Oral History Interview with Morris Steiman

Jack Weiss was born September 10, 1915 in a small town near Ungvár (Uzhgorod), Czechoslovakia. His parents had a grocery store. Jack gives a description of pre-war Czechoslovakia and discusses serving in the Czech army prior to 1939. He never experienced antisemitism until his village was occupied by the Hungarians who collaborated with the Germans. He mentions some kindnesses of certain Hungarian police and army, including giving tips about hiding his sister whom he rescued from Slovakia when her husband was taken away. He recalls the later deportation of his parents, sister and her children and his forced labor building streets in work camps in Czechoslovakia and in Lemberg, Poland in 1940/1941. In 1942, a Hungarian officer befriended him and 24 other Jewish boys, helping them escape to join Russian partisans where he survived for 18 months. He describes in detail their fighting in the area near Pinsk. Jack witnessed the slaughter of 200 Jews shot by Ukrainians. Jack recounts that the area where they were fighting was liberated by the Soviets in 1945 and that he and five other young, Jewish men were sent to Moscow to become factory managers. He discusses the poor treatment they received there, housed with Soviet army deserters and repeated interrogations by Soviets about their families and whether they were anti-Communist or Communists. Jack justwanted to go back to his hometown to see if anyone had survived. He worked for months in freezing temperatures on rail lines, until the end of 1945, when he was told he could go home. Jack discusses his difficult journey home to Czechoslovakia weighing 90 pounds, due to dysentery and starvation and barely able to walk. He states that none of the 150 Jewish families remained from his home town. He was eventually reunited with some family members who survived, and he and his sister helped other young Jewish girls returning back to the area with food and housing until they found family members. He describes that about 20 Jewish young men survived of the nearly 20,000 that lived in the area of Uzhgorod having hidden in the area (he was distinguishing these numbers from survivors from the camps). He and his sisters fled to Karlsbad and eventually Prague because Jack didn’t want to live under the Soviets. In 1958, he was married in Israel and then subsequently emigrated to the United States. He shares that he never lost faith in God and instilled the belief and practice of Judaism in his two children. Holocaust Jewish (1933-45) Personal narratives, Jewish, Male World War (1939-1945) Personal Narratives, Jewish, Male Aid from Hungarian soldier Emigration to Israel Emigration to United States Escape from slave labor with aid from Hungarian soldier Resistance Groups – Partisans – Russian Partisans Slave labor – Czechoslovakia Slave labor – Poland, Lemberg (Lvov) Witness to atrocities by Ukrainian soldiers

Klara Leizerowski, nee Felker, was born on October28, 1924 in Chovorow, Poland(in Galicia, near Lemberg). Her father was a merchant. Klara describes pre-war Jewish life: her schooling, Jewish observance, keeping kashrut and the various languages spoken by the Jewish intelligentsia. She describes initially disbelieving stories of German refugees regarding anti-Jewish restrictions. She describes the Soviet occupation and how her “capitalist” family was designated as an enemy of the state and were denied citizenship. Many families were deported to Siberia for this “crime” and she explains how they lived in fear during this period of 1939 -41 and slept away from their home many nights. They were permitted to practice their religion and Klara was able to attend pharmaceutical school during this time by traveling an hour to Lemberg. Klara describes the German invasionin spring of 1941 and the increasing restrictions on Jews. She also describes severalAktions. During one of these, she was hidden with her sisters by a priest and his family for one night. Klara’s parents hid in their basement behind a wall with 10 others. Klara was hidden by a Christian family for two and a half years in Lemberg and other small towns. The rest of her family was shot. During her hiding she was hidden in a wardrobe in a room right next to German soldiers. She describes the stress, lack of food and physical ailments from staying in this wardrobe so many hours at a time. After liberation by the Soviets, she was reunited with one sister who survived and together they went to Katowice to escape both the Germans and the Russians. She was helped by HIAS and the Joint. She was able to go to Switzerland with her uncle's help (Chief Rabbi in Zurich) and lived there for two and a half years. She later moved to Munich in 1946 to marry Rabbi Baruch Leizerowski. They emigrated to the United States in 1952 with their two sons. See also the interview with her husband, Rabbi Baruch Leizerowski.

Samuel Yassi1 was born in Ostrow, Poland on April 28, 1924. He was the oldest of five children in a modestly middle class family. Sam and his family fled to the town of Poprusch [phonetic] when the Germans occupied Poland. When that area came under Soviet occupation all refugees, including the Yassi family were loaded into box cars and relocated to Siberia -a journey of six weeks duration. The Yassi’s were deported even though they had passports.The family settled in an apartment in Siberia. Sam (15 years old) and his parents were put to work in the forest felling trees;the younger siblings were not. He describes his attempt to get an education instead of working, but after hisfather’s death at age 43 from pneumonia shortly after their arrival, Sam had to return to work in order to receive food rations for the family. He describes the difficult living conditions, bitter weather and restrictions under the Soviet government. Eventually the family was allowed to move to the south, to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and Sam tells of this journey on the chaotic Russian trains. He describes the next several years as the family tries to survive: being placed on a cooperative farm where they picked tobacco, being moved once again to the White Mountainsto make room for Russian refugees, moving back to the Tashkent area where thefound work building a factory. The family stayed in this last area for about two years during which time Sam managed to get his younger siblings into a Polish Jewish home for children run by ORT, where they were schooled, clothed and fed. Sam details this period of time tells of the death of his mother and brother. Sam then went to the city of Fergana to seek work. He tells of being sent on a huge canal building project which was very hard labor. Leaving there, he went back to Tashkent without a job. He was caught "speculating" but through his ingenuity and luck was not sent to the coal mines, but ended up first learning to be a shoemaker and then to make salt and he became a salt maker. Sam met his wife, Sylvia in 1946, after the war had ended and were married. They went back to Poland and eventually found his brother and sister. He relates that his brother and sister stayed in Poland and how he and his pregnant wife ultimately made their way to the United States, first being smuggled out of Poland to Austria and then over the Alps to Italy. In Italy they lived in a Displaced Person’s camp where they stayed for three years until they could arrange for the papers to get them to the United States arriving November 21, 1947. Mr. Yassi indicates in his interview that his former name was SholomYashenofsky.

Liza Kessler, nee Rak, was born in the Ukrainian town of Vinnitsa, located on the Polish border between Kiev and Odessa. A center of Jewish learning, it boasted 15 Jewish schools. Liza graduated from a Jewish high school, married and had two children. Liza describes how in July, 1941, after a German bombing raid, Polish Jews fled into her town. She heard reports from them that the Jews were herded into the synagogue and burned. Liza with her two children, and sisters-in-law and their children fled with the ‘echelons’ (transports which carried machinery). They boarded a barge for Central Asia. In November, 1941 they arrived in Georgia. They stayed on a kolkhoz (collective farm) until the Germans came. They then fled further East to Uzbekistan, finally landing in Bukhara where they stayed until the end of the war. Liza describes harsh conditions: food rationing and bitter cold. Liza’s sisters and parents were murdered in mass killings. After World War II Liza went back to Poland with her second husband, a Jewish Polish national. Because it was too much like Russia, they left and were smuggled into the American zone in Austria via Czechoslovakia. Liza and her family stayed in Austria for five years. They were aided by the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). Finally, in 1950, through an aunt in Philadelphia they received papers and were able to enter the United States as part of the quota. Interviewee: KESSLER, Liza Date: January 18, 1983

Roy Allen was an American pilot with the 457th Bomb group, 8th Air Force. He was shot down over France and rescued by the French underground. They gave him a French identity and hid him in Jouy-le-Chatelle and in Paris. After a Belgian girl betrayed him, Roy was captured by the Gestapo on August 1, 1944. Because he carried French papers and had no military identification, he was charged as a spy and not a prisoner of war. He was imprisoned in Fresnes Penitentiary in Parisfor one week and then sent to Buchenwald. Roy mentions the instructions United States pilots were given before each mission and his experiences with the French underground. Roy describes his arrival and processing at Buchenwald, as well as the starvation diet and primitive living conditions. He saw the crematorium at Buchenwald and witnessed the killing of prisoners by injection and by drowning in vats of icewater. He reports that V-2 rockets were manufactured at Buchenwald at that time. A report of his interrogation at the prison in Fresnes established his status as military personnel. Roy was transferred to StalagLuft III at Sagen and treated as a prisoner of war. He contrasts his treatment in Stalag III with conditions in Buchenwald. About a month before the end of the war, he was marched to Moosburg. He was liberated by Patton’s 14th Armored Division. He explains why he feels World War II was justified.