Centropa Stories

narrated by Steve Furst Simon paints a vivid picture of growing up with his brothers in a Romanian shtetl. The entire family was deported to Transnistria during the war. Not all of them returned. Simon married, raised a family, and in time, became president of his Jewish community.

narrated by Edward Serotta In towns like Dorohoi, Suceava, Botosani, and Radauti, Jewish life carried on all during the post-Holocaust decades. They were rapidly shrinking, of course, as most younger Jews wanted to leave, and the majority of them emigrated to Israel. But these small communities still maintained their canteens, youth clubs, choirs, and seniors’ clubs and held regular synagogue serv...

When Nazi Germany occupied Austria, over 110,000 Jews managed to flee. The Luster family, Moses and Golda, and their 14 year old son Leo, could not find a way out. Leo would endure nearly seven years of hell—in Theresienstadt, in Auschwitz, and in work camps in Germany. His story is read to us by Henry Goodman in London.

Jozef trained as a barber and as someone who could repair fountain pens. Those skills first saved his life and brought him into direct contact with Nazi officers in Auschwitz—and led him to testify against them in nearly a dozen postwar trials. His story is read to us by Steve Furst in London.

In March 1939, Nazi Germany occupied the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia. Pavel’s family was called for a transport to Terezin in 1944. Two years later, they were told they would be sent to “the east.” That meant Auschwitz. Pavel Werner story is read to us by Elliot Levey in London.

Katarina Vidor grew up comfortably middle class in Bratislava. She worked in an accounting office and spoke four languages. She loved playing tennis and water skiing with friends on the Adriatic. She had recently married and her parents lived nearby. Then the war came. Her story is read for us by Jan Goodman in London.

She grew up in a well-to-do family in Budapest, married in 1928, and doted on her only child, Erwin while running three hat shops with her husband. Then the entire family descended into hell. Her story is read to us by Tina Gray.

Auschwitz-Birkenau. the ultimate symbol of the Holocaust, where more than a million Jews were murdered. Of the 1,230 elderly Jews we interviewed between 2000 and 2009, nearly 100 managed to survive this hell on Earth—some to be sent on to even worse places. We present excerpts from five of those interviews, one each from Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland.

Mirou-Mairy Karasso was born in 1921, the oldest five children. She grew up wealthy and sheltered until she and her brother Albert, hiding with false papers, boarded a bus for Athens. The rest of the family fled to the mountains. A heartbreaking story of loss. Interviewed by Nina Hatzi in Athens in 2006 narrated by Jeni Barnet

Lily Pardo and her three sisters lived on Tsimiski Street and their father’s store was just down the block. And when the Germans began deporting tens of thousands of Jews, their fathers’ friend would hide them in his flat—for 18 months. Interviewed by Annita Mordechai in Athens in 2006. Narrated by Jilly Bond.

narrated by Allan Corduner Alberto Beraha’s father was a currency trader, his mother taught French. The family escaped during the deportations, and Alberto tells of hiding in a mountain village, where he listened to BBC broadcasts on a hidden radio, and translated the news for the villagers protecting him and his father. Interviewed by Annita Mordechai in Athens in 2007.

narrated by Annita Mordechai I grew up Jewish and Greek, the granddaughter of a woman who survived the Holocaust hiding with her parents and sisters in a friend’s apartment. In 2005, I joined a team of Centropa interviewers led by the historian Rena Molho and our goal was to ask elderly Jews born in Thessaloniki to share with us their personal stories—from the 1920s until the early 2000s. We highl...

A story of horror and resilience Anna Rottenberg, born in 1915 in Lodz, grew up in a wealthy orthodox family. She broke away to study child psychology in Warsaw and when war came, she escaped, but went into the Warsaw Ghetto to try and save her family. Anna describes scenes of unimaginable horror, and how she married resistance fighter Eduard Lanota. Together they fought  the Germans in the August...

Kirkus Review called Götz and Meyer “brilliantly disturbing” and The  Guardian called it “unimprovable.” In this short (168 page) stream of  consciousness work of fiction, a school teacher in Belgrade muses—and  practically hallucinates—as he wonders just what the two SS men who  drove the infamous gas van talked about all day. The fact that both  Breda and Matilda Kalef w...

She was born with the name Ruchel Kalef. During the war, Father Andrej  Tumpej gave her a name to hide behind: Breda. After the war, Ruchel  decided, “He gave me more than a name. He gave me a life.” Thanks to  Breda, Father Tumpej is now listed as a Righteous Among the Nations.  Breda became one of Yugoslavia’s best known mezzo-sopranos. Jane Bertish  has appeared on stag...

Rachel  Chanin interviewed Matilda Kalef-Cerge for us 2002, and we have  remained in touch Matilda, who recalls both an idyllic childhood in a  wealthy Sephardic family, and how she, her mother and sister managed to  survive during the Holocaust. Read by Sara Kestelman, whose screen and  stage credits include the works of Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Gorky and  Marlowe, not...

Few Jews live in Dorcol today but this quiet corner of Belgrade still  evokes its past, when Jewish shops stood cheek by jowl and families  scurried off on Friday evenings to synagogue. Ida Labudovic interviewed  Vera Amar and Avram Mosic for us in 2002, and both describe what Dorcol  was like in its last years. Jilly Bond, who reads Vera Amar, is a  regular performer on B...

We  begin our walking tour and podcast in Belgrade’s Kalemegdan, the  ancient fortress peering out over the confluence of the Sava and Danube  Rivers. In her book, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, published in 1941, Dame  Rebecca West provides us with a short history of Kalemegdan —from the  Romans to the Ottomans to the Serbs—and actor Melanie Preston reads an  excerpt fo...

narrated by Edward Serotta That  is what Maks Levin said when he went off to cover the Russian invasion  of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Once the Russians invaded in February, 2022,  Maks had but 17 days to live. He was embedded with Ukrainian fighting  units and covered the war on the front. On 11 March, his drone went down  near the Hostomel airport. Maks went to retrieve it...

narrated by Jason Isaacs In  this episode, we take a drive out of Kyiv. Our destination is the  village of Kozary, 82 kilometers to the north. This is where, in October  1943, the reporter Vasily Grossman wrote his searing essay, Ukraine  Without Jews.

narrated by Jan Goodman Lilya  Finberg paints a picture of postwar Jewish life in Kyiv, from the days  of the ‘anti- cosmopolitan campaign’ to the infamous doctor’s plot. But  Lilya watched society change, especially after Ukraine’s independence in  1991, and was thrilled when her son Leonid became one of Ukraine’s  leading Jewish intellectuals.

narrated by Jane Bertish Jakob  Shapiro was a highly decorated Army officer who railed against Jews  leaving their motherland for Israel. A construction engineer, he worked  on building sites until he was 86. In his final years, Jakob Shapiro  mused, “I’ll bet I would have done well there,” he said. “Guess I should  have gone, too.”

narrated by Henry Goodman Peter  Rabtsevich describes what it was like for Jews in Kyiv, and in the  Soviet Union, in the decades after the Second World War. Thousands would  stand in front of Kyiv’s only synagogue on the High Holidays. “They  came to remember their heritage, to remember their murdered families,  and to remember that they were Jews.”

narrated by Allan Corduner Before  he was 20 years old, Hertz Rogovoy had fought in three of the war’s  major battles: the defense of Moscow, in Stalingrad, and at Orel, where a  sniper shot him. Twice. After a year in the hospital, Hertz decided he,  too, would become a doctor. And he practiced well into his 80s.

narrated by Sara Kestelman A  story with the wallop of a 19th century novel. When the Germans were  closing in on Kyiv, Sasha Goldberg took his fiancé, Hana Gehtman, and  her sister Dora, to a train headed east. As winter set in, Hana became  sick and died. Sasha kept writing her from the front line, and Dora  answered, pretending to be Hana.