Document

AMALIE PETRANKER SALSITZ May 15, 1990

Q: Would you tell us your name and where and when you were born?

A My name is Amalie Petranker. Now it's Salsitz. I was born October 21st, 1922 in Munich, Germany, but I was just born there. Why? It was an accident. My mother was visiting there, but I was raised, brought up and till "42 I lived in Stanistlawow (ph) which is now

. It's very much to the southeast of Poland as Landberg (ph). Stanistlawow was considered a big city. It...a large city with inhabitants a hundred thousand. From there forty thousand Jews, forty thousand Ukrainians, and twenty thousand Poles. Before the outbreak of the war, Polish government wanted to Polanize it, so they brought Poles from , from the German border and they settled them in Stanistlawow in order to increase the Polish population. And Stanistlawow, Stanistlawow was a modern city. It became big after the 1st World War, has beautiful parks, boulevards. Had many high schools and each minority its own high school, like the Jews had their Jewish gymnasium. The Ukrainians had Ukrainian gymnasium, and the Germans had a German gymnasium. And naturally we had state gymnasiums and there very few Jews were accepted. It was numerous classes, so means a certain number, only seven percentage of the students. Majority of Jews in Poland, uh in Stanistlawow were progressive. We had a small nucleus of Hasidic (ph) Jews but they lived in this one section which later became ghetto. Uh...

Q: Tell us about your family.

A: My family. My parents were very progressive. My father was a , a Zionist, who believed very much in education. He was very well rounded. He had the Jewish education and he was a graduate of Agriculture School. For him, education was very important. My mother also was a graduate of the uh art (ph) school. This was a German school. Ten years. They have something like this now in Haifa, in Israel. My mother went there. All the subjects were taught in German because most of my mother's family was in Germany, so they wanted her to know. My fath...my father was a modern Jew, and his knowledge, especially in Judaic studies taught him well because he was in lumber business and the Jews didn't like to go with any every case to the court, so they selected like judges, , and my father was selected to be a because he knew the Jewish law and because he was so educated. For him, or Hebrew scholars was just the same. He also had a hobby. He was a painter. And wha...this saved him when he was in the army because when he was in the Austrian army, Jews were just plain soldiers, and actually they used to be even orderlies (ph) to officers. They have to clean their boots. But because of his ability to draw he worked in an office and he printed and drew the announcement proclamations that they needed. My father's family was quite well to do before the 1st World War, but after the war, when they were burned out, they had lumber business. Uh they had uh uh brick factory, and they had an inn, but they lost a lot of money, so what remained is only education and this made a very deep impression on my late father. So having three daughters he said I will try to prepare for them dowry, but I'm not sure if they will be able to take advantage, so my duty is to give them very good education, so at least they will have something to stand, which will sustain them, that he would have foreseen what future would be. My mother was a very easy-going, very sweet woman. She was very young. She was twenty-two only when I was born, and twenty-one when my oldest sister, so she was like one of us. And maybe it's good she was easy- going, because my late father was like a Prussian officer. He didn't have any sons, so he actually treated us like we'll be in the army, like soldiers. He was fair but very demanding, so she in a way protected us. Sometimes when he was strict, she did. He demanded, but now I'm very grateful. At that time it was very hard on us, like for example, we attended private schools. He wanted us to be protected from being called kikes and Jews, so from the kindergarten...we went to a Hebrew kindergarten where all, we spoke only Hebrew...we went to Hebrew school from the first grade to the sixth where all the subjects were taught in Hebrew except History in Polish, then we went...so of course Jewish gymnasium because the language, prevalent language was Polish, but we continued with our Judaic studies, and we were three sisters. My older one was Pepi (ph). I was the middle one and my younger one was Teela (ph) and we were just a year apart, so like first, second, third grade. Second, third and fourth. So we were called inschool _, ; , (laughter) because we were so...just a year apart, you know, and we looked alike. As a matter of fact, I looked...my younger sister looked very much like I. My older...little bit...she was platinum blonde with blue eyes and unfortunately I was the middle and the shortest and the smallest. And I was unhappy because in Europe was accepted to hand-down, so naturally the oldest gave to the middle and the middle to the youngest. In my case, I got stuff from my youngest one, so it wasn't so pleasant for me, so I had to prove myself and there I tried to excel in studies, like not only what we had a lot of work in school. It was very demanding because it was very expensive and unless we performed our parents took us out from the school, would take us out and we would have to learn vocation, but our ambition really was to be...to finish and to cont...to go to medical school, so I remember when it came Sabbath, this was the only day off. Instead we should be off and go with our friends for a walk, so winter time, every Friday night, my father after dinner sat down with us and we had to study with him

, the of the Sages (ph) and also the , the Savior from the Weak (ph), and every Saturday, summer time, . At that time we resented it very much and I resented it very much and being the middle one, I had to show I am the best, so...because I was the smallest one...so uh then we were rewarded. Whoever knew got money, spending money to go to the movies. And God forbid if we didn't know what happened someplace to my older sister, so she was the pride of the spending money, for allowance, which was really a tragedy for her at that time. And you see also not only that we had to read books for school for literature. My father assigned to us books and every Saturday we had to finish by Saturday and discussed. So education was very stressed. My mother was very active like in PTA. We had lunchtime...like every Tuesday she used to serve lunch in gymnasium for us. I was very proud. She was a very pretty woman, on the heavy side with her beautiful smile, very pretty face. Now my father was in lumber business but I think two, three years before the start of of the war, it was nationalized and our part by the government and it was called . Being my father was quite known and prominent in lumber business, the director from Warsaw came and told him, you cannot be director of because you are Jewish, but you will be the vice director, and he nominated as the director, and I mentioned because later on I'll tell you...he was helpful in my survival. As a rule, we were sheltered. We didn't have a lot to do with the Christian population. Actually each minority kept to itself. We didn't have too much problem. Only our problem arose during the holidays or on Sundays, because other schools were closed. Our school was next to a church, so this was a day free for them to throw stones on us. As children I resented it to be singled out. I was hurt.

But this was something we couldn't do. It...even when...it became so bad before the outbreak of the war, that the police advised our custodian...we had an iron gate around our school...to keep it closed, so they shouldn't be able to enter our school yard and to throw stone and to beat us up. In our town, there were some incidents of anti-Semites, especially when there were students came from universities at Christmas time and Easter and they wanted and they liked to beat up the Jews, but we had Jews who were actually very strong physically, the butchers, the uh drivers and later they learned to be prepared and they used to take a two-by-four and fight back. They didn't take it. Now uh we had good relationship with the Ukrainians because they also were minorities. So before the war, they co....they cooperated with the Jews in commerce and in business, like my late father needed for example a loan. He went, he got a loan from Ukrainian bank, but not from the Bellish (ph) uh, Polish bank, from the state bank. I had many friends. We were three daughters. My house always was full with friends, because even if...to each one of us came one friend. My closest friend was Junior (ph) Lawber (ph) and happens that she was named like my mother, Frederika (ph) Junior, and I was named like her mother, because my parents called me Malia (ph) and her mother. We were very close friends and this was through the whole war. And also I was very close to my younger sister. We loved each other so much that when my parents wanted for my sister and to make sure that she would listen, they came to me and they used to joke, what will happen when Malia will get married. With whom will you be, although it was only one-year difference between us, but my older didn't want to bother with us. She went with other friends. And we had beautiful parks. We participated. We used to go to summer camps. Wintertime, the winter vacation. We went skiing. We had pretty normal, happy life. It's true it was not the life of all the Jews in my town. There was a select group, middle and above which could afford it. There were poor Jews. There were Jews who after the mandatory six grades went to learn vocation, to be a seamstress or to be a salesgirl. I would say there are some very poor who just didn't have even money for Sabbath. We had some magnets (ph) like , very very rich who donated planes to the government. Majority barely eked out a living, but was a group like my parents, middle and above, who were quite comfortable. This was un...until the war broke out. In "31, in September, broke out the German war, uh the World War, but we had...

Q: You mean "31...

A: "39. At that time I was not even seventeen years old. First, "39, after a few weeks, we read a proclamation that the Russian army...I think after a week or two...that the Russian army will come for order and safety of the city "till the situation will be cleared and that we should cooperate. So far...when the war broke out we had bombs, bombing and a few Jews were killed. Some buildings were destroyed. But this was at the beginning, in "39, September. The Russians came to our town. They occupied it. It was not for time being like we were told, and we had never dealt with the Communists, with the Russians. We didn't know what to expect. So we wanted to get some feeling, some understanding. So we stopped the soldiers to ask them, to question about the life in Russian. When we questioned them, they told us everything in superlative, so Jews were very skeptical so we, so some just asked and tell me...how about ; . Do you have a lot of

? And they said no, . So we knew it's all uh propaganda and not true. Our life changed drastically. Special the middle-class and the rich or the so-called bourgeois...like my parents were given a special paragraph, paragraph 11 - means we were any moment destined to be shipped to Siberia, and in a way I wish it would happened. Maybe my parents would survive. And also, I was at that time, I graduated from first . | was supposed to go to the second and graduate. So they entered it, and the ten-year system they call it, the class, and the standard of learning and living changed. Like my foreign language was English. This is why I have such an accent even now, because I learned in the gymnasium, but for them learning languages...I mean unless you're in special school, was a bourgeois, so this we had only reading for comprehension where in the third year of my learning English I already had Shakespeare.

Lowered the standard. But the subjects math and physics was a very high standard. But the problem is immediately they developed , with political departments, and each student was called in and specially from the middle class and I was warned, unless you report on your friends, then you'll be expelled or you'll be fined. Always threatened.

And then we saw our schoolmates suddenly taken in by . They had special cars which they took away. This installed fear in us. My father, who was a government high official, was in business, suddenly became a laborer. And I was accepted to institute they call it. They didn't want to take me to the medical school, but they were short in teachers, so they expec...uh accepted me to Institute they call it,

. Means math and physics. After four months, I was called in.

I was told because you cannot get a stipendum (ph) because each student got a stipendum that he could sustain himself and could study. You cannot because you're bourgeois but if you pay us six hundred rubles a month, you can continue. At that time my father earned only two hundred rubles, so naturally it was out for me. Also we lived in fear that any time they will ship us to Siberia. One thing saved us. Where our house, it was actually our condominium, this was assigned each section was assigned to different branch of government. Our section was assigned to rail authorities (ph). Means they could take over any apartment for their workers, officials that they have chosen. Our apartment were assigned to a Russian engineer. When he came to take it over, my sis...my younger sister was present, and when he saw my sister...she was very beautiful and li...little on the heavy side. He said he cannot throw my sister out. He put his name on the door, and my sister saved that apartment at the time. But it was very important, because we didn't have any other address and he lived on this one, so means they couldn't ship us anymore. We were not registered. See my older sister, she got married in "31, with a Pales...Palestinian from my town who came for vacation and met her. He was eleven years her senior. He fell in love with her. They were in a resort and he wanted to marry her. The war broke out, so he gave a choice for my sister and he said, let's get engaged. After the war I will come back. I will marry you. Or if you want, I can marry you and you'll go with me back to Palestine. My sister had chosen to get married. My parents didn't approve. She was only eighteen years old, but she persuaded them being my grandmother and my mother's brother and the whole family who were Germans, lived at that time in Palestine, so she explained she has family there and she's not going just with her husband and they permitted. I'll never forget the day when she left. First of all, we were never separated, and like I explained we were just a year apart and my younger sister, like she would have a premonition. She fainted and blood came out of her nose, like she would have known this was the last time that she sees her. (crying) So my sister left for Palestine and my family was my parents, my younger sister and I. When the Russo (ph) German war broke out in "41 in June, where I worked they gave some Jews pink (ph) , Means permit to evacuate with the Russians. I came home with this, and I presented it to my parents and my late father said, I didn't know that I raised a Communist. You are not leaving the house. You're staying here but if you leave, you cannot come back to us. And my mother said, I went through with the Germans during the 1st World War. They are civilized people. I don't believe the atrocities that we hear. This must be Russian propaganda. We are staying put in the place. So, I was supposed to leave with my boyfriend, Alec (ph) Lamsdorf (ph), whose father was the chief engineer of the railroad authority. Being he was Jewish, he couldn't become so-called . This was the highest official, but he has a special car for himself on the line from my town to the border, so we could have escaped. He proposed, he would take his sister Tricia (ph), who by the way survived, and I would take my sister Teela, and we four will escape if our parents don't want. But my father forbade me. So when the Ru...Russo-German war broke out, first we had for a month the Hungarians. The Hungarian army entered my town, Stanistlawow or . The Hungarians were very were good to us and again, the same story. They were supposed to requisition apartments. Being our apartment was like on the 5th Avenue, ours was supposed to requisition, be requisitioned, and came a Hungarian graf (ph), Count , with his adjutant. This time I saved the situation. He liked me, so he decided he's not going to take it. He stayed in the hotel, but he put his name on our apartment and he started courting me. I was eighteen only.

Flowers, and food was scarce so he ate in our house so we would be able to have meal together. Was even one situation unheard of. Uh they had a spy, a Hungarian young man, extremely handsome, whom they used to draft in England. They had spy uh housekeeper for one very important uh lord or something, and he spied for the Germans. So the count said that he has to invite him too. He'll come to our house, but we should be very careful not to disclose that we are Jews. And he told us about his uh deeds, what he had done and how he worked in Hungary. The Count told my father that he knows that our fate is sealed and it's very set. They are going to kill us. He told my father I cannot save you all, but he would like to save me, so he proposed that I should embrace Christianity and he will marry me and he will smuggle me to Hungary. My father expressed his gratitude and he said as a family he would like to stay together. He appreciates it and in a way he declined it. I couldn't understand it. Not that I loved him but he...[ was impressed. __ ten years old and I remember also the graf used to come with us where the Jews were assigned for slave labor with the army. Among them was Baron Moore (ph) who was his friend before the war. Now he tried to protect him and to help him as much as possible.

So even the Baron Moore talked to my father. Listen, now he's infatuated with your daughter, but you are wise not to let her go. He is the first-born. His mother would not tolerate it, anditmay bea___ unto your daughter. You're very smart, but my father didn't explain to me, so I surprised, asked him why he didn't permit me. He stated the reason that even I understood is right at that time. Meantime, this was...they were shipped to Russia, to fight in Russia, and the Germans entered. At that time, they shipped Russian, uh Hungarian Jews to our town, and when the Germans entered, they kept the Jews on . It was a big mill house uh and they were kept there. When the Germans came, immediately they ordered us to wear the bands with the star, after age I think twelve, and they ordered all the Jews to register. Specially the first to register, they ordered the teachers...the professional people. So the Jewish , which took care of the Jewish life before the war, told them to register, so the Poles should be able to get jobs. They never returned from the meeting where they were called to a meeting. This was the first. Then we all had to register, according to the streets, and we specially from 5th Avenue, from the nice neighborhood, were assigned as cleaning girls to the Gestapo building to scrip, to scrub the floors and the toilets with our hands. We had to wear scrub brushes, pails, and we were assigned. One day when I was assigned there...it was just after a week my sister was assigned, my best friend Junior was assigned to work, and we...when once we came there we had uh __ lady who was German, ethnic German, means born in Poland, and she was the supervisor. One day, a Gestapo man came and he pointed to me and to another girl to step out of the line. The supervisor was once a neighbor of mine, because when we were young, we lived in the German suburbs...was beautiful, out of town and only two Jewish families lived there. Family Sweik (ph) who owned a farm, and me, and we. She knew us by sight because this was at least I would say to "35 so means I was uh twelve, thirteen years old. When he called me out, to step out and this girl...this girl was a refugee from Berlin, Vita Sh , a beautiful girl. She was sure that he wants to kill us, to shoot us so she said that we are good workers, decent workers. We should be left alone. So he slapped her on the face. He didn't know that she's aunt of the two brothers, Mueller (ph) who are, were very sadistic and very big off...high officers in the Gestapo. He thought that she's Polish only. So she advised me not...and he, so he told us to report to the private quarters where they just moved in to clean the apartments there. She advited...advised us not to report to work. She would protect us in order he should forget, because she still didn't trust him what he will do to us. So a few days later, when we reported back, we had to clean the buildings and he spotted me through the window, and he called me in and this Vita Sh . He called me. He started questioning me very nasty and he said he wants me to work, to be responsible for this apartment. I'll never forget the picture of my sister with a group waiting outside and crying because she thought this is the end. At that time I was responsible for cleaning this particu...his apartment and Vita Sh was responsible for cleaning another apartment. Meanwhile responsible because then they sent from the Jewish community, uh from the , other Jewish girls to clean and Jewish women who are wives of the professionals whose husbands were taken away, they're responsible for furnishing the apartment. And my sister still remained in the main building to clean. You know, the Jews from Hungary were sitting there in the coal (ph) yard. They brought them from the mill, from , to the courtyard of the Gestapo, and they were crying. They were hungry. They were tired. They were beaten, with children. They were there. My sister went to work, and they made a sandwich that my parents gave her when she went to work and for me, she dropped through the window for them to eat. A Gestapo officer noticed it, and he brought her down to there. Since then I have never seen her. She started to cry, and there was Ukrainian police, and she told him that her sister is working in the apartment for Gestapo and and was his name, and he should notify me, who can talk that I can do something for her. This is a mistake. Then they take her out. I tried. So there were Gestapo who took me out of the line, he was in charge and when I came crying he told me I should go and the one who was in charge, maybe he will listen to me, and I forgot in the apartment we were told not to wear the armbands.

When he saw me, and I told him, explained the reason of my coming, he said so she's Jewish. So you're Jewish. And he yelled at me...how did you dare to come without a band. I'll shoot you too. Actually the penalty was to be shot if somebody didn't with band.

He let me go...I don't know. The Gestapo, how cruel he was. He kept telling me and his fiance who came to live with him who was from and she took a liking to me, that they took only my sister for labor because it was harvest time and they were short in field hands. After fall, they will release her. So, I came home and I had to bring the news to my mother. Naturally it was a terrible shock and my mother tried to comfort me because I was very close to my sister, and I tried to comfort my mother. My mother was only forty years old and from red hair she had, she became white within a day. And we still believed...we clung to the hope that my sister will come back after the wa...the harvest.

Meantime we saw shooting on the street, random shooting. They took the Jews and to work on the street. They used to catch them, you know, and then to dig ditches or to work at bridges and then sometimes they used to throw them into the river and Russians erected many monuments so they took the Jews to destroy the monuments, and many of them were shot. They didn't come back. This was going on till around, till September, and I still work at that time by this Gestapo. Then we were told that we will have to leave our apartment and to move to a section which was designated as ghetto. This was the poorest section of the Jews. Being...again we lived like on the 5th Avenue, my parents secured immediately an apartment in the future ghetto, and the always optimist Jew that we hoped war will end before we'll have to move. We transferred our furniture there. We still kept only a mattress, the essential thing in ghetto and on...while we lived on 35, with hope that we'll maybe not have to move. Then suddenly, on , October the 12th, we were in our apartment which almost was bare and it was a large apartment.

Only the mattresses and some utensils. We heard terrible commotion and noise. I went out on the balcony and I saw a lot of Gestapo and Ukrainian police. We knew something is brewing, something bad is going...will happen, but neither what really happened. We thought that maybe now they will gather the Jewish men like have done with the Hungarian men that they brought to us, to break us economically so means only the men are in danger. So my mother decided to hide my father in one of the attics. Each condominium, condominium had it's own part of the attic and it's own part in the cellar, so we have hidden my father on the attic. My mother got the key. And after an hour, my mother's cousin who lived...also owned a condominium in this complex came and said look, it's very unsafe to stay in an apartment. Let's all go to the cellar and let's hide there, and this was a house like a facade (ph)...many buildings. She thought it's safe there. I really never disobeyed my mother because we were raised to uh obey our parents. I refused to go with her down to the cellar with the family and other Jewish neighbors.

Only one neighbor, Mrs. Pollack (ph), who was an old lady, seventy-five, something...she had, she had also hidden her husband. She decided to stay with me. My reasoning was they will come in. They will see empty rooms. They will not enter the last room. This is how my reasoning went, and I refused to go. I stayed with her in the, in our apartment.

We heard...we heard cries. We heard noise, but we didn't know from where it's coming.

By noon, my neighbor's son knocked at the door, Rister (ph), and he said your mother would like you very much to come. Please don't be stubborn. Again, the same story. I don't know why I was so stubborn. I can't explain to today. I refused to come down. I didn't. Towards evening it come down...some...Mrs. Pollack and I decided to venture in the hall and to find out what's going on. Our Christian neighbors said, you are here. They took everybody from the cellar. They loaded them on the trucks and they took them to the Jewish cemetery. It was a terrible shock. I didn't know how to act. But I still didn't suspect that this was for killing. This was the first time. So I thought maybe this is the gathering place, so now I have somehow to get my father out and to join my mother.

Finally I managed with the neighbor's help, to get him out. Before we managed to go, my neighbor, Mrs. Reifter (ph), with her husband and children, came . Straight hair pulled down and from her we found out what happened...that they took them to the cemetery. My mother was crying on the truck when she saw the direction, and she said they're taking us to the cemetery to be shot. Why didn't I listen to Malia. My parents called me Malia. At the cemetery...first of all they told them to sit down in rows and they sent Jewish girls, young girls, to pick up all the jewelry. And there was a board and they shot...even if people were killed or not, they fell to the ditch. They collected thirty thousand Jews on this day. My mother was with her cousin and they took my mother's cousin. So the cousin said to my mother, I can't witness this. So my mother said you are right. Let's move closer. We'll be spared to witness the shooting. Let's be shot. She didn't know that when it became dark, the Gestapo announced whoever is alive can go back to his home. But my mother was not there anymore to come home. So this how my sister and my mother were gone. (crying) My father and I remained home. And now they shot fifteen thousand Jews on this day. This was . This was my birthday.

On the Jewish calendar, . Naturally I will never now celebrate on my birthday on the Jew calendar and so immediately from my family, my father and I was left. Now we had to go to the ghetto. For two people we couldn't have an apartment. They assigned ten people per room. My mother had a step-sister. Her name was Clara Hoot (ph).

Actually I would say she was poor. They were not so close, but the goodness and the best was coming out and there were bad times. She lived where the ghetto was supposed to be, so she approached my father and said, you're only two people. Why should you be assigned to strangers? We are five people. We have only a room and a kitchen. We'll take you in. And she was to me like a mother. (crying) Till today, you know, I felt so guilty that we didn't treat them like really aunt should be treated. How good she was, and we stayed with her. Her husband maked tops of the shoes and this was very good because the Germans liked boots so there was a German cobbler who used to bring the materials he should make it. For this he got food, so he was also sustaining us, helping us with food where others were starving. The life in ghetto was just terrible. Many of my schoolmates, rich people, wealthy people...I will never forget the face, for example, from one other

, only child, so spoiled...his father was the head of the Juden (ph), uh Jewish __, not Juden...and laying on the streets swollen. The next day from hunger water came out, and this the picture. You saw, you knew the people starving to death, and you couldn't even share and give them. So my father learned that if he is assigned as a slave laborer out of ghetto, at least he will have the chance to barter clothes for food, whatever...bread was really very hard to get. So with his connections, he was able to get a job on the railroad as as slave worker, and then he tried for me to get a job too, because my father said, being we two are left, let's not ever separate. Let's always be together. Meantime my uncle died in ghetto. My Uncle Dabbie Toot (ph), he died a natural death. His son, Jacob, was taking It's forced labor . His daughter was taken away from the street. She was very beautiful. They collected hundred of beautiful...hundred beautiful Jewish girls. They disappeared. We don't know where. So only my Aunt Clara, her daughter Pepi (ph) who's named like my sister Pepi (ph), and the oldest son who also got the job to make tops for the German cobbler Gross (ph)...1 remember his name...he remained. And one day my father said to me, you know what. We have to escape from ghetto. My father had so-called iron (ph) luck (ph). Spoke Polish well. So he decided that we'll try to get to the Iron side and maybe some of his friends will help us or to or will harbor us, will help us. We didn't think farther, just first to go out. So he dressed himself with few suits. He divided the money that we have. He gave me some few thousand

and we were supposed to go out from ghetto and try our luck. And he said let me go first. If I succeed, then you go. I waited. After five minutes he came back, beaten up by the Ukrainian police. Luckily he had the money, because if not he would be shot, but they took away his suits and the money and they pushed him back to the ghetto. So our escape was foiled. Meantime they will have killings in the ghetto. You know, they assigned the Jews, classified the Jews, just to find excuse for each killing which they call an aktion. First were the children. Then were all the old people. Then were people who were sick, people who couldn't work, so was A, B, C classification. One day we got classification of A - means we don't have to be afraid because we are working, right? One day we saw through the window aktion. Aktion was...there was no secret. Openly, in the ghetto they digged ditches and they shot on the spot, so everybody had seen it. It's not like concentration camp, we didn't have. We didn't have a labor camp. They just had done it first on the Jewish cemetery, but then when there's no room anymore, they had done it in the ghetto, and the ghetto was life, in between the killings, going on semi-normal. We tried. We hoped this is the end, especially when Roosevelt entered the war. We thought we will be saved. Everybody just tried to live another day with the hope that they would survive, and one day...this was before my father obtained for me also uh a labor card that I can work on the railroad...again we heard rumors that there's to be another killing. My cousin Pepi worked in a factory where the mill was on making slippers for the army. Those usually workers were excused from aktion, from killing. My poor Aunt Clara tells me, come with me...we'll be there safe because my father was out. At that time it was safe to be out of ghetto when killing was going on. My other cousin, my cousin was out by the German who lived in , where he made, you know, the boots, so she said to me, come with me. We'll be safe in the factory because they didn't touch before the factories. Again my premonition. I said Aunt Clara, I don't want to go. You have an old house. You have an old hut (ph). Let's hide under where the firewood is kept and let's crawl under this. We'll cover it with the firewood and they will not find us. My Aunt Clara said said you're a child. Listen to me. It's safer there. I refused. I didn't want to go. Again, why? She was so good to me. She was like mother. Why I didn't listen to her... remained. I crawled there. I have hid myself. She went to the factory. On this day they took everybody from the factory. There was no more room for the ditches. This was the first time they shipped them to to be gassed. So only my father, my cousin and I were left in the ghetto. So my father obtained for me a permit to work, a working card to work outside, and he told me if should ever come the time that we'll be separated and we are not in the same transport to be sent to be gassed, let's jump from the death train, cattle cars. What more can happen to us? Let's run for our life, and within three weeks to get in touch with the other part which we means left in the ghetto if we are not in the transport, and get united again. It was in October "42. I had high temperature. I couldn't go to work. My father closed me in the apartment with the lock outside. He went to work. Even...I had high temperature. I was delirious. I heard noises. I knew another killing is going on, so I crawled again in the same space where I have hidden myself before, hoped that my father is safe because he is out of ghetto, yes? And nothing will happen and usually when it was dark they let in the workers from outside, the slave workers in to the ghetto. It's dark. Meantime they came to look in the apartment with the dog, and the Germans said, is here, rouse (ph), and they leaved uh left the apartment. So I was so happy. I said at least my father is safe. When it's dark he will return to the ghetto and we will be united. It's night. My father is not there. So I decided, sick or not sick, I have to go next day to work...you see, because we used to march, and they guarded us with the Ukrainian police to work actually like prisoners, and I'll find out what happened. Before even I came to work, my Christian acquaintance was standing behind the gate of the ghetto and she said, don't look for your father. They took all the Jews from outside to be shipped to be gassed. So I somehow, knowing my father I knew he will do everything not to let himself be shipped to the gas. And meantime what I didn't mention, once when there was such killing and we knew we all had Cate...Category A means we're exempt from shooting, we stayed in apartment. At that time my Aunt Clara was still alive. Her daughter Pepi was alive, my father and I. And the brother opened our apartment. We presented our cards and they said, rouse. They always ignored it. We were fools. We thought that they will respect it. He recognized me from the days when I was assigned to the private apartment because he had that sadistic pleasure when I went to work to knock at the window, and I was very afraid of him because he known, was known as a sadist, and this give him a pleasure. So I guess in ghetto when he came to take us out for shooting, he pushed me inside. He recognized me through the apartment (ph). So I had the presence of my uh mind that I'm...and I said no. He is my father. I cannot let him go. So they didn't believe me because my father was very young looking so they were two brothers - Willie and Hans (ph), so one tried to test me so with his uh what...rubber what they had...uh not gun...oh how you call it... ( )..-he hit my father

very hard and I saw tears from my father's eyes, so I started to cry bitterly. This convinced them that this is my father. So they permitted him to go with me, and then I said on my aunt, this is my mother. I will never know why they let me go, but they let go.

. When it was day of trial in Vienna, I was called as a witness, and I have

problem. I didn't know what to do. To go to testify because I witnessed many killings, or because he recognized me, not to go. And I have chosen not to go but I'll send somebody else, and unfortunately she didn't know the facts. And the facts were after they let us go, through my window I saw where was the , the gathering place already where they took for killing, and I saw Willie shot my neighbor, Mrs. Leichter (ph) who came from the cemetery who told me what happened at the cemetery, in the back. She was just walking. So it was willful killing. It was not that she was caught in the aktion.

This kind of guy he was. So maybe I was destined to live, and this what happened. So coming back to this, when I lost my father, I was left alone. The German shoemaker kept my cousin and he kept him in his apartment...he should work for him. While I was working as a slave labor on the railroad, every Jew or Jewess was not ___ because we had the _ and we had to work with our bare hands to wash the toilets and scrub the floors. There was employed a carpenter, a by the name Abraham...uh Edmond Abraham Ovitch (ph). He was from , half hour away from town Stanistlawow where there was a big concentration of and they were considered by Hitler, by the Germans, as foreigners because they were Turkish descendants from Crimea (ph). Mostly they were farmers or army men. And he worked there. He offered me...when my father was still alive...to take me and to help me and to harbor me. He lived with his mother, sister-in-law and a baby and he said he will help me and he told me that he helped ten other, other Jewish girls. I will tell you what happened, or maybe I should tell you right now. I was the only one who who didn't blend into the Slavic population because I don't have the high Slavic cheekbones and my eyes were considered very Semitic. The other girls were all typical so-called Aryan looks, blonde, blue eyes and from the eleven, I am the only one who survived. Because I knew that I don't look Slavic, I could pass somehow as a German girl so I was advised to work in the lion's den so I worked for German companies. I will explain later what I have done, and they were so sure that they would not be recognized so they worked in Polish companies and normally they were beautiful. They were approached by Poles to date, and when they refused...maybe they said it jokingly...you must be a Jewish...and the sudden fear in their eyes gave them out and the Poles denounced them. I was the only one. So one day he propo...offered me this while still my father was alive. But he told me that he cannot harbor my father. When my father was gone, I waited three weeks. I didn't hear from him, so I thought he didn't succeed to jump from the running train and poor one (ph), he was killed. So one day he came and he told me according to my information, they will...they last two thousand Jews who were left at ghetto from one time hundred thousand Jews, we were forty thousand Jews and they used to bring in Jews from small towns and villages. What, at one time we were a hundred. Only two thousand remained. So he told me that from here's information that now they will finish us all off, and he would advise me not to go back to go back with the column of slave workers, back to the ghetto...only after work, he will arrange that I will be able to stay in the office on the railroad and the next day after work will dispose of my and to go to with him to :

Q: We have to stop here. We need to change the tape.

End of Tape #1 Tape #2

Q: OK. We're rolling.

A: So Edmund Abraham Ovitch, he told me to stay, that I shouldn't go back, and I slept on the railroad station in the office of the Chief . After the War, I found out how he arranged it, and this proved to me how sincere and honest he is, that he really wants to save my life and after work I dropped my arm band with my star carelessly on the tracks because if they would find it they would search for the one who threw it away, and I boarded the train to , half hour ride. But I didn't want to sit next to Mundig because I felt if I'm caught, why should he loose his life. So I sat by myself and there were workers, maybe about thirty, coming back from work. They all knew me because if I should present it because like all white and one . | was there with the arm band so they saw me everyday so they knew me, and like in every train the police came and the German police came. On every train was a Gestapo police, checked the passengers. When I...before they were supposed to approach me I must have been in terrible fear. I can't explain why the workers gave me a sign with their eyes not to fear, that they will not give me away. Where they were so eager to denounce others, I was destined to live. And the police came. I didn't have any papers. I was afraid, but the German police sat next to me and discussed the weather, how beautiful it is, and he left.

So safely I arrived to Mundig's house. His mother was very upset. I don't blame her, because I endangered her and the whole family. On top of it without any reward. I didn't have even money to pay for it. She resented and she made it clear to me, so the son promised her that whenever he can find for me a safe haven, I will leave. As a matter of face, even she refused me the meals. Again I don't blame because it was very hard to get food, so the son, to make sure that I am eating, demanded that I should eat with him the dinner together. But I would like to go back to a few scenes in the ghetto that I omitted. I think it's very important. You see, the Germans, when their wives came to visit them from Germany, their pleasure was to show the ghetto like we'll be animals in the zoo and they used to take them and parade them through the main streets. So one day parading them and looking at them, at us Jews like animals, one Jew...1 forgot his last name...Joseph...by the way, he's alive...he's now in the United States...when they were gaping at us, he spate on the Germans and run away. Immediately the Gestapo came to the Juden__ and they gave, and at that time the president of Juden___ was Goldstein, and he gave an order to line up uh the Jewish orderlings (ph), means the Jewish police, and every ten was singled out to step out and he was hanged, but he needed the rope to hang them, so he said first that the Juden , the president should decide which ones will step out. He said I cannot do it, Mr. Goldstein said. I'm not God. I will not do it. He should bring rope. He didn't want to bring rope, so they sent somebody else and they hanged the head of the Juden , Mr. Goldstein with every ten police...uh Jewish police. One of them married my schoolmate, Eddie Fraley (ph), and he, when they hanged him, the rope broke down and he escaped. They let him escape because they thought that they will get him another time. But they didn't and actually he escaped from ghetto. He looked very much like a gentile. He escaped to Warsaw and in Warsaw he was one of the chief officers from the underground . He survived with my schoolmate.

They live now in Florida. The second incident was....

Q: How many were killed altogether?

A: Hundred (ph), and they were hanging. This wasn't over for the whole week, for everyone in ghetto to see it. The poor because it was a friend or a relative, and the stench...if we do something, you know, to show us they punish. Not enough that they were shooting us.

They were hanging...after a a week, they removed them, and you know, they couldn't find the commandant, uh a Jew to be a commandant of the police. They wanted a hi...a Polish officer. They wanted that he should have been a pol...an army officer, so they brought a Kariate from , whose family was in . In ghetto they gave him a Jewish name, uh a Mr. , and after that he left by train back to his family. He joined his family. This also I found out after I escaped from ghetto from, uh from Mundig I called him, this Abraham Mundig, Abraham Ovitch. He told me about it. Now when we were in ghetto, and I was left alone and it was cold... didn't have any firewood. Some of our furniture was in uh in a shack, so I took a chair and I wanted with a hammer to break into firewood but I wasn't handy so I just had to break it. I cut myself next to my ankle and I was bleeding. Later sets uh set in puss (ph) but I couldn't do anything because no doctors, no medication and this how I walked. Again, why I didn't die on gangrene and when it was cured, it's again a question. So coming back to Mundig, being I was persona non gratia, parents didn't want...my...uh his mother didn't want me, I couldn't stay there. So II told Mundig...that uh I cannot stay there, so he found me a place to hide by a Ukrainian peasant. Ukrainian peasant had beautiful daughter. A lot of Ukrainian militiamen used to come to visit her, and every time | had to run in the attic and to hide between the hay, and I said this is not the life for me. I don't want to be hidden there. But while, while I was in

a month later, Edmund Abraham Ovitch told me have to tell you some very sad.

And brace yourself. Your father jumped from the cattle car by prying off the boards from the floor of the cattle car, although they were pressed like sardines, and he lifted the board and he asked who would like to jump with him, because more than that cannot be to let themselves down from the running train and run for their life. Only one girl...she was from ...I don't know her name...my age...wanted to go with my father. I guess the rest didn't want to separate. Sometimes there were families together. They wanted to die together. My father let themselves down. He got only bruised knees. The girl was not harmed at all. He walked to our village, which was half-hour walking distance where I was in and he entered a Ukrainian peasant's house. There was only a woman. Her husband was still in the Russian army. She...it was harvest time. She needed field hands. Without questioning my father, she took in my father and the girl, the girl posing as a daughter of my father. He tried to get in touch with me. He couldn't. He didn't get any response. He couldn't live with the thought that his sheltered daughter is alone in the ghetto. He decided to board the train which is certain death penalty for any Jew who boarded the train, to go back to ghetto to look for me. On the train was an architect, a Ukrainian who used to buy lumber from my father, who was wined and dined in our house. Without any reward he went to the Gestapo...each train I told you was a and a Gestapo...and said I know this man. This is Dabbie Petranka. He's a Jew.

They took him off the train. They brought him to the mill on where they gathered the Jews already to be shipped to the death camp. My father probably tried to get in touch with me, but I was not there. So I'm alive, but my father was killed. (crying) So this is my story. So when I didn't want to stay by the farm, by Ukrainian farmer, Mundig said to me, I'll get you a false labor certificate. You should have some document. His friend, a big anti-Semite that off-hand I don't remember his name...in my book that I am writing which will be published in November...I, at that time I still remembered. I don't remember now.

I know only that he was a student, second gymnasium which was known for the biggest anti-Semites. He was the director of , Scrap iron (ph) and it was very important during the War because they needed it, so he gave me a certificate that I'm employed in his company under assumed name. Now I had to choose my name. My actually name was Amalia Petrankia but I'm not Jewish and not German, but everything was very important to be able to blend into the population. First impression's very important. My "r" is a French and German, but not a Slavic, and this was very dangerous, so I picked the name Felicita (ph) which means in Latin black, felicita and I picked the name of Mewycheski who was my beloved uh writer. You see we didn't have heros baseball, basketball, ballerinas...we had writers, and she was from Vilna (ph) so he put...he made a certificate that I am Mewycheski, Felicita. I was careful to keep my birthdate, because when you are under stress, this is the first thing that you forget...dates...and I gave my real...only my birthplace was Vilna, and now I became Felicita Mewycheski. With this, Mundig took me to where I thought being it's a big city, metropolitan city, I will be able to get lost there. He took me to his cousin's, first cousin's apartment which was just a studio apartment. Turn out his cousin was the king of the black market, the king of the underworld. And they had only two beds. This was a terrible experience at that time for me, a sheltered child. He slept with his mattress...uh mistress on one. I was supposed to sleep with Edmund on the other, and there were terrible, provocative remarks from him. Mundig understood it's not for me, so he found me a place in a hostel...this was...you see wives of Polish officers unable to be able to sustain themselves...they rented one room where they put beds, and this is where Poles who traveled slept because the hotels were only for Germans. How little did I know that this is the day when they're closing the ghetto in and they were searching in every hotel and hostel for Jews who may have escaped from the ghetto. And after the curfew...the curfew was ten o'clock...two Ukrainian police are coming to this woman's house and they with flashlight...you know...putting into our eyes, questioning everyone. They started with the two Polish girls but he didn't have any doubt that they are Christians. They let them go.

There's a woman with a child and I was there. One Ukrainian was busy with this woman and the child. I overheard...she had baptismal papers but from "37. She was a wife of a Christian judge, but she was converted, so they considered her Jewish because it was "37 and they took her away with the little girl who was born already a Christian. The one Ukrainian asked me questions. He said you are Jewish. Prove to me you are not. I, a product of Hebrew kindergarten, Hebrew schools, Jewish gymnasium...on top of it we had a maid, a Jewish orphan...so I was never exposed to and all this. I didn't know anything. I failed. So he told me to get dressed and he's bringing me to the Gestapo. On the way he tried to persuade me that, to admit that I am Jewish and he will let me go.

How could I trust him? I thought he wants to have an easy job and to come, she admit it and, you know if somebody escaped from ghetto was even worse punishment...they used to let the dogs to tear them to pieces or they used to bill uh beat up to pulp. It was a terrible death, so when finally I reached the building, the steps of the Gestapo building, I didn't have what to loose. So I said OK. And then I became very arrogant. You know, Jude (ph)... was what, eighteen years old...I said go ahead...you spilled a lot of Jewish blood you have on your hands. There's a saying in Polish...go ahead...go...tell them I'm Jewish. Kill me. He looked at me and start calling me with strong epithets, insulting me, and he said to me, go. I thought he was joking. He said go, but I don't want to see you anymore in because if I recognize you, I'll shoot you myself. How did I have the guts? I don't know. To go after curfew so another one will get me. I said how can I go?

He said, OK...what do you want now...and yelling...I said you should bring me back to the hostel. He said no, I'll bring you back to the railroad station and disappear. At that ti...at the railroad station was a lot of police. A lot of police, looking for for Jews and for black marketeers so imagine - it was so dangerous for me. How I survived the night...it's another miracle. In the morning I went to the woman where my belongings were there and at this hostel and | said you see, I'm not Jewish. They let me go. She said I don't care if you are or not. Take your things and get out. So . Where do I go? So I decided to go to Krakow. This is one corner of Poland to another corner of Poland and in Krakow, this who was my father's boss, lived with his wife and a daughter. They was very good friends of my parents...even they were invited to the wedding of my older sister, and I thought so I don't know if they will extend their help or hand and help me but somehow I felt they will not give me away. And being he was an aristocratic family, I knew they would be in the telephone book. I will find them. In order to go to Krakow...we didn't have straight connections...I had to go to a city . Iwas little..-how little I knew... was very important for Jews who try to escape to Hungary, so there was a lot of police. I arrived. A lot of police. Past curfew. I couldn't sleep on the station. What do I do? There was a girl who had a newspaper stand. I approached her. I started conversation. She liked me, and I said look, what should I do? I don't want to live on this station...like it's inconvenience, not that it was dangerous for me. And what should I do? She said you know what. Soon I'll finish my work. I live next to the station. I will take you for the night. I was so grateful. She didn't suspect. I slept there. In the morning, I'm on the station. A young man, very well dressed __is following me. Well, I didn't like, everybody, you know, took off their hat to him. He was too young to be so prominent, so at uh I got idea I will go to the ladies room. No man would dare to follow me there. I'm in the ladies room...I see his shoes in the main hall where each compartment is. I knew I'm finished. So I come out on the aggressive side, and I said how did you dare to follow me. Imagine what guts I had. How did you dare to...what kind of upbringing do you have? This put him in the defense and he was shocked. He didn't expect. He thought he'll find me timid with fear. So he questioned me and I told him...I said I will tell you my name and I'll introduce myself if you, you'll introduce yourself to me first. Who are you? I said I have an aunt who is very sick in Krakow. I want to go to her to help her. He obtained for me the ticket railroad ticket. Was a long line and he sitted me in his compartment like he would feel guilty that maybe I suspect that he's police and he wanted to cover up for me. I took the train. We had to pass through Tarnow (ph). Tarnow again police, and they light the flashlight into you eye, and the fear in my eyes and the Gestapo man said to me, why is your voice shivering so much. And he saw the fear in my eyes. What could I say? I'm able if I don't understand German because you see mostly only Germ...Jews understood German.

Mostly Poles from the knew French but not so well German. Through interpreter I said I wonder if you two will travel forty-eight hours, if you wouldn't be tired, if your voice would not shiver. He took it. He left so the Polish woman who sit next to me, she said, you know what. He took you for a Jew, she's telling me. And this was one. Again another episode. I arrived in Krakow. At that time on the railroad station, I saw a lot of Polish police and a Gestapo with the dog. But they were not searching for Jews anymore. They are looking for Poles without valid, valid Polish working papers.

Means papers that they won't, don't work for the war, German war industry. The Polish police recognized me immediately and they approached me, and they said you are Jewish. What you are doing here? So naturally I was on the defense. I said how do you dare to insult me? Why do you do it to me? He said OK. If you are not Jewish...he started to again to question me from their New Testament. I failed. So they marked me and they said hah. He will finish you off, pointing to the Gestapo. I was resigned. I said my Israel. I felt so alive, and I said OK. So I tried. But if not, I will join you and my parents and my sister. Enough is enough. You know, I felt like this. I felt light*hearted. I accepted it, and my feet were like glued to the ground. The Gestapo man checked all other papers, then my turn came and the Polish police told him that I'm a Jewish, a Jewess. I had a bag in my hand. He requested...he took....told the police to hand him over the bag. He looked in the bag. I don't know what he looked for. He looked me up and down and he said to me why I came to Krakow. I told the same story. I'm a poor girl. My aunt is very sick.

She lives in Krakow. She sent for me. Through interpreter naturally. Where does she live? I have never...I never was in Krakow, but like here, every time almost has Broadway. I said the street , which is after very famous Polish writer. You know, he said . Means go. I didn't believe my ears. And I couldn't. You know, when a person is so resigned...I was ready to get uh you know, a shot...to be shot from the back. I said OK. He wants me to move, andhe __ sent off the dog in the back who will tear me to pieces. I just couldn't do it. So the police, police said fall to his feet. Kiss his feet. He let you go. I, we don't know why, in Polish. And like a robot I start moving till I left the railroad station. I didn't believe that I will leave it alive. Why he let me go I don't know. When I left the station, now where should I go now? It was Christmas Eve. So inquired about some...again a boarding house, a hostel who will take me. And I was told one__ has aroom where he rents beds. He gave me the address. I came there and the

said you see all beds are taken unless somebody offers to take you in, which with a sardonic smile, vulgar smile. And there was a woman, little older than I. I noticed the hair was re...painted red, not her natural, with dark eyes. And she offered to take me into her bed. Immediately she recognized me that I'm Jewish and I recognize her. It turned out she was a seamstress from Lublin (ph) who escaped and now she tried her luck as a gentile.

What the night was terrible. You know what was going on on other beds? I had wonderful school of life (ph). She gave me a sign not to talk. Only when we were in the park we spoke. I told her who I am and she told me...she shared with me the bread that she bought on the black market and I told her I am...the only chance I have...let me look up . We went to the telephone book. I found his address. I came over there. His wife, Kashimira (ph), opened the door. When she saw me, she couldn't believe her eyes. She thought it's a ghost, and she closed the door. Then she opened it again and she pulled me in, and I said I am Amalia Petranka, David's daughter. She started to cry.

She embraced me and she said look, I didn't recognize you. Let's see if my husband will recognize you. If he doesn't, so maybe we can harbor you for a while till we'll find something for you. Her husband came. He didn't recognize me. She told him who I am.

So he said, I hate Jews, but for the daughter of David Petranka, I'll do every thing. Let's see what we can do for her. Now this was the high life of Krakow. Every night bridge, different companies, and being she was Armenian...again the Germans considered her a foreigner and she lived in a beautiful German neighborhood, so she had two little girls and she had a maid. She said to me you'll sleep with the girls and you'll...I'll tell the maids that you are the new governess for the children, and I stayed for three weeks. And they found for me in the newspaper a job as a housemaid to a , to Germans who had children. And she gave me advice, to work for Germans because this is safer and they will not recognize me. I got the job. The Germans liked me because they got a maid, you know, from...a peasant girl who didn't understand German. I was very helpful. They treated me quite good. They thought that I am Polish. And I developed here

. It was abscessed with puss. So the Germans said it's not proper. We'll bring you to the hospital. I am a Jew, no papers. How could they enter a hospital, and I didn't have uh the social card from uh from here like Medicare or some...I didn't have anything. But he was a big shot. He arranged. They accepted me. How little I knew.

Before the operation, a priest comes for confession. I didn't know how and what. So he started talking. So he said I see you're from the same town that I am. You're from Landberg (ph) and I am special accent in Polish. So he said how about...and now he wanted I should confess. I said, Father, how about if you'll sing for me a song, a very famous song just from Landberg. This changed the mood, and he did. But I was afraid after I will wake up or during when they give me anesthesia, I may spill who I am because usually what you do. I spotted a nurse who looked to me Jewish and I said look, please, watch over me. Protect me. Why, she said. Because I'm Jewish and you're Jewish.

Not I'm not Jewish. I said I don't care. Help me. And I showed her my leg, which was already with gangrene and I developed lice last day in ghetto and I couldn't get rid of it. I said help me. And she did help. So she wouldn't do it if she wouldn't be Jewish masquerading. And also, imagine how you can control your mind. Before even I woke up, they looked for my nightgown and I was able to point where it is hanging. Meantime, Edmund came to visit me. There, next bed to me was laying a Polish peasant girl by the

. She liked me. She worked for a German casino. Means they were

employees, bookkeepers, everything for oil, from the oil company sent from Germany. Because they were by themselves, they had a casino, like a club where they lived, dined and then they went to the office. I said Kashimira, can you get me a job there. I thought if it's a German place, the Polish police doesn't have any access. Where they used to comb the houses in Polish sections searching for Jews and I will have some security and a roof over my head. And one day a girl by the name Katia (ph)...1 forgot her last name...came to visit Kashia, so this . Kashia said, you know what. You're like each other. I notice you are educated. She's educated. You're alike. She's Ukrainian.

Kashia started talking to me. She recognized immediately that I am Jewish and I recognized that she's Jewish, so she started, tried to stay away. So this chambermaid Kashia said to me, I thought you liked each other. How come you dislike each other? I couldn't tell her. We came to the casino. She obtained for me the job and I started as a chambermaid. I had to clean eight rooms, to kindle their fire and for this I have...she took me into their room and this, how I could stay and was safer. One day this Katia Ukrainian comes to me and she says look...at that time she had a job as the chief manager of the kitchen, which was wonderful because she got food. She...and because of it she got a room for herself. She said come to me. I want to discuss with you something. I said OK Katia, what is it. I came to her. She said look, you are Jewish. I am Jewish, and there is another Jewish girl, Soshia (ph) who doesn't sleep in the casino. She sleeps outside but its very dangerous for us. Because you are the last one, you are the one who has to leave.

And she told me she was a medical student in Lamburg (ph). She comes from the and her husband's friends who who was a communist and was presently in Russia, gave her the paper as Ukrainian, a Ukrainian, and this is how she's surviving. So I said Katia, you're right. By right I should leave, but I don't have a scrape of paper. Let me get some documents and I promise you that I will leave, but again when you have to do with nice people, when Soshia who was the daughter of a lawyer from Lamburg, a little bit older than I...she said I'm staying anyhow outside the theat...uh casino. I will go first. And then my boss came to me and he says, he said you know, how comes you don't have an ID.

How come Anna cannot feed you because not having an ID you don't have any ration cards? So I had to apply. I wrote a letter to Mundig and I said I need baptismal papers because this is how you applied for ID. Dear Mundig, bless his sole...he went to a Ukrainian priest, Catholic priest. So I got my baptismal paper. I'm Roman Catholic, but the baptismal paper, the stamp was for Ukrainian church, Orthodox church. When I gave the application to the police, they came looking for me. Who am I? What a contradiction.

And they call it in the German and they summoned me to the police. Now I was thinking what can I do. Not to report to police means I have to run. Where do I run again without papers. To report, they will catch me and I'm gone. So then he said...I looked very young, younger for my age than I was. I was always very petite. I had two braids and I prayed to God, the woman who'll investigate me should me an old maid or old man.

Somehow they had some compassion for children, for young people. And I came there and she saw me...she said you know what, your priest got drunk. Look what the nonsense he wrote. Write for another baptismal paper. But not I'm at fault, only this. I have done it, so Mundig sent me another with the stamp Roman Catholic and this I got legitimate ID from the police which meant a lot. No money could buy it, because this, you know, the first thing when they caught a Jew, they checked with the police, then they check with the parish, so I was...because of it I was able to get a labor card and I was able to rep...get a card, you know, from uh , you know, to get health, health care. And I worked there. While I worked there, meantime came the Jewess from Lublin who helped me. She learned I'm there, and she cried...she doesn't have a piece of paper and they're searching...she worked, she worked for a seamstress who gladly kept her for food for her labor. But she didn't have any paper. Nothing can get . I give her my piece of paper. Not the ID still didn't have. Only Felecita Mewycheski. Luckily this wasn't the time of computers because immediately we both would be caught, but I didn't think about it. | knew I have to save her. When you're young, you don't think. And in casino, in this was one . His mother was Jewish descendent. His grandfather was Jewish.

. He recognized me immediately, and one day he told me I'll have to report to his room. I said I don't have to report because Poles were forbidden to socialize with Germans. He insisted with a threatening voice. I knew I don't have a choice. I came up.

He presented me with a pic...a picture, a photo of a Jew and he said to me, this is my grandfather. I thought he wants to provoke me. | thought he is from the Gestapo because each unit has also each office. I said what do you want for my life? If you know I'm Jewish, why didn't you report me to the Gestapo. He says cut it out. I want to help you. I want to save you. First of all, you cannot work here. You don't blend in. You're not a chambermaid with the coarse white features and everything. You must get out. I said how can I get out. I need a roof. It was hard to get a room, and even...and I need a job.

And no job will pay me for be able to pay rent and to sustain myself. He said don't worry.

I will see what I can do for you. He knew an architect, a very big engineer from the railroad authority, ", ., Whose brother was the Commandant of Berlin while Hitler was shot there. The Chief Commandant. He spoke to him. He said, you know many construction firms. I would like you to find a job for my fri...my Polish who uh Polish acquaintance who is working in this place where I am now, and he obtained for me a job in a construction firm, but while I was in casino, they decided, you know, the director of the casino was a a a brother of the secretary of Hans Frank and the castle in Krakow. And he used to get his meals from the casino. I was the one selected to bring the meals, but to enter it I was checked and double checked and everything. I didn't have the papers. I couldn't get out of it. I didn't know what to do.

Luckily, with this scrap of paper...before I had my ID, they let me through and I used to bring the meals to the castle. Imagine. With all the police guarding and everything, so he found for me a job and , a construction firm which was located in

and employed slave workers from _, Jews. And I...when I worked there, I said my goodness. I'm open now. I...maybe I can help the Jews by supplying them bread, maybe potato. So I asked my boss, Wilhelm Langerd (ph) if he will permit me to go with him on the , means where they were working there, not in the office, and just to see how it's going on. He thought that I'm going for the gold, because he used to get gold from the Jews who were able to buy out their way not to work so hard only in the office.

And one day he was in good mood and he took me to the office. I came there. The secretary was Doctor Leibermann (ph). He was a ref...a German Jew who was

. He introduced me. This is our secretary, Felecita Mewycheski and Dr.

Leibermann looking at me said, you know what. Our secretary looks complete like my sister-in-law. So I couldn't go there any more, and the door door was closed for me.

While I was working there they brought Czech and Slavic Jews in the cattle cars, to Auschwitz. I...the office was on a hill. Down were the cattle cars. How I as a Jewess could take the screams and the cries for water. I was in the office. At that time was also in the office a Polish mining engineer. He was a terrible anti-Semite and I took a pail filled up with water and went down to hand the water to the uh...they had the little windows which were . They were guarded by Ukrainian police with the bayonets. The police approached me and said what, do you want to be killed to and threw the water.

With a broken heart I went up to the office and the mining engineer, with this smirk on his face tells me...Miss Felecita, what will you be after the war? Then I knew he recognized. I played dumb and I told him how do I know who I'll be. How do I know whom I'll marry after the war, but I have to go ahead of time, after the war, when the war ended, on the bus stop where I used to board my bus...here was standing

, the engineer. I knew it. He comes over to me. He said, Miss Felecita. I recognize you. At that time you gave yourself away, but I didn't have the heart to give you away. I hated Jews, but I didn't have the heart to give you away. Another incident.

Well, when I was working for this Wilhelm Langerd, I was masquerading as Miss Felecita Mewycheski.In___ was a very elegant family, a widow and a sister by the name mewycheski, to whose house used to come my boss, the Nazi, the German, Mr.

Wilhelm Langerd, and she, hearing that this Mewycheski must be family, insisted on meeting me. When finally I couldn't avoid it, I went there. Sure enough that she will recognize and it's my aunt. I came over there. She pulled me all my face on all sides and there she looked at me and she asked me who I am and I had a story that I prepared who my father and so what, and she said you know you are not from the main line. You must be from the branch of Mewycheskis in Lamberg and insisted that I should move in, because she felt responsible for a young girl to live on her own. Miracle again. Another miracle. Well works till there by Mr. Langerd, the company paid five per capita for every Jew for slave work to the Gestapo. In was Gestapo Miller (ph), a known sadist. Tall, slim. With a stick in his hand he used to walk, and at at will, at random he used to kill, shoot at the Jews who were in ghetto, in . [heard of him.

One day whom do I see in the frame of the por...of the door - it was him. Then I had to think fast. Did he come for me? No. He's too big to come for me. He could have sent somebody else, but I couldn't take off my eyes from the two German Shepherds. They were terrible. They were known that used to just to tear up Jews to pieces, so my eyes were glued. He approached the desk, and he said, you don't have to fear. My dogs will smell a Jew a mile away. So means you are not a Jew. What luck. And then he stated the reason why he came here. Another. I was never a secretary. I took humanities. I was supposed to study medicine. I didn't know any secretarial work. When this that commanded me to this guy, he told him. After a month my boss told me, you know what.

I admire you. How come you grasp so fast, like a Jewess. Another incident. One day he tells me, how come that you have such Semitic eyes. What answer do I give him? To deny? I will blush. I'll give myself away. Said, was probably nonchalantly, probably my grandmother was a Jew. No one would admit because till third generation they were considered Jews. He thought that it was such a joke. He burst out laughing. This was only incident in one place. Why I bring them out...we are accused that you went by ship to Florida. It's not true. But there were many incidents and you had to be lucky not to be caught, or killed because I was caught many times. Not to be killed. One more would have, I would have been killed. Another one. When the Russians were moving close, the front, they didn't have enough...the German soldiers. Many who built for war in say like the bridges, railroad, toward the Russian front were excused for active service in German army. Towards the end they needed everybody. So they also were drafted the workers, the German who worked for company as carpenters and other jobs. So my boss sent me , which was a part of Gestapo, to excuse them for army service. I told to my boss, how can I do it? I am a Pole. They are not permitted to go there. Why do you send me? He said, I give you order. You have to do it. Having no choice, I went. The Gestapo at the desk greeted me with a heil Hitler. I was careful. I answered, .

Poles were not supposed to say heil Hitler. I explained to him the reason of my coming. I produced the papers. He took care of it, positively, and when I was supposed to leave, again I said . And he said heil Hitler and he called me back. And he said, why don't you say heil Hitler. Aren't you good enough to say heil Hitler? I said, I I said in German, I am not supposed to. What do you mean you're not supposed to? I said lama Pole. He got so angry. He took the telephone and called up my boss. How did you dare to send a Pole on such a sensitive mission. Another incident. There's another one. Railroad authority had a big ball, and they wanted...the one of the chief ones whose wife was in Germany, asked my boss if I will be his company...companion. I tried to get out of it, because it was very dangerous and I was not supposed to socialize with Germans, and if I would be caught, it's terrible. As a Pole and on top of as a Jewess. So I said to my boss I will only go if you will tell him the truth, that I am not ethnic German but I am a Pole, and if he wants to take the risks, because as well as for the Germans, if they are caught they were sent to the Russian front. Then I will agree to go. I don't know why he did agree. I came to the ball. I didn't have what to wear. I had a black woolen dress with a velvet rose here and I told him I can go only if you'll be a gentleman...when I feel very uncomfortable that you will take me home immediately. He agreed. There were checkpoints. They checked but such a big shot, they didn't and say anything. I didn't know that Frank, General Frank was inviting the also to this affair. You know, the big shot, the . When he came, they all rise up and they introduced their partners. And this uh engineer, ... he was a very high official by the name I think Brown, introduced me as a par , you know, from this Baltic, from Lithuanian and so because knows what Lithuania. Frank looked at me and he said,

. You know, and even if you don't get complimented directly to a person, only . Means he picked the rose, and he said . Stupid me, my age, I said why only rose. Why not , means this...1 . I guess he got very impressed. He made a toast. I wish all the German girls will be like the

. And I realized I went too far. I blushed, but this was accepted. Modesty.

And I turned to my escort and I said I must leave. I'm not comfortable. Those are the incidents. There are many others. Towards...I then, when they evacuated I didn't want to go with the firm to , | was assigned to , a tough organization. They used to build the ditches. Another incident. And every Pole had to give a week work for nothing.

One day my boss tells me there will come a watchmaker. He will give you two watches. One for me. One for you. And you will excuse him for digging the ditches. The day comes. The man comes in. Who is the man? Anti-Semite Pole from , whom the government transferred to Stanistlawow to Polanize it, who had a jewelry store street across the street from me. When I saw it I bent down double, make believe that I have cramps and I run out. I waited till he's out. Then I come in and my boss said to me, now because of you I lost my watch, because he didn't he didn't want to accept himself.

This was so so many incidents. There was___ recognize how I got away I really can not tell you. This is when I was in . Then I got a job and now I think I'll need to end because I don't think we have enough time. There was another construction firm which didn't evacuate. This is the construction firm of and Krause (ph). There I became a personal secretary to the boss, , who was Yugoslavian and the son-in- law of one of the owners of and Krause, . How little I knew that the firm was assigned to build the barricades in Krakow to slow down the Russian approach and also to destroy historical buildings from Krackow and all the bunkers around the German buildings because this was after the Warsaw uprise from the Poles and they expected it in Krakow. When the wasn't and ha...they had to evacuate back to Vienna, he wanted to take me along. I said no, my place is my motherland, Poland, and I stay on. So he said...and then in that case I make you...I put you in charge of the office.

This was in middle of December and till we were combatively uh pushed away the Russian army will come back in March. Meantime here's the key from the safe and here are the checks for the employees and you pay...pay them out, and you should expect call, a phone call for from some important papers. Didn't specify, didn't tell and I didn't know.

Around...I think the thirteenth or tenth of January, when the German army was completely in retreat, I get a phone call from the Commandant from Krakow...means the high uh Commandant of the military uh military in Krakow, and he said is this the firm and Krause. I said yavol (ph). . Means dynamite the . I put two and two together, and I understood it. And then I was thinking.

What should I do? Had I been a German, I would have said my company evacuated and you have to do it. I said what will happen to me if I fail to tell him...by this I would save the Krakow from really being destroyed but I didn't survive now the war to loose my life.

But then I thought no...he didn't ask me for my name. He just said the company, and the company was still left...the daughter-in-law of the owner of the building who was the hostess of the company, the custodian and two chambermaids. I would never admit receiving the phone call, and I called up the Polish underground which I joined while I was a chambermaid under request of Kashimira uh and my link was .

And I gave them the message, happy knowing this is the end of the war. Two days later, some Polish officers knocked at the gate of the building and this is while the German army was in retreat, while they were bombings and even uh bombs uh uh hit one of the rooms...and I told the custodian and the Polish woman, I said let's not open the gates because it will be a chaos. This is a building where German companies were there. Many Poles will be free to plunder and our lives will be in danger till we explain who we are.

And they listened. And then again I see another group of officers, knocked at the door and looking out the window I recognized one of the officers is definitely a Jew, so I thought from this quarter cannot come any danger to me, and I told the custodian to let them in. They came in and among them was my husband...my present husband, but he was in civil clothes and a leather coat...somehow he just likes me the most and started questioning me angrily and harshly. I decided I'm not going to reveal him now, with the armies in retreat. I have witnesses here, the custodian, the chambermaids.

Maybe they will come back and I will be shot, so I refused to answer his questions and I told him if you have any doubt who I am, please...here's my ID I took out and if not take me to your superior. My husband said I am the superior and you answer to me. I said no, I'm not taking any chances. I don't have to deal now with such anti-Semites now when the war is toward the end, and I approach the officer who looked Jewish. I said do you mind to step in with me to the other room. I want to talk to you. Coming in to the other room, he asked me who are you. I said I am the same thing who who you are. What do you mean? You are Jewish and I'm Jewish. He said how do you know it. In Polish it's a saying...look at your face. From where are you? I said from Stanistlawow. From where are you? From Krakow. So he tells me....and from Krackow. I told him I had a schoolmate in Jewish gymnasium by the name of . By any chance do you know this family? He paled. It was his first cousin. Jubilant, he comes back to the room, approaches my husband and says to leave her alone. Not only that she is not German, because they thought I'm German...not only she's not Polish, she's Jewish. So my husband was sure that knowing him as a womanizer that probably I promised something all done and now he tries to protect me. So he moved closer to me, my husband, and he told me, do you know any other language. I said yes. What other language do you know? I said uh English, German, Russian, and I still didn't say Hebrew. Any other language? So he start asking me in English, what little English he know. What nation are you? I said I'm Jewish. Prove it to me. How can I prove? So he said do you know Hebrew? I said yes.

Speak to me. I got so mad. I said, . . So he couldn't believe.

He said how come this young girl can speak so well the Hebrew. Was probably the Germans who taught her Hebrew...she should spy on the Jews and get them out. Imagine.

So then he asked me when do we say . When he asked me about 1 understood he's Jewish too. Excited with tears in my eyes, I said to him, you too? So naturally then he knew. He switched back to Polish and from then he stated the purpose of his coming...that he came, they found out this is the company that build the barricades and built the columns and he wants the plans because he knows I was the secretary and I must have it...the office in the building. I should give him to save the city because must be a key how to detonate and how to neutralize it. I said why didn't you say it from the first place.

Q: Now we have to change tapes.

End of Tape #2 Tape #3

A: So, then I told my husband, be my guest. You know, then I was really very light and very happy and I invited him to go across the uh stairs, stairway because this is where the office was. I opened the safe and I handed him the papers and he asked me who I am, what's my name. I told him who I am and then I asked him...first I told him Felecita Mewycheski. He said no. Tell me the real name. My real name is Amalia Petranka and he said...told...gave me his real name and then he said, isn't this ironic that you, a Jewish girl, were able...was instrumental in saving the city from destruction. I gave him the plans and since then we started dating and later... mean now we are married but I would like to add a few more things, very important...how people in face of death and misery, still how they were good and honest. My fia...Alec, who was my fiance, he applied for medical school in Poland but they didn't want to accept him on and when the war broke out, when the Russians came, he got a job as a bookkeeper in the railroad uh on the rail...in the railroad authorities. And each one who applied for a job had to submit his baptismal papers and a Russian ID. When the Russians left, somehow he kept one ID from a Ukrainian girl. She was just a few years older than I. In ghetto he came to me and he said run for your life. Here are the papers, legitimate papers because first they check, you know, usually the parish and you're covered and I know she moved uh evacuated to Russia. You're on the safe side. She's little older but age you can never tell, and take it and go out of ghetto. I said Alec, how can you do? This is worth so many thousands of dollars. Your mother is starving to death. Your father who was such a prominent uh Jew before the war, start...died of starvation. Your sister is starving, so why don't you sell the papers. I don't have many thousand dollars to pay you. I need some money for escape to have it, so sell and make some money. He insisted I should take them and save myself.

He refused to escape from ghetto although he was really...his looks were like hundred Aryans, not one but he didn't want to because his mother was on death bed and he didn't want to leave her, and I found out that he committed suicide when his mother died. His sister Trica (ph) who was eight years his junior, was taken in by the family who was from a small town...I think , I'm not sure, of .. Still, you know, a small town...some Jews could pay their way and some Ukrainians or peasants harbored them for money. So they took her and this is how she survived the war. Right now she lives in Long Island. You know, we had very . When the Germans came they proclaimed that we are all are Communists, and we are...they are free to kill us. So within a year, they killed us all. Actually the only survivors from our, from our town maybe are three hundred to four hundred, only who masqueraded as gentiles and like I who were not caught and again I'm telling you it was very hard, because Poland was not a melting pot that you could blend in easily. One reason or another there always were pitfalls. Some survived who were drafted to Russian army and they survived in Russia, because like I mentioned before, we didn't have any concentration camps. We didn't have any labor camps. Only that came towards the end, when there was no room any more. And you know what? During the war, many times I contemplated suicide. And I made and I resolved if Hitler wins, I cannot go on a life of flight, and I'll commit suicide. If he looses, then I will not be an orphan left alone because I still had a sister, a grandmother...my gran...my mother's brothers in Palestine and I will be united with them.

And also there was a will, a strong will of destiny. My goal was to survive, not to let the Germans to rewrite the history. Although I was very young and I didn't have any sense of history at that time, but because they claimed that we all Jews were Communists, and I knew how the world hated the Communists, so later if there will not be eye witnesses...I didn't know that there are more Jews will survive...they will be able to claim that they only killed us because we were Communists. And this gave me the strength to live. Another thing I have to mention...again goodness. This Katia that I mentioned, who was a medical student from Lamberg who posed as a Ukrainian, she left me to the job in the kitchen and she got a job as a housekeeper by a German physician, a doctor, which was much easier, better food. When I worked in the casinos as a chambermaid, I was entitled to have week vacation. Where could I go? So, Katia suggested to me that she will harbor me in their apartment. I will not be permi...natural able to leave, to make believe that I went home for vacation and then I will come back.

She endangered herself. She had to share her food with me. Goodness. Actually I must tell you that I the goodness of people. Jews whom I encountered, and non-Jews.

But whatever I could do, I have done the same thing. For example...

Q: You need to come back to the end of the war. Tell about what you and your husband did right after the war...

A: But one more...good. But one more episode in goodness I have to also explain. Maybe this part is on my side. When I graduated, (cough) we used to get tabloid (ph), picture of all the students. The picture was done by a photographer by the name Barchowski (ph), who had the studio next to our building. One day I'm walking with Kashia on in Krakow to the garden. I see from har...far the Jew from Stanistlawow, Barchowski. I wasn't sure if he would recognize me or not. I ran towards him, embraced him and said my name is Felecita Mewycheski. What's your name? He told me, and I introduced him to Kashia uh and he invited us to his studio. He started to date Kashia. I persuaded her, because he needed somebody to be...he slept in the studio by the Polish photographer. He made us pictures. One day...he survived with his sister and his child...this sister put, could pass for an Aryan, but the child not at all. Was five-year-old girl. One day when I was still working in the casino, the sister came running, crying. And you know, there was a guard at the door. Not everybody...you...could enter the club. They asked for me. I came.

She said I'm Julia, Barchowski's sister. He was caught. And I cannot stay where I stay and I cannot sustain myself. What could I do? So I went to the boss and I asked him if he can give a job to Julia, also as a chambermaid. Was dangerous, crowding again...two Jewess and you don't know how she will behave. And about her daughter. I went to Kashia . She was really a nice girl. I said Kashia, your mother has seven children. Would she take on Julia's niece, Barchowski's daughter and Julia will pay you with her salary. After a month, her mother accepted the good little girl. The Polish police recognized that she is Jewish and the mother writes a letter to Kashia...what did you do to me? You sent me a Jewish child. So Julia was in danger. I was in danger and the mother.

Luckily the police took pity on the little girl and she...he said to the mother, I'm not sure she is, but I'll let her stay in your place. The father survived. Barchowski survived in Auschwitz. He came back to Israel. We met him after the war. The sister survived. I had little trouble with the sister, because she like to drink a little bit, and it was very dangerous. I really...the last two months maybe also persuaded me to leave, and the little girl survived, who's now married, lives in Israel, has family. So we really tried to help each other. Now after I met my husband, he was very busy at that time uh because they're managing to take care of many Germans who were...and naturally he supplied me with food, with everything. But what only...what he supplied not only me...he gave me clothes because this was the time in May when the Jews, slave laborers came out from the concentration camp. Tattered stripe...what they had there, the or what.

He gave me clothes that he took from the Germans, that he conf...confiscated from the German apartment. I should give it out. Then there were many orphans that Jews started collecting them, you know, who survived, looked, some knew where they have hidden their children, and one Jewess, although she converted, , She took care of the children. But she didn't have food to feed them, not to dress them. And it came to my husband's attention and he was able to supply them. What we didn't know...at that time my husband was a high official in the Polish government in Krakow...so this

, brought the children to Israel and she put his name, under the name that he was known at that time. It's a problem. So then he got a death sentence because he also searched for the , the ones that wanted to poison him, that were so anti-Semitic. So I arr...I was able to arrange for him a transfer to another city. But meantime I wanted to study medicine. I didn't have any papers, so I have to take exam that dismiss me from the whole subjects and he had connections and I was accepted in Krakow but he was transferred to Breslau, so I dropped it. I went with him to Breslau and I saw that this is under a satellite of Russia. I didn't survive the war to be cut off again from my family. Even my husband with high position, I felt I'm a queen for one night. This is not for me. So I told my husband I don't want to stay. We survived.

We have to go to Palestine, and my husband wanted to fight, at that time to join the Jewish , to be able to fight for Israel. He couldn't obtain a legal permission to leave. He was told the only way he can leave or he'll be sent to Siberia or he should shoot himself. The confidential (ph), the high position he had, he knows too many secrets. So I arranged for him...it's a long story...an escape and he escaped and then I escaped with his brother. I wanted with him, but his brother who survived with him decided that I have to stay with him, he should be able to liquidate the business which was not my place with the brother, only with my husband, but he was young. This was an older brother sixteen years, so he listened. I stayed. They kept us as hostages waiting for my husband to return to look for me. Luckily one Jew who know not my husband and me, learned about it, so he guaranteed for me because they just kept me. I was in jail, but there was no sentence for me. They just wanted him come to...for me and to catch him...

Q: Who was keeping you in jail?

A: The Pole...the police uh the uh , So he obtained my release because I claimed I'm not my husband's wife because we were...got married on the real name, Amalia Petranka and Salsitz and he was known as and I as Amalia Mewycheski (ph) so I claimed I was his mistress and this was the price I had to pay, so he obtained a release so my husband escaped. He succeeded and we arranged to meet in Munich. We met there and in Munich we wanted to go to Palestine. It was not a legal immigration so my husband had his senior brother, twenty years older than my husband who was...actually who was in Munich...this was before my husband was born...so we applied also for a visa to the United States and we felt whatever comes first legally we'll do and so the papers to United States came first and we came here first, but in "49...and and meantime in United States I applied for job as a Hebrew teacher, and in "49 they had the first chartered plane to Jerusalem, to the Hebrew University for the Hebrew teachers for lectures, so we both went and this is where for the first time I was reunited with my sister, my grandmother, my uncles and my husband met his brother and met my family.

Uh first we didn't know. We wanted to stay in Israel. We felt we are young. This is where we belonged. But my uncles advised me there were very hard times . Being that we are young we should go back to United States, build our life in United States and try to help the family as much as we can. And this what we tried to do. About thirty times already maybe we were in Israel. And after ten years, was born to us, to our eleventh anniversary, our daughter whom we named after my husband's mother and after my sister Teela (ph), Esther Teela. She became a lawyer and now she has herself three sons. She named each one after one of ours who were killed. And she and her husband, who is a doctor, are very active in Jewish organizations and they try to keep Judaism...she sends her son, older son who is now seven, to school to keep up Judaism.

Q: Thank you very much, very much.

A: Actually, I should thank you, to give me the opportunity to perpetuate...

End of Tape #3

Conclusion of Interview