United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Pauline Buchenholz (1913-2001) was born in Przemyśl, Poland to David and Helene Schneider. She lived in Kraków with her parents and her brother Henry (b. approximately 1919) and her sister Stella (b. approximately 1922). Her family was ordered into the Kraków ghetto in June 1941, and her parents were deported in 1942 and killed. In March 1943, the Kraków ghetto was liquidated and she and her sister were transferred to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, where she met her future husband, Kurt Buchenholz. She was transferred to the Skarżysko-Kamienna labor camp in November 1943 and to the Hasag-Leipzig labor camp in August 1944. She was evacuated on a death march in April 1945, liberated by Russian soldiers, and reunited with Kurt at Theresienstadt. The couple were married, stayed for about a year at the Deggendorf Displaced Persons Camp, and immigrated to the United States in June 1946.
Copyright Holder: Pauline Buchenholz
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The Pauline Buchenholz memoirs are arranged as a single series.
The Pauline Buchenholz memoirs consist of Buchenholz’s 1983 memoir As I Remember: Memoirs from the War and Concentration Camps and 1991 memoir The Postwar Years: A Sequel to “As I Remember.” As I Remember describes the outbreak of war, Buchenholz’s internment with members of her family in the ghetto in Kraków, Poland, her parents’ deportation, meeting Kurt Buchenholz, being hospitalized with typhoid fever along with her sister, being transferred to the Kraków‐Płaszów concentration camp in March 1943, her impressions of Amon Göth, finding again and becoming engaged to Kurt Buchenholz, labor and sanitary conditions at Kraków‐Płaszów, being transferred to the Skarżysko‐Kamienna labor camp in November 1943, labor and sanitary conditions there, working with picric powder, being transferred to the Hasag‐Leipzig labor camp in August 1944, being evacuated on a death march in April 1945, being liberated by Russians, fears of being raped by Russian soldiers, and being reunited with Kurt at Theresienstadt. The Postwar Years describes her experiences after she was liberated, her marriage to Kurt, their stay at the Deggendorf Displaced Persons Camp, her discovery that her sister had survived the Holocaust and was in Sweden, her immigration to the United States in June 1946, the birth of their sons, and their new life in New York, Connecticut, and Florida.
Pauline Buchenholz memoirs