Oral History Interview with Helmut Frank

In this second interview, Ephraim Glaser discusses his experiences after his escape from labor camp in more depth. While posing as a gentile Hungarian, Ephraim joined an Austrian supply unit stationed near the Russian lines in August 1944. He did this hoping to escape across the Russian border. He mentions several painful or risky episodes involving Jews, while working as an interpreter for the German captain. He mentions the attitude of some Hungarians towards Germany and the soldiers’ reactions to being under constant attack.

Ephraim recounts how he found out that the Gestapo suspected him of being a Bolshevik. Under false pretenses, he persuaded a Hungarian Baron to hide him and two other Jewish men who also posed as Germans. When he left his hiding place, Russian soldiers were in control of the area. He had several potentially dangerous encounters with Russian soldiers while trying to help some Hungarians. He describes his decision to go home post-war even though a Russian captain-- once he found out that Ephraim was Jewish-- offered him a position as an interpreter.

See also Ephraim’s first interview conducted in 1988.

John Igoe was Assistant Supply Officer of the 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, 42nd Division of the United States 7th Army during World War II. On April 28, 1945, they entered Dachau, Germany, where many people in prison garb were in the streets, after liberation from a nearby camp some hours earlier. One man embraced Mr. Igoe and expressed his gratitude in broken English.

On April 29, Mr. Igoe spoke to a German couple living just outside the Dachau camp who claimed ignorance of prisoners inside. Sights and stench within the camp are described - boxcars filled with corpses who had been shot.

In May 1945, Mr. Igoe and other officers shared a house in Salzburg, whose owners were forced to move upstairs. He describes contacts between the Austrian civilians and his occupation army unit as being friendly. He returned to the United States in December 1945.

Interviewee: IGOE, John Date: October 22, 1990

Arnold Vanderhorst, born in Arnhem, Holland, July 24, 1935, shares his childhood memories of surviving World War II by living in hiding. After his family bakery was sealed by the Nazis, his mother took him to a "strange" family, the Holthuis, with whom he remained throughout the war and liberation. Both his sister and grandmother were also placed with families; however, his parents perished in Auschwitz. The Holthius family had four children, the oldest a member of the Resistance. The father was politically active, having run for mayor of Arnhem. Arnold describes his life with them, being safe, having food and an education throughout the war, and explains that he was secure enough to play with neighborhood children despite the presence of German soldiers nearby. He was tutored by Hilda Presser, wife of photographer Sem Presser. She maintained contact with him when he later entered an orphanage. At one birthday party, photographs of children were taken professionally and turned into a book, which is in a museum in Holland. Arnold describes a brief encounter with his grandmother in the forest, when he and the Holthuis family evacuated the city.

After liberation, Arnold began an odyssey of experiences. In 1945, for reasons of health, he travelled to England, where he lived for six months. He returned to Holland, reuniting with his grandmother and sister. In 1947, the three emigrated to New York via Sweden to live with an uncle who had fled earlier. Arnold explains that after several incidents of Arnold’s misbehavior, his uncle and wife insisted Arnold and his grandmother return to Holland. He describes living in several different locations including two Jewish orphanages (Koningslaan and the AemmalannZeven for boys) and with two different families. He details his schooling experiences.In 1954, at 19, he left the orphanage and took up residence with the Perelkamp family. He describes life with them and attending a technical school until 1956 during which time he describes having difficulty concentrating on his studies because of his loneliness. He describes a close relationship with his social worker who encouraged him to seek the help of HIAS to return to the United States. He describes psychological reactions to his wartime experiences as a young child.

He found work at a brokerage house and eventually completed his education. He married and adopted two boys. In 2004, he returned to Holland for a reunion with friends.

Per Anger, a Swedish diplomat and honored as a Righteous Among the Nations by YadVashem, was assigned to the Swedish Legation in Budapest as Secretary for Trade in late 1942. He briefly refers to growing antisemitism in Hungary. He describes in detail the Legation’s response to Jewish pleas for help when Germany invaded Hungary in March 1944 as well as Raoul Wallenberg’s additional efforts upon his arrival in July 1944, a position resulting from negotiations between the American War Refugee Board, World Jewish Congress and American Embassy in Stockholm. He refers to the many ways in which Sweden was involved in helping Jews in Hungary, and explains why they did this. He discusses his last meeting with Wallenberg just before his disappearance on January 17, 1945 and the terrors of Russian occupation until his and the other diplomats’ return home in April 1945. He describes in detail his attempts to enlist Sweden’s help in finding Wallenberg and accounts of eye-witnesses who had had contact with Wallenberg in Soviet prisons. He suspects the Soviets suspected Wallenberg of being a spy because of his contacts with Iver Olsen of the War Refugee Board. Anger is the author of With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, NY: 1981.

Elizabeth Geggel1, nee Gutmann, was born on August 2, 1921 in Nuremberg, Germany. She was the older of two daughters born to Heinrich and Marie Guttman. She recalls a happy childhood. Thefamily belonged to a liberal synagogue and observed Jewish holidays. Elizabeth’s father a successful merchant, uneasy about the rise of antisemitism expanded the Swiss branch of his business. In 1931 the family left Germany and moved to St. Gallen, Switzerland. Elizabeth details her extended families’ experiences when Hitler came to power in 1933 (some of her uncles and their families moved to Italy and another unclewas sent to Dachau after Kristallnacht,but her father was able to secure his release.)

Elizabeth’s family became Swiss citizens. She relates that there were few Jews in St. Gallen,but she was active in Swiss and Jewish youth groups: scouts and Habonim. In 1939, when her parents decided to immigrate to the United States, they sent her to Englandto learn English and nursing. Her father took ill and she returned to Switzerland where she worked in a Jewish children’s home. He died in December 1939 but she, her mother and sister did come to the United States.

Mrs. Geggel discusses Mr. Sally Mayer, a Swiss businessman who lived in St. Gallen. Somewhat controversial, he was the head of the Jewish community in Switzerland and represented the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee from 1940 to 1945. Mayer was involved in a number of schemes to free Jews from concentration camps. Elizabeth looked on him very favorably and thought him very brave to negotiate face to face with Nazis as he did. She relates her mother’s request to Mayer to get an aunt out of Germany (which was successful) and reads a letter from her father-in-law, David Geggel, sent to the Swiss government thanking them for the hospitality extended to him in 1938 when he stayed in Switzerland for a short time until he could go to the United States. Shedescribes the Swiss refugee campswhich housed Austrian refugees until they could get visas to go elsewhere. Elizabeth remembers that the Swiss Jewish community, herself included, helped them with meals and other services. She believes that the Swiss government was also involved in the effort.

Even though they were in Switzerland, Mrs. Geggel recalls that they still felt at risk, especially with the early successes Germany achieved at the start of the war. Her family left Switzerland in 1941, went to Cuba for a short time and finally emigrated to the United States in January 1942.

Nickname: Lisa.

Jenny Sommer describes her life, education, and Zionist activities in prewar Libau, Latvia in great detail, including some incidents of antisemitism and discrimination. In 1940 conditions for Jews started to get worse. Because her family was upper middle class they lived in fear of the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) and the Russians.

Jenny describes life under the German occupation of Libau in great detail: the execution of all able bodied Jewish men on July 22, 1941; a mass execution of Jews, including her relatives, and how her sister managed to rescue them just before they were to be executed during an Aktion. She witnessed a mass execution of Jews, including her relatives. The Christian superintendent of her uncle’s house hid Jenny and her remaining family in the attic until the round-up of Jews was over. Jenny, her mother and her sister, moved into the ghetto with about 600 other Jews and worked for the Germans as slave laborers. Her sister worked as a nurse in the ghetto. Some Christian Latvians smuggled food to them.

On Yom Kippur night they were taken to Kaiserwald concentration camp, near Riga. Jenny describes their arrival at Kaiserwald, where mothers were forcibly separated from their children. Some women committed suicide. Her sister carried a bottle of cyanide pills. While in Kaiserwald, Jenny did hard labor as part of a Kommando, at a work camp, and later inStutthof. She describes their horrible existence in Stutthof and how she managed to find the will to survive. Her husband worked at Stutthof as an electrician and managed to survive a typhoid epidemic.

As the Russian army approached, the inmates were shipped out of Stutthof on a designated typhoid boat. It was bombed, set on fire and capsized. She was rescued by a German fire boat after ten days without food or water, liberated two days later in Kiel, Germany by English forces. She stayed at a field Lazarett (hospital) in Itzehoe, near Hamburg for six months. She talks about her post-liberation experiences in a German hospital, and finding her husband in Neustadt.