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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

And so what would a typical day be like for you?

Okay. Get up—I, as a matter of fact, my father—thiswe knew, my father had to go to Shul, to daven. So somebody had to open thestore. When I was about eight, I was the one to—to go and open the storeand wait until nine o'clock before uh, they used to come—my father ormy mother used to come to the store and relieve me. And I had to go to school.A lot of times I cried, "I'm going to be late." So they said, "Well, that'slife. What can you do?" Then after school, I used to pass the—I didn'tgo home. I used to come to the store and help out in, in the business. Andmy mother go—went home. Or if I went, I had to do certain chores, cleaningand wash and and do housework. We had a huge garden I—that we raisedour own vegetables. There was always something to do.

You said school. Was this public school?

No. The school that I went to was called tarbut. It was a privateschool. You had to pay tuition. It wasn't a cheap school. But it was a privateeducation. We um, we learned everything was in, in the Hebrew language exceptPolish, the Polish language and Polish history and Polish geography.

In tarbut you learned Polish history and Polish geography?

Yes. Because, you know, you had to be geared to the land whereyou live in.

And who taught it?

Teachers that—Jewish teachers that were educated uh, hadgot a little bit of a higher education to be able to—to transmit theireducation to the children. Most of the—all of the teachers were Jewish.You know, was very—it was very hard to get a higher education in Poland.First of all, Jews were not allowed to Polish schools. But we had privategymnasiums, you know, gymnasiums is like here, a high school, the extensionof a elementary school.

But you, did you, you didn't go to gymnasium, did you?

No. I wanted to very badly. But uh, it cost a lot of money. We—inour city, we didn't have a gymnasium. We had uh, I finished elementary school.And whoever could afford sent their schools out of—their children outof town. And it cost money. And I cried bitterly. I wanted to go. So my fathersaid, What are you talking about? I have four girls. And they'll have to getmarried. And I don't have the money to send you kids to school. You have todo the best. So when we finished elementary school, my sister went to—tobecome a seamstress and I helped out in the business. And my brother was stillin school, so they planned to send him to become a watchmaker. It was veryhard life, extremely hard life.

So your brother wouldn't have gone to, to higher educationeither?

No. None of us. But some—I have friends that went in highereducation. The higher education was, was just the gym. . . gymnasium. Lateron, they couldn't get into colleges. There were very, very few professionalsin, in, in our little towns. But we had a d. . . uh, uh, one of the doctorswas a Jew. So it was very unusual. But most of them were gentiles.

When did this start do you think?

The what, the. . .

The discrimination against the Jewish children?

Oh, we go—against Jewish children, against Jew and Pol.. . Poland was very anti-Semitic.

Do you remember Pilsudski?

Yes.