Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993

This was the German way of, you know, their style, which was uh, German Yiddish. It's like, uh, you know, very German, and it was mixed with Hebrew expressions, more so than Polish Yiddish. Polish Yiddish had a lot of Polish words in it. German Yiddish had a lot of Hebrew in it. It's amazing. I don't understand why. But you see, like the word platah. Platah in Hebrew means bankruptcy--bankrupt. But it--the actual word in Hebrew is not--platah means escape. Platah.

Sharit ha-Platah

Yes, that's right. But why they apply that word to bankruptcy, and they used to say in Yiddish, you know, ???. But in Germany, it became a regular--it became a part of the German language, just like chutzpa is in English. Same, same type.

So, there was at least one person who came as a refugee?

Yes.

Did he stay in your town, or did he move on?

You know, I just lost sight. I don't remember. Yeah, yeah, maybe he stayed--maybe uh, maybe three weeks, four weeks. I don't know where he went from there. I remember him, you know, he had the Cantor's black uh, cap which was to us so foreign and strange. ??? like that. Very formal, you know. He dressed up in the toga and...