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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

What about Pilsudski?

During his regime wasn't too bad. It was—anti-Semitism wasall the time. But he sort of had a handle on it, a control, so—and hewas the prime minister. So the same, like the, the, the house of, the houseof representatives here, they were under his control. So it wasn't that bad.Nevertheless, in school the children were anti-Semitic. I had to repeat ayear of school after I finished my Hebrew school because there was nothingto do. So I went for another year to public school. There I experienced alot, a lot of anti-Semitism. To begin with, they started the day with a prayer.And the and the gentile kids had to kneel and we didn't. So right away, yousaw who is Jewish and who is not. And the teachers, the teachers were makingremarks about the Jews being Christ killers and all this sort of thing. AndJews are, are cheaters and and bad people.

So what kinds of anti-Semitic experiences did you have?

I—in p. . . p. . . particular? Well, we saw it every day.They used to, you know, pass by and call us names. We used to get up in themorning and on our porch we found writings, Kill the Jews and Save Russiaor Save Poland. Then after Pilsudski had died, they, they started the um,um, the rebelling and the Jewish com. . . against the Jewish commerce. Theyhad signs. They picketed the Jewish stores, Don't buy from Jews. There was.. .

So there was, there was a boycott of your store?

A boycott, yeah.

And did. . .

But there were not too many Polish stores, anyway, in our littletown. Most of the commerce was in Jewish hands.

So in your, in your father's store. . .

Yeah.

Did, did he suffer from that? I mean, did, did the businesssuffer?

No, not, not really, because to tell you—they, they didn'thave no other place where to buy. But they, they, they had a whole attitude.It was—physically, you saw it. It was weird. It, it—you, you, youtouched it every, every single day. They, they called us—I'll tell you—I'llgive you another example. On Christmas and Easter, we had to be shut in thehouse, not go outside, because they were so irate. In the, in the churchesthey used to preach to them and tell them that the Jews killed Jesus. Theyused to come and they were, they were, they were ready to kill the Jews.

In particular on the holidays?

In—on these particular holidays, because, you know, thisis the celebration of his birth and of when he was crucified. Yeah.

Did anyone ever talk about this in your house?

Of course, all the time.

What kinds of conversations?

What kind of conversation about the, about how the goyim arebad to us, how hard it is to live in this land. But you see, we, we didn'tno, have no, we had no other choice. My father vowed that when the childrenwill grow up he's going to send them away to another country, not to uh, uh,stay in Poland.