Oral History Interview with Ari Fuhrman
Ari Fuhrman, born in Czernowitz, Bukovina, Romania (Chernivtsi, Ukraine), describes his father, who was a tailor; his family living briefly in Vienna, Austria then returning to Czernowitz instead of going to Palestine; his family life, religious observance, and education; the communist and Zionist movements and the cultural life of Jews in Czernowitz; being apprenticed as a dental mechanic in 1938; Germany invading Czernowitz together with the Romanian Army after a brief Russian occupation; the massacres of Jews beginning; the creation of a ghetto until most Jews had been deported; being deported with 80 family members to Transnistria in October 1941 by sealed train; the journey and how Romanians brutalized and robbed the deportees; escaping with his family during a stop in Mogilev (Mahiliou, Belarus); living and working in the Mogilev ghetto; life in the ghetto, including cultural activities, religious observance, illness, starvation, and the strategies his family used to survive; how in 1943 the Jewish Federation of Bucharest tried to rescue Jewish orphans and the American Joint Distribution Committee sent aid; the Jewish police having to provide a certain number of Jews each day for transports; conditions just before and after liberation by the Russians, when partisans briefly controlled the area; being reunited with his parents in Czernowitz until, as part of an exchange between Russia and Romania, he was sent to Timisoara, Romania in 1946; staying for 11 years, working as a dentist, and joining Mishmar, a Zionist organization; registering to go to Palestine and not receiving permission to leave until 1959; joining the State Theater of Bucharest and later the Teatron Haolim (Theatre of the Newcomers) in Israel; and being reunited with his parents after immigrating to the United States in 1960.
Date: | 10/26/1981 |
Interviewer: | Josey G. Fisher |
Interviewee: | Ari Fuhrman |
Language: | English |
Subject: | Escapes. Guerrillas--Belarus. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish ghettos--Belarus--Mahiliou. Jewish ghettos--Ukraine--Chernivtsi. Jewish youth--Europe--Societies and clubs. Jews--Persecutions--Ukraine. Jews--Social life and customs. Jews--Ukraine--Chernivtsi. Massacres--Ukraine--Chernivtsi. Theater--Israel. Theater--Romania. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Ukraine. Zionists--Ukraine--Chernivtsi. Men--Personal narratives. |
Location: | Chernivtsi, Ukraine Mogilev Ghetto Israel USA |
Permalink: | https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratzcollege.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-ari-fuhrman/ |
Audio Transcript | Time |
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01:03:21 | |
01:03:24 | |
01:03:22 | |
00:28:58 |