Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Lisa Kallai - January 28, 2008

There's a story I read that once uh, a shtetl of people in the Ukraine had a collective dream...they all came out at the same time and they saw Marx in the sky telling them to come to Palestine in the late 19th century and they did. I don't know if it was a apocryphal story or it really happened but that's what everybody thought was going to happen.

Yeah.

So, you have some disappoint in it?

In the country, yes, I think everybody has but perhaps we expected too much.

Uh, was it a hard decision to make to come here?

Not really, no. I didn't know...

Well especially with you marrying...

I think at that time, you know, we took our things much more in our stride. We, we didn't enquire so much about, "How do we feel about this?" and, "are we completely happy with this?" We just got on with it. And, uh...

Like the British.

I don't know. More matter of fact, I think than the...I make decisions more easily if I watch my grandchildren when I can't decide what to do, when to do, how to do. I think, you know, we...rightly or wrongly...just went ahead.

Do you think it had to do with a, a, a value system of the reality...

I'm not sure if it's that or just necessity, we had to cope and continue to cope. Woman: Do they all live here? Your grandchildren?

Sorry? Woman: Do they all live in Israel?

Yes, all of us do.

All the grandchildren and the children?

All my children and grandchildren live in Israel, yes.

That's very nice.

Yes, yes.

But not all in Jerusalem.

Not all in Jerusalem, just some...not all. But, uh...