Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Herta Jacoby

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0094.20 | RG Number: RG-50.150.0020

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Herta Jacoby
    Transcript
    That's how we start.
    Born in 1912, in Hatten, in Westphalia, Germany--
    parents-- John--
    Johnny Goldberg and Emilia Frank.
    Father died in the World War I fighting for Germany,
    received the Iron Cross, fought in France, Poland, Russia.
    And we have postcards from that to show.
    I don't have them here, but at home.
    The postcard he was wearing in his breast pocket
    was found shot through by the bullets.
    That's how they sent it back.
    You have that postcard?
    Not here, at home.
    You have to leave things.
    Well, I couldn't bring everything with me.
    1918, the last few days of the war, he's--
    last few days of the war-- he's buried
    in a mass grave in France after serving the full four
    years of the war.
    Mother, the widow, with two small children--
    four and six years of age--
    went home to the parents, to Bedburg an der Erft.
    It's near Cologne in Rhineland.
    Inflation ate away all the army pension.
    At the end, we were just able to have one pair of shoes fixed
    from it, from the pension.
    I remember that [INAUDIBLE].
    My grandparents, quite well-to-do,
    established a dry goods store for the mother
    with two children for us to have a future we grew up in.
    Excuse me.
    Did you did your grandparents live in Bedburg in-- near Koln?
    Yes, my mother-- yes, they went back with the two of us.
    And they established a store for when
    we grew up to have a future.
    But it didn't happen that way.
    It grew to be the biggest and best-liked in the same--
    in the small town of Bedburg, with about 2,500 population.
    We had employees.
    And both of us, my sister and I, went
    to high school out of town.
    I was supposed to take the store over,
    as my sister was not interested.
    I have been sent to another city in well-established and
    well-managed firm to learn and serve
    as an apprenticeship equal to a college education
    to take that over.
    Was this a usual thing for a girl as well as for a man, to
    take over the family business?
    Yes, that was the-- first of all, the second thing that
    makes sense.
    I mean, you didn't have to worry what comes out of you.
    It's especially in a small town.
    In Germany, you didn't go to work for your money.
    You didn't do that.
    Not-- most Jewish people were well off.
    That wasn't nice.
    Where did you go to school?
    In that small town, Bedburg.
    And in another school, we traveled every day.
    And I was always on the weaker side.
    I couldn't take it.
    I got-- just a minute.
    I've got there a tissue.
    It was very similar, same type of nuns.
    But it was school.
    It was a non-Jewish high school?
    School.
    That was a Catholic-- a real Catholic by the nuns.
    They were-- in the small towns, were not so many Jewish people.
    Right.
    What was the Jewish population of Bedburg about?
    About 10 families.
    Did you have a synagogue?
    Yes.
    We had a synagogue, that we had.
    And with the Jewish religion, one teacher from out of town
    came once a week to teach us, but all different grades
    in one class.
    Oh, I could tell story--
    all in one class.
    One week, we had only lessons.
    But in Europe, you learned the religion at home.
    You understand?
    Especially with grandparents.
    When he could call in, you had the-- we were paid--
    oh, we paid for room and board and lived out.
    We paid for room and board.
    And I received only pocket money as a wage for three years.
    That was the apprenticeship.
    I was asked to stay after my apprentice was over.
    Here is where the Nazis affected us.
    Now comes the story.
    My sister went to Holland to visit relatives
    and were afraid to come back home
    again after she heard all the stories
    and that she went out of the country.
    That was already with the Nazis.
    They watched you coming back.
    And maybe you told [NON-ENGLISH] stories over there.
    You know what that means?
    I can't say that in English.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    This was in 1933 or later?
    It was '25, '26, something-- no, too many years--
    beginning of '20.
    The apprenticeship?
    Right after school, 18-- when you're
    18, 19, 20 years old, 21 years.
    That were the first years before we went the--
    left the country-- around the beginning of 20, we were.
    What year was that?
    Well, you were born in 1912.
    So 1932, you would have been 20.
    Right.
    Correct.
    Correct.
    So right after Hitler.
    When Hitler was already busy.
    How did-- did you have many non-Jewish friends in Bedburg?
    Oh, yes, we went to school with the-- that was all the same.
    That's just the hurting part.
    You knew them so well, you didn't think different.
    They didn't even know you were Jewish.
    You see, in Germany, was like this.
    I'm sorry to say that we felt more German than Jewish.
    I don't know about your parents, how they-- where did they
    come from, which town?
    Yes, Frankfurt.
    Yes, there are people I know from Frankfurt too.
    After my apprenticeship, I have been called home
    to help selling out instead of taking over.
    When you say, when you were called home to help sell out,
    was that an enforced [NON-ENGLISH]??
    That's what I want to say.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    The Jewish business had to be closed, see?
    We still had the big table--
    the tablet on the wall from the fallen soldier,
    the soldier father, saying--
    shall I say it in German or in English?
    Yes.
    [GERMAN]---- he was killed for-- that's what I want to bring
    out.
    And here, we were not German--
    I mean, not German--
    I mean, not supposed to be in with everybody.
    The fatherland is-- we had to give up.
    Well, we still had the store.
    And officially, I was home.
    I knew, I had to leave the country one day.
    We young people were always in Jewish youth organizations
    in other cities.
    You see, with Judenfrei.
    When you say in other cities, you
    mean basically in Koln or more?
    No, not Koln, not that far, Grevenbroich,
    little bit bigger city.
    The other day, somebody--
    I was in Tabernacle.
    Suddenly, I heard somebody said, from Grevenbroich.
    I didn't hear that word for 30-40 years.
    I said to the gentleman, excuse me interfering.
    Are you from Grevenbroich or what?
    All these places have always a handful
    of Jewish people already.
    Yes.
    And I saw they don't [? know me. ?] She said, no,
    we were talking about somebody from Grevenbroich.
    Was so funny, the names hit you so.
    Here a bit different from our parents--
    they believed in Germany.
    That's what it was.
    It cannot be as bad as people are saying.
    There will be hard times, but not as hard as we--
    as the people make it.
    That were the old folks' way of talking.
    There is-- there, we were reading--
    talking about the Third Reich of Hitler.
    We were reading, they want to kill all the Jewish people.
    And as we knew from school, from history, there was the Polish--
    years back.
    We were thinking, maybe it's the same thing.
    But the German people didn't think that way,
    the old people didn't.
    They didn't believe us.
    We even couldn't explain them.
    They didn't have time to listen to them.
    Did you ever see signs in your town, [GERMAN]??
    Oh, yes, we heard the Nazis marching through.
    We heard the Nazis marching through--
    [GERMAN]
    That's all we heard.
    And they still didn't believe that.
    You know them.
    You knew them.
    Our parents went to school with them.
    We went to school with them.
    And later on, that's why you didn't believe in it so much.
    You always think, oh, damn.
    And later on, they made it from other towns the strange people.
    And then it got worse.
    They had no more feeling for you.
    I mean, so many--
    You mean, they took the Nazis from one town
    and put them in another town?
    Yes, yes, yes.
    Did you know most of the local Nazis?
    Sure.
    Sure.
    Did they ever physically harm you?
    Not me personally.
    I also was, thank god, not in a concentration camp.
    Not-- but all these--
    that was only the beginning, all this aggravation.
    And I cannot explain to you.
    You were growing up you were young.
    My nephew, he's a real America now.
    He came over here, my cousin, when
    he was seven years old or so, five years old.
    His father was already in the States.
    The mother also-- my mother's sister with the two children
    was waiting till he calls him over.
    When they were marching, he was sitting on the front step.
    We all are at the house, sitting, he's going-- waving.
    He wanted the flag.
    He wanted to run with them.
    We didn't know the difference.
    Children didn't know the difference.
    We didn't know the difference.
    And then we think, how come?
    Your oldest is-- all right, my brother.
    I thought of going to Israel with a whole group of friends
    and cousins which already there.
    I was not strong enough.
    As I said, I was always on the weak side.
    I was nervous and under-- not undernourished, skinny,
    so extra skinny.
    I was not strong enough and always a little thin and weaker
    as the rest of them.
    And the doctor said, not you.
    We still had the store with employees and the maid
    in the house.
    But I was idealistic and went to Hakhshara.
    That meant to be a housekeeper in a big family,
    always with the idea--
    you need-- when you need me home, I come to help.
    The idea was to harden us spoiled Jewish young people
    for--
    to harden us young Jewish people up for hard work
    and be prepared for life in another country.
    That was the idea.
    Was this a Zionist-sponsored organization?
    Yes, it was Zionist.
    No, not this really sponsored, that it was in an organization.
    It was anybody went in.
    But they all with the idea, the young people went to Israel.
    Sure, it's Zionist.
    Well, I mean, but to emigrate to Israel?
    Yes, to Israel.
    Yeah.
    So we were together with people from Düsseldorf.
    That was the whole Rhineland later on.
    We had meetings.
    When I look, I have pictures where
    we march in from Germany with the Jewish flag,
    you don't believe it.
    I didn't have time anymore.
    But they had so many.
    You couldn't take all the pictures,
    but some accidentally were in.
    When I left, you couldn't take out a thing anymore,
    only practical things, not pictures--
    things what they call that--
    things who showed something, you couldn't take that away.
    But I have some here.
    It's unbelievable.
    We were really always marching on high with--
    When you said--
    --the Jewish flag.
    We did.
    When you were marching with the Jewish flag,
    were you ever disturbed by the Nazis?
    No.
    Of course, later on, wasn't allowed.
    And we didn't want any trouble.
    We met other groups in the Eifel, in the mountains.
    We played ball with them, everything-- swimming together.
    It was like sisters and brothers.
    Our store was here, of course.
    There was another store from German Gentiles.
    They had about four or five children.
    We went to school together.
    We waited for each other.
    We ate by them, they ate by us.
    Was nothing.
    Did you ever have any conversations with them after?
    Did they belong to the Hitler Youth?
    No, they-- one of the sons joined the IRF, whatever
    it was, the [INAUDIBLE].
    And then you finally hear the other one is a Nazi,
    you stay away.
    You stay away.
    The sister might be good to you, the brother
    might be the opposite.
    You see, there were conflicts in their own family, parents
    and children.
    Yeah.
    So we worked ourself down and not up.
    You mean the business?
    No, I mean, not the business, we the young girls,
    the young people.
    We went in domestic.
    We didn't have to, just to get hard on ourselves,
    you realistic-- if you have to go to another country,
    you have to know how to work.
    None of us knew how to work.
    You know what I mean?
    Like that, we worked with that down instead of up.
    That's what I want.
    But it was very hard to do.
    Finally, the store was sold.
    We moved upstairs in the house, only using one floor.
    And if not the whole house anymore--
    and we could not keep it Christian maid anymore.
    We always had-- the mother, and the daughter, and the--
    all generations also.
    When my mother was small, they had their mother.
    Finally, we moved to Wuppertal-Barmen
    because my grandmother was still alive.
    Mother and I, the relatives which had a beautiful house,
    like a real patrician house.
    They had a big store also with 24 employees and also.
    Also, this uncle was a war--
    From?
    --a war, world war soldier and thought nothing would hit him.
    I still hear him strong.
    The daughter already in Israel.
    She was wagging a finger, going, come over, come over.
    It won't be so bad.
    Come over.
    And the mother said, I want to see my daughter once more.
    He said, I am staying right here.
    You can all go.
    I keep the forward, he used to say.
    I heard him really say it.
    He was so sure of himself.
    From here, I worked my immigration to England.
    I went to England.
    Yes.
    And tried to go to the US, the United States.
    I had an aunt here, also from our house, already,
    the one with the two children.
    They finally came and they live in Pennsylvania.
    I had no luck with my affidavit for the USA.
    I had no luck.
    When we got drawn--
    When was this?
    That was-- when was that? '35, '36.
    The affidavits got-- paper got lost, et cetera.
    So I tried England.
    The law was as domestic servant, you
    were able to come over, the laws over there.
    England made sure you had a job and a roof over your head
    and do not fall to welfare.
    That was idea.
    So I wrote to a lady friend who studied dentistry in England
    and also started her own practice,
    whether she could find me a domestic job for one
    of her patients.
    And it worked.
    She did.
    She was from Cologne, far away relatives.
    She was a dentist.
    Her sister was a woman doctor, first woman doctor
    ever anybody heard about.
    One day, the Nazis knocked brutally
    on our door in Wuppertal-- open up, or we bash in the door.
    They wanted me to show them the house.
    They still had an old housekeeper.
    They know I had to go.
    I had to go.
    The whole house-- and went everywhere, frightened.
    You do as they say.
    And what do they want?
    You were thinking.
    Where are they looking for?
    Finally, did they left.
    And from then, our minds were switched
    to leave, from there they it very well.
    But where?
    Where?
    Also, one day, all synagogues were burning.
    I was still over there.
    This was Kristallnacht?
    No, that wasn't the Kristallnacht.
    It was just one of the organization-- organized
    brutalities.
    In whole Germany, all the synagogues are burning one day.
    It was not the Kristallnacht.
    Kristallnacht is when their--
    what was the Kristallnacht, when they--
    November 9, when they also burned synagogues and took--
    smashed in a lot of windows and property.
    No, there was something else what was not Kristallnacht.
    They had broke everything, everything.
    But that was not the typical Kristallnacht.
    I don't think so.
    I might forget it already.
    Also, there were old and young, and how hard
    it was to work and establish what you have,
    business-- and it was good, and the house.
    And who wants to leave all that?
    It was their mind.
    At the end, my uncle was afraid to go
    in the garden of his own house-- right behind the house.
    He was afraid to go out of fear someone could
    see him, a neighbor or so.
    And you never knew who were a Nazi.
    But my uncle, the former soldier, kept saying,
    you all can go.
    I have it right here.
    And if you wish, I stay here and keep the fort.
    I want to hit back when it comes the other way.
    That's what he used to say all the time.
    He start in Israel, kept on right.
    He come over.
    Father wanted to stay.
    And Mother wanted to leave.
    Then he-- it was-- were terrible times.
    I don't give up easy, he said.
    Then there was my mother and grandmother.
    My mother thought of going to Holland to my sister.
    But now comes a story.
    But my grandmother said, you stay here and take care of me.
    I took you and your children home
    after the war, which I arrived to.
    When my mother went back home, you took care of me.
    She wasn't old then.
    I took you back home with the children.
    After your father had died?
    That was true.
    So none of them left.
    Is it interesting for you?
    Yes, yes.
    None of them left.
    They tried other things, but then it was too late.
    What do you mean by tried other things?
    They tried to go some--
    there was a saying from--
    there's a boat going to Cuba, Cuba.
    And they tried-- we had relatives already
    at least to Holland.
    But that Cooper boat, they found out that sunk.
    All kind of tricks, the Germans just wanted your money.
    And you didn't know anymore what was true
    and what was from the Jewish people
    and was not from the Jewish.
    So they tried all what there was to try.
    Some escaped through dangers and everything.
    So as far as the record shows, our family lived in the region
    from the Rhineland for over 300 years.
    It's true.
    My mother was born in Kassel, even a smaller town.
    My grandmother came up the southern Rhineland.
    And her parents too, they had they
    had grapevine in the mountains.
    They had enormous-- real Germany, all the way
    through, as long it's written down.
    That's why they couldn't--
    Three-- that's right.
    --think so quick.
    They think the other way.
    Finally, I got to England, to the safe island, we call it.
    They just saved our lives, that's all it did.
    Finally, I got to England and on a domestic permit.
    One thing was to get out of Germany.
    And another bureaucracy was to get into another country.
    That all took months and years and a lot of nerves.
    Because when you had to go to the police,
    you had to go to this office, they all gave you
    some nasty messages.
    I remember, one said to me, that time,
    was Beving, or was the English guy's name?
    Bevans?
    Bevin or something, one of the prime minister.
    He said, when you get over there, tell them, you
    come over, and break his neck.
    He gave me a message.
    And I said, yes, in fact, I get that [LAUGHS]----
    all these thoughts.
    And first of all, you have to leave secretly.
    When they knew you were leaving, they
    watched your entirely family.
    They didn't want you to leave at the end anymore.
    They didn't want you out--
    the other countries to know what was doing.
    When did you leave?
    '38 or '39, can't remember.
    Do you remember the month?
    In May, on my sister's birthday.
    And I left Germany and I visited my sister--
    and I came to the United States on the same day.
    Isn't that funny?
    Eight years in England, through whole Blitz,
    exactly on the day.
    That's how I remember that my sister's birthday.
    A lot of naught.
    At that time, you could still take a lot of luggage--
    a lot of luggage over, but only 10--
    the amount about $10 on cash, only that money-- everything
    overpriced and overtaxed, you had to pay for.
    And as we had a store, my mother gave me everything.
    You never knew where you were.
    You could be able to sell and you could live.
    That was the big idea.
    But it became a pain in the neck, all the luggage--
    and plenty of worry and heartaches.
    I went over Holland to say goodbye to my sister
    and told her to get out of Europe.
    And she said to me, you're always
    too afraid was her answer.
    She-- and you know what they tell me
    here with the psychiatrist too, my son, I told him too.
    And I told him also a lot of it.
    They said, you were not nervous, you were intelligent,
    which is ridiculous too.
    But we talked about it, we young people.
    We knew.
    That's right.
    And when you see them all leaving, you think,
    must be something to it.
    But in a small town, you didn't see them really leaving.
    That's right.
    But when this-- when you go to-- when
    you went in the big countries, to the bigger cities,
    Cologne, or to the synagogue once for a change,
    there were no young people.
    You knew they were leaving.
    And our parents, they didn't-- they thought,
    the world is all different than we did.
    They were so-- as I said, think they're so German,
    they couldn't think this.
    But you saw in Koln and saw that the young people were?
    In Wuppertal also.
    You know what I mean?
    The friends of my cousin also.
    My cousin was gone.
    And she was one of the very first in Israel.
    They were full of-- right from--
    she-- for instance, here in the United States,
    when they make the Abitur, it's like a university, I think.
    Well, it's-- yeah, it's an exam.
    Yes.
    And she-- from there-- and she met a young man
    from my small town again.
    And she said, I only marry you when you go with me to Israel.
    Because he was a kind of a sturdier guy,
    also older than her.
    And all the fancy guys from the town,
    she didn't want because she knew she wanted to go to Israel
    and meant hard work.
    And she changed over.
    So they became farmers and god knows what.
    They built a house with their own hands.
    And let go to this, otherwise, I'll never finish.
    All right, my sister--
    we told her to get out.
    She was also afraid.
    She was running a boarding house for refugees
    as she got married and left early--
    as she left so early, we were able to send the furniture.
    She got furniture for eight or 10 rooms.
    That-- you could do that now, she left so early.
    Yes.
    She was running a boarding house in Holland for refugees?
    In Holland, Amsterdam here, with her husband, which was a lady.
    There were no men then.
    Finally, I arrived in England and seasick,
    I could not hear, and speak, and see from excitement.
    Some Jewish people, a sister and a brother,
    picked me up with their car.
    They asked me a million question in Yiddish.
    I never heard Yiddish in my-- wait a minute-- in Yiddish.
    I never heard Yiddish before I heard them, before that,
    because it was the language the Nazis make fun about also.
    That was-- their newspaper were full of criticizing Jews.
    I saw-- I also saw the first Jewish newspaper there
    they were reading, the first time.
    You mean Yiddish news?
    Yiddish-- no, also the Hebrew, the Hebrew paper
    they were reading there.
    I was so seasick in the car, I feared
    for the worst, especially when I wanted to talk.
    So I said to my-- in my school English,
    the English you learn in school, please, do not talk to me.
    And with this, I upset the apple cart.
    How rude is she?
    We should have never let-- have her come over.
    How can she say that to--
    I was only afraid.
    That's how you already-- your first experience.
    And I should have said, I don't feel good.
    But--
    You didn't come--
    --I didn't know much English.
    I sit in the back and sitting in front.
    Now, I came to the job, a large family
    in a mansion-like house, a retired head rabbi
    from Liverpool and Poland.
    He was exactly the guy what the Nazis characterized
    all the time.
    And to me, that was something.
    So I've never heard and seen about it, only
    in the caricatures.
    You understand what I'm saying?
    Yes.
    So to me, that was as a class.
    I can't explain it in words.
    They were so-- as rich as they were, they were miles,
    educationally and personally, below our standards,
    really the truth.
    They were 40 years in England already.
    The old people didn't speak a word of English.
    They only read the Yiddishe paper.
    In his caftan, he walked around with the payos,
    and the beard, and the nose running,
    stuff like that-- but a beautiful house.
    They used to travel.
    They were such together when they were younger--
    she told me once, they were married
    when she was 17 years old.
    They used to travel to Europe.
    And they always had a lot of money.
    And they bought at the auctions the furniture
    and the silver candelabras from the Kaiser, or from the king.
    They had a lot standing there, but filthy people, filthy.
    And so I can't even make-- only Jewish-educated,
    but nothing worldly.
    Can you imagine meeting that that way when they came,
    the Yiddish?
    The old man said, forget, was it--
    are you a Yid or a Yiddish--
    Jude or a Yiddishe Yid?
    That's what we are talking about.
    To them, I was a real shiksa, you know what is?
    Yes, yes.
    The house was like a hotel--
    so many people, and they could not
    keep any workers, which was true.
    So they took me, the strong woman from Germany.
    That's what they got, a real tough worker.
    Of course, I wrote them, I'm kosher.
    We had a kosher on part of the grandmother.
    And that was all I needed.
    This stop-- well, a strong woman from Germany,
    said, what a disappointment for both of us.
    But I was in England, determined to hold out.
    I felt like running away, but I stayed--
    a house with three dogs--
    now, there were three--
    training me to the dogs in the kitchen,
    one dog under the table, the other-- and they
    were fierce dogs because of the big house.
    So one of the boys said, well, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I'll never forget all that.
    And I still was afraid of the dog.
    Never really-- I listened to him though.
    And then later on, when the war come, and the bombs were flying
    and these sirens, these dogs got so frightened,
    and you never know whether they bit you or not.
    Right, right.
    A lot of adults, mostly children or nephews,
    business-- everything in the house, and people
    were so Orthodox, the rabbi, that's
    why they let me come over.
    So Orthodox, the rabbi only ate food
    which a blood relative prepared for him or served him.
    So the rebbetzin was too old and tried her best.
    And the daughters gave up already.
    So I came in, the Jewish girl.
    I could not cook the way these people did.
    So I had the honor to do all the dishes and serving.
    But the dishes had to be carried downstairs and upstairs again.
    And it was murder for me.
    The food was good, I must say, when I finally got
    used to the way they saw that.
    I said, well, the fish soup and all that, ack.
    The food was good.
    And I had my own room, what a room, full of bugs--
    really, full of bugs.
    Of course, I brought them over, as they say.
    My suitcase came over about three months later.
    They liked my clothes so much, the daughters
    wore my new things, which is true--
    blouses, et cetera.
    And I was so depressed, I didn't feel
    like getting dressed at all.
    So I didn't care.
    I was in England.
    I can hardly remember a day off.
    The old woman said to me, you should
    be glad you have a day off.
    Our girl in Poland, she--
    you should be glad to have a room.
    She slept in the kitchen on the bunk.
    I thought to myself, that's what I'm missing.
    Such a clash, you have no idea.
    I was prepared for something different, but not like that.
    They could not understand me how I felt.
    I felt very bad as a Jewish girl who worked work for them,
    of course.
    The sons tried their luck, also, on me, which was true.
    I smacked them in their faces, the Jewish girl.
    And the old lady played it that way.
    They had a great big garden, like a forest, beautiful,
    like a park.
    And every weekend, three of their sons,
    they worked that garden.
    So they had the manure to be brought in,
    so all that stuff from the kitchen, bring it out,
    all of he will be glad for it.
    And then bring him a cup of tea, he will like you for it.
    So I had to do that-- was my job, bring
    all the way in the garden.
    And there were bushes and there were benches, like a park.
    And of course, he was waiting for me.
    And he grabbed me.
    And I hit him--
    all the things.
    And the old lady was sending me.
    One day, I never forget, Friday night, he
    brought in all fresh flowers.
    They had so everything.
    And in all the vases, too, the whole room,
    they put the flowers.
    So when it was dry or so, of course,
    they watered them with the horse or with the watering cans.
    So Friday night, they also had to bring out
    from the kitchen with the manure, and the tea,
    and everything.
    So one day, I thought to myself, the heck with you,
    I'm not bringing it out.
    So my room on the third floor was also
    facing that beautiful garden with a big window.
    So one day, I thought, well, it started to rain, to pour,
    and I knew he was waiting for me to go.
    I said, I thought, the hell with it,
    I go upstairs and have a little rest.
    And I look out the window, he was watering and watering
    the flowers in the rain, waiting for me.
    I had show his mother, he's busy.
    So it's all these things--
    were watering, then schlepping the water, with the water.
    And I was standing in the window, laughing.
    He was just waiting for me to come in.
    As I complained to one of-- yes.
    You know that the boys tried their luck at me.
    One day, Friday nights, you couldn't make it alive,
    the Jewish girl.
    So finally, we went to bed, tired as can be.
    I want to go to bed.
    He's laying in my bed.
    Now, other thing-- so one day, as I got--
    there was nobody to say anything.
    I was on my own.
    As I complained to one of the sisters
    about the behavior of her brothers, she only answered,
    it is your fault. And if anything happened,
    I call the police.
    So you were-- yeah.
    You know what I mean?
    There was nobody to complain to.
    Work from early morning till late at night.
    They still had no feeling for me and could not sense who I was.
    And it hurts to be--
    it hurts so to be like that in a Jewish family-- really, it did.
    You liked the boys in a certain sense,
    and yet, you don't want to have anything to do with them.
    You know, for them, you were really the maid.
    They didn't think they helped somebody.
    To me, it was--
    Right, I understand.
    It was a horrible feeling.
    And you wanted to break it.
    You couldn't, you didn't know how.
    There was only one way of--
    really, I think, of getting away.
    And you had to wear it with all my legs and everything,
    they had the room.
    And they didn't let you out to make contact
    with somebody else, nothing.
    That's really what they were afraid of--
    I could get to know somebody else.
    And they take me away.
    This is all in Liverpool, right?
    Not in-- they were from Liverpool-- in England,
    in London.
    Yeah, in London.
    Right in London.
    Right in London.
    You have all of the-- where they talking between to.
    Now, the war came to England.
    The bombing started in London.
    Old people and children were evacuated to the country,
    or even as far as Canada.
    Remember that?
    The quiet English people got aroused.
    My family-- I mean, the family we were living with--
    built a shelter in the basement.
    And every night, when the enemy attack came,
    we dived into the shelter, oop, down the stairs, full of fright
    what will happen.
    And I hope they don't hit us.
    We were all sleeping on the floor in the basement, basement
    cellars, and subway station.
    But by daytime, work went on as usual.
    And sometimes, we got [INAUDIBLE] myself,
    which was in England a wonderful thing.
    The English people had some spirit.
    They didn't give up.
    And we learned from that, also, to keep calm.
    They believed in the country.
    So they kept calm.
    They could take things.
    When we sat in the subway station,
    let's say, a whistle blowing, we made like that.
    These bloody foreigners, they are so excited.
    You were afraid to show emotions because--
    and what should I say, you feel good amongst them.
    Yes, well the spirit of the--
    The spirit of them.
    Even in the--
    I cannot write it all down.
    I mean, after all, you are not interested in England.
    You are interested in me.
    All work had to be done.
    Finally, it was--
    I was so run down, my feet and legs start to swell up.
    So as-- so they said, if you--
    the doctor said, if you do not rest,
    this can go to your heart, which is true.
    I stayed in bed.
    And one of the daughters said, if you get sick,
    you have to go.
    Get out of here.
    Another daughter, a spinster, as much
    as I hated her, [INAUDIBLE],, but she helped me.
    The spinster, half dumb and deaf,
    she was praying and davening all day, she took heart.
    Don't worry, she said, I bring you the food up.
    And I help you bathe your leg.
    I had to bathe it.
    So we became friends and, of course, talked together.
    And she gave the message what a nice girl I must have been.
    You should not be in a house like ours, she said.
    She said?
    Yeah.
    But where could I go?
    She knew her Pappenheim, this big-- she knew her family.
    One little of the--
    one day, one of our--
    oh, no, wait a minute-- oh, yes, now, in the evening--
    mostly, the bombing was in the evening.
    And another daughter, a married daughter,
    she didn't live far away, she came with the whole family
    also to be in their own shelter.
    Shelter.
    In the shelter.
    They built it all themselves.
    I don't think they spent money in that.
    One little granddaughter, one day, explained to her mother,
    this lady should not be in Grandmother's house.
    It is a shame, she said.
    It's a shame-- they talked a real Cockney.
    It's a shame, a lady like that, she used to talk,
    a beautiful little girl, about five years old,
    but was already a heavy girl, and the mother a skinny thing,
    and her father a big faker.
    That father, I never forget, during that, in between,
    one day, we also ran down to the shelter.
    And sometimes, during the night, you woke up.
    Sometimes, you tried to sleep in bed upstairs.
    So that family was still there.
    In the middle of the night, we have been crawled down,
    religious as they were, the big, fat guy in a stripy pajama,
    pink, and the English gentleman with a bowler hat
    on and the gloves on, only the pajama, can you imagine?
    For fright, how to get dressed and not
    get dressed down in there.
    All those pictures, I still have in my--
    this took all the fright away.
    We were young, the young ones.
    Can you imagine a big fat guy in a pink stripe
    pajama with a bowler hat and the gloves in his hand?
    Another story was Friday night, while they were having dinner,
    here, it comes with the candles and those big fancy
    candelabras with the lamp.
    So the rabbi goes ahead, as slow as he walks, down the stairs
    with the candelabra.
    And the money-- the pocketbook from his wife under his arm
    and this corset-- she had a corset.
    In the other arm, she was afraid if we have to leave the house,
    they wouldn't--
    She wouldn't have--
    --she wouldn't be in the corset, that
    long corset with the straps, the rabbi with all these pictures.
    And that made me laugh.
    I couldn't help it.
    I refuse to say it.
    This is-- the house was a gift now.
    It was a gift to you.
    All those things kept me--
    that's when we're younger, always had a sense of humor.
    Did you make friends?
    Or did you have any opportunity?
    Later on, yes, yes.
    The lady-- oh, in godmother's house, we were--
    things got easier as more frightened they got.
    And we had to come and go to survive.
    That was-- then we came closer.
    One son came home late one evening.
    My job was to serve the dinner for him.
    And he said to me, don't make a wedding out of it-- like,
    don't be so fancy about it.
    I sit in the kitchen.
    They got easier too.
    Don't listen to my sisters, he told me.
    You tell them to make things for themselves as they
    did before you came here.
    And they wear you down, he used to say.
    But by then, I also knew the language better
    to understand what it was all about.
    These old parents went to the country.
    And the rabbi and the rebbetzin wanted to take me along.
    But I refused and wanted to stay with the young crowd
    in the house.
    We came close and understood each other better.
    One son went with the fist--
    He stood also through the--
    went with the fist through a locked glass door in a hurry
    to get me to safety in the shelter.
    One day, lastly, when the conservatory was closed,
    and he banged it in, where is she, put me--
    [INAUDIBLE], like that.
    Everything was different all of a sudden.
    And the whole thing was we were all worn out and tired
    and took care of each other.
    And nothing else mattered, which is true.
    Because the whole idea was I don't
    want to be left as a cripple.
    Either we get wiped out or nobody
    wants to be left as a cripple and dependent on somebody else.
    So I was thinking, where they have children, I am too.
    I didn't want to go with the old people in the country.
    It was their daughters' business.
    Meanwhile, friends tried to get me out of the house--
    from Frankfurt also.
    Isaac-- Tony Isaac, maybe you know him?
    No.
    He was older then.
    He was my age.
    And my friends tried to get me out of the house.
    And also, the law was lifted.
    We did not have to be as domestic anymore.
    So OK.
    Yes.
    I ask if you want to.
    Did you leave, then, when the law--
    Yes, right, right.
    There were a lot of stories to tell, which--
    there were a lot of stories to tell,
    which we took as jokes because we were young at that time.
    It's true-- so much to say, I could write a book
    about that house, honestly.
    We all became waiter and waitresses,
    mainly because the food ration was on.
    And so we ate on the job in the staff kitchen.
    Don't ask what we ate--
    rabbit soup, we ate.
    And the English girls were very funny.
    We had baloney that looked like baloney,
    but it was more-- mainly bread.
    So the English girls said to us, you
    want to lay on the mat with me?
    You want to lay?
    And I said, what do you mean?
    Then they said, well, you put--
    no, that wasn't on it.
    You put bread or mustard on this, they said.
    It was jam or mustard.
    Is that bread or what is it we eat?
    And then you want to lay on the mat with me?
    I didn't know what they mean-- to eat the bone, literally
    bat on the bone.
    That's all we got-- a bone from the soup, bone on the soup.
    They've been making the jokes too.
    You want to lay on the mat with me?
    They didn't want to say the food is rotten.
    You want to lay on the-- bite on the bone.
    Oh, their jokes.
    On our day off, we still had the ration,
    our ration card from the week supply,
    which we could eat in one day.
    Which is true, we could eat in one.
    But we still had it.
    Yeah, but you still--
    That we had.
    The biggest professors, everybody was very [INAUDIBLE]..
    And funny enough, I go now to the wine.
    And I met three waitresses who worked with me.
    One even moved here in the house.
    And it was the 150 girls in one floor.
    We moved there.
    Where did you live?
    In London.
    No, but I mean, when you say 150 girls on one floor.
    On one floor, we were to work.
    I called it the restaurant, the floor.
    Yeah, OK.
    They had upstairs, downstairs.
    Wait a minute.
    But what about before that?
    The week's ration we still had, could easily eat it on Monday.
    We were in the biggest outfit in London, that's true.
    They sent us to school for three weeks' pay as--
    and learn as you earn.
    That was the advertisement.
    And that answered our way.
    Here, you got paid right away.
    And they sent you to school all at the same time.
    Right, so you--
    Yes.
    So we wore uniforms.
    And we were slaving, not working, by music--
    really, really, our feet were worn out and tired.
    We were slaving, not working.
    But we were together, were more Jewish girls.
    And was a very different situation.
    We carried very heavy trays and walked long stretches,
    and again, because we were young, had our fun also.
    Many turned out quite good.
    Money-- oh, money-- I wrote down money.
    Money turned out quite good.
    But what could we do with it?
    Everything was rationed-- food and clothing.
    So we-- don't forget, the English girls were in the army.
    So we had a chance there.
    When they came back, how did you go?
    So we went in vacation to Wales and saved our money
    for the trip to the United States.
    We lived in furnished homes and boarding houses.
    Now, we were in the public.
    And as such, as the English liked our accent,
    you were a foreigner.
    Then you felt that time, you really were a foreigner.
    They let you feel that.
    And you had to be so thankful.
    That's what they told us.
    We have to be so thankful that we let you come in--
    that we let you in this country, like every-- each one,
    we have to thank you.
    We did not let out one word of German
    or never told where we came from.
    The war was still on.
    And we met all kind of soldiers from all over the world--
    I mean, serving.
    They treated us.
    They liked us.
    They said goodbye to us because from our location,
    they went right through the airport on to Europe--
    mostly to Germany.
    So we gave them some messages, what we really did.
    We told them where to bomb.
    We did.
    You ask anybody, they would have been-- you want,
    you could have been the biggest spies.
    The highest officers came to eat there.
    And they asked us.
    And they detected something in the accent.
    And we got such a kick out of it.
    They were learning the German language-- and not only just
    the language, with the dialect and all.
    And we were dying to help them, the way they pronounce it,
    the way they couldn't-- we are dying to help them.
    But you didn't want to say that, all this.
    When you say, you didn't want to say it, you were afraid?
    Were afraid.
    The other English girls might hear.
    It's none of our business.
    In fact, you're not supposed to talk to them.
    But even ladies in front of you--
    [GERMAN] in the north of Germany is bread.
    In the South, you see, it's [GERMAN]..
    And a [GERMAN] [LAUGHS].
    You heard that from the American accent, you died.
    You couldn't help it.
    So we gave them some messages.
    And we told them where to lay the act.
    They called that bombing, where should we lay the act.
    They used to say, where shall we lay the act.
    They wanted-- so they really wanted to marry us.
    They really liked us.
    You know how the Americans are.
    And some did get married, some girls.
    It was mostly the English and the Americans--
    and also Australians and French Canadians, the ones we met.
    Now, I have to tell you something.
    One very high-ranking American Navy officer sit at my table.
    And you know how young men are, they fooling each other.
    We were girls, but we knew we were the only ones.
    We were not the waitresses of that type.
    So he wanted to know where I came from.
    When they really openly asked you,
    they told us, they going to Germany.
    Well, they really openly asked.
    And we answered them.
    No, it was like this.
    I asked him, do you want soup, sir?
    And at that time, I must have said "zoup," I think.
    I'm not sure.
    So somehow, on that, he noticed, I'm from Germany.
    So months later, months later--
    it was a big room, don't forget, but 100--
    1,500 people in one room, a waitress
    comes running up to me.
    There is a gentleman who wants to talk to you.
    I said, I don't know any gentleman who talk to me.
    Tell him, I'm too busy.
    No, it's-- he's a high-ranking officer.
    You better talk to him.
    Says, what can he talk to me?
    So I thought to myself, I finally see at least who he is.
    He comes already over, where's the girl with the zoup?
    The girl with the zoup.
    I was in Germany, he said to me.
    I was in Germany.
    And I met him eye to eye, like the Air Force has
    to do, eye to eye to meet him before they shoot--
    and one with a really German mustache,
    and I gave it to him just as you said.
    It was right over Cologne.
    That's how it-- I thought it was out.
    That's the way it was.
    That's really the way it worked--
    the girl with the zoup.
    Then he said-- I never saw anybody with a smile
    like yours.
    That's why I came back here.
    So I mean, we had to hide ourself
    by going home from them.
    I mean, I was stupid also.
    I was too naive.
    Maybe, I could have had a better life.
    But it was a maybe.
    So the English and the Americans, and all,
    they had that.
    Finally, some boarding house run by German Jewish professors'
    wives found me out through friends.
    They wanted me because of the two languages
    and being a waitress.
    You see, they had a boarding house.
    And they came from Berlin.
    They had a sanatorium in Berlin.
    The old professor was still there,
    but he was already senile.
    But the women were running the boarding house.
    It was a boarding house for old people and foreign students.
    From Israel, the students, they came to-- in England,
    there's these big universities and all.
    And so they lived there.
    These were about 80 people, all in all.
    These people liked us.
    And we were their sweethearts, which was true.
    One day, one old lady comes to the boarding house, just out
    of hiding from the underground, was right
    when the war was nearly over-- from Holland.
    Her American son came to see his mother.
    She also had a son in England.
    Her American son came to see his mother for the first time
    after ever so many years.
    This lady was such a fine person.
    And we talked to her a lot.
    And she and her husband had a department store in one
    of Germany's big cities.
    What are you nice girls all doing here on work so hard?
    Do you want to stay in England?
    She said to us.
    When I explained, my affidavit does not work for the USA,
    my son must help you.
    I am so thankful to be alive.
    This lady was hidden by a Catholic--
    by the Protestant priest in Holland.
    In Holland.
    And with her daughter, but the daughter got nervous
    and couldn't stand it anymore.
    She wanted to see what was doing.
    For weeks and months, she looked and neglect her.
    So the old lady was alone.
    And the old-- the priest was a young couple.
    They got married.
    And they had a baby while their baby was born.
    They fed him, hiding in Holland, in the basement.
    I mean, they risked their life too.
    Sure, of course.
    So thankful as the old lady was, the American son
    had to promise, when that boy grows up,
    he had to go to college.
    And me, he had to take care of.
    He had to come over.
    And she offered it to all the girls.
    And the other girls didn't believe in her.
    They said, that's a [GERMAN].
    You know what it means?
    They said, don't be so silly.
    These people originally came from Germany,
    but he came to the United States, also as a young--
    [AUDIO OUT] [INAUDIBLE]
    I see, yeah.
    And he always told me, never tell anybody.
    And he made himself an uncle, blood related,
    that had to be by law.
    The funny part is this old lady, the old lady's maiden name
    was Frank.
    And my mother's maiden name was Frank.
    Were written one [INAUDIBLE].
    But that did it.
    So he made himself half-step-uncle
    or whatever he made.
    And he wrote all letters-- my niece with me.
    And the old lady gave me her purse in my hands.
    Now, you are my daughter, or my niece,
    whatever what happened to me.
    And I had to show her.
    I didn't write all that down.
    She-- they went-- they was married as youngsters.
    They made the honeymoon to London.
    And I had to go to all the places
    where she used to be with her husband.
    And they all really did that for her.
    So we did things for each other.
    Very-- it was my job.
    She was so thankful in the evenings people would called,
    especially in London a lot.
    You made a hot water bottle for her.
    I mean, we were waitresses, but we did that for the people.
    We were there, the water is there.
    And for those little things, they
    did enormous things for us.
    So at weekends, the old lady, on my day off.
    And I was afraid-- now, nothing happened to her.
    She was in her 80s.
    She also died in the boarding house.
    And I thought he'd go by every day.
    But it was not so.
    It was a beautiful family.
    So you always had bad luck and good luck.
    That's right.
    Me, especially.
    So he sent you the affidavit to come to America?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And when did you come to the United States?
    '49, '49.
    And in half year's time, I was in the US.
    I didn't make a mark here.
    Oh, yeah.
    Seasick and hungry, again, I arrived.
    I was so seasick on a week's journey I came with the boat,
    I did not see a dining room once.
    I couldn't-- I came with a converted trooper.
    I came black market.
    It had to go fast.
    And all my money for eight years, all in at one ticket,
    but I didn't care.
    They said to me, go.
    Otherwise, all the boats were taken for years already,
    you see.
    And I came black market.
    And we always--
    When you--
    It shouldn't really be on the record.
    Well, you mean black market, you came--
    That means, I came--
    in other words--
    Illegally?
    Not I came-- I came legally.
    Papers were legal.
    Right, but just on the boat, yeah.
    But the boat hired, yeah, black market price,
    like when you really badly want something, you pay a big price.
    That was possible there, everything in the war.
    I came with a converted trooper.
    I could have gone with the Queen Elizabeth,
    with the best boat, the money I paid.
    You know what I mean?
    Right after the war-- and I had to leave
    London within 24 hours.
    That was something.
    Why was that?
    You were still at the job.
    You didn't-- hadn't packed, you didn't think to go that fast.
    You think everything takes long.
    And be ready.
    I called people day and night.
    I was packing, inoculation, have the money changed, everything.
    I called people from the street.
    They came from work, strange men helped me pack
    and helped me bring my suitcase.
    And I lived in a private house from a spinster.
    She nearly killed me.
    I threw my suitcases down the stairs.
    I was glad to get out.
    All the stories--
    I don't know how I made it to the boat.
    On the boat, I met some other friends,
    the woman was working with me.
    And I had to go back to the job.
    What should I do?
    You go, they said, never mind the job.
    You go.
    You go.
    They were collecting for me for presents.
    I couldn't even take the money along.
    And they were all rich people in there.
    It was a lot of money.
    I gave that money to my friend who didn't care then.
    Oh, that was the thing.
    I came in the converted trooper after the war.
    I had to leave London within 24 hours.
    That's the man-- that meant on the--
    off the job, packing, inoculation,
    change of currency.
    I never forget, on the bank for the currency,
    somebody took me by the hand, the agent
    from the ticket office, they were holding down
    the gate to close for the weekend, all the things.
    And it wasn't like here, everything--
    at Piccadilly Circus, I had to go,
    in the middle, the center of London.
    And I was strange that way.
    I didn't know London that way.
    I'll never forget.
    I believe in strangers.
    I had nobody to help.
    And I don't know how I did it.
    I really don't know I did.
    I lost so much weight.
    I came to New York with practically--
    I couldn't practically-- I practically
    lost my skirt, which was true.
    Everything.
    I did not-- it did not fit anymore.
    My American as well as German relatives-- but American--
    I had relatives here from my father's side.
    He came over as a young boy.
    They were old people.
    Because his father also died early.
    And the grandmother was sitting on a village
    with four children.
    And they had-- she had a half sister that's
    early in the United States.
    That story happened 100 years back.
    And they let two children come over.
    So they never came back to Germany anymore.
    So they had sons, of course, children.
    And one son-- when you tried to get out of the country,
    I was writing for my grandmother.
    I know the old grandmother in Germany.
    I knew the address.
    And I was writing.
    And they wrote to me, yes, one of your cousins
    is in Germany in the war.
    He's a GI.
    And he doesn't know where to go to [INAUDIBLE]..
    He cannot come to the United States for two weeks.
    Maybe he can see you.
    So all the surprising things-- a man you never knew.
    So a man, American, he visited me in England.
    That was a big story in itself.
    Man, American, as well as German relatives
    expected me and were standing next to each other,
    not knowing who they were.
    And the other one, the aunt from Pennsylvania,
    we grew up with in our house.
    One American cousin who visited me in London
    in a European thriller brought the party with me together.
    The old couple from the Bronx, that's
    the old-- from-- my brother and his friends from the Bronx
    went home.
    And the rest with the GI, we went to Queens
    for another-- for a night's sleep.
    Queens and other good friends of [INAUDIBLE]..
    But because the others came from Pennsylvania,
    you know what I mean?
    But we did not--
    but we did the whole war over instead.
    We didn't sleep.
    We did the whole war over instead.
    I stayed for two weeks in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
    with my European relatives.
    And when I came to New York-- and then I came to New York
    and stayed with the old folks in the Bronx.
    That young GI still used to say to me, saying to me always,
    you have to come to my parents.
    They feed you up.
    They feed you up.
    He really did.
    He was killing himself.
    They were not all-- they were not at all well off.
    They were poor things.
    They lived in a basement apartment.
    And soon, I had a job.
    I helped them out.
    I didn't want to stay in house in a small town like that.
    First, factory jobs, and more of it.
    And I slept in a folding chair in the living room.
    And that was open, that living room.
    And I nearly broke my back for a whole year.
    And when I started about getting myself a room,
    in-- the daughters-in-law, you cannot do that.
    They will be terribly insulted, you know what I mean?
    And I thought, my uncle get crazy
    when he saw me-- for the first time, somebody from home.
    That's right.
    Then I met my husband and a man from former Judenfrei--
    from way back home.
    The old folks made our wedding, was open house,
    and it was nice.
    And it was a nice day.
    The whole neighborhood was invited.
    They lived in a basement, everyone could go.
    The rabbi and the ceremony-- do you know Dr. Koppel?
    Yes, sure.
    Oh, he married us.
    Oh, no, put that down.
    The rabbi made the ceremony on the record player,
    took the chuppah out of the suitcase, and that was it,
    in the living room with it.
    And Mrs. Koppel took care of the children from the neighborhood.
    I'll never forget.
    The American relatives made a film from it.
    And I was so happy to tell them that people from home,
    and send it to Australia, and it never arrived.
    It was a shame.
    He made a color film for me.
    Send it to Australia?
    Really.
    Who went to Australia?
    Another sister of my mother--
    all the cousins, whatever.
    He did not want to be paid, so we gave him a big donation.
    It came all from the heart.
    That's what I wrote.
    My husband came three months after me to the US.
    He was in Shanghai all this years,
    where he heard-- where he had to spend his eight war years.
    It was a big reunion.
    Really, also, everybody came suddenly over.
    There were many people--
    three years, they were all in already.
    We lived in the Bronx with my uncle and aunt
    in a furnished home as they were making
    living with renting out rooms.
    That was our start, in a furnished room.
    My husband, also an educated man,
    started as a house painter.
    And finally, we got our first apartment.
    Yes, he was thinking, he goes in own business.
    But 213th Street, we used to live.
    We made our own apartment, and new apartments
    to get in New York.
    After four years of marriage, we had a son.
    But nothing was as easy as it sounds.
    We both came over with nothing--
    I mean, just with a lot of luggage,
    knew each other to be the right person to marry.
    But then how will we live, and work, and raise maybe
    a child or two children?
    I wanted to back out.
    It is true.
    But still, we were not young anymore then.
    But my husband, in his good sense of humor, I promise you,
    we won't be millionaires.
    I was 40, my husband 50 years of age when our son was born.
    I was-- it was a responsibility.
    And then we were so careful, we thought,
    it's not fair to have a child.
    And yet I wanted children so much.
    Yes.
    All the things.
    But I should say, luck was with me.
    We were able to move into a better house, this one.
    We lived here about 20 years.
    And also, we got then a little bit then--
    a little bit from Germany.
    It comes all together.
    To bring our-- from better house to bring
    our precious offspring.
    Because they'd be terrible over there.
    We were staying.
    We had our good years.
    We can take it.
    But when the boy was born, it was a different story.
    After 20 years of a happy, but hardy marriage-- hard marriage,
    I lost my husband in a heart attack,
    the only marriage I knew.
    That's my son.
    I mean, that's when he finished with--
    that was through high school.
    You see that little picture?
    That's how he is now.
    He's only 25 years now.
    And I'm retired already, 65.
    That's so unusual, see that's how he is now.
    Oh, that's very nice.
    I'm so glad to have him.
    Oh, you always say, if it should happen--
    it is OK.
    If it should happen, we don't do anything.
    So I must have said that while I was in delivery.
    So the doctor comes afterwards, you don't want your child?
    You don't want your boy?
    I know a nice family who would take--
    who would adopt him.
    And I thought to myself, I must have--
    I thought that in my mind.
    I wasn't talking about.
    I didn't-- it's not that I didn't want it.
    It's just-- it was too--
    too much responsibility.
    So I thought to myself, it's good enough for a nice family,
    it's good enough for me, all the things he went through.
    Johnny still is to-- is that the last thing?
    Oops, yes, that's it with me.
    This must be the end.
    Johnny, is a stu--
    Wait a minute.
    We didn't write anything from--
    oh, the [INAUDIBLE] is not three--
    four, yes.
    Johnny still is a student.
    We also had our health problem.
    And I was waited-- oh, here it comes.
    I was waiting in executive dining room for lunch time
    only because I had a family, which is the perfect thing,
    visited a rehabilitation school, and learned office work,
    and landed a job by the City of New York.
    I made the test.
    That's what I was going at.
    Just this year I retired by the city.
    I am a member of the Hebrew Tabernacle
    for at least 20 years.
    Johnny was bar mitzvahed there, my husband
    buried there-- didn't put that down.
    Now, I wish we should all stay healthy.
    And I know Johnny will do good in the long run in his chosen
    career.
    And god bless America.
    That's it.
    Thank you.
    What is his chosen career?
    He's in real estate, but small and building, building,
    buildings.
    And we always thought he's an architect going to be,
    but now, it's real estate.
    Now, he comes more.
    Here, I want to tell--
    I am the sole survivor of my family.
    All those who did not move in time
    got caught up in the struggle with the Holocaust.
    Mother's sister, my sister even from Holland with the family--
    she had a child already--
    an uncle and aunt, they all.
    The house burned down.
    My sister-- did I write there my sister died back in Holland?
    Oh, my sister felt safe, that means.
    My sister felt safe in Holland.
    But all over Europe was the same story.
    From a former housekeeper, later, I understand,
    she wrote to Israel to my-- she was--
    in that way, the [INAUDIBLE] to my cousin in there.
    From a former housekeeper letter,
    I understand that some of us tried to escape the deportation
    train and got caught again.
    Some took their own lives by poison, hidden somewhere.
    I think my mother did that.
    I say thank god for that.
    Some were sent back.
    That is true.
    Some were sent back just to see the house burned and caught
    again and off again.
    My grandmother suffocated in an air attack in a shelter.
    She had asthma.
    She had hard breathing already and heart trouble
    when we were there.
    But my mother had to stick with her.
    That were my loved ones.
    Now, it is just only Johnny and me, which is true--
    Johnny without grandparents, or sister, or brother,
    or whatever.
    But the benefit-- but he benefited greatly
    from his father, which is true.
    And he was 17 when my husband passed away.
    This kind of writing opened up old wounds.
    But it is good to come out and somebody listens.
    Tell me, when you say that, Johnny is now
    in the real estate business in New York?
    Yes, not on his own, though.
    Have you ever told him this story?
    He doesn't listen to me.
    Leave me alone, leave me alone.
    And also don't want--
    and he knows he come from Germany.
    But all this-- that's why I want it written down.
    Maybe one day, he comes to sense and wants to know
    or finds it someplace.
    That's what I told you.
    That's why I'm so glad you write it down.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Herta Jacoby
    Interviewer
    Rosalyn Manowitz
    Date
    interview:  1977 December 16

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 sound cassette (90 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

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The interview with Herta Jacoby was conducted by Rosalyn Manowitz on December 16, 1977. 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.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:17:42
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn510623

    Additional Resources

    Transcript (English)

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us

    Also in Rosalyn Manowitz/Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation collection

    Oral history interview with Ann Callman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lilo Callman and Ann Callman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paula Ehrenberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hannah Eisner

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva Feist

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Richard Feist

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Herta Freudenberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Edgar Friedberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Miriam Gerber

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rosemary Getrever

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Walter Getrever

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ernest Hartog

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gerald Hirsch

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Margit Hirsch

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with G. Hirschfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ruth Hockley

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Regina Hoffman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irmgard Horn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Walter Horn

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Curt Jellin

    Oral History

    Curt Jellin, born October 22, 1908 in Herne, Germany, describes being one of six children; attending a Jewish school for two years, a Protestant school for another two years, and the Overreale schule; his father’s participation in WWI; living in Rahden, Germany for a time; the presence of French troops; the difficult conditions after the war; his father’s store; the election in 1932; living in Cologne, Germany; how life changed after Hitler came to power; antisemitism and being physically attacked at one point; the fate of his siblings during the war; moving to Munich, Germany; being on vacation during Kristallnacht and seeing the destruction in Munich upon his return; not returning home because he might be arrested and sent to Dachau; hiding with Gentile friends; experiencing antisemitism in Stuttgart, Germany; getting an affidavit from his sister in the United States; staying in the Netherlands and warning his friends there to leave; arriving in the US in 1939; living in Brooklyn, NY and getting a job in a factory; learning English; being drafted into the army and training at Camp Gordon in Georgia; being transferred to Army Intelligence at Camp Ritchie in Maryland; being sent on the Queen Elizabeth to Glasgow, Scotland in 1943; going to Clevedon, England for intelligence work; being trained in psychological warfare in broadcasting; going to Normandy, France in July 1944; going from Perrier, France to Verdun, France; going to Luxemburg and reporting to a British Navy Commander McLaughlin; being chosen to be a commentator and broadcaster; broadcasting every night between 12 A.M. and 6 A.M. to Germans; the editors and writers working with them; his knowledge of the camps; having to leave Luxembourg for a few days; being assigned to Bad Nauheim, Germany; helping to open Radio Frankfurt and having a program on Radio Frankfurt; the information they acquired; coping with the loss of some of his family members; returning to Cologne; interrogating German generals; feeling that he is more a part of the German Jewish community in the US; living in Washington Heights, NY; his wife, who was born in Hamburg, Germany and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Americans versus Germans.

    Oral history interview with Miriam Knoepfler

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Robert Lehman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irene Lewis

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tilde Lowenthal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ilse Marcus

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jacques Mayer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Emma Michel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Vera Oppenheim

    Oral History

    Vera Oppenheim, born in 1924, discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; attending public schools until her expulsion; leaving for Switzerland with her family; returning to Berlin and being arrested as suspected spies; wearing the required yellow badge; seeing propaganda everywhere; Kristallnacht; family members being deported to Auschwitz; forced labor; being moved to the Riga ghetto in Latvia; performing forced labor on a farm; returning to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga; being sent to Stutthof by boat; liberation by the Soviet Army; conditions in the Soviet Army; walking to Berlin to look for family; immigrating to the United States, first to Boston then New York City; returning to Berlin on a free German government trip; spending time in Israel; and being questioned about reparations.

    Oral history interview with Arthur Plaut

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elga Rosenfeld

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gretel Rothschild

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Kurt Schloss

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Erna Schutz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hermann Seligmann

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Werner Solomon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Werner Solomon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ada Speyer

    Oral History

    Ada Speyer, born January 31, 1893 in Bremerhaven, Germany, describes growing up in Hanover, Germany; attending a business school in Frankfurt for two years; moving to Burma in August 1911 and returning to Germany in November 1915; being prisoners of war under the British; volunteering during WWI at the city hall in Neuwied, Germany; visiting her uncles in England; the religious practices within her family; getting married; her social life in Frankfurt; the rise of Nazism and her desire to go to England; leaving Germany in February 1937; going to Montevideo, Uruguay and staying there 13 years; taking care of her husband’s nephew; her mother and mother-in-law coming to live in Montevideo as well; the Jewish community; organizing aid for the Jewish refugees who began arriving in Montevideo; founding children’s home with the Joint Distribution Committee; her husband’s death and deciding to leave Uruguay; immigrating to the United States in June 1948 with her mother; living in New York, NY; not wanting to return to Germany; and her view of her present life.

    Oral history interview with Ernest Springer and Edith Springer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with George Tobias

    Oral History

    George Tobias, born in 1923 in Danzig, Germany (Gdansk, Poland), describes his childhood in Germany; his education; experiencing antisemitism in his school; his father’s textile business; the Nazi rise to power; the Zionist youth movement; being in the Zionist boy scouts and sports groups; being an only child; his parents applying for visas to the United States in 1937; going to Besançon, France and the journey there; the anti-German feeling in France and being considered Austrian because of his Austrian father; life after Kristallnacht and his parents being forced out of their home in Danzig; being mistreated during a train journey to Paris, France; his parents fleeing to Italy in 1939 and sending their money to relatives in the US; working at a hotel in Evian, France; finishing hotel management school in 1940; being taken on his 17th birthday to an internment camp in Les Milles, France; remaining in the camp for two weeks and going to Nice, France; his father being sent to a camp in Calabria, Italy (possibly Ferramonti); his parents fleeing to Spain then Portugal; working in a French restaurant; his parents’ journey to the US; meeting his parents in New York, NY; being drafted in 1942; being sent to the Army Specialized Training Program and going to the University of Illinois for a few months to learn technical subjects; being put in the signal corps but requesting to be transferred to the intelligence service; volunteering for the Office of Strategic Services; landing in southern France with his team for four; their forged documents and hiding their identities; his attitude towards Germans; being reassigned as an interrogator in the regular army; being a second lieutenant in assigned to the seventh army division; interrogation styles; getting his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University after the war; being a travel agent; and identifying as an American.

    Oral history interview with Ellen Wall

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ruth Wertheimes

    Oral History

    Ruth Wertheimes, born June 6, 1931 in Monheim, Germany, describes not being allowed to attend school after two or three years because she was Jewish; her father’s death when she was a year old; her Polish mother’s antique store; the restrictions placed on Jews; her memories of Kristallnacht and the destruction of the synagogue; being rounded up and sent with her mother and brother (age 13 at the time) to the concentration camp in Gurs, France in October 1940; the conditions in Gurs; attending an OSE (OEuvre de secours aux enfants) school in the camp; going to a home run by Jews in central France with the help of the OSE; learning French; being hidden with the other children in the woods during a round up; being placed with a Gentile family in France and passing as a Christian; losing contact with her mother after 1942; being sent to a convent, where she stayed for a year; living with Jews again after liberation; learning of her mother’s death; immigrating to the US; living with relatives in Queens, NY; adjusting to the US; her friends within the refugee community; and sharing her Holocaust experience with her son.

    Oral history interview with Edith Seligman Wingens

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fred Wittner

    Oral History

    Fred Wittner, born in 1913 in Berlin, Germany, describes working for a large coal mining corporation after finishing school; not experiencing antisemitism at work in the early 1930s; the relations between Jews and non-Jews at his school in western Berlin; participating in a Jewish youth group; the rise in antisemitism; his father’s business, reluctance to emigrate, and participation in WWI; joining a Zionist youth group (Hechalutz) and his desire to emigrate; quitting his job; being sent by the Hachshara to Denmark in 1935; going to Sweden, where his brother joined him; his older brother going to Israel; going to Argentina, where he lived on a farm in a Jewish colony; education and medical care in the colony; living in the colony for one and a half years; getting a job in a tree nursery; living in Buenos Aires until 1953; life under the Peron administration; going to the United States in 1953; his last correspondence with his parents, who died during the Holocaust; working and living in New York, NY, where one of his brothers lived; visiting Germany and Austria with his wife; his thoughts on modern Jewish politicians; and the biggest adjustments he had to make after he moved to the US.

    Oral history interview with Gertrud Wittner

    Oral History

    Gertrud Wittner, born in Wittlich, Germany circa 1921, describes her education in Wittlich, where she attended Jewish and Catholic schools; the Jewish population in Wittlich; being friends with Jews and non-Jews; the changes in the relations with Gentiles after the Nazi rise to power; learning English and Hebrew in preparation for emigration; her parents sending her to Luxembourg in 1936 to live with relatives; her father’s shoes business and the effects of the anti-Jewish boycotts in 1933; her parents’ attempts to emigrate; her life in Luxembourg; going with her family to Palestine; getting a job in Haifa when she was 15 years old; being looked down upon as a German; having to become a member of the Histadrut; life in Palestine during the war; her parents’ adjustments to life there; leaving Israel in 1947 and going to the United States; her life in New York, NY; the differences she’s found between Israelis and Americans; and visiting Germany with her husband.

    View All 45 Items in the Collection