Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Mondry - June 15, 22, 29 & July 13, 1992

You were in Bari?

You know Poughkeepsie?

Sure, in New York.

You know where the Vassar College is?

Uh-huh.

There I got first...my first store. I... I'm ??? stuff I see "Store for Rent," you know, reasonable. I see a woman's store. So I go in there. She's a young girl. Maybe she was fifteen years old or younger. I don't know if she was Jewish or not, I didn't ask. But she was ??? near school, there was a store there, there was somebody...some man that had a tailor store in New York state, had a woman's shop, woman dresses, woman's...someone ??? run the business, you know ???. Everybody try to grab the ???. And they couldn't run it so good, you know. They were thinking, you know, the money comes like this, you know. See they was in the ??? business. They make coat...coats they sold, you know, woman's accessory. So they gave me...They offered me a deal, I sell you the store with everything, you know, you pay me up in two years. You pay me $100 a week to $10,000. "How much I got to pay down," I say. "Whatever you can," he say. He was a nice man. He just took a liking to me. "It's a good store, you make good living here. And if you...if you do good, we'll sell you some other stores. We decided we going, going out, you know. It's not for us, you know. We have nobody good to run it." So I asked this girl...I wanted to know more information, so I ask...I asked her out for dinner. I said, "You want to have dinner with me? I want to ask you things for the store. Will you work for me?" "Yes," she said. So I took her for dinner. And I want to know more about the store. She said, ??? the store. She didn't need...they don't need the store. See, they got enough money without the store. She said, they don't care. They send me always the wrong store. See, I can sell three times almost, she said. I can sell if they send me junior sizes, you know. And I ask her ??? December 10th. ??? May 18th. So I took the store, and I make it like an outlet, you know. This time it was outlet, everything outlet store. Factory Outlet, you know. I put the name "Factory Outlet," you know.