Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Eugene Feldman - July 15, 1991

...sort of took care of us and gave me a further chance to go to school because I didn't have to worry about making a living. They gave you enough to survive.

What did your parents do while you were doing this?

They didn't really do anything. There's nothing you could do down there. There's nothing you can do. Unless you were wanting to get involved with the black market, which a lot of 'em did. But my parents didn't deal with the black market and I didn't really bother with that. So they just stayed home. There's nothing they could do. They gave us enough food to, to live on and they gave you some clothes. And then of course I--they had a shul there, so daddy would go to shul and... It was sort of was a normal--pretty normal life.

In this camp or whatever...

Yeah, well it's a camp you know.

Um, was there only Jews in there?

Only Jews. Only survivors.

So you heard lots of stories I guess from those people.

Not me personally. Because like I said I was going to school day and night. I just didn't get involved.

When you went to school what, what language did you use?

German.

German.

Well, I mean, I wasn't taking the language. I mean I just had to--the teacher was German so I had to learn German. Uh, but it was--I was taking electrician. So then I went to school to Hebrew. I was really, I don't know, trying to catch up a little bit on my schooling. Because I was interrupted.

And your parents what did they do?

They just didn't do anything. They just--I guess dad went to shul. I don't know. I never really was that much involved with them. Like I say, it's a whole day. I used to get up early in the morning, take a bus. Take me an hour and a half or so to go to school. And stay there for a whole day and then come back. It was already night. So I really didn't have time for anything.

So at this time you were what, fifteen, sixteen?

Yeah.

Um, when did you decide to come to the United States?

I didn't. Again, my dad...

Your father's...

did. I wanted to go to Israel. My dad says--what did he say--he says, we have relatives, we don't have, here in United States. They the ones that want to take us over here, because...

Let me stop you for a second. When is the first time you heard of Israel?

Well, what it is, when we got--as soon as we got to the camp pretty well, we applied to go to the United States. I--all we did really there is killing time waiting for the visa. That's all we're there in the camp for, really.

But you said you wanted to go to Israel or Palestine.

Yeah. I said you know, everybody wanted to go to Israel. You know, everybody wanted....

You hadn't heard of it before. So when did you...

No, not 'til we got to the camp.

So you heard people talking about it.

Oh...

Do you remember where?

We were very much involved there. We had you know, mostly we used to go to the other camps. Our camp was not so popular, I mean, because it was houses, separated. I remember we used to go--what's the name of the camp--other camps and we would have marches and banners and all that for Israel you know. We're all uh, I was--belonged to Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir...

Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir. Do you remember the first person who told you about a Palestine? When was the first time you heard about Palestine?

It was in that camp from the kids obviously. So everybody wanted to go naturally. Most of 'em did go you know, most of 'em did go from there to Israel. I mean, my parents, we had here relatives that wanted to take us over and we wouldn't have to wait so long or whatever. Because they sort of guarantee your jobs. See they guarantee us a job. United St...if you want to go to the United States you gotta be guaranteed a job. And they did. I found that out just not that long ago that they had to guarantee you a job. I didn't know that.