Oral History Interview with Myra Davis
Title
Date
Contributor
Summary
Myra Davis, nee Miki Heller, was born July 12, 1936 in Kovno, Lithuania, the only child in an affluent Jewish family. Her parents were Franz and Fanny Heller. After the Russian invasion in 1940, her family was forced to move from their large home to much smaller quarters. In 1940, they immigrated to Japan with transit visas and visas for Curacao, which were not used. Instead, they went to Shanghai, in 1941, after a year in Kobe, Japan, where Myra attended a French Catholic school.
In the French quarter of Shanghai, they lived comfortably until the Japanese occupation forced them into the Hongkew Ghetto. Her father, despondent about their impoverishment, committed suicide. When the war ended, her mother worked for the American Army and met a Jewish colonel, David Bare (phonetic), whom she married in 1947. The family lived in Beijing, China, Linz, Austria and South Carolina, United States. Myra became a translator for the American government, married Arnold Davis and they live with their two children in Boca Raton, Florida.
Recorded at the Rickshaw Reunion - a meeting in October 1999 at the Holiday Inn in Philadelphia of refugees who found refuge in Shanghai during World War II.
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Raoul Harmelin
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Note: Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library are photocopies of these German documents:
Certificate for Raoul
Harmelin
that he can walk in the street unaccompanied by an Aryan.
The same document for his father, Dr. Elkan
Harmelin
.
Work I.D. Card for Raoul
Harmelin
.
I.D. Card for Regina
Harmelin
, his mother.
Tags with letter "R" which indicated that Raoul
Harmelin
and his parents were assigned to a work detail.
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Stephen Lerman
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Stephen describes a very brief stay in Oranienburg in 1943, a forced march to Sachsenhausen and deportation to the labor camp, Landsberg, a subcamp of Dachau. He describes the treacherous work at Landsbergand how he volunteered for a carpenter position and again was given extra food by his foreman. He was able to stay on this assignment for six months. Stephen describes then end of the war when they were again forced on a march. Eventually as German soldiers started fleeing, the prisoners found themselves hiding for cover in a forest as the American army approached. They were liberated in May 1945. Stephen briefly stayed at Buchberg [phonetic] and then made his way to Munich where he was helped by UNRRA. He eventually made contact with an uncle from Philadelphia who helped him emigrate to the United States August 27, 1949.
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Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.
Rebecca updates her friend Maria on her sister's health and tells of the tragic death of an acquaintance.