Oral history interview with Margo Weiser

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1990.339.81 | RG Number: RG-50.161.0081

: Rocky, tell us who you are.
: I'm Margo Gretzinger Weiser.
: And are you a person from the Holocaust?
: I am, thank God, indirectly from the Holocaust.
: We came out prior to the Anschluss, which was, of course,
: in was in December or November.
: Kristallnacht, we came over in May
: of the same year of Kristallnacht,
: which I believe was '37, '38.
: How old were you?
: I was 3 and 1/2 years of age at the time.
: And my father had been warned to take his family
: and leave the country.
: And for some reason, he believed the warning.
: He could sense that things were amiss.
: And he packed us up and we left.
: Where was the city-- where were you from?
: I was born in Bad Rappenau, which
: is in the southern part of Germany, below Heidelberg,
: I believe, as I understand it, about 60,
: 80 miles from Heidelberg.
: And we lived in a very small village, or a Dorf.
: And then from there, I think we moved to Heilbronn
: for a short time.
: And obviously, at that point, we left because I was really young.
: Your parents-- obviously, you were 3 and 1/2.
: You left with your parents.
: Did you have any brothers and sisters?
: I have two older brothers, who one three years older
: than myself, one six years older than myself.
: We all left at the same time.
: The entire family fortunately left at the same time.
: We lost no one directly to the Holocaust,
: a couple of distant cousins.
: But half of our family ended up here
: in the United States, the other half in Israel,
: depending upon where they could get entrance.
: I had an aunt and uncle who were already here,
: and it was through them that we received our papers.
: Were they in Cincinnati?
: My uncle had started out in New York City with a--
: well, today, Hartz Mountain.
: In those days, it was Stern Co.
: He was in the pet supply business.
: And on this route of pet supplies,
: Cincinnati was his territory.
: And he used to deliver to Cincinnati,
: liked it so well here that he finally
: decided to give up the route, open up his own pet shop.
: He was a frustrated veterinarian.
: He really wanted to be a vet, but was
: too old to start school here, opened up his own pet shop
: here in Cincinnati.
: And that is how we ended up here,
: because this aunt and uncle sponsored us.
: Right.
: When they came over, had to have a sponsor.
: So my two brothers and my father and my grandmother and two
: aunts, an old maid aunt and a widowed aunt,
: and the widowed aunt's son, we all ended up here in Cincinnati.
: Oh, so you had a whole big family.
: All of the family that came out, that half of the family
: came here to Cincinnati.
: Two aunts ended up in Israel.
: Have any problems-- you left early enough
: that you didn't have problems?
: We come out in May.
: Kristallnacht, I believe, was November,
: if I remember my history correctly now.
: Problems, thank God nothing too overt that I can remember.
: I do remember one incident which I thought--
: I don't-- I first thought that I remembered it because I've heard
: it, but then I in recollection, I'm sure that's not the case
: because my dad did not even remember the story.
: I remember my grandmother opening
: the door on what was called Fastnacht night,
: which is Halloween actually, with me
: in one arm and a bag of apple fritters, which
: was the big thing to give out, hot apple fritters
: dipped in confectioners sugar.
: That was the treat.
: Trick or treat.
: Trick or treat.
: And she opened the door and stood with me
: in one arm in her bag of fritters in the other.
: And there were two young Gestapo youth in their uniforms.
: And you--
: And my grandmother said, on you too, I spit, you get nothing.
: And she closed the door.
: And my daddy-- my mother was scared, absolute fit.
: She says, mama, mama, what did you do?
: Now, they're going to come and we're
: going to be in such trouble.
: And my grandmother says, I'm not worried about them.
: And that was the end of that.
: But then thank God, we left that following summer.
: Were you able then to take most of your possessions too?
: Not really.
: Not really.
: At that point in time, you were either
: permitted to take one crate of belongings per adult
: or the equivalent in cash.
: I don't know what the amount was.
: My family had been a very well-to-do family,
: had a lot of lovely items, china, crystals, and so forth.
: What kind of business was it?
: My grandfather owned a factory where
: they manufactured byproducts, oil derivatives, shoe polish,
: floor polish, floor waxes, and things of that sort.
: And your father worked--
: And my father was--
: worked for-- the whole family worked in the family--
: Business.
: Right.
: So you had a lot of nice things.
: Yeah.
: They had lovely things.
: They had lovely jewelry.
: So they decided after a family meeting
: that the cash that they were permitted to take
: would amount to nothing.
: I mean, it would just be a drop in the bucket.
: So they'd rather have their nice things.
: And since there were so many adults coming,
: they figured that would be quite a bit
: that they could take out with them.
: And they decided between them that that's what they would do.
: They would take whatever they could manage
: to get into these crates.
: In the bottom of two of the crates,
: however, there was a false bottom.
: My grandfather had been a shamas of one of the big synagogues
: and one of the-- probably the only synagogue, I suppose.
: Oh, you mean in your town?
: In our town.
: And he smuggled out two of the Torahs.
: Oh, beautiful.
: He put them underneath this false bottom
: and then put all of the china and the silver
: and whatever else they could get in on top.
: And that is how we came out with two Torahs.
: One Torah, they left in New York when
: they spent the first few months in New York
: at a little synagogue that they attended.
: My grandfather, incidentally, did not come out with us.
: He died before, long before--
: Everything was--
: --we left.
: Right.
: He had died years before.
: But one synagogue-- one Torah ended up in New York.
: And one Torah ended up at Adath Israel Synagogue.
: When my folks first came to Cincinnati,
: we started attending Adath Israel.
: That was prior to the development of New Hope, which
: my folks were charter members of,
: and they gave that Torah to Adath Israel.
: Well, that was when Rabbi Feinberg was there.
: Rabbi Feinberg was still there, right.
: So that's basically how we all got here.
: The other two aunts and their families ended up in Israel.
: I'm not sure if they had sponsors
: or if they were just lucky that they
: were able to get into Israel.
: Or how they got there, I don't really know.
: But two aunts, and, of course, they have families.
: And then my mother's side of the family,
: the Bloch side of the family also ended up in Israel.
: My mother, my biological mother died prior to my leaving
: Germany.
: I was only two when my mother passed away.
: I never knew that.
: So my father, when we came to the States,
: we were living as one family, you know, an extended family,
: like we used to have in those days
: where everybody lived under one roof.
: You didn't know who was whose mother or who was whose aunt
: or uncle.
: My one aunt, the aunt and uncle that sponsored our coming over
: were a childless couple.
: So in essence, it was decided that since there
: were three of us--
: and two of the aunts worked, one is a nurse
: and the other is a seamstress--
: since the boys are in school and don't require quite so
: much attention, they would live with-- stay
: with the two aunts who lived next door
: to the house in which we lived.
: There were so many of us, we couldn't often under one roof.
: So we lived in houses side by side.
: Here in Cincinnati?
: In Cincinnati, in rental property.
: Yeah.
: And because my "mom," quote unquote,
: who certainly became my mom after I was three years of age,
: was the one that was home.
: And with no children, it was decided
: the baby should stay with them because she has more time
: and she can take care of the baby, who
: needs somebody that's home.
: So that's how it worked out.
: My father and my two brothers, my two aunts, my grandmother
: and my aunt's son, who is my cousin, lived in the house
: next door.
: They had a whole second floor apartment.
: We lived to the right of them in a very large apartment.
: And then that house was myself, my aunt and uncle,
: who subsequently, I began to call my aunt mother because I
: was so very young.
: And she was the only mother that I knew.
: She was my mom.
: It got a little confusing to friends because she was my mom.
: My uncle, however, was not my dad.
: He would not allow me to call him Dad.
: He said, as long as your father's--
: Your father's living.
: I am your uncle.
: So it was kind of confusing for many years
: until my dad passed away.
: And at that point in time when we had a family
: that the whole scene changed.
: Then my kids started calling him grandpa.
: And then it was fine.
: But anyway, and my uncle's parents also lived with us.
: He had brought his two parents over.
: So both houses were really quite full of people.
: And--
: So you're growing up, you didn't lose a lot
: of identification that way.
: You still had that family support.
: We were very close.
: I think most of your families then were.
: You know, you really--
: that's all you still had was each other.
: But so many people didn't come out with the aunts and uncles--
: That's right.
: --and cousins.
: We were very fortunate.
: I think the fortunate thing was that, you know,
: so many people did not believe that anything
: was going to happen.
: They just couldn't believe it.
: And for some reason, I don't know
: what gave my father the foresight to believe,
: but he did.
: And he said, I'm not staying here.
: We're leaving.
: There's no way that we're staying.
: And he got the whole clan together,
: and we decided that we would all leave together.
: I also had an aunt and uncle in New York
: who had come over many years before they left Germany.
: They sponsored part of us, you know,
: because for one family to sponsor
: us would have been almost impossible.
: But that's how we ended up here.
: So what would you say about your adjustments?
: What would I say about my adjustment?
: I think that my adjustment was, thank God, relatively simple.
: I'm not sure that the family's adjustment was as simple
: as mine, particularly in the early years,
: because this was, as I said, a very well-to-do family
: with all kinds of household help.
: The girls had gone to boarding schools.
: My father was the one that used to give orders.
: Here, he had to take orders.
: They had a difficult time.
: I think they-- from the stories that I heard
: and from the things that I was told,
: there was a bit quite a bit of resentment at the beginning.
: You know, they-- it was a totally different life.
: My aunt never had my aunts never had
: to sit there and sew for someone else.
: People used to sew for them, you know.
: But thank God, they had had this training.
: All of the girls were educated in boarding schools.
: And, of course, in those days that was,
: you know, one step above.
: That was next to college--
: or was college for the women at that time.
: One aunt took a nursing course.
: And consequently, when she came to Cincinnati
: was a nurse, a practical, not a registered,
: but a practical nurse.
: And the other aunt was an accomplished seamstress,
: worked with Midwest Coat and Suit Company--
: So they had professions.
: They had-- they had professions.
: Right.
: Thank God.
: Well, what about your Dad?
: What did he do?
: My dad had a very hard time finding himself.
: He ended up working for M.R. Sanders in sales.
: And my dad spent the first two or three years ill,
: in and out of the hospital.
: Just prior to his leaving, my mother died the year before.
: And he, between that and this adjustment
: to a whole new way of life and having three young children,
: he could not cope.
: And the first couple of years, he just-- he
: was not able to do anything with himself.
: Ultimately, through a lot of help from the family
: and a lot of medical attention, he pulled himself together.
: But it took him three or four years to do it.
: And then he started working.
: But he never really found himself in the same way
: that the women did.
: He was not as well prepared as the women of the family
: because he went right into the business,
: you know, the oil business, that was--
: Well, did he have any help from any of the Jewish agencies?
: The Jewish agencies were very helpful from what I understand.
: Certainly, they were most helpful in so far
: as medical help and things of that sort.
: But again, it's hard for me to say because I don't know.
: I only know from hearsay.
: I had the feeling that there was a lot of resentment
: that they had to accept help.
: They weren't happy about that.
: And the minute they could get on their own feet,
: there was no way that they would accept any more help.
: It bothered my mother that the first few years
: that we were here, that she had to go
: to the agencies with us kids, you know, for medical attention.
: But there was such a big family and so many of us
: and really basically little income
: that for all the medical attention that youngsters need
: and the teeth fixed.
: But that was a feeling--
: I think, that hopefully has changed.
: I don't know why they resented that as much as they did.
: But I don't think it was only my own family.
: I used to hear it among their friends
: when they would sit together and coffee klatch
: on a Saturday afternoon.
: I think that was tough to take, especially
: for people who were people of means
: and found themselves now on the other end of the stick.
: Well, the times, you hear a lot of just the opposite today,
: at least I do, of people coming over and expecting everything
: to be given to them and resentful If they don't get it.
: If they don't get it.
: That's true.
: And I think the times are very different.
: And people--
: That I recall.
: --had a lot of pride in those days that I recall.
: I know wherever they could pay anything, they would.
: My mother used to save up the pennies.
: I used to go to camp every summer.
: And part of that camp was picked up by the agencies.
: But my mother would scrape until she could get as much of it
: together as humanly possible because she thought
: it was important to her that she pay
: at least two weeks of the four weeks that I was gone.
: But as I said, there were a lot of people,
: the old folks were dependent on my aunt and uncle.
: My aunts, you know, it was my father and the two aunts,
: and my uncle who owned his own F&F Pet Shop.
: Many people in Cincinnati knew the F&F Pet Shop.
: They were there for 25, 30 years.
: Sure.
: But that was a lot of people living on four salaries,
: you know.
: But ultimately, thank God, everything worked out for us.
: I know there are others that were a lot less
: fortunate than we were.
: As far as immediate family, the only family that--
: close family, I had an aunt in Germany
: who was married to a Gentile man.
: And because he was not Jewish, he felt that he was safe.
: And consequently, he was going to stay behind in Germany
: and guard the family treasures and the house
: and what have you, sent his wife and their very young daughter
: out of the country through the underground
: somehow, and told them that he would catch up with them later.
: Where did they go?
: I think he somehow got them over to Switzerland.
: And my Aunt Martha subsequently--
: --get in.
: OK.
: OK.
: Martha subsequently went back to Germany after the war.
: She smuggled her youngster to a convent.
: And this child was raised in the convent
: all the years of the war.
: But in any case, because he was married to a Jewess,
: they did take his life.
: They did take his life.
: When they found out and that was the end of him.
: Of course, that was only a ruse anyhow.
: They wanted the property.
: Sure, sure.
: But that's the closest immediate family member that we lost.
: Did you-- but you never knew this aunt and uncle because you
: were only two years old.
: I didn't know them, right But they
: were very much part of the family gatherings.
: And whenever there was a family gathering,
: they came from far and wide, and they were always included.
: But that story my mother often told me.
: Does she still live in Germany, this aunt?
: Aunt Martha just passed away at the age of 84, last summer.
: She did go back to Germany subsequently, yes.
: She--
: What about her child?
: Did she stay at Catholic or something?
: She's a very devout Catholic.
: Yes.
: It's an interesting thing because when Aunt Martha visited
: us once about ten, 12 years ago, we went to synagogue.
: She was very observant in her own way of her Judaism.
: She still observed all the holidays.
: But the daughter had become a devout Catholic,
: has six daughters of her own.
: That happened quite frequently, too.
: How was your aunt's acceptance of this?
: Of this other--
: Of the daughter being a Catholic and going completely different.
: I think probably because she was married to a Gentile man, which
: began the whole thing, I don't know that she
: could have had much to say.
: It happens that the man that his daughter is married to
: is a brilliant scientist.
: He is a professor of nuclear physics
: and lectures here in the States very frequently.
: He will call us from different parts of the country just
: to say hello.
: So I assume she accepted him.
: I only saw them the once in my life
: when she came to visit some years ago.
: But when we went to visit Israel a couple of years ago,
: I found that was sort of the summation of many things.
: We went to Israel.
: What do you mean?
: You're going was the summation?
: We went three years ago finally, after talking about it
: for many years.
: I said to my husband, look, if we're really
: going to go, why do we keep talking about it?
: My mother has not seen her sister
: in 45 years, the one sister.
: The other sister had been here to visit about 15 years ago.
: I said we really should go while my mother is alive
: and can go with us and spend some time with her sister.
: My mother always said she'd like to go.
: But she didn't want to go alone.
: So we went.
: And I want to tell you, the reunion
: was something else between the sisters.
: But then my aunt, who was living in Israel,
: said to us as we were leaving and she's kissing us goodbye,
: she said, you know, what Hitler did not manage to do,
: distance did.
: She said, the fact that we've lived so far apart all
: of the years that you youngsters were growing up and we
: didn't really get to know each other and I never really got
: to see my sister-- because money was not--
: there was not enough money years ago for these people
: to travel back and forth.
: They just couldn't afford to do it.
: She said, so what Hitler didn't do, distance managed to do.
: As a result of Hitler, of course.
: Right.
: Broke up families.
: Is what she was implying.
: They wouldn't have been far apart otherwise.
: It broke up families.
: So, yes, emotionally, there are emotional scars there,
: of course.
: But as I say, we were very blessed.
: So I've never-- you know, most of what I know
: is really hearsay.
: I have a cousin who is married to a young woman,
: to a woman who's whose whole family went up.
: She and her older sister were smuggled out
: because the mother felt that the two older girls could perhaps
: make it on their own.
: But she had a baby sister, and the mother, father
: and the infant were sent to Auschwitz, I believe.
: So we have touched upon it here and there.
: But basically my immediate family was spared.
: Thank God.
: You said you have two older brothers.
: Right.
: How about, from your point of view, their adjustment,
: like to school and to living a different style and so on.
: Well, my one brother, the younger
: of the two older brothers, was six years of age, so seven,
: going on seven.
: I don't think he had any problems.
: We started school here.
: Obviously, we didn't speak the language,
: but that didn't take very long.
: I had friends that lived on my street who made sure
: that I learned in a hurry.
: In fact, Betty--
: Betty is, I think, very active in-- used to be.
: Used to be a very Hochhaus.
: I don't remember her married name.
: Anyway, Betty used to say to me, sit down.
: And if I didn't sit down or didn't know what it meant,
: she took me by the shoulder--
: She pushed you.
: She pushed me.
: And she said, that means sit down.
: I learned.
: My younger brother the same.
: I think my older brother was the one that had
: the most difficult adjustment.
: First of all, he was the one that
: remembered my mother the best.
: Oh, yeah.
: Remember, he was 9 going on 10.
: So he, in addition to losing our mother--
: I had so many doting aunts and grandmothers that while--
: I probably really don't recall ever really missing my mother,
: you know.
: I just-- the void was always filled for me.
: My brother was very close to my mom.
: So he had that to contend with.
: Then he was already in school.
: He was pulled out of school.
: His mother, his home, everything familiar.
: His mother, his home.
: As I say, our dad got here and could not
: cope with all of the problems.
: So he didn't have Dad to rely on.
: And he had a more difficult time, I think.
: He went to school here and managed all right.
: But I think it affected him the most.
: And, of course, educationally, I think
: it was probably the biggest drawback to all three of us.
: There just was not enough money for anyone to say, here, here's
: your money.
: You kids go off to college.
: If you wanted to go off to college
: or take a business course or whatever,
: we had to work our way through.
: There just was no other way.
: Consequently, neither of my brothers went on to college.
: Thank God, they both have found themselves.
: My older brothers is with the shoe business
: and runs big shoe stores in Florida
: because the salesman came out in them.
: See, the family was a family of salesmen,
: so thank God by osmosis he did get that.
: My other brother has been with General Electric for 22 years
: in the parts and service department,
: doing all the ordering and what have you out in California.
: But I'm sure that had we stayed or had there been money,
: they would have gone on to college, myself included.
: I went to Miller Draughon School of Business
: for a year and a half because I knew that I had
: to get out and start to work.
: There were just-- there were all the old folks still
: living at home.
: And one man just could not keep providing for all these people
: indefinitely.
: So I do believe educationally we lost out.
: Except that here you have the opportunity if you want to,
: later on, you can still do something about it.
: It's just that would be the big thing as far as we kids are
: concerned.
: What about religiously?
: I know you were just two.
: But was the family, you know, in Germany,
: were they an observant family?
: Very observant, both in Germany and here.
: My grandmother kept a strictly kosher home, as I said earlier.
: My family were all founding members, charter members
: of the New Hope Congregation when
: they used to meet first at the Jewish Center on Blair
: and Hartford and then eventually bought a house on Prospect.
: They were members of New Hope for many, many years
: and still are.
: My mother was until the day she died last year
: a member of New Hope.
: We got away, some of us, from the Orthodoxy
: and moved on to Conservatism.
: But because of the strong Orthodox background, none of us
: have gone Reformed, you know, because it's there.
: It was there.
: We grew up with it.
: So you were not--
: so many of the people we interviewed
: are assimilated Jews.
: Well, we have that in our younger generations.
: But not prior to my generation-- my older brother.
: Yeah, well, that's what I'm talking about.
: You when you came here, you evidently
: were still the observant.
: Oh, yes.
: Oh, yes.
: It was just in recent years that tradition
: was broken along with--
: with my brothers basically, it started.
: And we have since then, unfortunately
: or fortunately, whichever the case,
: we have quite a bit of assimilation within the family,
: but not of the older generation.
: None of them.
: In fact, the only one was this aunt.
: For a long time, she was the outcast of the family.
: And they decided that they would do her a favor
: and welcome her back into the fold.
: This was your mother's sister.
: No, it was my grandmother's sister.
: Grandmother's sister.
: It was my mother's aunt.
: So it was a great aunt to me, actually.
: Yeah.
: My mother's aunt.
: But then we had a lot of family that ended up
: in New York, distant cousins.
: And even they were in constant touch.
: They never lost touch with any of the family
: as long as they knew where they were.
: There was always-- there were always
: letters going back and forth, phone
: calls when they could afford to do that.
: My aunt, may she rest in peace, the old maid
: aunt of the family, who was really
: the domineering force of the family,
: that little old lady had everybody hopping.
: She would sit down on Sundays and write a letter
: to the aunts in Israel.
: And then you would get a phone call.
: First, myself and then my each of my brothers.
: I've written to Aunt Hedwig and Aunt Myrtle.
: I expect you here at 5 o'clock to say hello to them.
: On the bottom of my letter, I left
: you a space to say a few words.
: And if you weren't there at 5 o'clock,
: you got another phone call.
: So consequently, we all went.
: But the interesting thing is, when
: I got off the plane, never having met one of my cousins
: in person--
: yes, I did meet one.
: One of them was here, but none of the others.
: It was as though we had known one another all of our lives.
: Beautiful.
: Yeah.
: I mean, I got off the plane and it was family.
: And I'm sure a lot of it was because my aunt insisted
: that you have to keep up this relationship.
: Your family was very, very important.
: Very important.
: Well, that's very-- that's very good.
: I'm sure that carries over, hopefully,
: from one generation to another.
: Hopefully.
: Right.
: But my grandmother died here at the age of 84.
: And my uncle's parents also died here.
: So the only people that we have actually buried in Germany
: are my mother, my grandfather, and then an uncle.
: There were six children in my dad's family,
: two boys and four girls.
: What am I talking about?
: There were eight children.
: And two of them died in Germany.
: One fell in the First World War, Uncle Siegfried.
: And then there was an aunt who was married, like,
: maybe six weeks and picked up some kind
: of a horrendous disease and died within a matter of two months.
: So there were two that were dead long before the departure
: from Germany, and six that came out.
: Did any of them ever go back, like for reparations
: or for anything else?
: My family, for some reason I've never really understood,
: got very little in reparations.
: Now, there-- thank God we didn't have to.
: I mean, the biggest reparations, of course,
: came with the loss of life.
: And we didn't have that.
: There was some reparation--
: I don't know if they didn't have a good attorney.
: There was some reparation on the factory, but not a whole lot.
: But it was an interesting thing.
: The factory, I recall when my cousin served
: in the American army and they sent him
: to Germany as an interpreter.
: He was a spy in the underground prison camps.
: So he could hear what the Nazis were saying among each other
: and take notes and pass it on to the Americans.
: One day, the doorbell rang.
: And at the door stood--
: I don't know if it was the CIA or military intelligence,
: whoever.
: They came because they wanted my father
: to pinpoint for them on his map exactly where this factory is.
: They were trying to find it because it had been made
: into an ammunition factory.
: They were making ammunition there.
: But they couldn't locate it because it was camouflaged.
: Yeah.
: So my Dad--
: I saw an old TV movie the other night just about that.
: Maybe it was your factory.
: My dad pinpointed it for them.
: And supposedly, they subsequently destroyed it.
: Yeah.
: And my brother did go back to Germany.
: The younger of my two brothers when he was in the army
: was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany.
: And one weekend, he decided that he and his friend
: would go visit his old hometown and visit the cemetery.
: And he got off the train and was walking over
: to the Bürgermeister to find out which way to our village.
: And he said there was a woman standing
: there who started to scream, my God, you're Erich Gretzinger.
: I recognize you anywhere.
: And this little boy was like six years old when he left.
: And she started to weep.
: And Erich said the goosebumps went up his back
: and down his arms.
: Oh, my word.
: It turned out that she was living in the house
: that we had grown-- that we had lived in.
: She recognized and she insisted that he come home with them.
: And they had the whole village came out that night.
: They had a potluck supper in the middle of the square.
: Everybody brought a covered dish.
: And they wined and dined my brother and this friend of his.
: Erich said he could not believe it.
: What an experience.
: They took him down to the corner saloon
: and showed him on the wall of the corner saloon
: a picture of the bowling team.
: It used to be the bowling alley before the war.
: And it's now a saloon.
: On the wall was a picture of the original bowling
: team with my father as the captain of the team.
: Oh my.
: And there it was, hanging on the wall.
: Erich said, just it was an incredible trip.
: And so that some of the family has been back.
: My mother went back-- my aunt, but my mom went back.
: She wanted to visit some of the graves.
: And she visited this Aunt Martha.
: She was there, I guess, about seven years ago
: for the first time.
: Did she tell you-- did she share with you what
: her reactions were?
: It was interesting because she--
: I have always felt that I have absolutely no desire
: to go back, except perhaps to pass through for a day
: and see and make sure that my mother's stone
: and that things are all right on the cemeteries
: and go about my merry way.
: I have harbored this resentment from all
: that I have read and heard, I'm sure.
: I found it interesting that my mother didn't harbor
: as much of a resentment as I did because she claims,
: as many people do, and many of us
: didn't believe it, that they were not all bad people.
: That were it not for the people in their community,
: we would not have gotten out.
: That there were people that smuggled a lot of us
: out and that got us into underground hiding places
: and into other countries.
: And she said, you just can't say that everybody--
: But she left long before all this.
: Right.
: So how did she know that?
: Probably from the things that she
: heard from my father and my grandmother.
: And my grandmother always felt that way.
: The Germans as a whole were no good.
: But the people in her Dorf, they were fine, you know,
: because they were a different breed.
: They were different than all the rest.
: But that's the only one.
: My brother-- my brother Erich was back.
: And my mom spent about a week visiting these people
: that she remembered and visiting this aunt.
: And then she went on to Switzerland for a week
: and came back home then.
: I have not gone back yet.
: I suppose someday I'll go through.
: But I'm not even sure about that.
: I have my own hang ups on that.
: I won't--
: Your father never did go back?
: My father never went back.
: None of my aunts went back.
: My aunts from Israel have never gone back,
: though the one daughter went back because her father--
: her mother remarried a second time.
: And her father was buried out there
: and she wanted to visit the cemetery.
: She went out, but she said she felt very uncomfortable.
: She really couldn't wait to leave.
: And then, of course, I won't buy any German made products
: or a German car and that kind of thing.
: But as I say, we really were very fortunate.
: And it's hard for me to say too much because we--
: I really don't remember a whole heck of a lot.
: Right.
: Right.
: Certain things that I either heard or--
: I remember more than I thought I did.
: I remember the house.
: My dad couldn't get over the fact
: that I remember the exact layout of the house.
: One day, I sat and I said, Daddy,
: this is the way the house was set up, isn't it?
: He said, I can't believe that you can remember that.
: He said you have everything right where it belongs.
: How can you remember?
: You were only three, four years old.
: Pretty hard to believe.
: But I guess what we learn at that age does stick with us.
: This is an unbelievable recall, because he
: had never, never given me the layout of the house.
: What about pictures, though?
: Didn't you--
: We do have pictures, but not the interior or anything.
: We have a lot of pictures.
: That was another thing they brought with them.
: The only sad thing is that now, since my mom passed away
: last summer, we found lots of boxes of pictures
: that we did not know existed.
: Many of them are not labeled.
: You don't know who they are.
: So we are very seriously planning a trip back to Israel
: because I'd like to go back while my aunt there is still
: living.
: Oh, and take the pictures.
: Take the pictures, and see if she knows any of them.
: She's a woman of 80 now.
: And, you know, thank God, so far she's in good health,
: but who knows.
: So we do hope to go back next spring.
: Yeah, that would be great.
: You could spend a week sitting there with all the pictures.
: That's right.
: So that's our intent.
: And, of course, my cousins who ended up in Israel
: have had families there.
: So their children are Sabras.
: So there's another whole family.
: When we were in Israel, we gave a farewell party
: for the entire family the night before we left,
: my mother and I. It was a blessing
: we went when we did because my mom would never
: have gotten back there.
: And she got very sick the next year with a heart problem.
: Could never have made the trip again.
: So it was a blessing.
: Yeah.
: And there were 21 people at that farewell party.
: Of the 21, only five were from here, my mother, Norm
: and myself, and our two children.
: So I said, you know, we have more family there
: at this point in time than we do here, because--
: What kind of experience was that for your kids
: to meet these other relatives?
: It was quite an experience.
: But I will say that my one cousin's two children seem
: to be better versed in family also, I guess,
: than the other two daughters.
: They didn't seem to know quite as much about what
: had taken place.
: It was quite an interesting experience.
: It really was.
: But the cousin that is my age--
: there are five of us.
: Each of the aunts had two--
: No, one aunt had one--
: one aunt had one child, one daughter,
: who plans to come here in July.
: The other aunt had a daughter and the son.
: And they in turn each had two children.
: The one had three--
: oh, yeah, so there are about six of the next generation and two
: infants now.
: So there are quite a few.
: The family is this multiplying.
: Well, that's terrific.
: Yeah.
: So--
: Is there anything else that you can
: add about what your experiences growing up maybe?
: Were there any problems, perhaps that your family
: was a family of refugees?
: And--
: If there were, I never felt it.
: I never felt that among my friends or among my neighbors.
: We were always well received.
: If there was such a feeling among the older
: generation of the family, we were always spared everything.
: I have to say that for the family, whether it
: was good or bad, I don't know.
: But everything was hush hush.
: If it was a problem, the children
: don't have to know everything.
: They don't have to be worried with this.
: We don't have to discuss it.
: That was the case.
: So you felt very--
: Very comfortable.
: Once I was able to cope with the language,
: I certainly felt-- and it doesn't take long at that age
: to learn.
: Of course, there were so many of the family's friends
: that were also refugees that, you know, misery loves company.
: They would all get together for all kinds of festivities
: and what have you.
: So the older folks didn't feel-- in other words,
: they didn't feel left out by the other Cincinnatians,
: that they were--
: I think that if anything, they probably
: had their own little cliques and excluded perhaps others,
: you know, was the feeling that I had.
: The only thing that I did sense--
: there was a resentment of--
: well, to sum it up, my mother once said to me,
: and I thought that was a pretty good cliche, it was--
: she said, you know, we were having similar discussions.
: She said, it's much easier to start
: at the bottom of the ladder and work your way up
: than it is to start at the top and fall down.
: So that's what I think they felt happened to them.
: So they all ended up doing things that they certainly
: would not have done.
: They learned to cope with it.
: And they all learned to roll with the punches eventually.
: But that was difficult. I mean, these
: were young women who had gone every summer to luxurious spas.
: And, you know, they just-- they had--
: they were-- I have pictures at home
: that I think are just one look.
: And you can see the velvet dresses, the magnificent house,
: the grandfather sitting with the spectacles
: and the gold key chain and his foot on a footstool.
: You know, it just was quite an adjustment for them.
: These were young women who when their father traveled,
: and Grandpa Gretzinger traveled extensively, and would bring
: each of them a diamond ring.
: And my mother used to say, it's easier to start at the bottom
: and go up and to have been at the top and come down.
: But they made life, each one of them, for themselves.
: My uncle, as I say, opened up a pet shop and eventually
: his own shop.
: That was his own shop.
: The two aunts worked for years until their retirement.
: My Aunt Flora was a nurse that worked
: for many of the local doctors.
: If they needed a private duty nurse, they would call on her.
: So we really didn't miss out on anything that way.
: So you found-- the family found Cincinnati to be a hospitable--
: Yeah.
: I think basically our family did, yes.
: I never heard any complaints of--
: as I say, if there were any, they didn't discuss it with us.
: You know, they really kind of--
: I didn't know for many years until I
: was a young adult or even a married woman, perhaps,
: that there had been any help that they resented.
: They never discussed that when we were kids either.
: I guess they didn't want us to begin resenting or feeling
: uncomfortable.
: But in later years, when we used to talk about my mother used
: to say that was the one thing that
: bothered her, that she had to take something from someone.
: That she found hardest of all.
: Now, why, I don't know.
: I don't know if she was made to feel uncomfortable
: or if it was just something from within herself.
: OK.
: Is there anything-- the dog--
: is there anything else you can think of?
: I can't think--
: I can't think--
: It's been very interesting what you have to say.
: Yeah, it-- I don't know.
: A lot of my friends and my peers who
: were the offspring of people who came out at the same time,
: I think that the majority of the family's friends
: really were not as fortunate.
: They came over within a year or two later,
: which was already a bad time.
: How they all ended up in Cincinnati,
: I am really not 100% certain.
: I know it had a very large Gentile German community.
: They had a large Jewish community.
: What drew them all here, I don't know.
: I know what drew my family here.
: Well, that's what we're interested in.
: That's what we're interesting.
: I'd like to see the results of this
: because I don't know what brought the rest of them here.
: Yeah, that-- there was already an old established Jewish,
: German-Jewish community from the 1800s.
: I did detect in recent years a certain amount of resentment
: where, not just among my immediate family,
: but parents of friends of mine who would say, listen, we
: had to help ourselves and do for ourselves.
: Now what is this business of our having to give everything now
: to people when they come?
: You know, so that already indicated
: a little bit of resentment.
: And they felt that--
: that was the feeling I got.
: Are you-- you're talking about now--
: Current immigrants, right.
: Not when your family came.
: Well, so I don't know whether they
: felt that a lot more is being done now
: than was done then, because what would have prompted
: such confidence, you know?
: Yeah.
: Yeah.
: We made it.
: And we worked.
: And we did it the hard way.
: Why shouldn't everybody else be doing the same thing?
: Yeah, well, very often people like
: to forget the help they got too I guess.
: Like you say, it's not easy.
: Right.
: It's easier to give than to take somehow--
: Absolutely.
: --for some people.
: OK, well, thank you.
: You're very welcome.

Overview

Interviewee: Margo Weiser
Date: interview: 1980 April 20

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: Weiser, Margo.

Administrative Notes

Holder of Originals: American Jewish Archives
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The interview with Margo Weiser was conducted on April 20, 1980 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