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THE WILLIAM BREMAN JEWISH HERITAGE MUSEUM
LOLA BORKOWSKA LANSKY
INTERVIEWER:
ERNA MARTINO
LOCATION:
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
DATE:
UNDATED
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INTERVIEW BEGINS
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MEMOIRIST:
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CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS PROJECT (CHS)
Erna: I am Ema Martino, and we’re having an interview for Children of Holocaust Survivors in
Atlanta, Georgia. Would you please give me your name?
Ema: Where do you live?
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Lola: I’m Lola Borkowska Lansky.
Lola: I live in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Ema: Can you tell me when you were born?
Lola: I was born on November 19, 1926 in the city of Lodz—L-O-D-Z—Poland [Polish:
Łόdź].1 It was the industrial city of Lodz—it was like a Manchester [England]—the second
largest Jewish community in Poland next to its capital, Warsaw.
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Erna: Tell me something about your family. How many people lived in your house, the names
of your brothers and sisters, and so on.
Lola: Well, I have a year-older brother, Louis, and a sister a year younger. I would say we
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were not very wealthy, but we were not very poor either. We were sort of middle-class, if you
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Lodz was a large textile manufacturing city and Jewish cultural center about 75 miles from Warsaw. The Germans
occupied it on September 8, 1939 and renamed it “Litzmannstadt.” Even before the ghetto was set up Jews were
deported in waves and by March 1940 almost 70,000 Jews had already been forced out or fled the city voluntarily.
On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established. By August 1944 the ghetto had been completely liquidated.
Some Jews were sent to a temporarily re-opened Chelmno and murdered. Most were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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can classify it as such. I had some ties with a smaller community that may never be . . . or is
possibly . . . not registered at all. My real mother died when I was about five or six years old.
She died in 1931, and she was 54. She had tuberculosis. My father married my mother’s sister,
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and she raised us. In this interview whenever I talk about my mother, I will mean my stepmother and my mother that raised me. They came from a small community—it was about 27
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kilometers from Lodz. My father was raised there, my mother was raised there, [and] both my
maternal and paternal grandparents came from there. When my father came back from the
army—he served three years in the First World War—he moved to the city of Lodz with my
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mother. This is how I was born there, and we lived there until the outbreak of World War II.
Erna: What was the name of the community?
Lola: It was called Ozorkow [Polish: Ozorków],2 Parzeczew [Polish: Parzęczew.] Now my
grandfather—my maternal grandfather—lived there for generations. That’s all I had to do was
say I am Shia’s wnuczka—Shia’s granddaughter—I had no idea who he was. Maybe it was my
great-grandfather. My grandfather had a bakery and some tenants, and in the back not too far
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away was a Jewish mikveh3—of course its Jewish—and a very old synagogue, supposedly 500
years old when the war broke out. The Polish government paid for the upkeep of this synagogue
because it was a historical site. So before Lodz or Ozorkow became cities, Parzeczew, according
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to my grandfather, had a headquarters for a famous rabbi that used to say it was more of a supply
town [Maureen—I listened to this several times and I really think this is what she said
although it doesn’t read well]. It wasn’t a village and it wasn’t a town—there were maybe 50
families—and they were very close with their Christian friends. Now why I’m talking about that
little town [is] because every summer when school was finished in the city of Lodz, my mother
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would be already packed ready to go home, and we used to spend our summers there, and I had
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Ozorkow was a textile manufacturing community and before the wars Jews were prominent as owners and
workers. In the 1930s the Jews were the target of much antisemitism as the Poles blamed them for the general
economic situation, which was bad. When World War II broke out, some 5,000 Jews were confined in a ghetto
were workshops were opened. Over 1,000 Jews worked outside the ghetto in a German factory. In 1941 many Jews
from Ozorkow were sent to labor camps in Poznan, Poland and the surrounding area. Between May 21 and 23,
1942, about 2,000 Jews were deported to the Chelmno death camp and murdered. In August 1942 the remaining
1,800 Jews were sent to the Lodz ghetto to work.
3
A mikveh is a pool of water, gathered from rain or from a spring, which is used for ritual purification and
ablutions.
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very, very pleasant memories being there in this community. There was a big church in the
middle of it, and a square around it, and streets going in all directions. Unfortunately, I didn’t
know one street led to Chelmno.4 On the 30th anniversary of the end of World War II, my
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Erna: Let me ask you, what did your father do for a living?
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husband and I went back to Poland and particularly wanted to go back to this small community.
Lola: By profession he was a tailor—a custom-made tailor—but he worked at a textile
factory—Geyer’s Factory—it was a German factory. He was a pattern-maker and a designer.
colonies.
Erna: What kind of school did you go to?
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They used machines to cut out the work that was given out to tailors to be made up for the
Lola: I went in Lodz. There were two schools—there were many schools, but two Jewish
schools. I imagine the Jewish committee arranged it . . . why there were two . . . one for boys
and one for girls. I went to the girls’ school—we were home Saturdays but we went to school on
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Sunday. You attended school six days in Poland. They were only for girls—I think there were a
few boys up until the third grade. My brother went to a boys’ school that also had only boys, and
Saturday he would be home, and Sunday we would go to school. Normally the Christian
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community attended Saturday school and Sunday was the day off. Another thing that was
different is they brought in Jewish teachers to teach us the Jewish history in Polish. I remember
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Chelmno was the first death camp in Poland. It was opened in December 1941. It was an experiment to
see if bringing the Jews to a site was more efficient that sending the Einsatzgruppen to find them, one
community at a time. It was. The Jews were brought to the village of Chelmno to a manor house, where
they were told to take off their clothes and leave their belongings. Then they were loaded onto trucks about
50 to 70 at a time. The trucks were specially modified so that the exhaust gas didn’t go out the tailpipe but
was directed up into the sealed cargo area where the Jews were loaded. As the truck drove from the village
to the camp site where the mass graves were they Jews died of carbon monoxide poisoning or suffocation.
When the truck arrived at the forest camp the bodies were unloaded, thrown into the mass graves and then
the truck returned for more. It took about 20 minutes to make the one-way trip. Many of the Jews
murdered there came from Lodz, which was about 60 miles away as well as many other small Jewish
communities in the area. In March 1943 it was closed and the graves dug up, the bodies burned and the
ashes returned to the pits. Then in April 1944 it was opened again briefly to receive and murder the last
Jews from Lodz. Altogether, at least 125,000 Jews were murdered there although the number is probably
higher.
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my grandfather used to have a fit when I told him the bible in Polish that I learned in school. As
far as the curriculum goes, it was quite advanced. We even had chemistry—of course it was
simplified according to the standards today, but nevertheless we had singing, music, cooking,
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geography and world history. I just finished my sixth grade and we went on vacation, but there
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were rumors about the war, so my mother and my father came back earlier to the city of Lodz.
Lola: What was Sabbath and the holidays like where you were living?
Lola: I have two versions of it. I can think back on my grandfather, who was a very orthodox
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Jew. Both of them [were orthodox], the paternal [grandfather] too, but I watched my maternal
[grandfather] getting ready for the Sabbath, the joy in his eyes and going to the mikveh and
preparing for the Sabbath. I still remember that, because he truly believed that. My father was
already more reform. I didn’t see that, but we had a kosher, Jewish home, so the holidays were
very much observed. Sometimes if you had to do something on Saturday you would, but not on
purpose.
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Erna: Did you have Jewish and non-Jewish friends?
Lola: Yes. I had friends from my school and the neighbors. There was a neighbor that was a
Jewish friend—as a matter of fact, we took her with us—my mother invited her to come with us
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on vacation to the small town of Parzeczew.
Erna: You mean a non-Jewish girl?
Lola: A non-Jewish girl . . . she went with us for the whole summer.
Erna: Was there a difference between your Jewish friends and your non-Jewish friends in how
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they acted towards you or how you acted towards them?
Lola: No, I really cannot say, because I was so involved in that stage of my life with school and
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studies and going on vacations back home that I really cannot tell you if there was a difference. I
don’t remember any.
Erna: Describe how your life began to change with the coming of the Nazi movement.
Lola: I started school September first, and I went to the seventh grade . . .
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Erna: What year was this?
Lola: 1939. All the radios were blasting in Polish: “England and France declared war on
Germany. The Germans attacked Poland. All able-bodied men should leave immediately for
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Warsaw, because they will put up a fight and defend the capital.” Since my father belonged to
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the Jewish war veterans in Lodz—he was 39 years old at this point—he and his younger brother
immediately left for Warsaw. My mother and three others were left in Lodz. Three days later
my uncle—my father’s brother—had a barber shop and a ladies’ beauty salon about two houses
from us, and his store faced the streets of Grubna where we lived. We stood there on tables
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watching the German army march into Lodz.
Erna: At that time you said you were just starting first grade in school, so how old . . .
Lola: Seventh grade. I was twelve and a half—not quite thirteen. I was twelve years old
according to the American calendar.
Erna: Did your relationship with your non-Jewish neighbors change at this time, and if so,
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how?
Lola: In Lodz, we were right away busy with ourselves. We didn’t have too much time with
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our Polish-Christian neighbors. In a small town, which I like to go back to later, it was
different—you were more involved with them—because right away there were restrictions.
There were lines for bread, and the Poles would point out at you if you stood in a line that this is
a Jew, and they wouldn’t give you the bread. There were rations and limitations—it just took a
few weeks and it started. At this point I left with my brother and sister—Lodz—because my
grandparents kept insisting that she send us home . . . home means to that little town. They were
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baking bread there and giving it out to the rations, so at least we wouldn’t have to stay in a line.
She didn’t want to leave. She was waiting to see what happened to my father. Over there the
Christians were very close with the Jewish population. My father had many, many Christian-
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Polish friends that served in the army with him, the mayor of the community, the captain from
the police, and many, many others.
Erna: What kind of orders were issued by the Nazis where you living?
Lola: In Lodz?
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Erna: Yes.
Lola: We only stayed a very short time in Lodz at this point, because we left after probably four
or five weeks. They said we should wear a white armband, and register for bread. People didn’t
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move around like they do here. It’s so hard for others to understand how they had such control
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over us. Normally even before the war I remember my father . . . if you moved from one place
to another, you registered at the government that [so] many people live here, and this is where
you reside, and this is where you’re recording your residence. It would be easy for the Germans
people lived where.
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. . . “You want bread? Register.” Later it was used against us. They knew exactly how many
Erna: At that point in time, did you leave Lodz?
Lola: Yes.
Erna: And where did you go?
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Lola: We went to the little town of Parzeczew. Like I told you, it was a very old Jewish
community. The cemetery dated back to the 1300’s and 1400’s—way before Lodz was
established.
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Erna: And what happened when you went back there?
Lola: After about eight weeks . . . my father was gone six weeks [and] my mother waited for
him in Lodz. He was wounded on the way, and he wound up in the Warsaw Ghetto.5 He went to
Warsaw Ghetto, he stayed through the whole battle, and then he came back. He walked back to
Lodz. He was not the same man that he [was when he] left. He had gangrene in his leg, and
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after he recuperated, my mother and my father joined us in the little town. My father didn’t
know . . . we were given a little apartment in my grandfather’s house, because there were four
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The Jewish community in Warsaw was the largest in Poland, composing about 30% of the entire population of the
city (about 337,000 Jews). Warsaw was badly damaged by the German onslaught at the start of the war in
September 1939. Poland surrendered after three weeks and the Germans occupied Warsaw. In November 1939 the
first anti-Jewish decrees appeared, including the order that all Jews had to wear a blue Star of David on their person.
More persecutions rained down that impoverished and separated the Jews of Warsaw from their neighbors and
pogroms broke out. The Germans ordered the establishment of the ghetto in October 1940 and a Judenrat was set
up with Adam Czerniakow as its head. The Jews of Warsaw were shoved into a small space in a poorer part of the
city, which was then surrounded by a wall. Jews from the surrounding area were also pushed into the ghetto, the
population at its peak was about 400,000 Jews. The conditions in the ghetto were harsh. There was not enough
food, coal in the winter, shelter or basic necessities.
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tenants besides the bakery, and the store, and all that. We stayed there, and we didn’t know how
he would be able to do something, to earn some money. He made . . . how do you say . . .
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Erna: Do you want to use a Polish word to describe it?
Lola: No . . . well, my father made some hats. He sold custom-made hats for the managers, for
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the supervisors, for the people that needed to buy new hats, and instead of paying money they
used to bring food. In the first part of the war, I remember, they used to take a Polish man and
send him seven kilometers to the city of Orzokow to give the poultry to a shochet6 where you
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killed according to Jewish law. Then after a month or so this man was caught, so after a few
weeks I came to the house, and there was a chicken boiling. My mother didn’t want to eat it
because it wasn’t kosher7 and neither did my grandfather, so they asked me to taste the soup. My
father, having a military background, was having a discussion with my grandfather that he ought
to eat as long as we have the food, because we heard from so many different places—we had
relatives in the Warsaw ghetto, and they had no food—to please eat, so we can keep or gain the
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strength we need for later.
Erna: Did you have any idea or any warning of what was going to happen at that point in time?
Lola: No. We heard that Lodz ghetto8 is being organized, and there was also seven kilometers
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from that place, there was a city of Ozorkow with about five or six thousand Jews, and before the
war they had a lot of textiles—textiles and industrial and tailoring. They needed some tailors,
[and] since we were the newest members in the city of Parzeczew, we were sent out to Ozorkow
in 1940. This is how we came to Ozorkow. We were given a small room in somebody’s place.
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Hebrew: slaughterer. A shochet is a person who has been trained to slaughter animals in accordance with Jewish
law.
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Kosher/Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food that may be consumed according to halakhah (Jewish law)
is termed ‘kosher’ in English. Food that is not in accordance with Jewish law is called treif. The word ‘kosher’ has
become English vernacular, a colloquialism meaning proper, legitimate, genuine, fair, or acceptable.
8
On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established and Chaim Rumkowski, an engineer, was chosen to be the head
of the Judenrat. Rumkowski is a controversial figure: some see him as a savior and others call him a willing
German collaborator and toadie. Rumkowski voluntarily surrendered tens of thousands of Jews to certain death on
the German’s demand, including women and children, based on his belief that if the Jews cooperated with the
Germans, at least some of them would be saved. The living conditions in the ghetto, including food rations, were
very poor because the ghetto was hermetically sealed. The mortality rate was very high. Waves of Jews from the
surrounding area and Western Europe were pushed into the Lodz ghetto making the total number of Jews who
passed through it at over 200,000.
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The people of Parzeczew stayed there for another three quarters of a year, maybe a year, until
they were made to move to one place in a little ghetto. Then one day we were asked to go to a
pigs market where they were selling pigs, and they had six or seven people in jail for very minor
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offenses, like not wearing a Star of David9 or coming from another town. They told us that
morning to leave the apartment we lived in and not to take any luggage, and we were marched
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out to this square, and there was a hanging. They invited the Volksdeutsche,10 which is the
German population of Poland, to be the guests. They were having a good time—a beer party—
because they were going to hang Jews. Now my aunt’s brother was one of the victims that was
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hung [sic] that day. Her family still lived in Parzeczew, but they decided to liquidate the same
day. It was all pre-planned—we didn’t know at the time—to bring all their things to the city of
Orzokow. Now the buses that brought the people from that small town . . . there was the mother
and the father of that young man that was hung . . . they did see him hanging. There were
brothers and sisters—it was a large family—they all [saw] Srulik hanging. I even have a picture
of it. They were taken to a public school. After the hanging, we never returned to our homes,
but we were marched to a school. There, for the first time—must have been 1941 maybe—we
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were asked to strip naked. I remember my father just looking but not really looking at us—he
was so uncomfortable because whole families went together. The doctors stamped A and B. My
paternal grandparents were there with a grandchild—they were in their 60’s—healthy-looking,
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feeling good—they were carrying a grandchild of about five years old. My aunt, my father’s
only sister was there—this was her child—they were given the letter B, she was given the letter
A. When we found out that the younger people received A which meant that they will stay and
work, and the B will be sent away. I must have lost that day about 20 of my family members—
quite a number of little cousins, since we were the oldest. My father had four brothers, and he
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was the oldest, so the other children were much younger than I. One aunt was taken away with
two boys, five and seven [years-old]. Another aunt had a six-month old baby, and one had a girl
of six. Her name was like mine—Leah—and she kept crying that she wants to go with us. She
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adored my father, and I always hear them somehow calling to our side, “Please don’t forget us.”
9
In September 1941, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, issued a law requiring Jews over the age of
six to wear a yellow Jewish star, or Magen David, on their outer garments. The star had the word “Jude [German:
Jew]” written in Hebrew-style letters inside of it. The following year, Jews in lands under German control were also
forced to wear the Star.
10
Volksdeutsche is a term the German government used beginning in the 20 th century to describe Germans living or
born outside of Germany.
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My grandmother waves, and I could see them when they’re led away—“Please don’t forget us.”
My aunt—my father’s sister—wanted to go with her parents and her child. She begged the
Nazis to please let her go, but because she begged, they wouldn’t let her go. They pulled her
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hair, they knocked her down, and they wouldn’t let her join her family. This is how she
survived. Her husband and my uncles were already sent away to concentration camps, so there
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were only women and children. Now, they were sent away. After the war, we found out that
they all went to Chelmno. If you see the movie Shoah,11 this is where they went. We didn’t
know at the time. We were led to the Orzokow ghetto, and the ghetto was established for the
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first time. Now there was a lot of industry before the war in the city of Orzokow, so naturally
there were established factories. We sort of felt that working means surviving, so as long as you
work, you survive. My father went back to his tailoring, and he was very good at it. He made
uniforms for the SS12—custom-made uniforms. To school I didn’t go, and there were no books
in these small towns, so I naturally went with my father to work. To be on the safe side, I
learned how to sew by hand, made buttonholes—my brother, too—so that means we are
working, so we thought we are entitled to live. Now, I also was very young—I was only 15, 14
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not quite 15—and I had a young friend there—he was a year older than me. He used to walk
with me home. We used to hold hands. I experienced my first kiss. We gazed at the stars— we
wanted to live—we didn’t want to die. But this is as far as it went. And then we wind up in the
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Orzokow ghetto, and we stayed there until 1942.
Erna: You stayed there as a family together?
Lola: Yes. We were given a small space—of course, it was horrible. So many families were
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divided. So many people were sent away to other places, and people just moved together—they
11
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Shoah is a 1985 French documentary about the Holocaust that consists of interviews and visits to Holocaust sites
in Poland. Included in the film are testimonies from survivors, witnesses and German perpetrators. The title come
from the Hebrew name for the Holocaust, “HaShoah,” which literally means “the destruction.”
12
The SS or Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. It began at
the end of 1920 as a small, permanent guard unit known as the “Saal-Schutz” made up of Nazi Party volunteers to
provide security for party meetings in Munich. Later, in 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then
been reformed and renamed the “Schutz-Staffel.” Under Himmler’s leadership, it grew from a small paramilitary
formation to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich. Under Himmler’s command, it
was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II. After World War II, like the Nazi
Party, it was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal and banned in Germany.
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were all working. There was a case where they hid a child . . . under a coat . . . somebody
imitated a [Maureen, I can’t figure out what she is saying here 26:20-26:21]
I really don’t know too much about it, but I heard about it. This is how I stayed in the city of
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Orzokow until the liquidation. We were put on a train, and we were sent to the city of Lodz.13
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As bad as it was, I was thrilled to be there. I met my girlfriends from before the war—my
school-mates—and really, the bad times in the Lodz ghetto were over—not quite—but over.
What I mean . . . they used to really starve them to death and ship them out. I don’t have too
much information, but I know that when we came they started to give a little bit more food. It
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wasn’t a lot. The only thing as a teenager you hoped you will not grow.
Erna: How would you go from the Orzokow ghetto to the Lodz ghetto?
Lola: There was a train. Before the war there was a train from Orzokow to Lodz. Now if you
were in the growing stages, and you were hungry, it was terrible. Your organs, your lungs, your
heart—everything grew with you. I had a cousin who became very sick—he grew very fast. I
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don’t know if I would have grown some more—maybe not. It was lucky for me—I thought my
brother was so tall, but he’s short today, so maybe that’s why we were able to survive.
Erna: In the ghetto, did you know anything about the existence of death camps or what was
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going on in the outside world?
Lola: No. We didn’t. You know I have to talk about it. If they knew that workers . . . nobody
wanted to go. There was always a demand from the Germans to have so many thousands of
people ready to be shipped out. Naturally if you were sick, or they would take away your
bread—you were a candidate to go. The idea was not to go, because you didn’t know what to
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expect. At least here you knew what you had, even though we were still starving, but you were
together as a family. Depends the age you were in . . . I like to mention this because when I
came to the Lodz ghetto, I was sent to a factory to sew on a machine. I taught myself, and I did
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it, but I was with older women, and they were reminiscing about before the war. They were
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making Shabbos,14 they were cooking, discussing recipes, and I was so hungry just listening to
them that I told my father, “I will die just listening to them.” I liked other things—books—this
was always my favorite thing—to read. Even in the ghetto, I found a secret library. [I] used to
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light a candle when everybody else was asleep, so I could read a book. I remember one time my
father found me, and he really scolded me very bad for doing that. He found out there was a
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school for young girls under the age of 16, and he registered me there. And it was just
wonderful—even though we were starving. We were young . . . we used to go the library, read
books—Darwin’s Theory, for instance. We would read it, discuss it. We worked a little bit less
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than the general population. Then they used to bring a teacher—a Jewish teacher—that
introduced us to Jewish poets—Shalom Aleichem,15 Peretz16—I used to learn how to recite them
in the Lodz ghetto. I felt better being in my own environment. As hungry as we were, we
wanted to have a little normal life, what teenagers normally do.
Erna: Was there any sort of cultural life?
Lola: Yes. Even secretly, we arranged our own theater . . . those that were talented. In the
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Lodz ghetto, there were even weddings. They used to write songs—many songs about the Lodz
ghetto. When you’re young, it’s easier to be optimistic, but this was a very important
characteristic to have. If you were not very optimistic, you didn’t go very far. At this point, they
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needed workers and nobody wanted to go. They would take a group and send them away. Now
this particular group they sent to Czestochowa [Polish: Czȩstochowa],17 and they made them
14
Shabbat [Hebrew] or Shabbos [Yiddish] is the Jewish day of rest and is observed on Saturdays. Shabbat
observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor
the day. Shabbat begins at sundown on Friday night and is ushered in by lighting candles and reciting a blessing. It
is closed the following evening with the recitation of the havdalah blessing.
Shalom Aleichem [Yiddish: “peace be with you”] was the pen name of author and playwright Solomon
Naumovich Rabinovich, born in Russia in 1859. Sholem Aleichem wrote in Russian and Hebrew at first but only in
Yiddish after 1883, which earned him a place as a prominent Yiddish author by 1890. As pogroms raged through
Russia in 1905, Aleichem immigrated to New York City, New York but later joined his family in Geneva,
Switzerland. The family moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in 1914. Sholem Aleichem died
of tuberculosis and diabetes in 1916. The musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on his stories about Tevye the
Milkman.
16
Isaac Leib Peretz (1852-1913), known as I.L. Peretz, was a Yiddish playwright and author. He was born in Russia
but moved to Warsaw, Poland in 1889 and stayed there until his death. There are streets named after him in Poland
and Israel, and a Peretz Square in Manhattan, New York.
17
Czestochowa (sometimes also spelled as ‘Czenstochowa’), was occupied by the Germans on September 3, 1939
after which they killed randomly 300 to 500 civilians, including many Jews. A reign of terror was instituted against
the Jews including pogroms in September and December 1939 in which the synagogues were destroyed and Jews
murdered. In April 1941, a ghetto was created and the Jews were forced into it along with refugees from Lodz,
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write letters back to the ghetto telling us that they have more food than in the ghetto, and they are
actually working. So you didn’t know who to believe. At this point, I know my husband’s
younger brother—he was maybe 15, and a sister about 17 or 18—volunteered to go. His father
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died from starvation, and they were sent straight to the crematorium, but we didn’t know at the
secrecy. We did not know.
Erna: Was there any sort of . . . was it just ceremonies?
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time. It’s after the war that he found out. So as you see, everything was done under a veil of
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Lola: I myself was not involved in them, but I know there were religious services, and people
tried to live as normally as they could. As a matter of fact, I think about three or four years ago,
I went to a Lodz convention. Of all things I put down that I lived on Grubna 57. All of a
sudden, I heard a man is looking for me. That’s the first time that I found somebody that
remembered me from before the war. A big city . . . you don’t have the ties like you do in a
small community. He happened to be our landlord’s son. He was older than I, so maybe before
the war he was 20, 21. And he remembered me very well. He remembered my father, my sister
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and my brother, and it was really nice meeting someone that you knew before the war.
Erna: How was the Jewish leadership in the ghetto organized?
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Lola: I don’t know too much about it because of my age, but I know there was everything.
There were committees, and there was Rumkowski18 in there who thought he was the king of the
ghetto. They had all sorts of groups and things, and I’m sure there was religious life. I know
from my own experience that when it was getting [to be] 1944, I had trouble where I was
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Radomsko, Warsaw, Krakow, Plock and other cities. There were about 40,000 Jews in the ghetto. Many died of
starvation and exposure in the harsh winter of 1941-42. On September 22, 1942 an Aktion deported about 7,000
Jews to the Treblinka death camp. Hundreds of others were murdered in the ghetto. Five more Aktions followed in
late September and early November. Some 12,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka and up to 2,000 were killed in the
ghetto including the residents of an old age home. During the Aktions, the able-bodied men were sent to temporary
labor camps outside the city, some of them belonging to HASAG, a major ammunition manufacturer. On November
1, 1942 a “small ghetto” was set up for the remaining 5,185 “legal” Jews. In the second half of 1943, some 5,000 to
6,000 Jews were brought in from Lodz, Plaszow and Skarzysko-Kamienna to the HASAG factory sites to
supplement the labor force. As the Russians approached in January 1945 the factory camps were evacuated with
most prisoners being sent went in camps in Germany. The city was liberated by the Russians on January 17, 1945.
18
On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established and Chaim Rumkowski, an engineer, was chosen to be the head
of the Judenrat. Rumkowski is a controversial figure: some see him as a savior and others call him a willing
German collaborator and toadie. Rumkowski voluntarily surrendered tens of thousands of Jews to certain death on
the German’s demand, including women and children, based on his belief that if the Jews cooperated with the
Germans, at least some of them would be saved.
13
working in the factory. A piece of thread got in my gums, and I had an infection. In order to fix
it . . . there were dentists there . . . and that so many years ago, I sold a piece of bread of mine.
I’m just marveling that I did this without consulting anybody, but I felt that this piece of bread is
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not going to save me, and I need to fix my teeth so if I do survive I’ll have them. I went to a
dentist, so I’m sure there were all kinds of services. He took out a nerve, and he performed a
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small surgery, and that was before we were shipped out from the ghetto. I’m sure there were
doctors, and there were dentists, and there were religious services, or schools, or something like
that.
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Erna: After this, were you in a concentration camp?
Lola: This is what happened. [Hans] Biebow19 was the director from the Lodz ghetto. He went
around in the streets, walked around, and talked to the Jewish people, “Since the war is coming
to an end, we are going to liquidate the ghetto. We like you.” This is what my father told us—
he heard—to put all your personal possessions in the middle of the room, even your pots and
pans and bedding and put your name on it. Your personal things take with you. So you
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rationalize—it’s not like they’re going to kill you. Why would they tell you to do these things?
Naturally we packed up. My mother took the jewelry, divided it up between my sister and
myself—whatever she had—so she wouldn’t be the only one. You know, it goes in Europe . . .
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people believe more in jewelry . . . because money changed, the war broke out . . . at least with
jewelry you knew that you can always get your money back, so every family had some . . . for
generations, I’m sure. This is how we went to the train. They said we’re going to the
Czechoslovakian border, and this is where we will work and wait until the war ends. Indeed, we
were packed like sardines. When we passed a gate that said “Arbeit Macht Frei20”—“Work
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Makes Free”—we were in Auschwitz[-Birkenau] [Polish: Oświęcim].21 Even though we were in
19
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Hans Biebow (1902-1947), from Bremen, Germany, was the head of the Nazi administration of the Lodz Ghetto.
He was a cruel man who starved the Jewish population in the ghetto and assisted the Gestapo in deporting many
Jews to be executed at Chelmno and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Biebow personally profited from the slave labor
implemented in the ghetto and from seized Jewish property. After the German surrender in 1945, Biebow fled and
went into hiding in Germany but was recognized by a ghetto survivor and extradited by the Allies from Bremen
back to Lodz. After his trial in April, 1947, Biebow was found guilty and executed by hanging.
20
Arbeit Macht Frei is a German phrase meaning “work makes [you] free.” The slogan is known for having been
placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where
it was made by prisoners with metalwork skills and erected by order of the Nazis in June 1940.
21
Auschwitz was a complex of camps: the Main Camp (Auschwitz I), Auschwitz-Birkenau and Monowitz
(Auschwitz III). Many smaller sub-camps were attached to the complex which drew their labor from the Main
14
a ghetto, we wore clothes, I learned how to knit—I used to re-do sweaters, with many knots in
the back—but we were decently dressed. I had blonde, long hair. I was 16. When we got off,
the old inmates were waiting for us, from the wagons, from the trains, pushing us, “Raus! Raus!
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Raus! [German: Out! Out! Out!] Men on one side, women on the other!” We had no idea where
we were. We didn’t know [whether] to go left or right. As a matter of fact, I was going on the
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right side of mine, and Mengele22 stopped me, pointed this way. I looked around and saw my
sister and my mother. My father and my brother were led away with the men. He stopped me.
He asked in German, “Wie alt bist du?” I remember stretching . . .
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Erna: [Wie alt bist du means] how old are you?
Lola: How old are you. I remember stretching myself, because I’m not a very tall person, and I
told him I’m 17 years. So he pointed to my left—his right—to go there. I looked in the back
and checked . . . my mother and my sister are following. We were led to a bathhouse. We had
no idea where the others went. We were told to mark our places, to leave our hand luggage, so
we will find our way back. We were told to take the shoes, and we were standing in a line. I
throw everything in.
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remember seeing there about five big baskets of jewelry in front of a table, and we were told to
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Erna: . . .to take off your jewelry?
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Camp and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Main Camp is where the museum is today and has the famous ‘Arbeit Macht
Frei’ gate. The Main Camp was established on the site of existing Polish army barracks just outside the town of
Oswiecem (renamed Auschwitz by the Germans) and could hold about 10,000 prisoners. Later, when Hitler and
Himmler wanted to expand the size of the camp they built Auschwitz-Birkenau about 2-1/2 miles away from the
Main Camp. This is the camp with the big brick gate and the railroad tracks leading to the ramp and where the four
gas chambers and crematoria came to be located.
22
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Josef Mengele was born in 1911. He became a doctor and joined the SS. He was notorious for being one of the
physicians who sorted newly-arrived prisoners on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, picking out those he wanted for
his medical experiments—especially twins—thus earning him the nickname the “Angel of Death.” Many survivors
recall being selected by Mengele, but caution should be used because Mengele only arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau
on May 24, 1943. He fled the camp before the Russians arrived and turned up in Gross-Rosen for a while and a few
others camps until he assumed the guise of a Wehrmacht soldier and tried to flee west undetected. However, he was
captured by the Americans, who did not know who he was or what he had done. He was released in June 1945
under the name “Fritz Hollman.” From July 1945 until May 1949 he worked on a farm in Bavaria and then fled to
Argentina. He moved through several countries in South America, always being pursued to be brought to justice.
He died in Brazil on February 7, 1979.
15
Lola: Take off your jewelry, throw it in. Then the next thing—they took the shoes and they
had a hole with water to dunk the shoes to make sure there’s nothing hidden in there, and then
they took the shoes away. We went to [the] barber. I could still sometimes think I could feel the
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clipper going straight across, cutting my hair. Then they checked your ears and your mouth [to
see] if you didn’t hid[e] anything. Then you were led to a bathhouse. There were soldiers
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walking around. On the way out, they had a warehouse of clothes. We were given an old
dress—a civilian dress—without hair, without shoes, and a white cross was painted on my back.
This is how I remember getting out of the bathhouse. I looked at my sister, and she had one
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breast exposed—she only had a half a blouse. Luckily I got two blouses, so she took one of
mine. When I saw my mother, I became hysterical—I was laughing. She looked like my
grandfather. My sister looked like my father. I had no mirrors—I don’t know how I looked, but
I thought we are in a loony house. We are not the same people that we walked in. My mother
became very agitated. She came over and she slapped me. She said, “Be quiet. You’re
laughing. They’re going to arrest us.” This is how we walked out to our barracks. We were not
the same people we came in. We had no idea what happened to the others. We were led to the
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barracks, two to a bed, or one to a bed—I don’t remember. Every few hours there were roll
calls. That was in [Auschwitz-]Birkenau. We were not given numbers. I find out later . . .
because they had no use for us, and they probably intended to kill us. I do remember sitting at
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the roll call, and when they put at each line—each row—a pot of soup and they said, “Take a
swallow, and pass it on.” For three days I couldn’t eat. I mean, how can you eat when so many
people drink from the same pot? We had no spoon, no knife, no fork. They dehumanized us.
This is precisely what they wanted. After three days, I made sure I took a big swallow when my
turn came around, but I do remember vividly the roll calls. Constantly they were counting us. If
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anyone was sick—out. This went on for about five, six weeks.
Erna: When you say, “out,” what does that mean?
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Lola: They were led away. I had no idea—I didn’t know where the others went. After five, six
weeks, they needed workers in Germany. So they decided our group of 500 women from Lodz
that arrived there . . . probably looked a little bit more decent, maybe . . . healthier than the others
. . . that they’re going to send us out. Again we were led to a bathhouse. We were given
underwear. I got a pair of shoes—two sizes too big—and I received a striped uniform—a long
16
dress, like [for] winter-time. They had light ones and heavy ones. We were led to the railroad
station and while sitting there and waiting for the train to take us—we didn’t know where at that
point, but we knew we’re leaving Auschwitz[-Birkenau]—we saw chimneys, and we smelled
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something burning. So we inquired from the older inmates that had been in Auschwitz longer,
“What’s going on here? What is this smell here?” They told us, “This is where they’re burning
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your families.” You can imagine what went on. It was Tisha B’Av.23 I had a girlfriend, her
mother was taken away. She had no idea, but now she knew. We found out the secret, that they
are burning those that were sent away were being killed. Still, it didn’t make any sense, we
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couldn’t understand it, but this is when we found out—at least, when I found out.
Erna: While you were at Auschwitz[-Birkenau] the five or six weeks, you didn’t really know
what was going on there?
Lola: No, no. At this point my father, my brother—we were separated. I was with my sister
and my mother. I had no idea.
didn’t go to work?
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Erna: During that time, you strictly stayed in your barracks and went outside for roll call. You
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Lola: Nothing. We did see people working, doing all kinds of things, but not our group. No.
Erna: What was the activity on any given day?
Lola: Nothing. They used to wake us up six o’clock in the morning, five o’clock in the
morning, roll calls, that’s all . . . picking through . . . picking out people from the group. I have a
feeling if we would not have been sent away, we probably would have been sent to the
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crematorium because in their eyes we were useless. We were not given a tattoo.24 Since this
was the case, they sent us out, we didn’t have any tattoos. We were political prisoners. We were
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put on a train. I remember while we were going into Germany I saw a train going the other way,
Tisha B’Av [Hebrew: the ninth of Av] is a Jewish holiday commemorating the destruction of the First and Second
temples in 586 BCE and 76 CE and subsequent exile of Jews from the Land of Israel. Tisha B’Av is seen as the
saddest holiday and most tragic day on the Jewish calendar, and it is a day for remembering calamities that have
befallen the Jewish people since the destruction of the Temples. Observers of the holiday fast and abstain from any
pleasurable activities. The month of Av on the Jewish calendar falls in July or August on the Western calendar.
24
Prisoners at the Auschwitz[-Birkenau] concentration camp complex were given tattoos with their camp serial
number, which was also sewn onto their uniforms. Only prisoners selected for work were registered and given serial
numbers; those that were sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered or given tattoos.
23
17
and I could see only the head with the striped uniform. He asked us who were are—I didn’t
know if they were men or women—you know, when you don’t have your hair, you really can’t
tell. They were men, and we were women. And that’s how we arrived in Ravensbruck [German:
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Ravensbrück].25 It was another concentration camp in Germany. There was no room for us.
The 500 of us would huddle together. I guess with the approaching of fall . . . that’s the only
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way I can determine what time of year it was . . . it must have been fall because it was chilly at
night, and we used to huddle close to each other so we wouldn’t freeze. After a few days they
took us into the bathhouse. I understand there were crematoriums, too, but we were led to the
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real bathhouse, and we were led to barracks with gypsies—gypsies who had German husbands in
the army. It was very crowded there, and I remember at night a bunch of them attacked some of
our girls. To this day, I don’t know why. When we stood in line to get the little soup, they
would do the same thing. Sometimes I didn’t want to eat, and I didn’t want to be beaten up. We
stayed there a few weeks, and we were sent out again, led to the bathhouse, and put on the train.
We were going to Leipzig somewhere—we had no idea where. I do remember arriving at the
station—a railway station in Germany—and I saw a German officer came to pick us up. He
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must have looked into the train, because I still remember his words, saying to those that brought
us over there, “Das sind keine Frauen. Sie sehen aus wie Affen.”[Maureen: can you check
German 47:58]—“These are not women. They look like monkeys.” At this point I looked
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around, and I almost agreed with him. We certainly didn’t look like women. I don’t think we
were monkeys, but we did not look like women. He had no choice—they needed workers in
Muhlhausen [German: Mühlhausen]26 where there was an ammunition factory. They led us to
25
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Ravensbruck was established in 1939 and approximately 120,000 women of 40 nationalities passed through it.
The women were put to work in the textile and armaments industry. In 1943 the population of the camp tripled with
the conditions deteriorated drastically. When the number of women exceeded the barracks capacity they were put in
tents and slept on the bare ground. They died in droves every day. The infirmary was the source of women for
experimentation by German doctors. At the end of the war the camp population was swelled by Jewish women who
were marched out of camps to the east and driven there and dumped. In January 1945 preparations were made to
start mass executions and many were murdered by injection of poisons or shooting. There was a small gas chamber
installed in early 1945 in which about 5,000 to 6,000 women were murdered. In March 1945 thousands of women
prisoners were matched out of Ravensbruck and sent to Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen where they were
abandoned. On April 27 and 28, another 20,000 women prisoners were marched out in a northwesterly direction.
On May 1, 1945 the Russian army liberated the last 2,000 prisoners left in the camp.
26
Muhlhausen was part of the Buchenwald group of sub-camps. The prisoners worked in the Geratbau GmbH, a
subsidiary of the clockmaking firm Thiel, Ruhla, which manufactured timers and precision instruments, and the
Junkers aircraft company, which produced detonators and precision instruments. At first, Polish workers were
recruited and when they became scarcer, Jewish women were selected from Ravensbruck concentration camp. The
18
this complex. This was not a camp for Jews, but out of necessity, they used us because their men
were in the army. They were making ammunition there. They led us in a big casino . . . no, first
they did not have the SS but the Wehrmacht.27 He greeted us very warmly. He gave us a loaf of
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bread—we couldn’t believe it—a spoon, a knife and a fork was given to us, and a bowl, and we
were led to the casino. I guess they had entertainment there and all that. After we ate, we were
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divided up in bungalows. I’m sure the Germans used that when they were working in these
factories. We all had a bed. We did not have hot water. There were about four or five rooms to
a bungalow. There was a bathroom. We had very thin clothing, and in the morning we were led
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to the factories. In these factories, I’ve noticed, on top of the roof there were trees probably 20
or 30 years old. You couldn’t detect that these are factories. They were well hidden in the
woods. There were German people working there, too, women in particular. There was one in
particular. She took a liking to me and my sister. She would open a drawer and put a half a
sandwich. She saw we were two young girls and put something in there extra for us to eat. My
mother was with us, too. She was very clean, and she kept washing herself with the cold water,
and she got pneumonia . . . had to put her in the hospital . . . there was a hospital there. Now he
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picked one of my friends to be the Jude? [Maureen, I can’t figure out this term 50:33]. She
was a fine, fine girl, a year older than I, 19 . . .
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Erna: Jude? [Maureen, same term as above] means the oldest woman . . .
Lola: To be in charge. She was as good as gold. He just picked her because she was a sixfooter, or maybe a little under—she was very tall. He picked on her to be responsible, to see that
all orders are carried out. After we were there a week or two, the Aufseherinnen28—the German
supervisors—came. They escorted us to work and from work. Of course I missed many
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lunches, because by that point the Allied army, the English and the Americans, decided to come.
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women worked in 12 hour shifts and had to march to the factory from Camp B, where the barracks were. The
hygienic conditions were catastrophic and although it was freezing cold the women had inadequate clothing. Some
didn’t even have shoes. In February 1945 the women were evacuated to Celle, Germany and driven on foot the 15
kilometers to Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen was liberated on April 15, 1945 at which time 80% of the women who
had been sent there from Muhlhausen had died.
27
The Wehrmacht was the German military from 1935 to 1945. The German military were complicit in Nazi war
crimes during the Holocaust.
28
The Aufseherinnen, [German: overseers or attendants] were female guards who served in Nazi concentration
camps. The first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek camps from Ravensbruck in 1942. In 1943
there was a guard shortage, and Nazis began recruiting women to fill the guard positions. The singular term is
Aufseherin.
19
The Germans ran away, we stayed in the factory. We didn’t mind already missing dinner or
lunch as long as we heard that the planes are coming. This was already 1944. I remember one
time they brought a supply from one of the camps. A man was in the truck, and he passed on
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some news that the Russians are advancing, that it will be over. When you’re young, you’re
optimistic. I remember with a girlfriend by nighttime, we used to dance away that some of us
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will live through, and we will maybe make it. We believed that. My mother was very
pessimistic. She said, “Why are you laughing, why are you dancing? You know they’re going to
kill us before this war is over. There’s no chance.” We stayed there until about the early part of
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February. The commandant, who was a Wehrmacht man, talked to us that the war is coming to
an end, and we have to liquidate this camp, and we will be sending you to another place. My
mother was with the sick people because she had pneumonia at that time. When we arrived, it
was hell on earth—Bergen-Belsen.29 It was a camp built for about 10,000 people. At this point,
there were 60,000—all nationalities, mostly Jewish at that point. Bodies were thrown all over.
Disease was rampant. The smell and the odor was unreal. With the coming of spring, this was
unbelievable. When we got there we had no place for mother, so my sister and I used to sit by
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the wall in a barrack—Barrack One, a bungalow—and hold her. She was burning up with fever.
[My sister would hold her] half a night and I half a night. Then we needed to go to work, so I
found a hospital [from] supposedly someone that knew my father from before the war. The
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hospital had three, four people to a bed, if you can call it such, but it was better than stretching
out against the wall. She stayed there, and we went to work. Somebody stole my shoes. We had
no beds, my sister and I. There was a German Aufseherin, she was a leader. I guess her greatgrandfather was Jewish, so the Germans insisted that she’s Jewish. She used to call us verfluchte
Juden [German: cursed Jews], but she was very nice to my sister and me. She let us sleep under
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her bed, so I used to take the shoes and put them under my head. One morning they were not
there, and without shoes you couldn’t go to work. When I faced my mother, she said, “Look,
I’m sick. Why don’t you take my shoes?” She had maybe two sizes bigger than me, but I took
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them. We went to work picking up rocks. Sometimes I found a potato in the ground, and I used
29
Bergen-Belsen was established in 1943 to serve as a transit camp for Jewish prisoners who were initially excluded
from deportation. They were to be held in exchange for Germans interned in western countries. Toward the end of
the war, Bergen-Belsen became a dumping place for Jews marched out of camps in the east. There was no housing
for them, no medical care, no food, and no water. Ultimately there were about 41,000 prisoners in the camps and
the mortality rate was extreme. The British liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945 and it took them weeks to
even be able to start to deal with the horrifying situation. Many thousands of prisoners died after liberation, being
too far gone to recover.
20
to take it to the nurse so she will take care of my mother. At this point, they sent her to another
camp. She not only had pneumonia, but she developed typhoid. The Germans ground glass and
gave it to us, so we all were sick—all of us. Kohlrabi—it was a vegetable—if I smell it today it
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makes me nauseous. This was a little watery soup that was given to us daily. I worked across
the street from the men’s camp, and I knew if a transport arrived, four weeks later you saw a
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heap of bodies. You could not exist long in this camp. People were dying by the minute. They
couldn’t clean them up fast enough. For me to go to the bathroom, I had to walk over dead
bodies in the woods to find a place. Needless to say, the sanitary conditions were awful.
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Aushwitz[-Birkenau] was bad, too, but you really didn’t see any dead bodies lying around. It
was done more scientifically. We were there until April.
Erna: What happened with your mother?
Lola: I’ll come to that. April the first, all of a sudden, white flags went up on the poles. There
were towers, and German guards were watching us. All of a sudden we got up, the SS was gone,
white flags were flying from the towers, and the Wehrmacht was left. I went to my mother daily,
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because she went into a coma. I tried to talk to her, to hold on, hold on. Surely the end must be
coming soon. She went like a broken record, repeating all three names: my brother’s, my
sister’s, my father’s and my own. I could not get through to her. Every day I was hoping maybe
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today she’ll hear. On April 14, the nurse came running to me when we came back from work
and said, “You don’t have to come. Your mother died.” I remember going in line to pick up the
daily soup. I made my sister eat. I got up the next morning and went to work. At that time I
was working not far from the gate. There was a clock over the gate. The SS came back, and they
put on white armbands, too. They had nowhere to go, so they decided they will wait with the
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camp for the liberation. I saw tanks circling Bergen-Belsen, and I was wondering if they were
Russian, English or Americans. They had a white star on them. As I was straining my neck to
figure out what’s going on here, the guard on my left saw me looking, and he shouted down in
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German, “Verfluchte Jude. Was wollen Sie auf? Arbeit losgehen!” [Maureen, can you
check this 59:03] It simply meant, “You dirty Jew. What are you looking at? Go back to
work.” I reasoned if this would be liberation, he wouldn’t be yelling so it’s probably nothing. I
went back to work. An hour later I saw the gates of Bergen-Belsen open, a tank moved in—a
21
military tank. Kramer,30 who was a commandant from Auschwitz[-Birkenua] was on the right
side of the tank. With bullhorns they announced in all languages the unbelievable: “People, you
are free. [In German] Menschen, sie sind frei. [In Polish] Ludzi, jesteś wolny . . . ” in French, in
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English, in Polish—you name it—in Hungarian. He guided that tank through the camp. The
tank came back. I was standing there with a rock in my hand, and I cried. I couldn’t control
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myself. The tank came back, and they said since everybody is sick here—we’re infected—that
they cannot come in. They’re taking the ammunition away from the Germans, and we should
take orders from them until they will clean up the camp. That evening I went by the kitchen and
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I saw the English [who] liberated the camp, that they were preparing food for us with lots of
meat and grease. They started giving [this food] out, but the death rate went up from 600 to 800
daily. They realized that they were not prepared to deal with a situation like that, and with
people like that. They stopped giving us food, and Red Cross trucks, military trucks would come
around and give us crackers and milk—soft things—because nobody could eat. The death rate
was really getting bad, but there were still some men that were strong enough. I heard that they
broke into where they kept the supplies—the men did. Some of them went complaining to the
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English, that this cannot be, that we are liberated and we should take orders from the Germans.
Let them clean up the camp. This is what happened. The women that came from Thuringen
[German: Thüringen]31—I have a magazine with pictures—they all came with that transport. All
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the Nazis, and all the pictures you’ll see from Bergen-Belsen, were cleaning up the dead. I was
told by an English doctor, if I find my mother they will bury her separately. I tried. I went back
to that hospital, and there was a heap of bodies, but people changed so I couldn’t do it. I
couldn’t recognize [her], so she is buried in one of the three mass graves there. After a few
weeks, they told us . . . they gave us DDT32 . . . to spray you . . . they said we’ll start with Block
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One. They removed all the sick people to the hospital. The well ones will be sent to the new
30
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Josef Kramer (1906-1945) was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1940, where he was in charge of the
gas chambers, and transferred to Bergen-Belsen from Birkenau in 1944. Kramer was so cruel that he was known as
the “Beast of Belsen.” When Bergen-Belsen was liberated by the British, Kramer took them to tour the camp.
Kramer was then incarcerated and was tried in the Belsen Trial by a British military court. Josef Kramer was
sentenced to death on November 17, 1945 and was on December 13, 1945.
31
Thuringen province, Germany is where Niederorschel, a sub-camp of Buchenwald concentration camp, was
located.
32
DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is a chemical first synthesized in 1874 and further developed as an
insecticide in 1939 by Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Muller. During the second half of World War II, DDT was
used to control malaria and typhus in civilians and troops. DDT was used after World War II as an agricultural
insecticide.
22
Bergen-Belsen. There was another Bergen-Belsen that was used by the German army. This is
supposedly where they wanted to take those that are well enough. My sister was very sick—she
had typhoid. At that time she was seventeen. The English doctor wanted to take her to the
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hospital. She was so petrified of going to the hospital because it meant death. Even though it
was after the war, I couldn’t convince her. I saw just the two of us were left. I said I’ll go and
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work in the hospital until she will get better. I could not convince her of it. She wouldn’t go. I
remember them coming into my block which was Number One. A Red Cross wagon came, and
the English wore gas masks. I swear I saw tears in their eyes when they carried out the naked
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bodies from this block. From maybe 200 people, maybe there were ten left that you would say
they were well. This is how I stayed in Bergen-Belsen until it was all cleaned up. We were
moved to the new Bergen-Belsen. My sister recovered slowly. They burned this Bergen-Belsen
down. Today three are three mass graves. This is where President Reagan went after he visited
Bittburg.33 I hope next year to go back there.
Erna: When you were at Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen, were you aware of any medical
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experiments that were carried out.
Lola: No, I had no idea. As you know, every survivor has a different story even though disease
me.
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and killings were all the same but in a different way. I was never aware of it. Nobody touched
Erna: Were there any attempts at resistance or escape while you were at either one of the
camps?
Lola: Not that I know of. There was no chance . . . no chance. There were no woods, nowhere
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to run. You were guarded—constantly guarded. No way.
Erna: It seemed from what you said that you did think that you were going to survive.
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Lola: Yes. I remember in Auschwitz[-Birkenau] one time when we were laying on our bed . . .
berth . . . I heard an airplane fly over and I said, “Oh my G-d. Maybe . . . maybe. Somebody
On May 5th, 1985, President Ronald Reagan visited the Kolmeshohe [German: Kolmeshӧhe] Cemetary in Bitburg,
Germany at the invitation of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. This visit was extremely controversial and
protested by many in the United States, including Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, because SS were
buried at the site. Reagan did not cancel his visit to the cemetery, but he added a visit to Bergen-Belsen during his
trip.
33
23
knows.” Most of all what hurts me today is I thought that nobody knows, that this is top secret,
just as they tried to confuse us that the free world is unaware otherwise something would have
been done about it. It’s been very, very hard to accept the fact that not one bomb fell upon the
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railways that would stop this premeditated murder in a scientific way. Science was used for the
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wrong reasons, not to build but to destroy lives. These were medical doctors and scientists.
Erna: Were people helping each other when you were in the camp?
Lola: As far as I could see, yes. I held my sister’s bread—she trusted me with it. We were
Erna: What do you think kept you going?
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always close together and my mother for that matter until she died.
Lola: I really never felt special or more deserving than others that I survived, that it was G-d’s
will. It was an accident. It was just a coincidence. It could have been a thousand others. I don’t
know. I never felt guilty about surviving, either. Some did—I didn’t. I do feel an obligation to
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tell it to others.
Erna: What happened after you were liberated and left the camp? Tell me how you left there.
Lola: I thought that my sister and I are the only ones that survived in the family. You have to
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realize that for the survivors, life just started, and the tragedies just started—trying to find out
who is alive, what you should do. I watched, in Bergen-Belsen, military people from different
countries come, raise their national flag, [and] sing their national anthem. They took their
prisoners and went home—Belgium, France, English—from Bergen-Belsen—Czech, Russian.
The Ukrainians didn’t want to go back, so they came at night, raided their bungalows, and took
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them home. As a Jew, you knew you didn’t want to go back where you came from. There’s
nothing back there that you want to go back to. I personally felt the whole continent of Europe
was full of blood, that I could never start life anew. I found my mother’s cousin in Bergen-
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Belsen. His wife and son were killed, he had one daughter. She was even younger than I—two
years, I think. He promised that wherever he’ll go, he’ll take me and my sister. He was exactly
the age of my father. Bergen-Belsen was the second concentration camp—Auschwitz[Birkenau] was the first that was liberated by the Russians—Bergen-Belsen was the second that
24
was liberated by the Allied Armies.34 From there on, other camps were liberated. As the
survivors tried to move from one place to another, to search, to talk, to see who they could find,
it was a custom among the survivors to carry with you a list of names from the place you are
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coming. Right away committees were formed—Jewish committees—taking care of the
survivors’ needs or whatever needed to be done. You always checked with the committee
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building to see who arrived from where, that maybe you could find a name or somebody you
knew. In Bergen-Belsen, one day a girlfriend of mine came running, excited, that she saw
somebody came from Munchen [Munich, Germany], that from the American zone—we were in
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the English zone—that she saw three Borkowskys. I couldn’t believe it. I flew over there. I’m
standing and I’m waiting—my father, my brother and one of my uncles are alive in the American
zone. I ran to my cousin, I said, “You won’t believe, my father is alive.” You couldn’t talk . . .
where is your father? [Maureen, not 100% sure what she says here 1:12:37] I said I’m
taking my sister—she was already better. I worked in the kitchen peeling potatoes to have extra
food to give her, so she was feeling stronger. I said, “We must leave immediately. I’m going to
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Munchen.”
Erna: How long did you stay in Bergen-Belsen after the liberation?
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Lola: From April until July probably.
Erna: Inside the camp?
Lola: Yes—the old one, and then the new Bergen-Belsen.
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Erna: It was being administered by the English?
34
The Allies were a group of countries who worked together to oppose the Axis forces (Germany, Italy, and Japan)
during World War II. At the start of the war in 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and Great Britain. In
1941, the Soviet Union and the United States joined the Allies. In 1942, Allied policy was controlled by the “Big
Three:” Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Other Allies included China, Canada, British Raj (India),
the Netherlands, Norway and Yugoslavia. The alliance was formalized in the Declaration by United Nations in
1942, and in 1945 the present-day UN was created.
25
Lola: The English and the Jewish committees were formed. [Menachem] Rosensaft’s father
[Josef Rozensaft]35 was involved, if you read the history of Bergen-Belsen. I was not aware at
Lola: Yes, she was, she was. She was sick.
Erna: And you were working . . .
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Erna: You were basically recuperating during that time . . .
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the time. I was busy taking care of myself and my sister, taking care of our own needs . . .
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Lola: I needed food, extra food to give her, so I didn’t want to take presents from any boys
because I was so determined not to be obligated to anyone. I did my peeling potatoes, and I got
some extra food. When I told my cousin what I planned to do, he talked me out of it. He
convinced me that it’s dangerous. I didn’t even think at that time that there are no passenger
trains around, and no place, and it may take you weeks to get back to Munchen—to Munich. If I
gave him a week time, he will finish what he is doing, he will set up his affairs, because his
daughter was sick in the hospital, too. He would escort us to Munchen, to Munich, to my father,
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and then come back for his daughter. I saw the man made sense, because I really didn’t think
seriously at the age of 17 and 18 to go traveling across Germany after a war. There were soldiers
and everybody else, so I said I’ll wait. We were supposed to leave in the morning. The girls
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from my bungalow were giving us a going away party. I was in the room alone, and the door
was a little bit open. I thought for a second that I saw a man with a backsack, and it looked like
my father, but I thought I’ll see him already. I opened the door and, needless to say, there was
my father all the way from Munich. We just fell on each other.
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Erna: How did he know where you were?
Lola: The same way I did. Somebody from Bergen-Belsen went to Munchen—Munich—and
had the list posted of the survivors in Bergen-Belsen. He saw . . . he saw my mother’s not there .
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. . but he saw my sister and me. My brother had an infection in his leg, and he couldn’t leave, so
he decided that he’ll go. It also took him about a week, two weeks to get there. It’s funny, had
35
Josef Rosensaft (1911-1975) was a Polish Holocaust survivor who was elected by refugees in his DP Camp to the
Central Committee of Liberated Jews. He promoted the rights of refugees and opposed the restrictive British
immigration policy for Jews wishing to move to Palestine. Rosensaft moved to Montreux, Switzerland and
subsequently to the United States in the 1950’s with his wife and son. Menachem Rosensaft is a Jewish activist and
Founding Chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Survivors.
26
he been a day late, we would have missed each other. Of course, we would have caught up
eventually. When I came to DP camp—Displaced Persons camp36 Feldafing37—this is what the
American army gave me [hold up a photograph of herself]: a passport, that I was a political
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prisoner, and I had no country, I’m stateless. Here I am at the age of 18: my hair grew back from
Auschwitz[-Birkenau], and this is where my life began, because I have no pictures of myself
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before the war. It’s what I remember. I felt so different than the other survivors. People were so
lonely. They had no families, so they paired off. There were marriages. There were more boys
than girls—I think every girl had a chance to get married. I felt so cheated of my youth, that I’ve
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lost six years of my life from 12 to 18, that I’ll never have it back. I was interested in other
things. Since I had a father, I felt secure. I enrolled in Hebrew classes. I became involved in
different organizations. I enjoyed dating, going to dances, but I didn’t want to get involved
seriously with anyone, and I didn’t.
Erna: This was in the Displaced Persons camp?
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Lola: Right.
Erna: In Feldafing, in Germany?
36
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Lola: In Feldafing, in 1945.
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When hostilities ended on May 8, 1945 in Europe, as many as 100,000 Jewish survivors found themselves among
the seven million uprooted and homeless people classified as displaced persons (DPs). In a chaotic six-month
period, six million non-Jewish DPs, who had been deported to Germany as forced laborers for the Nazis, wandered
through Germany and Eastern Europe toward their homelands. The liberated Jews, who were plagued by illness and
exhaustion , emerged from concentration camps and hiding places to discover a world in which they had no place.
Bereft of home and family, and reluctant to return to their pre-war homelands, these Jews were joined in a matter of
months by more than 150,000 other Jews fleeing fierce anti-semitism in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Russia.
Intially, the Allies herded Jewish DPs and non-Jewish DPs together, but conflicts arose. The need to recognize Jews
as a unique and stateless group of DPs was urgent, and became obvious to the Americans. They created the first
exclusively Jewish DP camp at Feldafing, which began absorbing Jews from Dachau in the summer of 1945.Most
DP camps had been designated as either Jewish or non-Jewish by the end of 1945.
37
Feldafing was the first all-Jewish displaced persons camp, and hosted a large and important community of
survivors. It was originally a summer camp for Hitler Youth, and was located 20 miles southwest of Munich,
Germany in the American zone of occupation. The camp was originally opened on May 1, 1945 to house 3,000
Hungarian Jews, and it housed many non-Jewish concentration camp survivors until July 1945. At that time, the US
Army moved the remaining Jewish survivors of Dachau into the camp. In autumn 1945, the first all-Jewish hospital
in the German DP camps was founded at Feldafing. Educational and religious life flourished there. In addition to
secular elementary and high schools, the camp’s religious community founded several schools. It also had a
rabbinical council that supported its religious office, and an extensive library. Kibbutzim (Zionist communes) were
organized by the children and adolescents in the camp. Newspapers were published. Camp residents were
entertained by theater groups and orchestras.
27
Erna: You all lived together in a barrack?
Lola: My family . . . I can write a book of how we all were reunited. My youngest uncle was
ready to take an illegal ship to Israel, so a neighbor from Lodz told him that his older brother and
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the children are in Feldafing. He thought he is the only one that survived. He decided to come
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back and check out. He came all the way across the mountains from Italy—from Milan, I
think—all the way. I was riding a bicycle, and I came back from my classes, and there was my
uncle, David—all tan, came back from Italy. In the meantime, we heard that his wife from
before the war, because he was younger, is living in Lodz, but we didn’t know where he was. He
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left after a few weeks, took his backsack, and went to Poland to bring his wife to Germany.
Then they moved out. One of my aunts survived—the one that they took her child away. One
day somebody came in and told us that her husband, from before the war, is alive in Prague, so
she came to my father and said, “I must go. Joseph is alive.” My father did the same thing, he
said, “Wait. I’ll clear up here what I’m doing, and I’ll go with you.” In the meantime he arrived,
he heard that she is alive, and he knocked on the door and there he was. Needless to say, they,
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too, moved out. One of my uncles lost a wife and two boys—he never found his wife, they went
straight to Chelmno. He doesn’t have any children today—he’s still alive. Two of my uncles,
their wives and younger children all perished—they in working camps, and the wives and
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children went to Chelmno, and my grandparents, and many, many cousins.
Erna: What happened after the DP camp, or how long were you in the DP camp and then what
happened?
Lola: I really wanted to go to Israel. Needless to say, we organized the first political rally,
September 1, 1945. It was the sixth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. We gathered
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all the survivors and we were protesting that we would like to reestablish the State of Israel in
memory of the six million. We were really involved in it, and I felt like that’s where we should
go. My father didn’t feel that way. He had a visa before the war to go to the United States. He
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already had a number in 1939, in January, I believe, or February. What happened is . . . in 1938,
excuse me . . . the German Jews that were born in Poland and lived in Germany were sent into
Poland. I had one of my cousins that lived in Berlin. He came back to Lodz, because he was
born in Lodz. His wife was German, but Hitler put them at the border and made Poland accept
these people because they were born in Poland, even though they lived in Germany. The Polish
28
government in order to expedite these people first wrote my father that they’re holding back his
visa so these people are already refugees, and they went. He never went to the United States. He
had relatives here from before the war. They were here when we arrived forty years ago, they
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were already 70 years here. I had great-uncles, and my grandfather’s cousins. He felt like he
served in the army, he was wounded in the Second World War, he’s not ready to go to Cyprus,38
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to smuggle through the Alps and go on an illegal ship, that he would rather go to the United
States. Like a dutiful daughter, you don’t disobey your father. I started taking English to
prepare myself for the United States. In December 1939 [Maureen, she clearly states 1939, but
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this doesn’t seem right 1:23:11] we were called to Munchen, from Munich, to ? [Maureen, not
sure what she place says here 1:23:18] to come and prepare to leave for the United States. The
government passed a law allowing 200,000 refugees to come in. Unfortunately, 20 percent of
them were Jewish survivors. I found that out recently. The others were Nazis, all nationalities,
Ukrainians, but not Jews.
Erna: So then you prepared, and you came to the United States.
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Lola: Right. We arrived on June 24 of 1946. A month earlier, the first ship arrived. A band
waited for them and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.39 I had a friend on that ship, so I always tease him.
For me there was no band—it was very disappointing. I don’t know, we thought . . . I didn’t feel
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any guilt . . . maybe that’s why . . . and they kept saying, “Oh, you look so good.” I was only 19.
They were expecting skeletons, I imagine. I said, “It’s a year after the war. I ate good.” We
were ready to talk, but there were no listeners. They really didn’t want to. It was really too
painful for them, I guess, and for us. They kept saying, “Don’t talk about it. You’re here.
That’s it.” Many nights I used to wake up with a nightmare thinking I’m in camp, and then I
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said, “Oh my G-d, I’m in bed.”
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Erna: Where did you come to in the United States?
38
39
Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States from 1933 to
1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband and became an advocate for civil rights. After her
husband’s death in 1945, Eleanor continued to be an international author, speaker and politician and activist.
29
Lola: New York. I lived there six years. A week after I came . . . I came here with the boys.
When I say the boys, I mean the United States military boys. They all came back from fighting a
war, and we, too, came. There was a demand and a prosperity for everything. In New York, I
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went to work in a factory. I was making skirts. In the evening, I enrolled in evening classes. A
week after I came, I was working. I didn’t like it, but I worked. I earned good money, and we
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had a number of friends our age. We were all single—we were all married in the United States.
We socialized with them. To go downtown meant nothing since I came from a big city, from
Poland. I found my way around very easily. As a matter of fact, the second or third day, a friend
Erna: Then what happened?
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and I went to see a Russian movie on 42nd Street.
Lola: Then we came south. I had a son that was born in New York . . .
Erna: You didn’t tell me how you met your husband.
Lola: I didn’t know if I should or not! I met my husband in Germany, and when I left with my
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family, I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait for him, but we have enough letters to prove we
kept in touch with each other a whole half a year. He arrived in January 1947. I went to pick
him up. We waited another eight months to make sure that this is what we want to do. We were
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married November 23, 1947. This year, it will be 40 years. This is 1987. I want to go on the
Queen Elizabeth [cruise ship] to see the world. I don’t know if I will, but I would like to.
Erna: From New York you moved . . .
Lola: We adjusted very well because we had no children. When we were married, my husband
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and I both worked just like young people everywhere. It’s the families that I know of that had
children where the wives couldn’t work, the husbands had no professions, so there was
problems. We were able in three years to save up $11,000. As a matter of fact, I arrived with $2
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in my pocket. I had no money, no luggage—just $2. It was $5 that was given to me by HIAS
[Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society],40 so I bought on the ship a toothbrush, a comb, and a mirror. I
40
HIAS was founded in 1881. Its original purpose was the help the constant flow of Jewish immigrants from
Russian in relocating. During and after World War II, they had offices throughout Europe, South and Central
America and the Far East. They worked to get Jews out of Europe and to any country that would have them by
30
spent about $3, and I had $2 left. Two weeks later, we all brought money home, so that was no
problem in our case. I know different cases, but we had no problem adjusting.
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Erna: How about your father and your sister?
Lola: We were four people going to work. Can you imagine how much money came in? I
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don’t know if this is the time to tell you, apartments were very, very hard to be gotten in New
York in 1946. Through our relatives, they found us a five room apartment for the four of us.
That scene never leaves me. We didn’t know if the UJA [United Jewish Appeal]41 or HIAS owe
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us anything. When he gave us the key, naturally we were glad we have a place and we moved
in. We had no sheets, and we had a broken bed—it’s okay. We were there a week, and the
doorbell rings. My father opens up the door, and there is the rental agent. He told my father, he
says, “You know I’m Jewish. You know when you rent you have to pay rent.” He says, “Of
course. You mean they didn’t pay you for a month?” He says, “No.” “For two weeks?” “No.”
Not even for a week. They gave the key. I said, “You know, when you work one week, you do
not get paid. You have to wait two weeks to get paid.” My father didn’t know what to do—he
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figured he would go to my cousin or do something. He excused himself, he says, “I didn’t
know.” A week later, he came up with the money. Three or four weeks later we had $400
coming in, and that was a lot of money. I gave my money to my father. I mean, this is the way
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you did in Europe, so I did the same thing. I had some spending money. The rent was $25 a
week. They were different times 40 years ago. A dollar went a long way. We were all eligible
to get married, even my father, because when we came here he was 46—my sister, my brother
and myself. Every case is different—every survivor had a different circumstance.
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Erna: Basically, you all settled in New York.
Lola: My father moved to Canada. He married a lady from Canada. My sister, she was in
Yonkers, in New York. When my son was two years old, he developed an allergy. For his work,
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providing tickets and information about visas. After World War II, they assisted 167,000 Jews to leave DP camps
and emigrate elsewhere.
41
UJA is an umbrella philanthropic fund that collects and then distributes funds to Jewish organizations in their
community and around the country.
31
he was a foreman in a shop and was doing quite well, and we didn’t want to leave, and to go
south . . . We had a cousin that we made the papers for [Maureen, I don’t know what she says
here 1:31:42] through friends for them to come to the United States, but they had relatives in
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Georgia. We didn’t want to come—we felt comfortable in New York. We had—we still have—
many, many friends and relatives. When he had to change his job . . . we came for a visit in
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1952, in December. My husband comes from the city of Ozorkow—it’s a smaller place. He
liked the open space. He thought it would be a good idea to raise children rather than in New
York, so he was considering to leave. In January of 1953 we came down south. We needed to
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change our apartment. There were a few reasons.
Erna: I want to go into to some reflections about the war. You were singled out just for being a
Jew.
Lola: Yes.
Erna: How do you feel about that?
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Lola: As a Jew? I have very positive feelings.
Erna: As a person, how do you feel about what happened to you because of being a Jew?
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Lola: I had trouble— a lot of problems. First, I couldn’t believe that there was a religious
explanation for it, that it was G-d’s will. That upset me very much. I remember being liberated,
and when I met my father when we were in Feldafing . . . I don’t know who cared, but there were
boxes of salami and butter and all kinds of food. I didn’t even think of it at the time, but I loved
to put butter on my bread and put salami on it and then say [points up], “Do me something,” like
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I was angry with G-d, with everything that happened. It took me many, many years to make
peace with it. I could not and I cannot accept this was G-d’s doing. He had nothing to do with it,
and I’m at peace with that. At the same time, I feel very strongly you shouldn’t leave it up to G-
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d to take care of you. As a Jew, particularly in Poland, they lived a thousand years—almost a
thousand years. They participated in every aspect. They served in the armies all over Europe.
That did not give them immunity. We were singled out as strangers. Personally, I think very
strongly that we need a country of our own to make sure that a Holocaust like this doesn’t
happen. Had we had Israel, I’m sure the railways would have been bombed, the ships that
32
couldn’t find a place where to land would have been welcomed, so I very strongly support the
existence of the State of Israel. This is my only disappointment that I don’t live there. I visit
very often. I feel wonderful . . . I can remember my first visit to Israel. I cried for two weeks.
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When I saw the Star of David flying on a flag, this was when Jerusalem was liberated. Israel
was 22 years old. I thought of my grandfather, what a pious man, and here I am. I couldn’t
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believe this is happening. It was a very emotional experience—very, very emotional. And the
most that I liked is when I see these Jewish soldiers with their guns and a prayer book in their
hands. I feel if you can first defend yourself, then you can have the luxury of studying the
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Torah42 and everything else with it.
Erna: Have you returned to Europe since the war?
Lola: Yes. We went on the thirtieth anniversary, in 1975. I really wanted to go to BergenBelsen to visit the three mass graves that I’d seen when they buried the bodies there, but I’d
never gone back. I was told I need to spend three days in Germany, and I wasn’t ready to cope
with it. My husband and I decided to visit. He wanted to go back home to his town, and like I
course to Lodz.
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stated before, I wanted to go back to that little village that I had such pleasant memories, and of
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Erna: Did you go back there?
Lola: Yes.
Erna: How was it when you went back? Did you speak to people there?
Lola: Yes. First of all, when I went to Poland—before I went—I told my daughter to give me
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the biggest Star of David from metal that she has, and a big chain, and I stuck this on my neck.
This is how I went. I didn’t know what to expect. We stopped in Warsaw. This was a nine-day
trip. The Pope went the same route, Reagan, I believe . . . they all went . . . not Reagan, Carter
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followed the same trip. We started off with Warsaw then we hired a taxi. First we went to the
42
Hebrew for ‘teaching.‘Torah’ is general term that covers all Jewish law including the vast mass of teachings
recorded in the Talmud and other rabbinical works. ‘Sefer Torah’ refers to the sacred scroll on which the first five
books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) are written.
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ghetto, and we visited the monument of Nathan Rapoport.43 We saw streets that are called
Yerushalayim Street—Jerusalem in Polish—and we went around in these places where they were
shipped out from the train platforms. Then the group—it was a pre-arranged tour—so the group
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went on a trip to see the countryside, and there were three days for us to go back. My husband
and I hired a taxi, and we bypassed Lodz and went back the same route. He, too, was in Warsaw
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when Warsaw was fighting the Nazis, so he wanted to go back the same route. We came into the
city of Ozorkow. He left it in 1940—he had no idea where the ghetto was. I was there. He
stopped—I could see his face turned white—and there was a Polish man that said to him in
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Polish, “Come here, young man. Come here. You’re in the right place.” He recognized him. He
was his age, but he looked like his father did before the war. It was a neighbor of theirs. He tells
me they did not fear any antisemitism in this community in the city of Ozorkow. We were near
in the apartment where he lived—he wanted to show me. We met the neighbors and we asked if
there are any Jews left. They said yes, there’s one Jew, Tobias Dreihorn [1:39:40], so we asked
a taxi to take us to him. Then my husband took a walk around the square, they talked, he
remembered every little detail, but I wanted to go very badly to the little town that was seven
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kilometers of Parcenzcew. I had this in front of me and I wanted to visit. Needless to say, he
drove us back, this man, and we came in on a Sunday. I wore my big Star of David, and I said,
“Who do I talk to?” I went to my grandfather’s—my maternal grandfather’s—neighbors,
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Norakowsky [1:40:27]. That’s all I had to do was say that I am Shia’s wnucek—a
granddaughter of Shia. He right away told me in Polish, “Oh, you look like your mother. And
how is your father? And what happened to your uncles.” He knew more about my family than I
remembered. Then I went . . .
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Erna: In other words, they were friendly.
Lola: Yes. Then I went to my paternal grandparents’ neighbor. His father was a medic-aid.
He was a barber, and if you had a toothache, he would pull a tooth . . . you know, in a small
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town. See, in small towns, you have different ties than you do in a big city. He was a friend of
my father, and he told me they used to climb up the trees and pick apples and the dogs would get
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Nathan Rapoport (1911-1987) was a Jewish sculptor born in Warsaw, Poland. He escaped Poland when the Nazis
invaded and fled into the Russia. He worked as a manual laborer but returned to study at the Warsaw Academy of
Fine Arts after the war. Rapoport immigrated to the United States in the 1950’s. He created the Monument to
Ghetto Heroes sculpture in Warsaw.
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them. I remember my father had a mark on his leg—a dog bit him, or something like that. His
two sons were doctors, this man’s sons, and one drowned two weeks ago. He was very nice to
me. I went by myself because I left Reuben in Ozorkow. He brought down from a shelf, an oil
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painting picture that he kept from the old wooden Jewish synagogue that was painted by a
Warsaw painter, and he said, “I’m sure you would like to have it.” I thanked and I took it, and I
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gave him whatever I had with me. He was very proud—he didn’t want it—just an exchange.
We had tea, we conversed, I told him who was alive, and who wasn’t, and I left. On the way
back to Ozorkow this man told us that he has a Sefer Torah44—a scroll that was hidden by his
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uncle before they left the city of Ozorkow—in an attic. His uncle didn’t survive, he was very
sick—I think his wife was Christian. He wanted to know if I would like to take this scroll with
me. There is an Ozorkow Society in New Jersey, so I immediately inquired why me. He said
some people from his hometown came and offered him money, but he wouldn’t sell it. I said,
“Why didn’t you send it there?” After visiting the site of the Ozorkow Ghetto—he took us
there—and he took us to the Jewish cemetery, and he showed us what he was doing there. He
said, “Maybe it’s my luck to be here—the last Jew.” He was picking up the stones45 that the
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streets were paved with, and he put them near a tzadik [Hebrew: righteous man]. He turned to
the Ozorkow Society to ask for some help in erecting a wall and a marker so if Jews come back,
or people come back, they will realize there are Jewish people in this city. They refused. They
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said, “If we’re going to send money, we’re going to send it to Israel.” If I had not been in
Poland, I would have felt the same way. Being there, I realized it was very important [to mark
the cemetery] because in Warsaw I saw many tours, American children coming there, and where
do you think they’re taken—to the cemetery. That’s where you see Jewish life way, way back.
There’s a synagogue or two, but it’s very important that these Jewish sites be preserved. He
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wanted to give it to me. I was afraid to take it at that time because we were visiting other
countries, but eventually I did get it to Atlanta through legal channels. I had help obtaining it,
and I’m happy to say it arrived in my house—I couldn’t believe it—from the city of Ozorkow.
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A handwritten copy of the Torah, the holiest book in Judaism. It must meet extremely strict standards of
production. When not in use in services, it is stored in the holiest spot in a synagogue, the Aron Kodesh (Holy Ark),
which is usually an ornate curtained-off cabinet or section of the synagogue built along the war that most closely
faced Jerusalem, the direction Jews face when praying.
45
In Jewish tradition, mourners bring stones to place on gravesites rather than flowers. The origins of this tradition
may relate to ancient times when piles of stones were used to mark graves. Stones may also symbolize that the
mourners’ memories of the deceased will last forever, as stones also last forever.
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My husband and I dedicated it to the memory of the people that perished from that community.
It is a kosher Torah, one of very, very few. There were like 39 Torahs left in Poland. It was
over 80 years old and is the only living thing from the Holocaust that I knew from one
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congregation. We brought it to a congregation here, and it’s being used.
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Ema: Did you think that another Holocaust is possible?
Lola: It is. I, at least, always thought that if you educate people, they naturally are better. But
this was proved that it happened to the most sophisticated country that had no illiteracy, where
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education and science were used for the wrong reasons. So we as Jews should make sure that
this doesn’t happen to us again, and Israel is the only security we could have.
Erna: Is there anything else that you can think about that you want to relate to us?
Lola: I think I talked too much.
Erna: Not at all.
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Lola: I hope in the future when there are no survivors left that this will bear witness to the
atrocities. I feel very strong about it—not guilty, but strong—that we owe an obligation as a
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witness to tell the story.
Erna: I’d like to thank you at this time, and I understand that this is not an easy thing for you to
do, and we appreciate you taking the time and witnessing for us, telling us your story, so we can
have a record of it for future generations.
Lola: Thank you.
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<End Disk 1>
INTERVIEW ENDS
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