Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

An interview with Peri Berki, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by an unidentified interviewer. Peri Berki was born in 1900 in Hungary. After her husband was deported to a labor camp and their farmland taken away, Peri and her son lived in a ghetto with her sister and at one point, with thirty-nine other people, in a one-bedroom apartment. With the help of her husband and a Gentile innkeeper, they obtained false papers, moved to the Hungarian countryside, and assumed Gentile identities. Throughout the war, they posed as Gentiles, avoiding detection and receiving help from several strangers. When the war ended, the family was reunited and they again obtained false papers to immigrate to the United States.

An interview with Clara Dan, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Kay Roth. Clara Dan was born in Tîrgu-Mures, Romania (later Hungary) in 1921. Clara was the youngest of three siblings. In the spring of 1944, Clara, her sister and her parents were rounded up and placed in a makeshift ghetto in Koloszvar, Hungary. After several weeks there, they were shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Clara and her sister survived the selection on the ramp and were reunited in the camp. After some time in Auschwitz, Clara and her sister were sent to work in a bullet factory in Hundsfeld. When the Russians came too close to the area, the sisters were marched to Gross Rosen and then sent to Bergen-Belsen where the British Army liberated them. After the war, Clara and her sister were placed in a DP camp in Celle, Germany where they were reunited with their brother.

An interview with Bert Dan, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Kay Roth. Bert Dan was born in Cluj, Romania in 1916. He served as a soldier in the Romanian army at the outbreak of World War II. After the Hungarians occupied Romania, he was arrested and imprisoned for a year; upon his release Bert was drafted into various labor camps and work details throughout Eastern Europe. During a forced march back to Hungary, he escaped with a group of other prisoners and was found by the Russian army. He was freed and eventually returned to Cluj. Bert began to work with Jewish committees helping to locate and assist Hungarian and Romanian Jews returning to their homes from Poland. He eventually set up a committee office in Prague, Czechoslovakia where he was reunited with his fiancée. They married after the end of the war and immigrated to the United States in 1949.

Esther Lupian was born in Minsk, Belorussia in 1936. Prior to the war, her father was proclaimed a dissident and was sent northward while her mother was left to take care of Esther and her brother Gresha. After the Germans occupied Minsk, the family was sent to the ghetto where they lived for two years. Gresha joined the partisans, was captured by the Germans, and sent to a death camp. Escaping the liquidation of the ghetto, Esther and her mother allied themselves with a group of partisans living in a nearby forest until they were liberated in 1945. Shortly thereafter, they were reunited with her father. Esther continued to live in Minsk until 1988 when she immigrated to the United States with her own children.

An interview with Abraham Asner, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Sheri Weisberg. Abraham Asner was born in Nacha, Belarus in 1916. After the war broke out, Abraham and his brothers were sent to Radun ghetto as part of a labor force. They survived the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 and became part of a partisan organization based in the nearby Natsher Pustshe forest. The brothers engaged in partisan activities and missions until they were liberated in 1945. A few years later, Abraham immigrated to Canada with his wife.

An interview with Irene Sobel (Miller), a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, Professor of History at the University of Michigan--Dearborn. Irene was born in Warsaw, Poland and lived with her parents and sister in a Jewish neighborhood of the city. The family was not religious but embraced the Jewish culture. After the Germans invaded Poland, her family decided to escape to Russia fearing they would be prosecuted for being Communist. After being denied entrance into Russia, Mr. Miller escaped over the border and came back with falsified documents to get the family across. After residing in Ignatki for a short time, Soviet transport trains picked the family up and shipped them east to a Communist work camp in Siberia. After being released from the camp, the family was transported to Tashkent where Irene's parents were forced to work on a collective farm and the girls were put into an orphanage. Mr. Miller became ill and died during a dysentery epidemic even though Mrs. Miller walked all night to try and get him antibiotics. After the war Irene and her family returned to Poland where Irene was put into a Krakow orphanage because her mother couldn't support her. Eventually Irene and her mother moved to Haifa, Israel where Irene met her husband, Howard Sobel, an American living in Israel. Irene then moved to Cleveland with her husband and had three children, later moving to Detroit. Irene went to school, obtaining graduate degrees, and achieved a successful professional career. Irene and her husband later divorced.