe, born in 1915 in Salonika (Thessalonike), Greece, discusses his family’s background; his four sisters; his childhood; his extended family; growing up Orthodox; his father, who was a shoemaker; living in France for a brief time after school; his work before the war; antisemitism in Greece in the 1930s; the beginning of the war for Greece; the Italian occupation; fighting in Albania against the Italians; the German occupation of Greece; the establishment of a ghetto in Salonika; the deportations to Auschwitz; the train to Auschwitz and the process of selection, shaving, disinfection, and tattooing; never seeing any of his family again after the selection; being befriended by the head of the bunker and not having to work outside; life in Auschwitz; a Polish zookeeper who saved his life by telling him to go on a transport to Warsaw; clearing debris in the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto; conditions during this 10-month period; a man who saved his life after he got typhoid; being marched for several days to Dachau concentration camp; his work making shoes; being sent to a very primitive Waldlager where he felled trees; refusing to take the role of Kapo; being sent in 1945 on a train towards Tyrol, Austria and being liberated on the way by American troops in Seeshaupt, Germany; finding his brother in law alive in Feldafing, Germany; being involved in the black market in Waldheim; immigrating to the United States in 1949 on the SS Langfried; settling in Milwaukee, WI; receiving help from the HIAS and the Jewish Family Service; working in the leather industry; meeting his wife Thelma Seiden and getting married in 1950; his children; his career; and his thoughts on the Holocaust.
- Interviewee
- Salvator Moshe
- Interviewer
- Sara Leuchter
- Date
-
interview:
1980 November-1981 February
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Wisconsin Historical Society
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
11 digital files : MP3.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Altruism. Antisemitism--Greece. Black market--Germany. Black market--Greece. Concentration camp inmates--Medical care--Poland. Concentration camp inmates--Selection process. Death march survivors. Death marches. Forced labor. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish ghettos--Greece--Thessalonike. Jewish soldiers--Greece. Jews--Greece--Thessalonike. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Greece. Jews--Persecutions--Greece. Jews--Social life and customs. Leather industry and trade. Men--Personal narratives. Typhoid fever. World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Albania. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Greece. World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Jewish.
- Geographic Name
- Albania. Dachau (Germany) Feldafing (Germany) Greece--History--Occupation, 1941-1944. Milwaukee (Wis.) Oświęcim (Poland) Seeshaupt (Germany) Thessalonike (Greece) United States--Emigration and immigration. Warsaw (Poland)
- Personal Name
- Moshe, Salvator, 1915-1993.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Jonathan Nelson, on behalf of the Wisconsin Historical Society, donated the interview with Salvator Moshe to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in September 2019.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 10:04:58
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn709397
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