Ruth Federman - February 13, 2008
Life in Israel
Did you go to school?
I went to half a year to school only to learn the basic Hebrew.
Um, you learned English here?
Pardon?
You learned English here?
Look. Now, I came with Czech and German. The German was inside. And if I was with a lot of German and Austrian children here, we started to speak really German or the Czech--the children Czech. I was--when, when I was 16, I--it finished, uh, because you know, it was like--it was also Zionist Socialistic movement but it was more a club where children met, yes? At the end, uh, the Communist party started to take us into the, the--which wasn't legal. And I said to, to their--to the party--I said to my friends, "I don't understand it, I, I don't know what I am. I don't know what Communists are, I don't know what uh, the Fascists are. I don't know what Soc...what the Social...Socialist movement is," give me time, and I went out of it. And I was really a year somehow between, between friends and so a little bit lonely. English--there was a young man--young boy, in the movement who was very intelligent--was also from Prague. Knew Czech, German, English, and French and he taught me English a little bit. I mean, as a friend. He was sitting, and, and--but it, that didn't help. Then when I was uh, 17, I went to a evening, because I was working, to a evening class. I'm not very talented in languages. I got married when I was 21. We started with the little hotel, which is exactly here where you are. It was 21 rooms. This is how we started. And then it was in '47, '48 was the war...
[interruption in interview]
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