Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982

Naturally, we brought up mostly religious, not fanatics, just religious. We daven everyday. And then we grow up, we get bar mitzvah. It was not bar mitzvahs like they make them over here. Just to give a ??? and, and that's it. And uh, and my father uh, my uh, my brother, my older brother was carrying logs from, from the woods. Got a horse and was carrying logs and I was uh, going uh, to, to, to cheder. And then uh, when we got bar mitzvah it was a few uh, boys in the house and it was hard to get a minyan. The... Then they make the minyan by us because it's easier to make a minyan. Even to make a minyan. Then that little shul was the end. We couldn't keep up with, with that shul and she was going down finally. They have to repair that. Me and my younger brother uh, no before was a ??? down there and uh, they went to the--how do you call a ??? in English? I don't know.

Say it again.

??? in English. Something like a, a person that's lots of land. He's not working himself and he just have some hired people, they're working for him.

A baron?

Something like that, you know. But not exactly, something, something like that. And uh, they went, they ask for wood uh, to repair that shul. Then me and my brother, we went, we cut down the wood and we brought uh, the wood uh, to... And we repair that, that shul. And they put in a little bit money. Nobody couldn't afford as much as they can. Then finally they couldn't keep up with that shul. They give away that shul to the Shtetl Ushach and they make uh, a Hebrew school from that building. They moved her over from, took her apart and they moved her over in that Shtetl Ushach and make a Hebrew school from that shul. So, everything is... It's hard to remember everything, you know.

You're doing fine.

You know, when I was, when I was in Israel they started, I met some friends we start to talk about the past. They got one uh, fellow down there, he, he remember everything. When we start to talk, then I remember more than him. So everybody said, forget about that. You got up and, he remember more, more than you. I know a, a few guys uh, well, we been together, come to talk about the past, they don't, they don't remember nothing ??? It's very hard. I, and I wonder myself, they don't remember at all, we been everything through together. And... [interruption in interview]