Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Louis Kaye - May 9, 1983

How far did you get in school?

I was in and out in school, I was... I skipped lots of school because I used to have problem. My mother was sick, one time fall down the steps. And I was living without a mother, and everything. Back and forth she was in the hospital. And I, I finished school and I not finish school. The one thing is, not finishing school, I think I'm doing good in the United States.

How far did you finish?

How far? Only regular school.

High school?

Yeah, that's all. I skipped back and forth, know what I mean.

Wife: You never finished high school ??? when you were fourteen.

What?

Wife: You couldn't have finished high school, you were only fourteen.

No, not... Regular school. I finished about four or five years of school. You can figure it out, about 1925. When I was going to school the war broked out in '39. By '39 I was only fourteen years old and I skipped two, three years before. Really, I was going to school not more than two, three years. Now did a big mistake not going to school, no. I wanted to make a living to help my brothers and everything. We had nine kids, my father was very religious. My mother have six brothers and everybody used to be in, in same business in same city. And every brother have seven or eight kids. Nobody's here.

What kind of a house did you have?

Pardon me?

Describe your home.

Yeah.

What was it like?

My home?

Yeah, big, small?

No, we used to have a house. We have like two, two rooms. And then my brothers, we'd had two rooms, then, then we have a room outside the, the place, away from the house because we have a, a house with a few stores. We rent out the store to somebody else for business and my brother used to live separate, away together. I used to be with my brother, four brothers together. Because in the neighborhood, we used to live in the... For a room, it was cheaper to get a room and rent out a store for a butcher or something. Not everybody in Poland was rich. If anybody tell you they was rich, good luck to them. I cannot tell you I was rich. We worked hard to make a living.