Hannah Fisk - January 24, 1983
Anti-Semitism
Was there ever any anti-Semitism before the war?
Yeah, it started, it started in 19...I remember I was a kid, and I went in to buy candies or something and they already say that the Jews should go to Israel and uh, and Hitler will come. I don't know where they get it from but uh, yeah, it started bad--very bad. When they see a Jew with a beard or thing, they laugh at him, you know, and they say, "Hitler will come and cut your beard off," and stuff like that. Yeah, it started in 19...uh, beginning of 1939, I would say it started back. You know, and they are not hateful people, anyway, because they just like the wind blows, you know. One day they friends to you and the next day you turn around--and believe me dear, Hitler could never do this. He could never kill six million Jews if wouldn't be for the Polacks because they could smell a Jew from far, far away. That's why I have no pity for them. I have no desire to go there. I would love to go see my roots, you know, but when I go there honey, I'm going to come home in a casket. Either in a casket or, or a box because I couldn't be able to stand it. It's all blood. The whole Poland is blood.
Mm-hm. Um, tell me about the neighborhood you lived in. Were--was it mainly Jewish, or...
Mm, yes, it was Jewish but also it was Gentile, too. I had some Gentile friend, I went to school with them. We had a very nice neighbor across the street--very nice all the time. They came Shabbos, Shabbos they came to uh, you see, by the Orthodox Jews, you don't make Shabbos--you don't put on a light or you don't put on the stove. So they always came--especially winter--they made the heat, you know. It's not like here, they had to, you know, put on the heat with the coals, and uh, and uh, wood, make a fire. And then they came to make the light and close the light. And they were really good to us. But for some reason, they turn against the Jews for, for--in a bad manner.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn