The interview occurred on March 13, 2007 on KQNA 1130 AM in Prescott, Arizona.

Sandy Moss interview of Terri Hanauer-Brahm regarding the research she has been doing on her families’ survival during the holocaust.

This is KQNA AM 1130, your listening to KQNA with Sandy Moss. Now here’s Sandy Moss:

Sandy: And we are back with our first guest, Terri Brahm. Terri’s got the most interesting story. While this is a business day, but I thought well you know we’ll just stretch it a little bit and we’ll make it a history-learning day. So I like that. Welcome to the show Terri.

Terri: Thank you very much Sandy.

Sandy: This is so good to have you on. And I have not heard all of this story, I want people to know, but I just wanted you to come on and we’ll just talk about it and you can tell us right on the show.

Now at some point you got interested in your families’ history, was this your paternal history or your maternal history?

Terri: My paternal,

Sandy: Okay!

Terri: My father, my father’s side of the family.

Sandy: So what, how did you get started looking for your family and why?

Terri: Well, my father past away when I was 20 years old, and I knew nothing about his life before he came to America. He was born in Berlin. And after he had past away, my grandmother had told me that they had spent some time in a concentration camp. And I just started crying and I started asking questions and then she kind of closed up, she didn’t really want to talk about it. She just wanted to let me know why my father was very distant as far as not talking about his childhood.

Sandy: And he never did, he never mentioned any of this to you.

Terri: Never.

Sandy: You knew he was Berlin, did you ever ask him “hey dad, what was it like”?

Terri: Well, I did and he never said anything. You know he wouldn’t open up about his life before he came to America.

Sandy: You know, I think trauma is like that. My father and grandfather were in the different wars, and same thing, they didn’t ever talk about it about it and after my father gone and my mother had told me some and then I asked grandpa and at that time he was old enough, he finally told me some of the things, but I think that’s a pretty typical kind of thing. So how long ago was this that you got interested?

Terri: Well, it was about 10 years ago that I started really researching and trying to find out how my family had survived during the holocaust, and all these things just started coming to me. You know, I would find different authors and I would email them and they would email me back with information and then I started putting things together and started realizing that my family had survived some very historical events in Berlin during the holocaust, and you know this has been, it’s just been sending out letters and just waiting for responses.

Sandy: So you started from scratch? From the little you knew about your family and just started looking it up. And there was a movie, wasn’t there a movie that you saw that either part of it triggered something?

Terri: Well, it’s a movie called “Rosenstrasse” and it was on HBO or Showtime, and I got into it about 15 minutes after it began, and it was in German, they were speaking German with subtitles, and I just automatically felt that there was something in this movie that I needed to know about. And I watched this movie to the very end, I went to my place of business and I ordered it from Amazon.com and I watched it like 5 times and then I started going through some of my great grandfathers papers and he had journaled when he had been arrested and he had been arrested during the this one period of time that the Rosenstrasse story was about it was from February 27^th till March 8^th, it February 27^th of 1943 till March 8^th 1943. And it was the same exact dates as this protest was, and it was the only non-violent protest that ended with Jewish men and women being released back to their family members.

Sandy: Oh, you're kidding? Did you have any clue that your family was involved in this, that they had anything to do with this place? You just intuitive said this is interesting, I want to find out more about it and low and behold there it is your great grandfather talking about it.

Terri: It was in his own handwriting. The dates were in his own handwriting that had been translated for me like 3 years ago and I saw this movie, it was back in November.

Sandy: That is phenomenal. Did you get this information from your grandmother, these journals and things?

Terri: I got this information from my uncle who had my great grandfathers journals. He had pictures and different things that my grandmother had boxed up. And so I just started making copies of this stuff and I have friends that are from Germany who have translated a lot of the information for me.

Sandy: Had this been kind of a secret thing in your family, like the elephant in the living room, where most everybody but you knew about it but didn’t talk about it, it was like past history and so unpleasant, lets not talk about it?

Terri: That’s exactly how it was.

Sandy: And yet everybody knew?

Terri: Well, yeah but we only had, there was my great grandmother, my great aunt, my cousin, Juliette and my father that came over from Berlin. That’s all the remaining family members.

Sandy: And what year was that?

Terri: My father came over in 1946 and my cousin and her mother came over in 1952.

Sandy: So you found out that your father was in a concentration camp. What one was it?

Terri: It was Theresienstadt, which is in Czechoslovakia.

Sandy: And was this, what kind of concentration camp was this?

Terri: Well, it was, well actually this concentration camp was the only camp that the Red Cross was allowed to go into, to make sure that the Jewish people were not being treated badly. And they did, they made a facade out of this camp.

Sandy: So, this camp was sort of the fake model?

Terri: Yeah, they made it look like a spa, that these people were treated very well, they had concerts, they had plays, and it was a façade.

Sandy: Well the rest of your family, did you loose a lot of extended family?

Terri: I lost my grandfather, he was murdered in Auschwitz, and so was my great uncle.

And I’m still learning about more of my family members through this historian in Berlin that is, he has kind of taken up my cause and he is helping me to connect the dots that are misplaced all over the place.

Sandy: Why is this important to you? Your kind of obsessed with it, which I’m not saying this in a bad way, I’m saying your really involved really interested, why?

Terri: Well, you know when I was growing up, they only talked about American history, and they never talked about the German history. And now all of a sudden, my family was a big part of the most horrific thing that could ever happen in this world. And I want my children to know what their family survived, you know how their family came to, you know how they came to be, you know where they came, who their ancestors were.

Sandy: So it’s a very personal thing. I was just reading something about the Italian director of “Life is Beautiful, I forget his name, but very charismatic and enthusiastic fellow and someone actually made the comment “well your not Jewish, you don’t have the right to do this kind of thing. And he said that history belongs to all of us. That was our world, it’s all of our heartbreak, and yet for you obviously you are more connected then the rest of us in terms of seeing what it did, I mean it actually devastated your family.

Terri: Yeah!

Sandy: How many survivors do you have in your family?

Terri: There’s only two of us left, besides my children and my grand daughter.

Sandy: So that’s it. Coming down generation.

Terri: That’s it, yeah.

Sandy: That’s really something. So now what do you think about all this? Now you’re really into it. Has it changed the way you thought about it?

Terri: Well, I’m learning so much more about how the German’s had decided who should live and who should die. And if you were married, if you were a Jewish person married to a Christian person you were allowed some privileges, but not, you weren’t allowed to go purchase, you weren’t allowed to have a food card, your spouse was the one that handled that, but if you were married, you were protected under that marriage, that if that person had passed away, which had happened in my family, then the Jewish spouse was taken away with their children.

Sandy: Unbelievable, so the protection was instantly gone.

Terri: Yeah!

Sandy: I’m surprised they were allowed them even that leverage.

Terri: Well, the research that I have been doing, this Rosenstrasse movie is based on that, the Christian and the Jewish marriages and then the children that were the product of that and both my grandparents were what they called “half-bred” or Mischlinge, Mischlinge children and every time I see ‘half-bred” I just can’t understand, how could you put that kind of name on a person? I mean that’s like a dog, that’s half-bred, that’s like bringing two dogs together.

Sandy: And yet many races, they do have a name for the combination of the races.

Terri: Yeah, and it’s a sad thing.

Sandy: Yes, yes it is a sad thing, because it alienates people from each other. What do you think, what do you wish now that you have really gotten into, what do you wish people knew more about? I mean, I think this generation is probably more holocaust mindful than the ones before possibly even, but is there things we’re still missing?

Terri: Well, I think there are things that happened in Berlin that the world does not know about, I mean there’s demonstrations that happened that a lot of people were saved by these demonstrations and I think that that history needs to be spread throughout the world. I think that if everyone could understand what hatred does to people, and try to see it in a different light, instead of looking at a person and not liking them because of their color or religion.

Sandy: Us or them.

Terri: Yeah!

Sandy: It is not an "us" or "them", it’s all of us.

Terri: It is. We are all inclusive.

Sandy: It has always amazed how an entire country could be in on something like this. I

said “Okay, maybe in a small group, maybe some leaders, how did the whole country get sucked into this”.

Tell me about the protest? Who protested?

Terri: Well, this was when the men, well, it was the Jewish men of the Christian wives found out that their husbands had been detained and held at this facility on Rosenstrasse, they started to go to this facility and protest out in front of the building. They were calling the soldiers murderers and for the eight days that they were out there, they were, there was one day where the army, or the Nazis had set up guns and they were going to shoot at the crowd. The crowd dispersed and then they came back, and they started protesting again. Because they were not going to, they could not kill these German women. If they would have done that, it would have caused, every other German would have said “why”, you could not just kill people because they are married to a Jewish person.

Sandy: And that would have been drawing the line!

Terri: Yes, so that is why they decided they were just going to let them go because it was too much, it was causing too much of a ruckus for the rest of the city.

Sandy: And so in fact this was a peaceful demonstration.

Terri: It was to a certain extent it was, yes.

Sandy: I mean by the people. Their coming out and saying we don’t like this and we don’t want it and it made a difference.

Terri: It did. They had, on one day they had up to 600 women protesting in front of this building.

Sandy: That must have taken a tremendous amount of bravery! Because if they were aware, if those women were aware, which they obviously were, of Jewish people being taken off and you’d never see them again, and understanding that the German government and soldiers were capable of killing you out right. I mean you think of the tremendous courage that took for them to do that. To go out in public and stand up and say we don’t like what is happening.

Terri: That’s right, let our husbands go is what they protested.

Sandy: I have never heard that there were any protests.

Terri: Rosenstrasse is, I mean it’s a beautiful movie and I, every time I watch it I cry. I

just, I mean it’s just an amazing, these women were, their strength was just amazing. That they would stand up to the German government.

Sandy: They could have just got drug off too.

Terri: Oh, yeah that’s right.

Sandy: As in many of these countries genocide problems the separation between the “good” people and the quote “bad” people are what, a name, a color of hair. I mean it has absolutely nothing to do with actually their real lineage. I mean this Bosnia/Serbia was good example of, I said how in the world did they know who was Bosnian and who was Serbian? What if you married a Serbian, you know it’s just so allusive to me, this whole thing.

Now your name is Brahm, as in, sort of like Brahm’s,

Terri: Brahm’s lullaby.

Sandy: Is that your paternal name?

Terri: No, my maiden name was Hanauer.

Sandy: So what was your grandfathers’ name?

Terri: It was Hans Heinz Hanauer.

Sandy: Wow, and you said you had a postcard from him that he sent to your grandmother.

Terri: Well, my grandmother was actually with him when he was taken to the labor camp and while he was sitting on the train he had written on a postcard and given it to the wife of one of the soldiers and she hand delivered to my grandmother. And it just was, he was apologizing to her for what had led up to him being taken away and that he wanted her to write him and keep in touch with him and for her to know that he loved her and to give my father a kiss and he even wrote from your sometimes a little stupid Hans. And it was just, I mean cause he, I guess he was, he just wanted to do the right thing and he got in trouble for doing the right thing.

Sandy: So, how do you feel about your family heritage, Terri?

Terri: I am very proud of my family heritage!

Sandy: How could you not be? And he made it home, your grandfather made it back?

Terri: No, my grandfather, no he was killed in Auschwitz on March 31^st 1943.

Sandy: Oh, my, well let it be a lesson to the world and I think that it is. I think there is a lot of awareness and thank you so much for sharing your story Terri.

Terri: Well, thank you for having me.

Sandy: Oh it’s fascinating, history is amazing and when it’s in your blood it’s even more compelling. Well, hang while we take a break and we’ll be back in just a moment with our next guest.