Oral History Interview with Paul Kurschner

Aaron Stolzman was born in Dobrzyn, Poland December 28, 1925. His father was a grocer. He was also an officer in the Polish army. He was killed fighting the Germans. Aaron briefly talks about his life before 1939. The local Jewish community and his family took in Polish Jews who were expelled from Germany in 1938. He describes effects of German occupation. In 1939, evicted by their German neighbors whose life they saved before the war, they fled to the Mlawa Ghetto where they stayed for about six months. After witnessing German atrocities, Aaron joined an underground organization in the ghetto. With false papers and a new identity he left the ghetto to work for a Polish farmer and then for the German army, posing as a Pole. He connected with a resistance group that lived in underground bunkers in the forest. In September 1942, Germans destroyed their bunkers. Aaron was taken to Auschwitz where he stayed until 1945. He describes how he and 200 young boys actually built Auschwitz. He also worked on several other Kommandos building ammunition factories and underground transformers. He describes living and working conditions in Auschwitz where most prisoners only survived a week or two. They knew about the gas chambers and crematoria. He vividly describes his escape attempt with the help of a Polish civilian and the terrible punishment the Germans inflicted on him, as well as why escape was impossible. He was put into Block 11 - which few prisoners survived -where he was tortured and interrogated. In 1945 he went on a death march from Auschwitz to Gross-Rosen with prisoners from Buna and Birkenau. He was sent to Dachau by freight train under horrible conditions. The 50% of men who survived the trip were put into a barracks with prisoners who had typhoid. He worked on a Kommando at Mildorf building underground hangars for the German airforce. Aaron explains how he learned to survive. The camp was evacuated by train and after the war ended the Germans tried to murder the prisoners. A Wehrmacht soldier, under direct orders from Heinrich Himmler to shoot them all, stalled the train until the American army arrived. Greek Jews took revenge on the German guards. Aaron describes liberation by the American 3rd Army, its effect on Jewish soldiers, the establishment of Feldafing Displaced Persons camp under orders by General Eisenhower, and post liberation conditions. He mentions attempts by the Polish government to persuade Polish Jews to return. Aaron came to the United States on December 20, 1947 to join his uncle because he had no other family left. Interviewee: STOLZMAN, Aaron Date: April 21, 1985

Born in Wrexen, Germany, in 1919, Fred Stamm was one of four children. Their father was a poor cattle dealer. Fred describes his limited early education in a Jewish school in Warburg and in the local Gymnasium, from 1930 until 1933, when a Nazi decree forced Jewish students out. His two sisters were transferred from Jewish to Catholic school, protected by the nuns. He illustrates the effect of pre-war Nazi influence in Wrexen. His grandmother befriended villagers with clothing and bedding after a disastrous flood, but at her funeral in 1934 her casket was stoned by village youths. Fred served as an apprentice with a cabinet maker until 1938, when he was forced into a Jewish labor unit. During the night of November 9, 1938, strangers broke into the Stamm house, ransacking the ground floor while the family, in bed upstairs, was unmolested. The next morning, Fred and his brother were advised to leave town and ride the railroads for several days. When they returned they found all the males in the town, except their ill father, were taken to a concentration camp. Most of them later returned home. Within the next few months, both brothers left Germany for the United States, sponsored by their cousin, a gynecologist in Philadelphia where Fred quickly found work repairing furniture. In 1942, Fred and his brother served in the United States Army even though they were considered German enemy aliens. He served in the Air Force as an aircraft mechanic, and refused European duty until granted American citizenship. He was sent to China with a fighter squadron to bomb Japanese-occupied territories. Fred returned to Philadelphia, married, raised two children and became a student of Jewish history at Gratz College. See also the testimony of his wife, Ilse Stamm. Interviewee: Fred Stamm Dater: June 1980

This document is an invitation from Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York, for a special event co-hosted with the Georgetown University Alumni Association on April 16, 2009. The event aims to commemorate Jan Karski, a Polish World War II hero and Georgetown professor, known for being the first to inform Allied leaders about the Holocaust. The commemoration includes the official designation of the Madison Avenue and 37 E Street intersection as 'Jan Karski Corner' and a panel discussion titled 'Georgetown Professor Jan Karski: Giving Voice to the Holocaust.' The invitation highlights Karski's role as an underground courier who witnessed the genocide of Jews and informed W. Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt in 1942. It anticipates the presence of Polish government dignitaries, Georgetown alumni, and 'Righteous Among the Nations' from Poland.

Dora Freilich, nee Golubowitz, was born December 25, 1926 in Pruzany, Poland, near Bialystok. She describes pre-war life: schooling, relations with non-Jewish Poles, Jewish community life and youth groups. She talks in great detail about the Russian occupation 1939-41, including expropriation of her family’s business. After the German invasion, her family had to move into the Pruzany Ghetto in June 1941. She describes living conditions, cultural activities, labor units, Judenrat, and contact with Jewish partisans in the ghetto. A non-Jewish ex-employee of her father hid her baby sister but later the family asked him to return the child. Dora describes the evacuation of the ghetto in January 1943, and her family’s transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She witnessed Mengele’s sadistic games with prisoners and was aware of medical experiments, which she describes in great detail. She details sadistic behavior by guards, including shooting her sister for sport. Conditions at Birkernau: slave labor, types of prisoners, orchestra, death process, and relations among inmates are described. She explains how older girls tried to help the younger ones and the coping strategies they used to survive. She describes the sabotage of a crematorium in October 1944 and the public hanging of four girls held responsible. She describes the escape, capture and execution of Mala Zimetbaum. In January 1945 she experienced the final days of the camp and described the death march to and conditions in Ravensbrück. After three months she went to Malchow. Dora and 11 girls escaped into the forest. They were liberated by Russian soldiers May 1945. She describes treatment by Russians, which ranged from kindness to brutality. The girls returned to Pruzany after a three month journey where Dora experienced both antisemitism and help from non-Jews. They went on to Lodz. Their attempt to go to Palestine with Aliyah Bet failed. Dora and her friend, Bess, married two brothers. In 1946 they went to Feldafing, a Displaced Persons camp. She emigrated to the United States in March, 1949. Dora talks about survivor’s guilt and how the Holocaust and the loss of her family still affects both her and her daughter. Her husband, Bernard, and her friend Bess were also interviewed by the Holocaust Oral History Archive staff.

Henrich Hofman was born July 20, 1922 in Lipecka Polyana, Czechoslovakia. He describes pre-war life,his education, being a member of Shomer Hatzair, and the good relationship his family had with the non-Jews in the area. His father was a carpenter.He describes the Hungarian Occupation, harassment of Jews starting in 1940, including confiscation of stores. He details the horrors in Passover 1941,when his whole town was deported in cattle cars to Rachof (Rachov). He describes the trip, selection, and an intervention by the Budapest Jewish community to prevent the evacuation of Jewish citizens of that area which saved his group. Henrich describes looking out the cattle car through slits at the condemned group and seeing the Germans throwing Jews into trucks as if they were pieces of wood. His part of the transport was then taken to a concentration camp in Rachof. His friend who survived from the other part of the transport told him months later that the Germans murdered the rest of the group in the Dnieper Riverin Kamenets-Podolski. In October 1943 he details his deportation to and forced labor in Görgenyoroszfalù (Romania, occupied by Hungary) where he helped to build an airfield. In January1944 he volunteered to work elsewhere, was taken to Rákoshegy near Budapest where he worked building German barracks from March through July 1944. He describes the much improved conditions,lots of food, ability to leave on Shabbat to go to Jews in the community before they liquidated the area. Henrich ended up working for a German officer as personal tailor, and describes some kindnesses from some Germans. A German co-worker hid him and a friend in an attic to avoid deportation. He describes how the work of his hands helped him to survive on many occasions. He was liberated on November 15, 1944 by the Soviet frontline and worked as an interpreter for the Soviet army for 11 months. He was reunited with his sisters in Chust (Khust) in1945, went to Budapest, met and married his wife in October and moved to the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia from 1945–49. They emigrated to Israel in July 1949 and eventually to the United States in 1959.