Oral History Interview with Herbert Lindemeyer

Original
Transcript
English
About this item

Title

Oral History Interview with Herbert Lindemeyer

Date

December 6, 1983

Contributor

Interviewee:
Herbert Lindemeyer
Interviewer:
Eileen Steinberg

Summary

Herbert Lindemeyer was born in Minden, Germany in 1922. His father owned a pharmacy. He describes antisemitism after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933 and briefly mentions the boycott of Jew‌ish stores in April 1933 and the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. He describes his parents’ discussions of whether to emigrate. After Kristallnacht, his father was incarcerated in Buchenwald for a month and his pharmacy confiscated by the Nazis.

Herbert emigrated to England in August 1939 through the help of a British Quaker woman. He describes in detail his internment, with thousands of German and Austrian refugees—in June 1940 on the Isle of Man. In December 1941 he was allowed to leave when he obtained a defense job in Manchester, England. There in January 1944 he married a woman who had traveled to England on the Kindertransport. In October 1945 he joined the American Army for an assignment in Germany as an interpreter and mail censor. One assignment was the tracking of Werner Von Braun. Later he returned to Minden where the new owner of his father’s pharmacy had kept papers which helped Herbert obtain restitution. He emigrated to the United States in 1948.

Save to library
Format
Genre
Subject
Key places
Part of
More details
Publisher:
Gratz College
Length:
00:47:59
Number of Tapes:
1
Language:
English
Identifier:
HOHAGC00312
Rights

none

Copyright date:
2006
Cite this item
Do you have a question or correction for this item?

More Sources Like This

Holocaust Testimony
of
Karessa Foldvary
Oral History Interview with Karessa Foldvary
Karessa Foldvary served as a nurse in the U.S. Army during World War II, in field and evacuation hospitals in France and Germany, from November, 1944 until spring, 1945. On May 2, 1945, she moved with the American 7th Army to Dachau Concentration camp, several days after liberation. She describes the emaciation of the thousands of living male prisoners and the dead bodies of women and children piled outside the crematorium. She mentions a typhus epidemic and the use of DDT powder on prisoners. Details of conditions in the boxcars that transported prisoners from Auschwitz to Dachau are related. She mentions loss of American property resulting from thievery by demented prisoners, and describes viewing and photographing 16 wagonloads of dead bodies. Neighboring German farmers were forced by the American military to load and drive the wagons into München (Munich) to show the local population what occurred at Dachau. She mentions hostility from some Germans in Limburg and relations with others in that city, with whom American nurses bartered soap and cigarettes for laundry service.
Holocaust Testimony
of
Aaron Kuptsow
Oral History Interview with Aaron Kuptsow
Aaron Kuptsow talks about his experiences as a radar navigation bombardier, 15th Air Force during World War II, especially his instructions in the event of capture, both as a Jew and as a radar operator. He describes his capture, together with other crew members, after their plane was shot down near Hanover, Germany, on November 26, 1944, as well as a forced march to a Luftwaffe station at Detmold, then to an interrogation station at Wetzlar, near Frankfurt, Germany. There he experienced intensive questioning about Radar; solitary confinement, and an act of kindness by a German guard. He was transferred to STALAG I, a prison camp for air force officers, at Barth on the Baltic. He talks about conditions in the camp, the other prisoners, and different treatment by the Germansof officers and enlisted men who were prisoners of war. One day all the Jewish prisoners were put into a separate barracks in a secluded section of the camp. He explains how the prisoners organized their barracks and relied on Red Cross parcels for food. In fact, food was their main topic of conversation. News from the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) was distributed throughout the camp clandestinely every day. Although they were allowed to send and receive mail, none of the prisoners’ mail was ever sent out. The American prisoners took over the camp on April 30, 1945. He vividly describes the arrival of Russian troops on horseback accompanied by accordion music, and their behavior while in the STALAG. The Americans were flown to camps for liberated prisoners of war near Lyon, France. He describes some delays during his discharge from the service and how he entered medical school. Dr. Kuptsow again reflects on conditions at the camp and how being a prisoner of war affected him.
Holocaust Testimony
of
Margaret Beer
Oral History Interview with Margaret Beer
Margaret Beer, nee Weiss, was born January 9, 1911 in Sighet, Hungary. She details the swift transfer of all the Jews of Sighet in the first month of the German invasion, describing howS.S. troops moved into many Jewish homes, including hers during the German occupation, and how Hungarian authorities identified prominent Jews whomthe S.S. forced to form a Jewish Council. The Germans then confiscated Jewish businesses and personal property. Once ghettoized, the Jews were helped by non-Jewish Hungarians who smuggled food into the ghetto. She describes the evacuation of all Jewish patients from the local hospital, the formation of a Jewish police force, the evacuation of the Jews from the ghetto and the transports to Auschwitz. She describes in great detail life in Auschwitz including the initial selection, showers, barracks, Appells, work conditions, food allotment, wash barracks, and her selection by Mengele. In July 1944 she was transported to Gelsenkirchen, Germany to work in the Krupp armament industry. She describes the working conditions and Allied bombings. In September 1944 she was transferred to Sömmerda in Thuringia, Germany to work in another ammunition factory. As the Allies drew close in April 1945, the camp was evacuated; Margaret escaped during the death march and eventually found housing in a German village until liberation at the end of April 1945. She describes help from Russian POW’s and later American liberators. Her skills as a dressmaker helped sustain her until May 1946 when she could join her brother who had been living in Philadelphia.
Holocaust Testimony
of
Marian W. Turzanski
Oral History Interview with Marian W. Turzanski
Marian Turzanski, born January 18, 1934 in Zupanie, Poland, was one of four sons in a Catholic family who owned large forest land. Before 1939, he recalls good relations with the few Jews in his village, one of whom once hid in the Turzanski home. After the German invasion, hostile Ukrainians threatened to kill Marian’s father; a friendly Ukrainian intervened and urged the family to flee. In Hungary, they moved frequently, settling in Keszthely, where Marian attended a school for Polish children. His parents had left their baptismal papers in Poland, to be used by Samuel Goldreich, the Jew they once sheltered. Life in Hungary after German occupation is detailed: terrorization by the Arrow Cross and German soldiers, ghettoization of Jews and Poles, deportation of Jews and Gypsies. Marian’s father was active in the underground, together with Hungarian Jews and other Christians; Marian and his brothers became messengers. He describes in detail the family’s deportation December 31, 1944, to Germany, via Prague and Vienna in sealed cattle cars and the luxury of bedsheets and decent food at the Wilhelmshaven work camp near Berlin. This contrasts with the starkness of the other camps he mentions briefly: Strashof, Bayreuth, Neumarkt. He describes brutal treatment by Ukrainians at Neumarkt. After liberation by Americans in 1945, he lived in Displaced Persons camps at Neumarkt, Hochenfels, Annsbach, Wildflecken, Heilbronn, Ludvigsburg and Bremenhafen. He came to the United States on August 27, 1949 after losing all of his relatives outside of his immediate family.
Holocaust Testimony
of
Nathan Snyder
Oral History Interview with Nathan Snyder
Nathan Snyder was born on May 21, 1926 in Unter Stanestie, Rumania (now Russia). He describes Jewish community life, religious observance, Zionist movements, and his education in cheder and public school including the Gymnasium in Czernowitz. He experienced antisemitism in school, from the Iron Cross movement and during the Coza ritual. He describes the effects of the Russian occupation and the deportation of Jews. He vividly describes how local Ukrainians rounded up Jews, brutally hacked the men and boys to death, and stripped Jewish homes bare as the German army approached. Survivors were forced to march to Czernowitz and herded into a ghetto with Jews from other towns. Nathan describes living conditions, frequent transports to Transnistria, forced labor and some attempts at underground resistance. There are richly detailed vignettes of adolescent experiences including excursions outside the ghetto, passing as a Volksdeutsche, and hazardous encounters with SS. He describes turmoil as the Russians advanced. Rumanian authorities fled and the Germans started killing Jews. His family used material he obtained at great risk before Germans blew up a supply warehouse. After liberation by the Russians Nathan joined a civilian militia formed by Jewish youths to patrol Czernowitz until Russian militia took over. He gives a detailed description of life after the Russian occupation and uses many vignettes to describe his experiences. Nathan served in the Russian army in a demolition squad clearing minefields. His commanding officer was a Jew posing as a Cossack. He vividly describes chaotic conditions near the end of the war, going absent without leave, and hiding for four months. Nathan crossed the border with false papers. In Bucharest he joined Betar served as a Madrich under Yehuda Avriel using a false name. His group helped others to make Aliyah to Palestine illegally. He relates how he avoided capture as a deserter as the Communists gained control. Interviewee: SNYDER, Nathan Date: October 11 and 15, 1984
Holocaust Testimony
of
Margaret Bowman
Oral History Interview with Margaret Bowman
Margaret Bowman, nee Harnik, was born in Dresden, Germany in 1914. Her family had a dry goods store in Dresden and later moved to Hanover where they bought a shoe store. She very briefly talks about her life in Germany and her relationship with German and East European Jews. Margaret experienced no antisemitism until 1937. She immigrated to Peru in 1938, later moved to Bolivia where she met and married her husband. In 1939, with help from HIAS, she got her family out of Germany into Bolivia, but many of her relatives were deported and perished. She describes how Jewish refugees lived and established a sense of community in Bolivia aided by the Hilfsverein, a welfare agency. Margaret and her husband moved to America in 1946 and later managed to get some of her relatives into the United States.