Oral History Interview with Gabriela Truly

Fred Hammel was born on Friday, May 13, 1921 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His father was a successful leather goods manufacturer in Offenback. Fred had a very comfortable childhood living in a villa with maids in Sachsenhausen, southern Frankfurt am Main. He attended public school and though the family was a non- observant Jewish one, they belonged to a synagogue.

After 1929 and later in 1932 his situation changed drastically. The depression hit and Nazi storm troopers wearing brown coats arrived. Fred described the mass unemployment, and how the rise of the Nazi party and Nazi youth infiltrated German society. He described the growing isolation of the Jews, and the 1933 boycott of Jewish stores as Nazification grew. He also claimed that Henry Ford financed many of Hitler’s early programs. By 1935 Jews started to leave Germany and Fred was apprenticed to a tanner.

Fred lived through Kristallnacht and provided vivid details. His father was incarcerated by the local police and many of his relatives who were sent to Buchenwald suffered a great deal before being released. By 1938 his mother decided to get him out of Germany to the relatives in the United States via England. Fred was almost 18, the cutoff age. But just in time, his mother arranged for him to join the Kindertransport to England on April 19, 1939. He gives details about the Kindertransport journey. He traveled by train to Zevenaar and Cologne in Germany and to Hoek van in Holland, and by boat to Harwich, England and then by train to Victoria station in London.

Fred worked one year in a tannery in Northampton, England, and then in May 1940 he received his visa to the United States. He met the woman who would become his wife in Massachusetts shortly afterwards. In 1943 Fred was drafted; he served in the US army in the Pacific in Okinawa. After the war Fred and his wife were able to start a family; they have two children and currently three grandchildren.

Hanna Marx,née Simons, was born September 19, 1928 in Hamm, Germany. Hanna shared her childhood memories of life under Nazi rule. Her father owned a department store and the family lived comfortably until 1937. Hanna attended Hebrew school at the synagogue where her parents were members. Hannah relates that on November 9, 1938 a German policeman advised her father to go into hiding. A few days later her father was found and sent to Buchenwald. When released, he moved his family to Burgsteinfurt, rejecting offers to join relatives in Chile, Shanghai, and the United States. He believed the Nazi regime would soon end.

In 1941, the Marx family was sent to the Riga Ghetto. Hanna describes brutal conditions – extreme cold, little food, and the rape of girls by SS guards. She describes coming home one day from her labor Kommando and finding the ghetto liquidated. Her parents had hidden in a cabinet under a staircase. After the liquidation, Hanna’s father was left behind in Kaiserwald concentration camp and she, her mother and two brothers were taken on a two or three day journey to Lithuania in cattle cars with no food. She compares the more humane German army soldiers in Lithuania to the SS who guarded the Riga Ghetto. Soon after, they were moved to Stutthof, where Hanna cleaned barracks and cooked for army troops. Hanna describes the rampant typhoid and lice. Hannah describes how they forced them on a deathmarch for three to four weeks to Danzig without any food; they ate melted snow and stole kohlrabi fed to the animals to stay alive. She reports cannibalism by starving prisoners. She recounts how they survived one night whenthree young German soldiers decided to disobey their orders to set off hand grenades where the prisoners were sleeping.

Liberated by the Russian Army in February 1945, Hanna was sent to a hospital in Putzig. She reports rape of girls by Russian soldiers. Hannah’s mother dressed her in boy’s clothing to protect her. Due to continued fighting against the Germans, the Russians encouraged the survivors to make their way to Warsaw which Hannah and her mother did. They continued on to Hamm and to Burgsteinfurt, where she met her husband. They emigrated to the United States in 1947.

Dr. Nino deProphetis served with the U.S. Army in Europe from November, 1944 to December, 1945. He became the commanding officer of the 81st Armored Medical Battalion, part of the 11th Armored Division of General Patton’s Third Army. In April1945, he led a contingent of 30 men to Mauthausen concentration camp after the Nazis had left. He describes in detail his entry and the sight of a pyramid of approximately 6000 naked bodies in the main yard. He viewed an additional number of thousands of bodies in smaller piles in other parts of the camp and also saw two gas chambers. His unit, equipped to treat only battle casualties, was quickly reinforced with troops that brought an abundance of food. He believes that many of the subsequent deaths of surviving prisoners were caused by overfeeding. He describes in detail the terrible malnutrition and gastrointestinal disease of most prisoners, as well as the immediate disposal of dead bodies into a trench. Soon afterwards, General Patton ordered that local citizens were made to exhume the bodies and rebury them in individual graves.

Dr. deProphetis also supervised the evacuation of patients for the next two weeks until he was transferred to the Gmunden area, near Salzburg. There, he was placed in charge, as Burgermeister of Attensee. He remained with the Army of Occupation for six months, in charge of all battalion vehicles until his return to the United States.

This file includes photos taken at the time of liberation.

Harry Bass was born on October 10, 1920 in Bialystok, Poland. He talks about his life, Jewish life in general, educational facilities for Jewish children in Bialystok, and his Zionist activities prior to 1939. He briefly mentions the arrival of Polish Jews who were expelled from Germany.

After the German invasion in 1939, his family hid for a while, then were forced into the Bialystok Ghetto along with the entire Jewish population of Bialystok, as well as Jews from surrounding villages and towns. He describes conditions in the ghetto, how he traded goods for food and activities of the Judenrat.

In December 1942, Harry, his three brothers, a sister and an uncle, were deported to Auschwitz in closed cattle cars. He could have escaped and explains why he chose not to.

In Birkenau, his two little brothers were sent to the crematoriums. Harry and his other siblings were taken to the slave labor camp. He describes the daily routine in the camps, living conditions, how prisoners were branded, and briefly mentions attempts at religious observance. Prisoners who tried to escape were killed. Harry worked in the kitchen, later in a Straf Kommando (punishment detail) where a German soldier saved his life.

To evacuate Auschwitz, prisoners were forced on a Death March to Gleiwitz in deep snow, then to Mauthausen on an open train on January 18, 1945. Thousands died and survivors were treated brutally. In April 1945, surviving prisoners were brought to Magdeburg and put on ships in the Elbe. Most ships were sunk by the Germans, Harry’s boat was torpedoed by the British but he managed to survive.

After liberation by the British, Harry recuperated in a hospital in Neustadt Holstein, searched for family members, and was reunited with some of them. He immigrated to the United States on March 29, 1949, where he became very involved in every aspect of the Jewish community.

The transcript includes historical endnotes by Dr. Michael Steinlauf as well as several vignettes about helping fellow prisoners, help from German soldiers and slave labor.

Interviewee: BASS, Harry Date: August 22, 1983

Henry (formerly Hans Arnold) Froehlich was born in August 7, 1922 in Rottweil, Germany. In 1935, the Nazi boycott forced his father to close his shoe store, Henry had to leave school, and the family moved to Stuttgart. Henry describes how the family’s life changed. He talks about Kristallnacht, his efforts to warn Jews to flee and how he avoided arrest. His father was arrested, sent to Dachau, and was killed there one month later. The family had to pay 500 Marks to claim his body.

Henry worked for the Oberrat (the Jewish community office in Stuttgart that processed immigration) for two years. He describes his activities and contacts with the American Consulate, Gestapo and S.D. (Sicherheitsdienst German Security Service).

In 1940, Henry, his younger brother and their mother emigrated separately to the United States. An older brother, crippled since birth, had been placed in a Catholic Home for crippled children and there is some evidence he was killed in a Nazi euthanasia program. In the United States, Henry worked in a CCC program in Berlin, New Hampshire until he was suspected of being a German spy. He was reunited with his family in Philadelphia, where he married, had two children, and became a successful businessman.

Arnold Vanderhorst, born in Arnhem, Holland, July 24, 1935, shares his childhood memories of surviving World War II by living in hiding. After his family bakery was sealed by the Nazis, his mother took him to a "strange" family, the Holthuis, with whom he remained throughout the war and liberation. Both his sister and grandmother were also placed with families; however, his parents perished in Auschwitz. The Holthius family had four children, the oldest a member of the Resistance. The father was politically active, having run for mayor of Arnhem. Arnold describes his life with them, being safe, having food and an education throughout the war, and explains that he was secure enough to play with neighborhood children despite the presence of German soldiers nearby. He was tutored by Hilda Presser, wife of photographer Sem Presser. She maintained contact with him when he later entered an orphanage. At one birthday party, photographs of children were taken professionally and turned into a book, which is in a museum in Holland. Arnold describes a brief encounter with his grandmother in the forest, when he and the Holthuis family evacuated the city.

After liberation, Arnold began an odyssey of experiences. In 1945, for reasons of health, he travelled to England, where he lived for six months. He returned to Holland, reuniting with his grandmother and sister. In 1947, the three emigrated to New York via Sweden to live with an uncle who had fled earlier. Arnold explains that after several incidents of Arnold’s misbehavior, his uncle and wife insisted Arnold and his grandmother return to Holland. He describes living in several different locations including two Jewish orphanages (Koningslaan and the AemmalannZeven for boys) and with two different families. He details his schooling experiences.In 1954, at 19, he left the orphanage and took up residence with the Perelkamp family. He describes life with them and attending a technical school until 1956 during which time he describes having difficulty concentrating on his studies because of his loneliness. He describes a close relationship with his social worker who encouraged him to seek the help of HIAS to return to the United States. He describes psychological reactions to his wartime experiences as a young child.

He found work at a brokerage house and eventually completed his education. He married and adopted two boys. In 2004, he returned to Holland for a reunion with friends.