Oral History Interview with Walter Cahn

Lilly Friedman, née Lax, was born in Zarica, Czechoslovakia on January 20, 125. Her father taught Hebrew. Lilly describes how Jewish life and her relations with non-Jews changed after the Hungarian occupation in 1939. In 1944, after the Germans rounded up all the Jews, Lilly and her family were sent to Auschwitz. She describes arrival in Auschwitz, the selections, and brutal murders of infants. After three days she was taken to Plaszow, Krakow with a group of girls for forced hard labor under brutal conditions. In September 1944 they returned to Auschwitz. As transports arrived, women and children were taken straight to the crematoria. After three weeks she was put in charge of 400 of the healthiest girls who were selected to work as weavers in a factory in Neustadt.

As the front came closer, the camp was evacuated. The girls were transported to Mauthausen and then marched to Bergen-Belsen. She gives a graphic description of the transport to Mauthausen by train under Allied bombardment, the casualties and their attempts to help each other. She describes terrible conditions in Bergen-Belsen and how the girls helped each other to survive. They were liberated by the English Second Army April 15, 1945. She slowly regained her health and met and married another survivor. The family came to the United States in March, 1948.

Her daughter, Miriam adds her insights about growing up as a child of survivors. Lilly mentions the impact living through the Holocaust still has on her and her sisters.

Interviewee: FRIEDMAN, Lilly Date: April 21, 1985

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.