Oral History Interview with Luba Margulies

Wilbur Jurist served as First Lieutenant in the United States 82nd Airborne Division in Europe during World War II. Near the end of the war, his unit liberated a small concentration camp near the town of Ludwigslust, Germany. Lt. Jurist witnessed an open trench and several barracks filled with dead and near dead prisoners, all of whom were males. He mentions attempts to feed emaciated survivors and refers to a few men who went into town, seized a German tank and used it to try to kill German civilians. He believes his unit helped save about half of the approximately 600 prisoners of war and German political prisoners.

He describes a reburial of bodies, ordered by his commander, General Gavin. German civilians were forced to carry bodies to mass graves they dug in a park in Ludwigslust, which were viewed by the townspeople who were marched past the open graves. Mr. Jurist claims no one admitted knowledge of the camp, which was located nearby on a major highway. Lt. Jurist was given command of a camp for displaced German civilians none of whom would admit that they had ever been Nazis.

Interviewee: JURIST, Wilbur Date: January 14, 1988

Harvey Shreibman was born March 25, 1925 in Pruzana, Poland. He attended a yeshiva and worked in his father’s leather manufacturing business until Russia occupied Poland. He describes difficult conditions under the Russians, losing the business, harassment of his father for not working because he would not work on Shabbat and less availability of food and commodities. Harvey attended a Russian school where he was indoctrinated with communist beliefs. He describes the German invasion of 1941, when he witnessed airplanes falling from the sky while out with a youth group.

Soon after, his family was forced into the PruzanaGhetto, where Harvey worked as a shoemaker. He describes extremely difficult conditions in the ghetto, relations with the Judenrat and resistance efforts.

On January 28, 1943, the ghetto was evacuated and his family was sent by cattle car to Birkenau. He describes Shabbat observance during the journey. Harvey details vividly their arrival at the camp and his separation from his parents. During the next six weeks, he endured frequent beatings and other forms of torture. He describes his transfer to Auschwitz and describes it as a much better experience than in Birkenau. He worked with the shoemakers, and describes daily beatings from the Kapos. After a year was transferred again to Monowice-Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz, where he worked from before sunrise until late at night unloading freight cars. He mentions the camp orchestra that played as prisoners marched to work. He describes some instances of kindnesses from some non-Jewish inmates and was able to get a better job after finding a cousin in Buna.

In 1945, he was liberated by the American Army, lived in Bavaria post-war and later settled in the United States where he was married in 1953.

Sybil Niemöller (maiden name von Sell) was born in 1923 in Potsdam into an aristocratic Prussian family. Both her grandfathers were Prussian generals. After World War I her father was appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm to be his financial advisor and administrator. She grew up in Berlin-Dahlem where she had several Jewish friends. Her parents were strongly anti-Nazi. The family attended the Confessing Church which was led by their friend Pastor Niemöller. This church was founded as counterpart against the Christian German Church which had embraced Nazi ideology. Because she did not belong to the Hitler Youth she was prevented from graduating from high school and became an actress. During the war her parents sheltered several Jews, disguised as seamstresses and gardeners. Two of her cousins, Werner von Haeften (who was adjutant to Count von Stauffenberg) and Hans Bernd von Haeften were involved in the attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944 and were executed. Both Sybil and her father were also arrested and interrogated at that time, but released. She arrived in the United States in 1952, became a U.S. citizen in 1957, and married Pastor Martin Niemöller. She accompanied him on his lecture tours but made their home in Wiesbaden, Germany. She describes his suffering as “Hitler’s special prisoner” when he was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen and later in Dachau.

Interviewee: NIEMÖLLER, Sybil (von Sell) Date: November 21, 1986

Samuel Sherron was born March 27, 1932 in Skuodas, Lithuania but lived in Schweksna. His father was a merchant. Samuel was educated in both public school and cheder. He lived under Russian occupation from 1940 until the German invasion. He describes the roundup and torture of local Jews by SS troops and Lithuanians. He cites eyewitness accounts of the murder of all remaining Jews, mostly women and children.

Samuel and his father were taken to a labor camp in Heydekrug near Memel, Germany in 1941. He experienced beatings, atrocities and frequent selections. Those selected were shot. In 1943, when he was only 11 years old, they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He describes surviving the initial selection and how inmates built tracks so transports could go directly to the crematoria. He details conditions at Auschwitz, the Appels, the constant hunger, and an encounter with Dr. Mengele. He witnessed sadism and torture. Lithuanian and Ukrainian guards killed Jewish prisoners for sport.

With 5000 non-Polish Jewish volunteers they were sent to Pawiak prison to build barracks and crematoria in what had been the Warsaw Ghetto, as transports of Hungarian and Czech Jews arrived. In the summer of 1944, most of the prisoners from “Camp Warsaw “ were evacuated on a death march to Kovno, then by cattle train to Dachau, with a group of Greek Jews. He mentions eyewitness accounts of mass murders of Jews by Einsatzgruppen under Operation Barbarossa. He went to a labor camp in Mühldorf, Germany to do construction work for the Luftwaffe. In April 1945, the prisoners were put on cattle trains guarded by SS. Intervention by the mayor of Pocking, Bavaria (because American troops were near) kept the Luftwaffe from killing them. Samuel and his father were liberated by America troops in Seeshaupt on April 28, 1945. They were transferred to Munich after some medical treatment.

Interviewee: SHERRON, Samuel Date: December 11, 1983

Frederick A. Walters was a Jewish soldier who served in the 474th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army. He knew about the existence of concentration camps from the Stars and Stripes and Armed Forces Radio Network but did not think he would ever witness them. He entered Buchenwald in April 1945 and describes his shock seeing the corpses and the appalling conditions of approximately 150 surviving prisoners. The regiment was not responsible for the care of the survivors but gave them army rations until food and medical care arrived. He recalls a man giving prisoners money who he believes may have been Edward R. Morrow. He describes the shock of his regiment in witnessing the realities of the camp and states that they had refused to believe published and broadcasted reports.

No official or unofficial meetings were held to discuss reactions and no regimental history documents the experience. Weimar townspeople denied knowledge of camp activities. Later shipped to Norway to deal with surrender of German army units, Mr. Walters found that German soldiers denied knowledge of the camps and did not believe his eyewitness testimony. He found the same disbelief in the U.S. upon his return and states appreciation for this opportunity to bear witness for the first time since the war.

Lillian Steinig, née Edelstein, was born January 23, 1923 in Stryj, Poland. Her father was a merchant and farmer until the Russian occupation in 1939. Forced to give up his large farm to the Soviet authority, he moved his family to the city and worked in a lumber yard. Lillian and her younger brother had to attend a strict Russian school until 1941, when the Germans occupied Stryj and relocated Jews. She describes Jewish attempts to hide and the 1942 round-up of Jews, including her father and brother, who jumped from a moving cattle car and returned home. She relates in detail aid by non-Jewish Poles who gave her false identification papers and hid her brother and parents. Another Polish family in Przedborz, near Kielce, sheltered her until 1945. She describes her trip through the Russian zone at the war’s end for a reunion with her family, who moved briefly to Krakow. Antisemitic outbreaks in Krakow forced them to flee to a Displaced Persons camp in Austria in 1946. Later, in Linz, Lillian and her brother worked in Simon Wiesenthal’s Jewish Identification Center. The family emigrated to the United States in January, 1949, aboard the SS Marina, joining relatives in Philadelphia.