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South Carolina Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust

Descriptions of Videotaped Interviews - Part 2

The interviews are may be purchased on VHS at Shop ETV.

V77196—Pincus Kolender (52 min.)

Pincus Kolender was born in 1926 in Poland. In 1940 synagogues, schools, and businesses were closed to Jews, who were placed in ghettos. One always felt trapped in the ghetto. The Nazis treated people like animals and residents were always disappearing. Despite the harsh circumstances, quite a community spirit grew up among the people in the ghetto. In 1942 he was taken to Auschwitz on a cattle train; his brother escaped. Upon arriving, the survivors were undressed: the left line went to the crematorium, the right line to a work camp. At the work camp they were beaten if their work was not satisfactory. There was always the bitter cold and constant hunger. Many prisoners went totally crazy. Patton's army liberated them. Kolender joined the U.S. Army in 1950. "People should know what happened. By education, we could avoid it happening again: this abuse of people." He doesn't know if he can forgive; cannot forget!

V77196—Renee Kolender (69 min.)

Born near Warsaw in 1922, Renee Kolender experienced a good childhood until war broke out, ending school, ending everything. Children were taken from the streets to work each day. Her family was trapped in the ghetto. They stayed there for two years, always battling starvation. Eventually the family was transported to a concentration camp in 1943 and her brother and father were taken away. "If you looked tired, you would be killed." Father was killed; mother died. On Liberation Day, prisoners didn't know where to go. She went home on a cattle train; it was cold, lonely, freezing, with nobody and no food at home. Some Poles started killing Jews again. It was bad everywhere. Renee came to the U.S. to stay with an uncle in Charleston, S.C. She underwent a tremendous amount of fear, physical abuse, and hunger that's impossible to describe. "I myself don't believe that I went through it and pray to God that things like this could never be allowed to happen again."

V77196—Max Krautler (42 min.)

Born in 1917 in Poland, Max Krautler lived there until the outbreak of the war. He grew up amidst anti-Semitism and rumors of Hitler in the newspaper prior to the war. His family was moved into a ghetto eventually, and they lived in fear everyday. In 1942 when the ghetto was closed, the Germans took away his family and shot his mother and brother. In the concentration camp, he was always afraid and hungry. He lived on only bread and soup each day. Many prisoners became sick and died. They never knew where they'd be sent next. "At Liberation, the Americans moved us to hospitals. I was the only survivor from my family. I was lucky." He decided there was no need to go back home because everything had changed. He came to the U.S. in 1956. "No one could understand the Holocaust; some don't believe it happened. If we understand it, it might not happen again. I like being an American. People don't bother you."

V77196—Claude Hipp (32 min.)

Born in 1923 in Cross Hill, S.C., Claude Hipp was assigned to the Army infantry in North Carolina in 1943. He was shipped to Europe and marched through Camp Orsdorff where 9,000 workers had been beaten and starved. Bodies were piled on top of each other. Camp leaders tried to hide evidence before the Americans got there. "How can men do this to each other?," he thought. General Patton saw these sights, left, and threw up repeatedly. We had never seen anything like it before. "The average German didn't know anything about it; it really didn't happen. That made me mad . . . It did happen. We want to make sure it doesn't happen again."

V77196—Gerald Jablon (39 min.)

Born in Germany in 1906, Gerald Jablon saw anti-Semitism displayed in teachers' attitudes toward Jewish students. He was sent to a work camp to dig ditches; there was no room to sleep. No one knows what happened to his parents. The police came to his house with papers to take him right after Kristellnacht. He eventually escaped to London, then went on to New York, and finally South Carolina. Jablon is now a CPA in Spartanburg. "The Holocaust is something you will never forget: parents disappearing; the stigma of the enemy alien following prisoners around. Happy to have made it to the U.S. Waited to have children until we came here to America."

V77196—Paula Popowski (57 min.)

Paula Popowski was born in Poland in 1923 in a predominantly Jewish city. "I came from a very orthodox family. I didn't socialize with Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles didn't mix in public school." In the late 1930s, bad things started happening to German Jews. Germans came through burning everything in Poland; took Jewish prisoners and kept them in the synagogue. In 1940, they abolished Jewish businesses. There was an outbreak of typhus, and it was difficult to get medical care. There was very little food; they had to share everything. There were rumors of killings and the Germans started taking hostages in the early 1940s. She heard rumors about Auschwitz and people being burned to death. Her message to people—"Whatever religion, or nationality people are, judge them by their deeds; don't generalize."

V77197—Paul Pritcher (25 min.)

Born in Orangeburg County, Paul Pritcher was drafted into the military in 1943. He knew about the concentration camps, but had no firsthand knowledge. He was with the first troops to arrive at Mockhowsen in Austria. They found very few live prisoners. There was evidence of starvation; gassing in mass graves and "shower" rooms. No Nazis remained in camp, and the prisoners had been shipped out also. They found some bodies on the side of the road near the camp. The local people denied knowing anything about the camp. He will never forget what he saw and feels the value of education is limitless.

V77197—Lon Redmon (37 min.)

In April 1945, just before the war's end, Lon Redmon encountered his first concentration camp—Glossenburg. There was no organized resistance against the American soldiers. They easily evacuated the guards. Examining the area, the Americans came upon numerous bodies, some were even still alive. They also found a railroad car run by gravity that went down to a third level where there were ovens. The soldiers brought all the citizens from nearby out of their homes to tour the camp and see what had gone on. They claimed they had heard nothing about it. After the war's end, Redmon commanded a rehabilitation camp of 5,000 North German Jews. The inhabitants of the camp were fed, clothed and evacuated to Australia, the U.S., Israel, wherever they wanted to go.

V77197—Lewis Rossinger (70 min.)

Lewis Rossinger was born in 1938 in Hungary. Anti-Semitism was widespread and bullies in school called him a "dirty Jew." Rossinger was caught by the Gestapo and taken to a railroad station to be deported but he escaped. He became a laborer for one of the Gestapo hotels. He was aware that Jewish people were being moved out in large numbers. "I wouldn't buy a newspaper because lots of Jews got caught buying newspapers." When the war ended, the American Army helped Jews locate their families. Rossinger was placed in a special camp to recover; there was an American hospital next door. When he returned home; everyone was gone—his parents had been killed in a camp. "Can't forgive or forget; still don't trust. Anti-Semitism is a mental disease. Some don't believe in the Holocaust; it needs to be taught in history."

V77197—Nathan Schaeffer (40 min.)

Nathan Schaeffer was born in New York City and was serving in the U.S. Army when following Liberation he was sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The Germans living nearby the camp claimed not to know what had gone on. Yet, the terrible odor of rotting flesh reached for five miles beyond camp. A big, wired fence and machine gun posts surrounded the area. Several hundred bodies were piled on a wagon ready for the furnace. Schaeffer learned that when prisoners couldn't work any longer, they were taken to crematoriums. The U.S. Army tried to feed them. The prisoners' fear of superiors was great. Pictures were printed in U.S. newspapers and there was shock and outrage. "No battlefield smelled or looked as terrifying as a concentration camp. We must record what went on, in textbooks, so that never again in the history of mankind can any group or country or individual deny that there was a Holocaust, or let it happen again."

V77197—Hugo Schiller (50 min.)

Hugo Schiller grew up in Germany in the 1930s, hearing about Hitler. His parents were forced to sell their business. In 1938, his father was arrested. His education in a public school ended when it was decreed that Jewish children couldn't go to public school. He went to a Jewish school; his only friends were there. In 1940 he was deported by train to the first Jewish concentration camp in France. Terror filled the train because people didn't know what to expect. No one had any idea this was a holding camp for the extermination camps to be built in Poland. The inmates were surrounded by barbed wire and a sea of mud. There was little food and disease spread. Everyone asked constantly—"Where will we end up? We often felt guilty when we made it and others didn't." Schiller's parents were gassed in Auschwitz. He arrived in the U.S. and for the first time in a long time was able to sleep at night in complete safety. "The Holocaust exists in the public mind as long as there are survivors. These interviews are crucial so that there is recorded evidence even when survivors die," says Schiller.

V77197—Ethel Stafford (32 min.)

Born in New York, Ethel Stafford graduated from nurses' training in 1944, went in the Army, and was transferred to Europe. She didn't know what was happening to Jews. The medical staff she was with came in and took over Guadelupe Camp and took German prisoners into the hospital. It was so incredibly inhumane. Bodies burned from the waist down. The guards had set fire to a straw-floored building burning 1000 people alive. The stench was terrible. They brought the German townspeople to the site to bury each body in an individual grave. All denied any knowledge of what was going on. She couldn't believe that people could do this to other human beings. "We must learn to respect the person, not the status, and be kinder," she says.

V77197—Bob Turner (47 min.)

This West Columbia native was drafted in 1945 and sent to Germany. The soldiers he was with discovered the remnants of a concentration camp which Germans had just left. They saw the bodies of people who had been shot probably only an hour earlier. They were ragged looking, lying in fresh blood, in a dusty courtyard. No one remained. There were other bodies stacked like cordwood; apparently starved and gassed. The gas chamber was a huge, steel chamber with its doors open. The mayor got villagers to remove bodies from the smoke house and bury them; the people seemed unaware of conditions here on the outskirts of village. Turner was so glad to return home. He didn't tell anyone about what he had seen in the camp. But the memories haunted him. The Holocaust did exist; he saw it firsthand; it was not propaganda. He can't imagine how people could do this to each other. "Our own prisoners were treated well. . . We don't make a big deal out of discussing the Holocaust; we're glad not to be there now. We must never forget it."

V77197—Henry Allen (36 min.)

The Horry County native was sent to Fort Bragg, N.C. and then to Europe in 1945. In April 1945 at Orsdorf Death Camp, he saw stacks of dead bodies and those left alive suffering from acute malnutrition. At Mulhausen Concentration Camp in Austria, he found wagons full of bodies stacked like cordwood; a gas chamber lined with shower stalls; a crematorium. Those still alive were malnourished to the point of little communication. The soldiers secured Pershing Airfield in Austria and moved prisoners into barracks that had been converted into hospitals. Thousands came in; hundreds died from malnutrition. Many talked about their camp experiences. He feels we need to encourage children to finish school and to get involved in politics in order to prevent ever having a dictator like Hitler again.

V77198—Rudy Herz (234 min.)

Born in Cologne, Germany, in 1925, Rudy Herz heard of Hitler in school when, in 1935, textbooks took on a Germanic nationalistic slant, the Swastika flag was flown, and Jews lost privileges. His family was moved to a Jewish ghetto; the living conditions were horrible. Finally, the Herz family was sent to Auschwitz in sealed cattle cars. Some relatives never resurfaced. The conditions in the camp were desperate—surrounded by guards, people were starving, slowly being destroyed by inhuman work or the crematorium. There was no greenery, no life, no dignity. Germans told Jewish prisoners that before it was over, they would die. "Americans don't know what it's like to starve for years," Herz says. He lived with the constant sound of screams. In 1945 the prisoners were liberated and told, "You are free; the Americans are behind you." He was reunited with his brother and settled in Myrtle Beach. His experiences still haunt him. "I have survivors' guilt; my soul stays in a crematorium with victims at Auschwitz."

V77198—Cela Miller (60 min.)

Cela Miller grew up in Poland during the 1920s. When the war started, the Germans burned towns and homes; removed priests, professors, and Jews. Those who turned in Jews got a kilogram of sugar. She hid in a closet in a village home. Eventually Cela and her family were sent to concentration camps sustained only by bread and soup. Prisoners' names were called, and one never saw them again. People went crazy and died like flies. One never knew if the shower would render water or gas. Her parents were sent to the crematorium. She also lost her brother. Cela was hospitalized, then sent to a Displaced Persons Camp from 1945-49. "We were the first survivors to come to Columbia, S.C. We should appreciate the U.S. Thanks to S.C. ETV for preserving this on tape. The world mustn't forget the persecutions of World War II. Hopefully it will never happen again. Hard to believe that Hitler could bring a nation to do this to millions of people."

V70544—Helen Goldkin (60 min.)

Helen Goldkin was born in 1928 in Czechoslovakia. When the Germans invaded, Jews were taken to a ghetto. Old Jewish men were beaten and their beards removed. Jews of all ages were packed into locked cattle cars and sent to concentration camps. When we arrived at Auschwitz, "I asked, 'Where's my mother, my little brother, my grandmother?'" Nobody knew. "We were told to undress. They shaved our heads. We were locked in barracks. Through the cracks in the barracks' walls, we saw people hanging on wire fences outside, dead from electrocution." Some of the inmates lost their minds. "You lived with the smell of dead people," says Helen. She was reunited with her sister at Liberation. She wouldn't talk about her experiences for a long time in order to spare her children. She had nightmares and would wake up screaming. "Every person on earth should examine what happened in the Holocaust; it should never happen again. It needs to be gotten across to the world that this cruelty has been done."