- I was born in Solingen, Germany on February 7, 1912.
- And did you grow up in Solingen?
- I grew up in Solingen. I went to school and to the gymnasium
- until the age of 19, but I was steadily in Solingen.
- When you said you went to the gymnasium,
- did you hope to study beyond the gymnasium?
- Yeah, I mean, that was understood that I would
- go to university afterwards.
- What did you plan to become?
- A lawyer.
- I started to study law.
- You started?
- I started to study law for about three years.
- I was just about to pass the first exam when Hitler came.
- And I could still have passed it at that time,
- but then there was no use for me to do it because it
- wouldn't have meant anything.
- I would have had to go to another country
- and start again from scratch.
- OK.
- Let's just go back for a minute.
- While you were growing up, while you
- were going to school in Solingen,
- did you have many Jewish friends as well as non-Jewish?
- I had no Jewish friends because I went to the gymnasium, which
- had about 550 students.
- And for seven years, there was one Jew.
- There was I. After seven years, we were two.
- The second one was my brother.
- So basically you did not have many Jewish friends.
- I did not have any Jewish friends, which I found out later
- made my outlook on this whole question completely different.
- Because later on when I was in college,
- and they started to rush us for the associations,
- for the students associations, and some
- of those who accepted Jews and non-Jews came to see us,
- I remember one such session in a friend's house
- where we were five boys, and the guy was a very nice fellow,
- and the conversation just died out, as
- if there was a wall in between.
- I couldn't understand it, and the man left.
- And then the other says, now, we are among ourselves again.
- Which is a feeling I absolutely did not know.
- So in that respect, I was different from the others who
- grew up in a surrounding where they had Jewish friends
- of their own age.
- How would you describe--
- actually, in a way you did, but--
- the relationship between yourself and the non-Jews
- in Solingen?
- Well, it was always known that we were Jewish.
- We all had a first name, the Jew Feist.
- But that was it.
- That was like a Mary so-and-so.
- We did not feel any anti-semitism,
- as a matter of fact, so little, that in 1932, when Hitler was--
- no, that was too late.
- In 1930, when Hitler was on the up come,
- and there were some younger members of the school who
- ran after me, and I was walking with friends,
- and called me a Jew, I thought that was so funny
- that I laughed so heartily they never tried it again.
- What type of business was your family in?
- We had a cutlery manufacturing factory.
- A factory?
- Yeah.
- Were your father's customers essentially within the area or--
- No, there were two.
- In one, my father--
- my stepfather was a partner.
- And they had mostly domestic German business.
- And my father's business, who died,
- was a completely export business.
- Now, when you say your father's business,
- did you carry on your father's business?
- No, my mother did for a while, and then she
- married my stepfather, and then the two of them
- kept both companies.
- Were combined.
- Yeah.
- The cutlery business was well known in Solingen.
- Oh, yes.
- It was known as an exemplary city.
- The name Feist was known all over for cutlery,
- of which even today there is still a certain advantage.
- When you say that part of the business was export business,
- who represented your company in various parts?
- A traveling salesman who worked on a salary and commission.
- Most of them were non-Jewish.
- And there were some members of the family,
- in my stepfather's firm, who were cousins
- of mine, who also traveled.
- And there was one who traveled in America
- in my father's business.
- You mentioned that the majority of the employees
- were non-Jewish.
- About how many employees were there approximately?
- Well, the one place had maybe 30,
- and the other one had maybe 100.
- As the oldest boy in a Jewish family,
- did you consider going into the business?
- No, never.
- I had a bad experience at my father's firm as a young kid,
- and I decided I wanted no part of it.
- It was an absolutely emotional thing which, in a way,
- carries over to today.
- Did it have anything to do with the business operation
- or was it personal?
- - Yeah, it's a business-- no, a personal thing.
- They played a dirty trick on me.
- As a kid, you like to do what the grownups did,
- and they played a dirty trick on me, and it hit me the wrong way.
- OK.
- So you decided to go on to study law.
- Law, yeah.
- All right.
- You mentioned that in 1933, you were already completing
- part of your law studies.
- Yes.
- OK, this was beyond the gymnasium.
- This was in the university?
- Yes.
- After I left, after the Abitur, I studied for one semester
- in Geneva, and then I went to Berlin and Munich.
- And that's about--
- To the university.
- To the universities there.
- And then was the time-- it's not three years.
- It's really three semesters.
- That was the time when I was supposed to have my first exam.
- And then I wanted to finish it at the University of Cologne,
- and that didn't materialize.
- Were you in Munich when Hitler came to power?
- No, I was in Berlin.
- Having grown up in a basically assimilated atmosphere--
- Absolutely.
- --how did you feel about the Jewish-non-Jewish relationships
- that you found when you were in the universities at Berlin
- and Munich?
- It bothered me because I couldn't
- understand why the two of them should keep apart.
- And that was basically what it was.
- I found myself all of a sudden with all Jewish friends,
- and there was like a war when you wanted to contact a non-Jew.
- And I couldn't understand it because it
- was a new experience for me.
- I didn't know that from home.
- Did you ever discuss that with the Jewish friends that you met?
- Yes, and their answer was absolutely unsatisfactory,
- and I considered it Jewish chauvinism.
- That's the way it struck me.
- What type of answer?
- What type of rationale?
- Well, the goy, what does he know?
- And let's not get together with them.
- They're bad.
- Whatever.
- It's this kind of justification, which struck me the wrong way.
- Were you aware of how much power Hitler was gaining?
- No.
- No.
- As a matter of fact, when--
- Hitler came to power before my Berlin semester was over.
- And I remember that I called home and told my mother
- whether there was a way I could get a room in Cologne because I
- wanted to continue.
- And then my mother said, do you think you will be able to?
- She saw it.
- I didn't.
- What was the first sign that you had that you would not,
- in fact, be able to continue?
- When it was said that Jews would not
- be allowed to enter colleges anymore
- or law, not study anymore, and that they those who had started
- could finish but could then not practice.
- That was an edict that came out.
- That's when I realized what was going on.
- That must have been quite a disappointment for you.
- It was.
- It was.
- It was.
- It struck me as completely out of left field
- because it absolutely was contrary to any experience
- that I personally had had in Solingen.
- You mentioned that you found this out
- while you were still in Berlin.
- I'm just trying to reconstruct in my mind.
- You went to Munich first before you went to Berlin?
- Yeah.
- OK.
- While you were in Munich, did you ever come across the Stürmer
- or any of Streicher's--
- No, no, no, no.
- I did the same as most people did.
- We thought it was a harebrained way out thing, and it'll pass.
- Don't pay too much attention to it.
- That was the general attitude.
- Did your family feel that way too?
- My mother didn't.
- Did not?
- No, my mother didn't.
- How did she feel?
- She thought that it was very serious
- and that this more or less would develop the way it did.
- Having lived in Solingen, which was, as you mentioned,
- basically very much assimilated, why do you
- think she felt that way?
- First of all, she wasn't born there.
- And besides, she was a very independent spirit
- who had a different opinion about many things.
- Isn't that the truth?
- Yes.
- [LAUGHS] And not kooky.
- Oh, no, no.
- Oh.
- Highly intelligent, rational, and well thought.
- Did the boycott in April 1, '33 affect
- your mother's and stepfather's business at all?
- No, no, no.
- OK.
- But there again, we were in a privileged position
- because while one of the firms had both domestic and foreign
- business, Hitler in the beginning
- put the emphasis on the foreign business.
- Now, here was one firm that did nothing but bring
- in foreign currency, and the other one at least
- for half of it.
- So, I, for instance never had any difficulty
- getting a passport and leaving the country.
- Because it was always on business.
- So in the first years, really until the time that I left,
- in that respect, we were privileged.
- Did you, in fact have, a passport before 1933 already?
- Sure, sure, sure.
- When you found out--
- I just want to go back to when you found out that you couldn't
- become a lawyer.
- When you got this information, how did you cope with this?
- How did you-- what decisions did you--
- I had very understanding parents,
- and they arranged to send me to Italy-- no, first to Geneva.
- So again, that's the second time, to get used--
- to get it out of my system, so to speak.
- So that was more or less three or four months time
- where I did very little.
- And then they had made arrangements
- that I could go to Milano and work as a volunteer,
- as an unpaid learner, so to speak,
- with one of our customers of the Solingen firm.
- In the cutlery business?
- Well, in a general business.
- It was not strictly cutlery.
- It was somebody who basically had knitting and similar things,
- but of course needed scissors and things like that
- and for that reason was a customer of ours.
- So I worked there in Milano for about four or five months,
- and then they still gave me another chance,
- and they made arrangements with a customer we had in Barcelona.
- And I spent at least a year in Barcelona,
- and then I started to travel for the Solingen company
- in Barcelona.
- When you went to Milan and then to Barcelona,
- was that a more appropriate option for you
- than, let's say, getting a job within Germany in Solingen?
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes.
- How so?
- Well, I was young, and for one thing, it was much more fun.
- OK.
- And the other thing was that since I was not
- tied to a paying job, there was not the pressure on it which
- would make me realize how different that life was
- from what I had wanted.
- It gave me a chance to get used to it more gradually.
- I would say it's like when you break a horse.
- You can put the stuff in the mouth and tear,
- and it hurts, or you can do it gradually,
- and the horse gets used to it slowly.
- And this second method is that what my parents used.
- So it was a very gradual--
- So you felt that your parents were trying to divert you
- from the disappointment?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- I mean, at the time I didn't, but looking back,
- I see the system.
- At the time, what did you think?
- At the time, I tried not to think and have
- the best time possible.
- After all, I was young.
- I wanted to have a good time.
- I wasn't different from any youngster
- today once they have a good time.
- When you got word that you couldn't go,
- that you couldn't finish law school or become a lawyer,
- did you think that perhaps after Hitler was no longer in power
- you would return?
- I don't know whether I ever gave that a thought.
- I don't think I did.
- I didn't look that far ahead, really, at the time,
- I had that problem in myself, and I lived
- more or less from day to day.
- What was the general consensus among the other Jewish law
- students, or the discussions?
- To get out of it as fast as possible.
- Out of it meaning?
- Out of Germany, out of what they were doing.
- It was the reaction of somebody who got hurt.
- I was reminded of it when I saw the reaction
- of many Jewish liberals when the Black population said,
- we don't need you anymore.
- We can do it by ourselves.
- I thought the reaction was very similar to when Hitler said,
- you are a sore on the body politic of Germany,
- and we want to get rid of you.
- I very much understood how they felt
- because it was very similar.
- When you had to face that--
- I'll call it a disappointment.
- I mean, you had grown up thinking
- that you were going to become a lawyer,
- and in Germany law was very much a status position.
- Sure, sure.
- Did that leave you in a quandary as
- to what your future plans for yourself would be?
- Well, I drifted, I would say.
- And since the direction was to go into business,
- I had no objection.
- I wasn't making up my mind.
- I drifted.
- I would say that was really my reaction.
- I drifted.
- So you went then to Milan and then to Barcelona.
- And in Barcelona, you became a salesman.
- After a while, I became a salesman,
- and I traveled for the company in Spain
- and North Africa and things like that.
- There was not too much success and not liking it very much
- at all.
- What type of perspective were you
- getting while you were in Spain?
- Was this-- what years was this?
- That was-- the year was 1934.
- I think it was just--
- yeah, I think it was '34.
- It was just before Franco came to power.
- That's what I had in mind.
- Yeah.
- I was there.
- As a matter of fact, I left in June, July of the year.
- And there was quite a bit of uneasiness
- and fighting in the country, but that had been going on in Spain
- for a long time.
- So I said to my friends, hurry up with the revolution.
- I want to come back in September.
- And by that time, I want it nice and quiet.
- And they said, we're going to wait for you.
- And I took the last--
- as it happened, my train was the last train
- towards France out of Spain before Franco really
- started in earnest.
- Were you happy at that time to be out of Germany?
- I was-- at that time, I was neither happy nor unhappy.
- I would say I was drifting.
- I think that is the best description.
- I wasn't satisfied.
- I wasn't dissatisfied.
- I didn't really know.
- What made you go take that train from Spain to France?
- Because I was more or less through--
- this was the period, the transit period.
- And I had finished working for this man in Spain,
- and I was going home to get acquainted with the merchandise
- and go back and sell it.
- And I did go back after everything was quiet
- and Franco was there and tried to sell cutlery,
- and I saw what had happened during--
- During the interim.
- During interim, during the revolution.
- It was terrible.
- When you went-- in other words, you
- were going through France to get back to Germany,
- to get back to Solingen.
- Yeah.
- All right, when you returned to Solingen, and this is 1934,
- did you stay there for--
- Yeah.
- I stayed there for a length of time.
- And this is where this starts what I told you.
- I stayed there for several months
- because the war was lasting.
- And that was the time when the story was those who come back,
- those Jews who come back to Germany
- were put into an indoctrination camp.
- Indoctrination?
- Yeah.
- In other words, not a concentration.
- They will be taught how we think nowadays.
- That was the start.
- And I came back, and therefore, in Germany, whenever
- you went from one place to another,
- you had to register with the police.
- I didn't register.
- But of course, Solingen was not that big,
- and the firm was known, and the people were known.
- Everybody knew I was there.
- What made you decide not to register?
- Because as long as I wasn't registered,
- I didn't start the sequence of the government
- knowing and therefore following step by step what was going--
- what was supposed or alleged to happen to people who came back.
- That was the reason why I didn't do it.
- You were aware of this?
- Yes.
- Everybody, this was one of the stories that went around.
- OK.
- So then after more than a month, we got a call
- from the prefect of the police, the man
- in charge of the police who wanted to talk
- to our chief bookkeeper.
- And when she came to the phone, he
- said, tell your young Mr. Feist he should come to the police
- department and register.
- Nothing is going to happen.
- And that's exactly what I did, and nothing did happen.
- Mhm.
- Did you notice a difference in Solingen between the time you
- left originally, which was, I take it,
- before Hitler came to power in '33--
- Yeah.
- --and when you came back now in 1934?
- Yes and no.
- Yes because the terror had started.
- And people like Jews weren't sure what was going to happen,
- whether the knock, the famous knock on the door
- would come at four o'clock in the morning or what.
- You were careful what you said on the phone
- because you felt the phone was being listened to.
- No because as all the friends that I
- have had went out of their way to show me that I was still
- included in their group, to the extent
- that they picked me up and took me to a public restaurant.
- And at one time, there was a group of Nazis
- from my former school sitting at the next table
- and started to make a remark, and some of my friends
- there that I was sitting with got up and said,
- if you don't shut up, we shut you up.
- And they shut up.
- Did you, in fact, know this group of Nazis?
- Yeah, sure.
- They were the kind of people who had called me Jew, Jew, Jew,
- Jew years before.
- It was that group.
- But--
- Did you ever have a discussion with your friends,
- non-Jewish friends that were with you
- about the political situation?
- Well, they thought more or less what most people thought
- in Germany, that Hitler was good for Germany
- politically, because he had united the country,
- and he got the unemployed off the street and the loafers
- to work, et cetera.
- But they felt that this was a passing
- thing, that that wouldn't last.
- How did they feel about his anti-Jewish--
- That was passing.
- That wouldn't last.
- That was part of the passing phase?
- Yeah.
- OK.
- When you were back in Solingen now, your parents business,
- was that affected at all by 1934?
- No.
- Because the one factory doing nothing but export
- was, of course, privileged.
- I mean, they got all the advantages
- to bring in the foreign currency you can imagine.
- The other company, because they also brought in export
- and had of course only non-Jewish salesmen selling
- in Germany at that time, were doing a good business.
- This lasted, I think, another year or so.
- And then the rumble started through these salesmen saying,
- we can't sell any more.
- Why don't you sell out?
- When these salesmen said that, were they in fact
- told by customers, even though they
- were Gentile salesmen, that they were
- working for a Jewish outfit?
- I don't know, but it is possible.
- And then again, it could also have been a ruse
- because they were the people who bought the place later on.
- You see?
- OK, yeah.
- So--
- One question occurs to me.
- During all this time, did you did
- your parents understand that bringing in foreign currency
- was part of Schacht's policies?
- They understood the reasons?
- That they understood, but it was nice to be privileged.
- Yeah, I was just wondering if they were aware of it.
- That made a very interesting difference.
- My mother was of the opinion she couldn't care less,
- and she wanted to get out, and she had a very drastic way
- of expressing herself, right?
- Right.
- And she would say she would rather
- sit in a crummy little room in Brussels
- than in the big house in Solingen. And my father would
- laugh and say, wait till you sit there,
- and then you won't like it.
- Because he liked the privileged situation more.
- Was he a veteran of the First World War?
- He was also a veteran of the First World War,
- but that he never considered it as any advantage.
- Was it was it ever an advantage to him in terms of--
- No, not to him.
- Not to him.
- I don't think that made any difference.
- How long did you stay in Solingen
- when you were back now in 1934?
- I stayed-- I came here in January '39.
- I stayed until December of 1937.
- In Solingen?
- Yeah.
- OK.
- During this time, from '34 through '37,
- how did you notice that things were getting worse?
- Well, you couldn't really see anything to put your hands on.
- You heard the remarks that somebody
- had been beaten up, that somebody had been taken away.
- But this pressure created a situation of tension and terror
- which made everybody very, very nervous.
- I had a cousin in El Paso, the one who worked
- for one of the factories.
- And he used to come to Solingen once a year.
- And I remember the last time he came, he said, I
- don't know what you want.
- Everything is unchanged.
- You live like you always did.
- And after three weeks, he said, well, I'll tell you something.
- We have been told in El Paso from the Jewish organizations
- when they came to collect money how terrible life here is.
- And when I came here, I found that everything they said
- wasn't so, but now I know that it's even worse because
- of this mental pressure.
- How did that mental pressure make itself felt?
- Because I think that's a very important aspect.
- It was done by innuendo, insinuation, and rumor.
- It was said that the Gestapo would pick up people
- and would come at four o'clock in the morning.
- And the story that went around is
- the knock at the door at four o'clock in the morning,
- and you are never seen again.
- There was the story that so-and-so had disappeared.
- He was picked up by the police.
- We don't know where they put him.
- This one was beaten up.
- This one has been forced by his people,
- by his factory to sell out.
- This one went to a store.
- They told him to get out.
- It was never that you met the person to whom it happened,
- but you were always told that this had happened.
- How was this innuendo disseminated?
- You know what I mean?
- How were you told this?
- Were you told this by--
- You were told it by well-meaning Christian friends.
- You meet someone, and they said, did you
- hear about what happened to so-and-so?
- Who lived maybe in Cologne, and you were in Solingen?
- No, what happened?
- Well-- and there it went.
- If you hear that once or twice, ah, come on.
- But if you hear it day in and day out for years and years,
- the accumulation is a terrible pressure.
- Did you begin to see signs, "Juden unerwünscht"
- or "Juden verboten"?
- Yes, we saw that too, and we even--
- my mother once ran into a thing that a very good acquaintance,
- let's call it, of hers, where the common interest between them
- was interest in music and singing, met her in the street
- and told her she didn't want to talk to my mother
- anymore because she was Jewish.
- And my mother said, all right.
- How do you know?
- I can smell it.
- Things like that happened too.
- And if that is said to you by people you know, that hurts.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Was anybody in fact prevented from going into stores
- or going to concerts?
- You mentioned that your mother was interested in music.
- I'm not aware of it.
- But it was said.
- It was one of the things that was said, not of course,
- from Solingen. Then it's said in the music hall.
- You know what happened.
- Were you, in fact, restricted in your movements in any way?
- That is just my story.
- I was never.
- My personal experience is that I was never,
- and as I said about the friends that I went to school with who
- more or less protected me, that is
- my total experience of the time, and not only in Solingen.
- They continued to protect you up to 1937?
- Yeah, and the family to up too, up to the last minute,
- in business and in private.
- Now, in business, you were supposed
- to turn over any foreign currency to the Reichsbank.
- Right.
- Now, of course, you could bill your merchandise
- at a certain price and sell it at a higher price
- and then leave some money in a country.
- It was a standard thing that, as a Jew,
- you were under suspicion of doing this.
- We were never investigated, but the president
- of the local Reichsbank told us that he had been approached
- that this was going on, and he, on his own initiative,
- had said not with those people.
- They don't do those things, and that
- had stopped the investigation.
- Now, this is an unusual thing.
- Did the business, in fact, try to get some money
- into various countries through the--
- Of course.
- But I'm talking about the atmosphere--
- Atmosphere in Solingen. You mentioned that your family was
- well aware of this privileged situation
- of bringing in foreign currency into Germany.
- And being allowed to travel freely.
- Yeah.
- Did you notice any difference between the treatment
- of your family and the treatment of other Jewish families
- in Solingen?
- Yes, they couldn't leave.
- They wouldn't get a passport.
- But other than-- I mean, other than not being able
- to freely move about?
- No, there was no--
- there was no-- how should I say--
- persecution going on at all.
- By 1937, you mentioned you left.
- In 1937.
- In 1937, it was quite clear, A, that we could not possibly
- keep the factories, that we would have to sell at any price
- that the party would allow the buyers to pay,
- and that there was no future for somebody of my age.
- Just before you go on, when you say it became clear
- that you had to sell, what made that clear,
- considering that you were bringing in foreign currency
- and doing a pretty good business?
- Because by that time, the rules changed,
- and it was said that Jewish places would be disadvantaged,
- would have disadvantages, and that laws were being passed.
- Now, in a situation like that, you don't have to pass a law.
- The word that it will be makes people suspicious
- and you suffer.
- You mentioned before that the salesmen were coming back
- saying that they were not--
- that their business was falling off.
- Was this a continuous thing through 1937?
- It was a continuous thing that they said it.
- And to prove it to this day, we haven't been able to.
- In other words, the business volume was constant.
- Yes, the business volume was constant because business
- in Germany as such got better.
- When Hitler came to power, there was still a depression.
- And through all his economic actions, this public works
- program and all this, the economic situation
- within Germany got better.
- So while the business didn't fall off,
- you could say it didn't increase to the extent
- that it should have to the betterment of the situation.
- Besides, we had large store customers like Woolworths
- in Germany and so on.
- And of course, it was said they wouldn't buy from us anymore.
- It was said, but in fact were they buying?
- Yes, of course.
- But between this and the general situation and the salesmen
- saying we can't stay here, you have to sell out,
- and the party putting pressure on,
- you are in a situation where you then think, well, maybe I better
- leave.
- So in 1937, it was quite obvious that the factories would be sold
- and that there was no future for somebody like me.
- And at that point, I reaped the advantage
- of what the prefect of police had told before,
- namely that I was registered.
- Because you couldn't leave Germany
- without papers saying that it was all right
- for you to leave the country.
- And that you couldn't get if you weren't registered.
- Now, you made up your mind that you were going to leave,
- but did you have any destination?
- No, my destination was to travel around,
- since I was still working for the firm, which was still
- in existence, as a salesman, which was also
- the easiest way to get out.
- And then I would then try to get permission to settle in England.
- Now, this is where the most striking things came into play.
- I had to leave, which meant that I had to get permission
- from the police department to leave
- and a certification that everything was in order,
- all taxes had been paid, et cetera, et cetera.
- Let me just interrupt for a minute.
- When you say permission to leave,
- was this a different leaving than when
- you had gone to Milan or Barcelona
- as far as the police headquarters were concerned?
- Yeah.
- It was an emigration.
- It was leaving to emigrate.
- Yes.
- OK.
- They were aware of that.
- They were aware of that.
- They were supposed to be aware of it.
- So when I came to the police department
- to say I am now leaving for good, the guy closed the door
- and said, Mr. Feist, I want to tell you something.
- What Hitler is doing to the Jews is a crime.
- The Jews are the chosen people of God,
- and we shall be punished one day for what
- we are doing to the Jews today.
- And if that day comes, I hope you will find it
- in your heart to forgive us.
- And then he gave me my papers, and I went out.
- This was the head of the police department?
- That wasn't the head of the police.
- That was--
- An officer.
- An officer.
- Which is an unusual thing.
- When you decided to leave, was there
- ever any discussion within your family of everybody's leaving?
- By that time, my parents had made arrangements
- to get a permit to settle in Belgium.
- And they were registered, and they had permission from Belgium
- to settle there.
- What made them decide on Belgium?
- It was the nearest to Germany.
- Did they have any business contacts?
- No, no, no.
- That was just because of this.
- And there again things happened.
- One of the friends we had there took the car
- and drove it to Belgium, and that's
- why my parents had a car in Belgium.
- And they left before everything was settled,
- and the police came to the house and saw what was in the house
- and said, these people didn't leave for good.
- They left everything here.
- They are on one of their usual trips,
- which again was a protection by the people.
- And then from the outside, my parents
- legitimized the emigration, which
- had the effect that we were allowed to keep the furniture.
- When you say "allowed to keep the furniture,"
- it was all still within the house.
- Yeah.
- Now, you could only leave with 10 reichsmark.
- I mean--
- Oh, no.
- We could leave with more money because we
- were the privileged people.
- We got permission to take so much money out
- for living purposes because we were supposed
- to bring in foreign currency.
- We were traveling.
- We never had trouble as far as finances.
- I see.
- So in other words, when you left,
- even when your parents left, it was still not
- considered a final emigration.
- It was just--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And again-- and again, the local people protected us.
- Even the police people who came to the house, at that house
- there was a little bit missing, but the son left.
- So then from the outside, we said we want to legitimate.
- My parents said we want to legitimize it.
- We want to pay what we have to pay,
- and we want to straighten it out.
- They said, OK, it's fine.
- You've done it.
- Now you can pack up.
- And we had somebody pack up the stuff.
- And my parents got it still before the war broke out
- into Belgium.
- They went to Brussels?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Now, you mentioned that you left with the intention
- of going to England.
- Yeah.
- How did you proceed to leave?
- Well, I mean, the leaving was all right
- because I left legitimately.
- I said I've emigrated, and that was fine.
- But England didn't give me a permit.
- Permit to enter or permit to work?
- To stay to stay there for good.
- So I had to leave.
- And then I started quite a trip.
- Then I went to Belgium, and there I couldn't stay.
- And I had to travel, so I had to--
- on business, I had to go to Sweden and Norway.
- When I left Sweden to go to Norway,
- the border patrol said that my German passport wasn't
- good enough anymore for any length of time,
- that I would have to report to the police in Oslo,
- and would have to leave the country
- or they would deport me to Germany.
- At that time, my passport was good for maybe two
- weeks before it expired.
- This was still 1937?
- That was 1937.
- So when I came to Oslo, I went to the police,
- and they told me this.
- So then I went to the German consul,
- and the German consul was what we called from the old stock.
- He was a professional diplomat.
- And so I just told him I'm Jewish,
- because he couldn't see it from my passport.
- It was still a passport that didn't have the J in it.
- Right.
- And this is my story.
- Well, he said, if you are willing to pay for it,
- I will send a telegram to the Gestapo
- in Berlin to contact the Gestapo in Solingen
- to find out whether you can have a new passport.
- So I did this, but the answer didn't come by the time
- that the police in Oslo said I had to leave.
- So before I went to the police, I went to the German consul
- and told him.
- He said, could I see your passport a minute?
- So I gave him my passport.
- He takes the passport, puts it in his drawer, locks the drawer,
- and said, now you go to the Oslo police.
- And then I had an idea.
- And I said to him, well, if you get an answer from the Gestapo--
- oh, yeah.
- Then you get your passport.
- So now I went to the Oslo police because now I
- understood what he did.
- How can you send a man to Germany
- and expect him to be accepted if you
- can't prove that he is German?
- And what is the proof that he is German?
- Passport.
- So what did this man do again?
- So I came to the Oslo police, and they said your passport,
- please?
- I said, I don't have it.
- Where is it?
- Well, the German consul has it.
- They didn't know what to do.
- They told me to come back within two days.
- But within two days, I had a new passport.
- It was OK?
- Within two days, he got the word.
- And so-- but this was a Jewish passport which
- wasn't good for very long.
- This new passport had the J?
- Yeah.
- And it wasn't good for very long.
- And I didn't know whether with that passport
- I could get into any other country.
- Now, in the meantime, my parents had migrated to Belgium.
- They were living in Belgium.
- There the consul was nice enough to give me back
- the old passport, and there was no more room in it.
- It was from top to bottom full of visas and things.
- So I went to the hotel, and the head of the hotel
- put a brown heavy paper into the passport,
- and with that I went to the Belgian authority consulate
- and said, I want a transit visa through Belgium,
- because I want to go to Luxembourg, which
- I could prove because I had been in Luxembourg before I
- had come to Oslo.
- Excuse me.
- When you say you could prove this,
- did they ever ask you whether you had customers
- in these various countries?
- No, but they could see that I had been there.
- Yeah.
- But when I mean, when you came to Norway.
- Or when you came--
- No, no, no.
- They didn't.
- This was all legitimate salesman type business.
- So the Belgian consul gave me that visa,
- pasted on that extra piece of paper in the old passport,
- which didn't have the J. And it still had about five or six days
- to go.
- And then I decided to take a tramp
- ship that left Oslo for Antwerp, where
- I was about the only passenger.
- And as we arrived in Antwerp, I left the boat.
- There was neither a custom nor passport control.
- I just walked off the pier, and I was in Belgium.
- This is how I got into Belgium.
- And I stayed in Belgium for about six months
- until I got my visa to go to America.
- You stayed in Belgium.
- At this time, you met your parents.
- Yes, but I personally stayed underground
- because I was illegally in Belgium.
- I had no permit for Belgium.
- When you say you stayed underground, who arranged that?
- Well, that was a complicated thing.
- In the meantime, my brother also had gotten permission
- to stay in Belgium as a student, and he was
- registered in a boarding house.
- Now, when my parents first came to Belgium,
- before they had their own apartment,
- they had also stayed at that boarding house.
- So there were two Feists registered.
- Now, my parents had taken the apartment.
- My brother was still living there.
- So I moved into that boarding house.
- And sure enough, the police was advised by I-don't-know-who that
- I was there.
- So they used to come at lunchtime.
- When we were eating lunch, they wanted
- to see Mr. Feist, whereupon my brother went out.
- And then they said, no, no, not you.
- The other Mr. Feist.
- And then he would say, oh, he is out.
- But if you come back tonight, he'll be there.
- And in the evening, my father was there.
- Sorry.
- Now, during all this time, in order
- to do all this traveling and everything,
- you had to have access to money.
- Yeah, well, in the meantime--
- Were you still able to have access to the money in Germany?
- I had access to it because I also got my-- after I emigrated,
- because I was working for that firm at that time,
- the Germans even allowed transfer of my salary.
- I had a drawing account with my firm, and I could get this.
- While you were still on the payroll there?
- That stopped around the time that I came to Belgium.
- But in the meantime, my parents were legitimately in Belgium,
- and they had money in Belgium.
- All right.
- Now, you were in Belgium still when Kristallnacht came about
- in Germany?
- Yeah.
- Did the Kristallnacht change anything as far
- as this kind of arrangement with your business?
- By the time the Kristallnacht came,
- I don't know whether that had anything to do with it.
- I know that the money stopped after my parents left.
- And then, of course, they said, this is not your business,
- really, anymore.
- Why pay?
- You see, they stopped payment.
- It didn't really have to do with the Kristallnacht.
- OK.
- Also, the people we had to do it in their attitude
- really didn't change.
- What was the attitude of these?
- You mentioned these salesmen were the ones that
- took over the business.
- Yeah.
- What was their attitude during the time that you were drawing
- the salary and during the time that your parents were
- in Belgium conducting--
- You remember I said at the beginning there were two firms.
- The salesmen were all--
- the salesmen who worked within Germany
- were all was the other firm.
- They had nothing to do with me.
- The salesmen who worked for my father's firm
- were all stationed in foreign countries,
- like in Spain and Italy and so on,
- and they traveled from there.
- Because they traveled in those countries only.
- Right.
- So there was, as far as the salesmen were concerned
- and I, there was no--
- I meant the salesmen who took over the business.
- They put more pressure on to get it settled
- and to get it cheaper.
- But basically they had to do what the party told
- them to do, even if they wanted to pay us more,
- which I don't know whether they would have or not.
- They couldn't have because the party told them,
- you can't pay more than that.
- In terms of price, was there any--
- The price was too low, and this was recognized afterwards
- the usual way after the war--
- an adjustment was made.
- You mean during the Wiedergutmachung.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- But I mean at the time, was there
- any relationship at all between the price you got
- and the value of the business?
- No, no, no.
- That was-- the salesmen undervalued it legitimately.
- You always do when you buy.
- So he who buys says it's worth less.
- He who sells says it's worth more.
- But on top of everything else, the party then put pressure on.
- You cannot pay more than.
- Now, when all four of you were in Belgium,
- did you intend to stay in Belgium?
- No, I immediately applied for a visa to the United States.
- Under the American-- under the German quota.
- Under the quota because I had a cousin in El Paso who
- could give me an affidavit.
- So--
- You mentioned this cousin before.
- He had worked for the firm.
- When did he leave Germany?
- '28, '29.
- Oh, OK.
- So he was established in the United States.
- He was established.
- He was an American citizen.
- OK, so you applied for a visa to the United States.
- To the United States.
- And then, of course, I had to wait those six months.
- I applied from Oslo, actually, and then
- had this transfer to Belgium.
- And there I had to stay for about six months
- until the visa came through.
- Did your parents have intentions of staying in Belgium?
- Yeah, basically, yes.
- They wanted to stay.
- How did this-- how did this-- you then went to the United
- States, I take it.
- Yeah.
- Now, how did things progress from there
- in terms of both you, yourself, and your parents and brother?
- Well, I went to the United States.
- And then two or three months later,
- my mother brought my brother over.
- Now, that sounds funny, and I'll explain it to you.
- I said at that time I had a stepfather.
- And my brother was still a minor.
- That made my mother head of the family.
- My mother was born in London, and this is a different story.
- She had been able to prove that she was English.
- She had dual nationality-- citizenship.
- Therefore, my brother, being a minor,
- could enter America under the English quota.
- And that's why my mother brought him over.
- She intended to go back.
- How about your mother?
- Could she enter America?
- Oh, yeah.
- Under the English quota too.
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes.
- But she intended to go back.
- She intended to go back to Belgium and to her husband.
- And within that period, the Germans marched.
- So my mother was here.
- No, that is not right.
- She did go back, and then the Germans marched.
- And then my parents were split up.
- Because the Belgians recognized my mother as English, but
- my father as German.
- So he was interned, and he was brought to Gurs.
- My mother was brought on an English cruiser to England
- and came then from England to America.
- OK.
- Now, your mother brought your brother.
- When did your mother bring your brother to El Paso?
- Did he come?
- No, no, no.
- To New York.
- That was the war broke out in '39, didn't it?
- September '39.
- Yeah, well, that's when she brought him.
- No, a little before then.
- She brought him in the summer of '39.
- Now, at that time--
- Well, now it gets a little hazy.
- Where was I?
- You still in El Paso?
- No, no.
- I never was in El Paso.
- I always stayed in New York.
- I see.
- OK.
- And then-- and I don't know exactly anymore at what time--
- I went to Dallas.
- OK.
- Let me backtrack just for a minute.
- When you came here, you had the visas, the sponsor from El Paso.
- Yeah.
- But when you came here, you came directly to New York.
- Yeah.
- OK.
- Your brother also came to New York.
- We'll come back to that in a minute.
- Your mother went back to Belgium.
- And from there, when the Nazis came in May 1940,
- they were split up.
- When the Nazis invaded Belgium, she was still
- able to go to England?
- Oh, yes.
- On an English cruise.
- Yeah, but after the invasion.
- Sure.
- OK.
- Did she know your father was interned?
- Your stepfather was interned in Gurs?
- Yes, of course.
- Yes, OK.
- Now, she then was in London, and both of you were in New York.
- And then she came to New York.
- Then she came to New York.
- What happened at that point to your stepfather?
- He was brought to Gurs in France,
- into the internment camp.
- And then my mother, again with the help
- of this cousin in El Paso, and through connection
- of his wife's family with Mexico,
- they made my father a fighter for Polish liberty.
- Do you know how they did that?
- Yeah.
- How did they--
- So he got a document.
- And with this document, he had the right to settle in Mexico.
- That was one of those freak laws that existed.
- And on the strength of this permit to go to Mexico,
- he got permission to travel through the United States
- to Mexico.
- So then he had to get permission to go through from France,
- through Spain to Portugal.
- Because I also had a cousin in Portugal.
- The Portuguese cousin saw to it that he got permission
- to come to Portugal.
- And with this permission, the Spaniards
- gave him permission to go through Spain to Portugal.
- And this is how he got out.
- How did they-- just a question that occurs to me.
- How did they think that being a Polish--
- you said a Polish--
- That's a law in Mexico.
- Oh, OK.
- That was a law in Mexico which these people in Mexico
- knew that those who had fought for the freedom of Poland--
- that was in 1919--
- the law said that all these, at all times,
- could settle in Mexico.
- So he got a big document-- we must still
- have it somewhere-- that he was a fighter
- for the freedom of Poland.
- Did they have to prove?
- I mean, he had a German passport.
- He didn't have to prove anything.
- OK.
- The proof was there.
- The proof was there.
- OK, in money.
- OK.
- Now, when you came to the United States, you were the first.
- Yeah.
- Who met you at the boat?
- Another cousin of mine, who had migrated earlier
- and who was a little bit established here.
- And he took me over.
- And his brother, also a cousin, had a good job
- in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and I
- stayed with him for several weeks
- until I got settled in New York and got a job as a salesman
- and was a complete flop.
- How did you go about getting the job?
- By word of mouth.
- Everybody knew somebody, and finally they
- found some emigrant person who was willing to give me a chance.
- Wait just a second.
- --go about getting that first job?
- Well, that came through the recommendations
- of people who-- of refugees who knew
- and who knew refugees who had a little job
- or had established something.
- And finally, somebody who sold household accessories wholesale
- gave me a job to sell it in the Lower East
- Side, for which I'm totally unprepared and unsuited.
- That must have been quite an experience to go as a salesman.
- You had been a salesman before, but to go as a salesman
- to the Lower East Side.
- Yeah.
- How did you-- how did that strike you?
- How did that--
- Terrible.
- In what way?
- I was terribly inhibited.
- I didn't know how to approach those people.
- They looked at me like a freak, a Yiddishe boy
- doesn't talk Yiddish?
- And these things-- or they said, don't you
- want to join the business?
- I have a daughter and this kind of thing.
- And the whole thing struck me like--
- I all of a sudden had landed on the moon.
- And I never adjusted to it.
- I'm just completely unsuited for this kind of business.
- Just out of curiosity, you had sold
- in various countries in Europe, yet you say,
- when you had this experience among the Yiddish-speaking
- Jewish community in New York, it was like landing on the moon.
- So it was very different.
- The other things-- my approach was different.
- I was a German, basically, right, the way I felt.
- Now, I was in Spain.
- So I expected it to be completely different.
- My success in selling in Europe was no better than it was here,
- as far as that goes.
- I'm just not suited for this kind of business.
- But here, now, I was in America.
- And I was surrounded for--
- or I had been surrounded for as long
- as I had been here, more or less, by my own people.
- So I expected America to be that way.
- Now, all of a sudden, it was the Lower East Side.
- When you come from a--
- well, when-- at that time, when you came from a country
- in Europe, you were used to a certain uniformity of action
- in each country.
- It may have been different in France than it was in Germany,
- but then in France there was a certain uniformity.
- Like in Spain, if you say to somebody, oh,
- is that beautiful, he would offer it to you three times.
- And you were not supposed to accept it.
- I mean, just to say something.
- Now, here, I am in America.
- And if I'm in Washington Heights, I find one lifestyle.
- If I'm on the Lower East Side, I find another lifestyle.
- And I'm not even-- not in a different country,
- I'm even in the same city.
- It's something you have to learn.
- Good point.
- You mentioned that you were in Washington Heights.
- Were you-- did you stay within the Washington Heights group?
- Yes.
- What kind of understanding, what kind of-- maybe the word
- is reaction did you get when you went to the Lower East Side?
- Did they understand that you-- where you were from,
- why you were from there?
- Yeah, but they didn't quite believe it.
- A Yiddishe boy who doesn't speak Yiddish?
- They couldn't understand this.
- Were you made at all-- not necessarily
- on the Lower East Side, but were you made at all
- to feel like a refugee?
- Yeah.
- That happened too.
- But that I understood.
- After all, I was a poor shnooks.
- And I had seen other poor shnooks.
- I knew how I had handled the poor shnooks who
- had come to me in Germany.
- That I could understand and adjust to
- because I could say to myself, this
- is something I can change--
- if not today, then one day.
- Did you speak English?
- Yeah.
- Had you spoken English before you--
- Yes.
- --came?
- Yeah.
- So that wasn't the big problem.
- The language was not a big problem.
- Excuse me.
- You mentioned that your mother came over.
- I take it, then, she came shortly after May 1940?
- Well, she came after--
- shortly after the war had broken out.
- I don't know whether it was still in '39 or in '40.
- I'm not sure.
- You meant in the--
- May '40 was the invasion of Belgium.
- That's when.
- May-- oh, yeah, then she came in '40.
- Yeah, that's right.
- OK.
- Did she join you in Washington Heights?
- No.
- No.
- Where did she go?
- She lived in a hotel in Midtown.
- Oh, in Midtown, OK.
- I was thinking.
- Basically, in those early years, did you--
- what did you do for recreation?
- What did I do for recreation?
- There is something missing.
- OK.
- And because I wasn't successful, I wanted to leave.
- And at the time, the Jewish organization
- were very glad to see you leave New York.
- So I went--
- I just wanted to-- when you said the Jewish organizations,
- did you go to the Jewish organization?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Which?
- I don't know whether it was HIAS or something?
- Self-Help?
- Joint?
- Yeah, so I-- no, not Self-Help.
- Joint.
- It was either HIAS or the Joint.
- So I told them that I would want to go to Dallas.
- So the question was why do you want to go to Dallas?
- And my answer was because I have a cousin in El Paso.
- But he has told me that it is very, very hard
- to find a job that pays in El Paso
- because they use the Mexicans that come over from Mexico.
- So the wage scale is very, very low.
- But I want to be close to him.
- So I want to go to Dallas.
- And this is how I came to Dallas.
- And in Dallas, I got a job with a freight--
- for a freight company, a trucking company.
- And sitting in the office, I was what they call a rate clerk.
- I figured out what the charges were,
- which was much more to my liking because it's
- very close to the thinking you do
- as a lawyer, this kind of business.
- So this is where I was when my mother came to New York.
- OK.
- Now, when you went to Dallas, one--
- who paid for the trip to go to Dallas?
- Was that--
- I don't remember anymore whether that was the organization.
- I probably did it myself because I had the money.
- And I went by bus.
- Of course, I had a recommendation--
- two people in Dallas who were interested.
- Who gave you the recommendation?
- The organizations here.
- And they also notified those people.
- So the first thing I knew, I was invited at the house
- of Mr. Marcus of Neiman Marcus.
- That was my start in Dallas.
- That was the beginning.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- What-- coming to Dallas, you mentioned how the difference
- you found in New York between Washington Heights community
- and the Lower East Side.
- How did you find Dallas, having come here
- to this country only a year before or something like that?
- That was completely different.
- That was like I was again in a different country.
- In what--
- The whole outlook on life, the tempo of living, the approach--
- everything, for one thing, was much more relaxed
- and much slower.
- It also could take longer.
- The way people approached you reminded me
- of the difference between the approach of people
- in Berlin and in Bavaria, in Munich.
- It was very similar.
- The rather gruff way, comparatively speaking,
- of New York and the very polite way they do it in Texas
- was something that reminded me of this difference of north
- and south and in Germany.
- So it was--
- Which one being the more polite in Germany?
- South.
- OK.
- And so I noticed this.
- And I knew how to take it because it didn't
- mean that because they were friendly,
- they were any more honest or favorably-inclined towards you.
- How were you treated in Dallas?
- In Dallas, all in all, I was treated well.
- And again, I mean, I joined the refugee group.
- There was quite a--
- There was a--
- There was quite a considerable refugee group there.
- And I lived in the house of one of them--
- not the house, the apartment, of course.
- This was all arranged by the organization?
- No, that I found myself then.
- And I found a family who rented a room.
- And I rented the room.
- How did the general population of Dallas--
- I asked before about the feelings of being a refugee.
- Did that come about?
- The-- I don't know about the general population
- because down there, we refugees were completely
- enveloped by the Jewish community of Dallas.
- And they were most helpful and friendly.
- Did they have the same kind of reaction that-- how could
- you be a Jewish boy and not speak Yiddish?
- No, no, no, not at all.
- There, I found another thing, which
- again struck me as impossible.
- At that time, up here, you still had
- quite a few places who would not--
- were not necessarily in New York,
- but here in this whole neighborhood who would not
- accept Jews in hotels, and clubs, and so on.
- And those people just wouldn't believe it
- because it didn't exist in Texas at that time.
- How did the color problem strike you when you came to Texas?
- That's an interesting thing too because I didn't approve of it
- and accepted it very easily.
- That's a very interesting observation of myself
- that I found.
- Wasn't hard at all to comply.
- It's also a very interesting observation
- about some of the things that went on
- in Germany, in terms of how people can get caught up
- in something.
- Did you draw-- at the time, were you aware of any parallel?
- No.
- That this is how people just follow
- the trend, which, of course, happened in Germany, sure.
- Was-- when you first saw it, the signs, I take it,
- that existed-- no Black--
- I guess, at that time, no colored--
- No, no, for Blacks only.
- --or for Blacks only, did your mind
- at all flash back to Germany?
- Yes, it did.
- And I didn't like it.
- But I-- as you said, I just didn't
- find it very hard to conform.
- It was just part of a new life.
- And you got to fit in.
- I didn't so much compare it with Europe
- because I had known from my travels
- that the first thing you have to do when you come
- to a strange country is to learn to conform and understand
- how they do things or why they do things.
- And I had always made a very conscious effort
- not to fall into that trap to say, oh, this is terrible.
- We do it this way.
- [GERMAN]
- This I had learned long ago.
- And the rationalization was if hundreds of millions of people
- do a certain thing, it can't be all wrong
- because they can't all be idiots.
- So I concentrated more on doing what people did
- and trying to understand why they did it
- than that I tried to object against parts
- that were really wrong.
- That came much later.
- My original problem was to fit in.
- How did you go about fitting in, adjusting
- to life down in Dallas?
- What adjustments did you have to make is what I'm really--
- Well, the adjustments were climatic because I
- suffer a great deal from heat.
- They were in letting go of the formal kind of life
- to which I was used.
- I remember when I was invited at the house of Mr. Marcus,
- everybody took off his jacket.
- I kept mine on.
- And he grinned and said, that will change very soon.
- When you get rid of-- when you get used to 100 degrees.
- Yeah.
- Then you take off your jacket too,
- the more relaxed way of doing it,
- the different way of talking, that certain things do not mean
- anything, but are only a way of politeness--
- you have to learn all this, that you can always talk about
- the weather, which is something that didn't exist in Germany
- and--
- to start a conversation, which made life much easier.
- And the approach to people--
- you have to observe and learn it.
- You mentioned that you still stayed within the refugee
- community in Dallas but that you were accepted
- by the Jewish community.
- Yeah
- You were of a dating age, I guess.
- Oh, yes, I got plenty of dates.
- But there, of course, I was no better than other people.
- In a way, I didn't want to get married at that time.
- As Eva can tell you, I didn't much later either.
- And so the easiest way was to say,
- I don't like American girls because they were not Jewish--
- German Jewish girls.
- There were only American girls.
- How did you, in fact, really feel about the American girls?
- I-- that was, for me, the hardest thing to adjust to.
- Because it started right from the beginning,
- a girl called me up and said, would you take me to a party?
- Now, this isn't something I wasn't used to, well,
- just to say one thing.
- And the whole-- that took a long time for me.
- What differences did you notice between the German girl--
- German Jewish girls and the American girls?
- The German-- the kind of aggressiveness
- of the American girl, the freedom, the drinking, and all
- this is something that I wasn't used to from the German girl,
- the German Jewish girl, as a German girl would always
- give the impression to the man that he had the initiative.
- I had to get used to it, that that isn't necessarily so
- in life.
- In America.
- In America, you see.
- Was there also-- did you also find
- it difficult in terms of the bridge between what
- your life had been like before as compared to their lives?
- No, no, no, not difficult because look,
- I had traveled a lot.
- And I knew, there's no use thinking about that.
- You concentrate on fitting in.
- You mentioned the type of aggressiveness.
- Did you also notice that in terms of business in America?
- No.
- Is there a difference between--
- No.
- The business approach was completely different.
- In Europe, in most countries, there
- is an enormous difficulty in getting
- to see the man to whom you want to sell,
- the buyer, or the owner.
- To get an appointment is almost impossible.
- The American way of doing business
- is more or less based on the theory, I may not like the guy,
- I may not like his merchandise, but what
- do I know until I see it?
- You can always see a man.
- I mean, it's a generalization, of course.
- And he will look at you, and he will say, it's beautiful,
- and you know he won't buy, or he will say, it's terrible,
- and you have a chance that he will buy.
- Did that difference, saying, it's beautiful
- and he will not buy or it's terrible and he might buy,
- did that exist in Germany?
- Not to that extent, that you had to learn too, you see.
- Then there is a basic--
- there, another thing I had to get used to
- was a basic difference in at least commodity trading
- in America and in Europe.
- The American manufacturer will buy if and when
- he needs merchandise, irrespective of price.
- And if the whole trade all at a certain
- needs a certain commodity and goes out, they buy it
- and they don't care what it costs,
- even though, of course, they force the price up.
- Now, they all have the merchandise.
- And the price goes down.
- And nobody buys.
- That's not the way it's done in Europe.
- The Europeans will have stock on hand
- and try to always take advantage of the low end
- and more or less average it out, what his stock costs,
- but not here anymore.
- No more.
- No, this is-- no, no, no, this is still
- this way around business.
- How did you go-- how did you learn the American way of doing
- business?
- That-- by doing.
- By experience.
- By experience.
- Did you-- what made you decide not to stay in Dallas?
- My family, by that time, had all come to the States.
- And they were all settled up here.
- And I had run into a dead end down there and felt,
- I couldn't go ahead.
- So I decided to come up here and be with my family.
- When you came to New York and you were looking, at that time,
- for work, what did you hope-- what direction did you hope
- that your--
- What I would do?
- --your working?
- At first, I wanted to start working.
- And I didn't care what it was, as long as it wasn't selling.
- OK.
- You see?
- You had your fill of that?
- Yes.
- So I got into--
- I worked for a freight forwarder.
- And from there, I got into an export company.
- And from there, I got into the job that I have now.
- Which is in that same field?
- Which is import-export, yeah, and financial.
- What do you import?
- Import-export of hide and skins, raw, that kind.
- Mainly from South America?
- No, no, from the whole world to the whole world.
- To the whole world, OK.
- Just to get back, when you came back to New York
- the second time, at that time, did you
- join any clubs or organizations?
- No, no, I joined Eva.
- That's when we met.
- What did you both do, then, for recreation?
- We went to the opera.
- You want me to come in?
- Fine.
- Well, we had met friends.
- I had made some friends and met them.
- And we actually met at a cousin of mine, who Richard
- had met in El Paso-- in Dallas.
- They had moved to New York.
- And we made friends.
- And once we were married, and--
- It was--
- I mean, it was a--
- --a social family thing.
- --social family-- not family, no, friends.
- --well, no, no, social friends.
- We came together with friends.
- We didn't go into clubs--
- or once in a while, we saw a theater--
- Yeah, we-- I was going to say--
- --or a concert.
- --we had no children.
- We both had a job.
- We could afford certain things, which mainly we
- did in the theaters and so on, and in family entertainment.
- And once we were expecting our son, I said to Richard,
- I think we should belong to a congregation.
- And we joined the Tabernacle and met more people.
- That's right.
- And from then on, the usual.
- What do you think was--
- in looking back, what do you think
- was the most difficult adjustment that you
- had to make in coming here?
- The most difficult adjustment I had to make in coming here?
- Well, to find the direction of what I wanted to do.
- It completely disoriented me.
- First of all, it was New York.
- I sometimes spent hours just walking around Times Square
- because I couldn't, so to speak, cope with it.
- And this whole thing, it took me quite a while
- until I found a direction so that I could go ahead with--
- never mind where, but that I could go ahead.
- It overwhelmed me.
- And so I think, the adjustment to New York
- was the most difficult time that I had.
- When you say, it overwhelmed you, just to go back,
- you said that you had always wanted to study law.
- Yeah.
- Certainly, this whole period from 1933
- on, it crushed your hope for doing anything
- with law in Germany.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- That's very difficult for a young man
- who always has intended to do something
- to reestablish his life.
- Did you consider going back to law school?
- Not to law school because I didn't
- know how I could go to law school
- and make a living at the same time.
- But what I tried to do is to find some kind of a job
- where the kind of thinking and decision-making
- was similar to the law thing.
- And that's how I finally found a way out of it.
- Was this readjustment at all depressing while it was--
- Yeah, it was very depressing.
- It was very depressing.
- I can imagine that it would be.
- It took quite a time.
- I know, in Belgium, was horrible in that respect
- because I had nothing to do.
- And I to hide.
- Because I couldn't work.
- I lived from what my parents gave me.
- And I had enough time to think about what's going to happen.
- And it was six months, which is quite a long time.
- And what I had done before, the selling,
- didn't appeal to me at all.
- And I hadn't found a way yet what I really, then, would
- want to do.
- Do you feel that the United States provided the opportunity
- that you had hoped for when you came here?
- They definitely gave me a chance to build up,
- there's no doubt about it--
- about that.
- And much more than I could ever have
- hoped in any country in Europe, there is no doubt about it,
- that during that period, whoever came here had the chance.
- Do you feel that there's more mobility here than there is--
- Mobility physical?
- No, no, mobility in the job opportunities
- here than in Europe?
- Yeah, I think so.
- I think so.
- Because the-- there is a certain tradition in Europe-- or was,
- I don't know how it is now.
- But at that time, you still had a certain tradition
- that the son followed in the footsteps of the father.
- And that there were certain ways in which you got off
- the footsteps, like for instance,
- the son of a manufacturer could go into a doctor or--
- Profession.
- --a profession.
- Yeah, that was acceptable.
- In making a comparison between yourself and your son--
- you only have one son, right?
- Yeah.
- In making a comparison between yourself and your son,
- do you think that he has more opportunity--
- Definitely.
- --than you yourself had?
- Definitely.
- But you see, I look at it two ways.
- While he has more opportunities, he also has more problems.
- In what way?
- Well, if you have opportunities, you
- have to decide what you want to do.
- When you come here with $10 in your pocket,
- your opportunity is the first job you can get so you can eat.
- That makes it much easier.
- It's a two-way street.
- The priorities are set.
- Yes.
- Just to go back for a minute to your mother and father,
- did they--
- did-- how did they adjust to life in New York?
- I think there were good, don't you think?
- They-- perhaps, the mom, I don't think.
- But I think I only met mom after her illness.
- And I think she made the best of it.
- My mother, for a period of almost 20 years,
- didn't leave the house after she had a cancer operation.
- And she did make the best of it because she was up to date
- on everything.
- She could have gone out.
- But at the time when we met, the finances of Singer-Feist
- also had run low.
- And she could not take a job on the outside.
- But she was-- in those days, knitting was very apropos.
- And a lot of people had dresses knitted.
- And she was knitting for somebody.
- And she said, if she would go out,
- she couldn't earn any money knitting.
- And she felt that she had to contribute
- to the upkeep of the household.
- You mentioned that your father had said-- in line with that,
- you mentioned that your father had said,
- when she said she would rather sit in a small room in Belgium
- than stay in Germany, and he said,
- wait until you have to sit in that small room.
- Now, when they were in New York, in effect,
- they were in that small room, a figurative--
- Figurative.
- --small room.
- Did she--
- No, she adjusted to that.
- She never complained.
- She never once complained.
- About that, she never complained.
- And she was used to a big social life and to lots of goings-on.
- And she never complained about that she couldn't go out
- or that she couldn't have the social life she had before.
- And what about your father?
- Well, he was more flexible.
- And he had a business.
- Here?
- Yeah, the business that he was in.
- He founded it here.
- A little import business.
- That was also my mother-in-law's doing
- because my father-in-law, as I understand,
- was willing to take on any job.
- And she also said, again, over my dead body.
- You have never been--
- That's true.
- Yeah, that's what.
- You have never been an employee.
- It will be very hard on you.
- You're not that young anymore.
- I don't care how little, you have the connections to import
- into this country.
- Start little.
- And whatever you make, you make.
- What did-- did they import in the same field as they were in?
- Sure, sure.
- Cutlery?
- Yeah, cutlery.
- Just this is where the name comes in.
- When he wrote with the name Feist to the manufacturers,
- they knew exactly who he was.
- From where did he import?
- Did he import from Solingen?
- From all over Europe.
- The name was known all over Europe.
- It didn't make any difference.
- When they heard Feist, they knew it in Italy,
- they knew it in Germany, they knew it in France.
- How did they-- did they have enough capital to start,
- even though it was small?
- [AUDIO OUT]
- Did they have enough capital?
- This was very-- he started it in a very small way.
- And as we said, we used to say, his stock
- is between his underwear because he used to have maybe
- five dozen of one kind.
- And they are packed very neatly.
- And he could put it there.
- But you also mentioned that he didn't
- need the capital because--
- That's right.
- When he made the contact overseas,
- people would let him--
- would give him credit.
- Because the name was known.
- He was known personally too.
- How did he sell here?
- He sold to retailers.
- He was his own salesman?
- He was his own importer, and salesman, and wholesaler.
- How did he adjust to the American business as
- compared to Germany?
- I think he did that very well.
- Yes, he did that very well.
- And he established the business after the war,
- when everybody was-- everybody was looking for different items
- during the war, nothing was imported.
- And he learned.
- I mean, he was willing to learn.
- I remember that he was used to maintaining a certain level
- of businesses profit.
- And he came to a man once and said,
- what are you so stubborn about?
- Aren't you better off making X dollars
- and not making the same percentage
- than making no dollars and maintaining your percentage?
- You have to go a little bit with the margin that can bear.
- And he repeated this.
- And he learned from that, that that is the way to do it.
- Yeah, and he understood it.
- Well, the reason I'm asking, he was
- at a much more advanced age.
- He was over 65 when he started the business.
- That's what I mean.
- So it must have been quite hard for him to--
- the uprooting in itself must have been difficult for him.
- So to adjust and re-establish a business was--
- Well, he had a very individual way of doing it.
- His saying was that he worked almost 24 hours a day.
- And in a way, that was true.
- He would get up in the morning early.
- He would have his breakfast, read his paper, go--
- by that time, he had an office next to the--
- That was many years later.
- Yeah.
- And then he was even older.
- Because he worked until he died at the age of 84.
- So he would go over to the office.
- He would maybe work for an hour.
- Then it was 11 o'clock, and he would
- go out and see a few customers.
- He had to be back by 1 o'clock to eat his lunch.
- Then he would sleep a while.
- Then he would go to his office and do some writing.
- And by 4 o'clock, he would have a cup of coffee.
- And then he'd sleep a while.
- And then he would work till 6:00 and rest a while
- and then listen to the news.
- And by 8 o'clock, he would work again.
- So he really worked all the time, but at his own speed.
- Did it bother him at all-- just in terms of the German
- mentality--
- did it bother him at all that his wife was helping along
- in the beginning?
- No, no, I don't think so.
- Because it made her happy to have something to do.
- And it made life easier.
- I mean, I don't mean financially-- it
- made life easier for the two of them to live.
- She felt he was contributing something to it too because she
- also felt, on the other hand, that so much money had
- to be spent on her due to her illness.
- And I would like to interject with something
- as far as my father-in-law is concerned.
- He was a very friendly, outgoing elderly gentleman.
- And I mean gentleman.
- And wherever he went, the doors opened due to his personality.
- And that also-- and he was also a type of person who said,
- well, I'm here.
- When in Rome, do as Rome does.
- And if I can make a living by doing this, fine.
- OK.
- That's-- just one more question.
- In terms of your lives today, are your friends still
- mostly of the German Jewish community?
- Absolutely.
- Why do you think this has persisted?
- I wish I knew.
- Because actually, I wasn't used to that.
- But I don't know.
- I mean, I can only--
- in a way, it is justified because since America is really
- not that much of a melting pot as we thought it was,
- like people tend to congregate with like people.
- And that is so all over the world.
- And that will never change because you
- feel more comfortable in a surrounding where
- you can foresee, to a certain extent, what reactions
- your actions will evoke.
- And I think part of it also is that we all
- had the same problems.
- And the same problems went together.
- And as we got older, of course, we
- stayed with the same friends.
- Our children, our son, is an entirely different story.
- In what way an entirely different story?
- I mean, our son certainly does not flock together only
- with children of refugees.
- He will-- he has some Jewish friends,
- he has some non-Jewish friends.
- He has some Irish friends.
- He has friends of any nationality.
- In your--
- And as you get older, you certainly
- don't make friends as easily as you do when you are younger.
- Consequently, you stay-- we have stayed in our group.
- But along the same lines, your business contacts
- must also include Americans.
- Yes, many more Americans than others.
- Did you-- has--
- many more Americans than others.
- Has there ever been a social contact other than the 9-to-5?
- Not much, no.
- Not much.
- Why-- that-- why-- do you-- can you just
- speculate on why you think?
- I don't know.
- Because even with the immigrant people
- I have to do with in business, there's
- very little social contact.
- And an immigrant, do you mean including the Germans was?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So that it's not a question?
- No, no, no, no.
- Have you been back to Germany?
- Yeah, once.
- Have you been back to Solingen?
- Yeah.
- How did you feel when--
- Well, that was a very strange thing because we--
- I had kept up a contact with at least one of the guys
- from over there all along.
- And when I wrote him that we were coming,
- this whole group that I went to school with,
- they meet once a year in Solingen--
- they are all over Germany.
- But they meet once a year.
- So he said, we will have a meeting.
- So when I came to the--
- with the exception of one, the complete class
- that I went to school with was there.
- And that made it much easier.
- I was prepared to get a shock.
- And I really felt, I didn't--
- I think I got a delayed reaction after I came back,
- more or less, of it.
- I-- it didn't shock me.
- I even saw the house we had lived in.
- I didn't go in.
- When you say a delayed reaction, what reaction
- did you have when you thought about it after you came back?
- Well, I don't know.
- I mean, my readjustment--
- I think you were just tired.
- Well, that's it.
- I mean, I-- we went, then, also to Israel.
- And I saw a lot.
- And then we came back.
- I had a very hard time to readjust to the time lag.
- Yeah.
- And I don't know whether-- and that was--
- everybody told me, you're even more nervous now than
- when you left.
- I had that kind of a reaction.
- But as Eva says, it's very hard to say.
- Was that an emotional thing?
- Or was this--
- Did you have any contact with the new--
- I'll call them new owners--
- No, no.
- --of the factory?
- No.
- Or any other Germans other than your own friends?
- No, no.
- When you saw this-- when this class reunion took place,
- was there any discussion of what had gone on
- during the war years?
- Not really.
- Not really.
- Not really.
- Talk was all very personal.
- Just one thought occurs to me.
- You said, you went to Israel at the same time,
- on the same trip.
- How would you compare your feelings?
- You mean between Germany--
- Yeah, going to Israel and going to Germany.
- This is an interesting thing, which
- has to do with my total background and upbringing.
- Germany, for me, was a revival of certain things.
- Israel was a historical experience.
- I-- my approach to the Bible, my approach to Israel
- has always been historical.
- And I looked at what I saw there strictly from that element.
- So some things stick with me, which other people don't even
- know.
- Well, I mentioned, we were driving
- towards Galilee in a bus.
- And the guide said, we are now driving
- over the road over which 2,000 years ago, the Persians,
- and the Assyrians, and the Egyptians used to travel.
- And I got goose pimples thinking how narrow and close
- this all is.
- This was my experience of it.
- Or to see how people of all phases pray at a grave.
- But I had more in mind in terms of an emotional attachment.
- No, that's what I'm trying to tell you.
- You look at it from a historical perspective, rather.
- And when you went to Germany, you
- mentioned a revival, meaning a revival of your childhood?
- Of the experiences, of the same kind
- of people, how they developed.
- I mean, this was this kind of a thing.
- While Israel, for me, was a historical experience.
- It's interesting, but I did not have the feeling,
- this is my birthplace.
- This is, in a way-- this is--
- no.
- It's an interesting-- [AUDIO OUT]
- As far as belonging, I belong into America.
- Every time I come back, I'm glad I'm back in America.
- But as far as roots are concerned, roots,
- I have nowhere.
- And I underwrite this.
- I never felt that I owed Germany something as Germany,
- even at that time, when I was there-- and before Hitler.
- I never had that kind of a feeling.
- Why did you say, you don't think you have roots anywhere?
- I certainly don't have them in Germany.
- I don't think, since I came here as a refugee,
- I don't think I've been here long enough
- to have grown, actually, what you call roots.
- My brother is in Israel.
- I go to Israel.
- I will do anything for Israel.
- But I also don't think my roots are there, my personal roots.
- I'm an American.
- And I used to be a German with-- of Jewish religion.
- I'm an American of Jewish religion.
- I mean, I don't have a dual nationality.
- And I hope that I will never be in the position
- that I have to say, I also have an Israeli nationality.
- I hope America will always stick to the Constitution,
- and we will always be able to live here, even if I doubt it
- at time-- at this point.
- Why do you say you doubt it?
- What's going on right now and what is--
- if you look at Skokie, if you look at our own cemeteries
- at this point.
- I even go as far as to say, I don't
- think that this was an act of antisemitism,
- I think it was more an act of youngsters
- not having anything to do.
- And they got in there.
- Because if it would have been antisemitic,
- I think they would have defaced them and actually
- willfully broken the stones.
- But still, there is this much of a doubt somewhere
- in the back of my mind, maybe something is with it.
- What did being Jewish mean to you?
- Being Jewish actually meant to me-- this is very strange--
- a historical root.
- And I looked at it completely from a historical point
- of view.
- And I used to concentrate on finding out
- certain traits which go through the Bible as
- characteristic of Jewish reaction up to this day.
- You're an historian?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- This is what fascinated me in it.
- As far as religion is concerned, we were not three-day Jews,
- we were two-day Jews--
- one day Rosh Hashanah and one day Yom Kippur.
- Was the congregation that you belonged to liberal?
- The congregation was Orthodox.
- But since there were only a total
- of 50 families in that whole neighborhood, which was not
- only Solingen, but all the surrounding territory,
- it behooved those who could afford
- it to belong and to support.
- So I had to get private religious instructions, which
- are mostly spent outside the room
- because the teacher was absolutely impossible.
- It was the teacher--
- Like all of them.
- Like all of them.
- It was the teacher who was absolutely--
- All Jewish teachers are.
- There are very few good ones.
- He started out by saying, in the beginning, God created heaven.
- And then I was allowed to say earth.
- And then he read the next sentence,
- and I was allowed to say the last word.
- So that's right.
- And two weeks before my bar mitzvah,
- he went to my uncle, who was the president of the congregation,
- and said, he'll never learn it.
- Let me ask you, in terms of--
- have your feelings of being Jewish changed over the years
- from what they were before the Hitler years in Germany to now?
- They have, in a way, strengthened in the direction
- that I had picked up then.
- And that is, if you ask me what my roots are,
- then they are not territorial.
- But they are intellectual because I
- am aware of certain traits in my character, which
- I feel are Jewish and can be proven all the way back
- to the Bible.
- This is where I see my roots.
- So your roots are in a people, rather than a territorial.
- Yeah, yeah, you can say it like this.
- Well, that, I think, goes for me too.
- I'm definitely, 100%, a Jew.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Richard Feist
- Interviewer
- Rosalyn Manowitz
- Date
-
interview:
1978 May 20
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 sound cassettes (60 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Feist, Richard--Interviews.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Richard Feist was conducted by Rosalyn Manowitz on May 20, 1978. Rosalyn Manowitz wrote an account of the experiences of survivors who were members of the Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation for distribution to its members. The interview was given to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on October 13, 1993.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:17:37
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510609
Additional Resources
Transcripts (2)
Download & Licensing
- Request Copy
- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
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