Oral History Interview with Manya Perel

David Buchsbaum was born in Gorlice, Poland on April 20, 1921 to a religious family. He was one of 11 children.. He gives a brief description of pre-war Gorliceand the Jewish community which was 25% of the population, about 3,500 Jews. David’s family owned a grocery store.

David describes the mood change among non-Jewish neighbors in 1938 after Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and describes how they would stand in front of Jewish stores and businesses announcing, "Do not buy from Jews".

In 1939 once the Nazis occupied Gorlice the family was warned by a non-Jewish neighbor to flee, but the family could not afford the certificate to emigrate to Palestine. David details the anti-Jewish measures 1940: Jews had to wear the Yellow star, Jewish businesses were confiscated, synagogues were closed, Jewish" quarters" were created and David’s father was shot to death by a German soldier right before his eyes. David also witnessed the machine gun shooting of entire Jewish families.

In July, 1942 all males from 12-65 were arrested and marched in the streets; some were shot and David, a brother and others were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp. David describes the horrific conditions there: cold, typhus, appells, beatings and the electrified fence. In 1943, as the Russians advanced David and 1,000 other Jews were sent in boxcars to the slave labor camp, Skarzysko. Those who were left behind were either shot in the woods or were gassed in vans and burned. In Skarzysko they made ammunition and David was in in the harshest area, Barrack C. In 1944 David was sent to Buchenwald where all his personal possessions were confiscated, including his tallit and tefillin, which distressed his greatly because he had tried to observe tradition as best he could. As the Russians advanced he was sent to Terezin(Theresienstadt) and was liberated from there on May 8, 1945. David describes that many survivors from Terezin died from overconsumption of food immediately after liberation.

David later returned to Poland to find his relatives but left because of fierce antisemitism and the Kielce pogrom. He traveled to Prague, and was then sent to Salzburg, Austria by the Joint Distribution Committee. The Joint arranged for him to join an uncle in the United States. On June 2, 1949 David arrived in Boston. He and two brothers survived the war.

Nadia Frey, nee Tomaszek, a Catholic, was born October 8, 1916 and lived in Sambor, at that time in the Polish part of Ukraine. She decided to help Jews when the German Aktions began. She describes in great detail what she did, how she managed to do it, and why she decided to get involved when she was only 22 years old. She was arrested once. Nadia also witnessed atrocities committed by Russians and Germans against Jews and Ukrainians.

Nadia hid her future husband, Dolek, and his extended family in her small house, with no running water or electricity. At first, she housed his family only when it was dangerous in the ghetto, until it was safe to return. She explains how the families she hid managed to get in and out of the ghetto whenever they were in danger. After the ghetto was liquidated, she sheltered them continuously for one and a half years. At great risk and with her father’s help, she managed to get enough food and wood. Water for drinking and personal hygiene were a problem as were suspicious neighbors. Seven people lived in a hole below the house. Many times Nadia was afraid that the Jews she hid would be discovered, but was ready to die with Dolek, her future husband.

After the war, Nadia and Dolek went to Breslau (Wroclaw), Poland and were married in a civil ceremony. They had a Jewish wedding after they came to the United States in 1945 or ’46 from a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany. Her children were raised as Jews. She told them her story once they were old enough and explains their reaction. She also mentions how the Ukrainians’ feelings toward those who sheltered Jews changed from hatred to pride after the war.

Rabbi Helmut Frank, born April 15, 1912 in Wiesbaden,Germany, talks about his early interest in Judaism, details pre-war Jewish life including religious education, relations with Gentiles and sporadic antisemitism. He describes education at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin from 1931 to 1937. He also studied at Berlin University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Bonn in 1935. He gives his impression of Leo Baeck and his role in the Reichsvertretung. He explains why many Jews still felt they could survive in Germany.

He was ordained in 1937 and was appointed as a Rabbi in Worms. He provides a history of the synagogue. His vivid, detailed eye-witness account of Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938 includes several vignettes, the burning of his synagogue, damage to his apartment, and lack of reaction by the fire department. He was arrested, along with other Jews. They were compelled to clean the debris in the streets, then transported to Buchenwald. He describes brutality, organization of camp life, lack of medical treatment, effect of incarceration on prisoners’ physical and mental health and religious observance. He mentions Aktion Jews and Jehova’s Witnesses and that Nazis warned released prisoners never to talk about Buchenwald. He worked in a labor squad but was released after his parents got him a visa for China.

Rabbi Frank returned to Worms where he opened a House of Prayer and a school with permission from the German authorities. He describes the extent of the damage in Worms and the continued persecution of the Jewish community. He left for the United States in August, 1939. He discusses the immigration process, postwar conditions in Worms, and restoration of the Worms synagogue in 1961.

LucynaBerkowicz was born in Lwów in 1914, one of five children. Her father was a plumber who served in the Austrian army in WWI. He was also an ardent Zionist. Lucyna became active in leftist movements in her early twenties and became a union organizer and leader in a factory. Lucyna describes the Russian Occupation of Lwów(1939)under the German-Soviet Pact and antisemitism in the Russian and gentile hierarchy. She describes her work experiences, attending university, and her eventual realization that members of Zionist Youth organizations were jailed as political prisoners by the Russians.

Lucyna’shusbandwas killed during the Germanoccupation of Lwów(1941), after he fled(along with many Jewish men) with the Russian army. Lucyna describes many restrictions placed on Jews and how life became perilous. She describes how her sister-in-law was picked up and never heard from again. Lucynawas able to secure false papers with the help of a girlfriend’s gentilehusband.

Lucynaescaped Lwów, with the help of a Jewish man who would be her future husband and more than 20 others who wanted to return to their families in Radom.Lucyna describes the dangerous journey through JudenreinLublin, the aid of a gentile Pole who hid them in his basement until morning and then escorted them to Radom. She eventually came to Wolanów, a small rather primitive town. She and her second husband were married there in March. They worked for the Wehrmacht in the Wolanówlabor camp. She describes witnessing Jews from Radom who were forced to dig their own graves and were shot. At the end of 1943 she and her husband were deported to another labor camp, Starachowice, where she worked in an ammunition factory. It was decided that because she did not look Jewish, she should escape with her false identity papers. She eventually volunteered to work in Germany and because her German was good, worked as an interpreter in a reprocessing business in a small city. As the end of the war approached, she made her way back to Poland, to Radom, and worked for the Polish government as a non-Jew still under her false papers and lived with her husband’s aunt. She saw evidence that Poles killed Jewish partisans in the woods. Around the same time she learned about the pogroms in Kielce. She also reunited with her youngest brother who had returned from Russia and told her the details of how many members of her family had perished. One brother and one sister survived.

Lucyna explains how she got permission to search for her husband in Vienna and used it as excuse to flee Poland with his aunt and two of his nieces. Lucynafound her husband and a brother-in-law in Austria as prisoners in a Polish army camp. They came to Germany to Bergen-Belsen and then eventually made it to a Displaced Persons Camp in Stuttgart. Lucyna suffered a miscarriage during the travels. Lucyna, her husband and her brother emigrated to the United States in 1947.

See also the interview with her husband, Daniel Berkowicz.

Holocaust Jewish 1939 - 1945 - Personal narratives

World War, 1939 - 1945 - Personal narratives, Jewish, female

Atrocities

Displaced Persons Camp -- Stuttgart

Germanoccupation -- Lwów

Hiding – false papers

Jews - Polish

Starachowice - labor camp

Survival skills

Wolanów -labor camp

Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.

Edith Millman, nee Greifinger, was born in 1924 in Bielsko (Bielitz), Poland. Father was an executive for Standard Oil Co. In 1937 the family moved to Warsaw. She was injured during the bombardment of the city in September 1939 when bombs hit the building in which they lived. She describes persecution of Jews which started immediately after the occupation and the horrendous conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto into which they were forced to move in November 1940. While there, she was able to study in small clandestine groups organized by teachers. She briefly discusses the Judenrat.

She worked at the Schultz factory until the end of 1942 when she escaped from the ghetto. With forged papers received from Gentiles, she passed as an Aryan and worked as a translator for the German railroad. She stole railroad identification cards, food stamps and coal with which she helped others. She describes fear of being discovered and close escapes. Speaking German and pretending to be an ethnic German helped her to throw off blackmailers. She lost many relatives, describes the deaths of several. After liberation by the Russians in August 1944 she studied medicine in Lublin, Poland, and after the war’s end in Marburg/Lahn, Germany, she came to the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY in December 1947 on a B’nai B’rith Hillel scholarship. Her parents arrived in the USA in 1949.

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.