DALLETT:

My name is Nancy Dallett and I'm speaking with Anne Littman on Thursday, November 14, 1985. We are beginning this interview at 11:10 AM and we're about to interview Mrs. Littman about her immigration experience from the Ukraine in 1913. This is the beginning of side one of interview number 080. Can we start back at the beginning of your story, and would you tell me where and when you were born?

LITTMAN:

I was born in Nicoliev, which was named after Czar Nicolai and he is, the city still has the same name because there were numerous cities that their names were changed after the Revolution. Was it the Revolution, did they call that the Revolution in 1917?

DALLETT:

Yes.

LITTMAN:

Yes, yes.

DALLETT:

How would you spell Nicoliev?

LITTMAN:

N-I-C-A-L-E-V. I-E, probably, V.

DALLETT:

Okay, I-E-V.

LITTMAN:

And that's Russia, which is the, right near the seaport of Odessa, which is very, uh, known city. And we had family there so that, uh, when we were growing up here my mother would say she came from Odessa, you know, with such pride because it was a very, very big city and it still is on the map. Because numerous people would come, like Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and where, it's on the map but people never heard of it. Unless they heard of something drastic happening like Attorney Willins who took care of the Lindbergh baby case, if you remember.

DALLETT:

Tell me about your family.

LITTMAN:

Well, uh, my father was born in Poland in Tolna. T-O-L-N-A, I believe it's spelled. And, um, his father was killed in the war and that must have been about 1854 or something and he was only two years old at the time. So his mother remarried and he had a sister, you know, a half sister. But I don't know how my parents got together because Poland was a big distance from Nicoliev, but somehow they met. Now, would you recall any of the caracul hats that the men wore, you know, it looked like the army hats that . . .

DALLETT:

Was it a three-cornered hat?

LITTMAN:

It isn't a three-cornered, it's this way and then it folds in, you know (pointing to where a shoulder strap would be) that the boys used to put up on their shoulders. Well, those were caracul hats and they were expensive and he did, he manufactured that. He had a few people working for him and whenever he went out of the city to go to purchase pelts, you know, he would come back with delicious apples. And they're the apples that have the long narrow bottom and I used to be crazy about it. And I was the only girl. My mother had a little boy of two-and-a-half years who had died with meningitis and at that time she was pregnant and aborted twin boys. He they lived another few, another week or so they would have been fine. So there was a big void between my, my self and my sister. And he did that. And evident, oh, yes, in 1905 it was the Russian-Japanese War. And my father was called to duty. I was probably a tot then and my brother, but the fact that he made those caracul hats, the officers all wanted that, so they did not send him to the front line. So he was saved in that respect. Well, afterwards he came out and things probably were getting rough for people, for the Jewish people and poor people, probably. There were always the pogroms, if you know what that, you've heard that. They would ride roughshod through the town and do whatever they wanted. No redress anywheres. My father had a cousin here in the United States. And it seemed that they were, well, I can't say well off, they had a dairy farm. With cows. And it wasn't the spread that you see on TV. It was a little bit of a thing out in Canarsie, we called it, in New York. And he sponsored my father's coming here. At that time, before they left, my dad had a cousin in Russia and he, too, wanted to come here. But he didn't have sufficient funds so my dad loaned him the money and the two of them came here. He left a family, I think, of three children, and we were just, and then my sister was born and so my dad came here and he came here, must have been around January, February of 1911.

DALLETT:

Had you known your uncle before he came to this country?

LITTMAN:

Had I known him?

DALLETT:

Yeah. He had already been here.

LITTMAN:

Did my dad know the uncle? I couldn't have, I was a tot.

DALLETT:

You were too young to know your uncle.

LITTMAN:

I was too young. And so that when we came to this country my dad had an apartment furnished with furniture and even food so that we would have. But to go back to when we got onto the boat. I, my mother and her nephew and my brother and I travelled probably for days by train from Nicoliev to Liverpool, England, where our boat was leaving from. And, you know, you're too young to know all these things and everything is new to whoever comes there. And all I recall were so many boats with a lot of fish that the men would bring in. And to us, you know, your eyes are opened up, it's a big thing. So that my mother at least had her nephew with her. He must have been about nineteen, twenty years at the time. and so when we got to this country. About the voyage, much I do not recall. But my sister always kept, she never knew my father because she was only six weeks old. So my dad had sent a picture of himself from America to us. And so she always spoke to that picture because that was her father. You know, every other child had a father and she didn't have anyone. So this was it. And when we landed here, I'll go back a bit. Somehow ( telephone rings, break in tape )

DALLETT:

Before the phone rang, before we get into the voyage and coming to Ellis Island, let me ask you this. Um, did you have any impressions, did you get letters from your father about what life was like in America?

LITTMAN:

That I wouldn't have known. But what I do recall is that once a month we had gotten a gold piece. What denomination it was I do not know because I was a child. And, of course, that was for our living expenses. And that was the easiest means of transporting the money. Whereas the, um, cousin that came across evidently he wasn't as frugal or whatever it was, and didn't send money. But there was always a hullabaloo, you know, with the money. We did live in a house that had an outside metal stairway. And, um, so you played, you know, with that. I don't recall too many dolls but I must have had dolls. I remember my aunt and uncle and they wore at that time the, you know, the, uh, ties, you know, with the big bows and all that? And I recall them sitting and peeling an apple to see if they can peel it to the entire and without breaking. And, you know, it intrigues you, these little things that you remember of them. We had a very, um, fine relationship. I know that in growing up we were never, I never heard yelling, swearing the parents or anything like that. And so that's the way my life was patterned afterwards here.

DALLETT:

So you were there for two years, your mother remained in Russia for two years . . .

LITTMAN:

Yes. We remained for two-and-a-half, two-and-three-quarters years practically. And then there was, somehow there was some mixup. The telegram did not reach my mother, my dad, that we were coming in a certain day. And so we had to stay over. Well, I remember . . .

DALLETT:

Let me just ask you this. Do you remember when, uh, you left, when you actually left? Did you say goodbye to that aunt and uncle?

LITTMAN:

No, I don't recall that at all. You see, I was, uh, not quite eight years old, you see. And so you don't remember those things. Nowadays the children, I think, are more aware, with pictures and all that. And so where am I backing up to?

DALLETT:

I was just going to ask you the one thing, if you remember anything that you might have brought. You said you remember you might have had dolls, or, was there anything special that you brought with you or do you remember something that your mother would have brought from the old country?

LITTMAN:

I think my mother brought candlesticks. You know, those were the things that you brought. And generally you bring the down feather bed which you just don't want to let go of. And, uh, it's, it's expensive and it's downy. And when we came here and we were sleeping over night we were on small cots and, you know, Ellis Island, I, I don't know whether it was three stories high, you know, the building. But it seemed like there was no roof, no top. And at that time I was just amazed and stared at the hopper, the toilet, you know? It was, um, you know, white, probably, but it was intriguing as a child to see that. And then the day came when they started calling out the names.

DALLETT:

Now, sorry, how many days did you spend on Ellis Island altogether?

LITTMAN:

It was overnight.

DALLETT:

Just one night.

LITTMAN:

Just over night.

DALLETT:

And was it, go ahead, you tell me the story.

LITTMAN:

And when it, go ahead, you tell me the story.

DALLETT:

And then they started calling out names. And as each name was called you came forward and the, uh, people that called your name processed you, whatever it was. And it was Stokowski and Balowski and all these names and some of the names to us children sounded so funny that we just giggled. You know, it's as if here you would hear Peterson and all these, Anderson and so on and so forth. Well, my mother held my sister in her arms, oh, here she's just sitting here. ( she points to a photograph ) in her arms because she was too small to be on the floor, on the ground because she would have been crushed because everybody was just body to body. There were so many of us there. And she was looking, my sister, because she was taller than we were, even higher than my mother because she was held in her arms. And then she hollered, "Papa!" She spied him first because she was high. We were down here. You can see how big we were.

DALLETT:

But she had never seen him!

LITTMAN:

But the picture. The picture she talked to daily. And naturally then they called our name. And our name at that time, before it became a little bit Americanized, was Baronchuk. And it seemed that that was the name of an animal that had big horns or something. And when they heard the name naturally you come forward and she spied my father. Well, there was the greetings, you know, and the hugs and the kisses, after all, you know, they were still young, my father and mother, and they . . .

DALLETT:

So they were allowed to come together and embrace before you had come through the Island?

LITTMAN:

Well, we were, we were, you know, huddled around them. And then my dad brought us bananas. You see, in Europe and probably in other countries they never saw bananas. They never knew what it was because even oranges were a treat in many areas. Although not in our area because we were close to Odessa. We were a very big city. But bananas was something out of this world. And they were so yellow. They were so perfectly shaped, you know. And so at first you hesitate in eating it and there was the strangeness in relating. We didn't see him for so long, children forget. And so, and then we started riding home. It was . . .

DALLETT:

Before we leave, was your name changed at all or did Baronchuk remain?

LITTMAN:

No. It became Bronchick. B-R-O-N-C-H-I-C-K.

DALLETT:

How did that happen?

LITTMAN:

I guess my older brother, you know, when you get to school and everyone laughs at you with the name and so on. And it, it, well, you know, there's the, um, old cliche when the foreigner comes from the other side and they ask him what his name and he says "Hefer gessen." And the man says, "Fergusen." So the same thing here.

DALLETT:

But it had survived, Baronchuk, through Ellis Island.

LITTMAN:

Yes, yes, yes.

DALLETT:

It wasn't changed there.

LITTMAN:

Oh, no, no. That was the name there and I mean that was even on the passport evidently. That was the name that we had gone with. And, um, I, I'll tell you what. May I see the citizenship papers, what's in on, what the name is there?

DALLETT:

Yeah, well, we can check that later on when we talk about citizenship.

LITTMAN:

Good enough. Right.

DALLETT:

What languages were, were you speaking at this point? And how did you communicate with the officials, or your mother?

LITTMAN:

With the officials? The mother? Well, she spoke Russian very well. And they must have had interpreters there. You see their, as you know, even here with the hillbillies, their accent as to the one in New York or San Francisco. So, but in Russia that was a pure Russian. As a child I spoke Russian. Now numerous times in listening to TV I will understand new, what they're saying. I will get the gist of it very, very well. I can just say a few words. But I can understand very well. And we spoke Yiddish in the house, Jewish. And, uh, so they had gotten, you know, those people that didn't, only knew one language, you see. But, as I say, my mother spoke Russian very well, and, uh, what else?

DALLETT:

Do you remember going through the examination?

LITTMAN:

No, that I cannot remember at all. You see, uh, I know that there was, you, you, I heard afterwards my mother say that there were numerous people that were rejected because either their eyes, you see, the, one of the main things, not only that, it's the most visible defect that a person has. But we were all healthy and, uh, we didn't have to be deloused. You know, there are some that come and, uh, so that they can even see at a glance. But they ask you all these questions which my mother and my uncle were answering, my cousin. When he married my aunt he became my uncle. He married my father's half sister. See, he becomes my uncle.

DALLETT:

Was it, uh, do you know what the reason was that you had to stay overnight? Was it just so crowded that . . .

LITTMAN:

No, it was the mixup, my dad did not get the telegram. You see, that was the reason.

DALLETT:

So no one was there to greet you. No one was there to meet you.

LITTMAN:

No one was there to greet us and evidently no one was there to greet all the other people, too. Because the, the place was just crowded. It was body to body with people. It wasn't that just we were left behind, see. Either it was Sunday and telegrams maybe didn't go out at that time, you know, something like that. But we weren't the only ones. And probably, uh, numerous other immigrants coming in didn't even send telegrams, you see, they didn't have the means or the know-how.

DALLETT:

Do you remember that night? Were you separated? Was your cousin sent somewhere else to sleep? Or eat?

LITTMAN:

Yes. The male, you know, the male was probably, you know, a separation. And the small group, the family, were together, especially with one small child and two bigger children.

DALLETT:

Do you have any recollection of where in the building that happened? Where you went into a dormitory or any?

LITTMAN:

It probably was because all I remember is the huge size. And it must have been the place where the bathrooms were, close enough there because that's what I would have seen at night or early in the morning, you see. Not when we were standing ready to be processed.

DALLETT:

Right. Do you remember having a meal at all? Any food or anything?

LITTMAN:

No, no, don't remember at all.

DALLETT:

Okay. So tell me what happened now that you're reunited with your father.

LITTMAN:

And we must have taken a train, I always say a train and a plane and a boat. And it must have been a long trip from Ellis Island to the New Lots. And it was by train. And then I remember walking and there were no sidewalks there.

DALLETT:

This is Canarsie?

LITTMAN:

Yeah, yeah. That was Canarsie. And at that time it was rural. It was the boondocks. Because here this farm, it wasn't acreage, maybe it was a quarter of a mile and the house was nearby. And my cousin, uh, my father's cousin, he had a few sons, and they all worked on the dairy farm. And, if you recall, they had those tall milk cans that the milk was put in. And what I do recall is one of the workers that would milk the cows, a big, big woman, to me she seemed like a giant because we were so small, and she grabbed me and stuck my head under the cow and siphoned the milk right into my mouth and it was so warm, you know, milk is hot. And it tasted like sweetcorn because they fed the cows the corn husks or, you know, sweetcorn so that . . . We lived there about a year, and then we moved away to a, um, closer. We lived, we, at that time, we moved to Brownsville, it was called and, um . . .

DALLETT:

Were you enrolle din the public school then?

LITTMAN:

Yes. Yes. Immediately. Oh, and public school. They called us greena-haya bumba-laya. Greenhaya means a green animal, but the other thing kids just make up, you know, some someone who just came off the boat. Now, my name in Russian, was Zhenya, but my Jewish name was Henya. It was named after an uncle Henya. So somehow somebody said Hanna and it became Anne instead of Jane, or whatever it would have been. Because in Russian it was Zhenya. Well, we started school right away. The school was probably, oh, must have been close to a mile away from home and in the summertime, you know, the dust when you walk, my dad used to polish our shoes. You could see your face in there. He took such pride every night. And in the wintertime, when it was all covered with ice and snow, and you know we had to wear the longies. We didn't have, at that time, the, oh, leggings and so forth. And we used to hold on and slide from tree to tree because that was the only way. But in the summertime, I remember, there were fields of flowers, you know, field flowers, and I would pick them and bring them to my teacher. And my shoes had drops just like raindrops, and it sparkled. And I think that's why I had gotten to love the flowers, because it was just green and it was so beautiful and I couldn't . . . I wanted to give it to my teacher. Well, when I started, we came, as I say, the 23rd of September in 1913, I was just about eight years old then, because my birthday's in September, the beginning of September. What I don't recall is why it was entered the 23rd of September on the, uh, paper that the principal had written, because I recall being there earlier, do you know what I mean? A few weeks earlier. But whatever it is, an eight-year-old and a six-year-old, a five-and-a-half-year-old, well, it was sink or swim. But we didn't have dual language. Our parents couldn't help us. And we had to learn. And I think that's the most wonderful thing. Because it's just like someone is drowning, and you know that you have to fight for your life. And we had to learn the language. By the time I was in 2-B, of course, there we had half-year promotions. And at the end of the year my teacher calls me to the front of the room and she explains and she talks. And when they talk, you know, it goes over your head, because she doesn't mention your name or anything of the sort. And then she calls me to the front of the room and there was this box, this beautiful beribboned medal, with a red, white and blue ribbon, and it was given by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the newspaper. And in the, on the, uh, medal there was the eagle, raised. And around it was Effort, Proficiency, and all these other things. And on the back it was 1915, June, and I have it, presented to me. Well, there was no one like it walking aback home with this medal. Coming back, and naturally my mother was the proudest one. And we learned very rapidly because when I had gotten into the higher grades my teachers were amazed of, uh, not having any trace of the, uh, foreign language, you know. And I had been fortunate and I skipped a half a year because you had no one to teach you grammar or English or, uh, multiplication tables. And then we had moved from there, yes. In 1914, war broke out. I still have a postcard that was sent to us from my mother's nephews and brothers from Israel. At that time it was Palestine. And the picture postcard was of a donkey with things over it, walking on a Tel Aviv street. And that time they called it Tel Abib, A-B-I-B. And it was written in Russian, and they chided my, um, cousin, why he didn't write, you know, this was his brothers writing to him, and so on and so forth. But the amazing thing was, the way they spelled the street that we were on, and that it got there, was the most amazing thing. It was Louisiana Avenue, and somehow either the postman, they didn't have so many people, and they knew, and they were able to read and it was almost phonetically so that we always, I . . . First of all, I resented through my entire life that I did not start school when all the other children did. My brother, naturally, was much older, he was older. And, uh, he didn't even graduate from grade school because if he would have graduated from grade school he would have been, uh, maybe seventeen-and-a-half. But he was very bright and, financially, you send out a boy, and after school he used to travel to Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn, if you've ever heard. And there was a very large drugstore, and I saw the name, uh, recently. I wrote to them. It was Fizz, Pfizer and Sidderly [ph]. And, uh, one of my teachers was very ill at one time, the librarian, and she called me over one day, the librarian. You know, when a teacher calls you over you're always wondering what happened. And she said, "Do you have a brother Bob, Robert?" I said, "Yes." She says, "He brought me the medicine." And she was so impressed with him that she asked him his name and where he was from and all that.

DALLETT:

Uh, that's the end of side one of interview number 080. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DALLETT:

This is the beginning of side two of interview number 080. You were, you were telling the story about, uh, your brother.

LITTMAN:

Yes. Well, this, this librarian, this teacher, uh, the name. You see. Certain names were unusual because of immigrants coming in. And she must have been ill for quite some time and she called me over and asked if I had a brother with that, that name and I said, "Yes." You always think what bad stuff. And she said he brought her the medicine. And he must have been a nice, gentlemanly boy, and she must have asked his name, and so on. now, I recall when I was, uh, older in the grades, and there are certain subjects. You get a, all the way along, because you're older than the others. But that doesn't mean that you were able to get information for family. The, the only subject that was bad was arithmetic. And that was until I got to high school. The teacher explained it better. But, uh, this particular teacher would have me as a monitor, and there was a door here and a door there, and she would go out and I would have to write down who was bad and what, and I was the biggest giggler myself. And she was very, very stern. But, you see, from those stern teachers I learned a lot. When I left P.S. 174, when we moved to, uh, Brownsville, we had attended a new school, P.S. 150. It was a magnificent school. But when I left 174, my teacher wrote me autograph, Florence, no, it was 150, Florence A. Wickt. She was a beautiful blonde, must have been Swedish at the time. And in my autograph she wrote, "May the blessing of God's sunshine be upon you wherever you may go." I have never forgotten it and numerous times when I have written special birthday things for children and people I use that. And the other day I thought to myself that teacher really blessed me, because I feel blessed in many, many ways. My health, that I'm still able, and you know at this stage of the game that I'm not marble yet.

DALLETT:

Did your mother find a situation where she could also, uh, quickly pick up the language?

LITTMAN:

Well, we used to tell my mother that if she doesn't answer us in English we wouldn't talk to her.

DALLETT:

So you helped her with that.

LITTMAN:

Oh, yes. We helped her a lot. You know, people always can understand better than they can speak, so we would fine her or something of the sort. Naturally, when a mother, when you are bad and your mother gets all excited and she'll say Manny, Mo and Mack, and you don't answer until she calls your name. But we taught her, because afterwards, when we were married already and she lived in an apartment house and there was, you know, a small robbery or something and they wanted my mother as a witness in court. Now, my older brother took her there. She says he was amazed at the way my mother spoke English there. You know, you listen and you listen and you listen and your mind stores in all that thing. And we were proud of her for being able to do that. But when I got skipped, that was already P.S. 150. No, no, 174. And it was a big, big walk and it was June. And I come bounding up the stairs. We lived two flights up, and Friday the baking and the cooking and so on, it was summer, and I came into the house sobbing. And my mother says (Yiddish). The pet name. And I says, "I got, I got skipped." My mother dropped everything she was doing and, on Friday, although it was a very long day, because the sun didn't set till way late, she dropped everything and had gone out to what we used to call the marketplace. It was a street. A big distance away, where all the pushcarts were out with their wares. She bought me the most beautiful ribbon that I can still remember. It was about six inches wide, floral, as you see the paintings by Monet. And it was so large that I had used it as a sash for a dress that, when I must have been about thirteen years old that I started sewing by myself without patterns or anything and used that, that I could never, never forget, at, the joy that she had, and dropped everything.

DALLETT:

Was there any sort of a Russian community in, say, Brownsville, where . . .

LITTMAN:

In Brownsville? Not really. No, there wasn't a Russian community. But I do remember being sent after school to learn how to read and write Yiddish, you see. And I recall once being called up in front to recite, and my mother couldn't even come, and I felt badly. You know it, she was foreign. She didn't know that it was something for a child, and for other parents, to go. Here you say call up Mary Jane and so on, come, we're going, that. And, you know, those little things you remember.

DALLETT:

How many years did it take until you felt like, I don't know if it ever happened to your mother, but until you felt like you were very much a part of the American culture?

LITTMAN:

Oh, I felt right away, I mean right away, because we picked up the language very easily, we had no accent and, uh, the only thing is that I was so hungry for knowledge that if I had started . . . I graduated from grade school, I was fifteen, in five months, and so I started first year of high school and that was in February, January, February. And I had to travel by, uh, train to, uh, Girl's Commercial High School, the Annex. And, uh, at that time there were all these girls coming from all part of Brooklyn. And I recall going, we used to go down to the cafeteria. And one of my teachers once would say, "Oh, yes, these girls are just interested in those sundaes with the maraschino cherry on top." You know, because they were not interested, really, in learning.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh.

LITTMAN:

And I had taken a, probably, a commercial course with bookkeeping and that's when I found that I could do. I had a very lovely teacher. I could see her now, a little bit of a teacher, Miss Fuchs. And when she had to sign the release of my, for working papers, she says, "You have to go leave school and I have all these . . ." Which she didn't say, but weren't interested at all in school. Of course, if I would have continued, I'd have been, um, twenty years old. And in those days not many girls were sent to high school. And then I tried to start with, um, business school. But it was a big, big distance away from the house. But my Dad was fortunate enough and able to ask his employer to allow me to come up to work to be a learner in millinery. And at that time, a milliner was the highest, the finest grade for a woman, you know, to work. It wasn't called a shop where you mingled with anyone and everyone.

DALLETT:

So, your father had gone back into the manufacturing business.

LITTMAN:

That's right. But as a worker, you know, it's just someone else. And he used to do mends, in the old country. Here it was milliner, where they worked as an operator at the machine. And there I, uh, was very handy with my hands, so that I picked it up very, very quickly. I sat next to someone that taught me. I made a very big salary of six dollars a week. But not everybody had the opportunity to be a, a learner. After about a year's time I felt that I knew enough and that I had gone uptown to work there. And there I made so much money because . . . Would you know what a turban is?

DALLETT:

No.

LITTMAN:

Well, you'll probably see, um, Alexis wearing it. It's a hat. It's close to the head. But it had folds, pleated folds that intertwined. Now, when you, two pieces of fabric, and you have to twine them in, and then pleat in. Well, not many people, not many of the women could do it. If you were able to do that you had more money because each half a dozen hats you had to, if you finished it fast, so that I made money. I enjoyed it. I had a hat almost every month, that I made for myself, because a hat was an adornment. It wasn't just worn to keep you warm. And other women, other girls used to, from one season to another, maybe two or three hats a year. I couldn't see it, because it was creative. Would you know anything about New York, the area? Do you know where Broadway and Bleeker is? It's at the end of Soho, is it? And you know where the Astor Hotel was, 42nd Street? Saturday afternoon after work, at 12:30, I would walk, sixteen year old, all the way up there. And I would stand for an hour looking at the millinery hats in their display. At that time they were ten dollars a hat. I would stand and visualize it until I would come back Monday. And the cutter, you see, there were cutters that cut the fabric. Of course, they were all handmade hats. And it was the boss' brother and he would say (Russian). You know, an endearment, "What do you want me?" He says, "Those are such expensive hats, they have designers and all." Well, no matter what, but I was able. I used to make, I used to sit sometimes three or four hours, to make clusters of grapes, each one separately. I enjoyed it.

DALLETT:

When was it that you, uh, got your citizenship?

LITTMAN:

In 1924. As I say, I still have them and, at that time, we were still minors. My mother could not be on my father's because, I think, just about that year or so, they said that the wife had to get it on her own, you see. And all of our names, I still have it. And, uh, because he felt that he was living here in this country, the country was good to him, the country was good to us. Why not be a part of the country? See, we didn't, um, a lot of people are clique-y here, unfortunately. They shouldn't do that. We live in this country. And I often wonder whether twenty-five years, when I will not be here, whether we'll be a divided nation. Spanish, uh, now with all the other ethnic groups coming in. And i heard on TV recently that in a number of years the black, we'll be a black majority. There will be a time, probably, when we'll have a black president, you see. So that, uh, I feel that maybe I'm wrong, but I felt that those bilingual schools were going more harm b they still stick to their own. We have one or two people that are older parents, older parents, they're probably younger than me, and they do not know any English at all. They cannot speak. God forbid in case of emergency, they cannot even relate to anyone to help them. What is your opinion of that?

DALLETT:

Well, I really just want to ask you something. Um, I think I finished asking you what I need to other than just one thing. I know this is difficult to do. Actually, two things. One is, I'd like you to give me just a brief capsule of, uh, some of the things that happened in your life since those early days.

LITTMAN:

Since those early days. Well, as a milliner, as a milliner, uh, I sat next to another milliner and one day she says to me, "How would you like to go to Byrwn Mawyer?" Well, I thought she was out of her mind. You had to be a, so I, and I says, "Rose, what are you talking about?" She says, "This is a summer school." and she had already been there. And she told me to go to night classes, it was on Lexington Avenue, and retired teachers used to give subjects, uh, current events, ancient history, modern history. And I used to go there every week. And then finally I had to go before a committee, I had to write a letter why I wanted to go. But, you know, numerous times you can write the most wonderful letter and personally you're not a personable person. It's just like in the courtroom, the mouthpiece and the one who prepares the brief. Too young to have known that at all.

DALLETT:

Anyway, so . . .

LITTMAN:

All right. After I had married, we hit the Depression very fast. And so I used to go to evening classes to take up English. I wanted to be sure of myself that when I had to get up to speak the butterflies didn't pop out because I became active right away in the PTA. And once you open your mouth you're on the board and that's it. And that had given me the, uh, foundation of being able to. In fact, at that time, a trainload of parents went to Albany, New York, to fight for teacher's raises in New York. And I was on the train. I, and then I was always interested in children. And every organization was always for the welfare of the children, camping and the . . . ( a telephone rings ) ( break in tape )

DALLETT:

Okay. Could you, uh, is there anything else you just want to say about this whole experience of, of having come through this immigration experience?

LITTMAN:

The experience is that people that live here and that have grown up there don't realize what freedom means. No, it's just the phone. Is that disturbing her? Then put it on the, they take things for granted, and that's bad, see. Because no matter how bad politics is, and it is pretty bad, and it isn't politics, it's the people that manipulate it. But here it was called the Golden Land. My father was able to do what he wanted to. He was able to bring us up. We had gone to school. We weren't, uh, uh, stigmatized, criticized, beaten, always to be afraid of something, to be able to walk. I didn't know that I was an immigrant, after a while, because I didn't have a speech impediment and, uh, I was in the mainstream. I was proud to be here. I was happy to be here. And I was happy that my father brought us there just before the war, because it would have been a horrible experience living through the war, because so many of our family were gone.

DALLETT:

Did any of your family come after the war?

LITTMAN:

Nope.

DALLETT:

None at all.

LITTMAN:

None came after the war at all. Uh, we had, uh, a few cousins that went to Israel. In fact, this aunt that I said, the, peeling the apples, his parents lived in Turkey. And remember it was the beginning, already, the rumors in 1913, early, and they had gone to Turkey. by that time the war broke out and they were able to, uh, fly or run to Alexandria, Egypt, where one cousin was born. From Alexandria, Egypt, they had gone to Beirut and when it belonged to Syria. And another one was born, and then they came in to Tel Aviv, so that so many of them were killed there that there was nobody to come here. So that I feel that I was fortunate and, uh, I don't like a division. You can have diversified views, but when it comes to anything, well, look now what's happening in Israel. Sharon, what he said about Paris? But when it will come, how do they say, when shove comes to, when push comes to shove, whatever it is, they'll stick together.

DALLETT:

Thank you very much for telling me your story.

LITTMAN:

Thank you.

DALLETT:

That is the end of side two and the end of the interview number 080.