Marilyn Levin
Marilyn Levin's parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland. Her mother, Ann Stein, was the youngest of five children from a small town; her grandmother and step-grandfather had family in Nova Scotia but could afford to bring out only one child, Marilyn's aunt Hedy, the oldest. Two of the brothers were killed in the concentration camps, and Ann herself was in Auschwitz before being liberated. Marilyn's father was from Czestochowa, a larger city, where his parents and three sisters were killed on the day the Nazis invaded; he and his brothers survived in a labor camp. Her parents met by chance at a train station and married after the war.
Sponsored by aunt Hedy, Marilyn's parents arrived in Dallas on May 20, 1946, with little money and no English. Marilyn was born about nine months later. Her father first worked at a tailoring business, later opening a dry goods store on Elm Street and then a pawn shop. Her mother worked alongside him and was known for her strength and independence, handling banking and business directly. The family lived first in South Dallas on South Boulevard, then moved north, and Marilyn graduated from Hillcrest High School. She attended the University of Texas at Austin for two years before completing her degree at SMU.
Marilyn met her husband, who worked for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, and married him shortly after graduating. His job took them to Huntsville, Alabama, Korea, back to Dallas, El Paso, Okinawa, and Champaign, Illinois, where their youngest daughter was bat mitzvahed. After her mother died of cancer while the family lived in Champaign, Marilyn returned to Dallas, where her parents had kept their home. She has been active in Jewish community life, including Hadassah, Council, a newcomers group, and volunteering with the local Holocaust museum by driving survivors to speak to school groups. A member of Temple Emanu-El, she takes great pride in her parents' survival and hard work, and in her three children and two brothers.
Full Transcript
good morning today is July 13th 2018 I'm Joe Rheingold and I'm here interviewing Marilyn Levin hello Marilyn how are you good tell us a little bit about your family whatever you know about your grandparents and your parents where they lived where they were born etc well my my parents were were immigrants here they're Holocaust survivors and they I mean so I'm a first generation American and they arrived here in in May 20th 1946 and I can remember that because my cousin was born on that damn my mother was upset that her sister wasn't there to meet her at the Train that's a good good reason
and anyway they they arrived here with you know with very little and in no English or anything so my first language actually was Yiddish and then I was going like like nine months to the day that they arrived so I think I must have been conceived in steerage or something but anyway they they came here because I'm one of the earlier immigrants because my mother's sister and my mother's name is Ann Stein her sister was head ear iceberg and she we got to go back up a little bit you know before the before things started but they saw they were from a small town in
Poland and I'll talk about my mother's side first they were from a small town in Poland then there were five siblings five children and my grandmother and step-grandfather whom I think I met once had family in Nova Scotia so they had a way to get out but only money enough to take one child and so they took this this aunt Hedy she was the oldest of the five and I never don't have how that choice was made you know gonna horrible choices to the make but anyway so so she came came they came they went over the rest of the family there were three boys
and my mother was the youngest two of the of the brothers were killed in the concentration camps in one hand a wife and a child and I have pictures of them only because of aunt Hetty being here and having had some you know they're at their age and and my mother ended up she was and I'm just going to two more Asajj I should about 1516 and eventually she was she was in Auschwitz and my father suspect a month to my mother's side first and she never really spoke of it so much and I was not very good at encouraging it as many she started
to say something I'd say you know in my now it's stupid and you know but back then I thought I knew everything you know that's in the past don't don't talk about it before people really started talking about it and so anyway they and then my father was from a larger city Czestochowa and there were yet parents and five brothers and sisters there were six all together and the his parents and three sisters were killed on the day that the Nazis invaded chance to hop up and he and his brothers were spared I guess because they were they were look they were they were out
looking for some place to hide so anyway they were spared death but they were in a labor camp it's called ha sock help repel tarry in just Aqaba in that town and he didn't speak much of it either but anyway I think the way they met is very interesting they my mother my mother was was liberated though from another camp she had been transferred and she was liberated from there by the Russian as I think and if she had she had heard that her one brother was alive still he and during the war he was a partisan with Russian army and he went um she
heard that that he was very sick and he was someplace near in Czestochowa so she got on a train and arrived at the train station there and she was actually an address or something and she asked somebody and yet you know where is this and my father was there selling things or whatever and he overheard her and he went up to her and said that that she shouldn't go there that there were Russians there and they were not treating the women very very well you know very nicely said oh why don't you come home with me it's um my brothers are there and then a
couple friends and you know we'll feed you and dress you and you know you'll get better and she was you know probably wait about 90 pounds and you know no hair and but she went with him and and then you know after a month or so she asked him for money to go to where her brother was and his name was John Talbot and he was he also lived here in Dallas came with them and he so my mother yeah they he he gave her the money his brothers in the fence told him he was crazy he never get the young mo did she pay
him back so you'll never see her money again you know I'll never see her again and he said you know I don't care you know she she needs this and wants this and this is I'm gonna do this what I'm gonna do and so she went and found her brother and he was had malaria he was very sick and she there was a transfusion a direct transfusion between her and him and he became healthy again and and yes you know how she got there and you know she told him says you go back and marry that man and anyway they went back and they got
married and and then I was y-you know I don't know how how it's all worked out how people found out where relatives were and stuff like that the whole network of things going on I think yeah yeah it's amazing but my aunt found out that that if she had these brother and sister and so sponsored them and my father to come to Dallas so that's how they ended up in Dallas and one thing you said they were note was good they moved from Novus no no no Mike my end went to Nova Scotia right there's a place there like Ellis Island is here it's called
Pier 39 or something and that's where she and my grandmother went so of course I never knew my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandmother moved from here to Dallas towards the end of her her life from Canada and so I got to know her a little bit you know I can picture her I know her I know what she looks like and anyway they they arrived here and my father's first job here was with model tailors which I think a lot of people like that work there he didn't know how to sew any bit but that's that's the kind of person he is you know
he can talk his way into into things and anyway they they learned English you know took lessons and to English and became citizens after five years doesn't seem like there's a problem like there is nowadays with so long but they became citizens and he eventually I think he was fired for the model tailors because someone told told on and then he put in a shoulder pad the wrong way or something so anyway he wouldn't open to dry goods store that on Elm Street and and then went on and opened a pawn shop later on in it that's what he had and they raised three children
myself and two two brothers you know after coming here with nothing where did you live as a young child where was your neighborhood in South Dallas and on South Boulevard I tell people it's a you know that one block where they have all those big nice houses you know we're mostly Jewish people lived well you crossed over a street didn't not such nice that's where we lived upstairs not everybody was wealthy back then no I was about six years old but it's I remember going to a Jewish day school they had Dallas hello Academy at that time it was way up here I got a
royal lane and I would I went there to all the sixth grade and then when they had that but then they'd moved from from South Dallas to what's a cannot add image is to us thumbs on Stanford on the other side of the tracks from University Park near the inland theater okay so what was life like in that area well it was I mean you know it was it was fine it was we lived there for probably that's seven years and then they moved further north to to North Haven just down the street from here and I graduated from from Hillcrest High School and my
mother worked in this door with my father and they were they were both pretty independent my mother was very assertive and I'm very very strong and you get to be strong to be able to survive what they did and she was able to talk to anywhere for any kind of business you know they had to you know banking business or anything that had to do with the store you know that she would go to the mercantile bank and she went you know right to the top to my Aronofsky was her you know banker and came friend and you know always took care for own business
i I know a lot of survivors whose children had to do everything a lot of the business for them because they just couldn't know didn't learn English well and that for anything but my Aran's yeah I didn't have to do anything like that what kind of things were you involved in as a family or what were they involved in as a couple as far as civic organizations or Jewish type of organization well she was one of the ones that was instrumental in starting the Holocaust setter and I know we had some some footage of her at the opening ceremony and stuff like that and she
was like in The Sisterhood and shared this room when in South Dallas they belong to a good as Stockholm but then they changed I think we moved up north to share with Israel and that's where I was Mitzvahed and confirmed and married and and an organization called pioneer women exists anymore my father well he was involved with me the organization that lends money Hebrew free loan Hebrew free like I came for free one Association that's a vital vital organization working what were there what was their last name Stein oh that's Raj XD okay all right good so what did you do after high school well
I went to college I went to the University of Texas Austin for for two years I mean it was just like that was expected to go to go to college and major major in sociology and after two years I I wanted to live in an apartment like my other friends were doing and that my parents would not allow it and you know so I came home and lived at home they promised me they'd give me a car and I went to SMU graduated from from SMU I never got that car but he didn't so at what point did you meet your husband well that was
why I was at it's a new I still hadn't graduated and it was on a boring date every man and he had been he worked for the Army and Air Force exchange service and he had been transferred here from Germany and and so that's where I met I'm the headquarters it's no cliff and he lived in Oak Cliff they event where the Jewish people lives or anything like that and we met and right after I graduated and in May we got married in June that's pretty quick [Laughter] you know that's the way it was then you know you graduated and and you got married how
did you decide in what way to stay in Dallas or to settle in Dallas well we we right after we got married in being with the atheist which is make sure that the PX is on military Army Air Force bases so they move you around just like the military so three weeks after we were married or we went on our honeymoon in my three weeks after that we were transferred to Huntsville Alabama and that's where our first daughter was born and then two years later we were transferred to Korea Oh where my second where our second daughter was born and then we were transferred back
to Dallas and then that was only for two years and then we went to El Paso where we stayed out the longest and then we were transferred to Okinawa Japan and then after that to me within Champaign Illinois he worked he travelled to different faces of different places up north there in the Midwest lived in Champaign that's youngest daughter was Tracey was was bat Mitzvahed there how many years and how long were you in Champaign two years two years though once we were yeah any place was out passed out for about eight years okay what did she think I'm I'm curious cuz I have a
lot of friends from there what's the Jewish community like in El Paso oh gosh well it's it's not very big time out one sec okay and when we were in in Champaign I said that I mean I was tired of moving by then and my mother in the meantime had had cancer breast cancer and she passed away while we were living in Champaign and I said you know I didn't want to go through something like that again I said that I probably had one more move before he retired I said I think I'm gonna move back to Dallas and we'll just have a long-distance marriage
for a couple of years anyway he ended up taking an early retirement they offered that and he to get in so we moved back to Dallas we kept our house all those years hmm oh my god 72 huh and that my parents they talked us into doing that and and then we moved back into it mm-hmm and after renting it out you know all those years in between now where were your daughters at this point they were well Holly wins a bet summer that we moved she had graduated high school and she went to Israel Israel trip and Tracy came with us and ended up
going to WT white high school and that was when Holly came home from Israel she comes off she saw it was just says I want to be a rabbi I said oh gosh Holly you know here I thought you always were interested in advertising and you know PR and I said you know I said I don't think that's you know that's for you anyway to make a long story short she is a rabbi now but she got her degree in advertising and then decided later that she indeed wanted to be a rabbi is she living here she's not sure if she's not living here she's
she's just started in Prescott Arizona okay and Tracy lives here she's she's got she's married and has two daughters twins and Holly is divorced and has one son who actually was with his father in Atlanta it was more stable and okay so you get to see them yes I'd like to see the ones that are here more often but everybody's busy runs in the wood like right right can you think of a project Maryland or something that you've worked on that you were very proud of all these years I guess just from one of these organizations isn't that a Jewish organization spoke a newcomer organizations
and I cheered coordinated the thing where we go down to the bridges or lunch to the homeless that's wonderful so I'm a life member of Hadassah and council but unlike you I'm just a member I don't that's correct things like I don't get too involved okay and we belong to temple Emmanuel now which that's funny when I was growing up and walked in there it felt it to be like a church I just felt did not feel look comfortable in it but swing so much have you maintained any type of connection with the Holocaust Museum here oh I have yeah that was another thing I
was driving survivors down to trying to speak to school groups and things when they end I think they got a grant driver to pick them up I used to do that also yeah very very worthwhile I've thought about becoming a speaker he was second-generation speakers and survivors are just down to a few I might end up doing that I think you would enjoy it so now tell us a little bit about a little bit in your own words what was Dallas like when you first moved here when you were first living here when you're young versus how it's changed nowadays it's like night and day
it's um of course South Dallas was where all the Jewish people were at that time that's what I guess because my parents were were survivors they were not that ostracized but but they were looked down upon I think you know referred to as green ax I'm sure you've heard that that term and their friends most most all of their friends were Holocaust survivors and it was was it was cut so everybody you know I was around spoke with with accents and I was I guess I was I was three years old and my uncle was was getting married to someone with the last name of
cohan but she was from here from Cleveland and she didn't speak with the with any accent er you know southern accents so I remember asking my mother you know well she must not be Jewish she I thought everybody that was there was a Jewish spoke with an accent but but I like you like even my aunt you know they had different sets of friends they were closed for holidays and things like that but not have really socially you know in it for emergencies you know things like that and I don't think it was up there was a hardship for them they just they were happy
with their friends and felt comfortable with them and had a good life they probably would Celine wouldn't believe how the city has crow now well that's what remember when you know Beltline was the country you know I know President were horses in the pasture yeah I can't believe how it's how it's grown and I have to stop when it reaches Oklahoma yes what are you most proud of when you think back on your life here well I'm proud of that that my parents were able to raise three children's in the mall to college and you know be happy with what they had they didn't always
they didn't have a you know a ton of money or anything but they were comfortable they that they never traveled anywhere so I never went anywhere in contrast to my later life and what was the question well you're saying you're most proud of your parents which i think is absolutely remarkable that stories they have how they survived everything and came here so that that in itself is fantastic and when and my mother was was you know so pro-american you know she hears some other survivors who came in complain you know because it's so difficult and isn't that just you don't like it go back to
week she was very staunch of American and I know it sounds like your dad they were both very hard workers yes yes and then when we you know my mother I said passed away when we were in Champaign and so you know I told my husband I didn't I didn't want to go through something like that again being so far away cuz in the early part of her disease I was in Korea and you know so you know I wanted to move back to Dallas I you know be there my father at the time we we moved back he was help they could help and
everything but he was then like three months later he was he thought he got remarried after we moved here this was like a few years after my mother had passed away and it was kind of funny they he married a lady that that rented well this was part of the change I guess in Dallas the house on Stanford was when they were ready to sell it the neighborhood was changing it was integrating for the first time and my mother was afraid to be the first one to sell to sell it to a black family she was always she was really it was in spite of
her this strength that she showed he was had a lot of fear inside which I can't blame her because of her her background but so they decided to rent the house instead and this family that had rented it the late it was a Jewish family and the lady was she and my mother I'm getting good friends and my father really didn't have anything to do with that my mother took care of all of that and anyway that's the lady he ended up marrying Oh small world and I mean I was kind of Brazil they started retired after my mother passed away and because he really
couldn't do it without my mother the financial end of it and stuff like that he was good at selling when she would even married y'all so he was retired and they were traveling and they started traveling and it just it bothered me because my my mother and father never traveled anywhere I think they went to Israel once that was the one place I've ever wanted to go and you know then when they started traveling all over you know that's when I said to my husband I said you know what we're gonna start traveling I'm not going to you know leave it for the next one
mm-hmm go with the next one and have you been able to yeah good to travel a lot I worked as a travel agent before jumping him for for Mary Kay oh okay you get the headquarters mm-hmm and so we it was at a time when the airlines were better to travel agencies and they are now and used to get like a pair of free tickets every quarter and they took advantage of it are you still working or no retired okay and my husband's been retired longer than he was working over 30 years Wow but you've managed to fill your time so yes that's good and
it's a wonderful feel is there anything else you can think of that you'd like to add I don't think so I'm I'm proud of my my children they both live in Los Angeles okay my one brother was a violinist and my parents were or just you know what said he wanted to major in music you know they they said you know that's no it's not a job it's a hobby you know but he went ahead and and did it and was successful he retired recently from the Los Angeles Philharmonic wonderful my younger brother was in that in the film industry for a while so he's
kind of semi-retired you get to see them you go to California um I've seen them recently but but we don't see each other as as much as we would like to but it's good that you're still in touch with everybody most people in your family that's that's wonderful yes well thank you so much this has been terrific I appreciate it thank you you