Baruch Spergel - February 4, 2008
Returning to Czechoslovakia
So you've been back to Czechoslovakia?
BS: Hmm?
ZF: Not so long ago it was uh, we went separately, he went once, and we-I went with my husband once and once we went together.
What was that...
BS: Went together once.
What was that like going back?
ZF: I don't know. He was very excited-my husband was very excited going back but he didn't find the house where they lived because it didn't exist and that for him was terrible. It was sort of another-his father didn't survive the war; he was killed by the Germans and his mother survived very hard times and when he didn't find the house it was for him it was very, sort of-it's as though an anchor had been broken, something to hold him down to, something predictable. For me, I didn't have much me....didn't haven't such memories.
BS: She didn't remember much but I remember.
ZF: I was six in Prague, I was five in, in-I remembered more or less what the interior of the houses where we lived looked like because I'm an interior decorator it's uh, it's something, you know, in me to remember this but on the whole, not great-not many memories of the place ???.
BS: Reichenberg was a very pleasant city...
ZF: Yeah.
BS: ...as I remember it and uh, and on the whole it didn't change very much although the Communists were-did some-they spoiled the-a very nice square there, you know, they put a...
ZF: Huge warehouse.
BS: ...kind of market there in the middle of it. They spoiled it but it was a beau...nice-very lovely city. I, I was there-I saw myself again as a boy ??? the avenues and all the streets there and the forest. The forest was, was not very far away. Everywhere you go-if you go north or south there are forests.
So you have fond, you have fond memories of...
BS: Hmm?
You have fond memories.
ZF: He loved it, yes, he loved it ???
BS: If I had what?
Fond memories of that...
BS: A fine memory?
Fond memories.
BS: No, I wouldn't say so but I always forget things, by the way...
ZF: No, not that you have memory is fine but your memory of your, of your childhood is a good one.
BS: Good one, yes, a good memory of-my, my childhood was wonderful.
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