Oral History Interview with Emile Szekely Part III

Emile Szekely Interview Part III

INTERVIEWED BY

ARWEN DONAHUE

JANUARY 18, 2000

BEGINNING OF TAPE 20.U.4e, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE A

ARWEN DONAHUE: Okay, tape number five, side A of an interview with Emilie Szekely. And you told on the other tape about how you got out of Hungary. And then you went to Vienna? Can you talk about what you did in Vienna?

EMILIE SZEKELY: You know how we got out from Hungary? That you know? Okay. In Vienna I worked for International Rescue Committee. Their office was in New York and it was there a boarding school in the Vienna Woods. A Hungarian teacher was in Vienna from New York, who came there, he had his mother and sister in Hungary and he wanted to help them to come over. And his idea was to make a boarding school for the Hungarian refugee children. Those were all peasants’ children. The parents got – is it on the tape once already? No. The peasants who came over and they got a contract in Santa Domingo, I don’t know how many hundreds, that they get land there and they can work there and they get everything. Food and everything. And somehow, somehow, they couldn’t get in touch with nobody, but somehow the International Rescue Committee find out that they didn’t get nothing. They put them on the fields and they didn’t give them nothing. So they managed to bring them back. So, they brought them back to Vienna and the parents, they put the two camps. And the children, for the children, who were young, school kids, young, elementary school kids. There were some bigger ones. They made that boarding school. It was a beautiful, beautiful place and it was like a palace in the woods. And he talked them into it, that he will be head of the school. And because they help them anyway, the International Rescue Committee. This way they can go to school. So we had seven Hungarian teachers there. And the young ones had school there. And the older ones he took to the village, the first time I saw the Hungarian – the Volkswagen bus. He had a Volkswagen bus. He took them by bus to German schools. And they were looking for a person for the office, one person does everything. And my, Illona’s sister-in-law, who was already in Vienna. She’s Illona, too, both of them. She spoke and was always corresponding, that’s what she did, in German, French, English, Hungarian. And she worked for his very, very, her, very, very, very, very rich cousin, who – he was so rich that he lived in an apartment in the middle of Vienna with his wife and two children near the Opera house where Franz Joseph, Franz Joseph’s girl friend lived. And unbelievable, unbelievable, the whole first floor with the same furniture. And he was in a business that time that started, I don’t know what kind of electric, they started to make. And he was a big businessman. He was in Hungary, too, but in time he went to Vienna. And he worked in his office, she worked in his office. And she didn’t get enough, she thought that she didn’t get enough pay, then she went to American Embassy, asked for a job. Because she has those, wonderful, wonderful really, she was wonderful typist, too. And they recommended her to that job for International Rescue Committee. Because International Rescue, they were connected to the embassy, American Embassy. And she got that job. And when she said it to the cousin that she’s leaving because she can get more money, the cousin said, I give you the same money. So then she wanted to stay, because she didn’t have to travel. I had to travel by bus out of Vienna and then from the bus I had to walk in the woods. And in the winter it was terrible, big snow and I had to walk to work. But anyway. So, she said, look, go there and tell him that you are my relative and I have to give two weeks notice. I cannot leave right away, I have to give note and I can fill it in for her. So right away he says, okay. He gives me a petty cash box with money. That was so funny because I wasn’t used to that kind of a thing. And he told me what is the job, that I have to do the payroll. I have to pay the people. I have to, I don’t know. I had to do the book keeping, but I never did. I took it home for my husband, because that was his job. I hated book keeping. And I never knew how to do it, but he graduated Business school. He was a wonderful bookkeeper, so he did the bookkeeping. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that I am taking it home. But when it came that I had to go with the German, not accountant, who was he? He was an accountant, yes he was an accountant. And I had to give, where, what office, somewhere I had to go at the end of the year. It’s the same thing, taxes. He says, what about? I couldn’t answer and I told him, I am not doing it, my husband is doing it. [LAUGHING] I told him. He didn’t care about it. But anyway two weeks later when it was two weeks, he says, where is Mrs. Schwartz? Her name - I says, she decided to stay. If you want to keep me, okay. If not, thank you that you kept me. She says, yes, I want to keep you. That’s how I got the job and they paid me in American money. I got, oh, the Germans didn’t want me. They didn’t want to give me the uh, you had to have a certification that you can work there. I was no citizen. They wanted the job. In the kitchen it was a German woman, who was the everything, you know, she was overlooking and buying and everything. She was a German woman, but I was in the office. And then he got it. He got in touch with the embassy and whatever and I got it. I still have it, the okay that I can work. And I got paid in American money. It was, I don’t know, to me it seemed very much. I don’t remember how much I got. But we didn’t live in a camp, we didn’t. We lived in an apartment, we lived together with Illona and her husband. We had together an apartment. And George went to school and she took care of George. And she took back and forth him to school. And then in summer, George came with me there, when it was summer vacation. And they brought out there – they did everything for those kids. Unbelievable. And they brought a German artist there to teach them art in the summer. And George, my George was in the group. And the first time he painted a head on a piece of wood. A piece of wood that was cut out from a tree. And he painted it, oil painting. And the guy came to me and he said, do you know whom you have here? I says, what do you mean? He said, he be a great artist. Can you imagine that? And then in New York, too. He came to middle school. He didn’t lose nothing. He was in middle school and there too the teacher came to the house. And he said, do you know, the same words. I said, what are you talking about? He says, you must come to the principal with me. I went to the principal and they showed me his work, what is he doing. So, he wanted him to go to an art school in Manhattan, a high school. I don’t know what was the name of it. And we misunderstood it. We thought it was music and art high school. And we took him to music and art high school. And it was, oh God, he was traveling on the subways, and that was, you know, it was so far away. Were you in New York? Yeah? It was near the city university, behind city university, behind Columbia University. And he was traveling for four years, because he had a portfolio and they took him. So he went already to music and art high school. And he was really good. And after that he went to Cooper Union, where they take only fifty kids from five hundred, he was amongst them. And Cooper Union is free, you know, that’s a Foundation. And we just had to pay for the materials, but we didn’t have to pay for his college. Fifty took, about fifty from five hundred applicants. He was amongst them. So we finished that. He never wanted to go out of town college. He was accepted to Penn State University and I don’t know where else he applied in case he cannot get to Cooper. But he never wanted to leave us. He said, we didn’t come to America to be separated. We were three of us, that’s it. My uncle was still alive, but we were three of us.

DONAHUE: Tell me something, did you talk to George about your family history and what had happened to your family during the Holocaust and what had happened to you from the time he was a child?

SZEKELY: He knows. Everything. First of all he knows, he listened to the tape. I always talked about it. Sometimes I am mixing it up, that it was my husband to whom I talked or to him. But he knows it. He knows it. And I have written down everything, but unfortunately I wrote it Hungarian and he cannot read it anymore, Hungarian. I really have to write it over in English, though I have tapes and for every kids. I think my whole lifetime is in the tapes, so I don’t know what is important to write it down. No, Anna gave me a batch that I have to put down the whole family history because they are making family trees. For me, for my husband, for my husband’s sisters and everything, in the school. She’s asking. They are not aware of it, the grandchildren, just about the Holocaust. He knew my husband, they knew, all of them knew my husband. Not all of them. Anna didn’t know. Anna just always saying that chair was grandpa’s and I want to save it. They didn’t have really, they don’t know.

DONAHUE: When you were in Vienna were you waiting for a Visa?

SZEKELY: Okay, that we didn’t know. It was a quota was always closed. They let in so many people everywhere, that it was no open quota. That’s why we had to stay in Vienna. And we stayed seventeen months. After seventeen months they give for one thousand people, and we were amongst the first ones because the International Rescue Committee took us. I had my uncle and he sent an affidavit, but we didn’t need it because they paid for us and they took us, the International Rescue Committee. And we were the very first ones. The interesting thing was by that time, maybe half a year before, we had a Baroness, a real Baroness [INAUDIBLE] was her name, working as a, over the housekeeping. She didn’t do nothing actually. She lived in the middle of Vienna and she had a beautiful apartment, because we were there. She invited us. And she had a car, she came every, she wanted a job. Her husband was Jewish and he was killed somewhere in labor camp. And she lived alone. She was a fat woman. Her mother lives here in New York. But she stayed in Vienna and she lived a big life. She had a big dog, I remember. And she had a housekeeper, but she wanted a job. She wanted a job. And she had a car and when she came, she picked me up every day by car and took me home by car, so it was much easier on me. But the interesting thing was that I never told her that I was in concentration camp. I never told her. I somehow, I don’t know, they didn’t see the number and didn’t – I don’t know. I never say, never told even that I was Jewish, to her. He knew probably, he knew, of course he knew. Haber was his name. He was a school teacher in New York. That was his idea. And I don’t know what happened to him and to the school, too. Of course it’s not there anymore. [INAUDIBLE] was the name of the village. She, when we got the okay to come we had to go to Salzburg, to the embassy. There was the American Embassy was in Salzburg, yes. And so she took us by car, three of us to Salzburg. It was a beautiful, beautiful road. Unbelievable scenery. Then when we parted, I told her that I am Jewish and everything else, [LAUGHING] she knew that I was in concentration camp. She didn’t know up to that point and she was really upset that I didn’t tell her before that I was in concentration camp. I never told anybody.

DONAHUE: Did you not tell anybody because you were afraid or…?

SZEKELY: I never, I was very uncomfortable in Vienna. When we first, it was May when we got there and beautiful and we had – already it was arranged for us an apartment when we came. My uncle’s brother arranged. And he was a Jewish man, who was saved in Singapore. He went with his son to Singapore. Very interesting man and he lived alone, an elderly man. And he had a nice big apartment. And he had only one room for himself and he gave two rooms and the kitchen to us. We were there and the windows were open. And when I got up in the morning and I heard the German language under the window, I got so crazy. I went crazy. My husband couldn’t get a job. He didn’t speak German. He couldn’t get a job, but they gave him some kind of a – oh, no. When we left I got a letter from the International Rescue Committee that when we arrive we should go to New York, to their main office and show them the letter that I work for them. And we got a counselor there and we went in and I give him the letter. I didn’t say, no where, it doesn’t say nowhere that story? I gave him the letter, but he looks at me and he says, I don’t believe it that you don’t remember me. I says, I’m so sorry, how do you know me? She says, I was in the school there. They came some, observe the school from New York, the International Rescue Committee. Don’t you remember I was there with my wife and I was in one car with you going back to Vienna? Then I remembered. I didn’t even think about it, you know, that is somebody. So, he was very nice. He said, you don’t have to show me the letter. I know what you did there, but I must tell you, you did there everything. But in America you have to do one thing and good, not so many things what you did there in the office. I’m going to send you to NCR school. When I heard bookkeeping, I just didn’t, you know? I didn’t say no, but I didn’t go when he told me to go to. What happened, I didn’t know that, I got pregnant. And I know it’s that I got pregnant in Salzburg. I remember it, but I didn’t know that I got pregnant. I didn’t know. I had my period every month and I didn’t know that I’m pregnant. And three months later I started to bleed like terribly and I didn’t know that I’m pregnant. And I went to the doctor and he said you are pregnant, but you are going to have a miscarriage, because you have fibroids. So, I didn’t go to International School. And he called me on the phone and he called me when I came back from the hospital. And I said I was sick and that’s what happened. I had a miscarriage, I told him. And I couldn’t go. But when I was better, they kept me, I was in the fourth month and they kept me there five days. They thought every day the babies, four months. I was dying there. I lost so much blood. But then finally they did it. And they said you have to come back in six weeks and you have to have a hysterectomy. And six weeks later I went back and they said, no you don’t need it. It was so big, everything because you were pregnant. You don’t need a hysterectomy. Then I went back. When he called me, I said, no, I can’t go now. So he sent me to NCR school. NCR was not the cashier machines, they were NCR machines, the cashier, you know. They had big, big bookkeeping machines, before the computers. Big bars, rechangeable that you could do everything. You could go, big papers with monthly statements and you could go checks. Other side I could put the vendor’s card and put down whom I paid. And I went there and I learned it in one week. Oh, he asked whether I can type and I says, yes, I can type. They taught me for the machine in one week and they gave me a job after one week. I didn’t have any experience, but I knew how to do the machine. And they gave me a job in a publishing company in Manhattan, Columbus Square or Circle or what was it. And I had to travel from Brooklyn. I was so sick on the subways that I was more in the doctor’s office than at home. [LAUGHING] It was terrible. I cannot, even in Hungary what is above the ground I was always standing outside on the air. I couldn’t travel. And that was underground and was going on in New York subways. It was terrible. And that was a publisher, who made some kind of a, I don’t know whether it was comic books or what it was. Publishing company. And they were two machines, it was a receivable and a payable. And I was the payable and the other guy, a guy, a young guy, who was very helpful. He tried to teach me, because I knew the machine, but I didn’t have experience. I didn’t have the speed, first of all and if I made a mistake, I didn’t know how to correct it. And he was very, very helpful. But the comptroller, not comptroller, liked me very much, the comptroller. But the bookkeeper, who was from Massachusetts, I didn’t know from my life. I didn’t know what is Massachusetts [LAUGHING] and he was so proud of it, that he is from Massachusetts. He was a misery. And he was a Jew. He made my life, he got back the checks from the bank, what I was typing. And he found mistakes. He was so miserable and he said to me, you just came. You are a refugee and you right away have to sit in an office? Can you imagine? A Jew? I was very miserable. It was sixty dollars a week, what was a nice pay at that time. And they gave me even commissions. I don’t know what was it, from sale or something. I was there for three months and I was constantly looking for another job. And one day from New York Times, I see a job, Brooklyn Jewish Hospital is looking for an NCR operator. They were on strike because they were already, not the office, but the kitchen and the, I don’t know, cleaning people, they were in the Union. And they had a strike. The office, too, because nobody could, they had a black man working years for that machine and he left because he got a better job under the strike. And they didn’t have no one for three months. They had young girls, but they left. Young people don’t want to sit and work. You had to sit at the machine. So, when I saw that, it was in walking distance from us, the hospital, and I had to pass by every morning, my uncle’s pharmacy. So he came always earlier to open that he should see me in the morning when I go to work or when I go home, because it was in a walking distance. I never thought that I stay there. And the comptroller wasn’t, was out of town or I don’t know where. He wasn’t there when I got the job. So the personnel, she gave me that job. And I was working, it was a big office and we had two machines like this, Accounts payable and receivable. The receivable was another woman working. The comptroller came back and he called me to the office and he greeted me and he was very, very nice to me. And he said, I must tell you one thing, if you do the job by Christmas – they were behind three months with bills. Well I saw those bins with bills. If you do it by Christmas, the job is yours. So I started to do it and I started to be very fast on the machine, very fast. And I did it day before Christmas. But women there, they were Jewish women. They were very jealous. One of them, first of all I never spoke about concentration camp. Never. It was mixed, they were non-Jews and Jews there, and I never spoke to them about it. And one woman, a Jewish woman, she said to me, why did you come to America this way? I says, what do you mean? He says, why the communism is not enough good? I says, maybe it is good for you because you have a house, every child of you has a car and you have a nice job. You could change place with me, I said. [LAUGHING] Can you imagine that? She was a Leftist. She didn’t work on a machine, but she worked in the office. At that time it was everything together, the billing. We had a big, big office and machine and no machine. The machines were in the back. And then there was another woman, who was like that man there, who was controlling me and she was miserable, too. If I made a mistake, she was miserable. I was crying and I went to the Comptroller and I says, I just don’t know what to do. And she says, what’s happening? And I told him what’s happening. He says, you come to me, you don’t go to them. If you don’t know something you come to me. It was a man. And from then on, I was alright. I had trouble because I had to answer the telephone. I was payable and the vendors were calling me. So, in the beginning I had big trouble. I spoke English, but I spoke English, not Yankee. Because I learned English from an English teacher in Czechoslovakia when it was Hungary already and we thought that we come to America. We had private lessons. And my sister was very, very smart. And we were reading Anna Karenina in English and….I told you, no? That story. So we learned English. And we didn’t understand each other on the phone, you know? [LAUGHING] In the beginning I had problems, but then it was okay. Even the Americans came to me, how do you spell that, how do you spell this? You know? That was the end. But I never thought that I stay there twenty-seven years. I stayed there twenty-seven years. I went through many comptrollers. [LAUGHING] He left, but he was a long time there. But he left. And then one day the Personnel Director comes in, closes the door and he says, Attention, please. Everybody looks up, what is it? He says, I must announce it, that from yesterday on, everybody is in the Union. I didn’t know what does it mean and why is it good or bad, just in the Union. Fine. I don’t care where we are. It was an unbelievable advantage. I was the highest paid because of the machines. So, if somebody got three dollars pay and grace, I got five dollars grace. From sixty dollars in one year, because I started with sixty back there in the other place, I went up to a hundred and twenty-five dollars because of the Union. And thank God because of the Union I have a pension today from the Union and I have free medication. My medication bills are four thousand dollars a year, because they are sending me the company’s and that’s another pension, four thousand dollars. And I am getting pension. Oh, that’s not the story. Before I, a year before I left, it was another strike and I didn’t go to work because I was afraid. You know? Crossing the picket lines. But I never picketed, never. I was in the country for a month, it was month strike. And I was in touch with them. I called always Personnel. Personnel was begging me, please come back. Because by that time we had only one machine, it was no more receivable because they gave it out to computers. So, I was the only machine and the only person who knew the machine. They were typing checks, the people who were non-Union. And it was horrible, horrible, they were behind and terrible. And he was begging me, please come back. Come back, don’t worry, nobody is picketing anymore. And they were in the country and one day he calls me and he says, come back. We are going to send you a black girl down for you if you are afraid. We are watching you when you when you are coming. And please come back. And they went to the country and they dropped me off and they are watching it whether I go in. It was no picketing. It was no picket line anymore. I went in and then everybody was shocked, because nobody knew that I am not in the Union. I couldn’t have, I couldn’t, I don’t know. It was….They just didn’t believe it that I am, you know, in the Union, in the Union, the people. Because that was a job what was a confidential job, with the payroll and everything. So they didn’t believe it that I was in the Union. So, what happened, the person….

END OF TAPE 20.U.4e, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE A

BEGINNING OF TAPE 20.U.4e, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE B

SZEKELY: …you get out from the Union. They didn’t know that I am close to retirement. That I wanted to retire. I didn’t know either. If you get out from a union and you get the hospital pension and you get medication from the hospital, doctors from the hospital and they give you twenty-five thousand a year. I said, how do I do that? He says, I’m going to send a telegram, because the Union was threatening us that if we are still on strike they are not going to cover us medically. Because they had very good medical coverage. Every doctor wanted you if you were in the Union. I says, I cannot live without medical coverage. She says, okay so I’m going to tell them that you cannot be without coverage and you are out from the Union. So, for one year, I went out from the Union. Then after a year, I wanted to retire. I worked one year more than sixty-five, sixty-six I was when I left. And I says, can you put me back to the Union? Because they would have to give me a pension from the hospital if I am not in the Union. So the personnel, the secretary, his secretary arranged it that they paid me for one year dues, for one year everything, because they paid for medical for us, the Union. And they paid for pension. I paid the bills, hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Union. I was paying them. And they said that it was a mistake and they got me back to the Union. Can you imagine? It was such a luck because I wouldn’t have the Union. I wouldn’t have the pension because they [INAUDIBLE] the man I’m talking to, some people from the hospital. It’s terrible, it’s almost bankrupt. We were bankrupt after ten years, we went to Chapter Eleven. I went to, through with them, voided thousands and thousands of checks and everything after ten years. And they had to merge with another hospital. It was St. Joseph, St. John’s, St. John’s Hospital. And then we got more, we were the main hospital. We got more employees. It was three thousand people. And we paid everything. We paid they bills, too, for medication, for the pharmacy tech, everything. It was everything through us. So it was a very big job. I had a separate room because the machine was very noisy. And I was alone in the room, so that was very good. They always wanted me to be a manager and I didn’t want to because I knew that I am out of the Union if I am a manager. I says, I do the job. I am not a manager. So, I was lucky.

DONAHUE: Let me ask you a couple of questions before we go on because we skipped your journey to the United States.

SZEKELY: My journey to the United States? We came in nineteen fifty-eight. The International Rescue Committee from Salzburg brought us over. That was a very terrible thing, too. They send us for x-rays, chest x-rays before you come. And they didn’t want me let through [INAUDIBLE] They didn’t let me go through because they said that I have something on my lungs. It turned out that I had pneumonia in the camp and I didn’t know about it and it showed. And they said, they can go, your husband and your son, but you have to go on another plane, because it’s something. I went crazy. They didn’t want to go without me, but luckily they called me for a second x-ray and that was all right. That was okay, so we came together. But we came on a military plane. I don’t know how many hundreds of people and so uncomfortable and we were sitting in the last row near the toilet. And they were only two seats, so we always changed. One sits with George and then the other one was sitting alone. We were sitting in the same row, but between us the aisle. Very uncomfortable, very. I think we were twenty-four hours in the air. It was just terrible. And we stopped at Newfoundland and then they give us there the first meal, a dinner. From that I got so sick, that the whole journey to New York, it was just unbelievable. I was so sick. But I was pregnant and I didn’t know, maybe that’s why I was sick from the food. So when we arrived, it was that time Kennedy Airport, La Guardia, I’m sorry. La Guardia not Kennedy Airport. And we saw my uncle and my aunt up there waiting for us and waving. And we saw the first black man in our lives. They had a postman, who delivered the mail and he had a car. And my uncle, he came over, he had like here in pharmacies they have a counter where you have food, too. It was so strange to me, because there is no such a thing in Europe in pharmacies. Pharmacy is pharmacy. And he was telling him that if he has a free day, that he is going to pay him take him to the airport and wait for us. So he was a fat man and it was the first time in my life that I saw a black man. And he was taking us home to my uncle. They lived not very far from the pharmacy. The house was [INAUDIBLE] …apartments. They lived in a separate apartment. And he had a partner because his diploma….I have still his Russian diploma - was not certificated, so he had an American partner. Very nice people. They lived in the house, in the upstairs in the house. They were very good friends. They didn’t have children and they didn’t have children. They were very good friends. He was a very nice man. We were three days in our uncle’s house. It was only, what they had, the living room is a big, big. Bedroom they had and a living room, a kitchen. It was a private, private house. They had two in the house, two apartments in the house, the landlord and them. They rented for us, in that kind of a house, but in another street, an apartment, upstairs. But it was small. It was just a bedroom and a little living room and at the end of the living room was a kitchen, a small kitchen with a small Frigedaire. So, that was our first apartment. And that was our street where George went to middle school.

DONAHUE: What were your first impressions of the United States? What did you expect?

SZEKELY: I was very upset when they showed us pictures from New York at the embassy. I said, my God, stones and stones and stones. It’s no green nowhere. They showed us New York in the embassy. It was very frightening. When I went very, very first time to Manhattan, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t look up because I was dizzy from the tall houses, but I loved it. I love New York and that’s the place where I lived most of my life. Where I ended up one day, where I lived the longest, it was New York. And I love New York. I loved it. We lived in Brooklyn, near the ocean. I love the ocean. I love the ocean in the Spring and in the Fall. I don’t like to go in because the mob was there. It was unbelievable, but to walk on the Boardwalk, the sundown, the sunset, it was so relaxing. It was wonderful. And they were benches, you know, and we were sitting on it. It was unbelievable and I missed it here very, very much when I came here. When I came here I knew Lexington, because he’s here for seventy-nine, nineteen seventy-nine. Three times a year I was here. I had four weeks vacation, three weeks here and one week in the country house, that country house in the Catskills. My husband loved it because he loved the country. He loved it. He loved it here. When he saw the horses and we wanted to retire here. We came here and always looking for places where – we wanted a duplex. We always thought it’s enough, we are together and separate. But for them it was never enough, the duplex. For us it would be, they are small apartments. But anyway it didn’t come to it because he died. But he wanted to live here. I loved the big cities. I never lived in a small town, because where we lived in Czechoslovakia, that was the capital of that part. And Budapest is beautiful. So I couldn’t imagine to live – and they was always questioning where is the city here? Where is the city? [LAUGHING]

DONAHUE: You mean in Lexington?

SZEKELY: Yeah, but you go to….Then they showed me Bardstown. Oh my God. Okay. But I knew where I’m coming. But still when I came here really, that this is now real, I thought I go to the nuthouse.

DONAHUE: When you came to Lexington?

SZEKELY: When I moved here in November of eighty-six. And I was very upset. I was homesick. So the first year, they went every year back to the summer house. Every year they spent there and I went with them. It’s half of mine, the summer house. My husband bought it for me and them, half. But we paid their half with cash because they didn’t have that at that time. They just started teaching and they gave us the credit. So we paid they half cash and they paid the other half out in ten years. It’s in the Catskills. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a small house, but it was very nice. We have two bedrooms and in between us was the bathroom and the living room and upstairs it was a big, big attic and it was made up for a bedroom, but we didn’t need it. Because we were four only. They didn’t have even children at that time, seventy-three. And even in the winter we went up. It was beautiful. It was very close to all the skiing place, all the people. It’s very nice. And he won’t sell it because he’s very sentimental, because Daddy loved it. He would never sell it. He loves it because he is away from here and he is going up four or five, it’s three acres. And underneath there is a big, big library, that’s our neighbor. It’s a library for four, five towns, five little towns. It’s a big library.

DONAHUE: Let me ask you something before we go on. You described how when you arrived in New York and there were some people who, some even Jewish people who were not very respectful of you. Did you find that to be common? That American Jews did not treat you respectfully because you were a refugee and because you were a survivor?

SZEKELY: Yes, correct.

DONAHUE: Can you say more about that?

SZEKELY: Especially here, here never were refugees in Lexington. Not Jewish, Jewish or not Jewish. They never were refugees here in Lexington. And then up to today, I must tell you. You are friends with the people in the synagogue. They are not real friends. You are friends in the synagogue. There we socialize, but they wouldn’t invite you to they houses, even here. Yes. And what I found out, I found out that almost everybody’s fathers came from Europe. Those people who are here thirty years or whatever, everybody’s, but still they are Lexingtonians. And it’s very interesting. I don’t care. Just now I have only two friends, a lawyer and his wife, from Winchester, Sylvia. But she is again from the synagogue, because I don’t go to Winchester. I went with her husband and I went to see her a few times, but otherwise I’m not driving outside of Lexington. I’m ready to find my way. And she calls when they know that I’m sick. But I really don’t have friends here. And another couple, who is a Polish couple, the Habers. You’ve heard them?

DONAHUE: [INAUDIBLE]

SZEKELY: But they are very nice. Last week she made a party, it was her birthday. And I couldn’t make it. I was so sick. Because in the beginning we made, we went to each other’s houses and we had a book club. Everybody read the same book and we discussed it, or discussion club. That woman died. That was a pharmacologist’s wife. And since she died, I am not going. I am not going. I could. It’s the Haddas. You know what the Haddas is? They have it, but I don’t like those people because they….I don’t like them because they went away from the synagogue and they have their own congregation. [INAUDIBLE] And I cannot see that. And in the beginning, when George moved here, they were so friendly to him. They wanted to get him there. And he would never go. Because they have here a rabbi, who was blind. He was a very nice man. He died from diabetes. I don’t like those people, because when they found out that George doesn’t want to belong there it was finished with the friendship. You know? But when they come sometimes to the synagogue or whatever, they are nice to you. But they have they own clique, only [INAUDIBLE], but they are none of them from Lexington. They are everybody from somewheres else. And they feel that they are together and they help each other. And it’s a big deal, there are eighty families down there. They are always together on the weekends. They don’t have a place where to pray. They pray, I think, once a month or twice a month, I don’t know and always someplace else. In the Christian church basement or someplace. They don’t have a steady place. Sometimes they pray here, too. Pray here in the club. But I really don’t have no friends. Besides the three people and the librarian from the Synagogue, she’s very nice. But we don’t go to each other’s houses.

DONAHUE: So, you think that people are prejudiced?

SZEKELY: Yes, they are, they are, definitely they are. They are very nice to you in the synagogue, you know. But nobody would say come. And the rabbi was different. We were always over. I was always invited, because they used to go to and I didn’t want to go with them, like for Passover, to Indiana. His best friend is there, from New York, best friend. And I didn’t want to go, so I was always invited to Rabbi. Sometimes with Illona when she was here for Passover, but not to other people’s. So it is. They are. I think they are. It’s just unbelievable. In the beginning we had here big parties, because they came here like guest speakers and they wanted to take them to homes. I don’t know why they chose us about two or three times and they met here. And we contributed. We made the cookies and cakes and everything. And one couple came, he was very wealthy. He’s a nice guy. He’s nice to me, very nice, in the synagogue, but they came and they looked around. And I see that they are looking around themselves, you know? They were away from the other people. And I said, do you want to see the house? And she said, oh, you are acting like it would be your house, she said. I said, yes, my money’s in this house. They thought that it’s….Because it’s what they made. [LAUGHING] My friend, I have a [INAUDIBLE] teacher friend, a woman. She doesn’t go up to they….She said to me, don’t you dare to do it. That is not only your name and George’s. You made the money for it. [INAUDIBLE] I trusted them.

DONAHUE: Tell me something else, have you…

SZEKELY: And that’s what I think, you know? That’s how they are. That’s the first and last time they were here, because it was a party for somebody. I don’t know, the rabbi’s wife’s birthday, not this rabbi. Another. We had a rabbi who’s from England. Rabbi Schmidt, he’s still here. He works for the State Department now. Because they, he was three years rabbi. He couldn’t handle children. They don’t have children. And he is so smart that he is too smart for them. Very, very smart man.

DONAHUE: Coming back to when you first arrived in America and you’re getting settled, did you consider yourself….What did it take to become an American for you?

SZEKELY: No, no, no, no. I right away, when we were, right away, five years later, we were citizens, because we have this life here. No, I felt at home. I felt at home and we had our friends. We had our friends. We had a lot of friends. We had friends, Hungarian friends, of course, they were Hungarians. Some of them came here from, from Australia and then we met here. And then we an association, Budapest. Every city had an association and we got once a month together in Manhattan. They had five o’clock teas. And of course, there it was always the Holocaust, talking about the Holocaust, because almost all of them were in Holocaust, you know, there. So, I felt very well. The last six months when I left, when I was alone there….My husband died. I was there four more years alone and then I hate my life. George, when are you coming. I met a woman, who was my age exactly and he worked – I told you that too? He worked, she worked in Manhattan in the jewelry section. She was an American. And she didn’t live very far from us. I went every week, I went to the theater. I said it? I told that story? But we had private buses and they went certain hours, because I didn’t want to go by train. And I didn’t drive to Manhattan. She was going to the same beauty parlor as me and she was sitting near me. And one day I hear that she’s talking about that she was in Alaska and whatever, but still I didn’t talk to her. Maybe I am not friendly. I am not talking to people whom I don’t know, but I overheard everything. She noticed….Yeah, I go to the bus and I am waiting on the bus. And she lived in that street where the bus stop is and she went to Manhattan, too. And she said to me, where are you going? It’s first time she spoke to me. I said I am going to the theater. She says, alone? I says, yes, my husband died and I’m going alone. She said, my God, would you get me a ticket, too? For next performance. I says, why not? She said, because I am alone, too. My husband died. I said, where do I leave the ticket? She said, leave it with my beautician when you go the beauty parlor. And I left the ticket and from then on we became good friends. And every week we went together, but not by bus. I was driving. I know how to drive, but she didn’t have a car. She knew where to go, but I knew how. And we went by car. And there was the parking under the theater and paid. Because it was $3.50, it was the rate. It’s seven dollars, fourteen or ten dollars, parking under the theater. And afterwards we went always to Marriott Hotel, they had a wonderful, wonderful like Viennese Bakery, a garden restaurant, where they had coffee and cake. After that we went up and we were very good friends, but it was only six months because six months later I came. And her son was a manager of the Days Inn Hotel in Manhattan. And when we went, first time when we went to the country, first year and I was very, very homesick for New York and I was depressed and I was crying in the country. George said, do you want to go to the city? I says yes. So, I called her up and her son gave us a suite for twenty-five dollars and we stayed there for three days. And he went to the museum right away. And I went, I think, with Laura to Fifth Avenue. I don’t know. And I think Illona went with him, yes, to the museum. And we stayed there three days. And then again one time I went only with Illona. I stayed there a week. And I included her always, the woman for the theater and they gave us a dinner there before we left and she was there too, you know, in the hotel. We had a very good time, but it was only for six months. I met her late. I mean I saw her, but I didn’t know who she was and because I was there four years alone. And she was alone four years, too. And she was retiring, too, the same time. She worked twenty years, twenty-seven years, too. Can you imagine that? So it was late.

DONAHUE: Tell me something else, you mentioned early on that soon after you arrived you saw your first black man. And that was near the time, just around the time when the Civil Rights movement was starting. But tell me, were you surprised about the way that blacks were treated in this country?

SZEKELY: In New York weren’t treated bad, but here, when he came here, the blacks were sitting in the back of the bus. That I couldn’t imagine. It was no salesladies black, no one. I didn’t see no one black, they were all separate. It was unbelievable. And what was the most unbelievable thing, everybody wore sneakers. In the subways, too. They don’t have shoes here? Everybody’s wearing sneakers. He couldn’t understand that. Everybody in the morning. And then we saw people who went to bigger offices to work. They had they shoes in they bags, because if you have to wait for a bus and, many times I was waiting with high heels and I said, my God, I wish I would wear sneakers, you know? When I went to the city I was wearing always high heels. Because in the office I was wearing always high heels. And that was the custom. We couldn’t understand. That was the most unbelievable thing when we went on the subway that everybody is in white sneakers. We didn’t know about the segregation. We didn’t know in Hungary about it. We didn’t, we didn’t have blacks. We didn’t. Oh, I’m sorry. I saw the first black man in the English army. I saw a soldier. And it wasn’t even – I don’t know whether he was in the English army. It’s interesting, they were taking us by jeep to Nuremberg from Bergen-Belsen. And another jeep came and they were throwing to us on that jeep, oranges. And it was a black soldier. That was the first one. Not the first one. Yes, that was the first one. But I just didn’t notice, color is color. It was no difference to me.

DONAHUE: I just wondered if, because you had come from a situation where the discrimination was, was, had such an effect. Whether you expected something different in this country?

SZEKELY: I didn’t know what to expect here. I knew just I have an uncle here. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t. The very, very bad experience was the very, very first time when we had a bigger apartment and George with the school was supposed to go to the Shakespearean play with the school to Connecticut. And he comes home and he had a friend, who was a very tough guy. He was Hungarian. And he was with him, probably, I don’t know. And a black boy started to hit George. And he hit him in his mouth. He lost a tooth and he was bleeding and he couldn’t go to the show. That was the very, very first time when I said, oh my God, what is going on here? In Brooklyn. It was on the corner where we lived. So then I said, oh my God. You know? I didn’t know nothing about it. It was a very strange thing.

DONAHUE: Did you understand the reason why it had happened?

SZEKELY: I think that they wanted the other boy, because he was a very tough guy. He was wearing always boots and he had a knife in his boot. So, he was his bodyguard. [LAUGHING] After that when it happened, he was always with him. Because I didn’t know why it happened, because he is white. I didn’t know. But then I knew, you know, when it happened then I knew that maybe – but maybe they knew the other guy and they wanted him and they….he was weak. I don’t know. I don’t know, but I felt terrible. I felt terrible.

DONAHUE: Did you feel a little bit, was it, did you feel a little bit of prejudice after that?

SZEKELY: No, I didn’t. I tell you why, because I worked with blacks in the hospital. My best friends were blacks, who are still calling me. But not New Yorkers. They were from Barbados, from Jamaica and they are different. They are entirely different. New York blacks are no good. They are no good. They are. They are no good. But those people, I don’t know whether they are more educated or why, but they were entirely different. And we had – oh, that story is interesting, too. We had New Yorkers, too, there and they hated each other. The Jamaicans and the Barbadians, they hated the New York blacks in the office. In the big accounting office. So it was a big hatred between them. And oh gosh, one had two daughters and one daughter married a New Yorker. She is divorced. She divorced him. But they were very against him. They feel that they are more. They are. They are more educated. And one of them was going to school in England and her husband was an engineer. And unfortunately they are different. I didn’t come across a New Yorker black who was so nice as those. You know what I mean? I’m not talking about Harlem. I don’t know. But what was around me, that was my opinion and that’s how I felt, that they were different.

END OF TAPE 20.U.4e, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE B

BEGINNING OF TAPE 20.U.4f, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE A

ARWEN DONAHUE: This is tape number six, side A of an interview with Emilie Szekely. When did you start speaking about your Holocaust experiences?

EMILIE SZEKELY: In nineteen eighty-six, when I came here and I went to the beauty parlor and I had a short sleeve shirt on and the beautician said, what is that? I said, this is the Holocaust. The Holocaust? My daughter was just taught in Tates Creek High that she shouldn’t believe it. That they shouldn’t believe it was a Holocaust. It was made up by the Jews. I thought I faint. I says, what? She says, yes, she was just taught. And I very surprised to see you. I never saw a survivor. Then a woman came here – I came here the first time alone when we didn’t move in yet and they had blinds made in the family room – and she was from McAlpins. And I’m sitting in the chair and she sits near me and she noticed the number. And she jumps up and she starts to scream. I says, what happened? She says, I never saw somebody, I never saw nobody, who came back from there. Let me, can I make a prayer for you? And she kneels down and she starts to pray like I would come from, you know, somewhere, an alien. It was unbelievable experience. But after that when it happened, that she said they were teaching it. She was teaching in Nicholasville, Laura, at that time. And I told her, I says, where did you bring me? That’s what they teach here? I never heard it in my life. And she was very upset and she spoke to the high school teacher there and she said, how about if she would come to school? I says, I cannot talk. I never spoke in my life. She says, how about if I come to your house? She said. She came and I spoke to the microphone for two hours. And from that moment on, she [PHONE RINGS] …from the high school. I spoke two hours in the microphone. It was no stop. They came to the house and they were begging me to come to speak in the high school there. And it was a pretty bad experience, the very first one. That was the first time when I spoke.

DONAHUE: What was the high school where you spoke? Which one?

SZEKELY: I don’t know whether, yeah, they have more. I spoke at other high schools, too. It was a regular high school, but I spoke at the high school there, when there were women who were pregnant and they were going to school. That was another high school, but that was regular high school. I don’t know what was the name, in Nicholasville, Jessamine County. They were, it was a man teacher, who was very, very nice. He was a history teacher. But it was a, they sat like around the wall in circle they put the chairs. And on that side, on the left side, it was a circle with about ten boys, who were shaved, their heads and they didn’t look at me. Because at that time I was beginner speaker and I started to speak and I asked them who believes in the Holocaust, that the Holocaust is true, they should put their hands up. They didn’t. And the whole time I was talking and they didn’t look at me. So when I finished, and I was pretty nervous, that was my first speech. But it was good because the teacher was absolutely wonderful. And he was embracing me and thank God for you, that you are here and that kind of a thing. And I said, and do you know whom you have here? He says, unfortunately yes. So, that was a bad experience for me, that there are skinheads there. It was in Nicholasville. But then I spoke many, many times in Nicholasville, middle school and Laura was teaching. That was middle school. And that high school. I don’t know what was the name of that high school. They were all girls, women and one of them came to me. They came after me and she said, I thank you very much for coming because my father is German and he is telling an entirely different story and I knew that it something wrong how he is telling it to us. So I had that kind of experiences. Then it was non-stop, one school after the other. Then it was in Paris, Kentucky. In Paris, Kentucky it was a professor in education. That was George’s department, education, I mean he was in Art and Education, two appointments. A very nice professor. And he had student teachers in Paris, Kentucky and he took me to Paris, Kentucky. Some, they took videos there they. But it was a very big wind and the windows were open. They didn’t have air conditioners. And the videos didn’t came out. Well, so he took me the second time and he took with him a professional videotaper from U.K.. I didn’t know nothing, who else is there, but I saw that they are women there and they are taking pictures, too, from me. And they are writing. I had no idea that the paper is there. He called The Herald. And that was the first time when I was in The Herald Leader. And after I was in The Herald Leader, it was no stop. People were calling me. Schools were calling me and I can tell you that I spoke in every school in Lexington, not once, because I spoke a hundred and sixty times already. Because usually I, they put together six, seven, eight grades usually in the auditorium. And if the next bunch of kids comes, they call me back again. And in every high school I spoke, too. In every high school. I spoke twice in Dunbar. What is that station? Bryan Station, Bryan Station, they were very nice there. I spoke in Lafayette. Now I have to go again. Because I spoke when Illona was there and still the teacher is there and now Anna has the teacher. And he was asking whether your grandmother still does it. And Henry Clay, I spoke at Henry Clay. Twice I spoke already at the Community College. Three times at U.K.. I spoke in the nurse’s department, Psychiatric Nurses’ department. And then the other was the Middle Eastern studies, both of them twice.

DONAHUE: Have people been receptive mostly?

SZEKELY: Very nice. Very, very nice. Very nice. Very, very nice. I cannot tell you, I have a whole drawer, from letters, what they are doing, Montessori school. All the Montessori schools I spoke. There are three of them here. I spoke in Scapa, I don’t know how many times. And what they do, the Scapa – oh, I spoke, lately I spoke in the Adult Education at night. That’s education at U.K.. I have a series for the concerts, five tickets for the U.K., not U.K., concerts what they are doing, gosh, five a year. Five concerts, from all over the world they are coming. And the teacher, the professor that sits in front of me, she is a woman, but is George’s colleague actually. So, she never, I don’t know, she was always afraid to ask me and we always talk to her. A few weeks ago, it was a concert and she turns around and she says, are you alright? And I says, yes, why? I wasn’t all right the week before and George was there with Anna. And she says, oh, can I ask you to talk? I says, of course. One of her students, they are all for Masters, teachers who are going for Masters. And one of her students is from Scapa. And she’s her best friend. And that woman, she is a pastor’s wife from the Lutheran church, Mrs. Gross. Wonderful, wonderful person. I don’t know how many times I spoke. And what she is doing, she binds the books what the children are writing. The letters and it’s unbelievable what they are doing. And flowers they are giving me. And that professor, Dr. Backner, I don’t know how many times he took me. He was, unfortunately he didn’t get tenure at U.K. because he wasn’t writing. But he said, he didn’t want the tenure. He was there six years. And then he was principal in Georgetown. And he called me there, too. I spoke in Georgetown for him. He picks me up and he takes me home and in between he takes me to a restaurant when he takes me home, to the nicest restaurants to eat. It was an opening here in Lexington, what’s it, Lexington Traditional. It’s on Nicholasville Road. And I asked him when he was, because I spoke there two or three times and I knew it was an opening there for principal. And I ask him in Georgetown whether he wants to come to Lexington. He lives here. And he says, why? I said, because I know it’s, I don’t know the principal who is there, just in between. He lives, she was, he was Laura’s principal in Jesse Clark. He lives in our corner. And I said, is Mr. Mossgrave there. And he said, not a better idea. And then I spoke to Mossgrave. I says, would you please call him because you are here only for few months. [LAUGHING] Because he is retired and he works a few months only because of the Social Security probably. And he got the job. He got the job. So I only spoke twice to him. And last time his wife picked me up and we met in the restaurant, Chaise. And he came there from school and his daughter came, too. It’s very interesting. His daughter was for a whole year in Belarus. Very interesting. She said, she loves the people there and she wants to learn the language. Very nice person. And both of them came to listen to me, too. The wife and the daughter, last time that I spoke. It was the end of the year.

DONAHUE: When you started speaking about your experiences, did you find that memories were coming up that you hadn’t thought of?

SZEKELY: Everything is coming up. I don’t, if they give me enough time, I am telling them from beginning to the end, everything. Memories are always with me, not coming up, they are always with me. And I don’t try to forget it. Sylvia tries to forget it. That’s the difference between me and Sylvia. And it’s a big difference because she married an American man and she never had to talk about it. It’s a big difference. But she doesn’t want to talk about it with me either. And she was in the same place. She was in Bergen-Belsen. And she doesn’t want, what she has left over, life, she wants to make it happy. I cannot forget it. I cannot erase it that they killed my parents. I can’t. And the six million people and everybody and big, big family from my grandmother’s side. I can’t. I can’t forget it, not one day. And I am dreaming about it, especially when I’m talking, I’m dreaming. I said once to my heart doctor, I says, I just don’t know, I cannot sleep. Maybe I shouldn’t talk anymore. He said, you just take your pill and talk. [LAUGHING] That’s what he said. They are so funny the doctors. They have my pictures, when I am in the newspaper, they put it in they files. So, when they bring the files, here you are. It’s interesting. Yeah, lot of them.

DONAHUE: You talked earlier, I guess it was the last time, about how you had such guilt feelings after your parents and your sister were killed. And I wondered if you ever got over guilt feelings? If you ever got over that?

SZEKELY: I, look, I have a guilt feeling always about my sister, yes. How is it that she said, it’s fate. I don’t know. I have to come….I have to forget that guilt feeling, because I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. And I am sure that if I would be there, I would do the same thing. Because she had an opportunity to escape and she said, I go where my mother goes. And if I would be there, I would do the same thing. I wasn’t there. It was a coincidence. I had problem with my rheumatic fever that year and I had to go….My mother send me first. Every summer we spent there in Budapest at my grandmother’s house. And I took every year a cure for my rheumatic fever. When it was nothing wrong with me. The doctor said we should do it so it wouldn’t come back. And I had a doctor there, in one of those baths that they have. It’s wonderful waters they have. And he gave me a cure for three weeks. It wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t there. I was thinking about it many times. I should make, I shouldn’t be so guilty because it wasn’t my fault. First time in my life, I was twenty-one and first time in my life I was traveling alone. It was four hundred miles on the train to my grandmother. Because I finished school and my sister was still in school, otherwise we would go together. The year before, Christmas, we went together with my sister. So it wasn’t my fault. It was fate. It was fate. And when I was telling it in some schools and I says – children were asking me, how come that you survive? I says, that’s the only question I cannot answer you. And the principal, not principal, Superintendent, I didn’t know that he was there. He said – he was sitting in the corner. I tell you why, he said. That she should spread it to the people. I said, thank you very much for helping me out, but I think my sister could have spread it, too. So, it is nice that you think about it this way.

DONAHUE: Do you feel safe at home in this country and in Lexington?

SZEKELY: Every year around me this house, now I don’t go with them in the country. And this year I am thinking about it. That I really should do it, that they leave me alone here. I went with them every year, but I don’t know how many years now, about four years, I don’t go because Laura wants to be alone with George. And he said, yeah, we are together the whole year, we are together. Though it is my house, I cannot go. So, I went there three years ago. She went to Hungary with Anna, because she was never in Hungary, Anna. She was never in Hungary. Illona was with me. I took Illona. Eighty-nine after her, that was my Bas Mitzvah present to her in eighty-nine. I took her to Hungary for three weeks and one week in Vienna we were. And so, she went with Anna. I gave Anna her Bas Mitzvah present, the ticket, to go to Hungary. So Laura had a free ticket that she’s collecting, you know, the free flights. So they went to Hungary. Then I went for three weeks to the country and stayed with George. I had a great time. I had a great time. So, that’s the situation. I won’t go there now, see because I am – see we have always only one car there and I am depending on them. And it wasn’t comfortable anymore. I took now, when the children are there, upstairs the bedroom, because it’s a, they made a window, you know, the skylight up there. And they have air conditioner up there. I cannot go steps up again and up and down. And they made a half bathroom there, I made. I had to pay half for it, the time that I am up there. And that’s only half bathroom. If I want to take a bath, I have to go downstairs. It’s no more comfortable for me. It came to a point that it’s no more comfortable.

DONAHUE: I just was wondering if you felt that America had become home to you and that you, also whether you felt like…

SZEKELY: It was my home. New York was my home. It was my home. I never, when I went even to Hungary, I never said I’m going home. That I can erase because of what they did to us. I was born there. [INAUDIBLE] But I never, never said I am going home. I am going to Hungary. New York was my home. I felt at home.

DONAHUE: Do you think that people in this country and in this day and age are, are paying attention enough to the dangers of what happened during the Holocaust and making sure that it couldn’t happen again?

SZEKELY: No, no. The people are so far away from it. Even then when it happened, I think, they were so far away from it, that it’s only me that I am afraid that it can happen and what can happen. It’s only me who went through. They are laughing when I am saying it, that I am afraid from everything. I am afraid of my shadow, you know, that kind of a situation. When we went to Hungary and they were asking us how could you live there? This is a jungle there, in New York. You know? They have a very bad opinion of what’s happening in New York. It’s happening here, too. This is much smaller and what’s happening here, when you open the television, they start the killing. Okay, it’s a family killing or whatever but it’s happening. It’s happening here, too. And it’s always worse for the people who don’t live in a place. It seems much worse. I don’t know. I wasn’t afraid in New York where I lived. Once I was very afraid, when I sold my house and I sold it to a Chinese guy, who, they knew that they have to give back Hong Kong, and they were coming. And he said that he wants it for his family. Baloney. He made a business from it. He made from a two family house, four families. For money, he’s getting rent. Unbelievable. From the basement he made two apartments and two apartments what we had upstairs. I went to see it with – there’s no garage. From the garage he made an apartment. It’s unbelievable. And he wanted to get out from it, the last minute. But he had twenty-five thousand dollar, twenty-five put down. How much? I don’t know how many thousands he had to put down when we made the agreement. It was in the lawyers, collateral, you know. And he wanted to, if he doesn’t get the mortgage what he wants, that he can get out from it, but he got the mortgage what he wanted. The lawyer find out he got the mortgage what he wanted. But he wanted a cheaper mortgage and he wanted to get out. But then he would lose that money. I think it was twenty-five. I don’t remember. Anyway. And I was getting phone calls and it was a strange, strange accent, that I am going to come and kill you. So then I said my God, I want to get out as early as can from here. You know? I think they were those people, those Chinese, I don’t know. Then I was very afraid. In the beginning I was very afraid, we were robbed. So I slept - not in our house, we lived in an apartment and we were one apartment, second apartment, we were robbed. That’s why we bought the house, we want out from that neighborhood. But otherwise, otherwise I didn’t have that fear. I didn’t go on the subways, I was driving. And it was very dangerous already, in the hospital, too. So there was a parking lot across the street where I paid parking. And I just ran to the building. It was very dangerous. I got out at the last minute really, because if you walked in the hospital, in the lobby and you had a necklace on or something, people from outside came and they took it off. So it was a very dangerous place. And it is very interesting that every hospital in New York, it is in a bad place now. It is very interesting. Even [INAUDIBLE] Fifth Avenue, my God, my husband was operated, spine operation and I went to visit him with George. Behind it there were big buildings and we had to get off the subway. And they were throwing bottles against us. That was the best hospital, the name Flower, Fifth Avenue. Can you imagine? That was years ago. So, we came here. What I was seeing today on the television show, it’s really scary, about five black guys, who are thieves. That show is from New York and how they are stealing cars and how they are just bumping into people’s cars. And then innocent women, they get out, what happened. And they get out too, behind them and they grab their necks, put them in the other car behind them and they take that car because it’s a better car than they’s. There were five of them. Can you imagine that? I don’t know how they can say it on the television. And there was a detective there, too. And they were saying it, how they are show it how they are doing it and they are selling it. And she said, how much you get for that car? He says, we sell it for parts, five hundred dollars. And if it’s a Mercedes, a nice, new one, sometimes five thousand dollars. This is, this is, now again a more dangerous life since I came. They were stealing cars, of course they were stealing cars, but that way I didn’t hear it, never, when I was living there. So it’s now thirteen years.

DONAHUE: What about anti-Semitism?

SZEKELY: In New York?

DONAHUE: Living in Lexington, have you experienced anti-Semitism?

SZEKELY: Actually no, because I am not….I think in this neighborhood, yes. I didn’t experience it, but I have a friend, who is married to a Chinese man. She’s from Canada. And she, nobody was her friend, only I. [LAUGHING] But she lives here a long, long time. Her mother was Russian. And she was born in Canada. And she’s telling me that this neighborhood, when she….They builded the house. They didn’t allow Jews in this neighborhood. That was what she was telling me. And then I had a remark. Somebody came, I don’t know who was it, those guys who are, you know, trying to convert you. I don’t know which religion was it. And I said, I am not interested. I am Jewish. And he said, what is it, everybody is Jewish in this neighborhood? I said, no, minority. They are all Baptist here, in this neighborhood. But now there are a few Jewish families. But she said, they weren’t allowed here in this neighborhood, Jews. I didn’t, as I said, I don’t know. I didn’t know about it. And she, she was unbelievable, they didn’t want to take her nowhere between them, because she was marrying a Chinese. He is a genius. He is now seventy, I don’t know, something. He got tenure. He was with IBM originally. And then he was teaching at U.K.. And now he is teaching in Frankfort in state university. And at age seventy they gave him tenure. He is such a genius. But he is Chinese. And she has two Chinese, he has two daughters, a daughter and a son, both of them are doctors. And they were really suffering in this neighborhood, she said, because they were Chinese kids. She was always telling me what they went through. So, it’s any difference, Chinese or Jew? If they don’t, if it’s not they own then they don’t like you. I don’t know. We are friends. With this building now. Those people lived before them a very long time here, twenty years. He was a pathologist and she was Head of Pathology at U.K.. And we didn’t go to each other’s houses, but when we spoke we were very nice. And her daughter, Jenna’s daughter, when she got married in Louisville all of the neighbors got together, five of us and we went all to the wedding, to her daughter’s wedding, because she didn’t have any family here. She doesn’t have any family here. Because I am Jewish and she is married to a Chinese [LAUGHING] so we are very good friends. We are going together – she helps me enormously. She is a very good person. Now she was, she was nurse, actually. She went for nursing in Case Western, in Cleveland. She met him there somewhere, I don’t know, in Ohio. She really, she felt it at U.K.. She was in the Nursing department and she was the head of the privates nurses at that time they had. She had to give the patients the nurses. And she is absolutely, you know, she didn’t know about discrimination. And she gave once a black nurse to a white person. She was fired. And then when she was fired from there she started to tutor. She is very good in math. And she tutored all the kids from this neighborhood. She knows everybody because she was a tutor. And from that, because it was not enough what her husband made, they send the two children to medical school. The daughter is a psychiatrist and she is, I mean now the first baby, she is waiting every minute, though she is thirty-five years old. Yeah, she is. And she lives in Louisville. And this one is in Louisville, too. He is a general practitioner, but he wanted to be a surgeon.

END OF TAPE 20.U.4f, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE A

BEGINNING OF TAPE 20.U.4f, EMILIE SZEKELY, SIDE B

SZEKELY: …here that I am accepted. I think because of the speeches, that’s why. Many people know me and many people want me and many people are very grateful that I am teaching and I am teaching the children about history, what is not, unfortunately not in history books. It’s only a few words about the Second World War, the Holocaust. And I don’t know whether it ever will be. And they are very grateful and gracious. And really they do everything for me. They pick me up, they take me home, they take me to eat. They give me presents. It’s unbelievable what they are doing, those people. And I think that it’s sincere. Those people who, you know, who are calling me and I am talking….So it’s many people. A hundred and fifty times I talk, it’s many people. They are sincere. And they are not anti-Semitic. They are not. I’m convinced a hundred percent, but many, many of them, they are not.

DONAHUE: Anything else you’d like to say before we close?

SZEKELY: Before we close? You are a nice person. [LAUGHING] I like you.

DONAHUE: You’re a nice person, too.

SZEKELY: Thank you. [LAUGHTER]

DONAHUE: I thank you very much for spending all of this time with me.

SZEKELY: You are very welcome.

END OF INTERVIEW