Oral History Interview with Saul Horn

Margot Freudenberg, born August 8, 1907 in Hanover, Germany, attended gymnasium and learned Jewish history, music and literature from her parents. She describes antisemitism after 1933 and later restrictions on her father’s medical practice.

In 1934, after marriage and birth of a son, she obtained permits for emigration to South Africa, but her parents refused to leave Germany. She mentions attending a service during Kristallnacht, when the synagogue was set on fire. The kindness of Gentiles is detailed in regard to her son’s surgery in a German hospital when Jews were refused entry. She and her family escaped to England in June 1939. After arrival in the United States in 1940, Margot became a physical therapist and was honored in 1967 for her work with the intellectually disabled.

Harry Zaslow served in the 283rd Field Artillery Battalion during World War II. He describes his unit's activities on various fronts while attached to the French First Army and then the American First Army, including the Battle of the Bulge. He had never heard about any German atrocities even after he joined the U.S. Army.

In April, 1945, his unit was asked to go to a camp he later learned was Dachau. He estimates they arrived about three or four hours after the Germans either fled or were driven out of the camp. No Allied forces had taken command yet. He vividly describes his shock and confusion when, as a 19 year old boy, he saw box cars filled with corpses just outside of Dachau. During his two hour stay he saw crematoria going full blast, still burning bodies. He saw rooms with bodies—some of which appeared to have been killed very recently—stacked to the ceiling. He describes how non-German SS troops were guarded, but not killed, by some remaining inmates.

Mr. Zaslow reflects on how what he saw at Dachau affected him and makes further genocide more probable. He closes with two vignettes about one positive and one negative experience as a Jewish soldier in the United States Army.

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.

Moshe Moskowitz was born in 1922 in Lespitz-Baya, Romania to a merchant family that was traditional but not deeply religious. He studied in a Jewish school, then in a vocational school. He planned to go to Palestine, joined a Zionist youth group and worked in an agricultural community. After the German occupation, Jews were transferred from the villages to the large cities, and many were sent to forced labor camps. His Zionist youth group became active in the resistance. Moshe took on Aryan identity, as did others who had contact with Zionist emissaries in Constantinople and Switzerland. Emissaries from England and the U.S. often attended the resistance meetings. The diplomatic courier who carried letters from the resistance betrayed them, and those who were arrested were sent to camps in Transnistria.

Moshe and his group smuggled children out of camps, gave them false identities, and set up cultural activities until they could be processed to go to Palestine on illegal immigration on ships. In 1944, British-trained parachutists from Palestine landed in Romania and Moshe’s Zionist group was among those who gave them identity papers, living quarters and maps to help them reach Bucharest. They also helped German, American and English prisoners-of- war in Brasov with money, clothing and medicine. After liberation, they rushed to the American and British zones to take Jewish prisoners out of the range of German bombings. Moshe was in charge of the funds through the Landsmanshuteyfor such operations. Groups who were involved in saving children maintained connections in Israel. Moshe emigrated to Israel post-war.

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.

Roy Allen was an American pilot with the 457th Bomb group, 8th Air Force. He was shot down over France and rescued by the French underground. They gave him a French identity and hid him in Jouy-le-Chatelle and in Paris. After a Belgian girl betrayed him, Roy was captured by the Gestapo on August 1, 1944. Because he carried French papers and had no military identification, he was charged as a spy and not a prisoner of war. He was imprisoned in Fresnes Penitentiary in Parisfor one week and then sent to Buchenwald. Roy mentions the instructions United States pilots were given before each mission and his experiences with the French underground.

Roy describes his arrival and processing at Buchenwald, as well as the starvation diet and primitive living conditions. He saw the crematorium at Buchenwald and witnessed the killing of prisoners by injection and by drowning in vats of icewater. He reports that V-2 rockets were manufactured at Buchenwald at that time.

A report of his interrogation at the prison in Fresnes established his status as military personnel. Roy was transferred to StalagLuft III at Sagen and treated as a prisoner of war. He contrasts his treatment in Stalag III with conditions in Buchenwald.

About a month before the end of the war, he was marched to Moosburg. He was liberated by Patton’s 14th Armored Division. He explains why he feels World War II was justified.