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Oral history interview with Lola Swede

Oral History | Accession Number: 1990.338.64 | RG Number: RG-50.037.0064

Lola Lipszyc Swede, born in Chmielnik, Poland, discusses her family of nine; her father who was a rabbi; having a happy childhood; the German invasion in 1939; having to wear Jewish star armbands; their house becoming part of the ghetto; having to selling off their belongings; doing forced labor making shoes for German soldiers; her father, sister, and brother dying from starvation in 1942; working for Chaim Rumkowski as a page girl; sorting the gold delivered to his office; having to cross a bridge every day where Jews were frequently shot; her family hiding in an attic during roundups; her mother who was traumatized into being non-verbal; the being sent with her remaining family in 1944 to Auschwitz; hearing music being played; the selection process and never seeing her mother and one of her sisters again; being taken to the showers and paraded naked in front of male soldiers; standing hours in the freezing cold; surviving the selections; being sent with 200 starved and dehydrated girls in a cattle car to Bergen-Belsen; soldiers opening door and being surprised to find the girls alive; being assaulted by a soldier; doing forced labor in an ammunition factory at camp Salzwedel; enduring a work injury, and being taken to a hospital; being liberated by the US Army (units of the U.S. 84th Infantry Division); staying in a British displaced persons camp; immigrating to the US, and settling in Buffalo, NY; and how she never wanted to share experience with her children.

Lola L. Swede
Mrs. Toby Back
interview:  1991 May 16
1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Record last modified: 2020-03-26 09:51:38
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