"The Life of Alexander Perlberger before, during, and after the Second World War"

Mina Perlberger was born Chana Malka Glücksman on Dec. 25, 1918, in Tyczyn, Poland. She was one of four children in a family of two daughters and two sons in a strict Hasidic Jewish family. Her parents owned and operated a small grocery. Her family was in the middle of moving to Kraków, Poland, in 1939 when the Germans invaded. Mina and her family were assigned to forced labor outside of Tyczyn. Mina also worked as a black market trader until 1942 when her family's home was seized by the Gestapo. She and her family were forced into the ghetto in Rzeszow, Poland. Her parents were deported to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland, later that year. Mina and her younger sister were able to escape the ghetto and were sheltered by a Polish farmer who demanded payment in exchange. Mina and her sister were sequestered in an underground bunker by day and were moved to a stable by night. They were hidden for a total of nearly 21 months. Mina and her sister were liberated in 1944 when they heard of the Soviet Army's arrival in the area. Mina met her future husband, a Soviet Jew, in Blazowa, Poland. They married and were brought into Austria after World War II with the aid of a Jewish organization.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

"The life of Alexander Perlberger .." was written by Mina Perlberger ca. 1985 and donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives in Aug. 1991 via Linda Kuzmack, then of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Department.