Sonia Nothman - January 4, 1983
Anti-Semitism in America
Did you find much anti-Semitism here when you came?
I was not in contact with uh, other people. ??? So I don't know. I cannot say. But now after so many years, I read and hear, of course. But in the beginning I, I didn't know. Everybody tries, you know the Jewish organizations they used to call us and everything. So I felt very good. My husband went right away. We came today, tomorrow and ??? And, uh,...Then he got laid off and he worked for brick. He worked twice a week and three times a week. It was very hard. Awful hard when I look back. It wasn't like now. You have a kid, you give it to a nursery, you go to work. Because I couldn't go to work. ??? My sisters ??? I couldn't hire a babysitter. A woman, we didn't know then. It wasn't like now. Now it's easy. And my husband worked quite by bricks ??? when he was laid off. He worked in a creamery in ??? He used to make nice money. He took my brother from New York there. Yeah. At least we got ice cream to eat and milk. And then they laid him off so he went to work for bricks. And bricks was very strong, I remember. He worked right through. He used to work night shifts. Very hard. Struggle. Very hard. So he said one day, "You know what, they called me back to ???, I'm not going. I have to go and learn something and be a man. Nobody ever ???" Then he offered something. Then he went up. I remember I ??? He went, he made a seventeen dollars--eighteen or fourteen. And we struggled. It was really a struggle. But what could we do? We couldn't afford a coat to buy or nothing.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn