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  • Cecilie Klein-Pollack describes deportation from Huszt

    Oral History

    Cecilie was the youngest of six children born to a religious, middle-class Jewish family. In 1939, Hungary occupied Cecilie's area of Czechoslovakia. Members of her family were imprisoned. The Germans occupied Hungary in 1944. Cecilie and her family had to move into a ghetto in Huszt and were later deported to Auschwitz. Cecilie and her sister were chosen for forced labor; the rest of her family was gassed upon arrival. Cecilie was transferred to several other camps, where she labored in factories. Allied…

    Cecilie Klein-Pollack describes deportation from Huszt
  • Blanka Rothschild describes deportations from the Lodz ghetto

    Oral History

    Blanka 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 Ravensbrück camp in Germany. From Ravensbrueck,…

    Blanka Rothschild describes deportations from the Lodz ghetto
  • Abraham Lewent describes hunger and death in the Warsaw ghetto

    Oral History

    Like other Jews, the Lewents were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. In 1942, as Abraham hid in a crawl space, the Germans seized his mother and sisters in a raid. They perished. He was deployed for forced labor nearby, but escaped to return to his father in the ghetto. In 1943, the two were deported to Majdanek, where Abraham's father died. Abraham later was sent to Skarzysko, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and Dachau. US troops liberated Abraham as the Germans evacuated prisoners.

    Tags: ghettos Warsaw
    Abraham Lewent describes hunger and death in the Warsaw ghetto
  • Leah Hammerstein Silverstein describes lack of burial of the corpses of people who died in the Warsaw ghetto

    Oral History

    Leah grew up in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. She was active in the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir Zionist youth movement. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Jews were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto, which the Germans sealed off in November 1940. In the ghetto, Leah lived with a group of Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir members. In September 1941, she and other members of the youth group escaped from the ghetto to a Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir farm in Zarki, near Czestochowa, Poland. In May 1942, Leah became a courier…

    Tags: Warsaw ghettos
    Leah Hammerstein Silverstein describes lack of burial of the corpses of people who died in the Warsaw ghetto
  • Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes the deportation of her mother and brother from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka

    Oral History

    Vladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.

    Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes the deportation of her mother and brother from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka
  • Raszka (Roza) Galek Brunswic describes a roundup in the Warsaw ghetto and her escape from deportation

    Oral History

    Roza's family moved to Warsaw in 1934. She had just begun college when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. In 1940, the Germans sealed the Warsaw ghetto, where her parents were shot during a roundup. Roza escaped and went into hiding. From her hiding place she saw the burning of the ghetto in the 1943 uprising. She had false papers stating she was a Polish Catholic (Maria Kowalczyk), and was deported by cattle train to Germany in June 1943. She worked on a farm until liberation in 1945.

    Raszka (Roza) Galek Brunswic describes a roundup in the Warsaw ghetto and her escape from deportation
  • Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes watching the burning of the Warsaw ghetto from a building outside the ghetto

    Oral History

    Vladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.

    Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes watching the burning of the Warsaw ghetto from a building outside the ghetto
  • William (Welek) Luksenburg describes the first night of the German invasion of Poland

    Oral History

    Shortly after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, William's family was ordered into a ghetto and his brother went to a work camp. William bribed officials to discharge his brother from a hospital destined for evacuation to Auschwitz. Later, after escaping from a prison camp to tend to his brother, William was jailed. He was sent to Blechhammer, Gleiwitz (where he met his future wife), and other camps. William collapsed during a death march near the Austrian border, but was then liberated. His…

    William (Welek) Luksenburg describes the first night of the German invasion of Poland
  • Leah Hammerstein Silverstein describes bombings in Praga and Warsaw after the outbreak of World War II

    Oral History

    Leah grew up in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. She was active in the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir Zionist youth movement. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Jews were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto, which the Germans sealed off in November 1940. In the ghetto, Leah lived with a group of Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir members. In September 1941, she and other members of the youth group escaped from the ghetto to a Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir farm in Zarki, near Czestochowa, Poland. In May 1942, Leah became a courier…

    Leah Hammerstein Silverstein describes bombings in Praga and Warsaw after the outbreak of World War II
  • Charlene Schiff describes the German invasion of her town, Horochow, in the summer of 1941

    Oral History

    Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…

    Charlene Schiff describes the German invasion of her town, Horochow, in the summer of 1941

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