Oral History Interview with Henrich Hofman

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.

Sydney Lesser served in the 639th Automatic Weapons Anti-aircraft Battalion of the United States Army during World War II, in Europe. He arrived at Buchenwald Concentration camp in April 1945, several days after the concentration camp was liberated. Sydney describes what he found there and depicts surviving inmates as "walking skeletons". He describes graphically the excavation of a mass grave--where thousands of Jews were buried-- by German civilians. He relates an anecdote, told to him by his interpreter, about a Jew who intervened when Polish and Russian prisoners brutally beat the Camp Commandant, insisting that the man be kept alive. Sydney Lesser later served as Military Governor in the area. He encountered German civilians who freely admitted some knowledge of atrocities, yet maintained allegiance to Hitler.

Sara Adler, nee Apel, was born in Radom, Poland in 1927. Her family was close-knit, religious, well-to-do and involved in community welfare. They had non-Jewish contacts through their lumber business, but Sara attended Jewish school and had primarily Jewish friends.The family fled Radom in 1939 under Ger‌man bombardment but returned and were put into the Radom Ghetto soon after. Through bribing Polish contacts, her father, her uncle and she were able to live and work in Szydlowiec (Kielce area), a munitions factory outside the ghetto. In late summer 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and the rest of her family was sent to Treblinka. Her father, her uncle and she continued working in the munitions factory until 1944.

With the Russian approach in July 1944 the Germans marched the prisoners 100 miles to Tomaszow under horrible conditions and from there shipped them to Auschwitz. She describes the cattle cars, arrival, selection, unsanitary conditions and Appells. She recounts how she was helped by a fellow inmate. She was sent to work in a string factory in Lichtewerden, Czechoslovakia in the Sudetenland. She describes some of the brutality and also kindnesses of some Germans and others. After the liberation by the Russians, Sara managed to return totally destitute to Radom. Though helped by some Polish locals upon her return, other former Polish friends refused to return the family’s belongings to her. She left with some friends for Stuttgart, Germany, and got married. She emigrated to the United States in January 1949.

Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.

Dr. Paul G. Eglick served in the 508th Parachute Infantry of the 82nd Airborne, U.S. Third Army as a medical officer. Around May 7, 1945 he was ordered to go to Ludwiglust, Mecklenburg, Germany, not knowing he would enter the Wöbbelein concentration camp. He vividly describes piles of victims who had starved to death, the condition of survivors, and the attempt to save them. His unit took care to treat the starving survivors properly and evacuated them, helped by several other medical units. Dr. Eglick explains how deeply entering this camp affected him and the other American soldiers. Local Germans were ordered to bury the dead. He gives his opinion about United States policy concerning the extermination camps and why the United States could have done more to stop the killing. He tells about an encounter with a couple in a mixed marriage who survived in Berlin with the help of non-Jewish neighbors.

Albert Miller was a sergeant in the 303rd Bomb Group, 358th Squadron of the U.S. First Air Force, stationed in England in 1944. On November 21st, serving his 35th mission as radio operator gunman, his B17 bomber was shot down near Frankfurt. Landing at Oberursel, he faced rock-throwing civilians until German soldiers took him to a Luftwaffe prison for interrogation. He refused to divulge military information, despite threatened transfer to the GESTAPO. After 11 days of solitary confinement, he was taken with other prisoners of war in crowded passenger train compartments, to STALAG #4 at Grossye-Tychow [phonetic spelling]. There, as a non-commissioned officer, he did not have to work and could join classes, play ball and write songs for theatricals. A meager camp diet was supplemented by Red Cross packages. About January 10, 1945, the prisoners were transported by freight train to Barth, and he details the indignities of standing with over 50 men in a cattle car for four days and five nights. At STALAG #1, some guards were friendly, others were vicious. Increased hunger led some Prisoners of War to salvage potato peelings from German officers’ garbage. Encouragement came from BBC news received on hidden radios and from a Red Cross visit. After the Russian liberation of the camp on May 1, 1945, Mr. Miller observed the deteriorated condition of survivors emerging from a concentration camp nearby in Barth. He left STALAG #1 on May 13, and returned to the United States on June 20 on the SS General Butner.

Interviewee: MILLER, Albert Date: October 14, 1994