Overview
- Interview Summary
- Benzion Epstein describes the arrival of Jewish immigrants affiliated with the Bund and other leftist organizations in Argentina after 1929; the Zionists campaign against Birobidjan; the founding of a synagogue for the progressive left-wingers in the San Miguel colony in 1933-1934; leaving the colony in 1929 after disagreeing with his father about how to run the farm; life in the colony, including the farm and his education; the town of Rivera; supporting the Jewish National Fund; his activities in Buenos Aires, including his affiliations with the Gordonia Zionist Youth Movement, the Bialik Center, and the group “Tzeire Tzion” (possibly Buenos Aires Hejalutz Dror); how the participants came from many places, including Poland, Galicia, White Russia, and Lithuania; the antisemitic president José Félix Uriburu, who was in power at that time; the difficulties finding employment in times of economic crisis; how the groups wanted to make money to immigrate, as a group, to Israel and found a kibbutz; the Zionist elders, who were against youngsters living in commune-like homes; some of the elders included Guesang, Regalsky, Susheim, Feferman, Malinovka, and Rosenbum (the engineer); his book, “The Beginnings of the Zionist-pioneer movement in Argentina,” which described the conflicts in the Zionist community; immigrating with his wife to Israel in 1949 after representing the Gordonia movement in several countries, including Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador; the Halacha views of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig; the origins of the Gordonia movement in Argentina (Mrs. Epstein participates in the conversation as well); the arrival of David Spiguel, who was the founder of the movement in Galicia, Poland, in Argentina; the Gordonian principles (working the land) and the “Iuguent Veig” journal; the activities of Gordonia and its members; how during Uriburu’s presidency there was always a Jewish police officer to monitor proceedings; the background of his wife, Jana (née Glasserman), who was born in the colony Esperanza to a father who was a ritual slaughterer; passing through Paris, France during their immigration to Israel and beginning to understand what had happened to the Jews in Europe; their passage to Israel with the refugees from France on the ship Negba; the lack of news in Argentina during the Holocaust; living in the kibbutz Ginegar for a year and a half; reviving the abandoned kibbutz Givat-Zait; the Jewish colonies in Argentina; and the ideals of A.D. Gordon.
- Interviewee
- Benzion Epstein
- Date
-
interview:
1984
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, acquired from the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina-Communidad de Buenos Aires
Physical Details
- Language
- Spanish
- Extent
-
1 CD-ROM.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- Restrictions on use. Donor retains copyright. Third party use requests must be submitted to the donor.
- Copyright Holder
- Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina-Comunidad de Buenos Aires - Centro de Documentatión e Information sobre Judaismo Argentino "Marc Turkow"
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Agricultural colonies--Argentina. Antisemitism--Argentina. Jewish law. Jewish refugees--Argentina. Jewish refugees--France. Jewish youth--Argentina--Societies and clubs. Jews--Colonization--Argentina. Jews--Societies, etc. Judaism--Relations. World War, 1939-1945--Argentina. Zionists--Argentina. Men--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Peru. Israel--Emigration and immigration. Ginegar (Israel) Ecuador. Buenos Aires (Argentina) Bolivia. Argentina--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.
- Personal Name
- Epstein, Benzion, 1912- Gordon, Aaron David, 1856-1922.
- Corporate Name
- Gordonyah--Makabi ha-tsaʻir (Association)
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina-Comunidad de Buenos Aires - Centro de Documentatión e Information sobre Judaismo Argentino "Marc Turkow"
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The Centro de Documentatión e Information sobre Judaismo Argentino "Marc Turkow" of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina-Comunidad de Buenos Aires (AMIA) donated a copy of its oral history interview with Benzion Epstein to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Branch in August 2008.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:16:50
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn42881
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Centro de Documentatión e Información sobre Judaismo Argentino "Marc Turkow" collection
Oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors living in Argentina, produced by Centro de Documentatión e Información sobre Judaismo Argentino "Marc Turkow," Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina-Communidad de Buenos Aires (AMIA).
Date: 1986-1990
Oral history interview with Flora Abzac
Oral History
Flora Abzac, born near Łódź, Poland in 1917, describes being one of seven children; her father working as a peddler, selling knives; how her family was not observant; her family deciding to emigrate when they were older in order to stay together; going in 1930 to Argentina, where they had a relative who owned a textile factory; working at the textile factory with her father; wanting to pursue her high school education, but her work schedule changed every week; how in 1935 she became active in the Textile Workers Union because the salaries in the textile factories for the simple workers were low and the hours were long; how many members were Socialist and Communist Jews; becoming a delegate fairly soon and being the head of that year’s strike of the textile workers; being the only one who escaped being sent to jail after the police interrupted the meeting of the committee organizing the strike; 1,000 workers participating in the strike, which lasted three weeks; visiting the leaders who were in jail and getting instructions from them on how to negotiate with the factory owners; and stopping her union activities in 1952.
Oral history interview with David Bitman
Oral History
David Bitman describes the development of the Jewish Communist schools in Argentina in the 1940s and 1950s; the relationship with the Jewish Board of Education and the Jewish principal institutions like the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina); the Zionist influence and discourse with the schools; various activists who participated in the Jewish Communist Movement; the Zitlowsky Yiddish School; the discourse surrounding the government order to have private schools offer a day-long education; how many Jewish schools had to close their doors and others decided to offer a day-long education and accepted non-Jews; spending his first years in Uruguay; the demise of the Banco Israelita del Uruguay; the curriculum in the schools; moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina, after the beginning of WWII because for personal financial reasons; arriving on February 5, 1940; registering his daughters in the Zitlowsky Yiddish School, which was then affiliated with the Yiddisher Kultur Farband; how the school became affiliated with the Jewish Board of Education around 1944; how after the creation of Israel, Hatikva was allowed to be sung, and it was even translated into Yiddish so that the students would know what they were singing; being invited to form part of the pedagogic committee in charge of producing the books for the school; the view of some of the leftist schools, like the Peretz, that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was organized by Communist Jews; the inspections of the schools by the Jewish Board of Education; and how in the Zitlowsky schools it was forbidden to make criticisms of the Soviet Union in writing.
Oral history interview with David Blejer
Oral History
David Blejer, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, describes his paternal grandfather, who was born in Russia and immigrated to Argentina in 1892; his maternal grandfather (last name Volochs), who was born near Odessa, Ukraine and emigrated in 1882; his father, who was born in Russia and became the first local resident administrator of a Baron de Hirsh colony; his grandparents’ occupations; the Jewish colonization in Argentina and the various colonies, including San Antonio, Basavilbaso, Lucienville, Escrinia, Curbelo, Vila, Lopez, Verno, Balvanera, Clara, Colon, Avigdor, Dominguez in the province of Entre Rios, and Rivera in the province of Buenos Aires; his education; his Jewish identification and activities; the languages they spoke at home; antisemitism before and during the war years (1937 to 1945); the anti-Jewish immigration policy in Argentina; the relationship between the settlers and the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association); the successes and failures of the Jewish colonization in Argentina; the crisis of the 1930s; his political activities; Judaism in his family now; his opinions on the Eichmann capture and his trial in Israel; and his opinion on the State of Israel.
Oral history interview with Samuel Blutrajt
Oral History
Samuel Blutrajt, born in Volinia, Poland (now Volhynia, Ukraine), describes being one of six children; his father’s immigration after WWI to Argentina with the intention of going to the United States after a while; how life was difficult and after the family joined him, they decided to move to one of the colonies maintained by the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association); the family arriving in 1925 from the English ship Darro; going to the colony in Rivera and renting land from the JCA; life and toil in the colonies; staying there until 1934 when he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina; his work driving a truck to transport goods; getting married in 1940; working in a textile factory; learning the trade with his brother then buying machines and establishing their own factory; the reasons for joining or not joining the textile unions; how the unions got along before the establishment of the State of Israel and were mainly led by Communists or Socialists; how after 1948 the groups were divided and that division was expressed in the educational institutions they established; how the leaders on the Left identified themselves with Russia after 1917 even if they owned the big textile factories and belonged to a higher social class; staying behind in 1929 when many went to Birobidjan, Russia; how the workers in the factories where the leaders were Leftists had better working conditions; joining Jewish organizations after he was well established and had his own family; becoming active in the Peretz Shule, which was a Leftist school, preceded by its library called the “library of Devoto-Lynch” (alluding to the geographic areas where they were situated); the study of Yiddish in the school and the promotion of peace among different national groups; the efforts to protect and preserve the culture they had brought from the old country and its literature, such as Sholem Aleichem and Mendele; aspiring to become an integral part of the Argentinian citizenry as well; how the Zionists maintained that money should not be wasted in establishing schools in the Diaspora but the main ideal should be to send the people to Israel; how the people leaning Left did not mind intermarriage but mourned the abandonment of the Yiddish language and culture; and the waning of the Jewish school’s influence through the years.
Oral history interview with Isaac Breiter
Oral History
Isaac Breiter, born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina in 1908, discusses having six brothers and one sister; his father, who was born in Ukraine, and his mother, who was born in Russia; his father arriving in Argentina alone circa 1904 and settling in a farm in the area of Bernasconi, without the aid of the Baron de Hirsch enterprise; the family moving to Argentina to join his father; his family’s move after a few poor harvests to the city of Bahia Blanca; the birth of his only sister in 1906 in Bahia Blanca; his parents’ religious backgrounds; his father bringing his mother-in-law and his brothers-in-law to Argentina in an attempt to unify his family; staying in Bahia Blanca until 1918; attending elementary and high school; the expectation that all the children would receive higher education and the family moving to Buenos Aires when the oldest child started university there; his father’s work making bricks in Bernasconi and then opening a small department store that prospered; the Balfour Declaration; entering the School of Engineering in 1926; the Tragic Week in 1917; living in the Jewish neighborhood; joining the Zionist Federation, where he and other created the Zionist Youth Cultural Association, which became the spiritual leader of the youth in the capital city; his colleagues Yagupsky and Jacobo Bronfman; the activities in the group, including the cultural and Zionist activities as well as communication with other youth organizations in the world (among them the Universal Union of Jewish Youth in Paris); receiving his enlisting document at the age of 18 and deciding at that moment to become active in Argentinean politics; joining the Radical Civic Union; his work pasting posters on the streets for the reelection campaign of president Yrigoyen in 1922; becoming more active in the party in 1946 after returning from the province of Entre Rios, where he had worked as an engineer; meeting with Arturo Frondizi (who later became president of the republic) and with whom he established a very close friendship; being the deputy (representative) for Buenos Aires from between the years 1958-1962; his activism with the Student Center at the School of Engineering in the Buenos Aires University; his work in Viale and Nogoya prior to his return to Buenos Aires in 1946; never fulfilling his wish to immigrate to Israel; celebrating the main holidays, which were always hosted by his mother even after he married; how his generation did not know much about the Holocaust; not remembering any anti-Jewish demonstrations during the war; being active in the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas) as a representative of Federation after 1946; other Jews active in the Radical movement, including Berta Feiguin de Ferrari (from the Cordoba province), Simon Goldstraj, Simon Junin, Arnoldo Kronhaus, Rozenkraz, and Bernardo Sweitzer; never experiencing anti-Jewish bias from anyone, especially not in the years of Eichmann’s capture and the debate of the relations with Israel; the popular anti-Semitic demonstrations of 1959; his policy as a deputy to stay in the background when Israel or problems in the Jewish community were discussed; his thoughts on the extradition of Eichmann; having a stroke in 1961 and being confined to a wheel chair; his thoughts on public and private education; being a delegate to the World Jewish Congress in Geneva in 1953; participating in the World Jewish Congress; visiting Israel with his wife; and his children, who did not receive a Jewish education.
Oral history interview with Manuel Bronstein
Oral History
Manuel Bronstein describes working in the practice of Leopoldo Melo; having the opportunity to meet political leaders at the end of Victorino de la Plaza’s presidency; his thoughts on Tomas Le Breton, whom he believes was not antisemitic and that, as a Secretary of Agriculture, he favored the immigration of the Jews; his belief that, excluding the Church’s positions, Argentina aided the Jewish immigration with the help of the Masons; the role of Peralta Ramos in the prohibition of Jewish immigration during WWII; the work of the ICA (Jewish Colonization Association) to bring Jews to the colonies; how Juan B. Justo was opposed to the work of the ICA because of their discrimination against other groups; how his law firm (Satanovsky-Bronstein) defended the colonies when lawsuits were brought against them starting in 1924; his thoughts on why the colonies failed; his opinions on the political parties in Argentina during the “Tragic Week”; the writers who were sympathetic to the Jews, including Jose Ingenieros, Leopoldo Lugones, Alfonsina Storni, and Alberto Gerchunoff; the founding of the Sociedad Hebraica Argentina (SHA) and the guest speakers, including Stefan Zweig (who refused to talk about Jewish subjects), Shaul Tchernikhovsky, and H. Leivick; how Einstein was given an honorary membership by the Society and also came to talk; the fighting of antisemitism in Argentina through the Molot Treaty, which was initiated in the ranks of the community; the founding of the Committee Against Anti-Semitism with the help of France and its bulletin; the reaction to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; the IAPI (Instituto Argentino de Periodismo Intelectual) finding funds to support the Spanish Civil War; the changing political leanings of the SHA under different presidents; Simon Mirelman coming from Switzerland and arriving prior to WWII and being a friend of the Hebrew University; the fundraising to donate a library to the Hebrew University; political leaders, including Saenz Pena, Hipolito Irigoyen, and President Alvear, and their interactions with the Jewish community; Haim Avni’s visit; the “Tragic Week”; and an anecdote about Mauricio Nirenstein, first president of the SHA, professor of Economics and Spanish Literature at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
Oral history interview with Iginio Chalcoff
Oral History
Iginio (Iehiel) Chalcoff, age 86 and born in Ukraine around 1900, describes his family; living in a Jewish colony in Krivol Glosh, near Kiev, Ukraine and the Dnieper River; arriving in Argentina with his father and seven siblings around 1911; the numerous pogroms in Russia at that time; the price of their tickets; his family’s cap making business in Ukraine; living in the colonies of Narcis Leven (near Rivera, province of Buenos Aires) and Bernasconi from 1912 to 1920; working in the harvest; going to Buenos Aires in 1920; joining the Liga Racionalista (Jewish Rationalist League), which was an anarchist party; how a huge Jewish library was situated in the Ombu Street (today’s Pasteur Street) and the remnants of the library were donated to the IWO; his activism in the carpenters’ labor union (Sindicato de Ebanistas), which was the first labor union with a section in Yiddish and a library of up to 2,000 volumes; his work as a carpenter with his uncle; the numerous unions for specific professions; distinguished union members, including Brusilowsky, Landa, Shnitzer, Shtraijer, Aisenstein, and Moshe Koifman; how the union members helped new immigrants join a profession that was already organized into a union, so that the newcomers wouldn’t be exploited; going with a group of people in 1926 to Delta, Entre Rios province (in Gualeguaychu, Ibicuy, Paranacito) to found a commune; life an economic conditions under the regime of president Uriburu; the others in the group, including Manuel Rabinovich and Jaime Glatchtein; growing cucumbers, which they then marinated and send to Buenos Aires; how his group did not ultimately succeed, but how they stayed there until 1948; the other colonists, including Spaniards (brought by Blasco Ibanez), Germans, French, and Italians; how some of the Jews went to the Chaco Province, to start new colonies, but they did not succeed; cultural activities in the colonies; his view that the Jews were the principal activists, more than any other nationality; having a theatre and presenting works by Argentinian and Spanish dramaturges; building a big stage for their presentations and the details of how the land was acquired and its price; arguing with a German Nazis at a meeting when he was giving his opinion as what to do and the Nazi being told by another German, a socialist, that the Jews were the only activists and that the Nazis should be embarrassed by their disruption and not even be there; the Spaniards arriving in Argentina in 1905; forming friendships with many Spaniards and some Italians; white slavery and the labor unions ousting the slave traders; how lectures on literary subjects sponsored by the League were well attended; the rights that the labor unions managed to achieve for the workers, including extra hours pay, half a day of work on Saturday, and retirement; the publications by the League, including the newspapers “Fraie Shtime”, “Broit un Fraihait”, and “Fraie Vort”; the cultural lectures given by Botoshansky and Rollansky; and the relations with other Jewish organizations, including the Burial Society (Chevre Kedishe) and Arbeter Farband (an organization that assisted the impoverished laborers so that they did not have to go to the larger institutions).
Oral history interview with Jose Epstein
Oral History
Jose Epstein, born in Slonim, Belarus in 1910, describes growing up in a poor family; his father’s work distributing merchandise on his horse; attending kheder at the age of 5, but stopping when WWI began; apprenticing as a shoemaker then as a carpenter; getting help from his sister, who lived in the US, and immigrating in 1927 to Argentina, where another of his sisters lived; how the economy was very depressed when he arrived and it was very hard to find work; working in the furniture industry; joining the syndicate of the carpenters; how the syndicate had separate sections for the gentiles and the Jews; the large representation of Jews in the syndicate; the Yiddish library in the site of the syndicate; siding mainly with the communists and being taken to jail many times; how the syndicate supported the workers in jail; becoming a member of the Communist Party; how in 1930 there was a month-long strike demanding a raise in their pay; the better conditions from the gentile workers, who worked in larger factories, while the Jews worked in small shops of a few workers; how the at that time, the syndicate was split between the Sindicato Unico de la Madera (the gentiles) and the Classist Syndicate (of the little shops), whose leaders were more leftist; the meetings of the syndicate, which were carried in Yiddish and Spanish; the section in charge of raising funds to support those workers in jail; the separate syndicate for the tailors; how in those years, the syndicate did not join with the activists who were Zionist; PROKOR, which was the organization in charge of talking up the emigration to Birobidjan (Birobidzhan, Russia); the numerous activists coming from the Soviet Union and trying to entice the Jews to join them and leave Argentina; deciding not to leave Argentina because he was married and also because he heard rumors about the fate of those who had left; establishing his own furniture factory with a few other partners; and having two sons and raising them with Jewish educations.
Oral history interview with Abel Fligeltoib
Oral History
Abel (Abisch) Fligeltoib, born in 1905 in Warsaw, Poland, describes being one of six children; arriving in Argentina in 1925; how his mother was a war widow and already living in Argentina with a daughter; his father, who was sent to fight during WWI and perished in a hospital; his decision to not serve in the Polish army and escaping Poland to Argentina with help from his aunt in his Warsaw; being a manager of a large clothing manufacturing store in Warsaw; finding work in Buenos Aires in a beds factory owned by a rich Jew, Jacobo Henik; how all the beds were manufactured from metal; Henik’s four sons and four daughters; joining the Metallurgic Syndicate as a delegate of his factory’s 100 workers; how there were four delegates all together: a Jew (Abel), an Italian, an Argentine, and a Swede; functioning as a delegate for 30 years and being appreciated by all; his work in the Syndicate, which consisted of obtaining legal status for the factory workers through contracts; how most requests from the owners were granted, including vacation time; how the only thing not granted was a raise in salary, which gave origin to a strike that lasted 100 days in 1933; the Syndicate’s role and demand for the strike; how during the strike the Syndicate gave coupons to the workers who then redeemed them in designated stores; his wife’s work, beginning in 1941, as an ironer in a different factory and not being a member of a syndicate; being a leader in the Warsaw Cultural Club; and the activities of the Cultural Club.
Oral history interview with Jacobo Garberis
Oral History
Jacobo Garberis, born in 1912 in Riendabas, Lithuania (possibly Rietavas, Lithuania), describes being the second born of four sons; growing up a traditional Jewish family, but not orthodox; his bar mitzvah; the German occupation of Lithuania in 1914; moving to Russia to escape the Germans; attending public and Jewish schools for two years; the Russian Revolution; his entire family contracting and surviving scarlet fever; returning with his family to Lithuania in 1919; living in Siauliai; joining the leftist Jewish movement Hashomer Hatzair and withdrawing from the group after a few years because he did not want to immigrate to Palestine; the political groups at that time; working in a factory then as a courier in the Jewish Popular Bank in Kaunas; his family’s immigration to Argentina; his arrival in January 1930; receiving help from HIAS; his father’s work as a shoe maker; working as an ironer in clothing workshops; joining the Communist party; being part of several clubs, including Hercules (a Jewish leftist organization), the Hebraica, and the Club Juvenil; reading several newspapers, including Di Presse, the Morgenshtern, La Vanguardia, and Roiter Shtern; the founding of a labor union for clothing workers in 1934; becoming the secretary general of the union; how all the members were Jewish; publishing all their publications were in Spanish because they were prohibited from publish anything in Yiddish; other people in the union, including Julio Liberman, Goldstein, Ziza Back and Levintal; Szmerke Kaczerginski’s visit to the union and not believing what the Russians had done to Jews; the strike of 1934-1935; getting married in 1936; his four sons, who did not experience Jewish educations; the new laws under Juan Peron in 1943; how the arrival of Italian tailors decimated the Jewish tailors’ businesses; trying to open workshops on a big scale in 1953; the union’s library; and continuing to attend several clubs along with his wife.
Oral history interview with Samuel Glusberg
Oral History
Samuel Glusberg, born in Chisinau, Bessarabia (Moldova) in 1898, describes being one of six children; his family immigrating to Argentina and arriving in Buenos Aires in 1905; his father’s death in 1914 of tuberculosis; attending an elementary school starting at age five; speaking Yiddish at home; learning Spanish at school; how there was not an organized Jewish school in the community; graduating from the Normal School; becoming an elementary school teacher; receiving further education in order to teach literature in high schools; working in the teachers’ library; visiting an uncle in Chile and how he was very influential in Samuel’s life; getting married and living in Chile for the following 30 years; having one child, Leon; returning to Argentina; how at the age of 20 he witnessed the “Tragic Week” in Argentina, when a pogrom of the Jews ensued; occasionally using the pseudonym Enrique Espinoza; his career as a writer, journalist, historian, editor, and essayist; being the secretary of the writers’ guild and one of the founders of Hebraica (a Jewish cultural and sports center); his thoughts on various Yiddish newspapers, including “Di Yiddishe Tzaitung” and “Di Presse”, and the popular magazines “Sur” and “Davar”; and befriending many writers, activists, poets, and politicians known world-wide.
Oral history interview with Roberto Schopflocher
Oral History
Roberto Schopflocher discusses the Jewish-German agricultural colonies in the province of Entre Rios, Argentina; the various colonies in Entre Rios, including Avigdor and Cohen Oungre (or Alcaraz); other colonies, including Moisés Ville, Rivera, Dominguez, Pedernal, Basavilbaso, General Campos, Ubajay, Clara; people involved in the colonies, including Livestein, Levinsky, Fraidemberg, Carlos Noimayer, and Hirshbrand; how the recruitment of German Jews to go to the colonies was not very successful, even after the advent of Hitler and until 1937; the slight increase in immigration to Argentina after Kristallnacht; Louis Oungre, who was the director of the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association) and his thoughts on Jewish agricultural colonies; the absence of women in the colonies, which did not allow for the growth of more families; the pitfalls of bringing in young women; details about the farms, including the workers, housing, education, cultural life, customs, celebrations, medical services, and clinics; how the community building housed the civic center, police station, Jewish school, telegraph office, cooperative, the office of the administration as well as the bath to remove the ticks off the cattle; the contract between the JCA and the farmers; how the problems originated from the farm planners’ lack of understanding of the local topography and the particulars of the local cattle; the small industries brought in by some of the arriving immigrants; hearing about the extermination of the Jews in Europe in 1945, although they knew before that about the concentration camps; the antisemitism expressed by the wife of the governor of Entre Rios while she was in Avigdor; the celebration of the Argentinean patriotic holidays; the colony of Alcaraz; and the reasons for leaving the farms.
Oral history interview with Hersch Goldmintz
Oral History
Hersch Goldmintz, born in 1909 in Belchatow, Poland, discusses his father, who belonged to the Mizrahi organization (a religious-Zionist movement); attending secular schools and a Jewish school; working at an early age in the textile industry like his father; joining the Bund movement and being active in the union of the textile workers; supporting the school of the Bund movement along with Poale Zion and Folkspartai (Folkspartey); the conflicts amongst the various organizations during the 1930-31 a campaign to help Poland’s schools; deciding to emigrate to South America in 1934; the journey through Brazil to Argentina; participating in the Eucharistic Congress of 1934; his limited work in Brazil as a peddler and his move to Argentina, where he was able to join the textile industry; starting his own business in 1951; being active in the Peretz Schule; becoming part of the Jewish Board of Education and the ideological clashes; the differences between Jewish children in Poland and those in Argentina; decline of Yiddish in successive generations; how after the war a need was felt to return to the rituals of Judaism; celebrating holidays and rites of passage; the resurgence of Yiddish language; how the bankruptcy of the Bund cooperative affected the support of the Bund schools; and his pride that his grandchild attends a Yiddish school and that another grandchild lives in Israel.
Oral history interview with Tobias Kamenszain
Oral History
Tobias Kamenszain, born in 1918 in Ostrov, Volyn (possibly in Ukraine), describes arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1928; his education in Volyn at a Cheder and with private teachers; his education in Argentina with private teachers and at Najiezer and Herzl Seminary schools; the political affiliation of the Jewish schools and their professors; the languages he studied; the creation of the Jewish Board of Education in 1934-1935; the Uriburu revolution of 1930 and the temporary closing of the Jewish schools; his secular studies; the Jewish newspapers; the plan to form a committee to celebrate 100 years of Zionism in Argentina and the importance of the Jewish media; and the IWO (International Workers Order).
Oral history interview with Miguel Kandin
Oral History
Miguel Kandin, born in 1922 on a ship that was sailing from Russia to Palestine, describes living with his family in Tel Aviv (Israel) until shortly after the Arab-Jewish disturbances of 1929; immigrating to Argentina in October 1930; his father return to Palestine in 1939 and death in 1948; his mother’s death in 1947; his parents’ backgrounds; the commercial activities of the Jews arriving in Argentina from Aleppo and Damscus; how Kashruth was stricter in Argentina than in Israel; the relationship between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews; the unity of the Sephardim and Ashkenazi during WWII; his theory on assimilation and relaxation of the religious precepts; his neighbors in Buenos Aires; attending a school run by the Aleppo Jewish community; the controversy of teaching Hebrew with Arabic translation; his role in the Jewish community and as a member of the executive committee in the Ashkenazi congregation in 1953; the cemeteries of the different sects; methods for financing the Hebrew school; working in textiles with his brother-in-law; getting married and having four sons; opening an integrated elementary and high school; the process of opening schools; and his interactions with the National Secretary of Education and the leadership from the Jewish community.
Oral history interview with Leike Kogan
Oral History
Leike Kogan, born in Tzvinsia, near Vilnius, Lithuania in 1911, describes studying in the Tzvinsare Yiddish Gymnasium (or TZISHO); her parents, who were religious Jews; her father, who had been in the Czarist army and was taken prisoner then released in 1920; going with her husband to study in Paris, France; her husband finishing at the school of agronomical engineering, while she took various courses at the Sorbonne; working as an accountant; Mr. Kogan serving in the military in Poland for over two years; being rejected from going to Birobidjan (Birobidzhan, Russia) in 1935; applying to go to Brazil, where she had a brother; Mr. Kogan accepting a job in the colonies of Argentina in 1936; Mr. Kogan’s role as the administrator of 800 farmers; Mr. Kogan founding the first credit cooperative; being in the area of the colonies of Clara, Domínguez, San Antonio, and Las Moscas; being in the province of Entre Rios until 1940; being in Montefiore 1940-1942; Mr. Kogan being sent to General Campos and Palomar; going to Buenos Aires in 1944; her work; the birth of their children; writing for the Jewish Communist newsletters; teaching in the Zhitlovsky schools, where the parents, who were born after the Russian Revolution, wanted their children to continue their progressive paths; teaching for eight years; how the school was forcibly affiliated to the Central Jewish Board of Education and the Zhitlovsky schools had to accept the teachers sent from the Board; the different approaches to teaching history and Biblical miracles; the controversy of teaching Yiddish versus Hebrew; the positive reaction at the creation of the State of Israel; the altercations between the Zhitlovsky schools and the Jewish Board of Education; the expulsion of the ICUF (Yiddisher Kultur Farband) schools from the Jewish Board of Education; teaching in the Peretz Shule 1955-1971; the ICUF Board of Education; the differences between the Zhitlovsky and the Peretz schools and the waning of both organizations due to the national government’s decision to make all schools full day; and the lack of secular studies in the Jewish schools.
Oral history interview with Leon Menin
Oral History
Leon Menin, born in 1900 in Pochaiov, Ukraine, discusses the town, which was made up of about 1,200 Jewish families; the Ukrainians who lived around the shtetl; his father, who was a harness-maker; growing up with three brothers and four sisters; his father’s immigration to Argentina in 1909 and return in 1914; attending a Jewish school; going to Odessa, Ukraine to work on a vineyard at the age of 13; returning to Pochaiov; the Austrian occupation and being sent with his family to Galitzia and then Czechoslovakia; working in a flour mill to help support the family; returning to Pochaiov after the war; being taken to the Polish army in 1920; spending three months in Warsaw, Poland; returning home and working in the forest industry; getting married in 1926; moving his entire family (including parents and siblings) to Argentina with the help of the HIAS; getting a visa as a farmer; arriving in Argentina in February 21, 1930; his three children and has five grandchildren; working as a peddler first and then a merchant; living in Buenos Aires; his role as the vice-president of the community organization (Bet-Am) in Avellaneda; being active in the AMIA; being a member of the Labor party; being very active in his synagogue; the various institutions in the 1930s in Argentina, including the two Jewish schools, the Bialik and the Zalman Raizen Shules; his activism with the Zalman Raizen Shules between 1930-1960; the politics of the schools; the disturbances of 1946-1947 when the communists wanted to take over the school; the unification of the two Jewish schools in 1982; the guests who visited the shule, including Leivik, Zalman Raizen, and Zerubabel; how Argentinean politics impacted the economy of the Jews in the years of Uriburu, Ortiz, Castillo, and Justo; the revolution of 1943; being appointed treasurer in charge of the erection of the monument to Argentina’s liberator, General Jose de San Martin, which was finished after Peron was deposed; never affiliating with the Peronist movement or with the Eva Peron Foundation; building the OJA (Youth Organization of Avellaneda); his work with the Israeli Labor party MAPAI since 1938; being very involved with the United Jewish Appeal for the Great Buenos Aires and heading the campaign for over 44 cities; his involvement with the cemeteries through the AMIA; the 75-year old cooperative in Avellaneda and its demise in 1986; life under Mayor Herminio Iglesias; his work and activity as vice-president of the Nursing Home, Hogar Israelita, between 1955-1974; and bringing refugees to Argentina after WWII.
Oral history interview with Akiba Mozes
Oral History
Akiba Mozes, born on February 24, 1913 in Łódź, Poland, describes attending a Yeshiva and a state school; being very active in the Gordonia youth movement, where he ended up as a counselor; becoming a teacher in a Jewish primary school; learning Hebrew; immigrating on May 27, 1938 to Argentina, where one of his sisters and other relatives had already settled; continuing his activities through Dror-Gordonia, which was affiliated with the Israeli political party MAPAI; his contact with Moshe Kostrinsky (Kitron); the process to become a teacher under the Central Jewish Board of Education and being interviewed by Maximo Yagupsky, Yedidia Efron and Pinhas Neiman; being sent to one of the Baron de Hirsh colonies, Rivera, in order to learn Spanish; staying in Rivera for six years; getting married in 1943 to another activist in the Dror organization who also became a teacher; being guided by the principles of A.D. Gordon, who believed that the Jews had to be productive by working the land; being a teacher in a complementary school and then becoming the director; aspects of the school, including the curriculum, the teachers, the guests (Jaime Finkelstein, Rollansky, and Botoshansky), the inspectors (Meir Berenson, Yagupsky, Efron, and Pinhas Karp) the local politics, and the tensions between those who favored religious education and those who did not; how the curricula in the schools of the colonies was dictated by the Central Jewish Board of Education in Buenos Aires; the enthusiastic reaction from the leftists and Zionists to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948; moving to Buenos Aires in 1949 in order to find a school for their child; being the director of a Jewish complementary school in the suburbs of San Fernando for nine years; writing for many publications and translating books; being promoted to inspector of the Jewish schools in 1958; working in the Central Jewish Board of Education for 20 years; the role of the Jewish complementary schools in the colonies; his thoughts on how to combat assimilation through education and how to produce, empower, and enrich Jewish teachers through the residential seminaries in the provinces; and the political fights between different approaches to the creation of the State of Israel.
Oral history interview with Israel Novodvorsky
Oral History
Israel Novodvorsky, born in 1905 in Diatlovo, Poland (now Dziatlava, Belarus), discusses his father, who was a shoemaker; growing up the oldest of nine children; working in Vilnius, Lithuania for a year and a half, learning the tailoring of military uniforms; being recruited for his military service; his desire to immigrate to the United States; borrowing money for passage to Argentina; arriving in Argentina on October 18, 1923 and working in his profession immediately; joining the labor union two days after his arrival in Buenos Aires; getting married in 1928 and having one daughter; separating from his wife in 1932; being active in the union for over 63 years; his role as secretary and organizing the famous strike of 1933, during which every branch of the needle workers (tailors, cutters, ironers, etc.) participated; extending the strike to a large area of Buenos Aires; how the union was able to feed the unemployed workers for during the six-week strike; the Jews who were active in the strike, including Adolfo Jitler, Wasserman (the poet), Simon Salomon, Rosenfarb, Moishele Ieger, Rogovich, Matrajt, Ribak, Lewintal, and Julio Liberman; the strikers’ demands, which were promised by contract and never implemented, including paid vacations, job security, and better pay; the development of the workshops into large factories that supplied big department stores; opening his own business in 1946 and operating it until the end of 1978; and his writing about the public meetings of the anarchists.
Oral history interview with Zalman Orensztein
Oral History
Zalman Orensztein, born on September (November?) 16, 1902, in Sokołów Podlaski, Poland; being one of five children of religious parents; his father, who was a clerk in a bank; attending cheder at the age of three; the BUND movement, which wanted the teachers to be on strike, and children not being able to attend school; the professions of the Jews in town; all the Jews living in the same neighborhood; the accidental burning of the town on the eve of the festival of Shavuot in 1909 and taking refuge in the cemetery with his family; going with his siblings to the home of relatives in Siedlce and attending a Talmud Torah (a Jewish elementary school); being poor and having to find a different home where he could eat each day of the week; the family returning to Sokołów Podlaski; the beginning of WWI and his father losing his job; being a water-carrier to help support his family; receiving help from the JOINT beginning in 1915; his work cutting trees; reading on his own since he was unable to attend school; helping the cantor in the local synagogue; the various Zionist youth movements, including BUND, Poale Zion, and Tze'irei Tzion; identifying with Poale Tzion Left and being the librarian of the youth movement; his father joining Agudath Israel (Agudat Yisrael); the Keren Kayemet (Jewish National Fund) visiting Zalman’s home frequently; being active in the party and slowly shedding his religiosity, to the chagrin of the father; the Balfour Declaration and the responses of the various Jewish organizations; being recruited into the army for 9 months when he was 18 years old; returning from his military service in 1923; planning to go to Palestine with his older brother Yekhiel; deciding to go to Argentina and getting married a week before his departure; finding his grandfather’s brother (Pietkovsky) in Argentina; receiving help from the HIAS to purchase passage to Buenos Aires; arriving in Buenos Aires in September 1926; working as a painter at construction sites; going to work for a German company, Bajter, as a foreman in 1933 and leaving his job when WWII began; the assimilated Jewry in Buenos Aires; the Jewish schools, including the Akhiezer, the Arbeter Shule (a school of the Communist Party), and the Borojov Shule (a school of Linke Poalei Tzion (left wing) that had begun in 1921); details on how the different Jewish schools were started and by which different political streams; the government intervention and school closings in 1930; the Poalei Tzion School reopening in another location by the name Duv Geizer; the relationship of the different Jewish schools (both religious and secular) with the Chevre Kadishe and the Jewish Board of Education in the mid-1930s; a movement to unite all the secular schools in 1934 under the Organization of Secular Jewish Schools (TZWISHO) and its first director Haim Finkelstein; his company, La Puntual, and hiring many Jewish painters; the Mendele Club; the Jewish Communists; being on the Board of Directors of the AMIA for two years (1952-1954); and the antisemitism in Argentina since 1933.
Oral history interview with Kurt Riegner
Oral History
Kurt Riegner, born in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, describes his well-to-do parents and his sister; finishing primary and secondary school in Germany and part of his law university studies, which he was forced to complete in Basel, Switzerland in 1934; not knowing where his interest for Judaism originated because his family was very assimilated and no thought was given to Jewish education; marrying a Jewish girl on September 15 of 1935 and deciding to keep a kosher home and the Jewish traditions; the Nuremberg laws and deciding to emigrate; being hired by the Jewish community of Berlin as a writer and a journalist in 1935 and having to establish contact with the Gestapo; organized a meeting at Berlin’s main synagogue to discuss emigration (circa 1936 or 1937); the Jewish community organizing a group of young people to start the emigration process, selecting and providing training to a group of students; Rabbi Leo Baeck’s involvement; leaving for Argentina with a group of four youths; arriving in Buenos Aires in January 1938; founding of the “Home” where young refugees were housed in a kind of commune; the closing of the Home at the end of 1940 and the assimilation of the Home group to the society; the first religious service for the High Holidays in 1938; Jewish cultural organizations in Argentina; the influx of immigrants after Kristallnacht; Mr. Mellibosky of SOPROTIMIS, who helped illegal immigrants get papers in Argentina; how it became more difficult to obtain Argentinian visas for refugees; antisemitism increasing in Argentina as Hitler began amassing victories; the marked differences between those Jews who had been in the farming communities and the German Jews; Jewish education in the Riegner household; the attitudes of the Foreign Office of Argentina and the Agriculture Department; his work as a lawyer, aiding the legalization of immigrants’ papers; the illegal access to Argentina through the Tigre River Delta; the prosperous years for Argentinians between 1942 and 1952; being an executive member of the “Grosspressen”, which was a training school for Jewish farmers and artisans to learn new occupations and improve their chances for emigration; how many people from that group went to Israel and founded the kibbutz Hazorea; living in the colony Avigdor from 1942 to 1952; life in the colony, including the organization, schooling, and religious life; Argentina declaring war on Germany in 1945 and the effects on Jews born in Germany; antisemitism before and during Peron’s first presidency, including the forbidding of ritual slaughter and closing of some synagogues; Avigdor’s important role during those years; devising a plan by which the JCA would take care of the European refugees between 1945 and 1948; going to Paris, France in July 1948 to organize refugees; going to the displaced person camps to interview the survivors as to the skills they had and what was needed in Avigdor; recruiting for 14 months mainly in Austria and Germany for refugees who were sent to Canada; and the decline of Avigdor and of other colonies in Argentina.
Oral history interview with David Rozenfarb
Oral History
David Rozenfarb, born in 1904 in Kielce, Poland, describes being one of 10 (or 11?) children from his father’s two wives; growing up in a traditional family and attending “cheder” to learn about Judaism; entering the work force at age 16; joining the labor union of the tailors and becoming a Communist; the members of the union, all of whom were Jewish and younger that 20; union activities, including teaching reading and writing (in Yiddish) to the many workers who were illiterate and organizing cultural activities; the union’s principles; becoming a trainee under a tailor at age 13; getting married in 1929 and narrowly escaping imprisonment because of his Communist activism in Kielce on the eve of a May 1 celebration; going to Argentina with his wife in 1930 on a tourist visa; finding work as a tailor; the difficulty of life during the early 1930s; joining the trade union in 1934 and becoming its secretary; the strike in 1934; the relationship between the store owners and the needle workers; the 13-month salary and paid-vacation strike of 1948; how the unions changed during Peron’s presidency; not celebrating Jewish holidays but sending his three children to Sholem Aleichem School, where they all learned Yiddish; being present at the table in the Labor Department building when Eva Peron distributed 300 pesos to each citizen in need; the Labor Department and the labor unions during the revolution against Peron (Revolución Libertadora, 1955); the umbrella organization of the labor union; the shifting demographics of immigrants to Argentina; labor unions providing health insurance beginning in the 1950s; being a member of the RAT in the AMIA for six years; being active in the parents’ committee of the Sholem Aleichem while his children attended; supporting charities that helped Holocaust refugees; and the change in his perception of Russia during Stalin’s repressive administration.
Oral history interview with Jose Teper
Oral History
Jose Teper describes his childhood in Europe, where he was moved from the home of one relative to another because his parents divorced; living at one point in Koshovitz; growing up in poverty and neglect until his aunt procured him passage to Argentina; arriving in Argentina with his father in 1923 at the age of 13; training as a tailor and apprenticing with various high-end professionals; how at the age of 14 or 15 he became active in the youth section of the Communist party in the tailors’ section of the union; initially joining the group, Partido Concentracion Obrera, just to socialize, but becoming a big activist; being part of the party until 1927 when the party was split; the political intrigues and the other union’s Jewish activists, Levental and Ribak; the “Freie Shtime” newspaper; and how the book “Integración y marginalidad” by Sara Itzigsohn, Seinkman et al. contains Mr Teper’s (“Iosl”) interview and those of others about the Jewish union movements of the 1930s.
Oral history interview with Rafael Bekenstein
Oral History
Rafael (Efroim) Bekenstein, born in 1907 in Berechin, Poland (now in Belarus), describes being eight years old when his parents died; living with his aunt; growing up in a poor family; beginning to work at the age of 10 or 12; immigrating to Argentina at the age of 20 after he was sent a ticket by his sister, who had lived in Argentina since 1905; going to Victoria in the province of Entre Rios; moving in 1930 to Uruguay; working as a tailor; the Jewish Cultural Center in Uruguay, which was an amalgam of two centers that existed earlier (the Zionist group Kadima and the non-Zionist group Renovacion); the activities of the Jewish Cultural Center; the big parties held at the end of the war and after the declaration of the State of Israel; not experiencing antisemitism in his personal life, in his professional life, nor as a member of the Tailors’ Union; the Jews in Uruguay, many of who came from Argentina’s Jewish colonies of San Antonio and Basavilbaso; the reasons for abandoning the colonies, including locusts, bad harvests, and education; the decline of observances; and his own limited religious practice. Juana Primo de Bekenstein, born in Argentina, describes her Russian parents, who were both orphaned at a young age and were taken in by aunts and uncles; her father immigrating to Argentina while his family went to England; her father first settling in the colony of Dominguez, where his cousin Liberman lived, and later moving to Uruguay and working in the furniture industry; her parents meeting in Uruguay and getting married in 1912; her mother Rosha Wainsztub, who arrived in Argentina with her uncles, aunts, and cousins and settled in Basavilbaso; her parents’ life in Uruguay; the other Jewish families her parents knew, including the Barach, Mesman, Chibanier, and Shinder families; her mother beginning the Ladies Society in order to help the Jewish poor; not attending a Jewish school as a child; learning Yiddish from her parents; observing the Jewish holidays; the games they played with a tablet and hazelnuts; the Szwartzman family hosting the young people many times; and the decline of Jewish observances.
Oral history interview with Dora Caplan
Oral History
Dora Caplan, born on July 4, 1916, describes having five sisters and a brother; her father (last name was Korsunsky) arriving in Argentina from Russia at age 16; her mother (maiden name Mosenco), who came from Odessa, Ukraine; her parents having only 75 hectares since the Jewish Colonization Association wouldn’t give more land when the children grew up into adulthood and how many people had to abandon the colony altogether; how working the farm was the only means of subsistence; her parents settling in a colony funded by the Jewish Colonization Association; settling in Colonia Vila, Walter Moss (now called General San Martin); the nearby colony, Curbelo; how only Jews lived in Vila; how the workers were non-Jews but did not live there; her husband, Aaron Caplan, who was born in 1902; how after their marriage they moved to San Antonio in Concepcion del Uruguay; the colony, including its inhabitants, schools, clubs, and library; Jewish observance; how schools had only the first three grades at Vila, therefore the children either had to go to live with relatives in bigger towns or cities or repeat the third grade several times in order to be occupied in something; her children moving away to continue their studies; how her children’s Jewish affiliation suffered with their move as they were in a mixed population environment with less Judaism in the schools; how Zionist identification was uniform in the colonies; and how the colonists collected money for the Jewish National Fund.
Oral history interview with Nizio Katzenelson
Oral History
Nizio Katzenelson, born on September 7, 1905, describes his father, Demetrio Katzenelson, who immigrated to Argentina from Ukraine at the end of the 19th century with the help of a well-known philanthropist Dr. Yarcho and lived in Gualeguaychu and in the Jewish colony in Lopez in the Colon district; his mother Sonia Braslavsy, who was from the Lucienville colony, in Basavilbaso; his uncle, who was the well-known kibbutz founder Berl Katzenelson; being a farm-hand on his father’s farm until age 10; his brothers and sister (Berta); his studies at the local school in the colony; attending high school “Fraternidad” for indigent children in Uruguay in 1917; graduating from medical school in Cordoba in 1927; paying for the engineering studies of his brothers as their parents could no longer afford them; his sister not attending college because she could not leave their widowed mother alone; being the first medical doctor in the Jewish colony of Ubajay, Pedernal, near Concordia (Entre Rios province); moving to Concordia; details on Colonia Lopez including the organization, living quarters, activities, produce, apiculture, schooling, and synagogue; being one of the first people to have a soccer ball and how people would come from far away to see it; their observance of Jewish holidays; his sister possessing the only piano in the colony (which had come from Concepcion del Uruguay); his mother’s occupations; the reading materials at their home; his very active maternal grandparents (Wulfsohn-Braslavsky); how his grandfather had co-founded the first Jewish Agricultural Cooperative of Basavilbaso and was the first teacher of the Lucienville colony; his grandmother founding the Aid Society of Basavilbaso and working for the Jewish hospital in Basavilbaso; his life as a doctor in the years of economic crisis in Argentina (1928-1931); the ICA (Jewish Colonization Association) and their stern treatment of the colonists; the colonists not being able to pay their debts; how the ICA threatened to confiscate the farm (which was 160 hectares) after his father’s death and he was able to get a few loans to pay it; moving permanently to Concordia without prep-planning; his religious beliefs and not observing any Jewish rituals; the dissolution of most of the colonies; and his political views.
Oral history interview with Edith Zanders de Silber
Oral History
Edith Zanders de Silber, born in 1914 in Lobberich, Germany, describes her family’s background; the five Jewish families in the town, who all got along with the Catholic majority; her two brothers; her father’s fabrics and clothing manufacturing business; her father’s participation in WWI; her grandfather’s role as the spiritual leader of the community for 40 years; learning Judaism and Hebrew from her grandfather; her parents’ limited participation in Jewish observances; attending a Catholic high school; not experiencing antisemitism at school and celebrating Christmas as well as Chanukah and Passover with her friends; studying the Bible and Jewish History with Dr. Bluhm; the Zionist Jewish youth organizations in Germany and the “Kultur Verein” (Cultural Union), which were stopped after 1933; the beginning of a new group called “the little black flag,” which a Jewish German-nationalist group; the Bund deutsch-judische Jugend; her participation in the Tzentral Verein Deutscher Juden, which believed that they were German of Jewish religion; her father’s rejection of emigration; her participation in a Jewish group she and other young people created in Krefeld with the spiritual guidance of Rabbi Günter Friedländer; the restrictions put on the Jews and how the group experienced them; receiving help from the Joint to emigrate and leaving Krefeld for Berlin, Germany in October 1938; her journey with a group of 25 youths to Buenos Aires, Argentina; her job during the trip to chaperone young girls in the group; reading about Kristallnacht during a stop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; living with other Riegner groups in a pension; the importance of protecting the young girls from trafficking; the decision in the house that everyone would keep kosher and that Shabbat would be observed; seeking help from the Asociación Filantrópica; life and organization in the home; looking for jobs and how the girls were in demand as governesses; being in charge of the house’s everyday tasks; her role as the moral support of her housemates in the terrible years when correspondence began arriving of relatives in Europe; seeking a job outside the home as a governess; becoming the secretary of the ACIBA; how the house ceased functioning as a group home around 1940; the ACIBA organizing Spanish classes for the immigrants; the struggle for immigrants to adapt to Argentina because they believed they would return to Germany; how many of the immigrants began joining Jewish organizations; the community created by the immigrant youth; her husband helping a family that was hungry; and her criticism and praise of the Asociación Filantrópica.
Oral history interview with Norberto Brodsky and Roberto Schopflocher
Oral History
Norberto Brodsky, born in 1924 in Villaguay, Argentina, describes his parents, who arrived in Argentina in 1895; being one of six children; his parents’ living in the colony of Perlisa (formerly La Capilla and today Sajaroff) before his father moved to the city of Rosario to look for better opportunities; his father’s furniture store that eventually became a chain; his father moving to Villaguay in 1914; being a child in Villaguay, where there were only three other Jewish families, including his family, the Drukers, and the Neumans; the Drukers’ cigarette factory and the Neumans’ hardware store; Villaguay having 80 Jewish families by 1950; antisemitism in Villaguay and the fear of a potential pogrom a year after the “Tragic Week”; the Jewish leader Dr. David Blejer, who maintained in the 1930s the nationalist and Nazis had sympathizers in Argentina; his view of Hugo Wast, who was the Secretary of Education in 1947, and the prevalent antisemitism in Argentina; the Jewish population in the colonies of Avigdor, Alcaraz, Rivera, and Narcise Leven; Jewish farmers transferring from colonies to larger towns; and his thoughts on the Jewish colonies, including colony Clara. Roberto Schopflocher, born in 1923, describes arriving with his parents from Furdh, Germany in 1937; studying agronomy in Cordoba; working in the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association) as an agronomist and as an assistant to the administrators beginning in 1946 in Pedernal (formally Santa Isabel colony); working under Ruben Tzefliatzky; working later on as an assistant to the administrator in the General Campos and as an agronomist in San Salvador colony; being promoted to head administrator of the colony of Basavilbaso; going to Dominguez and then to Avigdor and Alcaraz; leaving the JCA in 1951 and moving to Buenos Aires to join his father’s import business; the birth of his first child; the reasons for the abandoning of the colonies; and the colonies at present.
Oral history interview with Natalio Guiger
Oral History
Natalio Giguer, born circa 1909, describes being the oldest of three children growing up in a colony in Argentina; attending school until the fourth grade; his teacher Mr. Leopoldo Najenson, who was the son of a farmer; learning Jewish studies from someone who had little knowledge of the matter; going at the age of 11 or 12 to live with his grandfather in the Colonia Sonnenfeld, where he was schooled and had a private tutor; his chores on the farm, which included riding a horse to the town, bringing in the calves, and taking a chicken to the ritual slaughterer; the challenges of farming; leaving the colony after his Bar Mitzvah and going to Buenos Aires; living with his sister and brother-in-law and studying for the exams corresponding to the grades he had missed in the colony; attending Carlos Pellegrini High School and earning a certificate of bookkeeper; living independently, studying at night and working during the day; being a messenger for a bookstore from ages 14 to 18; returning to the colony for three months in the summer to help his father; returning to the colony at age 19; working with the cooperative in the colonies; leaders of the cooperative movement in the colonies, including Miguel Sajarov, Dr. Yarcho, Merener, Marcos Gorfman, Finguerman, Pustilnik, Isaac Kaplan, Adolfo Leibovich, Marcos Wortman, Glezer, Sarota, and Julio Fergman; working in a store in Clara colony; doing the bookkeeping of the Colonia Curbelo y Monte Hermoso, which was north of General Campos and close to Concordia; the economic issues in 1930; becoming the manager of the cooperative when he was 21 years old; the problems in the cooperative; many of the Jews leaving the farms between the years 1943-1945; how the young generation tried to find new lands to work and formed the Centro Juvenil Agrario (Agrarian Youth Center) around 1934-1935; the lectures and discussions about cooperatives; how the leftist-leaning groups fought the Zionist and because of the internal fight, the center closed and their objectives were not achieved; the arrival of numerous Jewish refugees from Europe after WWII; a few children of the farmers find a place in the Alcaraz colony, where he was the administrator of the cooperative for three years (1933-1936); getting married to a woman he had met in his former colony; going to Pedernal, where the main industry was dairy, and leaving in 1941; moving to Bernasconi in La Pampa Province to the Narcis Leven colony, where he was the administrator of the cooperative until 1946; how the soil was not good and the ground water was very deep; being the manager of a cooperative bank in Bahia Blanca; becoming the manager of the cooperative in Moisés Ville, which had 1,200 members, and working there until 1951; going to Buenos Aires, where he was a partner of a clothing confection business until he retired; and being active in the Jewish National Fund, the United Jewish Appeal, and being a president of the Baron de Hirsch Center as well as a president of his synagogue.
Oral history interview with Raúl Abramzon
Oral History
Raul Abramzon describes living in the colony Bernasconi, Argentina, where his father lived from 1910 to 1951; attending elementary school in La Pampa, Argentina; studying accounting in the commercial high school in Moisés Ville, Argentina; moving to Moisés Ville because the fields were more fertile; seeing the exodus from the colonies beginning in 1951, because economic conditions were better and parents could send their offspring to study in the city; the very first colony, Mauricio, in Carlos Casares, that was practically empty of Jews after they sold or rented their lands and moved to the city; the social life and activities in Moisés Ville; getting married in 1983; his positive, nostalgic view of the colony; the values he sees working in agriculture; his father and he adding to their original hectares and exporting cattle and alfalfa twice a week to Bolivia; the positive connection his parents had to the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association) even though the main administrators were in London; his praise for the Moisés Ville cooperative, which mediated in conflicts between its members and unions and helped to market the colonies’ production; the relationship with Sancor, which was the dairy company to which the farmers sold their goods; the attraction of the cities for the Jewish and immigrant farmers; and the floods starting in 1973, which caused so much economic loss and were another reason for the exodus from the colonies.
Oral history interview with Frida Kaller de Gutman
Oral History
Frida Kaller de Gutman, born in 1898 in Moisés Ville, Argentina, describes her parents, who came from a little town in Russia (now in Poland); her father’s business partner and brother-in-law Naftali Golumb (whose son Eliyahu Golomb was the chief architect of the Haganah); her father’s decision to move the family to the province of Santa Fe in Argentina in 1894; her family travelling eight weeks in a cargo ship to Buenos Aires and going by train to Palacios, the closest town to their colony Moisés Ville; the families of Moisés Ville, including the Teper, Szmulovich, Schapira, Vaksemberg, and Goldman families; her parents belonging to the “Litvaks” (Lithuanian Jews) of Moisés Ville; the birth of her brother Moishe in Moisés Ville; living with a group of 11 families in one section of the colony, while 24 other families (including the Rosenthals, Pavlovskys and Janajovichs) lived in another section; the farms, houses, and chores in the colony; the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association) providing the family a subsidy of 8 pesos per child, which was enough for food and to raise chickens; colonists being paid by the JCA to fence new farms for prospective immigrants in Monigotes and Bialistok; how each family of settlers received a cow, horse, and carriage from the JCA; the agricultural problems the colonies faced; birthing in the colonies and the lack of doctors and midwives; the schooling and libraries in the colonies; the teacher Jacobo Plotnik, who had come to Argentina to escape the pogroms, and his poem celebrating Argentina’s independence on July 9 (the poem is reproduced in the transcript entirely in Spanish, transliterated from Yiddish); studying advanced Hebrew grammar from a private tutor with three other children; ending her schooling at age 10 to do chores with her mother at home; the creation of the Kadima Society, which rented a hall, formed a children’s library, offered lectures, and developed a theater; Plotnik’s role as the director of Kadima; people in the Kadima founding committee, including Tevie Dolinsky, Yitkhak Dolinsky, and Tevie Trumper; Drerque Sroiaj conducted reading sessions with the children in the forest; getting married and moving to Las Palmeras; her husband, who did business in the Northern provinces; her two friends Ile Cohn and Kiva Pinetz; moving to Bialistok, first to the home of Jatkl Cohn; moving to their own home and their neighbors Rublik, Prigulsky, Leybale Zylberman, and Gutman; having two daughters; the Spanish flu epidemic that decimated Moisés Ville right after WWI; going to Rosario to give birth to a child who was born dead; deciding to move to Buenos Aires; the birth of her daughter on December 31; returning to Balistok; a poem in Spanish that lauds Buenos Aires; her father’s numerous connections to the Peronists and saving a friend from a fine and jail time; and moving back to Moisés Ville from Bialistok in 1931-1932 because the Yiddish school had closed in Bialistok and Frida wanted her daughters to continue studying.
Oral history interview with Samuel Rabinovich
Oral History
Samuel Rabinovich, born on March 10, 1900 in the colony of Rosh Pina, Argentina, describes his parents, Salomon and Rebeca Cherniavsky, who were born in Czarist Russia and arrived in Argentina on the Pampa ship in 1891; his older brother, who was four years old in 1891; his four sisters and three brothers; how his parents lived in the Hotel de Inmigrantes for many months after their arrival and were then sent to the San Antonio colony; the founding of the Rosh Pina colony by the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association); how every farmer received two oxen, a plow, a horse, a dairy cow, and a home; attending school for two grades, after which he had to help with farm chores; his teacher, Iedidia Efron, who was the father of the journalist Paloma Efron (Blackie); receiving instruction in Yiddish and Spanish; his family buying clothing in Dominguez; his mother and sisters doing the housework, sewing, and embroidering; the Shabbat meal (cholent), making Matzah for Passover, and making wine; the synagogue in the colony, which was very active during Shabbat and holidays; the games played by children, including marbles and rag balls; how the school became the site of dances, lectures, and amateur theatre; many benefits being organized for the victims of WWI; the purchasing of plays in Basavilbaso, by the printers, Kitz and Feldman , who sold books in Yiddish; Jewish weddings in the colony; working in the fields after leaving school; his sisters, who handled the diary production until they were married; one of his brothers leaving in 1920 to study in the Mechanic School of the Army in Buenos Aires; opening a business in the province of Corrientes; his father’s death in 1928 and his mother’s death in 1929; how the situation in the colony became difficult due to either locusts, hail, draught, or floods; one of his brothers moving to Rosario; selling their land so each brother could buy his own home in Rosario, where all the brothers eventually settled; the contract the Jewish farmers had signed with the JCA; political activism in the colonies; the Socialist Party’s beginnings in Dominguez and its leaders Bortsnik and Aksenzoff; the creation of Fondo Comunal (a communal fund) in 1904 to help the colonists market their produce; being initiated into the Zionist movement during the first years of WWI; how Isaac Kaplan and Drugovisky used to come to Rosh Pina and talk to the youth about the Keren Kayemet (Jewish National Fund), Zionism, and the dream of a country for Jews in Eretz Israel; the increase in enthusiasm after the Balfour Declaration in 1917; arriving in Rosario and becoming active in the United Jewish Appeal; being active in a cooperative called Mutual, which provided peddlers with merchandise and gave them credit; his critique of the Alberto Gerchunoff grand opus “Los Gauchos Judios” (The Jewish Gauchos); and his views on the failure of the Jewish colonies.
Oral history interview with Eva Voloshin de Lisnofsky
Oral History
Eva Voloshin de Lisnofsky, born in Argentina in 1912, describes being the daughter of colonists; her three siblings; her parents arriving in Argentina around 1908 from Russia; the difficulty of life in the colony, El Palmar, (near Ubajay); having income from harvests and dairy products made of their cows’ milk; how the girls stayed home and only the boys worked the fields; attending school, where they studied the secular subjects for half a day and the Jewish subjects for the other half of the day; attending school from 8 am to 4 pm; the Yiddish teacher Mr. Forman; the secular teacher Mr. Berchovsky; school only going to the third grade and consisting of mostly Jewish students; the children’s participation in theater; the national and Jewish celebrations; going at the age of 11 to live with her older sister, who was already married and lived in Libaros, Entre Rios (near Basavilbaso); the 13 Jewish families in Libaros; her father’s death at an early age; her younger brother’s move to Basavilbaso, where he bought a plant that produced soda water; how none of the 72 colonists of El Palmar bought their lands and the land went to non-Jewish owners; the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA); getting married at the age of 26 in Concepcion Del Uruguay; meeting her husband in Parana; the colonists marrying amongst themselves and being an exception to that trend; her first daughter’s death at birth in Parana; having another daughter; moving to Buenos Aires when her daughter was an infant; her husband’s transportation business; how her family was Zionist but not religious; the two organizations in her school, the Israel League and the Zionist League; being treasure for both organizations; and the Balfour Declaration and the celebrations in the town.
Oral history interview with Teresa Faierberguer
Oral History
Teresa Faierberguer, born in 1933 in Czechoslovakia, describes her parents (her father Salomon was born in 1900 in Czechoslovakia); her mother selling land in Europe to finance the voyage of their family, including her husband’s brothers and parents, to Argentina; her paternal grandparents, Leike and Hilmijl; her mother’s only sister, who stayed in Europe and died during the Holocaust; her family settling first in Monigotes then requesting to move to “The Second Line” (between Las Palmeras and Palacios) from the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA); the management of their move by Kurman; her family’s farm, where the main crop was alfalfa but they also seeded wheat and linen; her family establishing a profitable dairy farm; how all five children helped with the farm; getting supplies in Moisesville; receiving help on the farm from one of their neighbors, Raquel Galagosky; her father’s family in Europe during and after WWII; attending school in Las Palmeras until the fifth grade; only taking classes in Spanish and not Yiddish; going by horseback to school; learning some Yiddish from her brother-in-law; her parents speaking Russian with one another; going on outings to Moisesville; raising geese in the farm; her mother preparing meals; her family religious practices and her mother being particularly strict; reading “Yiddishe Zeitung” (first Yiddish daily) at home; her parents’ move to Moisesville in 1964 and her father’s death five years after; her parents’ activities in Moisesville; getting married to Elias and moving to Resistencia; her sisters Maria, Leike, and Elena; and her brother, who became the manager of the dairy processing plant Sancor in Santa Fe Province.
Oral history interview with Jaime Kaplan
Oral History
Jaime Kaplan, born in 1942 in the colony of Monigotes, Argentina, describes his father, who arrived in Argentina from Poland, and his mother came before WWII from Rumania with her aunt; his parents meeting and getting married in Moisesville; the fates of their family who stayed behind in Europe and discovering two of his maternal aunts in Israel years after the Holocaust; his father first living in Rosario and then taking over a farm in the colony his younger brother was supposed to work, which was given to him by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA); finishing elementary school in Monigotes in 1955 and moving to Rafaela at the age of 13 to attend high school; Monigotes losing its Jewish colonists because the parents wanted a better future for their children; the politics of the JCA and the reasons for the exodus from the colonies; moving with his parents to Rosario in 1957; returning to Monigotes in 1963, where he found that out of more than an original hundred Jewish families only 10-12 remained; getting married and moving in 1977 to Rosario to open a kiosk; never selling his father’s lands; and his love of the land.
Oral history interview with Salomon Notrika
Oral History
Salomon Notrika, born in Trenque Lauquen, Argentina in 1925, describes his parents, who were born in Rhodes; his father’s immigration in 1907-09; the methods for emigrating from Rhodes in the early 20th century; his father, Elias Notrika, who lived in a boarding house with other immigrants in Buenos Aires and worked as a traveling salesman; his father’s move to Trenque Lauquen, following an uncle by the name of Ashir Aljaded (originally from Rhodes); the synagogues catering to Sephardic Jews in Buenos Aires (Temple Shalom); the controversies with the Jews from Rhodes; the rise of Zionist ideas with the young generation born in Argentina; the economic differences between communities originally from Greece and Turkey; how religious observances in the Temple Shalom community were very lax; the differences between his community and the community of Jews from Syria; religious leaders, including Salomon Mizrahi (originally from Syria), Rabbi Alberto Morjo (from Salonica), Rabbi Anshel, and Rabbi Edery; the changes at Temple Shalom; how very few of the offspring of the Rhodes Jews attended Hebrew school; the Jewish Board of Education; his social life; and building a club in 1952 that was well-attended, especially by Jewish youth.
Oral history interview with Sara Vainhaker
Oral History
Sara Josefina Vainhaker (née Meidls?), born on January 1, 1914 in Poland, describes being 9 months old when her family went to Vienna, Austria to reunite with Sara’s grandmother; her father being taken to the army when they stopped in Hungary; her parents’ lumber store in Austria; her parents employing a German Sturmabteilung after Hitler took power; working as a secretary in a Christian-owned office and not being allowed to work because of her employer’s fear; leaving Vienna with her husband in October 1938; planning to go to Bolivia with a visa they had bought in the Bolivian Consulate in Vienna; obtaining transit to Uruguay, where they arrived on November 3; going to Argentina after they were unable to find work for a few months; receiving help from an organization that extended aid to Jewish immigrants from Austria and Germany called HITSEM; obtaining visas for her and her husband’s parents to Argentina with financial assistance from relatives in the United States; the arrival of their parents in Buenos Aires in May 1940; working in a sport shoes factory; living in a Jewish neighborhood; starting a business (called Munieca) making baby clothing, which her father-in-law had done in Vienna (selling the business in 1974 and her husband’s death three years later); the philanthropic organization IKG; her daughter’s birth in 1940; how her daughter’s first language was German and she attended a German-speaking kindergarten; her family shedding their religiosity, but attending synagogue for the holidays; the two Austrian movements in Argentina, the Fobert (which doesn’t exist anymore) and Austria Libre (Free Austria), both of which she did not participate in; the changes Jewish immigrants had on Argentinean culture; and never experiencing antisemitism in Argentina, even during Peron’s time.
Panel Discussion, Homage to Children of the Colonies
Oral History
This public assembly requested from the audience to share memories, anecdotes, jokes, customs, and even gossip from the life in the colonies. Participants were: Mr. Guiger (remembering Noe Katzovich, Iosef Draznin, Hirsch Kalier and Avreiml Arcadi); Naum Guelber; Pablo Novick; Moises Goldman; Salomon Dosoretz; Esther Resnik; Arminio Seiferel; Frida Gutman’s daughter; Tzivia Shujman; Mr. Waksemberg; Sanson Wolmark; Elsa Noskovich; Eliyahu Toker; Hugo Ostrower; and Ambassador Baltierrez. One item of significance brought out by this assembly: the Alliance Israelite Universelle was the institution that gave the philanthropist Baron de Hirsch de idea of purchasing lands in Argentina, in order to save European Jews being persecuted and killed, by bringing them to Argentina to work the land. That became the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) that began in 1891. Moises Goldman made a point to go to Paris and thank Dr. Israel, deputy of the European Parliament and member of the Alliance, for suggesting the successful enterprise.
Oral history interview with Maximo Yagupsky
Oral History
Maximo Yagupsky describes being one of the last remnants of the first generation of Jewish immigrants to Argentina; his parents’ arrival in Argentina at the end of 1890 when his mother was 7 and his father was 14; his father’s emigration from Bessarabia in order to avoid military service; his grandfather, who was a ritual slaughterer (shochet) and performed his job on the ship Pampa on the way to Argentina; his grandfather settling in one of the colonies near Dominguez called Sonnenfeld, where there were about 50 families; the funding and managing of the whole enterprise by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA); his father training as a ritual slaughterer and studying in other colonies, where he was tested by two different sects of Judaism; his family’s move to the colony La Capilla in the province of Entre Rios, where his father established himself as an independent shochet; his father’s influence on the town, encouraging the foundation of a modern Jewish school and the establishment of a post office; the good relations between the Jews and non-Jews in the area; Dr. Yarcho, who was sent by the JCA from Germany to Argentina; being sent to high school in Concepcion del Uruguay, where he learned to milk cows, tame horses, and deliver calves; his education at home, which included studying The Ethics of the Fathers with his seven siblings and father on Saturdays afternoon; his father’s hard work to support his family; his father reading Torah in the synagogue and officiating as a mohel; his father traveling once to Paraguay for a circumcision and bringing home a parrot; his father death, after which prayers were recited every morning at home and the parrot would join in; how the first cemetery was established in a field donated by a colonist; the rituals performed after a death; the geographic arrangement of the colony Baron de Hirsch; life in the colony, including the weather, professions, births, and education; rituals of passage among the Jewish colonists; the countries of origin of the different Jews in the colonies and the prejudices amongst the people; moving from the colony to Buenos Aires; the differences they felt between Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, and the geographic origin of the Sephardic Jews who arrived in Argentina; and the first mixed marriages between the two groups.
Oral history interview with Mordejai Koifman
Oral History
Mordejai Koifman begins the interview with vignettes of different types of managers in the Jewish community, including a German Jewish manager in a retirement home, who abused the residents until Mr. Koifman interceded and made him change his ways; another person who was not knowledgeable about Judaism and managed the canteen of the Third Corp of the Argentinean Army in the province of Cordoba; Dr. Belmes, who lived in the same retirement home, who refused to sign the annual balance sheet because he knew that in a couple of months a big scandal would come to light (he had invested lots of money in building houses by the Atlantic shore and the entire enterprise went bankrupt); how the day camp affiliated with that retirement home ceased functioning; the Jewish Board of Education and the AMIA; the influence political parties had on the schools; the background of the organization Bne Tzion of Monte Grande, which originated in Cunco, Chile and moved towards Argentina during the presidency of Peron and settled in Monte Grande, Cipoletti, and Bahia Blanca; how the group of about 150 families learned how to be Jewish and studied Zionism and the Old Testament; the group’s involvement with the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Federation and their celebration of the Jewish holidays; the group’s synagogue; how the whole thing came apart when their leaders told Mordejai that, in addition to their Judaic tenets, the last one was that Jesus was the last prophet of Israel, and that he was the son of God; Mordejai breaking all contact with the group; the group’s move to Israel, where some of them live in Eilat; devoting many articles in the newspaper “Di Presse” to this sect; other pseudo-Jewish groups in the Congo, Japan, and Mexico; being very active with the Karen Kayemet (Jewish National Fund, JNF); traveling with the JNF’s Israeli director to Montevideo, Uruguay to start the campaign “Nachalat LeYehudei Uruguay” (Heritage to the Jews of Uruguay); staying for a year in Montevideo before being called back to Buenos Aires, Argentina by Dr. Mibashan to take over the Office of Information of the United Jewish Appeal as its General Secretary; travelling to the extant colonies in Basavilbaso, Colonia Clara (Domínguez in Entre Ríos), Concordia; being active in the JNF from 1948 to 1953; how the Communists contributed to the Appeal after Andrei Gromyko spoke in favor of Israel at the UN; the OIA (Israelite Argentinean Organization) during Peron’s presidency, which had many members who were not the leaders of the Jewish community, and its relationship with the Appeal; and the differences with the Appeal in the United States.
Oral history interview with Félix Paschkusz
Oral History
Felix Pashkusz describes his arrival in Buenos Aires around 1947-48 when he was 20 years old; leaving Austria for Bolivia at the age of 11, after having finished elementary school and only one year of the next level; arriving in Argentina with very progressive political ideas (anti-fascism of the left) and connecting with like-minded groups; his lack of interest in the Zionist movement; joining the organization known as Fraies Daitchland, Fraies Estraij (Free Germany, Free Austria), which included German and Austrian nationals and met in the Forbets club in Quilmes; activities and demographics in the organization; becoming a legal citizen after the mass amnesty of 1950; never denying his Jewish background; notable members of Fraies Daitchland, Fraies Estraij; and the changes to the organization over time.
Oral history interview with Adolfo Gass
Oral History
Adolfo Gass, born on May 25, 1914 in the section Trece Ranchos of the Mauricio Colony, Argentina, describes his mother, who arrived in Argentina on the “Petropolis” ship that had departed Hamburg, Germny in August 1891 when she was 11 years old; his mother’s arrival in Argentina with her married sister and staying at the Hotel de Inmigrantes for a week before being moved to the colony; living in makeshift tents; his mother’s marriage at the age of 15; his father’s immigration to Argentina and the assistance he received from the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association), including the 150 hectares to work in the same section of Mauricio Colony as Adolfo’s mother; his father’s death at a young age; Adolfo’s 10 siblings; attending school and being taught the national and the Yiddish curricula; the exodus from the colony; his desire to be a doctor and going to live with friends in Buenos Aires; his mother’s move to Buenos Aires in 1928; spending school vacations in the colony, helping out; his admiration for President Yirigoyen; the September Revolution; becoming a party affiliate in 1935 while attending a university; the students’ strike and President Justo’s response to the students; his religious views; the five synagogues that were in Mauricio Colony and the lack of religious discrimination in the colony; the antisemitic rhetoric in the disturbances of 1935, which rekindled Adolfo’s connection to his Jewish roots; earning his degree and practicing medicine in Patagonia and, later on, in the Tigre locality; being appointed the ambassador to Israel by President Illia; making it clear that he represented not only the Jews of Argentina but the entire country upon his arrival to Israel; his responses to the comments that Argentina was an antisemitic country; being elected to the Argentinean congress in 1973; being exiled to Venezuela after a coup in 1976; being elected to the Senate in 1983; the AMIA and the Embassy of Israel’s attacks; and his proposal to change the limits to who can become president in Argentina in 1984.
Oral history interview with Guillermo Graetzer
Oral History
Guillermo Graetzer, an Austrian-born musician and composer, describes being one of the founders of the Collegium Musicum (a prestigious institution in Buenos Aires founded in 1946); how many of the principals of the school were Austrians; his marriage in 1950 to an Austrian woman in Argentina; his children, who attended a private school, Rudolf Steiner, for elementary education and attended public schools for secondary education; not being interested in imparting his children with any Jewish education; his feeling that musicians are universalists and art is the common culture and language; being active nationally during the Alfonsin government (1983-1989); helping to establish the Direccion Nacional de Musica, which was part of the nation’s Department of Culture; his role as the pedagogical counselor; being named the director of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes; how these activities ceased with the change of government because the entire personnel was changed; his lack of participation in politics and the Jewish community; his Argentinean identity; his feelings about Austria; his love of the Spanish language; editing the first folk song book for schools; his compositions; trying to open free music schools, for all ages, throughout the country while he was active in the Alfonsin government, and his frustrations at the lack of funding; managing to open one school in his own private vacation home in Río Ceballos; trying to offer improvement courses for music teachers; and his thoughts on the cultural and attitudinal differences between Europeans and Argentineans.
Oral history interview with Nisio Katzenelson
Oral History
Dr. Nisio Katzenelson, born on September 7, 1905, describes his two brothers and sister; his parents, Demetrio Katzenelson and Sonia Braslavsky; his cousin Berl Katznelson; his father’s immigration to Argentina from Ukraine when he was 15 years old and his work in the field of Dr. Yarcho, in the region of Gualeguaychu; how after the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association) established the Jewish colonies his father was the first Jewish farmer in Lopez y Berro, district of Colon; life, jobs, and production in the colony; his mother, who was born in Basavilbaso in the Lucienville colony; his mother’s work in the farm and abilities; working on his father’s farm; the school in the colony and his education; his Spanish teacher Abraham Chudnovsky, whose son (Gregorio) was his best friend; learning Hebrew from his grandfather, Alter Braslavsky; learning Yiddish in Lopez; the non-Jewish family in town, the Ferreyra family; games played in the colony and the first soccer ball; religious observances and celebrations; his family’s piano; his family’s appreciation of reading and literature; how many newspapers and other publications were picked up in San Salvador, in Yiddish, Russian, and Spanish; being sent to his grandfather’s farm in Lucienville at the age of 10; how the first agricultural Jewish cooperative was found in Basavilbaso by his grandfather and his grandmother (Victoria “Vita” Wulfsohn de Braslavsky) began the Society of Ladies for Charities there as well; his teacher Yedidia Efron, who prepared him for admission in high school; attending the High School Fraternidad in Uruguay and living there for five years; not experiencing antisemitism while attending school; moving to Cordoba, Argentina, where he studied medicine for six years; becoming the first doctor in the Ubajay colony; the economic crisis after 1928 and not always being paid for his services as a doctor; funding the university studies of his two brothers; helping his father with the colony; the failings of the JCA; his religious life in Ubajay; moving to Concordia after eight years in Ubajay; getting married to a Catholic woman and raising his children Catholic; and his theories on why the colonies declined.
Oral history interview with Moisés Banchik
Oral History
Moisés Banchik, born in 1901 in Villaguay, Argentina, describes his parents, who arrived in Argentina in 1989-1900 from Rumania and settled in Villaguay; growing up on a farm in the colony; the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) and the challenges the new colonies faced; JCA policies; the JCA building a school, the “Escuela Lucienville No. 11”, in October 1907; details on the education in the school; the diminishing of the religious observances by the Jewish colonies over the years; the founding of the cooperative and his father becoming the president of it in 1910; his family prospering; life under Peron’s leadership; his father’s support of Zionism; the building of a hospital; the rumor of pogrom coming in 1910, which did not occur; “the Tragic Week” in 1919 when Jews were attacked in Buenos Aires; how during WWII people had access to radios and the news from the war, and the relations between the Jews and the local Germans did not suffer; the JCA bringing some Jewish youth to the colonies; the celebrations after the founding of the State of Israel; the beginning of many mixed marriages; participating in the United Jewish Appeal to help the newly created State of Israel, the AMIA, and the Jewish Board of Education; how many Jews who had been carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and all kinds of artisans, began arriving in Basavilbaso and continued their jobs in town; the unions of the various artisans; and the economic situation for the artisans.
