Oral History Interview with Sarah Elias

Sonja Samson was born in Aurich, Germany in 1931, into an assimilated but observant Jewish family. In 1936 she lived with her grandparents in Luxembourg until she joined her parents who had moved to France earlier. She talks about her family history and her childhood, and speculates about her parents’ reasons for staying in France instead of emigrating to the United States. Her father volunteered for the French army but was interned in 1939.

Sonja and her parents were in Gurs briefly, then lived in Garlin, a village near Gurs until August 26, 1942 when they were rounded up by French police, sent to Gurs and then transported to Rivesaltes in September, 1942. Her parents were deported and her mother managed to keep Sonja from going on this transport with the help of Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE). She never saw her parents again and still profoundly resents this separation. She briefly describes conditions in the two camps and her life and schooling in the villages of Garlin and Gurs, including pressure on a teacher to rescind an honor Sonja had earned.

Sonja stayed in a convent and then an orphanage at Palavas-les-Flots with other Jewish children, under the auspices of the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF) and OSE, then with distant relatives who were in hiding, later in a boarding school in Chambéry, constantly on guard. She mentions a failed attempt to cross the border into Switzerland.

Later Sonja worked as a maid at an inn that was a substation of the ArmeéSecréte (the French underground). She invented a new identity for herself as a non-Jewish war orphan, and participated in Catholic rites to avoid discovery. After she earned their trust, Sonja became a messenger. She relates how her presence of mind foiled a plot by the so-called “Butcher of Grenoble” to blow up the Underground headquarters just after liberation in August 1944. Sonja describes post-war life at the Chambéry boarding school, with her cousins, as well as her search for her parents, and was an active member of Hashomer Hatzair in Paris. She describes how she learned what she needed to do to survive, how the loss of her parents affects her to this day, and how her outlook about religion, Jewishness, and Zionism changed as she matured.

Sonja went to the United States from Sweden on the Gripsholm as a war-orphan in 1947, instead of making aliyah with her friends. She talks about the difficult adjustment to life in the United States, how she managed to get the higher education she wanted, and post-war trips to Israel in great detail.

Interviewee: SAMSON, Sonja Date: June 3, 1985

Alan Spiegel was born August 11, 1903 in Orahovicza, Yugoslavia into a wealthy Zionist family. He details his family history in Hungary including his grandfather being a Second Adjutant during the Hungarian Revolution. Mr. Spiegel studied medicine at Budapest University. He discusses the difficulty for Jewish students to be admitted due tonumerus clausus policy and that he was dismissed in 1920, three months before graduation by a prejudiced faculty. An ardent Zionist, he then worked for the Jewish National Fund while employed in a family business.

In 1932, he married Elizabeth Boschan, in Cluj, Romania, where they lived until 1939. In Budapest, he had to serve as a slave laborer under the Hungarians. Mr. Spiegel gives testimony about working with Rezsö Kastner and Joel Brand to exchangethe release of over 1,000 Jews to Switzerland for money in 1944 and how he found out from one of the more humane German officers that their transport was destined for Auschwitz even though they paid. He details how he arranged to bribe other SS to have the transport sent to Bergen-Belsen instead. Two months later, a smaller group of 350 was sent to Switzerland of which he and his family were a part. He discusses how Kastner was condemned in Palestine for his actions. Mr. Spiegel also shares a vignette about how he secured the release of hundreds of Jewish boys and how small meaningful occurrences helped him have the strength to continue his work. He also relates memories about theVizhnitzerRebbe.

In 1947, Spiegel emigrated from Switzerland to the United States with his wife and daughter.

Margaret Bowman, nee Harnik, was born in Dresden, Germany in 1914. Her family had a dry goods store in Dresden and later moved to Hanover where they bought a shoe store. She very briefly talks about her life in Germany and her relationship with German and East European Jews. Margaret experienced no antisemitism until 1937.

She immigrated to Peru in 1938, later moved to Bolivia where she met and married her husband. In 1939, with help from HIAS, she got her family out of Germany into Bolivia, but many of her relatives were deported and perished. She describes how Jewish refugees lived and established a sense of community in Bolivia aided by the Hilfsverein, a welfare agency. Margaret and her husband moved to America in 1946 and later managed to get some of her relatives into the United States.

Alex Krasheninnikow was born in Kiev, USSR in 1934. He knew that his father, a scientist, and his mother, an artist, were Jews but he had no religious education. He recalls a happy childhood with his parents in a large collective apartment shared with four Soviet families.

After the German invasion in 1941, his family was hidden in the attic of Vassily and Ina Baranovski in Darnitsa, near Kiev. Gold jewelry was exchanged for food and shelter until November 1943 when their hideout was discovered and their protectors were shot. Alex and his parents were sent by freight car to Brätz concentration camp near Schwiebus. Watchtbandguards beat them with clubs and separated men from women. Food shortages, cold barracks and arduous road building are mentioned, and the daily gymnastic regime of forced running for hours is detailed.

The Russian Army liberated the camp in January 1945 and the reunited Krasheninnikow family returned to Kiev. In July 1950, they moved to Munich illegally. In December 1950, they emigrated to Philadelphia, where Alex became a court interpreter. He refers to accounts in Russian publications that number the Babi Yar killings during 1941 – 1943 with various figures, from 30,000 to 100,000.

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

Roger Bryan, formerly Rudolf Britzmann, was born in Germany, June 14, 1921. His father, a physician and a decorated German army veteran, was arrested on trumped up charges in the mid 1930s. He died in Moabit prison under suspicious circumstances. Roger briefly mentions his school years, a few antisemitic experiences, and how his family coped after his father’s death. He discusses his struggle to get out of Germany, and how he managed to emigrate to London, England with help from both Jews and non-Jews in 1939 just before World War II started.

He worked in London until he was classified as an enemy alien, incarcerated, and deported to Adelaide, Australia on the HMT Dunera. He describes terrible conditions on board, mistreatment by British during the trip, the journey to a detention camp in Hay, New South Wales, and how Australians treated the detainees. He talks about his jobs in the camp, and the many activities and programs started by the prisoners.

He joined and served in the Pioneer Corps (a non-combatant unit of the British army) to get out of the internment camp. He later served in the GHQ Second Echelon Prisoner of war section of the British army in London and in camps for German prisoners of war in Louvain, Belgium, and the former Neuengamme concentration camp. He was transferred to Nuremberg to work as an interpreter/translator during the War crime trials.

After he left the service, he lived in Glasgow, Scotland with his wife, whom he married in 1943. He started a family and a photography business. He came to the United States in 1953.