San Antonio Survivor - Mathilde Schwarz Rosenblatt

Mathilde Rosenblatt grew up in Vienna, Austria living an average middle-class childhood. Her father was a jeweler until the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. After experiencing the violence of the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) her family moves to Poland in hopes of staying safe from Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies. However, the Nazis soon invade Poland and Mathilde and her family are sent to live in the Warsaw ghetto. Because food and resources were so scarce in the ghetto Mathilde, like many children in the ghetto, spends her nights sneaking out through the sewers to smuggle food and supplies back to her family. When she is 16 years old her family receives word from the American consulate in Vienna that they have a Visa for Mathilde to go to the United States if she can make it back to Vienna. She disguises herself, escapes from the ghetto and makes the 450-mile trip back to Vienna by herself, largely on foot, sneaking across the border without any travel papers and avoiding countless Nazi troops. Once she arrives in Vienna, she is able to collect her Visa but then must travel another 650 miles to Rotterdam, through many Nazi checkpoints, where she is able to get passage to the United States.

Mathilde is now deceased but, her son speaks to groups for the museum to tell her survival experience as a Second Generation speaker.