Oral History Interview with Piera Solender

Judy Freeman, nee Beitscher, was born in Uzhgorod (also known as Ungwar) in the Hungarian part of Czechoslovakia, March 2, 1929. Her father was a baker and she was educated in public school. She describes changes in Jewish life after the German occupation in August 1944. Jews were herded into two temporary ghettos and then transported to Auschwitz in cattle cars. During a selection by Dr. Mengele, she was separated from her family, processed, and taken to Jewish Lager C in Birkenau with 1000 young Jewish girls. She vividly describes the daily routine, roll calls, selections and terrible conditions at Birkenau. She devised several survival skills to keep her sanity and promised herself she would live to tell about her experiences. She was sent to a gas chamber once, survived, and later selected to go to Guben, a small labor camp near Berlin, to work in an electronics component factory, in November 1944. She mentions attempts at sabotage by the slave laborers.

She describes a Death march from Guben to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, horrible conditions, treatment of prisoners and brutality by a Blockälteste at Bergen-Belsen extensively. She lost her will to live for the first time even though some hoarded jewelry saved her life at Bergen-Belsen during a typhus epidemic.

She was liberated by the British Army April 15, 1945. She recalls actions taken by Brigadier General Grimm Hughes and British liberators vis -a- vis the survivors and the Germans. After liberation, she was hospitalized, returned to her home town, and was smuggled into Munich with her new husband, also a survivor, from Czechoslovakia. They lived and worked in two Displaced Persons camps: Gabersee and Wasserburg for almost two years. They came to the United States September 21, 1947. She explains how they built a life and started a family, after a difficult beginning in New York, assisted by HIAS.

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.

Jack Arnel (previously YashaAronovitz) was born on May 23, 1929 in Vilna, Poland (now Vilna, Lithuania) to a well-to-do Jewish family. His father owned a furrier factory and his mother was a custom tailor. He shares his childhood memories of his war-time experiences. He describes their pre-war life, having a maid, and a governess and spending summers in the country. Jack was a member of Betar. Jack briefly describes how their lives changed under the Soviet Occupation in 1939.

Jack describes that in 1941, when the Germans occupied the area,his family was moved into the Vilna Ghetto and from there to a sub-camp for furriers (who were privileged prisoners called Keilis). There they made fur vests for German soldiers. Jack describes the family’s deportation in 1944 and the fear that they were being sent to their death since they were headed toward Ponary2, but eventually passed it. The women were forced off the trains in Stutthof and the men were sent to LagerKreisLandsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau. Jack was forced to work building underground facilities to manufacture weaponry for the German armies and describes Dachau in detail: beatings, starvation, killings and brutal labor. Later he and his father fled from a transport during an American air-raid and found an advancing American Army unit. They were cared for at St. Ottilien Hospital, an American camp set up in a church in Germany. His mother and sister, Sonia, survived as well and were liberated by the Russians. Jack describes how they were all reunited in Munich. They remained in a Displaced Persons Camp for four years and arrived in the United States in July 1949.

Rabbi Relles born in Skala, Poland June 2, 1908 lived in Italy from 1933 to 1944. He studied at a university and a rabbinical college. He explains how he managed to remain in Italy as a student. He describes Mussolini’s treatment of Jews and his changing attitude towards Hitler. Even after anti-Jewish laws were passed in1938, and his arrest and brief internment in June 1940 first in Campagna, then in Ferramonti, he was treated extremely well by the Italians.

In December 1943, after police warned Jews they would be arrested, Rabbi Relles tried to flee. He was arrested near the Swiss border and detained first at a Questara in Como, then at a barracks in Camerlata in Northern Italy.

He describes his escape to Milan, stays at various safe houses, and living in a rest home under a false name, using papers giving him a new identity, helped by individual Italians, nuns and a committee that worked to rescue Jews. He explains how he survived and gives a very detailed account of his escape to Switzerland in April 1944 - when he was brought to Como from Milan as part of a group rescue organized by a Mrs. Comelli. He cites many instances of help by non-Jews and kind treatment from Italians during this period. He arrived in the United States from Switzerland November 8, 1951.

Interviewee: RELLES, Rabbi Mayer Date: June 27, 1983

Gertrude Jacobs, nee Bergman, was born into an observant Jewish family in Voelkersler, Southern Bavaria, Germany in January 1924. Her father and grandfather were decorated war veterans. There were 12 Jewish families living in her village and Gertrude describes this area of Germany as particularly antisemitic both before and after 1933, when Hitler came to power. She describes how Jewish life in general and her family’s life were affected by anti-Jewish decrees, and relates two attacks on her while in school. Most of the village people shunned them, a few helped them secretly.

Gertrude gives second hand accounts of Kristallnacht, of her grandmother’s liberation from Theresienstadt concentration camp, and her grandmother’s return to and post-war life in Germany. Gertrude came to the United States in 1938, where she also experienced antisemitism.

Gertrude expresses her feelings about Germans, restitution, German Jews, and how growing up in Nazi Germany affects her to this day. She explains her philosophy of living as a Jew and a survivor and the special obligations this entails.

Miro Auferber was interviewed in Haifa, Israel in Serbical Yiddish which his interviewer translated into English. He was born in Osijek, Croatia, November 22, 1913. His father was a manufacturer and his family was active in the Jewish community and belonged to Zionist organizations. Miro was taken to forced labor, his parents perished in Auschwitz, and his pregnant wife was killed by the Ustashi. He also served as a reserve officer in the Yugoslav army in April 1941, became a prisoner of war but managed to escape.

Miro talks about his experiences, often in great detail, as a slave laborer and a prisoner, in Gospic harvesting crops, and in Jasenovac working at a steam power plant in 1941. He gives a detailed account of the detention camp were his group and Jews from Pag were imprisoned; both Jews and Serbs were brutalized and starved, as well as cruel treatment by Ustashi guards. No written records of prisoners were kept until 1942. He explains how a leather factory established by Sylvio Alkali, a Sarajevan, and Avraham Dimayo, a Jew from Belgrade, enabled the prisoners to survive. In 1942 the Ustashi liquidated thousands of Jews they brought to Jasenovac. In April 1945, the population of Jasenovac was liquidated and the buildings destroyed. Two hundred and fifty of the leather workers, including Miro, resisted, but all but eight were killed.. Miro joined the partisans, the Yugoslav People’s Army. He mentions his return to Osijek, subsequent arrest and release.

Miro talks about his feelings of shame and guilt. He again details the atrocities the Ustashi committed against Serbs and Jews. Mr. Auferber emigrated to Israel in 1948.