George Korper - March 26, 2007
Returning Home
Did you correspond at all with your parents?
I have, I have two letters, two letters from them and I didn't find anything at all. My sister didn't know whether to--they put it, they put stuff away with neighbors, aunts and so on, Gentile people. The, the most honest one was a cobbler who had a little hole on the store in, in our building. It was--you stepped down steps and it was, it was a workshop and behind was--he didn't report it. And he, he moved out of Prague, just outside. Got in touch with us immediately after the war and said, "Your father gave me some gold coins..." [cries]
[interruption in interview]
I miss him. He was the honest one. But then we had, we had a driver who was a very honest man. My father had a driver with a car from the business and uh, uh...
[interruption in interview]
...took to his apartment uh, some paintings and some valued porcelain and he got shot. There was a fight. They fought the Germans, a group of Czechs, and he was, he was a fireman from the fire brigade as a volunteer or maybe during the war, I don't know. And these people took it, took it in their hands to fight the Germans and he was shot and killed. And his wife lost everything. She denied it. She said she knew nothing about this...
[interruption in interview]
...was living in our landing one of the apartments in our house I walked in and I, I, I saw one of our paintings hanging there and I saw one of the Persian carpets which I recognized. I said, "Well, thank you very much for keeping this for us." And the lady said, "No, no, your mother gave us this for Christmas and this is for the next year's Christmas." We did them some favors and this is what we got from them. But, by and large we got the stuff. Unfortunately, my sister stayed there, when--until the Communists took over. I wrote my part of the house over to her, to her because I thought it was my duty. I wanted to sell it, the house. She said, "No, look, I am going to live here and so leave me my part, you keep yours. I said, "No, I'll write it over to you. You are the boss here." And it was, it was a ??? the rent. And uh, then they waited too long. The Communists took, took over and the Jews knew that they had to get out and they decided it is over. They decided to go to Australia and uh, uh...
[interruption in interview]
...sold the house for, I don't know, $500 or so. We did get it. Today it would be worth five million.
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