Leonard Zawacki, born January 20, 1916 in German-controlled northwest Poland, describes being brought up as a Catholic and having a comfortable, good life; taking part in the defense of Warsaw, Poland September 28, 1939; being sent to Auschwitz, where he joined forces with the underground; escaping and living for four months in the Carpathian Mountains with about 100 partisans; the scenes of total chaos after Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians on January 28, 1940; returning home briefly; moving to Krakow, then to Italy, and then to Great Britain; immigrating to the United States in 1951; going first to New York and then to Milwaukee, WI, where he was married and worked for various financial institutions; moving back to New York in 1978 and becoming an executive in the finance industry; having become more tolerant, understanding, and forgiving as a result of his war experiences; his view that the Polish did more to help Jews than any other nation; his views on the actions of Lithuanians and Ukrainians; the uncertainty of life as being the worst part of Auschwitz; and his greatest sense of pride was having been able to escape from Auschwitz, having been able to outwit the Germans.
Lucine Horn, born in Lublin, Poland, describes her experiences after the end of the Warsaw uprising in October 1944; the evacuation of Poles to southwest Poland until liberation in January 1945; the relationship between Poles and Soviets; returning to Lublin; meeting with other Jews coming out of hiding; tremendous antisemitism in Poland; living in Wroclaw, Poland; joining a student Zionist group; living in Vienna, Austria; living as a displaced person; her immigration with her husband, Felix Horn, to the United States; her first Thanksgiving; her positive experiences living in New York; having her first child; moving to Chicago in 1960; completing her college degree; telling her children about the Holocaust; the unknown fate of her brother during the war; her American patriotism; the difficulty of talking about her Holocaust experiences; her severed ties with Poland and Germany; her happiness and gratitude for life; and her thoughts about the importance of family.
Second Coming of Eva (1974)
Ernest Koenig discusses his family background and childhood in Miroslav, Czechoslovakia; his first awareness of Hitler and the Nazi Party; meeting his future wife Elizabeth as a refugee in Paris, France in 1939; his liberation by the Russians after escaping a death march in 1945; his return to Czechoslovakia where he discovered that his family had perished; his immigration to England in 1946; his lack of plans after liberation except to find Elizabeth and immigrate to the United States; the conditions in Czechoslovakia after World War II; reuniting with Elizabeth in England and marrying in 1947; immigrating to the US in 1948; his first impressions of the US; earning bachelor's and master's degrees in economics and obtaining a job as a junior instructor at Johns Hopkins University; getting a job at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC and working there for forty years; becoming an American citizen; the ignorance and lack of interest in the Holocaust in the US before the 1980s; his appointment in 1959 as the Assistant Agricultural Attaché at the American Embassy in Germany, moving to Brussels, Belgium in 1964 to work as the Agricultural Attaché with the Common Market (European Economic Community); leading the American Agricultural Delegation in a trade negotiation in Geneva, Switzerland in 1974; returning to Washington, DC for two years and being appointed as the Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the American Embassy in Paris, France; retiring from government service in 1990; dealing with government officials in Germany who were former Nazis; antisemitism in Germany after World War II; his beliefs about Holocaust survivors and how his experiences affected his daughter; his memories of his time in the French Army and as a concentration camp inmate; and his reflections on learning about the Holocaust and the possibility of future genocide.
Jerry Slivka, born July 11, 1915 in Ukraine, discusses being evacuated to Germany during World War I; growing up away from his siblings; his early political affiliations; getting married and starting a family; the murder of his wife and son in Povorsk, Poland (Ukraine); living in a labor camp in the Soviet Union; his views on communism; staying in a displaced persons camp in Italy; immigrating to the United States on the ship Marine Perch; establishing a life in Boston, MA; becoming an American citizen; attending Bentley College; meeting his second wife and starting a family; moving to Portland, ME; how Povorsk came under Communist rule and did not allow monuments to the Jews who were killed during the Holocaust; contacting the House of Waleen, an Israeli organization, to help establish a monument; going back to Poland; finally erecting a monument to honor those who were killed in Povorsk; working as an interpreter for newly arriving immigrants; volunteering with the Jewish community; helping establish the Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine; speaking to school-children about the Holocaust; his family and his religious beliefs; and his thoughts on violence in the world.
Sol Lurie discusses the change in relationships between Jews and Christians in Kaunas, Lithuania once the war started; when Poland was invaded by both the Germans and the Russians; living in the Kaunas ghetto; the ghetto killing grounds; his time in Birkenau; being liberated from Buchenwald by the Americans; the death of his brother; traveling to France; finding his relatives in the United States; immigrating to the United States on the S.S. Marine Flasher; his goal to outlive Hitler; daily life in New York; returning to Germany as an American soldier; becoming an American citizen; meeting his first wife and getting married; raising a family; reuniting with other children who survived Buchenwald; his views on religion and fate; meeting his liberator in New York; reasons why survivors should talk about the Holocaust; his views on US politics; being a member of the Knights of Pythias; his thoughts on Israel; his post-war family; the death of his first wife; and marrying his second wife and starting a new family.
Jack Ahrens (né Yakob Aronczyk), born in 1921, discusses his pre-war life in Lida, Belarus; going to L'viv, Ukraine in 1940; his experiences living in hiding; being arrested by Russian soldiers; his life in a displaced persons camp in Chianchetta, Italy; daily life in L'viv after the war; the black market; the importance of education; meeting his wife; studying in Turin, Italy; immigrating to the United States; reuniting with his mother in New York; attending the University of Illinois; becoming a member of Tau Delta Phi fraternity; changing his name when he became an American citizen; his feelings about Israel and religion; moving to Cleveland, OH; moving to New York; starting a family; his views on Zionism; the 1960s race riots in New York; going back to Italy; and his feelings on genocide in other parts of the world.
Michael Diamond (né Diamant), born July 10, 1919, discusses the death of his parents in Auschwitz; his liberation from Bergen-Belsen; living with Russian soldiers in Germany; returning home to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); living with his sister in Prague, Czech Republic; working in a small store in Slovakia; meeting his wife and getting married; the rise of Communism; traveling to Israel; daily life in Israel; immigrating to the United States; living in New York; becoming an American citizen; his views on contemporary genocide and religion; and his feelings on the McCarthy era.
Walter Meyer discusses his time as a political prisoner in Ravensbrück, Germany; his reunion with his family; his liberation by American forces; receiving treatment from American soldiers in a hospital in Düsseldorf, Germany; daily life in Germany after the war; killing a Russian soldier in self-defense during a border crossing; traveling to South America as a hideaway on the ship Parkhaven; having to jump from ship to ship through South America; working on a movie set in Martinez; owning his own tobacco farm in Salta; traveling through the United States on his way to Los Angeles; racial segregation in the United States; returning to Germany; his various occupations; returning to the United States; living in California and Texas; meeting celebrities and presidents; getting married and having children; receiving three Ph.Ds; opening up his own restaurant Hansel and Gretel in Austin, Texas; his divorce; traveling to Rome; meeting his second wife and starting a new family; and writing a book about his wartime experiences.
Kurt Thomas discusses growing up in Boskovice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); helping sick prisoners in Sobibór; the death of his sister and parents at Sobibór; life after his escape from Sobibór; his life in hiding on a farm with a Christian family; joining the Czech Legion in Romania in 1944; his views on the foundation of antisemitism; the Christian church; the post-war Czechoslovakian government; his views on religion; going back to Boskovice; immigrating to the United States on the ship, Queen Mary; daily life in Pennsylvania; becoming an American citizen; meeting his first wife and getting married; his feelings about testifying against the SS guard Karl Auguste Frenzel Rosen in Frankfurt, Germany; receiving correspondence from the family that hid him during the war; his feelings about Germany and contemporary German citizens; his views on Holocaust literature; reuniting with the other Sobibór survivors; the death of his first wife; meeting his second wife and getting remarried; and his decision to never have children.
Frida Wallenstein, born September 14, 1926 in Solotvyno, Czechoslovakia (Ukraine), discusses her pre-war family life; moving from Czechoslovakia to Belgium; daily life after the war started; going into hiding; becoming a maid for a family in Liège; the arrest of her family by the Gestapo; the deaths of her mother and sisters in Auschwitz; traveling to Brussels, Belgium to hide with the Friedman family; post-war life in Liège; immigrating to the United States; her post-war family; her views on religion; living in Cleveland, OH; meeting her husband and getting married; becoming an American citizen; working in a factory; having children; the death of her father; working as a secretary to the professor of neuropathology at Western Reserve University; going to Israel and staying on a kibbutz; giving an oral testimony at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; going back to Belgium; and traveling throughout Europe. 2ff7e9595c
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