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.

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.

Dora Edelbaum was the fourth of five children born to Hinda and Hersh Kiwasz. When Dora was 12 years old, the Germans invaded Poland. Shortly after the invasion the Kiwasz family was relocated to the Lodz Ghetto where Dora worked until her deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau. After being transferred through a variety of labor camps, Dora found herself in Bergen-Belsen where she was liberated in 1945.

Maria Devinki grew up in Wodzisław, Poland. The Germans sent her father to Treblinka and forced the rest of the family into a ghetto. In 1943, after a year spent as a slave laborer in the Skarżysko complex, a Polish army officer helped Maria leave the camp and hide – along with her husband, her mother, and her brothers. After the Soviets liberated Poland, they tried to resume their lives. However, in May 1945, after her younger brother was killed by members of the Armia Krajowa, Maria and her husband made their way to Germany and from there to the United States, arriving in Kansas City in 1950.

Marianne Dennis was born in the suburbs of Berlin. She was 7 years old at the time of Kristallnacht, when she came home from school to find a Star of David painted on their door. She also recalls being forbidden to attend school, not being allowed to use public transportation, and giving up many of their possessions – including all pets and appliances. Nevertheless, the family remained in Berlin throughout the war evading round-ups by walking the streets, hiding, and using false names. In 1945, Marianne and her family was liberated the Soviet Army. 

Tola Gottlieb was born in 1924 in Sosnowiec, Poland to an observant Jewish family. One of four siblings, Tola remembers that though her family was not wealthy, they had what they needed and they were happy. As a teenager Tola was forced into the Sosnowiec ghetto where her family was gradually taken away until she was left with just her younger sister. When Tola was deported to the Auschwitz camp complex she was consigned for forced labor, first at Gleiwitz and then, following a January 1945 death march, in Ravensbrück. After her liberation, Tola made her way to Paris where she eventually met and married Iser Cukier. The couple, and their son Jeanot, immigrated to the United States in 1952.

The family settled in Kansas City, where Tola had friends and family. 

Iser Cukier (born Iser Cukrowski) the youngest of seven children, was born in Częstochowa, Poland, where his family owned a large bakery that was located in the same building as their apartment. An older brother advised him to learn a trade rather than attend high school. He became a men’s tailor and, when that proved insufficiently challenging, he moved to Lodz to learn women’s tailoring and then to Warsaw and Katowice to attend design school. Eventually he had his own shop in Zawiercie, employing ten people and supporting his mother. He also married and had a child. His wife and son and the rest of his family were murdered during the Holocaust, but Iser was kept alive as a slave laborer making German uniforms in a factory in Zawiercie.For a time, after the slave labor workshop was disbanded and most of the workers deported, a sympathetic officer hid him on a Luftwaffe base. In May 1945, after liberation, he made his way to Paris, where he worked as a designer and met and married Tola Gottlieb. They immigrated to the United States in 1952, settling in Kansas City where his wife had family.

Interview with World War II army veteran Albert Jones. Jones discusses being drafted into the army in 1943, joining the 10th Calvary, serving in North Africa and Italy during the war, and building bridges and maintaining supply lines. He also discusses the history of the 10th Calvary and the Buffalo Soldiers and conventions honoring that history.