TITLE-Frieda Tenenbaum Grayzel DATE-January 17, 1991 ...€¦ · was not a twin. MINUTES 00:00...

TITLE-Frieda Tenenbaum Grayzel DATE-January 17, 1991 SOURCE-One Generation After, Boston, MA. RESTRICTIONS- SOUND QUALITY-good IMAGE QUALITY-good DURATION-2 hours, 35 minutes LANGUAGES- KEY SEGMENT- GEOGRAPHIC NAME- PERSONAL NAME- CORPORATE NAME- KEY WORDS- NOTES-Summary from unauthenticated transcript. All information from interviewee, without correction. CONTENTS-Mrs. Grayzel is both a survivor and a child of survivors and one of the few children to have survived Auschwitz. She and her mother were filmed by the Russians after the liberation of Auschwitz, in the famous film clip where the twins were walked through the rows of barbed wire. She was not a twin. MINUTES 00:00 Interviewed by Ellen Collins. Frieda lived in Tomasov but was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1934. 00:01She lived in Tomasov which was a nice,

medium-sized town of about 45,000 people. About a third of the people were Jewish.

00:02It was a pleasant town with nice houses, streets and parks. It was a very close community and she lived near other relatives. She had 2 grandparents on her father's side and one maternal grandmother, and other relatives.

00:03The family had been in the town for many generations. The name Tanenbaum indicates some German ancestry. 00:04 Her mother's father had a German library. He was very learned. Both sides of the family were Orthodox. 00:05 Her mother's father had had a grocery. Frieda's mother

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was 5 when World War I broke out. In that war her mother's family lost everything. After that her father became a candlemaker until his death from cancer. 00:06 Mother became a major contributor to the family income. She worked and was not able to finish school. She became a dressmaker. 00:07 Her mother had 7 sisters and 5 brothers (Frieda's grandfather had had 3 wives) for a total of 13 children. 00:08 The grandfather lost 2 wives and then married Frieda's grandmother. They had 8 daughters. Frieda's father also had a big family. Some of his


siblings left for the US and Argentina before the war. 00:09 Her father, grandparents and some siblings remained in Poland. Frieda's uncles (her mother's brothers) had all died before the war. Frieda was 5 years old when the war started. 00:10 She was 8 when many of her relatives were killed. At age 5 she was never allowed out of the house by herself. 00:11 She is not sure if it was because of anti-Semitism or if her parents were just over protective. There were many anti-Semitic instances. 00:12 Frieda's father was a tailor. Members of his family were weavers and this was a textile town but her father wanted to be a tailor. He went to Paris for a few years to improve his skills. 00:13 Going to Paris was difficult and adventurous. People went and sought help from Parisian Jews. Her parents met at a dance where her mother worked the buffet (she was in mourning for her father). 00:14 After he came back from Paris they got married. Her mother's older brother talked the newlyweds into staying in Poland. 00:15 His family opposed the match. They were married 57 years. They opposed the match because they considered him a catch and the bride was poor. 00:16 Frieda's mother grew up in a house without running water or a well. She had to get water from other people's wells. She worked hard to help her family. 00:17 Frieda remembers her grandmother's house. Her grandmother was loving and her home was spotless. She remembers Passover Seders at Grandmother's until the war broke out. 00:18 Her grandmother used to do laundry at a huge wooden tub. Her grandmother often had pennies for her. 00:19 There were wood floors at her grandmother's house. She lived on the first floor of a 2-story house near a fruit orchard. There was a kitchen area curtained off from the family room. 00:20 There was a carved bed and wardrobe in the bedroom at her grandmother's house. The children slept on cots. 00:21 Some of her aunts were still alive. She had a sister born one week after the war started. She lived 4 years and was killed. 00:22 Her paternal grandparents were Hershel and Rayzel Tanenbaum. Their children were


Hela, Eva and her father and (aunt) Hinda with her two children (one survived). Hinda died in 1954 of cancer. 00:23 Her aunt Eva survived and remarried after the war. Her maternal grandparents were Shalom and Dobra Basheca (ph), and their chldren; 00:24 Bela, Fela, her mother, Genya (died), Manya,


Princha, and Slascha (ph). 00:25 Manya married in the ghetto. Her husband and Frieda's father were friends during the war. Some of her cousins she did not know; Bella had 2 kids, Genya had 2 kids. Other relatives died. 00:26 Other pre-War memories; Passover dinners, her last birthday party, when she turned 5; family visits and the presents she received, including books. 00:27 All her presents were later taken away. She remembers walks in the park and her family's apartment. Her father's workshop was at one end of the apartment and her mother's was at the other. 00:28 Some of the people who worked for her parents survived. Her parents worked hard six days a week. 00:29 Work on Sundays was clandestine and her father sometimes paid off Polish police that came to check them on Sundays. Her parents were frugal and they saved so they had resources even during the war. 00:30 Her parents sewed diamonds into the hem of her coat when she was sent from the ghetto to camp. This was to help her in case of emergencies. This was even after most of the valuables had already gone to the Nazis. 00:31 Her first memories of the war...it was a warm day. She came home and found it crowded with people who told her the war had begun. 00:32 She asked what was war? She came home from school and heard that the bombing had already started. The family fled to Warsaw in the hope that Warsaw would defend itself. 00:33 The roads were jammed and people panicked. Her father was conscripted and ordered to march east. 00:34 They were left without men. When Frieda's mother went into labor she went to the hospital. She was strapped to a labor table and the staff fled to the shelters. 00:35 Frieda remembers visiting the hospital and staying in a stairway during a bombing raid. She remembers blackout procedures. Soon there was no electricity or water. They lived on rice, cinnamon, and sugar. 00:36 There were long lines for water and bread. Only once during the 4 weeks of the battle for Warsaw, did they have fresh bread. 00:37 They got lice. Later, when she returned to Tomasov she had to have her hair cut. There was shattered


glass everywhere. Her mother was nursing the new baby and the family worried that she was not drinking milk. 00:38 One day she got what was supposed to be milk, but it was lime water and she got ill. Her father left his army group and returned. 00:39 She traveled back to Tomasov. The town itself was unscathed. There had been no resistance. There was food.


00:40 They started the war in the worst place to be; Warsaw. Later all of Poland was bad. There were shootings and people were sent to camps. 00:41 There were humiliations; beards were cut and religious Jews tried to hide their beards in their coat collars. Her parents tried to protect her from these sights. 00:42 The Jews were moved into a ghetto and ultimately there were several families living together in a room. the ghetto started in 1941. 00:43 She helped her family move their belongings. Her family was able to trade an apartment from inside the ghetto, by trading with a Gentile family that lived in the ghetto that had to move out. Her parents also managed to sell some furniture, and that was unusual. 00:44 She thinks people just had to find their own ghetto apartments. 00:45 Her ghetto apartment is much less clear in her mind; maybe because there was so much fear or maybe because there were so many people living there among the partitions. 00:46 She shared a bedroom with her parents and sister. The light in the kitchen burned off a substitute for oil. 00:47 This oil substitute was foul smelling but there was no other light. The extended family lived together. 95% of the townspeople were evacuated. 00:48 The Nazis were trying to retain the fiction of resettlement. On November 17, 1942, most of the town was sent to Treblinka. 00:49 The evacuation took 2 days. People were ordered not to carry much and to walk 5 people abreast, along a designated route. She wore many layers of clothes and they left at 3 or 4 a.m. 00:50 The selection point was the Church, Churchyard and the surrounding graveyard. Guards with dogs kept order en route. 00:51 Identity cards were checked. Some work cards were recognized. Her uncle had a card and he tried to save as much of the family as possible. 00:52 The rest of the family was not saved. 00:53 At the time people did not know, or did not want to believe what was happening. Some people had survived by jumping off the train and had returned to tell what was happening, but nobody wanted to believe them. 00:54 She and


her family went home. The ghetto was made smaller. Some 500 to a thousand people were left. There had been about 15,000 before. 00:55 Several German workshops granted exempt ID cards; tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, and those that worked for the German war effort. Others were sent to work collecting the belongings of those that


were sent to Treblinka. 00:56 Possessions were sorted and cleaned and useable goods were sent to Germany. She was sent to sort laundry. 00:57 It was still allowed for her, as a child, to sneak off and play. She would sneak to a warehouse and see where the prettier china, etc, was stored. 00:58 She worked on the 2nd floor and she saw an enormous mound of broken crockery. Chipped china would not be sent to Germany. 00:59 She has a few memories of her sister from this time. When her sister was taken away she knew her sister would die. 01:00 (pause) 01:01 Her mother did laundry. She did not see her father's workplace. Movement in certain areas was tightly controlled. Food was already a problem once they got to the ghetto. 01:02 Medical care was limited. She had measles with an ear infection and was put in a make-shift hospital and given lots of soup. 01:03 Potatoes were frozen and inedible but they had no choice. Food, heat, light and clothing were all problems. It was to get worse in labor and concentration camps. 01:04 This lasted some months. The small ghetto was liquidated and they were sent to a labor camp; Bielshen (ph). They worked to support the war effort. 01:05 Men and women were separated and they lived in barracks. Movement was very restricted and men and women could only communicate occasionally. 01:06 Food was more scarce and they were cold. People sold possessions for food. Her parents clandestinely made clothes to trade with the Poles. 01:07 Ukranian guards were bribed and the inmates and Poles exchanged goods and food. This happened daily but if you were caught you could be beaten. 01:08 There was an appell (rollcall) twice a day. If the numbers did not tally there would be repercussions. Sometimes they stood for hours and suffered frostbite. 01:09 Even as a child she knew she had to stand for hours. Children learned what they had to do to survive and there were other kids there too. Her sister was 4 then and she got sick with diptheria. 01:10 She was recovering. The Germans had an order to collect all the children and the elderly


and the hospital was cleaned out. Someone took her hand and took her to the tailor shop. 01:11 She was hidden on a shelf under a pile of uniforms. Later someone came and got her out. Her mother tried to save the baby. Then she tried to go with her baby but the Germans would not let her.


01:12 Frieda returned to Poland recently and went back to where the camp had been. There was a man in the village and he showed them the location. 01:13 The camp gate was still there. A woman was there who said she remembers the day the Nazis took the children and the elderly because she heard the screams. 01:14 The daily routine at the camp; the prisoners went out to get water to wash, but not in winter, and then there was an appell. 01:15 After the children were taken she was registered as an adult and a worker. She had to make the adult quota. She worked on new camouflage uniforms. 01:16 One side was green camouflage and the other side was white. She could not fill her quota so her parents helped her. She also did buttonholes. 01:17 They were in the workshop all day. There was some cooking in the evening in the barracks. There was appell again in the evening. For punishment people's bottoms would be beaten. There would also be hanging and shootings, especially for escape attempts. Sometimes there would be beatings and then the person would be shot. 01:18 The camp was run by Jewish Kapos; some were more brutal and some were kinder. They knew she was a child. (It was an open secret.) 01:19 There was a typhus epidemic and everyone was sick, and many died. There was no medication and little food. She was put on the floor in the hospital barrack. 01:20 The course of the illness included delirium and hallucinations even after the worst was over and survival was fairly certain. She helped care for her aunts and she got sick too. People could not keep clean. 01:21 People had lice and there were rats in the barracks that bit the people in their sleep. A rat attacked her. Everyone had to leave the barrack for disinfection and delousing. 01:22 One of the Kapos was especially mean. Her father gave a widow some water and the Kapo said not to do that. They argued and shortly after that her father and her uncles were sent to other camps. 01:23 There were still some cousins in the camp. The cousins helped by trading with the Poles. The men did most of the trading. 01:24 In the summer of 1944,


after a year in this camp, they were shipped to Auschwitz. Prior to that food was so scarce that people starved. She herself had malnutrition sores that periodically appeared at different parts of her body. 01:25 There was no medical care except at an infirmary. One of the doctors in the infirmary was especially gentle in taking off the papar bandages that were


used to protect the oozing sores. 01:26 The cattle cars were crowded with little room to sit and with straw on the floor. There were 2 small windows too high for anyone to comfortably see out of. 01:27 This was in July and it was stuffy. People fainted and died over the days of traveling. 01:28 They arrived to a reception of guards and dogs and the people had to jump off the cars. It was several feet down from the cars and it was hard since the people had not moved in days. 01:29 Some people had their heads shaved and all were undressed. They were taken to showers and then they were told to grab clothes and shoes from a pile of odds and ends. 01:30 Her hair had already been cut short before she got there, so her head was not shaved. By then it was night. They had to walk along the railroad tracks. There hadn't been a selection. The air smelled funny and they had no idea where they were. 01:31 They arrived at a camp that had enormous floodlights. They had to walk single file through stands occupied by women who tattooed them. Her tattoo was small and neatly lettered and she felt the lady that did the work was trying to be kind. 01:32 They were in Birkenau. B-II-B section of the camp. The barracks had 3 layers of wooden bunks and people slept "sardine-style." 01:33 Thin, straw-filled sacks covered the bunks. They had appell morning and evening. She arrived in summer and by September the rains began. 01:34 There was mud several inches thick. It was getting cold and her dress was not warm enough. Her shoes were ruined by the mud. 01:35 She got new shoes that were mismatched and one was too small and caused her pain. The food was bad; the soup was dark water with potato peels and the food was like animal fodder. 01:36 The food smelled so bad she could not eat it. Her mother traded her bread for Frieda's soup. Her mother ate soup and Frieda ate bread only. 01:37 Her mother would try anything to get extra food for her. She was a runner smuggling extra food from the kitchen to the barrack. This was very dangerous. 01:38 Her mother found a towel and a needle and she unraveled


the towel and used the material to make bras to exchange for food. It was dangerous. 01:39 There were several children in the barrack. There were no selections when they arrived because they had come from a labor camp. 01:40 The only other children there were the twins that Dr. Mengele used in his experiments. The mother of one of the other children in the barrack was able


to persuade the Kapo to let the mothers clean the barrack during appell. 01:41 F.K.L. (Initials stand for the Women's Concentration Camp in German) was part of Birkenau but a different camp altogether. There was a selection and all able-bodied people were taken out but she was sent to the left. 01:42 Her mother came to join her over the objection of the guard. Other aunts were sent to labor camps in Germany but she, her mother and 2 other female relatives remained. 01:43 They stood by the gas chambers for hours and then were sent back to the barracks. For some reason they were not gassed. Perhaps it was because prisoners had blown up other gas chambers. 01:44 They knew they were near the gas chamber. They had also known about the explosions. They had enough food that first night because the Germans never knew how many prisoners would be there and on that night there was extra soup. 01:45 They stayed in the gas chamber barracks. Her mother met a former friend who had been in Auschwitz since 1941 (the Germans did not know this friend was a Jew). This friend got papers for all of them to work in the hospital. 01:46 Her mother and aunt were approached by an SS woman and asked if the mothers wanted to save the girls. They were taken to the children's barrack with the twins. 01:47 They did not have to go to appeall and were counted in the barracks. Older twins were neot treated as well as younger twins. She was put to work keeping the barrack clean. 01:48 There was a brick chimney that ran the length of the barrack and it was her job to keep it, and the barracks in general, clean and spruced up. Sometimes the staff would play with the children. 01:49 Every day some twins were taken away for experiments. They returned bandaged and traumatized. There was not enough food. Once she was offered milk by a child that had TB and she was afraid to take it. 01:50 She did not get TB but her cousin did. They had to sleep separately under blankets with holes. They were not allowed to sleep in their clothes, which might have kept them warmer, but had to keep their clothes under their pillows. 01:51 Her mother sometimes came near


to say hello. One day all the children were transferred to the Gypsy camp (after the Gypsies had been killed). Then they were taken to another children's barrack. 01:52 There were lots of kids in the big, dark, cold barrack. Later her mother was also transferred to the same part of the camp and they were reunited.


Her mother wanted her out of the children's barrack and in the hospital. 01:53 She developed a fever and was taken to a hospital barrack, but not where her mother was. Her mother got her transferred. This was in December. 01:54 Her mother was working to get extra things for her. They could hear shooting but meanwhile, people were dying of starvation. They were in Auschwitz about 5 or 6 months by then. 01:55 That was a long time to be in Auschwitz. The camp was being evacuated and prisoners were being moved to Germany. There were rumors about what would happen if they stayed behind. 01:56 It was a quarter mile from the barracks to the gate and she could barely manage to walk that distance. They knew they could not walk very far. 01:57 "For you the Heavenly wagon will come" was what a guard said to them, and he would not let them leave. After the evacuation there were no guards anywhere in the camp. 01:58 There was no electricity in the fence. Some women ran to the warehouses for food and supplies. They got some sweaters which they used also as stockings. 01:59 There was the sound of shooting. One day a jeep came in and ordered all Jews to fall out. Some women ran to the woods. She tried to run to the Polish women's barracks but they were not allowed in. 02:00 They thought they might hide in a snowy ditch. That would not work. They hid in a deserted barrack under bunk boards. They crawled out at night. 02:01 Many of the Jewish women were shot but some came back to the camp after the guards deserted them. The shooting got closer. Suddenly the Russians were there and trying to feed everyone. The Russians cried when they saw the condition of the people there. 02:02 Then the Red Cross came. They were taken to Auschwitz, Lager I, to stay in more substantial barracks. When they got papers and regained some of their strength, they went to Crakow where they stayedin a homeless shelter. 02:03 They stayed there for about a week while they waited for a chance to go to their home town. Trains were crowded. One time her mother was recognized as a Jew and was pushed


off the train. 02:04 She was reunited with her mother later. There was a Jewish man who had survived the war in hiding. He took them in and his apartment was a central meeting place for survivors. 02:05 Some more survivors came back. They shared their stories and she could not stand it anymore. Her


mother found a tutor for her and her cousin to help them catch up on the 5 years of school they missed. 02:06 One day in July, her father and uncle returned. The men had hitched and walked from Austria and the trip had taken them over a month. END TAPE ONE START TAPE TWO 02:07 (review from end of tape one) In September she and her cousin started school, entering the 5th grade. They were among the best students in the class. 02:08 They could not go outside at recess because of anti-Semitism. Also, they had to be released from school early to avoid anti-Semitic abuse. The adults did not want to stay there. 02:09 A communist government had already been established. The family packed one big suitcase and traveled to a border town and smuggled across to East Germany. 02:10 Her parents paid so they drove across the border. They paid a Russian officer to smuggle them over the border. They got to the American zone and then to a DP camp. 02:11 They were in a couple of camps, including Feldafing and Eidenheim (ph). They waited for visa approval. 02:12 They were finally allowed into the US and they settled in New York where Frieda attended high school, college, and graduate school before moving to Boston. 02:13 They had heard of Russians raping women but they did not see it, perhaps because the Russians were distraught by what they found in Auschwitz. 02:14 Social networks included the immediate family, then extended family, and then landsmen. If none of these were available, people made new links. 02:15 Her mother helped a 17 year old girl from Belgium who was alone. Her mother also helped care for the children in Auschwitz. 02:16 She is one of the children in the famous Russian film clip that shows the twins marching between the barbed wires in Auschwitz (Lager I). The Russians asked her to wear the striped uniform though she had worn regular clothes during the war. Her mother is also in the film. She is holding a child. 02:17 She gained weight very quickly after she began eating. At war's end she had rickets and bowed legs, but she recovered quickly. Her cousin had TB. 02:18 Her relatives were in the same DP camp. Her


parents were the first to leave Poland and then the others followed. 02:19 She now has 3 children and she told them her story when they were old enough to deal with the information. Perhaps waiting was not the right


choice. 02:20 There was no was to avoid repercussions in the family. Frieda is impressed by how long the effects persevere and how they will be passed to the 3rd generation and beyond. 02:21 Her children, like other children of survivors, are dealing with the effects. The effects on her are so numerous and profound. 02:22 It had been assumed that children forget, but that was not true. Some of the children that survived tried to forget and be "normal." 02:23 This only works for a while and that helps so children can get on with the tasks and learning they must do. Children do not forget. 02:24 Frieda is still working out the physical and emotional effects of the war. Now we know more about Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. 02:25 In her time this information was unavailable and many people tried to avoid dealing with survivors. Some tried to help but did not know what to do. 02:26 In reference to the Gulf War, she said that now people are concerned with children's anxieties about the war. 02:27 After World War II, there was still much anti- Semitism and many survivors were met with hostility. 02:28 Even now there is tremendous anti-Semitism is Poland even though there are essentially no Jews left in Poland. 02:29 (preparation to show photos) 02:30 A photo a Frieda, age 4, with her aunt. Her uncle carried the photo in his shoe and this is the only surviving photo they had from before the war. 02:31 Other photos were from relatives outside of Europe. There is a photo of her father with his parents and sisters from before the war. 02:32 There is a post-war photo of Frieda with her mother back in their home town. 02:33 02:34 A friend of her mother's had gone to Palestine and had come back to visit in 1938. The photo is of Frieda with the child of this friend. 02:35She has a photo of herself with her mother

taken after the war and also a baby picture of herself.

END


TITLE-Frieda Tenenbaum Grayzel DATE-January 17, 1991 ...€¦ · was not a twin. MINUTES 00:00...

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Transcript of TITLE-Frieda Tenenbaum Grayzel DATE-January 17, 1991 ...€¦ · was not a twin. MINUTES 00:00...