Overview
- Interviewee
- Klayman, Ms. Theodora Basch Vrančić
- Interviewer
- Bill Benson
- Date
-
interview:
2021 May 12
- Geography
-
creation:
Chevy Chase (Md.)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 digital file : MP4.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
- Copyright Holder
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- This is an interview conducted for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's First Person Program, a seasonal program that enables USHMM visitors to hear Holocaust survivors tell their life stories in their own words.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Primary Number
- IA2000-022, 20210512
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:45:01
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn724299
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Also in Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's First Person Program
Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's First Person Program. The collection is arranged chronologically.
Date: 2000-2018
Oral history interview with Herman Taube
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Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fanny Aizenberg
Oral History
Fanny Aizenberg (née Orenbuch), born in 1916 in Łódź, Poland, describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family; moving with her family to Brussels, Belgium when she was a young child; being one of three daughters; earning a degree in art and design; getting a job creating clothing for the Royal House of Belgium; getting married in May 1938 to Jacques Aizenberg, a tailor and violinist; giving birth to their daughter Josiane in March 1939; the German invasion of Belgium in May 1940; becoming involved in the Belgian resistance movement by hiding refugees in her attic; arranging a hiding place for Josiane; spending time in multiple hiding places with her mother until they were discovered and arrested; being taken to the Mechelen (Malines) transit camp; being deported after 10 days to Auschwitz; arriving in Auschwitz and being separated from her mother, whom she never saw again; being selected for medical experiments; receiving support from a group of six women who helped her endure beatings, forced labor in a grenade factory, and much more; being forced on a death march when Auschwitz was evacuated in January 1945; being liberated near the Elbe River by the Russian Army in April of 1945; returning to Belgium; and reuniting with Josiane and Jacques. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Katie Altenberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gideon Frieder
Oral History
Gideon Frieder, born on September 30, 1937 in Zvolen, Slovakia, discusses his family; moving from Zvolen to Nové Mesto, Slovakia, at the beginning of the war because his father (Rabbi Abba Frieder) was offered a position there; the German occupation of Slovakia; the deportation of his grandparents early in the war; his father’s work in Slovakia’s underground “Working Group” (a secret Jewish rescue organization) and his responsibility for communications with the Slovak authorities; the Slovak uprising against the Nazis in 1944 and fleeing with his mother and sister from Nové Mesto to Banská Bystrica, while his father fled separately; going with his mother and sister to the mountains, where they were caught in a massacre at Staré Hory (Czech Republic); the murder of his mother and sister during this massacre; surviving the massacre but being injured; being helped by a Jewish partisan who eventually took him to the village of Bully (now part of Donovaly, Slovakia), where he was placed with a sympathetic non-Jewish family; remaining in Bully until 1945, when the area was liberated by Romanian troops that fought as part of the Soviet army; reuniting later with his father, who had also survived the war; his father’s remarriage and death in 1946; and moving with his stepmother to Israel, where he remained until 1975 when he immigrated to the United States. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Halina Yasharoff Peabody (née Litman), born on December 12, 1932 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Krakow in a liberal Jewish family; her father Izak, who was a dentist, and her mother Olga, who was a champion swimmer; her younger sister Ewa; the Soviet invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939, at which time Halina was living in Zaleszczyki (now Zalishchyky, Ukraine), which came under Russian occupation; her father crossing into Romania as he feared being conscripted into the Russian army; the deportation of her father to Siberia when he attempted to return to his family; the German invasion in 1941, at which time harsh anti-Jewish laws were put in place; the roundups of Jews for relocation to ghettos; being forced along with her mother and sister to move to Tluste, which was turned into a ghetto; her mother purchasing documents from a Catholic priest that allowed her and her daughters to assume non-Jewish identities; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland; passing as Catholics with a woman who took in boarders; her mother’s work in a German military camp kitchen, which allowed her to obtain a German identification card; a bomb falling on the house where they had been staying; her hand being permanently injured; the liberation of Jaroslaw by Soviet forces in July 1944; reuniting with her father and settling in London, England; and immigrating to the United States in 1968. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Helen L. Goldkind
Oral History
Oral history interview with Haim Solomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Halina Yasharoff Peabody (née Litman), born on December 12, 1932 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Krakow in a liberal Jewish family; her father Izak, who was a dentist, and her mother Olga, who was a champion swimmer; her younger sister Ewa; the Soviet invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939, at which time Halina was living in Zaleszczyki (now Zalishchyky, Ukraine), which came under Russian occupation; her father crossing into Romania as he feared being conscripted into the Russian army; the deportation of her father to Siberia when he attempted to return to his family; the German invasion in 1941, at which time harsh anti-Jewish laws were put in place; the roundups of Jews for relocation to ghettos; being forced along with her mother and sister to move to Tluste, which was turned into a ghetto; her mother purchasing documents from a Catholic priest that allowed her and her daughters to assume non-Jewish identities; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland; passing as Catholics with a woman who took in boarders; her mother’s work in a German military camp kitchen, which allowed her to obtain a German identification card; a bomb falling on the house where they had been staying; her hand being permanently injured; the liberation of Jaroslaw by Soviet forces in July 1944; reuniting with her father and settling in London, England; and immigrating to the United States in 1968. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther R. Starobin
Oral History
Esther Starobin (née Rosenfeld), born on April 3, 1937 in Adelsheim, Germany, discusses her family; her father’s work in the cattle industry; the Nazi assumption of power in January 1933; the policies of discrimination against Jews in Germany; her three sisters going to England as part of a Kindertransport in March 1939; going on a Kindertransport to England in the summer of 1939; staying in Thorpe, Norwich, England with Dorothy and Harry Harrison and their son Alan; attending school and being very much part of the family; staying with the Harrison family until November 1947; visiting with her sisters who lived elsewhere in England; the fates of her parents and brother (her parents died in Auschwitz and her brother was rescued in 1941 and immigrated to the United States); her sister Bertl arranging for all four of the sisters to immigrate to the US in 1947; and living initially with an aunt and uncle in Washington, DC before finding an apartment of their own. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Charles Stein
Oral History
Charles Stein (né Karl Robert Stein), born on November 28, 1919 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; his father, who was a printer; being admitted to medical school at the University of Vienna in 1937 and being prevented from his studies when the Germans arrived in Vienna on March 13, 1938; searching for a way to get out of Austria; leaving for Luxembourg in August 1938; immigrating to the United States; being drafed into the army in October 1941; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; going to Normandy, France with the 9th Infantry Division as the commander of a prisoner-of-war interrogation team; helping to liberate Nordhausen concentration camp; learning that his parents had been deported to the Łódź ghetto in 1941 and were killed in Chełmno on February 28, 1942; participating in the Korean War; and his work after the war with the Department of Defense and the Foreign Service. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Agi Geva
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Esther R. Starobin
Oral History
Esther Starobin (née Rosenfeld), born on April 3, 1937 in Adelsheim, Germany, discusses her family; her father’s work in the cattle industry; the Nazi assumption of power in January 1933; the policies of discrimination against Jews in Germany; her three sisters going to England as part of a Kindertransport in March 1939; going on a Kindertransport to England in the summer of 1939; staying in Thorpe, Norwich, England with Dorothy and Harry Harrison and their son Alan; attending school and being very much part of the family; staying with the Harrison family until November 1947; visiting with her sisters who lived elsewhere in England; the fates of her parents and brother (her parents died in Auschwitz and her brother was rescued in 1941 and immigrated to the United States); her sister Bertl arranging for all four of the sisters to immigrate to the US in 1947; and living initially with an aunt and uncle in Washington, DC before finding an apartment of their own. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Tania Rozmaryn
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Charles Stein
Oral History
Charles Stein (né Karl Robert Stein), born on November 28, 1919 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; his father, who was a printer; being admitted to medical school at the University of Vienna in 1937 and being prevented from his studies when the Germans arrived in Vienna on March 13, 1938; searching for a way to get out of Austria; leaving for Luxembourg in August 1938; immigrating to the United States; being drafed into the army in October 1941; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; going to Normandy, France with the 9th Infantry Division as the commander of a prisoner-of-war interrogation team; helping to liberate Nordhausen concentration camp; learning that his parents had been deported to the Łódź ghetto in 1941 and were killed in Chełmno on February 28, 1942; participating in the Korean War; and his work after the war with the Department of Defense and the Foreign Service. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Morris Rosen
Oral History
Morris (Moniek) Rosen, born on November 10, 1922 in Czestochowa, Poland, discusses his family; his nine siblings; growing up in Dąbrowa Górnicza; his father Jacob, who owned a general store; attending both public and Jewish schools; the forced closing of his father’s store by the antisemitic community; the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; fleeing eastward and being caught near the Vistula River by advancing German troops; returning to Dąbrowa Górnicza; the severe restrictions placed on the Jewish community; working for the German construction office as a carpenter and bricklayer; the deportation of many Jews, including his parents, in August 1942 to Auschwitz; being deported later on to several camps; being evacuated in February 1945 to the Kittlitztreben camp; being sent on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp; walking more than eight hours a day in the bitter cold; going to Theresienstadt and being liberated by Soviet troops; reuniting with members of his extended family; his parents and five of his siblings perishing in the Holocaust; spending several years in displaced persons camps in Austria and Germany; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Haim Solomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Taube
Oral History
Susan Taube, born on January 9, 1926 in Vacha, Germany, discusses her family background; her father Hermann, who owned a general store, and her mother Bertha, who managed the home and took care of Susan and her younger sister Brunhilde; being one of about twenty Jewish families living in Vacha in the years leading up to the war; the Nazi rise to power in 1933 and the increasing anti-Jewish measures and discrimination her family experienced; being forced to leave the public school in 1938 and attend a Jewish school in Frankfurt; the vandalization of her family’s store on Kristallnacht in November 1938; the imprisonment of her father in Buchenwald concentration camp for four weeks; her father’s immigration to the United States in February 1940; how her father was unable to get his family out of Germany at that time; being conscripted into forced labor along with her mother and sister; her work producing radio equipment for the German U-boats; being deported to the Riga ghetto in occupied Latvia in January 1942; the liquidation of the ghetto in October 1943 and being deported to the nearby Kaiserwald concentration camp; being separated from her mother and sister; being transported to Stutthof in August 1944 and then to Sophienwalde; the evacuation of the camp in January 1945 and the prisoners being forced to march 150 kilometers over ten days; being liberated by Soviet troops in March 1945; her mother and sister, who did not survive; being transported to the east and eventually being sent to work in the town of Koszalin, where she met a Polish Jew named Herman Taube; getting married in July 1945 to Herman and living briefly in Poland until the July 1946 pogrom in Kielce made it apparent that they were still not safe there; living in Germany for several years before immigrating to the United States in 1947; reuniting with her father; and settling in Baltimore, MD. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Henry Greenbaum
Oral History
Henry Greenbaum (né Chuna Grynbaum), born on April 1, 1928 in Starachowice, Poland, describes his parents; his father Nuchem, who ran a tailor shop out of their home while his mother Gittel, raised the family’s nine children; his father arranging for Henry and three of his sisters to work in the local munitions factory in 1939; the unexpected death of his father; the German invasion of Poland; escaping with his family to a farm; being forced to move to the Starachowice ghetto in 1940 with his family; his deportation to a nearby labor camp in October 1942 while his mother and two of his sisters, along with their children, were deported to Treblinka and killed; the deaths of two of his sisters (Chaja and Yita) in the labor camp; trying to escape from the camp with his sister Faige in 1943; being shot in the head during the escape and being tended to by one of his cousins; learned Faige had been killed in the escape attempt; being deported to Auschwitz and placed in the forced labor camp Monowitz in 1944; being evacuated to Flossenbürg concentration camp; being forced on a death march toward Dachau concentration camp; being liberated by the Us Army 11th Armored Division in April 1945; searching for his family after the war; reuniting with his brother Zachary; and immigrating to the US where he reunited with his sister Dina and brother David. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Halina Yasharoff Peabody (née Litman), born on December 12, 1932 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Krakow in a liberal Jewish family; her father Izak, who was a dentist, and her mother Olga, who was a champion swimmer; her younger sister Ewa; the Soviet invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939, at which time Halina was living in Zaleszczyki (now Zalishchyky, Ukraine), which came under Russian occupation; her father crossing into Romania as he feared being conscripted into the Russian army; the deportation of her father to Siberia when he attempted to return to his family; the German invasion in 1941, at which time harsh anti-Jewish laws were put in place; the roundups of Jews for relocation to ghettos; being forced along with her mother and sister to move to Tluste, which was turned into a ghetto; her mother purchasing documents from a Catholic priest that allowed her and her daughters to assume non-Jewish identities; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland; passing as Catholics with a woman who took in boarders; her mother’s work in a German military camp kitchen, which allowed her to obtain a German identification card; a bomb falling on the house where they had been staying; her hand being permanently injured; the liberation of Jaroslaw by Soviet forces in July 1944; reuniting with her father and settling in London, England; and immigrating to the United States in 1968. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Agi Geva
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Behr
Oral History
Robert “Bob” Behr, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family; his father Alfred, who was a real estate agent; his mother Lilly, who managed their household; his parents’ divorce when he was young; living with his mother and stepfather, Dr. Alfred Hamburger; the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933; the discrimination of Jews in Germany; attending a German-Jewish boarding school in Sweden until the school was forced to close; returning to Berlin; Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938; the deportation of his father to Buchenwald; being evicted from their apartment; living in two rooms in an elderly Jewish woman’s apartment until 1942; the arrest of his mother and stepfather for helping their friend escape to Switzerland; his arrest a few day later; being sent with his family to Theresienstadt; his work in Theresienstadt, transporting bodies for burial and laying railroad tracks; working in the camp’s kitchen; protecting his parents from deportation to Auschwitz in early 1944 by volunteering to work on the new SS headquarters in Wulkow, Germany; returning to Theresienstadt in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on May 5, 1945; immigrating to the United States in 1947; enlisting in the US Army; being sent to Berlin, where he interrogated former Nazi personnel; leaving the army in 1952; and his work in Dayton, Ohio. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Gideon Frieder
Oral History
Gideon Frieder, born on September 30, 1937 in Zvolen, Slovakia, discusses his family; moving from Zvolen to Nové Mesto, Slovakia, at the beginning of the war because his father (Rabbi Abba Frieder) was offered a position there; the German occupation of Slovakia; the deportation of his grandparents early in the war; his father’s work in Slovakia’s underground “Working Group” (a secret Jewish rescue organization) and his responsibility for communications with the Slovak authorities; the Slovak uprising against the Nazis in 1944 and fleeing with his mother and sister from Nové Mesto to Banská Bystrica, while his father fled separately; going with his mother and sister to the mountains, where they were caught in a massacre at Staré Hory (Czech Republic); the murder of his mother and sister during this massacre; surviving the massacre but being injured; being helped by a Jewish partisan who eventually took him to the village of Bully (now part of Donovaly, Slovakia), where he was placed with a sympathetic non-Jewish family; remaining in Bully until 1945, when the area was liberated by Romanian troops that fought as part of the Soviet army; reuniting later with his father, who had also survived the war; his father’s remarriage and death in 1946; and moving with his stepmother to Israel, where he remained until 1975 when he immigrated to the United States. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nesse G. Godin
Oral History
Nesse Godin (née Galperin), born on March 28, 1928 in Siauliai, Lithuania, discusses growing up in an observant Jewish family; the German invasions of Poland in September 1939; Siauliai coming under the control of the Soviet Union; the German occupation beginning in June 1941; the Nazis’ policies of discrimination toward Jews during the occupation; being forced with her family to move into the Siauliai ghetto; the mass deportation of Jews, including her father, on November 5, 1943; being deported to Stutthof in 1944; being separated from her mother and brothers; being sent to several other labor camps; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on March 10, 1945; recuperating in a makeshift hospital in Chinow (Chynowie), Poland; being taken care of by a foster mother; going to Łódź, Poland, where Nesse met a woman from Siauliai who told her that her mother Sara was alive and was somewhere on the border between Germany and Poland; reunting with her mother; getting married to Yankel (Jack) Godin; relocating to Feldafing displaced persons camp; reuniting with her brother Jechezkel; and immigrating to the United States in 1950. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Halina Yasharoff Peabody (née Litman), born on December 12, 1932 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Krakow in a liberal Jewish family; her father Izak, who was a dentist, and her mother Olga, who was a champion swimmer; her younger sister Ewa; the Soviet invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939, at which time Halina was living in Zaleszczyki (now Zalishchyky, Ukraine), which came under Russian occupation; her father crossing into Romania as he feared being conscripted into the Russian army; the deportation of her father to Siberia when he attempted to return to his family; the German invasion in 1941, at which time harsh anti-Jewish laws were put in place; the roundups of Jews for relocation to ghettos; being forced along with her mother and sister to move to Tluste, which was turned into a ghetto; her mother purchasing documents from a Catholic priest that allowed her and her daughters to assume non-Jewish identities; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland; passing as Catholics with a woman who took in boarders; her mother’s work in a German military camp kitchen, which allowed her to obtain a German identification card; a bomb falling on the house where they had been staying; her hand being permanently injured; the liberation of Jaroslaw by Soviet forces in July 1944; reuniting with her father and settling in London, England; and immigrating to the United States in 1968. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Charles Stein
Oral History
Charles Stein (né Karl Robert Stein), born on November 28, 1919 in Vienna, Austria, describes his family; his father, who was a printer; being admitted to medical school at the University of Vienna in 1937 and being prevented from his studies when the Germans arrived in Vienna on March 13, 1938; searching for a way to get out of Austria; leaving for Luxembourg in August 1938; immigrating to the United States; being drafed into the army in October 1941; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; going to Normandy, France with the 9th Infantry Division as the commander of a prisoner-of-war interrogation team; helping to liberate Nordhausen concentration camp; learning that his parents had been deported to the Łódź ghetto in 1941 and were killed in Chełmno on February 28, 1942; participating in the Korean War; and his work after the war with the Department of Defense and the Foreign Service. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Ruth Greifer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nesse G. Godin
Oral History
Nesse Godin (née Galperin), born on March 28, 1928 in Siauliai, Lithuania, discusses growing up in an observant Jewish family; the German invasions of Poland in September 1939; Siauliai coming under the control of the Soviet Union; the German occupation beginning in June 1941; the Nazis’ policies of discrimination toward Jews during the occupation; being forced with her family to move into the Siauliai ghetto; the mass deportation of Jews, including her father, on November 5, 1943; being deported to Stutthof in 1944; being separated from her mother and brothers; being sent to several other labor camps; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on March 10, 1945; recuperating in a makeshift hospital in Chinow (Chynowie), Poland; being taken care of by a foster mother; going to Łódź, Poland, where Nesse met a woman from Siauliai who told her that her mother Sara was alive and was somewhere on the border between Germany and Poland; reunting with her mother; getting married to Yankel (Jack) Godin; relocating to Feldafing displaced persons camp; reuniting with her brother Jechezkel; and immigrating to the United States in 1950. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Michel Margosis
Oral History
Michel Margosis, born on September 2, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his Russian parents; his memories of the beginning of the war; the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; fleeing with his family to Southern France; being placed in an internment camp for refugees; his parents’ decision to escape the camp; going by train to a friend’s farm elsewhere in France, where the family hid for a year; fleeing with his family to Marseille, France; escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain; being separated from his family and sent to an orphanage; reuniting with his mother and sister after two weeks; being sent to the United States in 1943 on the Serpa Pinto; and reuniting with his family in the US after a few years. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Warsinger
Oral History
Susan Warsinger, born on May 27, 1929 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, discusses her childhood in Bad Kreuznach; being the eldest of three children; her father’s linen store; the rise of the Nazis; being forced with other Jewish children to leave the public school; her father having to close his business; Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938 and the destruction of the windows and furnishings in their home; being smuggled to France along with her brother Joseph; the German occupation of France beginning in May 1940; being evacuated from a children’s home in Paris to Versailles, where they were temporarily housed in Louis XIV’s palace; fleeing with their guardians to the unoccupied part of the country controlled by the Vichy government; crossing the Pyrenees into Spain; receiving permission to immigrate to the United States with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS); sailing with her brother from Lisbon, Portugal to New York, NY in September 1941; reuniting with their parents and younger brother; and settling in Washington, DC. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Morris Rosen
Oral History
Morris (Moniek) Rosen, born on November 10, 1922 in Czestochowa, Poland, discusses his family; his nine siblings; growing up in Dąbrowa Górnicza; his father Jacob, who owned a general store; attending both public and Jewish schools; the forced closing of his father’s store by the antisemitic community; the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; fleeing eastward and being caught near the Vistula River by advancing German troops; returning to Dąbrowa Górnicza; the severe restrictions placed on the Jewish community; working for the German construction office as a carpenter and bricklayer; the deportation of many Jews, including his parents, in August 1942 to Auschwitz; being deported later on to several camps; being evacuated in February 1945 to the Kittlitztreben camp; being sent on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp; walking more than eight hours a day in the bitter cold; going to Theresienstadt and being liberated by Soviet troops; reuniting with members of his extended family; his parents and five of his siblings perishing in the Holocaust; spending several years in displaced persons camps in Austria and Germany; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Behr
Oral History
Robert “Bob” Behr, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family; his father Alfred, who was a real estate agent; his mother Lilly, who managed their household; his parents’ divorce when he was young; living with his mother and stepfather, Dr. Alfred Hamburger; the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933; the discrimination of Jews in Germany; attending a German-Jewish boarding school in Sweden until the school was forced to close; returning to Berlin; Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938; the deportation of his father to Buchenwald; being evicted from their apartment; living in two rooms in an elderly Jewish woman’s apartment until 1942; the arrest of his mother and stepfather for helping their friend escape to Switzerland; his arrest a few day later; being sent with his family to Theresienstadt; his work in Theresienstadt, transporting bodies for burial and laying railroad tracks; working in the camp’s kitchen; protecting his parents from deportation to Auschwitz in early 1944 by volunteering to work on the new SS headquarters in Wulkow, Germany; returning to Theresienstadt in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on May 5, 1945; immigrating to the United States in 1947; enlisting in the US Army; being sent to Berlin, where he interrogated former Nazi personnel; leaving the army in 1952; and his work in Dayton, Ohio. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Esther R. Starobin
Oral History
Esther Starobin (née Rosenfeld), born on April 3, 1937 in Adelsheim, Germany, discusses her family; her father’s work in the cattle industry; the Nazi assumption of power in January 1933; the policies of discrimination against Jews in Germany; her three sisters going to England as part of a Kindertransport in March 1939; going on a Kindertransport to England in the summer of 1939; staying in Thorpe, Norwich, England with Dorothy and Harry Harrison and their son Alan; attending school and being very much part of the family; staying with the Harrison family until November 1947; visiting with her sisters who lived elsewhere in England; the fates of her parents and brother (her parents died in Auschwitz and her brother was rescued in 1941 and immigrated to the United States); her sister Bertl arranging for all four of the sisters to immigrate to the US in 1947; and living initially with an aunt and uncle in Washington, DC before finding an apartment of their own. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Jill B. Pauly and Inge E. Katzenstein
Oral History
Jill Pauly (née Gisela Renate Berg), born on May 1, 1933 in Cologne, Germany, discusses growing up in a small town called Lechenich, where her family had lived since the 17th century; her father Joseph, who was a respected cattle dealer; her mother Klara, who tended to the home and took care of Jill and her older sister Inge; having a close-knit, observant Jewish family; fleeing to Cologne with her family in 1938 after they were warned of impending pogroms; the ransacking of their home during Kristallnacht; the internment of her father, uncle, and cousin after they fled illegally to Holland; her family securing visas for her father, uncle, and cousin for Kenya; leaving for Kenya via Genoa, Italy in May 1939 along with her mother, sister, and several other family members; settling in rented house in Nairobi; the beginning of the war in September 1939, and the British government arresting all adult male foreign nationals, including her father and uncles; how they were imprisoned for one week then released on the condition that they work on the farms of British citizens who were called away for war service; her family later purchasing a 375-acre farm where they could see Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro; her family’s immigration to the United States in 1947; her family purchasing a chicken farm and dairy business in Vineland, NJ; completing her high school education and graduating from a business college; and getting married in 1957 to Kurt Pauly (a fellow survivor from Nazi Germany). [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Gideon Frieder
Oral History
Gideon Frieder, born on September 30, 1937 in Zvolen, Slovakia, discusses his family; moving from Zvolen to Nové Mesto, Slovakia, at the beginning of the war because his father (Rabbi Abba Frieder) was offered a position there; the German occupation of Slovakia; the deportation of his grandparents early in the war; his father’s work in Slovakia’s underground “Working Group” (a secret Jewish rescue organization) and his responsibility for communications with the Slovak authorities; the Slovak uprising against the Nazis in 1944 and fleeing with his mother and sister from Nové Mesto to Banská Bystrica, while his father fled separately; going with his mother and sister to the mountains, where they were caught in a massacre at Staré Hory (Czech Republic); the murder of his mother and sister during this massacre; surviving the massacre but being injured; being helped by a Jewish partisan who eventually took him to the village of Bully (now part of Donovaly, Slovakia), where he was placed with a sympathetic non-Jewish family; remaining in Bully until 1945, when the area was liberated by Romanian troops that fought as part of the Soviet army; reuniting later with his father, who had also survived the war; his father’s remarriage and death in 1946; and moving with his stepmother to Israel, where he remained until 1975 when he immigrated to the United States. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Frank Ephraim
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerald Schwab
Oral History
Gerald Schwab, born on February 19, 1925 in Freiburg, Germany to a conservative Jewish family, discusses his father, who was a businessman with a company based in Germany and a warehouse located in Switzerland, and his mother, who helped his father with the business; the Nazis’ rise to power in January 1933 and his family’s decision to leave Germany; going to Switzerland and then Saint-Louis, France; his family’s move to Lörrach, Germany circa 1935; his family’s desire to leave Germany again in 1938; attending a German school until two days after Kristallnacht; the restrictions placed on Jews; living with a farmer near Zurich, Switzerland from March to December 1939; staying with another family until May 1940 when his parents received the family’s visas; sailing to the United States with his family on the SS Washington; arriving in New York, NY when he was 15 years old; his family’s acquisition of a poultry farm in central New Jersey; attending school; being drafted in 1944 into the US Army; returning to Germany as an American soldier; and achieving the rank of corporal by the time he was discharged. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Tania Rozmaryn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Agi Geva
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Taube
Oral History
Susan Taube, born on January 9, 1926 in Vacha, Germany, discusses her family background; her father Hermann, who owned a general store, and her mother Bertha, who managed the home and took care of Susan and her younger sister Brunhilde; being one of about twenty Jewish families living in Vacha in the years leading up to the war; the Nazi rise to power in 1933 and the increasing anti-Jewish measures and discrimination her family experienced; being forced to leave the public school in 1938 and attend a Jewish school in Frankfurt; the vandalization of her family’s store on Kristallnacht in November 1938; the imprisonment of her father in Buchenwald concentration camp for four weeks; her father’s immigration to the United States in February 1940; how her father was unable to get his family out of Germany at that time; being conscripted into forced labor along with her mother and sister; her work producing radio equipment for the German U-boats; being deported to the Riga ghetto in occupied Latvia in January 1942; the liquidation of the ghetto in October 1943 and being deported to the nearby Kaiserwald concentration camp; being separated from her mother and sister; being transported to Stutthof in August 1944 and then to Sophienwalde; the evacuation of the camp in January 1945 and the prisoners being forced to march 150 kilometers over ten days; being liberated by Soviet troops in March 1945; her mother and sister, who did not survive; being transported to the east and eventually being sent to work in the town of Koszalin, where she met a Polish Jew named Herman Taube; getting married in July 1945 to Herman and living briefly in Poland until the July 1946 pogrom in Kielce made it apparent that they were still not safe there; living in Germany for several years before immigrating to the United States in 1947; reuniting with her father; and settling in Baltimore, MD. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nesse G. Godin
Oral History
Nesse Godin (née Galperin), born on March 28, 1928 in Siauliai, Lithuania, discusses growing up in an observant Jewish family; the German invasions of Poland in September 1939; Siauliai coming under the control of the Soviet Union; the German occupation beginning in June 1941; the Nazis’ policies of discrimination toward Jews during the occupation; being forced with her family to move into the Siauliai ghetto; the mass deportation of Jews, including her father, on November 5, 1943; being deported to Stutthof in 1944; being separated from her mother and brothers; being sent to several other labor camps; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on March 10, 1945; recuperating in a makeshift hospital in Chinow (Chynowie), Poland; being taken care of by a foster mother; going to Łódź, Poland, where Nesse met a woman from Siauliai who told her that her mother Sara was alive and was somewhere on the border between Germany and Poland; reunting with her mother; getting married to Yankel (Jack) Godin; relocating to Feldafing displaced persons camp; reuniting with her brother Jechezkel; and immigrating to the United States in 1950. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Morris Rosen
Oral History
Morris (Moniek) Rosen, born on November 10, 1922 in Czestochowa, Poland, discusses his family; his nine siblings; growing up in Dąbrowa Górnicza; his father Jacob, who owned a general store; attending both public and Jewish schools; the forced closing of his father’s store by the antisemitic community; the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; fleeing eastward and being caught near the Vistula River by advancing German troops; returning to Dąbrowa Górnicza; the severe restrictions placed on the Jewish community; working for the German construction office as a carpenter and bricklayer; the deportation of many Jews, including his parents, in August 1942 to Auschwitz; being deported later on to several camps; being evacuated in February 1945 to the Kittlitztreben camp; being sent on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp; walking more than eight hours a day in the bitter cold; going to Theresienstadt and being liberated by Soviet troops; reuniting with members of his extended family; his parents and five of his siblings perishing in the Holocaust; spending several years in displaced persons camps in Austria and Germany; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Helen C. Luksenburg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michel Margosis
Oral History
Michel Margosis, born on September 2, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his Russian parents; his memories of the beginning of the war; the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; fleeing with his family to Southern France; being placed in an internment camp for refugees; his parents’ decision to escape the camp; going by train to a friend’s farm elsewhere in France, where the family hid for a year; fleeing with his family to Marseille, France; escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain; being separated from his family and sent to an orphanage; reuniting with his mother and sister after two weeks; being sent to the United States in 1943 on the Serpa Pinto; and reuniting with his family in the US after a few years. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Regina Spiegel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sam Spiegel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Samuel Schalkowsky
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Behr
Oral History
Robert “Bob” Behr, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family; his father Alfred, who was a real estate agent; his mother Lilly, who managed their household; his parents’ divorce when he was young; living with his mother and stepfather, Dr. Alfred Hamburger; the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933; the discrimination of Jews in Germany; attending a German-Jewish boarding school in Sweden until the school was forced to close; returning to Berlin; Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938; the deportation of his father to Buchenwald; being evicted from their apartment; living in two rooms in an elderly Jewish woman’s apartment until 1942; the arrest of his mother and stepfather for helping their friend escape to Switzerland; his arrest a few day later; being sent with his family to Theresienstadt; his work in Theresienstadt, transporting bodies for burial and laying railroad tracks; working in the camp’s kitchen; protecting his parents from deportation to Auschwitz in early 1944 by volunteering to work on the new SS headquarters in Wulkow, Germany; returning to Theresienstadt in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on May 5, 1945; immigrating to the United States in 1947; enlisting in the US Army; being sent to Berlin, where he interrogated former Nazi personnel; leaving the army in 1952; and his work in Dayton, Ohio. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hannah K. Weiss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Greenbaum
Oral History
Henry Greenbaum (né Chuna Grynbaum), born on April 1, 1928 in Starachowice, Poland, describes his parents; his father Nuchem, who ran a tailor shop out of their home while his mother Gittel, raised the family’s nine children; his father arranging for Henry and three of his sisters to work in the local munitions factory in 1939; the unexpected death of his father; the German invasion of Poland; escaping with his family to a farm; being forced to move to the Starachowice ghetto in 1940 with his family; his deportation to a nearby labor camp in October 1942 while his mother and two of his sisters, along with their children, were deported to Treblinka and killed; the deaths of two of his sisters (Chaja and Yita) in the labor camp; trying to escape from the camp with his sister Faige in 1943; being shot in the head during the escape and being tended to by one of his cousins; learned Faige had been killed in the escape attempt; being deported to Auschwitz and placed in the forced labor camp Monowitz in 1944; being evacuated to Flossenbürg concentration camp; being forced on a death march toward Dachau concentration camp; being liberated by the Us Army 11th Armored Division in April 1945; searching for his family after the war; reuniting with his brother Zachary; and immigrating to the US where he reunited with his sister Dina and brother David. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Alfred Munzer
Oral History
Alfred Munzer, born on November 23, 1941 in The Hague, the Netherlands, discusses his father Simcha, who owned a men’s tailoring business and his mother Gisele, who remained at home to look after Alfred and his two older sisters Eva and Leah; going into hiding in September 1942; his sisters’ placement with the friend of a neighbor (they were ultimately denounced and sent to Westerbork, after which Eva and Leah were deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed); being put in the care of a family friend named Annie Madna, who placed him with her sister; how Annie’s sister became too nervous to keep him and placed Alfred with her ex-husband, Tolé; living in Tolé’s home for three years, and being looked after by his housekeeper Mima Saïna, who became his surrogate mother; the deportation of his parents to Vught then Auschwitz in 1943; the transfer of his father to several camps, including Mauthausen and Ebensee, and his death two months after liberation while he was receiving medical treatment; the transfer of his mother from Auschwitz to work at a factory and several other camps before she was sent to Ravensbrück and evacuated by the Swedish Red Cross; reuniting with his mother when he was four years old and having no idea who she was; living in Holland until they moved to Belgium in 1952; and immigrating to the United States in 1958. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with William Luksenburg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerald Schwab
Oral History
Gerald Schwab, born on February 19, 1925 in Freiburg, Germany to a conservative Jewish family, discusses his father, who was a businessman with a company based in Germany and a warehouse located in Switzerland, and his mother, who helped his father with the business; the Nazis’ rise to power in January 1933 and his family’s decision to leave Germany; going to Switzerland and then Saint-Louis, France; his family’s move to Lörrach, Germany circa 1935; his family’s desire to leave Germany again in 1938; attending a German school until two days after Kristallnacht; the restrictions placed on Jews; living with a farmer near Zurich, Switzerland from March to December 1939; staying with another family until May 1940 when his parents received the family’s visas; sailing to the United States with his family on the SS Washington; arriving in New York, NY when he was 15 years old; his family’s acquisition of a poultry farm in central New Jersey; attending school; being drafted in 1944 into the US Army; returning to Germany as an American soldier; and achieving the rank of corporal by the time he was discharged. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Agi Geva
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tswi J. Herschel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Greifer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tania Rozmaryn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Halina Yasharoff Peabody (née Litman), born on December 12, 1932 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Krakow in a liberal Jewish family; her father Izak, who was a dentist, and her mother Olga, who was a champion swimmer; her younger sister Ewa; the Soviet invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939, at which time Halina was living in Zaleszczyki (now Zalishchyky, Ukraine), which came under Russian occupation; her father crossing into Romania as he feared being conscripted into the Russian army; the deportation of her father to Siberia when he attempted to return to his family; the German invasion in 1941, at which time harsh anti-Jewish laws were put in place; the roundups of Jews for relocation to ghettos; being forced along with her mother and sister to move to Tluste, which was turned into a ghetto; her mother purchasing documents from a Catholic priest that allowed her and her daughters to assume non-Jewish identities; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland; passing as Catholics with a woman who took in boarders; her mother’s work in a German military camp kitchen, which allowed her to obtain a German identification card; a bomb falling on the house where they had been staying; her hand being permanently injured; the liberation of Jaroslaw by Soviet forces in July 1944; reuniting with her father and settling in London, England; and immigrating to the United States in 1968. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Lidia K. Siciarz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susie G. Schwarz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Simon Jeruchim
Oral History
Oral history interview with Kristine Keren
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gavra Mandil
Oral History
Oral history interview with Maria Dworzecka
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alfred Munzer
Oral History
Alfred Munzer, born on November 23, 1941 in The Hague, the Netherlands, discusses his father Simcha, who owned a men’s tailoring business and his mother Gisele, who remained at home to look after Alfred and his two older sisters Eva and Leah; going into hiding in September 1942; his sisters’ placement with the friend of a neighbor (they were ultimately denounced and sent to Westerbork, after which Eva and Leah were deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed); being put in the care of a family friend named Annie Madna, who placed him with her sister; how Annie’s sister became too nervous to keep him and placed Alfred with her ex-husband, Tolé; living in Tolé’s home for three years, and being looked after by his housekeeper Mima Saïna, who became his surrogate mother; the deportation of his parents to Vught then Auschwitz in 1943; the transfer of his father to several camps, including Mauthausen and Ebensee, and his death two months after liberation while he was receiving medical treatment; the transfer of his mother from Auschwitz to work at a factory and several other camps before she was sent to Ravensbrück and evacuated by the Swedish Red Cross; reuniting with his mother when he was four years old and having no idea who she was; living in Holland until they moved to Belgium in 1952; and immigrating to the United States in 1958. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Haim Solomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Helen C. Luksenburg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frank Ephraim
Oral History
Oral history interview with Morris Rosen
Oral History
Morris (Moniek) Rosen, born on November 10, 1922 in Czestochowa, Poland, discusses his family; his nine siblings; growing up in Dąbrowa Górnicza; his father Jacob, who owned a general store; attending both public and Jewish schools; the forced closing of his father’s store by the antisemitic community; the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; fleeing eastward and being caught near the Vistula River by advancing German troops; returning to Dąbrowa Górnicza; the severe restrictions placed on the Jewish community; working for the German construction office as a carpenter and bricklayer; the deportation of many Jews, including his parents, in August 1942 to Auschwitz; being deported later on to several camps; being evacuated in February 1945 to the Kittlitztreben camp; being sent on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp; walking more than eight hours a day in the bitter cold; going to Theresienstadt and being liberated by Soviet troops; reuniting with members of his extended family; his parents and five of his siblings perishing in the Holocaust; spending several years in displaced persons camps in Austria and Germany; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Michel Margosis
Oral History
Michel Margosis, born on September 2, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his Russian parents; his memories of the beginning of the war; the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; fleeing with his family to Southern France; being placed in an internment camp for refugees; his parents’ decision to escape the camp; going by train to a friend’s farm elsewhere in France, where the family hid for a year; fleeing with his family to Marseille, France; escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain; being separated from his family and sent to an orphanage; reuniting with his mother and sister after two weeks; being sent to the United States in 1943 on the Serpa Pinto; and reuniting with his family in the US after a few years. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Sam Spiegel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nesse G. Godin
Oral History
Nesse Godin (née Galperin), born on March 28, 1928 in Siauliai, Lithuania, discusses growing up in an observant Jewish family; the German invasions of Poland in September 1939; Siauliai coming under the control of the Soviet Union; the German occupation beginning in June 1941; the Nazis’ policies of discrimination toward Jews during the occupation; being forced with her family to move into the Siauliai ghetto; the mass deportation of Jews, including her father, on November 5, 1943; being deported to Stutthof in 1944; being separated from her mother and brothers; being sent to several other labor camps; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on March 10, 1945; recuperating in a makeshift hospital in Chinow (Chynowie), Poland; being taken care of by a foster mother; going to Łódź, Poland, where Nesse met a woman from Siauliai who told her that her mother Sara was alive and was somewhere on the border between Germany and Poland; reunting with her mother; getting married to Yankel (Jack) Godin; relocating to Feldafing displaced persons camp; reuniting with her brother Jechezkel; and immigrating to the United States in 1950. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Flora Singer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Livia Shacter
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Greenbaum
Oral History
Henry Greenbaum (né Chuna Grynbaum), born on April 1, 1928 in Starachowice, Poland, describes his parents; his father Nuchem, who ran a tailor shop out of their home while his mother Gittel, raised the family’s nine children; his father arranging for Henry and three of his sisters to work in the local munitions factory in 1939; the unexpected death of his father; the German invasion of Poland; escaping with his family to a farm; being forced to move to the Starachowice ghetto in 1940 with his family; his deportation to a nearby labor camp in October 1942 while his mother and two of his sisters, along with their children, were deported to Treblinka and killed; the deaths of two of his sisters (Chaja and Yita) in the labor camp; trying to escape from the camp with his sister Faige in 1943; being shot in the head during the escape and being tended to by one of his cousins; learned Faige had been killed in the escape attempt; being deported to Auschwitz and placed in the forced labor camp Monowitz in 1944; being evacuated to Flossenbürg concentration camp; being forced on a death march toward Dachau concentration camp; being liberated by the Us Army 11th Armored Division in April 1945; searching for his family after the war; reuniting with his brother Zachary; and immigrating to the US where he reunited with his sister Dina and brother David. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Regina Spiegel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther R. Starobin
Oral History
Esther Starobin (née Rosenfeld), born on April 3, 1937 in Adelsheim, Germany, discusses her family; her father’s work in the cattle industry; the Nazi assumption of power in January 1933; the policies of discrimination against Jews in Germany; her three sisters going to England as part of a Kindertransport in March 1939; going on a Kindertransport to England in the summer of 1939; staying in Thorpe, Norwich, England with Dorothy and Harry Harrison and their son Alan; attending school and being very much part of the family; staying with the Harrison family until November 1947; visiting with her sisters who lived elsewhere in England; the fates of her parents and brother (her parents died in Auschwitz and her brother was rescued in 1941 and immigrated to the United States); her sister Bertl arranging for all four of the sisters to immigrate to the US in 1947; and living initially with an aunt and uncle in Washington, DC before finding an apartment of their own. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Ruth Greifer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerald Schwab
Oral History
Gerald Schwab, born on February 19, 1925 in Freiburg, Germany to a conservative Jewish family, discusses his father, who was a businessman with a company based in Germany and a warehouse located in Switzerland, and his mother, who helped his father with the business; the Nazis’ rise to power in January 1933 and his family’s decision to leave Germany; going to Switzerland and then Saint-Louis, France; his family’s move to Lörrach, Germany circa 1935; his family’s desire to leave Germany again in 1938; attending a German school until two days after Kristallnacht; the restrictions placed on Jews; living with a farmer near Zurich, Switzerland from March to December 1939; staying with another family until May 1940 when his parents received the family’s visas; sailing to the United States with his family on the SS Washington; arriving in New York, NY when he was 15 years old; his family’s acquisition of a poultry farm in central New Jersey; attending school; being drafted in 1944 into the US Army; returning to Germany as an American soldier; and achieving the rank of corporal by the time he was discharged. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Halina Yasharoff Peabody (née Litman), born on December 12, 1932 in Krakow, Poland, describes growing up in Krakow in a liberal Jewish family; her father Izak, who was a dentist, and her mother Olga, who was a champion swimmer; her younger sister Ewa; the Soviet invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939, at which time Halina was living in Zaleszczyki (now Zalishchyky, Ukraine), which came under Russian occupation; her father crossing into Romania as he feared being conscripted into the Russian army; the deportation of her father to Siberia when he attempted to return to his family; the German invasion in 1941, at which time harsh anti-Jewish laws were put in place; the roundups of Jews for relocation to ghettos; being forced along with her mother and sister to move to Tluste, which was turned into a ghetto; her mother purchasing documents from a Catholic priest that allowed her and her daughters to assume non-Jewish identities; moving to Jaroslaw, Poland; passing as Catholics with a woman who took in boarders; her mother’s work in a German military camp kitchen, which allowed her to obtain a German identification card; a bomb falling on the house where they had been staying; her hand being permanently injured; the liberation of Jaroslaw by Soviet forces in July 1944; reuniting with her father and settling in London, England; and immigrating to the United States in 1968. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Leon Merrick
Oral History
Leon Merrick, born on January 8, 1926, in Zgierz, Poland, discusses his family; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; his family’s move to Łódź, Poland; being forced into a ghetto, where the family lived in extreme conditions for four years until the ghetto closed; being taken to a forced labor camp in Kielce, Poland; working in an ammunition factory there for three months before being sent to a forced labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland; being sent to Buchenwald and Flossenbürg; being sent on a death march for several days; being liberated by the US Army on April 23, 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Jill B. Pauly and Inge E. Katzenstein
Oral History
Jill Pauly (née Gisela Renate Berg), born on May 1, 1933 in Cologne, Germany, discusses growing up in a small town called Lechenich, where her family had lived since the 17th century; her father Joseph, who was a respected cattle dealer; her mother Klara, who tended to the home and took care of Jill and her older sister Inge; having a close-knit, observant Jewish family; fleeing to Cologne with her family in 1938 after they were warned of impending pogroms; the ransacking of their home during Kristallnacht; the internment of her father, uncle, and cousin after they fled illegally to Holland; her family securing visas for her father, uncle, and cousin for Kenya; leaving for Kenya via Genoa, Italy in May 1939 along with her mother, sister, and several other family members; settling in rented house in Nairobi; the beginning of the war in September 1939, and the British government arresting all adult male foreign nationals, including her father and uncles; how they were imprisoned for one week then released on the condition that they work on the farms of British citizens who were called away for war service; her family later purchasing a 375-acre farm where they could see Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro; her family’s immigration to the United States in 1947; her family purchasing a chicken farm and dairy business in Vineland, NJ; completing her high school education and graduating from a business college; and getting married in 1957 to Kurt Pauly (a fellow survivor from Nazi Germany). [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Tania Rozmaryn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerald Schwab
Oral History
Gerald Schwab, born on February 19, 1925 in Freiburg, Germany to a conservative Jewish family, discusses his father, who was a businessman with a company based in Germany and a warehouse located in Switzerland, and his mother, who helped his father with the business; the Nazis’ rise to power in January 1933 and his family’s decision to leave Germany; going to Switzerland and then Saint-Louis, France; his family’s move to Lörrach, Germany circa 1935; his family’s desire to leave Germany again in 1938; attending a German school until two days after Kristallnacht; the restrictions placed on Jews; living with a farmer near Zurich, Switzerland from March to December 1939; staying with another family until May 1940 when his parents received the family’s visas; sailing to the United States with his family on the SS Washington; arriving in New York, NY when he was 15 years old; his family’s acquisition of a poultry farm in central New Jersey; attending school; being drafted in 1944 into the US Army; returning to Germany as an American soldier; and achieving the rank of corporal by the time he was discharged. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Herman Taube
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther R. Starobin
Oral History
Esther Starobin (née Rosenfeld), born on April 3, 1937 in Adelsheim, Germany, discusses her family; her father’s work in the cattle industry; the Nazi assumption of power in January 1933; the policies of discrimination against Jews in Germany; her three sisters going to England as part of a Kindertransport in March 1939; going on a Kindertransport to England in the summer of 1939; staying in Thorpe, Norwich, England with Dorothy and Harry Harrison and their son Alan; attending school and being very much part of the family; staying with the Harrison family until November 1947; visiting with her sisters who lived elsewhere in England; the fates of her parents and brother (her parents died in Auschwitz and her brother was rescued in 1941 and immigrated to the United States); her sister Bertl arranging for all four of the sisters to immigrate to the US in 1947; and living initially with an aunt and uncle in Washington, DC before finding an apartment of their own. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Nesse G. Godin
Oral History
Nesse Godin (née Galperin), born on March 28, 1928 in Siauliai, Lithuania, discusses growing up in an observant Jewish family; the German invasions of Poland in September 1939; Siauliai coming under the control of the Soviet Union; the German occupation beginning in June 1941; the Nazis’ policies of discrimination toward Jews during the occupation; being forced with her family to move into the Siauliai ghetto; the mass deportation of Jews, including her father, on November 5, 1943; being deported to Stutthof in 1944; being separated from her mother and brothers; being sent to several other labor camps; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on March 10, 1945; recuperating in a makeshift hospital in Chinow (Chynowie), Poland; being taken care of by a foster mother; going to Łódź, Poland, where Nesse met a woman from Siauliai who told her that her mother Sara was alive and was somewhere on the border between Germany and Poland; reunting with her mother; getting married to Yankel (Jack) Godin; relocating to Feldafing displaced persons camp; reuniting with her brother Jechezkel; and immigrating to the United States in 1950. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Helen C. Luksenburg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Regina Spiegel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michel Margosis
Oral History
Michel Margosis, born on September 2, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his Russian parents; his memories of the beginning of the war; the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; fleeing with his family to Southern France; being placed in an internment camp for refugees; his parents’ decision to escape the camp; going by train to a friend’s farm elsewhere in France, where the family hid for a year; fleeing with his family to Marseille, France; escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain; being separated from his family and sent to an orphanage; reuniting with his mother and sister after two weeks; being sent to the United States in 1943 on the Serpa Pinto; and reuniting with his family in the US after a few years. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Susan Taube
Oral History
Susan Taube, born on January 9, 1926 in Vacha, Germany, discusses her family background; her father Hermann, who owned a general store, and her mother Bertha, who managed the home and took care of Susan and her younger sister Brunhilde; being one of about twenty Jewish families living in Vacha in the years leading up to the war; the Nazi rise to power in 1933 and the increasing anti-Jewish measures and discrimination her family experienced; being forced to leave the public school in 1938 and attend a Jewish school in Frankfurt; the vandalization of her family’s store on Kristallnacht in November 1938; the imprisonment of her father in Buchenwald concentration camp for four weeks; her father’s immigration to the United States in February 1940; how her father was unable to get his family out of Germany at that time; being conscripted into forced labor along with her mother and sister; her work producing radio equipment for the German U-boats; being deported to the Riga ghetto in occupied Latvia in January 1942; the liquidation of the ghetto in October 1943 and being deported to the nearby Kaiserwald concentration camp; being separated from her mother and sister; being transported to Stutthof in August 1944 and then to Sophienwalde; the evacuation of the camp in January 1945 and the prisoners being forced to march 150 kilometers over ten days; being liberated by Soviet troops in March 1945; her mother and sister, who did not survive; being transported to the east and eventually being sent to work in the town of Koszalin, where she met a Polish Jew named Herman Taube; getting married in July 1945 to Herman and living briefly in Poland until the July 1946 pogrom in Kielce made it apparent that they were still not safe there; living in Germany for several years before immigrating to the United States in 1947; reuniting with her father; and settling in Baltimore, MD. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Flora Singer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jill B. Pauly
Oral History
Jill Pauly (née Gisela Renate Berg), born on May 1, 1933 in Cologne, Germany, discusses growing up in a small town called Lechenich, where her family had lived since the 17th century; her father Joseph, who was a respected cattle dealer; her mother Klara, who tended to the home and took care of Jill and her older sister Inge; having a close-knit, observant Jewish family; fleeing to Cologne with her family in 1938 after they were warned of impending pogroms; the ransacking of their home during Kristallnacht; the internment of her father, uncle, and cousin after they fled illegally to Holland; her family securing visas for her father, uncle, and cousin for Kenya; leaving for Kenya via Genoa, Italy in May 1939 along with her mother, sister, and several other family members; settling in rented house in Nairobi; the beginning of the war in September 1939, and the British government arresting all adult male foreign nationals, including her father and uncles; how they were imprisoned for one week then released on the condition that they work on the farms of British citizens who were called away for war service; her family later purchasing a 375-acre farm where they could see Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro; her family’s immigration to the United States in 1947; her family purchasing a chicken farm and dairy business in Vineland, NJ; completing her high school education and graduating from a business college; and getting married in 1957 to Kurt Pauly (a fellow survivor from Nazi Germany). [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with David Bayer
Oral History
David Bayer, born on September 27, 1922 in Kozienice, Poland, describes his father, who owned a shoe factory before the war; his mother, who managed the household and helped in the factory; having a comfortable childhood; his sister and brother; the German occupation of his town and the anti-Jewish restrictions; being relocated to a ghetto; working on an irrigation project; the deportation of his family to Treblinka, where they perished; being transported to Pionki and put to work in a factory that manufactured gunpowder; being taken in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; being selected for slave labor and tattooed with a prisoner number; working in the coal mines at Jaworzno; being evacuated in the winter of 1944-1945 and sent on a death march; escaping into the forest and being found by Russian soldiers; returning to Kozienice; traveling to Panama and then to Israel, where he immediately joined the army; fighting in Israel’s War for Independence; returning to Panama; and immigrating to the United States in 1955. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Helen L. Goldkind
Oral History
Oral history interview with Erika N. Eckstut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Greifer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Morris Rosen
Oral History
Morris (Moniek) Rosen, born on November 10, 1922 in Czestochowa, Poland, discusses his family; his nine siblings; growing up in Dąbrowa Górnicza; his father Jacob, who owned a general store; attending both public and Jewish schools; the forced closing of his father’s store by the antisemitic community; the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; fleeing eastward and being caught near the Vistula River by advancing German troops; returning to Dąbrowa Górnicza; the severe restrictions placed on the Jewish community; working for the German construction office as a carpenter and bricklayer; the deportation of many Jews, including his parents, in August 1942 to Auschwitz; being deported later on to several camps; being evacuated in February 1945 to the Kittlitztreben camp; being sent on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp; walking more than eight hours a day in the bitter cold; going to Theresienstadt and being liberated by Soviet troops; reuniting with members of his extended family; his parents and five of his siblings perishing in the Holocaust; spending several years in displaced persons camps in Austria and Germany; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leon Merrick
Oral History
Leon Merrick, born on January 8, 1926, in Zgierz, Poland, discusses his family; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; his family’s move to Łódź, Poland; being forced into a ghetto, where the family lived in extreme conditions for four years until the ghetto closed; being taken to a forced labor camp in Kielce, Poland; working in an ammunition factory there for three months before being sent to a forced labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland; being sent to Buchenwald and Flossenbürg; being sent on a death march for several days; being liberated by the US Army on April 23, 1945; and immigrating to the United States in 1949. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Manny Mandel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Agi Geva
Oral History
Oral history interview Joel Nommick
Oral History
Oral History interview with Alfred Munzer
Oral History
Oral History interview with Rose-Helene Spreiregen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Gorog
Oral History
Oral history interview with Allan Firestone
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rose-Helene Spreiregen
Oral History
Oral History interview with Frank Cohn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Warsinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Steven Fenves
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Rosenfeld Starobin
Oral History
Esther Starobin (née Rosenfeld), born in April 1937 in the village of Adelsheim, Germany, describes her father’s family having lived in the village for more than 200 years; being the youngest of five children, with three sisters; her sisters walking to school in Aachen after the violent anti-Jewish demonstrations of Kristallnacht in 1938 and seeing a burning Synagogue and being told to go home; her parents sending her and her sisters to England by Kindertransport in 1939; a family in Scotland that took in one of her sisters, Bertl, later turning out to be spying for the Germans; staying in Thorpe, Norwich, England with the Harrison family until 1947; her parents and her brother, Herman, being taken to the Gurs camp in southwestern France, then an organization sending Herman to the United States; her parents being sent by train to Auschwitz in August 1942 and being murdered when they arrived; her parents knowing all of their children were safe in other countries.
Oral history interview with Nathan Shaffir
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frank Liebermann
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irene Fogel Weiss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rachel Goldfarb
Oral History
Oral history interview with Estelle Laughlin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Feigl
Oral History
Oral history interview with Albert Garih
Oral History
Oral history interview with Isak M. Danon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Behr
Oral History
Robert “Bob” Behr, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his family; his father Alfred, who was a real estate agent; his mother Lilly, who managed their household; his parents’ divorce when he was young; living with his mother and stepfather, Dr. Alfred Hamburger; the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933; the discrimination of Jews in Germany; attending a German-Jewish boarding school in Sweden until the school was forced to close; returning to Berlin; Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938; the deportation of his father to Buchenwald; being evicted from their apartment; living in two rooms in an elderly Jewish woman’s apartment until 1942; the arrest of his mother and stepfather for helping their friend escape to Switzerland; his arrest a few day later; being sent with his family to Theresienstadt; his work in Theresienstadt, transporting bodies for burial and laying railroad tracks; working in the camp’s kitchen; protecting his parents from deportation to Auschwitz in early 1944 by volunteering to work on the new SS headquarters in Wulkow, Germany; returning to Theresienstadt in January 1945; being liberated by the Soviet Army on May 5, 1945; immigrating to the United States in 1947; enlisting in the US Army; being sent to Berlin, where he interrogated former Nazi personnel; leaving the army in 1952; and his work in Dayton, Ohio. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Halina Peabody
Oral History
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michel Margosis
Oral History
Michel Margosis, born on September 2, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his Russian parents; his memories of the beginning of the war; the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; fleeing with his family to Southern France; being placed in an internment camp for refugees; his parents’ decision to escape the camp; going by train to a friend’s farm elsewhere in France, where the family hid for a year; fleeing with his family to Marseille, France; escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain; being separated from his family and sent to an orphanage; reuniting with his mother and sister after two weeks; being sent to the United States in 1943 on the Serpa Pinto; and reuniting with his family in the US after a few years. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Nesse G. Godin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Greifer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Taube
Oral History
Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Margit Meissner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Isak M. Danon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Strassburger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Martin Weiss
Oral History
Martin Weiss, born on January 28, 1929 in Polana, Czechoslovakia (possibly present day Veľká Poľana, Slovakia), discusses his family; his father who was a subsistence farmer and meat distributor; his mother who managed their orthodox Jewish household and raised nine children; the Hungarian control over his hometown beginning in 1939; the anti-Jewish policies; the conscription of Jewish men, including his two brothers, into slave labor battalions and sent to the Russian front; his father managing to keep his business; the deportation of his family in April 1944 to the Munkacs ghetto (in present day Mukacheve, Ukraine); being forced to perform labor in a brick factory; the deportation of his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau; the selection process; being transported with his father to Melk, a subcamp of the labor camp Mauthausen; his father’s death; being sent on a forced march to Gunskirchen; being liberated by the United States Army on May 5, 1945; life after the war; living in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic with his sister; and immigrating to the United States in 1946. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Manya Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Greenbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michel Margosis
Oral History
Michel Margosis, born on September 2, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, discusses his Russian parents; his memories of the beginning of the war; the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; fleeing with his family to Southern France; being placed in an internment camp for refugees; his parents’ decision to escape the camp; going by train to a friend’s farm elsewhere in France, where the family hid for a year; fleeing with his family to Marseille, France; escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain; being separated from his family and sent to an orphanage; reuniting with his mother and sister after two weeks; being sent to the United States in 1943 on the Serpa Pinto; and reuniting with his family in the US after a few years. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Susan Warsinger
Oral History
Susan Warsinger, born on May 27, 1929 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, discusses her childhood in Bad Kreuznach; being the eldest of three children; her father’s linen store; the rise of the Nazis; being forced with other Jewish children to leave the public school; her father having to close his business; Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938 and the destruction of the windows and furnishings in their home; being smuggled to France along with her brother Joseph; the German occupation of France beginning in May 1940; being evacuated from a children’s home in Paris to Versailles, where they were temporarily housed in Louis XIV’s palace; fleeing with their guardians to the unoccupied part of the country controlled by the Vichy government; crossing the Pyrenees into Spain; receiving permission to immigrate to the United States with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS); sailing with her brother from Lisbon, Portugal to New York, NY in September 1941; reuniting with their parents and younger brother; and settling in Washington, DC. [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Estelle Laughlin
Oral History
Estelle Laughlin (née Wakszlak), born on July 9, 1929 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses her parents Michla and Samek; her older sister Freda (born January 1928); the jewelry shop her father operated; attending a local public school; the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the siege on Warsaw beginning one week later; the German occupation and not being allowed to attend school; the establishment of a ghetto in October 1940 and being forced with other Jews to live in the ghetto; the conditions in the ghetto; the massive deportations of Jews to Treblinka from July to September 1942; hiding in a secret room with her family during the deportations; her father’s efforts in the resistance movement; the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the spring of 1943 and hiding in a bunker with her family; being discovered in the bunker and the deportation of her family to Majdanek; being selected for forced labor along with her mother and sister; her father’s death in the gas chamber; her sister being badly beaten and placed on a list that she and her mother thought was a gas chamber list; their decision to switch places with two other women so they could be on the same list with Freda; being sent together to Skarzysko concentration camp to work in a munitions factory and later to camp Czestochowa; being liberation by Soviet forces from Czestochowa in January 1945; moving with her mother and sister to Bavaria, Germany in August 1945 and living there until 1947; immigrating as a family to the United States; and joining two of Estelle’s aunts and an uncle in New York City.
Oral history interview with Jill B. Pauly
Oral History
Jill Pauly (née Gisela Renate Berg), born on May 1, 1933 in Cologne, Germany, discusses growing up in a small town called Lechenich, where her family had lived since the 17th century; her father Joseph, who was a respected cattle dealer; her mother Klara, who tended to the home and took care of Jill and her older sister Inge; having a close-knit, observant Jewish family; fleeing to Cologne with her family in 1938 after they were warned of impending pogroms; the ransacking of their home during Kristallnacht; the internment of her father, uncle, and cousin after they fled illegally to Holland; her family securing visas for her father, uncle, and cousin for Kenya; leaving for Kenya via Genoa, Italy in May 1939 along with her mother, sister, and several other family members; settling in rented house in Nairobi; the beginning of the war in September 1939, and the British government arresting all adult male foreign nationals, including her father and uncles; how they were imprisoned for one week then released on the condition that they work on the farms of British citizens who were called away for war service; her family later purchasing a 375-acre farm where they could see Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro; her family’s immigration to the United States in 1947; her family purchasing a chicken farm and dairy business in Vineland, NJ; completing her high school education and graduating from a business college; and getting married in 1957 to Kurt Pauly (a fellow survivor from Nazi Germany). [Note: this summary may not reflect the entirety of the interview; it may also contain additional biographical information that is not discussed in the interview.]
Oral history interview with Kurt Pauly
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alfred Traum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fritz P. Gluckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sylvia Rozines
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Gorog
Oral History
Oral history interview with Louis de Groot
Oral History