Oral History Interview with Charles Willner

Debora Neudorfer, nee Flachs, was born in Bucharest, Romania, December 31, 1914 to a middle class family. Her father was a business man in industrial chemicals. Debora briefly describes pre-war Bucharest, Christian-Jewish relations and her education at a Protestant Girls’ Schoolwhich was comprised of nearly 99% Jewish girls. Her father’s business was diminished due to the war and Debora and her sister sold items they knitted at home. Debora describes that all Jews in Bucharest with a certain amount of education were forced to complete one year of labor. Debora walked to a private house to complete her assignment ofoffice work while she lived at home.

Debora describes their life under the rule of Antonescu and how it did not change very much and gives details about some family members and their experiences with forced labor. She also explains how people thought things would improve under Russian rule, but states that it got worse. She alludes to Russian soldiers’ rape of women when they came in in August of 1944.

In October 1944 Debora fled to Palestine with her future husband whom she had met a few months earlier. He was a Polish Jew who had escaped a labor camp and had false papers. When they met, they were unable to get married so they fled with a group of Polish and Romanian young people. A Jewish organization sent them across the Black Sea by boat on which she and her husband were married.A train took them through Turkey to the Atlit detention camp in Palestine, where British officers interrogated all refugees regarding their wartime experience. They lived in Palestine for about two and a half years until they went back to Poland to search for her husband’s family. Her husband’s brother was the only sibling of six who survived the war. They returned to Israel in 1950 and emigrated to the United States in 1957. Her mother, father, sister, and brother-in-law, and several cousins and extended family membersall survived the war.

Genia Golombek, nee Fieman, was born on January 17, 1923 in Lodz, Poland into a religious middle class family. Her father was in the commercial wood-burning business. She attended a Polish state elementary school and then a private Jewish girls high school one of five in Lodz. In December, 1939 all the Jews of Lodz were forced into a ghetto. Genia describes life in the Lodz ghetto: the Judenrat, deeds of Rumkowski, its Jewish leader, Hans Biebow, German commandant, the round-ups and the inhuman conditions. Genia’s father worked for the Judenrat but later died of starvation in 1942.

In 1944 the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto were deported to Birkenau/Auschwitz. Genia describes her life there and even being passed over by Mengele twice. In October 1944 she was sent to Lenzing labor camp (a subcamp of Mauthausen) in Austria to work making artificial wool and bomb shelters for the Germans. She mentions kindnesses by the camp commandant and two women SS guards. She was also helped by two non-Jewish prisoners (one a Frenchman) while building the underground bomb shelters.

She was liberated by the Americans on May 5, 1945 in Lenzing, received food and medical help from the Americans and was relocated to Kammerscheffling (also in Austria) where they set up more aid facilities. In June, 1945 she went to Santa Maria di Leuca, near Naples, to receive aid from the Joint Distribution Committee. She was helped by the International Refugee Organization during her travels to Italy. While working for the Americans in Caserte, Italy, near Naples, she met her husband. They married and had two children. The family emigrated to the United States in 1950.

Gabriela Truly, née Braun, was born January 7, 1916 in Levoča, Czechoslovakia, where her family had lived since the first half of the 18th century. She and her five siblings were active in Zionist groups. In 1939, as Slovak nationalists allied with the Axis, restrictions were placed on Jews. Her father’s tinsmithing shop was taken over by the State in 1940. In 1942, Mrs. Truly was rounded up with 1000 single girls aged 14-40, from surrounding areas and sent in the first transport to Auschwitz. She describes the dehumanizing intake process and the difficult life in the camps. Later, when mothers were brought with small children to a separate block, her sister and her 4 ½ year old son were among the first to be gassed in Auschwitz. Mrs. Truly describes the drive of self-preservation, of caring only for yourself, although she narrates many incidents in which she aided others and others aided her. Later in 1942, she was moved to Birkenau, and became very ill with typhus, diarrhea and a badly infected foot. In February 1943 she was hospitalized back in Auschwitz. Mrs. Truly categorizes which jobs were easier to survive and which more difficult. Again, aided by a hairdresser named Monsi, she gets a job first knitting for commandant Hoess, then filing in the personnel building. She was told permits to go to Israel had mysteriously come to Auschwitz, but nothing happened. On January 18, 1944, she was taken on a three day death march, and then near Ravensbrück, where she saw her mother for the last time. Next, they were taken to Malchow where she later met up with the younger sister of her sister-in-law. Eventually, she came to Crivitz and witnessed rape by Russian soldiers. Three brothers and one sister with two children had also survived. At last she went to Prague, where in 1948 she left for New York to live with a brother. She married an American-born Jew and remained in New York.

Klara Leizerowski, nee Felker, was born on October28, 1924 in Chovorow, Poland(in Galicia, near Lemberg). Her father was a merchant. Klara describes pre-war Jewish life: her schooling, Jewish observance, keeping kashrut and the various languages spoken by the Jewish intelligentsia. She describes initially disbelieving stories of German refugees regarding anti-Jewish restrictions. She describes the Soviet occupation and how her “capitalist” family was designated as an enemy of the state and were denied citizenship. Many families were deported to Siberia for this “crime” and she explains how they lived in fear during this period of 1939 -41 and slept away from their home many nights. They were permitted to practice their religion and Klara was able to attend pharmaceutical school during this time by traveling an hour to Lemberg.

Klara describes the German invasionin spring of 1941 and the increasing restrictions on Jews. She also describes severalAktions. During one of these, she was hidden with her sisters by a priest and his family for one night. Klara’s parents hid in their basement behind a wall with 10 others. Klara was hidden by a Christian family for two and a half years in Lemberg and other small towns. The rest of her family was shot. During her hiding she was hidden in a wardrobe in a room right next to German soldiers. She describes the stress, lack of food and physical ailments from staying in this wardrobe so many hours at a time.

After liberation by the Soviets, she was reunited with one sister who survived and together they went to Katowice to escape both the Germans and the Russians. She was helped by HIAS and the Joint. She was able to go to Switzerland with her uncle's help (Chief Rabbi in Zurich) and lived there for two and a half years. She later moved to Munich in 1946 to marry Rabbi Baruch Leizerowski. They emigrated to the United States in 1952 with their two sons.

See also the interview with her husband, Rabbi Baruch Leizerowski.

Samuel Flor1 was born in Czernowitz, Romania. He talks about experiencing antisemitism, his education, and his career as a composer, musician, and a professor at the university in Czernowitz.

He describes life in Czernowitz first under Russian and then under German occupation. He explains why it was impossible to leave and how he and his wife, Gertrude tried to escape in June, 1941, but failed. He was part of a brutal roundup of Jewish men, and had to bury Jewish men who were machine-gunned to death by Germans near the River Prut. After being tormented by the Germans, the survivors, including Samuel Flor, returned home.

In October, 1941 all Jews had to move into a ghetto until they were deported to the Ukraine under terrible conditions, including periodic whippings by both German and Romanian soldiers. He describes a particularly cruel incident involving Jews from Mogilev, a forced circular death march, and several atrocities committed by Ukrainian peasants. Mr. Flor worked as a slave laborer in a stone quarry in Ladesti on the Bugac and in Tulchin in a hospital.

He relates a chilling vignette in which Sonderführer Fritz von Rohde explains why killing Jews is a service to humanity.

As the Germans retreated Mr. and Mrs. Flor and about 66 other people hid in a hole they had dug previously for more than three days, until March 15, 1944. He describes how the 300 Jewish survivors tried to cope once the Russian army came, and his return to Czernowitz. His apartment had been nationalized so Mr. and Mrs. Flor joined the Czech army. He explains how they got out of Prague, emigrated to Barranquilla, Colombia, (South America) and then to the United States where Mr. Flor continued his musical career.

L.I. born November 1923, lived in Bucharest, Romania before, during and after World War II. She relates her family history, her experiences growing up in Bucharest and her education at Catholic, public, and Medical schools. She cites several instances of discrimination against herself and other Jewish students.

She describes increasing antisemitism and restrictions against Jews, even those who converted, and their effect on the Jewish community and her own life. Her father lost his job. L.I. went to Onescu, a Jewish medical school staffed by Jewish teachers, and interned at Jewish hospitals. Both L.I. and her father worked at forced labor.

L.I. talks about conditions in the Jewish community, random killings of Jews, and brutality by the Iron Guard, but that many Jewish institutions continued to function. After the war, her family reclaimed their house which had been confiscated in December, 1941. She completed her medical education. Jewish students were allowed to attend schools but were not fully accepted. L.I. wasnot allowed to leaveRomania once she becameadoctor but she and her husband were able to leave as part of an exchange program in 1978 and came to the United States in 1979.