Harry Wittenberg and Mary Ann Wittenberg

00:08 Okay, this is Mary Ann Wittenberg. I'm 57 years old. This is where recording in San Francisco, California on January 22nd 2012, and I'm here with my husband Harry.

00:25 I'm Harry Wittenberg. I'm 56 on January 22nd 2012 in San Francisco and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and I'm here with my wife Maryann.

00:40 So you going to start so well, I thought we would start about talking about.

00:46 Set of our backgrounds what I think help connect us together was that we both have kind of similar similar backgrounds in a sense that we both have immigrant parents who where and we're first generation you and I although am I my mother came my family came from Europe escaping the Holocaust through Russia and they came in 1948 and I grew up in a pretty traditional although not Orthodox Jewish household.

01:23 And all the stuff that comes with it and that was in Brooklyn from Brooklyn, New York.

01:31 And I grew up in Massachusetts in Southbridge, Massachusetts was a child of first generation of Italian immigrants. My father came here in the 30s before World War II and my mother came after World War II my father went back after the war and met her and married her and brought her back and I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts of Italian immigrants.

01:59 So, how do we start what what traditions do did we bring into our house from our parents and childhood?

02:12 That's how I questionnaire because I was thinking more along the lines of what her experiences were like growing up in in America and particularly in very Hina white Anglo-Saxon Protestant New England as an immigrant child disability child of the first generation of parents who were really not familiar with the culture and the language and the difficulties that came with that.

02:40 What about yourself?

02:43 What's the same deal? I mean English wasn't my first language. Actually Yiddish was until my sister who is older than me. It's just me and my sister Anita started going to school and we were learning English ourselves. And we kind of taught sort of my mother just had to communicate and although oddly enough in Brooklyn. It was a bit insular because you had neighborhoods and you had ethnic ethnic neighborhoods that were kind of close-knit even though you would cross the street and you'd be in the Italian section. Are you crossing the street and be in the Puerto Rican section?

03:28 But growing up was a little odd because it was a lot of old tradition that came with my mother in terms of values and what pressures they put on kids. So my mother put a lot of pressure on me for for for going to school and being educated and trying to be religious. Although that didn't get us to the

03:52 So I had I'm wondering if you felt kind of the same way. I did in school in elementary school and you having parents that didn't speak English well and were a bit different than most other parents and sometimes having to be an interpreter for them. It is often times felt maybe a little embarrassed a little uncomfortable.

04:18 And wondering if you had that same type of experience because we had a small Italian Community, but we didn't have a think is larger Community to insulate ourselves from that money if you experience that when you were in, New York

04:35 Sometimes cuz sometimes I would have to go with my mother or usually my sister did but if it had to go to the bank or if he had to take care of something like at the doctor's or financial stuff, whatever we would always have to my mother always took us with her to make sure that she got what she needed and that because she knew that we can kind of figure those things out and communicating with whether it's the banks are government the doctors to the helper to help her out. We were actually even writing checks for her because we had said she couldn't spell so we had to write out the numbers on checks. We had her sign it but we were always writing the checks and then at one point, I think my sister actually wrote up the numbers from 1 to 100 written out so that she could have a cheat sheet so she could do it herself.

05:35 I've never seen a note that needed to be written. I would do that.

05:40 But when it came to school, I mean I didn't go to a public school. I went to achieve I went to a Hebrew school full-time. So we weren't really interacting with other people of different ethnic backgrounds because of that. So it was still insular in that respect. Although when I got older my mother actually started working and then started working at some point while I guess I must have moved out a long time after that for the Board of Education of New York City and I think that was a real change in her life because she was actually out in the real world with lots of different people.

06:20 I'm too successful at that was a long time.

06:27 So where we going next?

06:31 So well, I think maybe we talked about when when the time we got together when we met course, I was hesitant to tell my mother that you and I were dating because you aren't Jewish and that was one of the things that she brought with her from after the war and from Europe to keep that tradition and to keep the family Creed. I guess you could say going and being that she was kind of a tough cookie and things like that. It did took me a while to kind of let her know.

07:13 And also took me awhile to to to deal with it myself before you decided to get married. So we were always we always you already had I think an image of her before she came out when you met.

07:30 If she couldn't she could be a little difficult, but she she knew what was right. And so you knew what was good then we tell the story about when I first met so I'm just a fast forward a little bit Harry and I kind of decided to go ahead and marry even though his mother objected and she protested but we knew that she would be coming to the wedding cuz she spent $500 on a dress. So we figured she was definitely going to come and she was clearly very anxious to I think to meet my parents. I'm not sure kind of what idea she may have had what my parents are like, but I'm sure she felt they were probably very American and

08:20 And not having European ways, even though she knew they were Italian and when they first when they first met it was very clear that your mother and my mother spoke very similarly and that they spoke broken English and they sounded very much alike. Like they could have been sisters and I remember your mother looking at me and being kind of surprised my mother looking at me and being surprised and Signal she talks like I do and I think at that point there was kind of a softening in a realization that these that they were people who had had similar experiences and though they had some extreme differences with religion.

09:03 They had a lot of similar experiences growing up in in Europe end and then emigrating here and as they talked more and more they realize they had very similar experience is coming over on on boats your mother Landing in Boston. My mother Landing in New York your mother going down to New York my mother coming up to Boston on both of them having suffered a miscarriage shortly after arriving here. So they they developed quite a bond and as as you know, they developed a relationship and where your mother and my mother spent time together when your mother came to visit and stay with my family so is as I think is afraid that she was what you were getting into. It was real Growing Experience for her and I think she learned a lot and

09:56 She softens a lot after that. She definitely came to accept it, except you and once the kids came that was different now because now she had grandchildren and I have it. Chad watching for her.

10:13 Well, I remember meeting your parents for the first time.

10:18 When you asked me to come up to Massachusetts and have dinner with them.

10:26 And it was the biggest dinner I've ever seen in my entire life who would definitely the people had lasagna and turkey at Thanksgiving. Well, I still remember sitting next to your dad who made his own wine and kept pouring the wine for me constantly as if I had a bottomless glass. I would keep drinking and kept full and I remember the pasta came out and I ate quite a bit thinking well that was the meal and then the VL came out and then or pasta came out in the salad came out and it didn't

11:09 And then I got my fell asleep.

11:14 And my father said he can really hold his wine. He does really well. Just don't breathe too hard. He may fall over.

11:28 I think the I think some of the things that we brought into our own home. So I think from our parents least from from my from my mother not that much only that them.

11:43 You know, we we we decided to do to be a Jewish family and we do, you know the holidays and go to Temple and things like that really is her Shabbat candle holder. That's right. We have some things from her but I couldn't say we brought any of the food in cuz of me she was an okay cook, but we did bring in borscht than stuffed cabbage and cash a barn with you.

12:11 So let me ask you one fond memory. You remember if your mom?

12:17 Well, I remember one time when I

12:23 Well, I think it was probably one of the one of the dinners that we I mean we didn't have very many dinners bike with family was always around Passover.

12:34 And she was always in her element then because her modus operandi was to take care of others and when there was a house full of people she was her happiest because you would be able to serve everybody and because of that she would be in a pretty good mood and and you know, just laugh once in awhile. She didn't laugh a lot but laugh once in awhile and just be you no comfortable being able to sit down and talk and have a comfortable conversation with her. So I remember that mostly because whenever she had people around that was when she felt the most comfortable

13:14 And I know your dad died when you were young.

13:17 You probably don't have too many fond memories of him or much. No, not much. Well, the funny thing is I used to remember I like I mean, I remember going up to the Bungalow colonies in the borscht belt every summer for the whole summer and they were you know, different families, you know friends of my my mom's might my family so we have friends up there and we'd stay up in the dads would come up on the weekends and then go back to work during the week and

13:49 And you know who it was just those little Cottages with place for the kids to run around and a swimming pool and Cara playing cards. Remember that, you know, the parents play cards at night. And of course, I always remember the first food truck I've ever seen used to be called the chow chow cups, which was a Chinese food truck in the Catskills.

14:17 Which was kind of a a fun a fun memory that I have.

14:23 So what about you actually haven't said much about daddy my father.

14:32 I really sweet my sweet man with a really good heart who always felt that you had to do your duty and he was a quiet man and my mother was much more the formidable Force.

14:45 I'm he works very hard and I don't remember that. I don't remember him playing with us. He was there and always

14:54 Caring and concern but he worked very hard in a factory in the end. You know, my brother and I were pretty much on our own to play but I remember that he every Friday night would go to The Italian Club and play cards. That was the one night that he would go out and he'd be with his friends and that was a tradition and he did that for years every every Friday night until he passed away and sometimes every once in awhile. If you'd had a good night, he would wake Tony and I up at like 2 in the morning when he came home and he would wake us up and he would have brought home these wonderful greasy hamburgers and he would wake us up and we would be get up in the middle of the night and eat french fries and these wonderful hamburgers and just have the great as it was like such a kind of like a little secret of ours that we be up in the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping enjoying these great hamburgers. It's like a back to bed and laugh about it in the morning Daddy would do things like that. He was

15:54 He was a real sweetheart my mother. I remember her liking to sing even though her voice wasn't.

16:02 Wasn't so great. She loved to sing and she would sing. Lots of old Italian songs that you would love getting together with her Italian friends. And that's the the community that we loved with and somebody would have an accordion and that's when she was really in her element.

16:22 I swear.

16:26 Yep, Mary. And did you learn any of those songs?

16:30 Would you like to say do you know I will I've actually I was just I was thinking about this. She used to do a couple of children's songs when we were young and one that's very much like I guess in Italian or dialectical version of kind of like this little piggy and it's about a little duck and you would do it with your have the child hold their hand out and mom would take her finger and draw a circle on the palm and she would sing this little song a cult Pakistan. Funda now which means here's a little Fountain and it went fast enough. How about our Cuesta Cuesta Cuesta Lopez and basically what it means is this here or there is a little Fountain and which is a little duck and with this one as you touch your thumb, you know, you grab the family is safe with this when I catch

17:31 And then you touch the the first finger and say and this one I kill and then that the middle finger would be in this when I clock and the ring finger would be the end of this when I cook and then was a little baby finger or the insulated I left and you pretend to eat the you know, eat a little a little finger and I remember her doing that an awful lot and then there was another one that she used to do which was kind of a rocking song and you'd sit on her lap and she would sing the tattoo Mesa Tata Tooty like attendify to the portal of cat has passed and basically it means a seesaw back and forth back and forth and with this little what am I going to do with this little child? I'll bring it to the pizza and her mother will pass by and say hello. Here's my little My Little Girl.

18:29 And the man that was that was a bad. I like she was from the province of a bubble tea in a little town in the mountains called Tucker tickets out him. So I remember those songs and actually I taught them to our daughter Lucy can remember those things them now.

18:46 So, what did you have some really interesting Yiddish?

18:50 Phrases your mother used while that's true. She

18:58 Well, they weren't always the most Pleasant times that you can use them which in a literal translation is don't bang on my teakettle but it just means leave me alone. Stop giving me a headache. I don't know if I could save the other one because they may not become off on radio. Well, and she was sometimes she would say things in Polish, which I never really understood what they were when she was mad. But then I found out later on that they weren't such nice things. And that was the secret code is that my mother was able to use was using polish cuz I didn't know polish Yiddish. I knew so she talked to us about that. But whenever she was talking to a friend or relative and she didn't want the kids to hear without it always wanted to polish.

19:53 So and I'm so glad she didn't teach us that language. So she wanted to keep that on her own but I sure do remember not in terms of songs but in if we talk in like media at the time in New York City, there was a radio station, which I remember w e d t you what you was and it was a Yiddish radio station and there was newscast in Yiddish by I forgot the announcers name, but I mean if I heard it it would be very very clear memory of hearing. The addition is called it on the on the radio and my mother would listen to it that you know, very diligently and I imagine it was pretty conservative stuff.

20:39 Because I remember when I told my mother I was moving to California. She was convinced. I was moving just to become a drug addict as I'd like a profession and that was because because she heard it on the news for California was like it was a very bad place.

20:59 So what else have we brought into the house? I think I think the Love of Cooking is one of the things that I I would say our kids will always remember which is a tie into your mother. I mean not as much my mother she cook, but she didn't have she didn't have this.

21:18 Haha this value behind it in terms of family. But I've that's what I remember distinctly with your mom. And then coming to your house is that she was always cooking and the house was always warm and it was always smells and I think that's what we do cuz I mean mostly you but at some point either one of us are always cooking something when the kids come home. There's always lots of food a lot of people right? Well, I guess that's the other thing cuz we are very social.

21:52 So we have lots of people over the house pretty regularly something that really happens with immigrant families. I think when you know your parents came and they didn't have family left after the war and my parents came in they had some distant relatives here, but you develop a community and it becomes that much more important to have people nearby and to have them.

22:20 Have the nearby frequently and I think that's kind of a difference with that. I see with my family in Italy, you know, my mom left three sisters and a brother there and when I go back to visit my cousins are just not as close as as we would expect them to be in my iTune. Italy always said you and America you have much stronger connection stronger relationships than we do here in Italy and I think that is something that becomes really important for immigrants in order to be able to survive in a foreign land in fairy.

23:00 Alien land where they don't understand and they need to have those their ability to express into and to feel their Traditions I needed and you develop those relationships.

23:14 No, I think that's why we have so many friends around because we did the same thing in a sense. But even though our parents moved from Europe to the us we moved from the east coast to the West Coast by ourselves. And with that we left all of our families back on the East Coast. So coming here. We had to make our own family or friends and then in folks because of course, it was always Our obligation because we left them that we would have to go back and visit these Coast as opposed to them coming out and deserting us often which was infrequent. So I think part of that is we just basically had to build our own big social networks in order to keep that sense of family, even though we weren't back east.

24:01 The two

24:07 If we have time one thing is you have the experience of your family during the war and the experience of my family during the war very different. My father was here. I'm and couldn't get back to Italy until after the war and my mother was a young girl and Italy and I know that in her tear town was occupied by the Nazis, but she was really bothered by them. I mean she was frightened by them as a young girl, but it's really not harmed but your parents had a very different experience during the war if you want to talk a little bit about that.

24:47 Well on my mother's side cuz I don't have a lot of information about my father's side. But on my mother's side. Will they lived in a small town called Christmas table in Poland right near the Russian Border in when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. My mother decided to leave her town to escape before they came and she her parents. My grandparents didn't want to leave didn't think that anything was going to happen to them. But she was Lee she decided to leave anyway, and they decided that they couldn't they didn't want to break up the family. So they decided to leave with her and they basically packed up a card with a horse and put all their stuff and fled into Russia, which is kind of one of those unusual stories because most you hear about things happening in Europe, but not a lot of stories about the Holocaust and surviving that in Russia, but essentially she

25:47 Her and the family stayed intact. My father was a good friend of her brothers my uncle so he came along to with his brother and that's where my mom and dad met in in Russia in Exile and married there but being in Russia was also no walk in the park Stalin was a very creative Culture of Fear And basically didn't like the the refugees and made people become informants and eventually they were all as a family sent to Siberia fit in a gulag to be to spend the about to two and a half years of the war up in the you know up in Siberia. Where was very harsh very cold. They really didn't give them very many Provisions, but somehow they they made it out open the doors one day and they had to take logs and

26:47 The raft and float down the river till they got to a road where they can get out and find their way back into Europe and and not in Poland because it was decimated at that point. They weren't even welcome then and they made their way to Germany to Munich to a displaced persons camp where a lot of Jews who were who were dispersed because of the war came together in order to find a way to a new life and because my father had an aunt in the United States, he was able to be sponsored because that was the few ways that you can get into the United States as a war Refugee is he needed someone who's living in the states to sponsor you so he had an aunt who did that and my mother brought her two brothers and my father and his brother to the United States, but my grandfather and grandmother and my aunt my mother sister didn't come to the US instead they went to what was

27:47 Palestine there before the state of Israel became an independent state and so that's why I have family they are now because the family split up and when they came to the US, you know, it was it's almost like us coming, you know coming to the West Coast for the first time most of my family who I thought were aunts and uncles are actually just friends of the family not really blood relatives a lot with the Spurs some a lot with lost in the war and so was kind of it was almost probably the way our kids are growing up with us having all these friends around. Although we don't call them Anson uncle's the back then I think it was different when you lost so much family. You wanted your kids to have a sense of family. So I think that's why they called everybody aunts and uncles even though they were just really friends.

28:43 He has one thing I think I realize I know when my mom came from Italy it was difficult time, you know, it was difficult being a young girl not speaking the language. They were older Italian women around but not having your mom and your your other your sister is it was difficult and I don't think I realized that until much later and

29:06 In a lot of ways, you know your your mother I know with this difficult. She had a she had a rough time and a very difficult experience grunt, you know as a young girl and then even coming to the United States and losing her husband at a young age was I'm sure very difficult and I think it is anything I kind of regret is realizing

29:30 How much those experiences shaped our parents and I think as a young person I didn't understand it and just would think of.

29:43 Them as being very difficult grouchy unhappy people a lot of the time and now it's an older person I realized

29:55 They had every right to Biggie.

30:01 And it's sad.

30:03 And you know in a sense we almost say the same things to our kids, you know, you're you know you at some point you'll understand which by the way we have three kids just for the record. I have Max Max Max Alaric 24 and flipping up in Tahoe when he's a dog sled musher and some to be a helicopter ski guide we have our daughter Lucy with Chia who calls herself sunflower, who is it at school? And our youngest Ethan who is will be going to college soon and but we did but we did keep the European tradition in a sense of naming our kids in one way or another after the family so max Maxwell, Eric Max is my uncle

30:59 And Eric is short for your dad's name are colino. Luchia is your aunt and Davey. David batavia's after my father David and then Ethan with he's kind of between your dad are caleno and my mother Edna and Ethan is also save it by the third child.

31:30 But the one thing I mean kind of before I kind of broke into tears is going back to her mom's and you're not understanding why they were the way they were an end. You know how we complained a lot about them being difficult then we butted heads a Laden.