Oral History Interview with Fred L. Hammel

Zenek Maor, was born August 9, 1923, in Wloclawek, Poland, into a religious Jewish family. His father was a factory owner and the family lived comfortably until the German occupation. He details pre-war life including his HashomerHatzairactivities. He describes German restrictions and brutalities in Wloclawek, where his father was arrested and held for ransom, and later in Warsaw, where his family fled in January 1940. As a 16 year-old, he worked in various forced labor brigades, including the Okecie air-field in Warsaw. He gives detailed descriptions of life in the Warsaw ghetto including Jewish police and the HashomerHatzairnetwork of underground schools. Because of severe hunger in the ghetto, he was encouraged by his family to escape in 1942.

Eventually sent to various labor camps, he details difficult work conditions but mentions ongoing belief in his own survival. He discusses reasons that people could not escape from labor camps or from Auschwitz. He details his arrival at Auschwitz in summer 1943 including initial belief in the slogan “Work Makes You Free,” the smell of roasting flesh, and his defiance of Mengele’s decision to send him to annihilation with other children instead of assigning him to work with his older brother. Much information is given on Auschwitz: daily routine, work, treatment by Kapos, latrine communication between prisoners. He describes the death march from Auschwitz from January 17, 1945 to May 10, 1945 and gives an in-depth account of his liberation by the Russian Army. Returning to Poland, he learns that no one from his family survived. He emigrated to Palestine in April, 1947.

This interview was conducted in Haifa, Israel.

William. F. McCool was drafted in January 1944, when he was 18 years old. He served in the 89th Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, E Company, 3rd Platoon during World War II. He talks about his childhood, his army training, and his arrival at Camp Lucky Strike in France. He graphically describes his combat experiences in Germany and his brief capture and escape.

His unit encountered Ohrdruf while on a scouting mission for pockets of resistance, under heavy machinegun fire by SS troops. They fought their way into the camp. Mr. McCool describes the horrible conditions they found in Ohrdruf in great detail. The soldiers couldn’t believe their eyes and many became ill. He saw a pit that served as a grave for 9,000 naked corpses and observed that starvation was rampant and prisoners were treated brutally. Medical help arrived almost immediately and the survivors were cared for by Special Services. The military provided seminars for the 89th Division to explain Nazi ideology and their plan for the annihilation of the Jews. Some members of the 89th Division interviewed survivors and it was revealed that two dozen Christians were also murdered there. Mr. McCool also witnessed the dead bodies of four American flyers, in uniform, who were shot by Germans.

Mr. McCool describes camp layout, gas chambers and ovens and contrasts the luxurious quarters of the SS and the camp guards to the horrible conditions of the prisoner barracks. He describes what happened when Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton and Finley visited Ohrdruf, accompanied by reporters. His unit was ordered to bring the townspeople and the mayor and his wife to the camp. Mr. McCool explains why these residents had to know the camp existed despite their denials. After 2 ½ days in the camp, his unit left to capture the town of Arnstad. From the end of World War II to June 1946, he was on occupation duty, mostly transporting Displaced Persons back to their home country. He also served as a guard during the Nuremberg Trials, and describes the proceedings. He was discharged June 10, 1946, with the rank of sergeant.

Mr. McCool talks about his post-war life, his marriage and his family. He discusses that he started to talk about these events only after his granddaughter asked him to speak to her class. He reflects on how his service in World War II has shaped his beliefs and his values and explains that seeing Ohrdruf has affected him more than any other event in his life. He returned to Germany in 1976 and describes his reactions.

Note: Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library:

“The Liberation of Ohrdruf,” including personal accounts contributed by Mr. Mc Cool. (This was obtained during an interview with William McCool, on November 10, 2002)

Interviewee: McCOOL, William Date: October 17, 2002

Rabbi Relles born in Skala, Poland June 2, 1908 lived in Italy from 1933 to 1944. He studied at a university and a rabbinical college. He explains how he managed to remain in Italy as a student. He describes Mussolini’s treatment of Jews and his changing attitude towards Hitler. Even after anti-Jewish laws were passed in1938, and his arrest and brief internment in June 1940 first in Campagna, then in Ferramonti, he was treated extremely well by the Italians.

In December 1943, after police warned Jews they would be arrested, Rabbi Relles tried to flee. He was arrested near the Swiss border and detained first at a Questara in Como, then at a barracks in Camerlata in Northern Italy.

He describes his escape to Milan, stays at various safe houses, and living in a rest home under a false name, using papers giving him a new identity, helped by individual Italians, nuns and a committee that worked to rescue Jews. He explains how he survived and gives a very detailed account of his escape to Switzerland in April 1944 - when he was brought to Como from Milan as part of a group rescue organized by a Mrs. Comelli. He cites many instances of help by non-Jews and kind treatment from Italians during this period. He arrived in the United States from Switzerland November 8, 1951.

Interviewee: RELLES, Rabbi Mayer Date: June 27, 1983

Luba Kozusman Margulies, born in Novogrod, Poland in 1915, was raised in Ostrog after her parents were killed in a pogrom. She talks about her family history; her life and education in both Ostrog and Lemberg (L’vov), where she studied to become a midwife, and experienced antisemitism, including a violent encounter with Polish members of the Hitler Jugend.

She describes life in Tarnopol - where she moved after her marriage in 1940 - under both Russian and German occupation, when the killing of Jews started in 1941. She describes mass murders of Jews by both Germans and Ukrainians, roundups of Jews, especially rabbis, and her work in hospitals in Tarnopol and later the ghetto. She gives a detailed description of life in the ghetto, which existed for less than a year and was liquidated in 1942, including surviving, attempts by Jews to construct escape bunkers, activities of the Judenrat, and forced labor. Luba and her husband were in a forced labor group that worked outside of the ghetto.

She relates several episodes of preparing hiding places, hiding in sewers with other survivors, repeated attempts by Germans to flush out and kill Jews by various means. Luba and her husband escaped, were caught and put into a labor camp. She believes that Untersturmführer Rokita, the head of this labor camp, ordered the massacre of these Jews. Luba graphically describes their escape from the labor camp, hiding in a hole in the ground and in the home of a non-Jewish man for weeks, scavenging for food, being hunted by Germans, and instances of help by non-Jews.

After liberation by advancing Russian soldiers March 24, 1944, they fled to escape conscription. They lived briefly in Tarnopol, in Brzezany with other survivors, and in Walbrzech in the home of a German-Christian family. Luba and her family went to a Displaced persons camp in Wetzlar, near Stuttgart, Germany. She came to the United States with her husband and two daughters in October, 1949. The interview concludes with several sad vignettes about the fate of some children in the ghetto who were taken from their parents and also includes a poem written by Luba’s husband, in Yiddish and English.

Interviewee: MARGULIES, Luba Kozusman Date: October 20, 1981

Philip G. Solomon served in the United States Army, in the 101st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron Mechanized, which liberated the Landsberg concentration camp on April 28, 1945. He describes his unit’s arrival in Germany in February/March 1945, emphasizing their military mission and their lack of knowledge of concentration camps or the scale of mass murder. His first indication of Nazi horrors occurred after crossing the Rhine, heading east, when his unit captured small towns, liberating displaced persons from forced labor camps (mostly Eastern Europeans). His second indication came when liberating several prisoner of war camps. He details the ominous experience of finding sealed railroad cars on a siding filled with dead concentration camp victims. On April 28, 1945, his unit stopped near the city Landsberg, waiting for a bridge to be repaired and unaware of the camp 1000 yards away. A shift in the wind eventually alerted them to the smell, and sight of smoke from the camp where retreating S.S. had just massacred the inmates. The unit found about 20 starving and ill survivors. He details the conditions of the camp and his feelings upon seeing the massive piles of bodies, hangings and other atrocities. The unit had no food or medical supplies and could only radio for help. They were commanded to leave Landsberg after 20 minutes in order to seize and hold a causeway near Munich.

He describes in detail the reactions of prisoners to liberation, the response of the young soldiers to the dual experience of witnessing the atrocities in the midst of war, and his own complex and gradually evolving psychological reaction to this experience. He stresses his concern about ongoing genocides since World War II. And he affirms his faith and pride in his Jewish heritage.

Gerald Adler, born June 27, 1925 in Elmshorn, Germany, grew up in a middle-class Orthodox Jewish family. They moved to Berlin where he attended school until 1938. His father lost his job after Hitler came to power. Gerald talks about the effects of the Nuremberg laws on German Jews. During Kristallnacht his father was arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen. He was released after two months when his wife secured passage to Trinidad.

Gerald worked on Hakhsharah farms near Hamburg from 1939 to 1941, when he rejoined his family in Berlin. He briefly mentions an aktionin Berlin in 1942 in which all the Jews were arrested at their work places. He explains how he was allowed to go home that night for some unknown reason.

In 1943, after immigration to Trinidad was stopped, the family was deported to Theresienstadt. He credits his father’s record as a decorated World War I veteran for saving them from deportation to Poland. In August of 1943, Gerald was sent back to Wulkow, Germany in a labor detachment building barracks. He describes the increased brutality shown by the SS as the war was coming to a close and describes one incident of humanity shown to him by a lower-ranking officer when he injured his foot.

He discusses his belief in the power of prayer and tells the story of how he and several other workers tried to figure out when Rosh Hashanah would be in order to observe Yom Kippur. On the day they observed Yom Kippur, they received an astonishing and unusually large lunch, which he kept until the evening. When he returned to the barracks prisoners were checked for food, but incredibly he was skipped and enjoyed his large portion of lunch as well as a dinner they received. He returned to Theresienstadt in January 1945 where he was liberated on May 11, 1945. He emigrated to the United States May 21, 1946.