Fred Ferber - September 11 & 25, 2001

Fred Ferber was born in 1930 in Swietchlowice, Poland in 1930. In 1933, the Ferber family re-located to Chorzow, Poland and then on to Kraków, Poland ca. 1936. Following the German invasion, the Ferbers were forced into the Kraków Ghetto located in Podgorze. In 1943, the family was rounded-up and sent to the Płaszów forced labor camp on the outskirts of Kraków. While in Płaszów, Fred's father was murdered by the camp's Kommandant, Amon Goethe. Fred worked in the metal and fabric shops in the camp while his mother worked in a labor detail. Fred's brother was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he died. Fred was separated from his mother when he was transferred with a number of other prisoners to the Mauthausen forced labor camp in Austria. From there, he was transferred to Gusen II and then to Gunskirchen (both sub-camps of Mauthausen). He was liberated by the American Army in May 1945. Following liberation and a short stay in a Displaced Persons Camp where he recuperated from typhus and dysentery, he returned to Poland to find his family. He was reunited with his mother in Sopot, Poland. After finding his mother and learning the fate of his brother, he moved around Europe until the late 1940s, when he immigrated to America. While in America, Fred stayed in an orphanage in San Francisco while attending school and college.

Link to Portraits of Honor Project

Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Fred Ferber - September 11 & 25, 2001

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