When the Germans invaded Belgium, Leah Starkman and her family evacuated deep into France where they stayed until her parents were arrested. Later the children were shipped from one house to another—from the Salvation Army to a Jewish Community Center. One little suitcase was always with Leah. She wondered if she'd ever see her parents again and kept asking, "Are my parents alive?" After a severe depression at the age of 12, she heard rumors that "I would be gotten rid of." She was always afraid to say she was Jewish. Finally reunited with her father, she asked, "Where's Mother?" Her father said, "We'll talk about it later," but they never did.
Staying in a ghetto in Poland in the early 1940s, Ben Stern's people wore white arm bands with the Star of David to identify themselves as Jews. Food was rationed. In 1943 they were all taken away in cattle cars to extermination camps. Some died on the way. Looking through cracks in the cars, survivors saw signs reading, "Auschwitz." Their every thought was "I am going to a crematorium." Hearing cries and screams, they lost all feeling. According to Stern, "I lost faith." He was a skeleton of 87 lbs. when liberated. Upon arriving in New York in 1949, he was overcome by the Statue of Liberty. "Never have I taken this place for granted." In this interview he says, "I am delighted to tell you this story for introducing into the curriculum of the schools. If we don't educate people, the Holocaust can happen here as in Europe."
When the Germans invaded Poland, some Jews fled with Gentiles or underground, but most were moved to a big ghetto farm. Jadzia Stern was sent to an Auschwitz work camp where conditions were awful. Fellow inmates said to her, "Little girl, you're gonna live. And you must tell the world what the Nazis did to us." Three of her family were the only survivors from their town. Today she constantly lives with the thought of the Holocaust, remembering the thick smoke in the skies of Auschwitz where four million people were murdered. "It's hard to live in peace after that. Our world is in bad shape. And it will be even worse unless each of us learns the lesson of the Holocaust well. Since Auschwitz, we know the evil man is capable of."
Living in constant fear, the Diamanstein family fled from place to place—to a large Jewish community in Frankfurt; to the apartment of friends in Milan, Italy; to Como, Italy, escaping barefoot in the snow to the other side of the Swiss Alps. Trying to dodge German patrols, they still wound up in a German work camp. When the war ended, they eventually moved to South Carolina where Leo Diamanstein is an interpreter and teaches classes at Furman University. He says, "This happened there; it can happen anywhere; we want to make sure it never happens here. Stand up for your human rights. You have no idea what people might be in power or what they might do. Know your rights and remember them."
Born in Germany, Margot Freudenberg grew accustomed at a very early age to being part of a minority. Her family lived in a large academic Jewish community of professors and doctors. Upon the Gestapo's arrival, a million questions were asked and the suicide rate was tremendous. Following Kristellnacht, all synagogues were dismantled stone by stone and burned, along with Jewish stores. The family escaped to America. People in South Carolina were lovely to them. "There were many people before us; many after us. Outstretched hands warmed and soothed us. The younger generation still doesn't believe it happened; it is, to them, made-up history how the people were tortured and persecuted and slaughtered. I owe this to six million Jews and one million precious children that were burned in the concentration camp, that I open my mouth and tell you what happened. Einstein said of this torture, 'The world is too dangerous, not because of people who do evil, but because of those who sit and let it happen.'"
Bluma Goldberg grew up in Poland in a small, pretty town, with a close-knit family and lots of friends. In 1939 Hitler invaded, and the whole town was burned. The Nazis took Jews, including her mother and three sisters, to crematoriums. Her father and brother joined the underground. She and her older sister hid in the woods. Captured and taken by truck to a labor camp, the girls were sent by train to Auschwitz, where there was little food, no running water, dirt, cold, disease, insanity. At Auschwitz, Bluma lost family and friends, along with the desire to live. Liberated by the Americans, she and her husband were later welcomed to South Carolina. "To review these events is very painful to me. I bear it willingly only if you take it into your heart that somehow you and I will contribute together to diminish the possibility that this could ever happen again."
Born in Poland, Felix Goldberg was captured near Warsaw in 1939 and sent to a German work camp. He worked hard on the farm in the bitter cold with little to eat. Later he was sent to Auschwitz. He remembers trucks arriving at the camp—those in trucks went straight to the crematorium. Campmates wouldn't believe that the Nazis were burning people in the big chimney off to the side. Goldberg didn't know. The world didn't know it because no one would believe it. At the war's end, survivors went with the American Army. After moving to Columbia, Goldberg said, "I live in the best country in the world, but I carry inside of me a very unpretty past. And I worry that what I experienced, others could experience in the future. Let us appreciate what we have, and guard it always."
Born in Vienna in 1914, Felix Bauer lived with anti-Semitism even before Hitler's takeover of Austria. When the Nazis invaded, his father said, "Nobody will do anything to me." But the killings increased, and the family had to leave the area. Bauer's father was forced to enter a labor camp in Austria. Bauer was in refugee camp for two years before migrating to New York. Passing Ellis Island, he cried on viewing the Statue of Liberty. Thinking America wouldn't accept Jews, he sailed on to the Dominican Republic and married there. Later, he returned to the U.S. to settle in Due West, S.C., to teach music and art.
Martha Bauer and her family lived in Belgium. When Hitler took over, children were taught to hate all Jews. She was careful with childhood friendships and would not even walk with non- Jewish friends at school, to keep them out of trouble. "I made them go to the other side of the street to stay away from the danger of being with me." She tried to live an Orthodox Jewish life style, yet to reach out to all persons. Her childhood dream of being a nurse came to fruition in 1938 in a Jewish hospital in England. When Churchill announced war with Germany, many patients tried to commit suicide. After the war, she settled in Due West, S.C.
Peter Becker was born in Munich in 1929. At the special Nazi school he attended, students were taught to be political or military leaders and that Hitler was the savior who would lift Germany up. In schools, Jews were depicted in anti-Semitic publications as fat, repugnant and ugly. Students were told that the Jews were their enemies. In biology, students were brainwashed about racial purity. There were inferior races, and then there were the Germans—the top race and an all powerful people. After the war the Russians occupied Potsdam where Becker lived and he was denounced as a Nazi. "I was 100 percent Nazi, but not a leader; I was arrested and interrogated, then released. It took me two years to accept that Germans had killed Jews." According to Becker eternal vigilance is the order of the day to keep people from controlling others and to guarantee there are no secrets. In addition, a viable, strong press and political activism is needed.
Joe Engel was born near Warsaw, Poland in 1927. His father ran a luncheonette grocery. He went to public school in a small Jewish community and felt the animosity created by anti- Semitism. In 1942 all Jews were sent to work camps; families were separated. Engel doesn't know where his parents were sent. Most went to gas chambers, especially those who did not do their work. If quarters were not spic and span, they "beat the hell out of you." Many were buried alive and their graves burned. The smell of burning bodies was prominent. Every six months, there were mass killings and new prisoners arrived. In Auschwitz, Engel was a brick layer, building spaces in the crematoriums for new bodies. After Liberation, he returned to Poland but found no one he knew. He came to New York and eventually settled in Charleston, S.C.
Trude Heller's family narrowly escaped deportation to a concentration camp, but still had to live through other anxieties. At 14, she was made to quit school, and the family was forced out of their home. Living in hiding, they often heard shouting voices and then learned that many people were disappearing. It was a horrendous time. People kept asking, "How can men do this to men?" They escaped to the United States and moved to South Carolina. She and her husband have always felt so blessed to have gotten away and they tried to extricate other Jews from the war lands. They have raised their children to be kind to their fellow men, hoping to be treated likewise.
All five members of this Jewish family survived the World War II Nazi persecution in Holland, their home. Jewish refugees were trained in centers, by rote lessons, not to have ideas of their own or to be aware politically. The Nazi-Dutch government didn't allow Jews in restaurants or public schools, or to have money or jobs. They had to move out of their homes into ghettos or live underground without newspapers or radio. Later Gosschalk was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp in Holland but lived to see its evolution into a concentration camp for Dutch Nazis. In 1962 he settled in Charleston, S.C. "I cannot ever tell another person how bad it was; how we suffered from fear in those years. You can't express it."
Max Heller was born in Vienna in 1919 into an orthodox Jewish home. His father was a businessman. Heller drew strength from the Jewish community and from non-Jewish friends. Due to anti-Semitism, however, Heller had to fight his way through school and the streets. When Hitler came to power in 1933, there were unimaginable stories. Jewish businesses were confiscated. Jews were not allowed to work or to intermarry. Jewish bank accounts were closed. Jews were made to clean the streets and thrown out of their apartments and businesses. Jewish people were forced into concentration camps where they underwent severe cruelty. Heller and a sister set sights for America in 1938. As they drove away, they became very sad as they watched their parents get smaller and smaller. "American leadership, genius, willingness to bleed, and to liberate Europe saved us from Hitler. Freedom is not free, but earned; to continue, it must be shared everyday."
Luba Goldberg nee Schreibman was born in 1921 in Romania, not far from Russia. Her family contained many well-respected Romanian doctors. With Romania part of the WWII German Axis, it enacted the same anti-Jewish laws as were enacted in Germany, taking away all Jewish property and businesses and putting Jews in ghettos. Any Jew who did not work was deported to a concentration camp to be killed. Luba's mother was killed trying to escape to Russia. Herbrother began the Bucharest office of The Joint Jewish Distribution Committee, the American/Jewish organization which helped Jews to leave or get medical help, food, or housing. Shortly after the war, Luba left Communist Romania and went through a British Displaced Persons camp on Cyprus (where she met her husband, Bernard, a Polish Holocaust survivor whom the British sent to Cyprus after capturing him in an attempt to illegally immigrate into then British-controlled Palestine) and then to Israel soon after the establishment of the State in 1948.. She and her husband and two children ultimately immigrated to Columbia, S.C., where he worked in Lourie's Department Store before they bought a series of motels together. With the help of Senator Fritz Hollings, she was able to bring her Holocaust-survivor sister and niece to Columbia from Argentina. She always cherished the opportunity to live in America.
Dientje Kalinsky was born in Holland in 1938. Her grandfather and aunt were sent to a concentration camp and never returned. "When I was four we went into hiding. My parents didn't explain what was happening, and it was very confusing." The family moved from one hiding place to another, always fearing sirens and paddy wagons. They hid at a nun's house from 1943- 45 in the attic. Dientje had only a blanket and pillow and a little doll. The family rarely left the attic. During this time a man there sexually assaulted her and hit her with the butt of a rifle. In addition, the nun beat her and didn't feed her always. "She [the nun] told me my parents had passed away. My doll was everything to me; she threw my doll away. After the war I had nightmares and flashbacks and never talked of the war." Later Dientje was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown. To this day she still suffers from claustrophia brought on by being confined in the attic. "You'd never know how hungry I was. Many don't believe the Holocaust happened: the gassing, the murder. I was there and it was real."
Pincus Kolender was born in 1926 in Poland. In 1940 synagogues, schools, and businesses were closed to Jews, who were placed in ghettos. One always felt trapped in the ghetto. The Nazis treated people like animals and residents were always disappearing. Despite the harsh circumstances, quite a community spirit grew up among the people in the ghetto. In 1942 he was taken to Auschwitz on a cattle train; his brother escaped. Upon arriving, the survivors were undressed: the left line went to the crematorium, the right line to a work camp. At the work camp they were beaten if their work was not satisfactory. There was always the bitter cold and constant hunger. Many prisoners went totally crazy. Patton's army liberated them. Kolender joined the U.S. Army in 1950. "People should know what happened. By education, we could avoid it happening again: this abuse of people." He doesn't know if he can forgive; cannot forget!
Born near Warsaw in 1922, Renee Kolender experienced a good childhood until war broke out, ending school, ending everything. Children were taken from the streets to work each day. Her family was trapped in the ghetto. They stayed there for two years, always battling starvation. Eventually the family was transported to a concentration camp in 1943 and her brother and father were taken away. "If you looked tired, you would be killed." Father was killed; mother died. On Liberation Day, prisoners didn't know where to go. She went home on a cattle train; it was cold, lonely, freezing, with nobody and no food at home. Some Poles started killing Jews again. It was bad everywhere. Renee came to the U.S. to stay with an uncle in Charleston, S.C. She underwent a tremendous amount of fear, physical abuse, and hunger that's impossible to describe. "I myself don't believe that I went through it and pray to God that things like this could never be allowed to happen again."
Born in 1917 in Poland, Max Krautler lived there until the outbreak of the war. He grew up amidst anti-Semitism and rumors of Hitler in the newspaper prior to the war. His family was moved into a ghetto eventually, and they lived in fear everyday. In 1942 when the ghetto was closed, the Germans took away his family and shot his mother and brother. In the concentration camp, he was always afraid and hungry. He lived on only bread and soup each day. Many prisoners became sick and died. They never knew where they'd be sent next. "At Liberation, the Americans moved us to hospitals. I was the only survivor from my family. I was lucky." He decided there was no need to go back home because everything had changed. He came to the U.S. in 1956. "No one could understand the Holocaust; some don't believe it happened. If we understand it, it might not happen again. I like being an American. People don't bother you."
Born in Germany in 1906, Gerald Jablon saw anti-Semitism displayed in teachers' attitudes toward Jewish students. He was sent to a work camp to dig ditches; there was no room to sleep. No one knows what happened to his parents. The police came to his house with papers to take him right after Kristellnacht. He eventually escaped to London, then went on to New York, and finally South Carolina. Jablon is now a CPA in Spartanburg. "The Holocaust is something you will never forget: parents disappearing; the stigma of the enemy alien following prisoners around. Happy to have made it to the U.S. Waited to have children until we came here to America."
Paula Popowski was born in Poland in 1923 in a predominantly Jewish city. "I came from a very orthodox family. I didn't socialize with Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles didn't mix in public school." In the late 1930s, bad things started happening to German Jews. Germans came through burning everything in Poland; took Jewish prisoners and kept them in the synagogue. In 1940, they abolished Jewish businesses. There was an outbreak of typhus, and it was difficult to get medical care. There was very little food; they had to share everything. There were rumors of killings and the Germans started taking hostages in the early 1940s. She heard rumors about Auschwitz and people being burned to death. Her message to people—"Whatever religion, or nationality people are, judge them by their deeds; don't generalize."
In April 1945, just before the war's end, Lon Redmon encountered his first concentration camp—Glossenburg. There was no organized resistance against the American soldiers. They easily evacuated the guards. Examining the area, the Americans came upon numerous bodies, some were even still alive. They also found a railroad car run by gravity that went down to a third level where there were ovens. The soldiers brought all the citizens from nearby out of their homes to tour the camp and see what had gone on. They claimed they had heard nothing about it. After the war's end, Redmon commanded a rehabilitation camp of 5,000 North German Jews. The inhabitants of the camp were fed, clothed and evacuated to Australia, the U.S., Israel, wherever they wanted to go.
Lewis Rossinger was born in 1938 in Hungary. Anti-Semitism was widespread and bullies in school called him a "dirty Jew." Rossinger was caught by the Gestapo and taken to a railroad station to be deported but he escaped. He became a laborer for one of the Gestapo hotels. He was aware that Jewish people were being moved out in large numbers. "I wouldn't buy a newspaper because lots of Jews got caught buying newspapers." When the war ended, the American Army helped Jews locate their families. Rossinger was placed in a special camp to recover; there was an American hospital next door. When he returned home; everyone was gone—his parents had been killed in a camp. "Can't forgive or forget; still don't trust. Anti-Semitism is a mental disease. Some don't believe in the Holocaust; it needs to be taught in history."
Hugo Schiller grew up in Germany in the 1930s, hearing about Hitler. His parents were forced to sell their business. In 1938, his father was arrested. His education in a public school ended when it was decreed that Jewish children couldn't go to public school. He went to a Jewish school; his only friends were there. In 1940 he was deported by train to the first Jewish concentration camp in France. Terror filled the train because people didn't know what to expect. No one had any idea this was a holding camp for the extermination camps to be built in Poland. The inmates were surrounded by barbed wire and a sea of mud. There was little food and disease spread. Everyone asked constantly—"Where will we end up? We often felt guilty when we made it and others didn't." Schiller's parents were gassed in Auschwitz. He arrived in the U.S. and for the first time in a long time was able to sleep at night in complete safety. "The Holocaust exists in the public mind as long as there are survivors. These interviews are crucial so that there is recorded evidence even when survivors die," says Schiller.
Born in Cologne, Germany, in 1925, Rudy Herz heard of Hitler in school when, in 1935, textbooks took on a Germanic nationalistic slant, the Swastika flag was flown, and Jews lost privileges. His family was moved to a Jewish ghetto; the living conditions were horrible. Finally, the Herz family was sent to Auschwitz in sealed cattle cars. Some relatives never resurfaced. The conditions in the camp were desperate—surrounded by guards, people were starving, slowly being destroyed by inhuman work or the crematorium. There was no greenery, no life, no dignity. Germans told Jewish prisoners that before it was over, they would die. "Americans don't know what it's like to starve for years," Herz says. He lived with the constant sound of screams. In 1945 the prisoners were liberated and told, "You are free; the Americans are behind you." He was reunited with his brother and settled in Myrtle Beach. His experiences still haunt him. "I have survivors' guilt; my soul stays in a crematorium with victims at Auschwitz."
Cela Miller grew up in Poland during the 1920s. When the war started, the Germans burned towns and homes; removed priests, professors, and Jews. Those who turned in Jews got a kilogram of sugar. She hid in a closet in a village home. Eventually Cela and her family were sent to concentration camps sustained only by bread and soup. Prisoners' names were called, and one never saw them again. People went crazy and died like flies. One never knew if the shower would render water or gas. Her parents were sent to the crematorium. She also lost her brother. Cela was hospitalized, then sent to a Displaced Persons Camp from 1945-49. "We were the first survivors to come to Columbia, S.C. We should appreciate the U.S. Thanks to S.C. ETV for preserving this on tape. The world mustn't forget the persecutions of World War II. Hopefully it will never happen again. Hard to believe that Hitler could bring a nation to do this to millions of people."
Francine Taylor was born in Poland in 1928. Her family moved to France when she was two years old. They were living in Paris on June 14, 1940, when the French capital fell to the Germans. Suddenly the family found itself in Occupied France. Not long after that Francine's parents sent her out of Paris for the summer. She was still there when her father was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. A cousin called her from Paris to warn her that the Nazis were rounding up all the Jews in Paris. She could not return to Paris. Instead she was told to make her way across the border to Free France where her mother and sister would be waiting. Taking her bicycle and a small suitcase filled with summer clothes, she began a 1000-kilometer journey. In this passage, she describes the train ride that was a part of her flight.
Born in 1920 in Greer, S.C., Horace Berry graduated from Clemson in 1941 and entered the service. As part of Patton's army, he was assigned to bury the dead and send surviving Jews to hospitals in Wales and Austria. At Dachau, he learned that prisoners who were deemed troublemakers were shot; most were gassed. He found it inconceivable that people of one race could treat members of another race in such a way. He recalled that starving prisoners who were given candy sometimes died from cramping and that sometimes they ate cigarettes whole. Until now, Berry says he has never talked about his experiences. "If you dwelled on it, it would be very depressing."
George Chassy, an Episcopal priest in Columbia, joined the Air Force right after Pearl Harbor. He was part of the invasion at Normandy Beach. He found it incredible what Nazi power had done to people. In the town of Erca, there was a sense of death. There was a concentration camp outside the village. When given the task of removing bodies, Germans claimed they had not known it was a death camp. He saw the remains of bodies hanging on barbed wire fences, pyres where live people had been burned, the sites of hangings. He used pictures of the camps to teach high school history and to show friends. Rumors were thus validated. "There are people who don't believe in the Holocaust," says Chassy. "I witnessed the results in one place of what happened. To say it is a myth distorts history. I have evidence in my mind, my heart, and in pictures that it occurred."
Born in Greenwood, S.C., in 1919, John Drummond joined the Air Force and went to England. He was captured by the Nazis and shipped to a prison camp in Frankfurt where Americans were interrogated. Next he was sent to Berlin and then Barth in the Baltic Sea to the major prison camp for American POWs. In a smaller prison camp, he saw a shower room, which had optional heads for gassing. Drummond was gravely impressed by these alternate shower heads, understanding the reality of what had happened. After the war, Russians did not shelter and protect Jews. Americans fed and took Jewish prisoners to hospitals, causing the Russians to fingerprint and photograph the Americans. "The International Red Cross kept us all living," he says. Then adds, "In conclusion, thank you for collecting all you can about the Holocaust. Maybe it won't happen again."
Born in 1923 in Cross Hill, S.C., Claude Hipp was assigned to the Army infantry in North Carolina in 1943. He was shipped to Europe and marched through Camp Orsdorff where 9,000 workers had been beaten and starved. Bodies were piled on top of each other. Camp leaders tried to hide evidence before the Americans got there. "How can men do this to each other?," he thought. General Patton saw these sights, left, and threw up repeatedly. We had never seen anything like it before. "The average German didn't know anything about it; it really didn't happen. That made me mad . . . It did happen. We want to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Allen Wise is a native of Saluda, S.C. Graduating from medical school in 1943, he joined the Army and went to Germany. In 1945, his unit found a barn full of emaciated prisoners who had been burned to death. Three hundred bodies were still piled atop each other at the doorway, where victims had tried to escape. In all 1000 died; seven survived. He located as many citizens as possible and showed them what had happened. He believes that probably most locals had begun to see the truth already and they were trying to hide any evidence of mistreated political prisoners. They viewed a limited part of the planned process of elimination of Jewish people through gas chambers and crematoria. "I saw this part; saw what happened, and left. Today it seems worse than then."
Born in Orangeburg County, Paul Pritcher was drafted into the military in 1943. He knew about the concentration camps, but had no firsthand knowledge. He was with the first troops to arrive at Mockhowsen in Austria. They found very few live prisoners. There was evidence of starvation; gassing in mass graves and "shower" rooms. No Nazis remained in camp, and the prisoners had been shipped out also. They found some bodies on the side of the road near the camp. The local people denied knowing anything about the camp. He will never forget what he saw and feels the value of education is limitless.
Nathan Schaeffer was born in New York City and was serving in the U.S. Army when following Liberation he was sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The Germans living nearby the camp claimed not to know what had gone on. Yet, the terrible odor of rotting flesh reached for five miles beyond camp. A big, wired fence and machine gun posts surrounded the area. Several hundred bodies were piled on a wagon ready for the furnace. Schaeffer learned that when prisoners couldn't work any longer, they were taken to crematoriums. The U.S. Army tried to feed them. The prisoners' fear of superiors was great. Pictures were printed in U.S. newspapers and there was shock and outrage. "No battlefield smelled or looked as terrifying as a concentration camp. We must record what went on, in textbooks, so that never again in the history of mankind can any group or country or individual deny that there was a Holocaust, or let it happen again."
The Horry County native was sent to Fort Bragg, N.C. and then to Europe in 1945. In April 1945 at Orsdorf Death Camp, he saw stacks of dead bodies and those left alive suffering from acute malnutrition. At Mulhausen Concentration Camp in Austria, he found wagons full of bodies stacked like cordwood; a gas chamber lined with shower stalls; a crematorium. Those still alive were malnourished to the point of little communication. The soldiers secured Pershing Airfield in Austria and moved prisoners into barracks that had been converted into hospitals. Thousands came in; hundreds died from malnutrition. Many talked about their camp experiences. He feels we need to encourage children to finish school and to get involved in politics in order to prevent ever having a dictator like Hitler again.
Born in New York, Ethel Stafford graduated from nurses' training in 1944, went in the Army, and was transferred to Europe. She didn't know what was happening to Jews. The medical staff she was with came in and took over Guadalupe Camp and took German prisoners into the hospital. It was so incredibly inhumane. Bodies burned from the waist down. The guards had set fire to a straw-floored building burning 1000 people alive. The stench was terrible. They brought the German townspeople to the site to bury each body in an individual grave. All denied any knowledge of what was going on. She couldn't believe that people could do this to other human beings. "We must learn to respect the person, not the status, and be kinder," she says.
The Council helps to facilitate speaker visits throughout the state, especially those of Holocaust survivors and the children of survivors and liberators.
To invite a speaker to your class or organization, please contact the appropriate person from the options below.
