Half-Jewish?

In this second excerpt, Susie Baum de Khoury remembers her father and schooldays in El Salvador.
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(Tell me about your father....people called him "Don Chepe," no?)

Don Chepe was bigger than life. I mean, he—to me he was huge. He was a big bear, a big teddy bear, really. He seemed like he was so rough, but really he was very gentle on the inside. He was very caring. He was very generous. Although he never wanted to show people how he really was, I think. That was his (pause) image, what he represented from the outside, you know. It’s not what he really was inside.

(How did he get to Salvador?)

When the Nazi regime started in Germany, he and his twin brother, Salli, and my Aunt Ellie left Germany. My uncle Salli and Aunt Ellie went to Israel. My father ended up in Newcastle, England first, with his Uncle Joseph, for a very short period of time, and then he went on to New York, where there was a cousin already, his cousin Ferdy. My father worked decorating windows for about a year. But he was not making enough money. Somebody told him that if he would go to Mazatlan, to the oil fields in Mazatlan, that he would make more money. So he decided that there’s where he was going to head to. So he took a ship, and aboard the ship, he met this German fellow who was living in El Salvador, and I don’t recall his name, but he was the owner of the Hotel Nuevo Mundo.

He was telling my father that there were a lot of foreigners here in El Salvador and that he would have a great opportunity here> But my father kept saying, “No, I’m going to Mazatlan. There’s where the money is.” So as luck would have it, or maybe God’s intervention, there was a hurricane that year, and they had to stop and they had to get off the boat, get off the ship, in—I can’t remember if he arrived in La Libertad or Acajutla. But he ended up staying with this gentleman, the owner of Hotel Nuevo Mundo, and the rest is history, because he never made it, ever, to Mazatlan. He stayed here in El Salvador. I think his first job, I don’t recall exactly, but I think it was with Casa Mugdan, and then with the Freunds, and then on his own.

(I think you’re right, because Max Freund worked with him and then went out on his own..)

Yes. And we have lovely pictures of him as a traveling salesman on a mule. Those are wonderful. He looks like Indiana Jones, really, when I look at the pictures, with the hat and the gun and seven mules and a mozo, to help him with all the animals. They used to sell añil, which is indigo, which is very popular now.

(So you lived in your home until the end of high school?)

Yes. I was lucky enough that the American High School had just opened a few years before. Before that, everybody had to leave to go to boarding school, like your mother or my oldest sisters. So I was so happy, because I couldn’t imagine leaving home when I was thirteen years old. So I was able to stay here and graduate from the American High School. I left August of 1965.

(And when you were growing up, did you go to the synagogue a lot? Were you involved in youth groups?)

I went to the synagogue, not a lot, because when I was little, there wasn’t very much of that [youth groups]. And then when I was older, I don’t know how old I was, when Rabino Granat came, but he was the first one that really gave us lessons and religion classes. And so, I would stay after school. He had several groups, the older kids and the younger ones. So I guess I must—I was in the oldest group, and so it must have been after sixth grade One day a week we would stay after school and have religion classes and Hebrew classes. So I did learn to read Hebrew, which I still do to this day, and study the Old Testament.

But we didn’t have youth groups. The only time that we had any contact with somebody that was Jewish was during this class. I did not have a lot of classmates that were Jewish, other than Evy Gunn, Monica Davidson, and Isaac Sztarkman ,who were in my class.

(So would you say that at the American school, being Jewish was a challenge? Or did you not think about it?)

I didn’t think about it. I really didn’t. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess I was just like a regular child. People to me didn’t have a title, like, you were Jewish or you were an American or you were Catholic or you were this or you were that. I mean, to me they were all the same. A child is a child. I didn’t see people with labels.

(Did you ever experience any anti-Semitism as a child?)

No, not towards me. But the very devout Catholics would always say that the Jews killed Jesus. So knowing that my father was Jewish and that I was part Jewish, well, I was Jewish because my mother had converted before I was born, I didn’t want them to know that I was [Jewish]. I didn’t have anything to do with killing Jesus. We just went along and—but then, I had so many friends that were Catholic, and I would go to all their First Communions and things like that, and I also knew all the prayers of the Catholic religion. So I was exposed from a very young age to both religions.

(You just said just a few minutes ago that you were half Jewish. It kind of slipped out. Did you feel like you were half Jewish?)

Yes. All my life, yes. Because I felt that even though my mom converted to Judaism, I think she did it because that was something that she wanted to do, but deep down, her upbringing in Maria Auxiliadora and her family ties, I felt that she still thought about her Christianity. Because in her times of trials and tribulations, she would go back to that place, to what felt safe for her, that she could pray in the way she was taught as a child..

(That was just something that you felt as a child? Did she ever say anything?)

Well, she would pray. I know that she would pray. It’s just an instinct I felt, almost. [In my opinion] if you were raised that way since you were a child, and that was your protection, that was where you found solace when you were growing up, well, then you will always go back to that. So there was almost no doubt in my mind that I was half Jewish and half Catholic. It was a part of me. I knew all the prayers. I knew what to do. I knew everything. And more so, I understood them. On the other hand, I had a hard time—I mean, I understood the history of the Old Testament and everything, and I could read phonetically, and I still do, but I don’t know what I’m saying.

(So after you left Salvador, where did you end up?)

I ended up at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

(How did you get there, of all places?)

Well, my father’s brother, Uncle Martin, lived in Dallas. He still is the only sibling that is living of my father’s family. He’s still there in Dallas. He just turned eighty-five years old. Also, my sister Ruth had graduated from SMU in 1961, I believe. So she had been there, and my father gave me a choice when I was going to graduate from the American high school. It was either to go to Texas or to go to New Orleans. And I went and interviewed with Sophie Newcomb, which is the girls’ part of Tulane, and I found it—I didn’t feel like I wanted to be there. I didn’t fit in. It was not my cup of tea.

Also, my grandmother, my Oma, lived there and my Aunt Ellie also had settled there. My Uncle Carl had settled there, all my father’s siblings. So I thought, “Uh-oh. I don’t think I want all that supervision.” So I went to see UT, University of Texas, and I thought it was so huge, it was unbelievable, and I would be lost. And when I went to SMU, they had 7,000 undergraduates. I came from a graduating class of nine at the American high school. So I thought that this was a better fit.

(How was your English at that point?)

My English was all right, but not great. I still would translate everything, and it naturally came out backwards, my sentence construction came out backwards, because I would totally translate from the Spanish to the English.. So people thought, “Either she is very dumb, (laughs) or I don’t know what’s her problem.” Because I didn’t look Hispanic. That was my problem. And I was only the second student from Central America. I mean, my sister had been also from El Salvador. But when I was at SMU, there were only two from Central America, myself from El Salvador, and a young man from Panama. So we looked around and we looked like everybody else, I guess....

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.