Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Fred Kendal - May 25, 1983

I want to go back, back before the war. What did your father do before the war?

He was um, he was a merchant and that is what I can remember. He used to buy and sell stuff. Um, and then um, also that uh, my mother used to sell. She had a sort of--I would say she was a seamstress uh, to some degree. That's as far as I can remember.

How large was your family?

There was myself, my mother and dad and my younger brother but he was born just as the Germans came into--he was born in 1940. He was born just as the Germans came in, I mean, occupied. As a matter of fact, there's another story you've just reminded me of and again, I don't recall this but when my brother was born, of course, we were on the farm at that time. And they needed--a bris had to be made. Had to have a bris so they are very--there was no way to get into town to where the rabbi was. So they somehow arranged with a farmer that he was going to drive my mother and my brother, for a price, into town. And the ??? And my Dad--he walked somehow and as he ??? into town. They had the bris--nobody stopped them. They had the bris and then they were there for a few days and then they came back. And that was, you know, I remember them repeating that story over and over again.