Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Simon Kalmas - May 25, 1982

Not Letting Past Interfere with Life Now

Do you have nightmares?

Huh?

Do you have nightmares?

I wouldn't say no. I cope with it.

Does the past interfere at all with your life today?

No, I don't let it. I--from way back, I'm a strong-minded man from way, way back when I was a youngster. They call it stubborn, okay. I'm a stubborn man. I have a different word for it. Determined. I am determined. I was determined to come to the United States, because when the war ended, I was thirty years old. Well, where will I start anything if not in the United States? At least I, with my skill, I'm secured of a job. I wouldn't have to stand in line in a soup kitchen. And that was true, thank God. From the day I came to last year, I never been out of work. I built up a life for myself.


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