Henry Dorfman - August 11 & 25, 1989
Germany
So you and your--and Mala and her sisters were now in Munich.
No.
You went to...
Marburg.
Marburg.
Yeah.
And you moved, so you moved there.
Yeah, we moved there. They had, they had a house, I mean, they, they had a house. You know, they took a, a German. Because you, you could take any, anything you want. What, what you ask Germans if you walked in tell them get the hell out of here, I'm going to sleep here, not you. And that's where I was, that where we went. And uh, later on I took a different apartment because uh, Franka, Franka got married and Rosa got married. I married 'em off, all of 'em. And uh, and then, I mean, in 19...1949--the end of '49 we, we came to America.
Didn't you live in Frankfurt for awhile?
Five years.
Between?
In Marburg. We lived in Marburg.
So it's right next door to...
Yes.
Well, what did you do there those years?
Right here in the meat business, same thing I do here. I was--I went to work for the, for the government in the beginning. I worked for the government. And, and then I opened a kosher store because nobody was thinking about kosher meat and I said why not. If you're going to eat kosher or not, why, why shouldn't the Jews know that there's a kosher store that people can come. Maybe some Jews want to eat kosher. Maybe they're religious, maybe they're not, who knows? And believe me there was not a Jew in town that didn't come to that kosher store to buy meat.
How many Jews were there?
Two hundred--two fifty...
Hm.
...three hundred. And then I start with the, with the, with the camps. You see, there was uh, a lot of Jews in the camps, you know, like Zeilsheim, Ziegenhain, Lampertheim. It was not camps, this was the army barracks where the Germans used to be. There where they made the concentration, but from the people what...
The DP camps.
The DP camps.
Yeah. So you were supplying meat to them.
That's right.
So at a time when uh, people were running around trying to get, get food, you, you...
I had food. I, thanks God, never were wanted for food. Even in war time. We did not lack any food. This we were lucky, that shows you because eh, I don't know, that's why I like the food business. Whenever you were in the ghetto, we had food. And uh, I don't, I don't--in Germany the same thing. I mean, I didn't do big deals, but we all worked together. We, we lived decent.
Was it difficult for you to live among the Germans?
Listen, the beginning was, was very tough. In the beginning we hated every one of 'em to, any one you talked to he didn't know from nothing what was going on. But again you, [pause] you were there and you wanted to upgrade your life, you understand. Because, you see, we hated every step when we were there. We knew we're not going to be there, that we're gonna leave. We knew that we're going to be going to America or to Israel, whatever. So we were there just for a transition period. Like I told you, we were never violent people. We were bitter. Why did it happen to us? We didn't go out and kill Germans in the streets and, and made riots or anything. First thing we were, we were not powerful enough. The American soldier, the American Army was more with the Germans than with us. What, what, what could they, what could they get from us? From them they could get a lot. Women, you understand and who they heck knows what? And maybe they could get a lot from them because the Germans, they had everything. I mean, who knows what, what didn't they have? They robbed the whole wide world for years, you understand. Anything they, they went in, any, any country they went in and everything they brought back to uh, to Germany. So, you know, they got everything. So a lot of 'em uh, so this was the case that uh, you couldn't do nothing to a German because they were protected from the Americans. In the Russian zone was different. The Russians took care of them very good. They, they, they paid 'em back a lesson. But American, the Ameri...the American zones, no. And uh, listen, so we, we tried to, to live by the law. We always lived by the law, like I say, we were never violent people, so. When the time come we all left to uh, believe me it puzzles me today when I go, when I go to a, to a Germany and I still see Jews there. Or even if I go to Poland and I see Jews. Or I go to any, [pause] any eastern country and I see Jews. I don't mind Jews when they are in France or in Belgium or in Holland or in Sweden, because those were countries with humanity. They, they, they helped Jews. I wish that the three and a half million Jews would have been in those kind of countries. There would be a lot of them left. But uh, Poland, most of them were a disgrace. The same thing for all the eastern countries, like eh, right now when I read the paper about Lithva, Latva and Estonia, those bastards should have been, like I tell you, the Russians will take care of them yet. They're not done yet. I wouldn't let 'em hold hands, that bunch of Nazis. The most biggest collaborators were Lithva, Latva and Estonia and the Ukraines. The Poles, the Poles come number two to them. Or the Hungarians. All the Gestapo were mostly Hungarians--Austria. Unbelievable. It's hard for me to digest that we Jews let Austria slide by that they, that they are not guilty, they're nothing. They're, they're just a, they're a country. The whole--believe me, the whole secret police and the Gestapo was all Austrian. Because Hit...this, this was Hitler's people. More, more, more than Germans. I mean, more than from, from West Germany.
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