Oral History Interview with Raoul Harmelin

Mary Cittrons, née Grad, born September 13, 1919, in Brzezany, Poland, was one of two sisters in an observant Jewish family. She details pre-war experiences in a comfortable home, untroubled by antisemitism until the 1938 boycott of their father’s business. In 1939, the family entered the BrzezanyGhetto, where Mary and her sister were selected for forced labor. She describes subsequent hiding underground, aided by a Polish gentile who exploited the family throughout the war and afterwards. She also gives details about how some Jews were able to sneak outside the ghetto because of their Aryan appearance and bring food and supplies back to the ghetto.

When the family returned to their home post-war, some non-Jewish neighbors helped them, but Polish pogroms prompted Mary to move to Germany with her husband. There, he directed ORT schools, teaching art and craft skills.

Their daughter, born in the Einigen DP camp, underwent surgery in a Berchtesgaden hospital, performed by a doctor who was a member of the SS and was later arrested. After immigration to the United States, Mary’s extended family was reunited and adapted to American life with much difficulty. Mary and her husband succeeded, due to their determination and ingenuity.

Norman Rosen, one of seven children, was born in a religious family in Nowe Miasto, Poland in 1922. He describes life before and after 1938, when he first experienced antisemitism. Norman fled to Warsaw after the German invasion in September 1939, but returned home after Warsaw fell. He describes life under the German occupation before the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, including hiding during the day, forced labor, abuse of Jews, and confiscation of Jewish owned businesses.

Norman describes in great detail his experiences in both the Warsaw and the Nowe Miasto Ghettos, smuggling food aided by non-Jews, and a brief detention by the GESTAPO. Norman escaped from the Nowe Miasto Ghetto with a small group of young men aided by non-Jews. They hid in a cellar for 27 months. Later Norman and his brothers hid in a hole under a haystack and then in an attic, again helped by non-Jewish farmers.

In January 1945, as the Russians advanced and the Germans fled, Norman returned to Nowe Miasto. He describes the hostile reaction by Poles. His parents were killed in Auschwitz, but he was reunited with his surviving brothers. They travelled together to Germany, stayed in Zeilsheim Displaced Persons camp near Frankfurt from 1945 to 1946, and subsequently in Backnang Displaced Persons camp near Stuttgart until 1949 when he came to the United States.

Sidney H. Willig was born in New York City on July 2, 1919 into an Orthodox Jewish family. He attended public school and trained as a soccer player and boxer. He refers to antisemitism in America in the 1920s and 1930s: employment, his rejection from the Navy, and incidents in the Air Force.

As a navigator in the Air Force during World War II, he was shot down over the Netherlands. He describes in detail aid provided to him as an American officer by Dutch families and the Dutch underground. He also shares details about a Dutch Jew who was being hidden by a Dutch family whom he met, from November 1944 to April 1945. He reflects on his decision to continue to wear his dog tags, which displayed the Ten Commandments, until his liberation. He ponders the vast network of Nazi influence, because on his return to New York, the Vichy consular officer in Washington, D.C. requested from him the names of those who had helped him in Holland. Upon his return to New York he continued his college studies at St. John’s and then studied law on the advice of his valued teacher John Dandro. He reflects on the reasons Jews have survived over the centuries.

Dr. Gertrude Hallo, nee Rubensohn, was a personal friend of Franz Rosenzweig. She talks about her and her husband’s association and personal relationship with Franz Rosenzweig, starting in 1910 through his final illness, when she learned to take dictation from Franz Rosenzweig who could only move part of one little finger. She explains why Franz Rosenzweig decided not to convert to Christianity but to devote his life to personal Jewish learning, and to improving Jewish education for children and adults. He strove to combine orthodox practice with liberal thought. She explains why one should focus on the man and his life, not on his philosophical system and his theological teachings.

Dr. Hallo talks about Rosenzweig’s life, work, major accomplishments, publications, and some of the well-known persons who studied with him. She describes how he was able to live and to teach after he was stricken with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Franz Rosenzweig kept up an enormous correspondence, continued to write, publish and to translate Hebrew books into German until his death on December 9, 1929.

Dr. Hallo uses the historical background in Germany, the Jewish youth movement, Zionism, and the beginning of the racist Teutonic movement to explain why young Jews had to fight for their Jewish identity in Germany in the 1920s. She briefly talks about the Freikorps, the Kapp Putsch, and the economic, social, and political situation in Germany leading up to the rise of Hitler.

She reflects on Jewish participation in German art and culture and her own early experiences of antisemitism. Her husband died shortly before Hitler came to power, and she talks about her memories of the time just before and after Hitler’s rise to power and the basis of Hitler’s charisma and success.

See also her 1978 interview.

Note: the Collateral Material fileavailable through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library includes:

English translation (done in Nov. 1985) by Dr. Hallo of an article by her husband Dr. Rudolf Hallo “The Pasalter” dedicated to Franz Rosenzweig.

Henry Altschuler was born March 28, 1923 in Jaroslaw, Poland. He was educated at both cheder and public school where he experienced some antisemitism. He talks about Jewish life in pre-war Poland and resistance to local pogroms. He describes his flight to Rovno in the Ukraine with his father because a policemen warned him to escape the invading Germans. After a brief return to Jaroslaw, he escaped to Chrobieszuw. He describes life in the Russian occupied zone and after the German invasion in June 1941.

He was in Jaktorów concentration camp from 1941 to 1942. His mother ransomed him helped by the Judenrat but he was caught and rearrested later. Together with his family he was moved into the Lubaczów Ghetto. His family perished but he escaped and went into hiding with a Polish family until he was caught and sent to a work camp in Lemberg. He escaped, was caught again and put into a death cell at Locki prison with two former “Kommando 1008” Jews where he witnessed many murders. About to be executed, he was reprieved and was transferred to the destroyed Lemberg labor camp where all incoming Jews were executed and he was almost beaten to death. He also was in Plaszow camp (near Krakow) for six months. He talks about all of these experiences in great detail with many vignettes.

He was liberated by Russians in 1945, returned to Lemberg and emigrated to the United States from Germany, in September, 1949.

He describes lasting emotional and physical effects of his experiences. Throughout the interview he cites many instances of brutality, of Polish and Ukrainian co-operation with the Germans, as well as several times when he was helped by non-Jews, and some attempts at resistance.

Werner Glass, born in 1927, the youngest child of a Berlin pediatrician, emigrated to Shanghai in 1933 with his family and governess. His father, a founder of the Shanghai Doctors Association, practiced medicine in the family’s apartment in the International Settlement. A comfortable life, with many Chinese servants, is described. Werner attended German and English schools, technical college and a French-Jewish university. A vignette relates student resistance to Japanese occupation.

In 1938, his father’s passport was not renewed and the family became stateless. An influx of German refugees, including his grandparents, led to the formation of the JüdischeGemeinde; he details refugee support by the “Joint” and the Sephardic community. He describes his religious education, his Bar Mitzvah in 1940, and his activity in a Jewish Boy Scout troop.

After Pearl Harbor, enemy nationals were interned in a Japanese POW camp, and a ghetto was established in Hongkew for all post-1937 refugees, both Jews and non-Jews. The Glass family, as stateless immigrants who arrived in 1933, were unaffected. In 1942, they were dispossessed by a Japanese officer and moved into one room in a hotel occupied by Chinese and Russian prostitutes. Difficult living conditions, Japanese rules of conduct and penalties for infractions are depicted.

Werner emigrated to the United States in 1947, sponsored by his sister Helga who married an American-Jewish soldier. He completed graduate studies in Chemical Engineering at Syracuse University, married and fathered several sons.