Martin Koby - April 20, 1999
Strength of Mother
When you were in Israel?
In Israel, I was in house, Florence and I.
Hollering at each other for what?
Because he was abandoned.
He was abandoned?
Yeah. "Your mother didn't treat us right, okay?" "What are, what are you talking about?" You know, things, things get changed in your own mind.
Uh-huh.
Because somebody told you, you know, you were an abandoned kid. That's why you ended up here or something like that. I don't know what brought it on. But I always thought--I don't know, I--whether I, I don't know, maybe I was the only sane one or uh, whatever. Maybe I got a slanted view, I don't know. But if--I talked to--Florence was there and we talked to Florence. And Florence talked, "Your mother was too authoritative. So that's why they ran away." "What do you mean you ran away?" "Well, your mother was bossy, you know." She--so I thought to myself, what else could she be?
Saved your life.
No, no.
Probably saved your life that she was that way.
Yeah--I'm not talking about myself.
Yeah, I know.
I'm talking about my two cousins...
Yeah.
...because he resented that my--you know, that's what he was starting to say.
Uh-huh.
But in Yiddish you don't have those--the, the words you know, we don't know the words to, to, to say how we felt or how he perceived...
Uh-huh.
...the situation. Florence told me, she said you know, well, yeah, sure my mother was bossy, but if she wouldn't have been bossy, they would have been still on the farm over there rotting in the Soviet Union.
Uh-huh.
I mean, 1973, the Soviet Union was still...
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