Hans was born to a Jewish family in the Austrian capital of Vienna. His parents ran a successful export shop for ladies' hats and sold their wares to many different countries. As a boy, Hans attended a private, preparatory school in which courses were taught in both English and German.
1933-39: Hans was attending business school when the Germans annexed Austria in 1938. Hans and his family watched from their window as German troops, led by Hitler, goose-stepped into Vienna. Hans was immediately forced out of school. About two weeks later, an Austrian appointed by the Germans told his family he had instructions to liquidate their business. His parents no longer believed they had a future in Germany and decided to leave. The family left for Italy in 1939.
1940-45: Hans and his family settled in Genoa. One day in 1940 two Italian policemen came and told them they were to be interned because they were Jewish. "But don't worry," they said, "We're human beings. We're not animals. We're not the Germans." The Italians took them to the village of Compagna, and a month later, to Tortoreto in central Italy. His family was housed in a hotel overlooking the sea and were allowed freedom of movement. They could go to the movies and were even given pocket money. In 1943 they were liberated by the British army.
Hans worked as an interpreter for the Allies until the end of the war, and then spent three years arranging for JDC-funded ships to smuggle Jewish refugees into Palestine.
Item ViewThe Germans annexed Austria in March 1938. In 1939, Hans fled first to Hungary and then to Italy. He and his parents were interned in various towns. Hans's father became ill and died in 1940. In 1943, Hans and his mother were warned of German plans to deport Jews from Italy to Poland. They moved to smaller towns until liberation by the British in August 1943. Hans worked as an interpreter for the Allies until 1945, when he worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and helped resettle Jewish refugees.
Item ViewFlory was born into a Sephardic Jewish family. When Flory was a young girl, her mother moved to Zagreb with Flory's stepfather; Flory joined them after living with her grandmother for two years. In Zagreb, Flory took music lessons and learned how to play the accordion. Germany and its allies invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, partitioning the country and establishing a fascist regime under the Ustase (pro-German Croatian nationalists) in Croatia. The Ustasa regime soon imposed anti-Jewish regulations in Zagreb; Flory was no longer allowed to attend school, and Jews were forced to wear a badge identifying them as Jews. Flory's family fled Zagreb, finding refuge in Italian-occupied areas and later in the south of mainland Italy. The Allies invaded Italy in 1943. After the Italian cease-fire in September 1943, Flory got a job with American forces in Bari, in southeastern Italy. In June 1945, after the war, Flory married an American sergeant, Harry Jagoda. They settled in the United States.
Item ViewAn only child, Wolfgang was born in Berlin to Jewish parents. His father was the foreign representative for a sewing notions company. The family lived in a comfortable apartment in the southwestern district of the city. Wolfgang attended secondary school there and hoped to become an electrical engineer.
1933-39: When the Nazis came to power, Wolfgang's father fled Germany because he was a socialist and was afraid he'd be arrested. Wolfgang's mother was very ill, so his grandmother took care of him until it became too difficult for her, and then she placed him in a Jewish orphanage. By then, Jews weren't allowed in public schools, so he switched to a Jewish middle school. In l937 he joined his father in Paris and entered a training institute to learn to be a mechanic.
1940-44: By 1943 Wolfgang was living in Nice with his father and his stepmother, who owned a lending library. Many Jews had sought haven in Nice because under the Italian occupation there, Jews were not persecuted. But when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September, the Germans occupied the area. In March 1944 the Nazis deported Wolfgang, his parents, and 1,500 other Jews in sealed box cars from a transit camp near Paris to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, he was separated from his parents and herded into a room where his head was shaved.
Wolfgang's parents were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. Wolfgang was put to work in an electrical components factory and survived the war. He immigrated to America in 1947.
Item ViewLucie was born to Jewish parents living in Gera, a medieval German city on the banks of the Elster River in the Thuringer Forest. Gera was well known for its manufacture of Leica cameras, for its publishing houses, and for the extensive collection of Gobelin tapestries in one of its museums.
1933-39: A few weeks ago, Lucie married Hans Munzer here, in Paris. Hans fled Germany last year because the Nazis began rounding up and imprisoning socialists, and as a district supervisor for the Social Democratic Party he was on their enemies list. Lucie came from Berlin to join Hans and now they're living in Paris's 15th arrondissement, one of the city's outlying neighborhoods. She helps him run a lending library.
1940-44: Hans has had a falling out with his business partner in Paris, so Hans and Lucie decided to move here to Nice. This city is a kind of haven for Jews in France because the Italians, who have occupied this area, leave them alone. They have three synagogues in Nice, a kosher Jewish kitchen, and many Jewish doctors. Lucie and Hans have set up another, small lending library, and their book collection includes volumes by authors banned in Nazi Germany.
In September 1943 Germany occupied Nice. Six months later, Lucie and Hans were deported via Drancy, outside Paris, to Auschwitz, where they were immediately gassed.
Item ViewHans was born to Jewish parents in a town in northwestern Germany. The family moved to Berlin when Hans' father obtained a post there as a history teacher in a secondary school. After graduating from university, Hans married and settled with his wife Margaret in an apartment in Berlin. In 1920 their child Wolfgang was born. Hans worked as foreign representative for a sewing notions company.
1933-39: When the Nazis won the election a few weeks ago, Hans was afraid for people like himself who are active members of the socialist party. He was right. Someone has just slipped a note under his family's door with a warning: The Nazis are rounding up socialists, and, as the local district supervisor for the Social Democratic Party, Hans is on their list. They're going to leave in a hurry and try to sublet a room under an assumed name in another neighborhood.
1940-44: It's been almost 10 years since Hans fled Germany. Hans and his second wife, Lucie, used to live in Paris but when he had a falling out with his business partner, they decided to move here to Nice. The city is a kind of haven for Jews in France because the Italians, who have occupied this area, leave them alone. Hans and Lucie run a lending library. Sometimes they think about going to Spain and from there to the United States, but they still feel safe here in France.
In September 1943 German troops occupied Nice. Six months later, Hans and Lucie were deported via Drancy, outside Paris, to Auschwitz where they were gassed on arrival.
Item ViewBruna was the oldest of two children born to Italian-speaking Jewish parents who had settled in the cosmopolitan city of Trieste. Her father, born in Vienna, served in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. He became a naturalized Italian during the 1920s after marrying Bruna's mother. Growing up in fascist Italy, Bruna attended public schools in Trieste and felt proud to be an Italian.
1933-39: In September 1938 Bruna was surprised to see anti-Jewish graffiti. Then anti-Jewish race laws were announced. She was expelled from her public secondary school and her father was fired from his job. Circumstances forced Bruna into a new, private Jewish school organized by fired Jewish professors, with small classes and excellent teachers. Ironically, her exams and diploma were fully accredited by the Italian state.
1940-44: Bruna and her family were glad when Mussolini fell from power in July 1943, but his fall led to the German occupation of Italy. They fled south but were caught in a roundup. Awaiting deportation to Germany, Bruna attended a Christmas Mass in their prison. The Bishop of Rimini told her not to despair and to believe in miracles. Three days later the prison was hit during an air raid. They escaped to a convent south of Rimini and discovered that the bishop had instructed the convent to give shelter to refugees with no questions or payment asked.
Bruna was liberated at the convent by British troops on September 23, 1944, the day after her twenty-first birthday.
Item ViewIsaac lived with his parents and three sisters in Split, on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia. When German and Axis forces invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia in 1941, Italian forces occupied Split along with other coastal areas of Yugoslavia. Italian occupation authorities in Yugoslavia generally prevented violent attacks on Jews. The Italian zone became a safe haven for those fleeing the Nazis or the Ustase (Croatian fascists). After Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in 1943, the area was occupied by Germany. Isaac and his father joined the partisans. They then escaped to Allied-occupied islands off Yugoslavia and Italy. Members of Isaac's family were eventually reunited in southern Italy and arrived at Fort Ontario, New York, on a refugee transport in 1944.
Item ViewIvo grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Zagreb. He experienced little overt antisemitism until the Germans and their allies invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941 and installed a fascist Ustasa government in Croatia. The Ustasa regime began killing Jews, Serbs, and Roma (Gypsies). Ivo's family escaped to Italian-occupied territory, where the Italians tried to protect Jewish refugees. Ivo lived in Italian internment camps, including the Rab island camp, before moving to mainland Italy in 1944. He worked for the Joint Distribution Committee for a time, then moved to the United States.
Item ViewAmid intensifying anti-Jewish measures and the 1938 Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom, Johanna's family decided to leave Germany. They obtained visas for Albania, crossed into Italy, and sailed in 1939. They remained in Albania under the Italian occupation and, after Italy surrendered in 1943, under German occupation. The family was liberated after a battle between the Germans and Albanian partisans in December 1944.
Item ViewRebecca was the oldest of three children born to Ladino-speaking, Sephardic-Jewish parents. The Pissirilos lived in Kastoria, a small town in the mountainous region of Greek Macedonia near the Albanian border. Rebecca's father was a successful fabric merchant. The Pissirilo children attended public schools.
1933-39: After finishing elementary school, Rebecca went on to study at secondary school. She liked to sing and enjoyed studying. Rebecca kept a diary, like some of the other girls in her class. The girls used pseudonyms, usually the name of an actress that they admired. Rebecca's pseudonym was "Marlene Dietrich."
1940-44: Italy attacked Greece in 1940, and in 1941 Italian officers were billeted in the Pissirilo home. During the Italian occupation Rebecca married Leon Franko, a Jewish refugee from Yugoslavia. In September 1943 Italy surrendered. The Germans occupied Kastoria and deported the town's 700 Jews to Salonika. There the Red Cross interceded on behalf of Rebecca, who was about to give birth, and rushed her to a hospital. On April 1, 1944, the day Kastoria's Jews were deported to Auschwitz, Rebecca gave birth to a daughter.
Rebecca tried to hide in the hospital, but was betrayed, and was executed by the Germans on September 8, 1944. A nurse in the hospital saved her infant daughter.
Item ViewLeon was born to a large, Ladino-speaking, Sephardic-Jewish family. The Frankos lived in a large house in ethnically diverse Bitola, a town located in the southern part of Yugoslav Macedonia, near the Greek border. Leon's father, Yiosef, was a successful fabric merchant. The Frankos' children attended Yugoslav public schools where they learned to speak Serbian.
1933-39: Upon completing his schooling, Leon became a fabric merchant in Bitola. A handsome man from a well-to-do family, Leon was popular. His friends often remarked that he looked like a movie star. His younger brother, Dario, idolized him.
1940-44: In April 1941 the Germans invaded Yugoslavia, and Macedonia was annexed to Bulgaria. The Bulgarians introduced anti-Jewish laws and cooperated with the Germans. Leon and Dario fled to Kastoria, a town in Italian-occupied Greece. There, Leon met and married Rebecca Pissirilo. After Italy surrendered, the Germans deported Kastoria's 700 Jews to Salonika, where they were assembled for deportation to Auschwitz. In Salonika, Leon's wife, who was nine months pregnant, was taken by the International Red Cross to a hospital.
Leon was one of 700 Jews deported by train from Salonika to Auschwitz on April 1, 1944. Both he and his wife perished. Their baby, Esther, was saved by a nurse in the hospital.
Item ViewFranco was born to a Jewish family living in the northern Italian city of Bologna. Even though a fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, came to power in Italy in 1922, Bologna's Jews continued to live in safety. Like many Italian Jews, Franco's family was well integrated in Italian society. Franco attended public elementary school.
1933-39: When Franco was 7, Mussolini enforced "racial" laws against the Jews: Franco was expelled from school, and went instead to a Jewish school hastily organized in makeshift quarters in one of Bologna's synagogues. Franco could not understand why he had to leave his friends just because he was Jewish. His father died in 1939, and he moved with his mother and older brother, Lelio, to Turin, where he began religious school.
1940-44: Mussolini was overthrown in July 1943. Two months later, German forces occupied Italy, and gained control of the north, the part where Franco's family and most of Italy's Jews lived. The Italians had been protecting the Jews, but now Germany controlled Italy. The Cesana family went into hiding in the mountains. To evade the Germans, they moved from hut to hut. Lelio joined the Justice and Liberty partisan group. Though only 12, Franco joined as well, proud that so many Jews were fighting in the Italian resistance.
Franco was shot by Germans while on a scouting mission in the mountains. His body was returned to his mother on his 13th birthday. He was Italy's youngest partisan.
Item ViewMario was the only child of a Jewish couple who were secondary school teachers in Bologna. Like many Italian Jews, his family was well-integrated into Italian society. Even though Fascist leader Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922, Jews in Italy continued to live in safety. Mario played piano as a hobby. When he finished high school in Bologna, Mario went on to study law.
1933-39: In 1938 Mario began practicing law in Milan. But later that year, Mussolini's government issued "racial" laws that prevented Mario from continuing to practice. Mario moved to Paris and began a new career as a pianist. In August 1939 he returned to Italy to renew his visa. On September 1, while he was there, Germany invaded Poland and two days later France declared war on Germany. Mario was detained in Italy.
1940-44: Mario worked in Bologna with a Jewish service agency, helping refugees. In July 1943 Mussolini was overthrown and German forces occupied Italy. The Jews in Bologna were sent to a German transit camp at Fossoli di Carpi. For some, the destination of the transports out of Fossoli di Carpi was not a secret--"Auschwitz" had been written in chalk on one of the railway cars. In March 1944 Mario was deported to Auschwitz.
In Auschwitz, Mario threw himself on the high-tension wire that surrounded the camp. He left behind a message for his parents, asking their forgiveness. Mario was 31 years old.
Item ViewIvo was an only child born to a Jewish family in the city of Zagreb. His father worked in an insurance company. Though blatant antisemitism was considered uncommon in Yugoslavia, Jews were barred from government and university positions unless they converted to Christianity.
1933-39: In Zagreb Ivo studied at a public secondary school. The curriculum was fixed and included three languages as well as religion. His school was highly selective but he enjoyed studying and did well. Though he didn't personally encounter overt prejudice in Zagreb, some Croatian fascist groups were fiercely antisemitic and supported the policies of the Nazis. Ivo was 16 when the war began.
1940-44: In 1941 Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers and split into occupation zones. Fearing the Croatian fascists, Ivo's family wanted to escape to the Italian zone. Using the only two Italian words he knew, "Jew" and "fear," Ivo approached some Italian army officers. They understood and sneaked them into the Italian zone. Ivo and his family weren't the only refugees; the Italians were shielding many Jews. Ivo's family was even invited to one of their army concerts. How ironic that Jews were being protected by a German ally.
Italy, defeated in 1943, pulled out of Yugoslavia, and Ivo crossed the Adriatic to southern Italy, recently liberated by the Allies. In 1948 Ivo immigrated to the United States.
Item ViewIvo grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Zagreb. He experienced little overt antisemitism until the Germans and their allies invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941 and installed a fascist Ustasa government in Croatia. The Ustasa regime began killing Jews, Serbs, and Roma (Gypsies). Ivo's family escaped to Italian-occupied territory, where the Italians tried to protect Jewish refugees. Ivo lived in Italian internment camps, including the Rab island camp, before moving to mainland Italy in 1944. He worked for the Joint Distribution Committee for a time, then moved to the United States.
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