Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982
Israel II
During... Before, before you went to Auschwitz, were there many people who talked about going to Israel? Was there much of a, of a Zionistic movement?
They didn't want to be Zionists, because the rabbi said, no, not good the Zionists. It's not kosher, you know. That's what the biggest mistake. Was a couple because, was like uh, in the cities I went there to pay people and when I, you know, went in the city to school, there was like uh, from the ??? you know. And a couple people went to Israel. Just very, very few people went. Some relative my mother went ??? still that's ??? You heard some man just went there.
Mm--hm. How did you get to Israel from, from the orphanage? You said you went to...
They took us because the uh, Czechoslovakia start to be Russian.
I see.
Russian. So, they....
It was the Hadassah who...
No, that's ??? that's uh, a little like, uh--what's... how to say?--like ???
All right.
You know, that's all...
Yes.
...that's all American money was.
Okay.
They, they took out, there was ??? there. They ??? from the older people who took because people didn't have much to do or what to eat. Young people in their twenties. So they, they opened, they opened places and they uh, they paid uh, they feed them, and then, then they took a tray, they ordered for ??? French and French, they...
I see.
[interruption in interview]
So, they went uh, to French. When I was in France, there was lots of people waiting for this ??? that they go to Israel. This was uh, nineteen uh, at '34 people wanted to go there. Very, not everybody want to go to America, they wanted to go there. So, that's the same thing. They took people from Czechoslovakia because the Russians weren't there and, uh... So, that's where they took us too.
Mm--hm. Okay, okay um, all right.
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