Oral History Interview with William McCormick

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.

Hanna Silver, née Bornowski, was born in Berlin Germany February 14, 1910. She lived and worked in Berlin, with her mother, during the Nazi period, World War II, and the allied occupation. This interview was done in conjunction with a series of photographs from Mrs. Silver's personal collection, which she explains. These pictures show how areas of Berlin, including her apartment house, were devastated during an air raid on February 3, 1945, and also include pictures of both dead and surviving members of her family. Her mother died during an air raid and was buried in a mass grave, location unknown.

She vividly describes life in Berlin during and after World War II, deprived of the bare necessities of life. She explains in detail how she was able to live and work in Berlin during World War II without posing as an Aryan, due to her determination, some luck, and help and protection from her neighbors and other non-Jews. She relates how a German policeman helped her to get an Identification Card not stamped with a "J". She describes the effect of air raids on the general population, the total devastation in Berlin and how she and other survivors tried to cope during days and nights spent in air raid shelters, completely cut off from the outside world. She cites heinous acts committed by Germans against their own people near the end of the war. Mrs. Silver describes how she felt after the final air raid, and still managed to go on, after her mother was gone, her home was gone, and everything she owned was gone.

She relates in great detail what life was like in Berlin under joint occupation by allied forces, the behaviour of Russian troops, including an interesting vignette of why the people in her building were not molested by the Russians. Hanna was in the American sector, spoke English, worked for the Red Cross as a photographer and also had her own shop. She married an American officer she met during this time.

Mrs. Silver closes by reciting the names and fates of relatives who were killed or survived. She discusses why she was able to cope and how her experiences in Berlin affected her outlook on life and how she tried to pay back America through her volunteer work.

Note: Copies of the above mentioned photographs are included with the transcript. Verification of how her mother died can be found on pages 122 and 123, in The Berliners: Their Saga and Their City by Walter Henry Nelson. David McKay Co., Inc. N.Y. 1969. A photocopy of these pages is in the collection of Holocaust Oral History Archives, together with the following items:

An audiotape of Hanna Silver speaking to students in their classroom-1978.

An audio taped interview of Hanna Silver, done in 1983 by Ellen Rofman, for a research

paper pertaining to Righteous Christians helping Jews.

Personal photographs of postwar Berlin after the Allied bombing, taken by Hanna Silver

An audiotape of a broadcast by KYW radio station pertaining to an exhibit of

needlework created

by Hanna Silver.

Post war memoir written by Hanna Silver at an unspecified time.

Interviewee: SILVER, Hanna B. Date: April 25, 1995

Harry Bass was born on October 10, 1920 in Bialystok, Poland. He talks about his life, Jewish life in general, educational facilities for Jewish children in Bialystok, and his Zionist activities prior to 1939. He briefly mentions the arrival of Polish Jews who were expelled from Germany.

After the German invasion in 1939, his family hid for a while, then were forced into the Bialystok Ghetto along with the entire Jewish population of Bialystok, as well as Jews from surrounding villages and towns. He describes conditions in the ghetto, how he traded goods for food and activities of the Judenrat.

In December 1942, Harry, his three brothers, a sister and an uncle, were deported to Auschwitz in closed cattle cars. He could have escaped and explains why he chose not to.

In Birkenau, his two little brothers were sent to the crematoriums. Harry and his other siblings were taken to the slave labor camp. He describes the daily routine in the camps, living conditions, how prisoners were branded, and briefly mentions attempts at religious observance. Prisoners who tried to escape were killed. Harry worked in the kitchen, later in a Straf Kommando (punishment detail) where a German soldier saved his life.

To evacuate Auschwitz, prisoners were forced on a Death March to Gleiwitz in deep snow, then to Mauthausen on an open train on January 18, 1945. Thousands died and survivors were treated brutally. In April 1945, surviving prisoners were brought to Magdeburg and put on ships in the Elbe. Most ships were sunk by the Germans, Harry’s boat was torpedoed by the British but he managed to survive.

After liberation by the British, Harry recuperated in a hospital in Neustadt Holstein, searched for family members, and was reunited with some of them. He immigrated to the United States on March 29, 1949, where he became very involved in every aspect of the Jewish community.

The transcript includes historical endnotes by Dr. Michael Steinlauf as well as several vignettes about helping fellow prisoners, help from German soldiers and slave labor.

Interviewee: BASS, Harry Date: August 22, 1983

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.

Anne Dore Russell, née Weidemann, a non-Jew, was born in Brandenburg, Germany in 1926. She went to school from 1933 to 1945 in Brandenburg. Her father told her about experiences of Germans opposed to Hitler. She knew that her uncle was sent to Sachsenhausen and heard about a Jehovah’s Witness who was imprisoned and later killed for his beliefs. A neighbor who had been a Nazi sympathizer, had a mental breakdown after executing Jews as a soldier on the Eastern Front.

She speaks briefly about Kristallnacht and life in Branderburg under the Nazis. Her father, a civil servant, lost his position in 1933 because he was a Social Democrat and belonged to the Socialist Party (SPD). He told Anne Dore why he opposed the Nazi regime. He avoided using the “Heil Hitler” salute and secretly listened to the BBC (British Broadcasting Company). She learned to be careful in public because of her father’s beliefs. The local police took her father into protective custody in July 1944 during a roundup of men suspected of involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

She mentions the behavior of local Nazis near the end of the war, after which she went to Humbold University in East Berlin and then the Free University in West Berlin.

Piera Solender, née DelloStrologo, was born in Livorno, Italy, a town with a large Jewish population. As a child she experienced little if any antisemitism. During the war, she relocated to Milan, where with the help of a Mother Superior from Livorno, she worked as a tutor to a gentile family. In 1942, along with her mother and sister, she moved to Rimini and then Senigallia, where she spent over a year in hiding. Her father and other siblings fled to Switzerland.

By 1943, the German army were throughout Italy. In Senigallia, the women were befriended by Luigi Corleoni. They attempted to pass as Christians, only to later learn the townspeople knew the truth. Piera and her sister ran a local school. In October or November 1943, along with approximately 200 others, Christians and Jews, Piera hid in a tunnel for a month, hiding from Polish troops. Villagers brought water to those in hiding.

After the war, she returned to Milan where she learned her family members who had fled to Switzerland survived. She met her husband, a Polish Jew who survived five different concentration camps. They emigrated to the United States (year unknown).