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AHC interview with Lillian Raeff
No full textDigital recordingJune 13, 2013Lillian Raeff née Gottesmann was born on Nov. 5, 1926 in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of two physicians. In September 1938 the family left to Panama where they had a relative. From there they went to Trinidad and in 1939 on to Bolivia before immigrating to the US in 1943. Lillian attended High school and university and then worked as a psychologist.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Walter Chaim Lebensohn.
No full textMay 21, 2013Walter Chaim Lebensohn was born in 1931 in Vienna, Austria, where he went to school until "Anschluss" in 1938. His father escaped to Belgium, while Walter, his mother and his grandfather hid in Vienna under terrible conditions until 1942, when they left via Bratislava to Budapest. Walter and his grandfather were interned in Budapest, until Walter escaped on the only "Kindertransport" from Hungary to Israel. Months later his mother joined him. His grandfather was never able to leave Hungary and was killed in the Holocaust. - The family was reunited in the late 1940s, when the father, who had immigrated to the USA, brought his family to New York. Walter Chaim Lebensohn became a math professor in Great Neck, NY.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Eric Kandel
No full textDigital recordingJuly 19, 2013Eric Kandel was born on Nov. 7, 1929 into a lower middle-class family in Vienna. His father Hermann Kandel had a toy store. After Anschluss he and his brother Ludwig, who was 14 at the time, left Austria via Belgium for the US, where an uncle already lived in Brooklyn. The parents also managed to leave Austria later on. Before studying medicine Eric studied history and literature at Harvard university. He then became interested in neuroscience and became one of the leading scientists in the field. Eric Kandel was awarded the Nobel prize for medicine in 2000.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Peter Frank Sorter
No full textDigital recordingOctober 4, 2013Peter Frank Sorter was born on February 8th, 1933. He lived in Helfertorferstrasse 3 in Vienna’s 1st District. His father, Alfred Sorter, had his medical office in the apartment - all designed by friend and architect Hans Weiss. When his mother Marianne Sorter returned from a trip to Berlin and described the dire situation there, the family decided to emigrate. As it seemed likely that Alfred Sorter could resume his medical practice in the U.S. they quickly applied for visas. A colleague of an American friend of Marianne Sorter eventually provided the family with affidavits. They left Vienna by train through Germany, and from Rotterdam they took a Dutch ship to the U.S. The first couple of years in New York Marianne Sortersupported the family by producing knitted goods (snoods); then Alfred Sorter passed the medical board around 1942/43. Peter Sorter became a chemist and earned his PhD when he was already in the army (office job). Peter Sorter, who remained in the same apartment that the family occupied in 1938, experienced a couple of anti-Semetic incidents in the U.S.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Edith Osinsky
No full textDigital recordingOctober 30, 2013Edith Osinsky, née Fink was born in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 23, 1931. Shortly after Anschluss in March 1938 the family escaped to Milan, Italy, and then to Paris, France. Edith’s father moved on to Cuba and the family followed later on. In Cuba they waited for their US visas. Eventually the family left for New York and settled in Inwood in upper Manhattan. Edith’s father committed suicide in 1946, and her mother remarried. Edith attended Bronx High School of Science and later on went to College in Ohio with a major in biology. She and her husband lived in Queens, New York City with their first daughter and later moved to Paramus, New Jersey.Austrian Heritage Collectio
Interview with Lawrence I. Lerner
No full textOral history with Lawrence I. Lerner, an attorney and human rights activist. In 1996, he became President of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCJFSU), formerly known as the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.Digital recordingDigital finding aid
AHC interview with Herta Kovacs
No full textDigital recordingSeptember 25, 2013Herta Kovacs née Goldmann was born on October 11th 1919 in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of Angela and Wilhelm Goldmann. She went to school in Vienna and fled together with her sister to the US in 1939. They left on a ship from Rotterdam while their parents remained in Slovakia until they got US visas. Herta lived in New York throughout most of her life, married Rudolf Kovacs, with whom she had two sons. Eventually she moved to a retirement home in Commack, Long Island.Harlem High SchoolAustrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Herbert Cooper
No full textDigital recordingNovember 11, 2013Herbert Cooper was born as Herbert Kupferschlag on Dec. 14, 1927 in Vienna, Austria, where the family (Herbert, his older brother and their parents) lived in Josefstädter Straße 87. The father had a stationery shop, "Adolf Weitzmann Papierwaren". Herbert had a cousin, Arthur Schickler, whose mother had to scrub off anti-Nazi slogans from the pavements in one of the so-called "Reibpartien" after Anschluss. Herbert’s father was arrested in September 1938, but he was released and left immediately for the United States, because his brother had sent him an affidavit. The remaining family had to vacate their apartment, and they left for Hamburg in May 1939. They embarked on the "President Harding" and went to New York. In the U.S. Herbert Cooper attended classes for young immigrants. He worked as a bus boy in the Catskills before studying electrical engineering.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Kurt Osinsky
No full textDigital recordingOctober 30, 2013Kurt Osinsky was born to Polish parents on Aug. 15th 1926 in Vienna, Austria. When the Nazis came to power in Austria the family lost their business and had to move to other apartments. Kurt's father was captured by the Nazis twice, but managed to return, the third time they took him to Buchenwald. When the whole family obtained exit visas the father was released. In 1940 Kurt, his parents and his siblings took the train to Genoa, Italy, and from there a ship to the United States. The family settled into an apartment on 2nd Avenue in New York City. The parents foundjobs in the fur business, and Kurt, his brother and sister went to school. When the father established his own business, Kurt started to work there and kept going to school. He met his wife, they got married and they had two children. Eventually he and his wife settled in Paramus, New Jersey.Austrian Heritage Collectio
My family, the Holocaust and a bit of history /
No full textEssay about the author’s maternal family during the Holocaust, including copies of documents