Berek Rothenberg - May 20, 1984
Going Back to Poland
Are you going to retire there?
No. They don't need me. They need young blood. They don't need the retirees.
Have you ever gone back to Poland?
No. For what? To see the graveyards or they will kill me? What the--after the war was the Kielce pogrom. I have from my hometown--and she lives in New York--they stabbed her, they cut her--they killed so many Jews after the war. I'd like to go to Poland? They killed her not far from my hometown. Nah. Never. If you give me a ticket with a plane just to go in to stop off for a half an hour and get off from the plane and come back, I will never want to go. I would never want to step on, on the Polish soil.
What do you think about the Solidarity movement?
The--I don't know. That's, that's to me--I don't know what he is. He's a union man or he's not a union. He's a union man and Reagan supports the union over there and he breaks the union here. I don't understand it. If he's--if Reagan is so interested in Polish should have a strong union, so why he breaks the union here? The, the, the, the, the pilots, and the, the, the controllers, and the--every union, he--now is such a law, the, the high Supreme Court passed it that you, you declare bankruptcy or you, or you go to ??? you can break the contract then hire the same people. What Cunningham did with ???. That's Cunningham. Now it's ???, so what they do. Here they're breaking the union, over there they're building the union. I don't know. Maybe I'm not smart enough.
[interruption in interview]
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