Judy Schreiber - February 1, 2013
Going Back To Prague
Mm-hm, Yes. Okay so, I guess um, liberation comes, these Russian soldiers with the watches.
Yes.
Um, what, you go back to Prague?
We went back to Prague and uh, we uh, moved uh, I don't know if we first moved back to our apartment, or not, I don't remember that. I just remember a little house that we lived in. Uh, and I remember going with my dad to the Altneushul.
Oh.
Which is very, in fact uh, later my parents told me that I was given my name there, when I was born.
Huh.
A really old shul old, old shul I remember the floor was ground...
Hm, really?
It was a ground floor, like earth.
Uh-huh.
I mean, it's uh, and I remember there being uh, disruptions, that once again, turned fearful. And that is that I remembered somehow my parents somehow being religious and then my dad not being so religious. And my fights with my mom and dad about Shabbos, and I, I just remember fear and anxiety. I think probably because our life was really changing, I was becoming more aware of it, but everything was anxiety.
Mm-hm.
Anxiety. And then we had to leave Prague and we were on a train going through Germany going towards England. My dad forced me to lie down and told me not to get up on this train bench because, I didn't know that at the time but later, he his some money under me. He, he had like $500.00 or whatever he had, several hundred. And they stopped the train, the Communists did, and they were checking and pulling certain people off already because the borders had been shut. We got out just in the nick of time, but again, I was fearful of being discovered.
Hm, yes.
I was going to be discovered somehow and uh, just, you know...
It's frightening
Coming to the United States, and I couldn't speak English and I started school.
Now why, how did you come, you went from England to the United States, uh?
We came, yes, we went to the United States. My memory is that when we, two memories I have of arriving here. One is we were in a cab after, no not in a cab, in a car. Maybe it was a cab, I don't know. Whoever arranged for my father and my mother and myself to come here to the United States, came to get us at the boat. And we got into either a cab or their car. And they wanted, I had always heard about bananas.
Uh-huh.
I had heard bananas, I couldn't picture a banana, I didn't know what a banana was, but I had heard that this was supposed to be some kind of something from God. They stopped and bought a banana and he gave me a banana, my dad, that the man that was driving them bought. And I, my dad peeled the banana, how I didn't realize it at the time, but apparently the banana must have been like green.
Oh.
And I bit into it and it was terrible tasting, and I thought [laughs] how could this be, I've been hearing about banana, I, you know, that was one shock.
Yeah.
My second shock was, I have a clear memory of the hotel that we stayed in.
Mm-hm.
Downstairs was, I didn't know, was a drug store, that was my first experience with drug stores, but it was a drug store. And they had an ice cream counter there. Like a, you know, like in the early '50s, soda pop counter, you could buy whatever. I did not know what that was, but I knew they sold ice cream. Could not speak English, but apparently I got some money and I went down there. In certain ways I was always an adventuresome kid...
[laughs]
Because I did not, you know what, I was never able to factor in consequences.
Uh-huh.
So I went in there and they must have had a long list of ice cream flavors, because I remember a lady saying to me what I thought, I, I didn't know for sure but I made it clear that I wanted ice cream, I pointed to it. There was a picture. And she must have read the flavors off.
Hm.
Because the next thing I remember was I, I didn't know, when we came here I knew the words yes, no and I could count to ten. Those were the three things I knew.
Hm.
She must have read off the flavors to me, because that's what makes sense to me. And I remember saying yes and them laughing, and I felt so humiliated and I didn't know why. 'Cause they were laughing...
Oh.
She was laughing at me and so, and it bothered me so much I never lost that memory. And in later years the way that I spoke about it to myself was I, maybe she read me all the those flavors off and I just said yes, and it struck them funny.
But everyone, everything...
Yeah.
Yes, sure.
And the next thing I remember is having a meltdown in the hotel that we lived in. I had some kind of a nervous breakdown; I don't know what it was.
Oh.
But my parents didn't know how to help me...
Uh-huh.
And I was freaked out. And I remember thinking I wanted to jump out the window.
Ay-yay-yay.
And we were way up somewhere and uh, I did ask my parents about that episode some years uh, into my teens or whenever. And my mother told me that I had a very high fever and I was sick. But all I remember it as, as not so much sick but fear.
Fear.
Fear, fear, fear unabashed, overblown terrifying fear. And that's the fear that came and went throughout my life.
???
Uh, it would attack...
Hm.
And it would sometimes short-term uh, I remember having it after uh, one of my children were born. I, I have two kids and, um...
Mm-hm.
Severe anxiety...
Anxiety.
Oh my god, and I, I mean, you know, I, I, I was like, I remember I lived in Oak Park at that time in a little house on Rosemary. And uh, I remember running out of my house, petrified, onto the porch. And I already, at that time, had two kids...
Hm.
But I was still overwhelmed with this fear that came and went.
Yeah, it's been, such an early age...
Yeah.
And it stayed.
It became a part of me.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And you know when I was about nineteen or eighteen or something like that, I don't remember how old I was, twenty maybe, I went into therapy for that. [laughs] And my, my typical, my typical luck, I found a psychiatrist in a phone book...
Oh.
I looked up a name. I knew I needed help because I had been reading for about eight years already, you know, psych books. And I thought, you know, my mind is what needs fixing. So I found a name and he was not too far from our house, he was located on Northwestern and Greenfield. And I went to him and told him, to make a long story short um, I was attractive when I was a young, and uh, I was married at that time and he um, he began making a play for me.
Oh.
And uh, I ended up having an affair with him.
Wow.
And he, hi...he was someone from Europe who was twenty years older than me but, he, he was an M.D. in Europe and he came here and became a psychiatrist. In order to pass state exams uh, he went into psychiatry, which he said required less time for him to get through then having to, whatever. And um, anyway, it turned out to be, you know, a major disaster and uh, he eventually killed himself.
He did.
Yeah, yeah, which was, that's another whole story. But...
Mm-hm.
But anyway, it's uh, my life because I didn't know how to regulate it, because I wasn't taught.
Mm-hm.
And because not only that, but my parents were not in a position to regulate their lives.
Mm-hm.
That was taken away from them, even if they could have, let's say they could have they couldn't have, because they were in a camp.
Right.
And so, that was passed on to me, so I didn't know, I did not understand, you know, that I had choices, that there were consequences, no. I just let things take me as they took me and uh, that ended up uh, eventually destroying my marriage and whatever. And then I, I had a eight year uh, relationship with him, during which I also began to uh, grow up.
Mm-hm.
And uh, but he had been my therapist for a long time, so that was not congruent to mental health.
No.
No.
No, no.
So it was a, you know...
[sighs] Yeah.
A lot of series of, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm thrilled that I, I feel like I retained a sense of humor and I'm able to laugh...
Mm-hm.
Now. And I, you know, I can be funny when I think back to it, you know, I'm grateful for that.
Yeah.
Because I really should have come out a, a very uh, probably disappointed, angry, sad old woman, which I don't exactly feel like. But that's after a whole lifetime of living.
Yeah. Let me ask you something mundane...
Yes.
Question.
Yes, yes, mundane is good.
Mundane is good, okay.
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