Interview was by Adam Tomczak over the phone and recorded on my Macbook to Garage Band. Overall the interview went well although it was probably a little too casual and my grandmother did not really want to expand on some of things that she said. I had a lot of trouble staying to the script because she was tempted to more so just talk instead of answer questions that I wanted to ask. The divergences were not all bad but I do think that I could have stayed on track better with this interview. She gave me verbal consent to share this.
B. Naomi was born in America but her father came over to America from Russia passing through Ellis Island in order to escape the progroms that were occurring at that time. The progroms were a time of religious prosecution that spread throughout Russia in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. They caused many Jews, my Great Grandfather included, to leave Russia and travel to safety.
Transcription of Interview
Red: Grandmother
Black: Me
Let’s start with when he came to the US
He was born in 1905, he was about 14 years old so it would be about 1919
It was about that time the pogroms
He came here with his family because of the prosecutions and pogroms
Yeah that’s definitely a push factor
How do you think him being from Russia affected your home life?
We really didn’t have a lot of family time he worked 6 days a week and he went to night school to learn English because he did not really go to a High School in Russia. On Sunday we went to the Grocery store. We didn’t travel other than going to Massachusetts.
And you say its because of him coming in from Russia that puts him at a disadvantage
I definitely think that, he had no money he came with the money on his back, it was a 2 month voyage. He actually walked from Russia to the German border and he had to be sponsored to be able to make it to America where he went to Ellis Island and he was kept there. They came with nothing there was 6 kids in the family
Like you said before they did not have much
We always lived in multiple person apartments, I barely went to college
Yeah he was probably more worried about putting food on the table than anything else
Yeah I would agree We wouldn’t poor but you know
Back in Russia kids lost all their teeth because of a deficiency in Milk and Calcium.
I remember Mom telling me about how he used to have dentures. The communist system can cause that because they don’t give you a lot of money to work
Definitely
Yeah I understand that
I also forgot to tell you about how during the Great Depression when the stock market crashed, no one put money into the banks.
Yeah because they didn’t trust them
They would just hide under their mattress or something. When we cleaned out the apartment we found money in the socks in the drawer and also how Dad’s mom used to keep money in the freezer. But you can understand why though
Yeah no trust in the banks
If you studied the great depression, then you would know that. In fact, I was the only one in my family to go to college
That’s crazy to think about because it was assumed for me and Lindsay we knew
Before you guys were born we knew
Yeah dad started saving for us before I even was like 18 years old
Yeah it was a much different time then, we didn’t buy things we didn’t need. I didn’t have a dryer or a dishwasher.
Moving on, do you think being a descendant of the cold war effected you.
Oh yeah I remember it but it did not really effect me I was more worried about the amount of relatives lost from the Holocaust, all those people who were not able to make it here.
A lot of people
Yeah like 6 million.
I just think about how moms side is Russians and dads side is Polish and without them getting here then I wouldn’t be here
Yeah there were a lot who did not make it that would be an impact on you and your future. I know you asked about my grandmother but they didn’t bother to learn English so it was hard to converse with them.
Yeah I know you talked about you guys focused on the Jewish dishes as compared to the Russian dishes
You have to remember that they did not come back with any recipes or anything we just made the classic Jewish foods like Chicken soup
Would you say that was partially because of how they did not want to remember their past in Russia, it obviously wasn’t a positive time
My father never really wanted to talk about he never told anyone but Uncle Marc about what happened
*Cue small Talk between me and my grandmother* I stopped recording and then resumed
Say that again so you would not want to go back to visit Poland or Russia
No I have no desire to really ever go there
Honestly I’m grateful that both sides were able to make it to America, also for you it effected you a lot to make it to America, and be able to make it to America and be a teacher
I was the only one of my friends who didn’t have their own house, he never bought a house. He probably couldn’t afford it
That is how our heritage effected our values, he grew up in a hut almost, I consider to be like Fiddler on the Roof
Yeah with the farm and cows and everything
I don’t remember what year but it was close
It had hints at the pogroms I think
Yeah yeah yeah at the end they had to leave because of the persecution. The Jews all lived in their villages in their own communities.
Do you think that they choose to live that close?
They really did not think of living in the cites, they just stayed in their towns with their own synagogue.
I would say there was not a lot of mixed marriage. Most of them did not go to school they were at Hebrew school or homeschooled no college
Yeah not many people to college at that time in Russia
Yeah yeah
That goes with the common theme of a lack of education
Yeah not many people cared about calculus and physics
Yeah Education definitely changes immigration
I didn’t really know anyone who was a doctor or a lawyer, they just did not have the opportunity and the education to get those jobs it wasn’t because they weren’t smart or anything.