Audio Interviews and Transcripts

Interview with Eleanor Rosenthal
by Marya Barinova

Below is the interview Marya conducted with Eleanor Rosenthal, a long-time resident of Potsdam, NY who was born in 1926 and grew up in Nazi Germany. As Jews living in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) in Nazi Germany, Eleanor’s family was at risk. Her father spent several weeks in a concentration camp, and then her family was evacuated to the U.S. before the war started. You can read a part of the interview below in the transcript typed out by the student or listen to the full interview in the audio player below.


Marya: I sort of asked this earlier, but [um] you mentioned you weren’t, you wouldn’t consider yourself overly religious, but would you say it plays an important role in your life?

Eleanor: Religion as such, probably not, but I’m active in the local synagogue and I feel it’s important to, knowledge and my background. I speak in some of the local schools about my background, so in that sense. I mean, I do feel strongly, but I wouldn’t say I’m a very, deeply, religious person.

Marya: What would you say to people, or young adults like me, who come from a Jewish heritage, what advice or [sort of] what would you tell them, in terms of preserving their heritage?

Eleanor: Well I do feel that it’s important to acknowledge your background and to, and I mean I feel very fortunate that I’m able to express myself and to have the freedom of participating in community, and I think it’s important to let people know that the Jewish religion is important. I mean, I feel badly when somebody fails to acknowledge that they’re Jewish, and you know, tries to hide that. I think that’s a big mistake. I think it’s important to let people know that this is important in life. And occasionally if you run into someone who has a strong prejudice, let them know that you’re Jewish and that you feel that’s making a contribution, rather than trying to hide it.

Marya: You mentioned that you had an uncle here.

Eleanor: Yes, and an aunt and her family.

Marya: Did a lot of your family stay behind in Germany?

Eleanor: Yes, but a number of them also left early. My grandparents on my mother’s side were left behind, partly because they didn’t want to leave and my grandmother on my father’s side, we were able to get out and into Luxembourg and we were able to bring her here. My mother’s parents, and this is in the tape too, were in Terasianstadt, which is not called Teresina, the concentration camp and my grandfather died there. But my grandmother was the only one left behind when the Russians came, and my uncle found her very miraculously, brought her to Germany where she recuperated, then he brought her to the United States.

Marya: And did you father’s mother stay in Luxembourg?

Eleanor: We brought her to this country, just after the war started, and she lived with us.

Marya: Do you know about any other family members, like cousins or anything, that were--

Eleanor: Well, I had very few cousins. My aunt had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was my age, and the girl was older. They left Germany very early and left to France in ‘33, I think, and moved to the United States, so they left. Now there were other relatives who either died in concentration camps or trying to leave and I know that one relative that was bombed and sunk. There were various things that happened. Some went to China; some went to Africa. I mean, they went to Chile, they were all different, and they could get out.