Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982
Anti-Semitism
You mentioned a little earlier that uh, there was a lot of anti-Semitism in Poland.
A great deal.
Can you tell me some incidences that you know of?
Yeah, I tell you for myself. I, I was brought up, I was go...I knowed the, the prayers--the Polish--the Catholics--better than the Yiddish, because I was raised in, in--in myself, I, I couldn't, I couldn't express it before but I feel it--I felt when I was a young girl that I am like a downgraded class of people. I looked up to non-Jewish friends, you understand? You know, I felt it wasn't that--I felt that they all always--they were superior to me. And I don't know. No one told me this, but I--it was from, from, since I was born. And we heard a lot of Po...the Polacks--we're open, we're--we heard a lot about dirty Jew and all this. The best thing could happen when they came into our store--my older sister was a very pretty girl, and she was helping out around the store before she was married--said, "Oh, you don't look like a--you're too pretty for, for a Jewish one--for a Jewish girl." This was a compliment. This was the best. And shortly before the war, the anti-Semitism grew so badly, they were picketing the stores--the Jewish stores. I don't know if you remember, you probably won't. How could you? Piłsudski, Józef Piłsudski, the one who was, uh...
Husband: Uh, in '3...'38.
But I remember when he died, after he died...
Husband: Thirty-six.
...we had pickets in front of the stores, "Don't buy by Jew. Don't buy the Jew," that was all over in the main, bigger, bigger business.
Why were they picket...why, why, why were the stores being picketed?
Because the anti-Semitism grew. It was spreading, times were bad.
Who was this man that died? What was his...
Husband: The president. He...
The president of uh, Poland. And another took over. He was...
Husband: ???
He happened to be good for Jews, considering. You know, as long as the government is good, everything is good, everything--like the spine broke--he died, the whole body collapses. So that's why this was the...
What were you going to say?
Husband: Say why he was good.
This I don't know.
Husband: He was saved, he was saved by the Jews when...
He...
Husband: ...the World War uh, I, the Jews saved him.
They--I heard something...
Husband: Yeah.
...something good happened to him during World War I, which it, the, uh, so he tried to be fair. As long he was living it was not bad. Once he died--he died shortly before the war--it's like when the spine breaks the whole body collapses, and that's what happened.
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