Interview Summary 1

The first interview was from Ursula Levy. She was born on May 11, 1935 in Germany. Ms. Levy discusses her earliest memories, from when she was 3 years old of her father returning from a camp where he was tortured. He did a year later after returning. Mr. Levy discusses how she never associated as Jewish, her heritage was Jewish but her family didnt practice. After Kristallnacht, Ms. Levy talks about how her mother fearing for her children had started talking to Uncle Joseph who lived in America about taking the children. Her brother and she were sent on a train to Holland, where they were kept at a Catholic convent. This place were children were sent to eat and gain weight. The lack of food in the area resulted in many people starving, so this place was for well off families. Ms. Levy discusses her relationship with the priest and nuns; they all had taken a liking to her and her brother. Her mother had kept in touch writing letters to the children, with the priest responding back, but in 1941 the letters stopped arriving. In April of 1943, out of all the children at the convent, five were Jewish, all of which were taken to concentration camps. Ms. Levy and her brother however never made it to the actual concentration camp. They were placed with the diamond cutters in barracks. Being separated from her brother, Ms. Levys brother was allowed to visit once a week from the boys camp. Under certain circumstances the identity of Ms. Levys father was questioned along with his ethnicity, which resulted in a positive removal of Ms. Levy and her brother from the cam p and to the barracks for the diamond cutters. Interview Summary 2 The second interview I watched was Edith Colivers. She was born on July 26, 1922 in a small town of Germany. She was seventy seven years old in 1999 when she was giving this interview. Ms. Coliver was brought up in a Jewish household; one parent was orthodox and the other conservative. She was the oldest of three children, with two younger brothers, Herold born in 1928, and Earnest born in 1929. Ms. Coliver discusses a peaceful childhood, was even in a gang was more of a tomboy climbing trees, and playing with the other children. In 1937 Ms. Coliver went from a public school to a segregated Jewish only school. Her family had been pretty well off, her father was a banker, and her family had been in the country for over three hundred years. Her father had also served in World War one and had been injured. They had a cook who, who kept their kosher laws. Growing up Ms. Coliver remembers being a very active child, who loved crafts. In June of 1938, Ms. Colivers family brought her home, back to Germany and was getting visas to leave the country. Ms. Coliver being only seventeen was allowed to go on her fathers visa, and her family left Germany to go to America. Ms. Coliver recalls staying up all night because she wanted to be the first one in her family to see the Statue of Liberty. After arriving in America her family settled in San Francisco. She said she was quite lonely because all she could think about was what the other people her age had been doing while her family and friends were suffering. She recalls that unlike America it was guilty until proven innocent.