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RG-50.549.05.0007

No.

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Where we are going to synagogue these days? 130

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You’ve mentioned, you’ve mentioned that you... Williamson? No, I thought you were going to synagogue somewhere in West Virginia. Is that in West Virginia, Williamson?

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Virginia. Well we went to Portsmouth, I mean we went to Lexington and then to Ashland, Kentucky for a while. But then most recently, for the last few years, we’ve been going to a small... End of Tape 10, Side B 131 Tape 11, Side A

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This is tape number eleven, side A.

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Well, we’re talking about and I was thinking about how you maintain your Judaism as it were. A few years ago we learned that there was still a congregation in Williamson, West Virginia, which is about thirty-five miles from here, much closer than Lexington and we went over there one Friday night. And found a very friendly group of people, who were meeting sort of monthly and being served by the rabbi from Huntington, West Virginia, who comes down on a Sunday night to do a Friday night service. And the synagogue is an old, old synagogue. I don’t know, probably a hundred years old at least. It sits up on top of a hill in the black section of Williamson. And there’s no elevator and you’ve got to walk up a huge bunch of steps, well, probably twenty-five. And the average age of the people other than us is about seventy. But they’ve kept on going and they consist of folks from Welch and Grundy and nearby people who are in a probably twenty, thirty mile area from around Williamson. I think twenty years ago during the height of the coal mining in this area and maybe through the seventies and eighties I think they had fifty families. Over the years the kids have moved away and so the older members of the Williamson Jewish community are still there. And the President is a fellow named Bill Rosen, whose son is now a circuit judge in Ashland. But it’s been a nice group of people, and the rabbi, who is from Huntington, is an interesting personality. His wife teaches a, not Headstart, but Upward Bound program. And I’ve actually been... the rabbi teaches a class at Marshall University on Jewish studies. And so I’ve visited his class and spoke about the Holocaust as sort of a living survivor. But it is interesting, and then it’s much nicer to go to a congregation of that sort, where every person that comes is one more person that makes a difference, rather than going to Lexington, where you’ve got a large congregation at Adath Israel and there’s also the Conservative, the Orthodox congregation there. So, that’s been very nice. We actually have, there are other, three other Jewish mixed couples here. Miriam Silman, whose father, by the way, had the contract to, was an engineer, who re-did, who did the plans to re-do Mount Vernon. And then Pam Weiner, whose husband is from here, from Pike County, and is a Buddhist. They just had a baby. And then Deborah Golden, who is a lawyer with my Pikeville office. And then there is another couple in Pikeville, Terry Mulliken, who’s a lawyer. His wife, Cynthia, has been on my Board. It used to be there’s a large family in Pikeville that used to go to Williamson, their name Yaruses. They’re friends of ours. But they, and they go, now they’re older and they go once in a while. But the Williamson community was sort of the hub of the Jewish residents of this area for many years. Now there are probably twenty families that are left. One of the younger set married, a young woman married an Israeli when she was in Israel and they have a little boy. They’ve recently been divorced. Very few young members. But it 1s there and we have, we joined that congregation, so that we once again do have a, sort of a formal tie to a Jewish community that’s here, for whatever it’s worth. I guess it’s worth putting that down.

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Is it a Conservative?

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It’s Reform. Now the congregation the rabbi 1s from in Huntington, you had a Reform and an Orthodox congregation merge. Really unusual. And so it’s sort of conservative. And I think he actually has, for the benefit of the Orthodox members, he has services on Saturday morning as 132 well. He’s a very funny fellow, almost like a stand-up comic when he does sermons. Because he’ll say something very serious and then it will jog his mind to kind of say something funny, reminds him of something funny. But he’s a very bright fellow. It’s a nice group. I mean, it’s obviously an older group and they depend on one or two people like the Rosens and one or two other families to sort of keep it going. You know, once they got the air conditioning... I don’t know how many more years they can do that. There’s not a very strong base down below. Someone did a series in West Virginia, I think 1t may have even been in The New York Times, an article on old congregations. And someone did a project in Kentucky, didn’t they? On Jewish synagogues in Kentucky, a few years ago?

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Yeah. Lee Shai Weissbach did a book on synagogues of Kentucky. He’s at the University of Louisville.

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Well, the one in Ashland 1s, I don’t know what they turned it into, a day care center. We used to go there for the first few years we were here. In fact I had a fraternity brother at Duke, whose father, who was Jewish, whose father was the mayor of Ashland back in the ‘50s, and he’s now down in Florida. And then they gave that up. And I think people either went to Portsmouth, about thirty or forty miles north, or to Huntington. That congregation folded. And then we went to Lexington for high Holy days. We never really, I was never, didn’t know many people and we were up there for Seder a couple of nights, but you never felt much a part of it. You know what I mean?

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Yeah. So, Jean’s taken, has Jean taken a strong interest in Judaism?

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Oh yeah, I mean, I think, we often go Friday nights. She goes with me. She’s always supported that. Doesn’t know any more, doesn’t know a lot of Hebrew. But we also now have Quakers, we have a Quaker group in Eastern Kentucky, which is a very small Quaker group, she may have mentioned to you.

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Yeah, and I think you actually talked about the Quaker group a little bit in the last...

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We go there on weekends. I don’t think tomorrow, I don’t think it’s this weekend. I think it’s next weekend, but three or four couples. They’re awfully nice. But she, someone was saying the other day... If you ask Michael, I guess maybe both kids sort of consider themselves Jewish. Not that they observe or are really close to the synagogues. When Jean told me that about Ann Louise, I was a little surprised, but I think that’s what she says. Whether that will always be that way, I think they do associate more with us, rather than the Jewish community at large. All right.

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Okay. This is it.

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Now I interview you.

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My turn. Well, I was born... no, we’re not going to do this today. Conclusion of Interview 133

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...and we’re with Emilie Szekely in her home in Lexington, Kentucky. And my name is Arwen Donahue and we’re going to be conducting an interview today about... well, we’ll see how far we get. We’re going to start with the birth and move on from there. And I just wanted to note for those who are listening to this tape, that there was an interview done with Mrs. Szekely by the Survivors of the Shoah Foundation in 1996 and we may be repeating some things that were discussed in that interview, but there may be some things that were discussed in that interview that we won’t talk about today. So, Mrs. Szekely, why don’t we start with you telling me your name at birth and your date of birth and where you were born?

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I was born in Hungary, Budapest, in 1920, 16th of February, in Budapest.

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And your name at birth?

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Klugman.

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Klugman.

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Klugman.

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KLUGMAN?

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Yeah, and in Russia they are writing, my cousin is Klegman, because “u” in Russia is “e”. So he’s writing a “u’, but he’s calling himself Klegman. But it is Klugman. Klugman, you know what this means in German?

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No.

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German, Klug is “smart”, man. [Laughing] That’s the name. He was a smart man. I showed you their pictures. No?

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Yeah.

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My parents’ pictures.

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Now was your father, you mentioned in the other interview that your father was Russian. Did he have... of German extraction? Or, what was his...

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The name is Klugman from Russia and there are a lot of Klugmans there. So I don’t know how it came, where it, how, but he was born in Kiev. And his family was in Kiev until the First World War... Second World War. I’m sorry. Then they had to run, because the Germans were there. Whoever was left from the family. He had two sisters and a brother there. The other brother was already on the front. And they had to run. So I never knew about it. A cousin who came five years ago to America, the painter, he was telling me the whole story. Why and how they had to run. And they went past Odessa and they lived in a small village in a house, he said, what didn’t have floor. It was nothing, just dust on the floor. And they managed to escape, but they had very, very hard times. His parents were alive that time, but the father and the mother, they all died. Actually they say that it was from hunger they died, but I don’t know actually what was the reason they died, because they had very, very hard times. And after that my cousin, who had his mother... no, I’m sorry. The cousin, he has a sister, who is very, very sick. She’s here too, in Boston. And him and the sister and the husband, and she had a daughter the same age as George is and a son, they settled down in Odessa. So, when the doors were opening here that the Russians can come, he didn’t think about it. He was just writing me, “Save my daughter,” who lived in Moscow and had two little children. I told you that story. No?

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I don’t think so.

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She had two little, beautiful daughters and her husband was Jewish. And she was a half-Jew, because her mother wasn’t Jewish. And the mother was a practicing Russian Orthodox, so she, I think she brainwashed her. But she’s supposed to come to America, too. She was on the quota, too. In fact, they are still bothering me that, “Where is she?” I says, “Many times, I’ve told you that she won’t come, never. Please cross her off because she is taking somebody’s place.” They lived with the husband’s mother, whose husband died, he was injured in the war. I don’t know, I think he lost his leg. He went underground with the Russians. I don’t know that whole story, but I know that they had an apartment in Moscow and the son lived with the mother. He went to school in Moscow and he 1s an engineer. She, he met my cousin in school, who went for engineering, too. Civil engineers. They met there and he knew that she’s half-Jew, but she promised him everything, everything what you want. If they are going to have children they are going to be brought up as Jews. And then she hated Communism, she just couldn’t stand it. I didn’t know why, but when I found out it was too late already. Because she couldn’t go to church. So they came to America. The first Hanukkah, the television came here to our house and took pictures from them, because they were here for the first Hanukkah. So they are here, they were here for six years. Now it was my husband’s, my son’s birthday, November 20", they came Six years ago.

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So they came to Lexington? Or...?

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They came to Lexington. I was fighting for them that they should come here, because I didn’t have... only parents should bring children. But the mother had a brother in Brooklyn and the brother wanted them to go to Brooklyn. And I got his name and I spoke to him and I said, “Look, I know that you love your sister, but the children, they would be much, much better off here in Lexington to bring up children.” Finally he gave in and the Federation did it for me. They brought them here. They were waiting for them with a three-bedroom apartment, because the two mothers should come after them. So, they had a three-bedroom apartment. And the television was on the airport, when the first families came. It was a big deal. And Ana was out of her mind that she will have some relatives...

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Ana is your granddaughter?

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Ana is the youngest. And there were two, young children, beautiful two children.

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Can you say... before you go on, just, can you say how they’re related to you? And what their names are?

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My cousins...

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Uh huh.

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My cousin’s daughter, my first cousin, my father’s brother’s daughter.

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Okay. And what was her name?

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Galina.

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Galina...?

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Galina Bashikis (ph). Bashikis. My son, by coincidence got him a job with the Gray Construction Company, because she had a student, he had a student in one of the schools, who was his student and then she became a teacher. And he went back with his children there. He goes always, one semester he takes his class to schools and they are... Adopt a School, that’s the name of it. And they are teaching there, but they are just students, not graduate students and he’s observing them before they make their lesson plans and they have to show it to him. And he’s running from class to class. And one day, she came to that school and she said, “Does anybody know somebody who has connections to a construction company?” And that teacher, he says, “My fiance,” one of the Grays’ son. He says, “My fiancé.” So, from that time on they hired him, and he’s a person who, he didn’t mind what kind of job they gave him. He did very hard job. And he loves the construction. He loves to see. He was in, I don’t know how many buildings he builded. He was already a big shot there. When they got their visa to come to America. And he work day and night for an apartment in Moscow. In the middle of Moscow the apartment was ready and they would be separated from the mother-in-law. And they would have a beautiful apartment there. And the visa was starting to expire, so my cousin said, “It 1s not worth, what is thousands of thousands dollars that apartment. It doesn’t worth, you have to go.” He was in Odessa, but he helped them. He came to Moscow and helped them to pack and they came. And she was very happy. And when she got to the apartment she couldn’t believe it. You know, they lived in two small rooms there, so many people, four. I mean two children and the couple and the grandmother. And she was very happy. One day... she sent, before she came, she sent a hundred and twenty packages to my name, because she didn’t know where to send it and they were all Russian books. And I said, ““That woman is crazy. She needs American books. Why is she sending the Russian books?” But all, you know, Dostoevsky, whatever. The children, the big one... the little one didn’t go to school yet, but the big one went to school, to the same school where my husband got the job from the teacher. It was in their neighborhood. And she spoke beautiful English already and she had... when the grandmother came the following year in January, his mother came. She didn’t come, the other one. And she was helping her and she was translating and answering the telephone. And then I started to see it. I started to invite them for holidays, and she came. She sat at the table five minutes and after five minutes she excused herself and went to the porch to play with the children. I didn’t think about nothing, about it. I says, “It’s a little strange, but okay if she wants it.” When it come the second year, she said, “I love you, but please don’t invite us for the holidays.” Still I didn’t think it was something wrong there. Then she met a couple, I still don’t know who they are, a Christian couple, who went every week to Cincinnati. And she got very friendly with them. And she went with the two children and the reason was, because she went for his American degree, what he got, no problem. He got his American degree, but when the children are home, he cannot study. And we go there. It’s more things to do there. We take them to the zoo and blah, blah, blah. One day they come home, it was probably a year later and the father is asking them, “How was the zoo?” And the big one said, “What kind of zoo?” He says, “You didn’t go to the zoo?” She says. “No, we went to the church.” So he got very upset that she does it behind his back. Very, very upset. And I don’t know whether they knew it... he was married eleven years, but they knew each other five years already from the school. And I don’t know the situation, because the grandmother was there with them. But he was traveling a lot. The company was sending him constantly, because they mostly work outside from Lexington. They build big, big factories, not housing. And he was always sent out. One, two years after they were here, she says, “I want to go home for the summer, to visit my mother.” I says, “Isn’t 1t easier to bring your mother here?” She says, “No, my mother wouldn’t like it here.” She packed. And she liked me. She was working in the St. Joseph Hospital, though she was an engineer and she went for courses to... computer courses to the community college. But that job, cleaning job, she took at night, that she should be with the children during the day. What was the job? She was calling me on the phone constantly for hours. She says, “I am cleaning the clean stuff, the offices...” and she says, “It’s... in an hour I am ready.” Perfect. Salary was perfect, everything was perfect. Two years, right two years after in the summer, 1t was August. And sometimes I was taking her, I was driving her to work. They didn’t live close here, but I picked her up. They lived in, it’s Heritage Village, near Henry Clay High School. That’s where all the Russians lived at that time. I’m sorry. I picked her up and I took her to work. And she says, “I want to tell you something, because I love you. But you must swear that you won’t tell it to Mischa.” Mischa, Michael is her husband. I thought, “My God what it could be that I cannot tell it to him?” So, I says, “Okay, I swear.” And I am driving. I almost made an accident what I heard. She says, “I’m not coming back. I took a ticket, round trip, but I’m not coming back. I don’t want my children to be brought up here. I want them to be brought up as Russians,” and it meant... because she never mentioned Jew. She mentioned Americans and Russians. I says, “You are talking about Americans as Jews and Russians,” right away I knew, “...as the Russian Orthodox Church?” She says, “No, no. I don’t mean that.” I says, “Yes you mean it. You mean it.” The husband was... I don’t know where. And he came home, and it was the little one’s birthday. And she made a birthday party and I was there. And they’re supposed to leave the following day to New York. And the father, who lived in Boston, was visiting... we have a summer home in the country, in the Catskills and he was with my son there. And he’s supposed to go to the airport, help her to go to the airport in New York. So, I said to myself, I just couldn’t believe it. I says, “Why are you doing it? How can you look in your husband’s eye and pack?” I don’t know, everything she took, what she could. Six packages, because they took two, two, two, everyone of them and they were little kids. She says, “If he would be better to me...” I says, “Better? He lives for you. He’s such a father and working like unbelievable that you should have everything. And you say better?” Better was that he didn’t let them go to church. That was the worst. And she told it in the hospital that if I don’t come back, because my husband is bad to me. So, what shall Ido? I swore. I cannot tell it to Mischa. I called my cousin in the country. I says, “Look, I swore that I don’t tell 1t to Mischa, but I didn’t swear that I’m not telling it to you. Your daughter won’t come back. Please don’t help her to go on that plane. At least the children should be saved and taken away, because she kidnapped them.” She said, “That’s... it’s impossible. It’s impossible.” And when she didn’t come back after a month, she went for a month, and I said, I told it to Mischa. She says, “I don’t believe you. She’s the most honest woman in the world. If you would tell it to me right at that time, I wouldn’t believe you, that she is doing it to me.” And she did it. She kidnapped the two kids.

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Tell me, Mischa was the one who’s actually related to you?

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No. She.

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She’s the one who’s actually related to you.

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She is my cousin’s. But I am... they have no one here. He has a brother, he’s in Australia. And he is here now with his mother. He doesn’t want to hear about it, to get married, because he lives for his children. I says, “Mischa, you are a smart man. You lost your children.” Every week, he is calling them on the phone. And two years ago, she let them come here for a month. They came alone by plane. And she came the last two weeks, because my cousin was begging her from Boston, that “Maybe I see you the last time. I am in not a good condition and please come.” She came. Before they came, he bought a house. They lived in an apartment. They bought the house, that the children should have separated rooms. It’s a three-bedroom house near Man O’War. A new house. He makes nice money, so he could, he got the mortgage. And the children they have their rooms and they have their beds there what I bought them that time. The mattresses were brand new. And they have their... and even today, it’s they name on the door. They put they name on the door. What... where do they have it in Moscow? They have two bathrooms. They give one to the children. And they live like princesses here. They loved it.

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Let me ask you a couple of questions, so I can make sure I’m understanding. She converted... did she convert from Judaism to Russian Orthodoxy?

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She wasn’t.

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She was raised as a Russian...

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She was raised nothing, because it was Communism. She couldn’t be raised with religion. But when Gorbachev took over they were allowed to go to the church. And when she saw it, she already didn’t want to come to America. She was the one who broke, broke, completely broke off the family. She wanted to come. She was the one. And she was telling me that she thought that she wouldn’t come anymore, but she said, “That’s not the right thing to do. That’s not an honest thing to do, that I started it and I should let them go.” But that was an honest thing what she did. You know? She wanted it. She wanted to come because of the church, because she couldn’t go to church there. They have here a Greek Orthodox, but that’s not good for her. Anyway.

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Let’s rewind a little bit. We started getting onto this because you were talking about your family that was in Russia. And you didn’t know any of that family other than your father’s brother? During the war or before?

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No, I knew before the war about the whole family, because when my father was alive they corresponded constantly. And we, from Czechoslovakia, because I was brought up in Czechoslovakia, we sent them food. So, I knew they exist. And I remember when my grandmother died, my father’s mother, because I remember how he was crying. I was about, I don’t know, eight years old. And I remember when she died. I don’t remember when the father died. And I knew about him very well, because he speaks... no. Then my uncle was writing him constantly...

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Your uncle was writing who?

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Writing to him. My uncle was my father’s brother, to whom I wanted to come to America. He was a pharmacist. And he came with the last ship in 1940 to America. And then he was writing him. And after 50 years, 50 years, he went back to visit. And he was telling me about...

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I’m sorry, but you’re talking about... he was writing to whom? To his father? When you said your uncle was writing to him, who was he writing to?

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To Izzy, his name is Izzy, my cousin who is the painter. He was writing to him and then he went to visit. And he had two sisters, two sisters alive at the time and him, who was the nephew. He was alive. So, after 50 years. He went back twice, because he went alone and then he took his wife one year. And so, I knew everything about him. And I knew that he was a big artist there, but he worked for the state, Communism. They always had work, but they had to do what they told them to do. So, he was a real artist and then he had a little studio separate from the house. And he painted what he wanted, because his dream... he loves Odessa and he wanted to paint Odessa as he knew it once. And he did it. They didn’t know about it, because he did the commercials for everything, for the ships and for operas and everything. His name was everywhere because he did the commercials. So, I knew about him. Now, when my uncle died in 1973, I took over the writing because it was no one else. And I started to write Russian, but it was very hard for me, because I never spoke Russian. But I wrote Russian and I understood Russian. So, with the dictionary, I wrote him Russian. And one day, he said, “Don’t struggle, I speak English.” And from then on, I was sending him English letters. And then he had an exhibition in Moscow and he was narrating it in English. And he sent us the tape. And we couldn’t use the tape here. I had to take it to downtown. I don’t know what’s the name of the place. Anyway, where they re-did it. It was a beautiful... I gave it to him when he came. I gave it back to him. I says, “I have you, and I have your paintings, and you should have that tape.” And I read in the Hadassah paper, last month, that his paintings are still... somebody, you know they have articles about the world, travelers and it was from Odessa and they mentioned his name, that his paintings are still there, but he’s not there anymore. So, that was my Russian family.

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Okay, tell me your father’s full name and...

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Mikhail, he was Michael, Mikhail Klugman, because we never knew Klegman. Klugman. Mikhail Klugman.

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And tell how he came to leave Russia.

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He was from First World War... it is not on the tape? No.

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It is, but I have more questions.

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In First World War there were two brothers. The older brother was already in the war in 1914, before....1914, yeah. And he was a pharmacist, too. Both of them were pharmacists. And he was captured and they didn’t know about him, where is he. And one day, when my father was called in and he was captured in Prague and they took him behind the frontier to a pharmacy and there he meets his brother. And he met his brother and they never separated. They didn’t want to go back after the war because there were the biggest pogroms in Kiev and they didn’t want to go back there. And it was an international agreement that they can stay in the countries where they were captured. Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia was one, Austro-Hungarian empire. So, after a while when they were there, they took them to Hungary to a chemical factory, both of them, together. I have, I think there’s a picture there, too, about them in Russia uniforms. They took them to Hungary and under the war my mother was working there in the office, in that place. And that’s how they met and fell in love. And my mother’s family was very, very upset. Nothing against him, it was nothing against him, but they were very worried that he’s a Russian citizen, what’s going to be? From then on, I think it’s there. No? End of Tape 1, Side A Tape 1, Side B

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First actually, can you say what your father’s brother’s name was?

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Jacob Klugman.

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And so they are living nearby one another and they ended up in Czechoslovakia.

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Yes, because they had to, because it was Communism in 1919 in Hungary for a little while only and they said that no matter what, every Russian is a Communist, Jew or non-Jew. And they put — oh I have a picture here. It’s very interesting. They made a concentration camp. They builded near Russia... near Budapest and they put all the Russians there. My mother was married in 1919, the beginning of 1919. And they put them there. They didn’t know what’s going to happen to them. My uncle was there. He wasn’t married. My mother had a cousin, who was a lawyer and he came there one day. It was already May, middle of 1919, because she was pregnant with me. By the way, she got pregnant. She was pregnant with me. And she said, he said, “You can go out from here only one way, if you sign that you never come back to Hungary.” So, my mother, who was Hungarian, she had to sign that she never comes back to Hungary. It was easy to sign it for my father and my uncle, but they had to sign it. So, where should they go? In 1920, Czechoslovakia it was, the Czech map 1s Czech, Moravia, Slovakia, Carpathan. The Carpathan part, what was Hungary, after the war, the Czechs got it. My mother had a second cousin there and when she heard about it, what happened, she says, “Come to us.” They were well-to-do people. “Come to us.” So, they went there to Czechoslovakia. It was at that time Czechoslovakia in 1920. When it came to me, to give birth, my mother got permission through that lawyer to go home and I was born in my grandmother’s house, but they didn’t have an apartment. They did have... they lived with those relatives, so they left me there with my grandmother and my mother’s sisters. She had three sisters. One of them was married, two were not married and a brother, who was never married. He was a bachelor. Because my grandmother was a widow when she was 34 years old, and she had five children. The son took over and he was working for the family. And that’s why he never got married, until the sisters got married and whatever. He was already 50 years old and he didn’t get married. So we lived there and 22 months after I was born, my mother was again — she was pregnant. She gave birth to my sister. The same thing happened. She went home with special papers and she was born there in my grandmother’s house. By that time they had already an apartment and they took me together with my little sister back to Czechoslovakia. So.

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Okay. What was your sister’s name?

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Anna. But she was two “n’s” and she didn’t want two “n’”. My daughter-in-law, she didn’t want two “n’”. Not because of my sister, but she had a grandmother, whom she didn’t like, and she was Anna. So, that’s why she’s with one “n’’, Ana, but she’s named after my sister. And the big one, Ilona. That’s a real Hungarian name. She’s named after my mother’s youngest sister, who saved my life. That’s in there, I think. So, Ilona is named after her. And Jacob, the boy is named after my uncle, who was in America. But she has an uncle, too, my daughter-in-law. And she didn’t want him to be named Jacob, because she didn’t like — she doesn’t like her family. That’s the trouble here. She doesn’t like her mother. She never got along with the mother. That’s the big trouble and that’s why she cannot get along with me because she doesn’t want to hear mother. Only she’s the mother. And that’s the problem. So. But we manage to give his, the name Jacob, because she liked my uncle. She knew him and she liked him.

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Tell me about your early childhood, and your earliest memories.

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I remember from kindergarten on. I went right away to Czech school. Kindergarten, elementary school, gymnasium. I wanted to be a pharmacist. And they had two kind of... my father wanted one of us, at least, to be a pharmacist. And we had two kinds of gymnasiums, very strict schools in Czechoslovakia. All the professors were from Prague. And there were two kinds, one where you had to learn Latin, because every prescription was Latin and if you wanted to be a doctor or pharmacist you had to go to that gymnasium. So I went to... both of us went. I don’t even know what she wanted to be, because she was unbelievable smart, much smarter than I was. She was always worried about me, my sister, because it was only 22 months between us. And when I went to first class, I got whooping cough for six months. So I had to repeat the first class, so we were always together. We sat together. Here they don’t let you do it. We were always together and everybody thought that we were... I don’t know. Because we were dressed the same and they thought that we are twins, but we weren’t because it was 22 months between us. But we were together always in school. But she was a worrier always about me. I remember when she woke me up in the morning and let me repeat the lesson plan, lesson, what we had to do, you know. She was always worried about me. I was a good student, but to her it came very easy. To me, I had to work for it. And it was a very, very close family. I just, I cannot, cannot tell you. When they met, my father and mother on the street it was always like, you know, they were married yesterday. Very, very close. My mother was like a friend to us. With everything you could go to my mother and ask everything what you wanted and you got the right answer. I was a very, very naive girl, very naive. And one girl was once telling me that if you kiss somebody you can get pregnant, that kind of a business. So I always went to my mother. I says, “Is it true?” I don’t know what grade was it. But with everything...when I went on a date and I came home, I went to their bedroom, I sat on the bed and I told them everything what happened. That kind of a close family we were. And that’s why I cannot understand today’s generation, because it was so different. When I said to my granddaughter that I went for, for four years I had a boyfriend, a boy friend, friend, nothing happened between us. And for one year, for one year, he didn’t even kiss me, because he said he’s very afraid that if he’s going to kiss me, I’m going to leave him, because of my personality. He was an unbelievable, very, very beautiful boy and he left a very wealthy girl because of me. He loved me very much, but I was so naive that I didn’t think that I love him. But it was a beautiful, wonderful feeling that every week he came. We met twice a week, Saturday and Sunday. Every week he came and his hands were behind his back and he brought me — because he knew I loved the... what are the little blue flowers?

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Forget-me-nots?

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Very, very little.

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Forget-me-nots?

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They are not forget me... anyway...

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Violets?

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Violets. Winter, summer, always, always when he came, he had the violets. And it was a wonderful feeling to know that you have someone to go out with to the movies. We had five o’clock teas there. It was a very nice place where young people got together. And then he started to be called to the Army. And when he was called to the Army he was somewhere always close, so he eloped. He came home to see me on the weekends. And everybody was telling me that he’s looking at me like he loves me. And I was just laughing. I didn’t realize it. I didn’t realize it. After four years when I met my husband and he was already somewhere in Russia, somewhere in labor camp, him. And he wrote me and I wrote him. And I wrote him that what happened with my family and I’m going to get married, because I need to change my name. And when I wrote that letter I thought I'd die. Then I knew that I loved him. That feeling, I never, never forget. Such a naivete. Can you imagine that? Then I really...

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What was his name?

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And he died. He died in Russia. He was Nicholas. He was Nicholas, actually it was Nicolash (ph) in Hungary. So it’s Nicholas. They were a very wealthy family. His father had a pawn shop. And he had a sister, who was teaching piano. And we never spoke about marriage because he always said, he spoke already English at that time. And one day, in 1938, the Hungarians took back that part of Czechoslovakia. So we were in trouble, but we children didn’t realize it that we are in trouble, only my parents. And it was terrible. And then he said to me, one day when he came home, he says, “Come with me to Israel.” I looked at him. I says, “Without my parents?” And it was no Israel, young people went to Palestine. Maybe he would be alive, if he would gone. He wouldn’t go without me. And I says, “I cannot go without my parents.” And he came back from some place. And we were always discussing other girls, and who is the cute girl, who is the nice girl. And one day, I was already married, when I heard that he engaged, a year later, he engaged a girl, whom we were discussing, that she is a nice girl. But they never got married, because he died in... they took him to Russia, that transport labor camp. And he died. And he was the only one who died from his family, because he had a brother who survived in England and his parents and sisters survived there in Uzhgorod where we lived. People were hiding them. He was the only one who died from the family.

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What was his last name?

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Gosh, I cannot believe it, that I don’t remember.

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That’s okay, that’s okay. How old were you when you started dating him?

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18.

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So, you started dating him in 1938?

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Yes, when the Hungarians came in, yes. And 1941, until 1941. In 1941, I met my husband in Budapest and he was already... I don’t know which /agers. He was in labor camps, but they took them out from that part of Czechoslovakia. They took them out to Russia. In Hungary, they kept them in Hungary in labor camp. But that was part of, you know, that was that time, they took, like over the border and they took them to camps. And when I wrote them that what happened, that I need another name. And he wrote me back a letter and he said, “If you would have told me, I would right away marry you.” And his friend was alive, very good friend and I met him once. And he said that for one day he disappeared in the woods and they thought he is committing suicide because of me. But then he came and they took him and all of them died. So, it was a terrible thing, terrible that I was so naive, that I didn’t realize it that Iam in love. Because I don’t even know. I, I... we just kissed, that’s it. And we wouldn’t, he wouldn’t dare to do nothing, because he said that, “Your personality is requiring such a...” —I cannot say it in English, that word. Respect. That he was afraid to kiss me for a year, because he thought that I am going to leave him if he 1s going to kiss me. I don’t know whether I would leave him, because I was very naive, after. So it was like Plato... nobody believed us. Because they said when we went to the movies and we were like four couples together and they said, “He doesn’t look at the movies, he’s just looking at you.” It’s an unbelievable thing, and when I am telling it to my grand-daughter, she’s laughing, “Grandma, those are the nineties.” You know? It took me a long, long time to realize that my granddaughter were not seven years with his boyfriend and nothing happened between them. I just... I couldn’t imagine that something could happen... you know”? I trusted her, because I was that way, so I thought, always I thought that Ilona is ours, from our family. And my husband always said to me, “No matter what, you always can count on Ilona.” He was always telling me that. And if you leave something for the children, he said, “Jacob is a boy, he will always make it. Leave more for Ilona.” That’s what he always said. He was mistaken, too.

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Tell me, let’s go back a little bit again. You mentioned that you had wanted to be a pharmacist. Did your parents support that? Were they supportive of that?

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Yes, but I couldn’t, in ‘38 it was finished. I couldn’t go anymore to school.

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Was it unusual at the time, for a girl?

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No, I don’t think so. It was unusual, I knew one only, in the city, who was a pharmacist. But the Czech girls, I don’t know what for, they took Latin. We had all the Czech girls in the gymnasium. And that was only... why would they take Latin? Only if they wanted to be doctors or pharmacists. But we didn’t get so far, that’s it. And I never knew what my sister, she still went one year to school when I was already in Budapest. Your back hurt you?

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I’m okay.

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So, I just really don’t know. I never, I don’t know what she wanted to be. It’s so interesting. I know she was 22 years younger, 22 months, and it was very hard to me, like, to go for my first ball. It was the medical students’ ball. And at that time he was already in the Army and one medical student, who went in Prague to school, to medical school. They didn’t have medical school there, now they have medical school there. And he was a short fellow and he knew that I am going out with that boy, but he was in the Army, so he took me. He came home for vacation and he took me to the Medical Ball. I would never forget that occasion, because it was chaperoned. My mother was there and it was winter and we went on the sled with horses, you know, that kind of it. I would never forget it. And my aunt from Budapest... every year, every summer we went to Budapest, my mother’s family, and they always dressed us up, the children. I remember that she gave me-- it was hers, but it fit me beautifully-- a light blue, long, velvet evening gown. And it was open, but it has a pearlerie (ph) what I could take off. I will never forget that day. And he never, he didn’t let me dance with no one else. Other boys wanted to... no. The whole night he was dancing with me. It’s a very interesting story. He became a pediatrician in Prague. And he went, I think that he went to German college. They had two colleges, Czech and German, he or the other one, the dermatologist went... one of them. The dermatologist, I had nothing to do with, because just my friend was marrying him and I know that he went to German college. But he went, I didn’t know whether he is alive or not. And when we came to Brooklyn, because that’s where we came, to my uncle. And one day I am walking on a street and I see a millinery shop, we had it in Hungary and I see the name. And I went in, and it was, because she had one in Uzhgorod in Czechoslovakia. Can I hold it for you?

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No, that’s okay.

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And she, that was his sister. And she says, “My God, you are alive. He’s not married. You are married?” I said, “Yes, I am married.” And he came to visit his sister from Prague and he wasn’t married. And he called me on the phone one day and I didn’t see him. My husband was very jealous and I wouldn’t even dare to invite him. But my husband was working and I spoke about an hour on the phone with him. And he was asking me, how I am doing and what I am doing and so on and so on. And then he went back and he married a German woman. I heard that he stayed in Germany, but he got divorced, too from that. First time he got married. But he was in love with me. And I knew that, that he was in love with me, but I would never like kiss him or something. No way. [Phone rings.] Doesn’t matter. If somebody knows me, they call me on my phone. Ana should be coming home. Maybe she is going, calling me. I don’t know.

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We have a little more time left on the tape.

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Okay.

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So, can you tell me a little bit more about your early childhood? First of all, were you attending, was this a public school you were attending?

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Yes, public. We didn’t have private schools. It was very interesting under the Czechs. We had religion in the school. Every religion had their own religion. We had the rabbi coming in once or twice a week and the Christians had they priest. And the girls were sitting on his lap, the Czech girls, you know? On the priest’s lap. [Laughter.] Now, I know what it meant, but just unbelievable. After school we went to a German-speaking religious school and we learned more about religion. But it’s funny that I know my teacher’s name and I forgot what was, gosh, what was my boyfriend’s name?

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You mean Nicholas?

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