You searched for: Auschwitz
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Arthur Karl Heinz Oertelt
ID CardHeinz, as he was usually called, was born in the German capital to religious Jewish parents. He and his older brother, Kurt, attended both religious and public schools. His father had died when he was very young. His mother, a seamstress, struggled to make ends meet. She and the boys lived in a predominantly Christian neighborhood. 1933-39: It frightened Heinz when Nazi storm troopers sang about Jewish blood dripping from their knives. But his family didn't have money to leave Berlin. In late 1939 Heinz…
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Dora Unger
ID CardDora, her parents, brother, aunt, uncle, and two cousins lived together in her grandfather's home in Essen, Germany. The Ungers were an observant Jewish family, and when Dora was 8, she began to regularly attend meetings of Brit HaNoar, a religious youth organization. 1933-39: In October 1938 a teacher, with tears in her eyes, came to Dora at the municipal pool, saying "Jews cannot swim here anymore." Just weeks later, on November 9, Jews were arrested and their property destroyed. A neighbor tried to…
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Sara Galperin
ID CardSara, born Sara Bernstein, was one of six children in a Jewish family in the Lithuanian village of Karchai. Her father was a farmer. Sara attended secondary school in Jonava and in 1920 she moved to Siauliai, where she met and married Pinchas Galperin. The couple owned and ran a dairy store, selling butter, milk and cheese. They had three children--two sons and a daughter. 1933-39: In addition to running the family store and rising early every morning to buy dairy products from the local farmers, Sara was…
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Leo Bretholz
ID CardLeo was the oldest child and only son of Polish immigrants in Vienna. His father, a tailor and amateur Yiddish actor, died of an illness in 1930 when Leo was 9. His mother supported the family by working as an embroiderer; Leo helped out by looking after his two younger sisters. They lived in one of Vienna's large Jewish districts on the east side of the Danube Canal. 1933-39: Anti-Jewish sentiment escalated after Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Jewish men, including some of Leo's uncles and neighbors,…
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Morris Zaidband
ID CardMorris was one of five children born to a Jewish family in the Polish town of Oswiecim, 33 miles west of Cracow [Krakow]. Morris' father sold ladies' undergarments. Morris worked as a jeweler. 1933-39: In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Morris's family started to flee eastward but two weeks later the Germans overtook them and they were sent home. When they returned, the Germans were already beating Jews who didn't show them "respect." One day, when German guards came to their house to deport…
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Edith Riemer
ID CardHela Pinsker and Elimelech Riemer were married in 1928. Two years later the Jewish couple's only child, Edith, was born. The Riemers lived in a comfortable apartment in Berlin, in a building that also housed offices of the Communist Party of Germany. 1933-39: Hitler banned the Communists, so their offices in Edith's building were shut down. When these offices were later broken into, the Gestapo blamed it on "the Jews." Though Edith's family wasn't involved, the Gestapo said that if the culprit was not…
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Sophie Weisz
ID CardSophie was born to a prosperous Jewish family in a village near the Hungarian border known for its winemaking and carriage wheel industries. The village had many Jewish merchants. Her father owned a lumber yard. Sophie loved to dance in the large living room of their home as her older sister, Agnes, played the piano. 1933-39: Sophie's father believed in a Jewish homeland and sent money to Palestine to plant trees and establish settlements there. When she was 10, she was sent to a school in nearby Oradea…
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Helen Lebowitz
ID CardHelen 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…
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Jolan (Cipi) Katz
ID CardThe 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…
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Margot Heumann
ID CardThe older of two girls, Margot was born to Jewish parents living in a village close to the Belgian border. The Heumanns lived above their general store. Across the street lived Margot's grandfather, who kept horses and cows in his large barn. When Margot was 4, her family moved to the city of Lippstadt. As a young girl, she learned to swim in the Lippe River, which flowed behind their garden. 1933-39: When Margot was 9, her family moved to the nearby city of Bielefeld, where she was enrolled in public…
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Charles (Karel) Bruml
ID CardCharles was born to a Jewish family in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. His father owned several shoe factories there. Prague's Jewish minority enjoyed a great deal of cultural freedom because of the new democratic Republic. Though antisemitism still existed in Czechoslovakia, Prague was a relatively tolerant city. 1933-39: Charles' father's business thrived in Prague, and they lived well. Charles enjoyed painting as a child and decided to study at an art school in the city. On the morning of March…
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Fritz Silten
ID CardFritz was the youngest of two sons born to a Jewish family in the German capital of Berlin. In the late 1920s he earned a doctorate in chemistry and pharmacy. In 1931 he married Ilse Teppich, and in 1933 the couple had a daughter, Gabriele. 1933-39: Fritz worked in his father's pharmacy until 1938, when the Nazis forced them to sell the business for a fraction of its value to an "Aryan" German [Aryanization]. Leaving his parents behind was agonizing, but concern for the safety of his wife and daughter…
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Dosia Szabszevicz
ID CardDosia, her older sister and parents lived on her grandfather's estate in the town of Ozorkow, eight miles from Lodz. Dosia's parents were secular Jews. They spoke both Polish and Yiddish to each other, but only Polish to their children. Dosia's father worked as an accountant, and her mother was active in organizing charity events for several of Ozorkow's Jewish organizations. 1933-39: A few days after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Dosia saw the Polish army retreat through Ozorkow, carrying their wounded…
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Leo Falkenstein
ID CardOne of three children, Leo grew up in the small town of Hochneukirch, 20 miles northwest of Cologne. As an adult, Leo entered his father's cigar manufacturing business, "Isak Falkenstein and Sons." Leo and his wife, Bertha, lived in a house next to Leo's parents. Leo and Bertha had six children whom they raised in the Jewish faith. 1933-39: Leo and Bertha's daughter Johanna has brought her two girls to live with them for a while here in Hochneukirch. Johanna's husband, Carl, has been having trouble…
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Jan Komski
ID CardJan was born to a Catholic family in the small Polish town of Bircza. His father, a World War I veteran, moved the family to Brzozow shortly after the war. Brzozow was a small manufacturing town in southeastern Poland. After graduating from secondary school, Jan enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. 1933-39: Cracow was a beautiful old city; Jan studied its remarkable churches and synagogues in his classes. By September 1939, however, the war engulfed the beauty of Cracow. He left to escape the…
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Max Liebster
ID CardMax was one of three children born to a Jewish family living in a small town in the Hessian part of Germany. His father was originally from Poland. After eight years of public education, Max completed three years of business school and learned to become a window decorator. In 1929 he found work in Viernheim, a village near Mannheim. 1933-39: Max worked for a clothing store where he was in charge of window dressing. Except for the weekends when there were Nazi marches, life was quiet in Viernheim. Right…
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Jeno Brieger
ID CardJeno was born into a large, religious Jewish family in the village of Nagyhalasz in northeastern Hungary. The Briegers spoke Yiddish and Hungarian. After Jeno's mother died, his father remarried and the family moved to the town of Nyiregyhaza where his father owned and operated a hardware store. Nyiregyhaza had a Jewish population of 5,000. 1933-39: Jeno was the oldest son in a household of seven children. Nyiregyhaza was a rural town in which people still used horses and buggies. Jeno attended a…
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Itzik Rosenblat
ID CardItzik, also known as Izak, was one of three sons born to Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents. When Itzik was a young child his family moved to the city of Radom. Itzik left school when he was 11 to apprentice as a women's tailor. After he apprenticed with several tailors in Radom and Warsaw, he went back to school and earned a tailor's license. 1933-39: In 1938 Itzik married Taube Fishman, the daughter of his first employer, after a 13-year courtship much opposed by her family. They lived in Radom, where…
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Jocheved Kuzda Kasher
ID CardJocheved, or Jadza as she was called at home, was born in the industrial city of Lodz, Poland's second-largest city. Before the war, one-third of Lodz's inhabitants were Jewish. The Kuzdas kept a traditional Jewish home and placed importance on their children's education. Jocheved had two older sisters, Sarah and Regina. 1933-39: Jocheved was 9 when the war broke out in September 1939. Instead of starting school, she stayed at home listening to the bombs exploding. Her father and sister tried to get to…
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Telford Taylor during Justice Case
FilmIn the Justice Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings, nine officials from the German Ministry of Justice and seven members of the Nazi-era People's and Special Courts were charged with “judicial murder and other atrocities, which they committed by destroying law and justice in Germany, and then utilizing the emptied forms of legal process for the persecution, enslavement and extermination on a large scale.” In this footage from the trial, US prosecutor Telford Taylor describes the nature…
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David (Dudi) Bergman recalls the importance of work for survival in the Plaszow labor camp
Oral HistoryThe Germans occupied David's town, previously annexed by Hungary, in 1944. David was deported to Auschwitz and, with his father, transported to Plaszow. David was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp and to Reichenbach. He was then among three of 150 in a cattle car who survived transportation to Dachau. He was liberated after a death march from Innsbruck toward the front line of combat between US and German troops.
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Leo Schneiderman describes routine at the Ebensee camp
Oral HistoryThe Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Leo and his family were confined to a ghetto in Lodz. Leo was forced to work as a tailor in a uniform factory. The Lodz ghetto was liquidated in 1944, and Leo was deported to Auschwitz. He was then sent to the Gross-Rosen camp system for forced labor. As the Soviet army advanced, the prisoners were transferred to the Ebensee camp in Austria. The Ebensee camp was liberated in 1945.
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Hana Mueller Bruml describes forced labor at Sackisch, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen
Oral HistoryIn 1942, Hana was confined with other Jews to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she worked as a nurse. There, amid epidemics and poverty, residents held operas, debates, and poetry readings. In 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz. After a month there, she was sent to Sackisch, a Gross-Rosen subcamp, where she made airplane parts at forced labor. She was liberated in May 1945.
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Helen Lebowitz Goldkind describes German humiliation of her grandfather in the Uzhgorod ghetto
Oral HistoryIn 1938-39, Hungary annexed the area of Czechoslovakia in which Helen lived. After Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Helen and her family were deported to the Uzhgorod ghetto. As Jews, they were soon transferred to various camps, where much of the family perished. Although at times Helen was too weak to walk, she and her older sister survived Auschwitz, forced labor at a camp munitions factory, and Bergen-Belsen.
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Gerda Weissmann Klein describes her birthday celebration in the Bielsko ghetto
Oral HistoryIn 1939, Gerda's brother was deported for forced labor. In June 1942, Gerda's family was deported from the Bielsko ghetto. While her parents were transported to Auschwitz, Gerda was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp system, where for the remainder of the war she performed forced labor in textile factories. Gerda was liberated after a death march, wearing the ski boots her father insisted would help her to survive. She married her American liberator.
