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La memoria de una comunidad.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Herta Freund, Matriarch

This interview was conducted in Miami, FL on May 19, 1981 by Ms. Lea de Freund. Herta Freund, Lea's mother-in-law, was born in Grosstein, Germany (near what was then Oppeln and Breslau) in 1905. Herta attended school in Grosstein until she was twenty, when she decided to get a higher education in nearby Oppeln. Her father was also born in Grosstein and her mother in Boiten (near Schleisien).

Herta's family was the only Jewish family in Grosstein. In the beginning of her interview, she explained that this was not always the case.

"My grandfather came to an established Jewish community in Grosstein. There was a large family with many children, and they wanted to educate them in our tradition. He came as the teacher and stayed on and married and had his own family of which there was one son. That was my father..... Eventually everybody left for the larger cities and my father was the only one who did not want to leave..."

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Now for an excerpt from Lea's interview. Please note that Lea's questions will be in parentheses.

(So when did you get married?)

In December of 1923.

(How did you meet your husband?)

Well, there was no Jewish life [in Grosstein] and my parents were still very religious. We used to spend the holidays in Grosstrelitz which was the next city that had a Jewish community. For the holidays, we would close the store and go there for the two days of Rosh Hashanah. In Grosstrelitz, my father had a sister who married and had a big family, we joined that big family in Grosstrelitz. My late husband was born there and he left just for the fun of it to go to Central American where he had a cousin. He had the idea to see the world and come back to Germany. Meanwhile, WWI broke out and he could not come back. He stayed on in Salvador and in 1923 he came back to see his family. We were there for Rosh Hashanah and everybody was talking about Freund, the man who lived in Salvador. Nobody at that time knew what Salvador was, of course, and I got to know him. We fell in love and decided to get married and I moved with him to Salvador. Our idea was to stay for ten years while we had children. Stay in Salvador for ten years and then return to Germany and educate our children.

(So you arrived in Salvador by boat?)

Yes.

(How was it? What did you feel? What did you see when you arrived?)

A very small town at that time. No paved streets but cobblestones. Lovely people and a foreign colony which kept together. Jewish and non-Jewish had no influence. There were Englishmen, a few Americans, French, Germans, and we all kept together because we felt a little different. Our upbringing was a little different than the Salvadorans.

(What kind of Jewish life did you find when you arrived?)

Well, "life," that is a big word for what I found there.

(How many families did you have?)

That I don't remember, but I remember there was Paula Widawer, who had no children. About two years later, Sol Mugdan, my husband's cousin, was married so that was a second Jewish family. Then there were the Frenkels. She came about a year or two before I came to Salvador.

So maybe.....three families?


Transcription prepared and provided by the University of Florida, Oral History Program.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Back in the saddle

After some time in the States, I write today's entry from my beautiful patio in San Salvador. I was in the US doing interviews both in Miami and Washington, DC.... I got to most of you but some were still missed. I hope to continue gathering histories as time goes on but for now, I will be in Salvador until July.

This week, I will start a new series of oral histories. The big difference is that these individuals were not interviewed by me but rather by Ms. Lea de Freund. With her permission, I will re-publish some of these stories from various community founders who along with Lea, spent the majority of the Salvadoran Civil War in Miami.

Pues, hasta tomorrow.
These will be good ones.

I promise.

Friday, February 24, 2006

This Week's Kehilaton: English Translation

This week marks the beginning of a special project surrounding the history of the community. Members both in El Salvador and beyond are interested in the histories of deceased family members as well as friends, neighbors, and relatives. A brief article on different community members will be featured each week in "Yo Tambien Cuento." Like I have mentioned in the past, my work during this study is based on the oral histories, also referred to as testimonies, of individual community members. With your oral histories, old history texts, and written memoirs, I work each day to better understand and document Jewish-Salvadoran life.

I would like to write this week about our friend L. Jack Davidson. The big secret is that his name is actually Leandro Jack Davidson. At this time, Jack is President of the Union of Jewish Congregations for Latin America and the Caribbean (UJCL), representing the Salvadoran community with his tradement enthusiasm. He divides his time between New York and Salvador and is married to Lilian, has four children: Jan, Jaline (married to Manuel Chavanne), Jason, and Jessica; two grandchildre: Emilia and Rafael. His sister Monica lives with her family in the US as does his mother Liselotte.

Jack was born in Santiago de Chile, the son of two German parents. Although his personal history with El Salvador does not begin until 1954, the Davidson family became acquainted with the country much earlier....towards the end of the 19th century.

In his own words:

My grandfather, Leandro Davidson, was born in Lautenburg, Silesia, Schlesien. His cousin, Benjamin Bloom, brought him and his brothers to El Salvador. I don’t know the exact year, but it must be in the late 1800s, at some point, before 1900. They came, and eventually there were four brothers here. One went to the US and the other three remained here. My grandfather settled in Sonsonate. One brother settled in Santa Ana. And the other one settled in Ahuachapan. They were coffee growers and exporters.

My grandfather was originally Leiser, and changed (his name) to Leandro. He married Eva Loewenberg on September 4th, 1905, and brought her here to Sonsonate, which must have been quite something, because you can imagine Sonsonate now, and at the time, the only story I heard about it was that the first flush toilet of Sonsonate was installed for my grandmother, and apparently it was the sensation of the town. Everybody would have to come to see how it worked. (laughs) Because that didn’t exist at the time. So Don Leandro brought his chelita over from Germany in 1905. They lived in Sonsonate and had three children there, and in 1913 went back to Germany—my grandmother didn’t want to bring up her children in El Salvador. Of the four siblings, the only one that was born in Hamburg was my father, who was born in 1914.

Who knew that one day the family would eventually return.
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Paraphrased by Jessica Alpert from the original oral history.

This Week's Kehilaton

Each week, the Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador publishes a newsletter, the Kehilaton, with the latest community activities and information. Beginning this week, I will contribute a few paragraphs on one community member. For this week, I chose L. Jack Davidson (featured in entries posted this month). Posted is the original Spanish followed by a translation for the English speakers. At the bottom, I attach the mission (in Spanish) of the community which was created and inaugurated this past January.
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YO TAMBIEN CUENTO

Por Jessica Alpert

Esta semana comienza un proyecto especial sobre la historia de nuestra comunidad. Miembros fuera y dentro de El Salvador están interesados en las historias de nuestros antepasados así como amigos, vecinos, y familiares. Esta serie de artículos sobre nuestra comunidad será incluida en la sección “Yo También Cuento” dándonos la oportunidad de conocer más sobre la Comunidad Israelita. Como les he contado, mi trabajo durante este estudio esta basado en la historia oral, o sea, los testimonios de cada uno de ustedes. Con sus historias orales, textos antiguos, y memorias escritas cada día intento de entender más sobre la vida judía salvadoreña.

Quisiera contarles sobre la vida de nuestro amigo L. Jack Davidson. El gran secreto es que su nombre es Leandro Jack Davidson. Actualmente, Jack es Presidente de la Unión Judía de Congregaciones de Latinoamérica y el Caribe (UJCL), representando la comunidad salvadoreña con el entusiasmo de siempre. Dividiendo su tiempo entre Nueva York y San Salvador, Jack está casado con Lilian y tiene cuatro hijos: Jan, Jaline (casada con Manuel Chavanne), Jason, y Jessica, y dos nietos: Emilia y Rafael. Su hermana Mónica vive con su familia en los Estados Unidos así como su mama Liselotte.

Jack nació en Santiago de Chile, hijo de padres alemanes. Aunque su historia personal en El Salvador no empieza hasta 1954, la familia Davidson llego en los finales del siglo diecinueve.

En sus propias palabras:

Mi abuelo, Leandro Davidson, nació en Lautenburg, Silesia, Schlesien. Su primo, Benjamín Bloom, lo trajo junto con sus hermanos a El Salvador. Yo no se el año exactamente, a lo mejor durante los finales del siglo diecinueve. Vinieron todos y al final eran cuatro hermanos viviendo en El Salvador. Mi abuelo vivió en Sonsonate, otro hermano trabajaba en Santa Ana, el otro en Ahuachapan. Trabajaron en café, cultivando y exportando...


El nombre de mi abuelo era Leiser pero lo cambió a Leandro. El se caso en Europa con Eva Loewenberg el día 4 de septiembre 1905 y se trajo a Eva a Sonsonate. Me imagino que era un cambio bien pesado. La única historia que conozco de ese tiempo es que instalaron un inodoro con agua para mi abuela y toda la gente del pueblo vino para observar la maquina (era la primera en todo Sonsonate!). Eso no existía en aquel entonces. Don Leandro trajo a su chelita desde Alemania y tuvieron tres hijos acá. En 1913, Eva quiso regresar a Alemania porque no quería criar sus hijos en El Salvador. Se instalaron en Hamburgo y el único hermano nacido en Europa, en 1914, fue mi propio padre. Quien sabia que algún día íbamos a regresar a esta tierra.

Para más información sobre la vida de Jack y la historia de la Familia Davidson, haga un clic en: www.storylistener.blogspot.com
*****

Nuestra Visión

La Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador será una comunidad comprometida con la continuidad de la identidad judía y sus valores, a través de la educación judía y el crecimiento espiritual de todos y cada uno de sus miembros, enfocada en la vivencia de las tradiciones y en la formación de los jóvenes y los futuros líderes comunitarios, comprometida con Israel y con la realidad social de nuestro país (Tikun Olam), sustentada en una sólida base financiera permitiéndole a nuestras familias vivir un judaísmo participativo, vibrante y dentro de un marco de respeto.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

...a wandering Torah

I recently heard a fantastic story from Jerry Tanenbaum (introduced in an entry in early February) and the World Union of Progressive Judaism. Two congregations from Santiago de Chile, Templo Or Shalom y Congregacion Yakar graciously donated a full-size Torah to a congregation in the Ukraine.

This excerpt is from the WUPJ email report:


SANTIAGO CONGREGATIONS REPLACE STOLEN TORAH SCROLL IN ODESSA

Templo Or Shalom and Congregation Yakar, both of Santiago, Chile, recently enabled the Progressive congregation in Odessa, Ukraine, to replace a Torah scroll stolen just before Rosh Hashana. The Santiago-Odessa transfer was facilitated by Jerry Tanenbaum, chairman of the World Union’s Yad B’Yad task force, which assists Progressive Jews in Latin America. According to Tanenbaum, the World Union had provided Or Shalom with a Torah when it became a movement affiliate in the late 1980s. Since then, the congregation amassed a number of scrolls, and agreed to provide one to Congregation Yakar, a younger World Union-affiliate that has been using a small Torah and wished to acquire a full-sized scroll. Then came word about the Odessa Torah, which disappeared shortly after the World Union coordinated its donation by Temple Emanu-El of San Jose, California. “The [Odessa] congregation was in shock,” said Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny, chief rabbi of the Progressive congregations in Ukraine. "You can imagine what Rosh Hashanah services were like.” Dukhovny later delivered a Sabbath sermon in Odessa. “I told them that no one can steal a Torah. Even without a physical Torah, they can have Torah in their hearts. With the help of their sister congregation and world Jewry, they are not alone.” Apparently, Dukhovny was right, for both Or Shalom and Congregation Yakar graciously agreed that the Santiago Torah go to Odessa instead.

For more information on these and other progressive Jewish communities around the world, check out the World Union website at: www.wupj.org

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

"I Feel I'm a Transparent Person"

In this final entry, Lore shares some perspective on her official and un-official nationality.
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(How do you feel about the community today? What does it do for you? Does it serve a purpose in your life?)

(pause) The community—the community has served a big purpose in my life. I know that I am a part of it. I feel that I am looked at with cariño. This is how I perceive it. I think when I became closer to my religion and with the community of Salvador was when Rabbi Gustavo and Ruthy Kraselnik came to Salvador, nine years ago. They didn’t necessarily change so many things around, but they offered many interesting courses and it made a big difference. At that time—I told you beforehand that Philip used to read from the Torah, so Philip was very interested. He was fourteen years old; I got used to going to Synagogue on Saturday mornings also just to give him some encouragement. After a while he stopped going that often but I really enjoyed my services and I still do. Saturday prayers have a really big meaning for me. It’s like—I don’t know how to explain it. It’s—it gives me a whole new feeling. It makes me feel that there’s something more than just the day-to-day, and it really makes my week. So yes, the community has had its ups and downs, but it’s a very welcoming community. I think that there are a lot of very good people who form part of the community.

(Is that what being a Jew is for you?)

(pause) I don’t know. I always felt that being a Jew is keeping up with the traditions, but more than anything it is the upbringing that I received. I could not live any other way. I mean, I feel I’m a very transparent person, and I’m very—well, emotional, definitely, and I’m always looking to see where I can help. And I think this is part of the mitzvah, of the traditions that we have, and that really is making—makes me feel a Jew, a Jewess. It’s not really going to synagogue on Saturdays, but it’s having that close contact with God. I don’t know, it’s reading and getting meaning out of the Bible. That’s what it is. It’s just living the way that I live.

(You were born the year before Israel was founded?)

Yes.

(How do you feel about Israel? Do you feel anything for it?)

Actually, I have never been to Israel, and now I’m beginning to feel the urge to go and visit. I have heard and understood, first of all, that it’s a wonderful place to visit. There are a lot of different perspectives, of course, and there are a lot of different things to see. I definitely want to go to visit Israel. How do I feel about Israel? I feel stronger now about it. For me, for a while, it was just another country. That’s the one thing that is not too deeply embedded in me, but I do want to visit.

(How do you feel about Salvador?)

(pause) How do I feel about Salvador? Well, (pause)—I was born here. This is my country, without a doubt. But sometimes I feel I don’t belong here. Somehow there are things that if it would be in my power to change, I would love to do so. I would like to see the place look cleaner. I think I could live anywhere. I don’t think I—have my roots in any particular spot.

(That’s interesting. Despite the fact that you were born here?)

And I’ve lived here all my life except for those two years. So I think I could move away quite easily.

(Do you feel that you don’t fit—why do you feel that way? Is it just your thoughts about the country that make you feel that way?)

No, I just—I always think that I’m looked at as if I would be a foreigner. I don’t know why. But maybe if I would move away I would probably miss El Salvador. I don’t know.

(If someone were to ask you, “Where are you from?”—)

I always say I’m from El Salvador.

(Or “What’s your nationality?”—)

I’m Salvadoran. I will always answer you that. So people look at me and I say, “Yes, I know, it’s difficult to believe.” .....That’s my next line.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Intermarriage: A Complicated Question

In this excerpt, I ask Lore some questions about interfaith marriage.
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(And one son…Philip… has a pretty serious girlfriend, or is she not very serious?)

Well, I think at his age, he’s 23, I don’t know what is very serious. But it seems that they like each other a lot, although they respect their space, which I think is wonderful nowadays. They’re both studying a career. She’s studying design, graphic design, and you know, whenever they have exams, or whenever they have to study for an exam or for a project, they don’t really see each other. They don’t interrupt their studies. So I think that’s fine. As far as I know, he says it’s very serious. I don’t know. At 23, what can I say?

(But it’s very hard for him to think of marrying a Jewish girl in Salvador, because there aren’t that many?)

There aren’t. The Jewish girls in Salvador are all lovely girls, I mean, they’re really lovely girls, and they come from wonderful homes, but they’re very young. I think the eldest, if I dare say, must be sixteen or seventeen, if at all. So they’re living in different worlds right now. Phillip is in university and the young girls are barely in high school. So I don’t think that anything is going to happen along these lines. Who knows?

(So if he doesn’t marry a Jewish girl, you’ll accept that?)

Yes, I would accept that. In fact, I asked him about it the other day. I said, “What would happen if it’s that serious?” He said, “Oh, no, my children would be brought up in the Jewish religion.” I said, “Yes, but you understand that the woman is the one that usually carries religion for the children?” I don’t think it’s gotten that serious yet so that we have to worry about it. But definitely I find that if it’s the right person for him, I wouldn’t interfere. I think there’s enough Jewish background in him for him to continue with his religion and to continue with his traditions. I think basically it’s the upbringing.

(So you guys in the late ‘80s—I’m sorry, when the war was really in its prime, did you decide to stay here?)

Yes. I decided to stay—let me see how I’m gonna word it—because I was the only one of the siblings, the family, that had a house. We had this house. But I really think I decided to stay because I had nothing else to do in the States. At that time, I only had Eric. That was in 1979, when my family moved to the US. I also went up there for two months and I really had nothing to do. I was very bored, so I decided to come back. I don’t know whether it was a mistake at that time or not, but that’s what I did. So we lived here throughout the war, and then the other two children were born here as well.

(Were you involved with the Jewish community throughout the war?)

Yes. Definitely. We were very few people and we used to hold Shabbat services as well as the High Holidays. I remember at the beginning, after they had to close down the synagogue which was located downtown, because it became very dangerous, they moved all the torahs and everything up to, I believe it was Ernesto and Lea’s (Freund) house, and if I remember correctly, Don Chepe Baum had some sort of cabinet built, with casters and they put the torahs in there. This cabinet was moved from one house to another, depending where we were gonna have the services. And yes, I mean, services were held, let’s say, in somebody’s living room and we continued the tradition. Then the situation got worse, and many more people moved away. I remember there was a very small house, near the Deportivo (Tennis/Sports Club), that was rented to serve as our Synagogue. Also, I remember that Claudio and Maria Kahn, used to call us reminding us to go to services. And we did. We always went to synagogue on Friday evenings. And this kept our community going. This gave us continuity. I always say that it was his interest in giving the Jewish community in El Salvador a continuity that has allowed us to have the community that we have now.

(So throughout the war you were here?)

Yes.

(And when the peace accords were signed, you were still here?)

Yes.

(And you’ve never moved?)

No. I never moved away. The children were born ’82 and ’84, the two younger ones. My parents were living away, and then they moved back down to Salvador in 1984, shortly before William was born. Unfortunately my father passed away in ’85. Then my mother stayed forevermore, and it was great, because possibly something that I had never done before, I hadn’t had the opportunity, to really get to know her. And we had the best time, for the last fourteen years of her life we had the best time together. I mean, she used to—if we had a dinner party at home, she was here, La Oma. Or if friends of ours would invite us, or friends of mine would invite me to go for dinner somewhere, La Oma was always invited. So she was part of these last fourteen years. She always was with us.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Monday, February 20, 2006

Lore Schoening: From El Salvador to London

Lore tells us about her father's business and her first time away from El Salvador for an extended amount of time.

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My father was a very loving person. He was very—he was the PR man of the family. Everything was always—he was always a very happy person, I think, anyway. He was very wise. Yeah. We had a good thing going.

(Did he work for Casa Mugdan?)

No, my father worked at the Libreria Universal when he came out. This belonged to an uncle of his who was already established in El Salvador, a man by the name of Franz Kauders. My father worked in his Libreria. It was like a school and office supply store. And then he started his own business, El Siglo, together with his partner Victor Steiner and later on he was joined by my Uncle Fred Falkenstein. So the three of them were at the store. It was a very nice store.

(What did they have, what types of things?)

It was the first department store in El Salvador. They had toys. They had clothing for men. Very exclusive, very nice clothing for men. They had cosmetics and perfumes and they had office supplies. They even had some magazines. There was a magazine corner, I remember that. They had beautiful gifts for the home. The partners used to go—one year they used to go shopping in New York, and the next year the other one would go shopping in Europe. So they used to bring things from Europe and New York. It was very nice.

(So your dad liked going back to Europe?)

Yes, he did. He particularly enjoyed—as far as I can remember, he particularly enjoyed—well, he used to go to Germany. I think he enjoyed going back to Hamburg. I don’t think he had bad memories. Because he left Germany when he was young—he could feel that something was going to start happening. He was looking for a better future. But whenever they went to Germany, he loved to show my mother around. He also enjoyed going back to London. He met my mother’s good friends and they had a wonderful friendship going; also —my father had his sister living over there, her name was Ilse. As for their friends, there were two couples,—the women were friends of my mother’s, to start with, and then they all became very friendly. So whenever my parents went to Europe, they used to see their friends and family. The first trip that they took back to Europe was 1952. My mother hadn’t seen her friends in many, many years, but she was able to link up with them again.

(Amazing. In the meantime, you went to school here?)

Yes. I went to the American school. By the time I graduated from middle school, the American high school had already opened and offered from ninth through twelfth grades, so I graduated from high school here.

(And did you go—afterwards, where did you go?)

After that I went for one year to London, to St. Godric’s secretarial college. And I studied, evidently, secretarial courses. I graduated as an executive bilingual secretary. I came back for a few months holiday, or a couple weeks holiday, whatever, and then I got my working permit and went back to London to work for another year at the Bank of London and South America in their research department. But I was a secretary. I wasn’t doing any researching. It was a very, very interesting job. It was really very nice. I would have loved to have stayed there, but my parents wanted me to come back. If I wouldn’t have come back then, I don’t think I would be living in El Salvador, ‘cause I really loved London. It was really nice.

(So you eventually came back. What year was that when you came back?)

I came back in 1965—no, 1966.

(And then you got married. What did your parents say? Were they upset that your future husband wasn’t Jewish?)

No, no, they weren’t upset, not even my grandmother, who was still alive. No, I’m sorry. Oma Carry was not alive any more at that time. But Oma Paqui was alive, and she liked him a lot. She was not upset. I guess she understood that, you know, that’s the way it is. The one thing she asked me was, if you have children, are they gonna be brought up in the Jewish religion? I think that was very important for her. And evidently they were going to be brought up in the Jewish religion, so they—yeah.

(So you have these three boys. Were they interested in having bar mitzvahs?)

Oh, definitely. Eric at that time went to live with his father after we got divorced. That was 1988, quite a few years ago. Eventually Eric went to live with his father, and so I didn’t see very much of him for four years. I shouldn’t say “very much.” I didn’t see him for four years; it was not easy. He was more independent than his brothers. But the two, Philip and William, they were definitely interested in celebrating their bar mitzvah. Eric never did celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, and he was sorry forevermore. But he understood because it was because he had not been in touch with us. He decided that this is what he wanted to do for a while, just be with his father. However, we get along very, very well. There are no hard feelings for the fact that we didn’t see each other, and he’s doing well. The two younger boys each had a very nice bar mitzvah, both of them studied a lot. I would dare say that maybe Phillip studied a little bit more. He used to go to synagogue on Saturdays and read from the Torah. They also, the two of them, were members of the Noar Shelanu. They were madrijim. I think they had a good time.

(How do they feel today? Do they feel Jewish today?)

Definitely. They definitely feel Jewish.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Friday, February 17, 2006

Lore Schoening Part II: Growing up in San Benito

Many of the Jewish families lived in close proximity to each other in the Colonia San Benito, a section of the city that is still the home to many remaining families. Lore now shares her experiences growing up in this section of town.

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(What are your brothers’ names?)

My oldest brother’s Ricardo, and he’s also known as Dicky. And my other brother is Roberto, also known to all of us as Bobby.

(Can you talk to me about what your house was like when you were young? What do you remember from those days?)

Well, we lived up in San Benito, in that very nice house which now is the international school, Colegio Internacional. What I remember from that time is that is was always very pleasant. It was a wonderful family life. I don’t remember having had bad times. I only have good memories. My parents were wonderful. It was great. I had little fights with Bobby; I used to have fights with Bobby. But Dicky and I were always very, very dear friends. Bobby and I eventually became very, very good friends as well. My grandmother Paquita used to live next door. She used to come to visit us all the time as she had built steps going from the garden from one house to the other, so we used to visit her also. She was very nice. She was very strict, a very strict person, but she was very nice. And then my parents’ grandparents—sorry, my father’s parents were just wonderful people. I had a very good relationship, especially with Oma Carry, who was my father’s mother. My grandfather Ernesto, he was wonderful, but he never really learned Spanish or English. He only spoke German. So we had to make do with our hand signs. I knew a little German, and I understood him very well. He was a wonderful person. Well, he died when I was thirteen, so I didn’t really enjoy him as much as I enjoyed my grandmother Carry And I also enjoyed my grandmother Paquita, but I think I had a better rapport with Carry.

(And you spoke—what did you speak inside the house?)

At home we spoke Spanish among ourselves, my brothers and I, and with my mother we decided we were going to speak English, because of her very strong German accent. And I think somehow we used to laugh a lot, you know, we used to make too much fun of her. And so we decided to speak English most of the time. My parents spoke German among themselves, so we learned German. I haven’t practiced it, but I know that if I would, it would be easy to express myself.

(So you really understand German?)

Yes. I do understand German, and I speak some. Not as fluent as Dicky, and I don’t know about Bobby. He used to speak quite well, quite good German. Dicky speaks good German.

(Amazing. Does he have an accent when he speaks?)

No, no, not at all. We learned German with a Hamburg accent I would say.

(How Jewish was your home?)

It was Jewish. It was very Jewish. My grandmother Paquita was very religious. She was one of the matronas, one of the—a very important piece or link of the community. She would celebrate Friday nights. Every Friday night we used to go to her house for dinner, or she used to come to our house for dinner, or we used to go to Uncle Fritz and Aunt Jane’s for dinner. So we celebrated Shabbat every Friday night. And of course the High Holidays; we also used to go to synagogue on Friday evenings. We never used to go on Saturday. Saturday, it wasn’t like—what would I say? It wasn’t una costumbre, it wasn’t the usual thing that one would go on Saturdays. At the beginning there were services, and then later on, after people started moving away, obviously the services stopped on Saturday morning because the rabbi had also left Salvador. But we were brought up in a very Jewish home, not overly Jewish, but definitely we had all the traditions.

(You knew you were Jewish?)

Oh, yes, definitely, there was no doubt in my mind.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Leonor "Lore" Schoening

Lore Schoening was born and raised in El Salvador. She now lives in San Salvador and directs a very successful translation business, often utilized by the US Embassy, various international organizations, and multi-national corporations. We sat down together a few weeks ago and she shared some perspectives as someone who has lived their entire life (except for a handful of years) in San Salvador, El Salvador.

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My father was Heinz Edgar Schoening. My mother Lily Berta Falkenstein Schoening.

(And where were they born?)

My mother was born in Berlin, and my father was born in Hamburg.

(Do you know when they came over?)

Yes, I believe my father came out in the year 1933. I don’t really know exactly when, which month, but 1933. And my mother came out in November of 1936.

(How did they meet? They met in Germany?)

No, they met here in El Salvador. My mother was out here visiting my grandmother, Doña Paquita de Mugdan. And she (my mother) was at the time living in London. She had traveled to New York by boat for her brother Federico, or Fritz, Falkenstein’s wedding to Jane Auman [?]. My grandmother was living in El Salvador at the time, and so my grandmother traveled with my Uncle Fritz up to New York. Once the wedding and all the celebrations were over, my grandmother invited my mother to come to Salvador to visit, just to see what it was like and to see where and how she lived, etc. So she decided to join her for that trip.

(So your grandmother was married to—?)

My grandmother was married to Salvador Mugdan.

(And her first name, your grandmother?)

Well, her first name was Frances. And she was known here as Francisca, or La Niña Paquita.

(That was your grandmother? Your great-grandmother?)

No. That was my grandmother, my mother’s mother.

(OK. Was that her second marriage?)

That was her second marriage. My grandfather, Martin Falkenstein, died in I believe it was 1920. He was in the First World War and was killed during the war. This must have happened in nineteen twenty, because my mother was only six years old —or maybe it was 1918. I’m not sure. So my grandmother was a widow, and then she met Salvador Mugdan in Berlin. They seemed to click —I don’t know, as all things happen. And so she got married and then she came to Salvador to live here. Salvador Mugdan was already living in Salvador before meeting my grandmother. He had gone over to Berlin, Germany on a buying trip. I don’t really know that story that well. But they got married and he brought her out to El Salvador. He was the owner of one of the first hardware stores, Casa Mugdan. She worked with him as well. It was a good life, I think. I understand he was a very good man.

(What about her kids? They stayed—?)

Well, her kids, one was Federico Falkenstein, and he was here in El Salvador with her. And my mother, Lily, was—first she was in a finishing school in Switzerland, and then she moved to London and she studied nursing. She was a children’s nurse.

(So she was older when they got—when her mother—so the kids were older when—?)

Oh, yes, they were older, definitely.

(So she came back with her mother to Salvador. And that’s where she met your—?)

And that’s when she met my father. At that time, there were five Jewish bachelors in El Salvador.. More than I have ever known throughout all these years. (chuckles) And she met all the Jewish bachelors. She met my father, and it seems it was love at first sight. It is my understanding that they met on the 5th of November of 1936 and they were engaged, like, three weeks after that, and they were married on the 29th of March of 1937. I believe that’s—I think that’s the way it was.

(Wow. So quite a whirlwind romance?)

Yes, it was good.

(You were born here in ’47. You have two brothers?)

Right.

(And you’re the baby?)

Well, yes. (laughs)

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Lore's brother Dicky Schoening, has also been featured on this blog. Please search for his name in the search engine (located at the top of this webpage) for excerpts from his interview.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

L. Jack Davidson: Some Final Thoughts

Jack now has residences in New York and El Salvador. In this section, I ask him about the future.

********
(So now, you really live in both places?)

Then I went back to living in between, and I really—if I look back on the pattern of my life, ever since I would say 1956 or ’55, I’ve lived between the US and El Salvador. When my father moved here, I used to come here, actually ’54. It was either vacations in one or living in another. Afterwards through school, the decade of the ‘70s I lived primarily in Salvador, and the decade of the ‘80s I was primarily in New York. But then—so even those two sort of even out half-half, and then the rest of the time has always been split. So I’ve been doing this for over fifty years.

(Do you find it taxing?)

I love it. I love it because I feel that Salvador gives me a human dimension and warmth and friendships. My friends are from Salvador, and my relationships and my community, which is important to me, and my society and my everything is Salvador. I have friends in New York My sister lives in New York. My mother lives in Boston, so it’s not that we have nobody there, but our human ties are to Salvador. But of course, New York offers New York: culture, exposure, the world, etc. And I really feel that I’ve been privileged to be able to have both. I feel I have the best of both, and as long as I have the strength and the reason to do it, I hope to continue doing it.

(Do you think you’ll ever move here permanently?)

I think Salvador is the best place in the world to raise children, and the best place in the world to grow old. So maybe, at a point, depending what life brings. I think at our age, you know, you first wait for your children to settle down before you actually can make a decision, because it depends where there are children, where there are grandchildren. I certainly wouldn’t want to move in with any of my children, that’s out of the question. So at that point, I would probably—yes, I would seriously consider it.

(Now, you’re currently a citizen of which countries?)

I’m currently a citizen of Chile and the US, and I hope to become a citizen of Salvador soon. I wanted to do that years ago and didn’t, and when I became a US citizen and I thought that it would be somehow endangered if I took on a third citizenship. But I’ve since found out that it isn’t, so I’d like to get all that. I’d like to have a whole bookshelf of passports, and take out the most convenient one. Because, as I said, I am not trying to be cynical about patriotism and country, because I think that would be stupid, but I don’t have a terrifically strong sense of—I’m Salvadoran, although I don’t have a Salvadoran passport, and Chilean because I have a Chilean passport. I don’t feel Chilean. And I’m an American because I’ve lived there for years and I also have a US passport, but I’m as Salvadoran without a passport as I am American, or maybe more so. So the only thing I really am is Jewish.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

L. Jack Davidson: El Salvador and Her Neighbors

Jack is currently the President of the Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is intimately familiar with neighboring communities and in this excerpt, he shares his opinion on the development and preservation of the community of El Salvador.

*********
(What sets Salvador apart? What is different about Salvador—I mean, you’re obviously now familiar, maybe not intimately familiar, but you’re familiar with these communities.)

The community of Salvador—first of all, the community has always functioned. Even in the darkest years it functioned. There were—the community always provided the necessary—even if meager, but necessary services to the people of the community. It was very inclusive way back when. In other words, when there were mixed marriages before the war, they were accepted. Nobody would marry them, but once it was done, it was done. If they showed intent to have the children become Jewish, the community accepted them, with the idea of eventually having a conversion before marriage or bar mitzvah, because there was no bat mitzvah at the time. So it was—it became an inclusionary thing. Then the war came and people scattered, to Israel, to the US, all over, but the community continued to function. There was a harmony. There was not too much of a division between the Eastern and the Western Jews, between the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi. Most of the Jews were Ashkenazi. So it was a functioning community. There was never much protocol as far as the organization, but there were always a few people who just made things happen, made sure that it was all there. My father and Lillian’s grandmother died during those years, in 1988, and we felt complete support of the community. They were both buried here. There was minyan for prayers. If a child was born, there was a bris. They had to bring a mohel, and still do, but you know, there were no marriages in those years, but there were funerals, there were bar mitzvahs, there were all the services, and somehow people came, people who you don’t see in the synagogue any more, but who are Jews, but they felt the need to keep a seat warm, to make sure there were ten people in the synagogue, to make sure that the services happened, to make sure that everything continued.

And there was very little inner strife. There was no inner fighting. It was quite harmonious and cooperative. I think that’s what made it survive. After the war, people started coming back with great pride in going to the synagogue. I mean, one of the biggest things for everybody when they came to visit—like Jean-Paul said, “I came to Salvador like I go to a swimming pool, just to put my foot in to see if it’s not very cold.” He came once for two days. And we came and the biggest source of pride was to go to the synagogue. The songs were the same. Max Sztarkmann sang it the way that Granat used to sing it. Everybody felt at home. We were proud. We were very proud of the fact that it had continued. We all supported it, whether it was financially, whatever. Everybody was involved in it because of that. And I think that was such a strong base that it wasn’t so difficult to build upon it and make it a functioning community. And there was no division—I mean, Guatemala had a much larger community, but there was so much inner strife between one faction and the other. Others were too small, and they just collapsed. But Salvador, in spite of the fact that it had the most difficult war of these countries, or the most difficult civil unrest, the community was the most united, the most harmonious, and the most functioning. And it’s an example of that, and has been. I am extremely proud of it, and I think many people are.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Monday, February 13, 2006

One Foot Here and One Foot There.

We learn more about the Davidson's move and how Jack stayed involved in the Jewish community.

*******
(How did the kids take this sudden departure?)

Not badly, I think. I think they probably each had their own adjustment difficulties. Jan suffered the most, but he also had been exposed to—held at gunpoint here in the car, things like that, with Lillian, but that’s a story that I don’t know enough detail to give you. So he’s the one that has the most recollection of dead bodies on the side of the street on the way to school, that sort of thing. I think Jessica being the youngest, of course, was the one that adapted fastest. She was in first grade, so her whole schooling was in New York. Jan already went to junior high school. There was a six-year difference. So he went into seventh grade when she went into first grade.

(And they were at the American school? So English was already—?)

No, they were in the British school. Their English was not what it became, but it was good enough that they had a basis. They spoke English, so they were able to get along.

(Did you continue speaking Spanish at home?)

I used to make an effort to speak English with them. Once we moved to New York, I made an effort to speak Spanish with them, to compensate so one wouldn’t be lost.

(You continue to have your business here in Salvador?)

Right.

(Were you concerned about the Jewish community when you left, what would happen?)

Well, yeah. I was always very much involved. Originally, as I said, Don Alfredo used to take us to the synagogue. I didn’t have any real affiliation with the country, because I had left Chile at age seven, I had lived in Salvador, I had lived in New York. So my only affiliation was my Judaism. The only place I belonged, the only thing I really was and ever have been, is a Jew. Everything else was really quite incidental. And of course, home base was the Jewish community of El Salvador. That’s the only place where I was completely at home, completely where I belonged, where I was part of it. When we came here to live, Lillian and I came with Jan and the other children were born in the ‘70s, then Jorge Salomon was very much into getting young people into the board of directors and involving them in the community. So I was on the board of directors quite young. I was probably not even 30 when I became—when I got on the board of the community. And then in 1974, Ernesto was elected president of Fedeco. So the base of Fedeco, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Central America and Panama, the base of Fedeco came to Salvador. And he drafted Jean-Paul, Joseph, Jorge Weil, and me into a little board. So I became even more involved, because Don Jorge got me involved in the community, and then Ernesto got me involved in the other thing, and Don Alfredo got me involved in the Judaism thing, so the three of them were my religious— my mentors in Jewish community affairs.

(What about your father? Was he at all—?)

He was. He was an observant Jew, not religious, but observant. We had Shabbat every Friday night. He was at one point or another on the board of the community as well, but not as involved as I later became, and also not as involved with the community, with the people, socially. My contacts, my friendships, with the Jewish community were not inherited from my father. They were not his friends who I became friends with, or the children of his friends that I became friends with. They were people that I—they were relationships that I made on my own, if you will. And some of them through Lillian, because Lillian was very close to Gerda (Guttfreund) and Perla (Meissner) and those people when she was a young girl. As a matter of fact, when we made our list of wedding gifts, they were on Lillian’s list, who are now people I adore and love dearly and consider my close friends,so it was not through my father. My father kept himself a little bit on the sidelines of things. He was not too comfortable being alone, and he never really quite got into it, although he was active in the community and certainly went every Friday night to the synagogue and all that sort of thing.

(Did you find that there was a big division between the French and the German sides?)

(pause) Yes, because that’s what everybody talked about. I don’t know if I could say I found it myself. Since my father was not that involved, at home it didn’t make a difference, and once I became a senior in high school, Roby came from the French side and the Schoenings and the Rosenbergs came from the German side, and I don’t think it made too much of difference. We knew the president was German, Eugenio Liebes, and the vice president was French, Jorge Salomon, and then it switched over. So there was a consciousness, but I don’t remember it being anything that affected me or my allegiance. Now we joke about it, but it was never really an issue.

(Do you think the two groups brought different things, different cultural—?)

Yes. I think first of all, the German—there was a different approach. The Germans, while they kept up the German and kept up their German lifestyle, the Germans were much more—they never integrated into the country, really, but they were also not going back, because there was nowhere to go back to. While the French always had this—France was always there. It was much more a part of their lives than of course Germany was a part of the German Jews’ life.

(Do you think the French assimilated more?)

No, if anything, the Germans not only assimilated, but I think, at least the women that I remember, the German women were happier here than the French women, simply because there was no illusion of going back to anything, while the French always seemed to have the illusion that France was there, you know

(Was there a lot of discussion amongst the German Jews of Germany, of the war?)

No. There were German Jews, like my mother, who was very German. We spoke German, we lived German. We ate German. Your grandparents were people who were very German in their lifestyle. There were people who were very rejecting of the German, like Gerda, who while she spoke German, wanted less and less to do with time. They were German Jews who lived outside, while the others were French Jews who were—I don’t think in temporary exile, but at least less likely to adjust to the situation.

(Do you have a theory as to why the community has never boomed, has sort of stayed at this very comfortably small population?)

In numbers?

(In numbers.)

I think that first of all, because it’s so small, there was a lot of intermarriage, a lot of mixed marriages. Already back in the ‘70s, when I represented the community in Fedeco meetings, I remember in the speeches we had more than 50% mixed marriages. I think it was growing, and then came the war, which just made the whole thing fall apart. Plus the fact that there was never a really strong assimilation to the country. None of the children became professionals. They all became businesspeople, either they went into the family business or they left. Most of the girls left. Most of the boys came back to the family business but studied outside until my class. We were the first ones that were Jews that graduated high school here. The others were sent to boarding school, the slightly older group. So there was not a great involvement in the country, which was the purpose of the parents, because they didn’t want them to marry locally.....

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Friday, February 10, 2006

L. Jack Davidson Part V: Back to NYC

Jack and Lillian were married in Vina del Mar, Chile in 1968. When Lillian was pregnant with their first child, they emigrated together to New York.

******
Our first son Jan was born in New York, in December 1968.

(And then—?)

Then we lived in New York. We were going to come down to live in Salvador, to move back to Salvador. We started living in New York in June ’68, by a year later we wanted to come back to live in Salvador. At that point, the Salvador-Honduras war broke out, in the summer of ’69. Lillian was a Honduran citizen. So coincidentally, the day I was going to—I worked for NBC as a sales analyst in New York. The day I was going to hand in my resignation, I got a telegram from somebody in Salvador, saying, “Hold off. It’s not convenient for Honduran citizens to come back to live in El Salvador at this point.” So we stayed until January 1970, until she got permission to come back to Salvador. At that point she was pregnant with Jaline, who was born in March 1970 in San Salvador. We moved in January, and Jaline was born in March.

(And then—?)

And then we lived here—we’re going to go into another part—anyway, Jason was born here in November 1971, and then Jessica was born here in October 1974. So our three children were born here, only Jan was born in New York in December 1968. And we lived here. Lillian opened the Country Day School. I worked with my father until the end of the ‘70s, when the war—when things started to get difficult here. My father, in December 1980, went for a trip to Germany because a friend of his had passed away, a very close friend. We had agreed that my father would come back, that I would stay in the office, ( we didn’t both leave the country at the same time), that I would stay until December 31st, I would leave, and he would be back to open the office again January 2nd. We had done that before, taken our vacations that way. One of us would take them until New Year’s and the other one would be back after New Year’s to open it. That’s what we had planned to do between 1979 and ’80. (pause) No, between ’80 and ’81, December 1980 to 1981. At that point, on December 18th, Jorge Weill got kidnapped. I stayed here. My father didn’t come back to Salvador. He stayed in Guatemala. I stayed here, marginally involved in that, until the end of January and then went back to Guatemala. And then my whole family got into an uproar about my coming back here, so I didn’t come back and went down to New York.

Lillian had left right after Jorge’s kidnapping with the children and we were going to spend Christmas—I was going to fly up for New Year’s and we were going to spend a vacation in January with the children in New York and then come back. So she went to New York. I stayed with my sister for a while and then got a residential hotel apartment, put the children in public school in New York. I flew up in January. I left here for a weekend and didn’t come back for 22 months. I went to New York, where Lillian was with the children, and then we ended up renting a house in Scarsdale, because that was where the better school system was, and that’s how we went back to New York, because that’s where we had lived before and that’s where we had more contacts.

(You had lived in Manhattan?)

We had lived in Manhattan, but living in Manhattan with four children was out of the question, because rental was too expensive, and then the private school would have been prohibitive. So we had to go somewhere where the public schools were good.

(So Jorge was released in January?)

Jorge was released in late January. I had left before that. He came to New York afterwards. Then we lived in New York until—I never came back here until the end of ’82, but then just came back for visits.

(And your father stayed in Guatemala?)

My father stayed in Guatemala and would come—at the beginning, none of us would come. The people who worked with us would come to Guatemala, and I would fly to Guatemala and we would have business meetings in Guatemala. Then after a while my father started coming every other week or something between Guatemala, and I would come a few times a year.

(Was it Jorge’s kidnapping that really shook everyone up, or was it Ernesto Liebes’s kidnapping?)

Ernesto Liebes was kidnapped, and when he died I was in Europe, but I was in Europe for Jorge’s wedding at that time. And I came back to live here. No, it was Jorge’s kidnapping, it was the whole situation. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I don’t know what would have happened if he would not have been kidnapped, because we had planned a vacation and we had planned to return. Maybe we would have, maybe we wouldn’t have, I can’t tell you that. But it was certainly influential. It certainly made a difference, let’s say.

(So you’re with the kids, it’s 1980?)

It was early, early ’81. We rented a furnished house in Scarsdale, only because Lillian inquired that that was where the best schools in the area were, so we rented a furnished house. Luckily, it was a crazy woman from New Zealand who just wanted to get out. It was the middle of winter. It was February 1981. And she even rented me her car, because I didn’t have a car. We didn’t have a television set. We didn’t have anything. So we moved in there with our suitcases and about a hundred dollars worth of Pottery Barn dishes, and that was it. Fortunately, Ernesto Freund told me, “If you rent something, don’t rent on a year basis. Rent it on a school-year basis.” Because we didn’t know what was happening in Salvador, how long we were staying, nobody knew. We were all sort of in flux. Ernesto said, “You’re never going to go back in the middle of the school year with children. So if you’re going to rent a house, rent it so that the end of the contract has to do with the school year.” That was the advice he gave me, and I followed it. So when I made the contract with this woman with the furnished house, I made it from February 4th to July 4th. Because that way it was the end of the school year and the kids would finish their school year and then we would see what we would do.

In March of that year Lillian found a house that we were then able to buy. We were able to buy that because we didn’t have a long-term commitment with the rental house. And then we bought a house which was in terrible condition, but we fixed it up a little bit. We’ve since fixed it up more. That’s how we moved into the house that we still live in now.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Thursday, February 09, 2006

L. Jack Davidson Part IV: Breaking Away

We move forward from New York City....

*****
(In 1963 you graduate from high school. And then?)

I went to the American University in Washington.

(What did you study there?)

International business.

(Did you get your—you stayed there for four years?)

I stayed there for four years, but I didn’t the degree. It was the time of the Vietnam war, and I didn’t want to be drafted, so I came back to Salvador. I was a draft-dodger. With pride. (laughs)

(So you came back to Salvador in 19—?)

’67.

(And then what did you start doing at that point?)

I started working with my father, but that was a little over half a year. My father got married in the summer of ’67. I came in May and my father got married in July.

(To a Salvadoran woman?)

No, to a German woman. That’s another long story. My father was a—in the business, we had the representation of Swissair. Every year they would give us $2,000 worth of free tickets. He and his partner would share those tickets. At that time it was about four trips round-trip to Europe. That was the year that my sister and I went, we went with Frankie Rosenberg to Europe. We spent six weeks there. Trying to return, it was that summer of ’66, there was a big airline strike. And of course we were on standby because we had free tickets, so we were stuck in Zurich. We spent ten days going to the airport every day to try to get out, because we didn’t have money—well, my father sent us money, but we weren’t prepared for those extra ten days. Every day that we went to the airport, we went to the Swissair counter and this young woman took care of us. She was very nice. She tried to get us on the planes, unsuccessfully, but every day we would go to see Miss Gossens and so on. The day we actually left, we actually got on the plane, was her day off. So we asked people to please say “thank you” to her that we finally got off and left her a note or something, I don’t remember.

Came back to Salvador, told my father the story, he was going to Europe later on in that year. In October of ’66, or September, he went to Europe. We asked him to buy a bottle of perfume, or we had left her one, but we asked him to stop by the Swissair counter and say hello to her and thank her for having taken care of us, whatever. He must have been very anxious to meet somebody, because he landed that morning in Switzerland and that afternoon went back to the airport to see her and to thank her, ended up going out to dinner with her and eventually marrying her.

(So he ended up marrying her?)

This was in ’66, and in ’67 they got married. At that point I was living here, in Salvador, and I lived with them for the first six months in the house. And in 1968, Lillian (wife) and I went to Chile and got married there, so I got married six months after my father did.

(So you knew Lillian from—?)

Lillian and I—she says we met in a concert where probably her grandparents were, because they used to go to all the concerts. She went with her grandparents and my father would take us to concerts, to the few concerts that happened here. And during—I have to backtrack again.

In 1959 was my bar mitzvah in New York. We were living in New York at the time. If you look at the chronology, we were in New York at the time. And my mother as a bar mitzvah gift gave me a trip to Europe. But my sister came to spend that summer in Salvador. That was a first time that we actually separated. So she was here alone and I went to Europe with my mother and her husband. During that summer, my sister got very bored being alone, she was eleven or twelve years old. Here in Salvador, she got very bored. So my father decided to put her in the American school for the summer, because she was doing nothing at home. These summers, school vacations at that time were June, July, and August, so they were a long time. And my sister was never very happy in New York. She hated Walden School, the school that I liked. She hated it. It was not her thing at all. So she end up staying. So that that point my sister lived with my father and I lived with my mother in New York, from ’59 to ’62.

In ’62 my sister was sent to a boarding school in Massachusetts, and that’s when I came down here, so we didn’t live together. But we were always very close. During that time that my sister was here alone, she went to the American school, and Lillian was her classmate. When I used to come down for vacations, I got together with a lot of Monica’s friend because, you know, we were a year and a half apart, a year and eight months. Her friends were girls that I—she went out with my friends, I went out with her friends, that sort of thing. And we were always very close. So at one party that Monica gave, I remember meeting Lillian there. She says we knew each other from before. But at that time, I think—I don’t know if she was thirteen and I was fourteen or she was twelve and I was thirteen—we started going out then.

(At twelve?)

Thirteen, something like that.

(You would write letters when you were traveling?)

Yeah, on and off, you know. And then when I came back here for the senior year in high school, at the end of that period I remember Monica came for the summer, after I had graduated high school, and said, “Remember Lillian Moncada [?]? She wants to go out with our group.” You know, for a girl it wasn’t so easy to adhere herself to a group if she wasn’t—

(Right.)

And I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time or whatever, so I started going out with her. So actually, that’s when we started quote “going steady.” That was in 1963, when we were sixteen and seventeen.

(Wow.)

And we of course didn’t go steady the whole time until we got married, but we were in contact the whole time. During all the four years of college we wrote letters, we would see each other on vacations and that sort of thing.

(Did you know already you wanted to marry her, or you weren’t even thinking of that at that point yet?)

Yeah, I probably would have married her right away......

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

L. Jack Davidson Part III: "It Was Her Home..."

Jack didn't stay in Salvador for too long....

*********
When we first moved to Salvador, the first two years, my father was a little bit apprehensive to make too many commitments, so he rented—at that time, this was the Golden Fifties of Salvador. There was a lot of money. People went away for six months at a time. So the first six months we went into a furnished house which happened to be right next to Alfredo and Paulita Widawer, the house that they owned in the same street—which was very important in my life, because Don Alfredo is the one who started taking me to synagogue at the time. After that house had been the house where the Geissmars had lived, and they had just moved out, so that house was there and free, so we moved into it for six months. Then we moved for six months to the Wiener’s house, because they went away for six months to Europe. Then we moved for six months across the street from the Widawers. And then I think we moved for six months into the Widawers’s house , because they went away for six months. And then my father finally rented a house of our own and furnished it and so on and so forth. So the first two years we lived in four separate—four different houses.

(Not easy.)

No. Especially since it was the first time in our lives when we were not with both parents. It was right after the divorce, so it wasn’t easy.

(Then in New York, did you live in Manhattan?)

Yes. I lived in Manhattan and went to the Walden School, a progressive school on the Upper West Side. Great school. Also a terrific influence on my life.

(Is it that method?)

No, it wasn’t a method school, it wasn’t a Waldorf school or anything like that, no. But it was a very, very liberal school. I mean, to me it was shocking at the time. I remember arriving in fifth grade, I think it was fifth grade, or it was sixth grade, and the first day you asked what the teacher’s name is, and they said, “Lea.” And I couldn’t get myself to say “Lea.” I raised my hand when I had a question and I said, “Miss Lea,” and the whole class cracked up. That made a big impact on me, because it was the kind of school where you called your teachers by the first name and all that. But I spent many very happy years there. I liked the school, and I think that a lot of my ability to think and analyze and have a little bit of criteria in my life comes from the liberal education of the Walden School—which no longer exists. As a matter of fact, from that school—do you know the story of those three guys that got killed in Mississippi because they were registering blacks to vote; Andy Goodman was one of them, and he was one grade above me at Walden, so I knew him, you know. That’s the kind of people that were there. That’s the kinds of issues that we dealt with, even as relatively young children, and that was, I think, quite enriching.

(Was your mother already remarried at that point?)

Yes. My mother got remarried almost immediately. I think she got divorced to remarry.

(So you had a stepfather?)

No, because he lived in Chile and that was never a very stable marriage. They had four children and they were married for many years, but it was never a very stable marriage. So no, I never had a stepfather.

(So you lived with your mother and your sister?)

I lived with my mother and my sister or with my father. I never lived with a stepmother or a stepfather. As a matter of fact, both of them remarried, my father thirteen years later, my mother immediately, and somehow I never, ever related to those people—I had good relationships with them—as stepparents. It was always my mother’s husband and my father’s wife. That was the relationship. That’s how it stayed, even though at different points I was close to one or the other, at different times in life I liked them and at other times I disliked them. But it was never a stepparent. It never infringed on the parental. It was always my mother’s husband and my father’s wife.

(Probably pretty revolutionary at that point in time, at least in Salvador.)

Well, it didn’t come up in Salvador, because my father—yeah, it was revolutionary for my father to be a divorced man. He had a difficult life, because society didn’t—there was no room for a divorced man in this small society. But he didn’t marry until I was an adult, I mean, while I lived with him and his wife for six months in the house after they got married , it was the six months before I got married. I was never a child in their home. I was—we shared the house, if you will. And my mother—while I visited their home, I was a guest. I never lived there. The home that I had with my mother, even after the divorce, was not my mother’s husband’s home.

It was her home.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

L.Jack Davidson Part II: Traveling North

Jack now tells us the history of his grandparents and parents and later shares the story behind his own journey north.

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Just before or just after Kristallnacht, I’m not sure, she (grandmother) and her three children immigrated through an underground channel to Cologne. They left on a Shabbat, because the Nazis weren’t looking on for Jews on the trains on Shabbat because they didn’t travel on Shabbat. They left on Shabbat. They went to Cologne, spent two days in some hut, a place outside in the countryside until the rain was right, the night was dark, etc., and then they crossed the border to Belgium—walking. They arrived one Sunday morning at her brother’s apartment in Brussels, where they stayed for a year, more or less, until another brother of hers, who had immigrated to Chile, sent them visas to Chile. This other brother, my great-uncle who lived in Chile, sent visas for my grandmother and her three children and his other brother and wife, who lived in Belgium. Unfortunately, they weren’t very insightful, and they decided they were well off in Belgium, that Hitler wasn’t coming to Belgium. They had a new apartment and a good job, etc., etc. They weren’t going go to Chile. But my grandmother and her children did go, and that’s how they got to Chile.

(And the others—?)

The others died in Auschwitz, or in one of the camps, I’m not sure if it was Auschwitz. So my parents met in Chile. That’s how I ended up that long-winded, long story of how I was born in Chile.

(Now, your grandmother, your maternal grandmother, what was her name again?)

Her name was Rosa Rosler Grubner.

(So your mother emigrated with two siblings?)

Two siblings. She emigrated with her mother and two siblings, Joachim and Günther. Very German names.

(Your father arrives. What does he do?)

From the best of what I’ve heard, he became a salesman in some men’s haberdashery or something like that. And my mother got there with her mother, she was still a teenager at the time. During that year that she was in Belgium, she studied how to make ties and belts and how to do manicures. There were, I think, institutions or something for German Jews or Jewish immigrants to learn some trade, I know Lillian’s grandfather learned to make jelly and ice cream and stuff like that, so that when they got to wherever they were going, they would at least be able to make a living of some sort. So once they were there and settled in, my mother, in the garage of the house that my grandmother rented, put up a small belt factory. When my mother and father were dating, they would go on the weekends and sell the belts. She did quite nicely. She made belts and sold them.

(They were married in—?)

They were married on May 2nd, 1943.

(In Santiago?)

In Santiago.

(And they lived—?)

They lived in Santiago until they were divorced in 1953, late ’53. At that point, my father left Chile, when they were divorced, and went to Guatemala, where his mother—at that point his father had died, in 1942—and his sister and brother were living.

(And you were born in ’46?)

I was born in ’46, so I was eight years old. I turned eight in Guatemala.

(So you must remember some part of Chile?)

Oh, a lot, a lot.

(Can you tell me about those early years in Chile, where you lived, what your life was like?)

Oh, I have very fond memories of my childhood in Chile. You know, I was the oldest child. I was the first child born in the Western Hemisphere in the family. And since I was the first one, I was really born in a German-speaking family, so I started speaking German fluently as a small child, because of course everybody in my family spoke German. The children that came later on spoke progressively less because they were other children and other people, but I had to communicate in German. We lived in a small house which still is there. I was my grandmother’s absolute favorite, the apple of her eye, so I went every Friday night to Shabbat dinner at her house, and my fondest memories are—to this day Shabbat dinner is the one thing that is the thread that has gone through my whole life, and that’s because of my memories of those years of childhood. After school on a Friday, I would get a little suitcase and the maid would take me over to my grandmother’s house when she was preparing for Shabbat dinner, because the whole family came over, and usually I stayed to sleep there on Saturday. That was very—we had a very nice childhood.

(This is your maternal grandmother?)

Maternal.

(What was your father doing at this point?)

He had a business of representations—representaciones—of some sort, I don’t remember exactly what. But I know we used to go to his office and use the typewriter. One of the big things of my childhood, I remember one year, for my six or seventh birthday, the gift was an old typewriter from his office so I could have one at home. That was a big thing—--that I enjoyed very much.

(And your sister was born—?)

My sister was born in December 1947, a year and eight months after I was.

(Very soon after.)

Her name is Monica.

(Monica, right. Davis?)

Now Davis.

(In 1953, you pack up.)

In 1953 we went to Guatemala for my grandmother’s 70th birthday. At that point my parents left us in Guatemala. They went to the US, and then my father came back alone. They separated—I mean, they were already in the process of separation before that. My father took us back to Chile, and my mother stayed in the US. And then my mother came and took us—no, then my father took us from Chile to Guatemala, where he went, and then the battle over the children started, to Chile, and to Guatemala, and then in April 1954, my father got an offer—actually, my uncle, Freddy Koenigsburger, got an offer to buy into a business in El Salvador from a Jewish man called Salvador Schaps [?], who had gotten the representation of Ford cars. He asked him if he wanted to invest, and he said he would be willing to invest and he thought his brother-in-law, who had just come from Chile, would have some money to invest as well, that he would also be interested in participating in the business. So my father got an offer, and that’s how we came back to Salvador. And I say it was “back” because his father had left in 1913, and then in 1954 he came back.

(With the two of you?)

With the two of us. We lived, you know, part-time with my father, part-time with my mother, back and forth, but eventually—

(She was still in the States?)

She went back to Chile. She remarried and went back to Chile, and then we lived between the States and Chile, took us back and forth until 1957, when my mother finally won out and took us to the States, and then we started living in New York.

(So you were in Salvador on and off?)

Three years. Well, it was almost permanently the first three years, from ’54 to ’57, and then I lived in New York from then on, but always came back at least twice a year for vacations, for Christmas and for summers, until 1962. In 1962 I guess I must have been very rebellious, because my mother couldn’t take me any more and sent me down here to Salvador to live with my father for my last year of high school. The only years of school I did here were third, fourth, and fifth grades, and my senior year of high school.

(At the American school?)

At the American school. I graduated in the American school in 1963, which is actually one of the biggest favors my mother did me, because of that, my bond to Salvador, to the community, and to my friends of my life was really firmed up, during that last year of high school. From childhood I had kept some friendships, but they were not as strong as they became in that last year of high school, and they’ve lasted me to this day.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Monday, February 06, 2006

L. Jack Davidson: From Hamburg to Santiago de Chile

This interview is filled with specific dates and stories, leading me to dedicate nearly a week to the transcript. I encourage you to stay posted for the daily installments of this family's remarkable journey from Germany to the Americas.

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My family’s connection with Latin American goes way back. I have to start back when, because otherwise it won’t make any sense. My grandfather, Leandro Davidson, was born in Lautenburg, Silesia, Schlesien. His cousin, Benjamin Bloom, brought him and his brothers to El Salvador. I don’t know the exact year, but it must be in the late 1800s, at some point, before 1900. They came, and eventually there were four brothers here. One went to the US and the other three remained here. My grandfather settled in Sonsonate. One brother settled in Santa Ana. And the other one settled in Ahuachapan.

(What were they doing?)

They were coffee growers and exporters.

(What were the names of the—?)

My grandfather was originally Leiser, and changed to Leandro. His brother was Bernardo and Adolfo, originally I think Abraham, and he changed it to Adolfo, which was one hell of a change! (chuckles) But anyway— (chuckles) This was before Hitler, so it wasn’t such a terrible name.

(Right. Exactly.)

And the other one was Isidor, and he left for the US at some point. I’m not sure when.

(And Benjamin Bloom was their cousin?)

Their cousin. Also from Lautenburg. In probably 1904 or 1905, my grandfather went back to Europe to find a bride and married Eva Loewenberg from Berlin. Now, I don’t know how they got together, but I have to assume that the German Jews who had connections with Latin America had contact with each other, because my grandmother’s father had made a business trip to South America in the early 1880s and spent two years on that business trip. Of course, at that time a business trip was with the whole family. And during that time they had two children, who were born in Valparaiso, Chile. My grandmother was one of those two children and was inscribed in the Cathedral of Valparaiso because there was no civil registry. She was Jewish, but she was inscribed in the Cathedral because there was no civil registry.

(Wow. You can still see her name there?)

I suppose. I haven’t looked, but it must be there, because afterwards my father found it and that’s how—I’ll get to that.

So he married Eva Loewenberg in 1905—they got married on September 4th, 1905, and he brought her here to Sonsonate, which must have been quite something, because you can imagine Sonsonate now, and at the time, the only story I heard about it was that the first flush toilet of Sonsonate was installed for my grandmother, and apparently it was the sensation of the town. Everybody would have to come by once to flush it, see how it worked. (laughs) Because that didn’t exist at the time. So Don Leandro brought his chelita over from Germany in 1905. They lived in Sonsonate and had three children there, and in 1913 went back to Germany—not too visionary, because in 1914 World War I started, but I don’t know if the Liebes’s or somebody lost some children. Some children died because of illness. So my grandmother got scared, and she didn’t want to bring up her children in El Salvador, especially not in Sonsonate, so she, being the strong one of the family got them to go back to Germany, and they settled in Hamburg. And of the four siblings, the only one that was born in Hamburg was my father, who was born in 1914. The other three were born in Sonsonate in 1907, ’09, and ’12.

(And their names?)

Percy was born in 1907, Rolf was born in 1909, and Dorita was born in 1912, in Sonsonate. So they went back to Germany, and as I say, there must again have been contact with the German Jews who had contact with Latin America, because in 1932 Dorita married Freddy Koenigsberger, who lived in Guatemala, and she moved to Guatemala. There must have been some contact between the German Jews with Latin America, because otherwise, you know, these things wouldn’t have happened.

When the Nazi era started, early in the ‘30s, in the middle ‘30s, my grandparents, who—at that point my grandfather was already an older man, ( born in 1867,) - and my grandmother emigrated to Guatemala, where their married daughter lived. My father went to England and became an apprentice at a store in Piccadilly Circus called Swan & Edgar. And his two brothers went to the US and then later joined the US army and fought in North Africa with the US army. There was a group of Jewish soldiers at the time. And my father was in England. When the war started, or when things got worse in England, they wanted to put all German citizens in a concentration camp in—I don’t know if it was northern England or southern Scotland, because they were “enemy aliens.” They were German citizens living in England, so they were enemy aliens. Of course, for my father, going to a camp with a bunch of Germans was not exactly where he would have felt comfortable, being that he was their enemy as well, because he was Jewish! So he inquired and found out that Chile had a law that any child of a Chilean-born parent has the right to claim Chilean citizenship. But they gave them a Chilean passport only for one trip to Chile, where they had to legalize their situation. So my father, since his mother had been born in Valparaiso because of this business trip in the 1880s, claimed Chilean nationality, got a Chilean passport, and got on the last ship that wasn’t mined in the British Channel and emigrated out of England to America. Went to Panama, got off the ship and—somewhere I have a story that one of the other co-passengers wrote where they mentioned my father—he went on to Guatemala to visit his parents. This was in 1938 or ’39. Visited them, stayed a few months, I suppose, and then continued his journey to Chile, where he had no reason to go except for the fact that he had a passport. But being a good German, he had an obligation to go, because he had taken the passport.

I never thought of asking him until about six months before he died. He had had a heart attack and he was in the hospital.
I said;

“Papi, why didn’t you just stay in Guatemala? I mean, you could have just thrown away the Chilean passport and somebody could have gotten you Guatemalan citizenship. That’s where you had your parents, your sister, and your family.”

He said, “Nobody asked me to. So I just got on my boat and went on.”

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Friday, February 03, 2006

Back to the Meat of it All

Dear Readers,
I appreciate your patience as I have been posting irregularly these days.

Mr. L. Jack Davidson (stay posted and see what the "L" stands for)will grace these pages next week. Very well-versed in his own story, he gives us an idea of the Davidson's connection to El Salvador, Chile, and Guatemala.

Hasta pronto.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Jamaica

My Impressions

“Where are the other English speakers?”

I turned around to see an interesting pair of women, one young and one older. Margaret Henriques Adam and Norma Haddad traveled fifteen hours from Kingston the night before and somehow made the early morning session of the conference.

Surrounded by Spanish-speakers, they were interested in finding other English speakers as soon as possible. I introduced myself.

After a brief lunchtime discussion, I discovered that both Margareth and Norma were born and raised in Jamaica, their parents were born in Jamaica, their grandparents were born in Jamaica.

With light skin and lilting Caribbean accents, they told me what they knew about their own family histories. Margaret’s maiden name, Henriques, is an important one. Sources trace the surname back to pre-Inquisition Andalusia and Portugal. Margareth is pretty confident her family lived in Southern Spain before arriving in Jamaica after their expulsion by the Catholic monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel.

Norma’s family moved to England when times in Jamaica got tough, leading some of her sisters to settle in Britain permanently. She along with a few others moved back to Jamaica. Shortly thereafter she met her husband. Mr. Haddad was a non-practicing Christian Arab and fifteen years her senior.

Both Margaret and Norma’s husbands were non-Jews who wholeheartedly supported the woman as they raised their children as Jews. Both came/come to synagogue when asked and even encourage their children when their wives are not around.

Margaret recalled coming home one evening and hearing her husband prepare their two sons for bed.

“Let’s say the Shm’a.”

Together they recited the short prayer that serves as a daily reminder to Jews of their monotheistic dedication. Margareth’s smile seemed to indicate her continued delight with her husband’s sweet, unsolicited encouragement.

Background on the Jamaican Community (paraphrased from the UJCL website)

When the English captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655 they found people who may have been marranos but most certainly were conversos. No Jews were allowed in the Spanish New World, but Jamaica, belonging to the Colón family turned a blind-eye when it came to the island’s population of Conversos. There is evidence that practicing and non-practicing Jews were involved in sugar cane production dating back as far as 1512.

From as early as 1655 British colonizers did nothing to expel or limit the Jews from visiting and settling on the island. As a result the Jewish population flourished and a small synagogue was established in the infamous town of Port Royal before the end of the 17th century. After the devastating earthquake of 1692 the Jews purchased a plot in the old Spanish capital and the then Jamaican capital of Spanish Town to establish a new house of worship. The synagogue Neveh Shalom was contructed by the beginning of the 18th century.

The Spanish Town community expanded when congregation Kahal Kadosh Mikveh Israel built their own synagogue in 1796. These congregations flourished for over 100 years until the capital of the island was moved to Kingston in 1872. Congregations of Sephardim and Ashkenazim prospered in Kingston beginning in from 1750.

The congregations finally came together finally in 1921 as the United Congregation of Israelites. Today the congregation still maintains the Synagogue, one of the few in the world with sand on its floor, designed and built in the traditional Sephardic style by the Jamaican Jew, Rudolph Daniel Cohen Henriques and his brothers. The congregation sponsored and is still responsible for the Hillel Academy, a Kingston private preparatory and secondary school open to students of all religions.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Aruba

A Brief Introduction to the Community (from the UJCL website)

In 1754, under special permission from the Dutch royalty, Moses Solomon Levie Maduro, a prominent member of a Sephardic (Portuguese) Jewish family in Curaçao, established himself in Aruba, with his wife and six children. The Maduros stayed on the island until 1816.

Levie Maduro was one of the first Europeans ever to arrive to the Dutch West Indies. He was working for the Dutch West Indies Company, and founded a branch in Aruba. In 1994, Maduro and Sons, the main shipping company in Aruba, proudly celebrated 250 years of Jewish settlement by their ancestors.

Other Jewish families established themselves on the island after the Maduros, (23 persons registered in 1867), but, even though their numbers increased, they were never able to support a community organization like their fellow Jews in Curaçao. Hence, they did not follow a traditional Jewish lifestyle.

Today, a large group of local residents, descendants of the original Portuguese Jews, proudly acknowledge their Jewish roots, and share their Jewish heritage with fellow Jews in Curaçao. Amongst them we can name the families Maduro, Curiel, Robles, Nassy, Lopez, Henriquez, and others.

A small cemetery in town, with tombstone names that times has almost erased, is the only physical evidence of the Jewish presence in Aruba in the past centuries.

Historical 18th and 19th centuries documentation is not available on Aruba, since the governmental old archives were stored in Curaçao, and sent to Amsterdam thereafter.

My Impressions

The small island of Aruba is a short boat ride from the coast of Venezuela. A small English-speaking community, Aruba’s Jews are international to say the very least. I spent a significant amount of time with two ladies who took the somewhat arduous journey from Aruba to Miami, Miami to Mexico City, Mexico City to Guadalajara.

Ismene was born and raised in post WWII Germany. She decided to leave Europe over ten years ago and took an extended vacation around the Caribbean Islands to decide which piece of paradise should be her next home. Her second choice was Tobago (of Trinidad and Tobago) but the reception towards foreigners was less than friendly. She and her boyfriend liked the winds, flora, fauna, and people of Aruba. It was decided.

Although her boyfriend didn’t last, Ismene has built a small bar/restaurant in a tourist-friendly section of the island. The Villa is also a favorite of locals but all of the Arubans agreed that the island is suffering from the Natalee Holloway tragedy.

Barbara was outgoing and friendly from the first night, explaining that she would miss our inaugural dinner due to her insanely long trip. A retired teacher from New Jersey, Barbara lives in Aruba half of the year. I asked her how she decided on Aruba.

“When I visited Aruba, I felt, for the first time in years, absolutely clear.”

I was awed by this spiritual proclamation but later learned she was referring to her sinusitis. A hip and alive woman, Barbara was a charmer.

As time progressed, I learned that both women loved the winds and water of the island, its diverse population and open-minded population. Their lives were different and interesting—surrounded by friends and nature.

Both Barbara and Ismene explained the loving nature of their synagogue community, one that swells during the high season. The small sanctuary usually holds the average Shabbat congregation but some important holidays bring so many extra individuals that additional chairs are set-up outside synagogue walls on the green surrounding the building. The Rabbi in Aruba is a young and outgoing Argentine and it was obvious that these congregants enjoyed him immensely.

Both Ismene and Barbara invited me to Aruba to see the community for myself. Maybe I’ll blog from their windy outdoor porches sometime soon…..