LILI BERMANT ORAL HISTORY

EMMA MORGENSTERN: This is Emma Morgenstern, and today is October 26th, 2010. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with Lili Bermant, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Lili, do I have your permission to record this interview?

LILI BERMANT: Yes, you do.

EM:Great. Okay. So, can you start by telling me a little bit about your family's history, maybe where your parents grew up?

LB:Both my parents were from Poland. My father's family emigrated before the First World War and were traveling, I think, through Germany or -- I don't know exactly -- got to Belgium before the First World War. But because there were three sons and two daughters, my grandfather decided to go to Holland during the 1:00war, the First World War, because Holland was not involved in the war. And so, they spent four years or so in Holland and then came back to Antwerp. My mother's family was in Poland as well. She was one of nine children. Her dad died when she was eleven, and I never met her mother. My mother left Poland when she was about twenty-two. She had learned French in Poland, and she was always interested in education, but she -- both my parents, by the way, came from very Orthodox families. And in my mom's family, the girls did not go to school. But my mother was very much interested. So, she took classes here and there and really did learn French. And she had an uncle in Brussels who sort of financed 2:00her way over to Brussels so that he could take care of his arthritic wife. And this wife traveled to the baths and needed a companion. So, that was my mother's role for a while. They went to Germany a lot. So, my mom learned German and was very, very proficient. And she also was proficient in French. She was not proficient in Belgium's other language, which is Flemish, or Netherlandish. But she had brothers in Antwerp, which is the northern part of Belgium. And I'm not sure -- it's a little apocryphal, but I understand that her brothers said, Okay, time for you to get married. We know a nice guy here. So, she went to Antwerp and met my father, who was a nice guy. And they got married. The strange part is 3:00that, as far as language was concerned, my mother spoke German, but not really Yiddish. My father spoke Yiddish, but not really German. My father spoke Dutch, or Flemish, but no French. And my mother spoke French and no Dutch. So, when my sister and I were born, we needed to be raised in French, because that was what my mom would speak to us. And apparently there was a big uproar, my mom says. "And how is the father going to communicate with his kids?" And mom said, "He'll just have to learn French." And at some level, he did. It was never great, because he really -- he learned how to speak it, but he couldn't yell at us in French, that's for sure. But we learned -- you know, I learned German. Somehow 4:00didn't pick up the Yiddish, although I understand it. Because that's what my parents spoke. My mom spoke German, and my dad spoke Yiddish, and they understood each other very well, it seems. And so, we were sort of surrounded by all these languages, and ultimately my -- my Dutch was never terribly good. But I spoke it because you had to. But I went to a French elementary school. But in secondary school, Antwerp, which was north and very chauvinistic about the language, wouldn't allow French anymore. So, I had to start my secondary studies, like, translating Caesar's "Gallic Wars" into Flemish. And it was tough. It was tough. A year and a half -- I was in school like that a year and a 5:00half, until the war broke out.

EM:Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up specifically?

LB:I grew up in a little town -- well, it's not so little, but -- in Antwerp, which is a lovely city. It's a port city on the Scheldt River. There was a very thriving diamond industry there, and my dad was a diamond broker. I think at one time he had a factory, his own factory, but I think it went bust. I don't know. I think he got sick or something. But at any rate, as far as I remember, he was a diamond broker, which is you take Mr. A.'s diamonds and try to sell 'em to Mr. B., and hope there's a commission. And that's how he managed to support a family in a relatively nice middle-class atmosphere. We walked to school, and at first 6:00I lived within surely a twenty-five minute walk to school. And I went to school in the morning and came home for lunch and went back to school in the afternoon and came home. So, we walked quite a bit. Lunch was the main meal, and Dad was home. So, I had a sister, two and a half years older than I. And then eventually, in '38, I think, we moved to an apartment -- a brand new building that was very close, on the same street as the school. So, I felt very privileged that I could sleep in a little. I was good in school. I would say in retrospect that the system was terrible. We were not encouraged to think 7:00independently. Teachers sat on a platform -- sort of God, you know? And we sat by twos, and we couldn't talk out of line. You know, and when any adult walked in we had to stand up. It was very -- I don't know. I liked it, though. I did like it. And I enjoyed school, and I was good. So, that part was good. And we knew about the war in Germany and about Hitler. I remember we used to listen to his speeches on the radio. Even though I understand German, I never understood a word he said. But I knew the music of what he said, of how he said it. It was 8:00this screeching, screaming, and then people -- you know. So, in a way, for a while it wasn't too close. But then -- I can't tell you exactly the years. But at one point, people started emigrating to Belgium. And I know we sort of adopted a German family, mother and two daughters. I don't know where the father was. And the kids came to our house after school. And when came Passover, my mom used to order a whole bunch of stuff for the Passover dinner. And she ordered double so she could give it to this family. And they were rather heavy people. And I'll never forget how the woman, in German, said, "Gosh. We always have a 9:00lot more than that for Passover." And I thought, Hm. And then the little girl stole some of my doll clothes. So, it wasn't a very pleasant experience to have them. But there was upheaval in our lives, the threat, you know. So, it was -- do you want to know more about before the war?

EM:Yeah, sure.

LB:My mom's mother never left Poland, and therefore I never met her. Her father, as I said, was dead. She had three brothers who emigrated, but the rest of her family did not, and so most of those people were not -- the offspring of one 10:00survived, but many of the others did not. And a couple of the people who did emigrate to Belgium also did not make it, were sent to concentration camps. So, it was May 10th, 1940, is -- well, all along, by the way, there was the famous -- and you're way too young to know about that -- but there was the famous Maginot Line. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Maginot Line. But the Maginot Line was a fortification that was set up by the French between the French and German border. The Germans would never be able to go across that. So, that was protecting the French. And Belgium, a little country -- German had reassured Belgium that it would thoroughly respect its neutrality. So, come May 11:0010th, 1940, there was no respect of neutrality, and we woke up at five o'clock in the morning with bombs coming -- no, actually, we weren't bombed yet. But there were anti-aircraft sound. And what happened is my -- when I woke up, my parents were in front of -- we had a big glass window going to the front of the street. And they were looking up, and what I saw as I came near them was little planes in the sky and puffs of smoke surrounding them. And I understood that it was German planes. The Belgians were trying to shoot them down, but didn't -- I 12:00don't think succeeded very well. And pretty soon, Belgium was invaded. The Maginot Line was like a puddle. It was totally overcome. And I was very concerned. For me, I didn't get what war was. War was what? Maybe like, do the two armies go someplace and battle each other out, or? I had no idea. So, the mystery was very, very disconcerting. And when Dad said he had to leave, I got very worried, because I didn't know if he was gonna make it back. I didn't know if the -- I mean, I wrote about that in a way that says -- I didn't know how to imagine the war. So, I thought it was perhaps that we were gonna have soldiers come through our streets any minute now. But Dad had to -- I don't know exactly 13:00what he did. We had no car, by the way. So, I think what he did was arrange for a sort of a vehicle to come and pick us up. By the way, May 10th was a Friday. And that Sunday we left. Dad's father, who at the time was seventy-five years old, came with us. And the First World War, by the way -- the northern part of Belgium was never invaded because it was flooded, and the enemy couldn't get past it. And for some strange reason, that's where all the people who were running away, that's where they were going, to the northern part of Belgium. We had to pack a few things. My parents said, Not a whole lot. And we just left. 14:00With my grandfather. And we went to a town called La Panne, which was very close to France. And on the way, our bus was stopped, or our vehicle was stopped. There was a driver also. And Belgian soldiers told my dad he had to come off. Well, why? We didn't even know exactly where we were going. And they said, Well, the Germans are dropping parachutists as spies, and we just saw a bunch of parachutists coming down, and we're stopping every man. And they said, You have to keep going. And they took my dad. And in my mind I said, So how is he going to find us? We don't know where we're going. A day later, however, he -- since 15:00he knew we were going to La Panne, he showed up in La Panne. And there were so many people there who he knew and who knew us, they were able to point him to the right direction, and he found us. And we stayed in La Panne for a couple of days, in some -- I don't know where. I don't remember. I was by then thirteen. We sort of hung out. I had some cousins who were there, my age, and we sort of hung out. And the next thing that happened is that the news was the Germans are moving very fast, and we had to get out. And getting out meant what? I don't know. So, Dad was able to get a -- no, we started walking to cross the border 16:00into France with my grandfather. And then, we got to a town -- there are three towns. There's Boulogne and Dunkirk and Calais. Three towns in the north of France. And we went to the first one, stopped at the railroad station. The idea was that we wanted to get on a train and go to Paris and go to -- I don't know, Spain, Portugal, wherever. But trains weren't running. Trains weren't running. So, a million people at the station sitting on their suitcases. And then, we'd spend the night. In Dunkirk, we were bombed by the Germans. And again, what 17:00happened in Dunkirk was very significant because the English had sent troops to France to help defend against the Germans. But the Germans were just running over everybody. So, they were trying to get those English troops back to England. And what happened was that every little boat, every little French boat, volunteered to take as many of the soldiers back to England as possible. And I think they succeeded, pretty much, in getting most of the soldiers out of France. The British ones. So, we went to each of these towns, because from one town to the next, we could only get a cab or a vehicle to take us that far -- 18:00what, ten miles, maybe, between towns? They didn't want to go any further. And then, ultimately, we were in Dunkirk. And I can't remember how they go one after the other, but I think Dunkirk was the last one where we could not find -- we could not find a car. So, we started walking. And at this point -- from what I remember of my childhood is my parents seldom shared anything with us. They protected us from evil. So, we knew nothing. We didn't know where we were going, how we were gonna do it, or what -- we just, like, did. That was the way it was going. And given the circumstances, we didn't want to make too much trouble. But the question was, Where are we going? So, we landed in a little village, and I 19:00remember the name of the village was Condette. The first thing I saw was -- a farmer had a farm, and we asked him if we could spend the night. He pointed us to a little building and said, "There's a room there that you can use." So, if you imagine four of us and my granddad. And we walk into this room. And there were two single beds. So, my granddad got one, and the four of us had the other one. And what we did was sleep sideways, with our feet on chairs, essentially. And I also remember that day I was -- I've never been in a farm -- I didn't know animals. So, I saw this goat, and I thought it would be fun to pet it, until it started coming after me with its horns. That was a little scary. But it was 20:00awful. The sheets were dirty. The place was filthy. It was a dis-- sort of a -- couldn't wait to get out. So, we left the next morning. And we weren't the only ones on the road. There were hundreds of people. So, we started walking again. And the roads in France, in the north of France, go like that. And we had by then left much of our stuff in Condette and just had one suitcase, which whoever was in the mood or able to -- we had a stick going through the handle, and then two people would carry it, taking turns. I think at first, my dad got a little cart, I think. I forget. But the thing I remember clearly -- first of all, there 21:00came a time where the Germans, they strafed this line of people, which they may have thought were troops, which some of it was troops. But they couldn't get through -- there were so many people blocking the roads, they couldn't drive through. But at any rate, it was kind of scary when the German planes strafed us. But we kept on going. And then the sad part was that as we're walking -- and I'm very unhappy, and I'm complaining, and it's up and down. And my grandfather insists on wearing his coat. And he's very old. And so, we're moving very slowly. And at one point we see a group of people coming our way, who look just 22:00like we do -- dragging suitcases, walking, and, you know, coming our way. And we said, Now, wait a minute. We're going this way because the Germans are behind us. And they said, Well, we're coming this way because the Germans are behind us as well. And what it was basically was that the Germans had sort of created a place where everybody was sort of shoved. And we had to go back to that little village we didn't like very much. But by then, what happened is that a lot of Frenchmen had fled. And so, we were able to find a place to stay in that little village of Condette. And the next morning, the Germans drove right through the 23:00village. Vehicles, tanks, the whole bit. And we just stood there. So, that was the way it was at first. I don't know if I'm going the way you want me to go.

EM:Yeah, of course. Keep going. (laughs)

LB:Okay. So, we were in this village, and I know that we were there probably for four weeks. And I'm not quite sure -- well, at that point, Paris hadn't fallen yet. And maybe there was still the hope that we could get to Paris. But I don't know how we would have done that, 'cause we didn't have a car. My dad had a sister and brother-in-law who were well-to-do and had a car and made it to 24:00Portugal and then to the States. But there was no way we could do that. So, at some point -- you know, I, at thirteen -- food was rare, but my sister, by the way, was very attractive. And she had sort of this young man, local young man, attach himself to her. And I'll never forget how every day he'd come visit her and bring her something. He must have been a kid of a farmer. It was an egg or two, or a potato, or an onion. And so, he provided us with some things that we could use. So, it was kind of nice for her to have this friend, cute French admirer. But there came a time where the Germans said that anybody who was not a resident of that village had to go back to wherever they came from. And so, we 25:00did. It was a slow process because trains were slow and -- I think we took a -- we went on a truck first to Lille, which was a bigger town, and then on a train to Brussels, or Antwerp. And it took a long time because trains were moving very slowly. Conceivably, I assume, because some of the bridges had been shot down and then rebuilt, sort of. But anyhow, it took a long time. We had no food. It was not a pleasant trip. But when we got back to Antwerp -- we were, in fact, able to go back to our apartment. Which wasn't true of some people, because the Germans had confiscated a lot of apartments to house their folks -- not their 26:00troops, but their officers. But we had a concierge in our building who had sort of opened windows of the apartments that faced the front. Opened windows, put bedding out, you know, done stuff so that when Germans -- what they did was walk by and look at where there was no sign of life. But she didn't want any Germans in her house. So, when we came back our apartment was available. Went back. And by then it was -- I think it took us six weeks -- between May 10th and when we came back was sort of like a six-week adventure that didn't turn out so good. 27:00And so, we were back in Antwerp. And a lot of people were back in Antwerp. A lot of people didn't make it. So, when the fall came we went back to school. Now, I was in what's the equivalent of junior high here. But in Belgium, you had one to six, which was the elementary school, and then six to one was high school. So, you went from sixth elementary to sixth high school down to one. I was by then in fifth high school. The English language had been eliminated from the -- as you well imagine, and now we had to study German. And also, I remember every -- after every hour or so, we had to get up and do a little calisthenics, à la 28:00German development of the physical fitness. But otherwise, we, the kids, the families, did not see much change. The only change was that we saw a lot of groups of soldiers walking through the streets on their way to -- I don't know. And they were singing. They were singing in harmony. It was kind of -- and fortunately, I liked it. What can I say? It was those German songs that -- and they had a -- like a towel under their arms. They might have been going to the pool or something, or to the showers. But groups of, say, forty or thirty or so, walking through the city. And then, the other thing is that -- I don't know 29:00exactly what happened with the currency of Belgium, but the Germans were shopping a lot, and they printed marks, so the mark became the money. But aside from that, it was -- for me as a child and for my sister, I don't think it was radically different. However, my dad went to work, so he had to go back and work. And occasionally, he'd come home -- now, we're talking by then the fall of 1940. He'd come home and say, Gosh, I don't know what happened. So-and-so got called to go to the police station. And then, he hasn't been back. And so, he 30:00was experiencing some scary stuff. And also, that the Germans had -- there was a diamond club, which is where transaction occurred. My dad didn't have an office. He worked in the diamond club. It's still that way now, and also in New York City. And he'd say, Well, so-and-so -- oh, we were told -- he said, We were told that all business had to be on the up and up, and they were gonna come and inspect and make sure that people weren't hiding money under the table. Which, of course, they were. And by then, also, the winter was very -- it got to be winter; it was very bitter. It was a bitter winter, to the extent that they 31:00closed the schools. They couldn't heat the schools. And one day dad came home, and he was just totally white in the face. He said that he had been walking in front of a -- going on the way out of the Jewish -- not the Jewish, the diamond center. And he heard -- this may be apocryphal; I don't know. But that's what I remember. He said he heard one soldier say, "You take the front door; I'll take the back door." And when dad heard that, he ran out the front door. And he had diamonds on him that weren't his. As a broker, he didn't own diamonds. But if he were found with those diamonds on his person, he would be in trouble. So, he 32:00went to a store next door and sort of, like, dumped them in a basket. And there was a raid, and some people were taken. And by then, my dad realized that it was only going to get worse. Also, all the Jews had to register, get a Jew number, including the determination that a Jew was a person with one Jewish grandparent. So, there were some priests in the line who -- I don't know exactly what happened. So, having a Jew number wasn't good either. And then dad came home and said, "Well, we gotta do something about this." And I know little about exactly how the message got through, but there was an Underground Railroad. And so, dad 33:00started making inquiries. And he was able to get papers. The paper to go from Brussels to Paris, because his contention was he was going on vacation to Paris. At least it would get us closer. Because the Germans had occupied only half of France, so there was still a part of France that was unoccupied. And dad -- and many others -- decided they had to get to unoccupied France and then out of there. So again, we packed our bags, and by then it was January. So, we had experienced the Germans for however months it is from June to January, with 34:00personally not terribly negative -- other than this constant fear that we had that prevailed our lives. And the fact that dad had seen some rather unfortunate things happening. So, we packed a big suitcase. My grandfather this time said, "I'm not going with you. This is not for me." I don't know what happened. He was living -- he had rented a room. Some gentile family rented him a room. And he was in that room throughout the war. And his family was actually able to bring him to the United States after the war. It was amazing. I don't know exactly how -- I don't know the details of that. But he survived. He didn't want to come 35:00with us, but he did survive. And so, we got on the train. So, we went from Antwerp to Brussels, which is only a short train ride. And the train that we were taking was the Berlin-Paris express. So, the train was coming from Berlin. It was midnight. Cold, cold winter. And we got on the train with our suitcase. And you know these long-term trains, you had a long hallway and then you had these compartments? So, my mom opened compartments, and there were Germans sitting -- because the train came from Berlin -- there were maybe three people in an eight-person compartment. But the minute she opened the door they said, 36:00Nein, nein, nein [German: No, no, no]. So, they didn't want anybody. And that went on -- we were in this one car, in this one train car. Nobody would let us in. And there were many people in the hall. So, we sat down on our suitcase, which is what -- you know. But when the train started moving, it got to be very, very cold, because the air was blowing through. And we were freezing. So, mom, in her impeccable German, opened the door and said, "Would you be willing to let our children come and sit with you? It's very cold out there, and they're very uncomfortable." There was a man, a German soldier, who was probably a little older. I don't know how old he was. But he would probably have been in his forties. And another man and maybe a woman. There were three people. And this 37:00man said, "Oh, how many are you?" And she said, "Well, there's our children and my husband and me." "Okay. Why don't you just come on in?" And so, the four of us, with our suitcase, went in. And we sat down. And my mom started talking with him. And he was telling us that he had gone home to Germany on a furlough, and he had loved seeing his family, and he was very sad 'cause he had to go back to Paris. And sort of -- you had the effect that he wasn't all that enchanted with the opportunity to go to Paris. He wanted to be home with his family. And I don't remember anything about the other two people. But then -- he was very bright, as was my mother. So, they started talking about all that my mom had 38:00read -- German literature, and she knew about German classical music or whatever. So, they were having this wonderful conversation. Dad kept his mouth shut, 'cause dad would have come up with some Yiddish here and there. And my sister and I didn't say anything either, although both of us understood what was going on. And then, the train stopped. And it was on the border between Belgium and France. And so, the guy said, "Oh, well, you know, it's control." So, the door opens, and there's this young German guy who says, "Okay, papers." But he didn't mean the other folks; he meant us. So, dad presents him with this document that he had bought, you know, gotten. The guy looks at it and looks at it and looks at it, and he says, "Etwas stimmt hier nicht," which means, 39:00"There's something wrong here." He says to dad, "I want to see your passport." And so, dad goes into his pocket. He says, "Gee, I -- I don't have it on me. Maybe it's in my suitcase." And he takes down his suitcase and starts looking in the suitcase. And I was panic-stricken. And I thought, Why on earth did he not keep track of his passport? And he kept looking, and he says, "Gee, I don't know where it is." So looking, he's looking. And after I don't know how long, the German officer said to the young man, "Just go. They're okay." And he said, "Like that?" And he walks out. I found out later on that my father did not want to find his passport. It was a Polish passport. He had another ID that had a Jew 40:00number on it. He didn't want anything to show other than that paper, which he thought was going to be -- and so the irony there -- we would have been pulled off the train. And the irony there was that our lives were saved by a German officer, which was quite an amazing thing to -- but, you know, the man was a human individual, not one of those Hitler Youth people. And so, we got to Paris, which was occupied by the Germans. And we went to a little hotel. And don't ask me; I don't know. But my dad had a lead, and he tried again to get some papers that would get him from Paris to Nice, which was in unoccupied France. And we 41:00were in Paris a couple of weeks. It was cold, but my cousin -- my mom's sister and her husband had sort of done the same thing, although perhaps not experienced the same narrow escape. And we were in this little hotel in Paris. And my cousins and I, we'd go in the Métro. We'd just go in the Métro. And you could go in once and then go all over Paris. 'Cause that's where it was warm, you know? So, we didn't suffer a whole lot. But my dad had made -- tried to make arrangements to get that paper, that document. But a lot of people from Paris were actually smuggling across the border. And, you know, it's like, who knew what, but it's a mystery. I never was able -- never did ask my parents, both of 42:00whom are dead, so -- so some of the people, including my mom's sister, decided to smuggle. And my dad -- it was by then two weeks -- my dad must have said, "Gosh, maybe tomorrow we'll take the train to the border and make arrangements." I don't know exactly how they made the arrangements. But that night I got sick. And as it turned out, the doctor came and said I had an appendicitis attack or something and suggested I not travel for a couple of days. We were going on vacation to Nice, you know, which is the Riviera. So, as it turned out, the papers came through, so that when the time was for us to go he had the document. And how he trusted those documents, I don't know, but this time it worked. So, 43:00we went on a train in Paris. Inspection was very regular, normal, nobody worried. And we ended up in Nice. And from Nice, we hoped we would get a visa to the United States. So, my parents found an apartment. And the whole time -- and I asked my sister, and she didn't know either. My parents weren't well-to-do, and how they had enough money to do what they were doing is a mystery to me. Maybe dad had some diamonds; I don't -- that he was selling -- I do not know. We didn't ask, and they didn't tell. Money was not a topic of conversation. And of 44:00course, Nice was lovely. Nice was the Riviera. We had left Antwerp at the end of January of 1941. By the time we got to Nice, it was probably February. Nothing wrong with being on the Riviera in February. We got an apartment that was very close to the Promenade des Anglais, which is this big, wonderful avenue. And my dad started going to the American consulate. And for quite a while, there was this attempting to get passage. But as it turned out, what happened is that the consulate was not at liberty to issue visas anymore. Probably -- and this is my speculation -- is that people were really throwing money at, say, consuls or 45:00whatever, and trying to buy the thing. And they said, Every paper, every document, has to go through Washington. Well, you can imagine. We were in France nine months. There was no food, or very little food, so I was always hungry. But we were able to swim in the Mediterranean, and there was a whole group of kids, somehow from places from Switzerland, also some from Belgium, whom I knew, who ended up in Nice. So, my sister had her group of friends; I had my group of friends. It wasn't terrible for us. But ultimately, my parents had to make a decision. Oh, and the people who were the people who sort of controlled the 46:00south of France were the Italians, who supposedly were allies of the Germans, but they were totally unlike the Germans in that they didn't care. They left everybody alone, and they were having a good time themselves, you know? So, there was no -- in Nice there was no fear or -- but in unoccupied France, there were many people who told us that the French, the Petain government, which is what it was, which was a rogue government that was allied to the Germans, they delivered many Jewish people to the Germans and to concentration camps. And I've heard stories, people being dragged to camps by the French. And so, we were very lucky that there was no physical threat. So, what I remember is we had to pack 47:00up again, after nine months in France. Got on a train. And we were going to Spain. We went to Bilbao. Why Bilbao? Because Bilbao is a port city, and there were ships leaving -- oh, before we left -- a small item. Before we left Nice, my dad obtained a visa either to Venezuela or Nicaragua, I forget which. It was one of the Central American cities. Because that's the only way -- you had to have a visa to somewhere in order to be viable. And also, by then -- how he knew that, I don't know. But there was a budding diamond industry in Havana by then, in Cuba. So, people who hadn't been able to go anywhere had sort of settled in 48:00Cuba. There were Europeans who had created a factory. And it could have been that that was before our war. It could have been from other places. But at any rate -- so the aim was to get to Havana and then go to the United St-- from there. So, we got to Bilbao. Now, you have to get on board a ship. And, you know, lots of people sort of sitting around there waiting for passage to a ship. And an interesting thing happened where my mom tells me -- again, true, not true, I don't know. We were in Bilbao a couple of weeks. My parents were trying to get passage on a ship that would go, at this point, to Havana and then to 49:00wherever their -- although they didn't intend to go there, but that's -- they needed the visa to get on that ship. And my mom was in a little café having a cup of coffee with a friend, somebody she had met whom she knew who spoke French. And so, my mom and she were talking in French. And there was a man sitting next to them -- as it turned out, a Spaniard -- who said -- was probably a Francophone who was delighted at the opportunity to speak French. So, he approached them and started talking French to them, and said, "What are you doing here?" And my mom said, "We are trying to get passage on the next ship to Havana." And he said, "Well, let me see what I can do." And there was a ship called the "[Magayanis?]" that was leaving and that people got passage on. But 50:00the good news, the fact that this man was helpful -- it was a semi-cargo ship, where the hold, which would hold cargo, was converted into passenger triple-deckers. And -- so everybody who got on this ship was getting a berth in one of those triple-deckers on the hold. But what this man was able to get for us -- there were some cabins, see, 'cause it was semi-cargo. There were some cabins, and he was able to get my mom and dad each a cabin in a place where there were other women in one of them and other men in the other. And then, my sister and me -- that was in first class -- my sister and me in tourist class, 51:00two of us together, with another woman, who was (UNCLEAR). Because most -- I don't know why -- most cabins accommodated three people, and they were maximizing -- you know, filling up all the thing. We left Bilbao sometime in -- it must have been the fall of 1941. And stopped in Vigo, picked up some other people. And then started out -- this was a Spanish ship -- (coughs) excuse me -- with a big Spanish flag painted on the top, so -- 'cause the Spains were friends of the Germans, so -- and we were moving very far south to avoid U-boats in the Atlantic. And we started out going pretty slowly. I think it took a total of 52:00about two weeks to cross what the "Queen Mary" does in three days. But fortunately, there was a semblance of civilization in the first class, and my dad and mom got us to have dinner in the first class. And I had been hungry in Nice for nine months. So, you can imagine, I ate myself out of house and home, and that was wonderful. And there was a tiny little swimming pool -- tiny. So, we had a good time. My sister met two Mexican men. My sister was by then, what, sixteen? Mexican men who fell in love with this beautiful young blonde woman -- girl. And what do you do? There were -- no entertainment in here. So, they 53:00walked around the deck a lot. And my sister, bright as she was, learned a lot of Spanish, because they only spoke Spanish, and she did not. So, they communicated every day. And I had some kids that I knew, and I got -- I was terribly seasick the first three or four days. There's nothing worse than being seasick, I don't think. So, we came to a point where somebody said, "Oh, I see land!" So, we all ran up. It was cold out, so this little pool was not filled to the top. It was sort of one-third filled. And we ran up to the top. I don't know where my parents were, but my sister and I, my friends, we all ran to the top, and we saw 54:00a sliver of land, which was wonderful, 'cause it was two weeks with just a sea. And somebody said it was the Bahamas or something. And just as we're sort of looking at this, the ship, which was going like this, suddenly goes like this -- (exhales) (makes stuttering noise) like, goes -- moves sideways. And the clouds were low, and the sea was very glassy. And there was something funny about the way the sea was. The water in the bloody swimming pool spilled, and all we heard was broken dishes, broken dishes. And I swear that the chimney -- we only had one chimney, I think. I thought, The minute that chimney hits the water, we're 55:00done for. But before it did, it righted itself and went over on the other side. And while it was in the middle, I ran down; everybody ran down. I looked for my parents and wondered what was going on. And what happened at that point was there developed huge waves, huge waves, that were just -- that boat was going every which way. It was extremely scary. Dishes were breaking; the crew was running back and forth. And what happened was that we had -- here it was October -- we had run into a hurricane. It was hurricane season. We were down in the hurricane waters. So fortunately, the captain turned the ship around, and we got out, not without some damage to the ship. But we got out, and we -- I don't 56:00know, we sort of stopped for a while and either floated or what, because garbage collected around the boat. But we got out, and he must have gotten news when the hurricane had passed, and then we were able to get into Havana Harbor -- a little askew but still whole. My dad had a brother who had emigrated to the United States in the early '30s. And that brother had -- I don't know, maybe there was some way of communicating, maybe through the ship's radio. But he knew we were coming on this boat, and there he was, in this little boat, waving to us. And we got off the ship. But because we had no Cuban visa, we were put on an 57:00island, sort of a concentration camp. Or a detention. And my uncle was able to see us. And by then, I assume, my dad had totally run out of money. Because what the Cuban government said was, Okay, you give us yea amount of money and you can stay. And I guess it was my uncle who provided the money. I can't tell you for sure, but we didn't have any. And so, we were able to -- after two weeks in the camp -- were able to get off, and my parents found an apartment. And dad joined one of these factories that were working diamonds. There's a process -- a rough diamond comes out like a little brown rock. And you do things to it like you cut 58:00it in half along lines, and then that's the diamond face, and then you have to girdle it, and then you have to put facets in it. But this was what was happening there. And dad, who didn't have enough money to be a broker, worked at a machine. And ultimately, so did my sister, who at the age of sixteen and a half or seventeen did not go to school. But we were sure we could leave in a few months. My uncle was gonna sponsor us and everything. So, my parents put us in a little -- put me -- in a little English school, English-language school, so I could learn English. And then, four months, four months turned into four years, and I ended up graduating from high school in Cuba. And we were turned down 59:00three times or something, but ultimately we did get a visa to the States. And actually, one of the reasons, I think, it was a problem is a month after we got -- or two months after we got to Havana was Pearl Harbor. And we didn't get out of there until after V-J Day. December '45. And then we came to New York City, and that was the beginning of, like, a whole new life.

EM:Wow. (laughs) So, can you tell me a little bit about your Jewish life throughout this? So, did you have a Jewish education growing up?

LB:That's a very complicated story, and -- I'm gonna be frank, okay, and open. My parents came from Orthodox backgrounds. But we were what you might call 60:00observant, okay, supposedly. "Observant" not -- I had some issues with it, because the schools in Antwerp were -- we didn't have school on Wednesday afternoon, but they had school on Saturday morning. And Jewish children were automatically exempt. And I did not like that, personally, because probably a lot of fun stuff was happening. But it also singled us out as Jews. Belgium was not a very progressive country at the time. There was anti-Semitism. And I remember as a kid having little kids tell me, Why don't you go back to Palestine 61:00where you belong? And, of course, I had been born in Antwerp, and I said -- you know. I had a little bit of a taste of that. My mom had brothers in Antwerp who wore beards, yarmulkes, the whole thing. And I always worried that when I went there that I would say something or do something wrong. And I didn't like the atmosphere -- Orthodox -- there were a lot of Orthodox Jews, by the way, in Antwerp, in the diamond business. And so, you could see them with their little white socks and stuff. But I didn't like being Jewish, 'cause it wasn't a good thing to be Jewish. And also, we had to go to Hebrew school Wednesday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning. I resented that immensely. And I didn't learn anything. I did not. Because we went to a school which was a boys' 62:00religious school called Tachkemoni. And Tachkemoni, because it was a religious school, on Saturday morning all we did was use the Sh'ma yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad, ba-ba-ba-ba -- we read this thing, which I didn't understand anyway. And then, Wednesday afternoon and Sunday morning we did supposedly learn a little Hebrew. I can still read it. But I never -- maybe I know six words, but I never was fluent. And my sister, who also went, eventually learned, but I think she ultimately forgot it all. But she had a good teacher or something. So, that was that. My grandfather, dad's father, was not the same kind of Orthodox as my mom's family. But when he came to dinner, we would put -- it's a good thing my parents aren't alive anymore -- we would put a tablecloth 63:00on the table. We would have fleyshik, and he wouldn't want to eat in our house, even though I think my mom bought kosher meat. But he had a milkhik meal. But the irony was in the kitchen, it was all mixed up. And so, it was a little bit of a joke. Also, we had to go to a Hebrew school in the morning, because Jewish kids can't go to the -- I couldn't practice piano on Saturday, because other people could hear it. But I was able to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon. So, you know, I wasn't at peace with the hypocrisy of it. And probably more so in retrospect than in reality. We were Jewish. My mom had very religious family. And then, during the flight, there was no talk about kosher or not kosher. We 64:00ate anything, whatever -- pig, pork, horse, whatever was available. In Havana, however, there was a group of young people -- and when I first got there, there was no distinction. But one of the groups -- two groups of people, the older and the younger, decided to create, like, clubs. And the older people, who were my sister's folks, friends, all they wanted to do is have fun. So, they would go to the movies, go dancing, go to Varadero, which was a very, very fancy beach. And my sister worked, so she had some disposable income -- although most of it went 65:00to my parents, probably to my education, if I'm not mistaken. And my choice was to join a group that decided to be a Zionist group. And it was a religious -- it was called Shomer HaDati. There was a group in Cuba at the time from -- Russian refugees from the revolution, still, in this -- 1917s. Their offspring were also Zionists, but they were Shomer Hatsair, which was not religious. So, I want to join this Shomer HaDati because all my friends are there. And they said, Well, you gotta practice. You can't go to the movies on Friday night anymore, and you gotta blah-blah-blah. I said, Sure, no problem. You know, when I could cheat at 66:00home, like listen to the music on Saturday, I still did. But there were some wonderful parts to being part of a group. We were gonna go to Palestine and go to a kibbutz. These young people -- and their parents, I guess -- had rented the downstairs of a little house, which became the shul. And on Friday night, there would be onegim Shabbat [gatherings after Shabbos services, lit. "joy of Shabbos"], where the young boys -- who were probably somewhat older than I, and who could read Yiddish -- would read stories of Peretz and Sholem Aleichem and whatever. And because I understood -- I mean, they were wonderful. I loved that part. So, I had that contact. We also went camping in the countryside. And I 67:00guess we tried to maintain -- I wasn't in charge of the food other than participating in the cooking of it over an open fire. But as a rule, that was, again, oneg Shabbat, when, if it fell on a Friday -- and the boys did tfillin in the morning, and Friday night, there was this whole ceremony of reading and -- I didn't know the depths of the religion. I didn't understand it. My parents had celebrated holidays -- Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah they went to shul. But that's all. They didn't go any other times. Pesach. So, we had all this. But 68:00my parents never told me anything about -- why are we celebrating this. Did I know? I didn't know. So, there was this disconnect. And in fact, dad could read the procedures. It was all in Hebrew or whatever that it was. So, there was no love for the religion in my bones. And also, in Cuba, we were sort of ascetic in the sense that no makeup for the girls and no social dancing -- Cuba's big on social dancing, but no social dancing. And we did horas, of course, when we got together. I even had a uniform. So, what happened was that there came a time 69:00where -- I think it was one of the European victories. Maybe it was V-E Day, because -- at any rate, so what did a bunch of us do? And the boys who were the biggest sticklers about preserving the Jewishness, we all went dancing. And because I wasn't so committed, I had a problem with it. By then, I was thoughtful. I was eighteen or seventeen. And I quit the group. I did not feel that there was honesty there. Fortunately, we were probably granted a visa not 70:00too long thereafter. And I came to the States. In the States, I didn't practice. My parents were very upset if ever I dated a non-Jewish guy. So, what was I gonna do, marry him on the spot? So, there was a big brouhaha about that. So, there was this constant thing about, Is he Jewish? Is he Jewish? But they still went to synagogue on High Holy Days. Interestingly, my father became ill with a brain tumor, and it was an inoperable brain tumor, so that -- because the pressure was so tremendous, he was in pain -- he had some radiation treatments. 71:00But this was -- we're talking 1950, which was just months after I got married. And so, what the surgeon did was actually cut a hole in his skull so that whatever was growing didn't create too much pressure. And you could see the thing growing. My father, when he got sick -- which was two weeks after we came back from our honeymoon, or one week after we came back from our honeymoon -- he was in pain; he was gonna be taken to a hospital. Whoever was taking care of him said, "Sign a check." Because my mom did not have access to his checkbook. There was probably $250 in his checkbook. And the check bounced when they used it. So, 72:00dad was really not doing great. He was probably at a point where somebody was still owing him money. So that's how we were operating. You know, he was making some money, and then they paid him, and -- I had married a poor guy. My sister had married a poor guy. And she had a little girl. And so, mom decided she had to go to work. And she became a diamond broker. She did what her husband had done. And his buddies helped her immensely. My mom was very bright, so -- you know, I couldn't have done it, but she understood. She had talked to him. She had evolved in the atmosphere. He would tell her things, and she understood what was going on. So, she started working. And so, dad was bedridden, and so mom 73:00hired a nurse in the daytime, and she took care of him at night, and once a week my husband and I would spend the night to give her leave. Once a week my sister would come, and -- you know, and so that's how we helped. And six months later, my father died. So, my husband and I were married six months by then. So then, life went on. My mom continued working. She was having her problems. But it was a few years -- a significant number of years -- before we were able to contribute to -- my sister and her husband were able to contribute to her upkeep. My sister married a European. And he was a young man who had been born 74:00in Belgium and who was Belgian and who escaped to England and joined the Belgian brigade and flew Spitfires. Spitfires were the fighter planes who accompanied the bombers, and it was not an easy job. Anyhow, he was a flyer on Spitfires. So, when the war was over he, Philip, came to the States and went into business with his dad -- diamond business -- who was a businessman, not a broker like my dad. Supposedly he was doing better. And then, he went bankrupt. So, the father 75:00left town, sort of left his son holding the bag, more or less. And so, my brother-in-law decided that he was gonna try to become a pilot again. And fortunately, the flying time that he had done on the Spitfire was allowed. So, he got to be a pilot. And he had a lot of trouble getting a job in America, because I think being Jewish didn't help. But he got a job in Belgium with SABENA Airlines. And so, my sister and he moved to Belgium. My mom stayed in New York. My husband and I ultimately moved away from New York City. And my mom managed to work until she was eighty-one years old as a diamond broker. She was phenomenal. And then after that, she stopped working, and -- well, let me go 76:00back. You're asking about Jewishness. Let me just take this one point. I met a guy who -- and he was a waiter, and I was a guest in a resort. And he was just lovely. And I sort of pursued him. He was -- anyhow, I pursued him. And he came to New York -- he lived in New York, in the Bronx, and I lived in Manhattan. And we started going out together. And my parents, of course, would have loved for me to marry one of those sons of the refugees. They would have been much more -- my dad never learned English. My mom did, but they were comfortable with Europeans, not with Americans. Americans were like a whole new breed for them. I 77:00went to college. I went to Brooklyn College. When I closed the door of my house I was in a different world. And so that's how I operated. And I also knew that I would never marry a European. That was a given. So, here's this guy who is Jewish, who's been bar mitzvahed, who actually hated the process. He says nine months before he was going to be thirteen, his dad sent him to this rabbi who told him to read this stuff, never told him what. He learned how to read it, and came the ceremony, he read it impeccably and got a lot of gifts. As far as he was concerned, he did not get a sense of Jewishness. I had the same sense of not 78:00being so much part of it. But I never, ever, ever wanted to deny my Jewishness. I believe I have a yidishe neshome [Jewish soul]. It's part of me. But when we ultimately moved out of New York City, we went to Poughkeepsie. I had a son and a daughter. And by the time they started school, they were the only Jewish kids in their class. Had we stayed in New York City, it would have been different. There would have been lots of Jewish children. He would have been -- my son would have been invited to bar mitzvahs, and he might have wanted one too. And furthermore, I would have done it. But we lived in Poughkeepsie, and there were no Jews. There was a temple in Kingston -- no. We lived in Poughkeepsie, but we 79:00moved to Woodstock before my son turned thirteen. He was probably eleven. And there was nothing happening there with -- when we were in Poughkeepsie, though, both my husband and I did go to temple -- it was a Reform temple -- because we felt more comfortable socially with Jewish people. There was this sense of -- you know, in New York, you didn't have to be affiliated, because New York was Jewish enough. But in Poughkeepsie, it was different. And our neighbors were Catholic, and the other neighbors were Catholic, and my neighbor would never -- would come in one door and never leave by another door because it -- you know, Christ says or whatever, and she -- well, anyhow. That wasn't for us. So, we 80:00joined this temple and met some wonderful people, made some wonderful friends. And my husband had a nice voice. And there was a rabbi who was terrific. He was really -- we're now talking -- '52, maybe? No. My son was born in '54. We're talking '56, '57, '58, maybe. And there was a rabbi who was really avant-garde. He would invite people from a black church to an oneg Shabbat. Or we once had an oneg Shabbat where there was a discussion with an atheist and a Catholic and a Protestant and a Jew. And it was exciting. And my husband had a beautiful voice. So, he joined the choir. And it was great. And I think I taught Sunday school. I 81:00don't know how I did that, but whatever. So, we were part of this. And the rabbi did wonderful sermons that we both liked because they were bright and smart. And there was something about how he performed his rabbinical functions that didn't please the board of directors, and they bid him a fond farewell. And the man with whom they replaced him was so traditional and so humdrum that my husband had to quit the choir 'cause he couldn't stand his sermons. And then we moved to Woodstock, where the nearest temple was in Kingston. Well, it wasn't that far. But by now I'm having discussions with my mother. Comes to visit us, and she 82:00says, "Well, when is Charlie going to be bar mitzvahed?" I said, "Well, I'm not sure. I mean, we're not practicing. We don't have a Jewish household. It's inconsistent." Well, it was very hard for my mother. And I can appreciate that. But I said to her -- and I'll never forget that -- I said, "Mom, you are further away from your background than I am from mine. I mean, the leap." She says, "Yes, but there is a limit." Of course, she set it. She set the limit. Who's to say what the limit is? The limit for me was to be honest about it. And had I lived in New York, he would probably have been bar mitzvahed, because my mother wouldn't have been able to hold her head high if her grandson wasn't bar mitzvahed and invited the family and the friends. But we were in Poughkeepsie. 83:00And it was very hard. We had very tearful exchanges. And my mother actually -- and you know what my husband said? He said, "Look, you want to do it? We'll do it." And my mother said to me, "It's probably your husband's influence." And I was profoundly insulted by that, because I said, "You don't think I have an original thought in my head?" So, it was difficult. And my sister, who lived in Belgium at the time, invited my mother to go over there so that she would be there on my son's thirteenth birthday. So, she was not in the US. She wrote my son a very, very -- oh! And she had said to me, "If Charlie's not bar mitzvahed, 84:00I'll never set foot in your house." I didn't believe her. And I didn't have to believe her, because she wrote my son a wonderful letter that I still have because my son loses things. The man's fifty-four years old, but -- my dad had a wonderful ring that my mom gave him, and he lost that. But anyhow. He moved around so much that he wouldn't have kept it. Although I moved, and I don't know where it is anymore. I moved from Washington to here a year ago. So, he was not bar mitzvahed, and my mother wasn't here, and then she wrote this terrific letter for him, which I read to him, or which he read. And then we met up, and 85:00it was fine. So, she still went to shul on High Holy Days. And she always said to me, I want the cantor from this shul that I go to -- and it was somewhere on Broadway -- to give the eulogy when I die. I said, "Fine." She was eighty-nine years old when she died, on Christmas Eve. And there was no way we could get a hold of anybody, you know? So, we went to this memorial place. And we said, We don't know what to do. And they said, Well, we have a -- what do you call it? -- a stable of rabbis available. And I was very distressed. But she died on a 86:00Wednesday night, and my sister was in Europe, and my son was in Oregon. And so, we didn't bury her the next day. The next day after that was Christmas. We couldn't bury her on Christmas. The next day after that was Shabbos. We couldn't bury her there. So, she was buried on Sunday. It gave me time to sort of write a chronology of her life. And I gave it to the rabbi, a man I had never seen before. And he asked to talk to us for a little bit. And he asked very pointed questions, including one which said, "Did your mother --" -- my children were there as well. "So, did Mrs. Meringer have a sense of humor?" And my sister and I said no. And my two children said yes. So, I guess she was funnier with them. But the eulogy he gave was phenomenal. Because based on the information that we 87:00had given him and the chronology that I had given him, people thought he must have known my mother intimately. And fortunately for me, the thing it wasn't the standard -- what's the standard chapel in New York City? It wasn't that one. It was a different one. They taped it. So, I have it. They taped the thing. People read things. Oh, just to tell you, my mom, when she stopped working at the age of eighty-one, was sort of, Yeah, what am I gonna do next? She then decided to -- somebody suggested she join the 92nd Street Y. By the age of seventy-five, she had learned how to play bridge. So, she could play bridge. And they said, 88:00Why don't you take a class? And she took a class of creative writing. And she wrote amazing little stories, three pages or so, about her past and about -- for instance, one of her sisters getting married and having her hair shaved, and she saw that, and she said she would never let that happen to her. And one of her brothers, who got -- who went to the Second World War out of Poland, all that, and when the war ended, nobody knew where he was. It took him months to find his way home. And when he came home, the family was on vacation. And she said how this young man sat on the stoop and cried, and somebody told him where they were. I mean, lovely little stories, which I compiled into three little books. 89:00So, I didn't fulfill her hope that I would be -- I was married by a rabbi. And that's another story. The rabbi was a Belgian rabbi, guy they knew from Belgium, who spoke no English. And the ceremony was in a language my husband did not understand. And I was upset about it, but he -- he was a good guy. He was a great guy. We were married forty-eight years when he died. He said, "So what? We're married." But it was sort of thoughtless, 'cause my parents arranged it, you know? So.

[END OF INTERVIEW]