Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Baruch Spergel - February 4, 2008

Religious Education

Did you get a Jewish education of any sort?

BS: Hmm?

Did you get a Jewish education of any sort?

BS: Well, we learned Hebrew. That was...

You also?

BS:...in that synagogue.

ZF: Mm-hm.

You also learned Hebrew?

ZF: Me?

Yeah.

ZF: No.

No, okay, so you...

BS: Hmm?

...you learned Hebrew.

ZF: No, no I was much smaller than he was.

BS: ??? she was too young. But we learned-me and my brother we learned Hebrew...

ZF: He was fourteen and I was five.

BS:...and there was teachers, teachers there-Jewish teachers and they instructed us-they gave us Hebrew-the basics of Hebrew and we also read the, the Torah-the, the five books of Moses.

So was this a separate school you went to?

BS: Hmm? No, no separate school. We went...

ZF: Sort of Sunday school.

BS: Sunday school with a separate teacher I guess.

You had a Bar Mitzvah.

BS: Huh?

You had a Bar Mitzvah.

BS: Bar Mitzva, I had a Bar Mitzvah, yes, but my Bar Mitzvah was already spoiled by-there were um, how do you call it? Um, there were...

ZF: What?

BS: What?

ZF: No, what ???

BS: There were-the Germans started-the Sudetendeutsche...

ZF: Yeah.

BS: ...had-already starting to...

ZF: Propaganda.

BS: What?

ZF: Propaganda.

BS: Propaganda, no, no propaganda. It was the-they called it, you know, this uh, march ???...

ZF: Uh, they marched down the streets, you know, and sort of, uh...

Before the inclusion.

BS: Yes, and...

ZF: Before the annexation.

BS:...they-there were Nazism. Not all Germans were Nazis. There were quite a few Germans who were Communists right but uh, there were Germans who were Nazis who did-wanted to be part of Germany, yes? They demanded it. They-but the-my Bar Mitzvah was, ???, I was born in '25 and my Bar...Bar Mitzvah was in '48...

Thirty-eight.

ZF: Thirty-eight.

BS: Thirty-eight, yes and in '48 they are-they were making Shabbos. The Germans started to...

ZF: Not, not '48, yeah?

BS: Huh?

ZF: Not '48...

BS: That's right...

ZF: Thirty-eight.

BS:...thirty-eight. Sorry. So, uh...


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