Clara Dan - July 1, 1982
Relations with non-Jews
The ones that were going to try getting you papers.
Yes, yes. We got the jewelry back. So, we still--after we got back from the concentration camp, we still wanted to believe that the world changed.
For the better?
For the better. And really and truly, we are such liberal minded people, that's how I was brought up. There was no difference as far as my mother was concerned. The only thing I wasn't allowed to eat pork. That was, okay? But for instance we were invited to this neighbor or ours Christmas tree trimming, helping. They were in our house for Hanukah, for the latkes.
Similar to here.
Okay. But you know what, I really don't think that the American people are so liberal minded, okay, as we were. Because here you have neighborhoods. Jewish neighborhood. Okay?
And you didn't live in like...
We didn't, we didn't have that. I didn't know what that is until I didn't come here. Really.
Mm-hm. So everybody, the Jews...
Mixed. All together. We had the Jewish school like the Hillel, which was a private school. But we had um, we had private schools and we had state funded schools. We had boys schools and girls schools. I for instance went to a girls school, okay?
But it was a secular, school.
It was mixed.
Mm-hm.
It was natural. We didn't, we didn't make an issue. Come the holiday, come Shabbos, it was a natural thing that the store was closed. That's how I grew up. My own daughter had Gentile friends. Shirley went to help Janice trim the Christmas tree, Janice--they exchanged gifts. Shirley gave her a gift on Christmas, she got her gift on Hanukah.
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