Oral History Interview with Bernard S. Mednicki
Title
Date
Contributor
Summary
Bernard S. Mednicki was born in 1910 in Brussels, Belgium, the youngest of four children in an orthodox Russian Jewish family from Kishinev. His father served in the Russian army until the 1903 pogrom, when he deserted and moved his family to the West. Bernard attended a cheder and public school in Brussels, where he experienced some antisemitism. He was apprenticed to an orthopedic technician, became a Belgian citizen in 1928 and was married in 1931. In 1933, he became active in the anti-fascist Socialist Party and anti-fascist resistance. He describes the German invasion on May 12, 1940.
Assuming Christian identities, his wife and children fled to Paris and he travelled through southern France until they were reunited in Riom. He details extensively the travails of fellow refugees, his work with the French resistance during 1941-1942 in Clermont-Ferrand, and sabotage activity with the Maquis in the mountains near Volvic. He relates smuggling goods and other survival techniques to obtain food for resistance families. He travelled with his wife and children to Paris, aided by American soldiers, remaining until 1946, when he returned to Brussels. He found his sister’s three children, who were hidden during the war in a convent and a monastery. He arrived in the United States with his wife and children in 1947. His Memoirs: Never be afraid: A Jew in the Maquis, were published posthumously in 1997.
See also interviews with his son, Armand Mednick and with his nephew Charles L. Rojer.
Interviewee: MEDNICKI, Bernard S. Dates: April 27 & 30, 1982
whole int. for educational purposes only, excerpts can be used in publication
More Sources Like This
of
Elizabeth J. Levy
Elizabeth J. Levy, nee Dreifuss, was born in 1927 in Ludwigshafen am Rheim, Germany. She attended a local school as the only Jewish child in classes for Catholics, whom her parents believed were friendlier than the Protestants. She also studied Hebrew in Mannheim.
After the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, her family was ostracized and her father was dismissed as a language professor. She moved with her parents to Leipzig, where her father taught in a Jewish school until Kristallnacht, when he was arrested. He was held at Buchenwald until family visas and tickets to Peru were obtained.
In February, 1939, they left Germany with visitor visas for England where her father taught German language classes for British police and worked at Bloomsbury House, helping German Jews to emigrate. Personal connections enabled his family to avoid internment as German nationals. In February, 1940, they sailed to the United States. Mrs. Levy married in 1949, had three children and became a language teacher.
She believes her religious faith sustained her during her youth and maintains that Jewish people must remember the Holocaust by avoiding intermarriage and abortion, to compensate for those Jews who were killed.
Elizabeth’s granddaughter, Rebecca, age 12 at the time, did an interview with her great-grandmother Lina Dreifuss (Elizabeth Levy’s mother) about her experiences in Nazi Germany. Mrs. Dreifuss is age 102 at the time of this interview.: https://vimeo.com/201457472/5b06ce1456
of
Hilde Reiter
Hilde Reiter, (previously Miriam Vos) was born in Bad Neuenahr, West Germany on June 6, 1920. Her family was in the cattle and meat business before the war and she attended a private girls Catholic Cloister school. After the Nuremberg laws were passed in 1934 Hilde’s younger sister left for the United States. Hilde describes Kristallnacht in 1938 in her town. Soon after, her parents left for the United States. In 1934 Hilde joined Habonim (Labor Zionist Youth Organization), went to an agricultural farm owned by the Schocken family and prepared to make aliyah to Palestine.
In December 1939 right after the war broke out Hilde and her group set sail from Berlin. They had illegal visas to Bolivia. Hilde describes the boat ordeal for the 400 immigrants on the ship, “Atlantic” that was meant to carry 150 passengers. They traveled for months around Europe (Hungry, Bulgaria and Romania) before entering Haifa harbor in November 1940. There they were taken prisoner by the British and taken to Atlit prison. Hilde was later freed by the Jewish Agency and went to kibbutz Ein Hashofet and then to Kfar Menachem. Hilde lived in Israel from 1940-1957 where she married and had two sons. Her husband died in the 1948 War of Independence. Later, in 1957 she went to the United States to join her family.
of
Mayer Relles
Rabbi Relles born in Skala, Poland June 2, 1908 lived in Italy from 1933 to 1944. He studied at a university and a rabbinical college. He explains how he managed to remain in Italy as a student. He describes Mussolini’s treatment of Jews and his changing attitude towards Hitler. Even after anti-Jewish laws were passed in1938, and his arrest and brief internment in June 1940 first in Campagna, then in Ferramonti, he was treated extremely well by the Italians.
In December 1943, after police warned Jews they would be arrested, Rabbi Relles tried to flee. He was arrested near the Swiss border and detained first at a Questara in Como, then at a barracks in Camerlata in Northern Italy.
He describes his escape to Milan, stays at various safe houses, and living in a rest home under a false name, using papers giving him a new identity, helped by individual Italians, nuns and a committee that worked to rescue Jews. He explains how he survived and gives a very detailed account of his escape to Switzerland in April 1944 - when he was brought to Como from Milan as part of a group rescue organized by a Mrs. Comelli. He cites many instances of help by non-Jews and kind treatment from Italians during this period. He arrived in the United States from Switzerland November 8, 1951.
Interviewee: RELLES, Rabbi Mayer Date: June 27, 1983
of
Lucyna Berkowicz
LucynaBerkowicz was born in Lwów in 1914, one of five children. Her father was a plumber who served in the Austrian army in WWI. He was also an ardent Zionist. Lucyna became active in leftist movements in her early twenties and became a union organizer and leader in a factory. Lucyna describes the Russian Occupation of Lwów(1939)under the German-Soviet Pact and antisemitism in the Russian and gentile hierarchy. She describes her work experiences, attending university, and her eventual realization that members of Zionist Youth organizations were jailed as political prisoners by the Russians.
Lucyna’shusbandwas killed during the Germanoccupation of Lwów(1941), after he fled(along with many Jewish men) with the Russian army. Lucyna describes many restrictions placed on Jews and how life became perilous. She describes how her sister-in-law was picked up and never heard from again. Lucynawas able to secure false papers with the help of a girlfriend’s gentilehusband.
Lucynaescaped Lwów, with the help of a Jewish man who would be her future husband and more than 20 others who wanted to return to their families in Radom.Lucyna describes the dangerous journey through JudenreinLublin, the aid of a gentile Pole who hid them in his basement until morning and then escorted them to Radom. She eventually came to Wolanów, a small rather primitive town. She and her second husband were married there in March. They worked for the Wehrmacht in the Wolanówlabor camp. She describes witnessing Jews from Radom who were forced to dig their own graves and were shot. At the end of 1943 she and her husband were deported to another labor camp, Starachowice, where she worked in an ammunition factory. It was decided that because she did not look Jewish, she should escape with her false identity papers. She eventually volunteered to work in Germany and because her German was good, worked as an interpreter in a reprocessing business in a small city. As the end of the war approached, she made her way back to Poland, to Radom, and worked for the Polish government as a non-Jew still under her false papers and lived with her husband’s aunt. She saw evidence that Poles killed Jewish partisans in the woods. Around the same time she learned about the pogroms in Kielce. She also reunited with her youngest brother who had returned from Russia and told her the details of how many members of her family had perished. One brother and one sister survived.
Lucyna explains how she got permission to search for her husband in Vienna and used it as excuse to flee Poland with his aunt and two of his nieces. Lucynafound her husband and a brother-in-law in Austria as prisoners in a Polish army camp. They came to Germany to Bergen-Belsen and then eventually made it to a Displaced Persons Camp in Stuttgart. Lucyna suffered a miscarriage during the travels. Lucyna, her husband and her brother emigrated to the United States in 1947.
See also the interview with her husband, Daniel Berkowicz.
Holocaust Jewish 1939 - 1945 - Personal narratives
World War, 1939 - 1945 - Personal narratives, Jewish, female
Atrocities
Displaced Persons Camp -- Stuttgart
Germanoccupation -- Lwów
Hiding – false papers
Jews - Polish
Starachowice - labor camp
Survival skills
Wolanów -labor camp
Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.
of
Alan Spiegel
Alan Spiegel was born August 11, 1903 in Orahovicza, Yugoslavia into a wealthy Zionist family. He details his family history in Hungary including his grandfather being a Second Adjutant during the Hungarian Revolution. Mr. Spiegel studied medicine at Budapest University. He discusses the difficulty for Jewish students to be admitted due tonumerus clausus policy and that he was dismissed in 1920, three months before graduation by a prejudiced faculty. An ardent Zionist, he then worked for the Jewish National Fund while employed in a family business.
In 1932, he married Elizabeth Boschan, in Cluj, Romania, where they lived until 1939. In Budapest, he had to serve as a slave laborer under the Hungarians. Mr. Spiegel gives testimony about working with Rezsö Kastner and Joel Brand to exchangethe release of over 1,000 Jews to Switzerland for money in 1944 and how he found out from one of the more humane German officers that their transport was destined for Auschwitz even though they paid. He details how he arranged to bribe other SS to have the transport sent to Bergen-Belsen instead. Two months later, a smaller group of 350 was sent to Switzerland of which he and his family were a part. He discusses how Kastner was condemned in Palestine for his actions. Mr. Spiegel also shares a vignette about how he secured the release of hundreds of Jewish boys and how small meaningful occurrences helped him have the strength to continue his work. He also relates memories about theVizhnitzerRebbe.
In 1947, Spiegel emigrated from Switzerland to the United States with his wife and daughter.
of
Bernice Fishman
Bernice Fishman (birth name Bronia Graudens) was born in Vronki, Poland in 1934. Her father owned a clothing store. Bernice and her mother fled to her mother's parents in Staszow in 1939. The Staszow Ghetto was established in 1940. Jewish children were educated clandestinely. Bernice and her brother were sent to live with a Polish farmer before the ghetto was evacuated. Her grandmother joined them later. Her grandfather and her father were sent to the Skarzysko concentration camp and her mother was hidden by a neighbor. Bernice, her brother, and her grandmother left the Polish family to go to a town that was supposed to be a sanctuary for Jews but were caught by the Polish police, imprisoned for a week, and told daily they would be shot. Her parents bribed somebody to get them out of prison.
Bernice describes how she, her brother, and her aunt and uncle were hidden by a succession of Poles in Ogrodzenie, posing as Catholics. She was always hungry, in fear of being discovered, and pretty much on her own. Her four year old brother died because they were afraid to take him to a doctor. Bernice got sick and walked to a Catholic hospital where she received care.
In 1945 Bernice was reunited with her parents who rented an apartment in Kielce that they shared with four other Jewish families. Her mother gave birth to a girl. Bernice describes how her family managed to survive despite constant fear of Polish antisemitism. She relates how Poles threw ten Jews from a moving train her father was supposed to be on. While she was hiding with the Kuchatays, Bernice had to pose as a Catholic, go to Confession and receive Communion, but never forgot she was Jewish. After the war, Mrs. Kuchatay found the family and threatened to sue unless Bernice converted legally. To avoid going to court, the family fled to Bytom with the help of Bernice's uncle who was in the Russian army. A few days later all the Jews in their former apartment were killed during the Kielce pogrom.
After several months in Bytom, they were smuggled into Czechoslovakia. From there they went to a Displaced Persons camp near Stuttgart, Germany. Bernice attended a school for Jewish children where classes were conducted in Hebrew. Her father obtained an apartment in a house owned by a former member of the Nazi party. Bernice briefly reflects on the different behavior of Poles, Russians, Czechs, and Germans toward Jews. The family emigrated to the United States in 1950, sponsored by Bernice's cousin who was an American citizen.
Interviewee: FISHMAN, Bernice Graudens Date: May 29, 1991