Oral History Interview with Genia Klapholz
Genia Klapholz (née Flachs), born in 1912 in Wisnicz, Poland, describes being raised in a religious family; the ghettoization of the town during WWII; witnessing the murder of her baby niece by a German soldier; escaping with her younger sister and paying a woman in a neighboring village to hide them for eight days; having to return to Wisnicz; being transported to the Bochnia ghetto, where they worked in a uniform factory for one year, enduring terrible conditions; moving next to the Szebnie transit camp, where they saw Jews from Tarnow burned alive; her Yiddish poem, “In Memory of My Sister, Serl, of Camp Szebnie” (she reads it during the interview; note that it and another poem, “The Death March from Auschwitz” are included with the transcripts); working for three months as a cleaning woman in a factory at Szebnie; being deported to Auschwitz in 1942, which she describes in detail; the brutal treatment during her two years in Birkenau; working in the ammunition factory, from which four young women smuggled gunpowder for the attempted explosion of the crematoria and witnessing their hanging after they were caught; a particular delousing incident, during which she had to stand in the snow, naked for hours; her foot operation, performed without anesthesia; being forced to leave Auschwitz on a death march in January 1945; escaping with two other women and finding shelter with a Polish woman and her family in Silesia; how this family was recognized as one of the “Righteous among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in 1991; being liberated by the Russians on March 28, 1945 and returning to Krakow, Poland in search of her family; living in displaced persons camps in Ainring, Regensburg, and Landsberg, where she met and married Henry Klapholz; immigrating with her husband and baby son in 1948 to the United States; buying a farm in Vineland, NJ; and moving to Philadelphia, PA in 1955.
Date: | 07/29/1981 |
Interviewer: | Lucille Fisher |
Interviewee: | Genia Klapholz |
Language: | English |
Subject: | Burning (Execution) Concentration camp inmates' writings. Concentration camp inmates--Medical care--Poland. Death march survivors. Death marches. Disinfection and disinfectants--Poland--Oswiecim. Forced labor. Hanging--Poland. Hiding places--Poland. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives. Infanticide. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Bochnia. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Nowy Wisnicz. Jewish women in the Holocaust. Jews--Poland--Nowy Wisnicz. Poetry. Poets. Women concentration camp inmates. World War, 1939-1945--Conscript labor. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Destruction and pillage--Poland. Women--Personal narratives. Ainring (Germany) Bochnia (Poland) Landsberg am Lech (Germany) Nowy Wisnicz (Poland) Philadelphia (Pa.) Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945. Silesia (Poland : Voivodeship) United States--Emigration and immigration. Vineland (N.J.) Klapholz, Genia, 1912- Ainring (Displaced persons camp) Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Birkenau (Concentration camp) Landsberg am Lech (Displaced persons camp) Regensburg (Displaced persons camp) Szebnie (Concentration camp) |
Location: | Nowy Wiśnicz, Poland Bochnia Ghetto Szebnie concentration camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp Ainring, Germany Regensburg displaced persons camp Landsburg displaced persons camp USA |
Permalink: | https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratzcollege.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-genia-klapholz/ |
Audio Transcript | Time |
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1:02:14 | |
0:56:29 |