Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Ben Moche - April 24, 2009

Legacy

What message would you like to leave for future generations?

That the Jews will be forever.

Hm. [pause] Can you...

I just, well, look yesterday two girls showed it to me. Two girls, 99% not from an orthodox background went to Auschwitz [pause] and they said, "those are my relatives, Jews." [crying] They didn't have to be a brother or a sister or an uncle, they maybe never had anybody in their family get killed by the German. But they had one thing, Jews. If it wouldn't be for that feeling of, that those two girls got they wouldn't come back and what could you do.

Hm.

And what I want everybody to remember and I don't talk about it, and only reason I came here, and it's a big deal...

Mm-hm.

Believe or not, because my wife couldn't get me to come here or anybody or call about that. And we have to remember that we are Jews, you know. And I'm not going to talk about mixed marriages or things like that, but we can't be shrinking as much as we shrink. But even if we shrink the seed is still there, the Jews will stay. It might not be the conservative Jews, I'm not getting into religious...

Mm-hm.

Or things like that, but the Orthodox Jews their 10, 12 children, you know. Uh, my son in law has an aunt in France that has 18 kids.

Wow.

Okay um, the husband is a big uh, Rosh Yeshiva, you know...

Mm-hm.

In France.

Hm.

So, yeah, you know, my, the economies not good, my situation is not good. Um, you know, I'm getting older uh, getting a little bit of nightmares now, which I never had before.

Hm.

You know what I'm saying?

Mm-hm.

It's affected me more now than it affected me when I grew up, you know. Because uh, as Israelis we are arrogant, we are better than everybody... [laughs]

Mm-hm.

You know. [laughs]

Mm-hm.

Or things like that. But uh, yeah, that's what I want to leave if their, even the, even if you take, let me put it to you this way in, in, in very easy language. The Romanians told me "Zidan ne Palestina." Fifty years later I had a bunch of ??? Romanians working for me, the Jew, here in United States. For is there a God, is it a coincidence, or is it a proof?

Mm-hm.

I don't know.

Mm-hm.

These people that I had to worship to them that they killed my grandfather, were working for me.

Mm-hm, ironic.

Ironic.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly. So, this is what I want to leave, remember that we are a Jew...

Mm-hm.

And never again.

Mm-hm, "never again."

You know because uh, we have to fight, we have to survive.


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