Oral History Interview with Milton Pincus

Liesl Joseph Loeb was born on June 17, 1928 in Rheydt, Rhineland, Germany. Liesl, together with her father, Josef Joseph, an attorney, and her mother, Lilly Salmon Joseph, was a passenger on the S.S. St. Louis. This German luxury Liner sailed on May 13, 1939, from Hamburg toward Havana, Cuba, with 937 Jewish refugees on board.

Liesl speaks about her family background and life leading up to Kristallnacht which she experienced, hiding in her own home while Nazi hoodlums were vandalizing it. She describes the months leading up to embarkation and conditions which had to be met before leaving Germany and immigration into Cuba, which was to be temporary until the family’s quota number was called for the United States.

She describes the trip and its complications from a child’s perspective. She speaks of her father’s sense of duty as the chairman of the passenger committee and the commitment and devotion of all its members. The desperate situation of the hapless passengers to whom no country offered a haven, especially not the United States, is emphasized. After 40 days at sea, the passengers are rescued through the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), by four countries - England, Holland, France, and Belgium.

Finally the Joseph family lands in England, and their life as World War II began is described. The destiny of most of the passengers who were taken in by Holland, France and Belgium ended in tragedy when these countries were invaded by the Nazis.

She describes attending school as an “evacuee”, the internment of her father on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien and arrival in New York on September 10, 1940. She concludes with her graduation from high school, and her immediate marriage thereafter. Several footnotes pursuant to the St. Louis story are added at the end of this memoir.

Self-taped oral memoir: LOEB, Liesl Joseph Date: Nov. 17, 1998

Harvey Shreibman was born March 25, 1925 in Pruzana, Poland. He attended a yeshiva and worked in his father’s leather manufacturing business until Russia occupied Poland. He describes difficult conditions under the Russians, losing the business, harassment of his father for not working because he would not work on Shabbat and less availability of food and commodities. Harvey attended a Russian school where he was indoctrinated with communist beliefs. He describes the German invasion of 1941, when he witnessed airplanes falling from the sky while out with a youth group.

Soon after, his family was forced into the PruzanaGhetto, where Harvey worked as a shoemaker. He describes extremely difficult conditions in the ghetto, relations with the Judenrat and resistance efforts.

On January 28, 1943, the ghetto was evacuated and his family was sent by cattle car to Birkenau. He describes Shabbat observance during the journey. Harvey details vividly their arrival at the camp and his separation from his parents. During the next six weeks, he endured frequent beatings and other forms of torture. He describes his transfer to Auschwitz and describes it as a much better experience than in Birkenau. He worked with the shoemakers, and describes daily beatings from the Kapos. After a year was transferred again to Monowice-Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz, where he worked from before sunrise until late at night unloading freight cars. He mentions the camp orchestra that played as prisoners marched to work. He describes some instances of kindnesses from some non-Jewish inmates and was able to get a better job after finding a cousin in Buna.

In 1945, he was liberated by the American Army, lived in Bavaria post-war and later settled in the United States where he was married in 1953.