Oral History Interview with Bess Freilich

Herbert Lindemeyer was born in Minden, Germany in 1922. His father owned a pharmacy. He describes antisemitism after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933 and briefly mentions the boycott of Jew‌ish stores in April 1933 and the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. He describes his parents’ discussions of whether to emigrate. After Kristallnacht, his father was incarcerated in Buchenwald for a month and his pharmacy confiscated by the Nazis.

Herbert emigrated to England in August 1939 through the help of a British Quaker woman. He describes in detail his internment, with thousands of German and Austrian refugees—in June 1940 on the Isle of Man. In December 1941 he was allowed to leave when he obtained a defense job in Manchester, England. There in January 1944 he married a woman who had traveled to England on the Kindertransport. In October 1945 he joined the American Army for an assignment in Germany as an interpreter and mail censor. One assignment was the tracking of Werner Von Braun. Later he returned to Minden where the new owner of his father’s pharmacy had kept papers which helped Herbert obtain restitution. He emigrated to the United States in 1948.

Jerry Jacobs born April 25, 1929 in Lodz, Poland was the youngest son in a wealthy Jewish family. Their father was an accountant, a prosperous property owner and Associate Conductor of the Lodz Symphony Orchestra. One brother was an accomplished violinist, another studied piano and Jerry hoped to join the family "Kinder Orchestra."

He discusses the drastic changes that took place in 1939 with the German occupation: closing of schools, having to stay inside for safety and dangers for Jews on the streets. He describes his family’s deportation from the suburbs to Baluty (the poor section) in the Lodz Ghetto.

He details inhumane conditions experienced in cattle cars to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Rehmsdorf, after a death march in the snow in 1944. In January 1945 he escaped, and with his knowledge of German poses as an Ostdeutscher (Volksdeutsche) and briefly as a scout for the U.S. Army. After reuniting with his brothers in Lodz, they immigrated to the United States in 1947.

He became a successful realtor in New York City, where he devoted himself to organizing the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance to produce annual Holocaust Memorial concerts, attended by thousands at the Cathedral of St. John the Devine.

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

Henry Skorr was born in Kalisz, Poland on October 11, 1921. He describes in detail Jewish life in Kalisz before WWII including the antisemitism that existed, his traditional upbringing and schooling, and the special relationship between parents and children. He discusses the atmosphere before and after German occupation; the arrest, detention and forced labor of Mr. Skorr and his brother; his realization that they must escape Poland.

He describes a mass execution in a Kalisz cemetery during which he and other boys were ordered to help in the burial and then his subsequent escape from the cemetery. He tells of traveling through Poland to Russian occupied territory of the Ukraine until he reached Kovel. He then decided to return to Kalisz to take family and friends through this escape route.

Mr. Skorr, now with his family, was resettled in Cherepovetz in deep Russia. He describes the train trip and his recruitment to work deep in the forest to cut down trees. Conditions, as he describes them, were terrible and he escaped back to Cherepovetz and found work as a sailor on a boat hauling lumber and barges. Throughout the testimony, Mr. Skorr comments on life in Russia and gives insights into Russian people and society and how the system worked.

He was mobilized to work on the fortification near Leningrad and describes the German breakthrough and his joining and organizing a guerrilla movement. He was wounded and evacuated to Wologda. Upon recovery he returned to Cherepovetz, where his family had stayed. There he found work in the Fire Department where he eventually rose to head the department.

Although offered an opportunity for mobilization to the Polish Army he refused because of fear of antisemitism in the ranks. He met his future wife at the end of the war and returned to Warsaw, Poland where they married. His description of life in postwar Poland tells of much antisemitism and attacks on the returning Jews from antisemitic bands. Eventually, he emigrated to Israel in 1950 and to the United States in 1958.

This interview was conducted on multiple dates in 1983: February 8 and 28, April 12, May 2, June 14 and 28, July 5 and 19.

Dr. Paul G. Eglick served in the 508th Parachute Infantry of the 82nd Airborne, U.S. Third Army as a medical officer. Around May 7, 1945 he was ordered to go to Ludwiglust, Mecklenburg, Germany, not knowing he would enter the Wöbbelein concentration camp. He vividly describes piles of victims who had starved to death, the condition of survivors, and the attempt to save them. His unit took care to treat the starving survivors properly and evacuated them, helped by several other medical units. Dr. Eglick explains how deeply entering this camp affected him and the other American soldiers. Local Germans were ordered to bury the dead. He gives his opinion about United States policy concerning the extermination camps and why the United States could have done more to stop the killing. He tells about an encounter with a couple in a mixed marriage who survived in Berlin with the help of non-Jewish neighbors.