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Susan Bluman describes the German invasion 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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Ruth Berkowicz Segal describes deciding to leave Warsaw shortly after the outbreak of war
Oral HistoryWhen German forces invaded Poland in September 1939, Ruth's father fled to eastern Poland. Upon the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, he fled to Lithuania. Ruth left Warsaw with two friends to find her father and later joined him in Vilna. After Soviet forces occupied Lithuania, Ruth and her father obtained transit visas for Japan, but only Ruth obtained a Soviet exit visa. Her father insisted she leave and not wait for him. Ruth traveled by the Trans-Siberian Railroad across the Soviet Union to…
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Yonia Fain describes leaving Warsaw after the German invasion of Poland
Oral HistoryAfter World War I, Yonia's family moved to Vilna. Yonia studied painting and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilna. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Yonia was living with his wife in Warsaw. They fled to Brest-Litovsk in eastern Poland, occupied by Soviet forces in mid-September 1939. Then Yonia and his wife escaped to Vilna. After the Soviets occupied Vilna in June 1940, Yonia and his wife forged Japanese transit visas and left for Japan. In Japan, they were unable to obtain valid…
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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.
