Lily Fenster - November 8 & 10, 1994
Polish Officials
These were Polish officials, you registered yourself with Polish officials, not German officials?
No, there was some Polish, no Germans. I could have saved a lot of grief if I would go to work to Germany, you know. I wouldn't go through that, nothing, because there was a Polish woman, a wealthy one, she wanted me to go instead of her daughter. But I was afraid, I didn't know where they gonna send me. I wouldn't have that, I would be healthier and they wouldn't know. I had a girlfriend, she was in Ost Preussen, she was a conductor, ???. She fall in love with a Russian and she went to Russia to Kiev for that man. ??? attractive, beautiful, I'm telling you I just see it, she left everything, she, she survived in Germany as a conductor in the Third Reich.
As a streetcar conductor?
Yes sir. Stories, you met people, but you know that song, ??? that should be in ??? Holocaust. I think so. You think it would make any sense. Where Ruthie speaks, Ruthie Kent, you know Ruthie Kent and Ruthie Kent speaks of the ???. That should be, I use to have a nice voice once upon a time. You know, you get old and I love to sing. Music is my tranquilizer. No pills, just put on music and I'm relaxing. Piece of bread and a bagel and an apple, that's all. I have enough luxury and a lot of misery in my life. So, that's song, "Di Verter" you understand "Di Verter"--it's very difficult to translate. I gave it to my cousin in Israel they should put it there or something because it's such words, you never heard of it. I use to, when they had an anniversary, when they had the uprising, the uprising uh, mem...memorials whatever, I use to do that. Men cried like babies when I was singing. See, I'm life member from Hadassah. I'm a life member from B'nai Brith. And I use to be involved in a dramatic group from Sholem Aleichem you know, those...
Or were you really?
Yeah, I was in Madame ??? and a lot of little plays, you know.
With the Friedmans?
Yeah, there was, what's her name, Rositichka Levenson was involved with that. We use to you know, I use to remember little songs, I gave him because I was pregnant at the time with Ricky and I couldn't do as much, but that I said in the--that was in the early, early the we use to make every year. But nobody remembers that, but that song, those words from that little boy, I remember, I could have say I wrote it. But I'm not a liar. I just remember it. He told me that. After so many years, that I remember that, that something. When I get depressed and I'm driving the car, I always sing that song. Oh, I just say it as in a poem you know, because I'm a little dramatic you know, as you see, I have a little, I don't know, flair for, if I would be in America, I would be a singer, I use to love, I had a good voice. So, but, unfortunately, German Untergehakt Feeselach with everything, we didn't have no, we weren't people, we're rats. We didn't have entitled to nothing. Why? Why? So, that day, when I was getting the buckets of waters, because they didn't have running water and I was the maid for that lady--so I uh, at that time they say he was in the, he came, he says ??? you know? And they took him, took him and he jumped a mile and a half. And one thing to save, is he had a gun, from wood and put on it a shoe polish. ??? we use to call it in Yiddish ??? when the shaygets came to him and say, "Give me the boots." He says, "I kill you, ???, I kill you, I'm not going give you my boots." And he run away, then he met that guy Mr. Sosnowic, that they saved each other in a group. You had to be afraid for your own Jews too darling. Because they could, that's why I've been, you use to live such a secretive life, you were afraid for the shadow. And then you envy a fly, you envy a cat. Sometimes said, "Oh, would I like to be a cat and be so nice and warm."
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