Autobiographical interviews of Jews born in German speaking countries ("Yekkes") - 50/60 years after their immigration to Israel

Born in Vienna; Dressmaker. Illegal emigration to Palestine in 1938, worked as a dressmaker and a writer. Family: very assimilated, parents came from Bukovina. Schooling: grammar school and academy for dressmakers, wanted to study Chemistry. After master craftsman's diploma she got married. Parents: came to Vienna before WWI. Youth: good memories. ballet lessons, theater lessons, English kindergarten. Financial crisis: her sister did not have such a good education. Never felt disadvantaged because of being Jewish. Many Jews in the schools she attended. Parental home: non-religious, wide social circle but only Jews, her best friend was not Jewish. Being Jewish was never an issue. Only through Hitler she learned that she is a Jew. Reading: Biographies. Her passion for reading started with Gottfried Keller. Her writing. 1933 did not mean anything to her (human ignorance). Thoughts about emigration: when Hitler invaded Vienna, her boyfriend had studied law and was going for his Ph.D. Wedding. "Positive" experience with SA: they entered the apartment and wanted money and passports, the children were told to shrub the streets. Her mother's smart reaction saved them. Illegal emigration was helped by a Gestapo man who organized illegal passports for money. When her husband went there, he did not return and she had to look for him. After standing in line for 2 days she found out that he had been arrested. Episode about a super who changed from one minute to the other when Hitler ; rose to power. About the falsity of Austrians. How she convinced a Gestapo man to set her husband free and let them emigrate to Israel. Emigration: meeting at the train station and how everything seemed to be so normal. The border to Italy was closed and they had to wait for 8 days. People were talking about Dachau, but she ignored it. After 8 days the journey went on, many thought the train would take them into a concentration camp and jumped from the moving train. Arrival in Vienna and release. Emigrants met at the Reichsbruecke and boarded a ship that went down the Danube. They went on to a Greek freighter, catastrophal conditions. Arrival in Cyprus. Transfer to another full ship. They were finally transported in small boats and had to wade through the water with their back packs. People had to wait by the wall. They came to a cinema and had to throw away their passports. Organization of the Transport by Mr. Perl from USA. The first impression of the people who came to pick them up was frightening. No acquaintances in Israel, so they went to Tel Aviv. She started work as a waitress and found a job as a dressmaker. A new home. Name: Pollak. Her husband could not adjust to life in Israel. He could not work as a lawyer and none of them spoke Hebrew. 1944: birth of their first child. Their marriage failed because of the emigration. She divorced him, but then took him back in. After the war he went back to Vienna on the first ship, got his Ph.D., became an advisor to the ; senate and finally committed suicide. Details about her first husband. Second marriage with a man who was not suited to her, because she wanted her child to have a father. He was from Poland. Communication did not work, so she began to write. Another child, which was the "biggest foolishness of her life". Bar Mizwa of the second son. Publishing of her first article in a newspaper. Letters to the editor of the Jerusalem Post were published and had good reactions, so she began to write besides her work as a dressmaker. When her second husband died, she gave up her work. Relationship between her two sons. Only spoke German with her sons and still makes many mistakes in Hebrew. Writes mainly poems. Reads German poets. About Camus and her style of writing. Recital of 2 poems. About the Gulf War, another poem. About Hussein, Hitler and Neo- Nazism in Germany. Speaks about Beate Klarsfeld. Another Poem. One of her books was at the Frankfurt Book Fair. She wants to read in Germany, but it couldn't be arranged yet. Readings in Israel. She has never been back to Germany, but she visited Vienna because she wanted to see it again and met her first husband while she was there.