http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection MARIAN FILAR [1-1-1] THIS IS AN INTERVIEW WITH: MF - Marian Filar [interviewee] EM - Edith Millman [interviewer] Interview Dates: September 5, and November 16, 1994, June 16, 1995 Tape one, side one: EM: This is Edith Millman interviewing Professor Marian Filar. Today is Septem- ber 5, 1994. We are interviewing in Philadelphia. Professor Filar, would you tell me where you were born and when, and a little bit about your family? MF: Well, I was born in Warsaw, Poland, before the Second World War. My father was a businessman. He actually wanted to be a lawyer, and he made the exam on the university, but he wasn’t accepted, but he did get an A, but he wasn’t accepted. EM: Could you tell me how large your family was? MF: You mean my general, just my immediate family? EM: Yeah, your immediate family. How many siblings? MF: We were seven children. I was the youngest. I had four brothers and two sis- ters. Most of them played an instrument. My oldest brother played a violin, the next to him played the piano. My sister Helen was my first piano teacher. My sister Lucy also played the piano. My brother Yaacov played a violin. So there was a lot of music there. EM: I just want to interject that Professor Filar is a known pianist. Mr.... MF: Concert pianist. EM: Concert pianist. Professor Filar, could you tell me what your life was like in Warsaw before the war? MF: Well, it was fine. I went to school, to the Gymnasium and graduated Gymna- sium. I also went to The Warsaw Conservatory. I played my first concert at The Warsaw Conservatory when I was six years old. I played with the Philharmonic. I was a soloist when I was twelve, two concerts. The conductors were, first was Professor Walerian [un- clear] and then Kazimierz Wielkomierski, two very famous names. Then, oh, well I played later in ‘59. I played in Warsaw, and I played [unclear]. EM: Well, excuse me. We will come to that later. Could you tell me if it was a re- From the collection of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive. This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection MARIAN FILAR [1-1-2] ligious family? Did you... MF: Oh yes. My father was a religious Jew. I had my bar mitzvah when I was 13 and I spoke some Hebrew. And my grandfather was a rabbi. EM: All right, now, did your mother come from an Orthodox family also? MF: Yes, yes, her father, her father was a rabbi. EM: Her father was a rabbi. Now... MF: I have a picture of him. EM: Well, later. MF: Do you want to see it? I’ll show you. Hold on. EM: O.K. [tape off then on] MF: Am I Jewish? EM: Do you...[chuckles] yeah, do you remember if your family experienced anti- semitism just before the war? MF: No. EM: No, they did not. MF: No, we didn’t feel any. EM: O.K. Now you mentioned your father was in business. What kind of business did he have? MF: Well, he had a wholesale business and Manufaktura, well, I don’t know, a man’s, not ready made clothes, just materials. EM: Materials? MF: Yeah. Yeah, it was a big place. EM: O.K. Do you remember the name of the street where you lived? MF: Yes. I know the name. Sienna 72. EM: And where was his business? MF: Gesia Osiem. Gesia 8. EM: Oh, Gesia, on Gesia Street. Now... MF: It does not exist anymore. It’s called Anielewicza today. It’s a different street. The whole town is different. From the collection of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive. This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection MARIAN FILAR [1-1-3] EM: Did you or your family belong to any Zionist organizations? MF: Oh yeah, my father was a Zionist. EM: Did you belong to any Zionist... MF: No. EM: Organizations? MF: I had no time for it. I had a Gymnasium and I had a conservatory and that was it. EM: Did any men in your family serve in the army, in the First World War? MF: No, nobody was in the army. I don’t know why, because my...the other grandfather, my father’s father—this my mother’s father—my father’s father when he died he said, “None of my grandchildren will serve in the army.” And nobody did, my cousins, nobody. I don’t know, it was sort of, that was not liczbowy [inducted] if you know what that means. EM: Yeah. MF: Or, just they weren’t taken. EM: Right. MF: And they were all category A. EM: Did all your brothers and sisters finish high school? You mentioned that you finished high school. MF: Yeah, yeah, well, my sisters finished Gymnasium Landauowa on Czarna Street. And my one brother finished chinuch, one brother, Finkel. They all went to school. They all had at least Gymnasium. EM: So they had at least Gymnasium. Now, what happened to your family follow- ing the German invasion? Were you in Warsaw when, during the invasion? MF: No. I, well, first I ran away. We ran away and we went to the Bug River, came to Bialystok. EM: Well, to the Bug River. I have to repeat it. Bug River. MF: Yeah, the Bug River was the border between the German occupation and the Russian occupation. But when we arrived there, the Russians weren’t there yet. We didn’t invite them. All of a sudden, they crossed the border on the 17th of September. The war From the collection of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive. This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection MARIAN FILAR [1-1-4] started on the 1st. We left Warsaw by the 6th, the 7th. EM: Did the whole family leave Warsaw? MF: Well? EM: Who left Warsaw? MF: In 1935 my mother sent one brother, Yaacov, was sent out to Israel, Palestine at that time, because she saw Hitler coming here. So she said, “One of my children has to go now because hell will all of a sudden turn loose here and maybe we’ll have a place where to go.” So he left in ‘35. And he, well, he left without a certificate. It was a whole story. He went as a tourist to Syria. From there with a couple of colleagues, they went through a little forest. The English were shooting after them. He fell, and it was at night, so he broke a leg in a little forest. He got into a hole at night. He didn’t see it. They put him in a hospital, in a jail hospital. And then the Zionist organization gave him a certifi- cate and that’s how he finally made it to Palestine. EM: To Palestine. Now... MF: Now he was a great hero in the Second World War. EM: O.K. We’re going to come to that a little later. Tell me, who left Warsaw when the Germans were fighting. MF: Well, [unclear], who left was my brother Michael and my sister Lucy with her husband, and I. Yeah. EM: So, were both your sisters, who was married of your siblings at that time? MF: Oh, who was? Gerald was married, and Isaac was married. EM: Did they have children? MF: Yes, Isaac had a little boy. They were murdered. EM: So you left Warsaw on September 17th? MF: No, about the... EM: No? MF: 6th or 7th. EM: Oh, 6th or the 7th. O.K., and you went to... MF: To Bialystok. From there... From the collection of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive. This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection MARIAN FILAR [1-1-5] EM: To Bialystok. How long did you stay in Bialystok? MF: Well, just a couple of weeks or so, because then I played a concert there. A colleague came from Lemberg. he said that our Professor Drzewiecki is in Lemberg. So I went to Lemberg, and I became his assistant, and I graduated summa cum laude. EM: You graduated summa cum laude... MF: Yeah. EM: In Lemberg Conservatory. MF: Right. EM: And you stayed in Lemberg how long? MF: Well, from 1939 till December, 1941, when I went back to Warsaw. I had a chance to run away further deep into Russia, but I didn’t want to. EM: Who was in Warsaw at that time that you went back to? MF: Well, my father, my mother, my oldest brother and his wife were at home, and my sister. EM: O.K. MF: My sister and Isaac was there too.