Oral History Interview with Sylvia Ebner

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

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.

Miriam writes to her aunt Rebecca, recalling childhood memories of Passover preparations and praising her for the upbringing she has bestowed on her and her siblings. Miriam's husband Solomon adds a note of appreciation, reiterating Miriam's sentiments.

Henry Skorr was born in Kalisz, Poland on October 11, 1921. He describes in detail Jewish life in Kalisz before WWII including the antisemitism that existed, his traditional upbringing and schooling, and the special relationship between parents and children. He discusses the atmosphere before and after German occupation; the arrest, detention and forced labor of Mr. Skorr and his brother; his realization that they must escape Poland.

He describes a mass execution in a Kalisz cemetery during which he and other boys were ordered to help in the burial and then his subsequent escape from the cemetery. He tells of traveling through Poland to Russian occupied territory of the Ukraine until he reached Kovel. He then decided to return to Kalisz to take family and friends through this escape route.

Mr. Skorr, now with his family, was resettled in Cherepovetz in deep Russia. He describes the train trip and his recruitment to work deep in the forest to cut down trees. Conditions, as he describes them, were terrible and he escaped back to Cherepovetz and found work as a sailor on a boat hauling lumber and barges. Throughout the testimony, Mr. Skorr comments on life in Russia and gives insights into Russian people and society and how the system worked.

He was mobilized to work on the fortification near Leningrad and describes the German breakthrough and his joining and organizing a guerrilla movement. He was wounded and evacuated to Wologda. Upon recovery he returned to Cherepovetz, where his family had stayed. There he found work in the Fire Department where he eventually rose to head the department.

Although offered an opportunity for mobilization to the Polish Army he refused because of fear of antisemitism in the ranks. He met his future wife at the end of the war and returned to Warsaw, Poland where they married. His description of life in postwar Poland tells of much antisemitism and attacks on the returning Jews from antisemitic bands. Eventually, he emigrated to Israel in 1950 and to the United States in 1958.

This interview was conducted on multiple dates in 1983: February 8 and 28, April 12, May 2, June 14 and 28, July 5 and 19.

Genya Yetz Kinegal, nee Goldfisher was born December 24, 1925 in Skolne, Poland (Galicia), a small village with 3,000 Jews. The town was occupied by Germans in 1939, then by Russians until 1941. Genya briefly describes the Russian Occupation. When the Germans took over, Genya took on a Polish identity and rented an apartment for a time but eventually was captured by the Germans in the fall of 1942, deported to the Przysucha Ghetto, and then to Plaszow where she did forced labor for a year sewing uniforms. In 1943 she was sent to Skarzysko-Kamienna, in Poland where she worked in a munitions factory making launchers for grenades. In August 1944, she was sent in cattle cars to a women’s camp connected to Buchenwald to work in another munitions factory. All the prisoners in these camps were Jews.

Genya describes the daily routine in the camps, hunger, living and working conditions, as well as clandestine attempts to celebrate Jewish holidays. An attempt to save a newborn baby led to dire consequences for all the women in the camp. She explains the “selections” that determined who would live and who would die. The prisoners formed small groups of four or five to support and protect each other.

Genya along with the other prisoners were driven out of the Buchenwald satellite camp in March 1945. They wandered about on foot until they encountered American soldiers on May 5, 1945. The Americans provided food, clothing and shelter. Jewish soldiers obtained certificates that enabled survivors to go to Palestine legally. Genya found out that her entire family perished. She explains how what she went through still affects her psychologically and physically, and how much was taken away from her during the Holocaust.

Isadore Hollander, born 1920 in Paris, returned to Bendin (Będzin), Poland with his Polish parents and older sister in 1923. He describes in detail the pre-war Jewish community. Following his father’s death and mother’s re-marriage, he lived, from ages 11 to 15, in an orphanage operated according to Janusz Korczak guidelines, which he describes in detail. During this period, he joined a Zionist youth group. He mentions growing antisemitism in Poland.

After September 1939, he ran from town to town, to avoid forced labor, until captured and sent to work in a coal mine in Jaworzno near Krakow. He escaped to Russian-occupied Poland, living in Lvov at the beginning of 1940. To avoid imprisonment for “illegal” business, he registered for work in Russian. Assigned to Stalino coal mine in the Donbas region, he escaped to Rovno and describes religious life there, winter, 1940-June 1941. After the Rovno Ghetto was established, he escaped from slave labor with help from former Polish soldiers. He lived with 10 other Jews in nearby forests until 1943, having minimal contact with Polish partisans, due to mutual suspicion. He later served in the Polish Army. His eye-witness account of German-evacuated Majdanek and detailed description of his life as a Polish soldier includes revenge he and other Jewish soldiers took on Volkdeutsche Poles. At the end of the war, he returned to Bendin and met his future wife. He details their escape from Poland and life in Deggendorf DP camp in Bavaria. They emigrated to Philadelphia in 1947.

See also the interview with his wife, Anni Hollander.