Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993

Jewish-Gentile Relations

Were there many non-Jews in town?

Yes, there were. I say about twenty, thirty percent.

How did they react to you?

Well, they were used to--they knew all the stores. If you walked into our shul--into our city on Shabbos you'd think it's uh, it's uh, Tombstone, Arizona. So it was dead--everything. All the stores were locked. The city was closed up tight. Nothing moved.

Your father did business with non-Jews...

Yeah.

...did he have any trouble with them, you know, anti-Semitic?

Well, uh, I mean, it was uh, latent, but not overt, you know. I mean people would come to us and, and they knew us. We were an old-line family, and for generations they had come to buy clothing and yard goods, and my--our neighbors were Polish. We had a lot of Polish neighbors that uh, we were on good terms.

Did you play with the Polish kids?

No.


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn