{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/vd6nz82w8j/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Lefkovitz, Tomas"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/082/original/TheBreman_SecondaryMark_Horizontal_Blue_Black.png?1713640889","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2024-09-21 (captured)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Lefkovits, Tomas (Interviewee)","Unknown (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["english (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source"]},"value":{"en":["William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum","Esther and Herbert Taylor Oral History Collection","Jewish Oral History Project of Atlanta"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eTomas Lefkovitz in interviewed on September 21, 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia.\u003c/p\u003e (general)","\u003cp\u003eTomas Lefkovitz was born in Hungary on March 29, 1949, to Holocaust survivors Endre Lefkovitz and Elizabeth Ungar Lefkovitz. Tomas’ mother survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, forced labor in Glogau, Poland, and a death march into Germany, escaping near the war’s end. She lost her parents, two sisters, a nephew, and most of her extended family. Tomas’ father survived several slave labor camps and, with help from a non-Jewish friend, escaped to Budapest, where he lived under false papers until liberation. Two of his brothers survived; most of his large family did not.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eTomas’ parents met and married shortly after the war. His sister, Eva, was born in 1947. When Tomas was about a year old, the family fled their increasingly Soviet-influenced country and settled temporarily in Vienna, Austria, while awaitingpapers to leave Europe. In May 1950, they immigrated to Venezuela, where Tomas’ father had relatives. They settled in Maracaibo, quickly becoming part of the Jewish community. While Tomas and Eva attended Jewish day school, their parents built successful businesses, first a hotel and later a department store. Tomas grew up aware that his parents had suffered during the Holocaust, though they did not speak with him about their experiences.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhen Eva and Tomas were in high school, their parents sent them to Miami, Florida, where they lived with an Orthodox rabbi. Eva attended public school and later college in New York, eventually earning a PhD in psychology. Tomas attended a yeshiva, then studied at Tulane University for two years before transferring to New York University, where he joined Eva and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhile living in New York, Tomas met and married Andrea Nadle. The couple moved to Brazil, where Tomas worked for an American company providing engineering and construction services to the energy industry, and they had three sons. After many years, they relocated to Tomas’ hometown of Maracaibo. Their sons attended the same Jewish day school Tomas had attended, and Tomas and Andrea became active in the community, serving on school and civic boards, including the Chamber of Commerce, where Tomas later became president. During this time, Tomas’ mother began sharing her Holocaust experiences. Although he initially resisted hearing them, Tomas gradually absorbed the details. All three of his sons later came to the United States for college. Two attended Georgia Tech, and the youngest attended the University of Georgia.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAs Venezuela’s political and economic situation worsened, Tomas and Andrea decided to join their sons in Atlanta, where Tomas’ mother also settled. By then, she was openly sharing her story, and her testimony, along with documents related to Endre’s escape, is preserved at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Tomas and Andrea later volunteered at the Breman Museum, hoping to pass on the lessons they learned from his parents. Tomas also joined a local group of second-generation survivors. In 2004, he and two of his sons opened Lefko, a construction firm. Andrea died in 2005. Today, Tomas continues to serve as Lefko’s CFO and enjoys spending time with his sons and many grandchildren.\u003c/p\u003e (bioghist)","\u003cp\u003eTomas gives an overview of his parents’ families and experiences in Hungary. He relates what his mother experienced during the Holocaust. Tomas mentions his father’s experience at the end of the war. He explains how his mother came back to Hungary. He reviews his family’s life in Venezuela. Tomas outlines his move to the United States. He considers how the Holocaust was remembered in Venezuela. Tomas shares the lessons he hopes to pass on.\u003c/p\u003e (scope content)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recorded by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written consent of the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.\u003c/p\u003e"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eTomas Lefkovitz in interviewed on September 21, 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTomas Lefkovitz was born in Hungary on March 29, 1949, to Holocaust survivors Endre Lefkovitz and Elizabeth Ungar Lefkovitz. Tomas\u0026rsquo; mother survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, forced labor in Glogau, Poland, and a death march into Germany, escaping near the war\u0026rsquo;s end. She lost her parents, two sisters, a nephew, and most of her extended family. Tomas\u0026rsquo; father survived several slave labor camps and, with help from a non-Jewish friend, escaped to Budapest, where he lived under false papers until liberation. Two of his brothers survived; most of his large family did not.\u003cbr /\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr /\u003eTomas\u0026rsquo; parents met and married shortly after the war. His sister, Eva, was born in 1947. When Tomas was about a year old, the family fled their increasingly Soviet-influenced country and settled temporarily in Vienna, Austria, while awaitingpapers to leave Europe. In May 1950, they immigrated to Venezuela, where Tomas\u0026rsquo; father had relatives. They settled in Maracaibo, quickly becoming part of the Jewish community. While Tomas and Eva attended Jewish day school, their parents built successful businesses, first a hotel and later a department store. Tomas grew up aware that his parents had suffered during the Holocaust, though they did not speak with him about their experiences.\u003cbr /\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr /\u003eWhen Eva and Tomas were in high school, their parents sent them to Miami, Florida, where they lived with an Orthodox rabbi. Eva attended public school and later college in New York, eventually earning a PhD in psychology. Tomas attended a yeshiva, then studied at Tulane University for two years before transferring to New York University, where he joined Eva and earned bachelor\u0026rsquo;s and master\u0026rsquo;s degrees in civil engineering.\u003cbr /\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr /\u003eWhile living in New York, Tomas met and married Andrea Nadle. The couple moved to Brazil, where Tomas worked for an American company providing engineering and construction services to the energy industry, and they had three sons. After many years, they relocated to Tomas\u0026rsquo; hometown of Maracaibo. Their sons attended the same Jewish day school Tomas had attended, and Tomas and Andrea became active in the community, serving on school and civic boards, including the Chamber of Commerce, where Tomas later became president. During this time, Tomas\u0026rsquo; mother began sharing her Holocaust experiences. Although he initially resisted hearing them, Tomas gradually absorbed the details. All three of his sons later came to the United States for college. Two attended Georgia Tech, and the youngest attended the University of Georgia.\u003cbr /\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr /\u003eAs Venezuela\u0026rsquo;s political and economic situation worsened, Tomas and Andrea decided to join their sons in Atlanta, where Tomas\u0026rsquo; mother also settled. By then, she was openly sharing her story, and her testimony, along with documents related to Endre\u0026rsquo;s escape, is preserved at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Tomas and Andrea later volunteered at the Breman Museum, hoping to pass on the lessons they learned from his parents. Tomas also joined a local group of second-generation survivors. In 2004, he and two of his sons opened Lefko, a construction firm. Andrea died in 2005. Today, Tomas continues to serve as Lefko\u0026rsquo;s CFO and enjoys spending time with his sons and many grandchildren.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTomas gives an overview of his parents\u0026rsquo; families and experiences in Hungary. He relates what his mother experienced during the Holocaust. Tomas mentions his father\u0026rsquo;s experience at the end of the war. He explains how his mother came back to Hungary. He reviews his family\u0026rsquo;s life in Venezuela. Tomas outlines his move to the United States. He considers how the Holocaust was remembered in Venezuela. Tomas shares the lessons he hopes to pass on.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recorded by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written consent of the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/082/original/TheBreman_SecondaryMark_Horizontal_Blue_Black.png?1713640889","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Lefkovits__Tomas_T1_S1.mp3"]},"duration":1969.97225,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-thebreman.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/313/542/original/Lefkovits__Tomas_T1_S1.mp3?1783259917","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":1969.97225,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Lefkovits, Tomas [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=0.0,0.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: [I am conducting an] interview with Tom Lefkovits today, September 21, 2004.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=0.0,5.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Lefkovits: [At]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=5.0,730.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"in the afternoon, post meridiem [Latin: midday]. Would you like me to just get started, get going?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=730.0,3613.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: I would like you to just sort of say this in your own words. If you could do it as chronologically as possible, that would be helpful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3613.0,3619.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Lefkovits: Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3619.0,3620.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Other than that, it is your story. You tell it the way you would like to.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3620.0,3623.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Lefkovits: Okay. I am a son of survivors. My father survived hard labor camps. My mother survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and Glogau concentration camps. Both my grandparents, both on my father and mother's side, were Hungarian from the state of Hajdu in Hungary, east, southeast of Budapest, very close to the town of Debrecen. My mother's family was in the retail wholesale business. [Her father] was a town merchant in Foldes, Hungary, and that's spelled F-O-L-D-E-S. He owned the local supply store. And just as a side note, when we visited Hungary in 1966 as a family, my father stopped somebody who was old enough along the street, asked about my grandfather, Ignatz Ungar. He said that he was a very kind and giving person. He gave credit even to people who needed it, even though he knew he would never get paid. He was Orthodox, very traditional. However, he did not have a beard because he used depilatory cream. His face was clean. My grandfather on my father's side was in the wheat business. He had a mill. They processed flour, the wheat seed, and then made flour out of it. And he was very well known and respected. He was Orthodox as well, but very traditional, bearded. My father went to cheder through the age of 19. He wanted to go to secular school. It was not allowed by the town rabbi, saying that a religious Jewish boy did not go to secular school. He would have wanted to have gone to university but there were two impediments, two stops there. One was the rabbi and the other one [was that] Jews were not allowed, except for a very small proportion to go to university. When my father was 20, 21, he went into the wheat distribution. At the age of 25 he was ... Well, even earlier than that. I'm sorry. In 1943, he was sent to hard labor camp when they called all young men, all young Jewish men and old, from the age of 17 to about ... I don't know the exact age. [They] were sent supposedly first to the army. They were given uniforms, no weapons, no formal training, and what they were put in labor details, hard labor, slave labor. My mother's family was composed of three daughters, my mother, a younger sister—14 when she was deported in 1944—and an older sister—21 when she was deported with a child ... \u003cbegins to cry\u003e Sorry ... My cousin. Until 1944, Jews were not sent to concentration camps. They were basically ostracized and separated from the Hungarians because they were Jews. My mother's sister had just had a baby, and when the oppression against the Jews became a lot greater, my mother's sister's husband—her brother-in-law—was sent to hard labor. So, my grandparents sent my mother to help her older sister with the baby. In July 1944, they deported most Jews. My grandfather, grandmother, and my aunt—my mother's younger sister—were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau from Debrecen, 13 miles away from Foldes. My mother, who was in another little town—I don't recall the name of it—was with her sister and her nephew, and they were deported from there to Auschwitz-Birkenau in July 1944 as well. My grandmother was sent directly to the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau. My grandfather was sent to slave labor, as well as my mother. When they arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau—my mother, and her sister, and her nephew—the sister and the nephew were sent to the gas chambers directly. So, the only three surviving members of the immediate family were my grandfather, my mother, and her younger sister, who, even though [she] was 14, passed off for older and that's why she was sent to slave labor. Within the grape vines of the concentration camp, my mother found out her father was alive and they made opportune sightings. They knew where the men were walking [and could see them] through the fences. Where my mother was in Lager C in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, she was able to cite her father, who was \u003cbegins to cry\u003e a Kohen [Hebrew: priest] and gave his priestly blessing to her on several occasions. And when she found out her younger sister was at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they were able to change a woman to go to her lager and get my mother's sister, Ilona, to come into my mother's lager. [In] early October 1944, when the Brits bombed the chimney stacks or the crematorium, my mother and her sister were separated and she never saw her sister again. She's still trying to find out what happened to her, to Ilona Ungar. By that time, she, Ilona, must have been 15 years old. My mother was sent, moved out to Glogau concentration camp in [present-day western Poland, near] Germany. And then in January of 1945, they were moved on the death march. My mother and two other women were able to escape unwittingly because they were cold. They overnighted in a barn and, trying to get warm, they moved closer to each other and were also sunk into the hay at that barn. The Nazi guards knew that there were several women missing and they thrust bayonets inside of the hay. Apparently, a couple of women were struck. My mother and two other women were not. And when the rest of the group marched out, they gathered enough strength to be able to get out of the hay, got into the farmhouse. The owner of the farmhouse thought they were ghosts, called the police. Police kept them in custody for a day or so. My mother spoke German perfectly because she had been educated in Debrecen at the Jewish boarding school and they taught German there as well. At that time, they figured, in Hungary, that whoever was culture needed to know German. So, they knew that they were going to take them back to the death march and they knew where the death march was. On the way, they spoke to the German police officer, and he might have let him go anyway, but as they were approaching the town or the city of Leipzig [Germany], it was bombed by presumably the Brits. Within days, the policemen let them go and they were able to take shelter in Leipzig, alleging something or other about their hair, because they had prison garb and they were able to obtain some regular garb at the jailhouse. I mentioned the hair because the women's hair was shaved off because of lice. They had lice. When they arrived Leipzig, they were able to stay for a week in hiding or a couple of weeks or however long, I don't have the exact chronology. The Russians came in and took over. That was the Russian advance. They were under Russian occupation. And as fate would have it, the translator for the Russians, who was interviewing people they captured or they caught in the streets, thought he spoke German. He wasn't speaking German. He was speaking Yiddish. When my mother and the other two women were being interrogated, they told the Russian officer they knew he was Jewish and that they were Jews, too. He denied it several times until he finally admitted that he was Jewish, that he was speaking Yiddish, and they were placed under the protection of the Russian troops. When the war was over, they were sent back, those who wanted. My mother did. [She] went back to her hometown, found only an aunt and three cousins had survived. Within months, she met my father. They were married in 1946. My older sister was born in 1947, 17 months after they were married. She never thought she would ever have a normal life or even had any expectation that she could have children because in the concentration camps, they would give women bromide in order to avoid them having their menstrual cycle. They were bloated and looked pregnant along their [abdomens] when they left the concentration camps. On my father's side, he was in hard labor. They were in repairing railroad tracks. Brits came on a bombing run and he ran into a friend of his, a guy by the name of Tomcich Ferencz. I still remember the name because my father had the documentation and I believe that documentation was sent to the [United States] Holocaust [Memorial] Museum in Washington, D.C. [Tomcich] changed clothes with my father. My father walked out as a Gentile [non-Jew] with false identifications. My father was blonde, blue eyed, tall, ramrod straight. Look, if there was ever somebody who looked like an Aryan, he was a prototype of the Aryan. And bold-facedly, he moved in next door to the Gendarmerie. That was the Hungarian SS. They never suspected he was Jewish. The only thing they would have had to have done is ask him to drop his pants. Only Jewish men were circumcised in Europe at the time. And that's how he, my father, feels that he was able to ... His friend, Tomcich, was able to get out because even though he was wearing the prison garb, all he had to do was drop his pants and show them, \"I'm not Jewish.\" My father—and I only found this out a couple of years ago when I brought my mother here to the Holocaust gallery in Atlanta ... My father, using his Aryan looks was a runner for Raoul Wallenberg, taking passes and safe conduct to Jews. Also, in the interim, my father found out that his brother was in hard labor camp, bought his way out. My uncle, his younger brother, if there is such a thing as a stereotypical Jew, he was, because he was darker skinned, darker hair, dark eyes. And he kept him in a bathroom in the apartment next door to the Gendarmerie. One day, a couple of months before the war was over and Hungary was taken over by the Russians, he saw his older brother in the street. They made signs to each other, \"Don't recognize me,\" whatever. They went into a dark alley, and my father's brother was a partisan working for the Russians. He took him into his apartment as well. And so, he had two men living next door to the Gendarmerie. They probably, presumably, looked Jewish. They were his brothers. And this is how they were saved also in Hungary. [When the] war was over, my father was healthy. He regained his place in the Wheat Burs. That's the commodities market in Budapest. His brothers ran ... The two surviving brothers, along with another one, they were the only survivors out of his family. He lost a sister and three brothers, his parents, most of his cousins. Out of a very large family, maybe 14, 15 survived. All the rest of them, because they were Jews from smaller towns ... The Jews from Budapest mostly survived. There were a hundred and some odd thousand, 170,000 that are alleged to have been saved by Wallenberg. So, I would imagine that would be the majority of the Jews in Budapest. [Miklos] Horthy, who was the prime minister or president of Hungary, did not comply easily with the Germans to send the Jews—and not because he loved Jews, but whatever other reason was behind it. The Nazi government sent Adolf Eichmann to take care of the Final Solution with Hungary and that was in March of 1944. This is why the Jews basically were deported late in the outlying areas late in summer of 1944, but the ones that were in Budapest had the easiest chance of it because of the Wallenberg effect and trying to save the Jews. When my older sister was born—by that time, 1947—the Russians were instilling their totalitarian form of government and communistic form of government. My father did not want to stay. My mother didn't either. They wanted to leave Hungary. They hated what was done to the Jews. Even some of [the Hungarians] who were their friends were some of the first to turn in Jews, especially in the small towns. And they decided to leave Hungary in January 1949. They departed Hungary with false papers, got into Austria. I was born two months later. There were very few places they could go. And without going into too much detail, they had two alternatives, either Australia or Venezuela, South America. In Venezuela, my father's first cousin was living there. He and his sister were living there. So, my parents decided to try going to Venezuela. They got to Caracas in April of 1950. I was a year and change, a couple of months old. I slept in a suitcase. My sister slept in the drawer. My mother was a seamstress. My father was just a regular laborer. And from there, they went to Maracaibo, M-A-R-A-C-A-I-B-O, where my father's cousin was living. In one of those runs where my mother ran into her father, her father told her that he knew she was going to survive and told her where he had buried gold Napoleons. Those were gold U.S. dollars. And they had ... That's the extent of their wealth. They came broken hearted, broken spirited into Venezuela, but knowing they had to survive [because they had] two young children. And with a little bit of money that they exchanged out of those gold Napoleons and the backing of a Jewish man who had been in Maracaibo already for 30 years, Mr. Lazarus Levine, they were able to put some money down to buy a hotel. At that time, that was a hotel where the Pan American [World Airways] crew stayed. The flights into Maracaibo were all hydroplane flights, Pan American Clippers, flying through Panama. And this is where they started learning a little bit of English. My mother was a cook and the maid. My father was a porter and the heavy chore guy. After that, they went into ... My father went into a small store, which grew to a department store and was only the second department store in the city. The only other department store in the city was Sears and Roebuck. Maracaibo is an oil town. There were many Americans at that time. Fortunately, my father and my mother did very well economically. They did their share in trying to make a Jewish community grow. At that time, at the most, Maracaibo had 200, 250 Jewish families. We had a school, a Jewish day school. My sister, my older sister, was in the first grade, or the first class that was developed as a Jewish school. I went into the second grade that was a class that was made, and so on. As my sister's grade went upwards, it became the first of its kind, and it reached up to the sixth grade. We had the first grade, and we had the second. Hebrew teachers, they came in from Israel, sent by the Sochnut. We had a Jewish cemetery. We had two synagogues, one for the Ashkenazi, one for Sephardic. All during my growth years, we never spoke about the Holocaust. My mother only started speaking about it when I was well past 30 and had three kids of my own. Every time she tried to speak to us, and us means my wife and I ... Let me make an aside. I was sent to school here in the United States at the age of 13. I went to yeshiva, came up with my sister. We lived at the house of an Orthodox rabbi because that's how long it took—from 1949 to 1962—for my parents to obtain residency because of the U.S. quota system for immigration into the United States. They sent us up here to give us a better chance to get into better universities so we would have a better future. So, my sister and I started going to school up here. I went [into the] ninth grade and my sister into tenth grade. She was at the public high school in Miami Beach [Florida], Miami Beach Senior High School. I was at Jewish Yeshiva Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach. We lived in an Orthodox rabbi's house. And then, after that, we were both sent to schools up in the northeast of the United States. So, our English was quite good. We went through high school. We went through college. I went two years at Tulane University. I then went to NYU where my sister was attending. She's got a bachelor's and a master's in psychology and since has gotten a doctorate in psychology. I got a bachelor's and a master's in civil engineering, having gone two years Tulane University and then finishing my bachelor master's at NYU. [I] met my wife, who is from New York. [She] never met a survivor of the Holocaust in her life until she met my parents. We were married, lived in New York, went down to Brazil. I was hired by an American company, went down to Brazil. We lived in Brazil for seven years, where our three children were born. Then, [we] went back to Venezuela for 17 years. My three children went to the same Jewish school I went to. During the whole time we were in Maracaibo, either my wife or I were on the board of the Jewish School. The Jewish school had heavy parental participation, and during those 17 years, either she or I were on the board. I also headed the Keren Hayesod, which is the foreign United Jewish Appeal, which is in front of the reconstruction of Israel. [We were] involved in all sorts of things within the community. I made that separation so that I could talk to you about my wife, tell you about our children. When our children started going to college, our oldest child was only 16 when he started going to college in Venezuela. We thought he was too young. My wife insisted she wanted our children to be schooled in the United States. And after going a year in college in Venezuela, David, our oldest, was accepted at Georgia Tech and he came up here. He got a bachelor's in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech, graduated in 1995. Our second son, Mark, also was accepted at Georgia Tech, and he came, and he also got a bachelor's in industrial engineering in December of 1996. And our youngest son came to school in international business at University of Georgia. We moved to the United States in 1995. That's when our second, our youngest son started going to ... was in an exchange program in Holland. He was there for a year and then came to University of George in 1996. And we've been here since. I still have most of my business and most of assets in Venezuela. I go back often. And we have not overcome. I certainly have not overcome the Holocaust. I made the apart when my mother would start talking to us about her Holocaust experience. My mechanisms just came in and I'd shut down completely. I'd fall asleep. I never lasted more than two or three minutes listening to her before I'd fall asleep. When we got to Atlanta, my wife has heard most of my mother's stories. [When we] got to Atlanta ... Because of my background and the places I have been ... Because in Venezuela nobody talked about the Holocaust experience. Because the other Jews who did not go through the Holocaust experience—and that was most of the Jews in Maracaibo—they didn't want to hear about it. They kept saying it's \"bube meise\" [Yiddish: a made-up story they refuse to listen to]. They were the first deniers at that time. Maybe it was too painful for them to hear about it because there was nothing they could have done. And maybe they knew, but they didn't do anything about it because they couldn't do any thing about it. So, it was never talked about. We just knew that our parents had gone through a terrible experience. We just knew that we didn't have grandparents because they were born Jewish and taken away from us. And it was terribly painful. We always knew we had to be on [our] best behavior. Our parents had suffered more than we could ever understand, and we didn't want to bring additional pain to them. It became easier for me when I was not at home and going to school away from home, because I could act out whatever I wanted to act out. I belong to a group here called Common Threads and we talk. All children of survivors have certain commonalities. There are things that consciously, we know are not sensible, but ... And I'll talk about myself. I always felt guilty that I was not there to be able to protect my family from what went on. I've always felt that I had to be stronger than anybody else because I would never be taken. If anything ever happened like what happened to them, I would never get on the train. You also have to be tougher than anybody else because I could not display weaknesses, because I'd be damned if anybody found out what my weaknesses were and they could exploit them. And even though you're tough as nails ... And if my family could survive what they did, I could not be any less than that. It marks you. And like my mother says, it's a wonder that we—and it must be our faith, and it must be your heritage, and must be our tradition—with all the things that our family went through, and all the things that you feel, and all the pain that you feel, that we're halfway normal, and we can live a normal life instead of shooting out of towers, and killing a bunch of people, and being mass murderers. We still have a sense of what's right and what's wrong. And it does hone your sensibilities to other people. I not only participated in my community, but I participated in the general community. I felt that Venezuela had been good to my parents, had been good to me, allowed me to grow economically, professionally, and within the bounds of the community itself. I headed the state Chamber of Commerce, and I was on my way. I was on the board and was on the way towards the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce. And when it came my turn to step up, I said I'd rather give all my support. I don't need to be the head. And they told me, \"Either you become the head or get out of the way to let somebody else move up the ranks.\" And they said, \"Why in the world don't you want to be president of the board?\" I finally had to admit to them I was afraid of what that would do to the organization because I was Jewish and that the first thing that anybody would ever bring up is, \"He's the Jew.\" And so, it was a fear of losing out [on] the work that, as an organization, we could do simply because they would point in the other direction that, \"Here's the Jew, the Jew, the Jew.\" All the rest of the board members and the old founders just started laughing and I couldn't understand it. They said to me, \"Nobody gives a damn whether you're Jewish or not. You are who you are, and you represent an organization.\" And you know what? That opened up my eyes, even though I knew Venezuela had been great, and good to me, and I never felt antisemitism, which I did here in the States going to school. It opened up in my eyes how much more egalitarian that country was. It gave me more of a reason to fight for the country, and to try to improve that country, and for me to be much more loyal to that country. I became the president of the organization. Never, ever did I hear the word 'Jew,' never. I was given a lot of honor in the sense that I was interviewed continuously by the press, television, national television, and national press. I rose up through the ranks of the national Chamber of Commerce, and I was headed to be the next president when we came up here to the States. My wife was held up at gunpoint three times. She was no longer leaving the house. I felt we needed to provide our kids with a better future. And if you know anything that's going on in Venezuela, you realize that it headed the wrong way completely. We have a terrible personal security situation there, economic and so on. So, she was right, I was wrong. But I still feel tremendous loyalty for that country. Coming here to Atlanta, because I'd never had a support group, support mechanism or anything else, and everything was totally painful ... the experience of the Holocaust. And I guess you've seen how I am affected. But I've been able to give tours and I became a docent. My wife did too. We became docents, and I give tours here, and I have to armor myself. I have to shield myself with a very tough armor when I go give the tours, because I'm not just talking about something that happened to somebody else. It happened to my immediate family, to my people. And what I try always to bring out to the kids, and mostly minority kids, is that you cannot stand by and be silent when you see something is wrong. You cannot be a bully. And for the majority kids, that you have to not be a bystander, that you have to speak up. If more people spoke up during the Second World War, what happened would not have happened. When 60 women went to protest, their Jewish husbands' imprisonment because they were race defilers, the German police gave way and let them out. Small group of women, and it happened. Had more people, countries spoken out in 1938 at the Evian conference, things would not have happened. And I point to what [Martin] Niemoeller said, Reverend Niemoeller, with, \"When they came for such and such, I said nothing because I wasn't such and such. And when they came to me, there was nobody left to speak for me.\" Prejudice in all forms, hatred in all forms, breeds violence, breeds discrimination, and there's nothing good that comes of it. I encourage people to see the Martin Luther King, [Jr.] memorial, where you see [images of] black men hung from trees just because they were born blacks. Well, I know what happened to our people just because they were Jews. So, we have to keep bringing the message across, and make it better, and more known to people that there is this museum that sensitizes people to what hatred brings.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=5565.0,5568.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/transcript/95087/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Lefkovits: Thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=5568.0,1969.97225"}]},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Annotations [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eAuschwitz-Birkenau was a network of camps built and operated by Germany just outside the Polish town of Oswiecem (renamed “Auschwitz” by the Germans) in Polish areas annexed by Germany during World War II. Auschwitz was a complex of camps: the Main Camp (Auschwitz I), Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and Monowitz (Auschwitz III). Many smaller sub-camps were attached to the complex, which drew their labor from the Main Camp and Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is estimated that the SS and police deported at a minimum 1.3 million people (approximately 1.1 million of which were Jews) to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex between 1940 and 1945. Camp authorities murdered 1.1 million of these prisoners. Auschwitz II, also known as Birkenau, was about 2-1/2 miles away from the main camp. It had the largest total prisoner population. This is the camp with the big brick gate and the railroad tracks leading to the ramp and where the four gas chambers and crematoria came to be located.  The Monowitz camp also known as Auschwitz III or Buna, was about 4 miles east of the Auschwitz Main Camp. It was a complex built to house slave laborers for the German chemical firm IG Farben.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eGlogau is a town in what was a part of Germany until the end of World War II. Today it is known as Glogow [Polish: Głogów] in western Poland. It is roughly 60 miles northwest of Breslau. Throughout the region, there was an extensive network of small satellite and forced-labor camps under the administration of the Gross-Rosen and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps that used prisoners for agricultural work or manufacturing armaments.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eDebrecen is Hungary's second largest city after Budapest and lies in the eastern part of Hungary, near the present-day border with Romania.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eFoldes is a village in the Hajdú-Bihar County of eastern Hungary, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) southwest of Debrecen and 124 miles (200 kilometers) east of Budapest. Its Jewish community dates to the 19th century and was mainly made up of merchants and artisans. By 1929, the population numbered 253 people. In 1944, the village's remaining 214 Jewish residents were deported to Auschwitz. Very few survived.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eOrthodox Judaism is a traditional branch of Judaism that strictly follows the written Torah and the oral law concerning prayer, dress, food, sex, family relations, social behavior, the Sabbath day, holidays, and more.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eA cheder is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eIn the period between World War I and World War II, Hungarian Jews were violently persecuted. Anti-Jewish legislation began in 1920, when Hungary had passed one of the first antisemitic laws in Europe. Persecution continued in the 1930's with a series of “Jewish Laws” that restricted the number of Jews in universities, liberal professions, administration, and commerce. Hungarian racial laws passed between 1938 and 1941 were modeled on Germany’s Nuremberg Laws.  The new laws reversed the equal citizenship granted to Jews in Hungary in 1867. Among other provisions, the laws defined “Jews” in so-called racial terms, forbade intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, and excluded Jews from full participation in various professions. The laws also barred employment of Jews in the civil service and restricted their opportunities in economic life. By 1939, many Hungarian Jews had converted to Christianity to combat the loss of work and poverty.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"},{"id":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542/annotation_set/2700/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1939, the Hungarian government, having forbidden Jews to serve in the armed forces, established a forced-labor service for young men of arms-bearing age. By 1940, the obligation to perform forced labor was extended to all able-bodied male Jews. After Hungary entered the war, the forced laborers, organized in labor battalions under the command of Hungarian military officers, were deployed on war-related construction work, often under brutal conditions. They worked clearing trees, laying railroad track and fixing broken track, digging defensive ditches and anti-tank trenches, clearing minefields, and the like. The Jews worked in these battalions both within Hungary and beyond her borders, on the Ukrainian and Serbian fronts, until the Germans conquered Hungary in March 1944.\u003c/p\u003e","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/174125/file/313542#t=3623.0,5565.0"}]}]}]}