Oral History Interview with Charlotte Sonnenberg

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.

Mr. Maas served in the 242nd Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Division, U.S. 7th Army. He was taken on a brief, partial tour of Dachau concentration camp short after it was liberated, and only glimpsed corpses and survivors.

Interviewee: MAAS, Thomas E. Date: December 3, 1990

Ernst Presseisen was born July 13, 1928 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. His father was a businessman. He describes the German invasion of Holland and the bombing of Rotterdam in May1940. He details the gradually tightening restrictions imposed by the Germans to isolate the Dutch-Jewish citizens. After roundups of Jewish men started in July 1942, his father - helped by Christian friends who had contact with the underground - planned the family’s escape. His mother’s arrest by Dutch police aborted this plan. The entire family, including his mother, was deported to Westerbork in August 1942 and stayed there until February 1944. He describes life in Westerbork in detail, including his own development of survival skills and how his family managed to remain there instead of being deported to Poland. He briefly mentions Geneker, the commander of Westerbork.

In February 1944 he was deported to Bergen-Belsen with his family. He describes his experiences there in detail, including slave labor assignments and general deterioration of the inmates’ health. Jewish prisoners organized a theatre group “Cabaret Westerbork” in that camp. In the fall of 1944 Ernst got typhus and his oldest brother died of it. He mentions Greek Kapos. At the approach of the British Army, the Germans decided to evacuate the camp in April, 1945. Prisoners who survived the evacuation were liberated by the Russians and ordered to requisition housing in Trebitsch, Germany. Ernst briefly describes survival in Trebitsch. After his parents died of typhus, he was repatriated to the Netherlands by the Red Cross in June 1945. He talks about life in post-war Holland. He emigratedto the United States in October 1946. He settled in California with relatives and taught German history at the university level after getting his degree.

Interviewee: Ernst Leopold Presseisen Date: April 22, 1983

Ervin Belik, formerly Bleiweiss, was born in Mistek, Czechoslovakia, June 13 1918, the youngest son in a large family. He was educated in both Jewish and Czech schools. After the German occupation March 1939, he was warned that the S.S. was waiting to arrest him and fled to Poland in May 1939.

He joined the Czech army in Krakow and changed his name to Belik. His unit landed with the Russian forces in Poland and was sent to Ukraine. He served as a member of the Czech Army unit under Russian command in Poland and Russia; under British command in Palestine and other countries in the Middle East, and took part in an attack on three French Army units suspected of being Nazi collaborators. He later served with an Australian Army unit in Tobruk. His unit returned to Palestine where he participated in the defense of Haifa and in the rollback of German and Italian forces from El Alamein to Tripoli. Mr. Belik arrived in England in June 1943 on the troopship Mauretania. He met and married his wife, a German Jewish refugee, in England. He participated in the invasion of France and arrived in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia with Patton's Third Army in 1945.

Mr. Belik was discharged in January 1946 and returned to Mistek where he met his brother Ernst. is entire family except for his brother, and aHHis HHis eniree HH

Hkmkjkjkjkjljklkjl His entire family except for his brother, and a sister who lives in Haifa, was murdered. Ervin, his wife and two children lived in Mistek until they emigrated to Israel on July 7, 1949. He describes their new life in Israel.

This interview took place in KiryatMotzkin, Israel.

Rachel Hochhauser, née Swerdlin, was born July 2, 1928 in Krzywice, Poland. She was the only child of a religious family. Her grandfather was Rabbi and Shochet of the shtetl. Her grandmother and parents operated a general store. She describes religious education and a comfortable life, pre WWII, and friendly relations with Polish and Russian neighbors until September 3, 1939. She details restrictive occupations under Russians and subsequent persecution by Germans and local collaborators in summer of 1941. When her father was killed she went into hiding with her mother and other relatives after warnings from non-Jews, including the police Kommandant for whom she worked.

The family hid on several farms from April, 1942 until 1944. They were protected for 20 months by a Catholic farmer’s wife, Anna Kobinska, with whom Rachel continued to correspond after the war. When forced to move for the final time, they went into a partisan-occupied area. She describes the privations of living in a swamp during the winter of 1943-44. A log bunker built for them in the woods in exchange for 20 rubles of gold sheltered ten people until spring, 1944. The Russian Blitzkrieg and deserting Germans drove the group to return to their homes in Krzywice, where her family was welcomed home by neighbors. They adopted an orphan girl found in their house and moved westward to the DP camp at Foehrenwald. Rachel describes her education there in an ORT school. She immigrated to the United States in April, 1951.

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

Charles Willner was born in 1926, in Dombrowa, Poland into a large, religiously observant family. His father was in the cattle business and a decorated Polish Army veteran.

Charles describes anti-Jewish regulations after September 1939. In early 1940, when only 13 years old, he was sent to Pustkow labor camp and describes conditions there. In November 1940, he was held in Montelupich prison on a trumped-up charge. He was tortured and released after six weeks. While at Pustkow he was given passes by a German officer and was able to smuggle food to relatives in Dombrowa and Tarnow. He was caught and sentenced to die by German S.S., but another man was killed instead of him.

Charles stayed in Pustkow until 1942 when he was transferred to Mielec, a Heinkel-Messerschmitt airplane factory. He describes the heavy labor and surviving typhoid. He also explains why most prisoners did not try to escape from Mielec.

In 1944, prisoners were transferred to an underground salt mine then to Plaszow, near Krakow. He describes in detail his 11 weeks at Poliowa Gorka, a site of mass murders. Mounds of corpses they had to uncover and burn after their gold teeth had been extracted. He witnessed the execution of people caught crossing the border, random killings, and retaliation killings if anyone managed to escape. He describes how he survived by chance.

In late 1944, after a stop in Gross Rosen, he arrived at Oscar Schindler’s ammunition factory in Brinnlitz where he remained until May 8, 1945 when the Russians liberated the camp. He testifies to Schindler’s protection of his workers and refers to acts of sabotage. He also speaks of his own attitudes toward Germans today and his pride in the State of Israel.

After liberation in 1945 he searched for his family, encountered Polish antisemitism, including the murder of a fellow concentration camp survivor. He left Poland for Prague, then Munich. There he was united with his older brother, the only other survivor of his immediate family. With the help of Jewish agencies, the two remained in Germany. In May 1948, Charles Willner emigrated to the United States. He met his future wife, a survivor of Auschwitz, on the boat.