Bernard Brown

Tanzer: Barry, when and where were you born? 
BROWN: I was born December 12, 1918 in Viseul de Sus This was at the time, Romanian. I grew up in this city. I started going to cheder when I was (this is what I heard and I don’t remember) when I was three years old I started going to cheder. Usually it went from in the morning around 8:00 or so until late in the afternoon. Before I was six I started going to public school. At that time I used to get up in the morning around 6:00 and I went first to cheder and until around 8:00 when I came home. I ate breakfast and I went to public school in the beginning until 12:00 and then later until 1:00. At that time I came home, ate lunch, went back to cheder until 6:00. At 6:00 we used to have a break and I came home to have a snack and then I went back to cheder until 9:00 in the evening. After that I had to make my homework which almost most of the time I was half asleep because I was very tired. This went on all the time. 

Tanzer: Was your family a very religious one? – 
BROWN: Yes. Our family was very religious. After going to school for around a month I got very sick and they took me to the doctor and he said I shouldn’t go to school for six months. But of course school to my parents only meant public school, not the cheder. So, they took me out from school for six months but I still went on the schedule from early in the morning until late at night. After this I went back to school, and being very good in arithmetic the teacher said I will pass first grade. Then this is how I went until I finished fourth grade. After fourth grade I was registered in the gymnasium, which was like here in the United States a high school. There was a lot of opposition’ in the city for my going to gymnasium because my father, being in a religious circle, the whole city was very religious, so they felt it was wrong for me to go to school, more so because I had to go to school on Saturday. But my father wanted me to have a good education and didn’t pay any attention. The same thing happened ‘again, the load was too heavy. I still kept on going to cheder too, and I got sick again. The doctor again told me not to go for six months in school. But being in gymnasium, you couldn’t go without going to school, so I never had any gym or music. I just took the main subjects. This helped me out, by Saturday, not to have to go to school until just 11:00. From 11:00 to 2:00 was music and gym. On Saturday mornings we Jewish kids when we had our minyan until around 8:00, early in the morning, and then we went from 8:00 — most of the boys went until 2:00 — but I went just till 11:00 and by the time my family, my parents and brothers came home from synagogue, I was home for the meal too. 

Tanzer: Barry, what did your father do for a living? 
BROWN: My father….first of all we had a lot of property. Then we had in the same city a candle factory which we produced candles. Besides this, 30 kilometers from the place where we lived, which was Romuli, the name of the place, which was another State, there we had a big saw mill. My father was in the lumber business. I had a brother-in-law there and my older brother, too. Later on I was there too, but this was just in the ’40s when I went to the sawmill. 

Tanzer: How large was your family? 
BROWN: I had a brother and three sisters. My older brother-in-law and sister were married. My sister had four children and my brother had three children. 

Tanzer: Where were you at the outbreak of the war? 
BROWN: Between this there is quite a bit. 

Tanzer: What happened before the war? 
BROWN: Before then, when I got to be around 15, I went away to yeshiva, which I was until around ’37 By that time I was 19 years old and at that time my father made me a retail lumber yard in a city which was called Timisoara. This was in ’37. In ’39 I went into the army. But in Romania you could arrange everything so I arranged that I was in the service right in the same city. After the training, after six weeks I could go home, sleep at home and eat at home, So, I could still attend to the business and do my hitch in the army. In the end of ’39, the political situation was already very antisemitic. They didn’t let Jews anymore be in the army so they sent me to a labor detachment, which I was in civilian clothes. By the end of ’39 the Germans made a settlement that part of Romania they gave back to Hungary. This was the part where my parents lived.

So I was left in a. different country. My parents got to be Hungarian and I was still in Romania. So by the labor detachment I said that I am returning to my parents, to Hungary. 

Tanzer: Was the labor detachment a voluntary one? 
BROWN: No; that’s how you did your army hitch. Instead of having arms (they didn’t trust us with arms) so I was just for labor. So they let me free, that I go back home, but I stayed there in Timisoara. I had a business. Finally I liquidated the business and at that time it was one million leu which I had after I liquidated the business. By that time it was already ’40. In ’40, around February, finally I decided to go home. Of course I couldn’t go with the papers I had anymore, so I had to during night on the border. Luckily nobody caught me and I got home. I was in Hungary. I wasn’t any more in Romania. There of course I went right to the sawmill where I helped my older brother and my brother-in-law with the business. This went on till in ’41 at which time I got called in for labor in the Hungarian army. 

Tanzer: How did they call you in? 
BROWN: Just like they send here, that you have to go. I really didn’t want to go and before I received my — what is it called? 

Tanzer: Conscription notice. 
BROWN: Yes, the conscription notice, it happened that somebody told me that the letter is in the post office so I just skipped home and I ran away. By that time my parents had already moved from Viseul de Sus to the sawmill because the governor in that city was very antisemitic. All the Jews which were so-to-say “good situated,” and they had business, he interned them, so they moved. This was a different State and there the governor was a very good guy, so they lived by the sawmill. Of course my father could hardly show himself during the day because he had a trimmed beard and the situation was very, very antisemitic. But at that time already we had rented the sawmill to an Irish company, which we worked under their name. So even though we conducted a business and we were the management,  officially we were just working at the sawmill as laborers.

So when I got this, when I was called into the army like I said before, I ran away from home and I said they should keep on sending it to me at a different address. A week later I got to my uncle and as I got in his office, the phone rang and there was my father and said I better come home, and he said if I don’t come home they are going to intern the whole family. So after this I just went back home and I went and I went in and I was in this district, which was the capital of this state where our sawmill was. I was there for around two weeks and then they sent us to Russia. At that time already the Russian front was armed. We were in civilian clothes with a yellow armband which showed that we are Jews and we were for labor. We went in cattle cars to Gomel, where we debarked and we started our journey. This was around middle of June. We started our journey to go to the front and we kept on going until we got almost to Stalingrad. We walked between 40 and 50 kilometers day after day just with a little rest. We slept under God’s heaven until we got around 50 or 100 miles from Stalingrad. There we were in a small community and by that time it was already September or October and it almost started already the winter, the snow. We were there and first we prepared the roads and we dug anti-tank ditches. Then finally when the winter came; the snow came. We started cutting out bricks from slow and making walls for the road so the cars and the horses and buggies can go through.

In January 1943 when the Russians broke through the German lines, we started the retreat. We kept on retreating and I was two or three times encircled from the Russians, but they always somehow broke through and we were between the first ones that they took us out from this thing. We kept on retreating until next year in September. 

Tanzer: Wouldn’t it have been an advantage to allow yourself to be captured by the Russians? 
BROWN: Yes, we tried this too. It was right in the little town, when the retreat started. We were three boys. We had one boy with us from Bessarabia and he spoke good Russian. We were hidden by a Russian family in the basement and we wanted to stay there to be captured. After two days this Russian came in and told us that the Germans are going from house to house and they are searching if there are any Germans or Hungarians or Jewish laborers which are hiding and trying to go over to the Russians, and whoever they find they shoot them. So we just got out and we left and started going. And of course it was for almost four weeks that we were just a few people by ourselves. We always tried on retreat to be away from the main retreat line because this way we would get to the Russians families; we could get something to eat. If you went with the soldiers there was very little to eat and pretty hard even to get a place to sleep. At that time it was very cold. There were times that it was about 40 degrees below zero. 

Tanzer: What were the conditions like for the Jewish laborers. How were they treated? 
BROWN: We were not treated. Everybody was busy with his own. The only thing was, as a matter of fact, the Germans behaved better with the Jewish than the Hungarians. The Hungarians used us even for shooting practice like you do with the birds. 

Tanzer: What were the health conditions? 
BROWN: The health conditions were by this time that a lot of boys from our company, which we were around 220, after the retreat we were left only around 30 or 40. We were lucky because in the middle of the trip somehow our captain got together the company, those people which were left, and he kept them together. At that time already we got a little food. He somehow always got from the Germans some food. So we were between the better companies, which were left with more people. But there were some companies which were totally wiped out or which were left with two or three boys. I want to mention something. Those companies which were sent out to Russia, to the front, really they were sent out for destruction. They wanted to get rid of the Jews, the young Jews, which were in business and so on, and they wanted to destroy them. 

Tanzer: So they destroyed them by disease and cold and by…. 
BROWN: Then of course it got to be spring. After March a famine and sickness and so, there got a typhoid outbreak. They organized a hospital, tore the sheets. I was lucky; I never went there. By the time I got typhoid it was in March. I remember exactly, it was during Passover. I don’t remember what date it was that year in ’43 what date Passover was, but I remember that I was in typhoid and it was in Passover. By that time the hospital was burned. They burned the whole hospital with the Jewish boys. So, I never was sent there. I was right there in the little town where our company was. 

Tanzer: Who burned the hospital? 
BROWN: The Hungarians. They didn’t want it to spread in the Hungarian army, so they burned the whole hospital with the boys, with everything. 

Tanzer: How many members of your family were with you at this time? 
BROWN: At this time I was there and my older brother was in another place. He was in Russia too but he was in a different place. 

Tanzer: So you were really quite alone at that time? 
BROWN: Yes, the family was still at home. The family was at home. Just the boys they took. 

Tanzer: What happened to the family? 
BROWN: And the family– we will get to this later. In the meantime things during that time, by what I heard, things got a little better. As a matter of fact, our sawmill was declared a war industry and we even had a lot of Jewish boys that got their deferment by working in our sawmill. 

Tanzer: When did this change? 
BROWN: Then I came back home. I came back in January 1944. They brought us back from Russia and I came home. Things were so-so at that time already. We worked very little in the sawmill. In March the Germans occupied Hungary and then things got really very bad. One morning they came and they took my brother-in-law and my brother and myself into the district capital. They also took all the males from that little town which was Romuli. They took us in there and they said that we were Communist. We had some connections there to the district commander so my older brother went over there and showed them, “How can you say it?” He just came back from the front and I just came back from the front and if we had been Communists we would never come back. So he told him, “I know all this but I can’t help too much, I have orders.” But he let everybody out and only my brother-in-law he kept. He said he is too much a big shot and couldn’t let him out he had to keep him there. We came back the next morning and we came to the house by the sawmill and we find the house empty, the door open and nobody in. My father, my parents, my sister, the children, nobody. We got very scared and started going around. We had quite a few families which lived there by the sawmill. There was another Jewish woman which her husband was in the labor camp, and she told us that the German family which used to work for us and he lived by the sawmill. The day before some German soldiers came and they stopped there and they were going back with this family. By nightfall my father decided he was afraid for those Germans and, he decided. He took the whole family and they left and went up in the woods to some neighbor peasants. During the night those two Germans came back. I had two younger sisters and they were looking for them. They went around looking to everybody who lived around where my sisters are. They wanted to attack this Jewish woman but she told them, “What do you want from me, I am an old woman?” And she had there some children so they left.

Of course the next morning we went. We had yet some influence with the police there but of course he was a German and he had all the rights. They warned them but we knew it isn’t going to do us too much good. Later on they came back during the day and found out that we were back. This went on till May. It was in May that all of a sudden….we already knew that in other cities they gathered together the Jews and put them in ghettos.

One morning the chief of police with a secretary from the town came up and he excused himself very much that it’s nothing what he can do but he has orders. He was very nice. We didn’t have any baked bread and he let us bake bread. He was sitting there almost for four hours until we were prepared. He did us a favor and let us take our own horses and buggies so that we could go there. We had to go at least 50 or 60 miles so the children, at least, were able to ride. We didn’t take too much, just a little belongings what we could take with us. The main thing he let us take was food. Whatever we had we could take.

And of course we went there. This city, Bistrita, was a German city. Because of this the Germans didn’t want to have any Jews so they didn’t let the ghetto be in the city like it was in other places. In other places, most of the places, they took a part of the city where they let the Jews live in houses but for Bistrita, there they took us out in a field.

It was a lumber region. The owners of the lumber mills were mostly Jews, so they allowed us to go back to the lumber mills and bring in lumber from which we built barracks and so where we lived. We slept on the ground with a little straw and so. There was just one kitchen, a community kitchen where everybody had to stay in line for the little food and so we had to stay for the water too. The water they had to bring in by tank.

It was just awful with the women and children and everything. We had just outhouses that didn’t even have any doors, they were just out in the fields. And you can imagine how it looked. 

Tanzer: How many Jews were in this camp? 
BROWN: In this camp we were then around 6,000 Jews. Then around the beginning of June they started sending out the transport. Before this, the commander, the region commander, sent in and he wanted to take out the able Jews, the young Jews, to take them for a labor camp, for a work detachment, but the Germans didn’t allow this either because they knew already where we were going and they didn’t want to let anybody out. So in the beginning of June they started sending us away in boxcars. I went with the third transport.

I arrived in Auschwitz without shoes. I think it was at that time the 19th or so of June. I don’t remember exactly, but something like this. Of course like with everybody we didn’t know what it was, why they divided and sent the young men separate and the girls separate and the older and the children separate. There we went in and I went through the whole thing, They undressed us and they shaved us. The only thing which we were left–we were left with the shoes. Then we went to our shower and then we got our striped clothes, prison clothes and from there I went then…it was called the Zigeiner.

There I was for….I’m not going to go in details of this, how bad it was there with the food. We didn’t have no spoons, no, no — we just ate like animals the way we could with no spoons, no dishes no nothing. The sleeping was on the cement in barracks. But it was in summer. It was in June and it wasn’t too cold so somehow we survived. My brother found one of his brothers-in-law, who was from Czechoslovakia and he told us that as soon as we can we go out for transport, for labor. So we went. After this we went in quarantine and in A lager and B lager for which we were for three or four weeks. After then they sent us into the D lager, which was the main camp in Auschwitz. For our luck, the barracks were all full. The only place where there was still empty was the strait commando, which was isolated. It was in the D compound but was isolated, which after work they couldn’t go out and they were…. It was a prison in a prison. Finally somehow from there we went out, to work for canalization. 

Tanzer: What is canalization? 
BROWN: Sewers, canalization. We had sewers. At that time the foremen were Polish and they started taking away the Poles from there. There was a German meister, which was very happy with me because I spoke German. So he told me he is very happy that he has somebody who can speak and I told him I am not sure if I will be able to come back tomorrow because I am in the strait commando. So just by luck he told them. He told me to give them my number and there I was working with the other two Jewish boys which were not sleeping in the strait commando so I gave my brother’s number and my nephew’s number well enough the next night by the next morning they took us out from there and we went into the regular barracks.

So there we were until around October or November. Then the Russians started coming closer so they sent us away and from there we went to hare Lieberosa, near Berlin, where they were building barracks. There we worked. I was with my brother there and with my nephew. We were there until around January. We were there around January.

By that time the Russians started coming closer there too, so one night they took us together and we started walking. I don’t know where we went or which region we went, we walked for around three or four days. It was snowing and raining. Of course we slept outside until finally they put us again in some cars and we went to Mauthausen.

We arrived in Mauthausen. In Mauthausen they took all our clothes and we were just naked. You had to be in barracks just naked. We were there for a week or two. Then again they made another transport and they gave us clothes. From there I went to Gunskirchen, which we were there. We were there in a school. Mostly they were Poles and Russians; we were only three Jews there in the whole camp. There were around 200 people in this camp and they were building a camp in the woods there for the Jews. One morning they brought in from all the neighboring camps. They brought in everybody there and also they brought in barbed wire. We were doing the loading of barbed wire and barrels of gasoline. The rumors were that we have to barb wire the whole camp and then to take the gasoline and put them on all, the barracks because they are going to burn all the Jews right there in that camp.

So you can imagine what it was. I knew that I was a Jew. The rest were all gentile. We were three Jews. 

Tanzer: This was your brother and your nephew? 
BROWN: No, no. My brother and nephew I lost already. We were just three Jews. Do you want to know where? 

Tanzer: What happened to your brother and your nephew? 
BROWN: My brother in Lieberosa there we were working as carpenters. He was kind of to say the foreman that has the trust. He went when we needed nails so he had a right to go in the stock room and to sign for it and so. One time he went there to another room for nails, which was and he met another man with SS man and he was with the plumbing detachment. He took him and had a word with him. I’m not going into the whole detail. 

Tanzer: Yes, do. 
BROWN: So it got to be a fight between the two SS men. He wanted to have my brother for the plumbing and the one who was by the carpenter wanted to have him by the carpenter. The other SS man told my brother that he would have it better there and wouldn’t have to do any work; he had a cabin at the end of the camp and there he could stay. He was very good to him and even gave him potatoes to bake and so on. So he told him that he has a brother who is a carpenter too. And by that time the SS who was by the carpenter couldn’t say nothing so I was left by the carpenters and he went to the plumbing. In the meantime the weather got bad and it got cold and we didn’t have much clothes so I got used to the weather and all right.

But he stood inside in the warm and when it came, heavy frost and the pipe froze, he had to go out- side and he wasn’t used to the cold so he got sick and then finally I put him in the hospital and of course before they liquidated the camp when we left, whoever was in the hospital they shot. They shot all the sick men who were in the hospital, so there I lost my brother.

I still was with my nephew until Mauthausen. In Mauthausen we made the mistake. Of course his name was not Brown but even so we had the numbers one after another. My brother’s was A17219, mine is A17220 and my nephew was A17221. But in Mauthausen they asked our name, they didn’t even pay attention to the tattoo. He gave his name, Stein. Then when they made the transport we went alphabetically and they just cut us off. I was by the B and he was by the S so we just lost each other. I don’t know what happened after then. When I went from Mauthausen to Gunskirchen there I lost him and I don’t know what happened.

So let’s go back to Gunskirchen now. So we knew that all that we will have to put the gasoline and to burn all those Jews. I don’t have to tell you how it felt because I knew by being a Jew I will be, after I put the gas I will be with them. But luckily the commander from the camp sent a messenger to the U.S. Army, which was already pretty close there. So he sent a message to the commander of the army and told him that for his life he will give him 10,000 Jews lives, if they will not do him anything. So it never came through and they all were free. But by that time I already was in pretty bad condition. My face, my hand and my feet were already swollen from malnutrition and we knew already that the very first, your feet and then your hand and when the face got swollen we knew already this is the last stage. But luckily it was May the 8th and the American Army came in and they freed us. So I was very hungry and of course I went out there in Gunskirchen, in town to get some food, which I got from the Germans. Right after this they took us into Weis and there they had, the United States Army had a kitchen and like hungry people we just started feeding and I got diarrhea.

They just started organizing the hospitals and of course they couldn’t take everybody in. So they didn’t want to take me in the hospital but I wanted very much to live and I felt if I am not going to do something then there is going to be the end of me. So I just walked into the hospital and I laid in a bed. The doctor came in and he asked me if I have something to show that I am supposed to be there and I just made myself that I don’t know what he is talking about it and they couldn’t do with me. They couldn’t get out any word from me so they kept me there and started feeding me just rice water first, without salt and without anything.

After about a week I got tired with this tasteless food and I wanted to go out but they didn’t want to let me out. I felt I was already healthy but they didn’t want to let me out. Somehow I found a boy from our city and I told him that I am already healthy and I want to get out and I can’t stay there but I don’t have no clothes. So he said, “I am going to provide you with clothes.” The next day he brought me some clothes and I hid them under the bed. In the middle of the night when there was nobody there, no nurses or no doctors, I just got dressed and I walked out. So I always said I went in without permission and I went out without permission.

I went into the other camp, the other part of the camp where the food was very good. I still remember the first day when I got out they gave venison with rice which was very tasty. So I was in Weis for about a month or so. At that time we heard that the United States is going to give a part of Austria over to the Russians; they will have their occupation troops. At that time we really didn’t know what the Russians were. We thought that the Russians were our friends, our saviors and so, so everybody wanted to go home…

Tanzer: You were talking about the fact that the United States…the rumor was the United States was going to give a portion of Austria to Russia and your feelings about that. 
BROWN: So we moved there, I don’t remember what city or town where we moved. Of course we were of the impression it is going to be just like it was here under the United States, that they freed us and gave us everything.

Well we waited for a day or two and finally the Russians came in and there we found out this is all different. They came out and they disbanded the camp right away. They didn’t give us any food. They did nothing. They said, “You are on your own.” So we started going home whenever we found out that a train was going and finally we got to Budapest.

I was of the hope that I will find somebody from my family, at least my younger sisters. By that time I already knew, of course by being in Auschwitz, I learned a lot and I knew that my parents and my older sister who had children they wouldn’t be alive. But, I still was in the hope that my two younger sisters I will find them home and I found an obligation to go back home to see what can be done.

In Budapest I already found out that so far they haven’t heard anything and I found out that I have some cousins which came back home to our city. So finally after I had an uncle in Budapest, after being for a few days by my uncle I started out going home.

When I came home I couldn’t go in the house where my parents lived. So I just went up to the saw mill and of course there I knew that we had hidden some money, some dollars to say, and we had left there by a neighbor. There was a very gentry family which we left there a lot of clothes and silverware and so on which I knew we could get back.

Of course I came to the sawmill. The sawmill was almost — whatever was removable they took away. The houses were destroyed because the Hungarians when they came were searching for money and for gold and silverware. They even took apart the walls to see if we didn’t hid in the walls. So I started looking around. Of course I got from this family the clothing and so on, what I had hidden with them, then I had to start to rebuild the sawmill. I had money that I found but they weren’t dollars and I didn’t feel like taking this money to invest it. So I went to Bucharest and I got a company who knew my parents so they advanced me some money. I sold them some lumber and they advanced me some money and I started to start to buy things, like knives and belts and so on, which was very hard at that time to get.

It took me almost six to eight months until I finally got together the belt which had to go to the ministerium to get it and so on. Finally in 1946 I already had it all prepared to start working. In the meantime I got engaged. You see, I knew Libby from before. So I got engaged and in ’46. In May we got married. We got married by a rabbi because she was a minor. In order that she should be able to marry me I had to go to the court that they should appoint a guardian for her, which we had done later. 

Tanzer: Did any of your family come back at all? 
BROWN: No. I am the only one who is left from my family. In Libby’s family she had a sister who came back. But from my family nobody came back. 

Tanzer: Did you ever hear what had happened to them at all? From anyone else? 
BROWN: They were in camp. I heard that my sisters, they were supposed to be going with a ship. They wanted to take them for the German soldiers in the front, and all those girls were drowned. But this is just rumors and really nobody knows what happened to them.

So then I got married and I rebuilt the sawmill and we started working. And it was so until ’48, beginning of ’48. Then they started building a railroad right next to the sawmill. Already Romania started to get to be Communist. The inspector, the manager of the railroad, was a Nazi which turned to be Communist, so he was very antisemitic.

He forced me to cut for him lumber. I had to lose by each cubic meter quite some money. It wouldn’t make any difference if I say in lieu because you wouldn’t know anyway what it is. So at that time I still was young and I didn’t know what to be afraid of so I told him that I’m not going to do it because I don’t want to lose money. So he says if I don’t do it I am a saboteur. So finally we got an agreement. If I leased him the sawmill and I was working for the government. This went on for a couple of months and one day it comes to the check and I see that I get about a tenth of my salary what I was supposed to get. So I went and asked him what is this. He says, look here, it costs too much money, and it cost me less when you were cutting the lumber, and of course I can’t take from the workingmen a penny. I can’t take off from their salary so I have to take from your salary. In the meantime I saw they start building and they start measuring so I go out. Right under our bedroom I go out and I ask the workmen what they are doing and he says they are going to build there a garage, a repair shop to fix the trucks that they need for work for the railroad. On my property! Right where I had acres and acres they didn’t find any better place to make the repair shop–just under my bedroom window. I wasn’t asked and so I saw that things were getting worse day by day. I finally got a call from my brother-in-law. I got a telegram. He said come down to Nogy Varod, where he was living then. I went down there and he told me that they are leaving. In the cities they knew more what was going on. I was there out in the woods in a little town and we didn’t know what it was.

At that time it just happened that the king had abdicated. So we knew that these things are going to get worse. I came home and I told Libby that we are leaving. We sent away the maid. Libby told her that I don’t have the sawmill and I am just an employee so I cannot afford to have a maid. This was Friday and by Sunday we said the baby is sick she has to go to a doctor and Libby left.

Tuesday I was supposed to get some money for lumber, what I sold for the railroad. I was waiting to get the money. Tuesday the money didn’t come. Here I knew that Libby left already and there was no phone and mail was very slow. So I thought to myself, “They told me that the money is going to come Thursday. What will I do if it doesn’t come Thursday?” Libby left and may even get lost. So I decided that I am leaving. Well enough this was my luck. We left when at that time it was just during the election. During, that day, when it was the election, that night we went over the border from Romania to Hungary. In Hungary we were living, like I mentioned before. I had an uncle there. We went to this uncle and were living there. I went out every day to buy a paper as I still wanted to know what was going on in Romania. After about a week I couldn’t get any more Romanian papers. There was no paper for a whole week. I didn’t know what happened. After a couple of months somebody else came over from Romania. And at that time I found out that the week after I left they nationalized all the factories And so on and all the owners were arrested and they were looking for me too to arrest me. 

Tanzer: You were very lucky to have left Romania at that time. 
BROWN: Yes, I was very lucky but it wasn’t so lucky the going over from Romania to Hungary. 

Tanzer: What happened? 
BROWN: We had arranged…they told us that we just have to walk over the border and everything is arranged with the guard. But what happened, we found out later when we got there. We walked the whole night and had to walk in fields until we got over the border. At that time Harry was six months old. We packed him in a sack with the diapers and everything. I was carrying him and for two weeks my arms were swollen just from carrying him. He gave him some sleeping pills before we left so he shouldn’t start crying during the night while we walked the border.

After this experience I didn’t want to go any more back to the border. In Budapest I bought a passport with a Uruguay visa and I had a France visa, how you say it… the visa, which means I could go through Austria to France in order to go to Uruguay.

So it was July and in the meantime I got sick with my back, which is from the camp. They beat me so that they broke my back. And I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to leave. In order to go out from Hungary to go to Austria you went to the police and you say that you came over from Romania and they give you a paper that you have to leave Hungary. And with this you could go through the border.

Of course for Austria I had already a passport but in Hungary you couldn’t show the passport because if you show the passport they send you back to Romania, and the passport was a false one. It was somebody else’s; they just put in my name. 

Tanzer: Why did you decide to go to Uruguay on your passport? 
BROWN: This is the visa. The passport was a false Romanian passport. In order to be able to go to Austria and to France you…. they didn’t let you in just if you had a place where to go. It was in the beginning of August when we left Hungary. We got a ticket from the Joint [Distribution Committee]. We got the ticket to Paris and we left Budapest and we went to Vienna. There we got on the train and I went to a doctor and he gave me a certificate that Harry was sick, that he had diarrhea and that I cannot go any farther. We didn’t want to go to Paris because we knew in Paris there is nothing that you can do. In Austria they didn’t want to let me stay because they said I am just supposed to go through here and I have to go to Paris. Finally I decided. I threw away the passport and I went to the police and I said that I lost my passport and I don’t have no papers to go. So, they gave me permission to stay there but in the meantime I had moved from one part to Vienna to the other one. Around three months later, one Saturday morning (it even was ice on the streets) at 3:00 in the morning the police knocks on the door and took me to the police station. I asked what happened and he doesn’t know nothing. He said he got orders that they still had the Hitler doings. If they wanted somebody then they took them at 3:00 in the morning.

He wanted me to go with the strassenbahn, the subway, but I said, “It’s Saturday and I’m not going.” So we walked. It was icy and slippery and the poor guy had it worse than I had it. I got there. And there I sat by the police station until finally 9:00. The police chief arrived. So I didn’t know what happened or what I did. Finally he tells me that I was supposed to pay a 40 shilling, which was roughly a $10 fine because I came back over the border. So I told him I didn’t come back over the border. I had a passport and I lost it and that’s the reason I am here. I told him where I was when I arrived and in which police station I was. After a few phone calls finally he let me go free.

But in the meantime everybody was scared what happened. They were afraid that maybe they are going to send me back. So this went by too. I was in Vienna. I got to Vienna in ’48 and I started going and doing some business there. 

Tanzer: What kind of business did you do? 
BROWN: In Vienna, in Austria, you couldn’t get a license. The only thing they still had licenses was from Maria Terezia. The only thing which you could do if you leased from somebody a license. So I find there somebody who had an old license and I leased the license from him and entered his name and to this I brought in chocolate and we sold to the grocery stores and I was doing, pretty well, but there was no way to get out to go anyplace.

First I registered to go to Australia. I said that I am a farmer and I want to go because I wanted to go out from Europe. In the meantime it came out the new law that anybody who was in Austria, Germany or Italy by January 1, 1949 has the right to go to the United States. At that time we decided that we are going to go over to Germany where it is easier to go to the United States.

In Vienna it was a four-Allied zone. In order to go out from Vienna you had to go through the Russian zone which was very hard. Besides, we were afraid to be wherever we had anything to do with the Russians.

So we went to Munich where when I got to Munich we bought an apartment. We had our own furniture and in Munich it was a lot easier. You just went in and applied for the license and you got a license. 

Tanzer: For business? 
BROWN: For business. 

Tanzer: Let me ask you a question, Barry. Wasn’t the Joint in Vienna? Couldn’t they be helpful in terms of getting you out? 
BROWN: They could be helpful but the law just started and even at that time those who were there from before, from ’45. If they got a visa to the United States you had to get out from the Russian zone on your own.

Later on when I was already in Munich (this was almost in 1950) in ’49 I went to Munich, in 1950. But by that time if somebody got a visa and they had the right. They sent them by plane out from Vienna. The United States then didn’t want to interfere with the Russians or so. So if you wanted to get out from Vienna you had to do it on your own. 

Tanzer: How did you as a Jew feel when you were in Germany? 
BROWN: You see, I didn’t say that I had any problem because specially in Germany. Don’t forget I spoke German from way back, you see. In our city where we lived about a third of the population was German. In Timisoara where I was, there they spoke German too. So with my looks they didn’t take me for a Jew. At that time maybe there was antisemitism but it was hidden; they didn’t show it out. In Munich, for instance, in Germany, I had an import-export business. I even had a new automobile there. I used to go in from city to city. I sold for the stores nylon stockings and I imported some goods from England and I done business all the time in Germany. 

Tanzer: But you were a practicing Jew? 
BROWN: My problem was with food. If I was traveling (and I really did) this was my problem. I used to live just with bread and fruit, hardboiled eggs and milk; that’s all. This was my problem but I didn’t have any problem with the Germans. It could even be that most of them didn’t know that I was a Jew. With my name being Brown and me being blond, they didn’t even realize I was so. 

Tanzer: So you had decided to leave Europe. How did you manage this? 
BROWN: Then finally I had my papers in order and then. I got through the Joint a contract to come to the United States. That’s how I got out. 

Tanzer: Where did you come when you came to the United States? 
BROWN: I came to the United States — roughly I knew what the United States was but I didn’t realize it was this way. I got off the ship March 22nd in New York, a Thursday. 

Tanzer: Did you come by yourself? 
BROWN: No, with Libby. Libby and me got off there and I came to the Joint. She had to register and they tell me, “You go to Portland, Oregon. You go by train.” So I asked her how long will it take and she said it takes four days. So I said, “I’m not going.” So the girl tells me, “What do you mean you’re not going? And I said, “I don’t want to ride on Saturday, on Shabbos.” So she tell me [German phrase] meaning “so young and so fanatic.” I told her, “You can call it whatever you want but I am not going.”

After she heard this she said, “How about by plane, if I send you by plane?” I asked again the same question, “How long would it take by plane?” So she told me six or eight hours and I said, “All right.” After this they didn’t let me out from under their sight. They watched me and they took me just to send me right out from New York because they were afraid that if I will go out from there I will find out that I can stay in New York and then they will have problems with me. 

Tanzer: When you say the Joint took care of you, did they pay your way? Did they help you? 
BROWN: As far as in Europe till the United States, it was the UNRWA which paid. When we got to the United States already the Joint or Service for New Americans what it was called then, they paid our way to here. When we got here there was my brother-in-law already here at that time but he was a newcomer too and there were some other people which I don’t know. I don’t recollect who they were who received us. The sponsor, my sponsor was from Seattle actually. My contract was from Seattle but the sponsor was the Service for New Americans. They were responsible for our well-being and so on and of course they took good care of us and really I have to thank a lot for the Service for New Americans because. I don’t know if you know my situation.

I got here and even with the camp and all this I still was not used to manual labor. When I came here they sent me here…. I have to tell you the whole story. I got here and they sent me to a doctor. The doctor told me to jump 20 times on one foot, which I did. I didn’t realize why he told me but I thought maybe it’s just like in the army where they want to see and then he would say if I can do any work. They put me here in Mobil Lift, a factory which made lift trucks. There after a while they put me on a hydro press where I have to straighten out the lines. In the beginning they made a small lift truck, which those lines didn’t weigh too much and I was all right, I could do it. But then they started building a big lift truck and I had to lift up the lines, which weighed between 150 and 200 pounds to put on the table to straighten them out. I didn’t know how to lift either and nobody showed me and I didn’t know. After working I started complaining. I went to the Service for New Americans and told Sandberg, the gentleman who was there, I told him, “The work is too heavy and I don’t know how to do it.” He gave to me the answer, “The doctor said you can do any work.” I know. I had a wife and a child. She was pregnant with Dorothy then and what can I do? I just kept on working until finally it was one day I got up in the morning and I couldn’t move. So I went to this Mr. Sandberg and he sent me to the….I think I went to work that day, I still went back to the factory to work and after work I had an appointment to Larry Cohen, Dr. Cohen.

I came in and he thought it was my kidneys. But he sent me for x-rays and there they find out that it was my back. So he put me in the hospital and I was in traction for around ten days. After I came out of there one of my sides was out. I was kind of one-sided. So he gave me a brace to push this side in. The brace did a very good job but after a few weeks it pushed the side in but my other side came out. So Dr. Cohen said that I couldn’t work for a while. In the meantime I saw that I have a family. I cannot work and I was very upset so my ulcers start (I got ulcers). So then I went to Dr. Nudelman with my ulcers.

In the meantime, one day Harry comes in and he says he has pain in his stomach below. So they sent him and he went to Dr. Nudelman, too. A young kid. He didn’t know. Dr. Nudelman pushed in his finger and asked if it hurt and he said it hurts. So he said he had a hernia. Mr. Sandberg made arrangements that he should have a hernia operation. He went in the hospital and they did surgery and after this the doctor said he didn’t have a hernia. 

Tanzer: This was all taken care of by the — 
BROWN: By the Federation. But what I am trying to point out is one thing. When things go down they just keep on going down. So Harry had surgery, which he did need. I mean, it wasn’t their fault but still when the chips are down then they are really down.

This went on and I was sick for almost a year. Finally I just saw that there is no end to it and I found out there was here a gentleman by the name of Siegel. He was a peddler. He was from Romania. During all this time I hardly spoke any English. So, I started to go with his truck to help him a little bit, to peddle. Then in the meantime I got my license, my driver’s license and I went to the Federation and I wanted (the Service for New Americans) and I wanted they should buy me a truck and I should start doing something. There was a Mrs. Black there (Beck or Black, I don’t remember exactly). She called up somebody and she told me no, they cannot buy a truck and so and so but I decided that I have to do something. So I found out there was a Free Loan Society and they would lend me some money but I needed two signatures. So I went to the rabbi and I told him so and so and I knew if it’s a rabbi in this city he knows somebody who will sign for me. So he says no, he doesn’t know.

So Mrs. Hyman, she was here, an old lady. Her business was catering and I don’t know how she found out that maybe she asked me and I told her that I went to Rabbi Fain and he said he hasn’t nobody who should sign and she said, “I am going to sign for you.” She was the one who signed and Mrs. Rosen gave me at that time $250 and I went and I bought a little pickup. The rest I put on payments but I had to get some down payments. 

Tanzer: What year was this? 
BROWN: This was in 1952. You see, I got here in ’51, and this was in 1952. Then so I started slowly working and things got….so this is where I got started with a little pickup and so on. And of course after 1955 we already sent Harry to Seattle. In ’53 or ’54 I bought my first house. 

Tanzer: Where was your first house? 
BROWN: On Fifth, where the freeway is now. 

Tanzer: Where did you live when you first came here? 
BROWN: When I first came, the first few weeks the Service for New Americans had a home for the people who came here. There was a place where whoever had arrived went there and lived until he found a place. Then I found a place where I lived on Third Avenue for a while but there it was very expensive. I paid I think around $70 or $80 at that time. But the main thing was it had a gas furnace. And so after a couple of months or so we moved to Fifth Street where there was an old house for blacks. We papered it and painted it ourselves but I paid only $35 a month. Of course it had no furnace; it was just an oil stove but we had to pay less. The first year really I have to thank the Service for New Americans or Joint or whatever you call them because without them really I couldn’t have made it. Really they were the ones who supported us. 

Tanzer: Who met you when you first came to Portland? 
BROWN: I don’t remember. My brother, but there was somebody else too. I don’t know, maybe Libby knows. 

Tanzer: How long had your brother-in-law been here? 
BROWN: He came a year earlier. He was a newcomer too. 

Tanzer: And he was settled by the Service for New Americans? 
BROWN: The same thing. He was settled by the Service for New Americans and so on. He went all through this like everybody who came here. 

Tanzer: When were you able to pay back the Hebrew Free Loan? 
BROWN: I paid it. I started right away. I paid every month $10 or so. I paid them slowly. I started right away to pay them back. I think I paid them back after the first year, after a year or a year and a half. I don’t remember exactly but I paid them back. 

Tanzer: How did you also learn English? 
BROWN: I went while I wasn’t working to night school the first year. But most of my English I learned by being together with other people, not through school. 

Tanzer: Had you spoken any English before? 
BROWN: No, we didn’t speak any English at all. We didn’t even know to say bread or water. But really I learned it being between people and so on. There is one thing about the people of the United States, they are very helpful in any way they can, and they don’t ridicule somebody who doesn’t know the language which is really an encouragement and so on. I learned it the hard way on my own. You had no alternative; you had to learn the language. 

Tanzer: Did you experience any discrimination or hatred during your first years here? 
BROWN: Well, it all depends. Most of the people were very nice and very helpful. But I had some experience in the beginning when I started peddling in junk. There were a few people that after I told them that I was a Jew then they just didn’t do any more business. On the other hand I had some very nice people which you know they know we are Jews and I had a customer which I used to have to go there every Friday and as it happened there was the holiday Friday. I used to have somebody go there and pick up the scrap when I couldn’t go. One holiday I had made the arrangements and it was a weekend. I think it was the Labor Day weekend and the guy didn’t want to go. So I just went and I told them, “Look here, you know this is a holiday.” And he says, “Don’t worry about it; we will take care of it for you.” They picked up everything and prepared it for me for the next day, so I really cannot say that there was discrimination. Of course there are some people who are antisemitic like all over, but…. 

Tanzer: When and where did you apply for naturalization? 
BROWN: We, as soon as we got here right away after two months or three months, whenever we could, we applied for citizenship or whatever it’s called. As soon as the five years were over we applied right away and we got naturalized right away. I think it was just in May– one month after the five year period expired we were citizens. 

Tanzer: What did you have to do? 
BROWN: We had to go to school first and then we had to go then to the Judge to take the exam. We had no problems and Mr. Winkle was our witness and the Judge knew him already. There was no problem whatsoever.

Tanzer: Barry, I want to ask you a bit about your home life. What languages do you use at home? 
BROWN: At home we mostly speak English. Between Libby and myself we speak Jewish but with the children you have to speak English. This is the way they speak. They must understand Jewish, especially with the older ones when they went to work and went to yeshiva, so they learned to speak Jewish. But we hardly use it most of the time, even when we talk to them in Jewish they answer us in English. So it ended up that we spoke to them in English too. 

Tanzer: How many children do you have at home? 
BROWN: Now we don’t have at home nobody, just Libby and myself. We have four children. Our oldest son is 28 years old. He is married and an attorney in Cleveland and he has two children. Our second child is a girl. She lives in New York and she is married. She has one two-year-old boy. The third one is Abie. He is 20 years old, goes to yeshiva and to Brooklyn College at night. By the way, I forgot to say that our oldest son left Portland when he was eight years old. His ninth birthday was already in Seattle because at that time we didn’t have a day school in Portland and by going to Hebrew School I saw that he couldn’t get the Jewish education that I wanted him to. So we sent him to Seattle. He went there for five years, and after this for high school and college he went to Yeshiva University and from there he went to NYU Law School. Our daughter attended first Hebrew School and then when she was by the fourth grade we organized here a day school. She finished the day school and then she went to regular high school here in Portland. For college she went to Stern College in New York. Our youngest son went to day school and to high school in New York, the Yeshiva Torah Raddas. Miriam, our baby, so to say, graduated the day school here in Portland, and now she is in Cleveland, in the Cleveland Day School. 

Tanzer: Do you think that your children, as the children of immigrants, had trouble adjusting? 
BROWN: I don’t think that they had any trouble adjusting. My oldest son, when he came here, he was four years old, and of course he didn’t spoke no English. I still remember an incident what happened the first few months, One day he came in and he tells me, “Dad, teach me English.” Because some boys beat him up. He didn’t understand what they were telling him. I said, “How can I teach you English when I don’t know myself?” He says, “Dad, you are a father. You must know.” He said it in German [German phrase]. This was the only one, the only experience I had with him as being an immigrant. In school they always were straight A students. Of course, I feel it has the attitude from home and of course we laid a lot of emphasis how important it is to learn. So, we never really had anything to worry about, about school. And I don’t feel there is anything which is different between immigrant children or born American children. Of course, you have to be lucky to have children which want to learn and have the minds to do it, but thank God we were very lucky. 

Tanzer: Have you spoken to the children about your wartime experience? 
BROWN: No, we didn’t speak too much about it, maybe once in a while, especially because of Libby. Whenever it came up or so she always used to have nightmares and she couldn’t sleep. So, most of the time we avoided it. As a matter of fact we never went to any shows or movies where they showed films or so, strictly because of her. Really, sometimes I myself think it was just a bad dream. I can’t imagine that it was everything true, even though I went through it. 

Tanzer: When you did discuss this with your children, how did they respond? 
BROWN: I really can’t remember especially of lately. I hardly think that we ever discussed it. 

Tanzer: Did Harry remember any particular incidents? 
BROWN: I think he remembers but he remembers in Munich he went with a sled with some children or so. He was very young when we left Munich. He was three and a half years or so, so really he couldn’t remember too much. 

Tanzer: Does he remember the camp, the DP camp? 
BROWN: We didn’t….he wasn’t in a DP camp. 

Tanzer: The camp on your way, before you came to the United States. The camp where you awaited your papers. 
BROWN: No, I don’t think he remembers it because most of the time we lived, we had apartments in private homes and only really this was about a month. I couldn’t remember if he ever thought about it. I couldn’t say anything. 

Tanzer: Are you able to stay in touch with any of your surviving relatives? 
BROWN: Yes. I have quite a few cousins in Israel. Most of our family is in Israel or New York and we stay in contact so we know what everything is going on. 

Tanzer: Have you been to Israel? 
BROWN: Yes. I have been, but with Libby in ’67, right after the war. We were there for four weeks and Libby has been there in ’74, yes. In ’74 she went again. She was there for two weeks. 

Tanzer: What are your feelings about the State of Israel? 
BROWN: Well with our feelings we are very much for the State of Israel, and we feel very bad about what happened now with the United Nations with the Zionist is racist. But we are used to those things from way back, as Jews we always have to suffer and really very few like us. 

Tanzer: What do you feel is the future of the State of Israel? 
BROWN: I think the future of the State of Israel is that we have to go on fighting and helping Israel. And it will be all right, but it takes time; as with everything it take a awhile. It may take another 20 or 30 years until the Arabs and everybody will know that the State of Israel is here to stay and then they will get used to it. 

Tanzer: You mentioned earlier in your tape, Barry, that you had considered going to Israel from Europe. Have you ever regretted the decision to come to the United States? 
BROWN: Well you have to realize that my not going to Israel was mostly from the religious point that I didn’t go. Because I don’t know, Shirley, if you know, but there is a curse in the Talmud if somebody leaves Israel, and I didn’t want to be involved in this. If I go to Israel to live and then for some reason or another I will leave Israel, so I always said I’d rather not go. I will go for a visit and that is a different story. But to go there to live and then to leave Israel, this to me it was against my principles and just like I said from the religious standpoint and that is the reason I didn’t want to gamble. I didn’t want to come to it. It’s to go there to live and then to leave Israel. As you remember I told you when we considered, and it was in ’48, and then it was war and after the camp I didn’t feel that I wanted to expose myself for a war again. This was the main reason. We hope that someday when our children will be, I mean Miriam will be grown, when we will be ready for retirement we hope to go to live there. 

Tanzer: Barry, let me ask you how would you react if your children were to marry non-Jews? 
BROWN: This is something which is very hard to answer because the way I feel now how I would react and the way it would really happen may be two different things. Of course you know that all my life I really strived and worked for Jewish causes in the religious part of my life. Of course it would be a very big tragedy but really to tell you how I would react all depends on the circumstances. Sometimes you just don’t want to lose your children and you allow other things. It’s pretty hard to give a straight answer for this. 

Tanzer: Have you ever had a situation that arose in your family where your children have considered that? 
BROWN: Well it never was considered marrying a non-Jew, but it was that our oldest son was considering marrying a non-religious Jewish girl. The reaction was very swift and very positive and so far as we didn’t even want to meet the girl because we felt if we meet the girl we may have to find fault with her and then of course his reaction would be to try to convince us of what-ever. In this way we didn’t want to meet her so there was no problem and thank God he saw our reaction and after this he married a real religious girl and thank God he is very active now in religious organizations. He is a part of the Board of the Yeshiva in Cleveland. He also is on the Board of the Federation and he works for the Day School and for other Jewish organizations. 

Tanzer: Are most of your friends survivors also? 
BROWN: I wouldn’t say really here most of our friends in Portland are American born and American educated people. We work together and we are very close friends. Of course in the beginning they tried to–I wouldn’t say convert me–but they tried I should go along. They used to kid me around and they used to call me a “holy roller” and so on, but after a while they realized that they just are not going to change me. Even I told them a few times that I don’t go to anybody to convert them, to try to make them religious. I accept everybody on his own terms and that’s why I expect they should accept me the same thing and we never had any problem. Everybody knows that we don’t eat no place and we still are invited and we go all over and we take part in everything. But when it comes we are very strict kashrut observers and people got used to it and they know and they accept us the way we are, and we accept everybody the way they are. 

Tanzer: Do you belong to any organizations of survivors like a Landsman group or anything of that sort? 
BROWN: There are none here. At least I don’t know. The problem here that most of the newcomers which came here, they don’t identify themselves. Mostly they are intermarried and there are very few, very few, maybe a total of eight or ten which one way or another identify themselves with Jewish causes, with the Federation or the Jewish Community Center. 

Tanzer: Barry, do you think American Jews are able to understand what you went through? 
BROWN: I wouldn’t make any differentiation between American Jews or any other Jews. This is something which nobody who didn’t went through can understand it. You only can have the feeling if you really went through just like with any other thing. They tell you a story that goes in one ear and maybe somebody a little bit more and the other one less, but you really can’t feel it and understand it only if you went through it. 

Tanzer: Do you think that American Jews and Americans try to understand it? 
BROWN: Yes, they try. I think they try but still you cannot have the feeling if you didn’t have the experience. Those are just like any other things; if you have the experience it’s totally different than if you just heard the story. It’s not only this, take like if you talk about a war in Israel or about any other thing, it’s always if you really are in it and you feel it then it’s different. 

Tanzer: Do you think that the Jews who came here before the war, those who managed to escape, have an understanding of what happened? 
BROWN: You must speak about the German Jews, and there is an amazing thing about them. They still feel they are first Germans and than Jews, at least this is the way I see it. Whenever you talk to them…. I know one thing; I was a Romanian. I was born a Romanian and was raised a Romanian and was for a while in Hungary. But, when it comes to the feeling, I just can’t forgive them for what they did to us. But when you speak to the German Jews whenever it comes up, the German says, “I am a German.” And then he says. “I am a Jew, too.” Still German is to them the highest thing that could ever be. 

Tanzer: Do you have much contact with the Jews who did come fore the war? 
BROWN: Yes, I have because we speak German as you know and they….when we came here we were a very big thing. We were the [German phrase], which means we are also German-speaking Jews, which was something very important to them. Even now after being for so many years, if I get together with some German Jews they will right away start speaking German. 

Tanzer: Do you find that these Jews are observant Jews? 
BROWN: Well, they are just like any other Americans. They are partially observant. They go on Saturday whenever they have time to go to synagogue. I mean, really after you live in a country most people get to be the same, especially when it comes to religion. 

Tanzer: Do you live in a Jewish neighborhood? 
BROWN: It used to be a Jewish neighborhood but not now any more. 

Tanzer: What happened to it? 
BROWN: Well it came in the freeway, and it came in the Urban Renewal. So the synagogue moved out and so did the Jews. Of course, at that time it was a Jewish neighborhood and there was a lot of Jews which were Shabbos observing so they tried to live close to the synagogue. Now I don’t think that is important, a Jewish neighborhood, because the Jews are spread all over. Most of them, I should say almost 90 percent, drive on Saturday and maybe it’s even more than that so it doesn’t even make any difference where they live, they always go to synagogue. There are a few, and that’s the reason that I live where I still live, because I am in walking distance from our synagogue which is around 20 blocks, which is quite a walk. I will cover it in half an hour. So there are a few families who still live around here but most of them it doesn’t make any difference where they live because they always can drive to the synagogue. 

Tanzer: Do you have any non-Jewish friends? 
BROWN: Yes, I have friends which I do business and so and they know that I’m a Jew and they know that I don’t work on holidays and so on. As a matter of fact in the beginning I had less trouble from the non-Jews than from the Jews. The non-Jews never tried to kid me or to force me where the Jews, maybe it was a guilt feeling, so they always used to say, “Don’t worry if you want to work on Saturday.” But thank God they were wrong. 

Tanzer: Have you told the non-Jews about your wartime experiences? 
BROWN: Yes, we talked a lot about them and they know that I was in camp. They see right away because I have my tattoo on my arm. So even those who don’t know what it means they ask me what it is so then I have to explain and tell them what it is and so. 

Tanzer: What is their reaction? 
BROWN: Their reaction was like Jewish Americans or anybody. They feel kind of sad and so. Of course when they ask me who is left in the family and then I tell them that I am the only one but it’s for a while and then I don’t know what they think afterwards. 

Tanzer: Do they have a sense of disbelief? 
BROWN: I don’t think it’s a disbelief but to them it’s a story. 

Tanzer: What organizations do you belong to, Barry? 
BROWN: I don’t know what you mean by organizations. The synagogue and the Jewish Community Center… 

Tanzer: What is your position at the synagogue? 
BROWN: In the synagogue I am for the past ten years, I am the president of the synagogue. Then I was for ten years I was the treasurer for the Hillel Academy until it was Libby’s turn to be the president and then at that time they still want me to be treasurer and I said, “I don’t think it’s right that the treasurer and the president should be in the same family.” I felt that some people will think that this is a private business. So then at that time I said I didn’t want to accept it any more and I just was on the Board of Directors. 

Tanzer: But you are also active and involved in other organizations? 
BROWN: Yes, most any Jewish organizations that need help. I am involved in the mikvah, the Ritualarium, which sometimes when they need money I collect. As a matter of fact, they were this month, always in December, I sent out bills for some people. There was a professor and I sent him out a reminder, just at the time where they have to pay their donations, or sometimes in the middle of the year when we run short of money I have to go to try to collect from my friends. They always ask me what’s now. 

Tanzer: That’s because you support so many things. 
BROWN: Right. 

Tanzer: What do you like to read? 
BROWN: When I have time I still like to take out the Talmud and learn a little bit. And of course every Friday night and Saturday I try to learn the Pasach Shevua, [weekly Torah portion] which is in the Chumash, and so once in awhile I read “Mary’s Report” [?], this I always read through, and through. I have the Jewish Press, so whatever I can. Time Magazine and everything. Of course the daily paper. 

Tanzer: And you are going to school now, too? 
BROWN: Yes, now I am going to college. 

Tanzer: So this means some new reading. 
BROWN: Sure, I have to prepare for the lessons. 

Tanzer: What do you read for your classes? 
BROWN: I have the book by Anthony Wells. It’s mostly a business administration course. 

Tanzer: Why did you decide to go back to school? 
BROWN: This is really an amazing thing. Our youngest son during the summer, he took here the business administration test. Before he left New York he said, “Dad, think this would be interesting for you. If you think you want to take the course then I’m not going to sell the book.” So I said okay. So I went and registered for class and started taking the course. 

Tanzer: Is this the first course you are taking? 
BROWN: This is the first time I am going to college. 

Tanzer: How are you doing in your classwork? 
BROWN: I think I’m doing pretty good. 

Tanzer: What are your grades? 
BROWN: Tomorrow night we will have the exam so I will know more. In the first test I had 84. The next I had 100. Then I will see what the exam will say. 

Tanzer: What are your attitudes toward America’s role in world affairs? 
BROWN: This is a pretty widespread question. The United States tries to help out all the countries in the world but they don’t always make friends. And sometimes by trying to please some people they even lose their own friends. 

Tanzer: What people do you think they are trying to please? 
BROWN: Well for instance now the oil companies and so on. And they don’t realize that really first they have to have the friends to take care of them. And they make a big mistake the way lately they have handled Israel because they really are the only one, the only friend who they have in the Middle East and if not for Israel they would lose the whole thing. 

Tanzer: What are your opinions about detente with Russia? 
BROWN: Well I don’t trust Russia, because I still remember when I was a Romanian and when the Communist party made promises. They said we just take from the rich and so on and so on. After they did what they wanted then a new guy come and he had other promises and they always are the same ones, they get whatever they can and then they want more so you really can never satisfy them. And it’s pretty hard to do business with somebody whose promises don’t mean anything and this is exactly what is with the Russians. They say one thing and they go and take whatever they can. 

Tanzer: What do you think Henry Kissinger’s role is? 
BROWN: Henry Kissinger, I think he tries to do but they fool him too. That’s the trouble, he believes them and then by the time he sees that they lie to him he is a German and his prestige is very important. And because of this sometimes he has to hide some things in order to protect himself. 

Tanzer: Do you think that his role in the Middle East is a difficult one? 
BROWN: I think a sure difficult one. It’s difficult but the trouble is I always felt that our Jews sometimes, they try to bend over to show that they are impartial, that is where they get hurt. 

Tanzer: Do you think this is true of Henry Kissinger? 
BROWN: I think it’s true of most people who are in politics. And if he is a Jews, he will try to bend over to the other side to show that he is impartial. 

Tanzer: Do you figure that will be to the disadvantage of Israel? 
BROWN: Yes, you can see it right now it is. I mean, at least this is my feeling. 

Tanzer: What do you think are the important issues that face America today in terms of internally? 
BROWN: Internally first is the economy. There is one thing which I am very surprised and I just can’t understand which is really in contrast to all what I have seen in Europe. In Europe, whenever the economy was bad there were disturbances and so on. When things were good it was quiet. Here in the United States it is exactly the opposite. In the ’60’s the economy was good and there were riots and everything. I was afraid when I saw that the economy goes down and I said, look here, what is going to happen now; and it’s exactly the opposite. It’s quiet and I just can’t understand it. 

Tanzer: And in Europe the contrast was? 
BROWN: It was exactly the contrast. When things were bad people started to rebel. Here is exactly the opposite. It had almost came back to where the first time • I came here I didn’t know what the customers are here, and so after a little while I said it looks like what- ever we do in Europe we do the opposite here and we are all right. 

Tanzer: Did you ever try this? 
BROWN: I didn’t, but this is how it looked to me. And the same thing is with this. 

Tanzer: What do you think are some of the other important internal issues? 
BROWN: Well I’m not a politician and I wouldn’t know. 

Tanzer: Do you think that the racial issue is an important issue today? 
BROWN: It all depends where you live. All depends where you live. Here in Oregon we are very liberal and I don’t think there is any problem. But if you go to New York and so on that really is a problem. 

Tanzer: Do you think that there is a danger of antisemitism in this country? 
BROWN:  It’s again the same thing. I was afraid because in Europe most of the time when the economy got bad and right away they started blaming the Jews. I was afraid when there was the oil crisis that this is what is going to happen here too. But so far, thank God, it hasn’t happened and I hope it will never happen. 

Tanzer: Did you feel that in this particular part of the country, the northwest, the opposite was true? 
BROWN: Some people, yes. They really even now they blame a lot of the economy on the Arab and on the oil. I think it’s more so now than during the oil crisis. 

Tanzer: What are your feelings about Germany and the present day Germans? 
BROWN: The present day Germans, you see, you cannot blame a nation for what the leaders did and so. You have to realize, you have to know the German mentality. The German mentality is whatever they are told they do it. And it’s true, of course don’t forget that I was during the war and whenever we had Wehrmacht with us we had no problem, they were very nice and so. The only guys who were very bad were the SS. I still remember it was during the retreat, for awhile we went with some Wehrmacht and they knew they already lost the war but they were afraid to do anything or to say anything, so it is the same, there are between the Germans just like between other people. Some are antisemitic and some are nice people. 

Tanzer: When you say you were with the Wehrmacht, was this when you were in the labor…? 
BROWN: No, this was when I was at the front. When I was then in civilian clothes with a yellow armband, but I was free. I could go between wherever I was. I wasn’t in a camp or so and of course during the retreat we just went with the Hungarians, with the soldiers and with the Wehrmacht together: To them it didn’t make any difference. I wouldn’t say they didn’t know we are Jews, maybe they did and maybe they thought we are just laborers, so but still they weren’t bad. 

Tanzer: Do you get restitution payments from Germany? 
BROWN: Yes. 

Tanzer: What were your feelings about accepting them? 
BROWN: My feeling? You have to realize there are different restitutions. There were for some parents who lost the children or some people minors and they got for their parents This may be a different feeling. But what I get restitution is for my health. My back was broken there and this is like any other insurance. If somebody had an accident and so on you get insurance and don’t see any reason why there should be any feeling about accepting the money. 

Tanzer: Do you get restitution for the property that was confiscated? 
BROWN: No, I never got anything for that. 

Tanzer: How were these restitution payments managed, how did you approach them? 
BROWN: At that time I get it when the law came out. I gave it over to an attorney and of course I had documents, medical documents and so on. They sent me to their own doctor and I had to send…it took quite a long time but as soon as they recognized me they paid me retroactive whenever the law came out. 

Tanzer: Was this one lump sum? 
BROWN: No, I get every month. I get a check and of course it was…in the beginning I think I got $120 and now I get $260. Every year I think it has to do with the standard of living or so, whatever. 

Tanzer: Are you happy that you came to America? 
BROWN: Yes. 

Tanzer: Have our wartime experiences affected you? 
BROWN: I think most probably they did, you see, But, this isn’t something that I can judge. But thank God that I still can come out the way I am. 

Tanzer: Do you ever think what life would have been like if the war hadn’t come, where you would be today? 
BROWN: Well this is a pretty hard thing to say where I would be today. Most probably I would still be there and on the other hand I wasn’t missing anything there either. I had a very nice childhood and as a young man, as a matter of fact, I could afford more luxuries there than here in comparison. Of course, you have to realize this was a different world then. I couldn’t afford the luxuries to buy a refrigerator or so because that just wasn’t there but in other things I could more easily spend money than here, or so to say I earned easier the money. But thank God I don’t complain. I have done pretty good for myself so I am really happy and satisfied. 

Tanzer: With the war experiences that you have experienced, do you feel more or less Jewish today than you did before the war? 
BROWN: No, I think I feel more Jewish. As a matter of fact, don’t think that I always was the way I am. During my youth I went through just like the youth today, I rebelled in another way. I rebelled against the religion and I tried the other way too. But then I came to the conclusion, if you don’t have religion then you really don’t have nothing. 

Tanzer: When did you come to this conclusion? 
BROWN: After about two years after I came back from the camp. Because after camp when I came home, I didn’t want to do anything that was Jewish. I mean, I didn’t keep no kashrut, I didn’t lay no brachas, and so on. But after awhile it just occurred and so slowly, slowly I started coming back and I ended up being even more religious than I was before. 

Tanzer: Was your family a religious family? 
BROWN: My family was very religious. Of course in our house it was so to say a modern religion. We observed strictly Shabbat and kashrut but on the other hand my parents were very broadminded. You have to realize that we were very friendly with the goyim there and the high officials and they always came to our house. So one way or another the children were already a little bit more liberal. I rode on Shabbos, but of course I tried nobody should know. But just like I say, I ended up being more religious now than I was. 

Tanzer: Do you think your marriage helped you to become more religious? 
BROWN: I think when we got married we were both the same, but we had both the same background. So this brought us together. 

Tanzer: Did you discuss building an Orthodox Jewish life together? 
BROWN: No, I wouldn’t say we discussed it, just slowly and slowly it happened. It happened by itself. But really when we really made up our mind it was here in the United States. 

Tanzer: Why did you decide when you came here that you wanted to be more religious? 
BROWN: Because we saw the more you gave in the farther you go. When I came here and I found my brother-in-law he was already so far away from everything. At that time I said we have to put down and really try to go the other way. Even he has changed. Do you know that Sherman is very religious now? Sure, he goes every morning to the synagogue. Every morning and every evening. 

Tanzer: So you have never been sorry that you developed this way of life for yourself? 
BROWN: No. As a matter of fact I am very happy and our children are very happy too. 

Tanzer: Do you think that the general American public is interested in the Holocaust or in your experiences? 
BROWN: They are interested but they cannot have the feeling that truly people feel when they went through it and you can’t blame them for it. 

Tanzer: Do you think that they realized what was happening when it was happening? 
BROWN: Some of them did and some of them didn’t. But I am pretty sure the high officials in the government knew exactly what was happening but they didn’t want to have so many Jews here so they didn’t try to help them. They were afraid that they were going to end up with a few more million Jews. 

Tanzer: When you were going through the experience yourself, did you think that you would be saved and by whom? 
BROWN: You mean in the camp? 

Tanzer: Yes. 
BROWN: When I was going through the experience it wasn’t any matter of by who I was saved. I was hoping that I would be saved. As a matter of fact I didn’t care as much if I would be saved or not. Whenever there was a bombing I always said that’s wonderful, at least they are not going to keep killing me or kill only me because I am a Jew. The painful thing was that I knew I would die just because I was a Jew. I was never afraid for dying so whenever the airplane came and bombed I was very happy and I didn’t care if I died or not. I knew that I am not going to die because I am a Jew.

Tanzer: Barry, did your sense of Jewishness help you overcome this fear of dying? 
BROWN: I don’t know if it was the sense of Jewishness or it was my experience what I had. Of course maybe my religiousness, this could have had something to do with it because, you know, they say there is no atheist in a fox hole, and when you are in real trouble then you pray to God and so maybe this was. But, I really don’t know. 

Tanzer: Did you survive because you had family that you had to survive for? That you had to be strong, for them? 
BROWN: Right. You see, I knew that my parents were not living. After I was in Auschwitz I knew exactly that the older people and the children went to the crematorium. That I knew, Of course, I knew that my brother who was with me wouldn’t be alive, But I knew that I had two younger sisters and I felt that it was my duty to come home and to try to take care of them but, too bad, they never came back. 

Tanzer: As the only survivor of your family, Barry, what do you think your commitment is to your own family? 
BROWN: My commitment is that always to work for Jewish causes and to try to help the unfortunate, to make them live better. I know what it means to be hungry and not to have clothes and so, but really what human suffering can mean. So to try to work and to help the unfortunate that they should live better. 

Tanzer: Do you think that you will continue to spend your life in this area of the country? 
BROWN: Of course you know with the children gone I don’t think that we will stay too long here. Oh I hope we will stay for another five years till I can retire, but Libby feels different. She would like to go right now which is pretty hard. But just like I told you before, I hope some day to go and to settle in Israel and to live there with the Jews. 

Tanzer: Has it been difficult for you to live in Portland, Oregon? 
BROWN: It has some disadvantages but I think we made the best of it. We have quite a few friends and of course a very important thing, I came almost with nothing. We had a little money but in comparison it didn’t mean much and thank God I accumulated some property and so on so I really was fortunate here and I don’t have no complaints about Portland. It would be better if there would be more religious Jews. It would be a lot easier but still, like I said before, I accept everybody on his own terms. 

Tanzer: Is this one of the disadvantages that you see? 
BROWN: Yes. The religious life. You see, Shirley, you have to realize that all this time I had to import the meat. I had to import the bread. Whatever I want I had to import because there is kosher meat here and so but it’s not in accordance with my belief and with my standards. So in order to have the things that I would want they were all shipped in and if not Libby baked bread or so which makes it a little hard, especially for the woman in the family where she has to do most of the work. So of course there would be a difference if there would be more religious Jews. You have to realize that I am the whole day out working and so for Libby, when she is home, and if she really doesn’t have those people who have the same beliefs, with who to be together and so, so it makes this harder. 

Tanzer: Has she had difficulty in adjusting? 
BROWN: I don’t think she had difficulty in adjusting but I think her main problem is the children are gone. She would like, just like any mother, to be together with the children. 

Tanzer: When you are in other parts of the country visiting your children in a more Orthodox environment do you find there an easier adjustment? 
BROWN: It sure it. It’s not only I don’t have to go to the east, here in Seattle. I have in Seattle a lot of friends which are in the same belief and they are Orthodox and so and I have no problem there. 

Tanzer: And you can eat at their house? 
BROWN: Sure I eat in there. As a matter of fact they came here. Just last night we had one of our friends from Seattle who was for supper in our home. Most of the people who came from the east, religious people, they know already that we had somebody who makes advertising for us and they say, “If you get to Portland just call the Browns.” 

Tanzer: Are there any other people in Portland who are as observant as you are? 
BROWN: You see, there is no standard to match in observance. Everybody thinks that he is just as good as anybody else so I couldn’t comment on this. 

Tanzer: Let me ask you this: If there any place in Portland where you would eat? 
BROWN: No, we don’t eat no place and we don’t eat in any synagogue besides our synagogue. 

Tanzer: Why do you eat in your own synagogue? 
BROWN: Because for there we take care of the meat what is brought in and everything and it’s the same meat that we use at home and therefore whatever is made there we watch and it’s made according to the way we believe, and that’s the reason we eat there: 

Tanzer: Where does your meat come from? 
BROWN: From Seattle. 

Tanzer: And the bread and cheese? 
BROWN: The bread we only use from [?] Bakery, and this we get from Cleveland or from New York, or if not Libby bakes, pastries and everything. We don’t use any baked stuff that is not baked by [a person who is] shomer Shabbat. 

Tanzer: And your house also is the home where the Orthodox people as they come through Portland 
BROWN: Yes, most of them when they come through we always. Sometimes we get a call just an hour or two before the Shabbat that is somebody if he can come to our house. And we always are very happy when there will be another guest and especially now when we are only two people. So at least we have some company. 

Tanzer: And on Saturday people who are at the synagogue come back to your house? 
BROWN: It always used to be a joke that they stay in the window and watch how many people I bring home. They never know how many strangers are in town. 

Tanzer: Then I think you told me that sometimes you don’t eat? 
BROWN: That’s happened, that sometimes I just say that I don’t feel like eating meat because I know that Libby didn’t figure for so many people and in order they shouldn’t feel bad I say well, I just don’t feel like eating. 

Tanzer: So how many are the most that you have brought home unexpectedly? 
BROWN: Unexpectedly, no. I don’t bring more than three or four. It all depends on how many are in the family. When the children were here it was different but now we are only two people and you don’t prepare so much. Monday we were in Eugene and we were invited there for lunch for Professor Beck. His father was here from Israel. He told his father that they were the second day of Rosh Hashanah invited to lunch to our house, for dinner after the services, and he told his father. You know how many people were there? There were 19 people. And from this only Libby and myself. The children were gone, 

Tanzer: Are these people also very religious? 
BROWN: No, he even mentioned this to his father. There was even one girl which had a backpack with her. She came to the synagogue and she was in the Hood River picking apples and she called up before Rosh Hashanah that she wants to come to the synagogue so she was eating with us too. She brought the backpack with her too. 

Tanzer: So you really in many ways are the Orthodox community in your own home and the synagogue? 
BROWN: Something like that. 

Tanzer: What is going to happen if you leave? 
BROWN: There will always be somebody. Just like Gussie Reinhardt says. Her father was president for 35 or 40 years and they always thought that then God has messengers and there is always — just like they say when a king died. When a king died, long live the king. There is always somebody who takes over. You never know who is here; there will be somebody who will take it over. 

Tanzer: You have single handedly revitalized that small synagogue. Do you think that there is someone who can take over when you leave? 
BROWN: As of the moment I don’t think so, but you have to realize, Shirley, that in the last year there moved in here three families which are shomer Shabbos and observant. And the only reason they came to this synagogue is because this is the only real Orthodox synagogue which has separate seating and it has a wheel in the middle of the synagogue. And for the High Holidays when I send out the schedule I have a mark at the bottom. Ladies are asked to please cover their head, which as you know here in Portland nobody pays attention any more if the ladies go in with hat covered or without covered heads to the synagogue. As a matter of fact, just two weeks ago we had here a young man from St. Louis who was for four years [?] and he is coming here to live. He is with a computer company and he in February is supposed to move here. So here you can see that there are young religious couples which came out to the west. You have to realize when the economy gets bad then people go wherever they can get a job. When I came here I don’t think anybody thought that I would be the one who revitalized, like you say, the synagogue, so you never know. 

Tanzer: But you have not only refurbished it and reworked it, but you also function as the rabbi and as the shammes. You don’t have a rabbi. 
BROWN: Right, we don’t have. But you see, I didn’t have no alternative. I had to do it and I don’t think I did it for anybody else. I did it mostly for myself because I had to have a place where to go where to pray. Because of this I had to do it, but really I had a lot of help from those few members which are members of our synagogue because by myself I would never have been able to do it, financially or otherwise. Of course there is always that has to be a leader which is going in the front. You have to have an officer even if you go to war or wherever you go. You have to have a leader and then people will follow you. And if they see you really mean it honestly and truly, then they will help you. As you know, most of our members are members in the temple Neveh Shalom also, but they came, especially in the high holidays, they came to this synagogue. Of course, they feel that’s when they really want to approach God, and approach him in the right way. 

Tanzer: What do you think is the future of the synagogue in terms of the location? 
BROWN: I think this synagogue…. I wouldn’t worry about the location. You know, Shirley, for the past five years they tried to make an Urban Renewal and it never happened. They have tried before to condemn, but when the synagogue was really in bad shape but now as you know, even it is an old building, but it’s in better condition than a lot of the new buildings. 

Tanzer: How large is the membership? 
BROWN: We have around 50 members. 

Tanzer: And how large is the congregation? 
BROWN: On Shabbos we had averaged between 20 and 28. Actually by percentage wise, we have the biggest remaining so to say. When you figure from 50 members, if you have 20 or 28 you have been 40 and 60 percent, which other synagogues would be happy to have just 10 percent. 

Tanzer: What is the makeup of the congregation? Is it a young congregation? 
BROWN: On Saturday — no, the membership I wouldn’t say is young. The membership is, you have to figure they are around 50 percent old members. But the congregation, so to say those people who attend the Shabbos services, they are mostly young. There are only a few which are above 30-40 and so on. Most of them are between 20, 25 and 35. We have most of the Reed students come to us on high holidays or whenever they want to attend synagogue. We had this Saturday three students from Reed College which walked. I know one who walked from Reed. This boy when he came here didn’t know what his religion was. He was raised in a temple and his parents didn’t keep. The only time he went to synagogue was on the high holidays. Now he walks from Reed College to our synagogue. Then of course he eats lunch with us and in the evening I take him back. 

Tanzer: Do you have people who spend the weekends with you discussing the prayers or…? 
BROWN: Like I said, this student. He comes to us. He comes in the morning and walked to the synagogue. Then he comes to us for lunch and in the afternoon we learn together. In the night I take him back to the college. 

Tanzer: So you are building all the time, Barry. 
BROWN: We are trying to. But like I mentioned before we try to help people whichever way we can.