Baruch Spergel - February 4, 2008
Family
How, how large was your family?
ZF: We were three uh, uh, two brothers and me. My eldest brother... Q:???
ZF: ...was ten years old-he is. Sure, he's alive.
BS: ???
ZF: He was ten years older than me and when he was born in twen...
BS: I am seven years older. It's not really obvious.
ZF: You are, but Moshe is ten years older.
BS: Mm-hm.
ZF: Moshe is ten years older, my eldest brother. He is my second brother, he's seven and a half years older and I was born in-so it's between '23 and '33, the years '23 and '33.
And aunts and uncles?
ZF: A lot, yes, there are.
Cousins?
ZF: Yes.
How large would you say the family was?
ZF: It was a clan. I've, I've brought two pictures for you here because I think it would be interesting for you to see this. I, of course, brought other pictures too but this especially. In Reichenberg where we lived-according to older-yeah, this is my aunt-this aunt and uncle.
BS: This is the sister of my mother.
ZF: Yes, she is-this is the sister of my mother. Now this family-this aunt and this uncle, they had a large factory where they produced wool and most of the family worked there. He-this man had six brothers-seven brothers. They were all together seven brothers.
BS: Seven brothers.
ZF: Yes, seven brothers. And my mother had two sisters. My-one sister was the wife of him-his wife.
And what're their names?
ZF: Their names are Erlich...
First name?
ZF: ...family Erlich...
First name?
ZF: First name Hinda and Avram Erlich. They were sort of they uh, oh, what were they called? The paternal parents of the whole clan, yeah? They, they had a, they had a nice villa there and the factory was in Reichenberg and they worked also with uh, with other countries, especially with England so they had connections to England and that's how we all ended-landed up uh, they were our sponsors in England.
I see.
ZF: They were our sponsors. We s...um, um, my eldest brother went to, went to Palestine because he was older. He went on one Kindertransport, I went on another Kindertransport and the children of these-of the brothers, they also came to England. So now this whole clan of children without the parents came to England and uh, my, my aunt and uncle, they did not stay 'til the end of the war. They went to America in the middle of the war and we were sort of spread out in all kinds of places: with, with an aunt, with uh, in a boarding school in uh, um, all kinds of places. It's a whole, whole story-each one separately. He has a different story to tell.
So, would you say...
ZF: That is the background that I wanted to give so you know that way.
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