Ruth Federman - February 13, 2008
Israel
I, I was very lucky. Because I don't know, really, it was the Sochnut. You know what the Sochnut?
No.
Oh. How should I explain it? Ask Google to explain it.
Okay, okay.
Really. No, they were, they were--we came with, with the aliyah which is also the Sochnut. Was responsible for the aliyah, also it was the money the Soch... Sochnut had.
So it's an, an organization.
It's an organization, but really ask Google maybe. I wouldn't like to say--I'm really bad now at, at explanation. Something to my head. You can keep it. No, but look...
This was a Socialist organization. Were they still Socialists?
No, no, no. I can't explain.
Even the kibbutzim?
No, but they had the money and they sent us to school. And they, uh, they sent us--they sent me because somehow they--I also with the painting, yes? They send, send me to a private school for sewing, where really there were only, uh, girls from rich German families and me, the poor one. Then they send me to, to painting lessons. They paid it. After one year, I went to--as a, as a seamstress, as a dressmaker. I earned already money, very little, but from the beginning I gave two--third to my aunt and one--third was for me because it was two years, after two years. I didn't have even money for the bus but then I started to have a little money, very little. But also my, my uncle was uh, the pharm...the head pharmacist in Hadassah, in the hospital, but the wages were so small that the war--during the war, that we had from this three rooms, had to rent out one room. And I came with a cousin of mine. We were two children, they were four, and we lived in two rooms. But it was--look, we were young, nothing happen to us. I was working say, Friday 'til 3 o'clock, I came home, I had to help make the homework, yes? To clean up everything in the kitchen and so on.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn