William Luksenberg

Born 1923, Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland

William's family was ordered into a ghetto and his brother went to a work camp. William bribed officials to discharge his brother from a hospital set for evacuation to Auschwitz. He later escaped from a prison camp to tend to his brother and was jailed. He was sent to Blechhammer, Gleiwitz (where he met his future wife) and other camps. William collapsed during a death march, near the Austrian border, but was then liberated. His parents and brother perished.

Describes the first night of the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

Wallace Witkowski

Born 1928, Kielce, Poland

Wallace and his family were Polish Catholics. His father was a chemical engineer and his mother a teacher. The Germans occupied Kielce in 1939. Wallace witnessed pogroms against Jews in 1942. Wallace was active in the resistance, acting as a courier between partisan groups. In 1946, in liberated Poland, Wallace witnessed the Kielce pogrom. He was reunited with his father in the U.S. in 1949 and other family members followed. The Communist regime detained his only sister for nearly a decade.

Describes harsh living conditions in Poland.

Edward Lessing

Born 1926, The Hague, the Netherlands

Edward was born to a Jewish family in The Hague. In 1929, the family moved to the United States. Because his father had difficulty finding employment, Edward and his family returned to the Netherlands in 1932. They were living in the town of Delft and running a small clothing store when war broke out. Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. Anti-Jewish decrees were instituted, increasing in severity to the point that Jews could no longer own businesses and were forced to wear a yellow badge by April 1942. When deportations of Jews in the Netherlands began, Edward and his family went into hiding. Edward posed as a non-Jew until the end of the war.

Recalls decree forcing Jews to wear a yellow star.

Wladyslaw Piotrowski

Rev. Marian Jacek Dabrowski

Reidar Dittmann