Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982

Anti-Semitism

Was it a building set aside for Jews?

A building would be okay. Like, for instance, a building would be uh, almost on the outskirt of the town. Can you imagine in the wintertime having to walk? Uh, there was no public transportation provided for us. Walk in the bitter cold, almost at dawn to get there for eight o'clock or eight thirty in the morning. And clothing was at that time already very, very scarce. And, I mean, we're talking about--we're little children walking to school and this is a few miles.

So in other words your neighborhood schools were closed down. You were forced to go...

Wherever they...

...a distance.

....a distance. These schools would be divided, I would presume, part of the day for the Christian children...

Mm-hm.

...and part of the day for the Jewish children. But only because--they could have gone together, but they didn't want to mix the Jews and the Gentiles. So, therefore, neither got...

Separated.

...neither got the full extent of a decent education because they wanted separation.

Uh, what about the people in your neighborhood? You said you heard somebody calling you a dirty Jew.

This was all the time.

But this was even when the Czech were there?

E...well it was not that, that much, not that time. Because we lived mainly in, surrounded by quite a few Czech families. I remember it, well, a little bit later. Unless I remember it, you know like children, they will block out something that is distasteful to them or is hurting, and you don't even speak about it. I think at times probably even avoid listening or hearing it so you don't have to tell your parents. But as time went on and uh, it was known uh, through the war that the, the uh, atrocities against Jews in Poland.


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