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Q: This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Hilde Gundel or Gundel on September 11, 2013, in Washington D.C. at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Thank you very much, Mrs. Gundel, for agreeing to meet with us to talk with us today, and I appreciate that you've taken the time to share your story.

A: You're very welcome.

Q: I'm going to start the interview, like fairy tales do, at the very beginning. So I'm going to ask a few questions about your childhood, your family life, and then we'll go from there, and we'll explore all of those issues that relate to your experiences. So the first question would be could you tell me what was your name at birth, the date you were born and where you were born?

A: My name was Hildegarde Henrietta Loeb, L-o-e-b.

Q: Hildegarde --

A: Henrietta.

Q: -- Henrietta Loeb, L-o-e-b.

A: E-b, right.

Q: And you were born when?

A: On May 23rd, 1926.

Q: Okay. In?

A: In Boppard en Rhine.

Q: In Boppard en Rhine. Can you tell me where is Boppard in relation to some of the larger cities in the area?

A: Well, let's see. Do you know where Cologne is?

Q: Yes.

A: Or Koblenz?

Q: Yes.

A: Allright. It's a little bit south of there.

Q: South of Koblenz?

A: Between Koblenz and Mainz.

Q: Ah, okay.

A: It's this little curve. I think I may have a picture in here. I'm not sure whether Julia put itin. I told her to put it. It's a beautiful -- No, I don't think she took it.

Q: It's a very nice part of Germany.

A: Hmm?

Q: It's a very nice part of Germany.

A: Oh, it's gorgeous. It's a tourist town actually.

Q: Was it really? Boppard was a tourist town?

A: Yeah.

Q: Was it --

A: And we used to have -- every summer we used to have the relatives and people coming; they stayed with us, and we'd take them on the Rhine. And we had a swimming pool, like a wooden thing floating on the Rhine with two pools, one deep and one for learning that --

Q: On the river itself?

A: Yeah, on the river itself. And my parents taught the two of -- my sister and me how to swim. And when we could swim, we could go into the deep end.

Q: It sounds lovely, you know?

A: It was.

Q: Your sister, was she younger than you?

A: No, two and a half years older.

Q: Two and a half. What was her name?

A: Claire -- Claire Edith Loeb, and then afterward she married and became Mahla (ph).

Q: Mahla. And she was born then in 1923?

A: Yes

Q: Is that right?

A: Mm-hmm.

Q: Do you remember the date?

A: December 20 -- 23rd.

Q: December 23rd. And while we're at it, we'd like to get also your mother's and your father's names and dates of birth, if you remember the dates of birth.

A: Oh, yes, sure. I've got it written down.

Q: But we'll get it for the tape as well.

A: Oh, yeah.

Q: So your father's name was?

A: Was Rudolf Loeb.

Q: Rudolf Loeb.

A: And he was born in Boppard en Rhine. And he was born on February 27, 1877.

Q: And your mother?

A: My mother was Caroline -- they called her -- everybody called her Lini (ph) --

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: -- Leyser, L-e-y-s-e-r, Loeb. And she was born in Dusseldorf, and her date of birth was October 3 Ist, 1891.

Q: Your father, it sounds like he had children rather late in life for a -- for --

A: Yes. Oh, yes.

Q: Was there a reason for why this happened because --

A: No, because they got married late, I guess. They got married in 1922, and "23 my sister was born, "26 I was born. Didn't waste any time.

Q: {Laughing.} Tell me a little bit about your mother and the family that she came from. Did she -- Yeah. Tell me, did she have brothers and sisters?

A: She had some brothers and sisters. She had -- let's see -- one sister who was our favorite aunt. We loved her. Her name was Lisa, Liza. She wasn't married. Then she had twins, Martha and -- I don't know what the other one. And then she had an older sister, Julia.

Q: So she came from a family of girls?

A: And one brother, Otto.

Q: He was overwhelmed and outnumbered.

A: Yeah. Yeah.

Q: And your grandparents" family, did you know your grandparents?

A: They were all dead by the time -- I was named after all my grandmothers.

Q: Ah, I see. So you never got to know them?

A: They were dead when I came along.

Q: Yeah. Yeah.

A: I mean, most of my cousins would -- when I was little, I was sitting on their shoulders. Some of them were married already.

Q: So your mother must have been the youngest of the family or close to it. Is that so?

A: What do you mean?

Q: I mean, in her family when she had all the siblings --

A: Yes, the same thing, all my cousins -- I have one cousin left; she's in her "90s; she's sort of -- she's in England, sort of out of it. And all the rest of them are all dead.

Q: What kind of -- Did your mother come from a well-to-do family or a struggling family? How would you describe it?

A: No, they were -- they were well off.

Q: Do you know the business that her --

A: No, I don't know the business they were in.

Q: Okay. What about your father and --

A: My father -- His father started the business in Boppard. And then when he died, my father took over.

Q: What was the business?

A: Grain and feed business.

Q: Oh. So was it an agricultural area?

A: No. It was a small town, and there weren't too many Jews. Well, you knew everybody. I mean -- and, no, we had one congregation, and it wasn't kosher. I mean, there was no way.

Q: Were your family very religious?

A: My father was on the board of -- of the shul. But, I mean, we weren't -- we kept the High Holidays, but we weren't too religious, you know. I mean, like on Purim and some of these holidays, he'd work and what-have-you. We didn't have a kosher home.

Q: Did -- Was there a -- You said there weren't too many Jews in Boppard?

A: No.

Q: Was it -- Could you give me a sense of the numbers? Would it have been --

A: I don't know. You know, I left when I was 10 years old. All I know is we had -- we had a Hebrew school, and all the kids were in one room, the big kids in the back and the little kids like me in the front row. They were -- There were four rows, so you can imagine how many families --

Q: Not many.

A: Not many.

Q: Not many. And if it was a two-room schoolhouse --

A: And -- No, it was -- it was upstairs where the synagogue room was. Synagogue was downstairs, and upstairs was -- And, I mean, there may be -- have been some people where the kids were out grown already or they didn't have any children. As I say, I was 10 years old; my parents knew everybody, but I didn't know -- I knew everybody in town sort of, but I didn't know their, you know, past and what-have-you.

Q: Were you -- If you went to a Jewish school, a Hebrew school, did you have any interaction as a child with -- with not -- with Gentiles, with Germans?

A: All my friends because I went to a Cath -- in Boppard was a small town.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And there was one like a public school, went to eighth grade, and then there was a Catholic school with the nuns which went all the way 12 -- you know?

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And that's where my sister and I went, and then there was a boys! school that was like this Catholic school but only for boys. So we went to this -- my sister and I went to this Catholic school.

Q: Well, that's unusual that Jewish parents would send a child to a Catholic school --

A: It was the only better school there.

Q: Better than the public school?

A: Yeah.

Q: Isee. Do you have any memories of it?

A: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Q: And what kind were they? Anything stand out?

A: Oh, in kindergarten I loved to play with the boys. And I remember the nuns were very nice. When they went to services, you know, they wouldn't leave us alone -- I was little, four, five years old -- in the school rooms. So we had to go with them to service, but they said, "Don't get up, don't kneel." I mean, they were very decent. You know, in those days people didn't wear pants. The kids didn't wear pants, and we'd go -- like we'd have a break, we'd play outside. We'd go up on the stairs, and I remember two and two holding hands going upstairs and this nun coming in the back of us, and she would call my mother and say, "You got to do something, her skirts are too short. We can see her panties."

Q: Oh.

A: {Laughing.}

Q: Did you have any best friends in the classroom?

A: Yes, I had some -- I had some good friends there.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: Buta lot of the -- in fact, one of them -- some of them came from out of town, and one of them used -- came from out of town, and she would come to my house every day for lunch. And so you know -- and I don't know what happened to them. I mean, either they're all too or they're gone; I don't know what happened to them during the war. But there were these -- I played with them until I left Germany. In fact, I've got like a -- what they call a poussy (ph) album, you know, where they write things, and they all wrote nice memories and nice things in that book when I -- before I left. They knew I was leaving.

Q: Well, here's the interesting thing is that your beginning school years if you were born in 1926, I'm assuming you must have started school, kindergarten 1931, 1932, something like that. Would that be true?

A: Nineteen -- yeah.

Q: Yeah? And in 1933, Hitler comes to power.

Ar 1933,

Q: Yeah. So in your world, you know, your child's world in Boppard, did you sense any of these political things that were in the air?

A: Well, after 1933, for instance, in school, we all played -- the kids would play with me, and they were very nice. But they couldn't invite me to their houses for birthday parties or to come and play. They couldn't come to my house to come and play and what-have- you, you know. And they'd heard -- so I got friendly with a couple of Jewish kids who didn't go to that school and -- but they were killed afterwards; they were -- they went to Auschwitz, their whole families.

Q: Were deported?

A: They were deported.

Q: So well, the change was is that you couldn't socialize -- within the school you were allowed to socialize --

A: Yeah, until 1936, and then my parents got a -- got a phone call that they should -- that we couldn't go to school there anymore, it wouldn't be safe.

Q: Isee. So the nuns called. I mean, the Catholic school called and said that --

A: Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. They warned my parents.

Q: And -- But I'm trying to get a sense that until 1936, was this like a -- a kind of oasis in this -- in the changing world? I mean, did you feel any -- any of the -- In public schools sometimes, teachers became very hostile to --

A: Right.

Q: -- Jewish students --

A: Right.

Q: -- because of the political changes.

A: Right.

Q: I wondered whether or not there was more leeway within a nonpublic school such as a religious school and whether they were able to create a wall between the outside world or whether or not the same thing happened --

A: No, the nuns were very nice to us.

Q: They were?

A: Oh, yes, oh, yes, they were very nice. And, as I say, in school we kids all played together. But it was on the outside where I could not be seen with them.

Q: That hurts a child.

A: And things like I remember a friend of my parents, he was a lawyer, and they had a parade one day down Main Street -- we lived on the main street. And he looked out the window, and they arrested him for looking out the window and watching the parade, that sort of thing, you know. And -- But I didn't know -- at the time I didn't know about it.

My parents told me after I came here.

Q: Mm-hmm. Of incidents like that?

A: That what happened to this man, you know.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: That sort of thing.

Q: What was your home life like? Tell me a little bit about that.

A: Oh, very happy. My mother was sort of a quiet lady. But, I mean, she was -- she was a beautiful pianist, and she would make my sister and me sit on the carpet and listen to her play. And my father had a wonderful sense of humor. I was always getting into trouble. My sister was reading books, and she was sitting, and she was the good girl.

And I was always getting -- like, for instance, the office of where we lived was downstairs, the building -- the business --

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: -- and we lived upstairs.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And I would sometimes lock the door of the office, and my father would have to get somebody to climb out the window, come around. They knew exactly who did it.

Q: {Laughing.}

A: That sort of thing.

Q: {Laughing.} But sometimes the mischievous children --

A: But then my -- then my father would come out, and he'd give me a wallop on my back side, and then half an hour later, I'd be sitting on his knee, and he would be kidding around.

Q: So tell me a little bit about his personality, about what kind of a person he was.

A: He was -- Well, I can only say when I remember him, he was always good-natured and very fair. I mean, he would never punish me because I was little wild thing. And my

sister was always good sitting there, reading her books and so on, so forth. But I mean, in school, we both did well, and that was important to them, you know. But no, he had a wonderful sense of humor, and we would go -- they would -- it was a beautiful area, and we'd do a lot of hiking. And, as I said before, in the summer we'd have a lot of family coming and people coming staying with us because it was sit -- on the Rhine and the beautiful walks and -- and, you know, you go up on -- into the hillside part, and on top there would be a restaurant overlooking the Rhine and stuff, and we'd go there --

Q: Oh, that must be pretty.

A: -- and take them there on Sundays and so on, so forth. We took the children there, my granddaughters and my kids there to show them where we were born.

Q: Was there any trace of your family from when you went after the war back to Boppard with your children?

A: Well, most of them got out of Germany. Some of them went to -- some -- As a matter of fact, some of my father's sisters had come here at the end of the 18th century --

Q: 19th century.

A: -- to New York. No, 1891, 19th century. No, 18th century.

Q: No, no, no. 19th century but in 1891.

A: But in 1891, yeah.

Q: It gets confusing, yeah.

A: And it was only actually two. One went -- one where the family -- the one that wasn't married went to Holland; she was killed. And then my father had one brother who was married, had no children, and they didn't get out; they got killed. That was the only one that get didn't out.

Q: So the -- he had, if I take it correctly, one brother and three sisters, that is, one in the Netherlands who didn't make it, one in --

A: That was my mother's sister --

Q: Oh, excuse me.

A: -- in the Netherlands.

Q: Isee.

A: Mm-hmm.

Q: So tell me about your father's siblings. How many did he have so that we're clear on it?

A: He had I think three or four brothers. See, some of them were living out -- in the United States already, so by the time I came along, they weren't even there anymore.

They were dead and --

Q: Were they mostly older than he was?

A: He was the youngest.

Q: Ah, yeah, so if he was born in 1877 -- A. Some were born in the 19 -- in the 1840's and "50's. He was born --

Q: Oh, my.

A: Yeah.

Q: Yeah. Yeah, well, it could very easily be that they --

A: Oh, sure. No, he was the youngest of the whole. And my mother too on her side there.

Q: Did -- Did your -- Did his family live in Boppard for generations, or had they -- had your grandfather come to it from someplace else?

A: No, the grandfather was born there too.

Q: Okay. So it was -- it was in the family for a while?

A: There was what they called a Judengasse.

Q: Ah, a street that would be the Jewish street?

A: The Jews lived there.

Q: Yeah.

A: And that's where they were born. And then my grandfather bought the building on the Main Street and -- after they were allowed to, I guess -- I don't know what year that was -- and he started the business, and he moved upstairs.

Q: And that's where you were born?

A: And that's where I was born.

Q: Tell me a little bit about the apartment, then, upstairs that -- above that building?

A: Well, we had -- let's see. We had -- well, a kitchen and -- and on -- on -- well, downstairs was all office and, of course, under -- in those days the refrigerator was under the stairs. I don't know if you ever heard of that.

Q: No. No.

A: No, you know, the stairs. And the refrigerator wasn't in the kitchen; it was under the stairs.

Q: Because it's the coolest place? Is that why?

A: No. I guess there was no -- there was no space in the kitchen for it.

Q: Uh-huh.

A: And -- And I used to throw the key from the door under there.

Q: Oh, that's mean.

A: {Laughing.}

Q: Because it's hard to get to.

A: Iknow. Well, they had long arms, they got --

Q: {Laughing.}

A: Somehow they got them.

Q: Yeah.

A: No, I mean, it was normal, like a two-story house here, and upstairs we had one, two, three bedrooms. And there was a -- a big room which was our playroom where we used to play and where we -- our friends used to come, where we had our toys. And we had a maid, and I remember on Christmas on the -- on the table there, my mother would have a little Christmas tree with all kind of gifts. No, we had a maid for a long time. And then in 1933, I think it was, we weren't allowed to have any maids under 60 years old.

Q: So 60, 6-0, and older could still work as maids but nobody else?

A: Right. And so we had to let that one who'd worked for us -- Maria who worked for us forever and we knew her whole family, I mean, she was wonderful, and we loved her.

And we got this old maid, and we hated her.

Q: Oh.

A: And so we let her go, so my mother did her own thing.

Q: Mm-hmm. What was the name of the maid that you loved?

A. Maria.

Q: Maria?

A: Mm-hmm

Q: And was she from in town too, from Boppard?

A: No, no. There was behind -- Boppard was down by the Rhine, and then there was -- it went uphill, in other words like -- like the grape --

Q: The vineyards?

A: The vineyards.

Q: Vineyards.

A: Vineyards.

Q: Yes.

A: And then on top there was called Hunsruck.

Q: Uh-huh. I've heard of Hunsruck.

A: You have?

Q: Yeah, It's a small place, but I've heard of it.

A. No, it's not a town. It's a whole area.

Q: Ah-- A. And there were farms up there.

Q: Okay.

A: And her parents were farmers, and she had a brother. And somehow -- I don't know how my parents got her because she was there as long as I could remember, and she came from one of the families there. And every once in a while, she -- I remember she would take us kids up there to her family. She had a brother who had a -- had a motorcycle, and I remember going on that motorcycle; it was the most exciting thing in those days.

Q: Of course. Of course.

A: And even after she had to leave, every once in a while she'd crawl in in the evening and bring my mother some stuff from the farm, some foods and stuff. And no, she was very nice. She died. I mean, she -- so --

Q: But not during the war?

A: No, it had nothing to do with the war. She wasn't Jewish, you know.

Q: Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like the -- the experiences that you had with people who weren't Jewish, just regular everyday German people --

A: Yeah.

Q: -- were for the most part quite positive and --

A: Very positive. I mean, we -- my parents, of course, knew everybody in town. And I knew a lot of the people, and I -- my problem was like, for instance, my sister had a bicycle, and in 1935 my sister -- my parents sent her to a yavneh in Cologne.

Q: Hmm.

A: And so her bicycle was at home. I wasn't allowed to use it, but I used to crawl out with it, and I would fall off it, and somebody would see me and call my mother before -- and I would go home, and you know what I got.

Q: Yeah. In trouble.

A: {Laughing.}

Q: Where did your sister go in Cologne, a yavneh, you said?

A: A school, it's a Jewish school.

Q: A Jewish school --

A: Yeah.

Q: -- for high school children or --

A: Yeah. It was a -- It was for -- yeah, for high school. She was already in the upper, you know.

Q: Mm-hmm. But that's quite far from Boppard, isn't it, Cologne?

A: Not that far. I mean, take the train up there, you know.

Q: So she would commute, or did she stay overnight?

A: Oh, no, she -- she stayed overnight.

Q: Right. Yeah, yeah. How -- If you can remember, and if your parents told you later, how were their lives affected after 1933?

A: Well, one of their neighbors who wasn't Jewish came over one night and told my father -- this -- this was after I had left Germany -- "You better get out of here. I heard rumors. Something's going to happen to you." So -- So they bought our house --

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: -- and my parents moved to Cologne where they weren't known, had an apartment there until they emigrated.

Q: Ah, I see. So this -- was this a family friend, or was this just --

A: Yeah, well, you know, they were all what they call on the "du" level.

Q: Yeah, the familiarity level.

A: Yeah. I mean, they lived there forever, and my parents lived there forever, and we used to go in and out of their house, and they used to come to us.

Q: But did you ever see any Nazis, I mean, people with -- who belonged to the Nazi party or --

A: Oh, definitely. I had a girlfriend next door; she was about a year older. The parents had a jewelry store, and she used to -- you know, she used to come to our house, and I used to go to their house and what-have-you. And her brother was a little bit older, and he belonged to the youth -- the German youth group.

Q: Yeah.

A: And when he wasn't home, she would climb over the back fence into our garden, and we would play together. But God forbid us if he was home, we wouldn't be seen together.

Q: So --

A: No, all the young kids had to go into this youth thing, you know.

Q: The Hitler Jugend?

A: Hmm?

Q: The Hitler Jugend?

A: Yeah.

Q: And -- And aside from that, before you left Germany, did you sense that your father's business was suffering in -- at any way?

A: Look, I wasn't 10 years old. I knew nothing about business.

Q: Got it.

A: As long as I had something to eat.

Q: Yeah.

A: {Laughing.}

Q: Okay. So it sounds like if there were such things that your parents kind of shielded you from those -- from the nastier parts?

A: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. But we knew that we had to be very careful. We knew that outside of the school we couldn't talk to these kids that I would play with in the school, you know. We knew, and we were very upset about it. But, you know, all of a sudden, they're having a birthday party and you're not invited.

Q: That hurts a child. That hurts a child, yeah.

A: Sure. So on. But -- As I say, then I made friends with a couple of kids that were in my Hebrew school, and everything was within walking distance, so it wasn't a matter of catching the bus to get to their house or -- or somebody driving -- getting into the car and driving. You just walked wherever you went.

Q: Well, in the Hebrew school, what are the things that you've studied? And then I have another follow-up question after that.

A: Oh, I don't remember. I remember learning how to read Hebrew. We studied -- Oh, God, I don't know, it's so long ago. All I remember, one day one of the friends, her name was Ella, she was like this.

Q: She was large?

A: And she was fat, and she used to eat candy all the time. And so the rabbi who was our teacher too, he caught her and took it and put it in his desk drawer. And when there was a break, the kids said, "Hilde, go and get it back for her. We're not going to tell anybody.

We're not going to tell him. We're not going to do anything." Well, he comes back, the first thing he opens the door, okay, who took it? Everybody looked at me.

Q: {Laughing.}

A: They didn't say who, but they looked at me. So I had -- I had to write a hundred times "Wer hailt (ph) der stiehlt." It means who steals -- who lies -- he who lies steals.

Q: Say it in German for me again.

A: "Wer hailt der stiehlt."

Q: "Wer hailt"?

A: "Der stiehlt."

Q: So hailen (ph) means to lie?

A: Yeah.

Q: Uh-huh, I thought lugen meant to lie.

A: Well, it's probably a local word of some sort. Anyhow, by the time I got home, my sister'd already gotten there.

{Laughing.} And I had to sit down and write a hundred times. I got no protection. I had to sit down and write it a hundred times. {Laughing.}

Q: And all because you wanted to have Ella have her candy back.

A: Yeah. {Laughing.}

Q: Did life -- in the school itself, did you go to that school until the time you left?

A: Yes.

Q: So did things change there? Did people tell stories there of what was going on with their families, with themselves?

A: No. There weren't many Jewish kids. There was only -- one of my parents! friends, they -- their two daughters were there. And then one other boy -- one other girl was there, and then we were the only Jewish children there, and the others were all older than I was anyhow.

Q: Because it was a small commun -- small congregation?

A: Oh, yes.

Q: Yeah. So tell me, is there anything else from your prewar life and your pre-leaving Germany life, I should say, that -- that -- that stays -- you know, comes to mind that stays with you that is something that -- that shaped --

A: Yeah. Well, always to me was important going swimming in the summer. I mean, my parents always took us swimming every day. We could walk down alone. You know, you'd have your bathing suit on and a cover on, and you'd just walk because you walked everywhere. And my sister and I would walk down after school or the hikes we took together and -- and then the company we used to have in the summer, and we took them on hikes and to these restaurants where you could oversee the Rhine and the ships coming and everything.

Q: That sounds beautiful.

A: And, you know, you could take -- you know, there were the cruises on the Rhine, and they would stop, and you'd go into the castles and all that kind of stuff.

Q: Sounds very pretty.

A: Oh, yeah, it was nice.

Q: So how did it come about that in 1936 you leave Boppard, that you leave Germany?

What developed?

A: Well, first of all, I couldn't go to school anymore there.

Q: To the Catholic school?

A: Yeah, to any school.

Q: Okay.

A: And my -- my mother was friendly with the wife of the rabbi in Dusseldorf who married my parents.

Q: Ah.

A: And she had a sister who lived -- I don't know if you ever heard of the Inter-Aid Committee in London, they helped children get out.

Q: Was this the Kindertransport, then?

A: No.

Q: No?

A: No. [had nothing to do with it. And they -- And this lady -- I didn't even know her -- called her sister, the rabbi's wife, if she knew anybody, she heard of this family who wanted to take three 10-year-old girls out of Germany. And so this rabbi's wife -- I don't know even know her name. No, I know her second name, , she called my mother. And I mean, she knew us girls.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And would she be interested. And so my mother yes, but what -- she wanted to know more about the family, you know. And anyhow, comes August -- August 16th, my -- took the train -- my parents. My mother was going to go with me. She went with me, took me just to make sure.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And my father went as far as Cologne. One thing I will never ever forget him standing there, the first time I ever saw him, the tears running down his eyes -- his cheeks. Well, he didn't know whether he'd ever see me again because he didn't know what would happen to them, you know?

Q: That's right.

A: So my mother took me to England, and there was this lady that her name was Jessie Wait (ph). And she took -- And the people that actually had us come over, they lived -- had a big estate in the country, and they owned this house in Nottingham so that we could walk to school, to a private school. And this lady, Jessie Wait took care of us. I mean, she was very strict, but she was very good, very fair. And -- And so my mother went back and --

Q: She -- Yeah, so she was able to see where you'd be?

A: See where I was going. And I remembered, you know, they had an extra bedroom, so she slept there. And the next morning, I got up out of my bed and went to that room to see here, and she'd left already because they figured I'd be too upset -- both be too upset, you know. So she took the train back to London already. So -- So I cried a little bit, and that was it, you know. There were two -- the other two girls had come a few days earlier.

And, no, we went to private school. We had piano lessons; we had dancing lessons. We had -- what do you call it -- speech lessons, English speech lessons, all private stuff, you know. And we had a piano; I mean, there was nothing -- nice garden. And on the Sundays in the spring and summer -- the people that got me over there, they had a cricket team.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: So in the summer they would have a cricket match in their park, they could -- you know, which was around their building, their home. And then they had this huge tent, and comes lunch time, we'd all sit together with these fellows.

Q: Cricket players?

A: They came from New Zealand, from India because they -- these cricket teams, they traveled all over, you know. And we'd have lunch with them. And those things you don't forget. And they had a beautiful swimming pool. They would pick us up on the Sunday morning, they'd send a chauffeur with -- and the car and pick us up, the three girls, and we'd go out there. We'd have a wonderful time.

Q: Was this termed in any way? Did this -- Was this an open-ended kind of invitation that you stayed there as long as you need to, or was it for two years, or was it for a year?

A: No, no. It was, I guess, open-ended. I mean, when the war started in 1939 over there, the -- the other two, their parents had come to England, one in London, the other one in Glasgow in Scotland, and so they went to live with their parents. So the people sent me to a boarding school.

Q: Oh, I see. So --

A: Out in the country.

Q: Okay.

A: And there -- And the principals of both schools were absolutely fabulous. Like on the -- what's it? In November 8th -- the 18th of November?

Q: Armistice Day?

A: No, in 1938.

Q: Oh, Kristallnacht.

A: Kristallnacht. On the Fridays we always had to read the Times, the London Times, and they gave us exercises to do, you know, questions and what-have-you. And I read about it, and I burst into tears, and the -- and they called the principal in, and she took me, and she let me sit in her office all day to quieten me down and so on. And in the -- in the boarding school, the principal used to, you know, call me in, and I remember getting a letter from -- my parents got out in "41.

Q: That's quite late.

A: And -- And went to Spain; they were able to get into Spain. They had to pay somebody off in Berlin, they had to go to Berlin, and they flew to Barcelona. And so evidently the principal saw that there was a letter for me from Spain, and she came in to - - We were having breakfast. She said, "Usually at lunch time you get your mail, but I've got to make an exception. Hilde, come to my office." So I wondered what's going on now? By that time I was, what, about 15 years old. And here was a letter from my mother -- from my parents in Barcelona that they'd gotten out, you know. But they had to wait there for a ship. There was no such thing getting on the plane. They had to wait for a ship to take them over here.

Q: Tell me, what happened to your sister?

A: My sister came here -- she went in 1939, she -- her school had a whole group of kids they sent to England. And she went and lived with a very, very nice Quaker family.

Q: So was she part of the Kindertransport?

A: No, no, from her school where she went, from the yavneh.

Q: Uh-huh.

A: They had a group of kids, and they -- you know, they were able to get them into England. And she stayed in Bristol with a family and helped take care of the children there, and they were very, very good to her, very nice. But she came over then; a couple of years later she came over. She came before me. And she lived with a cousin until my parents came.

Q: Okay, now I'm a little confused. When you say she came a few years before you, you mean to the United States?

A: Yeah.

Q: Okay. I'm still --

A: I'm sorry.

Q: That's okay.

A: I'm sorry.

Q: That's all right.

A: I should have said --

Q: It's okay.

A: No, because I came in "44, and she came in "41 -- "40, "41.

Q: Okay.

A: No, she went to England in "38. I'm lying, "39, not "39, "38. So --

Q: Did you meet her soon after she came to England?

A: Yes.

Q: Because you hadn't seen her for a couple of years?

A: Iknow. No. I went there one summer vacation; I went and stayed with them for a couple of weeks, you know. And -- But, of course, they didn't have the long vacations they have here in the summer.

Q: No.

A: So -- and I went -- I went down to Bristol and -- for a couple of weeks. And then soon after, she came here, you know. And she was going to school, and she took care of those -- helped take care of the children there and helped in the house and what-have-you.

Q: Now, when she came and you were able to meet her that summer, did she tell you of what was going on in Germany and what had gone on with the family since you left?

A: No, not really, because I had read that in the Times -- in the -- in the London Times on that Friday.

Q: About Kristallnacht?

A: About Kristallnacht. But then somehow, I don't know, we were kids, we were just trying to have a good time together, you know.

Q: Okay. You didn't talk about the hard things, the --

A: No.

Q: -- the tough things?

A: No, no, no, no, no.

Q: Yeah. How frequently did you write -- Were you able to write to your parents during those years?

A: Fora while I was able to write. I had a relative in Holland and sent them -- and my parents sent them letter, and they would forward it. But then when the Germans came into Holland, that was the end of that so --

Q: Isee. But that would have been after the war started, correct?

A: Yeah. Well, right after the war started.

Q: Yeah. So for three years you were able to correspond with them in this fashion of having --

A: Any fashion --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- right.

Q: But -- But after that -- so the correspondence stopped, and you didn't know what was going on with your parents at that time?

A: No.

Q: Neither of you did?

A: No, because I had no way of getting in touch with anybody.

Q: And neither did your sister, she was already out of the country --

A: No, the same thing.

Q: Yeah. Yeah. And the first that you hear, then, is when you get this letter from Barcelona in 1941?

A: Right.

Q; So between "39 and "41 you don't know whether they're dead, whether they're alive, whether they're deported, whether they're --

A: Well, between the time that -- I'm not sure of the exact day when Holland was invaded. Between that time -- as long as Holland was free, I was able to send a letter to Holland, and they would send it on and vice versa. But once Holland was gone, that was the end.

Q: Okay. So where were your parents the last time you had any correspondence? Were they still in Cologne?

A: Yeah.

Q: And how was your father able to make a living? Was it from the proceeds of having sold the house?

A: Well, he wasn't in business anymore because being in business, people know you.

You got to have a license; you got to -- you know, all that sort of thing.

Q: Right. So how did they eat?

A: They had some money.

Q: Okay. So it was the -- it was the sale that they were able to have before things got very strict -- A. Right.

Q: -- that they still were able to live off of? Is this --

A: Well, no. I mean, they didn't have to go hungry. It's just they had to -- people didn't know them in Cologne.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: So if they went to a store, they just had to go in and out and be careful.

Q: Did you ever see their apartment in Cologne?

A: Yes, once. And in "38 -- no, in Christmas vacation of "37, I went back once and went to Cologne.

Q: And what did it look like?

A: The end -- Christmas of 1937.

Q: Well, was it much different from what you had left? I mean, you saw --

A: Well, we had a whole house in Boppard. This was an -- I mean, it was a nice apartment to -- It was -- I slept in the living room, and they had their bedroom, you know.

You had sort of hide, get lost somewhere. They had to get lost because nobody knew them there, and they were able to get away with it.

Q: Did the atmosphere in the streets, was it different than what you had remembered from before?

A: Well, it was -- it's -- you have to remember, Cologne was a big city. Boppard was a little town where you knew everybody; you'd go out your front door, you'd immediately see people that you knew.

Q: Okay. So I guess what I'm going after is a sense of the politics in the air and whether there was more Nazi symbolism, whether there were more kids on the street.

A: The same all over.

Q: The same.

A: Same all over, same all over.

Q: Okay.

A: I mean, the friends I had in Boppard, like next door, we couldn't correspond.

Q: Yeah. Did you ever correspond with any of your friends after the war?

A: They'd all moved out. Some of them gotten married and moved away, and it was very hard getting in touch with them. Some of their parents were still there, you know.

But --

Q: Was -- Was the -- Were the relationships broken? You had left when you were 10 years old and --

A: Well, they were because I had a different life then. And -- and my -- you know, my whole life was completely different.

Q: Mm-hmm. When your parents were in Barcelona, how long did they stay there?

A: I'm not sure. Probably two or three weeks. They'd stay there till they could get on a ship.

Q: And then they came to where in the UK?

A: Brooklyn.

Q: Oh, they went straight to the United States?

A: Yes.

Q: Ah. So they didn't even come to the UK, they went straight to the U.S.?

A: Yeah.

Q: And the reason for that was what?

A: Well, they had -- they had relatives here. They had planned on coming here, but their -- their number, you know, the --

Q: The quota number?

A: Was too high to get out earlier.

Q: Isee. Do you know when they applied for a U.S. visa?

A: I'm not sure. Look, I was nine, 10 years old, 11 years old. I don't know when.

Q: Okay. Okay.

A: In those days they didn't discuss that with us, you know.

Q: So you knew that they were in the United States, they wrote to you from the U.S.?

A: Oh, yes, oh, the minute they got here.

Q: Okay.

A: And, I mean, I know I had cousins here. My father had two sisters who lived here who had gone there, you know, years ago and so on. And there was another cousin who was dead by the time I came here who gave them their -- what do you call it?

Q: Sponsored them?

A: Yeah, sponsored them and what-have-you. He had some kind of business and so on.

But the thing is I've got papers of all these things, and every once in a while Julia will go through them and be just amazed, these old papers.

Q: They really show the history of what happens to people, the documents from way back then.

A: Oh, yes.

Q: So you're in -- when your parents come to the States in 1941, your sister soon follows, correct? She comes --

A: She was here a little bit -- few months before her -- before them.

Q: Oh, really? She was able to go because your relatives sponsored her into the country?

A: No, right. I mean basically they sponsored the whole family.

Q: Okay.

A: And she lived with this cousin. I mean, the cousin was married already and what- have-you, you know. I mean, they were all so much older than we were. They lived in Flushing.

Q: I know it, yeah. And so she came over -- remind me again in 1941.

A: Yeah.

Q: A little bit before your parents. Then your parents came. And why is it that you stayed in Britain until 1944?

A: Well, first of all, I was too young to go to work.

Q: Okay.

A: And [had a good life there, and my parents couldn't afford me. You know, my mother had -- my father had a job washing dishes in a restaurant, and my mother was packing hair nets into envelopes in a factory.

Q: It was hard.

A: I would have had to go to school. But when I was 14, the people where I lived, you know, the younger people all had to go in the army.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: So they asked me would I mind leaving school in eighth grade and going to work for them in the -- they had a big furniture business. And I said, "No, of course not." So -- And I learned a lot. I learned -- I worked for the lawyer in the business.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And I worked there until I came here. And they were all very good to me. And, I mean, I had a good life. I can't -- I really can't complain except that I wasn't with my parents, you know. But they were very good to me. They still sent a car for me every -- every Sunday to come out to their place and all that. And -- no. And I went -- and one of the girls that I had lived -- had lived with us, you know --

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: -- her parents moved to Nottingham because the father needed a job so -- certain -- actually the name of the people that got him, Sir Julien Cahn, he owned a house they gave them to live in.

Q: So Julien Cahn was the --

A: Yeah.

Q: -- furniture --

A: Yeah.

Q: -- manufacturer? Okay.

A: Not manufacturer. Stores.

Q: Stores, okay.

A: And they -- And he like lent them a house. And they said I could stay with them, I didn't have to pay, you know. So then I worked in his office, so we helped -- one of the girls and her father worked in the office, and I worked for the lawyer in the office. When I came here -- this is amazing -- my parents said, "You got to finish high school, got to finish high school." They didn't forget. So I went downtown. I was working downtown; I had a job in an import/export place. So I went to Washington Irving High School and asked them, and they said, "Well, we got to test you first." So by the time the test was finished and they evaluated, they said, "Listen, all you need is civics and American history, you're ahead of everything else. In math and everything else, you ahead of everybody."

Q: In all the subjects?

A: So all I do is go to night school for the -- a couple of semesters like and I got my -- I've still got it, my high school diploma.

Q: {Laughing.} That shows you British education, doesn't it?

A: Yeah.

Q: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about what was it like when you did come to the States?

It's the first time you see your parents in eight years, and you left a child, and you're there as an 18-year-old.

A: Well, I'll tell you something else. When I came over, I came on a -- on a -- ina convoy, in a banana boat; it was full of kids, full of Jewish kids whose parents were here in the same situation. And we were told "If we let you go, you must not tell anybody not even your parents that you're coming" because it's a convoy, the other boats have soldiers and armaments in them. We went -- We left on the first of March. We went all the way up north; it took us a whole month to get to New York, to Brooklyn.

Q: Oh, really? So you went by Greenland and Canada and things like that to get to Brooklyn?

A: All the way up north. Took us a whole month. | arrived here on the first of April.

Q: My goodness.

A: And my parents didn't even know I was coming. So there was a lady from -- I don't remember the organization, a women's -- Jewish women's organization; they had a -- midtown they -- on 59th Street someplace, they had an office. And she took me there.

And my parents at that time couldn't afford a telephone, so she couldn't -- so she had to take me there; and it was on the Saturday, and luckily they were home and -- well, everybody cried.

Q: {Laughing.} Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot had happened in those eight years.

A: Oh, yes.

Q: So what did they look like when you first saw them again?

A: Well, they -- I guess they looked older. I mean, they -- you know, they'd been working hard and trying to make ends meet.

Q: What kind of a place did they live in in Flushing?

A: In-- No, no. My parents lived on 151st Street. They had a small apartment.

Q: In Manhattan?

A: In Manhattan, in Washington Heights.

Q: Ah, yeah, okay.

A: Yeah. That's where they all lived.

Q: Okay. It's a lovely area.

A: And they lived between Broadway and Riverside Drive, on 151st Street. And they had a one-bedroom apartment, and my sister lived with them. And we had a pull-out couch, and we slept in the living room. We made do.

Q: Were they unhappy, your parents, or were they -- were they -- I mean, your father was so good-natured, you say, when he was in Germany and you were growing up --

A: Well, he'd gotten older, and he'd gone through a lot, you know, mentally and physically. And he -- he was not the same man. All I know is when I was a little kid, he was completely bald, and when I saw him here, he had hair all of a sudden.

Q: Gray hair, I must think?

A: White hair. But, I mean, it was hair. No, I mean, he -- the sense of humor was gone.

But then he was much older, you know; he was older. That whole life that he had gone through had made a difference.

Q: What about your mother --

A: Because he never knew whether he would see us children again.

Q: Yeah.

A: I mean, when once happened to that situation, terrible.

Q: Did they ever talk of it, of what happened in those years when --

A: No.

Q: No, huh?

A: I mean, physically nothing happened to them in Germany. I mean, thank God they moved to Cologne where nobody knew them, you know. And that was it.

Q: But it still is a life that is full of stress because if you have to be careful every time you walk out the door --

A: Oh, sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's why the neighbor said to them "You got to get out of town" because everybody knew them.

Q: Did they find out about what had happened to the other people, Jewish people in Boppard?

A: Well, I know that the ones that -- the families of the ones -- the one girl had an older brother, and the other one, all of a sudden the mother in 1938, I think, she had a little boy, and I just -- and I mean, Ella was --

Q: Ella with the candy?

A: Ella was the girl that I played with, and she was my age. So I don't know. I guess it was an accident. They all were marched to the small town, next town and taken to concentration camp. They don't know.

Q: What about your mother, how -- how had she changed?

A: Well, you know, she'd been doing -- taking care of the house and stuff like that, and all of a sudden, she had to get up every morning and go to a factory and --

Q: And put hair nets in envelopes.

A: -- hair nets in envelopes.

Q: Did they dislike America, or did they -- I mean, how did they react to their circumstances?

A: No. I mean -- no, the -- no, no, no, no. They accepted it. This is -- this is better than, I think, being in Germany.

Q: Yeah.

A: Sure. I mean, they were -- they were happy that they got out.

Q: And they must have been very happy that they got you back?

A: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Q: You and your sister. Did life get easier for them as time went on?

A: Well, afterwards they -- after a few years -- let's see. "41 I got married, and then they moved to the Isabella House. I don't know if you ever heard of that. It was like a senior citizen, Jewish senior citizen place which was up next to the George Washington High School, if that means anything to you.

Q: No. I mean, I don't know the high school --

A: No. I mean, it was uptown in Washington Heights.

Q: Okay.

A: And they lived there. And then, you know, till my father died. And he was 96. My mother was 95. They just went to sleep and didn't wake up, and I was -- we were very lucky with that.

Q: Yeah.

A: Because what I see now, people in pain, back pain, surgery doesn't help and all that kind of stuff that people have now.

Q: They suffer for years.

A: Hmm?

Q: They suffer for years. People suffer for years with their pain when --

A: Oh, terrible.

Q: Yeah.

A: I mean, I see it every day now, you know.

Q; So if your father died at age 96, that would put him that he died in the early "70s, 1970's?

A: Yeah.

ontectnetonancedjusetneey for tarher biormatoerabouttfisestecion

Q: And your mother then --

A: In'87.

Q: In'87? Boy, they -- they lived a good long time.

A: Oh, yes. Yes.

Q: Yeah.

A: I mean, health-wise, they had a good life, thank God.

Q: Did they -- Did your father ever work in a different place after those early years working in a --

A: No.

Q: No?

A: No. He worked in one place until he retired. Then he came here.

Q: When he came here, yeah?

A: Yeah. He always worked in the same restaurant downtown. I don't know which restaurant. I don't remember.

Q: And your mom?

A: Hmm?

Q: She worked in the same factory, too?

A: Yeah. Well, my sister worked in the office there, and she got her the job.

Q: Got it.

A. when she needs a job, better eat.

Q: And yourself, did they stay in New York and did you stay in New York when you married or --

A: Well, first we lived in New York on hundred and -- what was it? -- 151st and hundred and -- I think hundred and sixty -- I think hundred sixty-first near the -- near Riverside Drive.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And then we decided -- Oh, and then we got a whole apartment on 134th Street, and then we decided to buy a house and have some children.

Q: In New York?

A: No, in New Jersey.

Q: Uh-huh.

A: My husband worked in Brooklyn, and we didn't want to live in New York anymore.

Q: What year did you get married?

A: 1947.

Q: You got married young, at 21?

A: Oh, not what you hear nowadays.

Q: Yeah. And your husband, was he also from Europe or --

A: Yeah, he was from Germany too.

Q: So he had similar experiences to you?

A: Oh, no. He was -- His father had a metal business, a scrap metal business, and he worked there. And then his father died in -- let's see. Judy was -- in 1951 when Judy was born, and then he took over the business. He was in Brooklyn; he went to Brooklyn every day.

Q: How did you end up in living in Baltimore?

A: Because my husband had Alzheimer's. We had a beautiful house in New Jersey. My husband had Alzheimer's. I had around-the-clock help with him. And it was just a question of staying in New Jersey where my other daughter is all here.

Q: Isee.

A. And the place where -- the only place that I considered would have been three and a half hours for Julia to get to and an hour and a half for Marian (ph) to get to, and I felt in an emergency, it's -- Julia lives in Towson, and I'm in North Oaks. I don't know if you ever heard of that; in Baltimore. It's a senior citizen thing. So we decided that Julie kept going till she found an apartment there that she thought would suit me, and I came down and looked, and that was it.

Q: How long have you lived in Baltimore now?

A: I moved in in March -- March 9th in 2-0-0 -- 2-0-0-9.

Q: Yeah. So most of your life has been in the New York/New Jersey area rather --

A: Oh, yes.

Q: -- in the United States rather than down here?

A: Yes.

Q: And you said you went back to Germany. When was it that you went back to Germany?

A: We went a few times. My husband's father had a business there in Ulm, Germany, and they got it back, and he sort of -- his brother was not in the business at the time; he was in a different type of business, so he said to go back and sort of take care of it because my father-in-law had died.

Q: Mm-hmm.

A: And so I used to go with them, and then we'd make a vacation someplace. We'd go sometimes to Switzerland, and sometimes we would just, you know, travel around in the car and what-have-you.

Q: There are many people who've -- German Jewish people who never wanted to go back.

A: Iknow.

Q: Didn't like to go back.

A: Iknow.

Q: And you're different. How would you explain that? How would you explain --

A: Well, they -- their life was taken apart. What else can I say? You know. And they lost a lot of family; a lot of people lost a lot of family, and -- and they -- they didn't trust the Germans. And the Germans to them were all Nazis. Now, I know personally, I mean, I met a lot of people after the war in Ulm and in -- we went -- we took the children too to see where we were born. And I felt a neighbor of ours who was not Jewish didn't have to say boo, came over to my parents, said, "Get out of town. I've heard rumors," has to be a decent person to even dare because in a small town, everybody knows you, so she didn't know -- or he didn't know whether anybody would see him coming into our house.

Q: Yeah. So you didn't have the same sort of bitter feeling. Is that -- Can I put it that way?

A: Well, I didn't. I was a child. I was -- you know, it's different when you're grown up and you've got to give up everything and --

Q: Did your parents ever go back?

A: No. No, they never -- They were getting old, and they were working; they were tired.

And they couldn't afford to anyhow. But, no, we went to Europe quite a few times. And

then once we took all the children with us and -- once the children were born and so on.

And then a lot of people started writing to us from Germany, you know, and so --

Q: You mean former neighbors and former friends?

A: Former neighbors.

Q: Did they --

A: But they all died, then, you know, as they get older and they die of one thing and another.

Q: But when they wrote, did they then fill in some of the gaps of what had happened during the war?

A: No. They didn't want to talk about it either.

Q: Okay.

A: But I mean, the ones -- you know, you knew who was who. We knew who was a Nazi and who wasn't and was decent. So the ones who tried, the Nazis, we didn't even --

Q: Of course not.

A: -- answer anything. The others we'd write for Christmas or something like that, and that was it.

Q: Did your -- Did your children ask a lot of questions about your experiences as they were growing up?

A: Oh, they know, I mean, you know, that I went to England and the whole bit. Oh, yes, they know the story.

Q: Because some people just never talked at all, never --

A: Iknow. I know. No, my children know. I mean, I can only say my whole life I was lucky. You have to agree to that.

Q: Well, it is --

A: I mean, in one sense, all right, I was separated from my parents --

Q: That's painful, yes.

A: But I was as lucky as anybody could be. I was sent to private schools. I never was hungry. I had clothes -- Well, we had school uniforms, in England, so we kind of got that and all, you know. And you look at it -- I think you look at it different when you're a child than when you're a grown-up, the things that are important to you. I mean, it was important to us that on Sundays, this car -- the car stood in front of the door with a

chauffeur and we went to go swimming or watch the ball game, the cricket game or something.

Q: That's perfectly normal. That's so normal. Every kid wants to --

A: Of course.

Q: Of course.

A: Of course.

Q: Yeah. And it sounds, then, you were able to have some part of a kid's life?

A: Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, the children in the schools in England, they invited us to their birthday parties, and we knew their parents, and they were very nice; they'd invite us for dinner once in a while or come and see us, you know. Oh, no. And we had a very nice -- and this was in the school -- piano teacher. And this was, of course, a private thing, piano teacher -- I had piano lesson in Germany already. Piano teacher and elocution with our English. And we played all the sports. I was on the tennis team.

I was on the -- what they called netball which is basketball here team, and I met a lot of people and lot of sports, and so that's where I ended up, you know, doing what I enjoyed.

Q: Did -- In the 30 years that both of your parents -- 30 or 40 years that your parents lived in the United States, did they ever talk about what life had been like from the time you left, that you were no longer there?

A: Well, they used to say it was so quiet in the house, you know?

Q: Oh.

A: {Laughing.} They missed my noise.

Q: And the mischievousness.

A: {Laughing.} Ofcourse, my father missed the business, but he didn't talk to us about the business, you know.

Q: And I mean, was it such that they -- after -- In the first years after coming to a new place, most people have it very hard.

A: Oh, yes.

Q: Very, very hard to adjust their circumstances --

A: Absolutely.

Q: -- are usually far --

A: Oh, no, especially --

Q: -- far worse.

A: Imean, my mother knew English, but my father didn't, and this was very difficult for him. But my mother -- that's why she took me to -- she went with me to England because she could talk to, you know, the people there.

Q: Okay. And I'm wondering is that did that hardship ever change for them? Did they ever -- Even though they stayed in the same jobs, did they ever enjoy life in a different way in the -- in those decades?

A: Well, we had good times together. We'd go out together. Of course, when the children were born, they -- you know, they used to come to the house. We used to pick them up New York and taken them out to Englewood -- we first lived in Englewood in New Jersey and so on. Oh, no. We had them there nearly every weekend; they'd spend the day with us and with the kids, you know, or we'd go into New York with them or my mother would take the kids to the movies or some downtown, you know, but, you know, that sort of thing. But no. It was -- Of course, it was a big change for them, and -- and they were getting older. I mean, they weren't -- they weren't young where change doesn't affect you that way, you know. But they accepted it. I mean, their thing was as long as we're together.

Q: And that is -- that is the most important thing.

A: Exactly.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add to what we've talked about today that I might not have asked you that you think is important for people to know about?

A: Not really. I mean -- no, I was very lucky in my marriage, too. My husband's family was very nice too.

Q: Did they -- Did his parents make it out? Of course, his father made it out, yes. So he had them in New York as well?

A: His parents lived on Riverside Drive. He lived in the Riverside Drive. And when he took me there -- we got engaged. As a matter of fact, we had just been to an ice hockey game at the Madison Square Garden downtown. And on the way back, he asked me to marry him. So he said, "You might as well come upstairs" -- it was an afternoon game -- "meet my parents." I'd never met them. And so we walk in there, and one of the first things is his father, very friendly guy, says, "You know, if you're going to be part of the family, we might as well know when your birthday is." So I told him when my birthday is, and all of a sudden, they looked at each other, and they started to laugh. I said, "What's funny about it?" Was his birthday too, my father-in-law's birthday. And then it

http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection turns out my brother-in-law had birthday same day as my mother, so we used to have huge parties.

Q: How nice.

A: Oh, yes.

Q: How nice. Okay. Well, I think that this concludes our interview --

A: Okay.

Q: -- with Mrs. Hilde Gundel. Excuse me. Let me make sure I've got it right. Yeah, Hilde Gundel on September 11, 2013, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Washington, D.C. Thank you very much.

A: You're welcome. It was nice meeting -- your name is Ina?

Q: Ina.

A: Ina. Ina. I thought it sounds like Jean.

Q: Yeah. Ina.

A: Very nice meeting you.

Q: Thank you.

Conclusion of Interview