Oral History Interview with Albert Miller

Stephen Lerman, the youngest of seven children, was born on September 15, 1927, to an orthodoxfamily in a small, predominately Jewish town, Zambrow, Poland. He also states that his mother was quite traditional, but that his father less so later in life. He describes pre-war Zambrowincluding his schooling, Zionist youth groups, and antisemitism. He shares his very vivid childhood memory of his first experience with a Nazi soldier in 1939 before the Russian occupation. He describes a relatively normal life under Soviet rule until 1941.

Stephen describes the marked difference when the Germans came in in 1941 and details an actionwhen Jews were told to gather at the marketplace. Stephen describes telling his parents he was going to defy the order and run away. His older brother and parents went and were killed outside of town and buried in a mass grave with hundreds of other Jews. The Germans then made a ghetto of the remaining Jews in the town. Stephen describes the conditions in the ghetto and also describes sneaking out to work for a Pole who was his father’s business associate who fed him a little bit.

Toward the end of 1942 the ghetto was liquidated and Stephen describes the deportation in cattle cars to Auschwitz, journey, arrival, and his selection to a non-work group. Due to his quick thinking, he jumped off the truck and snuck into the group slated for work. He became a prisoner of Birkenau from December 1942 until mid-year 1943.Though he was 14, he had a very young appearance and describes several instances when people protected him and helped him to survive. He describes an SS officer in charge of the dynamite commando who snuck him extra food and brought him medicine when he was sick. This officer even helped Stephen not get selected for the crematorium by talking to his friend who was in charge of selections.

Stephen describes a very brief stay in Oranienburg in 1943, a forced march to Sachsenhausen and deportation to the labor camp, Landsberg, a subcamp of Dachau. He describes the treacherous work at Landsbergand how he volunteered for a carpenter position and again was given extra food by his foreman. He was able to stay on this assignment for six months. Stephen describes then end of the war when they were again forced on a march. Eventually as German soldiers started fleeing, the prisoners found themselves hiding for cover in a forest as the American army approached. They were liberated in May 1945. Stephen briefly stayed at Buchberg [phonetic] and then made his way to Munich where he was helped by UNRRA. He eventually made contact with an uncle from Philadelphia who helped him emigrate to the United States August 27, 1949.

Rose Fine, nee Hollendar, was born in Ozorkow, Poland in 1917 to an Orthodox Jewish family. Her father was a shochet. She briefly describes living conditions during the German occupation before and after the establishment of the Ozorkow Ghetto in 1941: health conditions, deportations, and her work in the ghetto hospital where children were put to starve to death. She refers to the behavior of the Volksdeutsche in Ozorkow and her mother’s deportation to Chelmno where she was gassed to death. She witnessed the old and infirm deported in chloroform-filled Panzer trucks in March 1941 as well as the public hanging of 10 Jews. She was transferred to the Lodz Ghetto in 1942 where she worked for Mrs. Rumkowski until she was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. After one week, following a selection by Dr. Mengele, she was transferred to the Freiberg, Germany air‌ plane factory and later to Mauthausen in Austria, where she was liberated by the Americans in Spring 1945. She describes the birth of a baby girl (both mother and baby survived) just prior to liberation and help by a German farmer.

After liberation Rose stayed briefly in Lodz and Gdansk. She describes life in Gdansk where she got married. She and her husband lived in Munich, Germany for four years where they belonged to Rabbi Leizerowski’s1 synagogue and she attended the ORT school. She and her husband emigrated to the USA in 1949 with the help of the Joint Distribution Committee. She recounts the story of the hiding of a Torah by a non-Jew of Ozorkow and his giving it to a survivor from Ozorkow to take to Atlanta, Georgia.

See the May 4, 1981interview with Rabbi Baruch Leizerowski.

John (formerly György/George) Sauber, was born August 14, 1926 in Budapest, Hungary. His family lived in Rakoskeresztur until 1936 when they moved back to Budapest. After 1942 or 1943 food shortages, persecution of Jews, wearing the yellow star, and deportations started. Non-Jewish Hungarians brought his family some food. His mother’s store was taken over by two Christian “partners”. He attended school with non-Jewish students, had religious instruction and attended the Dohany Temple. He experienced a few instances of discrimination while a student.

In 1944, when he was 17 years old, Mr. Sauber was drafted into a forced labor unit that went to the Russian front. He was wounded and put on a Red Cross train. Because he was Jewish, he received no medical treatment and was transferred to a deportation train for Hungarian Jews. He describes conditions on the train and his arrival and processing at Bergen-Belsen Concentration camp. He talks about conditions at Bergen-Belsen pre and post liberation and his activities in great detail, including removing hair and gold teeth from corpses and how he managed to survive. He witnessed brutal treatment of inmates. The Germans fled just before the camp was liberated by Allied troops. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) cared for the survivors.

Mr. Sauber returned to Budapest and was reunited with his father. His mother and sister had been deported and killed. He had gone to medical school in Hungary, resumed his education, then went to a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, run by UNRRA, and to a camp in Bamberg with a group planning to go to Palestine. He emigrated to Saskatoon, Canada with a group of Jewish orphans sponsored by the Canadian Jewish Congress, in January 1946, and was helped by Jewish community. He brought his father and stepmother to Canada. He is still haunted by his experiences and trying to cope with the loss of most of his family. He relates a touching episode when saying Kaddish for his stepmother brought him some peace.

Interviewee: SAUBER, John Date: October 21, 1999

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.

Mina Kalter, née Basseches, was born in 1921 in Przeworsk, Poland, into a religious family. Her father was a traveling merchant and her mother in retail fabrics. Both parents were active in Zionist organizations and charitable endeavors and on good terms with Christian neighbors, until 1939. She describes the extensive work of the Kehillah in helping those in need. She provides extensive detail of life after the German invasion of Poland in 1939: bombing and desecration of the synagogue, forced labor, confiscation of Jewish property, ghettoization of all Jews, the lack of any help by former Christian friends, ghetto conditions. She describes smuggling her small brother to the home of a loyal former family housekeeper and later her escape from a work detail in March 1941. She then crossed the River San to Soviet-controlled Poland where she was helped by a Russian Jewish family prior to being resettled in a small town near L’vov. She describes in detail life under Soviet rule in Poland. She was exiled to Siberia because she refused to accept Soviet citizenship. She describes her transport to and life in a labor camp for four years, until May 1945. She also relates her clandestine trip outside the Siberian camp to obtain potatoes for planting.

In March 1945, as a Polish citizen, she received by mail permission to return to Poland. Recently married, she describes working her way across Siberia toward Poland with her husband in June 1945, where she experienced antisemitism. Through the Joint Distribution Committee in Szczecin, she learned of the survival of her two brothers and joined them in a displaced persons camp in Berlin in August 1945. She describes in detail the living conditions with her new born baby. There is a brief mention of her stay at another camp near Landsberg in 1948. She and her family immigrated to the United States in 1950. She describes her adjustment in the U.S., her children’s awareness of their parents’ background, and their commitment to Judaism. She concludes with the hope that her testimony will remind future generations of the horrors of the Hitler years.

Malvina1 Herzfeld, born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1914 describes living in Tsobut, Danzig from 1924 to 1936; moving to Holland where she married Martin Sternfeld, a German lawyer, in December, 1937; the German invasion of Holland in May 1940; the establishment of Westerbork as a transit camp for German Jewish refugees who were supported by the Dutch Jewish community and the Jewish Council. Malvina explains that her husband was arrested by the SS during a roundup of Jewish men in 1941, sent to a camp in Holland and then to Mauthausen concentration camp. She received his death certificate September 1941.

Malvina worked for the Jewish Council. She was arrested and released. Malvina and other Jews were helped or hidden by a non-Jewish Dutch neighbor. Malvina agreed to work with the Dutch underground led by Walter Suskind. She describes how her group saved Jewish children, who had been taken from their parents, from the transports. While working as a courier to the Hague and Westerbork, she tried to rescue Jewish boys. She was arrested by the SS, put into solitary confinement, and tortured. She did not talk and was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she encountered Hans Totman, a Jewish war criminal who worked for the Germans. She describes arrival, selection process, living and working conditions in Birkenau.

Because she spoke German, she was taken to work as a secretary for the Oberscharführer at Budy, together with another Jewish girl. They narrowly escaped being sent to the crematorium for stealing food.

In January 1945, Malvina was forced on a death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, where she stayed until April 1945 during a typhoid epidemic. She describes liberation by British troops, punishment of the guards, the hanging of the camp commanders, and post-liberation conditions. The British took survivors to a military camp until displaced persons camps were established. She worked for the British army as a translator and had a brief reunion with her brother who served in the British army.

Malvina could not get permission to join her brother in England. She was sent to Holland and quarantined. She stayed in Holland until 1947 and relates attempts to find out what happened to her family and her husband, and located friends from the underground. An interesting vignette details how she located the Jewish girl from Budy after the war. She emigrated to the United States in 1947.