Odette Cook and Daniel Moore

00:01 My name is Daniel Moore. I'm 28 years old today is April 16th, 2011. I'm in burkeville Virginia with my grandmother Odette cook.

00:24 My name is Odette cook.

00:27 I am 78 years old.

00:31 Today's April 16th 2011

00:37 I live in burkeville, Virginia in the county of Nottoway.

00:43 And

00:45 I am the wife of Charles Herman cook.

00:53 You live in burkeville, Virginia, but you were not born here. And you didn't grow up here. Where were you born when I was born in Paris, France?

01:07 I'll go back to my

01:14 Ancestors so to speak I'll go back to my grandparents who are Hungarian.

01:23 And

01:25 My grandfather was a tailor and my grandmother was a stay-at-home mom. She had five children.

01:33 And in the twenties that they were not in Budapest they where they lived in a small town called Tata and the little town in Hungary and in the twenties there were

01:55 Programs they were anti-jewish demonstrations and and there was an incident that took place in their little village.

02:11 Is that

02:15 I told them that they should leave that you the area because of the decrease for instance there a decree was was the published that no Christians could do business with Jews and my grandfather was a Taylor Made For Men. He's clientele were Christians. They were very few Jews who could afford a tailor-made suit. So in the 24 25, I would say 26

03:05 Maya grandfather my grandparents had friends who had emigrated to France to Paris and they had been writing to say that there was plenty of work in Paris and there was no

03:26 Maya Sol racism against the Jews. So after debating what they should do, and of course my grandfather I needed to have a money to raise his children. It was decided that my grandfather would any gray to Paris first?

03:49 Find a job the men that she was corresponding with the Hungarian men Perry said I can get you a job the day you arrive in Paris. And so he left and left his wife and five children in tata towel and said as soon as I am able to gather enough money, I'll come back and get you and we'll be great to friends.

04:15 So he arrived in France and the friend found him a job as a tailor.

04:24 And he worked.

04:28 Long hours and every day over the weekend and amox enough money to go to go back a year later and bring his wife and five children to Paris. One of the five children was my mother Charlotte and what were your grandparents names? My grandfather was Ignace Grossman and my grandmother was younger Josh.

05:02 Cozman

05:04 She had the weirdest Easter Rose then my mother Charlotte then Albert.

05:15 Jacques

05:18 And Consuela Louis where French names given to them. My mother was not Charlotte. She was Carlota oshodi depending on the but anyway, so they arrive in Paris.

05:36 And lived in a very small small to two bedroom apartment. But anyway, they made out. Well, my mother Meyer grandfather. My father is grandmother. My father was from Budapest and my his grandmother lived in tata to vagos very near my grandparents and my grandparents knew my father's grandmother.

06:05 So when do you use to come and visit his grandmother?

06:10 He would also come and say hi to my grandparents my maternal grandparents my parent my mother and father with 13 years in age difference. And so my mother my father and my mother remembers, that's why when my father who had been constrict conscripted drafted in the cavalry.

06:38 During World War World War II or the end of World War II?

06:44 Verbal one excuse me, the end of World War 1 he would come on his horse to visit his grandmother and my mother was very intrigued with that horse because he had died it almost in front of my mother's house in my mother would

07:02 Mess with the horse and my father saw her and he was afraid she was a little girl. He was afraid that the horse would kick her and one day he grabbed her and spanked her anyway when they immigrated to Paris.

07:19 The grandmother gave letter to her grandson who had emigrated the year before to Paris my father had emigrated to ferret to France the year before and he was working as the oak tool and die maker and

07:38 Ish, so when my my maternal grandparents and their children arrived in France shortly after that, they contacted my that this man did the grandson of the grandmother that they knew to give the letter and he started coming to my group maternal grandparents apartment and he apparently fell in love with my mother because a year later they were married. They will two years later. They were married. They were married in 1928 in Paris in Paris. They had as usual friends has the Civil ceremony and the religious ceremony. So they were married on the 20 day. We're married on the 1st of August 1928 in a civil ceremony at the Town Hall.

08:38 Then the next day they were married at the synagogue in Paris.

08:45 2nd of August 1928

08:51 My of course my grandmother spent the night at her parents that first night after the Civil marriage.

09:01 And I have babe if marriage certificate in Hebrew and it's a beaut I've translate the Deeds. I don't speak Hebrew.

09:15 So how long were they married before they begin to have children?

09:25 May 1929. So just nine months after they were married.

09:32 Her name is Juliet and my brother Andre was born in 1930, July 18th, 1930 and I came along and 9 3rd of May 1933.

09:49 At that time. Well, it's until today when children of foreigners are born in France. They have to be naturalized French. So when my sister was born a few weeks later, my father went to the town hall or whatever you had he had to do and my sister became a French citizen. She was weeks old same thing happened to my brother when he was born.

10:22 In 1933. There were some Rumblings in in Germany in Germany and Hungary were.

10:32 Allies

10:34 And my parents who had never asked for their French naturalization decided it was time to become French.

10:46 So

10:48 They in 1933 after my birth, they ask for their French naturalization and mine at the same time.

10:58 For whatever reason that we have never been able to ascertain or find out it was denied.

11:09 French government

11:12 He's known for their.

11:15 Paper

11:19 Shuffling stuff and a Papillon somewhere has decided in Germany. It's not with no. No, so my dad French citizenship was denied and so was mine.

11:36 We lived very

11:39 We had their lovely childhood. My father was not a wealthy man, but she provided very very nice live for God and there was a group of Hungarian probably in Paris probably.

11:58 Hundred fifty to two hundred families Hungarian families and every summer. There was a huge acreage near the the Marne River the Marne there was a sin and the mine and they are any River and there was a big camping area and I Hungarian must have rented that land but it was humongous and

12:32 Each family erected their own tent we went camping or summer.

12:39 And it was a labret. That was the bedroom and there was the ante-room where we sat down and ate and it was really a camping at its best. And of course everybody was Hungarian not old Jews, but most of them and so are we had two lovely childhood? We we end the fathers.

13:09 The father's used to come on weekend on Friday night and spend Saturday and Sunday with their family and then go back to their work. We weed was about 50 miles 60 miles from Paris. Not terribly far. Anyway, we I had very fond memories and I put in the little aside when I was about six years old or so, there was a little boy little Hungarian boy. We called him. George will be in there and he was the terror of my young life. He

13:56 He was at ease and he was a

14:02 Troublemaker, he was a year older than I was and not trouble maker as we know them today, but he was just Lively overactive. And anyway one day he locked me in a

14:18 Little Lamb

14:21 Shock little shed with brooms and shovels and stuff with cat and that place was crawling with spiders and and he locked the door and he said I'm not letting you out of here until you count backwards from 100 to 1 in Hungarian backwards. Well,

14:47 Needless to say I was like 6 years old. I could count forward maybe 2:20, but that was about the gist of it and it seems to me that I stayed in that little shot for about a year, but it probably was 10 minutes or 15 minutes, but she ruin my life because to this day I am in.

15:08 I am I'm traumatized by spiders.

15:13 And I passed on the sphere to my children. So recently my brother said and this was 70 years ago. My brother said to me.

15:24 Do you know who I talked with on the phone yesterday and this was early last week and I still have no idea. Who did you talk to I talked to her usual being there. Really? How did you find him when he said it was easy to find him on the internet. So he said

15:47 He said I'm going to give you his phone number and you call him. So I called and the first thing I said, I'm a dead. He said I don't think I know that I said I'm did they really injures sister? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I said Jojo I have waited 70 years to kick you in the rear end.

16:23 1939 and we had to Charmed childhood.

16:29 In 1939 the declaration of war between France and Germany. The French authorities came to the camp. It was during the week and said you have to depart from here in 2 hours.

16:50 You have to leave this place in 2 hours. So we couldn't understand why because friends has declared war in Germany. And Germany was with Hungary. So we had to leave and we best we could we somebody called The Father's to come and get that. Anyway, we we left and down.

17:15 We went back home and then of course the rule became.

17:22 What we know the French had the erected the French of arrogant and they had erected the Maginot Line which was a line of concrete bunkers like to stop the German tanks and they saw you know, it was outside in the northeast of France and they saw the Germans. I'll never going to be able to breach those.

17:53 Mondelez of concrete but it was child play for Germans. So in the German with advancing towards Northeast France, they had passed Belgium. They had passed Holland the people of those countries were fleeing ahead of the Germans because panic

18:25 Panic and rumors and

18:29 Took hold of the population of those countries and as they flooded into France pushing push carts and wheelbarrows and baby carriages, you know, like we see refugees now in in various countries, that's how it was anything this team. And so the day the people of northern France

18:54 Panicked and moved on down south

19:00 Pretty soon Paris panicked because they were worried that we men know we men wear nail to the church doors and that they would cut open the bellies of women and take the babies out and then crashed them on the church doors kill the babies under that was untrue.

19:25 They were rumors they were.

19:29 Simply untrue. It was the German Army and the German Army was absolutely disciplined.

19:39 They marched into Paris.

19:42 And as the population of it poured outside of Paris and also from the northern countries, you know, the eastern part of France and Belgium and we we had the Nordic are we going to have a rose early and we piled some stuff you need then we piled food and weep I'll bet mattresses and we party clothes and off we go with the rest of the population. It was estimated that 12 million people wait on the road.

20:20 The roads going. No, they didn't know where they were going. They were just fleeing ahead of the enemy.

20:29 And we passed Farms farm houses with cows crying because they hadn't been milked and farmhouses deserted and we slept in and then pretty soon there was no gas in the car. We had to abandon the car on the side of the road and there were hundreds and hundreds of cars abandoned on the side of the road mean while the Italian Air Force was the people on the road today are dishonor the German the Italian Air Force. We're selling the refugees on the road.

21:16 We decided one night to take a refuge and their Bridge we went walking and huge bridge and the Jet do if Italian Air Force blew up the bridge and a Saint Denis. We will not hurt somewhere. We we're not anyway, we continue down our

21:43 On our escape on our escaping and pretty soon word got to out to everybody was on the road an Armistice has been declared by France and Germany no more fighting.

22:01 Marshall Peyton who was president of France open the doors of France and Paris for the German to come in because he said there is no need for Destruction for killing for you are superior to us you come in and he established his government in Vichy, which she's halfway below using friends with friends what I didn't know what we didn't know was that he was a rabbit.

22:38 Anti-semite

22:41 Rabid

22:43 And

22:47 What the decrees were passed on to him?

22:54 He not only enforce the decrees against the Jews, but she multiplied.

23:02 In 1941 my parents and or the Jews not told the Jews but a huge number of Jewish parents had their children baptized in the Catholic Church hoping because they heard it was by then deportation had started hoping that it would save their children from their birthday station.

23:36 But it didn't it was forced because even nuns and Priests who had Jewish ancestors 6th or 7th generation had to wear the yellow star.

23:54 My mother so we were catholic in 1940 that was a census of the population and we all the adults pet parents have to go to the town hall to register.

24:16 Doing in order to get a new ID card and to get food stamps.

24:23 So my mother went and when they said Religion, she said Jewish so in red ink in her in her and my father's identity card was returned Jewish Jew in Reading.

24:46 Problem started I was so young. I had no idea what Jewish meant you remember being baptized or or anything like that. I have no recollection of being baptized but I have my baptism certificate but you know, I was talking to my sister some maybe last year and my sister said, you know, he's almost as if as I have amnesia of what happened between 40 and 45, she said I remember Snippets of things, but I couldn't write the book because I have no

25:25 Recollection. No Deeds the year. What remember we remember the fear in 1940?

25:37 Stop. The raids on Friends.

25:42 Germany was bombing.

25:47 Paris France the Allies we're having dog sites over, you know, the countryside and you know, they were fighting each other. So the siren wood would

26:05 The alarm would go off. I'm the

26:12 People in charge and

26:20 So anyway, they're the the siren was the

26:27 Several times during the night and we had to go into a shelter and let our shelter that we were assigned to was the in the bowels of the earth of a baker shop and

26:45 And I remember I I was too young to wear a gas mask but my sister we where we have to wear gas masks at the beginning of the war because in 1914, the Germans had used gas and killed people that way so we already issued gas mask my brother and sister but I want they didn't have little kids. So what we had to do when we where we had its it may sound strange to the listener, but we we had to we had to piece of cotton and I have to urinate on the piece of cotton and hold it to my face nose and hands. And anyway, that was where difficult times and we had no food or in the meantime.

27:45 Other deputation had started over Jews and my mother.

27:54 Wisely when back to the town hall and said someone stole my pocketbook.

28:02 Weed or my papers

28:04 So I need some new ID card that I have lost everything so she had to set of new ID card made and when they said Nash Religion, she said Catholic so there was no Jew in the in their ID card and that's how she was able to travel back and forth and you know it on the Metro and on the buses and and new Gwen look for food and in

28:36 In 42

28:39 The Germans came

28:41 And this is where I am not clear. We were told to leave our apartment that there would be a

28:52 The Germans with the French French got the French so many that French police would come to take us and so we had a friend who had a little business into the courtyard and it was a little house there behind those massive Red Door wooden doors that slide since you said stay there and so we went to live there and my father continued working a little bit in the business of this mess and I remember one night my parents we had no clothes we had left the apartment just as we as we were so my father and my mother in the dark when back to the apartment pushing a little push cart a little something and they were seals on the door that

29:52 Broke and they went in got clothes and when the neared where we were staying my sister my brother and I wasn't Dark Knight.

30:06 They saw a Frenchman a French policeman and a German banging on the door on those huge doors and

30:16 My parents died of fright and we were dying of fright inside the little house and Juliet. My sister was holding us under her arm and we understood light light what it was they wanted us to turn the light if there was a curfew, you know, blackout curfew and we had not turn the light off.

30:43 So in the meantime my parents passed by these the German and policemen and they greeted them Volkswagen miss you, you know with evening and went on that way and around the corner and then they saw that they left the German and the French policeman left because we ate at turn the light off and so they came back in and of course we told them what happened, but the Fright is still with me anyway in 43.

31:15 Inside with meth before the end of 42 43, my father was arrested he was denounced as did you buy neighbors that was enough lot of denunciation by French people themselves. It is estimated that the German government received about 5 million denouncing denunciation that this man is Jude that family is you then because there is anti-Semitism in France tremendous anti-Semitism and soul.

31:57 My father was taken.

32:00 And immediately my mother to cast to an Ellicott country Farmers with to cuss in and we where we stand. Went to your 22 months and only came back to Paris in 45 min why we didn't know where my father was first Key West Deacon to Austria. He wasn't remember. He was a tool and die maker he was a master and they needed were so he would he was taking that has a Libra for slavery and then he went to Camp various camps and then

32:47 The last was in Benson, but that's was the bergen-belsen. They were to Camp one was extermination camp. The other one was a working Cannon for labor force labor. That's where he was and then the war ended the Russians liberated the camp.

33:11 And my father came back we through the red cross over goes months and months later. He didn't know we were alive by that time. We had come back to Paris.

33:23 Please my mother and daughter.

33:30 My father was able to come.

33:34 Near where we lived. He didn't dare come and find out if we had been exterminated of taking, you know, the addy had no news of us and we will safe unfortunately 26 members of the family.

33:54 Both mother from both my mother's side and father side where exterminated at Auschwitz.

34:02 And

34:05 The end of the war came we try to you know, there was no food or very little food.

34:17 My mother

34:19 My mother

34:22 My mother went to work my mother spoke German fluently and there was an American camp at orally orally was just outside of Paris. It was a French airport that was even half of it over three-quarters of the airport to the American government to make a an American Air Force camp and they had German prisoners-of-war and the need to german-speaking people to Transit as translators. My mother was one of the first to volunteer but not volunteer to work there and she you know, and I will tell of an incident that was an awful lot of black market with the French workers on the camp because you know, they were taking thing.

35:22 South American selling it on the black market and getting money to feed their family.

35:29 And

35:32 So it was not possible to take out anything from the workers. They were frisked as they were coming out of the camp at night and the women were frisked also so that we men devised a system. It wasn't like a plastic bag with long strings.

35:53 And they would put food in the plastic bag and let it dangle between their legs and tie it around their waist and come out of the camp. They would be Frisk but not between the legs and as soon as they went outside of the camp.

36:15 Did they?

36:17 Two or three workers comp, you know quotes and what have you and the women took their the plastic bag off and he is late. Do I said to my mother, you know, I remember when you used to bring cake and things come from only but I said, you know, I never asked you but I remember it was always smooshed flat why why the piece of cake and the food was always so flat and it was probably in the sixties that I learned how my mother said this

36:56 Buy food that you are staking out of the American Camp to feed us.

37:05 And I grew up I went to school and

37:12 Isaiah past my fruit. The back of Laureate in France is in two parts two years. I passed the first one of the least safe and long in Paris and I was weak in English. My English was not I didn't get to goodmark. So it was a friend of mine has fence this previous summer in London working in the hospital as an orderly and living in the nurses quarters. So I did the same thing. I went to England for the summer. I went to school. I attended school and at night I was working in the hospital as an orderly and thing bed fans, and this not the other thing.

38:00 It was the hospital Saint Mary's where Alexander Fleming found discovered penicillin. So I have that and instead of staying 3 months. I was so enjoying the freedom. I stayed two years and I must say that your English has improved considerably. I came back to Paris and shortly after I decided to go work at the American Air Force camp in Orly. We live not far from there and

38:38 On the first day of the job. I was hired right away and as a typist and secretary and on the first day of the day on the job I heard soaking in the my office I was so I was 19 years old then I was extremely how should I say if it is not shy but I mean it was the first time and I was working for the Americans and I was typing in English and all of a sudden I looked up there. I saw a man standing in front of my typewriter and I looked up and he was smiling.

39:21 And I said hello, and he said to me you are a living doll, and he said it in French was acting poop a savant.

39:35 And I was a goner and that's why I was your grandfather.

39:43 And

39:46 End

39:48 That's why I was 19 and the love affair started him 52.

39:58 And where you already Living in America that point in France and my first child your mother was born in 54.

40:10 And

40:12 I came to the United States in 1956.

40:18 App that puts your grandfather was transferred to Harrisburg Pennsylvania, and he came by himself to rent an apartment and furnish it before I come and I arrived in January 16th 1956.

40:38 And my love affair with America has never stopped.

40:43 Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. Is there anything else that you like to any other final thoughts that you have before? We conclude? I became I didn't.

40:58 When I came to America, it was nothing to dress like a lot of immigrants. I came of my own free will I didn't feel American i c I love being a living in America, but I didn't feel my bone that I was American and then I had my full children after my first daughter who was born in France your mother. I have three more who are born in America. And when in 60s in the early sixties, we went on vacation. I took the girls to Italy and we were in the room and I asked where the American Embassy in Rome was because the girls was sick and tired of Italian food. They wanted a hamburger and they wanted to eat in the dining room at the embassy. So we walk to the Embassy and just as I neared the embassy I saw the American flag fluttering and I said I am

41:58 An American and that's how he immediately when we came back from vacation the paper that needed to become an American citizen.

42:10 Thank you very much Mimi that you're very welcome.