- That was close enough, all this.
- You want to try and keep eye contact with me.
- These guys aren't here.
- Yeah, OK.
- I'll look straight at you.
- OK.
- This is just a warm-up question, but can you
- tell me about your family's attempt to move to the US
- in 1922?
- Yes.
- My mother and father at that time-- and they
- had a little girl about four years old.
- Can you incorporate that [INAUDIBLE]??
- Oh, yes, yes, OK.
- [INAUDIBLE] [? next 10 minutes or-- ?]
- Would you repeat the question?
- Can you tell me about your family's attempt
- to move to the US in 1922?
- My family attempted to move to the United States
- because most of their family were living here,
- and they wanted to join them.
- And when they arrived in the United States,
- they had to go through Ellis Island,
- and when the doctors examined my father,
- they found he had a touch of TB.
- And they would not let him get out of the boat.
- They gave my mother and the child permission
- to get off the boat but not my father.
- And so my mother got off the boat to visit with the family,
- but then she went back to Ellis Island and stayed with him.
- His brothers make an attempt to try to get him off
- through maybe the senator and the representative,
- but they could not.
- But they were successful in getting him to Canada,
- and when they got him to Canada, he stayed there for a while.
- And they attempted to get him into the United States, which
- was a mistake because they caught him.
- And as of that, he was banned ever
- to come to the United States.
- So my mother and child--
- in the meantime, while my mother was
- in Ellis Island with my father and the child,
- the child contracted diphtheria and died on Ellis Island.
- And they went back to Europe, and they started life again.
- And then they had-- my sister was born in 1923.
- I was born in 1924, but my father passed away three months
- before I was born.
- Tell me how old you were and what you were doing,
- what life was like when war broke out.
- Well, in 1939 I was 15 years old, 15 and a half years old.
- I was actually going to--
- I had finished what you call here
- sixth grade, like middle school, and we
- lived in a very small town.
- There was not high school, and that
- was one of the reasons my mother tried and decided that it would
- be best if we would try to get to the United States,
- because she was not in a position
- to send us to a high school out of town, which was Vilna.
- And she felt there was no future for us,
- so she decided to ask her relatives to send affidavits
- for us to bring us to the United States.
- And they did.
- So we were sort of in limbo waiting for our papers
- to come through, and we were on a quota,
- which took quite a bit of time, about two years.
- So that's why we were almost--
- I was almost 15.
- I was 15 or 15 and a half, and I still
- wasn't going to high school because we
- were waiting to try to get to the United States.
- Then, just about in June of 1939,
- we finally got a letter from the American embassy
- to come to Warsaw to receive a visa,
- and the war broke out in September.
- So there we were stuck again, and the war broke out.
- And our town was occupied by the Russians.
- When Hitler and Stalin made a pact to divide Poland,
- that [? contribution ?] part of Poland
- was taken over by Russia.
- And at first, life was almost the same like it was before,
- but it was getting--
- there was a shortage of food.
- There was a lot of--
- the Russians took over, and they started
- to take away the homes from the people who had nice homes.
- And they took away the businesses,
- and they started to arrest people who--
- sent them to Siberia, people who they thought
- were anti-communist or rich.
- And life started to get a bit tougher,
- and people tried to get out, to go somewhere,
- but there was no particular place
- you could go because either it was under the Russians
- or under the Germans, and the war was in between.
- So my sister and I belong to an organization
- called Betar, which is a Zionist organization.
- It was very popular in most of Europe, particularly in Poland.
- As youngsters, you belonged to either Betar or Shomer
- Hatzair, which was-- one was a left-wing organization.
- One was a right-wing organization.
- But it was mostly a social organization
- with Zionist aspirations, trying to get to Israel
- and build the Homeland.
- And doing the first or second week of the corporation,
- my sister, who was older, went to a meeting,
- and there were a bunch of boys and girls like herself,
- some of them a little older, 17, 18, 20.
- And they decided they were going to try
- to get to Vilna because Vilna was a neutral city.
- It was given to Lithuania during this split.
- And they thought, well, maybe from Vilna they
- would try to get to Israel.
- We, at that time, had our papers somewhere in Poland,
- so we thought, well, maybe if we get to Vilna
- we'll be able to get to the United States.
- So my sister came home from the meeting that evening
- and said to my mother, told my mother
- the story, what's happening.
- And she told Mother, I'd like to go with them.
- If we don't get to the United States,
- maybe we could get to Israel.
- And of course, my mother said she was out of her mind.
- What are you talking about?
- But she was very insistent, and my mother
- realized that things were getting
- pretty rough and particularly for people
- who belonged to Betar because the Russians considered them
- as the right-wing organization against communism
- because they arrested a number of people
- from that organization.
- So she was quite concerned, and she didn't know what to do.
- And she thought she would seek advice
- from one of the elders in town, and she
- went to [? who was ?] our next door neighbor.
- She went to him and spoke with him,
- and that was on a Thursday.
- I remember the days because--
- I don't have the days exactly, but the day.
- And she told him the story, and he says,
- well, it's very dangerous.
- They're two young girls.
- How can you send them away?
- And he says, tomorrow, which is Friday, is Shabbat,
- and he says, why don't we think about it during Shabbat?
- And he says, we'll see.
- She came home, and in the meantime,
- that group was getting ready to go.
- And my sister felt that she wanted to join that group,
- and it was getting really more dangerous.
- So my mother decided get advice from this other person
- who was a--
- he was the principal of the Hebrew school, Tarbut,
- and his wife was a kindergarten teacher.
- And they were a young couple who came to our town,
- and my mother befriended them.
- They used to come and spend every Shabbat, Friday
- night with us because being--
- my mother tried to have a male influence in the family
- since there was no father.
- So he used to always come on holidays with his wife,
- and they used to have dinner with us
- and perform all the services.
- And it was like a adopted family,
- and he was a very fine, cultured, and progressive man.
- So they were coming for dinner that Friday night,
- and we got to talk about it.
- And of course, we talked about it and asked his advice.
- And at that time they had two little children, just
- two little girls, and he says, well, you know, my little girls
- are too young for journeys like this, he says,
- but if your daughters were my daughters, he says,
- I would send them because maybe they'll
- have a chance to get through.
- And my mother made up her mind to send us
- away, and right there at that night she
- took out the little valises, what we have, and there were--
- what do you call that--
- [INAUDIBLE] and started to pack our belongings
- that she wanted to give us.
- And he went to a neighboring farm,
- got a farmer and a little wagon, and brought him back
- to the house, and picked up the wagon with our things.
- And then he came back, I remember, just
- like in the middle of the night, and my sister
- and I got into the wagon.
- And they covered us with blankets and stuff
- so we wouldn't be seen, and my mother
- was sitting with the driver, with [INAUDIBLE]..
- You know how the wagons are.
- There's room for two people.
- She was sitting next to him, and she
- had a kerchief around her head to look like she was his wife
- and they were going to somewhere,
- to a market or somewhere.
- And we took off right there that night,
- and the train was about 100 miles away from our town
- to go to Vilna.
- Oh, that's the other line, but I won't--
- Well, we can take a break, and we can break it up.
- Roll again.
- Yes sir.
- Stand by.
- So let's go back, and then I'll keep--
- You're going to piece it together?
- Yeah.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- OK, that's your job.
- You asked me a question.
- A little bit more concise.
- Less detail?
- Less detail.
- Some of the detail is great.
- Some of it--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- I see.
- I don't know which one, OK, OK.
- Anyway, tell me about--
- you had applied for a US visa, and what year it was, in June.
- OK, I'll start now.
- Well, we applied for the four US visa actually like in 1937,
- and we were waiting for--
- we were put on a quota, and we were
- waiting to be called to come for the visa.
- And we got a letter from the United States embassy
- in June of 1939 to come to Warsaw to pick up
- the visa in November of 1939, and then the war
- broke out in September of '39.
- So there was no way to get to Warsaw to get--
- No, nothing, or even get in touch or even--
- it was just-- first of all, the war
- was over in three days for Poland.
- Three days, it was finished.
- The Germans occupied Warsaw right away,
- and the Russians occupied--
- they came into our town the second day.
- The first day or the second day, I believe, in the morning,
- we hear planes flying over our town,
- and there were reconnaissance planes,
- I believe because in our town there was
- a Polish garrison stationed.
- And they wanted to make sure what the situation is there.
- So when the planes went over the town, they saw the barracks,
- everything was empty because they left for the front
- the first day.
- So there were no soldiers or anybody in the barracks.
- And then the next day, they just marched with the tanks.
- And how did the Russians treat you?
- Hold on a sec.
- They treated us--
- Stop, stop.
- Oh, the Russians--
- Sorry, I was talking.
- I'm sorry.
- The Russians-- when they marched in, they were pretty decent.
- They didn't mistreat us.
- But once they got settled into those barracks and all,
- what happened was there were always--
- we were very close to the Russian border, not far,
- and there was always a communist element in town
- who were communists.
- And when the Russians marched in--
- but it was illegal to be a communist in Poland.
- You couldn't be-- it wasn't legal.
- So once the Russians marched in, they came out of the woodwork.
- They became the rulers, the local communists.
- So when they-- and then, of course,
- also what they did was they pointed out to the Russian
- generals, whoever occupied the town--
- they pointed out the people that they
- wanted to get even with like big merchants
- or if you were more of a--
- what do you call it--
- the other party, a more right-wing party.
- And they started to arrest people or take away
- their homes.
- Now, in our case, they took away our home.
- They took away most of the home.
- They left us one room and the kitchen.
- And my mother, and myself, and my sister-- and we
- had a family housekeeper who was with us.
- We all lived in that one room, in the kitchen.
- They took away the others because they
- felt it was too luxurious to have four rooms or five rooms.
- So some officers moved into our home.
- And then how were you able to escape and leave, and why
- didn't your mother go with you?
- OK, now that was--
- the reason-- when we decided to leave, the Russians still
- did not move into our home, but they told us we could only
- live in that part, that somebody is moving in,
- they're taking it away.
- That's one way.
- They didn't know.
- And the reason my mother didn't come with us was just
- she couldn't see leaving her home.
- She says, how could I leave all this?
- She just couldn't see it.
- They didn't think it was--
- she didn't think it was final, and it
- wasn't final at the beginning because the border was still
- open until after a couple of months.
- They closed the border between Vilna and Russia.
- And then she used to come and visit us once we left.
- Now can you start and tell me the night that you left?
- Tell me that story of how you left and how you got to Vilna.
- OK.
- Now, when we took this train when we--
- Got back to your house.
- When we decided to leave--
- Mother decided to send us away.
- She packed us up, and this friend of the family helped us.
- And we got into the wagon, and we drove down
- to the train station.
- We got to the train station.
- There was like daybreak, and the train was standing there.
- And there were thousands, thousands of people
- trying to get on the train.
- And the train was packed, and people
- were going through the windows and between the trains.
- And my mother just--
- and we had two small--
- one of those little valises and a bag.
- My mother just pushed us on the train,
- and just as she pushed us on the train,
- she sort of threw the two valises after us,
- and the train took off.
- We never got even a chance to say goodbye to her.
- And we arrived in Vilna.
- It was, I would say, like about two-hour ride by train,
- and we arrived in Vilna.
- And one of the reasons that she felt a little bit better
- about sending us is because she sent us
- to a friend of hers who was running a rooming house.
- So she gave us a letter and sent us to stay with him.
- And when we got there from the train,
- they used to have those horse--
- I didn't take off the other line.
- Yeah, I'll [? do-- ?]
- One of the things that I need to get from you is--
- I've never escaped from any place.
- I have no idea what it was--
- were you scared?
- Were you-- did you have bad dreams?
- Were you frightened?
- Were you lucky?
- Well, you asked me the question--
- Let me [? ask the question of, ?]
- where did you stay, or what happened once you got to Vilna?
- Yeah.
- When we arrived in Vilna, we stayed
- with a friend of my mother who was running a rooming house,
- and when we arrived there--
- the capacity of my house maybe had been maybe 20 people.
- There were about 40 people already.
- But he made room for us.
- He gave us-- we were six, eight people in a room.
- But he was very good.
- He and his son were running the rooming house.
- And we stayed with him for a couple of weeks, and then the
- [INAUDIBLE] and the Joint Distribution-- those two
- organizations.
- There were thousands of refugees who were escaping
- from all over, coming to Vilna.
- And they got into the act, and they
- tried to find housing for the refugees.
- They formed kitchens, and they started--
- what they did was they formed what they called an internat.
- It was like hostels.
- They took over empty buildings, schools or places like that,
- and they turned them into hostels
- where people had a room where to sleep.
- And they had kitchens where they used to-- it was very, very
- well-organized.
- And so after a while, we moved in-- and the way they
- did it was by groups.
- Betar had one hostel, and then there
- were couples who-- they made a hostel for couples
- and elderly people, and so it was
- easier for them to take care of the people that way.
- And we joined the Betar hostel because, first of all,
- we had no money.
- Mother gave us $50 that she had, and of course, we
- couldn't stay with these men for a long time,
- because it was his way of making a living.
- So we used some of that, and so we moved into that hostel.
- And it was like a communal life where you took turns
- in the kitchen and in cleaning the bathrooms,
- and it was very organized.
- And we lived there until six months later.
- The Russians marched into Vilna again.
- They took over a Vilna, and then the hostel--
- then everything was closed up because they would not
- allow any relief organizations to function.
- Were you afraid?
- Yes.
- Yes, we were very frightened because--
- I remember having nightmares quite a bit.
- We were eight girls in a large room,
- and all they had was a bed and a little stand where
- you kept your belongings.
- And then, of course, you ate in a communal kitchen.
- But I remember they had medics, just some people--
- I want to know more about how you spend your days.
- Were you very close to your sister?
- Did you--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Oh, my sister and I were--
- Sorry.
- John was still talking.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- My sister and I had a very, very unusual relationship.
- We were so close, and we continued being
- that close to the very end.
- It was almost unheard of.
- We were like-- my daughter once said we
- were two bodies with one soul.
- That's how close we were.
- So did you play--
- But it was tough.
- There was a lot of--
- well, the way most of us kept busy was a lot of organized--
- from the group from, the Betar, from the internat.
- There were lectures.
- There were discussions.
- There were that kind--
- that's the way we kept--
- and of course, there was the day-to-day taking care
- of yourself, helping in the kitchen
- or whatever you had to do.
- But did you play any games, or have any fantasies,
- or promise that you would buy your sister a cherry sundae
- when you got to the US?
- Well, I don't think we had any of those dreams or games.
- It was more of a time of surviving, getting through,
- and waiting, surviving and waiting,
- waiting to hear if there's a way to get out, waiting--
- and there were rumors that, oh, I think there's a--
- we heard there's an opening to go to Curacao.
- There's an opening to go to Canada or to go anywhere.
- There were rumors.
- And they said, oh, there on that street
- there's an office where you go, and you might be
- able to get a visa or papers.
- And you went there, and it was just a dead end.
- And then we heard a rumor that there
- was a Japanese diplomat giving out visas in Kovno,
- and a number of people--
- they were giving out visas to Japan that you could go to.
- And a number of people tried to go there, and you couldn't go--
- you couldn't just get on the train and go to Kovno.
- You had to have a permit to get to Kovno, and then when you got
- there-- you were only allowed like a day permit.
- You couldn't sleep there.
- You had to come back the same day.
- So my sister and I-- when we--
- well, I'll tell you [INAUDIBLE].
- When we heard--
- [INAUDIBLE] let's--
- We're going to re-load here shortly.
- --an experience by itself.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- The train.
- The train ride-- you know, I don't want to interrupt,
- but it wasn't until I became a mother
- that the whole thing of my mother sending us away and all
- that, did I realize what it must have meant for her.
- Not until then.
- It never-- it just occurred to us.
- Had you ever been away from home?
- No.
- Can you say that--
- Not day camp.
- Are you asking me [INAUDIBLE]?
- Well, no.
- My sister and I were never away from home by ourselves.
- We used to go-- for summer, we used to go to a place where
- my mother--
- but we went with my mother and housekeeper for the summer.
- But never by ourselves.
- No, there was no such thing as a sleep-away camp.
- [LAUGHS] So no, we will never away.
- It's so strange.
- It's so unreal now, when I think back to it.
- Did you have any fun at all?
- Did you have a boyfriend or anyone that you were--
- No.
- I must say-- I've said that I was a child
- and then I was an adult. I never was a teenager.
- Because all of a sudden you grew up.
- You became an adult. So before that, we were very-- you know,
- over here, I see 14, 15-year-old boys and girls, especially now,
- they're already very mature.
- We were very immature 15, 16-year-olds.
- I mean, we had friends--
- boys and girls in [PLACE NAME].
- We used to have all kinds of activities and all that.
- But I never had a boyfriend, no.
- Not until I came to the United States,
- and neither did my sister.
- No.
- No, we were never teenagers.
- Did your mother visit you while you were in Vilna?
- My mother came to visit us a couple of times
- while the border was open.
- And it wasn't so bad for her because she felt she was still
- in contact with us.
- But then, I'd say after about two or three months,
- they closed the borders.
- And that's when she really realized that she
- couldn't stay alone there.
- And I guess having the house didn't mean--
- and besides, they took over the house anyway at that time.
- They moved in.
- And she just couldn't be by herself anymore,
- and the housekeeper.
- So she decided to smuggle across the border.
- So she packed up a few things, like some of the few things
- that I've shown you.
- And there were people who were smuggling you
- across the border for money at certain points.
- And she traveled to that point.
- She took with her just what she could
- carry with her, on her back or with her hands, in her arms.
- And she paid one of the persons--
- I don't recall how much money, but it was a lot of money.
- And they tried to smuggle these--
- take people across the border during the night.
- They knew exactly when the sentries
- were changing and all that.
- And lo and behold, they were almost caught.
- So they had to run back to the farm house
- and wait till they had another opportunity.
- In the meantime, it was sort of like in the fall
- or early winter, and it turned very cold and rainy.
- And my mother took sick.
- She got pneumonia so that she couldn't try again.
- And she was at the person's house for about a couple
- of weeks until she got better.
- And then they tried again and they were successful.
- And she joined us.
- We were living in that communal [INAUDIBLE] But she
- couldn't join us there because that was just for single people
- for [PLACE NAME].
- So she got herself a little room in Vilna.
- And she stayed there.
- And we used to go.
- That's how we used to spend a lot of time too.
- We used to go to my mother's room and spend with her.
- You know, walk or--
- a lot of times, also, she said that there
- was a shortage of food.
- So you had to stand on line for everything that there was--
- bread, anything that they might have.
- So used to spend a lot of time standing
- on line to get some food.
- Now, when she came and visited you
- and left, what were those comings and goings
- or the partings like?
- Tough, tough.
- Very bad.
- Because each time--
- Could you start it as a complete thought?
- Yes.
- Well, my mother used to come to visit us.
- Her coming was, of course, wonderful.
- And she used to bring us some food, some goodies, because she
- was still able to get there.
- But then when she had to go, each time
- was like the last time.
- That we wouldn't see her again.
- So it was very rough.
- And that's what I think made it--
- even, I think, before they closed the border
- she was thinking of just not going back one day.
- But she never got to do that.
- And she did it the hard way.
- And one day she just packed up and left the house.
- She left.
- The housekeeper was a much an older woman.
- She couldn't do it.
- She was a distant relative of ours
- who came to live with my mother when my father passed away.
- And she stayed on.
- So and she--
- Did she survive?
- She did not survive.
- She did not survive.
- She was left living in our home.
- The Russians let her stay there.
- But then our town was--
- then the war broke out between the Russians and the Germans,
- when the wars they were fighting.
- So our town was changing hands constantly.
- Germans, Russians.
- And during one of the German occupations, she was killed--
- the housekeeper.
- Do you have a picture of her?
- I don't have--
- I had a picture of her sort of in a little window,
- and I can't remember where I had it.
- Let's go back to--
- I was going to keep that out.
- I have her picture.
- It's a lovely house.
- Let's go back to the rumors on how you
- were going to get out of Vilna.
- Did you realize-- did you have the sense that you really
- needed to get out once the Russians came into Vilna?
- We had a sense that--
- when the Russians came in to Vilna,
- and how they occupied Vilna was--
- back, when they came back again--
- was when they had left Vilna and they gave it back to Lithuania,
- they left a garrison of troops.
- And what was happening during that period,
- there used to be some incidents, like a Russian soldier was
- beaten up or one or two incidents where
- they were killed.
- And it used to be publicized a lot in the papers.
- And then one time that I think a couple of soldiers were killed,
- and they found it as an excuse to come back into the city
- and reoccupy it.
- So when they came in to Vilna was a very memorable day.
- That was the day Menachem Begin, the former prime minister
- of Israel, who was with us in our group.
- Because they fled the Germans.
- They won in Warsaw.
- So they fled, he and his wife and a number of other people.
- And they were with all of us.
- We lived in the same [INAUDIBLE]
- So one--
- Could you start with when the Russians came back in?
- He made a speech, right?
- Yes.
- Well, when the Russians came back into Vilna,
- it was a day when he was making a speech.
- We don't know who "he" is.
- Oh, I see.
- Say, "one of our group."
- Our leader, Menachem Begin, who was the leader of--
- Start again.
- Yes, OK.
- When the Russians marched into Vilna again, it was on the day
- that our leader, Menachem Begin, former prime minister
- of Israel, was making a speech.
- And it was a speech all about how
- we're going to get to Israel one day,
- and now we're going to build the land and free the Jews.
- And a very nationalistic and Zionistic speech.
- And he was a fantastic speaker.
- Very fiery.
- And all of a sudden--
- there must have been like about 500 people or more in the hall.
- And someone got on the stage and handed him a note.
- And he read the note.
- Put the note in his pocket.
- And all of a sudden, he became even more fiery,
- more enthusiastic.
- And he is speaking.
- And he ended his speech, and he asked
- us to stand up and sing "Hatikvah."
- "Hatikvah" is the national anthem,
- the Jewish national anthem.
- And we all looked at each other.
- What's going on here?
- We got up.
- We sang the anthem.
- And he asked us to leave.
- And when we got out, there were the Russian tanks rolling
- through the streets of Vilna.
- And the note that was given to him
- was to get out of there because they felt that they were going
- to arrest him immediately.
- But they did not arrest him immediately.
- They arrested him a few months later.
- Actually, arrested him on the day
- we left for the United States, in August.
- This must have happened-- this is sometime
- like in March, the occupation.
- Great.
- Let's go back to the rumors, and you would go here and go there.
- And then finally you heard about the Japanese
- and the whole Sugihara story.
- Yes.
- Well, the whole existence while we were in Vilna
- was trying to get out, trying to get somewhere.
- My sister and I were luckier than most people was
- because we did get in touch with our families in the United
- States.
- And the families here, aunts and uncles,
- were working very hard to try in all different ways to help us.
- They sent us a little money.
- They were not very rich people, but they tried to help.
- And as I said, they got in touch [INAUDIBLE]..
- And they found that our papers were in Germany.
- And also they found out that if we could get a visa
- to get to Japan, they might be able to arrange
- for the affidavits to be sent to Japan.
- But there was no way to us to get visas to Japan.
- We didn't know about Mr. Sugihara or anything.
- So as I was saying before, I believe that they were all--
- I'm sorry.
- We don't know that you said that before.
- Oh, didn't say that.
- This is all brand new.
- Think of the audience hearing it for the very first time.
- First time, right.
- Get me a drink, OK?
- OK, any time.
- Well, while we were in Vilna, of course,
- we spent a lot of our time trying
- to find ways how to get out.
- And there were rumors all over the place
- about that you could get a visa to go
- to one country or the other--
- Curacao or Japan.
- But we-- No, I'm sorry.
- That's the wrong way.
- That's OK.
- There were rumors going around that you
- could go to different places.
- And when we went, they were just a dead end.
- And then we heard a rumor that there
- was this Japanese diplomat in Kovno giving out rumors
- to go to Japan.
- I'm sorry.
- You said "rumors going to Japan."
- Rumor?
- You said rumors going to Japan instead of visas.
- Oh, visas!
- OK.
- All right, shall we start again?
- Yeah.
- OK.
- Let's start with the new angle.
- Why don't you just tell me how did
- you hear about Sugihara visas?
- Hold on one second.
- Just give me one second.
- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah, we get that.
- Gee.
- OK.
- And then we heard a rumor that there was a Japanese diplomat
- giving out visas to go to Japan.
- And my sister and I decided to go to Kovno and try to get one.
- Because we felt if we get to Japan,
- we might be able to get affidavits sent to Japan
- and get an American visa.
- So we went to one of the offices.
- Got a permit to go to Kovno.
- And we took the train.
- And we got there, to the Japanese consulate,
- and there were lines around the block, other people were there.
- We waited there all day long and we couldn't get in.
- But we had to take the train back
- because we couldn't stay overnight.
- We went back.
- And then a couple of days later, we tried again, the same thing.
- And that time, we took an earlier train to get there.
- And we-- it was the same thing again.
- We couldn't get in.
- A few days later, we tried again.
- And each time, we had to get a different permit.
- We couldn't go on the same permit.
- The permits were also expensive.
- We didn't have too much money.
- The last time we went, the third time that we went,
- it was getting very close to a crucial date.
- Because our family from New York wired us
- that they could get tickets for us
- on the Trans-Siberian Railroad for a certain date
- if we could get the visa.
- And it was getting very close to that date.
- And if we didn't get the visa, we couldn't get on it.
- So my sister and I got up even earlier.
- And we got there, we stood on line.
- And each time, people used to go--
- the building that the embassy--
- it was just a house, actually.
- It was sort of a ground floor, and then his office
- was upstairs.
- So people used to line up and then come,
- and you lined up on the stairs until you were
- able to get into his office.
- And each time a person went into the office, the door would open
- and then there would be a push.
- You know, people would try to get in.
- And we were standing on line.
- And it was like about 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon.
- And we were getting pretty close.
- We were at the bottom of the steps.
- But the office was closing at 5:00 or 5:30.
- And we saw that it was getting too close,
- that we will probably not be able to get in.
- So at one point where the door opened,
- I grabbed my sister's hand and we just ran up the stairs.
- And we tried to get in.
- And of course, we tried to cross the line.
- So they pushed us down and we were right back
- in the bottom of the steps.
- And then a few more times people went in and out.
- And we were coming up maybe two or three steps.
- But still, we felt we were not going to make it that day.
- Finally, we took the courage again
- and we ran up those stairs.
- And I just put my foot right in the door, as they say.
- And I was holding on to my sister.
- And we got in to the room.
- And we were the last people who got the visa that day.
- So--
- Can you tell me, so you start with getting into the room.
- Start with how did you get into the room.
- It has to be shorter though because it's much too long.
- That's right.
- How did we--
- So you pushed your way into the room.
- And then tell me about your interactions with--
- --with Dr. [PERSONAL NAME] and Mr. Sugihara.
- OK.
- And there is--
- I don't realize, but I am trying to tell you sort
- of everything that happened.
- And I don't realize that it's too long.
- Yeah, we need like 30 second answers.
- Oh, OK.
- Well, I'm usually not a big talker.
- Shall we go?
- When my sister and I got into the room, we were breathless
- and we were scared stiff.
- Because at that time we were really very scared
- of all kinds of authorities.
- And then we got in.
- And there was a man, Japanese man,
- sitting at a desk right in the middle, facing us.
- And there were two other tables, one
- on the right, one on the left.
- And one was Japanese and one was and not Japanese.
- And later on, I found out that the man who was also a Sugihara
- survivor, he was a translator.
- And he asked us--
- I'm going to need--
- it's going to have to be really short.
- You got in.
- You were breathless.
- You were scared.
- Sugihara, even though you didn't have an end destination--
- Yes.
- He looked at us.
- He was very sympathetic.
- Great, but let's-- and then you got the visas.
- Yes.
- And he just asked us our name.
- OK.
- Can you tell me that story in 30 seconds?
- 30 seconds.
- He looked very sympathetic.
- So start with you got into the room, you were breathless.
- You pushed your way--
- --way into the room.
- Now, you have to start from--
- You have to start after I stop talking.
- We've never heard the story before.
- Right.
- And give us a big breath.
- We pushed ourselves-- my sister and I pushed ourselves
- into the room with Mr. Sugihara.
- He asked us our name.
- He asked us where our parents were.
- We told him my father was not living,
- my mother has no papers.
- And he looked very sympathetic and he just stamped,
- gave us a visa right there on the spot.
- And how did you react?
- We got very hysterical.
- My sister and I got hysterical, started to cry
- and started to say thank you, thank you in Polish.
- And he just raised his hand like saying it's OK.
- And that's it.
- And we went out of the room.
- And we were still--
- got out of the room hysterical, crying.
- And crying, that's all.
- We were just hugging each other and crying.
- And that was that.
- That's great.
- Yeah, that is great.
- Did you-- were there any pictures taken of you that day?
- Yes.
- I have two pictures that my sister and I were going back
- to Vilna and our training was not due for a couple of hours.
- So there was a little park there.
- So we sat in the park.
- We walked around.
- And you know, it was just so happy.
- We were just so happy.
- And there was a photographer walking around.
- And he asks if he wants to take our picture,
- our pictures taken.
- And we said if we pay him in advance,
- he'll send us the pictures.
- So whenever we had a few--
- I don't know, whatever the money was.
- And we paid him.
- And we never thought we'd get those pictures.
- But we did get them.
- So I have two pictures of that, my sister and myself
- on that day.
- It was August 12, 1940.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Yeah, OK.
- Can you just describe the line again?
- What did it feel like in that line?
- Was their anger or was their anxiety?
- Anxiety.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- The line-- well, the first day, of course, there was--
- When you got to the Japanese embassy?
- When we got to the Japanese embassy,
- the lines were around the corner, way around.
- And there were families and single people, but very few--
- I think my sister and I were just
- about the only teenagers that were alone.
- And people were just anxious, anxiety, very quiet.
- Also, just standing in line and exchanging
- stories with this one experience and that one experience.
- But mostly I would describe it as very stressful,
- a lot of anxiety and worry.
- Am I going to get up to the top?
- Did you ever think you were going to get a visa?
- Were there times when you thought--
- No, I wasn't.
- I mean, I think we would have tried again and again.
- I don't know.
- We wouldn't have given up, that's for sure.
- Because we had the potentials of getting an American visa if we
- got that visa.
- But when we got that visa and our passport,
- and I don't know if you--
- we had no visa to go anywhere.
- And I don't know if this is the right time?
- Start again, though.
- Start again saying that you had no end visa.
- When we got the Japanese visa to go to Japan,
- we had no end visa.
- We were hoping to get it.
- And that's why when we got to [PLACE NAME] we were detained,
- my sister and I, because some official noticed that there
- was no, we had no visa.
- And he said to us, where's your visa to go anywhere?
- And I says, oh, we're going to get one.
- It's waiting for us in Tokyo.
- So he wasn't taking our word for it and he tried to get in touch
- with the American embassy.
- But it happened to be some sort of a holiday.
- I believe it might have been--
- well, we were there sometimes in September.
- Maybe Labor Day or I don't remember
- exactly what sort of American holiday and the embassy
- was closed.
- So he couldn't get through to them.
- So they detained us in the police station, upstairs.
- The police station was on the ground floor.
- We were upstairs.
- They treated us very nicely.
- But they, I guess you'd call it arrested us.
- And then they got in touch with the Jewish community in Kobe.
- And two men came the following day, I think two days later.
- And they prevailed upon them to release us.
- They said they would take care of us.
- And they did.
- They took us to Kobe.
- They went with us.
- And they put us up for a few days there.
- And then after that, they took us to Tokyo.
- Two men went with us.
- And they found us a place where to stay.
- And got us in touch with the American embassy.
- Showed us where it is.
- I mean, here we were in Japan.
- We did not speak the language.
- Japan was a frightful experience.
- We were really frightened all the time.
- How come?
- I don't know.
- It was so strange.
- We've never seen other people.
- We've never seen Japanese people.
- And we were very frightened there.
- We were afraid to go anywhere.
- We used to spend most of our days at the American embassy.
- It was not far from our little hotel that we stayed.
- We felt sort of safer there.
- And we were two girls-- my sister
- and I and two other women and two men who
- were traveling to their wives.
- Let's go back to--
- We're going to reload tape.
- We're going to reload.
- Has anyone said how wonderful you look?
- Camera roll nine.
- Continue.
- OK, thank you.
- Side three.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I had a friend of mine do my makeup.
- I usually do pretty good myself, but this time I [INAUDIBLE]..
- All set?
- Yes.
- So they brought up a good point.
- How did your mother not have papers but you did have papers?
- OK.
- The reason my mother didn't have any papers
- was because of the quota system that there
- was in all over Europe, but each country had its own quota.
- As a family, there was one quota.
- As minors, there was another quarter,
- and then as a parent joining children,
- there was another quota.
- So when our relatives tried to make out
- the papers for all three of us in 1937,
- they found the quota was like maybe five or six-year wait
- to get into the United States.
- But they were told that if we come first--
- the quota for minors is much shorter.
- If we come first, there was only like about a two-to-three-year
- waiting period.
- And then when we get here, we could
- send for our mother, which was a very short quota period,
- and that's why my mother did not have the papers
- at the same time but we did.
- And that's what actually we did.
- Finally, when we came to this country, when we arrived here
- in November 22, 1940, our families, my mother's sisters
- and brothers, immediately started
- to make out affidavits requesting
- for her to join her children.
- And that's how she received a visa in Shanghai and then
- to the United States.
- Tell me about what it was like to leave
- your mother the second time, and if you could,
- explain why your mother wasn't leaving with you but very, very
- briefly.
- You had a Sugihara visa, but your mother did not.
- My mother did not have--
- the second time that we--
- I'll start from the beginning.
- When we were ready to leave Vilna for Japan to get
- the Trans-Siberian Railroad, it was a very--
- it was sort of like a finality.
- It was almost like saying goodbye.
- We'll never see each other again because Mother,
- at that time, had with no way of getting out whatsoever.
- She had no papers.
- She had a passport, but she had no visa to go to Japan.
- She had not visa to go to the United States.
- And we sort of felt hopeless that we'll never see her again,
- and that was devastating.
- I'll never forget that scene, very devastating,
- leaving my mother on the train, on that station.
- My sister and I were, first of all, scared.
- It was a very frightening experience, the whole thing,
- once we left her because the Russians were not very
- friendly towards the refugees.
- And just crossing that tremendous--
- it took seven days and eight nights.
- I've been disputed.
- They say it took eight days and nine nights,
- but we remember it as seven days and eight nights,
- that trip across Siberia.
- First we went from Vilna.
- We made a stop in Minsk.
- Then we made a-- then we went to Moscow,
- and we stayed there for about three or four days in a hotel.
- And we had to wait for the train,
- the Trans-Siberian train, and it was only going once a week.
- Did you have any fun?
- Did you go to the opera?
- Yes, we went to--
- we went to a ballet.
- OK.
- Tell me "while in Moscow."
- While in Moscow, we went to a ballet, and we also went--
- Sorry.
- You were talking when I was talking.
- [INAUDIBLE]--
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- --when both of us are talking.
- So when you were in Moscow, what'd you do?
- We were in Moscow for about three days,
- and we were with those two women and two men.
- And we went one night--
- I remember going to a ballet, and one day we
- went sightseeing.
- But we were always--
- we were always watched, always watched, always Secret Service.
- We felt it.
- We knew it.
- They were always there watching us.
- But I remember we took a sightseeing tour,
- and they took us down to the subways, which were beautiful--
- they were like museums, clean--
- and Lenin's tomb, and a few other famous--
- the Red Square and all that we went and saw that day.
- And that's about it.
- But in the hotel, on each floor there
- was someone sitting there always, watching people going
- and coming here to sign in, sign out, very regimented.
- And we felt strange and scared.
- We were kids.
- Did you play games or do you remember--
- what would you have done if something
- had happened to your sister, if you and your sister
- had gotten separated?
- Oh, I don't know what I really--
- what we really would have done without each other.
- I don't know how we would have survived.
- I suppose who did, but this had never occurred to us,
- never occurred to us.
- As a matter of fact, as I told you--
- as I said-- no.
- Just tell me new.
- My sister and I was so close and had such a--
- what is the word I'm looking for?
- No [? string, ?] such attachment and such a devotion.
- Can you start over?
- My sister and I had an unusual relationship.
- We were very, very devoted to each other, no restrictions
- upon our devotion.
- Even after we got married, had our children,
- it was just like two bodies and one soul,
- as one of my daughters used to say.
- We had an unwritten agreement between us.
- If anything ever happened to one of us,
- we would take care of each other's children.
- We never spoke about it.
- And my sister passed away.
- She immigrated to Israel.
- She got married.
- She met an Israeli, and after 20 years, they moved to Israel.
- And she contracted cancer, and she died within a year.
- And it was just natural.
- Her daughter came to live with me.
- She was nine years old, and I brought her up.
- And if anything would have happened to me,
- she would have done the same thing.
- It was an unreal devotion and relationship.
- We shared everything.
- Let's go back a bit to the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
- You were strip-searched in Vladivostok?
- We were searched.
- We were not strip--
- we had women who searched us when we got to Vladivostok,
- patted us and all that.
- But they didn't make us get undressed.
- It's a good thing they didn't because we
- would have never left Vladivostok
- if they did because my sister and I
- smuggled through that emblem that you have the picture of.
- We smuggled that through, which is--
- if they would've found it on us, they
- would have surely arrested us.
- That was considered, as they said,
- contraband, which is illegal things.
- Can you tell me the story about the Betar--
- what is it, a medallion?
- It was like a medal of recognition,
- which was given out to the--
- Can you start again?
- Just very briefly, though, what did you bring with you?
- What did you take out of Vilna?
- Out of Vilna we took out some of the things
- that our mother gave us to take with us, not very much, and one
- of the things that we took with us
- was this particular emblem which we brought from Volozhin which
- was given to us hopefully that we will be able to bring it out
- into the world and rescue it, which we tried very hard
- and we were successful in.
- It was a medal of recognition to our town,
- to a group from the main Zionist organization in Warsaw,
- and it was signed and all that for recognition and for doing
- good work, whatever.
- I can't even remember the inscription on it,
- but it was very meaningful.
- And they hoped that we would be able to rescue it, and we did.
- And I hope one day--
- I hope to-- what do you call that--
- when the exhibit is over, I'm going to offer it
- to the museum to keep it.
- What else did you bring on your trip?
- Or what did you--
- Well, we brought those two blankets
- that my mother gave us when we left Volozhin.
- They were actually her trousseau blankets.
- She gave it to us to keep us warm, and we did.
- And we brought some crafts, things that we used to do,
- and I don't know why mother took those.
- I guess they were--
- she gave us that, I guess, to remember what we did
- or something.
- It must have had some special meaning.
- It didn't have a particular meaning to us at that time,
- but it has an awful lot of meaning to me now.
- And what else did we-- we had no jewelry, and we had no--
- my mother was the one that brought the French clock.
- She carried it.
- It came in a special carrying case.
- And for the life of me, I don't know how they permitted it
- because it's a gold-plated, very rare cloth,
- and it has inscriptions in Russian.
- And it's very valuable.
- And some of the silver--
- a little silver box and a sugar tongs.
- And what else?
- I have a little Jew star that I usually wear.
- I took it off today.
- I took that with me, and I didn't wear it.
- I guess it would have been against the law to wear it.
- And let's see.
- What else?
- My mother brought the candlesticks.
- Those were hers.
- And how about those?
- We also had-- excuse me?
- A silver bowl?
- Oh, yes.
- This is a little, tiny--
- it's a little dish where my mother used to--
- during Passover, used the charoises,
- the special herbs that we used.
- And she used to use that, and it has an inscription there.
- And we got that.
- What else?
- Pictures, some pictures, an album.
- I had an album.
- I still have the album.
- It's falling apart, but I have it with pictures in it.
- How about-- let me think.
- So let's go-- what did you expect when you got to Japan?
- Here you had never been away from home before,
- and here is a totally different race of people.
- Well, when we got to Japan, of course, it was very strange,
- and as I said, I've never seen Japanese people.
- I remember being in a-- and when we stayed in the hotel,
- later on I found that there were--
- those women, what do you call them?
- Geisha girls.
- Am I pronouncing it right?
- Geisha?
- Geisha girls.
- They used to have Geisha parties in the hotels,
- and they were quite noisy.
- And my sister and I used to be so frightened.
- We used to--
- I know we had double beds.
- We used to climb into one bed to be together.
- We didn't know anything about it, what they were or anything,
- but later on I found out what they were all about.
- It was very strange and very, very insecure feeling,
- very insecure.
- How long did you stay there in Japan?
- About a month.
- We stayed--
- How long did you stay in Japan, and who paid for or made
- your arrangements?
- Well, we stayed in Japan--
- when we arrived in Tokyo, we were--
- we left November 9th.
- OK.
- You don't have to get into that.
- Did you stay a week, or two weeks, or a month?
- About a month, about a month.
- I was trying to figure out how long was it.
- It was about a month, and the way we were able to--
- no, I'll go back.
- Our relatives from the United States wired some money to us,
- to the American consulate, and that's
- how we were able to survive in Japan.
- Our family from the United States sent us money.
- And it wasn't much, but it was enough for us
- to get along, to pay for the-- it was a little hotel not far
- from the consulate.
- And it was a very meager diet, bread, sardines, and fruit,
- but we got along very good.
- And we didn't go anyplace.
- We really did not sightsee or anything.
- And were you able to--
- who made your arrangements for your voyage to the US,
- and what was that like?
- You mean the arrangement from where, from Japan?
- Yes.
- Oh, yes, our family, my aunts and uncles,
- paid through Cook Travel Agency.
- They paid in an awful lot of money.
- We went first class on the President Coolidge
- because that was the only available transportation they
- were able to get for us, and they wanted to get us out
- of there soon as possible.
- So they arranged for us first class,
- and it was a very nice experience
- to be on the President Coolidge first class.
- If I have time, I'll tell you a little funny story.
- We traveled first class, but we had two friends
- travel second class.
- And first class-- it was very luxurious.
- And we had no one except this woman that we met on the boat
- to spend time with, so we used to go down to the second class
- to visit our friends.
- We had no problems getting down, but we
- had problems coming up because they believe
- we belonged to the first class.
- So the first time, we had to show them our passport,
- and after that, they got to know us because we
- were on the boat for two weeks.
- Tell me who you traveled with.
- Who was the woman?
- And tell me her name.
- Yeah.
- When we got on the boat, the President Coolidge,
- we, of course, didn't speak any English.
- And they were trying to ask us our name.
- We understood enough of that, but anything else
- we didn't understand.
- And there was this woman sitting by in the lounge there,
- and she saw the difficulties they were having.
- And we said Yiddish.
- She heard that we were saying we speak Yiddish and Polish.
- So she came over, and she says, can I be of help?
- I speak Yiddish.
- So she was a Jewish woman that was married to an officer who
- was stationed in China, and she was coming home for a visit.
- And that's why she happened to be on the boat,
- and she was traveling alone.
- So they asked her if she would mind sitting with us
- and keeping us company.
- She says no, so they put us with her at the table.
- And we spend a lot of time with her.
- She taught us a lot of things.
- What was her name?
- Her name was Mrs. [? Yount, ?] and she lived in San Diego.
- For a while we kept in touch with her,
- and we sort of lost touch after a couple of years.
- Any other questions about the journey or [INAUDIBLE]??
- Sure.
- Well, it was--
- Start with "the transit."
- When we got on the--
- yes.
- Go ahead.
- When we boarded a train and the Trans-Siberian Railroad--
- Sorry.
- You need to look--
- Go ahead.
- You need to pause between my talking and your starting.
- OK, all right.
- So tell me about the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
- When we got on the train, we were assigned a cabin and--
- I'm sorry.
- Start, "When we got on the Trans-Siberian."
- Oh, when we got on the--
- You can always take a breath because you have lots of time.
- So just take a breath.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Go ahead.
- Ask me.
- Can you tell me about what you trip
- on the Trans-Siberian Railroad was like?
- When we got on the Trans-Siberian Railroad train,
- we were assigned a cabin, my sister and I,
- and then we were also told where the dining car is.
- And in general, it was not a bad accommodation.
- The dining room was very nice.
- But it was very bleak.
- You rode for seven days and nights
- through ice, though snow.
- We used to have a couple of stops.
- Like once a day they would stop at a railroad stop.
- But my sister and I never got off
- the train because we were afraid we might miss it,
- or we'll get lost, or something.
- So we just stayed on the train.
- We would sometimes get off the train
- and stay right by the door, but we never went anywhere
- except in one place.
- There Is a city in Siberia.
- It's called Birobidzhan, and that was at one time--
- they thought they were going to make a haven for the Jews.
- So there was a lot of Jewish riding
- and all the signs in the railway station
- had the name Birobidzhan in Jewish, Yiddish.
- And so we got off the train, and it's sort of like,
- I would say, maybe about 100 yards
- where the little building was there.
- And we got in there, and we looked around.
- And my sister and I went right back on the train.
- That's the only place we got off.
- And that was like about the fifth or sixth day of the trip,
- way inside of Siberia.
- And then we arrived in Vladivostok.
- Vladivostok was a very, very busy port, very busy port.
- And we stayed there a couple of days--
- I don't remember exactly how many days--
- because we had to wait for a boat to cross to Tsuruga.
- How was the voyage from Vladivostok to Tsuruga?
- Oh, we got on a--
- our accommodations on the boat to Tsuruga was on a freighter,
- and there were just four passengers.
- They had no room for passengers, so it was just us and the crew.
- And it was very nice, except they were carrying spices,
- and the spices made us sick, the smell of the spices.
- But the crew was very nice to us.
- We used to have meals with the crew,
- and they gave us nice accommodation, a room, a cabin.
- And that was nice.
- That took about five days, four or five days.
- I don't recall exactly.
- But that was OK.
- When you got to the US, where did you go?
- Well, my sister and I arrived in San Francisco.
- The boat was-- we made a stop in Honolulu,
- and then we arrived in San Francisco.
- And I could tell you one thing--
- the sight of the Golden Gate was the most beautiful sight
- in the world.
- San Francisco is still my favorite city.
- It is.
- And when we arrived, our family made arrangements for--
- oh, I can't remember those organizations which-- they
- took care of us for the day.
- We had to wait for a whole day to get a train
- to come to New York.
- There were no planes then at that time.
- You went by train.
- Oh, I can't think of [? this name, ?] but two nice
- young girls, and they wore special uniforms.
- And they were taking care of us for the day,
- and they took a sighting of San Francisco,
- to the farmer's market and all of that.
- Since then I've been there a number of times,
- and I enjoy it every time.
- But the Golden Gate is--
- And then you came to New York?
- We came to-- when my sister and I came to New York by train,
- it took about three days from San Francisco to New York,
- and made a stop in Chicago.
- And two of my uncles met us at the train.
- We never saw them.
- We never knew them, but we recognized each other.
- And then we came to live with one of my aunts and uncles,
- who actually were the most instrumental
- in bringing us here, who did actually most of-- there
- was a lot of hard work in it, the affidavits, and making
- [INAUDIBLE],, and waiting, and going.
- But they had no children, and they
- were very anxious to have us.
- But I would say they were not very affluent people.
- They were candy store owner, but they were wonderful people.
- They gave up themselves.
- And how did you get your mother here?
- Well, after my sister and I arrived here,
- my mother's brothers and sisters, our aunts and uncles,
- started to make out the affidavits right away
- to bring her here as a mother to be reunited with her children.
- And there was not actually a very limited quote,
- not much of a quota, and she would have had to--
- and she actually waited a very short time to get a visa.
- And my mother got her visa, and she
- left on the last boat that left Shanghai to go to Manila.
- And I don't recall the exact date,
- but it must have been like around December 1, 1941.
- She was in Manila a few days, and she
- boarded the boat to go to the United States
- on December 5, 1941.
- And the war broke out December 7, 1941.
- She was on the high seas when it broke out,
- and they joined a military convoy.
- And they went through Australia and all
- around until they got to San Francisco
- on Christmas Day in 1941.
- Can you tell me that story once again but
- say "the Japanese bombed--"
- Re-load.
- Vilna, which I think I'd like to think bring out.
- The size-- and soon as the Russians marched in, it
- became--
- if you push it in the middle--
- [INAUDIBLE]
- As soon as they marched in, it became a shortage of food.
- And we used to stand in line, and they
- used to give you a pound of bread a day.
- And you had to get up like 2:00 in the morning
- to get into line, and they would open up the bakery
- like about 7:00 in the morning.
- So you stood--
- Can you tell me your mother's trip--
- From where?
- From Japan or Manila.
- And then the thing that I want is--
- What do you want to--
- The Japanese bombed--
- --bombed Pearl Harbor.
- Oh, I see, that part.
- OK.
- My mother was in Japan, got to Japan through the same way
- as we did, through the Trans-Siberian railroad
- and then to Japan.
- And she had to wait for quite a long time
- until her family were able to make out affidavits for her
- to get a visa to come to join us.
- And during that period, the Japanese government
- was evacuating all refugees from Japan to Shanghai
- since Shanghai was an open city, and she was sent to Shanghai.
- She was there for a number of months,
- and then finally they were successful in getting
- her the visa.
- And the family made arrangements for her
- to get transportation on this particular boat,
- and she left Shanghai around December 1, stayed
- in Manila a few days until she was--
- she was waiting for the boat, which was President Pierce.
- And she left Manila and December 5, 1941.
- And then December 7, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,
- and the war broke out.
- Could you start that over again?
- Yes.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- No, no problem.
- I'm with you.
- My saliva went down the wrong way.
- When my mother arrived to Japan?
- Yes.
- My mother arrived to Japan about a year
- later after we did, the same way as we did,
- and she stayed there a number of months
- while her brothers and sisters were
- trying to make out the affidavits for her
- to come to the United States to join us.
- In the meantime, the Japanese government--
- what shall I say--
- decided to send all the refugees--
- evacuate all the refugees from Japan
- to Shanghai as it was an open city.
- And she was there a number of months
- until she got her American visa, and the family
- made arrangements for her to leave.
- And she left Shanghai on December 1--
- I'm almost sure it was December 1--
- 1941 and went to Manila.
- And then in Manila she waited a few days
- for her boat, which was the President Pierce.
- And she boarded the boat on December 5, 1941,
- and they were on high seas when, on December 7,
- the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
- And of course, they were at war with the United States.
- And then they joined this--
- President Pierce joined a number of other boats
- in a convoy to be protected from being attacked by the Japanese
- and went through then the coast of Australia all the way up,
- I guess, or down--
- I don't know.
- I guess it's up--
- to San Francisco.
- And they arrived in San Francisco on December 25, 1941,
- Christmas day.
- And how did you find out about your [INAUDIBLE]??
- Well, all this time we knew that--
- we knew that Mother got on the boat on December 5, 1941.
- When the war broke out, of course,
- we didn't know what happened to her for all this time,
- and then at that time, there was a broadcast
- by the name of Gabriel Heatter, and he
- used to have his news program at 7:00.
- And my uncle who owned the candy store always
- used to listen to him.
- And I was there helping him.
- When he was listening to the broadcast--
- and he used to get out and start his broadcast as good news
- today and as bad news today, and when it got on the 7:00 news,
- he said, well, there's good news today.
- A boat arrived in San Francisco full of refugees from--
- no, I think it was, the President Pierce arrived
- at San Francisco with a number of refugees from Manila.
- And we knew she was on the President Pierce,
- so we let out a scream.
- And we knew she was alive and well.
- But until then, we didn't know that she was--
- where she was or what was happening to her.
- That was-- I love that story.
- Can you try it one more time?
- Because you kind of fumbled.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Yeah, I did.
- I did fumble because I knew it so well.
- I remember that scene.
- Here we were in a old-fashioned candy store.
- My uncle and I--
- I was helping my uncle that time.
- OK, I'll start from the beginning.
- Where would you like me to start?
- Well, you can start from the beginning,
- or you can include that you were in the candy
- store with your uncle.
- Right.
- On Christmas day, I was helping my uncle in the candy store,
- and he used to listen to Gabriel Heatter on the radio at 7:00
- news.
- And he used to start up his broadcasts
- with "There's good news tonight, and there's bad news tonight."
- And at that particular time, he says, well, there's
- good news tonight.
- A boat, the President Pierce, arrived in San Francisco
- with a number of refugees.
- And my uncle and I just let out a yell because we knew--
- a scream because we knew that my mother was on that boat,
- and that's how we found out that she was well and alive.
- It was a wonderful experience, very wonderful news,
- and I ran all the way for about five blocks
- to tell my aunt the good news.
- So was that better?
- That was great.
- That was fantastic.
- When did you find out about the holocaust,
- and what was your reaction?
- Did you know that all of this happened?
- Well, when we were in Vilna just waiting around and all that,
- every once in a while, some people used to come through,
- either they were hiding in the forests--
- oh, they used to just--
- or they were just able to get out from somewhere.
- And they used to tell us about the concentration camps,
- but we never really knew what it was, and about the gas chambers
- and things like that.
- We never heard about that while we were Vilna.
- It was not until we came to the United States
- that we were in touch with people in Israel
- that we learned more about it but still not the real horror
- that all of us found out later on.
- Of course, how did we feel about it?
- Everyone we knew-- and everyone was part of it,
- was in the Holocaust.
- Did you feel particularly--
- what role did luck play in your escaping?
- Oh, there's a Jewish word, beshert.
- I don't know if [INAUDIBLE],, meant to be.
- I'm a great believer in that.
- Luck was very much part of it.
- It was a question that--
- and perseverance, I think that was, on our part.
- We were fighting so hard to get out, to do something.
- It's like the trip to Kovno.
- We didn't give up.
- If we didn't try on the third, we
- would have tried again and again.
- Of course, we might have missed--
- the whole thing about getting the visa
- at that particular time was--
- we had to make that train a certain date.
- Otherwise, our family would have lost the money
- that they paid in for us.
- That was the thing.
- So if we didn't get it, they probably
- would have lost the money, and they would have done it again.
- They would have probably paid again
- because they were so wonderful and so helpful to us.
- But luck had a great deal to do with it.
- We were not any smarter than some
- of the other people that didn't survive.
- Getting the visa was certainly--
- I think that was the luckiest thing that happened
- to us during our escape.
- We couldn't have done it without it.
- We have an airplane, so.
- Were we OK for that [INAUDIBLE]?
- Yeah.
- It was all right.
- There was an airplane, [? though. ?]
- You would have preferred [INAUDIBLE]??
- Can you tell me about getting that Sugihara visa that day?
- Could you tell me that story again,
- why it was so important to get it that day?
- On the third try that we went to Kovno to get the visa,
- it was so important for us to get it at that time
- because it was coming very close to the date
- that our family arranged for us to get the particular train,
- the Trans-Siberian train.
- You had to make reservations because it only
- went once a week.
- It only left Moscow once a Week
- Had we not gotten on that train, they would have lost the money,
- and I believe it was $750.
- That was like $375 a person, I think, as I recall.
- That was an awful lot of money.
- We're talking about 1940.
- And people who were not of means--
- so they would have lost the money.
- And there would have been probably a whole chain
- of circumstances that might have gone wrong as far
- as getting our papers in Japan and a lot of other things.
- So that's why it was so important for us
- to get the visa that time.
- Had we not gotten that, we probably--
- I know we would have tried again and again until we got there.
- But on the other hand, there was very
- little time left because I believe on August 18--
- we got our visa on the 12th--
- they shut Mr. Sugihara's office down, and he left.
- They made him leave Kovno.
- So had we not gotten it on that day,
- who knows if we would have made it during the next few days.
- And then we wouldn't have gotten it.
- So it was luck and circumstances.
- Did many of your friends not make it?
- Did you lose a lot of family and friends in Poland?
- Family-- sorry.
- We didn't have too much family left in Poland
- because all of my mother's and father's
- family were in the United States.
- We had some distant, distant relatives like distant cousins.
- They were all gone.
- None of them survived.
- None of my friends, our friends, survived.
- I have pictures of a group of boys and girls,
- and my sister and I were the only survivors.
- No one that I call, that I know who was in Vilna with us
- survived because then the war--
- the Russians were fighting the Germans,
- and Germans occupied Vilna.
- And they the Vilna Ghetto, and nobody survived
- the Vilna Ghetto, very few, none of my friends,
- of our friends or relatives survived.
- And one of the things is that you sometimes wonder, why you?
- Why did you survive?
- Do you have the answer?
- No, I really don't have an answer to that.
- A friend of mine, a rabbi, said to me, maybe
- you survived in order to do the good that you've been doing.
- I really don't have an answer for that.
- It was meant to be, beshert.
- Why don't we take a little break here?
- And there was one incident where we had a pogrom.
- We'll start with that.
- OK.
- Pretty good all this time and no tears.
- Where shall we start?
- Tell us about the pogrom.
- The pogrom?
- The cultural pogrom, I guess.
- A pogrom is-- you know what a pogrom is?
- Well, tell--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Oh, I see.
- Well, how should I explain that?
- Yeah, take a second.
- Most of the time when a pogrom happened,
- it was some instability in the country,
- and there were always some disenchantment
- with the government, or with maybe unemployment,
- or with whatever was happening in the country.
- And the easiest way to take out your frustration--
- it was through anti-Semitism and through attacking the Jews.
- That was in Russia, and then it was in Poland,
- in Poland as well.
- During the war, there was a lot of disenchantment
- and frustration for the Polish people for losing the war,
- and they were unhappy.
- And most of the time, it used to happen--
- it used to get organized by students,
- the more intellectual people, and they
- used to organize it through--
- the students just used to go out into the streets rampant,
- and if they'd find Jews, they beat them up, sometimes
- killed them.
- Or they used to go in the neighborhoods where Jews lived
- and try to destroy the homes and, oh, beat people up.
- And one of the--
- in the small towns, they didn't have it as much.
- You used to have it more in the bigger cities
- where there was more of an intellectual society
- like college students, mostly college students.
- I lived through one of them.
- When we were living in the boarding house,
- during that period, all of a sudden,
- word got around there was a pogrom going on
- in a few streets away.
- And where we lived--
- Vilna was built like--
- they had clusters of homes or buildings,
- and there were gates.
- Like they would say a gated community,
- but this is how the buildings were built.
- There were like three or four buildings of the street,
- and there would be a gate.
- They came-- and we all, of course--
- the people used to put furniture against the doors
- or against the windows so they wouldn't be able to get in.
- They boarded up-- well, we were at the boarding house.
- We brought up all the furniture, and beds, and things
- against the windows and against the doors,
- and we all sort of were sitting and practically
- waiting for them to come.
- And they closed the gates, and they were able to--
- they couldn't open up the gates.
- They were just wild.
- There was no rhyme or reason for doing it.
- They were just so frustrated and angry.
- And they couldn't get-- they were iron gates,
- so they couldn't open them.
- So they climbed through around the buildings, over the roofs,
- and they were able to get into one of the buildings
- where they broke windows.
- And the people from the particular--
- either they were hiding--
- maybe they went into the cellar or something like that.
- So there were no people in that particular apartments
- on the top floors, so they took feather pillows--
- that's what they used to use--
- and they just tore them up and just threw them
- through the windows.
- So it was like snow in the middle of-- it was spring or--
- it was not wintertime.
- Were you terrified?
- Were you--
- Oh, were we terrified.
- We were under the beds.
- We were hiding, all of us, and we were just
- waiting for them to come through to the next house.
- There was like four houses in sort of a semicircle.
- And lo and behold, either they got too tired
- or they saw there were nobody in that buildings.
- They just turned around and went to the next street.
- And then when it quiet down, we all
- got up and put everything back, tried to put back everything
- the way it was.
- And we went on, go and started the next day.
- But it was a horrible, horrible, very terrifying experience,
- just waiting there for them to--
- and there's nothing you could do because it's a mob.
- Yeah, it sounds horrible.
- They had no guns, sticks, bat.
- And that was the--
- it was a frightening experience, but we lived through it.
- Can you tell me about the bread lines
- and what it took to get a loaf of bread
- while you were in Vilna?
- Well, when we were--
- during the period that we-- that was also during the period
- that we were in the boardinghouse.
- There was a shortage of food.
- I couldn't get any.
- Of course, there was some food to be
- gotten on the black market, but we had no money for that.
- So you got along with what you were
- able to pick up in the lines.
- But every day they would have bread,
- and they'd give you a pound of bread a person.
- And so we'd get up real early in the morning, 2:00 3:00
- in the morning, and go out, and form the line,
- and get into line at the bakery.
- And the bakery wouldn't open up until 7:00 in the morning.
- 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning they were first baking it.
- And when they opened up, the bread was hot out of the oven,
- and they would slice it, cut it up in pound pieces
- and give everybody a pound of bread.
- And then the next day, we would go again.
- And we'd usually they were to find something, maybe.
- Sometimes we'd find some eggs.
- Sometimes we'd find--
- I don't recall even finding any-- milk,
- we used to be able to get some.
- And we got along.
- Then when we moved to the internat, to the hostel,
- it was better because, by that time,
- the relief organizations were able to get food,
- and they opened up kitchens.
- So it was much better.
- So I just had a question about your family.
- You grew up-- and you'll talk to John.
- And you were raised pretty much by your mother.
- Your father had died and--
- Three months [INAUDIBLE].
- I really-- yeah, go ahead.
- So really my question has to do--
- and your mother made a very bold, dramatic decision,
- and I'm curious to know what kind of words or acts
- of encouragement she gave you before you took--
- in this process.
- Can you tell us anything about that?
- Well, I really would like to say something about my mother.
- Would you like to hear that?
- Sure.
- When my father died--
- my father was a jeweler, and he had a man working for him.
- And when he took sick, the man was running the business.
- When he died, my mother took over the business
- with a man working there, and she tried to run it.
- And she was a very, very strong, unbelievable woman.
- She was only 28 when she became a widow.
- So she ran that business for quite a while, and then
- the young man decided to get married.
- And there was not enough for two families,
- so he took over the business.
- And my mother was left without any source of income,
- but her family used to send her some.
- She decided at that time to go to Vilna and learn to become
- a corsetiere, and it became very fashionable in Europe to wear
- girdles and [NON-ENGLISH].
- They used to be custom-made.
- And she was away for six months and learned the trade,
- and the family housekeeper was taking care of us.
- Then when she came back, she opened up a business of that,
- and she was able to support us and to have
- a very nice middle-class type of existence.
- But not only that, she was strong in other ways.
- In Europe, in those days anyway, a widow
- was almost like the stigma.
- You were treated differently.
- You were referred to as "poor widow,"
- "the poor widow" because usually a widow was very poor.
- She had no means of--
- but my mother was strong enough to be
- able to earn her own living.
- She was very active in the school board.
- She was active all places where women didn't
- have much of a role, but she insisted
- on being very independent.
- And she raised us that way, to be independent,
- to be self-sufficient, to strive for better.
- And when it came time to let us go,
- when she sent us away, the first time--
- there was all this decisions, should she,
- or shouldn't, and asking for advice, and all that.
- And I don't think there was enough time for her to even--
- as I told you, there was not enough time
- even for us to say goodbye to each other.
- The second time, when we left her on the railroad in Vilna,
- she said to us, never give up, and always
- take care of each other.
- Those are my only advice she--
- take care of each other, and don't give up.
- Those were her words.
- And that's the way--
- that's the way we lived, my sister and I,
- and to tell you the truth, I still do that.
- I don't give up.
- Why do you--
- [INAUDIBLE]
- And this is really kind of one of my last questions.
- But why should people care about this story?
- Why is this important?
- You mean about the Sugihara story or in general?
- Sugihara, the flight.
- Why is it important that people know that you escaped?
- For strangers to know what's the reason.
- That's a tough question.
- I need a drink. -- how philosophical it is,
- but I'll try and tell you how I feel, why it's important.
- OK, I try and tell you why it's important for--
- you wanted to know, before I go on with the answer.
- You want to know why I feel it's important for people
- to know about it.
- In my view and personal experience,
- I feel the reason for people to know mainly about Mr. Sugihara
- and those are personal reasons why I feel.
- If not from Mr. Sugihara being there and doing
- such a noble and selfless thing by giving the visas
- to me and my sister and a number of other people, none of us
- would be here.
- We would be part of the Holocaust.
- I feel the world and future generations
- should know about this man even though while he was alive,
- he did not get the recognition that he deserved.
- He should get it now.
- And people should remember him for what
- a great humanitarian he was.
- That's my personal reason for people to know about it.
- Also, I would like people to know that each individual,
- no matter how--
- well, it's difficult for me to express.
- I would like people to remember this experience.
- And again, I'm speaking from my own personal experiences.
- That what my mother told us when she left us,
- that you're never to give up hope
- and that you should always try and try and never
- give up, no matter what the circumstances are.
- And have the faith in yourself that you're able to--
- that you will survive, that you will achieve
- what you're trying to achieve.
- And that's about as much as I could analyze.
- I wish I could--
- I have it--
- I'm sorry, I don't know if you're rolling.
- You're fine.
- I have it in my brain, but it's not coming out.
- You want to give it another try?
- I'll try.
- Oh, gosh.
- I know I'm very--
- like, I'm very affected right now by the refugee situation
- in Kosovo and all that.
- Because not as dangerous as it is for them,
- I went through sort of a similar situation.
- And I am almost--
- my husband says don't be so angry.
- I am angry at--
- if it's the politicians or whoever
- is guilty of all these atrocities and this.
- So I think maybe the world would see that--
- I'm supposed to look at you.
- If the world in the future would see that or arrive
- at a lesson from these experiences,
- maybe it would prevent situations like this to recur.
- And that's why to do this particular video
- it's not as painful for me as it was the first one that I did.
- But I felt that it was the right thing.
- That maybe I will contribute something to the future
- by telling my story and by people knowing about that.
- And maybe, as they say, it shouldn't happen again.
- Good.
- Seem better?
- Yes.
- So why don't we take a little break.
- Let's get 20 seconds of silence right now.
- Room tone.
- End room tone.
- That's just the air conditioner running.
- We didn't turn the exhaust fan on.
- It's not hard.
- [LAUGHS]
- Can you tell me the significance of this document?
- You were on your sister's passport.
- Why was that?
- The reason my sister and I were on one passport because--
- Sorry.
- OK, we'll start over?
- Yeah.
- I just want to try to remember something.
- Who was it?
- Yeah, I know now.
- My sister and I were on one passport because A,
- it was cheaper.
- You only had to get one passport.
- And she was the older one.
- And her name was first, and that's why.
- And I was her sister.
- And that's how it worked.
- And that's why we were both on one passport.
- And did you get two visas or one visa?
- One visa.
- OK, so?
- We had on the next--
- Have a pause and just say and since we had one passport,
- we had one visa.
- Should I start from the beginning, about the--
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I see.
- And since we had one passport, there was just one visa
- issued to us by Mr. Sugihara.
- However, when we got our American visas,
- we had two separate visas but on the same passport.
- There were two steps.
- Here's a question I forgot to ask you before.
- How did you react, how did you respond
- when the Japanese who had been your friends
- and helped you get to the US invaded the US?
- Or bombed Pearl Harbor?
- Bombed Pearl Harbor, how did I respond?
- I think my feeling at that time--
- Start with "when the Japanese."
- Oh.
- When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
- I think our feeling at that time was like most Americans.
- Because we sort of considered ourselves already--
- although we were not citizens yet,
- we considered ourselves as Americans.
- And we were angry, actually, at the government
- of the Japanese people.
- Just like most of Americans were.
- And Japanese people I remember feeling
- sad by the fact that some of the American, Japanese-Americans
- who were put in camps during the war.
- I remember feeling badly about that.
- What was the significance of these candlesticks?
- Or how did you get them?
- These were my mother's candlesticks
- that she had since she was, when she got married.
- And she actually brought those candlesticks with her.
- No matter where she was, she used
- to light those candlesticks.
- And I guess they were--
- of course they were very meaningful to her.
- And that's one of the few things that she brought along
- with her.
- Did you observe the holidays, the Jewish holidays
- while you were in Vilna and in the Soviet Union?
- Very much.
- We observed all holidays and kept kosher
- while we were in, during the Vilna.
- And as a matter of fact, I remember when we left Vilna,
- it was right after the Rosh Hashanah holidays.
- And we spent Yom Kippur in Moscow.
- And I remember my sister and I fast during that day
- because we tried to observe the holiday.
- We didn't go to temple because the Russians didn't allow it.
- But during the time of Vilna, my mother,
- in that little room that she had,
- she was able to observe all holidays.
- She used to have a little plate.
- What do you call it?
- A heating plate where she used to cook on it.
- And she kept-- she did everything.
- She baked and she cooked did all that.
- And all the holiday dishes and the holiday, it
- was whatever you could get.
- You couldn't always get the ingredients,
- but whatever she could.
- And I remember on Passover, particularly, they
- issued matzah to us.
- As a matter of fact, from the United States.
- Manischewitz, matzah, they issued to us.
- And my mother made Passover.
- And I'll tell you the truth, until this day,
- I keep a kosher home.
- However, I do eat outside of my home.
- I eat in restaurants and all that.
- But I never eat--
- on Passover, I never eat anyplace else except at home.
- Because it brings me back that if my mother was
- able to keep kosher on Passover during that time,
- I could keep one week.
- I could abstain from going out to restaurants and places
- like-- or eating in areas, in homes where it's not kosher.
- And I never even non-kosher food on Passover.
- Great.
- Can you tell me about your relationship
- with Menachem Begin?
- I'm looking for something to use with that picture.
- And what were you celebrating there?
- Do you know?
- I believe it was Hanukkah because I
- could see the first Hanukkah candle there.
- My relationship with Menachem Begin started when--
- our family relationship with Menachem Begin
- started when I was a little girl, maybe around
- 12 years old.
- Menachem Begin, at the time, became the Betar leader
- of all of Poland.
- And my mother was very active in the Zionist movement.
- And she used to travel.
- She went a couple of times to Warsaw
- for the Congress meetings.
- And she met Menachem Begin at that time
- when he became the leader.
- After, over the years, he used to come to our small town
- for fundraising.
- And very often he had dinner at our home
- and he stayed at our home.
- And I was about 10 or 12 years old.
- Then, when the war--
- mother was always in touch and active during the organization
- with him.
- Then during the war when we came to Vilna, Lithuania,
- he escaped the Germans and came to Vilna also.
- And that's when we formed the Betar internet and hostel.
- And the picture that you see that was one of the holidays
- that we were celebrating.
- And during that time, we were very close.
- And then during the time when my sister and I were getting
- ready to leave for the United States,
- we were going to say goodbye to him.
- And just that day, they arrested him.
- So we didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him.
- And of course, he spent--
- they arrested him and they sent him to Siberia.
- Could you tell me during that period of time
- that you were in Vilna that you were close to Menachem Begin?
- I need his name.
- Well, during the time-- oh, I see.
- And I could tell you how close we were.
- During the time that we were in Vilna,
- we were very close when Menachem Begin and his wife, Aliza.
- And not only as members of the same group,
- but real, real personal friends we became.
- Of course, we were younger.
- But my mother was very close with him and his wife--
- with Menachem Begin and his wife, Aliza.
- Could you tell me that you celebrated holidays with him?
- Well, during the time, of course, there were holidays.
- And we-- Shabbat --and, of course, we
- used to spend it together.
- And the picture-- should I mention?
- Yeah, just mention the picture.
- The picture that was taken, I'm almost 100%
- sure that it was on Hanukkah.
- Because I remember there was a celebration.
- And I don't know where the photographer came from,
- but he took the picture of us.
- There were other times, and once when he was very ill
- and my mother helped with cooking certain things for him
- to make and feel better.
- There was a very close relationship
- with the family in Vilna.
- And then-- should I continue about?
- No, that's enough.
- Tell me about this.
- This is a silver dish that belonged
- to my mother and father.
- It was used for lump sugar, hard sugar.
- And then, which was used most of the time in Europe.
- More than loose sugar.
- And that tong next to it you used
- to pick up the sugar out of the box and put it in your cup.
- Any particular significance in that?
- Or why did your mother take that?
- I really don't know.
- Maybe it was one of her first--
- I know we used it all the time.
- Every holidays and Shabbat.
- Maybe it was one of her wedding gifts or something like that.
- But that's one-- because we had a lot of beautiful things
- in our home.
- And why she picked certain things to take.
- Because, of course, she was limited, unable to carry it
- and so were we.
- But I guess it must have had special significance for her.
- How did she get all this stuff out, do you know?
- She had just had it packed in a little valise.
- And the blankets, of course, she gave us.
- And some of these things, they didn't take up much room.
- But over the years I've never gotten
- around asking her how she was able to carry the clock.
- Because that comes in a special case.
- But perseverance.
- [LAUGHS]
- Can you describe the little silver bowl?
- The little silver--
- Tell me-- start with what did your mother take out?
- I should list them?
- Well, start with you don't know why
- she picked what she did, but one thing of significance
- that she picked.
- That I realized why she might have picked that.
- Right.
- OK, all right.
- I don't really know what significance--
- I'll start from the beginning.
- I'm not really sure why mother took some of the things
- that she did take with her.
- But I know, of course, the candlesticks had a very special
- religious meaning to her.
- And this little dish, this little cup
- or dish that I remember we used to use it during Passover
- for charoset, which is used during the Seder.
- And of course it had a special significance
- because it was only used for that occasion.
- And I'm sure that was the reason she
- decided on that little dish.
- This is the plans of your house.
- Why?
- These are the, actually, plans of the property.
- Why she took that with her?
- Maybe to have proof that she owns that.
- That it belonged to her.
- Because those are the official plans of the property.
- In Poland, you were not--
- actually, you did not own the land.
- If you had a home, you never owned the land.
- You only owned the house that the land was on.
- As Jews, we're never allowed to own land.
- The land belonged to the land owners.
- But you were given permission to build your home
- and you were able to live there as long as you lived
- and pay taxes.
- And then that was that.
- So you think your mother took the plans of the house
- to prove that you owned--
- To prove that we owned a house.
- But I know the house doesn't exist anymore.
- Because people have gone back to Volozhin most of it
- was destroyed during the changing of the--
- first the Russians, then Germans.
- And then vice versa.
- There were a lot of fighting going on.
- Could you give me that in a complete sentence?
- "My mother took the plans to prove--"
- I imagine that my mother took the plans for the--
- I can't use "I mentioned."
- I imagine?
- She said "I imagine."
- Oh, I see.
- I think.
- I think that my mother took the plans
- to have proof that she owned that property or the home
- on that property.
- Those are official plans that were
- given by the village or the municipality.
- And I think that was the only reason she took it with her.
- Oh, those blankets.
- Those were her blankets and those
- were her [INAUDIBLE] blankets that she used.
- And then when we were leaving home, when she packed us
- up that night, she gave us those blankets
- because she wanted to make sure that we would be kept warm.
- And we did.
- We surely use them all the time.
- And they're very, very unusual.
- They're very unusual wool.
- They are reversible.
- They're beautiful.
- And they are just like brand new.
- They must be, let's say, they're probably about 85 years old.
- Did you use them all the time?
- Did you use them on the Trans-Siberian Railroad?
- Yes.
- We used them all the time.
- And as a matter of fact, when I came back here,
- we used them when we were here in the United States.
- And then, of course, they're small.
- They're for single beds.
- When my children went to sleep away camp,
- I used to give them to take them with sleep away camp
- to keep them warm.
- It has their names on it from camp.
- [LAUGHS]
- OK, and this?
- This is a silver citation that was given to a group of Betar
- from the national organization for some unusual good deeds
- that the group did.
- And when the war broke out and we were leaving Volozhin
- and they were very anxious to give it to us
- So maybe we could rescue it and take it out from--
- bring it out from Russia or wherever we're going.
- And we tried very hard to do it.
- We did it, my sister and I.
- What would have happened to you if they had
- discovered that you had this?
- Well, I'll tell you one thing, I don't think even--
- I don't think I would be sitting here today.
- Because they were very, very strict.
- Why we did it, right now--
- I mean, but we were young and, I guess,
- very national, very zionistically,
- nationalistically-minded.
- And we wanted to do it, without thinking of the consequences.
- But we knew that if anything, if they would have
- catch it with us, we would have been detained.
- We would have never been allowed to leave Vladivostok.
- We were really scared when they came to body searches.
- They didn't strip us, but they body searched us.
- So could you tell me that one more time a little bit
- more concisely?
- When you were in Vladivostok, you
- were very scared that they would discover this plaque.
- And tell me what it is.
- I can't be sure I could remember--
- People will be looking at it, but they still need to know--
- What it is.
- OK, when we arrived in Vladivostok, we were searched.
- Our baggage was searched and we were bodily searched,
- but not stripped.
- And we had it hidden on our body.
- But we were very, very concerned that it would be discovered.
- At that time, I think that we were probably a little sorry
- that we tried.
- But thank God we were successful in rescuing it.
- The reason we did was it was very
- meaningful to our organization.
- It was sort of, we were very proud of it,
- the fact that we received it.
- And it was meaningful to my sister and myself
- to try to get it out because they trusted us.
- They entrusted us with it.
- So this was a silver emblem which
- was sent to the Betar Volozhin from Warsaw,
- from the headquarters in Warsaw.
- And I believe at that time it was [INAUDIBLE] was different.
- Not Menachem Begin.
- He was the head of the organization.
- And that's why it was so meaningful to us
- to try to get it out, to rescue it.
- And thank God we were successful.
- And I hope to donate it, as I said, to the museum.
- For the charoises, I believe that's bitter herbs, right?
- Yes.
- Should I say bitter herbs charoises?
- It's up to you.
- It's up to you.
- But I'm just curious to know why--
- do you think that had any significance, her choice
- to bring that dish?
- He can come in for a second, yeah.
- OK.
- I'm on the way.
- You're leaving already?
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Yeah, it's 5:00.
- Yeah, so maybe you could tell us about that a little bit.
- Well, this little dish was, I believe, very meaningful
- to my mother because it has a special significance because we
- used it during the Seder for charoises,
- and one of the reasons I feel that she--
- one of the main reasons--
- one of the reasons I think she might have decided
- on taking that is that it was small enough
- for her to either carry it in her pocket
- and put it in her little case.
- And of course, I think it had a very special religious
- and holiday significance for her remembrance,
- and she just wanted to take it along with her.
- Was she very sentimental?
- Very sentimental mother, very sentimental.
- And I think she raised us to be that way, too.
- What's the significance of that bag?
- Well, this is a silver evening bag that she had.
- I don't know if--
- since my father owned a jewelry shop,
- maybe they were selling it, at least they sell it,
- or maybe it was her own.
- But she had it.
- I remember her having it, and I guess
- it also may have had a special sentimental value to her
- because there were not many places that they used
- such dress-up silver evening bags in our little town,
- but maybe mother used it when she was first married or maybe
- during her early years with her husband, with my father.
- I never recall seeing her using it.
- Did she take any of your father's mementos?
- Yes, she has a silver little brush--
- I believe, since he had a mustache,
- it was a mustache brush--
- and a little silver pencil.
- How about this clock?
- That is a gold-plated clock that was made in France.
- It has Russian-- it was made for a family in Russia
- because it has Russian inscription in it,
- and it also has the name of the manufacturer that
- manufactured that clock.
- I also believe that that clock was in the family.
- It was my maybe my grandparents' clock,
- and I know I remember it always in the house.
- We used it.
- It's a seven-day clock, and it has a chime.
- It chimes on every half-hour and the hour,
- and it was used all the time.
- And it comes in a special leather carry case,
- and she was able to carry it.
- How on Earth they let her go through with it,
- I don't know because they used to confiscate a lot of things.
- It obviously had some big sentimental value.
- Very sentimental value, I'm sure.
- And now we're on to pictures.
- What's going on here?
- Can you describe that?
- This picture was taken on August 12, 1940,
- the day that my sister and I received a Sugihara visa.
- We were waiting after we got the visa, and we quiet down.
- And we had a couple of hours before our train
- was leaving for Vilna.
- And there was a little park nearby,
- and we walked around and sat there.
- A photographer came over to us and asked us
- if he could take our picture if we pay him.
- We had a few dollars or whatever the money was there,
- and we said, we don't live in Kovno.
- We live in Vilna.
- He said, oh, I'll send it to you.
- And we never thought he would, but he did.
- He sent us this picture, and it's a very memorable one.
- So are you going to need this on the camera, the picture,
- at all for reference?
- Or are you going to know which picture she's talking about?
- Do you want to get a quick shot of it or anything?
- Oh, no.
- OK, just checking.
- But that's actually not a good-- that's a good idea.
- Hold it in the light.
- That's the one.
- There's one of us us standig up too.
- Let's go to this one.
- That was the one previous.
- OK.
- Tell me who's in the picture and when and where it was taken.
- Yeah, just one sec.
- and that was taken in Vilna.
- Yes.
- This picture was taken in Vilna during the time we were there,
- and these are friends of ours.
- And we were one day in a park--
- I don't remember exactly--
- and we had taken that picture.
- But these are very good friends of my sister and myself,
- but they did not survive.
- Did that happen-- did you have many friends that
- didn't survive in Vilna?
- None of our friends survived in Vilna.
- You were the only ones that got out?
- My sister and I were the only ones that got out.
- That were our friends, some were our friends.
- Well, then how come they didn't get out?
- Well, I guess I should have-- yeah.
- I'm really thinking in terms of a girl friends.
- Yes, well, I'll qualify that.
- Do you want me to qualify that?
- Did you-- were these friends that you made in Vilna?
- Because I want to--
- yes.
- No, one of them is from Volozhin, this one here.
- And the other was--
- The other that we made in Vilna.
- So did many of your friends not make it out of Vilna?
- Were you one of the lucky ones to escape,
- or did most of the people you were associated with escape?
- Most of the people that we associated with did not escape.
- They have no place where to go to or how to go,
- and they were caught by the Germans.
- And they were put into the ghetto,
- and they were just eliminated.
- How did she hear about that?
- How did she-- yeah, how did you hear about--
- how do you know [INAUDIBLE]?
- And were those Betar members?
- Yes, yes.
- How did you hear--
- well, the Vilna Ghetto was destroyed.
- Everyone in the Vilna Ghetto was destroyed.
- Very few survived.
- Very few survived the Vilna Ghetto.
- And they never arrived in Israel.
- They had no-- we never heard of anybody.
- It was just like they disappeared from this Earth.
- These were girls who left their families, who
- tried to rescue themselves, just like we did,
- but we were the lucky ones that had family who were concerned
- and who tried so hard.
- And also, we were lucky that we had the affidavit.
- It was all-- and we were lucky we got this Sugihara visa.
- We were just lucky.
- [WHISPERING]
- OK.
- This picture was taken of the Tarbut Hebrew
- School in Volozhin, and my sister and I--
- I was in kindergarten then, and that was like the graduating
- picture.
- Out of this whole group, I could say
- maybe there are about 10 or a dozen people who survived,
- not my sister and myself, and some people who
- left for Israel in the earlier years,
- like in the 1933 or 1934, who went
- through the illegal immigration to Israel.
- I could say I don't think more than a dozen people are
- alive out of that whole group.
- OK.
- [WHISPERING]
- Do you need it closer--
- No, that's fine.
- --or just for reference?
- This is just for reference.
- This is what we were just talking about, this picture.
- And I skipped this one.
- Yes, I can see that.
- That's me, the one--
- This one?
- Yes, somebody put a checkmark right on my chest,
- and I tried to have it erased, but it wouldn't come off.
- So this really refers to you being in a cafe in Vilna?
- No, it's not a cafe.
- It was at the [? internat, ?] where we are--
- And at that, I believe, the Joint Distribution or one
- of the relief organization were taking pictures,
- I guess to show what they're doing.
- And this was the during one of our meals.
- They came, and they took a picture of that.
- I remember that day.
- It was, I think, breakfast.
- They came, and they took some pictures of the whole place.
- It was taken.
- I don't remember during what time.
- So could you describe, though, not necessarily the--
- when you were in Vilna, you were--
- And any time.
- This picture was taken during a--
- as I recall, it was breakfast time,
- and the relief organizations came.
- The Joint Distribution people came
- to take some pictures to show some of the work--
- to go back to the United States and show the people some
- of the work they were doing and how they helping,
- and that was during the time--
- that was taken during one of our communal meals we used to have.
- I believe this was breakfast time.
- They did a wonderful job.
- Can you just told me that--
- I'm just asking this question.
- How did you survive?
- How did you eat?
- Where did you get food from?
- Well, when we were at the communal
- pla--, the [? internat, ?] that was supplied
- by the relief organizations.
- What was supplied by the--
- The food was supplied by the relief organizations.
- So start "when we were."
- When we were at the [? internat, ?]
- all meals and food were supplied by the relief organizations.
- What they did was they actually--
- they created kitchens right on the premises
- where some of the members used to do their own cooking,
- and each took turns.
- Some of the meals are better than others.
- But there was enough food--
- let's put it that way--
- and didn't go hungry.
- And they did a wonderful job.
- They also even created sewing factories
- where they used to make clothes for the people,
- and they used to give you a dress, a suit, a pair of pants
- because some people were there for a longer time.
- Did you and your sister run out of clothes at one point
- and have to share clothing?
- Yes, we did.
- Actually, the clothes got a little bit raggedy
- and all that.
- But they supplied-- you got a dress
- like once in three months or something like that.
- And on the pictures--
- I have pictures that were taken on the boat.
- When we left for the United States,
- my sister and I both had a dress and a skirt and blouse.
- Those were our clothes each.
- And well, we traveled first class,
- and they used to dress very fancy.
- And my sister and I used to take turns.
- One night we would wear a dress, and the next night we
- would wear a skirt and blouse.
- And those were the clothes that were given to us by the relief
- organizations.
- Actually, what happened was they used
- to have people sewing there.
- You went, and they measured you.
- And they tried on, and it was pretty good.
- It was not hand-me-down.
- It was new.
- Oh, gosh.
- Are you ready?
- Yeah.
- This picture is of two little girls.
- Their name is Shoshanale and Chaja.
- And they were the children of this friend of ours,
- the principal of this school and kindergarten teacher
- who was so close to us and helped us, helped
- my mother make the decision to send us off.
- Those two little girls and their father
- were killed during the Holocaust.
- They were actually killed during one of the--
- when the Germans were fighting the Russians,
- and they were hiding in a cellar of a home.
- And one of the Polish people who knew they were there--
- what do you call it--
- exposed them.
- And as they got out of their hiding place,
- they killed them, the father and the two children.
- Their mother is still alive in Israel.
- She's about 91, 92 years old.
- She was my kindergarten teacher, and we're very close.
- I always see her.
- What was the name of the principal who advised--
- can you tell me the story again?
- His name was Yakov Lifshitz.
- The principal who--
- The principal of the Tarbut--
- I'm sorry.
- The principal of the Tarbut school
- which my sister and I went to, and his name was
- Yakov Lifshitz, and his wife was Fruma Lifshitz.
- She was our kindergarten teacher.
- And they had two little girls, Chaja and Shoshana.
- As a matter of fact, my sister and I used to babysit for them.
- And the father and the little girls
- were killed during the period.
- I believe it was in '43.
- I don't know.
- I had the date written down somewhere.
- Can you tell me again the principal of the school.
- Give me his name and everything, "advised my mother
- to send us to Vilna."
- Well, my mother had a very difficult time
- to make the decision, a very hard time
- making the decision of sending us off to Vilna all by us
- ourselves.
- And she tried to get the advice from this friend of ours who
- was the principal of Tarbut, and he advised her
- that if it was his two daughters,
- he would send them away because he thought maybe
- they would have a chance to get through and be rescued.
- And that had a big influence on my mother,
- and she made up her mind to send us away.
- Is that OK?
- Yep.
- How about this?
- Yes.
- This picture is of--
- Tell me the story behind that photo.
- Oh, about Mrs. [? Jund ?]?
- Yes, just--
- How we met her?
- Tell me that you went first class
- and how you met her and she helped you.
- My sister and I went on the President Coolidge,
- first class.
- And when we got out on the boat, the people there
- asked us some questions, and we didn't understand English.
- And there was a woman sitting nearby,
- and we did mention the fact that we speak Yiddish and Polish.
- And there was a woman sitting there,
- and she happened to overhear the conversation.
- She said that she speaks Yiddish and if she
- could be of some help.
- And of course, they were delighted and so were we,
- and they asked if she would--
- she translated all the questions that they asked of us,
- and then they asked her if she would
- mind sitting with us in the dining room at a table.
- And she said, of course not.
- And they put us at the table, and the picture--
- Mrs. [? Jund ?] was her name.
- She came from San Diego, but she lived in Shanghai.
- And her husband was an American officer,
- and she was coming home for a visit.
- And she was very helpful to us because in the dining room,
- she used to-- it was very elegant,
- and they used to serve crystal, and china, and sterling,
- and about half a dozen forks on one side, and spoons.
- And we didn't know which one to take first,
- and she taught us how to do it.
- She says, always take the one from the left
- or from the right, from the outside.
- And it was a good lesson.
- I always used to teach that to my grandchildren.
- Did you feel guilty that you were living in such luxury
- when you knew everyone back in Vilna--
- You mean on the boat?
- Yeah.
- Oh, yes, it was--
- yes.
- OK, [INAUDIBLE].
- Yes, we did have a lot of guilt feelings, not only on the boat
- but even when we came here, although we had a hard life
- here when we first came.
- It wasn't so easy.
- But we still had that certain element of guilt. Why us?
- And of course, there are no answers to that.
- Actually, I didn't show you that last picture.
- If I may, this is the captain's ball,
- and we were wearing dresses.
- Oh, yes.
- This picture was taken in Volozhin,
- and it was taken in the Polish school.
- See, we went to the Hebrew school up to sixth grade,
- and then there was no more.
- So we had to transfer to the Polish school.
- And that was taken--
- that was during a--
- what do you call it?
- Some sort of physical exercise or something.
- We played ball.
- I could see here I'm holding a ball.
- And out of that group, mostly--
- well, there are a few Christian people here,
- but none of the Jewish kids survived, just my sister and I.
- What was your sister's name?
- Frances, Fejga, which is in Polish,
- Frances here in the United States.
- Would you want a picture of my sister included?
- Well, we'll--
- He said, are we out?
- Oh, no, we're not out.
- No, we're on.
- I was just pausing because I thought we were [INAUDIBLE]..
- No, go ahead.
- Could you tell me--
- just "my sister" and her name, "were very, very close."
- I'll use her English name.
- My sister, Frances, and I were unusually close and devoted
- to each other.
- We had unconditional--
- I was looking for that word--
- love, unconditional devotion.
- It was just-- we were like--
- [INAUDIBLE] two bodies and one soul.
- We were just very, very close.
- How about this picture?
- Do you want to take a drink?
- --that Menachem Begin, when he became prime minister.
- But he stopped smoking right after that.
- But anyway I wanted him to have it.
- You ready?
- Yes, I think.
- Can you tell me that story?
- Did your mother take any personal items
- of your father's?
- Yes, my mother took--
- He had a little mustache brush.
- It was in a silver case.
- Not brush, comb, a little comb.
- And she took that.
- And there was a little pencil, a silver pencil.
- How about the cigarette case?
- And the cigarette case.
- OK, I will start all over.
- No, just start but just start with the cigarette case.
- And a silver cigarette.
- My mother took--
- Should I mention the two other things?
- And should I mention the fact I gave it away?
- Oh, I see.
- My mother took a silver cigarette case
- that belonged to my father.
- And we hid it all the time and in the time
- that Menachem Begin became prime minister
- I gave it to him as a gift because I
- wanted him to have it.
- And that's it.
- So tell me about the cigarette case.
- One of the things that my mother took?
- Ready?
- One of the things that my mother took
- with her that was meaningful to her I
- believe because it was my father's was a cigarette
- case that he-- a silver cigarette case
- that he used and she brought it with her
- and we had it for many, many years.
- And then when Menachem Begin became prime minister
- and he came to the United States the first time
- as the prime minister we were invited
- to the Waldorf Astoria, my husband and I,
- to join the celebration.
- And I presented it to him as a gift
- because I felt that I really wanted
- him to have something very special that
- belonged to the family.
- And I knew how much he meant to my mother and to all of us
- and I wanted him to have it.
- He was very touched.
- Well, he should have been.
- What's this?
- This picture was taken, if I could remember correctly,
- around 1936, 1937.
- It's a bunch of friends of ours from school
- and they're friends of my sister and myself.
- Unfortunately, and none of them survived.
- So any story or occasion that goes with that?
- It was just an outing.
- It was an outing and I took pictures
- in that particular story.
- Is there any story that goes with that?
- Is that in Japan?
- No, this is, let me see, this is a graduating class.
- OK, I think it's probably--
- --of a school year.
- I don't believe it's a graduating class.
- It was the end of a school year and a picture
- was taken of that.
- Did they all survive?
- Nobody survived except my sister and I.
- This is mainly the reason why those pictures
- I picked the last time.
- And I will have you say that.
- Let's try this one.
- Oh yes, that I remember vividly.
- Can you tell the story to go along with that?
- Oh yeah.
- That's my mother.
- You see here is my mother, my sister,
- and I'm hiding right there behind.
- This was a bitter outing which was held on Shavuot.
- It was a holiday and we used to have a certain outing
- and it was photographed.
- There was a very famous poet, Hayim Nahman Bialik who
- is alive and studied in the yeshiva in Valozhyn
- and this particular mountain was named Hayim Nahman Bialik
- Mountain.
- And we always used to go on outings over there
- and that was the occasion when the picture was taken.
- And out of these people, no one survived except my sister,
- myself, and my mother.
- This picture was taken in Japan when my mother was in Japan
- for what my mother is in it and I
- could see there is a girl and a young man
- and a girl who is sitting.
- And they're all dressed up and the girl is holding flowers.
- And I believe it might have been an occasion for a wedding.
- And that's my mother brother's picture with her.
- It comes from Japan.
- It was taken I believe somewhere between around 1941
- when she was there.
- And may I see?
- Most of these people survived because they were in Japan.
- And then they were sent to Shanghai
- so all the people, all those people survived.
- So the value of this is that your mother is in this.
- Right.
- Where she?
- My mother?
- Right in the middle.
- In back of the bride.
- That's good enough.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Lucille Camhi
- Date
-
interview:
1999 June 08
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
7 videocassettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Personal Name
- Camhi, Lucille.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Firstlight Pictures, a film production company contractor for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Lucille Camhi on June 8, 1999 in preparation for the exhibition, "Flight & Rescue." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Exhibitions Division in June, 1999
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:56:58
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn508234
Additional Resources
Transcripts (7)
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Flight and Rescue collection
Contains oral history interviews with twenty Holocaust survivors and witnesses recorded in preparation for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition, "Flight and Rescue," which opened May 3, 2000. The interviewees discuss their experiences of their journey from Lithuania to Shanghai, China, via Japan
Date: 1999 June-1999 October
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