Spiro, Yechiel_1981/08/06, Oral History, August 6, 1981

Oral History – Yechiel Spiro (Shapiro) August 6, 1981

Today is Wednesday, August 6, 1981. My name is Emma Cohen. I’m about to interview Mr. Yechiel Spiro for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, at his home on 90 Dover Road, West Hartford. Mr. Spiro, a Holocaust survivor, has been a Hartford area resident and businessman for over 25 years. As the knowledgeable owner of the Hebrew Book Store on Whitney Street in Hartford, he has serviced not only the Jewish community, but the non-Jewish community as well. This taped interview will be placed in the oral history archives of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, to be used by students for research and study, and to further the purposes of the Society.

EC: Good afternoon, Mr. Spiro. I’m not sure I have your name correct. First of all, can you tell us your entire name, and when and where you were born and tell us a little bit about your background there?

YS: My name is Yechiel Shapiro. The reason I’m called Spiro, is because I came originally from Czechoslovakia, and there instead of “sh”, it is written with an S and a little pipe instead of H, so when I came here, I spelled my name Spiro so they started to call me Spiro.

EC: But your real name is Shapiro?

YS: My name is Shapiro.

EC: Mr. Shapiro, I’m glad that now I finally know what your name is because I was confused for all the years I’ve been coming into the store. Can you tell us exactly where and when you were born, and tell us a little bit about your background there?

YS: I was born October 1921 in the town of Muchachevo (sp?), it was under Czechoslovakia. It was a very real Hasidic town. My parents, my grandparents all come from that. My grandfather and great-grandfather, they were Hasidic rabbis. All my brothers were all in the, was living in the Hasidic atmosphere. and I spent our time in the yeshiva.

EC: Were they all rabbis, your brothers?

YS: At that time…Europe. As I was bar mitzvah, the next week I left home, and went to yeshivas, larger yeshivas.

EC: Let me ask you this. How many children. First of all, what was your father’s name, your mother’s name, how many children in the family?

YS: My father‘s name was Yosef Shapiro. My mother’s name was Raizel. We were six boys and one sister.

EC: Where did you come in this? Which one were you?

YS: I was the third, the third of the boys. My sister was the oldest so I was the fourth in the family.

EC: Um, hmm, um hmm. Now, your father was a rabbi you said?

YS: My father was, we had a grocery store, but he was

EC: He had smircha (sp?).

YS: Yes, smircha (sp?), yes.

EC: But he earned his living at home?

YS: At a grocery store

EC: About how big was your town?

YS: The town was around 35,000 population. Of these were 16,000 Jews.

EC: Quite a big Jewish community.

YS: Almost fifty percent.

EC: Um, hmm. Do you know old the town was, how old was this Jewish community?

YS: I would say it would be around 200 years old at the time of the Holocaust, over two hundred years. We got a book and it says here

EC: You have a book of the town? Um, hmm, um hmm.

YS: By a rabbi, but it was written by the town, too.

EC: Would you repeat the name of the town again?

YS: Muchachev (sp?).

EC: Muchacheva (sp?). What part of Czechoslovakia was that?

YS: It was not far from the Polish borders, near the Hungarian-Polish borders. It was Czechoslovakia until 1938, until the Munich settlement tore apart Czechoslovakia, and my town, Muchacheva (sp?) was given back to Hungarian. It was Hungarian until 1938 but it had been …from 1918.

EC: Ok. YS: So in 1938 there were Czechoslovakian pieces that part was given back to Hungarian. And I was living, I was going to yeshiva, and I was away from home until 1938.

EC: When you were younger, when did you start school? Was it a cheder (sp?) that you went to?

YS: It was a cheder (sp?). Cheder (sp?) life was different than here in the U. S. We used to go to from 7:00 o’clock in the morning ‘til 8:00 o’clock.

EC: Eight o’clock at night?

YS: Eight o’clock in the morning for one hour, 7-8 in the morning. We used to come home, have a little breakfast, then on to school until 1 o’clock in the afternoon. One o’clock I used to come home from school and we used to lehren (sp?) until 7 o’clock at night.

EC: Well, the school you went to in the morning, was that a Jewish school?

YS: No, it was a general school.

EC: A general school. So your cheder (sp?) was in the afternoon.

YS: Yes, the afternoon. We had an hour lunch, then from 2 o’clock lehren (sp?) until 7 o’clock.

EC: Until what age did that go on for you?

YS: We went to school I would say ‘til 13 years old. After I was 13, I left school and was all day cheder (sp?).

EC: Was that in your town?

YS: Yes, in my town.

EC: You still were in your town?

YS: Ya, but after that, I left for the bigger yeshivas.

EC: How old were you when you left then?

YS: I was, over 13.

EC: But not too much older than 13?

YS: No, it was just a little time over 13. EC: You showed me here, a tallit bag -

YS: It’s a tillin (sp?) bag.

EC: A tillin (sp?) bag, that’s right, and this you said you had made for your Bar Mitzvah?

YS: Yes, I did get at that time from my older brother, a present, 10 kronen (sp?). I bought the material and …, she sewed up for me and put it together. You see the Hebrew letters on it, and the crown is for the Torah. And my Hebrew initial, that was a special story. I was a Hasidic Jew, we used to make the design on it.

EC: Well, there’s a yud and a shin.

YS: Yechiel Shapiro.

EC: Yes, what is the design that’s specially Hasidic here?

YS: The Hasidic crown, the crown of the Torah.

EC: I see. And up above you said

YS: And above is the year of my Bar Mitzvah. It’s Tov, Raish, Tzadik, Hey.

EC: And that’s the year you were Bar Mitzvah. What do you remember of your Bar Mitzvah?

YS: I remember my Bar Mitzvah this, I remember the rebbe, he was in fact my uncle, he was my rebbe at that time and that age. He would never teach me my Haftorah or the brochas to the Torah, or anything. He just told me on Shabbos morning, he asked me, do you know the …of theTorah, how to read the Haftorah (sp?) ? I said, I studied myself. So when it was Shabbas and went to shul, I was called up. I said I have to learn everything, the Haftorah sp?) and everything.

EC: Without any preparation? But you had been taught in your cheder (sp?)?

YS: I learned it myself, I had nothing.

EC: All by yourself? You learned the trop (sp?)?

YS: Everything myself, no lessons.

EC: In other words, it wasn’t a big Bar Mitzvah party.

YS: No, after the Bar Mitzvah there was schnapps and cakes in the shul, it wasn’t such a party as here. But the rabbi, the rabbi didn’t spend on me one minute to give me lessons.

EC: What day was this?

YS: I was …his daughter so I had to make …next day. But it was a very interesting episode. There used to be a custom, the Hasidim used to take the child the day of the Bar Mitzvah to the rabbi, he should put on the tefillin the first day. He was a very holy person, the holiest man that existed in that generation, and he put on the tefillin the first day, for my Bar Mitzvah.

EC: That was your rabbi?

YS: Yes.

EC: What was his name?

YS: His name was Chaim Elozer Shapiro.

EC: Oh, also Shapiro.

YS: And he told me that I should wear my tefillin, I should be very careful with the davening (sp?), and I shouldn’t talk too much during the daven\ning (sp?). He promised me if I would do that, I would live a long time. And I still got the tefillin that he put on for me, that only one thing I saved in the three years of Holocaust.

EC: That’s the only thing you have?

YS: That’s all I saved, not a needle, from our house, nothing at all.

EC: You showed me a picture here that I’ll ask you to tell me about later. Did the people in the town wear the shtreimel (sp?)?

YS: There was a lot of Hasidim in the town, in fact give what it means streimel (sp?) I had only one sister, and she was engaged, it was in 1931, and my brother-in-law was a very big Talmud chochem (sp?) and learned in famous yeshivas in Europe, but he learned more in the Ashkenazi yeshivas, the more modern yeshivas. The first thing my father told him, if he wants to marry my sister, he would have to wear a shtreimel (sp?), a caftan.

EC: In other words, he wasn’t wearing one?

YS: No, he was more a modern type, a young fellow, and he wasn’t sure if he could do that, to wear the shtreimel (sp?). My father told him, if there is no shtreimel (sp?), there is no shiddach (sp?).

EC: So he did wear it, I take it?

YS: He gave in, he wear the shtreimel (sp?), and he married my sister.

EC: In this town, you said, I guess, at least half of them were Jewish. Did you have a lot of relatives? Was your family itself big?

YS: We had a very large family, we had families quite connected together. In fact, my bubbe (sp?), she was the oldest of the whole family, and she was strong like you can’t imagine. Today that type of woman doesn’t exist anywhere. She didn’t eat in the morning before she did the complete davening (sp?) and she finished the whole Psalms, every day. She didn’t eat before she finished davening, and every night she davened with her mother.

EC: That was your grandmother. Your mother too?

YS: My mother, no. My mother was more a housewife, she wasn’t that type.

EC: Did she help your father in the store?

YS: She helped in the store, and she had a lot of children she had to take care of, and plenty in the house to do. There was only one daughter, all boys. She had a lot of things to do.

EC: She had a lot of work. Could you describe for us a Shabbat, for instance? What went on in your household?

YS: Well, it was strictly Hasidic as I said before that my father had a lot to do with the …spent a lot of time with it my grandmother was always, she used to go to the regallat (sp?) every day. My father was learning a lot every day

EC: In addition to working?

YS: In addition to working. The type of living it was different; you go in the morning to the davening until you come home. And a little bit in the store, learning in the afternoon. That’s how he spent his day.

EC: Now what were the special preparations for Shabbas?

YS: Shabbas, the same thing, shabbas in the house, you could feel the holiness, like you could grab it with the hand. My mother made sure each was dressed, my father came home Friday night with the shtremel (sp?) and the caftan, we’d start to sing the whole family, Sholem Aleichem, and the Kiddush

EC: And this was after going to …. ?

YS: This was coming home from Friday night

EC: Oh, coming home from Friday night. Um, hmm.

YS: Shabbas in every corner of the house. You could. My father had a lot of trouble with his stomach, because in the first World War, he was a prisoner of the Russians and of course he fasted a lot because of eating kosher, so he had a very bad stomach. He always took care to eat the right food, but Shabbas he ate everything – cholent (sp?), kugel.

EC: And it all agreed with him. And the children, uh, did you, for instance, Shabbas dinner after you all went to shul with your father?

YS: My father davened (sp?) in the rabbi’s minyan, so by the time he came home, it was half a day, half a day over. Till we finished eating, it was pretty late in the afternoon, then you lay down to sleep for a couple of hours, and Shabbas was over.

EC: Did the children play a lot?

YS: We used to play, but Shabbas, you know, Shabbas, you know, we just played and we had the cheder (sp?) too, after all.

EC: The cheder (sp?). The cheder (sp?). We used to work Shabbas afternoon.

EC: Well, what did you do?

YS: We had Shabbas afternoon davening, and we spent a couple of hours in the cheder (sp?) Shabbas afternoon. One thing, as a child, there was no child life,

EC: No playing.

YS: No playing, very little playing. We had, we were so busy from morning until night. There was no summer vacation like in the United States. And there was no school; there was only cheder (sp?) from 7 until 7.

EC: All day long.

YS: There was never days, never days except a few days before Pesach and a few days before Rosh Hashanah.

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: Of course, we …were out but otherwise there was no such thing as vacation.

EC: Did the children rebel?

YS: That’s the was life was.

EC: You were going to a so-called public school, a town school. There was no school on Shabbat?

YS: Oh, no.

EC: For everybody?

YS: For everybody. No, no, only for the Jews. The non-Jews had school.

EC: Oh, they did have school.

YS: They did have school. Just the Jews didn’t have school on Shabbas.

EC: And the general subjects, were they arithmetic, or?

YS: It was a regular school, a regular public school, a regular public school.

EC: So, after your Bar Mitzvah, what happened?

YS: After bar Mitzvah I was sent away to bigger yeshivas, entirely no more public school. And the yeshivas

EC: Where were they?

YS: (List of towns ) (sp?) Yeshiva in Europe wasn’t like here where they supply you with food when you go to Yeshiva. ... Every day you were eating in another house.

EC: Is that what they used to call teg (sp?)?

YS: Yes. I used to go every day three times a day, morning, noontime and supper. Sometimes to walk a mile, a mile and a half just for breakfast. And the breakfast used to be a little plain sliced bread with coffee, not even margarine. Until it came noon-time I was pretty hungry to go back, and then the night time. It was very, very hard, Yeshiva life, and we used to get up in the morning, most of the time, 3-4 o’clock in the morning to study.

EC: Well, what basically were you studying?

YS: Strictly Talmud.

EC: Talmud.

YS: Talmud, halacha (sp?), everything, but no secular.

EC: No secular whatever?

YS: Nothing, strictly

EC: What about Tanach?

YS: A little, but mostly we studied Talmud and the halacha (sp?)

EC: I see.

EC: Until what age?

YS: I was studying in the yeshivas ‘til Czechoslovakia dissolved.

EC: Was invaded?

YS: Was invaded. They closed the Yeshivas, and I had to go home, they didn’t allow the Yeshivas any more.

EC: You mean they closed up theYeshivas?

YS: They closed up the yeshivas. The Yeshivas also went back to Hungarian.

EC: What was the name again? Of the Yeshiva.

YS: …Then second evening the rabbi had an order from the gendarmerie, all the uh, they called them Talmudists, the Yeshiva boys, everybody had to go home. There was no longer Yeshiva.

EC: What date was that?

YS: That was late October ‘38.

EC: ’38.

YS: Late October.

EC: Had you realized that something was happening up to that time?

YS: It started to feel already the

EC: The tension?

YS: The tension, the anti-Semitism, and everything. I’ll just tell you a little episode that happened. To go back home from the Yeshiva I had to travel through Hungarian, Budapest. At that time that territory they liberated

EC: It was still free?

YS: No, when the Hungarian took back from Czechoslovakia EC: Oh.

YS: So you had to have a special permission to go through Hungarian. So I went to the gendarmerie and I told them I have to go home, I have to go to Hungarian and I need the special permission. And to get the permission you have to put down a reason why you want to go through. So my rebbe wrote a letter, that I was a yeshiva boy and I was going home and I need the permission.

EC: Right.

YS: So the Hungarians took the same letter and put it in an official envelope, and gave it back to me. When I came to the border, it used to be the Hungarian/Czech border, they checked in the envelope, and there was inside the letter from the rebbe, but no permission.

EC: They didn’t give you permission?

YS: Just to make things

EC: Difficult.

YS: Difficult. They said to me to take to the …So they take me off the train, and it take me two days in the town to stay until I get the permission.

EC: Did you have to go to the Jewish authorities?

YS: No, to the military,

EC: To the military?

YS: To the government to get the permission to go to Hungarian. I finally got .

EC: What happened when you got back?

YS: I got back and I was staying with my parents, it was ‘39, ‘40, ’41 and I was studying but in town, in the yeshiva. I was still at home. At first they took away the license. You had to have a business license.

EC: To have the store?

YS: To have the store. At that time they had a law that only 6% of Jews can have stores. They took away my parents’ license and they had to close the store.

EC: So how did they live?

YS: You had to give the store to a Gentile, you got to find a goy to put the business under his name.

EC: Oh, I see.

YS: The business was under his name, the business was his, but he used to give us something for it, too, a little bread. At that time it was hard to get bread, very hard to get bread. A little bit to eat.

EC: Were all of the children at home at this time, or were some of them?

YS: No, I was home with another brother. My sister was married at that time. My older brother he married in 1937 in Austria, and Austria started before Czechoslovakia, so he left and went to Palestine. One brother died, so I was left, one brother went to my grandmother, so just me and two brothers were home.

EC: Just you and

YS: My youngest brother.

EC: Just you and your younger brother were left at home. And another brother, too. We left three brothers.

EC: You were living, for instance, in a neighborhood of all Jews? YS: Yes, all Jews.

EC: And you got the Gentile, he came from another neighborhood?

YS: Yes, somebody had recommended him to me, they said I could trust him. So I talked to him and he took over our store, and I hade to close it up and I said maybe I would help him, because he had no idea from groceries.

EC: Did you work in the store too?

YS: Yes, I did at that time but not officially. You were not allowed. You must have only 6% Jew, he didn’t have all the help, so I couldn’t be official. At that time he used to give me extra bread, groceries

EC: In your home, was Zionism a big thing in your home?

YS: No, first of all at that time there was no Israel, and I came from a Hasidic home. There was no connection between Hasidism and Zionism.

EC: In other words, that was not part of it?

YS: It was not part of it.

EC: But you said somebody went to Palestine.

YS: Eldest brother went to Palestine.

EC: Went to Palestine?

YS: He was living, he emigrated, he was living in Austria, Hitler took Austria before Czechoslovakia, so there was only one way to save his life so he and my sister-in-law went to Palestine.

EC: Was there any thought among the rest of the people, the rest of the family, some of the Jews, to try to leave at that time?

YS: We tried, but it was very difficult. In fact, I remember that my father had some relatives, he wrote and asked them to send some papers. It’s hard to remember, there was no help, nobody.

EC: They couldn’t help, or they didn’t want to?

YS: You could see that the black

EC: Things that were happening.

YS: Time was running out. There was no place to run.

EC: So what finally happened?

YS: In 1941 came a law that every Jewish male from 20 to 40 had to come to, they enlisted him to labor. They wouldn’t trust anymore the Regular Army so they took every Jewish male from 20 to 40 for labor camps. So in 1942 they took me to a camp.

EC: You were 21 at the time.

YS: Yes, 21 at the time. They called me up in 1940, but they told me I had to stay at home until I was 21. So in 1942 I left home and then to a labor camp. They took away my parents 1944 March, they were still home until 1944, March, they didn’t take them until May but the ghetto started in March 1944. I was home once in 1943. Ten days.

EC: Where was this labor camp that they took you?

YS: This was near Hungarian-Yugoslavian border, called …(sp?)

EC: What kind of work did you do?

YS: Any place they needed help, were short, they used to take us - building tracks, fixing tracks, we built things for the army.

EC: The … what do you mean?

YS: For the planes.

EC: Oh, oh, oh, an airfield!

YS: Airfield. Military. So we built for the army.

EC: Um, hmm. Um, hmm.

YS: Everything that has to do with that type of …

EC: Were the conditions, or, or?

YS: The conditions were, in the camps you were feeded

EC: You were given enough food at that point?

YS: Ya, ya. You could still take it, until 1944, before the Germans took over Hungaria. In 1944, March, the Germans took over all of Hungaria so in 1944 it was an anti-Semitic government, they feed us right. But after March 1944, when the Germans took over all of Hungaria they started to feed us less.

EC: What happened then?

YS: At that time we started to get less food.

EC: What happened with your family?

YS: In 1944, after Pesach, the last night, they put all the Jews in the ghetto. They don’t know what’s going after that. I wasn’t living with them I was working at that time. …With German Army because the Russians…So they took all the elderly Jewish women and children, the families, and they take them to the station, to the trains ,and they shipped them away. We didn’t know there existed such a thing as an Auschwitz or gas chambers. We didn’t think everybody, we didn’t know that.

EC: And that was in ’44?

YS: ’44. I saw it. Take them away

EC: Yes.

YS: All the Jews, all the not able working Jews, and the womans

EC: And the women?

YS: And the small children. I saw that they take them to the train and they put them on freight, the freight

EC: On the freight trains?

YS: Freight trains, not the regular trains. No one could believe that there exists such a place with gas chambers, and they were killed. And I was liberated in 1944, December first.

EC: Where were you at that time?

YS: At that time? We was always working, we finished work in one place, and they’d take us to another place, any place the army needed work.

EC: But you were not in any camp?

YS: No, we were a group of 250 Jews. We were all the time under Hungarian, under Hungarian.

EC: Auspices. They commanded you?

YS: Commanded you. And many days they were short of work

EC: So it really wasn’t the kind of thing that was, that we’ve been

YS: At that time it was only 250 young Jewish boys.

EC: You were all together?

YS: All together, 250. And they were always between 20 and 40.

EC: And you did get home occasionally during this period?

YS: Only once, in 1943.

EC: So how did you know what happened with the others in the town?

YS: We saw them when they were taken away from the ghettos, to the trains.

EC: In other places.

YS: I saw them shipped from the ghetto but we didn’t know exist such places as

EC: Death camps. What happened to your parents and your brother?

YS: I didn’t hear anything. In 1944 after Pesach I didn’t hear any more from them. I know I think them away. But where they took them I didn’t know. After they were taken away my younger brother told me they were taken to Auschwitz.

EC: How many survived in your family?

YS: Survived? Four brothers - one older brother and I and two younger brothers.

EC: Not your parents?

YS: No. My father was only 54 years old, my mother was only 52. I have a picture of my sister and her five children.

EC: Well, you’ll show it to me in a few moments. Uh, so what happened with you, that time, this was ‘44?

YS: In ’44, December, in the beginning of December, I was liberated from the labor camp.

EC: Then what did you do?

YS: When I was liberated I didn’t know what to do, where my parents were, who was left. I was alone, at that time, in the last few days, last few months, all the Jews were destroyed at that time. There were no Jews left in Hungaria, except in Budapest.

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: By that time my body was very skinny, too. When I got liberated, the first day, the first night

EC: Who liberated you?

YS: Russia. So the first night, we had to run away, and we were near the front, where the fighting was going on, so we stopped and went back, God forbid not to get back in German hands. We came that first night to a house with a German doctor, he was saying he was a doctor, and he left in a hurry because the Russians were coming very fast. In the house there was everything left there, the whole house.

EC:: So in other words the doctor had already run away.

YS: In other words, there was a German section I remember it was a Friday night. And it came to my mind to take a pair of shoes, a pair of pants, underwear. So we …all night. In the morning when we left, I took a sack of potatoes, because I was always hungry.

EC: You were hungry.

YS: Just to eat. I didn’t have shoes, I didn’t have socks, I didn’t have underwear

EC: How did you eat the potatoes?

YS: We cooked the potatoes.

EC: You did cook them?

YS: Yes.

EC: You stayed with your group?

YS: No, not the group. It was little groups. There was three together. We were walking because there was no transportation so we had to walk. We tried to go far away, far away from the fighting line. We were walking days, nights, night and days. We went a few hundred kilometers.

EC: Where were you going towards?

YS: We, uh, as far away from the front.

EC: Which was going towards?

YS: We were going toward Yugoslavia. We wanted to go to Romania because Romania was liberated for a long time before. So we were walking ten kilometers

EC: The people, were there any peasants there? Were they friendly, not friendly?

YS: Yes, when we were hungry we used to go to a town, to a house and ask them for food.

EC: But, but, were they afraid?

YS: They were afraid already, because they knew what they did to us, and they used to give us food, and then we ate, and we walked further.

EC: They knew you were Jewish?

YS: Jewish, ya, of course. After we walked for a few weeks then we came to Romania. The name of the town was Tomishore (sp?) The Jews were left there because the Romanians didn’t give up the Jews to the Germans.

EC: They didn’t.

YS: They didn’t. Romania was like neutral.

EC: That’s interesting.

YS: At that time in the city there were a lot of Jews, they donated a little money, we got clothing, a little bit, not much, but they helped.

EC: Through the Jewish committee?

YS: Yes. And they told us if you go to Bucharest, you can find where to live, what to eat, they’ll give you money for clothing. But from where we were to Bucharest it was like going from the United States to Europe – there was no transportation …for civilians. So they said, if you go to the station, sometimes you have a chance to catch a freight train going close to Bucharest. So I went out to the station, just came in a nice civilian train, and the whole train was Canadian and American and English pilots whose planes were shot down but they had a chance to land in the area of Yugoslavia where Tito was, that was liberated, certain area was liberated.

EC: Yes.

YS: And they were together and going back to Bucharest, and from there I was told they were going to Italy to the headquarters. And that train there was Russian soldiers. Wouldn’t let you go on that train.

EC: You mean the Russian soldiers wouldn’t let you on?

YS: No, no civilians. It was English and Canadian and American and they were pilots, just pilots. But at that time I was so skinny, just a sack of bones, so when the Russian soldiers looked away a little bit, I jumped in a narrow window and I hide under the seat. And they didn’t notice me. As soon as the train started to move, I stand up in the corner of the train and I saw one of the soldiers that looked like a Jew. I couldn’t speak a lot of English, so I asked in Yiddish, “Bist a Yid (sp?)?” Like that but he couldn’t speak, they didn’t understand Yiddish.

EC: He didn’t even understand

YS: He didn’t understand a word. But one thing I could write down – Yevish (sp?), Jewish. I don’t have no English.

EC: What is it?

YS: Yevish (sp?), Jewish.

EC: Oh, Jewish!

YS: I wrote down the word Jewish and he started like that, shaking his head yes! …No clothes, nothing and I show him hand and feet that I came concentration camp and they gave me chocolate and cigarettes. They give me everything. …By that time I couldn’t understood how it possible a Jewish boy does not know even the alphabet.

EC: You didn’t even know the alphabet?

YS: …boys in the thousands.

EC: I’m sure, um hmm.

YS: At that time in Europe, there was no such a thing. And I told him and he said take a ride down to Canada and the other said that I don’t even dream to come to the United States but I told him in case I come he should give me his address and he wrote down his address in Canada. But later on, a year later, I was in Canada.

EC: Um.

YS: I wish I could find the boy.

EC: Did you ever find him?

YS: No, I lost the Jewish …

EC: Oh, you lost the … I see, isn’t that interesting. But that made you feel

YS: Ya.

EC: So what happened when you?

YS: Well, I came to Bucharest, and I joined the…. First we got money to buy food, underwear they give to everybody. And I had to find a place where to stay they pay the rent, and there was a free kitchen where they had food every day. And I start to wait. Remember, it was April ’45, the first time I found out there was an Auschwitz.

EC: All this time you didn’t really didn’t know what had happened?

YS: I always thought that my mother

EC: Your mother and father somewhere.

YS: As I said before I always thought My father was 52, my mother was 50. My mother was born in 1919, it was ’44 she was fifty four years old

EC: So what were your plans, I mean at that point?

YS: At that point there were no plans. I didn’t know if my two younger brothers still alive. I mean who was alive. I didn’t know nothing. I was just in Bucharest …until after the war. After the war I left Bucharest and went to Budapest and I thought I’m going to go back and see who’s left. Then I met two younger brothers and they told me everything what’s happened, about Auschwitz. We went for the same passports, Auschwitz ... And three months later I was married to my wife.

EC: How did you meet your wife?

YS: I had an aunt left in Budapest. My uncle was taken but my aunt was left in Budapest. I was staying in her house. … And there was a fellow who was with me in the same labor camp, and he said to me “I got a sister”. There was a special school for all the Jewish girls coming back so they should have a home, where to stay, because they got no parents. Well, these Jewish girls…they kept them there. They had no dresses, they gave them dresses. So I went with him to see his sister, and my wife was there.

EC: You met her there?

YS: Yes, and all she had left was another sister and two brothers. She lost almost everybody, too.

EC: Where did she come from?

YS: Not far from my city. She came …

EC: Um, hmm, um, hmm. So you were married in Europe?

YS: I went to my aunt and I said to my aunt can you find …my brothers…I said to my aunt “I don’t know where I’m going to live”…herself. She couldn’t help me much. I was very hungry. I was lost… I could see myself. I was only 22 years old. The same thing with my two younger brothers, they didn’t have a home, they didn’t have no place. So I figure if I got married I can.

EC: Take them in.

YS: At least they have something, some place to eat, too.

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: So my aunt said to me “Don’t worry, God will help you…For your wife, both of you.” And I told her “she don’t parents, I don’t have parents, we have nothing, she has nothing.” We get married she says she will fight to have ..a wedding over us, her side, my side. So she took …left to Jews. One was of her side, one was of my side and we had a small

EC: A small wedding.

YS: Wedding. A little …Then we took a little apartment and started to make a home and take in the others.

EC: This was in Budapest?

YS: Budapest.

EC: Um, hmm. Now, you tell me that the only thing you really saved was this tillin (sp?) bag and the tuellin (sp?) too. And you just carried them in your pocket all the way through?

YS: All the way.

EC: Were you able to use the tuellin (sp?)

YS: Yes, on the days to walk, to where I used to walk, when I was walking I use to put on the tefillin.

EC: You would be davening with that. Well, this must be very precious to you. Now also you have a picture here which looks like a picture of a number of Rabbonim (sp?), Rabbis,

YS: Yes, yes.

EC: And you said one of these people is your father, and you said you have a story about that.

YS: As I said before, I had nothing left from home, no pictures, nobody. I, uh, when I came to the United States in ‘49, we come to New Jersey. I have an uncle there, a …too. He goes to New Jersey. And I had my first chance to go to New York. It was Shabbas, and I stopped in a Jewish bookstore window and I looked around the books, and I see the picture, the picture of all the Rabbis, and I recognized my father in the picture. So the next day I bought the picture. It was 25 cents.

EC: You bought the picture?

YS: I bought the picture.

EC: This little …shop? And that was what was in the window, the …shop. Now you also have that enlargement, I think, of your father.

YS: After that I, uh, it was in the time the business had a gentile woman. She used to come she was always a Bible believer or something and she used to always come to the store to explain the Bible things. So she, to pay me back a favor, she took the picture. And she took my father and brother she painted a picture. EC: Well, it’s a very lovely picture. So, this was, is this picture in the Vishniak book, or that’s another picture?

YS: No, that’s not the picture.

EC: It’s another picture in the Vishniak book, of your father. And your father was part of this group of Hassidim?

YS: Ya, this picture was taken in the ‘30s, in the beginning ‘30s.

EC: The beginning of the ‘30s. In your town?

YS: Not in my town. I think that time they were travelling, in a summer place.

EC: Did your father go, say, when there was a holiday, did he go to a Rebbe?

YS: The Rebbe was in our city. We didn’t have to go.

EC: Oh, he didn’t have to go. But he did go and spend time

YS: Thousands of people used to come to our Rebbe for the holidays, thousands of people.

EC: In your town?

YS: Yes, in our town. Very famous rabbis, very famous.

EC: That must been a very exciting time.

YS: It was very, very …time …

EC: Is that what they call a Hasidic court?

YS: Hasidic, ya. Rabbis from generation to generation. The Hasidim used to come from all over the world.

EC: Did you used to go with your father?

YS: Of course, …especially Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

EC: What happened Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?

YS: Yom Kippur, first of all, he had such a voice, that he could, so strong. EC: This is the rabbi you’re talking about?

YS: I can remember, he was a sick man, and the doctors couldn’t understand how he used to daven from the beginning to end alone: Shacheris (sp?), reading the Torah, blowing shofar, and musaf. He used to come in the morning at 7 o’clock and he go home at noontime, just have time enough to eat a little meal and one tomato – from 7 o’clock to 6 o’clock at night. All day he was davening.

EC: And yet, he had the strength you said?

YS: And people were coming from all over the world.

EC: Did women come and listen to him?

YS: Women used to come, but upstairs. Upstairs, it was entirely covered, it was so covered you couldn’t see nothing through.

EC: There were that many people.

YS: Ya, and that was upstairs. There was people outside, in the back yard, all over.

EC: Do you think any of the synagogues remain in your town, or have you never been back?

YS: I was back only half a day after the war. This was Russia. Of course in Russia there was nobody left in the house. It was a five family house, and it had been made into barrack for soldiers. I wanted to go into the house. They wouldn’t let me in the house. I said it’s our house, I want to see what’s left.

EC: Did you own this house?

YS: No, it was my aunt’s house.

EC: Did you own this house? You say it was a five family house?

YS: My parents lived there, my aunts, my sister.

EC: Your parents owned the whole house? All five apartments?

YS: Yes, all five apartments. But two was rented, and three was family.

EC: Oh, I see. But your father was the owner?

YS: Ya, my father was the owner.

EC: And the synagogue was destroyed?

YS: Not destroyed, there were no Jews left in the entire city, so the synagogue was made for a work shop. They took everything away.

EC: There are no Jews there now? So after your marriage, how long did you stay in Europe?

YS: We went to Czechoslovakia for a while. Then we went to Germany to a D. P. camp and we stayed there until we got permission from the United States. It was in 1949.

EC: ‘49.

YS: Ya.

EC: You came here.

YS: It was after Pesach.

EC: Was that because your uncle was able to help you?

YS: No, D. P., D.P. quota. There was a special quota at that time. I come to the United States, too, I had a difficult time with two children, keeping Shabbas and Yom Tov, no language, no trade. I was a yeshiva bocher (sp?)…So I …’til I

EC: So what did you do?

YS: Someone I knew was a mashgiach (sp?) …so after it come slow

EC: Take care of …

YS: She … in a hotel.

EC: I see.

YS: So things got slow so…He was also…

EC: Who was this?

YS: ..Mr. Apoleon (sp?).

EC: Napoleon?

YS: Apoleon (sp?).

EC: Apoleon (sp?)

YS: So I asked him that time if he could he give me a little job so he took me in and he, he was handling empty bags for farmers, feedbags.

EC: Oh, um, hmm.

YS: And I was working for him for a year and a half. He moved to Hartford, his plant, and that’s why I come to Hartford.

EC: Oh, you were working with him.

YS: Ya. But things got slow here, too. But after that there was no more because the town had a system for delivering the food in a wooden box. It wasn’t in bags. So he left town, and I just stayed here. I had already at that time.

EC: How many children did you have?

YS: I had three children. At that time I found a part-time job….dry goods store and my part time job at ….. When I start I couldn’t get a job, I …

EC: What year was that now?

YS: That was in ‘50, ‘51.

EC: ‘51.

YS: Ya, … a new place. So I worked two part time jobs to make a living...that empty spot for a whole day. I went to work to work all day maybe five years. One condition I told him, that I have to wear a hat.

EC: He had a store, you said?

YS: A wholesale dry goods store.

EC: Oh, where was that?

YS: It was a store, a wholesale dry goods store. A. Kramer.

EC: On Main Street?

YS: Main Street, ya.

EC: Oh, yes, on Main Street, near Vellinger’s (sp?) . North Main Street.

YS: Yes. So I told him because …they liked me because I

EC: You’re a good worker.

YS: I’m a good worker. And I worked there five years. It was very difficult to make a living.

EC: Where did you live?

YS: At that time I lived, I a … house on North Main Street, over a bakery. It was one grocery store.

EC: On North Main Street? Near what street was that? Near Kennedy?

YS: Near Mahl Avenue.

EC: Mahl Avenue.

YS: …Bakery.

EC: Oh yes I think I know.

YS: So, I worked there five years, then …three stores on the site…

EC: At that time there were no

YS: He was gone, …Schwartz he was sick in bed in his house, but nothing

EC: But nothing really.

YS: Nothing. I figure that I …would have to run to New York. I … do that. I could run the store …and he said yes. He said do you need help? We’re going to help you. In fact they had more money …up…So I had a few people help me out. Sam Smith

EC: Sam Smith loaned you money?

YS: He helped me with the bank.

EC: Through the bank. And you borrowed from the bank?

YS:

EC:

YS: He told any time you need help come to me…How much you need? Fifteen hundred dollars to start. He gave me a check right away without any collateral

EC: …um, hmm, um, hmm.

YS: …in the first week.

EC: Really? Now your store, your first store was

YS: Near the Crown.

EC: Was on Albany Avenue next to the Crown. That was near Irving Street or?

YS: Uh

EC: Or Magnolia Street?

YS: Magnolia Street.

EC: Magnolia Street.

YS: Next to the Crown. And I was ten years there with the Crown, ‘til the Crown closed up,

EC: You were there all that time

YS: I think there was probably four or five months later I moved on to Whitney Street. And I stayed there.

EC: How did you build up that business?

YS: First I had to establish …with New York. One place I came to New York and I … there. He was a supplier. I thought I would start slowly so I can go as far as I got money. He said “don’t worry”. He said to me, I don’t know how to say, …give me enough to pay for the…He says “go home. I ship you an order”. He shipped me an order for three thousand dollars. The credit.

EC: Um, hmm, um, hmm.

YS: That’s how I started.

EC: This is Emma Cohen. I’m continuing the interview with Yechiel Shapiro and today is Aught the sixth, 1981. Mr. Shapiro, would you continue the story, how your business grew, and prospered, and perhaps you can tell us of some interesting incidents in your business life.

YS: The business, when I saw that the Hartford area don’t have the business, the Yiddish supply line, and they have to go out of town to get it, I start to talk to all the sisterhoods and the rabbis from the area, and I saw that the rabbis and the sisterhood appreciate how I started to bring in the business, and also the prices, and we built up quite a large business.

EC: In other words, you were really filling a need in this time.

YS: A need, in time, the business and the. I had a lot of people always mention they appreciated they had the opportunity to get all their religious needs that they need, locally.

EC: In Hartford itself. Do you think that it stimulated the use of these things?

YS: I had a lot of cases of people coming to the store, and they came out to the store just to buy a tallis, or they didn’t know what kind books they need for the house, and that’s why I used to take out the Shofah Nora, the code of the law, all the important books have to do with Judaism, and show them, used to show them how important to buy these, to buy that book, to buy the… to buy the …And quite a number of people listened to me. And they bought for the children and all in the family those books they normally would never have.

EC: In other words, you really helped this Jewish community.

YS: I feel I accomplished a lot.

EC: Do you have, for instance, did you, do you feel that the schools, too, ordered more books because you were there?

YS: The schools had much more chance to buy books. They used to come in the store and take home samples and make a decision which book they should have more for the classes, for the schools. Otherwise they had to go

EC: You were ordering textbooks as well?

YS: Textbooks, ya. We supplied all the schools with textbooks. We did quite a good, a very good business with textbooks.

EC: So you said you were there 10 years on Albany Avenue. By that time you had built up quite a business, I take it.

YS: Quite a business…

EC: The neighborhood was changing.

YS: It was changing and people were afraid to come, afraid to come, and I was afraid to stay there, too.

EC: In that neighborhood, did you ever have any problems?

YS: Once in the troubleness in ‘69 they just broke the window, but they didn’t take nothing.

EC: But they did break a window.

YS: Yes, that’s it. They break just a window. Not a lot of damage.

EC: So then you settled, as you said, on moving at that particular time.

YS: I was looking for a place … I could find was near Farmington Avenue. We make out very good, very happy.

EC: Now, that was not near the Crown or any other Jewish place. Yet the place worked out well.

YS: I had no choice at that time. There was no place to go. And I talked with a few rabbis and other people, and they advised me, my line, where I am, people will come to me and that turned out to be the truth.

EC: There was a parking problem there, that didn’t bother you?

YS: It didn’t bother me, no. They had parking lot in back of Udolf’s parking lot, a little bit. I find in other ways it was great because it was near the, near 84. A lot of people from out of town could come to me easier.

EC: So you could get more people out of town.

YS: It was easier to come.

EC: So that, in other words, that enlarged

YS: They had some benefits there.

EC: So are there any stories, particular stories, or incidents that happened?

YS: I feel I accomplished in the store a lot for the community, for the Jewish community and also the non-Jewish community, because I used to get ministers, and other people, they’d come from churches, they would come for the Old Testament.

EC: They’d come to you?

YS: And I feel that we Jewish people had a place to come, to buy Jewish needs, such a large Jewish community there was a place where they could buy everything they need for a Jewish house. …



EC: By this time of course you not only had books.

YS: Everything as any dealer in the United States.

EC: But relating to the Jewish life.

YS: Everything in the line.

EC: But you also had a line as I remember, of Israeli goods.

YS: Everything imported from Israel, the top Israeli line, fixing Torahs.

EC: How did you do that?

YS: I can fix Torahs.

EC: You yourself?

YS: Fixing up.

EC: Are you a …?

YS: …Fixing up, not writing new ones. Just anything, where the ink came off, I replaced the ink.

EC: And you can still do that?

YS: Ya, but

EC: Well, did you build up

YS: , but now that I’m not in business any more, I’m not allowed.

EC: Oh, you’re not?

YS: Because it’s in our contract, when I sold the business. But … Israel. Anytime it need fix it be fix for no money.

EC: At this point you’re not allowed to take on a job..

YS: No. I sold the business.

EC: And that goes with it. I see.

YS: Anything to do with that line, I can’t do.

EC: What else did you do there?

YS: It’s a case of…The state came to me. I used to deduct a lot of deductions from the synagogues, synagogues income because it’s a tax free item, as a charity. If you have taxable, sales tax, so I used to deduct quite a sum of money every three months from the state tax. So they once came down to me to check me what it is that I’m doing that I deduct so much money. So I showed them, I sell synagogue supplies, I do a lot of work, I do Torah fixing, tefillin fixing, things like that. And it just happened that time I had a big Torah, I was fixing a Torah. And the examiner was from Norwich, Catholic, and he never saw a Torah. So we were talking more about the Torah fixing the whole time than he examine me.

EC: Is that right?

YS: It was alright after that. He just, he was talking all the time. He saw me fix the Torah.

EC: He was interested in what you were doing. Were there any other outstanding events?

YS: There’s a lot of things, thousands and thousands of cases through time. People would call me on the phone, they had a special, you know, yahrzeit, they didn’t have a chance to phone the synagogue. They asked me questions in Jewish law and I would be able to help them.

EC: In other words, you’re a yeshiva bocher.

YS: Yes, they used to call me up and ask me

EC: Ask the questions. What made you decide to sell your business?

YS: It was one man operating business all the years. I start with nothing and I had a very, very difficult time. Just to go to New York alone, bring the merchandise, deliver myself. Some days I have to ride home…

EC: I understand that you

YS: For 22 years do alone everything, and I was very, very tired. I was afraid to do it any more, I thought I would collapse. I decided I can’t go on any more. And especially the children are all married, whatever, everybody is settled in now…my three sons.

EC: Tell us about your children.

YS: My three sons, start from kindergarten ‘til married, yeshivas.

EC: They went to the local yeshiva all those years?

YS: From kindergarten up to 21, 22 years.

EC: Where did they go after that?

YS: To Baltimore Yeshiva, after that, Philadelphia, Israel, famous Yeshivas in Israel. all my 3 sons got smicha (sp?) from very famous rabbis in Israel, and my daughter studied in Stern College. All four children are going strictly in Orthodox world

EC: They’re going in your path?

YS: My path. All my four children

EC: That’s remarkable, really.

YS: Strictly shomer shabbas (sp?), all my children are 100% strictly kosher. Glatt (sp?) kosher.

EC: Glatt (sp?) kosher. Have any of them gone to Israel to live?

YS: No, they live here.

EC: What do they, what do your sons do, for instance?

YS: My oldest son, he studied in Hartford Yeshiva and after he was married he was a teacher at Hartford Yeshiva two years. Same Yeshiva, teaching two years. But after that he took up computer and he is today a computer analyst.

EC: Where is he now?

YS: In New York, very good position.

EC: He’s doing very well.

YS: Very, very well, very high position, Assistant Manager, in a very good place.

EC: Married and has how many children?

YS: Yes, he has 3 children. My second son, he is still at a yeshiva, I had to ..him to Canada. He is there at a very famous yeshiva.

EC: In Toronto?

YS: Toronto, ya.

EC: He teaches there?

YS: He, no, he still, he is what they call a … EC: Director?

YS: No, a…means people are still studying. He payed.

EC: Oh.

YS: He very high pay for it.

EC: Oh, he’s well paid. . YS: He very well paid. And my third son

EC: And he has children?

YS: He has. He has

EC: How many?

YS: He has one.

EC: One child.

YS: And my third son, he’s in Baltimore. He’s a sofer, a ...sofer.

EC: A scribe, that’s what they’re called.

YS: You need to be a sofer, you need the same as to be a rabbi.

EC: You need …

YS: …

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: …in Baltimore. And my daughter

EC: Does that pay well?

YS: Highly paid, very highly paid.

EC: It’s a very special.

YS: There’s one sofer for the whole area

EC: For the whole area.

YS: He goes to Washington, D.C., to Virginia... Very few do this today, the sofers ,this generation.

EC: And your daughter?

YS: My daughter married a fellow from Stamford. He’s an accountant and they live in Stamford.

EC: Connecticut?

YS: Connecticut, ya. Her children go to Lubavitcher there.

EC: What?

YS: They go to Lubavitcher there.

EC: Lubavitcher?

YS: Ya, in Stamford.

EC: Oh, they have a Lubavitcher school there? She has how many children?

YS: Two.

EC: Two. Um, hmm.

YS: Three grandchildren.

EC: Wonderful, wonderful. By the way have you and your wife visited Israel?

YS: Oh ya, a lot of times, five times.

EC: In other words, even though your house, your home in Europe, Zionism was not particularly mentioned.

YS: Before the war there wasn’t Israel.

EC: It wasn’t. Now there’s a different feeling there.

YS: Different feeling. At that time, from generation to generation, they lived in the same town, the same city, all the time. There was nothing about moving away.

EC: In other words, your roots were there.

EC: So, you and your wife now are pretty free, you know, I mean your children are married. So do you find that is why you wanted to sell the store?.

YS: Ya, sell the store. We wanted somehow to try. We have to try to decide where we want to settle, because we have nobody in Hartford. We like to spend half our time in the States, and half in a town in Israel.

EC: You’d like to live in Israel part of the time?

YS: Ya. I have three brothers in Israel.

EC: Oh, I see. So really you have family in Israel.

YS: Ya.

EC: And here you belong to which Young Israel, the one on?

YS: On Front Street, uh, on Trout Brook.

EC: On Trout Brook, right, right. You’re part of

YS: I’m the gabbai for the past ten years.

EC: Oh. So that’s your special. So how did you happen to sell the store to Grace and Joe Sherman?

YS: They used to come to the store a few times, to buy gifts, for their grandchildren. They mentioned to me in case sometime if I feel I’d want to retire I should keep them in mind. I made up my mind that I want to sell the business when I retire and eventually we got together.

EC: When did they take over the business?

YS: In 1980, July.

EC: In other words, it’s more than a year already. And they’re continuing really.

YS: They’re doing very fine. I’m sure they’re very happy. It’s a pretty good business.

EC: And the business is continuing?

YS: Continuing.

EC: Very good. Do you miss it?

YS: Of course I miss it! But as I said, I was very, very overtired. I had to get out.

EC: You had to get out.

YS: Because I couldn’t take any more. To give you a for instance what it means to build up, in my first year I sold in the store esrog-lulavs 17 sets, when I left, I sold over 400 sets.

EC: Is that right?

YS: Ya.

EC: In other words, many more people in Hartford were buying an esrog.

YS: I used to sell as far as Schenectady and Newburgh, New York. A lot from far away come to me.

EC: Well, for other business, too?

YS: Others, too, of course.

EC: Did you have a mail order business?

YS: I start a regular mail order. I did as much as I could do for one person. I couldn’t go higher than I went, because I couldn’t take any more than I did.

EC: Are there any parts of the business that you liked better than other parts?

YS: I was very happy when I sold books

EC: That was your specialty?

YS: My specialty, ya. A lot of people used to come to buy gifts. If they would listen to me, I would tell them that was something people would have forever, and not any book, I’m talking books that I understand was important for the house.

EC: Books with real Jewish content?

YS: Something that people could learn from it. A lot of times, a lot of people took in the house important books so I explain them, you want to have a Jewish house, you have children, you have a responsibility. Take that book. That book it means what means kashrut, what means yontif, what means tallis, what means tefillin. We don’t have a lot of what the children gonna miss. A lot of cases that people appreciate me. They say I come here for ...

EC: Do you remember any particular incidents that give you a great deal of pleasure?

YS: It just came to mind, a man from East Hartford, he was a lawyer, he came to me for a tallis, so I told him how about tefillin? That wasn’t talked about. I told him to go to that place in Exodus, and I showed him where Rashi said that even God puts on tefillin every day. In God’s tefillin is written, that I, God, and my children Israel are the same. So he put on tefillin and we say the same thing to God. We have a connection. When we put the tefillin we make a connection to God. It isn’t what I said, it’s what is written, it’s Rashi. I told him, I know you’re a busy man, you don’t have much time, but please put on and say Shema Yisrael. And he listened to me and came back a few months later and at that time he knows I’m selling the business and he said, “I’m going to miss you. I feel a different person since I put on tefillin.

EC: In other words he does put on tefillin?

YS: He says “I never lose a case.”

EC: Isn’t that interesting.

YS: I have cases I feel terrible, too. I remember one case, it just made me sick. Came to me a woman from Springfield with her son and she said, “ What’s happening. My son came home from Sunday breakfast minyan and he left tefillin on the table. We have a dog, the size of a cow, a large dog.” So they took the tefillin and gave it to chew the dog. She wanted to replace tefillin. At that time tefillin was $25 a pair. And let me tell you one thing, the material to make a tefillin sefer, no matter how good he is a good writer it would take him to write the inside parts, it’s a day’s work to write.

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: To write alone. I’m not talking the parchment, to stretch, the holder of the tefillin. So, that was $25. That much! she said. Before we talk about the tefillin, she said the dog cost me feeding a week, I don’t know what she told me, some money, she took the dog to feed. She said “$25!” and she walked out!

EC: That was too much money.

YS: To feed the dog cost her almost the price of the tefillin.

EC: She never came back.

YS: Never came back. I think she want for nothing.

EC: (Chuckling). Lack of understanding.

YS: The fact is, according to the Talmud, this one thing you sin with the whole body, not to put on tefillin. If you eat with your mouth, or you can light on Shabbas or something, you not supposed to make a fire with your hand. But not putting on tefillin, not only the head set, the whole body, you call that in Hebrew “…Israel.”.

EC: Now the …’s a basic thing.

YS: That’s the holiest thing.

EC: I’m sure you have many more stories

YS: That’s why, because Shabbas you’re not putting on tefillin because according to the Talmud, Shabbas is called oys (sp?), and tefillin is called oys. It’s like a trademark. Shabbas has

EC: A special trademark?

YS: A special trademark, and so does tefillin. So they have the same holiness. That’s why on Shabbas you don’t put on tefillin.

EC: Um hmm, um hmm.

YS: Tefillin is very holy.

EC: Interesting. Before you showed me a picture here of, you said it’s your sister, her five children, and a younger brother of yours.

YS: Yes.

EC: She was your only sister? This was taken in Budapest?

YS: No, it was taken before the war.

EC: Before the war.

YS: I would say during the war but the picture was saved by my brother-in-law. He made a copy and he give me one.

EC: A lovely young woman and five lovely young children. None of them survived, did they?

YS: That day that they took the family to Auschwitz, I lost my grandmother, the same transport , my father and mother, my sister, her five children, all the same transport. And another brother I lost was also in Auschwitz.

EC: So this is all you have to show family? It’s been very interesting talking to you. I’m going to ask you one other question – what do you do now, now that you don’t have?

YS: We’re looking around for a place to settle. I’m thinking about Canada right now.

EC: Do be with your daughter.

YS: My son.

EC: It’s your son who’s in Canada. Right.

YS: As soon we settle we’re going to divide the time between Canada and Israel or the Unites States and Israel. We want to divide the time.

EC: But you’ve got it pretty well. What do you doing meantime?

YS: We study, we got four times, every day almost, we got a different study group.

EC: Where’s that?

YS: I study, we got people at Chabad House.

EC: You study at the Chabad House?

YS: Thursday night and one day a week we go from house to house, every week we go another house. Our group.

EC: The same group?

YS: Same group, ya.

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: So there’s always

EC: You’re studying Talmud mostly?

YS: Well, then we go to the children, we spend the time. I was a few months in Israel.

EC: When was that?

YS: Last year.

EC: Last year. Um, hmm.

YS: For two-and-a-half months.

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: And then we go to that child a couple of weeks. We spent, a good rest, first of all.

EC: Well, you look rested. You

YS: I feel rested.

EC: And if you to Israel where would you be staying?

YS: I usually rent an apartment.

EC: In Jerusalem?

YS: If I went for a week, ten days in B'nai Brak (sp?).

EC: B’nai Brak (sp?) (sp?).

YS: …for a few months.

EC: Well, you should continue to enjoy what you’re doing, and maybe since you’ve hade all these memories, with the business, you might be writing something your experiences. You can write about your experiences. It’s nice for the children. It’s nice to have.

YS: I feel one thing happy that the business will exist forever and ever, as long as there is a Jewish community, ‘cause it’s something, it’s a need, like bread and butter. Not me but always you have to come to the store once, twice you have to come to the store for something.

EC: And Hartford has a pretty good Jewish community.

YS: Definite, ya.

EC: What we haven’t said is, your wife’s name, and your children’s names.

YS: My wife’s name is Charlotte.

EC: Charlotte. What’s her Hebrew name?

YS: Shayndel (sp?).

EC: Shayndel (sp?)

YS: My oldest son is Israel Yoyel (sp?) Spiro, the second is Yosef Leib (sp?), third one is …, and my daughter’s name is Lieba Raisal (sp?)

EC: Do they use the Hebrew names?

YS: …we call …and the other one we …

EC: So that’s the continuation of Jewish life.

YS: Ya. I thank God that my grandchildren goes to Yeshiva already . I just want to say one word. When I came to the United States, I prayed to God, begging God, if nothing else, I should be able to bring up a generation my way, not …not to keep shabbas, and not do kosher. That I accomplished. He listened to my prayer. .. children are 100% my way. So far, even my children, they all go cover even my daughter goes …They cover their heads, don’t go without till (sp?) …,

EC: Um, hmm, ya.

YS: …I didn’t want my children that did not come from a frum (sp?) house. … 100%. I have the same, I have Yiddish naches (sp?).

EC: There’s no doubt about it you have done this and it’s a great accomplishment.

YS: Even my grandchildren goes yeshiva, …my grandchild from five years daven (sp?) like a grownup.

EC: Great …! Well I want to thank you very much

YS: All my years since I came to United States, I didn’t one second, God forbid, shabbas…, one second.

EC: You didn’t what?

YS: Work on shabbas.

EC: You never worked?

YS: Not on shabbas, not a second, however hard I had it. … my children are …100%.

EC: Kosher?

YS: Kosher

EC: Um, hmm.

YS: One hundred percent …

EC: That is a tremendous accomplishment in the world today. Mr. Shapiro I want to thank you very much for a very interesting interview.

YS: My pleasure. EC: And this interview will be placed in the oral history archives of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. My name is Emma Cohen and today is August the sixth, 1981. Thank you. Shalom.

YS: Shalom …