Susan Cernyak oral history interview, 1974 March 28
Description
Susan Cernyak, a UNC Charlotte professor and Holocaust survivor, recounts her experience during World War II. Born in Austria, Ms. Cernyak describes the treatment of Austrian Jews before and after Nazi Germany's annexation of the country. She explains how her family moved to Czechslokvia, her father's escape to Belgium, and how she and her mother were captured before they could join him there. Ms. Cernyak and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, and she talks about her mother’s death in the gas chamber and her life as a work prisoner in the concentration camp. She discusses reuniting with her father and her move to the United States following her marriage to an American G.I. Throughout the interview, Ms. Cernyak discusses the long history of European antisemitism, and she ends by saying that Americans must reject racial or ethnic polarization.
