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