Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Nathan Weiselman - January 1, 1985

Now I would like to say something about Las Cruces, to the town where I live.

All right.

If it's...The town what I, what I'm living, I think it's different kind of people. I really wouldn't never compare to the people who lived in, the Poles uh, the, the religious people in Poland. They were so anti-Semitic. And, and here, the people really are entirely different. They, I would say they respected me very much because mostly often people remember when I came here and opened the business. My business was in this three rooms just across ??? Catholic Church in ??? Street. And um, storekeepers, they gave me so much work that I could not make it in the time before the Mass, the clothing for everybody, so they, they told the store, the storekeeper said, manager told the customers, "When you go back from the Mass about one o'clock, my, my tailor will still be open and he probably's going to work and you see the lights and you knock on the door and you're going to get your clothing." And that's where I was when they came from the Mass and they knock on the door and I was still was working and, and, with my wife, which we worked really the, like I would say the last three months from the year, we worked for two, one, two o'clock every, every day 'til in the morning, two, one, one o'clock in the morning. My wife make the smaller alteration, I make the bigger and the new clothing. And when now I meet the people who are neighbors or customers they said to me, "Nate, I really admire you." And I think they see me that I'm very well off, and I think, they say, "You deserve every bit of it because nobody in this town worked as hard as you did, and we are so happy for you." And another thing that I like to say, once I had my store across the ??? and the city, the government decided to make room, to tear down a lots of old stores and make parking spaces and build new one. So, they picked my store. Then I was possible to, to keep my business because they, they were wondering, we will just tear down the whole building. After I applied for a loan to this, through this small business administration and I have a, they gave me, accepted a loan for $140, 000 to build for me a brand new store with five and three-eighths, the, to pay the de...the interest. When I look back, I could never think that in my hometown in Poland that any Jew who would be in the highest position would ever have the guts to apply to the government to get a government loan to start up, to start up again in business. And that's the reason I think it's a great thing to be thankful and appreciate America.