Wilmette Public Library Local History Digital Collection

Regina Fleischer (1928- ) oral history

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CD 2 Track 3: CD 2 Track 3
Transcription: CD2 TRACK 3 RA: And were those kept up by the people within the prison? RF : Yes. That's right. RA: And camp? RF: It looked like one of those picture book scenes/you know, if you want to go travelling. Then, of course, we came through the gates, into the camp and we entered Hell. Each barrack has a German woman overseer who was in the German SS and they wore green uniforms with the culotte skirts and then they had.... RA: You had women barracks guards? RF: Right. Black boots and they had black capes with hoods on them. They looked like Halloween witches running around at all times. They were very, very mean and beating people and.... RA: Sadistic. RF: They were very sadistic. The worst thing that could happen to anyone was to get sick because if you ever went to the infirmary it was about the end of that. Food was, they had the big kitchen which was also the prisoners worked in the kitchen and they served some kind of watery soup once a day and a piece of bread, Regina Fleischer, cont. 44 dry, to go with it and there was never any meat. There were some vegetables that they would cook up. That was about it. Ersatz coffee and a piece of bread for breakfast and some soup and a piece of bread and maybe some vegetables for dinner. That was the end of that. There was no fat, no nothing. This was the kind of diet, then, you had to work about ten hours a day and they switched the shifts so it would be sometimes in the day and sometimes at night. What I started saying about my hair was that I had very, very long hair and my mother was absolutely determined that they were not going to shave that hair and she pleaded and begged and cried, threw herself on her knees and kissed this woman's feet trying to get her to not cut my hair off. I guess the woman finally decided that she wasn't going to do it. So I had my hair, but at a very great cost because the hair had to be taken care of. There were lice in the camp and all that, so my mother one time did not eat for a week to save up the bread so she had enough, a loaf of bread, and then she paid this loaf of bread to someone for a special comb which was for delicing. RA: Oh, yes. RF: The teeth were very close together. Every week both of us would have to give up some of our bread to buy hot water from the kitchen so that we could wash my hair and Regina Fleischer, cont. 45 then use this comb to keep the lice out of my hair. So it was really a very costly proposition in terms of our food supply, but anyway we did make it through and I came out of the camp with my hair intact.
Creators: Fleischer, Regina, Interviewee; Adler, Rhea Saul
, Interviewer
Media Type: Audio; Image; Text
Item Type: Audiocassettes
Description: ABSTRACT
Interviewee: Regina Fleischer
Interviewer: Rhea Adler
Date of interview: Spring, 1981

• Length of time in Wilmette
• Birth in Bydgoszcz (Poland) - Germany - Life 1928-1933 – An only child - Father in wholesale leather business – Anti-Semitism forced move to Warsaw
• Explanation of Hasidic Jews -- Mother's background vs. Father's background (more worldly)
• Life in Warsaw compared to the Depression years in U.S.A.(through Joseph Fleischer's experience)
• Childhood reaction to anti-Semitism - Wish to come to States began early - Conflicts within parents at thoughts of leaving friends and family to reestablish themselves in a new country kept them in Warsaw
• German occupation - Formation of "Judenrat" and Ghetto – Life in the Ghetto - Concentration camps
• Move to factory apartment for safety - Mother picked up by police. Father obtains her release - Move from factory- Father walks out and never returns
• Maid arranges for Regina to live with a Polish Catholic family Unsuccessful - Returns to Ghetto and Mother - Leaves Ghetto shortly before its burning - Lived with Catholic family - Not familiar with religious ritual practiced in family so eventually returned to hiding place with Mother, complete wiping out of the Ghetto, people in hiding "turned in" when money ran out - Polish uprising against Germans -Becomes courier for Polish Resistance - Poles overcome by Germans - Decision to be caught
• Caught and placed on a cattle train with 150 people to a car - Taken to Ravensbruck, Germany in N.E.
• Worked as slave labor for Siemen's Electrical - Describes life in concentration camp, "life was hell," kept hair at great cost
• Decide to be taken on transport and were put under Red Cross care - Used as camouflage for movement of German troops
• Arrival in Copenhagen after much delay and illness from food from American Red Cross packages - To Malmo* - Lived in Sweden for a year and a half waiting to come on Polish quota
• Came to U.S.A. at age of 18 years- Expression of strong emotional pull then and now - Present philosophy
• Came to New York City on "Gripsholm" - Met by uncle – First impressions of New York and Chicago - Mother employed in garment district, lived in small apartment, begins school with no English at Roosevelt High School, dropped out, starts business college, finished and goes to work for chemical jobbers
• Meets Joseph Fleischer, marries and goes to New York as he goes into Navy in Korean War - Returns to Chicago, pregnant with daughter Janice while husband still in service - Baby born at Great Lakes Naval Hospital - Mother has remarried so she and baby take a furnished apartment at 6106 University on the Midway - Joe returns, gets employment and they move to a larger southside apartment with very good friends across hall - Baby-sat for each other - They also sensed her potential and encouraged her to go to night school
• Becomes pregnant second time - Has a son and remains a homemaker 20 years
• Return to college after Janice entered New Trier and Marc is in junior high school - Equivalency test finds her in 98 percentile - Encouraged to enroll at Roosevelt University in CLEP Program which University of Chicago and Princeton developed - Tested and entered as a college junior, graduated with honors, graduate school at Rosary prior to Roosevelt graduation - Graduated Rosary with honors 1972
• Job hunt, Wilmette Library opening under Helen Siniff – Works part time with graduation following year, hired full time as reference librarian and cataloguer under Mr. Freiser and Dorothy Hasse - Upon her retirement became Assistant Director under Dick Thompson
• Library system goes on computer — Lack of security— Community attitudes change regarding respect of library property
• Takes computer course at Oakton Community College – Wilmette Public Library goes on computer, placed in charge of conversion
• Future of libraries - Various kinds of library users – Changes in needs of readers as changes in communications occur
Notes: Regina Fleischer is a survivor of the Holocaust during World War II.
Place of Publication: Wilmette, Illinois
Date of Original: 1981
Subject(s): Concentration camps
Librarians
World War, 1939-1945
Oral histories
Wilmette (Ill.) -- Residents
Personal Name(s): Fleischer, Regina
Language of Item: English
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