Perla Meissner Part III: Life in El Salvador

Perla raised both of her children in El Salvador and lived a very rich life. Along with Gerda Guttfreund, Perla helped to make the community's children the center of Jewish life in the country. But she never stopped thinking about Israel....

(....)indicate my questions.

I was very, very busy. But I loved it. I really, really loved it.

And then Judith complained that I’m very busy. I said, “You know, Judithka, all the money that I’m earning I’m putting in a bank account and every time I put in money it’s put on hold, and when we have enough money for me to go to Israel and take you with me, then we go. This is why I’m working.” Then whenever she saw me not working, she said, “Mami, why don’t you give classes?” (laughs) I couldn’t work enough for her.

Judithka was eight and Ronit six when I took them along. I was there with Werner before. I said to myself, “How will they react?” They were fantastic. They just—Ruchi had a very small apartment and the three of us came. They didn’t speak Hebrew, and they loved playing cards with the cousins. They had a good time. We went by boat. They had a ball. They drank Coca-Cola and everybody give them chocolate. We stopped in Barcelona. It was wonderful.

(Tell me about raising your children in this different country.)

I had this feeling that I have to present Judaism as a religion that has many, many, many positive and beautiful sides. So the holidays were a very special occasion. I decorated the house. Invitations, there were parties. We went to the synagogue.

I was very, very active in having the children play an important role. This is a community that is very small. It was Orthodox services, and nobody really had Shabbat. Here I had the opportunity to bring the children to the synagogue and make the grown-ups come because of the children. The children felt very, very important. At Seder [the community-wide seder] they were sitting at the table, I was next to them. Thirty children, forty children. They were reading to everybody and they felt so important. We had a booklet of songs. I had this feeling that they [the children] knew that the community was proud of them and they were giving the community a special Purim, Yom Hashoah, Hanukah. At Purim the children were in the center of this, and we felt that the whole group of American schoolchildren envied them that they had such a wonderful life. They were the envy of all the children.

Werner and Perla then decided to take a trip to Israel without the children...

We came on a trip to Israel, and I sent the girls every day a postcard. Every day there was a postcard. Then I sent a picture of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I said, “This is your university.” I have to add to that, we were invited to—the whole family was invited for a wedding [in El Salvador]. A Gunn family wedding--a very beautiful wedding. A lot of people. My girls were so small, they started dreaming about having such a wedding. I said, “Why would you think that such a huge, huge wedding is such a pleasure? Where you know everybody and where you can talk to somebody, that’s—” And then Judith said to me, “Mami, I know you. You’re already telling me how you want us to get married, because already you want to send me to the university in Israel.” (laughs) “Ya le conozco, Mami.” (laughs) “You are telling me no, but I will want a big wedding.” She had a small wedding, never mind!!

So they knew.

They knew that they were not going to be sent to the States for high school, because they knew they would go to Israel. I wanted them to go at the age of eighteen, not seventeen. She [Judith] couldn’t wait to get out of the house.

I remember Judithka left when she was seventeen.

I was sick at heart. I said to myself, “She’s doing exactly what you wanted her to do. At her age, at that age, you went to the concentration camp and your daughter’s going to Jerusalem, to Hebrew University in the state of Israel. If you cry once, I’ll not speak to you.” I said to myself. And I didn’t cry.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC