Oral History Interview with Ilse Awin

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Transcript
English
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Title

Oral History Interview with Ilse Awin

Date

October 14, 1999

Contributor

Interviewee:
Ilse Awin
Interviewer:
Inge Karo

Summary

This is a second interview with Ilse Awin, nee Mechlowitz,eight years after the original - both at a ‘Rickshaw Reunion” of Shanghai survivors in Philadelphia. Ilse Awin was born December 31, 1925 in Munich, Germany to a family who held Polish passports. She describes her early education, the effect of the Nuremberg laws on her family and also details her family’s experiences during roundups after Kristallnacht.Ilse describes her childhood memories of the journey to Shanghai and details their living conditionsin the Hongkew Ghetto as well as her education and need to work. Ilse married Leo Awin, an Austrian refugee, in Shanghai in 1947 and together they emigrated to Canada in 1949.1

The two interviews share the same essential details, with the following additional information:

Ilse describes an incident after Kristallnacht when she was jailed overnight at 12 years old during a roundup of Jews with Polish passports. A Jewish organization intervened to secure her release, but other Polish families were deported, including some of her aunts and uncles.

She describes their Polish passports enabling them to disembark and visit ports during their voyage to Shanghai.

While attending the Kadoorieschool for refugees in the Hongkew Ghetto, Ilse joined a Zionist youth group, preparing for aliyah.

Both of her parents died of dysentery in the ghetto and she was also ill and hospitalized.

See also her 1991 interview #GC00032a and her husband, Leo Awin’s testimony #GC00033.

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Publisher:
Gratz College
Number of Tapes:
1
Language:
English
Identifier:
HOHAGC00032b
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Copyright date:
2018
Cite this item
Oral History Interview with Ilse Awin. 1999. InterviewInterview by Inge Karo. Audio. Oral History Interview With Ilse Awin. Holocaust Oral History Archive. Gratz College. https://grayzel.gratz.edu/hoha/oral-history-interview-ilse-awin.

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