Sam Rabin
Sam Rabin was born in 1910 in Lutsk, Poland, the youngest of six children, with four brothers and two sisters. His father was a successful contractor who built streets and sidewalks and operated a cement factory, even devising a six-cornered cement paving brick set with granite. The family was comparatively well off, and many of their Polish neighbors worked for them. Sam's mother died of cancer when he was ten, a loss he never forgot, as he had been the youngest and always close to her side. His father later remarried, and Sam recalled a stepmother who treated him kindly. He attended a yeshiva and public school before beginning work with his father at fifteen.
As a child of about five, Sam lived through the violence of the revolution, remembering his father shielding him with his coat as Cossacks attacked Jews, and the family's harrowing flight from Lutsk toward Kovel and across the German border. He served in the Polish army beginning around 1931, enduring hardship and antisemitism, and was active in the Zionist Chalutz movement, playing soccer and enjoying river excursions. He built his own home before marrying his first wife in 1935 after meeting her in Kovel, a courtship encouraged by a local rabbi. They had sons, and Sam devoted himself to work and family until the war shattered everything.
When war came in 1941, Sam was mobilized and sent to fight in the Russian army, where he was wounded near Kiev after only weeks in battle. He was then sent to the Ural region for forced labor, cutting trees and building tank factories, eventually working as a supply clerk for years under difficult and dangerous conditions. Returning to Poland in 1944, he discovered that his first wife and children had been killed, and that he had lost dozens of relatives in the Holocaust. He joined a Zionist kibbutz in Wroclaw, hoping to reach Israel, and delivering drinks to shops. There he met and married Regina, a survivor he found waiting alone with a little girl at a train station, and together they began a new life that would lead them to Dallas.
Full Transcript
I'm sitting here with a very good friend of mine, one of my boyists, Sam Babin. Good morning, Sam. How are you? Good morning, ma'am. Fine, I am. You're fine? Okay. Sam, in all the interviews that I've been doing with all my friends, I sit here and I say there's only one way to start a story. And that's at the beginning. Where were you born? In Poland. In Poland? In Poland, yes. All right. And the city is the name Lutsk. In Lutsk, Poland. Berlin. Okay. How many children were in your family? What did your father do? What kind of a life? Well, we were four brothers and two sisters.
Uh-huh. And my father was a contractor of building streets, sidewalks. That's an unusual for a Jew. How did he get into that? It was good money. You see, he had to do under the government. Speak out, yes. Oh, it's a record. I'm sorry. That's okay. Well, it was good money in that. Uh-huh. And he employed a lot of people. You see, you have to have a lot of people for that kind of work. So in those days your father was a wealthy Jew, then I mean he was better than the storekeeper? Yeah, well, he was a good job. So what kind of a life or a home did you have made in the house?
Did you have help in the house? No. My mother died when I was ten years old. I remember like it was now. I can never forget it. Because I was the mizinnik. You know what's mizinnik? The mizinnik, the youngest. Okay. And whenever she went, wherever she went, she used to hold me for the end. And you were a baby. Until the day she died. She died of cancer. And then after a while, my father got married. And what was your stepmother like? My stepmother was very nice to me One thing she wasn nice she always went and tell the rabbi that I didn show up that I had a reason Otherwise, she was real nice.
What about, you went to Cheder or... Yeshiva. You went to Yeshiva. I didn't go to a... Public school? Public school. Okay. The Yeshiva was only boys, I assume. Yeah. Okay, how many years did you go to Yeshiva? Well, I didn't go too long because at 15 I start to work. What did you do? With my father. You see, he had a cement factory too. But we made out like the sidewalks in Poland, they make them like bricks. And you lay them out, you know. And the streets, the same thing later. So my father invented it. It's a six-corner brick. It's a brick one from cement, and then put in granites between.
And then you put them in the street. It's fast, and it's a lot of money. Okay. Well, tell me something. You worked with your father then in the business. And what, if you obviously were sort of higher class Jews because you had money, well, and Poland, I know my parents came from Poland, and the Poles were not very nice to the Jews. Did you ever experience, you know, a lot of anti-Semitism because you were, you know, or because you were higher, did you get better treatment from the Polacks? Well, I had a better treatment because a lot of them worked for us. And in fact, we had one.
He was in the, what I call it, in the, oh, it was Organizacea Against Jews, you know. And we knew he was there, but we needed him. But he never was saying anything against us. So you never really experienced anything from the Poles? No. Okay, so at 15 you were working with your father. Yeah. How many years did you stay at that? Well, till I went to the Polish Army. How old were you then? 21. 21. Because they put me off three years, you know, I didn't want to go. Who wants to? Because we used to sleep at night and not to eat All right tell me how did you get away from the Army then Well they put me off twice The third time they told me you not sick we know you doing it special And this time they take it.
You didn't run away to another place to get away from you? No, no. Okay, so you went into the Polish army. When was that? What year? It was, well, I was 21. That was in 31. Okay, so this was before the Second World War. Oh, yeah. Okay, and how many years were you in the... It didn't start early, I would tell you from the revolution. When you were a child? I was five years old. All right, let's go back, I'd like to hear about it. You see, I was born in 1910. Okay. And in 1915, it was communists were coming in and out, sitting, you know, And then the Kazakhs came in, and they were killing Jews.
That was the main purpose, the Kazakhs, you know, with the bills. I remember like now that my father stayed over me and covered me with his coat. For them not to kill me, he didn't worry about himself. And that was under offense at night, and they didn't get any of us. and then after a while I think it was I don't remember exact and we started to walk from Lutsk to Kovli have you heard Kovli? and there was shooting going on and this I remember like now too my father was carrying a copper putt and a bullet hit the putt oh my gosh this I'll never forget and he was holding me for them and when we came to the German border you know the Germans they were staying at a border between Kowal and Lutsk as my father said how do we go into Germany we can't but I'll think of something so what did your father think of how did you get across he says when we get to the Germans everybody starts crying and that you won't go back To Poland?
Yeah. Yeah. And when we came close we started crying out and the Germans came out not to Poland to Germany Yeah When the Germans came over they said we can let you in He says they crying they want to go back to Germany I want to go with them to there, over there. But we came from Germany. So they let you across the border. And they let us in. All right, that's what you called a Yid Gifinsoch on there. That's right. Oh, golly. And my older brother was in the Russian army at that time. He was fighting on the Turkish front. When he came back, he told us the story from the front.
It's unbelievable. When they caught Russians, the Turks, they used to nail them to the trains, you know. And the trains were going all over the country this way. But the Russians nailed them to the trains. How barbarian. Terrible, terrible. But the Russians weren't better either. Well, I'm sure. Yeah. And then we came to Caldwell, and in Caldwell we had a hard time from the beginning. But my older two brothers, one was, we didn't know where he is, but when we came back to Poland we found out that he was in the Russian army. is two brothers, they start, you know, a Jew finds something to do, to make a living.
They start to work in Aquino. You know what's Aquino? A movie. Yeah, a movie house. Instead of selling the tickets to the cashiers, they used to sell them on the black market. Tickets were very cheap. They make good money. that's the way we got started and then my father went back into business you know all right so we went back now let's go forward let's turn the clock forward to when you went into the polish army yeah okay well is when i went in the army of course from the beginning because jew was very hard because you know they picked on jews all the time what did they do well they They just because of Jude, they find everything to do for you the...
what... What's wrong? Yeah. And, uh, well, the army was a hot for six months. But later... You know, you get already to be a soldier, not a recruit, what they call it. Right. And it was different already. I used to get full loan. When I came out from the army, my father wanted me to get merit. How old were you then? 22? Three years? How many years? 23, okay. And I had a little money saved up, and I told him, Until I don't build my own house, I didn't even think of getting there. And I was going out with a girl for almost a year and a half.
What did you do when you go out with girls in your little shtetl? I mean, don't look at me and smile. I don't know what did you do? I should phrase that different. Where did you go? What things were entertainment? Well, I belonged to this, to the Halutsi. Yeah, I was going to say, did you belong to any organizations? Oh, yeah. I played soccer, never got a penny. I had to pay off of my shoes and pay everything, and if we traveled, I had to pay too. And I was lucky they took me in. It's not like here. Here they make money. And we played for fun.
We used to go out, we had, in Polish they call it in Russian, because I don't speak Polish, I speak Polish, but I hate them so much that I don't even like their language. I know, my mother was the same way. She would not teach me Polish because her memories were very bad. So what was the Chalutz group? Well, the Chalutz, some belonged to Kibbutzim. Okay, it was a Zionist group. Oh yeah, Chalutz. I know, I know. I know. So you were a Zionist? Oh, yeah. I always was. So did you have dances and parties with... Well, yeah, we had dances and we used to go on excursions, you know.
Well, the best thing used to be we used to rent boats. I mean, lottkis, you know. Yeah. Small boats, you know. Right, canoes. No, it's bigger than canoes. Okay. Canoes are only for one or two persons. And we used to go out, we had a big river, the steel. It's a very big river. We used to go out about, oh, 10 kilometers. There was nice woods. We had techniques and you know that it We used to spend there a day used to swim a lot So there was one girl that you were going with, you said, for about a year, a year and a half?
Yeah, I went after that, but she was a communist. And I couldn't get her off from the communists. I didn't want to marry her because of that, because I had too much trouble with the police. every time they used to stop us if we went home from a movie and they used to search me and that and that and her name was Zelda they used to tell her Zelda I'd like to stop going with you because I can't take it I don't like to be searched all the time and they threatened me and one detective was a neighbor of mine every time he used to see me he used to tell me Shmulzaevu, I'll put you to jail.
One of these days, I know you're not a communist, but you carry a liturgy. I say, you can search. I never carry anything. And I don't think she's a communist. And that's the very... And I had a good friend, Moishe Sosn. They put him in jail for four years. Because he was a communist. He was a communist. I knew he was a communist. So tell me, did you build, we'll go back a little, you told your father you wanted to build a house. Oh, yeah. Did you build a house when you came out of the army? Well, here they call it a duplex. The fact is, my brothers, I was a very rich boy, I made a lot of money, and I wasn't lazy.
I worked day and night. I worked with my father and I took contracts, little contracts by myself. A fact is Rabbi Afzah's father is from my town. And I saw him here for the holidays and he asked me, I thought he would be a rabbi. because we went to Yeshiva together. I said, well, the war changed me a lot. It did. You see, I lost... Wait, before we go into the war, let's finish your house. You built the house by yourself or your brother's house? No no I bought the materials but A contract A contract yeah And when you got The labor was cheap Very cheap You were a rich boy You must have been a good catch for somebody.
The fact is, he was a Russian, Abram Fisher. He's from my own town. He remembers my father. He don't remember me. But he remembers my father, because everybody knew him. Most of the gala, they called him. The gala. He had a blonde beard. He never shaved in his life. He had a blonde beard. Brown. Yeah, but Gail is blonde brown. He never shaved, and he was so healthy that in 1931, when I went to pull a tooth, he says, I don't believe a bone can hurt. Yeah. Alright, so he built your house. What happened after he built your house? And then they start to shidduch me.
Oh, yeah. But I was the kind that I didn't want somebody to give me something. I wanted for myself, what I liked. It's in 1935, for Pesach, I went to visit my sister in Kowalik. And we went to a movie with another girl, with another company, you know, a lot of boys and girls. But we came to the movie, I came in and, you know, they used to let in when it's dark, you didn't see. And we went in and she went first and sat down and I said, well, I'll sit on the other side. But she didn't tell me somebody's sitting next to her.
And I sat on her lap. and she says don't you see somebody sent me I said I'm sorry and I went back and I said I'm next to the girl I said okay I'll sit on this side and then I thought I have to see this girl when it gets and when it was the break you know in Poland they used to make breaks like an intermission She added two eggs. And we came out and I looked at her and I kind of liked her. And I came up, came over and I said, for that, what I was such a girl buying, I want to buy soda She says okay I take it And we got to talk and meanwhile she got disconnected from her group and I told this girl that she is a friend of mine and I want to take her home, and you go with your sister, with other friends.
And then I say, what's your name? She says, Tzir. I said, Tzir, where do you live? And she told me the street, I said, my sister lives across. She says, I know, I saw you. You were there for Pesach. And that was already the third day at Cholomite. I said, who's your uncle? And she told me, Shloymedashnayda. I said, oh, oh, he's a very flimmer man. She says, yeah, he told me to tell you to come to the synagogue. He wants to give you this marte. And my brother-in-law was better for him, too. And he says, Shabbos, we'll go to the synagogue, because Shlemy wants to see you.
I said, why? He says, he likes you for his niece. I said, no, it's nothing between us. He says, don't tell me. I know what is going on. And we went to the synagogue, and he gave me mafta. and after this invited me for Kili and then we stayed there and after Pesach I said I will write you or I will come to see you and I went home and she went home she was visiting too and your father was a star Well, the fact is he wouldn't drink a glass of water in any house except at the Rebbe. One time it was on a Friday, I was walking and I see a man with a beard stays and looks at me all the time.
He looks and when I walk away he walks after me and then I was wondering what a hussi pays with it. He ate this a power mill, you know the mill, make flour. My brother, do you see this man? He says, yeah, I was wondering, do you know him? I says, no. He says, maybe he has a daughter for you. I said, no, I don't know. And Shabbos, my father tells me, the Stalna Rebbe wants to see you. I said, me? The Stalna Rebbe? He says, yes, he wants to talk to you. I said, I wouldn't go to the Stavuna Rabbi. He says, I'll be there for Shavaschides, and I want you to come with me.
And I came, and I see the man sits next to the Rabbi. And after the Shavaschides, and then the Rabbi says, Shmuzaru, I want to talk to you. He says, I want to ask you something. You like his daughter? I said, well, I know her only a few weeks. He says, but you liked her. I said, oh yeah, I liked her. I don't know if she'll like me. He says, well, this will talk. But I want you one thing to tell me. And this is very important. I'll ask you something. And what you'll answer me will be up to, to get engaged or not. He says, you promised me that you'll dame every day.
I said, Rabbi, I dame every day. But I couldn't promise because there can be times that I wouldn't be able to. and that's why I don't want to make a promise. He says, it's a Khmer, this is an idol. And that's how you became a Khos'an? Yeah. And I became a Khos'an and I got married and I had three boys when Nidra killed and the oldest one was five years old. Okay, so you got married and then how much after that did the war come? In 40 this and 41 Because 39 Russia took my power In 1939 So you got married in what year In 1935 You got married in 1935 Yeah.
And in 1936, in May, I had my first son. Okay, so what happened when the... May the 5th. Okay. So you had three sons? Three sons. I had four, but the oldest one died of... Jelantitis, what do they call it? They made it in the bris, but they shouldn't have done it. Oh, jaundice. Yeah. Jaundice. And we've done it. Oh, all right. So then... Yeah, let me see. When the war started, June the 22nd, in the morning, they announced that my year is mobilized. And I didn't want to go because it was a mishmash. Our city wasn't fire. His mom's wife threw me out from the house.
Simply threw me out. She says, you have to go. And gave me a challah. And she followed me with all three children. Maybe about half a mile. And she cried. He's my oldest son. This I'll never forget till I die. He says, why does mother cry? I say, it's a war. I'm going to the war. He says, but you're coming on tonight. I says, yeah, I'm coming on. He says, Mother, stop crying. The father's coming on. He says, I'll never forget as long as I live. That's the last thing I heard of him. You never heard any of them again? No. You went away to the war?
I went away to the war and I was fighting in the Russian army. I was only about 48 days in the army. I was wounded in the back by Kiev. Jitama, have you heard Jitama? No. In Jitama I was wounded from my airplane. He threw a bomb in the shrapnel. If I wouldn't have the pack in the back, I wouldn't be around. So you were 48 days in battle and then you ended up in the hospital. Yeah, in the hospital, and then they took me to Ural, to... It a door of Chebukul and we were cutting down trees and building factories This was in Russia In Russia yeah And we were building factories to make tanks And I had it very bad from the beginning.
But one time, Danachalnik from the biggest, what do they call it, builders in Russia, Azovstad, he passed by and he kind of liked me. He came over to me and he says, are you a soldier? I says, you call that a soldier? With a saw and a shovel and an axe? He says, yeah, but you're in the army. I says, yeah, it's the working army, they call it, the Votchi Batalion in Russian. He says, give me your name. And I gave him the name and I called him, in Russian, they called me Zinovi Bobbin, Zinovi Mottkovic Bobbin. It's, uh, and at night after this, we were staying, uh, you know, destroyed.
They came over and they say, uh, somebody's waiting for you, wants to see you. as i walked out and he says would you want to work for me as a club of chic i said well i never did it what is a club of chick you give out materials oh like a foreman sort of yeah you have the warehouse and you give out everything he says but one thing you have to do what i tell you I said, well, you're my boss. I have to do. I'll do it. He says, do you speak good Russian? Do you write Russian? I says, no. You read Russian?
I said, a little bit. I did. You see, Polish and Russian, I learned by myself. Didn't take school at all. In English too. I didn't go to school for English. He went into my boss there and he told him to the commandeer that he taking me away And the commandeer started to me oh you are a Jew and you don want to work and that and that You don't want to help the country. I said, building is helping the country too. He says, yeah, but that's not building. You're not going to do nothing. You're because of chic. I said, well, you don't want me to go?
He says, I can't do that. I says, why are you telling me? He says, take off your clothes. I had to take off the military clothes and he gave me turn up clothes and that and that and sent me out. When I came out, he was waiting for me, and he took me to, they call it the opshizhiti, where about 150 people live in one room. It's a big room, no floor. It rains down, and at night when you walk down, you're in mud. And in the winter, can you imagine? and tall, it's outside, you know that. But that wasn't for long. I start to work there and I see he starts to tell me like he's still.
But I didn't say, I didn't understand from the beginning what it is. He tells me to deliver kerosene, you know what's kerosene. Over there, gasoline over there, soap over there, salt over there, and I kept doing it. Later I started thinking, my gosh, what am I doing? I don't have nothing for that. I came into his office and I said, Tavara Bura Tarev, you know I have a hard time to live, but I get paid, And I don't have time to stay even in line for the soup. I can't live. And I want to have something from that too. He says, well, if that's the case, you'll have it.
But do it carefully. You'll be responsible. I says, no, I don't want to be responsible. because you're the one that write me out And I do what you tell me. He says, okay, don't worry, everything is... and I did that for about three and a half years, finally till I got caught. You see, when we moved from Chilabinsk back to Mariupol, when Roshi took back from the Germans, Germans. The Germans knock down a plant where they make steel. The name of the factory is Krasavica. You know what Krasavica means? Yeah, Cheyne. Cheyne. And the name is Azovstar. Azovstar Krasavica. And I have to supply all the Kislev you know, when they sold it together, you know.
And they gave me 18 people, old people, because the young was at the fight. And we had a buggy with horses, and I saw that people can't walk, old people. Most of the time I used to do that. If we had supplies enough, I used to tell them, everybody lay down and sleep, one less watch. If somebody comes, let us know. And that's the way I deal with them, and they love me. So how did you get caught? Well, it's one time they send out two cows, roads with potatoes, train cows. There's one time he tells me, why don't you take a truck of potatoes and deliver it there and there?
I said, what are you getting for it? He says, well, what do you want from that? I said, at least have. Because I felt already it's getting closer to the end of the war, and I wanted to make something for me to have something to show. He says no if you can get because it to a man that is a high efficient I can get from him too much I said well I leave it up to you I delivered the potatoes The next day they called me to the anchor with the you know the KBG It tells me to sit down. I sit down. He says, why are you sitting?
I said, get up. I said, well, he says, why did you get up? I said, well, you told me to get up. He says, okay, he gives me a cigarette and don't let me smoke. And this way he bothered me for two weeks till he tells me tomorrow you're going to court. As I came to my notchalnik and I told him about it, I have to go to court and I'm sure you know about it. He says, oh, it's nothing going to happen. I said, better not, because if something happens, you go with me. He says, why? I said, because I know you can do something about it, but...
He says, I'm telling you, go to court. You see, he did already something, but he didn't tell me. I came to court, and I sat all day there. They didn't call me. It's the one that calls in, the bailiff. He came out and he says, well, we are closing the doors. I said, how about me? I have to attend the court. He says, well, you'll come tomorrow and you'll know what. I said, I want to know today what it is. He says, if you'll give me a glass of Mahogah. That time was 30 rubles. I took out 30 rubles and gave him. he comes out back and he says ah your case is nothing you can go home as I went straight to Manachalnik and his wife tells me go to the judge you know where the judge lives I came in over there they said no the judge the Ankavadista called me all the time and one Ankavadista I didn't see him in a uniform, but he's a civilian.
I sold him one time gasoline and he says I know him I said you don know me He says I bought gasoline from you I said you never bought gasoline from me And my boss says don worry If somebody catches you he more in trouble than you And that's the way he said, I told you not to worry. He wouldn't do nothing to you. He says, deliver him tomorrow 20 gallons of kerosene. I says, well, I'll deliver him. He says, better do that. Take the 20 gallon gasoline and exchange him for eggs, bring him the eggs. That's the way I did. And that was, I walked for a while and then I said, but Rolf, pretty soon I'm going to Poland back and I want to quit.
He says, you can't quit, I'll have to fire you. I said, well, fine, mate. He says, how will you eat? I said, I have money to eat. He says, but you have to work something. I said, I'll work somewhere. He says, well, I'll see to it that nobody bothers you. and in three weeks I left Russia. And I came back to Poland. I was traveling, my gosh. You traveled to Poland. How long did it take you to get from Russia to Poland when you went back? It took us about eight days. Because, you see, the trains used to stop in so many places, you know, and they were going very slow.
And when we came to the border, the first thing we heard, the pulse, they said, Throw them in the water, why did you bring the Jews back? We thought we actually killed them all. Was the war over yet? Huh? The war was over? Yeah, you see I skipped. In 1944, they needed workers. As I heard they were sending somebody in my own town. The war was going on yet. They sent somebody to bring workers And the one that was sending he was a Jew an engineer His name was Cohen As I ran to him, I says, listen, I hear you're sending to Lutsk for workers.
Why don't you send me? I'm from Lutsk. I know the whole area. And I'll bring you good workers. He says, well, I don't know if I can do that, because he won't come back. I said, I can give you my word, and I swear to him that, he says, well, we all know that you're honest. But coming back, that's a different story. Because I ran to Maynard Chandnik. You see, he was a communist. He was from the communist party. and I say, I want to go to Lutsk. He says, will you come back? I said, I give you my word, I'll come back. He says, I'll call him up.
He called him up and he tells him, I will go to... So did you go? Yeah. And that's when you found out that you're fat. You won't believe it. This was, this, this happened. This was from Chuburg, from Chelyabes. It took me about four weeks on the train to get home. Because you see, every time the train stopped, I had to eat. I had to go down to take bread on the cart. You had to stay in line. Meanwhile, I missed the train. It's from one train to the other. It took me four weeks till I got home. And I came home 15 kilometers before I got to Lutsk.
I fell asleep and they stole from me everything. I didn't have a penny because I had with me an extra shirt because you can't have over there too much. and I had some rubles and they took everything from me. I was so asleep. And when I came to Rilsk, where do you go? People that I knew, that they worked for us, Poles, but they were all afraid to talk to me. Because you were a Jew? Not only a Jew, they gave me this, an anchor with their uniform, with a gun and with a bullet. And they thought I'm an anchor with these, because they were afraid to talk to me.
finally I came to one they told me he's in the working battalion because I went in the working battalion and I told him you have to free this man for a few days because I'll have to stay here and he's a very good friend of mine and that's the only place I can stay they called him out and I took him out and he didn't know what to do with me to get him out from over there for a few days. He'll be with his wife. But he told me that, when you come in my house, you have to come in at night and nobody should see you.
Because otherwise, somebody will go on the house. It was so bad. And I start to look for Mishpuche. I saw Jews. They were afraid to talk to me. They used to walk on the other side of the street and talk to me. Otherwise they wouldn't talk to me because I came from Russia. That bad. And there were still Jews in the town? The Germans hadn't taken the ball away? There was Jews. There was only one Jew that when they were shooting 10,000 in one grave I had a postal card with the sign He was on top he was shot but he still was moving As one said, before the car was up, if he can get up and leave, we'll let him leave.
His name is Shepsey, and he's still alive. I don't know if he's still alive, but he was alive. He was alive then? Yeah. Is that the time when you went back that you discovered your wife and family and everyone? Yeah, in 44. I lost a mishpuch of 59 people. My father lost 15 brothers and sisters, so they were all married with children. Yeah. Okay. All right, so we'll bring you back to Poland after the war. What did you do then after the war, Sam? Well, I went in a kibbutz. A kibbutz in Poland? In Poland, yeah. It was a kibbutz. A for Zionists. Yeah. Well, we wanted to build Israel.
I worked there. You know what I did in Bresla? In Polish it's Wroclaw. I used to take around this, drinks, soda pops, in the stores from a factory. Every day with a two-wheel wagon, you know? know? It was hard work, but we made a lot of money because we used to sell a lot of drinks. And it was a co-op, all the money went to the community? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to, they gave you, let's say, 500 bottles, you had to bring back for 500 bottles Yeah And there was a kitchen and everything They cooked it they gave you meals and you changed clothes and everything Were you planning on going to Israel Yeah Anyway And I used to go to the train every day to come newcomers and to see if I meet somebody one time I came and my wife the second one was sitting with a little girl and she was filthy, torn closed and nothing to eat and sits there and everybody's gone, it's getting dark as I came over I says what's she sitting here?
she says I don't have any place to go I say I said, well, but you can't sit here. We have a kibbutz. She says, I'll go anyplace. She says, well, in a kibbutz, what life is it? What is it? I said, you know what? It's too lowly. I ran over to the city and they'll give me an apartment because a Jew could go in and get an apartment anytime you want. I ran over and they gave me a number and I came in an apartment a German woman was living there with two children. I showed her the paper I said take whatever you can and I'm taking the apartment.
If she took something, I had a piano, I had clothes, everything. Because I took her in there and we were staying for a while And I used to come every day you know bring food and that And one time I came Friday night and she was dressed and clean you know And I saw she was beautiful. I said, Regina, in Russian it's Regina, your name is River. I said, Regina, would you marry me? she says, I wondered whenever you were there. When you were going to ask? How much longer after you had found her at the train station was this? Two weeks. Thank you. Thank you.