Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Esther Feldman Icikson - October 23 & 29, November 5 & 12, 2001

And how many survived?

Well, we, we survived. My uncle survived, my--this uncle. And, of course, the one in Russia, the two uncles. And my uncle in Germany survived. Uh, he survived in Belgium. He married a German woman, a Jewish German woman. Uh, she survived with um, as a German person. Arya...Aryan papers.

False papers.

False papers. My uncle looked very much like a Jew. He was tall, long nose. He was a most unusual, wonderful person. Uh, he was in Belgium and he was hiding in a basement for, I think, two years, until the war was over. He, he was a designer for men's clothing and one evening a friend of his--he lived in Leipzig, in Germany. And a friend of his--a German friend that was actually already in the SS--came in and he said, "Rudolf, macht los! Get out of here." But make sure that no one can tell that you're leaving your house. So my uncle got dressed with double clothes. You know, one of top of the other, took some money and jewelry in his pocket with this wife and he said goodbye to his neighbors, saying that he's going to his in-laws for dinner. And that was Kristallnacht. They came and broke every single thing in his house. Every single thing that was in his house was broken into pieces.

So he left Leipzig?

He left Leipzig.

And went into hiding in Belgium.

In Belgium, yes, yes. So from that uncle I have only--he, they had two sons that died during the war. And there was only one cousin that I have. She lives in England--London, England. And she was born already after the war. She was born in 1948, I think, yeah.