DANA SZEFLAN-BELL ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is August 4th, 2011. I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Dana Szeflan-Bell and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Dana, do I have your permission to record this interview?

DANA SZEFLAN-BELL: Yes, you do.

CW: Thanks. So, can you tell me briefly about what you know about your family background, as far back as you know?

DSB: Sure. My family all came from Poland. They lived there for, for all I know, for a century. My father came from a city called Siedlce, which was close to 1:00Warsaw. My father's family was a prominent family in their city. His grandfather, my great-grandfather, Itzhak Szeflan, studied to be a rabbi. But then, he changed and he went to medical school and he became a doctor. And he built the newest synagogue in their city. And people that knew him told me things that he -- what a wonderful man he was. If people needed a bar mitzvah for a son and they couldn't afford it, he would supply it. A wedding, a bris, anything. Students would come from different cities, they could sleep over there, they would -- yeshiva bochers [yeshiva students]. He was a very special man. Apparently, he was very tall and he had red hair and a red beard. And my 2:00father said nobody knew him as his name. They always used to say, Ah, there goes Itzhak Szeflan's grandson. (laughs) And my father was very proud of him. My father's father, my grandfather -- it's very appropriate for this -- had a bookstore. He supplied all the schools with books. He was one of these learned people and loved books. And he was very involved in the book business. There are a lot of doctors in the family and, of course, my grandfather wanted my father to become a doctor and my father became a pharmacist, which wasn't so terrific but still an accomplishment in those days, because it was very hard for Jewish people to become professionals. In Poland, if you wanted to become a 3:00professional, a doctor, your marks had to be fifty percent higher than Christian people's marks. So, I always say -- people say to me, How come Jews are so smart? I says, "Because the Christians made them so smart." (laughs) It's the nature of the beast. I said, "We had to be smarter to graduate. We had to be smarter to survive. So, we became smarter." So, that's sort of -- my grandmother, my father's mother was beautiful. You'll see a picture. You'll see pictures of them. They were beautiful people. They were religious but not overly religious. It was just a beautiful family. My father had a sister and she was studying law. And it was just -- apparently, my grandfather's home -- holidays, people were invited from all over. They used to come and sleep over for two, three days. And the holidays were really a big deal. My mother's side of the family, my mother was born in Węgrów. It's also a town close to Warsaw. And my mother's mother and father were very observant. My grandfather on that side was in the fur business. He was partners with his uncle, I think, and was called [Grosabel?] Furs and they were known all over Europe. Very big fur business. And he was a very, very kind -- they called him a tsadik [righteous person], which is -- you know what that means. They said he was a tsadik. Friday, he would take a wagon with food, boxes of food, and distribute them all over the town for the people that didn't have. That was his Friday ritual. And my grandmother had a fabric store, which I only found out lately -- I don't know, I always loved fabrics and I used to design clothes. So, I guess the genes were there. And my grandmother's maiden name was Pasmanter, which is an Italian word, "passamaneria," which is "trimmings." So, I guess she came -- her background must have been Italian, somewhere along the line. My mother had two sisters. Her middle sisters -- my mother's name was Genia and her middle sister's name was Hella and her little sister's name was -- oh my God, Niusia. 5:00 4:00And the middle sister -- they were all educated, they all played piano. It was very important in that society to play piano. It showed that you had status. And they were a wonderful family. They led a regular life. Children went to school like any family here. I mean, it was no different. Of course, the holidays were -- they were very observant. And my parents never talked about the Holocaust, but they always talked about the good times before the war.

CW: Were there particular stories that they loved telling?

DSB: Yeah, there were stories. They said the camaraderie, the friendships were so strong. They would go out -- my father used an expression. He used to say, "It was a party going to the party." (laughs) He said, "Just going to the party was a party." They went to resorts, to dachas. They led a beautiful life. Played tennis, rode bicycles. A lot of ideas when we came to Canada, of Canadian people thinking that every refugee, everybody that came came from a little town and 7:00knew nothing. Only read the Bible. But you know, my parents were very sophisticated. They traveled. Well, when you see the pictures, just the way they dressed, they were very, very sophisticated people. As a matter of fact, when we came to Montreal, my mother looked around and she said, "Oh my God, you poor child. You're going to be brought up in this village." Now, the people that lived in Montreal thought that we were the (laughs) poor souls that are finally seeing something that we never saw in our lives. So, there were a lot of stories, a lot of stories that had stories that had stories.

CW: Do you have any favorites?

DSB: Well, there's a little story my father told me. It was before the Rosh Hashanah holiday and my grandmother, she had a maid working there and they would make preserves for the holidays and they would keep them in the attic. And my 8:00father snuck up there. I think he was like eight years old, and he ate like three jars of preserves. His mother caught him and he said he was sick for about two weeks. (laughs) Little story, but just shows you a little vignette of what went on, everyday life. Children going to school, mothers cooking, no different than anywhere else. They had a beautiful life. And then, the war broke out. Before that, I was the first grandchild. My parents were married and they waited five years to have a child because they were busy traveling and doing things. So, when I was born, it was like a big, big deal. And they had a big party and people came from everywhere. And my mother said it was like, an event. My mother 9:00said I was a beautiful baby, I was always smiling, and my grandparents just adored me and it was wonderful. I was a year old, the war broke out, and everything crashed. The world crashed for us. And here were people, innocent people, good people doing only good for others -- and rounded up, put into ghettos, were starving. Horror. If anyone could imagine a horror -- even in the films, they cannot capture what really happened because you had to be there to feel it. My father, just before Hitler attacked Warsaw, 'cause we were living in Warsaw, he just had the feeling he had to get out of Warsaw. He says, "I think 10:00if Hitler is going to attack, he's gonna attack Warsaw first." And he told the family, "We should get out of Warsaw." And the family said, How bad is it gonna be? 'Cause the First World War, it was Germans, too. But they didn't bother with the Jews, they didn't hurt the Jews, so the people thought, It's onna be a war, we're gonna live through it and we'll go on with our lives. I mean, who could have imagined such a beastly horror? So, my father made my mother pack up and my mother sewed all these pictures that I have in her coat lining. To her, the pictures were very important. And she sewed her jewelry into her lining and they went to my father's city, Siedlce, where they rented a little house outside of 11:00the city. But then, the Germans started attacking Siedlce and my parents said that they pt me in a carriage and they were running with me and the bombs were falling and we were just fortunate that the bomb didn't hit us. And we made it to a train station. I'm shortening it because otherwise you're going to be here for a week. We made it to a train station and I was still dressed -- my grandfather made me this little white fur coat with a white fur hat, so we were still dressed beautifully. And the train station was chaotic. You could imagine, everybody's trying to get out. So, my mother was sitting with me and my father went to get tickets. Anyway, a half hour went by, my father wasn't back, my mother was getting worried, and the woman that was sitting next to her, she said, "Look, why don't you go look for your husband? I'll take care of your little girl." So, my mother said, "Fine." She went, she found my father, they 12:00came back, I was gone. I was gone. Panic. Anyway, they started running in the streets and now it was getting dark. And one street that they were going through, they heard a baby crying. And my mother said, "That's Danusia," because that was -- the name my parents called me, Danusia. So, they ran up the stairs to whatever building it was and my father broke down the door and there was this woman that was sitting next to my mother, holding me. And they said, Why did you do this? And she said, "Look, I know you're Jewish. I know you're not gonna make it through the war. And I could never have children and I felt that I'm saving this child's life. Well, you can imagine. Anyway, they grabbed me and from then on, they were really very nervous. You could imagine. Anyway, this train, they 13:00started going towards Bialystok, which was on the border of Russia, because my mother had family there. So, they paid off farmers and Polish farmers were hiding us and it was a long trek with being hidden and going on horse and buggies and whatever. We finally got to Bialystok. My mother was in touch with her middle sister and her husband and convinced them to come to meet us where we were. And they came. But my mother's sister became very lonesome. She just couldn't take it and they went back. Now, my mother was starting to get real lonesome and she started really bugging my father. And I got sick, I got -- I don't know what I had, but it was bad. I had fever and we couldn't leave. And my father always said I saved their life, because after that, you couldn't leave. 14:00Then, the Germans made a deal with the Polish government. Yeah, that if the Polish -- let me get it right. Yeah, if the Russians -- not with the Polish government, that's a mistake. The Russians made a deal with the Germans. Now, the Germans said if the Russians would feed their soldiers, they could have a part of Poland. And that part of Poland was where we were. Became Russia. So, there's a name for it. Something Ribinkoff [sic] whatever. I don't remember the name of the deal that they made. So now, we were in Russia. The Russians started rounding up all the Polish people and sending them off, usually to Asia, to the Russian part of Asia. But the people that didn't want to become Russian citizens 15:00-- (clears throat) sorry. They felt that they were being traitors. My father didn't want to become a Russian citizen. So, we were shipped off to a forced labor camp in northern Russia, which was very, very bad conditions.

CW: And how old were you at this point?

DSB: Now I was about two-and-a-half. The labor camp was like, woods. Men had to chop trees down. Now, these people, they came from -- like my father, he was a pharmacist. They knew nothing about hard labor. So, a lot of people got killed when the trees fell. And as a matter of fact, one day my father, a branch of a tree hit him and we thought he was gonna die. But he survived. My father smuggled a lot of medication when he came. It was horrible. I mean, here we are. 16:00We were used to a life like we are used to here and we're put into this camp. And my father told me that when they got there, the nachalniks, the guards said, You better get used to this because here you're gonna live and here you're gonna die. There's no way out for you from here.

CW: And where were you living? I mean, was there an area --

DSB: A barracks, like a prison camp. We were in barracks, we slept on the floor. In the summer -- they have a short summer. They call it white nights because the sun shines, I don't know, eighteen hours a day. But the winters were brutal. There was freezing. We didn't have the right clothing. They gave us these 17:00fufaikas, they called them. They were little jackets, quilted jackets. Our feet were covered with rags. And a lot of people died. There was malaria, there was typhoid, there were lice, there were rats. And the food, you only got food once a day, like a rotten piece of bread and a soup that was mostly water with potato skins. Really, when I think about it, I don't know how people really survived because they worked a whole day, hard labor, on this meager meal. And there was so much sickness, a lot of people just gave up. They had nothing to live for. You take away hope from people, they have nothing to live for. So, a lot of people just said, Who needs this? And they really died because of that. My 18:00parents had me. That's why they survived. And it was bad. (laughs)

CW: So, did you find this out through their stories or through research?

DSB: I found most of it out through their stories. They even said the train going to the camp was like a cattle train and a lot of people -- there was no sanitation. You had to go to the bathroom, you just went there. It was horrible. And when we went, it was summer, so it was very, very hot and the odors were terrible. People were dying in the cars and they stayed dead until they stopped somewhere and they threw the bodies off. It was like somebody's nightmare. How 19:00could people believe it? I know there are so many deniers, and in a way, I understand it. They can't believe it. They can't believe it. How could this have happened? But, of course, those deniers, why don't they go and look at the camps? I never understood people that could deny the Holocaust. So, I think we were there for sixteen months, something like that. And then, the Russians made a deal with the Polish government. That's when they made a deal with the Polish government to have all the people from Poland that were in Russia, all the men -- because that's when the war broke out between Germany and Russia, so they needed people to fight. So, they made this deal that they would open up all the camps, they would let the people out, and they would have to be in the army, 20:00fight the Germans. Luckily, they didn't want to take Jews. So, it was lucky for my father. And we were let out of the camp. We have nothing. We have no money, we have no food, we have no clothes, and nobody was there to help us. And we started going through the woods. And we ate anything we could find in the woods. And we made our way slowly through towns. The Russian people, by the way, were very good to us. Not the government, but the people, because the people were poor and they understood what pain was and what poverty was. And really, they would share anything they had with you. So, we had a very good experience, except for a few incidents which you could have anywhere. The Russian people were very good to us. And we trekked, mostly on foot. I remember my father 21:00carrying me on his back, and I remember we came to a town. I don't know if it was Leningrad, I don't really know where it was. A big city. And there was a big picture of Stalin holding his daughter on his knee and she was wearing black patent leather shoes. And I said to my mother, "What's wrong with that little girl's feet?" And she said, "What do you mean?" I said, "What does she have on her feet? Those black things?" She says, "Those are shoes." (laughs) I didn't know, 'cause I had rags on my feet. And it was a long trek, in between -- yeah.

CW: What was your first memory?

DSB: My first memory, it was in the camp. I remember. I have windows of remembrance. I remember that my mother was a very elegant lady. And the man that ran the camp, the head officer, he sort of -- they became friends and she would 22:00fix things for him and just it was -- so, I remember he gave me a blanket once, it was bigger than me. I remember it like today, walking with that blanket, trying to manipulate it to get it into our place. He also let us have two goats. We used to keep them in our room and wherever we were because we were afraid somebody'd steal them. So, we would sleep, my parents, me, and the goats. And I remember one day, the goat, one of the goats ran towards me, she took me on her horns, and she was running off with me. Terrified. So, I have these little memories of -- I remember my father one day, my father and a few men brought back three cubs, bear cubs, because the tree killed the mother. And we had a cub. It was called Misha. He was so cute. But eventually, we had to let him go. 23:00He started to grow. So, I have these memories, as a child would -- remember things that were childish.

CW: Were there any other children there?

DSB: Yes. Yes, there were. A lot of children died, 'cause there was malaria and typhoid and no medication and no food. Lot of children died. As a matter of fact, I'm in touch with a girl, Olga Trepina is her name. In where we were in the camp -- she lives in the town. It's called Vologodskaya Oblast. Now they call it Vologda. I researched it on the internet to get my deportation papers. So, I'm very friendly with her. I was very lucky because she was an exchange teacher. In Vermont, she taught English, so she speaks a perfect English. And she told me that in these camps -- she says, "I'm surprised you survived." Most 24:00of the babies didn't make it because of malnutrition and sickness and -- so, that's when I started remembering. When I was three years old, I remember, as I say, spots. So, now we're trekking through towns and cities, getting lifts with buggies and wagons and trucks. Oh yeah, and then, my mother and father get typhoid. And we were living in this hut. They have these huts that were built from mud and straw and that's the way people lived. So, we were living in one. There were people next to us living in one. And both my parents got typhoid. They were taken away. The people -- this is my worst memory of the war. First of 25:00all, that I was left alone. The people next door took me in and they tortured me. They were nuts. And they were Jewish people, but they were totally nuts. How should I say it? Mental illness isn't only for other people. Jewish people have it, too. These people were insane. They undressed me completely. I was only in my little panties. They tied me down to the floor with a rope around my neck and that's how I would lie there. And if I made a peep or anything, they would kick me and hit me. I mean, they were monsters. I used to chew on the rope at night and one day, one night, it broke. And I thought, I'm gonna run, but I couldn't even walk. I was so weak. I guess if I was there another week, I would be dead. 26:00So, I crawled and I kept crawling, crawling. This was very early in the morning. It was like three, four o'clock in the morning. And I kept crawling, crawling, and somewhere, I just sat down because I was totally exhausted. And this was, I guess, around six in the morning 'cause the sun started to come up. And there was a troop of soldiers. Life is serendipity. It's all coincidences. There's a troop of soldiers marching and one of the men started to yell, "Danusia!" My name! And he came over and he asked me, "Where is your mother? Where is your father?" And I could hardly talk, I was just crying. And he asked the commandant if he could take the day off and he could place me somewhere. And he got the day off. This was a friend of my father's. His name was Stacek. So, he took me to a 27:00market, he washed me, and he bought me a little smock. And he carried me all the time. And then, he bought -- there was a bread that they made in Asia, it was called "lepyoshka." It's like the Indian naan. Actually, they bake it the same way, in those round ovens. So, he bought one and he fed me little drops at a time because he was afraid if I would eat it fast -- people died from that, when they were starving and then they started eating very quickly, they died.

CW: So, you were at this point in the Asian part of Russia?

DSB: In the Asian part, already. Not our destination, but almost there. And he placed me in an orphanage. I always used to think it was a Christian orphanage, but after speaking to Olga, she said it must have been a Russian Orthodox orphanage, which was a very similar religion. So, they placed me there. When I 28:00came there, they shaved my hair because of lice. And there were a lot of children there and we slept sort of on boards. There were boards. The nuns were very good to us but there was no food. It was war. And I remember they put a wooden cross on me. And I remember, because they must have known that I was Jewish. And we used to climb these stairs up to -- it was a statue of Mary with Jesus, as a baby. And we used to pray there. And I always prayed that my parents would find me. And I always used to, "Please, please, please" at night. I knew nothing about religion. We never talked about religion. I didn't know what I was. So, this went on day after day. I remember Christmas, each child got a 29:00grape. One grape. And we used to peel it slowly so it should last for a long time. (laughs) I was so starving and so malnutritious (sic) -- and when you see those pictures of children in Biafra, you know their eyes are popping out? The skeletal -- was showing. My intestine was out. I was really in bad shape. And when we used to play, we used to play in this big, big yard and the gates were made out of those trees, those white little trees. They're very thin.

CW: Birch trees?

DSB: Birch, maybe. They're white and they're thin. So, the gate was made so there were spaces in between. And one day, we were in the yard playing and I see this eye of a person and I start to yell, "Mama!" I knew it was my mother. She 30:00would have never recognized me 'cause she left a child that looked pretty okay and here I was, totally skeletal. Anyway, it was a fabulous reunion, you could imagine, and --

CW: How did they know you were there? Did they --

DSB: They didn't. They checked every orphanage, every hospital. They were searching for me for, I don't know, months maybe. But they checked every morgue and this was one of the orphanages that my mother was checking. I mean, if you see it in a movie, you would think, Oh, yeah, it's a made-up story. But it was true. And, of course, my mother took me -- and she had a wagon waiting and she took me in the wagon and we sang Russian songs. And I couldn't believe it, that I was back with my mother. And of course, then, when I was reunited with my father, too, it was my best memory of the war. So, of course, they took me home, 31:00my mother made me -- my mother was fantastic. She could make something out of anything. She had this potato sack. She washed it, she made me a little dress. She embroidered it. And I started to look okay. Finally, we were in a kolkhoz [Russian: collective farm]. A kolkhoz is like they have in Israel, the -- my brain. The kibbutzes. It was like a kibbutz. So, all the refugees that came, they put them into these kolkhozes and we lived there for a while. Things got much better because the weather was good. It was good, but it was very hot. Very hot. And there were those trees that had tutovnik. Tutovnik is a mulberry, a white mulberry. So, I would climb up the tree and shake the tree and my mother would get the tutovnik. And they also, the natives, they made this milk. It's 32:00called kefir, which they have here now. You can buy it here. So, you would have this tutovnik with a kefir, it was heaven. (laughs) And we started to eat. We started to have real food. Bread and rolls and things like that. Both my parents worked. My father worked in a leather factory that made shoes. He did the leathers because he had -- he knew about fur and my mother sewed. And we kept moving from town to town. We never stayed.

CW: So, who organized these --

DSB: The kolkhozes?

CW: -- kolkhozes.

DSB: I guess it was the Russian government. I don't really know, but I'm sure that's what it was 'cause they were -- it was Russia. Now it's not Russia anymore. But at the time, it was Russia. It was the Russian part of Asia. And most of the people that lived there were Muslims. And everybody got along. There 33:00were incidents but -- well, one day, my father went to buy bread and a bunch of these Muslim hooligans caught him and they tied him to a well, this way, with a rope. So, when they would cut the rope, he would fall into the well. And they had these sticks and they were walking around hitting my father. And somebody came running to tell my mother and I. And we went running there and there were fifty, sixty people standing around, doing nothing. Even the policemen wouldn't do anything. So, how much is a Jew's life worth? Big deal. My father somehow tore himself loose. He was bleeding from his nose, from his ears. He jumped over this fence and he disappeared. We didn't see him for days. We didn't know if he died or he -- finally, he showed up, and that was one of those terrible experiences that could happen anywhere in the world. Happens in the United 34:00States, it happens in Canada, happens everywhere. But it was horrible, especially for me. My father was my everything. And there were all kinds of incidents. Then, I got typhoid. And typhoid -- oh, before this, before this, before this, my father contracted hoof and mouth disease. And he was hospitalized. They didn't really have the proper medicine. And somehow, it was in his eye here and it was traveling. And the doctor told my mother that, "It's traveling to his heart and he's -- maybe in a month. He has a month or so to live." My mother said, "Well, what does he need?" And he told her they need penicillin. My mother took it upon herself. She left me with a close friend and 35:00she took it upon herself to go -- I think it was to Moscow. Anyway, it was some big city. She said, "I'm gonna try and get this medication." Now, she had no money, nothing. But my mother always looked good. She gets on the train and on the train, there are all these officers, the NKVD officers sitting in the back of the train. So, she went there and she sat near one of the officers. He offered her a cigarette. When the ticket man came for tickets, he saw that she was sitting with them, he figured she was with them, which -- she wanted that. And finally, she said to herself, "I'm gonna confide in this man. What do I have to lose?" And she told him the story about my father and he was very empathetic. And he said, "Look, I'm gonna give you a note to a doctor. You're gonna go and see him in the hospital and you're gonna get the medication. I will also give 36:00you a note to get some sugar and -- I don't know -- flour." That was like gold during the war. Better than gold. Food was so scarce. Anyway, my mother was -- you can imagine. She blessed him and blessed him and blessed him and she went to this hospital and she got the medication. Then, she went and got the flour and the sugar and she had money -- he gave her money to buy tickets to go back. She said the man was like a saint. Anyway, so, in every religion, there's good and bad. (laughs) We're all human beings, we're all the same. My religion is, good people are religious, bad people are not. That's it. You don't need more than that. So, when she came to the hospital where we were, they told her that my 37:00father was already -- it's not gonna save him. He was lying with all the corpses in that room. My mother said, "Oh, no," she said. "You're gonna inject him with this and you're gonna try your best anyway." He survived. But they had to remove the lid of his eye and he always slept with one eye open because he didn't have that lid. So, that was one of the stories during the war. Then, I got typhoid and I was very sick. It was the "bryushnoy tif," as they called it. The stomach typhoid, which was the worst. I was delirious, I didn't recognize my parents. And they used to give me these mustard plasters on my back. They were so painful. They used to have to have like three men hold me down to put those things on me, 'cause they put them --

CW: And what were they?

DSB: They're mustard plasters. They put them on your back, they glue on, and then they rip it off. Very painful. And they gave me these injections in here, 38:00they were like this. This side of my buttocks is so tight (laughs) you can't believe it. It's like I had plastic surgery yesterday. One benefit. (laughs) My mother kept getting malaria, my father kept -- lots of things like that went on. But there were also lots of good things. We moved into this town. I think it was Samarkand, I'm not sure. And there was a woman that was a dress-maker and she was making uniforms for the NKVD. My mother was a fantastic seamstress, and she found out about my mother and she asked my mother if she could come and help her. So, we moved in with them. There were two rooms. There was the living room and the bedroom that they slept in and at night we slept in the living room. And my mother started making money and we lived in this -- it was like a courtyard 39:00with a lot of -- that I remember very well. Now I remember everything. Courtyard with -- it was almost like a condo. (laughs) People were living upstairs, downstairs, people were screaming at each other, yelling at each -- but, in the evening, there was a communal dinner. And they used to make this -- they also had lambs there that they used to slaughter. I couldn't eat lamb for years. But they would use the lamb and they made this -- they called it "plov." It's like pilaf. Plov, which was made with lamb and rice and it was delicious. And you ate with your two fingers. No cutlery. And everybody would sit around this big hole that had a samovar in the middle with fire and you put your feet in there and everybody got a bowl of this food. It was very nice, actually. It was very communal. And people liked each other. It was a good time, I remember. And my 40:00mother met this woman, she was a doctor. And she had a son, his name was Garik. He was my age and I madly fell in love with this boy and he with me. We said, We're gonna get married. And the mother, the doctor, she used to get the wagon on the Sundays. It was the wagon that used to carry the dead people to funerals. But she used to take us on the wagon. We had such a good time. She taught us to tell the difference between poisonous mushrooms and good mushrooms. And it was a very nice time in my life that I remember.

CW: And how long were you there?

DSB: I guess -- who knows?

CW: A while.

DSB: I was a child. Time didn't mean anything to me. But then, we moved again and we were in another town. There were these towns, Samarkand, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. To me, they're all like, mish-mashed together. So, this 41:00town we lived in, we got this hut and on top of the hut was a boa constrictor snake. And my mother said, "Oh my" -- and the natives that lived there, they said, No, no, don't worry. It's good luck. That snake has been there. It never harms anyone. Don't worry about it. So, we lived there with a snake on top of the roof. (laughs) And across the street was a silk factory. Silk worms. And I ventured in there and the man was very nice and he explained the whole process of how the cocoons and how this silk is made. And he gave me a few of the worms and I had them in our hut and it was a learning process. And there were a lot of things -- I had nice friends, I met people. It was already a lifestyle that you could deal with. There was food, we had eggs, and we started to look good. We 42:00started to look like human beings. So, that was sort of the life. It went on like this. We kept moving. Every time my parents didn't have work, they had to move somewhere else to get work. It was primitive. My mother would bathe me in the lake and they would wash their clothes. Everybody was in the lake. The women, the Uzbek women were beautiful. They had beautiful black silk hair, which are done in little, little braids. And their hair would shine. They used to wash their hair with the kefir. Amazing. I should try it -- no. (laughs) So, there were other things. There were a lot of things, everyday things that happened, didn't happen. But mainly, this was the life there. Then, the war ended. Oh 43:00yeah, my mother also, when she was working in one town, she enlisted me in a nursery, like a real school. I loved it. We sang songs, they had toys there like teddy bears. And it was like heaven. But, of course, eventually we moved from there, too. (laughs) But towards the end, our lives weren't in danger anymore and we were living a pretty -- as normal life as you can imagine. But the war was on, so there was lack of food, lack of everything. It wasn't only us. It was all the Russian people that were suffering. So, we were all in the same boat. Then, the war ended and, of course, everybody was dancing in the streets and was joyous and happy. And of course, nobody knew what to expect when they got back. 44:00And they had trains waiting for us if we wanted to go back to Poland. And my mother dried up a lot of bread. She thought there wouldn't be any food. They call it [Russian - 00:44:11], which is like the melba toast, when it gets dry. And she had two big bags full of it that we took on the train. And on the train, the train we were on, the cabin -- what do you call it? The --

CW: Car?

DSB: The car we were in were a lot of teenagers, orphans that lost their parents during the war. And they were singing songs and I thought, Oh my God, they're so hip. I was this little girl and they really impressed me.

CW: 'Cause you were about seven or eight then or younger?

DSB: No, I was just seven.

CW: Seven?

DSB: Seven. And I remember my mother bought me a hand-knitted sweater in one of the stops. It was beautiful. But then, when we got off the train, I forgot it. And not a good memory. (laughs) I wasn't used to having clothes, extra clothes. 45:00So, I never thought that I had a sweater or had anything. When we got off the train in Poland in this town, which I wrote down in my book but I don't remember the name, there were people selling white rolls and white bread. (laughs) I never tasted that. It was like pure heaven! (laughs) My mother bought me rolls. Oh, my God! In this town, it was almost like a ghost town because the Germans that lived there fled when the Russians came in. So, the homes were left as is. And we got this huge home with a whole -- there was a whole floor with even the toys. It's just like when we fled Poland and left everything, that's how the Germans fled this town because of the Russians. Thank God of the Russians, 46:00otherwise I wouldn't be here. They were the only ones that'd let us in during the war. Every country rejected us. The United States, everywhere. You know the story, how they sent back -- that "St. Louis," that boat full of people, back -- anyway, it's a whole --

CW: But your parents were trying to get out to other countries during -- I mean --

DSB: My parents, at first, when the war broke out, I found out that my father tried to go to Germany because in Germany, he felt he would blend in and work on a farm. They needed workers on farms in Germany. But they refused him, so he never made it there. But now, we were in Poland, back in Poland. We had this house, everything seemed great. There was a salami factory in this house. My father learned how to make salami. (laughs) Then, we were invited to a wedding, a Jewish wedding. And when the bride and groom came out, the groom was shot. The 47:00Polish people were still very anti-Semitic. They were very anti-Semitic. So, my father realized -- he was sleeping with a gun under his pillow and he said, "We can't be here." I found out through research from a man in Poland that I was registered in a school there, in grade one, for a little while while we were there. So, my father smuggled us across the border to Austria. In Austria, they had DP camps. So, we were placed in the DP camp. I don't know, I guess it was either the Jewish organization or the Red Cross. I don't know who did it. And we were put in a camp. The name was Steyr. The town was called Steyr. It was near Vienna and it used to be like a concentration camp. We found out that they 48:00killed a lot of Hungarian Jews there before. And here, too, we lived in barracks. But it was almost like a small town. And my barrack where I lived, I became very friendly with my girlfriend. Her name was Niusia. It's Anne in English. We're still friends now. She lives in Montreal. And there were a lot of children. We'd play together, we had birthday parties, it was --

CW: And this is when you found out you were Jewish for sort of --

DSB: Yes. And then, my mother wanted to register me in the school and the only school they had there was a religious Jewish school. And this is when my mother told me that I was Jewish. I said, "I don't want to be Jewish. Jews are bad." 49:00And that's what I learned. And my mother sat me down and she told me a bit of the story. But the worst thing, I didn't tell you, is when my parents came back to Poland and they found out that their whole family was gone. Nobody expected that. And they started finding out how they were gone: concentration camps and ovens, tortured. So, this was a devastation for my parents. So, now we were in the DP camp. We tried to rebuild our lives. The people there, a lot of people were very -- don't forget, there was nobody helping them. Here, in Canada, you have a little bit of problem, go to a psychiatrist. I mean, there, nobody was helping them get over this terrible trauma. What do they call it, postwar trauma or something? And once, a man was running in the streets naked. They were 50:00damaged. Now, in this camp, the Germans were still -- Austrians, Germans, no difference -- they still were anti-Semitic, very anti-Semitic, and they were putting booby-trapped toys into the camps. And we were warned, every day, almost, do not pick anything up on the ground. Doesn't matter how good it looks; do not pick it up. And one day, it was like Friday and all the mothers were making dinner for Shabbat. We heard this explosion. Apparently, this little girl, she picked up this clock and she wanted to open it or something and her body exploded in pieces. You can just imagine the mother. They lived through the 51:00whole war and this happened now. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. So, there were still bad things happening. The war wasn't over for the Jews. We were still Jews, which -- I still don't know what that means. And we were in the DP camp for two years. We had family in New York. My father had two aunts and an uncle that went to New York before the war, who -- my grandfather paid for their tickets to go there. They didn't want to bring us over. They didn't want the responsibility. Till today, I can't understand it because there were strangers that brought people over. So, my father was devastated. We were the only survivors from this huge family. So, these friends -- Anne's parents became very 52:00close friends with my parents and we would call each other cousins. You know, we had no family. They eventually lend us the hundred dollars for the visa. But before that, my mother got pregnant. We all lived in little rooms. The room was nothing. My father went out and he bought white paint and he bought a roller that had flowers on it and blue paint and he painted the room white and then he did the roller with the blue flowers. I thought it was the most gorgeous place in the world. And there were so many stories there. My mother loved opera and they took me to an opera in Vienna. The main opera house was destroyed at the time. It was in a makeshift opera house. And the opera was "Traviata." Till today, it's my favorite opera. And they took me to the opera, then they took me 53:00to a restaurant, which was (laughs) -- all this was too much and it was Christmastime. And Vienna was just a fairytale. All the Christmas trees, all the lights and decorations, and I said to my mother, I want a Christmas tree. And my father says, "I'll get you one." And my mother said, "Are you out of your mind? You want to bring a Christmas tree into the camp? They'll lynch you after all what happened." My father said, "A promise is a promise!" And he came home one day with a paper bag and he got me a Christmas tree that you plug in. You know those ceramic Christmas trees? (laughs) And my mother says, "You can't light it at night. Only in the daytime. And you can't tell anyone you have it," which was tragic because I was so proud of this Christmas tree. My father was a very special man. All my friends loved him. He was so advanced. He wasn't like from a 54:00small town -- thinker. He was very open-minded and he was a wonderful man. My mother was a wonderful woman but she was very strict. If I did something wrong, I made sure my father was there to protect me.

CW: So, do you remember celebrating Jewish holidays in the camp and --

DSB: Yes, in the camp. Yes, we celebrated all the Jewish holidays.

CW: And what was that like? I mean, having it there --

DSB: Well, there's a thing that's called a tsholnt [Shabbos dish usually of meat, potatoes, and beans], you know what that is?

CW: Yeah.

DSB: So, every family made one and there was like a communal oven. The women used to bring this tsholnt on Friday afternoon and pick it up Saturday morning. So, Saturday morning, everybody would have tsholnt and celebrate the Shabbat, light candles. It was like -- all the holidays were celebrated. Passover, Rosh 55:00Hashanah. But you know what? People were so terrified. We were getting food from the Red Cross in cans, like Campbell's soup and tuna. There was a pile like a mountain in the back of the barracks. Everybody was afraid to open the can. They didn't trust anybody. Well, you know what they've been through. But in general, for children, for us, it was okay. We went to school. The Jewish organization provided -- we would get a bun, a hard-boiled egg, and a glass of hot chocolate when we came to school. School was half a day. It was a religious school and I became very Orthodox. I was impressed by, first of all, that I was Jewish and the school really --

CW: Is a Bais Yaakov school?

DSB: Bais Yaakov. That was the name. Bais Yaakov. I have pictures of the 56:00graduation. My mother made me and Anne these sailor dresses. You'd think we were in finishing school in Switzerland. (laughs) Yeah, it was --

CW: And you --

DSB: For me, the camp was -- very good memory. It was hard for my parents but to me, this was the best I've had since I was a little girl. So, life went on in this camp. There were parties, there were theater -- Jewish comedians like Dzigan and Shumacher came. They entertained in all the camps. So, it was pretty good except for all these bombs and things that we had to worry about.

CW: So, can I ask about language? So, you --

DSB: I spoke seven languages --

CW: Seven languages at this point, yeah.

DSB: -- when I came to the camp and then I learned German while I was there.

CW: So, do you remember the seven -- I mean, which --

DSB: Yeah, I don't speak them. I spoke Uzbek, I spoke Tatar. Uzbek, Tatar, I spoke Ukrainian, Russian, and Czech. Maybe even more than seven languages.

CW: Polish? (laughs)

DSB: Polish was my mother tongue. And then, I learned German. So, the seven languages when I came to Canada. Now I forgot everything. I still can speak Polish but not -- I'm missing words. And Russian I understand, but I don't really speak it well anymore. I can say things but it's not fluent. Haven't spoken it for sixty years. (laughs) You forget! And then, there were quotas. Different countries were asking for certain traits. And Canada was asking for furriers. My mother's father had a fur company. My father was a chemist. He used 58:00to do the dyes for them. So, he applied as a furrier to go to Canada. And Anne's father, too, applied and they went before us. We used to go out every morning to look at the list, whose name was on the list to go. It was very intense. Lot of people went to Israel, and one day our name was on the list and we were going to Bremen to be examined. You have to have a physical before you went, before they gave you -- and my eye, I had problems with my eyes. I always had allergies. And my eye was swollen up. My mother sat with me all night with chamomile tea bags. And she said, "They may not give us the visa because of your eye." I mean, she didn't mean anything but the pressure was all on me. We're not gonna go because 59:00my eye is swollen. Anyway, of course it didn't make any difference. We got the visa. And -- okay, now I forgot the part where my sister was born.

CW: Going to ask, yeah.

DSB: Well, my mother got pregnant and we all lived in one room and I could hear my parents talking at night. And my mother wanted to have an abortion. She said, "How could I bring a child into this world? My whole family's murdered. They're still putting bombs -- there's no future for a Jewish family." She couldn't see bringing another child into the world. And my father said, "We lost our whole family." He said, "I'm not gonna kill another life. Forget it." So, I remember the day my father came home and said I have a baby sister. Oh my God. I had 60:00family! (laughs) I mean, none of us had family. So, I had a sister! I mean, it was such a joyous thing. All the people from the lager [camp] came and they brought little cakes and bread and whatever, candies they put in her little crib. And it was very joyous. My sister was four months old when we came to Montreal. We left very soon after she was born. And the ship was called, the ship we came on -- there were sister ships. One was called the "Samaria," the other one called "[Skitia?]." They were Cunard ships from England. And we were in the "[Skitia?]." And this was like (laughs) heaven. It was a cruise ship. It was equipped with everything. Food, as much as you wanted to eat. And my poor mother was sick through the whole trip. She had seasickness. My father and I had a ball. We did all the games, we watched movies, we ate. It was sad when it was 61:00over. (laughs) Then, we came to Montreal. We landed -- we were really supposed to go to Toronto. But because Anne and her parents were in Montreal, my parents decided to stay in Montreal. And we got off the boat and they gave us ten dollars for the family. And there were trains waiting for us and when we came to Montreal, Anne and her parents were waiting for us. I remember she gave me a piece of Juicy Fruit gum. Heaven. Because in Russia during the war, we used to chew tar. It was just like gum but it was -- so, this gum was -- and then, the JIAS was there, the Jewish aid organization. And they gave us each bananas. I'd 62:00never had a banana in my life. I was eating it expecting a pit. And there are no pits in a banana. (laughs) I said to my father, "This is the best thing I ever ate in my life." And my father said, "I'm gonna get a job, I'm gonna work, and I'm gonna buy as many bananas as you want." I thought to myself, How could anyone be so rich to be able to get as many bananas as they want? So, now we came to Montreal and it was very hard because as nice as the Russian people were to us, the Canadian people were not. They were well-off but they didn't like to share. They didn't like us. We were like an intrusion. And they called us name-- like mockies or greeners or whatever. The JIAS put us in a room with a Jewish family. Old, older people. And it was me, my mother, my sister, and my sister 63:00was a baby. So, we needed to warm up milk for her. They wouldn't let us warm it because it cost money for the stove, for the gas. But at that time in Montreal, they had nurseries for children with doctors that check the baby. It was all for free. It was the government sponsored -- and there was one not far from where we lived. So, we used to walk there every day. Friends gave us a used carriage for my sister. And we'd warm up everything over there. You needed key money then to get an apartment. We had no money. Our family from the States didn't really help much. They helped a little but not -- and my mother met this man whose name was Mr. Belmont and he said, "You know what? I have a coldwater flat on St. Dominique Street," which is not such a great street but was fine. "You can have 64:00it for as long as you want until you start working. And when you start working and you have the money, then you'll pay me rent." My mother said he was an angel. There are angels in every -- so, we moved into this house and to me, as a child, it was the most beautiful house I've ever been to. My sister and I had a room, but the room was so small my bed was here, her crib was here. So, to take her out of the crib, you had to stand on my bed. (laughs) But to me, still, it was wonderful. My parents had their own bedroom. I don't think they ever dreamt they would have that. And my family came down from New York and they bought us furniture. Used furniture, like a sofa. And I remember the kitchen table, it was red Formica. But it was cheap because there was a fly that was caught in it when they poured the Formica. (laughs) We didn't care. But little things you remember.

CW: So, you mentioned what your parents' impressions of Montreal were. What did you think?

DSB: Well, to me, it was overwhelming. It was this huge city with big buildings. I remember I used to walk against the walls. I was afraid. And they put me in a Jewish school, it was called a folkshul [Yiddish secular school]. And the kids were spoiled brats and they used to laugh at me. I was wearing this bow on my head they call "kokarda" in Polish. They used to laugh at me and I used to come home crying all the time. My mother said, "This is not good. You suffered enough, I don't need you to suffer here." So, there was another school and it was very close to us. It was called the Peretz School. The principal of that school and the teachers were European. It was a totally different atmosphere. 66:00And when I came there, the principal took me by my hand 'cause we told him what happened in the other school -- from class to class and he said, "If I hear anything that you do bad to this child, you're gonna pay for it." So, he really prepared me. They also let me bring my sister to school 'cause both my parents worked. And my sister would sit in the back. She was like three years old now. And they would give her crayons and milk and cookies while I was in class. And then, my mother started working at home. She started sewing. She was a dressmaker. So then, I could go to school without having my sister. Just me. Loved going to school. And we started a life. And all of us, the people that 67:00came, were very close together. It was like a clique of people. And the weekend, it was wonderful. They used to come to our house, mainly to our house. My mother used to bake cakes, they used to bring things that they baked. They used to play cards.

CW: And was it Polish-speaking?

DSB: Polish, yeah. Polish. I actually didn't speak Jewish till I came to Canada. And then, in the Peretz Shule, I learned to speak Yiddish, to read and write Yiddish. That's where I learned it.

CW: And, I mean, you hadn't had Jewish traditions during the war. Did you start to have them in the home?

DSB: Well, I started to have Jewish traditions in the camp --

CW: Camp, right.

DSB: -- 'cause I became very religious. I wouldn't even comb my hair on Saturday. I was very religious. As a matter of fact, in school, when I had to take a drink of water at the fountain, I'd say the brokhe [blessing] and the kids would say, Come on, already! (laughter) Drink your water! So, I was very 68:00religious. And my mother came from a religious home, was angry at God. She couldn't forgive Him for what happened. Where was He? But she still had it in her. You are what you are. You can't shake it. She used to have records of all the top khazns [synagogue cantors] singing. She just loved it. And yes, Friday nights, we lit the candles, we had dinner together. We weren't religious. We didn't keep kosher or anything.

CW: Do you remember special foods for --

DSB: My mother was a fabulous cook. And I mentioned it in my book, the brisket and the -- she even made her own cheeses and her own pickles, her own lekach 69:00[honey cake]. What do you call lekach? Oh, I don't know how you say it in English. It's the white angel cake, honey cake. My mother -- and she kept a tradition from Poland, had nothing to do with the Jewish religion. New Year's Eve was called Sylvester. New Year's Eve, my mother would take this big pot of oil and make donuts. They were called p czki. They were so good. We'd eat them hot, dip them in sugar and eat them. Now, there's a restaurant in Montreal that makes them and they know I have to have two donuts when I come. (laughs) One day, we came and they were out of donuts. Oh, my God! (laughs) Big disappointment. Yeah, so we started to live a nice life and then we moved. My parents made a little more money and 70:00we moved to a nicer house. But it was a very unhappy house 'cause my mother got sick. She got breast cancer. And in those days, it was a death sentence. So, I was, I think, twelve or thirteen years old. My sister was, I don't know, four years old or something like that. I must have been fourteen, 'cause she was four and I'm ten years older. Everything changed. I used to have to take her to the hospital; we didn't know anybody. I spoke English by that time but my mother didn't. I used to sit in the hospital with her. She was in pain. It was so sad. It wasn't fair. After everything she lived through, it wasn't fair. I question 71:00God. I really do. And for five years, she suffered. And we all suffered with her. The mood in the house was terrible. She was always crying and then they put her in, like, a nursing home to take care of her. And my father would go there every day after work, even though my father used to get up at five in the morning to go to work 'cause he had to take a streetcar and two buses to get to work. And he worked hard labor. He worked in a fur factory with the dyes. So, he worked very hard. But after work, he'd go to -- I stayed with my sister. I never had a childhood. I lost it in the war, then I came to Canada, I was with my 72:00sister. I went out. I mean, I went out on dates and I still had a nice -- till my mother got sick, I had a nice life. And even when she was sick, I would still go out. I was work-- oh, yeah, that's another thing. When I was fifteen, my mother said that I'd have to stop going to school. She was crying when she said it. And I went to business college. I learned to be a secretary and I started to work. I was sixteen. So, now I was working to help the family, to support the family. And when I think of my grandchildren, how spoiled they are -- (laughs) I mean, they're not spoiled-spoiled. The world is spoiled now compared to what I had to live through. Thank God they don't have to, that they have a nice life 73:00and they should always have a nice life. But most of the money I made I gave back into the house. And one day, the phone rang and there was a man on the phone, he asked for my father. I said, "He's not home." I was just getting ready to go to work. He said, "Who am I speaking to?" I said, "I'm his daughter." And he just said, "Your mother died at night." Just sat there like the roof fell on my head. I knew she was very sick but somehow I never faced the fact that she was gonna die. And I called my father and he came right away. And then, everything was a blur. Everything was a blur. And the bad part was, when it came 74:00to the funeral, we couldn't get a rabbi to pray for my mother because we didn't have the money. And then, at the gravesite, my father had a friend who was a khazn and he found out my mother was being buried and he came running and he did the services at the gravesite. When my father got sick, he wrote, there was a -- he wrote it, he told us, but he also wrote it, "No rabbis!" He didn't want rabbis at his funeral. He was so upset about that. Well, it is very upsetting when you think of it. A rabbi's supposed to -- well, I guess we just didn't know the right ones and I'm sure there were a lot of rabbis that would have done it. It's just we didn't know who. So, and then my mother died and my father was 75:00completely destroyed because they were so close, they had such a close relationship. They lived through the war together. And so, my father was -- he couldn't handle it. When I told my sister -- she was seven -- she said to me, "Does that mean that you're gonna be my mommy now?" And that's about what I was. So, when you think of it, there was a big responsibility. I was going out with this young man at the time. I was madly in love with a boy when I was fifteen. His name was Alec Walder. I was so in love with him. And at one point, I realized that he wasn't for me. It wouldn't work. And I told him. We were going steady. And I think I was just about sixteen-and-a-half or something like that. And I remember telling Alec, "I'm crazy about you but there's no future for me 76:00with you."

CW: What was it?

DSB: I was very close to his mother. Loved his mother. And when I met him, I was going to Montreal High. But we had a floating class, so we were in different classes for every -- he was going to McGill. He was studying medicine. And his class, his building was across the street from my building and he used to see me when we had geography class. He somehow saw me. And one day, when I came out of school, I was going home, we wore tunics and this gorgeous Adonis young man is coming towards me. I figured he was going to somebody behind me. And he stops in front of me and he said, "You know, I see you every Wednesday from my class, where you're sitting in your class," and he said, "I just worked up the courage 77:00to come over and talk to you." Couldn't believe it. And, "Could I walk with you?" So, I had to take the streetcar to go home. I said, "Sure." And I found out that his father owned the grocery store on the corner where we bought all our groceries. So, anyway, we started to go out. And he was very handsome. And I was so madly in love with him. And then, about a year after, he quit school. He met these guys that were no good. His mother was horrified. And he moved out of the house and he went to live with them. And his mother called me one day and she said, "Dana, I love you like my own daughter but I'm telling you right now, Alec is not for you. He's going out with other girls when you don't know," 78:00blah-blah-blah. Well, that's all I had to hear. And he said to me -- it's different now. Then, girls didn't sleep with men. I mean, God forbid, if somebody found out that you were doing things like that, you're a prostitute. It's not like now. My mother wouldn't let me -- I had a boyfriend in New York and I wanted to go visit him. "Nice girls don't go." It was like that. So, he said to me, "Well, what do you expect me to do?" He said, "I have needs and things and you're" -- I said, "Not gonna work. Forget it." So, I broke off with him. Cried, it made me crazy, but I did it. I was strong. My mother came into my room, I remember. She was still alive. She said, "What are you crying? He's crazy about you! He's sitting on the stairs!" I said, "He's not for me." So, that was the end of that. And then, I met my first husband, Mickey Pascal. He 79:00was born in Israel and also very good-looking guy. I started dating him. But it was on the rebound. I was still over there. And then, my mother got very sick, when my mother got really sick. And he was very, very good. He was there for me. He was there at the right time. And was my mother alive when I got married? No. She wasn't alive. Well, my mother died and all that I told you and then he said he wants to get married. I think I was twenty-one, he was twenty-two. And we got married. But we got married, we had nothing. I was making more money than him. Everybody was married then. I was like the oldest one not to be married. Girls got married at seventeen, eighteen. So, it was the thing. You got married. And I 80:00had to live with his parents because we had no money to live on our own. And that was a terrible thing. He was the only son. His parents were very possessive, especially his mother. And I had a horrible, horrible experience with them because I got pregnant right away and his parents decided that I should have an abortion. And there was no way I was gonna have an abortion. It happened again when I got pregnant with my son. It was very, very bad. I said, "I must have done something very bad in my other life, 'cause I'm paying a very big price here." And was a bad time.

CW: Can I ask a little bit about the Peretz School? I mean, 'cause that's when you learned Yiddish, right?

DSB: Yes. Yeah, the Peretz School was wonderful. I loved it. I loved my 81:00teachers. They were all wonderful. I loved to learn Yiddish. I loved reading the Yiddish books. The translation of a Yiddish book is -- forget it. You have to read it in Yiddish. I read Sholem Aleichem, I read -- I met Isaac Bashevis Singer in person.

CW: Really?

DSB: Yeah. I loved his -- I loved Yiddish plays. I was, I still am -- I'm a real Yiddish-nik. Anything Yiddish, I love.

CW: When did you meet Bashevis?

DSB: I guess I was in my mid-twenties. Yeah. I read a lot of Yiddish books.

CW: Did you have any favorite authors?

DSB: I loved Sholem Aleichem. Yeah, I loved his books. But there were authors that are not so known that I don't even remember. And I remember, I used to 82:00write compositions in Yiddish. And one of my compositions was published in the "Keneder Adler," which was the Jewish paper in Montreal. And I was so proud and everybody in school knew that my composition was published.

CW: And did your parents know Yiddish?

DSB: Yes, my parents spoke Yiddish but they never spoke it at home when we were in Europe because it's like here: most parents speak English at home, even if they know Yiddish. The same thing was over there. Only the very religious families, like here, spoke Yiddish at home.

CW: But did they start speaking Yiddish when they came to Montreal or when you started learning?

DSB: I think they always spoke Yiddish to each other when they didn't want me to understand or something. But it wasn't my language until I came to Montreal. And then, it became my language. Then, I loved it and then I spoke Yiddish to my mother and father, once I learned the language. We switched from Polish to Yiddish. And there's one song that was written -- I don't know if you have those 83:00books with all those ghetto songs? You have those books here? There's one song that was written, was called "A yidish kind [A Jewish child]." It went like -- do you speak Yiddish? You do, okay, so you'll understand it. It's about a mother. Makes me cry when I think of it. It's about a mother. (crying) So sad. I'll be okay. See, I told you my whole story, I wasn't crying, and now I'm crying -- that brings her child, she has to give him away to hide him because she wants to save his life. And it goes, "In a litvish shtetl vayt/ in a fenster 84:00bay a zayt/ in a fenster nisht kayn groys/ kikn kinderlakh aroys/ yingelekh mit flaksn kep/ meydelekh mit lange tsep./ Un tsuzamen dort biz zey/ kikn oygn shvartse tsvey/ oygn ongefilt mit kheyn/ un a neyzele kleyns/ lipelekh tsu kishn gor/ shtarke krayzeldike hor./ Di mame hot im do gebrakht/ ayngeviklt shpet bay nakht./ Zi hot geveynt, zi hot geklogt,/ un shtilerheyt tsu im gezogt,/ 'ikh hob dir do mayn kind gebrakht/ vayl andersh hob ikh nisht getrakht/ mit di kinder 85:00shpil zikh sheyn,/ shtil un ruik zolstu zayn./ Kayn yidish vort, kayn yidishe lid./ Fun haynt, mayn kind, bistu kayn yid.' [In a Lithuanian shtetl far away/ in a window at night/ in a window, not too big/ children look out/ boys with blond hair/ girls with long braids./ And together at them,/ look two black eyes/ eyes full of charm/ and a small nose,/ full lips for kissing/ dark, curly hair./ His mother brought him here/ wrapped up, late at night./ She cried, she wailed,/ and spoke to him quietly,/ 'I've brought you here, my child/ because I couldn't think of what else to do./ Play nicely with the children,/ be quiet and good./ No Yiddish words, no Jewish songs./ From today, you are no longer a Jew.']" Tells the whole story of the war. It's longer. It has more verses. I thought I would sing it well but (laughs) I ended up crying. This song, to me, tells the story, that little innocent children, 1.5 million children were murdered by the Germans. How could they kill a child? They enjoyed it. My girlfriend told me she was young. She's older than me. She's about ten years older. They impregnated her all the time and when she gave birth, they would take the baby, throw it, 86:00and shoot it in the air. I mean, they were monsters. This wasn't a war. They call it a war. It was a genocide. It wasn't a war. They say it's good to forgive. I can't. They say it heals you. I wish I could. I wish I could say, You know what, I forgive them and I feel terrific. How could you forgive such a thing? How could you forgive people that were monsters, that murdered -- look, in America, if there's a murder, there's a trial, there's a whole thing, and people go to jail for the rest of their life if they kill someone. Here, millions of people were murdered. And most of them never paid a price, those murderers. They lived a very good life. They're still catching them once in a 87:00while. They're ninety or ninety-five years old. Lived in Argentina or wherever. They were never punished. So, no, I can't forgive. I don't buy anything German. It's principle. I have to do something to make my statement. People say, Ah, get over it. I said, "I can't get over it." I remember there was a show once on radio and they were talking about the subject and they were saying that it's time to forget about it. And I never call the radio station. I called the station and I got on and I said to the announcer, I said, "I have to tell him something," 'cause he was saying that it's time. I wanted him to understand it and I knew I had to get close to his own life. I said to him, "Do you have a 88:00daughter?" He said, "Yes, I have two daughters." I said, "Okay, I just want to give you an example. Let's say tomorrow, you're at home and two men come in with guns and they rape both of your daughters in front of your eyes. Will you ever forget that? Will you ever forgive it?" And you know what he said? "Thank you for telling me that," he said, "because until you told me that, I would never understand." You have to tell people something that they can relate to, 'cause if you tell them six million people, it means nothing to them. You remember when they did that film, "The Holocaust"? They only did it about one family because people can't comprehend six million people being murdered and how they were murdered. It's not just that they were murdered. It's the humiliation, it's the torture. I don't know if maybe I'm not a good person but I can't forgive them. 89:00And now, anti-Semitism is on the rise. They say it's just as bad as in 1938. I can't understand it. Israel, the only democratic country there in the Middle East. Israel, who discovers things to help people every day. And yet, they hate Israel and they're on the Palestinian side. Look, I'm not saying every Palestinian is bad, believe me. I know there are plenty of wonderful people who just want peace and want to be -- but we're talking about the terrorists like Hamas and all these people and they're on their side. I don't understand it. Look at what happened: 9/11. They blow up planes, they blow up trains. All our security at the airports is because of them. And yet, it's Israel that they hate. To me, it's not logical.

CW: Yeah.

DSB: Oh, there's one more thing I want to tell you.

CW: Sure, yeah. Just have a few minutes left.

DSB: Do we have time?

CW: Yeah.

DSB: On my seventieth birthday, I asked all my friend-- I had a big, big party. Invited all my girlfriends. Only women. And I asked them, "Please, no presents. Whatever you're going to spend, donate it to the Holocaust Museum in my name." Anyway, at the end -- even my children. I said, "Don't buy me anything. Just give it there." At the end, it was a lot of money. So, they asked me, What do you want to do? Come in, we'll discuss it. Let's see what we're gonna do with it. To make a long story short, after I went through everything, I found out that Yad Vashem in Israel has a program to teach teachers how to teach the Holocaust. Did you know about this? So, I said, "That's what I want to do. I want to send a teacher to Israel." So, they said, "Do you want to pick the" -- I said, "No, you pick a teacher and that's fine." So, when all these teachers were 91:00picked, 'cause they have to apply for this, we went to meet them. And my teacher's name, my first teacher that I sent, her name was Isabelle Giroux. When I walked into the room, like I cried now? That's how emotional I got because all -- well, there was one or two Jewish teachers. All the teachers were Christian and they were so passionate about teaching the Holocaust and they all told the story why they want to do it. I felt this is our future. And then, when she went to Israel, she said, "I don't know what to give you to thank you for what you're doing for me." So, she kept a journal every day what she did. And she was then emailing me saying, "This changed my life. I'm a different person. I came here as one person, I'm leaving as a different person. And she teaches school, 92:00Christian. And she teaches teachers. And now, I just sent another one. And the same thing, she's just -- so, I feel like I'm contributing something. I feel like these teachers are going to continue teaching the Holocaust. And because they're Christian, it means much more. 'Cause when a Jewish person talks about the Holocaust, it's expected. These are Christians. And they're so passionate about it. I said, "You're my family now." And there's forty teachers that went this year from Canada. They have twelve hours of intensive learning every day for three weeks. It's an amazing program. So, I'm ending my speech on that note. (laughs) No more crying. (laughter) Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, all in all, I've had a 93:00very good life. I met my wonderful husband. He changed my life from bad to good. And it's gonna be forty years we're married. My children are from my first husband. I have two wonderful children. They both speak Yiddish and English and Hebrew.

CW: Did you consciously choose to teach them Yiddish and Hebrew? Or did they learn in school?

DSB: No, but I consciously sent them to school to learn Yiddish and --

CW: But you spoke English at home?

DSB: Yes.

CW: Yeah.

DSB: Yeah, but they went to Peretz School like I did and they learned Yiddish, they speak and write it. And then, my ex-husband was Israeli, so they speak Hebrew. Perfect Hebrew. I speak Hebrew, too. And that's one good thing I got out of the marriage. (laughter) And one of my grandsons, he wants to learn Yiddish and I saw that you have a program here.

CW: Yeah.

DSB: So, I might interest him.

CW: Yeah, we'll talk about it after.

DSB: Yeah, yeah.

CW: I just have one last question. I wonder, since you were here at the Yiddish Book Center and you've been talking a little bit about how you learned Yiddish and that your children know Yiddish, what does Yiddish mean to you?

DSB: It's my ancestry. That's what we are. We're Yiddish. Without Yiddish, we're not Yiddish. (laughs) And also, Yiddish is a language that is so -- I guess because the Jews have lived through so much pain in their life, always being persecuted, Jews have to have a sense of humor. We have to laugh. If we don't laugh, it's tragic, our history's tragic.

CW: Yeah.

DSB: And the Yiddish keeps us together. I don't know, when I'm in a group of people that speak Yiddish, it's a whole other feeling than speaking any other language. And only if you're Yiddish, you can feel it. There are things that you could say in Yiddish and you can't translate them.

CW: Do you have a favorite joke or phrase?

DSB: Do I have a favorite joke or phrase? I have a lot of favorite jokes or phrases which don't come to mind right now. But not really, not --

CW: Yeah.

DSB: All of the language to me is precious. It's precious and I think this Book Center is fantastic, what they're doing. We need more like this. And even my husband, he was born in Montreal, but because of me, he's so into Yiddish. When 96:00there's a Yiddish play, Oh, we have to go see the play! And he's so happy when he understand.

CW: Yeah.

DSB: Yiddish is my religion because I don't really believe in -- how do you say, formal religion? 'Cause to me, religion separates people. All the wars were religious wars. I believe in a higher spirit. I do believe in a God, if you want to call it God. I believe that there's something. We're not here just like that. But what's the word for religion that is -- I can't think of --

CW: Organized religion?

DSB: Organized religion. I don't believe in that, 'cause to me, it's man-made, 97:00man-written. God didn't write -- I always say, God wasn't a fashion designer. He didn't design the shtreymls [round hats edged with fur, worn by Orthodox Jews on Shabbos and holidays] for the Jews, the saris for the Indians, the what do you call it for the Arabs. I think if you're a good human being, tolerance, that's the most important word in the world. Tolerance. If you have tolerance and you accept people for what they are, you're a good human being. And you're religious. If you go to synagogue or church every day and you're a robber or you're a -- that doesn't make you religious, to go and pray in a -- no. Religious is to be as good to your neighbor or other human beings as you want to be, to treat others the way you want to be treated yourself.

CW: Yeah.

DSB: And that's religion to me. Everybody has 98:00-- I don't criticize anyone. I mean, I can understand people being very religious, very Orthodox. But I don't feel that I have to do that for God. I feel God and I are good friends. (laughs) I don't have to sacrifice anything or --

CW: Yeah, well --

DSB: -- that's my story. (laughs)

CW: Thank you! Thank you so much for sharing. It's great.

DSB: Thank you for having me.

CW: Of course.

[END OF INTERVIEW]