Oral History Interview with Henrich Hofman

Gabriela Truly, née Braun, was born January 7, 1916 in Levoča, Czechoslovakia, where her family had lived since the first half of the 18th century. She and her five siblings were active in Zionist groups. In 1939, as Slovak nationalists allied with the Axis, restrictions were placed on Jews. Her father’s tinsmithing shop was taken over by the State in 1940. In 1942, Mrs. Truly was rounded up with 1000 single girls aged 14-40, from surrounding areas and sent in the first transport to Auschwitz. She describes the dehumanizing intake process and the difficult life in the camps. Later, when mothers were brought with small children to a separate block, her sister and her 4 ½ year old son were among the first to be gassed in Auschwitz. Mrs. Truly describes the drive of self-preservation, of caring only for yourself, although she narrates many incidents in which she aided others and others aided her. Later in 1942, she was moved to Birkenau, and became very ill with typhus, diarrhea and a badly infected foot. In February 1943 she was hospitalized back in Auschwitz. Mrs. Truly categorizes which jobs were easier to survive and which more difficult. Again, aided by a hairdresser named Monsi, she gets a job first knitting for commandant Hoess, then filing in the personnel building. She was told permits to go to Israel had mysteriously come to Auschwitz, but nothing happened. On January 18, 1944, she was taken on a three day death march, and then near Ravensbrück, where she saw her mother for the last time. Next, they were taken to Malchow where she later met up with the younger sister of her sister-in-law. Eventually, she came to Crivitz and witnessed rape by Russian soldiers. Three brothers and one sister with two children had also survived. At last she went to Prague, where in 1948 she left for New York to live with a brother. She married an American-born Jew and remained in New York.

HasiaAufschauer, nee Chaya Sara Honikman, was born in Lodz, Poland on January 7, 1923. She had 5 siblings and lived in a new area of Lodz called Chojny, which had about 200,250 Jews before the war. Her father was a kosher butcher. Her home served as the orthodox synagogue for the local butchers and was called, The Katsuvish Synagogue. Hasia went to a public, predominately Catholic school, and most of her friends were Catholic. Hasia belonged to Betar, a Zionist youth group.

After the German invasion, her family fled to Czestochowa to her father’s relatives and she went to a small village, Myszkow, and became the family provider, working as a black market smuggler near the German border. She bought chickens from Polish farmers, sold them to Jews and sent food to her family in Czestochowa through the Polish Red Cross.

In 1941 the Germans took one brother to Markstadt, a labor camp of Gross-Rosen run by Krupp. Hasia was caught and deported from Sosnowice to a women’s slave labor camp in, Parshnitz, near Prague, in Sudetengau, a German southern province of Czechoslovakia. The women worked in a flax factory, Hasse, making linen. Hasia was helped by a Czech-German foreman who was later honored by YadVashem. Hasia describes in detail the horrors and worsening conditions after the SS took over in 1942, as well as the sufferings and brutality in the mass evacuation from the camp in the final stages of the war. They survived because they remained at the factory and were liberated by the Russians on May 8, 1945. One of Hasia’s brothers survived, but her parents and younger siblings perished in Auschwitz, and an older brother was killed by Polish partisans. She describes her painful return to her parents’ home in Chojny after the war.

Hasia stayed in Raichanbach1, Germany where she met her future husband. She describes how they lived in Weiden, Germany after the war. A daughter was born in 1946 in Germany. In 1949 they came to the United States where a son was born in 1953.

Piera Solender, née DelloStrologo, was born in Livorno, Italy, a town with a large Jewish population. As a child she experienced little if any antisemitism. During the war, she relocated to Milan, where with the help of a Mother Superior from Livorno, she worked as a tutor to a gentile family. In 1942, along with her mother and sister, she moved to Rimini and then Senigallia, where she spent over a year in hiding. Her father and other siblings fled to Switzerland.

By 1943, the German army were throughout Italy. In Senigallia, the women were befriended by Luigi Corleoni. They attempted to pass as Christians, only to later learn the townspeople knew the truth. Piera and her sister ran a local school. In October or November 1943, along with approximately 200 others, Christians and Jews, Piera hid in a tunnel for a month, hiding from Polish troops. Villagers brought water to those in hiding.

After the war, she returned to Milan where she learned her family members who had fled to Switzerland survived. She met her husband, a Polish Jew who survived five different concentration camps. They emigrated to the United States (year unknown).

Frieda Appel, née Gottesman or Feldstein, was born into an Orthodox family August 18, 1929 in Kliachanovo, Czechoslovakia, near Munkács. Her father was a cattle dealer. Although, Frieda and her brother were offered shelter by the sheriff, a close friend of her father’s, her father decided to keep the family together. They were sent to the Munkács Ghetto for four weeks until transported to Auschwitz in May 1944. She refers to several interactions with Mengele, upon entering the camp and at a selection at the showers. After six weeks, she was sent to Gelsenkirchen and Essen labor camps. She was transported to Bergen-Belsen and describes the conditions there. She refers to several kindnesses shown to her by camp personnel in the different camps. She was liberated in Bergen-Belsen April 15, 1945. The Red Cross took her and her sister to Prague through Pilsen, and then to Munkács. In May 1946, she went to a DP camp in Germany where she married at age 16. They emigrated to the United States September 27, 1949, where Jewish Family Service helped them.

Recorded at the 1985 American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia, PA.

Eva Burns, nee Gerstl, was born in 1924 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where her father was a pediatrician and her mother a concert pianist. They lived a mostly secular life with some inter‌ marriages in her mother's family. The German takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939 drastically affected their lives with her brother being sent to Kladno and the rest of the family to Theresienstadt. She refers to help from non-Jews. She was deported to Theresienstadt November 17, 1942. She describes Theresienstadt as a "show" camp with books, a coffee house and concerts. Eva was part of a chorus preparing Verdi's Requiem and observed religious activities and humor.

She was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944 and six weeks later to Christianstadt, a women's labor camp. There she helped sabotage grenades in the ammu‌nition factory. She refers to the cruelty of the women S.S. guards. In February 1945 she es‌caped from a death march. Assuming a German identification, she worked in the Sudetenland until the spring of 1945 when she went to Prague where she worked for the family of an S.S. officer serving at the front. In May 1945, with the Czechoslovakian liberation near, she revealed her Czech identity. She married in November 1947 in Prague and immigrated to the USA in June 1948.

Bernice Fishman (birth name Bronia Graudens) was born in Vronki, Poland in 1934. Her father owned a clothing store. Bernice and her mother fled to her mother's parents in Staszow in 1939. The Staszow Ghetto was established in 1940. Jewish children were educated clandestinely. Bernice and her brother were sent to live with a Polish farmer before the ghetto was evacuated. Her grandmother joined them later. Her grandfather and her father were sent to the Skarzysko concentration camp and her mother was hidden by a neighbor. Bernice, her brother, and her grandmother left the Polish family to go to a town that was supposed to be a sanctuary for Jews but were caught by the Polish police, imprisoned for a week, and told daily they would be shot. Her parents bribed somebody to get them out of prison.

Bernice describes how she, her brother, and her aunt and uncle were hidden by a succession of Poles in Ogrodzenie, posing as Catholics. She was always hungry, in fear of being discovered, and pretty much on her own. Her four year old brother died because they were afraid to take him to a doctor. Bernice got sick and walked to a Catholic hospital where she received care.

In 1945 Bernice was reunited with her parents who rented an apartment in Kielce that they shared with four other Jewish families. Her mother gave birth to a girl. Bernice describes how her family managed to survive despite constant fear of Polish antisemitism. She relates how Poles threw ten Jews from a moving train her father was supposed to be on. While she was hiding with the Kuchatays, Bernice had to pose as a Catholic, go to Confession and receive Communion, but never forgot she was Jewish. After the war, Mrs. Kuchatay found the family and threatened to sue unless Bernice converted legally. To avoid going to court, the family fled to Bytom with the help of Bernice's uncle who was in the Russian army. A few days later all the Jews in their former apartment were killed during the Kielce pogrom.

After several months in Bytom, they were smuggled into Czechoslovakia. From there they went to a Displaced Persons camp near Stuttgart, Germany. Bernice attended a school for Jewish children where classes were conducted in Hebrew. Her father obtained an apartment in a house owned by a former member of the Nazi party. Bernice briefly reflects on the different behavior of Poles, Russians, Czechs, and Germans toward Jews. The family emigrated to the United States in 1950, sponsored by Bernice's cousin who was an American citizen.

Interviewee: FISHMAN, Bernice Graudens Date: May 29, 1991