READ THEIR STORIES

Biro, Peter

Peter Brauer (Biro) was born in 1895 in Heviz Gyor, Hungary. His profession was as a cattle merchant. In feudal Hungary, the aristocrats, who owned most of the land, were ...
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Biro, Sarah

Sarah Weinstein was born in 1907 in Budapest, Hungary. She married Sandor Schaechner in 1927, and they had two children, Tibor and Magda. In 1941, her parents and two of ...
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Bowman, Olga

Olga (Steinberger) Bowman was born on April 8, 1927 in Pacin, Hungary. She had two brothers and one sister. Her parents owned a beer garden business which was taken away ...
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Burstein, Hannah

Hannah Burstein was born on January 8, 1922 in Tarnow, Poland. She had four brothers and one sister. Of her immediate family, only she, her sister, and one brother survived ...
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Dula, Julius

Julius Dula, son of Samuel Dula and Hanna Grunberger, was born in Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1904. Throughout his youth, Julius worked in the hardware and construction business. In the ...
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Dula, Ruth Blaugrund

Ruth Blaugrund Dula was born in Czechoslovakia on September 27, 1913 to Mordechai and Hanna Blaugrund, two dedicated farmers whose family worked the land for several generations. Ruth had four ...
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Dula, Thomas

Thomas Dula was born in Michalovce, Czechoslovakia on March 19, 1944 to Julius and Ruth Dula. Thousands of Czech Jews were being slaughtered as part of Hitler’s Final Solution to ...
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Eger, Albert

Albert Bela Eger was born in 1919 in Presov, Slovakia. In 1940, when the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, Albert was expelled from the University of Prague and drafted into the ...
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Eger, Dr. Edith

Edith Eva Eger was born on September 29, 1927 in Kosice, Slovakia, which came under the rule of Hungary in 1938. Her upbringing included early training in ballet and gymnastics ...
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Frankel, Neftali

Neftali Frankel was born on December 26, 1921 in Tarnow, Poland, the eldest of four children. Neftali was 18 years old when World War II began. Soon after the Nazi ...
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Gladstone, Dr. Larry

Larry Gladstone was born in 1922 in Vysna Kamenica, Slovakia and moved to Munkacs at the age of seven. He was 16 years old when World War II began. In ...
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Gluck, Alex

Aleksander Gluck was born on February 7, 1920 in Visne Reviste, Slovakia. Because of strong anti-Semitism from the Slovaks in his rural community, he dropped out of school at the ...
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Hauptman, Guy

Guy Hauptman was born on April 20, 1939 in Brussels, Belgium to Sara and Nathan Hauptman. When he was four months old, Sara took him to Paris to join Nathan ...
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Hauptman, Monique

Monique Hauptman was born on October 6, 1942 in Brussels, Belgium to Sara and Nathan Hauptman during the German occupation of Belgium. Sara began working for the Belgian resistance making ...
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Hauptman, Nathan

Nathan Hauptman was born on February 7, 1909 in Petrikau, Poland and was the oldest of eight children. At the age of 13, Nathan was sent to Belgium to learn ...
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Hauptman, Sara

Sara (Rozen) Hauptman was born in Laskarzew, Poland in 1918. When she was still an infant, her parents fled the organized attacks on Jews in Poland (pogroms) to more religiously ...
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Haus, Rosa

Rosa Haus, was born Rosa Harry in Poznan, Poland in 1916.  An only child, Rosa was living with her parents when they were forcibly removed from their home and sent ...
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Hochmann, Karl

Karl Fiedler Hochmann was born in 1929 in Chernovtsky, Rumania. He was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. He lost his parents and nine brothers (one ...
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Kahn, Fred

Fred (Godfrey) Kahn was born on May 6, 1913 in Giessen, Germany. In 1933, he and his brother, Rudy, were forced to defend themselves against members of the Hitler Youth ...
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Kallman, Edith

Edith (Gluck) Kallman was born in Visne Reviste, Slovakia in 1924. In 1943, after receiving a warning of impending detention, she and her sister left their home, traveling at night, ...
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Kandel, Ben

Benjamin Kandel was born on January 2, 1915 in Lvov, Poland to Sigi Kandel and Elka Hahn. His father was killed during World War I. Ben moved to Krakow at ...
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Kaplan, David

David Kaplan was born in 1928 in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. When the Russians occupied this area, his father was arrested for being part of the bourgeoisie and sent to Siberia ...
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Kellen, Henry

El Paso Holocaust Museum Founder Henry Kellen (Henriek Kacenelenbogen) was born in Lodz, Poland on July 5, 1915. After graduating high school, Henry furthered his education at a university in ...
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Kellen, Jerry

Jerry Kellen was born Jacob Grinberg on November 27, 1937 in Lodz, Poland. Together with his mother, Sonia, and the rest of their family, Jerry was forced into the Kovno ...
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Kellen, Julia

Julia (Filipovsky) Kellen was born on October 28, 1914 in Kybartai, Lithuania. After the invasion of Lithuania by the German Army in 1941, Julia and her family were forced into ...
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Kessel, Samuel

Samuel Kessel was born in Lithuania on March 10, 1922, the youngest of five children. His father had died shortly before he was born. When World War II broke out, ...
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Klein, Ferenc

Twins Ferenc and Otto Klein were born in 1932 in Hajdúböszörmény, Hungary. The Klein family owned a lumberyard and a cement factory which were established in the 1800s. In April ...
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Klein, Otto

Twins Ferenc and Otto Klein were born in 1932 in Hajdúböszörmény, Hungary. The Klein family owned a lumberyard and a cement factory which were established in the 1800s. In April ...
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Kotkowski, Itzhak

Itzhak Kotkowski was born on December 25, 1921 in Warsaw, Poland. He grew up in the Jewish Quarter or “Old Town,” and his father was an owner of a general ...
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Krugman, Thelma

Thelma (Krueger) Krugman was born on February 14, 1927 in Sowina, Poland. Her family lived there in a small self-supporting farm. They were forcibly evicted by the invading Nazis and ...
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Kupfer, Mark

Mark Kupfer was born in November 1929 in Nowogródek, Poland - the second youngest of nine children. The family ran a dry goods store and drugstore. Following the invasion of ...
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Liebman, Lucie

Lucie Burian Liebman was born in 1927 in Vienna, Austria to parents of Czech nationality. In 1938, after the Anschluss of Austria, Lucie woke up to Nazi flags hanging from ...
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Lipson, Rachel

Rachel (Goodman Bendalin) Lipson was born on April 18, 1910 in Shaudina, Lithuania to Jacob and Chana (Goodman) Bendalin. She lived on and helped run her parents’ farm. She had ...
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Lipson, Sundel

Sundel Lipson was born on February 15, 1906 in Kovno, Lithuania to Mayer and Gitel Lipsches. He had five brothers and one sister. Sundel met and married Rachel Goodman Bendalin, ...
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Mason, Hilde

Hilde Grunebaum was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923 to Julius and Hedwig Seligman Grunebaum. They were a “sophisticated” city family and good German Reform Jews. Hedwig’s birthday was November ...
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Mason, Lee

Of the 600 hundred citizens in the village of Meimbressen, Germany, 70 of them were Jewish. It is now considered a lost community, as not one Jewish family is left ...
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Oppenheim, Irma

Irma (Wertheim) Oppenheim was born in 1924 in Falkenberg, a small community near Kassel, Germany. She had one older sister, Lotte Wertheim. Their father was a successful merchant, but her ...
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Osborne, Irene

Irene Osborne (Ingeborg Eichberg) was born in 1927 in Koblenz, Germany to Josef and Emmy Eichberg. On November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht, their synagogue was destroyed by Nazis. The next ...
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Pergricht, Arlene

Arlene (Grunberger, Shugart) Pergricht was born in 1912 in Budapest, Hungary. She had three brothers and three sisters. Her father was a jeweler. Arlene married in 1942, and in July ...
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Pergricht, Bernard

Bernard Pergricht was born in Sosnowiec, Poland on April 12, 1913. When Poland was taken over by the Nazis, Bernard lost his job at a lumber company when that company ...
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Rose, Eric

Eric (Rosenzweig) Rose was born on February 18, 1914 in Vienna, Austria. Just as conditions for Jews in Vienna were worsening, Eric barely escaped what would have been a certain ...
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Rybak, Nathan

Nathan Rybak was born in 1912 in Radom, Poland. He was the second youngest of eight brothers and sisters. The family lived on a dairy farm and, because the synagogue ...
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Saks, Eric

Eric Saks was born in Vienna, Austria in 1926. When the Nazis took over Austria in 1938, his family went into hiding in Vienna for several months. They escaped to ...
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Schaechner, Agnes

Agnes Klein was born in August 1930 in Debrecen, Hungary to Solomon Klein and Lily Schwartz Klein. She had younger twin brothers, Otto and Ferenc. Her father owned a lumber ...
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Schaechner, Tibor

Tibor Schaechner was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 28, 1928. His father owned a feather and down business, and Tibor and his sister, Magda, enjoyed a comfortable middle class ...
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Schkoll, Mike

Mike (Wolfgang) Schkoll was born to Jakob and Mimi Schkoll on June 5, 1936 in Velbert, Germany. He attended public schools in Germany, but eventually his parents made an effort ...
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Schuller, Rose

Rose Schuller was born in 1920 in Brussels, Belgium. She was hidden by Italian fascists for the duration of the war and married Albert Schuller in 1945. They came to ...
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Schuller, Yvonne

Yvonne (Resler) Schuller was born on November 30, 1915 in Paris, France. When the Nazis occupied Paris in 1941, she was smuggled from her apartment and fled through the forests ...
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Schweitzer, Gertrude

Gertrude Schweitzer was born in Vienna, Austria on August 15, 1914 to Leah and Isaac Burger. She had one brother, Yosef, who was three years older. After the Nazi occupation ...
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Schweitzer, Lee

Lee Schweitzer was born in Vienna, Austria on April 16, 1915. Early on in the Nazi occupation of Austria, he was able to move to Palestine because he had relatives ...
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Shugart, Peter

Peter Shugart was born in July 1942 in Budapest, Hungary. When his mother, Arlene, was pregnant with Peter, his father was arrested and taken to forced labor in Russia. He ...
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Stockl, Ilonka

Ilonka Stockl was born on December 26, 1907 in Berlin, Germany. She married a non-Jewish man, Johann Michael Stockl, in 1923. They had a daughter, Monika, in 1936. When the ...
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Strauss, Juergen

Juergen Strauss was born in Euskirchen, Germany on August 25, 1924 to Oskar and Edith Strauss. He spent most of his childhood in Neuwied, where his father was a partner ...
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Vorenberg, Elizabeth

Elizabeth (Guembel) Vorenberg was born in Worms, Germany on April 6, 1920. She moved to Frankfurt in 1935 to attend one year in a Jewish home economic school, after which ...
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Vorenberg, Fred

Manfred Vorenberg was born in 1922 in Kassel, Germany and then lived in Meimbressen, Germany. In 1936, his parents, wanting to protect him from the escalating persecution by the Nazis, ...
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Weiselman, Lea

Lea (Lola Zegen) Weiselman was born in 1919 in Zamosc, Poland. After the Nazis occupied Poland, Lea and her family left Zamosc and moved to Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Ukraine. From there they ...
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Weiselman, Nathan

Nathan Weiselman was born on April 26, 1914 in Radom, Poland. He was forced into the Radom ghetto in early 1940. He was then transported to Lublin, Poland and then ...
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Weiser, Dr. Eva

Sigmund Weiser was born in 1908 in Kolomyja, Poland. He and his wife, Eva, were citizens of Italy in the 1930s. They had both received doctorates in pharmacy from Italy’s ...
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Weiser, Dr. Sigmund

Sigmund Weiser was born in 1908 in Kolomyja, Poland. He and his wife, Eva, were citizens of Italy in the 1930s. They had both received doctorates in pharmacy from Italy’s ...
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