Oral History Interview with Henry Froehlich
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Date
Contributor
Summary
Henry (formerly Hans Arnold) Froehlich was born in August 7, 1922 in Rottweil, Germany. In 1935, the Nazi boycott forced his father to close his shoe store, Henry had to leave school, and the family moved to Stuttgart. Henry describes how the family’s life changed. He talks about Kristallnacht, his efforts to warn Jews to flee and how he avoided arrest. His father was arrested, sent to Dachau, and was killed there one month later. The family had to pay 500 Marks to claim his body.
Henry worked for the Oberrat (the Jewish community office in Stuttgart that processed immigration) for two years. He describes his activities and contacts with the American Consulate, Gestapo and S.D. (Sicherheitsdienst German Security Service).
In 1940, Henry, his younger brother and their mother emigrated separately to the United States. An older brother, crippled since birth, had been placed in a Catholic Home for crippled children and there is some evidence he was killed in a Nazi euthanasia program. In the United States, Henry worked in a CCC program in Berlin, New Hampshire until he was suspected of being a German spy. He was reunited with his family in Philadelphia, where he married, had two children, and became a successful businessman.
"no release to U.S. governmental agencies" 9/9/98:agrees to release to USHMM
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Betti Frank
Betti Frank, née Koppel, was born in Zutphen, Holland. Her parents had a butcher shop. She briefly describes pre-war life. Betti and her brother belonged to Hehalutz, a Zionist youth group. Betti describes life after the German invasion, including registration of Jews, roundups, Razzias, raids, and collaboration by some Dutch people. The Dutch police arrested her father, sent him to a Dutch concentration camp and then to Mauthausen where he was killed. Betti describes how later the Dutch police came back for the rest of the family: Betti and her mother were taken to a building owned by the Jewish community which had been converted into a hospital for older Jews. She describes the round up of elderly and sick Jews in the community. Her brother was deported to Westerbork. She found out after the war that he was killed in Auschwitz.
In April 19431, Betti and her mother were deported to Vught concentration camp with all Dutch Jews who did not live in Amsterdam. She describes in great detail their arrival, the horrible conditions in Vught and a separate children’s camp where her mother worked as a nurse, Appells, extreme cruelty and constant terror. She also describes contact with non-Jewish prisoners and an offer to her by Hehalutz members to escape with false papers which she turned down to stay with her mother. Her mother was eventually deported along with the children and she never saw her again. Betti was then assigned to a slave labor group working for the Philips company together with non-Jews making radios and welding. She talks about how the SS tried to deport this group to Auschwitz several times and how they were saved by working for Philips. Finally in June they were sent to Auschwitz arriving June 6, 1944. She describes in great detail their brutal reception, processing, conditions and cruel treatment from Jewish Kapos. After 10 days, Betti, with the group selected by Philips, was transported out of Auschwitz to a factory in Reichenbach to work with German civilians. From there, the workers were sent to Lanowice concentration camp, and later forced on a death march to Trausenau, Czechoslovakia in February 1945, then forced on rail cars to a small camp near Port of Westfalen close to the Dutch border. Betti describes in detail their deportation to and working conditions in several camps: a salt mine in Braunschweig, Magdeburg; Lüneburger Heide, where they had to dig trenches at the front; and finally a small camp in Hamburg. She describes brutal living and working conditions, cruel behavior by German civilians, and some acts of compassion in great detail. She talks about some of her survival strategies and how she saved her life by following her instinct.
After the end of World War II, the prisoners were transported to Denmark under the auspices of Folke Bernadotte. They were sent to either Malmo or a “holiday” camp near Göteburg in Sweden, depending on their physical condition. Betty again worked for Philips. After a stay in Holland, she emigrated to Israel on March 12, 1950.
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Simone Horowitz
Simone Zuckermann Horowitz was born on June 10, 1926 to Polish-born parents who became French citizens. She describes how her family’s life changed after the Nazi occupation; and how she and her younger sister managed after her father fled to Southern France and her mother was arrested. She learned after the war ended that her father was shot in Montluc prison, July 8, 1944 because he worked for the Resistance. Simone and her sister lived in separate homes for Jewish children. Simone joined the Jewish Scouts and delivered false papers for the underground. During a roundup of children in these Jewish homes, Simone was arrested, imprisoned at Drancy, July 21, 1944, and transported to Birkenau in cattle cars.
She survived a selection by Dr. Mengele. She describes processing of the new arrivals, conditions at Birkenau, frequent Appells, meager diet, constant talk of food, and more selections by Dr. Mengele. Her determination to find her father after the war gave her strength to survive. The camp was emptied in stages. In January 1945, Simone and a group of girls were marched out of Birkenau and abandoned. She explains how they survived. Later Simone walked to Auschwitz and connected with a group of French survivors. She talks briefly about conditions in Auschwitz post-liberation. She was repatriated by the French Red Cross and arrived at Marseilles, France, May 1, 1945 after stopovers in Krakow and Odessa.
She returned to Paris September 1945, after living briefly in an orphanage and with relatives, and resumed her education. She entered the United States on a student visa in the fall of 1948, to join her American relatives. She completed her education and met her husband. She explains how her reluctance to talk about the Holocaust to her children affected their relationship.
Note: the Collateral Material files available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library include:
An audiotape of Mrs. Horowitz’s report about The Reunion of Jewish French Children, in Franc
e on May, 1999 is available at
Gratz College H
olocaust Oral History Archive.
Included with the transcript are:
Photocopies of her father’s Death Certificate
a d
ocument about Expropriation of
Funds from the Zuckerman bank account
copy of
a photograph of a monument erected by the town of Porte-les-Valence for the 31 men shot as hostages by the Germans on July 8, 1944 (among whom is the name of Simone Horowitz's father,
Nevah
Zuckermann
).
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Sidney H. Willig
Sidney H. Willig was born in New York City on July 2, 1919 into an Orthodox Jewish family. He attended public school and trained as a soccer player and boxer. He refers to antisemitism in America in the 1920s and 1930s: employment, his rejection from the Navy, and incidents in the Air Force.
As a navigator in the Air Force during World War II, he was shot down over the Netherlands. He describes in detail aid provided to him as an American officer by Dutch families and the Dutch underground. He also shares details about a Dutch Jew who was being hidden by a Dutch family whom he met, from November 1944 to April 1945. He reflects on his decision to continue to wear his dog tags, which displayed the Ten Commandments, until his liberation. He ponders the vast network of Nazi influence, because on his return to New York, the Vichy consular officer in Washington, D.C. requested from him the names of those who had helped him in Holland. Upon his return to New York he continued his college studies at St. John’s and then studied law on the advice of his valued teacher John Dandro. He reflects on the reasons Jews have survived over the centuries.
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Zina Farber
Zina Farber, nee Bass, one of six children, was born December 6, 1933 in Bialystok, Poland. Her father was a businessman. She shares her very early childhood memories of antisemitism (having been taught to always step off pavements when encountering Gentiles, at the risk of being beaten). She also recounts that the most vivid detail of her early life in Poland is her very warm family.
Having been separated from both parents very early in the war, her eldest brother took care of the family. In 1943, after confinement in Bialystok and PruzhanyGhettos, she and four brothers were sent to Auschwitz. She describes the round up of Jews in Pruzhany, the deportation in open cattle trucks, arrival, selection, and shaving. She describes the absolute miracle that she was not immediately gassed, being dragged out of her assigned truck and put instead with the group of women assigned to hard labor. She was 10 years old. She attributes this miracle to the fact that she was wearing her mother’s coat which made her look older than she was. She explains several times that it is too painful to recount the innumerable stories she could tell about her one and half year experience in Auschwitz. She is able to share descriptions of her constant hunger and fear. She describes fear of punishment – i. e. having her head pushed into a barrel of excrement– and relates the necessity of always wearing her soup bowl on a rope around her neck, even when sleeping. She also describes how the girls took care of each other, reddening cheeks before selections for example. She endured a two-week death march in mid-April 1945 to Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Gleiwitz (possibly Neustadt-Glewe).
Liberated by American soldiers, she travelled to Bialystok, where she was reunited with her father who had survived five years in Siberia. Mrs. Farber was separated several years earlier from her mother, who had been transported to Treblinka. After a failed attempt to emigrate to Palestine from the Landsberg displaced persons camp, Mrs. Farber left for the United States in 1949. Sponsored by an uncle in Philadelphia, she remained there, married and had two sons.
Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.
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Gertrude Hallo
Dr. Gertrude Hallo, nee Rubensohn, was a personal friend of Franz Rosenzweig. She talks about her and her husband’s association and personal relationship with Franz Rosenzweig, starting in 1910 through his final illness, when she learned to take dictation from Franz Rosenzweig who could only move part of one little finger. She explains why Franz Rosenzweig decided not to convert to Christianity but to devote his life to personal Jewish learning, and to improving Jewish education for children and adults. He strove to combine orthodox practice with liberal thought. She explains why one should focus on the man and his life, not on his philosophical system and his theological teachings.
Dr. Hallo talks about Rosenzweig’s life, work, major accomplishments, publications, and some of the well-known persons who studied with him. She describes how he was able to live and to teach after he was stricken with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Franz Rosenzweig kept up an enormous correspondence, continued to write, publish and to translate Hebrew books into German until his death on December 9, 1929.
Dr. Hallo uses the historical background in Germany, the Jewish youth movement, Zionism, and the beginning of the racist Teutonic movement to explain why young Jews had to fight for their Jewish identity in Germany in the 1920s. She briefly talks about the Freikorps, the Kapp Putsch, and the economic, social, and political situation in Germany leading up to the rise of Hitler.
She reflects on Jewish participation in German art and culture and her own early experiences of antisemitism. Her husband died shortly before Hitler came to power, and she talks about her memories of the time just before and after Hitler’s rise to power and the basis of Hitler’s charisma and success.
See also her 1978 interview.
Note: the Collateral Material fileavailable through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library includes:
English translation (done in Nov. 1985) by Dr. Hallo of an article by her husband Dr. Rudolf Hallo “The Pasalter” dedicated to Franz Rosenzweig.