Oral History Interview with Manya Perel
Manya Perel (née Frydman), born in 1924 in Radom, Poland, describes being the youngest of 10 children in a traditional Jewish family; her father’s bakery; her education and Jewish life in Radom; antisemitism and the Przytyk pogrom in 1936; German invasion in 1939; the persecutions and the deportation of younger males to Belzec labor camp in 1941; the establishment of a ghetto in Radom; the collaboration of Volksdeutsche and Ukrainians in brutalities and some help by Jewish police; the “resettlement” of Radom Jews to Treblinka in August 1942 while younger, able-bodied persons were retained for forced labor in factories near Radom; her efforts to hide her five-year-old niece in the barracks of a Majdanek subcamp; being transferred to Majdanek, then Płaszów, and then Auschwitz; conditions in the camps; the harsher conditions in Gundelsdorf in Oberfranken, Germany, where slave laborers were taken as the Russian Army approached; experiencing near starvation in early 1945 during their evacuation to camps Ravensbrück and Rechlin; nearly dying of typhus after liberation; returning to Radom to search for family and finding continued antisemitism there; going to Stuttgart with the help of UNRRA and the Joint Distribution Committee; immigrating to Montreal, Canada in 1948; and moving to Philadelphia, PA in 1958.
Date: | 10/26/1982 |
Interviewer: | Nora Levin |
Interviewee: | Manya Perel |
Language: | English |
Subject: | Forced labor. Hidden children (Holocaust)--Poland. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Radom (Województwo Mazowieckie) Jewish women in the Holocaust. Jews--Poland--Radom (Województwo Mazowieckie) Pogroms--Poland--Przytyk. Starvation. Typhus fever. Women concentration camp inmates. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. World War, 1939-1945--Conscript labor. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland. Women--Personal narratives. Canada--Emigration and immigration. Montréal (Québec) Oberfranken (Germany) Philadelphia (Pa.) Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945. Przytyk (Poland) Radom (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland) United States--Emigration and immigration. World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Poland. Perel, Manya, 1924- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Gundelsdorf (Concentration camp) Majdanek (Concentration camp) Plaszów (Concentration camp) Ravensbrück (Concentration camp) Rechlin (Concentration camp) United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. |
Location: | Radom, Poland Radom Ghetto Majdanek concentration camp Plaszow concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp Gundelsdorf concentration camp Ravensbrück concentration camp Retzow concentration camp Stuttgart, Germany Canada USA |
Permalink: | https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratzcollege.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-manya-perel/ |
Audio Transcript | Time |
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1:04:17 | |
0:38:06 |