Letter from President Jacques Chirac to Elie Wiesel regarding Marion Wiesel's promotion to Commander of the Legion of Honor

This is a letter from Hillary Rodham Clinton to Mr. Elie Wiesel, dated July 30, 2000. In the letter, Clinton thanks Elie and Marion for their friendship, wise counsel, and long-standing support, describing them as "pillars of support." She mentions her ongoing campaign, acknowledging that she has been warned to expect attacks, but emphasizes that Wiesel's public statements, wisdom, and moral authority make a tremendous positive difference. The letter concludes with an expression of gratitude and appreciation.

Dora Freilich, nee Golubowitz, was born December 25, 1926 in Pruzany, Poland, near Bialystok. She describes pre-war life: schooling, relations with non-Jewish Poles, Jewish community life and youth groups. She talks in great detail about the Russian occupation 1939-41, including expropriation of her family’s business. After the German invasion, her family had to move into the Pruzany Ghetto in June 1941. She describes living conditions, cultural activities, labor units, Judenrat, and contact with Jewish partisans in the ghetto. A non-Jewish ex-employee of her father hid her baby sister but later the family asked him to return the child. Dora describes the evacuation of the ghetto in January 1943, and her family’s transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She witnessed Mengele’s sadistic games with prisoners and was aware of medical experiments, which she describes in great detail. She details sadistic behavior by guards, including shooting her sister for sport. Conditions at Birkernau: slave labor, types of prisoners, orchestra, death process, and relations among inmates are described. She explains how older girls tried to help the younger ones and the coping strategies they used to survive. She describes the sabotage of a crematorium in October 1944 and the public hanging of four girls held responsible. She describes the escape, capture and execution of Mala Zimetbaum. In January 1945 she experienced the final days of the camp and described the death march to and conditions in Ravensbrück. After three months she went to Malchow. Dora and 11 girls escaped into the forest. They were liberated by Russian soldiers May 1945. She describes treatment by Russians, which ranged from kindness to brutality. The girls returned to Pruzany after a three month journey where Dora experienced both antisemitism and help from non-Jews. They went on to Lodz. Their attempt to go to Palestine with Aliyah Bet failed. Dora and her friend, Bess, married two brothers. In 1946 they went to Feldafing, a Displaced Persons camp. She emigrated to the United States in March, 1949. Dora talks about survivor’s guilt and how the Holocaust and the loss of her family still affects both her and her daughter. Her husband, Bernard, and her friend Bess were also interviewed by the Holocaust Oral History Archive staff.

Eva Bentley, nee Wahrmann, was born in Budapest to a Jewish family with a 500-year history in Hungary. She mentions some of their significant contributions to religious and political life. Details of antisemitic incidents with a teacher and her fellow students at public school are given, as well as a description of the stressful experience of attending an elite, experimental Jewish Gymnasium. She describes the hardships of living under the Horthy regime, the Szalasi and Arrow Cross persecutions and the abuses of the Russian occupation. After the German occupation in 1944, Eva and her family had to move into a “yellow star” house; her stepfather was deported to a labor camp. She gives a graphic account of an SS massacre, when she was shot and her mother bayoneted. They survived in a primitive Jewish hospital facility. She describes a number of instances of aid by non-Jews, including clergy and Hungarian police, who saved her and her family. A Christian uncle saved her aunt and 29 other Jews in hiding. After liberation by the Russians, Eva was married and she immigrated with her husband to the U.S. in 1956.

Liza Kessler, nee Rak, was born in the Ukrainian town of Vinnitsa, located on the Polish border between Kiev and Odessa. A center of Jewish learning, it boasted 15 Jewish schools. Liza graduated from a Jewish high school, married and had two children. Liza describes how in July, 1941, after a German bombing raid, Polish Jews fled into her town. She heard reports from them that the Jews were herded into the synagogue and burned. Liza with her two children, and sisters-in-law and their children fled with the ‘echelons’ (transports which carried machinery). They boarded a barge for Central Asia. In November, 1941 they arrived in Georgia. They stayed on a kolkhoz (collective farm) until the Germans came. They then fled further East to Uzbekistan, finally landing in Bukhara where they stayed until the end of the war. Liza describes harsh conditions: food rationing and bitter cold. Liza’s sisters and parents were murdered in mass killings. After World War II Liza went back to Poland with her second husband, a Jewish Polish national. Because it was too much like Russia, they left and were smuggled into the American zone in Austria via Czechoslovakia. Liza and her family stayed in Austria for five years. They were aided by the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). Finally, in 1950, through an aunt in Philadelphia they received papers and were able to enter the United States as part of the quota. Interviewee: KESSLER, Liza Date: January 18, 1983

Anna Czerwinski, nee Estera Pomrok, was born in 1906 in Radom, Poland into a wealthy, kosher family. She attended public school and worked briefly in a Hashomer Hatzair farm in Lublin. In 19301 she married Lucien Finkielsztein, an assimilated Jew who changed his name to Czerwinski and served in the Polish Army. They lived in Warsaw for a time, but then prompted by her husband, she relocated to a small town, Opole Lubelskie, where it would be safer. Anna and their two children passed as Catholics, hiding in Opole Lubelskie with Polish friends whom she paid. Her daughter was sheltered in a convent until the nuns discovered her Jewish identity and abandoned the child. Many close encounters are related. In 1944, the family fled to Falenica, where Russian soldiers helped them. Postwar, Anna regained her mother’s store in Lublin and her husband prospered in business in Reichenbach Niederschlesien. In 1950, continuing antisemitism prompted their departure from Europe. After two years in Israel and travel to France and Brazil, the Polish quota permitted their emigration to the United States in 1958. Also see her 1979 interview in Polish, 1 tape.