Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Sally Horwitz - June 18, 2007

Well, what a great place to finish. Um...

I'm finished, that's it.

Actually, I would like to come back one more time, if you don't mind?

Give me a little rest first. I'll, I'll...

Yeah, we'll wait.

Get this out of my...

I'm sorry...

Why?

Difficult to do.

I was interviewed to death already. So I'm about the ???. A catholic school, [clears throat] I hate it. Um, I taught at catholic school ???, it was a, a college, catholic college. And they were performing, what's his name, Arthur Miller's play The Crucible.

Mm-hm.

So they were all non-Jews. And the director who's uh, I guess that's what you call the, the guy who was trying to help them with the play. What do you call them, the people who do that? Called up the Jewish Federation, "please send me a survivor, there's no heart, no feeling in it." So uh, ??? forever, here the person. He was very active in ??? with the Zionists or the organizations with the, you name it and he was, he was at the Jewish federation, ???. He calls me up, "Sally if our speaker calls and he says do me a favor, you knew he wants something, would you do me a favor?" I said, "Uh, oh here we go," I told him at that time ???. He said uh, this was at the end of the 1980"s, um, he told me what's going on and they need somebody, "would you please?" They said only, they'd take only, maybe 50--40 minutes and you'll be, "bout, "bout, the most, he says. Uh, whatever, "would you please go?" Uh, I say, "uh, for you I'll do it," I mean, for our speaker, I mean, he was such a, a unbelievable person. If he asked you something he just do it. So my husband took me and I do not, obviously as you can see. I said go away, and I thought just because he makes me nervous, I don't know why. Because he didn't know a lot, I didn't tell him much for years. Um, so I came there, they put me on the stage and there was some people. So I told my husband, you stay at the back, don't, don't sit where I can see you. I was turned to the, I mean, to the stage anyways, my back to the people, whoever they were. And they sitting and I tell them more or less what they doing wrong. And they said a black guy, "An anti-Semite," a black anti-Semite, the other ones were white people, they were fine--they more or less. So he has a ring in his hand and he's talking to the other guys that he doesn't know what to do with the ring, this is, I think, at the rehearsal. So I thought, we had the same incident with my mother's ring and he had his mother's ring too, just so happened. This was the ??? thing, it was friends or something, where the play was, more or less, created. And so I told him, I say what I did, I put it in my mouth and he wouldn't, he wouldn't do it. But at the play, I was invited to the play, he sure enough he put it in his mouth. Well I had the bill, I'm on the bill, they had, my help blah, blah, blah. So I was all over the place, not that I wanted to. The same thing I told you that story with uh, Rabbi where, I don't know if I did last time you were here. Uh, he was writing about Ezra Styles, you know the Yale, one of the Yale uh, when they started the college he was the head of it.

Mm-hm.

Whatever they call it and there was a picture there. And of the Rabbi from um, have you ever been to um, uh, Providence, Rhode Island?

Yeah.

There's a synagogue, Touro synagogue. If you ever go to Connecticut, not Connecticut, Rhode Island, you have to see this is the oldest, oldest synagogue um, Touro build it. He built the first one in ???, I think. And then this was the second one, you have to see that. Um, so he wrote about um, the Rabbi, Rabbi Chiel, was in Haven. He wrote about the Rabbi who was very close to Chiel, in Hebrew Greek they were communicating with one another. As a matter of fact, Chiel's pictures there when he went to Chiel's college, I mean, he stayed in that house, isn't that funny. His pictures there and the Rabbi's picture's hanging right next to each other, so this is something. So that Rabbi, Rabbi ???, wrote about that, in the article in the Jewish Ledger about those two people. So the Yale, the finishing the school ask them to please bring a, a panel with him. And they would like to discuss, you know, what went on during the war. So Rabbi Chiel calls me up. I, I called it, I was the cordon. "Um, Sally uh, the, the ??? at the school needs a panel, I'd like you to come with me." I said, "No I'm not, I'm not going." He says, "I'm picking you up so and so, at this and this time and I'm taking, you're coming." I said, "okay," how, how can you refuse the Rabbi, right? And the, Arty used to go to school with his son and they were friends. I say, what are you gonna do, so I've spoke so many places, I didn't know what to expect really. It was standing room only and my husband was there too, but he was way in the back. And I'm on the panel and I see, there were one, two, three, three or four more, more people. The rabbi's sitting next to me like here and I'm sitting next to him and I'm taking one look and I gave him a jab. And I said, "they all have papers, I don't even have a paper." one was a hidden child who wrote a book, one was uh, the uh, psychiatrist what's his name, not Loeb, yes, Loeb?

Dori Laub...

Were we allowed. Who was hidden in a whore house, if you know that and uh, he had a paper, a book already. And there was somebody who was in the partisans and there was I. And they all had papers. So I say, "what did you do to me?" So he takes my hand, he says, "don't worry, don't worry," and he squeezes my hand and says, "don't worry you'll, you'll be okay." And I'm sitting and I figure sure, they had to do, you know, the reading and the questions started to fall to me and, I mean, questions. They were throwing questions from the audience and I answered them. Uh, and I remember one said, "how did you ??? school? What did you think, how did you, what did you think about uh, how, how, what did you think about God?" I said, "I was mad at him, I was very angry with God." Then she says, "I am so ashamed, I'm so ashamed, I'm a Christian." The questions they throw at me, I, it was something. And everybody was so quiet and it was unbelievable. It was all over. But they didn't tape at the time.

Ah...

I feel bad. I'm curious what I was saying. And then I wipe it out, I wipe it out.

So they should have it on tape in case you want to see it.

That's, that's, they didn't put on tape. Then they started to tape, then they started to tape things. I told you I was the first one taped at the, oh what's the name, the, that she had a radio station. Uh...

???

???. So she was the first one, she brought in just, you know, those cameras with, my husband had one of those movie cameras and they did it and she, the first five people she interviewed. And then her mother told me, "Sally my daughter has to go to a psychiatrist she can't sleep nights."

[laughs]

And we were just hotchky-potchky, we were talking uh, our minds were on the war, when I, what ??? first. My husband organized it so, so then, then Leo called me. And ???. [end of interview]