Browse Items (12 total)

Heinz Dreifuss, born March 21, 1923, in Mannheim, Germany, escaped to the United States on the Veendam steamship on July 26, 1938. He returned to Germany as part of the American Army, experienced D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, and liberated one…

Peter Lederman escaped to England from Nazi Germany after "Kristallnacht" (Night of Broken Glass).

Hilda Goldsmith, the mother of Rickey G. Slezak, was born on October 8, 1922, in Gelnhausen, Germany. At the age of 17, she escaped Nazi Germany and arrived in the United States sometime between 1939-1940 alone.

Peter did not live in the Kitchener Camp. Instead, he attended a boarding school where he continued his education and learned English. Separated from his parents, Peter contacted his father and mother through letters and occasionally visited them.

Peter Lederman's maternal grandparents, Julie and Kapel Hellbrunn, were deeply rooted in Germany. Both were born and raised there. They were steeped in German culture and language, and were integrated into German society. The Hellbrunns lived in…

Pictured left to right are: Ernst Ledermann (Peter's father), Ernst's mother Minna, and his father, Max, taken sometime in the 1930s.

Peter with his mother and Peter's parents, Max and Mina, together.

Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels was the first to suggest a "general distinguishing mark" for German Jews in May 1938. German SS and police official Reinhard Heydrich reiterated the proposal idea on November 12, 1938, during a meeting with…

After Kristallnacht, the Central British Fund for German Jewry (now World Jewish Relief) arranged with the British government for the rescue of about 4,000 Jewish men released from concentration camps. These refugees stayed in a former army base –…

In the fall of 1938, Nazi authorities required all Jews in Germany to carry identity cards stamped with the letter “J” for Jude (Jew). German Jews whose names did not instantly identify them as Jewish had to add the name “Sara” for women and…