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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 Sophie Roth

Date:

03/09/1988

Interviewee: Sophie Roth
Interviewer: Carol Solotoff

Sophie Roth, née Parille, born in Zloczow, Poland, was one of four children in a religious family. She refers to the German bombing and invasion in 1939, and the killing of doctors and teachers by Germans, aided by Poles and Ukranians. She worked in forced labor camps in Lazczow and Kosice until 194...

Oral History Interview with Ida Rudley

Date:

04/05/1984

Interviewee: Ida Rudley
Interviewer: Ellen Rofman

Ida Rudley, née Rothman, was born April 22, 1922 in Vienna, Austria, into a middle class family. She encountered antisemitism even before Hitler annexed Austria. Her life changed after the Anschluss in 1938, as anti-Jewish measures took effect. She explains why it was almost impossible for Jews to l...

Oral History Interview with Anne Dore Russell

Date:

04/17/1984

Interviewee: Anne Dore Russell
Interviewer: Hanna Silver

Anne Dore Russell, née Weidemann, a non-Jew, was born in Brandenburg, Germany in 1926. She went to school from 1933 to 1945 in Brandenburg. Her father told her about experiences of Germans opposed to Hitler. She knew that her uncle was sent to Sachsenhausen and heard about a Jehovah’s Witness who wa...

Oral History Interview with Sonja Samson

Date:

06/03/1985

Interviewee: Sonja Samson
Interviewer: Nora Levin

Sonja Samson was born in Aurich, Germany in 1931, into an assimilated but observant Jewish family. In 1936 she lived with her grandparents in Luxembourg until she joined her parents who had moved to France earlier. She talks about her family history and her childhood, and speculates about her parent...

Oral History Interview with Sylvia Schneider

Date:

08/08/1989

Interviewee: Sylvia Schneider
Interviewer: Eva Abraham

Sylvia Schneider, née Balbierer, was born in Cologne, Germany on May 4, 1928 to an Orthodox Jewish family. Her father, a language teacher was born in Belgium of Russian ancestry. Her mother was from Krakow, Poland. A happy childhood ended for Sylvia in 1935-36, when her sister Ruth was beaten by Hit...

Oral History Interview with Steffi Schwarcz

Date:

06/05/1989

Interviewee: Steffi Schwarcz
Interviewer: Eva Abraham

Steffi Schwarcz, née Birnbaum, was born March 17, 1928 in Berlin, Germany. She was sent to England on March 15, 1939 as part of the Kindertransport, with her younger sister and 11 other children. This group was sponsored by Dr. Schlesinger, an English Jew. She briefly mentions her early life, Krista...

Oral History Interview with Lillian Steinig

Date:

04/22/1982

Interviewee: Lillian Steinig
Interviewer: Joan Sadoff

Lillian Steinig, née Edelstein, was born January 23, 1923 in Stryj, Poland. Her father was a merchant and farmer until the Russian occupation in 1939. Forced to give up his large farm to the Soviet authority, he moved his family to the city and worked in a lumber yard. Lillian and her younger brothe...

Oral History Interview with Ellen Tarlow

Date:

11/19/1993

Interviewee: Ellen Tarlow
Interviewer: Natalie Packel

Ellen Tarlow, née Meinberg, was born in 1927 in Gütersloh, Westphalia, Germany, where her family had lived since the 17th century. Her father, Paul Meinberg, an importer of cattle, was dec-orated with the Iron Cross in WWI. She describes her early childhood in public school and then a Lyceum for gir...

Oral History Interview with Erica Van Adelsberg

Date:

12/08/1981

Interviewee: Erica Van Adelsberg
Interviewer: Lucille Fisher

Erica Van Adelsberg, nee Herz, was born in Munich in 1928 to an assimilated, liberal Jewish family. She left Germany with her parents and younger brother in 1932 to live in Aerdenhoudt, Holland, near Haarlem. They lived comfortably and Erica recalls the decency of the Dutch people. In 1940, after th...

Oral History Interview with

Date:

04/22/1985

Interviewee: Jack Zaifman
Interviewer: Vivienne Korman

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