Radio Announcement

Thanks to all who have tuned in to listen to my short piece included in Public Radio International's Jewish New Year programming. Producer by Johanna Cooper of Listen Up Radio, it is a short but powerful narrative piece recounting my experiences in El Salvador.

If you have missed it and still want to catch the program, please log on to the following websites this weekend. Remember: the entire program is fantastic but I am second in line (so make sure you listen right at the beginning!)

Radio New Mexico
www.kunm.org
11AM (Mountain Standard Time)

Radio Indiana
www.wfiu.indiana.edu
9PM (Eastern Standard Time)


One can listen to live audio on each of these websites, simply look for the "listen now!" or "listen online" links. Once you click on those, you should be good to go. The one trick is this: you have to literally listen LIVE so please tune in at the appointed hours.

Storylistener will be back with oral history interviews on Tuesday, October 3rd.

Thanks again for your support.

The Jewish Community of El Salvador

 

La Libertad, El Salvador
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You may wonder. A research blog on the Jewish Community of El Salvador? Indeed.

The following pages and archives feature excerpts and photographs from the 60-family community based in San Salvador. I also include a significant amount of interviews from those who used to call El Salvador home but now, due to the Salvadoran Civil War or other family concerns, live in locales such as Israel, the United States, Europe, and other Latin American countries.

Each week a different individual is featured and one must scroll down in order to read the story from the beginning (the latest entries are found at the top of each page). To search for a family name, simply enter your query at the top left of the blog and the archives will perhaps surprise you.

I began working on this blog in August 2005 and I welcome you to start at the beginning, in the middle, or maybe just today's entry. As always, I encourage dialogue and welcome your comments, suggestions, constructive criticism, feedback, wisdom, and concern. This is an interactive format where community members or those simply interested can discuss the realities facing every day life as a Jew in El Salvador.

No matter where you begin reading, you will be amazed by the stories of these phenomenal individuals who together make this tiny Central American nation their home. 

Jorge Weill: A Conclusion

Towards the end of the interview, I began asking Jorge about the Jewish community’s future. This excerpt concludes Jorge Weill’s entries in the blog. For more information on his oral history, simply scroll down to begin reading.
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(Do you see any challenges now for the Jewish community here in the coming years?)

I think that the Jewish community is doing a very good job at going through different stages. There was a stage in the ‘80s of survival. And now the Jewish community has grown, it’s become more complex, it’s got to become more organized, and it needs to have much stronger involvement. I have a feeling that probably the biggest challenge that there’s going to be is to maintain that togetherness, that unity in the community. It’s going to require a lot of work, a lot of leadership, and a lot of structure to do it.

(Do you ever worry about the future of the community, the young people?)

I don’t think so. If you look at where we’re coming from, they’re much further ahead. There’s a lot of young people who will certainly know a lot more about Judaism than before, who are deeply involved in the Jewish community activities. I’m not talking so much about the parents of the people who are now the 6- to 18-year-olds, but I’m thinking about the 6- to 18-year-olds. They’re the future of the community, and they’re probably going to be in 10, 15 years involved in the leadership of the community. And they’re going to be very well prepared and committed. So I’m very positive about that. I think that probably one of the biggest challenges this community is going to have is a financial one. Even though it’s grown, probably there’s going to be more demands and it’s going to be more difficult. But you know, when the problem comes up, I’m sure everybody’s going to get together and face it. I think that the community as such is more than just a religious association. It’s really a community, and people have socialized within and it’s given support and identity to its members. That’s very important. I think that people have to have an identity to be successful and satisfied in life.

(That makes me think of one more thing. Did you ever feel like the—you were part of the French contingent. Your parents were French. My family comes from the German side. Did you ever feel like there were differences in the two groups?)

Yes, I felt that there was some difference, because generally speaking, the French socialized mostly with the French Jews and the German Jews associated primarily with the German Jews. You could sense, although it was never vocalized, that there was some difference, but not any discrimination. Each one had their own character. Some were more yekke than others. And obviously the people that we socialized with were primarily the French Jews. But there were enough of them to make a mass, and there were enough German Jews to make a mass. And as a matter of fact, a funny story: when I came back to live in Salvador in 1974, they held this FEDECO, the Central American Jewish Federation, convention here in Salvador. El Salvador truly has an Ashkenaz majority and we had never been exposed to Sephardic culture--keep that in mind.
All of a sudden we’re sitting down and one of the couples from Guatemala mentioned that they were a mixed marriage. And I said, “Mixed marriage? You’re not both Jewish?” “Yes, we’re Jewish.” But one was Ashkenazi and the other one was Sephardi, and I didn’t even know the difference.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Jorge Weill V: The War Years Continue

In this next excerpt, Jorge remembers the most frightening event of the war involving his entire family.
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I was still in Miami when my second child was born, in 1984. Alexis was born in January ’84, and we came back to Salvador end of ’84, approx. But I was traveling every other week to Salvador, and Anny had already come a couple of times to Salvador.

(And she was willing to come back?)

She was willing to come back. She wanted to have a family life where we would be together and I wouldn’t be traveling back and forth. My kids started going to the American school. We made an effort for them to be bilingual and bicultural. At the time we didn’t know what was going to happen in Salvador, and we wanted them to feel at ease as much in the States as in Salvador.

(“Bicultural.” What was the other culture?)

The other culture was American, because they were born in the States, they were American citizens. We revolved around American culture and felt much closer to it. And very often we would send them to summer camp in the States. They speak English fluently, they are very familiar with American customs.

(Did Anny want them to become familiar with France?)

She wanted them to become familiar with France, but she didn’t expect them to be culturally attached or incorporated in France. It was more a matter of them knowing their family, which is terribly important.

(When did your mother come back to Salvador?)

My mother came back about two years afterward, around 1986. She was in the States and she felt a bit lonely. She was in Miami, and my sister was in Bethesda, and she had many friends in Salvador. She came back in ’86. My mother’s a very feisty lady, and she definitely was not daunted by the war.

(Is there one instance or one memory of the war that you have that was particularly frightening?)

Yes. In 1989 we had a very strong offensive where San Salvador was almost taken by the guerilla. We had a lot of fighting around the house, about a block and a half away in the Espino. I remember one night there was a lot of shooting and I remember all of us getting on the floor in our room because we didn’t know where the fighting was, to where the bullets were directed, and we decided not to take a risk, especially because we have so many windows in the house. The next day we started seeing armored cars going up the street and we had a helicopter flying over our house. It was firing a machine gun against the guerrilla about a block and a half away. It was just overhead from us. So I said, “Anny, you know, you’ve got to go.” And she said, “No, I’m not fleeing.” And I said, “You have to go with the kids.” So she went to the States in 1989. They had closed the American school. As a matter of fact, we didn’t know what was going to happen, whether they were going to be able to come back or not. We were able to place them in schools in Miami. Fortunately, in January-February 1990 they were able to come back.

(How did the kids react when they had to leave?)

They didn’t say very much. I think especially Sandra was very impacted because the offensive started on a Saturday, and the whole Noar Shelanu [Jewish youth group] was at Clemente Stanley’s house in Los Planes de Renderos. And all of a sudden the offensive started, and from Clemente’s house they could see the jets and the helicopters firing and dropping bombs. We were very concerned because we didn’t know how to pick them up. At the time, Saul Suster was in the government, and he got some bulletproof cars and went that Sunday to pick up all the kids. As a matter of fact they brought them all over to our house, and they were all excited, saying, “We saw the planes and the helicopters!” It made a big impression on them.

(Sara’s Suster said they were all very strong and brave, and some of them, as soon as they saw their parents, they started crying.)

Sandra didn’t cry but all of a sudden she started blurting it out. As a matter of fact, the time that we threw ourselves on the floor was a couple days later, and I could see that she was very nervous and all of a sudden she started talking very quickly, so I had to calm her down. It was the only time I’ve ever seen Sandra nervous.

(So they came back in 1990. Life marched on?)

Life marched on. They went back to school. Sandra remained active in the Noar Shelanu, what there was of the Noar Shelanu. Not as organized as now, but she enjoyed it enormously. And she made good friends with her companions in the Noar Shelanu. Later Alexis who was younger joined a much more organized Noar. We had a new rabbi, Gustavo Kraselnik, and his wife who started organizing more professionally the Noar Shelanu. Unfortunately Sandra at that time went to college in the States, so she really missed out on that.

(Tell me, how is your life today? Both of your kids are now graduated from college?)

Both of our kids have graduated. Sandra’s working in Washington. She’s a good friend of yours. Alexis is going to start working in New York. So we really feel like empty nesters, so any excuse we have, we either go to Washington or New York so we can see them.

(Do you have any desire to move to the States?)

I feel very comfortable in Salvador. I like my life in Salvador, I like my work in Salvador, and I like the idea that they’ll have to make a decision whether they want to come back to Salvador or not. I think they’re eventually going to come back to Salvador. For some odd reason, Salvador’s like a magnet. Everybody wants to come back. Even the daughters of Salvadorans who were born in the States like to come back to Salvador. [laughs]

(Guilty).

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Jorge Weill IV: The War Years

Despite the dramatic transition to married life in El Salvador, Jorge continued working and Anny, his bride, learned Spanish very quickly with the help of community member Perla Meissner. This excerpt describes Jorge’s experiences during the war including his kidnapping in 1980.
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(And you had your first child pretty soon after?)

Sandra was born about a year and a half after we got married. She was born October 1980. And at the time, we had gone to Miami because around June of 1980 the situation was getting very tough in Salvador and we decided it was better for Anny to stay in Miami because we didn’t know if there was going to be a state of siege. You are not allowed to leave your house after a certain time. The doctor told her that he’d have to induce her to make sure that she’d have the proper care, because if there was a state of siege, we wouldn’t be able leave the house at night to get to the hospital.

(So she decided not to—?)

We all decided in June that it was better for her to stay in Miami. I was commuting back and forth between Miami and Salvador.

(But she stayed in Miami, then?)

She stayed in Miami. My parents were in Miami. My father had cancer. He was also being treated in Miami.

(Sandra is born in October. Then you decided to stay in Miami?)

And then what happened was, my father was sick, but we were going to come back in January after Sandra was born. And in December Anny called me to tell me that my father was very sick and that he had been taken to the hospital. I asked her if I could come three days later, and unfortunately about two days after I called her, I was kidnapped. I was kidnapped until the end of the month of January of ’81, a little under a month and a half. And then I went back to Miami and we decided to stay in Miami.

(Are you willing to discuss the kidnapping?)

To me, that’s something that—it’s an experience—I’ve gone through and I have no resentments but I’d prefer not to discuss it. It was a very difficult situation because Anny was in Miami and my daughter had just been recently born and my father was in the hospital. Unfortunately he never came out of the hospital. But the good thing is I was able to see him after I was released.

(Does anyone know who kidnapped you?)

Yes, I know who kidnapped me. It was a splinter leftist group.

(Do you think it was—last question—motivated for—?)

It was purely motivated for money, and I was relatively well treated compared to other kidnappings.

(So when you were released, you went immediately to Miami?)

I was released and that same day I flew to Miami.

(And you saw your father?)

And I saw my father, which was very important. They had maintained him alive, and he lived for about a month more.

(Had he known what had happened to you?)

He knew what had happened to me. He was having some troubles, because he had uremia which causes you to lose a certain amount of your consciousness, but he was very well aware of what had happened and we were able to talk.

(And you decided to stay in Miami until the end of the war?)

And then I decided to stay in Miami, and after a year, a year and a half, I started commuting back and forth to Salvador and at one point in time Anny told me we had to make a decision, we couldn’t continue that way. So we decided to come back to Salvador in 1984, which is a decision I don’t regret at all.

(So when you decided to come back, you didn’t have any anger towards the situation, you were ready to come back?)

I was ready to come back. I never had any anger or resentment about the kidnapping. When you go through an experience like that, you can have certain feelings, like resentment and jealousy, which are terrible, and I don’t have any of those.
I came back and I started getting established, again with a little bit of difficulty. And from then I went on and I really enjoyed it.

(How was life here during—until the peace accords were signed?)

As a matter of fact, until the peace accords were signed, there was obviously some anxiety, there was a lot of uncertainty, but probably if you look back, life was a lot less dangerous than now, with the gangs and everything else. I feel life has changed because of the crime rate in Salvador. And there was a tremendous community spirit. There was community spirit within the Jewish community, there was community spirit between all cross-sections of society. There was an enormous sense of comradeship at the time.

(And services went on?)

And services went on. There was a big effort. Everybody made a point of going to synagogue so there would be minyan. And Claudio Kahn had a tremendous hand in it. He was a real motivator, he would motivate people who never came to synagogue to go to synagogue. He used to say that he had a “credit and debit system” whereby when we were more people than necessary for minyan, they would count for the times that there weren’t enough people.

(Who would lead services?)

Max Sztarkman would lead services. And later there was an Israeli fellow living in Salvador who had a very good voice and had come to Salvador for the national orchestra, and he led services. Very often there were people from the Israeli embassy who would help out.

(And I understand that there was an ark on wheels?)

Yes, there was an ark that was on wheels. That’s before we bought Jean Paul Joseph’s house, where the synagogue is now, because at one point in time they didn’t have a permanent place to go to, so they would go from one house to the other and they would take the ark on wheels so they could hold the services.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Jorge Weill Part III: Educational Differences

After high school, Jorge went to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and then proceeded to enter an MBA program at MIT. He was only 21 at the time and had already experienced quite a bit during his short life.
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(Did you enjoy it MIT?)

That I must say it probably one of the times that I least enjoyed. It was just so work-oriented, and I was very young. I was one of the youngest ones in the class. I wasn’t 22 when I entered, and I feel I wasn’t mature enough. I still wanted to carouse around and gallivant in Boston and everybody else wanted to study, so I was a little bit out of step. I got back in very quickly.

(Did you go home quite often to visit?)

What I did for vacation, I used to go for Christmas and spring vacation, and then I used to go to Salvador for the summer, except for two summers when I worked. I worked in France, one time when I was in undergraduate school and one time between my first and second year of business school when I worked in Paris in a consulting firm. And I must say I lost contact with many of my friends from Salvador. Most of them did not go to high school in the States, and although we were friendly we were not as close as we used to be, especially the ones who were not Jewish. So I must say I lost a lot of contact with Salvador and my Salvadoran friends.

(And how was your relationship with your parents?)

My relationship with my parents was excellent. I always got along very well with my parents. I used to go on vacation with them. I must say I was never the rebellious type. When I was at school, the only way we communicated was by mail, so I used to write a letter to them every week, and they would write me once a week, each one of them individually. My father would write me these very long letters, about two pages typewritten. He would always bring up a subject and expand on it, weave a little bit of philosophy into it. So it was always very interesting to get his letters. I read the letters I wrote my parents years afterwards when I was in boarding school, and they weren’t very interesting.

(To them they were probably very interesting!)

To them they were interesting, and they were happy to get them. I think that during the four years I spent in boarding school I only got one phone call from my parents, and when I went to college I also only got one phone call in four years. People just didn’t call on the phone.

(When did you decide to come back to Salvador? When you graduated from MIT?)

Then I went to work in New York for two years. And my father told me I had to make a decision—my father was older. This was in 1974. He was 65 years old. He told me I had to make a decision whether I was going to stay in New York or come back to El Salvador. And after two years of being in New York, I think I was very happy to go back to Salvador. So I came back to Salvador. He was primarily in the textile wholesaling business. So I came to work in the wholesaling business, which I must say was a cultural shock coming from New York.

(You lived here beginning in—?)

I came back middle of 1974, and I was very happy because the first year I lived with my parents. And then my good friend Jean Paul Joseph [son of Soeurette and Andre] came back and we rented a house in Santa Tecla.

(You’re working here. How did you meet your wife?)

My father’s business partner, George Salomon, had a nephew who came to Salvador on vacation. We became friends when he was here. He was a very charming guy. He was from Strasbourg. And when I went to visit my mother’s aunt, who was like her mother, in Strasbourg, I went to say hello to him. He had just been recently married, and Anny, my wife, was his wife’s best friend. And by happenstance I met Anny and from the start we got along very well, and we saw each other on vacation during a couple of years.

(So you would go and visit? Did she ever come here?)

She came here before we got married.

(What did she think?)

Well, she liked it very much. She probably didn’t know what she was bargaining for, because just after she came back, the revolution started and the war started. As a matter of fact, the first day she came to Salvador, we went for dinner to my parents’ house which was about two blocks away from the YSU, the TV station. For the first time a bomb exploded and it was placed at the TV station. And we heard the bomb explode only two blocks away. All of a sudden the TV channel stopped transmitting and everybody was calling each other to see what had happened. So she got acquainted with Salvador in a very quick fashion.

(Was it important for you to marry a Jew?)

At the beginning it wasn’t, but in the end I think it was.

(When did you get married?)

We got married in 1979.

(She came back in 1979?)

Yes, she came back in 1979. As a matter of fact, we got married at the beginning of April, and we were in Strasbourg a couple days before our wedding when they told us that Ernesto Liebes, who had been kidnapped, had been killed. So we heard the news while we were still in Strasbourg. Towards the end of April we came back to Salvador, and at the beginning of May, the guerrilla took over the French embassy, and Anny’s friends who had never heard of Salvador, all of a sudden read on the front page: “French embassy taken hostage by the Salvadoran left.” And they kept those French diplomats hostage in the embassy for a couple weeks. So she discovered Salvador the hard way.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

Jorge Weill Part II: Growing up in El Salvador

In this second entry, Jorge remembers his childhood in El Salvador and his first experience living abroad.
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They got along. They had an exceedingly good relationship. They used to go to the office together every day, and they’d take turns driving. One week one would drive to work and the following week the other one would drive. They’d pick each other up in the morning and drop each other off at 12 o’clock, they’d again pick each other up again at 2 o’clock and return home at 6 o’clock. And they had always something interesting and new to talk about in the car. It was a pleasure to go with them.

There were a couple Jews in the business. There were two I can remember. There was Alfredo Klein and there was another gentleman called Luis Margerit, whose children live in Salvador, but I’ve lost track of them.

(Your early years, did you go to the American school, like everyone else?)

I first went to the Echevez, which was a nursery school and then I studied first grade in France. At the time foreigners used to take five to six months vacations every five years, so my parents went on vacation for six months to France and left me with an aunt to study first grade in Strasbourg. I came back and went to the American school until eighth grade, and then went on to boarding school in the states.

(What did you speak at home, what language?)

We spoke French, primarily. But then when I was with my friends I would insist on speaking Spanish with my parents. I didn’t want to be different.

(As a child, did you know what had happened to your grandparents in the war?)

Yes. I knew that from an early age, I would say around nine, ten years old. My mother would tell me her experiences during the war. My mother was understandably traumatized. But I didn’t suffer from it. It wasn’t suffocating, but she would often tell me the story, what happened to my grandparents, what she went through the war.

(So it wasn’t a secret?)

It was not a secret. It was open and I think it was much better that way.

(What about your father’s side? Did he lose anyone in the war?)

My father was very lucky, because his parents were able to escape to what was at the time Free France. They only had to hide towards the end of the war. They almost got caught going from occupied France to what was Free France. I have always wondered and never had a chance to ask my father if he had any contact with his parents. Apparently during the whole period he wasn’t able to communicate with them. I can’t imagine what it’s like living five years without being able to contact your parents, not knowing if they’re alive or not. But they were very lucky.

(When you went to France, how was that? Was that a shock? Do you remember that first trip when you were in first grade?)

I remember that first trip. I didn’t mind it at all. I don’t know, I’ve never really suffered through anything. When I went to boarding school in the States, I enjoyed it enormously. When I went to college, I enjoyed it enormously. I also enjoyed living in Salvador. France, I didn’t mind it at all.

(Tell me about the Escuela Americana. What was it like to be Jewish?)

The Escuela Americana, my children went to the Escuela Americana and there were usually one or two Jewish kids in these very large classes of 100 students. In my the time, there were only 30 students per class, and generally speaking there were about five Jews in most of these classes. So you were not alone and you felt a little bit more cohesiveness in that sense. But at the same time, many of my friends were not Jewish but we got along very well, and I rarely felt any difference. As a matter of fact, my Catholic friends had Catholic classes, and at the time, the rabbi used to come once or twice a week to the American school, and he would also give us religion classes. The only thing that struck me was maybe in seventh grade when one of my friends told me, “Oh, you killed Jesus.” And I didn’t even pay too much attention, because it wasn’t said in a very disrespectful or hateful way.

(So you really never experienced anti-Semitism?)

I never really experienced anti-Semitism.

(Was your family very Jewish growing up?)

I think that my family was culturally Jewish. We celebrated all the High Holidays although we didn’t really celebrate Shabbat at home every Friday. My father used to go to synagogue quite often. Sometimes I would go on Friday nights. When I started studying for my bar mitzvah, I would go on Saturday mornings. And then after I made my bar mitzvah, they’d ask me to go on Saturday mornings. I didn’t like it so much, but I’d do it so they’d have a minyan. I have very comforting memories of the community. I remember it as being a very friendly place. I never really felt too many conflicts. Probably there were more than what I could sense.

(And after eighth grade you were sent to where?)

After eighth grade, in ninth grade I went to boarding school in the States. I went to Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts.

(How was that?)

I enjoyed it enormously. I felt—especially because, you know, all of a sudden, even though it was very strict, I didn’t have any parental supervision. I loved that. I felt much more independent. I made very good friends at Worcester.

(And the transition to U.S. life?)

It wasn’t too difficult. I had a little difficulty with the language, especially with my pronunciation. Sometimes I’d make some funny mistakes, and people would laugh at me. But I made some very good friends, and I remember being invited quite often for the weekends to my friends’ houses. I loved it because there were sports. We had a lot of personal attention. And I must say, I learned how to study. It was very good for me. It made me responsible.

(What did they think of you coming from Salvador? Were you kind of an exotic presence?)

I was a semi-exotic being, but I got acclimated pretty quickly, and they didn’t see me as a Salvadoran any more.

(Were there lots of Jews there?)

There was a fair amount of Jews, I would say. Fifteen to twenty percent of the class was Jewish.

(Do you feel like you had something in common with the American Jews?)

Yes, I felt it for some odd reason, don’t ask me why, but I always identified more with the Jews at the school. I was very excited, because my first roommate was Jewish, his name was Steve Katz, and my mother said, “Katz? He must be Jewish.” And I said, “Is Katz Jewish?” I didn’t know at the time.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Jorge Weill: An Introduction

Jorge "George" Weill, older brother to Monique, is the son of Raymonde "Raymunda" and Henri "Enrique" Weill. Born in San Salvador, Jorge continues to live in the capital with his wife Anny. They have two children, Alexis and Sandra, both of whom were raised in El Salvador but are currently living in the United States. Jorge was one of my last interviews in El Salvador, sitting down with me on the 26th of June.
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My mother and father were both born in Alsace-Lorraine in France. My father was born in a small town in Odratsheim and my mother was born in Strasbourg.

(Do you have a first memory of childhood?)

I couldn’t recall right now what my first memory is, but what I do recall is playing at my parents’ house, which was on the Doble Via in front of Cidema. We had a small driveway leading up to a cochera (Salvadoran version of a garage), and I remember playing there beside what seemed to be an enormous garden and what I’ve later come to realize was a very small place.

(What was your house like growing up? Can you describe it to me?)

The house, which at the time seemed very big, had red-tiled floors. It was built in the colonial style, and it had an arch with a wood frame carved around at the entrance of the dining room. I remember that in the back of the house we had a place where we kept the chickens. At the beginning, if I remember correctly, we had a wood oven. We had a small refrigerator which I knew well because my mother kept it for nearly 50 years. It was a very nice house, and as a matter of fact, my good friend Bobby Cohen lived right next to us, the Guttfreunds lived two houses away, and the Geismars lived about a block and a half away.

I remember I used to be very good friends with Andres (Guttfreund), and we used to play together a lot. We didn’t pay attention to his sisters and my sister. They were too small, they were at least three, four years younger than we were.

(Tell me, what about the ambiente. What was the community like?)

Well, you know, I always remember Salvador in my youth as being very friendly. Everybody was very friendly. My parents’ friends were primarily from the community, and I remember them being very sociable, people being very very nice to me. I don’t remember having any type of sad or confrontative moment. I remember that people used to go visit each other and I used to go see my friends, whether it was Andres Guttfreund, I used to go over to his house whenever I wanted to, or I would go to—I remember going to the Geismars’ house about a block and a half away. I was young and the maid used to take us. I lived in that house until 1956, when I was eight years old, and then we moved to Colonia Escalón.

(To the house that your mother still lives in?)

To the house that my mother still lives in. And then again, we had the Rosenbergs that lived right around the corner, and we again had the Geismars about a block away and the Salomons, my father’s business partner, that were two blocks away. So we used to just walk over and go say hello whenever we wanted to.

(Why did your father come to Salvador?)

My father came in 1926-1927. At the time, what foreign businessmen usually used to do was to go back to their home town and find some young men who they thought had potential and bring them back as salesmen. There was a gentleman called Lucien Simon who was from Sarreguemines, where my father grew up. He came over and asked my father—who was 17 at the time if he wanted to come to America. And at the time Sarreguemines was poor—France was poor. So my father thought, “America, that’s the land of the future.” So he came to Salvador. He didn’t know he was going to Latin America. But he loved it from the beginning.

(Exactly what year did he arrive?)

He arrived in 1927. And then about two years later, his partner George Salomon came, also from Sarreguemines, to work for the same gentleman.

(What did they do for Simon?)

Both of them were salesmen, and my father told me the first month he came over he had to—he worked in a textile wholesaling business-sleep in the store. After a month they told him to go to a pensión, which was like a little hotel, where he stayed for a couple of months. He used to travel mostly to Occidente, so he would take the train to Santa Ana where he would visit clients, and from there he would travel to the surrounding towns. He had an assistant and they would travel on mules on which they’d load all the samples, the muestras. They would come back with bags full of large silver coins, bambas they were called, which is how they were paid and they would take them either to the bank or ship them back by train to San Salvador.

(And eventually he and Jorge, did they start their own business, or they just continued working?)

And then —and I have the contract somewhere in Miami—about four years later, Mr. Simon offered my father to become a partner in the business, and then George Salomon also became a partner. Mr. Simon in 1945, after World War II, said, “The same thing is going to happen as after World War I. There’s going to be a depression.” So he sold the business to George Salomon and my father. So L.A. Simon & Cia. became Weill, Salomon & Cia. They went into business and remained partners for the rest of their life. The business was called Weill, Salomon. Tey’re both buried in Miami, because both of them passed away in Miami during the war (Salvadoran Civil War). Their tombs are right next to each other, and since my father’s on the left-hand side the tombs read “Weill-Salomon”, so we say the partnership continues.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.

The Storylistener Talks

As many of you know (especially those who follow this blog), I recently returned from El Salvador. Working together with a fantastic producer, Johanna Cooper of Listen Up Radio (www.listenup.us), I wrote and narrated a short piece about my experiences which will be aired as part of a longer program "The Jewish New Year: A Time To Heal," on Public Radio International (PRI).

For more information and local airtimes, please check out the link below:

http://www.pri.org/jnyheal.html

As PRI is received by many affiliate radio stations, it is impossible for me to know when/if your local station will air the program so I encourage you to continue checking out the link in the coming days and weeks for more information.

Many thanks to all for your continued support!

Soeurette Joseph: Final Thoughts

As conditions in El Salvador worsened due to internal civil strife, many community members decided to temporarily relocate to the US, Israel, or Europe. Some temporary stays lasted a lifetime.

(Why did you leave?)

Well, it was a very rough time in ’79. We had had a lot of threats of kidnapping and so on and so on and it was time to leave like everybody did, like your grandmother left and your grandfather – we all left.

(Who’s we?)

The whole– mostly – almost the whole community left.

(But your family – the people who left. You. Was Jean-Paul living in Salvador at that time?)

Jean-Paul was living in Salvador. He had married and he had just had a baby and the baby was six months old when they left and they came to New York and I followed and I came here.

Ruth Reich de Alpert: So why don’t you tell who Fred was?

Fred was my brother-in-law who lived with us. He was not married and he lived with us all his life. And he died years ago, I don’t even remember what year but before we left Salvador he died.

(Did you get along with him?)

Very well. Until the end then he became very difficult. The last years were awful. He couldn’t take the fact that Andre had died. It was like I was responsible. He made my life absolutely miserable but at the end – I must say that at the beginning he helped me a lot. Andre didn’t have enough time and he had much more time than Andre and he was very nice to me, extremely nice. And at the end only, he was getting old and had health problems and he couldn’t take the fact that his brother had died. That was the end of that.

(How old were you when your husband died?)

48.

(How old was he?)

63.

(63. What year was that?)

May 23, 1971.

(It was a very sudden death?)

No,he had a heart condition and he had been sick since 1962. It was still a very difficult time, yeah.

(So when you moved to New York was it a very fast move – from one day to the next?)

Like everybody else, we decided to leave and that was it.

(Did you move to this apartment?)

To this apartment, yes. Jean-Paul bought an apartment and convinced me in April of ’79 to buy an apartment. I bought the apartment, I wasn’t here so I took somebody to take care of buying furniture and so on and so on. And I said whatever she wanted to do in the apartment I said, “No, I'm never going to stay here, just for a short time. It ‘s not worth doing this or that or rearranging –“ and do I regret it. I thought it would stay here a few months then go back. I never expected to sit here for the rest of my life.

(So Jean-Paul and Jessica had three girls.)

Three girls.

(One was born in Salvador.)

Yes.

(And two were born here in the U.S. Both of Sylvia’s children were born in the States?)

Born here in the States.

(And how often did you see each other?)

Here? I used to go every Friday night for dinner at Jean-Paul and I would go Friday lunch – I would have Jean-Paul in town. I would go to his office and we would sit down and have lunch together. That was the tradition. And in the evening I would go to the Metropolitan [museum] in the afternoon and at six o'clock I would cross the street and go for dinner there. I saw them a lot. I would go in the beginning every Thursday to take Alexandra for the day when she was a baby. Later on they had people to take care of them so I gave that up.

(And Sylvia at that time?)

She lived first in Chicago and then she lived in New Haven.

(So you really had your closest people around -)

Oh, yes. So why would I go anywhere else?

(How was living in New York? That’s a huge change?)

Yes, but I was lucky. I came here, I was 56. That means you are young enough to get used to something new. If I would have to do it now it would be much more difficult but at that time it was a new experience. I knew I had to open a door and not look back. It was easy for me because I knew I had to get used to it. Nobody cares if you are unhappy so you have to do it on your own. You have to decide you are going to make it and take the best of it and meet people,go out and do things, and that was very easy. Now it would be much more difficult but that time it was okay. And who can be unhappy about it? You come to New York, you come to a
wonderful city, why would you complain? Why would you complain? There is no reason to. You make the best of it. Nobody cares if you are unhappy so try to be happy.

(What was Jean-Paul like?)

Jean-Paul was so nice. He was very funny, very funny. He was very nice. He adored his family. He adored his daughters, it was unbelievable. Yeah.

(And what about Sylvia? She also lost her husband at a young age.)

Very young. He was 42.

(Do you think that made you closer?)

Of course....And Jean-Paul passed away in ’98.

(’98. How did that change your life?)

Tremendously. It’s something that you – you can’t get over the death of your child.

(How did your role change in his family? Did you become closer or drift apart? )

First, when Jessica decided to sell the house she came and – she wanted to go to a hotel with the three children and I decided that she would stay here. So they came and stayed here for three months until they bought another apartment. And I used to go every Friday night there but then with the time the children left and there were other things coming up and little by little it disappeared. But two weeks ago I had dinner with Jessica and her new husband. She was in Spain last week and came back Thursday so yesterday she called me and told me about her trip. We get along very well. It’s not very difficult to get along with me. I'm a good girl. [chuckles]

(You’ve been through a lot and you managed to keep a very positive attitude.)

You have to be positive. If you are negative you are going to be miserable and nobody cares if you’re miserable so try to make it. That’s the only way. If you
want to destroy your life it’s easy, you can do it.

Like in the time of Salvador, it was not always so easy… we were never 100% Salvadoran.

Ruth Reich de Alpert: Never. Never.

(Why do you say that?)

Ruth Reich de Alpert: You never are. The Salvadorans don’t let you be Salvadoran.

(They don’t let you be Salvadoran?)

Not really. You never felt you belonged absolutely. I don't know how it is with the younger generation like you, you were born there [to Ruth Reich de Alpert]. But I don't know. But like, say, the children of the Freunds [see entries on Herta Freund and Ricardo Freund] who are already third generation, they must think differently from us.

Ruth Reich de Alpert: Um-hm.

[Soeurette to Ruth] You were already a first generation. I was not a generation at all.

Ruth Reich de Alpert: Yes.

Soeurette: I was an import and that’s different.
It’s very difficult to talk about yourself because you want to avoid believing you are somebody special and so on and so on and then you still want to tell a few stories and you cannot tell about your life in one hour or so. You would need so much more to tell about your experiences as a child and everything, it’s – it’s difficult to say. Some people have a life that’s easier than others. But some people have lives that are more interesting than others and sometimes you wish you would have had much less to tell.

Transcription by Claudette Allison, Word-for-Word.com
Ruth Reich de Alpert participated in this section of the intervew.

Soeurette Joseph Part VI: The Germans vs. The French

In this section of the interview, Soeurette answers questions regarding some more sensitive topics.

(Can you describe your husband?)

Yes. He was very kind, extremely kind, very much loved by other people, people liked him a lot. He was very sweet. He adored his children. After everybody was so afraid that he would not like children, because everybody said to me they were afraid because he was never interested in children. But once he had his own it was a big difference. He suffered a lot when they left, I didn’t. I took it very well. I was a little relieved, you know. They were in that age where Sylvia went to too many parties and too many things that I was happy she left. And Jean-Paul, with him it was a little more difficult because he was very homesick. He was even homesick when he had to leave home to go to the Escuela Americana. Everything was too much. He would have lived the rest of his life in his room. He didn’t need anybody. He wanted to be in his room. But Sylvia liked to be outside and Andre was worrying much more than I did and very unhappy that they had left.
It belonged to the tradition in Salvador. I don't know if we were right to send them away.

(But they loved to visit?)

They liked to come home, of course.

(What did you do when they left? What kind of things did you –did you take on any new?)

No, I didn’t do anything new. I just went on with my life the way it was.

(Now what was it like coming to Salvador after the war? Did people ask you about what you went through?

Oh, they never asked anything and I was told not to talk about it. I never said a word about all those things ever. Nobody knew anything about me. I was told not to say a word.

(What about your husband? You husband knew.)

Yeah, but he didn’t want anybody else to know it. It was not interesting for anybody. They didn’t care. They didn’t want to hear things. They didn’t want to hear what happened during the war and what – they didn’t want to know.

(Why do you think?)

I don't know. Just “Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear. Why do you speak about atrocities?” People didn’t want to hear anything because there’s a lot more to tell. There’s a lot more visits to the camps and things like this. There were camps in France where they had taken the people that I had to go and visit and very often speak to the people who were in charge to see if I could get somebody out and so on and so on. All these people don’t want to hear about it. They were happy in Salvador. Don’t talk. No.

(How did that make you feel?)

Strange. I must say that sometimes I resented it. Sometimes I resented it. The people didn’t want to hear about anything. They just didn’t want to hear about anything.

(Did you ever think that maybe they were afraid to ask?)

No. They were not afraid to ask, absolutely not. They just didn’t care, that’s the whole reason. They didn’t care. No.

(What did you think of the other people in the community? What were they like? Were the German Jews different from the French?)

Very different but we were – a few of us only mixed with the German Jews. There were others who never mixed with the German Jews. And we were very friendly with your grandfather (Ernesto Reich). We were friends of Herta (Freund), very good friends of Herta. And for me it was absolutely no problem. Everybody was very nice to me and I had no reason whatsoever not to be nice to other people. Tante Paula (Widawer) treated me like a daughter. I had never met, really, Doña Irma (de Liebes) because I was reading your report and I didn’t know her really because I don’t remember having ever been invited to the house. Life was very agreeable. I find – I liked it very much, I felt very comfortable.

(How were the German Jews different from the French?)

They are different anyhow, they’ve always been. It’s a completely different upbringing. Much stiffer, maybe, I would say and different…...

Transcription by Claudette Allison, Word-by-Word.com
Ruth Reich de Alpert participated in this section of the interview.

Soeurette Joseph Part V: Settling In

Life developed at a "normal" pace for the Josephs...

(You enjoyed being a mother?)

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, very much so. I played a lot with them. I liked to play and I played a lot with the children.

(And when they reached school age did you know you were going to send them to the American School?)

No, I didn’t know anything. Yes, there was no choice but the American School. For later on I didn’t know what we would do.

(So was that the first time, at least for Sylvia, that she was really mixed with Salvadoreños?)

No, we – no. At the Deportivo they always saw children, other children. No, they had friends. But Sylvia had mostly – her friends were Monica Weill, Miriam Guttfreund, Susi Gunn. Those were the friends of Sylvia.

(And were you happy with the Jewish part of your life? Did you feel --)

Yes, I was very comfortable. I was very comfortable.

(How religious was your home? Was it --)

In Salvador? Like everybody else. Like everybody else.

(Your children stayed at the American School until -)

Jean-Paul left after – before getting to high school and Sylvia went on year to high school in Salvador and then left.

(Where did you send them?)

Jean-Paul went to Andover for four years. First they asked him to come to a summer session to get used to the U.S., so he went to summer session and then he went to Andover for four years. Then he went to Penn and then he went on to graduate school. And Sylvia went to Abbott, which is now Andover, which is the same school now, and then she went to Penn, then she was sent to England and then she went for her PhD in Chicago.

(Did you think that you would live the rest of your days in Salvador?)

Absolutely. I was prepared to do it.

Transcription by Claudette Allison, Word-for-Word.com