Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Esther Feldman Icikson - October 23 & 29, November 5 & 12, 2001

Stories of Prison

And what stories did he tell?

He told us about the jail, how they tried to hit him. Uh, they would interrogate him all the time. And one morning they took him in and they were--started to interrogate him. And um, the interrogator had a newspaper rolled up but inside there was an iron pole. And he said, he says, "If you don't tell me," he says... And my father said, "Don't you dare pick this up because I know you have a pole inside and you're going to hit me with it." And he says, "You are going to be in great trouble," he says. "I am still not um, I, I did not still go through court here, so you do not have the right to hit me." And he didn't. He saved his own life then, because he would have beaten him up terribly. Um.

Did he talk about the time that he was beaten before they took him away?

Yeah. They were beating him up terribly. They really beat him up then. They beat him in jail too, but um, that time he prevented it. They were very cruel in jail. And uh, they, they, they did not give food. You know, that was the worst. They were, they were very hungry. And Passover, my daddy made a deal with a non-Jew and he gave him his bread. And that man gave him his potatoes. And my dad kept Passover. He did not eat Chametz on that holiday.

He ate potatoes.

He ate potatoes and he prayed. He remembered all his prayers by heart. So he prayed every day. And actually he would tell us that a lot of people had an awful lot of respect for him. And he made friends in jail, with the jail, with the other, um...

Prisoners.

...con...prisoners.

It seems to me that only your father in your family prayed.

My father was the religious.

Your father was religious but not your mother and...

Yeah, my, no my mom was very religious, but uh, um, in, in the Jewish religion, in those times, women were, were not uh, required to pray, you know. Their...


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn