>> We are now recording, and I'll begin.
Today is Tuesday,
August 4th, 2020,
and I'm here on Zoom on behalf of
Kennesaw State University with Susan Silverman,
and we will be recording
a Legacy series interview focused
on Susan's husband's family's
experience during the Holocaust.
So to begin, could you
please start by stating your full name?
>> My name is Susan Helen Silverman.
My maiden name was Roman.
>> And do you agree to this interview?
>> I sure do.
>> Fabulous. Could you please
start by telling me when and where you were born?
>> I was born in Brooklyn,
New York, in 1947.
My parents were born in this country as well.
My mother was the only one born
in this country out of six children,
they all came from Ukraine.
>> Cool. And then could
you also please tell me what your husband's name was?
>> My husband was Harry Mark Silverman,
and he wasn't born here.
He was born in Belgium in Antwerp and came here
when he was about 18 months old
with his fam, with his parents.
>> And before we talk about his childhood
more and how you both came to know each other,
we're going to shift our focus to
talk about his parents' lives in Europe,
leading up to his birth.
So if you could please start by
letting me know what their names were, his parents.
>> His father was Abraham Silberman,
and they changed it to Silverman
when they came to this country later on,
and his mother was Laimer Silverman,
and she also changed her name
to Beatrice when she came to this country.
Her maiden name was Ettinger,
and they both lived in [inaudible] Poland,
which is a small state or a small village in
the southeastern part of
Poland in the Carpathian Mountains.
>> And so do you know
much about what brought their families to that spot,
how they came to be settled in that place?
>> Their families were there for
many years, generations back.
The Jewish population there was fairly high at the time.
It was 40% of [inaudible] They lived on a mountain,
and there was no such thing as a car up there.
It was all horses and bicycles and they grew up together.
He was a bit older than her.
>> And what was the neighborhood like?
What were the homes like?
Were there farming people there too?
>> Yeah. Was a farming community
and both animals and plants, vegetables.
That's what it was like. They didn't
talk too much about before,
I had to cry. [LAUGHTER]
>> And how did they come to meet each other?
You said they grew up together?
>> Yeah. They both were in the same town.
She was 21 when they married, he was 26.
They knew each other long before that as well.
>> And what were their specific occupations?
>> Their occupations throughout,
to start with and then throughout
this country when they came here,
she was a dressmaker,
and she did work for very rich families.
She did beautiful work. And he was a upholster.
And I'm going to show you a picture of them
, can you see it?
The wedding picture? She designed
the wedding gown and made it and his suit and made it.
She did both. So she was quite good.
>> That's beautiful. And did
religion play an important role in their family life?
>> Yes, as it did in the entire village.
They were very religious.
>> Very observant?
>> Yes. They were observant of
all the holidays and of the service and so on.
>> And you mentioned that there was a pretty
big Jewish community in [inaudible]
>> There was a big Jewish community which didn't
get along well with the non-Jewish community.
>> Did they live in segregated parts of town?
>> Yeah. They lived near
a mountain top and that whole community was Jewish.
>> So you picture something, it's
almost like filler on the roof.
They're over in their spot, and
everybody else is in their spot.
>> Exactly.
>> So what did they tell you
about if they even knew about the rise of Nazism.
Was that something that filtered into their community?
>> Yeah, that was very interesting.
They didn't have very good communication
up there on the mountaintop.
And they would hear stories from
launderers that came through town and
they heard whisperings of armies and they got alarmed,
but they didn't see anything.
Nothing was real for them yet.
But they decided that this might not be
the place to stay because of what they heard.
They had also heard that if they were going to leave,
Antwerp in Belgium was
very favorable towards Jews in those years,
and that would be a good destination,
and that was their destination.
>> So this would have been in
the late 1930s before the invasion of Poland?
>> Yes. Well,
Poland was invaded, but where they were, no.
Poland was invaded by
both the Russians and the Germans at that point,
but they had not made their way to
[inaudible] and they were able to leave by train.
I don't know anything much more of their trip.
>> Do you know if it was expensive
or challenging for them to get
the tickets or to get visas from Holland to Antwerp?
>> It was difficult, but they managed.
>> And then what happened
to the Jewish people in the town
once the war essentially came to them?
>> This was very sad.
Two years after they relocated,
they read in the papers of German soldiers that went
to [inaudible] and they lined
up on a mountaintop or a hill rather.
They lined up all the elderly,
all the other people except the able-bodied men who could
work for the German armies, and they shot them.
And they pushed them over
the hill and there was a group burial ground there.
And I read stories about
that burial ground later on people wrote,
who visited there, and originally,
there were some tombstones put up and those were taken
down and used to pave the road in the town.
Eventually, years and years later, they were put back.
But it was just very sad and to their knowledge,
all of their relatives and friends were gone.
>> And did anyone in
your family ever go back there years later?
>> No. I read accounts of people who
did and it was very sad.
They're very anti-Jewish to this day.
[OVERLAPPING] I'm sorry.
>> Go ahead.
>> There was another thing that I
read that years after the war,
many of the Jewish people that left and
survived the war went back there and they were shot.
There were 12 people that went back together.
They were shot and nothing was done about it.
>> There are accounts
from different towns throughout Poland.
I had similar situations and experiences.
Well, shifting gears just a little
bit to their coming to Belgium.
What were their first impressions of Belgium?
How did they enter into this new world?
>> They loved it there. It wasn't
as divided, as segregated.
They lived in an apartment building
that had all kinds of people, many Jewish people,
and there were areas that
did not approve of Jewish people,
but it was much better than it was back home,
and they enjoyed it.
And they continued their professions.
She did very well as a seamstress,
and he worked in a furniture company
doing his upholstery.
He also did something which was very interesting,
which came into play later on.
He played the violin and he was extremely talented.
And he played in the local band
in the square. They had music and all.
As they were invaded, the Nazis,
the Germans had them continue playing because they wanted
everything nice and music and
everything's normal and nothing is wrong,
so they played until they didn't.
>> And Belgium was invaded in 1940,
so they would not have been there very
long before that happened.
Did they have more news access once they were in Belgium?
Did they have a sense that the Germans were coming?
>> Yes, they did. And they
tried to figure things out and prepare,
but it happened so fast when it did
occur that they didn't have much time.
She was taken in
by a family that she did the clothing for.
They were a very wealthy family.
They had a daughter her age
that she became friendly with.
After the war, they corresponded
with those people from the United States.
I wish I had their address now.
I tried and tried and I couldn't find anything.
But I got their name.
I do have the Van Gorns and I can even show you.
This was the daughter that she became friendly with.
This was the daughter and her husband.
But they were not the people that saved her,
it was her parents. Excuse me.
>> And what languages did they speak?
Did they have any trouble adjusting to living in Belgium?
I know they speak French and German
and a little bit of different things in Belgium.
>> In Dutch their main language was Flemish,
which is a type of Dutch,
according to the area that you live in.
There were all different dialects
and Flemish was their native language.
But she was wonderful of language,
which proved to help later on.
>> And your father in law struggled a little bit more.
Did he mostly speak Yidish or?
>> He was a shy, quiet man.
He played the violin,
he wanted nothing more than to make his wife happy,
and he was just the most wonderful person.
He was not very good with languages plus the shyness.
Also, around that time,
they came out with a different proclamations
where Jews had to wear the star on their clothing.
Jews had to register,
they weren't allowed to hold
a teaching position or a governmental position.
Things were changing quickly.
>> And did they lose then their official positions him at
the furniture factory and her as a as a dressmaker?
>> Well, when they were able to keep going for a while.
He was needed as the musician
and that kept him from being taken away.
But eventually, they did come to get him and
she was taken and hidden in
the attic of the angorns and he was taken to a work camp.
He worked there for about a year
and then wasn't of great use to them
anymore because he was exhausted.
He hadn't eaten well,
he lost a lot of weight, and so on.
So they didn't need him.
He was going to go to a camp.
>> Was the work camp in Belgium, the labor camp?
>> Yes.
>> Do you know if it was associated with
any industry or with the army or anything like that?
>> The only thing he told me that
he was doing there was he was digging
ditches for the army
to take cover, that's what he was doing.
He was constantly digging,
he had pictures of him also digging.
One wonderful thing when they did come eventually,
they brought so many papers and so many photographs and
documentation of different things and that
was very helpful to my husband and I.
>> That's amazing. I guess they were able
to keep a lot of that safe
because Belima was in a safer space.
So when they determined
that he was not needed at this labor camp,
was he transferred to a transit camp or
directly to a train that was heading east?
>> He was put on a train that
was eventually going straight to Auschwitz.
The train it's very interesting a book was written
about that train called the 20th train.
That train had been attacked by by
local people and when it made it
stop because of that, some people escaped.
Now, he had a friend that was with him that
played in the band with him and
that was at the work camp with him,
and the two of them floated to get free.
There was an air event in the top of the train and they
pushed it open and they got on top of
the train and it wasn't moving now.
And the friend slid
down the side and ran for the life of him,
he ran towards the forest.
Well, he was seen,
he was shot and he was killed.
Abe wasn't sure what to do,
he was a smart guy,
quiet and shy, but he was a smart guy.
He slid down the side of
the train and then went under the train
on the tracks between
the wheels so he wouldn't be noticed.
>> That's amazing. So did he stay
there under the tracks as the train left?
>> He stayed there and luckily,
they didn't see him as they pulled out.
And then began a very hard time
for him because he was wandering
through the countryside trying to get back to Belima.
And very interesting he
tells a story of coming to a farmhouse,
he had no food he was still in his prison clothing.
He came to the farmhouse and he went into the barn,
looking for whatever can help him.
And at the other end of the barn was
a farmer and the farmer looked at him.
They looked at each other
and Abe got scared that he would be reported.
So he picked up a rake
and went running towards the farmer
but before he got anywhere near him,
the farmer laid down like he was dead and played dead,
neither one of them wanted to struggle.
Neither one of them wanted either one of them hurt,
he took the farmer's clothing right off of
him and got rid of his prison clothing,
and he found some bread
there and he took that with him and he continued
on his way and he wandered for a long time
for maybe a month and a half through
woods and was able to make it back
to Antwerp to look for Abe.
>> And he was then still in
Belgium primarily during this time
as he was in the countryside?
>> Yeah. And when he got back to Belgium,
it was so messed up and
destroyed from all the bombings that had taken place.
His old building was damaged a lot.
It still stood, but it was
damaged and there were no people there.
And he didn't see anybody walking the street that he
recognized and he became so disconsolate.
He didn't want to live without Abe,
he didn't want to live in a world that was
so ugly and dangerous.
So he walked a few blocks and there was
Gestapo headquarters and he he went in to surrender.
Thought that would be the easiest thing,
he walked up to the desk and nobody was at the desk.
That would have been the time to walk out, but he didn't.
He went over to a bench and sat and waited.
Nobody came in.
And at this point,
he looks very angelic when he would tell the story to us.
At this point, he felt God was talking to him and saying,
you don't belong here,
get out of here now.
Slowly, he got up and he left.
That building, by the way, is still a police station,
it still stands in Belgium
we did some research and found out.
But he starts walking down the road,
disconsolate having nothing to live for.
And this is the miracle of this story,
Abe had been hidden in the attic for a while.
But because she was so proficient in language,
every now and again,
they would give her the ration tickets
and let her go out and fetch
the milk and the bread and such.
And on this particular day,
she was sent out to get those things and she was
walking down the road and way down ahead,
she saw somebody else walking and there
was something about his gait that was so familiar to her.
She looked and looked and could it be?
So she sped up, went alongside him,
and yes, yes, it was her Abe.
She took put her arm in his,
turned to him and went, they turned around.
She took him back to the house back up
into the attic and that family was fine with him joining.
And there they stayed until the war was over.
In 44, I believe it was the Canadians
fried Belgium and they were there.
He was there a little over a year,
she was there about 2.5 years.
So they were free now.
>> Amazing. So during
this time that they were being hidden,
the family that took care of them,
essentially, did they ask anything in exchange?
Did they give them
just food and water and what they could?
>> They took care of them, they gave in fact,
on the back is one of the notes.
This is the daughter of the people who
helped us with food and money.
They took care of them.
They were very close to her because she dressed them.
She took care of them and took special care of them.
So no, it was a beautiful story.
And like I said, they stayed in touch
with this family for many years.
>> So did they tell you anything
about their experience of
liberation when when the Canadian Army came into Belgium?
>> Yeah, they did it.
They talked about relief,
but they were afraid to leave
the attic they waited a good while.
And eventually, when they did leave,
they were able to start over again.
She did her business again,
the seamstress work, and he went
back to work in the furniture factory.
And that lasted for
I think it was about a year and a half.
In the meantime, she became pregnant with my Harry.
And they decided to make
the move to America to give him a better life.
And he was 18 months when they came on
the ship over and landed in New York.
>> And what year was this?
>> This was 48. The end of 48
and he was born earlier in 47.
>> Do you know if they worked with
any special agencies to get
over to the United States
like hayes or anything like that?
>> They had a sponsor,
a man who sponsored them and I have his picture here.
So they came with so much.
This is Harry Presser and he came
many years before to the country before the war and all.
And he sponsored them and took them in for
a while until they were able to get
their own place and manage on their own.
I don't know about formal agencies.
>> So did they come through Ellis Island?
>> Yes. And I don't know the name of the ship.
I did at one time,
and I can't find that information again.
>> Did they share with you
their first impressions of the United States,
what would it felt like to arrive?
>> They were surprised because
when they would walk down the street,
nobody would turn her head.
No everything was normal like.
For another reason, she wore a wig,
which I didn't know for many years after I met her.
Her hair fell out while she was in the attic,
through the stress and trauma,
But no, they were okay.
In local communities,
even the community that I
lived in where they eventually lived,
they were known as refs, refugees.
People talked about the refs.
They don't even talk English anymore.
It was a very derogatory thing,
which always bothered me.
But when it came to with them,
it really bothered me after what they had been through.
>> And the community in Brooklyn
that they ended up settling in,
was it predominantly a Jewish community
or was it a mixed community?
>> It was Jewish and Italian,
it was it was mixed that way.
And they lived in a housing project,
which was rent controlled and all.
It was very nice though.
I lived not too far away, a bicycle ride away.
And I was always angry at
my parents that we didn't live in the project,
where all my friends from school lived.
>> What neighborhood was this?
>> This was the beginning of Kennarce,
the early part of Kennarce,
my mother told me never call yourself a Kennarcian,
you live in East Flatbush.
Which was a few blocks from Kennarce.
>> Sure. Again, it's funny those lines of
demarcation are constantly shifting,
but very important it seems in people's idenity.
My brother lives in Brooklyn
now right now Greenwood cemetery.
>> [inaudible] today.
>> Yeah, it's very different.
Tell me about meeting your husband,
you met each other in school?
>> We met at school in the sixth grade.
We were about 12 and he was my boyfriend.
You didn't do much with a girlfriend boyfriend
at 12 years old.
He ordered a ring for me,
which I still have, I didn't go to get that out.
But it was on the back page of a comic book and I
wore it said Susan and Harry and it had
three rimestones on and it
looked like a snake went around my finger.
And I wore it and my finger turned purple and I
wouldn't take it off. It was very nice.
We were together for a long time.
We were together through the beginning of high school,
and then my friends convinced me,
no you've got to experience
these high school boys and everything.
And I wrote this long letter
and I dropped it in the mailbox.
And I cried and cried and tried to stick
my hand in to get back out and I couldn't.
But we went back together shortly after that.
And eventually, well, he went into the service.
I finished college.
He did when he came out and I was teacher.
I just retired 10 years ago,
I taught for 33 years and loved it and we got married.
We got married my last year of college.
We were married for 38 years before he passed away.
It was cancer.
>> So what did he end
up doing for a living after he was in the service?
And what part of the service?
What it the Army or Navy?
>> He was in the Army reserves.
And when he came out,
my father was in the insurance industry.
He had his own very small business.
And first, he worked for my father,
which was not a prime thing to do.
They got along very well, but,
my father could do everything
on his own, he didn't need help.
Just sit there, I'll let you know.
And my mother worked there as well,
she was the secretary.
He went into the insurance business,
but he went into the claims end of it.
He worked for a company called
Liberty Mutual who eventually
moved us to Florida
and he worked for other insurance companies as well.
That was his his thing.
>> So going back just a little bit
to your childhood years,
again, what were your first impressions of his parents?
Did you know them well?
Did you spend time with his family?
>> I did. He he was an only child.
There was another child born before him,
but died in childbirth.
And he was very close with his parents.
And I became very close with them I went there a lot.
And it was a strange environment in
their apartment because they
had blackout curtains on the windows.
They weren't always closed up,
but they had blackout curtains and then on the door,
they had five locks.
And I couldn't imagine why
for all that because it was a nice neighborhood.
It was a lower middle class neighborhood,
what was the problem?
And then they told me whenever there would
be a Neo-Nazi movement in the papers,
everything got shut up.
Whenever there would be anything anti Jewish,
everything would get shut up.
They had such fear
because of what they had lived through.
And at first I didn't understand
but as time went on and they told me the story,
maybe he would sometimes act out
the train situation and he would lay down on
the floor like he was on the tracks,
between the wheels and
his body would tremble as he was laying there.
It was also very real and it frightened me a lot.
And I didn't know any of
that because I didn't have
that background with my family.
>> And was that something
that other families in the neighborhood
that other Jewish families talked about?
You mentioned that there was
derogatory reference to refugees.
But when you did you learn about the Holocaust
specifically from AB and B.
>> I learned in school,
but I learned really from them.
I felt it and experienced it through them.
There were a lot of nice people in their neighborhood.
There were a lot of Jewish families,
some reps, some people who also escaped.
But they were fine. They had a lot of friends.
They also belongs to a group called the Conjuga Society,
and that was anybody who lived near or knew of the town,
the state of Conjuga many of them, in fact,
lived in Canada, because a lot of Jews migrated there.
But they would meet once a year and what was said
about it though was none of the children were joining
in and eventually it just fizzled out.
But through all my childhood years,
knowing them and through my marriage
and several years after,
they would have that meeting,
which was very important to them.
>> It reminds me a little bit of well,
I know there's there's Cafe Europa
in Atlanta through the JF and
CS for survivors to
meet and obviously not during the pandemic,
but, it was an important thing
for a lot of people that I've known.
Did they also belong to a synagogue?
>> This was interesting as well.
They belonged to a synagogue that was local.
He was important in beginning it.
It was a young new synagogue.
And after about two years
and some more affluent people locally joining,
that very beautiful, they kept adding on to it and all.
And he had trouble getting seats for the holidays.
Other people who began it were in the first row.
He had trouble getting in.
It was very sad.
Harry grew up with a lot of anger towards the temple,
which dissipated later on
when he became a father and so on.
But it was not a nice situation all the time there.
>> What were your impressions overall of
the impact that their wartime experience
had on the members of the family?
And it seems that it impacted them differently,
it wasn't the same for each one of them.
>> It was different for each one.
The fear that stayed with them all the time.
They never drove a car because they
didn't want to be out all that often.
They got Harry a car as soon as he was old enough to
drive so that he could take
them to places they needed to be.
His father always spoke a broken English and never got
over that uncomfortable feeling of speaking the language.
They only spoke flemish in
the house and then translated for me.
[LAUGHTER] Harry was the prince
of the family. I have to tell you.
He had papers, mail,
and things on his dresser that came recently.
And after we moved,
we got married and we moved and we moved nearby,
we'd go back to visit, and we'd go back for
dinner once a week and those same papers.
We'd be sitting on top of the dresser.
Nothing was touched in his room ever.
So that was just interesting.
He was very special to them,
because they never thought they'd have family.
They never thought they'd live through the war.
>> Did they ever feel comfortable enough to
explore other parts of
the country or leave their neighborhood,
or were they very much just ensconced?
>> They didn't leave their neighborhood much.
They didn't explore other parts
of the country, but something.
I'm glad you mentioned that because
I was forgetting to tell you.
Something very interesting happened
about 12 years after they were living in Brooklyn.
They ran into somebody that they knew from Europe and
that somebody told them that one of Abe's brothers,
an older brother, had
escaped just before the war and went to Israel.
When they found out,
I don't know if you can see it was like,
but they went to Israel and met Uncle Louis,
and he had opened up a general store there.
They had no idea he survived the war.
There was no communication until then.
And he came once to Brooklyn.
That's an email coming in on my computer. I'm sorry.
He didn't know Uncle Louis survived,
and Uncle Louis's son was a general in the Israeli Army.
When when they went there,
they were met by the army and
they were guarded the whole way.
They were escorted to the village where Louis lived.
And I met him when he came to Brooklyn.
>> Wow, that's wild.
Did they stay in touch with him then over the years?
>> Yeah. They did. The men in Harry's family,
in Abe's family,
had a history of dying young.
Not from one specific thing, maybe malnutrition,
I don't know what it was,
but they died young,
and Harry always told me he would die young.
He used to talk about that.
His father wasn't young when he passed,
but Harry always said that and he did.
He was 58 when he passed.
>> So tell me about your children,
about your life together.
>> Well, one of them just walked out of the room.
You can start with her.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Well, she was the first.
Her name is Mika Carrie Silverman,
and her name came
from a camp counselor that I worked with,
that was so sweet and so good to
people and all that I always said,
I'm going to use that name.
And in the Jewish religion,
it means unto the Lord.
She came and then next Allan came, Allan Ryan Silverman.
And they're wonderful. Mika is 43.
She works for,
what is it called now?
She's going to kill me, 1,000 Lights.
She works for a nonprofit.
And she does very well.
She's very happy there.
And Allan just last week started his own business.
He had worked for construction company taking groups out.
He didn't do the actual construction,
but he just opened his own and it's
very exciting. They're both married.
Mika is married to Jason,
who she knew from high school.
And I just absolutely loved him.
Jason, though, has a history.
He was born with a kidney disease
and he's had a rough life
and he's on at home dialysis now.
And now with the pandemic,
he can't leave the house or anything.
So it's a little bit hard for the two of them.
But they're very happy together.
And Allan has two children.
He also married, has two children, and he moved away.
He lives in Mount Pleasant in South Carolina,
just across the bridge from Charleston,
and just moved into a lovely home
they rented before until now.
But the grandchildren.
Do you zoom with your grandchildren?
I saw them very frequently before the pandemic.
I haven't seen them this time since Christmas.
And they're growing up so fast.
The older one, Vivian,
but we call her Vivi,
is 7.5 going on 30.
[LAUGHTER]
And the small one Helena,
just turned five and she's a trip.
They're both wonderful happy kids,
and I love them and I miss them.
But I'm glad that I am
able to be involved with the Holocaust Commission.
They're a little too young,
I think, to be told the story.
But I want them to know I'm so
grateful for being able to let them know.
>> So what brought you to Atlanta?
That's also a question I always ask.
>> Harry's business, I
never thought I would live in Atlanta.
I grew up in Brooklyn,
I lived there until my early 20s,
we moved to Miami,
which was very hot,
but comfortable and we lived there for 12 years but then
my husband got transferred with
his company and we came here.
And you know what? I like Georgia the best.
I really love it here.
I loved teaching here.
I just love the greenery and the mountains,
and it has everything from me.
>> It's a beautiful place. Where did you teach?
>> Oh, many schools.
When I first moved here,
they needed a teacher at Osborne High School.
So I taught the gifted program at Osborne High School,
which was interesting because I'm still
very close friends with those students and one of them
has five kids and she's
a grandmother which is a little scary.
I'm still in touch with my Brooklyn kids too,
and that was inner city.
That's really nice for me.
But then after that,
mostly in the gifted program,
I taught at Mount Beth Elementary,
I taught at Davis Elementary,
I taught at, oh goodness gracious.
Well, I taught at several different elementary
schools and I loved it.
I absolutely loved it.
>> Did you ever engage with your students
about the history of the holocaust
or share your family story with them?
>> I did. And they were ever so interested and they all
went home and told their parents and
the parents were interested to hear more.
And in fact, I even was
invited to speak at the Anne Frank Museum.
And when I did, a lot of the parents of my students
came to listen because it really made an impact on them.
>> The exhibit that's in Sandy Springs or a different?
>> Exactly. Sandy Springs.
>> So what lessons do you think that
students should take away from
learning about specifically your family's story?
>> Funny, you should ask. I have
a favorite quote and it's by Martin Luther King,
and it says, In the end,
we will remember not the words of
our enemies but the silence of our friends.
I get very afraid because
people don't speak up
right now with the Black movement as well.
People don't speak up, non-Black people, especially.
You have to speak up for what you
believe in and what your heart feels.
And so many people
don't know about the Holocaust and there are
all these people who are non-believers
and it hurts me so badly.
Hurts me so bad when I hear
people say that didn't happen, propaganda.
It can happen again very easily unless you remember.
>> Is that your feeling then too about just
learning about the Holocaust in general,
that it's important to learn so
that you're aware of possibilities?
>> Absolutely. And this has been
the most rewarding experience
well tying with teaching, I love that.
But this has been a very rewarding experience
knowing that I'm continuing
the story of Harry's family
that nobody would hear because they're all gone.
>> Well, is there anything
that you'd like to
talk about that I haven't asked you about already?
>> I think you've covered just about everything.
And I thank you so much for this opportunity.
>> I thank you. Thank you so much for your time
and for sharing your family's story with us
and for your patience with the weird Zoom situation.
We will save this recording and it will become
part of the archives and contribute
to our educational programming.
Since your family has so much that they saved,
if you would be amenable,
I'd love to circle back around to you at
some point and see if maybe you would
be willing to have
an exhibit that focuses on your family story.
We cycle through multiple exhibits.
I knew you visited the museum,
so that Georgia Journey section in particular.
It's something that we like to do
to feature different families.
>> As soon as possible,
I'd love to come back because I did
not see the entire museum.
I only saw portions.
So I will be back and I
will look through my things and we'll speak.
>> Yeah, absolutely. One just side thought,
did Abe continue to
play the violin after he came to the United States?
>> Not professionally, but he had a violin,
not the one he played in Europe.
No one knows what happened to that.
But he bought a violin.
In fact, Harry bought it for him,
and he would play for us and when Mika,
my daughter was born,
he bought her a toy violin,
when she was very little two years old, possibly.
And he tuned it and he
played some beautiful music for
her with this little plastic toy.
Whenever I hear a violin,
it just warms my heart thinking about him.
>> They seem like they were really special people.
Thank you for sharing their story with me,
and I know I have that PowerPoint that
you put together that has a lot of
the scans of the images.
But yeah, we'll definitely
want to circle back and I'll let you know
when your recording is going to be
available for you to listen to and see as well.
Thank you again. I'm going to stop recording now.