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Number of pages: 14
Reference number: 1656/3/4/1110
Catalogue ID: 105380
Subject: EscapeesDenunciationsHealth
Summary:

The authoress, née Lasocka, was the wife of the well-to-do manufacturer Paul Rosenfeld in Lodz (p.1-3, 12). He was arrested at the very beginning of the War, and she never saw him again. The Germans forced her to deliver to them all valuables she had deposited in a safe at her bank. Two days after the Germans had looted and ill-treated her mother, she died of her wounds (p.1).

A Jewish informer called Strassberg lured the authoress to Warsaw; making believe that he would help her husband, he got more and more money out of her (p.2-3).

The report describes life in the Ghetto (p.3-4). The helpful Christian maid (p.1, 3-5, 8, 11). Every morning, there were lying in the streets hundreds of bodies, either slain by the Germans or victims of the starvation. Escape (p.4).

Illegal life; everything was especially difficult and expensive because of the author's little daughter. An illegal group at the “Polish hotel” (Jewish agents among them) said to procure foreign documents for emigration. The price was enormous, about £1000 nonetheless she paid for her brother-in-law and his son but they were not heard of anymore (p.5).

Moving from one Polish family to the other, always paying highly for most unpleasant conditions, every moment in danger of being discovered. Arrested by police, escape after paying ransom twice (p.5-6).

The Polish riot, 1944 (p.8). The authoress with her child and her mother-in-law (who has been with her nearly all the time until her death in London) had to flee from the Germans. Non-Jews helping Jews: a railway-officer helped them to escape from the moving train near Ursus; another one put them up, his daughter and a girl in the street bore witness, in order to get a necessary document from a kindly clergyman (p.10). When finally every stranger had to leave, the authoress won the assistance of a high German officer (who did not recognise them to be Jews); he put a van and three Germans in uniform at her disposal to take them to a place near Lowicz, where her former maid was living. Because of this escort who insisted that the Mayor procured lodgings for them, too, they had to take to flight again, when the Russians approached. They went back to Lodz and their old flat.

In July 1946 they came to London after getting the necessary documents through an American relative who had learned from the radio, that they had survived. While they were waiting for the relative's arrival in London, the authoress became engaged to her present husband and decided to stay in England for good.

Number of pages: 5
Reference number: 1656/3/5/939
Catalogue ID: 105558
Subject: Slave labourMixed marriageDeportations
Summary:

Mrs Hirsch is the daughter of Christian parents. Her mother, Mrs Meyer, née Kerl, managed a large boarding-house in Teplitz, where Mrs Hirsch spent her youth until she married Egon Hirsch, a Jewish insurance agent for the “Viktoria“ company. The couple lived first in Bodenbach, then in Karlsbad.

When Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, they fled to Prague. When Prague was taken by the Germans Mrs Hirsch prepared for their emigration. She succeeded in getting an exit permit for Mr Hirsch which enabled him to go to England. She, as a Christian, was not allowed to leave the country, and her marriage was dissolved on Gestapo orders. With labour conscription in Czechoslovakia, she took various jobs where she could be helpful to Jews, or where she could sabotage the work of the Germans. She also sheltered a Jewish friend. With a doctor’s certificate that she was suffering from TB she managed to get time off for holidays in the mountains, but when she finally joined her mother in Teplitz, she had to attend a doctor who treated her alleged disease with painful injections.

After the end of the war, Russians occupied Teplitz, and for fear of Russian acts of violence, the women took German prisoners of war into their house, but the constant nervous strain and fear of deportation drove the mother to suicide.

In 1946 Mrs Hirsch could join her husband in England, and their marriage was legalised again. However, the 7 years of separation had estranged them, and after 3 years they got a divorce. After the usual type of work for refugees, Mrs Hirsch finally obtained work with the European service of the BBC. She lost all her possessions in Teplitz-Schönau.

Number of pages: 10
Reference number: 1656/3/5/1186
Catalogue ID: 105579
Subject: Mixed marriageChildrenKindertransport
Summary:

The author, a Jewish dermatologist, has been living with his Christian wife in East Berlin for about 25 years. He had served in the First World War for a short time, after his brother had been killed in action. From April 1933, he was no longer qualified to work for the National Health Insurance (p.1) and had to move out of his flat. In the year 1938 he became “Judenbehandler“, i.e. he got permission to attend [illegible] Jews. His sister was deported and never heard of again, his mother fell ill of persecution mania and finally died of hunger in Theresienstadt (p.2); the beautiful furniture at her flat was stolen by an official who had been sent there on duty (p.6).

When the Gestapo turned up to arrest the author, he could hide in time. The men asked for his six year old son to take him instead of his father, but he was at school. Several times, the doctor had a narrow escape; at such an occasion, SS-men who were looking for deserters and Jews murdered fourteen Jews (p.3-4).

At a collection of arms, an officer pocketed the pistol Mrs. H. was delivering to the Police (p.5). Another time, she was summoned to the Police-Station and urged to divorce her husband; she refused in a wise and determined way (p.6).

Some Christian patients: Herr Frank, a decent man, though a member of the NSDAP (p.6-7); another patient became an antisemite after he had prospered through the situation; a well-off factory-owner who would pay most generously for the smallest advice (p.7).

Death of a lame old spinster who had served her Führer fanatically (p.7-8). The house in which the old maid voluntarily perished burnt down, and the doctor who had lived there, too, with his family, lost all their belongings. After the War, they started a new life and the doctor is still busy.

Number of pages: 21
Reference number: 1656/3/7/918
Catalogue ID: 105664
Subject: ChildrenKindertransportDeportations
Summary:

The outstanding impression of the account, written in the first person, is the deep religious faith of the writer. Rather than a record of facts, it is a praise of the Lord for her salvation, both physical and spiritual, and an explanation of her eventual conversion to the Christian Faith.

The author was born in Berlin, the daughter of Orthodox Dutch Jews. When the Nazi regime started, the family moved to Amsterdam, but the happy atmosphere of their home was never recaptured there. After the German invasion and with the gradual elimination of the Jews from the economic and cultural life, the Dobschiner's moved to the Jewish part of Amsterdam, and an uncle and two cousins lived with them.

In February 1941 German armed soldiers raided the town, demanding 4,000 Jews, and author's two brothers were taken away and murdered. Her parents, already weighed down by fear and expropriation of their property, broke down completely. The author's relation to them became strained, particularly as her father insisted on her training as a tailoress, whereas she longed to become a nurse. She finally yielded to this urge and looked after the many Jewish orphaned children. In December 1942 author contracted scarlet fever and during her illness felt that life held a message from God. The raids had already taken her uncle and the cousins, when in April 1943 her parents were arrested. The author was allowed to see them twice at the collecting centre and later she witnessed their deportation from the Children's Home, where she then worked.

Some time later the Children's Home was raided, the 150 children and staff deported. Shortly before, the author had been placed with a Jewish family, but they, too, were arrested and taken to the Amstelstation. The author, quite apathetic to her own fate, offered to take charge of the children, and later, when they were herded into a goods train, she discovered spots on a child and diagnosed a contagious disease. The Gestapo let her take the child to Dr. van Emden-Boas who, impressed by her courage, made her his nurse. She worked at the station and at a hospital until July 1943, when patients and nurses were deported. The author was already on the train, guarded by armed soldiers, but the same night she was back at the hospital “God delivered me!”.

When the hospital was raided again in August 1943, the author happened to nurse at a private house. For some time she then worked at the Joodse Invalide, the Jewish home for the aged. In the end, underground life was the only escape from deportation. With the help of the porter at the Home, the author contacted an unknown lady in whose flat she met Uncle Bas. On 3 September 1943, he took her on a hazardous journey to his home in Nieuw Beerta. With five other young people in hiding, the author lived with the Rev. Ader and his wife for 13 months. Several books have been written about this heroic man and the life in his manse. When danger approached, he found new underground places for his protegees.

The author lived in more than 27 different houses during the last span of this period. While in Uncle Bas' house, she came across the Children's New Testament and sometimes listened, hidden behind a door, to his services. He never tried to convert her, but she became more and more impressed with the teachings of Christ. South Holland was liberated by the Americans in September 1944, and in November she was baptized. She had never been able to discuss her intention with Uncle Bas. He and his wife were finally tracked down by the Gestapo. He was offered their freedom at the price of the name of ten of his protegees. As he would not speak, he was shot on 20 November 1944.

Number of pages: 32
Reference number: 1656/3/8/233
Catalogue ID: 105745
Subject: Medical crimesSlave labourRescue
Summary:

Original title: Bericht aus der Verfolgungszeit.

Recorded by: Dr. H. G. Adler

Original form and contents: Personal report of a young girl, born in 1927, from the Protestant Secondary School In Budapest. _ Prosecution began with the German occupation of Hungary, on the 19th March, 1944. Restrictions. Yellow Star (p.1,4) The “Avokatenliste” called the author’s father, together with abt. 300 solicitors and lawyers, to the internment camp Rökszilad utca, then to Magdolna utca, Horthyliget(Csepel), Kecskemt and lastly a camp unknown, probably Auschwitz; no survivor. Moving Into a “Jewish house“(June, 1944). Forced labour (throwing up entrenchments) at Ujpest, super - vised by Hungarian “Pfeilkr euzler“ most primitive youngsters (p.5). Marched to Austrian frontier; several people sent back to Budapest, as “Schutzpaesse“ arrived for them from foreign legations (p.6). On the frontier, the transport was taken over by SS; seven days’ journey of the men to Buchenwald, of the women on to Ravensbrueck; arrival 21st Nov. 1944 (p.7). Description in detail of the camp, holding abt.60.000 at the time (p.8-12). -”Blockaelteste” and assistants mostly antisemitic Polish women, but also wicked Slovak Jewesses. - Ill-famed gynaecological experiments. By lorry through burning Berlin (5th Dec.1944) to BENZ-DAIM- LER FLUGZEUGMOT0RENWERKE, GENSHAGEN, Kreis Teltow (p.ll-20). Among 1000 foreign women abt. 80 Jewesses, treated in a friendly way Supervisors SS women. Very long working hours. - Anti-Nazis among German workmen (p.17). - Increasing difficulties of the Works from February, 1945 (p.17-19). Transfer to camp Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen; ghastly experience of the Jewish women (p.20,21) and their transport back to RAVENSBRUECK; here the crematorium had been destroyed an hour earlier. Situation improved. - Red Cross parcels. - Evacuation on the 28th April, 1945 under escort of SS who shot at the German soldiers throwing chocolates and cigarettes to the prisoners passing by (p.23). On the 30th April, escape near MIROW (p.23-25). Freedom under RUSSIANS who proved very helpful (p.25-28). Adventurous journey to Budapest, partly on foot(p.27-29). Quarantine in Berlin because of typhoid fever (p.27). Arrival at home on the 2nd June; back to school, for a fortnight.

Number of pages: 40
Reference number: 1656/3/8/382
Catalogue ID: 105791
Subject: ChildrenKindertransportLublin-Majdanek (concentration and ex...
Summary:

This is a remarkable story told by an outstanding personality who seems to combine courage, intelligence and the gift of leadership to an unusual degree.

Mr Weichselbaum emigrated from Frankfurt am Main to Belgium towards the end of 1938; he was then 16 years of age. After considerable difficulties, he made his way via Dunkirk, Antwerp and Lille to Paris. He passed the final school examinations and, furnished with false identity papers, began to study medicine. Discovered, he fled to the south of France. At Limoges he founded a youth organisation which sent food parcels to Jewish concentration camp inmates; he also made contact with the Resistance. In August 1942, on the point of being arrested, he managed to escape together with all the fourteen young people under his care. At Lyon he worked for the Resistance, getting Jewish children across to Switzerland. (p.1-5). Again he was compelled to flee, became a 'Rabbi for young people' in the Jewish Resistance in the south of France, and joined the French Maquis (p.6).

When after the Italian capitulation the Germans began to occupy the whole of France, Weichselbaum, in the uniform of a French Army Captain, succeeded to obtain six lorries at the Italian Headquarters at Abbeville; these lorries were used as transport for escaping Jews (p.7).

Weichselbaum became a leader of the Maquis. In the disguise of a French Volunteer for the Waffen-SS, he managed to save 9 Jews from arrest, when the SS ordered the arrest of all Jews (p.10).

In September 1943 Weichselbaum was arrested by the Germans and after heavy torture confessed to being a Jew (p.11). He was deported to Birkenau concentration camp, where he was again maltreated. He then worked as a railway worker near Krakow, was then taken to Majdanek concentration camp, where the new arrivals were sadistically exposed to the winter frost, and when he returned to Birkenau he saw his mother, father and two sisters being dispatched for the gas chambers (p.12).

Between periods of extreme hunger there were short periods during which Weichselbaum, at the danger of his life, took part in the black market in foodstuff. He was able to provide his third sister with some food shortly before she, too, was gassed (p.17).

When about 15 coaches with children under 7 years arrived, SS-men killed the children in a horrible manner and afterwards shot the prisoners who had watched the scene (p.19). Another time Weichselbaum observed SS-men first raping, then shooting women and children (p.23).

Weichselbaum became a male nurse, and in the absence of the doctor had to operate on boils. When the paper dressing did not stay quite clean, the patients were beaten on their wounds (p.24)

In April 1944 Weichselbaum together with 20 other male nurses was taken to the concentration camp at Tannhausen near Waldenburg in Silesia. He contracted pneumonia, but had to continue work without being cured (p.27). In January 1945 the Death March, i.e. the flight from the approaching Russian armies commenced; after three weeks only 40 out of 400 prisoners survived. On 9 May the commandant and the SS left the camp and the Russians took over (p.30).

Weichselbaum remained in order to look after the burial of the dead and the necessary medical care for the many sick.

Number of pages: 10
Reference number: 1656/3/8/441
Catalogue ID: 105806
Subject: CrematoriumsHealthEscapees
Summary:

The personal report of a young girl who was deported from Stettin to Poland. Stating many details she describes the unbelievable sufferings she has witnessed and gone through herself in twelve camps. Before crematoriums were built, people were suffocated in disinfecting stoves (p.2). “Aktion”: the shooting of 29,650 Jewish men and women at Majdanek from 6am to 9pm, on 30 November 1943 (p.4). 100,000 people were marched to Gross-Rosen through the cold of January 1945 for eight days; the way was shown through thousands of corpses lying on both sides on the road; no food; then they continued the journey by train for another week without food; finally, there were fifty dead in each wagon. And for the next fortnight they had to live under circumstances which made the women kill each other (p.5-6). Typhoid fever (p.5-6).

Together with six boys and three girls, the author succeeded to rescue fifty sick internees from being burnt by the Nazis at the approach of the Americans. Three cyclists pretending to belong to the American Red Cross, followed by others with machine guns (p.7-8); definitive escape. youth transport to Switzerland.

Number of pages: 11
Reference number: 1656/3/8/665
Catalogue ID: 105890
Subject: ResistanceAuschwitz-Birkenau (concentration and...Austrian
Summary:

A report by Mrs Sussman, an Austrian Jewess, who had been living in Paris with her husband, an artist, since 1937. After the outbreak of war both were interned. They were not supplied with gas masks by the French as they also considered Austrian Jews as their enemies. When the Germans approached Paris the Sussman's marched together with about 2 millions French people into the so called “Free Zone”.

In 1942 Mr and Mrs Sussman decided to return behind the demarcation line in order to work against the Germans (Resistance). Seven times their identity papers had to be changed but in the end they were handed over to the Germans by the “Special Brigade” collaborating with the latter. Mr and Mrs Sussman were taken to the military prison at Fresnes. For two months Mrs Sussman was there in solitary confinement in her sixth month of pregnancy, but excluded from the care of the Red Cross. Thereafter she came to the reception camp Drancy.

In 1944 she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nightmare transport in cattle trucks with a notice board: “8 Horses or 40 Persons” but they were about 120 in each. Mrs Sussman describes her arrival at Auschwitz and the already well-known conditions there.

All pregnant women were ordered to register ”in order to obtain a daily supply of 1/4 pint of milk”. Mrs Sussman was warned by a Polish doctor not to do so and thereupon she warned also the other pregnant women. But when almost starved one of them did register. For 3 days she received the milk whereupon the other women - with the exception of Mrs Sussman - registered too. They were all called for and never seen again. When Mrs Sussman, as a punishment, had to carry a very heavy sewing machine without help she gave premature birth to her child, a little boy, in a corner of a hut, covered with filthy rugs infected with Dysentery Bacilli. She screamed only once but this brought Dr. Mengele to her block who took the child from her and threw it in the open fire. Then a Polish doctor took her - at her own risk - to the hospital hut.

In Auschwitz Mrs Sussman became a kind of philosopher. She did not expect her co-prisoners there to behave like human beings anymore and even did not blame the nurses who stole the sick rations of their patients. On the other hand she speaks with the greatest admiration of the exceptions, the few heroic people who risked their lives in order to save others. Her fellow prisoners were women from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Austria, and Soviet Russia. She observed that none of them spoke of a future, they were all deeply concerned with the past.

After 3 months in Auschwitz, Mrs Sussman was transferred to the concentration camp Kratzau near Reichenberg-Zittau, affiliated to the Gross-Rosen camp.

Addendum :

     1) On her and her husband's Illegal Work in France : They produced and distributed illegal literature.

     2) On her pregnancy at Auschwitz : It was not conspicuous as almost every woman, because of malnutrition, had a swollen stomach.

     3) On sabotage in an SS armament factory in Kratzau : She pretended to be a good technician and succeeded, together with a Hungarian girl, in damaging the precision, mashine to such an extent that it did not work any more.

     4) On her husband's survival : He was already selected for the gas chambers when a SS-officer called for someone able to design Christmas cards and when he said he could was given back to life.

Number of pages: 4
Reference number: 1656/3/8/671
Catalogue ID: 105892
Subject: Treblinka (extermination camp)Auschwitz-Birkenau (concentration and...Ghettos
Summary:

The affidavit was sworn by Mrs Gutman in Paris in June 1954. She lived formerly in Radom with her husband and child. Soon after the German occupation, she had to do forced labour. The Radom Ghetto was established in the spring of 1940. She was separated from her husband; her mother and child were deported to Treblinka in August 1942.

In August 1944 she herself was deported to Auschwitz. She became very ill due to conditions prevailing in the camp and especial ill-treatment; taken to hospital. She was liberated by the Russians in January 1945 who accorded her medical treatment. The author returned to Radom vainly searching for her family. In 1947 she fled to France, still suffering from the effects of her treatment and experience.

Number of pages: 12
Reference number: 1656/3/8/912
Catalogue ID: 106008
Subject: AntisemitismHealthKapo
Summary:

When the Tiso regime in Slovakia introduced anti-Jewish laws, Bleich and his brother had to leave high school and attend a Jewish school. Their father’s business was aryanized. On 7 April 1942 Bleich, then aged 17, and his younger brother were arrested by the Hlinka Guard and were sent to Poprad and from there to Auschwitz. The account reports particularly vividly and with many details the unspeakable horrors of that camp. At first Bleich was allocated to road work, later to the building of the crematorium and the Buna works. Atrocities, suicides of the prisoners and murders by the Kapo were daily occurrances. When prisoners, Bleich among them, reported sick, they were given fatal injections or sent to the extermination block 7. Miraculously, Bleich was spared, although twice the lorries to take the victims to the gas chambers, halted in front of the block. Due to starvation and excessive work Bleich became one of the Muselmänner.

His brother Eugen also eventually came to Block 7, and after some time Bleich was told that all the inmates had been gassed. Caused by utter lack of sanitation and vermin, typhoid and boils spread and killed hundreds. When the epidemics endangered also the SS. extensive delousing operations were carried out, but the interminable roll-calls and inspections gave renewed chances for brutalities. In 1943 Bleich was ordered to peel potatoes. As he ate the raw peels, he contracted dysentery and skin diseases and lost this coveted job. He was sent back to building work and collapsed.

In March 1943 he accidentally met a friend, Meyer Mittelmann, who worked in the “Canada” Commando, and due to the energetic efforts of this man and despite many obstacles, Bleich was given medical care, some food and eventually a job in Mittelmann's commando, where he worked until August 1943 and enjoyed the various advantages involved. During that time with the Aufräumunskommando Bleich recalls the arrival of 2 transports: all the 3,000 prisoners of one were suffocated, while the 1,200 prisoners of the second were gassed immediately. Finally B. could not stand the handling of corpses any longer, and in August 1943 he volunteered for work in Warsaw on the site of the old ghetto. During their work, prisoners found hundreds of corpses, but also quantities of goods and valuables.

When the Russians approached, the camp was evacuated, the ill and weak prisoners were shot, the others had to march in the summer heat without water, and the SS shot anyone trying to quench his thirst. In Silesia they were crammed into cattle trucks; many of the prisoners went almost mad with thirst. Dachau was in a state of liquidation, the prisoners stayed there only for 2 weeks and proceeded to Ampfing. They worked on an underground factory and lived in underground huts. When Germany collapsed, an order was given to shoot all inmates, but the commandant of Ampfing did not obey this order and send the prisoners on yet another transport which led them to the liberating American army. After short periods in Munich under American care, at his home town and in the DP Camp Feldafing, Bleich married and emigrated to Australia.

Number of pages: 1
Reference number: 1656/3/8/1021c
Catalogue ID: 106213
Subject: HealthDeath marchesChildren
Summary:

The author was deported from Hamburg to Riga/Jungfernhof on 7 December 1941, together with his wife, 7-months-old child and his parents. The Camp-Commandant was Unterscharfuehrer SS and SD Rudolf Seck. After a few days the camp contained about 5,600 persons. They were crammed into dilapidated stables with no protection from the cold (30-35° Celsius below 0). A special squad had to pull out the corpses of those who were found frozen to death in the mornings; they were piled up in the yard. Seck tried to have them burned, which did not succeed, so 700 were buried in a mass-grave.

At regular inspections Seck took those too feeble to rise from their bunks, outside to have them “bumped off”. The sick quarters were evacuated regularly: the sick were thrown into lorries and taken away to be killed. At roll call Seck made selections of elderly people to be taken away and killed. He boasted of having killed around 5,000 Jews.

On 26 March 1942, Aktion Duenamuende was carried out by Seck and numbers transported to their death. The people in the transport had been told that they were being sent to work at Duenamuende, hence the name.

The author lost his entire family at Jungfernhof in one or the other of the described ways. He reports of savage beatings of men and women on their bare buttocks in front of the assembled crew, carried out by Seck with a cane, until they fainted.

Number of pages: 192
Reference number: 1656/3/8/1058
Catalogue ID: 106262
Subject: Jehovah's WitnessesChildrenHealth
Summary:

A report by a 56-year-old author on his experience of six months at Dachau and one month at Buchenwald. The Nazis’ methodical education to hateful contempt, cruel ill-treatment and pitiless annihilation of the so-called ‘Untermenschen’.

Vivid description of life in Concentration Camp. The information is “packed” into many short chapters, each an interesting and significant cross section, but together forming a complete readable “film” on the subject.

The book is concerned with the best known camp Dachau, and the most dreaded one, Buchenwald. It is shown that Dachau, although rightly pictured as a living hell, was almost a paradise compared with Buchenwald.

It is emphasised that apart from the purpose of creating terror, another purpose of these Camps is to educate the Nazi youth to ruthless bestiality. It also shows that these Nazi methods at the same time educate unflinching, resolute enemies to Nazidom. Just as Germany's armament rearmed the entire world so their Concentration Camps not only crush, but also create deadly opposition. Ordinary people develop into determined fighters against Nazism. Whilst the book as such shows this development by describing the setting (as done classically in Dostojewsky's “Memoirs of a House of the Dead”).

As the author has been an editor and particularly a picture editor for twenty years and made it his task to observe and note everything in the Camp, he together with a draftsman could illustrate the book by line drawings in the most accurate manner if so desired.

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