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La memoria de una comunidad.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Answers to Last Week's Questions (ENGLISH)

Shabbat Shalom. I hope you have all had a successful week with your families. I also hope you've had a chance to explore my webpage: www.storylistener.blogspot.com and through the webpage, learn a bit more about the community.

In this entry, I will share the answers to the questions in last week's KEHILATON. For those individuals who would like to read more detailed answers, please refer to the links below each question.

And here are the questions...

1. Who spent time in an African prison?

During WWII, Don Werner Meissner spent time in a prison on the African island of Mauritius. For more information, see the entry for October 25th:
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/10/werner-meissner-part-v-onward-to-el.html


2. Who escaped the Nazis by hiding in the dirty laundry of a local hospital?
Doña Soeurette Levy de Joseph evaded her arrest by hiding in a cart of dirty laundry. This story is featured in the entry for December 9th:
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/12/soeurette-levy-de-joseph-part-ii.html


3. Who traveled to El Salvador by plane together with a few fellow passengers and one cow?
Doña Soeurette Levy de Joseph. Featured on December 12th: http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/12/soeurette-joseph-part-iii-to-el.html

4. Who taught Hebrew to the adults and children of the Jewish community from (approx)1953-75?
Doña Perla Meissner. Featured on November 1st: http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/11/perla-meissner-part-ii-1930s-1960s.html

5. Who can tell us about their difficults years in Siberia?
Don Erich Meissner. Featured on November 7th: http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/11/erich-meissner-part-i-siberia.html


LOOK FOR MORE IN 2006!

Respuestas (ESPANOL)

Shabat Shalom. Espero que hayan tenido una semana exitosa al lado de sus familias. Espero también que hayan podido explorar mi página web www.storylistener.blogspot.com. Y hayan conocido la historia de nuestra comunidad. Quiero compartir con todos ustedes las respuestas a las preguntas publicadas en el KEHILATON de la semana pasada y para los que les gusta conocer las respuestas en detalle les he incluido un link directo con cada respuesta. Solamente tienen que "cut and paste/copiar y pegar" para verlos.

He aquí las respuestas…

1.Quien ha pasado unos años en una cárcel de África.
Don Werner Meissner pasó un tiempo en una cárcel en Mauritius, una isla en África durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Para más información, copia y guarda este link para leer la página del día 25 de octubre:
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/10/werner-meissner-part-v-onward-to-el.html


2.Quien se escondió en la ropa sucia de un hospital para escapar de los Nazis?
Doña Soeurette Levy de Joseph con lo que evitó su arresto por los Nazis. Su historia fue escrita el día 9 de diciembre:
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/12/soeurette-levy-de-joseph-part-ii.html


3.Quien viajo a El Salvador en un avión junto con una vaca?
Doña Soeurette Levy de Joseph. En la página del día 12 de diciembre:
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/12/soeurette-joseph-part-iii-to-el.html


4.Quien enseño hebreo a los adultos y los niños de la comunidad entre los años (aprox) 1953-75?
Doña Perla Meissner. Página del 1 de Noviembre:
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/11/perla-meissner-part-ii-1930s-1960s.html


5.Quien nos puede contar sobre sus años difíciles en Siberia?Don Erich Meissner. Página del día 7 de noviembre.
http://storylistener.blogspot.com/2005/11/erich-meissner-part-i-siberia.html


ESPEREN MAS EN 2006!!!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Winter Retreat

Dear Readers,
Due to the maniacal pace of this year's holiday season, I have decided to take off from December 26th-January 2nd. Technically the Jewish community should be booked with Hannukah candle lightings and latke bashes....but just like our Christian neighbors, we find ourselves knee deep in invites to Christmas parties, dinners, shopping, and the like.

Naturally I must join in the fun.

Therefore, after tomorrow's (promised) entry with the answers for last week's guided reading questions, I will say sayonara for a few days. Whether you celebrate the Festival of Lights, the latest Eid, Dawali, Navidad, or the winter solstice I hope your holiday is everything you want it to be.

Oh, and the best part.....Happy New Year!

Hasta 2006.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Farming Stories

A beautiful example of popular American oral history....

In a brief 1 minute and 24 second recording, Barb Fuller-Curry tells her son Craig about growing up on a farm.

a href="http://storycorps.net/audio/fullercurry.mp3">

If the above link does not work, simply go to www.storycorps.net and click on the "LISTEN" box. The second story down is Barb Fuller-Curry's.

Enjoy.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

En ingles

As promised, here is yesterday's entry in English. Enjoy!
*************************
The Week of December 12th

Shabbat Shalom. This week, I have chosen to write about work-related experiences gained through the Fulbright Scholarship. During the first four months of the project, I have had the opportunity to learn more about various members of the community through interviews conducted in El Salvador, the United Status, and Israel.

My work facilitates a greater personal understanding of sensitive topics such as the Salvadoran Civil War, the Holocaust, the complex subject of identity and nation, and the daily life of the Jewish-Salvadoran community. It is an immense pleasure to share this information through the webpage or “blog” that I update on a daily basis: www.storylistener.blogspot.com. Through the webpage, one can learn about the lives of individuals such as the Sanders Family, Gerda Guttfreund, Inge Bernhard, the Meissner Family, Margot Liebes de Rosenberg, and Soeurette Joseph amongst many others.

It is crucial to understand the community’s history as it informs personal and collective decisions regarding the past, present, and future. A wealth of information exists in El Salvador which I am anxious to share. In order to make your reading even more entertaining, I invite you to answer the following questions:

1. Who spent various years in an African prison during WWII?
2. Who managed to escape the Nazis by hiding in a hospital’s
dirty linen basket?
3. Who travelled in a plane to El Salvador….along with a
few other passengers and one cow?
4. Who taught Hebrew to adults and children in the community
from (approximately) 1953-75?
5. Who can tell us stories about difficult years spent in
Siberia?

The answers to these questions will be published in next week’s Kehilaton as well as: www.storylistener.blogspot.com. LOOK OUT FOR THEM!!

Monday, December 19, 2005

In last week's KEHILATON

Each week, the Jewish Community of El Salvador publishes an electronic and paper newsletter on its latest happenings. I try to contribute at least once a month and this is last week's submission. I will have an English translation for you tomorrow.
**************************
Semana 12 de diciembre

Shabat Shalom. Les escribo esta semana para darles a conocer sobre mi experiencia y el trabajo que realizo gracias a la beca “Fulbright.” En el transcurso de los primeros cuatro meses de mi trabajo, he tenido la oportunidad de conocer un poco más sobre los miembros de nuestra comunidad a través de las entrevistas que he realizado en El Salvador, Estados Unidos e Israel.

Mediante mi trabajo, he conocido sobre temas sensibles e interesantes como la guerra civil, el holocausto, identidad y nacionalidad judía así como también la vida comunitaria salvadoreña-judía. Tengo el placer de poder compartir esta información con ustedes a través de mi página web en el internet: www.storylistener.blogspot.com, la que es actualizada diariamente, y en la que podemos leer sobre las vidas de la familia Sanders, Gerda Guttfreund, Inge Bernhard, la familia Meissner, Margot Liebes de Rosenberg, y Soeurette Joseph entre otros.

Para tener una comunidad mas unida es importante conocer sobre nuestro pasado y así poder aprender y tomar las mejores decisiones en el presente. He encontrado que en El Salvador existe una joya de información la cual me gustaría que la conocieran. Para hacer su lectura más divertida e interesante, les invito a contestar las siguientes preguntas.

1. Quien ha pasado unos años en una cárcel de África.
2. Quien se escondió en la ropa sucia de un hospital para escapar de los Nazis?
3. Quien viajo a El Salvador en un avión junto con una vaca?
4. Quien enseño hebreo a los adultos y los niños de la comunidad entre los años (aprox) 1953-75.
5. Quien nos puede contar sobre sus años difíciles en Siberia?

Las respuestas a estas estarán publicadas la próxima semana en el Kehilaton y en: www.storylistener.blogspot.com. ESPERALAS…….

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

On the road.

One of my favorite things in the world is Story Corps. I've mentioned it in the past but wanted to give them a chance to describe it in their own words:

StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record each others' stories in sound.

We're here to help you interview your grandmother, your uncle, the lady who's worked at the luncheonette down the block for as long as you can remember—anyone whose story you want to hear and preserve.

To start, we're building soundproof recording booths across the country, called StoryBooths. You can use these StoryBooths to record broadcast-quality interviews with the help of a trained facilitator. Our first StoryBooths opened in New York City's Grand Central Terminal on October 23, 2003. We also have two traveling recording studios, called MobileBooths, which embarked on cross-country tours on May 19, 2005.

We've tried to make the experience as simple as possible: We help you figure out what questions to ask. We handle all the technical aspects of the recording. At the end of the hour-long session, you get a copy of your interview on CD. And thanks to the generous contributions of our supporters, we ask for only a $10 suggested donation.

Since we want to make sure your story lives on for generations to come, we'll also add your interview to the StoryCorps Archive, housed at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, which we hope will become nothing less than an oral history of America.


Now Story Corps is on the road and the production teams (both East and West) are keeping blogs. Definitely don't miss them!

Check out the mobile booth blog for the East Coast of the United States:
www.storycorps-east.blogspot.com

For the West Coast of the United States:
www.storycorps-west.blogspot.com

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Inge Bernhard: Some Final Thoughts

Towards the end of each interview, I like to ask more open-ended questions. Inge responds very positively and below, gives the reader an idea as to how her Jewish identity has evolved.

(Your Jewish identity has changed, from your life in Germany to your experiences in the States, to life in Salvador, now to a life in Israel? Have you always felt Jewish?)

(chuckles) Well, this is a long—went a long way. In Germany, since my parents did everything to hide my identity, which was very bad, I went into a situation without knowing why. I didn’t know anything about my grandparents. My grandfather had died already who had a big library which was burned later, so I couldn’t even inherit that library. I didn’t know anything about Judaism. My father, who knew, who could have told me, I never discussed it with my father. My mother didn’t want to know anything about Judaism. She thought it would be better to be a Christian and not being attacked for being Jewish. She had bad experiences as being Jewish. In the university, a professor didn’t let her take her Doctor’s degree because he would not do this for Jews. He would not accept a Jewish student for a Doctor’s degree.

Then she went to another university where the professor was Jewish. She was lucky. And there she met my father. My father loved this professor, this Jewish professor, but they never told me anything about Judaism. I saw the Nazi children going around with uniforms and instruments and I was very fascinated with that as a child. Then I was not accepted in the Jewish youth movement. So I was completely confused about this.

(The German youth, the Nazi youth?)

In Germany, yes. I wasn’t accepted for that. So very slowly, I became proud of being Jewish, having my own life. But it reflected somehow on my whole existence. I became an outsider. I liked to be by myself. I didn’t mind going on trips by myself. Also later, I didn’t make friends easily because I always was a little careful who do I meet. Maybe they are people who don’t like Jews or so. That was the only thing about Judaism.

Now, when we got married, Carlos said, “You don’t have to, to become Jewish. You are Jewish already by nature.” But we went to a rabbi in New York who gave me Jewish books to study. He said, “If you want to marry religiously, you can come back in two years and study Judaism.” And I started to study, and I was fascinated. I just had no idea what I had missed until that time. I read a lot, and I knew this is what I loved. Because the Christian—I was born as a Christian, so to speak. I also did my Christian—

(First communion? Confirmation?)

No, it’s called something else. Um, not—this is what the Catholics do.

(Catechism classes?)

Konfirmazion. It’s confirmation. It’s Konfirmazion.

And I did that, but I felt very, um, es war mir peinlich. I don’t know. I couldn’t believe in something like this. It was very difficult for me to do it, but everybody did it. I had a friend, that actually became my later boyfriend. He said, “I have left the church. I’m not a believer. You can do that.” I couldn’t. So I did what everybody did. I had my confirmation. But I felt very—

Ruth: Strange. Awkward.

—awkward about it. And when I read about Judaism, I thought this was so much more to my taste, to my thinking, my philosophy of life. So I was very, very happy about it. I went to the synagogue only on—I mean, we didn’t go each Shabbat. But I liked it, and I liked especially the singing, having lived with music anyway. When Alex Granat became the rabbi, then I was really happy. I just read a letter that I wrote to my mother. I wrote her every week. I wrote how much enjoyed—how much more I understand Judaism when I hear Alex singing.

So I got into that also. This was a completely new life for me. And that also helped the integration in El Salvador into the community. Because it was very strange for me, all of a sudden, to be with Jews of several countries, not only of Germany. And Perla, who came from the Czech Republic, Gerda who came from Romania... had a completely, completely different upbringing, and we became the closest friends. It’s just unbelievable when I think about it.

(And you think Judaism had a lot to do with that?)

Judaism, yes, I think it had something to do with it. Of course, also we have a lot of common interests in a way, but we had such a different upbringing.

(What about now in Israel? Now you’re in the land quote-unquote of the Jewish people.)

This is now—now, of course, this is a very, very broad, um, a broad—how do you say? The country is big and I feel as if I own part of it. When we came in ’54, when we came for the first time, I liked the smell of the country. There are certain smells that I cannot forget. They are not existing today any more. But at that time already I had this feeling. This is a country where I feel good, where I would like to belong.

When we came, it was still a pretty simple life. There was—I think there were two restaurants in Jerusalem, can you imagine that? There were two furniture shops. Otherwise you had to do everything with a private carpenter. Two furniture shops. Today I suppose you have a thousand, five hundred, I don’t know how many. I liked the simple life at that time. I made friends.

Many of them Germans, from Germany. (coughs)

(Well, let’s just talk about that. So tell me a little bit about how you feel now that you’re a Israeli citizen.)

As I told you before, I really feel very much at home here. I wouldn’t like to live somewhere else. I was thinking sometimes, how would it be if I would go now to Germany and live there? Impossible. I can visit my friends. I love Berlin. I love to go there. But I would not like to live there at all. My mother had some bad experience in the old age home where she was. She found a friend that tried to convince her that the Holocaust had never happened. Things like this can happen to you there. I have other friends there in Berlin, and the old place where I would like to stay, maybe, is Berlin. If I come to other places in Germany, these are nice tourist attractions for me, but that’s all. I would not be able to live there. So I was thinking, where would I like to live to the end of my life? In Israel. It is so—from the beginning I felt good, and I still do. We have wonderful doctors. I’m very lucky. We have this beautiful flat. My friends live close by. Two live right in the next house. My homeopathic doctor lives five minutes away by walking. My Hebrew teacher who taught me for many years, she also lives five minutes away. The theater is close. I’m very, very lucky. I love the city. It’s a small city, but it has everything of a major capital.

This is just—I have to tell myself sometimes how lucky I am. I forget, because I live here. I take it for granted. But I’m very happy to live here. I only hope that we will go on living peacefully and that all the political problems will be somehow solved. That’s all I can hope for.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC
Ruth Reich de Alpert also participated in this interview.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Inge Bernhard Part VII: The Civil War

Carlos worked with Ernst Liebes in El Salvador. In 1979, Ernst was kidnapped in the very same car which the two men used to share each morning and each afternoon.

Carlos went to the doctor that day.


Carlos was really under attack and under attack, you know, in a way, from terror. Because when Ernst Liebes was captivated [sic] from these—

Ruth: Terrorists.

(The guerrillas.)

—terrorists, Carlos could have been in the car with him. But that day that they took Ernst, Carlos called me and said, “Please take me home because I had to go to the skin doctor, and I don’t have a car. Ernst already left.”

Ruth: He was supposed to be in the car.

Then I picked him up, and that was his salvation. We didn’t know that they wanted to take Carlos also. Carlos was a Consul, Israeli Consul. Ernst was the Consul General, Carlos was the Consul. And we knew before, we had read in the New York Times that the terrorists wanted to take Israeli diplomats, Japanese and English, and—-so we were really in great danger. We could prove that, and when David wanted to become a citizen, we used that and he was really accepted as a citizen because of this. So he became a citizen and he could stay and become a lawyer without a problem.

(So he really—he became—he made his life in America?)

Yes.

(And Ariela eventually settled in America as well?)

Yes.

(After the kidnapping of Ernst Liebes, did you decide, “We have to get out of here. We have to leave immediately”? What was your reaction?)

We had told Ernst—we had gone to Israel before. We wanted—Carlos knew with the Parkinson’s he would not be a good asset to the farm any more, so we had gone to Israel to see if—to find a place to live and to see what furniture we should take. And when we came back from Israel, that was in December, we met Ernst in Miami. It was his birthday. Alice didn’t come, and we were the only people that he could celebrate his birthday with in Miami. And we told Ernst—actually, we didn’t want to tell him on his birthday. But when he came back to El Salvador, we told him we are leaving. Ernst was so upset that he said, “You cannot do this! You stayed with me forty years. You cannot leave the farm. You cannot leave me.”

Carlos gave in. David came on holiday from his school. He felt what was happening, that we were really in danger. He was very angry at us not to leave. He came and left for Miami, stayed with friends in Miami because of this.

We still stayed because of Ernst, and we could have been really kidnapped at that time. I don’t know whether Alice came. I think she came, and they got strange phone calls from somebody. They took the receiver and they didn’t hear anything, and put it down again. Sometimes there was some music. We got the same phone calls. So we thought that this was very strange. I was really afraid. I wanted to go. Carlos said, “No, we cannot do this to Ernst.” So the moment Ernst was kidnapped, we said, “This is it. We cannot stay any more. We have to leave.”

We arranged everything secretly, as secret as we could. Our maid, Alicia, took care of us. We didn’t have a second maid any more. Alicia warned us of the gardener who was living in a place where there were many people that we wouldn’t trust. So she said, “Don’t trust the gardener because he has bad intentions.” Then we closed our gate. Alicia went out of the gate before we wanted to leave and looked if there would be somebody. Because there was a car standing there the whole day sometimes, and we didn’t know why was he there, and we were really afraid of that.

So we knew we had to leave as soon as possible. I got the tickets. Carlos stayed home. He didn’t leave the house any more. All this story we told the immigration—David told the immigration officers afterward. This is how he became a citizen. Then we left.

We stayed one night at the Hamers’and the Pfeiffers came—
—with their car and picked us up and Carlos was lying on the ground of the car and the next day, the Hamers took us to the airport. I was still trembling. I really must say, I was afraid. But we boarded the plane and we left, and we never got back. Never. Carlos didn’t want to go back any more.

Then, we were in America already when we heard that Ernst had been killed. We went back to Miami for the funeral. David was with us. He had vacations. And after that, we went to New York to be with the children once more, and then we went to Israel, straight.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC
Ruth Reich de Alpert participated in this section of the interview.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Inge Bernhard Part VII: El Salvador

Inge and Carlos were married in a civil ceremony in Berlin. They spent their honeymoon in Israel (Inge's first trip) and then moved on to El Salvador, where Carlos had settled in 1929.

Then we came to Salvador. My luck was that I was accepted from the start in the Jewish community and I really wasn’t sorry that I went to El Salvador with Carlos. All his friends spoke German. I didn’t know a word of Spanish yet. It took me some time, half a year, until we could really talk. But I liked Salvador very much, you know, the community, all these German friends that were there. Gerda was the first one who visited me with Miriam, who was two years old at that time. Carlos had a nice house. I felt—from the start, I felt very good in Salvador.

(Why was Carlos in Salvador? What brought him—?)

Oh, that is a good question. Salvador didn’t accept foreigners, but Carlos was lucky, he had an uncle there who went in ’29 for economic reasons. In Germany there was a depression, and he went—that was Toto, Toto Lasally. And he went to El Salvador because he also had an uncle there.

(Who was his uncle?)

Ruth: Kurt Laufer.

Kurt Laufer, right. Then Toto started a business that you know better, with your grandfather together. I don’t know how they started—

Ruth: 1940, I think they bought the farm. My father worked with Eugen Liebes.

Yeah, but then he became independent and Toto joined him. I don’t know how it was.

Ruth: Yes. I don’t know when that was.

So this was the uncle that Carlos went to. He employed him, and he stayed some years with the uncle until the war started. He came in ’33. Carlos was fifteen and a half. He never went to school again, and his Spanish he learned just by using it. He never studied it, really.

He stayed in Chinameca for some time, for a few months, I think, in the summer. They put him there to take care of the coffee, the cosecha. Then they took him to the office, and he worked in the office and learned the coffee business from the start. In ’39, when the war started, Toto was put on the blacklist somehow for knowing some German. I don’t know why, I don’t remember why. So Carlos lost his job.

Then Alice Liebes, who knew Carlos well, said to Ernst, “This is the chance to have a good worker, and we employ Carlos.” So in ’39, he was twenty-one years, he became an employee of Liebes.

(What did he end up doing for Liebes, what type of job?)

He was starting to sell coffee and to help with—
—the production, also, going to the beneficios. I don’t know how often he went. And learned all about the processing, the process of coffee, how do you say? Coffee—

Ruth: Washing.

(Processing.)

Yeah, processing of coffee. And then he—slowly, he became the manager in Liebes, together with somebody, with another—who was it? It was somebody else. But he mainly did it for many, many years. Ernst retired more and more from the work and left it to Carlos. But Carlos discussed a lot with Toto. Whenever they didn’t know about the prices or should they sell, should they not sell, Carlos was very decided usually, but he discussed with Toto. He was very impressed with him in that respect.

(So how old were you when you met—you were thirty when you were married and Carlos was—?)

Thirty-six.

(OK. So he had his life sort of established, pretty established in Salvador. When you came, he had a house and you just sort of settled in?)

Yes.

(When did you have your first child?)

Four years later.

(OK.)

I was pretty sick at the beginning. I hadn’t time to take care of myself. I had tonsillitis. I was always sick. Finally I went to Germany and had my tonsils out and my appendix out and then I came back and I felt a lot better. Then immediately I got pregnant.

(And the name of your first child?)

Is Ariela.

(The famous name. My sister is named Ariela.)

We chose the name—we got a list of names from Israel. Then we got from all the list, we liked Ariela the best, and that we chose. And then, many, many people liked the name.

Ruth: Many other Arielas came from that one.

(Many, many.)

Yes.

(And how many years later was your son born?)

Four years later.

(So they’re four years apart.)

Yes.

(So 1958 and 1962.)

’62, yes.

(How was having children in Salvador? How was that experience? Was that difficult for you, not being able to raise them in Germany?)

In the beginning, when the children are very small, you are just happy to have a child. And to have help in El Salvador was wonderful. I don’t know—I didn’t know at that time how it would be without any help. But I was lucky. I had help.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC
Ruth Reich de Alpert participated in this section of the interview.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Inge Bernhard Part VI: Getting Married

Inge met Carlos in the past but this time was different. Very different....

So Carlos went first to Paris and had a good time. Then he took the train, came to Braunschweig and I met him at the train with my aunt, the blonde lady who was so nice and we both loved her very much. She had meanwhile lost the house where my grandmother had lived and where she and her husband had lived. The house was bombed. There was nothing left except for a small house where the laundry was done in former times. She had installed herself there. So she had a place where she could see us, where she could invite us for dinner, lunch, and so on.

Carlos and I, we stayed in a hotel, because there was no other place. Then we both saw him at the train, and the minute he came from the train, there was a spark that I don’t know where it came from, and I fell in love with him. I cannot explain that. He felt the same way. I mean—and then, we didn’t say anything. We went to my aunt and we had lunch together. He always looked at me, and my aunt said, “This is what I—” Later on she said, “This is what I was always hoping for, that you would marry him.” My father always wanted it. He got a lot of letters from his brother, from Guatemala, who always said, “Carlos is so lonely and he really needs a wife.” And then my father read this letter to me and I said, “Leave me alone! I don’t know him. I mean, he’s my cousin, I hardly know him. I’m choosing my own mate if I ever want to get married.”

And then he came and we were in Braunschweig and I forgot all about my studies. We spent very nice days there together. We found that we had similar interests in music. We went to the opera together and we went to the town. For me, it was the first time that there was a person who understood what I went through. Because during the war, first of all, most of the men had been—had fallen as soldiers. There were very few people that were younger, maybe like my brother or so, but they were younger persons. There were no men. I didn’t have boyfriends.

Once I had a boyfriend, and he turned out to be a Nazi. Then I said, “Each time I meet somebody, I have to tell first that I’m Jewish, half-Jewish. You have to know this.” And then I didn’t have friends, didn’t have a boyfriend. When Carlos came, it was very different. It was family, somebody who understood my background, my feelings about the times. Although he always thought that I was too German, because he wasn’t used to that kind of German any more. Although for me, he is a German. I’m not so much.

He’s very organized, very orderly, --in some way, maybe. But much, much more than I am. So when we met there, my aunt was so happy, she had a feeling this is it and what she was hoping for. We were sitting there and he always looked at me and looked at me. He couldn’t get his eyes from me.

Carlos: I looked at who?

At me. You looked at me. After six days, I told him, “Carlos, do you want to marry me?” (laughter) Because he was all shy. He didn’t say it. And I knew that he wanted to. And then after six days in Braunschweig—and then we said, “What do we do now?” Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there’s only one day that you can marry. And at that time it was the 24th of September, at that time. So we had to choose this day, although at that time—I mean, I was considered Jewish only because my mother was Jewish. We didn’t marry with a rabbi. But even so, we wanted to do it the right way. We couldn’t do it otherwise.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC