Oral History Interview with Lilly Friedman

Samuel Flor1 was born in Czernowitz, Romania. He talks about experiencing antisemitism, his education, and his career as a composer, musician, and a professor at the university in Czernowitz.

He describes life in Czernowitz first under Russian and then under German occupation. He explains why it was impossible to leave and how he and his wife, Gertrude tried to escape in June, 1941, but failed. He was part of a brutal roundup of Jewish men, and had to bury Jewish men who were machine-gunned to death by Germans near the River Prut. After being tormented by the Germans, the survivors, including Samuel Flor, returned home.

In October, 1941 all Jews had to move into a ghetto until they were deported to the Ukraine under terrible conditions, including periodic whippings by both German and Romanian soldiers. He describes a particularly cruel incident involving Jews from Mogilev, a forced circular death march, and several atrocities committed by Ukrainian peasants. Mr. Flor worked as a slave laborer in a stone quarry in Ladesti on the Bugac and in Tulchin in a hospital.

He relates a chilling vignette in which Sonderführer Fritz von Rohde explains why killing Jews is a service to humanity.

As the Germans retreated Mr. and Mrs. Flor and about 66 other people hid in a hole they had dug previously for more than three days, until March 15, 1944. He describes how the 300 Jewish survivors tried to cope once the Russian army came, and his return to Czernowitz. His apartment had been nationalized so Mr. and Mrs. Flor joined the Czech army. He explains how they got out of Prague, emigrated to Barranquilla, Colombia, (South America) and then to the United States where Mr. Flor continued his musical career.

Dr. Julius Eingorn served with the 79th Infantry Division, U.S. 3rd Army in a special 12 unit dispensary that liberated Ohrdruf, April 1945. There were no survivors. He describes what he saw there, including evidence of primitive cremations, and prisoners marched out of Ohrdruf and killed just before liberation. He mentions General Eisenhower’s orders that all service men had to tour the camp.

In May, 1945 his unit entered an unnamed labor camp near either Weida or Werdau, Germany. He spoke with many of the 150 surviving Jewish Hungarian girls in Yiddish. They all told him that their choice had been either to stay with their mothers and be exterminated or work in the camp. Whoever got sick was killed. He also stopped at a German hospital for Polish and Russian prisoners and discovered that out of 1500 patients only 400 survived. His unit liberated British Prisoners of War. He encountered streams of German refugees fleeing the Russian army and mentions accepting the surrender of whole German divisions. He interviewed many people around Ohrdruf who all felt no guilt and pleaded total ignorance of what happened there. Dr. Eingorn reflects on what he saw during the war and the need for constant vigilance to prevent another Holocaust.

Hanna Seckel1, nee Dubová, born July 22, 1925 in Kolin Czechoslovakia, grew up in Prague in a middle-class, secular family. Her father was a doctor. Hanna describes her early childhood education, getting involved in a Zionist Youth Movement, and the German occupation of Sudetenland including school closings and restrictions imposed on Jews.

In October 1939, when she was 14 years old, she was sent to Denmark as part of a transport of children from HashomerHatzair sponsored by the Danish League of Peace and Freedom. Hanna describes her life and work in Denmark in great detail. She worked at two farms under harsh conditions. One was near Gørløse,the other near Næstved where she had contact with other children from the transport.Through letters from her family she learned about worsening conditions of Jews in Prague. In 1942 her parents wrote that they would be deported to Auschwitz and she attempted suicide. She briefly mentions the Danish underground.

Hanna recalls working as a chambermaid at a Danish boarding school in exchange for her tuition there and also for a family in Næstved after she quit school in 1943. She details her feelings of being an outsider and her financial difficulties. She discusses the fates of some of the other refugee children—some reached Palestine, some were caught, some were sent back to their original countries by Denmark and sent to concentration camps. She also describes her rescue by the Danish underground and the harrowing journey to Sweden hidden in a fishingboat. The Chief Rabbi of Copenhagen, Rabbi Melchior, was part of the group. She details the warm reception by the Swedes and aid from the Red Cross.

Hanna describes her life in Sweden working as a maid for room and board at two different nursing schools inNorrköpingand Södertälje, losing touch with her former friends, receiving ng her nursing certificate and working in an insane asylum.

Hanna returned to Denmark in 1945 because she heard that she was entitled to Danish citizenship which was not true. In Copenhagen she worked in a restitution office for Danish Jews. She returned to Prague in 1946 and lived with relatives whileearning a degree from Charles University, then returned to Denmark on a Nansen Pass in 1947. After a lengthy illness, she went to Sweden and worked in a factory owned by the Nobel family, as a translator. In 1950, she emigrated to the United States under the Czech quota.

Daniel Levey, born April 24, 1925 in Sarajevo, was one of eight children in an impoverished Sephardic family who spoke Ladino at home. His father was a tailor and served in WWI under the Ottoman Empire. Daniel shares his childhood memories of their poverty and pre-war life. They lived in a Muslimneighborhood, where Daniel was assaulted by street gangs. His family attended the Sarajevo Synagogue, in a community of 15,000 Jews, who were forced into a ghetto after the German invasion in 1941. They had to wear an armband with the letter “Z” for Židov, the Croatian word for Jew. He did forced labor briefly in a military work crew, having been assigned to a skilled labor brigade because of his electrician experience. He evaded Nazi registration and stopped wearing his star.

After he escaped from a roundup, he passed as a Muslim with an assumed name of Gerald Levvage [phonetic] and a false ID. He joined partisans fighting Germans and Russian Cossacks near Mostar, which was occupied by Italians. In 1942, he was captured and imprisoned at BokaKotorska. He describes humane treatment by the Italians. He got himself a job on kitchen duty and helped other prisoners by bringing them food. After Italy surrendered in 1943, the prison became a hospital where Daniel worked as a cook until he emigrated to Canada and then to the United States in 1948. He credits the Italians for saving him and other Jews from the brutal Croatian prison guards at Rab concentration camp. All of the Levey family, except for Daniel and one brother, who settled in Israel, perished in German camps.

Rebecca writes to her friend Maria and tells her of the sudden death of a young woman after she broke off her engagement with James Buchanan, the future president.

Hyman Blady was born February 11, 1920 in Warsaw to a middle class Zionist family; he belonged to HaShomer HaTzair. His father owned a shoe store. He discusses pre-war Poland, his education, and antisemitism in Poland.Hyman’s family was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto in 1939. A Christian friend helped him get some supplies out of his family’s shoe store to make shoes in the ghetto. Hyman also gives numerous of examples of Poles smuggling into the ghetto to buy Jewish wares at unreasonably low prices and describes how Jews managed to survive.

He escaped from the ghetto for a time passing as an Aryan, but returned to care for his younger brother when his mother died. Hegives a detailed description of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. After hiding in the ghetto, he and his brother are eventually found and sent to Bobruisk concentration camp for more than a year. Hyman worked as a shoemaker. His very young brother survived because a German soldier took pity on him when he was selected to die and made him his shoe polisher. Hyman worked as a shoemaker in several camps which he describes in detail. He and his brother were deported to Blizyn (for eight months), then Hyman was separated from his brother when he was deported to Plaszow (for six months) where he did saddlework. He describes the relatively improved conditions there.

In 1944, Hymanwas deported to Mauthausen and then theGusen subcamp where he worked underground building a factory for Messerschmidt airplanes for the Germans. He describes the deplorable conditions, selections, and scarcity of food. He details the horrible conditions during a deportation to get deloused in Linz, Austria. Many perished in a sealed cattle car and train cars were bombed by the Allies while there. Hyman describes being sent back to Gusen and then again to Mauthausen from which they were taken on a death march to Gunskirchen where they were scheduled to be killed. Hyman was liberated by Americans May 4 or 5, 1945. He and a group of boys went to a farm not far from Wels. He got ill eating too much food too quickly and was taken to a hospital in Lambach (Austria) for 2 weeks, but insisted on returning to his eight friends. After a time all refugees were forced to a DP camp near Wels. Subsequently, they travelled to Föhrenwald DP camp and he was eventually reunited with his brother who had survived Auschwitz. Hyman married in 1946. After their planned emigration was delayed because of the Exodus, they stayed in Germany, had a son, eventually emigrating to the United States sometime before 1950. Hyman attributes his survival to his sheer will to live and luck.