Professor Moser's Notebooks
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From 1945 to 1946, Professor Shia Moser was a teacher at Peterswald Kinderheim (Children’s Home). It was a home for children who had lost their families during the Holocaust. Professor Moser found that the children took comfort in telling him about their lives. He wrote down what the children told him in ten notebooks. The children spoke Yiddish, so their stories were recorded by Professor Moser in that language.
“I wanted to preserve the memories of the surviving children. They went through so much, such a tragedy. Each child had been so close to death that I thought [everyone] should know about their experiences.”
—Shia Moser
Donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre by Shia Moser. RA060-2
Transcript
[A partial translation of the original Yiddish.]
[Page 1]
Musia Vechter. Born in Siaulai 1929
Finished 6th grade at Folks Schul and 1st class Gymnasia in 1941, all in the Yiddish language. Also knows a little Russian and Lithuanian. Had her mother until the end of summer of 1941 and her father until the summer of 1944. Her mother became will with nerves after her experience with the Germans and after four months became deathly ill and physically and mentally a mess before her death. Father died of poisoning after drinking spirits that they thought was whiskey. This happened in the factory where her father worked as a tailor.
She had a brother and a sister, from whom she was separated in 1944, and she doesn’t know where they are. The brother was born in 1933, the sister in 1931.
