Oral History Interview with Herman Krauser

IlseLoeb, née Morgenstern,was born June 17,1925 in Vienna, Austria. Her mother’s maiden name was Froelich. Her father Max was a lithographer who made counterfeit money for the Wehrmacht. She never experienced antisemitism until March 1938, when Germany occupied Austria. Christian friends no longer associated with her and she was forced to transfer to a school for Jewish students. In the summer of 1938 her father’s printing business was confiscated. Ilse was sent to Amsterdam, where the Children’s Committee placed her with foster families, who protected her until 1942. On November 10, 1938, her parents were seized by Austrian Nazis and were killed in adeath camp in Poland. Ilse escaped from a transfer to a concentration camp and went into hiding with the Dutch underground, with whom she lived for three years. She describes the selflessness of Dutch Gentiles who risked their lives to help Jews survive. After the war, Ilse contracted tuberculosis and spent 10 months in a sanatorium. Her brother in the United States and HIAS helped her come to Chicago in June 1947, where she met her husband. They have four children and live in northern New York.

Vera Otelsberg, nee Neuman, a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, was born to a wealthy family in l924 in Bielitz (Bielsko-Biala), Poland. Her father was an industrialist who owned several factories and a mill. Her mother died when she was a young child and she was brought up by a nanny. The family was not religious, attended synagogue only on High Holidays. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, she escaped to Warsaw with her older sister, her husband and child and nanny. Her sister with family were able to buy visas to South America and left in l940 while Vera stayed in the Warsaw with her nanny and brother-in-law’s parents. Vera explains how they were forced into the ghetto and gives a detailed description about how she was able to get money through a relative on the Aryan side of Warsaw and describes the scarcity of food, illness, forced labor and dangers of living in the Warsaw Ghetto including a time when they had to hide from German soldiers in an attic. She describes the long hours working at the Toebbens Factory, sometimes days at a time, without being allowed home. She describes several instances of help from Poles and Germans.Mr. Wagenfeld brought money into the ghetto to Vera when her relative could not get in and also arranged to help her escape from the ghetto in the summer of 1942. A non-Jewish acquaintance of hers got her an Arbeitskarte, a work card, testifying that she worked in his office.She describes in detail living on the outside on false papers, working as a maid in a German household and later, in a village, listening to the radio illegally and translating the reports into Polish for an underground paper. She also describes how her friend Steffi was assisted by a German soldier to escape the ghetto and how family friends secured false papers for her, as well as other evidence regarding the workings of procuring false papers and how one lived as a non-Jew on the outside of the Warsaw Ghetto. Vera describes life in Sochaczew before and during the retreat of the Germans and the killing of German soldiers by the advancing Russians. When Bielitz was liberated, she returned home with help from Russian Jewish officers. Her father had perished in Lemberg, her nanny in a death camp.Eventually Vera married, had a daughter and in l957 moved to Monte Video, Uruguay.

Genya Yetz Kinegal, nee Goldfisher was born December 24, 1925 in Skolne, Poland (Galicia), a small village with 3,000 Jews. The town was occupied by Germans in 1939, then by Russians until 1941. Genya briefly describes the Russian Occupation. When the Germans took over, Genya took on a Polish identity and rented an apartment for a time but eventually was captured by the Germans in the fall of 1942, deported to the Przysucha Ghetto, and then to Plaszow where she did forced labor for a year sewing uniforms. In 1943 she was sent to Skarzysko-Kamienna, in Poland where she worked in a munitions factory making launchers for grenades. In August 1944, she was sent in cattle cars to a women’s camp connected to Buchenwald to work in another munitions factory. All the prisoners in these camps were Jews. Genya describes the daily routine in the camps, hunger, living and working conditions, as well as clandestine attempts to celebrate Jewish holidays. An attempt to save a newborn baby led to dire consequences for all the women in the camp. She explains the “selections” that determined who would live and who would die. The prisoners formed small groups of four or five to support and protect each other. Genya along with the other prisoners were driven out of the Buchenwald satellite camp in March 1945. They wandered about on foot until they encountered American soldiers on May 5, 1945. The Americans provided food, clothing and shelter. Jewish soldiers obtained certificates that enabled survivors to go to Palestine legally. Genya found out that her entire family perished. She explains how what she went through still affects her psychologically and physically, and how much was taken away from her during the Holocaust.

Sarah Schwimmer was born in Irsava, Czechoslovakia on August 19, 1926, one of 15 children in an observant Jewish family. Her father was a blacksmith in a largely Jewish community and supported his family until antisemitic Hungarians confiscated his business in 1939 and those of other family members. Sarah and an older sister went to Budapest where she worked as a seamstress. Her sister, a beautician, tried unsuccessfully to obtain a passport from Wallenberg, but remained underground throughout the war at the Swedish Embassy. Sarah joined Dror, the Zionists underground movement. In September 1944 as the Germans were forcing all Jews into the Budapest Ghetto, Sarah and her sister hid for a short time, but eventually ended up in the ghetto and then got separated. She describes atrocities committed by the Germans soldiers as she and others were forced to dig trenches for Germans and graves for Jews. In September 1944, Sarah was taken with other women on a death march to Hegyeshalom on the German border. Only one third survived for 10 days without food, water or shelter, to be transported by train to Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Burgau and Türkheim. She vividly describes hunger, loss of spirit and forced labor. Yet she had the will to survive. She was liberated by a regiment of black American soldiers on April 28, 1945. She walked with other women through Russian, French and English zones to reach Marseille for passage to Israel.

Alan Spiegel was born August 11, 1903 in Orahovicza, Yugoslavia into a wealthy Zionist family. He details his family history in Hungary including his grandfather being a Second Adjutant during the Hungarian Revolution. Mr. Spiegel studied medicine at Budapest University. He discusses the difficulty for Jewish students to be admitted due tonumerus clausus policy and that he was dismissed in 1920, three months before graduation by a prejudiced faculty. An ardent Zionist, he then worked for the Jewish National Fund while employed in a family business. In 1932, he married Elizabeth Boschan, in Cluj, Romania, where they lived until 1939. In Budapest, he had to serve as a slave laborer under the Hungarians. Mr. Spiegel gives testimony about working with Rezsö Kastner and Joel Brand to exchangethe release of over 1,000 Jews to Switzerland for money in 1944 and how he found out from one of the more humane German officers that their transport was destined for Auschwitz even though they paid. He details how he arranged to bribe other SS to have the transport sent to Bergen-Belsen instead. Two months later, a smaller group of 350 was sent to Switzerland of which he and his family were a part. He discusses how Kastner was condemned in Palestine for his actions. Mr. Spiegel also shares a vignette about how he secured the release of hundreds of Jewish boys and how small meaningful occurrences helped him have the strength to continue his work. He also relates memories about theVizhnitzerRebbe. In 1947, Spiegel emigrated from Switzerland to the United States with his wife and daughter.