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Survivor / Camps

Survivor/Camps
Lodz, Auschwitz, Ahlem, Bergen Belsen

Mr. Milberger lived in Poland with his parents and younger brother, Motek. His mother died two weeks before the war began and all the remainder of his family was killed.

The war began on September 1st in Lodz, his hometown. In early 1940, the Jews were forced into a ghetto and remained there until 1944, when they were shipped to Auschwitz, where they stayed for five weeks before going to Ahlem.

Salzberg, Aaron

Survivor/Camps Opatow, Sandomierz, Skarzysko, Buchenwald, Dora, Bergen-Belsen Mr. Salzberg was born in 1919 in the city of Opatow, Poland. He worked as a carpenter in his father’s shop, making furniture, doors and windows. Although the family was poor, they were happy. He had three brothers and two sisters. He is the only survivor.
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Rubin, Sol

Survivor/Camps
Kaunas (Kovno), Aleksotas, Stutthof

Solomon Rubintschik (later Sol Rubin) was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in January 1923. He was the son of Abraham and Ethel (Fish) Rubintschik. He had a brother, Mates, who was eleven years his senior, and a sister, Freida, who was five years older than him. His grandmother lived with them and died in the early 1930’s.

Sol’s father owned a factory that made cartons, shoe and candy boxes.

Plotnik, Ilona Izsak

Survivor/Camps
Berintza, Bortpatak, Auschwitz, Boizenburg

Ilona Plotnik was born in a small village in Romania called Briceni (Berintza) in May, 1916. Her village had about four hundred families but only three of them were Jewish.

Ilona was the youngest of three children. Her father bought and sold animals and traveled for his business. The family celebrated the Sabbath with a Friday night dinner and a freshly baked challah that her mother prepared.

Petrinitz, Irene Thirman

Survivor/Camps
Uzhorod, Auschwitz, Zitav

Irene Thirman Petrinitz was born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia to a well-to-do family that included her parents, one brother, an uncle and a sickly aunt. They led a good life and didn’t experience any anti-Semitism.

Irene’s father owned a transportation business, but in 1938, lost his business license. Her brother was thrown out of the university. The Jews had to wear a yellow star for identification. Shortly thereafter, they received a letter telling them to get ready to be relocated, carrying only what they could in their hands.

Pesis, Gloria

Survivor/Camps
Radviliskis, Stutthof, Dachau

Gloria Pesis, nee Kagan, was born in Radviliskis, Lithuania on April 10th, 1919, the youngest of seven children, six girls and one boy. Her sisters names were Luba, Bertha, Sarah, Fania, Eda and
Shulamith.

Gloria had no mother, but was raised in a loving household by her older sisters and her father. His profession was to prepare sheep wool to material and he also dyed the fabrics.

Thirman, Magdalene

Survivor/Camps
Csorna, Auschwitz, Allendorf

Magdalene was born in Csorna, Hungary in 1926 and grew up in Farád where her Father was manager of his uncle’s estate. Before that, he was a livestock buyer and was self-employed.

The two cities are 35 kilometers apart. Her Father was Eugene and her mother died in Auchwitz at the age of 48. Magdalene had five siblings but only one sister survived, Phyllis, who lives in Cleveland. At the time of their deportation, in March of 1944, the children were 20, 19, 18, 16, 13 and 10.

Zylberminc, Hanka

Survivor/Camps
Bedzin, Neusaltz, Bergen Belsen

Mrs. Hanka Zylberminc , nee Rotenberg, was born in Bedzin, a small town in southwest Poland, in 1923, the eldest of three children of an orthodox Jewish family. She attended a Polish public Jewish girls school in Bedzin, Bais Yaakov after school and Bnos on the Sabbath. She was exposed to hardly any anti-Semitism, since her home town was populated primarily by Jewish people.

Following the invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany in September 1939, her town was essentially closed by the occupying army, and it inhabitants were used for occasional labor. In February, 1941, her mother was given an ultimatum by the Germans in February 1941, to deliver Hanka for labor service or be arrested herself. Hanka, age 17 ½, felt healthy and strong, and assured her mother she would be OK. She was transported in a box car to the labor camp Neusaltz, near Hamburg, Germany. She never saw her parents again. She remained in the camp for four years until January 1945. The Neusaltz camp furnished slave labor to nearby industry. Mrs. Zylberminc worked in a factory making thread.

Weinstein, Harry

Survivor/Camps
Urisor, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Gusen-II, Gunskirchen

Harry Weinstein, named Ernst Weinstein at birth, was born in Urisor, a small town in the Transylvania area of Romania. Subsequently his family and he moved to Dej, a much larger town a few miles away near the major city Cluj Both towns had sizeable Jewish communities, especially Dej which was well known for Jewish culture and its learning institutes. Dej had several synagogues, the main one in a very impressive building a picture of which was shown during the interview. Weinstein’s father, Mordechai Leib, owned and operated several meat markets. His mother, Rosalina, took care of the house and of Weinstein’s four sisters. They lived on a farm, which they owned and they had the usual farm animals. Weinstein attended both Jewish and public schools and encountered considerable anti-Semitism in the public schools, as well as in general. The Transylvania area was politically under Romanian jurisdiction. However, since it was part of Hungary, i.e., the Austro-Hungarian Empire, prior to WWI, it still contained many ethnic Hungarians. Anti-Semitism was not state-sponsored at that time.

Klaiman, Zelda

Survivor/Camps Pabianice, Lodz, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen Mrs. Zelda Klaiman, nee Koplowicz, was born in 1929 in Pabianice, Poland, a town of approximately 50,000 inhabitants about 15 km SE of Lodz. Her immediate family consisted of her parents, two younger brothers, and a grandmother. The family was of conservative Jews, and Mrs. Klaiman attended a private Jewish school.
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