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He was a survivor.
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A handful of the Jews of his town
came back from the war
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and it was something
he always impressed upon me,
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that he was a survivor
and that we were a survivor family,
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that I was named after his father,
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named after somebody who’d been —
Who’d been murdered because he was Jewish.
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When I got married,
I didn't want to have children.
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I didn't want to have children.
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My father told me,
I think when I was young,
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that he didn't want to have kids.
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I think I knew that when I was young.
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00:02:04,066 --> 00:02:06,902
I guess it must have made some kind
of impression on me.
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Begin then, with your town,
what Jewish life was like.
15
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I come from Nad Caroi,
which is in Transylvania.
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In 1919, as a result of World War One,
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the region of Transylvania,
which had been part of Hungary,
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defeated in the war,
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00:02:30,134 --> 00:02:32,303
now became part of Romania.
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We were approximately 4000 Jewish people.
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How many survived?
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Approximately 200 people.
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The whole life centered around...
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the community.
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The whole life centered around
the family, naturally.
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The more persecuted you are,
the more closer you become to your family.
27
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My parents could afford to send me
in kindergarten,
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and seldom happened that those 250 yards
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I was able to make it peacefully.
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Something always happened, like...
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“Dirty Jew.”
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I don’t know how they recognized me as —
As Jew,
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00:03:33,531 --> 00:03:37,576
but other little children
were running after me, calling me
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“Filthy Jew, dirty Jew,
why don't you go to Palestine?”
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00:03:42,706 --> 00:03:44,667
As we grew older...
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00:03:45,835 --> 00:03:49,422
things became tougher.
37
00:04:39,263 --> 00:04:43,350
In 1940, in accordance with
the Hitler-sponsored Vienna Awards,
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northern Transylvania was reacquired
by a now-fascist Hungary,
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an ally of Nazi Germany.
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00:04:56,530 --> 00:04:59,366
My father, should rest in peace,
41
00:05:00,868 --> 00:05:06,665
he was a great Hungarian patriot.
He served in the Hungarian Army.
42
00:05:07,625 --> 00:05:09,502
He was such a “Hungarian”
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00:05:09,543 --> 00:05:15,799
that he didn’t wanna learn not even
to say, “Good morning” in Romanian.
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00:05:18,427 --> 00:05:23,432
So, when they came in, my father thought
that these are the Hungarians
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00:05:23,474 --> 00:05:26,185
who left in 19I9.
46
00:05:28,062 --> 00:05:30,940
But unfortunately they were not
the same Hungarians.
47
00:05:35,069 --> 00:05:39,532
The young Jews were taken away
to labor camp.
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00:05:44,078 --> 00:05:47,414
After three years they let me go.
49
00:05:48,624 --> 00:05:51,752
Life for Hungary's
Jewish population was extremely difficult
50
00:05:51,835 --> 00:05:54,880
but was still far better than for the
rest of European Jewry,
51
00:05:55,089 --> 00:05:59,301
which was being systematically murdered
at Auschwitz and other death camps.
52
00:06:00,886 --> 00:06:03,847
The Hungarian leadership,
while fascist and anti-Semitic,
53
00:06:03,931 --> 00:06:07,101
still considered its Jewish citizens
to be Hungarian
54
00:06:07,142 --> 00:06:09,687
and refused to deport them
to extermination camps
55
00:06:09,728 --> 00:06:12,189
in spite of Hitler’s repeated requests.
56
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This situation was to come to
a sudden and tragic end
57
00:06:17,027 --> 00:06:19,697
when, in 1944, losing the war
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00:06:19,738 --> 00:06:23,701
and fearing his Hungarian ally
was about to desert him to join the enemy –
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– An Ankara dispatch says
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00:06:24,910 --> 00:06:26,662
German troops have occupied Hungary.
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I'll never forget, in March, 1944,
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March 19,
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listening to the radio Sunday morning,
we heard that the Germans occupied Hungary.
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I said to my parents,
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said, “Look, there are only two ways
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to probably to escape.
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One way is to go in hiding
and the other way is to go to Romania."
68
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We were Romanian citizens.
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00:07:04,950 --> 00:07:06,869
The border was not far.
70
00:07:08,912 --> 00:07:14,585
But my parents were old, and …
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– not that old –
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00:07:16,629 --> 00:07:24,629
and somehow they, they couldn't believe
that anything serious could happen.
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My mother said, “Look, you are young,
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00:07:31,393 --> 00:07:36,482
you decide what you want to do
with your own life.
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00:07:36,565 --> 00:07:44,565
If you think that to go into hiding is
the answer, do it by all means.
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We don’t see it that way, we can’t do it.”
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And... and, and sure, it was
a very difficult moment.
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My parents didn’t believe me.
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00:08:01,757 --> 00:08:07,054
They were not told by the leadership
what happened in Poland.
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00:08:07,221 --> 00:08:10,307
The people didn't know
what happened in Poland,
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00:08:10,599 --> 00:08:14,561
and the people didn’t want to know
what happened next door in Czechoslovakia.
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The leadership wasn’t working.
The people weren’t moving.
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00:08:18,899 --> 00:08:22,945
The people didn't listen to – to rumors
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because they said, “These are rumors.”
85
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I said, "I'm too young to die,
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and I'm going."
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My father and mother were deported
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to Auschwitz and killed.
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In less than two months,
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from May 15th to July 9th, 1944,
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00:08:47,845 --> 00:08:51,932
435,000 Hungarian Jews
were deported to Auschwitz
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00:08:52,057 --> 00:08:54,476
where 400,000 of them were murdered.
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00:08:54,601 --> 00:08:57,229
Among those killed
were Joseph and Hannah Klein,
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parents of Zoltan Klein.
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Another 100,000 would be dead
96
00:09:01,859 --> 00:09:03,819
by the time the war was over.
97
00:09:04,486 --> 00:09:06,655
I'm going to be 25,
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00:09:06,697 --> 00:09:08,699
which... which is... which is when...
99
00:09:08,782 --> 00:09:11,618
Which is how old my father was
when the Nazis came in.
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00:09:11,744 --> 00:09:13,120
This is constantly on my mind.
101
00:09:13,162 --> 00:09:16,165
You know, I say, “Well,
my father had to go into hiding,
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00:09:16,623 --> 00:09:20,043
leave his family and
everyone was carted off and
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00:09:20,294 --> 00:09:22,379
he was my age,” and...
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00:09:23,005 --> 00:09:24,715
this puts a certain...
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00:09:26,550 --> 00:09:29,261
It colors your whole life,
there’s no question about it.
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00:09:29,303 --> 00:09:32,848
There was a Romanian peasant
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00:09:33,390 --> 00:09:37,311
who didn’t know how to write,
didn't know how to read,
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00:09:37,561 --> 00:09:41,106
but was a very, very good-hearted man.
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00:09:41,398 --> 00:09:43,901
He took care of a forest,
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00:09:43,984 --> 00:09:48,113
and took in three Jewish youngsters.
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00:09:52,993 --> 00:09:56,705
We made our own boonker — bunker,
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about four feet high,
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00:10:01,877 --> 00:10:06,256
and five or six feet long,
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00:10:06,465 --> 00:10:11,136
and ten feet or eight feet wide,
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00:10:11,929 --> 00:10:15,933
and we buried ourselves there
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00:10:16,099 --> 00:10:20,270
May the 2nd, in 1944.
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00:10:20,646 --> 00:10:23,065
And we didn't see the sun
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00:10:23,899 --> 00:10:31,031
till October 27th, 1944.
119
00:10:31,740 --> 00:10:34,701
I never would have believed
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00:10:34,743 --> 00:10:37,246
that we’ll survive there. I called...
121
00:10:37,329 --> 00:10:40,415
I called that place our graveyard.
122
00:10:43,001 --> 00:10:45,128
We did get along fine,
123
00:10:45,546 --> 00:10:49,049
only about four or five months
124
00:10:49,132 --> 00:10:50,968
after being in the bunker,
125
00:10:51,051 --> 00:10:54,096
one of my friend got a temporary
126
00:10:54,137 --> 00:10:55,931
nervous breakdown...
127
00:10:56,056 --> 00:10:56,807
Luckily temporarily.
128
00:10:56,849 --> 00:10:58,058
What happened is
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00:10:58,100 --> 00:11:01,228
he started to yell, to scream
130
00:11:01,937 --> 00:11:03,105
and …
131
00:11:04,356 --> 00:11:08,235
we didn't know.
We... we got scared — that’s in a forest.
132
00:11:08,318 --> 00:11:10,445
There was a hole in the –
133
00:11:10,571 --> 00:11:12,698
in the – on the bunker.
134
00:11:13,282 --> 00:11:16,285
So the voice go far.
135
00:11:16,869 --> 00:11:20,539
And I jumped on him
136
00:11:20,914 --> 00:11:26,628
and I put my jaw
137
00:11:26,795 --> 00:11:28,171
in his mouth.
138
00:11:28,589 --> 00:11:32,259
And my friend held his...
139
00:11:32,426 --> 00:11:37,055
His foot and – and hands.
140
00:11:38,181 --> 00:11:40,309
And as I put
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00:11:40,350 --> 00:11:42,644
my jaw in his mouth,
142
00:11:42,728 --> 00:11:47,900
he bit me.
It’s — it’s still here.
143
00:11:57,034 --> 00:12:00,621
The General Electric
news program: The World Today.
144
00:12:00,746 --> 00:12:02,789
And here's Douglas Edwards.
145
00:12:02,831 --> 00:12:06,585
The Russians have freed
another of Europe’s capitals, Belgrade.
146
00:12:06,710 --> 00:12:09,755
They've also captured Debrecen,
Hungary's third city,
147
00:12:09,838 --> 00:12:11,298
and Berlin says the Red Army
148
00:12:11,381 --> 00:12:13,300
has penetrated 7 miles inside
149
00:12:13,342 --> 00:12:14,551
East Prussia.
150
00:12:14,885 --> 00:12:16,511
On southward, Transylvania
151
00:12:16,553 --> 00:12:19,014
now is completely free of Germans.
152
00:12:19,556 --> 00:12:21,391
We came back to our town
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00:12:21,433 --> 00:12:23,685
and we found nothing
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00:12:23,852 --> 00:12:28,190
but amazement and surprised
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00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:31,109
of the gentile people
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00:12:31,234 --> 00:12:34,613
who said, “You survived? How come?”
157
00:12:34,738 --> 00:12:38,492
“You are back?”
Everybody expected
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00:12:38,575 --> 00:12:41,203
that we'll never come back.
159
00:12:41,286 --> 00:12:44,539
They took away all our belongings.
160
00:12:44,581 --> 00:12:47,668
They robbed our houses with furniture.
161
00:12:47,709 --> 00:12:49,795
They occupied our houses.
162
00:12:53,090 --> 00:12:55,759
I don't know why the Jews, after the war,
didn’t go around
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00:12:55,801 --> 00:12:57,594
slaughtering non-Jews.
164
00:12:58,428 --> 00:13:00,222
I used to be very angry,
165
00:13:00,305 --> 00:13:02,474
used to be really angry at my father
166
00:13:02,557 --> 00:13:04,726
and all these other people
167
00:13:04,810 --> 00:13:06,311
for not having done that.
168
00:13:06,395 --> 00:13:09,523
Just destroy it and start something else.
169
00:13:10,232 --> 00:13:12,943
Many or most of us decided, “This is it.
170
00:13:13,318 --> 00:13:16,571
Let's look for a different place to live.”
171
00:13:19,908 --> 00:13:22,911
It took me from 1947 till 1950
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00:13:23,036 --> 00:13:24,496
to get to America.
173
00:13:25,789 --> 00:13:27,958
And when I came to this country,
174
00:13:28,250 --> 00:13:31,169
I don't think that any born American
175
00:13:31,586 --> 00:13:34,673
was a greater patriot than I was.
176
00:13:36,216 --> 00:13:38,218
One Sunday I went into the grocery store.
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00:13:38,927 --> 00:13:40,487
And I didn't even realize he was there.
178
00:13:42,305 --> 00:13:45,350
There’s this guy, standing and...
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00:13:45,851 --> 00:13:47,310
looked absolutely gorgeous,
180
00:13:47,561 --> 00:13:49,271
with these beautiful striking white teeth,
181
00:13:49,563 --> 00:13:51,096
you know, which I thought were false...
182
00:13:51,106 --> 00:13:53,817
They were so gorgeous. And...
183
00:13:54,359 --> 00:13:56,111
my friend introduces us.
184
00:13:56,987 --> 00:13:58,864
And I said, “How do you do?”
185
00:13:59,197 --> 00:14:01,074
And he said something in Hungarian.
186
00:14:01,783 --> 00:14:04,661
And I said, “Nice to have met you,”
and I walked out of the store,
187
00:14:04,703 --> 00:14:05,954
and that was it.
188
00:14:06,455 --> 00:14:09,666
And after I left my friend tells me
189
00:14:10,125 --> 00:14:11,918
he said to her, “You see that girl?
190
00:14:12,294 --> 00:14:14,337
That's the girl I'm going to marry.”
191
00:14:14,671 --> 00:14:15,881
When she told me this,
192
00:14:16,631 --> 00:14:18,383
I said, “This guy is not normal.
193
00:14:18,425 --> 00:14:19,134
I mean forget it,
194
00:14:19,176 --> 00:14:21,011
I want nothing to do with this person.”
195
00:14:21,053 --> 00:14:22,053
You know, I figured
196
00:14:22,721 --> 00:14:24,264
this is not a normal way to react!
197
00:14:25,432 --> 00:14:29,352
I hadn’t really consented to marry him
till he promised he would become Orthodox.
198
00:14:29,895 --> 00:14:31,605
He came from a very Orthodox background
199
00:14:31,646 --> 00:14:33,523
and he knew everything.
200
00:14:33,982 --> 00:14:35,817
It’s just that he... he
became a nonbeliever.
201
00:14:37,194 --> 00:14:40,572
I always knew that I was living
with a survivor. Always.
202
00:14:41,073 --> 00:14:42,824
He had very bad dreams.
203
00:14:43,325 --> 00:14:44,910
Just this same recurring nightmare
204
00:14:44,993 --> 00:14:45,994
that he was back,
205
00:14:46,453 --> 00:14:48,830
back in this “boonker,” as he called it,
206
00:14:48,997 --> 00:14:51,708
and that the Germans were catching him.
207
00:14:53,251 --> 00:14:55,378
I think he conjured up all sorts of
208
00:14:55,629 --> 00:14:59,508
horrible ways
that his parents died, which...
209
00:15:00,509 --> 00:15:01,885
It was just terrible
210
00:15:01,968 --> 00:15:03,804
to live with something like that.
211
00:15:03,845 --> 00:15:05,806
But they stopped after a while I think.
212
00:15:05,931 --> 00:15:07,974
Or maybe he just didn't tell me about it.
213
00:15:08,725 --> 00:15:15,315
I felt that I’m trapped
and there is no way out.
214
00:15:16,149 --> 00:15:17,359
Where is there to go?
215
00:15:17,692 --> 00:15:19,152
There was no place to go.
216
00:15:20,278 --> 00:15:22,781
There was no place to hide as a Jew.
217
00:15:23,824 --> 00:15:25,117
Everybody hates you.
218
00:15:27,452 --> 00:15:30,622
What – what future, what future
219
00:15:31,331 --> 00:15:33,125
could a young man have?
220
00:15:33,291 --> 00:15:35,794
He didn't see a very bright future
for the Jewish people
221
00:15:35,919 --> 00:15:38,046
after what he had gone through,
and after all...
222
00:15:38,588 --> 00:15:40,340
The history of the Jews,
223
00:15:40,882 --> 00:15:42,217
which he knew a lot of.
224
00:15:42,676 --> 00:15:43,885
And he just felt, you know,
225
00:15:43,927 --> 00:15:46,221
"What’s the point
of bringing a child into the world?"
226
00:15:47,013 --> 00:15:49,766
But, I mean, I would have none of that.
227
00:15:49,850 --> 00:15:50,892
I said,
228
00:15:51,852 --> 00:15:54,855
“I just — I will not
live without children.”
229
00:15:54,938 --> 00:15:56,356
I just wouldn't.
230
00:15:56,606 --> 00:15:58,066
But of course, once we had –
231
00:15:58,900 --> 00:16:02,154
once Yossi was born,
he was hooked. That was it.
232
00:16:03,488 --> 00:16:04,656
He was ecstatic.
233
00:16:05,323 --> 00:16:08,201
His whole life became a parenthood.
234
00:16:08,660 --> 00:16:10,420
He’d get up for the feeding
during the night.
235
00:16:10,495 --> 00:16:11,746
He'd diaper the baby.
236
00:16:12,205 --> 00:16:13,456
He'd come home from work,
237
00:16:13,498 --> 00:16:14,749
and if I had bathed him,
238
00:16:14,791 --> 00:16:15,792
he'd be very upset.
239
00:16:15,834 --> 00:16:17,878
This was something
he looked forward to all day.
240
00:16:18,962 --> 00:16:21,173
He wanted to constantly teach him.
241
00:16:21,214 --> 00:16:22,591
I was his pupil.
242
00:16:22,716 --> 00:16:24,885
Who else did my father have
who would listen to him?
243
00:16:25,051 --> 00:16:27,137
I was a cap... a captive audience.
244
00:16:27,220 --> 00:16:29,598
From the time he was a little baby
245
00:16:29,639 --> 00:16:31,349
and he’d say, “Daddy, tell me a story”...
246
00:16:31,391 --> 00:16:32,267
We had to tell him a story
247
00:16:32,309 --> 00:16:33,310
before he went to bed.
248
00:16:34,019 --> 00:16:37,397
And the stories my husband would tell him,
his bedtime stories were,
249
00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:41,026
you know, about the Jews in Europe
and the Holocaust.
250
00:16:41,860 --> 00:16:46,448
And … I would... I would read him the –
251
00:16:46,615 --> 00:16:48,491
you know, Dr. Seuss books.
252
00:16:48,575 --> 00:16:50,744
I’d lie down there and
just waiting to hear some,
253
00:16:50,785 --> 00:16:52,204
some kind of stories
254
00:16:52,245 --> 00:16:53,525
that’ll make me sleep peacefully
255
00:16:53,538 --> 00:16:54,873
and he would just start
256
00:16:54,915 --> 00:16:56,435
telling me about this hole that he dug
257
00:16:56,458 --> 00:16:58,627
and... and... and... and being chased and,
258
00:16:58,793 --> 00:17:00,921
and people being rounded up
259
00:17:00,962 --> 00:17:03,548
and... and these two pictures
260
00:17:03,590 --> 00:17:06,051
on the wall of... of his parents and...
261
00:17:06,092 --> 00:17:08,386
And how they were killed, and –
262
00:17:08,678 --> 00:17:10,222
– How normal everything was
263
00:17:10,305 --> 00:17:11,723
and then gradually
264
00:17:11,806 --> 00:17:13,808
what started happening and,
265
00:17:15,393 --> 00:17:17,520
you know, about my grandparents and …
266
00:17:18,980 --> 00:17:20,565
just really pretty much
267
00:17:21,441 --> 00:17:22,901
everything that went on
268
00:17:22,943 --> 00:17:24,236
during the Holocaust.
269
00:17:25,487 --> 00:17:27,030
We were just so aware of it
270
00:17:27,072 --> 00:17:28,531
without even talking about it.
271
00:17:28,740 --> 00:17:31,284
Just the fact that they had
one set of grandparents
272
00:17:31,993 --> 00:17:33,578
or that they had any grandparents
273
00:17:33,620 --> 00:17:35,205
when all their friends had none.
274
00:17:35,247 --> 00:17:36,122
– I have friends
275
00:17:36,164 --> 00:17:37,582
who are also children of survivors,
276
00:17:37,999 --> 00:17:40,502
but it wasn't really talked about openly
277
00:17:40,543 --> 00:17:42,879
for whatever reasons, either their parents
278
00:17:44,297 --> 00:17:47,676
just couldn’t deal with it,
it was too painful for them.
279
00:17:47,759 --> 00:17:51,263
But my father always discussed it with us,
280
00:17:51,304 --> 00:17:52,347
he wanted us to know.
281
00:17:52,639 --> 00:17:54,599
If they will not be prepared
282
00:17:55,141 --> 00:17:59,771
or not know about our past tragedies –
283
00:17:59,854 --> 00:18:01,690
– Emo... emotionally prepared.
284
00:18:01,815 --> 00:18:02,899
– Emotionally.
285
00:18:03,024 --> 00:18:04,609
– They should be emotionally prepared.
286
00:18:04,651 --> 00:18:06,653
– They should be emotionally prepared
287
00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:10,156
what happened and how it happened.
288
00:18:10,907 --> 00:18:13,660
When I was younger, I idolized him.
289
00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:17,872
I always looked at him
as being larger than life,
290
00:18:17,998 --> 00:18:21,001
just the fact that, that he had survived
291
00:18:21,251 --> 00:18:22,711
when so few others had.
292
00:18:23,586 --> 00:18:25,630
He knew every step of the way what to do.
293
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:31,636
And I always felt, "Well, I have to know
every step of the way too, what to do.
294
00:18:31,845 --> 00:18:33,555
And could I do it?”
295
00:18:33,722 --> 00:18:36,099
And growing up, I just wasn’t at all sure.
296
00:18:42,981 --> 00:18:45,191
I had one... one nightmare, dream,
297
00:18:45,317 --> 00:18:46,776
which recurred often,
298
00:18:46,860 --> 00:18:49,946
of being chased by Nazis
on the Coney Island boardwalk.
299
00:18:51,406 --> 00:18:52,866
Everybody was walking around
300
00:18:52,907 --> 00:18:53,950
eating cotton candy
301
00:18:54,409 --> 00:18:56,202
and I was screaming at people,
302
00:18:56,328 --> 00:18:57,412
"The Nazis are here,”
303
00:18:57,746 --> 00:19:00,206
and everybody’s just eating cotton candy.
304
00:19:00,248 --> 00:19:01,583
I was killed.
305
00:19:01,624 --> 00:19:03,209
I know they killed me.
306
00:19:03,918 --> 00:19:05,420
With me, the bottom line is,
307
00:19:05,462 --> 00:19:06,671
“What would you do
308
00:19:06,713 --> 00:19:08,631
if this country was taken over by Nazis?
309
00:19:08,882 --> 00:19:10,925
Would you hide me,” for example.
310
00:19:10,967 --> 00:19:12,802
“Would you give me space under your bed?"
311
00:19:14,679 --> 00:19:17,098
I was afraid as a kid of going mad.
312
00:19:18,391 --> 00:19:20,435
I don't think my parents were ever aware
313
00:19:20,685 --> 00:19:22,020
of the fact that I was not,
314
00:19:22,103 --> 00:19:23,772
quote, "a happy child."
315
00:19:24,522 --> 00:19:26,399
I would pretend to be very happy
316
00:19:26,691 --> 00:19:27,942
and I could never talk to them
317
00:19:27,984 --> 00:19:30,784
about what was going on inside me.
I couldn’t talk to anybody about it.
318
00:19:31,112 --> 00:19:34,407
I couldn't talk about how the Holocaust
affected me to my father.
319
00:19:34,657 --> 00:19:37,077
He didn't talk about how it
affected him personally.
320
00:19:37,202 --> 00:19:39,579
So I grew up so controlled.
321
00:19:39,621 --> 00:19:41,748
Everything was so in
322
00:19:41,790 --> 00:19:45,251
that it was almost as
if my real life was just,
323
00:19:45,377 --> 00:19:47,670
just underground, subterranean,
324
00:19:47,837 --> 00:19:50,256
and all my emotions were underground.
325
00:19:53,551 --> 00:19:54,677
Well, I started writing
326
00:19:54,719 --> 00:19:56,513
when I was — I don't know, nine, ten,
327
00:19:56,805 --> 00:19:58,223
and I thought I was a poet.
328
00:19:58,556 --> 00:19:59,891
He was in his room
329
00:19:59,933 --> 00:20:01,768
and he comes out with three pages
330
00:20:01,810 --> 00:20:06,231
of writing about the swastika
and about Germany.
331
00:20:06,481 --> 00:20:08,775
I said, “Where did you get this from?"
332
00:20:09,025 --> 00:20:10,110
He said, “From my head.”
333
00:20:10,860 --> 00:20:12,904
You know, I think the first thing
that I wrote
334
00:20:13,780 --> 00:20:14,823
was his story.
335
00:20:16,032 --> 00:20:18,368
Yeah, the first thing that I wrote
was his story.
336
00:20:18,451 --> 00:20:21,246
And I was – I was eight or nine years old.
337
00:20:21,830 --> 00:20:23,748
And it was called
338
00:20:23,790 --> 00:20:25,030
“Out of the Clutches of Death."
339
00:20:25,375 --> 00:20:27,127
And I sent it in to this
340
00:20:27,168 --> 00:20:29,254
Jewish paper, The Jewish Press.
341
00:20:30,213 --> 00:20:32,048
And they ran it in the centerfold.
342
00:20:33,550 --> 00:20:36,428
I would write just nonstop.
343
00:20:36,678 --> 00:20:37,877
I wouldn’t go out of the house.
344
00:20:37,887 --> 00:20:40,723
Sundays, I didn't go out. I didn’t —
I didn’t play ball.
345
00:20:40,765 --> 00:20:42,045
I didn’t do any of these things.
346
00:20:42,058 --> 00:20:44,602
And one of my sisters-in-law said to me,
347
00:20:44,644 --> 00:20:46,521
“Why do you let him write
348
00:20:47,647 --> 00:20:49,441
constantly about such morbid things?
349
00:20:49,482 --> 00:20:51,025
Why don't you tell him to write about
350
00:20:51,067 --> 00:20:53,361
the sun, the moon, the stars?” I said,
351
00:20:53,403 --> 00:20:55,029
“How can I tell him what to write about?
352
00:20:55,071 --> 00:20:57,699
He's got to write
what he feels like writing.
353
00:20:58,074 --> 00:20:59,075
You can't just tell him
354
00:20:59,117 --> 00:21:00,368
‘Why don't you write about
355
00:21:00,410 --> 00:21:01,410
something happy?’”
356
00:21:03,663 --> 00:21:05,999
Anyway, it seems that –
357
00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:10,378
that what he was writing he was feeling.
358
00:21:11,588 --> 00:21:13,173
And all these sad things,
359
00:21:13,214 --> 00:21:15,175
the poetry that he wrote, I mean,
360
00:21:16,426 --> 00:21:18,136
some of it, when I look back now,
361
00:21:19,345 --> 00:21:20,805
how could I have even thought
362
00:21:20,847 --> 00:21:22,140
that he could have been happy
363
00:21:22,474 --> 00:21:23,725
writing these things?
364
00:21:24,934 --> 00:21:26,352
How did your husband respond
365
00:21:26,394 --> 00:21:27,812
to what he was writing?
366
00:21:28,396 --> 00:21:30,690
He was — he thought it was beautiful.
367
00:21:31,107 --> 00:21:34,068
He was tremendously impressed
with his talent.
368
00:21:42,911 --> 00:21:45,038
We had formed a group in 6th grade,
369
00:21:45,747 --> 00:21:47,248
a Zionist discussion group.
370
00:21:48,333 --> 00:21:49,667
This was a group,
371
00:21:49,709 --> 00:21:52,629
I would say, mostly children of survivors.
372
00:21:52,712 --> 00:21:54,422
These were all kids in Borough Park.
373
00:21:54,714 --> 00:21:56,216
We were convinced that –
374
00:21:59,135 --> 00:22:00,261
that –
375
00:22:00,845 --> 00:22:03,431
some kind of holocaust was imminent.
376
00:22:04,557 --> 00:22:07,018
Let's talk about
growing up in Borough Park, okay?
377
00:22:07,435 --> 00:22:09,062
You're growing up in a community
378
00:22:09,103 --> 00:22:11,231
where... where you've got shuls,
379
00:22:11,272 --> 00:22:12,649
you’ve got shteibls
380
00:22:12,690 --> 00:22:15,568
named after towns
that were destroyed in Europe.
381
00:22:15,610 --> 00:22:17,612
You’ve got Belz, you’ve got Telz,
382
00:22:17,654 --> 00:22:21,241
you've got Satmar, Sighet...
383
00:22:21,282 --> 00:22:23,201
Straight down the line, every town,
384
00:22:23,243 --> 00:22:25,286
and community in Europe that was wiped out
385
00:22:25,578 --> 00:22:27,163
has its little base
386
00:22:27,205 --> 00:22:28,915
of operations in Borough Park.
387
00:22:29,207 --> 00:22:31,125
You have the same Hasidic sects
388
00:22:31,167 --> 00:22:32,669
as existed before the war.
389
00:22:33,086 --> 00:22:34,170
Now after the war,
390
00:22:34,212 --> 00:22:35,630
this was seen as a strength,
391
00:22:35,713 --> 00:22:37,247
the fact that they were able to regroup
392
00:22:37,257 --> 00:22:40,051
and to, to teach – to teach their kids
393
00:22:40,093 --> 00:22:41,553
and to raise a generation
394
00:22:41,594 --> 00:22:42,720
that looked exactly
395
00:22:42,887 --> 00:22:44,847
like the generation
that had been wiped out.
396
00:22:45,306 --> 00:22:46,599
And somehow as a whole,
397
00:22:46,641 --> 00:22:49,352
this community was supposed to –
398
00:22:49,477 --> 00:22:51,312
was supposed to compensate for Europe.
399
00:22:52,188 --> 00:22:53,940
And... and it –
400
00:22:53,982 --> 00:22:55,650
it just always seemed to me that,
401
00:22:56,276 --> 00:23:01,614
look, if, if Belz, the Belzer shteibl
is on 47th Street, right?
402
00:23:01,656 --> 00:23:03,908
Now if Belz was... was destroyed,
403
00:23:04,617 --> 00:23:05,952
why couldn't –
404
00:23:05,994 --> 00:23:07,829
why couldn't 47th Street be destroyed?
405
00:23:08,871 --> 00:23:09,872
We used to talk about
406
00:23:09,914 --> 00:23:11,124
guarding the community.
407
00:23:11,165 --> 00:23:12,375
Will there be an uprising
408
00:23:12,417 --> 00:23:13,626
of the Borough Park Ghetto?
409
00:23:14,127 --> 00:23:16,004
This was – this was a constant theme.
410
00:23:16,462 --> 00:23:20,049
And how would the defense be organized,
you know?
411
00:23:20,258 --> 00:23:22,760
13th Avenue is very vulnerable,
412
00:23:22,802 --> 00:23:24,137
you know, it’s very flat
413
00:23:24,178 --> 00:23:25,253
and there are a lot of stores
414
00:23:25,263 --> 00:23:27,348
and you would wonder who would hide you
415
00:23:27,390 --> 00:23:29,642
because the whole community is Jewish.
416
00:23:32,353 --> 00:23:34,147
I joined an organization
417
00:23:34,188 --> 00:23:36,524
called Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.
418
00:23:37,108 --> 00:23:38,818
Also, this was in 6th grade.
419
00:23:38,860 --> 00:23:41,237
I mean, this was really at the beginning
420
00:23:41,446 --> 00:23:42,864
of the Soviet Jewry movement
421
00:23:43,114 --> 00:23:44,407
and we all joined up.
422
00:23:44,449 --> 00:23:46,659
They... they gave us
a special Borough Park rate,
423
00:23:46,701 --> 00:23:48,411
25 cents membership,
424
00:23:49,537 --> 00:23:51,122
elementary school rate,
425
00:23:51,164 --> 00:23:53,124
and we just signed up dozens of people.
426
00:23:53,166 --> 00:23:54,375
We were their membership.
427
00:23:57,253 --> 00:23:59,672
We started going down to rallies.
428
00:24:30,036 --> 00:24:34,040
My husband was
absolutely thrilled with this new
429
00:24:35,416 --> 00:24:36,584
interest of his
430
00:24:36,918 --> 00:24:38,336
and he encouraged it a lot.
431
00:24:38,378 --> 00:24:39,962
I mean, there wasn't a demonstration
432
00:24:40,004 --> 00:24:41,297
that we didn't go along with.
433
00:24:41,422 --> 00:24:44,634
Once he asked me, "What would you do?
434
00:24:45,468 --> 00:24:48,471
How far would you go in demonstrating
435
00:24:48,930 --> 00:24:50,640
for... for
436
00:24:51,140 --> 00:24:52,809
these Jewish causes?”
437
00:24:52,850 --> 00:24:57,105
I said, “l would go as far as lie down
438
00:24:57,730 --> 00:24:59,482
in the middle of the street
439
00:24:59,565 --> 00:25:02,360
and if a car has to go through me,
440
00:25:02,402 --> 00:25:04,529
I would let it go through.
441
00:25:04,779 --> 00:25:07,740
Yes, lie down in the middle of the street."
442
00:25:07,782 --> 00:25:11,411
So he did.
He sat down in the middle of the street
443
00:25:11,619 --> 00:25:13,579
with my daughter.
444
00:25:13,746 --> 00:25:15,581
They were jailed.
445
00:25:16,624 --> 00:25:18,167
Didn't bother me.
446
00:25:18,418 --> 00:25:21,129
It's okay. If they are jailed for
447
00:25:21,212 --> 00:25:24,048
their brothers' suffering,
448
00:25:24,340 --> 00:25:26,175
unjust suffering,
449
00:25:26,634 --> 00:25:28,970
let them be jailed.
450
00:25:29,595 --> 00:25:30,888
They'll survive.
451
00:25:31,180 --> 00:25:34,851
I was jailed about two or three times
452
00:25:34,892 --> 00:25:36,811
in New York and in Washington
453
00:25:36,853 --> 00:25:40,356
for sit-ins, disrupting the peace.
454
00:25:40,898 --> 00:25:44,277
It was all for... for Russian Jewry.
455
00:25:44,527 --> 00:25:46,112
Yossi was always there,
456
00:25:46,446 --> 00:25:49,866
but I don't think
we were ever in the same bus.
457
00:25:49,907 --> 00:25:51,075
It was always afterwards,
458
00:25:51,117 --> 00:25:53,995
you know, he’d say,
"Oh, you were arrested too?"
459
00:25:54,537 --> 00:25:56,748
I was a professional Jewish demonstrator,
460
00:25:56,873 --> 00:25:58,958
not a professional general demonstrator.
461
00:25:59,333 --> 00:26:00,626
I specialized.
462
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:02,253
You know, it's like medicine.
463
00:26:02,295 --> 00:26:04,172
You specialize in certain areas.
464
00:26:04,630 --> 00:26:05,747
Day and night, we used to have
465
00:26:05,757 --> 00:26:07,216
demonstrations over here,
466
00:26:07,717 --> 00:26:09,969
stand and chant and push cops
467
00:26:10,011 --> 00:26:11,721
and cops would push back
468
00:26:11,763 --> 00:26:13,514
and people would go to jail.
469
00:26:14,098 --> 00:26:15,308
We bailed him out.
470
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:17,643
I mean, I cannot tell you how many times
471
00:26:17,685 --> 00:26:19,187
this child was bailed out of jail.
472
00:26:19,395 --> 00:26:21,856
Yes! We’ll shout a little louder.
473
00:26:22,023 --> 00:26:23,858
We are Jews!
474
00:26:23,900 --> 00:26:25,568
We couldn’t be prouder!
475
00:26:25,777 --> 00:26:28,437
You know, they always used
to ask us, “What are you accomplishing?"
476
00:26:28,488 --> 00:26:29,447
And it's true, you know,
477
00:26:29,489 --> 00:26:30,656
you make one demonstration,
478
00:26:30,698 --> 00:26:32,408
ten demonstrations, you don't accomplish.
479
00:26:32,950 --> 00:26:34,410
But I think what we accomplished
480
00:26:34,452 --> 00:26:35,620
was a revolution.
481
00:26:35,953 --> 00:26:38,956
150,000 Jews left the Soviet Union.
482
00:26:39,415 --> 00:26:41,584
It was an unprecedented exodus,
483
00:26:41,626 --> 00:26:43,586
and people were telling us before that,
484
00:26:43,628 --> 00:26:45,129
“lt’s never gonna happen.
485
00:26:45,171 --> 00:26:46,451
You’re never gonna get ‘em out.”
486
00:26:46,714 --> 00:26:48,216
The American Jewish community
487
00:26:48,299 --> 00:26:50,885
was viewing itself as a community
that had made it,
488
00:26:51,344 --> 00:26:54,055
and we didn't see ourselves as
people who had made it.
489
00:26:54,472 --> 00:26:55,932
We felt we were,
490
00:26:55,973 --> 00:26:57,391
we were a persecuted people,
491
00:26:57,433 --> 00:26:59,560
that nothing had really changed,
492
00:26:59,602 --> 00:27:01,979
that our experiences in America
493
00:27:02,230 --> 00:27:04,190
was just a temporary aberration.
494
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:05,691
I had decided at that point
495
00:27:05,733 --> 00:27:07,068
that I really hated America
496
00:27:07,485 --> 00:27:10,655
because I had just read
that America didn't let Jews in
497
00:27:10,696 --> 00:27:11,614
during the war
498
00:27:11,656 --> 00:27:14,492
and I became really rapidly anti-American.
499
00:27:14,534 --> 00:27:17,578
I wouldn't stand for
the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
500
00:27:17,954 --> 00:27:22,583
I was also aware of what American Jews
didn't do during World War II,
501
00:27:22,625 --> 00:27:24,627
and that... that played very heavily.
502
00:27:25,169 --> 00:27:26,754
I just didn't want to be a spectator.
503
00:27:27,630 --> 00:27:29,915
He told his father
on Yom Kippur night, I think it was,
504
00:27:29,966 --> 00:27:31,467
that he was going to go to Russia.
505
00:27:31,968 --> 00:27:34,095
The plan crystalized around
506
00:27:34,428 --> 00:27:36,430
the Emigration Office in Moscow.
507
00:27:38,307 --> 00:27:41,811
The initial plan was
to take over the office,
508
00:27:42,937 --> 00:27:44,230
and...
509
00:27:45,481 --> 00:27:46,983
declare it –
510
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,570
declare it the property of world Jewry
511
00:27:50,736 --> 00:27:52,238
and issue visas,
512
00:27:52,321 --> 00:27:53,906
issue visas to Russian Jews,
513
00:27:53,948 --> 00:27:56,993
invite Moscow Jews
to come to the Visa Office
514
00:27:57,326 --> 00:27:58,326
and …
515
00:27:59,412 --> 00:28:01,122
just let 'em out.
516
00:28:02,707 --> 00:28:04,750
I was surprised,
517
00:28:06,127 --> 00:28:08,212
but my answer was,
518
00:28:08,254 --> 00:28:09,338
“Okay, if you think that’s
519
00:28:10,631 --> 00:28:12,758
what you think it’s right to do,
520
00:28:14,385 --> 00:28:15,385
do it.”
521
00:28:16,721 --> 00:28:19,140
I didn't believe, I'll tell you the truth,
522
00:28:19,891 --> 00:28:21,350
I didn't believe
523
00:28:21,642 --> 00:28:23,311
that he'll go through with it.
524
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,606
On the day when we had the demonstration,
525
00:28:26,898 --> 00:28:30,192
we just walked into
the Moscow Emigration Office,
526
00:28:30,902 --> 00:28:33,696
and … nobody had followed us.
527
00:28:34,322 --> 00:28:35,448
Seven of us had walk –
528
00:28:35,489 --> 00:28:36,699
Seven of us walked in.
529
00:28:36,741 --> 00:28:38,576
We had made banners on sheets
530
00:28:38,993 --> 00:28:41,454
written in Hebrew, Russian and English.
531
00:28:42,371 --> 00:28:43,915
And we …
532
00:28:44,540 --> 00:28:46,417
tried to take over one of the offices.
533
00:28:48,461 --> 00:28:50,129
It was just instant tumult.
534
00:28:50,212 --> 00:28:51,422
They just dragged us out,
535
00:28:51,464 --> 00:28:52,840
put us on the street,
536
00:28:52,882 --> 00:28:54,091
beat the shit out of us,
537
00:28:54,133 --> 00:28:55,384
told us to go home.
538
00:28:56,802 --> 00:28:59,430
Now we didn't go 4,000 miles
to be beaten up,
539
00:28:59,513 --> 00:29:00,973
and told to go home.
540
00:29:01,098 --> 00:29:02,632
You can get that in New York.
You don’t –
541
00:29:02,642 --> 00:29:05,227
you don't have to go to Moscow for this.
542
00:29:06,479 --> 00:29:07,897
Uh...
543
00:29:07,939 --> 00:29:09,357
So we decided to...
544
00:29:09,398 --> 00:29:11,025
We tried to get back into the building.
545
00:29:11,275 --> 00:29:12,275
We couldn't get in.
546
00:29:12,401 --> 00:29:14,737
They wouldn't let us back in.
547
00:29:15,613 --> 00:29:16,656
So we sat down,
548
00:29:16,697 --> 00:29:18,991
we blocked traffic
in the middle of the street
549
00:29:19,325 --> 00:29:21,619
until the KGB came and took us away.
550
00:29:21,994 --> 00:29:23,704
I never want to relive
551
00:29:23,996 --> 00:29:25,081
another holiday like that.
552
00:29:25,122 --> 00:29:26,582
I mean, we did nothing but cry
553
00:29:26,624 --> 00:29:28,459
that... those first two days of Passover.
554
00:29:28,501 --> 00:29:30,294
The two of us were just sitting and crying.
555
00:29:30,336 --> 00:29:32,505
We knew that something
dreadful would happen.
556
00:29:32,755 --> 00:29:34,799
And of course,
when the newspapers called us,
557
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:36,926
"Did you know that your son is arrested?”
558
00:29:39,053 --> 00:29:40,096
We were held by police
559
00:29:40,137 --> 00:29:42,390
while crowds of... of bystanders
560
00:29:42,431 --> 00:29:43,683
kicked us, called us “Jid,”
561
00:29:43,724 --> 00:29:45,017
which means "kike" in Russian,
562
00:29:45,059 --> 00:29:45,768
spit on us,
563
00:29:45,810 --> 00:29:47,690
and these people were not arrested,
and we were.
564
00:29:47,728 --> 00:29:49,387
And in the station, in the police station,
565
00:29:49,397 --> 00:29:51,023
several of us were kicked in the groin,
566
00:29:51,107 --> 00:29:52,191
were kicked in the stomach,
567
00:29:52,233 --> 00:29:53,633
and were pulled around by the hair.
568
00:29:54,110 --> 00:29:56,028
Then they took us
to another police station.
569
00:29:56,696 --> 00:29:58,406
They called us down one by one
570
00:29:58,447 --> 00:30:00,658
to this official's office
571
00:30:01,075 --> 00:30:02,994
and the translator informed us
572
00:30:03,035 --> 00:30:05,913
that we had violated the hospitality
of the Soviet Union,
573
00:30:06,288 --> 00:30:08,124
and we were being sentenced
574
00:30:08,290 --> 00:30:11,252
to three years of strict regime labor camp.
575
00:30:11,836 --> 00:30:13,713
He paused dramatically.
576
00:30:14,505 --> 00:30:18,426
And he says, "However, since you are
first time visitors to our country,
577
00:30:18,467 --> 00:30:19,969
we don't want you to leave
578
00:30:20,011 --> 00:30:22,847
with a bad taste of the Soviet Union.
579
00:30:22,930 --> 00:30:25,474
So we're going to allow you
to extend your stay,
580
00:30:25,516 --> 00:30:27,727
and to finish your tour,
581
00:30:27,768 --> 00:30:29,895
and we'll take you back to your hotel.”
582
00:30:35,151 --> 00:30:37,653
They’re pulling her away as though
she did something wrong!
583
00:30:37,695 --> 00:30:39,822
But what she did was absolutely right!!
584
00:30:39,864 --> 00:30:41,741
And more people should be
doing what’s right!
585
00:30:41,782 --> 00:30:43,284
This is a mother of one of them!
586
00:30:43,325 --> 00:30:45,286
– I’m the mother of one of them!!
587
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:49,081
Never again!
588
00:30:49,206 --> 00:30:50,958
– And I’m proud of him!
589
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,366
I wish there were more people like him,
590
00:30:52,376 --> 00:30:54,128
that would stand up for the betterment
591
00:30:54,170 --> 00:30:55,504
of man and mankind!!
592
00:30:55,588 --> 00:30:56,714
Never again!
593
00:30:57,131 --> 00:30:58,174
Never again!
594
00:30:58,591 --> 00:30:59,633
Never again!
595
00:30:59,759 --> 00:31:00,759
Never again!
596
00:31:01,093 --> 00:31:02,502
Well, after the Russian trip
597
00:31:02,553 --> 00:31:04,138
things were very anticlimactic
598
00:31:04,597 --> 00:31:05,806
for all of us, I think.
599
00:31:06,182 --> 00:31:07,182
People changed.
600
00:31:08,267 --> 00:31:11,020
I think that after ten years or so
601
00:31:11,062 --> 00:31:13,856
of being involved in protest activities
602
00:31:13,981 --> 00:31:15,816
and of being a professional demonstrator,
603
00:31:18,152 --> 00:31:20,863
you begin to ask yourself other questions
604
00:31:21,530 --> 00:31:24,325
in terms of... of your personal life,
605
00:31:24,366 --> 00:31:26,118
in terms of Jewishness as well.
606
00:31:26,285 --> 00:31:28,162
I think you want to know,
607
00:31:28,954 --> 00:31:31,540
is that the sum total of being Jewish?
608
00:31:31,624 --> 00:31:33,042
Is it demonstrations?
609
00:31:33,751 --> 00:31:35,753
I would start by asking myself
610
00:31:35,836 --> 00:31:37,963
what is the kind of life that I wanted
611
00:31:38,047 --> 00:31:39,757
for Soviet Jews all those years?
612
00:31:40,341 --> 00:31:41,592
What did I envision for them?
613
00:31:41,675 --> 00:31:42,885
What kind of a future?
614
00:31:43,511 --> 00:31:45,221
Individually by themselves,
615
00:31:45,304 --> 00:31:47,515
a Jew is not someone who wears –
616
00:31:47,598 --> 00:31:50,309
who wears a beard and payis.
617
00:31:50,434 --> 00:31:51,852
A Jew is not someone
618
00:31:51,894 --> 00:31:53,395
who davens three times a day.
619
00:31:53,437 --> 00:31:55,815
A Jew is not someone who gives to U.J.A.
620
00:31:55,856 --> 00:31:57,608
A Jew is not someone who... who, uh,
621
00:31:57,650 --> 00:31:59,819
who’s a nonconformist.
622
00:32:00,069 --> 00:32:02,071
Put it together and see what you get.
623
00:32:02,988 --> 00:32:04,573
What do you get?
624
00:32:08,452 --> 00:32:11,914
I get... I get the image
of someone who, uh,
625
00:32:12,540 --> 00:32:13,999
who's constantly...
626
00:32:15,167 --> 00:32:16,877
who’s constantly on the verge.
627
00:32:17,670 --> 00:32:19,255
On the verge of annihilation,
628
00:32:19,296 --> 00:32:21,048
on the verge of... of, uh,
629
00:32:22,925 --> 00:32:25,136
revelation – constantly on the verge.
630
00:32:26,971 --> 00:32:29,557
I was in therapy at that point.
631
00:32:30,099 --> 00:32:32,560
And I would go to, um,
632
00:32:33,644 --> 00:32:36,939
to this Borough Park Mental Health Clinic.
633
00:32:37,022 --> 00:32:38,774
And many times I said to him,
634
00:32:39,275 --> 00:32:41,694
"Should we go to the psychologist also?"
635
00:32:41,944 --> 00:32:43,737
I felt that maybe that would help.
636
00:32:44,113 --> 00:32:45,739
He said, “This has nothing to do
637
00:32:45,823 --> 00:32:46,823
with you and Daddy,
638
00:32:46,866 --> 00:32:48,242
absolutely nothing.”
639
00:32:48,868 --> 00:32:50,661
I saw myself as walking
640
00:32:50,953 --> 00:32:53,330
very slowly and very stunned.
641
00:32:53,998 --> 00:32:55,666
I couldn't even think
642
00:32:56,167 --> 00:32:58,586
what I would be like five years
643
00:32:58,711 --> 00:33:00,629
from then or two years from then.
644
00:33:00,713 --> 00:33:03,007
It was just absolutely inconceivable
645
00:33:03,048 --> 00:33:04,048
to me …
646
00:33:06,468 --> 00:33:08,053
to think ahead at all,
647
00:33:08,971 --> 00:33:12,057
which was the exact opposite
648
00:33:12,725 --> 00:33:16,103
of what my father had been
telling me all those years to do:
649
00:33:16,353 --> 00:33:18,564
“Think ahead, you have to plan ahead.”
650
00:33:18,689 --> 00:33:20,566
He tried always to egg him on,
651
00:33:20,858 --> 00:33:22,276
"I want you to make a speech here,
652
00:33:22,318 --> 00:33:23,475
and I want you to make a speech there."
653
00:33:23,485 --> 00:33:24,778
And Yossi resented that.
654
00:33:25,196 --> 00:33:26,916
He didn't always feel like making speeches.
655
00:33:27,615 --> 00:33:29,575
And my husband was always encouraging him,
656
00:33:29,617 --> 00:33:31,493
you know, “Write an —
Did you write an article?
657
00:33:31,535 --> 00:33:31,994
Did you do this?”
658
00:33:32,369 --> 00:33:34,205
It was very hard for me
659
00:33:34,246 --> 00:33:36,624
to break from his influence.
660
00:33:37,917 --> 00:33:39,418
I had moved out of the house.
661
00:33:40,294 --> 00:33:41,879
I was supposedly writing.
662
00:33:41,921 --> 00:33:42,921
I wasn't writing.
663
00:33:43,172 --> 00:33:44,757
It was a very bad period.
664
00:33:45,925 --> 00:33:48,427
The last thing I wanted to do
was hear from my father
665
00:33:48,469 --> 00:33:49,469
what I should be doing.
666
00:33:50,012 --> 00:33:51,388
What I tried to do
667
00:33:51,472 --> 00:33:54,850
was to really break away from this legacy,
668
00:33:54,934 --> 00:33:56,769
just to break away from it, leave it.
669
00:33:57,311 --> 00:34:00,522
And saying, “Okay, I don't want to survive
670
00:34:00,564 --> 00:34:01,982
and I don't want to not survive.
671
00:34:03,108 --> 00:34:04,610
I'd like to be just normal
672
00:34:04,652 --> 00:34:06,028
and just... just an American
673
00:34:06,070 --> 00:34:07,670
and just forget about all these things."
674
00:34:08,113 --> 00:34:09,823
Really, nobody ever tried to kill me
675
00:34:09,865 --> 00:34:11,075
because I was Jewish.
676
00:34:11,575 --> 00:34:12,368
I kept telling him
677
00:34:12,409 --> 00:34:13,661
“Look, I have my own life.
678
00:34:14,453 --> 00:34:16,830
I don't want to be led all my life by,
679
00:34:17,414 --> 00:34:19,583
by something that happened
before I was born.”
680
00:34:21,085 --> 00:34:23,212
If anyone thinks
681
00:34:24,546 --> 00:34:27,383
that anybody who was born as a Jew,
682
00:34:28,259 --> 00:34:33,138
by denying or disowing
683
00:34:33,722 --> 00:34:35,140
Judaism
684
00:34:35,182 --> 00:34:37,017
he will be more,
685
00:34:37,226 --> 00:34:39,144
or he will be safer...
686
00:34:41,230 --> 00:34:43,983
35, 40 years ago,
687
00:34:45,025 --> 00:34:46,025
they …
688
00:34:46,735 --> 00:34:50,781
proved that this will not help him.
689
00:34:50,906 --> 00:34:53,033
You have to be a Jew because –
690
00:34:53,075 --> 00:34:54,285
because they hate you and
691
00:34:54,326 --> 00:34:55,619
because they, you know,
692
00:34:55,661 --> 00:34:56,870
you don't have a choice,
693
00:34:56,912 --> 00:34:57,912
so you gotta be a Jew.
694
00:34:57,997 --> 00:34:58,997
So,
695
00:34:59,665 --> 00:35:01,542
as long as you were born
696
00:35:01,917 --> 00:35:03,752
a Jew, might as well
697
00:35:03,794 --> 00:35:06,297
stay – stay as a Jew, and know
698
00:35:06,338 --> 00:35:09,591
what your past and present
699
00:35:10,175 --> 00:35:11,218
being is.
700
00:35:17,516 --> 00:35:20,394
30 years ago or 20 years ago,
701
00:35:20,436 --> 00:35:22,021
I felt secure.
702
00:35:22,730 --> 00:35:25,566
Today I do not feel secure here.
703
00:35:25,983 --> 00:35:28,277
Listening to the talk shows,
704
00:35:28,444 --> 00:35:30,362
if you open the radio
705
00:35:30,404 --> 00:35:33,324
you will hear people calling in.
706
00:35:34,116 --> 00:35:36,952
No matter what happens,
707
00:35:37,536 --> 00:35:40,289
if the law is too liberal,
708
00:35:40,331 --> 00:35:42,124
is the Jew.
709
00:35:42,541 --> 00:35:44,710
If the economy is bad,
710
00:35:44,752 --> 00:35:46,545
it’s the Jews’ fault.
711
00:35:46,712 --> 00:35:50,007
Let's not – let's not delude ourselves.
712
00:35:50,341 --> 00:35:52,551
Nobody likes us.
713
00:35:53,469 --> 00:35:55,179
Nobody likes us.
714
00:35:57,973 --> 00:36:00,726
You see the U.N.? There is the U.N.
715
00:36:01,310 --> 00:36:03,562
That's the most unjust place.
716
00:36:05,189 --> 00:36:07,066
Now you ask me,
717
00:36:07,232 --> 00:36:09,693
do I see any hope for my children?
718
00:36:09,735 --> 00:36:11,236
Because when I got married
719
00:36:11,278 --> 00:36:13,655
I said, “There is no sense
720
00:36:13,697 --> 00:36:15,074
to have any children.
721
00:36:15,324 --> 00:36:17,743
What future do they have?"
722
00:36:18,452 --> 00:36:21,455
So now, I would say, "Yes,
723
00:36:21,497 --> 00:36:23,665
they do have a future
724
00:36:24,166 --> 00:36:27,503
and the future, the future is Israel.”
725
00:36:33,050 --> 00:36:34,968
If the Jewish people will be united,
726
00:36:35,928 --> 00:36:37,805
I don't care if 200 million
727
00:36:37,971 --> 00:36:41,141
will be against the Jewish people.
728
00:36:41,558 --> 00:36:43,519
They will not win!
729
00:36:45,354 --> 00:36:47,189
It sounds ridiculous,
730
00:36:47,314 --> 00:36:49,858
but this little people
731
00:36:50,275 --> 00:36:52,361
can withstand anything
732
00:36:52,694 --> 00:36:53,946
if we are united.
733
00:37:01,328 --> 00:37:04,581
What would have happened if
734
00:37:05,624 --> 00:37:10,129
in the 1940's we would have had an Israel?
735
00:37:11,630 --> 00:37:15,217
We would have had a place where to go to!
736
00:37:15,759 --> 00:37:17,886
There was no country in the world
737
00:37:17,928 --> 00:37:19,721
who would have taken us.
738
00:37:55,090 --> 00:37:56,341
Last night,
739
00:37:56,592 --> 00:37:59,678
at a reception at the home
of Ambassador Dinitz,
740
00:38:00,137 --> 00:38:02,389
Mr. Begin read The Megillah,
741
00:38:02,556 --> 00:38:04,641
the scripture which tells the story
742
00:38:04,683 --> 00:38:06,393
of one of the few happy holidays
743
00:38:06,435 --> 00:38:07,769
on the Jewish calendar,
744
00:38:08,270 --> 00:38:10,564
the holiday which is celebrated today.
745
00:38:11,315 --> 00:38:13,692
The holiday is Purim,
746
00:38:14,067 --> 00:38:15,652
and it celebrates the deliverance
747
00:38:15,694 --> 00:38:16,695
of the Jewish people.
748
00:38:18,363 --> 00:38:19,740
There have been many Purims
749
00:38:19,781 --> 00:38:22,117
for the Jewish people over the centuries,
750
00:38:22,326 --> 00:38:24,203
times when all seemed lost,
751
00:38:24,661 --> 00:38:26,455
but because of miracles
752
00:38:26,497 --> 00:38:28,499
or extraordinary individuals,
753
00:38:28,916 --> 00:38:30,334
the people were saved.
754
00:38:31,585 --> 00:38:32,961
His relationship with me,
755
00:38:33,462 --> 00:38:35,214
all of our personal relationship
756
00:38:35,255 --> 00:38:36,798
was framed by politics.
757
00:38:36,924 --> 00:38:38,332
… the Prime Minister of Israel,
758
00:38:38,383 --> 00:38:39,760
Mr. Menachem Begin.
759
00:38:40,969 --> 00:38:43,055
Those were the code words that we used.
760
00:38:43,388 --> 00:38:45,432
The Jewish State
761
00:38:45,474 --> 00:38:48,727
is the only state on earth
762
00:38:49,228 --> 00:38:53,273
about which a modern
document has been drawn up
763
00:38:53,398 --> 00:38:54,441
declaring
764
00:38:54,733 --> 00:38:56,735
that it should be destroyed,
765
00:38:56,985 --> 00:38:59,154
wiped off the map.
766
00:38:59,446 --> 00:39:01,156
We would sit and have discussions
767
00:39:01,490 --> 00:39:04,493
and I would say, “You know, I’m afraid
that Israel is going to be destroyed.
768
00:39:04,535 --> 00:39:06,537
I’m afraid It's going to
happen here again.”
769
00:39:06,662 --> 00:39:11,208
– There is no other democratic
country like... like... like Israel.
770
00:39:11,291 --> 00:39:13,627
He would say, “No,
can’t happen again.”
771
00:39:14,211 --> 00:39:16,964
Hearing him say it reassured me.
772
00:39:17,881 --> 00:39:20,499
Instead of it being the other way around,
you would think, right?
773
00:39:20,509 --> 00:39:22,584
I mean, here's a guy who had been
through it once before,
774
00:39:22,594 --> 00:39:24,346
knows, knows what can happen,
775
00:39:24,388 --> 00:39:25,514
knows what people can do.
776
00:39:25,556 --> 00:39:27,391
He's telling me, “No, don't worry,”
777
00:39:27,558 --> 00:39:29,560
and I 'm sitting there saying,
“Listen, listen,
778
00:39:29,601 --> 00:39:30,894
it’s gonna happen again.”
779
00:39:32,229 --> 00:39:35,899
I think he was telling me,
you know, "Don’t worry, don’t worry.
780
00:39:36,108 --> 00:39:39,653
It’s, it’s – it wasn’t a mistake
for me to bring you here."
781
00:39:39,736 --> 00:39:41,947
And I was, I just wasn’t sure at all.
782
00:39:42,781 --> 00:39:44,732
Dad, if the American people have to choose
783
00:39:44,783 --> 00:39:46,618
between oil for their cars
784
00:39:46,785 --> 00:39:48,203
and support for Israel,
785
00:39:48,245 --> 00:39:49,685
what do you think they would choose?
786
00:39:49,871 --> 00:39:51,290
– That's the big mistake.
787
00:39:51,331 --> 00:39:54,084
There is no —
Nobody has to choose... chose.
788
00:39:54,251 --> 00:39:55,502
Nobody has to choose.
789
00:39:56,086 --> 00:39:58,213
...Are you sure it wasn’t a mistake?
790
00:39:58,964 --> 00:40:01,684
That... that everything you’ve done
the past 30 years, since the war,
791
00:40:01,717 --> 00:40:02,801
Iiving your life
792
00:40:03,510 --> 00:40:05,095
as if survival is possible
793
00:40:05,137 --> 00:40:06,263
wasn't a mistake?
794
00:40:06,805 --> 00:40:08,348
And that this has all been an illusion
795
00:40:08,390 --> 00:40:11,059
and your life is just as much
an illusion as Borough Park?
796
00:40:14,396 --> 00:40:17,566
The fights that I used to have
with my father at the Shabbos table:
797
00:40:18,483 --> 00:40:19,818
Friday night would come,
798
00:40:20,736 --> 00:40:23,822
and all week,
this is what he was looking forward to,
799
00:40:24,072 --> 00:40:25,616
to be with the family.
800
00:40:26,074 --> 00:40:28,327
And Shabbos would come
and I would sit there
801
00:40:29,036 --> 00:40:30,370
and I would start saying, “Well,
802
00:40:31,246 --> 00:40:33,332
why do we do the same boring
thing every week?
803
00:40:33,790 --> 00:40:35,500
Always the boiled chicken,
804
00:40:35,542 --> 00:40:37,753
and singing these same ridiculous songs.
805
00:40:38,378 --> 00:40:39,880
And... and it’s enough already."
806
00:40:40,172 --> 00:40:45,135
And... and he would start to boil
and he would say, "Okay,
807
00:40:45,177 --> 00:40:48,263
what would you want to do for Shabbos?"
808
00:40:48,639 --> 00:40:51,099
I would tell him, "Well,
we need a new Judaism.
809
00:40:51,266 --> 00:40:53,393
We need a post-Holocaust Judaism."
810
00:40:53,852 --> 00:40:54,645
And he would say,
811
00:40:54,686 --> 00:40:57,564
“You can’t eat boiled chicken
in the post-Holocaust Judaism?"
812
00:40:57,689 --> 00:40:59,691
I’d say, "No, there’s no room for it!”
813
00:41:03,111 --> 00:41:05,864
Well, I always thought I was different from
814
00:41:06,782 --> 00:41:08,867
most people my age in Borough Park.
815
00:41:09,326 --> 00:41:11,286
And my life right now is a carbon copy
816
00:41:11,328 --> 00:41:13,413
of everybody my age in Borough Park.
817
00:41:13,955 --> 00:41:16,917
I get up in the morning, I go to shul.
818
00:41:18,126 --> 00:41:21,672
I come back, I open up my business,
819
00:41:21,713 --> 00:41:22,756
I'm a businessman.
820
00:41:23,507 --> 00:41:26,385
I'm no longer a freelance journalist.
821
00:41:27,052 --> 00:41:29,262
Now I'm selling candy.
822
00:41:31,139 --> 00:41:34,851
My parents took a two-week trip to Israel,
823
00:41:35,143 --> 00:41:36,228
a vacation...
824
00:41:36,937 --> 00:41:38,647
A combination vacation and
825
00:41:38,689 --> 00:41:41,108
they went for the unveiling
826
00:41:41,149 --> 00:41:42,609
of my grandmother's tombstone,
827
00:41:42,734 --> 00:41:44,194
who had died the year before.
828
00:41:44,820 --> 00:41:46,863
This was Sunday two weeks ago.
829
00:41:47,572 --> 00:41:50,242
It was just about the end of their vacation
830
00:41:50,617 --> 00:41:52,911
and it was ten in the morning that Sunday.
831
00:41:53,286 --> 00:41:55,122
I was alone in the house.
832
00:41:55,247 --> 00:41:56,540
I get a knock on the window
833
00:41:56,665 --> 00:41:58,125
and it's my aunt and uncle.
834
00:41:58,542 --> 00:41:59,710
They told me that
835
00:41:59,751 --> 00:42:02,421
“Your father is very sick
and you have to go to Israel.”
836
00:42:03,171 --> 00:42:05,757
And by that time he was already dead,
and they knew that,
837
00:42:05,799 --> 00:42:07,342
they didn't want to tell me.
838
00:42:21,314 --> 00:42:22,482
I'd lived through
839
00:42:22,899 --> 00:42:25,902
that moment of being told
that my father was dead
840
00:42:26,778 --> 00:42:27,778
many times.
841
00:42:27,904 --> 00:42:30,949
He had three heart attacks altogether,
842
00:42:31,074 --> 00:42:32,659
this last one was his fourth.
843
00:42:35,245 --> 00:42:36,413
And I always felt
844
00:42:37,456 --> 00:42:38,790
that he was living
845
00:42:40,167 --> 00:42:41,710
purely on will.
846
00:42:42,002 --> 00:42:43,712
The doctor in Israel said
847
00:42:44,004 --> 00:42:47,257
that he didn't have a heart left.
There was nothing left.
848
00:42:48,133 --> 00:42:49,885
I wasn't surprised.
849
00:42:51,094 --> 00:42:52,345
It was all used up.
850
00:43:42,145 --> 00:43:44,981
He's buried right near my mother's parents.
851
00:43:45,857 --> 00:43:46,857
And …
852
00:43:47,901 --> 00:43:49,694
I was thinking about a lot of things.
853
00:43:52,572 --> 00:43:53,990
Well, at least...
854
00:43:55,951 --> 00:43:57,577
my grandparents were,
855
00:44:00,539 --> 00:44:01,988
at least we know where they're buried.
856
00:44:01,998 --> 00:44:04,668
I mean, my – my grandfather
had eight brothers who …
857
00:44:07,629 --> 00:44:09,631
who were gassed and …
858
00:44:11,007 --> 00:44:13,385
no trace of their, of their burial site,
859
00:44:13,426 --> 00:44:14,427
no connection,
860
00:44:15,011 --> 00:44:16,721
no proof that they ever lived.
861
00:44:18,849 --> 00:44:21,017
My grandmother lost her family.
862
00:44:22,978 --> 00:44:26,189
And here they are, the two of them,
buried in – in Jerusalem.
863
00:44:26,690 --> 00:44:29,192
Two old Jews buried in Jerusalem.
864
00:44:29,234 --> 00:44:31,653
I mean, isn't that the way
it's supposed to be?
865
00:44:33,738 --> 00:44:36,783
And I know that my father wanted it
that way too, for himself.
866
00:44:36,867 --> 00:44:37,868
He always...
867
00:44:38,952 --> 00:44:41,079
Well, he wanted to live in Israel.
868
00:44:43,331 --> 00:44:46,668
He had plans to live there.
That’s all he talked about.
869
00:44:47,794 --> 00:44:50,881
So, this was the next best thing,
being buried there.
870
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:57,804
When they lowered the body
871
00:44:58,471 --> 00:44:59,639
into the hole,
872
00:45:02,976 --> 00:45:05,145
all I could think of was
873
00:45:05,353 --> 00:45:07,522
the hole that he had hidden in
874
00:45:07,731 --> 00:45:09,190
during the war.
875
00:45:11,192 --> 00:45:13,153
It was about the same dimensions
876
00:45:13,194 --> 00:45:14,613
that he had described it as,
877
00:45:14,654 --> 00:45:15,739
just enough,
878
00:45:16,865 --> 00:45:19,910
at least as far as I imagined it to be,
879
00:45:20,118 --> 00:45:21,536
just enough
880
00:45:22,329 --> 00:45:23,538
to lie down in.
881
00:45:27,292 --> 00:45:30,962
We sat shiva for the customary week.
882
00:45:32,088 --> 00:45:35,759
And I think the hardest part
883
00:45:36,051 --> 00:45:37,510
of the shiva
884
00:45:37,928 --> 00:45:41,306
was seeing my father’s friends coming in.
885
00:45:42,599 --> 00:45:44,726
They all seemed to me at that point very,
886
00:45:46,728 --> 00:45:48,480
very vulnerable people,
887
00:45:48,647 --> 00:45:50,565
really almost like children.
888
00:45:52,025 --> 00:45:53,360
And …
889
00:45:54,402 --> 00:45:56,613
and I just wanted to console each of them
890
00:45:57,405 --> 00:45:59,074
and I really didn't know how.
891
00:46:01,660 --> 00:46:03,453
I've come into the business now,
892
00:46:04,037 --> 00:46:05,789
I figure for a year,
893
00:46:05,997 --> 00:46:07,791
to show that the business can
894
00:46:07,874 --> 00:46:09,709
outlast my father.
895
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,212
I mean, this... this place was his life.
896
00:46:12,253 --> 00:46:13,630
This is where he came in.
897
00:46:14,172 --> 00:46:16,549
Then he'd go across the street, back home.
898
00:46:16,841 --> 00:46:19,010
The next morning, my life.
899
00:46:20,303 --> 00:46:22,138
Yeah? What's doin'?
900
00:46:23,390 --> 00:46:24,390
Yeah?
901
00:46:25,016 --> 00:46:26,184
How're you doin'?
902
00:46:26,685 --> 00:46:28,061
Fine, fine, what's up?
903
00:46:28,812 --> 00:46:30,355
How's Mommy feeling?
904
00:46:33,066 --> 00:46:34,401
Not so good, huh?
905
00:46:35,735 --> 00:46:37,904
My mother can't do this business alone,
906
00:46:38,113 --> 00:46:39,823
emotionally and physically.
907
00:46:39,864 --> 00:46:42,075
She was in the hospital a few months ago.
908
00:46:42,659 --> 00:46:44,160
She has a heart condition.
909
00:46:45,829 --> 00:46:48,373
She can't do the business on her own.
910
00:46:48,832 --> 00:46:50,542
I have to be here,
911
00:46:50,917 --> 00:46:53,670
and I have to pretend
that I know what I'm doing –
912
00:46:53,753 --> 00:46:55,005
– Everything is under control …
913
00:46:55,046 --> 00:46:56,589
– and pretend that,
914
00:46:57,507 --> 00:46:59,342
that I'm a businessman.
915
00:46:59,467 --> 00:47:00,552
– How're you doin', Ma?
916
00:47:01,678 --> 00:47:03,972
Yeah? You don't sound so good.
917
00:47:06,307 --> 00:47:08,101
I got 'em for four dollars yesterday.
918
00:47:08,184 --> 00:47:09,467
– She gave it to you for four dollars?
919
00:47:09,477 --> 00:47:10,477
– Yes.
920
00:47:11,438 --> 00:47:13,898
Yes! He remembers.
921
00:47:14,190 --> 00:47:17,318
– Did — the Bucaleers?
He got it for four dollars?
922
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:18,445
Those boxes yesterday?
923
00:47:18,820 --> 00:47:19,738
– Which ones are those?
924
00:47:19,779 --> 00:47:22,240
– The Bucaleer. Let's recheck it.
925
00:47:22,365 --> 00:47:24,409
– Give me a big slip, eh?
926
00:47:24,868 --> 00:47:27,495
– Need a big slip? All right,
let's get out a big piece of paper,
927
00:47:27,537 --> 00:47:28,913
we’ll write it up.
928
00:47:29,748 --> 00:47:33,126
I think my sister is going to be fine.
929
00:47:33,668 --> 00:47:39,632
She's going to get engaged momentarily.
930
00:47:40,884 --> 00:47:43,094
It’ll be good for my mother.
931
00:47:43,136 --> 00:47:44,856
The fellow she's getting engaged to, Glenn,
932
00:47:44,888 --> 00:47:46,681
I think is going to be a son to her.
933
00:47:47,766 --> 00:47:49,768
You know, I,
934
00:47:51,644 --> 00:47:53,313
I'm walking around
935
00:47:54,481 --> 00:47:55,982
as if I’m head of the family,
936
00:47:57,442 --> 00:48:01,112
as if, I was always meant to be
head of the family,
937
00:48:01,446 --> 00:48:04,032
as if it's
the most natural thing in the world.
938
00:48:04,616 --> 00:48:06,534
But, when you grow up with death,
939
00:48:08,244 --> 00:48:09,788
you're just not stunned by it.
940
00:48:10,997 --> 00:48:12,999
And I haven't been stunned by this.
941
00:48:13,333 --> 00:48:15,001
And... and I've found that my –
942
00:48:15,335 --> 00:48:16,878
my reactions to things
943
00:48:18,463 --> 00:48:21,674
have been amazingly similar
to what they were three weeks ago.
944
00:48:22,634 --> 00:48:23,343
What’s the problem?
945
00:48:23,384 --> 00:48:24,384
That I sound...
946
00:48:24,969 --> 00:48:26,429
I don't sound angry
947
00:48:27,931 --> 00:48:29,516
and I don't sound passionate.
948
00:48:30,725 --> 00:48:33,561
I sound like I worked –
I've worked everything out already.
949
00:48:33,603 --> 00:48:35,271
Everything is all worked out.
950
00:48:37,482 --> 00:48:39,609
It’s not – it’s not all worked out.
951
00:48:40,193 --> 00:48:41,903
There's just something wrong with –
952
00:48:42,028 --> 00:48:44,322
with accepting a father's death
953
00:48:44,364 --> 00:48:46,407
with such equanimity.
954
00:48:46,866 --> 00:48:48,034
I mean, a father who –
955
00:48:48,076 --> 00:48:49,744
who his son loved.
956
00:48:50,495 --> 00:48:54,207
Of... of not even being able to admit
how much I miss him …
957
00:48:55,291 --> 00:48:57,043
of constantly just denying it.
958
00:48:57,752 --> 00:48:59,629
What’s wrong with that, is that,
959
00:48:59,796 --> 00:49:01,214
is that I miss him very much.
960
00:49:03,550 --> 00:49:05,802
What things do I miss about my father?
961
00:49:07,762 --> 00:49:09,430
That he was a character.
962
00:49:10,306 --> 00:49:12,934
The way he would go into a doctor’s office
963
00:49:13,309 --> 00:49:16,396
and just announce to
the people sitting there
964
00:49:16,646 --> 00:49:19,983
that Henry Kissinger is worse than Hitler.
965
00:49:20,692 --> 00:49:22,527
People would be shocked. You know,
966
00:49:22,569 --> 00:49:25,572
they would – they would just raise
their newspapers.
967
00:49:27,073 --> 00:49:29,033
I miss him talking on the phone with,
968
00:49:29,492 --> 00:49:33,037
with a friend of his
who he used to call every Sunday,
969
00:49:33,580 --> 00:49:35,415
and they used to just talk about politics,
970
00:49:35,456 --> 00:49:37,250
about what's happening with Israel
971
00:49:37,667 --> 00:49:41,796
and how crazy America
doesn't know what it’s doing to itself.
972
00:49:43,131 --> 00:49:44,340
We used to kiss and embrace,
973
00:49:44,632 --> 00:49:46,342
especially after fights.
974
00:49:46,801 --> 00:49:48,595
We used to kiss all the time.
975
00:49:49,971 --> 00:49:51,514
Every morning.
976
00:49:52,849 --> 00:49:55,894
I miss that.
I miss kissing him in the morning.
977
00:49:56,769 --> 00:49:59,063
The sense of loss is also,
978
00:49:59,939 --> 00:50:03,151
is also — it’s a Jewish loss, that,
979
00:50:03,234 --> 00:50:05,945
that the survivors are really,
are really going.
980
00:50:06,654 --> 00:50:07,906
I’m very afraid.
981
00:50:08,198 --> 00:50:11,159
I’m... I’m... I’m very afraid of,
982
00:50:12,076 --> 00:50:13,995
of living in a world or...
983
00:50:15,205 --> 00:50:17,749
Of bringing children into a world where,
984
00:50:18,041 --> 00:50:20,668
where there aren’t
survivors of the Holocaust living.
985
00:50:34,515 --> 00:50:36,017
That year that I spent
986
00:50:36,226 --> 00:50:38,102
running the business and,
987
00:50:38,770 --> 00:50:40,271
and moving back to Borough Park...
988
00:50:40,313 --> 00:50:42,273
I had been away at journalism school
989
00:50:42,315 --> 00:50:43,233
in Chicago,
990
00:50:43,274 --> 00:50:46,069
and I had no intention of moving
back to Borough Park.
991
00:50:46,110 --> 00:50:47,153
But that's what I did.
992
00:50:48,821 --> 00:50:51,658
And I found myself going back to the shuls
993
00:50:52,784 --> 00:50:54,869
where he had davened in,
994
00:50:54,911 --> 00:50:56,444
in the different places that we had lived
995
00:50:56,454 --> 00:50:57,705
in Borough Park.
996
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:00,040
And …
997
00:51:03,169 --> 00:51:05,964
I found myself thinking,
998
00:51:06,756 --> 00:51:08,508
"What would my father...
999
00:51:09,550 --> 00:51:11,344
What was my father thinking
1000
00:51:11,761 --> 00:51:13,263
in 1945?
1001
00:51:15,014 --> 00:51:16,182
What did he have to do?
1002
00:51:16,224 --> 00:51:18,726
What – what did he decide to do?”
1003
00:51:19,686 --> 00:51:21,062
And when there was no order
1004
00:51:21,104 --> 00:51:23,356
he decided to create his own order.
1005
00:51:24,983 --> 00:51:27,360
And that’s what I decided to do too.
1006
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:30,548
Orthodoxy would be a
very easy way out for me.
1007
00:52:31,758 --> 00:52:34,385
It would enable me not to –
not to face …
1008
00:52:36,095 --> 00:52:38,014
a lot of the contradictions that I feel.
1009
00:52:42,894 --> 00:52:45,355
It would just be a very easy way
of dealing with things.
1010
00:52:52,445 --> 00:52:53,529
Growing up,
1011
00:52:55,573 --> 00:52:57,742
I sensed that there was something wrong
1012
00:52:57,784 --> 00:52:58,910
with the fact that,
1013
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:01,287
that the family life was …
1014
00:53:03,664 --> 00:53:05,750
was almost perfect,
1015
00:53:05,917 --> 00:53:08,086
what a – what a Jewish family
1016
00:53:08,878 --> 00:53:10,630
is supposed to be.
1017
00:53:10,838 --> 00:53:12,673
The rituals disturbed me
1018
00:53:13,049 --> 00:53:16,302
because I saw our family as
1019
00:53:16,386 --> 00:53:19,180
reenacting something
that had been murdered...
1020
00:53:19,639 --> 00:53:20,640
The Shabbos,
1021
00:53:20,765 --> 00:53:22,683
going to shul,
1022
00:53:23,476 --> 00:53:25,311
the yarmulke, the... the tifillin,
1023
00:53:25,353 --> 00:53:28,106
the whole thing had been wiped out.
1024
00:53:29,399 --> 00:53:30,399
And I was …
1025
00:53:32,735 --> 00:53:34,529
I guess I was very frightened.
1026
00:53:35,238 --> 00:53:37,990
I said, “If this is what happened to
millions of Jewish families
1027
00:53:38,032 --> 00:53:39,992
who lived exactly the way we did,
1028
00:53:40,159 --> 00:53:42,537
what’s going to happen to us?"
1029
00:53:44,705 --> 00:53:46,457
Mazel tov!
1030
00:54:01,889 --> 00:54:03,209
Glenn, mazel tov, mazel tov.
1031
00:54:05,643 --> 00:54:07,395
Glenn, mazel tov.
1032
00:54:23,744 --> 00:54:25,663
Higher! Higher!
1033
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:23,888
My sister will be a very good
Jewish mother.
1034
00:55:24,847 --> 00:55:26,641
I think that’s what she's preparing for.
1035
00:55:27,225 --> 00:55:29,977
I think that's the kind of daughter she is.
1036
00:55:30,937 --> 00:55:32,813
I'm certainly not that kind of a son.
1037
00:55:38,611 --> 00:55:41,113
She grew up almost the opposite way as me.
1038
00:55:41,155 --> 00:55:43,324
It’s almost as if she looked at me
and said, "Well,
1039
00:55:43,699 --> 00:55:45,284
this is not what I’m going to do."
1040
00:55:57,046 --> 00:55:59,757
I am 26, I am living with my mother.
1041
00:55:59,799 --> 00:56:02,218
It is not a permanent arrangement.
1042
00:56:02,677 --> 00:56:04,804
I mean, I’m in no particular rush
to leave but,
1043
00:56:04,845 --> 00:56:06,264
but I will be leaving.
1044
00:56:06,973 --> 00:56:08,057
And she knows that.
1045
00:56:12,603 --> 00:56:13,603
In April...
1046
00:56:14,355 --> 00:56:17,316
Every 26 years there’s some kind of
1047
00:56:17,358 --> 00:56:18,651
it’s called “Birkat Hachama”...
1048
00:56:18,693 --> 00:56:20,361
“Blessing of the Sun.”
1049
00:56:20,444 --> 00:56:21,964
– What we're doing in New Jewish Times
1050
00:56:21,988 --> 00:56:24,073
is, in effect, trying to make
1051
00:56:24,115 --> 00:56:26,075
some kind of collective sense
1052
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:28,995
out of the chaos that each of us feels
1053
00:56:29,078 --> 00:56:30,371
in our personal lives,
1054
00:56:30,454 --> 00:56:33,624
either moving from an Orthodox
background to –
1055
00:56:33,916 --> 00:56:35,209
to something that’s – that’s
1056
00:56:35,251 --> 00:56:36,502
spiritually in flux.
1057
00:56:36,669 --> 00:56:38,170
Or going the other way,
1058
00:56:38,588 --> 00:56:40,830
somebody who’s come from
a really assimilated Jewish background
1059
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:43,384
who became … very Jewish.
1060
00:56:43,426 --> 00:56:45,835
– Are you complaining that there's
too much religion in the – in the piece
1061
00:56:45,845 --> 00:56:46,971
or Orthodoxy?
1062
00:56:47,096 --> 00:56:48,336
– Well, religion.
1063
00:56:48,556 --> 00:56:50,057
Well, this is the religious section.
1064
00:56:50,725 --> 00:56:53,144
Probably half of us
are children of survivors.
1065
00:56:53,185 --> 00:56:54,854
We set the tone of the paper.
1066
00:56:54,895 --> 00:56:57,471
– Okay, now, the "People" page,
actually, that might be a good idea.
1067
00:56:57,481 --> 00:56:59,317
People who are – who are involved in –
1068
00:56:59,358 --> 00:57:01,611
in survival techniques.
1069
00:57:02,194 --> 00:57:02,903
What do you people think of
1070
00:57:02,987 --> 00:57:04,655
reviving “Things to Come?”
1071
00:57:04,822 --> 00:57:07,023
– Can I have a vote for bringing back
“Between the Lines”?
1072
00:57:07,033 --> 00:57:09,285
– “Between the Lines” has
a sense of humor to it,
1073
00:57:09,493 --> 00:57:11,078
it’s a funny page,
1074
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:15,541
and “Things to Come” usually is very –
is usually bad news that’s coming up.
1075
00:57:15,708 --> 00:57:17,228
I mean, that... that’s what it’s been.
1076
00:57:17,668 --> 00:57:21,547
We’ve been accused of –
of... of being alarmist and apocalyptic.
1077
00:57:21,589 --> 00:57:23,109
One guy came into the office, he says,
1078
00:57:23,132 --> 00:57:25,926
“You know, how can you say
1079
00:57:25,968 --> 00:57:27,335
that there’s going to be another Holocaust?
1080
00:57:27,345 --> 00:57:28,377
How can you – how can you tell?
1081
00:57:28,387 --> 00:57:29,096
How can you write that?
1082
00:57:29,138 --> 00:57:30,138
How can you say it?”
1083
00:57:31,223 --> 00:57:32,725
And you know, we’re... we're not –
1084
00:57:34,101 --> 00:57:35,421
we're not saying that there will,
1085
00:57:36,646 --> 00:57:38,006
that there definitely will be one.
1086
00:57:38,064 --> 00:57:39,190
But what we're saying...
1087
00:57:39,231 --> 00:57:40,524
What — the theme of the paper,
1088
00:57:40,566 --> 00:57:41,942
really more than anything else
1089
00:57:41,984 --> 00:57:44,320
is that these are apocalyptic times,
1090
00:57:44,487 --> 00:57:46,947
and that these are times of upheaval,
1091
00:57:46,989 --> 00:57:48,032
of personal upheaval,
1092
00:57:48,074 --> 00:57:49,200
of collective uncertainty.
1093
00:57:49,367 --> 00:57:50,534
And what we're trying to do
1094
00:57:50,576 --> 00:57:52,828
is find some kind of a voice
1095
00:57:52,870 --> 00:57:54,372
for Jewish identity.
1096
00:57:54,413 --> 00:57:55,915
What does it mean for us,
1097
00:57:56,290 --> 00:57:57,500
for our generation
1098
00:57:57,541 --> 00:57:59,377
to grow up after the Holocaust,
1099
00:57:59,418 --> 00:58:01,921
the first generation with
the State of Israel a reality...
1100
00:58:01,962 --> 00:58:04,006
What does it mean for us
to be growing up in America
1101
00:58:04,173 --> 00:58:06,509
where... where we
have full... full frigidaires
1102
00:58:06,634 --> 00:58:10,513
and... and the only – our only relationship
to the Holocaust is nightmares?
1103
00:58:11,639 --> 00:58:13,224
We're addressing ourselves
1104
00:58:13,307 --> 00:58:15,601
to any Jew who’s uneasy,
1105
00:58:17,978 --> 00:58:19,814
any Jew who feels that
1106
00:58:20,189 --> 00:58:22,024
all of the existing
1107
00:58:22,566 --> 00:58:26,362
religious, political ideas, structures
1108
00:58:26,946 --> 00:58:28,823
within the Jewish community
1109
00:58:29,573 --> 00:58:31,659
don't answer the needs of –
1110
00:58:31,701 --> 00:58:33,411
of what's happening to Jews today.
1111
00:58:33,494 --> 00:58:36,205
They're all, practically without exception,
1112
00:58:36,247 --> 00:58:38,374
holdovers of another time.
1113
00:58:38,416 --> 00:58:42,837
And... and almost no one is speaking
1114
00:58:42,962 --> 00:58:45,840
to Jews … who are in flux.
1115
00:58:46,090 --> 00:58:47,591
– Everybody’s looking for something.
1116
00:58:47,633 --> 00:58:48,634
Everybody's in flux.
1117
00:58:48,676 --> 00:58:50,136
– And in the process of dropping –
1118
00:58:50,177 --> 00:58:51,669
– You're dropping out of Borough Park,
1119
00:58:51,679 --> 00:58:52,879
I’m dropping out of Riverdale.
1120
00:58:52,930 --> 00:58:54,056
He’s droppin' out of this,
1121
00:58:54,098 --> 00:58:55,256
we're all dropping out of something.
1122
00:58:55,266 --> 00:58:57,393
But yet, we don't want to
just fall into America.
1123
00:58:57,518 --> 00:58:58,926
– It’s not only people dropping out,
1124
00:58:58,936 --> 00:59:01,981
It’s also – it's a
cross-fertilization process,
1125
00:59:02,022 --> 00:59:03,649
because people are dropping in –
1126
00:59:03,816 --> 00:59:05,067
dropping out of America and
1127
00:59:05,109 --> 00:59:06,902
dropping into Judaism at the same time.
1128
00:59:07,236 --> 00:59:08,602
Frieda, how do you feel, though, about
1129
00:59:08,612 --> 00:59:10,489
coming to this paper from Borough Park?
1130
00:59:10,614 --> 00:59:13,200
– Oh, it's generated an enormous amount
1131
00:59:13,242 --> 00:59:14,618
of tension for me.
1132
00:59:14,869 --> 00:59:16,328
You know, I'm still in that world.
1133
00:59:16,537 --> 00:59:17,663
– You hear this –
1134
00:59:17,747 --> 00:59:19,457
Frieda’s brother called – called her up
1135
00:59:19,749 --> 00:59:21,000
to relay the message
1136
00:59:21,167 --> 00:59:22,251
that the paper is sick
1137
00:59:23,419 --> 00:59:25,421
and she shouldn't have anything
to do with it.
1138
00:59:26,839 --> 00:59:28,716
It’s doing terribly in Borough Park,
1139
00:59:28,758 --> 00:59:30,342
really, really terribly.
1140
00:59:31,635 --> 00:59:32,803
I did a piece
1141
00:59:33,471 --> 00:59:36,015
for the November issue, called,
1142
00:59:36,140 --> 00:59:38,058
“Punks, Hasidim and the End of the World.”
1143
00:59:38,809 --> 00:59:41,103
And what I was trying to do in the piece
1144
00:59:41,145 --> 00:59:42,188
was to
1145
00:59:42,229 --> 00:59:42,980
create a mood
1146
00:59:43,022 --> 00:59:44,815
of people who are living with –
1147
00:59:44,982 --> 00:59:46,942
with the certainty
that apocalypse is coming.
1148
00:59:47,276 --> 00:59:49,403
And I selected the punks
of the East Village
1149
00:59:49,737 --> 00:59:51,697
and the Hasidim of Borough Park
1150
00:59:51,864 --> 00:59:54,283
because the Hasidim had survived
an apocalypse
1151
00:59:54,450 --> 00:59:56,035
and now were waiting for the Messiah,
1152
00:59:56,243 --> 00:59:58,694
and the punks were acting as if
1153
00:59:58,704 --> 01:00:00,748
the Apocalypse was happening right now.
1154
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:03,959
The piece was written with a lot of love
about Borough Park,
1155
01:00:04,001 --> 01:00:06,337
about a lot of the
rebbes and the survivors.
1156
01:00:06,378 --> 01:00:09,006
But just the fact that it appeared
with punks
1157
01:00:09,465 --> 01:00:11,040
and... and that there were these pictures,
1158
01:00:11,050 --> 01:00:13,042
these wonderful pictures —
Of these strung-out punks
1159
01:00:13,052 --> 01:00:14,303
dancing all over the page
1160
01:00:14,345 --> 01:00:15,763
and then these rebbes, you know,
1161
01:00:16,180 --> 01:00:17,223
davening...
1162
01:00:17,264 --> 01:00:19,725
Just really jarred people in Borough Park.
1163
01:00:20,392 --> 01:00:22,032
I didn't – I didn't expect it! I didn’t –
1164
01:00:22,061 --> 01:00:24,438
I really didn't expect that kind of
negative reaction.
1165
01:00:25,523 --> 01:00:26,357
There was a time
1166
01:00:26,398 --> 01:00:28,442
when I would have been very happy
1167
01:00:28,901 --> 01:00:31,237
to – to be an outsider from Borough Park.
1168
01:00:31,946 --> 01:00:33,489
But that time isn’t now.
1169
01:00:33,864 --> 01:00:37,201
I really want to maintain
some kind of connection there.
1170
01:00:39,328 --> 01:00:41,539
I'm beginning to live my day-to-day life
1171
01:00:41,622 --> 01:00:42,832
more as a Jew now,
1172
01:00:43,499 --> 01:00:48,671
and trying … to extract what –
1173
01:00:48,712 --> 01:00:51,340
what is eternal from Jewish tradition...
1174
01:00:52,132 --> 01:00:54,343
What’s vital now and what'll be vital
1175
01:00:54,718 --> 01:00:55,886
a hundred years from now,
1176
01:00:56,095 --> 01:00:58,681
if we can speak in such optimistic terms.
1177
01:00:59,390 --> 01:01:01,058
On the one hand, I... I would say
1178
01:01:01,100 --> 01:01:02,434
without any certainties,
1179
01:01:02,518 --> 01:01:04,603
without – without any long-range plans,
1180
01:01:04,728 --> 01:01:06,021
because in these times
1181
01:01:06,063 --> 01:01:07,356
you don't attach yourself
1182
01:01:07,398 --> 01:01:10,150
to mundane se... security.
1183
01:01:10,693 --> 01:01:12,820
Because in these – in these times,
1184
01:01:12,945 --> 01:01:15,197
there is no security in things,
1185
01:01:15,239 --> 01:01:16,991
in... in... in a settled family life.
1186
01:01:17,032 --> 01:01:18,032
There just isn't.
1187
01:01:18,450 --> 01:01:20,077
Married life is great.
1188
01:01:20,661 --> 01:01:23,122
It’s been a little over a year and a half,
1189
01:01:23,289 --> 01:01:26,000
and we’re expecting a baby,
1190
01:01:26,041 --> 01:01:28,377
hopefully, the end of June.
1191
01:01:28,669 --> 01:01:31,380
I worry about, about my sister's baby
1192
01:01:31,422 --> 01:01:34,675
and... and, and... and about what –
1193
01:01:34,717 --> 01:01:37,970
what does it mean to, to be so tied down,
1194
01:01:39,471 --> 01:01:41,599
and... and to be responsible for... for –
1195
01:01:42,766 --> 01:01:45,185
for helpless... helpless beings and,
1196
01:01:45,311 --> 01:01:48,147
and... and to be so
tied down to, to a home,
1197
01:01:48,272 --> 01:01:49,815
and... and a business –
1198
01:01:49,899 --> 01:01:52,067
something that’s, that’s not portable,
1199
01:01:52,109 --> 01:01:53,109
that –
1200
01:01:53,736 --> 01:01:55,496
that you can't put on
your back and... and...
1201
01:01:55,529 --> 01:01:58,198
And go to – to the woods if you have to,
1202
01:01:58,574 --> 01:02:00,576
or... or... or cross oceans?
1203
01:02:01,619 --> 01:02:02,995
And I think that’s what's coming.
1204
01:02:03,329 --> 01:02:04,830
He’s really not ready.
1205
01:02:05,122 --> 01:02:06,707
He’s not ready to get married yet.
1206
01:02:07,875 --> 01:02:09,168
I would love it, of course.
1207
01:02:09,251 --> 01:02:10,628
Any mother would.
1208
01:02:10,711 --> 01:02:14,381
But I – I mean,
I don't even talk about it to him
1209
01:02:14,423 --> 01:02:15,591
because what's the point?
1210
01:02:15,633 --> 01:02:17,843
You know, he knows I want it.
1211
01:02:17,885 --> 01:02:20,179
And what’s the point of my harping on it,
1212
01:02:21,096 --> 01:02:22,264
nagging him into it?
1213
01:02:22,306 --> 01:02:23,807
It's not going to come sooner.
1214
01:02:24,892 --> 01:02:26,894
And he's having a good time.
1215
01:02:26,936 --> 01:02:28,437
He's enjoying life right now.
1216
01:02:29,188 --> 01:02:30,188
I hope!
1217
01:02:30,356 --> 01:02:32,274
I do believe that things are coming apart.
1218
01:02:33,108 --> 01:02:34,360
I’m very much afraid
1219
01:02:34,401 --> 01:02:37,737
of the 1980's and beyond.
1220
01:02:39,156 --> 01:02:42,900
We’re living in a time
of such obvious decay.
1221
01:02:42,910 --> 01:02:45,788
It’s not only the urban decay.
It’s a cultural decay.
1222
01:02:46,246 --> 01:02:48,332
Is it going to be race riots?
1223
01:02:48,374 --> 01:02:51,085
Fascism from the right?
Fascism from the left?
1224
01:02:51,126 --> 01:02:53,295
You can pick your paranoid fantasy,
1225
01:02:53,712 --> 01:02:56,966
but I think we’re on the verge
of something unhealthy.
1226
01:02:59,593 --> 01:03:01,762
Everything that made the Holocaust possible
1227
01:03:01,804 --> 01:03:04,306
is inherent in our society today.
1228
01:03:05,182 --> 01:03:06,392
The consumption,
1229
01:03:07,017 --> 01:03:09,395
the materialism
that you just get sucked into
1230
01:03:09,436 --> 01:03:10,479
more and more.
1231
01:03:12,773 --> 01:03:14,358
There are very few values that –
1232
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:16,151
that people will admit to having now.
1233
01:03:16,902 --> 01:03:18,612
And if they do have values they –
1234
01:03:19,405 --> 01:03:22,116
they keep it to themselves. It’s not
something you brag about.
1235
01:03:24,284 --> 01:03:27,246
Take the punks as the extreme example
1236
01:03:27,955 --> 01:03:30,332
of... of I think what society,
mainstream society
1237
01:03:30,374 --> 01:03:31,041
is going through now...
1238
01:03:31,083 --> 01:03:32,584
This whole idea of "Live for today,”
1239
01:03:32,668 --> 01:03:34,044
of abandoning
1240
01:03:34,169 --> 01:03:37,089
any pretense of concern
with the soul, with anything immortal,
1241
01:03:37,256 --> 01:03:38,664
of just saying, “It’s all nonsense."
1242
01:03:38,674 --> 01:03:40,050
Total materialism.
1243
01:03:40,259 --> 01:03:42,761
When people have no values to fall back on,
1244
01:03:42,803 --> 01:03:44,805
they're going to want
1245
01:03:44,847 --> 01:03:46,932
to preserve the materialism at all costs.
1246
01:03:47,182 --> 01:03:48,892
And you have the structure already,
1247
01:03:49,059 --> 01:03:49,977
you have the technology,
1248
01:03:50,019 --> 01:03:51,145
you have the precedent.
1249
01:03:51,729 --> 01:03:52,855
Why not do it again?
1250
01:03:53,439 --> 01:03:54,481
The Holocaust was not
1251
01:03:54,523 --> 01:03:56,775
an emotional pogrom.
1252
01:03:57,276 --> 01:03:59,862
It was a rational, step-by-step,
1253
01:03:59,903 --> 01:04:02,698
planned extermination process.
1254
01:04:03,574 --> 01:04:04,982
And to this day,
1255
01:04:04,992 --> 01:04:07,202
it's the only coherent program
1256
01:04:07,286 --> 01:04:09,788
for solving the problems
of the modern world.
1257
01:04:13,751 --> 01:04:14,918
And sooner or later,
1258
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:16,628
they're going to turn to the one man
1259
01:04:16,837 --> 01:04:18,213
who had a real solution –
1260
01:04:18,297 --> 01:04:19,381
and that’s Adolph Hitler.
1261
01:04:19,631 --> 01:04:21,258
He had the Final Solution.
1262
01:04:22,634 --> 01:04:24,434
And people are going to turn
to that approach,
1263
01:04:24,845 --> 01:04:26,055
to overpopulation
1264
01:04:26,096 --> 01:04:27,681
and diminishing resources
1265
01:04:27,765 --> 01:04:29,266
and a planet that’s going mad.
1266
01:04:33,020 --> 01:04:35,481
I've been saying these things for 15 years.
1267
01:04:35,564 --> 01:04:38,150
So, when we were kids,
1268
01:04:38,734 --> 01:04:42,112
you could ascribe all kinds
of psychological reasons for it, okay?
1269
01:04:42,196 --> 01:04:44,031
Children of survivors – this is –
1270
01:04:44,114 --> 01:04:45,324
this is the natural reaction.
1271
01:04:45,365 --> 01:04:46,992
They speak in apocalyptic terms.
1272
01:04:48,619 --> 01:04:50,370
But to still be talking,
1273
01:04:50,537 --> 01:04:51,872
and what’s even more frightening,
1274
01:04:51,914 --> 01:04:53,947
to have people who have no connection
with the Holocaust...
1275
01:04:53,957 --> 01:04:55,334
People who aren't even Jewish...
1276
01:04:55,584 --> 01:04:57,628
Talking in apocalyptic terms now,
1277
01:04:57,711 --> 01:04:59,546
that terrifies me.
1278
01:05:00,631 --> 01:05:01,663
You know, now all of a sudden
1279
01:05:01,673 --> 01:05:03,258
everybody's saying, "Hey, you know,
1280
01:05:03,300 --> 01:05:04,540
the Holocaust happened,” right?
1281
01:05:04,885 --> 01:05:07,387
What conclusions are they drawing from it?
1282
01:05:07,429 --> 01:05:08,712
Now they’re going to fit the Holocaust
1283
01:05:08,722 --> 01:05:10,516
into their previous frame of reference.
1284
01:05:12,392 --> 01:05:16,021
You just get the feeling you want to grab
people by the throat and scream at them.
1285
01:05:16,897 --> 01:05:19,525
I don't think 10 years or 15 years from now
1286
01:05:19,608 --> 01:05:20,901
we're going to have a paper
1287
01:05:20,943 --> 01:05:22,226
and we're going to be walking around
1288
01:05:22,236 --> 01:05:23,570
in three-piece suits and...
1289
01:05:23,612 --> 01:05:25,489
And... and we're going to be successful.
1290
01:05:26,073 --> 01:05:27,574
There’s no way. That's –
1291
01:05:27,616 --> 01:05:28,117
it’s not going to happen.
1292
01:05:28,367 --> 01:05:29,983
– What's with the money,
what’s gonna happen?
1293
01:05:29,993 --> 01:05:30,993
You have any plans?
1294
01:05:31,286 --> 01:05:31,995
– Money-wise?
1295
01:05:32,079 --> 01:05:33,079
– Yeah?
1296
01:05:33,122 --> 01:05:35,374
– Ah, right now, I know that
I have nothing in my pocket.
1297
01:05:36,166 --> 01:05:38,210
– I mean, you're talking
about driving a cab?
1298
01:05:38,460 --> 01:05:39,044
– Yeah.
1299
01:05:39,211 --> 01:05:40,211
– You're gonna do it?
1300
01:05:41,004 --> 01:05:41,630
– Only at night.
1301
01:05:41,755 --> 01:05:42,871
– You're gonna do Manpower, Jon?
1302
01:05:42,881 --> 01:05:43,915
– What do you want to do?
1303
01:05:43,966 --> 01:05:46,046
– A little factory work
one or two days a week.
1304
01:05:46,176 --> 01:05:47,970
Hopefully if it’s interesting
1305
01:05:48,011 --> 01:05:49,169
I could get a story out of that.
1306
01:05:49,179 --> 01:05:51,299
– So how are we
doing in this store over here?
1307
01:05:51,890 --> 01:05:53,725
What do we have, ten papers dropped?
1308
01:05:54,268 --> 01:05:55,717
– Well, we’ll never
sell them cause they hide us.
1309
01:05:55,727 --> 01:05:57,136
– They really - they bury us.
1310
01:05:59,314 --> 01:06:01,900
Look, what's – what’s the greatest
threat now for society, right?
1311
01:06:02,025 --> 01:06:03,986
They say it’s nuclear destruction.
1312
01:06:04,027 --> 01:06:05,696
Right? This is the greatest threat.
1313
01:06:05,737 --> 01:06:07,457
Now... now they’re already starting to say,
1314
01:06:07,698 --> 01:06:09,408
“Well, even if they drop bombs,
1315
01:06:09,867 --> 01:06:11,410
there'll still be people surviving.”
1316
01:06:11,702 --> 01:06:13,203
People will survive a nuclear war.
1317
01:06:13,370 --> 01:06:15,664
Yeah, they’ll be – they’ll be contaminated
1318
01:06:15,706 --> 01:06:17,332
with radiation, all the rest of it.
1319
01:06:17,374 --> 01:06:19,168
But – but people will still be around.
1320
01:06:20,460 --> 01:06:22,713
What kind of communities
are these people gonna form?
1321
01:06:23,672 --> 01:06:24,952
How are these people gonna live?
1322
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:28,886
And you have to look at the Holocaust as –
1323
01:06:29,887 --> 01:06:32,264
as a miniature nuclear catastrophe
1324
01:06:32,681 --> 01:06:34,641
that was isolated in the heart of Europe
1325
01:06:34,725 --> 01:06:37,019
and struck just the Jews and overturned
1326
01:06:37,269 --> 01:06:38,770
the entire Jewish world.
1327
01:06:40,147 --> 01:06:41,690
Destroyed it, wiped it out,
1328
01:06:41,815 --> 01:06:43,734
just as if there had been a nuclear war
1329
01:06:44,026 --> 01:06:45,906
because nothing was left in Europe
for the Jews,
1330
01:06:45,944 --> 01:06:47,905
no institutions, nothing.
1331
01:06:47,946 --> 01:06:48,906
And that’s what my father...
1332
01:06:48,947 --> 01:06:50,107
You know, he speaks in, in...
1333
01:06:50,490 --> 01:06:53,118
In really post-nuclear war terms when
1334
01:06:53,202 --> 01:06:55,287
he talks about going back to his town
1335
01:06:55,454 --> 01:06:56,455
in 1945.
1336
01:06:56,580 --> 01:06:58,999
That’s the way I really imagine
it would be for us,
1337
01:06:59,291 --> 01:07:02,085
just coming out of – out of subways after –
1338
01:07:02,127 --> 01:07:03,503
after a nuclear war.
1339
01:07:05,923 --> 01:07:07,216
We came back.
1340
01:07:09,176 --> 01:07:13,096
It was a unbelievable …
1341
01:07:14,723 --> 01:07:15,891
situation.
1342
01:07:17,434 --> 01:07:19,770
We were one of the first ones
1343
01:07:19,811 --> 01:07:23,774
who came back to, to our city.
1344
01:07:25,609 --> 01:07:26,693
You could imagine,
1345
01:07:28,195 --> 01:07:31,323
we were totally irrational,
1346
01:07:31,782 --> 01:07:33,325
totally irrational.
1347
01:07:34,743 --> 01:07:39,164
We sat down and we took whiskey
1348
01:07:40,916 --> 01:07:43,460
by big glasses
1349
01:07:44,628 --> 01:07:46,380
and we just drank.
1350
01:07:47,839 --> 01:07:49,591
We drank a whole day
1351
01:07:50,008 --> 01:07:51,343
that we shouldn’t think,
1352
01:07:52,928 --> 01:07:56,139
because the minute we were sober
1353
01:07:56,515 --> 01:07:59,184
we couldn't cope with the situation.
1354
01:07:59,643 --> 01:08:02,062
So we drank and drank.
1355
01:08:02,896 --> 01:08:05,524
That was going on for a few weeks.
1356
01:08:06,316 --> 01:08:10,862
And on a nice day, I said to myself,
1357
01:08:10,904 --> 01:08:12,656
"God, this is not going to
1358
01:08:12,698 --> 01:08:14,908
lead us nowhere.”
1359
01:08:16,076 --> 01:08:19,621
And I just threw away the whiskey.
1360
01:08:21,623 --> 01:08:23,125
Whenever I ask myself,
1361
01:08:23,166 --> 01:08:25,168
"Why should I bother going on?”
1362
01:08:25,210 --> 01:08:26,628
I say, “Well, these people survived
1363
01:08:26,670 --> 01:08:28,839
the worst of... of whatever’s coming.
1364
01:08:29,256 --> 01:08:30,757
These people were right in it
1365
01:08:31,258 --> 01:08:33,093
and, and yet they were able to,
1366
01:08:33,176 --> 01:08:35,053
to stay human afterwards.”
1367
01:08:35,262 --> 01:08:36,471
You who survived
1368
01:08:36,513 --> 01:08:38,974
did not turn your backs on Judaism,
1369
01:08:39,016 --> 01:08:41,310
though you had every right to do so.
1370
01:08:43,312 --> 01:08:45,897
You didn't turn your back
on Jewish history,
1371
01:08:46,064 --> 01:08:48,025
though you were its greatest victims.
1372
01:08:49,901 --> 01:08:53,488
And finally, you didn’t turn your back
on faith in God,
1373
01:08:54,281 --> 01:08:55,991
the God who let us out of Egypt
1374
01:08:56,366 --> 01:08:57,701
and into the crematorium.
1375
01:08:58,327 --> 01:09:00,486
Did you pray while you were in the bunker?
1376
01:09:00,537 --> 01:09:02,539
– To pray as such, no.
1377
01:09:03,540 --> 01:09:07,377
We didn't ask God to help us.
1378
01:09:08,462 --> 01:09:13,925
We didn't ask God to help our nearest ones.
1379
01:09:15,594 --> 01:09:19,139
We just couldn't understand. We were –
1380
01:09:21,099 --> 01:09:23,143
we were besides ourselves
1381
01:09:23,185 --> 01:09:27,022
why this should happen
to the Jewish people.
1382
01:09:27,105 --> 01:09:29,900
So no, we were not praying, none of us.
1383
01:09:31,943 --> 01:09:33,862
And after – after that
1384
01:09:34,279 --> 01:09:36,865
we didn't pray either for a long time.
1385
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:39,200
But …
1386
01:09:40,118 --> 01:09:42,996
after you become older,
1387
01:09:43,789 --> 01:09:46,833
after you get married — many of us...
1388
01:09:47,000 --> 01:09:50,295
Somehow the wheel turn back,
1389
01:09:51,505 --> 01:09:55,300
and just like,
1390
01:09:55,926 --> 01:09:59,388
if you could do a good deed,
God forgives you,
1391
01:10:00,430 --> 01:10:01,598
so they say …
1392
01:10:07,020 --> 01:10:08,397
so did we.
1393
01:10:09,606 --> 01:10:11,400
We forgave God
1394
01:10:12,818 --> 01:10:16,863
and we started to pray again.
1395
01:10:21,076 --> 01:10:23,662
I often asked him whether he believed
1396
01:10:23,954 --> 01:10:25,705
in the Jewish concept of God,
1397
01:10:26,373 --> 01:10:27,874
of a personal God.
1398
01:10:29,543 --> 01:10:31,086
He would tell me he doesn't know.
1399
01:10:31,962 --> 01:10:34,756
But he would say, “I know that
1400
01:10:35,132 --> 01:10:37,134
Jewish history proves
1401
01:10:37,509 --> 01:10:39,719
that there’s something special about this
1402
01:10:39,761 --> 01:10:40,804
little people,
1403
01:10:41,138 --> 01:10:42,138
the Jews.
1404
01:10:43,682 --> 01:10:45,058
I don't know what it is.
1405
01:10:46,268 --> 01:10:49,563
I don’t know why we're going through
what we' re going through.
1406
01:10:50,147 --> 01:10:51,731
But there must be a reason."
1407
01:12:26,368 --> 01:12:27,661
– Are you a journalist?
1408
01:12:27,827 --> 01:12:28,537
– I’m a journalist.
1409
01:12:28,578 --> 01:12:29,788
– I didn’t know.
1410
01:12:33,542 --> 01:12:36,670
– But I’m – I’m here for two reasons.
1411
01:12:36,962 --> 01:12:38,630
I’m – I’m writing an article,
1412
01:12:39,089 --> 01:12:41,633
but I'm also a child of survivors, so I'm –
1413
01:12:41,675 --> 01:12:42,300
– That’s good.
1414
01:12:42,342 --> 01:12:44,719
– wearing two yarmulkes at the same time.
1415
01:12:46,263 --> 01:12:48,056
Where were you in 1945?
1416
01:12:48,473 --> 01:12:49,474
– Dachau.
1417
01:12:49,641 --> 01:12:50,961
– You were liberated from Dachau?
1418
01:12:51,810 --> 01:12:55,814
After the war, how did you begin
to live again?
1419
01:12:55,855 --> 01:12:57,983
How did you begin a normal process?
1420
01:12:58,024 --> 01:13:00,392
– You see, we want to live
in spite of the Germans want to kill us.
1421
01:13:00,402 --> 01:13:02,362
We want to live.
If not, we wouldn’t survive.
1422
01:13:02,529 --> 01:13:04,322
We want to live so badly.
1423
01:13:04,447 --> 01:13:06,992
We want to tell the world what happened.
1424
01:13:07,158 --> 01:13:08,618
I think that’s why we survived.
1425
01:13:08,910 --> 01:13:10,912
Was the only reason.
1426
01:13:11,454 --> 01:13:13,456
You came back to Poland in 1945?
1427
01:13:13,999 --> 01:13:16,251
– I was back, and then I
1428
01:13:16,293 --> 01:13:18,211
escaped to Germany,
1429
01:13:19,337 --> 01:13:22,173
back to Germany. And then
I went to America.
1430
01:13:22,591 --> 01:13:24,301
– So you... you were in a D.P. camp
1431
01:13:24,342 --> 01:13:25,343
in Germany after the war?
1432
01:13:25,427 --> 01:13:26,469
– Right.
1433
01:13:26,928 --> 01:13:28,471
How did you make the transition –
1434
01:13:28,513 --> 01:13:29,014
– Yeah?
1435
01:13:29,055 --> 01:13:30,223
– when you got home
1436
01:13:30,390 --> 01:13:32,225
and you saw that there was nothing left?
1437
01:13:32,350 --> 01:13:34,853
– I came home and I found on,
1438
01:13:34,894 --> 01:13:37,105
on the grave from my grandmother,
1439
01:13:37,480 --> 01:13:41,985
on her grave I found from my...
1440
01:13:45,030 --> 01:13:46,031
I cannot.
1441
01:13:46,823 --> 01:13:47,823
It’s just hard for me.
1442
01:13:49,576 --> 01:13:51,536
I found the story of an uncle.
1443
01:13:51,578 --> 01:13:53,872
– Take it, take it easy.
1444
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:55,999
– I found the story of an uncle
1445
01:13:56,374 --> 01:14:00,128
that he said he was with the 600 survivors
1446
01:14:00,253 --> 01:14:01,838
from Ghetto Lodz.
1447
01:14:01,880 --> 01:14:04,716
He said if somebody came,
1448
01:14:05,091 --> 01:14:07,302
you should know that everyone was killed –
1449
01:14:07,427 --> 01:14:08,094
– But take it easy.
1450
01:14:08,136 --> 01:14:11,681
My mother and six brothers, I lose them.
1451
01:14:11,723 --> 01:14:14,809
I have nobody in the world,
except my two kids.
1452
01:14:16,895 --> 01:14:19,314
We should take seriously
1453
01:14:20,357 --> 01:14:21,441
any threat
1454
01:14:22,942 --> 01:14:24,402
against our existence,
1455
01:14:25,862 --> 01:14:27,072
any expression
1456
01:14:27,113 --> 01:14:30,116
against any Jewish community
1457
01:14:30,158 --> 01:14:31,993
in any part of the world,
1458
01:14:32,535 --> 01:14:35,205
because it’s the crazy people
1459
01:14:36,081 --> 01:14:38,375
who do not change their minds.
1460
01:14:39,709 --> 01:14:40,835
Our ears
1461
01:14:42,170 --> 01:14:43,630
should discern
1462
01:14:44,839 --> 01:14:47,884
any tone of threat –
1463
01:14:48,009 --> 01:14:50,261
– The prophet Isaiah said,
1464
01:14:50,762 --> 01:14:52,222
– Take them seriously!
1465
01:14:52,263 --> 01:14:54,766
– “Thus saith the Lord that created thee,
O Jacob –
1466
01:14:55,225 --> 01:14:57,259
– I remember vividly as many of you do,
1467
01:14:57,310 --> 01:14:58,978
my arrival in Auschwitz …
1468
01:14:59,020 --> 01:15:00,020
– Fear not!
1469
01:15:00,939 --> 01:15:03,024
For I have redeemed thee!
1470
01:15:03,108 --> 01:15:05,276
I have called thee by thy Name.
1471
01:15:06,861 --> 01:15:09,197
When thou walkest through the fire –
1472
01:15:09,239 --> 01:15:11,366
… And our nostrils were filled –
1473
01:15:11,449 --> 01:15:12,774
– thou shall not be burned!!"
1474
01:15:12,784 --> 01:15:14,953
– with the acrid
fumes from the gas chambers
1475
01:15:15,328 --> 01:15:16,663
drifting all over camp,
1476
01:15:17,330 --> 01:15:18,456
day after day,
1477
01:15:19,207 --> 01:15:20,500
week after week,
1478
01:15:20,875 --> 01:15:22,335
year after year.
1479
01:15:23,294 --> 01:15:24,494
I don’t know what to make of...
1480
01:15:24,504 --> 01:15:25,662
I... I feel like I’m being shuttled
1481
01:15:25,672 --> 01:15:27,257
from one event to the other
1482
01:15:27,507 --> 01:15:30,176
and I haven't sorted it out.
1483
01:15:31,428 --> 01:15:33,388
Since I got here I've been trying
to write about
1484
01:15:33,596 --> 01:15:35,598
my father’s death and –
1485
01:15:35,640 --> 01:15:36,766
and just trying to...
1486
01:15:36,808 --> 01:15:38,727
I'm looking in people's faces over here
1487
01:15:38,768 --> 01:15:40,520
and trying to almost put together
1488
01:15:41,354 --> 01:15:43,398
a composite sketch.
1489
01:15:44,399 --> 01:15:47,193
And... and then on these
kind of off moments
1490
01:15:49,112 --> 01:15:50,488
I just get overwhelmed.
1491
01:15:52,407 --> 01:15:54,284
Like being inside the Yad Vashem Museum
1492
01:15:54,409 --> 01:15:56,786
the day that it started, and –
1493
01:15:56,911 --> 01:15:58,705
and I don’t even know what touched it off.
1494
01:15:58,747 --> 01:15:59,956
I think it was just seeing...
1495
01:16:00,206 --> 01:16:01,614
It wasn't even these pictures. I mean,
1496
01:16:01,624 --> 01:16:02,984
there were some horrible pictures.
1497
01:16:03,001 --> 01:16:05,670
There was – pictures I’d never seen before
1498
01:16:05,837 --> 01:16:08,923
of kids — three, four years old
with numbers on their arms — and,
1499
01:16:09,007 --> 01:16:11,843
and it was kind of like a, a silent movie
1500
01:16:12,177 --> 01:16:14,345
where they just kept flashing
these... these images
1501
01:16:14,888 --> 01:16:18,224
and people are... are
either just watching it
1502
01:16:18,266 --> 01:16:18,975
and sighing
1503
01:16:19,017 --> 01:16:20,435
or just saying, “Yeah, yeah,
1504
01:16:20,477 --> 01:16:21,477
that’s — I remember that.
1505
01:16:21,519 --> 01:16:22,519
That's how it was.”
1506
01:16:48,087 --> 01:16:49,339
Everybody wants to make
1507
01:16:49,756 --> 01:16:51,132
an important statement
1508
01:16:51,299 --> 01:16:52,550
and nobody knows what to say.
1509
01:16:55,094 --> 01:16:57,555
I would have liked to see some kind of a –
1510
01:17:00,058 --> 01:17:02,352
something enduring coming out of this,
some kind of –
1511
01:17:03,186 --> 01:17:06,481
something... something more than
just personal reunions on the one hand,
1512
01:17:06,731 --> 01:17:09,025
and the same old rhetoric on the other –
1513
01:17:09,108 --> 01:17:10,193
something about –
1514
01:17:10,235 --> 01:17:14,155
about telling the Jewish people
what it means to survive,
1515
01:17:15,949 --> 01:17:18,368
and now that these people are dying out,
1516
01:17:18,827 --> 01:17:20,870
what is it that they have to say
before they –
1517
01:17:20,912 --> 01:17:21,996
before they leave?
1518
01:17:24,541 --> 01:17:27,252
I think these people are still amazed
that they’ve survived.
1519
01:17:28,795 --> 01:17:30,296
And – and I’m amazed too.
1520
01:17:30,797 --> 01:17:31,965
But I’m disappointed.
1521
01:17:58,867 --> 01:18:01,870
[Crowd Voices Continue And Fade Out Under:
1522
01:18:49,709 --> 01:18:52,211
There are no words to express
1523
01:18:52,420 --> 01:18:54,380
the searing pain we still feel
1524
01:18:54,547 --> 01:18:56,716
as we gather here today,
1525
01:18:57,216 --> 01:19:00,428
knowing that there are six million of us
1526
01:19:00,637 --> 01:19:02,430
who cannot be here.
1527
01:19:03,348 --> 01:19:04,515
Imagine,
1528
01:19:04,807 --> 01:19:08,186
each candle that we held in our hands
1529
01:19:08,895 --> 01:19:13,733
is a symbol of over a thousand victims...
1530
01:19:14,734 --> 01:19:17,820
Our mothers, our fathers,
1531
01:19:18,112 --> 01:19:20,114
our brothers and sisters,
1532
01:19:20,698 --> 01:19:24,786
and yes, even our lost children.
1533
01:19:26,496 --> 01:19:29,374
It is for them that we have come here,
1534
01:19:38,841 --> 01:19:45,098
to keep our promise to them,
to our friends, to ourselves.
1535
01:19:45,264 --> 01:19:48,810
– All right, I was – I was pretty down
on the World Gathering
1536
01:19:49,560 --> 01:19:51,437
for a – for a few days,
1537
01:19:51,771 --> 01:19:53,272
really until the last day.
1538
01:19:54,023 --> 01:19:55,191
And …
1539
01:19:56,651 --> 01:19:59,487
and it’s funny because I think
I was judging it
1540
01:20:00,613 --> 01:20:03,199
the way my father would have judged it,
1541
01:20:03,408 --> 01:20:06,285
in that — yeah, it was all very nice
1542
01:20:06,327 --> 01:20:07,568
that people were getting together
1543
01:20:07,578 --> 01:20:08,736
and there were these reunions,
1544
01:20:08,746 --> 01:20:12,041
but what’s the message? You know,
what's – what's the statement?
1545
01:20:13,501 --> 01:20:16,421
I guess the first few days I just...
1546
01:20:17,630 --> 01:20:19,090
was walking through there,
1547
01:20:19,132 --> 01:20:21,509
first, I was – I was trying to be this –
1548
01:20:21,592 --> 01:20:23,886
this impartial observer
to write this story.
1549
01:20:24,137 --> 01:20:26,305
And, and at the same time
1550
01:20:26,347 --> 01:20:27,890
trying to feel what was going on
1551
01:20:28,057 --> 01:20:29,517
and not wanting to feel it.
1552
01:20:30,685 --> 01:20:34,105
We, the survivors, are growing older.
1553
01:20:36,149 --> 01:20:38,735
We may never again gather together
1554
01:20:39,527 --> 01:20:41,738
as we did this week.
1555
01:20:43,072 --> 01:20:46,659
The burden of preserving the legacy
1556
01:20:46,701 --> 01:20:48,244
of the Holocaust
1557
01:20:48,578 --> 01:20:50,538
is now to be passed
1558
01:20:51,080 --> 01:20:53,124
on to our children.
1559
01:20:53,583 --> 01:20:56,627
There was this legacy
that all the survivors signed,
1560
01:20:56,961 --> 01:20:58,671
a legacy to the second generation –
1561
01:21:01,382 --> 01:21:03,509
– And they had survivors getting up
1562
01:21:03,551 --> 01:21:05,261
and reading it in, in six languages.
1563
01:21:05,303 --> 01:21:06,888
And then they had their sons
1564
01:21:06,971 --> 01:21:07,971
answering –
1565
01:21:15,313 --> 01:21:17,732
– We dedicate this pledge
1566
01:21:18,858 --> 01:21:21,319
to you, our parents,
1567
01:21:21,944 --> 01:21:23,780
who suffered and survived.
1568
01:21:24,113 --> 01:21:26,991
– I really felt jealous that
1569
01:21:27,325 --> 01:21:32,246
there were sons and fathers there
at the World Gathering
1570
01:21:34,916 --> 01:21:35,958
because …
1571
01:21:43,382 --> 01:21:45,927
my father would have just seen that as –
1572
01:21:46,177 --> 01:21:49,388
as some kind of a –
of a culmination for him.
1573
01:21:49,430 --> 01:21:51,974
It would have just been
very, very important for him,
1574
01:21:52,016 --> 01:21:53,976
for the two of us to be there together.
1575
01:21:55,269 --> 01:21:57,021
We take this oath
1576
01:21:57,897 --> 01:22:00,942
to be handed down from father to son,
1577
01:22:01,192 --> 01:22:03,027
from mother to daughter,
1578
01:22:04,612 --> 01:22:08,282
from generation to generation.
1579
01:22:08,783 --> 01:22:10,785
– At one point I just sat there
1580
01:22:10,910 --> 01:22:13,329
and just started crying and –
and thinking that
1581
01:22:15,832 --> 01:22:17,232
it just would have been really nice
1582
01:22:17,250 --> 01:22:18,459
having him around at this...
1583
01:22:18,501 --> 01:22:19,877
Right now.
1584
01:22:20,586 --> 01:22:23,631
Remember and do not forget,
1585
01:22:23,673 --> 01:22:26,509
guard and protect.
1586
01:22:27,885 --> 01:22:28,885
Remember
1587
01:22:29,637 --> 01:22:31,305
and do not forget,
1588
01:22:32,807 --> 01:22:35,351
guard and protect.
1589
01:22:36,853 --> 01:22:39,147
Remember and do not forget,
1590
01:22:40,398 --> 01:22:42,733
guard and protect.
1591
01:22:56,706 --> 01:23:00,918
My sisters, my brothers,
1592
01:23:01,002 --> 01:23:05,131
in pain, in persecution,
1593
01:23:05,798 --> 01:23:08,801
in faith, in longing,
1594
01:23:10,011 --> 01:23:13,097
in bereavement, in orphancy.
1595
01:23:50,134 --> 01:23:51,469
How did it happen?
1596
01:23:52,720 --> 01:23:56,015
How could it have... have happened?
1597
01:23:57,308 --> 01:24:02,021
In Europe? In the twentieth century?
1598
01:24:03,814 --> 01:24:05,233
For six years?
1599
01:24:07,193 --> 01:24:10,029
The Jews knew
but they didn't pay attention.
1600
01:24:10,947 --> 01:24:13,491
They believed in civilization,
1601
01:24:13,866 --> 01:24:15,243
in culture,
1602
01:24:15,910 --> 01:24:17,328
in humanity.
1603
01:24:18,287 --> 01:24:21,499
They asked themselves until
the last moment,
1604
01:24:21,707 --> 01:24:25,002
"And what will the world say?”
1605
01:24:25,461 --> 01:24:28,172
What will the world say?
1606
01:24:28,923 --> 01:24:30,466
My friends,
1607
01:24:31,008 --> 01:24:34,053
had we met anywhere else,
1608
01:24:34,095 --> 01:24:38,224
perhaps we would not have
been able to resist
1609
01:24:38,266 --> 01:24:39,892
the sadness
1610
01:24:39,934 --> 01:24:43,062
that is part of our collective memory.
1611
01:24:43,312 --> 01:24:47,400
It is thanks to the fact that we met
here in Jerusalem
1612
01:24:48,776 --> 01:24:52,530
that it was bearable at all.
1613
01:24:59,328 --> 01:25:02,290
I think where it really hit me
1614
01:25:02,540 --> 01:25:06,784
was when a group of Yemenite Jews with –
1615
01:25:06,794 --> 01:25:09,287
with these long shofars
1616
01:25:09,297 --> 01:25:11,632
got up and –
1617
01:25:14,510 --> 01:25:17,555
– blew shofar for, for over a minute.
1618
01:25:19,223 --> 01:25:21,726
And I'd never heard anything
like that sound.
1619
01:25:34,989 --> 01:25:37,158
To me, listening to that,
1620
01:25:37,199 --> 01:25:38,199
it sounded …
1621
01:25:38,659 --> 01:25:41,120
it sounded like the heralding of,
1622
01:25:41,162 --> 01:25:42,788
of redemption.
1623
01:26:00,348 --> 01:26:02,183
I felt, at that point,
1624
01:26:02,975 --> 01:26:05,603
that here were
survivors from all over the world,
1625
01:26:06,228 --> 01:26:09,148
Jews who had really come back from –
from the other side,
1626
01:26:09,982 --> 01:26:11,108
and I felt that
1627
01:26:11,984 --> 01:26:14,278
all barriers between this side
1628
01:26:14,320 --> 01:26:16,864
and... and the other life were broken.
1629
01:26:17,156 --> 01:26:20,701
And … everyone was gathered there.
1630
01:26:20,826 --> 01:26:24,163
And I knew that that was the moment
that my father would have
1631
01:26:24,205 --> 01:26:27,041
sat there and just cried like a baby.
1632
01:26:30,002 --> 01:26:33,631
And I felt that we had finally come
1633
01:26:33,714 --> 01:26:36,258
to this spot after all this time.
1634
01:26:36,926 --> 01:26:38,677
We had come not as victims
1635
01:26:38,719 --> 01:26:39,970
but as survivors.
1636
01:26:42,348 --> 01:26:44,266
And that this is where it has to end,
1637
01:26:44,433 --> 01:26:46,143
and this is how it’s going to end.
1638
01:26:46,602 --> 01:26:48,312
And it doesn’t end in the camps and,
1639
01:26:48,354 --> 01:26:50,439
and it doesn't end in a hole in the ground.
1640
01:26:50,940 --> 01:26:53,275
But it ends at this place,
1641
01:26:53,317 --> 01:26:55,694
with these people as survivors.
1642
01:26:57,279 --> 01:26:59,323
I don’t think Jews would have survived
1643
01:26:59,365 --> 01:27:02,952
if after every, every …
1644
01:27:03,244 --> 01:27:05,371
persecution that we had
1645
01:27:05,454 --> 01:27:07,998
we dwelled on... on the destruction.
1646
01:27:08,666 --> 01:27:11,836
And what I came to see in my father
1647
01:27:11,877 --> 01:27:13,879
was not his victimization
1648
01:27:14,422 --> 01:27:17,383
but my father as a survivor.
1649
01:27:18,050 --> 01:27:21,178
And that’s what he had to tell me
1650
01:27:21,220 --> 01:27:23,222
and to teach me directly.
1651
01:27:31,397 --> 01:27:33,524
I believe that there is a godly spirit
1652
01:27:33,566 --> 01:27:35,067
that infuses Jewish history,
1653
01:27:35,651 --> 01:27:37,528
and I saw that from my father.
1654
01:27:37,945 --> 01:27:40,281
I believe a godly spirit infused his life,
1655
01:27:40,489 --> 01:27:44,076
in his survival,
in his decision to, to continue.
1656
01:27:45,077 --> 01:27:48,038
And – and I just don’t feel alone
1657
01:27:48,080 --> 01:27:49,331
because I feel that I –
1658
01:27:49,373 --> 01:27:50,374
that that’s in me too.
1659
01:27:51,375 --> 01:27:54,211
That’s – that’s my inheritance.
1660
01:28:12,771 --> 01:28:14,940
Standing there and seeing this stone
1661
01:28:16,442 --> 01:28:18,903
with his name on it, and this whole
1662
01:28:18,944 --> 01:28:22,781
litany of how he had gone through
the fires of the Holocaust
1663
01:28:22,948 --> 01:28:24,783
and... and his faith was tested
1664
01:28:24,867 --> 01:28:27,161
and he proved stronger
than the Holocaust...
1665
01:28:29,872 --> 01:28:33,542
It’s almost as if I had seen him
in some way
1666
01:28:33,584 --> 01:28:34,919
as a monument,
1667
01:28:35,002 --> 01:28:36,462
even when he was alive.
1668
01:28:38,547 --> 01:28:42,009
And I think he deliberately presented
himself that way,
1669
01:28:42,176 --> 01:28:43,176
to say “Look,
1670
01:28:43,719 --> 01:28:47,348
whatever I am, I’m more than that because –
1671
01:28:48,182 --> 01:28:50,935
because of what I’ve been through,
because of what I represent,
1672
01:28:51,268 --> 01:28:52,978
and I’m a monument.”
1673
01:29:00,194 --> 01:29:01,987
At the grave when I was davening,
1674
01:29:02,947 --> 01:29:04,949
I felt like I was talking to my father.
1675
01:29:06,617 --> 01:29:08,160
And I wanted to tell him that
1676
01:29:09,828 --> 01:29:11,580
I was his son in …
1677
01:29:12,915 --> 01:29:15,751
every way that – that he had intended.
1678
01:29:21,090 --> 01:29:22,883
If my father were alive today,
1679
01:29:22,925 --> 01:29:24,426
what would he say about me?
1680
01:29:26,178 --> 01:29:28,264
I think we'd still be having fights
1681
01:29:28,806 --> 01:29:29,807
about what I’m doing,
1682
01:29:31,559 --> 01:29:32,643
and he would say,
1683
01:29:32,685 --> 01:29:34,125
“What kind of a way is this to live?
1684
01:29:34,186 --> 01:29:35,604
You're not 20 years old anymore.”
1685
01:29:36,313 --> 01:29:37,815
But I think what he would say...
1686
01:29:38,607 --> 01:29:40,192
I think he would recognize
1687
01:29:40,568 --> 01:29:42,194
himself in me.
1688
01:29:43,487 --> 01:29:45,906
And I think – I think he'd be happy.
1689
01:29:46,305 --> 01:30:46,550
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