Centropa Stories

narrated by David Horovitch Aron’s  father was sure the Germans and the Romanians would never take Odesa.  And he went off to enlist to help make sure they wouldn’t. Meanwhile,  16-year-old Aron insisted to his mother they flee on one of the last  ships out. The rest of the family remained.

narrated by Shelley Blond Edward  Serotta introduces our wartime stories while walking through Babyn Yar,  where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered by German soldiers in  September 1941. The actor Shelley Blond reads an excerpt from a  remarkable memoir. When Petrowskaja asked her father what his  grandmother’s name was, he shrugs and tells her he was but four years &...

narrated by Janet Suzman Perhaps  as many as 4 million Ukrainians starved to death during Stalin’s  enforced famine of 1832/1933. Sarah Kaplan tells us how, even though she  was but 16 years old, her mother married her off to a cousin from  Moscow, just to get her out of Ukraine.

narrated by Jeni Barnett One  of our most colorful storytellers, Sophie tells us how one day, when  her mother was walking on the street in Kamenets Podolskii, a handsome  young man, an actor, asked for directions.

narrated by Stephen Greif In  this short episode, we learn about growing up in a shtetl, fleeing a  pogrom, and what it was like living on a collective farm.

narrated by Steve Furst The  actor Steve Furst reads an excerpt from Sholem Aleichem’s  autobiography, From the Fair. This most famous of all Yiddish writers  describes what it was like arriving in Kyiv in the late 1880s. As he  says about the big city, “If you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go into the  forest.”

narrated by Edward Serotta The  actor Steve Furst reads an excerpt from Sholem Aleichem’s  autobiography, From the Fair. This most famous of all Yiddish writers  describes what it was like arriving in Kyiv in the late 1880s. As he  says about the big city, “If you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go into the  forest.

Kurt was obsessed with football (soccer). When the family fled to Riga  after 1938 and he became obsessed with Communism. Until a Red Army  soldier knocked on their door, ordered the family to follow him, and  sent them on a train to a gulag prison camp. “Communism,” Kurt said,  “You’re dead to me.” narrated by David Horovitch.

Kitty Drill came from a family of cattle dealers and fruit sellers. When  the Germans occupied Austria, eight mem-bers of her family took a ship  down the Danube, another to Haifa, and ended up in a British prison in  the Indian Ocean. Narrated by Julia Franklin. 

Heinz came from the only Jewish family in their village and got along  with everyone. Until Austria was subsumed into the Third Reich. A tale  of fleeing to Hungary for safety. Out of the frying pan and into the  fire. Narrated by Allan Corduner.

Lilli was living in a small town when suddenly, all her non-Jewish  friends started avoiding her. Then came November 9th. Lilli’s parents  desperately looked for a way to save their daughter. Narrated by Sara Kestelman.

Kitty’s father died of a heart attack well before the Germans marched  into Austria. After the Anschluss her brother fled and Kitty’s mother  took her to the station. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m the  widow of an army officer.”

Sophie was born into a wealthy family that would soon lose everything,  including the lives of her family. Just nine-years-old when her mother brought her to the train station, Sophie could only hope she’d see her mother again. Narrated by Jilly Bond. 

Introduction to season two of CENTROPA STORIES Edward Serotta Between 2002 and 2009, Tanja Eckstein interviewed 77 elderly Jews here in Vienna. More than half of them had been born here, and were lucky enough to flee after the Germans occupied the country in 1938. Our academic intern Jackie Olson spent months reading through each one of them, then selected six interviews for us. To bring these dra...

narrated by: Wendy Goldman Historian Wendy Goldman of Carnegie Mellon on the Soviet Union and the home front during the war. Read Feiga Kil’s Centropa biography and see her pictures here.

narrated by: Sara Kestelman Isaac  Aizman was a neurosurgeon in Riga. His wife Tobe-Leya remained at home  raising four children. When war came, Dr Aizman was conscriopted into  the Soviet Army. He told his wife to flee eastward. She hesitated. And  that would cost them all. Read Feiga Kil’s Centropa biography and see her pictures here.

narrated by: Allan Corduner Samuel Birger tells the harrowing story of what it was like for his  family to flee from their shtetl of Jonava as the Germans sped through  the country, and more than a few Lithuanians joined in what would become  an orgy of killing. The Birger family fled by horse and wagon, by foot,  and then by train—until weeks later, they arrived in Tatarstan....

The German invasion of the Baltics and the Soviet Union