Oral History Interview with Hans Hartenstein

Edith Millman, nee Greifinger, was born in 1924 in Bielsko (Bielitz), Poland. Father was an executive for Standard Oil Co. In 1937 the family moved to Warsaw. She was injured during the bombardment of the city in September 1939 when bombs hit the building in which they lived. She describes persecution of Jews which started immediately after the occupation and the horrendous conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto into which they were forced to move in November 1940. While there, she was able to study in small clandestine groups organized by teachers. She briefly discusses the Judenrat.

She worked at the Schultz factory until the end of 1942 when she escaped from the ghetto. With forged papers received from Gentiles, she passed as an Aryan and worked as a translator for the German railroad. She stole railroad identification cards, food stamps and coal with which she helped others. She describes fear of being discovered and close escapes. Speaking German and pretending to be an ethnic German helped her to throw off blackmailers. She lost many relatives, describes the deaths of several. After liberation by the Russians in August 1944 she studied medicine in Lublin, Poland, and after the war’s end in Marburg/Lahn, Germany, she came to the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY in December 1947 on a B’nai B’rith Hillel scholarship. Her parents arrived in the USA in 1949.

Dr. Norman G. Schneeberg served in the 6th Armoured Division of the United States Army in Southern Germany during World War II. He very briefly describes what he saw at Buchenwald concentration camp two weeks after liberation: the emaciated condition of the survivors, signs prisoners had posted in hospital barracks, and the ovens. Because of language barriers he did not have conversations with the survivors he encountered there. He describes the 20 – 30 survivors that he encountered. He briefly mentions a German citizen who wrote him a letter trying to absolve the German people of guilt.

Alexandra Gorko, nee Paley, was born in Kiev, Russia in 1916. In this follow-up interview she briefly describes conditions in Bergen-Belsen: clothing, food, and her work in an ammunition factory. She reflects on the issue of resistance and her decision to disobey Mengele’s order to inject pregnant women with a gasoline-type substance. She also acknowledges that she refused to cooperate in the act of throwing babies from the windows of the Lodz Ghetto hospital where she was a supervisor and nurse. She refers to her brother’s involvement with a group of 12 men who built a secret radio and dissem‌in‌ated BBC news March 1940 until January 1942 when they were exposed and sent to Chelmno for gassing. In referring to her knowledge of what was transpiring under the Nazis, she discusses the de‌cep‌tion perpetrated by the Nazis as well as the inability of people to believe the reports that circulated even when clothes resembling those of friends and relatives were delivered to the ghetto.

For additional information on Mrs. Gorko's experiences, see the original interview by Eileen Steinberg on August 19, 1985. See also the interview with her husband Anatole Gorko.

Bertram Kornfeld, born in Vienna, Austria in 1925, immigrated to the United States in

1938. In February 1944, he joined the U.S. Army and served in the 423rd Battalion of the 106th Infantry Division. During the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew were captured by German soldiers in Belgium, near Malmedy. They were forced to march with many other prisoners for several days to a railroad, where they were crowded into cattle cars. When the train reached Koblenz, the locked cars were left overnight in a railroad yard where RAF bombers narrowly missed them. They arrived at Stalag 4-B, located between Leipzig and Dresden, in December 1944.

Mr. Kornfeld describes the bitter cold, the callous disregard of sick and dying prisoners during the transport, lack of food and water for two weeks and a limited prison diet thereafter. At his liberation in April 1945, he had lost 50 pounds. Despite his deprivation, he claims that the Germans observed the Geneva Convention in regard to American and British prisoners, but brutally mistreated the Russians. He depicts the Russian liberators of his camp as drunken Cossacks who slaughtered the remaining Germans, but befriended the prisoners by baking bread for them.

When Mr. Kornfeld and some friends fled and met American soldiers in Leipzig, they were given rich food, which sickened them and required a brief hospitalization. He returned to the

United States and was discharged in December 1945.

Rebecca writes to her sister-in-law Maria about the health and future plans of family and friends, the newest literature, and progress in transportation. She also mentions her nephew's excitement about the visit of Maria's children.

Moshe Moskowitz was born in 1922 in Lespitz-Baya, Romania to a merchant family that was traditional but not deeply religious. He studied in a Jewish school, then in a vocational school. He planned to go to Palestine, joined a Zionist youth group and worked in an agricultural community. After the German occupation, Jews were transferred from the villages to the large cities, and many were sent to forced labor camps. His Zionist youth group became active in the resistance. Moshe took on Aryan identity, as did others who had contact with Zionist emissaries in Constantinople and Switzerland. Emissaries from England and the U.S. often attended the resistance meetings. The diplomatic courier who carried letters from the resistance betrayed them, and those who were arrested were sent to camps in Transnistria.

Moshe and his group smuggled children out of camps, gave them false identities, and set up cultural activities until they could be processed to go to Palestine on illegal immigration on ships. In 1944, British-trained parachutists from Palestine landed in Romania and Moshe’s Zionist group was among those who gave them identity papers, living quarters and maps to help them reach Bucharest. They also helped German, American and English prisoners-of- war in Brasov with money, clothing and medicine. After liberation, they rushed to the American and British zones to take Jewish prisoners out of the range of German bombings. Moshe was in charge of the funds through the Landsmanshuteyfor such operations. Groups who were involved in saving children maintained connections in Israel. Moshe emigrated to Israel post-war.