Oral History Interview with David Buchsbaum
Title
Date
Contributor
Summary
David Buchsbaum was born in Gorlice, Poland on April 20, 1921 to a religious family. He was one of 11 children.. He gives a brief description of pre-war Gorliceand the Jewish community which was 25% of the population, about 3,500 Jews. David’s family owned a grocery store.
David describes the mood change among non-Jewish neighbors in 1938 after Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and describes how they would stand in front of Jewish stores and businesses announcing, "Do not buy from Jews".
In 1939 once the Nazis occupied Gorlice the family was warned by a non-Jewish neighbor to flee, but the family could not afford the certificate to emigrate to Palestine. David details the anti-Jewish measures 1940: Jews had to wear the Yellow star, Jewish businesses were confiscated, synagogues were closed, Jewish" quarters" were created and David’s father was shot to death by a German soldier right before his eyes. David also witnessed the machine gun shooting of entire Jewish families.
In July, 1942 all males from 12-65 were arrested and marched in the streets; some were shot and David, a brother and others were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp. David describes the horrific conditions there: cold, typhus, appells, beatings and the electrified fence. In 1943, as the Russians advanced David and 1,000 other Jews were sent in boxcars to the slave labor camp, Skarzysko. Those who were left behind were either shot in the woods or were gassed in vans and burned. In Skarzysko they made ammunition and David was in in the harshest area, Barrack C. In 1944 David was sent to Buchenwald where all his personal possessions were confiscated, including his tallit and tefillin, which distressed his greatly because he had tried to observe tradition as best he could. As the Russians advanced he was sent to Terezin(Theresienstadt) and was liberated from there on May 8, 1945. David describes that many survivors from Terezin died from overconsumption of food immediately after liberation.
David later returned to Poland to find his relatives but left because of fierce antisemitism and the Kielce pogrom. He traveled to Prague, and was then sent to Salzburg, Austria by the Joint Distribution Committee. The Joint arranged for him to join an uncle in the United States. On June 2, 1949 David arrived in Boston. He and two brothers survived the war.
More Sources Like This
of
Pearl Herling
Pearl Herling was born in Budapest, Hungary August 24, 1924 to a religious upper middle class family. Her father was in the wholesale textile business. She describes her family history and pre-war life, antisemitism and discrimination against Jews which peaked in 1938. She also describes the increasingly harsh restrictions against Hungarian Jews between 1940 and 1944 and the creation of ghettos (“Yellow Star Houses”), labor battalions, and cruelty exhibited by Hungarian Nazis. Her father disappeared and never came back.
Pearl gives detailed descriptions of her many efforts to stay alive: she never wore the mandatory yellow star, avoided transport to a labor camp, posed as a Gentile using false papers she typed herself, through a bluff managed to get herself and all the people in her building into one of the Swedish “safe” houses established by Raoul Wallenberg and also obtain Schutzpasses. Just before this building was raided, she managed to join her sister at a labor camp in Kelenföld, run by Hungarian Nazis. She describes an incredible vignette of how she, her sister, and her sister’s two young children avoided a roundup, then got papers classifying them as refugees in Russian-occupied Hungary. Her mother and other family members survived under the protection of the head of a German labor camp. She describes her family’s continued struggle living in Budapest posing as non-Jews using false papers, starvation, and near escapes from detection. She refers to a special transport of Hungarian Jews from Bergen-Belsen to Switzerland and a failed attempt to exchange Jews for trucks. She witnessed a death march from Buda. She met and married her second husband while both were posing as non-Jews, and relates how difficult it was for him to get his son back from a Catholic family that sheltered him.
Pearl was liberated by the Russians in January 1945. She gives a very extensive and graphic account of her experiences in Hungary under Russian occupation, and many attempts to flee. She also mentions Russian soldiers raping women. Pearl details her husband’s flight from Soviet authorities while she was running two businesses. She describes her own harrowing attempted escapes from Budapest-- one with her sedated infant, another when she was separated from her seven-year old step-son and got arrested, and her final escape to Vienna using an Israeli passport. Pearl and her husband survived in Vienna for two years but experienced discrimination. They emigrated to the United States in 1950.
of
Else Nowak
Else Nowak, née Schroepel, was born June 25, 1902 in Köetschenbroda [or Kötzschenbroda], a suburb ofDresden, Germany. She was an only child in an observant Jewish family. They lived in Breslau, Hamburg and Berlin, where Else attended a lyceum briefly. Due to antisemitism and her illnesses, Else left school after one year. She finished her education with private schooling, home tutoring and millinery training.
In 1918, her family moved to Berlin where Else met and married Dr. Ludwig Blum in May 1926. They had two children and were divorced in 1928. In 1937 Else met Willie Nowak. They couldn’t marry until they left Germany and arrived in Shanghai in August, 1939.
The rest of her story is presented jointly in an interview with WillieNowak.
of
Ilse Stamm
Ilse Stamm was born in Eichstetten am Kaiserstuhl, Baden, Germany. Her family was one of the 30 Jewish families in a village of 1,000 people. Her father owned a paper factory from 1876 to 1938. She describes antisemitic incidents in her school and on a train. She attended a secular school in Freiburg, an hour and a half railroad trip from home, from 1933 to November 11, 1938. Dismissed early that day, she walked past the burnt foundations of synagogues in Freiburg and in Kaiserstuhl. She witnessed Jewish men, including her father, loaded into trucks for incarceration and mentions the kindness of a non-Jewish friend. This man walked from his home a mile away to bring food for her family every night during the three weeks her father was away.
Her family was able to leave Germany through sponsorship from relatives in Philadelphia which secured her father’s release from Dachau in 1938. Ilse and her mother followed shortly thereafter (1939), with visas secured through bribery at the American Consulate in Stuttgart. When grandparents, who had been interned since 1940 in the Gurs camp in France, arrived in Philadelphia in 1946, they were described as skeletons.
of
Samuel Flor
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.
of
Eva Cutler
Eva Cutler, née Frederich, was born in 1925 in Budapest, Hungary, the second child of a cultured, Jewishly emancipated family. She describes her family’s change from being unaware of existing Hungarian antisemitism and of Nazi persecutions of Jews elsewhere, to growing dread under government imposed restrictions, almost secret attempts to emigrate, along with continuing disbelief. She tells of varied attitudes of Hungarians under German occupation and help given by some non-Jews, even a German administrator. Her brother was inducted into a work brigade and later her father was taken away.
In the fall of 1944, Eva—along with many other young Jewish women—was herded out of Budapest. She details horrendous conditions and brutality during the death march to Bergen-Belsen. She witnessed a mass execution of men. A German army officer helped her walk so she could keep going. Some townspeople offered food to the marchers, others abused them. She mentions a brief encounter with Wallenberg at the Austrian border, where he saved those who had Swiss or Swedish protective passes or said they had. Eva arrived at Bergen-Belsen in January 1945 after enduring a prolonged cattle car ride. She describes how survivors suffered from continued deprivation and illness there and also had to cope with hostility from Polish and Czech Jews already there. After liberation in April, she learns that her parents survived in Budapest and her brother is presumed dead. Eva was sent to Sweden for recovery and rehabilitation by the Red Cross. She praises the excellent medical care and kindness she experienced there. She came to the United States in 1946. Her parents came to the United States via Canada, after Eva attained U.S. citizenship. She closes with an account of her return to Hungary after 37 years and stresses the brotherhood of man.
of
Myer Adler
Myer Adler was born September 2, 1914 in Rudnik, Austria, which became part of Poland after World War I. He gives a vivid description of his pre-war life. From age 14 to 21 he attended several yeshivot in nearby small towns and developed his artistic talent along with religious studies. Gradually he became less religiously observant. In 1938 he worked as a bookkeeper in Krakow after graduation from a private business school. After the German invasion, September 1, 1939 he returned to Rudnik to be with his mother. He witnessed organized and individual brutality by German soldiers and Polish civilians against Jews. Shortly thereafter, Germans forced Myer and other surviving Jews across the San River to Ulanow in Russian territory. He mentions formation of a Jewish militia to protect Jews from local Poles. Local Jews helped the refugees.
Myer spent the next six years in Russia and describes his experiences in great detail. He lived in Grodek until summer of 1940, hiding in the woods with other young men to avoid being sent to the coal mines. After he gave himself up he was deported to Siberia with his family and others who refused Russian citizenship. He lived in Sinuga and Bodaybo (Siberian villages) until 1944, when he was shipped to the territory of Engelstown to work in a government owned farm (sovkhoz).
A detailed picture emerges of his coping skills in various jobs: laborer, stevedore and farm worker, as well as descriptions of living conditions, black markets, relations with Russian bureaucrats, behavior of Russian exiles towards Jews, and attempts to practice the Jewish religion. He married in September 1945. He was repatriated in Poland in April 1946, and he and his wife went to Krakow. He mentions continued antisemitism and violence by local Poles, and help from the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
In August 1946 Myer and his pregnant wife were smuggled into Czechoslovakia, through Austria and to a transit camp in Vienna, helped by the Haganah, then to Germany. He gives an extensive description of life in the displaced persons camp in Ulm Germany where he stayed for 3 years, supported by UNRRA (United Nations Relief Rehabilitation Association). He mentions Bleidorn a displaced persons camp for children, also in Ulm, where he located his niece and two nephews. Myer, his wife and two sons emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1949. There are several touching vignettes of his early life in the United States. He describes several instances of help from Jews during his early years in Philadelphia.