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Oral history interview with Josiane Traum

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2020.204.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.1086

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    Oral history interview with Josiane Traum
    Transcript
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mrs. Josiane Traum on Wednesday August 26,
    2020.
    Thank you very, very much, Mrs. Traum
    for agreeing to speak with us.
    And I'm going to start our interview
    from the very beginning.
    And we'll develop and build on the story
    from the first basic questions.
    So the very first one that I'd ask
    is can you tell me the date of your birth?
    Of course, it's March 21, 1939.
    OK.
    And where were you born?
    In Brussels, Belgium.
    OK.
    And what was your name at birth?
    My name at birth was Josiane Aizenberg.
    Josiane Aizenberg.
    OK.
    Yes.
    Can you tell me, do you have any brothers and sisters?
    I do not.
    OK.
    So you were an only child.
    Yes.
    And tell me the names of your parents.
    My my mother's name is Fanny Aizenberg.
    How do I spell her first name?
    It's actually her real name from Poland is Fajga
    But she was called Fanny when we came to the United States.
    And that's F-A-N-N-Y.
    OK.
    And your father's first name.
    My father's first name was Jacques Aizenberg.
    And was your father from Poland or was he from Belgium?
    Yes.
    No.
    Both my parents were born in Poland
    and came with their families as children to Belgium.
    So do you know approximately what year this might have
    been that they left Poland?
    Let me see, my mother was born in 1916.
    She was, I think, six years old.
    OK, so this was in the '20s.
    Early 20s.
    In the '20s, yes.
    So they actually grew up in Belgium, went to school there.
    OK.
    OK.
    So that would explain why your father's name
    is Jacques, a French first name rather than
    a Polish version of it.
    Right.
    Exactly.
    Do you know what his name was in Poland?
    I do not.
    I have, not a certificate, but a booklet of when they registered
    their marriage and my birth.
    It's actually written on there.
    So let me find it.
    And I can actually read it to you.
    Sure.
    If I can find it.
    And if you can't, it's OK.
    OK, but there is a difference in spelling.
    I think your--
    OK.
    I'm sorry.
    That's OK.
    Not to worry.
    Not to worry.
    OK, while we're talking, I can actually
    walk around and look for it.
    I know I have it.
    That's the way things are.
    At the moment when you think of them and you
    think they're right at hand--
    I know.
    Yes.
    But, you know, Josiane, we can--
    Yeah--
    We can come back to that.
    OK.
    OK?
    OK.
    It was just a curiosity on my part,
    because you did know that your mother was Fajga originally.
    And I thought maybe you'd have the same at your fingertips
    type of knowledge about your dad.
    What was your mother's maiden name?
    Her name was Orenbuch.
    Orenbuch.
    OK.
    Yes.
    And--
    O-R-E--
    Yes.
    Go ahead.
    How do you spell it?
    O-R-E-N-B-U-C-H.
    OK.
    And do you know what part of Poland they came from?
    Yes, my mother came from the Lodz.
    OK.
    And my father came from Radom.
    Oh, Radom.
    OK.
    Yes.
    And they met in Belgium.
    Of course, because they were children when they left Poland.
    OK.
    And what year did they marry?
    Do you know?
    Um, actually, I just found the certificate.
    Oh, OK, wonderful.
    Perfect.
    Hold on.
    OK, my father's, actually his Polish name was--
    it looks like I-S-E-K. Isek.
    Isek.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    OK.
    So it was spelled I-S-E-K. But we would know it is I-S-A-A-C
    or something like that.
    Something like that.
    And--
    [PHONE RINGING]
    We can pause if you want to answer that.
    No, it's OK.
    It's a call from Israel.
    OK.
    So I'll call them back.
    I'm seeing here this is actually--
    it's one of these registrations for marriage
    and a birth of a child actually in French.
    It's a certificate.
    It says from my father born in Radom.
    [FRENCH] Polonais, you know, Polish.
    He was born January 23, 1911.
    OK.
    And then it says he's the son of--
    it mentions his parents' names.
    And let me see if it says when they got married.
    Actually, it doesn't say when they got married.
    I'm sorry.
    That's OK.
    You know--
    That's OK.
    I just found this booklet, by the way, the other day.
    Oh, you hadn't known of it before?
    No, I didn't know of it.
    And I needed--
    I don't have a birth certificate because the war broke out
    a few months after I was born.
    And I don't have any documents or papers.
    So I went to the Belgium embassy to try and get
    a birth certificate.
    And they're actually sending away for it for me in Belgium.
    Oh, wow.
    Yeah, which is really something.
    I mean, you know, I don't have any kind of notification.
    It's interesting-- I mean, how would you get citizenship
    without that?
    I know.
    I think I got it on behalf of my parents.
    Ah, OK.
    Because when we came here, I was 10 years old.
    And I think I waited-- you have to wait five years in order
    to become a citizen.
    And I became really under my parents.
    OK, OK.
    So both your parents had some sort of documentation.
    And because you were a minor, that
    sufficed for you at that time.
    I believe so.
    OK.
    I'm trying to see if there's anything about their marriage.
    It just actually tells--
    this booklet records the fact that I was born in 1939.
    And that really doesn't talk about their marriage.
    OK, so what kind of a book is it?
    It's called actually in French--
    let me see-- [FRENCH] carnet de livret.
    It's in French.
    It's a little notebook.
    I guess when you go and register for marriage
    for recording your children, they
    give you this little booklet.
    So is it sort of like an official document
    from the Belgian authorities?
    Yes.
    Yes, it has the Belgian consulate, or the office--
    it's in Flemish also, which I can't read.
    You know Belgium is bilingual.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    So once I left, I didn't speak Flemish anymore.
    Yeah, it doesn't-- it's just civil--
    and gives you the commune or the suburb where I lived.
    What was it?
    Anderlecht
    And that's a part of--
    A-N--
    OK, please spell it.
    It's [INAUDIBLE]
    Excuse me--
    It's a suburb.
    It's a suburb of Brussels.
    OK.
    And how do you spell it?
    A-N-D-E-R-L-E-C-H-T.
    Anderlecht.
    Anderlecht.
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    OK.
    But I was actually born in another suburb
    part of Anderlecht, which was is Ixelles.
    Uh, huh.
    And how is that spelled?
    I-X-E-L-L-E-S.
    I see.
    And were you born at home or were you born in a hospital?
    In a hospital.
    In a hospital.
    In a hospital, yes.
    The hospital, the name of it, is by a famous English nurse.
    The name of the hospital was Edith Cavell, which is French.
    But it's Edith Cavell--
    Oh, yeah--
    She was a very famous--
    Oh, yeah.
    You've heard of it?
    I've heard of her.
    I don't-- I mean it's very faint.
    It's not like Florence Nightingale where you
    know immediately who she was.
    But her name, Edith Cavell, has crossed--
    I've heard of it before.
    Yes.
    OK.
    So that was the hospital you were born in.
    OK.
    Right.
    So let's go back now to less sort
    of factual demographic questions.
    OK.
    Tell me, do you have any first memories that you can recall?
    Well, you know, I have recollections of or images,
    I should say, of my grandmother.
    Mother's mother or father's mother?
    Maternal.
    OK.
    I was-- my paternal grandparents actually
    died before I was born.
    OK.
    And I was actually very close to my maternal grandmother.
    Do you recall her name?
    Yes.
    Rivka Leah.
    Can you spell that for me?
    Well, Rivka would be, let's see, in English--
    Oh, Rivka.
    Excuse me, I am doing this because this
    because sometimes in an audio, the letters don't sound.
    So it would be R like--
    Of course--
    Rachel, I-V-K-A.
    K-A?
    V-K-- yes.
    And Leah.
    And Leah, OK.
    And Orenbuch would have been her name, yes?
    No.
    It wasn't.
    It was Aspis.
    How do I spell that?
    Are you talking about my maternal grandmother?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Her maiden name was Aspis, A-S-P-I-S.
    And she married my grandfather, who was Orenbuch.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    Was your maternal grandfather alive when you were born?
    Yes.
    And what would have his first name been?
    You know, I have it here because it says my mother is born to--
    OK.
    His name was-- my grandfather's name was Benjamin Orenbuch.
    OK.
    And Rivka-- actually, I was wrong.
    It says Saja, which is [? salino ?] Rivka Saja nee
    Aspis.
    So it's not Leah?
    No, I'm very sorry.
    I thought it was.
    Not a problem.
    Not a problem.
    Yeah.
    So is there a second name be besides Rivka?
    Rivka Saja.
    But you know it's spelled in Flemish or in French,
    which is S-A-J-A.
    S-A-J-A, interesting.
    Yes.
    I know.
    And Rivka is R-Y-W-K-A.
    Ah, well, the W sometimes in some languages
    was pronounced as a V. Right.
    Yeah.
    There are so many spellings sometimes for the same names.
    It makes it hard for genealogists or people
    to try and determine whether it's actually the same person
    that one is talking about.
    But good, we have we have both your maternal grandmother
    and grandfather down as what their names were.
    And so you say you have some images in your mind
    of your grandmother.
    My grandmother, because we lived with them.
    OK.
    Once the war started, we actually
    lived with my maternal grandparents in an apartment.
    In Brussels.
    In Brussels.
    And your father, did he--
    before the war starts, just when you were born,
    it's a half a year before because the war
    starts on September 1 and you were born March 21.
    So we're talking about five or six months.
    But before then, when life is still normal,
    how did he make a living?
    He actually-- my parents owned an apartment building
    with four floors, an apartment on each floor.
    There weren't like many apartments in one floor.
    There was a floor for each apartment.
    And it was four floors.
    And on the bottom, on the street level, was a tailor shop.
    My dad was a tailor.
    And he sold material, bolts.
    And people would come in and order--
    it wasn't like today where you buy anything ready made.
    People who would come in choose a bolt of material
    that they wanted for a suit.
    And he would have several fittings and make a pattern
    and actually make a suit.
    So it was custom.
    What we call custom.
    Yes, it was.
    In those days, it was.
    Yeah.
    So in the British term, which always sounds so very
    fancy to me, was bespoke.
    That kind--
    Oh, I've never heard that.
    Uh, huh, bespoke tailoring.
    Yeah.
    So did you have any memories watching him do this or not?
    I didn't.
    He left to Belgium when I was 13 months old.
    Oh.
    All right, so let's talk a little bit--
    I mean, these early years that we're talking about, of course,
    you're an infant.
    And children don't have memories on their first couple of years.
    Right.
    For the most part.
    I have not heard of somebody who would have.
    It would have been things that people tell you later.
    Right.
    In fact, a lot of my memory or images
    are really what my mom told me, because what you say--
    I mean, I was so young.
    And is there a reason why they left
    this apartment building and the tailor shop
    to move in with your maternal grandparents?
    I think it was because of the Germans
    having come in and taken over.
    And I think--
    I'm sure it was for economic reasons
    and just being together, family support.
    OK.
    Now, did your mother and father have brothers and sisters?
    My mother had two sisters born also in Belgium.
    OK.
    And my father had several siblings.
    I only know of--
    I knew one.
    And the other one was actually deported and murdered.
    I see.
    He also a sibling who came to the United States
    prior to the war.
    OK, so he had a sibling that came to the US.
    He had another--
    It was a woman.
    Yes.
    And another brother who came with us when
    we moved to the United States.
    So there's one who came before the war to the US.
    Yes.
    A woman.
    Yeah.
    And that was the sister of his.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And do you know her name?
    Yes, Pearl.
    Beryl.
    Pearl, P-E-A-R-L. Pearl, like a Pearl.
    Oh, Pearl.
    OK.
    I say Pearl because that's what she was called.
    OK.
    And my father had another brother who came actually
    to the United States, I believe, in the early '30s and settled
    in New York.
    OK.
    Did you know him?
    Yes, after we came to the United States I met him.
    And what was his first name?
    Wolf.
    W-O-L-F?
    Yes.
    OK.
    And so as you say, several siblings and--
    Yes--
    Two that we've talked right now who were in the US
    before the War.
    Yes.
    One who accompanied you with your parents
    when you came to the United States after the war.
    Right, with his family.
    How do I spell that?
    His family.
    With his wife and two children.
    With his wife and two children, excuse me.
    And so what was his first name?
    His first name was Ben.
    Ben?
    Ben.
    Like his father?
    No, like excuse me, I got confused, never mind.
    It was Benjamin then?
    I don't you know--
    I'm not really sure.
    I only know him as Uncle Ben.
    OK.
    OK.
    And then there was the relative who was deported and murdered.
    With his family.
    This is your father's family you're saying, yes?
    My father's brother, the wife, and two children.
    He had a boy and a girl.
    They were all deported to Auschwitz.
    OK.
    And that brother's name was what?
    Reuven.
    Oh, that would be like R-E-U-V-E-N?
    Yes.
    OK.
    OK.
    So we've got four siblings down right now.
    Right.
    Do you know if there were any more?
    There were, and I think they died when they were children.
    OK.
    OK.
    That also was very common at that time.
    Of course.
    People had many children and not many children survived.
    And your mother, what are the names of her two sisters?
    Rose.
    And the other one is Terez.
    And they both survived the war or did they not?
    They did.
    They both survived the war.
    OK.
    OK.
    I do not recall from my own knowledge of history
    when Nazi Germany marched into Belgium.
    But--
    May 10, 1940.
    May 10, 1940.
    So at that point, you are about 13, 14 months old.
    Yes.
    Is this around the time--
    did you say that your father left when you were 13 months?
    Yes.
    My parents were listening to the radio.
    And apparently the BBC was asking for volunteers for men
    to come and volunteer in England.
    But my father decided to go with his brother, his brother Ben.
    I see.
    They both went together.
    And your mother then was staying with her own parents and you.
    In our apartment, in the attic apartment, yes.
    In that same house that your parents owned?
    Yes.
    I see.
    So let me get this straight.
    They owned an apartment-- they owned a building.
    And on the bottom floor--
    hello?
    With a shop.
    Yes, yes, with a shop.
    With a shop.
    On the bottom floor was a tailor shop, which your father used.
    It was his shop.
    Yeah.
    And was it then--
    that building was owned by your mother and your father
    or your mother's parents?
    No, no, but my mom and dad, by my parents.
    And when he left for Britain 13 months later after your birth,
    your mother stayed in that building,
    but in the attic apartment.
    However, her parents--
    Yes.
    So it was really your grandparents
    joined your parents rather than your parents went to join them.
    Exactly.
    We lived in the apartment building.
    Behind the shop was one apartment also.
    And we used to live in that bottom apartment.
    But once the Germans came-- and I don't quite know the reason--
    once the Germans invaded, we all, myself, my mom,
    and my maternal grandparents, moved to the attic apartment.
    OK.
    OK.
    And when I asked you about first memories,
    you said you had some images of your grandmother Rivka.
    Yes.
    Can you describe those to me?
    Um--
    Are you OK?
    Hold on.
    Of course.
    You know, it's hard to know--
    I have a picture of my grandmother holding me.
    I see.
    And so, you know, whether they're images
    or it's because I look at the photographs, but I remember her
    and just holding me.
    But I was very close to her.
    And what happened with your grandmother Rivka?
    She was deported with my mother.
    I see.
    And did she survive?
    No.
    She was murdered immediately.
    And they were deported to where?
    Auschwitz.
    Actually, before going to Auschwitz,
    they were at what they would call like a retention camp.
    They stayed there about week or two
    till they had enough people, I guess, to fill a train.
    Do you know what name of that detention camp?
    I do.
    And it just slipped my mind.
    There's a whole museum there, because they contacted me.
    They wanted some material.
    Is it in Belgium or is it in the Netherlands?
    In Belgium.
    It's in Belgium.
    I'll probably think of the name before the end.
    That's OK.
    It'll come to me.
    But she was there for about a week or two.
    And then they put them on trains.
    Well, she could have been still a young woman
    when this all happened.
    She was.
    Oh, she was.
    She was in her 20s.
    You're talking about your mother.
    My mother.
    Yeah.
    Oh, I'm sorry, my grandmother.
    Yeah.
    My grandmother was very young.
    Yeah, I could-- I mean, she could have been in her 40s--
    She could been in her 50s.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    But that was old enough to not be--
    well, the odds of surviving we're much lower.
    Well, also, when you first got to Auschwitz
    they had a selection because they had a labor camp there.
    And I think they felt you were too old or not
    able to do any labor, you were useless for them.
    Yes.
    And so you were killed immediately.
    My mom I think survived because she was young.
    Did your mother ever tell you, because they're
    deported together, was your grandfather Benjamin also--
    No--
    Deported together with them?
    No, he was deported, I think, several months before.
    I see.
    OK.
    OK.
    And I take it he did not survive.
    No.
    OK.
    And what year were they deported?
    They were deported in 1942.
    Deportations in Belgium, even though the Germans were there
    in 1940, deportations began in '42.
    OK.
    So for the first, shall we say, a year and a half,
    two years, if they march in on May 10, 1940,
    your father leaves--
    does he leave before that occupation, by the way?
    Yes.
    He left at the same time as Dunkirk.
    OK.
    It was a whole British--
    or, actually, well, they all left and went back to England.
    And my dad although he wasn't part of the Dunkirk leaving,
    he was kind of one of the boats that went at that same time.
    OK.
    So it wasn't-- was he evacuated together with some
    of the soldiers, or was it that a similar type of boat?
    No, I think, it was a similar type of boat.
    But he and his brother went at the same time on the same boat
    and got to England.
    And my mom actually never knew whether he ever made it or not.
    Oh, wow.
    Because once the war started, there was no contact.
    Of course.
    Of course.
    So once the occupation, once Germans marched in,
    there was no ability to find out for where did he land
    or if he survived.
    Right.
    OK.
    Right.
    But I'm not very clear, Josiane, was it
    that they left at the same time, or did they actually
    go to Dunkirk and were evacuated together with those soldiers?
    Do you know this?
    No, I do not.
    I don't believe they were evacuated with the soldiers.
    It just happened to be, I think, at the same period of time,
    or very close.
    OK.
    OK.
    I don't know the details from my dad.
    OK.
    So May 1940 is a pivotal month, a pivotal time
    in that he leaves.
    And your mother and you and your maternal grandparents
    stay together in Brussels in an attic apartment.
    Yes.
    And for the first year and a half or so,
    you were able to live there.
    Was it in hiding or was it openly?
    Well, it wasn't hiding, but we didn't really
    wander the streets, you know.
    We really kept very much to ourselves.
    So the Germans, already as I mentioned, invaded.
    And they were walking the streets.
    In fact, I have some pictures in my album
    of there's actually a Nazi walking behind us
    in the street.
    I see.
    I was walking with my mom and grandma.
    And there's a Nazi right behind us.
    OK.
    And somebody takes that picture.
    You know, in Europe, they have a lot of street photographers.
    Ah, OK.
    OK.
    They do.
    Because that picture was taken by a photographer
    on the street.
    And you're about how old, two years old?
    It's something like that.
    OK.
    OK.
    So aside from remembering your grandmother
    and having that bolstered by seeing a photograph where she's
    holding you, do you have any memories of this time
    that you can recall now?
    Very little.
    OK.
    Really very, very little.
    OK.
    Do you have memories of your mother?
    I do, but also very, very little.
    And what happened-- did you stay together?
    My next question would be is, what are your next memories?
    My next memory is of actually when
    I was picked up by two women and placed in hiding.
    And do you know when this occurred?
    Yeah, it occurred in 1942.
    All right.
    Just prior to my mom's deportation.
    My mom was actually--
    she joined the Underground.
    And you know, she was like what they call a courier.
    She would deliver messages of meetings and different things.
    And she was also hiding Jews in her attic apartment.
    Together with the family?
    Yes.
    Jews who had fled other countries
    trying to find a safer place.
    So she would let them stay over at our house, at the apartment,
    for a night or two, I guess, till they found safer places.
    And because of that, she was able to contact the Underground
    and get two people to come and pick me up
    to put me into hiding.
    And you remember that?
    I remember not the fact that she was in the underground
    or anything, but I remember these two women
    coming to pick me up.
    And what makes it memorable?
    Well, the fact that these two women
    who I had no idea who they were and total strangers who
    took me--
    Hello?
    Hello?
    Yeah, I lost you for a second.
    Oh, are you OK?
    Yeah, I'm fine.
    I'm fine.
    Now I can hear again.
    What was I saying?
    I was saying, what made it memorable that this
    stays in your mind?
    Right.
    Well, the fact that I didn't want to go with them.
    I see.
    I didn't know who they were.
    And they just came to pick me up.
    And they took me to Bruges, which
    is a city in Belgium full convents.
    And they actually they took me to a convent.
    I see.
    A Catholic convent?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Full of nuns.
    And what do you remember from that?
    Well, I remember there were a lot of children there.
    And apparently, it was like-- it was an orphanage,
    not necessarily for children who didn't have parents.
    But, you know, food was rationed.
    There was very little to be gotten.
    So I think parents place their children in an orphanage
    or in a convent thinking that there might be a little bit
    better chance of getting food.
    Was that true?
    Well, somehow I think perhaps there
    was a little bit more food in the convent,
    because there were a lot of children there
    and somehow they got food.
    I'm not really sure.
    You know, I don't remember food at all.
    I was a pretty finicky eater to begin with.
    So--
    Well, do you remember going hungry?
    I guess that was what my question was, is not
    was there enough food.
    As a two-year-old, how would you know?
    But do know if you were hungry?
    You know, I don't remember being hungry.
    OK.
    And, you know, yet I'm sure I must have been.
    But I don't remember that.
    What I do remember mostly playing in the courtyard
    with all the kids.
    And we slept.
    It was more like dorm style.
    All the kids were like a big dormitory.
    And the nuns would sleep with us, I mean in the same room.
    And what shocked me more than anything else was at nighttime
    when we went to sleep, the nuns--
    by the way, these nuns in Bruges were
    very much like The Sound of Music very stiff, dressed
    very, very stiff.
    And I remember them at night taking off their head gear.
    And they were bald underneath.
    And that really gave me the heebie jeebies.
    You know, Josiane, I was raised Catholic.
    And I suppose in some ways I still am.
    And I was old enough to remember the nuns with the headgear.
    And I was always curious what was underneath there, always.
    And you have answered that question for me.
    You know, I think because it was so tight.
    and so hot.
    It could be that.
    I mean, who knows?
    But at any rate, this is what you see.
    They take off the head.
    And you see that there's no hair there.
    That's right.
    They're just bald women.
    It was scary.
    Yeah.
    Were the other children about your age
    or where there older or--
    There was a variety.
    I think there were some that were younger.
    And there were a few that were a little bit older.
    OK.
    Was there anybody of an adult who
    you feel you were able to connect with,
    who maybe took particular interest or care for you?
    Because you're so small, you know--
    No.
    But I only stayed in the convent for six months.
    I see.
    Apparently, the Germans came to the convent
    and told the nuns they were going
    to pick up the Jewish children.
    I didn't know this, but after the war
    I found out there were three Jewish children being
    hidden there.
    The others were all Christian kids.
    Well, if they knew that, I you think about it,
    if they knew that, they weren't very well hidden
    if the occupying authorities come and tell the nuns
    they're aware that they are aware that there
    are Jewish children in that convent.
    Right.
    I'm not sure they knew how many or from where.
    But it's interesting because the Germans really
    knew the demographics of who was where,
    as far as Jews are concerned.
    Jews had to register at their synagogues and community
    centers.
    So the demographics were kind of known to the Germans.
    But anyhow, they told the convent,
    you know, we're coming to get the Jewish children.
    And the nuns-- and I've heard this happened
    a few times from stories and essays
    I've read that the nuns actually said, well, the kids aren't
    ready yet, why don't you come back tomorrow
    and we'll have them all ready for you
    with their clothes and everything.
    And what happened, night fell and the nuns
    smuggled the Jewish kids out.
    Do you remember this smuggling?
    No.
    OK.
    No.
    OK.
    They actually took us all back to Brussels.
    Bruges is about an hour or two away from Brussels.
    So they took us-- you know, I don't even remember how they
    took us, whether it was by car.
    I have no idea.
    But they took the Jewish kids and placed them
    in Catholic homes.
    And I was placed with a family, a Christian Catholic family,
    a mother, a father, and a little girl my age.
    And I stayed actually there for the entire duration of the war,
    till 1944 when Belgium was liberated.
    Wow.
    So do you have your memories then of this family?
    I do.
    I do remember them.
    There were-- the man was also in the Underground.
    And they would often take him out
    in the evening for interrogation.
    You remember seeing that?
    I remember him coming back in the morning.
    And, you know, obviously, he had been beaten.
    But they never told on me.
    But I think he was being interrogated
    for some of the other stuff he was involved with,
    which I have no idea what that was.
    But the little girl and I just pretty much played.
    Were on our own.
    Do you know the name of the family?
    Yes, their last name is Debrackelaer.
    How do I spell that?
    You know, I have it in one of my--
    oh, I do have it.
    I got a certificate from Belgium where they told me where I was.
    So I'll get it right here.
    [INAUDIBLE] Good job, Jonathan.
    OK.
    OK.
    The first-- do you want the name of the convent?
    Yes, please, I would.
    Well, it's in French, Les Seours de Spermalli,
    the Sisters of Spermalli, Orphanage of Ste.
    Croix a Bruges.
    It's a Ste.
    Croix Orphanage.
    Saint, S-T-E, then C-R-O-I-X.
    OK.
    And Bruges is B-R-U-G-E-S.
    OK.
    So it was Sisters of Ste.
    Croix de Bruges.
    Yes.
    The Sisters Spermalli
    How do I spell that?
    S-P-E-R-M-A-L-L-I.
    Spermalli, I've never heard of that.
    OK.
    Sisters of Spermalli in Ste.
    Croix, Bruges, OK.
    Yes.
    Hopefully now, which is an orphanage.
    OK.
    And the family in Brussels was Debrackelaer.
    OK.
    You know my next question is, how do I spell that?
    What?
    What's that?
    How do you spell that?
    Yeah.
    It's a Flemish name.
    OK.
    D-E-B-R-A-C-K-E-L-A-E-R.
    Oh, yeah, Debrackelaer.
    I see that.
    Debrackelaer.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And so does that mean that you started speaking Flemish?
    Yes.
    Would that have been--
    Well, in school--
    First language?
    Well, not really, because I never spoke at home.
    It's required in school.
    You learn both languages.
    So I really didn't start Flemish till I
    went to school after the war.
    OK.
    Now, let's backtrack just for a second
    when it comes to languages.
    When you were born and with your mother, father,
    and grandparents, what was the language they all
    spoke with one another?
    Yiddish.
    Yiddish.
    Still in Belgium--
    Yes--
    It was Yiddish.
    So the first language you hear is Yiddish?
    Right, even though I didn't speak,
    I think my first language really was French.
    OK, so that means that they spoke French as well?
    Yes.
    OK.
    OK.
    And do you know the first names of anybody
    from the Debrackelaer family?
    You know something, I do not.
    And I can't believe that I have no recollection.
    It's in a way it's like blanked out.
    Yeah.
    I take it then after the war, you
    didn't have contact with them again.
    My parents did and I did.
    They were in touch with them till we came to the States.
    What do you remember from the time that you were there?
    Can you describe what the house looked like or the apartment
    or any of the surroundings?
    I remember playing with the little girl a lot.
    And-- oh, my God, my cell phone has alarm.
    Can you hear it?
    Excuse me.
    My cell phone has an alarm.
    Oh.
    That's OK.
    I don't know how to stop it.
    It's because I need medication.
    OK.
    Then you know something, Josiane, maybe we
    pause and hang up and you take your medication.
    And then I'll call you back in two minutes?
    How does that sound?
    It only takes--
    OK, I'll be done in two minutes.
    OK.
    Good.
    I'll talk to you in two minutes, OK?
    OK.
    All right.
    Thank you.
    All right.
    Bye bye.
    Bye.
    Bye.
    So here we go.
    We got interrupted a little bit, but now we're back on.
    And I believe we were talking about your Flemish family
    that you stayed with for a few years.
    Do you now know about what time, what month or year
    it was that you came to them after being
    in the convent for half a year?
    Yes.
    I have it here on this front page that the Belgium
    government sent me.
    OK.
    And it's-- so let me see.
    It doesn't say from beginning to end.
    It says the entire time that I was in hiding.
    So it doesn't-- no, it doesn't say the length of time,
    which surprises me.
    What does it say?
    Well, it's in French.
    OK.
    Do you want me to read it to you?
    Do you understand French?
    I don't, but read it through because somebody
    who will be listening to this in the future, maybe they do.
    OK.
    It's says [SPEAKING FRENCH].
    This is an original copy of a file from Hidden Children.
    And the result is Madame Aizenberg, Josiane, that's me.
    Then it gives my date of birth, 21st [FRENCH] mars 1939
    [FRENCH] à Ixelles, was hidden, [FRENCH] pendant--
    was hidden during the war under the false name of Van Berg.
    They changed my name and gave me new papers
    with a name that is more Germanic, Van Berg, which is
    more Dutch really than Jewish.
    And Van Berg, Josiane [FRENCH] numéro--
    it then gives me the number of the code.
    [FRENCH]---- here they give the addresses where I was.
    Les Seours Spermalli, those are the nuns,
    [? Orphelinat ?] de Saint Croix à Bruges.
    Then I was with Debrackelaer, [FRENCH]
    dix-sept Rue de Devoir, Anderlecht,
    which is their address.
    And then at the end of the war when Belgium was liberated,
    I went to my mom's sister.
    She found me and picked me up.
    And then I was--
    it's part of-- but it's not the end of the war yet.
    It's Madame Paciorkowski, which is my mom's sister.
    And was that Rose or Terese?
    Terese.
    Terese?
    And how do I spell her last name?
    Oh.
    OK.
    P-A-C-I-O-R-K-O-W-S-K-I.
    And let me repeat that.
    P, like Peter, A, C like circus, I, O, R like Richard,
    K like Karen, O, W like William, S like Sam, K like Karen, I.
    Correct.
    OK.
    OK.
    So your aunts-- your aunt [? Teresa, ?] how did
    she know where to find you?
    My mom's two sisters were also in hiding through the church.
    And as soon as Belgium was liberated,
    it was like a network.
    If you were-- through the underground,
    if you were hidden, you could find out where people were.
    And that's how people really found each other.
    So my aunt actually went--
    I don't know how she found me, but she
    went looking for me, probably went to the underground
    and got lists and found out where I was and actually came
    to pick me up.
    Do you remember that?
    I do.
    And what was that like?
    Oh.
    Pretty happy.
    Really?
    So did you remember her from before, or--
    I don't think so because I was only two or three.
    We were taken into hiding.
    So I don't-- it's all so vague.
    It's like pictures.
    So, I-- yeah.
    Well, what I'm thinking of is a little girl who--
    you have disruptions in your early life.
    Whether it's conscious or not, when you're 13 years old,
    your father disappears.
    Whether you have memories of him or not, but he was there.
    And then he's gone.
    13 months old.
    13 months old.
    Yes.
    Excuse me.
    Yes.
    13 months old.
    And then in '42 before your mother is deported,
    these two strange ladies come to take you,
    and you don't want to go.
    Right.
    But they're your--
    And then you're in a place for half a year.
    And that becomes too dangerous.
    And then you're with a family.
    And did you get attached enough to that family
    so that when your aunt comes, here's another disruption?
    Yeah.
    That's very, very interesting because, yeah, I
    was with the family, the Debrackelaer--
    they hid me.
    They fed me.
    They protected me.
    But I strongly felt that I wasn't part of the unit.
    I do remember just visually seeing the three of them
    huddled together.
    And I would be on the floor playing by myself.
    A child's recollections is not always accurate or valid.
    So I'm not really 100% sure.
    I mean, they're inner feelings that I had.
    So I think when I left, when my aunt came, Terese,
    to pick me up, I think I was just so happy to go.
    And I went to her place.
    She was married, had three boys just who were a little bit
    older than me.
    And they treated me like their little mascot,
    which was wonderful.
    I mean, I really felt I was with family.
    Well, you bring up something that is, I think,
    central in that little children perceive the world
    through the emotional prism.
    You know?
    Yeah.
    This is how you interact is entirely through an emotion.
    And it sounds like you're--
    it sounds like there's a conflict when
    it comes to the family in that your brain says,
    they did all these things that were good.
    You don't recall any kind of abuse.
    But you also felt like you didn't belong.
    Right.
    So is this something that you were ever able to reconcile,
    or it's just, that's what it was?
    No.
    I did reconcile because I mean, I
    think I understand what was happening inside me.
    Also in the career I chose, working with children,
    social work and working with abused children
    I think probably had an impact on my early years.
    Oh, wow.
    Oh, wow.
    Did you feel like that has been--
    when you say abused children, does that
    mean that there is a certain kind of connection
    that you can feel with abused children
    where there's something about that experience
    that they go through that speaks to you?
    Well, I think-- my feeling is--
    I mean, the reason I chose this work--
    I work with Child Protective Services.
    And I think it's mainly wanting to protect children,
    making sure they're safe.
    I think that's always been a very strong area
    in wanting to do that.
    But maybe it has a lot to do with my early years.
    Do you remember-- it's hard to ask now
    because I'm asking you questions about a time when
    you were so little.
    Yeah.
    And now you have an adult understanding
    of what was going on.
    Right.
    My question is though, do you remember being afraid?
    You know, not being afraid of the family
    or what they would do to me.
    I mean, they--
    I wasn't harmed or hurt in any way.
    There were moments when I did have fear.
    Those were different experiences that I went through with my mom
    being on a bus and a German coming up and looking
    at papers, the documents you were carrying.
    I strongly feel that the first three years of a child's
    development are so important.
    Absolutely.
    And giving the child the feeling of love and fear.
    And I guess I really think that my first three years I think
    were very, very nurturing.
    And I think that kind of stood me and protected me.
    I think my closeness to my mom and my grandmother really
    made a difference in helping me and making
    me stronger as a child.
    So those first-- yeah, I understand what you're saying.
    And I certainly share it.
    I'm a mother myself.
    And I remember very much caring about those first three years.
    I mean, I cared about all of the years.
    But the first three were the ones
    where you think the child needs foundation.
    She needs a foundation of safety.
    More than that, she needs also to feel
    like she belongs, like she's loved, that she's cared for,
    all of those things.
    Yes.
    But you got that from what you're
    describing from your mother and your grandmother.
    Yes.
    But it sounds like there were also
    moments of threat to this like when you're on a bus with her,
    and there's inspection of the papers.
    Some part of that fear must have come through.
    Well, that's interesting.
    I think I was so young that I didn't really understand.
    But I was with my mom on a bus.
    We went on an outing.
    That's before I was put into hiding.
    And this German, this Nazi in uniform
    came on and wanted everybody's papers.
    And he was going up and down the aisle.
    And my mom took me to the last row to sit down.
    And we were waiting.
    My mother was shaking.
    And (CRYING) I didn't know why.
    But the thing is, the German came--
    he came up to the last row.
    And when he came to our row, he turned around and left.
    And didn't even look at the papers?
    No.
    Not ours.
    We were the only ones he didn't look at.
    And my mom of course stopped shaking.
    But I didn't know why she was shaking.
    I mean, I was three years old.
    Of course.
    Of course.
    I had no idea.
    So I had moments maybe of fear, but not understanding why.
    I mean, certainly not understanding
    because I was Jewish.
    I don't think I knew what a Jew was.
    Mm-hmm.
    Of course not.
    Of course not.
    It's just a question of danger.
    A child feels danger.
    Yeah.
    Or threats.
    Yeah.
    So when your aunt takes you and you
    then live with her and her three children who also survived
    the war in Belgium, which must have
    been quite an accomplishment--
    Right.
    In the church.
    Right.
    In the church.
    Hidden in the churches.
    Yeah.
    This is when you feel like you belong.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And at that point, did anybody know
    if your mother had survived?
    No.
    OK.
    Do you remember how long you stayed with your aunt?
    It actually-- on this paper, it says June 1945.
    See, my mom was liberated--
    my mom was liberated from Auschwitz in April.
    And then she was in a hospital.
    And the Red Cross eventually brought her back to Belgium.
    And we of course didn't know if she was alive or not.
    There was no way of knowing anything.
    And the first place she went was to her sister's apartment.
    And she actually knocked on the door, and there I was.
    Do you remember that?
    Yes.
    Wow.
    Did you know that--
    I just remember seeing her.
    I don't think--
    I was rationalizing that here she is finally and this.
    I don't think I understood.
    I think it was all a lot of emotion.
    Did you recognize her?
    My mom told me I did.
    So you don't remember if you did,
    but she then later tells you?
    Yes.
    I mean, as you know, I interviewed your mom
    a few years ago.
    Oh, I didn't know.
    Yeah.
    And I remember whether it was in the interview or at some point
    after--
    sometimes we'd have a break.
    But someone told me that when you
    were reunited with your mother that you
    would tie your nightgowns together so that you couldn't
    be split apart again.
    Right.
    It's true.
    That is-- that's more powerful in some ways
    than words as to what separation means.
    I know.
    I know.
    Yeah.
    Did your mom stay with her sister and her sister's family?
    No.
    No.
    What happened then after that?
    We moved back into the attic apartment in the building
    that my dad and mom owned.
    And my dad eventually came back from England.
    He couldn't come back right after the war because he--
    by the way, joining the army, he was
    put in a factory making British uniforms.
    In Britain?
    In Britain, which was probably the best place for him to be.
    But anyhow, the house he was living in, in London
    was bombed.
    And he spent two years in a hospital.
    Oh, my.
    Yeah, he was pretty badly injured.
    So he actually came back in 1946,
    I think a year after the war.
    And of course I didn't know who he was.
    I didn't recognize him at all.
    And my parents-- yeah.
    No, my parents decided they wanted to leave Europe.
    And that's when they made applications
    to come to the States.
    And did your fathers, brothers, and sister
    help in that endeavor?
    In other words, did they sponsor you in?
    No.
    No.
    My father sold the building he owned.
    OK.
    And they paid for his brother and family and us to come.
    We weren't sponsored because we had enough money.
    Oh!
    We sold the building, and we bought tickets.
    And you had enough money then to show the US authorities
    that you could just support yourselves when you arrived.
    Right.
    And my parents both had a profession.
    My dad right away started working.
    As a tailor.
    As a tailor.
    He worked in the garment industry in New York.
    We settled in New Jersey because my mom had an elderly aunt
    there.
    And so we lived with her for about a
    month until my parents found an apartment and work.
    And we were pretty much--
    yeah.
    What did your mom do?
    She was extremely gifted and creative.
    She graduated from one of these technical designing colleges
    in Belgium.
    And when they graduate, the royal family
    would send some emissaries to pick a few students who
    they wanted to work with the royal family
    with their garments and designing and all that.
    My mother was actually chosen.
    And she worked for the royal household.
    Wow.
    That's pretty distinguishing.
    It is.
    She's-- really, she was very, very gifted in creative.
    She designed clothes.
    And so when they came to the States,
    she really had no problem getting a job.
    I see.
    Did your mom ever talk to you about what her experiences
    were like in Auschwitz?
    What what was like?
    I'm sorry.
    Did your mom ever tell you about her own experiences
    after she was arrested and deported with her own parents?
    No.
    No.
    She really didn't talk.
    And things would come out in bits and pieces.
    Mm-hmm.
    I remember my mom (CRYING) having--
    I'm sorry.
    That's OK, Josiane.
    That's OK.
    I'm so sorry that this is bringing up such pain.
    No.
    It's not that.
    But whenever I think of my mom and what she went through,
    I mean, it was horrible.
    I remember when we lived in New Jersey,
    very often during the night, she would wake up screaming
    and just run through the apartment.
    It was like she was having nightmares.
    So she never really talked about it.
    But once I got to be a teenager, I just
    started reading everything I could get my hands on.
    And that's very much how I learned.
    My mom really wasn't--
    she couldn't talk.
    Nobody wanted to listen to her.
    My father's family, one of the brothers
    who had been in the States since the early '30s, when
    my mom tried to talk, they would say, you know,
    that was a long time ago.
    We don't want-- that's sad.
    Let's talk about what good things are going to happen.
    So they wouldn't let her talk.
    Yeah.
    In later years, did she ever open up
    when you were already an adult yourself and tell you things,
    or did it stay closed inside for always?
    It stayed closed inside, but she knew
    very much what I was reading.
    And in a roundabout way, we would talk
    about what was happening there.
    I mean, for instance, I know right away at the selection
    when my mom got to Auschwitz, she
    and her mother were separated immediately
    because my grandmother was considered old.
    She must have been in her 50s.
    And of course, they probably thought
    they couldn't use her for labor.
    But my mom did tell me that they were separated immediately.
    And my mom wanted to be with her mother,
    and the German actually swiped her, hit her and told her,
    you go where you're told.
    So little drips and drabs I would hear.
    But it was also from reading.
    And she knew what I was reading.
    And she would say, what did you think about that?
    It's almost like she was afraid to ask.
    But I read as much as I could.
    Did she-- so she never really went into detail?
    No.
    I knew they did medical experiments on her,
    and that's why I have no siblings because she
    couldn't have children after.
    But even the medical experimentation
    that they did on her, I've asked her so much.
    And she said she doesn't know any specifics what
    they did to her.
    Well, during the interview that I had with her,
    I remember her telling--
    also mentioning this.
    Yeah.
    And that the experimentation had no--
    there was no painkillers.
    In other words, whatever they did, whatever it was, was full.
    She had no-- nothing to help ease the pain.
    Right.
    Right.
    And yeah.
    I can't imagine what--
    we can't imagine what that must have been like.
    You know?
    No.
    All she told me is she was tied to the bed.
    One of the difficult or sad things--
    when my dad came back from England,
    their experiences had been so different that my mom, I think,
    really felt she really couldn't talk to my dad.
    And because here he had gone through hell also.
    But not the same kind.
    No.
    So I think as a couple, things must
    have been so hard for them.
    It was not a happy kind of give-and-take relationship.
    Yeah.
    I do know that in the beginning of the interview that I
    had with your mom, she was reluctant to talk.
    So if you recall the first questions that I ask,
    these basic questions of where you're born,
    what was your name, when were you
    born, things like that, we didn't
    start the interview that way.
    We started the interview of, why is it difficult to talk?
    What have been the hindrances for that?
    And it was-- she was very precise.
    But--
    She was very what?
    Precise.
    You know?
    Yes.
    She could put words to her feelings.
    And these are very deep feelings about very--
    some of the most core painful things.
    But this sort of reticence--
    now when you tell me about what her first experiences were,
    that can certainly inhibit somebody
    when others are not interested, when others change the subject.
    Exactly.
    Then you think, well, I can't do this.
    You know?
    And why should I risk it again?
    Why should I risk opening this up again?
    Of course.
    You're right.
    Absolutely.
    And yet whenever I talk about her
    or think about what she's gone through, I just--
    I well up.
    Yeah.
    Well, I do remember at the time that people
    who knew your mom-- you see, I just met her the day
    that we had our interview.
    But they said that it took you as well as my colleague Steve
    as well as a few others-- yeah--
    to convince her to have this-- to convince her to open up.
    So you were clearly in that camp of you
    wanted her story to be known.
    Yes.
    I mean, first of all, for all involved,
    I thought it was important.
    But I thought it was also important for her.
    And did anything--
    I know.
    Your phone is going on, isn't it?
    No, they're spam calls.
    Uh-huh.
    Spam calls.
    Yes, I know.
    I know.
    I mean, there's nothing to answer to.
    But it's annoying because I can't mute it.
    It's OK.
    It's OK.
    OK.
    It's finished.
    All right.
    Was it better for her, do you think?
    [INAUDIBLE]?
    Yeah.
    Speaking?
    Yeah.
    I think-- I really--
    I do think so.
    OK.
    I do.
    I do because she really--
    I don't think she could talk to my dad.
    And I think there were very few people she could talk to.
    That's hard.
    I know.
    Did you ever tell her about what your--
    I mean, you were a child.
    But the things that we've talked about now,
    did you ever tell her any parts of those?
    No.
    First of all, she never asked me.
    And I thought she probably didn't
    want to know because it was too painful.
    So it's strange.
    Like, we all kind of know what happened to each other,
    yet we couldn't talk about it.
    Yeah.
    Did you feel the same kind of disinterest, however, or--
    Well, I feel in many ways very fortunate that I--
    my husband, Freddie, that I could talk to him.
    And my relationship and my being able to talk to him, especially
    with his own childhood and what happened
    to him, made a big difference in being able to talk
    and understand each other.
    My mom never asked me.
    Did you feel that lack?
    Did you wonder why?
    I did because I very often--
    well, I felt like a child in the middle.
    My parents hardly spoke to each other about that time.
    Also, I think there was a lot of anger.
    In some ways, I think there was anger
    because my father, although he was in the hospital
    and he was hurt, but he didn't have the concentration camp
    experience.
    You know, Ina, it is so complicated.
    I know.
    I know.
    And it's very hard to put into words,
    even though that's what our attempt is here.
    But it is-- the things that you describe
    to me are interactions that take place over decades
    after the war.
    Yeah.
    Right.
    And it's-- we explore them.
    I ask about them because they're part of the after effects,
    you know?
    It is, what stays?
    What has changed?
    How has it affected people?
    How do they go on?
    I mean, all of these are the kinds of questions that we ask.
    And that when-- and it really is a gift when you open up
    and share that because it's so personal.
    Right.
    And I appreciate it because this is a public--
    this is something that will be open and available
    to the public.
    And it's a huge gift to do that, for someone else to listen in
    and to be able to hear what the cost was, what the effect was.
    I hesitate to say the word "damage" because that
    sounds like it can't be healed.
    Things can be healed.
    But just what happens to people-- from a little girl
    sitting on a bus all of a sudden seeing that her mom is shaking
    but not knowing why.
    You know?
    It's an event that takes place within a minute.
    A guy walks up and down across a bus.
    He has a uniform on, and someone is terrified.
    And it stays with you your whole life.
    And he doesn't even check your papers.
    He may have realized and just left you alone.
    Yeah.
    Who knows?
    Who knows?
    Who knows?
    Who knows?
    I'm also-- I think I'm fortunate that--
    studying-- when I went to graduate school to become
    a social worker--
    I became a clinical social worker, which
    means I can also do therapy.
    But because of that, I was in therapy myself,
    which I find that I was very fortunate that I
    was able to do that--
    What did it give you?
    --to be in therapy.
    I'm sorry?
    What did it give you?
    I think it gave me an understanding (CRYING)
    of my behaviors, of why I feel the way I do in many things.
    And to me, therapy was like a gift.
    I'm mentioning that because my mom--
    we encouraged her to go into therapy.
    I happen to know the psychologist,
    and he works with survivors.
    And I thought he would be ideal for her.
    But she went a few times, and she didn't--
    it's interesting.
    She couldn't-- she felt she couldn't talk.
    And the therapist-- not wanting to give away anything
    for confidentiality--
    it just wasn't for her.
    I don't know how to explain.
    Well, it's also--
    I would think--
    I would think this is a generational thing.
    Yeah.
    And this can affect people in that way.
    I don't know of many people of your mom's generation,
    born 1916 or those, let's say, born in those 20 years
    afterwards for whom this is something
    that could be natural.
    Right.
    You know?
    It is very-- it is, in some ways,
    like the technology today for my generation.
    Right.
    Right.
    We get to it, but it's not natural.
    It's not something that is part of what a normal life can be
    and that it can be something that of benefit.
    It is a strange thing.
    But I can say this much is that when your mom did share
    in that interview, it was very powerful.
    And it too was a gift.
    I'd like to turn, Josiane, if we can now to the museum.
    OK.
    Tell me-- I mean, is there more--
    if there's more that you want to add to what we have been
    speaking about, please do so.
    But I'm looking--
    No, no.
    And if we do in the future, if there
    are things that come up in the future
    that you'd like to share, we can always make an appointment
    to talk again.
    OK.
    But I wanted now to turn to the museum
    simply because it seemed like a good, relevant kind of moment
    to do so in that it sounds like it has been--
    it has been part of your life for a while.
    Yes.
    And I'd like to explore how it began.
    In what ways have you been involved?
    And what has it given you?
    So could you let me know?
    When was the first time that you went to the museum,
    came to the Holocaust Museum in Washington?
    Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't go for many years.
    I really didn't want to go.
    I had a hard time to go.
    And I was fighting it.
    Really I was.
    I didn't want to go.
    I didn't want to be part of it.
    And my neighbor across the street
    was a docent and a lovely, lovely woman.
    And she kept on saying to me, Josy, you need to go.
    And I really didn't want to.
    Why?
    I guess I didn't want to open things up again.
    But one year, Freddie's niece, who was 18 at the time,
    stayed with us for a little while from Israel.
    And she wanted to go to the museum.
    And I didn't want her to go by herself.
    And so I went with her.
    And that was actually my first time at the museum.
    And-- what was that?
    Do you remember when this was, what year this might have been?
    Probably-- let me think.
    I started volunteering at the museum the year I retired,
    which is 2007.
    OK.
    And it must have been maybe a few years before.
    OK.
    And when I did retire, I went to the museum
    immediately and wanted to volunteer.
    And so I started with Visitor Services.
    And then I took a 14-week course to become a docent.
    And Freddie, my husband, actually also
    started volunteering.
    He didn't take the course to be a docent for the PE,
    the permanent exhibit.
    But he did take the course for the Nazi Berlin Olympics.
    Mm-hmm.
    You mean a special exhibition?
    Yes.
    We both did that.
    And then Freddie joined the writing class.
    He became much more involved, which I thought was wonderful.
    And
    I gradually kind of did more and more.
    Then they started using me to speak.
    They sent me to schools, to universities also with Freddie.
    We would travel together.
    We went down to some universities in the South.
    And it was nice because the two of us would speak.
    We were both children, but very different experiences.
    Hello?
    Yeah, I'm there.
    I'm listening.
    I'm listening.
    I just thought I heard some noise.
    I thought I lost you.
    No, no, no.
    I'm here.
    Little by little, I became more involved.
    And I had known the other survivors there
    because through other meetings and groups and things
    we belonged to.
    So I knew them.
    Outside of the museum?
    What was that?
    Outside the museum.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    There was a child survivor group.
    And then there was a Kindertransport group
    that my husband was in charge of because he
    came on the Kindertransport to England.
    So I would say little by little, I became much more involved
    and felt a great amount of satisfaction.
    I really did.
    So tell me, what--
    OK.
    I'm sorry to interrupt.
    But what took you in?
    When you went for the first time with your niece
    and accompanied her, were you surprised in some way?
    What was your reaction after having
    resisted for such a long time?
    Well, I knew what had happened.
    I mean, I knew about it the war.
    But I think visually seeing it, actually
    I was quite impressed the way it was put together.
    I really was.
    And I met some of the people, and I knew some of the people.
    So I think I just felt comfortable.
    And my mom was a volunteer.
    She had been working there.
    She was doing translations and different things.
    Even before you?
    Yeah.
    She was involved when the museum opened.
    So she didn't have that sense of resistance or sense
    of reserve about it?
    No.
    No.
    That's interesting.
    That's interesting.
    Yeah.
    I think for her, in a way, it was like a relief
    that she could see it and go through it.
    Now, she didn't want to be a docent.
    But she liked speaking to people.
    She also liked being sent out to different schools
    and different places.
    She really did like doing that.
    And what was it like--
    yeah.
    OK.
    Go ahead.
    Yeah.
    I interrupted for no reason.
    Go ahead.
    No.
    I forgot.
    So my question for you is, did it give you something?
    When you started to speak with groups, what kind of experience
    was this for you?
    Well, what inspired me is the fact that people
    were interested because you go through life, and people--
    my background and my life, it's not
    something I talked about to anyone
    unless it's somebody very close to me.
    It really wouldn't come up.
    So seeing that people were really interested
    gave me a sense of satisfaction.
    And it was good for me to see that people were interested.
    A lot of people that I've talked to, survivor volunteers,
    highlight that aspect of it, this interaction
    and this realization that there are people who care
    and who are interested.
    Exactly.
    Exactly.
    And the tours I was doing before the virus,
    I do mainly law enforcement--
    the FBI, police, judges.
    And I really enjoy it when I interact
    and when they ask questions and when you could
    see they're really interested.
    And it's a good feeling.
    It sounds like it brings a lot of meaning.
    You know?
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    So what do you think then that the museum,
    having been part of it and having been involved
    in these different activities--
    and we haven't even mentioned First Person,
    because I know that you have been involved in the First
    Person program too where you meet once a week,
    or it's a public meeting with the public.
    And there's an interview there where you're on stage.
    But it is all, again, in this interaction with the public,
    with other people who are hearing this.
    What do you think the museum provides for us as a country,
    as a society?
    What do you think of the impact or the opportunity?
    Well, I think it's wonderful.
    And I think it's opened people's eyes
    to see really, really what happened
    because many people at the end of the tour actually say to me,
    I didn't realize it was like that.
    People really don't realize it.
    And it's good to know that it's more personalized when
    the museum educates people, which I think
    is so crucial and so important.
    It's just, for me, I miss it terribly now,
    not having been there for several months.
    But I look upon the staff there who deal with our--
    and even the other survivors--
    I really look upon it like family.
    How wonderful.
    I really-- yeah, it is.
    I feel wonderful.
    I really do.
    And the nice thing is also my husband feels the same way.
    And this interview is taking place
    during the midst of the coronavirus.
    And we are talking now when it's been
    five months that the museum has been closed.
    And it's been a year, I know, of loss for you
    when you lost your husband in February, even a month before.
    Yes.
    So it's been that kind of a year, a tough year.
    Yes.
    There have been many losses--
    Freddie and my family there.
    I mean, I regard it as my family.
    Well, that's a huge compliment.
    That really is a very huge compliment
    that it has become a place for you that
    is a place you can be at home.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Absolutely.
    Well, Josiane, we're coming close
    to the end of our interview today.
    Is there anything else that you'd
    like to share with us that I haven't asked you
    about that you would want people to understand, people to know,
    anything like that?
    I can't think of anything right now.
    And it doesn't mean that there's not probably a lot more to say.
    But for me, I think the museum has been really a good place
    for me to be in every way--
    emotionally-- especially emotionally.
    I mean, it really is.
    It's also given me a sense of purpose.
    And I'm really glad to be involved,
    and I miss it really very much.
    I really do.
    Thank you.
    I enjoy meeting the people, especially on tours.
    And I've had some very interesting
    personal experiences from some of the people I've toured.
    So it's been really interesting.
    Did you hear about the judge who I toured?
    No.
    Tell me about that.
    I did a tour with circuit court judges from DC.
    And very nice group of people, asking a lot of questions.
    And a day after my tour, I get a call from the museum.
    Can they please give my telephone number out
    to a private person?
    And it turns out that one of the judges I was speaking to,
    her mother lives in Florida.
    And she spoke to her mother after the tour
    and told her mother that she had gone on a tour at the museum.
    And the mother said, well, what was your docent like?
    She said, well, it was a woman from Belgium, very interesting.
    And so this woman, the mother, says, you know,
    I knew somebody in New Jersey who came from Belgium.
    And so the judge called me.
    And as it turns out, to cut a very long story short,
    when my parents came to the United States,
    it was just before my 10th birthday.
    It was in January.
    And my birthday's in March.
    And my mom wanted to give me a birthday party,
    but she didn't know any kids.
    And she didn't know who to invite.
    So she went to this elderly Jewish couple and said,
    could you get some kids for me, and I'll
    give Josy a birthday party?
    So this older couple invited a bunch of kids,
    and I had a birthday party.
    The judge's mother was at my birthday party.
    Oh my goodness.
    Oh my goodness.
    I know.
    Can you imagine?
    So as it turns out, the judge's mother came up.
    She lives in Florida.
    She came up, and we all met in a restaurant,
    including my mom and Freddie and the judge.
    And it was just lovely.
    Oh, what a wonderful connection.
    What a reestablishment.
    I know.
    And apparently there's a newsletter
    for the lawyers in DC or the judges,
    and they wrote about it.
    This is so unusual.
    Well, and without this center point of the museum
    bringing together such people and having in place
    such programs, such a reconnection
    wouldn't have happened.
    Yeah.
    I know.
    And I think it's important.
    They send police and security from every area.
    And I think it's so important for people to really know.
    And it bothers me when I hear people invoke the word
    Holocaust at different stages where it doesn't really belong.
    They just use the word kind of in a different meaning.
    It bothers me.
    It really does because there was only one Holocaust.
    It's not horrible things that happen all the time.
    It is taking an event and politicizing it.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And politicizing I don't mean in a direct way,
    but in whatever purposes one has.
    It takes that event and not let it stand on its own
    with its own voice and its own story
    and so on, but then applies it in places where it's tenuous.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And in a way, the word Holocaust becomes meaningless.
    As a result-- is that what you're saying?
    Yeah.
    Or it has a totally different meaning.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Ina, what is this going to be used for?
    Is it just in the archives, or--
    Well, we're coming close to the end,
    and I'm going to wrap up in a minute,
    but I'll answer your question right now.
    All of our interviews such as your mom's and the ones
    that you've done before, they get archived.
    They become part of our archives,
    and they are available to the public.
    So this will be an audio interview
    that if somebody ever looks up your name,
    they'd be able to find it.
    I see.
    Now, if you don't want that, if you
    don't want it to be that public, then we have to talk about this
    and see in what way it could be accessible, in what way
    it could be restricted.
    I see.
    But I would hope that you agree to have it available
    like your mom's interview was available,
    like your First Person interviews are available.
    Yes.
    Sure.
    Are you fine with that?
    I am.
    OK.
    Thank you.
    And right now I will wrap up our interview,
    and I will then stop the recording
    and talk just a little bit with you on some other questions
    afterwards.
    So I will say at this point, this
    concludes the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Josiane Traum on August 26, 2020 in Washington.
    Thank you.
    Thank you so much, Josy.
    Thank you.
    This is a continuation of the interview with Josiane Traum.
    Today is Thursday, September 3rd, 2020.
    And since we spoke last year, Josiane, and had our interview,
    you remembered some facts that had not been on your mind
    that day.
    So could you tell me what it is that you'd
    like to add to the interview that we
    had and the pieces of information
    that you now have at your fingertips?
    Of course.
    I found-- actually, it's like an index card.
    And it's actually research that was done at the museum,
    at the Holocaust Museum--
    In Washington, yeah.
    --to out exactly my mom's journey when
    she was deported to Auschwitz.
    OK.
    And I found that before going to Auschwitz,
    she was deported actually on--
    and taken to a transit camp, which was called Malines.
    And Malines is in French and Mechelen is in Flemish.
    Could you spell the French version?
    Could you spell how Malines is in French?
    That is, let's just spell it out.
    OK, Malines in French is M-A-L-I-N-E-S.
    OK, thank you.
    And that was a transit camp in Belgium?
    That was in Belgium.
    And apparently, my mom--
    the card that I have with the research from the museum
    shows that my mom was actually in Malines for two months.
    That's quite a while.
    Yes, it is.
    She was there-- let me see, she got there March 1944.
    OK, do you have a date?
    And I have a copy of that.
    It says in Brussels--
    I don't know [? der haustet ?].
    And then it says Juden Lager, Malines, which was--
    Right.
    Yes, it was a camp, but it was a transit camp.
    And I found this in two books which I have.
    They actually mention Malines, that it was--
    each-- different countries had transit camps.
    That's right.
    Till they got the Jews on trains to deport them.
    So my mom was actually taken to Auschwitz on--
    let me see-- on May 19th, 1944.
    She was taken to Auschwitz at Birkenau
    OK.
    And there's a whole list of numbers, which
    I don't know what they are.
    And then it says Ravensbruck, which was actually
    another concentration camp.
    So she was in Ravensbruck too?
    It looks like-- it says, Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    which I know Birkenau was a sub-camp from Auschwitz.
    It was a labor camp--
    Correct.
    --which is actually where she went daily to work.
    And there's some numbers after that.
    I don't know what they are.
    And then right under there it says Ravensbruck.
    Ravensbruck--
    So, I don't know if--
    --as in R-A-V-E-N-B--
    R-A-V-E-N-S-B-R-U-K?
    No.
    No?
    No.
    R-A-V-E-N-S-B-R-U-E-C-K.
    Ah, Ravensbruck, so it is that women's concentration camp--
    Yes.
    --that is-- so she was transferred.
    Does it give a date?
    No, only that she got there May 1944.
    So only that she got into Auschwitz in May 1944.
    And then you don't know--
    Yes.
    It doesn't say actually that she was transferred to Ravensbruck.
    It just has that name.
    No.
    OK, OK.
    It's just has Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    Then there's a capital N-R, and a capital A, and then 5144.
    So this is-- what kind of-- do you know what kind of a card
    this is?
    Is this a-- this is a facsimile of an actual German record?
    Or you're not familiar with what kind of record this could be?
    I believe it's-- I believe it's German.
    OK.
    I believe it is, but I don't know.
    I guess I could telephone Micheline and ask her.
    It also says, after Ravensbruck, it says KL Malchom.
    M-A-L-C-H-O-M.
    M-A-L-C-H--
    And I don't know what that means.
    I've not heard of that, but KL means konzentrationslager,
    which means concentration camp.
    I see.
    It would be-- it's interesting and important to have as many
    of the details as one can.
    And so this document has told you some of the details of--
    after your mother is arrested, where the various places were
    and the dates, at least, when she was there.
    Yes.
    I think the other significance is
    that such things, which were so crucial and so central
    to her story are things that you didn't know for a long time.
    Yes.
    And so that's also part of--
    part of what the experience is.
    Your experience of what your mother went through is limited.
    I hate to say it, put it that way, but it is--
    I mean, it is--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    It is--
    I don't know details.
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    And--
    You know--
    Yes?
    Right after that, it says 29445.
    I guess that's her--
    April 29th, 1945, that's what that would be.
    Yeah.
    Uh-huh.
    Yes, April 29th, 1945.
    It says Leipzig befreit.
    OK, Leipzig is--
    B-E-F-R-- I guess maybe that's where she was liberated.
    So Leipzig is the city.
    And the befreit, yes, befreit means to be free,
    to be made free.
    Yes, yes.
    OK, so that's-- OK, that--
    See, I always thought she was--
    she was liberated on the Elbe.
    There was a battle between the Germans and the Russians.
    And that's when the Russians liberated her.
    That's what she had told me.
    Well, it could both these things be true.
    We'd have to take--
    Exactly.
    We'd have to take a look where Leipzig is.
    And my geography is not that strong for Germany.
    But it could also very well be close to the Elbe River.
    Yeah.
    So I wish I could say that off the top of my head.
    But you do have these pieces of information about--
    Yes.
    --about-- is there any-- about your mother's incarceration.
    Is there anything else that you'd
    like to share with us today to be part of her interview?
    Well, it does have her name, and maiden name,
    and her parents' name on this piece of paper.
    I did find out last night--
    I spoke to my cousin, who lives in Canada,
    and who's my mother's sister son.
    OK.
    When-- when Belgium was liberated--
    Belgium was liberated in 1944, which
    is before the rest of some of the countries in Europe.
    Of course.
    And as soon as Belgium was liberated,
    my mother's sister came looking for me.
    And actually found me.
    So that is the--
    so, OK.
    So she found you at some point in 1944,
    probably towards the end of the year.
    I think that's when the--
    Yes.
    --allies were preparing or were part of the Battle
    of the Bulge--
    Yes.
    --which took place not far from where you would have been.
    Right, right.
    My understanding is that they were also hidden in--
    during the war, through the underground
    and through churches.
    And there was this network.
    People could somehow find each other.
    And that's how she--
    they found me and brought me to their home.
    And, of course, it was so different.
    Yeah.
    --being with family.
    And, you know, it's so strange, I spoke to Charles last night.
    He lives in Vancouver.
    And we were talking about it.
    Because he mentioned-- he said, do you
    remember how we teased you and everything?
    And, of course, they did, the three boys, tease me
    continuously, which I loved.
    I did-- see, I was like their little mascot.
    So just being with the family--
    we were talking about it.
    And he reminded me that my grandfather, my mom's father,
    my maternal grandfather, had also been taken to Malines.
    Yes.
    And-- yes.
    And then they took him to--
    I have the name of it.
    They took him to--
    also to Malines and then to another transit camp.
    And apparently, they tortured him
    so much that he died before he got to Auschwitz.
    Oh, my.
    I always thought that he had died on the train going
    to Auschwitz.
    But my cousin Charles told me that, no, he had--
    he was tortured and actually, he died.
    So--
    So these are these--
    these are bits and pieces of information about what
    happens to the family that you are still
    discovering to this day.
    Yes.
    What is your cousin's his first name?
    You mentioned it, but I didn't catch it.
    My cousin?
    Yeah, in Vancouver.
    Oh, Charles
    How do I--
    Charles.
    How do I spell it?
    Charles.
    Well, I spell it the French way, which is probably the same--
    C-H-A-R-L-E-S.
    Oh, Charles.
    OK.
    Charles.
    Charles, OK.
    I call him "Charles."
    I see.
    I see.
    OK.
    Just like he-- he calls me Josiane.
    Yeah.
    Which nobody does, because it's French and they can't say it.
    But it's how-- it's how he knows you and how you know him.
    Exactly, exactly.
    OK, well--
    So Charles was two years older than me.
    The three boys were all a few years older than me.
    And I was there until my mother came back.
    Yeah.
    So they have memories of these things.
    They do.
    They were a little bit older.
    OK.
    So I think they probably have more imagery and memories.
    OK.
    Well, thank you, Josiane.
    And if that is-- if that is what you
    would like to add to our interview, we have now done so.
    And is there anything else that you'd
    like to add before we conclude?
    I don't think I have any other information.
    But I just--
    I realize how much my mother suffered.
    Yeah.
    And when I think about it, it is so difficult to comprehend.
    Yeah, yeah.
    And you're so helpless, because you could do nothing
    to take it away.
    That's the--
    No.
    That's part of the suffering that someone who loves
    that person also experiences.
    Because of course, you just being provided her
    with a great deal of not only comfort, but reason to live.
    Yeah.
    But you couldn't physically do anything
    to take away what she went through.
    Right.
    Yeah, I know, I know.
    Well, thank you.
    Thank you again for sharing this and for making it part
    of the interview, so that if somebody hears this later
    they'll be able to put it-- get a fuller story of--
    a more detailed picture of it.
    And I will now say that this once more concludes
    the interview, the addendum to the interview with Josiane
    Traum.
    And the addendum is on September 3rd, 2020.
    And I will stop the recording at this point.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Traum, Josiane
    Interviewer
    Navazelskis, Ina
    Date
    interview:  2020 August 26
    interview:  2020 September 03
    Geography
    creation: Silver Spring (Md.)
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    3 digital files : WAV.

    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

    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 Josiane Traum on August 26, 2020 and September 3, 2020. The interview was conducted remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:06:31
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn722662

    Additional Resources

    Transcripts (3)
    Time Coded Notes (3)

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    Also in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum oral history collection

    Contains interviews with Holocaust survivors, concentration camp liberators, rescuers, relief workers, former POWs, and people of different social and ethnic backgrounds who were targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators or witnessed the events of the Holocaust

    Date: 1989-2023

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    Oral history interview with Chil Rajchman

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    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

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    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.