Oral History Interview with Simon Aufschauer

K. R. was born in Tarnopol, Poland, March 31, 1922. Her father was a businessman and her family was greatly influenced by Viennese culture. She briefly describes the start of overt antisemitism in her schools. She was a member of HanoarHatzioni and active in Zionist youth groups in Tarnopol and L’vov.

In 1940, under Russian Occupation, she and a group of HanoarHatzioni members were caught by some Ukrainian villagers—as they tried to cross the border illegally—and delivered to police. K. R. was sent to prison and later transferred to a labor camp near the North Pole. She describes the harsh conditions in the camp and why some of her fellow prisoners did not survive. She was released because she was Polish but given Soviet citizenship and sent by train to another part of Russia. Many strangers helped her during this time. She worked as a bookkeeper at a collective farm (kolkhoz) near the Russian village Devochki Gorki on the Volga River. When the German Army advanced, she was deported to Kazakhstan by train. She describes the conditions under which she lived. She worked as a bookkeeper in Kustanay. After the NKVD tried to recruit her as a spy, she fled to Alma Ata using documents she forged.

In 1945, after the war, she returned to Tarnopol and found it almost completely destroyed. She joined a kibbutz in Lodz and worked with HashomerHatzair to prepare young Russian refugees for life in Palestine. She also organized and led illegal border crossings to get them there. During this time she met and married her husband. They went to Palestine, from Cyprus, on a ship called The State of Israel in 1948, escorting a group of young Jewish children who had been hidden in monasteries or by Polish families. K. R. then reflects about how her experiences have shaped her outlook on life and her views about human behavior.

Lily Maor, née Krausz, was born into a middle class, not very religious family in Gyoer-Raab, Hungary, a town located close to the main road between Vienna and Budapest. Lily shares details about pre-war life and that the Jews were fully integrated into the community. She describes German troops entering in March of 1944 ostensibly to help Hungary. She describes the changes under German Occupation, being forced to wear a yellow star, limitations to her father’s business and being forced to the Sighet Ghetto in June 1944, a poor town which already had overcrowded living conditions. They were allowed to take only what they could carry and she describes leaving many things behind. Lily also describes the sense of confusion that the Germans created before they deported the Jews to Auschwitz, making them move from one part of the ghetto to another, humiliating body searches, being told that they were going to a work camp, the rabbis suffering shaving and humiliation because they called a prayer service. Lily mentions the kindness of one gendarme who helped her evade a body search and also mentions that the local Priest offered some girls to come work on his farm to avoid deportation. They declined because they wanted to stay with their families.

Lily describes being loaded into cattle cars on June 11, which took them to Auschwitz. Lily gives detailed description of the arrival, selection, starvation and depravation at the camp. Her mother and nine year old brother perished there. Lily vividly recalls the cruelty of Kapos and guards, and of Dr. Mengele, who came every few days to observe the selections. She also describes that they were under Hungarian supervision until the border and they were let off the train to use the facilities and were warned by some children to run away.

In Auschwitz, Lily quickly realized that to survive she had to be able to work. She was among 500 Hungarian women chosen to go to Bremen to remove medical, dental and other equipment from the ruins. They were moved to Oberheide, where Lily worked in the cement factory. As the Allies came closer, they were moved to Delmhorst, 20 kilometers from Bremen. From there the women were taken in open trains or were made to walk to Bergen-Belsen.

Lily was liberated on April 15, 1945 by British troops and recalls that on the day of liberation people died because they did not know how to eat the food that had been given to them. She remained in Bergen-Belsen for a short time. When she learned that no one in her immediate family had survived, she moved to Israel. She lived there for a number of years, then emigrated to the United States.

Lily adds comments on Dr. Kastner and his involvement in efforts to rescue the Jews of Hungary. Nora Levin then briefly explains details of the negotiations.

See also her 1988 interview with Sylvia Brockmon.1