For more information, review the Oral History with Bernard and Emery Klein from May 23, 1984 at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/klein/ or RG-50.155*0228. Refer also to the Washington Post article on the first transport to Auschwitz with teenage girls from Humenne, including Edith Friedman Grosman: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/01/27/first-transport-jews-auschwitz-was-997-teenage-girls-few-survived/
Film footage shows Štefánikova Street, aka Gross Street, where the Gross, Grosman, and Klein families (wealthy merchants) lived.
The five original film reels are labeled: (1) Around Before LS Europe Trip (Film ID 2988); (2) My Trip to Europe - March 29, 1932 (Film ID 412.1); (3) My Trip to Europe Continued (Film ID 412.2); (4) My Trip to Europe Continued (Film ID 413); (5) Louis Sommer's Family Abroad (Film ID 2989).
Louis Sommer was born in Izbugya, Hungary and emigrated to the United States in 1899. He settled in Omaha, Nebraska where he owned a grocery business at the intersection of Dodge Street and 49th Street. Louis and his brother Harry visited their father Barnath and extended family and friends in Humenne, Slovakia in March 1932. They recorded Jewish families and businesses with a movie camera. Bernard and Emery Klein were born in Humenné, Slovakia. They had a younger sister, Judith (b. 1933); their mother was Jacob Grossman's sister; their father, Hermann Klein, owned a kosher and non-kosher meat market, farm and brick manufacturing company in Humenné. The Germans occupied the area in 1939 and started to deport the Jews in 1941. The Klein family was not deported until 1944 because Mr. Klein was an important farming advisor. The family was sent to Auschwitz without Bernard, who had become separated. Mrs. Klein and her daughter were immediately gassed upon arrival at the camp. Bernard was reunited with his brother and father at Auschwitz a month later. The three were sent to Gleiwitz where Emery and his father worked in a factory while Bernard worked in the concentration camp kitchen. In 1945, as the Russian army advanced into the area, the camp was evacuated to Blechhammer, another camp in the vicinity. The German guards fled the camp, leaving the prisoners. A few days later, the brothers, their father and several others began walking back to Humenné. The Klein family moved to Israel, Montreal, and eventually to Detroit, Michigan. Their cousin, Ladislav Grossman, also survived; he is the author of the award-winning film,"A Shop on Main Stree" (1965). Bernard and Emery Klein were born in Humenné, Slovakia. They had a younger sister, Judith (b. 1933); their mother was Jacob Grossman's sister; their father, Hermann Klein, owned a kosher and non-kosher meat market, farm and brick manufacturing company in Humenné. The Germans occupied the area in 1939 and started to deport the Jews in 1941. The Klein family was not deported until 1944 because Mr. Klein was an important farming advisor. The family was sent to Auschwitz without Bernard, who had become separated. Mrs. Klein and her daughter were immediately gassed upon arrival at the camp. Bernard was reunited with his brother and father at Auschwitz a month later. The three were sent to Gleiwitz where Emery and his father worked in a factory while Bernard worked in the concentration camp kitchen. In 1945, as the Russian army advanced into the area, the camp was evacuated to Blechhammer, another camp in the vicinity. The German guards fled the camp, leaving the prisoners. A few days later, the brothers, their father and several others began walking back to Humenné. The Klein family moved to Israel, Montreal, and eventually to Detroit, Michigan. Their cousin, Ladislav Grossman, also survived; he is the author of the award-winning film,"A Shop on Main Stree" (1965). Ladislav Grosman was born in Humenne to a Slovak Jewish family, the son of a tanner and owner of a small shop selling leather and belts. His parents and three of his five siblings were killed during the German bombing of Ružomberok in 1944. He is the author of"The Shop on Main Street" which he adapted into a critically acclaimed Academy Award-winning film in 1965. During WWII, he worked in a brick factory in Humenné, was forced into military service without weapons (on racial grounds), and was eventually deported to a forced labor camp in Banská Bystrica. He later went into hiding. Grosman returned to the liberated Humenné in March 1945, but moved to Prague in September of that year. He earned an engineer's degree from the Political and Social University in 1949 and a PhD at Charles University in Prague. He worked as an editor for Czech publishing houses and a film studio. In 1968, he emigrated with his family to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv where he worked as a lecturer in Slavic literature and taught creative writing and screenwriting. Grosman died in 1981. His is survived by his wife, Edith, and son, Jiří.
Reel 2. Shows families (the Sommers, the Kleins, the Grosmans) in Humenne. Man greets the camera. Girls at play, dancing in a circle, including Zuzana Sermerova (b. 1924). Family group poses. CU sign,"Garage" Two men peel potatoes. Roof of garage building. Family members pose in front of gate. CU Judith Klein (sister of Bernard and Emery) in a baby carriage. Group of kids wave and walk to camera, CUs. Men walk to camera, one takes off suspenders, walks towards camera. Bernard and Emery sit in the grass with the movie camera case. CU, Judith in carriage. Family in garden; in front of house; in yard. (06:01) Ladislav Grosman with cap and knickers walks towards the camera with his sister. Other family members walk forward. They play ball, bicycle in BG, and pose with Judith in carriage. (08:51) Automobile. Street with shops. Man exits Klein shop, smoking a pipe. Elderly woman exits the family shop and walks towards the camera, and then in the garden. Klein family at house/garden. (10:57) Boys in hats (Bernard and Emery Klein) pose for the camera, joined by their mother Helen Klein, and a cousin [hatchmarks along right side of frame]. Waving at camera. A group of women singing (silent). Kissing. Family and friends pose again in the yard.
Jewish families pose for camera; street scenes in Humenne