Oral History Interview with Ellen Tarlow

Ina Rothschild talks about her life, education and work in Germany after World War I. Both women lived through Hitler’s rise to power, starting in the 1920s, experienced changes in Jewish life after 1933, and explain the effects of these events on the Jewish community and their interaction with Gentiles. Elsa Jaeckel’s husband, a Gentile, refused to divorce her and suffered the consequences. She mentions a group of Jews in Frankfurt who committed suicide to avoid deportation in 1941. Throughout the interview, Mrs. Rothschild cites many instances of aid and acts of kindness by Gentiles.

Mrs. Rothschild and her husband ran a Jewish orphanage in Esslingen am Neckar, near Stuttgart from 1933 to 1942 when they were deported. The orphanage was ransacked on November 9, 1938. Her husband was beaten, arrested, but later released to care for the displaced orphans. She describes what happened to the children in their care.

Elsa Jaeckel had to work for the Gestapo with 600 other Jewish women who had gentile husbands. She talks about conditions for couples in mixed marriages and living through air raids in Frankfurt. She avoided the transport to Theresienstadt because her husband bribed a former SA man to let her hide in his house. She hid in the attic until the Americans came in 1945.

When the orphanage was closed, the Rothschilds returned to Stuttgart. She describes their lives, her work in an old age home, and her attempts to care for Jewish children. Many of the children, especially the retarded ones, were deported and killed at Ravensburg. The Rothschilds were deported to an Old Age Home in Theresienstadt on August 22, 1942. She describes the process, the actual transport, arrival at Theresienstadt, and brutal treatment and living conditions which improved once the International Red Cross supervised this institution. She saw Reinhard Heydrich shoot Jewish prisoners. Ina Rothschild worked as a nurse, her husband died in July 1944. Many inmates killed themselves. Ina mentions attempts to care for newborn babies. She also volunteered to care for 50 young children from Holland with typhoid fever together with a Jewish doctor. The children survived and were adopted after the war. She was transported to Switzerland with 600 people in February 1945. Elsa came to the United States in 1957, Ina in 1947.

Note: Collateral Material available through the Gratz College Tuttleman Library:

Scanned copy of a German letter and the translation.

Lillian Taus, nee Mermelstein, was born on October 10, 19232,in Klascanovo3, Czechoslovakia. She was the eldest in a large family of 13. Her father was a butcher. She details her family’s experiences during the German occupation. She describes her father butchering meat in secret because it was forbidden and describes a time when she was jailed by the Germansfor delivering the kosher meat. She describes how the family was ordered to leave their home during theirPesahseder in 1944. All the Jews in the town were forced to a brick factory4 and then taken directly toAuschwitz a few weeks later. Lillian describes the horrible circumstances in the cattle cars, lack of food and water and no toilet facilities.

In a poignant telling of when the family arrived in Auschwitz, Lillian says that her mother went directly to the gas chamber with her youngest child in her arms because she refused to give him up. She also relates that the day they were put on the train was the day of her brother’s bar mitzvah and he put his tefillin on in the train and went to the gas chambers with it in an act of defiance. Several of Lillian’s siblings had died a year or two before during a typhoid outbreak. Of the remaining children, only Lillian and her 12 year old sister and one brother survived.5

Lillian describes the actions she had to take to keep her little sister alive. They remained at Auschwitz for about half the year during which time she would hide her sister in the bathroom during Appells and was assisted by the Stubenältester. From Auschwitz they were deported to Stuthoff, where Lillian was assigned to remove dead bodies from the barracks in the mornings and place them outside on the ground and number them. She used this terrible circumstance to save others. She would give the food-- that was rationed for the dead-- to her friend in another barracks to help others survive. She and her sisterwere then deported to Praust where they had to build an airport and she describes doing her work and her sister’s work so they wouldn’t get beaten. She details an instance when her sister was put onto a transport bound for death and she jumped into the truck and was beaten severely. They both managed to survive due to Lillian’s resourcefulnessand luck. She mentions that rape was common in the camp and relates an instance when she was almost raped.

Lillian describes their evacuation to Lübeck by boat6, via Danzig when inmates were left on a boat-- which the Germans had rigged to explode-- for nine days with no food or water.7 After liberation, Lillian stayed in Schleswig Holstein for about six months and she and her sister got medical care. She met her husband and married July 4, 1945.8

Lillian had recently done an interview with the Spielberg Project and explains that she wanted to do another interview for the Holocaust Oral History Archive to preserve her family’s experiences for the future. See also interviews with her siblings Louie Mermelstein and Shirley Don.

Mrs. Taus seemed to have some memory lapses during this interview as noted by the interviewer on her personal history form. We are therefore using her birthdate (Oct. 10 1923) as given in her first 1981 testimony, even though in this testimony she states that she was born on October 3, 1922.

Possibly the town Kliachanovo, also called Chervenovo, part of the Subcarpathian region. Alternate spellings Klyachanovo [Ukr], Kličanovo [Slov] and Klacsonó [Hung].

It is possible that this brick factory was in the Munkacs Ghetto. She stated her family was taken there in her 1981 interview.

She doesn’t mention her brother surviving in this interview. Please see her earlier 1981 interview. From this earlier interview we know that she and her sister were re-united with their one surviving brother, who went to the United States with their cousin, an American soldier.

From her earlier interview we know that this took place in March 1945 and that she was liberated by British soldiers May 5, 1945.

See her earlier interview for a more detailed and chronological account of this story.

From her earlier interview we know that Lillian came to Philadelphia February 19, 1949 with her husband, her sister and her two-year old daughter.

This is the second interview Mrs. Lillian Taus gave to the Holocaust Oral History Archive. Please also see her first interview given on November 23, 1981, #GC00523a.

Jerry Jacobs born April 25, 1929 in Lodz, Poland was the youngest son in a wealthy Jewish family. Their father was an accountant, a prosperous property owner and Associate Conductor of the Lodz Symphony Orchestra. One brother was an accomplished violinist, another studied piano and Jerry hoped to join the family "Kinder Orchestra."

He discusses the drastic changes that took place in 1939 with the German occupation: closing of schools, having to stay inside for safety and dangers for Jews on the streets. He describes his family’s deportation from the suburbs to Baluty (the poor section) in the Lodz Ghetto.

He details inhumane conditions experienced in cattle cars to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Rehmsdorf, after a death march in the snow in 1944. In January 1945 he escaped, and with his knowledge of German poses as an Ostdeutscher (Volksdeutsche) and briefly as a scout for the U.S. Army. After reuniting with his brothers in Lodz, they immigrated to the United States in 1947.

He became a successful realtor in New York City, where he devoted himself to organizing the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance to produce annual Holocaust Memorial concerts, attended by thousands at the Cathedral of St. John the Devine.

Rebecca tells her friend Maria her thoughts about Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe, her impressions of a sermon by a Unitarian preacher, and shares family news, including Issac Hays's graduation from medical school.

This multi-page brochure announces and provides details for the 15th Annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest, organized by Chapman University and its affiliated centers, including the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education. The contest invites students from middle and high schools to submit original works of art, film, or writing based on Holocaust survivor testimonies. The document outlines the contest rules, submission guidelines, prizes (including a study trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.), and the awards ceremony scheduled for March 7, 2014. It emphasizes the theme "Memories Spoken and Heard: Intersecting Perspectives of the Holocaust," exploring how oral testimony shapes understanding and memory of the Holocaust. The background section discusses the importance of survivor testimonies, referencing the story of Oskar Schindler, Leopold and Ludmila Page, Thomas Keneally's novel 'Schindler's List', and Steven Spielberg's film adaptation as examples of how memory is transmitted and interpreted. The brochure also lists various sponsors, partners, and contributors to the event, providing contact information for inquiries and submissions.

Morris Steiman was born August 5, 1918 in Bodzanow, a small town near Warsaw. Morris attended cheder and yeshiva and was a member ofAgudah, a religious Zionist youth group. He experienced pre-war antisemitism because of his appearance as a religious Jewish boy, in his hometown and in Warsaw, where he worked as a tailor’s apprentice.

In November, 1939, he fled the German occupation and went east to the Russian-occupied area of Poland. In March 1940, homesick and concerned about his parents, he returned to Poland—first Warsaw and then made his way back to his hometown— where he worked as a tailor for the Germans until March 1941. He discusses being very aware as an older teenager about what exactly was going on and actively looking for ways to escape and emigrate. He gives a detailed description of the evacuation of Jews from Bodzanow, during which he and his father was severely beaten on the head. He describes the Germans indiscriminately beating everyone they could as they chased them into the trucks. They were taken to a camp in Dzialdowo for a few days, near the German border, with little food and no toilets or water. They were thendeported to the Czestochowa Ghetto, where he was cared for by Rose Tannenbaum. Morris’ parents fled to Warsaw to be with his sister and died of natural causes soon after.

Morris and Rose married and survived the war years together, doing forced labor at HasagPelzery, in metal and ammunition factories in nearby Rakow. Morris describes one Wehrmacht commander who treated them humanely and also assisted several Jews in escaping the ghetto and retrieving money left behind in the ghetto. They were liberated by the Russians in January 1945 and stayed in Czestochowa for almost a year. He secured work as a tailor. He describes returning to his hometown after the war and digging up a kiddish cup and candlesticks that his brother had buried. He and his wife moved to Lampertheim, a displaced persons camp in the American zone of Germany, until emigrating to the United States in March 1947 where he had a sister.