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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 Lisa G. Tyre

Date:

02/24/1981

Interviewee: Lisa G. Tyre
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher

Lisa Tyre was born February 1, 1929 in Vienna, Austria into an assimilated Jewish family. Her father, an attorney, served in the Austrian army in World War I. The family experienced no antisemitism until March 1938. Lisa describes the escalating effects of anti-Jewish measures and activities on her ...

Oral History Interview with Frederick A. Walters

Date:

02/01/1988

Interviewee: Frederick A. Walters
Interviewer: Philip G. Solomon

Frederick A. Walters was a Jewish soldier who served in the 474th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army. He knew about the existence of concentration camps from the Stars and Stripes and Armed Forces Radio Network but did not think he would ever witness them. He entered Buchenwald in April 1945 and des...

Oral History Interview with Sidney H. Willig

Date:

05/23/1985

Interviewee: Sidney H. Willig
Interviewer: Bonnie Bailes

Sidney H. Willig was born in New York City on July 2, 1919 into an Orthodox Jewish family. He attended public school and trained as a soccer player and boxer. He refers to antisemitism in America in the 1920s and 1930s: employment, his rejection from the Navy, and incidents in the Air Force. As a ...

Oral History Interview with Lillian Wishnefsky

Date:

12/10/1986

Interviewee: Lillian Wishnefsky
Interviewer: Edith Millman

Lillian (Lili) Wishnefsky, née Kupferberg, was born in Sosnowiec, Poland in December l929. Her father was a merchant and her mother a professional pianist. She attended public school until fourth grade when Germany invaded Poland in September l939. She describes the formation of the Sosnowiec Ghetto...

Oral History Interview with Harry Zaslow

Date:

02/28/1989

Interviewee: Harry Zaslow
Interviewer: Philip G. Solomon

Harry Zaslow served in the 283rd Field Artillery Battalion during World War II. He describes his unit's activities on various fronts while attached to the French First Army and then the American First Army, including the Battle of the Bulge. He had never heard about any German atrocities even after ...

Oral History Interview with Agnes Adachi

Date:

07/18/1989

Interviewee: Agnes Adachi
Interviewer: Nora Levin

Agnes Adachi, nee Mandl, was born in l9l8 in Budapest. She was the only child in a minimally observant Jewish family. She attended a Reformed Church school, where she received some Hebrew instruction. In l943, prior to the German invasion, she was baptized by a Reformed Church pastor to save her fro...

Oral History Interview with Hertha Beese

Date:

10/12/1983

Interviewee: Hertha Beese
Interviewer: Hanna Silver

Hertha Beese, nee Scholz, was born in Berlin, Germany September 10, 1902 into a non-Jewish German family. Her parents were active in the Social Democratic party (SPD) and trade unions. Hertha attended schools in Berlin, pre World War I with Jews and Catholics. She was forced to participate in Protes...

Oral History Interview with Eva Bentley

Date:

03/18/1985 to 04/02/1985

Interviewee: Eva Bentley
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher

Eva Bentley, nee Wahrmann, was born in Budapest to a Jewish family with a 500-year history in Hungary. She mentions some of their significant contributions to religious and political life. Details of antisemitic incidents with a teacher and her fellow students at public school are given, as well as ...

Oral History Interview with Lucyna Berkowicz

Date:

04/21/1985

Interviewee: Lucyna Berkowicz
Interviewer: Eileen Steinberg

...

Oral History Interview with Eva Burns

Date:

02/10/1980

Interviewee: Eva Burns
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher

Eva Burns, nee Gerstl, was born in 1924 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where her father was a pediatrician and her mother a concert pianist. They lived a mostly secular life with some inter¬ marriages in her mother's family. The German takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939 drastically affected their lives ...

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