Luna Kaufman was born in 1926 in Cracow, Poland. Her family ancestry in Cracow dated to the 1700s. They were long time Cracow residents in the same home. Initially, there was a small family house. A small apartment was built next to it later. Kaufman's mother was born there. Kaufman characterized her childhood as happy. The neighborhood was not strictly Jewish. At school, Kaufman was one of three Jewish children in her class. Although the Catholic children would say their prayers early in the morning, the Jewish children were excused from that practice and allowed to stay in the back of the room. They were not forced to pray. While the catechism classes were held, Kaufman was excused for that time period. During that hour of catechism, she was allowed to sit in the class of a higher grade subject. It was usually mathematics which she enjoyed. She had a fondness for the priest who was very respectful of her and her religion. She never felt deprived of anything as a result. She did not have many Catholic friends. School and home were kept separate. The school observed holidays and knowledge of different religions was acceptable, but rules were not strictly adhered to by the individuals. When Kaufman was in about the fourth grade, the school made the decision to offer not only catechism but also education on the Jewish religion. Kaufman felt the teacher was a joke. The students made fun of him. The school did make the effort, but what the students learned about being Jewish was from education at home. She stopped attending school after the sixth grade when the war broke out. Her father had decided to send Kaufman to a school for fashion design. After her graduation, she was to study further in Paris. The notion was for her to become a couturier, but it never happened. Her sister did manage to complete one year at the school.

Luna Kaufman and her family lost their money when the war broke out [Annotators Note: the Germans invaded Poland on 1 September 1939]. The banks were instantly closed and the money vanished. They were not allowed to go to school. No informal Jewish schools were allowed. Although there were not yet concentration camps in September, people would be sent away or harassed for attempting to open informal education facilities. Although her father had initially considered doing so, he decided it was not prudent to attempt to informally educate Jewish youth. The family left Cracow following confiscation of their possessions. Her father was optimistic and thought that circumstances would change. He had been an officer in the Austrian army in the First World War. He went to talk to one of the soldiers in the German army whom he had commanded in the previous conflict. Both of the two men entered the family home. The sight of the German uniform frightened the family. Although they were told that there were just terrible stories being circulated and nothing would be done to them; they learned differently later. The family was relocated from their apartment and taken to the suburbs of Cracow. It was a village where the streetcar ended and therefore life ended. It was a primitive life. The Jews were not allowed on the streetcar back into town. They were forced to wear identifying armbands at the age of 13. Kaufman was younger than that. She could have ridden the car into town. It would have helped the family for her to do so, but her pride prevented her from taking advantage of that opportunity. Even when she was 13, she only looked 11 years of age. Legally, she had to wear the armbands. Life was difficult in the new arrangement. The family did various tasks to try to make money and subsist. Earning a loaf of bread was beneficial for the family. Soon after the transfer, the family was moved to the ghetto. Because the existence in the village was so primitive and remote with little word from the outside, the Kaufmans looked forward to moving to the ghetto. The primitive life without indoor plumbing was made more difficult by having to share one room for the four family members. They felt that in the ghetto there would be greater access to more people and news. They would become part of a community. They moved into a small two room apartment in the ghetto. There was a large kitchen and a bedroom shared by the four Kaufmans plus an orthodox family of four. It was very difficult. There was only a small coal stove to prepare meals. The dietary needs and requirements of the two families were quite different. It was hard for Kaufman's mother. About a year or so later, Kaufman's father and sister were sent to a work area outside of the ghetto. They were housed there while Kaufman and her mother remained in the ghetto. That was the last time Kaufman saw her sister. She would see her father one last time when he saw her in another camp. Kaufman and her mother never separated. They worked together in a brush factory. They were transferred to a camp when they liquidated the ghetto [Annotator's Note: the Cracow ghetto was liquidated between mid-1942 and early 1943].

Luna Kaufman had to pack just one valise for her transfer out of the ghetto [Annotator's Note: the Cracow ghetto was liquidated between mid-1942 and early 1943]. She was told to write her name on the suitcase and throw it down into the courtyard of the apartment. It would later be brought to the concentration camp. People somehow managed to find their luggage despite the vast numbers of transferees. There was no order to the process. Trucks would bring the items from the ghetto and just dump it. People would notify friends or relatives when they spotted luggage belonging to them. They would tell them where to find the piece. After half a year, they were told that some would be selected to be shipped out to another camp. This was not believable because after a selection process, people were usually brought to a shooting range with ditches for killing people. Kaufman's mother was selected. Her daughter decided not to be left behind. She was so convinced that they were going to be shot that she gave away her shoes and coat to a friend. She did not want the German children to get the items. That was the usual process if the clothes were good. Kaufman was taken to a barrack where there was great crying and wailing. Despite the noise, she decided that she was going to sleep. The next morning, the group was taken to another camp where there was an ammunition factory. Prisoners were brought to the camp and billed at a rate of pennies per person for their transit. Although the train seemed to travel forever, after the war Kaufman found out that it was only a short trip. Working in the ammunition factory was frightening. The workers toiled with toxic chemicals, picric acid and explosives. They were manufacturing underwater mines. Kaufman's mother worked in drafty open conditions in the weather. Meanwhile, Kaufman got a job in a more protected environment. They worked in a room with a hotplate. They melted paraffin and put it in the device to contain the TNT. She did not realize how dangerous the situation was. There was an explosion one day that killed people. That occurred in another place where grenades were being made. Kaufman felt she was protected. She always looked young and was among the youngest in the camp. Kaufman had only one dress, but she would decorate it with small bow ties made out of rags. It helped her feel better. The workers marched to work every day. She did not look as bad as some who had a harder life in the camp. The commandant passed by and noticed she looked too well. He ordered her to transfer to the presses. That was where the picric acid was compressed into small cubes to be used in what Kaufman thinks were underwater mines. Workers were given a tremendous quota per day. There was a team of four on the table. The work had to be coordinated to assemble the devices safely. She worked there for three months. Her appearances and sense of taste changed during that time. She performed work over a ten hour a shift where previous workers only had eight hour shifts. Previously, milk was provided for the workers but Kaufman did not get any. The work was physically harmful. Kaufman suffered from the extended work durations. She became very sick with fever. She was slowing down the team because of her weakness. She was refused to be relieved by the boss. The assistant to the camp knew that Kaufman had a good work record. She was known for innovating logistical methods to improve production. The assistant liked to talk to Kaufman. He saw she was moving slowly and asked why. She did not admit she was feeling bad for fear of the implications. He touched her head and felt her fever right away. He decided that the foreman had to find a substitute for her. Kaufman had to go. The workers were already angry at the foreman for not releasing Kaufman earlier. He pleaded with Kaufman to tell the others that he treated her well because they were negative toward him. Kaufman was brought to a rudimentary hospital which was merely a doctor with beds and nothing else. The man looked at her and said if she got sick, none of them would survive. Kaufman was put to bed and after about a week, indications of the advance of the Russians were seen. This was near Warsaw. The front line was held for quite a while as the uprising in Warsaw was being put down by the Germans [Annotator's Note: the Warsaw ghetto uprising was from April to May 1943]. The Russians wanted to enter Warsaw as the victors. Meanwhile, plans were made for the camp inmates to be shipped to Germany. There was a Jewish foreman of the camp who was horribly cruel. Kaufman had managed to develop a rapport with him. She spoke with him even though he was a tyrant and selected people to be killed. As the camp evacuation neared, the foreman came to the hospital and told Kaufman to leave quickly. She managed to do so just before they guards cleared out the hospital and killed all the patients who had been there. After the war, there was a trial for that man. Kaufman did not testify against him. He had done horrible things to enough other people for them to testify against him. As for her situation, he had saved her life and she would not testify against the man.

Luna Kaufman was shipped to Germany to work for the same factory who owned them before [Annotator's Note: Kaufman was removed from the concentration camp near Warsaw as the Russians overran that part of Poland]. Upon arrival in Germany, the inmates were disrobed and taken to the showers. There was tremendous concern because they had no visibility to the people walking out from the other side of the showers [Annotator's Note: Nazi death camps used the pretext of providing showers to Jewish victims but killed them with toxic gas instead]. Kaufman was separated from her mother and that also caused her great consternation. It turned out that they were actually given showers. The clothes had to be removed from them because of the pervasiveness of lice. Uniforms were not ready for three days. The camp seemed luxurious to the inmates. There were 300 women per room with two to a bunk. It was good that the wind did howl through the barrack. Every morning the inmates would be counted to make sure no one had escaped. The group consisted of women from multiple countries. It also included Russian prisoners who did not want to work in the ammunition factory. They were protected from doing so by the Geneva Convention. The Germans were also probably anxious about sabotage by the prisoners of war. They were assigned to the kitchen. Somehow the inmates were getting meat, soup, milk and dumplings. The food became quite good. Kaufman was nearing the end of her hospital stay, and she was recovering very well [Annotator's Note: in the concentration camp near Warsaw, Kaufman had gotten very ill and was committed to hospital prior to the evacuation of the camp]. She was assigned to an easy job with metal tools. She did not know what was being made, but she was a helper for a mechanic. The food was decent and the job good. An SS woman nicknamed "Little Doll" gave Kaufman extra soup when it was leftover. The doctor who had been in the hospital during her incarceration met her after the war. He could not believe that she had survived the experience. Her lungs were checked. There were scars on them, but there was no problem even on entry into the United States. At the end of the war, the inmates were taken on a death march. The Nazis who ran the camp did not want to go to the frontline so the march was a way of maintaining their work with the inmates. It was a horrible experience. They marched for three weeks in circles. The prisoners ate grass and weeds. They were not allowed to sleep or enter buildings. Luckily, there was no rain. The firing from both sides could be heard, but they never saw any soldiers. The prisoners were divided into groups of 300 and allowed to sleep in a barn. When they awoke the next morning, they discovered a pile of German uniforms at the front door. All the Nazi guards had disappeared. After a day, the foreman of the estate approached them. He told them that the guards had abandoned them. They were located in no man's land between the opposing fighting forces. He suggested that they pick some men to get some potatoes from him. That was all he had to offer to the starving people. They could put them in boiling water to make soup for those who had been on the march. That saved their lives. If they had tried to consume real food, that would have been the end of them. After a few days, two young Russian soldiers approached the group on motorcycles. One was bandaged because he was wounded. One of the soldiers put a gun to the local mayor and told him to assign the surviving women to village homes. He said that he would return in two days, and if that was not accomplished, he would shoot the mayor. Kaufman was assigned to a German family who had a son in the SS. She felt she was treated decently. It was May. They were getting human food for the first time in a very long time. Since they were staying on farm land, there was no bakery or stores. Bread had to be obtained in an adjacent town. Kaufman and a friend took a pull wagon to get some bread. The survivors rotated in that duty. The girls came upon Russian soldiers who asked why they were still wearing prison dresses. They responded that they did not have anything else. The Russians inquired if they did not know that the war was over [Annotator's Note: Germany signed the unconditional surrender to the Grand Alliance of the United States, the United Kingdom and Soviet Russia on 9 May 1945 in Berlin]. The girls dropped everything and rushed back to tell the other concentration camp survivors. There had been no means of discovering the news of the end of the war until they were told by the Russians they encountered.

Luna Kaufman and the concentration camp survivors stayed in place for a few days but the Russians were coming and raping women. It was horrible. The commandant of the area wanted to sleep with Kaufman. She knew she could not fight him so she pretended that she liked the idea. She got him very drunk. A Jewish doctor was with the entourage. He told Kaufman that she better escape because the Russian knew what she had done to him and was angry at her. He wanted revenge. Kaufman was on the run once again. They ran to the nearest railway station. The trains were running empty back to the east. They rode to Cracow after numerous delays. When they had left their home, they had left it with an escapee from western Poland who had fled the Nazis. When the Kaufmans returned after the war, the former escapee did not agree to leave the house. She would not let the Kaufmans back into their home. The Kaufmans had to find a tiny room on a courtyard of an apartment. That was where they lived for five years. The bathroom was shared and always dirty. Food was available, but Kaufman wanted to earn her living and food. She made uniforms for a ticket to get a meal. Kaufman was happy to get something to eat. She had gotten herrings which was a luxury. They were wrapped in a newspaper. It was her birthday and she was going to share it with her friends. She rode the streetcar home. Following her arrival at home, she unwrapped the papers to discover that the herring had slipped out of the wrapper [Annotator's Note: Kaufman chuckles]. Although they lived in terrible conditions, they were quite happy because they were free. They luckily had family in America. That family sent 100 dollars to the bank for anyone from her father's family. The Kaufmans could not get access to that money. They were not even allowed a depreciated value. Because they sent the money back, the family in the United States determined both their address and they were alive. A reporter came to the Kaufman location and managed to directly deliver 100 dollars to them. That was the equivalent on the black market of three years of income for the family. One of Kaufman's cousins began to send a monthly letter with 20 dollars in it. That money was more than Kaufman and her mother were earning as wages. It enabled Kaufman's daughter to enter the conservatory and university. The next door neighbor was a piano tuner who purchased pianos and stored one in the Kaufmans' place. When he was going to sell the stored piano, Kaufman would have no instrument to practice on. She bought it for 20 dollars. The value of the dollar was very high. Packages with chocolates and other items were sent to the Kaufmans from relatives in America. They never ate the food but sold it on the black market for fantastic prices. They were surviving pretty well as a result. She was able to attend school as a result. She enrolled in the university. She was given one year to achieve the high school equivalency diploma. She did so and completed her college education at the normal age for a person to do so.

Luna Kaufman and the Jews of Poland were allowed to immigrate to newly created Israel in 1950 if they gave up their Polish passports and applied for the visa. Application for the visa resulted in being blacklisted for future work in Poland as well as other persecutions. The Kaufmans did so despite the risks. They succeeded in obtaining visas. She could only take seven dresses when she left Poland. She decided that one of them had to be the one she wore as a prisoner. No other dress had the significance as that one. It was documentation of what happened to her. Everyone thought she was crazy. They left for Israel. She was married shortly afterward. She would ultimately make her way to America. The propaganda she had heard about the country had influenced her negatively. She saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk and thought the country did not appreciate people. She came to realize later that the woman was dead drunk. That never occurred to her at the time. She had been told the American system was horrible. She decided to work for a bank. She got the job a few weeks after arriving because her father-in-law's friends were running the bank. She said she could type even though she could not. While clearing her security over a three day period, she bought a book and rented a typewriter. She taught herself how to type. It was easy because she was a pianist. She worked in the bank for 35 then 40 dollars a week. She was perfectly happy. She could have gotten a job in the garment district at 100 dollars a week, but it would have meant she would have been secluded from contact with other people. She would have been working over a sewing machine all day. She preferred to interact with people and learn what America was like. She worked for Ms. Javits [Annotator's Note: no given name provided]. She was a cousin of the senator from New York [Annotator's Note: Senator Jacob Koppel Javits]. Kaufman learned common American cultural customs and courtesies from her. She learned that before you go to visit a friend, you call ahead to notify them. In Poland, the Kaufmans had no telephone so this was all new to her. Kaufman wanted to rent an apartment which was very difficult in 1952. When Kaufman put an ad in the paper inquiring about apartments, she was laughed at. Nevertheless, an Armenian couple responded to it. Kaufman and her husband found a three family place that way. Within three years, the couple would have the first child, then twins, and Kaufman's mother to fill the house. The owner of the apartment told Kaufman on the birth of her twins that she better get a washing machine or she would not be able to keep up. She said she would put in with her on the purchase. Kaufman began to realize that people in America are not bad. In 1957 the twins were six months old. The family moved to a co-op three bedroom apartment that rented for 100 dollars per month. That was the first home that Kaufman had. It was wonderful. It was in New Brunswick near Rutgers University. People were socially active. She learned about the system then and liked it. She moved after three years to [Annotator's Note: inaudible]. She joined the League of Women Voters to learn the system. She began to really like what she was seeing and learning. It worked out well. She became a Girl Scout den mother and enjoyed that.

During the 1960s, Luna Kaufman was very comfortable in her home in America. Her children were among the few Jews in their school. Kaufman was asked to teach children about her faith and customs. Kaufman had a Girl Scout den and would ask a Christian friend to teach the children about her faith and customs. It was a wonderful coexistence. These interactions would result in Kaufman ending up at Seton Hall University. One of her former girl scouts attended a class concerning the Holocaust. It was taught by a young, Irish priest. When the girl told the priest that Kaufman was a Holocaust survivor, he called upon her to speak to the class on her experiences. That began her mission to talk about the Holocaust. She enjoyed the experience, but became concerned that people do not see beyond their limited existence. People have to reach out to one another. The biggest problem with anti-Semitism is that people do not know each other. She decided to be a proud Jew. It is rewarding to see the changes in attitude. She moved from simply teaching people about what happened in the Holocaust to focusing on how to prevent similar calamities in the future. Recognizing that the Jews suffered in that horrendous period, Kaufman also knows that other people have suffered and no one knows about it. When people challenged her because she did not take up the cause for non-Jewish victims, she reversed the challenge and told the individual that they had to become the spokesperson for their cause. It would be more useful that way. It is rewarding to see people talking about issues like the Rwanda massacres. International link-ups have occurred with Rwanda to discuss those issues. It was fantastic and rewarding to make those comparisons of the Holocaust with those actively trying to reveal the horrors of other atrocities. Kaufman has a friend who built the Warsaw ghetto monument. They became very friendly and made a sculpture for their temple while she was temple president. It was symbolic of the Holocaust. It was a soldier carrying a child that had survived the terror. Kaufman wanted the children to learn from the imagery. Governor Keene came for the unveiling of the monument. He saw the sculpture and wanted to put it in a cemetery. Kaufman wanted it to be in the open where children could learn from it. It was to be in a very visible place, but the Lindsey [Annotator's Note: John Lindsey was mayor of New York City] administration refused to put it where children played. Kaufman and the sculptor found a location between the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It is revealing to the people who come to America. It is amazing to see. Kaufman likes to listens to the children comment on it. A black couple brought their son to see it. The young boy touched the statue and said he would be a soldier when he grew up. If everyone does a little bit to improve the world, things will get better. Just take one brick down from the wall. That is achievable. Children have to be shown the positive side of life.

Luna Kaufman was not frightened when the Germans first entered Poland [Annotator's Note: on 1 September 1939]. At that time, Germany was looked upon similarly to the way the United States is viewed today. There was freedom there. The Jews of Germany lived better than any other place in Europe. The Polish Jews were surprised when the persecutions came. With each new problem, they told themselves to comply and things would get better. That did not happen. The Jews felt that the Germans would do no harm to them [Annotator's Note: Kaufman gestures to indicate the irony]. That was not the case. Kaufman witnessed cases of atrocities. While she was working in the brush factory [Annotator's Note: near her hometown of Cracow, Poland] which was owned by orthodox Jews, the owners decided at High Holiday times they would not work. They would pray instead. The barracks were low so it was possible to see things going on outside. The SS came by and saw them praying. They killed two people as a consequence. A young man who had just married a girl in the camp was taken by the SS and beaten. His wife tried to intervene so the SS shot the man. This was all done in front of the inmates. As the SS was leaving, the inmates were not allowed to react to what had been done. They could not talk or look around. They had to work and not stir. As an SS man walked up behind Kaufman, she heard a click. She thought the Nazi had taken a cigarette out of his case. She noticed her mother across the room turned absolutely white. The SS man had put a gun to Kaufman's head and pulled the trigger. With all the prior shooting, the gun was empty. He looked around the room to see if anybody reacted. Her mother had enough sense not to do so. He decided Kaufman's life was not worth anything to anybody so he left. Those type things were seen all the time. There was a situation where some men tried to escape. The Germans had towers and fencing around the camp so the men were captured. They were hung and the inmates were forced to walk by the dead men and look at them. Additionally, every tenth person in the line was taken out of line and severely beaten. Kaufman was lucky that she was not the tenth person in the line. These things happened every day. There was always something. She only discovered the camps when she arrived there. They knew nothing about what was going on in the camp. News was scarce. There were no newspapers or radios. There was a group of University of Cracow students called the Endex [Annotator's Note: spelling could not be confirmed]. They would persecute and beat Jews. An orphaned athletic cousin of Kaufman came in and was missing teeth. He commented that the family should see the students who attacked him. Few people stood up against them. Educated people did not seem to have much tolerance back then. A professor that Kaufman had after the war was actually in the Endex. He came to realize better and turned into a fantastic man. One crazy man can influence so many people for the bad. The opposite can also be said. Kaufman's maiden name was Fuss. Her older sister was one year her senior. Her sister perished on the last day of the war when the guards attempted to kill everyone in the camp. The inmates were loaded on ships that were sunk in the harbor. Kaufman would not discover this until later in life. A few people were saved from the ship by a Swedish ship. Her sister's name was Musha [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling]. Her father died in Auschwitz. Kaufman has never wanted to learn further details about that. Most of the higher ups in the camps were SS. A friend who survived told Kaufman about her father dying in the crematoria. Kaufman was in the right spot at the right time to survive. The last camp Kaufman was in before the end of the war was in Leipzig [Annotator's Note: Germany]. While at Leipzig, relatives who had seen her sister in Auschwitz had told her that her sister had survived. Kaufman was sure that she would be alive. When she reached Cracow, her goal was to reunite with the family that had survived. When trucks came with returnees, Kaufman would look for her sister. They were the only two children in the family. Kaufman was originally in the camp in Plaszow where Schindler's List was made [Annotator's Note: Schindler's List was a very provocative movie about the Holocaust]. Her sister and father had originally been with Schindler [Annotator's Note: Oscar Schindler was given credit for saving over 1000 Jews during the Holocaust by putting them to work for him in a factory near Cracow], but when other Jews bribed their way into the group, Kaufman's family members were crossed off the list. Next, she went to a family owned ammunition factory which is difficult for Americans to spell [Annotator's Note: the name is mentioned but could not be located]. It stayed in use during the war and may still be operating. From there, she was taken to Leipzig to another camp which was owned by Hashe. The inmates were bought for the company just like property. Kaufman was in three camps during the war.

Luna Kaufman found that her Russian liberators believed in free love. That meant the liberators felt that they had the right to sleep with those they liberated. After the war, there was a lot of rape and murder. The liberation of the concentration camp inmates came with a price. The liberated inmates were in a no-man's land between the fighting forces. They were in that vacuum when they met the first Americans. They were American reporters in a black car. They gave chocolates to those they encountered. Kaufman was too proud to accept the candy. She was lucky because those who ate the chocolates got sick [Annotator's Note: the digestive system of the starved prisoners could not process the heavy Army food and some survivors died from overconsumption of the rich food given to them]. Luckily, Kaufman's pride prevented her from taking chocolate from the reporters. Kaufman had a crazy image of the Americans. Kaufman's mother was with her the entire time they were captives. She was only separated one time when they were on a train ride after the war ended. Kaufman had to find some bread for them so she left the train. Meanwhile, the train departed. Her mother was hysterical until they met up again. Kaufman did manage to catch up with her surviving parent two days later in Cracow. There was no communication so it was impossible to let her mother know that her daughter was on her way. Kaufman lived in Poland for five years after the war. It was not difficult to return to her home country after she moved to America. She has good friends who live in Poland. She does not blame all the Poles for what happened to her. She decided not to hate those who gave her a difficult time because it would only reward them for their deeds. She elected not to hinder her own life by doing so. She found that her revenge was to live a good life. It was important to her to work with Christians to make a better world. She brought her prison dress to a Christian church so that it could be hung on the altar in commemoration of the Holocaust. Kaufman received a medal from Poland for her concentration camp experiences. She also was honored with an honorary doctorate from Seton Hall University. She may be the only such honoree to have never attended high school.

Luna Kaufman saw the Jewish Council in the Cracow ghetto as being collaborators. They had to do so in order to function. They did not do horrible things in Cracow. The Jewish Police were different. They were not armed with guns but they had whips. When they took her mother to go to the camp [Annotator's Note: Polish concentration camp name spelling is not certain], Kaufman was not selected to go. The Jewish Policemen had performed the selection process. Kaufman decided that she would follow her mother no matter where she went. The weather was miserable that night. Kaufman and her mother were accompanied by a Jewish Policeman. Kaufman asked him how he felt that, to be able to save his mother, he had to select others to be shot. As they reached the house of the commandant, he attempted to depart. Kaufman would not let him do so. She wanted him to follow them all the way to the end. She desired that he live with the guilt afterward. Years later, she saw him and his mother in Israel. He did not recognize her because he had dealt with so many people. She recognized him, however. He lived with the guilt of what he did. The hangings she witnessed were performed by Jewish Policemen [Annotator's Note: this occurred while she was working in a concentration camp near Cracow]. The policemen did not have much of a choice. It was very complicated. Some men did it and did a good job. The man that let her go with her mother was a very decent man. Others volunteered for the job for many different reasons. The policeman who was questioned by Kaufman offered to allow them to escape. Her response was that the dogs would be set on them. They would only be recaptured. Instead, she wanted him to follow them to the end and live with the consequences of their deaths. The women were not taken to be shot. They were taken to a barrack. In lieu of staying up all night and worrying about being shot in the morning, Kaufman decided to sleep.

Luna Kaufman came in contact with the concentration camp commandant. She had an embarrassing experience. She was working in a brush factory. She always did a good job. It was a means of keeping her dignity. The commandant wanted a pair of brushes. Kaufman was assigned the job and told to deliver the brushes to his house upon completion. She was petrified when she had to bring the brushes to the kitchen. She was wearing a regular dress fitted at the waist. It was not a prison dress. While she was in the kitchen, she was given raw meat by the cook. That was unheard of at the time. The commandant had large Great Dane dogs. As one approached, she stuffed the meat inside her dress. She feared that she and the cook would be caught. The dog must have had better food because he left Kaufman alone. She returned to the barrack with the meat. They consumed the meat even though there was no means to cook it. The commandant always carried a whip and a gun. He would require a barrack count each night. It had to be given to him in a particular way. When it was Kaufman's turn for barrack duty, she practiced giving the report several times. Nevertheless, when he came, she was mortified. She must have given it to his satisfaction because he left her alone. He looked large and tall. He was hung after the war. She never saw him shoot anyone, but she did see him whipping people if he disapproved what they did. He was not in the house when she delivered the brushes to the kitchen. He did not complain about her work on the brushes. Kaufman never felt like just giving up. She was too stubborn and wanted to show them that she would survive. It would have been easy to give up. There was a camp inspection visit by the Red Cross. The inmates were worked 12 hours a day to better control them. They were always busy or tired. They carried stones from one side of the street to the other. The next day, they would carry the stones the opposite way and reverse their position. Prior to Red Cross arrival, the prisoners had to paint the facilities to improve its appearance. There were no medications for the inmates. If a person died, they were left in situ for a day or two. Too many people were dying and too few could take them away. Kaufman, her mother and a friend took care of each other when they were sick. They survived that way. After their return following the war, the friend soon left Cracow. She would not be reunited with Kaufman until many years later. Kaufman and her friend found each other in the United States. It was discovered that she lived just a few minutes away from Kaufman. They have remained close friends even though they live different lifestyles. It is an irreplaceable friendship. Kaufman's friend most remembers being very hungry in the camps. Kaufman does not have that same memory. Kaufman will miss meals for a day or two even though food is readily available today. Her mother waited five years to be able to come to America from Israel. That generated bitterness in Kaufman. Her mother was living in very poor conditions. Kaufman went to her congressman while she was pregnant with her twins. He provided her mother with a visitor's visa for six months. Kaufman was nearing completion of her citizenship efforts. Her husband requested an extension for the mother's visa. It concerned them that it might not be granted. Kaufman got involved and convinced the Immigration Department to grant a visa extension. After Kaufman received her citizenship, her mother stayed with them. Kaufman was bitter because all the Germans were being allowed entry into the country but her mother was being excluded.

Luna Kaufman worked with a Sister [Annotator's Note: a Catholic nun] for 30 years. They met through the Anti-Defamation League. They were chosen to be interviewed by children who were school newspaper reporters. The young people needed subjects for interviews. The nun was like a bulldog. They planned on a statue for liberation that would be two hands. One was to be a symbolic Jewish concentration camp hand and the other had stigmata from the nail of the Cross. The hands were to be reaching to each other over a fountain of water. The water symbolized the tears from the Holocaust. The sculptor wanted it to be built at the Vatican, but he died before it could be realized. The Sister had traveled to Israel 58 times. When she was quite sick and traveling with oxygen, she told Kaufman that they were needed in Israel. They went with the Jewish Federation Mission and visited many difficult locations. They even came close to the shooting. This was a Jewish trip even though the nun was a Christian. Afterward, she invited Kaufman to be the only Jew on a Christian trip. Their intent was to show the conditions in Israel. Kaufman had a young cousin who as an orthodox Jew at the age of 40 was a colonel in the Israeli Army. He gave an interesting lecture to the Christians on what it was like to be an orthodox Jew in the Army. The nun was very devoted to her mission. She had to return to her convent in Racine, Wisconsin as she grew very sick. About a week before she died, she gave a lecture on the Holocaust at a seminary in Milwaukee near her home in Racine. She was devoted to getting the message out about the subject. She always went to the temple during Jewish holidays. When she was in the hospital, Kaufman had her son-in-law, a cantor, went with her so he could sing the songs of the High Holiday. As he sung, Kaufman was concerned that the volume might be too loud for the hospital. The nun exclaimed that she wanted everyone to hear [Annotator's Note: Kaufman chuckles at the memory.]. While in Israel, Kaufman and the nun came in contact with an Arab man who was quite anti-Semitic who was running a Catholic mission. The nun refused to attend although she told her Jewish friends that they could do so. She was very opinionated. The nun educated a tremendous amount of teachers at Seton Hall after she arrived there in the 1970s. Her life was very commendable.

Luna Kaufman had no difficulties after the war with nightmares. She was fortunate. She never felt that she was betraying anybody by going to Germany. A country cannot be judged by the actions of a few. On a trip back to Poland, Kaufman was contacted by a friend. She had received a grant to make a movie about ethnic Polish music. It included the story about a Jewish carpenter, composer Gebirtig [Annotator's Note: Mordechaj Gebirtig died in the ghetto in June 1942] who had written his wonderful music while in the Cracow ghetto. The music of the composer was played by a young German who spoke Yiddish. He had collected the unwritten music from all around the world. Kaufman befriended the man and brought him to New Jersey. The musician was well received after a concert at Drew University which was run by Governor Kean [Annotator's Note: Thomas Kean]. Some people, however, expressed concern that the young man was German. She refuted that concern on the premise that all Germans cannot be judged by the actions of those in the past. Give them a chance to understand and change. She always said that she would not give the oppressors the satisfaction of poisoning her life with hate. That word is not in her vocabulary. Museums such as the Holocaust Museum and The National WWII Museum are important. It is also important for people to know who to vote for at the polls. The results of negativity can be seen in those museums. Unless people see the results that build up little by little, they cannot understand the implications.