Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Clara Dan - July 1, 1982

Thoughts on Survival II

And uh, if she goes into Munich sometimes or remembered that city. She said really and truly she would love to go but she understands that there are Jewish people there. So my husband said, "What do you mean?" They didn't know that's he's Jewish. And ??? was there, my friend was there. And uh, my husband said, "What do you mean Jewish people? What do you think that they are or how?" So she said, "Well you know, I heard that they are really bad people, ugly people, monsters, mean and very dangerous. So my husband looked at her and uh, he was very handsome guy, my husband. He looked at her and he told her, "Would you be surprised if I would tell you that I am Jewish?" The girl started running and the rest of the family stayed there and they called her, "Greta, come on back, come on back." So she came back and the mother looked at my husband and she said, "You mean to tell me that they are human beings." So my husband said, "Well you see I have two hands, two feet. I didn't even touch you, I didn't bite you. I'm a friend of your doctor." That's how uneducated, stupid that were the Nazism and the anti-Semitism, that's what they say.

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But uh, regrets, I hope and pray that nothing happens to my children and my grandchildren, and to, to you young people. And I hope that if something like this would ever, ever, ever happen again, if I'm still alive, I could have the guts to take a gun, because I couldn't because I really couldn't. I have to tell you one more remark. There are very many newcomers like me who want to play the big shots, okay? Like they don't--they are bigger Americans than the American people themselves. They play the big humanitarian American better than the American people themselves. I don't know whether you understand this.


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