Oral History Interview with Elizabeth Kemény-Fuchs
Title
Date
Contributor
Summary
Baroness Elizabeth Kemény-Fuchs, the Austrian-born young wife of the Hungarian Foreign Minister Gábor Kemény, was shocked by the October 1944 persecutions of Jews under the Arrow Cross government. She thus, when approached by Wallenberg, was ready to help him, mainly by persuading her husband to help issue protective passports for Jews and also prevailing upon the German Ambassador Veesenmayer to issue needed visas, all at considerable risk to herself. She outlines how the stress of this, of the official duties, and of a difficult pregnancy caused her to go for a brief visit to her mother in South Tyrol, and how because of the baby’s birth and the Soviet siege of Budapest she never could return there.
She critiques a film made about Wallenberg and her role, describing his actual activities, his special qualities, and his one misjudgment, being that of the Soviets’ motivations. She mentions aid to Jews by Weiss diplomats and by Angelo Rotta, the papal nuncio. She asserts that her own involvement was solely humanitarian and that she neither is of Jewish descent nor ever was Wallenberg’s mistress. She insists that her husband was not a Nazi, that indeed he helped save many Jews, and that the unjust idea of collective guilt led to his arrest, condemnation, and execution. She describes her own post-war struggles.
She feels more could have been done, especially by Swedes, to free Wallenberg, doubted that he was still alive, asserts that he should remain “a very bright example” in an ever more selfish world.
More Sources Like This
of
Helene Goodman
Helene Goodman, formerly Henia Flint, was born in Lodz, Poland in 1913 into an orthodox family. She studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory posing as a non-Jew, and got her diploma in 1935. She briefly describes how the German invasion affected Polish Jews. In 1939 Helene and her family had to move to the Lodz Ghetto. Her father was brutally beaten by the KRIPO (Kriminalpolizei), lost his mind, and later died. She witnessed Polish-German cooperation, and the murder of Jewish orphans in the ghetto.
Helene and her mother were transported to Auschwitz in August 1944, when the ghetto was liquidated. She describes the dehumanizing arrival process. During a “selection” by Dr. Mengele, she was separated from her mother and never saw her again. She is the lone survivor of her family. Helene was forced to play the piano for the camp commander’s birthday party and was stabbed repeatedly when she was too stunned to perform. Her wounds were not treated. A Jewish KAPO put her on a transport to Hainichen (a subcamp of Flossenbürg), near Chemnitz, Germany to save her life.
Helene worked as a slave laborer at Framowerke, an ammunition factory. She describes living and working conditions. The supervisor was Gertrude Becker, an SS woman who was extremely cruel. She describes the effects of near starvation, how she tried to cope, and her acts of sabotage.
Helene describes a Deathmarch at the end of April 1945, guarded by SS officers who took off their uniforms and fled once they arrived at Theresienstadt. She was liberated by the Soviet army May 9, 1945. Soviet women doctors treated the survivors. American soldiers took her to a quarantine camp at Landsberg am Lech where she tried to recover from the physical and emotional after effects of her experiences. She describes her post-war life in Regensburg, Germany after she met and married her husband, Jacob Gottlieb, including a frightening act of antisemitism and Zionist activities.. They lived in Regensburg, Germany until they immigrated to the United States. She concludes with her personal reflections on the Holocaust.
of
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.
of
Manya Perel
Manya Perel, nee Frydman, was born 1924 in Radom, Poland, youngest of 10 children in a traditional Jewish family. Her father had a bakery. She describes her education and Jewish life in Radom, Polish antisemitism, Przytyk pogrom in 1936, and continues with post-September 1939 German invasion. She mentions persecutions, deportation of younger males to Belzec labor camp, 1941, establishment of ghetto in Radom, collaboration of Volksdeutsche and Ukrainians in brutalities, and some help by Jewish police.
She details the August 1942 “resettlement” of Radom Jews to Treblinka gas chambers, with younger, able-bodied persons retained for forced labor in factories near Radom. She describes her efforts to hide her five-year-old niece in the barracks of a Majdanek sub-camp.
She was transferred to Majdanek, then to Plaszow and to Auschwitz. She describes conditions in these camps and the even harsher conditions in Gundelsdorf, Oberfranken, Germany, where slave laborers were taken as Russian Army approached. She experienced near starvation early 1945 during flight with guards to Camps Ravensbrück and Rechlin. She nearly died of typhus after liberation. After she recovered she made her way back to Radom to search for family and found continued antisemitism there. She remembers German promise of safe exit to Radom Jews with foreign passports in exchange for prisoners of war and how they were executed instead.
She went to Stuttgart with the help of UNRRA and the Joint Distribution Committee. After three years of rehabilitation, she emigrated to Montreal, Canada in 1948 and moved to Philadelphia in 1958.
of
Raoul Harmelin
Raoul Harmelin, the only son of a doctor, born September 11, 1924 in Boryslaw, Poland, received both a secular and a Jewish education. He talks about pre-war life in Boryslaw-- whose main industry was oil refineries-- and life under German and Russian occupations. Raoul describes life under the Germans after June, 1941, including pogroms, anti-Jewish measures, attitude of the local population, and formation of forced labor battallions organized by the Judenrat. He describes a series of Aktions (roundups and mass murders of Jews) from November 1941 to 1943, and the murder of 600 Jews in Doly in great detail. Some were conducted by a German VernichtungKommando under General Katzman. Polish and Ukrainian locals, Austrians in the Schutz Polizei and Reiterzugpolizei, the Polish Kriminalpolizei , and Jews in the Ordnungsdienst all helped to round up Jews. Jews were sent to a camp at Ulica Janowska in Lwow or to forced labor in local industry, most were transported to and murdered in Belzec. Raoul escaped from a roundup where he witnessed the murder of an infant and a young girl.
His father continued to work because Jewish doctors were needed to treat the citizens of Boryslaw. One of his patients hid Raoul and his mother. A ghetto was established but was liquidated after a forced labor camp for Jews was opened in 1943. Jews who could not hide were eliminated or worked as slave laborers in the Zwangsarbeitslager in Boryslaw. Raoul and other Jews who worked in connection with the war effort had some degree of protection. He got news from London via radio and from an underground paper published by ArmiaKrajowa (Home Army). A Ukrainian acquaintance hid 13 Jews, including Raoul and his parents from March 13, 1944 to August 8, 1944, when the Russians came back.
He describes postwar life under Russian occupation, including two arrests and escape to Breslaw. He and his parents decided to leave Poland after a pogrom in Kielce. After a stay in Paris, aided by HIAS, they arrived in Sidney, Australia in November 1947. He was able to bring his new wife and her parents to Australia later. He talks about his life in and adjustment to Australia after a very difficult beginning. He closes by naming relatives on both sides of his family who were killed or survived, and reflects on the actions of non-Jews during the Holocaust. See also 2 interviews with his wife, Rita Harmelin.
Note: Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library are photocopies of these German documents:
Certificate for Raoul
Harmelin
that he can walk in the street unaccompanied by an Aryan.
The same document for his father, Dr. Elkan
Harmelin
.
Work I.D. Card for Raoul
Harmelin
.
I.D. Card for Regina
Harmelin
, his mother.
Tags with letter "R" which indicated that Raoul
Harmelin
and his parents were assigned to a work detail.
of
Malvina Lebovic
Malvina Lebovic, née Kleinberger, was born in 1920 in Kalnik (Kal'nyk), near Munkacs, Czechoslovakia. She was the oldest of nine children. Her father was a butcher, the family was very poor and life was difficult. Her father organized a school for Jewish children because of antisemitism in school. In 1934 the family moved to Karlovy (Karlsbad) hoping for a better life. In 1938, after the Anschluss of Austria they moved back to Kalnik but shortly thereafter the area was occupied by Hungary. Mrs. Lebovic describes that Jews started to be persecuted, her father and brother were taken to labor camps, Jews were frequently beaten and food was scarce.
When Germany occupied Hungary, all the Jews were deported to Auschwitz in cattle cars. Mrs. Lebovic describes conditions during the journey and arrival at Auschwitz. Her mother and younger brother were immediately taken to the gas chambers, she and two sisters to barracks. Later, in a group of 2,000, they were transferred first to Stutthof and then to Baumgart for hard labor. They lived in tents and slept on straw. Only 200 of the 2,000 survived.
All three sisters contracted typhus shortly before liberation by the Russians in March 1945. They returned to Kalnik, married and eventually made their way to Israel. After her daughter contracted polio they came to the United States for medical treatment and remained there.
See also testimony of her husband, David Lebovic.
of
Mina Lustiger
Mina Lustiger, nee Bochner, was born July 30, 1929 in Bielitz, Poland. Her father was in the scrap metal business. She shares childhood memories including frightening antisemitic attacks. She describes the commotion and uncertainty after the German invasion, first sent with her siblings to her grandfather in Kęty, to avoid the Germans but then having to return home. After finally reunited with her parents in Bielsko she witnessed Jews being harassed and her family experienced the plunder of their silver by Germans. The whole family then fled toKęty because it was a smaller citywhere they hoped to avoid harassment. When her mother was jailed in Kęty for trying to send a package of food and her father was sent to a labor camp, the four girls were left alone. Mina describes the Kęty Ghetto and her subsequent deportation to the Neudorf Ghetto in 1941.They were warned1 not to be in the area during a selection and fled, posing as Aryans, to their uncle in Chrzanów. She describes the harrowing journey, travelling alone as a 12 year old, and then being joined by her sisters. Subsequently, they found out that some of the family had survived the selection and were then in Wadowice and the sisters again made a dangerous journey to join family. Mina describes the gated Wadowice Ghetto and how they had to sneak in with a labor brigade. Soon after, she and her sisters were deported to Sucha labor camp where they did hard labor regulating water near railways. She describes being sent to a distribution center at Sosnowiec and again being deported with her sisters to forced labor, this time in a spinning factory in Freiberg, Germany in 1943. She speaks about slightly better treatment there, but still long working hours and the scarcity of food. They were deported to Röhrsdorflabor camp and describes harsh working conditions, with little food and much suffering from disease. She mentions fasting on Yom Kippur.
In 1945, as Russian forces approached, they were sent on a death march to the Sudeten in Czechoslovakia, walking for several days, without food and sleeping in the snow. At Kratzau concentration camp, they joined inmates from many other countries. They finally were incarcerated at Gross Rosen, where she experienced the most brutal conditions. She describes beatings, many deaths from typhus and exhausting work in freezing weather.
On May 8, 1945, she was liberated by the Russian Army and then re-united with her family in Bielitz. In 1946, she went to England with a group of 100 other children and attended an ORT school. In 1951, she married Samuel Lustiger and they emigrated to the United States in 1952. They have a family of three children.
Mina does not indicate whether these were Jews or Gentiles who warned them.