Oral History Interview with Nahum Meltzer

Kurt Simon was born in Ludenscheid, Germany on April 19, 1922. His father was a cavalry officer in the German army during World War I. Mr. Simon talks about his early childhood. He mentions subtle and not so subtle changes in Germany after Hitler came to power and the impact of the Nuremberg Laws which he discusses briefly. After the earliest attack on Jewish stores on April 1, 1933, his father resigned from his executive position at the Tietzdeparment store and moved his family to Cologne. Kurt was thrown out of his school in 1936 because he was Jewish.

His Jewish grandmother made it possible for the family to leave Germany in June or July 1939. He explains the paperwork and documents needed. The Simons arrived in the United States on October 3, 1940 after a stopover in London, where they had to prove they were not enemy aliens. They settled in Philadelphia with help from the Jewish Family Service.

Laura Oberlender, nee Emmett, was born in Tuszyn, Poland in 1934, where her father had a successful wholesaleflower business. She shares her childhood memories of both Russian occupation in early 1939 and the subsequent German invasion, detailing the brutal beating of her mother by soldiers within days of the German takeover. Laura, too, was injured and was thought to be dead, because she was unable to speakand was temporarily paralyzed. She was five years old.

She recalls that during the first weeks of the occupation, all of the Jewish intellectuals were assembled in the center of the town and shot, one of whom was her uncle. She describes fleeing from the wealthy side of town to avoid being attacked againand also describes the subsequent formation of the Tuszyn Ghetto.

Laura details how she and her parents escaped the ghetto with the aid of Ukrainian gentile friends and were hidden by them in a hole in his barn for 18 months, until the end of the war. Later, in 1944, Laura’s father wanted to give his friend the family’s house, but Pavlo was afraid to have neighbors learn that he had hidden Jews. She also details antisemitic acts of some Ukrainians, especially the Banderovsti,a band of Ukrainian partisans which is known to have committed antisemitic acts and murder Jews.

Laura describes the difficulty of their life after liberation when they returned home and found out that her sister --who had been hidden by a Czech couple-- was eventually murdered by police after being turned in by a friend. She describes life without her father when he was conscripted into the Russian army and was away for more than half a year. When he came home on leave, they immediately fled to Lodz, where they stayed for several months, then to Czechoslovakia, Germany and finallyto Austria with fake Greek passports provided by the Jewish Brigade. In 1945, Laura’s brother was born in Bindermichen Displaced Persons camps in Linz. Laura’s immediate family was able to go to the United States in 1946 in order to join other family members already settled there.