Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Irene Sobel - September 8, 1998

And when did you start to go to school?

Uh, when we came the second time around--wait. Uh, I tried to confuse both times. The first time we came, we came to Detroit. Second time around when we came to live permanently, we went to Cincinnati. I kind of tried to confuse a little the sequencing.

Cincinnati?

Cincinnati. This is where my then husband got a job with General Electric. Our first visit was in Detroit. He got a job and I enrolled, that first year I enrolled in the evening college and I had a tough time getting in because I didn't have my high school diploma. I left Poland a few months before completing high school and I didn't have the diploma. So I couldn't show them. I met with the dean...

Is this the University of Cincinnati?

University Cincinnati. I met with the dean of students and started, and rationalized that the only reason you want a diplo...a high school diploma is to judge that I'm capable of uh, grasping and learning college level education. I said, "Give me a trial. Give me a trial of one year. If I am not capable of doing, I will not proceed." They agreed. My English was very poor. Only that which I picked up in the streets over this uh, a year and a half.

They agreed to do this for you.

They agreed to do it for me. They took me into the evening college. And other than one English course that I stupidly took in the first semester, English literature in which I got a D, I was an A student. So, I had no difficulty in continuing--in getting my education.