Holocaust Oral History Archive
The Holocaust Oral History Archive is one of the earliest and largest collections of Holocaust testimony in the United States. Established in 1979 by Nora Levin (1916-1989), and maintained by a dedicated volunteer staff, the Archive is one of the earliest Holocaust oral history projects in the U.S. documenting a wide range of experiences during the Nazi era and Jewish life in pre-Nazi Europe. Holdings include interviews with over 900 survivors, rescuers, liberators, and other witnesses to the persecution and extermination of the Nazi era, 1933-1945. Special groupings include the testimonies of "Kindertransport" children sheltered in England, the 1985 Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, the 1991 and 1999 Rickshaw Reunions of Shanghai Survivors, and the Vilna Ghetto Fighters.
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Oral History Interview with Hanna Seckel
Date:
03/26/1982
Interviewee: Hanna Seckel
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Hanna Seckel , nee Dubová, born July 22, 1925 in Kolin Czechoslovakia, grew up in Prague in a middle-class, secular family. Her father was a doctor. Hanna describes her early childhood education, getting involved in a Zionist Youth Movement, and the German occupation of Sudetenland including school ...
Oral History Interview with Samuel Sherron
Date:
12/11/1983
Interviewee: Samuel Sherron
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Samuel Sherron was born March 27, 1932 in Skuodas, Lithuania but lived in Schweksna. His father was a merchant. Samuel was educated in both public school and cheder. He lived under Russian occupation from 1940 until the German invasion. He describes the roundup and torture of local Jews by SS troops...
Oral History Interview with Walter Silberstein
Date:
11/09/1981
Interviewee: Walter Silberstein
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Walter Silberstein, was born November 9, 1902 in Stargard, Germany, son of the only rabbi serving that area. He studied engineering and economics in Berlin and Leipzig and nearly completed his doctorate when his University of Leipzig professors were fired for their political views in 1933. After a b...
Oral History Interview with Nathan Snyder
Date:
10/11/1984
Interviewee: Nathan Snyder
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Nathan Snyder was born on May 21, 1926 in Unter Stanestie, Rumania (now Russia). He describes Jewish community life, religious observance, Zionist movements, and his education in cheder and public school including the Gymnasium in Czernowitz. He experienced antisemitism in school, from the Iron Cros...
Oral History Interview with Philip G. Solomon
Date:
05/28/1987
Interviewee: Philip G. Solomon
Interviewer: Ellen Rofman
Interviewer: Ellen Rofman
Philip G. Solomon served in the United States Army, in the 101st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron Mechanized, which liberated the Landsberg concentration camp on April 28, 1945. He describes his unit’s arrival in Germany in February/March 1945, emphasizing their military mission and their lack of kno...
Oral History Interview with Harold Stern
Date:
09/10/1981
Interviewee: Harold Stern
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Interviewer: Nora Levin
Harold Stern, formerly Helmutt, was born August 31, 1921 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the only child of middle class Jewish parents. His father came from an Orthodox background and his mother was raised in a non-observant home; as a family, they belonged to a large Liberal Congregation, the West e...
Oral History Interview with Anna Sultanik
Date:
06/20/1996
Interviewee: Anna Sultanik
Interviewer: Marian Salkin
Interviewer: Marian Salkin
Anna Sultanik, née Tiger, was born May 20, 1929 in Krakow, Poland as the older of two children of Dr. Tiger and Sara Meth Tiger. Her pre-war memories include her family’s sheltering of German-Jewish refugees en-route to America. She describes the sudden changes in her secure, upper-middle class life...
Oral History Interview with Gabriela Truly
Date:
05/27/1990
Interviewee: Gabriela Truly
Interviewer: Edith Millman
Interviewer: Edith Millman
Gabriela Truly, née Braun, was born January 7, 1916 in Levoča, Czechoslovakia, where her family had lived since the first half of the 18th century. She and her five siblings were active in Zionist groups. In 1939, as Slovak nationalists allied with the Axis, restrictions were placed on Jews. Her fat...
Oral History Interview with Elsa Turteltaub
Date:
07/14/1987
Interviewee: Elsa Turteltaub
Interviewer: Edith Millman
Interviewer: Edith Millman
Elsa Turteltaub, nee Waldner, was born October 24, 1916 in Teschen (Cieszyn), Poland. She and her brother and sister attended private Catholic schools, although her parents kept a kosher home and attended a conservative synagogue on holidays. Elsa completed a commercial high school course and was ac...
Oral History Interview with Marian W. Turzanski
Date:
12/28/1983
Interviewee: Marian W. Turzanski
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Marian Turzanski, born January 18, 1934 in Zupanie, Poland, was one of four sons in a family of Catholic land owners. He recalls good relations with the few Jews in his village, one of whom once hid in the Turzanski home. After the German invasion, hostile Ukrainians threatened to kill Marian’s fath...