Oral History Interview with Debora Neudorfer

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.