I walked the whole night with a Rabbi from Sosnowiec. People who fell down were shot. The Rabbi fell and a boy from Belgium helped get the Rabbi between us to help keep him walking.
We walked to the railroad station. In two days the train took us to Gross-Rosen camp. I never saw the Rabbi again. Gross-Rosen was murder. They put us in a shed with two thousand men. In the day we had to stand and in the night we slept. We only got a slice of bread and a cup of coffee for food.
I thought I was going to die there. I was taken to Dachau, For a short while. I left Dachau on the 26th or the 27th of April. I was liberated on May 1st, during the time we were traveling on trains through big mountains.
The Germans sent us up about 20ft above the mountain and started shooting at us. A few hundred were killed as we ran back to the train. The next day we heard planes dropping bombs. A few hours later some soldiers opened the door to the train. They needed a few people to clean up from the bombs. We were to scared to go. So they said, "You, you, and you out," and they caught me.
I said to myself, " I think this is the end. After all these years in the ghetto and losing everybody now this is the end. Who is going to be left to say Kaddish for my family? Where the train station had been bombed. One man got a shovel, the other a broom, I was given a pick. There was a counter in the station where they were selling little black bread. I said to myself that, "I would like to eat apiece of bread before the kill me.
I grabbed a little piece of dark bread and put it into my jacket and started eating it. A soldier saw me and yelled, "Go to work. I didn't move even though he was beating me. I fell down and he kicked me and I got up. I had to finish that bread. Blood was running down my head.
I went to work when I was finished. My wish was granted. I then knew that I would survive. At 4AM the next morning near Tutzing, there was heavy traffic on the highway. We pushed and shoved to get to the two tiny windows on the train. The people outside the train were Americans. We cheered! A jeep drove up with two soldiers. There was a short man an MP who spoke good German. The soldiers asked who we were. We told them we were from the concentration camps. Everybody started cheering and crying.
The American soldier said we were free. They arrested the Germans who. The Germans were scared. That day was May 1st The Americans cooked rice for us. The MP saw me take some rice and he said," Don't eat that.
If you do you will die. There is too much fat in that for you to eat right now. Because your stomach has shrunk, if you eat it you will get diarrhea. I will give you a piece of bread and you can toast it. I sat in the sun. In two weeks my stomach stretched. They gave us pajamas but we didn't have shoes. At the Displaced Persons camp in Feldafing a man asked me to bring his niece who was in the hospital some food.
I took her oranges, bread, butter. When she got better she gave me a pair of white linen pants. I left Feldafing in August of My friend Sofia said, she had a friend Frieda and wanted me to meet her. My wife was very shy and wouldn't come down to meet me.
My wife and I got married in November of My wife was from the same town I was from and I used to deal with her family. We were very poor. Solomon Radasky was a furrier at a place called Tobbens' Shop. They made short woolen jackets for the German army. Today, we call them Eisenhower Jackets. He never made it back. His sister was killed on the same day as his mother. I believe that Solomon fits all of the qualities of a hero. I believe he is a "hero on the spot" because during some moments he needed to be stronger than others.
An example of this is when his mother and sister were killed. He needed to be extremely strong to get through that. I believe he is a "survivor hero" because it takes a lot of strength to survive the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto.
An example of this is when Solomon came home and found out his sister and his mother had been killed. I believe it would be very hard to continue through life after an experience like this.
I believe that Solomon was also a "hero near and far" because he is a great inspiration to all. I believe this because he survived the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto and led a productive life.
Mengele; and remaining in Auschwitz until May 5, , when she was liberated. Alice Lang Rosen, born in in Lambsheim, Germany, describes her early childhood; the deportation of her family to the Gurs camp in France and then to Rivesaltes when she was six years old; the French Red Cross taking her out of the camp and hiding her from the Germans by placing her in a children's home, then in a convent, and then with various Catholic families; being sent to a children's home near Paris after her liberation; having her name put on a list of Jewish children from all over France, which was being compiled by a Polish rabbi; her father tracing her from this list and reuniting with her in Germany in ; and immigrating to the United States in Steven Springfield, born in in Riga, Latvia, describes his experiences as a child; the German occupation of Riga in and having to go into the ghetto; the massacre of about 28, Jews from the ghetto in late at the Rumbula forest; being transferred with his brother to a small ghetto for able-bodied men; his deportation to a labor camp near Kaiserwald in ; being moved to Stutthof in and forced to work in a shipbuilding firm; surviving a death march in with his brother and being liberated by Soviet forces; accepting a position as an interpreter for the Russian Army; his incarceration by the Russians for allegedly supporting the Nazis but being released when the charges were disproven; locating his pre-war girlfriend and marrying her; moving to Berlin, Germany with his wife and brother; and applying for a visa and immigrating to the United States on March 10, Farben, a German industrial company; going on a death march out of Auschwitz to a camp near Dachau, where he found his brother; being placed on another train that was ambushed by British fighter planes; jumping off the train with his brother and hiding in the surrounding area until they located the American soldiers; staying at the Feldafing displaced persons camp after the war; reuniting with his father and immigrating to the United States with his father and brother on January 3, ; and being drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War.
Marine Fletcher in January Louis, Missouri to live with distant relatives; graduating high school in June and trying to help his family immigrate to the United States; discovering that his parents had perished in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland; attempting to enlist in the US Army in but being turned away because of his German heritage; receiving a draft notice in and being trained in military intelligence because of his familiarity with the German language; training at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; working as an interrogator and uncovering the deeds of several war criminals; going to Buchenwald the day after it was liberated and seeing the horrible conditions there; returning to the United States after the war, attending Hofstra College, and then earning his Ph.
Major General William P. Levine, born in Duluth, Minnesota on July 1, , describes growing up as the oldest of four brothers; his draft into the United States Army in and completing Officer Training School in ; entering the Intelligence Unit as an Artillery Officer in ; being sent to England and later traveling with a unit that began in the Netherlands and worked its way south towards Dachau; moving into Dachau on April 29, and helping to give out food and medical care to the former prisoners at Dachau; and returning to the United States in Lore Baer, born August 26, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses her childhood in Amsterdam; how her family moved from Germany to the Netherlands in ; developing a close relationship with her maternal grandfather, who was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Bergen-Belsen, where he perished; her family's relationship with Elsa and Sam Izaaks, members of the underground resistance; her time in hiding with the Schouten family and becoming friends with Cornelia Schouten; her memories of living as a Catholic in order to conceal her identity as a Jew; hiding in various places on the Schouten family farm in order to avoid the Germans; her difficult separation from the Schouten family at the end of the war and her readjustment to life in Amsterdam; immigrating to the United States with her parents and settling in the Bronx, New York; and returning to the Netherlands to visit with members of the Schouten family several years after moving to the United States.
Drexel Sprecher, born on March 25, in Independence, WI, describes his family; his education at the University of Wisconsin, the London School of Economics, and at the Harvard School of Law; receiving a position on the Labor Board in ; his enlistment in the United States Army after the US declared war on Germany; being sent to London, England, where he was assigned to the Inspector General's office; later serving as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg Trials; and prosecuting Baldur von Schirach, the leader of the Hitler Youth.
Eduard Wirths, the garrison physician; later working in an office and becoming the concentration camp commander of the camp for Hungarian Jews; getting a job counting potatoes in a kitchen and then a job as a concentration camp supervisor in a fabric production facility; going on a death march on January 18, to Malchow, where they were liberated by the Soviet Army; settling in Prague, Czech Republic for a short time and then immigrating to Israel; and finally immigrating to Australia in Barbara Lederman Rodbell, born in in Berlin, Germany, describes her childhood; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands in with her family; becoming friends with Anne Frank and her family; the German invasion of the Netherlands in ; her boyfriend getting her false papers through his underground contacts; the deportation of her mother, sister, and father to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz; working for the resistance and surviving using her false papers; helping other Jews find hiding places; joining a ballet company for two years after the war; and immigrating to the United States in November Francis Akos, born on March 30, in Budapest, Hungary, describes his childhood; attending a music academy, from which he graduated in ; becoming the concertmaster for the Budapest Jewish Community Cultural Center orchestra; being drafted for forced labor into the Hungarian Army in ; getting captured with other Jews in Budapest while on leave from the army to get fresh clothes; being sent by train to Neuengamme on November 4, ; playing violin in the camp; his evacuation from Neuengamme on May 3, and being transported by the ship Cap Arcona, a passenger liner that was evacuating refugees from West Prussia; the British mistakenly attacking the Cap Arcona and three other prisoner ships, which resulted in eight thousand deaths; returning to Budapest after the war; and immigrating to the United States in Ruth Borsos, born in in Frankfurt, Germany, describes her family; moving to the Netherlands after Kristallnacht in ; her and her father obtaining permits to sail to the United States but not being able to do so when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May ; her deportation to Westerbork in and then to Bergen-Belsen in ; being interned with her father in a camp near the Swiss border when an exchange agreement with the Allies broke down; being chosen to be traded for German prisoners because of their foreign passports; their liberation from the internment camp by French forces on April 23, ; spending some time in a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration camp after the war; returning to the Netherlands in and receiving a visa to immigrate to the United States; and marrying another Holocaust survivor, whom she met in Washington, DC.
Shony Alex Braun, born on July 14, in Transylvania, Romania possibly Cristuru Secuiesc, Romania , describes his family and early childhood; learning to play the violin at age five; the occupation of his town by Hungarian forces in and by the Germans in ; being deported to Auschwitz in May ; his transfer into the Natzweiler Struthof camp system in France and then to Dachau, where American forces liberated him in April ; his immigration to the United States in ; and becoming a professional composer and violinist.
Avraham Ronai, born on September 14, in Budapest, Hungary, describes growing up in a religious family; attending a secular public school and a Jewish school at night in Budapest; not experiencing many difficulties under the pro-Nazi Hungarian regime; the German invasion of Budapest in March but not really suffering until the Nazis took full control over Hungary in October ; the Nazis rounding up Jews into ghettos and deporting them; seeking help at the Spanish Embassy in Budapest and receiving a space in a Spanish safe-house due to the efforts of Giorgio Perlasca; remaining in the safe-house until the Soviets liberated Budapest in ; and immigrating to Israel in because of the oppressive Hungarian Communist regime.
Eva Konigsberg Lang, born on April in Budapest, Hungary, describes her childhood and family; the Jewish community losing several of its rights when the war began; her relatives arriving from Czechoslovakia to live with her; being forbidden to attend school after March ; receiving a protective pass to get food; hearing that the wife of any man in forced labor would not be deported and getting married in ; hiding in a Spanish protective house on St.
Paul Street and getting food supplies provided by the Jewish Council; the German occupation of Budapest; forging a telegram to prove that they were under Spanish protection and to save themselves from the Arrow Cross; and reflecting on how certain Spanish diplomats saved her life during the war.
Cornelius Loen, born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia now Serbia on May 2, , describes growing up with a Jewish father and Gentile mother; the German invasion of his town on January 23, and German troops killing two of his uncles; escaping with his family to Budapest, Hungary, where they lived for ten months; his deportation to a forced labor camp in Hungary, where he remained until ; escaping to a nearby barn, where he hid for three days, during the liquidation of the camp; Russian troops liberating him while he hid in this barn; walking to a nearby displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife Masha; taking a Russian transport to Budapest and reuniting with his parents; discovering that his father had survived a concentration camp and his mother had helped to hide and save many Jewish people after her family was taken away; and immigrating to Los Angeles, CA in Henry Schmelzer, born in March in Vienna, Austria, describes growing up as the youngest of four children in a middle-class family; graduating from a Jewish high school in shortly before it closed; his brothers fleeing, while he and the rest of his family endured Nazi raids on their home until they were evicted; his father losing his business and having severe depression; escaping to England on December 18, and finding refuge at a children's camp; remaining in England throughout the war and living with a group of young Zionists; enlisting in the British Army in ; being sent to a mountain unit, the 52nd Division; receiving his degree at the London School of Economics; spending 18 years in Israel; and immigrating to the United States in Helen Liebowitz Goldkind, born in Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia Ukraine on July 9, , describes her childhood and family; the Hungarian occupation of Czechoslovakia and going into a ghetto in Uzhgorod, Ukraine; maintaining religious traditions in the ghetto; the Germans taking over the ghetto and deporting her and her family to Auschwitz; her transport to another camp and hearing bombs going off during the train ride; arriving in a German camp and working in a munitions factory; going on a truck with two hundred other girls to Bergen-Belsen, where English troops eventually liberated her; the Swedish Red Cross offering to take care of her and others in Sweden; discovering that only one of her sisters survived the war and had immigrated to the United States; and following her sister to the United States, where she settled in New York, NY and got married.
David J. Josef Mengele; her successful rescue of her sister Edith from the infirmary in Auschwitz; her survival of the Auschwitz gas chamber because of a malfunction in the chamber; her memories of camp guard Irma Grese; her transfer from Auschwitz to the Guben concentration camp where she worked in an ammunition factory; her participation in a death march with a group from Guben; her escape and subsequent return to the death march group; her separation from her sister in Bergen-Belsen; her evacuation from Bergen-Belsen and transport to a hospital in Sweden; her reunion with her father in Hungary; her illegal immigration to Israel by boat; her return to Sweden with her husband Moshe Cahana; the Cahana family's move to the United States; and her thoughts on the rescue efforts of Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.
Eva Brust Cooper, born in in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; living on the Pest side of the Danube River; her memories of the German invasion of Hungary in March ; the various types of persecution experienced by the Jews in Budapest including the wearing of yellow Stars of David; her father receiving papers from Raoul Wallenberg to avoid deportation; the family's time in hiding in various locations around Budapest; her and her mother's attempts to appear Catholic by going to church, learning the Catechism, and acquiring false identification papers; her family's return to Budapest at the end of World War II; her father's participation in negotiations with Adolf Eichmann in hopes of reducing the number of Hungarian Jews to be deported; her family's immigration to the United States and their new life in New York City; and her activities with various Holocaust survivor groups.
Henry van den Boogard, born in Holland in , discusses his childhood in Tilburg, Netherlands; his early education and seminary days; his ordination to the priesthood and first mass in ; his memories of Jews being helped by non-Jews in the Netherlands; his personal activities with the resistance movement in southern Netherlands such as making false identification papers for various persons, smuggling children into the Netherlands for hiding, and finding hiding places in homes for Jews and other persons; his dealings with the black market in the Netherlands in order to clothe and feed people in hiding; his reflections on antisemitism in the Netherlands; the German invasion of the Netherlands in ; the feelings of native Hollanders toward the "Dutch Nazis"; and his life after World War II in the United States where he worked to integrate Catholic churches in Virginia.
Mel London, born in , discusses growing up in the Bronx, NY with immigrant parents; his awareness of the political situation in Europe before World War II; his concern for family in Europe; his identification with being Jewish; enlisting in the United States Army signal corps in May ; going to Officer Candidate School; antisemitism he encountered in the army and prejudice because of his friendships with black soldiers; seeing the aftermath of World War II in Europe; his knowledge of the Nuremberg war crime trials; becoming a documentary filmmaker; the request to interview Albert Speer after his book "Inside the Third Reich" was published in ; preparing for the interview; different attitudes towards Speer among Germans of different generations; and his perceptions of Speer.
Gisela Feldman, born in , discusses her first encounters with antisemitism in Berlin, Germany after Hitler came to power in and her political awareness at that time; her father's deportation to Poland in because he was a Polish citizen; the confiscation of her family's apartment; being barred from going to school; her mother obtaining visas to Cuba and booking passage on the SS St.
Louis; her father not being able to leave Poland in time to join them on the SS St. Louis; departing with her mother and sister from Germany in ; the atmosphere on board the ship; their arrival in Cuba and the announcement that their visas were no longer valid; the desperation of some passengers on board; sailing near the coast of the United States during the return journey to Europe; her family being selected to disembark in England; her job as a domestic in a convalescent home for Jewish refugees in Broadstairs and then as a nanny for a family with two children in London; her involvement in war work, making uniforms and gunpowder bags; meeting and marrying her husband in London in ; her mother's attempts to get permission for her father to emigrate from Poland; and her life in England after the war.
Bent Melchoir, born in Denmark, describes growing up with a father who was a rabbi; the ease of relations between Jews and Christians in Denmark; the help that the Danish Christian community gave to the Jewish community to help them escape to Sweden; raising money with his brother to get Jews out of Denmark; the Danish resistance movement; leaving Copenhagen and arriving in Sweden by small boat; returning to Denmark three weeks after liberation; his surprise at the jubilant welcome given by the Danes when the Jews returned; the re-opening of the local synagogue for the fall holidays in ; and working on behalf of Soviet Jewry after the war.
George Havas, born in in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia now Ukraine , describes the Hungarian takeover of his town after the Germans took the Sudetenland; his father no longer being allowed to practice medicine; the German takeover of Mukacheve in March ; his transport to Auschwitz on May 15, ; learning after the war that his father had died in the Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz; being transferred to Mauthausen and then to Ebensee, where he stayed for one year until liberation; working in the tunnels at Ebensee, where he was able to make contacts and bring back news; the death of his brother and several of his friends in Ebensee; his liberation on May 6, and leaving for Prague on June 7; and immigrating to the United States in These additional online resources from the U.
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For questions about donating materials, please contact curator ushmm. Please do not send any materials until explicitly directed to do so by curatorial staff. Thank you for your understanding. Back to Results New Search. Oral history interview with Solomon Radasky. Interviewee Solomon Radasky.
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