Harold Gordon

So now we gonna move into the phase where your gonna ask questions. You're gonna go way back to childhood. I just want to make a couple quick adjustments.

So um I just wanted to ask you to bring you back to when you were a little boy and ask you what was your earliest memory?

My earliest memories was when I was a little boy, I went to school, Jewish school and public school all at the same time and I was also taking lessons from a rabbi for bar mitzvah. My mother kept me very busy. I used to chop wood. I used to carry water. I used to like to play soccer with my friends. I always came into the house dirty and lots of sweat from playing. We were poor - everybody was poor - but my mother didn't like the friends I had, she thought I was to good for them. What every mother thinks, you know? But they were my friends. I didn't care how they looked or anything. We observed Sabbath on Sabbath holidays. My grandfather was very religious. My mother was very religious. Between everything else we had a happy life. We were poor, but we didn't know it because everybody was poor. So that was as a child until one day, suddenly, it was a Sunday and bombs began to fall and that changed my life and I grew up in a hurry.

You earlier mentioned something about your grandmother. What was your relationship to her..?

Oh my grandmother, we had a wonderful relationship. I had and uncle that had a candy factory in his house - it wasn't a big factory - and he made those hard candies - those lemon drops and all kinds of drops and you used to have to wrap it by hand. So my grandmother used to sit around and she would wrap it. And every once in a while I'd come in there and she would slip a couple of candies to me. Well when my uncle caught her - caught me doing it - he gave me a big beating and really chewed me out and I felt so bad. She was always doing nice things like that.

I was just wondering if you would be able to sing a little of the lullaby that she...

Uh, I am not a good singer, but I will try.

Explain what it is though.

It is a lullaby sung to a little child and the words are in Yiddish and it says 'there is a little tiny stove in the house and your safe and the little fire is going to keep you warm and tomorrow you will be learning the alphabet and make sure you pay attention and learn it well and kept repeating it again and again until you learn it'. So it goes like this: (Mr. Gordon sings the song) that’s abc.

Can you imagine yourself back in your room listening to your grandmother singing that and can you put yourself back there and describe what you see in the room? Even what you smell? What do you see? You're listening to your grandmother sing what is it that you see?

Well it was dark, there was probably a candle burning - we didn't have any lights - and we didn't have very much in furniture. We didn't have any pictures. We didn't - we had a one-bedroom apartment, but it was cozy and I remember it being cozy and comfortable. We didn't need - I didn't need anything else. I was very content.

So you went to school every day of the week?

Yes and then - Well no, not on Sundays. When the Russians came in 1941, I think it was, we had to go to school six days a week and my mother was so religious that somehow she was able to get me changed so I wouldn't have to go to school on the Sabbath. Because Sabbath was very important to us. But I did all the work for the Sabbath, so I always got good grades.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to be a rabbi?

No I wanted to be a soccer player.
Who was your favorite?
but my mother was hoping I would be a rabbi but I was too young. (begin to bald me)
Who was your favorite soccer player at the time?
My next-door neighbor. He always played much better than I did. We didn't have - I didn't have any - you fail to understand. My whole entire world was an 8-mile radius, I never knew what went on beyond it. Luckily I took geography, so I knew but I never experienced anything because we didn't have any trains, we didn't have any cars, we didn't have any oceans, we didn't have any ships and we travel by horse and buggy. How far can you go? You know you don't want to go away for more than a day - it may be eight miles. So everybody lived near by all our relatives and family and we didn't need the rest of the world. We didn’t need anything.

What was it like with the combination at the Jewish community and the what did you say it was - catholic?

Oh, you're talking about the polish people? Well the polish people - the catholic - it was all Catholics - Poland was all Catholics - but they were taught to hate the Jewish people because of the Jewish people killing Christ, which is really not true now, but the churches promoted it for a couple of thousand years. Just recently during the second Vatican is when they changed things, so it was bad. But when the Russians came in, then it was good for the Jewish people because they didn't - they were not religious. Russians were not - communists were not religious and they - as long as you did was you were told, you gave up all your property, you gave everything away and work for the government, everything was fine.

So maybe a couple more questions...As a 7 year old, 8 year old, can you describe what your town looked like? Make sure you mention the name of the town. Describe the physical town to us.

The town was Grodno, Poland. It was a large railroad center, which I didn't know, but it was a railroad center. So like Chicago in the United States. There was one main street and it had concrete stones - flat so it was a very nice white street and there were stores on both sides and people used to go walking there. The side streets, most of them just had the rough cobble stones and a lot of them just had no stones at all and just dirt. People would always have to fix the street because there was sand and the cobblestones would always come loose. So people always with little things putting in the cobblestones and it was very hard to walk on, you know, especially barefoot. It was winter was very cold the temperature was like 40 degrees below zero because we aren't far from the artic circle. During the summer the heat was atrocious horrible just like Chicago, very hot.

There was a river going through town which separated Lithuania from Poland and my mother used to take me and my brother sometimes down to the beach to you know, just go in and wade a little bit. My father liked sports, so he would take me sometimes to a gymnasium - I used to do gymnastics - and jump over a horse and learn to roll and climb up on the wall - all kinds of stuff like that. I used to ski. My father got me a pair of old skis, so my brother used one ski and I skied on the other one. My father got me a bicycle, a old broken down little used bicycle so I learned to ride that and I gave it to my younger brother. One day my father took me out on the river on a kayak because they always tried to do things that were just too dangerous for me.

O when I was three years old my mother told me that they once took me for a sleigh ride and they was running with me, running with me and the sled - and they turned around I was gone the sled was there but I was gone I fell out of it about a mile down the rode so they had to go find me. Then they taught me how to swim and that I'll never forget. They took me - picked me up like that - I was about six and just threw me in the river, a deep river and the water was flowing and there was those whirlpools - because you can get sucked into those things - and I was very scared but I learned how to swim. I went like this and got up to the boat real fast. He took me in and since then I knew how to swim.

Talk about Ice-skating

O ice-skating I loved ice-skating. During the winter everything would freeze and I would -before that, before I was old enough to ice-skate I have pictures of it. My father was a sled, like a big sled it was high up so he put me and my brother on the sled and he would get behind me on skates and he would push me - like a shopping cart - all over all over the ice and I have a picture of that. I learned how to skate. That’s it.

Beginning of the War

How did you know it was the first day of WWII?

Well, I had two signals. Number 1: I heard some bombs falling. The next day I heard Germans on the street. I opened up the door to take a look the German picked up his riffle and squeezed off a shot at me. My mother grabbed me by my hand, yanked me into the house and shut the door. Also, after the Germans went away to other neighborhoods, I could see dead people on the streets, I could see dead horses on the streets, because the polish army had horses. Then later on when the Russians came in, the Russian soldiers, the tank people one would be out of the tank and just sort of tell them where to go. Some of those people were shot by terrorists. I could see those people on the street. One of them I saw, a Russian soldier, but he wore a star of David, and he was dead on his chest. every time - I know it’s off the subject - but every time we lose a soldier in Iraq it brings back those memories.

How long were the Russians in Grodno before the Germans came?

About two years

Stay on his experience ok?

What about in 1933 did you hear of the rise of Hitler back then?

He was two years old.

Can you maybe talk about the anti Semitism that you experienced as a young child?

Yes I knew - my mother told me that the catholic didn't like us. So whenever we were walking and we came to a church - near a church - we crossed the street and walked on the other side. So that kind of taught us early that we better be careful. And once in a while, they would have (p something and break some houses, break some windows and so on) and destroy a Jewish market just for fun. The polish people used to get drunk a lot and do bad things.
Did they ever kill any one?
Rarely.
Do you recall every seeing anything like that?
Well I recall ( pogromes) and that’s when they go through neighborhoods and want to do bad things, like burn their house and we had shutters on the window so we would shut the shutters and bolt the doors and they couldn't break in.

Did you ever experience any playground anti Semitism amongst your friends?

Once. Once in Los Angeles when I was in the United States, but never since all the places that I been to, I've never experienced it. And I was playing basketball, I was a senior playing basketball in Los Angeles and I was ok I was not really good but I could make baskets. This one Mexican young man he pushed me down and called me a dirty Jew. I was clean I wasn't dirty. So that’s the only time I ever really hit somebody. I hit him in the mouth and broke his tooth and his tooth got stuck in my hand and I hit him with my other hand, but we were both taken to the principles office but he was a bully and he was never disciplined and I was never disciplined, but that was the only time. In this country, in the service, churches I been to, dozens and dozens of churches spoken to over 38,000 people. The video that I gave you, is an old one I spoke in San Jose to a church of 2500 people.

Do you remember having to wear the Jewish star and obey the rules? Did your parents explain that to you?

That’s right. I remember it and I remember my grandfather was a tailor, he sewed it one me. Even children a year old maybe even younger had to wear it. The punishment for not wearing it was death by gunshot so you had to wear that. That gave the German people distinction of Jewish people and they could just round them up as needed until they were ready to round us up.

Germany in Power

Can you describe the moment the Germans took over Grodno?

I thought I did that already. I told you how they walked in and confiscated...
But what was that like for you to see all the Russians leave and being under a new control?
Well we knew there would be problems but we didn't know that there would be total discrimination of all the Jewish people. We though we were just going to separate until the war ended in just a year or two, then everything would be okay, but it didn't turn out like that.

Did your everyday life change in any way after that?

Yes as soon as the Germans came in, they confiscated everything. All the food, all the metal they took even metal fences they took them apart and sent them to Germany. They used the metal to build ammunition. The churches gates, fences - they took off the gates from churches and just sent it all to Germany they stripped everything from the country all the resources, all food, all cattle and they left not just the Jewish people, but the entire population to starve. So if somebody had a little farm where they could grow little things they were okay. if someone had a shop that sells clothing or a tailor or whatever it is, didn't have anything. We used to trade. "I'll make you a pair of shoes if you can make me a loaf of bread." - things like that. It was very bad.

What about school?

No school. Once the Germans came in there was no school and you weren’t even allowed to study. (I worked with a) private Rabbi or anything. No more school for the children or anybody. The Germans were not interested in teaching the population. They were only interested in exterminating everybody but people - the Christians thought it was only the Jewish people so they'll be alright.
Did you continue to read the Torah in your house?
Well we didn't have the Torah in our house, the Torah is usually kept in the (synagogue). We had a bible and - well that didn't last very long because when we were in the Ghetto for a year and it was freezing cold, we never even got undressed - we just huddled together to keep warm - there was a little stove, a little tiny wood burning stove in the middle that my mother used to cook on and we began burning books and papers just to stay alive. After that was gone we began burning furniture. Broke apart all the furniture we had just to stay alive. There was no food. There was not water, no electricity. The Germans - you saw the movie - The Germans left the people on the streets to die and they couldn't live. No water, no sanitation, no food they didn't have - by the time we were taking way we didn't know what happened to us we were so weak and disgusted.

Moved to the Ghetto

Do you remember when the Germans took you and your family to the Ghetto?

O sure. We had a small apartment it was about three rooms but they put two other families to live with us - one family per room. No running water and no toilets no bathrooms. We just had to live like animals.
Can you describe the actual moment when they came and told you that you had to move to a ghetto?
Well I don’t remember the exact moment, but they - all of a sudden they put up a proclamation that all Jewish people must go to the ghetto and anybody that didn't go - and they had names from everybody - they would kill.

Can you describe he physical layout of the ghetto?

It was a square. Few hundred feet one-way. Few hundred feet the other way. There were towers with German guards up in the towers with machine guns if anybody tried to escape. The wires surrounding it - it was a brick wall - a concrete wall - in some places it was just wires that were electrified so that anyone touching them would be killed.

Were there German soldiers outside of the ghetto to prevent you from leaving?

There was two soldiers or maybe more at the gate and they were only allowed only to remove dead bodies to take them out to the fields to bury them. But out in the town yea there were many German soldiers.

What did you do in the ghetto? What did you do with you free time?