Oral History Interview with Liza Kessler

Rabbi Relles born in Skala, Poland June 2, 1908 lived in Italy from 1933 to 1944. He studied at a university and a rabbinical college. He explains how he managed to remain in Italy as a student. He describes Mussolini’s treatment of Jews and his changing attitude towards Hitler. Even after anti-Jewish laws were passed in1938, and his arrest and brief internment in June 1940 first in Campagna, then in Ferramonti, he was treated extremely well by the Italians.

In December 1943, after police warned Jews they would be arrested, Rabbi Relles tried to flee. He was arrested near the Swiss border and detained first at a Questara in Como, then at a barracks in Camerlata in Northern Italy.

He describes his escape to Milan, stays at various safe houses, and living in a rest home under a false name, using papers giving him a new identity, helped by individual Italians, nuns and a committee that worked to rescue Jews. He explains how he survived and gives a very detailed account of his escape to Switzerland in April 1944 - when he was brought to Como from Milan as part of a group rescue organized by a Mrs. Comelli. He cites many instances of help by non-Jews and kind treatment from Italians during this period. He arrived in the United States from Switzerland November 8, 1951.

Interviewee: RELLES, Rabbi Mayer Date: June 27, 1983

Evelyn Rubin was an only child born in Breslau, Germany, July 1, 1930. Her family was Modern Orthodox and had a wholesale business. She shares her childhood memories of the many things she could no longer do because she was Jewish, once the Nazis came to power. She describes in detail how difficult it was for her family to leave Germany. She describes how Kristallnachtaffected her family. Her father left her with a neighbor and went into hiding in the attic of a Christian landlord. Her father was caught and sent to Buchenwald but released because he earned a medal during World War I.

Evelyn and her parents left for Shanghai on February 13, 1939 on the HakozakiMaro and arrived March 14, 1939. She describes in great detail their life in Shanghai and how her parents established a business. Her family continued to live as Orthodox Jews. Evelyn went to the Shanghai Jewish School. After Pearl Harbor, American and British citizens were interned. Evelyn’s father died in March 1941 and it became very difficult for her mother to make a living. In 1943 all refugees had to move to the Hong Kew Ghetto and food became scarce. Her mother and other refugees managed to cook and improve their surroundings with very little money. The refugees were inoculated against various diseases with vaccines provided by the Japanese. Evelyn mentions that she has a higher opinion of Mr. Ghoya than most people. She explains how her mother found very inventive ways to earn some money and stretch the food they had.

After the war ended, the JOINT and UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) provided food and a community for the refugees. Evelyn came to the United States with her mother in March 1947, on a German Displaced Persons quota, on the SS General Gordon. Evelyn and her mother found a place to live and jobs with aid from the JOINT. Evelyn explains how her life in Shanghai impacted her personal life. She feels she survived for a reason, including passing on her Jewish tradition to her children.

Malvina Gerlich Eisner2 was born in Svidnika, Czechoslovakia, August 24, 1924. Her father was a grocer. She was the second of nine children. All of her siblings and her parents perished. She lived with her grandparents and went to school in Bardéjov.

In 1942 Malvina and three cousins hid to escape the first roundup and transport. Later she hid in the woods and then in her grandparents’ apartment after their deportation. In June 1942 Malvina and her friends were reported to the police, arrested, and taken to Auschwitz and then Birkenau where she stayed until October 1944. She describes conditions in Auschwitz-Birkenau, brutal rollcalls, and selections. She worked as part of Kommandos (work groups) removing corpses, delivering food to the sick blocks, and picking up trash. She avoided a selection purely by chance. Malvina got very sick and survived because the other girls fed her and covered for her. She briefly describes Passover observance and a Seder at Auschwitz. She mentions transports arriving from Hungary constantly.

Her group was taken to a camp in Hindenburg, run by the S.S. in the fall of 1944. As the Russian army approached, the inmates were evacuated on foot and in box cars to Bergen-Belsen. She was liberated by the British army on April 15, 1945. She is proud that she and the other girls preserved their humanity. She recites the names of her siblings and close family members who were murdered.

Interviewee: EISNER, Malvina Gerlich Date: April 22, 1985

Myer Adler was born September 2, 1914 in Rudnik, Austria, which became part of Poland after World War I. He gives a vivid description of his pre-war life. From age 14 to 21 he attended several yeshivot in nearby small towns and developed his artistic talent along with religious studies. Gradually he became less religiously observant. In 1938 he worked as a bookkeeper in Krakow after graduation from a private business school. After the German invasion, September 1, 1939 he returned to Rudnik to be with his mother. He witnessed organized and individual brutality by German soldiers and Polish civilians against Jews. Shortly thereafter, Germans forced Myer and other surviving Jews across the San River to Ulanow in Russian territory. He mentions formation of a Jewish militia to protect Jews from local Poles. Local Jews helped the refugees.

Myer spent the next six years in Russia and describes his experiences in great detail. He lived in Grodek until summer of 1940, hiding in the woods with other young men to avoid being sent to the coal mines. After he gave himself up he was deported to Siberia with his family and others who refused Russian citizenship. He lived in Sinuga and Bodaybo (Siberian villages) until 1944, when he was shipped to the territory of Engelstown to work in a government owned farm (sovkhoz).

A detailed picture emerges of his coping skills in various jobs: laborer, stevedore and farm worker, as well as descriptions of living conditions, black markets, relations with Russian bureaucrats, behavior of Russian exiles towards Jews, and attempts to practice the Jewish religion. He married in September 1945. He was repatriated in Poland in April 1946, and he and his wife went to Krakow. He mentions continued antisemitism and violence by local Poles, and help from the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

In August 1946 Myer and his pregnant wife were smuggled into Czechoslovakia, through Austria and to a transit camp in Vienna, helped by the Haganah, then to Germany. He gives an extensive description of life in the displaced persons camp in Ulm Germany where he stayed for 3 years, supported by UNRRA (United Nations Relief Rehabilitation Association). He mentions Bleidorn a displaced persons camp for children, also in Ulm, where he located his niece and two nephews. Myer, his wife and two sons emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1949. There are several touching vignettes of his early life in the United States. He describes several instances of help from Jews during his early years in Philadelphia.

Norbert Zeelander was born in Antwerp, Belgium on February 24, 1938. He was the first-born in a middle class family. His family had lived in Holland for hundreds of years but subsequently moved to Belgium for business. As he was two years old in May of 1940 when the family left Belgium, Norbert’s recollections are from what he was told and from photos.

Norbert was told that when the bombing of Belgium began his family,together with his father’s parents, drove south towards France. It took them nine months, moving from farm to farm to stay ahead of the Germans. Norbert learned that his father’s brother killed his family and committed suicide.

Norbert’s familystayed at one farm for one and a half years where his sister was born November 1941. When the Nazis drew near in late 1942 or early 1943, they escaped through Spain to Portugal. Norbert describes the train ride with German soldiers on the train and that his parents, who had false papers, were helped by a network of people including the stationmaster. He also believes that the Dutch Red Cross was involved in their escape from France, through Spain and Portugal, where they boarded a ship to the West Indies.The family stayed in a large refugee camp with other Dutch people. Eventually they went to Curacao, a Dutch island.

After the war, the family came to the U.S. but because they had entered illegally they had to return to Belgium for two years to await their quota, where Norbert recalls much antisemitism. In 1948 the family returned to the U.S.

Norbert expresses theimpact of psychological characteristics that he feels are related to his family’s experiences with which he still struggles: developing into a loner (since he was without any playmates while in hiding), nightmares in which he is always running, being angry and quick tempered as an adolescent, especially when faced with antisemitism. He describes how he coped with these emotions by keeping very busy and working long hours to which he attributes his later success in business. Norbert explains that because he was never in a camp or a ghetto he never considered himself a "survivor" until the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia. See also the interview with his father, Theodore Zeelander from 1985.