Janet Levine was the oral historian for the National Park Service from 1991-2009

This is Janet Levine for the National Park Service. It's August twenty-first, 1994, and I'm here in Ellis Island Oral History Studio. The purpose of this tape is to record my recollections and what the - working on this project for three years now, what it's meaning has been for me and to record some kinds of comments that are additions to the interviews which, of course, stand on their own. I want to first talk about how I came to be here. I had - I had worked some twenty - twenty-some years in the field of psychology and I had worked in academic research psychology which I gave up at some point, having worked at some major universities like Harvard and Rockefeller University and the psychiatry department at Einstein Medical School and I had gone more of a clinical path and I had worked at the Maine State Prison as a psychologist, and th - after that experience for some three and a half years I went back and got my PhD and focused on the creative thinking process and I got my degree in psychology but I combined psychology with art and art- making and I was interested in biography—my thesis involved biography. So after I had finished and there really wasn't a position in the - that I knew about in the field that I had become interested in, and, at that time, there was a lot of publicity about the reopening of Ellis Island as a museum. I was in Maine at that time and I, of course, read p - read in publications about it and heard it on EI-534 LEVINE 2 the audio video media, and I decided that the perfect position for me would be to interview immigrants who had come through Ellis Island because one, I realized although I didn't want to work in psychology anymore, I really enjoyed interviewing, so I wanted to do something that involved interviewing. The - my thesis dealt with the creative process in everyday life and the kind of decisions people make that are aesthetic decisions and have a certain quality to them. Well, I thought, "What better group of people than those who had to recreate their entire lives, in a sense, by starting over in a new country?" And so the creative process in everyday life seemed to be something that would involve interviewing and would involve working with people who might have something to say about this topic that was of so much interest to me. So I started writing letters from Maine and eventually calling and eventually I got in touch with Diana Pardue who's the curator of this museum and then with Paul Sigrist who was already working here on the oral history project. At first I volunteered my time and then a position became available and happily I was able to take that position. As I said, I've been here three years, now, and talking about - I think I'll start out by telling about my first interview and my last, or most recent interview and then I will go through the catalog that we have, that Paul has - has - has made and worked on and - and go through by country and when I see a name that - of someone that I've interviewed who came from that country of origin I will make comment in that way. OK, my first interview was in July of 1991 and it was with a German woman named Anna Wilhelm. Anna [pause] had come here in 1923 when she was twenty years of age and she had come here on her own and she was frightened but she had a certain - a certain spirit about her that propelled her to make this journey. She came to live with an uncle that she didn't even know and just reading between the lines it would seem that he was abusive to her and so she sought out some other friends from Germany and left where she had gone in I believe it was Iowa and went to Buffalo, New York and stayed with her friends and got a job and married the butter and eggs man and we - and then her husband died and she raised her children herself, went to work in a EI-534 LEVINE 3 factory and since that time she has sent me a picture of the family (laughs) and there is this gigantic family of children and grandchildren, great- grandchildren all spawned by Anna Wilhelm who came here as a young woman and didn't know what to expect and had a really difficult time but she managed to give to her children some, let's say, security or comfort that she herself had not experienced, which I considered a very - I considered her a courageous and noble woman. And at the time of the interview, I remember she was very scared of the prospect of being interviewed and, of course, I was scared, too, because it was my first interview. So we were scared together and it sort of set up kid of a bond, and I have very fond feeling for Anna Wilhelm. Maybe two or so years after the interview her, I believe it's her grandson or her grand-nephew who was studying for a year in this country from Germany came with a friend and listened to the tape and - and we duplicated the tape so that he could take it back to his historian father who was interested in having Anna's story as part of their family history. So there are a lot of nice remembrances connected with my first interview here—Anna Wilhelm. The last interview I did which I did within the week was not in the studio—where I interviewed Anna—but it was in New York City at the home of Steven Baker. Mr. Baker came from Hungary as - I don't have the information right here, but he was about twenty years of age and he came in 1937. His was a different story and he had - he and his family had discovered that he had a grandfather who had Jewish blood and therefore they were beginning to feel the - the pressures of being Jewish in Europe during the beginnings of the rise of Hitler. And so he and three broth - two other brothers, three boys, came here and I guess what I remember about him is that he had a kind of entrepreneurial spirit because he mentioned when he - when he saw Manhattan for the first time and he saw all the s - skyscrapers with the offices lit up at night, he thought to himself, you know, which office will I have? He was interesting to me because he went into advertising and then - and he has now written some twenty-two books. And he talked about how his brothers went in a different paths and that his path was the creative path EI-534 LEVINE 4 and so that's and interest of mine and perhaps a path of mine, so I - I was very interested in how he introspected on his experience in this life and in this - in this new country. He has become very successful by out standards, and his success does not involve family as Anna's does, his is more of a - an independent, creative, let's say, al - alone and original kind of a path. And to my mind, these two people represent kind of each end of the spectrum of - of the people that we interview here or the people that I have interviewed since I have been here. Each successful in their own way, and each is a different kind of way. So I think what I'll do now is I'll just look at the countries of origin and see what occurs to me as I - as I look over these. The first group of people that - that I interviewed for one - from one particular country would be Albania. And, as a matter of fact, I have interviewed in the Ellis Island series of interviews all but one of the people from Albania and most of them I did, if not all of them - yes, I did in New England. Most of them live in Worcester, Massachusetts. I had occasion in Worcester to go to a senior sita - citizen residence connected with an Albanian Orthodox Church and there were a group of ladies who treated me to afternoon tea and cakes they made and - and we sat around together—this is probably one of the few group interviews, not that everyone was interviewed on the same tape, I interviewed each person separately, but all the other ladies were sitting around and would concur or - or sometimes talk against whatever the person was saying. [pause] There was a Philip Sulides from Rockland, Maine in this group and at the I interviewed him he was somewhat senile and he just kept saying about - remembering going into his store and stick—a bakery—and sticking his finger in the pies (laughs) and let's see. I think the Albanian group have a - an extremely strong sense of holding onto their ethnic roots and one of the people I interviewed—Norman Simo—donated his mother's handmade black - it may have been a wedding coat that she brought to this country, and that was displayed in a temporary exhibit here at the museum. James Drapos was a Greek man who came from Albania and I've since discovered that there is a certain rivalry between the Greeks and the Albanians, perhaps in Europe and EI-534 LEVINE 5 certainly in Worcester, but, anyway, Mr. Drapos was (sniffs) I think, perhaps, the most gentlemanly man that I interviewed. He had a very charming manner and was self-effacing and - but told an incredibly interesting story where he seemed to relive the anecdotal experiences, which is always a real plus in these interviews. [pause, page flips] Armenia. (clears throat) It doesn't seem to be here in the catalog. I interviewed a man in New Jersey—in Clifton, New Jersey—who remembered being about twelve years old in the Armenian massacre where he would be the little boy who ran from hiding place to hiding place to tell the Armenians who were fighting off the Turks whatever commands needed to be told to them. He also was an extremely charming man and recalled being rescued by an Armenian ship, their having put - their having put a flag up on the little hill they were fighting from and, lo and behold, an Armenian ship came and saved them. It was a very dramatic interview. Well, there have been a number of interviews with people from Austria and Austria-Hungary. Emanuel Kirwin was a man who had a very lot to say and I interviewed him in his - at his home in Florida. He insisted I stay for dinner and I believe he could've spoken for days. In fact, he had so much to say that he was speaking so fast sometimes that he was, like, speaking one sentence on top of the other and you could - you could - it was - it was hard to understand some of it. He was very elderly at the time of the interview and it was really difficult to keep up that kind of pitch for - for the length of the interview. [pause] I think Irving Reisberg was the man who - who didn't remember a lot and, in fact, and I told his wife not to speak during the interview and then he forgot her name and she wouldn't tell him (laughs). Let's see, Rosemarie Wolff and Gerda Erman were an interesting interview. Rosemarie Wolff was the one who came in to be interviewed but Gerda Erman came in with her and Gerda was - was - is Rosemarie's cousin. Gerda was from a wealthy family, Rosemarie was not, and Gerda could tell - could tell the side of the story of the family that was meeting someone who came off the boat, immigrating here, and - so that was kind of a rare combination and it was a pleasant exchange. [pause] Pauline Reemer. EI-534 LEVINE 6 Reimer. Pauline Reimer came from Austria and I interviewed her at the age of ninety-eight. She came here alone as did Anna Wilhelm. She only wanted to get away. She felt very overly restricted by her parents, she was not religious as they were, she wanted to have fun, she wanted to have nice things, she had an aunt here who she realized she could make more money, have nice things, and she only - and pleaded with her aunt in America to bring her here. And - a feisty woman, a delightful woman, even speaking about her adventures in - in the earl - early times here, she - she had just a absolutely vital, zesty quality to the interview and showed herself to be a spunky woman, even today at ninety-eight. [pause] Sigmund Kirsch - Kirschen came from Austria. Mr. Kirschen is interesting because he was interviewed twenty years ago, I believe by Margot Nash, and I am curious to compare what a person says in his sixties and what he says in his eighties about the same series of - of circumstances, mainly his immigration experience. He also sent in two questionnaires at different times, which are the basis upon which we do these interviews. So someone comes to Ellis Island, picks up a questionnaire, fills it out, sends it in and then we contact them perhaps to have an interview. Well, he not only had been already interviewed but sent in two more questionnaires at different times and was interviewed again. I would say this is someone who really wanted to be interviewed, so I'm very curious to see the kind of - the differences. I know on the - on the - on the one questionnaire of the - that he sent in since the museum has been open, he - he talked about having taught I believe economics at the Merchant Marine Academy for some years out on Long Island. And on the second questionnaire, in answer to the same question which was "Do you remember anything else, any other anecdotes or incidents that you would like to talk about?" he talked about his first trip—this he did later, after the first questionnaire, the second one—he - he talked about coming to this country and riding on the subway and his thinking that it was very dark in America. And so it's interesting, the kinds of things that someone will write about or talk about depending when the interview is held and - and EI-534 LEVINE 7 what seems significant or - or interesting to them to talk about at that time. And I think one of the joys of - of these interviews that I have done is - is these kind of child-like perceptions that - that people sometimes, so many years later, can recall the way they actually perceived something as a child. And that - that became something I was aware of because of an interview I heard before I worked here, I believe it was done, with John Peter who came here at about five or six years of age and while aboard ship approaching the New York Harbor as a young child unaware of distance perspective saw the people on the horizon and s - thought that all the people in a - in American were little. So whenever I get a perception in an interview that something like that or that - that it's dark in America, I find - I find those little vignettes absolutely delightful. And to think that they were carried through without interpretation or without more sophisticated frame being put around that kind of perception over the years, some people still retain those - those kinds of experiences. Let's see. Moving along to - as - as I'm going through this I see that there are several countries here where I have not any interviews with people have came from them, and nor have there been many interviews done, either in the Ellis Island series of interviews, which is, since the museum opened, nor in the series of interviews that were done prior to Ellis Island being opened. And that is one of the - one of the priorities of the Ellis Island Oral History Project at this time. I mean, it was like last year when I was interested in filling in gaps, like, with Armenians, and now we have done that, pretty much, but Albanians was another group that we had very, very few of and - and so now we're trying to get people who came from the Caribbean for example, we hardly have anyone from Belgium, from South American we don't have too many, from China we don't have too many. From China, let's see, the person that stands out is Mr. Yee who was a born entrepreneur and was able to live out that kind of approach to life in this country. Then that brings to the fact that not only do we - do we interview immigrants and people who worked at Ellis Island, but also we inte - interview Coast Guards who we stationed at Ellis Island. And we have - I have interviewed a number of - of EI-534 LEVINE 8 them. David Cassells who - who is since been a volunteer here in the library and he - he also came when a Bob Isley arranged a trip for a number of Coast Guards to come all on the same day and Paul and I interviewed two of them each and it was - it was like a - a - a fraternity reunion, I guess, and everyone was in very high spirits and we toured the - the other isl - well, we tou - toured the other buildings, building where they had had there meals and slept and even the brig where some of them had been housed briefly and that was - that was something very different and it would be interesting at some point for someone to - to do some kind of treatment of the Coast Guards tenure on Ellis Island which, of course, is mainly known for immigration and later deportation, rather than for - as a - as a base for the Coast Guards. OK, I'm going to pause here because we're at this end of side A of the first tape. END SIDE A TAPE ONE BEGIN SIDE B TAPE ONE

(clears throat) Moving along now, by country, I am looking at Cyprus and apparently I have done the only interview with someone from Cyprus. It's Andreas Papadopoulos and I remember interviewing Mr. Papadopoulos at his home way out on Long Island and I remember it must've been late summer or early fall because they sent me home with all—he and his - Mrs. Papadopoulos—sent me home with all kinds of produce from their garden. The fall is - early fall is a very good time to interview people at home when they have big gardens. And this was a very long and interesting interview and I remember being shown a hunting—what would you call it?—a hunting bag. A bag that, like, is worn on one's back, it was leather and when you go hunting for birds, like partridges and such, this was the sack that you put them in. And - and Mr. Papadopoulos had actually used it and gone hunting with his father and he went down into the basement and brought up this sack and showed it to me. (clears throat) I want to say just a general statement here. EI-534 LEVINE 9 People are very—and have been—very hospitable, especially when they are interviewed in their own homes and I have had many invitations to come back and visit, I've been invited sometimes to parties—birthday parties—for people that I have interviewed. There's - Paul instituted a Christmas Hanukkah greeting that we send every year and we get large numbers of responses from people and so there's a - there's very nice feeling. I think it comes partly from the fact that people who are elderly really, I think, value the experience of being able to recount their lives to someone who is interested in it and to know that these stories will be here for posterity in the Oral History Library. I think it is certainly a way of honoring them and I think they feel that and I think it contributes to the good feeling that we who work on the oral history project have had with the people whose lives we are recording. The next country that we have interviews from is Czechoslovakia and the first interview is with a Ruth Rose Gillman who I interviewed in Florida. Her husband had recently died and she was just about to move when I visited her, and I thought I had her new address and anyway the tape which we send out to every person who's interviewing—they get a copy of the tape as well as the tape being here in the library—was returned to us and so Mrs. Gillman never really received the tape of her interview, which is too bad. [pause] One - another interview that's interesting in this bunch from Czechoslovakia is Christine Voskovec who I interviewed pertaining to her husband George who has since died. He was well-known as part of a comedy - satirical political comedy team in Czechoslovakia. He was put on a black list because of his satires that were anti-Nazism and he came to this country - there was actually a documentary on television about his life, including a ten-month stay here at Ellis Island which he could not learn the reason for but apparently had to do with his being suspected of Communist leanings. He became well-known in this country as a actor in theatre—Broadway—and he also did character roles in films—Ten Angry Men - I can't think off-hand of the names of the films. But, anyway, he is a well-known person who did come through here at Ellis Island and it - his wife is taking up the mission of getting his work and his life documented and EI-534 LEVINE 10 put out into the world. There - it's possible that a second interview will be done with Mrs. Vako - Vaskovec. [pause] The next country, Denmark, it seems that of all the Den - Danish interviews that I have done, they were all done in Florida and they were all done, as a matter of fact, in St. Petersburg, Florida. I actually contacted the Danish Society there and that's how these interviews came about, which leads me to say as another general aside, that more and more we have been putting an emphasis on networking through ethnic and church groups for the particular nationalities that we have gaps in the oral history collection - where we have gaps in the oral history collection so that we - we were trying to find Danish people because we did not have that many, so, thankfully, St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Danish society there was forthcoming in providing some interviews in this category. [pause] Let's see. Well, now we have another category listed in our catalo - catalog called Employees and Others. This is where we have listed the people who work here on Ellis Island. The first person that I interviewed personally who had worked here on Ellis Island was Mark Paronder. He lived, I believe, in North Miami, Florida and he was a guard at Ellis Island and he told stories about transporting people from Ellis Island by train to various places. He told what it was like to overlook—or I should say oversee—a dormitory at night, a huge dormitory or sleeping immigrants. He was very proud of his service at Ellis Island and in general about his federal government service. He gave me a button that he had when he was a guard here, which also leads to another general kind of comment. Whenever we interview someone for this project we - sometimes people want to give additional information in - in the form of written information or pictorial and it may have to do with their careers here in this country, it may be pictures taken in the old country or here, it may be whole manuscripts of books about their lives and their families lives. And so we have a special file where anyone who has been interviewed here may have additional information under their name and under the number of their interview in our - in our catalog. [pause] Jacob Auerbach. He was a very interesting interview. He lived in Long Beach—he lives, still, in Long Beach, EI-534 LEVINE 11 Long Island—and he's interesting on a number of accounts, primary among them are one, he came through here as an immigrant, and two, he was an inspector here at Ellis Island. He's also a writer, so he has written one manuscript, a whole full length book about his immigration and his family and his life and another, a book of short stories about - based on particular cases that he encountered as an Ellis Island inspector. I was trying to have his book - try to find - trying to find a way to have his books published but, as of now, we have not been fortunate enough to do that. But they are well-written and he is most interesting man in his late nineties at this point. [pause] Seems to me I have done a series of interviews with psychiatrists who - men who were psychiatrists at Ellis Island. There's Dr. Baker and Dr. Train, Dr. Aldridge I spoke with and we did a kind of interview—well, we did a video while he wa - he and his wife, who was a nurse at Ellis Island, walked through the other islands and the buildings there and they pointed out things. We're waiting for Mr. Aldridge and Mrs. Aldridge to come back to visit their - their daughter who lives in this area in order to do a - a regular full length interview. [pause] But there was electric shock therapy used here in the psychiatry department. It seems as though Ellis Island was a very - I - I don't know, a - if avant garde is too strong a word to use, but it certainly was aware and was using some of the latest techniques that were available in psychiatry at that time that these psychiatrists were practicing here. Some of them lived here. [pause] They were also treating merchant seamen who might've jumped ship or were here being treated and the son of Dr. Baker recalls having one of the in-patients be his companion and take him by boat - go with him by boat to Governor's Island to school and back again and has m - fond memories of this particular man. [pause] England. The first interview I did with an English person—or person of English origin—was Morris Libman and I did that in Florida. Morris would fit into the entrepreneur category, I would say. He started a business and - which his sons run today and I remember he and Mrs. Libman, also being very hospitable and - like many of the people we interview, they - it's an interesting concept er - or it's a - it's an - it's interesting which side of the EI-534 LEVINE 12 fence people come down on—whether they are striving to hold on to their heritage of their origins or whether they - no longer consider those origins as primary at all and - and consider themselves American. I think Morris Libman fits into that category and as do many others. [pause] (sniffs) It's interesting, some of these names, I know there's - I know there's some - some experience or something of consequence to say about them but it doesn't come right to mind immediately, I don't have the good memory that Paul has, so I would have to go back to their interviews to - to rec - to recollect what it is about them that I feel - felt what significant. From England came Phyllis Spinney who I interviewed in Massachusetts. She was in - I believe around ninety - well, in her nineties, and she was still going dancing with a ninety- seven-year-old man. She - they were winning prizes and trophies for dancing and true to her English roots she had a lovely garden which I happened to be there in season—a flower garden—and she was quite a - an inspirational person. [pause] Aimo Sulin came from Finland and I interviewed him in Warren, Maine and he came - he came to this country he was quite young, but he is one of the people who holds on very strongly to his Finnish heritage and, in fact, receives a newsletter—which he showed me copies of—and he went into construction and constructed a beautiful home high up on a mountain where you could see just a panoramic view i - in all directions. A quite lovely, lovely home. [pause] France. Unfortunately we do not have too many interviews from France. Zelda Schulter was the first one that I interviewed and she - her family was of Russian heritage and had moved to France at some - some years prior to their immigration. What I remember most about Zelda was that she was a woman in her eighties, I believe, when I interviewed her and we had lunch together after the interview and she was - she was some - she seemed some thirty-five years younger than her age. She was just incredible. She sort of was an - ageless, I would say. Lot of energy and very interested in - and really quite - it would - it would be quite surprising to, I think, most people to discover how old she actually was. Emily Adams came from France when she was very young and I interviewed her in EI-534 LEVINE 13 Maine and she sent me a little hand-made rectangle with cloth and sewing that says, "I love you, Janet, Emily." And that brings me to say that I've received several little trinkets from - from people over the course of doing this. Sometimes it's handmade pot-holders, sometimes it's a little Greek - I don't - I think you call it something like and - it sounds like an epilate but isn't quite that, but it's a little - a little male person made out of white wool with red and blue around it and it's a Greek symbol. Mrs. Sofranas gave me one of those, which she was making for the Greek Orthodox Church Fair when I happened to interview her. Let's see. Of course, we're sent pictures and we have our own private wall of honor in the oral history studio where we have photographs of people we've interviewed taken with Paul or with myself or with Peter Hom or Kevin Daley. We have a - any number of - of photographs here that we have to look at. Let's see. George Cromier, he also came from France and he and his girlfriend—I would say he was about eighty when I interviewed him—and he and his girlfriend still ride bicycles and they're very active. Very athletic, I would say. He was absolutely handsome man. Let's see. Germany. (clears throat) Well, of course, that's where Anna Wilhelm was from, and John Peter, the little boy who saw the people who were little in America. Martha Lehmann, a most interesting interview. She also has contributed a manuscript to our additional information files. She - she was involved with the French Underground and came here with her young son and - quite remarkable, intellectual woman. Isla Ortman I interviewed on Long Island (laughs) and I remember she had, like, a - she had birds in cages and dogs and cats and we had a series of different animal noises at different points in the tape, and after we did the interview which was - which was very good I asked - when I was contacted by a school district—a grade school in Massapequa—I asked Isla as well as Sunday Calibrese Wood who came from Italy to - to go to a classroom and to talk with the children about immigration and their experience and to answer their questions and they both went over very, very well. It was a real hit, the children were - were spellbound by both of these people talking about their experiences. Agnes Grimm. Agnes Grimm EI-534 LEVINE 14 was also a good interview. She lit up when she talked about her childhood days in Germany and she and her family came to a temporary exhibit that was here from Bremen and they just loved it. They just thought it was most wonderful and it gave her a real - a real pleasure. [pause] I interviewed Hilda and Arthur Brook - Broksas here and also their mother on a separate interview and they were quite articulate and I remember them talking about never having seen Coca-Cola and Jell-o before they came to America. I interviewed the Hermenau brothers from Germany—both of their wives had actually died right before the interview. The one brother who lived in California came back to bury his wife and so the two brothers were there and I interviewed them. They were very different. One a very assertive and the other a much more introspective kind of person. They lived in a - well, it was actually Paul Hermenau's house where the interview was conducted, and it was - it looked like a house in Germany. It was a German kind of house. Gertrude Moller came from Germany as a little girl with her mother and they went to Chicago. She thought money grew on trees and so on the train ride she checked out all the trees to see if there was any money on them and they had a very difficult time financially when they first came and she talked about helping her mother clean office buildings and realizing that the Americans were much - were - were wasteful in what they threw away. So she would sharpen all the pencils that had been thrown away and cut all the blotters that had been thrown away and make them into - make them into smaller blotters and she would give them to the children so they would like her. She later became a singer and appeared in New York at supper clubs and on the stage and now is a - is an officer in the Shell Club in the Florida region and - and she and others go around the world collecting seashells. Norbert Sturm I interviewed on Long Island and it was through his wife that I got to Pauline Reimer. And that's the way, sometimes—as another aside—that's the way sometimes we get interviews through other people, however I must say it has been experience that when you're doing an interview because, in my opinion, people really love the fact of - of being honored and being singled out to be EI-534 LEVINE 15 interviewed and - that there story is going to be at Ellis Island, I find that people are a little bit reluctant to give the names of other interviewees. I think that's - I think it's part of being considered very special and - and - and not wanting to sort of dim - diminish that at least for the t - for the day. And so even thought some interviews do come through other people and very often the ones that do are r - are relatives, I must say, but it's - it's kind of an interesting phenomenon, I think, that one likes to remain special for some, at least small period of time. OK, I'm going to stop here because it's the end of the first tape and this is Janet Levine and I'm - I've been recounting some of my experiences and observations in doing oral history interviews for the Oral History Project at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum for some three years now. This is Janet Levine signing off. END TAPE ONE SIDE B BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE A

OK, this is tape two of Janet Levine reiterating what c - comes to mind regarding particular interviews or general types of observations that I have made over the course of three years of doing these oral history interviews for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. It's still August twenty-first 1994 and I am here in the oral history studio at Ellis Island. Peter Hom is the audio engineer for this recording. One thing that occurred to me (clears throat) regarding these interviews is that sometimes an interview is done and I go away from it—and I know this had been true for Paul too—go away from it feeling as though it really wasn't a very good interview and not much came out and it wasn't a good, healthy exchange. And then the family will write this incredibly glowing letter about the interview and how they didn't know some things about their mother or their father and - and it's - it's kind of interesting that sometimes the interviews that you don't really think have a lot of merit are perceived by the families to have a great deal of merit. I've noticed another EI-534 LEVINE 16 intresthing - thing interesting to me about the interviews and that is when I do an interview I seem to be in a different kind of mode than when I listen to an interview or read a transcription of an interview. It seems very different to me and the kinds of things I pay attention to are different and the content or the associations or the connections made are different and I have the feeling it has to do with some different - different process, just different process involved in interviewing and then in, let's say, reading or listening to information. Walter Greiner I went to see in Pennsylvania. He was - is from Germany and he had a whole collection of I can't think of the name of it— those little German statues that people collect and he had German china and also his house looked very German also. I remember he locked the doors when we got in there. I was in there alone with him and he locked the door and said, "There's been some"—we - oh and I followed him, he met me at the main road and I followed him for miles and miles and miles into this wooded area and then he locked the door and said there - there had been some scares around the neighborhood and I was beginning to get scared myself, but he turned out to be quite a gentleman. Henry Haussler I interviewed in Florida as I did his wife Marie Haussler. Mr. Haussler was a solid, solid good human being, remembered a lot, gave a good interview, unfortunately his wife, Mrs. Haussler was not remembering very much at the time of the interview. Martha Lester I interviewed in the same St. Petersburg area as the Hausslers. Martha Lester has the distinction of being the oldest interviewee on this project. She was a hundred and six at the time of the interview; she looked like a little angel. She had a shawl around her shoulders, I assume she had shrunk somewhat. She was petite, she was sitting in a chair up until maybe a year or s - or a year and a half prior to the interview she had done her own cooking and housekeeping. She lived in a residence. It was something like a motel with a kitchen area, but there were caretakers who took care of her in this setting—I'm not sure how many other elderly people there were in this kind of l - living arrangement. But Margaret - Martha - Martha Lester remembered details from her early childhood. She was EI-534 LEVINE 17 definitely oriented not only to time and place over a hundred years ago, but also to time and place as of that day and as of yesterday, we recalled and recounted a telephone call with a niece of hers, so she definitely had all her faculties. And she was, I would say, inspirational. She - I left there feeling absolutely wonderful. I discussed her with the woman—her caretaker—and I actually went to the interview with the pastor of a German congregation—a church with a German congregation in St. Petersburg area—and this pastor's wife used to visit Mrs. Lester, and she met me there and afterword the minister's wife said to me, "Oh, I'm so glad she didn't tell you about how she was almost sold into prostitution." And I sa - and I thought to myself, "Oh, I'm so sorry she didn't," but, anyway, there was that. Perhaps she didn't because of the minister's wife being present, which, of course, is another aside. When it seems, I mean this is just something that I guess I know from psychology, that the more people present in an interview, the more potential audiences there are for the interviewee to play to so that, I think, the ideal interview is one where it's just the interviewer alone with the interviewee and the setting is - is neutral to conducive or encouraging for the interviewee to remember whatever - whatever it is. Perhaps Mrs. Lester really did not talk about certain things because the minister's wife was there—that's a real possibility. I had an association—and I actually came - I first learned about Martha Lester from the editor of the St. Petersburg Times who I had contacted about helping me to locate people there and she told me about Martha Lester who was written up in a book about people over one hundred years old. She - this editor—a Ms. Miller, Betty Jean Miller—she let me know about a year or so after the interview that Mrs. Lester had died and one hundred and seven years of age. Clara Honold was interesting. She remember very fondly in Germany her preschool program and in St. Petersburg, Florida she did establish a preschool on many of the principles she had enjoyed and learned from as a preschooler in Germany—kindergarten, as a matter of fact, the German word kindergarten. And she had retired but the community was asking her to come back and to start another such school for children in the EI-534 LEVINE 18 area, so her German background really did have - carry over to her career in this country. Edith Danner is writing a book about her life. [pause] Agnes Kephart is an example of someone who we learned of another relative who actually showed up on the day of the interview, so Peter Hom and I were able to tape interviews with both sisters. [pause] I had a questionnaire form from Anna Neatherly who lived in Florida—rural Florida—where she had come with her mother was a - a - what do you call it? - mail order bride. And after I interviewed Anna she told me about her uncle and aunt who lived nearby—the Daiberls [ph]—and I went over and found them and Mrs. Daiberl was a - convalescing from a broken ankle and Mr. Daiberl was out tending his grounds—immaculately kept lawn hedges, all kinds of growing things. Mr. Daiberl, I believe, had Parkinson's disease and he was not well, but he was still very active and loved tending his house and grounds and I was so struck by his story because he was - he described a life so har - that was so hard and so fraught with difficulty in Germany, speaking about working the mines and working on pig farms from the time he was a young boy and - and the work was just physically so exhausting and the pay was so small and there was never a chance of getting ahead and he - he talked about it as though - as - he talked of it as slavery and he - he felt that the women in - at that time and of his age were also enslaved and that they were enslaved in - in homemaking kinds of - of - of chores and - and he just loved this country and the fact that if you work hard here you can actually get ahead. That's a kind of theme that runs through a lot of interviews—that the different between here and what people left to come here is that they - if they work hard there is opportunity and they can get ahead whereas where they were they could work very hard and they would - and nothing would really change for them. [pause] Stefan and Theresa Weesing. Weising, it's pronounced here. They came from Germany and, for them, it was a delayed honeymoon. They had been married for some months and then they came to the United States and that was their honeymoon and they really have a beautiful life in this country and he still can to Germanic carpen - cabinetry and he has a tree farm - they EI-534 LEVINE 19 have a tree farm in rural New Jersey, which was nice to be reminded that there are some beautiful parts of New Jersey still. They were a very close family and very hardworking and this an example of hard work paying off in this country. [pause, page flipping] (clears throat) The next country is Greece and the first person I interviewed who was from Greece was Anna Sofronas - Sofronas who lives in I think it's Boca Raton—yes—Florida. And she's very active in the Greek Orthodox Church there. She was a very happy person. She came here, I believe, with two girlfriends and they just had a ball on the ship. They had a wonderful time, I mean most of the stories we heard about sh - the voyage is that it was - it was horrific, the sanitary conditions were terrible, there was no air, there was - the food was terrible, there were - people were sick and - and it was very difficult but she and her teenage friends had a lovely time—saw whales for the first time and - and she's - to this day has an incredible joie de vivre. She laughs a lot during the interview and she also was very warm and invited me to come there at any time and, as I mentioned before, gave me the little woolen figure that - that she was making for the - for the Greek Church fair. [pause] Let's see. Angelus Castid - Cotsidas was one of the several Greek people that I interviewed in Worcester, Massachusetts. He became, if not a millionaire, very, very successful and Constantine Moscha - Moschos. Moschos. Also Worcester. A very gentleman - a very lovely gentleman. His wife, an intellectual woman. They both also - he - he told some wonderful stories about going back to Greece from when he first came here and marrying his wife there and then coming back and being in the restaurant business. Hungary. Mary Eckelt. She's the first Hungarian woman I interviewed and she talked about - I believe she settled in the Upper East Side around the eighties, which was a Hungarian area at the time of Ellis Island and she gave me a book called—I forget how many—but Outstanding Hungarians. Very proud of her Hungarian heritage. Mary Kuti and Helen Harbove were sisters and I interviewed in Pennsylvania. Helen Oratofsky is a - is a woman that I have known in the past and she gave a very - what do I want to say? A very no holds barred EI-534 LEVINE 20 interview. She talked about her mother suffocating three infant sisters because her mother wanted boys and she would've had, all told, seven girls if she hadn't suffocated three of them and h - Helen talks about her being her mother's favorite for the reason that she looked like her mother and there was a kind of a beautiful refrain that - that went throughout the interview. It was - it was how can a mother be so mean to her children? And she to - she would - she would come up with this at different times, and, of course, her mother had been mean to her children in many different ways, but this was a kind of refrain that it was as though this woman—now in her late eighties at the time of the interview—was - was struggling with reconciling this - this experience that had been with her all of her life. I feel as though this interview was - went a lot deeper than most interviews and I attribute that to the fact that this woman knew me and felt very comfortable with me. [pause] Elaine Weiss. She's an interesting one. She lives in the Upper East Side on, I believe, Eighty-Second Street within blocks of where she has lived all of her life. This was, as I mentioned, a Hungarian area as well as a German area, but she moved there from the time she ca - from the time she stepped off Ellis Island and she lived first in one apartment and then in another one and I - her family had a store there and then she married and lived there, and she now lives in the apartment she's lived in over - for over fifty years and her interview is very interesting just for that area of New York City and it's Hungarian origin. Ireland. Let's see. Elizabeth Schmidt was my first interview of an Irish woman. That was the day Paul and I went to a nursing home to do interviews. He got - no, I think I'm mixing this up. No, I am mixing this up. Well, I'll continue the story, but Paul interviewed Mary Harney [ph] who was this delightful child-like old person and very direct in the pure way that children are direct. And Paul interviewed her and then I interviewed someone whose name is not immediately coming to mind, which is just as well, but she started crying before the interview and persisted in crying and getting angry during the length of the short interview and the moral of that story is that [pause]. OK, we're resuming after an interruption of someone coming into the oral EI-534 LEVINE 21 history studio. (clears throat) The moral of the story about the nursing and the Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde experience that Paul and I in - in my experience of going to nursing homes it's fifty-fifty that the interviews will be good ones. That is, good in the sense that people are enough in - in command of their faculties to - to give - give and take exchange. Also nursing homes are - tend to be very noisy and sometimes it's hard to get anywhere where there isn't a loudspeaker that goes on all the time and so I think of our - of the interviews in our collection, probab - my guess would be that of the ones that were done in nursing homes half of them are seriously flawed. Let's see (clears throat). Stephen Concannon is the man that I interviewed in Portland, Maine. I found out about him through my friend Peter Files who was a psychologist with me at the Maine State Prison. Peter said that he was a priest and that he would be a most interesting interview. Well, I tracked him down through a number of people and when I first went there for the interview I said, before I started, I said, "Would you like me to call you Father?" And he said, "Oh, no, dear, that wouldn't be necessary." Well, at some point during the interview when we were talking about his family in Ireland I said to him, "Were - were you pinpointed by your parents to be the priest in the family early on?" And at that time he said to me, "Oh, no, I'm not a priest," (laughs) which made me wonder at what he thought I was asking for in the beginning. It turns out that he had - has among his sons a Stephen Concannon who is a priest and so that's how the mix-up occurred but he was a delightful interview and remembered a lot, reads a lot, and is a religious man - religious Catholic. And he wrote a letter in response to one of our Christmas Hanukkah greeting all about—I guess because my name's Levine—all about how the Jews were the - are the chosen people. A very elaborate letter to that effect. Let's see. James Gleason was a very good Florida Irish interview. I find of - of course, there is a great variety of storytelling styles that one encounters in doing these interviews but I think if I had to choose a group that contained perhaps the—or the most frequent—good storytellers, I would choose the Irish. There seems to be something about their timing and humor and maybe the fact that they EI-534 LEVINE 22 started out speaking the English language and this interview is in English, I don't know what it is, but they certainly do seem to pack a mean story. I think part of the reason I think that way is because very soon after I began working here—I was working weekends—and one of the women who was interviewed for early interviews before the museum was reopened as so those early oral history interviews are used in the exhibits throughout the museum and are used in the Guggenheim film that's shown in the museum—was Bertha Devlin. And she arrived with a busload of forty-two relative from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, right outside of Boston. And, of course, her voice is in the film and in the exhibits and she came in to - and she and as many family members as could fit in the oral history studio came in and we played the tape. And it was just so full of good humor and interesting turns of phrase and pauses that I think that's when I became aware of - of the Irish's storytelling ability. And, of course, Manny Steen is one of the interviews that Paul did very early on that is just very fun and he tells a wonderful story about his immigration experience. [pause] I went to interview Eileen Lynn who had sent in a questionnaire form and I did do an interview at her home in Minneola, Long Island, and there I encountered her husband John Lynn who had also come - immigrated about the same time to this country and he was a storyteller and he - although he told me I probably shouldn't have any because I was driving, he showed me some—oh, what did he call it? It was white and it was home brew—oh, it was called White Lightning. (laughs) I did two interviews in the Petite Fleur Nursing Home out on Long Island also with two Irish people and they, too, were true to form and gave interesting stories. OK, I think with this I think I'll stop this side of the tape because that's the end of the speaking about the Irish interviews. END TAPE TWO SIDE A BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE B EI-534 LEVINE 23

This is Janet Levine and it's August twenty-second. We're continuing now with side B of tape two of my recollections about the interviews that I have done up until this point on the oral history project. We're up to Italy alphabetically—I've been going according to country considering the interviews that I've done and the first one that I did with someone from Italy was with Felicita Salto. And she came in with doting daughters and we did the interview here in the studio. Later she was called in and we acted as a liaison because the cable network—Arts and Entertainment Network—was doing a special on Ellis Island immigrants and wanted to interview some people here at Ellis Island who had come through here and she was on of the people that I believe Paul called upon to come in. The - just as an aside, we are somewhat protective of the people that we interview for this project so that when outside people or institutions or companies want to record a person or have contact with someone that we have interviewed we usually do act as a liaison and so we did, in this case, act as a liaison for a number of people who came in to be filmed here at Ellis Island. I remember Felicita Salto both times I saw her was wearing a T-shirt with beads which was very kind of casual and a nice statement, I thought. (clears throat) Carmela Rossiello was someone I interviewed in Florida—this was a woman who had been in a convent in Italy before she came to this country. She was quite elderly at the time of the interview and I remember her daughter was - well, earlier in my career here as - as an interviewer I was less reluctant to tell family members to be quiet and not to speak during the interview. Um - I - um - I - I've become more assertive about that now just because it's so much better for the tapes to be clear and without interruption and unnecessary noise which, I must say, sometimes family members comments can be put in the category of unnecessary noise. In this case the daughter would be correcting her or saying, "Tell about this," or - I felt it would've been much better to have been alone with the interviewee in that instance - who was a delightful person. Raffaele Marcone came to Ellis Island in the fifties, he was at the tail end of when Ellis Island was operating. He's a kind of a down and dirty interview in EI-534 LEVINE 24 the sense of he kind of just told it like it was and he wasn't trying to pretty up the story or - and I found him very funny and he - he seemed to get into it. He really liked remembering incidents in South America we - that happened en route here - en route to the United States. And he has quite a thick accent and it was really difficult transcribing that transcription - that transcript and - transcribing that tape, rather. But - and I don't know, I think it - I'm not sure if it's even finished. It was, like, one of those things where he threw in Italian words and it would be probably really interesting to someone who had some command of the Italian language (clears throat) but, anyway, that was a very interesting person. And also I just want to say that so often people invite me—and I'm sure Paul—back to, you know, stop and see them if we're in the neighborhood and - and this was - this was one of - one of those instances where I felt very welcome and were sure that if I ever came by again it would be very pleasant. I actually interviewed—later—Raffaele Marcone's wife's hairdresser. No. Raffaele Marcone's wife was the hairdresser for an elderly lady that I interviewed later who lived in Webster, Massachusetts in the same town. And she also had a large scattering of Italian in the interview. Sunday Calibrese Wood is a woman who is also a writer who had a very interesting story to tell and she's one I acted as a liaison for her to speak to a grade school class and she was a big hit. She's also very friendly and comes to visit every year—to Ellis Island. [pause] Frances Polletta. That's the woman who had her hair done my Mrs. Marcone. She has since died. People are pretty good about sending in notes when a family member we've interviewed and usually they're people who have received our Christmas Hanukkah greeting and have responded and then when the person dies someone in the family often let's us know about that. Dana Buroni. Dana Buroni I interviewed and this was off-site in Massachusetts and then she had an article done on her for the local paper and she really twisted things somewhat saying that, you know, she was one of the only people alive today that had come through Ellis Island and her story was a horrendous one. It was a slight exaggeration of the truth which I - which I did point out the facts to her, fi - in a later conversation by EI-534 LEVINE 25 telephone. Nelson Misturini (clears throat) was born in the United States, went back to Italy as a small child, was there for a while and then came to the United States. Was drafted into the Second World War and was sent as a spy—as an American soldier spy—back to Italy to spy on his more or less native country. I think that was - and then he was a prisoner of war. I think he went through horrer - horrendous mental problems with - with being placed in such a position. He was a delightful man, as was his wife, and he is still suffering the effects of his World War Two experiences. I remember his recounting the - the meeting with the family at Ellis Island and I remember he said, "Oh, crackers, my mother went bananas. Well, she was an affectionate woman anyway." And everybody was crying and kissing and he said, "Oh, I'll niss - never forget it." He was a very emotional, sensitive human being. (clears throat) Renata Maccarone was just delightful. She was also sc - what - an interview I would call down and dirty. I mean, she just kind of said it like it was and she was without any pretention and without any wanting to present a pretty story. And I had a nice time with her husband George and with Rena and that's another very welcoming kind of invitation that's always extended. (clears throat) Gio - Giovan - Giovanina Barbella was a woman who was I believe in her late nineties when I interviewed her at home—in her daughter's home—in New Jersey and she just kept saying, "Oh, please Lord, take me." That was sprinkled throughout the interview. She just wanted to die. (clears throat) [pause] Mary Langlois. I think she was a Florida interview and she's one of the very few people who wanted to see my identification on a - an off- site interview and it's come up a few times as to, you know, am I really a person representing the National Park Service for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, but generally speaking it's - it's never really an issue. Carmela Rosato was a woman in her nineties who was surrounded by her children who were all mature people and they all just thought everything she said was delightful and - and - and kind was. And she insisted on giving me two pot- holders that she had made recently and she has since passed away. [pause] James Pavan was an interesting interview on Staten Island. He was about to EI-534 LEVINE 26 undergo surgery for cancer and he was - had a de - had devoted children and I had the feeling that although he spoke - what do I want to say? - courageously about his experience in World War Two, I had the feeling it had marred him and scarred him in some - in some ways. I don't know, it just struck me that war had devastated him in some regard as a person. Louisa Gaudioso was - was a - a woman who also said, "Oh, please, Lord, just please take me." She was in her nineties when I interviewed her and it was one of those situations where she was having a bad day and according to her grand-niece—who was the one who contacted me and the one who I coordinated seeing her with—she has some good days and some bad days. This was a bad day and she's very hard of hearing so it was one of those interviews where I was more or less screaming my questions and - and she was - she reminded me a lot of Martha Lester. She was a diminutive woman and she had a kind of a shawl on her shoulders and she'd just say - kept saying, "Oh, I'm sorry honey, I just can't remember." But then she would come out with these memories of the ship's name and her mother's and all kinds of factual information that she obviously did - did still have access to. And so it was a - it was - there were some moments in the interview where there was lucidity and it was OK. I'm making a mistake here. That - what I - the wors - the person I just spoke arout - about was Elisa DiRenzo. Louisa Gaudioso I interviewed on Long Island. She's also a woman in her nineties and absolutely fit as a fiddle, remembered everything, was full of vitality and was also surrounded by her daughters and daughter-in-law. [pause] OK, so now moving right along from Italy—which, by the way, does not include Sicily. We have Sicily as a separate entry here, which was Paul Sigrist's decision to - to keep those two as separate entries in the catalog. (clears throat) [pause] Lithuania. Fannie Stollman. She was the one who asked me—she lives in Florida—and - and her first question was, "Is there any money involved?" (laughs) Which I've been asked on several occasions, actually, one way or another. But, of course, there isn't. There's no money involved and that's probably why I like doing this and the people who we do interview we give a EI-534 LEVINE 27 copy of the tape and sometimes they want additional copies, in which case we charge a minimum fee for that. Louis Pulda was a man who made is big in Worcester, Mass and he - I was doing interviewing at the Saint Cyprian Greek Orthodox Cathedral and I had finished and interview and then he was going to pick me up in his car and take me to his home to do the interview with him. And I'm waiting outside the cathedral and up the street comes this nineteen- fifties kind of Cadillac with great big, you know, fins and - and - enormous car and he's ha - was halfway down the street and he started beeping and that was Mr. Pulda. He wanted to marry me off because I wasn't married (laughs). Let's see. [pause] OK. Moving along through the M's where we having very few interviews in places like Malta, Manchuria, Martinique, Mexico, Mongolia, we get to the Netherlands (clears throat). I interviewed Marie Peragine—she pronounces her name—in Pennsylvania and she was very young and she told - it's - it's kind of incredible sometimes how people who come over here as infants or one or two or three years old have these enormous memories of events in the old country. I suspect they believe they remember things but actually have heard stories and so they actually visualize it and it's as those they lived it. But th - I think that was true for Marie Peragine. But she was delighted to be interviewed, I think it meant a lot to her. Jessie Eezmoneit was someone who was in the Holland Christian Home where I did a number of interviews and she and Edith Popjes and Hilda Reitsma were - were women that I first interviewed there and it was very sweet. The - the recreational director told me when I went back there on another occasion to interview that these ladies were getting together and playing each other their tapes and reminiscing about life in Holland. I must say, of the all nurses - nursing homes I've been in, the Holland Christian Home in New Jersey is just a - a wonderful experience of how good a nursing home can be. First of all, it's - it's spar, it's clean, the food is very good, the people who live there love being there. Mostly they know each other from the Holland Christian Church circles in - in and around that place in New Jersey and - so they have - they have connections even before they go to live in this place and the - the staff EI-534 LEVINE 28 loves working there. It was just a - a lovely experience to have, to see people in their old age in a place where they want to be and, of course, they really did have a strong faith—Christian faith—and - and believe, you know, that - that there in an eternity and - and - and - so - so being there is not the kind of affair that sometimes one encounters in nursing homes. I went back there to interview Wilbur Vander Goot who I had many conversation with on the phone before we got this arranged and it turned out he actually didn't come through Ellis Island, but he ca - he came into Bayonne, but it was just as good. He - his - his remembrances of the old country and his immigration experience was not dissimilar to the ones that we hear and he was - he was a lovely, vivid, vital man. And it just so happened that an ex-minister from the Holland Christian Home who was now in Michigan—where there's a whole contingent of people from the Netherlands—was back in town because his wife had passed away. And so he was there really looking quite forlorn and I interviewed him, too and at the end the two of them sang—I believe—it was the national anthem of the Netherlands and they sang in Dutch and they - neither of them - one could say had singing voices and it was - it was very funny and we have it recorded on tape. Let's see. Going ahead to Norway. (clears throat) [pause] Hm. Let's see. I interviewed Olga Swanson, also someone who didn't really come through Ellis but her story is, nonetheless, quite interesting and of the same time period. She is the mother of Roy Swanson who has volunteered to work with the oral history project and has gone on several interviews with me and has run the audio equipment on those interviews. And Mrs. Swanson is a doting mother and it comes through in her interview. Mr. Fornes—Kaare Fornes—is on of the people that Roy Swanson and I went to visit on Staten Island. He was in the invasion of Normandy and had medals from three countries and he then brought his family out and we hosted them here at Ellis Island. He was also quite proud of - of being interviewed. (clears throat) [pause] Poland. I think it's important to say about Poland that it seems like every third person we interview is from Poland in the - in the early twenties. For some reason this project attracts people t - to - EI-534 LEVINE 29 people who do come forward to be interviewed and who do send in the questionnaire - there is a disproportionate number who respond who are from Poland originally. And I'm not quite sure why that is, part of it's probably that the project is located on Ellis Island which is near New York and - or in New York - and - and a lot of Polish people did settle here. But it's interesting as to why so many Poles really present themselves to be interviewed as compared, for example, with Caribbean people who do not present themselves to be interviewed. So there's a phenomenon at work here. (clears throat) I interviewed Morris Spiegler early on when I came to work on this project and he had become - he was - he was called upon by the foundation early on as - as an immigrant who was involved in some of the ceremonies involved in the - in the opening of - of Ellis Island as a museum. And he had, in fact, got an acting career started as a result of being an Ellis Island immigrant and being called upon to - to tell about his r - remembrances about his immigration experience. And he's always a very interested in being called for any video or filming that - that is connected with this project and he's looking for his swan song. Last time he visited with a friend he said he's looking for one really good to part to have as a - as a kind of a last hurrah. Nathan Gittelman. He came from Poland with his sisters and brothers—they were very, very poor—and he has a lot of memories of Poland, of not having shoes, of really being impoverished and on the run and he also because he happens to be a friend of my family, he has lots of stories of the Lower East Side, all of which didn't get to tape. But he has a sister living in Grand Street in the Lower East Side still today. He has a wonderful sense of humor which comes through in the tape. Dr. Clara Rosenberg is a doctor because she's a psychologist and we visited her at home—I believe it was Brian Feeney, Paul, Peter Hom, and me—and I found her officious and I found she's a re - one of the reasons that I stay away from psychologist, which I used to be considered one of. Let's see. Sara Rovner - Sara Rovner had a won - a v - a very vivacious kind of recounting of her experiences and we were sitting at her kitchen table in Cape Cod and, among other things, she has taught locals who EI-534 LEVINE 30 live in Cape Cod in the winter to weave and she actually sells rugs—weaves them - weaves rugs, teaches weaving rugs, and sells rugs and she had one of her students—a man, I would say in his late fifties—who was - also came for the occasion of the interview and brought me some things from his grandmother who came from Germany and he wanted them to donated int - into the collection. And so he gave me those things at the time of that interview and I just want to say an aside about that. That, you know, there - in doing these interviews, especially interviews off-site, often one is called upon to do a number of different things, like get information about the wall of honor and the names, whether their on it or what. Another is to sometimes get donations to the collection—the museum collection—and then there might be networking to find other interviewees or - and that includes contacting organizations that are in the area. So there's sometimes a other - other connected and related kinds of transactions that take place when one does off-site interviews. But getting back to Sara Rovner. She was telling the story of - of persecution and of coming to this country and the man at the table was crying and - and just, so, to go outside of myself and to look down on this scene where this vivacious woman is telling this story with great - what do I say? - in a robust manner and this man is crying and giving his grandmother's linens and the whole thing was kind of a little surrealistic in some sense. Let's see. Morris Weiner, he was a very interesting interview and he came to the studio from the Boston area and he was later contacted and appeared a Boston TV show where he answered questions of children about his immigration experience. [pause] Golda Lasman was interest - interesting interview. She was one who came after the Second World War and had been in a concentration camp. Told a horrendous story and I - I was surprised to find that after her interview I felt uplifted, I didn't feel depressed at all and she is a person who reads everything she can about the Holocaust and tries to understand it and - and in - incredibly enough had two women friends who live in the same condominium in Florida who were also in the concentration camp in Poland. So - but she - she - she kind of has - has a kind of world EI-534 LEVINE 31 view which is that a lot of things are not anything to be concerned or upset about in the big picture of things. OK, I'm going to close here and this is end of side B tape two Janet Levine who has been doing interviewing now for the Oral History Project for three years. It's a - August twenty-second, 1994 and I'm signing off. END OF INTERVIEW