Full Transcript
this is an oral history interview of Arthur Skibo on April the 18th 2018 I am a Siebel we'll be conducting the oral history for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society good morning Arthur so really interested in starting as far back as you know about the the early history of your family well I can go back to my grandfather it was hi I'm Skye bielski and his wife was Esther Blumenthal so bielski and they were in soo bahk Poland and they had 10 children my father being one of them all of the boys came to the United States between 1913 and we were the last family to
come in 1948 everyone else had come before the war there were five boys six boys and five girls four girls make it ten none of the none of the girls came to the States all of them perished during World War two the Holocaust at my grandparents perished in the Holocaust the my grandparents were in the timber and lumber business kind of had a compound in sumac with commercial on the street houses along the sides going back where employees and family members lived in the lumber yard in the in the center and they had a forest they either owned or leased from the government I don't
which that's how they got their temper now done is during the end of the 19th century in the beginning of 20th century there was really a movement to either move to Israel or moved to the States and a lot of family came to the States actually my great grandfather's generation had again I think 12 children my grandfather was married twice great-grandfather was married twice his first wife died and a lot of my great uncle's came during the early part of the 20th century as well so your family came to the States we came to the States in 1948 my dad was my dad was a
planner but mom and dad were planning to come in 1938 his younger brother Albert was just reaching the age to get conscripted into the Polish army because my father would say there was no place for a good Jewish boy because my father had already been in the Polish army and so he gave up his visa and my uncle came in 1938 and Albert we had not married norma Glassman from Greenville and my parents did that they bombed my dad's they had cellars in which they had fish can my dad was in the fish cannery business with plants and on the Baltic and they lived in
Warsaw they bombed the plants the second day of the war my dad says I'd have never opened the cellars because he was gone at the time and mother said yeah right you wouldn't Sherman just swept in they took everything so my parents my dad got back my parents got back together and tried to come they wanted to go to Russia to get through Russia to Avenue of escape neither was gonna be Denmark or Sweden and the guy they paid to take them guide them through Russia took him straight to police headquarters they were in jail a year they were tried they were convicted and then
they were sent to camps in North o Siberia yeah my dad tells the story that the guard there said here you will live and here you will die they literally he was in a camp where they slept outside and they just took paper put it on the ground and that was that was their mattress and that was the insulation between the frozen ground fortunately my dad spoke five languages so because of that he managed to get a job inside he thinks that's what enabled him to to survive life there how did they get out of that when the Russians joined the Allies during the war
the Polish government-in-exile had arranged for them to release all of their Polish citizens my father still had his papers to prove he was a Polish citizen they let him go through a second cousin he knew the camp that my mother was in and she was in a place called commissar SSR he got out he goes to commissar sees that mother is still in jail in prison and he finds a place to live and he finds a job of all things working for the Russian he gives her out of jail and we lived in comas are necessarily two or three years I don't know the exact
time period and that's where I was actually born although my birth certificate says : Lithuania when we came to the states I was the height of the Cold War and my parents were just definitely afraid learning by know that we had been in Russia so as the war ended or towards the end of the war I should say my dad was moved to a little town and I can't remember the name outside of Kiev and that's where my younger sister Ruth was born and we were there until the end of the war they threw highness we managed to get from the kid area to the
American zone of Germany and we were in Lanza Berg charming and displaced persons camp from nineteen forty five or six until April of 48 when we got papers to come to United States and my uncle Archie it was came in 1921 and Albert who had established themselves pretty well in Texas through the assistance of lyndon b johnson and sam rayburn got us papers the fan goes a real problem trying to get papers with him we can plate we got papers for mother and daddy we got papers for mother Ruthie and I but not as a family finally we got members of family and we came
to the United States on that converted marine ship took about 11 days and landed in New York and were met by Uncle Albert and aunt Norma and they thought you test then they then we took a training camp yes we came to Dallas lived here for about three months and then moved to Lubbock and ultimately the brothers a lot of the brothers moved to LA we had a lot of family in the Dallas area what took you to love Bukka I guess Albert March you were going to to move there they had they bought a store there and they had a sky bells ladies ready
to wear there and they have a department store Hubbard had an outlet albert's they were almost next door to the sky bells and Alpert's were almost next door to each other and the economy was the department store and dad managed that store it was quite an experience the first year we were here and none of us spoke English and how old were you I would we can't hear an April I was five and turned 6mk in June and I started the first grade not knowing how to speak English that was an experience that first year then my dad managed the store they took lessons from
a Texas Tech professor who got remembered coming on his bicycle to the houses we were not far from Tech and my dad picked up English pretty quick mother a little a little longer and mostly we spoke Yiddish in the house until I guess we were I was in third grade it was racing love McKenna we had a nice lifestyle that was my parents his mother would say I'd never put my hand in water in Europe whereas here they they pretty much struggle I mean it was trying that we came here with nothing other than a suitcase each as I recall and that was from being
a pre affluent family and that was being a fairly come from a family yes but we managed with the help of everybody we moved to love book Albert moves there Archie moves there another uncle who came the first one to come to this page Jake skybell and his family moved there in the early 50s and so we had a core family there and then we had a lot of family in Dallas I had dad had a brother Sam who was in Dallas as well aunt Ida goldstein door Abramson uncle Sylvan moved was in Lubbock he was actually my dad's uncle busy skybell was here as
a plumber American plumbing I think was named has company so we had a lot of family in this area and somehow we all ended up in Texas at the initial group came to the Tecton to Texas and to Dallas very interesting what do you recall about I mean you had a very difficult time your parents had a very difficult time how did you celebrate your Judaism during these difficult times well my parents came from the bank as I think most Jews for Eastern European and Orthodox background and my father had gone through Hayter and in all the religious schools and then was going on with
his education when and then stopped but we I think we were we always from my recollection we always celebrated the holidays there knew they were Jewish and maintained their Jewish tight what they did in Europe I cannot tell you yeah except I can imagine that they did everything that we're doing here to some to some degree decadent I remember a number of Pesach so that we would have sages and saviours are usually 50 people 40 of which were family and 10 were friends and guests and we there was a funny story because all five brothers were sitting at the front of the table all of
them were reading in all of them there were different places and the story was there a set of Gog and Lopes there was a temple we got there lubbock had 75 families and it had a synagogue and we had a full-time rabbi huh and it's still got 75 families they're just different families the city's grown tremendously I say something if I think it's still about that size I think they're having a little more difficulty supporting a rabbi to them than we did back then and I think the the reason was that that that was a congregation where all I'd say half of the members were
first-generation Americans and that was the community center for the for the Jewish community we've all got together we go to service as a teenager hating it my parents insisted that I go to the services three fridays a weekend a week a month and then we could go one weekend I could skip it so we but we've met with everybody and had a Sunday school that were just lay teachers but we learned everything I think most of my Jewish gotta really I was at home sure for mother dad what brought you to Dallas I was real active in youth group work and with Tofte Texas Federation
of Temple youth and I was coming here all the time I have made a number of friends I debated for my high school and was always coming either to Dallas or Fort Worth than I decided this this was a city I wanted to live that and so I did after after I got through college and got through law school ultimately I ended up in Dallas which was my goal and you said earlier you had gone to Texas Tech for a couple years and then you transferred to UT transfer to UT UT had a program that after your junior year you could get into the law
school so savor your schools and a year of expense that way so that's what I did and I think I said earlier we had we had seven cousins it at Texas the same time we didn't need for turkeys yet we had our own and we had a great time in school what kind of law do you practice it's been a general practice but it's these days mostly in office practice wills in the States probate real estate mostly tell me something about your family here your own thing uh I been married a couple of times I got divorced so I have two children Jason is lives
here somewhat of my problem child but he's a good kid he's doing construction work my daughter Adrienne is married to a white old you can marry anybody she want to but not a lawyer I said we need some more doctors and dentists of the family she marries a lawyer she marries Justin Roy who is from a South African family and they're living in Dallas as well they had one daughter Jason is not married we all get together fairly regularly it's great so you have a granddaughter I have a granddaughter yeah how is Shane's a doll she is seven Amelia so she's in the first grade
this year so what do you feel your legacy will be for your children well I hope I instilled in them that feeling of being Jewish then I asked that my parents instilled in me because I think it definitely was instilled in the home and I'd like to instill that and a need to to be successful and give back to the community what you get out of it have you been active in any Jewish organizations here in town I I wasn't real active until I guess for the last 10 years I've been active in Dallas Hebrew free loan I've been on the board I was president
for a two year term and I still remain active as an ex officio member of the board always been part of Federation and contributed and various activities through the Jay have always participated been a member for years anything else you'd like to tell us about your family history in Lubbock with four eight ten cousins all of us lived in about six block area of each other and just it was you know for a little town when I left in 1962 Lubbock n 50,000 people and my mother we were sitting she was putting clothes on the line in the backyard the neighbor behind her came up
to her and said I've never seen anybody Jewish before and so mother was not in a great mood that afternoon she said well you should have seen you before I had my tails and horns cut off but IRA she tells that story the my folks would were telling would tell me whoa we were trying to get to the back end in 1945 as the war ended trying to get to the American zone of Germany that they were deathly afraid that one of us was going to cry or scream or talk or do something as we were trying to get through the lines so we managed
they I could remember we lived in it I guess we having a garage of apartments what we had in in lawns burg and there was a just think of a block because they actually blocked off the area my mother's sister my mother came from a family of four girls her dad was a tea merchant but he was his avocation was really supporting Israel and Zionism Emin Zionists and all of the girls except for mother and lying and Eva were lost in the war and her parents so that's really about all I can tell you well you have quite a story to tell and thank you
so much for doing this for us well that was my closure you appreciate it thank you okay you
