In his own words, Hanns Loewenbach had “the bad luck of being born in Germany in 1915.” Even prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Hanns was often the target of antisemitism. He spent his early life in Lübeck, Germany. His father, who owned several department stores, later relocated the family to Berlin, hoping that they would be less conspicuous as Jews.

In 1934, his father was one of the first Jews to be forcibly taken from his home and transported to a concentration camp.

Hanns’ young life was filled with one frightening escape after another, and eventually, he fled with both of his parents to Shanghai, one of the few places Jews could seek refuge without a visa.

Mostly stripped of their assets, these stateless refugees lived in cramped, communal housing where running water was not always available. They mingled peacefully in the same area with their Chinese neighbors, who were also very impoverished. In spite of these challenging circumstances, this community of exiled Jews established newspapers, synagogues, businesses, schools, and hospitals.

By the end of WWII, approximately 20,000 people lived within roughly one square mile, which became the Shanghai Ghetto. Curfews were imposed, food rationed, and conditions worsened with the onset of the Japanese occupation of China. Their German allies tried to get the Japanese to implement a plan to wipe out the ghetto, similar to their strategy across Europe, but this was rejected. Hanns survived with his parents by operating several businesses.

He married and later immigrated to the United States.

During the last part of his life, Hanns shared his story with thousands of students and community groups. In this podcast, you will hear Hanns say “evil does not need your help; only your indifference.” His last presentation was two weeks before he died at 96.

Topics mentioned in this episode or associated with Hanns’ story:
1936 Olympics
Kristallnacht
Dachau
Shanghai Ghetto

For more information on these topics:
yadvashem.org
ushmm.org
echoesandreflections.org

Hanns Loewenbach (far left) in his Shanghai Ghetto millinery shop

One of ten children in a loving Orthodox Jewish family, Esther Wondolowicz Goldman was a teenager at the beginning of WWII, living in Sokoly, Poland.

The German Army quickly occupied her small town, implementing forced work details, setting fire to Jewish homes, and murdering and arresting as many Jews as possible. Esther’s family was quickly dispersed, leaving her suddenly alone.

Deported to the Bialystok ghetto, she soon became very resourceful, only to have to adjust again after she was shipped to the concentration camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Esther’s talent as a seamstress helped to save her life in the camps, where she also worked in a munitions factory.

In early 1944, as the Russian Army was closing in from the east, the Nazis, in an attempt to move concentration camp prisoners closer to Germany and reduce their numbers, forced the already weakened inmates to walk for miles, often in severe weather conditions without food or water. Esther survived a death march to Ravensbrück, where she was liberated.

She returned to Poland and married Charles Goldman, a fellow Holocaust survivor.

They moved to France, where their two sons were born. The Goldman family later immigrated to the United States, settling in Norfolk, Virginia. Esther began telling her story in the early 1960s when it was less common to talk about the Holocaust than it is today. She spoke to hundreds of people before she passed away in 2001.

Auschwitz-Birkenau
Ravensbrück
Death march

• Word:  Goldman.docx
• Adobe: Goldman.pdf

Esther Wondolowicz Goldman

Goldman family enroute to the United States on the SS America celebrating their immigration, 1956.

Prisoners at forced labor digging sewage trenches in subdivision BIII of Birkenau. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Kitty Friedenbach Saks was born in 1932 in Vienna, Austria, where she lived with her parents and grandparents.

In March 1938, the German Army marched into Austria and was welcomed with no resistance by the Austrian government. This political union with Germany is referred to as the Anschluss.

Shortly after, as the Nazis began to occupy Vienna, an officer in the Wehrmacht walked into the Friedenbach’s comfortable apartment, liked what he saw, ordered the family to leave, and took their home and all of their possessions. This initiated her family’s plans to cross the border, trying to stay ahead of the Nazis. Sadly, Kitty’s aging grandparents decided to stay behind.

Her father crossed the border first; Kitty and her mother planned to follow once he was safe. After several failed attempts, including armed guards, bribed mercenaries, and a strip search, Kitty, aged 6, and her mother finally reached Belgium and rejoined her father in Brussels.

Belgium soon became just as dangerous as Vienna as the German Army advanced.

At the age of 9, Kitty’s physical education teacher, Fernande Henrard, convinced her parents that in order to survive, she had to be moved to a Catholic orphanage and live as a Catholic child. So began a journey of hiding and moving from convent to convent, from orphanage to orphanage. Although Kitty had a few close calls, she managed to maintain her identity as “Rosette Nizolle.”

In the early days of September 1944, the British troops entered Brussels and liberated the country from the Nazi stronghold. Kitty was reunited with her parents.

She later immigrated to Hampton Roads, where she married Abbot Saks and raised her family. Kitty passed away in 2021.

Hidden children
Anschluss

• Word: Saks.docx
• Adobe: Saks.pdf

Kitty Friedenbach Saks

Kitty's First Communion

Sisters Marie Victoria, Kitty, and Sister Marie Dominique at Paridaens Convent in Belgium, 1955.

At the outbreak of WWII on September 1, 1939, Devorah Gutterman was married and pregnant with her first child. She had grown up in a loving Orthodox Jewish family in the small village of Wiślica, Poland. Her husband’s mill was quickly confiscated, and Devorah, her husband, and new baby Sheila were soon living in a ghetto with her parents.

In 1942, as the Nazis began liquidating the ghettos, a local farmer hid Devorah’s husband and her parents. Hiding with a baby was too great a risk, forcing Sheila and Devorah to lay low out in the open. Because of her Aryan appearance and ability to speak Polish without an accent, she was able to get forged identity papers for herself and Sheila.

Devorah had to take many chances and could never stay in one location very long. Luckily, her family had a stash of American dollars hidden before the war, which she could access in small amounts.

Desperate, after several dangerous brushes with the authorities, Devorah put Sheila in a Catholic orphanage and could only check on her once a month. Each time she returned, she was never sure if her little girl would still be there. She also found a hiding place for herself from which she came and went at great risk.

Devorah and Sheila managed to survive until the end of the war, while tragically, Devorah’s first husband and her parents did not.

She immigrated to the United States, remarried, and had two more daughters and a son with her second husband. Devorah passed away in 2001.

Black market
Kraków Ghetto

• Word: Gutterman.docx
• Adobe: Gutterman.pdf

Devoroah Gutterman

View of the gate at the Kraków ghetto. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Israel Bornstein grew up in a warm Orthodox family with his parents and two siblings. He was in his early 20s, studying to be a rabbi, when the Nazis occupied Denmark in April 1940. Prior to this, Danish Jews were well aware of the Nazi’s brutal treatment of the Jews elsewhere in Europe.

A few years earlier, Israel’s father had turned down a job in Frankfort, which probably saved the lives of his family. Unlike many Europeans at the time, most Danes were not as quick to turn against their Jewish neighbors. Because the Nazis perceived the Danes as fellow Aryans, they allowed the Danish government more autonomy, most notably leaving their legal system and police force alone. This, combined with the Danish government’s refusal to discriminate against Danish Jews, kept the Germans from forcing Jews to register with the state, wear a yellow star, or abdicate their homes.

By 1943, as the war began to turn more in favor of the Allied Forces, labor strikes and acts of sabotage were more frequent, straining the amiable relationship between the Danes and their occupiers. After the Danish government resigned and martial law was declared, German leadership began making plans to round up the Jewish population.

But the plans were leaked after a high-ranking SS commander had second thoughts due to political ramifications. The round-up was planned for October 1, the Jewish New Year, in order to surprise Jewish families as they celebrated. However, few Jews were to be found.

Over the preceding month, a network of resistance workers and sympathizers safely transported approximately 7,200 Jews and 700 of their non-Jewish relatives to neutral Sweden by fishing boat. This highly successful rescue was still very dangerous. The boat Israel and his family packed was almost at water level. Their ride to freedom took only 45 minutes.

Israel later became Rabbi Bornstein after immigrating to the United States to complete his rabbinical studies.

He arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served Congregation B’nai Israel for over 40 years. He later joined his family in Manchester, England, where he passed away in 2001.

Rescue of the Danish Jews

• Word: Bornstein.docx
• Adobe: Bornstein.pdf

Rabbi Israel Bornstein

Jews on a rescue boat bound for Sweden. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Frihedsmuseet, Copenhagen.

View of the Danish fishing boat and monitor on the second floor of the permanent exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The 1994 film Schindler’s List immortalized the story of how the titular German industrialist saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. The film shined a bright light on Anna Duklauer Perl’s story.

In 1939, when the German Army invaded her country, Anna Duklauer, her parents, her sister, and her brother had been living peacefully in the ski resort town of Zakopane in the mountains of Poland. Not long after the start of the war, the Nazis loaded the Duklauers, along with all of the Jews from their town, into trucks and resettled them in the Kraków Ghetto, where all five members of the family lived in one room.

In 1942 Anna, her father and sister were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp, commanded by Amon Goth, a notoriously sadistic Nazi. Anna was only at Plaszow for a few months when her name was added to Schindler’s List; initially, she did not want to leave her family behind. Her sister insisted that she go and save herself.

At the beginning of the war, Oskar Schindler joined the Nazi party and took advantage of the Aryanization of business and society, acquiring several factories in Poland that Jews had previously owned. Like many, he was looking for the quick profits that war often creates and seemed to have little interest in humanitarianism. The most famous of these factories was the Emalia in Kraków, which manufactured enamelware. Most of the workers were slave laborers from the Kraków Ghetto. In 1943, the ghetto was liquidated, and he allowed his workers to spend the night in the factory.

These prisoners now lived at the Plaszow concentration camp. Conditions were even more deplorable than they had been in the ghetto, and Schindler began to intervene on his Jewish workers' behalf. Schindler managed to save approximately 1,200 Jews by the end of the war.

Because of Oskar Schindler, Anna Duklauer Perl was the only member of her immediate family to survive. She returned to Czechoslovakia after the war, where she married Jano Perl. They had three children and first immigrated to Israel and later to the United States, where they settled in Norfolk, Virginia.

Kraków Ghetto
Oskar Schindler
Aryanization
Amon Goth

• Word:  Perl.docx
• Adobe: Perl.pdf

• Word:  Perl.docx
• Adobe: Perl.pdf

Anna Duklauer Perl

Anna Duklauer (far right) with her parents and siblings before the war.

Anna Duklauer Perl with Oskar Schindler and fellow members of Schindler's list after the war. 

Page one of Schindler's list, including Anna Duklauer at #34, courtesy of Yad Vashem.

The 1994 film Schindler’s List immortalized the story of how the titular German industrialist saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. The film shined a bright light on Anna Duklauer Perl’s story.

In 1939, when the German Army invaded her country, Anna Duklauer, her parents, her sister, and her brother had been living peacefully in the ski resort town of Zakopane in the mountains of Poland. Not long after the start of the war, the Nazis loaded the Duklauers, along with all of the Jews from their town, into trucks and resettled them in the Kraków Ghetto, where all five members of the family lived in one room.

In 1942 Anna, her father and sister were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp, commanded by Amon Goth, a notoriously sadistic Nazi. Anna was only at Plaszow for a few months when her name was added to Schindler’s List; initially, she did not want to leave her family behind. Her sister insisted that she go and save herself.

At the beginning of the war, Oskar Schindler joined the Nazi party and took advantage of the Aryanization of business and society, acquiring several factories in Poland that Jews had previously owned. Like many, he was looking for the quick profits that war often creates and seemed to have little interest in humanitarianism. The most famous of these factories was the Emalia in Kraków, which manufactured enamelware. Most of the workers were slave laborers from the Kraków Ghetto. In 1943, the ghetto was liquidated, and he allowed his workers to spend the night in the factory.

These prisoners now lived at the Plaszow concentration camp. Conditions were even more deplorable than they had been in the ghetto, and Schindler began to intervene on his Jewish workers' behalf. Schindler managed to save approximately 1,200 Jews by the end of the war.

Because of Oskar Schindler, Anna Duklauer Perl was the only member of her immediate family to survive. She returned to Czechoslovakia after the war, where she married Jano Perl. They had three children and first immigrated to Israel and later to the United States, where they settled in Norfolk, Virginia.

Kraków Ghetto
Oskar Schindler
Aryanization
Amon Goth

• Word:  Perl.docx
• Adobe: Perl.pdf

• Word:  Perl.docx
• Adobe: Perl.pdf

Anna Duklauer Perl

Anna Duklauer (far right) with her parents and siblings before the war.

Anna Duklauer Perl with Oskar Schindler and fellow members of Schindler's list after the war. 

Page one of Schindler's list, including Anna Duklauer at #34, courtesy of Yad Vashem.

Jan Frolich grew up in Pisek, Czechoslovakia, the son of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father.

As the threat of deportation against Czech Jews grew, Jan’s mother refused to divorce his father. Desperate to save her five children, she sent them to her priest, and begged him to convert them to Catholicism. Instead, he turned them in to the authorities, who swiftly transported 13-year-old Jan and his younger siblings to Gestapo headquarters in Prague, an hour and a half away.

During their overnight stay in the jail, Jan bravely tried to keep up their morale. This was especially important for his youngest sister, who was only 3. The next day they boarded a train to Theresienstadt, a transit camp and ghetto which was used as an important Nazi propaganda tool. Despite cramped living conditions, hunger, and forced labor, Theresienstadt had a rich array of educational and cultural activities.

In 1944, the Nazis hosted a visit of the International Red Cross to show the world how well they were treating their prisoners. Gardens were planted, houses painted, and barracks were renovated, while special cultural performances rehearsed for weeks in preparation for the visiting aid workers. The ruse worked, and as soon as the visit was over, the camp returned to its previous condition and purpose as a transit stop for enemies of the Nazis headed east to death and concentration camps.

Three years after arriving at Theresienstadt, Jan, at the age of 16, was on one of the many transports bound for Auschwitz. In spite of even more brutal conditions there, Jan survived and was liberated in 1945. Following his recuperation in Prague, he moved to Haifa in what was then Palestine. He became a paratrooper, fighting for Israel in the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. He later immigrated to the United States and passed away in 1999 in Norfolk, Virginia.

Theresienstadt
Auschwitz
1948 Israeli-Arab war

• Word: Levine.docx
• Adobe: Levine.pdf

Jan Frohlich as a young man in Israel.

Jan Frolich transport document to Auschwitz, courtesy of Archives, Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic.

Jan Frohlich kneeling at left with Israeli soldiers during the late 1940s.

Janine May Levine grew up in St. Etienne in the east-central part of France. By 1940, the Nazis occupied the northern half of France, and the collaborationist Vichy government ran the southern part of the country.

Janine was 20 when she and her husband moved to Paris; soon after they settled into their apartment, there was a sweep of Jewish men. The police arrested her husband, and she never saw him again.

Janine defiantly refused to wear the mandated Jewish star to readily identify her as a Jew, risking instant arrest if she were caught. Because of her hidden identity, she secured a job as a bookkeeper, and Janine quickly discovered that her boss worked for the resistance, passing important information to the Allies on his frequent business trips to Switzerland. Janine prepared these notes by writing in invisible ink. After nearly being caught by the Gestapo, it was not safe for Janine to stay in Paris.

Following a treacherous flight to Vichy, France, she felt safer. Two days after arriving, the Vichy territory fell under tight German control. Janine continued to elude the Nazis and survived until the liberation by the Allies in 1944.

After the war, she worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, married an American soldier, and eventually settled in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She passed away in 2003.

French resistance
Vichy France
Swiss Neutrality in WWII

• Word:  Levine.docx
• Adobe: Levine.pdf

Janine May Levine

Hermann Goering speaks with Pierre Laval, the head of the Vichy regime, during an official visit. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Museum.

Janine May Levine's family home in St. Etienne, Loire.

Louiza Halfon Weintraub was a small child when the German Army invaded Greece in 1941. Before the war, she lived happily in Salonika with her father, Leon, a Greek Jew, Henriette, her French Catholic mother, and her older sister, Liana. Beginning in 1942, Leon would be picked up periodically by the Gestapo because he was Jewish and later released by authorities without explanation. Living with the constant stress of arrest, her family moved constantly, hoping that the German authorities would lose track of them. As conditions for Greek Jews deteriorated, a good friend of the family offered to hide the Halfons in his basement.

After a year in hiding, afraid that he was endangering his family, Leon fled to Albania. Henriette continued to fear that her half-Jewish daughters were in peril and placed them in a Catholic orphanage. Unfortunately, it was next to the Gestapo headquarters.

During their time in the orphanage, Liana, who had a beautiful singing voice, was selected to sing Ave Maria for the Christmas Eve service. Accompanying her on piano and violin were two Nazi soldiers in front of an audience teeming with Nazis. As luck would have it, Liana performed without anyone discovering her true identity.

Louiza’s father returned at the end of 1944. The family reunited in the basement of their friend in an attempt to stay hidden through the end of the war. The family was quickly discovered, but Leon’s automotive skills saved their lives.

The Halfons immigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s, where Louiza met her husband, Aron Weintraub. They lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and had two sons. Louiza passed away in 2020.

Greece and the Holocaust

• Word: Weintraub.docx
• Adobe:  Weintraub.pdf

Louiza Halfon Weintraub

Louiza (age two) with her parents Henrietta and Leon, and her sister Leona (age five) in 1938.

German troops man an observation post overlooking Salonika Harbor. Photo with permission of the United States Holocaust Museum.