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Oral history interview with George W. Landau

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2014.22.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0744

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    Oral history interview with George W. Landau
    Transcript
    You will try not to move too much.
    I will try not to move too much.
    All right.
    All right.
    We are rolling.
    Just as long as you scream, it's all right.
    OK.
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mr. George Landau, former ambassador
    of the United States to several countries,
    conducted on March 10th, 2014 at the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum facilities here in Washington, DC.
    Thank you very, very much, Ambassador,
    for agreeing to meet and speak with us today.
    You're very welcome.
    OK.
    I'm going to start this interview
    from the very beginning because we are very interested to learn
    about your early experiences, and the forces and people who
    shaped you.
    So can you tell me, when were you born, where were you born,
    and what name were you born with?
    Sometimes it changes over the years.
    I was born on March 4, 1920 in Vienna, Austria.
    Were you the only child?
    The only child.
    Can you tell me your parents' names?
    Yes.
    My father's name was Dr. Jacob Landau.
    He was a lawyer, Rechtsanwalt.
    Ein Rechtsanwalt.
    And my mother was Jeanette Landau, nee Klausner.
    Uh-huh.
    Were they also native Viennese?
    No, they were not.
    They came from the Bukowina.
    They came from Czernowitz.
    Oh.
    And they left, my father did his--
    it was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
    And my father did his university studies there,
    and then came to Vienna to start practicing law.
    And my mother and her family also
    came to Vienna during the war.
    World War I?
    World War I, yes.
    It was not connected with the war, but it was the time frame.
    And when I was born, my father was established as a lawyer
    and had his own office.
    Your mother came also from Bukowina?
    Where did your mother's family come from,
    if they weren't from Vienna?
    Bukowina.
    Also from Bukowina.
    Yes.
    Also.
    I see.
    And did they come from large families?
    My mother had three siblings.
    My father had five siblings.
    Did all of them stay in Bukowina except for your parents?
    On my father's side, yes.
    On my mother's side, they were all in Vienna.
    I see.
    That's sort of as the groundwork to ask,
    did you have other extended family members around you
    as you were growing up?
    No.
    No.
    Were you close, then, to your mother's side of the family?
    Did you see them often when they were here in Vienna?
    Yes, I saw them quite often.
    Did you ever travel back with your parents
    to where they were born to meet other family members?
    Yes.
    Not with my parents, but I was invited when I was 14
    and then 16 to stay for the summer vacation.
    I stayed with one of my uncles, who was a doctor.
    And I stayed with him, and then another uncle
    who had a store in Dona Watra, which was a resort town.
    And so I spent the summer months,
    and I got to know them all very well.
    Tell me-- and forgive my ignorance-- which country ruled
    that area when you went there?
    It wasn't Austria.
    No, it was Austrian-Hungarian Empire when my parents left.
    It became, after 1918 peace treaty, it became Romania.
    And it was Romania until the end of World War II, when
    the Russians occupied it.
    And in fact, I'll tell you, I came back to Romania
    in 1946 while I was in the army.
    I just noticed that headquarters had planes
    to the missions via the US military mission in Bucharest,
    in Budapest, and in Sofia.
    So I had some time to kill, and so I
    asked whether I could go to Bucharest.
    And so I did.
    It was in January '46.
    And I saw quite a few of my family members there.
    That was, of course, the reason I went there.
    So they survived.
    Oh yeah, everybody survived.
    In Romania, it was not particularly complicated.
    They had labor camps, I think, but I'm not aware that--
    maybe somebody went, but as far as I know,
    they were all, when I was there in '46, all
    doing well and in good health.
    And then, of course, all of them left eventually
    and went to Israel.
    I see.
    I see.
    So when you went back in your early years--
    we'll go back to that--
    you mentioned that an uncle was a doctor--
    Yes.
    --and another one owned a store?
    Right.
    So were they sort of like an educated middle class
    in the-- it was Czernowitz, the town that they lived in?
    I'm sorry?
    The town.
    What was the name of the town they lived in?
    Well, my uncle, the doctor, was a county doctor
    for the whole region from the border, the Romanian--
    it was, of course, Romania-- from the Polish-Romanian border
    up to Czernowitz, which was called Cernuti at the time.
    And so he was a regional doctor, and he
    lived in [PLACE NAME],, which was the border town between Poland
    and Romania.
    But his responsibility went all the way to Cernauti.
    And my other uncle lived in Dona Watra,
    Vatra Dornei in Romanian, which is a resort
    town, a very lovely town.
    And I spent two weeks with each one, I think,
    in '34, and then again in '36.
    Was the standard of living in these places the same as
    in Vienna?
    Well, they lived very well.
    I mean, he was the medical county doctor,
    and so standard of living, it's hard to say.
    I mean, I was very surprised, when I went to my uncle,
    he took me along--
    I mean, I had nothing to do, so he took me along on his trips
    when he saw his patients.
    And he used a buggy.
    You know, cart and the horse.
    And I enjoyed that very much.
    That's not something you would see in Vienna.
    That's true.
    What language did you speak with him?
    German.
    German?
    With your uncles in Romania and at home,
    then, I take it, as well?
    That was your first language?
    It was.
    OK.
    Did you learn any Romanian?
    No.
    I mean, I was there a month, twice.
    Were there any other languages that you
    spoke with your parents?
    With my parents?
    No.
    I had a governess who taught me, supposedly, French and English.
    Why do you say supposedly?
    Well, she was an Austrian, and had been to France
    and had been to England, but it was fairly rudimentary.
    OK, I'll go back now-- oh, one other question.
    Since your father and your uncle already
    were professional people, what about their father,
    your grandfather, and before?
    Were they also educated people?
    Was this a family that educated their children?
    Well, of the six children, including my father, when
    he was a lawyer, the second one was a doctor,
    the third one was a banker.
    And then they had no children for 20 years,
    and then they had three more, two girls
    and a son who had the store.
    But they all went to school, they all
    went to a gymnasium and a university.
    But the girls didn't do anything in particular,
    other than get married.
    And your grandfather himself, how did he support his family?
    My grandfather, whom I just saw one time, he had a--
    I don't know how you call that--
    he had a plant where wood was being processed.
    Ah.
    Wood processing plant.
    Yeah, I would say that.
    You know, the--
    Timber.
    And-- yes.
    And he had a rather large plant.
    But by the time I met him, he was already retired.
    He had given it up or sold it, and lived with my grandmother
    in Cernuti, in Czernowitz.
    Did the whole family consider itself German?
    Is that a funny question?
    Well, the Austrian-- they were still--
    Austrian and Hungarian monarchy, they spoke German
    amongst each other.
    After the first war, my uncle, for instance, the doctor,
    had to learn Romanian because he was part of the Romanian
    government, in a way.
    And so the kids, everybody spoke German at home.
    I see.
    I see.
    Let's go back now to Vienna and a little bit
    about your mother's family.
    Yeah.
    They also came from the same place, yes?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    When you were there visiting your father's side,
    were any of her relatives still there?
    No, because--
    At all?
    Oh.
    --my mother had two brothers and one sister,
    and they were all in Vienna and doing very well.
    And did they have children?
    Oh, yes.
    Did you-- were you close?
    That's hard to say because they were all much older.
    And for instance, I had one cousin who was 18
    and graduated from the gymnasium when I entered the gymnasium.
    So I saw them occasionally, but they didn't bother with me.
    I was too little.
    I see.
    I see.
    There were age differences.
    There were age differences, yes.
    But I had a cousin who was three years older than I was,
    and I saw a great deal afterwards in New York
    during the war.
    But we saw each other, yes.
    We were friendly, but not all that close.
    Did your mother have a profession in Vienna,
    or was she--
    I mean, I hate to say only a housewife,
    because a housewife has a lot of work.
    Well, she was Frau doctor.
    Since she was Herr doctor, she was Frau doctor.
    Frau doctor.
    And she played a lot of bridge, like every day.
    But she took care of the house and helped my father sometimes,
    if he needed any help.
    But she was a very competent lady.
    Did you have household help?
    Yes.
    A lot?
    A housekeeper?
    No, we had a maid, you know, cook and maid in one thing,
    more or less.
    And you had a nanny.
    I had a-- no, not a nanny.
    I had a governess later, when I was about nine, 10,
    to just teach me languages.
    And she was not really a nanny.
    I see.
    She was a Fraülein, a governess.
    And describe to me--
    well, do you have any earliest memories as a child?
    Yes, of course.
    Well, could you share some of them?
    Sure.
    My earliest memories are mainly from a summer vacation.
    We went to the Salzkammergut in Austria every year,
    and it was very nice.
    And it was very nice until I was about nine years old.
    Then, the crash came.
    And that affected my father's practice, lawyer--
    he lost-- some of his clients went bankrupt and all that.
    And from then on, until 1930, let's say,
    they were very well off.
    After that, it started to decline,
    and was not good by the time I left in '38.
    He had a hard time making ends meet.
    Did he specialize in any particular area of law?
    Commercial law.
    Commercial law.
    Can you describe also for me the place you lived, your home?
    Was it in the middle of the city?
    Was it in the outskirts?
    Was it a villa or an apartment?
    No, it was an apartment.
    And this was one of the things that always bothered me
    because my uncle, my mother's oldest brother,
    was quite well to do, and he owned, among other things,
    he owned some houses.
    And he owned a very nice house, so he
    suggested that we live there.
    By that time, my grandfather, my mother's father,
    lived with us because his wife, my grandmother
    died when I was two or three years.
    I don't remember at all.
    So he lived with us.
    So my uncle, it was his father.
    So he took special interest, and he had a very nice apartment
    in Vienna.
    And so we took it.
    It bothered me because it was in the 2nd district,
    and the 2nd district also partly very nice,
    but partly quite a large Jewish population.
    And people didn't live there, you know,
    well-to-do people didn't live-- that many didn't live there.
    They lived in the 1st or 3rd district, where
    all my other relatives lived.
    So are you saying it wasn't as prestigious
    as the other places?
    It was not as prestigious.
    It was a really lovely apartment,
    but it was not as prestigious.
    And far away from where your friends were.
    No, not really.
    It was all in town, I mean.
    And was it a large apartment?
    It was quite large, yes.
    I mean, everyone had a room, five or six rooms,
    and the maid's room.
    And no horse and buggies in the streets.
    Oh, no, I mean, I grew up--
    I mean, there was still [NON-ENGLISH] and things
    around, but people didn't use them.
    They used the street car, and then eventually the subway,
    and of course cars.
    But we did not have a car.
    You did not.
    No.
    Did your father practice nearby?
    No, he practiced in the 9th district, had his office.
    I mean, the legal profession in Austria
    is quite different from the legal profession in the United
    States, where you have large firms which you join.
    There, most of them are solo practitioners.
    And he was a solo practitioner.
    And he had his office in the 9th district,
    which was a very nice neighborhood,
    until, I would say, 1934.
    By that time, the practice had dwindled.
    So he then moved his office to the house.
    And what we did is, within the building,
    we changed apartments, and had a larger apartment
    so that he would have an office and then a reception room.
    So can I surmise that mostly you lived in a Jewish neighborhood
    when you were in this 9th district?
    In the second district.
    Excuse me, yes.
    Yes, pretty much.
    Did you feel assimilated?
    I mean, it's a question that's leading.
    I'm trying to get a sense of how did you
    see yourselves, you as a young person
    and your parents, as to identity?
    To identity, they were Austrians.
    They were quite secular.
    I went to the synagogue twice a year,
    on New Year's and on Rosh Hashanah-- no, Rosh Hashanah
    and Yom Kippur.
    Yeah.
    So I went every morning, but I then
    went, of course, to school, to gymnasium
    in the 1st district, which was a very prestigious gymnasium,
    probably the best in town at the time
    there, Akademisches Gymnasium.
    Akademisches-- mm-hmm.
    And that was it.
    But, I mean, we had the Jewish religion,
    and I took-- you know, in school we had religion,
    but that was it.
    So the various religious classes were held in public schools?
    Well, yes.
    Religion was in the curriculum.
    So it could be the Catholics went to Catholic lessons--
    Right, right, right.
    --and if they were Protestants, they
    would go to Protestant lessons.
    No, the Protestants went to the park because there weren't any.
    There weren't any.
    We had one.
    Yeah?
    Yeah, so was Jewish, but had been baptized
    and eventually became a Protestant.
    And he had a wonderful time.
    Everybody else was in class.
    Exactly.
    So if I could--
    I'm putting it in my words, but I
    would say you'd be Austrian of the Jewish confession.
    The what?
    I'm sorry.
    Austrian of the Jewish religion.
    Austrian, I mean--
    Yeah.
    OK.
    --we were quite aware that we were Jewish,
    but it was not practiced.
    Yeah.
    Was the whole family pretty secular?
    The whole family.
    Not my grandfather, my mother's father.
    He went to synagogue every Friday, and he was religious.
    He prayed in the morning.
    But my parents did not.
    And all my uncles and my cousins were totally secular.
    Did your grandfather speak Yiddish?
    I'm sorry?
    Your grandfather, did he also speak Yiddish?
    Not to me.
    I don't know whether he did.
    I don't think so.
    OK.
    He may have, but I can't tell you.
    He didn't practice, if he did.
    Of your parents-- how old were you,
    by the way, when your grandfather came
    to live with you?
    Before I was-- well, no, he must have
    come to live with us in 1923 or 1924.
    I mean--
    Oh, so you're little.
    --when I grew up, he was already living with us.
    OK, so he grew up--
    that is, you grew up with him as part of the household.
    Very much so, and I was very close to him.
    That was my next question.
    Yes.
    What kind of a person was he?
    And what was his name, first of all?
    Jacob Klausner.
    And I still think of him with great affection.
    And in fact, in 2008, when my sons and I went to Vienna,
    we went to the cemetery and found his grave, you know,
    and my grandmother's.
    They're buried together.
    And it was quite neglected by then,
    so I had it fixed up and repaired.
    And my son, in about 10 years, will then
    do it again to keep it going.
    Did he pass away before World War II
    happened, your grandfather?
    Yes.
    He passed away after I left Austria.
    I see.
    So I think I left Austria in July,
    and he passed away in December of '38, or early '39.
    I see.
    He was 79 by the time he died.
    Of your grandfather, your mother, and your father,
    who were you closest to?
    My mother, I would think, because my father
    was in the office and my mother kind of stayed around.
    I mean, I saw her--
    took me to school or picked me up and so on.
    What kind of person was she?
    She was very smart and very well read,
    and a great bridge player.
    Did she teach you how to play bridge?
    She didn't teach me, but I played bridge at the time.
    I mean, I learned it and I played a great deal
    in the army, and never since.
    And she was smart, and she--
    what other kinds of characteristics did she have?
    Well, she was an intellectual.
    I mean, she liked music, and so did my father.
    And she was very interested that I did well in school.
    And she was a very typical Viennese, upper middle class
    person, and had friends and got along very well with everyone.
    Was she a happy person?
    Yes.
    She was an optimistic person, always.
    And your grandfather-- that is, her father--
    did you see that as a trait that she got from him?
    Did he have the same kind of personality, the same outlook?
    Hard to say.
    I can't really say because he was just--
    at that time, somebody was 60 or 70, he was an old man.
    And he took me to the park, and he was very nice
    and bought me chocolates, but we had no--
    I mean, at that time, I was a child,
    so I had no great intellectual interest.
    But I have no idea.
    But he was well--
    they were all well read.
    I mean, we had obvious two newspapers
    and discuss the situation.
    And one of my first memories, actually,
    is when I was seven years old, I read about Lindbergh crossing
    the ocean and Dempsey beating Tommy or other way around,
    I don't remember, but I still remember that very well.
    From the newspapers.
    What were the major newspapers that you had at the house?
    What were they called?
    Well, the Neue Freie Presse--
    Neue Freie Presse.
    --was the Viennese which everybody read.
    I mean, as you know, the intellectual in Vienna,
    the intellectuals were mainly secular Jews.
    So it was an easy atmosphere to move around.
    Did you have a lot of parties or dinner
    guests and a social life?
    Your parents.
    Not very much, no, because they had maybe until '30, '31.
    Afterwards, when the depression struck, they had much less.
    But I had quite an active social life.
    Who were your friends?
    Well, friends from school.
    And then the main--
    I mean, the main interest at that time was in--
    I'm talking about when I was 13, 14,
    was to go to the skating rink, the Eislauf-Verein,
    which where all the kids meet the girls.
    And so we had a lot of parties between our colleagues
    and then girls from parallel schools.
    And I got around quite a lot, and had a lot of friends.
    Was it mixed as far as backgrounds
    were concerned, Catholics as well as Jews, or was it--
    Very few Catholics.
    Very few.
    There were one or two.
    There were quite a few baptized, but basically it
    was this large secular Viennese group.
    And it was comfortable.
    It was very comfortable, yeah.
    We had the Eislauf-Verin and the dancing school.
    I mean, it was obviously all the same people,
    but it was very nice.
    So was there any contact with Christian Austrians in any way?
    Yes, we had, because my father had some clients,
    and they invited us sometimes and we saw them.
    And of course, we always had a Christian maid,
    so she took me to church sometimes,
    and she had to take me out for walk, so.
    Do you remember any of the places that you went with her?
    With?
    With her, with the maid.
    Mainly to Prater, the big park.
    Yeah.
    And you've emphasized that, in '29, when the crash came,
    life changed.
    Yes.
    Fairly--
    Gradually.
    Yeah, gradually.
    In your milieu, in your growing up--
    and you said you had newspapers in the house and so on--
    what was the political world like?
    Was it discussed?
    Was it part of conversation at dinner time what was
    going on outside of one's personal circle?
    Oh, yes.
    What were the topics of discussion?
    Well, the type of discussion were Austrian politicians.
    And then I remember, of course, in 1934
    when the prime minister of Austria was Dollfuss.
    He was assassinated by the Nazis.
    So you could see the Nazi threat coming closer and closer.
    And so in Austria, this class of people, so to speak,
    had little choice, because there were basically
    two parties in Austria, the Social Democrats
    and the Christian Democrats.
    And so the secular Jews were all Social Democrats,
    but they were not to the left.
    They were very centrist.
    They were always looking for a centrist party
    because they didn't like the Social Democrats because they
    were too far involved in--
    Socialism.
    --in socialism.
    And they didn't like the Christian Democrats,
    particularly, because they were the Christian Democrats.
    So they were looking for middle party,
    and they had candidates sometimes,
    but of course, a third-party candidate always fails.
    And I still remember, actually, when I was about 15 or 16,
    most of my friends became monarchists because we thought,
    you know, Kaiser Otto would be good, you know,
    and bring him back, because there was no political life
    either way for us.
    We didn't like either of the parties.
    So we talked about the monarchy, but it was a foible, of course.
    At home, did your parents interest themselves
    in the politics of the country?
    No, not really, other than they voted.
    And I still remember on the 1st of March--
    sorry, the 1st of May, the 1st of May in Europe
    has a different connotation.
    It's kind of Labor Day and the labor demonstration.
    And so everybody wore a red carnation
    and walked around to the ring.
    And I went to my father.
    And I lost him, or he lost me.
    And so I went to a policeman and said I'm lost.
    And he found my father, eventually.
    But your father came out to march on Labor Day then,
    as to acknowledge Labor Day.
    Yes, because it was a holiday, and so everybody wanted to see
    what's going on.
    Ah.
    He was not a partisan of any kind.
    He was not political at all, all his life.
    Did the election-- when did you think Hitler first came
    into your, I'd say, horizon?
    Well, I remember it very well.
    It was an afternoon, and we had to go back
    to school that afternoon.
    It was in '32.
    And we saw that Hitler had been elected,
    and everybody expected the worst.
    And I talked to my schoolmates and there was a big to do.
    And we watched Hitler very closely.
    And then we listened to his speeches on the radio.
    And after soccer, which was my main preoccupation--
    I loved-- watched all the soccer game--
    not watched, but listened to all the soccer games--
    we watched political news, and we were very much aware
    because, you know, as Hitler in Germany,
    then slowly the Nazis in Austria started up,
    and they put bombs in various places.
    And they were very much in the newspapers.
    Then, of course, the Dollfuss assassination.
    Can you tell us a little bit about that,
    about the circumstances?
    Who he was, and why this thing happened?
    I'm sorry?
    Can
    You tell us a little bit about who he was
    and why he was targeted?
    Well, Dollfuss was the prime minister,
    and he tried to differentiate himself from Hitler.
    He was of the right, but he was not a Nazi, of course,
    and the Nazis wanted to get rid of him
    and bring their own people in.
    And so they came to his office in the government seat
    where he was, and they assassinated him.
    And then Schuschnigg came afterwards,
    and Starhemberg was his vice president,
    and they had a very fascist-type regime because, mistakenly,
    the Austrian government always thought
    that the Italians were their friends
    and the Italians would help them against the Germans.
    So Gian Ciano, foreign minister, used
    to come to Vienna quite often, and we had alliance with Italy.
    But of course, once Mussolini and Hitler bombed it,
    we were thrown away.
    And so the discussions that happened
    were amongst your contemporaries and yourself,
    rather than between the adults that you knew and yourself.
    Is that correct?
    Yes, because we all very much interested, most of my friends,
    as we went on during the Depression,
    were less affected than we were.
    So they were quite well to do, and they
    used to go abroad to England and to Italy and so on.
    And they all saw what was coming,
    but nobody was really prepared, with the exception
    we had one or two classmates, one
    was a very good friend of mine, who really identified
    with their religion to the extent--
    not that they were particularly pious,
    but they were looking towards Palestine, and one, of course,
    was much involved, and he went to Palestine when Hitler came.
    So but I mean, for all the rest, Palestine
    was of no particular interest and it was a difficult time.
    Because we saw it coming, but we were quite helpless.
    But they always thought that the European nations, Great Britain
    and France and, in particular, Italy,
    would make sure that nothing happens to Austria.
    And there was-- yeah, it didn't turn out that way.
    It certainly didn't.
    Yeah.
    Did teachers in school--
    I'm sorry?
    Did your teachers in school ever talk
    about these political things that were in the air?
    No, they did not.
    They were very careful.
    But I must say, the day Hitler took over,
    marched into Austria, quite a few of them
    showed up with Nazi uniforms or Nazi pins and so on.
    But I must say it was not--
    we had no problems, really.
    I mean, we had, of course, quite a few Catholic classmates
    of mine, but they were not overly political,
    at least that we knew.
    One of them actually then, after Hitler took over,
    also came with the brown shirt and all that.
    But we had no racial tension of any sort.
    Mhm.
    Did you, in living in this milieu that
    was large and secular and Viennese and Jewish,
    did you ever have direct exposure to anti-Semitism
    as a child?
    You read about it in the paper, but I must say no, I did not,
    until after the Anschluss.
    OK.
    And were there-- when you say everybody
    could tell what was coming but nobody was prepared,
    that sounds like a contradiction in terms.
    Well, because they didn't because
    they always thought that there would be some--
    that Hitler would not occupy something, Austria or anything
    like that.
    I mean, Austria was the first big one.
    I mean, the [INAUDIBLE] was not a big deal, really,
    because it was German before, but Austria
    was a sovereign nation.
    But it became quite clear that the pressure on Schuschnigg
    was very large, and then eventually, of course,
    he succumbed.
    And you were how old when the Anschluss happened?
    I was 18.
    I was in my last year in gymnasium
    and I was about to graduate.
    I mean, it happened in March, and I graduated in June.
    And you know, we had the very difficult tests the Matura,
    in order to graduate.
    And I was very fortunate because, as it happened,
    as I mentioned to you, I was in the Akademisches Gymnasium.
    That's right.
    And when I came to the seventh grade,
    which was the eighth grade--
    you know, the last one, because you
    had the four years equivalent to 12th grade, when
    I came to the seventh grade, we had trigonometry.
    And that's not really my case.
    And I had a very hard time.
    And of course, I came home and said the teacher, of course,
    is very anti-Semitic.
    But the point is whether it was anti-Semitic or not
    made no difference because I was bad.
    Everybody would have flunked me.
    And I was in danger of flunking trigonometry,
    [NON-ENGLISH] as it's called in German.
    So I changed schools and went to another school
    in the 8th district.
    It was a very fine school in the Albertgasse.
    And there, they didn't have Geometrie
    but they had English, because Latin we always
    had from a certain class on, but they
    had English, which we did not have in the Akademisches
    Gymnasium, which was fine because it helped me pick up
    what my governess have taught me,
    and came in handy afterwards.
    So the people in the Akademisches Gymnasium
    were told one day to get out.
    And they went to some school in the 2nd district,
    where they graduated.
    But the school I was, in the [GERMAN],, we
    had two parallel classes.
    So they just switched, put all the Aryans in one class,
    put all the non-Aryans, which was a wider
    range than the Jews, all the non-Aryans in another class,
    and we could graduate.
    It was fine.
    And I graduated, and I got my--
    So you made it under the wire.
    As far as graduation, you made it under the wire.
    Exactly.
    We were the last ones to graduate.
    That was in June 1938, and I left in July.
    Ah.
    Very fast.
    Yes, I mean, the idea was most of my well-to-do friends
    got out even faster than I.
    Well, then, let's go back, then, some months.
    Do you remember where you were when the Anschluss actually
    happened?
    Yes.
    We were all at home listening to the radio,
    and it was very dramatic, melodramatic.
    Schuschnigg, two days before--
    I mean, this is all history--
    Schuschnigg, the day before, was called to Germany
    and came to Hitler.
    And Hitler threatened him, and so he went back.
    And then the German mobilized and made us start marching.
    And he came on the radio and said, well, this is the end,
    and Austria is dead.
    And they played the national anthem, and that was it.
    It was a difficult time.
    And then everybody saw it.
    We talked on the phone to my colleagues and my friends,
    and we all got together.
    And everybody had plans to go abroad, and where do you go.
    And they rushed to the various embassies to stand in line.
    But I wanted to go to the United States,
    but I had no friends, no relatives here
    so it was not possible because you needed an affidavit
    to come here, and I didn't have an affidavit.
    Well, I want to go back a little bit.
    When you're listening over the radio when you're all at home,
    do you remember how your mother reacted,
    your father, your grandfather?
    What they said, what they did?
    Well, it was going to be very difficult,
    and we discussed what to do.
    I mean, I think their main concern was about me
    because they kind of figured what happens, happens to them,
    but they wanted to get me out.
    So there was no talk of them leaving?
    Not then.
    You know, it all had a happy ending, and they all left
    and it was fine, but no, at that time, the main concern
    was about me.
    And--
    Before we get into that, you see, I want to get a sense of--
    A little louder.
    I say, before we get into what was involved with getting you
    out of the country, I'd like to get
    more of a sense of how life changed for you, specifically,
    and your family, when the Anschluss happened.
    What happened when you went out in the streets?
    Did they look different?
    When was the first time you saw brown shirts, I guess?
    Yes, I mean, it was worrisome because I went to school,
    we continued--
    I mean, life was, in a way, it went on normally.
    And my father, it was very funny,
    actually, my father did benefit from the Anschluss
    indirectly because he had friends, some of the judges
    and the clerks at the courts, I mean, where he worked.
    And one of them was--
    a retired judge, and he was the one
    who had to stamp the passports of everyone
    leaving the country saying that there's
    no negative information that would keep him from leaving.
    In other words, he paid all his taxes and whatever.
    Right.
    No police record.
    Yeah, and he knew him very well.
    My father knew him very well.
    And that man said to him, look, if you have some people who
    are leaving, and you know the long lines, and it takes days,
    but if you bring me their passports,
    I'll do it right away.
    For a price, of course.
    Yeah.
    So that was a gold mine.
    Of course.
    Because my father-- everybody wanted to do this.
    So my father actually helped him, helped the people get out.
    And the man got paid, and he gave him,
    he gave my father some part of it or whatever.
    I don't know what the details were.
    A commission.
    A commission, yeah.
    And it was very-- it was a good setup,
    and helped a lot of people.
    And I remember when I left, for instance, I
    just walked in and didn't have to wait or anything,
    got it done.
    What was the name of this judge?
    I have no idea.
    You don't remember?
    No.
    OK.
    I don't remember that.
    But I mean, the talk was, right away, you know, everybody--
    we had a double life, so to speak,
    because we had to prepare for the Matura
    and work hard in school, and I must say,
    none of the teachers in any way showed any animosity,
    which was very funny.
    They were very nice.
    And not so in the Akademisches Gymnasium,
    which was fortunately which I had left.
    But where I was, they hadn't changed.
    They were neither no more friendly, no more unfriendly.
    They were the same.
    They were the same, and we graduated, and that was it.
    But everybody was looking to go to England,
    United States, or wherever.
    The teacher that you mentioned before who
    taught you trigonometry at Akademisches Gymnasium.
    He was anti-Semitic.
    Is that what you're saying?
    Well, I don't know.
    He probably was, yes, but I mean, I remember, for instance,
    the person that had physical education became the director,
    and the director, who was Jewish, was gone.
    And I must say, much to my regret,
    when I came back to Austria in 1945 in the army, he was back.
    The old director was back, the Jewish director.
    And I didn't go and see him.
    I went by the school and I said, you know,
    I really should go up there, but it
    would have looked presumptuous.
    Here I go in in the officer's uniform,
    and I didn't want to make any waves.
    So I didn't go, but I'm sorry I didn't.
    Because you would have been able to catch up with them.
    Exactly.
    And my history professor also had come back,
    and he was also Jewish.
    And--
    Well, this is--
    --a missed opportunity.
    Yeah, well, I guess because you mentioned earlier
    that this was the best school in the city, this Akademisches
    Gymnasium.
    Then it was special, in a certain way, and the dynamics
    that were going around in the school,
    if you had Jewish teachers who were dismissed
    and a Jewish director who was dismissed,
    and then they were replaced, was there more focus?
    Was it much-- because it had the prestige,
    was it more dangerous in an inadvertent kind of way,
    or more unlikely for the Jewish students
    to be able to graduate?
    Well, they didn't.
    They were kicked out, and they were moved--
    I mean, it was almost--
    they were kicked out methodically.
    I see.
    They were just transferred to a school in the 2nd district.
    That's what you meant when you were talking about that.
    Yes, and they graduated.
    And they were kicked out because of the prestige of this place
    and they shouldn't be?
    No, most schools got rid of the non-Aryans
    and sent them to other schools to graduate,
    in the 2nd district or wherever.
    OK.
    I don't understand the logic of it.
    Well, it was peculiar.
    In some schools, like in mine, we could--
    it was fine.
    It was done.
    And in most schools, they were kicked out.
    And I think it had to do whoever became in charge,
    whoever became director.
    And I think in the school I was, the director in charge,
    he was a Christian Democrat, but somehow he was acceptable,
    I guess.
    And you mentioned that it was distinguished between Aryans
    and non-Aryans.
    Yes.
    And that there were more than just Jews who
    belonged to that other group.
    Who, for example, would have been
    part of the non-Aryan group?
    Well, Catholics who were Jewish.
    I see, who had been baptized.
    You know, a Protestant--
    I mean, everybody who was a non-Aryan.
    Got it.
    Got it.
    It was racial, rather than religious.
    Oh, yes, absolutely, because in Austria particularly,
    there were an awful lot of non-Aryans.
    Did the streets change?
    Did life in the streets change?
    Well, yes.
    And there, I must say my only experience
    with all this was that, one day, I came back from school,
    and I was walking, and then all of a sudden,
    there were a bunch of young men in uniform, brown shirts
    or whatever, and there was a commotion.
    And I walked by, I didn't look, you know,
    I tried to stay away from it, but one guy saw me and said,
    look, here's another one.
    And they got me, and they said, look,
    on the street, the Schuschnigg government,
    the previous government, had on the street put markers
    with their emblem, the Austrian emblem and all that.
    And what they did, they found Jews and people,
    and they had to rub it clean.
    So I got caught, and I rubbed it clean.
    And it was an experience that left a lot in me.
    I mean, it really disturbed me, and I must say,
    I thought about it for a long time.
    What-- can you share some of those things
    that you were thinking about?
    Well, I was thinking about, first of all,
    about the unfairness of this all.
    But then I was thinking about also why
    does one get punished for religious reasons
    if one doesn't really believe in religious reason.
    And therefore, I had no problem later on when I converted,
    and which was not on account of this, but I mean,
    it didn't bother me one way or another.
    You've converted from Judaism?
    Oh, yes.
    Yeah, I did.
    It was much later.
    It was in Colombia, when I went to South America.
    We'll come to that later.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    So in some ways, it was the indiscriminate kind
    of it doesn't matter who you are,
    it doesn't matter what your own personal views are
    or how you feel about your religion,
    you're still branded it.
    Is that what it was?
    Well, I mean, it was, I mean, how did they know?
    I mean, I was not particularly Jewish-looking,
    but they'd figure out that it was a Jew, and bingo.
    And of course, you didn't say anything.
    You just start cleaning it up.
    How long did it take you?
    Huh?
    How long did it take you?
    20 minutes or half an hour.
    And I was not the only one.
    I mean, there was a group of people.
    And I thought it was, you know--
    And they stood around while you were doing it?
    Oh, yes, stood around and laughed.
    Were they the same age as you?
    Older?
    They were older, same age or older.
    I mean, they were all young, but they were all in uniform.
    Young men.
    Yes.
    No girls.
    No.
    To the best of my memory.
    Yeah.
    Well, I mean, the humiliation.
    Yes, it was very humiliating.
    And I said, you know, actually, while I was doing it,
    I said never again.
    Not going to get involved in this stuff anymore.
    And of course, it was still the problem that, at that time,
    I didn't know exactly how I would get out, and what to do.
    So was it the nail in the coffin that said, yes, I'm--
    No, it was not the nail in the coffin.
    It was already absolutely that I was going.
    There was no question.
    It was just a further confirmation.
    Got it.
    I mean, everybody was, right from March
    11th, was only thinking in how to get out and where to go.
    That was it.
    Did you tell your parents about the incident?
    Yes.
    Yes, they noticed because I didn't come home for lunch.
    I came at three o'clock, and I was pretty dirty.
    So.
    They must have been worried.
    They were worried, yes.
    But my mom was always worried at the time.
    I remember when my father went out in the morning,
    you know, to--
    whatever he had to do, and he didn't come home by 1:30,
    one worried immediately.
    And you stood at the window looking for him.
    And then he finally showed up.
    But I must say, nothing happened to my parents,
    at least that I am aware of while I was there.
    They still stayed another year after I left before they left.
    Were there people who disappeared out
    in those first months that you knew personally?
    Oh, yes.
    I mean, quite a few people were immediately arrested and sent
    to Dachau, mainly.
    And most of them, I must say, were released eventually.
    It was just indiscriminate.
    And they were mainly rich people and I
    think they made arrangements to give money away or something,
    and then they left.
    I see.
    So yeah, parents of my friends, some of them, yes, absolutely.
    Was this an attempt of being able to take over assets?
    Yes, I mean, it was very interesting, actually,
    because anti-Semitism in Austria was stronger than in Germany.
    The Austrians had always been anti-Semitic.
    Lueger was the mayor at the turn of the century,
    and he was known to be anti-Semitic in the city.
    But still, had some friends, so he made the famous statement,
    I determine who is a Jew.
    And there was a strong anti-Semitic feeling
    because the Jews, particularly in Vienna, which, don't forget,
    became all of a sudden a big place in a small country,
    and the Jews were, you know, well-to-do and--
    Prominent.
    Very prominent, yes, and particularly
    in the artistic field and all that.
    And they all left.
    And most of them went to Hollywood.
    When you say that Austria was more anti-Semitic than Germany,
    is this a--
    since you experienced this anti-Semitism
    at this age, and not earlier, how
    do you come to that conclusion?
    How do you come to that point of view?
    Well, because in history, I mean,
    it's basically-- it's a Catholic country, and Germany is not.
    And the Church, of course, in the 17th, 18th,
    and 19th century keep pushing anti-Semitic ideas.
    They don't do anymore, they haven't done probably
    for a while, but the people just were set against.
    And I mean, Hitler's experiences, I mean,
    he became anti-Semitic when he was in Vienna because he wanted
    to sell his paintings and the Jews didn't buy it,
    and that made him mad.
    So it's definitely-- it was a difficult thing.
    And the Austrians showed their anti-Semitism
    because they were much more unpleasant than the Germans,
    in the beginning, particularly.
    And the people really took over apartments and houses
    and, you know, unauthorized.
    Not really-- just on their own, it showed.
    Yeah.
    Taking advantage.
    Yes.
    Oh, very much so.
    By the time you left, did you feel a heartbreak
    about Austria and about your place in it,
    or did you feel an anger, or something else?
    Just relieved.
    I remember the relief when I crossed the border into Holland
    on the train.
    It was just wonderful to be out of it.
    The mindset was, from March 11th on, get out.
    And you didn't think much.
    So tell me what eventually happened.
    Let's go now to the beginning of I've
    got to get out, now how do I do it.
    What happened?
    Well, I looked around for a while
    and I saw there was no way.
    I mean, I had some acquaintance in the United States,
    I had pen pal connections, and I wrote.
    And they said, well, but we can't give you
    an affidavit because we don't have enough money or whatever.
    So really, that was out.
    But I had an uncle, and one of my father's brother,
    the banker, he had a friend--
    or knew of a friend, I don't know what the detail was,
    but he got to someone in Colombia, in South America.
    And this fellow then was asked through my uncle
    to send a request for me.
    And it came through.
    I went to the Colombian consulate in Vienna,
    and I got my visa and my passport--
    I had a passport--
    and I left and went to Amsterdam,
    and then took a ship to--
    What was your parting with your parents like?
    Well, it was pretty sad because there was a question whether we
    would see each other.
    And it was my--
    I told them, I says, don't worry,
    I'm absolutely sure we'll see each other.
    And so I left.
    And of course, I was able to get my parents out, so it was fine.
    So it was through your efforts that they were able to leave?
    Well, absolutely.
    I mean, from the day I arrived in Colombia and I got up to--
    well, it was not easy, I can tell you.
    We went on a ship.
    Of course, we went third class.
    And there were a couple of other Viennese.
    That was nice.
    I mean, we all went into this uncertain future,
    and none of us spoke Spanish.
    And we got to Barranquilla, which was a port,
    and we slept on the first night--
    there was a hotel or something-- we slept under a mosquito net.
    And that impressed me no end.
    I never thought in my life I would sleep on a mosquito net.
    Are there mosquitoes in Austria?
    No.
    See, I didn't think so.
    So anyway, I mean, at that time, traveling was difficult.
    There were just fledgling air routes in Colombia.
    It was just beginning.
    And so one took from the port, from Barranquilla,
    took the steamer up the river, the Magdalena River,
    to the railroad.
    It's a seven-day trip.
    And you go up the river, and you see crocodiles.
    You know, you think there's some logs, and then all of a sudden,
    the logs move, and it's a crocodile.
    I mean, it was very exotic.
    And they ate fried bananas and things like that.
    There were a couple of other people
    in my position on the ship, so it was entertaining.
    It's like a different world.
    It was totally different.
    And we took the train then from the town after Magdalena--
    I forgot the name-- and went to Bogota.
    And I told about a pensione.
    And there was a pensione, and there were
    quite a few Austrians there.
    And I still remember the first day--
    Would you like some water?
    No, thanks.
    The first day, they asked me what I wanted for breakfast.
    So I looked in the dictionary.
    I wanted an egg, but they brought me a towel.
    So it didn't work.
    But, you know, when you're hard up--
    in three months.
    I spoke Spanish quite well.
    Spoke it fluently, in fact.
    Well, the menu was very important to learn.
    Yes.
    So the gentleman who had vouched for me, he was an importer.
    He had all kinds of representations
    from British firms, mainly, and some Americans.
    But he didn't have anything to do for me, really,
    and he realized that.
    And I realized it.
    So I went out and looked for a job.
    And I went around, and--
    Did he give you a place to live, or you stayed in a pensione?
    I'm sorry?
    Did he give you a place to live, or did you
    stay in this pensione?
    No, I stayed in the pensione.
    And then three or four of us took a house,
    which worked out very well because there
    was a German Jewish professor--
    let's say a German professor of Jewish background--
    Meyer-Lindenhof and he was married
    to an Austrian baroness.
    A very nice couple.
    And they went away for a year, and they were
    looking to rent their house.
    And so three of us--
    or actually four of us, I was the fourth, yeah,
    we took over their house.
    And as a side note, I saw Meyer-Lindenhof again
    when he was the German ambassador to Spain
    and I was Director for Spanish and Portuguese Affairs
    in the department.
    And we had lunch together and dinner together quite often
    to just remember the old times.
    So we took the house.
    And I was looking for a job.
    And I found a job.
    And I found a job by just going into one store, which
    was the largest photo store, the Aqua.
    It was a German store.
    And I said, do you have a job for me and?
    And they said, yes.
    Do you speak English?
    And I said, yes, which, you know--
    Kind of.
    Kind of, yeah.
    But for them, it was good enough,
    because there a lot of tourists, and I sold them cameras,
    and it worked out very well.
    It was very funny.
    They were all Germans.
    My immediate supervisor was the head
    of the Nationalist Socialist Party in Colombia.
    No kidding.
    Yes, Mr. Birkin.
    And the owner was German.
    Mr. Hering, who was very nice, and obviously not a Nazi.
    And the second part owner was an Austrian.
    And I did-- you know, I worked very hard
    and sold cameras and took pictures for developing,
    and all that.
    And after I was there--
    well, during that time--
    I mean, that's the first thing that I did with--
    together with another-- with two other Viennese fellows,
    we had--
    got contact-- somebody contact us with the archbishop.
    And the-- we talked there to the various prelates.
    And there, I told them, you know, our immediate need is,
    we need the church's help to get our parents out.
    And they did.
    And they were very helpful.
    And I must say, they did not pressure us in any way.
    They kind of intimated that we--
    they thought that we should be Catholics, but they didn't say,
    you must do this in order.
    There was just an intimation.
    But we thought it certainly is worthwhile.
    It will spur their efforts if we convert, and--
    under the motto that--
    Henry the II, "Paris is worth a mass."
    We all converted.
    And we got our parents--
    well, I got my parents out.
    They got the papers, and my parents, and came.
    And the second one got the papers,
    but they were going to wait, because they
    had one of their sons in a concentration camp
    and he was supposed to get out, and they waited for him.
    Of course, they never got out, and they died.
    He was one of my very good friends.
    Still in touch with his widow now.
    But my parents came, then, and--
    so--
    Well--
    That was my life achievement, to bring them out.
    It was a huge achievement.
    That's a huge achievement.
    They came, then, to Colombia?
    They came to Colombia.
    OK.
    And--
    Did they tell you of what had been going on--
    Well--
    --in that year?
    Yes, because my grandfather had passed away.
    I mean, peacefully.
    And they were-- had to move out from their apartment,
    and they went to another apartment.
    And then they left.
    Were they allowed to bring anything with them?
    Yes, they had a--
    they brought-- they didn't have much.
    I think they-- as far as jewelry and so is concerned,
    they probably had to sell it in order to keep going
    and get the money to come over there.
    But they brought books out, and they brought back
    a large clock, which is still on my wall.
    No kidding.
    And that's actually the first thing I ever remember,
    when I was three years old, I heard the sound of the clock.
    And I have it again, you know?
    It's with me here.
    So it's from your child-- that's amazing--
    Yes.
    --that you have this piece from your childhood.
    Yeah, it's 1879.
    It's a large clock, you know?
    The wall clock.
    It's a wall-- not a standing grandfather clock?
    No, it's a wall clock, but--
    OK.
    --it's a large wall one.
    It's very nice.
    Does it work still?
    Of course.
    [LAUGHS]
    I have it fixed every year you know?
    Of course.
    And, in fact, I got it when my mother passed away in '74.
    She had a lot of stuff, and I just brought it over to--
    I was in Paraguay at the time.
    And so it's in my house ever since.
    Well, it's a nice constant from the early days till now.
    Yes, the only thing I have from Austria, really, is the clock.
    Did your parents-- did you tell them
    under what circumstances you were able to get them out,
    by converting?
    Yes.
    Did it matter to them.
    I don't think it did.
    They didn't convert.
    They didn't have to.
    And they lived happily ever after.
    And I don't think they went to a synagogue ever since.
    But then my parents stayed, they--
    well, it was more complicated than that.
    As I told you, I was involved with her
    in the Aqua photo store.
    And after my parents came, then one of the partners,
    Mr. Hammerschmidt, the Austrian, quit and opened his own store,
    two stores, in Bucaramanga and in Cúcuta,
    two provincial towns, two districts.
    And he asked me to come with him and run it.
    So that was fine, because I took my parents
    with me, who had just arrived, and their--
    and things were much less expensive.
    And I rented the house with my salary, which was fine,
    and there were my parents in Bucaramanga.
    And again, they did learn Spanish very well
    and became very integrated there in the Bucaramanga life.
    And my father did extremely well.
    I mean, this was a war, and everything was at premium.
    And there were quite a few importers in Bogota,
    and he became their subcontract.
    I mean, he covered Bucaramanga and Cúcuta for them.
    And during the war, everything could be sold
    as long as you brought it in.
    And so he did very well.
    And he made a good living and was very happy.
    They were extremely happy.
    The only Austrians who were there were the Hammerschmidts,
    and they were very close friends.
    And they got to know a lot of Colombians,
    real Colombian, Jewish Colombians, whatever.
    And they had a perfectly happy cycle.
    Well, it sounds to me like they were extremely flexible people,
    too.
    Yes.
    I mean, it went very well, and I must say, when I came in 1950--
    I came, then after the war, when I got out,
    I was still in uniform on terminal leave,
    I went to see them.
    They were still in Colombia?
    Oh, they were in Bucaramanga.
    They were doing very well.
    And then in 1950, I came with my wife to meet my parents.
    And we had a very nice time.
    And they were so popular, I remember--
    Bucaramanga was then a smaller town than now,
    and they had a newspaper article because they had come and--
    the son of Dr. Cobo and, you know--
    they had to really totally integrated.
    I must say they had a happy life.
    But my father died in '74.
    No, my father died in '59.
    My mother closed the house and went
    to live in Bogota, because there, she
    had her bridge parties and lived happily and had lots of friends
    until she died in '74.
    What a lovely kind of--
    Yeah, I mean--
    --destiny to--
    They came to the United States to visit us two times.
    And my father prostate cancer.
    And at that time, it was still hard to--
    now, it could have been operated without any problem.
    But they came and saw a doctor in New York.
    And it was very nice.
    And they liked my wife and so they got along swimmingly
    with her.
    So I want to go back to the conversion.
    Was it in any way a real conversion?
    Well, when you say a "real conversion," I mean--
    I mean, was it one where you-- when you converted,
    you actually believed the tenets of the faith?
    I didn't believe then.
    I don't believe now.
    Got it.
    I mean, it makes no difference, other
    than I do go to church every Sunday, because my sons are
    brought up, and I go and communicate with God,
    who is, as far as I'm concerned, non-denominational.
    Well, I would say there's a contradiction there.
    When you say I didn't believe then, I don't believe now,
    but I go and I communicate with God--
    Yeah.
    --there's something contradictory in that--
    No, no.
    --statement.
    I always believed in a superior human--
    superior being, but I don't believe in religion.
    The religious trappings, I mean, turned me off.
    Got it.
    First one and then the other.
    Yeah.
    I think it's a lot of nonsense.
    OK, OK.
    OK.
    I just wanted to be able to clarify that,
    because you say there was no there was no pressure.
    There was a suggestion.
    Yes.
    And there was--
    It fine, and I thought it would help the process.
    Which was--
    It maybe did or maybe didn't.
    But they got out, and that's all--
    That was the important thing.
    I mean, if you ask me today what was
    my greatest achievement in life, it was bringing my parents out.
    I can understand that.
    I can understand that.
    It is an achievement, and so many people wanted to and tried
    and couldn't.
    Well, that-- the funny thing is, I
    was not all that close to my parents ever.
    You know, I was close and I was a good son
    and they were good parents, but I was not really close.
    But it was my duty to do so.
    And I got them out.
    And that was fine.
    And it worked very well, and so for that, I'm
    grateful to whoever that superior being is.
    Yeah.
    Let's go back, then, to where you were in Colombia.
    And did you travel between these two towns
    where you were now working as a manager?
    No, no, because I was in charge of the place in Bucaramanga
    and I stayed in Bucaramanga.
    But it was a difficult time, because I
    did not feel-- you know, I was in Colombia, and I thought,
    that's great, but let's get out.
    I obviously wanted to go to the United States.
    And I-- we had a radio, shortwave radio, at home,
    and all listened to American stations.
    And I wanted to really get there,
    but I had, again, the responsibility.
    My parents had come and they had to get set up.
    And so after they were set up, I quit my job
    and went back to Bogota, still thinking how--
    first of all, I wanted to get out of Bucaramanga.
    I mean, it was cloying and really not for me.
    And I went to Bogota and, of course, didn't have a job.
    But I stayed.
    There was one very nice Austrian family, also
    a lawyer from Vienna, and I--
    they rented me a room.
    And then I started looking for a job.
    And, of course, I'd save the little money,
    but I had to find one right away.
    And I found one immediately.
    They had opened, on the main street in Bogota,
    they had opened the first ice cream parlor, which
    was something totally new.
    And so they were looking for somebody
    who spoke English and could run the place.
    Well, that was me.
    I mean, my English was still not great, but it was manageable.
    So I became the manager of that ice cream parlor.
    And I had about 20 waitresses.
    And, you know, it was a big place.
    And the lady who owned it was very nice,
    and she wanted me to give her English lessons, which I did.
    I'm not sure how much she profited by it.
    But anyway-- but, again, this was not what I wanted to do.
    And so I looked around.
    And I got to know a man by the name of--
    who came there with his son who was, well, 25.
    And his name was Pierce--
    George L. Pierce.
    He was a manager of Otis Elevator
    in Bogota, an American.
    And I told him that I was looking for a job.
    And he said, well, I just have a job for you.
    My son, Larry, had just become the representative
    of a company that installs--
    what-- how to describe that, describe--
    he installs little flasks in the urinals
    in all the hotels and restaurants
    so to avoid the smell.
    And he needs somebody to check on those things.
    So I said, great.
    You know, it's better than an ice cream parlor.
    [LAUGHS]
    And I-- so I went to all the urinals in town
    and checked that the things were working all right.
    And that lasted about a week.
    [LAUGHS]
    And, you know-- I mean, no, because Mr. Pierce said, look,
    that was just to keep you going.
    I have a job for you in Otis Elevator.
    Aw.
    So I went to Otis Elevator and I typed invoices.
    And, you know, I could type.
    And he was very nice, and he said to me, you know--
    I had a small salary.
    And he said, how are your parents?
    And I said, well, they're hard up.
    And what do you do for them?
    I said, well, regardless, I send them for my salary.
    It was still the beginning, before they got settled,
    really.
    So I sent them $20 a month.
    And I must say, after I left, he continued
    to send them $20 a month for another year or so,
    which was very nice.
    And he knew, of course, that was--
    my interest was to come to the United States,
    so I talked to him and said, how about getting transferred
    to the United States?
    And he discussed it with some people.
    They came down from New York, you know, his superiors,
    and I got to know them.
    And they said, sure, we'll do this.
    And they gave me a letter saying that once you
    arrive in the United States, you will
    be employed by Otis Elevator.
    But that was enough for me to go to the American embassy.
    And--
    Was this is the first time you walked
    into an American embassy?
    Yes.
    Do you remember your impressions of it?
    Well, I remember I talked to a third secretary who later
    became Consul General in Indonesia
    when I was ambassador for Chile, and I
    went by and showed him the passport, and said,
    you know this the signature?
    He said, yes, Mr. Ambassador, that's mine.
    That was it.
    But anyway, with that letter, of course,
    the quota was wide open, because there
    were no Austrians or Germans going in '41 anymore.
    It was closed.
    And so I got the--
    I had the letter.
    Of course, there was no question of employment.
    And I got my immigrant visa in 1941.
    And I went to New York.
    Well, that's a change from the crocodiles in Colombia.
    Yes, I went to Buenaventura again,
    which was a kind of a hellish port,
    and took the Grace Line in steerage.
    But it was fine.
    It was a week and that made no difference, and got to New York
    on July 1, '41, and somebody from Otis Elevator
    was there waiting for me.
    And I was getting out of the gangplank to go to customs.
    There was a dollar bill laying on the floor,
    and I picked it up, and I said, well, there must be many more,
    but it was the only dollar bill I ever found.
    [LAUGHS]
    And I got my papers and started working for Otis Elevator.
    Did they help you find a place to live?
    They put me up in a hotel, the Chelsea
    Hotel on the 23rd Street, for a couple of times--
    No kidding.
    Yeah, just for a couple of days.
    And then, of course, I had my uncle there, the oldest brother
    of my mother.
    And so I went to see him, and he told me where to rent a room.
    So tell me, how come he hadn't been
    part of the picture in trying to get you to the United States
    from Austria?
    No, no, he was not there yet.
    Ah.
    I mean, when I left--
    OK.
    --they went to France.
    And they were able to get out to the United States eventually
    in '41 or something.
    I mean, they came in '40.
    Maybe they came about a year before I came.
    And so they helped me find a place.
    And I made $25 a week with Otis Elevator.
    What was your job?
    I had no job.
    It was the international division,
    and they didn't have a job for me.
    I had no technical capabilities.
    They were preparing technical things for the--
    they were very nice, and-- but obviously, the odds and ends.
    But I didn't know exactly what to do.
    So came December 11--
    and December 7, I'm sorry.
    Came December 7, and the next day, I was called in,
    and they said, you know, we have a lot of government contract--
    ships, you know, hydraulic things,
    and you're really an enemy alien, you know?
    I don't think we can keep you anymore.
    And I said, well, look, you're totally mistaken.
    I'm not an enemy alien.
    They said, well, but you're a German.
    Austrian, yeah.
    Austrian, German, whatever.
    So I said-- that was--
    I think they said it must be December 9 or 10 when
    they told me.
    So I remember on December 23, I took the train from New York
    to Washington, and I got there on the 24th, in the morning,
    and I didn't take a hotel or anything.
    I went right to the Department of Justice.
    And I said-- at that time, it was so easy.
    You just walked in and talked to the door man.
    I said, I want to talk to someone about nationality.
    And they said, well, go up and see Mr. So-and-so.
    I went up and knocked on the door,
    and there was Mr. So-and-so.
    And I said, look, I'm about to be fired
    because I'm an enemy alien.
    So he listened to me and looked at my passport.
    I told him my story.
    And he said, well, what do you want?
    I said, well, I want that letter from the Department of Justice
    that I'm not an enemy alien.
    And he said, well, it was 11 o'clock.
    Come back at 2 o'clock, because it's Christmas Eve,
    and we're going to close early, and I'll
    have the letter for you.
    So I went and, excuse me, got the letter,
    went back to New York, and showed him the letter.
    And I said, look, I'm not an enemy alien,
    but I'm leaving anyway, so goodbye.
    Because, meanwhile, I had met someone whom I knew in--
    while I was in Bucaramanga, and he was a freight forwarder
    at Gondrand Freres, Gondrand Brothers, very often he
    had come to Bucaramanga, and he had come to the store,
    and so I talked with him for a long time.
    And he said to me, if ever you come to New York,
    come and see me.
    Well, I came and saw him, and he offered me a job
    right away for $35 a month.
    So I said we'll do that January 1, and that's fine.
    So I got the letter from Otis Elevator,
    told them, and left, and started with Gondrand.
    And that was actually fun.
    What did you do in this--
    Well, a freight forwarder, you do bills of lading.
    You prepare shipments.
    At that time, it was all ocean freight.
    And we did a lot of business, mainly
    to Colombia and Venezuela and all of Latin America.
    And I handled that.
    And we made quite--
    I made quite a lot of money, because on a Friday night,
    when the ships were leaving, you had
    to work until 3:00 in the morning
    to get all the papers ready, so I got a lot of overtime,
    and that was fine.
    And I enjoyed it very much.
    And it was a Swiss firm, because the owners were Swiss,
    but there were quite a few refugees there also,
    and it was a nice group.
    And shortly thereafter-- I mean, that was a--
    I started January 1, 1942, and by July 1942,
    I got a notice from the draft board
    that I was to be inducted, and showed it
    to Mr. Bender and Mr. Silo, the owners.
    And they said, "Oh, we can't spare you.
    I mean, we have the Belgium account from the World's Fair.
    I mean, we are very busy.
    And you're absolutely necessary."
    So we went to the draft board.
    We asked for a hearing.
    And both of them went to the board with me.
    And they explained to them how I was absolutely irreplaceable
    and I had to stay.
    And they were very understanding,
    and they said, yes, absolutely, we agree with you.
    The next morning-- mail was fast.
    I already got my induction order.
    Oh, good God.
    So that's it.
    Well, you know, I want to go back a little bit
    to the episode with Otis Elevator.
    Yes.
    Sounds clearly that they had offended you
    in a very deep way.
    Yes.
    They did, because they questioned my loyalty.
    You know, I mean-- it was just totally ignorant.
    They were very nice about it, but they
    say, we can't afford this, because we have
    all these government contracts.
    I mean, they--
    It was Pearl Harbor.
    It was because of Pearl Harbor?
    Of course.
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    It was because of Pearl Harbor.
    And it was right after--
    they were worried about their Navy contract--
    their biggest client at the time was the Navy.
    And so I wanted to get the letter, but--
    It was a--
    I had already talked to the other people.
    And, because, I had basically nothing
    to do with Otis Elevator.
    And it was--
    So it was an honor-- it was a question of honor?
    Yes, I wanted to--
    exactly.
    I wanted to show them.
    Yeah.
    And I must say that years later, when I was in Uruguay--
    I think I was in Uruguay.
    One of the Otis Elevator, from the international division,
    came to Uruguay, and came to the embassy.
    And of course, I was a commercial attaché,
    so he saw me.
    And we recognized each other immediately.
    And I told him about it.
    And he said, well, it was just a bureaucratic decision
    from upstairs.
    They said, we might-- got to make
    sure we have no foreigners.
    We had another German there, in fact,
    and so they had to take whatever measures.
    But still, the other thing is if we're talking technically,
    had the United States declared war on Germany at that point?
    I thought it was Japan.
    Or was it--
    No.
    --everything-- there was an act-- you know, axis--
    No, we declared war on Japan, and the following day,
    Germany and Italy declared war on us.
    Declared war on us.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    And that's what did it.
    Yeah, it was perfectly defensible.
    I mean, I understand where they came from.
    I mean, they were very nice to me,
    because they realized I had nothing to offer them, really.
    But George Pierce got me over there,
    so they figured they're going to keep me.
    $25 is not a matter of life and death.
    But I wanted out, and so I enjoyed going back to Gondrand
    and had a happy life there.
    Do you have any--
    do you have first impressions besides having
    found that dollar near the gangplank of what
    New York struck you as?
    Well, I'd been thinking and dreaming
    about the United States and read the American papers,
    so I was pretty much looking forward.
    I mean, it's very impressive.
    You know, the first night in the hotel and everything
    works and is clean.
    And after Colombia, it's--
    I had breakfast downstairs, and had tomato juice
    and soft-boiled egg.
    I mean, I was living it up.
    And then I went--
    I had my uncle and my aunt, of course, and my cousin, and--
    Did they live in Manhattan?
    Yes.
    Did they live up in that section--
    I'm sorry?
    Did they live in Inwood, or did they live somewhere else?
    No.
    No?
    Where did they live?
    They lived on 81st and West End Avenue.
    And they were very nice and, of course, that took care of me,
    to some extent.
    I mean, they, too, of course, had a hard time
    when they came here.
    I mean, he was an engineer, and they had been very wealthy.
    But by the time they came to the United States,
    they started working as diamond cutters in the diamond section
    there--
    The jewelry district?
    --on 46th Street or whatever.
    Yeah, yeah.
    But they lived to a ripe old age.
    Did you feel at--
    I mean, you had come from a cosmopolitan city.
    I'm sorry?
    You were born and raised in a cosmopolitan city.
    Yes.
    You had gone to a totally different world in Colombia.
    Yeah.
    And then you'd come back--
    I went back-- of course.
    You were, you know--
    The only thing I had to learn in New York, when you're
    on 45th Street, which way to go to 46th that you
    don't go to 44.
    So once I figured that out, I was home.
    [LAUGHS]
    And we came back-- we lived in New York,
    eight years-- much later, after I left the Foreign Service,
    and we loved it.
    So you got your induction papers.
    And what did you do?
    What happened after that?
    Well, I was inducted.
    OK.
    I was inducted into Fort Dix, New Jersey.
    And it was on November--
    I was inducted, I think, on November 16.
    I reported for duty about the 20th.
    And three or four days later it was Thanksgiving, and I went--
    you know, just introduction, and we got shots and uniforms
    and all that.
    And I found on my bunk quite a white towel.
    And I said, what that white towel about?
    Sergeant said, because they're going to wake you up
    at 3:30 in the morning.
    And I said, why?
    Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
    He said, that's why, because you're on KP.
    You're on kitchen duty.
    And so they woke me up at 3:30, and I spent the whole day
    peeling potatoes and washing dishes,
    and got through by 4:00.
    And I was pretty bushed.
    And so I walked out, and there was an army movie station
    there, and there was a movie.
    I went to see that.
    I remember while I was sitting in the movie, I thought,
    that's not for me.
    You know, I better go to Officer Candidate School.
    And I made up my mind then and there.
    And I did.
    So your induction letter came--
    I'm trying to do things chronologically,
    late December '41 is when--
    No, my induction letter came in '42.
    Yes, I know.
    Yeah.
    But when in '42?
    I would say in July, something like that.
    July or August.
    So you worked for this other place--
    Oh, yes.
    --at $35--
    I did.
    --for a good half year?
    I did very well, yeah.
    Loved it.
    And then you had about four or five months at Fort Dix?
    No, I-- in Fort Dix, I had two weeks.
    Oh, excuse me.
    You know, I was inducted--
    Fort Dix is an induction center.
    OK.
    And they don't train you there.
    They just give you all the--
    get you ready.
    And then we went on a train, and not knowing where to go,
    and we wandered around, and we went--
    I remember once, we went to Arkansas,
    and then eventually we wound up in Texas,
    and that's where we stopped, and I was with the 82nd Infantry
    Division.
    I see.
    No, 104th Infantry Division.
    Infantry Division.
    104th Infantry Division for basic training.
    Bucharest in '46.
    I wanted to go--
    You ready?
    Yeah?
    OK, this is a continuation of the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum interview with Ambassador George
    Landau on March 10, 2014.
    Now, before we broke for lunch, we
    were talking about your induction in the army.
    And can you refresh my memory?
    After the two weeks in Fort Dix, you then
    went on a train, you said, that took you to Arkansas, to Texas,
    to other places.
    Is that that where training actually happened?
    Yes.
    I mean, we went to Camp Maxey in Texas,
    the 102nd Infantry Division, which I was
    assigned for basic training.
    And what happened, that during basic training,
    I got an ear infection, and I otitis media,
    so they took me out of the training cycle, and by the time
    I was finished, the division had already
    finished their training, so I was assigned--
    I was taken out and assigned to headquarters Camp
    Maxey in Texas, and put into the finance office, where I handled
    payment vouchers and travel allowances,
    and particularly, I was in charge of travel allowances
    and figuring out-- they figured since I
    had been a freight forwarder I knew about travel,
    so therefore, I got that job.
    And while I was there, of course, I was applying to OCS.
    Which is?
    Officer Candidate School.
    OK.
    To all of them, from A to Z. And the one that came through first
    was Transportation Corps, so I took that and went
    to Camp Plauche in New Orleans.
    And by the time I got to Camp Plauche,
    they had moved the Officer Candidate School to an island--
    I forgot the name now--
    on the lake near New Orleans.
    And that was the headquarters of the Transportation Corps OCS.
    And I took the course.
    And, of course, I was not a good soldier.
    And I got into all kinds of problems.
    Tell me, why weren't you a good soldier?
    Well, I'm not very handy and not very athletic.
    And particularly, the question of handy,
    you have to be able to put up a tent in 8 seconds, or whatever,
    eight minutes, I can't remember.
    It took me double the time.
    And I committed one of the cardinal sins--
    I knocked over a rifle stack.
    [LAUGHS]
    And that was it.
    So, you see, what they did during the war, Officer
    Candidate School, 90 days, they have a large amount
    with the idea that about half of them
    would wash out during the course,
    for academic or other reasons.
    And I was doing well in academic,
    but obviously, I failed, and I had
    the three demerits-- the last demerit was the rifle stack.
    So I had to go before the board.
    And they were to dismiss me from school.
    And they said-- there was three offices.
    And they said, do you have anything to say for yourself?
    And I said, yes.
    I think, actually, while I sit here,
    that I'm more valuable than any of the three of you.
    And they kind of raised the eyebrows--
    Opened eyes.
    --and said, what do you mean, Corporal?
    I said, well, what I mean, I mean,
    do you speak any foreign languages?
    Do you have any experience in Europe?
    I do, and I speak Spanish, and I speak German,
    and I know my way around, and I can be of invaluable service
    to the country as an interrogator
    or do a lot of things.
    And I think I'm really more qualified than anyone
    around here.
    And they said-- dismissed me, and they
    decided they were going to let me graduate,
    but considering that I was such a lousy soldier, they said,
    we're going to graduate you with the next class.
    So I was the only one there who was not a 90-day one.
    I was a 120-day one.
    Then I graduated and was assigned, then,
    to a port company.
    And there were-- those port companies were supposed
    to be trained for the second invasion,
    because the first invasion was on June 7,
    and then we were going to do another invasion, more south,
    with troops from-- coming from Italy.
    Did you know that at the time?
    No.
    And those soldiers were supposed to be
    trained to lay pontoon bridges and things like that.
    And I went to meet my new company, of which I
    was going to be the platoon leader,
    and temporarily the only officer assigned to it.
    And I came, and they were all from the Deep South.
    And I greeted them, and I found out they didn't understand me,
    and I didn't understand them at all.
    It was quite a dreadful experience.
    And that was just introduction.
    And then I went on my 40--
    14 day leave.
    When you graduate from OCS, you get a leave, 14 days.
    So I was going to return to New York, where
    my uncle and aunt lived, and my cousin, but on the way--
    it was the Jeffersonian, I think,
    was the train from New Orleans to New York.
    And on the way, I decided, I'm going
    to stop off in Washington.
    And I did.
    And I went to the Pentagon, which
    was quite new, at the time, not really finished completely,
    but it was operative.
    And again, unlike today, no guards.
    You just walk in.
    And I asked the first soldier I saw, I
    mean, where is the G2 section?
    And he said, well, ring E.
    So I went to ring E, and eventually, I
    walked to several officers.
    Tell me, what does the G2 section mean?
    I'm sorry?
    What does G2 section mean?
    G2 is intelligence.
    G1 Administration, G2 Intelligence, G3 supply--
    no, G4 is supply.
    G3 is operations.
    So anyway, I went to the office of the right man and said,
    look, I graduated last week from Officer Candidate School,
    and I'm really interested in intelligence rather than
    Transportation Corps.
    And he said, why?
    And so I told him because I speak languages,
    I've come from Europe.
    And he said absolutely, you're our man.
    And he says, where you going?
    I said, I'm going to New York.
    And he said, by the time you arrive in New York tomorrow,
    you'll have your orders.
    Wow.
    And I did indeed.
    And I was assigned to the Military Intelligence Training
    Center in Cambridge, Maryland.
    I want to stop right there for just a second, unless there
    was a point you wanted to make right afterwards, because I
    have a bunch of questions.
    Oh, I really did stop you in your tracks, didn't I?
    I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
    I said, I wanted to ask a number of questions,
    but I interrupted your train of thought.
    Go ahead.
    OK.
    So number-- I have a number of impressions.
    Number one, that's a lot of chutzpah
    to tell the first set of officers I
    know I'm more valuable than you are.
    Look, I was convinced I was going to be selected--
    I was going to be washed out, anyway,
    so it didn't make any difference what--
    Ah, yeah, that is--
    I didn't take any risk.
    --you weren't going to-- that's right,
    you were going to fail the course because you threw down
    the rifles.
    Yeah, that was one-- that was my third demerit.
    I mean, I had many other faults.
    I see, OK.
    And it's very proactive.
    I mean, I've interviewed other people who were Camp Ritchie--
    went through Camp Ritchie, and their way of getting there
    was different than yours.
    They were usually selected.
    That is, they-- somebody recognized that they
    had languages and pulled them.
    Yes.
    They do that in basic training or right were then
    they are drafted.
    Right.
    But that's why, when I came to Camp Ritchie,
    we had the best mess hall in the United States,
    because we had all the flat-footed waiters and cooks
    from the New York restaurants.
    They all wound up-- because they all were Italian, so--
    French, and so they all wound up there.
    [LAUGHS] I see.
    But the officers mainly came after they graduated.
    So here is-- here's another question, though.
    You were drafted when you were in New York,
    and it's clear from your telling that you
    were very enthusiastic about wanting to be useful
    and you have your talents used in the right ways.
    But you were just gone-- you had just been called a year before
    an enemy alien by the company, and you had to go
    to the Department of Justice to get a piece of paper that says
    you weren't.
    And you weren't a citizen yet.
    Did it feel odd to you that you were being called to serve
    and maybe die for a country--
    and you're not a citizen of that country yet?
    It wasn't your country.
    Well, one, don't forget, that was after Pearl Harbor.
    Everybody was very enthusiastic.
    And the worst case that could happen to a young man
    was not to be accepted, be a 4F.
    So I was-- took it for granted that I would be inducted
    and that I would be in the army.
    That was self understood, and I would not
    have had it any other way.
    Now, as far as citizenship is concerned,
    while I was in Camp Maxey, in 1943, I was naturalized.
    In other words, they got a bulletin from headquarters
    that all noncitizens should come to a certain place
    where we were asked what the details were,
    and then we were taken by bus the following day
    to Paris, Texas, Lamar county.
    And so I was Texan, really, because I was naturalized
    in Texas in 1943, which, of course,
    was absolutely necessary, because you cannot go
    to Officer Candidate School unless you're an American
    citizen.
    So that was taken care of.
    The other question I have is more from a social sciences
    perspective.
    From what I've heard, that the draft was
    one of the great equalizers, at least during World War II,
    maybe in subsequent wars as well,
    but until the draft ended, for example, of various parts
    of American society.
    That is, people you met in the army,
    you'd never, ever meet anywhere else.
    You would never-- your paths in life would never normally
    cross.
    When you were inducted, did that happen?
    Did you meet and get to know people from--
    did you have impressions of these Americans
    who might be from the farm, you know?
    Very much so, very much so.
    And of course, at this point, it was not
    a social equalizer as much as you
    met totally different people.
    I mean, for instance, in basic training,
    the people next to me, two guys were was Kentucky coal miners.
    And they were very nice guys.
    And one of them said, could you lend me $5 until payday?
    And I said, sure.
    And so payday came, and I didn't get any money.
    So I said to him, you know, you owe me $5.
    He said to me, look, say it one more time,
    and I'll knock your teeth out.
    So that's-- I learned how people operate.
    But it was.
    It was a great equalizer, but you
    have to keep in mind that most of the college
    people, the people I left--
    met later on in the State Department,
    were all in the military, but they all
    had reserve commissions, because from college, they got ROTC,
    so it was really the great masses.
    And the way to get out of this was precisely
    people who had ambition and interest-- they applied
    for Officer Candidate School.
    And that's what I did.
    But it's not your--
    kind of with the rest of the people.
    And did you have--
    was there something new or shocking or of interest when
    you saw this cross-section of, let's say,
    Americans before you got to office--
    Yes.
    I mean, I was very shocked, because I
    must have had a sheltered childhood,
    and certainly in Otis Elevator they
    were all very nice and polite.
    But I mean, every third word was a foul word,
    a four-letter word, and I mean, I couldn't believe it.
    I never heard that much of that before or afterwards.
    But all those things conspired for me to get out as fast
    as possible, to be an officer.
    The thing didn't-- there was still foul language,
    but it was a little different.
    Foul language with a brain?
    Huh?
    Foul language with a brain.
    Yes.
    [LAUGHS] OK.
    Let's go back to Camp Ritchie.
    You're finally there.
    This man in the Pentagon says, you're our man.
    You get the orders.
    What was your first impression of Camp Ritchie?
    Oh, I loved it.
    I loved it.
    Everybody spoke French or German or Italian
    and we had officer's quarters.
    Of course, I was a newly minted second lieutenant, so, I--
    for once, now, I didn't have to salute anybody,
    but people saluted me, which was payback for the last two years.
    [LAUGHS]
    And we had, of course, courses which
    are extremely interesting, in IPW,
    Interrogation of Prisoners of War,
    or [? the ?] order of battle, photo intelligence.
    I mean, they were really fascinating courses.
    Do you remember any of the things
    that you were taught in those courses?
    Oh, yes.
    Of course.
    Tell us a few about them.
    In the order of battle, I mean, we
    learned all the German divisions.
    We learned to set up the name of the commanders.
    And we learned that-- in interrogation, what to ask for.
    It depends on whether you're at the battalion
    or at the divisional headquarters,
    or wherever you are.
    You ask different questions.
    And we were well trained.
    It was an excellent course.
    And when I went overseas and I--
    I was really prepared to do the right things,
    not to go to battle, but to ask the right questions.
    Do you remember some of the types of questions
    that you were trained to ask?
    Well, again, it depends.
    If you are at the lower levels, you
    ask, who's your commanding officer?
    Do you have any howitzers embedded?
    Where are they?
    What cannons do you have?
    And what's the composition of your troops
    between Germans and Austrians?
    And that was all--
    it depended, then, on the--
    So the intelligence that you were gathering
    was actually to find out military strength?
    Exactly.
    OK.
    Yeah, I mean, it was military intelligence.
    Now, when you get up, and higher up,
    if you're at the division level or even higher, at Corps level,
    then you ask different-- about the other Corps
    and what's the morale, and--
    I mean, I used all those questions later on.
    Not really in the military, certainly not in the army,
    because by the time I got over there,
    the war was practically over.
    And so I was assigned-- and when I got overseas,
    I went to outside of Paris.
    And--
    When did you get there?
    Oh, let's stay with Camp Ritchie a little bit.
    Did you meet any other young German--
    Austrian-Jewish young men from Vienna?
    Did you meet anybody who was from Germany?
    Yes.
    Yes?
    There were quite a few.
    Did you know of them before?
    No.
    No.
    So--
    I knew by reputation.
    I knew a fellow who was the nephew of Franz
    Lehár, the famous composer.
    He was with me, and-- because I saw Lehár later on in Austria,
    and brought him his nephew's regards.
    But we were all very compatible.
    But, I mean, they were not just refugees.
    I mean, they had brought--
    we had a captain by the name of Rindfleisch.
    And he didn't speak any German, but he
    came from Texas, New Braunfels, where Germans came hundreds
    of years ago, and because he had name of Rindfleisch he
    went to military intelligence.
    But he didn't speak German, and he wound up
    as a photo intelligence operator.
    But it was a good schooling.
    You see, we had no basic intelligence strength,
    and the British actually came over in '42
    and started Cambridge and told us how to do-- go about it.
    They gave us all the instructions.
    Oh, that's interesting.
    By the time I got there, we had only American instructors,
    and one of the instructors who came back from Tunisia,
    was the first lieutenant that made captain
    while he was there.
    That was Dick Walters, who became a colleague of mine.
    They called him Lieutenant General Walters,
    ambassador to the United Nations,
    and a great friend of mine.
    I've known him ever since.
    David Rockefeller, who was whom I worked later on very closely,
    was in Cambridge.
    He was a French MRI.
    You know, and he went on to go to North Africa then.
    But, I mean, it was an interesting group,
    a very cosmopolitan group.
    Totally different.
    Oh, yes.
    OK.
    How long did the training last?
    The training lasted, if I'm correct, three months.
    And was there a particular kind of assignment
    that you were slotted for, a job that you were slotted for,
    or were you a generalist interrogator, for example?
    No, you are-- you--
    when you come out, you're 9301, one military intelligence
    officer general, with subspecialty 9316,
    interrogators of prisoners of war,
    9330, order of battle specialist.
    And then some were shipped--
    my class was shipped to Italy, and some
    were shipped to France.
    And I was in the group that went to France.
    But France was--
    Paris was liberated by then.
    Tell me, what date did you land there?
    What date did you--
    I landed there in early '45, like January or February.
    And here, I want to stop and--
    The war ended in May.
    Yeah.
    How much-- if you can think back to that time,
    how much were you hearing and learning about what
    had happened to European Jews?
    Nothing.
    I mean, we knew more than--
    we heard there were terrible problems,
    but we didn't know any details.
    I mean, that was before the concentration camps
    were liberated and all that, so we
    didn't know any great details.
    OK.
    So when you land in France in early '45, January, February,
    something like that, you think?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    What happened then?
    What was your first--
    I was assigned to Camp [PLACE NAME]..
    And we were working right on preparation
    to move forward to Austria, because we
    knew the war-- by that time I got to [PLACE NAME] it
    was later than that, because you didn't go directly
    from the ship.
    I went to all kind of repple depples where you were kept.
    And the [INAUDIBLE] had happened,
    and the siege was broken, so it was--
    we had entered Germany, so there was a question of time.
    So we were preparing.
    We were preparing to move forward.
    And I think within a week after the war ended, we were off to--
    this was MIS headquarters in Europe, Military Intelligence
    Service, so we went off to MIS Forward,
    which was in Bad Schwalbach.
    Bad Schwalbach was outside of Wiesbaden.
    Ah, yeah.
    We had a hotel there.
    And that's where we went.
    So that's near Frankfurt-- not so close to Frankfurt, but--
    No, not to-- close to Wiesbaden, but Wiesbaden is not far
    from Frankfurt.
    That's right.
    And I was-- there a number of second lieutenants,
    and we were all given assigned tasks in moving.
    And I had-- was in charge of transport of 30 Jeeps.
    And I got them to Bad Schwalbach,
    where we went and reported for duty.
    And then we were hanging around and not doing anything, really,
    for another week or so.
    Then we all got assignments.
    And I got an extremely interesting assignment,
    which must've been now--
    by that time, it was beginning of June, I would say.
    Yeah, early June.
    We had two officers coming from Washington.
    One was a captain and one was a civilian,
    but had assimilated the rank of major.
    And they were both technical-- chemical engineers.
    And they were supposed--
    their instructions were to find--
    let's say hydraulic hydrogen and nitrogen--
    what do you call those?
    Hydrogen and nitrogen units that could be used for the--
    which we needed for the invasion of Japan.
    And the Germans were--
    had done very much in that field.
    And so we had to find--
    we wanted the plans.
    So they were the experts, and I was their local guide,
    so to speak.
    And so we went to Augsburg first, where there was the--
    Mannesmann was the factory who made those things.
    And we went there, and we did find them.
    I mean, we talked to a lot of people, and we got there.
    That was really-- the war was over months, and I mean,
    everything was--
    the roads were clogged with people
    in push carts and whatever, going from place to place.
    And it was a terrible mess .
    And there was nothing to eat.
    In other words, we got sea rations along,
    and then we tried to work it--
    by nightfall, we found an American unit
    where we can stay and have dinner and went on.
    We went to Augsburg first, and there--
    Ullmann Augsburg.
    There, we found-- in Mannesmann we
    found plans which we needed, which they thought
    were very useful.
    And then there was another plant in Hanover,
    but Hanover was in the British zone,
    so we had permission to go to Hanover.
    But first, we went to Stuttgart.
    And I don't know why--
    I can't-- do not remember now, we had to go to Stuttgart.
    And that was very--
    I was very much looking forward to go to Stuttgart.
    Why?
    Because they had the big factory there,
    "Zoiss," that made optic for photo?
    Zeiss.
    Zeiss, yeah.
    Zeiss, mm-hmm.
    And they made cameras, and I wanted
    to get a Rolleiflex or whatever.
    Zeiss Ikon, I remember.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And, well, we got there to Stuttgard,
    and I remember it was the end of the month.
    It was the 29th of June, and--
    28th of June, maybe.
    And we got to the factory.
    And, of course, there were two Senegalese French troops there.
    Didn't speak any language.
    Didn't let me in.
    And because-- it was funny, because on the 1st of July,
    we changed, and the French left Stuttgard and Rittenburg
    and the Americans took over.
    And in exchange, we took over Tyrol and Vorarlberg
    in Austria from the French.
    It was a change.
    And we then went to Tyrol and Vorarlberg
    two days later, because we had a lead in Innsbruck.
    And so we saw the change of command
    twice, first in Stuttgart and then in Innsbruck.
    That was very interesting.
    And then from there, we went to Hanover.
    And it was-- really, I saw Germany at its worst.
    I mean--
    Before you left Austria in '38, had you ever visited Germany?
    Never.
    So this was the first time you were in--
    The first time.
    And I mean, I saw--
    I mean, Nuremburg was just so--
    I have-- I took a lot of photographs, of course.
    And it just totally destroyed.
    It was-- you know, unbelievable.
    I mean, just streets--
    total rubble, nothing else.
    It was unbelievable.
    And I saw it, of course, then much later on.
    I went to Berlin in January '46.
    And it was unbelievable, the destruction.
    What kind of feeling did you have when you got to--
    I'm sorry?
    What kind of feeling did you have
    when you had gone to-- when you landed
    in Germany, arrived in Germany, and you
    saw all of this destruction?
    Yeah, a certain feeling of comfort.
    Yeah.
    They had it coming.
    Yeah.
    I had no crocodile tears.
    Yeah, yeah.
    At some point, when we spoke earlier,
    you said that the first time you saw
    a concentration camp was when you arrived after the war
    in Europe.
    Can you tell me about that?
    I'm sorry?
    The first time you saw a concentration camp was when
    you--
    No, I-- you misunderstood me.
    Oh.
    I mean, you asked me something, and I said that at that time,
    we didn't know that there were concentration camps.
    No, I--
    OK.
    Did you ever see one?
    Yes, I saw Dachau.
    That's what I wanted to find out about.
    Yes, I saw Dachau, and I would say in early '46.
    It was, by then, already cleaned up, kind of,
    but, I mean, kind of a memorial shrine.
    It was terrible to see, of course.
    But there were no more people around or anything.
    When did you start to learn about what had happened,
    not only to the Jews, but particularly
    to the Jews of Europe?
    I would say through the newspapers.
    After the war?
    Yes, or during-- after the war, as the troops
    came and liberated.
    That was in-- you see, our main source of information
    was Stars and Stripes, and they covered it pretty well,
    with photos and all that.
    So we became aware of it, but--
    Did you--
    --at the same time as the American public.
    Did you ever meet anybody who had been an inmate in the camps
    in your--
    I'm sorry?
    Did you ever meet anybody who had
    been imprisoned in the camps through your duties
    in intelligence?
    No, I don't think so.
    But we're going to come back to that later
    on, because in '46, I was in charge of a DP camp in Ebensee
    in Austria where we processed Soviet Jews leave--
    fleeing the Soviet Union.
    But they were not--
    they were in camps in some--
    in the Soviet Union, but not in the same circumstances.
    But still interesting to find out about.
    We haven't-- I haven't heard of Soviet DPs--
    Oh, yes.
    --before.
    We had an awful lot of--
    that is not chronologically correct, because that was '46.
    OK.
    Much later.
    So we'll get to that.
    Yeah.
    We'll get to that.
    So you were in Innsbruck and then in Hanover
    to get those plans for these--
    Yes, and in Hanover, we got extremely good plans,
    exactly what they wanted for.
    And they all went to Paris.
    I went to Paris with them.
    And then I went-- they went back to the United States
    and I went back to Bad Schwalbach.
    For a next assignment?
    For my next assignment, yes.
    And while I was waiting in Schwalbach, then--
    I was out for a week and kind of relaxing.
    It was a pretty rough trip.
    I once went out with my driver in a Jeep,
    and we had to gas up.
    And while I was gassing up, there was a fellow,
    a major standing there, and he said, hey, George, I
    haven't seen you for a long time.
    And it was a fella I'd known in Austria, Martin Hertz.
    And Martin Hertz-- well, the major had come up from Italy.
    And he said, you know, I'm on my way to Vienna.
    I'm assigned to Vienna.
    And I have a pretty-- a major is a good position.
    And I said, oh, boy, that's nice.
    I wished I could be in Vienna.
    I'm waiting here for my next assignment.
    And Martin said, well, give me your name, rank,
    and serial number.
    I can get it done.
    And I said, well, what a big shot.
    I mean, never hear from him again.
    [LAUGHS]
    And went back, and then had various local assignments
    there in Bad Schwalbach.
    And about three, four weeks later--
    by that time, it was August, I would say.
    Yes, I came back after--
    it was August.
    I was called in to the command.
    And he said I have orders from the war department,
    and showed me the orders, because Austria
    was a so-called MTO, the Mediterranean
    Theater of Operations, because the troops came from Italy.
    General Clark came from Italy.
    And I was in Bad Schwalbach, which
    was ET, or the European Theater of Operation
    under General Eisenhower.
    And so to transfer from one theater to another
    can only be done by Washington.
    So I had orders from the war department
    to transfer me to the 65th 21st--
    65 21st Military Intelligence Brigade in Vienna, and--
    all of Austria, headquarters in Vienna.
    And the colonel there asked me, when do you want to leave?
    And I said, well, tomorrow.
    He said, well, we'll give you a Jeep and a driver,
    and off you go, which I did.
    And that was, of course, quite interesting.
    We drove from Schwalbach to Munich and then to Austria.
    And I mean, I had left in '38, and this was '45,
    so it was only seven years.
    What an amazing--
    And--
    --thing.
    --here, I was a Second Lieutenant, and came--
    and it was emotionally interesting.
    I mean, touching, when I saw the first postbox
    with the Austrian--
    you know, the yellow with the Austrian flags.
    And then we drove in towards Vienna.
    And then we came to Vienna and that was all--
    we drove in.
    It was all-- seemed to kind of--
    small, much smaller than I remembered it.
    And I asked the driver to go around the Ringstrasse, which
    covered all the-- so we drove around the Ringstrasse.
    And then I had orders to report to headquarters, but of course,
    it was late in the day, so I found the--
    we had two hotels in Vienna--
    The Bristol for field-grade officers and generals,
    and The Votivkirche company-grade officers.
    What was it, Tivkirche?
    On [GERMAN] strasse, behind the Regina Hotel,
    behind the Votivkirche, yeah.
    It was a nice hotel.
    And I got there and had my orders, so I stayed there.
    The next day, I went to headquarters,
    which was in Alser, where there used to be
    big operation in Vienna before.
    I forgot what it was.
    But anyway, I reported to headquarters.
    And the major in command said, well, Lieutenant, you
    have three choices.
    You can go to Gmunden, the interrogation center,
    you can go to Lintz in the documents center,
    or you can go to Salzburg in the censorship office.
    And I said, well, Salzburg is of course the most interesting.
    I want to go Salzburg.
    And he said, sure, but the censorship office
    is not going to last but a few more months.
    So I said, well, in that case, I'd rather go to Gmunden.
    So I went to Gmunden.
    I got my orders.
    Of course, my Jeep and driver had left by then.
    And I got orders.
    And-- take the train, and the Mozart
    leaves at 9:00 every night.
    Well, I'd like to ask something before you leave Vienna.
    Did it feel--
    I mean, it's very odd to put it this way,
    like you were coming home, or were you
    alienated from the place?
    It was like something that had happened in a distant past?
    Exactly, totally.
    I mean, it was another occupied city.
    And I mean, the Russians were running around,
    and it had no bearing.
    But still, of course, I went by my school, and I--
    Did you pass the street where your apartment
    was on, your home?
    Not then, because it was a Russian zone,
    and I couldn't get in there.
    So Vienna was split into various zones?
    Oh, yes.
    Yeah, the Russian zone and the American zone,
    the British zone, and then they carved out--
    because the French wanted a zone really small.
    So like Berlin?
    It was like Berlin in that way?
    Huh?
    It was like Berlin?
    Yes, of course, very much, for--
    and then we had Jeeps with all four allied soldiers
    in the [NON-ENGLISH] the first district.
    And-- which was internationalized.
    Before I forget, it's a detail, but I wanted
    to make sure we got it down.
    What was the name of the street your old family
    apartment had been on?
    Schmelkase.
    Schmelkase.
    Schmelkase, 12.
    Schmelkase, 12.
    Yeah.
    12.
    Number 12.
    Yeah, I was there 2008 with my sons
    and showed them, Schemlkase, 12.
    Restored.
    The apartment house looked very nice and neat.
    Mm-hmm.
    But at that time, it was in the Russian zone, so--
    It was in the Russian zone.
    Russian zone.
    Yeah, I could not go there.
    OK.
    So you get your orders and you go to Gmunden and--
    I go to Gmunden and I was assigned
    as the officer in charge for economic interrogation.
    We had all kind of interrogations.
    So any economist, any owner of a factory, and this and that, I
    interrogated.
    But then, of course, the lines were sometimes crossed,
    and I helped out to interrogate some political prisoners here
    and there and some military, which we had.
    What are the sort of-- do you have any memories of some
    of the more--
    moments that stood out as to the type of--
    either information you learned or the things
    that people said or--
    did they try in some ways not to say things,
    but you were able to tell what the real situation?
    Well, I tell you-- we had--
    I mean, this is now 2014 and long declassified,
    but the main--
    in those interrogations, the main assistance we have
    is that we had all-- we had two to a cell,
    and the cells were all wired.
    So in the morning, we listened to the playback of what
    they said to each other.
    And it's very interesting when they come back
    from interrogation and they talk to each other.
    And they said, well--
    we had a lieutenant--
    oh, what was his name?
    Joe Rosenberg, Lieutenant Rosenberg.
    Lieutenant Rosenberg passed as the German interrogator
    in German, but he was-- he did not speak German.
    He spoke Yiddish.
    And so he was very tough, and he interrogated the people.
    So we listened, and so Joe called me over and said,
    look at this tape.
    And he said to the fellow--
    after he was interrogated, he came back and he said-- well,
    do you speak German?
    Mm-hmm.
    Yeah.
    I said, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
    And he said-- you know what I told him,
    and then he repeated that.
    And then the other guy laughed, and--
    Shall we translate what you just said?
    Yes.
    I told that--
    I really told a tall story to that pig Jew.
    Yeah.
    That piggish Jew, yeah.
    And then they laugh about it in the cell.
    Right, exactly.
    So we pretty much know whether people spoke the truth
    or what they were hiding, and then
    we interrogated again, of course, and then we bored in.
    But it was not very much, really, at that time,
    we acquired.
    It was interesting.
    There was I remember Bruno Brein.
    Bruno Brein was a German-- an Austrian author,
    and I used to-- before, in '38, I read his books.
    They were historical books, very good.
    And he was a Nazi.
    And so-- but he didn't hide it.
    But it was very interesting.
    But we--
    And when you-- did you interrogate him?
    No.
    I just read the--
    I listened to the tape.
    I did not interrogate him.
    But what I was particularly involved was--
    there was an Austrian automotive company, Steyr--
    Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG.
    And they made tanks during the war.
    And we had a couple of their directors as prisoners.
    And I interrogated them.
    And then I went to their headquarters in Steyr, and--
    to see how they could be Nazified
    and who should be fired and who should not be fired.
    And I made those recommendations.
    And, I mean, I could either fire them or not fire them,
    but I made the recommendation that the top management--
    that one guy could remain, and the other shouldn't.
    And they carried it out, I suppose.
    I never heard about it.
    I want to ask something from the more technical side.
    You said later you would listen to the tapes.
    Does that mean that what was wired
    in the cells or the interrogations
    themselves were recorded on magnetic tapes?
    Yeah, that's correct.
    I see.
    I see.
    Yeah, we could listen to them.
    That was the technology at the time.
    At the time, yeah, those big roles.
    I mean, we had a Signal Corps officer with us
    who was in charge of all this, and he did a good job.
    But then, I was there for a while.
    And then-- let's say, I just said, I got in August, roughly,
    so that covers August, September, October, maybe.
    In November, I got new orders to--
    we did-- within our headquarters,
    they needed to send two officers to Hyde.
    Hyde was a little town outside of Linz.
    It was the last time--
    the last town in the Austria-- in the American zone
    before the Russian zone took over.
    And there, we had a prisoner of war camp.
    And there were about 4,000 people there,
    all foreigners, non-Germans, and other lieutenant,
    Lieutenant [PERSONAL NAME] and I,
    were instructed to go there and liquidate
    the camp by December 31.
    And what had been done, of course, before we were sent,
    all the countries where informed to come and take back their--
    Nationals.
    --their nationals, and I mean, the Dutch, the Belgians,
    the Yugoslavs--
    So these were all--
    --the Spanish.
    --everybody who had fought on Germany's side?
    Yes.
    Mm-hmm.
    Yes.
    There were even the German army, or separate units.
    Right.
    Like the Spanish had the Blue Division.
    I mean, there was a lot of Spanish prisoners, which,
    of course, was easy for me, because I spoke Spanish.
    But-- so what we dealt with was not
    necessarily with the prisoners.
    We dealt with the delegations from the countries
    that came and took them.
    Now, I must say that I do not remember
    what happened to the Spanish prisoners,
    because I don't think we had relations with Spain.
    But somehow, they were all taken away,
    so somebody must have come from Spain.
    I do not remember the details.
    I mean, in retrospect, I never thought about it.
    It seems strange, but they were the easiest
    to go, because they wanted to go back to Spain,
    and there was no questions asked, and very orderly.
    But I guess somebody came.
    We had a lot of trouble with the Dutch and the Belgians,
    because they didn't want to go back,
    because they would have been prosecuted as war criminals.
    So the Dutch made it--
    the Dutch tried to say they were Belgians.
    The Belgians said they were Dutch,
    in order to get to the different countries.
    So I don't remember the details.
    All I know, we had orders to close the camp by December 31.
    And it became obvious, as we came
    to the second part of December, before Christmas,
    that we could get rid of everybody but the Yugoslavs,
    because the Yugoslavs were split three ways, into--
    well, we had royalists, and the other one, Mihailovic,
    and I forgot who the third one was.
    But we found out in Vienna--
    rather, the headquarters found out--
    that this was not an isolated case, that we
    had Yugoslavs all over Austria.
    So we made Yugoslavs camps, special camps,
    and so they were shipped to those special camps.
    I don't know whether they were separated
    in those camps, royalists and Mihailovic, and so on.
    Was this Serbs, when you say Yugoslavs,
    or does this mean Croatians as well?
    Oh, yes, very much so.
    So it meant those who were with part of the Ustaše and--
    Oh, yes--
    --who would have fought for, uh-huh, the Croatian forces.
    Exactly, yeah.
    OK.
    But anyway, we got rid of those.
    They were not picked up, because we had no dealings with Tito,
    either, and they were just shipped to another camp anyway.
    We closed--
    Did you get any Vlasov army people?
    Any what?
    Vlasov army people?
    I don't remember.
    I don't remember.
    Because that was very close to the Czech border.
    Yes.
    And I believe the Vlasov army fought in Prague.
    Yes, I'm sure, but I do not--
    I must say--
    You don't know?
    There might have been, but I just don't remember.
    Because the Soviets would have acted in a different way.
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    Yes, but the Soviets could have come and gotten them,
    for that matter.
    Yeah.
    Because they were allies.
    But I just don't remember.
    I don't remember any Soviets there.
    So your job at this place was to coordinate--
    Close the camp.
    Close the camp by coordinating the delegations to come and get
    their nationals.
    Yes, which was already coordinated before we came.
    They were already-- they came shortly after we arrived.
    So that was-- now, it was complicated,
    and it was cold and winter.
    And of course, we went to Linz.
    And we-- there was one big hotel.
    I forgot the name now, in Linz.
    And we lived there and ate there.
    But it was--
    It sounds miserable, actually.
    It was pretty miserable, yeah.
    There was no heat in the hotel.
    Anyway, we liquidated that, and then I came back.
    To Gmunden?
    Huh?
    To Gmunden?
    To Gmunden, yes.
    Yeah.
    I mean, we were obviously--
    Sure.
    We were just detailed for that.
    And I came back, and we stayed--
    I stayed until--
    I mean, I stayed for a long time,
    but I mean, until July, I continued interrogation.
    And that was quite interesting.
    And in July, we got orders to interrogate the DP camps,
    because at that time, we had a fairly strong inflow
    of Soviet Jews trying--
    I mean, either, they left.
    They were authorized to leave, I guess.
    They came to Austria--
    You mean, they were allowed to leave the Soviet Union?
    Well, I don't know, but I can't--
    They ended up there.
    They just-- they came in steady streams.
    Yeah.
    We had really-- Ebensee was just one of the camps.
    There were several camps.
    And they wanted to go to Israel--
    well, Palestine, of course.
    They wanted to go to Palestine or the United
    States or England.
    And we just were instructed to screen them and see
    whether any scientists or any people of possible interest.
    And so we had really hundreds, every day.
    And you had direct contact with them?
    Oh, yes, I interrogated them, and--
    you know.
    What language did you speak?
    German, because they spoke Yiddish or German.
    Yiddish would be--
    Yeah.
    But I mean, I could understand them,
    and they could understand me, and I mean,
    we just had to check their background
    and see whether there were of any interest.
    And of course, I would say 98 of 100 were not.
    But we had engineers or people similar to Operation Paperclip
    in Germany, scientists brought back to the United States.
    And we found a few.
    And the rest we--
    it was not up to us.
    Eventually, those DP camps were all liquidated,
    and they found their way, mainly through Italy, to Palestine.
    And a few came to United-- had relatives in the United States,
    and they eventually came to the United States.
    But that was a very labor-intensive operation.
    Was there anything that you remember
    from that experience that opened your eyes that something you
    didn't know before?
    Well, I was interested-- actually,
    I was surprised how many skilled engineers there were.
    Now, the question, of course, came--
    some of them had figured out what we were doing,
    and so they figured if they're skilled engineers,
    then maybe they had a better chance
    to come to the United States, and we did not
    have enough technical--
    we just had to use our own judgment.
    But it was very interesting.
    "Engineer" is a very broad term.
    Yes.
    And--
    Very broad.
    Lots of people, little time, and fewer people.
    I mean, there was a lieutenant-- another lieutenant and I who
    were--
    by that time, I'd been promoted to-- already,
    to first lieutenant, and so I was in charge of that.
    But it was very interesting, I must say.
    So we went ahead.
    I mean, at the time, I went to Paris a few times,
    because we had those planes in Salzburg.
    And in Salzburg, they had a large prisoner
    of war camp, Glasenbach.
    And they sent us prisoners which they thought of interest
    for us to interrogate.
    So we went down to Glasenbach quite often.
    But Salzburg had an airport, a military airport.
    And so on weekends, when we had time, we went to Paris,
    or-- the plane was going anywhere.
    We went down there and said, where are you going?
    He said, I'm going to Rome.
    I'm going to Paris.
    And so off we went.
    Gratis?
    Of course.
    It's military, because all--
    the war was on.
    I mean--
    It was going to be flying anyway?
    Yeah, they were going to fly anyway.
    And so that's why I came up to Vienna in January '46.
    And I said, I would like to go to Bucharest.
    I mean, I'd like to go to Romania,
    because I had relatives.
    And so they says, well, we have a plane to Bucharest.
    It goes-- it's kind of a milk train.
    It goes to Budapest.
    It goes to Sophia.
    It goes to Bucharest, wherever we have military mission.
    So I went to Bucharest.
    And I didn't have to go any farther, because my uncles
    and aunts were all in Bucharest, because they all
    had left Czernowitz, Cernuti during the war.
    And they were all there.
    But this is also a very lucky, and in some ways,
    it sounds like exceptional destiny,
    that they survived, because many Romanian Jews did not.
    They were in labor camps.
    They were transported.
    They were in military--
    they got deported out of the country, and then were gassed.
    Yeah.
    I think my uncle may have been in a labor camp,
    but he came-- he was back.
    I mean, I just don't remember.
    So they were all in Bucharest?
    They were all there.
    They were all in Bucharest.
    And one of my father's brothers, the banker,
    had gone to Israel before the war,
    to Palestine, before the war.
    And they all--
    I think they were there in Bucharest another year,
    and then they all went to Palestine.
    And I saw them when I was--
    at the Canadian Defense College, we took a trip to Israel,
    and I saw them all still.
    So when did-- they went in the '40s.
    That's when they left?
    Yes, they left--
    Before it became difficult to leave, in other words.
    Yes.
    That's what I'm asking.
    There was no problem at all.
    They left in '48, I would say.
    Something around that time.
    OK.
    They were old and one of my aunts died recently.
    I mean, she was 100 years old, or something.
    And so that was very interesting.
    And it was for the reason you wanted
    to see about your family?
    That's what--
    Of course.
    Yes, yeah.
    I mean, it was--
    I felt that I should--
    it was my duty to go there and to see them.
    And they were all relatively well-off.
    I mean, I don't have no idea--
    You reported back to your father about it?
    They what?
    You reported back to your--
    Of course.
    Yeah.
    Of course.
    Yeah, my parents were in Colombia then.
    And I knew, of course, that before I went to--
    I told my parents I'm planning to do that,
    and they told me that they were in Bucharest,
    and they had some address of one of them.
    And that's how I found the rest.
    Otherwise, we'd never found them, you know?
    And I remember I went to the embassy at the time
    and I talked to Ambassador Schoenfeld,
    who was the ambassador there.
    And he said-- you know, we talked
    about the Foreign Service.
    He said, he liked it very much.
    And I said, well, that's interesting.
    I might think about that.
    And so--
    He was the US ambassador to Romania?
    Yes, in '46.
    And it was a very interesting time,
    because when I was there in '46, the King was still
    there, King Mihai, but he was no longer in Bucharest.
    He was in Sinai, in the castle.
    But the Russians were already there.
    But you see, there was a period of a few months where
    the Russians were there and the King was there,
    and then the King finally left.
    The Russians-- I don't think the Russians
    had taken over yet, the civilian government.
    The Russians ran the country, but the civilian government
    hadn't been formed yet.
    Well, there were these transitional times--
    Yes.
    --throughout the region.
    Yeah, and then Ana Pauker came, and she ran--
    she was a Jewish communist.
    And she ran it then.
    But anyway, that was just a very interesting trip I took.
    And I mean, I was interested to see what happens.
    Of course, I wanted to see what-- my family.
    And so that was nice, because I'd known them
    from '36, from my visits to-- and so I stayed with them,
    you know?
    And so it was very nice.
    So of your family, it sounds like almost everybody was
    unscathed, at least [CROSS TALK]----
    On my father's side, everybody.
    OK
    On my mother's side, just her oldest sister and her husband
    left--
    were gassed.
    They all--
    What happened to them?
    I'm sorry?
    I mean were they--
    did you find-- were you able to trace what happened to them?
    Not really.
    They disappeared.
    By the time I got to Vienna, they had disappeared.
    I mean, I talked to my aunt--
    like my mother, only my aunt, much more so,
    was a great bridge player, and she
    played with a lot of friends.
    And I talked to one of her friends, a lady who was an--
    a Christian lady, stayed there all the time.
    And I knew her because I tutored her son
    to make some little money while I was in Vienna.
    And she told me that they were deported.
    So I knew-- of course, my parents
    knew that something had happened to them.
    And then later on, of course, I found the exact details,
    because in 1980, I went to my sons, with Bob and Christopher,
    and then, when we went to the [GERMAN] to find out.
    And so they checked the records, and they
    knew exactly when they were deported
    and how they were moved first to some district
    and then deported.
    And--
    Do you know what camp they were deported to?
    No.
    Somewhere in Poland.
    And disappeared, and gone.
    So the--
    They were the only ones.
    All the rest--
    [GERMAN] means "cultural association"?
    The [GERMAN] was the Jewish community in Vienna.
    And that was the official Jewish community.
    There, I found, for instance--
    while I was gone, of course, my grandfather
    had died shortly after I left, but it
    was through them I found out where he was buried,
    and the exact grave location, and I went there.
    That's why I went.
    I see.
    So in other words, that piece of information about your aunt--
    it was three or four decades before you
    were able to get something that was concrete?
    Just the details.
    I mean--
    Just the details.
    I mean, from where they were deported,
    what building and what house where they lived,
    which was not--
    they had a lovely apartment in the third district.
    But obviously, they were deported from some miserable
    place somewhere.
    Which was-- she was a very cosmopolitan woman and very
    nice.
    But didn't make it out.
    Yeah.
    Those were the only ones that I lost.
    Yeah.
    It's an unusual fate that so many would survive.
    It's an unusual one.
    Well, in Vienna, I tell you--
    it was funny, but the majority of my friends--
    they all went to South--
    not South America.
    To Australia, to Australia, to the United States,
    to Great Britain.
    They all had connections.
    They all were well-to-do, and very few--
    I mean, I know one or two who went to Italy,
    and they eventually--
    I don't know what happened to them.
    But they died of natural causes or whatever.
    But they're gone.
    When did your service end in the military intelligence?
    Well, in 1974, to be exact.
    But--
    Is that--
    I went to Reserve.
    What does that mean?
    My active duty.
    Mm-hmm.
    Yeah, I went back in March '47.
    By that time, I had fallen in love with an Austrian girl,
    and so I left in March.
    And she came under the War Brides Act of 1946,
    so the army brought her over by American,
    and I posted the bond, whereby $50,
    if she would not get married within 90 days,
    she would be returned.
    Well, we married, and she stayed for 62 years.
    And her name?
    I'm sorry?
    What was her name?
    Her name was Maria.
    Maria.
    But she was, in Foreign Service circles, known as Mary.
    Yeah.
    And was she from Vienna as well?
    No, she was from Upper Austria.
    She was from a little town.
    I mean, her father was-- had a farm.
    But she had been--
    she worked in our headquarters, because where her parents lived
    was that part of Austria which--
    on this side of the Danube, which was in the Russian zone,
    so all the girls left, in order not to get in trouble.
    And she spoke some English, so she
    got a job at the headquarters, the military--
    the USDIC, United States Details Interrogation Center.
    She was a switchboard operator, and then she
    was an administrative clerk.
    So I got to know her.
    And so her family, of course, I didn't meet until 1960,
    when I went back.
    By that time, the Russians had gone, and so--
    Wow, I didn't realize that.
    I didn't realize that it wouldn't
    have been possible to meet them because
    of the Russian presence.
    I'm sorry?
    I didn't realize that because of the Soviet presence,
    it wouldn't have been possible to meet them?
    No, we could not go in the Russian zone without a pass.
    I mean, even when we went from London to Vienna,
    which I did almost weekly, we had a gray card,
    which I still have--
    no, I don't have it.
    It's in the Hoover Institute.
    I have all that stuff.
    We had a gray card that we could to the Russian zone,
    because they stopped you, and to show them the card,
    and then we could leave.
    But you couldn't just go.
    And did you get news of what was going on in the Russian zone?
    Was it very different than where the Western allies were?
    Well, for instance, I heard from my wife,
    because her parents were in the Russian zone, and they stole--
    they chopped down the cherry tree and stole the--
    did all kinds of things.
    But they were-- when they left Russia, wherever they were
    located in barracks, they took the toilets out and brought
    them back, and things like that.
    And my only actually--
    one of the few occasions I had to interact with the Russians
    was once when I went to Vienna on an official trip from London
    to drive to the Russian zone.
    And as we were driving, there was American Jeep on the road.
    Obviously, it veered off the road.
    And we looked around, and we found a body, and it was dead.
    It was an American officer, which--
    there was something funny about it,
    because officers are not supposed to drive.
    But they didn't have a driver, so I don't know
    what happened, who he we was.
    So anyway, we stopped, and the driver, and I
    took his wallet with his ID, and then the Russians came.
    The Russian soldiers came out of nowhere.
    I mean, they were around.
    And he obviously had an accident.
    He veered off the road.
    So the Russian soldiers came to me,
    and went like this, looking at my watch.
    They wanted the watch.
    They wanted to buy a watch.
    They were perfectly nice.
    And my driver, who knew--
    who'd been to Vienna before, he took a couple of Mickey Mouse
    watches out, and they immediately gave him
    some money--
    I don't know what or how.
    I didn't look.
    But then I told--
    you know, we couldn't communicate,
    but we understood that the guy had an accident, so we went on
    to Vienna and reported it.
    That's all I could do.
    That was your direct-- your only direct--
    With Russian soldiers, yeah.
    --interaction.
    And I must say, I never realized--
    I mean, the Russian soldiers were used--
    described as brutes and terrible.
    But in 1984, I was in Austria with my wife and son,
    and we went back--
    the airport-- you know, the Vienna airport
    is in Schwechat, which is outside
    of Vienna, about 20 kilometers.
    And we got there the night before in order
    to make the plane the next morning,
    so we wandered around there, the town-- little town,
    from the airport hotel.
    And then we found out hundreds of graves of Russian soldiers
    who had died in the last days of the war.
    And that's-- they had tremendous sacrifices.
    [NON-ENGLISH]
    Huh?
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    Yeah, exactly.
    Yeah.
    They really-- unbelievable, rolls and rolls with the names.
    Yeah.
    That was very sad.
    I've seen such graves in the Konigsberg region,
    with Kaliningrad, you know?
    Oh, yeah, in Konigsberg.
    Of course.
    It was just a slaughterhouse.
    I know.
    It was-- and I mean, hundreds of Thousands
    Is that Russia now or Poland?
    Yes, Russia.
    It's still Russia.
    Very militarized, very militarized.
    But it had always been militarized.
    So there were fierce battles there,
    and it was just one wave of soldiers thrown after another.
    Yeah.
    What were some of your final assignments in Austria
    before you left?
    Well, I'll tell you, after I left Ebensee,
    I went back to interrogation, but by the time,
    the Nazification had ended.
    We had some odd things here and there,
    but I just cleaned up more of the Ebensee stuff.
    And I was ready to go when I went in March.
    I didn't have much.
    This was March '47?
    March '47, yes.
    OK.
    And did you know what you wanted to do next?
    Well, you may have seen this, maybe,
    from the stuff I sent you.
    While I was in Vienna--
    while I was in Gmunden, rather, my friend
    of old, Martin Hertz, who got me there,
    he was in Vienna, of course.
    And we were in touch by field telephone and all that.
    So Martin said, you know, I applied
    for the Foreign Service.
    And I remember what Schoenfeld had told me
    in Bucharest and all that.
    And I said, gee, I'm interested.
    He said, look, I'll send you the forms.
    So send me the forms, and talked over the phone to the embassy.
    And they said, yes, you have a certain date,
    and fill out the forms, and we'll send you the information.
    And they sent me the information,
    and then I went up to Vienna and took the Foreign Service
    exam, which was really interesting,
    because the American embassy was in a building which
    I know very well before.
    It was the Austrian diplomatic school.
    And I could never have gotten in there,
    but I know I had friends who were there,
    in the Consular Academy.
    There was a school, really like the Foreign Service Institute.
    So I took the exam and went back.
    And Martin had taken it also.
    And Martin Hertz called me then, a month later, and said,
    I got my assignment.
    I'm going to Paris as third secretary.
    How about you?
    And I said, I haven't heard.
    And he said, well, you took it later than I did.
    It's probably here in another month or so.
    But I heard nothing.
    I heard nothing for about three or four months.
    So finally, I went to Vienna and I
    found the officer who gave me the exam, and he said,
    what happened?
    And he looked to check my name.
    They said, oh, we have your exam right here.
    And I said, how come?
    What happened?
    He said, well, we didn't forward it,
    because we realized that you didn't meet the requirements.
    You had to be an American citizen for 15 years,
    and you were naturalized only in '43.
    But what about Martin Hertz?
    What about your friend?
    Well, he was born in New York.
    Ah.
    He was very smart.
    His mother, heavily pregnant, went to New York,
    and he was born there.
    And she went back to Austria.
    I mean, it was--
    Well, good thing he told her about that.
    --purely coincidentally.
    [LAUGHS]
    She accompanied her husband on a business trip or whatever.
    But he was a native American.
    So the guy was very nice to me, and he said, look, I'm sorry,
    and forwarded it to Washington now with a note that--
    to notify you in 15 years.
    And I said, well, thank you very much.
    [LAUGHS]
    And as it happens, then, because I was continually interested--
    so years and years later, when I was in private business
    in Colombia, before I resigned my second contract in Colombia
    in '56, I went to the Department.
    And, you know, got the runaround, and eventually--
    nobody ever heard of it.
    I mean, that thought I was nuts.
    But I talked to them and they were very nice.
    And they said, well, you were in military intelligence.
    Do you want to be a security officer?
    And I said that's not what I'm looking for.
    And then one fellow who was there--
    no, it was different.
    I talked to the assistant secretary for administration,
    and he sent me to the security officer,
    because he thought military intelligence.
    So I talked to the guy in charge,
    and I said, no, I'm not interested in being a security
    officer.
    And he then said, you know, I just
    heard the other day that the Department of Commerce
    is looking for military--
    for commercial attaches abroad with business experience
    in Latin America for a temporary assignment, five years,
    nonrevokable, nonrenewable assignments,
    these commercial attaches.
    And you might be interested in that.
    So I went to the Department of Commerce,
    immediately took a car--
    cab from state and went there.
    And I told them who I was and what I was doing.
    I was in Cali, Colombia.
    And they said, yes, we are very interested,
    and come back tomorrow morning, and we'll convene a board,
    and we'll see.
    And so I went back the next morning, and I was appointed.
    I mean, it took them three months.
    I mean, they passed me and took through the--
    And that was what year?
    --security clearance and all that.
    What year was that?
    That was '50-- that was '56.
    So it was 10 years, not 15 years later.
    Yeah.
    But this regulation doesn't exist-- that went by the board
    probably a year afterwards.
    I mean, I didn't follow it, but I mean, no longer existed.
    It was never a question.
    So I was appointed then in early '57.
    I got a message from the State Department,
    through the consulate in Cali, and-- saying I was appointed
    as just commercial attaché to Montevideo,
    five--year nonrevokable appointment.
    And then I was finished with the Foreign Service.
    I mean, just a temporary assignment.
    So I took it.
    And of course, after three years--
    any government employees after three years
    can request permanent assignments or-- to take
    another Foreign Service exam, but-- which
    was much different to just an essay and some-- answered
    some questions, go before a board.
    And by that time, I had been in the reserve--
    a reserve officer for three years and had been promoted.
    So it was a sign.
    And that's it.
    In 1960, I became a regular Foreign Service
    officer, class three, and--
    And your career--
    I'm sorry?
    And your career in the Foreign Service
    then went until what year?
    Well, it went until '85 when I was ambassador in Venezuela.
    And at that time in '84, we had--
    the president of Venezuela went to state visit to Washington.
    Of course, I went with him.
    And we saw President Reagan.
    And the Venezuelan president said to President Reagan--
    he said, you know, I think your term ends in 1987,
    and so does mine.
    He said, would you mind if you could keep George Landau
    as ambassador until then?
    It would be very comforting to me.
    And Reagan said, of course.
    No problem.
    So of course, secretary of state was there, George Shultz,
    and the assistant secretary for Latin America,
    so there was no question.
    So I was going to stay in Venezuela until '87 and then
    retire, which was past my retirement age,
    because I was 65--
    and in 19-- I was 65.
    '85.
    1985.
    So in 1984, David Rockefeller came,
    and he had seen me in various embassies.
    I'd hosted him in Chile, and I know him fairly well.
    But I mean, professionally.
    And so David came to see me in Caracas, oh, in February
    or March '85.
    And he said, you know, I'm looking
    for a new president for the Consul Americas
    and the Americas Society.
    And if you're interested, we'd like to have you.
    And so we worked out stipulations.
    I asked my wife, and she was ready,
    because now, you see, I had still,
    under the Reagan promise, I still had two years to go.
    So the Department head was going to propose me
    after I finished my tour in Venezuela
    that year to go to Argentina.
    So I went to--
    David Rockefeller made me the offer.
    I talked to Secretary Shultz, whom I knew very well, and he--
    I told him what the deal was.
    And he said, look, they're gong to put your name forward
    to Argentina, but it's not a guarantee,
    because the White House may send a political appointee.
    He said if I were you, I'd take the Rockefeller job.
    So I did.
    And I stayed eight years there.
    It was a three-year contract, but I stayed eight years.
    And I loved it.
    It was really the Foreign Service continued,
    because all we did was meet heads
    of states and foreign ministers who spoke with the council.
    They all were interested to come.
    It gave them a platform in the United States.
    So that was a wonderful job.
    That sounds fascinating.
    Yeah, it worked out very well.
    Well, we spent a lot of time talking
    about, I'd say, the first 25 years of your life,
    the first 27 years of your life from, 1920 to '47,
    and now we're condensing a very distinguished career
    and service to the United States at the latter end
    of the interview, which deserves much, much
    more attention and much, much more space
    than we've got the time.
    But what I wanted to ask in bridging those two things,
    I read in the materials that you gave me
    that you were very involved in promoting democracy
    and human rights and, I would say,
    the dignity of the individual.
    I'm sorry?
    I would say the dignity of an individual in a society
    in your various posts.
    How were-- when we began when I began the interview,
    I said one of the things we're interested to know
    is what are the forces that shape a person.
    So how would you say that your experiences,
    your early experiences in Austria
    and growing up in Vienna in the 1930s, and the things that you
    learned and were exposed to--
    how did they shape the kind of public servant
    that you were as representing the United States abroad
    and shaped the values that you espoused?
    Well, of course, that's an interesting question.
    I would say this much.
    Vienna was an extremely cosmopolitan city and--
    intellectually, and in every respect,
    because a lot of things were going on then,
    musically, artistically, and literature-wise, so that
    made it very easy for me to be a Foreign Service
    officer, because I could connect with other cultures.
    And then, of course, having lived in Colombia when I first
    came-- and I've never forgotten that I owe them
    a deep debt of gratitude, because I know
    what would have happened to me if Colombia wouldn't have taken
    me.
    So-- and I spoke Spanish well, so I very much
    enjoyed being in Latin America.
    And they saw that.
    They reciprocated that.
    I mean, they always said, after all, the Hapsburgs
    were both Spanish and Austrians, and I was their descendent.
    [LAUGHS]
    But by the same token, what happened to me--
    I always remembered that and made sure
    that people don't get in trouble for their beliefs or whatever.
    You know, there should be no minorities.
    It was often understood that we took care of it.
    But I must say, in all honesty, when I got my first embassy,
    it was--
    President Nixon was there, and all my instructions
    were to shut off the heroin traffic from Paraguay, which
    was prevalent at the time, and get the people extradited
    who were involved.
    It was under President Carter, when
    I went to Chile under Carter, and Carter was very much
    into human rights.
    And I got very exact instructions.
    And, of course, Pinochet was a difficult person to deal with.
    So, I mean, I was there to protect human rights
    to the extent I could.
    That was my mission.
    So it often understood-- and whenever I get a mission,
    I carry it out to the best of my abilities.
    And that's why, of course, in the middle,
    while I was in Chile, in--
    I got there in '77, '77 to '82.
    In 1980, Secretary Vance called me and said,
    the president would like you to go to Guatemala,
    where we really have human rights problems.
    And I was less than enthusiastic, I can assure you.
    And I said, yes, of course, I'll go there.
    And they asked for my [NON-ENGLISH] to go there.
    And the Guatemalan checked with the Chileans,
    and the Chileans said he's a human rights guy.
    He's going to get caught--
    give you troubles, so they give me the [NON-ENGLISH] And then,
    of course, they thought better and they gave me
    the [NON-ENGLISH] a week before the election.
    And at that time, Christo was deputy secretary--
    sent me a message and said it's too late now.
    Let's wait until the election, and then we'll
    put your name forward again.
    But, of course, things changed.
    And I thought, well, that was the end of that.
    And the Reagan administration took
    over, and Secretary Haag, whom I'd
    known very well when he was Kissinger's assistant
    to the colonel.
    So Al Haig called me--
    no, he didn't call me.
    I mean, his office called and said the secretary
    wanted to see me right away.
    It was right after he was confirmed.
    So I went to Washington, and he said--
    and I though, of course, the Reagan administration
    couldn't care less about human rights,
    and they're going to fire me.
    But they didn't.
    Al said, you know, we have a real problem in Salvador
    with human rights and all that, and we got to--
    we're really trying to clean that up,
    and we would like you to go to Salvador.
    And I said--
    Salvador was miserable at the time.
    Absolutely.
    People were killed left and right,
    ambassadors slept under the bed, and all kinds of things.
    And I said, yes, well, if you ask me to, of course I'll go.
    But he said, you must know that President Carter wanted
    to send me to Guatemala, which he didn't know,
    and that was all over the papers in Latin America.
    And so it will be understood there
    that I am a retread from the Carter administration,
    and you just followed their policy.
    He said, no, we don't want to do that.
    Do you know somebody who could go there?
    And I said, yes, I do, and gave him a name.
    And he said, well, we'll send you somewhere else,
    and that by March 1 they'll call you and tell you.
    And by March 1st, he called me and said,
    you're going to go to Panama.
    I said, fine.
    My wife said that we can't go to Panama because my hair will not
    work there in Panama.
    Well, anyway, we were going to go to Panama until the senator
    from--
    Howard Baker, the Tennessee--
    the senator from Tennessee told the president
    that he had stuck his neck out about voting for the Panama
    Canal Treaty, which didn't sit well with his constituents,
    so he wanted the ambassador in Panama
    to stay for another year to carry out the details.
    I mean, he didn't know me and I didn't know him.
    And so I didn't go to Panama.
    So I went to Venezuela instead, which was better off,
    and the hair worked for my wife, and no problem.
    [LAUGHS]
    So that's how--
    Well, that's--
    --career are formed.
    I guess.
    [LAUGHS] My goodness.
    But bumped from one to the other to another, but eventually--
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And Guatemala and El Salvador were vicious places
    in those times.
    Yeah, no, I was delighted--
    Very hard.
    --not to go there.
    But you don't say no.
    No, you don't say no.
    I mean, it's--
    So it was being--
    it was growing up in Vienna that helped being a Foreign Service
    officer, because of what the city was at that time, what
    the place was, the spirit was?
    Yes, I mean, your mind is formed in a way worldly way.
    And it was easy.
    It was natural for me.
    And I must say, I mean--
    you know, thinking back, I mean, I
    must say I'm lucky that what happened
    happened to me, personally, because had I stayed in Vienna,
    I would have become another lawyer,
    and the economic situation would have picked up.
    I probably would have done well.
    But I mean, nothing to write home about.
    And this worked out very well.
    But, I mean, the price the world paid was very high for this.
    Yes.
    But, I mean, I got my parents out, and that's all I could do.
    Did your children get to know your parents?
    I'm sorry?
    Did your children get to know your parents?
    Yes, yes.
    Bobby, my older son, came--
    we went in Cali--
    yeah, did we cover--
    I don't think we-- yes, we did cover that, didn't we?
    You left your parents in Colombia.
    No, no, I left my parents--
    my parents were in Colombia.
    I went to the United States.
    That's right.
    No, but when I went back to New York, I worked again--
    we didn't cover that period.
    No, we didn't.
    Yeah.
    We didn't go there.
    OK.
    Well, what I did then is I wanted
    to go back to school to get a degree,
    but of course, I was married by then, so I responsibilities,
    so I couldn't go back to school.
    So what I did was I took my old job back.
    They wanted me desperately back at Gondrand.
    So I became assistant vice president
    in charge of Latin America.
    Still, not a big deal.
    I think I got $100 a week, which '46, was manageable--
    Not bad.
    --but not great.
    And I went to school at night, which was kind of stressful.
    And I did this for a while.
    And my wife worked also.
    She worked at Blue Cross.
    And we had no children.
    We had not planned to have any children for a while.
    Of course, I stayed in the Reserve
    and I did my active duty every year.
    I was-- my old friends, and it was nice.
    I was promoted to captain then and major, so it went on.
    And in 1955, one of the--
    end of '54, I guess, one of our customers who was
    the Chrysler--
    he had the Chrysler franchise for part of Colombia, Cali.
    Cali, Colombia.
    And he borrowed a lot.
    He was in trouble, because sloppy operation,
    and Chrysler was going to take it away from him.
    So he went to Detroit.
    And they said, well, you need a new manager.
    So he got the idea, came to see me, and said,
    would you like to come and work for me?
    And, of course, I was interested,
    because my parents were there.
    They were in Bucaramanga, but not-- still, it's
    the same country.
    So we worked out the details.
    I mean, it was much better pay.
    And so I took a two-year contract.
    You had finished with night school by then?
    No, I had not quite finished it.
    And what I did--
    no, I didn't do anything.
    I had not quite finished it.
    And so I went back to Cali--
    went to Cali with him and stayed two years.
    And then when it came up to renew the contract,
    that's when I mentioned to you, that when
    I went to the Department of State--
    Right.
    --and then when I set it up, and so I did not renew it.
    And went back.
    That was my Cali episode.
    But I saw my parents.
    We used to go there.
    And I took Bobby along, who was three years old.
    And Christopher was not born, of course.
    But later on-- my father passed away in '59, when I was
    in Uruguay, and--
    but my mother lived until '74.
    And my mother came to see us frequently
    and came to Spain while we were stationed there
    and came to Paraguay in my first embassy.
    Was that the first time you were appointed ambassador?
    It was in Paraguay, yeah, after I finished with Spain.
    Yes.
    And so she came to see me in Paraguay.
    And then she died in '74.
    And so Chris, my younger son, knew her very well,
    remembers her very well.
    So even though the distances were there,
    there was a way that life turned out
    that your family, small as it was,
    could be part of one another's lives?
    Oh, absolutely.
    Yeah.
    Absolutely.
    And again, when my wife came in '47, for instance,
    the War Bride--
    and so the first thing, she got off the plane, she had to--
    she needed dresses and she needed--
    she had nothing for--
    so my cousin, Madelaine, the daughter of my wife's--
    my mother's oldest brother was in New York,
    went shopping with her and bought her
    the bridal gown and everything.
    And we were in touch with Madelaine and her husband,
    who was an Austrian baron, and who
    left in '38 because he was a monarchist
    and very much against the Hitler regime.
    And we were in touch with them until we went abroad,
    and then we lost contact somehow and never saw her again.
    She died in Canada in 2005.
    After--
    All my relatives have died now on my mother's side,
    my cousins.
    Oh, you said you were the youngest.
    I was the youngest.
    You were the youngest, yeah.
    And the others died in London or in Australia.
    But they all got out, and they all
    had profitable, interesting life, and they died.
    After 19-- in 1947, when you came back,
    when was the next time you went to Austria?
    Was it to bring your children there to show it to them?
    No, well, of course, I was in Austria, and--
    no.
    The next time was in 1960.
    I was in Austria three times--
    four times.
    The first time was in 1960, when--
    by that time, we had one son.
    Bobby was seven years old.
    Now, I must say this, when we were in Cali--
    my wife came to the United States in '47.
    In '56, she went back to Austria for the first time,
    and they took Bobby along, so he met his grandparents
    and everything.
    And in 1960, we all went to Austria, and I met my--
    In-laws.
    --my in-laws and her family, which was numerous.
    And we didn't stay very long.
    And then we came back in '62, and again stayed with them
    for a while and then left.
    And that was it.
    And then I didn't go back--
    Mary went back-- of course, when we
    were in Spain, three years in Spain,
    she went back every summer for three months
    and took Bobby along.
    And then the next time was 1984, when I was on leave.
    I was in Venezuela, and we went to Europe.
    And there they took Chris along for the first time.
    He was in college.
    And we showed him Vienna.
    We went to Austria.
    We looked-- it was a strange town.
    I mean, as I told you before beautiful buildings,
    but some provincial people who spoke with funny accents and I
    didn't--
    good food and good buildings and lovely countryside.
    But not the world that you grew up in?
    No, it was a strange--
    I mean, it could have been Cologne or whatever.
    It was not.
    I mean, I knew the streets, where to go, but it was not--
    it was meaningless.
    That was in '84.
    I mean, no feeling, I'm coming home, or anything.
    Nothing.
    Darmstadt.
    Yeah, Darmstadt.
    Yeah.
    So anyway, that was '84.
    And then in 2008, I had a board meeting
    in Vienna, one-day board meeting,
    so I figured I would make a week out of it,
    and I took both my sons along.
    Well, they'd grown up by then.
    And I showed them where I was born.
    We went to the Kultusgemeinde and we got the grave
    of my grandparents fixed up.
    And they really looked around and saw it.
    That was very nice.
    But again, I couldn't show them the place where I went
    to dancing school and all that.
    But it was no emotional experience.
    It was totally strange place.
    It had beautiful buildings, but you
    don't connect with the people, and they're different people.
    They're not the people I knew.
    They all became provincial somehow, short pants and--
    Lederhosen?
    Lederhosen, yeah.
    Lederhosen, yeah.
    Great.
    I stayed at the Imperial Hotel, I guess, again,
    and it was such an interesting country, but I mean--
    an interesting city, but I prefer Paris.
    But Vienna is nice.
    Yeah, and when we talk about it now,
    in these types of interviews, the point
    is, is there an emotional connection for a person,
    given what they had in their life and what happened to them?
    And clearly, then, for you, there wasn't.
    There was none.
    There was no-- there was none.
    None.
    Yeah.
    It's-- look, it's a different population.
    It's not the people I know.
    Yeah, yeah.
    I mean, it's self understood, because, I mean,
    I was gone for so long.
    But still, it's not--
    Yeah.
    And it's understandable.
    I mean, I must say, I was very touched, in both schools--
    I went Akademisches Gymnasium first.
    I sent them an email, and they invited me to breakfast
    with my sons, and they have a tablet outside.
    It was nice, but--
    so what?
    OK.
    Tell me?
    This continues the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Ambassador George Landau on March 10.
    Ambassador, I think that we've come
    close to the end of our discussion today.
    Is there something else that you-- oh, is there
    something else that you would like
    to add to what we've talked about,
    something maybe that has been missed
    in the telling of your story and your, I'd say,
    brushes with a fate that could have been a lot worse than it
    was, but nevertheless, a life that was very much influenced
    by the rise of the Nazis and the annexation of Austria?
    Any final thoughts?
    Well, totally, and I mean, I--
    all thanks to the Nazis for throwing me out.
    [LAUGHS]
    Because I came to the country I always wanted to come to.
    And I will never forget when I was seven years old,
    my parents took me to the Urania.
    Urania was kind of a cultural institute where they had
    a movie on the United States.
    And it was called the [GERMAN],, "The Country
    of Unlimited Possibilities."
    and I was very much impressed by it, and I must say now,
    in my 94th year, I can tell you, the title was absolutely right.
    Oh, that's a wonderful tribute to this country.
    And thank you for it.
    And thank you very much for speaking with us today
    and sharing your thoughts-- sharing your life experience.
    And this concludes the United States Holocaust Memorial
    Museum interview with Ambassador George Landau on March 10,
    2014.
    Thank you very much.
    Thank you.
    OK.
    OK.
    And you-- you just watch the monitor.
    I'm going to zoom in a little bit,
    and then I want you to start.
    OK.
    You tell me when.
    OK, go ahead.
    This is the original Austrian passport of George Landau.
    And he has just donated that to the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum as part of our interview process.
    Here, we see the stamps and the date that it was issued
    and his passport number.
    Ah, excuse me, I don't know if I see the date
    that it was issued, but we do have his passport number
    on there.
    We flip the page.
    And here is a picture of him as a young teenager
    and with the date of his birth on this side, that he was
    born on the 4th of March, 1920.
    And the various stamps that he had in it.
    Hang on a minute.
    Ah.
    To Romania as well.
    Stamps from 1937.
    A stamp that already reflects the Nazi takeover in July 1938.
    And this is his visa--
    oops-- to Colombia from that year,
    and his permission to leave.
    Excuse me, on this side.
    OK.
    There are probably more stamps on here as well.
    Let's cut for that.
    There may be another document.
    Roll here.
    OK.
    OK.
    This is something called Heimatschein in German,
    and it's for Ambassador George Landau,
    and it shows that he was born in 4th of March, 1920,
    and it's been registered by the city of Vien--
    of Vienna, and the date is 1938, so to me, it looks like--
    I don't-- I'm not sure.
    We'd have to find out what is a Heimatscheim.
    Heimat means hometown and scheim means certificate,
    but its purpose is probably to signify
    that there is no reason for him not
    to be able to leave Austria.
    It was written in June--
    27 June of 1938, and he left in early July, I believe.
    So it was getting documentation at around that period of time.
    All right.
    This is the birth certificate-- a photocopy of the birth
    certificate of Mr. Landau, George Walter Landau,
    signifying, yes, his birth date of the 4th of March 1920,
    and with a stamp at the bottom, having been born in Vienna
    and so on.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    George W. Landau, born March 4, 1920 in Vienna, Austria, describes in detail his childhood in Vienna; growing up as the only child of two upper middle class, secular Jews; the intellectual life of his parents and his education; visiting his extended family in Bukovina, Romania; the division of his school between those who were Aryan and everyone else; being in one of the last cohorts of Jews to graduate; a humiliating experience he endured when he was forced by young Austrian Nazi sympathizers to clean pave stones in the street; immigrating alone to Columbia; learning Spanish and finding a job; converting to Catholicism and managing to get his parents out of Austria; getting a position in the Bogotá office of Otis Elevator and being transferred to the New York office, arriving in 1941; being accused of being an enemy alien by his employers after the Pearl Harbor bombing and going to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC to get a letter stating that this was untrue; quitting the company and working elsewhere until 1942 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army; being naturalized as a U.S. citizen in Texas in 1943; attending Officer Candidate School with much difficulty and convincing the administration to let him graduate; going to the Pentagon after graduation to ask for a position with military intelligence; attending Military Intelligence School at Camp Ritchie, MD; going to France in early 1945; being in Paris when World War II ended; being sent to Gmunden, Austria to interrogate prisoners; screening Soviet refugees in a displaced persons camps; leaving the Army in 1947, but staying in the reserve; marrying a woman from Austria; taking the foreign service exam but not being admitted due to his young citizenship; working in the shipping business in New York and Cali, Colombia until 1957 when he was appointed as the commercial attaché in Uruguay; serving in Spain and Canada and as an ambassador in Paraguay, Chile, and Venezuela; and how his experiences in his youth in Vienna influenced his subsequent service in the U.S. diplomatic corps.
    Interviewee
    Ambassador George W. Landau
    Interviewer
    Ina Navazelskis
    Date
    interview:  2014 March 10
    Geography
    creation: Washington (D.C.)

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 digital file : MPEG-4.

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Landau, George W., 1920-
    Corporate Name
    United States. Army

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Ina Navazelskis, on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, conducted the oral history interview with Ambassador George W. Landau in Washington, DC on March 10, 2014.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:04:36
    This page:
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    Oral history interview with Nesse Galperin Godin

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eddie Willner

    Oral history interview with Eddie Willner

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lisa Dawidowicz Murik

    Oral history interview with Lisa Dawidowicz Murik

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ernst Weihs

    Oral history interview with Ernst Weihs

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Agnes Vogel

    Oral history interview with Agnes Vogel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Dora Goldstein Roth

    Oral history interview with Dora Goldstein Roth

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Yocheved Arie

    Oral history interview with Yocheved Arie

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Leo Hanin

    Oral history interview with Leo Hanin

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Walter Schnell

    Oral history interview with Walter Schnell

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral history interview with Erna Tebel Stern

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral history interview with Gerda Blachmann Wilchfort

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral history interview with Gidon Arye

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral history interview with Carl Knuemann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral history interview with Michael Vogel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral history interview with Nina Schuster Merrick

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral history interview with Eva Rozencwajig Stock

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral history interview with Ivo Herzer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Brodecki

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral history interview with Josef

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral history interview with Stanislaw Soszynski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral history interview with Abraham Lewent

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral history interview with Miriam Storch Lewent

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral history interview with Liane Reif-Lehrer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral history interview with Preben Munch-Nielsen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral history interview with Anny Rubinstein Kast

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral history interview with Helen Waterford

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral history interview with Thomas Ward

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral history interview with Fred R. Wohl

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral history interview with Norbert Yasharoff

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral history interview with Frank Meissner

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral history interview with Mina Perlberger

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral history interview with David Klebanow

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral history interview with Franz Wohlfahrt

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Tove Schöbaum Bamberger

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral history interview with Morris Gordon

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Raya Markon

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral history interview with Ernest G. Heppner

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral history interview with Leo Bretholz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral history interview with Paul Matasovski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral history interview with Zelda Piekarska Brodecki

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral history interview with Stefania Podgórska Burzminski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral history interview with Rose Galek Brunswic

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral history interview with Renée Schwalb Fritz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral history interview with Martin Spett

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral history interview with Ion Cioaba

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral history interview with Niels Bamberger

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral history interview with Ray Buch

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral history interview with Nina Kaleska

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral history interview with Judith Meisel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral history interview with Thomas Buergenthal

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral history interview with Leif Donde

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral history interview with Elizabeth Kaufmann Koenig

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral history interview with Max Amichai Heppner

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral history interview with Charles Bruml

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral history interview with David Pollack

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral history interview with Eugene Lipman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral history interview with Hetty d'Ancona de Leeuwe

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral history interview with Marty Glickman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral history interview with Susie Gruenbaum Schwarz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral history interview with Hessy Levinsons Taft

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral history interview with Bella Jakubowicz Tovey

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral history interview with Ruth Krautwirth Meyerowitz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral history interview with Peretz Milbauer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral history interview with Hana Bruml

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral history interview with Johanna Neumann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral history interview with Alice Lang Rosen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral history interview with Jay Ipson

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral history interview with Margaret Jastrow Klug

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral history interview with Solomon Klug

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral history interview with Helene Baraf

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral history interview with Morris Kornberg

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral history interview with Michael Diamond

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malach

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral history interview with Michael Bernath

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral history interview with Kate Bernath

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral history interview with Paul Kovak

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kolski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral history interview with Sylvia Kolski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral history interview with Steven Springfield

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral history interview with Liny Pajgin Yollick

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral history interview with Fred Bachner

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral history interview with Murray Pantirer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral history interview with Barbara Marton Farkas

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral history interview with William Farkas

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral history interview with Sheila Perec Etons Bernard

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral history interview with Frima L.

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral history interview with Esther Terner Raab

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral history interview with Guy Stern

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral history interview with Toby Stern

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Ion Butnaru

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral history interview with Jeanine Gutman Butnaru

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein-Pollack

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral history interview with Fred Schwartz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral history interview with Abraham Malnik

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral history interview with Lilly Appelbaum Malnik

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral history interview with Masha Loen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral history interview with Madeline Deutsch

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Amalie Petranker Salsitz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral history interview with Norman Salsitz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral history interview with Frederic Bernard

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral history interview with Isaac Bitton

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral history interview with Max Haber

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral history interview with William P. Levine

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral history interview with Leo Schneiderman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral history interview with Adam Starkopf and Pela Starkopf

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral history interview with Carla Heijmans Lessing

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral history interview with Edward Lessing

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral history interview with Beatrice Pappenheimer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral history interview with Curtis Whiteway

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral history interview with Lore Baer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral history interview with Erich Kulka

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral history interview with Cornelia Schouten

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral history interview with Drexel Sprecher

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral history interview with Bela Blau

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral history interview with Magda Blau

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral history interview with Barbara Ledermann Rodbell

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral history interview with Jerry Slivka

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral history interview with Rochelle Blackman Slivka

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral history interview with Francis Akos

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral history interview with Beno Helmer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral history interview with Jerry von Halle

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral history interview with Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral history interview with Ralph Codikow

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral history interview with Ruth Borsos

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral history interview with Simone Marguerite Lipman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral history interview with Shony Alex Braun

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral history interview with Doriane Kurz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral history interview with David Lieberman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral history interview with Laura Margolis

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral history interview with Paul Strassmann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral history interview with Ernest James

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral history interview with Chaim Engel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral history interview with Selma Engel

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral history interview with Morris Engelson

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral history interview with Lonia Mosak

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral history interview with Agnes Grossman Aranyi

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral history interview with David Bergman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral history interview with Lila Lam Nowakowska

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral history interview with Yaffa Rosenthal

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral history interview with Eve Wagszul Rich

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral history interview with Magda Mezei Lapedus

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral history interview with Avraham Ronai

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral history interview with Eva Konigsberg Lang

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral history interview with Cornelius Loen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral history interview with Thomas Blatt

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral history interview with Anita Magnus Frank

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral history interview with Guta Blass Weintraub

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral history interview with Henry Schmelzer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral history interview with Helen Liebowitz Goldkind

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Johanne Eva Liebmann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral history interview with Max Liebmann

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral history interview with David J. Selznick

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Model

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral history interview with Joseph Levine

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral history interview with Eugenia Blau Szamosi

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral history interview with Irene Dynkiewicz Silver

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral history interview with Alice Lok Cahana

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral history interview with Eva Brust Cooper

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jacob Vogel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Philip Vock

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Joseph Gatenio

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mariette Moscovici

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral history interview with Henry van den Boogard

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Jack Moss

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral history interview with Boleslaw Dytlow

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mel London

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral history interview with Henry Cohen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gisela Feldman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bert Fleming and Irene Fleming

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral history interview with Norman Belfer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral history interview with Carol Stern Steinhardt

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Haim Shmueli

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Itka Zygmuntowicz

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Granirer Flor

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Renee Scheuer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral history interview with Bent Melchior

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral history interview with Reuven Paikowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral history interview with Renata Laqueur

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Carl Hirsch

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lotte Hirsch

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral history interview with Walter Meyer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral history interview with Dora Kramen Dimitro

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Herma Barber

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral history interview with William Zeck and Belle Mayer Zeck

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral history interview with Michel Reynders

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral history interview with Marthe Hoffnung Cohn

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral history interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral history interview with Anna Szyller Palarczyk

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral history interview with Steven Galezewski

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral history interview with George Havas

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral history interview with Maria Rosenbloom

    Oral History

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

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