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Was religion a big part of your life when
you were a child?
My
father and mother were both Jewish, as am I. My father was very inattentive
about his religion; my mother was a little bit more religious but basically
only for the high holidays and for Passover. My father didn't believe
in religion because his philosophy was being a social democrat politically.
He was a diamond polisher, and he believed that most of that stuff
didn't have any meaning to him. My grandfather, my father's father,
was also an old diamond polisher, and later, when he retired, he became a shammaz.
I don't know if any of you kids knows what a shammaz means,
but that is a person in a synagogue, who lights the candles, sweeps
the floor, keeps the books all organized, and that's what he did.
And,
my grandfather was quite devout, and my father would have nothing
of it. At Passover, we would have matzos, and my mother would clean
the house, or the apartment I should say, and she would get what
is known as the chomitz, which is the bread and all the
other flour items, and they would go through the place and clean
it all up, put it in a paper bag or something, and they would take
it to the fire in the ghetto and they would give the guy who managed
the fire, a guilder, and he would burn the chomitz and everybody
was happy.
Did you go to a synagogue regularly?
No.
Can you describe the Jewish practices of the other Jewish
kids in your neighborhood?
Most
of the parents – most of the men, because the women didn't work
in those days,
they were hausefrau at home – nearly all the men who lived – the
families who lived in our neighborhood were all diamond polishers or diamond
workers.
Not far from us, maybe three or four blocks away, was one of the major
diamond factories, as it was called, where diamonds were cut and polished.
It was
the Asher factory. Our neighborhood was about 60% or maybe
a little bit more Jewish diamond workers and the rest were gentiles, basically
in the trades of butchers, vegetable people, you know, non-professionals.
Could you describe the Jewish practices - how
conservative were they?
Conservative?
No. Everybody in that area in our neighborhood were either
Social
Democrats, SALAT or they were communists. The majority
of them I would think, and this is pure guesswork on my part at
my
age now, were Social Democrats,
which was the prevalent party in Amsterdam among the labors group. My father,
for instance, was very active in his union, which was a diamond polishers
union. He would go out in election campaigns and put posters up on buildings
and tear down posters that the communists had put up. He got in some good
fights
and my mother would scream at him when he came home bloody. She would say,
"What are you doing this for? What are you doing this for? You have
a family. You have a family." And he said, "If I don't do it,
who will do it?" Basically the neighborhood was solidly working
class, blue collar. And I mean dark blue collar.
Was your family close, did you get along?
My
mother and her sisters and brothers were very close. My father was
reasonably close to his sister, and very unclose to his brother. Unclose
is probably not the proper word, but he was not very close to him.
But to his sister, he was reasonably close.
Specifically in your family, do you remember any holiday celebrations
or rituals you did every week?
My
father was very non-religious. On my mother's side they were religious
to the degree that at Passover they would all collect the chomitz and have it burned up. We would all have matzos for Passover. Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur, I do not recall it a family happening. Hanukkah was practically
unknown for us in Holland at that timeframe. We as kids got our gifts
in December during St. Nicholas Day as did the gentile kids. Christmas
for
the gentile families was strictly an event to go to church, it was a celebration.
And Hanukah, the way I know it here in the United States, was unheard of
in
my neck
of
the woods in Amsterdam. So, In terms of social get-togethers, they basically
were birthdays.
Did you experience any anti-Semitism?
Yeah.
As kids, you know we had Gentiles on the block, but basically in the
neighborhood I lived, I would say it was about sixty or seventy-thirty
or sixty-forty percent Jewish versus Gentiles. So, when, when your
friend got pissed off at you, and to put it bluntly, he would say,
'You dirty Jew,' and the next day we would play again with each other.
So, if that is anti-Semitism, so be it, but I don't consider that anti-Semitism.
Were you close to your parents?
Yes.
Mother and father of mine, we were very close. We were a small family,
I had a younger sister by a year and a half, and as I said, I lived
in the same bedroom with her. We were a close, a closely knit family,
and especially on my mother's side, who was very close to her sisters,
she was the youngest of her family. And, yeah, I'd say we were ...
I won't say intimate, but you know, because it has a different connotation
today, but we were very much together. Father and mother were very
much together, so were the children. We were a foursome.
What were your fondest memories as a child?
When
the river froze over, and because we lived a block away, and I would
be able to go ice skating on it, and I had my first ice skates, I think
I was eight or nine years old. That's one. When I got my first bicycle
is a very fond memory. Of course I had to schlep it upstairs on my
shoulder because you couldn't leave it on the street. Getting a nickel
to go to the store and get some licorice. It's the little things that
you today would not consider of major importance I think in your lives,
but to us, they meant everything.
You said that your teacher had a big impact,
or a big influence on you. What sorts of things did she teach you that
you still carry on today?
Self-reliance.
That's one thing she taught. As did my father, and I'll go into that
later. She taught us self-reliance, be able to stand on your own two
feet, make a decision for yourself, don't be afraid to make a mistake,
that's the kind of teaching she taught, you know, don't be afraid.
And I think that's pretty good advice for today too.
Do you remember the first job that you had?
I
was nine. And this was the Depression. I was born in 1924, this was
1933. The Depression was full bore in Holland, as it was here. And,
one of my mother's brothers had a poultry store in the Jewish ghetto
in Amsterdam. My father talked to my mother that he wanted to open
up a poultry store in the neighborhood where we lived to augment his
income as a diamond polisher. Which was far in between, they would
have a week's work, and then a week off, a week on, that sort of thing.
So they went to see my uncle, and he was very enthusiastic, and my
father found a little garage space and put a counter in, and bought
a refrigerator, or had somebody buy a refrigerator, actually, it was
an ice box in those days, there was no electric refrigerator, you had
to have a box and you would buy ice.
And,
in Holland, when I grew up, you had a two hour's lunch break from school,
you worked from 9 till 12 and from 2 to 4. So, from school to the garage
was like three quarters of a block. And I would run home, my mother
would have a sandwich waiting for me, and I would put on an apron and
I would cut open the chickens and clean chickens and get them ready
for the customers and then I would get on my bike and deliver them.
That was my first job, working at lunch time. And I didn't get paid
for that, this was part of, hey, you're part of the family.
And you said your father was a diamond polisher
Yeah.
Do you remember Kristallnacht?
Kristallnacht?
No, that, see, that took place in Germany. That was not in Holland. But, did that affect you? No, because this was 1938 when that
took place, Holland was a free country. There was no war yet. Kristallnacht took
place I believe on the 8th or the 9th of November in 1938. And that
was strictly in Germany. Holland, no such thing.
But you got no news of it?
Nope.
Oh, we had news of it, but it came much later. It came by newspaper
like two days later. You know, news was not instantaneous, like you
have today. News was ... the newspaper would come, there were no radios
to speak of, obviously there was no TV. So, whatever news there was,
came by a newspaper, or by word of mouth because somebody had listened
to it on the radio if they had a radio.
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