The Holocaust Memorial museum. My name is bill benson and im the host of the museums Public Program firstperson, thank you for joining us today. We are in the 20th year of the First Person Program and the first person today is mrs. Door clayman who we will meet shortly. This 2019 season is made possible by the generosity of the lewis frank and Smith Foundation with additional funding from the Arlene Fisher foundation the first person is a series of twiceweekly conversations with survivors of the holocaust who share with us their firsthand accounts of their experience during the holocaust each of our first person gas serves as a volunteer here at the museum. The program will continue until august 8. The museums website provides information about each of the up coming firstperson guests. Theodore will share with us or firstperson account of her experience during the holocaust and as a survivor for about 45 minutes. If we have time towards the end of the program that we will have the opportunity for you to ask questions. If we dont get to your question today, please join us in our online conversation never stop asking why, the conversation aims to inspire individuals to ask the important questions that holocaust history raises. You can ask your question and tag your museum on twitter, facebook and instagram using at Holocaust Museum and the ask why. A recording of this program will be made available on the museums youtube page, please visit the firstperson website listed on the back of the program for more details. What you are about to hear from dora is one individuals account of the holocaust. We have prepared a brief slide presentation to help with her introduction. Door clayman who was born on generally 31st 1938 unit yugoslavia, presentday croatia. Here we see dora sitting on a park bench with her younger brother. On this map of yugoslavia in 1933, the arrow points to zagreb. In this photo we see dora on an outing to the zoo with her parents, solomon ran a brush making factory and silva was a teacher. Pictured here is her maternal grandfather. In april 1931 when she was visiting her maternal grandparents in a small town , germany invaded yugoslavia. This became part of a puppet state run by the croatian fascist. Her parents and brother were arrested in the housekeeper was able to get the infant out of prison and from then on they were sheltered by their mothers sister and on the left we see her on 10 on the right we see her husband in this photo taken many years later. We close with this portrait of dora and her aunt and uncle that was taken to be sent to her father after he was arrested in in the concentration camp. In 1943, her aunt was denounced and sent to our switch where she perished. Dora remained in yugoslavia until 1957 and in 1958, immigrated to the United States. In 1957 while on her way to switzerland, dora met Daniel Clayman who was returning to a postdoctoral study as a fulbright scholar in india. They were married in switzerland a year later and together they arrived in the United States in the fall of 1958. The following year they came to washington d. C. And dan began his career as a researcher in medicinal chemistry at the Walter Reed Army institute of research. His work culminated in his expertise in Drug Development against malaria. After the birth of their two children, wanda and elliott, dora resumed her education getting degrees in french and in teaching english as as anguish language. She then taught in montgomery Public Schools including 23 years at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School where she headed the english as a second language department. Dan passed away in 1992. Both of their children live in the Washington Area wanda is Deputy Director of an International Association that deals with transportation issues. Elliott is a freelance videographer and owns a video and Film Production company he is married and they have three children ages 24, 22 and 15. After dora retired from full time teaching in 1999, she became active as a volunteer with this museum. Her work here consist primarily of translating and helping to Research Material from the holocaust, written in croatian the bosnian in serbian. Her original project was connected to the onset of its archive, as we will hear later this was a major concentration camp in croatia. Other projects have included the translation of a booklet that accompanied a 1942 anti semitic exhibiting croatia and the translation of the captions on a large archive of photographs that had been gathered during the postworld war ii trials in yugoslavia. To add to her language skills, dora continues to learn hebrew and enjoys traveling and has been to israel seven times were she was happy to reunite with her cousins and their families. Some of her travels are connected to learning more about the events in the aftermath of the holocaust. She has attended several conferences of the International Organization of child survivors, including in poland and in 2011 when she visited our switch for the first time and in berlin in 2014, where she was impressed by the effort made by the country to teach about and to remember the holocaust. In 2013 she visited the memorial site of the infamous concentration camp yes in a thats where most of her family perished. Last summer she returned to croatia at this time visiting the cemetery at the former concentration camp of to kobo. Most comedy the side of her mothers death. She speaks publicly in other settings and as well as local schools and the facility and most recently in lewis delaware. Please join me in welcoming our firstperson mrs. Dora klayman. [ applause ] dora thank you for joining us and being willing to be our firstperson today. Thank you. So you have so much to share with us in our short one hour together, less than that now so we will get right to it. You were three years old when world war ii came directly to yugoslavia in the spring of 1941 , when it was attacked by germany. Before we turn to the horrors of the war in the holocaust to start first by telling us about your family and your community in the years before the war. So, my family hadnt been in croatia for really long time when the war actually happened, and by very long time i mean not for generations. My father was actually born in romania but they immigrated into yugoslavia when he was a very young child. Then they settled but my mothers family came to a small town on the far north near the hungarian border and they came so that my grandfather could serve as rabbi to the small Jewish Community that was there. They actually came from slovakia and when they arrived they had two children and then they had two more including my mother who was the youngest. By the time the war started, my grandfather had been the rabbi of that community for 40 years so, they had been living there for a long time, just not for generations by the time war came around all of the children of my mothers family had been working and my mother in particular, became a teacher, an Elementary School teacher and then married my father and they moved to zagreb. The other children in the family , especially important members of the family to me were my mothers sister blanche, who was married and had two children and the sister who is older and he was actually born outside of croatia, who arrived with the parents early on. She was 15 years older than my mother so she was almost a quasimother to my mother and she played a very large role and she is the one whos the picture you showed, and giza expect then my mother, she very much took care of my mother and eventually took care of me. My father ran the factory of brushes, he learned the craft and then started the business of his own and then by the time the war started there were about 12 workmen prospering and that is more or less the family. You explained that in your mothers hometown, that this had been an integrated community, what did you mean by that . Well, i mean that there was actually some but very little in comparison to other places. People prospered. My grandfather had only minor events that would be labeled as anti semitic events when he served as a translator in the court for german and hungarian and he also taught jewish children in the religious classes they had in the Elementary School, so the Elementary School children had a religious education as part of their day and the Catholic Priest and the orthodox minister was there and my grandfather then taught the jewish children. So the Jewish Community was rather small but fairly wellto do and they were either storeowners or there was a lawyer, a doctor and cut the interesting thing is you can take a look at pictures Available Online of that community. There are tennis clubs and jews and catholics are playing together and this is practically a 90 or 100 Roman Catholic world and there were some serbian orthodox villages around their but generally this is a catholic world but there was social integration and certainly Economic Division i think you for explaining that, when germany launched his attack on yugoslavia on april 6, 1941, you were away visiting relatives, tell us what you can about what you know about the circumstances as to why you were away from your family and what happens when the germans came into yugoslavia . I was away because i was two years old and my parents had just had a never baby, my brother, he was three years younger, we were both born in january, three years apart, neighbor from ludbreg came to visit and my parents decided to send me to visit with my grandparents because it was an opportunity to get me on the train and i have that image, be on the train was very exciting even though i was very young, i remember. So i still dont know, actually why i was sent. Did they know . They all knew the war was a minute but i dont really think that was the reason they sent me. I think they sent me to visit grandparents and aunts and so on and the other one possibly because my mother just had a baby so it was a good thing to send me away for a bit of time. So, i just happened to be at my grandparents that april when germany invaded. Second let me jump in for a minute, you said they knew the war was probably imminent, to your parents or other members of the family, did anyone make attempts to try to leave yugoslavia before the germans came in . Not before. There was actually no place to go, that was the problem and thats what were talking about a lot these days, why didnt you leave but there was no place to go. That was one thing and then the other thing is that i didnt think they knew how things would work out. Eventually some people try to leave and that my aunt and uncle with my two cousins, did manage to get past us to leave to the italian zone but i dont want to jump ahead but croatia, what happened when germany invaded the country of yugoslavia fell apart. More or less into the same part it is in now in that croatia became a country afters romania and serbia were taken over by germany but the part of croatia thats along the adriatic, which Everyone Wants to visit, its very beautiful, that is actually occupied by italy. And, italians were i think i was known that italians dealt with jews in a much more humane way than the germans and then it turned out that the local population didnt treat them very well. So, how do croatia become a country all of a sudden by itself . It was certainly not an independent country, though thats exactly what its called itself, its called itself an independent state of croatia. Its a puppet government. How did that become so . There was a political right, very nationalistic right that wanted to have croatia, just croatia by itself without any other members of the former yugoslavia which of course yugoslavia became a country after world war i so they wanted , the jews wanted to be free of jews and croatia wanted to be free of everyone else as well. So, the croatian rightwing did not succeed, they didnt succeed in taking over the country by democratic means. So, they made a pact and said that they wanted to leave on their own and made a fat that pictures can see them shaking hands with hitler. They made a pact. You germans let us run this country and we will do whatever you want us to do. That is how they came into power and then as they said they would run everything exactly the way the jews wanted them and just to finish, my aunt and my uncle and two cousins managed to get passes to go to the italian zone but, unfortunately, they never made it all the way the government said you just return and youll be fine, he made a proclamation in a very short time. Your keys in your uncle ludovic and other family members they learn that your parents had been arrested and sent to a concentration camp but that your brother who was safe from deportation to tell us about what happened to your parents and how you were able to get reunited with your brother. Remember, you told us you were away at that time. Right. Actually my parents the deportation happened fast and they barely had the time to establish campson they were starting to deport people in our first reporting them into four holmer hospice former hospitals or other places where they could find spaces but eventually there were camps. My parents were taken fairly early. They were not yet in camps they were still in zagreb before they were shipped away. So, our housekeeper found out what had happened and she went and asked if she could have my brother and my mother handed the baby over and allowed, she gave the baby to the housekeeper with the hope of course that she would call relatives and he would be safe. Which she did. So, she called my aunt and uncle and they came to get him. I have a fairly clear memory of his arrival, the baby was crying. Thats one of the early memories you have of coming into the house. Right second 1942, your parents have been deported in you and your baby brother now are living with your aunt and your uncle in 1942, your uncle was arrested and sentenced to the jasenovac concentration camp. You and your brother remained with your aunt, tell us about your uncle is imprisonment and what that meant for you and your brother and i think might be worth explaining a little about uncle ludovic. Yes, probably backing off a little bit because in 1942, what happened is all of the jews were deported so, that happened much before my uncle was deported. He was not jewish but he was not jewish. No he was not jewish. So my aunt giza and my uncle were in love for a very long time. He was, as i mentioned, she was 15 years older than my mother and he was 10 years older than she which played a role later on. But he was her boss in a sense and he was working in a local bank and he was one of the directors of the bank and they were in love but they didnt get married for a very long time. He survives so later on i used to ask him, why did you not get married for a long time and they said she stare happy living with her mother with her parents and i was happy living with my mother, so there was no need. But this is of course an excuse. Im sure, he didnt ever want to say, well you know she was jewish and i was not in there were probably the problems were not of the kind that one could imagine. There were no problems within the family there is a picture and people can see of the whole family and everyone is jewish except my uncle whos in the center. Its a picture of my parents wedding. He was always included in everything but, neither was converting to the other religion so, there was no civil ceremony, marriage available in yugoslavia. There were only religious marriages. At one point just before the war started, the war was already raging in the rest of europe and they went hungry to hungary which had a civil ceremony system of marriage. And they got married. So they were married in 1939. They thought, of course that it would save her because they had heard that sometimes in mixed marriages, the one spouse that was not jewish would save the spouse who was jewish. So, they got married. So thats who they were. Everyone was there, 1942 came. You might mention one other thing, your uncle was a fairly prominent man. Yes he was a very prominent man, he was a Bank Director and had been a mayor and he was very well known and he was totally into music and played the violin and played Chamber Music and to play fun things and truly a pillar of the society. And actually, that family was a hypocrisy. But strangely enough, not very healthy, so that his brothers and sisters, very much died young, and none of them married , before dying. They were all young dying of tuberculosis in all kinds of things that people used to die of that now we would cure with penicillin. So by the time i came on the scene, there was only one sister alive of the 12 of them and she had not married and she was older than me, so shes the only person that i actually ever got to know of that family but back to the deportations, the deportations are awful that is one memory that i have this was 1942 so i was four years old and i remember everybody coming to our house everybody coming, caring satchels and pillows and saying goodbye to me and crying and im sure i didnt know what was going on but i know that everyone else was very upset and that was upsetting to me as a child and they were off to what became a horrible camp. We will come back to that. So, here you are with your aunt and uncle and then your uncle who is not jewish, he gets arrested. The reason for that is that even though croatia was so happy to accept german laws, a lot of people did not go along with that of course, croatia would now have its own army and the same laws that germany had. All the restrictions, no jobs, no school, the goods were confiscated and there are papers in the museum that we found that we have to write down one necklace, one winter coat, three dresses, everything. Everything had to be reported and could be taken away. Of course, housing, all of that. So, a lot of people didnt go along with that. Too many in