Olga Adler - July 26, 1982
Family
And what about your father's occupation?
And then... My father was a bookkeeper at very big uh, hardware company.
Do you remember the name of it?
Sports or something like that. I don't know. I was, I was very young, you know, girl.
Or would you say that your family was middle-class or upper-middle class?
Middle, oh yeah, middle class, yes.
Okay.
We were very nice family. Uh, not very religious Orthodox, just, just medium.
Yeah.
And, um...
Were there many people in this city that were medium like you?
Yes.
There were? Okay.
Yes. It was a very... It was a small town but there were very many intellectuals, very lovely people, and very beautiful life style we had there. And uh, it's very hard for me to, to think about these things. It's awfully hard.
Okay, I'll see if I can help you with some of the questions. Um, how... The size of your family?
As I said, we were three children, we had a beautiful home where we lived, we were very comfortable. As I say, my father was a head bookkeeper of a biggest import-export uh, hardware business and, uh...
How many of your... Were any of your family lost during the war?
And, from my father's side there were twelve children with families. Two of them came up to the United States in the First World War, not to be in the army. My father was in the army, but two of my uncles, that's all. And ten lived at home with the family, all alive, with children, with husbands, with everybody. And um, on my mother's side there were nine children. Uh, ten children, nine girls and one boy. And uh, they were all very comfortable, very well to do, an only son who was a physician at home. Naturally, he was taken to the concentration camp too. And uh, my grandfather was a very wealthy owner of uh, a longbath. And my other grandfather was a wine merchant, my father's side. Well, one, my, my grandmother who lived with us was eighty-six years old and she was taken away to the concentration camp. And the whole family, as I mentioned it to you, his husband, his wife, his children, they were all killed. We were left from my father's side, two cousins. Two girls live in New York and uh, I am here. And from my mother's side I have one cousin in Australia, one cousin in London, and one cousin in Israel and that's it. That's the whole family.
What about your immediate family? What about your brothers and sisters?
My sister was killed in the concentration camp uh, it was a bomb, a type of bombing and she was bleeding to death. And my brother, who wasn't in a concentration camp, but he was in a forced labor camp uh, he died of typhus right after the liberation.
After liberation.
In Dorsey.
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