Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
Reunion
What happened at thatreunion? Did you raise these issues with some of these people?
No, they, they very carefully did not talk aboutanything of the Hitler period. They talked-we talked mainly about our oldteachers. In fact, one of them sent a rather touching letter saying he alwayswanted us to appreciate beauty and nature and he was lecturing as if we wereseventeen. And uh, what they had, the kind of professions that they had uh,taken up. That's all. Never, never. And that was the, the time of, oh what wasthat jackass name, the Austrian president.
Waldeim.
Waldeim yeah, Waldeim. Now I did get in somediscussions about Waldhiem with my friends. And those who were socialist weresolidly against Waldheim and those who were Schwarzen were for him, felt thathe was being persecuted for nothing. That was the only thing that ever came up.But nothing ever in the uh, during the Anschluss, during those two years.Never.
Um, the twelve tothirteen Jewish students who were in that class, were any of them at thisreunion?
Yes, most of them were. One of them had a heartattack
Didn't come up with themeither?
No, but we had another reunion in New York. Andthat was very interesting. The fellow in New York gave a reunion for theAmericans. And uh, when we came we did talk about that and a lot. So apparentlyit was in the back of our mind and we didn't want to discuss it. And in factthey brought up some incidences of uh, hostility that I was, had not been awareof. That one of them won a uh, writing contest and he, he's a very verbalperson, still is. And uh, the other classmates said "Oh, you couldn't win it, aJew can't win a German writing contest." And he mentioned that in New York. Hehad not mentioned that before. He's now in Israel and has a-holds a doublechair in Hamburg and Tel Aviv. Isn't that unusual? And uh, and he was here ona, on a speaking engagement. That's why we all came to New York. But we didtalk about it a great deal, about who among the classmates had been the mosthypocritical. I suppose that includes us because we hadn't said it either. Youdidn't want to be unpleasant. You've come such a long way. And so we justpussyfooted around that. [laughs] You talk about the grandchildren, heartdisease and, you know, and some of the adventures that we had when we wereskiing together as kids. That was part of the curriculum. We had a week in the Alps.
So it's the missingseven years.
It is the missing seven years. They were nottouched on, but they were cer...plenty touched in New York when we had thatparty. And I went and wrote that to some of my friends and they are, and saidit was different, it was a different reunion. And they didn't say much aboutit.
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