Hilda

I’m 95.

30.

Yeah

I came to America because I am a Hitler victim, I had to leave the country where I was born and America made it possible for me to live here.

Austria, I was born in Vienna, Austria. Hitler came to power and I’m Jewish and I had to leave the country or I would go to a concentration camp and I would rather go to America than a concentration camp. You can understand it, right?

1939.

Yes.

A cousin of mine sent an affidavit that’s was a guarantee that my husband and myself will never ask for public help and that’s why we came from Worcester. This person had to deposit $8,000, in ’39 that was an enormous amount of money, for 5 years in a bank without interest and after 5 years the money went back to my cousin.

Look, I had no opinion because I came from a different country with different circumstances; I had no opinion.

Very soon they went into war, within a year, and it was depression and I couldn’t find a job, I needed money, and my husband too because we came completely without money, nothing, just a fork, a spoon and a knife. So, I tried to get a job as a sticher, but I didn’t know how to stich, so I learned and applied for a job, I was fired. But then I learned, I learned the machine everytime I learned something, in time, in two weeks, I could stich. But, it was very difficult, it was very little money, and very little work. Sometimes I work 2 hours and then I was sent home. Come tomorrow morning, work an hour or two because it was depression.

My husband was a shoe cutter. He had the same problems, but he got a job in Hudson, and we settled in Hudson first. After a while I got a job in a shoe factory and we stayed a year and moved to Worcester.

Hudson at that time was a very small community and everyone knew what the other was doing. When I worked in the factory, I worked with girls, and they were complaining, ‘Hilda has only one dress, she’s wearing the same dress all weak long’. I had no other one because I had no money to buy one, you know? I wanted to get away from this. Do you blame me?

My view about the war?

I spoke fluent English, the same as I speak now. And we went to night school, my husband couldn’t talk a single word of English. Within a month, we went twice a week because when you come up here, you have to come to school. When you are a citizen, they ask you questions, historical questions and you learn a lot. So, twice a week we went to school and within a year, he could write it too. We learned all of the laws. I had a pretty good idea before because I am a college graduate. I speak 5 languages. So, one of them is English because my mother’s kind is German. So I speak German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. I went to college, it was not usual at that time, in ’39. Women didn’t go to college.

Europe, yeah.

In the beginning, yes because you know, I’m Jewish and they called me where I worked, ‘the refuge’. I had no name, I was the refuge. So, one time a fellow worker came over to me and asked, ‘are you the refuge?’ ‘I says yes’. ‘Where are your horns?’ ‘I says horns, I don’t have horns’. ‘You left them home’. He went around me and looked where the horns are. Then I found out they told people, Jews have horns. He wanted to see my horns. But then, after a while, he said ‘you know, you look like a regular person, I don’t think you have horns’. That was the idea, so you understand that I wanted to get away from there? In Worcester, it was a bigger city and people were not so primative.

Yes. So, what else can I tell you?

Let me tell you something, I kept my mouth shut, I was told when I came to America, you don’t say anything and I never said a word because I still had a mother over there, you never know who’s who and what happens. After one year here, my mother came, she came on the last boat from Italy. So that was over, so you understand what I did because you can’t tell who’s who and you can’t judge and the less you talk the better you are. I was 100% for America naturally because when they throw you out of a country and another country takes you, its natural and I did.

No, people asked me and I said I don’t know.

I tell you something, I had such a difficult life, and losing everything coming across. I had a hard time to make a living and my husband too. We had no time, we went to school, and we worked, and I had to cook and the living facilities were very primitive. I lived in a house, I was the only woman. There were only men. There was one bathroom in the whole house and it had no electricity. So I had to go only as long as was night. I went with my flashlight, but it isn’t very pleasant, right? The men were mostly drunks in the house and the owner of the place, they were two schoolteachers and they were lovely and they felt sorry for me. Very often they came with a few cookies or sometimes she had leftovers, she didn’t know what to do because I was hungry. And it wasn’t too clean either. There were mice. I had never seen a mouse in my life, that was the first time I seen a mouse. You see, I come from middle class people, I wasn’t in those surroundings. It was completely different and when Hitler came, within an hour I was a poor person and what I had had to stay there and I left it there and I never got anything for it. So, you understand? Both of us were eager to make a living and get along somehow and keep our mouth shut.

I never had any children because my mother came after one year and I had to support my mother. I didn’t want my husband to take care of my mother, you understand that too. My husband was very fond of my mother because they got along wonderfully. She lived with us for 20 years, we never went out without her. She was very polite. She was a college graduate too and she spoke 5 languages. So, that’s a backround.

Some did and some didn’t. Some kept, you know, you see, the people like the one who told me where are your horns? Another one, girl, I worked on the machine with her. She was Catholic. The first day she told me I can’t go to heaven because I am not Catholic because all of the other people go to hell and she liked me. So, every morning, ‘did you decide to become Catholic?’ ‘Hilda, I’m sorry for you, you go to hell, I don’t want you to go to hell, please become Catholic.’ That lasted a couple of months after one month she me that I go to heaven.

No, oh yes, distant people. Look, I, my father, died, was killed in the first world war, I was brought up without a father, I was five years old. So, I had enough of war. She was 26 years old and she never re-married because of me.

No, and I couldn’t understand, as a kid, why has everybody a brother or sister and I don’t. So, I was after my mother, why don’t I have a bother or sister. I didn’t understand it. At that time, people didn’t understand what’s what. This is 70 years ago, much more than 70 years ago. My mother never explained that kind of stuff.

It was horrible. I think it was the most horrible thing that could happen. It was a big misunderstanding and there is nothing you can do about it. People are ignorant and narrow-minded.

Narrow-minded? They don’t see the further expansion of things. They don’t understand it.

Politics, at that time, no one was interested in Politics. Everyone was angry to make a living. There were no wage laws. I was working at the factory and I was paid under the minimum. I didn’t know. So, one day I was called in the office and they gave me $10. They said you know you were paid under the minimum and you have to earn so much. I thought it was a gift from God, my husband did too. So, we took the $20 and went to New York. That was the beginning that people knew a minimum wage. They didn’t know.

It was 1940.

They didn’t understand and I never said a word, I wasn’t citizen and I kept my mouth shut. You know?

When they said something about something, I left the room. I didn’t want to be asked and I didn’t want to give my opinion, I can’t say which was right. First of all, I didn’t understand it yet. So, when you come from very narrow-minded people, I was smarter than most of them, and I understood what they were talking and they think I didn’t understand. When they asked, I said, I don’t know. I wanted to become a citizen and stay and not be deported. There were a lot of spys, I know. Even on my boat from the Netherlands and we had money enough to buy first class tickets. So we went first class and we had something to eat. So, once, a man came over to me, he must have been a spy, I felt it, I felt something, you feel it in your body. He says, you know, you never will make a living. I didn’t even answer. You will never find a job, they will kill you out there. I says, so, that’s how it is. He wanted that I should open my mouth, but I was so trained that I would not do that because my mother was over there and you never know what they would do to her. Those people go all over the world you know because they have all kinds of friends and I had no friends, so when you don’t know, you don’t know.

I think that the golden year and everything is wonderful. The street is paved with gold. It wasn’t paved with gold, it was depression. I came from a job in an office and was very well paid because I translated from one language to another, I was highly qualified, to nothing. And I couldn’t find anything in an office, absolutely not.

Oh sure.

I’ll tell you something, later on when I lived in Worcester, I applied for a job and they tell me, come in a week and then, I tell you. Ok. I came in a week and they told me the job was taken. So, I had a girlfriend who was living here all her life. She said, you know that was political. I said, political? You are a voter here, I says yes, you are a democrat, I says yes. You know, they went to city hall, they are republican, they found out you are not republican, so you cannot get the job. So, I went to city hall and I said that I want to change my status. I want to be an independent, so I turned independent and to this day I am still independent because I thought it was so horrible that people in a free country, they can go to city hall and find out. You understand?

No, no, I didn’t understand things, how they really run. Politics plays a big role here. I was always a democrat and I ever will be. When I go to vote, everytime, I change to Democrat and afterward I change to independent, that I learned. I am very happy here, I think the country was good to me and I couldn’t be happier, after all, I can afford to live here now. I worked till 72 and then I retired. I am able to live and can save from nothing to something, but not because I am special smart, just from saving and working because you don’t find many people working till 72, saving and working.

Let me just say one thing, I might have an accent, but I am not dumb. I am interested in everything, whatever I could do for charities in a lot of ways all my life here. They were good to me and I can only say that it was the right country for me. I am grateful to my cousin who gave me the opportunity.

He was MD. And he came to this country, he was from Hungary and after the world war, he went to the hospital. He had blue eyes and blonde hair, and after they found out he was Jewish they fire him.

He was in Hungary. So he decided to go to America and here he was a doctor again and he tried to help other people to settle.

Yes. And his family was always good to me and now I sent one of his grandchildren to college. That was my thank you for what he did for me. I think that is how it should be. Anything else that I can help you?

I’ll tell you something, I really don’t know how I reacted because I was so, my mother is she going to make it, and she was on the last boat from Italy. So, I couldn’t see further. How I’m going to cook and how I’m going to make it and how I’m going to work tomorrow. So, there was no security. How are we going to pay the rent and there is not much furniture, we had to buy furniture, you know. You hadn’t much time to think about politics. You work 48 hours on piecework and you come home you are so tired to sleep and you get up at 5 o’clock the next morning. You don’t think about that, you think about how am I going to make it through the next day?

People did not talk about it. You know, here people talk. In Europe, it is not open like here. What I said to you, I couldn’t say in Europe.

First of all, it wasn’t good manner to say anything that isn’t perfect, you know? A well-educated person, that’s not what you should do. And since I am here in this country, I am much more opinionated and fight for my rights than in Europe. Should I tell you why I fight for my rights? I worked in the factory with 5 girls at the same job, piecework. And I found out that the girls got more than I did for the same job and that irked me and I went to the boss. Why do they get more than I do for the same work? I don’t think its right. He says you’re right, but you didn’t ask for it for the same price. So, I asked for it and then I got it. That was a lesson for my whole life. I fight for everything and I ask for it. You can understand this. I was so unhappy when I heard that I was stupid once to work for less for the same work. I said there is something wrong with you. That’s why I fight I fighter, I fight for my rights. When I think I’m right, and I was right. When I came here someone told me something and I said that’s not right, I have a contract here and I looked at my contract and they said you are right, we are wrong. You learn.

I can’t remember, I really can’t. Look, it was so many years ago. It was 50 years ago. There were so many other things to think about because I still had family over there who went to concentration camps because they didn’t want to leave everything over there. It was different, people are different.

I had no family anymore because the ones who stayed there were in a concentration camp and were killed. I have family in England and I went to England 2 time and it was interesting, but I’d rather be here. No comparison. They don’t work hard. Here when you work hard, you have more. It’s a different thing. When I was in England, my cousin worked in a factory. 10 o’clock everyday they close up and they have tea time. They have tea and cake and the same in the afternoon. Can you imagine, here in a factory, that is a law. So, you have to pay for everything. Is there anything else that I can help you with?

Now

I tell you, I had the New York Times every Sunday. And we will read the New York Times from Sunday the whole week and my husband didn’t understand English too well. So, that was our Sunday task, I translated the whole New York Times on Sunday instead of going somewhere. But he learned, he learned fluent English and he went to Holy Cross here.

At that time, I can’t remember. I really can’t remember. There is so much in it, you want to know the whole thing, but not specific. Besides, I had family in Israel and I had family in Puerto Rico and they couldn’t come in because their quota wasn’t ready and the husband worked in the harbor cleaning ships when they came over. So, you know, I was very fortunate that I came to a house. And I have people in Israel now, first cousin, and there is nothing you can do about it. All those things are horrible. Wherever is war to destroy and kill people, I think is horrible. I know I felt very bad all my life because I had no father because he was killed. I always thought it was a terrible fate to live my mother without a father. There is nothing you can do about it. And now, so many people will be killed and so many kids will have no parents wherever it is. Because war now a days is horrible.

I lived off Lincoln St. I lived on Garden St. It was a three Decker on the top floor naturally with oil heat, bring up the bottles from the cellar to the third floor, I didn’t change that, my husband did.

It was lower middle class. And then we moved from Garden Street to Woodland Street. It was much better neighborhood, much nicer people. And then I lived near Tatnuck Sq. I lived there 33 years and it was already an apartment with a swimming pool outside. That I liked. And I came from there and I came up here because I had to go up stairs and the doctor wouldn’t let me. So now, you know all about me, did I impress you?