First Person Podcast

David Bayer discusses life in his hometown of Kozienice after the German invasion of Poland in September, 1939. Shortly after the invasion David and his family were harassed, humiliated, and subjected to acts of violence by the German occupiers and their collaborators.

Susan Taube discusses her deportation from Berlin to the ghetto in Riga, Latvia, and the days immediately following. She was deported in January, 1942, along with her mother, sister, and grandmother.

Morris Rosen discusses his evacuation and forced march on foot in February 1945 from a subcamp of the Gross Rosen concentration camp in Poland to the Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia. In an effort to cover up their crimes and prevent prisoners from falling into enemy hands, Nazi officials evacuated prisoners from camp to camp in what became known as "death marches."

Esther Starobin and her three sisters left Germany for Great Britain in 1939 as part of a special rescue of Jewish children known as the Kindertransport, or children’s transport. In this episode, Esther discusses how she learned the fate of her parents and brother who remained in Germany after she and her sisters had left.

Manya Friedman discusses her evacuation from Gleiwitz, a subcamp of Auschwitz, to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in January 1945. In an effort to cover up their crimes and prevent prisoners from falling into enemy hands, the Nazis evacuated prisoners in what became known as death marches.

In today’s episode Gerald Liebenau discusses his memories of Kristallnacht, also known as the “Night of Broken Glass.” On November 9-10, 1938, a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms erupted around Germany, leaving Jewish owned businesses and synagogues plundered and destroyed.

Freddie Traum discusses life as a refugee in Great Britain during World War II. Freddie and his sister were sent from their home in Austria to England as part of the Kindertransport, the special transport that brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940. Freddie initially lived with a family in London but was evacuated to the countryside, along with other Londoners, when Great Britain declared war on Germany in September of 1939.

Charlene Schiff discusses her and her mother’s escape in 1942 from the Horochow ghetto in Poland. Soon after their escape, Charlene was separated from her mother. She spent the rest of the war looking for her mother and hiding for her life in the forests.

Gideon discusses the time he spent hiding with a Catholic Slovak family. After his mother and sister perished in a German attack at Banska Bystrica, Gideon was rescued by the Slovak partisans and placed with the Strycharszyk family, who went to great lengths to hide and protect him.

Nesse Godin discusses the day her father was rounded up and deported with a group of others in the Siauliai ghetto, in Lithuania. Nesse never saw him again.

Inge Katzenstein discusses fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and finding refuge along with her family in Kenya, where they remained during the war.

Martin Weiss discusses his deportation in May 1944 from the ghetto in Munkacs, then part of Hungary, and his arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center.

In December 1944, as the Soviet army approached the slave labor camp in Poland where Leon Merrick was imprisoned, the Germans evacuated him to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Leon shares his recollections of the evacuation and his first day in Buchenwald.

Marcel Drimer, his sister, and mother hid in a wheat field while a German aktion—a violent operation against Jewish civilians— occurred in their town of Drohobycz, Poland, in August 1942.

Herman Taube discusses his love of poetry and how he began writing it as a young boy in Lodz, Poland, before World War II.

Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener discusses his experience during Kristallnacht, known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” on November 9–10, 1938. He was arrested and his mother was murdered as a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms swept across Germany.

Halina Peabody discusses living in Jaroslaw, Poland, under false papers identifying her as a Catholic. A local woman took Halina and her mother and sister in and gave them a place to live, while never suspecting they were Jews hiding as Catholics.

Erika Eckstut discusses the difficulties and dangers of life in the Czernowitz ghetto in what was then Romania (and today is western Ukraine). Erika was an adventurous teenager and her father went to great lengths to protect her and maintain her education.

Leon Merrick's job delivering mail in the Lodz ghetto became all the more difficult over time as Nazi deportations to the extermination camps increased and he was often given the task of delivering notices for deportation.

Louise Lawrence-Israëls shares memories from her early childhood spent hiding in Amsterdam. In 1942, six-month-old Louise and her family went into hiding on the fourth floor of a rowhouse, where they remained until the end of the war in 1945.