Oral History Interview with Milton Harrison

John Igoe was Assistant Supply Officer of the 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, 42nd Division of the United States 7th Army during World War II. On April 28, 1945, they entered Dachau, Germany, where many people in prison garb were in the streets, after liberation from a nearby camp some hours earlier. One man embraced Mr. Igoe and expressed his gratitude in broken English.

On April 29, Mr. Igoe spoke to a German couple living just outside the Dachau camp who claimed ignorance of prisoners inside. Sights and stench within the camp are described - boxcars filled with corpses who had been shot.

In May 1945, Mr. Igoe and other officers shared a house in Salzburg, whose owners were forced to move upstairs. He describes contacts between the Austrian civilians and his occupation army unit as being friendly. He returned to the United States in December 1945.

Interviewee: IGOE, John Date: October 22, 1990

Alex Krasheninnikow was born in Kiev, USSR in 1934. He knew that his father, a scientist, and his mother, an artist, were Jews but he had no religious education. He recalls a happy childhood with his parents in a large collective apartment shared with four Soviet families.

After the German invasion in 1941, his family was hidden in the attic of Vassily and Ina Baranovski in Darnitsa, near Kiev. Gold jewelry was exchanged for food and shelter until November 1943 when their hideout was discovered and their protectors were shot. Alex and his parents were sent by freight car to Brätz concentration camp near Schwiebus. Watchtbandguards beat them with clubs and separated men from women. Food shortages, cold barracks and arduous road building are mentioned, and the daily gymnastic regime of forced running for hours is detailed.

The Russian Army liberated the camp in January 1945 and the reunited Krasheninnikow family returned to Kiev. In July 1950, they moved to Munich illegally. In December 1950, they emigrated to Philadelphia, where Alex became a court interpreter. He refers to accounts in Russian publications that number the Babi Yar killings during 1941 – 1943 with various figures, from 30,000 to 100,000.

Joseph Levy was born on August 22, 1911 in Eschweiler, Germany. Despite antisemitic harassment during childhood, he enjoyed his childhood in public and private Jewish schools and in a Jugendbund youth group.

On January 31, 1933, his father and older brother—warned by a friendly local Nazi leader—fled before storm troopers ransacked their butcher shop in Siegburg. Some Christian employees helped shelter the family at that time and later delivered a ransom for the father’s release from Dachau.

In 1937, Joseph obtained an American visa and joined his siblings in New York City. Their parents followed, aided by the Red Cross and a Jewish organization. They sailed in a fishing boat from Barcelona, with a brief stay in Cuba, before arriving in the United States in December 1941.

Most of this interview narrates the stories of his father in hiding and forced labor and his brother in resistance groups in France and Spain (both of whom had already died at the time of this interview).

D.S. son of a Jewish banker and a Protestant mother, was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928. He stayed in Berlin until 1948. He discusses his family’s history, his education and how their life as Jews changed and became increasingly restricted after 1935. Non-Jewish relatives broke off contact until after the war ended.

He briefly describes Kristallnacht. His father’s business and property were confiscated. D.S. and his father were arrested and detained at Rosenstrasse for one week and saw the Rosenstrasse Action by non-Jewish spouses of the prisoners. His family was forced to move into rooms shared with two other families. After the Jewish schools were closed, D.S. worked for the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland for several months until the entire staff was deported in vans. He was spared because of his non-Jewish mother and believes that this is why his father survived. He became Bar Mitzvah in 1941. D.S. and his father were assigned to a labor camp in Berlin in 1942. D.S. resisted the Germans through sabotage while in the labor unit and as a member of a small resistance group composed of young men from mixed marriages. He describes life during the Battle of Berlin and postwar under Russian occupation.

D.S. completed his education in a German high school. He could no longer endure life in Germany and came to the United States in 1948, helped by HIAS. His parents remained in Germany, but his mother joined him after his father’s death.

D.S. cites personal encounters to prove Germans knew what happened to Jews in the camps as well as a few incidents of help from non-Jews. He talks about his feelings about Germans and his determination to fight antisemitism.

Helene Goodman, formerly Henia Flint, was born in Lodz, Poland in 1913 into an orthodox family. She studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory posing as a non-Jew, and got her diploma in 1935. She briefly describes how the German invasion affected Polish Jews. In 1939 Helene and her family had to move to the Lodz Ghetto. Her father was brutally beaten by the KRIPO (Kriminalpolizei), lost his mind, and later died. She witnessed Polish-German cooperation, and the murder of Jewish orphans in the ghetto.

Helene and her mother were transported to Auschwitz in August 1944, when the ghetto was liquidated. She describes the dehumanizing arrival process. During a “selection” by Dr. Mengele, she was separated from her mother and never saw her again. She is the lone survivor of her family. Helene was forced to play the piano for the camp commander’s birthday party and was stabbed repeatedly when she was too stunned to perform. Her wounds were not treated. A Jewish KAPO put her on a transport to Hainichen (a subcamp of Flossenbürg), near Chemnitz, Germany to save her life.

Helene worked as a slave laborer at Framowerke, an ammunition factory. She describes living and working conditions. The supervisor was Gertrude Becker, an SS woman who was extremely cruel. She describes the effects of near starvation, how she tried to cope, and her acts of sabotage.

Helene describes a Deathmarch at the end of April 1945, guarded by SS officers who took off their uniforms and fled once they arrived at Theresienstadt. She was liberated by the Soviet army May 9, 1945. Soviet women doctors treated the survivors. American soldiers took her to a quarantine camp at Landsberg am Lech where she tried to recover from the physical and emotional after effects of her experiences. She describes her post-war life in Regensburg, Germany after she met and married her husband, Jacob Gottlieb, including a frightening act of antisemitism and Zionist activities.. They lived in Regensburg, Germany until they immigrated to the United States. She concludes with her personal reflections on the Holocaust.

Herbert Broh was born in Berlin, Germany in 1930. He shares his childhood memories of his life in Germany and his family’s journey to Shanghai. Herbert relates several experiences of abusive antisemitism by his friends and his teacher, as well as his impressions of Kristallnacht.

His family left Germany for Shanghai in April of 1939 to join family members already living on Seward Road in the Hongkew section of Shanghai, under Japanese occupation. Herbert was enrolled in the Kadoorie School and later a cheder. He talks about his Jewish education at the cheder and the Yeshiva Katana in great detail, as well as the effect of his growing orthodoxy on his life and his family. He describes his family’s living conditions and life in Shanghai and states he was very happy there. He was only dimly aware that other refugees had a more difficult existence. His father worked for a Chinese factory managed by Japanese; his mother worked as a cook at the Komor Kindergarten.

After Pearl Harbor, his family was evacuated to the Kadoorie School. He mentions interaction between Japanese and refugees. He vividly describes the events during and after the Japanese capitulation and the arrival of Chinese Nationalist and later American troops. He witnessed the departure of the entire Mirrer Yeshiva to Canada in 1946. Herbert and his family went to the United States in 1947. He describes his life in the United States and his feelings about his years in Shanghai. He is now a Cantor in Sun City, California.

Interviewee: BROH, Herbert Date: October 15, 1999