Evaline Kalisky Delson relays her mother’s experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Dientje Krant, born in Bussum, Holland, in 1938, spent part of her early childhood in hiding during World War II. After the war, she rejoined her parents, who themselves were hidden by Dutch families. Dientje, anxious to escape her parents’ strict rules, left home right after graduating from high school and was hired to work on an ocean liner docked in Germany. There she met Evaline’s father, Leonard Kalisky, a Kingstree, South Carolina, native, who was stationed at a U.S. military base. They raised their three children in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, and then Holland, before returning to South Carolina. Evaline describes her childhood and the difficulties that arose from Dientje’s struggles with mental illness and memories of wartime traumas. She talks about how she copes with the residual effects of the challenges she faced growing up and expresses concern for the lack of progress made by mankind. “I don’t think we really learned from these tragedies. . . . I did not think in my lifetime that I would have to stand up like we do for gay rights, for women’s rights, for Jews, for Muslims, to have to have a march because a mosque is being bombed. . . . I thought we would grow. So to hear these stories and to see what’s going on right now in the world, it’s hard because a lot of my family died in vain.” Evaline feels that “it is our obligation, as this direct link to this atrocity, to stand up for these atrocities that are occurring now.” 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. Note: Dientje Krant Kalisky Adkins’ oral history, Mss. 1035-145, is online at the Lowcountry Digital Library.
Heide Engelhardt Golden, born in 1941 in Gablingen, Germany, a small farming village near Augsburg, recalls living conditions in the years immediately following World War II. She was the middle child of three daughters. Her father, Karl Engelhardt, who served in the German army, died just before the end of the war. Struggling to care for her three children, Heide’s mother, Anna Heilman Engelhardt, sent Heide, age five, to live with her paternal grandmother. Heide rejoined the family around the time her mother married James Hull, an American soldier, in 1948. The following year, while the family was living on an American base in Augsburg, Heide’s half-brother was born. When James’s unit was assigned to Korea in 1952, the U.S. Army sent Anna and the children to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. Heide describes adjusting to life in Columbia, her schooling, and working for Eddie and Sarah Picow in their store, Allan’s, where she met her husband, Harvey Golden, a Jewish lawyer originally from Brooklyn, New York. Around 1943 Harvey had moved with his parents, Gertrude and Jack Golden, to Columbia, where they operated an army-navy store. Before marrying Harvey in 1962, Heide studied with Rabbi Abraham Herson of Columbia’s Conservative synagogue, Beth Shalom, and converted to Judaism. The interviewee discusses their three children, Holly, Karl, and Jared; Harvey’s involvement in local theater; race relations in Columbia in the 1960s; and the family’s religious practices. Holly was the first girl in Beth Shalom to have her bat mitzvah ceremony on a Saturday. Heide talks about racial integration in Columbia; working for the department store Berry’s on Main; and flying home from Germany on September 11, 2001, when her plane was grounded in Newfoundland, Canada, after terrorists had flown hijacked jets into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Heide recalls being shocked when she learned about the Holocaust and was surprised when her mother told her neither she nor Heide’s father knew about the concentration camps. During and after the war, ordinary Germans like her mother lived in fear of being reported to the police by their neighbors for saying or doing the wrong thing. Despite that, the one Jewish family that lived in their village, remained there throughout the war.
Henry Miller, accompanied by his wife, Minda Miller, describes growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1950s and 1960s. His parents, Cela Tyczgarten and David Miller were survivors of the Holocaust; their move to Columbia in 1949 was sponsored by the city and Beth Shalom Synagogue. The Millers summarize David and Cela’s experiences during World War II, in particular, David’s participation in the ghetto uprising in his native city of Warsaw, Poland. David and Cela met and married in Landsberg, Germany, where they were living in a displaced persons camp. Henry observes how his parents’ status as Holocaust survivors and refugees affected their outlook on life, as well as how it affected him and his sister as children. He discusses his parents’ liquor store business, the neighborhoods where they lived, and his memories of downtown Columbia on Saturdays. He also reflects on school desegregation, antisemitism, and the effects of prejudice on blacks and Jews. Henry met Minda in Memphis, Tennessee, where he attended optometry school; they married in 1978. They have a daughter, Dawn, and a son, Bret. Henry practiced optometry for thirty-seven years in Columbia.
At a “Unity in the Community” Forum sponsored by the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), Reverend Robert Arrington answers questions posed to him by female impersonator/performer Symone N. O’Bishop and members of the audience. After introductions by emcee Regina Duggins (aka Gina Mocha), Arrington speaks of his personal life, conditions in the lowcountry, and the development and evolution of his open and affirming Charleston Unity Fellowship Church. He describes growing up in Durham, NC, and living in Rochester, NY, before moving to Charleston, a place he finds not as progressive or easy to live as elsewhere. He mentions a dysfunctional childhood, being misdiagnosed with learning disabilities, and recalls various phases of his life, including being married to woman, being a female impersonator, being HIV positive for thirty years, and the love he now shares with his husband, stating that they were the first “out” African American gay male couple in the area to have a house built for them by Habitat for Humanity. Most of the interview, however, focuses on the growth of his church, his plans for it, and the need to be completely transparent in all aspects of one’s life, including one’s spiritual life. He and O’Bishop discuss the behavior of some closeted LGBTQ church goers, who hide their sexual and emotional lives to worship under ministers who preach against homosexuality. The only “out” African American minister in the area, Arrington describes his church as Pentecostal-related and its policy of accepting every one of every sexual orientation, identification and race. He responds to an HIV-positive transgender woman of color asking how to find a loving relationship; he and the interviewer also discuss sexually irresponsible behavior and strategies for finding a life partner. Prompted by other queries from the audience, Reverend Arrington agrees that there is a need for more coordination with his church and the community it represents with other agencies in the area. An audience member comments further that there must be a new attitude regarding such participation: instead of asking to be included, one must demand that inclusion. The interview ends with Chase Glenn of AFFA and others describing programs and initiatives of related interest in the area. A call for action results with applause at the comment that this forum may mark a new direction for one of Charleston’s marginalized communities.
