A Survivor Story of a Russian Ukraine Slave Labor Camp
A twist of fate for a Donauschwaben-US Born Young Woman
In the
wrong place - at the wrong time?
Rediscovered, Transcribed & Published by Jody McKim Pharr, 13 Jan 2013
I came across this
story a few years ago, -while researching another case.
Over time I collected an array of information, newspaper articles,
passenger records and census reports to find out more about the
family highlighted in this story. What may be considered a
heartwarming story to an uninformed reader, this story may have a
totally different perspective for those who knew better.
This is a
bitter-sweet story about a Donauschwaben family, Adam Mohaupt and
his wife Julia Mohaupt (geb. Nagy) both born in Bedora, Hungary (Banat
Yugoslavia). They had 2 boys born in Beodra, Joseph, b. 1917
and Adam, b. 1920. In 1921 the family immigrated to the US and
settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1925, their little girl, Irma
Mohaupt was born. They went back Bedora, as many families did back
then, either for a visit, work or family illness; but the reason is
irrelevant to this story. They were there, in October of 1944.
I read about some of
the horrible events that happened in Beodra while working on a
publication a few years ago for the DVHH; a translation by Henry
Fischer, that would resonate in my mind in the forthcoming story; as
it is almost impossible to understand the full impact of what this
young woman shared otherwise. The part about the village of
Beodra is one of the smaller parts of this large publication, but it
has a grater impact after being personalized by the story of the
Mohaupt family.
Post World War II
Leidensweg / Extermination In the Yugoslavian Banat:
Chapter 3: Genocide in the Yugoslavian Banat, translated by
Henry Fischer - - The Northern Banat "Where the lust for
murder raged" - Beodra : "There were
seventy-one Danube Swabian families that lived in Beodra. At the
beginning of October 1944 the Partisans brought twenty-eight
Danube Swabian men, mostly from other communities to Beodra.
They were imprisoned in the stable of the police station and
during the night they were hacked and chopped to death. In
addition, ten of Beodra’s Swabian men and two women were taken
from their homes and imprisoned in the jail and were abused and
tortured for sixteen days and early in the evening of October
18th, 1944 they were shot at the community manure pile. The
corpses were later buried. Other Swabians died as a result of
individual acts of terror by the Partisans. The rest of the
Swabian community was sent to the extermination camps at Kikinda,
Betscherek and Rudolfsgnad. "
Was this family in
the wrong place - at the wrong time? As fate would have it, we learn
the destiny of this family, when on November 14, 1947, headlines
newspapers across America featured the story about "Irma MOHAUPT" -
"U.S. Born Girl Escapes From Red Prison Camp."
(Was made a slave for nearly
three years and escaped from Krlvoi-Rog, a slave labor camp in Russia
Ukraine.)
As Donauschwaben
descendants search for ancestors, we learn about the atrocities
committed against our people. Often asking, did Americans know
what was going on in the distant corners of the world, to the ethic
German people? And if they did, why didn't they do something!
Where was the public outcry! This story was plastered across
front pages of newspapers in 1947, and I feel this story must not be
buried among the stacks. - Jody McKim Pharr
U.S. Born Girl Escapes From Red Prison Camp (News - Poughkeepsie Journal FUERTH, Germany,
(AP) & 1947-10-19 Galveston Daily News)
Irma Mohaupt, 22-year-old American-born girl, told
a-story today of escape after three years in a Russian work
camp, how she walked until her feet were swollen and
eventually reached freedom in the American zone of Germany. Now chubby and healthy, the girl's story began In
Yugoslavia where she said her German-born father was killed
before her eyes by partisans, and where she said the saw
soviet troops shoot six German soldiers on a dance floor —
then held a dance on it. The five-year story was ended by her own efforts, she
said, after the United States State department was unable to
accomplish her repatriation. The young woman is waiting to sail from Bremerhaven
Oct. 29 for New York. Her passage was arranged by United
States consular officials acting on behalf of her uncle,
Karl Mohaupt, of her native Cincinnati. Describing her experiences in the work camp In the
Russian Ukraine, she said she carried rocks "up five flights
of steps so they could repair a building," and did other
hard work such as loading trucks with stone and material. "We walked six kilometers (3 ½ miles) to work and six
back and there was no time off at all during the day," she
said, adding that she saw other men and women waste away and
die. She finally escaped, she said, by bribing the prison
commandant and the doctor with 500 rubles which she had
earned 'by sewing at night. |
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Irma Mohaupt
(center), 22-year-old Cincinnati, Ohio, girl who told of
escaping after three years in Russian work camp near Dnieper
dam, is kissed and hugged by two Cincinnati cousins, Helen
Hofman and Melvina Mohaupt (right), after Irma arrived in
New York yesterday aboard the SS Marine Flasher. She had
plenty to tell. (AP wirephoto.)
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Girl Slave
in Russia Says People Have No Time to Die
1947 Nov 14: Tipton Tribune Indiana,
Chester Times PA, and Lima News, Ohio
were among the many newspapers whose headlines featured the story on
Irma MOHAUPT, who escaped Krlvoi-Rog, a slave labor camp in Russia
Ukraine.
Newspaper Editor’s Note: -Irma
Mohaupt, a 22 year
old American girl, born in Cincinnati, was living with her parents in
Yugoslavia in 1944 when the Russians took over. Over her protests the
Soviets sent her to a slave labor camp in the Russian Ukraine. Her
knowledge of the Russian language and contacts with all walks of life in
the surrounding towns enabled her to see and hear conditions at first
hand. Miss Mohaupt, who returned to the United States Monday, after
escaping into the American zone of Germany, tells the story of her grim
adventures in a series of four articles of which the following is the
first.
HER STORY . .
.
Part I |
- I WAS AN AMERICAN GIRL SLAVE IN RUSSIA |
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- MY NIGHTMARE BEGAN IN OCTOBER, 1944 |
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Part II |
- IRMA TELLS OF
LIVING AND RIDING IN CATTLE CAR |
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- LIFE IN THE
KRIVOL ROG SLAVE-LABOR CAMP, NEAR THE DNEIPER DAM |
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Part III |
- GIRL SLAVE
SAYS COMMUNIST REGIME OPPOSED BY MOST UKRAINE RESIDENTS |
|
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Part IV |
- GIRL SLAVE
LABORER TELLS of FLIGHT to U.S. |
|
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EXTRA |
- Photos, news
snippets |
|
|
|
- Sources and Research notes by Jody McKim
Pharr |
PART I
- I WAS AN AMERICAN GIRL SLAVE IN RUSSIA - MY NIGHTMARE BEGAN IN OCTOBER, 1944
By Irma
Mohaupt
New
York, Nov. 13 (INS) — I am free at last, but I will never be able to
erase the memory of the terrifying horrors I went through as a labor
slave of the Russians. For three years I was forced to work long hours at
back-breaking jobs with a slave labor battalion of women in the Russian
Ukraine, at Krivoi-Rog near the Dnieper dam. For three terrible years I endured-and miraculously
survived – cold, starvation and filth. While members of our labor camp group were suffering
and dying at the rate of 17 a day, the Russian soldiers guarding us and
the civilians in the neighboring towns were not faring much better than
we. Many of the guards told me they had nothing to eat most
of the time, and were better off when the Germans were in their
country. The Russian soldiers and civilians I met in the towns
said 95 percent of the country was against the Communist regime and
cursed Stalin and other party leaders for their plight. They told me how the five percent were kept in power by
tight armed control. Critics of the government overheard by spies were
thrown into Russian concentration camps.
Discontented Kept in Prison
There were more discontented Russians kept in a large prison on
adjoining our camp than there were slave laborers from other countries. At least 50,000 Russians were kept in the heavily
fortified and guarded prison in our area alone. When I arrived at Krivoi-Rog I weighed 130 pounds. At
the end of one year I was down to 90 pounds. Among the “walking dead” in our camp I knew of at least
eight to ten other girls who claimed they were Americans also. I have no reason to doubt them, but I have no proof of
their identities or citizenship. One girl told me she was born in Chicago and described
the tall buildings there. She said her name was Barbara Koling. The separated the prisoners so often I couldn’t learn
the other names. I was so hungry, weak and miserable I didn’t even know
my own name at times.
Work,
Work, Work
The Russians kept us so busy that we didn’t even have time to die. It
was always work, work and more work. My plea that I was an American was
always answered by the camp commandant with: “We don’t care if you are
an American. You are here, and you will stay here until the day you
die.”
My nightmare began in October, 1944
Russian partisan troops took over Belgrade in Yugoslavia and the little
village where my parents, Hungarian-born, were living at the time. At
the age of 6, I had been taken from Cincinnati, where I was born, to
Europe with my parents. Our house, one of the largest in the village, was
confiscated by the partisans as their general headquarters. My father was taken by the secret police for
questioning. Later villagers told me they had seen the police take
him to a cemetery where he was forced to dig his own grave. They told me the police then threw him into the pit and
shot him.
Women are
Registered
The Russians ordered all women in the village between the ages of 16 to
37 to register for work in Yugoslavia with the Russian army. When we reported a Russian officer told us we would be
used for only 14 days on labor details and then freed. He warned us if anyone escaped, hostages in the village
would be shot. My turn to go came in five days before Christmas. Before they took me away I protested to the Russian
secret police officer in command that I was an American citizen. He asked whether I wouldn’t like to see Russian. When
I replied that I wanted to stay with my mother, he said: “We don’t care
what you are. We are going to send you off to Russia to help rebuild
our buildings.” I naively asked: “Girls to build buildings?” He
replied: “Women do everything in Russia, and you will be one of them
whether you like it or not.” The Russian warned me to go peacefully, or I would
disappear and never be seen again. I tried to cheer my mother by telling her it couldn’t
be so bad. After all, I assured her, it’s only for 14 days. Fourteen days! How stupid I was actually to believe
the Russians would detain me 14 days and then free me. It turned out to be three years of unbelievable
night-mar of slavery. Had I only known their plans then I would have run
away. I would have run till I fell. I would have gone through any pain
or misery or even death itself to escape from the days and nights of
horror that were to follow. On the morning of Dec. 28, 1944, Russian soldiers with
bayoneted rifles prodded us onto horse drawn wagons and took us to the
nearby city of Kikinda where we were put to work for three days in a
cheese factory. On New Year’s Eve without any warning, we were ordered
from the factory into the freezing streets. The Russian commanded us to line up in columns of five,
and marched us to a railroad siding, where a trainload of cattle cars
were strung out as far as the eye could see. They jammed us, in groups of fifty, into the cattle
cars which had one heavily barred window and padlocked the door. Three thousand slaves were starting the long trip into
the land of the living dead.
(Tomorrow, “Life inside a Russian slave labor camp.”)
PART II
- IRMA TELLS OF LIVING AND
RIDING IN CATTLE CAR - LIFE IN THE KRIVOL ROG
SLAVE-LABOR CAMP, NEAR THE DNEIPER DAM Daily Journal Gazette
November 13, 1947
(Editors’ Note: - A cattle-car trip through Russia and unending misery
in a Soviet slave-labor camp are described in the following article by
Miss Irma Mohaupt, 22, Cincinnati born American girl. Snatched from the
home of her parents in Yugoslavia she was forced into the Soviet labor
battalions where she worked for nearly 3 years before obtaining her
release and making her escape to the United States. This is the second
of four articles.)
By Irma
Mohaupt
Cincinnati -- I rode and lived in a cattle car for 18 days. The new year of 1945 began for me when I was herded into the car
along with 50 others near Belgrade in Yugoslavia. After we were inside the guards lock the door. For three days we
had neither food nor water. There were of course, no sanitary facilities. We yelled and shouted. But the noise wasn't as bad as the
overpowering odor that grew as the trip continued. There was no heat and the Frost grew until it was too fingers thick
on the walls at night. We weren't dressed for the cold and we were
crowded together to keep warm. On the fourth and the 10 days of few loaves of black bread were
thrown into the car. The trip was held up many times because the tracks were blown up
and we had to wait for repairs. When we stopped, all armed bands of Russians came out of the
countryside and tried to break in. The guards fought them off with
rifles as they would any other enemy. They had the responsibility for
delivering us to the work battalions and we took no chances. We were lucky in my car. The raiders never broke in. But up and
down the line I heard screams. I don't know what happened. On Sundays we worked cleaning the barracks, and we got only one
bowl of the same sour soup and a slice of bread. The guards said: “You don't work today, why should you eat more?”
Life in the Krivol
Rog Slave-Labor Camp, near the Dneiper dam
At last the doors were thrown open. We were Krivol Rog near the Dneiper
dam. They marched us into the shared care and to a shower area. They
gave us a bar that felt like sand for so. Big bunches of us undress and
we were prodded under the shower -- bitter cold or steaming hot. There
was no in between. Some girls asked to have water adjusted. The Russians laughed. I
saw the skin peel from some girls when they were forced under this old
in water. The building was unheated. We stood nude for an hour while they
said they fumigated our clothes. The clothes came back wet and there
were lice all over them. We lived in a huge, four-story barracks that housed 3000. It was
unheated like all the buildings. They woke us up at five o'clock in the morning and we marched 9
miles to the electric power building we worked on. After getting there
we had breakfast. It was a watery grain soup made from sour tomatoes.
That was all. At lunch we had another bowl of soup, sometimes with a little
barley and one slice of black bread. There was sawdust in the flour and
it was greedy with sand. Supper was the soup again -- or maybe nothing at all. We never knew
why some nights we had no food.
I
don't know how we kept on living. Some people ate grass or leaves from
the trees to add to their diet. Everyone showed signs of
malnutrition. Our bodies were bloated from lack of food and its bad quality. We
were weak too. But every day I had to carry bricks weighing about 30
pounds to each load up five flights of stairs. I got weaker along with the rest. My veins stood out and I lost
thirty or forty pounds, but still I was one of the healthiest in the
camp. Some people got gangrene from working all day long un cold mud and
water. They were shipped away somewhere because they were no more use. One strange result of power starvation was that heads of people
seem to shrivel along with their bodies. Girls of 20 and 25 appeared no
bigger than children of eight years old.
One day I collapsed on the job. They carried me back to the camp
hospital, but it was little different from my own straw pile. The doctor
was a German prisoner and he just shrugged when I asked for help. He had
no medical supplies. For 10 days I was delirious. When my temperature dropped to normal
that ordered me back on the job. The next January -- that was in 1948 -- I feel sick again. I had
red spots all over me and the other said I had scarlet fever. For 44
days I was in the “hospital” again. My skin peeled and my hair fell out. Still they did nothing.
Finally they gave me some barley water and a wafer of bread. I don't
know how I lived. It was then I started having nosebleeds. (Note: While dictating her story, Miss Mohaupt had two such
attacks.) I determined then that if I got well I would escape no matter if I
was killed.
I
kept telling the officials I was an American. But they said: “We won't
send anyone out unless the American officials asked the ticket early for
a certain person. How do we know that you are an American. It is easy to
say that.” But how could the Americans find out I was there? For two years we
were allowed to write letters. Then they got tired of hearing me say I was American. They said:
“You’re here. And you'll stay here until you die.” After I got well I was put on the rock pile, breaking up stones and
I worked there steadily until last November. I asked the camp commander to let me write a letter and he said if
I worked harder he would try to get me permission. Then he asked me why
I didn't get smart. He said all the smart girls got better food and looked better. They
didn't even have to work yet. I asked him what I had to do. He grinned and pointed toward the
barracks where the guards lived.
PART III
- GIRL SLAVE
SAYS COMMUNIST REGIME OPPOSED BY MOST UKRAINE RESIDENTS Lima, Ohio Nov 14, 1947 Lima News / Connellsville PA
Nov 14, 1947 Daily Courier
By Irma
Mohaupt
(Editor's Note -- the average Russian is desperately poor, laughs with
bitterness at glowing Soviet propaganda of better times to come and live
in dread of the state police.
That was what Irma Mohaupt says she found
in stealthy trips across
Russian homes from the slave labor camp where she was imprisoned for
nearly 3 years. Her account of life in Russia as she found it is
contained in the following third article of a series.)
(World
Copyright 1947 by INS.)
CINCINNATI, Nov. 14 – Ninety-five percent of the Russian civilians and
soldiers I met my three years as a slave laborer in the Ukraine were
against the Communist regime in power. They were helpless, they told me, because the minority in power
maintained by the type of control and by putting sympathizers in
concentration camps. The Russian soldiers on guard at our camp Krivoi Rog, near the
Dnieper dam, didn't care if anyone escaped, so they let us let out after
regular working hours. Many of the guards were friendly to me because they knew I was an
American and I can speak their language. I sneaked out of the camp
almost every night. I did so we were other chores for the people of the
surrounding towns to make money so I could buy food. In this manner I saw and heard about conditions as they really
were. Many of the guards at our own camp told me they had
nothing to eat most of the time. They claimed they were better off when
the Germans were in the country. If the Communist saw any nice cows they wanted, they sent troops to
confiscate them. If the farmer complained, I was told he usually was shot down, and
the rest of his livestock stolen. All the population
was poorly dressed and didn't have too much to eat. Practically everyone in the surrounding villages for American army
green clothing and high heeled shoes. I never saw anybody wear anything
else. The clothing came in big cases marked “USA.” The Russian food fare seem to consist mainly of a combination of
wheat and barley put in water. When bald, it became a then, watery soup. The Russian civilians tell me they pray for the day America would
come to their aid and they would have better times. They were grateful
to America for sending them the close which they wore. Everybody thought
kindly of the Americans. In the last year I was in Russia, I saw the civilian
set up little churches for worship. They were set up in back rooms where
the townspeople gathered to pray. The meetings changed each week to
prevent secret police from arresting them. The thing that surprised me at first was that the women
in the towns work at harder jobs than the men. They did see him at work,
build roads and buildings and ran the train locomotives and drove heavy
trucks. Only the top Russian city officials had good clothing
and plenty of food. Radio Moscow always was broadcasting to the people that the
American people have no food and were starving. The civilians always laughed when they heard those broadcast and
asked: “how can the government be so dumb?” The broadcast told how everything in Russia was perfect and
promised to end rationing by 1947. One of the broadcast I heard said
that in America and England there was no bread or clothing for the
people. Every week a representative of the Communist Party came to town and
gave a pep talk to the villagers. He always ended his speech with
promises that “things” will be better next year.” The laughed at all the programs. They don't believe the propaganda
that the government gives out. And now the promised the government has
been broadcasting is that by the first of the following month they would
get white bread and sugar -- but the first never comes. There were
frequent raids by the Soviet secret police on the anti-communist. They were in building surrounded by five rows of Bob Dwyer and
machine guns were mounted everywhere. Many floodlights illuminated the
scene and heavily armed soldiers were on constant guard. The Russian prisoners were more closely watched than we were. They
always use 70 or 80 Russian soldiers to guard details of 30
anti-Communist who were given the dirtiest and most grueling work that
could be found for them. The Russian prisoners had no privacy for a moment. They were
guarded no matter where or what they were doing. And our camp the Russians used details of 37 men and women and
eight hour shifts to watch over 3000 of us and we were allowed the
freedom of the camp.
(Next -- In conclusion Miss Mohaupt describes her escape from Russia.)
PART IV
- GIRL SLAVE
LABORER TELLS of FLIGHT to U.S. Nov 17, 1947 Syracuse Herald-Journal
Nearly
3 years and a Russian slave labor camp came to a dramatic climax for
American-born armor Irma Mohaupt when she was saved at the last moment
from being returned to Russia after escaping into the American zone of
Germany. In the following story Miss Mohaupt relates the story of her
flight and how she gained freedom which she credits to open hearted
Americans, some of them she did not even know.
By Irma
Mohaupt
Cincinnati, OH - My 22nd birthday was both the
most terrible and wonderful any girl could have.
That was the day I gained my final freedom. But only after I was very
nearly snatched back into Russia where I had spent nearly 3 black years
in a slave labor camp.
The beginning of what I thought was the end came many weeks before.
The Commandant of the labor camp at Krivoi Rog tell me that word had
been received that I really was an American citizen and I was to be
freed. I
had hated that man for months and years because of the way I had been
treated. But on that morning of June 20, 1947, when he told me I was
going to be free I wanted to hug and kiss him. I couldn't believe him
at first. After so long, I had thought I never would leave the camp
until I died. It wasn't until much later that I learned the many things
my relatives and friends in the United States have done to help me. Some
of the people I didn't even know. 10
days after I got the news I was to be liberated, I was sent to a
recuperation camp at Pirna in Saxony-the Russian zone of Germany. I
was still wearing the patched rags that had served me since the day I
was taken from my home in Yugoslavia at the end of 1944.
After resting for a week or so the Russians told me I was free. But I
wasn't. They didn't mean “freedom” the way I meant it. They said I
wouldn't have to stay in camp. But that I would have to remain in the
Russian zone of Germany.
They got me a job milking cows on a farm.
Here I worked regaining my strength in saving money until August 15. All
the time I was planning different ways to escape into the American zone.
There was a German girl who had been repatriated from Russia and both of
us got a pass to the border city of Hof. At
Blauen, about 3 1/2 miles from Hof we got off the train and hid in the
woods until it got dark. We
began walking through the forest. It was black. We only had to go a few
miles but it took us 10 hours and when we finally cleared the trees are
shoes were torn to ribbons, our faces swollen and bleeding.
Almost as soon as we were in the open to Russian soldiers spotted us.
They told us they would have to lock us up. I
had 500 rubles saved up and I told them I'd give them all of it if they
would let us go across the border into American territory.
The Russians took the money and waved us on.
We've reached American territory and we grabbed each other and danced
because we were free from the Russians at last. But we weren't. A
kindhearted policeman in Hof gave us some money so we could get a train
to Rodach where my friend had a sister. We
got to Rodach on August 17 and just stayed indoors, resting and eating.
The people all around were very kind. They brought shoes and clothes and
food. I
wrote to the American consulate at Munich and asked for help to get to
America. On
August 20 they took us to the nearby town of Coburg so we could register
as refugees and obtain further rations.
The German in charge wanted to see my papers showing always American. I
had no papers. I had nothing. There was no way I could convince him.
Without papers, he said I would have to go back to Russia.
I've taken to let me tell my story to the American consulate. But he
just turned his back and walked away. I
ran out of the office, but there was no place for me to go except my
friend’s house at Rodach. The Germans knew enough about me by that time
the police came to get me the next day.
They said they were taking me back to Hof on the Russian-zone border.
That was the morning of my birthday, August 21. I
was 22 years old that day, but I felt like a hundred. I just couldn't
stand anymore. I've been fighting to live and get free for so long. And
I'm worn out. And then here I was caught again. If I'd had a gun I would
have killed myself.
I remember even looking around the room for a knife, anything I could
kill myself with. I
hung back and the police pulled me out of the door.
Then a miracle happened.
The postman came to the house as they were taking me away. He had a
letter for me. It was from John M. Kavanaugh, the American consul at
Munich and a certified that I was American!
Five minutes, perhaps even a minute later and I would have been gone. I
might never have gotten the letter.
The consul asked me to come and see him in a range for passage to the
United States. When
the man of the refugee office all the letter, the Germans released me. I
wrote the consul that I had no money and he wired me some. Then, on
September 9 I started for Munich.
There I learned for the first time of the American friends and relatives
who had enshrined to rescue me for years.
I also learned that one of the many letters which had been smuggled out
of the camp and reach the distant relatives somewhere in Romania. From
there it had been smuggled to Yugoslavia to my mother who somehow got a
letter of her own out to my cousin in Cincinnati.
I
stayed at a rest center in Munich until October 22 resting and eating. I
gained 40 pounds.
Then there was the trip to Bremerhaven for my voyage to America. I
understand now why the Russians finally let me go from the camp. Had it
not been for the wonderful way Congressman William E. Hess of Ohio; my
cousin, Mrs. Helen Hofmann and two complete strangers -Mr. and Mrs.
Chester A. Lathrop - work to get me free I would not be telling this
story now.
Now I can look forward to tomorrow. I don't have to look back in fear
when I hear footsteps.
I
am free!
EXTRA - - -
Girl Citizen Of U.S. Returns After Two Years As Reds’ Slave Sandusky Register Star News, Sandusky, Ohio November 11, 1947
New York, November 11, 1947 (UP) – Irma Mohaupt, 22,
blue-eyed and blonde, walk down the game playing on the SS
Marine Flasher as a repatriated US citizen today after 2 1/2
years as a Russian slave laborer. She said: “Now I need not be afraid.” But when a bell clanged, Miss Mohaupt jumped and looked
around and terror. When her name was called over the ship's
public address system, she said “I must go now, I must go at
once. They are calling me.” As she left the ship, she clung to the arm of Chester
Lathrop, a Cincinnati druggist. She was weakening
hysterically. Miss Mohaupt was born in Cincinnati of Hungarian
parents and return to Yugoslavia when she was six years old
with her father Braun's worker. Through her cousin, Miss Helen Hoffman, Cincinnati, and
Mrs. Lathrop, she told her story and excited German. “It was December 20, 1944, when the Russians came into
our village in Yugoslavia. They took all the girls off to
work. They would not tell our parents where we were going.
They took us first to the Ukraine, then to Moscow.” “We carried bricks and see men and drove trucks. The
Russians drove us like wars is while they were rebuilding
the cities the Germans had wrecked. There was no need to
complain. There was no one to listen to us.” “They fed us thin soup. I can't remember what else. We
worked all day and we didn't care much what we ate or where
we slept.” “Sometimes we had to walk 3 1/2 miles to work in the
same distance back again to our barracks. I saw old men and
women waste away to skin and bounds in the labor camps, they
fall and die.” Suddenly, last July, Miss Mohaupt was taken to the
Russian zone of Germany and released. “I was in rags,” she said, ”I had no money. They tell
me I was free to go anywhere I wanted, but I had no money. I
borrowed some pennies and wrote my relatives in Cincinnati.” “A man came from the English zone and took me to a
farm. My father's cousin, Karl Mohaupt, who lives in the
British zone, took me to the American zone and turned me
over to the American consulate.” |
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Trouble Brews For Stalin Revolt Reported in South Ukraine; Eyewitness’ Story Of On Unrest
Recalled Binghamton NY Press 1948 (Jan 24,1948)
New York-(INS) – The eyewitness story of Ukrainian unrest toll by
Cincinnati born Irma Mohaupt was recalled today in connection with the
report of a large South Ukrainian rebellion.
Miss Mohaupt, 22 who returned to the US two months ago after three years
in a Soviet slave labor camp, related her experiences in a series of
articles for international news service.
Ms. Mohaupt, who was a slave labor camp in Krivol Rog, in the south
central Ukraine, explained that she and other prisoners were permitted
occasionally to visit nearby towns she said: “The Russian soldiers and
civilians I met in the towns said 93% of the country was against the
calming his regime, and cussed Stalin and other party leaders for their
plight.
WHIPPED
INTO LINE
“They told me how the 5% were kept in power by light armed control.
Critics of the government, if overheard by spies, were thrown into
Russian concentration camps.
“There were more discontented Russians kept in a large prison adjoining
our camp then there were slave laborers from other countries.”
“At least 50,000 Russians were kept in the heavily fortified and guarded
prison in our area alone.”
Many of the guards at our own camp told me they had nothing to eat most
of the time. They claimed they were better off when the Germans were in
the country.”
“The farmer who was allowed to keep one fat cattle was a rich man
indeed.”
“If the Communist saw any nice cows they wanted, they sent troops to
confiscate them.
“If the farmer complained, I was told he was usually shot down.”
“All the population was poorly dressed and didn't have much to eat.”
FREQUENT
RAIDS
“Only the top Russian city officials had good clothing and plenty of
food.”
“There were frequent raids by the Soviet secret police on the
anti-Communist.”
“The Russian prisoners were more closely guarded than we were. They
always used 70 or 80 Russians soldiers to guard details of 39
anti-Communist who were given the dirtiest and most grueling work that
could be found for them.” |
Research & Notes by Jody McKim Pharr:
Story notes:
-
At the age of 6, I had been taken from Cincinnati, where I was
born, to Europe with my parents.
-
In October, 1944 Russian partisan troops took over Belgrade in
Yugoslavia and the little village where my parents,
Hungarian-born, were living at the time.
-
Our house, one of the largest in the village, was confiscated by
the partisans as their general headquarters.
-
My father was taken by the secret police for questioning. Later
villagers told me they had seen the police take him to a
cemetery where he was forced to dig his own grave. They told me
the police then threw him into the pit and shot him.
-
camp Krivoi Rog,
near the Dnieper dam
Irma MOHAUPT was born on
August 21, 1925 and passed away at age 84 on Saturday, November 21,
2009.
Birth Information: Name: Irma Mohaupt Gender: Female / Race: White Birth Place: Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio Birth Date: 21 Aug 1925 Father: Adam Mohaupt, Age: 36, Birth Place: Beedra, Banat, Hungary Mother: Julia Nagy, Age: 29, Birth Place: Bedora, Banat, Hungary FHL Film Number: 373167
1930 US Census (April 7, 1930) Home in 1930:
Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio Name: Adam Mohaupt -Age 40, Birth Year: abt. 1890 - Birthplace: Hungary
[Magyarorszag] Parents Birthplace: Hungary.
Immigration Year: 1921 Spouse's Name:
Julia Mohaupt 33, b. Hungary
Immigration Year: 1922 Joseph Mohaupt 13, b. Hungary Immigration Year: 1922 Adam Mohaupt 10, b. Hungary Immigration Year: 1922 Erma Mohaupt 4, b. Ohio
U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1 Name: Irma Birthelmer Birth Date: 21 Aug 1925 Address: 230 Northland Blvd Ste 109, Cincinnati, OH, 45246-3609 (1993) [692 Cedar Crest Ln, Cincinnati, OH, 45230-3723 (1985)]
She was a resident of Hamilton County.
Member of: Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish 7820 Beechmont Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45255 513-388-4466 / E-mail: parish@ihom.org
Website: www.ihom.org
BIRTHELMER, Ernst M; 74, 2001-5-22
NY Passenger Records,
10 NOV 1947, Ship: Marine Flasher, Port of Dep: Bremen. Mohaupt, Irma
age 22, Destination: 2550 North Bend Rd., Cincinnati, OH.
Numbers
handwritten over name: 0300-204559
Footnote: Germany: Flossenbürg Concentration Camp
Records, 1938-1945 Irma
Mohaupt born 16 Mar 1921, Nationality German; Flossenbuerg arrival 01
Sep 1944 Classification: Antisocial Record Source: Reel 2, Image #: 128, Page #: 726 Lists of Inmates - Women » 51681 - 52510 » Page 10 Prisoner Number: 51974
Connecticut > New Haven > 1960 > New Haven,
Connecticut, City Directory, 1960 > 661 Irma Mohaupt h. 798 Orange
[Published
at DVHH.org by Jody McKim Pharr 13 Jan 2013]
|