Lara DeVille LeRoy talks about her grandparents Rosa and Felix Dziewienski, who “survived the Holocaust by sheer luck.” From the Warsaw ghetto in Poland, where a soldier killed their infant son, they were sent to Plaszow concentration camp. Near the end of the war, they escaped to the forest where they were separated. Felix joined the resistance and Rosa was forced to work for a Russian colonel keeping house and caring for children. After the war Rosa and Felix were reunited in a German DP camp. With two of Felix’s brothers and their wives, they settled in Wurmannsquick, Germany. One brother and his wife, Herman and Maria, immigrated to Atlanta, Georgia, as soon as possible. Felix and Rosa and Felix’s remaining brother and his wife, Carl and Sasha, stayed and made a life. Lara’s father, Roman, was born in 1946. The antisemitism in the German schools was hard on Roman and his cousin, so they were sent to boarding schools in England and Australia, respectively. When Roman was about fifteen years old, he and his parents visited Herman and Maria in Atlanta. Roman announced he would not leave, so they enrolled him in Georgia Military Academy. His parents immigrated to Atlanta about a year later, followed by Carl and Sasha. Lara describes Rosa’s attitudes about food—it was a “cure-all”—plus “there was a lot of focus on the ability to use the bathroom.” In her habits Rosa was very neat and clean, but also a hoarder. “She, for sure, communicated that you had to be strong and put your best face and foot forward. And so, if an emotion could be satiated by a macaroon or salami stick, a larger emotion was not to be displayed in public.” Rosa also demonstrated a strong work ethic, believing you should always do your best. While this concept was conveyed to Lara, it was not imparted to Lara’s father. Lara notes that her grandparents weren’t “equipped to be parents” due to the trauma they endured and the lack of family support. Rosa, in particular, overindulged Roman, setting no boundaries. “I think that I would directly attribute my dad’s drug addiction and his insecurities and his need to self-medicate and his lack of discipline and his, sort of, largess to the Holocaust. I think the way he relates to people is, to some extent, largely influenced by the Holocaust.” Lara found herself driven to learn about the Holocaust; “it drove me professionally because I founded an organization that did Holocaust and diversity education.” She discusses her group visits to Poland, one with her father, one with local Holocaust survivors Pincus Kolender and Joe Engel, and one that she organized while working for Charleston Jewish Federation. “Mankind has not, as a whole, changed because these atrocities still continue. So that’s why I went.” [Note: Roman changed the family name from Dziewienski to DeVille when Lara was three years old.] This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson, for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Ethel Oberman Katzen, the youngest of seven children, was born in 1920 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Sarah Kapner and Isaac Oberman. Isaac, a Polish immigrant, arrived in the United States in 1906, and Sarah, who hailed from Galicia, followed him six months later. They settled in Charleston on the recommendation of Sarah's father, who often traveled to the United States, collecting money for yeshivas and orphanages back in the Old Country. Ethel reports that her father brought his two brothers, Harry and Max, and his brother-in-law Aaron Meyer Firetag to Charleston in 1913. Isaac peddled first and later went into business with his brother Harry. After the partnership was dissolved, Isaac and Sarah moved, children in tow, to Detroit, Michigan. Ethel was not quite four years old. Isaac drove a truck and then ran a furniture store. Ethel recalls other Oberman family members following them to Detroit and opening stores in the Polish neighborhood there. The family returned to Charleston when Ethel was nearly ten. Isaac opened a furniture store on King Street and became a notary public, serving a largely black clientele. The Obermans were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues in Charleston that Isaac had helped organize in 1911. Ethel describes her father's service to the synagogue, including his role as secretary, recording the minutes in "Jewish" [i.e. Yiddish]. She shares her memories of the first Beth Israel building at 145 St. Philip Street and the Daughters of Israel Hall at 64 St. Philip Street, a couple of doors down from Brith Sholom, Charleston's other Orthodox congregation. Ethel discusses the differences between Beth Israel and Brith Sholom and remembers the Torah procession in 1955 when Brith Sholom moved into Beth Israel's Rutledge Avenue synagogue, following an agreement to merge. Other topics covered by the interviewee include: the Kalushiner Society; the Mazo family; how her family celebrated the Jewish holidays; how she and her friends spent their time as teens, including occasions when they mingled with their peers from K.K. Beth Elohim, the Reform congregation; her father's role in Charleston's civil defense during World War II; and the founding of Emanu-El, Charleston's first Conservative synagogue. See Mss. 1035-149 for a second interview with Katzen, dated May 28, 1997. For the Ethel Oberman Katzen papers, see Mss. 1034-027, in Special Collections.
Saul Krawcheck was born in 1926 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Esther Freda Bielsky and Jack Krawcheck, immigrants from the Bialystok region of present-day Poland. Jack ran Jack’s Clothiers, a cash-only business, located first on the corner of King and Vanderhorst streets, later moving to 313 King Street. Saul talks about his extended family, including his Krawcheck and Bielsky grandparents, aunts, and uncles. His grandfather Zorach Bielsky served as the cantor for Beth Israel for a time. Saul and his family were members of Brith Sholom, and Saul attended junior congregation every Saturday morning as a boy. The interviewee recalls Agnes Jenkins, an African-American woman who cooked for the family for sixty years. She came from Wadmalaw Island and prepared traditional southern meals for the Krawchecks, while adhering to kosher standards. Saul discusses social divisions in the local Jewish community he observed growing up and laments the self-segregation of Jews in Charleston at the time of the interview. They “have ghettoized themselves. . . It didn’t used to be that way. It has only become that way.” He notes that the Greek community has isolated itself more than any other group in Charleston. Saul describes his father’s civic activities, in particular his work in the historic preservation movement. Jack was president of the Preservation Society of Charleston for two terms, and his store at 313 King, which he bought in 1938, was the first property to undergo adaptive-use restoration, for which he received the first Carolopolis Award. Saul talks briefly about his daughters Maxine, Marcy, and Beth, and their families. For a related collection, see Jack Krawcheck business records, Mss. 1026, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Florence Mazo Nirenblatt was born in 1911, one of ten children of Essie Tandet and Elihu Mazo, Russian immigrants who ran a kosher deli and grocery store at 478 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Florence, whose nickname is “Boomalee,” talks about her parents and siblings and describes the family business. Elihu’s brother Dave Mazo opened a grocery store at 171 King Street and turned it over to another brother, George. Dave then opened another business in Folly Beach, South Carolina, a little over ten miles from Charleston. Florence speaks briefly of her cousins (George’s children) Norma, Earl, and Frances Mazo. She remembers the Truere family, in particular, Harry and “Jew Joe” Truere. The interviewee moved to New York City when she was about eighteen and eloped with Brooklynite Bernard Nirenblatt. In later years, Florence moved back to Charleston, bringing her husband and children, Norman and Marilyn, and their spouses with her.
Joseph Read was born in 1904 in Pinopolis, South Carolina, to Fredericka "Fanny" Lief and Frank Read (Redt), who emigrated from the Baltic States to America in the late 1800s. They followed a cousin by the name of Behrman to South Carolina, living in Oakley first, then neighboring Moncks Corner, where they opened a store that sold everything from dry goods to groceries to coffins. Joseph remembers his father's financial status fluctuated a good bit over the years. Frank was also a cotton factor and invested in real estate. In 1912, he opened another store roughly thirty miles to the south, in Charleston, South Carolina, partnering in the five and dime business with Mendel Dumas, who had married Frank's sister Esther. Joseph recalls the family relocating to Charleston when he was about ten years old. They lived on Smith Street at first, but around 1918 or so, they moved into a new home built by his father at 60 Murray Boulevard. By then, Frank was sole owner of the business at 593 King Street, which later became known as Read Brothers. Joseph talks about growing up in Moncks Corner and Charleston. The family belonged to Brith Sholom, one of two Orthodox synagogues in the city. When he was about 18 years old, Joseph joined Reform congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, noting he preferred services that were conducted in English and included music. While attending College of Charleston, Joseph helped to organize an Upsilon Chapter of Tau Epsilon Phi. He talks about his siblings, Dan, Riva, Ludwig, and Paul, two of whom married Christians, and his wife, Florence Panitz of Aiken, South Carolina. The interviewee and his brother Dan took over the business "after my father had another one of his bad years." Joseph discusses how the store changed over the years?his son Tommy followed in his footsteps?and reminisces about other nearby businesses. Rosemary "Binky" Read Cohen joins her father in this interview. For a related oral history, see the 1996 interview with Abe Dumas, Mss. 1035-102.
Sydney Solomon Yaschik Richman, born in 1934, the youngest of Mary Rosen and Benjamin Louis Solomon's three daughters, briefly describes why she didn't like growing up in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Her parents, both immigrants from Russia, ran a general store in the small town more than thirty miles north of Charleston from sometime before World War II until 1951. While living in Moncks Corner, Mary, Benjamin, and Sydney paid visits twice a week to Charleston, where Mary had family and where they each socialized with friends. By that time, Sydney's older sisters Dorothy and Frances were out of the house. Sydney married Eugene Yaschik in 1954 after he graduated from The Citadel. She talks about joining him in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1955, where he was stationed in the army, and provides some background on the Yaschik family. Sydney and Eugene settled in Charleston and had three children, Benjamin, Martin, and Barbara. Eugene died in 1966 in a boating accident. The interviewee married Harold "Billy" Morton Richman of Newport News, Virginia, in 1968. Sydney recalls a project she headed for Charleston Jewish Federation that entailed furnishing apartments for Soviet refugees and her work for the Brith Sholom Beth Israel Sisterhood. She discusses the difficulties the established Orthodox congregation, Brith Sholom Beth Israel, has recently faced, losing young families to Charleston's new Orthodox synagogue, Dor Tikvah, while older members are dying off.
Harlan Greene, one of four children of Regina and Sam Greene, talks about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, with a focus on the effects his parents’ experiences as Holocaust survivors had on him and his siblings. Regina and Sam married in their native Poland in June 1939 and, sometime after the Nazis invaded Poland, were picked up by Russian invaders and taken to Siberian work camps. In 1943 the Greenes joined thousands of Jewish refugees in Uzbekistan to wait out the war. They immigrated in 1948 to Charleston, where Regina had relatives. Harlan recalls that his parents’ wartime accounts were “very contradictory,” and he speculates as to the reasons. At his prompting, his mother began telling him stories in bits and pieces when he was a young teen. Regina was not for memorializing just one holocaust or telling her story publicly, whereas, later in life, Sam became involved in Holocaust organizations and recorded his life story. Harlan describes his parents’ marriage, their home life while he was growing up, and his childhood, which he calls “claustrophobic.” He believes that his parents’ stories are part of his and his siblings’ stories—"their trajectory is my trajectory”—and that certain familial traits have filtered down to his nieces in the next generation. Harlan notes that he has a “run-away work ethic. I can see it in many of my siblings. If we’re enjoying ourselves, we kind of feel guilty.” He comments briefly on Charleston society’s social strictures and how he has embraced living outside its confines, being gay and Jewish. “Growing up in Charleston, you weren’t supposed to be Jewish. You weren’t supposed to be gay. Those were social strikes against you. . . I like whatever makes me different.” This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Senator James Strom Thurmond, born in 1903 in Edgefield, South Carolina, was a circuit judge when he volunteered for the U.S. Army during World War II. He landed in France on D-Day and was injured, but rejoined combat. His unit ended up in Leipzig, Germany, and the Senator describes what he saw when they entered Buchenwald concentration camp. "Men were stacked up like cordwood. They were ten or twelve feet high. You couldn't tell whether they were living or dead. . . . Everything I saw was distressing to me." The Senator briefly discusses the topic of religious freedom.
George Visanska Rosenberg is joined by his wife, Edith Cochran Rosenberg, in this interview that begins with George explaining how the Visanska, Winstock, and Rosenberg families on his father's side are related and how they came to settle in Abbeville, South Carolina, around the middle of the nineteenth century. George was born in Abbeville in 1916, the second of five children of Solomon Rosenberg and Octavia Harby Schwerin, a Sumter, South Carolina, native. George describes the family business in Abbeville. Rosenberg Mercantile Company, incorporated in 1872, occupied several connected buildings on Trinity Street and carried goods ranging from groceries to heavy farm equipment. The family also owned farm land in Abbeville and McCormick counties where sharecroppers grew cotton. George discusses his upbringing and the family's Jewish identity. Abbeville never had a congregation or visiting rabbis, but George's great-grandfather G. A. Visanska and his family "did maintain their Jewishness." They kept kosher and G. A. provided the kosher meat for his family, slaughtering the meat himself. George notes, however, "I was up in high school . . . at least, before I knew the difference in being Jewish and gentile." He became aware as an adult of having missed a close connection to his Jewish heritage and traditions by not having a synagogue in town. His parents observed the High Holidays, but not the Sabbath, and they celebrated Christmas, but not Hanukkah. He reports he never experienced any "anti-Jewish sentiment in Abbeville." George covers a number of topics, including forebears who fought for the Confederacy; the Eureka Hotel in Abbeville; his father's involvement with Abbeville County Memorial Hospital; the African Americans who worked for the Rosenbergs; the effects of the Great Depression on his family and their business; Rosenberg's Men's Store in Greenwood, South Carolina, run by his cousin Ernest Rosenberg; Uncle Julius Visanska, who ran Bentschner & Visanska in Charleston, South Carolina; and the Poliakoff and Savitz families of Abbeville. The Rosenbergs and interviewer, Dale Rosengarten, consider how certain expressions based on stereotypes can be offensive. The interviewees talk about white-black relations when they were growing up and at the time of the interview. George recalls how he ran his medical practice in the days before integration and contemplates the disadvantages that local African Americans face. Edith was born in 1922 in Due West, South Carolina, and grew up in Laurens, South Carolina. She and George married after he graduated from medical school in 1941. They recount his nearly four years in the service during World War II, followed by his residency in Wilmington, North Carolina. George describes how he established, in 1948, his OB/GYN and surgery practice in Abbeville and briefly discusses some of the changes in obstetrics over the decades. The couple adopted three children, Herbert, Patsy, and Grace. Edith, who was raised Presbyterian, relates how her parents and George's parents felt about their mixed marriage. She tells the story of their divorce after 27 years together and their remarriage ten years later. She converted to Judaism prior to reuniting with George, studying under Rabbi Magidovitch of Sumter's Temple Sinai.
Alan Kahn was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1940, the first of two children of Katie Bogen and Irwin Kahn. Alan talks about his paternal grandfather, Myron B. Kahn, who emigrated from Russia to New York in 1904, and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked as a carpenter and builder. Ethel Kaufman Kahn, his first wife and Irwin's mother, died when Irwin was about two years old. Myron moved to St. Augustine, Florida, and finally to Columbia in the late 1920s, where he established a construction company, first partnering with another builder; later they separated and Kahn formed M. B. Kahn Construction Company. A second marriage didn't work out, and Myron married a third time, to widow Bessie Peskin Rubin of Columbia. Irwin, who joined the family business after graduating college in the mid-1930s, was responsible for broadening the company's scope to include construction management. Alan describes the construction management process and compares it to development practices. Irwin married Katie Bogen, a native of Denmark, South Carolina. Alan shares memories of his mother, her siblings, and their parents, Joseph and Bella Bogen. He discusses his involvement with Aleph Zadik Aleph, how he met his wife, Charlotte Segelbaum, and Charlotte's experiences as a Jewish French National living in Egypt after Gamal Abdel Nasser became president. She was a teenager when her family left Egypt in 1957 and started a new life in Washington, D.C. Alan and Charlotte married in 1965, settled in Columbia, and Alan joined Kahn Construction. The couple raised three children, Kevin, Charles, and Monique. Referring to how older members of Columbia's Beth Shalom reacted to the Civil Rights Movement, Alan notes, "We had a Jewish community that was afraid to speak out when I was growing up." They feared a backlash targeting the Jewish community, and it affected who they hired as their rabbi. Alan attended Duke University and describes the school's integration and quota policies during the late 1950s, early '60s. Alan shares his vision of the Kahn family legacy and his personal philosophy on life.
