Erna Apsler

Frankel: Please state your full name, your birthdate and your birthplace.
APSLER: Ernestine Gerson Apsler, being called Erna Apsler. I was born in a Polish town of Nicolinse, which was part of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire at that time. And when I was about one year old, my parents moved into Vienna and that is where I went to school.

Frankel: When were you born?
APSLER: October 20, 1912.

Frankel: Can you tell me who lived in your household when you grew up?
APSLER: My parents, Tobias and Marlene Gerson. I was the oldest of three daughters. I was precious because my mother had had two miscarriages before, so I was something very precious.

Frankel: And how old were your other siblings? How old are you?
APSLER: Well, I am 92. My sister is six years younger and lives in California now. And then there was another, the youngest was Wilhelmina, another two years later.

Frankel: Can you describe your early years in Vienna at home? What was your religious life like?
APSLER: My parents were Orthodox Jews. They took me to Hebrew school and I went to grade school and from there to a Gymnasium. I did very well because I had the best certificate in the school. I had straight ‘As.’ I don’t know how, but I did. At that time they didn’t do anything like have a valedictorian, but that is what I was. And then I decided to go to medical school. At that time it was free. There were huge classes. My best friend and a cousin of mine also went.

Frankel: Was it common for women to go to university and medical school?
APSLER: It was. My first class in anatomy had 1000 students. It is a big city.

Frankel: And how many of the students were women?
APSLER: Lots were women.

Frankel: Can you talk a little bit about the neighborhood in Vienna where you lived? Who were your parents’ friends? Did you go to synagogue?
APSLER: It was customary in Vienna that people met in coffee houses. They met and chatted and read the paper. There were different coffee houses, one for students, one for doctors, one for actors. My father had always wanted to be a doctor. Sunday morning he used to go to the one for medical students. He would take the magazine and he was very proud when the waiter called him “Herr Doctor.” He wanted his son to be a doctor but his son was always a writer. On the shelf there are some books that Fred wrote. He wrote for newspapers, he wrote books, he wrote for magazines. And he talked with people. He liked people.

Frankel: What was your father’s occupation?
APSLER: My father got into the business of having a kosher restaurant. And he had a factory to make his own salami and sausages. I would help him in that restaurant; I would serve people.

Frankel: What was the name of the restaurant?
APSLER: [laughs] I don’t remember. I know it was on the Wallenstein Straat.

Frankel: Were there Jewish neighborhoods in Vienna?
APSLER: Oh yes.

Frankel: Was that where you lived?
APSLER: I guess so.

Frankel: Can you describe the people who came to the restaurant? What was life like at the time?
APSLER: Well, people did their work and then they met in the park and the children came and played.

Frankel: Did your parents have many non-Jewish friends?
APSLER: That I doubt. And I didn’t have any non-Jewish friends. I went to a school where there were many Jewish kids. In fact the school was closed on the High Holidays. I didn’t have any non-Jewish friends. Big cities have lots of Jews.

Frankel: Growing up there were no anti-Semitic incidents?
APSLER: No, there were not. But you know what I think is interesting? That I never met a Protestant. There was the Catholic population, you know? And then I came to this country and there were so many denominations. It was so confusing, how is one different from the other?

Frankel: Were your parents involved politically in any way?
APSLER: Not politically, no one was. I wasn’t either. In fact I don’t remember ever having had to vote. I must have, but I don’t remember it.

Frankel: Was Zionism important?
APSLER: Yes, that was important. Every year I would march with a group to the grave of Theodore Herzl. I joined the Zionist movement HaShomer Hatsa’ir. In summertime we were sent to the Yugoslavia coast.

Frankel: Did you ever consider moving to Palestine?
APSLER: No. My sister, on the other hand. At that time, the British made it very difficult to go to Palestine, but if you married a young man, you could go with him to Palestine, and once you got there you divorced him. That is what she did.

Frankel: How did you meet your husband?
APSLER: My husband was a very outgoing person. He belonged to various organizations and gave lectures. He would lecture at one of the Jewish service organizations, I can’t remember the name.

Frankel: Tell me more about your experience as a student in medical school. How many years did you study?
APSLER: Medical school, as I told you had huge classes. It took six years. I got through somehow.

Frankel: What year was it when you finished?
APSLER: I think it was in 1936.

Frankel: That was after Hitler was already in power in Germany.
APSLER: Yes, and we heard the stories about Germany and we didn’t believe it. We didn’t believe that a nation so cultured would do things like that.

Frankel: Did you travel much growing up?
APSLER: Yes, some. The classes would be taken on trips to the Alps, St. Mortiz, skiing and swimming. We did that. My husband did a lot of traveling. He spoke French very well. I went to a school where I had English and French.

Frankel: When you finished medical school, what did you do?
APSLER: By that time the situation was already pretty bad. Fred had been teaching in a Gymnasium and then he lost his job. We went to Graz, which is the second largest city in Austria. We lived there for a while.

Frankel: When did you get married?
APSLER: In 1934 or 35.

Frankel: Before you finished medical school?
APSLER: Yes, right. Then the situation became very bad. We looked out the window and we saw some Nazi storm troopers pulling down an old man and dragging him away. That is bad. Then we knew that it was time to get out. Fred and some friends and I began sitting on the bench and somebody came and took him and the other away. I didn’t know where they were going. Later on they came back. Do you know what they did in those days? They let these poor people scrub the sidewalk and the other people were standing around. Then we knew something had to be done. We found a man who said he knew how to get the passport to Switzerland if you paid him a certain amount of money, which of course was paid. But, when the meeting time came, he wasn’t there. So Fred and the son of a friend of ours took a taxi and drove to the out post of that part of Austria (that juts out further into Switzerland). They drove into the border so that they could get across without any problems. A very short time later I had a birthday. Fred called me and said, you do the same thing I did. With the son of our friends, I did there. I took what I had on. I had nothing else. Somehow, they caught us at the border, they put us in a kind of a cell and I thought they would send us back. But they didn’t; they let us get out and there we were.

Frankel: Was that after the Anschluss?
APSLER: That must have been.

Frankel: Do you remember the day of the Anschluss?
APSLER: What happened was that Fred had met a young rabbi who had been traveling between Austria and Israel to study. Fred met him and they became good friends. They were corresponding back and forth. This rabbi, in Durham, North Carolina, made an appeal in a synagogue asking for somebody who would be willing to sign a affidavit for two people. And there was this woman, this Mrs. ___________. She was unbelievable. She was from Russia originally. She had six or seven daughters and one son and she was willing to give the affidavit. That is how we got there. We lived in Durham, North Carolina.

Frankel: What happened to your sisters and your parents?
APSLER: My sisters ended up in a concentration camp – in Terezenstadt. You know the Germans were meticulous in their bookkeeping. I even saw their names where they were exterminated. They were taken to Riga or one of those. They disappeared. We don’t know. Then my younger sister Sarah is in California, she is still alive. The youngest one, Nina, who was a pretty girl with blue eyes. She was caught on a train transport to Yugoslavia and she was taken away. That is the end. Once I was an only child. [I can’t hear what she is saying very clearly.]

Frankel: When did you come over to this country? What year was that?
APSLER: In 1940 something. 48 or 49.

Frankel: How long did you stay in Switzerland? And where did you stay?
APSLER: In Switzerland we didn’t stay long. It was about a year before we could come to Durham.

Frankel: Did you ever practice as a physician after medical school?
APSLER: No, I did not. At that time, it is very funny, I was considered an enemy alien.

Frankel: But in Vienna or Switzerland you didn’t practice either?
APSLER: No. In Switzerland you weren’t allowed. You just lived. An American family supported us. We couldn’t do anything, only survive.

Frankel: How did you survive, in terms of finances?
APSLER: American money was sent over to support us.

Frankel: What city were you in?
APSLER: In Chur, in the state of Graubunden, which is the closest to Austria. The people are very nice there. You know that Switzerland has four languages. The family that we stayed with spoke the fourth one, what was it now? It is a remnant from the Latin. The man of the family worked on the trains and took us on trips.

Frankel: How did you find a family to take you in?
APSLER: I really don’t know. Maybe they found me.

Frankel: How did you travel to the United States?
APSLER: By ship. We traveled from Genoa all the way down.

Frankel: Was it a regular passenger ship?
APSLER: Yes.

Frankel: Where did you arrive?
APSLER: We came to Durham, North Carolina and I got a job there eventually, in a kind of a gym. A slenderizing salon. My customers were all professors wife and I spoke with them the English. From them I learned the English. And I helped them. They would work out on the machinery and then go around the corner to Walgreen’s and have a good milk shake.

Frankel: Do you have good memories of that period?
APSLER: Everything was new. I was just like a five-month old baby.

Frankel: Was it the Jewish community that gave you the affidavit?
APSLER: That woman was Jewish, yes. Mrs. Nachumson [?] was her name. Her oldest son became the Mayor of Durham. They were successful people. She had a number of dress shops, clothing shops.

Frankel: What did your husband do when he first got to Durham?
APSLER: He took any kind of job he could get. Then he got a job in the University Library. At first they thought, oh, he is a European, what could he know? They made him shelve books until they found out that he knew more about the library business than they did. Then he became a reference librarian. He was good at it. There are a bunch of books here that he wrote. He was a good teacher, too. He taught history. There is a series of books on famous people that he wrote.

Frankel: Did you have any relatives in the United States?
APSLER: I may have had, but they were standing in the background. They were afraid to mention us because, giving an affidavit you had to put down how much income you had and they didn’t want to. I don’t know anything about them. Then, since my husband was an only child, there is no family. If I didn’t have Ruby, I would be lost.

Frankel: How long did you spend in Durham?
APSLER: I think three years, and then the war broke out. Who built the ships? They were hiring people. They came to us and Fred wanted to work for the shipyard. They take anybody. So that is how we came to the west coast. And people there knew nothing about the west coast. And they told us to be careful, “The Indians are still running around out there.” Just shows you how ignorant people are. I remember the first Thanksgiving we had. It was at a table as long as a room, with so much food on top of it. They served meat with something sweet; I had never seen that combination.

Frankel: Was that in Durham?
APSLER: Yes. It was with ________. They were in scrap metal. They were very well-off. So we came to the west coast. I was pregnant. My son was born right after that, in Portland.

Frankel: So did you live in Portland first?
APSLER: Yes [mumbles something]

Frankel: Did you connect with the Jewish community when you got here?
APSLER: Yes. I used to go to the Jewish Community Center, which is how I got my ______. We used to live in Vancouver and I got a job at Clark College and I taught there for 20 years. I would drive sometimes twice into Portland to the Jewish Community Center. Yes, life was okay, and then, three years later, Ruby was born. She was born in Longview, Washington. She is my all. She has arranged for you to be here.

Frankel: When you said you were an “enemy alien,” what did that mean?
APSLER: They just added on something. And you couldn’t become a citizen for five years. There was nothing you could do about anything.

Frankel: Were there restrictions? Like curfew?
APSLER: No, I don’t think so. Imagine, running away from Hitler to be an “enemy.” But that was the American philosophy.

Frankel: What was the Portland Jewish community like when you came here?
APSLER: They had an organization of refugees. They still have kind of an organization here called Café Europa. And they have people from Germany, Belgium, Russia, Vienna. A lot of them meet there. They have someone lecturing. You don’t know Jill, I imagine.

Frankel: Jill Neuwalt?
APSLER: You know her! She is the one who is in charge of it. Her husband is the one who was my neurosurgeon.

Frankel: Let’s go back to the older time when you said there was a group of refugees who met.
APSLER: Yes, Germans. Do you speak any German?

Frankel: I understand it.
APSLER: [She speaks German] It is much better. And then they would say, “Why don’t you go back to Deutschland if it is so much better?”

Frankel: How did you feel about Vienna when you were forced to leave.
APSLER: I am not that much a patriot after what they did to me. I didn’t forgive them very easily.

Frankel: What exactly did they do?
APSLER: The way they treated my family. Fred lost his job right away.

Frankel: Did you have many relatives in Vienna?
APSLER: We had a very small family. Fred was an only child. I had some cousins but they all died. Most of my friends are gone? How come I am still here?

Frankel: Back to this country. Your husband worked in the shipyards.
APSLER: I did too!

Frankel: After you gave birth?
APSLER: In the eye department, I worked. You know these young women who were working with flashlights. And then one comes in Monday morning and she was supposed to put _____ on and she had black streaks running down. It turned out she had mascara on – on a Monday morning! I never had mascara on, or makeup. Except when I came to this country, when I came to New York, I had all these friends that were here already. She gave me a lipstick and said, “You can’t walk around in this town with a naked face.” But I decide I don’t need that. It’s much easier that way. I don’t care about those things. I have seen people who won’t wear a hearing aid because they are vain. But I don’t care. I am at the age where it doesn’t matter. Old ladies can do anything.

Frankel: Just one more time back to the ship coming here. Who were the other passengers on the ship?
APSLER: That I don’t remember. It was packed. And I was pregnant.

Frankel: You were pregnant on the way to the states?
APSLER: I think I was. [mumbles] I told you about him?

Frankel: Yes, where was he living?
APSLER: That I don’t know. I only know that he would travel from Vienna to Israel. And Fred would meet him. That was nice of him to make an appeal to the synagogue.

Frankel: How long did you and your husband work in the shipyard?
APSLER: That I don’t really remember. A year or two. He was a welder. He tried to weld but he was really not good at that sort of thing. He wanted to build ships for America to win the war.

Frankel: Where did he go to school in Vienna? What was his degree?
APSLER: He had a Ph.D.

Frankel: In what field?
APSLER: In literature. He was good with writing and he liked to lecture and to write.

Frankel: When you first came, did you belong to a synagogue?
APSLER: At first we joined the Temple, but not for very long.

Frankel: You said that you grew up in an Orthodox family. Did you continue to observe any rituals?
APSLER: No, I didn’t. Because he did not want. But as a child I was taken to Hebrew school and I could read Hebrew.

Frankel: And here did you become active politically?
APSLER: I just went down to AUW.

Frankel: How did you get the job at Clark College after the shipyard?
APSLER: Well, we met first in [can’t hear – Downry?] Do you know Downry? Downry is north of Portland about 45 miles. And the husband there taught at the community college and there was this dean at Clark College who needed people in his school. So he invited my husband and he wanted me. I had never been in a college and here am I to teach in a college. It was pretty complicated because I didn’t know anything about it. I taught anatomy and physiology for 17 years. My husband taught history, comparative religion. If they needed a philosophy class, he could do that too. He was a very good teacher.

Frankel: Did you enjoy teaching?
APSLER: Yes. And Vancouver was a nice town to live in. I wouldn’t recognize it now from the way it used to be. But it is still nice. And Clark College was nice. We had a two-year nursing program so I taught the medical classes. Some of the women were older than I was. We also had a dental hygiene program there.

Frankel: So you had two children by then.
APSLER: I have a son who lives in Boston. He works with drug and alcohol abuse. He is a psychologist – research. And you know Ruby.

Frankel: No, I have not met her before.
APSLER: She has arranged for you to come. She is unbelievable. She is my big help, my wonder. She was in the foreign service; she lived in African countries.

Frankel: Did you ever go back to Vienna?
APSLER: I did one time. In 1975 we went back. But I am not that way. I have a friend who would go every year. But I don’t know anybody there anymore.

Frankel: In 1948, you were already in Portland. Do you remember the day Israel became an independent state?
APSLER: Yes.

Frankel: Do you have any memories of that day?
APSLER: Yes I do because I had a boyfriend who was there and he was killed. [mumbles]

Frankel: Was that someone from HaShomer Hatsa’ir?
APSLER: Could have been. Every year they would be going to Hertzl’s grave.

Frankel: Were you an American citizen?
APSLER: Yes, it took five years to become a citizen.

Frankel: And when your children were growing up were they involved in the Jewish community? Did you take them to Sunday School?
APSLER: Oh to Sunday School sure. You see we lived in [?] and my husband taught Sunday School so he would take the children with him. They didn’t like Sunday School. You know how children are. It wasn’t a very good experience for them.

Frankel: Do you remember who the leaders were in the Jewish community when you first came to Portland? Who were the rabbis? What organizations were active?
APSLER: There was a Rabbi Nodel at Neveh Shalom. I remember him; he was a big shot. He was a well-known rabbi. And there was Rabbi Rose, of course. But he was a cold man. I had a good friend who was a member of the Temple. When she had a stroke, the rabbi never came to see her. She died.

Frankel: Do you have any other early memories of Vienna? Can you remember your neighborhood?
APSLER: It was a small street, Gaizenikegasse it was called. It was old. Everything in Vienna was old, you know. I used to come home late at night and call down to my parents to throw down the key; I was afraid to go up the dark stairs. It was a very old building. Then when I went back in ’75, I wanted to see how the neighborhood had changed. Things don’t change very quickly. Here after 25 years they tear everything down and build something new. There things are old. It is a beautiful city. All European cities have a character. When you go to Vienna, or Budapest, or Berlin, they are all unique.

Frankel: Can you describe a day in your life in Vienna. What is your earliest memory?
APSLER: It is of a beautiful park. And all the mothers would be sitting there. From school I would go with the other children and play. We would play with the little rocks. That was our favorite game. And memories of school. I did well in school.

Frankel: What language did you speak at home? Did your parents speak Yiddish between themselves?
APSLER: Maybe they did, I don’t remember. Yiddish is different in different countries. Do you speak any of it?

Frankel: Yiddish I understand.
APSLER: Yiddish is very related to German, you know. But Russian Yiddish is different from German Yiddish. I know people who go to the Jewish Community Center to learn Yiddish. In Israel, I knew a man who wanted to get a doctorate in Yiddish, if you can imagine.

Frankel: When you came to this country, did you feel that American Jews who were born here were welcoming of refugees?
APSLER: I don’t know but I don’t think so.

Frankel: So, who were your friends here, were they American born or were they refugees?
APSLER: I have one friend who is just as old as I am. We made friends in the neighborhood. We met at the school and walked home together.

Frankel: Raising your children, did you have any cultural conflicts? You being used to the way that you grew up in Vienna and raising them in America? Culturally it is very different.
APSLER: No, I don’t think there were any clashes. They were pretty good children, really. Although Ruby had a hard time in her teens and Bob did not. Bob was always very easy-going.

[END OF SIDE 1]

APSLER: Play that back for a minute. I would like to hear my accent.
Frankel: [laughing] Did you speak English to your children?
APSLER: I felt it was important for them to learn English. I had friends who taught their children German. I didn’t thing that was right. My children were sometimes embarrassed when I didn’t pronounce the ‘th’ right or the ‘v’ like a ‘w’.

Frankel: And you and your husband, did you speak German to each other?
APSLER: I imagine we did for a while and then gradually we came to speak English. When I came to Durham, I thought, “I will never understand these people, they speak so fast.” But I knew some because I had studied in school and eventually I learned to make myself understood.

Frankel: Are there any events that you remember that were important events in your life?
APSLER: There were so many good friends, precious friends. I am too old to live, anyhow. [voice trails off].

Frankel: When you get together at the Café Europa, what do you do?
APSLER: We sit together. There are people from Vienna, people from Bulgaria, from Hungary and so on. We drink coffee or tea and eat snacks. They usually Jill brings somebody. In fact Ruby talked once about one of the African countries she had been to. She gave a lecture. Jill usually brings somebody. That is nice. And I met her husband. He is one of my neurosurgeons.

Frankel: Did your children go to school here after high school? Where did they go to high school?
APSLER: In Vancouver, they went to high school.

Frankel: When did you move to Vancouver?
APSLER: In 1956. We stayed there about 20 years.

Frankel: In order to teach anatomy, did you have to take refresher courses?
APSLER: No, I didn’t because I have a degree anyhow so they let me teach. I had never been in a college before and here I am in front of a class of students, supposed to do something. It was a struggle to teach biology and microbiology. I had to struggle to learn

Frankel: All the terms.
APSLER: My husband taught at Grant High School in Portland. They made him teach algebra or something. He knew his math, but he didn’t know the English terms for things. That made it difficult. He also taught German. Then he taught at the Community College.

Frankel: Did you ever consider taking exams here to practice medicine?
APSLER: First of all you couldn’t do this until you were a citizen, which took five years, and then the children were here and it was not possible. If he had been a doctor it would have been different, but since he wasn’t there was no initiative. It was too complicated.

[END OF SIDE 2]

Frankel: It is January7th. We are continuing with the interview of Erna Apsler. Sylvia Frankel is conducting the interview and with us is Ruby Apsler, Erna’s Daughter.
Would you care to read this card?
APSLER: I’m not sure that I can, [then, reading first in German, she translates:] “Dear Parents, I want, as you see.” Oh, this is an old one. “I feel well, like a fish in water. I greet you heartily with kisses.”

Frankel: You were on vacation?
APSLER: Probably.

Frankel: Here is a picture. Somebody is wearing a doctor or nurse’s uniform.
APSLER: That looks like a friend. Yenna. She must have been in the same class as I was.

Frankel: Are you in that picture?
APSLER: Maybe I am sitting over there, I am not sure. It was a long, long time ago.

Ruby: Do you want to talk about Yenna?
APSLER: Her father was a very well-thought-of man. People came and asked his advice. He was good with his hands and his grandson has inherited that. Whatever he wants, he can make. He is good with his hands as his grandfather was. In those days, people were not encouraged to do it, but he bought a saw and built a sailboat and he would go out on the river and sail. He took me along one time on the Columbia River, it was very wavy and I was sitting on the wall holding on. It was skipping from one wave to the other. He was quite a sailor. And he was clever with his hands, as his grandfather was.

Frankel: Do you recognize any of these pictures? When were they taken?
APSLER: And we always went on summer vacation somewhere – with groups. That is what you see here but I don’t recognize anybody in it.

Ruby: If you were the best student in your gymnasium, wouldn’t you have a picture of that?
APSLER: I was. They didn’t make pictures like that. They didn’t talk about valedictorians then. I had the best certificate. I had straight ‘As.’ I don’t know how I got them, but there they were. But nobody paid attention to that.

Frankel: How about this photograph?
APSLER: I have a friend who is exactly my age. She lives in Walla Walla. We celebrated our 90th birthdays together. Then she had a stroke. I don’t know what has become of her. What has become of Clara?
Ruby: There are pictures of her here.

Frankel: She is also from Vienna?
Ruby: From medical school, yes.

Frankel: Here are all boys. Who are these boys?
APSLER: Clara had two boys, Herman and . . .

[they shuffle through more photographs]

APSLER: What do you need?
Frankel: I think by looking at photographs, that it will bring back memories.

APSLER: I told you in the summertime we all went down to the Yugoslavian Coast.
Frankel: With your parents or with friends?
APSLER: With friends. That was the summer vacation. It was very beautiful there.

Frankel: Is that where you met your husband?
APSLER: No, I met him in Vienna. He was very good and very articulate. He lectured to Jewish organizations. That is how I met him. He was lecturing to the WiZO, you know the WiZO?

Frankel: Yes, the World Zionist Organization.
APSLER: Right. That is where I met him.

Frankel: Are there photographs of HaShomer Hatsa’ir?
APSLER: No.

Frankel: Did you wear a uniform? Do you remember?
APSLER: I don’t remember. Here is one of a boys and girls swimming. I remember one boy. We were very close and then he went to Israel and in the war with the Arabs he got killed.

Frankel: In the War of Independence.
APSLER: Yes. That is all I remember. I don’t remember his name.
Oh, my that is not German. That is Italian.

Ruby: Who are these people?
Frankel: You cut out from the newspaper. Do you recognize these two women?
APSLER: No.

Ruby: There are a lot of pictures of him. Isn’t that him?
APSLER: I haven’t looked at these in a hundred years.

Frankel: How did you get these pictures? Were they sent to you after the war or were you able to take the pictures with you when you escaped from Vienna?
APSLER: When I escaped from Vienna, I escaped with my clothes just like I am. I had nothing.

Frankel: What about your husband?
APSLER: The same?

Frankel: So how did these pictures reach you?
APSLER: Maybe they were sent to me after the war. We had a cousin there. What was her name? Lena Asher. And she died.

Frankel: She was a cousin of yours?
APSLER: Of my husband.

Frankel: She came to this country after?
APSLER: Yes she did.

Ruby: Did you help her come to this country?
APSLER: I don’t think so. She had a brother, too. But he went to Israel.

Frankel: Did she come to Portland?
APSLER: I don’t think so. She had heart trouble.

Ruby: Do you remember how she got to England?
APSLER: How did she get to England? How did you know she was in England?

Ruby: I think she was in the Kindertransport and became a nurse.
APSLER: Yes. I don’t think she liked England. They didn’t treat her very well.

[she is looking at many photographs and mumbling. She does not seem to recognize the people]

APSLER: That is Fred. That is a friend.

Frankel: Does this seem like they were taken before the war?
APSLER: Could be. [mumbles some names]

Ruby: Did you tell her about the apartment where you grew up?
APSLER: What about it? t was a small apartment. On the second floor. I would come home at night and I would call up for them to throw down the key.

Frankel: Were the other people in the apartment building all Jewish?
APSLER: I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Frankel: Did you share a room with your sisters?
APSLER: I imagine so. It was a small apartment.

Ruby: Wasn’t that entire area Jewish?
APSLER: There were many Jews that lived in Vienna. In fact when I came here I was overwhelmed with all of the denominations.

Ruby: Did you know any Catholics when you were in Vienna?
APSLER: Yes, Catholics I knew because in my school there were just Jews and Catholics, no Protestants. In fact, on Jewish holidays the school was closed because there were so many Jews.

Frankel: Did you have a class in religion at your school?
APSLER: We had a chaplain or something who taught religion, I think. But I am not sure that I attended that class.

Ruby: Where did you learn to read Hebrew?
APSLER: When I was a little girl my parents took me to an old lady who taught me how to read and how to say a few words in Hebrew. She liked to put on plays and I would be the son of Isaac.

Frankel: Jacob?
APSLER: Yes [recites in Hebrew]. Then he comes to the Pharaoh. The one who had the cup

Frankel: Benjamin.
APSLER: Right.

APSLER: [looking at another picture]This is Fred. And this is a road that we drove on in Italy. Those curves, they are fantastic. Very difficult to drive.

Frankel: Here is a postcard that you wrote on your trips.
APSLER: [Translating from the German] “Dear parents, The top of this road by bus is overwhelming. Tomorrow we go to [?] Lake. We want to stay there a few days. Please write to us.” And then it gives the address.

Frankel: Is that on the Austrian/Italian border?
APSLER: It could be.

Frankel: This was also in 1937.
APSLER: Oh my goodness. 1937.

Frankel: You were married already?
APSLER: Yes, I think we got married in 1934.

[They are going through photos trying to spark memories]

Frankel: Did you wear glasses? Is this you?
APSLER: [laughing] I was vain, like everybody else and I didn’t wear them although I needed them.
I had a good figure in those days too. It’s gone now.

Here are unrecognizable people.

Frankel: Here you have written “Switzerland 38-40”
APSLER: That means Women’s School.

Frankel: Did you leave Vienna in 1938 or 1939?
APSLER: 1938. And we went to Switzerland and stayed there for a year.

Frankel: So these are the photographs from that period. Do you remember what this women’s school might be?
APSLER: No, not much.

Frankel: Can you recognize anyone?
APSLER: No, not even myself.

Frankel: What about this one?
Ruby: What did you do in Switzerland to get ready to come here?
APSLER: What did I do?
Frankel: Were you allowed to work in Switzerland?
APSLER: No. Switzerland has four languages and we stayed with a family that spoke that fourth language. There is German, French, Italian and I forgot the name of the fourth language. It comes from the Latin. [she is trying to remember the language called Romansh] The man was a train conductor and took us to, what are these famous places? So we could see the country. They were kind people.

Frankel: Were you in touch with the Jewish community in Switzerland?
APSLER: Not much.

Ruby: Did Dad learn to drive through ORT?
APSLER: No, Dad learned to drive in Durham. He tried to teach me. We drove to the next town, the University town. I never was a very good driver. She is a good driver, I never was.

Frankel: Do you recognize anyone in this little orchestra or band?
APSLER: Fred liked to play the mandolin. And also the violin.

Frankel: Is this the place you lived in Switzerland?
APSLER: Yes, the town was called Chur. Oh that is Fred.

Frankel: Do you recognize the people in this picture?
APSLER: No, you can keep it. It is so long ago. An eternity.

[They continue trying to recognize people in the photos]

Ruby: What was the name of the family you stayed with in Switzerland?
APSLER: I don’t know. All I know is that they spoke Romansh.

Frankel: This one says it is Nina in Yugoslavia.
APSLER: Nina was my younger sister. I don’t see her there.

Frankel: This says “Family Zuckerman”
APSLER: Yes, he was the one who traveled between Vienna and Israel and when the situation happened that my husband asked him for some help and he made an appeal at his synagogue in Durham to help some people come over. And there was a Mrs. Nachumson. This wonderful Russian lady. I think she had seven daughters and one son and she gave an affidavit and that is how we came. He was from one of the universities.

Frankel: And here is a place, Lobal?
APSLER: Lobal is a suburb of Vienna where people go swimming. That is what I did because I had long vacations in summer time and all day I was out in the sun. In those days they didn’t know that the sun was bad for you and I got so black a negro.

Frankel: Your husband tells that during the summer time the family would move to that resort place for two months. Did your family rent a place there too?
APSLER: Yes, I imagine they did. Did he mention which place?

Frankel: He said it was about 20 miles.
APSLER: Z____zee was the most famous resort place.

Ruby: What happened to the restaurant if you went away for two months?
Frankel: Well, Fred’s father only joined them on weekends.
APSLER: Well, they kept going somehow, I imagine. When I was there I helped with the serving.

Frankel: Did your mother also help in the restaurant?
APSLER: Yes, and my father also had a little factory where he made the salami and sausage and the meat. And I helped in the store. It was kosher. That I remember.

Frankel: Do you have good memories of that time?
APSLER: Yes, there were some very nice people who came in and ordered the meat, and soup.

Ruby: What kind of people were they?
APSLER: What kind of people? They were people from the neighborhood.

Frankel: This is 1940. This is in Durham already.
APSLER: Yes, we played lots of ping pong in the basement.

Ruby: Was that in Durham or in Vancouver?
APSLER: No, in Durham I was so enthralled with the dormitories at Duke University. I had never lived in a dormitory and I told somebody, “When I am born again, I am going to be born in this country and be able to live in a dormitory.” Then I worked in the slenderizing salon and I learned English there.

[Erna reminisces a bit about her friend Clara who came from Vienna also and ended up in Walla Walla].

Frankel: Are there any other stories that come to mind?
Ruby: How did you get Schneterleng and the woman from New York here?

[END OF SIDE 3]
APSLER: I had a cousin. We would go to the movies. She used to bring me silk dresses. She died, unfortunately, of pneumonia. They had two sons. The younger son was a beautiful young man. Theo and Erik were there names. I think Erik married a non-Jewish girl and they were deported also. They disappeared in Holland, I think. Theo went to Israel, and the father too. They would go to Carlsbad in the summertime to lose weight. Wealthy people are always heavy.

Frankel: Were you in touch with the son who went to Israel?
APSLER: No, not much. Theo Wahaftig [?] was his name. I don’t know what became of them.
Ruby: We were going to look them up on the new Yad VaShem site. They are on-line now.

APSLER: But they had no papers of people before. They have there some documents.
I am really from Nicolinse which is in Galicia and there is only one tiny little person who came from there. Nobody ever did.

Frankel: Did you meet that person in Portland?
APSLER: [laughs but does not answer] It was so unusual to meet someone. That was the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, you know. It was a huge empire at that time. That is all I remember. And that they hated the Jews. I don’t know why but the Jews are hated. Even in New Zealand, I understand, there are problems of that kind.

Ruby: Did you ever face any anti-Semitism in this country?
APSLER: I can’t say that I really did. The school I went to was 80% Jewish.

Frankel: But that was in Vienna.
APSLER: In Vienna, yes.

Frankel: What about in this country? Did you ever experience any anti-Semitism?
APSLER: Not personally. No

Ruby: What about in Durham?
APSLER: In Durham?