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Oral history interview with Morris Rubin

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1992.A.0128.99 | RG Number: RG-50.165.0099

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    Oral history interview with Morris Rubin
    Transcript
    Wants to rent space now?
    Yeah.
    Tell me, where were you born?
    In Romania.
    Wants to rent space now.
    Yeah.
    Tell me, where were you born?
    In Romania.
    In what city?
    Wisho.
    Can you spell that?
    W-I-S-O. It's right where the Vizhnitzer Rebbe cheder.
    They have a big Vizhnitzer dynasty in Israel.
    Yes, I know the Hasidim.
    Hasidim.
    And he's priding himself, Elie Wiesel,
    that he's a Vizhnitzer Hasid.
    They are among those Hasidim, I believe, who serve in the army,
    aren't they?
    No.
    They don't serve?
    No, the very real Hasidim, they're all the same thing,
    all the same.
    But am I on already yet or not?
    Yes, you're on.
    You're on.
    Make sure.
    All right.
    But let me just assure you that if there's anything
    that you wind up saying by accident or whatever, and you--
    Don't want to have it.
    It won't be.
    OK, I just want--
    The company has-- the publisher, Simon & Schuster,
    their rules are that anything that's
    printed with anyone's name in the book,
    you have to get prior written permission.
    Right.
    And they have to see exactly what it is that they're
    going to be quoted.
    No problem.
    So if you're afraid--
    Yes.
    You see, this place was Romanian when I was born.
    In 1940, it changed and becomes Hungary.
    The Hungarians occupied it.
    1940.
    And then now it's Romania again after the war.
    I see.
    And your family?
    Was your family Hasidic?
    My family was semi-Hasidic.
    We were more in business.
    They're business people at their-- we had a store.
    And we were-- my father wore a black hat, but not
    a big long beard with the payos.
    He was one with a business hat, but it's in a nice black outer.
    What business was he in?
    It's a general store, like they call it here.
    We had almost everything for the public.
    It was a Jewish town?
    Yes, mostly with the city, with the main streets.
    Everybody was Jewish.
    And there were three towns there.
    It was like a higher town where the Ober Wisho, where
    the Vizhnitzer Rebbe had a yeshiva of 400
    bochurim learning and eating there.
    [INAUDIBLE] everything.
    We had everything.
    And then we had a middle town, and then the lower town.
    And this is the same, like incorporated together.
    We were under the same [INAUDIBLE].
    Where did you go to school?
    School, I went local in Wisho.
    And then I went to Ober Wisho.
    Half a day I went to cheder.
    They called it cheder.
    And the next half of the day, I went to school.
    We had to go to a regular to get diploma.
    This was what, for high school?
    For high school.
    What year were you born?
    In 1929, October 20.
    So you were a teenager during the war.
    14 years.
    And during the war, when the war broke out--
    first of all, how many brothers and sisters?
    I have two brothers and two sisters.
    Did they--
    We were five.
    Did they make it?
    One sister, my older sister, is survived.
    She lives here in Brooklyn.
    And two sisters and a brother and my mother
    fell [INAUDIBLE] in the Shoah.
    And my father is a story for itself.
    They took the younger people, the army age.
    Instead of putting them in the army clothes
    to fight in the war, they took them behind the war
    to collect mines, to collect dead people.
    And they had a chance, and the war was raging at 1943.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And the Russians started to advance.
    They were able to give themselves over to the Russians.
    They figured this is going to be safe,
    wasn't going to be under the Germans.
    But the Russians, what we know about it,
    took them as prisoners of war.
    And they marched them into Siberia, not as Germans yet--
    Jews, Germans, under the war.
    Nobody cared for them, and they actually
    have a history themselves.
    It's a story for itself.
    There's not too much told about it.
    They died from typhoid and died from everything else,
    because nobody was able to look after it.
    Because for the other prisoners of war,
    the Red Cross looked after them.
    What about the Polish Jews who fled into Siberia,
    who wound up being deported to Siberia?
    Were they were in the same situation?
    They probably were sort of same situation, but even worse.
    They were worse, because the captured them under the front.
    Because there were thousands of Jews who went to Siberia.
    As civilians.
    They were as army.
    They said they shouldn't have been there.
    They should have run away.
    They should have been partisans.
    They kept it under the front.
    They couldn't care less.
    That's how they treated them, as the army.
    But he wasn't in any army, really.
    But they didn't want to know that.
    That's anti-Semitism, but it still was in there in Russia.
    And it was treated worse than the real prisoners of war,
    because,s like I mentioned before,
    the real prisoners of war, somebody cared for them.
    And after the war, they were let out.
    What happened to you during the war?
    In the war, myself, I was told when
    I went down from the trains, after all the ghetto and all
    the deals that everybody knows how it went down,
    I was told right then by embarking
    that I should go to the right and say I'm older.
    Because I was a little bit tall at my age,
    and I shouldn't tell them my true age.
    I should say I'm older, and I should go to the work,
    because the working people will be safe.
    And I listened.
    I was very fast on these type of things.
    And I said, I'm older, and what my profession.
    I said, I'm a shoemaker.
    They looked for professional people.
    And they put me to the right.
    You weren't really a shoemaker, were you?
    I worked for a store delivering shoes in the war time.
    That was enough.
    And that was enough to know--
    they didn't even ever put me in a place to work,
    because this would have been good.
    Who was making this selection then?
    I was so young.
    I didn't know.
    There were Germans-- most likely Mengele.
    But wait a minute.
    You were in Auschwitz?
    I was an Auschwitz.
    My number is 3904.
    39--
    04.
    So you were there early.
    I was one of the--
    no, this is A3904.
    I came late.
    Because the Romanian was actually Hungarian.
    They first took them in 1944.
    That's what I mean.
    I surprised, a low number, but this A.
    A low number, but they started A all over.
    I see.
    They started--
    They started-- again, people came, A3904, the 3,904th.
    That was my name all the time.
    So you were 14, and you arrived what day?
    I arrived [YIDDISH].
    That's what I have my [? Yahrzeit. ?] [YIDDISH],
    right.
    And the English date?
    [YIDDISH] The English date must have been May sometimes.
    Because I remember who was--
    I worked already in Auschwitz.
    This was May of--
    Of 1944.
    '44.
    And what kind of work did they do with you?
    Well, we started to build a railroad.
    Were you in Buna or Gleiwitz?
    No, Jaworzno.
    It was a coal town mine-- coal mine town.
    Were you near Auschwitz?
    It was walking distance from Auschwitz.
    And your job was what?
    To build railroads that should transport
    the coal to the main station.
    Did they take people from your group
    and send them to the crematorium when they got to--
    They were selected.
    There was selection.
    Every once in a while, they came to a selection.
    In fact, one time, they came a selection.
    I got so skinny, a 14-year-old kid and no food.
    After a couple of months, I got my only my bones, my ribs.
    You were able to count them.
    So all of a sudden, I found one time, one of my block oldest.
    When I was on the selection, I was standing in the front.
    He said, no, go in the back.
    I didn't know why.
    He saved my life.
    Because whenever they saw a guy like this who was not
    too much to go, they took him.
    Every month, they came every couple of weeks,
    and a couple of people were missing.
    But life was-- there, everybody kept to themselves.
    You didn't know too much what's happening.
    And like the oldest one with the Polish people who came there
    much earlier, they knew exactly what's going on
    and what's happening.
    Well, he came there with bewildered kid.
    I didn't know too much what's happened, what's going on.
    I know it's bad, it's [INAUDIBLE].
    If I see my parents, I never knew about it.
    This I heard.
    Did you think you were going to get out of it?
    You wouldn't even-- you didn't even think about it.
    Your life, your mind was so geared at the minute living,
    and you didn't care.
    Actually, didn't care if I get out or don't get out.
    It didn't have meaning.
    Life didn't mean it.
    You mean your instincts took over.
    Right.
    You survived on your instincts.
    But that's how they get it.
    It was so systematically that the person became--
    didn't become a person anymore.
    Like a machine.
    Right.
    Did they encourage people not to care about each other?
    Do you think that they encouraged that?
    The systematic way?
    They didn't encourage it.
    There was no such thing like--
    it became a natural instinct, an animalistic instinct
    that a person should care for himself, survival.
    Case in point-- the beginning, we came there,
    they gave you the ration--
    was a piece of bread.
    We used to weigh it for three people, who gets equal.
    One shouldn't be bigger with [INAUDIBLE] than the other one.
    And we used to get a soup once a day, water soup, but who
    knows what was there.
    So the bread at night, the newcomers
    used to hide it under their head, under the pillow,
    for the next morning to have something to eat.
    But we didn't know the old timers knew about it.
    And when they head, when we slept,
    tight sleep after day's work, and stole it.
    The next morning, we didn't have the piece of bread.
    So this shows you how people didn't care.
    They knew, this is my life.
    No.
    So when they had--
    I figured they cannot steal from my stomach.
    As I got it, I ate up everything.
    At least I had-- and I still was hungry.
    So this was my wish.
    This is another episode in my life,
    that I'll have enough bread to eat, how much I want.
    I'll be the happiest man in my life.
    Tell me now, did that ever affect--
    I wonder if over a long period of time,
    it affects a person's eating.
    Yeah.
    How?
    Definitely.
    My family a lot of times mentioned to me
    that I'm so stingy.
    I care for everything.
    I cannot see.
    We live in the richest country in the world, food galore.
    Thank God I have.
    God help me, you understand?
    I can't see thrown-out bread.
    I'll eat a bread.
    As long as it's edible, I'll eat it.
    Do you freeze it?
    Oh, yes.
    You can freeze it.
    And if I don't freeze it, it was three or four days old--
    some of my kids wouldn't even touch it--
    I'll eat it.
    Would you leave over from there and go and eat somewhere?
    Yes.
    I mean, after a while, I learned to leave over in the beginning,
    not.
    But I learned that you cannot be overweight,
    and it's not healthy for you.
    And I'm not going to gorge myself.
    And this became more the normal life, you know?
    You have a special relationship with bread.
    Yes.
    I would not--
    I could not see-- in food now, too, we have leftover food.
    I'll store it or freeze it.
    Then my children would say, throw it out.
    Why are you going to freeze it?
    No, I cannot see.
    I cannot see.
    What about your wife?
    What does she say?
    Well, she comes actually from a home--
    not a wealthy home.
    And she's realizing.
    She is working with me together to see that food should not
    be thrown out.
    I cannot waste things.
    I cannot.
    Sometimes I save things that are laying around.
    I cannot see throwing out.
    And this would definitely stem from the time.
    Do you collect things?
    No.
    You don't any hobbies?
    Some people collect stamps.
    They collect coins.
    I used to do it.
    I used to collect stamps.
    I have a stamp collection, which I still have with me even
    after the liberation in Germany.
    I brought it back as a kid.
    But I gave it up after a while.
    It's not my hobby anymore.
    After the war, you were liberated where?
    I was liberated in Poland.
    Where?
    After the death march, if you heard about it.
    Sure.
    We were in Blechhammer at the city,
    because they were taking us deeper into Germany.
    And when I was there at the death march,
    it's a story for itself, my way of hiding myself up
    while the Germans were still evacuating
    the camp in Blechhammer.
    I'm interested in that.
    If you read the book Night, Elie Wiesel
    that he was taken after the death march further into--
    what's the name of the famous death camp?
    He was going with his father.
    No, with his father--
    Dachau?
    Dachau.
    I said to myself then, I cannot go any further.
    The war was going on back and forth, terrible.
    We heard it, shooting and killing.
    There was a time when we were left alone,
    no Russians, no Germans.
    And this was in Blechhammer.
    After I was in a barrack there.
    And they were throwing in live grenades.
    Anybody running out, they were shooting.
    Anybody inside got burned.
    And when I saw the window, and I want to get out of the window
    to run out from the burning, and I saw they were shooting,
    I didn't know what to do.
    And the first thinking of mine, if I stay inside,
    I'll get burned.
    If I run out, I'll get shoot.
    What should I do?
    But the first thing, as I ran out, I fell on a heap of bodies
    outside the window in the barracks.
    I didn't start running, because if I start running,
    they will shoot me.
    I was staying.
    I was staying on the bodies.
    Pretending you were dead.
    I am pretending I'm dead.
    And I was there with the moans, with the groans,
    with the people who were shot.
    They were shot with bullets, with the doom bullets,
    where they make--
    ripped the body from inside.
    And it was awful.
    You cannot imagine.
    And after it quieted down, I saws everything is quiet.
    I started to lift myself off, some bodies on top of me
    and the side of me.
    And I started to look and look around, and I saw it's quiet.
    And I went out, and we started to walk.
    And I met three other boys there.
    And we went out outside the camp, but it was winter time.
    It was in February or March.
    The cold was so--
    we felt outside we were going to get frozen.
    Maybe the Russians already occupied, came into the camp,
    or go back to the camp, and maybe we'll be safe.
    We went back to the camp.
    As we went back to the camp, and we were in a certain room,
    but all kinds of closets, all kinds of things
    we heard, again, the incoming of the Germans
    with their little motorcycles, talking German.
    I said, oh, no.
    After all the things, we are back in the German land.
    I took one of the big closets, just thinking, turned it
    over me, lowered it, and I got under the closet on the floor.
    When the two boys saw what I'm doing,
    they crept under the same thing and were staying there
    like frozen-- dead frozen.
    And then we heard shooting.
    Then we heard coming [INAUDIBLE] and shooting out like this.
    But they didn't shoot in the closet.
    And we were lucky but frozen.
    And then we heard getting together
    all kinds of people from the other camp,
    and putting them on trucks.
    And we heard them going away.
    I said, don't.
    It started to get light.
    I think it's not good.
    At night, they didn't see us, but in the day
    they'll see the closet.
    They'll lift it up.
    We got out from the closet, and we started going again back,
    and we went back to the hospital.
    Our luck, we started to see some Russians coming in.
    The Russians already told us we can do nothing with you.
    We are middle of a war.
    We have our own problems.
    So we started to go back deeper into Poland--
    was in Poland.
    So we took the first train that drives in deeper into Poland.
    And we took the train, and we went to Kielce.
    Because we were afraid in case the Germans push back,
    again the Russians-- we'll get caught again.
    Kielce.
    Mind you, we come to Kielce, and we
    were looking middle of the night, the train, frozen, cold.
    We were looking to put our bodies down for the night,
    till next day, to find where we could get-- maybe there
    was a Jewish already place, relief place.
    So we saw light, and we come in to the Russian hospital.
    And they took the bayonets and said they wanted to shoot us,
    because we were wearing Russian-German coats.
    Because we took off the coats from German dead body
    to cover ourselves to get warm, because they had warm coats--
    warm coats.
    And we were picked up the hands, and we told them the story.
    We're Jewish.
    We just come from concentration camp.
    He said, I'm sorry.
    We can't help.
    Anybody here, we're not allowed under the war.
    We went a little bit further, and we saw again lights.
    We came into the Polish police.
    And we told them the same story, and they said, sure,
    we could sleep over.
    I figure it's good.
    In the morning-- we slept a couple of hours there--
    we see a guy going back and forth watching us,
    patrolling us--
    German, Polish.
    We got up and said, we'd like to go.
    They said, no, you can't go.
    You're under arrest.
    Why are we under arrest?
    We don't know what you did in Auschwitz.
    Maybe you burned Polacks in Auschwitz.
    We want to see who you are.
    I said, we are three Jews.
    We don't-- we never even worked, you know, we were in Jaworzno.
    No, we want to see.
    They put us into jail.
    We were sitting in jail after the liberation from March,
    April, Pesach, we were in jail, till end of-- till around May
    time, three or four months.
    We were in jail in Kielce.
    While we were in jail was a time when,
    if you heard the famous story, they
    took all the Jews who came back, and they killed them
    in the woods.
    This was the Poles.
    How we were liberated in Kielce, we finally
    sent out to the Kielce Jewish people, gemeinde.
    What do you call it?
    Kehilla.
    Whatever they call it, kehilla, a letter.
    We gave a code, a German code, to one
    of the people who washed up our floors
    to give this little letter out there to know
    that we are in jail.
    They didn't even know the three Jews are in jail in their town.
    And a nice day, they came, and they
    knocked on the door we should come to the court
    to hear why we sit here.
    As we sit there, and we tell them we have no--
    we didn't do anything, we are innocent,
    he said, in Jewish, don't worry.
    I'm a Yid.
    He was in the Polish army, under the army.
    He was still another regular civilian with still war.
    And after three, four days, he finally left us out there.
    And a guy met us, a Polack, one of the officers.
    He told us, you three Jews, if you don't leave now today,
    you're going to be killed like the rest of the Jews
    were killed.
    Don't you think so?
    The next morning, we left to Krakow.
    We wouldn't even stay there any longer.
    And then there's a different story for itself.
    This was our liberation.
    This is after the liberation.
    After I went through all these things,
    could you imagine what a young kid went through?
    Did you have any close calls during the time
    when you were in Auschwitz yourself?
    Every minute.
    Every minute.
    Every minute it was close calls.
    I have here still a mark when I was shot--
    was shot at me.
    And when the dead march, I went, and I saw somebody got killed.
    And I didn't have the shoes on my feet--
    were all torn and wet.
    I wanted to take off his shoes.
    That's how it went.
    And I wanted to remove his shoes, because I saw he'd died.
    Anyway, they shot at me.
    They thought, I'm going to help.
    The bullet went in through the coat, through my pants,
    and pierced my skin.
    And I still had the bullet.
    I lost it.
    There was one time when I was working in camp, carrying
    the big rails on my shoulders with four other,
    five other guys for the railroad.
    And I was a little bit taller than the rest of the people.
    So if I would stay straight, the rail would be on my shoulder.
    Blood was running into my shoulder.
    And as I went down I should be even with the rest of them,
    a guy came on, our own people, a couple.
    And he gave me--
    and behind the shoes, that I felt that--
    I thought, I'm going to get--
    I'll die here.
    I should straighten up.
    One time, we have to turn over the soil to make the rails,
    to get it even-- sand, soil.
    And I was trying-- a kid, 14 years, trying to move it over,
    to turn it over.
    And he thought I'm not doing a good job enough.
    He made me jump heel down and up where all the Germans watch.
    You know, in the towers, were watching, up and down jumping.
    And I rolled over back and forth until I
    thought that this is my finish.
    I'll never survive again.
    He wanted to show how good job he's doing from the Germans.
    It was time--
    He was Jewish?
    Yeah.
    He was an old Polish Jew who was there a long time ago.
    They worked themselves up already.
    Did they discriminated against the--
    You're right.
    You're bringing up a subject again.
    They discriminated terribly.
    They blamed us that we had the privilege of living such
    a good life in our own home while they were
    taken into Auschwitz, and they were already
    suffering three years.
    Now, we should suffer.
    They suffered enough.
    Therefore, we should work, and they shouldn't have to work.
    And they kept constantly picking on us for no reason.
    We were Jews.
    But [? our four, ?] we didn't send them.
    In fact, we even helped for those people.
    My father was actually helping all the people
    who ran over from Poland to our neighborhood.
    We were actually more by the border, and gave them papers--
    did everything possible to make them legal.
    And they should send them to the biggest city, like to Budapest,
    they should have paper that he used to live here,
    and they are citizens of Romania.
    And he put his life in danger.
    He would have been caught.
    He would have been killed.
    We tried to help those people.
    It wasn't our fault that they were taken
    earlier than we were taken.
    But somehow, it's known that they did it.
    For why they did it--
    Well, you gave a good reason.
    Because they felt they were taken-- was it our fault.
    Also, I think that the people who speak the same language,
    you know, who had old friendships from before--
    Yeah.
    When times get really bad, they tend to stick with each other,
    and you almost expect that.
    You grew up-- what languages did you speak?
    We speak Yiddish, was our national language, and then
    the Romanian language.
    Not Hungarian.
    Not Hungarian.
    So you didn't know Hungarian when you came.
    No way, I had nothing to do with the Hungarians, in fact.
    We were Romanian, actually.
    Did the Romanians and the Hungarians--
    did they help each other out?
    Well--
    Because both groups came later.
    Both groups.
    We were under the Hungarian occupation,
    and the main Hungarians were more together.
    We were more unified.
    We came later already.
    And what happened to those Jews who came from Galicia?
    What category were they in?
    Were they more--
    They were more Poland.
    They spoke Polish.
    So they were more Polish.
    They were more Polish, and they were taken earlier, too,
    in 1942, 43.
    I'm curious.
    Since I focus on after the war--
    Correct.
    Do you think any of this--
    any of this prejudice feeling has lasted after the war?
    I mean, after all, in American, the people?
    It did.
    It did.
    When we came over after the war, ah, you're a Hung?
    You're Hungarian?
    Because Romania and Czechoslovakia and all
    these people, they, like--
    Stereotyped them.
    Stereotyped them, the Hungarian.
    Somehow, I don't know what's the difference.
    It's ironic to think about it.
    The Germans didn't look at it this way.
    The Germans looked at us as Jewish,
    and therefore we have to get killed.
    And our own Jews are looking, see that you're Hungarian,
    you're Romanian, and you're Polish, you're Galicia.
    Even when they had to shut us up to each other,
    they said, eh, Hungarian or you're Polish or something.
    It's ironic how the Jewish mind works.
    Why?
    Why should it be like this?
    I was young.
    I didn't care for these things.
    I never had in my mind these types of thing.
    I felt a Jew is a Jew, doesn't make a difference where he comes
    from, what his background is.
    When you came here to this country,
    did you belong to any landsmannschaft, any kind of--
    Yes, we had a Wisho Landsmannschaft.
    A lot of my cousins were here, and they had a different world,
    different life.
    What do you mean?
    They were working.
    They looked at their--
    they were not religious.
    I'm a religious Orthodox Jew.
    And they felt there's only one way for us to do,
    is to come into their--
    one of them, had a shop of clothes, clothing shop.
    And he felt most likely, what are you going to do here?
    Come in to work for us.
    You're talking now about the people
    who you knew before the war.
    Right, the cousins of ours.
    And they told me to come to work for them.
    And I was young.
    And
    when I came to the United States,
    I met up with the Klausenberger Rebbe.
    The Klausenberger Rebbe, you see his picture there.
    It was close to Bergen, near--
    Near Warsaw, from the Romanian-Hungarian
    occupied, from the same-- not far from each other.
    But I never knew him before.
    I just met him in Germany.
    After the war?
    After the war.
    Where?
    In Bremerhaven.
    He actually was in Fernwald.
    First Bremerhaven was where you left for America?
    Left for America.
    That's where you took the boat.
    We took the boat, and we had to stay there four weeks
    before we embarked the boat, because it was our strike--
    boat strike.
    I heard about that strike.
    What year was that?
    In 1946, beginning of '47.
    How did you get a visa?
    I was in the children quota, and I had preference,
    under 18 years.
    You were children's quota.
    Right.
    The children's quota--
    I did not have to wait.
    I did not have to wait for my quota, for Romanian quota.
    Romanian quota was very bad.
    I would have had to stay there three, four years in Germany
    to wait for my quota.
    Children's quota was everybody, no matter what country
    they came from--
    Came, they had a right to--
    as long as you had papers, they let you in this preference.
    Who sent these papers [INAUDIBLE].
    People would send you from the United States
    that you have home to come to.
    Oh, I see.
    And they let anybody?
    They let, I would think, most of the people.
    And who sent you papers?
    I had a cousin here by the name of Stauber.
    My mother was a Stauber.
    Stauber?
    Stauber.
    S-T-A-U-B-E-R?
    Has to be-- right.
    And he sent me papers that he'll give me a home in the United
    States, and I wouldn't be the burden of the country,
    of the states.
    It's ironic.
    After a Holocaust like this, and after destruction like this,
    people have to stay in this cursed Germany
    to wait for a quota prospectus to their country,
    if the boundaries were not opened, open entry.
    They needed workers.
    They needed people here.
    Why didn't they open and let in the people?
    History has to- be like now, when
    there were other times and things happened,
    they let in all kinds of people.
    Why didn't they let them in?
    Why did they have to stay there?
    What happened?
    Well, there was a lot of anti-Jewish feeling here,
    and you know that the majority of the DPs who came here
    were not Jewish.
    And they gave them favorable quotas because
    of the Christian organizations.
    Right.
    And the Jewish people who suffered, they didn't have it.
    No.
    So the children going back, they gave them favorable.
    Did you come in with your sister?
    No, she was on the-- she was over 18.
    So she had to stay.
    But you knew she was alive there?
    Yeah, we were already in Germany.
    She was in the same--
    well, a different camp in Germany.
    What camp were you in?
    I was in Fürth by Nuremberg.
    Nuremberg Trials-- I went to the Nuremberg Trials.
    I saw them personally, all these bastards.
    You went to the trials?
    Goebbels, Neurath, Ribbentrop.
    You sat in the audience?
    I sat in the audience, and I saw.
    I felt like going out and killing them, all of them.
    Were you able to understand what was going on?
    They had-- I spoke a little bit German.
    I understood the German language,
    and I understood what was going on.
    It was very awful.
    I went one time, and I wouldn't go again.
    And to go back when I met the Klausenberger
    Rebbe, by coincidence, like life sends Hashgacha.
    Hashgacha pratis.
    Pratis.
    I had to meet up with him, and he took a liking.
    He say I'm a young kid.
    He told me, Moishe, you're coming to the United States--
    in Yiddish, in a heavy Galician Yiddish.
    And you're going to go into a shop, and you're going to work.
    You're going to stay there all your life.
    You're young.
    Come, open a yeshiva, and still learn.
    And you have time to work all your life,
    and you'll orient yourself, and you'll see what you want to do.
    You'll get an education, and then you'll have to go to work.
    I listened to him.
    And then my cousins that I spoke to you
    before wanted me to get into their shop and work.
    I said no, my rabbi told me not to go to work.
    I'll sit and learn now.
    I said, do your custom, but thank God I never had to go.
    This was when you came?
    When I came to the United States.
    What boat did you come in on?
    Marine Flasher, I still remember.
    When did you arrive?
    I arrived around Christmastime in 1960--
    Not 60.
    1946.
    Yeah, the Marine Flasher also came in May,
    and it also came in June.
    It went back and forth.
    It went back and forth, probably.
    You were on one of the--
    One of those boats.
    Mostly Jews on the boat?
    Yeah, everybody was DPs.
    It was a special DP boat.
    What were conditions like on the boat?
    What do you remember?
    I'll tell you, after going through a concentration camp,
    nothing was worse.
    It couldn't be worse.
    At least you had how bad you were.
    It was very rough seas with vomiting
    and all kinds of things.
    But it was within yourself, within your own people,
    whatever's happened.
    Maybe you were too young, but did you
    have any thought about going to Israel?
    At that time, you were 16.
    I wanted to get out as fast as possible, and I would try.
    I didn't care.
    If I would have gone, able to go to Israel faster,
    I would have gone Israel.
    But here I saw an opportunity that I could get out very fast
    to come to the United States.
    I said, the United States.
    I could always go to Israel.
    And you had an affidavit.
    And I had an affidavit, and this started me up.
    On the boat, were you seasick?
    Very much.
    Three days, I couldn't eat in--
    Large boat?
    I mean, you were in a large room?
    It was not too large.
    We were under the lower--
    the lower--
    Lower--
    [INAUDIBLE], decks.
    And I was very sick.
    Did you feel when you were coming to America
    that you were now going to start life over again?
    I didn't know what was going to wait for me.
    You didn't have any-- what had you heard about America before?
    I heard life is good here.
    You have a lot of Jews here.
    They weren't touched in the war time.
    And it all sounds that I'm going to start a new life here.
    I'll start all over again.
    How did these Jews treat you when you came here?
    I would say very good.
    They didn't say agree to this, agree to that?
    Didn't care.
    Didn't bother me.
    You see, you had to have a little thick skin.
    You develop it while you were in Auschwitz.
    And going through before Auschwitz,
    we didn't have it too good either, because the war was on.
    And like I said before, my father was taken away
    to the army in 1943 already, and my mother was left with three--
    with four children by herself.
    And there was no sustenance and things
    weren't rosy already then.
    And things were-- so we were used to all kinds of things
    already.
    When you were in school, in every class there are leaders,
    followers, middle people, the kid that gets
    picked on, the kid that's the bully.
    And you have different types of children that go to school.
    Where would you characterize yourself?
    Where would you say you were?
    Low end, low key.
    Low key.
    You were in the middle.
    The middle.
    Middle.
    I would never let my-- step on me.
    This was always-- I always knew how to--
    To avoid.
    To avoid.
    But I did not make waves either.
    Were you studious?
    This is a very big, I would say, point in my life.
    I was studious in one side, and the other side,
    I did not have the patience, because I didn't know what
    is awaiting me the next minute.
    I did suffer tremendously not having a family, not belonging.
    But I saw all children do belong, have parents,
    somebody caring for them.
    I missed it.
    You're talking about when you came here.
    Already in the States, sure.
    I missed it terrible.
    When you came here, you landed in New York?
    I landed to New York.
    Who greeted you?
    I was greeted by--
    was it the HIAS?
    It was the HIAS, must have been the HIAS.
    But we were taken--
    because I came with the Klausenberger Rebbe together--
    He was on the boat?
    On the boat.
    He was in the boat with me together, stop working.
    Did he talk to you?
    He talked to you-- oh, he talked to you.
    Oh, you met him.
    Met him in Bremerhaven.
    We were there four weeks.
    So he was recruiting people for his yeshiva.
    He saw a young Yiddish boy, and he came with already 10
    to 12 boys, were the yeshiva boys.
    And I got myself connected to them.
    I got a Yiddish feeling, was already Shomer Shabbos.
    And I felt this is the best thing for me.
    I have minyan, and he was very close to me.
    So because of him, we were invited to a family,
    the Rosenberg in the Bronx.
    And we didn't go to the HIAS directly.
    They knew-- they were supporters of the yeshiva?
    They were supporters of the Klausenberger Rebbe.
    They knew about him.
    He was here before.
    So your first thing was you went to the Bronx.
    The private people put us up for Shabbos.
    Do you remember your impression of New York and the subway?
    Bewildered.
    Bewildered.
    Where were you?
    Took the subway, a car?
    Subway or car.
    They took us to this house, to the Bronx.
    Then we were in our foster home, they called it.
    In the Bronx.
    In the Bronx.
    What was the name of it?
    Don't remember, children's foster home.
    There was such a home in the Bronx.
    That's right.
    And they put us up there, and they knew
    they had to give us kosher.
    Therefore, probably they couldn't take us to any place.
    They released me afterwards, after they
    had me checked out by a doctor.
    They released me to my cousin, I should
    come to my cousin's house.
    Not the Klausenberger.
    Not the Klausenberger.
    I came to my cousin's house, and all the family came to see me.
    Where was the cousin?
    In Brooklyn, in Brownsville.
    And they were the ones who had given you the--
    They were sending me the papers.
    How did you find it? [?
    Was it a war find? ?]
    There was another cousin of mine in Germany, who
    they, in turn, had a sister.
    The sister was also a cousin.
    My cousin, their cousin, they were here.
    And they told my cousin.
    They told all these people that I am there existing,
    and they sent me papers right away.
    So they came, and they all came to see you.
    Do you remember what that scene was like?
    They wanted to know and question me,
    what happened to their family?
    What happened to the Landsleit?
    Did you know?
    Yeah, they killed everybody.
    What happened when you told them that?
    Well, the crying going down--
    woke up in them a lot of feeling.
    But they knew already.
    It was already a year afterwards.
    It took me a year to get here.
    The liberation was '45, and I came here in '46.
    Were they warm and friendly to you?
    Very.
    They bought me clothes.
    They gave me some money.
    They tried to make up.
    Were they like first cousins?
    My mother's first cousins, yeah--
    first cousin once removed or second.
    Because they knew-- when had they come here, in the '20s?
    Yeah, in the '20s.
    Oh, yeah.
    They used to come.
    I remember some of the cousins, they
    used to come to visit the family.
    So where did you live in those days?
    In those days, I went to the Klausenberger Rebbe,
    the yeshiva.
    Where?
    In South 5th Street in Williamsburg.
    Williamsburg.
    And I went to live there, and I lived there for six months
    and became very Hasidic.
    And I was not geared for such a Hasidic life.
    Were you able to learn?
    I mean, had you had a lot of it--
    I was able to learn, yes.
    A learning background--
    A learning background, because the background was always--
    we always went to yeshiva, cheder yeshiva.
    This was the parents' wish, that learning was above everything.
    So you went--
    And a child, they gave the last what
    they had or they didn't have.
    [INAUDIBLE], we had [INAUDIBLE].
    They paid for a melamed, for a rabbi.
    We should learn.
    This was their utmost.
    So you were able to keep up with the learning decisions.
    Yes, I was able to keep up.
    They had different levels.
    How many students did he have?
    We had around 20, 30 students to start in.
    Were most of these students--
    We had a dormitory there.
    We had--
    Were most of them refugees?
    Refugees, all of them refugees.
    Are you still in touch with any of them?
    Yes, a few.
    We are still in touch.
    Are any of them Hasidic?
    Most of them are Hasidic.
    Most of them are Hasidim.
    In fact, the Klausenberger Rebbe is
    responsible for Laniado Hospital in Israel,
    Kiryat Sanz, another hospital.
    And also Netanya, he built almost the city in Israel.
    Were you involved with it at all?
    And I come there every year when they make this--
    I have a cousin who works for them.
    His name is Solomon, Jackie Solomon.
    Maybe I knew him years ago.
    I'm involved and come there to every dinner
    when they have for Netanya Hospital,
    for any other hospital.
    I came to see the Klausenberger constantly,
    and the Klausenberger Rebbe said I should keep very close
    because I'm a talent of his.
    Where did you come to see him?
    Before he left Israel, when he got sick already.
    And I came to see him all the time
    when he came from America back.
    And before he left, I used to come there
    for Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur.
    And I felt very close.
    But, however, when I mentioned to you
    before that I was with a--
    after six months, I felt it's a little bit too religious for me.
    Even so, they sent us away to a camp,
    Orthodox camp for the summer.
    And after--
    Was that Camp Yeshiva?
    [INAUDIBLE] in Fernwald.
    Ferndale.
    Ferndale.
    Yeah, Ferndale, close to Fernwald.
    Yeah, Ferndale.
    Camp Mesivta.
    Camp Mesivta, right.
    Yeah, right.
    This was my first camp in America.
    I still have pictures of it.
    You do?
    Yeah, pictures of two other boys from the camp there.
    I'd be interested to see.
    Yeah, I have all these pictures.
    I have pictures when I arrived to America
    with my numbers in the hand, with the three
    other boys, the New York Times, the New York Post.
    I'll show it to you.
    I was in the Times.
    They were interviewing us.
    I have them all.
    I'll be very interesting to see.
    What I'd like to do is Xerox it.
    Yes, I'll get it to you.
    Sure.
    I'll get it.
    Because it's history.
    Correct.
    I'll definitely get it.
    And what happened then, I saw that it's not for me.
    And as my cousins were in Brownsville,
    I found out that there's a yeshiva
    by the name of Chaim Berlin.
    Chaim Berlin.
    [INAUDIBLE] So I went over to yeshiva Chaim Berlin,
    and I told them the whole story, that I'm going to Klausenberger
    Rebbe, but I feel Klausenberger Rebbe is too Hasidic for me,
    and I would like to come to learn here.
    They welcomed me very much.
    But Miller was the [YIDDISH], which is still now Rabbi Miller.
    Avigdor Miller.
    Avigdor Miller, which I still go talk
    shiur to him present day in [? Northern ?] Parkway.
    You know, I wrote a book about yeshivas.
    I did not know.
    I wrote a book.
    It's called The World of the Yeshiva.
    Really?
    And I wrote a lot about Avigdor Miller.
    He was a very, very nice person--
    extremely.
    I had more closer to him than of Hutner, olev ha-sholom.
    And he put me into Rabbi Shurkin's class--
    Shurkin.
    Shurkin, was Shurkin's class.
    And after I was there for a year or two,
    the Korean War broke out.
    So let's see.
    And you're already--
    '50, '51.
    21 years old.
    Yes, right.
    You were-- I mean, I want to go--
    441 Hopkinson Avenue, near Pitkin Avenue,
    [? Hutchinson ?] Avenue.
    Not much left today.
    And the yeshiva was [? torn in pieces. ?]
    Yes, I used to go for [INAUDIBLE]--
    Right?
    On Stone--
    Stone and Pitkin, the same address.
    And I was rough.
    After Rav [INAUDIBLE] shiur, I went to Rav [INAUDIBLE] shiur.
    And then I went to Rav Chaim's [INAUDIBLE] shiur.
    Oh, he said shiur then?
    Oh, he said tremendous.
    He was the highest shiur, the [INAUDIBLE].
    And after his shiur, I went into Rav Hutner's shiur
    in Beis Medrash.
    And I was lucky that I went [INAUDIBLE].
    Otherwise I would have wound up in Korean War.
    What was your impression of Hutner?
    Hutner was-- any could have been very close to him,
    or you could--
    very cold.
    He had bochurim.
    They were very-- they couldn't live without him.
    And he had a [NON-ENGLISH] on the [NON-ENGLISH].
    I was not this type, because like you mentioned before,
    when you asked me before how was my learning,
    how did I remember and my interest, I couldn't.
    I didn't have patience.
    I didn't know what next minute is going to be,
    what my future is going to be, what's going to be
    my [NON-ENGLISH], who's going to support me.
    I could see the other boys learning what parents
    and had everybody to support him.
    I didn't have this.
    I always had a feeling I have to care for myself.
    I'm reaching a point of 21.
    I have no home.
    Eventually, I have to get married.
    I have to support a wife and children.
    What's going to be the [INAUDIBLE]?
    Ready, I'm not going to be.
    I wasn't-- I come from a business home,
    and I felt I have to be in business.
    I have to do something.
    So I got a job selling part time.
    So that-- I needed money.
    I needed pocket money, textiles, the garment center.
    I needed money.
    Who were you selling to?
    To manufacturers.
    What were you selling?
    Piece goods.
    Who gave them to you?
    Textile company.
    Like a rep?
    Like a salesman.
    Did the yeshiva approve of that?
    They did and they didn't.
    They knew I need to--
    I didn't have anybody to support me.
    I need clothes.
    I need pocket money.
    Your cousins, you just live with them and--
    Yes, and even after a while, I couldn't live with them either.
    I have to live someplace else, and I had to pay something.
    You were like a [INAUDIBLE], you were--
    Right.
    Right, correct.
    And it was hard, hard times.
    And I had to keep up.
    Therefore, my mind wasn't too much in the learning.
    But I had to be in the yeshiva, otherwise
    I have to go to the war, in the army.
    I was on edge.
    Was there a man who was in charge of all the refugees
    who came at that time?
    In the yeshiva?
    No.
    There was no--
    We were-- no way.
    We were in-- one thing they did for us,
    they didn't charge us anything for the yeshiva.
    We did not have to pay when the rest of the children pay.
    We got free food.
    We were eating inside.
    In fact, the time then was also there
    Dovid Weiss, Dovid [INAUDIBLE].
    He was then in the same time when I was there.
    He comes from Sighet, the same, not far from me.
    In your classes?
    He was already a [? boss. ?] When he came,
    he was no classes anymore, because he had already got
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    He got [NON-ENGLISH] when he was 13 years from the Sighet rabbi.
    It's interesting that in his background,
    he went to the seminary.
    There was a reason for it, because he wanted to have--
    he wanted to go to Yeshiva University.
    He wanted to write what he wrote.
    They gave out [? parish ?] on all the Chumash and Torah.
    He wants somebody to support him.
    And the seminary-- and the Yeshiva University
    did not want to support.
    That I don't know.
    You have to ask him.
    Normally, if a person's--
    Somehow, they did not-- they didn't think this is important
    enough, or maybe he didn't know or whom--
    he knew the right people.
    So it looks like it.
    He was able to get support from [INAUDIBLE],
    therefore he quit [INAUDIBLE] seminary, by the way.
    He's not anymore [INAUDIBLE] now because
    of recognition of women rabbis and all the things.
    So he is out.
    He is also giving shiurim in classes in Israel
    in one of the colleges.
    Which one?
    [INAUDIBLE]?
    In [INAUDIBLE], right.
    Very interesting.
    And his wife comes from my town, from the Wisho.
    She is a granddaughter of the Vizhnitzer rebbe.
    So do you know her?
    Yes.
    [INAUDIBLE] Yes, we met here a couple of years ago.
    She was here in Lawrence.
    And [INAUDIBLE] I know from the [? Holderlin. ?] In fact,
    he was in my wedding.
    I have a picture into my wedding.
    Yes.
    My wedding was [NON-ENGLISH].
    And [INAUDIBLE], the son of Dennis Davis
    was a part of the people.
    And a lot of these people, Dovid Cohen.
    I don't know if you know these names.
    Dovid Cohen?
    Dovid Cohen was on my wedding.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    This is the time when I was there at yeshiva.
    This was my people.
    Yes.
    He was my learning group counselor.
    Aha.
    So you know Dovid Cohen.
    He has a shul now in Flatbush.
    I was there a few weeks ago.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    He was then a big--
    he was already then handling one of the top bochurim.
    [INAUDIBLE] used to say a shiur for three,
    four hours on a certain topic of the Gemara.
    He used to say it over afterwards
    for the rest of the bochurim.
    Do you know why--
    Big person, a [? cop. ?] There was a few guys then,
    real big, big, big [INAUDIBLE]
    Do you know a fellow named [INAUDIBLE]?
    No.
    It must have been--
    Polucki?
    The name sounds familiar.
    Polucki came before [? you. ?]
    Yeah?
    He's use American.
    I know a lot of people there.
    We learned together, if you understand me, [INAUDIBLE],
    was part of [INAUDIBLE], not a singer.
    Also [? Shlomo-- ?] they're cousins,
    but they're not the same thing.
    Was Schechter there, Aaron Schechter?
    Aaron Schechter was already one of the big bochurim already.
    He was already studying by himself in Beis Medrash.
    He remembers me, by the way.
    Freifeld was there.
    I remembered you talked to him.
    Right.
    There was a lot of [? division. ?]
    The [? Holderlin ?] was then in the height, the glory, the tops.
    It was on the highest point.
    He gave a tremendous-- a lot of bochurim.
    With due respect, he gave a [NON-ENGLISH].
    He gave a [NON-ENGLISH] in general to a lot of students.
    A lot of students, yes.
    That's right.
    That's why I couldn't get close enough to him.
    And I went [? a hundred ?] four years,
    but I got close to Rabbi Miller.
    Did you ever hear [INAUDIBLE]
    Yes.
    Yes.
    That's what I said before.
    Listen, I don't want to say [INAUDIBLE], you understand?
    After all, I'm a Talmud.
    You understand me?
    I have a [NON-ENGLISH].
    That's right.
    I have [NON-ENGLISH].
    How long did you learn there?
    I learned for five years--
    for five years.
    You came there in 1946.
    1946, right.
    So you were saying--
    I was a half a year in Rosenberg.
    So you were 16 years old.
    16 years old.
    And then you learned [INAUDIBLE] for five years.
    Were you learning high school subjects also?
    High school, I went to Jefferson.
    You went to Jefferson High School.
    High school at night.
    During the day, I was--
    in the morning, I was learning, and the afternoon, I
    was working.
    [INAUDIBLE] when you were 21 years old.
    Right.
    Now.
    I've got a couple of questions that have come to mind.
    Did the other fellas--
    what percentage of the bochurim who were there,
    who were your age, had come over from Europe?
    I would say maybe five, six.
    Five or six students?
    Maybe 10.
    Yes, up--
    And how many were there altogether?
    I would say in the hundreds.
    So did they react any different way towards you?
    No, no.
    You were fully accepted?
    Fully accepted, nicely respectful.
    And you didn't know English that well.
    No, we'll talk Yiddish.
    They always talk Yiddish.
    The guys talked Yiddish.
    Yiddish-- no problem.
    In fact, a lot of [INAUDIBLE] in those days.
    The Americans talked Yiddish, because they come from--
    those people who send their children to yeshiva
    [? Holderlin ?] in those days were from different homes
    where they spoke Yiddish.
    So the children all spoke Yiddish.
    She didn't have no-- [? Marshall ?] Hirsch
    was down there.
    What did you like most about the yeshiva?
    It was a modern yeshiva.
    It was not [INAUDIBLE], unless you wanted.
    Most of the boys went to college in those days or to high school.
    They even had a basketball team.
    They even had a basketball team, like you say.
    And like I said before, I had to go.
    I was forced.
    Because it's [INAUDIBLE].
    [INAUDIBLE] been about me.
    After a Holocaust, and I lost all my parents,
    all my family, I was not ready to go in and war, another war.
    Especially I was able to be in the yeshiva,
    because I was [INAUDIBLE].
    I was [INAUDIBLE], which I know a lot of some of my friends
    went to the war, ironically.
    And sometime, because of that, I learned.
    And because of that reason, that I got back from learning,
    I'm still learning today.
    I have four or five shiurim today a week.
    Could they have taken you to the army
    if you weren't yet a citizen?
    Yes.
    Because it was wartime?
    Right.
    What they did-- because we were actually
    to become a citizen after certain years,
    I entered legally.
    You said this is a big point with you, about patience.
    How did you have the patience to get to Switzerland?
    I'll tell you.
    I had the patience to get a smicha because I was
    learning so many years there.
    And I just knew it.
    And after a while, in those days of Hutner,
    did not sink into you much as the rabbis.
    While I was learning the shiur, I was good.
    I asked questions of [NON-ENGLISH] He said,
    your [INAUDIBLE] questions, you're learning so good.
    He came over to me, and I was learning together
    with Shlomo Carlebach in chavrusa.
    He told Shlomo Carlebach that you
    have a good chavrusa with me.
    I was able to pick up, but I was not able to retain it.
    You were fast.
    I was fast while I was concentrating,
    but the next day, the next--
    I forgot it, and I couldn't concentrate on my other life
    to sustain myself, to how I'm going to sustain.
    This was a big thing in my life.
    How am I going to come over and match into my world?
    Why did-- this is my background, because I come from a business
    background.
    I was not satisfied just to have a shirt of my--
    and I have a piece of bread anymore.
    I wanted more.
    I wanted to go--
    like, I saw the America, how people
    live better, and have more, and I wanted to have more.
    People say this and just don't listen to what you say.
    But a person has a life, but they don't really have security.
    But they see their parents who lose their parents,
    and they're in the camps and everything else.
    Security becomes a very, very important thing, because--
    That's what happened.
    [INAUDIBLE] that could save your life.
    That's what happened.
    I felt that I cannot rely on anybody else,
    and nobody's going to give me unless I make it myself.
    And I was striving for it.
    Tell me a little more about something.
    You said that other people had parents and you didn't.
    Where did you miss that [INAUDIBLE]?
    This was terrible, especially when it came to Yom Tovim.
    When all the boys left for their home--
    their home for Pesach, for Shavuos, for Rosh ha-Shanah.
    And I felt alone, nobody.
    It was empty, very empty feeling, terrible.
    Maybe a whole year the hustle and bustle with learning,
    I wanted to forget what happened.
    But it came, the realization at the time,
    that came to [INAUDIBLE].
    Where were you for Pesach?
    I mean, you didn't-- your cousins were not religious,
    so you didn't want to stay with them.
    They were religious.
    One cousin was religious.
    One cousin was religious.
    But I don't remember.
    I was invited.
    I was invited.
    And said to him, put me up.
    Why did you stay with your cousin?
    I mean, in other words, I'm saying--
    I was staying to some degree with my cousin.
    But, I mean, they could not make up for the loss.
    No way.
    No way.
    They were older people, my mother's first cousin.
    And their family was not religious.
    And then came to Pesach, they had their grandchildren
    and their children.
    And I felt like not this Pesach.
    I used to see my parents.
    It hasn't got a [NON-ENGLISH].
    It hasn't got a life.
    It was not.
    So I did not feel like to be there.
    I was trying to go away.
    For this Pesach, I went rather to the Klausenberger Rebbe,
    for the siddur.
    Even I left Klausenberger.
    I went to Pesach there.
    I went to Yom Tovim there, because I
    felt more true, on my own.
    I felt more-- there, everybody was European or greener,
    refugees.
    They had the same life.
    I felt more at home there, closer.
    Because was really more close to you emotionally.
    Right, because he went through the same thing.
    Did you talk to him about the war?
    Did you ever ask him about the war and what happened?
    He himself lost a wife and 12 children.
    Not even one child remained alive.
    Did you know that?
    Did you know he lost all his family, 12 children?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    He remarried here the [INAUDIBLE] rebbe's
    sister, [INAUDIBLE] daughter.
    And I remember the wedding when he was here.
    He married a [INAUDIBLE] rabbi's Weissman now right?
    Right, I remember the wedding.
    He married her sister.
    And he has now five, six children himself.
    He had grandchildren.
    He all of a sudden said, so why am I
    going to ask him more than anybody else what happened?
    And myself, I thought about it--
    goes through my mind constantly.
    All the time it's going through my mind.
    How did God let it happen?
    Why?
    Little babies, my sisters, little children
    that didn't know about life.
    And the Jews didn't know about life.
    They didn't live like we live here in America.
    They didn't have it good.
    They never had-- most of the Jews in my town were religious.
    They were wearing shtreimlach, black hats, beard, no movies,
    no theaters, no good times, no dance halls.
    They went to mitzvah every Monday and Thursday
    and Friday before Shabbos.
    They were davening the [NON-ENGLISH] with crying.
    Then my father said [NON-ENGLISH] in the morning.
    It fell [NON-ENGLISH] on him.
    He took me over to the [? tallis ?] in the train
    were gushing.
    Why?
    What do you say to yourself?
    Well, in the beginning was hard, very
    hard to make peace with myself.
    It's still.
    It saved me, because I went to yeshiva.
    Something saved me, an inner motion,
    power that led me to yeshiva.
    I may not have done it myself.
    [NON-ENGLISH] Somehow, body, maybe my parents,
    took me and led me somehow.
    In the beginning, after the [INAUDIBLE], liberation,
    I went back to my hometown and waited
    to see who was going to come home.
    I was not religious.
    I worked in shops, because I felt like a free land, nothing.
    And all of a sudden, when I arrived in Germany
    back, and I met up with a lot of DPs,
    and I started to get closer--
    I saw more emptiness between the [INAUDIBLE]
    than with the religious people.
    And I had more shyness, more close,
    and I felt more hope between the religious people.
    And I was pulled, like a magnet.
    Even though you couldn't understand,
    you had this time out, like, why did God allow this to happen?
    Yes.
    But somehow I said, there is still a God.
    It happened what happened.
    We don't know the answer.
    I cannot abandon.
    Some people took the attitude that they paid their dues,
    that they didn't have to--
    didn't have to be religious anymore,
    because God had failed them.
    Yes, that's true.
    True.
    But my background didn't let me.
    God cannot fail you.
    If there is God, he had reasons to do it.
    Can a person accept [INAUDIBLE] from his parents?
    Only true religion, otherwise it's even worse.
    I mean, if he understands that God could have stopped it--
    Definitely.
    That's our understanding.
    God could have done like this.
    God could take out [NON-ENGLISH] from the [NON-ENGLISH].
    God could stop the [NON-ENGLISH].
    When you ask yourself the question--
    [NON-ENGLISH] from the--
    God could do.
    God was able to take out the Jews from Egypt.
    God has a power.
    But why did he let it happen?
    It was no answer, but somehow, like I said,
    I had a magnet that I felt more emptiness, unsatisfaction
    between the unreligious people.
    There, I felt I have nothing to look for it.
    I thought I said [INAUDIBLE] being religious.
    Do you think that, in a sense, was some kind of divine plan?
    Do you you think that--
    some people say that the state of Israel
    could never have been established if it hadn't been--
    We have to pay a price like this for the state of Israel,
    which is not yet even for us.
    We still have millions of enemies.
    This is the price, and it's not even a religious state.
    This is the price.
    We have to pay with 6 million [INAUDIBLE],
    with hundreds-- with a million and a half children?
    If God wanted to have us, Israel,
    could he give us Israel in a different way?
    If you ask him, this way couldn't have happened.
    I don't agree.
    But if a religious person would look at this question,
    he would say, maybe God decided that this
    is the way he wanted to do it.
    No way.
    Why do such a murder?
    But when you ask the question of why would God
    allow this to happen to my parents,
    you see, to believe in why, why God.
    In the beginning, I didn't.
    In the beginning, I came out and I felt like--
    it's like a storm after the--
    completely the world turned upside down, like a model,
    after the model.
    A new generation, you think.
    I don't know.
    What, is it [INAUDIBLE] there?
    I didn't know this.
    I had a touch, and I felt, is this terrible?
    Reality?
    I didn't believe in reality anymore.
    Is still a flower a flower?
    It's like Ben Yaakov, when he came out from the hail,
    and he saw people were still plowing.
    He said, people are still getting up in the world?
    The same thing.
    I came out from there, and I said,
    people are still working for a living?
    People are still getting up in this world?
    Isn't the world completely desolate?
    Still people care still?
    So really, what--
    Up to date, I still say what?
    I still want to try to see what happened before and after.
    I have a before and after, before the concentration camp,
    what life was.
    While I was in concentration, what life was,
    how did people react?
    And after concentration camp--
    to me, there is a difference.
    Then was a world, but now there is a different world.
    Do you follow what I'm trying to tell you?
    Before the [? marble ?] or after the [? marble. ?] The Torah
    talks before the [? marble ?] and after the [? marble. ?]
    Before [? the stone, ?] after [? the stone. ?]
    The destruction was not for the war.
    The destruction was only for the individual who
    went through this destruction.
    We cannot look at the same eyes at the world.
    I look at pictures, movies, stories.
    People left.
    The war was going on.
    Like, my wife is an American.
    They had problems here.
    They didn't have enough [INAUDIBLE].
    They never have sugar enough.
    Some people said the war should go on forever,
    they made it so good.
    Do they realize what had happened,
    the destruction of [INAUDIBLE]?
    Do you think that they did--
    that they didn't want to admit to was happening?
    It was Mr. [INAUDIBLE] It was taken away from everybody.
    If I read up today, then I see the Zionistic Moshe Sharett.
    But the rest of the people who knew what's going on there,
    and they said when Rosenberg [INAUDIBLE] was a [? hero, ?]
    already wanted to do something.
    He said, we don't want it.
    We don't want to save us, this Jew, the Galician Jews.
    But this, we are not going to build Israel.
    We want the modernistic Jew.
    We want Israel.
    Israel is more important.
    They should promise to the country.
    Did you see this right?
    My hair stands up when I read this.
    I get goose pimples.
    So who was for us, if not the Jewish people, the country?
    If not American Jew did not go out,
    how many people got killed in front of the White House?
    How many?
    How many marches were there?
    What did happen then?
    Then some clues were sent back.
    Nobody wanted to accept them, including
    the United States of America, with millions of Jews here.
    The world didn't want us.
    History tells us that Germany wanted to give out
    the Jews in the beginning.
    And when they saw the world doesn't want them,
    they said, [INAUDIBLE] we could do what we wanted it,
    and they liked it.
    So what actually happened?
    Complete isolation.
    Maybe we did it ourselves.
    Maybe the Jews themselves [INAUDIBLE].
    I'm not smart enough.
    I can't tell you.
    Well, if we did it ourselves, I mean, the attitude--
    Was taken-- the attitude was taken away completely.
    Everything was taken away.
    I don't think now--
    now we probably would have--
    would have been-- something would be doing.
    Something would be done.
    If they would have bombed [INAUDIBLE] day.
    I'm talking the United States of America.
    They knew exactly where the crematoriums are.
    They knew exactly they were burning thousands
    of people per day.
    The machinery was going on.
    They lost the war, the Germans, but the machinery
    of killing the Jews was the ultimate, the last thing.
    And they would have bombed only a couple of bridges
    where they had take us.
    They could have saved all the Jewry.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Everybody-- United States the most, not the Germans.
    And American Jews?
    The American Jews, the higher echelons of American Jews.
    The average American Jews, I don't think they knew enough.
    Did you mean like Stephen Wise?
    Stephen Wise, like Lehman, what's
    the name, the Governor Lehman, people on the higher who knew
    exactly what's happening.
    They were afraid for their own skin.
    They didn't care that their brothers and sisters
    are getting burned.
    I don't think the average human knew what's happening exactly.
    And this is a problem about Israel, right?
    Israel, in a sense, is built up by people
    who took the attitude that the European Jewry has to die.
    European Jewry is a [INAUDIBLE] Jewry, the not Zionist thing.
    They're not going to build a country with this.
    So who cares?
    We need the modern Jew, who's going
    to be able to fight and build these roots.
    That's what we need.
    Do you think that attitude of prejudice
    towards those type of Jews is still
    very strong today in Israel?
    Against the religious Jew?
    Yeah, I mean--
    Well, you heard the last time what Shamir said.
    They're afraid for a Civil War, Jews fighting Jew.
    We had it before.
    When I said it personally, it's my feeling.
    Before we had Intifada, and if you heard stoning
    was going on, fighting, and breaking.
    I said, I'm afraid for one thing.
    God forbid we don't have war with the Arabs.
    It's going to be a fight with Jew to Jews.
    Because you could see it.
    Have you visited Israel?
    Many times.
    I had my daughter living there for two years
    with my grandchildren.
    My son-in-law went to yeshiva there for two years in Har Nof.
    You have three children.
    You have the oldest daughter.
    You have two older daughters and a young son.
    Michelle, Sherry, and Mark, Mandy.
    Michelle went to yeshiva at Prospect Park,
    and then she went to college in Brooklyn College.
    And then she went to Long Island after college.
    She went for a master's.
    She got her master's in--
    Social work.
    In social work.
    At Delphi?
    At Delphi College, you got it.
    [?
    Must have been ?] social workers.
    And my daughter Sherry went to Yeshiva Central, then
    she went to Stern College.
    In college, she went to Barnard.
    Barnard-- she went to BU Law School.
    But 21, she was a lawyer.
    My son went to yeshiva.
    First, he went to--
    what's the name already?
    Where was it?
    In Brooklyn.
    Brooklyn.
    What's the name?
    [INAUDIBLE]?
    Before that, he went to a yeshiva there in--
    Where, Flatbush?
    In Flatbush, in East Flatbush.
    The Rambam?
    Before.
    Moishe or--
    Yeshiva, then went to Rambam, and then went over
    to Eastern Parkway, [INAUDIBLE] Eastern Parkway.
    And then he went to Yeshiva University.
    He graduated Yeshiva University, and he became an actuary,
    and then he joined my business in real estate.
    And they're all observing?
    All except my older daughter.
    She was observant, and then she already was married.
    She became not observant.
    Did that upset you?
    Very much.
    It was most upsetting to me.
    I was desolate.
    Is her husband observing?
    Her husband-- when she got married, she was observant.
    And she lived with her husband for a year,
    and she got divorced.
    And the time that she divorced, she became--
    when she went to Delphi College, and she went to social work.
    She analyzed herself, and she wanted to see,
    is this my life, what I want to have?
    And then she became irreligious.
    And it was the low--
    the worst thing happened to me after the war,
    after [INAUDIBLE].
    Do people come from Europe--
    This was devastated to me and to my wife.
    We were going through a period of terrible, terrible times.
    She was my oldest, my first marriage.
    I figured I'll get naches.
    I'll see her future or see out.
    And somehow, she became completely out of her mind,
    not interested, didn't want.
    Do you think it was the University that did it?
    Yeah, 100%.
    100%.
    And so when she got married the first time, she went to mikvah.
    She was Shabbos, and she was kosher home.
    Maybe it was the divorce.
    Divorce-- tons of people get divorced.
    They don't become irreligious.
    Why she was divorced, maybe that was the divorce also,
    because she went to [INAUDIBLE].
    Oh, she was going to school.
    She was going there at the same time.
    She went back for her master's.
    How long was she married, just a year?
    Just a year, and she went back to her master's
    to become a social worker.
    What happened to the guy?
    The guy became a lawyer.
    He's a tax lawyer now.
    He got married.
    He has children.
    My daughter remarried, and she has a beautiful daughter,
    but is not religious.
    And the person she married, is he religious?
    Not religious-- Jewish, but not religious.
    And they live where?
    In Manhattan.
    The other was the one who moved to Long Island.
    That's the one.
    You never know.
    You've still got time.
    Well, I made a pact that I [INAUDIBLE] I'll do mine,
    and I think I have enough.
    I took a lot.
    [INAUDIBLE] became-- I believe in him.
    And I feel that he has to help me.
    After this happened, God came through,
    and he did help me a lot.
    My second daughter, I have a lot of naches.
    She married a very fine person, [INAUDIBLE].
    But like I told you before, he graduated
    from Yale, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.
    He went to Stanford.
    He became a Goldman Sachs vice president
    in the real estate department.
    He gave up vice president to go and sit and learn
    for two years in Israel.
    They are back now.
    They have beautiful three children,
    and they live in Passaic.
    And my daughter was practicing law.
    She's still practicing a little bit.
    And I get a lot of naches from her.
    So this shows you how [INAUDIBLE] doesn't
    hit everybody with two sticks.
    Not only that, but a lot of survivors that went to that--
    that went to-- that left New York and lived in other parts--
    I've been traveling all over the country.
    A lot of their children married people that are not Jewish.
    I would feel this would be the worst thing in my life
    that this would have happened, after we suffered
    so much for being Jews.
    After I put through, and in spite of it,
    I feel that we still have a destiny, the Jewish people.
    And I could not see to it now we should
    take in the people that killed us,
    the people that massacred us, the people who are trying still
    to kill us now.
    We should be intermingling with them.
    But you know [INAUDIBLE].
    I'm not [INAUDIBLE].
    I've even met survivors who married people not Jewish.
    Yes, they're more likely, because they feel--
    in spite of [NON-ENGLISH].
    They feel because you didn't care for me,
    I don't care for you.
    For them, we just learned in the center last week,
    not [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] If God yelled to the [? Sutton ?]
    and screamed at a [? Sutton, ?] you're not--
    you cannot come and talk bad on [INAUDIBLE] throat,
    because the Jews went down from the fire.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
    You don't say anything to those--
    Those people, you cannot say anything about them.
    Somebody survived from this type of thing.
    Whatever he does, he's religious, he's good.
    He's not religious, he's also good,
    because you cannot say anything bad about these people.
    But the children.
    But children is a different thing.
    They are responsible to have us in themselves because
    of children of survivors.
    There are certain responsibility to continue
    the chain of thousands of years and let it not
    break right there.
    And therefore, they have a certain responsibility.
    What does your daughter say?
    She is smart girl, very smart girl.
    She doesn't want to discuss it.
    Doesn't want to upset you.
    She does not upset me.
    Somehow something-- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Something
    happens to a person that he thinks he has it good.
    No, they don't.
    They are missing something.
    She comes here, [INAUDIBLE], Purim.
    She had a certain point.
    She feels very close, but she cannot [NON-ENGLISH].
    Keeps you and doesn't let you get away but cannot.
    But thank God, like I said before, God doesn't hit you
    with two sticks.
    My daughter, my Sherry, and my son Mark,
    [? Mindy, ?] is also named after my brother Akiva.
    He is a graduate from Yeshiva University.
    He is a very, very observant, religious Jew,
    and he married a very wonderful wife, comes
    from Pittsburgh, Naomi [? Deutsch, ?] also
    very religious.
    She's an attorney herself.
    And they're moving into this neighborhood soon.
    They live down in Forest Hills, and they
    have a nice, beautiful daughter and expecting another child now.
    And they're going very Yiddish.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Your wife, does she have a Jewish background?
    My wife comes from a very Orthodox family, extremely
    Orthodox.
    What's her maiden name?
    Her maiden name is Gens, and her grandfather
    were she grew up with, the Nussbaum, was a [INAUDIBLE]
    with a beard and payes in America.
    What did she study in college?
    What [INAUDIBLE]?
    My wife went back to Brooklyn College
    after my children were all in college.
    So when--
    And she graduated from high school
    with a very high academic college material.
    And as she comes--
    we got married very young.
    And as she comes from a poor home,
    she was not able to go pursue her college.
    And she felt a need she should go to college,
    and all my children were in college.
    She went back to college.
    So when was it that she studied in Brooklyn?
    Elaine?
    You tell him when you went to Brooklyn.
    I don't remember exactly the timing.
    I think I started in 1970.
    Oh, so that's it?
    You just wanted to know when I started?
    I was curious about that.
    I started in--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    --by the end of '70.
    I graduated in '76, and then two more years in '70, I got
    a master's.
    Doesn't take long, I see to get burnt out in the Board of Ed.
    Well, in a sense--
    My wife lasted one year.
    In a sense, I liked it.
    Sometimes I like it.
    When I'm in a nice school, I like it.
    When my wife was in the Head Start program, we used to--
    in a public school, in Bedford-Stuyvesant
    where she runs the program and doesn't have anything
    to do with the Board of Ed.
    She's paid as a consultant, independent of the Board of Ed,
    which is really her own boss.
    But that's because our children are six and three, our younger
    ones.
    So she really can't go to work every day.
    Right.
    A little bit.
    Yeah.
    OK, so let me not keep you if you have to wind it up here.
    Let me--
    Now that I know I'm on a time frame--
    I'm glad you come.
    It's important [INAUDIBLE]
    Not meander about.
    I'm glad I--
    We've covered a lot of ground, a lot of things I want to ask you.
    What shul do you belong to?
    Right now, belong to Lawrence-Cedarhurst,
    a block away from here.
    What's that, Lawrence-Cedarhurst?
    This is the shul, Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst.
    Who is the rabbi?
    Rabbi Carmel.
    He's a very well-known old, old rabbi.
    And then we have an assistant, young Rabbi Moishe Teitelbaum.
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    I'm sure you like him.
    Very much.
    He's very liked by everybody-- very unusual.
    Do you think-- first of all, tell me about yourself
    businesswise.
    Were you always in real estate?
    No, I was in textiles, like I told you, and a salesman.
    I was a salesman in textiles.
    I had in my blood business.
    I was a very business oriented in my home,
    because he went into business in Europe.
    Looks like people do have things in their blood,
    because I know my brother-in-law, what
    my sister married, comes from three houses away from us,
    and his father was a melamed.
    And sure enough, he doesn't have the business feeling
    that I have.
    So right away, I felt, what am I going to do here?
    And just to work-- like I told you before,
    to work for somebody else was is not my [INAUDIBLE]
    You were a person who was ready to take a chance.
    Always.
    You take risks.
    Always take risks.
    Somehow, I felt I have nothing to lose, [INAUDIBLE].
    I did not have nothing, came in nothing,
    and I have to take a risk to do something.
    Do you think that when a person has that energy,
    he does better in business?
    Right.
    If you don't take no risk, you don't invest, you don't get it.
    You must [INAUDIBLE].
    But you have to be--
    you have to--
    I am careful.
    I'm a very careful person to take this [INAUDIBLE].
    I could have been today by 10 times as much
    as I have now, but thank God, I'm pretty well off--
    if I would have taken more risks.
    I was afraid a little bit.
    When you give tzedakah, which I'm sure you do, do you take a--
    does the yeshiva have more priority over you than, say,
    to give to Israel or--
    Well, what happened is--
    bringing up the subject of yeshiva, what happened now
    to me, I know that my parents haven't got stone, a burial
    place, no [INAUDIBLE].
    And God helped me.
    I was looking for a yeshiva.
    I was motivated when my daughter was in Israel
    to look for a yeshiva which I could put my parents' name--
    name the yeshiva after my parents.
    And this is also, like I told you, [NON-ENGLISH].
    Things motivate me.
    Certain things you could see something happened.
    I got a yeshiva by the name of Maarava in Israel,
    and it's in Kiryat Matityahu.
    And the head of the yeshiva is Baruch Chait.
    Rabbi Chait.
    I don't know if you heard him.
    Went to camp with Baruch.
    So you know the yeshiva.
    And what happened, this yeshiva is called today, Machon Rubin--
    Maarava Machon Rubin in the name of my parents.
    And they have a plaque outside exactly the name my father,
    Yosef Dov, and the Sheindel Rubin that
    died in the Holocaust.
    The have, Baruch Hashem, a yeshiva today,
    over 100 yeshiva bochurim that learn there,
    and the yeshiva is called on their-- my parents' name.
    Baruch, who was very good at music also.
    He's great.
    The yeshiva has [NON-ENGLISH], everything.
    The bochurim are tremendous.
    Because of that, it gives them ruach.
    And this we'll talk privately, [INAUDIBLE] about it.
    So you're finding out more.
    This shows you how everything is--
    this is because [INAUDIBLE].
    But parents must have led me to this.
    You see how it's winding up, that I should be religious?
    And God should help I should not [INAUDIBLE] business.
    And my idea was not to buy a yacht or another condominium.
    I should put in a lot of money in this yeshiva.
    And the name, that my parents should have a place,
    [NON-ENGLISH], where boys can learn, and they should be there.
    Can't you see it.
    Something is leaving, asking first off.
    Baruch Hashem, today I'm giving [INAUDIBLE]
    for many [INAUDIBLE], many yeshivas.
    Anything to do with Israel, I'd like to help, to [INAUDIBLE].
    In fact, yeshiva-- with my son, we went to Israel.
    I give a certain amount of money for the yeshiva, every year.
    They know it.
    [? Batsheva ?] yeshivas, I'm very much interested to see,
    because they're bringing back Yiddishkeit
    because what happened to my daughter.
    So I so much more feel those to do it.
    You know who's a good person who knows about these things?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    [INAUDIBLE]
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Rabbi Weinberg is--
    I said [INAUDIBLE], Rabbi Weinberg.
    In fact, tonight they called me up.
    I should give so much money to the-- he
    has a parlor meeting tonight here in Lawrence.
    Every week we have a different parlor meeting
    in Lawrence, Baruch Hashem, and I'm involved in almost every one
    of them.
    And I'm known, [INAUDIBLE] Hashem, that I'm giving--
    UGA, they called me up.
    It's going to be Thursday night in Lawrence at Beth Sholom.
    Do you feel like Hashem made it happen?
    You were successful at business so that [INAUDIBLE] opportunity
    to built up the--
    I could see it.
    I could see it.
    I could see it somehow.
    If he took that same money and gave it to someone else--
    It wouldn't have been the same.
    It wouldn't have been the same.
    I could see after went into this yeshiva,
    when I gave so much money for the yeshiva, first of all,
    they told me when I was in [INAUDIBLE] in the yeshiva,
    it's none of us.
    But I was sent to them like from God.
    They couldn't have gone out.
    And today, yeshiva is in the [INAUDIBLE].
    They couldn't have gone on.
    They didn't have the dormitory, didn't have the electricity.
    They couldn't have finished up the whole thing.
    But I gave them the $100,000, the first down payment.
    We're not talking about peanuts here.
    I'm not ashamed to say it.
    Down payment.
    $100,000 down payment.
    They couldn't believe-- they couldn't believe their eyes.
    And--
    Maarava Machon Rubin.
    Maarava Machon Rubin.
    In Modi'in.
    In Modi'in, OK.
    Where is Modi'in?
    In Kfar [PLACE NAME].
    Here.
    Oh.
    Here the yeshiva Maarava Machon Rubin.
    You see the sign there?
    Here-- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Maarava Machon Rubin.
    Maarava Machon Rubin In Modi'in.
    In Modi'in.
    OK
    Where is Modi'in?
    In Kfar [PLACE NAME].
    Here.
    Here the yeshiva Maarava Machon Rubin.
    You see the sign there.
    Here how they showed me how the buildings new, the new things.
    In not far from Yerushalayim.
    It's a half an hour from Yerushalayim and a half an hour
    from Tel Aviv.
    And if you want, you could read out this letter aloud
    if you want to have it on the tape,
    or you'll read it afterwards.
    I would like to.
    Just got it.
    Do you want me to read it.
    I'll read it.
    No, I just want to tell you that I recognize--
    I recognize a number of these people.
    For example, Barry [INAUDIBLE].
    That's right.
    He's involved with the same yeshiva.
    Chaim Silber.
    I went to camp with.
    Right.
    He's in the same yeshiva.
    They're all involved with this yeshiva.
    [INAUDIBLE] I went to camp with.
    I know.
    They're all involved with this yeshiva.
    How do you like that?
    Jackie Bendheim I went to school with.
    How about Jack [INAUDIBLE]?
    Don't know him.
    The only Friedberg is from Uruguay.
    Yes.
    He lives in Canada now.
    I went to yeshiva with him.
    Now you see how all these people are involved with this yeshiva.
    [? Arnie ?] Schwarz is, I think, something else.
    I'm trying to remember.
    Oh, he's with the Federation.
    You want to read the letter?
    Yes.
    "Dear Reb Moishe.
    I hope you and your family are well.
    I left a message with your wife [INAUDIBLE]."
    This letter is dated June 20, 1989.
    It's from Maarava Machon Rubin, which
    is a unique high school in Israel
    for the advancement of accommodating
    the needs of the western [INAUDIBLE].
    "I just wanted to bring you up to date.
    Shavuos in the yeshiva [INAUDIBLE]
    boys going to a nice, great.
    Rabbi Lev spoke a few times, and many other rabbis
    were there with their families.
    Although we don't yet have proper accommodations
    for the family, everything worked out very well.
    We are having our first graduation class this year,
    and the boys have made such a wonderful reputation that I get
    calls every week, a very respectable rosh yeshiva,
    that would like our students to come
    to their yeshivot for next year.
    Rabbi Scheinberg called me this week
    and insisted I come to see him.
    I thought it was some kind of emergency.
    Actually, all he wanted was that I should remember that he helped
    me start the yeshiva, and therefore I should send
    our graduate students."
    This is Rabbi Scheinberg from Yerushalayim.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    You know this.
    The Rabbi Scheinberg.
    Kiryat Mattersdorf, the yeshiva?
    That's right.
    And he was-- then he had a problem
    at Rav Shach, this yeshiva.
    Rav Scheinberg helped them out, the [INAUDIBLE] yeshiva.
    "Many yeshivas are trying to attract our graduates,
    and we are very proud of that.
    Baruch HaShem, the beis medrash is almost finished,
    and we have already received a new classroom and new dorm rooms
    ready for next year in [INAUDIBLE].
    The yeshiva looks great, and we had,
    baruch HaShem, a wonderful year.
    Jack--"
    You could skip this.
    [LAUGHS] You could skip this.
    The last.
    Finish with the last.
    "What are your plans for Sukkos?
    We are looking forward to seeing you.
    You should have a lot of naches.
    Best regards, sincerely, Baruch."
    I'll see, tell you that-- oh, and the offices
    of [? Lorentz. ?]
    Everything is [? Lorentz. ?] [INAUDIBLE]
    Nobody know each other.
    The interesting thing, you see, Baruch
    and I were in the same bunk together in camp.
    Isn't that something?
    So we were in the [? yeshiva. ?]
    Yes.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Isn't it a beautiful thing, zkhus from my parents?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Huh?
    I think it's--
    Well, so what I want to bring out before,
    just to tell you, after I made the deal with the yeshiva,
    something came up, another [INAUDIBLE].
    And baruch HaShem, I could--
    It worked out.
    --get another issue.
    Here is another thing, Rabbi Miller.
    You're talking about Rabbi Miller before, right?
    Avigdor Miller.
    Avigdor Miller.
    Here's a letter just [INAUDIBLE] also.
    Apropos.
    I'm not telling you.
    You should have the date.
    Do you have the date.
    5/31, right?
    And I just got the letter June the 12th.
    Here.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES] This is [INAUDIBLE].
    From Rabbi Miller's son.
    [CROSS TALK] Miller's rosh yeshiva.
    Rosh yeshiva.
    [INAUDIBLE] yeshiva [INAUDIBLE].
    Where is that?
    It's in Flatbush.
    They made a special yeshiva from a [INAUDIBLE] type of yeshiva.
    Like [INAUDIBLE].
    Like a [INAUDIBLE].
    And the yeshiva's very [INAUDIBLE].
    They come from all over for Simchat Torah.
    And I also gave [INAUDIBLE].
    Very nice.
    [LAUGHS]
    Listen, I think that-- now you see--
    You see what I mean?
    This is black and white.
    I see.
    In some ways, people go on living
    even if they're not alive.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Is there something?
    I mean, your parents.
    My parents.
    Can't you say that must be [INAUDIBLE]
    something from my parents why this is happening?
    Why did I remain alive?
    I'm asking myself, why did I remain alive.
    And why did our God direct me to this type of path?
    You know what I would say to you when you read this
    and I look at this?
    Go ahead.
    Don't worry about your daughter.
    Turned out all right.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    I am beginning-- I couldn't accept it.
    I'm trying to accept it now.
    I said two out of three.
    Maybe it's your messiah.
    Hmm?
    Maybe it's your messiah.
    Maybe my grandchildren, I feel.
    Her children maybe will come back.
    [INAUDIBLE] come from an Orthodox home, right?
    So maybe they will come back.
    Maybe they will.
    And that's what I'm thinking.
    Maybe.
    Maybe she will.
    So far, [INAUDIBLE] helps me.
    You know what they say.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    How you say?
    She saw her.
    That's exactly.
    But after, it was very hard.
    Very hard.
    You have no idea what me and my wife were suffering.
    Mom is suffering.
    Crying.
    How do you Like Lawrence.
    I say, Lawrence, baruch HaShem, is a unique place
    for Jewish people, nice Jewish people.
    There are a lot of talk giving out from here.
    Almost every night, they have parlor meetings.
    They have things going out.
    A lot of shiurim.
    Nice, unique, but a bunch of people, professionals,
    businesspeople who mind their own business, who
    don't look to see what somebody else's pocket is.
    I have, God help me.
    You have, God help you.
    Because there are certain places where they always
    look to somebody else, how much somebody else help.
    And because of that reason, I feel
    God helps people, [INAUDIBLE] and [? Torah. ?]
    And they give their children.
    The children are 100% Yiddish from here.
    You go to shirium at synagogue?
    I have four shirium.
    I have a [INAUDIBLE] Rabbi [? Ramnik. ?]
    You heard of Rabbi [? Ramnik. ?] And Far Rockaway.
    Yeshiva Far Rockaway.
    I go to--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    --to Rabbi Miller.
    I go to yeshiva every Wednesday morning
    when I go to see my buildings in Brooklyn, at the same time.
    Then I have a shiur, a beautiful shiur with our chazzan
    from Beth Sholom, Moshe Ehrlich.
    Has a shiur, a monthly shiur.
    Every house is in a different month,
    a different month in somebody else's house.
    We have a shiur.
    And then I have Shabbos with him [INAUDIBLE] shiur.
    You now Eddie [? Dory ?] Gluck?
    You know him?
    Eddie Gluck?
    He's a doctor [INAUDIBLE].
    Eddie [?
    Dory ?] Gluck.
    No.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Only because I think he davens in Lawrence in the shul here.
    [INAUDIBLE] but--
    In Beth Sholom.
    But yeah, but he has relatives who come from Romania.
    Their name is Fried.
    Fried.
    Fried.
    They have some Irwin Fried living in Forest Hills.
    No, I don't know him.
    I just wondered.
    Yeah.
    Tell me, you have real estate.
    Yeah.
    What do you have?
    Apartment buildings.
    Office buildings.
    In Brooklyn and Manhattan.
    In Brooklyn, and Forest Hills, Riverdale.
    And here, the office building I have here in Valley Stream.
    Do you have any in bad neighborhoods also?
    No, I had.
    I sold it.
    I had in East Flatbush, my first building.
    Don't want to have it in a bad neighborhood.
    No, I felt like this.
    It's just as easy.
    You have enough attics in the good neighbors.
    Why are you having headaches in the bad neighborhoods?
    I interviewed today a man who was a survivor who lives here
    in Woodmere.
    He goes to a different shul than you.
    But he told me, it bothers him that the people in real estate,
    he says, he listens to them talk.
    And he says, and they say, what do I care?
    [INAUDIBLE] So who cares if he gets the heat.
    Who cares if he doesn't get the heat?
    Is it going anyway?
    And he said to me-- he's a survivor.
    He said to me, yeah, but he said, he says this in itself
    creates antisemitism.
    It brings about antisemitism.
    And he himself is a survivor.
    I don't understand exactly what the whole feeling is.
    You're in business.
    I look at it as a business.
    I want to give charity, I have my charity places.
    I look at it as a business like any other business.
    I don't have to--
    I try.
    Now, there are a lot of Russian Jews coming in.
    And in Brooklyn I have some houses,
    and they call me up badly.
    And I'm trying to--
    I feel that I was once in their boat.
    And if I have an apartment, I'll give it to them--
    even if I have to lose money.
    Do they appreciate it?
    I don't care.
    I myself reached [INAUDIBLE].
    I don't do it because of appreciation.
    I do because I feel that I want to do it,
    and I'm supposed to do it.
    There's certain levels you reach in life, that you
    don't do it only for people.
    In fact, I hate to do it for people.
    A lot of people don't know what you see here, that I'm
    doing all this [INAUDIBLE].
    I don't even want to tell a lot of people.
    They only heard through the grapevine.
    I feel you do it because--
    You do what's right.
    That's right.
    I feel I have a destination.
    I remained alive, I have to do something.
    Makes me feel much better than I give a $5,000 charity,
    or a $10,000.
    Makes me feel so good-- better than buying a new car.
    I don't appreciate it.
    I was able to drive a car, until recently, second-handed car.
    Couldn't care.
    Don't care.
    Don't want to show off.
    My first car that I'm driving now in my life.
    Doesn't mean nothing.
    Do you feel that--
    Doesn't bother me.
    Do you feel that survivors have a different value
    system than Americans?
    Definitely.
    Without a doubt.
    In what way?
    In a lot of ways.
    My life is, it's not to get everything I could get,
    whether the life of the average child, and average person, they
    want to get everything.
    They want to have everything in life.
    And I said, it's not necessary to have everything in life.
    You could be happy with not having everything in alive.
    So why am I striving?
    Why am I having?
    It's a nature, already.
    But I feel, because I'm striving,
    and I give [INAUDIBLE], this means something for me.
    If I have a couple of suits in the closet, good.
    I don't need more.
    I don't want more.
    I don't have to ride a Rolls-Royce.
    My daughter, especially my older daughter, "Dad, you have.
    Why don't you take more vacations?
    Why don't you drive a Rolls-Royce?
    Why don't you go over there."
    I said, I don't need it.
    Doesn't make me more happier.
    But then I give the $100,000 to yeshiva, it make me happy.
    When I was able to talk in front of these children, 100 bochurim,
    and they came down and I was there telling him who I am,
    and what my parents are, and what we stand for,
    and what a yeshiva stands for, this was my utmost in life.
    More than a yacht.
    That's great.
    It must be a reason for it.
    And now, my emunah, my belief, is
    getting stronger, the more I'm learning, the more I've seen.
    And I feel, naturally, I'm getting more, learning more.
    There was something in our life.
    It's like a ladder.
    And you go up the ladder just to reach
    a certain destination, that are a lot of chains are broken.
    And not everything is always there,
    and it doesn't go so smooth.
    But the most important, if you reach the top, eventually
    [INAUDIBLE] will reach the town.
    The goal will come.
    Something is happening.
    We could see it's happening.
    Because we see, after destruction,
    and after the ashes, we are still--
    nobody can destroy us.
    A million, 100 million Arabs are surrounding [INAUDIBLE].
    Somehow it's not being destroyed.
    We are making headlines in The New York Times every day.
    There is bigger countries than us who you never hear of
    and never seen.
    Let me ask you--
    There must be something there.
    That's where my emunah is coming, getting stronger.
    You think that what happened in Europe could happen here?
    I don't think so.
    I don't think so.
    Because the [INAUDIBLE] who believed not to hit back,
    and always lying, contra Torah.
    We were not supposed to lie always,
    because we were fighting wars in a time of motion, a time
    of [INAUDIBLE].
    [INAUDIBLE]
    [INAUDIBLE] This should have been more, but we didn't.
    Somehow we lived a different type of life.
    We don't live this type of life.
    You think we would fight back [INAUDIBLE]--
    We would fight back.
    --to us.
    We will fight back.
    Let me ask you.
    After everything you--
    You could see how Israel were fighting now,
    and it was strong how fearful they were fighting.
    After everything you accomplished--
    and I think you accomplished a tremendous--
    Thank God.
    I think you did.
    What's life.
    What do you still want to do?
    Future.
    What do you want to do?
    See naches for my children, and my grandchildren,
    from [INAUDIBLE].
    And see maybe something-- we live in such a powerful timing.
    Historically, every day new things are happening.
    Maybe something will happen--
    some voice will come out, some issue will come.
    We don't know.
    Maybe not our time.
    Maybe, maybe in our grandchildren's time.
    OK.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Morris Rubin

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (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

    Personal Name
    Rubin, Morris.

    Administrative Notes

    Holder of Originals
    Mr. William B. Helmreich
    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The interview with Morris Rubin was conducted for William B. Helmreich's book "Against all odds: Holocaust survivors and the successful lives they made in America." The interview was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on October 30, 1992.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:20:50
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn511319

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    Oral history interview with Morris Kesselman and Rita Kesselman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abraham Kessler and Frieda Kessler

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hinda Kibort

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Isaac Kowalski and Masha Kowalski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abraham Krakowski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nathan Krieger

    Oral History

    Nathan Krieger, born in Wojnicz, Poland on February 21, 1917, describes never knowing his father, who left Poland for the United States in 1921; being one of six children and the only one of his siblings to survive the Holocaust; working as a tailor’s apprentice when he was twelve years old; getting married in the ghetto in 1943; being interned in Auschwitz from 1943 to 1945; being forced to do hard labor; being severally malnourished; being selected work in the camp kitchen, peeling potatoes; how a Jewish leader helped him acclimate to new foods, so that he would not get sick; working in the camp laundry; being sent on a Death March from January 18 to April 15 1945 from Poland through Germany into Czechoslovakia; reuniting with his wife, who had been in Auschwitz and other camps; living in the displaced persons camp in Landsberg, Germany; immigrating to the US in 1949; starting his own men’s clothing business in 1955; living in New York, NY initially; moving his coat factory to Georgia; experiencing antisemitism in Georgia; experiencing a nervous breakdown; raising a family in New York; his belief that the Holocaust could happen again; and his concern about the attitudes of Jewish people in their relations with others.

    Oral history interview with Rachmil Kurlender

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lola Lansky

    Oral History