Fred Kendal - May 25, 1983
Jewish Life in Berezne
Hm. As I a kid, to me, I thought it was great, you know, but come to think of it, I don't think it was great. I, I really--I, I would say it was a good sized town, you know considering the amount of travelling that I've done--excuse me--and so on and so forth. Yes, it was a good sized town, it wasn't a big city but a, a--it was a good sized town. That it's about all I can remember.
Yeah. Um, do you recall how large the Jewish community was? ???
That, I wouldn't know. I do know that it was a good sized, it was like a, a hub of a Jewish community. Uh, and it was a sized Jewish community but I really wouldn't know, you know.
Was there much interactions between the Jew community and the Gentile population?
I think there was. I think--I really think there was. Maybe not so much for what I remember or for wider on you know but with things that I've heard, I thought that yes--that there was. Uh, again, not so much from what I remember but from things that were related to them--afterwards that you know--as a kid, you hear these, you know, stories told and retold that when the Germans came in--and the story I heard that has been retold that they after they started extracting the wealth from the Jews, they then--and, and when they started um, assembling into the ghetto area--to the area when they're designated as a ghetto area. They then allowed the Gentile population to go into the houses and take whatever they wanted, you know. And I think that was a terrible period of time that people were saying than they then realized who their friends were or were not--who their neighbors were or were not that--they did--it was a just that bad--bad type of a thing. And I suppose that people being what they are--and I'm thinking with my mind today, not what I remember or what I know--that the greed would, would then automatically take over, you know, that kind of thing.
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