Oral History Interview with Rita Harmelin

Lillian Taus, nee Mermelstein, was born on October 10, 19232,in Klascanovo3, Czechoslovakia. She was the eldest in a large family of 13. Her father was a butcher. She details her family’s experiences during the German occupation. She describes her father butchering meat in secret because it was forbidden and describes a time when she was jailed by the Germansfor delivering the kosher meat. She describes how the family was ordered to leave their home during theirPesahseder in 1944. All the Jews in the town were forced to a brick factory4 and then taken directly toAuschwitz a few weeks later. Lillian describes the horrible circumstances in the cattle cars, lack of food and water and no toilet facilities.

In a poignant telling of when the family arrived in Auschwitz, Lillian says that her mother went directly to the gas chamber with her youngest child in her arms because she refused to give him up. She also relates that the day they were put on the train was the day of her brother’s bar mitzvah and he put his tefillin on in the train and went to the gas chambers with it in an act of defiance. Several of Lillian’s siblings had died a year or two before during a typhoid outbreak. Of the remaining children, only Lillian and her 12 year old sister and one brother survived.5

Lillian describes the actions she had to take to keep her little sister alive. They remained at Auschwitz for about half the year during which time she would hide her sister in the bathroom during Appells and was assisted by the Stubenältester. From Auschwitz they were deported to Stuthoff, where Lillian was assigned to remove dead bodies from the barracks in the mornings and place them outside on the ground and number them. She used this terrible circumstance to save others. She would give the food-- that was rationed for the dead-- to her friend in another barracks to help others survive. She and her sisterwere then deported to Praust where they had to build an airport and she describes doing her work and her sister’s work so they wouldn’t get beaten. She details an instance when her sister was put onto a transport bound for death and she jumped into the truck and was beaten severely. They both managed to survive due to Lillian’s resourcefulnessand luck. She mentions that rape was common in the camp and relates an instance when she was almost raped.

Lillian describes their evacuation to Lübeck by boat6, via Danzig when inmates were left on a boat-- which the Germans had rigged to explode-- for nine days with no food or water.7 After liberation, Lillian stayed in Schleswig Holstein for about six months and she and her sister got medical care. She met her husband and married July 4, 1945.8

Lillian had recently done an interview with the Spielberg Project and explains that she wanted to do another interview for the Holocaust Oral History Archive to preserve her family’s experiences for the future. See also interviews with her siblings Louie Mermelstein and Shirley Don.

Mrs. Taus seemed to have some memory lapses during this interview as noted by the interviewer on her personal history form. We are therefore using her birthdate (Oct. 10 1923) as given in her first 1981 testimony, even though in this testimony she states that she was born on October 3, 1922.

Possibly the town Kliachanovo, also called Chervenovo, part of the Subcarpathian region. Alternate spellings Klyachanovo [Ukr], Kličanovo [Slov] and Klacsonó [Hung].

It is possible that this brick factory was in the Munkacs Ghetto. She stated her family was taken there in her 1981 interview.

She doesn’t mention her brother surviving in this interview. Please see her earlier 1981 interview. From this earlier interview we know that she and her sister were re-united with their one surviving brother, who went to the United States with their cousin, an American soldier.

From her earlier interview we know that this took place in March 1945 and that she was liberated by British soldiers May 5, 1945.

See her earlier interview for a more detailed and chronological account of this story.

From her earlier interview we know that Lillian came to Philadelphia February 19, 1949 with her husband, her sister and her two-year old daughter.

This is the second interview Mrs. Lillian Taus gave to the Holocaust Oral History Archive. Please also see her first interview given on November 23, 1981, #GC00523a.

Henrich Hofman was born July 20, 1922 in Lipecka Polyana, Czechoslovakia. He describes pre-war life,his education, being a member of Shomer Hatzair, and the good relationship his family had with the non-Jews in the area. His father was a carpenter.He describes the Hungarian Occupation, harassment of Jews starting in 1940, including confiscation of stores. He details the horrors in Passover 1941,when his whole town was deported in cattle cars to Rachof (Rachov). He describes the trip, selection, and an intervention by the Budapest Jewish community to prevent the evacuation of Jewish citizens of that area which saved his group. Henrich describes looking out the cattle car through slits at the condemned group and seeing the Germans throwing Jews into trucks as if they were pieces of wood. His part of the transport was then taken to a concentration camp in Rachof. His friend who survived from the other part of the transport told him months later that the Germans murdered the rest of the group in the Dnieper Riverin Kamenets-Podolski.

In October 1943 he details his deportation to and forced labor in Görgenyoroszfalù (Romania, occupied by Hungary) where he helped to build an airfield. In January1944 he volunteered to work elsewhere, was taken to Rákoshegy near Budapest where he worked building German barracks from March through July 1944. He describes the much improved conditions,lots of food, ability to leave on Shabbat to go to Jews in the community before they liquidated the area. Henrich ended up working for a German officer as personal tailor, and describes some kindnesses from some Germans. A German co-worker hid him and a friend in an attic to avoid deportation. He describes how the work of his hands helped him to survive on many occasions.

He was liberated on November 15, 1944 by the Soviet frontline and worked as an interpreter for the Soviet army for 11 months. He was reunited with his sisters in Chust (Khust) in1945, went to Budapest, met and married his wife in October and moved to the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia from 1945–49. They emigrated to Israel in July 1949 and eventually to the United States in 1959.

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.

This document is a program for the 16th Annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest, an event presented by Chapman University and The 1939 Society, with its awards ceremony held on March 6, 2015. The program details the contest's theme, "From Discovery to Action: Making Meaning from Memory," and acknowledges various sponsors, partners, and individuals involved as speakers and judges. It also includes information on a related "Evening of Holocaust Remembrance" held on April 16, 2015, which commemorated the 70th Anniversary of Liberation. A significant portion of the program features student artwork and a detailed biography of Holocaust survivor Jack Pariser, highlighting his remarkable story of survival during the Holocaust. Additionally, the program lists the numerous middle and high schools from across the United States and one from China that participated in the contest. The document serves as a comprehensive record of the event, its participants, and its educational mission.

Diane Weinstock, nee Gottlieb, was born in Radom Poland in 1923 into a modern religious family. Her mother was a member of WIZO and Diane attended Zionist youth activities. She describes pre-war antisemitism, the German Occupation, the establishment of the Radom Ghetto in 1941 and her family’s living conditions there until 1942. She also details clandestine education and religious observances that happened in the ghetto.

She and her mother were able to obtain false papers and hide posing as non-Jews in Warsaw from November 1943 until October 1944. Diane describes how after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising she, her mother and several others hid out in a bunker in the demolished Warsaw Ghetto until January 1945. She gives a detailed description of how they managed to survive including being warned by a Jewish father and son that the Germans were scouting the area. They were liberated by the Soviets in January 1945. She returned to her hometown of Radom but encountered severe antisemitism. She then fled to Regensburg, Germany to reunite with a brother and an uncle who survived. Her father perished in the same camp three weeks before liberation. Diane worked as an interpreter for UNRRA, then married and emigrated to United States after the war.

Mr. Goldfine served in the Infantry, 3464th Medium Maintenance Company, 9th Army, during World War II. He describes a factory that manufactured synthetic rubber and obviously used and abused slave laborers. He encountered slave laborers of many nationalities in Letzlingen, including some women but only one Jew.

On April 15, 1945, the commanding general ordered every American soldier, including Mr. Goldfine's company, to visit Gardelegen, where over 3500 victims had been burned to death in a barn the day before. Mr. Goldfine briefly describes the reactions of the few survivors once they realized they were liberated, as well as how the survivors and the German population were treated by the Americans. German civilians in Letzlingen were hostile and set booby traps for the American soldiers.

Mr. Goldfine explains why he doesn't consider himself a liberator and why he thinks not enough was done to save more people. He relates how witnessing the above atrocities deeply affected him and other men in his unit and resulted in a hostile attitude towards German civilians they encountered.