Miriam Biegun - August 10, 1983
Conclusion II
Apart from the incident in Oak Park with the Nazis, have you, do you remember any other anti--Semitic encounters in United States?
Mm, not with me personally, but there is.
Okay, but not with you, of course, except that one, which is...
It wasn't you know--there is, there is. My husband could feel it a lots. His job, you know, he's--that he could feel a lots about it. Because he goes, you know.
All right, one last thing, um...
Special when it comes to find a job. When you are Jewish and you come, it's hard.
You feel it's, there's discrimination.
Oh yes, there is.
When you first came to Detroit, was that a problem?
Yeah. He applied in a couple big companies. Didn't get hired, but we came to conclusion that's what it was because they put religion. So, if you ignore, they catch on anyway you're Jewish. You know, why should he ignore it, so you, you know, and I don't know why would they have to ask when you file a paper what religion you are, and this, you know, sure.
Before we're through, is there anything you want to say, to, to, to add to this?
I would like to say, in the future who listens to the tape, I wish never to happen such thing, and I don't wish on nobody to go through what I went through because if we would talk, it was day and night, and there is always pieces that I remember, okay? I don't wish on nobody, and the people that's--they go around in this country hollering and screaming, and they should look first in the backyard at themselves and start changing everything, not fighting and killing because I live in a street, and we live there, mixed, it's like a United Nations in mine street and everybody is hello and how are you, you know, and nice and everything. There's nothing. Why couldn't people do this? And here, in the United States, they should change a little bit the Constitution. Nazis and clowns, they shouldn't have the rights like other people. Because, if you really ignore them, as the way like the Second World War broke out, they said ignore them, ignore them. You cannot ignore. It hurts too much. You cannot close windows and doors and let the Nazis demonstrate in your backyard. I mean we survived, it means there was a meaning to our survival--special I didn't have parents. And, you know, lately, I mean, you know, relatives, they try to be nice or something like this, but it's little, it's not like a mother and father no matter how nice our auntie or uncle is, but it's still not a, like a mother and father. And America is, I mean there is freedom for everything and, and supposed to be one of the biggest, richest country in the world, they should change a little bit of the Constitution. If a killer ???, you shouldn't go around teaching young people that, young, they don't know anything, what life is about. A fifteen--, sixteen--, eighteen--year old here in United States, they have life easy, and they don't appreciate this. They don't know how to live in a free--you know, you work hard. No one bothers you if you don't bother nobody, and the young people don't know how to appreciate it. They don't know at all how to appreciate the parents or the country. You know, they go demonstrating this that they should learn a little bit respect and not to do things like that because they really don't, didn't live enough to understand what war is all about. Because, the Nazis in Oak Park, they were young people. I suppose somebody paid them. I don't know if they knew what's Nazism is all about. That's mine opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the way I feel.
Maybe somebody will see the tape and it will help. Thank you very much.
Thanks for interviewing me.
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