First Person Podcast

Rabbi Jacob G. Wiener discusses his experience during Kristallnacht, known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” on November 9–10, 1938. He was arrested and his mother was murdered as a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms swept across Germany.

Leon Merrick's job delivering mail in the Lodz ghetto became all the more difficult over time as Nazi deportations to the extermination camps increased and he was often given the task of delivering notices for deportation.

Helen Goldkind discusses her deportation and arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center.

Jacqueline Mendels Birn discusses her family’s flight in July 1942 from German-occupied Paris to the southern “free” French zone known as Vichy.