Paul Molnar - July 24, 2002
Telling Children about Experiences
Did you tell any of this to your children?
Yes, but not for a long, long time. I think [pause] I, I probably never spoke about it twenty-five, thirty years.
Why?
I couldn't.
Why?
I well let me tell you 'cause I tried to-let me tell you, I pretended it didn't exist. When, when I came to America, people asked me, asked me in conversation, not because they were Nazi, they would ask me, I don't know, religion. I would say I'm a Lutheran. I mean, I'm not ashamed of it because I wanted to forget it, I wanted to move on, okay. And uh, I uh, I was never active in any Jewish organization of any kind. And I, I didn't say anymore I'm a Lutheran. I got over that.
Yeah.
That didn't take you know, that was just a short time, but. I mean, I didn't deny I was a Jew, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to-I didn't feel comfortable with it. I, I, I felt that uh, being a Jew didn't do me much good. It got me where it got me. Uh, it, I lost all faith in God. I had no, I mean I don't have any faith today either, but I, I certainly didn't see God in Auschwitz, so to me that was uh, something I would not and uh, in some ways, it was difficult because I guess I was in denial. That's it, I mean, I, I didn't want any part of it. And I thought that by denying it, and I didn't literally deny, I didn't go around denying. But by pretending that it is important I-it's, it's going to go away. But the reality is I, after awhile I realized it, you know you can't do that. It took me, I don't know, twenty, twenty-five years 'til, 'til I could speak about it. Now I mean, I spoke to my wife about it, but very little.
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