Helene Salomon: Part IV

Was the Holocaust discussed? Did Jewish community members mingle with non-Jews? These questions take up the majority of today's entry.
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(Speaking of French and German, did you see that there was a big difference between the two sides, I mean between the French immigrants and the German immigrants?)

(Did I see a difference? I don’t remember feeling a difference. Not when I grew up, at least. Later, I began to sense there had been perhaps a bit of animosity, rivalry, etc. I had good friends among Salvador born kids of German descent, and later especially there was lots of teasing about differences.

(Did they seem to have different Jewish identities?)

Well, to me they did. I always understood it this way: my mother, for example, was very patriotic, very, very French. She also had difficulties adapting to Salvador and Salvadoran ways. She was very involved in what was going on between France and Germany politically since the beginning of time. And during the war she and afterwards, she expressed herself very strongly about Germans, just as she did about French collaborators, etc. In attempting to understand German Jews, however, we though that the main difference between them and the French Jews, was that as French citizens, we still were tied to France after the war; the Germans had lost their country. This could help explain why the Germans perhaps assimilated better in Salvador, if they did. They didn’t have a place to fall back on. They couldn’t go back to Germany, right?

Some people would also point out that the educational level among some of the German immigrants may have been higher as a rule than their French counterparts, allowing a certain amount of “looking down” by the Germans on the non-Germans. Also, I think there was more of a Zionist feeling among the Germans.

Also growing up in Salvador I think there was a certain uppitiness on the part of both the French AND the Germans vis a vis Jews from Eastern Europe. I know that it is popular in the Jewish community now to say we are all equal and do not differentiate between groups, but I do not personally think this is accurate.. The tradition, as I said before, was to leave differences aside so as to form a cohesive whole, which is not the same as stating that differences do not exist.

And of course a lot of the Germans, like your grandparents, for example,who had a lot of German friends who were non-Jewish, people with whom they shared a common German culture. My parents had no German friends and had difficulty even relating to people who were German.

(Did they have French non-Jewish friends?)

Yes. My parents were—my father in particular was an enterprising and ambitious man who thought it was important to LIVE in Salvador, to mix with all kinds of people. He was well respected and had friends from all socioeconomic levels. He always had good relationships with many people. I observed that my father seemed to be more connected with Salvadorans than most of the Jewish people I knew.

(Networking?)

Networking and doing what he need to do.”Becoming someone”. Discovering, opening doors. He had his fingers in a lot of pies.

(And your mother? What kind of a presence was she in the community?)

In the community? My mother was very different…a dutiful wife, and as my father was very involved with the community, she was an appropriate “president’s wife”, or at least I think so. She became part of the WIZO and I think she even was president at some point. As far as the Jewish community, she had friends there, went to services, but she wasn’t what I would consider “active”. Then again, I don’t think the men of the community at that time would have made room for a great deal of activity [for women]. Equal status for women was not yet an issue, the atmosphere was quite “machista”. It took the likes of Gerda [Guttfreund] to start breaking it down.

Back to breaking down the history of the Jews in El Salvador to phases. I would say that there’s a break between the first phase and the period from ’28 and ’38. That is when those young men who were looking to better themselves economically leave Europe out of their own free will….they have a certain drive and are looking to propel themselves into better economic situations. Then comes the period from ’38 to about ’48 when people arrive because of the events in Europe-the Holocaust. A time of people escaping. Must have been very difficult. It is in this period is where my siblings and I were born.

(Was that ever discussed in your home, about the Holocaust, the war?)

My mother was very conscious of the war, and very emotionally involved. It was a constant concern and discussion. My mother was also very affected by revolutions and uprisings going on in El Salvador, and about Martinez (the president). My father was frequently traveling “en el interior”, and this was also a source of worry. My childhood memories are of sitting in the garden playing while mother is talking about, “Oh, here come, the planes and this is what’s happening we have to go inside.” And now she’s crying because FDR died or really nervous because So-and-So invaded such-and-such a country. So the political situation was a very big part of what was happening at home. After the war, when we went to Europe, I think both my parents had feeling of guilt that they had not suffered like the people who had stayed behind. They also expected their relatives to be angry at them because they survived the war in all the glory of tropical El Salvador. I guess you can understand that, right? And they hadn’t been directly affected. To this date, I don’t know whether relatives were resentful or not, but the guilt was there….they hadn’t participated in the full sense of the word, that they hadn’t lost anything.

During the war, my father was drafted into the French army. I understand that at least one representative from every “French” business was to report for duty. Evidence of the great friendship that existed, Enrique Weill, my father’s partners, offered to go because he was not yet married, and my father already had a child. In the meantime, France surrendered and he ended up not having to go to war, but still, what an enormous gesture, don’t you think?

This is an example of the level of emotion and type of conversation that was usual, everyone was nervous. Later I came to understand how difficult this period was for everyone, I started to view my mother’s struggle more sympathetically. Here was a woman who leaves her family behind to start a new family in a strange land that she never gets to understand. My mother never really found her footing in El Salvador.

(Did that spread to you at all?)

Oh, yes. I thought about it today, and really, I have a very big love-hate relationship with El Salvador. Because you couldn’t grow up in El Salvador surrounded by so many doubts and not be affected by it. The line of who was acceptable as a friend was also very defined. It turned out to be easier to limit friendships to people whose parents were either part of the Jewish community or foreigners with similar values. Even the cook (whom I adored) when my Salvadoran friends arrived late as usual for lunch, would say, “ can’t you please invite foreigners” (laughs). The lines were drawn.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.