Oral History Interview with Isadore Hollander

Henrich Hofman was born July 20, 1922 in Lipecka Polyana, Czechoslovakia. He describes pre-war life,his education, being a member of Shomer Hatzair, and the good relationship his family had with the non-Jews in the area. His father was a carpenter.He describes the Hungarian Occupation, harassment of Jews starting in 1940, including confiscation of stores. He details the horrors in Passover 1941,when his whole town was deported in cattle cars to Rachof (Rachov). He describes the trip, selection, and an intervention by the Budapest Jewish community to prevent the evacuation of Jewish citizens of that area which saved his group. Henrich describes looking out the cattle car through slits at the condemned group and seeing the Germans throwing Jews into trucks as if they were pieces of wood. His part of the transport was then taken to a concentration camp in Rachof. His friend who survived from the other part of the transport told him months later that the Germans murdered the rest of the group in the Dnieper Riverin Kamenets-Podolski.

In October 1943 he details his deportation to and forced labor in Görgenyoroszfalù (Romania, occupied by Hungary) where he helped to build an airfield. In January1944 he volunteered to work elsewhere, was taken to Rákoshegy near Budapest where he worked building German barracks from March through July 1944. He describes the much improved conditions,lots of food, ability to leave on Shabbat to go to Jews in the community before they liquidated the area. Henrich ended up working for a German officer as personal tailor, and describes some kindnesses from some Germans. A German co-worker hid him and a friend in an attic to avoid deportation. He describes how the work of his hands helped him to survive on many occasions.

He was liberated on November 15, 1944 by the Soviet frontline and worked as an interpreter for the Soviet army for 11 months. He was reunited with his sisters in Chust (Khust) in1945, went to Budapest, met and married his wife in October and moved to the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia from 1945–49. They emigrated to Israel in July 1949 and eventually to the United States in 1959.

Frederick A. Walters was a Jewish soldier who served in the 474th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army. He knew about the existence of concentration camps from the Stars and Stripes and Armed Forces Radio Network but did not think he would ever witness them. He entered Buchenwald in April 1945 and describes his shock seeing the corpses and the appalling conditions of approximately 150 surviving prisoners. The regiment was not responsible for the care of the survivors but gave them army rations until food and medical care arrived. He recalls a man giving prisoners money who he believes may have been Edward R. Morrow. He describes the shock of his regiment in witnessing the realities of the camp and states that they had refused to believe published and broadcasted reports.

No official or unofficial meetings were held to discuss reactions and no regimental history documents the experience. Weimar townspeople denied knowledge of camp activities. Later shipped to Norway to deal with surrender of German army units, Mr. Walters found that German soldiers denied knowledge of the camps and did not believe his eyewitness testimony. He found the same disbelief in the U.S. upon his return and states appreciation for this opportunity to bear witness for the first time since the war.

Sophie Roth, née Parille, born in Zloczow, Poland, was one of four children in a religious family. She refers to the German bombing and invasion in 1939, and the killing of doctors and teachers by Germans, aided by Poles and Ukranians. She worked in forced labor camps in Lazczow and Kosice until 1942, when she was shot and lost a leg. A Polish teenager, whom she tutored, travelled to Lemberg to obtain a prosthesis for her.

She describes hiding in a fish barrel and then in a Polish peasant’s stable with her family, in exchange for money, jewelry and the deed to their house. She details near-starvation and suffocating subliminal existence under a manure pile with nine other people. Forced to leave by their sadistic “benefactor”, her family found shelter in an unheated basement of a Polish teacher, Elena Sczychovska, and her husband, who was the local police commandant. Fourteen people were sheltered there during the last year of the war. She mentions the hostility of neighbors when her family returned to their home.

In 1947, she married a Hebrew teacher who lost his religious faith and his entire family. She remained a believer, attributing her survival to God’s miracles. A daughter was born in Paris in 1952 and the family emigrated, aided by HIAS and by Jewish Family Service in Philadelphia. She reads several poems, recalling horrendous Holocaust memories, into the interview.

Interviewee: ROTH, Sophie Date: March 9, 1988

Ernst Presseisen was born July 13, 1928 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. His father was a businessman. He describes the German invasion of Holland and the bombing of Rotterdam in May1940. He details the gradually tightening restrictions imposed by the Germans to isolate the Dutch-Jewish citizens. After roundups of Jewish men started in July 1942, his father - helped by Christian friends who had contact with the underground - planned the family’s escape. His mother’s arrest by Dutch police aborted this plan. The entire family, including his mother, was deported to Westerbork in August 1942 and stayed there until February 1944. He describes life in Westerbork in detail, including his own development of survival skills and how his family managed to remain there instead of being deported to Poland. He briefly mentions Geneker, the commander of Westerbork.

In February 1944 he was deported to Bergen-Belsen with his family. He describes his experiences there in detail, including slave labor assignments and general deterioration of the inmates’ health. Jewish prisoners organized a theatre group “Cabaret Westerbork” in that camp. In the fall of 1944 Ernst got typhus and his oldest brother died of it. He mentions Greek Kapos. At the approach of the British Army, the Germans decided to evacuate the camp in April, 1945. Prisoners who survived the evacuation were liberated by the Russians and ordered to requisition housing in Trebitsch, Germany. Ernst briefly describes survival in Trebitsch. After his parents died of typhus, he was repatriated to the Netherlands by the Red Cross in June 1945. He talks about life in post-war Holland. He emigratedto the United States in October 1946. He settled in California with relatives and taught German history at the university level after getting his degree.

Interviewee: Ernst Leopold Presseisen Date: April 22, 1983

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.

Gerald Adler, born June 27, 1925 in Elmshorn, Germany, grew up in a middle-class Orthodox Jewish family. They moved to Berlin where he attended school until 1938. His father lost his job after Hitler came to power. Gerald talks about the effects of the Nuremberg laws on German Jews. During Kristallnacht his father was arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen. He was released after two months when his wife secured passage to Trinidad.

Gerald worked on Hakhsharah farms near Hamburg from 1939 to 1941, when he rejoined his family in Berlin. He briefly mentions an aktionin Berlin in 1942 in which all the Jews were arrested at their work places. He explains how he was allowed to go home that night for some unknown reason.

In 1943, after immigration to Trinidad was stopped, the family was deported to Theresienstadt. He credits his father’s record as a decorated World War I veteran for saving them from deportation to Poland. In August of 1943, Gerald was sent back to Wulkow, Germany in a labor detachment building barracks. He describes the increased brutality shown by the SS as the war was coming to a close and describes one incident of humanity shown to him by a lower-ranking officer when he injured his foot.

He discusses his belief in the power of prayer and tells the story of how he and several other workers tried to figure out when Rosh Hashanah would be in order to observe Yom Kippur. On the day they observed Yom Kippur, they received an astonishing and unusually large lunch, which he kept until the evening. When he returned to the barracks prisoners were checked for food, but incredibly he was skipped and enjoyed his large portion of lunch as well as a dinner they received. He returned to Theresienstadt in January 1945 where he was liberated on May 11, 1945. He emigrated to the United States May 21, 1946.