Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nathan Weiselman - January 1, 1985

So, I told him, he asked me the question, "What do you need to open a tailor shop?" I said, "Oh, I need a, a machine, I need a ???, I need ???, I need tapes. I need, could use couple months rent, which I find a place. I could have my tailor shop in the front, it's about three rooms, in the back I could live and it cost me only fifty-five dollars a month, that would be just $110. And he said, "Okay, I will see that you have this all. So, but you have to go in the Jewish community center, it's going to be a meeting. Because I cannot give you the money of the provided because I'm the president, the board has to approve that." So, it was a meeting from the board, and I went to that same president from the Jewish community, Ed Reisen, and he have a big house and store. And I was waiting almost a whole day. It was a concrete floor in, in the front of the store. He was a kind, shy of, he didn't, he was going to kind of hurt my feeling, so he avoided me. And I didn't know why he avoids me, and I was waiting almost three quarter of the day. So finally he, he came out and he said, "Let's go to the people." It was across the street, a nice building. So, he went over there. And then he told me, "Nate, I'm sorry, you have to go to Adolf Schwartz, ???, and tell that you want back the job. The board decided not to help you with this matter because they have their reasons." I said, ask him, "What is their reasons?" He said, "They come to the conclusion that the average American would be more than happy to be a year only in this country and get sixty dollars a week and that's why you don't have reason to throw away your job ???," he said. But I ???. So, I told him, "I want to work for a future, and I don't think that sixty dollars a, a week, if my boy get sick, or my wife, or something happen to me, for five years, that I can able to support us. Because for five years I cannot go to the government, the, the, the community ???, or the government, the immigration office. I would not come to any relief, unemployment or what's ever, and I wanted to work for the future.