Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
Talking About Experience
Have you ever talked toanyone about your experiences?
No. In fact, until very recently I wouldn't talkabout it at all.
Why?
It was painful. I didn't want to. I didn't want tobe considered. How I felt when I went at Wayne, to Wayne and they knew I was arefugee, I was sort of like a freak you know, something like in a sideshow. SoI didn't want to be regarded as something odd. And I, I was ashamed of my ownpart, really. Because when I blame my friends for not resisting, I in fact didnot resist either. I did-took the easy way out and I left. They didn't evenhave that option. So I can't really point to them and say, why didn't you help,why didn't you fight? Because I didn't fight either. I was eighteen. I was theright age. I had no family. When you have a family I can see why youwouldn't-you couldn't risk them.
You mean blame yournon-Jewish friends.
Yes. Yes, that if you can say to them that theydidn't really resist, which many of them have said and which there is someargument for it, I have to say it for me too. And since I had such an ungloriouspart I didn't discuss it, because I couldn't forgive myself-maybe I havenow-but I couldn't. That I went without a fight. You know, if my father said go,so I picked up and I left. And I was afraid. And I'm sure they were afraid too.Because the chances of getting into a camp were darn as good for somebody whowas resisting than somebody who was Jewish. I mean, it was an instrument ofterror, it was directed against everybody. It wasn't just the minority. Sothat's why I never spoke about it. Because I couldn't really point to one thingthat I had done, which would have been classed as courageous or anything. Ijust got out.
Of course it saved yourlife.
It saved my life. And you see them, shutting theirmouth saved theirs. It made it very uncomplicated. They looked the other way.Hardly any of them, except the one boy, who actively participated in attackinghim, the others did not. None of them did that. But then he had a father whowas a strange man.
Socialist, communist?
Pardon?
Socialist, communist?
No he was, I'd say sadist. He beat his own boy witha riding whip and that sort of thing. Even in a severe a culture as Austria,that was considered severe. And he and his son together attacked a haplessJewish man, whoever that was and knocked him down. But the others did not dothat. They did however, support the cause.
Were they in the war? Doyou think some of them were.
Uh, yes. Practically all of them were in the war.They were all taken. And some of the refugees were in the war here. So they have,they were on the opposite side of, of the war. And we did mention that. The onefellow, who is now in Syracuse, his mother was still in Vienna. He was aMischlinge, a half, half and half. And he did not-he volunteered for thePacific theater because he couldn't see himself attacking her.
His father was notJewish.
Yeah. Yeah. But um, practically all of them servedon both sides, on opposite sides. And they did. Oh, they sent me pictures whenI was in New York and they were in Vienna and I could write. They did send mepictures in their uniform, so I knew. And that fellow who came to my house alsoserved. But he was uh, an M.D. by then, so he served uh, you know, helping outin the field. And he said his main ambition was to become a, a captive [laughs]so he could get out of it. So he did not have the military spirit. But to outand out oppose something, that takes a lot more. There are these people whohave done it and they're admirable. But most of us were not, including me. Iwas not either.
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