Oral History Interview with Sidney H. Willig

David Buchsbaum was born in Gorlice, Poland on April 20, 1921 to a religious family. He was one of 11 children.. He gives a brief description of pre-war Gorliceand the Jewish community which was 25% of the population, about 3,500 Jews. David’s family owned a grocery store.

David describes the mood change among non-Jewish neighbors in 1938 after Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and describes how they would stand in front of Jewish stores and businesses announcing, "Do not buy from Jews".

In 1939 once the Nazis occupied Gorlice the family was warned by a non-Jewish neighbor to flee, but the family could not afford the certificate to emigrate to Palestine. David details the anti-Jewish measures 1940: Jews had to wear the Yellow star, Jewish businesses were confiscated, synagogues were closed, Jewish" quarters" were created and David’s father was shot to death by a German soldier right before his eyes. David also witnessed the machine gun shooting of entire Jewish families.

In July, 1942 all males from 12-65 were arrested and marched in the streets; some were shot and David, a brother and others were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp. David describes the horrific conditions there: cold, typhus, appells, beatings and the electrified fence. In 1943, as the Russians advanced David and 1,000 other Jews were sent in boxcars to the slave labor camp, Skarzysko. Those who were left behind were either shot in the woods or were gassed in vans and burned. In Skarzysko they made ammunition and David was in in the harshest area, Barrack C. In 1944 David was sent to Buchenwald where all his personal possessions were confiscated, including his tallit and tefillin, which distressed his greatly because he had tried to observe tradition as best he could. As the Russians advanced he was sent to Terezin(Theresienstadt) and was liberated from there on May 8, 1945. David describes that many survivors from Terezin died from overconsumption of food immediately after liberation.

David later returned to Poland to find his relatives but left because of fierce antisemitism and the Kielce pogrom. He traveled to Prague, and was then sent to Salzburg, Austria by the Joint Distribution Committee. The Joint arranged for him to join an uncle in the United States. On June 2, 1949 David arrived in Boston. He and two brothers survived the war.

Herman Krauser served as an 89th Infantry sergeant in Germany with the 3rd Army during World War II. He briefly mentions that he encountered prisoners liberated from Ohrdruf on April 3, 1945, when his company bypassed the camp while enroute to engage the enemy.

Most of this interview is a report - read by Mr. Krauser - based on testimonies of American soldiers in the 355th Regiment and the 4th Armoured Division who liberated Ohrdruf, describing brutal conditions.

Sarah Schwimmer was born in Irsava, Czechoslovakia on August 19, 1926, one of 15 children in an observant Jewish family. Her father was a blacksmith in a largely Jewish community and supported his family until antisemitic Hungarians confiscated his business in 1939 and those of other family members. Sarah and an older sister went to Budapest where she worked as a seamstress. Her sister, a beautician, tried unsuccessfully to obtain a passport from Wallenberg, but remained underground throughout the war at the Swedish Embassy. Sarah joined Dror, the Zionists underground movement. In September 1944 as the Germans were forcing all Jews into the Budapest Ghetto, Sarah and her sister hid for a short time, but eventually ended up in the ghetto and then got separated. She describes atrocities committed by the Germans soldiers as she and others were forced to dig trenches for Germans and graves for Jews.

In September 1944, Sarah was taken with other women on a death march to Hegyeshalom on the German border. Only one third survived for 10 days without food, water or shelter, to be transported by train to Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Burgau and Türkheim. She vividly describes hunger, loss of spirit and forced labor. Yet she had the will to survive. She was liberated by a regiment of black American soldiers on April 28, 1945. She walked with other women through Russian, French and English zones to reach Marseille for passage to Israel.

Sybil Niemöller (maiden name von Sell) was born in 1923 in Potsdam into an aristocratic Prussian family. Both her grandfathers were Prussian generals. After World War I her father was appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm to be his financial advisor and administrator. She grew up in Berlin-Dahlem where she had several Jewish friends. Her parents were strongly anti-Nazi. The family attended the Confessing Church which was led by their friend Pastor Niemöller. This church was founded as counterpart against the Christian German Church which had embraced Nazi ideology. Because she did not belong to the Hitler Youth she was prevented from graduating from high school and became an actress. During the war her parents sheltered several Jews, disguised as seamstresses and gardeners. Two of her cousins, Werner von Haeften (who was adjutant to Count von Stauffenberg) and Hans Bernd von Haeften were involved in the attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944 and were executed. Both Sybil and her father were also arrested and interrogated at that time, but released. She arrived in the United States in 1952, became a U.S. citizen in 1957, and married Pastor Martin Niemöller. She accompanied him on his lecture tours but made their home in Wiesbaden, Germany. She describes his suffering as “Hitler’s special prisoner” when he was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen and later in Dachau.

Interviewee: NIEMÖLLER, Sybil (von Sell) Date: November 21, 1986

Sara Adler, nee Apel, was born in Radom, Poland in 1927. Her family was close-knit, religious, well-to-do and involved in community welfare. They had non-Jewish contacts through their lumber business, but Sara attended Jewish school and had primarily Jewish friends.The family fled Radom in 1939 under Ger‌man bombardment but returned and were put into the Radom Ghetto soon after. Through bribing Polish contacts, her father, her uncle and she were able to live and work in Szydlowiec (Kielce area), a munitions factory outside the ghetto. In late summer 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and the rest of her family was sent to Treblinka. Her father, her uncle and she continued working in the munitions factory until 1944.

With the Russian approach in July 1944 the Germans marched the prisoners 100 miles to Tomaszow under horrible conditions and from there shipped them to Auschwitz. She describes the cattle cars, arrival, selection, unsanitary conditions and Appells. She recounts how she was helped by a fellow inmate. She was sent to work in a string factory in Lichtewerden, Czechoslovakia in the Sudetenland. She describes some of the brutality and also kindnesses of some Germans and others. After the liberation by the Russians, Sara managed to return totally destitute to Radom. Though helped by some Polish locals upon her return, other former Polish friends refused to return the family’s belongings to her. She left with some friends for Stuttgart, Germany, and got married. She emigrated to the United States in January 1949.

Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.

Dora Langsam was born in Brzeziny, Poland January 1, 1925. Her family kept kosher, her father, a business man, fought with Trumpeldor, her brother served in the Polish army.

She describes conditions for Jews after the German invasion in September 1939. One brother died trying to protect his father from the Germans, one sister with her newborn baby was taken during a selection. The rest of the family stayed in the Brzeziny Ghetto from 1940 to the spring of 1942 when the ghetto was closed and the Jewish population was transported to the Lodz Ghetto. Her mother was taken away in a selection immediately, a brother later. Dora and her father worked in a factory as slave laborers. She describes what she refers to as “hellish conditions” in the Lodz Ghetto.

In July or August 1944, the liquidation of the ghetto started. Dora, her father, and a sister were transported to Auschwitz. Her father was taken away as soon as he got off the train. Dora and her sister lived in barracks, supervised by a brutal Czech KAPO and endured daily Appells, selections, hunger and cold. Dora tried to rescue her sister during a selection and both were saved from certain death at the last second by an air raid. Both were transported to a labor camp in Neukölln to work in an ammunition factory owned by Krupp. In 1945, near the end of the war, they were transported to Ravensbrück where they received food packages from the American Red Cross. Dora and her sister did not get sick like most of the girls because they didn’t eat the non-kosher food.

On April 24, 1945 Dora and her sister went to Padborg, Denmark on a convoy organized by Folke Bernadotte, then on to Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden. She describes how deeply being treated like human beings affected them and the quarantines in Lund then Visingsö. Dora worked in a sanatorium during the day and went to school at night, stayed in Sweden for eight years, married her husband, a survivor from Poland, and had a son and a daughter during that time. On July 6, 1953 they went to the United States, helped by HIAS, because her husband wanted to raise his children in a free country. Her sister still lives in Sweden with her husband, also a survivor.