Oral History Interview with Eva Bentley

LeonoreJ. Meyer was born into an observant non-orthodox Jewish family, September 28, 1911 in western Berlin. She describes her post-WWI childhood, a nurturing family and schooling. She recalls very little antisemitism in her schooling and early years and recalls being a member of Kameraden, a German Jewish youth organization, founded by a cousin. She shares experiences of her large extended family and discusses that her family’s German roots can be traced back to the 1700s and 1800s in Danzig and Silesia. She briefly mentions the social distance between the German Jews and the Eastern European Jews. Leonore recalls that the majority of German Jews did not think the Nazi threat was so great in the early 1930s and contrasts this to other young people who anticipated the need to leave Germany. She recalls how her brother who had worked in Holland and Germany left for the United States in 1927 due to his unease with the future he foresaw in Germany. Leonore discusses increasing polarization between political groups [the communists and the Nazis] in the 30s and how Jewish groups began to break up. It was at this time that she joined a Communist youth group in 1927. In 1932, she opened and taught in a private kindergarten. She was dating a non-Jewish man and they decided to stay in Germany. In 1933, Leonore’s mother was dismissed from her position as a radio performer because she was Jewish. Leonore briefly mentions the Reichsvertretung and Leo Baeck.

By 1935, after the Nuremberg Laws, Leonoreplanned to leave Germany, but her mother still decided to stay. In 1936 Leonore went to England as a matron in a boarding school for German and Austrian refugee children. She came to the United States in April, 1938. Her mother left for the United States in July, 1938, paying very high exit taxes.Leonoreonly learned of the mass murders of European Jews through the United States Red Cross. She expresses that Jews should appreciate this country and the importance of voting.

The interviewer also goes by name Ruth Hartz.

Paul Kurschner was born May 16, 1916 in Vienna, Austria into a wealthy, Reform Jewish family. As a boy, he experienced antisemitism and engaged in bloody fights at school. His family belonged to the OesterreichnerJudenCentralverein, an anti-Zionist group of Austrian Jews, but Paul broke away from that affiliation at age 13. He joined HaShomerHaTzair, KidutTsurim, Betar and GedutHaKhoyal. In 1936 he became the youngest member elected to the New Zionist Congress.

In 1937, Paul joined the Austrian Army and in 1938, he became a German soldier. He then deserted and was hidden by gentile friends until he fled to Italy. There, he met hundreds of other young Zionists who traveled together to Greece. Aided by the mayor and priest in a fishing village, they soon sailed on the Artemisia to Palestine.

Paul had been an atheist until the Israeli War of Independence. He then came to believe in a higher power and became a Conservative Jew. He left Israel in 1950 and settled in the United States, living in Philadelphia, where he joined B’nai Tikvah B’nai Jeshurun congregation. He married and had two children in Israel in 1942 and remarried in the United States in 1982.

Ruth (Renee) K. Hartz.

Rose Fine, nee Hollendar, was born in Ozorkow, Poland in 1917 to an Orthodox Jewish family. Her father was a shochet. She briefly describes living conditions during the German occupation before and after the establishment of the Ozorkow Ghetto in 1941: health conditions, deportations, and her work in the ghetto hospital where children were put to starve to death. She refers to the behavior of the Volksdeutsche in Ozorkow and her mother’s deportation to Chelmno where she was gassed to death. She witnessed the old and infirm deported in chloroform-filled Panzer trucks in March 1941 as well as the public hanging of 10 Jews. She was transferred to the Lodz Ghetto in 1942 where she worked for Mrs. Rumkowski until she was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. After one week, following a selection by Dr. Mengele, she was transferred to the Freiberg, Germany air‌ plane factory and later to Mauthausen in Austria, where she was liberated by the Americans in Spring 1945. She describes the birth of a baby girl (both mother and baby survived) just prior to liberation and help by a German farmer.

After liberation Rose stayed briefly in Lodz and Gdansk. She describes life in Gdansk where she got married. She and her husband lived in Munich, Germany for four years where they belonged to Rabbi Leizerowski’s1 synagogue and she attended the ORT school. She and her husband emigrated to the USA in 1949 with the help of the Joint Distribution Committee. She recounts the story of the hiding of a Torah by a non-Jew of Ozorkow and his giving it to a survivor from Ozorkow to take to Atlanta, Georgia.

See the May 4, 1981interview with Rabbi Baruch Leizerowski.

Nathan Snyder was born on May 21, 1926 in Unter Stanestie, Rumania (now Russia). He describes Jewish community life, religious observance, Zionist movements, and his education in cheder and public school including the Gymnasium in Czernowitz. He experienced antisemitism in school, from the Iron Cross movement and during the Coza ritual. He describes the effects of the Russian occupation and the deportation of Jews. He vividly describes how local Ukrainians rounded up Jews, brutally hacked the men and boys to death, and stripped Jewish homes bare as the German army approached. Survivors were forced to march to Czernowitz and herded into a ghetto with Jews from other towns. Nathan describes living conditions, frequent transports to Transnistria, forced labor and some attempts at underground resistance. There are richly detailed vignettes of adolescent experiences including excursions outside the ghetto, passing as a Volksdeutsche, and hazardous encounters with SS. He describes turmoil as the Russians advanced. Rumanian authorities fled and the Germans started killing Jews. His family used material he obtained at great risk before Germans blew up a supply warehouse. After liberation by the Russians Nathan joined a civilian militia formed by Jewish youths to patrol Czernowitz until Russian militia took over. He gives a detailed description of life after the Russian occupation and uses many vignettes to describe his experiences.

Nathan served in the Russian army in a demolition squad clearing minefields. His commanding officer was a Jew posing as a Cossack. He vividly describes chaotic conditions near the end of the war, going absent without leave, and hiding for four months. Nathan crossed the border with false papers. In Bucharest he joined Betar served as a Madrich under Yehuda Avriel using a false name. His group helped others to make Aliyah to Palestine illegally. He relates how he avoided capture as a deserter as the Communists gained control.

Interviewee: SNYDER, Nathan Date: October 11 and 15, 1984

Rebecca reflects on her correspondence with her sister-in-law Maria, the busyness of the season, a number of international events involving the Queen of England, the Onís-Adams Treaty of 1819, studies of the British Monarchy, and discussion surrounding unidentified Indigenous people and fashion.

Hanna Seckel1, nee Dubová, born July 22, 1925 in Kolin Czechoslovakia, grew up in Prague in a middle-class, secular family. Her father was a doctor. Hanna describes her early childhood education, getting involved in a Zionist Youth Movement, and the German occupation of Sudetenland including school closings and restrictions imposed on Jews.

In October 1939, when she was 14 years old, she was sent to Denmark as part of a transport of children from HashomerHatzair sponsored by the Danish League of Peace and Freedom. Hanna describes her life and work in Denmark in great detail. She worked at two farms under harsh conditions. One was near Gørløse,the other near Næstved where she had contact with other children from the transport.Through letters from her family she learned about worsening conditions of Jews in Prague. In 1942 her parents wrote that they would be deported to Auschwitz and she attempted suicide. She briefly mentions the Danish underground.

Hanna recalls working as a chambermaid at a Danish boarding school in exchange for her tuition there and also for a family in Næstved after she quit school in 1943. She details her feelings of being an outsider and her financial difficulties. She discusses the fates of some of the other refugee children—some reached Palestine, some were caught, some were sent back to their original countries by Denmark and sent to concentration camps. She also describes her rescue by the Danish underground and the harrowing journey to Sweden hidden in a fishingboat. The Chief Rabbi of Copenhagen, Rabbi Melchior, was part of the group. She details the warm reception by the Swedes and aid from the Red Cross.

Hanna describes her life in Sweden working as a maid for room and board at two different nursing schools inNorrköpingand Södertälje, losing touch with her former friends, receiving ng her nursing certificate and working in an insane asylum.

Hanna returned to Denmark in 1945 because she heard that she was entitled to Danish citizenship which was not true. In Copenhagen she worked in a restitution office for Danish Jews. She returned to Prague in 1946 and lived with relatives whileearning a degree from Charles University, then returned to Denmark on a Nansen Pass in 1947. After a lengthy illness, she went to Sweden and worked in a factory owned by the Nobel family, as a translator. In 1950, she emigrated to the United States under the Czech quota.