Margot Klaber oral history interview

Margot Peretz Klaber was born to Alfred and Sophie Peretz in Hamburg Germany January 30, 1925, her older brother was born in 1923 and a brother seven years younger than she. Her Jewish father lost his job in March 1933 after Hitler came to power in January of 1933. They also lost their house and moved in with friend: Margot was eight years old. She attended Quaker Friends Meetings in 1938. She received notice to appear before the Gestapo in late 1945, and was imprisoned in Hamburg because of her involvement with the Quaker group and because she was "a half Jew". She was in a cell with a 60-year old woman and a 17-year old woman. They were forced to knit incomplete garments. On the day that President Roosevelt died she and many others were marched out of the prison to a Gestapo office and she and many were discharged without explanation. She had been arrested, "I had been accused of all kinds of terrible things. And I had to swear, when I was there, before they let me go, that I would never, ever tell anybody about my experience in prison. So I got a release paper, and I walked home." During that time her brother had been drafted. Her father had been drafted into what would be called forced labor. Her father had to dig graves in the cemetery for people who were killed during the air raid attacks. The city was barricaded during the last three months of the war. After the war she was a youth union leader. As a union leader, she was able to go to Sweden in a Quaker group. Margot Peretz met Donald Klaber through the Quakers.