William Eisen testimony

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

William Eisen (1920-2008) was born Wolf Ajzowicz on 25 July 1920 in Książ Wielki, Poland to Symcha and Miriam Ajzowicz. He grew up in Miechów, Poland and had four brothers: Alter, Israel, Lemuel, and Maier; and one sister, Sara. William was a survivor of camps in Kraków, Plaszow, Skarzysko, Czestochowa and Buchenwald. His entire family perished during the Holocaust. He immigrated to the United States in 1947 and settled in New York where he worked as a tailor. 

William Eisen testimony 

folders 2 

The memoir describes the experiences of William Eisen and members of his family during the Holocaust and relates the attempts of surviving family members to rebuild their lives afterwards. The first part of the memoir portrays the persecution and killing of Polish Jews, including members of Eisen's family, and conditions that the author experienced inside the ghetto in Miechów, Poland, and the concentration camps of Julag I and II, Kraków-Płaszów, Skarżysko-Kamienna, Rakow (a.k.a. Rakov), and an unnamed subcamp of Buchenwald. The latter part of the memoir depicts Eisen's life inside the British displaced persons camp at Judenburg, Austria, and his emigration to the United States.