Oral History Interview with Philip G. Solomon

Stephen Lerman, the youngest of seven children, was born on September 15, 1927, to an orthodoxfamily in a small, predominately Jewish town, Zambrow, Poland. He also states that his mother was quite traditional, but that his father less so later in life. He describes pre-war Zambrowincluding his schooling, Zionist youth groups, and antisemitism. He shares his very vivid childhood memory of his first experience with a Nazi soldier in 1939 before the Russian occupation. He describes a relatively normal life under Soviet rule until 1941.

Stephen describes the marked difference when the Germans came in in 1941 and details an actionwhen Jews were told to gather at the marketplace. Stephen describes telling his parents he was going to defy the order and run away. His older brother and parents went and were killed outside of town and buried in a mass grave with hundreds of other Jews. The Germans then made a ghetto of the remaining Jews in the town. Stephen describes the conditions in the ghetto and also describes sneaking out to work for a Pole who was his father’s business associate who fed him a little bit.

Toward the end of 1942 the ghetto was liquidated and Stephen describes the deportation in cattle cars to Auschwitz, journey, arrival, and his selection to a non-work group. Due to his quick thinking, he jumped off the truck and snuck into the group slated for work. He became a prisoner of Birkenau from December 1942 until mid-year 1943.Though he was 14, he had a very young appearance and describes several instances when people protected him and helped him to survive. He describes an SS officer in charge of the dynamite commando who snuck him extra food and brought him medicine when he was sick. This officer even helped Stephen not get selected for the crematorium by talking to his friend who was in charge of selections.

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.

Sara Melmedwas born March 12, 1921 in Krasnik, Poland. Her middle-classHasidic family was active in the local kehillah. Despite some antisemitic harassment from Volksdeutscheneighbors, she had a happy childhood and completedgymnasium.

In September, 1939, German occupation of Krasnik led to a terrifying ransacking of her home. She was smuggled to Kovelfor safety before her parents were taken to Belzec. She believes they were killed at Treblinka. Sara moved eastward to a Russian labor camp near Arkhangelsk. In 1940, she reached Kharkov, where she received a Russian passport and a medical school scholarship.

German bombing in 1941 forced evacuation to Omsk, where she was hospitalized with epilepsy. Unable to finish medical school, she entered nursing school and worked as a nurse during succeeding years. She married a Polish Jew in 1943, gave birth to a son in 1945 and spent four years in Displaced Persons camps Lager Lechte and Ainring where her daughter was born.

She describes a five-week repatriation transport back to Poland in 1946, with hundreds of Jews and mentions pogroms by the Polish National Army. Her family continued westward with a Zionist group and emigrated to the United States in 1950, with help from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Vera Otelsberg, nee Neuman, a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, was born to a wealthy family in l924 in Bielitz (Bielsko-Biala), Poland. Her father was an industrialist who owned several factories and a mill. Her mother died when she was a young child and she was brought up by a nanny. The family was not religious, attended synagogue only on High Holidays. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, she escaped to Warsaw with her older sister, her husband and child and nanny. Her sister with family were able to buy visas to South America and left in l940 while Vera stayed in the Warsaw with her nanny and brother-in-law’s parents.

Vera explains how they were forced into the ghetto and gives a detailed description about how she was able to get money through a relative on the Aryan side of Warsaw and describes the scarcity of food, illness, forced labor and dangers of living in the Warsaw Ghetto including a time when they had to hide from German soldiers in an attic. She describes the long hours working at the Toebbens Factory, sometimes days at a time, without being allowed home. She describes several instances of help from Poles and Germans.Mr. Wagenfeld brought money into the ghetto to Vera when her relative could not get in and also arranged to help her escape from the ghetto in the summer of 1942. A non-Jewish acquaintance of hers got her an Arbeitskarte, a work card, testifying that she worked in his office.She describes in detail living on the outside on false papers, working as a maid in a German household and later, in a village, listening to the radio illegally and translating the reports into Polish for an underground paper. She also describes how her friend Steffi was assisted by a German soldier to escape the ghetto and how family friends secured false papers for her, as well as other evidence regarding the workings of procuring false papers and how one lived as a non-Jew on the outside of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Vera describes life in Sochaczew before and during the retreat of the Germans and the killing of German soldiers by the advancing Russians. When Bielitz was liberated, she returned home with help from Russian Jewish officers. Her father had perished in Lemberg, her nanny in a death camp.Eventually Vera married, had a daughter and in l957 moved to Monte Video, Uruguay.

Alex Krasheninnikow was born in Kiev, USSR in 1934. He knew that his father, a scientist, and his mother, an artist, were Jews but he had no religious education. He recalls a happy childhood with his parents in a large collective apartment shared with four Soviet families.

After the German invasion in 1941, his family was hidden in the attic of Vassily and Ina Baranovski in Darnitsa, near Kiev. Gold jewelry was exchanged for food and shelter until November 1943 when their hideout was discovered and their protectors were shot. Alex and his parents were sent by freight car to Brätz concentration camp near Schwiebus. Watchtbandguards beat them with clubs and separated men from women. Food shortages, cold barracks and arduous road building are mentioned, and the daily gymnastic regime of forced running for hours is detailed.

The Russian Army liberated the camp in January 1945 and the reunited Krasheninnikow family returned to Kiev. In July 1950, they moved to Munich illegally. In December 1950, they emigrated to Philadelphia, where Alex became a court interpreter. He refers to accounts in Russian publications that number the Babi Yar killings during 1941 – 1943 with various figures, from 30,000 to 100,000.

Nadia Frey, nee Tomaszek, a Catholic, was born October 8, 1916 and lived in Sambor, at that time in the Polish part of Ukraine. She decided to help Jews when the German Aktions began. She describes in great detail what she did, how she managed to do it, and why she decided to get involved when she was only 22 years old. She was arrested once. Nadia also witnessed atrocities committed by Russians and Germans against Jews and Ukrainians.

Nadia hid her future husband, Dolek, and his extended family in her small house, with no running water or electricity. At first, she housed his family only when it was dangerous in the ghetto, until it was safe to return. She explains how the families she hid managed to get in and out of the ghetto whenever they were in danger. After the ghetto was liquidated, she sheltered them continuously for one and a half years. At great risk and with her father’s help, she managed to get enough food and wood. Water for drinking and personal hygiene were a problem as were suspicious neighbors. Seven people lived in a hole below the house. Many times Nadia was afraid that the Jews she hid would be discovered, but was ready to die with Dolek, her future husband.

After the war, Nadia and Dolek went to Breslau (Wroclaw), Poland and were married in a civil ceremony. They had a Jewish wedding after they came to the United States in 1945 or ’46 from a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany. Her children were raised as Jews. She told them her story once they were old enough and explains their reaction. She also mentions how the Ukrainians’ feelings toward those who sheltered Jews changed from hatred to pride after the war.

Ida Firestone, née Hoffman, born February 19, 1929, in Pont-a-Moussou, France, attended public schools and studied music privately, aspiring to be a concert pianist. In 1942, her father was falsely accused of being a Communist and was sent to Drancy concentration camp. He was later released.

In March, 1944, Ida and her family went into hiding. They were sheltered by a teacher, a grocer, a baker, a prostitute and several farmers. Separated from her family, she posed as an orphan, working for a farmer’s wife who treated her cruelly.

Ida hid in forests and in a barn, sleeping with animals and stealing food to survive. Before liberation by the Americans in December, 1944, she found protection on the Gouy family farm. She had lost 25 pounds and suffered with stomach problems which persisted throughout her life.

Reunited with her family in 1945, Ida resumed her music studies and graduated from a conservatory. In 1948, she and her family emigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where she married Herman Firestone in 1949. She became a piano teacher and a Holocaust speaker in schools and synagogues.

YadVashem has recognized as Righteous Among the Nations Victor and CecilleHergott, Germaine Bour, Lucien Louyot, Emile and GenvièveThouvenin and Victor and Marie (Friboug) Guoy, who protected Ida and her family members.

Poetry and a letter to her mother written by Ida during her wartime wandering is included in this interview.