Oral History Interview with Lola Krause

Jack (Isaak) Price was born in Warsaw, Poland, May 15, 1924. His family was in an import export business and he lived in a very Jewish neighborhood. In 1940 all schools for Jews were closed and the family was ordered into the Warsaw Ghetto with liquidations beginning July 22, 1942. Jack describes sneaking out of the ghetto to bring food in for his family and the bribery and corruption in the Jewish Council. He heard about the exterminations from escapees from Treblinka who reported to the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization and the Judenrat that the clothing of the dead was being shipped back to Germany. The escapees told of the gassing and warned Jews not to volunteer for “resettlement”. Many Jews could not believe these reports.Jack was able to join the Jewish underground because he did not look Jewish and was given Aryan papers by the Jewish underground.He went back and forth from the Aryan side and survivedby “dealing”; selling cigarettes, shining shoes and buying arms and uniforms from the regular German army(which was sympathetic to the Poles). His story istold inthe book, The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square by Yosef Zena, (Joseph Zieman).Mr Price was known as "Stasiek-from-Praga" in the book. Jack describes how his parents’ wish that “at least let there be a name left; fight for survival” was what kept his spirit alive throughout.

Jack details the existence of two Polish underground groups: the Polish Home Army in London(that was fascist and antisemitic) and the Polish Workers Party in Lublin (sympathetic to Jews); Jack fought with PWP. He continued to smuggle in pistols, dynamite and Molotov cocktail materials until 1943. He describes his fighting in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and his escape to the Aryan side. Jack escaped from a train on the way to Treblinka and was shot in the leg during the heavy fighting of the Polish uprising in 1944. He went from prison to prison as a Polish POW, was hidden by various sympathetic Poles and was liberated by the Russians on January 17, 1945. Jack details instances of antisemitism in Warsaw even after the war. He was sent to an international orphanage and later came to the United States in 1947.

Zina Farber, nee Bass, one of six children, was born December 6, 1933 in Bialystok, Poland. Her father was a businessman. She shares her very early childhood memories of antisemitism (having been taught to always step off pavements when encountering Gentiles, at the risk of being beaten). She also recounts that the most vivid detail of her early life in Poland is her very warm family.

Having been separated from both parents very early in the war, her eldest brother took care of the family. In 1943, after confinement in Bialystok and PruzhanyGhettos, she and four brothers were sent to Auschwitz. She describes the round up of Jews in Pruzhany, the deportation in open cattle trucks, arrival, selection, and shaving. She describes the absolute miracle that she was not immediately gassed, being dragged out of her assigned truck and put instead with the group of women assigned to hard labor. She was 10 years old. She attributes this miracle to the fact that she was wearing her mother’s coat which made her look older than she was. She explains several times that it is too painful to recount the innumerable stories she could tell about her one and half year experience in Auschwitz. She is able to share descriptions of her constant hunger and fear. She describes fear of punishment – i. e. having her head pushed into a barrel of excrement– and relates the necessity of always wearing her soup bowl on a rope around her neck, even when sleeping. She also describes how the girls took care of each other, reddening cheeks before selections for example. She endured a two-week death march in mid-April 1945 to Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Gleiwitz (possibly Neustadt-Glewe).

Liberated by American soldiers, she travelled to Bialystok, where she was reunited with her father who had survived five years in Siberia. Mrs. Farber was separated several years earlier from her mother, who had been transported to Treblinka. After a failed attempt to emigrate to Palestine from the Landsberg displaced persons camp, Mrs. Farber left for the United States in 1949. Sponsored by an uncle in Philadelphia, she remained there, married and had two sons.

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

This document is the program for the Limmud FSU Global Leadership Summit, held in Sighet, Romania, from July 19-21, 2013, with initial activities in Mukachevo and Uzhgorod, Ukraine, starting July 17. The summit featured Nobel Laureate Prof. Elie Wiesel and a comprehensive schedule including morning prayers, visits to significant Jewish historical sites (such as the Jewish ghetto, cemetery, and Wiesel Museum), concerts, and various panel discussions. Key themes addressed in the panels included the Holocaust, the contemporary meaning of Judaism, the transition from "Jews of Silence to Jews of Hope," Prof. Wiesel's life journey, "The Jews of Romania and the Land of Israel," and "Zionism and Anti-Semitism." Notable participants and speakers included Dr. Julius Berman, Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Prof. Alan Dershowitz, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, along with a range of cantors, rabbis, and community leaders. The program also highlighted messages from Presidents Barak Obama and Shimon Peres.

Herbert Broh was born in Berlin, Germany in 1930. He shares his childhood memories of his life in Germany and his family’s journey to Shanghai. Herbert relates several experiences of abusive antisemitism by his friends and his teacher, as well as his impressions of Kristallnacht.

His family left Germany for Shanghai in April of 1939 to join family members already living on Seward Road in the Hongkew section of Shanghai, under Japanese occupation. Herbert was enrolled in the Kadoorie School and later a cheder. He talks about his Jewish education at the cheder and the Yeshiva Katana in great detail, as well as the effect of his growing orthodoxy on his life and his family. He describes his family’s living conditions and life in Shanghai and states he was very happy there. He was only dimly aware that other refugees had a more difficult existence. His father worked for a Chinese factory managed by Japanese; his mother worked as a cook at the Komor Kindergarten.

After Pearl Harbor, his family was evacuated to the Kadoorie School. He mentions interaction between Japanese and refugees. He vividly describes the events during and after the Japanese capitulation and the arrival of Chinese Nationalist and later American troops. He witnessed the departure of the entire Mirrer Yeshiva to Canada in 1946. Herbert and his family went to the United States in 1947. He describes his life in the United States and his feelings about his years in Shanghai. He is now a Cantor in Sun City, California.

Interviewee: BROH, Herbert Date: October 15, 1999

Ida Firestone, née Hoffman, born February 19, 1929, in Pont-a-Moussou, France, attended public schools and studied music privately, aspiring to be a concert pianist. In 1942, her father was falsely accused of being a Communist and was sent to Drancy concentration camp. He was later released.

In March, 1944, Ida and her family went into hiding. They were sheltered by a teacher, a grocer, a baker, a prostitute and several farmers. Separated from her family, she posed as an orphan, working for a farmer’s wife who treated her cruelly.

Ida hid in forests and in a barn, sleeping with animals and stealing food to survive. Before liberation by the Americans in December, 1944, she found protection on the Gouy family farm. She had lost 25 pounds and suffered with stomach problems which persisted throughout her life.

Reunited with her family in 1945, Ida resumed her music studies and graduated from a conservatory. In 1948, she and her family emigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where she married Herman Firestone in 1949. She became a piano teacher and a Holocaust speaker in schools and synagogues.

YadVashem has recognized as Righteous Among the Nations Victor and CecilleHergott, Germaine Bour, Lucien Louyot, Emile and GenvièveThouvenin and Victor and Marie (Friboug) Guoy, who protected Ida and her family members.

Poetry and a letter to her mother written by Ida during her wartime wandering is included in this interview.