An Introduction to Tropicalized Judaism

Below, Lea Freund interviews "Quique" Guttfreund about his first years in El Salvador.

The interview was conducted in Miami on March 2, 1981.
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(What kind of a Jewish community did you find there? How many people lived there? How many families?)

I forgot to tell you that first of all, it looks like I wouldn't have had much interest in Jewish life at that point, but when I left Breslau, and I went to Guben, with the rise of Hitler, all of a sudden, I became aware (of my Jewish ancestry). I was already nineteen. I finished my apprenticeship in 1932. In Guben, life was either Communist or Nazi. It was heavily Communist. It had many factories. In our factory there were many Communists, and only later the Social Democrats tried to have a fighting force. There I was becoming aware that I was Jewish. I had to do something. I don't remember how, but I came to know a dentist, a very nice gentleman, Dr. Smoira, who later lived in Israel.

He had a little group to introduce youth into Zionist lore and history. I had to ask everything. I didn't know anything. When I arrived in Salvador, I came into perhaps the best possible situation to learn, because my cousin Ernest Liebes, lived in Hamburg and had been exposed to a much different Jewish life. Since we lived in Leobschuetz and that was the the biggest distance you could travel in Germany (between Hamburg and Leobschuetz), this kept us from being very close. But we became very good friends.

He had a house. Mr. Reich, Mr. Liebes, who was younger than I, Carlos Bernhard, and Mr. Meenen, who was not Jewish, could accomodate me because the man who lived there before, Mr. Lassally, had married the day before. The house was filled with flowers. They told me everybody had sent flowers and the whole presentation was just for me. It was the first of many practical jokes they played on me. But I then came unto this house which was, what they call in Germany a "Junggesellenhaus," a bachelor's house. We had a cook and everybody made up his own room.

It had belonged to a President who was replaced two years before. Prior to that, in 1932, there was the big revolution that everybody now hears about, when so many peasants were killed. I heard about 6,000 were killed and I believed was a reliable figure. But with the inflation and the passing of years it has grown now to 30,000 people who died in that revolution. I don't know which figure is correct.

(Were there any married couples?)

No, we are now talking about unmarried men. I was about twenty-two. At the time there was the Freund family. I think they were the ones that maintained whatever was left of traditions because they invited for Friday evenings. They also invited for Pesach. I remember my first Pesach was with the Widawer family. I would say that the main support of traditions was Mr. Alfred Widawer. He was a gentleman who had worked with the Jewish firm, Mugdan. Mugdan was one of the firms that brought many Jewish men out of Europe...same as Goldtree. It was interesting to see how little by little the Jewish core was built up.

I remember very well that first Pesach. It must have been 1934. We had some Jewish books. I had already bought the history by Kastein on the history of the Jews from a Zionist angle. But we also had the greats and we prepared lectures for each other. I still have the letters I saved from when I was forced to leave Salvador. I found one in which Carlos Bernhard was asking me what he would have to talk about. Essentially, we had to read extensively. There was some research and then the giving of lectures...usually on Friday evenings.

Transcript prepared by the University of Florida Oral History Program. Interview conducted by Lea Freund.