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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

What was it, what was it like on a Friday night?

Oh, on a Friday night, that was the most beautiful night of theweek. Uh, father went to shul. We had to the close the business very earlybecause a—and by the way, they, they had a whistle that they put on,that Shabbos is starting, that everything should cease. No, no work or nouh, business going on. My father went to Shul. And we came—he came back,the table was set very um, in a very festive manner. We all had a festivedinner and we sang all the uh, Shabbos songs. Uh, we were five children. Itwas very lively. As a matter of fact, we lived on the outskirts of the city,so next to us, the, the gentiles lived. So they used to pass our house. Andon Friday night, they stood outside the window to listen, to watch us, howwe observed the Shabbat.

Did you ever invite them in?

Uh, you know, we had no connection with the gentile population.We were just, "hello and goodbye." My father did business with them. Evenwith a neighbor, I didn't have any gentile friends. I was raised, I was educatedin a private Hebrew school. And uh, uh, maybe some children who were not educatedin a Hebrew school, they went to the public school, had some friends. I particularly—ourchildren didn't have any. Uh, who, who we did have for Shabbat is, uh, uh,we had an awful lot of beggars in the city. The poverty was tremendous. Somy father used to bring—every Friday night without an exception, I neverremember one Friday night not having a, a, a uh, guest for, for dinner andthen he came, he spent the Shabbos with us.

So these were Jewish beggars?

Jewish beggars, yes. The Jews were not rich. They were very poor,as a matter of fact.

But it sounds like your, your family was not very poor.

Not very poor, but not rich, either.

What did your. . .

A middle, middle class. We had—my father was small merchant.We had a grocery store. And he did some other business. He was a—theywere a company that, that were dealing in fish, you know. We had our own—werented out our own lake. So we hired fishermen they—that uh, uh, caughtthe fish for us. And they used to bring it and we used to sell it in the city.

You said he dealt with the non-Jewish population.

Always, only.