Oral History Interview with Sylvia Schneider

Murray Granger, a Jewish American soldier later captured as a prisoner of war, served with the Third Ranger Batallion of the United States Army. He was captured by the Germans in the south of France, September 1, 1944. During a brutal interrogation, he gave his name as Aloysius O’Brien instead of Goldstein to avoid Jewish identification and was reported as Missing in Action for 14 months, which he believes was an attempt to protect him and other POW's from greater cruelties. He was interned at Stalag 2-B Hammerstein, working a 17-hour day in heavy road work, on a diet of six potatoes and water once a day. Caught stealing coal during a freezing winter, he endured public lashing as punishment. After six months of brutal degradation, he was sent to a prison farm near Strausberg and worked under a sadistic female German guard and six SS men. He describes the staging of a fatal dehumanizing conflict for food consumption by starving POWs and a farcical show of benign treatment staged for the International Red Cross visit. In a secret camp for Jewish prisoners, he discovered 200 survivors out of a group of 1200 who were kept chained and beaten. When the Russian forces liberated the farm camp and killed the German guards, he remained with the other POWs until they were mentally and physically prepared to return home. On July 1, 1945, he was repatriated to the USA.

This document is a short, handwritten letter of gratitude from Elie Wiesel, written on the letterhead of The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Dated August 1, 2010, the letter is addressed to "Monsieur Migiovanni". In the note, Wiesel expresses profound thanks to Migiovanni for the significant assistance provided to his sister, Hilda. He concludes by stating his lasting recognition and gratitude for this help.

Daniel Levey, born April 24, 1925 in Sarajevo, was one of eight children in an impoverished Sephardic family who spoke Ladino at home. His father was a tailor and served in WWI under the Ottoman Empire. Daniel shares his childhood memories of their poverty and pre-war life. They lived in a Muslimneighborhood, where Daniel was assaulted by street gangs. His family attended the Sarajevo Synagogue, in a community of 15,000 Jews, who were forced into a ghetto after the German invasion in 1941. They had to wear an armband with the letter “Z” for Židov, the Croatian word for Jew. He did forced labor briefly in a military work crew, having been assigned to a skilled labor brigade because of his electrician experience. He evaded Nazi registration and stopped wearing his star. After he escaped from a roundup, he passed as a Muslim with an assumed name of Gerald Levvage [phonetic] and a false ID. He joined partisans fighting Germans and Russian Cossacks near Mostar, which was occupied by Italians. In 1942, he was captured and imprisoned at BokaKotorska. He describes humane treatment by the Italians. He got himself a job on kitchen duty and helped other prisoners by bringing them food. After Italy surrendered in 1943, the prison became a hospital where Daniel worked as a cook until he emigrated to Canada and then to the United States in 1948. He credits the Italians for saving him and other Jews from the brutal Croatian prison guards at Rab concentration camp. All of the Levey family, except for Daniel and one brother, who settled in Israel, perished in German camps.

Hans Hartenstein was born January 27, 1923 into a Jewish family in Vienna. He describes his father, owner of a printing business, as a decorated Austrian veteran of World War I who knew of the persecution of Jews in Germany but believed that he would not be affected by Nazi oppression. After the Anschluss, his father was arrested on April 13, 1938 and was detained in Dachau and Buchenwald for 13 months. When Hans was forced to leave his Gymnasium, he joined Hashomer Hatzair as an avid Zionist, preparing for emigration to Palestine in a hakhsharah camp near Vienna. He describes illegal shortwave broadcasts and crowded living conditions after his father’s business and the family apartment were confiscated. Unable to obtain a Palestinian emigration certificate, he left for England with help from the British Society of Friends in August 1939. His father had emigrated to England following his release from concentration camp in May 1939, also with help from British Quakers. Hans describes refugee life in England and their concern about his mother’s safety in Vienna. She emigrated to the U.S. in January 1940; Hans and his father joined her within that year. Brief men‌tion is made of a cousin who survived in hiding with aid from a Dutch farmer.

Herbert Broh was born in Berlin, Germany in 1930. He shares his childhood memories of his life in Germany and his family’s journey to Shanghai. Herbert relates several experiences of abusive antisemitism by his friends and his teacher, as well as his impressions of Kristallnacht. His family left Germany for Shanghai in April of 1939 to join family members already living on Seward Road in the Hongkew section of Shanghai, under Japanese occupation. Herbert was enrolled in the Kadoorie School and later a cheder. He talks about his Jewish education at the cheder and the Yeshiva Katana in great detail, as well as the effect of his growing orthodoxy on his life and his family. He describes his family’s living conditions and life in Shanghai and states he was very happy there. He was only dimly aware that other refugees had a more difficult existence. His father worked for a Chinese factory managed by Japanese; his mother worked as a cook at the Komor Kindergarten. After Pearl Harbor, his family was evacuated to the Kadoorie School. He mentions interaction between Japanese and refugees. He vividly describes the events during and after the Japanese capitulation and the arrival of Chinese Nationalist and later American troops. He witnessed the departure of the entire Mirrer Yeshiva to Canada in 1946. Herbert and his family went to the United States in 1947. He describes his life in the United States and his feelings about his years in Shanghai. He is now a Cantor in Sun City, California. Interviewee: BROH, Herbert Date: October 15, 1999