Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Adele Sandel - [n.d.]

Life in the United States

And how did your husband get started again?

Here?

Yeah.

He went in all kinds of jobs in the beginning and, and we started--and my sister lived here and uh, our son was seven-years-old and there was no Yiddish because we came to Youngstown, Ohio, where my uncle lived. He sent papers and we came here. And, we didn't like it because Tommy, that's our son, who lives now in Toronto, he was already six-and-a-half, seven-years-old and there was absolutely no Yiddish guide so we came here and he went to the Yeshiva. Because of him we came here. So--and um, he, he had a job. My sister found him a job here in a textile store and he was uh, ten years working as a salesman in a textile store. Then, he, he became a partner in the store we have now, Zemco Textiles, downtown with Mr. Rubin. I don't know if you--oh, Agi. You know Agi Rubin?

Not really.

No?

I may know him by face. Oh, Mrs. Rubin?

Yeah

Oh, her husband?

Her husband and my husband are partners in this store and that's how we started.

Uh-huh.

Well, I would like to finish with a sentence or two for this country.

Okay.

But, yes?

Okay, go ahead. I may just have a few last questions but go ahead.

Okay. That we will be forever grateful for this country. How they behaved and do things--did they do things with us. The minute we came--next day when we came here my husband could go and work. We had friends who were a year or two years in France; they couldn't work--or in Switzerland. Here, you could--if you find a job--found a job, you could go and work. In five years we knew a few words English. This became the same city was like Regan and, and, and Nixon is. And, in the, in the thirty, thirty-one years I only have the nice experience and we will be always grateful that they gave us our second home. And, it's not because we have the, the--this is a small home and we are not, by far, not rich people. We are comfortable and not because of that I am so grateful because we worked hard for that material things what we have. But for the freedom that they made us um, people ag...into people and persons again. That, that we, we could--that we could stand up and be counted again. And, our son went to school here and we became like Menschen again. What should I tell you? But in return we tried to behave nice. We never gave this country any problems. We are fine citizens. We are um, we never had anything to do with the law. We keep our home and religion and children like nice and obe...obedient citizens [laughing].


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