Una breve historia: KEHILATON

In this week's community newsletter, the KEHILATON, I featured a brief history of the community written by former Rabbi in El Salvador, don Alexandre Granat. As are all KEHILATON entries, this entry is written in Spanish. Should individuals want to read this entry in English, please let me know and I will go ahead and translate.

Happy Weekend.
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YO TAMBIEN CUENTO
Por Jessica P. Alpert

Miembros que viven 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 estará 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 está 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 entender más sobre la vida judía salvadoreña.

No soy la primera persona que ha estudiado este tema. Lea Freund, Rabino Alexandre Granat, Ernesto Reich, Lilian Moncada, Helene Salomón, Gabriela Garay y más hayan escrito historias sobre y grabado entrevistas con nuestros antepasados. Esta semana les doy un vistazo a una de estas historias sobre los primeros años de la Comunidad Israelita. Preparada por Don Alexandre Granat, el Rabino de esta comunidad desde el año 1958 hasta los finales del los años setenta. De descendencia húngaro, Rabino Granat vino con su esposa Marianne y aquí tuvieron dos hijas: Annette y Margarita. La familia disfrutó de la presencia y apoyo de sus primos, Ildiko y Pablo Tesak.

La Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador
Por Alexandre Granat
San Salvador, El Salvador 1973

En la mayor parte de los países de América Latina, la corriente migratoria judía se remonta de mucho tiempo atrás. No ha sido este el caso con relación a El Salvador donde parece ser, según estudios de investigación realizados, recién los finales del siglo pasado los que vieron llegar a los primeros inmigrantes.

Documentos, datos, y noticias de esta investigación permiten hacer- aunque pudiera ser incompleta- una breve reseña sobre la vida comunitaria judía en El Salvador, sus logros y principales propulsores a través de estos años, durante los cuales puede afirmarse, ha sido de positivas realizaciones a pesar de las difíciles circunstancias que han incidido sobre la vida judía en todo el universo.

Por todo ello, bien vale esta evaluación de sucesos cronológicos de lo que ha sido y es la Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador, en su ubicación social en esta hospitalaria tierra salvadoreña y en la forma en que la religión y las tradiciones judías fueron, con el correr de los años, enraizándose en la vida de la comunidad.

Inmigración
Posiblemente el primer inmigrante judío que se radico en El Salvador fue el señor Bernardo Haas en el año 1868, quien hizo venir después a sus sobrinos Lázaro y Julián Dreyfus y otros familiares, todos primos del ilustre Capitán Dreyfus de Francia, cuya tragedia conmovió en su época al mundo.

En 1886, vine a esta tierra el señor León Liebes, padre del Cónsul General de Israel [en aquel entonces, 1973] don Ernesto Liebes, siendo un hombre con profunda fe religiosa que decididamente mantuvo nuestras tradiciones. Como hombre de negocios fue prominente y destacado, habiendo fundado en 1888 la Casa Goldtree, empresa de mucho prestigio desde antes de la primera guerra mundial cuando era considerada de las mas importantes del país. Un sobrino, el señor Eugenio Liebes, aumento el dinamismo de esta empresa con lo comercia y en lo comunitario presto grandes servicios como Presidente de la Junta Directiva, cargo en el estuvo sin interrupción, por su noble dedicación a las causas tradicionales, desde 1946 hasta la fecha de su muy sentido fallecimiento en 1969.

A fines del signo XIX fue fundada la casa Benny y Armando Bloch, con los asociados José Olkovich y Julio Oppenheimer. Esta firma fue considerada las primeras en el ramo de importaciones y exportaciones, habiendo concluido sus actividades en el año 1921. En el año 1888, llego al país el señor Salvador Mugdan y luego le siguieron sus hermanos Félix y Arturo, todos destinados a la casa Bloom Altschul. Con el señor Mugdan, un judío religioso de mucha convicción, se iniciaron en El Salvador los primeros servicios religiosos gracias a su dinámica.

Entre nuestros hermanos correligionarios mas destacados podemos mencionar también a don Herbert de Sola, de origen sefardita, poseedor de un talento empresarial y un gran conocimiento cultural e intelectual. Con estas virtudes supo conquistar una ubicación prominente en la vida económica y social del país, donde fue reconocido como un hombre precursor de las ideas desenvolvimiento industrial conveniente y necesario para el país.

En los años de 1908-1911, llegaron al país los hermanos Arturo y León Schwartz para la Casa Paris-Volcán, anteriormente Bernheim y Cia, cuyos asociados eran es ese momento los señores Carlos y José Bernheim, y Miguel Kahn. En 1921, los hermanos Schwartz y el señor Carlos Dreyfus fundan la Casa Schwartz Hermanos y Cia. Luego Arturo se separa de sus hermanos para fundar con su hijo Roberto, la casa conocida como “Rivera.”

La próxima semana, hablaremos de la llegada de los señores Baum, Bloch, Bloom, Falkenstein, Freund, Levin, Lewinsky, Lewy, Loewenstein, Lowy, Rosenblum, Salomón, Simón, Weill, y Widawer.

Revolutions and Final Exams

Roberto Freund re-caps some of the more fantastical adventures of his youth.

All questions in parentheses are mine.
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My grandfather lived well, doing lots of wonderful things. He was a real—a man who could do everything, what do they call that? A Renaissance man. He brought to El Salvador the know-how of beekeeping for honey. It wasn’t done in El Salvador. He had huge bee things in a big yard. He was a marvelous home farmer, growing any vegetable you ever wanted to see. He introduced the planting of asparagus in El Salvador, did things of that sort, etc.

(You attend García Flamenco until high school. What happens after high school?)

Sent to the States, to college.

(Did you have a choice, or did you just—how did you figure out where you wanted to go?)

In those days, not like today, the pupil didn’t have the choice of going to see colleges all over the place, etc. etc. Nothing. I mean, we were grateful to be able to be sent out for a better education. The war had not officially ended yet, and if—my brother and I finished school at the same time. We didn’t start at the same time, but he waited for me for a couple of years. To go to the States under the circumstances, we risked the possibility of being drafted, which my parents would like to avoid. So the plan was to go to Canada, to McGill University. We— (pause) afterwards remind me to tell you something about graduation. We were part of a nationwide strike to topple the government, and it did.

(In El Salvador?)

In El Salvador, yes. I’ll get back to that later. So we went to Canada without yet having been accepted. It looked quite feasible when we got there, but it took forever for them to act. To make a long story short, (chuckles) we ended up not being accepted. Why? Their quota for Jews was filled. In McGill University.

(So what next?)

What next? Back to New York, where the doctor, my uncle the doctor, was, and started to bombard as many of the colleges that could possibly be available for us. My brother wanted to become a farmer. He wanted to study agriculture. I would have loved to become an architect. But because my father was in the building supply business, it would have been bad for my father’s business to have an architect in the family. I decided to study business administration, so it didn’t make much difference where I went. Among the places we applied to at this second stage was the University of Wisconsin, which was A-Number One in agriculture. So that’s how we ended up in Madison, Wisconsin.

(laughs) I’ll quickly tell you about what happened at the time we would have graduated in Salvador, in 1944.

(Yes, please.)

At the end of 1944, we should have graduated. I’ll tell you afterwards about what that meant in El Salvador, to take final exams. The well-known—in El Salvador well-known dictator Maximiliano Martínez had been in power for thirteen years. He really had been very good for the country, but he stayed on too long, and even his friends tried to tell him, “Enough is enough.” And he wouldn’t, because nobody but him could run the country. So a group of officers and private people organized a revolution to kick him out. The revolution failed. He was a very strict person. The people, the higher strata of people who organized this were the children of some of his friends. He had them all killed.

(The friends, too?)

The ones who took part, the younger generation. The country was—

(They were executed in public?)

No, but—

(They were executed.)

Yes.

(What year was this?)

’44. So the government continued, and there was really total dissatisfaction among the people for what he did, for having killed well-known, wonderful people. Nothing seemed to work. It was difficult. The revolution had failed, although it had been very well organized. But the guys were marvelous strategists. It started by university students who had the idea of starting a nation-wide strike. The university students went on strike, and soon after, all the school children went on strike. That was so new for somebody like a dictator. It’s like Gandhi, not with arms, but with peaceful means. The strike lasted a long time, relatively.

(Like around a few months?)

Probably about a month. He continued to be in power, and the country was at a standstill. One boy, a friend of ours, the son of a American, as a matter of fact, but with a Salvadoran mother, was moving around with a policemen on the street, and the police ended up—he got so angry he shot him, dead. When that happened, the American Ambassador went to General Martínez and told him to get out. And that did it. I mean, the country was at a standstill. OK.

All that happened during the time when our final exams were supposed to have taken place, and final exams not only for your last year, but—at the end of every year in high school, final exams were not taken in school. You had to go to the Instituto Nacional, which was the federal high school, so to speak, which was governed by (pause) a French (pause) teacher, but I mean, quite more than a teacher.

(A principal?)

A principal, yeah. And it was done under military supervision.

(This was every year, or just this year?)

Every year. It was the most horrible thing.

(So no cheating allowed?)

Oh, God!

(How frightening!)

Yeah. So we had to wait with this. We had already prepared for the final exams. You have to prepare the five years of high school. So we had all been prepared for it, and then it got delayed for about six months. So it finally took place in the late spring of 1945. Soon after we had the exams, my mother took us, took Martita, too, on a trip to Canada, at first to the States, naturally. (pause) We flew to—let’s see, how did one fly in those days, in 1945? You had to fly to Guatemala. Then we took a night flight to New Orleans. I still remember that, a Boeing Stratocruiser. Those things were used for long flights. You could even have a berth in it, like in a train. The flight went from Guatemala to Merida, Mexico. And then from Merida to New Orleans.

We spent a few days in New Orleans, getting to know the place. We happened to take a streetcar, and something went wrong. People were trying to tell us something, but we didn’t understand what the hell they wanted: we sat in the black section of the train. I had never seen a Negro in my life before. In Salvador there was one Negro, Mr. Banderas. There were no Negros.

From New Orleans we went to New York by train, still very difficult to travel by train because the war was still on. It was full of soldiers going and coming.

In New York we stayed in somebody’s home, a friend of my uncle, some ex-German people. We stayed quite a bit of time in New York before we continued to Montreal. While in New York we had strict orders to go say hello to Tante Fanny Bloom, who you may recall from my notes, she and her husband David Mugdan had—he had gone—after they were married, they moved to San Francisco. She was from San Francisco. David was invited to join the bank of the father-in-law, and David was sent on a fact-finding mission to Guatemala, because Guatemala was looking for a government loan. He accomplished his mission. In those days, the people who worked to do that, for international loans, were given a finder’s fee on the table. No monkey business.

The finder’s fee was so large that David and Fanny decided to go back to Europe. They went to Hamburg, where he was—well, she went to school there, and he was living there, I guess. Hamburg was a wonderful city to live in. They rented a suite in the best hotel in Hamburg, which was the Vier Jahreszeiten, the Four Seasons Hotel. They lived happy there forever after, had no children, just had fun, without the children. They lived there until 1934, when he died, and then she, Fanny, decided to return to the States, but not to go back to San Francisco, where she was from. I presume her parents had long died. She decided to move to New York, where they went to the Plaza Hotel, and she rented a suite where she lived for the rest of her life. We met her in 1945. I think she lived till 1948 or something like that. She had a younger niece of his as a companion. And it was David Mugdan, after having been in Guatemala, who wrote home to oodles of nephews and nieces, nieces and nephews, about what wonderful opportunities there are in places like Guatemala. And that is how my part of the family started going, not to Guatemala, but they ended up by mistake in El Salvador.

(By mistake?)

By mistake. By acts of God, let’s call it. The ship that they were on to go to Guatemala didn’t continue because there had been a revolution in Guatemala, or there was a (pause) health problem, you know, they frequently had outbreaks of who knows what, bubonic plague or who knows. So the ship only went to El Salvador. That’s how the first Mugdan landed in El Salvador.

(And that was Saul?)

No, Félix Mugdan, who had had enough of Salvador and wanted to return home. He asked for his brother to come out, and his brother was Saul. And Saul asked my father to come. And that is how the Freunds landed in Central America.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

On the mass exile.

Today, Roberto Freund explains how his father and other relatives saved family members from Hitler's wrath. Various uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins were transported from Germany to Central America; some took it well while others did not.

Also interesting in today's excerpt is the fact that Roberto's grandfather was saved from a German work camp by an individual in the Salvadoran diplomatic corps.

Read on....
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(How did that make you feel, to be called a foreigner?)

Fine. I mean, there was no—

(It didn’t bother you?)

No, it was not— (chuckles) In El Salvador, the Jewish people didn’t suffer like other groups that took the brunt of people’s enmity. Those are the very large Lebanese population, Christian Lebanese.

(Do you know about when they arrived?)

About the same time as the Jewish people, in then late 1800s and then some.

(And they still got the brunt of a lot of—?)

They could not join a club. Although in some instances Jewish people also, in some cases. There was a tennis club, and the Jews were not admitted there.

(Do you remember what that club was called?)

Salvador Tennis Club.

(Salvador Tennis Club. And if a Jew applied, what would happen? They just wouldn’t be accepted?)

Right.

(And the Lebanese were not accepted either?)

They weren’t accepted either!

(So what happened because of that? Was a new club formed?)

Eventually the Jewish people formed a wonderful club which would accept anybody.

(Did the Lebanese join, or no? They didn’t join. Did they establish their own club?)

No. I don’t think so.

(But this club that the Jews formed—)

That was the Círculo Deportivo Internacional.

(Were there also non-Jewish families?)

Yes.

(So it was open to anybody?)

It was open, yes. But it was started by Jewish people because they were not accepted in some of the other clubs.

(Was your father very instrumental in that?)

Actually, my uncle, my mother’s brother, was a great tennis player, and he was instrumental in participating in that.

(And his name?)

William, Wilhelm, in Spanish Guillermo—

(Cohn?)

As a matter of fact, he had changed his name to Korn, with a K! Guillermo Korn.

(So just to backtrack a little bit, your parents lived in Salvador. Did they bring over their families? Because you mentioned your uncle.)

My uncle was two or three years younger than my mother. Those were the only two children of the Cohns. (pause) He came in—way, way back already. Let’s see. I was born in ’27, and he was not there yet, so my uncle must have come there in ’28 or ’29, something like that. And all the rest of the family in Germany thought that there was no place in the world like Germany. In 1935, when my parents took us on a vacation to Germany, my family went to see their relatives, my mother’s father—my mother’s mother had died in 1928. She had cancer. Before, when she was so ill, my parents did go to Germany, in 1928, to visit her. I was eight months old, so I don’t remember too much about it. (laughs)

But the next time I was eight years old, and I remember everything. In 1935, when my parents went to Germany with us, they were shocked to see what was going on with Hitler already. I was only eight years old, and I was scared. There was such an authoritarian society already.

I remember we went to Berlin to see one of my father’s brothers. We walked to one of the big buildings, government buildings. I was eight years old and I was happy as a lark, and I was whistling, for fun. A uniformed German SOB made me stop, because “You can’t make noise in the government building!” Whatever it was. My parents tried to convince everyone in my family to start making plans to get away. This was impossible. Nobody did anything. By 1938, my father’s brother, who lived in Berlin, they moved and went to Guatemala, because one of my father’s brother’s had moved to Guatemala in (pause) probably about, let’s see, probably about the time I was born. My uncle Herbert Freund was the father of Trixie Wolf. And Bina, you know Bina? So in 1939, my uncle George came out and went to Guatemala, where both my uncle and my father and our relative—the Engels, in Guatemala a very well-known Jewish family. They were also related to the Mugdans, because the first Mrs. Engel was a Mugdan. That’s a whole—I have a whole chapter on the Engels. The Engels became very wealthy, and he was quite charitable at the same time. Between my uncle, the Engels and my father, they set up Uncle George in a leather tanning factory in Quezaltenango. Have you been in Quezaltenango? It is the second-largest city in Guatemala.

So up to ’38, nobody had decided to move. But then things came about so quickly in Germany, with the Kristallnacht and everything. My father’s oldest brother was a doctor in Großstelitz. He moved also about 1938. And also my father’s only sister, Frida Kempe, they were living in Breslau, and they also moved out and brought my grandmother with them, my father’s mother. They came to El Salvador and they couldn’t go any other place. My grandmother was moved to Guatemala and moved in with my uncle Herbert in Guatemala, and she lived there until the end of her days, in Guatemala City. The Kempes, my father’s sister, had two boys. The older had been taken out of Germany long before—not long, but a couple of years before everybody else and was brought to Salvador. My father saw that he became employed at the business.

By the way, backtracking a little bit, my father, within the first five years or something like that after having come to El Salvador, was made a partner of Saul Mugdan. So that’s why it became Casa Mugdan, Freund & Cie. OK. Then the saddest case was my mother’s father. He felt, I guess, the safest of all, because they lived in a little country that was in a different planet, (laughs) that little town of Großstein. He had the largest business in town, a general store, and he was—his father already was a very important person in town. He had—in other words, my great-grandfather had that business already in Großstein.

My parents in 1935 begged them particularly to get the hell out of there. No way. In nineteen—at the end of 1938 or something like that, he was abducted from home by the Gestapo or whoever, the SS people, and he was sent to a concentration camp. It was only through the help of the Salvadoran diplomatic corps that he was released from the concentration camp and sent back home. He then packed up, finally, a little late, and came to El Salvador.

(So he survived?)

He survived. His wife, my grandmother, had died in 1928. Four or five years later, he remarried a very nice lady. She was the one who suffered the most from his abduction. She had to survive his being taken away and follow some basic instructions they had, like throwing all their jewelry down the septic tank. “Don’t give it to the Germans. Throw it away.” They were able to take many things with them at the time, including his Mercedes Benz car. My grandfather had a little Mercedes Benz, marvelous! And that they brought. Much of his furniture from home came to Salvador.

All that stuff was packed in crates with big lifts like they do containers now. They arrived long before their stuff, which took months to get to El Salvador. It finally arrived at port, and it had to go through customs. So my uncle took my grandfather to the port of La Libertad to receive the stuff. I was very close to my uncle. I always tagged along with him. So I went along for this trip, too. By the time we came home in the evening, something was very strange at the house. To make a long story short, his wife had poisoned herself. She couldn’t take it. So that was quite an end.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Roberto Freund: El Colegio Garcia Flamenco and Growing up in Mejicanos

In this excerpt, Roberto tells us about his schooldays and the Jewish community of the 1930s.
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Four years after I was born, in 1931, my sister Martita was born.

(Your parents were—at this point we’re in the 1920s, when they move to this new house.)

Yes, before I was born.

(Before you were born.)

Yeah. As a matter of—because I was born, literally, in the new house.

(You were born in the new house.)

Yeah. In those days they didn’t go to a hospital.

(Right. And you then—what happened with the business? Did your father work alone? Did he have a partner?)

No. The reason for him to have gone from Germany to El Salvador was because a cousin of his was already in business there. He had, let’s see, 1913—the cousin had come from a different town of Germany than my father, but the same general area, Upper Silesia.

(What was the name of this cousin?)

Saul Mugdan. (pause) And in the notes I gave you some time ago, the ones I sent via email, you must have spent hours loading that down! There are many that had to do with the Mugdans, who were a very prominent family Posen. That now is called Poznan, in Poland.

(My grandmother was born in Posen. So I’m a little familiar with it.)

Who?

(Wilma.)

Wilma was born in Posen! I didn’t realize that. OK. That was the real metropolis, a very important metropolis.

(Yes, and a cultural center as well. So Saul Mugdan is your father’s boss or partner?)

First of all he was a cousin. Not a first cousin, but probably—if you want to, afterwards we can get the family tree out and we can look at it exactly. He was a cousin once-once removed. And the reason Saul Mugdan came to El Salvador was because a brother of his had come to El Salvador in 1890-something. That has to do with the famous trip—actually, the famous—the marriage of one of the relatives by the name of David Mugdan, who married an American girl by the name of Fanny Bloom. That in itself is a longer story—(humorously) we can go into it afterwards if you want to.

(I’ll make a note here. But moving on with your father, what type of business did he have at this point?)

The business he entered, not as a partner, at first, was importing items that were not manufactured in El Salvador. Textiles. The basic things. Textiles (pause)—anything having to do with construction, from nails—except lumber. But nails, and tools, hammers and everything, that was all imported.

(From the US?)

No, mostly from Europe. Cement.

(Cement?)

Yes.

(So in 1931, your sister Martita is born, and a few years later, I assume, you’ll start going to school. What did your parents want to do school-wise? Where did they think to send you and your brother?)

Well, for grade school we went to (chuckles) a school that was THE school for the people who wanted a better education, who could afford a better education for their children. So anyone who was anyone in San Salvador who had children grade-school-age, they sent them to—what is the name? Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

(So a Catholic school?)

No. It was a lay school which was owned and operated by two sisters with the last name of Padilla. Doña Isabel, who was the chief, and the sister, Niña, Niña—Fina! Josefina. The school was housed in a large rental home in the Colonia Dueñas. You have heard about the Dueñas people? OK. Those same people had their chateaux right next to the Campo de Marte, a big park which incorporated everything from horseracing to tennis courts. It had a stand, so for any special occasions they used the Campo de Marte, for observing marches and things. It became very popular for younger people to go and walk around there and for the boys to see the girls and the girls to see the boys. The Campo de Marte. That school was right next to it. And there I was from kindergarten through fourth grade.

(And then where did you go?)

To a lay school called García Flamenco, Colegio García Flamenco. García Flamenco was a—what—I don’t what he was, a philosopher, a thinker. He must have been quite a free thinker, because the school, which was owned by three teachers, Don ___ ___mas, Don Francisco—what’s his name? Francisco—I’ll think of it. And Don Salvador Cañas. Anyway. (chuckles) That went from kindergarten through high school—I was there from fourth grade to high school.

(And who were your classmates?)

OK. (laughs)

(Was it elite or—?)

(laughs) It’s interesting. Elite, not necessarily, because the elite would probably have sent their children to one of the Catholic schools, of which there were many. García Flamenco was an exception of being a very good school and it was lay, absolutely lay school. (chuckles) Who came out of the—anyone who became somebody notorious for good (laughs), and also some of the people of the worst cases of notoriety for bad. It produced all sorts of people. (chuckles)

(Can you give me some examples of who your classmates were?)

Yes. The children of the owner of La Prensa Gráfica, the newspaper, all good. The children of the owner of the best pharmacy in town also all good. Very large family, they had oodles of children. (pause) People— (pause) Let me see. Foreigners who came to Salvador, not necessarily Jewish, sent their children there. Like who? (pause) The person who—I’ll think of it. Who— (pause) an American who married a Salvadoran, which was very common— (pause) I hope to come back later.

(It’s OK.)

An American who was a tremendous entrepreneur who made fortunes and lost fortunes over which—in his life he had developed gold mines and became very, very wealthy. And then he lost it all I think putting money into—

—an airline, what later became TACA. He started that. OK.

(Were there any Jews in this school besides the Freunds?)

Yes, yes. Because the Jews didn’t want to send their children to the Catholic school, and this was the best school that was lay.

(Who were the other Jews in your school?)

Not many, not many. Because (pause)— Well, let me first tell you that my parents did not only marry to a Jewish person, but started a Jewish household, first ones. There were no Jewish children (pause) because the men, the Jewish men, most of the foreigners who came to El Salvador, especially the Jewish people, did not come there with an intention of staying there. They came with the intention of making money and then go back home. So as a result, there were no Jewish children. We were the first ones. My parents were the first Jewish home, so much so that since there was no synagogue, my parents’ home, our home, was the unofficial synagogue for the town. All the Jewish holidays took place in our home.


(And who were some of the families that were there at the same time, or came later?)

(pause) The Frankels, the Liebes, but not—they came later, although they were there long before that. The Liebes, Eugenio Liebes, had two daughters. One of them is Margo, and Chita Lima, married to Chico Lima. They were—they imported a governess, Mrs. Ilse whatever her maiden name was, who married Max Levine. But the Liebes’ daughters didn’t stay long in Salvador. I didn’t remember them from when I was young. They were older than I was, but they were sent to Germany, I would guess.

(They were. For their education. They were sent to Germany. So Frankel, Liebes, Levine later—Mugdan?)

Mugdan had no children.

(DeSola?)

DeSolas, they really kept to themselves.

(Anyone else you can think of?)

Yeah, with DeSola goes Henríquez. The old man, Mario Henríquez, his official name in Salvador was Mario C. Henríquez. The C was for “Cohn,” but he didn’t want to appear with that. He didn’t want to have—

(Henríquez—H-e-n—?)

With a Z at the end.

(And then DeSola, they were other former Jews? Or they weren’t observant?)

They were not observant, no.

(And they wouldn’t even identify as Jewish?)

Not publicly.

(At this time did you experience anti-Semitism at school, in your life? Never?)

Nnnnnn—no. No.

(Did people know you were Jewish, or you just didn’t tell people?)

There was no anti-Semitism as it is known today. We were just foreigners. I look like one, yes. I have a bright red head, red hair. I didn’t look like an indio.

(So they just labeled you as a “foreigner”?)

As a foreigner.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Roberto Freund: The Early Family History

Speaking of Freunds (see last Friday's entry), Roberto's transcript tells the reader quite a bit about the family's early years in Salvador. This answers one of my big questions: why, of all places, did they choose El Salvador to settle?

All questions in parentheses are mine.
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My parents were Max Freund, who was born in the town of Großstelitz in Upper Silesia, which at the time was Prussia. He was born in 1890. By the time he was twenty-three—a cousin of his had come to El Salvador to find a better place to make a living than was possible in Europe, particularly in Germany, I guess, during that time—my father moved to El Salvador to start a productive life. He went to Salvador in 1913, which was only one year before World War I started. He worked very hard and saved every penny possible so that one of those days he would be able to return to Germany, look for a wife, and hopefully find one. It took him ten years before he could go to Germany to see the family and to look for a wife. Which he did. He met Herta Cohn, who was born in Großstein. Großstein sounds like a bigger place than Großstelitz.

(Was it “Cohen” with a K or a C?)

No. C. C-o-h-n. Großstein was a very small town where my grandfather and his family were the only Jewish people in town. It was not too far away from Großstelitz, where my father had been born. So that was the nearest relatively larger town. For religious things, they went to Großstelitz. So my mother, who was eighteen when my father met her, I suppose his family had a list of possible candidates for a wife. (chuckles) And among those people was my mother, who was eighteen years at the time.

(And he was thirty-three?)

He was thirty-three, thirty-—Let’s see, 1819—yes. He was thirty-three. They liked each other, and they were married.

(In Germany?)

In Germany, yes. And then he took her back to El Salvador to start a new life quite different from what people had been used to in Germany in those days. That was 1923, when they were married. In spite of the war and everything, Europe was a—Europe was Europe.

(And how did she take her transition? Did she often speak about it?)

Very— (chuckles) um, how did she take the transition? Not easy, I am sure. I am sure. They started out in a rented house close to downtown San Salvador. As a matter of fact, it was across the street from the penitentiary. There was a park. It was a nice, nice part of town, except for the fact that a penitentiary was there, but that was inside. (laughs) Outside there was a very nice park and relatively better houses.

In 1925, two years after they were married, my brother was born in El Salvador, my brother Ernesto. And two years later I was born. After my brother’s birth, my parents started to plan to build their own home, because they wanted to live better than was available in San Salvador in those days. So they chose a strange location, now a strange location, way out of town in those days, and they bought a small farm, let’s say. I don’t know how many acres, maybe twenty acres or something like that around them, and they built a house which was designed by an Italian architect who lived in El Salvador by the name of Umberto Goria. It was designed after what they wanted, I guess. The house is no longer standing, but it wasn’t very long ago when they had to tear it down after a very, very strong earthquake in the past five years or something like that.

(I don't know if I am remembering correctly, but it was the first house with a flushing toilet?)

I don’t know exactly if it was the first one, (laughs) but it had a flushing toilet, yeah.

(That was quite a luxury then.)

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Photograph of Family Freund courtesy of Werner Meissner. (From Left to Right: Max Freund, Herta de Freund, Ernesto Freund, Roberto Freund, Margarita Freund de Biller

Pintando El Salvador

It's definitely the year to honor Don Ernesto Freund! After receiving the coveted ASI (Asociacion Salvadorena de Industriales) award only one month ago Don Ernesto, member of the Jewish community, is featured on the cover of this month's Economista magazine in El Salvador.

The article highlights the beginnings of Freund y Compania, first founded in 1930 by Don Ernesto' father Max Freund. The ingenuity and leadership of the Freund family after Max Freund's sudden death led to the idea to partner with American paint-giant Sherwin-Williams. In 1959, brothers Roberto and Ernesto Freund made the leap to the paint business, taking the national and regional importance of Freund y Compania to a new level. Now distributors of Sherwin-Williams from Guatemala to Panama, the Freund family has left an indelible mark (both figuratively and literally) on Central America.

To read the article in Spanish, cut and paste the following link into your web browser:
http://www.laprensa.com.sv/eleconomista/

Bringing Jews Back to Germany

I thought you might find the following article very interesting, considering the importance of Germany in world news this week.
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HISTORIC B’NOT MITZVAH CELEBRATED BY HAMELN CONGREGATION

The Progressive congregation in Hameln recently celebrated its first double bat mitzvah by calling to the Torah Evelina Boraschanska and Greta Golbereg, both recent immigrants to Germany from the former Soviet Union. Held on Shabbat Trumah, the service was led by Rabbi Irit Shillor (with the girls in the photo above); Shillor visits the Hameln congregation four times a year thanks to a grant from the World Union’s European Region. The girls prepared for the historic b’not mitzvah under the supervision of Orly Kenig, the emissary to Germany for the Netzer Olami youth movement. The service was attended by some 100 congregants and guests, and was conducted in Hebrew, German and Russian. According to congregation leader Rachel Dohme, the girls spoke in their Drashot about the importance of building a new synagogue in Hameln, emphasizing that it is people who make a synagogue valuable. “With a younger generation like this,” says Dohme, “we are sure Jewish life in Germany will grow and prosper.”


Text and picture courtesy of the World Union of Progressive Judaism (WUJP). For more info on events around the world, check out www.wujpnews.org.

Mi amanecer

A community member and good friend of mine, Ruth de Feldman, recently shared a beautiful piece of writing with me. I was beyond grateful when she agreed to share the narrative with the community through the "Kehilaton." For those of you who do not receive the newsletter, I wanted to attach my column below in order for you to experience Ruth's writing. This excerpt (in Spanish) from the essay reveals some of the sights, sounds, and sentimientos from her childhood in Salvador.

YO TAMBIEN CUENTO
por Jessica P. Alpert

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.

Esta semana les ofrezco unos recuerdos lindamente escritos por un miembro de nuestra comunidad, Ruth de Feldman. Ruth, hija de José “Chepe” Baum y Mercedes de Baum, hermana de Raquel, Susie, y Doris pasó los años de su niñez en la hacienda Talcualhuya, la que pertenecía a su padre. Después de haber pasado sus años universitarios en los Estados Unidos, Ruth regresó ya casada con Paul Feldman. Luego, como madre de Elissa, Sandra, y Roberto, compartiría su querida Talcualhuya con una nueva generación. Estos recuerdos nos dan una idea de la vida de una niña nacida y criada en esta bella tierra.

Mi Amanecer
Escrito por Ruth Baum López de Feldman

El Ángel, con olor a pradera, amaneciendo en frescos días de vientos de octubre. Con olor a pasto mojado, donde el ganado ha visto la luna y ha escuchado el aullido del lobo de la montaña.

Ese era el amanecer de mi niñez, en un valle que me otorgó el cariño y la protección calurosa de una tierra llena de misterio y de aventura.

La luna no acababa de ocultarse detrás del cerro del occidente cuando ya los primeros rayos del alba empezaban a asomarse detrás del cerro del oriente. Los volcanes, cerros, y montañas me daban el saludo de cada día. Al verlos yo sabía que mi mundo estaba tal como lo dejé al cerrar los ojos cuando las estrellas y la luna estaba bañando mi valle con su luz tenue.

La casona de El Ángel con gruesas paredes de adobe. Muros de adobe enormes hechos de tierra especial mezclada con zacate seco de la pradera. El techo era alto para mantener la frescura de la casa en los calurosos días tropicales. Ese techo tenia fuertes vigas de conacaste donde no podía entrar la polilla y sostenían el techo de tejas rojas de barro bien cocido. Las gradas gruesas, grises y lisas a la entrada de la casona daban una apariencia de grandeza; gradas de piedra que con su frescura invitaban a sentarse a descansar y a soñar. El repello de cal y arena, era el color común de las casas de aquellos tiempos. El piso era de baldosa roja de barro fino que brillaba al pasarle el trapeador con olor a gasolina. Tal era la casa de mi niñez, la cual vio nacer y morir ilusiones.

El corredor a la entrada de la casona, era sencillo, pero para mi era mi torre de observación a un mundo encantador. Me levantaba con el cantar del primer gallo. No quería perderme un momento del nuevo día. Las mañanas eran mas bien heladas, lo cual hacia que me apresurara a vestirme en mis “overoles.” El agua del pozo se sentía congelada al lavarme la cara, pero me quitaba ligerito el dormir de los ojos. Mis rizos proporcionaban una batalla al pobre peine de concha nacar. Lloraba mientras la batalla la ganaba el peine y mi cabeza parecía más bien un nido de qualcachias al cual el sombrero tenía que entrar por la fuerza. En lo fresco de la mañana no tenía que usar el sombrero, que tanto me fastidiaba, pero al subir el sol me era ordenado usarlo o me iba a convertir en la negrita del batey.

Al abrir la puerta del traspatio se entraba a un frutal hermoso con un juguetón riachuelo que lo cruzaba. El frutal era un mar de color verde con colores brillantes de distintas flores tropicales. Abundaban los naranjos, los limoneros indios, el mango, el aguacate, el granado, el coco, los jocotes de corona, el nance, y muchas parras y hierbas aromáticas y medicinales. En ese paraíso mió se oían a toda hora los alegres gorgoteos de tortolitas arroceras, de chiltotas, de cenzontles y de muchos pajaritos que hacían de aquel lugar tan lindo su hogar. Los árboles les ofrecían protección para sus nidos, agua, comida y frescura.

Recuerdos del alma de una niñez llena de dulce expectativa que hacia cada nuevo día un arco iris de aventuras. Solamente quedan los recuerdos de un ayer que termino y el cual las nuevas generaciones jamás podrán vivir. Doy gracias a esos recuerdos que me dan la oportunidad de volver a ver los colores del frutal, la casona y el amanecer; escuchar a los pájaros, sentir el aroma de la pradera, y los cálidos vientos de octubre.

Text posted and re-printed with permission of Ruth Baum de Feldman.

Unanswered questions: The Death and Disappearance of Walter Pelz

Today's NYTimes featured an article by David Stout on the opening of Germany's largest archives on the Holocaust. According to the article, the archive, located in the town of Bad Arolson stretches up to 15 miles and contains more than 50 million documents. It is one of the largest Holocaust archives in the world.

The article also explains that recently researchers and Holocaust survivors could request information from the archives but that some responses would take years. Citing that it contained sensitive information, the German government was previously reluctant to open the archives to the general public. It seems that today, the underlying diplomatic tension between Germany and the United States regarding Bad Arolsen will finally come to a close.

This is a remarkable development for many individuals including those who still search for the fate of lost family members.

Including my own family.

My Oma (maternal grandmother, Wilma Reich), lost her mother (Paula Bloch), brother (Max Bloch), sister-in-law (Liza Bloch), two nephews (Tommy Bloch and Walter Pelz), and one niece (Jeanette Bloch) during the war. Through research conducted by my grandparents and mother, we believe that my great-grandmother was killed at Sobibor while the remaining family members were probably gassed at Auschwitz. All were deported from Holland as they had left Germany years earlier in the hopes of avoiding Hitler.

My great-aunt Maja and great-uncle Georg hid with their two sons Walter and Peter Pelz in an attic much like that made famous by the diary of Anne Frank. Gentile friends facilitated this life-saving solution and brought the family food whenever possible. Needless to say, they were eating dirt from the flower pots by the time Holland was liberated.

A sad chapter of this particular family history must also be told. Due to the difficult conditions, older son Walter felt the need to somehow get out and work for extra food. Radio announcements advertised jobs for those young Jewish men in hiding; these announcements gave Walter hope. The family begged him not to leave the apartment fearing that this was yet another trap for the young and unsuspecting. Walter could not be convinced otherwise and left with the promise of returning with food for all.
He would never be seen again.

What happened to Walter Pelz? We still don't know and on her deathbed, my Oma spoke to Walter in German as if she was physically seeing him for the first time in years. Thus far, my research has come up short. Perhaps the opening of this new archive will assist families like mine to make peace with the final yet painful information regarding the deaths of those who were taken away too soon. Despite the fact that I never met Walter and only saw one picture of him, his undetermined fate tortures me. It seems that generations and circumstance may prevent family members from meeting one another, but justice for those who suffered at the hands of the aggressor will be sought despite the long passing of time.

To read the article in the NYTimes, cut and paste the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/world/18cnd-holocaust.html?hp&ex=1145419200&en=6d06cffd56e8e2ab&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Las alfombras

As promised, I am back with stories to tell. Semana Santa was pretty calm and I took the free time to read, write, and listen to lots and lots of tape. In addition, I showed Salvador off to some visiting American friends and made a one-day visit to my favorite lake, Coatepeque.

Passover was celebrated two nights in a row with the community seder topping off everyone's holiday. All in all, it was an activity-filled week.

Some friends of mine visited Antigua, Guatemala and shared fantastic photos, one of which you see above. The alfombra, a beautiful ritual carried out during Semana Santa can be loosely defined as a religiously inspired community art project.

Families/neighborhoods/parishes/co-workers (and more) come together to create beautiful designs out of fruit, vegetables, colored powders, sawdust, and more in honor of the holiday, a patron virgin or saint, or Christ himself. Processions then walk through the alfombras on their way and the designs are accepted as a fleeting gift to the community and those honored during the religious week.

For more information on the alfombras of Guatemala, click below:
http://www.prensalibre.com/suplementos/RYS/ssanta/alfombras.htm

For more information on the alfombras of El Salvador, click below:
http://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/semanasanta/ALFOMBRAS/

Photograph courtesy of Stephanie Young and Joshua Braunstein.

Semana Santa

Dear Readers,
This week is a big holiday in Latin America and I have decided to join in the relaxation and take some time off from writing. (actually, i think i'll just focus on doing some more interviews).

So I'll be back on Monday, April 17th with more interviews and commentary.

Have a wonderful Passover, Easter, or whatever makes you spiritually satisfied.

abrazos.

KEHILATON

Each week, I contribute a short article to the community newsletter. My column, "Yo Tambien Cuento," features short stories and/or oral histories from community members, both past and present.

All articles are written in Spanish. This week's piece features Enrique "Quique" Guttfreund. His full interview, in English, was featured on this blog during the month of March.
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Hace poco, recordábamos la vida y memoria de Don Quique ya que este año es el décimo aniversario de su fallecimiento.

Durante su estadía en Miami, Lea Freund empezó un proyecto sobre la historia de la comunidad. Con el apoyo de la Universidad de Florida, Lea hizo entrevistas con gente dedicada a la vida judía salvadoreña incluyendo Don Quique. Su historia oral esta llena de información sobre los primeros años de la comunidad: como se organizaron, las metas de esas primeras familias, los retos y los éxitos. Aquí, Don Quique nos cuenta un poquito sobre su experiencia.

En sus propias palabras:

¿Celebramos los festivales como Pesach, Rosh Hashanah y Yom Kippur en casas privadas?

Al principio organizamos con la ayuda de Sr. Lewinsky quien trabajó para la casa Gunter Liebes. Él fue el único que sabía como cantar y leer la Torá. Entiendo que un Sr. Lowenstein lo hizo antes. Él se falleció durante mis primeros años, de tuberculosis. Él también hizo las ceremonias de casamiento. Sé que Ernesto Liebes y Alice Liebes se casaron en nuestra casa de solteros. La casa era grande y lujosa. Con este casamiento, nuestra casa de solteros se cambió para siempre y tuvimos que buscar por una nueva casa. Cuando Rabino Alex Freund vino, tuvimos que también localizar una casa para su alojamiento y para los servicios religiosos. Cuando encontramos esta casa, los servicios regulares empezaron.

....Era 1938. Era una casa grande con mucho espacio para todos, una casa hecho de madera. Teníamos tres o cuatro Torá pero no estoy seguro de quien se las donó. Recuerdo que Don José “Chepe” Baum nos dio una. Él vino al mismo tiempo que yo, pero en otro barco. Más gente joven llegó de Alemania, Hans Wiener de Breslau, Chepe Baum de Fulda. Don Chepe tenia una educación judía y conocía todos los rezos y ritos pero no leía Torá muchísimamente porque viajaba para su trabajo. Él pudo venir a los servicios apenas dos veces al mes. Uno no podía regresar cada día o cada semana, no habían calles pavimentadas en aquél entonces. Así que en 1938, todo se formalizó.

Durante los años 1939-43, más gente llegaba de Europa. Salían cuando podían y a veces venían solamente para esperar por la visa americana. Otros se quedaron por un poquito de tiempo porque tenían un certificado de permiso y un pedazo de tierra. Yo tenía la responsabilidad de ayudarles con su alojamiento…y también para escribir sus cartas en inglés. La mayoría no podían escribir en inglés pero necesitaban comunicarse con parientes en los Estados Unidos para obtener visas. Este movimiento trajo mucha energía y sangre a nuestra comunidad pero la mayoría no se quedaron por mucho tiempo. Recuerdo un Sr. Melady, cónsul de la embajada Americana. Era un hombre simpático y generoso y aceptó las cartas escritas en inglés y Yiddish, inglés y alemán, lo que sea. Recuerdo una familia que llegó a El Salvador y tenía un pariente en los Estados Unidos. El pariente, un trabajador postal, nos escribió una carta expresando sus gracias por las buenas noticias. Sintió muy agradecido y quería ofrecer su apoyo y todo lo que tenía para trasladar sus primos a los Estados Unidos.

Melady les dio una visa y me dijo “Si alguien es tan dedicado, me imagino que lo haría todo posible para que esta familia no aprovecha del gobierno americano.” Al salir del país, estoy seguro de que nunca tenía ningún problema.

Entrevista por Lea Freund. Transcripción preparada por el departamento de la historia oral de la Universidad de Florida. Traducción de inglés por Jessica P. Alpert.

A Conversion Story

Delia and Miguel Cukier married with minimal concern regarding their diverse religious backgrounds. Delia (a non-practicing Catholic) and Miguel (a non-practicing Jew) could have never been able to predict how much their future lives would be impacted by religion.

All questions in parenthese are mine.
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We got married in Miami. It was a beautiful small wedding, mostly family. My sister-in-laws had come down from Maryland and everybody was there.

(At this point you were Catholic and Miguel was a non-practicing Jew?)

Yeah, that’s right.

(What did your family think of him?)

They didn’t mind. They didn’t mind at all. They liked Miguel from the beginning very much. Miguel has always been very friendly. He had no problems whatsoever with my parents. They got along beautiful.

(Did you ever discuss the fact that he was Jewish with him, or it was really a non-issue?)

Oh, we discussed the fact that he was Jewish, but nothing—he didn’t have to do anything about it. I didn’t mind. He never told me that he would have wanted our children to grow up Jewish. Being that I was a non-practicing Catholic, I wasn’t going to put very much emphasis on anything either. So we raised our kids, really, you could say agnostics. They believe in God, period. That’s it. They never went to church. I never took them to church. I never gave them any, you know—I never taught them. I don’t know if I did wrong or not, but that’s the way I felt. I was totally divorced from the Catholic Church from way before.

(Did something happen to make you feel that way?)

Oh, a lot of things had happened through the years. The first thing that happened, I was still in Cuba at the school I used to go to. When you had a problem with teachers at the time, they kicked you out of class and you were supposed to stand outside of class, and of course, if a nun passed by and saw that you were kicked out, she did something about it. We had a history teacher at the time who was—I didn’t realize that she was that communist, but I guess she was. She was insisting that what Fidel Castro was doing was very good. And already there were things that you could see that they were not right with the government. And I said to her—I was always very outspoken, you know, I was not a very—I was a good person, I was a very good child, I behaved very well, but I didn’t keep my mouth shut. And I told her that I didn’t think that Fidel Castro was that good and that I thought he was a communist. And she kicked me out of class. So a nun passed by. She didn’t ask me why was I outside, she just asked me to go, and go to confession. So I went to confession and there was a priest there, and I said, “Look, this is what happened, and I do not repent for what I did. I’m just here because the nun told me to be here.” And he says, “Well, but you have to repent and you have to ask her forgiveness, otherwise I cannot give you absolution.” And I said, “You can keep it.” You know. I was not even fifteen yet, (laughs) and I was out of the fold. That started it. Then I started questioning everything.

From then on, I would read every single book that I could get. I would, you know—I started questioning. Why do I have to believe in a virgin Mary when that cannot happen physically? It’s impossible. You can conceive being a virgin, you know, in modern day, but you cannot give birth and continue being a virgin. And you have to believe that. Why do you have to believe that someone goes all the way up the heaven in a body form? (laughs) No way! You need a helicopter or something to help you. (laughs)

(What about your parents? Were they very Catholic?)

My father was never. My father would go to church for a wedding or for a family baptism or for something like that, and that was it. My mother was a Catholic, but she was never a fanatic. She never believed that you have to, you know, close your eyes to everything. She was really a very advanced person for the age she was, because my mother was quite old. My parents were old when they had me. But she had been a very modern person in the way she thought. For example, she was not allowed to go to university when she was young. The moment her father passed away, she said, “I am going to university.” She moved to Havana and she went to university. She got her doctorate. That’s something that at the time you didn’t do that that much, women especially. So you know, afterwards it was quite common that women were very liberated, but she would want to go to Europe, and my father would hate to fly. She would get together a group of her sister-in-laws, cousins, and everybody, and they would go to Europe and leave my father behind. That was something that you did not do in every circle. So you know, she was very liberated in that sense.

Then Miguel met Gustavo [Kraselnik, former Rabbi in El Salvador], and Gustavo was a character. We loved him dearly. (laughs) He talked to him during the wedding and he said to Gustavo that, being that he had been raised always as a Jew but never learning anything, not having the knowledge of what he really needed to know, that he would like to go to classes. Gustavo said, “Perfect! In August, when we come back from vacation, classes start. You can start coming.”

Miguel asked me if I was interested, and I said, “Yes, very much so.” I was always interested in learning about Judaism. I had read a lot about it, but I really didn’t know a lot. We started going to classes with Gustavo, and a whole world opened up. Then Gustavo left and I had to teach myself. I taught myself how to read Hebrew. I taught myself everything about Judaism. When he started getting a group together, people asked him [Rabbi Danny Zang] why wasn’t I in that list of people that were going to convert, and he told two or three people that I was not interested in converting, that I was only interested in learning. So these people told me.

And I said to Miguel, “Let’s go and ask for an appointment with him and ask him why is he saying this.” And I asked him and he said, oh, he had never said that. And I said, “How very strange, because so and so and so said you did. If you ask me if I’m interested, I’m very much interested in converting to Judaism, but I’ve never thought that I knew enough. I’m not well prepared because I have taught myself most of what I know. I learned a lot with Gustavo.” And he says, “OK, very well, I will include you in the list of people that want to convert.”

So when conversion came around, the time that we were gonna have the bet din here, we took the exam. I thought I had really prepared myself very, very well for it, and I asked him to give me his opinion with the exam first, with the list of questions he had given us to answer. He never gave me the list of questions back, which I had filled out every single one of them to the best of my abilities. And with the exam either. So I really don’t know if I failed or passed. (laughs) But I was converted. I try to go as much as possible Fridays and Saturdays and do the best I can. Sometimes it’s a little bit difficult with Miguel, because he’s still someone that doesn’t (laughs) need very much, but to me it’s really satisfying to go on Saturday mornings, not only on Friday, and I do like to go to classes. And I’m planning starting to go to classes again with Pablo [Pablo Berman, current Rabbi in El Salvador], which is I think a fantastic rabbi. I think he’s a very good person, as a person, not only as a rabbi. He really knows what he’s doing and apparently his classes are very good. I haven’t attended any yet. But as a person, you can talk to him. You can feel that he understands what you are saying. He has questions that he asks you that you know that he’s interested in helping in any way that he can. And that’s—I think it’s going to be fantastic for the community.

(Tell me, when you were converted, they bathed you—I mean, you had to go into the mikvah, right?)

Mm-hmm.

(Which I understand is—?)

Lago Ilopango [Lake Ilopango]. (laughs)

(It’s a lake here. I think it’s very, very appropriate. How did that feel?)

(laughs) It was very strange in a way that we had been—you know, first we had the questions with the rabbis. We had gone one at a time with the three rabbis there that came. One of them was [Rabbi] Gustavo [Kraselnik]. The other one was [Rabbi] Danny Zang and the other one, I’m sorry, but I can’t remember his name. I think he was from Costa Rica. He’s Argentinian, also, I think, but he was at the moment in Costa Rica. I’m not too sure. But he was very nice. And they ask you questions and they ask you a lot of things.

(Is it like a test, or it’s more they just want to make sure—?)

It’s more, you know, asking your intention, if you’re really into it. Of course, they asked me a question that, thank God, I was able to answer, because I got very nervous. (laughs)

(This is in front of everyone?)

No. It’s a private thing. And then we went into the “mikvah,” but of course, being the lake, everybody was in the swimsuit. It was, I think, the boys first, no, the girls first and then the boys and we would go and just, you know, all of us went in and went under the water and came back and came out. We had the blessings and that was it. It was strange. I’ve never been in a real mikvah. So it would be an experience to be in one. (laughs)

(Right. But was it an important experience?)

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That night we had, you know, the blessings at the synagogue, and it was really nice. It was—people were really welcoming then. They had been welcoming from the beginning, but then you were one of them. You were really part of the community. So that was very nice.

(And your parents were—?)

My parents were deceased already, yes.

(What do you think they would say?)

I think they would applaud me. My father was a free thinker. He had absolutely no ties to the church. And my mother, as I said, was an extremely open-minded person. She said, “You know, if you’re a good person it doesn’t matter if you’re a Catholic or you’re a Muslim or you’re a what. You have to be a good person in front of the eyes of God and that’s it.”

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Miami-Dade and Miguel

In this excerpt, Delia Cukier describes her years in college and then her new life in El Salvador.
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(So you’re at Miami Dade Junior High [sic]. Your parents are now together. What happens then?)

What happens then? I finish my two years of junior college and I was accepted at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I got to the University of Florida. I had some friends there. We went to lunch, and when we came back from lunch, we went to their apartment to have coffee, Cuban coffee. And who shows up but someone who—you know, it was a friend of theirs who was coming back from vacation. It was his first day back. And we met, and he was Miguel Cukier. I asked him where he was from. He said, “Santa Ana.” I said, “Oh, OK, very nice.” And I kept my mouth shut, because I thought that my world geography was very bad. I didn’t know any country named Santa Ana. After a few hours, when he left, I asked my friend, “Where’s that country?” And they said, “Oh, that’s Santa Ana, El Salvador.” (laughs) So that’s where we met. We started going out and in and out a little bit, like that, and then a month later we became novios, and that’s it.

(How long did you date?)

Well, he graduated from the University of Florida in August of that year, so that was from January through August, and then he came back to El Salvador, and we wrote every week and talked once a month on the phone until we married in December of ’69.

(That same year?)

No, this was in ’67. It was two years and months, you know, that we went steady. I came in 1967, I think, my parents-in-law invited me to come over to El Salvador for—I think it was ’67 or ’68. I don’t even remember—to see the country, to see if I liked it and everything. I did. And then I went back. I was going to go back to university to finish my last semester when I got very sick with mononucleosis, and it turned into chronic hepatitis and they put me in bed for three months, so I was very sick for a long time. I kept writing to Miguel and Miguel kept writing to me. (laughs) So after that I went to work. I worked at—I don’t know how you call it nowadays. Now it’s some kind of a technician. I used to write the orders—translate the orders from the doctors into what the nurses would understand and give all the orders from the doctors to the patients and translate English into Spanish or Spanish into English if the need arose. Afterwards I worked for a whole year with one doctor, may he rest in peace. He was an endocrinologist. I changed jobs, because I was working in gynecology and obstetrics at the hospital, which was very nice. But then the translator quit in intensive care, and the only one that they could put there was me. And after working there for one week, I gave them my resignation papers. I could not take people dying around me eight hours a day. That was something that I could not take. I did not mind going into surgery, I did not mind going into anything, but people dying constantly—and the things you see in the hospital when people are dying are just too cruel. So I decided that I had to move on. And I went to work in an office. I had a very good time for the year that I worked there.

(This was in Miami?)

In Miami, yeah.

(How were your parents doing at that point?)

My parents were doing OK. My father had settled as an assistant cook in a school, in a private school. My mother was working in a factory also as a—you know, always fixing up things that were wrong with the rest of it. My brother had already moved apart. His family had arrived from Cuba also, he was married and had two kids. So we were doing OK. We weren’t rich or anything, but we were doing OK, financially we were doing OK, and my parents were very content and very happy. Most of the family had already arrived in Miami, and a lot of my parents’ friends were there in Miami also. So they had their clique, they had their friends. Everything was OK. No problem whatsoever.

(So you married Miguel in which year?)

December of 1969. We moved here. I will never forget it, January 1st, 1970. In Cuba there was not a tradition of firecrackers. And in 1969 they had had here the war with Honduras, OK? So January 1st we come, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law had a beautiful buffet with all the friends waiting for us in the house. We met everybody and everything was really nice. And then everybody left and we went to bed, and about—maybe 11:30 or 12, there was—the biggest firecrackers started going off, and I sat in the bed and I said to Miguel, “Oh, my God, Miguel, the war’s started again!” (laughs) And he couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes.....

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Six Months in Miami....

In this second entry, Delia Cukier explains her first few years in Florida as a recent Cuban refugee.

All questions in parentheses are mine.
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I was fifteen when I left Cuba. I went to Miami, to one of my—actually, I call her “aunt,” but she wasn’t my aunt. She was one of my mother’s nieces who was like an aunt to me because she was born when my mother was about sixteen or seventeen. She was married, had two children, and they lived in Miami. They had left Cuba also because of the problems. Her husband had a business, my uncle had a business of pharmaceuticals. They had stopped his import-export business, and being that they could live—being in Miami, because part of their business was already in Miami, they left, and that’s where I went.

(What part of the city did they settle in?)

In Coral Gables. My mother and father told me that I was only going for six months, because everything was going to turn out OK, and everything was going to be hunky-dory. And in six months I was going to practice my English. And it happened that I didn’t see them for four years. That was the worst time of my life, when I realized—actually, not the first few months, but when I realized that I was not gonna see my parents because they didn’t have visas. I was able to leave Cuba in 1960 because at the time, if you had your visa in your passport, you were able to travel to the States. But it was, like, in here. Your visa goes—you know, it expires, and you have a new passport and you get a new visa. But if your visa is good and your passport expires, you keep the old passport with your good visa and get a new passport, and you don’t transfer it. You travel with both. Everybody does it. It’s not anything uncommon. That’s what used to be in Cuba. But Fidel Castro forbid that. So they had good visas in old passports, and they couldn’t leave Cuba. And of course, I didn’t think that it was going to be four years until they left.

(So you went to high school in Miami?)

I went to high school in Miami, Coral Gables Senior High. I graduated from there.

(How was your English?)

At the beginning it was lousy. My grammar was very good, because in the school I went to, El Teresiano, we had English in the afternoons for three hours every day. But of course it was not conversation. So I did have a lot of vocabulary. I had a lot of grammar. I could read quite a bit and understand most everything, but if you killed me, I wouldn’t speak a word. (laughs) So my first year in high school was a very quiet time. (laughs)

(Were there lots of Cubans there?)

Not so very many. In Coral Gables there were not that very many, because most Cubans that were already leaving and going to Miami were settling in the southwest area, you know, closer to the Calle Ocho and all that part.

(So how did you feel as one of the few Cubans at that high school?)

You know, I didn’t feel bad. Everybody made me feel very, very comfortable. I had no problems. They would ask me some very stupid questions. One of the counselors said that the best thing for me to improve my English would be to be in a Spanish class, in one of the—you know, Spanish as a language, not as a second language, which is what they have now. They didn’t exist at the time. I would—because, you know, we had Spanish literature, and they would make us translate things, and that way I would practice. And it did help a lot. But there were some kids in that class that would ask me, you know, things like, “What type of housing do you have?” One day I got mad and I said, “We have three houses.” (laughs) Because they kept asking me stupid questions. “Do you have cars?” Remember, it was 1960. Cuba was still an entity not very well known. So you know—but things get better.

(Did you speak to your parents by phone?)

I spoke by phone and I wrote them every week. But communications by phone were extremely bad. It’s not like now, that you can call direct. You had to call to an operator. There was a lot of static. You never knew what to say on the phone, because you weren’t sure if it was being taped or not. So it was always, “How are you doing?” “I’m doing fine. Nobody’s sick.” Things like that.

(The same with your letters?)

Yeah. But the letters were a little more, you know, explanatory, because I could tell them things about school, that math was so easy. I had already had algebra and everything in Cuba. (laughs) Here in the States it was so easy. All my science was a walk-through. (laughs)

(What about your brother? Was he here, too?)

No, my brother was in Cuba, because he had the same problem that my parents had. I had been to the States about three years before, and they had had to change my visa—my passport, excuse me—and they had put my new visa on my new passport. So I had a passport that was good for five years more, and that’s what—and their passports had expired, and they had good visas and they had not changed them. Things that you never should do. So now, whenever the passport is getting—I always have it up to date.

(After graduating from high school, your parents were there then?)

No, my parents got there in 1964. I was already going to Miami Dade Junior College.

(And they moved in with your aunt?)

They moved in for two weeks, you know, when they arrived. Then as soon as we could find an apartment that they could afford with the salary they were getting on the jobs they got—my father started putting shoes in boxes in a factory, you know, packing, and my mother sewing in a factory. Actually, she wasn’t sewing, she was helping rip things apart that had not been sewn right. At the time, the salaries were quite bad. My brother got a job also in a factory, and I don’t even remember what he was doing, but something very menial.

(So I assume you moved neighborhoods?)

Yes, yes, we moved to the northwest section of Miami. It was a very tranquil place. There were not that many people in those areas. We didn’t have central air conditioners, so we had to buy fans. (laughs) But it was fun. The first time my mother cooked a whole meal, we were so much looking forward to it. And my mother was the lousiest of cooks, may she rest in peace. She made Cuban rice and beans. The rice was—it looked like Chinese rice, that you could throw it and it could stick to the wall. The beans were floating away in water. (laughs) And the meat, she made something called boliche, which is eye of round [?] stuffed in sausage and cooked in wine. And I didn’t taste like anything. And we said, “Oh, Mami, it’s so good!” And she believed us—thank God! (laughs) But it was disgusting. After being with my aunt, who cooked fantastic—she was a gourmet cook—for four years, going to my mother was an awakening. I guess I started learning a few things in the kitchen way back then. (laughs)

It was a shock to see my parents come out of the plane. My mother, her hair from black had turned completely white. My father had lost most of his hair. In four years they had turned Mami and Daddy into older people. And that was a shock. That was a shock. But they were the same people.

(But they had to leave everything behind?)

Of course. Of course.

(And you never went back?)

Never. Every time Miguel and I have decided we’re gonna go to Cuba, we’re gonna go to Cuba, at the last minute we say, “Why should we go and leave dollars to that son of a—” (laughs) I mean, it’s—and then we stop. We don’t go through with it. Eventually we will go. Last year, when we had the Congreso here, the Congress, we met this couple from Cuba who were brought by the Joint [Joint Jewish Distribution Committee], and after the Congress they could not stay at the hotel, of course. And they came over and stayed with us for three days. And they were the sweetest people you can ever meet. They are so full of love and, you know—we took them everywhere. We went to the supermarket and places like that. They had never really seen anything like it. And you can not imagine how happy they were. We have promised them that we will go back and see them.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Delia Cukier: An Introduction

Delia Cukier, wife of Miguel and mother of Juan Miguel and Carlos Ernesto, was born in Cuba. In this first entry, we learn a little more about her first home... in a Cuba before Castro.

All questions in parentheses are mine.
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(What is your full name.)

OK. Delia Rita Rivero González Cukier.

(And your place of birth?)

Pinar del Río, Cuba.

(And the names of your parents?)

Ernesto Rivero y Juana González.

(And do you have any siblings?)

Yes. One brother.

(What’s his name?)

Ernest Rivero González.

(And who’s older?)

He is, by six years.

(So let’s start at the beginning. Can you tell me, can you think of the earliest memory that you have from childhood? This can be a very difficult question.)

I think I remember finding a ring. (laughs) That’s—I was very little. An uncle who died when I was only seven, so I must have been very young at the time, was a dentist, and we were visiting in his house. We don’t know why—I don’t know why, he had lost his ring. And he had a lot of attachment to that ring because it had been his father’s and all this. And everybody was going crazy everywhere in that house looking for it. I guess I was the closest to the ground, and I found it. And everybody made an immense to-do because I had found the ring. (laughs) So I remember. I even got a doll because I found the ring. (laughs) So that is one of the earliest things that I remember very well.

(How was your life in Cuba?)

Very happy. Very happy. My family’s an immense family, huge, on both sides of the family. My mother was the youngest of fifteen siblings, and my father was number ten of eleven. And everybody had at least two. So you know, it was a very big family.

(___ Pinar del Río?)

No, most people lived in Havana, but we were all from Pinar del Río.

(And where is Pinar del Río?)

Pinar del Río is the westernmost part of Cuba, OK? The island is like this, it’s this point, where the big, you know, tobacco comes from, the good tobacco comes from Pinar del Río.

(What did your father do?)

My father was a lawyer. Yes, my father was a lawyer.

(So you have good memories of Cuba?)

Oh, yes, very happy.

(Can you describe what your household was like?)

My household, it was—until this uncle died, who was—and after that it was about three more years that my aunt lived by herself. But then she joined us in Havana, because they lived in Pinar del Río. Our household, there was a big house. It was—I remember my bedroom and then there was a bathroom shared with my aunt, who had another bedroom. Then it was my brother and another bathroom shared with my uncle, who also—he had never married. He was also a brother of my mother. He never married. And he moved with us when my aunt moved with us to Havana, because they used to live in Pinar del Río, and they didn’t want to leave him behind. He was one of the oldest. And then was my parents’ room, with their bathroom. There was a huge hallway, you know, Spanish-style houses where the bathrooms go into a hallway and the hallway goes into a garden and whatever. In the back and on the side, I have to go like this, the dining room and all the servants’ area on that side. On the front, it was the foyer and the living room and studio.

(So it was a big place? And this was in Havana?)

This was a big place. This was in Havana.

(So you eventually moved to Havana?)

I always lived in Havana. I was born in Pinar del Río, where all the family was born, in Pinar del Río, but my parents were living already in Havana. My brother when he was little lived in Pinar del Río for about a year or so after he was born, because that’s where—but my father had his practice in Havana, he had his office, and he worked in Havana all the time.

(So you had this huge family. Where did you go to school?)

A Catholic school named Teresiano. It was by the nuns of the Santa Teresa de Jesús. It’s a Spanish order. They were very progressive, according to other nuns in Havana. (laughs) Because they allowed children of divorced parents in the school, which was not done in a lot of the other Catholic schools. And that was, you know—it was a nice school. I remember when Fidel Castro came that the nuns got kicked out of Cuba. I remember that I would pass by the school afterwards, you know, I had almost a whole year of schooling before we left Cuba—before I left Cuba, my parents left four years afterwards—before I left Cuba, and it was so strange to see that empty shell of school which had been my school since I started in kindergarten.

(Do you remember the revolution? How old were you?)

I left Cuba when I was fifteen and a half, so I do remember. I remember that there was a lot of division in my family, not fighting or anything, but there were some that thought that it was going to be the panacea for Cuba, and some others that did not believe that Fidel Castro was good. They didn’t know that he was going to a communist, you know? But they didn’t think that he was going to be any good, including my mother. My mother was for a while the president of the Catholic Teachers of Cuba. They had inside information of what he had done in Oriente, in the easternmost part of Cuba. There had been an attack in a quartel, in a garrison, and they had gone into the hospital where the soldiers were laying wounded or sick or whatever, and they had killed every single one of those soldiers, just because they had been soldiers. You know, the people—Fidel Castro’s group. And my mother kept saying, “Nobody that can go into a hospital and kill sick people can be good. There has to be something wrong in that person, because he allowed that to happen.” And of course, one of my cousins used to put, you know, (laughs) the bombs that they were fixing and hide them under my grandmother’s bed. And of course she didn’t know, and his parents didn’t know anything.

(So he was working with ___?)

Yes, he was working with the revolution and nobody knew. Most of the family didn’t know because they were not really involved directly, but he was. And so my aunt, who was one of my father’s sisters, got a call from a very good friend who was the head of the police of Pinar del Río. They lived in Pinar del Río, where my grandmother used to live. He said to her, “We know that you have, you know, certain things in your house that shouldn’t be there, and we’re going to go and search it, so you better get rid of everything.” (laughs) And they found out that way that their son was hiding stuff underneath my grandmother’s bed. (laughs)

The first thing to go was the maid, because she wasn’t cleaning very well under the beds. (laughs)

That type of thing that you remember.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC