Liselotte Weil
PR (Plater Robinson)
LH (Lance Hill)
LW (Liselotte Weil)
PR Today is December 15th, 2003. I wonder if we can begin by asking you kindly if you could give us your name and when and where you were born? Please.
LW My name is Liselotte Levy Weil, my middle name is Rosetta, that was my grandmother's name, but I dropped that because after I got married I became Liselotte Weil, my maiden name, Liselotte Levy. I was born in a beautiful town near the Rhine River named Neuwied and my family lived there for hundreds of years. I was born in July 7th 1921. I was the first child of my parents. What else do you want to know?
PR Your people had begun their journey in Spain.
LW Yes, my ancestors were orthodox Jews who lived in Spain up until the Inquisition. In fact my parents name, my fathers name was Ferdinand, my mothers name was Rosa. These were Spanish names that were repeated. My ancestors came from Spain and after the Inquisition they went to England where they stayed till 1621. They became pyers of clothing merchandise. Now that I think of it, later on they were in the ladies (inaudible phrase) business and obvious call which was a first matter. Ladies decided to wear in Hebrew, she might (inaudible phrase). In 1621 they came to the town on the Rhine River. The Fuerst was member of a of royalty. Well, he was an owner of a lot of land, he was a very wealthy man, he had a palace. He was a prince and he invited Jewish people because they were industrious, and he also invited other minorities. He invited Quakers to settle there. In 1621 he built them a synagogue and a school, he was very, very good to the Jews. Naturally they worked and they became industrious, most of them successful.
PR And you had one relative who served in the Army in 1841?
LW Yes, I have a document, a German Army discharge paper (1841-1845) of my great great grandfather. I have a copy hanging there, I will show it to you. The original I sent to the Leo Beck Institute, but this looks like the original. He served in the German Army and he had an honorable discharge. My grandfather, Wilhelm Levy, named after the kaiser, Wilhelm, was in the Franco-Prussian war in 1876.
PR 1870-71.
LW Yes. My father was a soldier in the German army in the First World War, 1914 to 1918. My brother went into the U.S. army in 1941, into the American Army, as a plain GI Soldier.
PR And fought the Germans?
LW Fought the Germans. Yes, that's what he wanted. In Africa, while in North Africa, he was made an American citizen. I have his (inaudible word) letter still when he wrote me that. I don't know where to find it right now. Luckily for him the army gave him his education too, because we didn't have any money and he sure didn't have any. He went to Boston University where he became a psychiatric social worker. He only worked for one institution, the Massachusetts Correctional Institute until he retired. When he retired, he went to Maine and obviously those were his happiest years, the time in Maine, because Maine is beautiful and the people were hospitable.
PR What was his name?
LW Leo, same name as my husband, which is somewhat confusing to some people. He never married, why I don't know, I can never tell you. I guess he was afraid he didn't have enough money, I don't know.
PR When you were born, you were born into a Germany that had just come out of the First World War. I wonder what stories your father told you about that experience?
LW My father kept us at the dining room table every night, because there was not anything to do. We didn't have radio to listen to or television, so he told stories about the First World War. He was at Verdun in France. He was in the Russian front, which was awful. The cold was terrible and it left him with a terrible case of Arthritis. What was I talking about now?
PR The First World War.
LW Yes, I was born in 1921, (laughs) as a first child. Then in 1924 my brother was born and in 1927 we had a little sister, a beautiful little sister, who was supposed to come to the states. She was on the papers but she didn't want to leave my parents. So she didn't come out and, my father, as I had written in the papers, was killed the day before Kristallnacht. He was not killed then, he was brutally attacked, and he died December 1st, 1938, which is now 65 years ago. My little sister then went to concentration camp with my mother. To Theresienstadt, it was supposed to be a model concentration camp. They showed it to the Swiss to show how beautiful the Jewish people got treated. From there, though they were sent to Auschwitz, where they were all disposed of.
PR Your life before 1933 was what?
LW Well, it was a normal life. I mean for that time, you know, we didn't do things, like when I was 16 years old I couldn't go out on a date like children here. But that was the same for other children too. Parents didn't let their children go out when they're 12 or 13 years old. It was a normal life. I had girlfriends, and sometimes some boys played with us.
PR Christian and Jewish?
LW Not many Christians, no, we were segregated in a way. In school, yes, I shouldn't say that, when I was young I had some gentile girlfriends. In fact I had one girlfriend, she was from an aristocratic family, Marie Vonhelm. She would love to come to my house because my mother had good sandwiches and her mother just had bread and butter. In fact, the first time I went back to Germany with my husband, we stayed at a hotel on the Rhine River, a beautiful hotel, and this lady remembered me from school, who owns the hotel. I didn't remember her. She said, ADo you want me to call some of your old friends from school? I said no, I don't think I'd be interested because there's too much there in between that I don't feel like I'd be too interested in talking about, so I never saw the girlfriends again.
PR Was that one girlfriend still around?
LW I have no idea. Evidently some of them were. Well, the first time I went back to Germany was in the 1960s, I'm sure they were still around.
PR Well, was there evidence of anti-Semitism in the 1920s?
LW Well, not as much in the 1920s as it was in the 1930s. I went to this school, Zinzendorf school, it was run by the Quakers. These people were very wonderful, they didn't allow any discrimination. They were closed because they didn't like the way they behaved, you know they were good to Jewish children. We didn't have a car, our mothers didn't come pick us up by car or SUV's or whatever you have. I used to have to take a quick walk home, and there was this little red headed, I can still see him, freckled-faced little face, and he would attack me, beat me. He didn't even know me. I mean sometimes I think of this, How could he be so ugly and brutal to me, he didn't even know who I was. But anyway.
PR But he knew you were Jewish?
LW He knew I was Jewish that's the reason. Naturally I have no idea whatever happened to him. Yes, we knew that was anti-Semitism and we had to get out. It was not easy to get out because my parents thought it would be too hard for them to start, and my father thought nothing would happen to him.
PR Because he had been a soldier?
LW He had been a soldier in the German army and he had a German background.
PR Did he actually make that statement?
LW They knew that, sure, he was the head of the war veterans. Sure they knew that. They sent to each town, for instance, in Neuwied where I lived, they sent Nazis from Coblenz to beat up the Jews. They wouldn't let their own, because they knew them. Then they would change, maybe the people from Neuwied would go to Coblenz or somewhere else to destroy or to set the synagogues on fire. It was never the local people who did this, they sent others. So what else do you want to know?
PR When was your first recognition of the Nazis and the threat that they represented?
LW In 1933, when they boycotted all Jewish buildings. People thought, >Oh, you know, this will pass.' My father's mother died when he was born. Her name was Rosetta Greenwald. I think in Germany its Gruenwald. She had two brothers in the United States, but when my father was born, she died, and he never heard from them. They were just not interested in their sister's child. He knew of them. When he was a young man, before World War 1 started, he wanted to come to America and find these uncles, because life in Germany was always difficult. I mean hard, you had to work hard. His stepmother would not let him, he was too good of a child to let him go. She had five little daughters, they were my fathers half sisters. She wanted him to stay and look after them, see that they all got married. Boys had to take the girls to dances, and find them all husbands, which he did. I forgot what I was saying, what did you want to know?
PR When the Nazi's first posed a threat to you, it was the boycott in 1933.
LW We couldn't sit on benches anymore in the park. Things started little by little. The worst part was November of 1938. I never will forget it, I think I wrote it down. Did you read about it?
PR Will you describe it please?
LW Yes, I was in Bingen on the Rhine. My mothers relatives were in the wine business. In fact they still have a business, but I don't know if they own it in this country. The Christian Brothers wine business and the Mason Wine Company. I went to one of these families and took care of one of the children. It was not such a pleasant job for a 15 year old because I had no freedom (laughs), they wouldn't let me go out with my girlfriends. My mother said please come home at once, the papers (Nov. 1938) came from U.S.A. They started early, they started in 1933-34 writing to relatives and finally they agreed to send the papers. One of the reasons was my brother was supposed to go to on the children's transport to Canada. But they had to fill out a questionnaire, and one of the questions was, Do you have relatives in the US? My parents had to say yes, so they wanted to know who, and they started getting in contact with the relatives. That was one reason we came over. Another reason was this one cousin that we were in touch with, I should tell you, my parents kept on writing letters to Vacul Coziesco (?) where our ancestors had lived. But there was no one living there now, they had all died years ago. The postmaster in Mokobl Mississippi saw some of these letters, and thought there must be something important in there. He didn't read German, my parents wrote in German, so he had it translated. When he translated these letters he saw we needed help. He sent these letters to Winsboro, Louisiana, where one of our cousin lived. He wanted to bring us over, but his brother who also lived in Winsboro, Louisiana, was very much against it. He thought it would bring a lot of problems and he didn't want it. The cousin who got the letter was interested in bringing us over, so on his deathbed, he asked the relatives to bring us over. It was his deathbed wish.
PR What was his name?
LW Issac Greenwald. >Ike' they called him. I never met him, and if it wouldn't have been for him we would have never gotten out.
PR So he had to provide an affidavit of support?
LW They all had to write affidavits and the affidavits were hard because we were children, and you're not supposed to be a burden to the states, ever. I mean at that time it was different but now it opened up all the doors until the Cubans came in. When the Cubans came in, I couldn't believe what was going on then. At that time it was very hard to get out, so my mother and I came and left my brother and little sister. Oh, I was talking about that day, November 9th, I came home on the train with my suitcase. Like I said, I always had too many things, a heavy suitcase. Papa was not at the station, so I left my suitcase there, which was a good thing because I couldn't have carried it. When I came down to the middle of the city, Jews were living everywhere, there was no ghetto or anything. I saw certain houses, and things came out of windows, streets were littered with furniture and featherbeds and whatnot. They had gone into homes and just destroyed what they could. I came to my street, and a woman came to my door and said your mother, father, sister, and brother were taken to jail with all the other folks who were taken to jail. They didn't know what else to do with them, I guess they would have been homeless practically. I went to the jail and asked to see my mother. Naturally my mother was delighted to see me. She asked the jailer to tell my father I had gotten here, and I spent the night there. The next day we were released in the morning. The men were not, but my brother was released because he had the papers to go to America. We came back home and the mess in the house was horrible. I mentioned in one of the articles that my mother had a big buffet, and she had all kinds of things she was very proud of and never used. (Something) she never used because you know, you were always saving and I had a few pieces left, and they just turned the buffet over. Everything was kaput. My mother had a beautiful painting she got from her boss when she got married, beautiful black ebony wood. It was a still life of bananas and apples and they took a knife, and cut through it. they destroyed things that, I don't know why.
PR Did any of your neighbors participate in the plunder?
LW No, that was it. They did not. They sent people from other places to come, you see they wouldn't send neighbors. You would know them, you would say, what are you doing here? They sent people from other towns. I don't know where these people had come from. The people I guess in (_?_) where sent somewhere else to do the same thing.
PR What was the reaction of the ordinary Christian population?
LW I have no idea. The church didn't do anything. Papa came home that Monday, and he was hurting terribly. He was uncomfortable, and my mother took him to the hospital, where the Catholic nuns took very good care of him, and he died December 1st. We didn't leave until January, Papa used to say I can't understand that the pope doesn't do anything or that these ministers or these priests that see this, their eyes were closed. It's a very hard thing to understand, that nobody said anything.
PR Well, did any of your neighbors whisper anything?
LW No, they were scared, scared to come into your house. If someone you know would bring you some, or do anything for you they'd, they were scared to death.
PR Was there any sign of support?
LW There was no sign of support that I can remember. The nuns took care of Papa, yes, and, uh, but there was no sign of any support that I remember. A very tragic time. (Pause) So, and in the January of 1939 my brother and I left. So, what else would you like to know?
PR When you arrive in America, you arrive where?
LW New York. It was a change, my life would. I left my mother, I was upset, I wept, and I just couldn't be consoled. I never will forget this young man on the boat, and on the boat he said, AYou'll never have a boyfriend. You're nothing but, you sulk, you always cry, you're always in bed. Question, but he'd be surprised I had boyfriends. (Laugh) But, when we got to New York, my cousin was a beautiful woman, my cousin Carol was at the boat with her husband, Roy Chartier. He was an editor of Variety magazine, very handsome, very nice guy, too. I tell you, when I saw these two gorgeous people, I was so happy that they kissed me. I just thought it's wonderful that they treated us royally. We eat so much ice cream that our gums started hurting because we'd never eaten ice cream in the winter. And they put us on the bus and we came to first the Meridian, and then I came to Eunice.
PR First to Meridian?
LW First to Meridian, Mississippi.
PR So what was your impression of the Deep South upon arriving?
LW Oh, that everybody's wonderful, everybody. I thought there's no Nazis, no anti-Semitism here. Because everybody was wonderful, you know. I really thought, I thought every Gentile hated every Jew. Because, that was the way it was in Germany, then. And, I mean, they showed it's not so because the man who had the movie theater, for instance, and he heard that I was coming. I went for about more than a year to the movie and I never paid. I was just allowed to go in any movie I saw. And, uh, and, other people took care of me. The doctor took care of me. He wouldn't charge me. My aunt didn't have much money either all the money she had was invested in a lady's ready-to-wear store, and she was really not a good merchant. Her life had been social work, but her family made her go into this business that she knew nothing about. And, like I said, she didn't know a black sock from a white sock.
PR That was Amelia.
LW Amelia Greenwald, yeah. Very successful in the work she did.
PR Would you describe this store and where it was and what life was like?
LW The store was on second street. It was very attractive. She was a collector of antiques so she had a lot of old things in the store. At first I was not happy in the store I mean I was not too happy period-inside, but then I met the Wright family. Y There were six children. The Wrights had six children. The two oldest young men were in school in New Orleans. Sofia, the oldest daughter, was my dearest friend, was in school in Newcomb. They became wonderful friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wright. I was practically the seventh child. They didn't have anything without me, they didn't do anything on Friday nights. You know Friday nights-we didn't have a synagogue and Mrs. Wright always had a beautiful Sabbath dinner and I was there all the time. And my aunt really was glad I had something to do, because then she-she had a friend who owned a hotel, and she and the friend would go out antique shopping-even if we didn't have the money she went shopping. Any way they really made my life very enjoyable.
PR Well, you were eighteen, nineteen years old.
LW By that time yeah later on then Y Later on when the war came, we had relatives in Port Gibson, Mississippi. These Port Gibson folks had brought thirty-five relatives from Germany. Among them was a family also named Weil who hadY one family had five sons and they brought the five sons and the mother over. Some of them are married. One of them was married when they came over. Two others married while they were here. And one of them was a bachelor. Anyway they said- merchandise for the store was hard to find and they said go to St. Louis there's a big market. And one of the Weils worked for Rice. Stix a big wholesaler. Maybe you will find merchandise there. So we went and the salesman was Leo Weil who had just been married, and in fact he was the father of a little daughter. Anyway Max the bachelor took me out, but he was I don't know nearly twenty years older than I was. I thought, >Oh my god, he was an old man.' (laugh) Anyway, a few years later we heard from the Weils in Port Gibson who was married to the Weil had died and naturally they had a funeral. And two of the Weil boys came to Port Gibson for the funeral. They told me Leo Weil had just been divorced and they thought maybe I would like to come to St. Louis. I said >If Leo Weil wants to see me, I'm not coming to St. Louis.' I wasn't going to put myself on the market (laughing). I said >If Leo Weil wants to see me he can come.' That Christmas he came to visit. By New Year's I knew I would marry him.
PR What year was that?
LW That was 1949. And we didn't live happily ever after (laughing). He had this little girl he was crazy about and I never had any children. Nowadays you would have children because there's all these artificial insemination and what not. Anyway, I had my aunt to take care of and Amelia didn't die until 1961, and I had the store and Leo was on the road. He had a line of merchandise - men's wear - that he traveled with.
PR Where in Germany was he from?
LW He was from near Heidelberg. A little town, Steinfurt, we visited several times, at least four or five times. Because he always wanted to go to the cemetery his father was buried there.
PR And the name of the town?
LW Steinsfurt. I don't think you would find it on any map.
PR And when did he leave?
LW He left in 1936. He and two of his brothers came in 1936. And then the others came - Max the bachelor came, his mother, I think it was already 1940.
PR Did your father describe to you the process of getting an American visa and what that was like?
LW Yes. We knew what it was. Some people had no problems because they relatives that they had been corresponding with that knew of them and maybe visited in Germany, but these people, they didn't know us. They didn't know what kind of people we would be. You know all of these Germans all these people that came from Europe, I shouldn't say just German Jews, Austrian and Polish, I don't think any ever became a burden to the state. Did you ever hear of any? Nobody ever. They all went to work. Some of them washing dishes, elevator operators, but they all found something to work and eventually they became business people. Some of them went to school, well most of them went to work because they had to work.
PR Did your father go to the American consul? And where?
LW No, we both-my brother and I-went to the American consul. No, they had to do this by writing. The affidavits were sent, then we got the visas in Stuttgart in Southern Germany. My brother and I went there to get them. We had a date that we had to go there and get theY and that was something too. I had a bad cold and this doctor, this lousy German doctor-why they had a German doctor in the American consul I don't know-said you have to have an x-ray made of your chest, to see your lungs and so we had to. Luckily my mother gave us enough money, because if we hadn't had enough money we wouldn't have gotten an affidavit. There was nothing wrong with me, the x-ray . . . December 7, 1938 later became another famous-infamous day you know when Pearl Harbor was bombed, anyway we got our affidavits December 7, 1938.
PR And they arrived in the mail?
LW They came, yes. They came and Stuttgart was informed and we got a letter from them and got the affidavits in Stuttgart.
PR What was the atmosphere like at the American consulate? How did they treat you?
LW We were so scared. I don't know I don't know how we were treated. I mean, they made me wait all day to give me the affidavit because they thought I should have an x-ray, which I held against them always. I was lucky that the x-ray showed that there was nothing wrong with me.
PR And your parents, they never received a visa?
LW My father died December first, 1938. So by that time my mother was already alone, no they didn't have the papers, they couldn't come. And after I came over here seemed so tough in the United States at that time. You know we were here in this country and the relatives didn't care to bring a mother and a small child. My sister was you know ten or eleven years old.
PR So it was because they were not work productive that they were not brought over.
LW I guess not, they were not productive yes. My brother after the war didn't go back to Winsboro. My brother said they hated to lose a slave. That's about it.
PR So he went to Winsboro and you went to Eunice.
LW Yes, and my aunt was better to me.
PR Well, when you arrive in the Deep South you enter a new arena of the race question. And I wonder when that became apparent to you?
LW I couldn't believe it. I could go everywhere. And my aunt had a black woman who stayed with us to do my laundry, and do this and that and the other, and when we went on the trip she would take her she couldn't go in the restaurant to get some food, we'd have to bring it to the car to her. I couldn't believe, here, I am fresh from the Old World. Here I'm in America I can do everything, I can go anywhere, and this black woman couldn't do anything. It was to me-I couldn't believe that black people would be treated like this here. Didn't know anything about the race question when I came.
PR Did you ever make any mistakes with the race question, not knowing the rules?
LW Yes I guess in the store maybe I did because I let them try on clothes. Some white people would come in and say we don't like it if they try on the hats. It was very difficult time in the store.
PR What was the relation ship like between white and black people in Eunice, Louisiana at that time?
LW Segregated. What can I say? I didn't have black friends, I mean nobody, black woman would not sit with you to eat.
PR The movie theater?
LW They were segregated the movies, they sat upstairs, we sat downstairs.
PR Was there ever violence?
LW No. I don't remember any violence ever. There was no violence. They were very subdued and very quiet. There was no reason for us to be ugly to them. There were just certain rules you went by.
PR Well, you had just escaped that predicament.
LW Yes, yes that's right. (Laugh) When I came to the United States, I could do anything and everything, and these people were born here, had lived here for hundreds of years. They were, you know, not permitted to have a normal life.
PR So what did you say when people started talking about the niggers?
LW Well, they talked ugly about some people, and it was not, I could never use the word because I thought it was an ugly word. Because in Germany, they called us Juds, that means Jew in a very ugly way. (Pause) But, I mean, I always found that people were very good to me, always able to keep people working for me. You know, but when I first came, I thought it was awful, the way they were treated.
LW Years, the years have gone by.
LH It's amazing, sitting here listening to you talk about events of the 1920s and 30s, and here we are going into 2004, it's such a different world.
LW You know, in Germany in 1921, they had the inflation, and it was terrible. They, uh, one of Papa's sisters was married, so she had a certain amount of money, and which was supposed to buy linens and furniture and stuff, and I think she got two pillow cases with her. It was tough. You could see that something in Germany was going to happen because, on account of the inflation. It was after the First World War, Germany lost the war, you know, and that's, uh.
PR Was there talk of fear of the Communists?
LW Yes, yes, oh they, uh, they Papa loved politics, and he would sometimes go to the Communist meetings, just the meetings, to hear what people were saying, and they accused him of being a Communist. He was never a Communist.
PR Who accused him?
LW People, people said, you know, they said.
PR This was before the Nazis came to power.
LW No, after the Nazis came to power, yeah.
LH Can I ask one question?
LW Yes?
LH I was reading over the presentation that you gave, how did you finally learn that your mother and sister were gone? When you were here.
LW Um, after the war was over, but it was so difficult to for my brother and me to talk about the past. We would never talk about the past. I did talk to my brother about the past when he retired. He retired in his sixties. Like I said he moved to Maine. I would visit him, I was with him for the whole summer. By that time my husband was gone, I had nothing to keep me from going there. And, I would visit him during the summer and we started talking, about family and the past. It was very hard, very difficult to talk about it.
PR How did it begin, when you first started talking about it?
LW Well, a little by little we would talk about things, evolved, you know.
LH When did you receive word, when did you know for sure, that you would never see your mother again?
LW It was after the war. I think a telegram came. It all seems kind of far away. A telegram came and I never will forget. My aunt didn't say anything, question (she got the telegram?). She sent me with her friend, who had a hotel, she had a chain of hotels. I should go and visit her, and when I came back my aunt tells me what, that the telegram had came. But I had heard enough, I knew enough that I was fearful that I hadn't gotten any letters from my mother. Letters stopped in '41 or '42. So, I knew that things, uhY
PR During that period, did you read about?
LW Well sure, we would read, and see that, you know, people were being transported to concentration camps.
PR Did you read that in the local papers at the time?
LW Well, we always got the New Orleans paper.
PR What did that tell you?
LW Well, little by little they told you, about people being deported to concentration camps. It, uh, but the thing is this, when my brother went back to Germany, it was with the army in Frankfurt. And, somebody told him there were still Jews living in Neuwied, my hometown. He hoped that my mother and sister would still be there. And, so the, he showed the note or the letter, or whatever it was, to his commanding officer who gave him a Jeep and a driver. He didn't want him to go alone to (Neuwied) question, several hours drive. He went back to (Neuwied) question, and was told there were nobody, no Jews left, they were all taken out in 1941. They were put on trains and that was first I have a cousin who always said, that was the first, being taken on these trains like cattle. You know, there wasn't a bathroom there and if you know how trains are. Day and night in these cattle trains, I mean in these trains. I think it was cattle cars, I forgot, yeah I think cattle cars. People died on the trains. But I had one cousin, and she was a very interesting woman, she married a gentile. And she, uh, being married to a gentile, she was not taken right away to a concentration camp. But she, finally they took her. And she jumped off one of those trains, at night. She left all her belongings, little bit belongings, whatever that was, a suitcase and a purse. She said, she was living in Cologne, but she was not, but Cologne was heavily bombed and she said her apartment house was bombed and she had nothing left, she was looking for work and food. And uh, she lived, she didn't look very particularly Jewish, she was blondish. And she worked for farmers, and uh, she survived.
PR What was her name?
LW Caroline. Her maiden name was Gans, G-a-n-s. And then she was married to this German, a man Flach. F-l-a-c-h. She has a daughter, who lives in Germany, she and her husband. She's been married to a German gentile, in America, she married an Orthodox cantor. (Laughter) And she was in, at that time she worked in Buffalo, New York, and there's a big Jewish home for the aged, and he was a cantor there. And they got together and they got married. He died some years later.
PR Well, your friend who jumped from the train, her relationship
LW That was her.
PR But her relationship with the Christian husband was?
LW After she came back from the war, the Christian husband had married again. They had gotten a divorce somehow. And, but her mother-in-law, was very wonderful. The mother-in-law, in fact all the family, my mother and the sister, and my aunts, and the children, they were all taken to the mother-in-law who bought them all new clothing and blankets so they could go to the concentration camps stylish. She bought warm coats, and the suitcase, a suitcase for everybody. But all this was taken away from them as soon as they got to the camps.
PR Did she mention whether or not they knew what awaited them, in the camps?
LW I imagine they knew, I imagine they knew. I, but uh, that they just thought everybody was wrong, it wouldn't be so bad.
LH How long did you live in Eunice?
LW I lived in Eunice from '39,when I came, until 1986, until I came to New Orleans.
LH Mmm, hmm. And when did you get married?
LW In '49.
LH In '49. So your husband?
LW My husband died in 1983.
LH So in 1949 when you got married, did he move to?
LW To Eunice, yes. He was traveling.
LH Aaa, haa. And what kind of work did you do during that time?
LW My husband was a traveling salesman for wholesalers, for men'swear. And, uh, and he had Kentucky, and Mississippi, and Tennessee, he was traveling there. And we had a ready-to-wear store, I worked in the ready-to-wear store. And I went to nightschool. I had a wonderful Catholic friend, Dr. Gladys Peck who I went to nightschool, who was a big help to me.
PR Night school where?
LW In Eunice.
LH And, how many Jews were in Eunice?
LW Just two families. The Wright family, father, mother, and children. One daughter stayed in Eunice, she and her husband were very very dear friends of my husband and me. And, we belonged to the temple in Lafayette, and we went there every Friday night. We went 45 miles one way to see the Garden?? Here, people live on the Avenue, they don't go.
LH Tell me the story about how you met Allison and Jimmy Stovall?
LW Oh, he was a minister at the Methodist Church. They came, they didn't have any children, they were young, just had been married. And, uh, and they liked my aunt, they liked to come into the store. And they always gave the ministers a discount. Ministers and nuns got discount when they needed something, want something, they always, the priests got discounts when they needed something for their mother or somebody, and uh so they expected their first baby, and the name was Alice. And I wonder what happened to Alice, did she die?
LH No, no, no. She lives in Lake Charles right now.
LW She does? Are you in contact with her?
LH I am, I could put you in contact with her.
LW Yeah, and in fact, Mr Stovall's?'s mother-in-law gave him some oleander bushes. He planted the oleander bushes in our yard, at my home in Eunice.
LH Mmm, hmm. What was your address?
LW Uh, 941 West Walnut.
LH 941 what?
LW West Walnut, walnut.
LH Is it still there?
LW Yes, it's still there.
LH Uh, huh. And so how did you become a Methodist?
LW I didn't become a Methodist.
LH I know.
LW But, my friend, the lady who had the hotel chain, Inez Douherty. She thought everybody on Sunday should go to church. And since, when I first came, my aunt had sent me to Lafayette was not so easy to get to synagogue. So on Sundays, I went with Miss Douherty to church. And, uh I also went to the Baptist church.
LH What did you think of the Christian church, what happens?
LW I was in Chicago over the Thanksgiving holiday. My daughter had this book, Constantine Sword. Have you read it maybe?
LH No, I haven't.
LW It's very difficult for me to read, because I know so, I know nothing about the New Testament. And this is about the New Testament. And I can't relate to all these names and all these sayings. And uh, but I thought, like I said before, I thought every gentile hated every Jew, which I found out it was not so.
LH Did you experience any anti-Semitism in Eunice.
LW I really can't say that. Because people were nice to me. There was probably one or two people, but they didn't show it. You know we were invited, for instance, the nuns had a tea, once a year. It was in June when school was over. And my friend, Sophie Wright, Kerstein And I were always asked to pour, which was very nice. And I made a very nice friend, Sister Mary Andre Mouton?. And I stayed friendly with her for years. And then, uh, I left Eunice and she too was moved. I lost touch with her. One day I look in the New Orleans paper, and I see Sister Mary Andre Muton? is visiting at Angola. And I thought, what in the world? Must be my sister, she was teaching some of the inmates there. But anyway they said that she lived now at the home, and she was stationed, or living across the river, at the, oh I forgot the name. Holy Cross? I think it was Holy Cross school. But anyway, when I saw this, where she lived, so I got the address, and I wrote to her, and I said maybe, are you my Sister Mary Andre Muton?. And heard back from her, I said, she phoned me, she said I'm your sister. And we became friends again. And we would visit her, I'd go to Willowood to play bingo with the old folks. I'd go there, and often I would go and visit Sister Audry. And some years ago she had to retire. And she started the Promptsolcer nursing home. Nursing home and I visited there already. But when Christmas comes, middle of the year, you know you have things to, but when Christmas comes now, I send her always a pretty plant. Because she can, she and all the other people in there can enjoy it. Oh, I have to show you.
PR Were there any German Prisoners of war working in the rice?
LW Yes, very close to us, there were German prisoners.
PR Did you have any contact with them?
LW No. (inaudible)
PR May I ask you a question? You've mentioned and I've read there's a postmaster in Mccool, Mississippi. Now, where is Mccool?
LW It's, I don't know if you've ever been there. To be honest, I looked at it once. It was, I don't know where in Mississippi.
PR Well, the uncle that worked so hard and, at his deathbed insisted that his family bring you all over, umm(phone rings)
PR Who, that was the uncle who, um on his deathbed insisted. Who did he insist?
LW Well, there was his brother living in Winnsboro.
PR Who was the one who was not friendly to the idea.
LW Julian was not friendly to the idea. He was married, never had children, and he, he didn't want children, I mean he didn't want to be bothered with children. You know we don't know what they will be, they get in automobiles, maybe in car wrecks, you know. He didn't know that we were well-raised children, you know, we were, our father was the disciplinarian, but that's. There was only, Amelia Greenwald who said she would take me, and then there was a sister they had in Meridian, Mississippi who was a widow then.
PR And your brother went to live with who?
LW With the one who didn't want us, Julian. Because Isaac Died, and his widow. His widow actually was my father's first cousin, Etta's wife was one of the daughters of those two brothers of my grandmother's who lived in the, Mccool, in Kasiesko?. And, she didn't care for me at all. She liked my brother, she left him a little money when she died, but she didn't care about me.
PR But Amelia adopted you.
LW Amelia adopted me, yes.
PR For what reason?
LW Well, she had heard, through this Miss Douherty, this lady who was Amelia's friend. They came to New Orleans once, we have relatives here in New Orleans, and Amelia's sister-in-law, Ida Greenwald had inherited some farmland and some money. They didn't have much, but she had. And in her will, Ida wrote in her will, left her daughter and son-in-law most of what she had. She had a son here and a wife, the son had a wife. She didn't leave them hardly anything, because they didn't do anything for her ever, for the parents. And so, but when this will was read, the son, Ida's son and the daughter-in-law tried to break the will. I don't know how far they got, but they had. And Amelia and Miss Douherty happened to be down here visiting, and Miss Douherty heard that, she said Amelia you have to adopt Lisolette to protect her. So, you know, you can't disinherit a child in Louisiana, so that's why.
LH So she was afraid that someday when she passed on that the relatives would not take care of me.
LW And this is Miss Douherty, she was really a wonderful friend. She was not Jewish. No no, she wasn't. Actually she was a uh, not Unitarian. What do you call people that don't believe in going to doctors, andY
PR Quakers.
LW Not Quaker, no
LH Christian Scientist.
LW Christian Scientist. My brother in fact liked the Christian Scientist idea too. He, when he was, at the time, my brother went to all the, all, he went to synagogue, all the churches, Christian Scientist, and he liked the Unitarians. He had a lot of friends in Unitarian Church. And the day he was, uh, my brother wanted to be cremated, he thought he would do things easy way for me, which was not. I was up there, and they had sent the body up to Portland, Maine to have it cremated, and I took a suit there. They said, you don't need a suit to be cremated. You know I took my brother's navy blue suit. He wanted to be, his ashes thrown into the Pinaspcot Bay. He lived there, loved it. So, that day I couldn't go, I could not go up there. So his friend Harold and Harold's wife, and another couple who had a boat, they took his ashes up there. But then he had some Jewish friends and was Friday afternoon, and, uh, who, in the summer they didn't have services, who got Jewish people from their little town that they lived, Rockland, Maine, it's a neighborhood town, together and they had a service that night.
PR Your little sister, Margo, when the letters would arrive from the American Consulate, she would have weeping fits.
LW Well, she didn't want to leave my parents. She just, you know, you're that young.
PR How old was she?
LW She was then about 12 years old, something like that. She was born in '27. No, she was, when the letters came, she was about 10 years old, yes.
PR That night of Kristalnaucht, you witnessed the synagogue being burned.
LW Yeah, that was night, we were behind the curtains, you know. Oh they brought hammers with them and what not, to destroy whatever they could. There was nothing left, there was no prayer books, no torahs. Whatever happened to that, who knows.
PR It had went up in flames.
LW Well, it went up in flames, yes.
PR It was wooden?
LW Well, some of it was wooden, yes.
PR And, you write in your essay that, um, from that moment on you never?
LW I didn't say my nightly prayers anymore, no. I couldn't believe that God would sit there. God didn't, God didn't do anything! What did he do? Later on, too, after millions of people are killed in concentration camps and the war. And, not just Jews were killed. In Germany, you go into a home, there isn't a home that there isn't a father and son is killed. I mean, war is a horrible thing. That's why I was very much against Mr. Bush going into Iran. I'm glad they found Sadam Hussein, but I still don't think it was a good idea to go in there. They could have found him without all this, without bombing, and, and, homeless people there, and poor people now. Anyway, I never want war. I'm, uh, very much against war.
PR Your father and your mother, they courted. And, you write, um, that your father would travel to your mother's small village in a buggy.
LW Horse and buggy, yes. Uh huh, that's the old way of transportation, you know. And, uh, at night he would go to sleep and the horse would know to take him back home.
PR Well, for so many generations, your families had, you know, struggled to be German.
LW Yes, they were Germans. I mean, they didn't struggle, they were considered Germans. They had to go into the army just like anybody else. Did you see this? (In the background)
LH What is that on the end? On the very end, is that.
LW That's a piece that my great-grandfather, the army discharged him.
LH That's his honorable discharge. That's him, 1841 to 1845. Yeah, he was in the service then.
LH How did, how did you get this?
LW I, I had an original piece, I had a visitor here. And, this visitor, this visitor.
LW This visitor said, Listen, now this should be in a museum. There's a Leo Beck Institute in New York. Leo Beck was a very famous rabbi in Berlin. I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
PR Right, I have.
LW And, I, I took the original to the photographer on Broadway, and he made a copy. This is actually the copy, but it looks just like the original.
LH It says, it says the name.
LW Feibel, yes.
LH Feibel.
LW Yes.
LH Isaac.
LW Yes.
LH Feibel. It's amazing, absolutely amazing. So you really descended from several generations of soldiers, as well.
LW Soldiers, yes, I mean, they were Germans. They had to go do their duty, they had to serve, you know.
PR When you were in Eunice, a German family came by to apologize.
LW After the war was over, Telower Family, yeah. They were sorry, you know, they, they're the only Germans that said to me that they were sorry this happened you know.
PR Well what happened, They came and knocked on the door?
LW Well, they came regularly to the store. And I guess they came to the house, they came to the house to visit. They used to have goodies to bring me. Cookies, you know and things, cookies, German things. You would like German cookies. They apologized, they said they were sorry for what happened. In fact I was told they even had a big picture of Adolph Hitler hanging in the house. They were not Anti-Semitic, they kept on coming to us all during the war. I mean, I guess they just couldn't understand why.
PR And what was their name?
LW Lower, L-O-W-E-R, Lower, big family, but this couple has died long ago. It's been a long time.
PR What did you say to them?
LW Oh, I don't know what I said to them. I can't remember the details of things anymore. There were lots of other Germans there but, they were very prominent. They had lots of farmland.
PR You moved here in 1986? Now, why did you move to New Orleans?
LW Well, I was- Leo, my husband, always said if something happens to me, because he had cancer three times, move to St. Louis, because that is where his family all lived. Actually his brothers were all gone by the time he died, but I had two sister in laws there and I had a good relationship with them and I used to have fun with them: playing cards, going shopping, so he said move to St. Louis. Well, I would go to St. Louis after Leo was gone and I got rid of the store. It was so cold in the winter. I came back that winter, it must have been the winter of eighty-five, and Sylvia Stern, who was from Eunice came to visit and her mother still lived in Eunice, and I said it was so cold. She said why don't you move to New Orleans? And I said New Orleans? I never had thought of New Orleans; that never came into my mind. We came down here for the opera and symphony and plays at times and I enjoyed New Orleans, but I never thought of moving here. Eunice was my home. After Leo was gone I thought I can't stay here, too depressing. And so I said find me a good place to live. A few days later she phoned me. She said I found you a place in the Carol Apartments. Well, I really didn't know who the Carol Apartments was, but we had eaten already downstairs at the restaurant, a very good restaurant at that time, the Versailles was here. In fact Morris Wright had a very big birthday party we were invited to, and we came to. I said ok, I'll come and look at it. Oh, then her mother was in New Orleans already at Chateau Notre Dame. And Sophie didn't drive, so I drove her down every week to see her mother. So I said, Wednesday when we come, we'll go and see the apartment. The apartment had been owned by somebody who died and left it to Ms. Schlessinger who had a family and didn't need it. She wanted to sell it or rent it. This apartment was for rent, so I said that's good I want to rent. When I saw it-oh I couldn't see it right away, because the lady was out and I was supposed to go at a certain time of the day. Sylvia said let's look at 1750 first. I liked 1750, it's a nice apartment with big halls, and I didn't like that tremendous garage. So anyway when I came here and I saw the service I get for my car, you know I never have to go to the garage and they are always having somebody, guards, down in the hall, and I saw this apartment, it was on the fifth floor, this is the second floor, it was the same apartment but on the fifth floor. Then I paid a big rent. I paid 1475 a month for this. When I first decided I said that's a lot of money, and I asked do you think I can pay that? Warren Stern said yes, you have enough. You'll have to adjust yourself, to what you have your income is. So anyway, after three years the lady who owned this apartment had died and it was on the market. She was a tremendous housekeeper, kept everything so clean and fresh, and I said ok, I am going to look at this apartment. It was a little bit better than the one I left, because it had more closet in the kitchen, and more display room on this side of the sitting room where I could put all of my stuff. I liked it and we agreed on the price and I bought it. I let Sylvia see it, and I let some other friends see it. I didn't have much to do, I painted the bedroom, and I painted the kitchen. It was a very good thing.
PR Did you know Margie Stitch and her sister lived here for many years?
LW No.
PR No, I can understand-
LW Yes. Even after I was married I would go to Mrs. Wright's Passover Seder. I never had Passover till the last year I was in Eunice. Mrs. Wright had come down here to the Chateau Notre Dame, and I had services in my home, the only services I ever had for Passover.
PR Did you have a Rabbi at both of the congregations in Lafayette?
LW No.
PR You didn't even have one?
LW The old congregation had a Rabbi, but we would have a student Rabbi would come, once a month. There are so many things I learned after I came to this country. For instance on Friday night we would have services, on Saturday night we would have a study group. We were taught all kinds of things. One of the things one night that he talked about was a Aget. I said what is a get? A person gets, when they're divorced they get a get. Well Leo was divorced, but he didn't know of a get. I said do you know of a get? He said I never heard of it. Orthodox do this, we were never orthodox. I never had heard of this. And we had been married for years, I said we had been living in delicious sin. (laughing)
PR So there were seventy-five or so Jewish families living in your town?
LW In our town? Eunice?
PR No, in Germany.
LW Oh, in Germany, yes.
PR What percentage of the population were the Jews?
LW At that time there were about twenty thousand. We only had one synagogue. There were some orthodox people there, but they very seldom came to us, it was not religious enough.
PR And the Rabbi, you didn't call him Rabbi?
LW No, you called him Lehrer, it means teacher. Rabbi you had to have more degrees, I guess, to be a Rabbi.
PR When you got out of the jail and came home after KristalNacht you write that Nazis had not disturbed the cellar.
LW No, they didn't go downstairs. They didn't think- they thought that maybe the cellar only has coal. Usually you have coal in the cellar you know for your heat, for your heating. They always kept apples in the cellar and potatoes. They would get potatoes for the whole winter down in the cellar. Must have been, the climate must have been right in the cellar that they could put in Arot down there.
PR And that Friday night?
LW That Friday night my mother made what they call potato kugel. You grate your raw Irish potatoes, put eggs in there and some fat and flour and salt and pepper, and what else did they put in thereY they grated Irish potatoes and put it in a black iron pot and baked it. It was delicious. We had applesauce with it. The apples were downstairs.
PR Was that a typical Shabbat dinner?
LW That was one of the Shabbat dinners, yes.
PR So even with the destruction the rhythm was not broken.
LW No, my mother did you know I remember something from way back. My mother had a friend who had no children. She said to my mother, Rosa, you always make yourself so much work for the holidays. You do so much. And she said I do that for my children. She wanted to show us what life-what Jewish life was like, especially later on then when things were so disturbing.
PR She became more Jewish then?
LW I believe so. She wanted us to, you know, know what a Jewish household was like. I remember when she said that to that friend AI do that for my children I never forgot that.
PR When your father died they took him to the Jewish Cemetery at night.
LW Yes, at night because they didn't want any disturbances, on a pushcart.
PR But, they didn't allow you to go.
LW Some of the people thought it wouldn't be safe. So my mother, my sister, and I stayed behind, some elderly men, and my brother went.
PR Did you ever find out where in the cemetery he was buried?
LW Oh yes, I knew exactly where he was buried. My cousin, the one who jumped off the train, after she came back from the farms where she was hiding, she put a stone on the grave. And then years later, my husband and I went and had a bigger stone put on the grave, a nicer stone.
PR And when you arrive in New York, your cousin Carol, the first thing she teaches you?
LW How to put on lipstick! And my other mother in Meridian was very beautiful and very vain. She had my hair cut, she didn't like my hair long. She told me how to put other make-up on. I had all new clothes, but she didn't like my clothes, she bought me some new clothes. She wouldn't even let me wait until I got to Eunice to get some new things.
PR How long did it take you to learn English?
LW Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I know it now (laughing)! It's just little by little it comes to you.
PR Did you feel the stigma of being a Arefugee?
LW No, I never felt that. I never felt a stigma. Nothing to be ashamed of. I never felt a stigma of being a refugee.
PR Do you remember seeing the Statue of Liberty?
LW Yes, that was very exciting. We came in the winter. It was very cold, bitter cold.
PR What was it like seeing the Statue of Liberty?
LW Oh, it was you know it was exciting, to think that we finally have arrived.
PR You know that same month in 1939 Hitler gives a speech in Berlin in which he says Aif international jury succeeds in provoking another world war, it will lead not to the destruction of the German nation, but to the annihilation of the Jews.
LW I didn't know about that speech.
PR Had you any suggestion in your mind? Any rumor in your subconscious?
LW You know I was very amazed of how uninformed people were in this country. We didn't talk of it. My brother and I, we couldn't talk of what was going on. But I would meet these other young boys and girls and they had no idea. All they of was getting in the back of a car and making whoopy. They knew nothing. You wanted to be serious, talk about things in the world, they knew nothing and were not interested in anything. They were just, I think of this guy, in fact he wanted to marry me, Bill Lerner at the jewelry store in Meridian, how uninterested he was. And his mother tried to have him not go in the war, she wanted to declare him insane, to keep him from going in the war. I mean they had no idea what was going on in the world.
LH Jews or gentiles had no idea?
LW Jews I'm talking about, Jews had no idea what was going in the world. Heaven knows the gentiles knew nothing either I guess.
PR Did you imagine the possibility of physical annihilation?
LW Not in this country, no.
PR No, no, but in Germany? When you left did you suspect that physical annihilation was possible?
LW I, yes I had always had this feeling I'm going to get out, I'm going to get out, you know. I didn't actually have that. I didn't think thatY
PR But for those left behind?
LW Well, we thought that they, it would pass, something, I don't know. It's a long time since all this, 65 years, and I don't give it always, I don't give it all too much thought anymore. Because, you know, if I would have kept on thinking about it, I couldn't have gone to sleep at night. And Louis Levy always said to me, and she knows about my background, It's amazing how I have developed. That you know, because some people, I have a friend in New York, who's, her life here was never normal. And she' s in New York, you know, there's also many clusters of Jews all together that's worried about what's happening over there. And I didn't have that, in Eunice, you know the, I could not live with it constantly. After I came here, I had to kind-of bury it in a way.
PR And that was part of the healing?
LW I think so, yes. And to, because, you know I couldn't go to sleep if I wondered every night, Where is my mother tonight, my little sister? Where are they? So, IY
LH Did your brother ever talk about publicly, or with his friends about his experience?
LW Very little too, very little. And, like I said, he and I, for years we couldn't talk about it.
LH I know she gave a presentation at the synagogue, did he ever do anything like that?
LW I don't know if he, I don't think he did. I don't think he did.
PR So just for the record, and repeating yourself a little bit, would you be kind enough to give us the full names of your parents.?
LW My mother was Rosa Levy, she was a distant cousin of my father, so she had the same name, Levy. It was a big, big family of Levy's. My father was Ferdinand Levy. His parents were Rosetta Greenwald, and Wilhelm Levy, Wilhelm Levy. And my mother's parents were Malchen, I guess that was Amelia, Efirenfeld. And her husband was Leopold levy. And, I never knew my grandfather, he died when I was, the year I was born. And my grandmother, also died. They all died, I didn't, don't remember my grandparents too well. They all died when I was very young.
PR And your brother and your sister, even though we know their names, just for the record.
LW My brother's name was Leo Levy. My little sister's name was Margot Levy.
PR Is there a question you'd like to answer that we didn't ask?
LW I don't know, you've asked me so much, I've written so much. I don't know, you think of something that you didn't touch.
LH How long were you in Meridian?
LW Meridian, I was there about a month.
LH A month?
LW Uh, huh. And everybody said, you ought to stay in Meridian, instead of going to Eunice. Everybody thought it would be a much better place for a young girl, and I thinkY
LH Larger?
LW Larger, Jewish community, and you knowY
PR Synagogue.
LW Synagogue.
PR Did you like that synagogue?
LW Yes, uh huh. In fact, at that time, Dr. Ackeman?, William Ackeman?, was the rabbi. And after he died, his wife became the leader of the congregation. At that time, Jewish women were not rabbis, but they allowed her to preach and to, and to be their leader. She was a very lovely lady, and a good friend of ours. Also, she's also gone, years ago.
LH What kind of work, did your brother, when he went to Winsborough, what kind of work did (inaudible)
LW He worked in the five and ten cent store.
LH So they had a dry goods store?
LW Yeah. And, like I said, I told Plater, they didn't give him enough to eat so when he made cash, every once in a while, he kept a quarter out. You know, that's terrible, to make somebody steal because they're hungry. It's a horrible thing. He would say that without shame, he wouldn't have taken anything from anybody. In life, later on, he would give, give -but admit the same that he had taken quarters so he could have something to eat.
PR He was at war with them, it seems.
LW Yes, yes. I mean he was glad to get to war. He was the first person who ever went in the army to gets something to eat. (Laughter) Yes, you know, that's, when you think of it, it was really awful. This Uncle Julian, wouldn't give his wife enough household money, so she wouldn't spend anything on food. There were four people in this household, and she would cook four little potatoes, you know. And a growing boy, you know he could have eaten the four potatoes himself, not one for each.
LH How often did you see him, when your wereY?
LW Well, we would, every few months. But I didn't realize how bad things were until later on.
LH Because, he didn't sayY?
LW He didn't say anything, no. I didn't realize thatY
LH These pictures up hereY?
LW These are my Aunt Amelia. This is taken, the one to the right, is taken First World War, in her uniform. This one was taken when she worked in Poland. She established a, the first nursing school in a big Jewish Hospital in Warsaw, Poland. She was sent there, there were no, there were male attendants. They had no nurses.
PR But when was she sent there, after the First World War?
LW After the First World War, 1921 or 22. And this is, she was, her father was a Confederate soldier. And this is fromY
LW This is an article that um, this was when, after she was honored by the President of Poland, on her way home to the United States, she stopped in Paris. And the Paris Times sent this picture and this article. It's hard for you to read. She received the Golden Cross of Merit, the first Jew and women to be honored by Poland.
PR Well, she was part of the Hoover Commission, was she, that went to Poland to help people who were starving?
LW Yes. She was, actually yes, I think that was it too.
PR So, did you have your father's medals from the German army?
LW No, that was something very foolish he did. He threw those medals in the Rhine River with a gun that he had. That was very foolish.
PR Why was that foolish?
LW Because I would have liked to have had the medals, to show.
LH Why did he throw them in the river?
LW I don't know.
PR Did he do it because of disgust, or did he do it?
LW Disgust, yeah, disgust. I didn't know he was going to do that. Here's a (inaudibe). Ok that' s in 1938.
PR Do you remember what medals your father earned?
LW The Hon? Course. I don't know, first class, second class, I don't know that.
PR Did he have any communication with his fellow veteran soldiers, during the Hitler period.
LW Umm, not during the Hitler, I don't remember that. He had people that he would visit, or see sometimes. They would meet. You know people met, in Germany, on the streets, on the, at night, they had all the benches outside. They would sit there and people would meet each other, talk to each other. I don't know if he had any.
LH Your adopted mother's father served under Colonel Street, in Mississippi. Did you see this?
LW Joseph Greenwald came to Memphis, he came to Memphis from Germany, from the same town my grandmother came from. And, his wife came from Germany too. And they, he was in the war, and I think he, in the civil war, and after the civil war he married. And then all these children were born, among them Ike, Julian, and Amelu.
LH (inaudible) 20th Company, 13th Mississippi Regimen.
PR 13th, Mississippi?
Lance Hill: Mm, hmm. It's a beautiful place up here, I'm telling you.
LW I was trying to find something for Plater, and then I messed things up in there, trying to find it.
LH You don't mind if I just walk around and look, do you?
LW No, I came down here with few books. But I ended up with a lot of books that, because I gave some to the, LSU had a branch in Eunice, a university branch, and I gave them a lot of my books.
PR (Laugh)(Reading) But they never said anything about me. A skinny, very little girl, with very straight hair.
LW Yeah (inaudible).
PR So, do you have copies of this for me?
LW Yeah, yeah, I gave you one of each.
PR I love it.
LW One of each, one copy of each. I have to ask for more. This will be the one that I gave in 1997. That's with Sandy Heller, this was at the JCC.
LW And this one here, I wrote the day my brother was, his ashes were thrown into the Bay. And this is a, this is another thing that the Temple wanted me to write, for them.