In 1994, just about the time that Schindler's List was released, Steven Spielberg started sponsoring a program to collect the oral histories of Holocaust survivors. The goal was to collect 50,000 testimonials. They now have 52,000.
Those include at least four testimonials by our relatives: Lena and Joe Mandelbaum, Morris Barber (Lena's brother) and Feigusha (Fela) Lewkowitz, a cousin to both Jerry Schaufeld and Aliza Link. If you have Hochbaum or Schorr blood in you, these four relatives are probably first or second cousins, though for some of you they are several generations removed.
The testimonials are maintained by a program at called the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive at the University of Southern California. They can't be viewed online or accessed remotely, but they are available for viewing at various places around the country -- mostly universities. Paula Barber gave me a copy of Morris' testimonial. I spent a couple of days at a library at Rutgers watching Lena, Joe, and Feigusha's testimonials, and now have gotten copies of these from the Shoah Foundation.
The videos are pretty amazing. It helps to have some background on the family and geography before you watch them, but they give us as good a picture as we can get of what actually happened before, during and after the war.
And they also give us a good picture of the different circumstances families were in -- even those in the same family. Lena and Morris came from a middle class family with a business over the German border, in Beuthen, a city of over 60,000 people. Joe came from a poorer, very religious family in a small town in Poland (Szczakowa -- even harder to spell than Chrzanow), and Feigusha came from a wealthier, more cosmopolitan family, doing business in Katowice -- a city like Beuthen, but on the Polish side of the border -- and living in Chrzanow.
The experiences of Lena and Morris were probably similar to those of other members of our family who were living in Germany before the war. These include Charlie and his family, Tamar and her family, Erna Hochbaum Hochbaum (my father's other sister) and her family, and others. Once productive, middle-class business people in Germany, they experienced increasing discrimination and tightening restrictions under the Nazis, and in most cases, lost their businesses and their livelihood. Then, since the parents were Polish Jews, the family was deported back to Poland even though the children had been born in Germany. Once in Poland, they lived a much more difficult existence as the war threatened and Germany invaded Poland. Eventually, most members of the family either wound up being selected to work as forced laborers in a labor camp, or sent to the gas chambers, frequently to Auschwitz.
The testimonials are, of course, the stories of the survivors. There are exceptions, but for the most part, those who survived shared two, or possibly three, characteristics: 1) they were young, resilient teenagers, capable of hard work, sustained hardship and the ability to fight the diseases that almost killed them, and 2) they were sent to the labor camps, where their lives were of value to the Germans, rather than to the extermination camps. Additionally, 3) they often were in the camps with a family member or friend who helped them survive.
Thus, Lena, her brother Morris and her sister Regina were 14, 16, and 18, respectively, when the war broke out. Joe was 17. Other family members who survived were Regina Rappaport, who was 13 when the war broke out, and her brother Duftsha Schoenberg, who was 21. Charlie, Tamar and Feigusha were pre-teens when the war broke out. "Older" survivors were Regina Singer (27 when the war started) and Feigusha's mother Esther Singer, who was 33. "The people who were 40 years old," Lena says in her testimonial, "did not survive." Her father was 40.
I'll spend some time in a future post on the labor camps, but, in short, there were hundreds of these labor camps, and most of them you have never heard of. There were camps where all the workers were women -- spinning flax and making cloth and sewing uniforms, and camps where all the workers were men, building the Autobahn, converting the Russian rail tracks so German trains could run on them, building Krups factories and bunkers for SS officers, and camps where the populations were mixed, making armaments, for example. Conditions varied, but were almost always difficult at the start and became increasingly abysmal as the war went on.
Lena and her sister spent the war in one camp, in Czechoslovakia, and Lena attributes being alive to her sister's protection. Joe and Morris, who had come from the same town, started out in the same camp, but then each was moved to different camps -- 6 different camps for Joe, 5 for Morris. Feigusha and her mother were together for the entire war, with Feigusha increasingly taking on the parental role, even though she was barely a teen-ager. Margie Danziger says that she met women who were in the same camp as her mother, Regina Rappaport, who said they were envious of her having an older woman (her cousin, Regina Singer) to take care of her.
I'll use the testimonials to help capture some of the survivor's experiences in future posts, and, if I can figure out how to do it, I may even be able to include some excerpts from the videos.
Those include at least four testimonials by our relatives: Lena and Joe Mandelbaum, Morris Barber (Lena's brother) and Feigusha (Fela) Lewkowitz, a cousin to both Jerry Schaufeld and Aliza Link. If you have Hochbaum or Schorr blood in you, these four relatives are probably first or second cousins, though for some of you they are several generations removed.
The testimonials are maintained by a program at called the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive at the University of Southern California. They can't be viewed online or accessed remotely, but they are available for viewing at various places around the country -- mostly universities. Paula Barber gave me a copy of Morris' testimonial. I spent a couple of days at a library at Rutgers watching Lena, Joe, and Feigusha's testimonials, and now have gotten copies of these from the Shoah Foundation.
The videos are pretty amazing. It helps to have some background on the family and geography before you watch them, but they give us as good a picture as we can get of what actually happened before, during and after the war.
And they also give us a good picture of the different circumstances families were in -- even those in the same family. Lena and Morris came from a middle class family with a business over the German border, in Beuthen, a city of over 60,000 people. Joe came from a poorer, very religious family in a small town in Poland (Szczakowa -- even harder to spell than Chrzanow), and Feigusha came from a wealthier, more cosmopolitan family, doing business in Katowice -- a city like Beuthen, but on the Polish side of the border -- and living in Chrzanow.
The experiences of Lena and Morris were probably similar to those of other members of our family who were living in Germany before the war. These include Charlie and his family, Tamar and her family, Erna Hochbaum Hochbaum (my father's other sister) and her family, and others. Once productive, middle-class business people in Germany, they experienced increasing discrimination and tightening restrictions under the Nazis, and in most cases, lost their businesses and their livelihood. Then, since the parents were Polish Jews, the family was deported back to Poland even though the children had been born in Germany. Once in Poland, they lived a much more difficult existence as the war threatened and Germany invaded Poland. Eventually, most members of the family either wound up being selected to work as forced laborers in a labor camp, or sent to the gas chambers, frequently to Auschwitz.
The testimonials are, of course, the stories of the survivors. There are exceptions, but for the most part, those who survived shared two, or possibly three, characteristics: 1) they were young, resilient teenagers, capable of hard work, sustained hardship and the ability to fight the diseases that almost killed them, and 2) they were sent to the labor camps, where their lives were of value to the Germans, rather than to the extermination camps. Additionally, 3) they often were in the camps with a family member or friend who helped them survive.
Thus, Lena, her brother Morris and her sister Regina were 14, 16, and 18, respectively, when the war broke out. Joe was 17. Other family members who survived were Regina Rappaport, who was 13 when the war broke out, and her brother Duftsha Schoenberg, who was 21. Charlie, Tamar and Feigusha were pre-teens when the war broke out. "Older" survivors were Regina Singer (27 when the war started) and Feigusha's mother Esther Singer, who was 33. "The people who were 40 years old," Lena says in her testimonial, "did not survive." Her father was 40.
I'll spend some time in a future post on the labor camps, but, in short, there were hundreds of these labor camps, and most of them you have never heard of. There were camps where all the workers were women -- spinning flax and making cloth and sewing uniforms, and camps where all the workers were men, building the Autobahn, converting the Russian rail tracks so German trains could run on them, building Krups factories and bunkers for SS officers, and camps where the populations were mixed, making armaments, for example. Conditions varied, but were almost always difficult at the start and became increasingly abysmal as the war went on.
Lena and her sister spent the war in one camp, in Czechoslovakia, and Lena attributes being alive to her sister's protection. Joe and Morris, who had come from the same town, started out in the same camp, but then each was moved to different camps -- 6 different camps for Joe, 5 for Morris. Feigusha and her mother were together for the entire war, with Feigusha increasingly taking on the parental role, even though she was barely a teen-ager. Margie Danziger says that she met women who were in the same camp as her mother, Regina Rappaport, who said they were envious of her having an older woman (her cousin, Regina Singer) to take care of her.
I'll use the testimonials to help capture some of the survivor's experiences in future posts, and, if I can figure out how to do it, I may even be able to include some excerpts from the videos.
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