Esfira Annenberg Interview by Jessica Brill This is a picture showing my family during the 1920's. During the interview, my grandmother told me that out of the 30 people in the picture, only 5 or 6 of them survived the Holocaust. Introduction My family has always been very open about their past, frequently telling stories of living in Europe, and all the hardships they had been through. I have always known that my grandmother, along with my great- uncle and other family members who are now deceased were in camps in Europe, but I never really knew all the details about it. I realized that there was probably a lot more to learn about than I already knew, so I decided to ask my grandmother about her experiences. Since my grandmother is known as the "family memory" she would probably remember the most about her experiences during World War II. I interviewed my grandmother, Esfira Annenberg, in November 2002. She told me the fascinating story of how she and her family were able to survive the war in the Ukraine, Romania, and Russia. My grandmother was born in Secureni, U.S.S.R. (now the Ukraine), in 1933. She was deported to a concentration camp at age 8, along with all of her immediate family and about 80 other family members. 75 of them died in the camps. Before the War In her original hometown of Secureni, there were around 1,000 Jews living there. She and her family were forced to live in ghettos, originally living in the Chernvetz ghetto, which was later liberated by the Russians. My grandmother told me that Chernvetz originally was a beautiful, large town that was renowned for its culture, but during the war it became the site for numerous ghettos. This is a picture of Eastern Europe during World War II, indicating locations of ghettos during the war. It depicts many of the locations my grandmother was in or heard about, during the interview. Despite having to live in fear because they were Jewish, she and the rest of her Jewish community continued to pray and worship as they had before the war. From research, I had found that there were many small groups of people who had tried to make plans to get out of the ghettos and camps, but my grandmother told me that where she was almost no one tried to break out, because it was nearly impossible. She told me there were extensive amounts of anti-Semitism in her community, and she and her family were forced to wear a yellow badge signifying they were Jewish. Other so-called "minority" groups, such as gypsies or Turkish people also had to wear badges, but in different colors. She was first deported to the concentration camp, Luchenetz, in southern Ukraine, in late 1941. It wasn't a labor camp, but rather a camp in which people died because of the lack of food and quarters. Very few people survived these camps. This picture shows the identifying badges Jewish people, even children, had to wear during World War II. The branding of Jews with a special sign in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries was designed to enable them to be distinguished from the general population, and therefore they were isolated and degraded. My grandmother, along with most other Jews, was forced to wear a yellow badge showing she was Jewish. During the War One of the most interesting parts of my grandmother's story was how my grandmother and her family were able to survive the camps. My grandmother's father, or my great- grandfather, was a pharmacist, so he was able to bring many ointments and medicines with him into the camps. He was able to pay off some of the guards by giving them some of the medicines, and if people in their family got sick he was able to help them get better. Although my grandmother and many of her siblings got typhoid fever because of the lack of food, nourishment, and small quarters, they were able to come out sickly, but alive. My grandmother was in the camps from the ages of 8 until she was 11, or from 1941- 1944. She told me a story of how after the Russians liberated the camp she was in, she had to run home and tell her father that they were able to leave the camp and that he should come and get her and her family. Because the rest of her family had to stay at the camp until someone came and collected them, my grandmother, who hadn't been to her home for over 4 years, had to remember exactly where her home was. She was luckily was able to remember and bring her father to the camp. After the War After the war, my grandmother and her family slowly went on with their lives, rebuilding their lives slowly. My grandmother began attending school and eventually married. She moved with her family to Italy for a year, and then to Romania, where she had my mother, and eventually to New York. There she got a job working in the Jewelry District. About 10 years later she took a trip to Israel, and registered in the Holocaust Survivor registry in Yad- Vashem. Although she was never interviewed for the Shoah project, which is a project run by Steven Spielberg documenting the stories of hundreds of Holocaust survivors, other people and family members have interviewed her. She now lives happily in Brookline, MA, with her husband, Lester. Reflections When my grandmother told me all the stories, it amazed me how she remember every little detail, from the emotions of the Germans to the color shoes her mother was wearing the day the Russians liberated the camps. This is a photograph taken at the opening gates of the concentration camp, Auschwitz. It means "Work Makes You Free." This picture important because this phrase was true in all the other camp as well, including the one my grandmother was in. One of the most interesting stories my grandmother told me was when she and her family were in the ghetto. They were eating the little food they had, which was usually some water and broth each day. My grandmother remembers looking at her siblings, and realizing how skinny they were by the bones sticking out. "They looked like the pictures we had seen of people from starving countries; they didn't look like my family anymore." My grandmother then remembers looking over at her mother, and saw the dress she was wearing that had fit her so perfectly just a year before. "It was so beautiful on her, now it looked like a schmata (rag)." This was the story that stuck out most in the mind from the interview. Hopefully through this interview, her stories will be passed on from one generation to another.   Bibliography Books: Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. New York: Bantam Books, 1975. Levin, Nora. The Holocaust Years. Florida: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company, 1990. Steigman-Carmelly, Felicia. Shattered: 50 Years of Silence. History and Voices of the Tragedy in Romania and TransistriaNew York: Bantam Books, 1998.   Websites: Heritage Film. Romania. http://www.heritagefilms.com/ROMANIA.html (13 November 2002). Holocaust Remembrances. http://search.aodsj/com/holocaust/(people (13 November 2002). Holocaust Studies. Holocaust Links/ Resources. www.aish.com (20 November 2002). Jewishpeople.net. Romania. http://www.jewishpeople.net/romania.html (13 November 2002). Museum of Tolerance Multimedia Learning Center. Transistria. http://motlc.wiestanal.com/text/x32/xr3276.html (20 November 2002). Nazi Concentration Camps 1933- 1945. 2000. http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/camps.html (12 November 2002). Nizkor Project. Shattered! 50 Years of Silence. www. nizkor.org (13 November 2002). United States Memorial Musuem/Holocaust Learning Center. The Holocaust. http://ushmm.org/ (13 November 2002).Visual History Foundation. Survivors of the Shoah. http://www.vhf.org (12 November 2002).   Interviews: Brill, Jessica. Personal Interview. 20 November 2002. Visuals: Jewish Virtual Library. Ghettos in Occupied Europe 1939-1944. http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/images/ghettomap.jpg (20 November 2002). The Pennsylvania State Libraries. Maps and Images of World War II. http://www.libraries.psu.edu/crsweb/maps/photo/2-Auschwitz.jpg (20 November 2002). United States Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/viewer/wlc/photo.php?RefId=88262 (20 November 2002).