Holocaust 1

Listen to Holocaust 1, a recording of a an 84-year-old German woman who grew up in Poland and survived the Holocaust during World War II.

The subject was born on October 15, 1914. She speaks The Rainbow Passage, followed by unscripted speech.

During the Holocaust, she hid in a barn for 30 months in Warsaw, with her husband and siblings. During this period, she had several miscarriages and consequently was in exceedingly poor health. In her long interview, she recalls a day when the Nazis found her at the barn but didn’t kill her or her family, largely because of the bravery of the farmer who was hiding them. The Nazis, however, marched to another barn nearby and killed all of the Jews hiding in it, also killing the family hiding them.

She arrived at New York City on November 30, 1949, and lived in the Bronx for about a year and a half. In 1951, she moved to Kansas City, in the United States. She and her husband owned a bakery up until the time of his death in 1979. In the interview, she quietly recalls that day as being “the end of my life.”

Although she had only the meager public school education that Jews in Germany were allowed at that time, she does speak five different languages. This includes Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, German, and English.

The subject was 84 at the time of the interview, on August 18, 1999. She was recorded by Shawn M. Muller, in Kansas City.

Run time: 4 minutes, 83 seconds.