Oral History Interview with Rose Fine

Rose Fine (née Hollender) born in Ozorków, Poland in 1917, describes her Orthodox Jewish family; her father, who was a shochet; the living conditions during the German occupation before and after the establishment of the Ozorków Ghetto in 1941; the health conditions in the ghetto; deportations; her work in the ghetto hospital, where children were put to starve to death; the behavior of the Volksdeutsche in Ozorków; her mother’s deportation to Chelmno, Poland, where she was gassed to death; witnessing the deportation of the old and infirm in chloroform-filled Panzer trucks in March 1941; seeing the public hanging of 10 Jews; being transferred to the Łódź Ghetto in 1942 where she worked for Mrs. Rumkowski until she was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944; going through a selection and sent to the Freiberg, Germany airplane factory; being transferred later to Mauthausen in Austria, where she was liberated by the Americans in the spring of 1945; the birth of a baby girl (both mother and baby survived) just prior to liberation; receiving help from a German farmer; staying briefly in Łódź and Gdansk; life in Gdansk, where she got married; living with her husband for four years in Munich, Germany, where they belonged to Rabbi Lazerowski’s synagogue and she attended the ORT school; immigrating to the US in 1949 with the help of the Joint Distribution Committee; and the story of the hiding of a Torah by a non-Jew in Ozorków and how he gave it to a survivor from Ozorków to take to Atlanta, Georgia.

Date: 03/10/1982
Interviewer: Josey G. Fisher
Interviewee: Rose Fine
Language: English
Subject: Childbirth.
Hanging--Poland--Ozorków.
Holocaust survivors.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives.
Jewish ghettos--Poland--Łódź.
Jewish ghettos--Poland--Ozorków.
Jewish women in the Holocaust.
Jews--Poland--Ozorków.
Starvation.
Women concentration camp inmates.
World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation.
World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland.
World War, 1939-1945--Hospitals--Poland.
Women--Personal narratives.
Freiberg (Germany)
Gdansk (Poland)
Łódź (Poland)
Munich (Germany)
Ozorków (Poland)
Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945.
United States--Emigration and immigration.
Upper Austria (Austria)
Fine, Rose, 1917-
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Freiberg (Concentration camp)
Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
World ORT Union.
Location: Ozorków, Poland
Ozorkow Ghetto
Lodz Ghetto
Auschwitz concentration camp
Freiberg concentration camp
Mauthausen concentration camp
USA
Permalink: https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratzcollege.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-rose-fine/