Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993

Were there ever any discussions that you recall in the house about anything besides religious issues? Politics?

Yes.

Social?

Politics, uh, were definitely discussed on a daily basis. People would come into our house. There was always a teakettle on the oven. Tea was always boiling, and people would always come in. They would play chess. Read the Togblat. The Togblat was the newspaper of the Agudah, Agudah Israel.

But not The Forward?

No. The Forward uh, didn't exist in Poland.

Was that just American?

The Forward is American. In Poland, they have The Moment and the Haynt. There were two Yiddish newspapers and the Togblat was the Agudah.

Was there a Bundist paper?

Yeah. The ???

The ???, that what it was.

Yeah. And those--they wouldn't be seen in our house. Plus they were, you know, I think there was another Communist sort of paper, you know, beyond the Bund, I think the Kempfer, you know. But that was something we didn't even go near our house, but Togblat was a fine, fine Yiddish newspaper. I remember reading a lot of articles. I used to uh, I gobble it up, and they didn't--they were not keen in me reading anything other than uh, what pertained to religion, but I used to listen in. We'd sit at a table, and I'd gobble up everything they were talking about, the government--what was happening.

Remember Piłsudski?

Of course. Piłsudski. Oh, that I remember from school about Polish history.

Which school?

In the Yiddish, you know, we had...