Oral History Interview with Tibor Baranski

Individual was a Captain in the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) of the United States Army during World War II. He entered Dachau Concentration Camp in April 1945, a few days after liberation, to interrogate Nazis who stayed behind because they wanted to be questioned by Americans not Russians. He was taken on a tour of Dachau and describes what he saw and heard, including accounts of atrocities inflicted on the prisoners, and what he learned during the interrogation, in gruesome detail. He mentions how the experience of seeing Dachau affected him and the other men in his unit.

He reported to his commanding officer in Munich. He was assigned to a Displaced Persons camp at Coburg, Germany. He describes poor conditions at the camp, nightly searches, the treatment of survivors, and briefly mentions a riot at the camp in 1946. He explains why he feels that the displaced persons could have been treated more humanely and how these experiences affect him still.

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.

Mr. Bonner of the 159th Engineer Batallion, 3rd and 9th Army, saw combat in Normandy, Brittany, the Battle of the Bulge, and Germany. He mentions atrocities committed by Germans against French resistance fighters. He arrived in Buchenwald on April 17, 1945, several hours after its liberation. He describes conditions at Buchenwald, piles of bodies, evidence of mass cremations, semi-starved condition of survivors, their reaction to the liberators, as well as harmful effect of giving survivors their rations.

He relates the rest of his war experiences, including encounters with German soldiers and civilians. Post-war, his unit built a camp in Antwerp, Belgium housing German prisoners of war. He expresses his thoughts about the causes of Hitler’s rise to power, and Germany’s role in World War II and the Holocaust. He hopes that his testimony will prevent future Holocausts.

Suzanne Leibowitz, née Langer, was born May 27, 1928 in Prague and later lived in Novy Jičin, Moldavia. She and her parents were totally assimilated, patriotic Czechs. After the German occupation in 1938, the family fled to the Protectorate of Bohemia where Suzanne first experienced antisemitism. She mentions how the Nuremberg laws affected her. She was forced to quit school and had to work on a farm until 1942.

Suzanne and her parents were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942. She describes conditions in Theresienstadt in great detail. She mentions friction between Jews from different countries and that many Jews when they first arrived believed they were going to a rest home. Warnings about death camps scratched on many of the cattle cars were not believed. She managed to work outside the ghetto on a farm, to help people on the transports, and to trade for food. A Czech policeman - who also saved Suzanne and her parents from being sent to Birkenau - helped her do this.

Suzanne witnessed the charade Germans put on for the Red Cross in 1944. She explains how the concentration camp was transformed. She recalls how a baby born in the camp was hidden and kept alive for one year. She briefly refers to a Catholic prayer group, attempts to educate Jewish children, and plays and concerts performed by the prisoners. In October 1944, the Germans tricked all the men and later the women – including her parents – into going on a transport to Auschwitz, so that only young girls and children remained, to prevent an uprising. Suzanne never saw her parents again. Suzanne describes survivors from these transports, who returned in January 1945, as walking skeletons who had become cannibals.

Suzanne relates her post-liberation experiences. She was involved in a campaign to rid the town of Teplitz Schönau of Germans. She got married in 1947 and came to the United States in October 1948.

Note: Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library:

Photocopy of first person memoir from Terezin survivor,"Making Moving Pictures" Jewish Exponent, Nov 21, 1988.

Interviewee: LEIBOWITZ, Suzanne Langer Date: April 18, 1981

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.