Marton Adler - July 13, 1989
Family
In the course of proofreading this interview transcript, Mr. Adler was asked to read it and make appropriate corrections. In addition, he added information which is enclosed in square brackets.
Could you tell me your name please and where you were born?
Ok. My name is Marton Adler, A-D-L-E-R. I was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia or Ruthenia, Carpathian Mountains called Volové [Volovo] the Ökörmezö in Hungarian. Was born on September 14, 1929.
How large was your family at home.
At home. My parents, my father and mother, I had two brothers and a sister. We were five, I mean we were four children and my parents but later in 1944 my mother got pregnant again and she gave birth to a little child just maybe three or four days before they put us in the box cars and they shipped us off to Auschwitz. [I realize now that live births were not allowed in the ghetto. It (the infant) was murdered by the midwives.]
And the child died?
Yeah. But all I remember is that we were four children.
And you had aunts and uncles?
Oh yes. My mother was one of five. She was the youngest. There were three sisters and two brothers and my father was one of eight. He was second to the oldest. They were five brothers and three sisters.
All married?
All married. All of them were married. They all had children except on my mother's side there was one childless couple and on my father's side two brothers without children. That's my Uncle Shimon and my Uncle Berish.
And your parents names were?
My father's name was Hershel and my mother's name Fayga. My mother's last name was Zoldan, Z-O-L-D-A-N.
And do you have grandparents as well? Do you remember your grandparents?
Yeah. My grandfather's name was Youssel Zoldan and my grandmother's name was Toba [Kahan], which my daughter's named after her and on my father's side the grandfather's name was Moyshe Shmil and his wife's name was Rifka.
Did they all live in Volové?
No. No. My mother was born in Volové and her parents were in Volové. But my father's, ah, on my father's side they come from Brister. It's all in the mountains there but that's further down. That's near Dibowa, that area. But I mean further down maybe ah one hundred kilometers away from us.
So how many people would you estimate in this extended family?
Like, just like aunts and uncles and first cousins I would say around seventy people.
Do you know approximately how many people survived the war?
Out of the, survived, out of this whole family today on my mother's side there is a cousin in England, and two sisters and a brother from one of my mother's sisters, two are in Israel, one in California. Now these are all just first cousins as far as the aunts and uncles, they all perished. And on my father's side, a brother and a sister [who are children of my father's sister called Charna, are my first cousins, survived.] So total both from the eight and the five I would say there's about say including myself six or seven first cousins.
Who survived the war?
That's it.
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