Guide to the Orange County Holocaust Oral History Project Interviews
MS.M.011
Carole McEwan, 2011; updated by Zoe MacLeod, 2021.
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine
Libraries
(cc) 2021
The UCI Libraries
P.O. Box 19557
University of California, Irvine
Irvine 92623-9557
spcoll@uci.edu
Note
Nonstandard finding aid on file.
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine
Libraries
Title: Orange County Holocaust Oral History Project interviews
Creator:
Orange County Holocaust Oral History
Project
Identifier/Call Number: MS.M.011
Physical Description:
27.2 Linear Feet
(33 boxes) and 0.5 unprocessed linear feer
Date (inclusive): 1992-1995
Abstract: This collection consists of 154
interviews conducted from 1992 to 1995 with residents of Orange County, California, who
experienced the Holocaust. The interviews are the result of a project coordinated by Jack
Pariser under the sponsorship of the Orange County Chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith. Most interviewees are Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Their experiences
during the World War II era include forced and voluntary emigration, death camps, forced
labor, and hiding. Almost all of the Jewish participants are Ashkenazi Jews; that is, of
Yiddish-speaking, Eastern European origins. The other participants include five members of
the U.S. Army who saw the camps at the end of the war and three "rescuers" (individuals who
aided Jews in their efforts to escape the Nazis).
Language of Material:
English .
Access
The collection has not been processed. It may contain restricted materials. Please contact
the Department of Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access.
Publication Rights
Property rights reside with the University of California, while the ADL retains all
copyright to materials in the collection. All researchers must, prior to using the
collection, sign a statement that they understand this and promise not to reproduce,
translate, abbreviate, or abridge any of the videotaped material without prior written
consent from the ADL. Written quotation of excerpts from the interviews in a class paper or
unpublished thesis does not require permission. For permissions to reproduce tapes or
publish any portion of an interview, contact both the Head of Special Collections and
University Archives and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (823 United Nations
Plaza, New York, New York 10017).
Preferred Citation
Researchers must agree to cite interviews in the collection as follows: "Videotape
interview of [first name and last initial of interviewee] by Holocaust Oral History Project
of the Anti Defamation League. Copyright 202_, Anti-Defamation League." [Insert copyright
date of the particular interview being cited.]
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information
about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder
descriptions, and box/folder locations.
Acquisition Information
Gift of the Orange County chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), April 1994 and
2003.
Historical Background
In the early 1990s, Jack Pariser, a Polish survivor of the Holocaust who resides in Orange
County, California, initiated a project to conduct oral history interviews with residents of
Orange County who experienced the Holocaust. He received the organizational support of the
Orange County chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith (ADL) for the project.
The ADL identified participants from the community, obtained and trained interviewers,
conducted preliminary interviews with participants by phone, and solicited donations to help
support the project. The ADL also supervised the videotaped interviews, which took place
between April 1992 and April 1995, using recording services provided by Chapman University.
The ADL wanted the tapes to be housed in an Orange County research facility and subsequently
donated them to the UCI Libraries at the University of California, Irvine.
Interview participants in the Orange Country Holocaust Oral History Project were located
through publicity in the local media and by word of mouth in local Jewish communities. The
interviewers were all volunteers from the community, many of whom heard of the project in
its formative stages. They received training in conducting oral history interviews from a
consultant of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Museum also was the source
of the questions posed to interviewees. In addition to depositing tapes at UCI, the Orange
County Holocaust Oral History Project is sending a duplicate set to the U.S. Holocaust
Museum.
Collection Scope and Content Summary
This collection consists of 154 oral history interviews conducted from 1992-1995 with
residents of Orange County, California, who experienced the Holocaust. The interviews are
the result of a project coordinated by Jack Pariser under the sponsorship of the Orange
County Chapter of the Anti- Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.
UC Irvine recieved the interivews in two batches. The Supplimental Information guide
contains summary information describing the first batch of the 72 interviews collectively,
followed by an individual abstract of each of the 72 interviews. The summary information
explains the data elements used to provide demographic information about the interviewees.
Historical themes documented in the interviews are then broken down into categories with an
explanation and a list of relevant interviews relating to each theme. Each abstract is
comprised of the data elements and a descriptive summary of the interview. A glossary
defines the terminology used in the interviews and in the guide.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Personal
narratives.
World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Personal narratives.
World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue--Personal narratives.
World War, 1939-1945--Jewish resistance--Personal narratives.
Oral history interviews
1992-1995
box 20
Jack Pariser
1992 April 16
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No. 1.1 Leng. of Tape: 120 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Pariser, Jack Birth: 1929 Birthplace: Jodlowa, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1942 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Jack Pariser recalls that the Polish village where his family lived was so small that
no German troops actually occupied it after the 1939 invasion. Regardless, anti-Jewish
measures were established and enforced. One of Jack's grandfathers died after SS men
beat him for refusing to step on the Torah. In 1942 the SS ordered extermination of
all the Jews in the village, but a local policeman tipped off the Jewish community the
night before the intended killings. Jack's family fled into the woods and spent most
of the next three years in hiding. He cites five different gentiles who risked their
lives to assist them, but also describes how another family deceived and turned in the
Parisers. Jack's family escaped transport only because their arrest took place on a
holiday weekend; they were in a local jail with somewhat lax security and managed to
dig their way to freedom. After the Liberation, gentile Poles committed further
atrocities against Jews, so Jack's father decided to take his family out of Poland and
into the American Zone of Germany.
Jack gives insightful details in particular about Polish anti-Semitism and gentile
Poles' perceptions of Jews. He is the initiator of the Orange County Holocaust Oral
History Project and is an engaged, inspiring participant.
box 20
Gloria Rubin
1992 April 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 2 Leng. of Tape: 85 min. # of VHS tapes:1
Name: Rubin,Gloria Birth: 1928 Birthplace: Nasielsk, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettos, Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied:
Auschwitz Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 6 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 0
Gloria Rubin notes that Jewish children in her small town had to sit in the back rows
at school, even before the Nazi occupation. "You were always afraid; you had to have
your head down." She was eleven when the war broke out, and when her family moved to
the Warsaw ghetto she would sneak out and walk the 60 miles to their hometown to get
food. She had been separated from her mother and five siblings when she was
transported to Auschwitz along with her father and one brother; at this point, she
says, "I was already a soldier." Gloria was then selected to work in the gas chambers,
sorting the clothes of victims. She knew that her brother and father had perished
there when she came upon their garments. She developed tuberculosis and was selected
to die herself, but was saved by her bloc leader, with whom she would stay until after
the Liberation. In January 1945 they were evacuated to a small German work camp, whose
residents dispersed as the Allies approached. After the war Gloria went with the bloc
leader to Czechoslovakia, where she lived under an assumed identity until relatives
from the U.S. contacted her.
Gloria's testimony is very emotional. During her first years in the U.S., Gloria
feared that the Nazis would still come for her. Today, she continues to relive the
total isolation, abandonment, and helplessness that she experienced as a young
teenager whose parents could not protect her. Now widowed, Gloria feels she has
nothing to look forward to. However, she expresses her desire to record her story for
posterity.
box 20
Stanley Bors
1992 May 8
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 3 Leng. of Tape: 45 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Bors, Stanley Birth: 1912 Birthplace: Sosnowiec, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp: Ghettoes, Hidden Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation: Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived: 0
Stanley Bors first encountered anti-Semitism in high school, but universities, he
says, were "the worst place in Poland for Jewish people;" he describes verbal abuse
and actual building lockouts. When the Germans invaded Poland, he and his wife fled to
Russian-occupied Eastern Poland, where he was able to work as an agricultural
engineer. In 1941, they returned to central Poland and discovered that both their sets
of parents had been killed. They moved to the Warsaw ghetto with a cousin. Stanley
describes the social groups that formed this ghetto, along with the bureaucratic
agencies created within it. Aware of possible liquidation, Stanley arranged his and
Irene's escape through a relative who had married a gentile. Given false papers by the
underground, they spent the rest of the war posing as gentiles, fearful not only of
the Germans but of paid Jewish informers.
Stanley recounts his wartime survival clearly and concisely and relates the role of
anti-Semitism in his pre- and postwar experiences. He also tells an interesting, and
possibly representative, anecdote about American relatives who bribed a consul in an
attempt to get Stanley and his wife into the U.S. through Cuba.
See also: #14 (Interview with Irene Bors -- wife)
box 20
Rosalie Wattenberg
1992 May 14
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 4 Leng. of Tape: 117 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Wattenberg, Rosalie Birth: 1919 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied:
Majdenek, Ravensbrhck, Dachau Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of
Siblings: 4 Sibling(s) Survived?: 3
Rosalie Wattenberg notes the existence of prewar anti-Semitism in Poland by
describing a policeman's refusal to act when thugs beat up her father for being a Jew.
Her father refused to believe, however, that Hitler would attempt genocide. Rosalie
also notes that the anti-Semitic Poles began taunting the Jews of Warsaw about
Hitler's plans, even before anti-Jewish laws were passed. Accompanied by her sister
Helen, Rosalie survived typhus in the Warsaw ghetto, liquidation measures, an abortion
without anaesthesia, stays in several camps, and a forced march from Ravensbrhck in
Northern Germany to Dachau in Bavaria. She recalls cutting down a barracks mate who
attempted to hang herself, unsuccessfully hiding jewelry by swallowing it, and a pile
of corpses "five stories high." Rosalie's sister, Helen, credits her with keeping both
of them alive with her optimism and determination. Rosalie expresses profound
gratitude for her American liberators and for the opportunity to emigrate to the U.S.
She underlines her emotions with the reading aloud of a leaflet from the Warsaw
Uprising. See also: #5 (Interview with Helen Greenbaum -- sister).
box 20
Helen Greenbaum
1992 May 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 5 Leng. of Tape: 94 min. # of VHS tapes:1
Name: Greenbaum, Helen Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young Adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps
Occupied: Majdanek, Ravensbrhck, Dachau Parents Survived Occupation? Neither Number of
Siblings: 4 Sibling(s) Survived?: 3
Helen Greenbaum's father denied that anti-Jewish measures had begun in Warsaw, even
as Nazis were seizing Jews' radios, furs, and precious metals. He was soon apprehended
by the Germans and never returned. Helen's family moved into the Warsaw ghetto, and
all worked in a uniform factory for a brief period before deportation. Selections for
the gas chambers took place at the factory, where their mother was separated from
them. Helen and her sister were sent to Majdanek, where at first they did field work.
Helen became so demoralized that she asked an SS man to shoot her, but he refused,
telling her she was too young to kill. Subsequently she worked at two different
munitions factories; at the second she was beaten for failing to meet a quota and
sustained permanent damage to her left kidney. At the end of the war Helen and her
sister survived starving conditions and rampant disease at Ravensbrhck and Dachau. She
recalls the Liberation and says that prisoners who couldn't walk upright went to meet
GI's on all fours. Helen struggles visibly with the long-term effects of her
experiences. She does not believe she would have survived without the moral support of
her sister and continues to feel emotionally reliant on her. See also: #4 (Rosalie
Wattenberg -- sister)
box 29
Isaac Green
1992 May 28
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 6 Leng. of Tape: 78 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 20
Stephen Nasser
1992 June 4
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 7 Leng. of Tape: 105 min. # of VHS tapes:1
Name: Nasser, Stephen Birth: 1931 Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied:
Auschwitz, Murdorf Parents Survived Occupation? Neither Number of Siblings: 1
Sibling(s) Survived? 0
Stephen Nasser describes a comfortable life with his family in Budapest up to the
German occupation in 1944. His mother paid a gentile factory owner to employ and house
thirteen-year-old Stephen and his older brother, but a few months later all three were
transported to Auschwitz. Shortly after their arrival, they witnessed an SS officer
batter Stephen's infant cousin to death. Separated from their mother, Stephen decided
he would find a way to get himself and his brother out of the camp; soon they were
able to trade places with two Poles who wanted to get out of assignment to a labor
camp in Germany. The camp operated until the end of the war; Stephen survived severe
illness there, but his brother did not. After the Liberation he was hospitalized for
two months and then went back to Budapest. Stephen came to Canada in 1948 through the
Canadian Jewish Congress, then to the U.S. in the 1950's.
Stephen's will and determination are impressive. He describes attacking (without
reprisal) an SS man who struck his brother, as well as surviving in a hospice room
with pneumonia and typhus, "refusing to die." He has written a memoir of his
experiences and expresses great anger at "revisionist" questioning of the
Holocaust.
box 20
Erno Rubin
1992 June 18
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 8 Leng. of Tape: 50 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Rubin, Erno Birth: 1926 Birthplace: Dac, Hungary Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Young Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, camps Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied:
Mauthausen, Gunskirchen Parents Survived Occupation?: Father Number of Siblings: 2
Sibling(s) Survived?: 2
Before the Germans occupied Hungary, Erno Rubin's father told his family that Nazi
atrocities could never happen in their country, although the Final Solution had swept
much of the rest of Europe. This changed in 1944, however, and Erno had to move into a
ghetto with his family. Erno was drafted for labor soon afterward, working on
railroads and airports and in steel manufacturing. As the Russians pressed westward,
Erno and his group were marched through Austria to Mauthausen. Erno describes starving
conditions, illness, and Nazi cruelty on this march. He then spent three weeks in
Mauthausen, "just sitting in barracks." Erno describes the arrival at Mauthausen of
children who had been saved from Auschwitz; they told him and others about the gas
chambers. His group was moved to another camp nearby and still was given no work; this
continued until the Liberation. Erno survived a case of typhus at the end of the war
and spent more than a month in the hospital. He returned to Hungary in 1945 and stayed
until 1957, when he came to the United States.
Erno says he always believed he would survive. His emotions about his experiences are
quiet yet clear, and he gives his testimony thoughtfully.
box 20
Herman Goslins
1992 June 25
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 9 Leng. of Tape: 86 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Goslins, Herman Birth: 1911 Birthplace: Groningen, Netherlands Religion: Jewish
Age Group:Audlt Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1941 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 2 Sibling(s) Survived?: 2
box 20
Alice Friedman
1992 July 9
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 10 Leng. of Tape: 112 # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Friedman, Alice Birth: 1919 Birthplace: Prague, Czechoslavakia Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1938 Camps Occupied:
Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen Parents Survived Occupation?:
Neither Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Alice Friedman's parents had moved to Vienna in 1921, and sent her back to Prague
when deportations of Austrian Jews to Buchenwald and Dachau began. "I couldn't imagine
what they were doing there," she says. Alice was spared deportation until 1942, in
part because relatives were on a council at Theresienstadt and had leverage.
Subsequently, an uncle declared her as his bride so she could stay at that camp,
rather than go on to ill-reputed Majdenek. Alice had a job assembling caskets at
lumber yard; this occupation became more necessary as the camp's population grew from
7,000 to 60,000, and inmates died from unsanitary conditions. She and her parents were
sent to Auschwitz in December 1943; Alice dropped a note to a friend out the train
window as they passed his town, and she found out after the war that he got it. In
June 1944, Alice was chosen to work at an Esso plant in Hamburg with 1,000 other
female prisoners; a few months later they were moved to a nearby cement factory. She
describes "constant" bombardments over these areas, and the hard winter of 1944-45.
Her group was moved to Bergen-Belsen in March 1945. Alice was offered extra rations in
exchange for smothering the elderly and the weak in their blankets; she refused. The
British liberated the camp in April 1945.
Alice's recollection of detail makes her testimony especially potent. She also shows
a postcard that illustrates the Nazi law requiring that Jews identify themselves with
standard middle names: "Sarah" for women, and "Israel" for men.
box 20
Ted Kenig
1992 July 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 11 Leng. of Tape: 101 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Kenig, Ted Birth: 1922 Birthplace: Berlin, Germany Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1943 Camps Occupied: Auschwitz, Mauthausen
Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s) Survived?:
N/A
Ted Kenig says he didn't know he was Jewish until 1933, when he hastily received his
bar mitzvah. He and his friends, all "smart city kids," rebelled against Nazi norms
and membership in the Hitler Youth; they had long hair and listened to American music.
Early in the war Ted got a job in an airplane factory; this allowed him and his
parents to remain in Berlin until 1943, when they were deported. Ted describes the
process of turning over all his possessions to the Gestapo and then signing a document
that designated him an "enemy of the Reich." He was sent to Auschwitz, where his first
job was in a coal mine. He lost a finger in an accident there and risked selection for
death by seeking hospital treatment. Ted got word that his mother had come to
Auschwitz from Theresienstadt, and he was able to get letters to her; later, he heard
that she died in the gas chambers. Ted survived both the death march to Mauthausen in
January 1945 and the months spent in different subcamps before liberation. A few
months after the war he ran into an Auschwitz commander who had succeeded in posing as
a camp inmate and avoiding prosecution. Ted had him arrested and imprisoned.
Ted's account shows the determination and resourcefulness that helped him through his
experiences. He also discusses the German obsession with racial purity and suggests
the autobiography of Rudolf Hess to anyone who doubts the reality of the Shoah.
box 20
Harry Fern
1992 July 16
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 12 Leng. of Tape: 82 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Fern, Harry Birth: 1920 Birthplace: Koblenz, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettos, camps Left Family Home: 1941 Camps Occupied: Lodz,
Skarzysko Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s)
Survived?: N/A
Harry Fern says that he was never conscious of German anti-Semitism as a widespread
problem until he was asked to leave gymnasium (high school) at age fourteen. His
father then lost his business because SA soldiers stood outside it to enforce the
anti-Jewish boycott, barring any customers. Harry entered an apprentice program for
shoemakers and was expelled when he struck back a swastika-wearing teacher who hit
him. The family fled to Cologne and stayed there until 1941, when they were sent to
the Lodz ghetto. Harry was able to prevent his parents' deportation until 1943; soon
after, he was sent to a munitions factory at Skarzysko. He was able to get food by
trading to Polish civilians cigarette holders he made from metal refuse. In January
1945 his camp was moved to another location, which was the first area to be liberated
by the Russians. He did not want to return to Germany, so lived in Austria until 1947,
when he came to the U.S.
Harry displays the conflicted feelings common to German Jewish survivors. He says
that at first he felt angry at German Jews who wanted to emigrate and believed that
Nazism could be fought. During and after his ordeal he then experienced intense hatred
for Germany, and only in recent years has he found any positive associations with
anything German.
See also: #15 (Lilo Fern -- wife)
box 20
Martha Posalski
1992 July 19
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 13 Leng. of Tape: 59 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Posalski, Martha Birth: 1916 Birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young Adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1933 Camps
Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 3
In 1932, Martha Posalski's father saw a gentile lawyer slap a Jewish lawyer in court.
Because he offered to testify for the Jew, Martha's father soon was threatened and
shortly thereafter left the country for France. The rest of the family followed the
next year; Martha says she made the trip the day after Hitler declared himself
Chancellor. Eventually her family ran first a refugee house, then a farm in Southern
France; she met and married a Jew who was part of the retreating French army. In 1940
Martha was briefly interned as a Jew at a temporary detention camp near her house, but
the French officer who ran the camp allowed the inmates to escape one night when he
believed that Germans were returning the next day to transport them. Martha and her
husband participated in the resistance, hiding other Jews, until he was ordered to
report for forced labor in Germany. Although Martha was pregnant at the time, they
escaped to Spain through the Pyrenees. They lived in Barcelona until the end of the
war.
Martha's story is not only inspiring but is also unusual because it reveals strong
anti-Semitism before Hitler was fully in power. Martha currently teaches Hebrew and
feels that she "cannot" go back to Germany, even today.
box 21
Irene Bors
1992 July 26
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 14 Leng. of Tape: 71 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Bors, Irene Birth: 1918 Birthplace: Selleznikowka, Russia Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp: Ghettos, Hidden Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s)
Survived:N/A
Irene Bors was born in Russia because her parents fled there during World War I, but
she was raised in Lublin, Poland. She describes her parents as "assimilated Jews" in
that they did not attend temple and spoke Polish at home instead of Yiddish. Irene
believes that her unaccented Polish helped her to "pass" as a Gentile during the war.
Fearful of the Germans, she and her husband fled in 1939 to Russian-occupied Poland
and stayed until the collapse of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1941. Irene and her husband
went to the Warsaw ghetto to join a cousin and found jobs in the hope of putting off
deportation. Weeks before the ghetto was liquidated, they made connections with
gentile friends and escaped the ghetto by jumping from an armed truck carrying
laborers. Irene says that their survival occurred "by miracles." Aided by the Polish
underground, they hid in several different spots and escaped capture multiple
times.
Irene is extremely matter-of-fact about her survival experience. She gives an equally
down-to-earth view of the Polish underground and its motivations for helping Jews:
"Nasty people, but they didn't like Germans." She also notes that the anti-Semitism of
the emerging Eastern bloc made her and her husband decide to leave Poland for the U.S.
following the war. Lastly, she describes how her adherence to the Jewish faith
developed out of a desire to meet other Jews in the U.S.
See also: #3 (Interview with Stanley Bors -- husband)
box 21
Lilo Fern
1992 July 30
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 15 Leng. of Tape: 60 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Fern, Lilo Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Herne, Germany Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1941 Camps
Occupied: Riga, Kaiserwald, Stutthof Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of
Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Lilo Fern recalls that her family's house in Mhnster was raided on Kristallnacht in
1938, during which her father was temporarily detained by the Gestapo. However,
transport of Jews from Mhnster was deferred until late 1941 due to objections from the
large Catholic population there. During this period, her parents lost their house to
Allied bombing. Lilo hoped to emigrate but was unable to get a visa by the time she
was ordered to go the Riga ghetto in Latvia. She describes the overcrowded conditions
there and notes that Latvian gentiles were also required by the Nazis to wear stars.
Lilo and her family moved to a work camp, but by 1944 her parents had both been taken
away in "selections." She was then chosen to work in a factory at Stutthof (near
Danzig). Food was scarce, so Lilo and others foraged for scraps at night outdoors and
avoided SS bloodhounds by throwing food for them. She describes her "most horrible
experience" as a journey back to Germany by ship shortly before the Liberation. She
was ill with typhus and jaundice, and the SS tried to sink the ship by creating a
leak, then debarked; only a small group of Swedish political prisoners had the
strength to fix the damage. When the ship got to shore, no Germans were in evidence,
and British tanks arrived soon afterward. After the war, Lilo spent six months in a
hospital.
Lilo's sadness is closer to the surface than that of many survivors. At the same
time, she expresses great appreciation for the chance to start over in the United
States.
See also: #12 (Interview with Harry Fern -- husband)
box 21
Henry Palmer
1992 September 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 16 Leng. of Tape: 81 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Palmer, Henry Birth: 1913 Birthplace: Ostrog, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Henry Palmer describes his hometown of Ostrog, near the Russian border, as "a town
where you were born into five languages -- Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, and
Hebrew." He was a teacher of Hebrew, math and physics when the Russians took
possession of eastern Poland in 1939. He was able to stay at his school as a teacher
of Russian until the Germans broke the Hitler-Stalin Pact in June 1941. Henry and his
wife already had Russian citizenship and were encouraged to flee eastward before the
Germans arrived. The Palmers settled in Uzbekistan, a republic in the southwestern
part of what later became the Soviet Union, where Henry's teaching skills were in
demand. He learned the Uzbeki language, as well as farming skills, and remained there
till 1946 as a teacher and small farmer. He and his wife then went to Poland as
escorts of refugee children returning from Russia; on their arrival, news of postwar
pogroms drove them to leave with the Jewish children. A relief agency brought them to
Paris, and Henry became the agency's Hebrew- language secretary. The Palmers stayed in
Paris until 1954, when they emigrated to the U.S. All three of their children have
become surgeons.
Henry's intelligence has permitted him to adapt rapidly to unusual situations.
However, he also attributes his good fortune to luck and youthful energy.
box 21
Rubin Minsky
1992 September 13
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 17 Leng. of Tape: 59 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Minsky, Rubin Birth: 1919 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1941 Camps Occupied:
Majdenek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number
of Siblings: 5 Sibling(s) Survived: 0
Rubin Minsky begins his Holocaust experiences by noting the pre-war existence of a
Polish Nazi group. He then gives an account of life in the Warsaw ghetto, which for
him included sneaking out without his armband to sell hats and clothes his father
made. In 1942 he jumped off a transport to Treblinka. He was caught the next day and
put to work in a local camp but escaped again into the ghetto. Rubin participated in
the Warsaw ghetto uprising and describes how the Germans set fire to scores of
buildings; he survived by hiding in a basement protected by brick. He was ultimately
sent to Majdenek for a month, then to the I.G. Farben plant at Auschwitz for two
years. He survived a death march/transport to Buchenwald in January 1945 and fled a
second one two months later. He was liberated by an American tank division. After the
war he recovered in Halberstat, Germany, where he met his future wife.
Rubin's testimony focuses mostly on the grim conditions of the Warsaw ghetto. He
recalls the widespread starvation, the brutality of collaborating Ukrainians, the
Polish children paid as Nazi informers, and the SS tactic of storming the ghetto
during Jewish high holy days. Rubin also attributes his survival at Majdenek to the
relatively large amounts of food he obtained through illicit trading during his last
month in the ghetto.
See also: #18 (Interview with Rose Minsky -- wife)
box 21
Rose Minsky
1992 September 18
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 18 Leng. of Tape: 88 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Minsky, Rose Birth: 1924 Birthplace: Sosnowiec, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1941 Camps
Occupied: Balkenheim, Buchenwald-Groszrosen Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither
Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s)Survived: 3
Rose Minsky became aware of Polish anti-Semitism in elementary school, saying only
that even children "needed to be careful." When the Germans invaded, she notes that
everyone from her region, upper Silesia, received German citizenship, including Jews.
For this reason, the ghetto in Sosnowiec was open (unlike the walled, restricted
Warsaw ghetto). Her father paid so that Rose could be drafted into work at a military
uniform factory; she was allowed to see her parents weekly as long as the ghetto
existed. When out by herself she refused to wear the Jewish star, relying on her
proficient German and her blond hair to "pass" as a gentile. After the ghetto was
liquidated, she worked at two different labor camps, making parachutes. Together with
two other German- speaking girls, she escaped a death march to Bergen-Belsen in
January 1945 with two other German-speaking girls, passing again as a gentile. Aware
of the war's impending end, they made their way to what became the American zone.
While in a displaced persons' camp, she met her future husband.
Rose recalls her certainty about survival, even in the harsh conditions of forced
labor. Even more compelling is the story of her role after the war in convicting the
sadistic commander of her factory at Groszrosen. He had been apprehended trying to
sneak into Holland from Brussels, where she and her husband lived. Rose's positive
identification for the authorities led to his hanging, an end she says was "too swift"
for someone so cruel.
See also: #17 (Interview with Rubin Minsky -- husband)
box 29
Jacob Eisenbach
1992 September 20
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 19 Leng. of Tape: 117 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
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Herman Leefsma
1992 September 25
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 20 Leng. of Tape: 109 min. # of VHS tapes:1
Name: Leefsma, Herman Birth: 1924 Birthplace: Leewarden, Netherlands Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1942 Camps Occupied:
Westerbork, Vught, Buchenwald-Groszrosen Parents Survived Occupation?: Mother Number
of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Herman Leefsma says that in 1940 his parents had inklings of impending disaster, but
that "no one could have prepared for the disaster that happened." After the imposition
of anti-Jewish laws the family received a lot of support from the mostly gentile
community of 3,000, but Herman notes that the Dutch police who arrested him and his
brother knew them personally. After this arrest Herman was taken to Westerbork, a
Dutch camp; of 1,500 transported with him from there, 2 survived. Herman recounts his
stints at various work camps and the seemingly continuous transit: "they never
stopped, never gave you a chance to get close to anyone." Along the same logic, guards
were replaced if they showed sympathy to prisoners. Herman met up with his father in
one camp, and they remained together until evacuation death marches in January 1945,
when his father was shot. Herman describes last-chance atrocities committed by Nazis
in the last weeks of the war, and a mass grave at Buchenwald that went on for
"kilometers and kilometers." He remembers little of the Liberation because of multiple
illnesses -- tuberculosis, pneumonia, and kidney damage -- for which he was flown to a
Swiss clinic.
Herman wanted to come to the U.S. after the war, but he remained in Holland until
1974, when his wife finally agreed to emigrate. He maintains bitterness at Dutch
complicity with the Nazis and the Dutch government's reluctance to deliver Germany's
postwar reparations to Jews.
box 21
Margaret Guiness
1992 October 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 21 Leng. of Tape: 122 # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Guiness, Margaret Birth: 1930 Birthplace: Kosice, Czechoslovakia Religion:
Jewish Age Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Political prisoner, Camps Left Family
Home: 1944 Camps Occupied: Revensbrhck, Bergen-Belsen Parents Survived Occupation?:
Neither Number of Siblings: 9 Sibling(s) Survived?: 3
Margaret Guiness recalls that in 1938 her family's region of Czechoslovakia was given
to Hungary by Hitler. "We became Hungarian," she says, and the native Slovak language
became forbidden. Some anti-Jewish laws went into effect, but Margaret's family
remained in their home until 1944, when the Nazis occupied Hungary. Rumors of ghetto
formation led Margaret's sister to buy false papers and take Margaret to Budapest;
they lived there for a few months, but were caught after getting a second set of
papers. They were taken to a Gestapo prison for interrogation, but never admitted they
were Jewish. They were held as political prisoners until the Eastern front approached,
when they were sent to Ravensbrhck. Margaret swore on her arrival there that she would
live to tell about the experience, and she worked for extra food. She and her sister
were sent to work in a bomb factory, then to Bergen-Belsen at the end of the war. She
found another sister at the last camp; she also knew Anne Frank briefly. Sick with
typhus, Margaret thought the Liberation was another hallucination until she saw the
commandant of the camp, stripped of all his insignia, carrying corpses.
Margaret's story is remarkable because she and her sister experienced the war as
political prisoners and were never identified as Jews. She speaks passionately and
emphasizes the need to fight prejudice wherever it surfaces.
Isidor Nussenbaum [MISSING]
1992 October 25
Scope and Contents Note
Inverview No.: 22 Leng. of Tape: 122 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
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John Friedman
1992 November 1
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 24 Leng. of Tape: 121 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
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Katalin Rubin
1992 November 15
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 24 Leng. of Tape: 48 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Rubin, Katalin Birth: 1930 Birthplace: Hajduhadhaz, Hungary Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied:
Strasshof, Theresienstadt Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 3
Sibling(s) Survived?: 3
Katalin Rubin recalls an increase in anti-Semitism in Hungary from 1938, although
anti-Jewish laws did not begin until 1942. Her father was taken away for forced labor
at this time. In 1944, when the Germans occupied the country, Katalin's family spent a
month in a ghetto and then were deported on cattlecars. She says the train's original
destination was Auschwitz, but that it changed course and went to Strasshof in Austria
instead. Katalin (as well as her mother and siblings) was chosen for farm work on a
duke's property. The Germans had taken over most of the duke's castle, and the Jewish
workers lived in a nearby warehouse. Katalin recalls crushing ice from the castle moat
for use in the kitchen, and frostbite from picking sugar beets in the winter. The
family spent the last few months of the war in Theresienstadt, where inmates were
amazed to see that Katalin's seven-year-old brother had survived. They were reunited
with their father after the war, and all lived in Budapest until the revolution in
1956, when they fled to the West.
The survival of Katalin's entire immediate family is exceptional. However, she notes
the "painful" loss of many other relatives. Her testimony is enriched by a display of
potent artifacts, such as the green Star of David from her Theresienstadt uniform and
currency made and circulated in that camp.
box 21
Marianne Dazzo
1992 November 20
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 25 Leng. of Tape: 120 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Dazzo, Marianne Birth: 1935 Birthplace: Amsterdam, Netherlands Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Child Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1943 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Marianne Dazzo describes herself as a child in Amsterdam escaping a street roundup of
Jews by the Nazis, and thereafter seeing her personal circumstances completely
disrupted. As she puts it, "my world got smaller and smaller" in the first months of
the war. Dazzo survived in hiding in southern Holland through a network run by Dutch
university students. Living as a baptized Catholic under an assumed name, Marianne was
told virtually nothing about the events of the war until it had ended. Her mother, a
member of the underground, hid with a sympathetic family and worked as their maid.
Marianne's father survived Auschwitz, largely due to his skills as a diamond cutter.
He ultimately committed suicide, however, which Marianne attributes to his recurring
memories of the camp. Marianne's younger sister, a mere toddler at the beginning of
the war, remained hidden with a childless gentile family for the duration.
This interview is unusual in its focus on the experiences of abandonment and on the
issues around living as a "survivor." The young Marianne, deprived of all news of the
outside world while in hiding, retained anger at her mother for "giving her up." These
feelings were only complicated by her father's insistence after the war that all
members of the family resume a "normal" life and cut all ties to those who had helped
them. Marianne also discusses her present-day involvement with a group of "hidden
child" survivors and her conflicted feelings about her Jewish identity.
box 21
Jenny Zavatsky
1992 November 22
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 26 Leng. of Tape: 90 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Zavatsky, Jenny Birth: 1932 Birthplace: Lodz, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Child, Young adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps
Occupied: Auschwitz, Stutthof Parents Survived Occupation?: Mother Number of Siblings:
2 Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Before the war, Jenny Zavatsky's father was warned by gentile friends of the threat
that Hitler posed to Jews. The family stayed because he did not want to leave his
business, a successful metal factory. They lost the business and their home in 1940
and moved into the Lodz ghetto, second in size only to the Warsaw ghetto. Jenny, at
age seven, was put to work in a knitting factory. When the Nazis conducted selections
that singled out children, Jenny's parents would hide her in the attic. In August
1944, when the Lodz ghetto was liquidated, the family were transported to Auschwitz.
They spent only three days there because her father's metalworking skills were in
demand, and they were told they would all go to Dresden. On the way they stayed a few
months at Stutthof, which Jenny portrays as worse than Auschwitz, with "bodies piled
like trash." Her father lost 100 pounds there, and Jenny believes this was why he died
only a few months after they had been moved to a munitions factory in Dresden. She
feared they would be sent away, but the British began bombing the city before that
could happen. Their group was evacuated and marched to the Sudetenland, and the
Liberation occurred soon after. Her brother died in the ghetto of typhoid, and her
sister died of tuberculosis in Dresden.
Jenny's story stresses optimism. She believes she kept a hopeful attitude because she
remained with her family. She expresses great admiration for her mother's ability to
endure under adversity, and notes her mother's remarriage to another survivor who lost
his wife and seven children.
box 21
Fanny Labin
1992 December 13
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 27 Leng. of Tape: 160 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
Name: Labin, Fanny Birth: 1929 Birthplace: Cologne, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Child, Young adult Type of Exp.: Refugee, Hidden Left Family Home: 1938 Camps
Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 4 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 4
Fanny Labin recalls the 1938 Kristallnacht in her hometown, and how a fire engine
stood by as a synagogue burned; she also saw Hitler in a parade honoring his 50th
birthday. After her father was sent to a labor camp in Poland, Fanny's mother sent
four of the five children on the train to relatives in Brussels. Fanny lived in foster
homes, then with her mother when she was able to join her children in Belgium. When
the Germans invaded, Fanny and her mother attempted to flee to Paris but were
unsuccessful because of the Germans' continued sweep westward. When roundups of Jews
began in Belgium, Fanny was sent by the underground to a convent in the Ardennes
forest, where she stayed till the end of the war. She was baptized and given a
Christian name. Fanny says she embraced Catholicism, and moreover didn't want to be
Jewish because of the personal danger it brought. She recalls that convent members
were able to follow the war's progress with a map made by one of the monks there.
After the war she was housed by a Jewish relief organization, met concentration camp
survivors, and learned of the gas chambers and crematoriae. Fanny came to the U.S. in
1948, joining three of her brothers who had found refuge here during the war.
Fanny has an excellent memory for the everyday details of her experiences. She also
expresses her continued affection for German culture and discusses the social and
economic conditions that led to Hitler's ascent. Germany, she points out, had "no
heritage of freedom and liberty."
box 22
Nathan Caron
1992 December 20
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 28 Leng. of Tape: 109 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Caron, Nathan Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1942 Camps
Occupied: Auschwitz, Buchenwald Parents Survived Occupation?: Father Number of
Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Nathan Caron's family moved to Brussels, Belgium, when he was an infant. He notes no
prewar awareness of anti-Semitism until he began hearing about Nazi Germany in the
early 1930's. After the German occupation of Belgium, Nathan joined an underground
movement, in which he drew anti-German graffiti and published a contraband newspaper
with news obtained from London. He was never caught for these activities, but was
deported anyway in 1942, first to labor in France, then to Auschwitz. Nathan worked
first in the coal mines, then as a carpenter. He describes the harrowing conditions of
the camps and of the death marches from Auschwitz in the snow. Of the 50 people with
whom he rode in an open coal car to Buchenwald from Poland, 17 arrived alive.
Nathan underlines his compelling testimony with photographs of Auschwitz today. Among
these is one of him beside a pond in which the crematorium ashes were dumped. "I know
that my mother and sister and grandmother are here," he says. "This is their
cemetery." Nathan also shows medals he received for his resistance efforts, as well as
photographs of a memorial wall in Brussels that he and a fellow survivor helped
establish.
box 29
Mary Kress
1993 January 8
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 29 Leng. of Tape: 121 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 22
Mel Mermelstein
1993 January 10
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 30 Leng. of Tape: 173 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Mermelstein, Mel Birth: 1926 Birthplace: Munkacs, Czechoslovakia Religion:
Jewish Age Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1944 Camps
Occupied: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald-Groszrosen Parents Survived Occupation?:
Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Mel Mermelstein and his family were not deported until 1944; he notes that this was
an indirect outcome of Hungary's seizure of his native region in 1938. Mel recalls
that he and his brother regularly broke anti-Jewish laws. In particular, they risked
arrest by seeing "Jud Shss (Sweet Jew)," an anti-Semitic propaganda film. Up to the
point of deportation, Mel's family received charitable assistance from gentile
friends. He describes the brickyard where Jews were confined before transport to
Auschwitz and the process of gradual dehumanization; "it worked, perfectly." He says
that his family members were strategically separated and returned to one another, and
that the desire to stay together aided the Nazis' implementation of the Final
Solution. Only at the end of the war, Mel says, did his father believe that survival
together was "impossible." Mel survived a number of Auschwitz work camps, as well as a
three-week death march to Buchenwald. He credits a Hungarian guard with saving him
from being shot to death en route. By the Liberation, he had been in Groszrosen,
Buchenwald's "death section," for two months.
Mel has resisted advice to forget his past. He displays commemorative artwork he has
created from barbed wire and utensil pieces found at Auschwitz, which he visits
yearly. He also discusses lawsuits he has won against the Institute For Historical
Review, an organization that alleges the Holocaust did not occur.
box 27
Francis Derkum
1993 January 15
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 31 Leng. of Tape: 45 min # of VHS tapes: 1
box 22
Hans Goldsmith
1993 January 17
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 32 Leng. of Tape: 55 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Goldsmith, Hans Birth: 1913 Birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Camps, Refugee Left Family Home: 1938 Camps Occupied:
Buchenwald Parents Survived Occupation?: Mother (Father died before the Occupation)
Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Hans Goldsmith was arrested the day after Kristallnacht in 1938 and taken to a
convention center in Frankfurt, along with thousands of other Jews. He then spent five
weeks in Buchenwald and was released because his employer wrote a letter requesting
his return for work. On returning to Frankfurt, he saw a gentile boyhood friend in a
Gestapo uniform, who suggested that Hans leave the country as soon as he could. The
B'nai Brith League had brought Hans' younger sister to the U.S. in 1934, and she was
able to sponsor Hans and his wife, who emigrated in 1941. Hans recounts his mother's
experience: she fled to Holland, but was rounded up in 1940 and survived
Theresienstadt. Hans shows the "Jude" stars from her camp uniform, as well as the
letter he sent his wife from Buchenwald.
Hans' testimony shows the betrayal that many German Jews experienced. He notes that
his father had served in World War I, and that his family considered themselves
"German down to the bone." When asked when he began to discuss his experiences, Hans
says he "never stopped." He attributes the lack of resistance against the Nazis to
German conformity and fear of authority and expresses his hatred for anything
connected to Germany.
box 27
Anatol Chari
1993 January 22
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 33 Leng. of Tape: 116 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 22
Gerda Seifer
1993 January 24
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 34 Leng. of Tape: 109 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Seifer, Gerda Birth: 1927 Birthplace: Przemysl, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Hidden Left Family Home: 1939 Camps
Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s)
Survived?: N/A
Gerda Seifer's hometown was taken first by the Germans, and then by the Russians, who
stayed eighteen months. In the interim, they declared Gerda's father a capitalist and
an enemy of the state and took away his business. The family obtained false papers and
fled to the Polish city of Lwow, where Gerda remembers attending school and getting
Stalinist indoctrination. The Nazis returned to Lwow in June 1941 and almost
immediately began deporting Jews. The local Ukrainian population, which had supported
the Russians, "went as the wind blew" and aided Germans in pogroms. Gerda lived with
her parents in the Lwow ghetto, running errands for them because she was blond and
blue-eyed and could "pass" as a gentile child. Large-scale roundups began, and her
mother was taken while trying to save a nephew. Before he was also apprehended,
Gerda's father paid to have her hidden; she ended up as a nanny to a woman with three
illegitimate children. Gerda was forced to practice Catholicism and took care of the
children while the mother trysted with her lover at a local church. Gerda also was
forced to stay with the family for a time after the war because she did not know where
else to go. In 1946, she finally met a rabbi who was able to get her to England.
Gerda displays a very positive attitude about her life since the Holocaust. She
speaks to grade schools about her experiences, and conveys her message to children by
focusing on the loss of her parents.
box 27
Rita Kaaren
1993 January 31
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 35 Leng. of Tape: 90 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 27
Henry Kress
1993 February 5
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 36 Leng. of Tape: 122 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 27
Helena Leefsma
1993 February 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 37 Leng. of Tape: 117 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 27
Anne Gilbert
1993 February 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 38 Leng. of Tape: 76 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 22
Frances Gelbart
1993 February 19
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 39 Leng of Tape: 115 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Gelbart, Frances Birth: 1929 Birthplace: Krakow, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Child, Young adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps
Occupied: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither
Number of Siblings: 5 Sibling(s) Survived?: 4
Frances Gelbart describes "chinchilla flying through windows" when the Nazis seized
furs, gold, and silver from the Jews of Krakow. Her father lost his business, but
because of his officer status in the Polish army was able to get ten-year-old Frances
a job in a ghetto printing house. She was taken to a labor camp the following year,
then to a subcamp of Auschwitz, where she worked sorting belongings seized from Jews.
Frances' maiden name was Immerglhck, or "always lucky." The selecting officer on duty
when she passed inspection asked her if she were always lucky, to which she replied "I
hope so." She also survived Bergen-Belsen and Mauthausen. She says she was "always the
youngest," and received a measure of sympathy from fellow inmates. The first few
months after the liberation she worked alongside American nurses caring for the infirm
in Mauthausen, then returned to Poland, where she found her parents and brother
through an aunt who had worked for the underground.
Frances' depictions are the potent memories of a young teenager. She includes such
details as the attack dogs in the camps, the WAC's after the war who taught her to
apply lipstick, and her desire to be with other survivors because she felt "different"
from everyone else after her ordeal.
box 22
Robert Poznanter
1993 February 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 40 Leng. of Tape: 120 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Poznanter, Robert Birth: 1917 Birthplace: Lodz, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1942 Camps Occupied: Auschwitz,
Buchenwald, Theresienstadt Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 3
Sibling(s) Survived?: 2
Robert Poznanter's family had moved to Brussels in 1928 in order to escape Polish
anti-Semitism. When the Nazis invaded Belgium in 1940 the Poznanters fled westward but
were stopped at the French border. With many others, they returned to Brussels and
resumed a "normal" life under German control; Robert got married. In 1942 he was
drafted for labor, spent three months at Calais building fortifications for the
Germans, and was released. His parents went into hiding, but Robert complied when he
was ordered to appear for transport to Auschwitz. He was sent to a nearby coal mining
camp, where beatings occurred daily. Robert recounts his development of a "survivor"
mentality; he stole shirts from storage to exchange for food, and became "the king of
saccharin," trading with those who wanted cigarettes. In January 1945 Auschwitz was
evacuated, and Robert says at the beginning of the death march he saw the potential
for still-unforeseen atrocities. He survived periods in Buchenwald work camps, twenty
days' captivity in a train station, and transport to Theresienstadt before being
liberated. He spent eighteen days in a coma with typhus at the end of the war.
Robert's first wife died at Auschwitz, but he remarried and had children after the
war. He is thoughtful about his experiences and discusses Polish gentiles' prewar
attitudes toward Jewish achievement.
box 22
Gene Selig
1993 March 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 41 Leng. of Tape: 97 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Selig, Gene Birth: 1930 Birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Child Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s) Survived?: N/A
Gene Selig says that his young age kept him unaware of the worsening climate for Jews
in Nazi Germany. His parents' friends at first believed that Hitler would be voted out
of office before long. After Kristallnacht, however, he says rampant anti-Semitism
"seemed to come all at once." He was kept of out of school, while his father quit
going to the office and began working at home. His father had a lucrative career as a
grain and tobacco broker, and in 1939 he began the process of trading the family's
home, bank accounts, and other assets for exit visas. They took the eastward route to
the U.S., going through Poland to Moscow, then on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to
Shanghai, then on a cruise ship from Kobe, Japan to Seattle. Gene says that he did not
understand the grave nature of the situation until a few years later, when the war was
over. He and his parents settled in Portland, Oregon; Gene describes their efforts to
start over as immigrants who knew no English.
Gene owns and displays many documents related to his family's flight. These include
his family's Jewish identity cards, Jewish passports, and a letter from Chase Bank in
New York verifying his father's transfer of funds. Gene also recounts details of the
two-month journey to the U.S., including a trip to Lenin's tomb in Moscow, and armed
soldiers who locked down the window shades on the train trip through Siberia. Gene
says that every year he is invited by the mayor of Frankfurt to visit Germany, and
that he always refuses the offer.
box 27
Ildiko Good
1993 March 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 42 Leng. of Tape: 62 # of VHS Tapes: 1
box 22
Abe Goldstein
1928
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 43 Leng. of Tape: 122 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Goldstein, Abe Birth: 1928 Birthplace: Chrazonow, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1942 Camps Occupied:
Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 1
Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Abe Goldstein was eleven years old when the Germans invaded Poland, and he vividly
recalls the 1939 hanging of five Jewish elders from a tree in his town. His family was
able to remain in their home until 1942; at that point Abe and his father were sent to
a German labor camp, and he never saw his mother and sister again. A few months later
the labor camp became a concentration camp, and his father was among those "selected"
for removal. Subsequently, Abe worked on the construction of a Krupp factory. In the
last months of the war Abe and his group were evacuated to Bremen, where the SS had
planned to put them on boats and sink them, but no boats were available. A death march
across Germany to Mauthausen followed; Abe notes that he was so ill after arriving
there that other inmates hid him from the Nazis until he was stronger. Abe's last camp
was Bergen- Belsen, which he describes as masses of "faces and pajamas."
Abe's testimony conveys the isolation of a teenage boy left alone in an
incomprehensible situation. He has kept photographs from the displaced persons' camp
where he spent two years after the war; the photos show the toolmaking instruction he
received there and a memorial to Holocaust victims built by camp residents.
box 22
Raymond Goldfard
1993 April 4
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 44 Leng. of Tape: 60 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Goldfarb, Raymond Birth: 1918 Birthplace: Paris, France Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Prisoner of war Left Family Home: 1938 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Raymond Goldfarb was a French soldier stationed at a fortress on the Maginot Line
when the Germans invaded in 1939. Taken prisoner, he spent most of the war in forced
labor at a German brewery. Although no media news had reached France about anti-Jewish
policies before the war, Raymond's German aunt had visited Paris while emigrating to
the U.S., and her stories made him decide to "lose" his military passport by the time
he was captured and claim a French last name. Throughout his captivity he feared
discovery of his actual identity, and never discussed it with the four other French
POW's (gentile) with whom he shared quarters at the brewery for four years.
Nevertheless, Raymond did not find out about the Final Solution until the Liberation.
On returning to France, he discovered that his parents and sister had escaped
deportation through refuge from French Catholics. He did lose other relatives,
however.
Raymond says he cannot remember having any Jewish friends in childhood; most were
Catholic. Raymond also offers interesting insights drawn from extended daily contact
with civilian Germans. After the Allied invasion of France in 1944, he says, two
distinct groups emerged: those who saw reason to treat the P.O.W.'s with more
kindness, and those who remained pro-Nazi until the end.
box 27
Irene Eisenbach
1993 April 16
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 45 Leng. of Tape: 84 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 22
Leo Korn
1993 April 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 46 Leng. of Tape: 44 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Korn, Leo Birth: 1918 Birthplace: U.S.A. Religion: Jewish Age Group: Adult Type
of Exp.: Liberator Left Family Home: N/A Camps Occupied: N/A Parents Survived
Occupation?: N/A Number of Siblings: N/A Sibling(s) Survived?: N/A
Leo Korn was a tank commander and platoon sergeant and the only Jew in his company;
only two Jews belonged to the entire battalion. He describes his company's progress
through the Ruhr region in 1945 and the mass surrender of the civilian population. Leo
says he knew "absolutely nothing" about the fate of the Jews while fighting in Europe,
and that he first heard the term "concentration camp" from his commander after the
Liberation. He and his platoon visited Dachau while en route to an assignment in
Bavaria and received a tour of the camp from a recently arrived Hungarian inmate. Leo
recalls seeing crematoriae, gallows, and prisoners who were still recuperating; he
notes he was so shocked that he asked no questions and spoke to no prisoners other
than the Hungarian guide. He felt much less sympathetic to the defeated Germans after
seeing Dachau, but on returning to the U.S. after his tour of duty he says that he
wanted to forget all of his war experiences.
Leo's testimony is interesting, yet full of unresolved feelings. He describes himself
as devoutly Jewish both before and after the war, but says he did not discuss the
Holocaust with anyone in his family. At the same time, he objects to historical
revisionism, and believes that "the whole world should know" about the Nazis'
atrocities.
box 22
Suzanne Butnik
1993 April 25
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 47 Leng. of Tape: 42 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Butnik, Suzanne Birth: 1939 Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Child Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s) Survived?: N/A
Suzanne Butnik was five years old when the Germans marched into Hungary. Although she
did understand what was happening, she remembers being restricted to the apartment
where she lived with her mother and grandparents. "All the people I loved acted
different," she says. Suzanne says that her memories of the rest of the war blur after
the first of two occasions when her mother was taken temporarily by the Nazis. She
vividly recalls frequent hunger and cold. She also remembers time spent in a
Wallenberg safe house with her mother and grandparents, as well as a period in a Red
Cross orphanage which she describes as "awful." She describes living in the country
with her mother under a false identity and being "drilled" by her mother about what to
say if they were ever questioned. Suzanne also recounts that upon returning to
Budapest at the end of the war, her mother tore the yellow stars from her
grandparents' clothing and trampled them.
Suzanne's account conveys a small child's conception of time in that often she cannot
recall durations for her experiences. She also notes the alienation she experienced on
coming to the U.S. after the war. She says that she tried to bury her memories for
many years. However, her daughters' increasing curiosity has helped her come to terms
with the past.
See also: Interview with Magda Salzer-Weinberg (#78 -- mother)
box 22
Valerie Lowe
1993 April 30
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 48 Leng. of Tape: 50 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Lowe, Valerie Birth: 1921 Birthplace: Zilina, Czechoslovakia Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home:1942 Camps
Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 2 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 1
Valerie Lowe says that her family had always considered themselves more Slovak than
Jewish. After Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, however, her family had to move into an
apartment with two other Jewish families. Valerie knew the police chief in her town,
and when rumors about forced labor for young Jews began to surface around 1942, he
urged her to hide in the mountains. She and her sister fled and took refuge with the
help of a network of Baptists, whose faith required daily good deeds. Valerie changed
her name four or five times during the war and lived in several different homes. One
family asked her to consent to baptism, which she did. Valerie also participated in a
five-month partisan "uprising" that took place in the mountains in 1944. She describes
liberation by the Russians, noting that the front line fighters were more "decent"
than those who followed them. After the war she came to New York and married a Czech
who had left in 1937; he had served in the U.S. Army during World War II and worked as
a translator during the Nuremberg Trials.
Valerie's story shows great bravery and determination. She says that her experiences
have taught her the importance of tolerating minorities, and she works for many
liberal causes in the U.S.
box 23
Irving Gelman
1993 May 2
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 49 Leng. of Tape: 122 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Gelman, Irving Birth: 1924 Birthplace: Hosht, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1941 Camps Occupied:
N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived:
1
In 1937, Irving Gelman's father gave a three-day party to celebrate his son's bar
mitzvah. When asked why he'd gone to such measures, the father answered that he wasn't
sure he'd make his son's wedding. But Irving's parents did survive the Holocaust, as
well as the Russian occupation of eastern Poland during the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Irving
describes the hiding place his father built in their house that enabled the family to
escape several pogroms once the Germans returned. Eventually they left the house and
paid a gentile farmer to hide them under his barn. Although they hid in a few other
spots as well before the end of the war, Irving notes that he named his first business
in the U.S. for the farmer's wife and kept a photograph of the couple on the office
wall.
Irving tells his amazing story in a clear, straightforward manner. He also provides
information about Polish anti-Semitism before and after the war and discusses his
prewar involvement in Zionism. He has continued his commitment to Judaism by
establishing two Jewish grammar schools in the U.S.
See also: #52 (Rochelle Gelman -- wife)
box 23
Lou Schotland
1993 May 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 50 Leng. of Tape: 96 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Schotland, Lou Birth: 1922 Birthplace: Zwolen, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Camps Left Family Home: 1939 Camps
Occupied: Auschwitz, Blechhammer Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of
Siblings: 4 Sibling(s) Survived?: 3
Lou Schotland recalls a thriving Jewish community in the Polish town of Radom, where
he spent his adolescence. He says that the Gestapo followed closely on the heels of
invading German troops, and quickly established fear among local Jewish leaders. Lou's
family fled to nearby Lublin, but the Russian occupation led them to return to Radom.
He describes life in the ghetto, and a "Jewish police force" that complied with
Gestapo orders. He married his girlfriend in 1942 and got a factory job, spurred by a
rumor that one could save a spouse in this way. When the ghetto was evacuated a few
months later, Lou hid in the factory for a week; ultimately, his German boss covered
for him and saved his life. He was transported to Auschwitz, but through a random
detention incident Lou became classified as a political prisoner rather than as a
routinely detained Jew. He says that all prisoners were treated alike, but he wore a
red star rather than a yellow one, and was transported with several gentile Poles,
Catholic priests, and teachers. Lou spent most of his time at Auschwitz working in a
coal mine. He notes that during Christmas 1944, as German defeat seemed imminent,
inmates were shown films about Jesus that emphasized "forgiving and forgetting." Lou
survived a death march following the evacuation of Auschwitz in January 1945. His
group stayed overnight at Blechhammer, and he and a friend hid in order to avoid
departing. They were soon liberated by the Russians.
Lou characterizes himself as a survivor; however, he says he sometimes does not
"accept" that his parents died and he did not. He is moved to tears when he discusses
their demise.
box 23
Leo Mergrun
1993 May 14
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 51 Leng. of Tape: 60 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Mergun, Leo Birth: 1929 Birthplace: Berlin, Germany Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Child Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 4 Sibling(s) Survived?: 4
Leo Mergrun recalls seeing hangings, desecrations, and synagogue fires on
Kristallnacht in 1938; he was nine years old. He says that the Gestapo did not bother
him because he had blond hair and blue eyes and therefore "passed" as a gentile child.
His father was also taken away for good that year, and Leo says his mother "seemed to
know" what would happen if her children did not leave Germany. One of Leo's sisters
was already in England with relatives, and arrangements were made to send the rest on
a "Kindertransport." Leo's problems did not end when he arrived in England, however.
He went through several homes and boarding schools; at one school he and his brother
were beaten by the headmaster if they spoke German. Leo also suffered molestation when
he started work at age twelve and says that he "buried" the experience.
Leo becomes quite emotional when talking about his parents and still does not know
where they died; he last heard from his mother in 1942, when she was in the Warsaw
ghetto. He also wonders about why the German Jews did not attempt armed resistance
against the Nazis.
box 23
Rochelle Gelman
1993 May 16
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 52 Leng. of Tape: 103 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Gelman, Rochelle Birth: 1925 Birthplace: Hosht, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived: 0
Rochelle Gelman recalls considerable mentions Jewish quotas in public high schools
and violence that broke out on Christian holidays. However, Rochelle and her family's
difficulties came first from the Russian takeover of their town in 1939. They were
proclaimed capitalist enemies of the state and lost their home and business. When the
Germans declared war on Russia in 1941, pogroms began almost immediately, and
Rochelle's parents were killed. She fled with cousins and went into hiding in a rural
area with a man who became her husband after the war. Rochelle describes a variety of
rescuers and their motives, which ranged from mercenary to altruistic.
Rochelle is eloquent about the feelings she experienced after the war. She wondered
how her American relatives could complain about the trivial in the presence of
survivors. She also became angry at her parents for bringing her into a world of
pogroms. Only when the state of Israel was born, she says, did she feel "safe" in
bearing children herself.
See also: #49 (Irving Gelman -- husband)
box 23
Wilfred Fisher
1993 May 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 53 Leng. of Tape: 47 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Fisher, Wilfred Birth: 1924 Birthplace: Louisiana, USA Religion: Christian Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Liberator Left Family Home: N/A Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: N/A Number of Siblings: N/A Sibling(s) Survived?: N/A
See Also: #56 (The 3 Liberators -- joint interview with Darden and DuPlechein)
Wilfred Fisher belonged to the Second U.S. Army, which consisted entirely of black
soldiers. Because of his race he was barred from his goal of becoming a pilot;
instead, he joined a medical battalion that was sent to Europe. Wilfred notes that due
to Hitler's remarks about blacks he resented the Geneva Accord requirement that Allied
medical forces give equitable care to Germans. However, his unit was sent to Dachau to
treat Jewish survivors; later, he was told that a black unit was deliberately chosen
to precede establishment of an evacuation hospital, in case disease proved
unstoppable. His unit knew nothing about what they were entering; Wilfred recalls the
sounds of screaming and crying that greeted them, and the lingering smell of the
crematoriae. "I too became a prisoner," he says, and describes round-the-clock efforts
to save survivors from illness and malnutrition. He also notes evidence of cannibalism
in the camp.
Wilfred says that he has brought his experience at Dachau into his ministry work.
"I'm wounded," he declares, "I always will be." This interview precedes #56 on the
same VHS tape.
box 23, box 27
Melvin Darden
1993 May 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 54 Leng. of Tape: 22 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Darden, Melvin Birthplace: USA Age Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Liberator
box 23
Doris "Don" DuPlechein
1993 May 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 55 Leng. of Tape: 25 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: DuPlechein, Doris Birthplace: USA Age Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Liberator
box 23, box 27
Wilfred Fisher, Melvin Darden, and Doris "Don" DuPlechein (group)
1993 May 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 56 Leng. of Tape: 35 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Fisher, Wilfred; Darden, Melvin; Doris DuPlechein Birthplace: USA Age Group:
Adult Type of Exp.: Liberators
See also: #53, 54, and 55 (Wilfred Fisher, Melvin Darden, and Doris DuPlechein
individual interviews; on same VHS tape as #56)
Fisher, Darden, and DuPlechein all belonged to the black medical unit sent into
Dachau before establishment of a medical evacuation hospital there. DuPlechein was one
of several Jewish officers who supervised the team. The three recall being sprayed
with DDT before entering the camp, and that at first they thought the prisoners were
simply non-Germans; not until GIs spoke to them did the nature of Dachau become fully
apparent. They characterize the unit's reaction as one of "collective shock." Fisher
recalls talking to prisoners who had had the duty of moving bodies from the gas
chambers to the crematorium and says that piles of corpses filled the camp; more
inmates had died than could be cremated. Darden, Fisher, and DuPlechein also note that
no high- ranking American officers entered Dachau during their duty there; sergeants
and lieutenants relayed virtually all orders to the unit. This reenforces the belief
held by some that a black unit was deliberately sent into Dachau because of the
disease risks involved, and because it was considered more expendable than a Caucasian
unit.
This interview provides a different perspective on issues of race related to the
Holocaust. In addition, the three veterans have maintained a strong bond and still see
one another on a regular basis. This camaraderie gives further substance to their
testimony. The group interview is also an excellent supplement to the individual
interview with Wilfred Fisher.
box 27
George Frankl
1993 May 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 57 Leng. of Tape: 61 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 23
Gerda Rich
1993 May 28
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 58 Leng. of Tape: 40 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Rich, Gerda Birth: 1919 Birthplace: Paderborn, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied:
N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: N/A Number of Siblings: 0 Sibling(s) Survived?:
N/A
By the time she was nineteen, Gerda Rich had lost both parents to natural causes; she
was the sole inheritor of their house and of the proceeds from the sale of her
father's hat factory. But she credits her parents with foresight: before his death,
Gerda's father had strongly encouraged her to emigrate to the U.S. She describes the
gradual upswing of anti-Semitic sentiment after Hitler came to power, the prevalence
of the Hitler Youth among her peer group, and the loss of gentile friends who gave in
to Nazi norms. Gerda recalls working as a hospital volunteer on Kristallnacht and the
casualties that came in that night. Afterward, she took in two families who had lost
their homes to Kristallnacht fires. But the deportation of her two legal guardians
made the necessity of emigrating difficult to ignore, and her father's attorney
assisted her in getting the proper papers. Gerda went to England in early 1939, then
came to the U.S. during World War II. In 1946 she married an American Jew who fought
the Germans in North Africa.
Gerda considers herself very fortunate and notes that she tries to help others. She
reminds her grandchildren about the importance of freedom and tells them her memories
of the anti-Jewish laws. She also describes a trip she made to Germany in 1989, during
which she spoke at her former high school about Kristallnacht. She believes that
German attitudes toward Jews have changed markedly.
box 23
Irene Boehm
1993 June 4
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 59 Leng. of Tape: 56 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Boehm, Irene Birth: 1919 Birthplace: Budapest, Hunagry Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1943 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 6 Sibling(s) Survived?: 3
Irene Boehm names 1938 as the beginning of Jewish difficulties in Hungary, although
the Germans did not move in until 1944. At that time her parents lost their bakery due
to anti-Semitic discrimination. Irene got a job with a wealthy Jewish dentist, who
urged her to "fight" and not move into the apartment buildings designated for Jews in
Budapest. The dentist obtained false identity papers for Irene and one other person,
and she had to choose which of three sisters to save with them. Ultimately, the sister
she chose was able to help the others. Irene spent most of the following year in
southern Hungary as a companion to a wealthy old woman in an abandoned resort town.
During this time she hid her identity from Hungarian military police who occupied the
old woman's property. The Russians controlled this area by December 1944, and within a
month Irene was raped by their troops multiple times. She was eventually able to
escape to safety by illegally crossing the Danube and travelling to a nearby city. She
spent the final months of the war in a house for refugee Jews. She came to the U.S. in
1949, through an uncle who had emigrated in the 1930's.
Irene's testimony is remarkable not only because of her own experiences; she also
recounts the stories of four sisters who worked for the underground. She relates
important historical details, and is an excellent storyteller.
box 23
Mariana Rosman
1993 June 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 60 Length of tapes: 101 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Rosman, Mariana Birth: 1932 Birthplace: Bradiceni, Bessarabia (now Romania)
Religion: Jewish Age Group: Child; Young adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes, Camps Left
Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: Lucenti Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of
Siblings: 0 Sibling(s) Survived: N/A
Mariana Rosman has learned eight languages in her life; several, she says, "by
necessity." Her native Bessarabia was a pawn between Russia and Romania, so she knew
both of these languages as a child. In 1939, her family were declared enemies of the
Russian state because her father was a successful businessman. They lost their house
and business, but got false papers and relocated within Romania. The following year,
the Germans invaded and began deporting Jews. After three weeks in a local ghetto, the
family was sent to one of many small Ukrainian camps run by Romanians. They lived in a
small house with another family; no one was asked to work, but they had very few
resources, and were prohibited to leave the camp. Mariana recalls frequent hunger and
relying on carrots, sugar beets, and potatoes. Her father became an expert bargainer
and trader, and her mother remained "absolutely convinced" that they would all manage;
both parents survived typhus. The community received news about the war from families
of young men who had joined the Russians. The camp was liberated in 1944, but Mariana
describes the next four years as "a battle to get rid of Europe" and emigrate.
Although she had an aunt in Miami, her family could not get to the U.S., only to Cuba.
Mariana recounts their life there before the rise of Fidel Castro, and how she got her
parents out before the Cuban revolution.
Mariana is very knowledgeable about the political and historical issues tied to her
story and explains them well. In discussing the German responsibility for the Final
Solution, she assigns a large measure of guilt to the Romanians who complied.
box 23
Marika Frankl
1993 June 13
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 61 Leng. of Tape: 62 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Frankl, Marika Birth: 1931 Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 2 Sibling(s) Survived?: 2
Marika Frankl notes that anti-Semitism existed in Hungary before the German
occupation in 1944. She knew that cousins in Czechoslovakia had been taken away months
before, so she felt immediate fear when the Germans arrived in Budapest. Marika's
family did not stay in their apartment, which became one of the overcrowded Budapest
"star houses," apartment buildings designated for Jews. Instead, they lived in her
father's small auto parts factory. Marika describes nightly air raids and bombings
nearby. By the time her father was sent to a labor camp he had arranged false papers
for his wife and children. Marika recalls two locations where they hid under assumed
identities, as well as a trip on the streetcar from one safehouse to the next. The
last weeks of the war involved house-to-house street fighting; "Everyone was killing
everyone," says Marika. During this phase she and her family were hidden in a basement
with over a dozen others, and raw cabbage was the only available food. Marika says her
strong faith in an afterlife helped her through this period, although this is not a
typically Jewish belief. Marika describes liberation as first "marvelous," then
frightening. The Russian troops took their possessions, and she pretended to be ill to
avoid rape.
Marika concludes her story with observations about Hungarian anti-Semitism. She notes
its reappearance during the 1956 revolution, and in the demise of Communism.
box 23
Sasha Erlik
1993 July 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 62 Leng. of Tape: 85 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Erlik, Sasha Birth: 1925 Birthplace: Prague, Czechoslovakia Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1941 Camps Occupied:
Theresienstadt, Auschwitz Parents Survived Occupation?: Father Number of Siblings: 0
Sibling(s) Survived: N/A
Sasha Erlik asserts that two major categories of Jews existed in Czechoslovakia prior
to invasion: "very assimilated," or "very religious." His grandfather was orthodox,
but his affluent parents observed only the high holidays. Nonetheless, Sasha's father
hastily left the country after Hitler took over. Sasha stayed in order to take care of
his mother, who was reluctant to abandon her couture salon. They were taken to
Theresienstadt in 1941 along with several other relatives; he describes the process of
getting extra food to help them. In early 1944, Sasha was sent to Auschwitz without
his family. He spent four weeks there, then was sent to a small North German work camp
where gasoline was made from coal. Sasha recalls a work accident in which he received
an enormous electrical shock and could not let go of the cable; he says that an SS
officer saved his life. Sasha was paralyzed from the waist down and was convinced he
would be killed, but a German sickroom attendant massaged his legs every day until he
was rehabilitated. Sasha was also one of 40 (out of 300) to survive a death march at
the end of the war; he says that this was his worst experience.
Sasha has visited Theresienstadt in recent years and speaks knowledgeably about it.
He also relates a failed attempt by a local group to open a Nazi bookstore in his
community and says that he and other members of his temple were prepared to burn it
down.
box 23
Margot Stern
1993 June 18
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 63 Leng. of Tape: 109 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Stern, Margot Birth: 1925 Birthplace: Mersch, Luxembourg Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied:
Ravensbrück Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 2 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 2
Margot Stern's father had moved their family to Luxembourg in the early 1930's to
pursue a career in the booming steel industry there, but they were forced to leave in
1939 because of new citizenship laws. They returned to his native Hungary, and avoided
the Final Solution until 1944, when Germany occupied the country. Margot's father and
brother disappeared, so she and her mother got jobs at a military uniform factory in
the hope of sparing themselves. They were ultimately transported to Ravensbrück, where
the barracks were so crowded they had to sleep in tents. Margot and a cousin were
picked for munitions factory work in Leipzig and stayed there until just before the
end of the war. Margot mentions an attempt by an SS officer to bury her alive, and a
sympathetic young SS woman who got her food from the officers' dining room. Margot
also recalls that after the factory was evacuated toward the end of the war, SS
officers tried to hide from low-flying American planes overhead by stripping off their
uniforms. After the war she discovered that her father dies of illness in a labor
camp, and her mother died by lethal injection at Ravensbrück a week before the
Liberation.
Margot says that she thinks of her survival experiences every day. She also mentions
that one of her daughters has become an Israeli citizen because she believes it is the
safest place to raise Jewish children.
box 24
Ida Brookhouse
1993 July 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 64 Leng. of Tape: 61 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Brookhouse, Ida Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Amsterdam, Netherlands Religion:
Christian Age Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Rescuer Left Family Home: N/A
Camps Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 2
Sibling(s) Survived?: 2
"Every day you're confronted with the cruelty of the Nazi system. We had to do
something." Ida Brookhouse lived with her family in a mixed Amsterdam neighborhood,
alongside Jews and other gentiles. She portrays the Nazi presence during the war as an
ordeal for the entire population. Gentile men of working age were seized off the
street and taken to Germany for forced labor, and the Nazis ordered citizens to hand
over precious metals and vehicles. Ida's father joined the Dutch resistance movement
early in the war, and this included aiding Jews; she describes helping her father
smuggle false papers. She says that the Dutch knew about the situation for Jews in
Germany from refuges, and that entire families of Jews committed suicide when the
Germans invaded Holland. Ida's family took in a seven-month-old girl when her Jewish
parents went into hiding, and Ida and her sister risked arrest to get her back from a
Nazi orphanage. Ida recounts the "Hunger Winter" of 1944-45 and says that at the
Liberation she weighed 80 pounds.
Ida speaks of her resistance activities with great conviction and says she would do
it all again. She displays medals of recognition that she and her family have received
from Holland and Israel and expresses her admiration for the goals of the Israeli
state.
box 24
Irene Opdyke
1993 July 25
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 65 Leng. of Tape: 184 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
Name: Opdyke, Irene Birth: 1922 Birthplace: Kozience, Poland Religion: Christian Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Rescuer Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied:
N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Mother Number of Siblings: 4 Sibling(s) Survived?:
4
Irene Opdyke was a seventeen-year-old nursing student far from home when Germany
invaded Poland. After a brutal rape by Russian soldiers, she was brought back to
western Poland during a prisoner exchange as part of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Only on
returning to the "German zone" did she learn that the Nazis were killing and deporting
Jews. The German major who ran the munitions factory where she'd been forced to work
hired Opdyke as a serving maid, and she used her position to get information and
otherwise aid Jews. Opdyke hid refugees in two different residences; eventually
discovered by the major, she became his mistress in exchange for their safety. By the
war's end she was a messenger for the Polish partisans, and became a heroine when she
escaped from Russian custody by jumping from a window. Fleeing Poland, she spent over
two years in a Bavarian camp for displaced Jews.
This interview carries enormous moral force. Raised in a household that encouraged
tolerance, mutual respect, and hard work, Opdyke always desired to help others to
resolve differences. She continues to pursue this aim today by talking to schools,
congregations, and other community groups about her experiences. Opdyke has received a
medal from the state of Israel and has planted a tree on Jerusalem's Avenue of the
Righteous.
box 24
Mark Kaaren
1993 July 30
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 66 Leng. of Tape: 84 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Kaaren, Mark Birth: 1919 Birthplace: Poland Religion: Jewish Age Group: Adult
Type of Exp.: Prisoner of war Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: unidentified
Siberian camp Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 5 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 4
Mark Kaaren's anti-Semitic experiences included gentile children who threw rocks at
him and his siblings. "We threw them back," he says. Mark had gentile friends, but
also attended Jewish schools and belonged to a Zionist youth organization. After the
German invasion, Mark's parents urged him to flee to the Russian-controlled east with
his brother. They were successful in this, but Mark attempted to return to rescue his
parents and was arrested at the border for crossing illegally. He then spent four
years in a Russian labor camp near the Arctic Circle, working in a lumberyard. Winter
lasted eleven months of the year, and all supplies were scarce. Mark was helped to
escape by a civilian engineer whose job he helped save; he then served a year in the
Polish army. Mark concluded his testimony with the reading of a wartime poem about
Jewish persecution.
Mark's story of survival is unusual for a Polish Jew. He also recounts his
experiences in Israel in the 1950's. Among his reasons for leaving were Israel's
"socialistic" tendencies, which he especially disliked after imprisonment in the
Russian camp.
SEE ALSO: #35 (Rita Kaaren – wife)
box 24
Esther Wigodsky
1993 August 13
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 67 Leng. of Tapes: 139 # of VHS tapes: 2
Name: Wigodsky, Esther Birth: 1922 Birthplace: Sosnowiec, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied:
Auschwitz-Birkenau; Bergen-Belsen Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of
Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived: 1
When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, seventeen-year-old Esther Wigodsky was
visiting Warsaw, applying to the ballet academy there. By the time she was able to
return to her hometown in December, her father had been arrested as a political
prisoner. Through and uncle, Esther got a job in a Luftwaffe uniform factory. She
stayed there till 1943, when deportation and liquidation orders came through. Esther
tried three different times to escape reporting to the station, but was caught each
time. She describes the arrival area of Auschwitz, where she heard many languages
spoken at once, as "a mean Babel." She survived a tattoo infection, malaria, two years
of factory work, and the death march of Bergen-Belsen. After the Liberation, Esther
participated in a show for British troops; she choreographed and performed a solo
dance entitled "Death of a Prisoner," in which her final gesture was crushing a Nazi
swastika. She received a standing ovation but was frightened by the cheering.
Esther is an excellent storyteller. She remembers her surprise at a Scottish division
of the British forces because they wore kilts and played bagpipes. She also explains
some of the other symbols and used to identify non-Jewish prisoners of the Nazis –
prostitutes wore black triangles, Poles wore red ones, and criminals wore green. These
and other details highlight her story of survival quite effectively.
box 24
Rabbi Baruch Goldenstein
1993 August 20
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 68 Leng. of Tape: 148 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
Name: Goldstein, Rabbi Baruch Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Mlawa, Poland Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Young adult, Adult Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps
Occupied: Auschqitz, Buchenwald Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of
Siblings: 2 Sibling(s) Survived: 0
Rabbi Baruch Goldstein recalls anti-Semitism in his hometown but says it seemed minor
in comparison to the strength and worth of the Jewish community, which comprised
one-third of the population. He notes pre-war pogroms in other cities and national
economic boycotts of Jewish business in the mid-1930's. After the Germans invaded,
Baruch and other youths were routinely drafted for day labor without pay. His family
were split after they were evicted from their apartment, and Baruch lived in the Mlawa
ghetto for a year and a half with his mother and brother. Separated from both by the
time he got into Auschwitz, Baruch was chosen for training as a brickmason. He worked
hard, and "learned not to be seen." When Auschwitz was evacuated in January 1945,
Baruch was sent to subcamps of Buchenwald; weeks before the Liberation, his group were
put on cattlecars that traveled without destinations or food. Baruch says that he lost
consciousness after a few weeks, and after the Liberation awakened in a Theresienstadt
hospital without knowing how he arrived.
Rabbi Goldstein gives a striking description of his psychological state after the
war. He notes his fear of making noise or speaking to others and his inability to make
decisions. He also recounts his loss of rebuilding of religious faith after the war.
But he continues to wonder why he survived when the rest of his family perished, and
feels lonely for them although he has married and raised a son.
box 24
Ted Frumes
1993 September 28
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 69 Leng. of Tape: 27 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Frumes, Ted Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Religion:
Jewish Age Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Liberator
Ted Frumes came to Europe in 1944 as a mechanic for a tank division; he participated
in the Battle of the Bulge. He says that no GIs he knew were aware of the Holocaust
until the end of the war. He recounts moving through Munich in May 1945 with his tank
division and encountering "people in long, dark coats." Stopping the tanks to beg for
food. The GIs thought they were Germans, until they talked to them and were told about
the concentration camps. Ted's division also stopped briefly at Dachau, located
outside Munich. Because of the diseases that pervaded the camp only specific military
personnel were granted entry, but Ted says that from outside the gates he could see
corpses piled around boxcars. He believes that his tankmates were particularly unable
to express their reactions because they knew he was Jewish. The sole exception was an
American Indian soldier, who spoke to Ted of the atrocities his forebears had suffered
at the hands of nineteenth- century settlers.
Ted believes that his experience in Germany made him more aware of the importance of
family. He recounts his volunteer work in the later 1940's and early '50's with Jewish
youth who were interested in going to Israel; he and a few other veterans taught them
about guns and shooting until local authorities objected. In concluding his testimony,
he recommends visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
box 24
Rose De Liema
1993 October 10
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 70 Leng. of Tape: 168 # of VHS tapes: 2
Name: De Liema, Rose Birth: 1921 Birthplace: The Hague, Netherlands Religion: Jewish
Age Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden, Camps Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied:
Westerbork, Auschwitz Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 3
Sibling(s) Survived: 0
Rose De Liema's family had some protection from transport because her father was a
pallbearer for Jewish funerals, and provided a necessary service. Also, Rose worked as
a secretary at an office that administered Jewish deportation. She and her husband
went into hiding in 1943 and experienced three different situations – two with
mercenary protectors, and the third with an independent-minded cleaning woman from
Rose's high school. The success of the June 1944 D- Day landings led them to assume
that the war would end soon, but in August they were apprehended; ironically, southern
Holland was already liberated by this time. Rose and her husband were taken first to
Westerbork, then to Auschwitz. Grouped with other Dutch women in the camps, Rose met
Anne Frank and her family. Rose was chosen for work in a Silesian snow chain factory
and describes relatively good conditions there. She was able to get information about
the war front from local laborers and knew about Hitler's death in April 1945. Inmates
at her work camp barely escaped death before the Liberation; the Gestapo woman in
charge had ordered poison to be administered at their last meal before release, but
the poison never arrived, and the Gestapo woman fled. When the Red Cross didn't show
up, Rose and her friends left the factory and walked for three weeks until they could
get a train back to Holland. Only on her return did she discover that her husband had
survived.
Rose's survival experiences are exceptional, both in that she successfully hid for so
long, and that she endured capture. She also displays a picture of herself taken with
Otto Frank (Anne's father) after the war and criticized Germany for blaming the Shoah
on "a few evil SS men."
box 24
Lena Factor
1993 October 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 71 Leng. of Tape: 99 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Factor, Lena Birth: 1920 Birthplace: Zarki, Poland Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Adult Type of Exp: Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied: Auschwitz,
Bergen-Belsen Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s)
Survived: 1
As a child, Lena Factor learned German from her stepfather, who ran a small school.
This may have saved her life, as she was chosen to work as a waitress at the local
German headquarters because she could translate their requests for the Polish cook.
There, Lena gained enough favor that she was one of the last 30 Jews in a town that
was virtually "cleansed." In 1943, she was sent for thirteen months to a munitions
factory; here, she says, an individual's will to live was tested by guards who
committed random hangings. When the Russians got too near, Lena and her group were
taken to Auschwitz. Lena notes that by this time they had prior knowledge of
Auschwitz, and on arriving there they believed they would all die. She and 500 others,
however, were selected for a munitions factory in Germany. They worked there until
January of 1945, then were marched at gunpoint through the snow to Bergen-Belsen. Lena
portrays the illness and filth there as lethal; "they didn't need gas chambers or
bullets," she says. Lena survived typhus and describes the resistance she and others
acquired to the odor of the corpses that surrounded them by the time the British
liberated the camp in April.
Lena is very direct about the after effects of the Holocaust. After the war, so many
friends and relatives had perished that "it was hard to find anyone, even in the
cemetery...so many people died in the gas chamber." She emphasizes the role of Polish
anti-Semitism and how its resurgence after the war determined her decision to
emigrate.
box 27
Helga Fultheim
1993 October 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 72 Leng. of Tape: 52 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 25
Stella Ungar
1993 October 24
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 73 Leng. of Tape: 58 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Ungar, Stella Birth: 1927 Birthplace: Lauterecken, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Child Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1937 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Stella Ungar recalls that the day after Hitler came to power, SA (Sturmabteilung)
guards were stationed outside her father's tobacco store so that customers could be
reported to the town's Nazi party. This was also the day that Stella's father
discovered his best friend headed the local Nazis. Stella recalls the gradual decline
of her father's business, and the worsening treatment she and her sister received at
school. "I gradually lost my name," Stella says; even her teacher called her "the
Jew-girl." By 1937, the year her family emigrated, her family was forced to get food
illegally. Her father also was that convinced Hitler was preparing for war because of
a large construction project nearby; authorities said it would be a playground, but he
believed it was an airfield. Stella's family received sponsorship for U.S. entry from
a relative and left Germany without trying first to sell their house. They lived first
in Indiana, and later in Chicago; Stella says that by the war's end she felt very
Americanized, and wondered if her childhood experiences had been "just a
nightmare."
Stella says she cannot attend any stadium event without becoming physically sick from
memories of Hitler newsreels and radio broadcasts. She has returned to Germany in
recent years and believes that anti-Semitism there has not been eradicated.
box 25
Martin List
1993 October 24
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 74 Leng. of Tape: 176 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: List, Martin Birth: 1929 Birthplace: Pilzno, Poland Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Child; Young adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes; Hidden Left Family Home: 1942 Camps
Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 0
Before World War II, Martin List's father often travelled to Germany on business, and
had close German friends, one family in particular. This circumstance had far-reaching
effects. Once Germany occupied western Poland under the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Lists
received help from some members of the German family, and threats from other members.
Martin recalls that as Germans troops rolled into town, the soldiers sang a song about
"Jewish blood sprouting" on their knives. His family moved out of their home and into
the ghetto in 1942, and soon afterward became the only Jews in the community to escape
transport. They hid in different locations in the forest in groups of two and three;
by October 1943, Martin was the sole survivor of his immediate family. His father and
brother were killed by the Gestapo, and Martin believes that one of their German
"friends" reported their location. He spent the bulk of the war in the forest, hiding
with small groups of fellow Jewish refugees. For the last six months, as the front
line approached the area, Martin lived next to a German encampment and survived by
stealing soldiers' food.
Martin survived against high odds in hard conditions, and moreover as an orphaned
child; the experiences associated with this have affected the rest of his life. He
remembers many details of his ordeal and tells his story intelligently.
box 25
Rosie Trompetter
1993 November 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 75 Leng. of Tape: 82 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Trompetter, Rosie Birth: 1905 Birthplace: Amsterdam, Netherlands Religion:
Jewish Age Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1942 Camps Occupied:
N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 2 Sibling(s) Survived?:
0
Rosie Trompetter grew up in a "mixed" neighborhood, and before the war had Jewish and
gentile friends. But she says that trusting the Dutch people was "the dumbest thing we
ever did." She recalls the German invasion as a shock, and describes roundups by the
SS in Amsterdam's Jewish neighborhoods. Rosie's husband bought time by working for the
Judesrat, then fled with Rosie and their son in 1942. In the meantime, Rosie had sold
a pair of jewelry stores owned by her family, and the sale funded their efforts to
hide in western Holland. They also worked for the underground, and Rosie describes the
way contacts and arrangements were made. She and her husband were separated during a
raid by the NSB (Dutch Nazis), and Rosie lived at the end of the war under an assumed
name on a farm that hid several other Jews as well. Her husband, she says, was shot
two days before the Liberation while in German custody. On returning to Amsterdam
after the war, Rosie checked the Red Cross lists nightly for surviving relatives. "No
one came back," she says simply. After the war she adopted a niece who had been
hidden, supporting her and her own son by working as a dressmaker. She came to the
U.S. in 1946, and remarried in New York to another Dutch Jewish survivor.
Rosie is the oldest participant in the Orange County Holocaust Oral History Project.
Her story is especially remarkable because she succeeded in rebuilding her life after
the Holocaust as a middle- aged person.
box 25
Harry Gable
1993 November 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 76 Leng. of Tape: 114 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Gable, Harry Birth: 1923 Birthplace: Karlsruhe, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1938 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived?:
3
Harry Gable was ten years old when Hitler came to power. He says he was unaware of
anti- Semitism before this, but that the climate in Germany changed immediately
afterward. Harry describes repeated violence by gentile schoolmates, and says teachers
encouraged this. His parents would not let him go out by himself, and gentile parents
told their children to "hate Jewish children." Harry recalls the raising of the Nazi
flag at school every Monday, and how Jewish pupils were forbidden to salute it. His
father was taken away in 1938 without warning and never seen again. Harry's family
were too poor to consider leaving the country, but his mother allowed all four
children to go to farms designed to prepare them for emigration to Palestine. Passage
to the Middle East was barred when Italy joined the war, but eventually Harry and one
sister got to England through the Palestine program. Harry describes the English
people as very kind and understanding toward the refugees. When he came of age he
wanted to contribute to the war effort against the Nazis, and worked for the Royal Air
Force as an interpreter. Harry was stationed in Germany at the end of the war, and
describes looking for his parents in several concentration camps. He never found any
record of them, but at Mauthausen he did find the mother of the German-Jewish woman he
had met and married in England.
Harry's childhood recollections of anti-Semitism are quite disturbing. He also
describes Kristallnacht, and how he and his mother risked reprisal to save a Torah
scroll from their synagogue before the building was destroyed.
box 25
Cecylia Peltyn
1993 November 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 77 Leng. of Tape: 60 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Peltyn, Cecylia Birth: 1915 Birthplace: Crakow, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes; Camps Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied:
Plaszow, Skarzysko Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 1
Sibling(s) Survived?: 0
Cecilia Peltyn describes a mid-1930's "revolution" against Jewish enrollment in
Polish universities. She also notes rumors before the German invasion of Poland that
Jews would be rounded up and put into camps. She and her family attempted to sidestep
the Crakow ghetto by escaping to the countryside, but were forced to return. Cecilia
and her father were able to put off transport by working in a local brick factory. Her
mother and sister suffocated on a camp transport, and her father died of tuberculosis
in a labor camp. From 1944, Cecilia worked in a munitions factory at Skarzysko, where
she was severely injured by a missile that fell on her foot. She credits a Polish
nurse for saving her from selection during a six-week hospital stay after the factory
was evacuated to Leipzig. Cecilia says that after the liberation she remained the most
fragile of her friends, so they would recruit her to get food from civilians. She
describes the Russian liberators as kind and generous. Cecilia returned to Poland
after the war, but decided to leave because of continued anti-Semitism.
Cecilia recalls unusual details of her experiences, such as the extent of the food
shortage at the end of the war; "even the SS soldiers" went hungry. She also expresses
skepticism at the Germans' professed ignorance of the concentration camps after the
war.
box 25
Magda Salzer-Weinberg
1993 November 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 78 Leng. of Tape: 98 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Salzer-Weinberg, Magda Birth: 193 Birthplace: Balasagyarmat, Hungary Religion:
Jewish Age Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Hidden Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied:
N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 4 Sibling(s) Survived?:
4
Magda's family moved to Budapest from a nearby town in 1937. This was fortunate, she
says; "otherwise we'd have been taken with the rest." She married in 1938, and her
husband went to the U.S. the following year, planning to send for Magda and their
daughter once he was established. Instead, she stayed in Budapest at her parents'
apartment, which after the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944 was declared a "Jewish
building." Three of Magda's siblings joined the underground and got her out of
deportation two separate times. Magda spent time with her parents in a Wallenberg
diplomatic safehouse in Budapest until she got false papers and was able to live with
a family in the countryside as a gentile refugee. Only after the war's end was she
able to let her husband know she had survived.
Magda has a good memory and a thorough understanding of the historical and political
forces in play. She notes the 1944 seizure of power by the Arrow Cross (Hungarian
Nazis), and describes them as "primitive, uneducated people who suddenly felt
important and wanted to show everyone." She speaks with great pride of recent efforts
to restore a temple in Budapest, and of her granddaughter's year abroad at the
University of Budapest.
See also : Interview with Suzanne Butnik (#47 -- daughter)
Moly Palmer [MISSING]
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 79
Name: Palmer, Moly
box 28
Lilly Black
1993 December 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 80 Leng. of Tape: 103 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Alicia Appleman
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 81
Interview was never conducted.
box 25
Clara Gonda
1994 January 9
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 82 Leng. of Tape: 119 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Gonda, Clara Birth: 1915 Birthplace: Hungary Religion: Jewish Age Group: Adult
Type of Exp: Ghettoes; Camps Left Family Home: 1944 Camps Occupied: Auschwitz;
Ravensbrhck Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s)
Survived: 1
Clara Gonda began experiencing anti-Semitism while in medical school in her native
Hungary; she and her four Jewish classmates could sit only in the back rows of their
classes. On receiving her medical degree, she could not legally practice as a Jew. Due
to the cooperation given Hitler by the Horthy rJgime, Hungary was spared occupation
till 1944. But as Clara points out, once ordered to assist Hungary was fully complicit
in the Final Solution. Clara also describes surrendering her household possessions to
the Nazis and living first in a ghetto, then in a brickyard before transport to
Auschwitz. She spent only a few months in the Polish camp, then was chosen by Dr.
Mengele as one of 800 Hungarian women to work in an airplane factory outside Berlin.
There, serving as the only doctor, she worked constantly. Conditions were unhealthy
and supplies scarce, and when she criticized this she was accused of sabotage. Clara
became so discouraged that she considered suicide. The factory was evacuated, and her
group were ultimately liberated by the Russians. On returning to Hungary, she found
her husband had survived the war, though her parents had perished.
Clara's clear memory for the details of her experiences offsets her occasional
difficulty with English vocabulary. She is intelligent and observant, and her status
as a female physician provides an unusual perspective.
See also Related Interview: #88 (Harry Gonda -- husband)
box 25
Margie Strauss
1994 January 9
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 83 Leng. of Tape: 117 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Strauss, Margie Birth: 1915 Birthplace: Hanover, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes; Camps Left Family Home: 1941 Camps Occupied:
Riga; Stutthof Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 2 Sibling(s)
Survived?: 1
Margie Strauss tried to escape from Germany to Africa in the late 1930's, but the
Nazi government barred the ship she had booked from making the journey. Instead, she
got a job at an agricultural school that trained Jews who were planning to emigrate to
Palestine. This allowed Margie to remain in Germany until late 1941, when she was
transported to the Latvian ghetto of Riga with her mother and daughter. She learned
Yiddish there and then was able to communicate with Latvian Jews. Margie and her
mother escaped selection for Auschwitz and instead went to work in an ultramarine
factory. She received adoption offers for her five-year-old daughter, but refused. The
child was shot and killed in a 1944 roundup, and Margie's mother was selected and
removed a few months later. Margie was sent to the Stutthof death camp in early 1945
and managed to get herself and some friends assigned to a nearby camp where cremation
did not occur. She describes Wehrmacht officers at their last camp who were appalled
by the Nazis, and who got extra food and clothing for the camp inmates. The Russians
killed them at the Liberation, but Margie says that they did not deserve to die.
Margie's story differs notably from those of the many Jews who were sent through
Auschwitz in that her equally arduous odyssey took her nowhere near it. She expresses
frustration that she does not remember sequences of her experiences better, but her
recall is nonetheless impressive.
box 25
Miriam Haas
1994 January 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 84 Leng. of Tape: 96 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Haas, Miriam Birth: 1922 Birthplace: Auschwitz, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Young adult; Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes; Camps Left Family Home: 1942 Camps
Occupied: Subcamp of Buchenwald-Groszrosen Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither
Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived?: 1
Miriam Haas was born in the town of Auschwitz, but her family moved to Sosnowiec in
the 1930's for her father's fabric business. She describes prewar anti-Semitism and
institutionalized segregation in Polish schools. She recounts the gradual loss of her
family, which started with her father's flight to Russian-occupied Poland in 1939 and
continued with deportations to death camps. Miriam briefly worked in a ghetto factory,
then was sent to the Sudetenland to a textile plant. She sabotaged, stole yarn to make
socks, and simulated asthma so she could switch from the night shift to daytime. She
describes her group of friends there as "religious" and notes that for much of the war
they were well-fed enough to disdain eating food scraps. In the last months of the
war, the factory became a concentration camp; work ceased, the food grew scarce, and
the inmates received dogtags that served the same purpose as numbered tattoos. They
were liberated by the Russians, and she recalls that she rode away from the factory
atop a Russian tank.
Miriam speaks thoughtfully about her experiences. She emphasizes the strength of
Polish anti- Semitism, but also believes that "only the Germans" were capable of
masterminding and carrying out the Final Solution.
box 28
Flora Van Beek
1994 January 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 85 Leng. of Tape: 171 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 25
Gretl Warner
1994 February 8
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 86 Leng. of Tape: 59 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Warner, Gretl Birth: 1911 Birthplace: Ermethofen, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Refugee, Ghettoes Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied:
N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 1 Sibling(s) Survived?:
1
Gretl Warner was working as a couture dressmaker in Berlin when Kristallnacht
occurred, and her parents and husband decided that emigration was necessary. Her
parents owned three houses and some farmland but were forced to accept an artificially
low price for them. They all emigrated to Shanghai, and Gretl and her husband were
able to start and run an exclusive dress salon there. One U.S. dollar would pay for an
entire week's survival, and thus Gretl and her husband managed to recover some of the
family's financial losses. But the Japanese invaded in 1941, and under pressure from
the Germans they forced the 22,000 Jews in Shanghai to live in a ghetto. Gretl
describes heavy inflation, the withdrawal of ration cards, and living on peanuts.
Typhus and dysentery were rampant, and only 14,000 Jews remained there at the end of
the war; Gretl weighed 73 pounds at this point. She and her husband came to the U.S.
in 1947, and she recalls her happiness at seeing Jewish holidays publicly acknowledged
here.
Gretl provides informative details about the terms of refugee life in Shanghai, in
particular regarding the politics of the Jewish community. She also notes that
although the occupation was extremely difficult, she had Japanese clients who brought
her food and staples and probably saved her life.
box 25
Harold Lowenstein
1994 February 8
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 87 Leng. of Tape: 49 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Lowenstein, Harold Birth: 1909 Birthplace: Werden, Germany Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Refugee Left Family Home: 1939 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents
Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 5 Sibling(s) Survived?: 4
Harold Lowenstein's family traced its German heritage to 1684. On Kristallnacht in
1938, the Nazis arrested and imprisoned Harold and his brother. Harold also describes
the burning of the town synagogue, and the desecration of the Torah. He says that the
few "arch-Nazis" who occupied his town pressured other citizens to boycott Jewish
businesses. But local police, he notes, would not participate in deportation measures.
His family lost their home and store, and in early 1939 Harold and his wife devoted
their "honeymoon" to finding exit visas. They obtained permission to emigrate to
Bolivia but got off their ship in Panama in the hope of gaining entry to the U.S. They
obtained refuge here in 1940; Harold served two years in the U.S. Navy and fought at
Iwo Jima. Harold also describes how most of his family escaped, and how one brother
died in Minsk.
Harold's testimony emphasizes recovery, and he contends that he does not want to
blame "endless generations" of Germans for the Holocaust. Harold shows photos of a
Holocaust memorial completed recently in his small hometown. He also describes its
dedication, for which the town council hosted all the town's Jewish survivors and
their descendants.
box 26
Harry Gonda
1994 February 15
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 88 Leng. of Tape: 99 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Gonda, Harry Birth: 1915 Birthplace: Mako, Hungary Religion: Jewish Age Group:
Adult Type of Exp: Hidden Left Family Home: 1943 Camps Occupied: N/A Parents Survived
Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived: 3
Harry Gonda credits his status as a doctor for saving him during the Holocaust. "I
was sitting in the balcony, watching the horror," he says. Although anti-Jewish laws
prevented him from practicing in Hungary prior to the war, he was sent to northern
Transylvania as the doctor for a military unit of miners. As the Russians approached
and his unit faced evacuation in 1944, Harry received refuge from his brother-in-law,
who worked in Budapest for the rescue organization of Swedish diplomat Raoul
Wallenberg. Harry spent the rest of the war in the Wallenberg safehouse system, which
housed over 15,000 refugee Jews. Harry describes the liberation as an ambivalent
experience. "The Russians were brutes too," he notes. After the war Harry and his wife
sneaked out of Hungary and treated patients in a displaced persons' camp until they
received visas to the U.S. in 1949.
Harry discusses the history of Hungarian Jewry, citing continual infighting as an
impediment to social integration. He also gives rich details about the development of
anti-Semitism in Hungary before World War II. He has written his memoirs for his
grandchildren in the hope that they will adopt Judaism, although his children are
non-observant.
See also: #82 (Clara Gonda -- wife)
box 28
Helen Margines
1994 March 6
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 89 Leng. of Tape: 82 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 26
Hendrika (Ria) Van-Sligter-Jansma
1994 March 8
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 90 Leng. of Tape: 105 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Van-Sligter-Jansma, Hendrik (Ria) Birth: 1920 Birthplace: Amsterdam,
Netherlands Religion: Christian Age Group: Adult Type of Exp: Rescuer Left Family
Home: N/A Camps Occupied: N/A Parents Survived Occupation?: Both Number of Siblings: 3
Sibling(s) Survived: 3
Ria Van Sligter-Jansma describes the German occupation of Holland as sudden and
brutal. Beatings and killings occurred daily against Jews and gentiles alike, and
soldiers commonly confiscated food staples from civilians. Ria sees such conditions as
the reason for widespread Dutch hatred of the invaders and describes assistance to
Jews as one type of Dutch patriotism. Ria belonged to a resistance organization,
hiding Jews in her house, smuggling them to farms in southern Holland, and working as
a courier. Among her organization's refugees were the family of Anne Frank, who were
discovered because the Germans wanted the chemicals stored in the warehouse where they
were hidden. Ria once escaped a firing squad only by a last-minute reprieve. She also
committed everyday acts of protest against the Germans; after criticizing a soldier's
treatment of a deaf man she received two broken arms as punishment. By the end of the
war Ria suffered severe mental exhaustion, and she was at home in bed during the
Liberation. After the war, she became a nurse. Now retired, she considers herself an
active Christian and seeks worthwhile charitable causes.
Ria attributes her willingness to help Jews to her family, who taught tolerance, and
to high school friendships before the war with German refugees. Her story conveys the
tensions that characterized wartime Holland, as well as the relationship between
aiding Jews and rebelling against the occupying Germans.
box 26
Helena Ben-Joseph
1994 March 20
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 91 Leng. of Tape: 178 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
Name: Ben-Joseph, Helena Birth: 194 Birthplace: Barslow, Poland Religion: Jewish Age
Group: Adult Type of Exp.: Ghettoes; Hidden Left Family Home: 1940 Camps Occupied: N/A
Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 3 Sibling(s) Survived?:
0
Before the Germans invaded Poland, Helena Ben-Josef and her husband owned a home and
two jewelry stores; they had also invested in the oil industry that had made their
town prosperous and relatively modern. Helena's family had been watchmakers and
jewelers for four generations and were quite wealthy. Aware of the anti-Semitism in
Poland, they wanted to leave the country before the war, but they could not bring
their assets with them, and so stayed. All of her immediate family, including her
husband, were killed by 1942, but Helena never lost access to her family's fortune,
and paid many people (including local police) to hide her and her two daughters. By
the Liberation, Helena weighed 79 pounds, and her younger daughter required sanitorium
treatment for malnutrition. Throughout the occupation, Helena received enormous
assistance from a gentile maid who had worked for her family for 25 years.
Helena's story shows how destruction of Jewry occurred outside of concentration
camps; all of her family, and that of her husband, died in local pogroms. She also
discusses the role of public notices and newspaper ads in the Final Solution. Although
Helena does not always answer questions directly, she has excellent recall of details.
She also expresses a strong passion for the Jewish faith.
box 26
Isaac Cohen
1994 March 15
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 92 Leng. of Tape: 108 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Cohen, Isaac Birth: 1916 Birthplace: Greece Religion: Jewish Age Group: Adult
Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1943 Camps Occupied: Auschwitz-Birenau;
Buchenwald Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 4
Sibling(s)Survived: 2
Before World War II Isaac Cohen ran a wholesale produce business in Salonika, a town
with an estimated 70,000 Jewish families. He describes the German invasion and
occupation of Greece, which led in 1942 to his forced deportation. Several gentile
friends offered to hide him, but Isaac refused, choosing instead to stay with his
family; he did not envision what he eventually experienced. Only on arriving at
Auschwitz with one brother and one sister did he decide that the desire for family
cohesion was a liability (his parents died with his other sister on a boat sunk by the
SS). Isaac worked first within Birkenau, then nearby at the Buna factory owned by I.G.
Farben. He believed he would not survive, but regardless struggled to acquire as much
food as possible through barter. Isaac endured the death marches following evacuation
of the Auschwitz camps in January 1945; by the time of the Liberation in May, he had
been in five more camps. He was placed in a hospital near Munich for several weeks at
that time.
Isaac recounts his vivid memories of these experiences in heavily accented English.
He conveys his emotions about the Holocaust by showing photographs of crematorium
interiors, mass graves, and emaciated inmates.
box 26
Edith Burke
1994 March 29
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 93 Leng. of Tape: 58 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Name: Burke, Edith Birth: 1924 Birthplace: Hungary Religion: Jewish Age Group: Adult
Type of Exp.: Camps Left Family Home: 1994 Camps Occupied: Auschwitz; Bergen-Belsen
Parents Survived Occupation?: Neither Number of Siblings: 5 Sibling(s) Survived: 2
Edith Burke describes her existence in a small Hungarian college town as "sheltered."
Her deportation did not occur until 1944 because of Hungary's alignment with Germany.
Edith notes that one occasionally heard rumors about the concentration camps, but that
it was easier to believe the claims that they were going to a "labor camp," even as
one was packed into cattlecars. She recounts the two-day trip to Auschwitz with her
parents and three sisters; her parents were exterminated on arrival, along with her
oldest sister, and the sister's infant son. After two months, Edith and the remaining
two sisters were chosen to work at Reichenbach, an airplane factory. They were
grateful for this, as conditions there were "a notch better" than at Auschwitz. The
factory was evacuated with the approach of the Russians in February 1945, and Edith
and her sisters were taken to Bergen-Belsen. This camp, she believes, was worse than
Auschwitz; "dead people, wandering around, waiting to die." Typhus killed her sisters
right around the Liberation, and Edith believes she would have died as well if medical
attention had arrived any later. Afterward she was sent to Sweden, where she recovered
at a resort, then worked in a clothing factory.
Edith does not give elaborate detail of her experiences, and apologizes for this
several times. However, she is explicit about her feelings. She says that the hope for
freedom sustained her and her sisters, although after their deaths she did not want to
survive. Edith also still wonders why she lived and others died. Edith hopes that her
children and grandchildren will carry on orthodox Judaism, which she has imparted to
them.
box 28
Abraham Barouh
1994 April 24
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 94 Leng. of Tape: 48 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Interview is on the same tape as interview no. 95 (Sarah Schweitz).
box 28
Sarah Schweitz
1994 April 24
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 95 Leng. of Tape: 53 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
Interveiw is on the same tape as interview no. 94 (Abraham Barouh).
box 28
Irwin "Bill" Binder
1994 May 10
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 96 Leng. of Tape: 95 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Aranka Klein
1994 May 29
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 97 Leng. of Tape: 156 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Joseph Lederman
1994 May 31
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 98 Leng. of Tape: 55 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Ruth Newell
1994 June 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 99 Leng. of Tape: 82 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Leon Leyson
1994 June 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 100 Leng. of Tape: 165 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 28
Denise Woldenberg
1994 June 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 101 Leng. of Tape: 43 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Walter Pried
1994 June 14
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 102 Leng. of Tape:61 min, # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Carmen Cohen
1994 June 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 103 Leng. of Tape: 57 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Jean Rene Braun
1994 June 26
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 104 Leng. of Tape: 59 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 28
Susy Oster
1994 June 26
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 105 Leng. of Tape: 82 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Rabbi David Kane
1994 July 5
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 106 Leng. of Tape: 95 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Sigmund Burke
1994 July 26
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 107 Leng. of Tape: 112 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Rabbi Chaim Asa
1994 August 2
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 108 Leng. of Tape: 112 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Andrew May
1994 August 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 109 Leng. of Tape: 54 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Yetta Kane
1994 August 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 110 Leng. of Tape: 70 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Jack Parsier
1994 August 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 111 Leng. of Tape: 242 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 29
Ilse Wolfsen
1994 August 30
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 112 Leng. of Tape: 102 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Sol Kimel
1994 September 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 113 Leng. of Tape: 171 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 29
Gerard Bohm
1994 September 18
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 114 Leng. of Tape: 93 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Tova Winiarz
1994 September 18
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 115 Leng. of Tape: 109 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Erika May
1994 October 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 116 Leng. of Tape: 98 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Isidore Apfelbaum
1994 October 16
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 117 Leng. of Tape: 166 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 30
Sylvia Simon
1994 October 16
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 118 Leng. of Tape: 59 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Dr. Joseph Jacobs
1994 November 8
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 119 Leng. of Tape: 95 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Susan Angel
1994 November 15
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 120 Leng. of Tape: 96 min # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Marcel Baum
1994 November 22
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 121 Leng. of Tape: 124 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Andy Speiser
1994 November 29
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 122 Leng. of Tape: 101 min, # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Jenny Unterman
1994 December 6
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 123 Leng. of Tape: 105 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Eva Schneider
1994 December 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 124 Leng. of Tape: 96 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Willam Salamon
1994 December 13
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 125 Leng. of Tape: 105 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
John Steiber
1994 December 20
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 126 Leng. of Tape: 116 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Tova Weissman Cohen
1995 January 22
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 127 Leng. of Tape: 118 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 30
Tobi Abelsky
1995 January 24
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 128 Leng. of Tape: 60 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Kari Hess
1995 January 31
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 129 Leng. of Tape: 77 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Leo Bach
1995 February 5
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 130 Leng. of Tape: 153 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 31
Herbert Siegel
1995 February 5
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 131 Leng. of Tape: 95 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Simon Young
1995 February 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 132 Leng. of Tape: 122 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Paul Ostrowiecki
1995 February 14
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 133 Leng. of Tape: 121 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Mariane Bohm
1995 February 19
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 134 Leng. of Tape: 110 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Hanni Vogelweid
1995 February 21
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 135 Leng. of Tape: 116 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Rose Spiero
1995 February 28
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 136 Leng. of Tape: 59 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Martin Straus
1995 March 5
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 137 Leng. of Tape: 40 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Molly Palmer
1995 March 7
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 138 Leng. of Tape: 80 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Peter Plessner
1995 March 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 139 Leng. of Tape: 48 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Galena Segal
1995 March 12
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 140 Leng. of Tape: 69 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Sonja Tebrich
1995 March 14
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 141 Leng. of Tape: 109 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 31
Dr. Henry Heller
1995 March 19
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 142 Leng. of Tape: 151 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 32
Piri Katz
1995 March 19
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 143 Leng. of Tape: 104 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Dr. Arthur Bunzel
1995 March 26
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 144 Leng. of Tape: 180 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 32
Ingrid Sacks
1995 March 26
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 145 Leng. of Tape: 58 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Kathleen Stieber
1995 March 28
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 146 Leng. of Tape: 140 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 32
Ernest Green
1995 April 2
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 147 Leng. of Tape: 91 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Bert Jakobs
1995 April 2
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 148 Leng. of Tape: 83 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Clara Stern
1995 April 4
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 149 Leng. of Tape: 164 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 32
Henry Tebrich
1995 April 9
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 150 Leng. of Tape: 123 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Marietta Van den Berg
1995 April 9
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 151 Leng. of Tape: 85 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Rosa Stopnitzky
1995 April 11
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 152 Leng. of Tape: 62 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32
Margot Marianne Kovacs
1995 April 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 153 Leng. of Tape: 76 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 32, box 33
Gary Lenzner
1995 April 23
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 154 Leng. of Tape: 183 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 33
Dr. Hans Askenasy
1995 April 25
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 155 Leng. of Tape: 167 min. # of VHS tapes: 2
box 33
Dr. Frank Johnson
1995 April 30
Scope and Contents Note
Interview No.: 156 Leng. of Tape: 94 min. # of VHS tapes: 1
box 1-18
Beta master tapes [RESTRICTED]
1992-1995
Physical Description: 9 Linear
Feet(18 boxes)
Access
Access to original video recordings is restricted.
Unprocessed addition 2020 Accession 2020.021
1993-1994
Physical Description: 0.2 Linear
Feet(1 half letter document
box)
Series Scope and Contents Summary
This addition to the collection contains contracts pertaining to the Orange County
Holocaust Oral History Project.
Access
This addition to the collection has not been processed but is open for research. Please
contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives in advance to request
access.
box accn2020.021 001
Box 1
1993-1994
Scope and Contents Note
contracts