Oral History Interview with Herbert Broh

Sydney Lesser served in the 639th Automatic Weapons Anti-aircraft Battalion of the United States Army during World War II, in Europe. He arrived at Buchenwald Concentration camp in April 1945, several days after the concentration camp was liberated. Sydney describes what he found there and depicts surviving inmates as "walking skeletons". He describes graphically the excavation of a mass grave--where thousands of Jews were buried-- by German civilians. He relates an anecdote, told to him by his interpreter, about a Jew who intervened when Polish and Russian prisoners brutally beat the Camp Commandant, insisting that the man be kept alive. Sydney Lesser later served as Military Governor in the area. He encountered German civilians who freely admitted some knowledge of atrocities, yet maintained allegiance to Hitler.

Joel C. Nichols served as a sergeant in the 327th Fighter Control Squadron during World War II.

He relates his experiences both before and after the Battle of the Bulge, September 16, 1944 in both the interview and a handwritten addendum.

Mr. Nichols was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp with his unit after it had already been liberated and disinfected. They still encountered a terrible stench several miles before they actually arrived at Buchenwald. He describes evidence of dreadful atrocities, including artifacts such as lamp shades made of human skin, and the gas chambers, that still haunt him today. He is convinced that German civilians living near Buchenwald had to know what happened there. Seeing Buchenwald affected not only his feelings about the war but his entire life from then on.

Mr. Nichols explains why, as a Christian, he does not accept that Jews were "Christ Killers"; why he decided after all this time to go public about what he witnessed at Buchenwald; and that he objects to people who deny the Holocaust ever happened.

Interviewee: NICHOLS, Joel C. Date: November 20, 2000

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

Rebecca tells her friend Maria about the current social events of Philadelphia, including a parade and a ball, and gives updates on the health of her family members.

Ephraim Glaser, born in 1922 in Cluj, Transylvania, Romania, was the son of an orthodox shochet, mohel and chazan. He describes pre-war Cluj and recalls a pogrom that took place in the courtyard of his family’s home when he was five years old.

He describes changes that occurred when the Hungarian occupation began in 1940, including beatings and exclusion of Jews from public schools. He attended cheder and yeshiva until 1943, when he was taken to a forced labor camp. He escaped in 1944, and because of his Aryan appearance and ability to speak German, was able to pose as a Hungarian Christian and join a German army unit as a translator. After several months, suspected of being a Bolshevist, he ran away and found refuge in a factory, whose owner, a baron, hid him in an unused oven.

His sister and her family, hidden in a Czechoslovakian monastery, were deceived by a German promise of safety and returned to their home in August 1941. They were then seized and sent on the last transport to Auschwitz. His brother-in-law, an opera singer and cantor in Bratislava, was shot while singing for the Germans.

Ephraim fled to Miskolc in the Russian zone and was liberated at the end of 1944. He briefly mentions Russian plunder of the local population. After his return to Cluj, he was active in the Zionist underground movement, Bricha2, transporting Jews illegally to Palestine. Accused of being a fascist by former friends who had become Communists, he went to Palestine and worked on a kibbutz in1946. He describes the difficulties encountered among kibbutz members who stigmatized survivors like himself as being cowards who willingly submitted to their own slaughter. That experience caused him to remain silent for many years, not even telling his children about his experiences until later in his life. He explains how his silence and then finally talking about the Holocaust affected his children.

See also Ephraim’s second interview conducted in 1989 during which he discusses more in-depth about his experiences in the German army unit.

Interviewee: GLASER, Ephraim Date: August 10, 1988

Chayale Ash-Fuhrman, nee Averbuch, was born in 1920 in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Romania. She describes life in Kishinev, her education in public school and private Jewish school. Her parents led a troupe of Yiddish actors which she joined until she turned professional at age 15. She gives a thorough and highly descriptive account of the Yiddish stage. She details Romanian government restrictions in the inter-war period and the effects of the Russian occupation of Bessarabia in 1940. The Moldavian Yiddish State Theatre, as it was then called, could function only under strict Communist guidelines.

In June 1941, the theatre group and other civilians were evacuated to Ukraine with Russian help. They were forced to stop in a kolkhoz (cooperative village) in Kharkov to help with the harvest. The refugees lived under primitive conditions and encountered antisemitism from the villagers. In November 1941 they followed the government to Kuybishev, then to Tashkent to pick cotton in another cooperative. She describes the difficulties of adapting to the Russian way of getting along; relations with the locals, and the onset of hatred for Jews. Her father died of dysentery in 1942. Using her training from professional school, she joined a sewing cooperative to get more bread. Chayale and the other Jews tried to practice their religion. Chayale later worked as a clerk in a steel mill in Begovat. She married a man who was working as a mechanic at the mill in 1943. In 1945, Chayale and her husband returned to Poland in an exchange program for Polish citizens. They settled in a Displaced Persons camp in Silesia because of the post-war violence against Jews by Poles. She worked as emigration secretary for PoaleiTzionand mentions various strategies Jewish refugees used to leave Russia.

In 1948 Chayale, her husband and her mother, walked to Vienna. Israelis met their group and placed them in a Displaced Persons camp in Linz, in the American zone, where Chayale gave birth to a daughter. UNRRA and the Joint Distribution Committee helped them go to Jaffa, Israel in August 1948 with false papers, on an Italian ship Campidoglio. She talks about early immigrant life in Israel under wartime conditions. In 1949 she founded the Haifa Yiddishe Operetten Theatre and later went to Tel Aviv. She also performed in London, and toured South Africa with an all-Israeli ensemble. She divorced in 1953. She married an actor from Romania in New York in 1959 and stayed in the United States. She discusses her feelings about the Holocaust and its effect on children of survivors.