Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982

Now I can tell you a, a little bit about the, before, before the war, before our family. Uh, my father when he got married and the first child was born was my sister by the name Rivka, when he left the United States. Left the United States and my mother was pregnant. And then when he left, he was born another boy by the name ??? And he wa... uh, he was in the United States for maybe five or six years, I don't know. He don't like it. I don't know if he liked, if he don't like. Uh, I find out after when I came to Canada and then I went to visit my relatives. And uh, then he come back. And then was a naturally uh, all uh, the, was uh, more children get born. The first one was born after my father come back was Yakov. And then Chaim, and then me, Afron, and Allen, and Cursillo. There was six brothers.

What was the last?

Cursillo.

What does that mean?

It's a name from... A Jewish name. And then my father in 1925, I think, yes, no, I'm sorry. In 1925, my father got sick and they took him to the doctor and he died. He was, my mother was a widow with seven children. The youngest one was five years old, six months, Cursillo. And the oldest one, Rivka, I think she was sixteen or seventeen, I, I don't remember exactly.

Do you know how old your mother was at that time?

My mother died before the war, exactly. Maybe about three weeks before the war. And my father died in 1925. And my father died in 1941. My mother died in 1941. And then the finances was very bad. We went to, go to cheder in little town Ushach, next and my mother couldn't afford it to get some uh, like uh, boarding room. We eat... We was uh, three, three kids. Me and a younger brother and a older brother uh, we're, we're going to cheder and we eat everyday where somebody else was uh, too. And was standing... There was a room by my uncle, a room too.