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Second Interview Insert Key
Indented text represents the follow-up
interview conducted on May 15, 2003.
Introduction of Interviewers
Hello,
I'm Jack W., I'm Rachel H. and I'm Sydney M. We are here today to conduct
and interview with Freda. It is May 23, 2002 in in the city of San Francisco.
My
name is Jack, my name is Sophie, my name is Camilla, and we are interviewing
Freda Reider on May 15, 2003, in the city of San Francisco, California.
We would all like to thank you for taking the
time to do this interview with us today.
It's
a pleasure.
What is your name?
Freda.
And why aren't you going to give us your last name on the
tape?
I
think I feel more comfortable with just going with my first name. [Note:
After this interview Freda decided to allow her full name to be published.]
What's your birthday?
January 10, 1930.
And where were you born?
I
was born in a place called Baden Bei Wien, which is a small town out of Vienna.
When I lived there it was quite small, a sort of medieval town and very charming
and beautiful. Today I think it's grown into a very big city.
What was your childhood like there?
You
mean before the annexation? Well I was quite young and so I just remember
living in a very charming place, in a sort of bucolic valley and life was
very melodious, and my personal memory becomes sharpened right after the
annexation, the Anschluss.
Who lived with you in your
house?
My
father, my mother and two sisters.
What was your relationship like with your family?
We
had a close relationship. My parents came from Poland and my older sister
was born in Poland to. Only myself and my younger sister, Lisa, were born
in Baden. The three sisters were five and a half years apart.
What was your relationship with your sisters like?
There
was no relationship actually. The baby, we were five and half years apart.
So there was the baby always being taken care of by the mother, and there
was my older sister who would have nothing to do with me, I was just this
little, younger kid - brat. She was always with her, you know, contemporaries.
So there was no relationship, but again, I didn't know that it could be better
and I happened to like being alone or just having one friend, that seemed
fine for me.
What are some of your earliest memories growing up?
Well
as I say, I seem to have a block of my early memories. My memories really
begin on the day of the Anschluss. It's as though I were asleep up until
then.
What was the environment like in your neighborhood?
We
lived in a compound with many little buildings. There was a brook that ran
by our house. It was a place I loved to play more than any other place. I
played a lot of fantasy games. I would pull large leaves from the sides and
sent them sailing down the river pretending that they were large ships. Little
did I know that I would really go on a large ship.
Could you describe your neighborhood before the Anschluss happened?
We
lived in a compound and in the compound - the owners of the compound ran
a furniture factory, which was very far away from where we were living and
interestingly enough, that factory - when the Anschluss happened
and the Nazi's came in, they took over that factory and it became a munitions
factory. When the war was in full process, the Allies bombed it and so the
whole compound disappeared.
But
back to the compound, when I was a little girl, I just remember that there
were many little houses and a big wall around the compound and you had to
go through a special door to get out into the street. I spent most of my
time as a little girl close to home, played with friends around there. There
was a little brook that ran by the house and we used to send ships down the
brook, little leaves, turned them into ships. It was a very idyllic place
to live, beautiful weather, gorgeous trees and flowers.
What types of activities did you do besides all those fantasy
games?
I
knew my mother loved - she would do her housekeeping and all that and by
noon she would be finished and she would love taking the three children to
the Kurpark, which was the most important park in the city. It was very gorgeous.
In the front of the park there was this amazing fountain with mythological
animals and people and all of them having water gushing out of their mouths.
I think that when you speak about early memories I think that fountain is
engraved permanently in my head.
Why was that park so important?
It
was so mythical and so gorgeous, especially the fountain. We used to like
to sit there and run around and play like kids do.
What other pastimes did you have as a little girl?
Yes,
it's a good question, as an American I understand you completely, because
as a Mom I did the same thing in America. Where you take children for all
sorts of enrichment classes, piano classes or ballet dancing. There was none
of that. We just went to school came home, had snacks, played with the children
near by. I actually had, I think, just one close friend, and that was it,
and went to the Kurpark, every single say. Yeah, that was the big moment
of the day.
Did your town have a large Jewish community and facilities?
It
had not a large Jewish community but a Jewish community. All of the important
buildings of that community - the organizations of the Jewish community -
were in a compound. That consisted of a very large synagogue - very large
with a balcony - a Hebrew school, a Jewish community center, and sort of
the offices - the administrative offices - of all of the other buildings.
What was it like growing up very religious?
You
know, you're born into a system and you just take it for granted that that's
the way the world is. So within that community it was very lovely, and very
peaceful and harmonious.
How often did you attend synagogue growing up?
I
have no memory, no personal memory of ever going to the synagogue. I must
tell you - just to jump way ahead but only for a second - I did visit that
synagogue again in 1981. I can talk more about that later on.
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