Eugene Feldman - July 15, 1991
Relations with Non-Jews II
Stolin was on a railroad.
In Stolin, yeah, but I never--I don't think I even saw a train you know. Because we used to go to Stolin, is usually, I don't know, buy a pair of pants or something. I don't know what our dad would go. And a lot of times he wouldn't take me, because that was a big thing for me, to go to Stolin.
But you said that the farmers would come and buy bread or whatever and sit and talk. ???
It's not really farmers. What it turned out to be is about three or four goyim would come around and just talk and have a drink. I don't know what the heck they drank. Tea. Or you know, we're not a--we didn't have a liquor license or anything. So they would make tea and eat a challah you know, and pay a couple pennies for that. Just enough. And I think, I think dad had a cigarette uh, concession too. He, he allowed--was allowed to sell cigarettes.
Was he in the army in the First World War?
My dad was uh, in the Polish army, yes.
So that's how he got the cigarette concession.
I have no idea really.
Veterans. Veterans could get.
I know it was hard to get a concession.
But if you were a veteran you could get it.
Oh, that's possible.
So he fought in the First World War for the...
I don't know what war. Well, it would have to be the First World War, for the Tsar, something, I don't know. He was in the service, that's all I know.
For the Hapsburgs.
The Polish...
Austro-Hungarian.
He was--he died when he was eighty-seven, so it would have been about ninety-three, so there you can go from there, what it was.
It would have been...
Probably World War Two, World War One. I was never--I never questioned too much about it. All I know he was in the, in the army I--he mentioned me a few times.
Was there ever any vandalism to your house, I mean, if they came?
No.
So these were friendly, more or less friendly uh, non-Jews.
They, they didn't use any force, if that's what you mean. I mean, they did not go out and beat you up or something. But it was always Jew-hating. It just... They were all backwards. I mean--that whole village was backwards. So was I, so was my parents. But they were, they were very religious. If the priest said that that's how it is, that's how it is. Now as far as they're concerned, the Jews killed Jesus. They don't know anything about the Romans or anything. I mean, they don't know anything about--they don't even know what a Roman is or history. The priests told 'em that the Jews killed Jesus. In fact there's a joke about it, that a gentile kid was beating up another one, another--I mean a Jewish guy. So the--one older person goes up and says "Why are you beating him up, why are you hitting him?" He says, "Because they killed Jesus." So the other one says, "Well, that was two thousand years ago." He said, "Yeah, but I just found out." That's how they, you see, they--the, the priests were really against the Jews. Nice. They still are. They always will be. I don't trust them. No way. I would drop an atomic bomb just as soon on them as on Germany.
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