Abraham Mondry - June 15, 22, 29 & July 13, 1992
Religious Beliefs and Story I
The train, was it an open boxcar?
Yeah, open boxcars.
How many were you in the train?
I would say about eighty, hundred.
What was it like in that train?
Hm?
What was it like in that train? Were people fighting with each other? Were they pushing?
Yeah, hollering and screaming. I hear one, I hear one, one say he, "I got a knife, kill me," to the other guy. You know and I am a strong individual, I was a strong individual. I was afraid for nothing, you know, get killed for nothing. I took one, one chance, one chance I would get killed, I would take, you know. I know you get caught, you keep going. So you get caught, you get caught. They say you gonna die anyway. You never get out alive. What's the difference? We didn't think we'd get out alive. We had no hate for nobody no more. In God, I lost the faith all together. You know when I was coming, I was young, I went to yeshiva and there the Talmud say that, God, God will help you in that time when you need it. Where the hell was he? He must have been upstairs with a couple of broads laying down there, you know. Yeah, that's the way I talk. See, I don't believe in God, nothing. I was in the show for fifty years. Only once did I go to bar mitzvah, a cousin of mine. And I was liberated, like I say, "God don't bother me and I wouldn't bother you. I don't want to see you and, and don't see me." I'll tell you a story. This is interesting. I live in Italy, in Rome. There was a, a middle-aged man. He was this time, you know, in the, in the forty-five. He must be in the sixties. He knows exactly how much he traveled. He let about 180 people. So I used to talk to, you know, to the young priests. What did they call them? They call them the, they used to walk around. They have a name for them. You know, the young priests, they don't wear, they don't wear black. They wear like brown. I used to...I managed to talk to them. I talk to them all the time, you know. So, I tell him, you know. He wouldn't die 'til, 'til he finds God before, you see. He gotta have, gotta have a court criminal with God, he used to say.
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