Marriage

Isak Federman, the sole survivor of his family, was 17 years old when the Germans occupied Wolbrom. A short while later, he was grabbed off the street by the SS and sent to the first of a series of labor and concentration camps. He was liberated by the British at Sandbostel, a sub-camp of Neuengamme, in 1945. At the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, he met Ann Warshawski and they made their way to Kansas City in 1946. In 1993, with his friend Jack Mandelbaum, he founded the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

Ann Federman was the next-to-youngest of nine children born to Miriam and Abraham Warszawski in Będzin, Poland. Only fourteen when the Germans invaded Poland, Ann spent the war in Parschnitz, a slave labor in camp in Czechoslovakia. After liberation, Ann was eventually reunited with her sister and two brothers. The family lived in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Persons Camps where she met her husband, Isak Federman. They came to the United States in 1946, settling in Kansas City, where they were the first Holocaust survivors to marry.

Ann Federman was the next-to-youngest of nine children born to Miriam and Abraham Warszawski in Będzin, Poland. Only fourteen when the Germans invaded Poland, Ann spent the war in Parschnitz, a slave labor in camp in Czechoslovakia. After liberation, Ann was eventually reunited with her sister and two brothers. The family lived in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Persons Camps where she met her husband, Isak Federman. They came to the United States in 1946, settling in Kansas City, where they were the first Holocaust survivors to marry.

Interview with Southeast State (later Stadium) Bank vice president W. N. Newby. Newby recalls his family and early life, work, and education in Virginia, moving to Kansas City in 1960, his work in the life insurance business, and going into banking in 1968. He discusses the importance of bringing insurance and banking services and financial education to the Black community, as well as thoughts about marriage and job opportunities.

Interview with Harry Brown about his family, childhood, and education in Kansas City, Missouri, working for the William Volker Company, and later being joining the civilian war effort by working for North American Aviation and Technicraft assembling and inspecting aircraft and aircraft components at their Fairfax Airport facilities. Mechanical aspects of the job and test flights are discussed in detail. He also discusses his day-to-day life as an adult, his rejection from the draft, and the 1951 Flood.

Interview with Don Sole about his childhood, his experience in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and later career working his way up in Ford dealerships. He came to Kansas City as a result of his father's work in the garment industry, and worked in aircraft manufacture before enlisting. He discusses his training, his experience guarding Japanese internment camps in California, and his experience as a flight engineer as a civilian and later as part of the Air Corps. He also describes supply flights that would take him to locations including Brazil, West Africa, and India, and shares a Life magazine photo spread about the journey; as well as discussing his family and genealogy research.

Interview with Shirley Smith Ramey in which she shares photographs and discusses growing up in Northeast Kansas City, Missouri, her ancestors and how the family came to the area, and how her parents learned trades at a school for the deaf in Fulton, Missouri. She describes being raised by her grandparents and her mother, who worked in the local garment industry, eloping with her husband Owen, and their early marriage and work. She also discusses moving back in with her family while pregnant when Owen left to fight in World War II, later following Owen's orders to San Antonio and Denver, post-war life in east Kansas City, and being part of the "white flight" to Johnson County.

Interview with UMKC chemistry professor Dr. Antonio Sandoval about his life. Born in 1931, he recalls his early childhood on a New Mexico ranch in a Mexican American community, moving to Colorado to be able to attend high school, doing agricultural work, and notes that of his graduating class of 100, he was the only one to go on to earn a PhD. He discusses his mother's hope that he would become a priest but instead majoring in chemistry, enlisting in the army where he worked to support nuclear testing at locations including Los Alamos, going on to earn his PhD from Kansas State University where he almost met his microbiologist wife, and coming to Kansas City where he was on faculty at UMKC and his wife taught at Avila, Rockhurst, and Donnelly colleges. He also discusses his participation in United Mexican American Students (UMAS) and working with his wife in the Catholic church's Marriage Encounter program.

Interview with Elaine C. Wills about her experience as an aircraft sheet metal mechanic during World War II. She discusses attending the Aviation Institute of Denver with her husband, and their move to California to work at two different aircraft manufacturers until her husband was drafted into the Army Air Corps. She mentions moves to Nebraska, Texas, and back to Kansas City, and describes her experience repairing aircraft damaged in the war and as a woman working alongside men and as a mother managing childcare while working. Elaine later worked for Luzier Cosmetics in Kansas City and was working on finishing her college degree in her 80s, and also discussed rationing, what she enjoyed in her personal time, and her education, marriage and family life.

Interview with Georgene Stinnett in which she describes her childhood on an Iowa Farm, taking the civil service exam, and moving to Washington, DC, to work at the Pentagon during World War II. She discusses being a stenographer in the Signal Corps, taking dictation from officers and working with classified documents, having lunch while bands played in the Pentagon courtyard, and recalls Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and funeral. She also recalls measures taken by her family and others on the home front, and working as a USO hostess, where she met her husband, and notes improvements in medical care during the war years that benefited her during her pregnancies.