Simon Goldman - June 6, 2003
Looking for family
You don't know. And what did you say in the letter?
Well, because from the, from the letter--the reason I sent it was, you see, when I left Poland and I looked for my brother, I still didn't know whether he's alive or what happened. I looked all over, I did whatever I could, but I couldn't find him. So I figured if I send to the farmer a letter and giving him my address in the United States and I told him under my name as my Mayan Kowalsky. The reason for I did--I don't know if I was smart to do it or just survival, you know. Not give him my present name, just the assumed name, in case that he got back. And that was already '47, you know. In case he somehow got back to the farm looking for me or something, so they wouldn't know that I was Jewish. If I gave 'em, sent them the name Goldman, you know. I was afraid they'd find out who wrote it, they might kill him, you know. So.
Did they ever write you back?
Yes they did. And they wanted me to send them stuff, you know, But I wouldn't do that. I just figured, just in case he's there, maybe. Maybe, maybe. So that's why I did it. I would not give 'em my name or anything. And they don't know ever that uh, whoever they had there working for them was, was Jewish.
Have you ever stopped looking for your brother?
Well, you know, at this point, I don't think so that I would look for him. I, I, I uh, I went to the Holocaust in Washington and I checked, cross-checked, you know, names. And uh, I didn't find anything across.
He's not on the list.
No, none of 'em. In fact, I cross-checked my cousin, the one that's in, in New York, and her maiden name, and her maiden name is Tingeiser, which is not too many like that. And I cross-checked that and I couldn't find her. Because she got married. In the Holocaust they show it as, as Mumelburger which--I immediately called her and told her to change it because if somebody's looking for you, they'll ne...nobody, they can't find it. The reason I came up on it 'cause I was looking for my wife. She was, we were looking for her and she was not registered either. She was registered under my name.
Registered with the Museum, you mean?
Yeah. Which is wrong.
Yeah.
And I corrected, we corrected ours right there while we were there at the museum, we corrected ours.
Did you look for anybody else in your family?
I looked, I looked for everybody.
And did you find them?
No.
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