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Strauss, Edgar - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn67773
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 01:41:49
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 01:41:49
- Language
- English
- Notes
- Edgar Strauss was born on June 11, 1909 in Ludwigshafen, Germany, to a Conservative Jewish family. He was unable to complete law studies because of antisemitic laws and was dismissed from the Civil Service due to the Weiderherstellung des Berufbeamtentums (Nazi reorganization of the Civil Service to eliminate Jews). In November 1938, Edgar experienced Kristallnacht and was interned at Dachau concentration camp. After his release one month later, he went to Luxembourg but returned for fear of reprisals against his father. Edgar obtained a passport and visa and on August 15, 1939 he left for the United Kingdom where he worked in a machine shop. His father was deported to Gurs; he survived the war in that camp because he was in the hospital when deportations to Auschwitz took place. In June 1940, after Dunkirk, Edgar was interned by the British as an enemy alien. He was sent to the Isle of Man and from there to Trois Rivières, Québec; New Brunswick; and Ile -Aux- Noix, Québec, respectively. In 1942, the Canadian government began to release internees to work. Edgar settled in Montreal.
- Accession No.
- WTH-349
- Name Access
- STRAUSS, Edgar
- Archival / Genealogical
- Archival Descriptions
- Repository
- Montreal Holocaust Museum
Images
YouTube
Strauss, Edgar - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.youtube.com/embed/gPse2kymZs4
Veisfeld, Issie - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn67770
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 01:10:25
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 01:10:25
- Language
- English
- Notes
- Issie Veisfeld was born on July 10, 1928 in Iasi, Romania. He recalled a history of significant antisemitism while growing up, stating that Romanians would physically assault Jews to entertain themselves. He gives a vivid description of the Iasi Pogrom, which took place on June 27, 1941, describing how Romanian authorities rounded up Jews, executed on mass, had those who survived bury the dead, and then transported them to Transnistria. However, Issie explains that his father, who was an upholsterer for the Romanian Army, was warned by a Turkish officer about the forthcoming Pogrom, allowing him and Issie to hide in their attic when the roundup was occurring. His father’s job and connections were also the reasons that they were not deported from Iasi during the War. Unfortunately, while both his mother and sister survived the War, his father was killed during an Allied bombing run over Iasi in 1944, weeks before the war ended in Romania. Iasi was liberated by the Red Army in August 1944, after which Issie states Romanians and Ukrainians who had collaborated with the Germans were executed. He decided to leave Romania when former collaborationists and fascists started joining and gaining influence in the Communist Party. The government would not let him leave without paying a bribe, so he left illegally by sneaking out in 1947 with his mother and sister, traveling through several European cities before finally leaving for Canada in 1948.
- Accession No.
- WTH-305
- Name Access
- VEISFELD, Issie
- Places
- Iasi, Romania, Europe
- Archival / Genealogical
- Archival Descriptions
- Repository
- Montreal Holocaust Museum
Images
YouTube
Veisfeld, Issie - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z1kEvO5AbiU
Yaros, Esther - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn67765
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 00:57:38
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 00:57:38
- Language
- English
- Notes
- Ester Yaros was born on January 23, 1932 in Brussels, Belgium. She grew up in a non-religious home but felt Jewish anyway. When Germans started bombarding Belgium, the family decided to flee to France, thinking that it wouldn’t yet be invaded by the Nazis. When they saw German trucks coming to France, they returned to Brussels. Several antisemitic laws were enacted; Esther couldn’t attend school anymore for instance. In 1942, her parents sent her to live with farmers in the outskirts of Brussels. They visited her every Sunday until one day they didn’t show up. She learned that they had been denounced and that they died in Auschwitz. A woman from Solidarité Juive came to hide her in a convent. She got a new name, Alice Raymonders. One day, she told a friend she was Jewish. The priest had to call her a liar in front of everyone to save her and everybody’s life. The living conditions were so poor that lots of children became sick, including Esther who was sent to a hospital in Brussels. She was then sent to another convent, in Sugny, where she stayed until 1944. At that point, the entire convent ran towards Brussels, fleeing the front. After the war, Esther was taken to the orphanage Les Hirondelles in Brussels. She stayed there until a man came to propose that the orphans immigrate to Palestine. Esther and her friends refused and immigrated to Canada instead. Esther arrived in Winnipeg in 1947 and later settled in Montreal in 1950.
- Accession No.
- WTH-166
- Name Access
- Yaros, Esther
- Places
- Brussels, Belgium, Europe
- Archival / Genealogical
- Archival Descriptions
- Repository
- Montreal Holocaust Museum
Images
YouTube
Yaros, Esther - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.youtube.com/embed/OgmNpswR7B8
Zablow, Lou - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn67776
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 01:24:52
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 01:24:52
- Language
- English
- Notes
- Lou Zablow was born on March 10, 1924 in Lodz, Poland. When he was 11, he joined a Zionist organization that prepared him to make Aliyah. As Germany invaded Poland, Lou’s father was drafted into the Polish army. On March 10, 1940, Lou and his mother were forced to move to the ghetto by three Germans. In the ghetto, Lou joined the Hanoar Hatzioni Zionist settlement. For almost one year, he worked in this agricultural settlement and went to school to prepare for making Aliyah. When Rumkowsky was asked to shut down all the Zionist settlements in the ghetto, Lou was in charge of caring for 35 orphans. For one year, he took care of their health and education. At that point, he was sent to work for a carpenter but, when people in charge of the ghetto learned he had an advanced level of education, he was transferred to do administrative work for several factories. Before being sent to Auschwitz, Lou and his fellow inmates were told by Biebow that they were going to be resettled in Germany. Lou stayed four days in Auschwitz where he evaded several selections before being sent to Lieberose, Sachenhausen, and Mauthausen concentration camps. In April 1945, he was forced on a death march to Gunskirchen concentration camp where he was liberated by the US army. Soon after his liberation, Lou became sick with typhus. He survived and started to work as an interpreter for the US army. He stayed in Linz until 1949 then moved to Montreal. It was so hard for him to make a living in Canada that he considered going back to Europe. Nonetheless, he persevered and managed to start a new life in his new country. Lou Zablow took part in the creation of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Center.
- Accession No.
- WTH-424
- Name Access
- Zablow, Lou
- Places
- Lodz , Poland , Europe
- Archival / Genealogical
- Archival Descriptions
- Repository
- Montreal Holocaust Museum
Images
YouTube
Zablow, Lou - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.youtube.com/embed/OkxV0Hmu1lM
Zimmerman, Michael - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn67768
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 04:08:09
- Collection
- WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
- Description Level
- Item
- Material Type
- moving images
- Physical Description
- 04:08:09
- Language
- English
- Notes
- Michael (Moses) Zimmerman was born on October 2, 1907 in Warsaw, Poland (Russia), to modern orthodox Jewish parents. The family was wealthy and had a live-in governess who was Jewish. From 1915 to 1918 the family lived in Moscow. Moses remembers the Kerensky revolution in March 1917 as peaceful. The Bolshevik revolution in October, however, was bloody -- the family was terrified and hid in the basement of their house in the city's centre. Moses describes the regime of terror -- his father's property was confiscated, his customers were murdered, bread rations were only available for the children. The Zimmerman’s returned to Poland in 1918 -- Russian soldiers smuggled them across the border. Moses had been schooled by a private tutor for eight years; he had no contact with Polish children. He attended gymnasium and then Polish university. Moses wanted to be an engineer and was accepted to a polytechnic college, graduating in 1933. He began working at a German firm in 1934. In August 1939 all men over the age of 21 had to go to the army for two years. They rejected Moses -- no officer would be called Moses. On September 6-7, 1939, at night, Moses left Warsaw with 200,000 other men. They were sure that the Allies would destroy Germany quickly. On September 17, Moses arrived in Lvov to meet his girlfriend, Elizabeth. Moses and his sister were taken to Russia by cattle car. He lived in barracks and worked cutting trees. Moses escaped with another couple to Kazan. The men were captured at the train station and interrogated by the KGB. In November 1940, Moses was sent to a Gulag for three years for attempting to escape from the camp. He worked in the forests in the middle of winter, marching 6 km to work without proper clothing or adequate meals. In June 1941 Moses was transferred to an electrical plant on the Arctic Ocean, near Finland, to work as an engineer. When the war was declared Moses moved to the Urals above the Arctic Circle. The Polish government-in-exile, in London, charged the Russians with organizing a Polish army to fight alongside Russia. Moses went to Poland and was examined -- Jews were rejected because they were "too weak" to fight. American Jewish organizations were told of this unofficial policy and they protested until a second army commission was appointed. Moses lied about having to support a family and was exempted from military service. The Soviets were being evacuated from Moscow and Leningrad -- Moses took the train with them to an area near Iran. They arrived in central Asia and Moses worked in the cotton fields. He travelled to a Polish help organization; later returning as their representative, he opened a school for peasant children and orphans. The Russians soon replaced the Poles and Moses was without work. In 1944 he was forced to take Russian citizenship; however, he managed to retain his Polish Jewish identity. After liberation on May 8, 1945, Moses married a Polish woman. They returned to Poland by train, arriving in Shamash to intense hostility on the part of the Polish population. A few weeks later the Kielce pogrom was perpetrated upon the Jewish population and the Zimmermans traveled to Breslau. Moses' parents and two sisters had been deported from the Warsaw ghetto and murdered in Treblinka in 1943. In late October 1946 Moses and his wife paid off border guards to escape out of Poland through Czechoslovakia -- Moses was thrilled to leave Poland as he hated it vehemently. They stayed in a DP camp in Salzburg, Austria. Moses approached JIAS and created a vocational school in an old brewery. The Zimmermans had a baby in 1948. The following year they applied to immigrate to Canada, arriving on June 24, 1950. Moses changed his name to Michael upon arrival to Canada. He applied for a job out of the newspaper and began working for Canadian Industrial Ltd. From 1953 to 1972 Michael worked for the CNR as an engineer and as a translator of Soviet research. He accepted a contract in 1971 and has been consulting for nine years with the USSR for the Canadian government and several private corporations. Michael discusses several his trips to the Soviet Union -- this work, and the red carpet treatment he receives from the Soviets, gives him deep satisfaction. Michael's son publishes technical manuals for a living.
- Accession No.
- WTH-243
- Name Access
- Zimmerman, Michael
- Archival / Genealogical
- Archival Descriptions
- Repository
- Montreal Holocaust Museum
Images
YouTube
Zimmerman, Michael - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor
https://www.youtube.com/embed/AmvpEcay9pc
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