Oral History Interview with Elsa Kissel

In this second interview, Ephraim Glaser discusses his experiences after his escape from labor camp in more depth. While posing as a gentile Hungarian, Ephraim joined an Austrian supply unit stationed near the Russian lines in August 1944. He did this hoping to escape across the Russian border. He mentions several painful or risky episodes involving Jews, while working as an interpreter for the German captain. He mentions the attitude of some Hungarians towards Germany and the soldiers’ reactions to being under constant attack.

Ephraim recounts how he found out that the Gestapo suspected him of being a Bolshevik. Under false pretenses, he persuaded a Hungarian Baron to hide him and two other Jewish men who also posed as Germans. When he left his hiding place, Russian soldiers were in control of the area. He had several potentially dangerous encounters with Russian soldiers while trying to help some Hungarians. He describes his decision to go home post-war even though a Russian captain-- once he found out that Ephraim was Jewish-- offered him a position as an interpreter.

See also Ephraim’s first interview conducted in 1988.

Aaron Kuptsow talks about his experiences as a radar navigation bombardier, 15th Air Force during World War II, especially his instructions in the event of capture, both as a Jew and as a radar operator.

He describes his capture, together with other crew members, after their plane was shot down near Hanover, Germany, on November 26, 1944, as well as a forced march to a Luftwaffe station at Detmold, then to an interrogation station at Wetzlar, near Frankfurt, Germany. There he experienced intensive questioning about Radar; solitary confinement, and an act of kindness by a German guard. He was transferred to STALAG I, a prison camp for air force officers, at Barth on the Baltic. He talks about conditions in the camp, the other prisoners, and different treatment by the Germansof officers and enlisted men who were prisoners of war. One day all the Jewish prisoners were put into a separate barracks in a secluded section of the camp. He explains how the prisoners organized their barracks and relied on Red Cross parcels for food. In fact, food was their main topic of conversation. News from the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) was distributed throughout the camp clandestinely every day. Although they were allowed to send and receive mail, none of the prisoners’ mail was ever sent out.

The American prisoners took over the camp on April 30, 1945. He vividly describes the arrival of Russian troops on horseback accompanied by accordion music, and their behavior while in the STALAG. The Americans were flown to camps for liberated prisoners of war near Lyon, France. He describes some delays during his discharge from the service and how he entered medical school. Dr. Kuptsow again reflects on conditions at the camp and how being a prisoner of war affected him.

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

Zenek Maor, was born August 9, 1923, in Wloclawek, Poland, into a religious Jewish family. His father was a factory owner and the family lived comfortably until the German occupation. He details pre-war life including his HashomerHatzairactivities. He describes German restrictions and brutalities in Wloclawek, where his father was arrested and held for ransom, and later in Warsaw, where his family fled in January 1940. As a 16 year-old, he worked in various forced labor brigades, including the Okecie air-field in Warsaw. He gives detailed descriptions of life in the Warsaw ghetto including Jewish police and the HashomerHatzairnetwork of underground schools. Because of severe hunger in the ghetto, he was encouraged by his family to escape in 1942.

Eventually sent to various labor camps, he details difficult work conditions but mentions ongoing belief in his own survival. He discusses reasons that people could not escape from labor camps or from Auschwitz. He details his arrival at Auschwitz in summer 1943 including initial belief in the slogan “Work Makes You Free,” the smell of roasting flesh, and his defiance of Mengele’s decision to send him to annihilation with other children instead of assigning him to work with his older brother. Much information is given on Auschwitz: daily routine, work, treatment by Kapos, latrine communication between prisoners. He describes the death march from Auschwitz from January 17, 1945 to May 10, 1945 and gives an in-depth account of his liberation by the Russian Army. Returning to Poland, he learns that no one from his family survived. He emigrated to Palestine in April, 1947.

This interview was conducted in Haifa, Israel.

Dora Langsam was born in Brzeziny, Poland January 1, 1925. Her family kept kosher, her father, a business man, fought with Trumpeldor, her brother served in the Polish army.

She describes conditions for Jews after the German invasion in September 1939. One brother died trying to protect his father from the Germans, one sister with her newborn baby was taken during a selection. The rest of the family stayed in the Brzeziny Ghetto from 1940 to the spring of 1942 when the ghetto was closed and the Jewish population was transported to the Lodz Ghetto. Her mother was taken away in a selection immediately, a brother later. Dora and her father worked in a factory as slave laborers. She describes what she refers to as “hellish conditions” in the Lodz Ghetto.

In July or August 1944, the liquidation of the ghetto started. Dora, her father, and a sister were transported to Auschwitz. Her father was taken away as soon as he got off the train. Dora and her sister lived in barracks, supervised by a brutal Czech KAPO and endured daily Appells, selections, hunger and cold. Dora tried to rescue her sister during a selection and both were saved from certain death at the last second by an air raid. Both were transported to a labor camp in Neukölln to work in an ammunition factory owned by Krupp. In 1945, near the end of the war, they were transported to Ravensbrück where they received food packages from the American Red Cross. Dora and her sister did not get sick like most of the girls because they didn’t eat the non-kosher food.

On April 24, 1945 Dora and her sister went to Padborg, Denmark on a convoy organized by Folke Bernadotte, then on to Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden. She describes how deeply being treated like human beings affected them and the quarantines in Lund then Visingsö. Dora worked in a sanatorium during the day and went to school at night, stayed in Sweden for eight years, married her husband, a survivor from Poland, and had a son and a daughter during that time. On July 6, 1953 they went to the United States, helped by HIAS, because her husband wanted to raise his children in a free country. Her sister still lives in Sweden with her husband, also a survivor.

Ephraim Glaser, born in 1922 in Cluj, Transylvania, Romania, was the son of an orthodox shochet, mohel and chazan. He describes pre-war Cluj and recalls a pogrom that took place in the courtyard of his family’s home when he was five years old.

He describes changes that occurred when the Hungarian occupation began in 1940, including beatings and exclusion of Jews from public schools. He attended cheder and yeshiva until 1943, when he was taken to a forced labor camp. He escaped in 1944, and because of his Aryan appearance and ability to speak German, was able to pose as a Hungarian Christian and join a German army unit as a translator. After several months, suspected of being a Bolshevist, he ran away and found refuge in a factory, whose owner, a baron, hid him in an unused oven.

His sister and her family, hidden in a Czechoslovakian monastery, were deceived by a German promise of safety and returned to their home in August 1941. They were then seized and sent on the last transport to Auschwitz. His brother-in-law, an opera singer and cantor in Bratislava, was shot while singing for the Germans.

Ephraim fled to Miskolc in the Russian zone and was liberated at the end of 1944. He briefly mentions Russian plunder of the local population. After his return to Cluj, he was active in the Zionist underground movement, Bricha2, transporting Jews illegally to Palestine. Accused of being a fascist by former friends who had become Communists, he went to Palestine and worked on a kibbutz in1946. He describes the difficulties encountered among kibbutz members who stigmatized survivors like himself as being cowards who willingly submitted to their own slaughter. That experience caused him to remain silent for many years, not even telling his children about his experiences until later in his life. He explains how his silence and then finally talking about the Holocaust affected his children.

See also Ephraim’s second interview conducted in 1989 during which he discusses more in-depth about his experiences in the German army unit.

Interviewee: GLASER, Ephraim Date: August 10, 1988