Oral History Interview with Manya Perel
Manya Perel, nee Frydman, was born 1924 in Radom, Poland, youngest of 10 children in a traditional Jewish family. Her father had a bakery. She describes her education and Jewish life in Radom, Polish antisemitism, Przytyk pogrom in 1936, and continues with post-September 1939 German invasion. She mentions persecutions, deportation of younger males to Belzec labor camp, 1941, establishment of ghetto in Radom, collaboration of Volksdeutsche and Ukrainians in brutalities, and some help by Jew¬ish police.
She details the August 1942 “resettlement” of Radom Jews to Treblinka gas chambers, with younger, able-bodied persons retained for forced labor in factories near Radom. She describes her efforts to hide her five-year-old niece in the barracks of a Majdanek sub-camp. She was transferred to Majdanek, then to Plaszow and to Auschwitz. She describes conditions in these camps and the even harsher conditions in Gundelsdorf, Oberfranken, Germany, where slave laborers were taken as Russian Army approached. She experienced near starvation early 1945 during flight with guards to Camps Ravensbrück and Rechlin. She nearly died of typhus after liberation. After she recov¬ered she made her way back to Radom to search for family and found continued antisemitism there. She remembers German promise of safe exit to Radom Jews with foreign passports in exchange for prisoners of war and how they were executed instead. She went to Stuttgart with the help of UNRRA and the Joint Distribution Committee. After three years of rehabilitation, she emigrated to Montreal, Canada in 1948 and moved to Philadelphia 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/ |
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