all of them are different. announcer: next, holocaust survivor halina yasharoff family'srecounts her radiance after the invasion of poland and eventual german occupation. her father was deported to siberia, forced to leave behind .is wife and children they survived by pretending to be catholic. >> good morning and welcome to the holocaust memorial museum. today.be your host we are in our 20th year first person. i am always honored to support this program.

my family endowed the program in honor of my father who passed away. he was an american g.i. in europe. our first guest is halina yasharoff peabody. first, this is made possible by the lewis frank smith foundation. also, the fisher foundation. young grateful for their sponsorship. holocaust survivors volunteer at our museum and share their first-hand accounts of their experience during the holocaust. allows, you have an opportunity to ask a few questions. museum onways tag the twitter, facebook and instagram using at holocaust museum. i hope you people understand

that because i do not. be madeing will available on our youtube page. begin with this photo of her being held by her father, isaac. her mother is directly behind her, surrounded by family members and friends. wasna yasharoff peabody born december 12, 1932 in krakow , poland. her father was a dentist and her mother was a champion swimmer. the town in ukraine came under occupation in 1939. at the time of occupation, her sister was only two months old. officials detained isaac and then later deported him to siberia. here we see a photo in 1940,

after their father had been deported. in 1941, germany occupied all of poland. realizing that they were in danger, her mother bought. that identified them as roman catholic. here is a false baptismal certificate stating that her religion is roman catholic. with her new documents, they traveled by train. they found shelter with a woman who took in boarders. on the left is the house where they were sheltered and on the right is a photo of the girls celebrating christmas while in hiding. they were of united with -- --or reunited with isaac they were reunited with isaac.

she has two sons, one of whom lives in england. another lives just 10 minutes away. she has two granddaughters. she speaks frequently of her experience during the holocaust. she engages with visitors at the survivor desk. contributor to the publication edge it echoes of memory. she will be available to sign copies available in the bookstore. join me in welcoming our first person today, halina peabody. please join us. [applause]

>> which seat? you are the boss. i will take this one. we are so happy to have you here. i am honored to be interviewing you here. ms. peabody: thank you for listening to my story. hours ofe about four stories to share with you. i would like to start right away. can you tell us about your early life in your hometown? i already announced it once. i will not risk it again. --m always introduced interested in the relationships between jews and non-jews before the war. born december was

1932, so i was only six and a half when the war started. -- i did not have that information on that. was about to go to , when weten in 1939 knew that the russians were going tond they were take over our town. everybody was very frightened. what happened was, a lot of people wanted to run away, and we were right there at the edge of romania. was a natural frontier with romania. you could go halfway. when my mother and father got married, they looked for a smaller town.

they all came from krakow. my father was a dentist. he looked for a smaller town, which they found. citys a wonderful ocean where people came for summer holidays. been aer, having champion swimmer was very happy because it had water. we used to go on boats. we had lovely beaches there. was shady and another was sunny and you could go with a boat from one to the other. when i was five, i was skating. my mother was very good at all sports. skated andanced and rode horses. my mother was very brave.

sportsught that developed courage, which she proved later on. father knewn my ,hat the russians were coming they basted off the first world war where the men were conscripted into the russian army. that was hard labor. men were more scared than the women. thereever imagined that would be problems for the women and children. sister.two-month-old my father was worried. he decided to cross over by himself. there were other families that joined him and went over. we stayed back.

us, the russians occupied -- everybodyious was very scared. my father had crossover. slowly, things quieted down. silver.anded gold and we were just quiet and waiting to see what was going to happen. when winter came, everything was frozen over. worldas a part of the where you had a very hot summers. the river was frozen solid. the people who crossover like my decided that perhaps the

andians had settled then settle down and maybe they could quietly cross back into -- back home. without any trouble. sheets and they tried to cross the river. unfortunately, the russians had already sealed the border. they caught everybody. myy put them in jail, and in father's case, he was a dentist. they accused him of being a spy because he went over and came in. they gave him 20 years hard labor and sent him off to the labor camp in russia. again left alone.

in addition to which, under family law, if he were a , you were also sent somewhere to a russian labor camp. we were packed and ready to go. they did not take us for some reason. what they did was throw us out was tooouse because it rich for us to have a house. we were thrown out to a place up the road, not very far. so once isaac was sent away -- warren: so once isaac wasn't a way, did you hear anything from him russian mark -- from him?

ms. peabody: we did. -- that picture , that iswith my sister where we stayed. throughout the russian occupation and after a year, we heard from my father. he wrote a little bit about the conditions. we were able to exchange a couple of times. my mother sent a package to him. warren: when you were a and half, the war changed everything when the nazis invaded. all, weody: first of

were there when all of this was happening. we went to school. what the russians did was drop everybody one class because they wanted the opportunity to educate us. we were there for about a year and a half. suddenly, one day the russians disappeared and we heard that the germans were going to take over. house. back to my we settled back in and we waited. we had no idea what to expect. everybody was anxious, as usual. eventually, the germans arrived shinyotorcycles and uniforms.

very scary. they came down the road. wass looking at them and it scary. . remember my mother taking me when the germans settled in, job, everybody in charge was german. they started putting in laws. the first was that the jewish kids do not go to school. we were also not allowed to go to parks. we had a curfew. everything was rationed. just made it much harder for us. had to besh person working for the germans. not for pay, just had to be working for them.

if there was a not particular job for anybody, they were told to clean the sidewalks. mother was known for other talents that she had. she was a fantastic knitter. she embroidered as well. and they everybody knew my mother was a good knitter. they made her the chief knitter he had aayor because lot of children. she was told that she would be knitting for the children. everybody else had to do some job. they used to take whips of young people for various jobs at farms. they would say we need so many and then the square, they would march them out.

did whatever jobs they had to, they would be brought back. there was a jewish committee that wanted to not go directly to the people. the jewish community was tasked with getting the right number of people for whatever job they demanded. it went on a couple of times. and then they decided that they needed a big job to be done at the road. there was an old military camp. the winters were very cold. to findthat they needed the trucks of the trees for winter. about 600 people they asked for and they were supposed to meet at the square in the morning. they marched them out.

we waited for them to come back. nobody was coming back. we did not know what was happening. everybody got very anxious. warren: was this men and women and different age groups? ms. peabody: mostly young people. apparently, some people joined voluntarily, just to help. nobody was coming back all day or all evening until evening. one person came back. it was a young man. arm.s shot in the he told us what happened. the story was that when they got to the camp, there was no job for them to do the trees. was an open air

grave with sticks over it. they were told to undress, lay down on the sticks and then they were shot, and as they were shot, they fell into the graves. this man was one of the last that were shot and dropped in. they missed his heart and hit his arm. so he managed to get himself out and he came back and told us the story, at which point we realize that we were in grave danger. we lost all these people. everybody's first thing was looking for a hiding place. your testimonyed and i read your story. keep in mind the strength and

resourcefulness of her mother thehow old you were, all responsibilities and choices that you face. at the time of the first shooting, there was no warning. how old were you? ms. peabody: nine. warren: and your sister was very young. her mother had to decide what to do. the remaining jews were trying to find places to hide because who knows and the next action could continue? ms. peabody: we knew that we were in great danger. everybody was looking for a hiding place. we knew everything because we were part of it, except for my sister, who did not really know what was going on. my mother decided that she would take us to a lady who used to

cook for us. next time when they demanded a group of people, they said they wanted people to work in germany. nobody believed anymore. we had realized this was not true. everybody ran around and they hid. mother, sister and i stayed with a lady who used to cook for us in the evening. they loaded them on the train and they took them away. it was a small town. that big.ity was not my mother thought that they would do something else, that --

what is going to be the next step? that theys decided did not want to go around looking for us again because there were fewer and fewer of us, so they just threw us all out. the town was cleared of any jewish person officially. place,d go to another another small town at the road, not very far. -- afterwards it became a ghetto, but it was that area that they told us to be in. everybody obeyed. everybody started looking for hiding places again. me.other explained to she said it is not going to work because they are going to do it over and over, and there is not much help from us. there she was with two children.

they also did the same, exactly the same thing in the towns around this area, so they brought these little groups that remained, and they put us altogether in this place. wasfirst thing we did looking for hiding places. my mother said, it is not going to work. they are going to move us again. she was desperate. everyone was looking to see what they can do and where they could run. there was not much to do. there were some crossing over the river to romania. i remember at one point she was hoping to do that, to send the kids over, but nothing worked.

again,t time comes and they are demanding a group of people to go work in germany again. nobody believed them by then. we were there during the russian occupation. my mother knew some farmers there. when the call came that they needed people from that group, did not -- i'm say. everybody obviously scattered. but in a different area, so not everybody knew each other. knew a few farmers quite well. she split us up. i was with one farmer up in the loft. she and my sister, they were

with another farmer. they paid them in advance and they were going to stay there until they stopped looking for people. all day long, i sat there and i waited for my mother, not knowing what would happen to her. i kept thinking that she was caught. the would telld me who got caught. it was never my mother. i was very anxious to know what was happening. always thinking that my mother would be caught. i thin all day long waiting and being anxious. towards the evening, they caught enough people and loaded them on the train. i wondered if my mother was coming back, but she did. she told me her story when she

came to meet me. she said, we are never going to do this again. we are never going to split up. whatever happens to us, we are doing it together because i thought all this time that you were caught. we are not going to do that again. warren: she probably had the same fear again for you. ms. peabody: exactly. that was her decision. of course, i agreed. thinking, what could be done? what can we do? ideacame up with this because we were all female. identified, but the women, they could not check.

i was blonde and green eyed. they thought that we could pass as catholic. priest andt to a they got those papers. so we left there. our friends put us on a train, and we had a couple of suitcases and some money that they collected for my mother. we said goodbye and my mother we were going somewhere on the way to krakow and it would take four days and four nights. we were going to go as catholics. and gave sat me down me my new name. i had no idea about the catholic religion. all i knew was that i was jewish

and i was going to hebrew school on sundays. my father taught me to read polish. he wanted me to read the newspaper going to kindergarten. so you are bilingual in kindergarten? ms. peabody: no. we did not speak english. i just knew polish. was here polish. polish. we got on the train and said goodbye to our friends, who did not survive. it was going to be a long trip, a hard trip.

we settled in to the carriage and we started on our trip. my mother had taught me my new name, my grandparents, where i was born. that was all i had to learn. before we get to what happens on the train, at this young age, you have a new relationship with your mother in some ways because you have to work together to keep this sure up. -- charade up. ms. peabody: you had to grow up quickly. nobody wanted to die. my sister was the lucky one. she did not know. warren: you were almost partners with your mother. definitely: we were

partners. partners. young -- a young man sat next to my mother and started talking. my mother told me, this young man kept asking me questions and pushing me. i had no choice and i admitted to him that we were jewish. at that point, he said, in that to the sameoing place and i am going to accompany you and the kids. we get there, i am going to have to hand you over to the gestapo.o -- the my mother said that the detailed -- children did not survive. they had no use for children.

if you've that caught and taken to a concentration camp, they separated the sick, the old and the children. 13 or 14 for about them to keep you for work. other than that, you did not stand a chance. my mother knew that. she did not want to survive without the children. we had no choice. we were caught. we traveled with him, and he was very careful to keep us in his eyesight. we had nowhere to run. my mother was trying to think of what we could do. decided theree was not much we could do because we cannot run. so she started talking to him about a deal.

she gave him our tickets for the suitcases. she gave him all the money that she had. she even promised him the codes on our backs, but one thing she asked him was that when we get to the gestapo, have us shot quickly, all three of us. she explained to me that it would be less painful than being separated. she could not bear the thought because she knew that the children had no way of surviving. she did not want to survive by herself, so she only wanted it to be quick. she said this way would be the quickest. so that is how we traveled. i had nothing to say about it, except inking that this is what is going to happen. it took a long time. we were on this old-time train.

we were tired and exhausted. warren: four days. coming.knew what was ms. peabody: we were so tired. i do not think that i thought about it much. , thise finally arrived was so clear in my mind. as we were walking down the steps to the platform, i suddenly realized that now he is going to take us to the gestapo and we are going to be shot. i started pulling at my mother. i do not wanted to die. we continued walking. turns to him and says, perhaps you could leave -- perhaps you could let her go.

i said, i am not going without you. i was not about to go. so we continued walking. finally, she said this to him. she said i gave you everything that we have. keep it. why don't you let us go and let us try our luck? she added, why do you want this on your conscience? whether that or something touched him, he said to us, you .o not have a chance it sounds better in polish. is that you do not have a chance, but he left us. there we were, and a strange town on the main road. warren: i recall that your mother said to him, do you have children? ms. peabody: that was before,

yes. warren: remember what i said about her mother's resourcefulness? so, you have to wait for this guy and you have nothing. -- you got away from this guy and you have nothing. ms. peabody: the main thing my mother understood was that we cannot be found on the street. the germans were wandering around with guns drawn, meaning that they could do whatever. we could not be on the street for the night. we needed to get in somewhere. she spotted a little cafe near where we were standing and she walked in. she asked for a little bit of milk for my sister. looking andrted asking around if there was anybody who knew a place. it was dangerous to be on the

street. as far as the papers that we had , i did not know to this day if they were real or not. the main thing was for us to be inside somewhere. warren: and nobody knows that you are jewish. ms. peabody: absolutely not. a young man got up and said that she knew a place. anddy was a washer woman took people in. he said he would take us over there. there.ed us over very shortly. very nice, sweet, old bleeding. she looked at us. my mother said, i do not have any money, but tomorrow i go to work and whatever i have, i will bring to you for keeping us. she said ok.

i will take you. and then her son came up and said do not take her. how it will look. she had three sons. there,ere at least two very tall. they said, do not take her. she said, no. two is a mother and children. i have to take her. that was the most christian thing that i have ever heard. she took us. she gave us a bed, which is good. we had one bed. at the feet and she slept with my sister. of gave us all kinds household jobs, just helping around. this was more time, so you

always took a little bit of food from people when you are working for them. everybody is hungry. doingarted working and whatever she could to bring something home. . sister was very sickly she looked after her very nicely. as a polish child was supposed to go to school. it was two hours every day. religion.as for another was for general studies. i knew how to read. i was very worried. thingsoung, so a lot of could have been overlooked, but i was very scared.

i did not know what was going on , but the priest was extremely nice. religion by aolic little booklet called the catechism, which had questions and answers. i was able to read through it very quickly. i was very quick to learn because it was necessary. think he had any clue that you were jewish? ms. peabody: absolutely not. because itever tell was enough if it was pointed at you. the germans had no compunction. they would take you away.

warren: so your mother made the decision to hide in plain sight. forpeabody: she was working households. she would do some jobs. even i was working. across the street was somebody who was partially german. they had the right to have a polish person work for them for nothing. to darn socks, which i hated. my mother thought it was the right thing to do for me. did, the moreyou useful and you were, the better it was. she was worried about the security from the very beginning.

hadt of all, my sister terribly curly hair. polish girls have straight, blonde hair. not today, but then, yes. my hair was blonde and wavy. my sister's was like an afro. my mother was worried about that. she said to the lady who took us in, she said she was going to shave it off completely to make it thicker. it was an explanation, but what she was doing was taking the hair off so that it would not be visible as much. warren: i imagine she was not excited about that much. ms. peabody: i do not think she

understood what was happening. she was so young and she was not well. she had some kind of problem. , and my motherak was always worried about her. she always worried about it. then she thought, maybe, if we , thatfer work in germany was a good thing to do for young people. the germans were not as good recognizing jewish people as the polish. that was another worry, that ,hey might point at us and say who are they? us to work to offer in germany. -- they would not

take my sister because she was too young. , of course my mother said no, so we would not go. hide in decided to plain sight. if she could get to work for a id,an place and have the they would stop and ask for papers if you showed that they were working for them. slated to be the slave labor. all they wanted to know was that you were working for the germans. she took this step which was dangerous. she applied to the german military camp for work. they asked for papers. in those days, there were no computers, but giving papers was dangerous for us because we did

not know if the paper is good or not. she took the step because she felt she had to because she felt threatened by the situation. she thought if she had this, it would be some form of defense for her. so she applied to the nazis were a job. -- for a job. ms. peabody: the military. she was working. potatoes.s to peel that was the job, but she had the id. it was useful at one point. the germans came in the middle of the night, screaming and yelling, everybody out.

a cold, winter night and everybody came out. my mother showed them the id. they said, you stay. we were told to stay put. the others they took to a gestapo station. theever had to go to gestapo station. that is the kind of thing that she was worried about. those little things helped. oneng this time, we had letter from the people that we left behind. they told us that there was a letter from my father, who had written through the red cross that he was safe with his sister in palestine. knew that there was family in palestine.

they went out there in the 1930's and we never met them, but we knew that there was family there. fresh --e was out of out of russia, that he was free. that stalin,overed churchville and roosevelt met and decided that they needed more people to fight out and front. general anders was also a political prisoner and he was asked to create this unit. he was a very good man because he said i am not only taking men, i am taking the family. my aunt, uncle and cousin came out that way as well. thoughte out and they that my father was fighting.

this i learned later. at this point, we were just pleased to know that he was out of russia. we had no idea. we could not contact him in any way. you could not contact anybody. radio.listen to the we did not know what was going on. they lived in and day out. , it was complete silence on the street. a loud silence where you did not know what was happening, but there was nothing moving. workingsh farmers were in the morning.

nothing. was still thinking whether she should go to work or not. i was standing by the window and suddenly there was a tremendous bang and everything went dark. came overa bomb that the roof. shrapnel came through the window and hit my hand. i started yelling, my hand, my hand. my mother grabbed me and my sister by the hand. my hand was reading badly. unfortunately, i fell and it got hurt again, but it was bleeding badly. walked to the near hospital.

warren: you were bleeding profusely. ms. peabody: she was carrying my to walk.d i had it was not too far. upy picked me up, cleaned me , and they were very worried about my hand because they said it could get infected. they said that the russians were coming, that the germans were ,eaving, and they disappeared the germans, altogether. i was in the hospital for two months. in the meantime, my mother was trying to find -- everybody was trying to look for people. my mother was knitting and outng to get money to put announcements about looking for my father. my father had no idea that we

were alive because we were completely cut off. time, we did find him. in the meantime, where we were, we were still catholics, so it was a strange time. warren: this wonderful washer woman who took care of you, what happened to her when the bomb hit? when my mother spent the night with me and my sister in the hospital, the next day she came back, and that completelye was destroyed. the wonderful woman was under the roof of the kitchen that fell on her.

she was killed. realize that anything like that had happened. veryn: and your injury was primitive. there were very few drugs and antibiotics. ms. peabody: they did the best that they could. they were wonderful. they were wonderful nurses. there is an infection, they would have to cut my hand off. , they were fantastic. they cleaned me up. warren: we are a little short on time. i want to clarify a few things. your mother did not renounce her catholic faith right away. that ms. peabody:

identity for a while. onto that identity for a while. that somey: she said people that were saved came out .nd they were killed unfortunately, there were some people who did not like the fact that the germans did not finish. upset that i had to keep up the lie. my sister did not know what was going on. she was actually asked. me.said, look at do i have horns or a tail? there was a primitive element

there. these people are not very frighteningt it was to know that this is what happened. ,he neighbor that took us in they were sorry that they did not finish the job. my mother, all that she wanted was to get us out as quickly as possible. we finally found my father. he was not in palestine, he was stationed in egypt with the british army. it took a while before he managed to send my cousin from palestine to try to get us out of poland. warren: what was it like to see your dad after all of this? ms. peabody: it was very strange. oldister was two months

when he was gone. it was very strange. warren: you had not seen your father for seven years. to beabody: we had transported out of poland somehow. there was an agreement between the russian government and polish government about the holocaust survivors getting out. we were in a group of people trying to get out of poland. they would take a few of us at a time and throw us over the border to germany. warren: some people accused you of being jewish just to get out. ,s. peabody: what they said was .e have polish names we had no papers, whatsoever.

we had to leave every little out. so when we were in this group of people coming out, they said at one point that we were polls poles pretending to be jewish to get out of poland. finally, somebody remembered that she was a polish champion in swimming. so they accepted us. was really a reversal of fortunes. warren: there is so much more about england. games has these maccabee that are like the olympics. he represented what sport? table tennis. i wanted to play

tennis, but there were no facilities. so i played table tennis. helpd give me a lot of because i represented in the maccabee games, after israel was like jewishwas olympics. i was happy to do that. four hours of stories to share. with her arerviews on the website, you can hear the rest of her story about england, working at the american embassy in israel and you and your husband individually -- eventually came to america. i will make a few announcements and we will wrap up. i will read the official close. to give theadition

first person the last word. before that, i want to tell you how this will go, after she closes with us. stick around and maybe chat with people individually. you, she is one of the authors of echoes of memory. if you are interested, you can have her sign a book in the lobby. you can get to know her a little more. thank you again. go ahead. i dedicate my story to my mother, -- ms. peabody: i dedicate my story to my mother. survivorsrtant for us to tell our story so that future generations can better understand the horrors that humidity and the jews suffered.

for giving me the opportunity to say thank you to her, my mother, and the best way that i can and pay respects, and remember the 6 million that perished. warren: thank you so much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] is american each we and commode feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nation's past.

>> each week, american artifact takes you to museums and historic places to learn about american history. visit the american museum of american culture and history in richmond to look at their exhibit on 400 years of african-american history. this the second of a two-part tour. >> welcome back to the virginia history of museum and culture. we are standing in the middle of the exhibition entitled "determined." this section explores the period from the end of the civil war after the civil war, which ended slavery in the united states, through 1950. this was a period that witnessed both progress and backlash.