Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Helen Kronrad Coplan
Date:
2016
Interviewer:
Filler, Lilly, 1947-
Interviewee:
Coplan, Helen Kronrad, 1919-
Description:
Helen Kronrad Coplan, one of four children of Fannie Levine and Oskar Kronrad, discusses growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1920s and 1930s. Oskar, an Austrian immigrant, ran an auto parts store in the capital city. Helen recalls her mother’s baking skills and shopping with Fannie for kosher chickens butchered by Rev. David Karesh. She describes her memories of racial segregation practices in Columbia, and of the Big Apple, an African American nightclub, housed in the former House of Peace Synagogue on Park Street, and known as the birthplace of the Big Apple dance that became popular in 1937. In 1940 Helen married Louis Coplan, also a Columbia native, and they raised five children in their hometown. After serving on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington in the South Pacific during World War II, Louis joined his father, Max Coplan, in his grocery business in Columbia. Helen was a saleswoman for World Book encyclopedias.
