Oral History Interview with Jerry Jacobs

John Igoe was Assistant Supply Officer of the 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, 42nd Division of the United States 7th Army during World War II. On April 28, 1945, they entered Dachau, Germany, where many people in prison garb were in the streets, after liberation from a nearby camp some hours earlier. One man embraced Mr. Igoe and expressed his gratitude in broken English.

On April 29, Mr. Igoe spoke to a German couple living just outside the Dachau camp who claimed ignorance of prisoners inside. Sights and stench within the camp are described - boxcars filled with corpses who had been shot.

In May 1945, Mr. Igoe and other officers shared a house in Salzburg, whose owners were forced to move upstairs. He describes contacts between the Austrian civilians and his occupation army unit as being friendly. He returned to the United States in December 1945.

Interviewee: IGOE, John Date: October 22, 1990

Erica Van Adelsberg, nee Herz, was born in Munich in 1928 to an assimilated, liberal Jewish family. She left Germany with her parents and younger brother in 1932 to live in Aerdenhoudt, Holland, near Haarlem. They lived comfortably and Erica recalls the decency of the Dutch people. In 1940, after the German occupation, her family was designated as being stateless; they were forced to move and conditions worsened. They were sent to Westerbork internment camp in 1942. Erica continued her education and was trained as a laboratory technician at age 14. She became part of a Zionist youth group, which heightened her Jewish identity, in contrast to her parents assimilated orientation. She describes life in the camp, including her friend’s wedding as well as the weekly transports to Auschwitz.

On February 15, 1944 her family, including grandparents who had joined them, was sent to Bergen-Belsen. She describes the camp routine, her work in a plastic pipe factory and the cruelty of the Polish Kapos. She was sick with para-typhoid for several weeks, with no medication. In April, 1945 the family was transported by train, with about 600 others, all of whom assumed they were going to Auschwitz. After two harrowing weeks, including bombings by Allied planes, the train was liberated by two Russian soldiers on horseback in Trebitz, near Leipzig, in Saxony. The Russians set up a hospital and cared for the survivors, many of whom succumbed to typhoid fever.

Six weeks later, Americans took her family back to Holland, where her brother became the first to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah after the war. Erica came to the United States in 1946 and was the first European student admitted to a Quaker school after World War II. Collateral material to this interview includes copies of two small books of poetry written by Erica, in German and in Dutch, when she was in Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen.

Interviewee: VAN ADELSBERG, Erica Date: December 8, 1981

Lilly Friedman, née Lax, was born in Zarica, Czechoslovakia on January 20, 125. Her father taught Hebrew. Lilly describes how Jewish life and her relations with non-Jews changed after the Hungarian occupation in 1939. In 1944, after the Germans rounded up all the Jews, Lilly and her family were sent to Auschwitz. She describes arrival in Auschwitz, the selections, and brutal murders of infants. After three days she was taken to Plaszow, Krakow with a group of girls for forced hard labor under brutal conditions. In September 1944 they returned to Auschwitz. As transports arrived, women and children were taken straight to the crematoria. After three weeks she was put in charge of 400 of the healthiest girls who were selected to work as weavers in a factory in Neustadt.

As the front came closer, the camp was evacuated. The girls were transported to Mauthausen and then marched to Bergen-Belsen. She gives a graphic description of the transport to Mauthausen by train under Allied bombardment, the casualties and their attempts to help each other. She describes terrible conditions in Bergen-Belsen and how the girls helped each other to survive. They were liberated by the English Second Army April 15, 1945. She slowly regained her health and met and married another survivor. The family came to the United States in March, 1948.

Her daughter, Miriam adds her insights about growing up as a child of survivors. Lilly mentions the impact living through the Holocaust still has on her and her sisters.

Interviewee: FRIEDMAN, Lilly Date: April 21, 1985

Samuel Greenberg was born on June 6, 1910 in Szumk, Poland a small town near Vishnivits to a poor, orthodox family. Samdescribes pre-war antisemitism and lack of love between the Ukrainians and the Poles. His family belonged to Mizrachi, a Zionist organization.Sam describes difficulties they faced in 1939 under Russian occupation: scarcity of food,nationalization of businesses and fear of being sent to Siberia for “stealing” from the government.

Sam describes the maltreatment of Jews at the hands Ukrainians and Poles after the German invasion in September 1941. He mentions that women were violated. He describes the creation of the Vishnivits Ghetto in February 1941, crowded conditions, rampant illness and frequent deaths. He was forced there with his wife, young daughter and mother and father- in-law. He details men in labor brigades being beaten anddescribes 500 girls between 12 and 21 having their heads shaved.

Sam describes the horror of his town’s liquidation. He hid under a bed thinking that the women and children would be safe and he could be reunited with them later. After he escaped, a Polish acquaintance hid him and told him how the entire town was shot in mass graves and covered in lye. He describes his harrowing survival during the bitter winter and spring moving from farm to farm hiding in stables, the woods and wheat fields. He received some help from Poles in the form of bread and also shelter in a haystack in exchange for a fur coat. He also meta group of Ukrainian nationalists who followed Stepan Bandera and fought for Ukrainian freedomand were accused of antisemitic acts. He begged for his life on several occasions and was shocked when they let him go.

In the summer of 1944, the Russians arrived, but when Sam was the only Jew to survive in his whole area, the Russians accused him of being a German collaborator and shipped him to Siberia. He was housed with other German collaborators who had slaughtered the Jews. The Russians asked him to spy on them, which he did, but only earned himself a ticket to the front, walking all the way from Siberia to Berlin with the Soviet army. After getting shot in the head, he was sent to a hospital near Magdeburg and begged one Jewish doctor to keep him there so he could live. Sam was discharged there by the Soviet Army in 1945. After liberation, Sam returned to Poland but heard stories of Jews’ being killed by Poles after the war so fled to the American zone in Germany. He arrived in Philadelphia in April 1948 having been sent a visa through an uncle. Sam attributes his survival to his faith in God. Sam found out after the war, that his brother had survived the war in Siberia.

Rachel Hochhauser, née Swerdlin, was born July 2, 1928 in Krzywice, Poland. She was the only child of a religious family. Her grandfather was Rabbi and Shochet of the shtetl. Her grandmother and parents operated a general store. She describes religious education and a comfortable life, pre WWII, and friendly relations with Polish and Russian neighbors until September 3, 1939. She details restrictive occupations under Russians and subsequent persecution by Germans and local collaborators in summer of 1941. When her father was killed she went into hiding with her mother and other relatives after warnings from non-Jews, including the police Kommandant for whom she worked.

The family hid on several farms from April, 1942 until 1944. They were protected for 20 months by a Catholic farmer’s wife, Anna Kobinska, with whom Rachel continued to correspond after the war. When forced to move for the final time, they went into a partisan-occupied area. She describes the privations of living in a swamp during the winter of 1943-44. A log bunker built for them in the woods in exchange for 20 rubles of gold sheltered ten people until spring, 1944. The Russian Blitzkrieg and deserting Germans drove the group to return to their homes in Krzywice, where her family was welcomed home by neighbors. They adopted an orphan girl found in their house and moved westward to the DP camp at Foehrenwald. Rachel describes her education there in an ORT school. She immigrated to the United States in April, 1951.

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

Samuel Flor1 was born in Czernowitz, Romania. He talks about experiencing antisemitism, his education, and his career as a composer, musician, and a professor at the university in Czernowitz.

He describes life in Czernowitz first under Russian and then under German occupation. He explains why it was impossible to leave and how he and his wife, Gertrude tried to escape in June, 1941, but failed. He was part of a brutal roundup of Jewish men, and had to bury Jewish men who were machine-gunned to death by Germans near the River Prut. After being tormented by the Germans, the survivors, including Samuel Flor, returned home.

In October, 1941 all Jews had to move into a ghetto until they were deported to the Ukraine under terrible conditions, including periodic whippings by both German and Romanian soldiers. He describes a particularly cruel incident involving Jews from Mogilev, a forced circular death march, and several atrocities committed by Ukrainian peasants. Mr. Flor worked as a slave laborer in a stone quarry in Ladesti on the Bugac and in Tulchin in a hospital.

He relates a chilling vignette in which Sonderführer Fritz von Rohde explains why killing Jews is a service to humanity.

As the Germans retreated Mr. and Mrs. Flor and about 66 other people hid in a hole they had dug previously for more than three days, until March 15, 1944. He describes how the 300 Jewish survivors tried to cope once the Russian army came, and his return to Czernowitz. His apartment had been nationalized so Mr. and Mrs. Flor joined the Czech army. He explains how they got out of Prague, emigrated to Barranquilla, Colombia, (South America) and then to the United States where Mr. Flor continued his musical career.