Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was a gift from Mark Friedman and Ron Friedman to the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library on 3 December 2025.

Biographical / Historical

Herbert Friedman was born in Vienna on December 11, 1924. He lived with his family in Austria until 1938 when the persecution of Jewish populations in Germany, Austria, and Poland forced the Friedman family's exit from Vienna.

Before he departed from Austria, Friedman was involved in the rescue of a woman who was drowning in the Danube Canal. Herbert, then 13 years old, and his friend Ernst Fleischer, then 15, garnered media attention in Jewish newspapers. Months later, Vienna fell to German occupation. Herbert's friend, Ernst, died in a concentration camp in 1942.

Due to the publicity of saving a woman's life, Herbert secured an appointment with the Rabbi of Austria. The Rabbi named Herbert as one of the one-thousand children slated for the Kultusgemeinde, a negotiation between the Nazis and Austrians for the transportation of children to safer locations. Herbert left on the Kindertransport to England on December 10, 1938. He remained in England for two years, where he was educated in various schools, the majority of which were bombed out of commission by the German Luftwaffe. For these two years he was desperately trying to help his mother and little sister to leave Vienna. His father and brother were already in America living in Baltimore, Maryland with relatives. They could barely speak English and were working low paying jobs which did not allow enough money to help the family members escape. They felt despair that his mother and sister might be deported as other family members had been.

By December 1940, Herbert joined his family in the United States, where they had secured papers the previous year. Herbert attended Forest Park High School in Baltimore, graduating in 1942. He joined the United States Army soon after, serving in the South Pacific until 1945. Herbert attended the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and was recalled to the Army during the Korean War, in which he served as a First Lieutenant.

Content Description

This collection contains the personal papers of Herbert Friedman (1924-2006), documenting his survival of the Holocaust from 1938 to 1940 in Vienna, including his two years in England, and his life afterward in the United States Army and as a successful pharmacist in Norfolk, Virginia. The Holocaust and its memory influenced his life and inspired him to create and share this archive to teach about his experiences and give courage and empathy to others. Friedman's archive primarily chronicles his efforts to get his mother out of Austria, his travel on the kindertransport to England where he was educated in various schools, the majority of which were bombed out of commission by the German Luftwaffe, and finally in 1940 his immigration to the United States.

The collection came in as two binders of correspondence, family transcriptions, photographs, and notes labeled "Volume 1" about the desperation of living and trying to escape when the persecution of Jewish populations in Germany, Austria, and Poland forced the Friedman family's exit from Vienna and "Volume 2" containing the correspondence and documents about Friedman's immigration to England and America, Volume 3 and 4 photographs and writings, and later life in the army and his career as a pharmacist and then his vocation as a speaker and teacher about living through the holocaust.

The collection contains biographical pieces written by and about Friedman, correspondence with his friends and family, legal identification (Reisepass), official documents about getting affidavits that would allow them to leave Austria for abroad, Palestine, Australia, or America and photographs from his youth and time in the army.

The collection includes his numbered tag "325" that he wore as he fled with the first group of children out of Germany. The correspondence is also the highlight of the collection as the letters from his mother in particular, reveal the fear and urgency with which she needed his help to leave Vienna immediately as she could be deported any minute. The letters are in German, Hebrew, Yiddish,French, and English. Most of the letters are translated into English. All the letters from family and friends begin "Lieber Herbert" or Dear Herbert.

There is also information about daily life, his Barmitzvah before the invasion, his swim card, that allowed him to go swimming one week before the Nazi's took over. There are descriptions about standing in lines at the American Embassy and the intimidation of the Nazi's (referred to as "The Black People") who kicked people out of line or beat them if they did not stand upright, or worse, arrested them and sent them to death camps.

There is also genealogical information, and searches about finding what happened to family members who died at concentration camps, and a framed article honoring Friedman at thirteen years old and his friend Ernst Fleisher (15 years old) for saving a drowning woman in the river in Austria before Germany invaded. This act of bravery helped him to get passage through the Kindertransport which was created through the Kultusgemeinde, from a negotiation between the Nazis and Austrians for the transportation of children to safer locations.

There are also letters from officials in the Austrian Government praising Herbert Friedman for his bravery as a young boy by saving a drowning woman in Vienna in 1937 as well as letters apologizing for not recognizing his bravery at the time, and for the terrible time for Austrians during the Nazi reign.

The collection also contains four books, some inscribed by friends and family. The books, Zur Erinnerung an die Barmizwah , Altneuland The Old New Land by Theodor Herzl , A Book of Jewish Thought , and Pears Enclyclopaedia were catalogued separately.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• History of Childhood, Parenting and Family Building (UVA)
• Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
• Jewish children in the Holocaust
• Jews -- Austria
• Jews -- Virginia
• Kindertransports (Rescue operations)

General

Content Warning Note: This collection contains racial imagery typical for the time that contemporary viewers may find offensive. The purpose of this note is to give users the opportunity to decide whether they need or want to view these materials, or at least, to mentally or emotionally prepare themselves to view the materials.