Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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David Kahan - April 29, 1982

We...were there Zionists among the students?

Zionists? Uh, yes. As a child I remember my father didn't quite approve of it, because being Orthodox he believed that um, that God will take us back to Israel someday when the Messiah will come. So the general popu...uh, my father was not a Zionist, but we did have our working class Jews who were Zionist, then we had um, Benei Akiva who uh, for the youth who were teaching, we were taught about Israel on sometimes Saturday afternoon. We had meetings and we sang uh, Israeli songs in uh, in uh, talking about Israel. We also had um, we also had a number of times groups of Jews who came to Hakh-Sharah. Before they went to Israel they were working in different cities in groups together and, and uh, we had uh, um, a number of them in our town and I visited with them frequently. They were preparing to go to Israel. But uh, there was a Zionist organization and some people belonged to it, but my family did not.

Not your brother.

My brothers were, my brothers were studying all the Yeshivot and they were mostly busy with their religious life and uh, uh, as far as I can remember none of them belonged to any Zionist organizations.

Your brother Ephraim then became a Zionist after.

My brother Ephraim became a Zionist after the war, yes, yeah, a very strong Zionist.