Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Alice Lang Rosen - August 5, 1991

Life Before the War II

Let me just take you back a second, was the family very religious?

Uh, I would not say that they were Orthodox but they were religious. My father uh, you know, went to shul and all that. I, I wouldn't say that they were Orthodox but I, I think they kept their faith, yes, I would say.

Kosher home?

They might have. I don't remember, you know before that I don't remember.

Would you say that, uh again it's going to be hard for you as a child, but would you say that um, you and your family considered yourselves German first?

German Jews, yes.

German...

Yes, sure.

Do you know if your father had been in the First World War?

I know he wasn't.

He was not?

No. But I think my grandfather was. Yes, I have a picture of him in his soldiers uniform. Yes.

Um, what, what kind of changes do you remember taking place, say the late '30s just before the war started? Anything?

Well, cha...only changes I can remember is, if uh, vaguely--I got to try to think back, um, when I was outside playing already children weren't allowed to play with me at--in school, you know there was talk and I was, I was left--there were not--I wasn't in school with too many Jewish children for some reason. I just don't, you know, remember and finger pointing because we had, you know, to wear the armbands.

But you were in school until the...

Yeah, I think I was the first year. And I don't even remember if I finished the first grade but for that I was six years, six years old. I just remember starting school and going.

Do you, do you remember the Krystallnacht?

No. That I do not remember. I have read of course about it but I do not personally remember it.

As a child do you remember anything about the--hearing radio speeches? Hearing Hitler? Hearing ???

Yes, yes we hear, "Heil Hitler" and all that and them talking. Oh definitely, yes.

Was there a discussion about this with you?

No, not with me. No. I, I, I, I don't uh, my, my, my father--I think they were not the type to discuss things with, with a child, you know.


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