Description
Object description
Hungarian Jewish child in Germany, 1914-1918; rabbi emigrated from Germany to Sweden, 1933; aided rescue of Hungarian Jews in Sweden, 1944-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of period as child in Germany, 1914-1918: billeting of soldiers in home; sight of German troops marching off to war; family circumstances; reasons for father's Hungarian citizenship; father's deferment from military service; hunger experienced; help from Quakers; education and lack of anti-Semitism; effects of war on father's tailoring business; story of how ersatz coffee was made from roasted peas; reaction to abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 11/1918.
REEL 2 Continues: Recollections of period as civilian in Germany, 1918-1933: effects of inflation; problems relating to citizenship; story of right wing teacher who became a friend; details of education; story of Anti-Semitic schoolboy who later changed his attitude.
REEL 3 Continues German attitude towards growth of Nazis; how officials had to be re-educated into Nazism; treatment of Jewish civilians; warnings he gave Social Democrat teacher; awareness of nature of Nazism, 1933; incident were he was spat upon during Jewish Boycott, 1933; story of elderly lady in his congregation who had read 'Mein Kampf'; decision to leave Germany, 9/1933.
REEL 4 Continues: Recollections of period as rabbi in Kalmar, Sweden, 1933-1945: obtaining position in synagogue; problems with citizenship; sight of burnt out Reichstag in Berlin on route to Sweden; arrival in Kalmar; obtaining money he had previously paid for German citizenship; question of inability to understand Nazism without direct experience of it; attitude towards non-orthodox congregation and decision to go to Palestine; reasons for return to safety of Sweden.
REEL 5 Continues: story of death of friend in Dachau Concentation Camp; how Allied aircraft were not fired on over neutral Sweden unlike German aircraft; attitude towards Swedes supplying iron ore to Germany and allowing German troops to pass through country; strict immigration procedures; gaining protection for relatives in Budapest, Hungary; role of Raoul Wallenberg; Raoul Wallenberg's system for saving Hungarian Jews; story of how family were rounded-up and sent to Budapest Ghetto, Hungary, 1/1945.
REEL 6 Continues: hearing of conditions in Budapest Ghetto, Hungary; rescue of family by Soviets; state of parent's flat on return; death of parents shortly after end of Second World War; question of fate of Raoul Wallenberg; hearing of nature of concentration camps from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp survivors, 6/1945.
REEL 7 Continues: Story of how he got his sister into Sweden, 1939. Question of how faith was not effected by Holocaust.