Oral History Interview with Harry Abrams

Simon Aufschauer was born on February 15, 1915 in Żółkiew, near Lvov (Lemberg) Galicia, Poland. His father died when he was 4 and at age 13 he was apprenticed to a furrier. He described the antisemitism of the Polish and Ukrainian schoolchildren of Lvov when he was growing up. Simon belonged to Betar, a Jewish youth movement, and he and his brother worked to help their widowed mother.

Simon was drafted into the Polish army in 1937 and he fought briefly against the German Army when they invaded Poland in 1939. He was captured and then escaped from a detention camp by putting on civilian clothes. In Lvov, now under the Soviets, Simon, worked as a furrier until being drafted into the Soviet Army with his brother, on June 21, 1941. When his brother was killed by the German Army Simon fled and returned to his mother in Lvov. After the German invasion of Lvov she was sent to Belzec, where she perished. Simon describes the murder of 2,000 Jews from the ghetto in Lemberg in April 1942. Since Simon was a strong worker, he was sent to several slave labor camps: in December 1941 to Janowska, Lemberg; in 1943 to Plaszow, Krakow; in 1944 to Gross Rosen; and finally on May8, 1945, he was liberated by the Soviets from Reichenbach. He described the horrific conditions in these slave labor camps: 12 to 18 hour days of slave labor, sickness, brutalities, crematoria (in Gross Rosen), and digging out dead bodies and burning them in order to erase evidence of the murders (in Plaszow, Krakow,1943). He also described attempts of the Jews to pray and fast for Yom Kippur at these places.

Simon met his wife in a Displaced Persons camp (May 1945) and they were marriedAugust 12, 1945. They were able to come to the United States soon after. He attributed his ability to survive to his experience as a furrier and to his youthful strength. Throughout his testimony is the pervasive recounting of Polish and Ukrainian antisemitism, even after the war.

See also the oral history of Hasia Aufschauer, Mr. Aufschauer’s wife, who was also interviewed for the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive.

Samuel Makower, born January 6, 1922 in Przasnysz, Poland, where he attended a chederand public school. Following the German invasion of September 1, 1939, he fled with his family to Warsaw and then to Bialystok. Under the Russian occupation, they were offered contracts to work in the Ural Mountains. He describes the harsh climatic conditions and the deprivations of wartime, with mention of aid from Russian people, among whom they lived. In 1941, the family moved to Minsk and were trapped one month later when the Germans invaded and established a ghetto. He describes the killings by Germans and Ukrainians. His family survived by creating hiding places under the floor and within a false wall. A 2-year-old niece was sheltered in a Russian orphanage, with the aid of a German soldier. Dr. Makower escaped with his sister and brother-in-law to join Russian partisans who accepted Jews. He details partisan life, obtaining food and ammunition from civilians. They blew up trains and railroads and took some German soldiers as prisoners. He mentions “Uncle Vanya”, the Jewish partisan who sheltered many Jews in the forest. After liberation by the Russian Army, he helped his family who had survived move to Szczecin (Stettin). At the request of a Zionist group, he secured a train to remove 200 Jewish children to Cracow. He entered the University of Berlin and obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry and followed part of his family to Israel. Unable to find employment there, he emigrated to the United States in 1956.

Interviewee: MAKOWER, Samuel Date: August 3, 1988