Oral History Interview with Elsa Turteltaub

Mary Cittrons, née Grad, born September 13, 1919, in Brzezany, Poland, was one of two sisters in an observant Jewish family. She details pre-war experiences in a comfortable home, untroubled by antisemitism until the 1938 boycott of their father’s business. In 1939, the family entered the BrzezanyGhetto, where Mary and her sister were selected for forced labor. She describes subsequent hiding underground, aided by a Polish gentile who exploited the family throughout the war and afterwards. She also gives details about how some Jews were able to sneak outside the ghetto because of their Aryan appearance and bring food and supplies back to the ghetto.

When the family returned to their home post-war, some non-Jewish neighbors helped them, but Polish pogroms prompted Mary to move to Germany with her husband. There, he directed ORT schools, teaching art and craft skills.

Their daughter, born in the Einigen DP camp, underwent surgery in a Berchtesgaden hospital, performed by a doctor who was a member of the SS and was later arrested. After immigration to the United States, Mary’s extended family was reunited and adapted to American life with much difficulty. Mary and her husband succeeded, due to their determination and ingenuity.

Emmi Loewenstern was born on February 19, 1925 in Emmerich, Germany. She briefly describes pre-war life: schooling and relations with non-Jewish Poles. The family was well known in the town. Emmi describes the change in attitude toward Jews after the Nazis came to power. She gives a detailed description of Kristallnacht, the damage done to their home by soldiers they knew, the imprisonment of her father.

In December 1941, Emmi and her family were deported to the Riga Ghetto in Latvia. She describes the journey and arrival in detail including hearing about the mass murder of the Latvian Jews by Jewish survivors still working in the ghetto. She details the lack of food, crowded conditions, forced labor, brutality and atrocities: people being taken out on work shifts and shot if they were caught stealing food. She discusses some holiday observances in the ghetto. She also describes an incident in October 1942 when some young Latvian Jews tried to bring ammunition into the ghetto, were caught and 39 were shot to death.

In November 1943 Emmi, her sister and her mother were sent to various places for forced labor: working for the German army at the Armeebiekleidungsamt [army quartermaster] sorting clothes of deceased German soldiers and in another (unnamed) camp. She describes how the young children were separated from their parents and never heard from again. In the fall of 1944, they were deported to Stutthof and then to Libau (Latvia) where they had to work at a shoe factory. She describes how they took the handkerchiefs off their heads during the trip to and from work so the townspeople would see how they were being treated. In February 1945, they were deported to Hamburg, Germany to Fuhlsbüttel (a subcamp of Neuengamme) where they had to label bags of spices. She describes the deplorable conditions of the deathmarch from Hamburg to Kiel where they had to sort bricks.

In 1945, they were taken to Malmö, Sweden via Denmark by the Red Cross due to the Bernadotte Agreement. Emmi contacted relatives in the United States and Sweden. Emmi emigrated with her mother and sister to the United States where Emmi married in 1947 and had two daughters.

Bernard Freilich was born April 17, 1924, in Drohobycz, Poland. He attended public school, Tarbut School and heder. His family had a shoe store. Pre-war, he experienced antisemitism from his very early childhood. He describes worsening conditions for Jews under both German and Russian occupations: pogroms (some started by Ukrainians), Aktions, liquidation of the Jewish quarter, establishment of the Drohobycz Ghetto, and the role of the Judenrat. Bernard narrowly escaped death in the ghetto when over 200 Jews were killed. He gives vivid accounts of atrocities, slave labor, and incidents of retribution. His entire family, except one brother, perished and he explains how and where they were killed. He describes Jewish slave labor in Boryslaw, deportations from the ghetto to Belzec, and executions of Jews in the Bronica forest.

Several vignettes describe his father’s interactions with the Gestapo and other Germans while working as their official boot maker. Later, after enduring forced labor under horrible conditions, Bernard worked with his father making boots.

When about 800 Jews managed to escape into the Bronica forest, Bernard joined a group of boys who hid in a bunker. He explains how he managed to survive for three and a half months and then to escape once the Germans discovered the bunker in May 1944.

Bernard describes the transport to, arrival at and processing at the Plaszow concentration camp on June 22, 1944. He witnessed brutal treatment and killing of the prisoners before and during this transport. He and his father worked as shoemakers for the Wehrmacht. Inmates were executed 24 hours a day. Bernard talks about the reaction of Jewish prisoners when 12,000 non-Jewish Poles arrived at the camp.

Bernard’s testimony includes graphic descriptions of the horrible conditions at Mauthausen, gruesome atrocities and torture, including a father’s futile attempt to save his son’s life. He worked as a slave laborer at Gusen II building tunnels for Messerschmitt and Steyrwerke under conditions that guaranteed a life span of four to six weeks. He explains the complicated series of events that enabled him and his brother to work as shoemakers. Because he was hospitalized for a groin infection, he saw various terrible ways in which prisoners and patients were killed in January 1945. He describes worsening conditions at Gusen as the Allied forces approached on April 22, 1945. He survived a death march to Mauthausen and then Gunskirchen, where the prisoners received Red Cross packages for the first time. He relates the chaotic conditions after the guards fled, and how he saved a friend’s life.

Bernard describes his post-liberation experiences vividly and in great detail. These include encounters with American soldiers, sick and dying survivors in hospitals, Germans who had used slave laborers, and living in an apartment they confiscated from an SS member, with 10 other survivors. The American Military Police moved Bernard and his brother to a Displaced Person Camp.

In June 1945, Bernard and his brother tried to return to Drohobycz. They were conscripted into the Russian army as mine sweepers with 22 other Jews, but managed to work as shoemakers for the Russian General Staff in Vienna, Austria instead. Before Bernard could execute a plan he had devised to escape, his unit was marched back to Poland. He got himself transferred into the Polish army, searched for his father in Lodz, where he met and married his wife. After living in Schlachtensee and then later Feldafing Displaced Persons Camps, they emigrated to the United States in March 1949.

Genya Yetz Kinegal, nee Goldfisher was born December 24, 1925 in Skolne, Poland (Galicia), a small village with 3,000 Jews. The town was occupied by Germans in 1939, then by Russians until 1941. Genya briefly describes the Russian Occupation. When the Germans took over, Genya took on a Polish identity and rented an apartment for a time but eventually was captured by the Germans in the fall of 1942, deported to the Przysucha Ghetto, and then to Plaszow where she did forced labor for a year sewing uniforms. In 1943 she was sent to Skarzysko-Kamienna, in Poland where she worked in a munitions factory making launchers for grenades. In August 1944, she was sent in cattle cars to a women’s camp connected to Buchenwald to work in another munitions factory. All the prisoners in these camps were Jews.

Genya describes the daily routine in the camps, hunger, living and working conditions, as well as clandestine attempts to celebrate Jewish holidays. An attempt to save a newborn baby led to dire consequences for all the women in the camp. She explains the “selections” that determined who would live and who would die. The prisoners formed small groups of four or five to support and protect each other.

Genya along with the other prisoners were driven out of the Buchenwald satellite camp in March 1945. They wandered about on foot until they encountered American soldiers on May 5, 1945. The Americans provided food, clothing and shelter. Jewish soldiers obtained certificates that enabled survivors to go to Palestine legally. Genya found out that her entire family perished. She explains how what she went through still affects her psychologically and physically, and how much was taken away from her during the Holocaust.

Samuel Greenberg was born on June 6, 1910 in Szumk, Poland a small town near Vishnivits to a poor, orthodox family. Samdescribes pre-war antisemitism and lack of love between the Ukrainians and the Poles. His family belonged to Mizrachi, a Zionist organization.Sam describes difficulties they faced in 1939 under Russian occupation: scarcity of food,nationalization of businesses and fear of being sent to Siberia for “stealing” from the government.

Sam describes the maltreatment of Jews at the hands Ukrainians and Poles after the German invasion in September 1941. He mentions that women were violated. He describes the creation of the Vishnivits Ghetto in February 1941, crowded conditions, rampant illness and frequent deaths. He was forced there with his wife, young daughter and mother and father- in-law. He details men in labor brigades being beaten anddescribes 500 girls between 12 and 21 having their heads shaved.

Sam describes the horror of his town’s liquidation. He hid under a bed thinking that the women and children would be safe and he could be reunited with them later. After he escaped, a Polish acquaintance hid him and told him how the entire town was shot in mass graves and covered in lye. He describes his harrowing survival during the bitter winter and spring moving from farm to farm hiding in stables, the woods and wheat fields. He received some help from Poles in the form of bread and also shelter in a haystack in exchange for a fur coat. He also meta group of Ukrainian nationalists who followed Stepan Bandera and fought for Ukrainian freedomand were accused of antisemitic acts. He begged for his life on several occasions and was shocked when they let him go.

In the summer of 1944, the Russians arrived, but when Sam was the only Jew to survive in his whole area, the Russians accused him of being a German collaborator and shipped him to Siberia. He was housed with other German collaborators who had slaughtered the Jews. The Russians asked him to spy on them, which he did, but only earned himself a ticket to the front, walking all the way from Siberia to Berlin with the Soviet army. After getting shot in the head, he was sent to a hospital near Magdeburg and begged one Jewish doctor to keep him there so he could live. Sam was discharged there by the Soviet Army in 1945. After liberation, Sam returned to Poland but heard stories of Jews’ being killed by Poles after the war so fled to the American zone in Germany. He arrived in Philadelphia in April 1948 having been sent a visa through an uncle. Sam attributes his survival to his faith in God. Sam found out after the war, that his brother had survived the war in Siberia.

Eva Burns, nee Gerstl, was born in 1924 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where her father was a pediatrician and her mother a concert pianist. They lived a mostly secular life with some inter‌ marriages in her mother's family. The German takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939 drastically affected their lives with her brother being sent to Kladno and the rest of the family to Theresienstadt. She refers to help from non-Jews. She was deported to Theresienstadt November 17, 1942. She describes Theresienstadt as a "show" camp with books, a coffee house and concerts. Eva was part of a chorus preparing Verdi's Requiem and observed religious activities and humor.

She was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944 and six weeks later to Christianstadt, a women's labor camp. There she helped sabotage grenades in the ammu‌nition factory. She refers to the cruelty of the women S.S. guards. In February 1945 she es‌caped from a death march. Assuming a German identification, she worked in the Sudetenland until the spring of 1945 when she went to Prague where she worked for the family of an S.S. officer serving at the front. In May 1945, with the Czechoslovakian liberation near, she revealed her Czech identity. She married in November 1947 in Prague and immigrated to the USA in June 1948.