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.