Baruch Spergel - February 4, 2008
Attending Czech School
Really?
BS:...and uh, Masaryk-the old Masaryk was apparently very, very clever man and very appreciated by the, by the people. I remember one teacher-it was already-the last year I did-I left the German school and went to a Czech school. It was the demands of the Czechs wanted the Jews to go to the Czech school so not, not, not speak German and not be too friendly with Germans but we're-our education was German and my-all, all the books I read were in German, you see, so to go one year to a Czech school it was hard for me to get adjusted, adjusted. And I found out at that, that in Czech school that they were more Anti-Semitic than any other in the previous one.
Really? In the Czech schools?
BS: In the Czech school.
What kinds of...
ZF: Because we were outsiders, we didn't know the language and that's a problem.
Oh...
ZF: I had to-I went to kindergarten. That's one of my-one of the few um, memories that I have. It's not the only one but it's one of the few. I was five years old and uh, maybe I was four-years-old in '38-no, five-years-old and my moth...I was also in the German kindergarten and my mother took me out of the German kindergarten and I still remember there was a fork there, you know, you went out onto the street and one went in this direction and the other one in this. Here is the German, here was the Czech-I don't remember which is which-but I just remember she took me in the direction of the Czech uh, kindergarten and I screamed all the way to the, to the kindergarten and this is a very vivid moment in my uh, in my memory because it was the last time that I could sort of decide something-try to decide something because after that there were no choices. We went to-it's, it's something that is very-I felt very deeply because I remember when-I don't want to go forward now. You finish...
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