Centropa Stories

narrated by:

David Horovitch

Moses  Chubat was but ten years old when the Romanian and German  armies  invaded Moldova. Barely escaping Chisinau, which was being set ablaze,  Moses, his parents and grandparents fled by train, ship and wagon—all  the way to Uzbekistan, 4,000 miles from home.

Read Moses Chubat’s Centropa biography and view his 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. Living  in wretched poverty, Samuel’s grandmother starved to death while he and  his three younger brothers foraged for jobs and food on collective  farms.

You can read Samuel’s Centropa biography and see his family pictures here.

The German invasion of the Baltics and the Soviet Union

On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa, the largest land invasion in history. Intent on destroying the Soviet Union, over 3 million German soldiers streamed through eastern Poland, the Baltic states and into the Soviet Union itself. By the time the Soviet Army had retreated, retrenched and retook their lands, millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians would perish and tens of thousands of villages and towns burned to the ground.

But of all those who suffered horribly, it was the Jewish population that was hunted down, shoved into ghettos and marched into forests or next to ravines--and shot. More would die in labor brigades and in death camps. All told, some two million Jews were murdered on Soviet territory.

In this pilot episode of CENTROPA STORIES, three of our interviewees tell us how they managed to escape when the Germans came barrelling toward them. And they will tell you about how they put their lives together after the war.

Visit us at www.centropa.org to find more than 1,200 oral history interviews--and 25,000 annotated family pictures--all belonging to those Jews who remained, and survived, in Central and Eastern Europe.

Narrated by Allan Corduner, David Horovitch and Sara Kestelman in London. Produced by Patrick Schmid in Vienna. Stories adapted Edward Serotta.

Be sure to listen to our interview with historian Wendy Goldman in bonus material.

https://podcast.centropa.org

On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa, the largest land invasion in history. Intent on destroying the Soviet Union, over 3 million German soldiers streamed through eastern Poland, the Baltic states and into the Soviet Union itself. By the time the Soviet Army had retreated, retrenched and retook their lands, millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians would perish and tens of thousands of villages and towns burned to the ground. 

But of all those who suffered horribly, it was the Jewish population that was hunted down, shoved into ghettos and marched into forests or next to ravines--and shot. More would die in labor brigades and in death camps. All told, some two million Jews were murdered on Soviet territory.

In this pilot episode of CENTROPA STORIES, three of our interviewees tell us how they managed to escape when the Germans came barrelling toward them. And they will tell you about how they put their lives together after the war.

Visit us at www.centropa.org to find more than 1,200 oral history interviews--and 25,000 annotated family pictures--all belonging to those Jews who remained, and survived, in Central and Eastern Europe.

Narrated by Allan Corduner, David Horovitch and Sara Kestelman in London. Produced by Patrick Schmid in Vienna. Stories adapted Edward Serotta. 

Be sure to listen to our interview with historian Wendy Goldman in bonus material.

https://podcast.centropa.org

Historian Wendy Goldman of Carnegie Mellon on the Soviet Union and the home front during the war

June 22, 1941: Operation Barbarossa