Isaac Engel - June 16 & 25, 1992
Family
So how would you estimate first cousins, aunts, uncles--how large do you think?
Well ours was almost the smallest family. We were only three boys. But uh, from my uh, I uh, they must have been at least a...a...almost--had about sixty, between sixty, seventy cousins.
Do you know how many survived the war?
Just me. And one cousin survived. She lives in Belgium in Antwerp. That's it. Oh, there was another cousin, he went before the war, right in '38. He went to Israel.???, illegally. Aliyabet.
But no aunts and uncles survived.
No...
Was it...
Nobody survived.
Was it a religious family?
Most of 'em were. Yeah.
In your house?
In our house, yes, yes.
So, tell me something about...
My father was a rabbi, but he never practiced it. He had, he had simcha you know, he was ordained, but he never practiced it. He was in business. He never used it as a--as his profession.
So did he have beard and payes?
Oh yes.
Did you have payes when you were a child?
Payes? Yeah. Up until like uh, fourteen, fifteen years old. I had payes, that's it. Then I didn't have anymore. You know, it became a little more modern.
Yeah. And your mother wore a sheitel?
Oh yes.
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