Oral History Interview with Herman Krauser

Fanny Schwartz was born on December 16, 1911 in Stavna, Czechoslovakia. She was brought up by a very observant father who was a shochet (ritual slaughterer) who tutored his children in their Jewish subjects. He was also a leader in the local kehillah. There were nine children in the family; only Fanny, two of her sisters and two brothers survived. Her brothers came to the United States in 1939.

Fanny was living in Berecin1 with her husband and young son before the war started. They lost their store in 1938 when the Hungarians occupied Czechoslovakia. Fanny describes the Hungarians as very antisemitic. Fanny’s husband was taken to a work camp but was able to return and the family was able to remain in Berecin for a time. By early 1940 men were taken daily to work camps, but in 1944, right after Passover, the Hungarians took the Jews from Berecin, via the Ungvar Ghetto, on transports to Auschwitz. Fanny describes in great detail the horrific conditions of the transport: Hungarian police overseers marching them to the cattle trains, hysterical mothers and children, no food or water.

She describes in detail her arrival at Auschwitz, separation of families, selections by Mengele, delousing and head shaving, atrocities and cruelty toward the prisoners. Fanny and the healthier women were sent to Birkenau, Camp C. She details surviving several selections by Mengele. From October 1944 until January 1945 Fannyand her sister were sent to a women’s work camp Schlesiersee, a sub-camp of Gross Rosen, in Poland.

Fanny discusses her religious faith and how it helped her to survive and gives examples of religious observance: trying to light holiday candles and observing Tisha B’Av. Fanny details the death march in January 1945 during which time she injured her leg. Her health deteriorated and she and her sister escaped from the march and spent four nights hiding in a box. She managed to get to a hospital for foreign refugees and was very ill, with back injuriesas well as tuberculosis. Fanny was liberated from a Red Cross hospital in Pirna, Germany by Russian soldiers on May 8, 1945.

In Germany,Fanny suffered for 10 years inmany hospitalizations. She was in a hospital in Heidenau (near Dresden) for two years. In 1947, Fanny was in the DP camp, Schlachtensee, in Berlin, and later in hospitals in Munich and Gauting for TB, where the Germans paid her medical bills. Finally, in 1955, after procuring papers, she joined her relatives in the United States.

James A. Realey served with the 283rd Field Artillery Battalion in Southern Germany during World War II. He went back to Dachau concentration camp shortly after it was liberated, once his group had set up a defense perimeter. He vividly describes what he found there: emaciated survivors, corpses, crematoria, and gas chambers. He mentions the various nationalities of the prisoners held there. Mr. Realey was deeply affected by what he saw at Dachau and he still finds it difficult to talk about this experience. He believes that in order to relate to the Holocaust it is necessary to actually see the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

Jacques Lipetz was born in Antwerp, Belgium, 1932. He was educated at Takhemoni, a Jewish school. He relates many childhood memories. He vividly describes his family’s flight through France to Marseille in May 1940. Jacques, his mother and two brothers went to Lisbon via Spain, his father via Morocco. An interesting vignette explains how he managed to join his family.

Jacques and his family sailed to New York City in 1941 but could not stay because their quota number had not come up yet. They booked passage to the Philippines and landed in Manila in May or June 1941. He describes their life as Belgian subjects under Japanese occupation. Jacques attended a private school run by the Christian Brothers, and describes his religious education as a Sephardic Jew in a congregation dominated by Ashkenazic German Jews, as well as antisemitic persecution by Filipino students. He gives an interesting account of Japanese cultural attitudes and their treatment of foreigners and natives. The Japanese brought civilian Jewish internees to High Holiday services. He tells a charming story of how a Japanese officer helped his brother get his scooter back from a German Nazi family. Jacques describes conditions in Manila towards the end of the war and liberation by Americans. Jewish chaplains held a Passover Seder for the Jewish community at the Manila racetrack. The Lipetz family left Manila for America in late 1945 and received a permanent visa five years later.

Historical endnotes by Dr. Michael Steinlauf are in the transcript.

Interviewee: LIPETZ, Jacques Date: July 21, 1988

Sylvia Schneider, née Balbierer, was born in Cologne, Germany on May 4, 1928 to an Orthodox Jewish family. Her father, a language teacher was born in Belgium of Russian ancestry. Her mother was from Krakow, Poland. A happy childhood ended for Sylvia in 1935-36, when her sister Ruth was beaten by Hitler youth. Years later, while studying nursing in England, Ruth died in 1943 of a brain aneurysm presumably caused by that injury.

On October 28, 1938, the Gestapo deported Sylvia, Ruth and their mother, along with many others with Polish passports to Zbaszyn. She described freezing living conditions in 1938-39 in the no man's land between the German and Polish borders. In May 1939 her family joined an aunt in Krakow and then went to Otwock, near Warsaw for the girls to await a Kindertransport ship to England. They were parted from their mother and experienced unhappy stays in private homes and a children's hostel, but Sylvia names several caring women who befriended her. In 1947, she immigrated to the United States, where she married and had a daughter. She gave up her Orthodox religious faith when she learned that her mother was gassed at Auschwitz and her father died in another camp, but she continued to identify herself as a traditional Jew.

Genia Golombek, nee Fieman, was born on January 17, 1923 in Lodz, Poland into a religious middle class family. Her father was in the commercial wood-burning business. She attended a Polish state elementary school and then a private Jewish girls high school one of five in Lodz. In December, 1939 all the Jews of Lodz were forced into a ghetto. Genia describes life in the Lodz ghetto: the Judenrat, deeds of Rumkowski, its Jewish leader, Hans Biebow, German commandant, the round-ups and the inhuman conditions. Genia’s father worked for the Judenrat but later died of starvation in 1942.

In 1944 the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto were deported to Birkenau/Auschwitz. Genia describes her life there and even being passed over by Mengele twice. In October 1944 she was sent to Lenzing labor camp (a subcamp of Mauthausen) in Austria to work making artificial wool and bomb shelters for the Germans. She mentions kindnesses by the camp commandant and two women SS guards. She was also helped by two non-Jewish prisoners (one a Frenchman) while building the underground bomb shelters.

She was liberated by the Americans on May 5, 1945 in Lenzing, received food and medical help from the Americans and was relocated to Kammerscheffling (also in Austria) where they set up more aid facilities. In June, 1945 she went to Santa Maria di Leuca, near Naples, to receive aid from the Joint Distribution Committee. She was helped by the International Refugee Organization during her travels to Italy. While working for the Americans in Caserte, Italy, near Naples, she met her husband. They married and had two children. The family emigrated to the United States in 1950.

D.S. son of a Jewish banker and a Protestant mother, was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928. He stayed in Berlin until 1948. He discusses his family’s history, his education and how their life as Jews changed and became increasingly restricted after 1935. Non-Jewish relatives broke off contact until after the war ended.

He briefly describes Kristallnacht. His father’s business and property were confiscated. D.S. and his father were arrested and detained at Rosenstrasse for one week and saw the Rosenstrasse Action by non-Jewish spouses of the prisoners. His family was forced to move into rooms shared with two other families. After the Jewish schools were closed, D.S. worked for the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland for several months until the entire staff was deported in vans. He was spared because of his non-Jewish mother and believes that this is why his father survived. He became Bar Mitzvah in 1941. D.S. and his father were assigned to a labor camp in Berlin in 1942. D.S. resisted the Germans through sabotage while in the labor unit and as a member of a small resistance group composed of young men from mixed marriages. He describes life during the Battle of Berlin and postwar under Russian occupation.

D.S. completed his education in a German high school. He could no longer endure life in Germany and came to the United States in 1948, helped by HIAS. His parents remained in Germany, but his mother joined him after his father’s death.

D.S. cites personal encounters to prove Germans knew what happened to Jews in the camps as well as a few incidents of help from non-Jews. He talks about his feelings about Germans and his determination to fight antisemitism.