- This is Irene Schwartz, and I am interviewing
- Doris Doctor in her home at 4518 Barbara Place in Bond Hill.
- It is Thursday afternoon, April the 1st, 1982.
- Mrs. Doctor, we'd like to hear something about your early life
- and when you were born, where, your family, and so forth.
- Well, I was born on the 11th of April 1923
- in Tübingen, which is a university town.
- And as a matter of fact, it's quite well known today.
- But at the time, my parents lived
- in a small village called Braunweiler,
- which was about half an hour away from there.
- The first five years or the first six years,
- we lived in the country.
- And the reason why we lived there
- was because my father and his two brothers
- had a factory there.
- And we grew up--
- well, it was a very nice life in the country.
- We did a lot of walking and playing.
- We had a very large garden, and we had a brook next to it.
- And we had a very carefree, easy life.
- And then when it was time for me to go to school,
- my parents decided that we would move to a larger--
- to a larger city.
- So we went to Tübingen, and that's
- where I started my first class.
- Let me ask you, what type of factory
- was it that your father owned?
- Oh, it was a weaving mill.
- Well, my father, they made all kinds of materials for--
- well, in Europe, a lot of people did their own sewing.
- It was mostly for shirts, for dresses, for nightgowns.
- And my father did some of the--
- he made new color schemes, and he did most of the traveling.
- Now, it was like--
- there were three brothers.
- The one was the one that mostly worked in the factory.
- He was the technical man my.
- Father did a lot of the traveling.
- And the other one was mostly in charge
- of the office and the finances and so forth.
- And did these three brothers start this factory?
- No, their father.
- Their father had started it.
- Actually, they had had two different factories.
- There was another.
- There was another factory that I think my grandfather's father--
- brother started.
- And, well, then they had a falling out and then the one,
- my grandfather moved to the one in Braunweiler.
- And then his three sons inherited that.
- Oh, I see.
- And did all the three sons live within
- this little small village?
- Well, the one, my youngest uncle, he was not-- he
- was not married at that time.
- He lived in the village.
- And my father's older brother, he
- lived in Stuttgart, which was with his family.
- And he during the week, he stayed in Braunweiler,
- in the little village.
- And then on the weekend, he would only go.
- And my mother said she didn't like that.
- She wanted that my father should be able to come home
- every evening.
- As a matter of fact, she was my father's chauffeur
- because my father didn't drive.
- So in the morning, she drove him to work,
- and she picked him up in the evening.
- Oh.
- So did she do anything else, your mother?
- I mean, as far as being active?
- Yeah, she had like a sisterhood.
- She was very active social, well, in our Jewish synagogue.
- And she was--
- I don't know exactly.
- She had all kinds of offices.
- And yeah, she also sang in the choir.
- I also, when I got older, I sang in a choir too.
- Oh, you have nice voices then.
- Well.
- And your father, did he belong to many Jewish organizations?
- No, no.
- Well, no, he wasn't that.
- He didn't really have that much time,
- and no, he wasn't that anxious.
- He was not one to join.
- Well, was the synagogue within the small village?
- No, no, no.
- The synagogue was in Tübingen.
- No, no, no.
- There were no Jewish people at all in the little village.
- We were the only Jewish people there.
- But in Tübingen, we had I think about 70 people, Jewish people,
- around 70 or 100 I think altogether.
- But some of them didn't go, didn't belong.
- And really it was a conservative,
- what we would call here was conservative synagogue.
- But some, we had some of the people were Orthodox.
- But I remember that my mother in later years,
- she did all kinds of organizational work in Tübingen.
- And we had-- when we couldn't have any more--
- when we weren't allowed to go to movies in Tübingen,
- we had some artists come, not to Tübingen but to another city.
- And then all the Jewish people from the whole vicinity,
- from many towns and villages, they would come,
- and we had concerts and activities like that.
- Do you remember the name of that town?
- Yeah, Haigerloch.
- And let me ask you then.
- You said you moved to Tübingen whenever you were--
- When I had to go to school.
- When you had to go to school.
- So this was approximately when?
- Well, actually you're supposed to start when you're
- five years old in kindergarten.
- But I was so thin and delicate that my parents
- decided to wait a year longer.
- So that was 1929 when I started in school.
- So there was no problem at that time then?
- No.
- Oh, no.
- And then my brother started the year after that.
- He was a year--
- How many children in your family?
- Two.
- Two.
- Just my brother and--
- And yourself.
- And myself.
- And so you stayed here in Tübingen,
- and your father commuted, did you say, to this small factory?
- About when did you begin to feel the beginnings of Hitlerism?
- Well, I guess I would say 1933.
- 1930-- 1933, 1934.
- But there wasn't really-- in our city on the whole,
- I personally did not have any big problems.
- Now, my girlfriend that was a year older than I,
- she had a lot more problems.
- And I didn't even know about it.
- As a matter of fact, I found that only
- out when we had a get-together.
- We were invited by the city of Tübingen for a trip last year.
- And this girlfriend of mine lives in Israel now,
- and we talked about it, and she had a lot of trouble.
- I think it depended on the children and the parents,
- really, of the children.
- Because I think in my class only one time that I remember
- did I ever have trouble that somebody
- called me Jew, dirty Jews.
- And the teacher just paused for a minute and said--
- that I remember-- and she said, we
- don't talk like this in my class.
- And that was maybe 1934.
- And I never-- I didn't have any troubles.
- And all my girlfriends, we were very good friends.
- And they went to their Hitler Youth activities,
- and they had to wear their Hitler Youth
- jackets and all this.
- And--
- That didn't disturb you?
- Well, it did in a way.
- Well, in the morning when the teacher came in,
- you had to say heil Hitler.
- I had to say heil--
- I had to put my--
- I put my hand up.
- I didn't know what to do, really.
- But I remember what really--
- as a child, what really hit me was that--
- this I think was in 1935 or '36.
- The children that had done well in school
- got prizes at Christmas time, I think it was.
- And your name was mentioned.
- You're the best or you're second best, third best in each class.
- And you got a book, and that was a big thing.
- And I would have gotten probably, I don't know,
- second prize I'm sure, but they couldn't.
- They couldn't do this anymore.
- And the other thing--
- well, at this time I was 13, 14 years old.
- And the other thing was that we had, well,
- like a little Olympic games in school.
- We had to--
- We had running and high jump and broad jump and throwing balls,
- and you got so many points.
- And both my girlfriend that I mentioned before,
- who lives in Israel, and I, we were the best in or one
- of the best in our class.
- And they couldn't give us any prizes.
- Oh, you knew you were the best.
- Yes, yes.
- I mean, we were allowed to take part in the activities.
- But they couldn't give us the prizes.
- now let me see.
- My girlfriend-- I left '37.
- My girlfriend left, I think, in '36.
- And I left in '37.
- What prompted you to leave?
- Well, my mother, my parents decided that in the long run
- we could not stay there, and they
- had started their immigration.
- We had relatives in the United States, and I mean,
- we knew that eventually we couldn't stay.
- And so my parents heard from relatives
- that you could transfer some money from Germany
- and that I could probably go to a school in England,
- to a private school.
- And these relatives, distant relatives
- of mine, their daughter had already gone.
- And so my parents and they got together,
- and that's what we did.
- They decided.
- So in the spring of 1937, I left with a children's transport
- to England.
- But there's one interesting thing that happened before.
- My mother went with me to my school
- and to the director of our high school.
- I was going to a high school for girls.
- Mostly you had the girls went to a high school,
- and the boys went to another high school.
- And then you had the gymnasium.
- This was separate.
- Mostly boys went there, where you studied Latin and Greek.
- And that was definitely if you were going to go to college.
- But if you went to high school, you
- could also go to the university.
- But you went for six years to high school.
- Four years public school and six years of high school.
- So anyhow, my mother went and talked
- to the director of my high school, and she said,
- I wanted to tell you that we are thinking
- of sending our daughters to England to a school there.
- And he said, oh, no.
- You can leave her here.
- We will take care of her.
- Nothing is going to happen to her.
- And my mother said, I don't think she
- can stay here in the long run.
- So-- and I also found out when we were in Germany now that one
- of the teachers that I had, I think he was my English teacher,
- fourth-year high school, I believe,
- the daughter told me that he could not--
- he could not become a director, director of the high school,
- because he was not in the Nazi Party.
- Only after the war, I think 1946 or so,
- was her father able to become the director of the high school.
- Was this the same director that said that you were--
- No, no, no, no.
- No, this was-- no, he was my high school teacher in English
- at the time.
- I'm sorry.
- But I mean, there were a few people that
- did not join the Nazi Party.
- Or even if they did join the party under duress,
- they were not really Nazis, but there were not
- too many like that.
- Did you-- at that time that your parents sent you to England,
- did they realize that there were such things as concentration
- camps, do you think?
- Did the Jewish people?
- Or do you remember?
- Oh.
- Hmm.
- No, at that time--
- It was just that the laws that were imposed that--
- Well, I don't think--
- at that time, I don't think there were any.
- No, I was just wondering what prompted them especially
- to do that.
- You mean my parents to leave?
- Yes, to send you away, particularly.
- Well, I mean, because my father, he
- had to-- he couldn't do business anymore.
- That was one of the things, that people couldn't buy.
- I mean, also some of the stores in our town, the people
- were told, you can't buy from Jews.
- And they put two--
- I remember this now.
- They put two people in stormtroopers uniform
- in front of the store.
- Nobody could go in, of course.
- So I mean, my father had to sell his business.
- And he didn't--
- I mean, eventually he knew that he couldn't go on.
- And so my parents decided that to let me go.
- And as a matter of fact, they were
- working on getting all their papers in order.
- And I left in--
- wait a minute-- in '37.
- And then my parents left in September.
- No, August '39.
- Oh my goodness.
- They left rather late.
- They were lucky they got out.
- Quite late.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- So you were in school now all this time?
- No.
- Well, I was-- in spring I went.
- Then when the summer vacation came, I came back to Germany.
- Well, I didn't have-- there was no place for me
- to go during the summer.
- And the school was closed.
- So I came back to Germany.
- And I was home I think maybe a couple of weeks, and my father--
- I think my father got--
- I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but somebody,
- I think it was from the Gestapo came to our house
- and said my father and I have to come down to the office,
- and they have to talk to me, to us.
- And then they said, unless your daughter leaves within three
- days, goes back to England, she's not going to get her visa.
- And of course, we were very upset.
- And we said, well, how can we do it?
- But we had to do something.
- So luckily I had a cousin in England,
- and so we sent a telegram.
- And so I had to pack one, two, three.
- And she said, yes, she would take me in.
- And so I had to leave and go back to England.
- Why do you think they did this?
- I don't know.
- Just to harass me, I guess, or the family,
- to get everybody upset.
- And then I never came--
- I never came back.
- Never again?
- No, I didn't return.
- Now, when my parents and my brother left,
- my mother went ahead, and she came to England.
- And she visited me.
- And she said to the headmistress of my school, she
- said, what are you going to do with me if there's a war?
- And she looked at my mother like she was out of her mind.
- My mother said, well, we know there's going to be a war.
- I mean, Germany is preparing and getting things ready and this
- and that.
- And she was just very astonished about that.
- And then she told my mother, well, we will take care of her.
- Nothing's going to happen to her.
- So they just were not prepared in England at all.
- Or maybe they didn't want to be.
- They didn't want to realize it.
- This was August 1939, you see.
- Yes, yes.
- And the war started in another month.
- Right.
- September.
- Now, the only thing--
- let me see, September.
- And I left in December.
- Well, then what they did in England--
- You left December '39?
- Yes, a few, three, four months later.
- In England, we all had to take a Red Cross first aid course.
- And we had to--
- everybody was assigned a gas mask,
- and you had to walk around with your gas mask.
- Now, I was an enemy alien in England, so I was not allowed.
- I could not travel at all.
- I think only five miles or something.
- Otherwise, if I went anywhere, I had
- to report to the police when I got there and when I left
- and all.
- No, every day.
- Because the only time I went once to London,
- and I remember I had to go to the police station and report.
- And also in England, we had we practiced blackouts.
- We had to do that.
- What type of school was this?
- It was a private high school.
- All girls?
- Yes, all girls.
- All girls.
- Yes.
- Oh, yes.
- In England, boys and girls go to different schools.
- You lived right there?
- Yeah.
- Yes, and I lived there.
- I stayed there.
- Were you in contact with your relatives at all?
- You said you had--
- Oh, in London.
- Oh.
- No, this was my cousin and her husband.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- Now, they of course remained in England.
- They didn't leave.
- Oh, no.
- They didn't leave.
- No.
- OK.
- So you said you left.
- Now, how did you happen to leave England?
- Well, after my parents came over to the United States-- and first
- they were in New York for about four weeks.
- And then they came to Cincinnati because our relatives lived here
- in Cincinnati.
- And my cousin, who had given us the affidavit, I think she--
- I think she got affidavit for all four of us.
- And then the family and my relatives
- decided it would be better if I would come over also
- to the States.
- So--
- Your parents arrived when?
- Was that--
- In September.
- In September.
- '39.
- Yeah.
- Your arrival.
- And then they brought you over?
- No, not my parents.
- Well, my cousin did.
- Your cousin.
- My cousin did.
- Because all they had was one little suitcase.
- No, each had a little suitcase, and that's all they came with.
- They were not allowed to take anything?
- Well, what happened was this is why they postponed their--
- they came by boat.
- Yes.
- Why they postponed it.
- Because they had all their belongings.
- They were all packed in a big lift,
- and they had not gotten the permission
- to have the lift sent over.
- And they were waiting for that.
- It was in Hamburg in the harbor.
- And they kept waiting and waiting.
- And finally they said, we have to leave
- or we're not going to get out.
- So just they left.
- What happened to the--
- We don't know.
- We never got it.
- You never got it.
- The only thing we got--
- my parents got two big trunks.
- For one reason or another, somebody
- must have found the trunks.
- I mean, later on, they wrote to the man who was in charge of it,
- and they found two big trunks, and they sent the trunks over,
- and there was clothing in it.
- Was this after the war or?
- That was-- I don't know exactly how or what time it was,
- but it was later, maybe a year or so later.
- Yes.
- But probably somebody took all this stuff
- and used it or sold it or whatever.
- So really heirlooms or--
- No, we didn't have anything.
- Nothing like that.
- Now, you came over directly to Cincinnati, did you say?
- Or your parents arrived or?
- Well, I stayed a week or so in New York with my relatives,
- my cousin.
- I remember I went.
- I stayed there over New Year's.
- And then in sometime in January, I came to Cincinnati.
- And your parents were already here?
- Yeah, they were here.
- Mm-hm.
- Yeah.
- Well, tell me about Cincinnati then and your first impression
- of Cincinnati.
- Oh, well.
- Well, we lived on Wilson Avenue.
- We had a very small apartment on the third floor.
- And let's see.
- My mother was working as a practical nurse at night,
- and my father was working in a factory, I think.
- And my brother was going to school.
- And he was selling newspapers.
- I had I slept in a living room on a couch,
- on a creaky old couch.
- Well, luckily, our relatives had some furniture.
- They lived on a farm, and they had some furniture.
- And they gave us all the furniture for our apartment
- because we didn't really have anything.
- But that was really lucky that we had a bed to sleep in
- and some furniture, a table and chairs and all the rest of that.
- Well, I had at that time--
- I was 16 years old at the time.
- My parents and my cousins, we all
- got together and talked, what should I do?
- And I think we went to the Jewish Agency.
- We talked to them about it.
- Well, of course, my parents had gone to the Jewish agency.
- You remember which Jewish agency, the name of it?
- No, I think it was the one downtown on Central Parkway.
- Was it a Jewish agency?
- I think it was.
- Well, anyhow, that's where we went.
- And so my cousin--
- my cousin said, well, she should do something
- that if she had learned something
- that shouldn't take too long.
- So at first they thought maybe I should learn office work, typing
- and shorthand or something like that.
- But I didn't think that I would be very good at this.
- Or I didn't like the idea somehow.
- I don't know.
- And then, well, it was decided that I
- should go to beauty school and become a beautician.
- And that's what I did.
- Well, your English must have been pretty good.
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes, my English was all right.
- So you had no problem there.
- No.
- What about your parents, did they have a problem?
- No, my mother, she had had English in school,
- and she had taken lessons.
- Well, my parents both had taken lessons in Germany,
- and my mother-- well, they could speak.
- I mean, my mother could speak quite well.
- She has quite a knack for languages,
- so she didn't really have trouble.
- And your brother?
- My brother?
- Well, I think he picked it up quite easily.
- Well, in Germany, I had had one year of English in high school.
- In our school, we first learned French.
- We had four years of French.
- And then on the fourth year of high school, I learned English.
- So you went to beauty school.
- Yes.
- And who paid for that?
- My cousin did, I believe.
- Your cousin helped you.
- You said your cousin lived on a farm.
- It's quite unusual here in Cincinnati.
- The Isaac Mayer Wise farm.
- Oh, they were from that family then.
- Yes.
- Oh, that's a very prestigious family.
- Did you visit out there?
- Oh, yes.
- We went out there very often.
- Yes, we were very often out in the farm
- and invited for visits and for dinner.
- And they were wonderful to us.
- They really did a lot.
- And I mean, if it wouldn't have been for them,
- we never could have gotten out.
- Yeah, my cousin, Dr. Ruth Bernheim
- is the one that got us out.
- She was my father's second cousin, really.
- Mhm.
- How did he discover her?
- Had he been in contact with her?
- Yes.
- She had been to Germany.
- Both my cousins had been.
- She and her sister had been to Germany,
- and they had some contact with the family, yes.
- Did they realize the necessity of getting out of Germany
- or was it just your father contacting them?
- No, they got another cousin and her husband and daughter
- out from Germany.
- And I don't really know exactly how it started.
- I just wondered.
- And they lived out on the farm, which was very nice.
- But my father was already pretty old when he got here.
- He was, I think, in his 60s.
- Yeah, 60s.
- Oh.
- And--
- And he went to work in a factory?
- Yes, yes.
- What type of factory work was that?
- Do you know?
- I don't remember exactly what it was, but I thought--
- now, my mother had been a social worker.
- She was trained as a social worker,
- and she would have liked to do some work in that field,
- but she was told by the Jewish Agency she would have to go back
- to school, and she has to go and pass
- exams and all this and that.
- And she didn't think she could do that.
- So she worked very hard as a practical nurse
- and was paid peanuts.
- How old was when she came to America?
- Oh my goodness, now, wait a minute.
- Was it '39?
- You said your father was in the 60s, so.
- Well, no.
- Wait a minute.
- I can figure it out. '90-- she's born '95.
- '95 and it was 45?
- So she was--
- She was 45, and my father was 60 at the time.
- So there was a great age difference there.
- Yes, but you would never know it.
- My father didn't look his age.
- Yes.
- So then of course, you married eventually.
- Did you go to school here besides beauty school?
- Did you attend any--
- Oh, I went to night school, yes.
- I went to night school because I never really
- had finished my high school.
- I went to youth high school, West Night High School,
- they called it.
- And for two years, I took classes there in the evenings.
- And then I graduated, and I got even--
- I got a scholarship, $45 for a scholarship.
- So I took one course in chemistry at UC.
- Oh.
- Even when I was finished with the high school.
- Yes.
- But then after I took--
- after I took that course in chemistry,
- I decided chemistry was not for me.
- [LAUGHS] And I did take some courses.
- I went on, and I did take courses
- at night in English and psychology and so on.
- Mostly I took one course at night for a while.
- Yeah, actually, I think I did until I went to New York.
- Oh.
- What did you do in New York?
- Oh, well, let me see what year that was.
- Can you turn it off a minute?
- In 1947, I decided that I wanted to go back to school
- during the day.
- So I took two classes in the summer, early in the mornings.
- And then I came at noontime.
- Then I started to work in a beauty shop from 1 o'clock
- till 6 o'clock.
- And then I went home and I studied.
- And I did that one whole summer, and I made it.
- I passed my classes.
- But it was really hard because I didn't
- realize when I was starting the these classes that they
- would be so intensive.
- Because in a summer course, you're
- taking what you normally would take all year-round.
- So after that was finished, I decided
- that was just too much, too much studying and too hard.
- So I said, I'm going on a vacation to New York.
- And I said, maybe, maybe I will not come back.
- So I went to New York.
- And I had a really nice time.
- I stayed with some relatives.
- And then after two weeks, I wrote my parents.
- I said, I think I'm not going to come back.
- Send all my clothes.
- And I got a job as a beautician there.
- And at first, I stayed with a very nice--
- a good cousin of mine in New York.
- And eventually, I had to pass another state board
- exam because in every state you have to pass an exam.
- It's not retroactive from one state to another.
- And then I worked there.
- Eventually, I got an apartment, or rather I shared an apartment.
- Well, one reason why I decided to not stay in Cincinnati
- was that I had, well, practically
- been engaged to a very good friend of mine.
- And after the war when he came back from overseas,
- I decided, well, we went together to New York
- to meet his family, and after some time, though, I
- decided that this was not the right relationship for me,
- that we just didn't fit together, and I broke it off.
- And then I did go and stay in Cincinnati.
- But I decided that it would be better
- for me if I go to another city.
- So that was another reason why I left Cincinnati.
- Most of my friends had gotten married or had moved away,
- and there were just not too many people
- that I knew in Cincinnati.
- And so I decided, well, I wanted to go to some greener pastures.
- And I liked it in New York.
- It was nice.
- I didn't live in the city.
- I lived in Long Island, in Elmhurst.
- Oh, really?
- And I worked further out on the Island.
- And so I didn't have to go--
- I didn't have to go into town.
- Did you live with your relatives?
- No, no.
- At first-- at first, I stayed with my cousin.
- No, I shared an apartment with another lady.
- So I had my own room, and she had a room.
- And we shared the kitchen together.
- But it worked out pretty well.
- So how long did you stay in New York?
- Well, I stayed in New York in 1948,
- and then I met my husband in the summer of '40--
- wait a minute.
- That was in the summer, '48.
- How did you meet him?
- On a blind date.
- I met him-- well, my cousins and his cousins were friends.
- And, well, one part of my cousin's husband
- and his cousin's wife both came from Holland.
- And they had gotten to know each other.
- And my cousin and her husband were moving away from New York
- to a small town in Massachusetts.
- And they wanted to go out for dinner together,
- and so they asked me would I like to go with them.
- I said fine.
- And then my husband-to-be's cousins
- asked him, would he like to come along.
- And since he had just come from England at the time,
- he had only been in the United States a short time--
- Where was he from originally?
- He also was from Germany, originally.
- But he had lived in England for a long time.
- So he didn't have-- at the moment,
- he didn't have any money.
- He didn't have any plans.
- And he hadn't gotten paid yet.
- So he said, well, it sounds all right.
- I don't have anything else to do.
- And so we all, the six of us met and went out for dinner.
- And that's how I met him.
- So what was his occupation?
- He's an engineer.
- Actually, he's a radio and electronic engineer.
- And so this was in the summer, '48.
- '48, I met him.
- Yes, in the summer.
- And then-- well, the week after I met him,
- I was going on vacation.
- And he wanted to meet me the next day after he had met me.
- And I said, I'm sorry.
- I have a date already.
- Which was true.
- And I said, well, I'm going on vacation after that,
- and I'm going to leave.
- And on my vacation, I came to Cincinnati.
- And then when I came back, and I always thought,
- well, maybe I should have a phone call sometime,
- but it took quite a while till I got the phone call.
- And then we started going out together.
- Oh, I see.
- And so you were married, of course.
- And you had children, you said?
- Yes.
- Yeah, we were married.
- We were married twice, really.
- So I hope I never have to get a divorce.
- You were married twice?
- How did that happen?
- Well, we were married in New York.
- We had a civil ceremony in New York by a judge.
- And then we had the religious ceremony here in Cincinnati.
- Well, the reason was we always wanted
- to be married in Cincinnati, or I did.
- And my cousins had said that if I ever get married,
- I can get married on the Isaac Mayer Wise farm.
- And they would like to have this.
- Now, if we would have gotten married here in Cincinnati,
- we would have had to wait two weeks
- because I think there is a law you have to have a blood test,
- and it takes two weeks or I don't
- know exactly what the law is.
- Something to that effect, and we didn't have that much time.
- So we said we're going to have the civil ceremony and only
- the religious here.
- And this is what we had at the Isaac Mayer Wise farm.
- It was really an April.
- It was very lovely, and Rabbi Reichert married us.
- Was it a large wedding?
- No, it was a very small wedding.
- I would have liked to have it outside, but it was raining.
- So we were married in the big room in the Isaac Mayer Wise
- farm.
- And--
- [PHONE RINGING]
- Uh-oh.
- You were telling me about your wedding.
- Oh, yes.
- And can you describe the surroundings?
- Do you remember?
- What?
- Do you remember about the living room and so forth
- and how they had it?
- Oh.
- You mean the farm?
- Oh, they had all kinds of spring flowers on there.
- There's a big-- there was a big mantelpiece all
- the whole width-- length of the room.
- And it really looked beautiful.
- But I'll never forget a friend of my cousin's
- played on the violin, and she must have been very nervous,
- and he was shaking--
- he was shaking like this, and my husband
- could hardly keep a straight face when we were walking in.
- And the ceremony was very nice.
- And then we had a lunch, which was really nice.
- And then my husband and I took off.
- And, well, we only had three or four close friends.
- And my uncle and my aunt and my cousin from Detroit
- and my husband's sister and my husband's father.
- And of course, our relatives, our cousins from the farm,
- as many as could be there.
- OK.
- Well, let me ask you now.
- You have how many children?
- Two girls.
- Two girls?
- All right.
- So do you ever speak German to your children?
- Well, when they were small, they didn't want to speak German.
- And now that they're grown, they said, oh, I
- wish we would have really learned how to speak German.
- But my parents spoke German, so they did hear some of it,
- and they did pick up some of it.
- But they never really learned it.
- They weren't ashamed of your accent or anything like that?
- No.
- That never bothered them?
- No, I don't think so.
- I'm just wondering.
- Just curious.
- Let me ask you this.
- When you came here to Cincinnati,
- did you have any contact with Jews
- of the East European parentage?
- Or did you--
- No, not in the-- well, not in the beginning.
- Because-- no, I don't really think too much of that.
- Because we had a German club that we--
- a Gate Club.
- I don't know whether you heard about that, Gate Club, yes?
- That we were quite active in at first.
- Yeah, and my mother was.
- We had all kinds of activities.
- And we took part in that.
- And then at one time, we wanted to form a congregation,
- a conservative congregation.
- No, this was in the High Holidays we had it.
- And I sang in the choir, but it never
- really came to be as a regular congregation.
- And we joined Rockdale.
- There was a congregation there that
- was formed, as I understand.
- The New Hope congregation.
- Yeah, no, no.
- This was something else.
- This was more was supposed to be more conservative.
- But it didn't materialize.
- I think we had High Holiday services only.
- And somebody from the Hebrew Union College led it.
- Where was that?
- I think it was at Rockdale in one of in--
- Yes, in Rockdale, in the old Rockdale temple
- in the area where they used to have their activity room,
- the activity center.
- And I sang in the choir, and Ernst--
- wasn't it Ernst Conrad?
- I think he gave--
- I think he the group.
- He was a student at HUC, and I think he led the service.
- At one time I believe there was Rabbi Wiener when he was still
- alive.
- He wanted to have a conservative Jewish congregation,
- and somehow it didn't materialize.
- I don't know exactly what the reason was.
- Yeah.
- No, we did not really have much contact with East European Jews.
- But I must say that at Rockdale temple,
- I went to the religious school there.
- I never felt very much at home.
- So in other words--
- I remember I just felt I didn't fit in.
- I didn't have the nice clothes that the other kids had.
- And I just--
- I didn't graduate.
- I just went there for a few years.
- It wasn't-- the type of Judaism didn't bother you?
- No, no.
- It was just the fact that--
- I didn't-- I felt I didn't quite fit in.
- That was when we lived on Wilson Avenue.
- And then we moved over on Burton Avenue,
- and I went to the Wise temple, to the high school classes.
- Where do you belong now?
- We belong to Temple Sholom.
- We are one of the founders.
- I must say that we did-- since my relatives belonged
- to Rockdale for many years, we joined Rockdale Temple.
- And we liked it, and we were quite active.
- My husband was on the board.
- He was in the housing committee.
- And we also, both of us were quite active in the Mr.
- And Mrs. Club.
- And then the two of us started a discussion group.
- And we got a list of all the members of Rockdale Temple,
- and we called up-- we in our committee called up,
- and we did form a discussion group, mostly younger people.
- And I think--
- I don't know.
- We must have made maybe 200 or 300 telephone calls.
- Out of the whole group, we had maybe 20 people.
- And that was quite interesting.
- We enjoyed that.
- But then after some years, we decided we wanted to--
- we were not that happy with Rockdale.
- And when Rabbi Brav formed Temple Sholom,
- we were one of the early ones that
- met in the summer before the temple or the
- before the congregation was started.
- And we joined.
- We were among the charter members.
- Did you feel as though Rockdale was too reform for you?
- Yes.
- That was one of the reasons?
- Yes.
- We thought it was cold.
- It wasn't that friendly.
- I mean, we knew Rabbi Reichert and Mrs. Reichert,
- and we knew a few other people.
- You can continue talking now.
- You want to tell me something about your daughters?
- Well, yes.
- When our daughters were in high school,
- our older daughter became active in Young Judea.
- And, well, our younger daughter is about three years younger.
- And after a while, she tagged along,
- and our older daughter became quite a leader in Young Judea.
- And she really enjoyed meetings and discussions,
- and they had study sessions, and she felt
- she really learned a lot there.
- And we were not that much oriented
- to Israel, well, Palestine.
- We were not really Zionists, but our daughters both
- became ardent Zionists.
- And eventually, both of them as a matter of fact,
- are now living in Israel.
- And they were on both on kibbutzim.
- Our older daughter is in Kibbutz Gezer,
- and the younger one was on Kibbutz Yahel, the reform
- kibbutz.
- She lived there for two years.
- And they didn't get it from us, really.
- But our daughter-- through our daughters, I became interested,
- and I joined Hadassah.
- And I'm now quite active.
- I was on the board for some years,
- and I'm active in the Lilah group.
- And I'm also a member of ACR.
- ACR?
- Oh, wait a minute.
- What is it?
- Well, sorry.
- That was ARZA.
- And--
- The Lilah group in Hadassah is the businesswomen's group?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And what is it?
- What profession are you in?
- Oh, I'm just-- you mean what I'm doing now?
- Yeah.
- Oh.
- Well, I decided that I wanted to do something.
- And I wasn't really trained in anything specific,
- so I applied as a part-time sales lady.
- Actually, how I got into this was
- that I was a member of Council of Jewish Women,
- and I did some volunteer work in their store,
- when they had it in Clifton.
- That was quite some years ago.
- And I did that one day a week.
- And somehow I found that I enjoyed working with people.
- And so then I decided, well, I'll
- just see when they were looking for part-time help.
- I signed up, and the next day they had me down for training.
- And that was about 12 years ago.
- So ever since then, I've worked 25 hours a week.
- And it gives me something to do.
- And I enjoy meeting people, talking to people and--
- Where did you say?
- Shillito's.
- At Shillito's?
- Shillito's downtown.
- And so this-- I feel that I'm doing something,
- and I'm able to--
- I save up some of the money, and now I use it to take a trip.
- I took a trip to Israel in February.
- And your daughters are remaining in Israel?
- Yes.
- Yes, well, the older daughter is still in Kibbutz Gezer.
- And the younger one is now--
- she applied last year.
- She got training as a ambulance driver and also some training
- at Hadassah Hospital as a first aid person, paramedic.
- And she actually is a-- she studied in Boston,
- early childhood education.
- And then she went to Harvard and got her master's.
- And after that, she decided to go to Israel.
- She wants to do something for Israel for the country.
- And she was two years in Yahel.
- And then after she had worked in the hospital
- and gotten that training, she said,
- somehow I got my feeling again.
- I want to go to medical school.
- And we said, well, we have given you four years of college.
- And, well, you have to do it on your own.
- So she applied at Hadassah Hospital
- at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
- and Ben Gurion University in Beersheva.
- And she had two interviews and must have been a lucky star.
- She was accepted at Ben Gurion University,
- so she's now studying there.
- And she got a scholarship and a stipend.
- And she's working very hard, and she's a lot older
- than most of the others.
- She's about five years older than the other students there.
- How old is she?
- She's 26 now.
- And most of them are 20, 21.
- Because what the Israelis do, after they get out
- of high school, they go for their army training.
- And after that's three years or four years,
- the boys for four years, well, then they
- were 21, 22, and then go to medical school.
- They go right from high school to medical school.
- So she's working very hard, and so far she's doing all right.
- Congratulations.
- That sounds wonderful.
- And this is training for a family physician.
- And already in the first year, they
- start working with patients.
- Now, will she have to remain in Israel?
- Well, she's going-- yes.
- She plans to, of course.
- Oh, yes.
- I mean--
- You mean for her studies?
- If they definitely-- no, after.
- She can do her residency over here in the United States.
- Ben Gurion university, I think is underwritten
- by University of Maryland.
- And they can do residency over here.
- Does she study in Hebrew?
- Well, the lectures the lectures are in Hebrew.
- All the lectures are in Hebrew, but the textbooks
- are in English.
- Oh, that's interesting.
- So you have to learn two languages.
- So Israelis have to do it.
- For them, I mean, most of them have had some English,
- but it's difficult. I mean, it's a bit difficult
- both ways, I mean, if you have to do it in two languages.
- Yes.
- That is interesting.
- Let me ask you about how you found actually life adjusting.
- I'll go backwards in time a little bit.
- Did you find it difficult to adjust
- to life here in Cincinnati?
- in the United States?
- Yes.
- After Germany and England?
- Was it--
- Well, it was difficult difficult, yes, in some ways.
- Because, well, I felt it was hard for my parents
- to be living in such cramped quarters,
- and we had to economize.
- And I think that we weren't given
- a great deal of understanding, I would say, by the Jewish Agency.
- Sometimes I thought, well, maybe I
- would have liked to go to college,
- but I just didn't really have a chance to.
- And I think at one time, I was thinking
- about applying to the Council of Jewish Women.
- They did offer some scholarships,
- and I believe at that time they said
- there were people that were in greater need than I was.
- So I felt they didn't--
- that was not right--
- that was maybe after a couple of years, five, six-- five years
- or so.
- Well, I think we band together with other people,
- other people who had come from Germany.
- And those were our friends.
- They were my parents' friends.
- And everybody was more or less in the same boat.
- We were all working hard and things were--
- we had to economize, and we just about
- made it in the first few years, because that
- was during the Depression, and jobs were hard to get.
- But I mean, it was really the first--
- the first year or so, I mean when
- my mother had to do this work at night, and the rest of us were--
- and she was trying to sleep during the day,
- but of course, we were gone and then prepare dinner.
- And it wasn't it wasn't that easy.
- It was really hard.
- But she was always cheerful.
- But eventually my parents, my father
- had to stop because he had to lift very heavy bales,
- I remember.
- And it was just too hard for him.
- And then my parents decided to do something else,
- and they sold paper goods and tablecloths and gloves for--
- well, the tablecloths and the gloves were for a company--
- That was later on, for a company in New York.
- And that was not quite as hard physically.
- They traveled around with a car, and they
- had our cousins help them.
- They told their friends, and they visited those friends,
- and those friends had a group of customers,
- and they just about made a living just to get by, I mean.
- But it was a lot of work, but it wasn't that hard, not such hard
- physical work.
- Much easier on your father.
- Yes, yes.
- And then when my father was--
- I think he was 72.
- Then he retired.
- But by that time, he had gotten some compensation
- from Germany, which helped.
- Oh, you got compensation?
- Yes, he got compensation for his loss of his factory and his job.
- Well, his position.
- And at the time, he was asked would you would
- you like to have-- the German government.
- I mean, he had a good lawyer, and would you
- like to have a lump sum?
- And he said, no, he preferred to get monthly payments,
- and this is what he got as long as he lived.
- And now my mother gets I think 80% of that.
- So I mean, that of course helped, helped financially,
- that they didn't have any money problem, any worries.
- Did you ever return to Germany?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Well, we went back twice.
- My husband really didn't want to return because his mother did
- not get out of Germany, and his father was just lucky in a way.
- He went on a business trip to the United States,
- and he wanted to look around, how things were,
- what kind of jobs would be available and so on.
- And his brother sent him a telegram not to come back.
- And this was right the 9th of November.
- Because if he would have come back,
- they would have thrown him in jail.
- This was 1939?
- Do you know what year?
- No, it was later.
- Later?
- It was later.
- And so he never went back.
- And he went to Canada, and then he immigrated from Canada.
- Well, his wife didn't get out.
- And my husband and his sister, they
- also went to England with children's transport.
- My husband actually was in a concentration
- camp for a few days, and he was very lucky he got out.
- He just walked out with a priest.
- Just walked out, and it was his luck.
- What town was your husband from?
- From Liegnitz in Silesia.
- That is now in Poland.
- His mother-- my father-in-law had a very good friend
- in Holland, and somehow he was able to get him,
- to get my mother-in-law a ticket to leave
- Liegnitz via Russia and Japan.
- And she was on the train already,
- and the Nazis came and got her and sent her back
- to her hometown.
- And then all we know is that she was shipped off with all
- the other women from Liegnitz?
- To a concentration camp.
- And afterwards, after the war, my father-in-law
- tried through the Red Cross and through every means
- to find out something, what happened to her.
- But he never was able to.
- But we found.
- This is all what we know, that she was
- sent to a concentration camp.
- And anyhow, so my father-- my husband
- didn't want to go to Germany.
- He says, I don't want to go back to Germany.
- But his uncle and aunt who had emigrated to Chile
- went back to Germany.
- When Allende got into power there,
- many Jews got very frightened, and things were very scary,
- and nobody knew what was going to happen.
- So my uncle, and he was already 85,
- and they went back to Germany to Baden-Baden.
- To live?
- Yes, to live.
- And it's really a miracle.
- They were very happy there in a small community.
- There were some other Jews.
- They had a Jewish community, a Jewish synagogue
- and quite a number of Jews there, a small group.
- And we went to visit them several times.
- What year was this?
- Oh my gosh.
- No, no.
- Wait a minute.
- Turn it off.
- You think it was about 1967 or '68?
- '68, yes, when we went to Israel, on our way back,
- we stopped in Germany, and we visited with them,
- and we had a very, very nice time.
- We stayed for about a week, and we
- couldn't believe it what a very nice and tranquil life they had.
- And they had friends.
- They mostly had Jewish friends, but they also
- had some Christian friends.
- As a matter of fact, when my uncle had his 95th birthday,
- he was written up in a newspaper.
- He had a delegation from the mayor's office.
- A woman came.
- He had a party in a hotel, and she came to the hotel,
- and she brought him congratulations
- and a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
- And that was-- that picture appeared in the newspaper.
- It was really very nice.
- What were your feelings?
- Well, I don't know.
- At first, it was very strange.
- And as a matter of fact, we stopped in our my home town,
- and a girlfriend of mine met me.
- She lived not in Tübingen anymore but in Stuttgart.
- And I had kept writing to her.
- After the war, we started to write again.
- And then we stopped, and we started again.
- And my girlfriend met me.
- And after maybe a few minutes or so, I mean, it's
- I would say maybe after half an hour, it was very strange.
- I didn't feel like we'd been away from each other
- all these many years.
- And as a matter of fact, she said
- she wants to come to the cemetery with us.
- So we had to get the key first from one lady that--
- a Miss Zapp who is a Christian.
- And she, after the war, made it her business
- to study and correspond with all the Jews
- that had ever lived in Tübingen.
- And she wrote a book.
- I have her book.
- She has pictures and documentations,
- what happened to all the Jews from this town.
- What was the name of the town?
- From Tübingen.
- Tübingen.
- And, well, she had the keys.
- As a matter of fact, she had suffered herself quite a lot.
- She had to flee.
- She was in Holland during the war.
- And then afterwards, she came back.
- As a matter of fact, she used her own money at first
- to do some of this work and research.
- And she--
- This was a Jewish cemetery to went to?
- Yeah, we went to the Jewish cemetery.
- Yeah.
- But she had the keys?
- Yes, she had the keys.
- She had the keys.
- She keeps the keys.
- And so my girlfriend, it wasn't easy to find, the cemetery.
- I still remember it from years back when I went with my mother.
- But they built an expressway there, through there.
- Through the cemetery?
- No, no, no.
- Next to it.
- Next to it.
- I'm sorry.
- And there were quite some woods, and part of the woods
- they had to get rid of.
- But anyhow, the cemetery is still there.
- What condition was it in?
- Oh, it was in good-- it's in good condition.
- They have a-- well, all the cemeteries
- have to be taken care of by the government.
- Well, that is to say just--
- I mean, the grass, the grass has to be mowed and so on,
- and it has to be kept up.
- But the individual graves don't.
- They don't really keep up.
- But at this particular cemetery, there
- is a man that takes care of them.
- And, well, as a matter of fact, my mother sends him--
- she wants to-- my grandmother's grave,
- she wants to have it taken care of and flowers put on it
- and so on.
- She sends him some money every year and--
- That's her mother?
- Yeah, my mother's mother.
- And he put some flowers on, and we have some evergreens
- and so on.
- No, the cemeteries in--
- one time, they did have some damage, and it was repaired.
- But--
- The Nazis did not discover it?
- Well, they didn't do anything to it.
- But, well, the Nazis burned down our synagogue in Tübingen.
- And nobody has ever found out who really started it.
- But they have some strong suspicions who did it.
- But who knows?
- Well, we really didn't stay in my hometown.
- We went up to the house where we had lived in.
- I have never gone inside because, well, my mother
- went in once, but I just looked at it from the outside.
- [PHONE RINGING]
- What did the house look like?
- It was a very large house with about 11 rooms.
- And we had up--
- we had a small garden, and we had a dog.
- We had two maids, and we lived up on a hill.
- And later on, we found out no other Jews had ever
- lived up on the hill.
- But as it happened, my parents saw the house,
- and they fell in love with it because it was right on the hill
- and with a beautiful view.
- On the third floor, we could see the Alps in the background.
- It was nice and cool in the summer.
- And we had some trees.
- We had a nice porch outside.
- And they just liked it because they were used to living--
- I mean, they had been living in the country,
- and this was almost like living in the country.
- When you went shopping, you had to go down a really steep hill.
- And, well, eventually we got bicycles
- that we could go to school on.
- But walking up and down to school
- took about 45 minutes each way.
- And if we were lucky, my parents would take us along
- in the car in the morning half way,
- and then we only had to walk for about 15 minutes, 20 minutes one
- way.
- Well, we liked it up there.
- And as a matter of fact, my parents
- were friendly with some of the neighbors,
- but not anything intimate, just there was a nice relationship.
- And we played with the children of the other people.
- There were a lot of large homes where the students that
- attended the university lived.
- They had their fraternities.
- I guess you call it fraternities.
- And as a matter of fact, there was one right next door to us.
- In the winter time, this was really nice.
- We could go skiing right down on the hill next to us.
- And as a matter of fact, as one person said,
- oh, the other day I saw a whole family skiing.
- The best one was the youngest one.
- He really did very well.
- And the next best was--
- I guess it must have been the daughter.
- And the wife, she fell down all the time.
- And the husband was very stiff, but he got down the hill
- all right.
- And that was our family.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- In the summer, we did a lot of--
- we went by car to the Alps, and we did quite a lot of walking.
- And my parents were quite strict.
- We took our lunch along.
- And many a time I said, oh, I'm so thirsty.
- I'm so thirsty.
- And we would get some dried fruit.
- My mother said, now, you just chew on that plum stone,
- and you wait until we get to the restaurant,
- and we'll have some nice something nice to eat.
- Or maybe we'll have lunch, or we'll have dinner or something.
- And we enjoyed it.
- And I think our children loved to hike too.
- And when I was in Israel, I was doing quite a bit of hiking
- in the Sinai.
- I was there in February.
- My daughter is one of those that takes--
- she took many of the young kids, Americans that came to Israel,
- she took them on trips into the Sinai
- and other trips, other places.
- And also our younger daughter took a group
- of kids up on to Mount Sinai.
- So it's sort of in our blood.
- We love to walk, and we love to hike.
- We love nature.
- Who lives in your house now, in your home in Germany originally?
- I think there's two older ladies living in there.
- I'm sure we could go in if we wanted to.
- Oh, I must say, I did make a mistake.
- You asked me before when was the first time
- that we went to Germany.
- The first time we went to Europe in 1957
- we did not go to Germany.
- My husband really had very strong feelings about it.
- He said he does not want to go to Germany ever.
- Where did you go?
- Well, that year we went to Scotland first
- because our uncle, my husband's uncle, had died the year before,
- and we decided we wanted to go to the stone Setting
- and we went to that, and then we went to England
- to visit my relatives.
- And then we stopped.
- We stayed there in London for about a week,
- and then we went for a few days to Paris and a few days
- to Holland, where we met also some friends.
- Did you return to your school in England?
- No, we didn't.
- No, I didn't.
- No, I didn't.
- No.
- Now, that was the first time?
- Yeah, we went to Germany in '72 and '75.
- And that I had gotten mixed up.
- And those were-- we did that in combination
- when we went to Israel first.
- And on the way back, we stopped in Germany for a week
- and visited our relatives.
- They didn't go with you with that [CROSS TALK]..
- No, no.
- No, just the two of us.
- And we visited our uncle and aunt in Germany in Baden-Baden.
- Did your mother-- has your mother returned to Germany?
- Oh, yes, my mother.
- Yes, my parents went back.
- Yes, several times.
- And my mother has gone.
- Yeah, the last time we went back, we went back together.
- The three of us went to our hometown Tübingen.
- We had gotten an invitation by the city, the city of Tübingen.
- The city had gotten together, and they
- decided they wanted to invite all the former Jews,
- wherever they were, all over the world now.
- They were invited.
- The trip was paid and one week's stay in a hotel in Tübingen.
- And I think they wanted to do something for the Jews.
- And it was amazing.
- 40-- 40?
- No.
- 40-- 44 of us.
- Well, each one-- now for instance,
- I could bring my husband along.
- Each one could bring a companion or somebody, a spouse
- or a close relative.
- And my mother went, and our daughter came from Israel,
- but we paid for that.
- But it was a wonderful experience.
- She said she wants to see the place where I had lived
- and I had grown up.
- And she really enjoyed it, meeting the people there.
- And we showed her the house, of course.
- And my brother went.
- I forgot to say my brother went, and he took his oldest son
- along.
- And that was quite an experience for him too.
- And they had a very nice program.
- Well, they showed us-- the first day,
- we traveled on foot in the city, the old part mostly.
- They showed us around.
- And then the second day, we went by bus.
- And the first place they took us was the cemetery.
- And I forgot to say there is a big plaque in the cemetery when
- you come in.
- One of the former Jews from Tübingen had it erected,
- and all the names of the people that
- had died in concentration camps is on there.
- But we found out that about four or five of the names
- were not on there.
- For some reason, they weren't on,
- and they are going to put on another plaque, a small plaque.
- Well, anyhow, we had a ceremony at the cemetery.
- And then the next place was we stopped
- where the synagogue had been.
- And there is a water fountain now
- and a plaque that says "in memory of the synagogue."
- And then they showed-- then they took us
- to the new section of town, which is like a whole new city
- up on a hill.
- And it's the university.
- There are about, oh, maybe 10 buildings,
- high-rise buildings, all very modern.
- It's like a city in itself.
- You can walk around by bicycle or walk, or then you go by car.
- You go.
- There's a certain road, and you go down into the city again.
- And that--
- It's new?
- Yes, this is all new?
- What did they do with the old university?
- Oh, that is still there too.
- But it has grown so tremendously.
- They have about 40,000 students there.
- It's really very big.
- And it has connections with Ann Arbor,
- and it has with France, with England,
- with England's university.
- So it's international.
- You see all kinds of students there.
- They had some, I think they were Taiwanese.
- Now, we had an official reception.
- We had all kinds of activities, and they were really wonderful.
- And the chief mayor, there's a chief mayor,
- and then there's four other mayors.
- And each of the other mayors is in charge of other activities.
- I mean, I don't want to go into this,
- but they also took us on two trips.
- We went into two castles.
- We went into the Black Forest.
- And I think I personally had the feeling that they were really
- sincere, and they said in the way
- they said it that they really wanted to do--
- in a way wanted to amend for the terrible things that
- had been done.
- And the mayor is only in his 40s.
- So he was really a child when all of this happened.
- And there were so many-- oh, we were on television.
- We didn't even know about some of these things.
- We were on television, and there were so
- many people that remembered some of the group.
- They came to visit, to take us out for lunch, to meet us.
- And I mean, it was such a really interesting feeling now.
- I had the high school that I was in
- had for the last two years had a reunion, a yearly reunion.
- And usually they had the reunion in October, but because I came,
- we came in September, they changed the date,
- and they had a reunion Saturday, the Saturday that I was there.
- What year was this?
- I'm sorry.
- This was last.
- Year last.
- Year last year in--
- 1981.
- September.
- 1981 in September, yes.
- Now, as I said, my girlfriend, the one girlfriend that
- is a year older than I, when they got together,
- she didn't have that feeling of friendliness and camaraderie.
- As a matter of fact, afterwards I wrote to one of the girls,
- and I said, you know what we should have done
- is-- we all talked.
- We sat, and we talked.
- And what we should have done is each
- should have told a little bit about their lives,
- so that we could all share.
- So I said-- right before, like a month before Christmas,
- I wrote to one of the girls, and I said,
- why don't we send a sort of a round robin letter?
- And I wrote a little bit about my life,
- what happened to me and so on.
- And then she said, you send this on to the next one,
- and then go around.
- And they thought this was a very good idea.
- It sounds like an excellent idea.
- Yeah.
- Well, my husband's feelings were much more--
- I think he still doesn't trust the Germans.
- He still says every German is a Nazi.
- But I know that there were people that were not Nazis.
- My girlfriend that I met the first time I went back
- and the second time, as a matter of fact,
- the last when we were there, last September,
- on Sunday we met them, and we spent time in Stuttgart
- where they live.
- He is a professor of art.
- As a matter, he's a director of the Art Academy
- at the university there.
- And we know that he is not a Nazi.
- He wouldn't join the party, and he was put in prison.
- And my girlfriend, when she had to write some of her papers,
- didn't write the way that she was supposed to write,
- the Nazis wanted her to write.
- She got very bad grades.
- And her father was not a Nazi.
- I know that because we knew him very well.
- Because the year that I left, the summer before I left,
- 1936, I still went along with a youth group
- in the summer on a vacation.
- And my mother said, I don't think she should go.
- And he said, no, she will be all right.
- My daughter will watch over her.
- Nothing will happen to her, and she'll be fine,
- and you don't have to worry about anything.
- And I had a very good time.
- But that was one of the unusual things that happened.
- So yes, my husband still, I think in the back of his mind,
- he has these bitter feelings.
- Now, one time I remember when we were in Baden-Baden,
- one time we stayed in a hotel, Badischer Hof, I think it was.
- Yes, and that was just across the street
- from where my uncle and aunt lived.
- And in the afternoon, they have a dance.
- They have a band come in, and every day the band
- goes to a different hotel.
- And people that enjoy dancing, they
- can go to all the different hotels.
- You have a cup of coffee, and you drink,
- and you have some cake.
- And then you dance if you like to,
- or just sit and listen to the music.
- And I had the strangest thing.
- Well, when we came in, there was no room
- to sit down, except there was this one man sitting at a table.
- And I don't know.
- somehow I didn't like his looks.
- But we had no choice to sit down.
- And you know, I made up my mind, he looks like a Nazi.
- Well, as it turned out, he was the former police chief
- of Baden-Baden.
- And he I think he must have-- he was a Nazi
- from what we heard later on.
- And he wanted to get into a political discussion,
- but we didn't want to go into it.
- We just-- mostly with the Germans,
- unless we really knew who they were, we didn't--
- Did he know who you were?
- I don't remember exactly.
- I think we said--
- yes, I think we said we are visiting here and so forth.
- [PHONE RINGING]
- Oh, one other thing I would like to say,
- that there are quite a number of young Germans
- and also people from Holland and maybe Scandinavian countries,
- non-Jewish, who have gone to Israel and work as volunteers.
- And I know that some of them feel
- that this is one way they want to try and undo
- all the horrible things which have been done to the Jews.
- And they feel very strongly about this,
- and they feel that they really want to do something.
- And many of them fall in love with Israel
- because it's such a wonderful, vibrant country.
- Well, I want to thank you, Mrs. Doctor,
- for your very, very interesting interview.
- And in case you think of anything else, just call me.
- Oh, OK.
- Thank you for your time.
- Yeah, give me your-- look at all my scripts.
- I would like to say something else,
- that my husband and I have been very active in our temple.
- We are members, charter members of Temple Sholom,
- and we have been very active all these many years.
- My husband has been president when the sanctuary was built,
- the actual sanctuary was being built,
- and kept him very busy running back and forth
- to the temple out in Amberley.
- And he has been on the board for many years.
- And this last year, I was on the board.
- I sang in the choir for many years.
- We have been very active since the inception of our temple.
- We have a study group that has been going on,
- meeting once a month all these many years.
- And I'm active in Hadassah.
- We are supporters of the school for creative and performing
- arts.
- We are members of Kibbutz Gezer has a Friends of Gezer.
- We are trying to raise some money that the kibbutz
- and get some special things for the kibbutz.
- Well, we also are active in our neighborhood.
- We belong to Paddock Hills Association.
- My husband was president at one time.
- We also have a block club in our immediate neighborhood.
- So we keep pretty busy and active besides working.
- You're tiring me out.
- That's fantastic.
- Well, thank you so very much.
- Well, you're welcome.
- You're welcome.
- But I don't know.
- I get very nervous, I think, and I forget some
- of the things I want to say.
- Don't worry about it.
- You did a beautiful job.
- Oh, well.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Mrs. Doris Doctor
- Interviewer
- I. Schwartz
- Date
-
interview:
1982 April 01
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 sound cassette (90 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Doctor, Doris.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
American Jewish Archives
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Doris Doctor was conducted on April 1, 1982 for a joint project with the National Council of Jewish Women, Cincinnati Section and the American Jewish Archives of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion entitled "Survivors of Hitler's Germany in Cincinnati: An Oral History." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired a copy of the interview in June 1990.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:18:58
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511370
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