Interview with Alice Dreifuss Goldstein, April 27, 2019

B. GOLDSTEIN: Today would have been the one hundred and twelfth birthday of my grandmother, Gretel Dreifuss. So it is a particularly uh, appropriate day for Mom to be talking about her experiences. --(clears throat)-- We've just completed the celebration of Pesach, with its powerful story of Israelites fleeing from oppression. We often focus on the point of liberation in this story, but it's also a story about slavery, about borders that are closed, about transitions, and of facing news uncertainties and learning to live a different life. Many of you already heard Mom talk about her early years in Germany as the Nazis came to power. So today, we've chosen to focus on Mom's transition from Germany to the U.S. instead, and on her first years as a refugee in the United States. Just as borders were closed then, too many borders are closed now. So this, we hope, today, will situate the Shoah not just in Europe and ju--not just in the 1930s and '40s, but also in the U.S. and also in our contemporary world. What was it, for those who attempted to cross borders and to escape from Europe to the U.S., and how does that help us to think about our present situation? So as Jeremy mentioned, Mom was born in Kenzingen, Baden, Germany, in September of 1931--the only child on your father's and mother's sides, either side, of the uh, immediate family. So what I'd like to start with is for you to describe your experiences in Kenzingen as your parents attempted to leave Germany.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: We had, um, been subjected to, uh, the Nazi regulations for a period of--

B. GOLDSTEIN: --(clears throat)--

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: --three or four years, uh, which resulted in our being really isolated from, uh, the community, and, uh, ah, ostracized from all of our friends and neighbors. Um, my father's business was being, uh, systematically destroyed by boycotts and, uh, and, and, uh, violence. And so, by nine--end of 1936, my family, my parents had decided it was time to leave, that this was no place to bring up a child. And so they began the arduous process of trying to get a visa to go somewhere. And it was exceedingly difficult to find a place to go. Palestine was closed by the British for immigration. Most countries in Europe w--did not want additional refugees. Um, th--they--there was--England was taking only children at this point, and so my parents, uh, settled on the United States, because my mother had a cousin living there and they thought that they would be able to get the necessary documents. And we began a year-long process of getting those documents in order. And at the same time, the, um, the American consulate, uh, had been told to make that process as difficult as possible. So by 1937, we were in the middle of getting, uh, getting some kind of order into our emigration papers.

B. GOLDSTEIN: And then?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: And, and then Kristallnacht happened in 1938. Uh, we, we had been trying to get these papers, my father had called and, and traveled and they couldn't get anywhere, and when Kristallnacht happened, uh, the--our business was completely destroyed. Um, my parents', uh, home was vandalized. All their books and my, my mother's, um, sheet music was destroyed, was thrown out into the street and burned. My father was deported to Dachau, where--as--along with both of my grandfathers, and, of course, another ten thousand Jews from all over Germany. Um, my father was, uh, in Dachau for about six weeks. My grandfather was released earlier--both grandfathers were released earlier. But, um, when my father came back from Dachau, uh, he--they were more determined, my parents were more determined than ever to get out. Uh, things had gone from really terrible to even worse. And my father went to the consulate, uh, with very little success; by that time, the consulate itself was swamped, of course, with visa applications. Fortunately, because we had, um, been able to, um, get our documents in line, so to speak, to get a visa--and don't forget, the United States at that time was only cons--uh, accepting about twenty-six thousand a year from Germany, and there were many more than that applying, uh--but we had a low, we had a low visa number for the year 1939, and so in May of 1939, we were actually issued a visa. And there was a lot of rigmarole about--with getting the visa and not having a passport, and not being able to get a passport because we were Jewish; it finally was resolved, and in, uh, May we were told we had the visa, we needed to get, uh, passage to go to the United States. We found passage on an American ship that was leaving Hamburg on August uh, thirteenth-- uh, August fifteenth, 1939. We were able to book passage on that. We were able to take money out of our frozen bank accounts for that purpose, and also to pay the high taxes. And so on August, uh, fifteenth, uh, we boarded the USS [United States Ship] Harding on our way to the United States. We had with us one steamer trunk with, uh, several clothes; uh, with some, um, papers, documents that my father thought would be very important; uh, with a meat grinder that my parents had forgotten to pack into things that were going to be shipped later; and five dollars among us. And that was it. And so we left Germany, essentially, paupers, uh, with only the clothes on our backs and a few other changes of clothing, and we sailed across the Atlantic, arriving in New York on August twenty-eighth of 1939. The war inter--in Europe began three days later, on September 1st. Our ship was the last passenger liner to leave Germany on schedule. There were others later, but that was the last one that really left exactly when it was supposed to. So we were among the very fortunate few who were able to get out before the war began.

B. GOLDSTEIN: The other day when we were talking, you described that week on the ship between Germany and New York as, uh, the one period of, uh, relief that you had on either side of being in Germany or arriving in the U.S.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: It was a really amazing hiatus, because for the first time in six years, uh, I felt free to go where I wanted to. Uh, we were in steerage class, of course, but that still left a lot of room for exploring and for wandering about. --(clears throat)-- My parents were thrilled to be able to eat kosher meat--they hadn't had it for a number of years. I was thrilled to have all the cider that I wanted, because I loved cider, and they had apple juice every day for breakfast. It was quite wonderful.

B. GOLDSTEIN: --(laughs)--

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Um, at night there was entertainment, and I remember the music of the band playing, um, polkas and waltzes, and my mother saying, "Imagine dancing at a time like this." But it was a, a great period in between, um, two much more troubled, uh, years.

B. GOLDSTEIN: When you and your parents arrived in New York in August of '39, your mother's cousin Elsie met you at the harbor, arranged for housing, and helped register you immediately for school. Tell us about your first experiences with school in New York City.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Uh, I don't know how many of you, uh, know what New York Ci--City school buildings were like back in the--in the '30s, but they were big brick buildings with cemented courtyards, and we were expected to line up in front of the door that would lead to our classroom. Now, because I didn't speak any English at all, I had been determined that I would go to the first grade, even though I was eight years old at the time. And so I somehow had to find the right door to go in, and that was very, uh, disconcerting. Uh, managed to get into the classroom, and, uh, we began the class, as schools still do here in Kentucky and everywhere across the United States, and I'm sure that there are many students here who could tell me that "We begin class by pledging allegiance to the flag." Is that right? Yup. Still do it. So we were told to stand up and pledge allegiance to the flag, but I had been told that the flag was a symbol of evil, and that you try to make yourself as invisible as possible when the flag is displayed. You certainly don't show any sign of respect. And so instead of standing up, I sort of crouched down in my seat, and the teacher got quite angry and sent me to detention. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that this wasn't good. --(general laughter)-- It got explained eventually. But I--I was lost. There was no such thing as ESL [English as a Second Language], there was no understanding that here was a child who absolutely didn't understand anything that was going on. I could do a little of the math because I had learned that in school in Germany. Uh, on--w--th--one day a week, there was a school assembly, and we had to wear--girls had to wear white blouses and navy-blue skirts, neither of which I owned, and so I was in detention again. I think I was in detention those first two weeks that I was in that school more than I was in the classroom. And it was a totally isolating experience for me.

B. GOLDSTEIN: At the same time that you were going through that, your parents were seeking work, of course. They needed to find work as quickly as possible. How did they go about doing this, and what were their first jobs?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: My mother, fortunately, was able to right away obtain a job as a cleaning woman, cleaning the stairs and hallways of the apartment building in which we had lived, where my cousin had arranged for the housing. It was just a two-room, very overstuffed, uh, apartment, but it was, it was a sa--a sanctuary for us at the time. So she became a cleaning woman. My father couldn't find work. It was the--still the end of the Depression in the United States. There were a lot of people out of work. And so he went to the --HIAS, Hebrew and Immigrant Aid Society. It's still functioning, still doing wonderful work. Um, and the--he went to them and said, "We need help. We need--I need to get a job." And they said, "Look, we don't have anything in New York. There are lots of refugees, we can't do it all. But we do have a job for a domestic couple in Bennington, Vermont, uh, and they would be willing to take a child along as well." Well, who had ever heard of Bennington, Vermont? I mean, it was the other side of the moon. But I thought--my parents decided this was an opportunity for them to get out of New York, which was a heavily German-speaking neighborhood where we lived, very difficult to assimilate--they were very eager to get, to become Americans as quickly as possible, and so they said, "Okay, we will take a job there." So when the--within the course of a few years, my parents went from being s--very, uh, successful middle-class people with a rich cultural life to being servants in a household. My father became a chauffeur and gardener and butler, wore a white jacket and black tie to serve dinner. Uh, my mother became the cook and chambermaid. And, uh, they went that route because they felt that was the way to become American. It was a way to get a little bit of money, since their food and board-- their room and board would be paid for. And, um, and it was a safe place for me. So we went to Vermont.

B. GOLDSTEIN: And you were under FBI surveillance during this period of time as well, right?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Not quite. Uh, we, we've, we've stayed in Vermont for a year and then decided it was not a very good place for my parents. There was not enough food, there was no respect for, for them as people. And we moved to Groton, Connecticut.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Okay.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: And from there, eventually, when the uh, war began, ser--when began mobilization in 1941, even before Pearl Harbor, we had to leave that, that position--it was a similar domestic servant position. We moved to New London, Connecticut, which is a naval base. And, uh, at that time, uh, once--as soon as the war started, all foreign-born residents had to register. And so we became enemy aliens in New London, Connecticut. Uh, and we were visited by the FBI every year during the war to make sure that we didn't have any shortwave radios, that we weren't hiding any guns, that we weren't part of a fifth column of German spies in the United States.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, thank you. Let's go back a little bit to, uh, Bennington and Groton, when your parents were domestic household servants.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Um-hm.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Um, as you've related these two living situations to me, that's the period of time when you made a transition to speaking English, as did your parents, your mother, and American lifestyles--understanding American lifestyle.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Yes.

B. GOLDSTEIN: But at the same time, you were acutely aware of your status as German-Jewish refugees. So you--can you speak to both sides of that a little?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, I mean, it was--it was a great opportunity to become Americanized, and my father, uh, his name was quickly changed from Siegfried to Fred, uh, which he remained for the rest of his life, and he completely identified with that. Um, and, uh, he learned to like, uh, orange juice and Rice Krispies for breakfast. --(laughter)-- So it--he became, in, in that sense, Americanized quite rapidly. He also was--since he was a chauffeur, he was very happy to have cars. He had a love affair with cars from early on, and that was a very positive piece of his experience. Um, my mother, uh, had to learn how to cook American-style, with cuts of meat that were totally different from the ones she had been used to in Europe, and so she lived with, uh, the, uh, German-English dictionary on one side of the shelf and the, uh, Sullivan Cookbook on the other, and she would go back and forth to learn how to cook American. Um, which they did, and they s--they gradually learned a little bit of English. I went to school in Bennington--it was a much better situation. The teachers were more understanding. I was again put in first grade, but quickly was able to master that, and I learned English rather quickly. And so by, uh, Christmastime, when there was the winter break, I was transferred into third grade. Uh, and this, this was great, but it, it meant, again, that I had no stability and no chance to really make friends at all. And so, and, in that period in Bennington, I, I remember not any friends, not--never making any friends. And that kind of transferred itself to our situation in Groton, Connecticut, where I al--I--by that time I was in, uh, in fourth grade, and, um, uh, went to a school where my father served as, uh--he brought me to school along with the two boys that lived in the house while he was their chauffeur--got us back and forth to school, but never had an opportunity to make friends. Always felt like--a little bit like an outsider. And um, I suspect, uh, at that stage I still had something of an accent, so that kids knew right away that I, I wasn't like them. And, um, they didn't have a whole lot to do with me.

B. GOLDSTEIN: What about any connection with Jewish families in either Bennington or Groton?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: We did identify--there were two other German-Jewish refugee families in Bennington, Vermont, and, uh, my family became friends with them. Uh, they had, um, children who were both old--much older and, and much younger than I was. So uh, there was, there was no chance of, of, uh, socializing, but it did give me a kind of a haven. One of the families lived just across the street from the school. And when I got finished with a day's school and was in tears because of all the stress, I would go across the street to their house and get some consolation. Um, in Groton, Connecticut, there was no opportunity to uh, make friends at all, so it wasn't until we moved to New London that I gradually began to find, uh, a few, uh, children who could be my friends. But I had been taught--oh--I had learned in Germany that friends were not to be trusted. All of the friends, non-Jewish friends I had in my home village, uh, left me. They deserted--they did not play with me. I was not allowed to play outside. They were afraid to be seen with Jews, and so I learned very early that it--friends weren't a good thing to have because they were not, they're not dependable. And so that carried over. It took me until after college, almost, to get to the point where I could really make friends.

B. GOLDSTEIN: You spoke a few minutes ago, uh, about the transition from uh, Groton to New London. So those of you who don't know uh, New England geography at all, they're, uh, across from each other, um, across--

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: --just across the river--

B. GOLDSTEIN: --across a river, right. So in 1941, when the US military mobilized, your Groton employer had, was called up, uh, for the--for war service.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: He was a major in the U.S. Army.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Right. And that's when you moved from Groton to New London. And New London became your parents' U.S. home. I grew up as a child traveling back and forth from Rhode Island to New London, visiting them. Uh, and it was your home until you graduated from college and married.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Right.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Um, so you rented an apartment there, uh, and through his previous employer, Opa, my grandfather, found work as a night watchman in Groton and still had to commute back and forth between New London and Groton.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Right.

B. GOLDSTEIN: And your mother went to work in New London Garment Factory.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Right.

B. GOLDSTEIN: She supplemented the family income by having other refugees, single males, as boarders, right? And in fact, you'd come home from school every day in time to serve them lunch while your mother worked in the factory.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: And that was a problem when we had snow days and had to stay for an extra hour so that they wouldn't lose the day of school. Uh, that, you know, we would go in the morning and it would start snowing, and they'd say, "OK, we'll leave at one o'clock." But I was granted an hour-early, uh, dismissal so that I could go and, and feed the boarders.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Right. So this was another school change for you.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Yup. I went to seven schools within four years. This is not good stability.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Right. What else changed with the move to New London for you? You want to talk a little bit more about school, maybe, and then we can turn to Jewish life?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Okay. Um, going to school in New London, uh, was, uh, a--provided a lot more stability for me, and I identified another girl who was in my class as, as a friend. We both loved classical music, we lived only a couple of blocks away from each other, and so we walked back and forth to school. Um, on the other hand, I, I was still a target for, um, for kind of pranks in the, um, in the school. Uh, kids would rifle my desk and take things out of it. Um, I, um, I, I never talked about my experience, nobody ever asked me about what my background was. The only exception was in fifth grade, when, uh, there was an essay contest, um, provided by Scholastic Magazine. Did you e--do you--any of you know Scholastic Magazine? Still? Okay, so it's still there. Uh, and I wrote a story about my experience coming to the United States. Um, just a little essay. And it was--it was my, my way of saying, you know, "here I am and this is what happened to me," but nobody ever asked me about it, not the teachers and not the students. So, um, I, I learned not to say anything at all about my background.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Uh-huh. What about, ah, your Jewish life in New London?

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: My parents were very determined that I would get a Jewish education. So even in Bennington, Vermont, when we first got there, I was enrolled in the local Hebrew school. It was a very small congregation, and I don't have any memories of it. When we moved to Groton, Connecticut, they immediately also followed up and put me in Hebrew school in New London, but I could only go on Thursdays, which was their day off, and they would be--we would be able to take the bus into New London and I would go to Hebrew school while they did their shopping or they went to a movie or something like that. And I remember that because we had a very intensive Hebrew education, and even going just one day a week instead of three days a week, I did uh, learn quite a bit. And then once we moved to New London, of course, I went full-time, and, uh, my, my friend whom I had developed through school was also, uh, a Jewish, uh, student. I--we, we were still in a very ambivalent position in, in the Jewish community. Uh, we joined the Conservative congregation because in Europe we had belonged to what was considered, uh, a modern Orthodox congregation, where it was all Hebrew except the sermon was in German. And so, uh, and it was a very decorous kind of a service. And uh, this seemed to be--the Conservative service seemed to be as similar as we could get. And so we joined that. It was, um, founded by, uh, the most well-to-do segment of the New London Jewish population. And, um, there--so there was a class difference there. Um, we, we were poor. We had almost no money at all, because whatever salary we had earned as, uh, as domestic servants, my parents, they were mostly sending it back to Europe to help sustain my grandparents, who were still there. Uh, so, um, we were in a, a very different social class. But we also had another strike against us as far as the uh, New London Jewish community was concerned. This was across denominations. Uh, we were German Jews, and German Jews were considered extremely foreign. We were called "not real Jews." So we were, we were outsiders even within that community.

B. GOLDSTEIN: With all apologies to our current location.--(laughs)--

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Absolutely.

B. GOLDSTEIN: And, and the wonders of this community.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: And the times have changed.

B. GOLDSTEIN: And the times have changed, exactly. One last question, because we're, uh--the time is short. Uh, you mentioned just a moment ago about sending funds to Europe, for your family in Europe. Can you speak a little bit to the kinds of news that you got from Europe? That is very critical to the life of refugees, is thinking about people who have been left on the other side of the borders. And, and so thinking about the family there and also what that meant for how your parents thought about you.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. Um, it--communication was very difficult. The only thing we could do was write letters and occasionally telegrams, but that was only in, in extremis. And so, uh, our communication was through letters. My mother immediately wrote her mother for recipes when she learned she was going to be a cook uh, to earn her livelihood. So there was an exchange. It was sea mail, so there was at least a six-week lag between getting--sending a letter and getting a response. Um, in No--in October of 1940, my grand--both my grandparents and several of my, um, great--other relatives uh, were deported to, uh, France as part of the German effort to clear Germany of Jews. And, uh, then, m--uh, communication became even more difficult, but we did continue to get mail from them, um, on a maybe monthly or every-other-month basis, and we were able to correspond a little bit. Um, it was incredibly difficult, and my parents, uh, tried everything they could to get authorization for a visa from the United States so that they, they could emigrate to the United States. Um, that never happened, uh, for a whole complex s--series of reasons. Um, so by the end of--by the middle of 1942, all communications stopped. The only, uh, news we had from what--about what was happening in Germany were the sermons that the rabbi would give, uh, every so often, but especially on the high holidays. And it was always horrible. And my mother would sit there with the tears running down her face--I can remember that very distinctly. Um, not knowing was, was hor--was terrible. Because we had no idea what happened to my father's brothers, we had no idea what happened to their parents, um, and other relatives. And we tried telegrams and various things and never, never really had, uh, a clear communication. It wasn't until after the war that we began to search and learned through the Red Cross that my grandparents had been killed, um, in the camps, my mother's parents in Auschwitz. Um, and eventually we also learned through a maga--a newspaper, the "Aufbau," which was really designed for this purpose of connecting survivors, uh, in Europe with those who had been able to emigrate, uh, that my uncles had survived the war, and we were able to reestablish contact. But it was a period of, of great uncertainty and constant worry, because we never knew what was happening. And, uh, and, and that kind of limbo is incredibly difficult, and, and, and very hard to manage.

B. GOLDSTEIN: And if I may close, then, it had consequences for how your parents treated you as their only child and the only child of that generation.

DREIFUSS GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, it, it, it meant that I was, I was the survivor, that I--all of the family hope was on my shoulders, and that I had better live up to that. So expectations were incredibly high. Fortunately, I was doing very well in school, but I didn't dare not do well. I didn't dare give the wrong answer, because it was going to disappoint my parents. And their sense of discipline was, you know, put on a little guilt and disappointment, and so it, it made me, um, very, um, very careful. I had curfews when I was a teenagers, and I'd better not break them. And, uh, I was sheltered from anything negative as long as I could be--I couldn't go to see movies that had scary scenes in them. Um, it, it, it made me very reticent to stand out and, and to do the wrong thing. And, um--but it really had me burdened on, on my development.

B. GOLDSTEIN: I believe that you have--I believe that you have, uh, discussion questions at the table. I don't know if there's any questions to Mom directly, or if you want to go to the table discussions.

M: Um, I, I think we can go to the tables.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Okay, let's do that, and--

M: And thank you so much.

B. GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. Thank you, Mom. --(applause)--

[End of Interview.]