First Person Podcast

In today's episode, Holocaust survivors share their thoughts on the importance of speaking about their experiences. It is our tradition at First Person that each guest speaker ends the program with their "final words." In our final podcast of the series, we close with those thoughts, reflections, and hopes for the future.

Estelle Laughlin discusses the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when German forces, intending to liquidate the ghetto on April 19, 1943, were stunned by an armed uprising from Jewish fighters. Estelle and her family hid in an underground bunker during the uprising but were eventually captured and deported.

Theodora (Dora) Klayman discusses surviving the war in hiding with her brother in Ludbreg, Yugoslavia. After her parents were deported in 1941, she spent the war first with her maternal aunt and then, after her aunt was denounced and deported, with non-Jewish neighbors.

Steven Fenves discusses being forced into a ghetto immediately following the German occupation of his hometown of Subotica, Yugoslavia, in March 1944. As his family was forced out of their home, they encountered a range of responses from their non-Jewish neighbors.

Josiane (Josy) Traum discusses her memories of life in hiding at a Carmelite convent in Brugge, Belgium. In 1942, as conditions grew increasingly more dangerous for Jews living in German-occupied Belgium, her mother, Fanny, arranged to have Belgian nuns hide her three-year-old daughter in the convent.

Henry Greenbaum discusses his attempt to escape from a slave labor camp near Starahowice, Poland, with his sister Faige and a Jewish policeman in July 1944.

Haim Solomon discusses hiding during the pogrom that Romanian authorities staged against the Jewish population in Iasi, Romania, within days of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Haim and his family hid in various different locations across the city. At least 4,000 Jews were murdered in Iasi during the pogrom.

Margit Meissner discusses her flight from Paris just before the city fell to the Germans in June 1940. Margit and her mother were Austrian citizens living in Paris, which meant they were considered “enemy aliens” because Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938. They were ultimately separated and Margit was left with the responsibility of getting safely out of Paris on her own.

Gerald Schwab discusses his experience being drafted into the US Army in 1944 after fleeing Nazi Germany just four years earlier. After the war, he assisted with the trials of leading German officials before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

Helen Goldkind discusses the humiliation she and her family experienced as they were forced by the Germans to move from their hometown of Volosyanka to the Uzhgorod ghetto in Czechoslovakia in 1944.

Manny Mandel discusses wearing a yellow star as a young boy in Budapest. Hungary fell increasingly under the influence of Germany in the 1930s and joined the Axis alliance in 1940. During this time, Jews in Hungary were increasingly subjected to discriminatory anti-Jewish laws modeled on those in Germany.

Estelle Laughlin discusses her liberation by Soviet troops in January 1945 from the Czestochowa concentration camp in Poland. In the days immediately following liberation, she and her mother and sister encountered both hostile and helpful people as they traveled through Poland and struggled to rebuild their lives.

George Pick discusses experiencing antisemitism as a young boy in Hungary in the early 1940s. Hungary fell increasingly under the influence of Germany in the 1930s and joined the Axis alliance in 1940. During this time Jews in Hungary were increasingly subjected to discriminatory anti-Jewish laws modeled on those in Germany.

Frank Liebermann discusses life in Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933. Shortly after taking power, the Nazis began to eliminate individual rights and freedoms for Jews in Germany. This changed daily life for Frank and his family in many ways. Frank's father was a physician and it became increasingly difficult for him to practice medicine after 1933.

Regina Spiegel discusses her deportation from the ghetto in Pionki, Poland, and her arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center. She and her boyfriend, Sam, were deported together in 1944 but were separated upon arrival at Auschwitz.

Julius Menn discusses his family's flight eastward from advancing German troops invading Poland in September 1939. Julius's family escaped from Bialystok, Poland, to Vilna, Lithuania, eventually making their way through the Soviet Union to Palestine, where they had previously lived.

Isak Danon discusses the attack on the synagogue in his hometown of Split, Yugoslavia, in the summer of 1942. Germany had invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, and shortly after Split was occupied by the Italians, allied to Nazi Germany.

Fritz Gluckstein discusses life immediately after World War II in Berlin and his eventual immigration to the United States. Born to a Jewish father and Christian mother, he was classified under Nazi law as Mischlinge, of mixed ancestry, or part Jewish. He spent the war in Berlin assigned to various forced labor battalions.

Helen Luksenburg discusses forming a close friendship with Welek, now William Luksenburg, a fellow prisoner in Gleiwitz, a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Louise Lawrence-Israëls discusses her first memories of freedom after over two years spent in hiding with her family in an apartment in Amsterdam. In May 1945, Canadian forces liberated Amsterdam. Louise was three years old and initially had difficulty adjusting to the world outside the apartment, having never been outside for the duration of the hiding.