These podcasts were created from the recordings my mother made telling of her recollections of the Shoah. Living in a small Polish town near the German border, my mother and one sister were all that survived from among her parents, 4 sisters, 2 brothers, husband and young daughter. Her older brother was married and had a young daughter. What happened to my mother's sister-in-law and niece was never known. This story is how many of them died and how my mother and her sister survived.

The original recordings were done over a number of months and were made to help me write my mother's book. While the book is in English the recordings are in Yiddish. After my mother's death on January 23, 1999 I undertook to preserve her story in her own words as well.

Not all the events of the war were covered in the recordings. A more complete story of the war is in the book which you can download here in PDF form. In the recordings my mother barely mentions the blood red sky she saw at sunset in Auschwitz. I titled the book, "The Bleeding Sky," because she did mention it in a number of conversations we had over time.

My mother did not always tell her story in the order of the events. A number of times, in the recordings, she repeated a particular event. At times she was reminded of something by her friends or sister and added it the next time she continued her recordings. These recordings were edited to put the events in the proper sequence.

The quality of the recordings vary because they were done in different locations. Some were done in my mother's house in Brooklyn and some at my home and even in the back yard. All the recordings were done on a small cassette recorder.

Louis Brandsdorfer
podcast@brandsdorfer.com

Download a PDF of the book.
The Bleeding Sky

A form signed by my mother upon her entrance to Auschwitz. Found in a Russian archive by the U.S. Holocaust Museum. View

The podcasts in Yiddish.