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Meri Nowogrodzki describes fleeing from Warsaw to Vilna in December 1939
Oral HistoryMeri and her family lived in Warsaw at the time of the German invasion of Poland. After the invasion, Meri's father fled to Vilna. She joined him there in December 1939. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, Meri's father obtained transit visas through Japan for himself and Meri. He left for Japan first, using a false identity, and arrived there in February 1941. Meri soon followed him. In Japan, Meri and her father obtained visas to enter the United States. American relief organizations…
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Norbert I. Swislocki describes leaving Warsaw with his mother upon the outbreak of war
Oral HistoryNorbert was 3 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. He and his mother were in Warsaw; his father had been drafted into the Polish army and later ended up in Vilna. Norbert and his mother set out to join him and the family was reunited after a few months. After the family had been in Vilna for about a year, Norbert's father was able to obtain visas for Curacao in the Dutch West Indies and visas for transit through Japan. Norbert and his parents left Vilna in January 1941, and arrived in…
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Alexander Schenker describes working as a lumberjack in a labor camp in Siberia
Oral HistoryFollowing the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Alexander and his family fled eastward to Lvov. His father then fled to Vilna, hoping to obtain visas for the family to escape through Japan. The rest of the family was caught while trying to cross border into Lithuania in order to meet up with Alexander's father. They returned to Lvov. Alexander and his mother were later arrested for refusing to declare Soviet citizenship. They were sent to a labor camp in the Soviet interior. After their release…
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Henny Fletcher Aronsen describes liberation from a death march from Stutthof
Oral HistoryHenny was born into an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Kovno, Lithuania. She and her brother attended private schools. In June 1940 the Soviets occupied Lithuania, but little seemed to change until the German invasion in June 1941. The Germans sealed off a ghetto in Kovno in August 1941. Henny and her family were forced to move into the ghetto. Henny married in the ghetto in November 1943; her dowry was a pound of sugar. She survived several roundups during which some of her friends and family were…
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Herbert A. Friedman describes finding two child survivors after liberation
Oral HistoryHerbert graduated from Yale in 1938. He became a rabbi and worked very closely with American Jewish leader Stephen S. Wise. He became a chaplain in the US Army during World War II. In the spring of 1945, he went to Europe. When the war ended, he was recruited by David Ben-Gurion into the Aliyah Bet ("illegal" immigration) operation of the Hagana. This involved smuggling Jews from eastern Europe through Germany to Palestine. He worked with displaced persons, mainly in Berlin and the American zone of…
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Norbert Wollheim describes his liberation at Schwerin, in northeast Germany, in May 1945
Oral HistoryNorbert studied law and was a social worker in Berlin. He worked on the Kindertransport (Children's Transport) program, arranging to send Jewish children from Europe to Great Britain. His parents, who also lived in Berlin, were deported in December 1942. Norbert, his wife, and their child were deported to Auschwitz in March 1943. He was separated from his wife and child, and sent to the Buna works near Auschwitz III (Monowitz) for forced labor. Norbert survived the Auschwitz camp, and was liberated by US…
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Edwarda Kleinfeld Rorat describes emotions upon liberation
Oral HistoryAfter the German invasion in 1939, Edwarda and her family left Warsaw and moved to a small village near Lublin. Her parents were murdered by German soldiers in 1942. Edwarda was eventually taken in by the Rorat family. The Rorats owned a village store. She lived under their protection throughout the war and continued to live with them after liberation. She completed her education in Poland and later immigrated to the United States.
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Eva Rappoport Edmands describes packing to leave Vienna for France in 1938
Oral HistoryAfter the German annexation of Austria in March 1938, Eva's family decided to leave Vienna for Paris. Eva and her mother were later trapped in the occupied area of France while her father was in the unoccupied area after the French armistice with Germany in 1940. They were eventually reunited and together tried to find refuge in Switzerland, but were caught by the French police. They received help from a priest in Annecy and survived the war under his protection. After the liberation of France in August…
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Fred Bachner describes flight to eastern Poland upon the German invasion of Poland in September 1939
Oral HistoryFred was born to Polish Jewish parents in Berlin, where his father owned a factory. After the Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom in November 1938, Fred's father and brother were deported to Poland. It was not until June 1939, when Poland allowed Fred and his mother to enter the country, that the family was reunited in Krakow. Fred and his family tried to flee upon the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 but were told to return to their homes. They were forced into the Krakow ghetto, and…
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Susan Bluman describes fleeing to Vilna after the occupation of Poland
Oral HistorySusan was 19 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Her boyfriend, Nathan, was in Lvov when the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland. Nathan sent a guide to Warsaw to bring Susan to the Soviet zone of occupied Poland. Her parents reluctantly agreed after Susan promised to return to Warsaw within two weeks. Upon her arrival in Lvov, Susan married Nathan. The couple then fled across the Lithuanian border to Vilna, where they stayed for a year. They received a visa for transit through Japan…
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Susan Bluman describes items she took with her when she left Warsaw
Oral HistorySusan was 19 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Her boyfriend, Nathan, was in Lvov when the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland. Nathan sent a guide to Warsaw to bring Susan to the Soviet zone of occupied Poland. Her parents reluctantly agreed after Susan promised to return to Warsaw within two weeks. Upon her arrival in Lvov, Susan married Nathan. The couple then fled across the Lithuanian border to Vilna, where they stayed for a year. They received a visa for transit through Japan…
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Susan Bluman describes leaving her family in Warsaw after the outbreak of war
Oral HistorySusan was 19 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Her boyfriend, Nathan, was in Lvov when the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland. Nathan sent a guide to Warsaw to bring Susan to the Soviet zone of occupied Poland. Her parents reluctantly agreed after Susan promised to return to Warsaw within two weeks. Upon her arrival in Lvov, Susan married Nathan. The couple then fled across the Lithuanian border to Vilna, where they stayed for a year. They received a visa for transit through Japan…
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Fred Deutsch describes family's preparations for travel
Oral HistoryFred was born in Czechoslovakia in a town near the Polish border. Fred and his family were forced by the Germans to relocate east to a town bordering Slovakia. At the end of 1942, they escaped from the town and went into hiding. The family hid in bunkers in the forest until the end of the war. They moved every few weeks to avoid detection by the Germans or Slovak authorities. While the family was in hiding, Fred's grandfather made arrangements for Fred to attend school under an assumed name and religion. A…
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Johanna Gerechter Neumann describes how her family obtained visas to emigrate to Albania
Oral HistoryAmid 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.
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Susan Bluman describes obtaining a transit visa from Chiune Sugihara
Oral HistorySusan was 19 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Her boyfriend, Nathan, was in Lvov when the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland. Nathan sent a guide to Warsaw to bring Susan to the Soviet zone of occupied Poland. Her parents reluctantly agreed after Susan promised to return to Warsaw within two weeks. Upon her arrival in Lvov, Susan married Nathan. The couple then fled across the Lithuanian border to Vilna, where they stayed for a year. They received a visa for transit through Japan…
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Blanka Rothschild describes returning to Lodz after the war to look for family members
Oral HistoryBlanka was an only child in a close-knit family in Lodz, Poland. Her father died in 1937. After the German invasion of Poland, Blanka and her mother remained in Lodz with Blanka's grandmother, who was unable to travel. Along with other relatives, they were forced into the Lodz ghetto in 1940. There, Blanka worked in a bakery. She and her mother later worked in a hospital in the Lodz ghetto, where they remained until late 1944 when they were deported to the Ravensbrueck camp in Germany. From Ravensbrueck,…
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Francis Akos describes experiences in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust
Oral HistoryAfter the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, Francis was deported to Neuengamme, a concentration camp located on the outskirts of Hamburg, Germany. Later, as Allied forces advanced, Francis and other prisoners were transported from Neuengamme. They were placed on a cargo ship which sailed into Luebeck Bay, where the prisoners were crowded onto the "Cap Arcona." The "Cap Arcona" and other ships were bombed in early May 1945. Francis was rescued and came ashore in the German town of Neustadt, where…
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Felix Horn describes postwar emigration with the Brihah movement and adjustment to life after the war
Oral HistoryFelix was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Lublin, Poland. His father was a locksmith and his mother was a singer. Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Felix fled east to Rovno and then to Soviet-occupied Lvov, where he was accepted at a medical school. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Felix was taken to a labor camp. He escaped and returned to Lublin, and found that his family had been forced into the ghetto established there. After the…
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Madeline Deutsch describes adjusting to social and educational life after the war
Oral HistoryMadeline was born into a middle class family in an area of Czechoslovakia that was annexed by Hungary in 1938-1939. Her father worked out of their home and her mother was a homemaker. Madeline attended high school. In April 1944 her family was forced into a Hungarian ghetto. The family lived in the ghetto for two weeks before being transported to Auschwitz. Madeline and her mother were separated from her father and older brother. Neither her father nor brother survived the war. A week after arriving in…
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Frima L. describes how her Holocaust experiences affect her life today
Oral HistoryWhile Frima's family was confined to a ghetto, Nazis used her father as an interpreter. He later perished. By pretending not to be Jews, Frima, her mother, and sister escaped a German mobile killing unit massacre. They were later discovered and jailed. Again, her mother devised an escape. Frima's mother and sister were smuggled to Romania, while Frima wandered in search of safekeeping until her mother could arrange to smuggle her out. In Romania, they were reunited and liberated.
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Edward Adler describes arrest and imprisonment in prewar Germany for his relationship with a non-Jewish woman
Oral HistoryEdward was born to a Jewish family in Hamburg. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws prohibited marriage or sexual relations between German non-Jews and Jews. Edward was then in his mid-twenties. Edward was arrested for dating a non-Jewish woman. Classified as a habitual offender, he was later deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, near Berlin. He was forced to perform hard labor in construction projects. Edward had married shortly before his imprisonment, and his wife made arrangements for their…
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Hanne Hirsch Liebmann describes the effects of Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass")
Oral HistoryHanne's family owned a photographic studio. In October 1940, she and other family members were deported to the Gurs camp in southern France. In September 1941, the Children's Aid Society (OSE) rescued Hanne and she hid in a children's home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Her mother perished in Auschwitz. In 1943, Hanne obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland. She married in Geneva in 1945 and had a daughter in 1946. In 1948, she arrived in the United States.
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Johanna Gerechter Neumann describes anti-Jewish measures in Hamburg, Germany
Oral HistoryAmid 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.
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Sam Spiegel describes life in a displaced persons camp
Oral HistoryIn 1942, Sam was forced into a ghetto in his hometown and assigned to work in a munitions factory. In 1944 he was transported to Auschwitz and then forced to work in a train factory. He survived eight days on a death march after the evacuation of Auschwitz by the Nazis. He was liberated by Soviet units in January 1945. He lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany where worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In 1947, he immigrated to the United States.
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Nesse Galperin Godin describes her appearance at the time she was liberated
Oral HistoryNesse's family had a dairy business. The Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941 and established a ghetto in Siauliai. Nesse lived in the ghetto until 1943 when she was old enough to work. In 1944 Nesse, her mother, and a brother were deported to the Stutthof camp near Danzig. Nesse worked in several Stutthof subcamps until January 1945, when the inmates were put on a death march. She was liberated by the Soviets in March. Nesse, her mother, and two brothers survived, and she arrived in the United States in…
