Oral history interview with Chaim Zlotagorsky and Dena Zlotagorsky

Oral history interview with Georg Brunn

Oral History

George Brunn (né Georg Brunn), born on June 28, 1924 in Vienna, Austria, describes his childhood in Vienna; living with his father, mother, grandmother, and brother in an apartment; how his family was not very wealthy but was rich in knowledge of the arts; being close to his father; his father’s work in a bank; his father’s death from cancer in 1936, which caused his grandmother to move back to Czechoslovakia and forced his mother to take charge of the family and find a way to get herself and her children out of Austria; his memories of the Nazis marching into Austria on a Friday in 1937 and his mother applying for visas by Monday; having to wake up at 4:30 am to stand in line to acquire tax papers and other forms to emigrate; the removal of Jewish students from schools; having to attend a Jewish school; becoming aware of the Nazi threat between 1935 and 1937; reading the newspapers and listening to the radio daily; seeing people (Jews) scrubbing the streets and feeling sad and confused; Nazis examining the books on his family’s shelf; walking down the street to his synagogue and discovering that it had been burnt down; leaving in November 1938 with his mother and brother; his father’s family, all of whom did not try to leave and were killed in camps in Czechoslovakia; taking a train to France, stopping in Basel, Switzerland, and taking a ship to New York; learning about cereal, Hitchcock films, and laughter during the journey; attending a boarding school in Vermont and learning English very quickly; and his life after Austria.

Oral history interview with Martha Donner

Oral History

Martha Donner (née Feibusch) describes her family and growing up in Elberfeld, Germany; her father, Hermann Feibusch, who was born in the Polish Corridor, was a member of the German Army during WWI, and earned an Iron Cross; her father’s participation in the local bowling league and recreational swimming; the increase in antisemitism in Germany; her German mother (nee Marga Gusdorf), who had chronic depression; her family not being deeply religious, but attending Hebrew school and celebrated the high holy days; her sister Ilsa; joining a Jewish youth group, which provided her with much needed social contacts; accepting the Zionist philosophy of the group; attending public school; beginning high school at a private, all-girls institution; being expelled due to her Jewish heritage in 1937; feeling persecuted by other non-Jewish students as well as teachers; her family immigrating to the United States in late 1937 with the aid of her Uncle Morris, who relocated to San Francisco in the 1920s; being 15 years old when she arrived in the US; visiting Germany in 1978; gradually reclaiming her Jewish identity; and now considering herself a Reform Jew.

Oral history interview with Edith Eisenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Kaye

Oral History

Ilse Kaye describes her childhood in Hannover, Germany; her early memories of antisemitism; her experiences living in Holland from 1932 to 1936; her father losing his bank after the Nazis rose to power in 1933; her decision to leave Europe in 1936; immigrating to Palestine; her decision to leave Palestine for the United States to join her mother after her father died in 1936; her marriage and family life in the United States; and her feelings of antipathy toward Germany.

Oral history interview with Kurt Kaye

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Saphir

Oral History

Oral history interview with Grigoriy Soroker

Oral History

Oral history interview with Semyon Berrenshteyn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Klara Birman

Oral History

Klara Birman discuses her childhood in Novo Uman, Ukraine; her move with her family to Moskovoya, where her father was sent to organize a collective farm; her family's Jewish identity and observances; the invasion of Ukraine by Nazi Germany in June 1941; the family's flight to the Dnieper River, where they were halted by German troops; returning to their village; their eventual forced move to a Jewish ghetto/concentration camp in Bogdanovka, Transnistria; her experiences in the ghetto; her work building a highway; the workers' supervision under Ukrainian police, who were under Romanian command; the increase in the hostilities to the Jews in the ghetto; improvements after the retreat of German troops; liberation in March 1944; returning to Moskovoya; learning of her father's death; attending medical school in Odessa, Ukraine; her marriage; the death of her husband in 1979; and her immigration to the United States in 1985 with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.

Oral history interview with Leonid Birman

Oral History

Leonid Birman, born on January 1, 1938 in Moskovoya, Ukraine, describes living with his mother and three sisters in a ghetto near Moskovoya, while his father was a soldier fighting in the army; Ukrainian and Romanian policemen governing the ghetto; the restriction on Jews; being liberated by the Soviet Army in March of 1944; returned to Moskovoya with his family after the war and finding their house destroyed; moving into a neighboring house that was originally owned by a soldier; attending school again in 1946; graduating and moving to Odessa, Ukraine, where his sisters worked; enrolling in a technical school where he became a specialist with metals; working for three years; joining the army and serving from 1960 to 1963; returning to his factory; getting married in 1968; his daughter’s birth; and moving with his family to the United States on May 26, 1997 to escape discrimination.

Oral history interview with Ruth Brunn

Oral History

Ruth Brunn (née Oppenheimer), born on September 26, 1932 in Mannheim, Germany, her childhood in Mannheim, Germany; her father's early death; her flight with her mother and sister from Germany to Strasbourg, France and then Brussels, Belgium; their life in Brussels until the Nazi invasion; how her paralyzed sister was sent to an institution in the Netherlands; staying with her mother in Brussels until May 10, 1940, the day the Germans invaded Belgium; their journey to southern France; staying in a small town in the Pyrenees Mountains and enrolling in a catholic elementary school; going to Marseille, France, where she was traumatized by the bombings; going through Spain and Portugal trying to find a ship that would take them to the United States; reaching Ellis Island with a temporary visa; going to Mexico, where they had family; receiving permanent visas for the US and going to New Jersey, where the rest of her father’s side of the family lived; being re-introduced to her sister; attending school in South Orange, NJ; attending New York State College; her mother’s death; getting a job at a local hospital; visiting Europe during the summers; moving to California; getting married and having two children; and working at the Anno Nuevo State reserve.

Oral history interview with Robert W. Koehorst

Oral History

Robert Koehorst describes his experiences in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation; his father's activities in the underground and hiding the valuables of Jewish neighbors; his father's arrest after being informed on by a neighbor; his mother and sister's continued participation in underground activities; his father's release from jail; his experiences in hiding with his father and brother from 1941 to 1945; his decision to immigrate to the United States; his service in the Unite States Army and his family life and marriages.

Oral history interview with Dora Tarshish

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leon Benson

Oral History

Leon Benson (né Leon Samuel Szmelcan), born in Lodz, Poland in 1931, describes his family’s immigration to Paris, France when Leon was three years old; his father’s work as a furrier; the German occupation of Paris; being deported with his mother (Yana Benson), older brother, and younger sister to Auschwitz; being separated from his mother and sister, but remaining with his brother for a brief time; working in a grenade factory; being sent on a forced march to Buchenwald towards the end of the war; being liberated by the US Army in April of 1945; returning to Paris and living in a home for child survivors; being the only survivor from his immediate family; joining the Zionist movement and planning to immigrate to Israel; being contacted by relatives of his mother who had settled in the US and deciding to go to the US; living briefly on the east coast before moving to San Francisco, CA; his wife Lillian and their two sons and daughter; and ushering for the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Giants during his retirement.

Oral history interview with Gerda Cohn

Oral History

Gerda Cohn, born on September 29, 1914 in Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland), describes her parents, Alfred Fischer and Margarete Riesenfeld; her two siblings, Klaus Peter and Lori; growing up in a well-off family; attending school; having blonde hair and light complexion and was often mistaken for an Aryan woman; her first experience of Nazi violence around 1934 when a Nazi officer confused her for an Aryan woman and shoved her and spit in her face because she was walking around with her Jewish fiancée; pleading unsuccessfully with her father to flee to America; getting married in June of 1935 at the age of 20; convincing her new husband to flee to the US; obtaining visas in November of 1936; receiving a telegram from her mother in 1938 notifying her that her father and brother had been arrested and sent to a concentration camp; the release of her father and brother when she obtained visas for them; her parents fleeing to England, while her younger siblings going to the US and living with her; and her life in the US.

Oral history interview with Ileana Farkas

Oral History

Ileana Farkas (née Marmustein), born in 1929, discusses her childhood in Satu Mare, Transylvania, Romania; her memories of antisemitic incidents after the Hungarian invasion in 1940; her brother's flight to Budapest, Hungary, where he lived using false identity papers; the increase in harassment of Jews in 1943; her brother's return from Budapest to encourage his family to flee; fleeing with her sister to Budapest in 1944; her brother's capture, arrest, and deportation to Auschwitz; the deportation of her other sister and parents from Satu Mare to Auschwitz; her life with her sister in Budapest using false papers; hiding in basements during the bombing of Budapest; the liberation of Budapest by Soviet troops in January 1945; returning with her sister to Satu Mare to find their brother and sister; learning about their parents' deaths in Auschwitz; meeting and marrying her husband in 1946; her life in Romania; immigrating with her husband and family in 1962 to the United States; and her adjustment to life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Oral history interview with Sol Farkas

Oral History

Sol Farkas describes his childhood in Satu Mare, Romania; joining the Hungarian Army in December 1940 and working on a labor brigade with his brother Morris; returning to his town in January 1944, where it was turned into a ghetto in April 1944; being transported to Auschwitz with his family, where his parents were selected and perished in the gas chambers; the terrible conditions he endured, working in grain fields and being moved to Austria to work in an underground laboratory; being liberated by the American Army; the family's attempts to emigrate from Romania; his brother’s illegal escape to Hungary, Austria, and finally to the United States; remaining in Romania for 14 more years; and immigrating to the US.

Oral history interview with Adda Gerstel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Clara Markovits

Oral History

Clara Markovits describes her childhood in Budapest, Hungary and Satu Mare, Romania; the increase in antisemitism after the Hungarians seized parts of Romania; her family's deportation to a ghetto in Satu Mare after the Nazi German invasion of Romania in 1944; her family’s deportation to Auschwitz, where she remained from June until October 1944; her subsequent work in a bomb factory near Dresden, Germany from October 1944 until her liberation by the Russians in May 1945; her father's and sister's deaths at Auschwitz and her thoughts of suicide; the aftermath of the bombing of Dresden; her postwar experience in a hospital at Terezin, Czech Republic; her life in Romania and Hungary until her immigration to the United States in 1962; and the emotional and psychological effects of her wartime experiences on her postwar life.

Oral history interview with Laurence Moitozo

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leo Samuel

Oral History

Leo Samuel, born in 1924, discusses his childhood in Cherna, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); the effect of the economic depression of the 1930s on his family; his deportation to Khust, Ukraine in September 1939; the Hungarian annexation of the region; his work as a tailor in Budapest, Hungary and Cherna; his experiences in the ghetto at Khust; the conditions in the ghetto; the things he had heard about the camps; being deported to Auschwitz in early 1944; being separated from his family; his transfer to Plaszow and the conditions there; working as a tailor; his encounters with Göth's assistant Wilek Chilowicz; being transferred to Melk (subcamp of Mauthausen) several months later; the conditions in Melk; the people he encountered; the help he received from a friend; the work he performed building tunnels and crematoria; his transfer to Ebensee; working in the kitchen; his liberation by the United States Army; his postwar life; his immigration to the United States; and his life in the US.

Oral history interview with Lily Spitz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Melvin Suhd

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Benjamin Broclawski

Oral History

Bernard Broclawski, born January 27, 1917, describes his childhood in Pabianice, Poland; how he began to work at 13 to support his family; his socialist political leanings; his involvement in Jewish socialist organizations from 1936-1939; his awareness of political events in Germany; being drafted into the Polish Army; his time in Soviet-occupied Poland; reuniting with his father and brothers in Grodno, Poland (Hrodna, Belarus); his work as a machinist in Siberian coal mines in January 1940; his work as a German-language teacher in 1941; his arrest for giving a counter-revolutionary speech in 1943; his experiences in prison from 1944 to 1948; his release from prison and return to Poland in 1948; his marriage and the birth of his daughter; his involvement in workers' organizations; his studies at the University of Lodz; the increase of antisemitism in 1968; how and why he immigrated to the United States with his family; their immigration with the assistance of the HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society); and his life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

Oral History

Julius Drabkin, born in 1918 in Maritopa, Latvia, describes his parents, Mikhail and Sarah Daviolovna; life before the war when he lived in Riga, Latvia; being a soldier in the Latvian Army until the German invasion in July 1941; living in the ghetto for most of the war; getting married to his first wife, Amalia, in 1941; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943; being sent to Kaiserwald camp; being liberated on March 10, 1945 at Stutthof; returning to Riga after the war because he was distressed, even though he had the opportunity to emigrate; the perishing of all of his family during the Holocaust, except for one of his aunts; getting remarried shortly after the war (his wife also lost all her family); having two sons and living in Riga until he immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s; emigrating because his older son found it impossible to pursue his career because he was Jewish; and visiting Riga for the World Conference of Holocaust Survivors.

Oral history interview with Renee L. Duering

Oral History

Renee Duering, born January 7, 1921 in Cologne, Germany, describes her childhood in Cologne; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1933; her experiences in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation; getting married in 1941; the time she and her husband spent in hiding; her family's deportation to Westerbork in July 1943; her experiences in Westerbork; her parents’ deportation to Bergen-Belsen; her and her husband's deportation to Auschwitz; how her husband perished in Auschwitz; being a subject of medical experiments, including those involving sterilization; her deportation to three other camps; her experiences on a death march to Ravensbrück in January 1945; her escape during the march; hiding near Dresden, Germany until liberation by the Soviets; living with her sister after the war; moving to Israel; immigrating to the United States; her second marriage; and her joy at becoming pregnant despite the experiments she endured.

Oral history interview with Werner Epstein

Oral History

Werner Epstein discusses his childhood in Berlin, Germany; the anti-Jewish regulations he and his family encountered when the Nazis rose to power; his decision to leave Germany after the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; fleeing by bicycle to Belgium, where he prospered until the war began in September 1939; being arrested as an enemy alien; his experiences in a series of detention camps in southern France; his arrest, imprisonment, and deportation to Auschwitz; arriving at Auschwitz; volunteering to work in a coal mine in Silesia, where he remained until December 1944; being ill with malaria, which he contracted while in French detention camps; the death march he endured after the camp’s evacuation in advance of the Soviet Army’s approach; being liberated by Russian Mongol soldiers; journeying to a transit camp in Magdeburg, Germany; reuniting with his fiancee; returning with her to Paris, France, where they settled and he became a chef; and immigrating to California in 1962.

Oral history interview with Lya Galperin

Oral History

Lya Galperin discusses her childhood in a small town near Kishinev, Romania (Chisinau, Moldova); her family's flight after the invasion of Nazi Germany; a traumatic incident in which Romanian soldiers sexually assaulted the women in their group, after which the family returned to their home town; her family’s imprisonment in the local synagogue; her experiences in the ghetto of Beshard, Ukraine from 1943 until her liberation in 1945; her postwar life in the Soviet Union; her marriage; her life in Riga, Latvia; her mother's attempts at helping the family immigrate to the west; and her eventual immigration to San Francisco, California in 1981.

Oral history interview with Lore Gilbert

Oral History

Lore Gilbert, born in Worms, Germany in 1929, describes her childhood in Worms; the antisemitism she experienced as a child; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938 and its impact on her family when her father's assets were confiscated; the family's move to Heidelberg, Germany and their deportation to France; their experiences in Gurs concentration camp; the family's selection by the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) to be sent to the Dominican Republic; the Jewish refugee community in Sosua, Dominican Republic; the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina; the security and safety Jewish refugees enjoyed in the Dominican Republic during the war years; her family's immigration to the United States; her father's difficulties in adjusting to their new life; the experiences of her grandparents, who remained in France during the war years and were sheltered by the French Catholic Church; and the trauma and fear she has felt over the years as a result of her Holocaust-related experiences.

Oral history interview with Rita Goldman

Oral History

Rita Goldman discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; her parents' painful decision to send her on a Kindertransport; leaving Germany for England in 1939; the kindness of the family with whom she stayed; the events of the war years; corresponding with her parents, who had fled to Shanghai, China; her reunion with her parents after the war; and the difficulties she experienced in adjusting to life with them.

Oral history interview with Mala Holcberg

Oral History

Mala Holcberg describes her childhood in Poland; her early memories of the Nazi occupation of Poland and crimes committed against Jews and her family's desire to flee Poland; the confiscation of her family's possessions and the family's deportation to an unidentified ghetto; her experiences in the ghetto; the murder of her father; being deported to an unidentified concentration camp, where the inmates were forced to make bombs and grenades; the terrible conditions in the camp and her illnesses; the camp's liberation by Soviet troops; her return to Poland; her marriage and family; her present ill health and the lasting emotional effects of her experiences during the Holocaust; and the loss of many family members.

Oral history interview with Kate Kaiser

Oral History

Kate Kaiser describes her childhood in Mistek, Austria (now Czech Republic); her marriage and move to Hamburg, Germany; the rise of antisemitism after the Nazi's rise to power; how she and her husband were affected by the Nuremberg Laws; their decision to leave Germany after their daughter was born; the wait to obtain papers; her husband's move to the United States in advance of them; waiting with her daughter in Mistek until August 1938 when their visas arrived; her adjustment to life as an immigrant in the United States; her attempts to find her family after the war; learning of the death of her family, all of whom perished except for one brother and a cousin; and her trip to Prague, Czech Republic in 1998 to discover the details of her mother's fate.

Oral history interview with Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner

Oral History

Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner describes her childhood in Odessa, Ukraine; her family life and her marriage at age 19; the outbreak of World War II being ejected from her home by her neighbors and being imprisoned with her family in Odessa; the ensuing chaotic events; being separated from two of her brothers; being placed on trains to a small village, where she endured terrible conditions with her younger brother, daughter, and mother; the threat of mass murder; escaping with her mother and daughter; being transported to a series of villages; attempted sexual assault at the hands of a Rumanian officer; being separated from her mother; successfully passing as a non-Jew and working as a cook at a police station until the end of the war; reuniting with her mother and husband; and immigrating to the United States with her family in 1978.

Oral history interview with Nadine Liebarman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

Oral History

Bernard Offen discusses his childhood in Krakow, Poland; his early experiences with antisemitism; the events he witnessed during the German invasion of Poland in 1939; his experiences in the Krakow Ghetto starting in 1941, including the deportations of many family members and hiding from raids; being deported to Plaszow in 1943; his narrow escape from Plaszow; hiding in a nearby camp with a family member; his deportation to Mauthausen; his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; his experiences in Auschwitz; his transfer in October 1944 to a subcamp of Dachau near Landsberg; his experiences in the subcamp; being on a death march in May 1945; being liberated by the United States Army; his search for other surviving family members; the fates of the rest of his family; immigrating to the United Kingdom after the war; his subsequent immigration to the United States; enlisting in the United States Army to serve in the Korean War; his life after the war; returning to Poland to conduct tours of Holocaust-related sites; the time he spends speaking about his personal experiences.

Oral history interview with William Pels

Oral History

William Pels discusses his prewar experiences in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; his memories of the German invasion of Holland in 1940; the changes that he witnessed during the occupation; witnessing the arrest and deportation of Jews; the German raids on homes to find hidden Jews; his own close call with deportation; moving to Vienna, Austria in 1942 to work in a hotel; his experiences with wartime Vienna; the bombing campaign by the Soviets in March 1945; travelling into Hungary, where he remained until May 1945; his postwar activities; working for the United States Army; working in a former concentration camp (likely Mauthausen); returning to Holland; marrying his wife in Great Britain; immigrating to the United States in 1957; and his life in America.

Oral history interview with Ruth Plainfield

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Plainfield's childhood in Mainz, Germany, the rise of the Nazi party to power, her father's arrest in 1935 and the effect that had on her, and her childhood encounters with antisemitism. Ms. Plainfield describes her family's immigration to the United States, first to New York and then to San Francisco. She discusses her family's experiences in California, her education, and learning of the fate of family members, including a grandfather who died in Theresienstadt (Terezin).

Oral history interview with Thomas Schneider

Oral History

Oral history interview with Benjamin Sieradzki

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Sieradzki's childhood in Zgierz, Poland; his awareness in 1938 about Hitler and the discrimination experienced by German Jews; his memories of the mobilization of the Polish Army, and the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces in September 1939. Mr. Sieradzki describes hiding from the bombing; his brothers' escape to the Soviet sector of Poland; and his family's move to the Lodz ghetto. Mr. Sieradzki recalls the harsh conditions there; the first transports in 1941; Chaim Rumkowski's leadership in the ghetto; a visit by Heinrich Himmler in 1942; and the deportation in September 1942 of the ill, elderly and children, during which his parents were sent to Chelmno and killed in gas vans. He describes the liquidation of the ghetto in 1944; his transport, with one sister, to Auschwitz; watching Dr. Mengele make selections and seeing his sister being taken to the gas chambers. Mr. Sieradzki describes his experiences in Birkenau, then in a concentration camp in Hannover where he worked for the Continental Rubber factory, and then in a quarry, where he became emaciated, sick with dysentary, and indifferent to his fate. He recalls the abandonment of the camp by German troops, his liberation, the dreadful state of his health and his experiences in military hospitals and then in convalescent homes in Sweden. Mr. Sieradzki describes anti-Jewish sentiment in Sweden, being smuggled to Denmark to stay with his uncle, and his reunion with his older brothers, who had survived the war. He discusses the difficulties of his living situation, and describes his immigration to the United States in 1953, and his marriage and family life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Gisela Spigel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Erika Weingarten

Oral History

Oral history interview with Max Weingarten

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herman D. Wiener

Oral History

Oral history interview with Liza Aurutin

Oral History

Liza Avrutin, born in 1930 in Odessa, Ukraine, describes her big family, which consisted of nine brothers and sisters; how even though her family was not very religious, Liza remembers various religious traditions such as all of the kids saying a Shabbat wish in front of the candles; her mother’s reluctance to leave before the Nazi occupation; her uncle’s evacuation to Tashkent where he and his family survived the Holocaust; the Nazi occupation in October 1941 and the summoning of Jewish residents on December 22; being taken with other Jewish residents to Slobodka (a section of Odessa) where they spent three months; a pogrom in Odessa on October 23-24, 1941 in which much of the remaining Jewish population was murdered; being sent with her family on cattle trains to Vaselinivska; the train journey, during which many passengers died including her father and her four-year-old brother, Boris; her mother’s psychological reaction to their deaths and her eventual death; being taken to Vasnisenska (Voznesensk, Ukraine), where they were sorted and sent to different places; being sent to Babini Balki in Krivoruchka, Ukraine; the lack of food and the death of many of the imprisoned people from starvation; the arrival of the Russians, who murdered all the civilians; being one of two survivors (Rosa Lifchitza also survived) who were rescued by the nearby villagers; waking up in Nadia Zhigalovna’s house with a bullet wound on the top of her head; hiding her Jewish identity by saying her name was “Lida” not “Liza”; changing her name to Valentina Ivanovna Panchivka; her life in the village and the sacrifices her new mother made for her; living with Nadia and her family until 1947; staying in close contact with the family that rescued her; getting married and immigrated to the United States; and changing her name back to Liza when she became a US citizen.

Oral history interview with Aleksandr Belfor

Oral History

Aleksandr Belfor, born September 18, 1923, describes his childhood in Kishinev, Ukraine (now Chisinău Moldova); the onset of the war and his family's escape from the approaching Nazi forces to Alma-Ata, Khazakstan, where Mr.Belfor lived and studied medicine until he was inducted into the Soviet Army; the stories he heard about the tragic fate of many family members during the Holocaust, including the sexual assault of one aunt; being arrested and imprisoned after the end of the war; his life in the Soviet Union and the antisemitism he encountered there; and his immigration to the United States in 1983.

Oral history interview with Semyon Berenshteyn

Oral History

Semyon Berenshteyn discusses his childhood in Moldova; the family's move from Balta to Odesa after the beginning of the war in 1941; the occupation of the area by Nazi troops; the establishment of a ghetto in Balta; working for a Christian friend; passing as a non-Jew by wearing a crucifix; learning of war news from Christian neighbors; the forced labor imposed on Jews; the murders of Jewish men, women and children by German soldiers, including the death of his father; liberation by Soviet troops in March 1944; his service in the Soviet armed forces; his marriage and the birth of his son; and his immigration with his family to the United States in 1988.

Oral history interview with George Denes

Oral History

George Denes, born on September 9, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his family and early life; the fates of different family members; growing up Jewish but not Orthodox; the beginning of the war at which point his father was sent to the front to perform forced military labor and his return before the German occupation began; antisemitism before and during the war; Polish refugees arriving in 1939 and 1940; the belief amongst Hungarian Jews that the Nazi policies would not affect them; the German occupation and his father relocating the immediate family to another part of the city; his mother working as a nurse for a wealthy family while he and his brother stayed in a "private day care" for Jewish children; being discovered and escaping; his father acquiring false papers for the family (new surname was Faketta); staying with an older Christian woman until her son, a Nazi sympathizer, had the boys and their father arrested and taken to a local Nazi headquarters; being imprisoned in the basement of the building with other Jews and some other people arrested by the Nazis; being taken on December 29, 1944 with his family to the river to be shot by the Nazis and being saved when the German army prevented the Hungarian Nazis from shooting in this area; escaping the prison a few days later; reuniting with his mother and going with his family to the eastern side of the river; hiding for several weeks in the basement of a villa; having difficulties acquiring food and being near starvation by the time the Red Army liberated the city; being given food, baths, and clean clothes by the Russians; attending a Jewish high school after the war; being refused by the university because he attended a religious high school; befriending the head of the university's engineering department and being accepted the following year (1956) [note that the first interview includes family photographs]; the revolutionary period following 1956 as well as his life as a university student in mechanical engineering; everyday life in post-war Communist Hungary, including some analysis of the political and social climate of that period; his life after the revolution, including his marriage, the birth of his son, and his military career; his family's two attempts to defect, once without help, and once with help (the second one was successful); the time they spent in Vienna, Austria while their refugee status was established; the help given to them by HIAS; the medical care given to Robert, who had contracted typhus during their escape; his life in the United States, including his career as an electrical engineer working in semiconductors and his divorce; and his state of mind at various points in his life.

Oral history interview with Lev Dumer

Oral History

Lev Dumer, born in 1919 in Odessa, Ukraine, describes the Jewish community in Odessa before the war; experiencing antisemitism before the war; the deaths of his maternal grandparents in pogroms; receiving a degree in radio engineering; working in Kirovograd (Kropyvnyts'kyi, Ukraine) when the war began; the German occupation of Kiev; the Jewish response to the invasion; his family’s evacuation to Chelyabinsk in August 1941; his grandmother, Pena Gershova Dumer, dying while evacuating later in 1943; the Romanians entering Odessa; Jews having to register; the denouncement of Jewish families by antisemitic neighbors living in the same building as his family; the hanging of his college mathematics and physics professor, Foodim, for failing to register; the roundups and mass murders in Odessa; Alexander Sepino, who was able to escape imprisonment; observing a minute of silence every day for five years as a prayer for those who perished; the deportation of the remaining Jews to a ghetto in Slobodka; various righteous people who risked their lives to save Jews, including Oleg Krist and Jora Temoshenko; the experience of his aunt, uncle, and two cousins in Pervopol; the difficulty of living during the Stalin regime; the growing antisemitic trend in Russia during the years following WWII; the Russian government hiding the evidence of the Holocaust from the people; and spending many years gathering information from survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust in Ukraine in order to preserve the memory for future generations.

Oral history interview with Anisim Dworkin

Oral History

Anisim Dworkin, born in 1923 in Smirenskiy, Soviet Union (possibly one of the many Russian places named Smirnovskiy), describes how at the time Jews were required to live in a few designated towns in the Soviet Union; his great-grandfather, who served in the Tsar’s army as a cannon operator for 12 years and was thus given the right to live in a Russian town even though he was Jewish; the regret he feels for having spent his childhood in a Russian town because it stripped him of the rich Jewish culture he saw in his parents, including celebration of Jewish holidays and speaking Yiddish; not experiencing antisemitism as a child but being teased as a child for being part of the lower middle-class; moving with his family to a kolkhoz in Smolensk in 1928; having a good life on the farm until the famine in 1933; several of his aunts and uncles who moved to Brest, Belarus with their families; the arrest of his older brother for writing a letter expressing anti-Hitler sympathies in 1939; the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; being sent to the east since he was not able to serve in the army because of an injury to the eye; being accepted to serve in the Allied army for four months; studying after the war at a university in Ural (possibly Ural Federal University); working in the oil industry in Ural after the war and being discriminated against because of his religion; being fired from a job as head of the research department at a university because of rumors that he was involved in the Zionist movement; his life now in Perim, North Ural (probably Perm’, Russia); his daughter who is married to a non-Jew; and reuniting with his older brother in 1987.

Oral history interview with Ernest Feld

Oral History

Ernest Feld discusses his childhood in Lucenec, Slovakia, close to the Hungarian border; the occupation of his town by Hungary in 1938; the onset of anti-Jewish restrictions and curfews; his removal to a ghetto; being conscripted for forced labor in 1944; being able to continue his apprenticeship in a bakery; the advance of the Soviet Army and the ensuing confusion; his return to Lucenec in November 1945; his reunion with his mother; their move to Prague, and then Karlsbad; their decision to immigrate to Israel; the boat trip to Israel; the detention of the group in Cyprus by the British; his life in Cyprus until 1949; emigrating from Cyprus to Israel with his wife, whom he met in Cyprus; his successful bakeries in Israel; his later move to the United States.

Oral history interview with Mae Lopatin Herman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Inna Kagan

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kagan's childhood in Kharkov, (now Kharkiv) Ukraine; her descendancy from Khazars; the evacuation of her family in September 1941 to Khazakstan; and her father's later evacuation to Perm, Russia. Ms. Kagan describes her family's move to Bukhoro, Uzbekistan; and the family's reunion in Kharkov in December 1944. She dicsusses the destruction of the city and learning of the death of her paternal grandparents at the hands of the Nazis. Ms. Kagan describes the increase in antisemitism that she experienced after the war, and emigrating with her family to the United States in 1989.

Oral history interview with J. Daniel Khazzoom

Oral History

Oral history interview with Vilem Kriz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mikhail Lapan

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Lapan's childhood in Bobruisk, Belarus, his enlistment in 1941 at the age of 16 in the Soviet Army, and the Nazi attack on Bobruisk. Mr. Lapan discusses his hospitalization in 1942 in Stalingrad, the invasion of Stalingrad by the Nazis, and describes an incident in which the Nazi troops removed the hospital patients and selected Jews and Communists for execution, and that by using the name of a fellow patient who had died earlier that day, he was able to escape that fate. Mr. Lapan describes being forced to work in a salt mine in Pine, Germany; having his Jewish identity betrayed; and his escape, recapture and removal to Braunschweig concentration camp. He discusses his liberation by American troops, being returned to the Soviet Union, his work in a coal mine in Harlov, his marriage, his return to Bobruisk, where he discovered that he parents had died during the war, and his eventual immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Sofia Manoylo

Oral History

Oral history interview with Shaya Neys

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Neys's childhood in Liepaja, Latvia, the arrest of the family in June 1941 by the Russian security agency NKVD, and the family's transport to a military port, whether the men were separated from the women and children. Mr. Neys describes traveling by train with his mother to Krasnoyarsk, Russia, and the family’s life of forced labor and misery in various locations in Siberia until the end of the war. He discusses difficulties in returning to Latvia after the war ended, his return in 1956, his reunion with his son, and their lives in Riga. Mr. Neys describes learning that his father died in a labor camp, that many of relatives from Liepaja perished, and reflects that their deportation to Siberia probably saved his and his mother's lives.

Oral history interview with Rahilia Sirota

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tom Szelenyi

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irving Zale

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tamara Alhukh

Oral History

Tamara Iosifovna Albukh, born on December 21, 1918 in Minsk, Belarus, describes her childhood; having to leave school after six years to work and contribute to her family financially; getting married and having two daughters (Sara born on May 5, 1940 and Gena born on August 31, 1942); not being able to evacuate once the war started; the German occupation of Minsk; her husband being taken into the army; moving into one of the Jewish ghettos in Minsk; pogroms in the ghettos; doing forced labor in the ghetto and the murder of her daughters one day while she was working; being moved to Trostinetskiy (Maly Trostinec) concentration camp and having to work for the Germans; the murder of inmates every day in the camp and ghetto; escaping the camp on July 29, 1944; the intensification of antisemitism during the war; hearing Russians scream the slogan “Kill Jews, save Russia” which continued even after the war; and having two daughters after the war in 1946 and 1949.

Oral history interview with Audrey Doughty

Oral History

Audrey Doughty, born in San Diego, California in 1921, describes her mother, who died when Audrey was three years old; her father, who was a naval officer and a member of the diplomatic core; going with her father to Berlin when he was stationed there in 1938; transferring from Stanford University to the University of Berlin; being in Berlin during Kristallnacht and taking photos afterward; writing a journal entry describing that night; having little notion of what was really happening in Germany apart from Kristallnacht as well as the antisemitic and anti-American sentiment from the Germans; how soon after arriving in Berlin, she and her father were invited to review the troops with Nazi officials; sitting in the stands three feet from Adolf Hitler, watching endless waves of troops pass underneath; going with her grandmother on a tour of Germany and neighboring countries in 1939; working at the American consulate after she turned 18; her duties, which consisted of convincing refugees applying for visas to leave the country; being evacuated to Copenhagen in 1940; returning to the US after the war ended; graduating from Stanford University; working as a war correspondent in Honolulu and then went to work for the San Francisco Chronicle; working in the Office of War Information and then working as an Associated Press correspondent in China; leaving journalism and pursuing a career as a social worker; becoming the director of the International Institute in San Francisco from 1975 to 1983; spending two and a half years as the director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation; founding and directing the AIDS Benefits Counselors; directing AIDS Indigent Direct Services; her plans to write a book about her family's history; writing many editorials on possible fascist trends in American society; and her thoughts on Germans [note that artifacts relating to her experiences are shown at the close of the interview].

Oral history interview with Sara Gelender

Oral History

Sara Gelender discusses her childhood in Warsaw, Poland; her memories of the bombing and burning of Warsaw in September 1939; her family's flight to a farm near the Russian border; hiding there for several months; being part of a group of Jewish refugees sent to Siberia in June 1940; the primitive conditions in the labor camp; the work she performed in the camp; marrying in the camp; leaving the camp with her husband for a small town; her continual state of hunger during those years; moving with her husband to the Ukraine in 1944; returning to Poland in 1946; the antisemitism they encountered in Poland; escaping to Czechoslovakia, Vienna, and then to a displaced persons camp in Germany; moving to Paris, where they lived until 1951; their emigration first to Canada, and finally to the United States.

Oral history interview with Sofia Ginzbursky

Oral History

Sofia Ginzbursky (born on December 27, 1915 in Asipavichy, Belarus) describes her mother, who died at the age of 27, soon after she gave birth; going with her siblings to live with their grandfather, who observed Jewish traditions; studying at a technical school in Gomel (Homel), Belarus; living in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), working as a nanny and secretary; getting married and moving to Gomel; moving later to Belostock (Białystok), Poland; being left alone with their two children when her husband was called up for military duty at the beginning of WWII; evacuating from Belostock by train to Zlobin (ZHlobin, Belarus) and then to Baranovichi, Ukraine; destroying all her documents to hide her Jewish identity; witnessing the persecution of Jews in Ukraine when locals helped the Nazis find Jews; how speaking German helped her find a job at a food exchange center where she received food to feed her children; obtaining false papers with a new last name that showed she was Russian and not Jewish; returning to Gomel to look for remaining family members and being captured by the Nazis and was humiliated by Politsai for several days; being released and living with a woman named Nadia Lisitskaya; passing as a gentile refugee from Poland; washing clothes for the German army in exchange for soap and kerosene; seeing the deportation of hundreds of Jews from the Gomel ghetto; traveling with her friend, Sonia, as well as all their children to Oryol (Orel), Russia; finding a new place of stay every night so no one would suspect them of being Jewish; living with Sonia and the children at the house of a Latvian lady for two years; choosing to not wear the Star of David as was requried for the Jews by the Nazis; passing as Russian Orthodox; having a Russian lady teach her son how to pray to an icon when bombings occured; working small jobs while in Oryol; being liberated and moving to Leningrad; getting a new passport and stating her nationality as “Jewish” again; reuniting with her husband in Chkalov (possibly Orenburg, Russia) with the help of her sister; experiencing even more antisemitism after the war; and becoming more observant after the war.

Oral history interview with Genia Likwomik

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mark Malamud

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anna Marie Roeper

Oral History

Anna Marie Roeper describes her childhood in Vienna, Austria; her parents' progressive boarding school; her memories of the Nazi acsencion to power; her mother's move to Switzerland in 1936 with her siblings; remaining behind to graduate; her father's selling of their school; the family's reunion in Switzerland; her psychoanalysis studies in Vienna with Anna Freund; her husband-to-be's warning to flee; immigrating with her family to the United States in 1939; moving to Vermont, where they opened a school; her marriage and move to Michigan with her husband; and opening a progressive school for gifted children there called Roeper School.

Oral history interview with Irina Rozhanskaya

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Sternberger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Clara Tsukerman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Weiss

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Weiss's childhood in Ricka, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), the occupation of the town by Hungarian soldiers, and the conscription of Jewish men for forced labor. Mr. Weiss describes his father being sent to Germany for forced labor, the institution of anti-Jewish restrictions such as yellow stars, and in March 1944, the deportation of the Jews of Ricka. Mr. Weiss discusses his arrival at Auschwitz, being separated from his family and sent first a children's barracks, then to Camp Four in Munich, and lastly to Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau, where he was liberated by American troops in 1945. He describes his return to Ricka where he was reunited with his sister, his attempts to escape Czechoslovakia, and his imprisonment by Russian soldiers. Mr. Weiss describes his flight to Munich and immigration to the United States, his service in the United States military, and his family life and career in California.

Oral history interview with Edith Wertheimer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jakob Atlas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Isaac Silber

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Silber's childhood in Lodz, Poland; the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany; and the occupation of Lodz by German troops. Mr. Silber describes the violent and terrifying conditions of the Nazi occupation; his escape from murder by German troops; and being conscripted for forced labor in a brick factory. He describes returning to Lodz to learn of the murder of family members; his experiences in the Lodz ghetto and in work camps; giving up his baby daughter to be cared for by a non-Jewish family; and escaping with his wife and finding refuge in the farmhouse of a Polish man who hid them. Mr. Silber expresses the gratitude he feels to his rescuer.

Oral history interview with Lotte Grunwald

Oral History

Oral history interview with Polyaliza Pekker

Oral History

Oral history interview with Paul Nebenzahl

Oral History

Paul Nebenzahl discusses his childhood in Long Island, New York; his career in advertising; enlisting in the United States Army in 1942; his experiences as a sergeant in the Signal Corps; being part of a secret OSS “operational group” working with the French underground movement in southwestern France to hinder the German retreat in 1944; his military service in India and China for the remainder of the war; his life after the war; marrying; having children; his leisure activities.

Oral history interview with Meier Lichtenstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Janice Auerbach

Oral History

Janice Auerbach describes her childhood in London; the bombings and fear she felt during World War II; her evacuation to a farm in Cornwall; the discomfort she experienced while there; her reunion with her family after the war; her various employments around the world; and her marriage to a Jewish man in 1962.

Oral history interview with Helmut Kobler

Oral History

Helmut Kobler discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria and Pohranice, Czechoslovakia; his experiences growing up with his Jewish father and Catholic mother; his experiences after the annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938; his mother's decision to move herself and her son to Brno, Czechoslovakia; the conditions they lived under; the Nazis' search for his father; being deported to a camp near Ivancice, Czechoslovakia in 1939; the camp’s transformation from a concentration camp to a forced labor camp; working as a coal miner at the camp; the camp’s liquidation in June 1942; being transferred to another labor camp near Oslavany; the work he continued as a coal miner; the conditions at the camp; the brutality of the Czech and German guards; being transferred in the summer of 1944 to a labor camp near Postoloprty (Postelberg), Czechoslovakia; working to construct an underground fuel pipeline; an accusation against him of sabotage; his subsequent imprisonment in Saaz, Czechoslovakia and Karlsbad, Germany; the brutality of the guards; the poor conditions there; his escape from Karlsbad while out on a labor detail; being recaptured in Brno; the executions he witnessed while imprisoned there; being transferred by cattle car to a prison in Mirosov; escaping from Mirosov in May 1945, a few days before liberation by the United States Army; the aid he received from refugee organizations after the war; reuniting with his mother; being educated as a mining engineer; defecting to the west with a sample of uranium ore; moving to Canada; immigrating to the United States.

Oral history interview with Ellen Leeser

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anne Marie Yellin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Adele Silber

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sylvie Marshall

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Marshall's childhood and adolescence in Paris, France and her father's and brother's participation in the French Resistance. She describes her life with her mother in south central France and the liberation of Paris. She relates the story of her father and brother's arrests by the Gestapo and her father's subsequent death in Buchenwald.

Oral history interview with Elena H. Javor

Oral History

Elena Javor describes her childhood in Martin, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); her medical education and practice; the birth of her three children; the threat of deportation in 1942; her escape from deportation due to her husband's exemption; Allied bombing in spring 1944; the Slovak national uprising in August 1944; her husband's enlistment to fight; fleeing to a monastary with her children where they were sheltered; joining her husband in Banska Bystrica; her arrest in October 1944; her husband's disappearance; her liberation in April 1945; her reunion with her three children; learning of her husband's, sister's and parents' death in Auschwitz; her return to Martin with her children; her life after the war; how she studied dermatology; her remarriage; and her family's immigration to the United States in 1968.

Oral history interview with Joseph Welgreen

Oral History

Oral history interview with Frank Weinman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Morris Rosnow

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Rosnow's experiences during World War II hiding in the woods as a member of a Jewish partisan group operating under the organization of the Russian partisans. He describes liberation in 1944 by the Soviet Army, his return to his hometown in Poland, where he found no survivors, and where he remained with his sister until the death of their father. Mr. Rosnow discusses moving to Munich, Germany, earning a degree in engineering, and emigrating with his sister to join their other sister in the United States, where he earned a degree in pharmacy and raised a family.

Oral history interview with Gary Schoofs

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gerta Wingerd

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Genirberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Olga Nepomyashy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Floyd Dade

Oral History

Oral history interview with Peter Oppenheim

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ellen Van Creveld

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lola Welgreen

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Sternberger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jenny Friedlander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leonid Bobrovsky

Oral History

Leonid Bobrovsky, born on May 4, 1937 in Odessa, Ukraine, describes being only three years old when the war began; his father who fought with the partisans during the war; the Nazi invasion of Odessa, at which time he and his family were in an underground hiding place (“Kotokloomba”) reserved for partisans and their families; hiding with his mother while his older brother and father helped the partisans; getting sick because the hiding place was very wet; the Nazis discovering various entrances to the hiding place and using poisonous gas to force the people out; escaping from the hiding place along with his mother and older brother; getting caught by the Nazis and taken away to the city jail where there were many other Jewish residents; being separated from his mother, who was later murdered by the Nazis; being moved with his brother to a different jail; his brother’s attempted escape and then suicide; being taken to camp Ombarova where he remained until liberation; working even though he was so young; attributing his survival in the ghetto to the women who protected and took care of him; liberation; being taken to an orphanage where he stayed until his father’s return; his father, who remarried after the war; attending school and studying construction at a college; being married twice and having two daughters; and naming his younger daughter, Polina Bobrovskaya, after his mother.

Oral history interview with Joseph Schein

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Schein's childhood is Sosnowiec, his experiences with antisemitism, and how his plans to immigrate to the United States were disrupted by the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. Mr. Schein describes being sent to his mother’s hometown, Brzostowica-Wielka, near Volkovisk, in Russian Poland, and eluding forced labor in Russia by returning to Sosnowiec. He discusses being conscripted for forced labor by the Germans in October 1940, and his experiences in several forced labor and concentration camps throughout the war years, which included Geppersdorf, Gross Sarne, Kleinmangersdorf, Wiessau, Waldau, Casper Bowder, Gintersdorf, Rostitz, Hundsfeld, Hirschberg, Gross-Rosen, Dachau, Buchenwald, and possibly others. Mr. Schein describes the conditions in these camps and the various labors he was forced to perform, being witness to medical experiments at Hundsfeld, and enduring a death march from Buchenwald. He discusses his liberation by American troops, his hospitalization, his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, their stay in a displaced persons camp in Ainring, Germany, and their immigration to the United States in June 1946. Mr. Schein relates that he was the member of his family that survived the Holocaust and his only possession when he emigrated was an accordion. He also describes his experiences in the United States.

Oral history interview with Edith Eva Eger

Oral History

Edith Eger (nee Elefant), born on September 29, 1927 in Kosice, Hungary (now Slovakia), describes her father (Liosha), who was a tailor, and her mother (Helen Klein Eger), who worked for the Hungarian ministry; her two sisters, Magda and Klara; her favorite memories are of her mother's cooking; her childhood, during which she trained in ballet and gymnastics; preparing to compete for the Olympics for Hungary but being disqualified because she was Jewish; her sisters, who were gifted musicians; the story of how her sister Klara was smuggled out of Hungary when the war began by one of her professors from the music academy in Budapest; the German occupation of Hungary; being taken to a brick factory; being deported with her sister, parents, aunts, and uncles to Auschwitz in May 1944; being separated from her parents, and thus spared the gas chambers; being selected to dance for Dr. Josef Mengele; using her talent for gymnastics and dancing to help survive in Auschwitz; conditions in the barracks; how she helped Magda survive in the camp; being liberated from Gunskirchen on May 4, 1945, at which time she had five types of typhoid fever, pneumonia, and no hair left; going to a displaced persons camp, where she met her husband and became pregnant; immigrating to the United States in 1949, going first to New York, and then to Baltimore, where she worked in a factory; moving to Texas, where she had two more children and attended the University of Texas at Austin; earning her doctorate; moving to San Diego, CA and working as a family therapist; and how her grandchildren are her world and how she lives every day for them. Ms. Eger, her parents, aunts and uncles, and her eldest sister Magda, were deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. Ms. Eger was separated from her parents; she and her sister Magda were spared the gas chambers. Because of her talent for ballet, Ms. Eger was selected to dance for Dr. Josef Mengele. She was able to use her talent for gymnastics and dancing to help survive in Auschwitz. Ms. Eger was liberated from Gunskirchen on May 4, 1945. While in a displaced persons camp, she met her husband and became pregnant. She emigrated to the United States in 1949; first to New York, and then to Baltimore, where she worked in a factory. She, her husband and her daughter Marianne moved to Texas, where Ms. Eger had two more children, and attended the University of Texas at Austin where she ultimately received her doctorate. She settled in San Diego and works as a family therapist and with battered wives and abused teenagers.

Oral history interview with Otto Springer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Greta Stuehler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Magda Silberman

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Silberman's childhood in Pavlovo, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); the occupation of her town by Hungary; antisemitism that she and her family experienced; and the occupation of her town by Nazi troops. Ms. Silberman describes the gathering of the Jewish citizens and their deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1944. She describes her arrival, the selections by Dr. Mengele, and her experiences while at Auschwitz. Ms. Silberman discusses the death march she endured in January 1945 to Ravensbruck and Leipzig; her liberation in May 1945; and her immigration to the United States in 1948.

Oral history interview with Eric Willgott

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cecilia Kornbluth

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kornbluth's childhood in Vienna, Austria; her early experiences with anti-Semitism in elementary school and gymnasium; her memories of the assasination of Engelbert Dolfuss, Chancellor of Austria, by Austrian Nazis in 1934; the Anschluss in March 1938; the changes that occurred for Jewish Austrians afterward; the flight of her two older brothers to France and to Switzerland; the arrests of her younger brother, and her father and mother; her father's eventual deportation to Auschwitz; her brother's incarceration in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps for 11 months, and his release and flight to England; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; being sent for by her brother in Switzerland; her illegal flight to Switzerland; hiding until her apprehension by the police because she lacked legal papers; being questioned and released; living and working in a refugee camp for single Jewish girls in Basel; living there throughout the war; marrying another refugee who was living in a single man's camp in 1942; having a son; and being supported by the Jewish community during this period; her immigration to the United States in 1947, and her family and work life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Ruth Steiner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Trudy Lyons

Oral History

Oral history interview with Margrit Schurman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edith Deutsch

Oral History

Edith Deutsch, born on January 21, 1925 in Arnswalde, Germany (now Choszczno, Poland), discusses her childhood in Arnswalde; her father, Fritz Abrahamowsky, and her mother, Lotte Gradnauer; living in a large home and being raised as a young child by servants, rarely seeing her mother or father; her family's move to Berlin, Germany in 1933; the difficulties experienced by her family when Hitler rose to power; going to the Olympic Stadium with her class and seeing the No Jews Allowed signs; having to leave public school after the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; fleeing Germany with her family in April 1939 for Thailand; traveling by ship to Singapore; abandoning their plans to travel to Bangkok and instead opting to go to Shanghai, China; staying in a camp in Shanghai for a week; her experiences in Shanghai; working as a sales girl and as a beautician; her marriage in 1946 and the birth of her son in 1948; immigrating to Australia in 1949; living in a boarding house; moving to the United States in 1951; living in Oregon and then San Francisco, CA; and her efforts to socialize with other refugees over the years.

Oral history interview with Francis E. Cappel

Oral History

Francis Cappel (né Franz Erwin Cappel), born on June 2, 1916 in Cologne, Germany, discusses his childhood in Cologne, Germany;his parents, Dr. Paul H. and Meta Cappel (née Braunschweig); growing up in an apartment flat near a synagogue in a mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish) neighborhood; antisemitism in Germany; the beating of his lawyer father by Nazi storm troopers (Sturmabteilung) in April 1933; the boycott of Jewish business; moving in October 1933 to France, where he worked in the textile business; concealing his Jewish origins as best he could, always carrying French or English newspapers with him; befriending a man who brought him to the German Reich secret headquarters where he got to see rare German stamps (Mr. Cappel was an avid stamp collector); moving to Hamburg, Germany in 1935; immigrating to England in 1937; serving as a corporal in the British Army; his success in obtaining transit visas for his father and mother, thus rescuing his father from Dachau concentration camp; getting married to his wife Margo in 1944; leaving the Army in April 1946 and returning to London; immigrating with his wife, children, and parents to the United States; and settling in San Francisco, CA.

Oral history interview with George Wittenstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Thomas Trier

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rita Grunbaum

Oral History

Rita Grunbaum discusses her childhood in Holland; her career as a social worker in the Hague; her marriage in 1936;the onset of World War II in September 1939; the bombing of Holland; Nazi occupation beginning in 1940; the birth of her daughter in 1942; the family's arrest in September 1943; their transport to Westerbork concentration camp; her experiences in Westerbork; receiving papers for Palestine from her in-laws who had fled to Mexico; being selected as part of an exchange program with German prisoners-of-war held in Palestine; sent with her family to Bergen-Belsen in February 1944; being transported from Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 on the "Lost Train," ; her liberation in Troebtiz, Germany; the deaths of her family members during the Holocaust; and her post-war experiences.

Oral history interview with Lily Robinson

Oral History

Lily Robinson discusses her childhood with her mother and sister who had been deported to Haskovo (now Khaskovo), Bulgaria from Sofia in 1940; her experiences there as a young child; her family's return to Sofia in 1945; immigrating to the United States in December 1946; her life in California; the emotional aftermath of the Holocaust that she witnessed in her brother.

Oral history interview with Herman Apteker

Oral History

Herman Apteker, born on October 9, 1915 in Dresden, Germany, discusses his childhood in Dresden; his Ukrainian parents; his father (Elieser), who was in business and died when Herman was only four years old; his mother, who started a wholesale business selling clothing out of the family's six or seven room flat; his four older siblings (three brothers and one sister); his male "guardian" (this was a German requirement for children whose fathers had died) Dr. Avraham Borg, who took Herman to synagogue and was the primary source of Herman's religious education; his experiences with antisemitism at public school; his strong desire to leave Germany once Hitler rose to power; his trip to Czechoslovakia in 1933 as part of the Young Macabees, in preparation for immigration to Palestine; spending 10 or 11 months in Slovakia, taking part in agricultural training; his arrival in Palestine in April 1933; becoming very ill with dysentery and malaria; his experiences in Palestine; the immigration of his mother and brothers to Palestine; his work in Haifa; riots that occurred in 1936; becoming a temporary policeman before a British officer offered him a job in the immigration office; his marriage in 1938; the beginning of WWII and his work for the British army (in an office) until he was conscripted into the Israeli Army; working as a commission officer at the Lebanese border; his unique relationship with an Arab officer on the Lebanese side; his divorce and remarriage; his immigration with his second wife to the United States in 1953; and settling in San Francisco, CA.

Oral history interview with Nicholas Nagy-Talavera

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Nagy-Talavera's childhood in Budapest, Hungary; his time in a Transylvanian ghetto in 1944; and his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz. He describes the work he performed in Josef Mengele's medical complex, the experiments he witnessed, and his impressions of Mengele. He describes his subsequent experiences at Mauthausen, Gusen II, and Ebensee.

Oral history interview with Semyon Veyber

Oral History

Oral history interview with Chaya Fuhrman

Oral History

Chaya Ash-Furhman (née Averbuch), born March 19,1920 in Kishinev (now Chisinau), Moldova, describes her childhood; her parents’ involvement in Yiddish theater; her own involvement in theater at a young age; the outbreak of war in June 1941; hiding with her family in the basement of a theater in the Russian section of Tiraspol, Moldova; being transported to cooperative farms in Ukraine and Uzbekistan; being underfed; her father, who suffered from mental distress and dysentery and was taken to a courtyard and shot; how the people who were murdered were then covered in lime, so as not to spread disease; the hardships she and her family endured working on these farms; becoming sick with malaria; working as a seamstress in a nearby town where conditions were better; meeting her first husband; antisemitism that was rampant after the end of the war; her leaving for Poland with her mother and husband, who was Polish by birth; their decision to leave Poland in 1947 while she was pregnant; the family's experiences in a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria; and their immigration to Israel, where she continued her involvement in Yiddish Theater.

Oral history interview with Peter Mueller

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Mueller's childhood in Hannover, Germany; his family's decision to leave Germany after Kristallnacht in 1938; and his life with his father in England. He describes his decision to immigrate to the United States in 1943, his service in the Army with the medical corps, and his life after military service.

Oral history interview with Eva Cohn

Oral History

Eva Cohn (née Eva Maria Rhee), born in 1923 in Dortmund, Germany, describes her parents, Max Rhee and Else Heinemann; experiencing a warm family life and peace in her early childhood; not experiencing antisemitism until 1934 when her friend shunned her, teachers began to treat her unfairly, and Aryan students were being separated and taught antisemitism; being prohibited from attending public schools around 1935; moving to Cologne, Germany, where she attended a Jewish school while staying with a Jewish family; her family’s experience during an anti-Jewish “Aktion” in 1938, during which German soldiers threw rocks at their windows and burned their synagogue; returning to live with the family in Cologne, while her parents moved to Baudin and stayed with a friend; leaving Germany with her family circa 1938 and going to England just before the ill treatment of the Jews became worse; a law in England that prohibited immigrants from working, which meant her family could not make any money; spending one year in England, before being allowed to immigrate to the United States; settling in Los Angeles, CA; attending Whittier College and majoring in English; working at a school as an instructional supervisor; her father’s death in 1941 from a heart condition; meeting and marrying Hans in Salinas, CA in 1949; having three children and moving quite frequently; and her life in Palo Alto, teaching German, participating in the German association, and leading the Bridge to Understanding, which takes a group to Germany each summer.

Oral history interview with Fred Baum

Oral History

Fred Baum (né Efriam Dovid Boymelgreen), born in Slupaianowa, Poland (possibly Nowa Słupia, Poland), on October 1, 1921, describes his childhood; his one younger brother; his parents, Majlech and Miriam Nhuna, whom he lived with until 1930 when their mother died; being raised religious, and studying before the war at a yeshiva in Otwock, Poland; returning home from school after the war started, and seeing Jews being rounded up for forced labor; working in various government factories, and how the situation got worse and worse; his memories of shootings, confiscations, and deportations; how Jews were not allowed to go to school or to religious services and there was no electricity; his memories of several events including a memory of the rabbi of his town being tied to a horse and forced to run after it until he died; being put into Starachowice with his father and brother in August 1942; suffering from typhus and his father’s efforts to keep him out of the "hospital" so he wouldn't be shot; their transfer in July 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; his father’s death in Birkenau around January of 1945; being sent with his brother to Buna (Monowitz), where they were given striped uniforms; being transferred with his brother to Lara Hut; being moved in early 1945 to Mauthausen and then to Gusen in Austria; spending a week there and then four days without food in an open train to Hannora, where they worked on an unfinished concentration camp; being separated from his brother on April 5, 1945 and sent to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British on April 15, 1945; spending six months in a hospital unit recuperating, and then staying in Bergen-Belsen for five years; meeting his wife, Helen Wiesel, there; getting married in 1946; never returning to Poland; reuniting with his brother, who was his only surviving family member; immigrating in 1950 with his wife and young daughter to the United States; having two more children; and his brother, who also immigrated to the United States and started a family.

Oral history interview with Cantor Hans Cohn

Oral History

Cantor Hans Cohn, born in Berlin, Germany on May 31, 1926, discusses his childhood in Berlin; being forced to leave his public school after the passage of the Nuremberg laws in 1935; antisemitic propaganda; his feelings of exclusion from social and athletic activities; the 1936 Olympic games; the events of Kristallnacht; the long wait for a visa to the United States; the family's decision to leave Germany for Shanghai, China; his impressions upon arrival in Shanghai; the life of his family and the Jewish community in Shanghai; his mother's death; the difficulties and illnesses he endured; moving into the Hongkew ghetto when the Japanese took control of Shanghai in 1942; his experiences there; the Allied bombings of Shanghai that took place in the spring of 1945; his life in post-war Shanghai; stowing aboard a ship to Australia in 1946; living as an illegal immigrant in Australia; his immigration to the United States in 1948; being drafted into the military; volunteering as a cantor in a San Francisco synagogue; returning to school and obtaining a cantorial diploma; working as a singing waiter in the Borscht Belt in New York while he was attending Hebrew Union College in New York; being reunited with his father in 1952; and his later experiences.

Oral history interview with Gilbert L. van Mourik

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Zelver

Oral History

Oral history interview with Asya Grunkina

Oral History

Asya Grunkina discusses her childhood in Odesa, Ukraine; her memories of the occupation of Odessa by Nazi troops on October 16, 1941; the orders for Jewish families to identify themselves in preparation for deportation; hiding with her family in their home to escape deportation; the family fleeing with the assistance of a local Russian man in January 1942; hiding in the catacombs and caves nearby; the assistance of their rescuer and his family who brought them food at great risk; the terrible conditions and privations they endured; and leaving their hiding place in April 1944.

Oral history interview with Kurt Mostny

Oral History

Kurt Mostny discusses his childhood in Linz Austria; the antisemitism he experienced growing up; enlisting in the Austrian army and being posted in Vienna; the Anschluss in March 1938; serving as part of the honor guard surrounding Adolf Hitler when he arrived in Vienna to oversee the transfer of power; evading the roundup of Jews in Linz; escaping from Austria; his flight to Egypt to join his sister, who was pursuing a doctorate in Egyptology; their subsequent move to Belgium; his mother's friendship with a woman from Chile; her success in obtaining visas for Mr. Mostny, his sister and herself; the entire family's immigration to Chile in 1939; his experiences in Chile; his work and family; his immigration to the United States with his wife and five children in 1964.

Oral history interview with Hanna Cassel

Oral History

Hanna Cassel, born on December 6, 1914, in Berlin, Germany, describes her father Arthur, who owned a shoe store and her mother Rebecca, who helped run the store; her one brother, Werner, who was six years younger than her; her mother's parents, who were very religious, and spending during many holidays going to the temple with them; her parents, who were not religious; attending a private elementary school and then a girls' high school, which she was not able to finish because about a year and a half before she would have graduated, she lost her scholarship (because she was Jewish); her father's business ending because he was Jewish; not experiencing much antisemitism when she was younger, and how at first most people thought Hitler was crazy and he would never amount to anything; her very good non-Jewish friends, especially at school; her family home and her childhood and her love for reading; not having many options after she dropped out of school; her desire to go to Palestine with some of her friends, which her parents did not want her to do; moving to Rome, Italy and working as a nanny for several different families; how by 1939, Hitler had influenced Mussolini's policies and foreign Jews were required to leave Italy; the popular sentiment in Italy about Germany; the government-sponsored persecution growing worse; being arrested in December 1940 and put into a women’s concentration camp (she had avoided the first roundups); living with about 65 other Jews, Roma, and Yugoslavian partisans; conditions in the camp, the people there, and the flourishing black market; the German occupation of Italy and how the villagers in the town around the concentration camp helped free the prisoners because they knew the women of the camp would be killed or deported immediately by the Germans; hiding in the fields and then walking back to Rome, which took her about ten days; eating vegetables she took from nearby fields during her journey; being given fake papers by the police in the concentration camp’s town (the papers identified her as Anna Castelli; she told anyone who asked that she was an Italian fleeing the Allies); hiding with various friends in Rome; how most people at this time were surviving on the black market; the destruction of the synagogue in Rome right after she returned and the liquidation of the ghetto; the deportation of thousands of people; how several years earlier her parents and brother had gone to Shanghai, China, where her brother and father both died; having very little correspondence with her family while she was in Rome; getting some information from listening to the radio, which was illegal; living in hiding on the outskirts of the city when Rome was liberated on June 5, 1944; the euphoria at that moment and the difficulty of life after the liberation; how food was hard to come by; getting a job at the American Joint Distribution Committee; getting a visa to the United States and arriving in the US in December of 1948; her mother’s death and Hanna’s depression; working nights while taking classes at San Francisco State College; earning a BA and wanting to become a librarian; becoming a teacher after earning her Master’s degree; returning to Italy almost every summer once she was a teacher and visiting friends; returning to Germany for the first time in 1972 to visit a cousin; her hesitation to return to Germany; having a Bat-Mitzvah in 1983; experiencing antisemitism in the US, especially at the high school where she worked; and never marrying or having children.

Oral history interview with Vera Korkus

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Korkus's childhood in Vienna, Austria, the onset of World War II, and the opportunity that she and her sister had to go a Kindertransport, which they both refused. She recalls the forced move she and her family made in 1940 to Jewish ghetto in Vienna, their transport in October 1942 to an unnamed camp, where her father died of lung cancer, and she and her mother's transport to Auschwitz two years later. Ms. Korkus describes being separated from her mother, her reunion with her sister, the terrible conditions at Auschwitz, and her encounter with Dr. Josef Mengele. She describes being transported to Kurzbach, a subcamp of GrossRosen, where she endured forced labor and a 3-day march to Bergen Belsen. Ms. Korkus discusses her escape from this march, finding protection from the Germans with Russian soldiers, and sexual assaults that occurred while in their care. She describes her life after the war, moving to Bohemia (Czech Republic), then Vienna, and in 1949, her immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Steffi Black

Oral History

Steffi Black, born on October 17, 1920 in Berlin, Germany, describes her childhood; her Polish parents Charlotte Pink and Felix Israel; her father’s factory in Berlin and his work with his brother, Leo, installing electricity in the city; her complex family dynamic; her lack of a Jewish identity; her parents' divorce; her mother's remarriage to Otto Goetz in Switzerland; her separation from her father; her father's involvement in the Spanish Civil War; spending the summers of 1932 and 1933 in Poland with her grandparents; attending a Jewish school for about nine months, but feeling left out since she was not Jewish; her reunion with her father and their immigration first to Cuba and then to the United States; her father's death in 1946 in Nevada; her marriage and life in the US; visiting Germany in 1980; and her three children.

Oral history interview with Benjamin Parket

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ann Burger

Oral History

Ann Burger (née Anni Rosalie Rautenberg), born in 1920 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), discusses her childhood; her father Arthur Rautenberg, who was the manager of department stores; being raised religious but not Orthodox; attending private school and then public schools; her experiences with antisemitism in school after Hitler's rise to power in 1933; her Jewish friends at school; the loss of her father's business; the family's move to Berlin, while she remained in school; her move to Berlin after her graduation in 1936; her cousin's immigration to Palestine; the family's decision to flee Germany; the efforts of their American family members to obtain visas for them; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; training as a nurse; a job opportunity for work in Sweden, where she remained during the war years; her parents’ journey to Spain, Cuba, and then to the United States; her reunion with them in the US in 1946; and settling in San Francisco, CA, where she married and had a family.

Oral history interview with Volf Gershaft

Oral History

Oral history interview with Klara Garmel

Oral History

Klara Garmel discusses her childhood in Yarun, Ukaine, near Zhitomir; her parents' work on a collective farm; her memories of Jewish school as well as participating in a pioneer Ukranian youth organization. ; the onset of war with Nazi Germany in 1941; the confusion that ensued; the enforcement of anti-Jewish laws; hiding from a roundup; witnessing brutal acts perpetrated against her grandfather; escaping, with the assistance of non-Jewish friends, to Poland; encountering her mother and sister, who returned to the Ukraine; describes her experiences moving, hiding, and passing for a non-Jew; her conversion to the Russian Orthodox faith; marrying a widower far older than she; the advance of Soviet liberating forces; reclaiming her Jewish identity; leaving her marriage; working until she had sufficient funds to return to her home; learning that all but a sister and brother had perished; remarrying and having a daughter; and emigrating to the United States in 1992 due to the anti-Semitism she experienced in the Ukraine.

Oral history interview with Polina Sorkin

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Sorkin's childhood in a town in the Ukraine; her brother and father's service in Soviet Army; the invasion by Nazi troops of her town; and her family's unsuccessful attempt to flee. Ms. Sorkin describes an incident in which all the Jews were rounded up and marched to a barracks where they were imprisoned and how she made her escape. She describes traveling from village to village, being sheltered by relatives and strangers, and her reunion with family members in a ghetto. Ms. Sorkin discusses traveling to an orphange in Balta, where she reamined until the end of the war, after which she was reunited with her family. She describes her life after the war and her immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Mikhail Blank

Oral History

Mikhail Blank discusses his childhood in Bershad, Ukraine; the family's experiences on a collective farm; his memories of anti-Semitism; the family's move from Bershad to a nearby camp after the occupation of the area by Nazi troops; an incident in which his father and brother with other men were locked in a stable from which they escaped and returned to Bershad; the occupation of the area by Romanian troops and the establishment of a ghetto in Bershad, now part of Transnistria, in September 1941, where he and his family lived until the end of the war; his escape attempts; illnesses he endured; the forced labor his father and brother performed; his father's death; the liberation of Bershad in March 1944 by Soviet troops; his brother joining the fight against the Nazis and his death in battle in July 1944; his life in Bershad after the war; his military service; and his immigration to the United States in 1991.

Oral history interview with Kurt Gronowski

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Gronowski's childhood in Berlin, Germany, the antisemitism he experienced, the destruction of his family's business during Kristallnacht, November 1938, and the family's escape to Shanghai, China. Mr. Gronowski describes his experiences while on board the ship from Italy, the family's arrival in Shanghai and the assistance they received from the Jewish community. He discusses life in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai, conditions during the Japanese occupation, and the improvement of conditions after the war ended. Mr. Gronowski describes emigrating to the United States, difficulties he encountered while living in Indiana, and settling in San Francisco where he became a successful businessman.

Oral history interview with Rosa Wigmore

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gerta Wingerd

Oral History

Oral history interview with Evelyn Lowen Apte

Oral History

Evelyn Lowen Apte (née Eveline Loewenberg), born in 1929 in Goerlitz, Germany, describes her brother Gerald; her father Herman Alexander Lowen, who was a cavalry officer during the First World War; her mother Else (Gradnauer) Lowen, who had a great interest in art and attended an art school in Berlin; how her family did not consider themselves religious but when the war began the Jewish holidays became more culturally significant to the family; having a happy childhood; her father’s desire to emigrate as soon as Hitler came to power; getting around the quota system by becoming property owners in the United States; traveling through Paris, France in 1937 and taking a ship to New York, NY, arriving on February 22, 1937; the fate of her extended family; settling in Portland, Oregon; learning English; the difficult transition to American life, especially for her mother; feeling like an outsider in high school, but beginning to feel American in college; visiting Germany in 1966; how she does not enjoy speaking German with people her age, but is willing to speak German with the younger generation; attending Reed College in Oregon for two years, and then transferring to the University of California at Berkeley, where she did her undergraduate and some graduate work, finishing her education in London; becoming a social worker; considering herself an atheist, but still feeling close to the Jewish culture and traditions; the large community of Jewish refugees in Portland; and her reflections on her experiences as a refugee.

Oral history interview with Annette Herskovits

Oral History

Oral history interview with Guta Zlotlow

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alfred Cotton

Oral History

Alfred Cotton (né Baumwollspinner), born on December 29, 1925 in Hamburg, Germany, discusses his childhood in Hamburg; his Polish parents; his father’s wholesale wine distribution business; his memories of the antisemitism after the Nazis rose to power; his parents' selling their business because of the anti-Jewish boycotts; the expulsion of his father to Poland in 1938; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; the arrests of the teachers at the Jewish school he attended; his parents' decision to place him on a Kindertransport; leaving Germany for a boy's camp in Suffolk, England; the arrest and internment of all boys over age 16; being moved to Sheffield, England and living in a camp run by refugee women; attending a public school; learning that his parents and grandparents were deported in 1942 from Poland where they were living; his immigration with his wife to the United States in the early 1950s; and his involvement in Kindertransport reunions.

Oral history interview with Marion Mostny

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Mostny's childhood in Berlin, Germany; the changes she experienced during the 1930s; and her parents' decision to leave Germany. She describes her family's immigration to Santiago, Chile in April 1939; the community of Jewish refugees there; and the fates of family members left behind in Germany. Ms. Mostny describes her life in Chile, her and her husband's decision to immigrate to the United States in 1963, and their subsequent life in San Francisco. She describes her decision to write her memoirs and the importance of Holocaust remembrance.

Oral history interview with Roy Calder

Oral History

Roy Calder describes his early life in an assimilated family in Berlin and Dresden; his invovlement in Jewish youth groups; his awareness of increased antisemitism after the Nazi rise to power; his parents' decision to send him to school in Switzerland in 1935; his attempts to convince his family to leave Germany; his regret that they did not; his decision to immigrate to Great Britain; the jobs he held in Birmingham, England; the beginning of World War II in 1939; his internment as an enemy alien in Sherbrooke, Canada; his return to England in late 1940; why he volunteered for the British army; his six year service in Scotland, Nigeria, India, and Burma; his marriage to another Holocaust survivor; his decision to immigrate to the United States in 1953; his Jewish identity; and the effects the events of the Holocaust had on him and his wife.

Oral history interview with Sandor Hollander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Abraham Jaeger

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Jaeger's childhood in Veliki Bochkov, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), his career as a salesman, his flight to Palestine in October 1939, where he was imprisoned for six months. Mr. Jaeger describes his experiences serving in the British Army in Egypt, Syria and Cypress, joining the Israeli Army in 1948, his career and life in Israel, where he lived until 1958, and his immigration to the United States. Mr. Jaeger discusses the death of his parents and three of sisters in the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Judy Kirkham

Oral History

Oral history interview with Greta Reisman

Oral History

Greta Reisman discusses her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany; her religious upbringing and assimilated education; the changes she experienced after the Nazis came to power; the increasing antisemitism as well as her family's decision to relocate to Yugoslavia and Hungary; her experiences in Yugoslavia; the actions her grandmother took to allow them to remain there; her decision to join the rest of the family in Hungary; immigrating to the United States in 1940.

Oral history interview with Dan Dougherty

Oral History

Dan Dougherty, born May 30, 1925 in Austin, Minnesota, describes being drafted into the United States Army 17 days after his high school graduation; transferring from the 44th Division to the 45th Division; seeing combat on the Sigfried Line and experiencing a slight injury; returning after his recovery and fighting at Aschaffenburg, Germany; the surrender of Germany seven days later; taking part in the liberation of Bavarian US prisoner of war camps and concentration camps; going towards Nuremberg, which had already fallen to the Allies; arriving in Dachau, where they found thousands of emaciated corpselike inmates; coming upon Allach concentration camp; and going to Munich, which they occupied on May 1, 1945.

Oral history interview with Max Erlichman

Oral History

Max Erlichman, born in November 1931 in Caracas, Venezuela, describes his parents Tobias Erlichman and Bella Galinskaja; spending his childhood years in Amsterdam, Holland until he was taken to Westerbork with his brother and father in mid-November 1942; the deportation of his mother to Auschwitz in September of 1942; the deportation of his older brother Zacharias to Auschwitz in October of 1942; never seeing either Zacharias nor his mother again, and finding out after the war that they were both killed in the camps; being sent with his brother and father to Bergen-Belsen, where they stayed for nine weeks; being sent to a camp in Wülzburg, Germany and remaining there until they were liberated in March or April of 1945 by the American Army; recuperating along with his father and brother in a house provided to them by civilians in the town of Weissenburg in Bayern, Germany; being sent to a displaced persons camp in Würzburg for a week before being sent back to Holland; his father’s travels between Holland and the United States for a few years after the war; and immigrating to the US with his brother.

Oral history interview with Rose Herskovic

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tillie Molho

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Molho's childhood in Salonika and Athens, Greece and her experience of the Italian and German invasions of Athens. She describes living in hiding for two years with a Christian family, including the scarcity of food and the fear of discovery. She describes her reunion with her family after the liberation of Athens, her family's attempt to reclaim their home from German collaborators, her life after the war, and immigration to the United States in 1951.

Oral history interview with Edith Newman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Agnes Allison

Oral History

Agnes Allison (née Agnes Suzannah Halàsz), born on October 28, 1926 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; her younger sister, Judy; her mother, Ilona Gero and her father, Robert Halász; attending a private German school established for the children of diplomats; the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, and the arrival of Polish refugees; the Hitler Youth movement at her school; her family’s conversion to Catholicism in 1939 and her awareness of the anti-Jewish laws in Hungary; the German occupation of Hungary beginning in March 1944 and the increased restrictions imposed on the Jewish community; her family being forced out of their home; working for the Germans for a short time in exchange for protection; becoming friendly with a German officer's chauffeur, Fritz, who told her that the German soldiers kept watch at night to protect everyone in the apartment from the Hungarian Nazis, the Arrow Cross; going into hiding in December 1944 with the help of a priest, Father Reile; remaining in hiding until the liberation of Budapest in April 1945; learning the fates of family members; and her belief that the Arrow Cross was responsible for the deaths of Budapest Jews.

Oral history interview with Ann Gabor Arancio

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Arancio's childhood in Gyula, Hungary, her childhood experiences with antisemitism, and her experiences in passing a Christian with false identity papers. Ms. Arancio describes being captured in November 1944 by Nazi troops, her forced labor in a brick factory, her escape with her mother and sister, and going into hiding in several locations. She discusses the liberation of Hungary, studying in Holland, and emigrating to the United States with her husband in 1950. Ms. Arancio describes her divorce, remarriage and family life in the United States. Ms. Arancio was featured in the book, "A Time to Flee: Unseen Women of Courage."

Oral history interview with Valerie Balint

Oral History

Oral history interview with Yanina Cywinska

Oral History

Yanina Cywinska, born on October 28, 1929, describes growing up with her Ukrainian family, including her parents, Wladyslaw and Ludwika, and her older brother, Theodor; traveling a lot as a child; living mostly in and around Warsaw, Poland; attending ballet classes; being raised Catholic; her father’s Jewish friends; being taught by her parents to not look down on Jews or ever make an antisemitic comment; her father, who was a doctor and was asked by the Nazis, once they had invaded Poland, to perform some medical experiments on Jewish twins; his refusal to conduct the experiments and his subsequent imprisonment in jail for a short period; the Warsaw Ghetto, which was constructed in 1939; her father’s realization that he had a moral obligation to help the Jews and his failed attempts to get the local priest to help; her family’s participation in the underground movement; making several trips a day through tunnels and sewer lines into and out of the ghetto; carrying ammunition, jewelry, furs, medicine, and poison for the black market; witnessing executions and other violence; the various tunnels that they used to get in and out of the ghetto; being arrested and sent to a detention center; being taken out in the middle of the night with other people into the forest, where they dug ditches and then were lined up and shot; surviving the massacre because she was behind another woman, and she fell into the pit and pretended to be dead; climbing out of the pit and hiding in a haystack, where a farmer found her; reuniting with her parents at the detention center; her aunt, Stasha, paying the Gestapo to get Yanina and her brother out of the detention center; returning to her aunt’s house; being beaten and abused by her aunt for being a “Jew-lover”; her brother, who ran away; working as a servant for her aunt; ending up homeless and wandering around the streets of Warsaw for a while; staying for a few weeks with a couple she met at the detention center; reuniting with her parents at the detention center; being sent with the other prisoners to Auschwitz in cattle cars; the journey; arriving at Auschwitz; surviving a gas chamber after being revived by another inmate; being given a uniform; the shaving of her hair; being tattooed with a number; working in various places, including a factory, a kitchen, in the labs, and at the crematorium (note that it is generally thought that only men worked in the Sonderkommando doing the jobs that Yanina said she did); her methods for survival; being forced on a death march to Dachau; being liberated by American soldiers; staying in a displaced persons camp for a while, where she was sexually assaulted and impregnated by a soldier; her two abusive marriages after the war; meeting her third husband; the effects of the war on her emotionally; giving up on God; and her long recovery from her traumatic experiences.

Oral history interview with Ilse Lewy

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Lewy's childhood in Elberfeld Wuppertal, Germany; her memories of the increase in antisemitism after Hitler rose to power 1933; being forced to leave school and move with her family; and working at a factory until 1936. Ms. Lewy describes her move to a children's school in Sweden that prepared students for immigration to Palestine, her voyage there by train and her experiences in the school for the next two years. She recalls being summoned back to Germany to immigrate with her parents and sister to the United States; the voyage with ship through the Panama Canel; and arriving in San Francisco. Ms. Lewy discusses returning to school, her attempts at and final success in being admitted to nurse training, and her experiences with antisemitism in the United States. She describes volunteering for the United States Army; being stationed in the Philippines where she met her future husband; and their marriage and family life.

Oral history interview with Esther Kemeny

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kemeny's childhood in Michalovce, Slovakia, her attendance and graduation from law school in 1936, incidents of antisemitism, and her disbarment in 1939 because she was Jewish. Ms. Kemeny discusses meeting her husband, their marriage, the escape of her brothers and father to the United States in 1940, and her and her husband's deportation to Auschwitz in 1944. Ms. Kemeny describes the deplorable conditions at Auschwitz, and the birth and tragic loss of her son while there. She describes her work in the hospital at Auschwitz, the death march she endured, and her experiences at Ravensbruck concentration camp. Ms. Kemeny discusses her liberation by Russian soldiers, the assistance she received from the Red Cross, her return to Slovakia and her reunion with her husband who was in the hospital in Bratislava. She describes their immigration to the United States in 1949, their move to New York and then Ohio, her husband's medical practices, and the birth of her daughter in 1952.

Oral history interview with Roma Barnes

Oral History

Roma Barnes (née Rosenmann), born on March 15, 1930 in Demblin (Deblin), Poland, describes being subjected to a lot of antisemitism in school when she was growing up; the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939; the roundup of Jews; fleeing the roundups several times; her parents, who were caught in the first roundup and sent to Sobibor, where they were killed immediately upon arrival; returning to her town, where she met up with her uncle and stayed with him; her uncle’s preparation of fake passports for all of them to go to Switzerland; watching as her uncle was captured by the Nazis and shot; being caught and sent to a work camp, where she witnessed such atrocities as watching the hanging of her friend; being sent to Chesokova, where she was liberated; and staying in Egland after the war before going to the United States.

Oral history interview with Margot Braun

Oral History

Margot Braun (née Feibush), born January 28, 1923 in Berlin, Germany, describes growing up in a suburb of Berlin, where there were very few Jews; being forced to go to a Jewish school in Berlin when Hitler came to power in 1933; her family’s experience of a "pre-Kristallnacht" in June of 1938, at which time she and her family were awakened and forced to leave their businesses and move in with their relatives; her father’s many siblings, including his brother who was an extremely wealthy businessman in San Francisco, CA; leaving with her family for England in March 1939; the arrest of her parents at the beginning of the war; living with her cousin in a foster home in England; her parents’ eventual release; and her family’s immigration in October 1948 to the United States.

Oral history interview with Ted Ellington

Oral History

Theodore “Ted” Ellington, born in February 1928 in Vienna, Austria, describes being an only child; growing up around antisemitism and being defensive of his Jewish identity; the religious nature of Vienna schools and having to attend Christian educational activities; being also required to go to Jewish education sessions; how there were about eight Jewish students in his elementary school class of 35 children; his father, who made a living selling foodstuffs for livestock; the economic inequality in Vienna and his family’s practice to provide lunch for an unemployed family once a week; the violence that erupted in Vienna in 1934; the Anschluss in 1938; seeing tanks in the streets and army planes flying overhead daily; the Nazi flags and swastikas all over Vienna and the pro-Nazi sentiment of many Austrians; the Nuremberg laws; being forced to attend an all-Jewish school, where Nazi children would gather outside and taunt the Jewish students; the burning of synagogues and the destruction of his grandfather's store; his memories of Nazis entering their family home and beating his father after he asked the officers for paperwork stating that they were allowed to conduct the search; how the officers took virtually everything the family owned, including his cherished stamp collection; his parents’ desire to relocate to the United States; his parents’ decision to enroll Ted in a program that was run by the Quakers that took children from Austria and placed them temporarily with a family in England; going to Belgium in April 1939 to live with his uncle; going to England in May 1939 and staying with a family there until 1946; being treated well by the English family; attending school in London; his parents’ migration to San Francisco, CA in 1940; traveling to New York, NY in 1946 and a train to San Francisco, where he reunited with his parents in May 1946; attending San Francisco City College for one year and then UC Berkeley; earning his degree in accounting in 1950; joining the US Army for two years and then becoming a CPA; getting married in 1965; and his two daughters.

Oral history interview with Anna Hollander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Theo Joseph

Oral History

Oral history interview with Elisabeth Katz

Oral History

Elisabeth Katz discusses her childhood in an assimilated Jewish family in Furth, Germany; her mother's conversion to Judaism and reversion to Lutheranism; the ambivalent position that she felt placed in because of this difference; having to change schools once Hitler rose to power in 1933; attending a Jewish boarding school; entering nursing school in Frankfurt in 1938; her memories of the events surrounding Kristallnacht in November 1938, including the arrest of her father; immigrating to London in late 1938 to work in a hospital; being interned as an "enemy alien"; returning to London and working as a nurse during the Blitz; visiting her parents in Germany in 1947, where they had remained throughout the war; her father being one of the three Jews in Furth who survived the Holocaust; immigrating to the United States in 1949; moving to San Francisco; marrying a fellow refugee.

Oral history interview with Jim Sanders

Oral History

Oral history interview with Louis Slanger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ellen Fletcher

Oral History

Ellen Fletcher (née Amster), born on December 3, 1928 in Berlin, Germany, describes her Polish father and her German mother; growing up in Germany and her father leaving them to return to Poland; her mother, who worked full time as a social worker; living in a Jewish orphanage for three years (1934-1937) before attending an orthodox Jewish boarding school; the worsening antisemitism; her memories of Kristallnacht as a young child in the orphanage, being very scared in a dark room listening to all the noise outside; becoming an atheist after experiencing Kristallnacht; witnessing religious Jews running into synagogues to save the Torah, which caused her to question why ‘God did not save them’; feeling more fear shortly after Kristallnacht when she was walking to school and was approached by a man who told her to go home as quickly as she could; receiving papers in the mail from the police that said she was to meet with them the next day, however, her mother went instead; leaving for England on a train full of young children, which is one of the worst memories she has; how at the station there were hundreds of children with their parents saying goodbye, and it was probably the last time most of the children would ever see their parents; not feeling the change as hard as other children because she had not lived with her parents prior to leaving for England; staying with a foster family in England; experiencing difficulties at first because of the cultural differences, for example it was customary in Germany to place your hands under the table and in England it was polite to keep your hands above the table; feeling like an outcast in school she because she was a German Jew; learning English by studying a German to English dictionary; working as a baby sitter while she lived in England and staying in touch with her mother through mail; learning later that her grandmother died in Auschwitz; moving to New York in 1946; her desire to be a nurse until she had appendix surgery and saw what nurses had to deal with; attending college and studying sociology; getting married to an English man named Martin Fletcher while she was in college; becoming a homemaker and having three children; divorcing Martin; and her life in California.

Oral history interview with Estella Hayden

Oral History

Estella Hayden discusses her childhood in Magdeburg, Germany; her vague memories of the increase in anti-Semitism after the Nazis rose to power; her mother's insistence that the family leave Germany; her father's arrest after Kristallnacht in November 1938, and his imprisonment in Buchenwald; her family's flight to Shanghai, China shortly after, where they lived in the Hong Kew ghetto during the war years; her experiences in Shanghai; her mother's death of cancer there; the restrictions they endured under Japanese control; her fears and sense of lack of safety during this period; the end of the war and her family's relocation to the United States in 1947; and her marriage and family life in San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Marie Kincade

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

Oral History

Bernard Offen discusses his childhood in Krakow, Poland; his early experiences with antisemitism; the events he witnessed during the German invasion of Poland in 1939; his experiences in the Krakow Ghetto starting in 1941, including the deportations of many family members and hiding from raids; being deported to Plaszow in 1943; his narrow escape from Plaszow; hiding in a nearby camp with a family member; his deportation to Mauthausen; his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; his experiences in Auschwitz; his transfer in October to a subcamp of Dachau near Landsberg; his experiences in the subcamp; being on a death march in May 1945; being liberated by the United States Army; his search for other surviving family members; the fates of the rest of his family; emigrating to the United Kingdom after the war; his subsequent immigration to the United States; enlisting in the United States Army to serve in the Korean War; his life after the war; returning to Poland to conduct tours of Holocaust-related sites; the time he spends speaking about his personal experiences.

Oral history interview with Laura Rosenthal

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Rosenthal's childhood in Karlsruhe, Germany; her memories of Kristallnacht in November 1938 and the decision that she should follow her brother, who left Germany to study in England in 1936; and her father's detention and release. Ms. Rosenthal describes her parents' efforts to secure an escape for her to England, her move to Liverpool to live with a family, the difficulties she encountered, and her move from that home to another and then to a youth hostel for refugee children in Wales. She discusses her experiences working and living in London, her parents deportation to France and successful immigration to Cuba, and her reunion with her parents in New York in 1947.

Oral history interview with Jay Frankston

Oral History

Jay Frankston (né Joseph Frankenstein), born on October 10, 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany, describes the early accounts of his life, which he only knowns because they were told to him again from his friends and family; moving with his parents, Max and Alice, to Poland not too long after his birth; having few memories of Poland, except that they had to leave abruptly; his father, who was a barber in Poland but was treated as an outcast because of his religious beliefs and fled to Germany; moving with his family in 1937 to Paris, France, where his father opened his own store that sold leather goods; experiencing antisemitism at school from his classmates; the antisemitism his parents experienced; his family’s decision to move south to Marseilles, France when it became clear in 1939 that Germany could invade Paris; going with his family to the United States in 1943 and changing their name to Frankston (Joseph also changed his name to Jay); and his thoughts on how being middle class helped them afford their escape from Europe.

Oral history interview with Mark Horovitz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ewa Janik

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Janik's childhood in an unidentified ghetto in occupied Poland; her father's involvement in the underground; being given by her parents to a Catholic Polish couple, also part of the underground, when the ghetto was liquidated; her father's death; being separated from her mother; being brought up as a Catholic by the family that sheltered her; a meeting at age 16 with a woman who gave her a letter from her birth mother who was living in the United States; her adopted parents' denial of the facts of her birth; her family life; her move with her husband and children to the United States; meeting her birth mother; the emotionally complex relationships she has with both her birth and adopted mothers, and her lack of either a Jewish or Catholic identification.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Katz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Henry Kruger

Oral History

Henry Kruger describes his childhood in Wolomin, Poland; his awareness of antisemitism; his memories of German Jewish refugees arriving in nearby Warsaw in the late 1930s; the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939; the destruction of his home; the death of his mother; his memories of German and Polish abuses; his decision to escape to Russia; his flight to the border town of Malkinia; his arrival and life in Bialystok; his return home in February 1940; his experiences under German occupation; his relocation to the ghetto; how he worked to build railroad tracks to Treblinka in 1942; his work with the Polish underground making false identity cards; his successful escape from the ghetto using a false identity; learning of his family's deportation to Treblinka; a second escape using a false identity; his time hiding in forests and on farms; how he obtained a travel passport in December 1944; how he travelled to Hannover to work as a Polish laborer; his liberation in Hannover by British troops; his experiences in a displaced persons camp; and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Illan Palat

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rita Kuhn

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Kuhn's childhood in Berlin, Germany, her life as the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish German mother as the Nazi regime rose to power, and her growing awareness of antisemitism and change. Ms. Kuhn describes the dismay she felt after the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, and the privations her family suffered as a consequence of the Nuremberg Laws and her father's unemployment, living with meager ration allotments, detainments, and forced labor. She discusses life trapped in Berlin during the war years, bombings, and forced labor in a small factory. Ms. Kuhn remembers the round-up of Jews in Berlin in February 1943 and her release, because her mother was German. Of particular note, Ms. Kuhn discusses the Rosenstrasse Protest of 1943, when a group of Aryan women protested the imprisonment of their Jewish husbands and children, in which her mother participated. Ms. Kuhn describes the occupation of Berlin by Russian troops, and her family being asked to identify Nazis to them. She recalls her first exposure to information about the concentration camps and the Holocaust, the time she spent in a displaced persons camp, her desire to leave Germany and her immigration to the United States in 1948. Ms. Kuhn describes her return to Berlin for the 50th year memorial of Kristallnacht, when she participated in a silent march from the a synagogue to Rosenstrasse in commemoration of the protest there.

Oral history interview with Rebecca Siegel

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Siegel's childhood in Amsterdam, Netherlands; her memories of the invasion of Holland by Nazi Germany in 1940; and her father's activities in helping Jewish refugees from Poland and Germany. Ms. Siegel describes being forced to leave her elementary school for a Jewish school in June 1941; the family's move to a Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam; conditions for Jews under the Nazi occupation; and her family's deportation to Westerbork in September 1942. Ms. Siegel discusses her experiences in Westerbork; the family's deportation to Bergen-Belsen and the terrible conditions there; and her father's death while in Bergen-Belsen. She describes being transported on a train in April 1945 to an unknown destination; the abandonment of the train by Nazi troops; and her family's liberation by American soldiers. Ms. Siegel describes their return to Amsterdam; her life in the Netherlands after the war; and the family's immigration to the United States in 1951.

Oral history interview with Beth Snortum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leo Anspach

Oral History

Leo Anspach, born in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic), describes his family history; his parents, Elsa Klauber and Ludwig; his experiences with antisemitism after the Nazis rose to power in neighboring Germany; graduating from school in 1936; the family's flight to Prague after the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland, including Karlsbad, in September 1938; the family's fears and attempts to emigrate; the occupation of Prague by Nazi troops in March 1939; the difficulties the family suffered under Nazi rule; his flight to Shanghai, China in 1940 with the help of his aunt; his experiences in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai; his immigration to the United States in 1947; and the fate of his family members, including his father, mother, and sister, who perished during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Walter Balaban

Oral History

Walter Balaban, born in November 1917 in Vienna, Austria, describes his childhood and young adulthood in Vienna; his family’s experiences with antisemitism; feeling antisemitism from teachers; his memories of German Jewish refugees visiting his family after the ascent to power of the Nazi party in 1933; the Anschluss in March 1938; the enforcement of anti-Jewish laws and the loss of Jewish businesses; witnessing persecutions and cruelties inflicted on Jewish citizens; his family's attempts to immigrate to the United States; his flight to Switzerland; his experiences during the war years in refugee camps in Schaffhausen and Unteraergeri that were financed by the Swiss Jewish community and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS); returning to Vienna after the war and the damage and destruction he saw; learning that his parents had been deported to Theresienstadt (Terezin) and Auschwitz and perished during the Holocaust; his brother, who survived the war in England and moved to the United States; immigrating to the US six months after his brother; working various jobs and living in New York, Charleston, and San Francisco; finding work as an electrical draftsman; his family life; and the experiences of other Holocaust survivors he knows.

Oral history interview with Ursula Foster

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Foster's childhood in Hannover, Germany, the increasing antisemitism in Germany after 1933, and the family's immigration to Amsterdam in March 1938. Ms. Foster describes her life in Amsterdam, including an acquaintance with Anne Frank. She discusses the invasion of Holland by Germany in 1940, and increasing oppression, discrimination and hardships endured by the Jewish population. Ms. Foster discusses her old brother's transport to Westerbork, how her parents and she were able to evade capture, and their experiences being hidden in Amsterdam beginning in 1943. She describes their conditions and the fear she felt, until their liberation in 1945. Ms. Foster relates learning that her brother perished in Auschwitz, and her and her parent's immigration to the United States in 1947. She describes settling in Oakland, California, the difficulties her parents encountered in adapting to life in the United States, her adult life, and her return visit to Germany.

Oral history interview with Estelle Kiefer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herbert Lakritz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joseph Rosenbaum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ellen Stewer

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Stewer's childhood in Berlin, Germany; moving with her mother to Vienna in 1937 after the death of her father; and the antisemitism and persecution Jews faced in Vienna after the Anschluss in March 1938. She decribes a particular incident in which Jewish men in Vienna were forced to wash the streets. Ms. Stewer describes her and her mother's arrest for attempting to send money out of the country; her future husband exchanging himself for them, and his imprisonment until 1940; her mother's death; and fleeing to Shanghai with her husband in 1940. Ms. Stewer describes her experiences in Shanghai from 1941-1947; she and her husband's immigration to the United States in 1947; and their experiences adapting to their new life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Tusia Volansky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hans Wiener

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herman Hirschfeld

Oral History

Oral history interview with Berthe Meghnagi

Oral History

The interview describes her childhood in Paris, France; the German invasion; and her family's arrest and deportation to a temporary camp. She describes their release, the time she spent hiding in a convent at Nogent-Sur-Marne outside of Paris, and the help her family received from a non-Jewish family.

Oral history interview with Sonia Orbuch

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Orbuch's childhood in Luboml, Poland (now Liuboml, Ukraine); her memories of the beginning of World War II and the changes the town experienced; the occupation of Luboml by Russian troops; and increasing antisemitism. Ms. Orbuch describes her brother's conscription into the Russian army; the occupation of the town by Nazi troops and the restrictions that Jews were forced to endure. She describes her family's failed attempt to escape to Russia; the increasing dangers faced by Jews; and the family's decision to flee to the forest. Ms. Orbuch describes the family's experiences hiding in the forest, being sheltered by Polish gentiles, and her experiences working and fighting with Russian partisans. She discusses her experiences after the war and her immigration to the United States in 1949. The supplemental tape, “Lubloml: My Heart Remembers,” describes life in Luboml, Poland before and during the war, and features portions of Sonia Orbuch's oral history interviews.

Oral history interview with Marianne Pennekamp

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helene Steinlauf

Oral History

The interview describes the experiences of Ms. Steinlauf's parents during the war years. Ms. Steinlauf was an infant and young child during this period. Ms. Steinlauf describes her parents' experiences in Antwerp during the Nazi occupation of Belgium; the dangers Jews were subject to; and her family's flight to Switzerland. She describes the hardships her mother endured in their travels to Switzerland; being hidden in a cloister where her mother posed as a nun; hiding in a Belgium prison; and the family's reunion in Switzerland, where they lived as share croppers. Ms. Steinlauf describes the family's return to Antwerp after the war, and their immigration to the United States in 1955.

Oral history interview with Joseph Vles

Oral History

Oral history interview with Marianne Gerhart

Oral History

Marianne Gerhart discusses her unorthodox childhood in Munich, Germany as the daughter of a non-observant Jewish actress mother and a non-Jewish father; her lack of Jewish education or identification, her baptism, and her Catholic school education; the difficulties posed by her mother's Jewish background; her father's loss of his job because of this; her parents' adaption to their changed circumstances under Nazism; her experiences during the period of 1933-1945; obtaining false papers for herself through a Lutheran school; her father's interest in socialism and Rudolph Steiner; his establishment of a farm; the numerous threats to her mother's safety; her parents' divorce after the war; and her immigration to the United States in 1946 as a displaced person with a Jewish mother.

Oral history interview with Lisl Ivry

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eugene Katz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lev Leybovich

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lori Shearn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Linda Breder

Oral History

Linda Breder describes her childhood in Stropkov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); the onset of war in 1939; increasing antisemitism and anti-Jewish measures; her arrest in 1942 by Hlinka guards; her transport to Auschwitz, which was the first female transport; the intake measures at the camp; working in Kanada; stealing clothes and food; the increasingly terrible conditions in Auschwitz; learning that her family had perished in the gas chambers; the death march in January 1945 to Ravensbruck; how she escaped and hid in a barn; her liberation by the Soviet Army; her experiences after the war; learning the fates of her large extended family; returning to Czechoslovakia; meeting her husband; having a family; and immigrating to the United States in 1966.

Oral history interview with Anthony Cardinale

Oral History

Oral history interview with Samuel Cohen

Oral History

Samuel Cohen, born in 1923 in Philadelphia, PA, describes being drafted in January 1943; being sent to England in the fall of 1944 and entering France in December 1944; going with his division through Belgium and Luxembourg and then to Austria during the spring of 1945; not being aware of what was happening to the Jews; the shock of his division when they caught up with a death march from Mauthausen; liberating the 1,300 prisoners who were still alive and capturing about 150 German soldiers; continuing to Mauthausen, where they spent a day; taking pictures and writing a long letter to his brother describing what they found, both in the camp and when they saw the death march (he reads this letter during the interview); taking pictures of huge piles of bodies, mass graves in trenches, and survivors who look almost emotionless when faced with liberation; his interpretation of the SS men as cocky and almost smug and seeing no remorse or sadness on their faces, even after they had surrendered or were captured; returning to the United States in January 1946; his continued interest in international affairs; developing an exchange program with Japan in the 1970s; and his belief that developing an understanding of different cultures will help people avoid these terrible situations in the future.

Oral history interview with Walter Horn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sonya Schek

Oral History

Oral history interview with Henrietta Schneider

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lou Frank

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irwin Gotfried

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jackie Martin

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Martin's childhood in Istanbul, Turkey and Paris, France, and relates incidents of antisemitism that she experienced while in school in France. Ms. Martin describes her multiple attempts to flee Paris, both before and after the invasion of France by Nazi Germany, only to return soon after each time. She describes the occupation of Paris between 1940 and 1945 and her life in hiding with false papers with a non-Jewish woman, working as a seamstress for the Germans. Ms. Martin describes the liberation of Paris, immigration to the United States in 1946, and her life in America.

Oral history interview with Anna Meyer

Oral History

Oral history interview with James Rothschild

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mariya Roytman

Oral History

Mariya Roytman describes her childhood in Zhytomyr, Ukraine; her experiences duing the war; being sent to a camp; escaping and moving from place to place; being hidden by those who would help her; her experiences staying with partisans in the forest; her return to Zhytomyr in 1944 to learn that everyone she knew had perished; her life after the war; and her marriage in 1947.

Oral history interview with Herman Shine

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gina Waldman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mary Berges

Oral History

Mary Berges (née Friedman), born in 1935 in Antwerp, Belgium, describes her early life in Antwerp; her father Michael (born in Poland), who was a baker; her mother Elizabeth (born in Graz); her brother, Alfred (born in Germany in 1932); her father's arrest; her experiences being hidden in Catholic orphanages, separately from her brother; being mistreated in the orphanages and her feelings about those experiences; being taken to an Orthodox Jewish orphanage by a family member after the war (her Aunt Rivka's sister in law); learning that her parents had perished at Auschwitz; immigrating to the United States in 1947; the difficulties of adjusting to life in the US; her experiences in a foster home; her education and training as a nurse; her continued emotional struggles about her wartime experiences; and her reflections on her childhood.

Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

Oral History

Julius Drabkin, born December 4, 1918 in Ukraine, describes his parents, Mikhail and Sarah Daviolovna; living in Riga, Latvia before WWII; being a soldier in the Latvian Army until the German invasion in July 1941; living in the ghetto for most of the war; getting married to his first wife, Amalia, in 1941; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943; being sent to Kaiserwald concentration camp; being liberated on March 10, 1945 from Stutthof concentration camp; returning to Riga because he was distressed, even though he had the opportunity to emigrate; the loss of all of his family except for one of his aunts; getting remarried shortly after the war (his wife also lost all her family); having two sons, and living in Riga until he immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s; emigrating because his older son found it impossible to pursue his career as a Jew; and his visit to Riga for the World Conference of Holocaust Survivors.

Oral history interview with Dova Gendelman

Oral History

Dova Gendelman, born on June 20, 1930, describes her father, who taught Russian, mathematics, and history at Heder (Jewish school) and later became an accountant; her family’s plan to evacuate at the beginning of the war to Dnipropetrovsk (her father could not evacuate earlier because of military duty); eventually evacuating on horses; being overtaken by Germans and having to return to Shargorod, Ukraine; going into hiding before they returned home; the order for all the Jews of Shargorod to move into the ghetto, which was characterized by constant shootings and Germans harassing Jews and making them work; living with hunger under overcrowded conditions; the Romanians taking over the administration of the ghetto; the continued harassments under the Romanians; continuing to hide with her family in a home in the ghetto; learning Hebrew and Jewish traditions from her grandfather while in hiding; the death of many people in the ghetto from diseases in 1942; the fate of her extended family in Shargorod and Dnipropetrovsk; the destruction of all seven of Shargorod’s synagogues; her life after the war; working as a doctor in her hometown for 42 years; the discrimination against Jews after the war; immigrating to the United States in September 1993; and her life in the US; her return to Judaism and hope to continue Jewish traditions in her family.

Oral history interview with Adolf Makaruk

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ray Redel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anne Stein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lisa Brinner

Oral History

Lisa Brinner, born in Austria, describes going on a Kindertransport to London when she was 15 years old with her younger brother; living with a foster family in England; eventually moving to San Francisco, CA with her brother; her parents leaving from Vienna and journeying through Moscow, Vladivostok, Korea, Northern China, and Japan; and her parents arriving in San Francisco in August 1940.

Oral history interview with John Franklin

Oral History

John Franklin was born Hans Frankenthal in July 1930 to Max and Clara Frankenthal. He had an older brother named Danner. The family lived in Voitsburg, Germany. After Kristallnacht, the family fled to Holland; Mr. Franklin's brother Danner escaped to the United States in 1938 with the support of his mother’s brother, and changed his name to Warren Franklin. The Frankenthal family lived in a small town in the interior of Holland from 1938 until 1942. In late 1942 all Jews were removed to Amsterdam. In the middle of 1943, Mr. Franklin, his father and mother were deported to Westerbork. Shortly afterward, Mr. Franklin and his father were deported to Bergen-Belsen. In 1945 he and his father were loaded into a transport train from Bergen-Belsen to Theresienstadt. The train never arrived at its destination and later became famous as the Lost Train. His father perished en route and was buried in a mass grave. The train stopped in Troebitz, in the Russian zone, where the prisoners were liberated by Russian Cossacks. After the war, Mr. Franklin returned to Holland and reunited with his mother, who had been in Auschwitz, and his grandmother, who had spent the war years hidden in Holland. After his grandmother died in 1946, Mr. Franklin and his mother joined his brother and uncle in San Francisco in 1948. Mr. Franklin was educated as a teacher in the United States, and taught high school economics and political science in San Francisco public schools. He married at age 57 and has two stepchildren.

Oral history interview with Tommy Gorski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eugene Kleiner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Faye Nelson

Oral History

Faye Nelson discusses her childhood in Ansbach, Germany as the daughter of a Jewish mother and Catholic father; her Catholic upbringing; the effect that the Nazis’ rise to power had on her family; her relationship with her Jewish grandmother, who was deported to Majdanek; her feelings of discomfort in school; her experiences with the Hitler Youth movement; her father’s experiences in the German Army; her family’s uneasy life during the Nazi era; being sheltered in a rural location; their positive relationship with United States armed forces personnel; her post-war training as a nurses’ aide; her encounters with Jewish students and former prisoners; her interest in Judaism; her family’s immigration to the United States in 1947; and her life and work in California.

Oral history interview with Ginetta Sagan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Yukiko Sugihara

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hannelore Ballin

Oral History

Hannelore Ballin, born on February 15, 1921 in Essen, Germany, describes living in Essen until 1936, when she had to move closer to the Dutch border and live with her aunt; the beginning of the war and no longer being able to speak with her German friends for fear that they would get in trouble for speaking to a Jew; being very restricted; their neighbors who were never cruel to her or her family; her father's business which was eventually shut down; how it became difficult for her father to get money for food; emigrating form Germany and going to London, England and then the United States; the dispersing of her family throughout the world; her present life; and sharing her experience with her two children.

Oral history interview with Alfred Batzdorff

Oral History

Alfred Batzdorff, born on February 19, 1922 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), describes his parents; his mother (maiden name Allendorf), who was a housewife and opera singer; his brother (who eventually became a neurosurgeon in California); his grandparents; his maternal grandmother's activity in the women's movement in Germany; his father, who was a physician; being assimilated and his father attending synagogue on holidays; his experiences with antisemitism; being assigned to a bus going to Buchenwald and staying behind, hiding among the elderly; managing to be placed on a Kindertransport to England; his wife, Suzanne Batzdorff, whom he originally met in Germany and reconnected with in New York; and his three sons and many grandchildren.

Oral history interview with Lorie Bellak

Oral History

Lorie Bellak, born March 17, 1929 in Ratibor, Germany (Raciborz, Poland), describes her childhood in Ratibor; the growing antisemitism she experienced; her memories of Kristallnacht; her father's arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald; her family's decision to leave Germany; their sea journey to Shanghai, China; her first impressions of Shanghai; her experiences in the Hong Kew ghetto; her experiences with the Jewish community there; her memories of attacks by United States airplanes; meeting her husband; working at the US Army post exchange after the war ended; immigrating to the United States in 1948 with her husband; and her family life in Cleveland, OH and San Francisco, CA.

Oral history interview with Marita J. Berg

Oral History

Marita Berg, born in 1941 in Leipzig, Germany, describes her mother, who was Jewish, and her father, who was a German gentile and a Communist in the resistance; the deportation of her maternal grandmother and aunt to Auschwitz, where they were murdered; surviving the war with her mother because a German soldier who was involved in the deportation of her grandmother and aunt agreed not to deport them if her mother would have sexual relations with him; the separation of her parents and not living with her mother for a time; living in East Germany after the war with her father; being taken in at one point by a family friend and living in an orphanage for a short time; moving to West Germany to live with her mother; living in West Germany until the mid-1980s, after which she married a Jewish American; her thoughts on the ambivalence or denial by Jews of their Jewish identity; self-identifying as a Jew; and the antisemitism in post-war Germany.

Oral history interview with Polly Bergtraun

Oral History

Polly Bergtraun (née Hertz), born in April 1925 in the Hague, Netherlands, describes her parents Alexander Leopold Hertz and Yoland Sophia (Snow); her older sister (Hella) and her twin sister (Dolly); life before the war; attending a private school; being assimilated, nonobservant Jews; rarely confronting antisemitism; trying to get visas to the United States; the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1940; having to billet two German officers in their home; being forced from their home and moved to less comfortable quarters; the rise of antisemitism; having to attend a rundown Jewish school and the disappearance of Jewish students over time; her family separating and going into hiding in 1942 under the protection of various Dutch families; spending three years with one family and moving to Bussum, Netherlands with them; reuniting after liberation with her mother and older sister; the death of her twin sister in Auschwitz; getting a job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; immigrating with her mother to the United States; arriving in New York, NY and moving to San Francisco, CA; her mother's return to the Netherlands; getting married to Eric Bergtraun; having two children; her life in San Francisco; and reconnecting with her Jewish faith.

Oral history interview with Gary Bigus

Oral History

Gerhard "Gary" Bigus, born on October 7, 1924 in Berlin, Germany, describes his parents, who were considered stateless; his half-brother Willie; his childhood in Berlin; the clothing shop his father owned and ran; being well-informed about politics as a child; the onset of antisemitic persecution in Germany and the boycotts of the Jewish shops; his memories of Kristallnacht; the attempts of his father and family to flee Germany in 1939; procuring boat tickets to Shanghai, China; the train and boat trips to Shanghai; his life in the Japanese Quarter; his job and the living conditions there; the émigré culture of which he was a part; the death of his father; his and his mother's attempts to learn the fate of family members after the war; his immigration first to Israel in 1949 and then to the United States in 1958; and his life, family, and work in California.

Oral history interview with Eva Boros

Oral History

Eva Boros, born in 1925, describes her childhood in a small Czechoslovakian town on the Slovak/Hungarian border, which by 1938 was under Hungarian rule; her father being taken for forced labor and his death in 1940; her grief after losing her father; her experiences in the ghetto of Solosz (Solosh), where she and her family were taken in April 1944; being transported to Auschwitz after one month in the ghetto; her experiences while in Auschwitz; being moved with her sisters to Germany to work at an airplane factory; the death of her older sister after their liberation; surviving the war along with her younger sister; meeting her husband after the war; their immigration to Australia in 1950; her wish to live in the United States and immigrating to the US in 1952 when she was pregnant with twins; being joined by husband almost a year after she arrived in the US; the death of one of the twins to cancer in 1986; and the difficulties of losing a child.

Oral history interview with Eva K. Breyer

Oral History

Eva Breyer, born on August 18, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her childhood in Budapest; her parents' conversion to Catholicism; her Catholic upbringing; antisemitism in Hungary; the bombing of Hungary in 1941; her father's forced labor service; the increasing anti-Jewish legislation; the Nazi invasion of Hungary; how her family was forced to move to a Jewish house; her memories of the actions of the Arrow Cross and police in 1944; her protection by the Catholic Church from roundups; her time hiding in a hospital and an orphanage; her memories of raids; her family's forced move to the ghetto; her memories of Nazi and Soviet army fighting in Budapest; her family members' fates; the Russian occupation and subsequent rapes; her life during the Russian occupation; the Hungarian uprising in 1956; her escape to Austria and immigration to the United States; and her identity as a Catholic.

Oral history interview with Frank J. Catz

Oral History

Frank J. Catz, born February 15, 1919 in Holland, Netherlands, discusses his childhood in Rotterdam, Netherlands; his parents, James and Louise Catz; his older brother Hans and younger brother Theo; being brought up without religion but knowing he was Jewish; hearing on the radio about events in Germany in the mid-1930s; his experiences in boarding school in Switzerland; going into the Dutch Army in January 1939; his decision to transfer to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in 1939, where he would be able to leave the army and work; his life and work for the family spice business; learning of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands; being drafted to serve in the Dutch East Indies Army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941; becoming a prisoner of war in 1942 and being sent to Japan, where he spent several years in prisoner-of-war camps in Nagasaki and Fukuoka; returning to the Netherlands after his liberation and the end of the war; learning about his family's experiences under occupation and of his parents' deaths in Auschwitz; his immigration to the United States in 1948; his marriage; moving with his family to San Francisco, CA; his family and career; and his widowhood and remarriage.

Oral history interview with Ken Colvin

Oral History

Ken Colvin (né Cohn), born in 1924 in San Francisco, CA, describes his experiences with antisemitism; deciding to change his name from Cohn to Colvin; his older brother's experiences with antisemitism in the army; joining the army in 1943; going to Europe in 1945; being assigned to the 3rd Army, 515th Medical Clearing Company to set up emergency medical treatment in liberated camps; attending to the former camp prisoners; entering eight camps, including Ebensee, Hemar, Oberhausen, Altmunster, Hohenfels, and Ranshofen; feeling that he bore witness to the horror that was done; the terrible scenes he saw which stay with him; trying to treat disease; and writing a book about his experiences for his grandchildren.

Oral history interview with R. Bruce Deam

Oral History

Bruce Deam, born on July 7, 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, describes his childhood; his Jewish friends; attending a military academy in Northern Illinois that is now closed; hearing from his Jewish friends in the early 1930s about their families' experiences in Europe; volunteering for the Merchant Marines in February 1944, but being simultaneously drafted by the Army; being married at the time; not being released from the draft board to go to the Merchant Marines; being sent to Texas for training at Ft. Hood; being trained as a radio operator and rifleman; being sent to Europe; encountering many battles with his unit; fighting in the Battle of the Bulge on December 16, 1944; his thoughts on the comparison of US troops to German troops; going on to a town in Northern Czechoslovakia, near the German border; his captain learning that 30-70 female prisoners had recently been killed and buried and the captain making the local people in the town dig up the bodies and move them to the sides of a road; how the captain forced the towns people to look at the dead women and then give them proper burials; occupying the town of Gangkofen, Germany, where they set up a guard around the perimeter; training and relaxing Gangkofen until they were allowed to go back to the US; training to go to Japan, but not going because the war ended and he was released; working as a reporter and writer for newspapers; working later on as a public affairs officer for NASA; and his life in retirement.

Oral history interview with Henry Deutsch

Oral History

Henry Deutsch (né Heinrich Yuri Deutsch), born on May 28, 1919 in Vienna, Austria, describes living in a wealthy family with a mother and three brothers (Arthur, Vera, and Herbert); his father, who was an heir to a textile business that had been passed on in his family for several generations; taking responsibility for the family business when his father died; his mother, Vilma, who was an owner of a club (the club featured the card game bridge, and his mother was a very good bridge player); being raised a secular Jew and being proud to be Austrian; experiencing antisemitism as a child, particularly in the scouts; his thoughts on the differences between patriotism and nationalism; partaking in several violent protests in support of Austria’s freedom from the Nazi regime; the Anschluss in 1938 and beginning to fear for his life; witnessing more open antisemitism in Vienna; Nazi troops ransacking their home; attempting to flee to Hungary, United States, and Uruguay along with his mother and being rejected; the arrest and imprisonment of two of his siblings, Vera and Arthur; booking transport with his mother to Panama; staying in Panama, getting a job, and making a decent living; his mother, who started a restaurant in Panama; learning Spanish and Yiddish; going to Chicago, IL after the war and reuniting with his brother Arthur; and moving to California.

Oral history interview with Miriam Drejer

Oral History

Miriam Lisbet Drejer (née Lisbeth Kaufman), born on May 26, 1923 in Vienna, Austria, describes her father Alfred Kaufmann, who was a jeweler and radio-store owner; her mother Ella Politzer; living a privileged life before the war; being brought up in an upper-class family and attending synagogue two times each week as a social function; the Christian socialists coming into power in 1933 and seeing the first signs of antisemitism in Vienna; anti-Jewish laws; the Anschluss; being taken to the Gestapo for sitting on a bench; seeing the movie, “I Accuse” in 1934 and deciding to join a Zionist youth group; immigrating to Israel (then Palestine) in 1938; her brother Kurt joining her there in 1939; getting married to a man from the English Army and having two children; the deportation of her father to Dachau, which he was able to leave because he had a visa to go to Shanghai, China; her mother staying in Austria to take care of her grandmother and her deportation to Minske, Belarus, where she died; reconnecting with her father in 1945, which led her to leave Israel; and taking her two children to the United States where she remarried.

Oral history interview with Gerhard Ewer

Oral History

Gerhard Ewer, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, describes his childhood; his father Hamen, who was a physician; his mother Hatric, who was Christian and also a physician; his family’s move to eastern Berlin when he was a child; his father's death in 1928; his memories of antisemitism during his childhood and discovering that he was half-Jewish; the conflicts that arose because his father was Jewish and his mother was Christian and from a family of German nationalists; his mother's near loss of her job because of her marriage to a Jewish man, even though he was deceased; immigrating to England in April 1939; being sent to Canada where he was held in an internment camp from July 1940 to November 1941; his life in Canada after the war; and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Lenci Farkas

Oral History

Lenci Farkas (née Zisovits), born in 1922, describes her experiences after April 1944, when she was taken with her family to a ghetto near her home town of Korolevo (then Hungary, now Ukraine); being transported to Auschwitz a month later; her experiences at Auschwitz; being witness to atrocities and enduring terrible conditions; the death march from Auschwitz, from which she escaped with two of her sisters; working for the Russians until the war ended; getting married and having her first child; fleeing from Communist rule to the United States in 1949; returning to her home town a few years before the interview; and the troubling emotions the visit inspired in her.

Oral history interview with Mary Feldbrill

Oral History

Mary Feldbrill describes her childhood in Czestochowa, Poland; her father , who was owned a successful bakery; her early memories of antisemitism; the Nazi occupation; the creation of the ghetto; being separated from her parents and sent to forced labor in a factory; witnessing the murder of Jews without work assignments; the deportation of her parents to Treblinka, where they perished; being relocated to a small ghetto and witnessing the shooting massacres of 15 Jews; the liberation of Czestochowa by Soviet troops; getting married after the war in 1945 to a man she met in one of the factories; moving to Israel in 1949; their difficulties in Israel; their immigration to Canada in the 1950s; her brother’s immigration to the United States; and moving to the US in 1956.

Oral history interview with Livia Grunfeld

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Grunfeld's childhood in Micula in Romanian-controlled Transylvania, and the events that transpired after Transylvania was ceded to Hungary in 1940 and one of her brothers was deported to a labor camp. Ms. Grunfeld describes living in Budapest while the city was under German occupation, hiding her identity in order to work, and the false papers and assistance she received from Raoul Wallenberg and Swedish diplomats. She discusses working as a nurse in the Budapest ghetto, her liberation, being reunited with her sister and brother, her marriage and the years she and her husband spent trying to leave Communist Romania. Ms. Grunfeld describes the family's immigration to the United States in 1964, their life in New York, the tragic loss of her older son, and her move to California in 1979.

Oral history interview with Erna Harding

Oral History

Erna Harding discusses her childhood in Gera, Thuringia, Germany; her family's experiences during World War I; her nursing education, specializing in pediatric ICU; her move to Berlin from 1929-1939; her marriage, the birth of her son, and her divorce; the deaths of her parents; hearing about Kristallnacht in November 1938; sending her son on a Kindertransport to London in January 1939; her escape a month later; working as a housemaid and then as a nurse in England during the war years; her successful immigration to the United States in 1947; and her life and post-experiences.

Oral history interview with Aby Hervy

Oral History

Aby Hervy describes his chidhood in Tartu, Estonia; his service in the Estonian army; his medical education; his marriage in 1939; the Soviet occupation of Estonia; his son's birth in 1941; his move to Liepaja, Latvia to join his wife; being forced into the ghetto by the Nazis; leaving his son on the steps of an orphanage to save him; his infant son's death; his work in the ghetto; the ghetto's liquidation in 1942; his deportation with his wife to Kaiserwald concentration camp near Riga, Latvia; the forced labor he performed; his wife's death from illness; his own illness and being hidden by the camp doctor; the liquidation of Kaiserwald; his time in two labor camps and Sachsenhausen in Germany; his extreme illness in the last days of the war; being saved by inmates at a French prison camp; his time in a hospital in Hanover and Labro, Sweden to recuperate; his time with a Swedish family for more than two years; his work in a library at a children's hospital; him immigration to the United States in 1948; his remarriage; moving to Montreal, Canada and then to California; the death of his wife; and his ongoing assistance to family members still living in Estonia.

Oral history interview with Walter L. Heyman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Manny Hirschel

Oral History

Manny Hirschel describes his childhood in Berlin, Germany; Kristallnacht; hiding in a relative's apartment; fleeing with his family to Shanghai, China; his experiences in Shanghai; moving with his family to the Shanghai ghetto in the Hongkou district in 1943; training as a baker's apprentice after the war ended; his difficulties leaving Shanghai; his immigration to the United States in 1947; his arrival in San Francisco; joining the United States Army in 1952; and his time serving in Germany as a translator.

Oral history interview with Rose Horowitz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Yvonne Jacoby and Martin Jacoby

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stephan K.

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mimi Kanner

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kanner's childhood in Chelm, Poland; her memories of anti-Semitism; the bombings of Zamosc during the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939; her family's flight east; the family being sent to Siberia in 1941 to work in forced labor camps; their arduous journey home; her plan to immigrate to Israel to live on a kibbutz, which was forbidden by her father; her family surviving the post-war "train pogroms," in which returning Jews were thrown from trains; her experiences in an Austrian displaced persons camp; and her immigration to the United States in 1951.

Oral history interview with Jutta Kaplan

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kaplan's childhood in Koenigsburg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia); her education; her memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, when her father's business was destroyed; being sent by her mother to England in August 1939; living and working in Yorkshire until 1942, when she moved to London where she remained until the end of the war; meeting her husband in London; learning after the war about the fate of her mother; and emigrating to the United States in 1947.

Oral history interview with Wilfred Kay

Oral History

Oral history interview with David Keller

Oral History

Oral history interview with Luba Keller

Oral History

Luba Keller describes her childhood in Szydlowiec, Poland; her memories of the Nazi invasion; the persecution the Jewish community endured; the mass deportations of the Jewish community in 1941; the conditions at the munitions factory where she was sent; her time in camps in Czestochowa and Feldafing, a subcamp of Dachau; her deporation to Bergen-Belsen; her experiences on a death march to Allach; her liberartion; the fate of her parents and sisters, who all perished; her immigration to the United States with her husband in 1947; their work and family life in New York City and California; and their reluctance to discuss their Holocaust experiences with their children.

Oral history interview with Harry Kennedy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Roza Kent

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kent's childhood in a town near Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), the invasion first by Russians and then by Germans in 1939, the family's forced move to a ghetto, and their escape from execution by hiding in a basement. Ms. Kent describes obtaining false identity papers, the escape of some family members to Palestine, the liquidation of the ghetto, and the murder of its remaining occupants. She discusses both betrayal and rescue by Polish friends, her escape to the woods and hiding with partisans, and her marriage to a Polish Catholic partisan. Ms. Kent describes being arrested by the Gestapo; convincing a Gestapo guard to free her; finding shelter with a Gentile woman and giving birth; living under difficult conditions, the town's liberation by Russian troops in August 1944 and the conscription of her husband into the Soviet army. She discusses her husband's return, their experiences living under Russian domination, their escape to Germany where they lived in displaced persons camps for three years, and their immigration to the United States in 1948.

Oral history interview with Rose Lesser

Oral History

Rose Lesser describes her childhood in Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland); her memories of moving to an all-Jewish school in 1933; her memories of Kristallnacht; her father's arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald; his release; her family's flight to Shanghai, China; being strip-searched by the Germans; their arrival in Shanghai; the conditions in the Hong Kew ghetto; the hardships her family endured; the arrival of Americans to assist the refugees in 1946; her first marriage; her immigration to San Francisco; her husband's death; her remarriage; the birth of her two children; and learning of her grandparents' deaths at Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.

Oral history interview with Eva Leveton

Oral History

Oral history interview with David Levy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zdenka Levy

Oral History

Zdenka Levy describes her childhood in Zagreb, Yugoslavia; the Nazi invasion of Zagreb in April 1941; the institution of antisemitic laws; her family's move to the ghetto; how they obtained false identity papers and moved to Trieste, Italy in 1942; how their false identities were discovered; being taken to Ferramonte concentration camp; her liberation by British troops in 1944; her family's immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Harry Lewin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Margot Lobree

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Lobree's childhood in Frankfurt, Germany, being forced to leave school in 1934 because she was Jewish, her brother's immigration to Palestine after Kristallnacht in November 1938, and her parents' decision to send her on the Kindertransport. Ms. Lobree describes leaving Germany for England on the Kindertransport, her difficult experiences there, her eventual immigration to the United States in 1944, and the loss of her family members, including her mother, during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Felice Massie

Oral History

Felice Massie describes her childhood in Szczuczyn, Poland; her time in medical school in France and the antisemitism she experienced there; her three years living in Palestine from 1935-3938; her immigration to the United States in 1938; her experiences as an immigrant in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s; the fates of family members who remained in Poland, including those deported to Auschwitz, those who survived in hiding, and those who were members of the resistance; the letters she received from relatives in Poland about the treatment of Jews there; and her guilt and grief surrounding her survival and the effects on her children.

Oral history interview with Dennis Miklos

Oral History

Dennis Miklos describes his childhood in Ribinice, Slovakia; the family's deportation to the ghetto at Ungvar, Hungary (Uzhhorod, Ukraine) in April 1944; and their deportation to Auschwitz in June 1944. He describes his transfer, with his father, to Buchenwald, where Mr. Miklos was placed in a children's barrack. He describes his father's death the day before liberation in 1945, and life in Slovakia after the war, as well as his immigration to Canada in 1950 and his subsequent immigration to the United States. He describes the parallels between his life during the Holocaust and Elie Wiesel's.

Oral history interview with Sam Moreno

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Moreno's childhood in Paris, France; the changes he observed after the German occupation began; his time in the Jewish Boy Scouts (Eclaireurs Israélites de France - E.I.F.); and his father's deportation to Drancy and subsequently to Auschwitz. He describes avoiding arrest in 1942, living in hiding in a cellar with his mother and brother, acquiring false papers, and living in hiding on a farm in a town near Strasbourg. Mr. Moreno describes liberation by the American Army and returning to Paris to find his mother. He describes emigrating to the United States in 1948, his service in the army in Germany during the Korean War, and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with John Odenheimer

Oral History

John Odenheimer discusses his early years in Karlsruhe, Germany; his memories of Kristallnacht; immigrating to the Philippines in 1939; his experiences and work in Manila; immigrating to the United States in 1945; working aboard a Navy ship; his difficulties with immigration papers; his life in San Francisco, CA after the war.

Oral history interview with Irene O'Ryan

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. O'Ryan's childhood in Stanisławów, Poland (now Stanislav, Ukraine); the occupation of the town by Russian troops in 1939, and by Hungarian troops in 1941. Ms. O'Ryan describes being forced with her family into the Jewish ghetto and a terrifying incident in which the entire Jewish population was taken to the cemetery where one-third were shot and killed. She discusses the forced registration of Jews in March 1942, the deportation and death of her mother, and her decision to leave her sister and go into hiding. Ms. O'Ryan describes passing as a non-Jew with false identity papers, and working at a farm in Germany where she was liberated in 1945. She discusses her experiences in displaced persons camps and her immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Elisabeth Pavel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herman Pepper

Oral History

The interview describes Dr. Pepper's childhood in Vienna, Austria, his graduation from medical school in 1936, his internship, and his transfer to a Jewish hospital in March 1938 after the Anschluss. Dr. Pepper describes his arrest by the Gestapo and release on the condition that he emigrate, his family's efforts to obtain visas, and a marriage of convenience he entered into in order to enable his wife to emigrate with him. He discusses the experiences of his brother who immigrated to Palestine and joined the Palestine Brigade. Dr. Pepper describes his immigration to the United States, the difficulties of adjusting, his divorce, his attempts to join the United States military, and settling in California where he practiced obstetrics.

Oral history interview with Ruth Philip

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Philip's childhood in Cologne, Germany, her memories of antisemitic experiences after the Nazi regime rose to power in 1933, her father's arrest and imprisonment in Dachau, and the family's decision to leave Germany. Ms. Philip discusses the family's move to England, their wait for visas to the United States, her brother's enlistment in the British Army, and her family's succesful immigration to the United States in 1940.

Oral history interview with Gunther G. Rechnitz

Oral History

Gunther Rechnitz discusses his childhood in Ratibor, Germany (now Raciborz, Poland); the onset of anti-Jewish discrimination in Germany; his sister's flight on a Kindertransport to Great Britain; his father's arrest after Kristallnacht in November 1938; the family's flight to Shanghai; attending school in Shanghai and learning Chinese; working in a bicycle shop; his memories of his time there as being positive; his sister's move to Shanghai to be with the family in 1945; the family's immigration to the United States in 1947; his marriage and family life.

Oral history interview with Jenny Reynard

Oral History

Jenny Reynard discusses her childhood in Velke Kapusany, Czechoslovakia (later Hungary, now Slovakia); her religious upbringing; her public school education; her family life; the changes she experienced beginning in 1943; her father's work in Hungarian labor battalions; the arrival of the Germans in 1944; her family's deportation in early 1944 to a ghetto in Husak, Slovakia; their subsequent transfer by cattle car to Auschwitz; the selection process; being separated, along with her older sister, from her mother and sister; her experiences in Auschwitz; the food; the work; the help she gave to her sister; being transferred to another labor camp where she and her sister worked in a munitions factory; the work she performed there; being transferred to Terezin; being liberated by the Soviet army; her life in Czechoslovakia after the war; moving to Israel in 1949; immigrating to the United States in 1954; her life in America.

Oral history interview with Jeannette Ringold

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Ringold's young childhood in Amsterdam, Holland; and her experiences as a very young child in hiding beginning in 1942. Ms. Ringold describes her and her brother being hidden separately; her parents' failed attempt at flight to Belgium, France and Switzerland; and their deportation to Dachau and Auschwitz, where they perished. Ms. Ringold discusses the families that sheltered her in nine different hiding places during the war years; her flight with one of the families to a small village; and their liberation by Canadian troops. She describes her reunion with an uncle and her grandmother; being adopted by her uncle and aunt and raised by them; and emigrating with them to the United States in 1954 at the age of fourteen. Ms. Ringold discusses her education, marriage and career in the United States.

Oral history interview with Helen Rogers

Oral History

Helen Rogers describes her childhood in Vienna, Austria; the antisemitism she experienced as a child; Kristallnacht; her journey on the Kindertransport to Great Britain; the different homes she lived in; her feelings of impermanence and the challenges she faced; her immigration to the United States; and her reunion with her parents.

Oral history interview with Norman Rogers

Oral History

Norman Rogers discusses his youth in Vienna, Austria; the antisemitism he experienced in school; his service in the Austrian army; his arrest and imprisonment by the Gestapo after three months of service; his near-completion of medical school; his immigration to the United States in 1940 through London, England; marrying; his service in the United States Army during the war; the completion of his degree at the University of Oregon; moving to California in 1952; his life there.

Oral history interview with John Roscoe

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Roscoe's childhood in New York; his education, and his involvement in a civilian intelligence-gathering group working for the American War Department. Mr. Roscoe describes his experiences in 1944-1945 in Europe, his impressions of Buchenwald concentration camp, and the emotional impact of what he witnessed there.

Oral history interview with Heinz Ross

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helga Ross

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stefi Ruth Rudolph

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Steirman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Steirman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Kurt Stern

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edith Stevens

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Stevens's childhood in Berlin, Germany; her father's loss of job after the Nazi's rise to power and having to leave public school in 1935; and her memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938. Ms. Stevens describes her trip on the Kindertransport to England in August 1939; living with a Jewish family in Lester; her parents' flight from Berlin in December 1939; and leaving England to join her parents in July 1940. She discusses adapting to life in the United States, her studies, marriage and family life; and a return trip to Germany in 1992 with other survivors who were in Jewish schools during the war.

Oral history interview with Kurt Stevens

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Stone

Oral History

Oral history interview with Judith Szpiro

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hannah Tal

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Tanner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bela Vidor

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Vidor's young childhood in Budapest, Hungary, where he was sent to live hidden with his grandmother and great aunt while his mother was in labor camps during World War II. Mr. Vidor describes his father's conscription into forced labor in Russia, and the family's reunion in 1946. He describes the voyage the family made to Israel on a British ship bound for Cyprus, the difficulties of the trip, and their arrival in Israel in May 1948. Mr. Vidor discusses his career as a dental technician in Israel and his immigration to the United States in 1961.

Oral history interview with Joseph P. Webber

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Weiss

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edith Wellisch

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Willdorf

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eddy Wynschenk

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lore Zanders

Oral History

Lore Zanders discusses her childhood in an assimilated Jewish family in Arnsberg, Germany; the boycott of her father's store in 1933; her father's death in 1935; her brother's departure to Holland in 1936 because of her mother's uneasiness with the antisemitic climate in Germany; her experiences in a Jewish boarding school in Cologne in 1937; her departure for England on a Kindertransport to Manchester, England; her experiences in England; her mother remarrying in 1939, moving to Switzerland, and immigrating to Ecuador; the fate of her brother, who was arrested in Amsterdam and died in Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941; reuniting with her mother in 1943; the difficult journey to Argentina, including an overland crossing of the Andes, to Valpairaso, Chile and finally to Ecuador; marrying in 1944; the birth of her three children; her family's move to Santiago, Chile; immigrating to the United States in 1963.

Oral history interview with Margot Zeidler

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Zeidler's childhood in Braunschweig, Germany; her memories of antisemitism; her family's decision that the children leave Germany; and her escape to Italy in 1936. Ms. Zeidler describes the effect that the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938 had on her family and her father's arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald concentration camp. She discusses her eventual arrival in South Africa, where she stayed until 1962, and her immigration to the United States. Ms. Zeidler relates the fate of her family, all of whom perished during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Hanna Zeidler-Cowan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lore Zutraun

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ann Abrams

Oral History

Ann Abrams (née Hertha Fromme), born November 17, 1913 in Hamburg, Germany, describes her childhood in Hamburg, Germany; her parents, William and Hanchen Fromme; pre-war antisemitism; Kristallnacht; her father's arrest and the Aryanization of his pharmaceutical business; her mother's disappearance during Kristallnacht and never hearing from her again; fleeing to Holland with her family; living in Holland for two years; getting married; moving to Shanghai, China in 1939; marrying her husband; daily life in Shanghai; opening businesses in Shanghai, including a tailor and dress shop as well as a jewelry store; immigrating to the United States; and settling in San Francisco, CA, where they opened a jewelry store and eventually a restaurant.

Oral history interview with Eva Angress

Oral History

Eva Angress was born on August 6, 1921, in Berlin, Germany. Her father, George Kantorowsky, was a rabbi. After Kristallnacht, in December 1938, Rabbi Kantorowsky was arrested and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp for six weeks. The family made plans to immigrate to Shanghai, where her paternal uncle lived. Eva and her parents left Berlin in 1940 on a train that went through Russia to Manchuria and then were on a ship for two days before they arrived in Shanghai. Ms. Angress had a brother, whose name was not on the visa; he remained behind in Germany and perished from pneumonia in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943. The family remained in Shanghai during the war years. Eva met her husband Robert in Shanghai. In 1949, the family successfully immigrated to the United States.

Oral history interview with Werner Barasch

Oral History

Werner Barasch, born in May 1919 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), describes growing up in a wealthy Jewish family; his father (Arthur), who had founded the first mass merchandising firm in Eastern Germany; moving to Berlin with his family circa 1921; living in a beautiful house and receiving a great education; participating in a Jewish boy scout organization; celebrating Jewish holidays with his extended family and occasionally attending synagogue; going to Italy in 1933 to continue his education; graduating in 1938; the arrests of Jews in Italy; going to Switzerland; his mother and sister who were in the United States, while his father was still in Berlin; going to Paris, France in July 1939; passing a teacher's certificate course; the beginning of the war; being arrested and sent to camp Ruchard for six months; the liquidation of the camp and fleeing to Southern France; going to Marseille in the hopes of getting a visa; bring rounded up by the Germans; being sent to camp Les Milles; deciding to escape when he heard they would be transferred to camp Gurs; escaping over the walls and crossing the border into Switzerland on a bike; being arrested in Geneva and extradited to France; being sent to camp Argeles in Southern France near the Pyrenees Mountains; escaping from the camp and walking to Spain; being arrested and sent to prison for 100 days; being sent to camp Miranda; conditions in the camp; working many different jobs in the camp, including the censorship office and being able to feed information to the British; being released in 1943; working in an office organizing papers for prisoners and trying to get his visa for the United States; being refused many times because his story was not credible and he ended up staying in Spain for two years after his release from Miranda; securing his visa and sailing from Lisbon, Portugal to the US in 1945; landing in Philadelphia, PA on VE day; staying with his mother; his sister who became a psychiatrist in California; learning that his father died in Sachsenhausen in 1945; attending UC Berkeley, MIT, and Colorado University; working as a chemist in California; never getting married; his mother’s death at age 92; crediting his survival throughout the war to his attitude of never giving up and not accepting being a victim; his lack of emotional attachment to his experiences; his fluency in German, English, Italian, French, and Spanish; and the book he wrote about his experiences (he shares photographs from his book at the end of the interview; the book is titled “Survivor: autobiographical fragments, 1938-1946”).

Oral history interview with Thomas Batanides

Oral History

Thomas Batanides describes his childhood in a religious Greek orthodox family; speaking only Greek at home; his eight siblings; being drafted into the war in 1942 when he was 19 years old; being trained in Oregon and then going to Colorado; serving in the 104th Infantry Division of the United States Army; being sent to France in 1944 and entering Normandy 90 days after D-Day; going to Belgium, Poland, and Germany; first hearing of the concentration and death camps through word-of-mouth about two weeks before they entered one; entering Nordhausen concentration camp and helping to liberate the prisoners; the horrific conditions he witnessed; how this experience affected him; and finally speaking with the rest of his infantry division at a reunion in 1982 about what they had witnessed in the camp.

Oral history interview with Susanne M Batzdorff

Oral History

Susanne Beeberstein Batzdorff, born September 25, 1921 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), describes her childhood in Breslau; her family, including her father (Hans Beeberstein), mother (Urna Stein Beeberstein), and brother (Ernie, born in Novmeber 1922); the family’s religious practices; attending synagogue on the High Holidays; attending a non-Jewish public school; her memories of the Nazi Party’s ascent to power in 1933; the effects of anti-Jewish laws; the antisemitism she experienced in school; songs from the Nazi movement that were taught in music class; her parents' medical practice and the loss of their medical licenses due to antisemitic laws; her father's immigration to the United States in 1938; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; learning that her father had obtained visas for his family and their immigration to the US in February 1939; her experiences in New York City as a new immigrant; her education, marriage, family; her career as a librarian; traveled to Germany and Israel; how it was emotionally difficult to return to Germany; moving to California in 1981; her five grandchildren; and authoring several books, including a memoir, as well as books of fiction and poetry.

Oral history interview with Eric Bergtraun

Oral History

Eric Bergtraun (né Erich Maximilian Bergtraun), born on February 21, 1925 in Vienna, Austria, describes his parents Edmund Leon Bergtraun and Lilly Wagner Bergtraun; his father’s service in WWI with the Austrian army and being wounded three times during the war; his father’s work as an insurance broker; his mother, who was a devoted Catholic before she met his father, and converted to Judaism after they fell in love; experiencing minimal antisemitism before Hitler marched into Austria; his memories of the Nazis entering Vienna; the roundups of Jews; his father’s decision to leave Austria; Kristallnacht, during which the Germans came to their house to arrest his father, who was hiding elsewhere; leaving for Milan, Italy before traveling to Shanghai, China; the welcoming Jewish community in Milan; their arrival in Shanghai and staying with a nice Russian-Jewish family while his parents got settled; how the Jewish community in Shanghai would help new émigrés by buying houses and renting them to refugees; his family doing better financially in Shanghai than they had in Vienna; living in a ghetto in Shanghai and being part of an underground boy scouts group; the arrival of the Americans; getting a job at a generator testing center at the Shanghai Airport; immigrating to the United States and living in San Francisco, CA, and his parents’ arrival in the US soon after him; going to school at night to get his GED; meeting his wife, Polly, at an international club; and his two children.

Oral history interview with Marie Brandstetter

Oral History

Marie Brandstetter (née Mania Zelwer), born on January 20, 1933 in Kalisz, Poland, describes her childhood; her father (Haim Luzer Zelwer), mother (Eta Messer), younger brother (Sam), and half sister (Helene Litwak Gordon); her family's bus company; being raised Orthodox; hearing about the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939; her father being drafted into the Polish army (and his death in Treblinka in August 1942); fleeing Kalisz with her mother, brother, and aunt to Russia; their travels through the Soviet Union; her mother's work in a labor camp in Siberia; reuniting with an aunt and uncle in 1944; her mother's illness; her separation from her mother when she and her brother were sent to live on a kibbutz; their reunion at a displaced persons camp; being upset by her mother's remarriage; her decision to immigrate to Palestine; her experiences on the ship "Exodus" and her participation in onboard resistance; her return to her family in the displaced persons camps; immigrating to San Francisco, CA in 1950 with her brother; living with her brother in Homewood Terrace, a Jewish orphanage; getting married in 1953; reuniting with her mother, step-father, and half-sister shortly before her marriage in 1953; and publishing her memoir in 1995 (title: "Mania's angel : my life story").

Oral history interview with Rose Curczinski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Max Drimmer and Herman Shine

Oral History

Max Drimmer and Herman Shine discuss being childhood friends in Berlin, Germany prior to the war; how they were both taken to Sachsenhausen and kept from 1939 to 1942, after which they were moved to Auschwitz, where they worked building a new camp nearby; camp life and the brutality in the camps; Mr. Drimmer’s work at the crematoriums; witnessing a quashed riot of the prisoners in Sachsenhausen; escaping together from Auschwitz in 1944 with the help of Joseph Runner, a German engineer; hiding together in a hole dug up in a warehouse and then escaping at night, walking 18 km to Joseph's house; hiding in Mr. Runner’s barn for three and a half months; moving to Joseph's father-in-law's house in January 1945; going to Gliwice and hiding in the home of Mr. Shine's future wife, Marion Shlesinger, whom he met while working for the camp; hiding in the home of a German millionaire before being liberated by the Russians on January 27, 1945; returning to Gliwice and seeing the aftermath of the Russian soldiers; Mr. Drimmer reuniting with his future wife Helga; having a dual wedding on February 17, 1946; going to San Francisco, CA; their return to Auschwitz in 1989 in order to find Joseph Runner; their feelings that they had extreme good fortune to survive the camps; and the fates of their families.

Oral history interview with Helen Farkas

Oral History

Helen Farkas (née Safar), born on October 18, 1920 in Satu Mare, Romania, describes her childhood; her father, who owned a shoe store; learning Jewish traditions at home; having minimal experience with antisemitism before the war; being engaged in 1944; her fiancé being sent to do forced labor; being forced into a ghetto in Hungary with her parents, two sisters, and a brother; being sent to Auschwitz in May 1944; the selections upon arrival; her experiences at Auschwitz and on a death march in January 1945 to Pustków, Silesia, where she, along with her sisters, were able to escape and stay hidden until the war ended; her post-war experiences; learning of the deaths of many family members; being reunited with her fiancé Jose Farkas and their marriage; their flight to a displaced persons (DP) camp in Linz, Austria to escape the communist regime in Romania; their immigration to the United States; settling in San Francisco, CA; operating a business; having a daughter; her commitment to Holocaust education and her membership in the Survivors Speakers Bureau of the Holocaust Center of Northern California (a program that sends Holocaust survivors to speak in schools); and her book of memoirs, "Remember the Holocaust", which was published in 1995.

Oral history interview with Peter Feistman

Oral History

Peter Feistman, born on September 26, 1923 in Munich, Germany, describes being the only child of two wealthy Jewish parents, Fritz F. Feistman and Else Kahn Feistman, who owned a successful business supplying hops to local breweries; becoming aware of Nazi activity and talking at family dinners about leaving Germany; his Aunt Marie committing suicide after the German doctor to whom she was married died; his memories of Kristallnacht and how it was the catalyst for his decisions to leave Germany; going to England in July 1939 on a Kindertransport; his parents fleeing soon after; attending school at the McCooley House located in Sussex, England; being moved to another school called Athelstaan; being sent to a camp on the Isle of Man when he turned 16 years old; remaining in the camp for one month and then being transferred to Camp Hay in Australia; being misclassified as a German POW; being provided only the minimum care required by the Red Cross for housing POWs; living in the camp for three years; the local Quakers bringing in food and clothing; an English major discovering the misclassification in 1943 and giving the detainees various options; deciding to enlist in the Australian Army; going to New York, NY after the war and reuniting with his parents; joining his parents in the hotel business; briefly returning to Munich in 1952 for restitution purposes; traveling to Peru, where he met his wife Karen circa 1948; his daughter; moving to California in 1954; buying and operating a hotel in Watsonville, CA until 1979; and settling in Santa Cruz, CA in 1979.

Oral history interview with Peter Flusser

Oral History

Peter Flusser, born on July 3, 1930 in Vienna, Austria, discusses attending a private school in Vienna until the age of seven; his non-practicing Jewish father, who worked in textiles before the war, and his Protestant mother, who held a high position at a bank; being raised as a Lutheran and never considering himself Jewish; his entire family leaving Vienna before the Anschluss and moving to Prague (his family still had Czech citizenship); his parent’s separation and going with his mother to Shanghai, China, where a cousin already lived; his younger sister Susan, who was two years old at the time, staying in Prague with his father; passing through Paris, Colombo, Saigon, and Hong Kong on the way to Shanghai; his father and sister arriving in Shanghai in 1941; his mother remarrying; the Japanese requiring his family to move to the Hongkou district ghetto; attending St. Francis Xavier College outside the district; how his home was destroyed during an American bombing of the nearby Japanese Naval Headquarters; being injured in the rubble and having his leg amputated after gangrene developed from his wounds; applying for a visa to the United States at the end of the war; traveling to the US in 1947; his mother, sister, and stepfather living in a German displaced persons camp until their US Visa application was approved a year later; his father and his new wife settling in Vancouver; attending Columbia University until 1955 when his future wife convinced him to finish his studies in Kansas; finishing his doctorate; having four children; and teaching mathematics at a private college in Kansas.

Oral history interview with Anna Marie Fratini

Oral History

Anna Marie Fratini, born on March 31, 1933 in Vienna, Austria, describes her father, who was Austrian Catholic, and her mother, who was Austrian Jewish; living in Vienna, Austria; her parents’ friendship with Sigmund Freud, who lived nearby; how she and her mother were supposed to be deported along with other Jews on several occasions, but were saved by the efforts of a lawyer who was a friend of the family and a Nazi (this Nazi lawyer committed suicide after the war); growing up without any declared religious identity, though she was baptized at age eight in an attempt by her parents to protect her; her older brother who also survived because he was sent to England; her father, who was drafted in to the army and sent to the Eastern front, where he was captured by the Russians and was a POW; and her father’s escape from the Russian POW camp and his return home to Austria.

Oral history interview with Leah Jacob Garrick

Oral History

Leah Jacob Garrick, born on July 9, 1928 in Shanghai, China, describes her grandparents, who had fled Iraq in the late 1800s and settled in Shanghai; her parents, who were both British citizens when they met in China; her early home life and schooling; being raised in a Sephardic orthodox home; attending a British school; her memories of her father building a “succah” (a hut built for the Jewish festival of Sukkot); her vivid memories of celebrating Jewish holidays; the Japanese bombings of Shanghai, beginning when she was nine years old; fleeing to Hong Kong with her mother, grandmother, and two siblings; returning to Shanghai; watching bombs hit the water at the docks of Shanghai; the terrible famine that had struck the Chinese during the war, and her family’s attempts to help as many refugees as they possibly could; her father being permitted to continue his work during the war; her family not being forced to wear armbands because they were still seen as British citizens; her memories of the Pearl Harbor attack; helping her parents care for her siblings; the bombing of her father’s factory multiple times; being constantly afraid of the air raids; having mixed feelings when the Americans began bombing Shanghai; graduating with her sister from a Jewish school in 1944; the occupation of peoples’ homes by Japanese soldiers; being sent with her sister in 1947 to an orthodox school in Crown Heights, New York; her sister getting married and moving to San Francisco, CA; finding a job at a Jewish organization; her parents and brother fleeing the communists in Shanghai in 1949 and going to Hong Kong; her mother and brother moving to the US, while her father built another factory in Macau, China; moving to San Francisco in 1955 and working for Jewish organizations there; her father’s move to California in 1969; visiting her childhood homes in Shanghai in 1987; going to a 1998 reunion in Israel; retiring in 2001; her belief that God had a hand in sending Jews to Shanghai; being proud to be Jewish; and how the events of September 11, 2001 scare her greatly.

Oral history interview with Harold Gordon

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Gordon's childhood in Grodno, Poland, and the occupation of the town first by Russian, then by Nazi troops. Mr. Gordon describes his deportation, along with his family, to a series of concentration camps. Mr. Gordon discusses traumatic experiences related to his father's attempt to save him, witnessing his father's death, being left alone at the age of 13 and his experiences in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Dachau. Mr. Gordon describes a death march from Dachau, and his liberation. Mr. Gordon is the author of a book about his experiences, "The Last Sunrise."

Oral history interview with Agnes Grossinger

Oral History

Agnes Grossinger discusses her childhood in Carei, Romania; the changes that occurred as control over the area fell to different countries; the anti-Jewish restrictions she encountered; the town's annexation by Hungary in 1944, followed shortly after by increasing restrictions under the fascist administration; being forced with her family into a ghetto apartment; her father and brother being sent to forced labor; the occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany; the deportations that took place; hiding with her mother in Budapest during the Soviet Army advance; taking refuge in houses protected by the Swiss Consulate, including the Glass House (Uveghaz), a refuge for Jews in Budapest; their liberation in January 1945, and their return to Carei in April 1945; her marriage and family life; and her immigration to the United States in 1962.

Oral history interview with Harry Hankin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helga Henius

Oral History

Oral history interview with Morris Isenberg

Oral History

Dr Morris Isenberg discusses his childhood in Boston, Massachusetts; his attendance at Harvard University; traveling to Germany in September 1925 to attend Berlin University's medical school; his impressions of Germany during the Weimar period and during the rize of Nazism; marrying and having a child in Germany; avoiding mistreatment by hiding his religion; returning with his son to the United States in 1935, while his wife remained in Germany; and establishing a successful psychiatric practice in New York.

Oral history interview with John Kaufmann

Oral History

John Kaufmann describes his childhood in Vienna, Austria; his Jewish mother and Catholic father's marriage; his lack of religious upbringing early in life; his baptism in 1934; his memories of the Anschluss in March 1938; the changes he experienced in school; leaving Germany for England on a Kindertransport; going to a Catholic school in Edinburgh, Scotland; his voyage to the United States on the S.S. Samaria; being drafted into the United States Navy; and his wartime experiences in Japan.

Oral history interview with Jacob Kerbel

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Kerbel's childhood in Ostrowiec, Poland, the invasion by Nazi German troops, the traumatic murder of his father, and the family's forced move to the ghetto. Mr. Kerbel describes his separation from his family, all of whom perished, and his transport to Auschwitz. He describes his experiences in Auschwitz, the terrible conditions and the cruelties he witnessed. Mr. Kerbel discusses enduring a death march to Mauthausen concentration camp, then to Gusen concentration camp, the extreme hunger he experienced, and his liberation by American troops in May 1945. He describes his return to Poland to properly bury his father, his time in a displaced persons camp in Landsberg, Germany where he met and married his wife, his application for visas to both Israel and the United States, their successful emigration in 1949 to the United States, and their settling in Oakland, California.

Oral history interview with Arthur Kerdeman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leya Koltun

Oral History

Oral history interview with Agnes Kovatz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edward Kranzler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gloria Lyon

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Lyon's childhood in Nagy-Bereg, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), the annexation by Hungary of the area where she lived in 1938, the onset of antisemitic laws, and by 1944, being forced to wear a yellow star and sit in back of the classroom. Ms. Lyon describes the deportation of all Jews in her village to Auschwitz, the selection process, and her experiences in Birkenau where she worked with her mother, younger sister, aunt and cousins. She describes being selected for the gas chambers and her escape from this fate. Ms. Lyon discusses her transfer to Bergen-Belsen, digging mass graves, being sent to Braunschweig, Bendorf, Hamburg and Hannover to perform various kinds of labor, and her experiences in Ravensbruck concentration camp. She describes her liberation by the Swedish Red Cross in the White Buses Rescue operation headed by Count Bernadotte. Ms. Lyon discusses living in Sweden, where she recuperated, emigrating to the United States in 1947 to live with her aunt, and her marriage and family life. She discusses her work speaking to school groups about her experiences during the Holocaust, a documentary about her, and her autobiography.

Oral history interview with Gloria Lyon

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Lyon's childhood in Nagy-Bereg, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine), the annexation by Hungary of the area where she lived in 1938, the onset of antisemitic laws, and by 1944, being forced to wear a yellow star and sit in back of the classroom. Ms. Lyon describes the deportation of all Jews in her village to Auschwitz, the selection process, and her experiences in Birkenau where she worked with her mother, younger sister, aunt and cousins. She describes being selected for the gas chambers and her escape from this fate. Ms. Lyon discusses her transfer to Bergen-Belsen, digging mass graves, being sent to Braunschweig, Bendorf, Hamburg and Hannover to perform various kinds of labor, and her experiences in Ravensbruck concentration camp. She describes her liberation by the Swedish Red Cross in the White Buses Rescue operation headed by Count Bernadotte. Ms. Lyon discusses living in Sweden, where she recuperated, emigrating to the United States in 1947 to live with her aunt, and her marriage and family life. She discusses her work speaking to school groups about her experiences during the Holocaust, a documentary about her, and her autobiography.

Oral history interview with Jacques Marchand

Oral History

Jacques Marchand describes his family's decision to flee Germany for Luxembourg in 1932; his childhood experiences in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; his family's decision to immigrate to the United States in 1938; and his entire family's flight from Germany to escape Nazi persecution.

Oral history interview with Halina Mindelzun

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Mindelzun's childhood and early adult years in Warsaw, Poland; the beginning of the war in September 1939; and her flight with her husband and child to the Soviet Union. She describes their arrest due to their Polish citizenship, their deportation to a small village in the Soviet province of Komi, their assignment to a labor camp, and their experiences there. She describes the breakup of the camp in 1942 and her family's subsequent journey to Syktyvkar, capital of Komi, as well as their life there. Ms. Mindelzun discusses the family's move to a city in the Ukraine in 1943; their immigration to Paris, France in 1946; their subsequent immigration to the United States; and their life in San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Edward Picciotto

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Picciotto's childhood in Aleppo, Syria, his experiences with antisemitism, and his education in a French school. He describes fleeing Aleppo after witnessing a murder for Haifa, Israel, his work assisting Jews escape Europe from 1932-1936, his arrest for smuggling Jews, his release, and his work with Jewish organizations. Mr. Picciotto describes moving to Kobe, Japan in 1936, then to Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1938, and his experiences with antisemitism among members of the military and Nazi sympathizers in Argentina. He discusses the situation in post-World War II Argentina, the influx of Nazis fleeing Europe and attempts by Nazi supporters to hide their pro-Nazi past. Mr. Picciotto describes his moves to Milan, Italy, Mexico, England, Spain and the Phillipines before settling in San Francisco in 1959.

Oral history interview with Herbert Schick

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anita Steinacher

Oral History

Oral history interview with Michael Thaler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Loni Wilk

Oral History

Oral history interview with Regina Zelker

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anna Marie Levy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ernst Mehlman

Oral History

Ernst Mehlman describes his childhood in Belz, Poland (Ukraine) and Vienna, Austria; his education; and his apprenticeship and work as a tailor; the Anschluss; his deportation to a labor camp in Dietersberg, Austria in 1938; his escape to Switzerland that same year; moving to France to join his brother in 1939; being interned in France; immigrating to the United States in 1940; his service in the US Army; his civilian work in Heidelberg, Germany; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Leo Weingarten

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Weingarten's childhood in Vienna, Austria; his experiences with antisemitism; and leaving Austria for Denmark on a Kindertransport. Mr. Weingarten describes his life in Denmark, working on a farm; his flight to Holland, France and then on a ship to Beirut from where he traveled to Palestine, where he was reunited with his parents. He describes his work with the British Army, his experiences with antisemitism of Arab refugees, joining the Israeli army, and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Pavel Albert

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irwin Barany

Oral History

Oral history interview with Isaak Beygel

Oral History

Isaak Beygel, born in June 1922 in Lyakhivtsi, Ukraine, describes his hometown, which was a small predominantly Jewish village; his parents who were very religious; the difficulties for Jews in the 1920s when going to synagogue was considered anti-Soviet; his memories of the collectivization of farms against the will of farmers, many of whom were imprisoned and had their property taken away; his uncle, Yakov Beygel, who was imprisoned in 1937; studying at Kiev University until he had to stop when the war started; being called to the army in 1942 and serving until 1947; attending the tank institute in 1943 to become a tank operator; going through Belarus and Poland and being wounded near Berlin, Germany; returning to Lyakhivtsi after the war and finding empty streets and burned houses where his parents and grandparents once lived; the killing of all the Jews of Lyakhivtsi, including his parents and grandparents; learning about the massacre of Babi Yar from a friend in Kiev; his experiences in his army battalion while moving through Poland; experiencing more antisemitism after the war than before; and feeling safer practicing Judaism in the United States.

Oral history interview with Maurice Blane

Oral History

Maurice Blane was born in 1922 in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France to Polish-born immigrants who stayed in France after World War I. At 14 years old, Mr. Blane began an apprenticeship as a baker and pastry chef, and later worked as cook in Kijon. In 1942, Mr. Blane joined the French army, but was picked up by Gestapo and sent to Drancy concentration camp near Paris. In 1943 he was deported to Bruna Monowitz, a subcamp of Auschwitz, and later to the concentration camp Dora. Mr. Blane was on death march to Germany in February of 1945, where he was liberated by American troops. Mr. Blane returned to France, learned of his parents and siblings' deaths, and immigrated to the United States in 1947. He continued to work as a baker and pastry chef, and owned shops in New Jersey and San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Roger Boas

Oral History

Roger Boas discusses his childhood and young adulthood in San Francisco, California; his experiences with antisemitism in Europe while travelling there in 1935; being drafted; serving in the Fourth Armored Division of the Third Army; his wartime experiences; landing in Normandy shortly after D-Day; his personal dealings with General George S. Patton; the battles in Lorraine, France; the horror he felt when confronted with the conditions at Ohrdruf concentration camp; his encounters with Polish and Jewish camp survivors; his postwar experiences, including his automobile dealership, his political involvement, and his family life.

Oral history interview with Philippe Bourgois

Oral History

Philippe Bourgois discusses his father’s childhood in Paris; the invasion of France by Nazi Germany and the family’s flight to Nice; his father’s attempt to evade labor service; his father’s deportation to Auschwitz; his transfer to the I.G. Farben factory just outside of Aushwitz, where he did not encounter extermination activities; his father’s association with resistance forces in the camp; his escape in June 1944, the day after D-Day, from Auschwitz; his father’s return to Paris by train, where he remained hidden until the end of the war; his father’s belief that his story was of lesser importance than those who suffered more; his father’s work with social justice; his own studies, as an anthropologist, of present injustices.

Oral history interview with Gerard Caspary

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Caspary's comfortable childhood in Frankfurt, Germany, and his early memories of the Nazi ascension to power, including the boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933. Mr. Caspary recalls the family's move to France to escape the antisemitic Nazi regime, and his early life and schooling there. He describes the effect of the enforcement of antisemitic laws in France, including the wearing of the yellow star, and the dismay his teacher expressed at these events. Mr. Caspary talks about the round-up of the Jews in Paris, and, later that year, in October, of his parents' deportation to Drancy concentration camp. He discusses his experiences being hidden by neighbors and friends, first in Paris and then in Versailles. Mr. Caspary, whose parents never returned, recalls being sent for after the war ended by a relative in St. Louis, Missouri, his education in the United States, and his career as a professor at the University of California Berkeley.

Oral history interview with Raisa Fainghersh

Oral History

Oral history interview with Robert Feher

Oral History

Oral history interview with George Field

Oral History

George Field was born was born George Feldmaier on June 21, 1922 in Budapest, Hungary to Alader Fedlmaier, a textile merchant, and Charlotte Katz Feldmaier, a housewife. Mrs. Feldmaier died when Mr. Field was 17, and Mr. Field's father was soon after drafted into the Hungarian army. Mr. Field was captured in 1943 and served in a German labor camp, a Russian labor camp, and a German engineering firm until his liberation. After the war ended, Mr. Field lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany. He met and married his wife, Julia Adler, a survivor of Auschwitz, while still in Germany, and they immigrated to the United States in 1948. The Fields had two sons. The family settled first in New York, and in 1952 moved to Sonoma County, California where the Fields operated a small poultry farm. They purchased a delicatessen in San Francisco, Label's, which they operated from 1957 to 1961. Mr. Field attended San Francisco State University, and obtained a real estate broker's license. He formed T&R Investments and was actively involved in real estate investments in San Francisco. His wife Julia died in 1997 and Mr. Field retired a few years later.

Oral history interview with Julia Field

Oral History

Oral history interview with David Galant

Oral History

David Galant was born in Paris, France. Towards the end of 1941, Mr. Galant and his family fled Paris for Nimes, France where they remained until 1943. While trying to escape approaching Nazi occupation, the Galant family was trapped and captured. The family was sent first to Drancy concentration camp, and then to Auschwitz, where Mr. Galant was separated from all family members except his brother. Mr. Galant worked at the sub-camp Monowitz (Buna) in a factory until January 1945, when he was sent on a death march to Dora concentration camp. He was then transferred to Nordhausen, where he was liberated by American and Belgian troops in April 1945. In June 1946, Mr. Galant immigrated to the United States, joining family members who lived in Oakland, California. Mr. Galant continues to live in the San Francisco Bay area.

Oral history interview with Solly Ganor

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stanley Grant

Oral History

Oral history interview with Elly Hearns

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anna Hollander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ella Jacobs

Oral History

Ella Jacobs describes her childhood in Kopashnovo (then Czechoslovakia, now Ukraine), the invasion of Hungarian and then German Nazis, the escape of her brother to Russia, her father being sent to forced labor, and the deportation of all town members other than wives and mothers. Ms. Jacobs describes encounters with partisans, the deportation of her mother to Auschwitz, hiding in the woods for nine months with nine other children, and their struggles and difficulties with hunger and survival. Ms. Jacobs describes liberation by the Russian's troops, returning to their home town to find nothing and no-one remaining, escaping to the Ukraine and then to Prague, where Ms. Jacobs was reunited with her brother, and later her sister who has survived Auschwitz. Ms. Jacobs discusses her marriage in 1946, she and her husband's immigration to the United States in 1949, their three children, and her emotional struggles regarding her experiences during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Stephen Kalmar

Oral History

Oral history interview with Henry Kruger

Oral History

Henry Kruger describes his childhood in Wolomin, Poland; his awareness of antisemitism; his memories of German Jewish refugees arriving in nearby Warsaw in the late 1930s; the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939; the destruction of his home; the death of his mother; his memories of German and Polish abuses; his decision to escape to Russia; his flight to the border town of Malkinia; his arrival and life in Bialystok; his return home in February 1940; his experiences under German occupation; his relocation to the ghetto; how he worked to build railroad tracks to Treblinka in 1942; his work with the Polish underground making false identity cards; his successful escape from the ghetto using a false identity; learning of his family's deportation to Treblinka; a second escape using a false identity; his time hiding in forests and on farms; how he obtained a travel passport in December 1944; how he travelled to Hannover to work as a Polish laborer; his liberation in Hannover by British troops; his experiences in a displaced persons camp; and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Helen Lazar

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eric Livingston

Oral History

Eric Livingston describes his childhood in Elberfeld, Germany; his military service in World War I, where he was awarded the Iron Cross; his businesses and factories in Wuppertal; marrying in 1925; the births of his daughters in 1927 and 1933; his early impressions of Hitler and the Nazi party; the implementation of anti-Jewish laws; the effects of institutionalized antisemitism on his businesses; the increasing restrictions imposed on Jews in Germany; his business travels during this period; deciding to emigrate; the efforts he made in order to leave Germany, including selling his some of his businesses; applying for visas with his family to the United States in 1937; the events of Kristallnacht; getting arrested on November 9, 1938; being imprisoned in Dachau; getting released in December 1938; receiving his visa for the United States; his experiences in San Francisco; his financial problems; difficulties he faced in receiving his belongings; receiving assistance from the Hebrew Free Loan Association; unsuccessfully attempting to obtain a visa for his mother, who perished; the death of his mother-in-law by suicide; the fate of other family members; the fate of his factories and businesses in Germany; the final sale of the businesses; the reparations he received from the German government; his successful pest control company in San Francisco; being involved with several local charitable organizations and ventures.

Oral history interview with Jan Marinessen

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Marinessen's family and adolescence in Groningen, Holland. Mr. Marinessen describes his family's activities in the underground movement during the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, and the family being forced into hiding in order to avoid arrest. He describes the liberation of the town by Canadian armed forces in May 1945. Mr. Marinessen discusses his military service in 1948 in Indonesia, and his continuing commitment to social justice as a result of his experiences during World War II and while in Indonesia.

Oral history interview with Odette Meyers

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Meyer's childhood in Paris, France; her parents' resistance activities; her experiences with antisemitism; and the cruelty of the other children in her school. She describes a raid in July 1942 during which her family was hidden by non-Jews and her subsequent life in hiding in a village in the Vendee with other Jewish children. She describes at length her life with her rescuer, including her conversion to Catholicism and her interior struggles with religious identity. Ms. Meyers discusses the actions of the Vichy government as well as the larger political context of wartime events. She describes her return to Paris with her mother in October 1944 and V-E Day in 1945, as well as postwar conditions in Paris. She describes a summer camp she attended after the war for the children of prisoners of war (POWs) that mimicked concentration camp conditions. She describes her immigration to the United States in 1949, her life in America, and how the Holocaust affected her in later life.

Oral history interview with Nathan Moncharsh

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Moncharsh's childhood in Chmielnik and Lodz, Poland; his experiences in Lodz ghetto beginning in December 1939; and the ways he and his family survived there. He describes many of the deportations, including liquidation of hospitals; the work he performed as a bricklayer building factories; the rations; observations of Chaim Rumkowski; and the continual influx of Jews from the west beginning in 1940. He discusses the deaths of family members from illness and starvation, his deportation on the final train from Lodz to Auschwitz in September 1944, and the transportation in cattle cars. He describes his time in Auschwitz, from the initial selection performed by Josef Mengele to the work he performed as a bricklayer as well as his responsibility for the soup pots. Mr. Moncharsh describes the changes in the camp that began in November 1944, the bombings, and the death march to Flossenburg in February 1945. He describes a subsequent death march to Dachau, liberation by the Americans in April 1945, and his health problems and malnourishment after liberation. He discusses his immigration to the United States in 1949 and his life in San Francisco after the war.

Oral history interview with Yefim Nenaydock

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Nenaydock's childhood in Kiev and Odessa, Ukraine; his education in Vinnytisa, Ukraine; and his service in the army at the beginning of World War II. He describes forced labor, working as a carpenter for the Gestapo in Vinnytsia; his escape from this situation; and his subsequent life both in hiding and in the army. He describes the relations he and his family had with non-Jews before and after the war and the increase in antisemitism between the two periods.

Oral history interview with Regina Oppenheimer

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Oppenheimer's childhood in Krasnovce, escaping an abusive stepmother to live in an orphange in 1933, and leaving the orphanage after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in 1939. Ms. Oppenheimer describes her deportation to and experiences in Theresienstadt (Terezin), Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, and in a labor camp in Kristianstadt, Silesia; and her liberation by American troops in May 1945.

Oral history interview with Alan Peters

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ester Roter

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Samuel

Oral History

Bernard Samuel discusses his childhood in Cherna, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); his family life; his religious upbringing; his education in a yeshiva and at a trade school; the changes he experienced when Hungary occupied his region in early 1943; the effects of the new antisemitic laws on both the Jewish and non-Jewish population; his decision to move to Romania; his service in a labor brigade in the Hungarian Army; the conditions; the fairness of the Czech officers; learning about the death camps in Poland; traveling and being hidden by local people; his return to Cherna; liberation of the region by the Soviet Army; his experiences post-liberation, including his near-arrest by the Soviets, his flight to Romania, his work as a guide for refugees, and his decision to go to the displaced persons camps in Germany; his immigration to the United States in 1948; his life in America; the fates of other family members.

Oral history interview with Miriam Samuel

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Samuel's childhood in a small town in Czechoslovakia, her early experiences of antisemitism, and the fears engendered by the rise of Hitler to power in Germany. Ms. Samuel describes the occupation of their family home by Hungarian troops in 1939, the loss of the family business, and the family's arrest. She describes a three-week journey, where she endured brutal ill treatment by Ukranian police, and witnessed rapes, murders of the elderly and children, the shooting of men, and beatings. Ms. Samuel describes life in an unidentified ghetto where starvation and illness were rampant, and where her brother died of malnourishment. She discusses evading a round up of Jews for execution, hiding in the countryside with her mother, being caught and escaping again to Hungary where they lived and worked in relative safety until 1944 when she was deported to Auschwitz. Ms. Samuel describes her experiences in Auschwitz, working for an SS officer, and the death march she endured when the Nazi trooops moved the prisoners ahead of the approaching Russian Army to a military camp, where they were abandoned and then liberated by American soldiers in May 1945. She describes her return to Czechoslovakia, her marriage to a fellow survivor, their stays in displaced persons camps in Romania and Germany and the conditions there, and her immigration to the United States in February 1948.

Oral history interview with Miriam Samuel

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Samuel's childhood in a small town in Czechoslovakia, her early experiences of antisemitism, and the fears engendered by the rise of Hitler to power in Germany. Ms. Samuel describes the occupation of their family home by Hungarian troops in 1939, the loss of the family business, and the family's arrest. She describes a three-week journey, where she endured brutal ill treatment by Ukranian police, and witnessed rapes, murders of the elderly and children, the shooting of men, and beatings. Ms. Samuel describes life in an unidentified ghetto where starvation and illness were rampant, and where her brother died of malnourishment. She discusses evading a round up of Jews for execution, hiding in the countryside with her mother, being caught and escaping again to Hungary where they lived and worked in relative safety until 1944 when she was deported to Auschwitz. Ms. Samuel describes her experiences in Auschwitz, working for an SS officer, and the death march she endured when the Nazi trooops moved the prisoners ahead of the approaching Russian Army to a military camp, where they were abandoned and then liberated by American soldiers in May 1945. She describes her return to Czechoslovakia, her marriage to a fellow survivor, their stays in displaced persons camps in Romania and Germany and the conditions there, and her immigration to the United States in February 1948.

Oral history interview with Eva Scott

Oral History

Oral history interview with Miriam Michaelis Skopf

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sabina Spektor

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Spektor's childhood in Krizhopol, Ukraine, her memories of learning about the war in June 1941, and her family's evacuation of their home in the face of the approaching Germany army. Ms. Spektor describes arriving at another town, Zhabokritch, and being warned by a Nazi officer that there would be an "aktion" the next day and learning later that much of the Jewish population of that town was murdered. She describes returning to Krizhopol and being moved with her family into the Jewish ghetto that had been established there. Ms. Spektor discusses her experiences in the ghetto, including a description of daily life there and the difficulties the population endured. She describes witnessing Jews from Bessarabia being herded toward the Bug river and later drowned. Ms. Spektor describes her life after liberation and her immigration to the United States in 1992 because of the rising antisemitism in Kishinev, where she lived.

Oral history interview with John Steiner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Simon Stemer

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Stemer's childhood in Krasnystaw, Poland; his memories of the outbreak of war in September 1939 and the flight of many Jews to Russia; and his experiences living in Vilna with his sister. Mr. Stemer describes his experiences in the Ludmir ghetto (now Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Ukraine), escaping capture through the war years, and hiding in bunkers and sheds in Russia and Poland. Mr. Stemer talks about the fate of his family, who were deported to Sobibor in 1942. He discusses his life after liberation by the Russians, trying to avoid conscription in the Soviet Army and working in the black market, his immigration to the United States in 1947, and his life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Herbert Weber

Oral History

Oral history interview with Maryanne Wynschenk

Oral History

Oral history interview with Klaudia Zotman

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Zotman describes her childhood in Domanevka and Odessa, in the Ukraine; her memories of the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941; and the invasion by Nazi troops of Odessa. Ms. Zotman describes the order for all Jews to register and then report to the city jail in October 1941, and an incident in men were forced into a building which was set on fire. She describes the family's release and their order to report to Transnistria, an area under Romanian rule, in January 1942. Ms. Zotman describes her experiences in Bogdanovka and other concentration camps and in the ghetto of Domanevka, and the cruelties and atrocities that she witnessed, including the murder of gypsies. She discusses her family's liberatin in March 1944 and their return to Odessa in April 1944; her marriage in 1948 and her family; and her immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Berthold Zanders

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rabbi Theodore Alexander

Oral History

Rabbi Theodore (Ted) Alexander discusses his childhood in Berlin, Germany; his family life and Jewish education; his memories of anti-Semitism and Hitler's rise to power; the boycott of Jewish stores; the family's attempt failed attempts to leave Germany; Kristallnacht; hiding with his father to evade capture and arrest; removing the Torahs from the burned synagogue; the family's flight to Shanghai; his work with E.D. Sasson Banking Company and his social life in Shanghai; the resumption of his rabbinical studies and his ordination in 1943; the Japanese occupation of Shanghai;the family's move to the Hong Kew ghetto; memories of General Ghoya, who oversaw the ghetto; the end of the war; his marriage; obtaining an affidavit from his sister who had been living in Chicago; deciding with his wife to leave for the United States; arriving in San Francisco in 1947 on Yom Kippur, which he celebrated using the Torah he had rescued from the Berlin synagogue;his work and family life; serving as a rabbi part-time in several Bay Area congregations; becoming a full time rabbi at Congregation B'nai Emunah in 1968; the emigration of his parents; his political activism and his work in the civil rights movement.

Oral history interview with Ingrid Bayne

Oral History

Ingrid Bayne discusses her early childhood in Bremen, Germany; her parents' inter-religious marriage; her family's initial reluctance to emigrate; their later decision to flee; their unsuccessful attempts to emigrate; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; her maternal grandfather's arrest and incarceration in Buchenwald; her grandparents' flight to Belgium; life in Bremen during the war; the deportation of Jewish people to camps; the bombings and destruction; her father being sent to a work camp in 1944; her mother being called for deportation to Theresienstadt in February 1945; the ending of the war; the family's attempt to rebuild their lives; her immigration to the United States; her return to Bremen to assist her father; her return to the United States; her career as a flight attendant; her marriage and daughter; the deaths of 65 relatives on her mother's side during the Holocaust, including her grandfather.

Oral history interview with Yanina Cywinska

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gisela Hirschberger

Oral History

Gisela Hirschberger discusses her childhood in Dresden, Germany; her memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, including her father's arrest and imprisonment in Dachau concentration camp; her flight to Essex, England in May 1939, where she taught and cared for a child in the family who provided her with refuge; having to find a new home; journeying to Cornwall where she was forced to attend a tribunal in which she was determined to be an enemy alien; being sent to a prison camp in the Isle of Man; her experiences in the prison camp; receiving packages from her parents, which ceased after their deportation to Auschwitz; the general good treatment she received; her release in 1942; her war-time work in a munitions factory; her engagement and marriage with a fellow survivor and artist; and their immigration to the United States in 1947; receiving family belongings that survived the Dresden bombings and were found by a friend of her parents 30 years after the war.

Oral history interview with Joanna Hochman

Oral History

The interview describes Mrs. Hochman's family and childhood in Vienna, Austria, her increasing awareness of antisemitism and fears for her family's future, and her brother's successful emigration with his family to Argentina. Mrs. Hochman discusses the Anschluss of March 1938, her attempts to find means to emigrate, her success in obtaining visas for Uruguay, and the events of Kristallancht and her husband's arrest. Mrs. Hochman describes the release of her husband, the complicated financial arrangements they needed to make to emigrate, and their eventual immigration to Uruguay in January 1939. Mrs. Hochman discusses the fate of her mother, who refused to leave Europe and was eventually transported to Auschwitz, where she perished. She describes her life in Uruguay, her family life, including marriages, divorces, remarriages and children, her relocation to Argentina, where she lived for 22 years, and her eventual immigration to the United States in 1961.

Oral history interview with George Janiszewski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Paul Klein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Izu Klepper

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Klepper's childhood in Jassy (Iasi), Romania and in Transnistria; his memories of the enforcement of anti-Jewish laws in 1940, including the wearing of the Star of David; being forced to leave public school; the terrible pogrom that occurred in June 1941; witnessing his father's beating; the shooting of Jewish civilians; his memories of air attacks; Romanian police taking Jewish teenage boys from their homes and putting them on death trains, so called that because their occupants were sealed in cattle cars, and transported back and forth across the country, during exceedingly hot weather with neither water nor ventilation; his desire to leave Romania after the war; the lengthy waiting period of 15 years; the deaths of his parents and twin brother in the interim; and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Heinz Kochman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gerda Levy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mark Linenthal

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Loewe

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arnold Marque & Johanna Marque

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lea Mendelovitz

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Mendelovitz's childhood in Montreuil, France and the family's flight to southern France in 1941. She describes her family's false papers, the time she spent living in hiding with a family on a farm in 1942, and their mistreatment of her. She describes her family's reunion in Lyon in 1943 as well as her father's arrest by the Gestapo in 1944 and his subsequent escape. Ms. Mendelovitz describes the family's return to Montreuil, encounters with concentration camp survivors, and her life after the war. Due to her young age at the time, many of Ms. Mendelovitz's recollections about larger events were related to her by family members, but she also describes personal events and her emotions from the wartime era.

Oral history interview with Trude Meyer

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Meyer's childhood in Fronhausen, Germany, including her experiences with antisemitism and the Nuremberg Laws. She describes her family's deportation to Riga ghetto in Latvia in 1941, their subsequent transport to Kaiserwald concentration camp in 1943, and their experiences in these places. She discusses her sister's and her transfer to an AEG factory in Torun, Poland in 1944; their liberation by the Russians in 1945; her health issues after liberation; the fates of other family members; and their immigration to the United States in 1946.

Oral history interview with Gaby Neely

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Oplatka

Oral History

Oral history interview with Camille Papp

Oral History

Camille Papp describes her childhood in Budapest and Paris; the death of her father; her family's reduced and insecure circumstances after this; the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940; moving with her sister to a series of boarding schools; the danger and fear she, her mother and her sister experienced; her mother's remarriage after the war; the family's immigration to Venezuela and Colombia; a brief return to Hungary; her fiance's escape from Hungary; their return to Venezuela; her search for her sister who had disappeared after immigrating to the United States; and her immigration to the United States in 1964.

Oral history interview with Ralph Samuel

Oral History

Ralph Samuel describes his childhood in Dresden, Germany; the antisemitism he experienced; his mother's decision to send him away on Kindertransport in January 1939; the family he lived with in London; his reunion with his mother; his move to a foster home in Guildford later that year; his experiences there; his move with his mother to a seperate house in 1943; his immigration to the United Staets in 1958; and his lfe in post-war America.

Oral history interview with Edith Schiftan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tom Slanger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Trudy Small

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hurst Sommer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arthur Weil

Oral History

Oral history interview with Frank Weinberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Erna Wertheim

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rachel Zolowicz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Martin Becker

Oral History

Martin Becker discusses his childhood in Lodz, Poland; his attendance at the American University in Cairo, Egypt; his move to the United States to attend Carleton College in Northfield, MN; his separation from his father and two brothers, who remained in Poland and later perished in Treblinka; his mother’s visit from Poland in 1939 and her inability to return; his military service in the United States Army, where he received intelligence training at Camp Ritchie, MD; his experiences as a liberator of Dachau concentration camp; being an interrogator of German war crimes suspects; his encounter with Nissei combat troops at Dachau; reflecting on the role of the Kapos during the Holocaust and the genocide in Yugoslavia.

Oral history interview with Oskar Klausenstock

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arnold Marque

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Marque's childhood in Crailsheim and Tubingen, Germany, his experiences with antisemitism and the Nuremberg Laws, and the feelings of isolation that resulted. He describes his apprenticeship in Basel, Switzerland and the experience of hearing about Kristallnacht while there. Mr. Marque discusses his time in a Swiss labor camp, which he refers to as Schellenberg, in 1941 and 1942, as well as another camp near Champery. He discusses the fates of his other family members in Germany.

Oral history interview with Johanna Marque

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Marque's childhood in Basel, Switzerland; Besancon, France; and Obernkirchen, Germany and the effects that antisemitism and the Nuremberg Laws had on her family's life, including the isolation she experienced. She describes seeing the Hitler Youth and surviving in hiding, living in France, and often crossing the border between Switzerland and France to avoid deportation. Ms. Marque describes the fates of her family members during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Samuel Oliner

Oral History

Samuel Oliner describes his childhood in Gorlitza, Poland, his memories antisemitism after the Nazi invasion of Poland; his family's forcible relocation to a ghetto in Bobowa; conditions in the ghetto; roundups of Jewish citizens in August 1942; his escape from the ghetto; the fate of his family who perished; disguising his identity; living as a Polish Catholic; working in a Nazi labor camp; escaping and returning to the family he had been living with; his liberation by the Soviets; the execution of Nazis; the rape of Polish women he observed; escaping Poland for Czechoslovakia; his time in a displaced persons camp in 1945; his immigration to England; and his immigration to the United States in 1950.

Oral history interview with Liese Rosenblum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Barbara Shilo

Oral History

Oral history interview with Dina Angress

Oral History

Dina Angress was born Dina Dassberg on October 12, 1928 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Holland). Dina and her two younger sisters were raised in an Orthodox Jewish family. In 1939 Dina’s father was called to the front line to serve as a medic. Around October 1941, the Jews were forced to relocate to the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam. Dina and her mother baked fish cakes for the Jews who had been imprisoned; once this became known they were forced into hiding. After the war, Dina was reunited with her family. For a time, Dina worked in a home for children whose parents had been murdered in concentration camps; she also spent some time obtaining her certification to become a maternity nurse. Dina married in 1947 and in 1948, she and her husband moved to the United States

Oral history interview with Fred Angress

Oral History

Fred Angress discusses his childhood in Berlin, Germany; his father's decision to leave Germany; the family's travels to England in the late 1930s; their eventual relocation to Amsterdam, Holland; his experiences in Holland during its occupation by Nazi Germany; his memories of early roundups of Jews in Amsterdam; his work with the Jewish Council in Amsterdam; going into hiding in 1943 for 19 months until the liberation of Holland; learning of his father's death in Auschwitz; emigrating to the United States in 1947; his marriage to a woman who had spent the war years in Shanghai; their move to San Francisco; and his family and career.

Oral history interview with Charlotte Baum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alice Calder

Oral History

Alice Calder was born Alice Baruch in 1920, in Hamburg-Altona, Germany. The interview describes Ms. Calder's childhood in Hamburg-Altona, Germany, increasing antisemitism in 1933 and her awareness of it, her reaction to Kristallnacht in 1938, her immigration to England to work as a domestic in 1939, her marriage in 1942, and her immigration to the United States in 1953 with her husband and children. Ms. Calder discusses the fate of numerous members of her family, all of whom perished.

Oral history interview with Dora Cohn

Oral History

Dora Cohn describes her early life in Krakow and Krosno, Poland; her memories of the Nazi invasion in 1939; how her family tried to protect themselves; her family's forced relocation to the Rymanow ghetto; their flight when the Germans arrived; daily life hiding in the forest; her family's decision to return to the ghetto; how her mother was sheltered by a non-Jewish woman; how she was hiding by non-Jewish Poles throughout the war; her family's immigration to Venezuela after the war; and their final settlement in the United States.

Oral history interview with Don Felson

Oral History

Don Felson discusses his childhood in Glubokie, Poland (now Hlybokaye, Belarus); his education; the town in which the family lived; the details of his daily life; the Soviet invasion in 1939; the German invasion in 1941; the changes he observed from 1939 to 1941; his selection for work in a Soviet POW camp; the liquidation of his hometown by the Germans in 1943; his decision to join the partisans with his older brother that year; the sabotages he performed with the partisans; the fates of his parents and other family members; his immigration to the United States in 1945; his life in San Francisco; the businesses he and his brother began; his service in the Korean War; and his life after the war.

Oral history interview with Max Garcia

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Garcia's childhood and family life in Amsterdam, Holland, the family's move to Antwerp, Belgium during the 1930s, and their return to Holland after the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany in June 1939. Mr. Garcia describes antisemitism, Dutch fascism, and the intial arrests of Jewish youth in 1941. He discusses the deportations and the fear that accompanied round-ups of members of the Jewish community, and in particular describes the fate of his sister, who was deported in December 1942 and eventually perished in Auschwitz, and his parents who were deported to Sobibor in July 1943. Mr. Garcia describes going into hiding in January 1943, being caught and shipped first to Westerbork, then to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He discusses his experiences at Auschwitz, his efforts to survive and his assignment to Buna (Monowitz) concentration camp, where Germans were building factories for I.G. Farben. Mr. Garcia discusses his ability to survive the deprivations and horrors of Auschwitz, and credits his friend and mentor Lex Van Veedles, who protected him, with helping him to obtain work details at Auschwitz that would allow him better food and conditions. Mr. Garcia describes being sent to Mauthausen in January 1945 and his experiences there and in Ebensee concentration camp, the hardships he endured, and his liberation by American troops in May 1945. He relates his work as interpreter for the America Army, and his work in the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). Mr. Garcia describes his immigration to the United States, the difficulties in adapting there, his career as an architect, and the prominent role he played in the establishment of the Holocaust Center of Northern California in San Francisco, California. He also discusses his work organizing a 45th anniversary gathering to honor American liberators in 1990.

Oral history interview with Ernest Glaser

Oral History

Oral history interview with Deborah Gubi

Oral History

Deborah Gubi discusses her childhood in Dortmund, Germany and Vienna, Austria; her memories of the Anschluss in March 1938; being expelled from public school; her father's arrest and safe return; the arrests of other men who were deported to Dachau; increasing restrictions; her parents' decision to go into hiding; freezing the family’s assets; harassment by the police; her family's hope that she would be selected for a Kindertransport; fleeing to Palestine in March 1939; leading an austere life in Palestine; working on a kibbutz; marrying a Czech soldier; moving to Czechoslovakia; working with refugees; returning to Israel in 1950; immigrating to the United States with her husband and two sons in 1958; the birth of their third son; and her life and experiences in San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Ed Gustaly

Oral History

Oral history interview with Allan Herskovich

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Herskovich's childhood and family in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where he was one of seven children. Mr. Herskovich describes playing table tennis competitively for Yugoslavia, and traveling to Germany in 1937 where he encountered the antisemitic laws of Nazi Germany. HMr. Herskovich discusses his plans to join the Yugoslavian military, the invasion of Zagreb by Germany which prevented this, and his flight from Yugoslavia. Mr. Herskovich details the various locations where he was incarcerated in Yugoslavia, including Split and the Island of Korcula, his release and move to Italy, his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in a concentration camp in Sicily. Mr. Herksovich describes the humane treatment he received from his Italian guards, and contrasts his experience with that of his sister and father who were transported to Auschwitz and perished there. Mr. Herskovich describes his liberation by American troops, acting as an interpretor for American forces, remaining in Italy for seven years, and his eventual immigration to the United States, first to Nebraska and then to San Francisco, where he settled, met his wife and had a family.

Oral history interview with Beatrice Hirshfeld

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ernie Hollander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Albert Kitmacher

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anita Koralek

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Koralek's childhood in Prague, her memories of antisemitism before Hitler rose to power, and the family's sense of danger once Nazi Germany controlled Prague. Ms. Koralek describes her engagement to be married on the day that Nazi Germany occupied Prague, the flight of her father, mother and sister from Prague, and her attempts to obtain a visa for her new husband and herself. She describes her husband's arrest and release, their success in fleeing to England, and learning of her husband's parents' deportation to Terezin (Theresienstadt) where they perished. Ms. Koralek discusses living in London, England during the war years, and the dangers she faced from air raids.

Oral history interview with Eva Korn

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Korn's childhood in Bratislava, Slovakia; her education; the family visits to family in Vienna, Austria; and the changes that the Anschluss in March 1938 created when travel to Vienna became more difficult and antisemitism more prevalent. Ms. Korn recalls the institution of anti-Jewish laws in 1939, working illegally as a seamstress, and the deportations that began in 1942, including her mother and brother's deportations to Ravensbruck and Sachsenhausen. Ms. Korn describes the false identity papers she was able to obtain, her arrest in January 1945, her transport first to Sered and then Theresienstadt, where she remained until its liberation in May 1945. She describes conditions at Theresienstadt, including typhoid, her return to Bratislava after the war ended, her immigration to Switzerland in 1947 and then to the United States in 1951. Ms. Korn describes her life in the United States, her marriage, and her experiences with reconciliation to heal the trauma of her Holocaust experiences.

Oral history interview with Nelee Langmuir

Oral History

Nelee Langmuir describes her childhood and early school in Paris, France; her memories of the beginning of World War II; the family's flight from Paris to southwest France in May 1940; their return to Paris; the first large mass arrest of Jews on July 16, 1942; how her father hid because he was a Lithuanian refugee and at greater risk; her mother joining her father; how she and her sister stayed with a neighbor; their flight out of Paris; their time in hiding with a French family; their reunion with their parents; being sent back outside the city for safety; and their final reunion with their parents in late 1944.

Oral history interview with Thea Leavitt

Oral History

Thea Leavitt describes her childhood in the Hague, the Netherlands, the growing antisemitism and the dangers to Jews brought by the invasion the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in May 1940. Ms. Leavitt describes the splitting up of her family in August 1942, the assistance of the Dutch underground, and being hidden with her sister in the home of a farming family in Oldebroek. She discusses the liberation of the village where she and her sister were living by Canadians in May 1945, and learning of her parents' deaths in Auschwitz in 1944. Ms. Leavitt describes how the Red Cross with the Joint Distribution Committee arranged for her and her sister to reunite with their mother's sister in San Mateo, and her education, career, marriage and family life in the United States.

Oral history interview with George Leitmann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joseph Likwornik

Oral History

Joseph Likwornik discusses his childhood in a small shtetl in western Poland; the Soviet occupation of the town in 1939; the flight of his father, sisters and one brother to Palestine; the arrest and deportation to Siberia of his other brother; joining the Soviet Communist youth group Komsomol; being trained as projectionist in Lvov; his assignment in Dombrovitz showing Soviet propaganda movies; his experiences after the German invasion; escaping until reaching Ostrogorsk, where he was drafted into the Red Army; his experiences in the Soviet Army; the Battle of Stalingrad; the Soviet Army's pursuit of the Nazi German troops; learning of the fate of Jews in shtetls across Poland; and being in Dresden in May 1945 as the war ended; deserting the Soviet Army in a disguise; arriving at a displaced persons camp in Leibniz, Austria, where he met his wife and had a son; their decision to immigrate to Palestine; their travels through Italy; their decision to instead immigrate to the United States in 1946; their life and businesses in New York; moving to Israel in 1965; returning to the United States permanently in 1978 to be closer to their son; his life and pastimes in California.

Oral history interview with Annie Lowell

Oral History

Oral history interview with David Marvin

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Marvin's experiences in the United States Army as a medical sergeant, in basic training beginning in 1943 and fighting in the European theater in 1945. He describes the the camps his division liberated, including Ohrdruf and Buchenwald, and the displaced persons camps after the war. Mr. Marvin discusses his subsequent work with the Foreign Service.

Oral history interview with Carlos Mendes

Oral History

Carlos Mendes describes his memories of his father's work and the family's life in the foreign service; the events in 1940 that resulted in thousands of visas given to French refugees in defiance of the Portuguese government's policy; the reasons for and consequences of his father's actions, and the loss of his job and status; his pride in his father's work; his own service in the British Army; and the posthumous honors his father received.

Oral history interview with Arnold Millhauser

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Millhauser's childhood in Augsberg, Germany; his life in Pforzheim, Germany; and the changes he experienced in 1933 and 1934. He describes his decision to immigrate in 1934 to Fresno, California, the reasons his parents remained in Germany, and their fates. Mr. Millhauser describes his life in the United States; his Army service from 1942 to 1945, including time at Camp Richie in Maryland; and his trip back to Augsberg in 1987.

Oral history interview with Annemarie Mundstock

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Mundstock's childhood in Berlin Germany; her Orthodox Jewish upbringing; and her early experiences with antisemitism. She describes seeing Hitler's speeches, an encounter with Joseph Goebbels, and her decision to leave Germany in 1934. She discusses emigrating to Palestine, her experiences there, and her immigration to the United States in 1948. She describes a visit to Berlin soon after the war ended, as well as the difficulty of talking about her wartime experiences.

Oral history interview with Gary Neumann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Claire Nuer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anna Patipa

Oral History

Anna Patipa describes her childhood in Perecin, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); her experiences with antisemitism; the Hungarian occupation of her town in 1941; the loss of her family's business and other hardships; her brother and brother-in-law's conscription into forced labor in Poland and Russia; her deportation to Auschwitz with her family in April 1944; conditions at the train station before deportation; conditions during deportation; her family's arrival at Auschwitz; the selection process; her experiences in Birkenau, Theresienstadt, Bergen-Belson, and Salzwedel concentration camps; her liberation; her reunion with her sister; her life in Czechoslovakia until 1950; her escape to Austria; and her immigration to Canada and the United States with her husband and children.

Oral history interview with Henny Schneider

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anouchke Schulmann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Paul Schwarzbart

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Schwarzbart's young childhood in Vienna, Austria; the flight of his family to Belgium from Austria; and the arrest of his father in May 1940. Mr. Schwarzbart describes living with his mother in Belgium, where she worked for a Belgian family; and being taken by the underground in 1943 to live hidden in a Catholic boy's school in Jamoigne. He discusses his reunion with his mother after the war, the death of his father at Buchenwald, his and his mother's immigration to the United States in December 1948, and his education, teaching career and family life in the United States. The collection also includes a supplemental tape about Mr. Schwarzbart's experiences entitled "A Child of the Holocaust."

Oral history interview with Gideon Schworzbart

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alexandra Steinberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ernst Valfer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bela Vidor

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Vidor's young childhood in Budapest, Hungary, where he was sent to live hidden with his grandmother and great aunt while his mother was in labor camps during World War II. Mr. Vidor describes his father's conscription into forced labor in Russia, and the family's reunion in 1946. He describes the voyage the family made to Israel on a British ship bound for Cyprus, the difficulties of the trip, and their arrival in Israel in May 1948. Mr. Vidor discusses his career as a dental technician in Israel and his immigration to the United States in 1961.

Oral history interview with Ernest Weil

Oral History

Ernest Weil describes his chldhood in Landau, Germany; his experiences with antisemitism after the Nazi party rose to power; his memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; and his father's arrest and imprisonment in Dachau concentration camp. Mr. Weil describes hiding with his mother in their attic, fleeing to Mannheim temporarily, and the reunion of the family in Landau in February 1939. He discusses his voyage on the St. Louis to Cuba, being turned back and sent to a home for children in Enghein, France; and his parents' experiences in Gurs concentration camp in France, where his father died of pneumonia. Mr. Weil describes obtaining a visa to the United States in May 1940 and arriving in New York City, awaiting his mother's arrival, and moving with her to San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Bernard Werth

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Werth's childhood in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; his experiences with antisemitism when he was at school; the privations the family suffered as a result of anti-Jewish laws; and his memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November, 1938. Mr. Werth describes the arrest of his father, his release and the family's flight to England in June 1939, and his immigration to the United States in October 1940. He describes adjusting to life in the United States, his military service during World War II, and his involvement in the D-Day operation at Omaha Beach in June 1944. He discusses his role as rifleman with the 5th Armored Division, his transfer to military intelligence, his work interrogating recently caught German prisoners of war, his capture by the SS in April 1945 and fortunate escape. Mr. Weiss describes his visit to Buchenwald, his experiences with antisemitism in the United States Army, and his life in the United States after the war ended.

Oral history interview with Berek Winter

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jacques Wolgenter

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Zelkowitz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ben Altman

Oral History

Ben Altman was born on February 26, 1912 in Czestochowa, Poland. Ben and his seven siblings were raised by his father and step-mother. Though Ben and his family were spared from the transports to Auschwitz, which claimed the majority of the Jewish population of his town, Ben was eventually sent to a labor camp in 1944. It was here that Ben avoided being sent to a death camp by using his skills as a tailor to mend uniforms for soldiers. He was then imprisoned in a third camp, and upon liberation, he worked as a tailor for the Russians. Ben was able to return to his hometown where he was reunited with two of his brothers. In 1945, he and his wife attempted to leave Rechbach (?) but they were captured and interrogated by the authorities; they were sent to Munich and eventually back to Poland

Oral history interview with Anni Beckerman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arnold Benjamin

Oral History

Arnold Benjamin discusses his family during the Holocaust based on his parents' memories, because Mr. Benjamin himself was born in 1935; the family's life in Berlin, Germany; his father going into hiding during Kristallnacht in November 1938 and avoiding arrest by the Nazi officers who arrived at the home; the family's decision to flee to Shanghai; the family's voyage by sea; their arrival in Shanghai; their experiences in the Hong Kew ghetto, where they often endured difficult and unhygienic circumstances; his father's work; his education in a school financed by an unidentified Sephardic Jew; his bar-mitzvah; the family's immigration to Israel after the war; their long journey and life in a refugee camp in Haifa; their economic difficulties; the family's return to Berlin in 1952 where his father began a wholesale business; his immigration to the United States in 1954; his military service in Frankfurt, Germany; his family's move from Berlin to New York and San Francisco; and his marriage and family.

Oral history interview with Ruth Buschman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irmgard Clark

Oral History

Imgard Clark discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; her memories of Hitler's rise to power; the difficulties she experienced, including being forced to leave school and take up a trade; her memories of Kristallnacht; her father hiding to avoid arrest; the family's flight from Germany to Shanghai in 1939;the family's arrival in Shanghai; the difficulties they experienced; her education in English; working as a nanny for an English family; the couple's arrest when Japan occupied Shanghai; marrying for economic reasons; living in the Hong Kew ghetto; the end of the war and the arrival of American troops; meeting her second husband who was an American sailor; emigrating to the United States, followed by her parents; her life in Minnesota and in Oakland, California, where she and husband settled and raised their family.

Oral history interview with Sita de Leeuw

Oral History

Sita de Leeuw discusses her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany; the family's move to Leipzig when Hitler rose to power in 1933; her schooling and religious observances; her early encounters with anti-Semitism; the family's move to Prague in 1939, where they remained briefly until Germany occupied Prague; their return to Leipzig; their family's escape to London, England; her parents' insecurity because of their illegal status in England; being sent with her sister to live with a family in the English countryside; the family's reunion and voyage to the United States; the family's stay on Ellis Island; their travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a relative of her father lived; her encounters with racism and anti-Semitism; the difficulty her parents had finding work and adjusting to life in the United States; her education; her career in teaching preschool; her move with her husband to California; and the murder of her husband, who was a professor at Stanford, after 27 years of marriage.

Oral history interview with Marcelle Douglas

Oral History

Betty Douglas discusses her childhood in Paris, France; her Catholic religion; her education; and her career in design and couture at Lanvin in Paris; the occupation of France by Nazi Germany in 1940; her involvement in resistance activities until 1942; helping Jews obtain false papers; acting as an escort on trains; helping them flee to the south; her experiences in the resistance; witnessing murders by Nazi troops; her lack of understanding of anti-Jewish persecutions by the Nazis; her career in the fashion industry in England; and her immigration to the United States in 1962 with her American husband.

Oral history interview with Charlotte Freedman

Oral History

Charlotte Freedman discusses her childhood in Klaipeda, Lithuania; her mother's death in 1932 and her father's remarriage to a non-Jewish woman; the family's move to Mannheim, Germany in 1938; her stepmother falsifying papers for her and her sister; observing the burning of the synagogue and mass arrests during Kristallnacht in November 1938; her experiences passing as a non-Jew; her decision to flee the city with her youngest sister; their journey toward the countryside; finding work caring for a German couple's children; the liberation of the area by American troops; moving to Heidelberg with her sister; her post-war life in Germany; her immigration to Canada in November 1952; and her marriage and family life there.

Oral history interview with Peter Haas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joan Kris

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hans Levy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Maiden

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Maiden's childhood in Vienna, Austria, her memories of Hitler's parades in Vienna, the dangers her family was subject to as Jews, and her parents' efforts to escape Nazi-occupied Austria. She describes the family's emigration in 1938 to Switzerland and Italy, and subsequently to the United States in 1940.

Oral history interview with Verna Meibergen

Oral History

Oral history interview with Irene Miller

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Miller's childhood in Bad Elster, Germany and Prague, Czechoslovakia; her work in the Czech resistance as a teenager; and her arrest by the Gestapo in October 1943. She describes her imprisonment in Terezin (Theresienstadt) and her deportation to Ravensbruck as a mischlinge political prisoner in September 1944. She describes her experiences there, a death march in April 1944, and liberation by the Russian army. She describes her health problems after the war; her time in a hospital in Posen, Germany; her return to Prague; and the fates of other family members. Ms. Miller describes emigrating to the United States in 1953 and her life in San Francisco since then.

Oral history interview with Rita Nachman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Enna Nemirov

Oral History

Enna Nemirov describes her childhood under Soviet rule in Yalta, Russia, and Odessa and Kiev, Ukraine; her experiences during World War II; her survival of the siege of Stalingrad; her family's flight to Tashkent, Uzbekistan where they lived until 1945; her family's return to Kiev; her enrollment in medical school; her work as an obstetrician-gynecologist; her marriage and family; her decision to immigrate to the United States in 1976 because of antisemitism directed at her son; her life and work in the United States; and her pride in her son's accomplishments.

Oral history interview with Paul Schreier

Oral History

Oral history interview with William Stern

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jacob Vanderberge

Oral History

Oral history interview with Inge Wendriner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Elias Aelion

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Aelion's childhood in Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece; his experiences in the military from 1939-1940; his return to Salonika and his life and work there and later in Athens until its occupation by the Nazis in 1943. Mr. Aelion describes hiding in a brothel to escape capture, and witnessing the brutal capture and humiliation of many Greek Jews by Nazi soldiers. Mr. Aelion discusses his unsuccessful attempts to escape Athens, his return there, where he was hidden by an Armenian family, and his attempts to warn and shield friends and family, until their liberation in September of 1944. Mr. Aelion describes the post-war period, learning of the painful news of the death of his family in concentration camps, and his immigration to the United States in 1951, where he moved to San Francisco, learned English and became a bookkeeper.

Oral history interview with Simon Alpervich

Oral History

Simon Alpervich was born in 1928 in Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania. Simon’s family was well-educated and Simon’s father had been trained as an engineer in Germany. In 1933, the family moved to Kaunas (Kovno) due to the lack of employment opportunities in Vilnius. At the age of seven, Simon began his education at Shalom Aleichem school. In June of 1941, Simon and his mother were able to make their way to Russia by train, and soon after were joined by his father. While in Russia Simon’s father opened a children’s home where some Lithuanian children were able to find refuge. After the war, Simon returned to Vilnius with his family and he resumed his education in a Russian school because all Jewish schools had been closed by the Russian government. Simon and his family survived the war by fleeing Lithuania, but the majority of his relatives was not able to do the same and ultimately perished in the Holocaust

Oral history interview with Herbert Hans Angress

Oral History

Hans Angress was born on April 14, 1928 in Berlin, Germany. In 1937, Hans’ father was forced to quit his job as a banker, and the Angress family had no choice but to leave Germany. The family ultimately ended up in the Netherlands (Holland) with the hope that the country would remain neutral and therefore safe. Hans remained in the public school system until 1941, when he was forced to attend a Jewish school. In 1942, Hans’ father was sent to prison and then to Auschwitz, where he ultimately perished on a forced death march. Without their father, the family was forced into a ghetto in Amsterdam. The family managed to escape from the ghetto and was hidden by a German woman; she eventually took them to the Dutch Underground. The family separated in order to better their chances of survival. After the war the Angress family was reunited. In 1947 Hans and his older brother received visas for the United States

Oral history interview with Maurice Asa

Oral History

Maurice Asa describes his childhood in Paris, France; the family's flight to Vichy in 1939 after the outbreak of World War II; their move to Nice in 1941after Jews were dispelled from Vichy France; the deportation of his parents and maternal grandmother to Auschwitz in 1943, where they perished; his sister's being hidden with an uncle; his experiences in hiding; the dangers undertaken on behalf by those who hid him; joining a resistance group in the spring of 1944; fighting as part of the Maquis until France's liberation; his post-war life, including working as an interpreter for the American Army; his reunion with his sister in Paris; his sister's immigration to England and then to the United States; his immigration to Australia and then the United States; and his life in New York and California.

Oral history interview with Herbert Barasch

Oral History

Herbert Barasch discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria; his parents' decision to leave Vienna after the Anschluss in March 1938; their move to Antwerp, Belgium; their life in Antwerp; their move to Brussels in 1941, where his father worked for the German occupiers; his round up with his mother in October 1942; their release before deportation; being hidden through underground organizations in a Catholic orphanage outside of Brussels; being moved periodically to evade capture by Nazi authorities; his parents' hiding in a different location; his reunion with his parents after the war; his reluctance to let go of the Catholicism he had been practicing while hidden; the family's return to Brussels; and their immigration to the United States in 1948.

Oral history interview with Alex Bauer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alina Beard

Oral History

Alina Beard describes her early life in Poland and Austria; her early involvement in socialism; her memories of the Austrian Anschluss; how and why her family immigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; when her family sold their possessions; her family's journey to Paris, France and their experiences with Nazis on the train; their voyage by ship to the United States; how her family established themselves in the United States; and her marriage and family life in San Francisco, California.

Oral history interview with David Ben Haim

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alice Boddy

Oral History

Alice Grunwald Boddy was born in 1923 in Vienna, Austria. Her father, Ignaz Gruenwald, was born in Vienna and died in 1934. Ms. Boddy's mother, Bertha Eisner Gruenwald was born in Rakovice, Czechoslovakia. Ms. Boddy had one brother, six years older than she, who left Vienna and immigrated to Chicago in 1938. Ms. Boddy was sent to London on the Kindertransport in August 1939. She was ‘adopted’ in London by a Mr and Mrs Lewis, and remained there until February 1940 when arrangements were made for her to join a children’s transport to the United States. Upon her arrival in the United States, Ms. Boddy traveled to Chicago to join her brother. After her mother arrived in the United States, Ms. Boddy lived with her mother and brother in Chicago and worked as a pre-school teacher in an orphanage. Ms. Boddy married and had two sets of twins and was divorced in 1960. She lived in Chicago, New York and Miami before moving to San Francisco where she married her second husband in 1971. She settled in Greenbrae, California. Of particular interest is an anecodte Ms. Boddy relates of meeting John F. Kennedy, while she waiting on a line in the United States embassy in London. She describes her tears attracting the attention of Mr. Kennedy, and his interceding on her behalf to ensure that her mother's visa to the United States would be forthcoming.

Oral history interview with Iosif Braude

Oral History

Iosif Braude discusses his childhood in Sebish, Russia; how and why he was drafted into the Russian army in 1942; his experiences fighting in Ukraine; his daily life as a soldier; how he left the army in 1946; his return to Sebish and his marriage; and how he and his family immigrated to the United States in 1981.

Oral history interview with Al Buchler

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Buchler's childhood in Vienna, Austria, the events surrounding Kristallnacht and the increasing antisemitism he witnessed as a child. He describes his father's attempts to obtain visas to Brazil and Chile, without success, and the family's immigration to Shanghai, China. Mr. Buchler describes his experiences in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai, his feelings of community within his school, and deprivations caused by the war. Mr. Buchler discusses the family's immigration to the United States, and his later attendance at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Harvard University.

Oral history interview with Charles Glass

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Glass's childhood in Chrzanow, Poland, his experiences with antisemitism in pre-war Poland, and his remembrances of the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the resultant anti-Jewish laws and persecution. Mr. Glass describes his separation from his family and conscription as a forced laborer in 1940, and the privations he endured first in eastern Germany at Sarcau, and later at Gross-Rosen, Braunschweig and Bergen-Belsen working as slave labor through the war years. Mr. Glass describes his liberation by British troops at Bergen-Belsen, his subsequent illness, and his return to Poland to discover that his entire family, except for one sister, perished. Mr. Glass discusses meeting his wife in a displaced persons camp, and emigrating to the United States, first to Stockton, California and then to San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Erwin Guggenheim and Rena Guggenheim

Oral History

Oral history interview with Caroline Heller

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Holtz

Oral History

Bernard Holtz describes his childhood in various cities in Poland; his memories of antisemitism, his emigration with his sister to the United States in 1937 to join two brothers; his journey to New York and San Francisco; his reunion with his parents and another sister in 1938; the fate of his two other sisters who remained in Poland; his service in the United States Army medical corps; his medical discharge; his return to San Francisco; and his career and family life there.

Oral history interview with Gertie Hotzner

Oral History

The interview describes Mrs. Hotzner's family and childhood in Vienna, Austria. Mrs. Hotzner remembers the increasing antisemitism that occurred in Austria after it was incorporated by Nazi Germany in March 1938, and relates that she, her brother Walter, and her mother were able to obtain visas because her father's sister was living in San Francisco. Mrs. Hotzner describes their journey and their separation from their father, who was in a different quota group. She describes adjusting to life in the United States, her mother's efforts to obtain funds to send for Mrs. Hotzner's father and other family members, and learning about her father's deportation from Vienna to Nisko, Poland. Mrs. Hotzner describes her father's experiences after the deportation, when he was sent to the Russian zone, his forced labor there, and his eventual death during the Holocaust. She discusses her life after the war, her marriage and the birth of her children, and reflects on issues relating to prejudice and guilt. The collection also includes photocopies of letters and documents relating to Mrs. Gotzner's father.

Oral history interview with Edith Hylton

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Hylton's childhood in Bocholt, Germany and the changes that began in 1933 after the Nazi regime rose to power, including her father's loss of job and death. Ms. Hylton describes attending a Jewish business school in Switzerland and traveling to England, and how those experiences caused her to view the situation for Jews in Germany with concern, and led her to file for a visa to the United States. She discusses her family's move to Berlin, and the hardships that befell her family when her mother and stepfather were arrested for attempted smuggling and her stepfather was sent to Buchenwald. Ms. Hylton remembers Kristallnacht, the urgency of obtaining a visa in order to facilitate her stepfather's release, and her visit to the consul of the Dominican Republic. She describes her family's move to England, her success in obtaining a visa for the United States, and moving to New York in 1939.

Oral history interview with Bruno Kaiser

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alexander Katten

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Katten's childhood in Berlin, Germany, the events of the Kristallnacht in November 1938, and Mr. Katten's experiences with anti-Jewish persecutions in school and the community. Mr. Katten describes the two-year period in which he and his parents went into hiding, the false identity papers they were able to use, and the precarious existence they led until the end of the war. He reports that he was one of 36 children who survived living underground in Germany. Mr. Katten describes emigrating to the United States and serving in the United States military.

Oral history interview with Denise Kopecky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jack Liberman

Oral History

Jack Liberman discusses his childhood in a small Hungarian village near the border of the former Yugoslavia; his experiences in Hungarian work camps in 1943; and being moved into a ghetto in his town in June 1944; being deported by freight train to Auschwitz; the inhumane conditions he endured; his arrival at Auschwitz and separation from his mother; witnessing the selection process of Dr. Josef Mengele; being transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp; being housed in barracks with privileged homosexuals; his transfer to a slave labor camp at Zeitz, Germany; the evacuation of the camp and the prisoners' march to Theresienstadt; his escape from the march and his flight to Carlsbad, Germany, where he was liberated by American troops; his reunion with his sister in Budapest; his return to his hometown; finding his way to a displaced persons camp in Ainring, Germany; his voyage through Austria and Italy; and his emigration first to Canada and then to the United States.

Oral history interview with Alexander Lustig

Oral History

Oral history interview with Adele Mendelsohn

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Mendelsohn's childhood in Cologne, Germany, her experiences as a child with antisemitism, and her memories of Kristallnacht. She describes her experiences and emotions while being sent into hiding in Amsterdam by her parents. She describes life in hiding, raids by the Nazis, and the kindness of non-Jewish people who hid her. She describes the aftermath of the war, the loss of her parents, her decision to immigrate to the United States to live with relatives, and her life after the war.

Oral history interview with Edith Perlman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Deborah Pfeffer

Oral History

Deborah Flancer Pfeffer describes her youth in Kazimierz, Poland; her family's religious life; her education; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; the changes she witnessed after the invasion; her family's decision to move to Sieciechow; their subsequent deportation to Demblin concentration camp in July 1942; the conditions in Sieciechow and Demblin; the work she performed; her health issues; an important friendship with a fellow inmate; being transferred to a munitions factory near Czestochowa, Poland in July 1944; the work she performed at the factory; being liberated by the Soviets in January 1945; her marriage; her time in Germany after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1949; her life in America; the fates of other family members.

Oral history interview with Hans Wolfgang Philippi

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Philippi's childhood in Berlin, Germany, his memories of antisemitism when Hitler rose to power, the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, and his father arrest and imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Mr. Philippi describes being smuggled to Holland and placed in camps in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, his reunion with his parents and their voyage on the ship St. Louis toward Cuba in 1939. He describes the passengers being detained by the Cubans, denied entry to Cuba and the United States, and the ship's return to Hamburg. Mr. Philippi discusses the coalition of countries who agreed to take these passengers, his family's return to Holland, their successful immigration to Chile during the war, and his immigration to the United States in 1964.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Polt

Oral History

Elizabeth Polt describes her childhood and early adulthood in a town in Austria; her family life as the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother; some of her maternal cousins joining the Nazi party; learning about the coming German invasion of Austria in 1938; her family deciding to leave Austria; travelling to Switzerland; immigrating to Cuba in 1939; her time in Cuba; the conditions in Cuba; immigrating to the United States in 1940; her life in the U.S. during and after the war.

Oral history interview with Lakshmi Radich

Oral History

Lakshmi Radich discusses her activities in Rotterdam, Holland during the war; her memories of the German invasion and the subsequent bombing of Rotterdam; seeing Jews arrested; the reaction of the Dutch people in Rotterdam; her mother's activities with the Resistance; her mother hiding Jews and Allied soldiers trying to escape to Great Britain; her time in hiding when the Germans discovered her family's activities; her work buying and selling items on the black market; the lack of food; her arrest by the Germans; her escape; her time in Norway after the war; her reunion with her father; learning of her mother's death in Bergen-Belsen; the continuing emotional effects of her wartime experiences.

Oral history interview with Else Reisner

Oral History

Else Reisner discusses her childhood in Gura Humorului, Romania and Vienna, Austria; her education; her experiences as a teenager in Vienna during World War I; her family life; the work she performed as a Montessori teacher; the antisemitism she experienced in Vienna; the changes she experienced and observed after Austria's annexation by Germany in 1938; immigrating to the United States with her husband in August 1939; the journey they took through Rotterdam in a ship bound for New York; living in New York; the work she performed as a secretary; moving to Oakland, California; her work in public housing administration and other social service agencies; her life in California.

Oral history interview with Alice Resseguie

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Resseguie's childhood in Trier, Germany; the antisemitism that she and her family experienced after the Nazi Party rose to power; and the family's immigration to the United States in 1936 and 1937. Ms. Resseguie describes her education in the United States and her experiences with the Office of War Information during the war in London, and after the war in Germany. She discusses the nature of her work, including broadcasting in German from an American point of view; her intelligence work with blacklists and with rehabilitation of German women; and her discovery of a cachet of correspondence from the Nazi propaganda department, including that of Hans Fritszche, a propaganda minister who was tried for war crimes at the Nuremberg war crimes trials after the war. Ms. Resseguie discusses the fate of family members who did not emigrate; and her life after the war, including her marriage, education and career.

Oral history interview with Abram Roshansky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nadia Steinlauf

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gunter S. Stent

Oral History

Oral history interview with Carl Strochlic

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gunter Ullman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Emmie Vida

Oral History

Oral history interview with Edith Weigert

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ann Weinstock

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Weinstock's childhood in a small town in Germany near the Polish border; her memories of antisemitism after the Nazi power rose to power; her move to Berlin to live with her uncle; her father's arrest and the loss of the family business. Ms. Weinstock describes training as a surgical nurse, her experiences working with Jews who were in the process of deportation, her increasingly dangerous situation, and her escape from the hospital hidden with corpses with the assistance of a non-Jewish driver. She describes her experiences in hiding in Berlin for more than a year, being turned in by a confidant, and transported to Kleine Festung, a camp adjacent to Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp. Ms. Weinstock describes the terrible conditions in the camp, where there was rampant disease, vermin and mistreatment. She relates that the Gestapo continued to carry out executions after Theresienstadt had been liberated, and describes the camp's liberation by the Russian Army and the assistance of the Red Cross. Ms. Weinstock describes her return to Berlin, her reunion with her future husband, and their immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Anna White

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. White's childhood in Nuremburg, Germany, her education and work life, and her marriage in 1933. Ms. White describes the rise of the Nazi party to power, the Nazi rallies that took place in Nuremburg, and hiding from the Gestapo. She discusses her emigration with her husband in 1936 to the United States, and her family life and career in Oakland, California.

Oral history interview with Boris Zinkov

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Zinkov's childhood and education in Kiev, Ukraine; his work in road construction; and his experiences in Kiev during its invasion by Nazi troops. Mr. Zinkov describes his capture - along with others - by Nazi troops, the identification of Jewish men and their murders, and his escape to safety. He describes rejoining the Soviet Army, his service in the military for the remainder of the war, and his immigration to the United States in 1993.

Oral history interview with Alfred Amkraut

Oral History

Alfred Amkraut was born on September 21, 1926 in Saarbruecken (Saarbrücken), Germany. Alfred was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home near the town’s synagogue. Alfred attended elementary school in Saarbruecken before moving to Frankfurt at the age of nine to live with his aunt and uncle and to continue his education at the main Jewish school. A few weeks prior to Kristallnacht, Alfred and his relatives, along with other Polish nationals living in Germany, were transported to the German-Polish border by the SS. They eventually returned to Germany, whereupon Alfred’s uncles and father were taken to Buchenwald. After the events of Kristallnacht, Alfred’s family applied for visas to Central and South America, and the family left for South America in July 1939. Though there was a tight-knit Jewish community in La Paz, Alfred still felt ostracized while living in Bolivia and never experienced a sense of freedom until he came to the United States

Oral history interview with Hans J. Arons

Oral History

Hans Arons discusses his youth and young adulthood in Hannover, Germany; his education; the antisemitism he experienced before the war; the difficulties he experienced finding work after 1933; his arrest and deportation to Buchenwald in December 1936; his transfer to Sachsenhausen six months later for medical reasons; the work he performed in Sachsenhausen; his release in December 1938 contingent upon his emigration from Germany; his decision to go to Shanghai, China; the journey to Shanghai; his arrival in January 1939; the conditions in Shanghai; his experiences in Shanghai; the work he performed; the changes he observed after the Japanese occupation began; his immigration to the United States in 1947; his military service beginning in 1948; his life in San Francisco, California after the end of his service.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Aronstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helmut Bates

Oral History

Helmut Bates (né Kurt Helmut Bachwitz) describes his long family history in Germany; his childhood in Berlin, Germany; his experiences with antisemitism under the Nazi regime; the events of Kristallnacht and how those frightening events caused his family to decide to leave Germany; his family's attempt to immigrate to Australia or Palestine and their successful immigration to Kobe, Japan in April 1939; his experiences in Kobe; the conditions for the Jewish community, which were mostly benign; his family's immigration to the United States in December 1940; being drafted to serve in the US Army Signal Corps; participating in the round up and internment of Japanese aliens and Japanese-American citizens and his service in Africa guarding German prisoners of war; the difficulties of his father in adjusting to life in the United States, the family changing its name from Bauchwitz to Bates, and the antisemitism and anti-German sentiments the family experienced; his marriage to a Jewish woman from Shanghai, China; and his life and career in California.

Oral history interview with Daniel Bennahmias

Oral History

Daniel Bennahmias was born in 1923 in Salonika, Greece, where he lived with his parents, Mark and Harriet. His father's family was from Italy, and had Italian citizenship. His father worked at the Bureau of Information in Salonika. During the period that Italy was at war with Greece, Italian citizens were imprisoned. When the Bennahmias family was released they moved to Athens in 1941, lived in the ghetto, and hid there during the period after 1943 when the Nazi occupiers began to deport Greek Jews. The Bennahmias family was discovered in March of 1944, arrested, and imprisoned in Haidari concentration camp for one month, after which they were deported to Auschwitz. Mr. Bennahamias's parents were murdered upon arrival, and he was selected to be part of the sonderkommando unit. He worked in the crematoria until January 1945, when he was psent to Mauthausen, then Ebensee, in Austria. He was liberated by American troops in 1945. After the war, he returned to Athens. He married and moved with his wife to the United States, where he got a chemistry degree at UC Berkeley. Mr. Bennahmias died October 22, 1994.

Oral history interview with W. Dieter Berman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herbert Berlin

Oral History

Herbert Berlin was born on May 14, 1918 in Hamburg, Germany and describes his childhood and young adulthood; his arrest and imprisonment in Sachesenhausen in November 1938; his escape to England; his experiences working in various internment camps in England; his marriage and immigration to the United States; and the fate of other family members.

Oral history interview with Vladislaw Borsky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Linda Breder

Oral History

Linda Breder describes her childhood in Stropkov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); the onset of war in 1939; increasing antisemitism and anti-Jewish measures; her arrest in 1942 by Hlinka guards; her transport to Auschwitz, which was the first female transport; the intake measures at the camp; working in Kanada; stealing clothes and food; the increasingly terrible conditions in Auschwitz; learning that her family had perished in the gas chambers; the death march in January 1945 to Ravensbruck; how she escaped and hid in a barn; her liberation by the Soviet Army; her experiences after the war; learning the fates of her large extended family; returning to Czechoslovakia; meeting her husband; having a family; and immigrating to the United States in 1966.

Oral history interview with Helen Lilly Brenner

Oral History

Helen Lilly Brenner describes her childhood in Vienna, Austria; her expierences with antisemitism; her illigal immigration to Palestine in 1939; her life in Palestine and Israel from 1939-1953; her immigration to the United States; and the fate of her parents in a ghetto in occupied Poland and a concentration camp.

Oral history interview with Irma Broclowski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helen Bromberg

Oral History

Helen Bromberg was born in Warsaw, Poland. She was forced into the Warsaw ghetto in 1939 with her two sisters, brother, and mother. Her family was then transferred from the ghetto to the Majdanek camp, where she was separated from her mother, who perished there. She worked in a hospital scrubbing floors. Over the next five years Ms. Bromberg and her sister stayed in five more concentration camps, including Christof, Chenstalov, Terkime, and Burgau, and finally in Bergen-Belsen, where they were liberated by British troops. After liberation, she and her sister traveled to Munich to live in a displaced person camp. Ms. Bromberg met and married her husband in the camp, and she, her husband and sister immigrated to the United States in 1947. She and her husband first settled in Texas, and then later moved to California to be closer to her sister, who has been sent to live in Oakland, California. Ms. Bromberg had no children, and at the time of the interview her husband had recently died of a heart attack. Ms. Bromberg was active in speaking to groups about her experiences with the Holocaust. She is deceased.

Oral history interview with Lisa Burnham

Oral History

Lisa Burnham describes his childhood in Vienna, Austria; her awareness of increasing antisemitism at school; the persecutions Jeiwsh people faced after Hitler came to power; her parents' fears; how and why her parents sent her brother to England and her to to Italy; her travels through Norway, France, Iceland, Milan, Italy, and the United States; the safety she enjoyed due to her parents' wealth and connections; and her impressions upon returning to Vienna after the war.

Oral history interview with Ruth Callman

Oral History

Ruth Callman describes her childhood in Berlin; her experiences with antisemitism in school; the growing number of anti-Jewish laws after 1933; the effect the Nuremburg laws had on her family; her father's difficulty as a Jewish physician; her family's flight to Tientsin and Shanghai, China in 1939; her experiences living in the Hong Kew ghetto during the war; and her immigration to the United States in 1947.

Oral history interview with Helen Collins

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Collins's childhood and young adulthood in Mannheim, Germany, the assimilated nature of life there, the effect of Hitler's rise to power on her family, including her father's loss of his job, and the family's early explorations of immigration to Palestine or the United States. Ms. Collins recalls the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, her father's imprisonment in Dachau and his later release, and the family's forced move to a ghetto in Stuttgart, Germany. She describes emigrating from Germany in 1939 to England and then the United States, her experiences in New York City, in Berkeley, California, where she moved in to join her brother in December 1941, and where she met her husband and married in 1952. Ms. Collins describes learning of the death of parents - her father in a ghetto and her mother in Auschwitz, receiving restitution for family property seized, and being invited to Stuttgart by city officials and the Jewish-Christian Society. She reflects on how the events of the Holocaust changed the course of her life.

Oral history interview with Joseph Curczinski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Betty de Vries

Oral History

Oral history interview with an anonymous interviewee

Oral History

The interviewee, who was born in 1910, describes her childhood in Gorredijk, the Netherlands; her father, who was a rabbi; being very close to her three brothers; moving with her family when she was age nine to Vlissingen; her career as a chemical and medical analyst; her parents' move to Amsterdam in 1942; her fears for the future of Jews in Holland; her flight toward the Belgian border; her experiences while in hiding and living with false identity cards; the stress and difficulties she endured; her liberation in October 1944; receiving assistance from a Canadian soldier to contact one of her brothers, who had escaped to San Francisco, CA; her immigration to the United States; and learning of the tragedy that befell the remaining members of her family.

Oral history interview with Ralph Dreike

Oral History

Ralph Dreike discusses his childhood in Augsburg, Germany; being the child of an interfaith couple, with a Jewish father and Catholic mother; being raised as a Catholic; the anti-Semitism he encountered from a teacher after the Nazi rise power in 1933; his father's arrest in 1934; his transfer to a Catholic boarding school where he was not persecuted because his father was Jewish; the effects anti-Jewish laws had on his father's business; the Nazi takeover of his school; the harassment he experienced; his parents' decision to send to the United States; his trip by ship to New York and then by train to San Francisco; the relief from persecution he felt; his experiences in Homewood Terrace, where he stayed until he was placed with a Catholic foster family; his education; being labeled an enemy alien once the United States entered the war in 1941; his service in the United States Army in the Pacific; learning that his mother had been in hiding in a convent and his father had been incarcerated in a concentration camp; his marriage; his Jewish wife's conversion to Catholicism; and his life and family in the United States.

Oral history interview with Viola Dubov

Oral History

Viola Dubov was born August 29, 1920 in Veleisevlush,Czechoslovakia. She was one of five sisters. After deportations of Jews began in April 1944, Ms. Dubov, who had been in a hospital in Budapest, was hidden in the home of a Christian woman until Budapest was liberated. Her father, mother and one sister perished, and three sisters survived. Ms. Dubov inadvertently traveled to the Soviet Union, was forced to escape illegally over the Carpathian mountains, and was able to find her sisters, two of whom were in a displaced persons camp in Germany, and the other in Sweden. All four sisters immigrated to Los Angeles in 1947. Ms. Dubov and her sisters all married and settled in California.

Oral history interview with Boris Dynin

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Dynin's childhood in Chernivitsi, Ukraine, and the antisemitism he experienced there. He recalls when Chernivitsi came under Russian control in 1940, prompting the flight of many people to Romania. Mr. Dynin describes the Jewish community being rounded up and relocated into a ghetto in 1941, and his family's failed attempt to gain passage to Palestine on the the ship Struma, which was destroyed en route to Palestine. Mr. Dynin discusses further relocations of members of the Jewish community to concentration and labor camps, remaining behind and escaping the ghetto, and the attempts of the remaining Jewish community members to raise money to ensure a governor who would be sympathetic to their plight. Mr. Dynin describes being inducted into the Soviet Army, sent to a labor camp, later released, returning to his home where he graduated from university, married and had a family, and his immigration to the United States in 1991.

Oral history interview with Evelyn Fielden

Oral History

Oral history interview with Richard Fimmel

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Fimmel's childhood, and his service in the United States Army as part of General Patton's liberating forces. Mr. Fimmel describes his experiences at and impressions of the concentration camp Gusen after the war. The interview includes descriptions of the conditions of the prisoners and information about an underground tunnel used by prisoners to travel from one factory camp to another. Mr. Fimmel discusses the administration of the war zones, the pursuit of escaped SS officers, and the capture and execution of some. He discusses meeting his wife, who was a displaced German woman, in 1946; their marriage, and his return to the United States. Mr. Fimmel describes the reaction of his family in the United States to learning about the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and his impression that some family remember refused to believe that they occurred.

Oral history interview with Hella Fluss

Oral History

Dr Hella Fluss discusses her childhood in Nuremberg and Coburg, Germany; her memories of social isolation and discrimination because she was Jewish, beginning in 1932; her family's illegal escape to England in 1936; her experiences living in Manchester and London; her father's being interned on the Isle of Wight for four months after the outbreak of World War II as an enemy alien; her secondary and medical education in England; her marriage and family; her immigration to the United States with her husband and children in the 1950s; her personal life in the United States and her career as a pediatrician and psychiatrist in Modesto and Berkeley.

Oral history interview with Irene Frank

Oral History

Judith Frank discusses her early life in Berlin, Germany; her parents’ heritage and her identity issues that resulted; her experiences in Berlin; her family life; her journey via the Siberian railway with her mother to Japan in 1937; the increasingly difficult conditions she lived under during the war; emigrating to the United States in 1947; her life with her husband and children in San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Hershel Frankiel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Betty Freund and Henry Freund

Oral History

Henry Freund was born in Prato, Italy on January 6, 1901. In 1905, the family moved to Modling, Austria. Mr. Freund's father died in 1930. Mr. Freund attended the local schools, and after graduating, moved to Vienna and worked in hotel management, traveling to oversee hotels in Hungary, Yugoslavia and Poland. While traveling in March 1938, Mr. Freund was forced from his job and instead of returning to Austria, traveled to Bucharest, Romania. After obtaining the necessary papers, Mr. Freund traveled to Paris, where he obtained boat passage and immigrated to the United States. He settled in San Francisco, and married Mrs. Freund, whom he had met while living in Vienna, after her arrival from Europe in 1939. Mr. Freund died in 2000. Mrs. Freund was born March 11, 1911 in Vienna, Austria. Her father was a merchant, and owned a fabric store. Mrs. Freund was trained in business skills and began work as a bookkeeper and secretary in 1928. After the Anschluss in March 1938, Mrs. Freund's family made arrangements to leave Austria. Her parents and brother were able to obtain visas for the United States; Mrs. Freund and her sister went to England, where they found work as domestics. Mrs. Freund was able to gain passage for a boat to Halifax, Nova Scotia. She reunited with her parents in Chicago, and then moved to San Francisco to join Mr. Freund. Mrs. Freund died in 2001. The interview describes both Mr. and Mrs. Freund's individual experiences during the Holocaust. Mr. Freund describes his young childhood in Italy, the family's move to Modling, Austria, his education there, his struggles to find employment and his eventual career managing hotels throughout Europe. Mr. Freund discusses his awareness of an uncertain future under the Nazi regime, losing his job because of being Jewish, his good fortunate in being able to emigrate as an Italian because of his birth there, and waiting in Paris for his eventual immigration to the United States. Mr. Freund describes his experiences as a new emigrant, traveling from Chicago to San Francisco, and his difficulties in procuring work in San Francisco. Mrs. Freund describes her childhood in Vienna, Austria, her education and employment, and the rise of antisemitism after the Anschluss in March 1938. Mrs. Freund recounts her family's emigration efforts, her parents and brothers escape to the United States, and the flight of herself and her sister to England where they were employed as domestics. Mrs. Freund describes the difficulties she experienced in England, including finding funds for her passage to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mrs. Freund recounts her attempts to find an affidavit in order to enter the United States, and describes that after writing to strangers, she was eventually able to obtain one. Mrs. Freund describes her reunion with her parents in Chicago, and her eventual move to San Francisco to join Mr. Freund, whom she had met several years earlier in Austria.

Oral history interview with Frances Gage

Oral History

Frances Gage was born Frances Szefler in Lubraniec, Poland on August 15, 1923. She married Henry Gage in 1940 and had a daughter, Erika. Separated from her husband in 1941, Mrs. Gage and her mother and brothers were sent to the Lodz ghetto, where they lived until transported to Auschwitz after the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto in August 1944. Mrs. Gage's young daughter was taken from her in September 1942 in the infamous Gehsperre deportation of children and the elderly from Lodz to the death camp of Chelmno, where she perished. Mrs. Gage was separated from her mother and brothers, all of whom perished, upon arrival at Auschwitz; she was subsequently sent to Freiberg to work in an airplane factory, and finally to Mauthausen concentration camp, where she was liberated by American forces. Reunited with her husband, who had survived, the Gages had a second daughter, Ruth, and immigrated to the United States in 1949. They settled in San Francisco, where they had two sons, Benjamin and George, and where Mrs. Gage was active in Jewish community and philanthropic organizations. Her husband Henry died in 2004, and Mrs. Gage died on September 5, 2007.

Oral history interview with Jack Gelb

Oral History

Jack Gelb discusses his childhood in Lodz, Poland; his family’s resettlement in 1939 and their return to Lodz in 1940; his family’s forced moved to the Lodz ghetto; his father’s arrest, torture and death; life in the Lodz ghetto, including hunger, disease and transports; his family’s deportation from Lodz in 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where his mother and sister perished; his experiences in Auschwitz; being on a death march; being in Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen and Neuengamme; his voyage on the Cap Arcona, a ship that was bombed by Allied troops; being rescued; his time in several displaced persons camps; his immigration to the United States; his stay at Homewood Terrace, a Jewish orphanage in San Francisco; his marriage; his United States Army service; his work and family life.

Oral history interview with Abram Geldman

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Geldman's childhood in Lublin, Poland, his memories of the beginning of World War II and the bombing of Lublin, and his escape to Russia. Mr. Geldman describes arriving in Rovna, Poland (now Rivne, Ukraine), near the Russian border, and living there while it was occupied by the Russians. He discusses his arrest by Russian officers and transport to Siberia, and describes the journey, which ended when he fell from the train. Mr. Geldman describes his unsuccessful attempts to return to Lublin, his life in Rovna, and his travels and studies during the war years in various parts of the Soviet Union, including Tashkent and Semerkant in Uzbekhistan, and, later, Kishinev, Moldava, where he settled until emigrating to the United States in 1988. Mr. Geldman discusses his family and their fate, which is unknown to him.

Oral history interview with Hans Gerson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Saul Golan

Oral History

Saul Golan discusses his childhood in Radom, Poland; his education in public and Jewish schools; his memories of anti-Semitism; his relationship with his stepfather, whose intellectual and political interests he admired; the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces in September 1939; being conscripted into forced labor; his removal to a restricted ghetto; relates his memories of selections and executions starting in August 1940; his mother and sister's deportation to Treblinka; being sent to a labor camp in June 1941; his ability to survive due to his value as a worker; his labor in a munitions factor; his escape from deportation to death camps; his brief reunion with his father; a series of dangerous encounters that he experienced; surviving in the countryside until his liberation, having been aided by his father's former customers; his return to Radom; the devastation he witnessed; his decision to leave for Palestine; traveling through Poland, Hungary, and Austria; visiting a transit camp run by the Jewish Brigade in Italy before boarding a ship for Palestine; his life in the Israeli underground, the Army, and the various work he did; changing his name to Golan; emigrating to the United States in 1954; marrying, having children, and establishing a successful construction business in Redwood City and Palo Alto.

Oral history interview with Rita Gopstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Gottheiner

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Gottheiner's childhood in Breslau, Silesia; her memories of antisemitism under the Nazi regime and its effect on her life; the events of Kristallnacht in 1938; and her father's arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald concentration camp. Ms. Gottheiner describes the family's flight to Shanghai, China in December 1938 and her experiences during the sea voyage from Genoa, Italy. She describes the ten years she lived in China, her experiences in the Hong Kew ghetto, the bombing of the ghetto by American war planes, and her marriage in 1942. Ms. Gottheiner discusses her and her husband's work with the United States Army after the war ended, their immigration to the United States in 1949, and their first impressions of San Francisco, where the couple settled.

Oral history interview with Lea Grinberger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Carl Hammerschmidt

Oral History

This collection comprises one videotape with accompanying transcript of an oral history interview with Carl Hammerschmidt. The interview was conducted by Judith Backover, Peggy Poole and Judy Colligan on behalf of the Holocaust Oral History Project on Novemer 14, 1990. Carl Hammerschmidt is a Holocaust survivor. The interview describes Mr. Hammerschmidt's comfortable childhood and education in Berlin, Germany. Mr. Hammerschmidt recalls the rise to power of the Nazi party, the increasing antisemitism, the fear that he family felt, and his sister's immigration to South Africa in 1936. Mr. Hammerschmidt describes his experiences during Kristallnacht, the arrests of his father and his uncle, and his father's subsequent decision to leave Germany. Mr. Hammerschmidt discusses the family's difficulties in raising money so that they could leave, and their purchase of false visas to Panama. He describes the family's experiences in Panama, where they purchased and operated a coffee farm. Among the his experiences in Panama, Mr. Hammerschmidt recounts that he and his father were in an internment camp in the Canal Zone. Mr. Hammerschmidt describes the family's move to New York in 1946, and his subsequent move to San Francisco, where he settled.

Oral history interview with Martha Hankin

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Hankin's childhood in Norden, a small town in Germany near the Dutch border, the antisemitic measures that were introduced in Germany in 1933, her memories of early implementation of these laws and general antisemitic sentiment. She discusses moving to Hannover in 1935 and working as a domestic, and emigrating to England in 1938. Ms. Hankin describes her experiences there, her attempts to rescue her stepmother and father, her father's death in Auschwitz, her move to Manchester, England, working in a factory, and marrying in January 1941. She discusses emigrating to the United States with her family in 1947, first to New York and then to Oakland, California, where they settled.

Oral history interview with Allan Herskovich

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fritz Hirschberger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eric Hoffmann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hannah Jankovic

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Jankovic's childhood in Czechoslovakia; the occupation of her town first by Hungarian Nazis in 1939, and then by Germans; being forced to move into a ghetto; and the family's deportation to Auschwitz in cattle cars. Ms. Jankovic describes her experiences upon arrival at Auschwitz, her separation from every family member but her sister, her encounters with Josef Mengele, and witnessing transports being sent to the gas chambers. She describes her transport, with her sister, to Gross Rosen concentration camp, then to several subcamps of Neuengamme, the terrible conditions there, her experiences with forced labor in an underground factory, and the several death marches and other hardships she and her sister endured. Ms. Jankovic discusses her liberation from the woman's camp at Salzwedel by British and French troops, and witnessing the deaths of liberated prisoners from too much food. She discusses her life after the war, her reunion with her brother and sister, settling in Ústí nad Labem Region of Czechoslovakia, her marriage, and immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Gary Keins

Oral History

The interviews describe Dr. Keins's childhood in Koenigshuette, Germany (now Chorzow, Poland) and his university life in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Keins discusses his career as a banker in Warsaw in 1936, his decision not to flee Poland after the invasion by Nazi Germany, the resultant years of hiding to avoid capture, and the many narrow escapes he encountered. He describes the various subterfuges and identities he was able to assume, his attempts to help other Jews, his enlistment in the Polish Army to avoid suspicion, and his participation in the Polish uprising of Warsaw in 1944. Dr. Keins discusses his and his wife's preparations to leave Poland and Germany for the United States after the war, and their successful emigration in 1949.

Oral history interview with Harry Kiefer

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Kiefer's childhood in Krefeld, Germany, anti-Jewish persecution that began in 1933 and increased in the ensuing years, and how the Jewish community in Krefeld adapted. He discusses his father's liquidation of the family assets in order to emigrate from Germany to the United States, and their relative good fortune at emigrating early in 1938 and having the financial means to re-establish themselves in a new country. Mr. Kiefer describes the family life's in Oakland, California, attending school, being drafted and his education at the University of California. He discusses learning of the fate of many relatives on his father's side who perished during the Holocaust, and returning to Krefeld for reunions.

Oral history interview with Robert Kirck

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Kirck's childhood in Bruchsal, Germany, early experiences with antisemitism, his schooling and early career years. He recalls an incident in 1935 when, after dining with a client's daughter, he warned by an SS officer not to associate with German women, and discusses increasing persecution against Jews in Germany. Mr. Kirck describes his emigration in 1936, followed by his parents and sister in 1938, his early difficulties living in New York and finding employment, and traveling to Houston and New Orleans where jobs were more plentiful. He discusses being drafted into the United States Army in 1941, and serving in Pennsylvania and Seattle until his medical discharge in 1943. Mr. Kirck describes his experiences with antisemitism in the United States, and his return visits to Germany in the 1960s and then in 1985, having been invited by the municipality of Bruchsal.

Oral history interview with Fred Kirschner

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Kirschner's childhood and adolesence in Frankfurt, Germany, his arrest on November 10, 1938 with his father, their internment in Buchenwald concentration camp until January 1939, and his experiences there. Mr. Kirschner describes his release on condition of immediate emigration, his departure for England and his family joining him there later that year. He discusses their life in England and their immigration to the United States five years later.

Oral history interview with Aaron Kobel

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Kobel's childhood in Tilsit, Germany (now Sovetsk, Russia), the family's move to Kovno, Lithuania in 1938, and their forced move by Russian troops into the Slavodka (a suburb of Kovno) ghetto in 1940. Mr. Kobel describes the round-up and deportation of Jews by Nazi troops in 1941, his separation from his mother, and his and his father's deportation to Dachau, and then to Auschwitz. He describes the terrible conditions of forced labor and the beatings he received, the death march he endured, his condition upon liberation - at the age of 13 and weighing 60 pounds, and being nursed in a camp in Munich by American soldiers. Mr. Kobel describes his reunion with his mother, obtaining false papers and traveling to Israel by ship, and being detained by British troops and interned in Cyprus. He discusses his release from Cyprus and arrival in Israel, serving in the Israeli military until he was 18, and emigrating to the United States in 1952.

Oral history interview with Leo Kohút

Oral History

The interviews describe Dr. Kohut's childhood in Bratislava, Slovakia; his religious education; his involvement in socialist Zionist youth organizations like Paole Zion and Hashomer Hatzair, and in the Slovak Communist Party; his memories of anti-Semitism after Slovakia became an independent state in March 1939; his experiences as part of the Slovak Army; the organization of an underground cell with other Slovak Jewish Communists (including Alfred Wetzler, who with Rudolf Vrba escaped from Auschwitz concentration camp and famously reported on the atrocities occuring there.); the sabotage acitivties in which he was involved, working as a printer creating false identity documents; the deportation of his family to various camps and ghetto; his marriage and relative safety as part of the armament industry until 1944; living under false identity papers until he was arrested in 1945; his deportation to camp Sered, then to Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, and finally to a subcamp of Dachau; the death march he endured; his liberation by American troops in Bavaria, where he remained until he was able to return to Bratislava, where he learned of his wife's death in Ravensbruck concentration camp. 

Oral history interview with Endre Korosi

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Korosi's childhood and young adulthood in the Hungarian countryside, the enactment of anti-Jewish laws in Hungary in 1938, and the confiscation of his family's land in 1942. Mr. Korosi describes his years in intermittent forced labor from 1938-1945, the roundup and mass murder of Hungarian Jews in 1944, and learning of the death of many of his relatives at Auschwitz. He describes his return to Hungary after the war, his memories of the revolution in 1956, and his immigration to the United States in 1957.

Oral history interview with Esther Kozlowski

Oral History

Esther Kozlowski describes her childhood in Wrotslaw and Kielce, Poland; attending a Catholic Polish school; her marriage in 1938; the birth of her son in 1939; the outbreak of World War II; her husband's detention in a labor camp; her escape from the ghetto in August 1942 to Krakow; surviving the war years passing as a non-Jew; using false identity papers; hiding with friends in Krakow and Warsaw; her liberation in a village by the Soviet Army in September 1944; traveling to Lublin; her state of ill health and the terrible conditions in Poland after the war; her move to Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland) in 1946; living in a displaced persons camp for three years; and her immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Haya Krause

Oral History

Oral history interview with Harry Lawton

Oral History

Oral history interview with Henry Libicki

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Meibergen

Oral History

Fred Meibergen, describes his childhood in Bremerhaven, Germany; the increase in existing antisemitism in Germany, and the rise of the Nazi party in Berlin. He recalls his experiences with the Nuremberg Laws, the danger he felt, and his decision to leave Germany. He describes his family's immigration to Yokohama, Japan and then to the United States in 1941. He describes his United States Army service beginning in 1942 and his experiences on the European front. Mr. Meibergen relates what he believes the U.S. Army and the German people knew about the camps as well as the emotions he experienced while visiting Bremerhaven during the war. He discusses postwar Germany, his thoughts on forgiveness, and his life since the war.

Oral history interview with Henry Nash

Oral History

Henry Nash discusses his childhood in Kielce, Poland; his move to Lodz, Poland in 1936; his memory of the German invasion in 1939; his service in the Polish Army, his capture by the Germans and deportation to Landsdorf; his relocation to Krakow; his escape from Krakow and return to Lodz in November 1939; life before and after the creation of the Lodz ghetto, his experiences in the ghetto with his wife and small child; work he performed and living conditions in the ghetto; his family’s deportation to Auschwitz in September 1944; his experiences in Auschwitz; the selections; his understanding of the gas chambers and crematoria; the work he performed there; his transfer to a factory in Braunschweig, Germany; his work in the factory and conditions there; his planned transfer to Ravensbruck; the bombing of his train; his diversion to another labor camp; aid from the Swedish Red Cross; liberation by the American Army; his move to Sweden in 1945; his immigration to the United States in 1948; his life in the United States, family members who perished; and the emotional impact of his Holocaust experiences.

Oral history interview with Harry North

Oral History

Oral history interview with Warren Odenheimer

Oral History

Warren Odenheimer discusses his childhood in Karlsruhe, Germany; his education in Karlsruhe; his early experiences with antisemitism; the changes he witnessed after 1933; his memories of Kristallnacht and its aftermath; his family’s decision to immigrate to the United States; the journey in 1940 to San Francisco, CA via the Soviet Union, Korea, Japan, and Hawaii; his decision to enlist in the US Army; his service in the Philippines; his life after the war; and visiting Karlsruhe in 1971.

Oral history interview with Lynn Orne

Oral History

Oral history interview with Renata Polt

Oral History

Renata Polt describes her childhood in Ústí, Czechoslovakia; her family's religious life; her family's decision to leave for Lucerne, Switzerland in September, 1938; her experiences in Switzerland; her family's journey to Cuba in the spring of 1939; her experiences there; immigrating to the United States in the fall of 1940; her education; her life in America; her understanding as a child of the events of the Holocaust; the fates of other family members.

Oral history interview with Albert Pukacz

Oral History

Albert Pukalz, born April 14,1927 in Metz, France, describes his childhood in Metz, Toulouse, and the Belleville quarter of Paris; his sisters, Blanche and Aline; his education at a Catholic school in Paris; his experiences with antisemitism; the arrest of one of his sisters in 1941 and her six month prison term at La Roquette for distributing anti-German materials; his memory of roundups of Jewish citizens in Paris; leaving Paris for the countryside and joining the French resistance; the shooting of the Curé of Châteaufort, 31 km from Paris, for baptizing Jews fleeing the occupation; his membership in the FTP [Francs-tireurs partisans, the military wing of the French Communist Party]; his experiences in the resistance; the people he fought beside; the actions in which he took part; his nom de guerre, Jacques Gaspard; his training provided by the Villeneuve-sur-Lot residents who also provided forged documents; his wife’s membership in the battalion, Soleil; his father’s membership in the battalion, Prosper; the 6,000 member battalion, MOE; his incorporation into the French First Army in 1944; his marriage to his wife after liberation; and his post-war residence in Israel and service in the Israeli Army.

Oral history interview with Goldie Rassen

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Rassen's childhood in Abel (Obeliai), Lithuania, the institution of antisemitism and anti-Jewish laws, the confiscation of the family hardware store and the loss of basic rights by Jewish citizens. Ms. Rassen recalls the family's forced move to a ghetto in Kovno, the terrible conditions there, being required to wear the Jewish star and to perform forced labor. She describes the relocation and murder of ghetto inhabitants. Ms. Rassen discusses attending university where she met her future husband, being released from the ghetto as the war was ending and returning to Abel to find the community in ruins and German families living in the homes of Jews who had been deported, and emigrating with her husband to the United States.

Oral history interview with Elsie Rich

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ernest Rosenthal

Oral History

Oral history interview with Harry Roth

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hella Roubicek

Oral History

Oral history interview with George Sarlo

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Sarlo's young childhood in Budapest, Hungary; living with his grandparents in the country; and returning to Budapest in late 1944. Mr. Sarlo describes his family's success in obtaining papers to immigrate to Spain which enabled them to live in a Spanish-protected house in Budapest until their liberation by the Russians in 1945. Mr. Sarlo discusses his life in Hungary after the war, his participation in the Hungarian uprising in 1956, and his flight to the United States after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary.

Oral history interview with Henry Schifman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Axel Schloss

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Schloss's young childhood in Plauen, Germany; his family's escape when he was age 5 to Brussels, Belgium; the difficulty of their life in Belgium; and the family's arrest in 1943 and transport to Malines concentration camp. He describes his family's deportation to Auschwitz, where they perished, and his experiences in a fortified farmhouse where other Jewish children were also imprisoned. Mr. Schloss discusses his escape with 120 other children in June 1944 with the assistance of the Belgium underground and going into hiding at a girl's school and with Belgian families until his liberation in September 1944. He describes living in an orphanage until December 1947, and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Debora Sessler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Richard Shand

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Shand's childhood in Breslau, Germany; his memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; and the family's move to Berlin soon after. Mr. Shand describes his voyage to London in May 1939 on a Kindertransport; his life in London during the war years; and learning of his parents' deaths in 1942. He discusses his training as a pharmacist; his life in Bermuda; and his immigration to the United States in 1959.

Oral history interview with Genia Shapiro

Oral History

Oral history interview with Claus Shelling

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sue Siegel

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Siegel's childhood in Landau, Germany; her early experiences with antisemitism; and her immigration to the United States in October 1938. Ms. Siegel describes her father's death, her mother's emigration in May 1939 on the ship St. Louis, which was returned to Holland, and her mother's flight to England and then to the United States. She discusses the lasting psychological effects of the events of the Holocaust and her adult family life in the United States.

Oral history interview with Sylvia Smoller

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alice Staller

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Staller's childhood in Vienna, Austria; her memories of the Anchluss in 1938 and her experiences with antisemitism; and her family's attempts to escape to other countires. She describes her mother's acquisition of work in England, her experience on the Kindertransport, and life in London during the war. She describes immigration to the United States in 1949, her experiences in New York and San Francisco, and her life after the war. She discusses the fates of other family members and the impact of the Holocaust on her life.

Oral history interview with Ellen Stern

Oral History

Oral history interview with Theresa Taczanowsky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helga Tannenbaum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Billy Taylor

Oral History

Oral history interview with Andrew Tegl

Oral History

Oral history interview with Harry Thalheimer

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Thalheimer's childhood in Darmstadt, Germany, the antisemitism he encountered after the Nazi regime rose to power, and his family's unsuccessful attempts to leave Germany. Mr. Thalheimer describes the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, when he was arrested for rescuing Jewish holy books from a burning synagogue, and relates the horrific conditions he experienced when he was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp. He discusses his release, and the emigration of his family to the United States, with the exception of his young sister who was disabled. Mr. Thalheimer describes learning of her placement in an orphanage and her later deportation, with an aunt, to Bergen-Belsen, where they perished. Mr. Thalheimer describes adjusting to life in the United States, being placed under quarantine in San Francisco because he and his family were German, being drafted into the army and serving as a translator for German prisoners of war.

Oral history interview with Alfred Virski

Oral History

Oral history interview with Harry Weinberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Carl Wolcott

Oral History

Oral history interview with Claire Zelkowitz

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Zelkowitz's childhood in Czechoslovakia; the changes in her life when Hungary invaded her town in 1939; and the enforcement of anti-Jewish laws. Ms. Zelkowtiz describes being moved to a ghetto in 1944 for three months; being transported to Auschwitz and then to forced labor in a factory. She discusses medical experimentation in the camps and the rape of young girls who worked as maids for SS men. Ms. Zelkowitz describes her liberation by American troops; her debilitated condition; her move to Prague after the war; and her immigration to the United States with her husband.

Oral history interview with Guta Zlotow

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anna Beyer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Margaret Bendahan

Oral History

Margaret Bendahan describes her childhood in Germany, the persecution she and her family endured under Nazi rule, and her escape from Germany to Japan. The interview recounts her experiences in Japan, where she was denied entry to the boat she had hoped to board to Panama and was forced to remain in Yokohoma, where she was arrested on charges of espionage, tortured and then imprisoned until the end of the war in 1945.

Oral history interview with Paul Benko

Oral History

Paul Benko was an only child, born in 1929 in Cluj, Transylvania (Romania). At age four, his parents were divorced and thereafter he lived first with his mother, and later with his father. During the war years, his mother operated an "underground railroad," assisting and hiding fleeing people, and as part of the organization had attempted to form an orphanage. She was arrested as a subversive but was unexpectedly released from a jail after about three months later. In the spring of 1944, the Jewish community of Cluj was deported, and Mr. Benko was transported with his father to a Hungarian work camp, and later to concentration camps in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kaufering, Kaufbeuren, and Dachau. His mother died in Auschwitz; his father survived until Dachau, and then died there of illness. Mr. Benko was also ill in Dachau and underwent surgery without anaesthetic at an infirmary there. Mr. Benko was liberated on May 1, 1945 by Allied forces and thereafter lived and/or worked at displaced persons camps in Seefeld, Mittenwald and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He was hired as a translator due to his multilingual skills, and participated in the interrogation of German prisoners at the latter camp, which became a war criminals camp. An American couple, the vaudeville dance team of "Dancing Rochelle and Beebe," who entertained Allied troops with the USO, adopted him. He traveled with them and the USO show for a time after the war, to places such as Salzburg and Paris. His adoptive parents secured him passage from Bordeaux to New York, via the steamship Nelson W. Aldrich. In New York, he was greeted by the Hebrew Aid Society, and stayed at first with a friend of his adoptive parents. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles and Santa Rosa, California. Mr. Benko is deceased.

Oral history interview with Jeanysse Bernstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alice Bloomfield

Oral History

Oral history interview with Michael Bolotni

Oral History

Oral history interview with Roy Calder

Oral History

Roy Calder describes his early life in an assimilated family in Berlin and Dresden; his invovlement in Jewish youth groups; his awareness of increased antisemitism after the Nazi rise to power; his parents' decision to send him to school in Switzerland in 1935; his attempts to convince his family to leave Germany; his regret that they did not; his decision to immigrate to Great Britain; the jobs he held in Birmingham, England; the beginning of World War II in 1939; his internment as an enemy alien in Sherbrooke, Canada; his return to England in late 1940; why he volunteered for the British army; his six year service in Scotland, Nigeria, India, and Burma; his marriage to another Holocaust survivor; his decision to immigrate to the United States in 1953; his Jewish identity; and the effects the events of the Holocaust had on him and his wife.

Oral history interview with Margareta Fisse

Oral History

Oral history interview with Erwin Friedlander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hilde Gattmann

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lily Gerson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Rachel Gordon

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Gordon's experiences in the Kovno ghetto from 1941 - 1945. Ms. Gordon describes the liquidation of the ghetto, and her transport to Stutthof where she worked for 6 weeks. She discusses the decision that her husband and she made that her son should remain with his father who was going to Dachau. She describes the death march from Stutthof in face of the advancing Russian army, her liberation by Russian troops, her forced transport to Russia, and her release and return to Germany. Ms. Gordon describes her time in Berlin, her illness and her happy reunion with her son, who had survived Dachau, although her husband had not. She recounts her experiences in a displaced persons camp, where she met her second husband, her son's immigration to Palestine, her eventual immigration to the United States, and her reunion with her son who came to the United States in 1952.

Oral history interview with Hans Gottheiner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Erna Gruschka

Oral History

Erna Gruschka discusses her childhood in Elbing, East Prussia, Germany (now Elbląg, Poland); her memories of Hitler Youth marching in the streets; the imprisonment of her father and uncles after Kristallnacht in November 1938; her opportunity to go on a Kindertransport and her mother's refusal to break up the family; the release of her father from prison and her family's flight to Shanghai, China; the conditions in the Hong Kew ghetto; the education she received; the cultural life that flourished in the ghetto; her brother’s bar mitzvah while in Shanghai; her family's decision to immigrate to Israel in 1949; the long ship journey around the Cape; her life in Israel; emigrating from Israel with her family to Canada in 1952; immigrating to the United States in 1954.

Oral history interview with Guenter Gruschka

Oral History

Oral history interview with Wolfgang Homburger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Hotzner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Margaret Kaplan

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kaplan's childhood in Stuttgart, Germany, being sent with her siblings to live with relatives in Switzerland, and her family's move to Merano, Italy. Ms. Kaplan describes attending Catholic school there, the onset of fascism in Italy, the anti-Jewish laws enacted after Italy and Nazi Germany became allies, and the family's immigration to the United States in 1939. Ms. Kaplan discusses her family's travels, the difficulties they endured, the confiscation of their property and the family's eventual compensation.

Oral history interview with Max Knight

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ursula Landsberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Karel Langer

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Langer's childhood in Uhersky Brod, Czechoslovakia, the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, the subsequent loss of the family business, and their eviction from their home in 1941. Mr. Langer describes the removal of Jews from their town in January 1943; the family's deportation first to Terezin (Theresienstadt) and then to Auschwitz; his transfer, with his father and brother, to a work camp in Blechhammer in Upper Silesia in June 1944; and his mother's removal to Hamburg and then to Bergen-Belsen. He describes the death march he endured to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in January 1945, the death of his father on the march, his transfer with his brother to Buchenwald, and their liberation in April 1945. Mr. Langer discusses his ill health and that of his mother, his reunion with his brother and mother, and their return to Uhersky Brod. He describes his move to England for school in 1947, joining his brother who had immigrated in 1949 to Israel, and serving in the Israeli Army for two years before returning to England in 1953. Mr. Langer discusses his immigration to Canada, his mother's emigration in 1955, and their move in 1961 to San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Raisa Livshits

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Livshits's childhood in Minsk, Russia, her medical school studies and marriage, and her training in a town called Lida. Ms. Livshits describes the onset of the World War II, her unsuccesful attempts to serve as a medical worker, and her return to Minsk on foot, to learn that it had been occupied by Nazi troops and that her mother, sister and husband were gone. She describes the formation of the Minsk ghetto, the conditions there, pogroms and deportations, her escape from the ghetto, and joining the partisans in April 1943, where she worked as a doctor, nurse and surgeon. Ms. Livshits discusses her reunion with her mother, sister and husband after the war, her work as a doctor in the Soviet Union, and her immigration to the United States in 1989.

Oral history interview with Regina Mager

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nina Menrath

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Menrath's childhood in Graz, Austria, her family's Catholic background, her father's rescue of Jews, and her memories of the Anschluss and the changes afterward, including having to join the Hitler Youth. She describes her family's escape to Buenos Aires, Argentina via France, Spain, and Brazil in 1940, as well as the experiences of family members who remained in Europe. She describes her life in Buenos Aires, her return to Europe after the war, her immigration to the United States, and her thoughts about discussing the Holocaust with younger generations.

Oral history interview with Ruth Nebul

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Obermeyer

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Obermeyer's childhood in Bad Salzufflen and Augsburg, Germany. He describes a pro-Nazi rally in Augsburg for which Adolf Hitler was present, as well as the feeling of danger he experienced during this time. Mr. Obermeyer describes his immigration to the United States in 1937, the family he lived with in San Francisco, the school he attended, and his experiences as an immigrant. He describes becoming a United States citizen and joining the Army in 1943, as well as his service in the Pacific theater. He discusses his life after the war, his visit to Germany in the 1980s, and his thoughts on the Holocaust in general.

Oral history interview with Louis Pais

Oral History

Oral history interview with Inge Peebles

Oral History

Inge Peebles discusses her assimilated childhood in Berlin, Germany; her parents’ interfaith marriage; her father’s death early in her life; the changes she experienced following that event; her experiences in a Christian school; the antisemitism she experienced in school; the difficulties she and her Jewish mother experienced after 1933; her mother’s decision to leave Germany for Shanghai in 1938; the difficulties they experienced while leaving; their arrival in Shanghai; the conditions there; her observations of the changes after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; moving to the Hong Kew ghetto; her marriage in 1947; her decision to immigrate to the United States in 1947; her life after the war; the psychological aftermath of her wartime experiences.

Oral history interview with Leslie Pollak

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Pollak's childhood in Oradeo, a Transylvanian city in Romania, and his education and training as a carpenter. Mr. Pollak discusses the transfer of rule over Transylvania to Hungary in the 1940s, his move to Budapest for work, the German invasion of Hungary in April 1944, and the establishment of Jewish ghettos and beginnings of deportations of Jews in May and June of 1944. He discusses his service with the Hungarian Batallion Army, being exempted from battle duty to build furniture and coffins for the Nazis, the batallion's deportation to Mauthausen in September 1944 and his escape. Mr. Pollak describes his flight to Romania, hiding in the loft of a farmer and the liberation of Romania by the Russian Army. He discusses leaving Romania in 1946 with his wife and sister for the American zone in Germany, his stay in a United Nations displaced persons camp and the family's immigration to the United States in 1950.

Oral history interview with Tsily Radovolsky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Paul Richards

Oral History

The interviews describe Mr. Richards's childhood in Schenklengsfeld, Germany; his arrest in Soest, Austria after the events of of Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938; and his internment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Mr. Richards describes his release on the condition that he emigrate within three months; learning that his family had already left for Portugal; and obtaining a ticket to Shanghai, China. He discusses his experiences in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai, where he lived until 1947; his immigration to the United States; and his life in the San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Mary Rouben

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Rouben's childhood in Salonika, Greece, her marriage in 1941, her memories of the German occupation and witnessing transports from the ghetto. Ms. Rouben describes being saved from a transport because of her husband's essential work as a mechanic, going into hiding in Salonika, and escaping to Athens where she and her husband obtained false papers and were able to work until the German occupied Athens in 1943 and they were forced into hiding again. Ms. Rouben discusses her experiences after the war ended, learning of the survival of youngest brother, the birth of her daughter, and the family's immigration to the United States in 1956.

Oral history interview with Lilly Rubenstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Natan Safar

Oral History

Oral history interview with William Sandy

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Sandy's childhood in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia); his father's death in World War I; his strong sense of identification as a German; and his experiences with antisemitism. Mr. Sandy describes the rise to power of the Nazi party, leaving school at 18 and escaping to California in 1936 on a student visa. He discusses learning of conditions in Germany through letters from his mother, her deportation in 1942, and the fates of family members, all of whom but one, an aunt, perished. Mr. Sandy describes his early impressions of the United States, his return visits to Germany, and the emotional impact the events of the Holocaust continue to have on him.

Oral history interview with Lily Sasson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Inge Schaffer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Tauba Weiss

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Weiss's childhood in Lask, Poland; the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany; her experiences in the Jewish ghettos in Lask and Lodz; and her deportation to Auschwitz. Ms. Weiss describes her experiences in Auschwitz, working in an ammunition factory near Dresden, and on a farm in Poland. She discusses her liberation, her return to Poland, her marriage and immigration to the United States in 1951.

Oral history interview with Siegfried Wulkan

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Abramowitsch

Oral History

Eva Koretz Abramowitsch, born on February 15, 1916 in Hamburg, Germany, describes being the youngest of three children; her older brother Hans Gerhardt and her sister Leana; her father’s store; attending a Jewish school where she studied Hebrew and Jewish studies; participating in left-wing youth organizations, which she described as being social rather than political; losing the family store in 1938; the family being forced to sell their house; her work as a young nurse in training in a Jewish hospital in Berlin; witnessing the events of Kristallnacht; escaping to England in 1939 with her mother and sister and reuniting with her brother there; surviving on the money her father had transferred to Switzerland; working as an au pair; meeting her future husband, who was a musician in England; the break-up of her family, as her mother and sister immigrated to Palestine; never seeing her mother again; immigrating with her husband to the United States where they settled in California; living in a boarding house with other refugees; and her visit to Germany in the 1960s.

Oral history interview with Ursula Angress

Oral History

The interview describes her childhood as part of an assimilated Jewish family in Berlin, recalls the events of Kristallnacht in Dusseldorft, Germany, when she and her father hid with a non-Jewish family in order to avoid capture, her escape with her mother and grandmother to Shanghai, the life and culture in the Jewish ghetto there, and the conditions after liberation in 1945. Ms. Angress describes her marriage in 1944 to a fellow emigrant, the birth of her daughter in 1946, the emigration of the family to the United States in 1947, the birth of her son, and her subsequent divorce and remarriage to Fred Angress. Ursula Angress was born Ursula Lindner in Berlin, Germany in 1923. Her parents divorced when Ms. Angress was eight years old and her father went to live in Düsseldorf, where he remarried a non-Jewish woman. Ms. Angress remained in Berlin with her mother and grandmother and saw her father during vacations. After the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, Ursula's father fled to Belgium, while she, her mother and her grandmother left Berlin for Shanghai. Ms. Angress spent the war years living in Shanghai. In 1944, while attending a professional school, Ms. Angress met her first husband. They married, and after the war ended, had a daughter in 1946. In 1947, the family immigrated to the United States, where a son was born. In 1950, Ms. Angress and her husband divorced; she later remarried Fred Angress.

Oral history interview with Irma Benjamin

Oral History

In the interview, Mrs. Benjamin describes her life in Breslau, Germany, including her childhood, marriage and her three daughters; the rise to power of Nazi Germany in 1933 and her and her husband's conviction that they would be safe only in Palestine; their fact-finding trips to Palestine; sale of their business and eventual immigration to Palestine in 1938. Mrs. Benjamin describes life in Palestine, her husband's death in 1949, and her move to the United States in 1950. Mrs. Benjamin was granted permission to stay in the United States because a senator from Montana - name not included in the interview - arranged for a Bill in Congress to permit it. Her youngest daughter later joined her.

Oral history interview with Dieter W. Bergman

Oral History

Dieter W. Bergman, born in 1920 in Liepzig, Germany, discusses his Protestant father and Jewish mother, who had converted to Protestantism; the divorce of his parents when he was young; living with his father; brought up Protestant; attending high school in Liepzig; being drafted into the military in 1940; attending medical school; serving until he was forced out in 1942; being sent in 1943 to Lodz, Poland to work in a chemical and rubber plant; being transferred to Krakow, Poland and from there to labor camps in Boulogne, France to build fortifications against the eventual invasion of Allied troops (Operation Todt); being captured and imprisoned in several prisoners-of-war camps in England; continuing his medical studies in England; returning to Germany to finish his medical school education; obtaining a residency in Chicago,IL; immigrating to the United States; joining the United States Navy, serving as an obstetrician in Bremerton, WA; and moving to Northern California, where he practiced medicine for 35 years and raised two children. Note: Dieter W. Bergman was the author of an autobiography - “Between Two Benches ” - which recounts his experiences as a mischlinge (half-Jew) during his years living in Nazi Germany. He died in 1997.

Oral history interview with Jack Boas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Bosch

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herta Bregoff

Oral History

Herta Bregoff describes her early life in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, Germany; her memories of the Nazi's ascension to power in 1933; the Nazi Party's antisemitic legislation; her memories of Kristallnacht in 1938; her father and uncle's arrest; her and her family's deportation to Gurs, a concentration camp in France; her father's death at Gurs; how her family was released in 1941 to Marseille; her family's immigration to the United States in 1941; her life in the United States; her education; her marriage and family; and her reflections on her experience in the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with John Brunn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hilde Catz

Oral History

Hilde Catz was born in 1924 in Aschaffenburg, Germany to an Orthodox family. The interview describes Ms. Catz's childhood in Germany, her remembrances of antisemitism in Germany and of Kristallnacht in November 1938, her experiences as part of the Kindertransport to London, her experiences in foster care in England during the war, her training as a nurse and her involvement with child survivors of concentration camps after the war. Ms. Catz immigrated to the United States and settled in Santa Rosa, raised a family and became a teacher, and continues to reside there.

Oral history interview with Nellie Cesana

Oral History

The interviews describe Ms. Cesana's young childhood in Warsaw, Poland; her early memories of the bombing of Warsaw in 1939; and of the construction of the Warsaw ghetto. Ms. Cesana describes her experiences in the ghetto, her brother's passing with false identity cards, hiding from blockades and roundups, and the hunger and fear she endured. She describes her and her mother's escape from the ghetto with the assistance of her brother, and their voyage to Germany with other Polish volunteer workers under assumed identities. Ms. Cesana discusses her experiences in Germany on a farm where her mother found work, the freedom she enjoyed, and the devastation of learning that her brother had been killed in the ghetto. She describes her liberation in April 1945 by Russian troops, her and her mother's return to Warsaw and their attempts to find surviving family members. Ms. Cesana discusses her experiences with antisemitism after the war, the Jewish community that emerged near Breslau and Reichenbach, her mother's remarriage to an Auschwitz survivor, and the family's immigration to Israel in 1950. She describes her education in Israel, her marriage there, and her immigration to the United States with her husband and young son.

Oral history interview with Anna Cooper

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Cooper's young childhood in Goworowo, Poland, near Warsaw. Ms. Cooper describes events of the war years based on her father's stories; she was born in 1937 and was a very young child during the Holocaust. She discusses the destruction of Goverova's synagogue, the family's flight to the Russian border and settling in Bialystok. Ms. Cooper describes her mother's death in 1943, her father and uncle's deportation to a labor camp, and being taken to a series of orphanages. She discusses her reunion with her brother, father and uncle, their decision to leave Poland, their experiences in a displaced person camp in Germany until 1951, and their immigration to the United States. Ms. Cooper describes the family's life in Chicago, and her move to San Francisco, California.

Oral history interview with Louis de Groot

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. de Groot's childhood in Arnhem, Holland, his recollections of the invasion of the Netherlands by Germany in 1940, the family's failed attempts to flee to England, and their return to Arnhem. Mr. de Groot describes the implementation of anti-Jewish laws in Holland, the discrimination Dutch Jews were subject to, and his family's decision to go into hiding in 1941 when he was 11 years old. He describes the multiple moves he and his family made, hiding with different families, and his experiences while being hidden, including with a family involved in underground resistance activities. Mr. de Groot describes his close relationship with this family, the Ungerways, and their loyalty and affection for him. Mr. DeGroot discusses his painful separation from his parents and sister, and his experiences in an orphanage for Jewish children. Mr. de Groot describes fighting in 1948 in Israel, returning to Holland in 1949, and emigrating to the United States in 1950, where he married and had a family.

Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lev Dumer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Eden

Oral History

Oral history interview with Lucille Eichengreen

Oral History

Lucille Eichengreen was born Cecilia Landau in Hamburg, Germany, on February 1, 1925. Her parents, Benjamin Landau and Sara (Baumwolspinner) Landau were Polish nationals, born in Sambor, Poland and living in Germany. Her father was a businessman working in import/export—mostly wine wholesale. The family traveled between Germany and Poland for the first sixteen years of Ms. Eichengreen’s life, and she attended a private Jewish school beginning in 1930. Her sister, Karin, was born in 1930. In October 1938, Mr. Landau was sent back to Poland. The rest of the family remained in Hamburg, but began attempts to get a visa to go to Palestine to stay with family. In May, 1939, Mr. Landau received a four-week pass to return to Germany to move the family out. The family remained in Germany, and they shipped their belongings to relatives in Palestine while waiting for an exit permit. When the war broke out on Sept. 1, 1939, the Gestapo arrested Ms. Eichengreen’s father and, after four weeks, sent him to Dachau. Mr. Landau died at Dachau and the family received his ashes in February, 1941. During this period, Ms. Eichengreen had graduated school and found work. In the fall of 1941, the family was deported to the Lodz Ghetto. Ms. Eichengreen’s mother died of starvation in July of 1942. Six weeks later, her sister Karin was deported, probably to Auschwitz, and perished. During and after this time, Ms. Eichengreen worked as a secretary for a beautification project, for the statistical department, and then for a kitchen. She developed jaundice while at Lodz. In January, 1944, Ms. Eichengreen was sent to Auschwitz, and then on to Neuengamme-Sasel. She performed manual labor, and then office work where she processed documents. She remained at Neuengamme until the end of March, 1945, when she and others were put onto trucks and sent to Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated by British troops. Ms. Eichengreen worked as a translator for the British, and gave them the names of 42 Nazis who had worked at Neuengamme—she had memorized them in the course of her office work there. The British tried these Nazis, and Ms. Eichengreen testified against them in court. Soon after this, in December 1945, she began to receive death threats and left Germany quickly. She traveled with a British officer to France, and from Paris was able to get a visa from the US Embassy in February, 1946. Ms. Eichengreen moved to Sunnyside, Queens, New York, where she met her husband. They married at the end of 1946, and in 1949 moved to San Francisco where she worked and then had two sons. Her husband died in 2003. Ms. Eichengreen continues to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of “From Ashes to Life: My Memories of the Holocaust" and “Rumkowski: And the Orphans of Lodz.”

Oral history interview with Desi Rina Evan

Oral History

Desi Evan descibes her childhood in Sofia, Bulgaria; her memories of the Nazi occupation; the prejudice she encountered; moving to the ghetto; life during the war years; the abortion her mother had after the Nazis invaded Bulgaria; her uncle's forced labor; her father's refusal to convert to Christianity; his suicide after the Nazi occupation; her liberation by the Soviet Army; her family's return to Sofia; the injustice and corruption her family faced under communist rule; her family's move to Israel; and her fami'ys immigration to the United States in the 1960s.

Oral history interview with Joe Fabry

Oral History

Joseph Fabry was born Josef Epstein in Vienna in November 1909. He worked there as as a short-story editor for a magazine before antisemitic laws forced him out. He fled Austria for Belgium, where he hoped to obtain working papers. While there, he was arrested and imprisoned for two years in a prison camp in Merxplas, Belgium. Mr. Fabry was able to obtain an affidavit for the United States, and fled to England. He lived in London before moving to New York City, where he met his wife Mira. Mr. Fabry was a writer for CBS in New York, moved with his family to San Francisco, and worked as an editor for the University of California Berkeley for 25 years before retiring. Mr. Fabry wrote about his experiences during World War II. "One and One Make Three" was co-authored with Max Knight under the pen name Peter Fabrizius. Mr. Fabry wrote about his experiences in Merxplas, Belgium in "The Next-to-Final Solution: A Belgian Detention Camp for Hitler Refugees." Mr. Fabry's interest in Dr. Vickor Frankl and logotherapy led to his founding the Institute of Logotherapy; he edited its journal "The International Forum for Logotherapy" and wrote three books on that subject. He also co-authored several books with Max Knight as Peter Fabrizius.

Oral history interview with Morris Farkas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mikhail Felberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Henia Fishman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Izik Flek

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Flek's childhood in Odessa, Ukraine, the entry of Nazi troops into Odessa on October 16, 1941 and the demand of the Nazi administration that all Jews report for registration. Mr. Flek describes murders of Jews who had registered, his reporting to Slabodka, where he witnessed more deaths. He describes Jewish residents being forced to a sorting station where they were taken in groups and shot, and how he survived by hiding in a ditch. He recalls being drafted to sew for army forces, transported to Berezovka, then to a ghetto in Damanevka, and finally to Malachug where he remained until the end of the war. Mr. Flek discusses his life after liberation, his family and their immigration to the United States in 1987.

Oral history interview with Walter Frank

Oral History

Walter Frank was born Walter Fackenheim in May 1920 in Wiesbaden, Germany. His father was a physician and his mother was a homemaker. Mr. Frank was educated in Wiesbaden and, unable to continue on to college due to antisemitism in Nazi Germany, worked as a commercial apprentice and attended commercial training school. After the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938 and the arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald of himself and his father, the Fackenheim family fled Germany for Shanghai, China. While in Shanghai, Mr. Frank worked as a clerk in a laundry and became involved with a relief committee established by Hungarian diplomat Paul Komor - The International Committee for the Organization of European Immigrants in China. Mr. Frank's father died in 1943, and his mother died in September 1945. After the end of World War II, Mr. Frank and his brother Eric worked for the Shanghai air transport field which was under the control of American troops. In 1947, Mr. Frank and his brother immigrated to the United States, and changed their names from Fackenheim to Frank. Mr. Frank became an accountant. He met and married his wife Ida Katz in 1948 and they had two sons.

Oral history interview with Frank Fukuhara

Oral History

Oral history interview with Meyer Galler

Oral History

Meyer Galler was born in Bialystok, Poland in 1914. In 1933 he attended the University of Warsaw where he studied math. He graduated in 1939 and settled and worked in Lvov, where he married. After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Mr. Galler and his wife were separated, and he migrated through several cities in Russia, eventually working on a collective farm in Kazahstan. He was arrested in 1942 and sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp, and an additional 5 years in exile. Repatriated to Poland in 1959, Mr. Galler immigrated to the United States the next year. Initially working as a baker in Chicago, Mr. Galler entered into a PhD program at the age of 50 in nutritional science at the University of California at Berkeley. He graduated in 1964. Meyer Galler died in 2000. A scholarship fund at UC Berkeley, The Meyer Galler Scholarship Fund, provides financial assistance to deserving students in the masters and/or doctoral degree programs at the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology. Mr. Galler was the author of two books on the Soviet prison system, "Soviet Prison Camp Speech: A Surviver's Glossary " and "Soviet Camp Speech," and a memoir, "Plowing the Steppes and Other Gulag Stories."

Oral history interview with Ida Gelbart

Oral History

Oral history interview with Walter Gelnay

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jacob Gilat

Oral History

Oral history interview with Annie Glass

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hanna Goldschmidt

Oral History

Oral history interview with Werner Goldsmith

Oral History

Oral history interview with Murray Gordon

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Gordon's life in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, his experiences in the Kovno ghetto and with Zionist underground, and the atrocities perpetrated against Jews that he witnessed. Mr. Gordon describes being deported to Dachau with his father, being separated from his mother and brother, both of whom perished, the death march he endured, and his liberation. Mr. Gordon discusses his attempts to immigrate to the United States, attending the University of Munich, and his eventual success and arrival in New York in 1949. Mr. Gordon describes his career, marriage and children, and his past difficulties in discussing his Holocaust experiences.

Oral history interview with Margaret Hansen

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jacob Harari

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Harari's childhood in Ludmir, Poland (now Volodymyr-Volyns'kyi, Ukraine) and his memories of the arrival of Nazi troops in 1941. Mr. Harari describes the family's move to a ghetto, his detention during an anti-Jewish action, and his experiences while living with his family in underground hiding places until the end of the war. Mr. Harari discusses his life in Poland after the war, and his assumed identity as a Christian while in school. He describes his family's immigration to Israel, and Mr. Harari's decision in 1952 to pursue an engineering degree in the United States, where he married in 1959 and settled.

Oral history interview with Luna Harrison

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Harrison's childhood as part of a Turkish Sephardic Jewish family living in Holland. She describes early memories of antisemitic measures enacted by Nazi German occupiers, her family hiding other Jews in their home and how their Turkish citizenship delayed their own deportation to Westerbork until 1943. Ms. Harrison describes her family's transport to Bergen-Belsen in February 1944, the horrific conditions there, and their early release through an exchange of Turkish citizens for Germans. She discusses settling in Turkey after the war, and then moving to Holland, where she met her husband, an American soldier, in 1957. Ms. Harrison describes moving to Idaho, divorcing and settling in San Francisco, and reflects on how her experiences during the Holocaust led her to detach herself from her Jewish background.

Oral history interview with Edith Heine

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Heine-Levy's childhood in Amsterdam, Holland, after her family's move from Germany in 1933, and her early memories of the war years and of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Ms. Heine-Levy describes an incursion by the Gestapo in their home, the family's flight, and their experiences in hiding in several places throughout the war years. She describes witnessing roundups and scene of violence, and her weakened condition upon liberation. Ms. Heine-Levy discusses the family's return to Germany, her fear and discomfort living there, her marriage and divorce in Germany, and her immigration to the United States in 1992.

Oral history interview with James Henderson

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Henderson's service in the United States Army with the 104th Infantry Division, and his conversations with friends who visited Nordhausen concentration camp after its liberation by the 415th Infantry Regiment. Mr. Henderson describes the remainder of his service during World War II and the emotional effect that the atrocities that occurred at Nordhausen had on him.

Oral history interview with Ilse Hertz

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Hertz's childhood in Aschaffenburg, Germany, her early experiences of antisemitism, the anti-Jewish laws that forced her and her brothers to leave their schools, and her brothers' emigrations, one to Palestine and one to the United States. Ms. Hertz describes her experiences during Kristallnacht in November 1938, when her fiance was arrested and imprisoned in Dachau, his immigration to Cuba in March 1940, and her attempts to join him. Ms. Hertz discusses difficulties when the ship was turned back to Hamburg, and her eventual successful immigration to the United States in 1940, where she settled first in Chicago and later in San Francisco. Ms. Hertz also discusses the death of her mother-in-law from natural causes in Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp.

Oral history interview with Joanna Hochman

Oral History

The interview describes Mrs. Hochman's family and childhood in Vienna, Austria, her increasing awareness of antisemitism and fears for her family's future, and her brother's successful emigration with his family to Argentina. Mrs. Hochman discusses the Anschluss of March 1938, her attempts to find means to emigrate, her success in obtaining visas for Uruguay, and the events of Kristallancht and her husband's arrest. Mrs. Hochman describes the release of her husband, the complicated financial arrangements they needed to make to emigrate, and their eventual immigration to Uruguay in January 1939. Mrs. Hochman discusses the fate of her mother, who refused to leave Europe and was eventually transported to Auschwitz, where she perished. She describes her life in Uruguay, her family life, including marriages, divorces, remarriages and children, her relocation to Argentina, where she lived for 22 years, and her eventual immigration to the United States in 1961.

Oral history interview with Ernest Hollander

Oral History

Ernest Hollander describes his childhood in Irshava, a small village near Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (now Mukachevo, Ukraine); the occupation of the area in which he and his family lived by Hungary in 1939; the increasing anti-Jewish restrictions imposed in 1941; his older brother being conscripted into forced labor; his sister moving to Budapest; the round up of Jews in 1944; their trip by cattle car to Auschwitz; the selection process in which his three young sisters and his mother were sent to their death; Ernest, his father, two brothers and an uncle being sent to the Allenbush factory near Breslau; Ernest’s father dying there; being transferred to Flossenburg concentration camp; the subsequent death march to Dachau; being liberated by an African American tank brigade; staying in a displaced persons camp in Germany; deciding to immigrate to Palestine; being smuggled into Palestine on a British boat; his life in Haifa, Israel; marrying; participating in the 1948 Israel-Arab war; immigrating to the United States in 1950; organizing a survivors group; speaking in schools; his active participation in the Jewish community; reuniting with his older brother Zoltan, whom he had believed had been killed during the war, in 1992.

Oral history interview with Lenore Hollander

Oral History

Oral history interview with Helga Horne

Oral History

Oral history interview with Vivian Janho

Oral History

Oral history interview with Martha Jonas

Oral History

Martha Jonas discusses her childhood in Cologne, Germany; the increased antisemitism she and her family experienced after the start of the Nazi regime; her father's arrest and imprisonment in Dachau; her family's flight to Amsterdam; life in Amsterdam; her marriage in 1942, when she was forced to walk to her wedding because Jews were not allowed to take public transportation; her and her husband being imprisoned the day after the wedding; being deported to Westerbork, where they were separated; how both her and her husband both remained at Westerbork until the end of the war, when they were liberated by Canadian troops; working for the Dutch military after the war; moving first to Sweden and then to the United States; the fate of her family members during the Holocaust.

Oral history interview with Monique Joseph

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ruth Joseph

Oral History

Ruth Joseph, born in 1939, discusses her childhood in Kielce, Poland; her family's move to the ghetto in Kielce; the mass deportation of Jews from the ghetto to Treblinka; her family's escape from the ghetto; her father obtaining false papers; the period when the family hid, passing as a Catholic family, in a town near Warsaw; the family's flight toward the front line in the direction of the Soviet Union; their return to Kielce; their decision to emigrate after the Kielce pogrom in 1946; their arrival in the United States; the family's difficulties in adjusting to life in the United States; moving to Venezuela; returning to the United States; her marriage and family life. [Note that most of the information in the interview is based on the memories of Ruth's parents.]

Oral history interview with Harry Kaminsky

Oral History

Oral history interview with Raya Kats

Oral History

Oral history interview with Inna Katsap

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Katsap's childhood in Minsk, Russia, the outbreak of World War II and her father's enlistment in the Soviet Army, and the journey she and her family made eastward before the approach of German troops. She describes the frightening and difficult train ride to Kazakhstan, settling in Krasnoyarsky until the end of the war, and the family's return home to Minsk after the war ended.

Oral history interview with Hilla Kirschner

Oral History

Oral history interview with Elya Klester

Oral History

Oral history interview with Peter Kooy

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Kooy's childhood in Amsterdam, Holland, and his memories of the invasion of Holland by Germany and life under the Nazi occupation. Mr. Kooy describes his father's activities with the Free Groups, a resistance group, and how his family hid several people, Jewish and non-Jewish, during the war years. He describes the structure and actions of the various resistance groups working in Holland, the liberation of Holland, and his and his family's immigration to the United States in 1950, sponsored by the family of one of the children his family had hidden.

Oral history interview with Henri Korb

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Korb's childhood in Budapest, Hungary, the imprisonment of his family after World War I, and the scattering of his brothers and sisters to cities all around the world as a consequence. Mr. Korb describes his move with his mother to Strasbourg, France, where he was educated, becoming a French citizen, and his work as an engineer in Lebanon and in France. He discusses the invasion of France by Nazi Germany, conditions under occupation, his success in obtaining papers so that he could continue to work, being imprisoned for assisting in the escape of his nieces and nephews to Spain, and joining the French resistance movement, the Maquis, for the duration of the war years. Mr. Korb describes a job-related move to Canada, and his immigration to the United States.

Oral history interview with Vilem Kriz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Isabelle Kun

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Kun's childhood in Czechoslovakia and in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Ms. Kun describes her first marriage in 1935, the couple's immigration to Romania and return to Czechoslovakia. She describes her deportation to Auschwitz in May 1944, her separation from her husband, whom she never saw again, and the terrible conditions at Auschwitz. Ms. Kun discusses her transfer to Birnbaumel, the forced labor she performed there, and the death march she endured in January 1945. She describes her liberation by Russian troops, her return to Prague, where she learned of the death of her mother, husband and many other family members, meeting her second husband in Prague, and their immigration to the United States in 1946.

Oral history interview with Kurt Levi

Oral History

Oral history interview with Renee Levine

Oral History

Renee Levine describes her childhood in Bratislava, Slovakia; the anti-Jewish restrictions imposed after the war began in 1939; her decision to escape to Palestine; her voyage by boat from Yugoslavia; being stranded and interned in Rhodes, Greece for a year; her transfer in 1942 to the Ferramonte concentration camp in southern Italy, where she remained until the end of the war in Italy in September 1943; the fates of her parents who died in the Holocaust; her post-war life in Rome, Italy; her immigration to the United States in 1950; her marriage in 1953; her brief return to Italy; and her final settlement in the United States.

Oral history interview with Erwin Levy

Oral History

Oral history interview with Vera Lieban-Kalmar

Oral History

Oral history interview with Greta Liebman

Oral History

Greta Liebman describes her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany; her memories of antisemitism after the Nazi rise to power; her family's relocation to Frankfurt; the greater freedom she remembers there; Kristallnacht; her flight with her mother and other family members to Rotterdam, Netherlands; their journey by train; their arrival in Rotterdam; their trip by boat to New York and by train to San Francisco; her life in the United States; her marriage; and her feelings about her return trips to Germany.

Oral history interview with Herta Long

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Long's childhood in Schokken, Germany (now Skoki, Poland), her move to Berlin, Germany and her marriage to Ernest Goldstein in 1937. Ms. Long decribes her difficulties in obtaining a visa to the United States, the birth of her daughter, the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and her husband being recruited for forced labor. She discusses the family being forced to move into a "Jewish" house, her own experiences with forced labor at the Graf Zeppelin works, her father's and sister's deportation to Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp, and her decision to remain hidden in Berlin. Ms. Long describes her experiences in hiding, her husband's arrest and deportation in 1943, her liberation by Russian troops, being identified as a non-Jew and deported to a quarantined village, and a long difficult journey through Lithuania, Kaliningrad and finally to a transit camp in East Germany. Ms. Long describes her arrival in Berlin, her job with the International Refugee Organization and her immigration to the United States in November 1950.

Oral history interview with Jacob Lubliner

Oral History

Jacob "Coby" Lubliner, born in 1935 in Lodz, Poland, describes his childhood in Lodz; his family's move to Piotrkow (Piotrków Trybunalski), Poland after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939; his family's experiences in the Piotrków ghetto; forced labor; the deportation of his father to Buchenwald in November 1944; being sent at the age of nine to Bergen-Belsen along with 15 other young boys; his reunion with his mother in Bergen-Belsen; liberation of the camp; reuniting with his father; living in Germany for six years after the war; his father becoming the editor of the newspaper in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp; his family's decision to immigrate to the United States; arriving in the US in November 1950; and living in Los Angeles, CA.

Oral history interview with Franklin Lyons

Oral History

Oral history interview with René Molho

Oral History

Oral history interview with Renee Newman

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Newman's childhood in a small town near Vienna, Austria; the family's migrations during 1938-1940 in Czechoslovakia and France; the constricted circumstances they lived under in France; and the family's immigration to the United States in 1940. Ms. Newman describes her experiences in France, her life in the United States, and her marriages.

Oral history interview with Irene Opdyke

Oral History

Irene Opdyke discusses her childhood in Kozienice, Poland; her service as a nurse in the Polish Army; her experiences in a forced labor camp near Radom, Poland; her work as a housekeeper for a German Army Major in Radom and Tarnopol; the mass killings she witnessed there; her experiences hiding Jewish people in the Major’s house; the raids by the Gestapo; the Major’s discovery of the people in hiding; the experience of being a woman during wartime; joining the partisans near Radom in 1944; her arrest by and escape from the Soviets in 1945; her experiences in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany between 1946 and 1949; immigration to the United States in 1949; her life after the war; her family; her experiences speaking to the public about her wartime activities.

Oral history interview with Jan Philipp

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Philipp's childhood in Lodz, Poland, and his family's move to Warsaw after Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany in September 1939. Mr. Philipp relates that his family never moved to the ghetto, changed their last name several times, and lived under false identities in Warsaw. He discusses the constant fear the family experienced, his learning to pass as a Catholic, and the disappearance of his father. Mr. Philipp describes his life after the war, obtaining a degree in engineering in Gorlitz, Germany; his presumed association with the Polish Secret Service; and his multiple moves to Switzerland, Austria and the United States.

Oral history interview with Ludwig Pick

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Pick's childhood in Magdeburg, Germany; his father's ambivalence toward Judaism; his experiences in school; and his childhood acquaintance with Walther Rauff, who later was involved in the implementation of mobile gas vans. Mr. Pick describes his law school education, his career as a judge, being forced to resign his position in order to avoid being discovered to be a Jew, and his decision to leave Germany. Mr. Pick discusses his move to Italy and studying law there, his subsequent immigration to the United States, and settling in Seattle, Washington. He describes his father's imprisonment in Dachau and his flight in 1940 to join Mr. Pick in the United States. Mr. Pick discusses his marriages and career in law, and his two return visits to Germany.

Oral history interview with Liesel Reichsthaler

Oral History

Liesel Reichsthaler discusses her childhood in Germany; the advent of anti-Jewish restrictions after Hitler rose to power; her family's decision to move to Amsterdam, Holland in 1933; her experiences as a child in Amsterdam; her family's association with the Otto Frank family; her family's experiences under Nazi occupation; manual labor they performed; anti-Jewish restrictions; her family's deportation and confinement in Westerbork concentration camp, where they remained until the end of the war; her father's prominent position in the Jewish community; her father’s efforts to rescue individuals slated for deportation to Auschwitz; her father’s work with diamond dealing and falsified documents; the liberation of Westerbork by Canadian troops in April 1945; her father's arrest in 1947 on charges of collaboration; her father’s exoneration and the family's subsequent disassociation with the Jewish community; her marriage and family life in the Netherlands after the war; immigrating to the United States in 1984, after the death of her husband.

Oral history interview with Hilda Richards

Oral History

Oral history interview with Susi Robinson

Oral History

Susi Robinson discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; the antisemitism she experienced as a child; the abuse she experienced at the hands of a German officer; her experiences with the Kindertransport and her move to Great Britain; the family members she lost; her life in England; marrying in 1949; her family's immigration to the United States in 1967.

Oral history interview with Helen Rose

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Rose's childhood and young adulthood in Berlin, Germany; her experiences with antisemitism beginning in 1938; and her work with a Jewish emigration agency. Ms. Rose describes the separation of her family and their dispersal; her flight to London in 1939; her experiences in England during the war; and her immigration to the United States in 1951. She discusses settling in San Francisco, and learning of her mother's death in a concentration camp in occupied Poland.

Oral history interview with Jerry Rosenstein

Oral History

Oral history interview with Inge Rosenthal

Oral History

Inge Rosenthal describes her childhood in a Silesian town near Breslau; her memories of Nazi parades in town; the antisemitism she experienced; her father's arrest after Kristallnacht; his release with the orders the family must leave Germany within two weeks; her family's travel by train to Italy and by sea to Shanghai, China; conditions in Shanghai; and the help they received from Jewish and Chinese acquaintances.

Oral history interview with Helen Ross

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ida Roth

Oral History

Oral history interview with John Salz

Oral History

John Salz describes his childhood in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia (now Plzen, Czech Republic); his memories of the Anschluss in March 1938, when his family was visiting Austria; the absorption of the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany; how his family's business was confiscated; his father's arrest and imprisonment; being placed on a Kindertransport to England in 1939; his father's flight to England several months later; the fae of his mother and sister who remained behind and perished in Auschwitz; moving with his father to Ireland; his isolation and the difficulties of living alone in a boarding house; their attempts to obtain visas to the United States; his voyage to the United States with his father in 1941; his father's psychotic breakdown shortly thereafter; being drafted into the United States military in 1943; his military service in Italy; being captured in a German ambush and liberated in 1945; his reunion with his father and brother in San Francisco; and his family and personal life in San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Eric Schmidt

Oral History

Oral history interview with Hans Schoenwald

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Oral history interview with Yakov Shliapochnik

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Oral history interview with Sharon Skolnick

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Oral history interview with Gita Soroka

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Oral history interview with Marianne Strassman

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Oral history interview with Janina Swift

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Oral history interview with Renee Tully

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Oral history interview with Howard Waldman

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Oral history interview with Herbert Wallace

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Wallace's childhood in Offenbach, Germany; his education and work as a nurse in a Jewish hospital; and the antisemitism he experienced in Nazi Germany. Mr. Wallace describes a raid by the SS in 1938 that he escaped by hiding, and his determination to leave Germany. He describes his family's escape to London in 1939 and their immigration to the United States in 1940. Mr. Wallace describes his life in America, his work as a nurse and his service in the United States Army during World War II as an X-ray technician.

Oral history interview with Lewis Weil

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Weil's childhood in Landau, Germany; the onset of antisemitism when Hitler rose to power; his escape to Amsterdam, Holland in 1938; and his immigration to the United States in September 1938. He discusses his experiences upon arrival; his sponsorship by a family in San Francisco; his education; and the antisemitism he faced in the United States. Mr. Weil describes the experiences of his parents and brother in Germany where they fled to Mannheim, his father's arrest and imprisonment in Dachau, the family's internment in Gurs concentration camp in France, his father's death, and his mother's and brother's immigration to the United States in 1941.

Oral history interview with Harry Weininger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leo Weshler

Oral History

The interview describe Mr. Weshler's childhood in Vienna, Austria; his experiences with antisemitism while in school; his memories of the Anschluss in March 1938; and the resultant anti-Jewish boycotts and prohibitions that Jews experienced. Mr. Weshler describes the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, his encounter with Adolph Eichmann, and his escape from deportation to Dachau because of his work with emigration. He discusses the family's immigration to Shanghai; the hardships of life there; his work and life experiences, including his father's death from leukemia; and the Japanese domination of the Hong Kew ghetto, presided over by General Goya. Mr. Weshler describes the end of World War II, and the family members attempts to immigrate to the United States. He discusses his return to Vienna in December 1949 to await his visa to the United States and his impressions of the city; his work with the Joint Distribution Committee in Vienna, his immigration to the United States in 1951, and his family life and career.

Oral history interview with Walter Wohlfeiler

Oral History

Oral history interview with Daniel Bertram

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Oral history interview with Karol Galinski

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Oral history interview with Jerzy Gawrych

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Oral history interview with Alina Horowitz

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Oral history interview with Daniel Horowitz

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Oral history interview with Isac Lerer

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Oral history interview with Josef Lewkowicz

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Oral history interview with Iralewisz Munish

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Oral history interview with Edward Offen

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Oral history interview with Adam Rusinek

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Oral history interview with Edyta Szenkelbach

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Oral history interview with Sabina Wylot

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Oral history interview with Stan Zak Kaminski

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Oral history interview with Renata Zisman

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Oral history interview with Anna Barta

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Oral history interview with Edith Gerda Boas

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Oral history interview with Leo Fixler and Helen Fixler

Oral History

Leo Fixler was born in Teresva, Czechoslovakia in 1922, a member of a large extended family. He left for Budapest in 1939, where he lived comfortably until being arrested and forced into a labor camp in Germany from 1943 until early 1945. He was then sent on a death march to Mauthausen and later imprisoned in Gunskirchen. After his liberation, Mr. Fixler was hospitalized and then worked for the United States Army in Germany. He immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada in 1949, where he worked as a tailor, and met and married his wife Helen. Helen Fixler was born in eastern Poland in 1927. After the occupation of her city by Nazi troops, she and her family were forced into a ghetto. The family escaped and lived in the woods nearby, where Mrs. Fixler remained for a year and a half. After the war ended, Mrs. Fixler returned to her home in Poland, reunited with her brother and moved to Germany. Her brother was able to immigrate to Canada; she joined him there and met and married Mr. Fixler in Winnipeg.

Oral history interview with Moishe Garbarz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Chris Giepen

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Oral history interview with Ruth Tanner Glasson

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Oral history interview with Werner Goldschmidt

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Oral history interview with Charlotte Grosman

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Oral history interview with Karl Guttman

Oral History

The interview describes Mr. Guttman's childhood in Vienna, Austria, where he was raised as a Lutheran by two Jewish parents who had converted to Christianity. He discusses the Anschluss in Austria, the increasing antisemitism that he faced because of his parents' Jewish background, and his attempts to escape Austria; because he was Lutheran he was not able to appeal to Jewish agencies and was aided by a Swedish mission. Mr. Guttman describes his escape to London, England, where he was considered an enemy alien, and was deported to Australia on the British passenger ship Dunera. Mr. Guttman recounts his experiences in an internment camp in Australia for two years, his eventual release, and joining the Australian Army in 1942. He describes his return to civilian employment in 1943, his immigration to the United States in 1949, and his life in San Francisco.

Oral history interview with Regina Hanover

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jules Hartogh

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Oral history interview with Herbert Heller

Oral History

Herbert Heller describes his childhood in Teplice, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); his assimilated family life; his family's move to Prague in 1934; his and his family's deportation to Theresienstadt (Terezin) in 1941 or 1942; his and his family's transfer to Auschwitz; conditions in the camp adn the work he performed; his escape from a death march in 1945; his return to Prague; hiding with a Czech family and removing his tattoo; the liberation of Prague in May 1945; his reunion with his mother in May 1945; their immigration to the United States in 1946; his experiences in San Francisco; his work; his marriage and family; and the fates of his other family members.

Oral history interview with Abraham Henselyn

Oral History

Oral history interview with Otto Hertz

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Oral history interview with Werner G. Loeb

Oral History

Werner Loeb describes his childhood in Steinheim, Germany; its small Jewish community; his first memories of antisemitism in school; the forced sale of his father's business; his memories of Kristallnacht; his and his father's arrest and imprisonment in Buchenwald; his experiences doing forced labor; the forced relocation of his brother to a hospital; his brother's death; his and his parents' deportation to Theresienstadt; his experiences at the camp; his participation in the filming of the Nazi propaganda film, "Hitler Gives a City to the Jews"; his father's death in Theresienstadt; his deportation to a forced labor camp in Wulkow; his final return to Theresienstadt; his liberation; his mother's despair after the war; their immigration to the United States in 1949; his mother's suicide; and his life, family and career in the United States.

Oral history interview with Lydia Mednick

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Mednick's childhood in Rome and Milan, Italy. She describes the stories that German and Polish refugees related in 1936 and 1937, and her family's decision to leave Italy for the United States. She describes their arrival in New York in 1940, the fates of family members who remained in Italy, and her life in America.

Oral history interview with Rachel Moncharsh

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Moncharsh's childhood in Wadowice, Poland; the family's failed attempt to escape to the Soviet Union by train; and the changes she observed after the Nazi invasion. She describes the Wadowice ghetto, her deportation to Gaberdorf labor camp in 1942 and the work she performed there, and her liberation by the Russians in 1945. She discusses returning to Wadowice without her family, their fates, her decision to move to Germany to stay with a cousin, and her immigration to the United States in 1949 with her husband. She describes her life in America after the war.

Oral history interview with John Polt

Oral History

John Polt (né Pollatschek), born August 20, 1929 describes his childhood in Úštěk, Czechoslovakia; his family's decision to immigrate to Switzerland in September 1938; how the decision to leave Czechoslovakia was explained to him; his family's journey to Cuba in 1939; his experiences in Cuba; his family’s subsequent journey to the United States by airplane; his education; and his life in America.

Oral history interview with Lore May Rasmussen

Oral History

Lore Rasmussen discusses her childhood in Lampertheim, Germany; her family life; her education in Lampertheim and Worms; the antisemitism she experienced in school; immigrating to the United States in 1938; her continuing education at the University of Illinois; her work at Talladega College, an all-black college in Alabama; the racism she observed at Talladega; the conditions her students lived in; an incident in which she was arrested for eating in a segregated cafe with an African-American colleague; her brief return to Lampertheim; the impact of her experiences in Nazi Germany.

Oral history interview with Irene Fanny Rosenfeld

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ursula Sabel

Oral History

Ursula Sabel describes her childhood in Rutesheim, Germany; her experiences with antisemitism and her memories of the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; the arrest of her father after Kristallnacht and his immigration to the United States; traveling with her mother and sisters to Hamburg to leave Germany for the United States by ship; eluding capture by Nazi officials by hiding in the back of the boat; her family's arrival in the United States; and setting in Pleasant Hill, California.

Oral history interview with Herbert Salzer

Oral History

Herbert Salzer describes his childhood in Vienna, Austria; his assimilated family life; the changes he experienced following the Anschluss in 1938; his family's decision to immigrate after Kristallnacht; leaving Vienna for Brussels, Belgium in March 1939; his reunion with his parents in 1940; his arrest on his way to France due to improper paperwork; his experiences during six months in a French labor camp; his release and journey to Nice; his journey to Havana, Cuba; acquiring the documents necessary to enter the United States; traveling with his mother to New Orleans and New York City; and his life in America during and after the war.

Oral history interview with Elli Schwarz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mira Shelub

Oral History

The interview describes Ms. Shelub's childhood in Zdziedciol, Poland (now Belarus); her education and having to transfer to a different school in the Soviet sector after the Soviet Union invaded Poland under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; and the invasion of her home town by German troops. Ms. Shelub describes her experiences in the ghetto of Zdziedciol; initial selections and the transport and murder of young, elderly and invalid Jews; and the capture of her father, mother and brother who were sent to a labor camp. She discusses following her family with her sister; their encounters with the Jewish partisans; leaving to join the partisans with her sister; and their reunion with their family who escaped and joined a family group. Ms. Shelub describes meeting her husband and their life together in the partisans, the sabotage activities she was involved with, and the death of her mother in the forest. She relates that her husband and she returned to their home towns and learned of the loss of family members and the devastation of their communities. Ms. Shelub describes her experiences at a displaced persons camp in Badgestein, Austria, and emigrating to the United States in 1949 with her husband and their first son. She discusses her family life in San Francisco, the death of her husband, her return to university to earn both a Bachelors and a Masters degree, and her involvement in the Jewish community.

Oral history interview with Otmar Silberstein

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Oral history interview with Stefanie Sucher

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Oral history interview with Paul Tandler

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Oral history interview with Sophia Tankhilevich

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Oral history interview with John Ullman

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Oral history interview with Naum Veltman

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Oral history interview with Marianne Zadek

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