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 Sara Adler
Date:
04/22/1985
Interviewee: Sara Adler
Interviewer: Davida Glick
Interviewer: Davida Glick
Sara Adler, nee Apel, was born in Radom, Poland in 1927. Her family was close-knit, religious, well-to-do and involved in community welfare. They had non-Jewish contacts through their lumber business, but Sara attended Jewish school and had primarily Jewish friends. The family fled Radom in 1939 und...
Oral History Interview with Lili Altschuler
Date:
03/10/1981
Interviewee: Lili Altschuler
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Lili Altschuler was born September 30, 1928 in Lodz, Poland to a well-to-do, non-observant Jewish family. Before the war she was educated in a private Jewish school. Lili describes the change in atmosphere in 1937-38, the prohibition against kosher slaughter and the Polish Jewish citizens being expe...
Oral History Interview with Anonymous
Date:
10/01/1985
Interviewee: K. R. Anonymous
Interviewer: Ellen Rofman
Interviewer: Ellen Rofman
K. R. was born in Tarnopol, Poland, March 31, 1922. Her father was a businessman and her family was greatly influenced by Viennese culture. She briefly describes the start of overt antisemitism in her schools. She was a member of Hanoar Hatzioni and active in Zionist youth groups in Tarnopol and L’v...
Oral History Interview with Frieda Appel
Date:
04/21/1985
Interviewee: Frieda Appel
Interviewer: Ruth K. Hartz
Interviewer: Ruth K. Hartz
Frieda Appel, née Gottesman or Feldstein, was born into an Orthodox family August 18, 1929 in Kliachanovo, Czechoslovakia, near Munkács. Her father was a cattle dealer. Although, Frieda and her brother were offered shelter by the sheriff, a close friend of her father’s, her father decided to keep th...
Oral History Interview with Jack Arnel
Date:
04/22/1985
Interviewee: Jack Arnel
Interviewer: Bonnie Bailis
Interviewer: Bonnie Bailis
Jack Arnel (previously Yasha Aronovitz) was born on May 23, 1929 in Vilna, Poland (now Vilna, Lithuania) to a well-to-do Jewish family. His father owned a furrier factory and his mother was a custom tailor. He shares his childhood memories of his war-time experiences. He describes their pre-war life...
Oral History Interview with Miro Auferber
Date:
06/16/1987
Interviewee: Miro Auferber
Interviewer: Vera Rosenberger
Interviewer: Vera Rosenberger
Miro Auferber was interviewed in Haifa, Israel in Serbical Yiddish which his interviewer translated into English. He was born in Osijek, Croatia, November 22, 1913. His father was a manufacturer and his family was active in the Jewish community and belonged to Zionist organizations. Miro was taken t...
Oral History Interview with Hasia Aufschauer
Date:
05/10/1982
Interviewee: Hasia Aufschauer
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Hasia Aufschauer, nee Chaya Sara Honikman, was born in Lodz, Poland on January 7, 1923. She had 5 siblings and lived in a new area of Lodz called Chojny, which had about 200,250 Jews before the war. Her father was a kosher butcher. Her home served as the orthodox synagogue for the local butchers and...
Oral History Interview with Ilse Awin
Date:
10/14/1999
Interviewee: Ilse Awin
Interviewer: Inge Karo
Interviewer: Inge Karo
This is a second interview with Ilse Awin, nee Mechlowitz, eight years after the original - both at a ‘Rickshaw Reunion” of Shanghai survivors in Philadelphia. Ilse Awin was born December 31, 1925 in Munich, Germany to a family who held Polish passports. She describes her early education, the effect...
Oral History Interview with Leo Awin
Date:
10/19/1991
Interviewee: Leo Awin
Interviewer: Eva Abraham
Interviewer: Eva Abraham
Leo Awin was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1919 into a traditional Jewish home. His parents were born in parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that later became Romania and Poland. He grew up in the jewelry trade. After Kristallnacht, he helped at the Kultusgemeinde in Vienna, processing emigration pap...
Oral History Interview with Fred Bachner
Date:
04/22/1985
Interviewee: Fred Bachner
Interviewer: Maxine Weiner
Interviewer: Maxine Weiner
Fred Bachner, born September 28, 1925 in Berlin, was one of two sons of an orthodox family of Polish nationality. He attended Jewish public school. His father was a men’s clothing manufacturer and his mother worked in the shop. Fred describes his pre-war life, belonging to several Zionist organizati...