Oral History Interview with Moshe Moskowitz
Moshe Moskowitz, born in 1922 in Lespitz-Baya, Romania, describes his merchant family which was traditional but not deeply religious; studying in a Jewish school, then in a vocational school; planning to go to Palestine; joining a Zionist youth group and working in an agricultural community; the German occupation and the Jews being transferred from the villages to the large cities and forced labor camps; his Zionist youth group becoming active in the resistance; taking on an Aryan identity; how meetings were often attended by emissaries from England and the US; the diplomatic courier who carried letters from the resistance and betrayed them; the arrest of underground members and their deportation to camps in Transnistria; his group smuggling children out of camps, giving them false identities, and setting up cultural activities until they could be processed to go to Palestine on illegal immigration on ships; how in 1944 British-trained parachutists from Palestine landed in Romania and Moshe’s Zionist Group was among those who gave them identity papers, living quarters, and maps to help them reach Bucharest; helping prisoners-of-war in Brasov with money, clothing, and medicine; rushing to the American and British zones after liberation to take Jewish prisoners out of the range of German bombings; being in charge of the funds for such operations through the Landsmanshutey; and how groups who were involved in saving children maintained connections in Israel.
Date: | 08/06/1988 |
Interviewer: | Sylvia Brockmon |
Interviewee: | Moshe Moskowitz |
Language: | Yiddish |
Subject: | Guerrilla couriers. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Romania--Personal narratives. Human smuggling--Romania. Identification cards--Forgeries--Romania. Jewish ghettos--Romania. Jewish youth--Romania--Societies and clubs. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Romania. Jews--Persecutions--Romania. Parachute troops. Passing (Identity)--Romania. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Romania. World War, 1939-1945--Jewish resistance--Romania. World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Romania. Zionists. Men--Personal narratives. Brasov (Romania) Romania--History--1914-1944. Transnistria (Ukraine : Territory under German and Romanian occupation, 1941-1944) Moskowitz, Moshe, 1922- |
Location: | Romania Germany Israel |
Permalink: | https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratzcollege.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-moshe-moskowitz/ |
Audio Transcript | Time |
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0:45:19 |