Oral History Interview with Sydney Lesser

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Transcript
English
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Title

Oral History Interview with Sydney Lesser

Date

December 14, 1988

Contributor

Interviewee:
Sydney Lesser
Interviewer:
Philip G. Solomon

Summary

Sydney Lesser served in the 639th Automatic Weapons Anti-aircraft Battalion of the United States Army during World War II, in Europe. He arrived at Buchenwald Concentration camp in April 1945, several days after the concentration camp was liberated. Sydney describes what he found there and depicts surviving inmates as "walking skeletons". He describes graphically the excavation of a mass grave--where thousands of Jews were buried-- by German civilians. He relates an anecdote, told to him by his interpreter, about a Jew who intervened when Polish and Russian prisoners brutally beat the Camp Commandant, insisting that the man be kept alive. Sydney Lesser later served as Military Governor in the area. He encountered German civilians who freely admitted some knowledge of atrocities, yet maintained allegiance to Hitler.

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Publisher:
Gratz College
Number of Tapes:
1
Language:
English
Identifier:
HOHAGC00301
Rights
Copyright date:
2010
Cite this item
Oral History Interview with Sydney Lesser. 1988. InterviewInterview by Philip Solomon. Audio. Oral History Interview With Sydney Lesser. Holocaust Oral History Archive. Gratz College. https://grayzel.gratz.edu/hoha/oral-history-interview-sydney-lesser.

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Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library:

Original typed testimony from Emanuel Mandel, son of Cantor Mandel, obtained on June 6, 1980, describes the 1944 transfer of the Jews from Hungary.1

Photocopies of documents:

Travel documents from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, 1945

Czech Passports

German Certification Employment

Document from the Central Council of Hungarian Jews “ Spezia"

Copy of Original Music about the town of Spezia, Italy from which

he made Aliya,1946

Work Papers From Israel, 1946