Baruch Spergel - February 4, 2008
Family Life
So it was a large, upper middle class family do you think?
ZF: Not upper middle, we were borderline...
BS: I would say middle class.
ZF: We were very middle class but not upper middle class.
Up...middle, middle class.
ZF: Yeah. No, no it wasn't-I mean, they were very rich but the others weren't rich.
BS: He was a rich man but...
ZF: Again, the others were not rich.
BS: ...the others...
ZF: But they're really-I, I said if weren't for my uncle and my aunt none of us would've survived. We wouldn't have known how to, you know, you had to have a certain amount of money I suppose-you had to pay off all these and she was our sponsor. They were our sponsor. They sponsored all the family. It was her responsibility to take care of all these children. These were small-that's, that's what we looked like when we arrived-small children.
BS: They were extraordinary people and, uh...
ZF: So uh, they weren't many relatives like that so we really, really had a lot of luck in that, uh...
[interruption in interview]
...childhood now in Reichenberg...
ZF: Being in Reichenberg...
...before the war?
BS: In Reichenberg I was a very happy child. I had a happy, a happy uh, childhood. I went to a German...
[interruption in interview]
BS: ...and I can't remember Anti-Semitic, Anti-Semitic, uh...
ZF: Remarks?
BS: Remarks by anyone. I can't remember. Maybe there were but, but at that time maybe I didn't feel it. May...maybe I was, I don't know, too childish. And anyway, I was there 'til the-almost the age of fourteen and um, I found I had a very happy childhood because the, the area is very beautiful ??? near Reichenberg, the, the mountains around there. The, the-what's its name? The winters around very nice, you know, snow everywhere and you-we did a little winter sport and uh, uh, skating and skiing and things like that.
Did you have non-Jewish friends?
BS: Hmm?
Did you have non-Jewish friends?
BS: Non-Jewish friends there? Um, no. I, I-in school, yes. In school we had but not really friends, not really friends but in school we got along quite well.
Were you a soccer player?
BS: Hmm?
Were you a soccer player?
ZF: A football player.
BS: No.
No?
BS: No, I never, I never had no interest or wanted any, any football or anything like that. I wasn't, wasn't interested in it. I did a lot of reading. Especially there was a man named Karl May who you've probably may have heard of him who wrote books like that, you know, was sixty, sixty-four or something like this, about all many places about the Middle East, the Arabs, and, you know, adventures stories for the youth. Excellent. Anyway, everybody-every boy read Karl May even Hitler and ???.
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