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Irmgard was one of three children born to a Jewish family in the famous university city of Goettingen. The city had a small Jewish population, and only one synagogue. Irmgard's father, with his two brothers, owned a linen factory that had been founded by Irmgard's grandfather. Irmgard attended public school in the city. 1933-39: With the onset of the Depression in the 1930s, the family's factory went into decline. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they confiscated the Rosenbergs' factory. Later, the…
Curt was the oldest of three children born to a Jewish family in the famous German university city of Goettingen. His father owned a linen factory that had been in the family since it was founded by Curt's grandfather. Goettingen had a small Jewish population, with only one synagogue. Curt attended public school in the city. 1933-39: The Nazis came to power in 1933. A year later, the Rosenbergs' factory was seized and the family was forced to move to Hamburg. Because he was Jewish, Curt was arrested in…
Alexandra was the second-youngest of six children born to Russian Orthodox parents. Her family lived in a small village in the Orlovskaya region, some 250 miles south of Moscow [in the Soviet Union]. She attended public school, where she learned German. Alexandra's father was a plasterer and painter, and often worked away from home for months. Her mother worked at a collective farm in the village. 1933-39: In 1933 food was scarce. The government seized grain harvests for export; other crops were taken to…
Terez came from a religious Jewish family. She and her husband, Samuel, raised eight children in Satoraljaujhely, in northeastern Hungary. The Kalmans lived on the outskirts of the city, and in the 1920s they ran a canteen for the soldiers who lived in the nearby barracks. The Kalmans were proud Hungarians; one of their sons had died in World War I. 1933-39: Since Samuel died a few years ago, Terez has been alone here in her house in Satoraljaujhely. Many of her children live nearby, though, so her home…
Shaye's town in the province of Lodz had a Jewish community that comprised almost one-third of the town's population. Shaye was very young when his father died during World War I. Afterwards, his grandparents helped to support his family. When Shaye was a teenager, his mother died. He and his siblings then lived with their grandparents. 1933-39: Swimming was Shaye's favorite pastime and he'd go with his friends to the banks of the Vistula River on every possible occasion. He worked in Lodz for a company…
Bela's city of Bratislava, located on the banks of the Danube river, had an old and important Jewish community. Bela was the eighth child in his large Jewish family. His father was a furrier. At age 16 Bela began working as a salesman for a textile business. In 1930 he was called up for 18 months of army service. 1933-39: Bela and his wife moved to the Slovakian city of Zilina. Their son was born in November 1937. Bela worked for a German photographic company until 1938, when he lost his job because he…
Helen was one of seven children born to a Jewish family in Volosyanka, a town in Trans-Carpathian Ruthenia. Nestled in the Carpathian mountains, Volosyanka was a small town with a sizable Jewish community. Jewish life revolved around the town's synagogue. Helen grew up in a close-knit family; many relatives lived nearby. Her father owned a shoe store in the town. 1933-39: When Helen was 11 years old, Hungary occupied the Transcarpathian region. At once, Jews were prohibited from holding government…
Bruno was the youngest of six children born to Jewish parents in the city of Osijek in eastern Croatia when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He attended elementary school in Osijek and then completed his secondary schooling in Poega, a Croatian town where his parents had moved in 1923. In 1932 the Klein family moved to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. 1933-39: While living with his parents in Zagreb, Bruno attended medical school until 1938, when he graduated. He specialized in internal…
Magda was the only daughter in a family of five children. Her town of Michalovce, in eastern Slovakia, was an agricultural trade center and it had a large Jewish population. Magda's father taught Jewish history in local Jewish schools. Magda grew up learning Hebrew songs and listening to stories about Jewish history. 1933-39: It's Magda's nature to work with people and to help them work together. In Michalovce she studied to become a kindergarten teacher, and worked to establish a new chapter of the…
Manon's Christian parents lived in Paris. Roger Marliac, her father, originally from a wealthy family, supported his family by selling produce at small marketplaces. Margarit, her mother (called Maguy by her friends), had a university degree in science. The family lived in a large apartment in a fashionable neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower. 1933-39: Manon, the Marliacs' second child, was born in 1937. She was 2 years old when her father was drafted into the French army as the country mobilized for a…
Isachar was born to a Jewish family in the Polish city of Radom, approximately 75 miles south of Warsaw. The city was the center of Poland's leather-tanning industry. Isachar's father worked as a salesman for a nearby tanning factory. His father was a successful salesman and the family lived comfortably. 1933-39: During registration for Isachar's first-grade class in 1934, a Jewish boy was pushed down the stairs. When his mother confronted the principal about the incident, all he said was that the boy had…
Bernard was one of five children born to a Jewish family in the southern Polish town of Rozwadow. His father, a World War I veteran incapacitated as a result of the war, supported his family on his military pension. In the early 1930s Bernard completed high school and worked on the family farm. 1933-39: In 1934 Bernard was recruited into the Polish army and stationed in Lvov, where he ran a canteen. After three years there he returned to his family's farm outside Rozwadow to work. On September 24, 1939,…
Aranka was the youngest of 10 children born to Jewish parents living in the highlands of Slovakia. While visiting Budapest to attend her sister's marriage, she was introduced to Jeno Muhlrad, a pharmacist. They were married and the couple moved in with Jeno's father and sisters who lived in Ujpest, a suburb of Budapest. Aranka had two children--Eva, born in 1924, and Andras, born six years later. 1933-39: Aranka's husband has leased his own pharmacy in downtown Ujpest so they can finally afford to move…
Leah and her four brothers were raised in a religious Jewish family in the city of Lvov. After obtaining her high school diploma, Leah attended university for one year. In 1931 she married Joseph Rapaport, and the couple settled in Warsaw. 1933-39: The Rapaports lived in the suburbs, and Joseph worked as a banker. Their daughter Zofia was born in May 1933. Each year at the Jewish holiday of Passover, they returned to Lvov to visit Leah's parents. Two days after Joseph was mobilized for military duty in…
Henia was born to parents living in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn, 35 miles east of Warsaw. By the early 1930s, hundreds of Jewish workers were employed in the town, some in small craft shops, as tailors and carpenters, and others in larger enterprises, as prayer-shawl weavers and fur coat makers. When Henia was in her twenties, she and her husband, Welwel, moved to Warsaw. 1933-39: When war broke out three months ago, many Jews left Warsaw in a mass exodus towards the east. They were…
Janina's parents had converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the 1920s. When Janina was 4 years old, her parents divorced; Janina left Warsaw and went to live with her father near the Polish town of Radom, while her brother Tomas remained in Warsaw with his mother. Janina, or Jana as she was affectionately known, loved to read. 1933-39: When Jana was 12 she moved back to Warsaw to attend secondary school, and stayed with her mother. A year later, on September 8, 1939, the Germans were bombing Warsaw.…
The youngest of three children, Masza was born to Jewish parents living 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. Her father owned a shop where he sold cosmetics and non-prescription medicines. Masza was close friends with a group of Jewish teenagers who went to the same public school and who spent much of their free time and vacations together. 1933-39: Majlich, Sara, and the rest of Masza's group have always liked discussing politics as they strolled down the main…
Mayer was born into a Jewish family in a village near Warsaw. His family was active there in the workers' movement. They decided to emigrate when Mayer was a child; his father hoped to find work in Argentina. As a young man, Mayer was arrested for being a communist. In prison, he organized a hunger strike. The police released him to keep him from recruiting the other prisoners to communism. 1933-39: Mayer joined one of the International Brigades and went to Spain to fight in the civil war against Franco…
Lifcia and her brother and two sisters were born to religious Zionist parents in Radom, a major center of Polish leather production. The city had more than 100 tanneries and shoe factories. Lifcia's father worked as a leather broker, matching manufacturers with clients who sought specific types of leather. The Najman family lived in a two-room apartment in the center of town. 1933-39: At secondary school, Lifcia learned math, science, Polish language, history, and German. Three times a week she attended a…
The mother of six children, Rivka lived 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. The Rzondzinski family was very religious. When Rivka's husband, Fiszel, died in the early 1930s, she and her oldest daughter, Channa, opened a newspaper kiosk near the Kaluszyn railroad station. 1933-39: When Germany invaded Poland several days ago, Rivka's daughter Raizel's husband and her two sons fled eastward to the USSR with other Jewish men. They were afraid that the Germans would…
Miru was the youngest of four children born to a family of Spanish-Jewish descent on the island of Rhodes. Rhodes had been occupied by Italy since 1912, so Miru learned Italian as well as French at school. At home the Alcana family conversed in Ladino, the Spanish-Jewish language. Miru attended a Jewish school, where she received instruction in Hebrew three times a week. 1933-39: Life on Miru's beautiful island was pleasant and the Alcanas were close with their neighbors. She called them Auntie Rivka and…
Rifka was the oldest of three children born to a Jewish family in the Polish town of Ulanow. Ulanow's Jewish community had many of its own organizations and maintained a large library. From the age of 3, Rifka attended a private religious school for girls where she learned Jewish history and Hebrew. At 7 she started public school. Rifka's father worked as a tailor. 1933-39: In 1935 Rifka's father went to America to find a job so his family could later join him. While waiting for immigration papers,…
The fourth of eight children, Herschel was born to Jewish parents in south central Poland. His father was a machinist and locksmith. Herschel belonged to the Zionist youth organization, Ha Shomer ha-Tsa'ir, and played soccer for the Jewish team. When he was 14 years old, he left school to become apprenticed to his stepsister's father who was a tailor. 1933-39: Herschel was working as a tailor in Miechow when, on September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland. His parents decided that he and his…
Sevek's religious Jewish family owned a haberdashery business in Kaluszyn, a suburb of Warsaw. The oldest of six children (three boys and three girls), Sevek completed high school and was then apprenticed to a tailor. 1933-39: Each Friday, before the Sabbath began, Sevek's mother asked the neighbors if they had enough food for the Sabbath. If they didn't, she brought them a meal. Although Sevek belonged to a non-religious Zionist group, Ha Shomer ha-Tsa'ir, and didn't wear a skullcap like religious Jews,…
Julia, her brother and two sisters grew up in Amsterdam in a religious, Zionist Jewish family. The Polak family could trace its roots in the Netherlands back 200 years. Julia attended a Jewish school, and she was proficient in Hebrew. 1933-39: Julia loved to study and teach the Hebrew language. As a leader of Zionist youth, Julia spoke to many groups about creating a Jewish home in Palestine [Yishuv]. Her boyfriend was also involved in Zionist work, and in 1938 they were married. The couple became part of…
Gideon was known affectionately as "Gi" by his family and friends. His parents were descended from the Huguenots, French Protestants who came to the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gi had two brothers and two sisters, and his father worked in the insurance business. 1933-39: Gi had a large circle of friends, both Christians and Jews, and after school they all liked to get together. He and his friends enjoyed taking bike trips, having parties, and playing records. In the mid-1930s his parents…
Fred was born to a Jewish family in the German capital. Berlin's Jewish community was large--approximately 170,000 by 1933--and the city was the seat of most of Germany's national Jewish organizations. Fred's family owned a successful clothing factory. He attended a Jewish public school in Berlin. 1933-39: In 1938 the Germans began deporting Polish citizens. Both Fred's parents were Polish by birth, but only his father and brother were sent to Poland. Fred and his mother remained in Berlin until their…
Born in the town of Volkovysk when it was part of Russia, David was the son of middle-class Jewish parents. When the family's life was disrupted by World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, they moved to Borisov and Kiev before finally settling in the Polish city of Bialystok. After completing secondary school in 1925, David studied medicine at Stefan Bathory University in Vilna. 1933-39: After medical school David served one year in the Polish army. Then he practiced obstetrics at a beautiful…
The third of eight children, Jehuda was born in the predominantly Jewish town of Wodzislaw, about 45 miles north of Krakow. Jehuda's father was a mechanic and locksmith, and had trained Jehuda and his brothers in the trade. Jehuda eventually opened his own shop in the nearby town of Miechow. He had eight children--five sons and three daughters--by two marriages. 1933-39: All this summer Jehuda has been glued to the radio, as the number of skirmishes between the German and Polish border guards have…
Naftali was one of six children born to a Jewish family in the small Lithuanian village of Karchai. When he was a young boy, a tutor would come to Karchai to teach the Jewish children in the village. Naftali later began public school in Janova and after graduating he went to an agricultural school. In 1929 Naftali moved to Siauliai, where he worked grading beets in a sugar beet factory. 1933-39: In Siauliai, Naftali lived with his sister, Sara, and her family who ran a dairy store. Naftali was a religious…
One of six children, Willem grew up in Amsterdam where his parents were theater costume designers. When Willem was 17, he fought with his parents about his homosexuality. He left home and severed contact with his family. He began writing and painting, and in the 1920s was commissioned to do a mural for the Rotterdam town hall. In 1932 he moved to the countryside near Apeldoorn. 1933-39: When he was 38, Willem met Jan Tijssen, the son of a greengrocer, and they lived together for the next seven years.…
The oldest of eight children, Jolan grew up in a religious Jewish family. She was usually known by her Yiddish nickname, Cipi. After Jolan was born, her parents moved the family to Kisvarda, a town in northeastern Hungary. There she grew up with her four sisters and one surviving brother. Jolan had finished her schooling by 1933. 1933-39: Hitler was popular in Kisvarda. Jolan's mother wanted the family to leave Hungary before the situation worsened, but her father, who had been to the United States…
Also known by her Yiddish name, Tobe, Terez was raised in a religious Jewish family. Her father and two brothers were rabbis. Though Terez was a promising student, she didn't pursue an advanced education because her traditional family wanted her to marry. So Terez married Menyhert Katz and moved to the town of Kisvarda [in Hungary]. There, she raised five daughters and one son; two other sons died. 1933-39: Terez's twin sons died when they were 8 months old, and she was convinced that their death was a…
Izabella was one of eight children raised in a religious Jewish family in the small town of Kisvarda in northeastern Hungary. Every Friday Izabella and her brother and four younger sisters went to the library to borrow the maximum number of books for their mother. Izabella attended public schools and longed to move to a big city. 1933-39: Antisemitism was prevalent. Izabella can't count the number of times she was called "smelly Jew." Her family cringed at "Heil Hitler" speeches from Germany on the radio…
Leon was born to Jewish parents living near Tarnopol, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. During World War I, he was an officer in the Austrian army. Following his enlistment, Leon attended medical school in Vienna. After graduating in 1923, he opened a general medicine practice in Kolbuszowa, a town in south central Poland. He was one of the town's two physicians. 1933-39: Leon had never been active in Jewish affairs, but when the Germans deported Jews from their country in 1938, he felt compelled…
Susanne was the younger of two daughters born to Jewish parents in the German capital of Berlin. Her father was a successful lawyer. Known affectionately as Sanne, Susanne liked to play with her sister on the veranda of her home and enjoyed visiting the Berlin Zoo and park with her family. 1933-39: After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, it became illegal for Jewish lawyers to have non-Jewish clients. When Susanne was 4, her father's law practice closed down and the Ledermanns moved to the…
The only child of a cosmopolitan Hungarian Jewish couple, Eva grew up in a city on the border between Romania and Hungary. Nearly one-fifth of the city's population was Jewish. Eva was a small child when her parents, Agi and Bela, divorced, and she went to live with her grandparents. 1933-39: After the divorce, Eva saw little of her mother, who remarried and moved to Budapest. She also rarely saw her father, who lived on the other side of the city. Eva lived with her grandmother and grandfather near the…
Franz was raised in a town in eastern Germany. The son of Jewish parents, he earned a law degree from Breslau University and a doctorate of jurisprudence from Geneva University in Switzerland. At the age of 35 he married Ilse Luise Citroen, a woman of Dutch-Jewish ancestry. The couple settled in Berlin where Franz had a successful law practice. The Ledermanns had two daughters. 1933-39: The Nazis came to power in January 1933. Ilse's Dutch relatives encouraged the Ledermanns to immigrate to the…
Ilse was one of four children born to a Dutch-Jewish father and a German-Jewish mother. In 1924 she married Franz Ledermann, a successful lawyer who was 15 years her senior. The couple made their home in Berlin, where they raised two daughters, Barbara and Susanne. 1933-39: The Nazis came to power in January 1933. While the Ledermanns were vacationing in Holland that summer, Ilse's Dutch cousin advised her not to return to Germany. Franz was reluctant to remain in Holland without a job, but when the Nazis…
Gert was born to a Jewish family settled in northeast Berlin, known as one of the city's "red" (largely communist) districts. They lived in a large tenement building. Gert's parents were from the eastern part of Germany, which had been ceded to Poland in 1919. His father, proud of his Iron Cross, Second Class, earned in World War I, was active in an association of Jewish veterans. 1933-39: After Hitler came to power, a neighbor told Gert's mother that they couldn't greet each other on the street…
Onti, the youngest of five sons, was born to religious Jewish parents in northern Transylvania, a region of Romania that had belonged to Hungary until 1918. Onti's family usually called him Usher, which was the diminutive of his Yiddish name, Anschel. As a little boy, he liked collecting figurines. Though Onti grew up in a Hungarian-speaking home, he attended Romanian public schools. 1933-39: At age 13 Onti quit school to help make ends meet. He wanted to become a watchmaker, but he settled on working as…
Felicia grew up in a Jewish family living in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in the large, industrial city of Lodz. Her father's side of the family had lived in Poland for 400 years. He was the principal of a Jewish secondary school for boys. Known affectionately by family and friends as Lusia, Felicia attended a bilingual Jewish school in which both Hebraic and Polish subjects were taught. 1933-39: When Felicia was 12 she heard a lot of bad things about the Nazis. A Polish-born German Jewish…
The oldest of eight children, Josel was born in Miechow, a small town in south central Poland. His father was a machinist and locksmith. As a boy, Josel spent long days learning Hebrew in the Jewish school and taking general subjects at the public school. He was 13 years old when he left school to work in his father's shop. 1933-39: Josel met his wife, Esther, through a matchmaker, and they settled in nearby Dzialoszyce, a town with a Jewish community of about 7,000, and a beautiful synagogue that had…
Frieda was the fourth of five children born to strict Catholic parents. She had one brother and three sisters. Frieda grew up on a large farm near the village of Michaelnbach in northern Austria. The farm had cattle, horses, pigs and poultry, and the children worked long hours helping their parents on the farm. At age 12, Frieda left school to work full time on the farm. 1933-39: Germany annexed Austria in March 1938. When war broke out in September 1939, Frieda's brother was drafted into the German army.…
Iosif was the second of four boys born to a Jewish family in the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa, a city with the largest Jewish community in the Soviet Union before World War II. Iosif's father worked as a hat maker, while his mother raised the family. 1933-39: In 1936 Iosif joined the Red Army and was trained to drive a tank. After Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviet Union took advantage of its nonaggression pact with the Germans to claim Finnish territory. The Finns resisted them…
Morris was the youngest of six children born to a religious Jewish family in Przedborz, a south central Polish town with a large Jewish population. Morris' family owned a business that supplied nearby factories with raw metal materials. 1933-39: When Germany invaded Poland in early September 1939 Morris and his family fled to the woods. They returned a few days later; most of the town had been burned down. The Nazis set up a ghetto and ordered everyone age 13 to 50 to report for work details. His family…
Semyon was born to a Jewish family in the small village of Komarovo in Polish Ukraine. His parents were farmers and tended their own fields while managing the estate of a Polish landowner who lived in Warsaw. Of the estimated 200 families living in Komarovo, only five were Jewish. 1933-39: Since there was no Jewish school in their town, Semyon's parents sent him to the nearby city of Sarny to study. He finished school in 1938 and returned to Komarovo to help his parents with their farm. But in September…
Hetty was the only child of a middle-class secular Jewish family. Hetty's parents were Sephardic, the descendants of Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492. The family lived in an apartment above her father's clothing business. Hetty's grandparents and other relatives lived nearby. 1933-39: Hetty enjoyed growing up in the Netherlands. Her Jewish neighborhood was in the older part of Amsterdam, in the city center. When she was 6 years old, she began attending a public school. Everywhere in Amsterdam…
The second oldest of six children, Emma was raised by observant Jewish parents in a small town in southwestern Germany and they settled in the industrial city of Mannheim after World War I. There she had two children, a son in 1924, and a daughter in 1930. Emma helped her husband in his business. 1933-39: After the Nazis came to power, Emma's husband lost his business. Her sister Linnchen immigrated to South Africa, and the Nazis deported her brother Arthur to Dachau. When the Nazis burned down the local…
The second oldest of five children, Robert was raised by Jewish parents in a suburb of Mannheim. He was wounded while serving in the German army during World War I. Married after the war and making his home in the industrial city of Mannheim, Robert and his wife Emma raised two children, while he made a living as an interior decorator. 1933-39: The Nazis came to power in 1933; Robert's children were forced out of public school and he lost his business. When the Nazis burned down the local synagogue and…
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