Barbara Schechter Cohen - May 1, 2002
Post-War Recollections
Um, so what are your earliest recollections post-war? Do you remember anything about the DP camp?
Um...
No?
Nope. In the boat uh, this was a funny--not a funny--an ironic incident uh, a mon...about a couple months ago I was at a dinner at Beth Shalom and I was sitting next to this couple, Mr. and Mrs. Gutman uh, who belong to my shul. And um, I don't know them very well, but we started talking and he came on the same boat as I did, the Marine Fletcher. And he kept on asking me questions. He says, "Do you, do you remember that terrible ride and we were sick, we were, you know, throwing up, it was awful." And I don't remember that whole ride.
You don't remember the boat trip at all.
Not the boat trip, no. But uh, I, I remember some years, of course, in uh, Brooklyn. That wa...that's my first recollection.
Um, when you got to Brooklyn or before, what did you speak at home?
Uh, I spoke uh, Polish.
Not Yiddish.
Uh, my parents spoke Yiddish and Polish at home. Uh, I picked up a little Yiddish but I actually was able to speak uh, fluent Polish. And my mother said I spoke fluent German because when I was raised by that woman she raised me as a Catholic and she took me to uh, church and that's where I picked up the German language.
Do you remember the church? Do you remember any of that?
Uh, no.
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