|
What did your parents do?
My
father was a shochet - he was an ordained person who was considered
a holy man in his community for slaughtering Kosher animals in a proper
way - which meant - there is a whole law about how you treat animals.
It's a weird law - but I mean it's a good law - that animals be treated
compassionately. When you slaughter an animal it has to be as fast
as possible, usually cutting the animal across the carotid artery and
that's it. Then he had to open the animal and examine all of its organs.
If there was one spot of the organ - of any organ - that seemed pathological,
the whole animal could not be eaten. So that was one of the things.
He
also was a cantor and he was a Talmudist. He gave talks about every
Saturday. He would talk at the community center. He would be invited
to people's houses. There were lecture groups and he would talk to
them. In the capacity of a shochet as I first mentioned, he
had a job in two major hotels. One in the Austrian Alps where he would
go for about four months every year during the summer and he did all
of these things as I mentioned. And then in the winter he worked for
another Jewish Kosher hotel in Italy, in San Remo. So for eight months
a year he was out of the community and when we were small, very often
my mother and the children would go with him. That's about it.
Did your mom just work around the house?
I
should tell you - I think I mentioned - that the whole family came
from Poland and they were actually illegal immigrants. My father didn't
want to go into the Polish armed services so he smuggled his way into
Austria and settled in Baden because he knew of some people who lived
there. That's typically the way people get around in the world.
Do you know when that was?
They
came in the 20's, I believe.
Do you have any memories of seeing your
father doing his job?
No,
no. It's not a place where a little girl would normally go to.
Were you close to your parents when you
were little? Did your dad ever sing to you?
Oh
yes, we were a very religious family. Friday nights were the most glorious
nights to remember forever because that was the night that the best
food was prepared. Everyone would dress in their best clothes. My father
sang and taught us how to sing and we just loved to sing. We would
have all of these different dishes to eat and between each dish we
would sing maybe two, three songs. Of course they were Hebrew songs
and had to do with, "Oh how beautiful the Earth is, blessing God,
and blessing all the wonders He had created, and how grateful we were
to be alive." And songs of that nature.
He
was a very charismatic person. His eyes were blue and they blazed with
happiness and excitement. And that creates a sort of fever in the whole
family and everyone. It was an exciting night. And Saturday - the next
day - we would go to synagogue in the morning, get all dressed up,
and come home and have lunch. The lunch was usually the leftovers from
the night before, but still tasting delicious. And having another party
with singing. A meal would last two hours.
Were your Friday night celebrations just
your family or did you have other families?
No
it was usually just our family.
Do you remember any of the songs that were
sung at the Shabbat table?
Oh
sure, but don't make me sing! Yeah, I do. Actually, you know if you
have wonderful memories from childhood, you tend to take it with you
into your future adult life, and I did. I brought my sons up in this
house with very rich celebrations on Friday nights and holidays. Actually
they do this with their little children. It's a very nice focus for
a family.
Who would do all the prays on Friday nights?
Were you designated?
My
father would lead them all, he would lead them all. He didn't designate
like a Passover seder, where everyone reads a portion. No it was his
- he led it.
Did he always appear very happy on Friday
nights?
Oh
my God! I mean he would go to a ritual bath before the Friday night
began. As I said before, everybody put on their best clothes. We could
hardly wait for him to come home because the first thing that he would
do is have the children line up - the oldest one in front - and he
would bless every child. That was a great memory because I remember
his nice, big warm hands on top of my head. He would say this blessing,
which made me feel so safe and protected. It's a very nice feeling.
First of all it's hands on and your whole head is covered with these
protective warm hands. I'll remember that forever.
How many languages did he speak?
He
actually learned some German. He knew Polish and he knew Yiddish, and
he learned some German. My mother never learned German - she only spoke
Yiddish. We spoke German because we went to school and played with
the neighborhood kids. With children language is a very easy thing.
You quickly learn.
What was a typical
dinner like with your family?
Well,
the food was certainly not very interesting like it is here. Maybe
it had to do with the fact that my parents were very religious, again,
and really there wasn't very much money in the family. So there wasn't
much of a variety with the food. Every single day of the week, you
could expect a certain dish to be served. The best food was served
usually for the Sabbath, Friday night and Saturday. If my mom could
save anything from those two meals, it would show up in some other
configuration during the week.
They
were not interesting meals, hamburgers. They're not like hamburgers
here, which can be very interesting, where they're barbequed and all
that. There they were called, "kokletan,"
and they were meat patties that were fried in a skillet and served
with mashed potatoes typically. You know, when you're a child, that's
what the world is all about, you don't think about, "I wish I
had a barbeque," you don't even know about that, and we didn't
read books about that. I wasn't brought up with little secular books.
The only thing I learned was religion. If stories were told, they were
stories from the Bible, nothing secular. Of course, when I went to
school, there I had secular studied, but as I said, I don't remember.
What do you remember of some of these bible stories
or books that were being read in your house?
Actually,
there was another thing, my mother used to love - and more of that
happened when we came to the United States. She came from Poland and
typically if you come from Poland from a very religious background,
you receive no education, because it wasn't meant for women and girls.
The only thing that was available was that you learnt how to write
Yiddish and not Hebrew. You learned enough to read certain books that
were available for women only. They were very simple little stories,
usually about housekeeping and the care of children. They didn't say "do
obedience to husbands," but it was all that it was women's place
really to take care of her family and nothing else. The stories had
to do with that primarily.
Back
when I was a little child, my mother would read from those little books.
So she was already beginning to kind of train us as a little girl.
Sometimes, my father would make up stories. He was a very imaginative
man, but mainly he stuck to the seriousness of life, which had to do
with following The Law, Halacha, The Law. So he would tell
Bible stories, but sometimes we would act them out a little a bit,
you know, talking about the parting of The Red Sea. He understood to
make a story dramatic so that it would appeal to a child. Did that
answer the question?
In your last interview, you went into great detail
about your Friday nights. I was wondering if you had any other ceremonies
or traditions as a little girl?
In
terms of other traditions, no big fuss was made of birthdays. Again,
it's like useless showering of attention, what for? It leads to swelling
of the head. The holidays were the main source of celebrations. The
holidays were big "to-dos," we all looked forward to the
holidays, just like we looked forward to Friday nights. It was full
of good food and everybody got dressed nicely and for Passover, we
all expected new shoes and new clothes. That sticks very strongly in
my memory of getting paten leather red shoes or black shoes. I thought
that was just the most remarkable thing in the world.
When
we would go to the Kurpark, sometimes we would stop at a candy
store that would be a treat. But, mainly it seems to me that my total
memory is of being extremely happy as a child. So you don't really
need a TV, or all these things that our children have now and our grandchildren.
I think if you are giving safety and love, that's probably the most
important thing, and space to roam around where a child can express
herself, in my case.
|
