Content Notes

• Born 1933 in Vienna, Austria
• Father arrested in 1938 and sent to Dauchau and Buchenwald by the Gestapo--released in 1939
• Went to Italy for 1 year
• 1940 to New York
• Parents: father--Galicia, Poland--Bueh-cha; mother--Czech, native of Austria
• Father--made frankfurter casements--own business
• Italy--soup kitchens, lunch--spaghetti with marmalade
• Parents--left parents and sisters in Vienna; mother visited father in hospital--left alone in attic
• Aunt sent money and convinced sons to get visa
• Spoke German at home, learned Italian fluently; until U.S.--forgot and had to relearn in junior high; mother had never learned Yiddish; father spoke some; Evelyn learned Yiddish at Sholom Aliechem Folkshula
• Anti-semitism in Europe--certain stores couldn't go into but because didn't look Jewish could get butter in a different neighborhood; Nazis all over; not allowed to go to school in Austria
• Brooklyn--relatives lived in Bronx; with distant relatives; own apartment in Eastern York--mixed neighborhood--afraid at night in hallway
• Jewish education--
  • Talmud Torah--after school--Hebrew and prayers by rote; transferred to Yiddish schools Sholom Aleichem Folkshula; also Hebrew and prayers--poor student
  • Zionist--Shomer Hatzar--communist youth; father general Zionist--joined when 10 years; quit when leader did; no make-up, no drinking or smoking
  • Young Judea and others but not as much impression as Shomer
  • Shomer--uniforms--loose skirts and handkerchiefs around necks designated group
  • Parents--conservative temple--forced to go on High Holidays--children running around--women talking about new hats--neighborhood temple--mixed nationalities
• Neighborhood markets--hated shopping--pushcarts--noise and dirt--poor and immigrant--liked modern stores
• Negro family around corner--friendly
• 6-year-old friend died--impressed by funeral
• Out of class (grouped by ability) only 5 non-Jews; no non-Jews as best friends and did not usually play with--parents did not object to non-Jews until adolescence--parents seemed surprised that non-Jews (and garbage collector's daughter)was in bright class; mother friendly with Italian neighbors and Protestant storekeeper downstairs
• Moved when 16 to near Sheephead Bay--into similar mixed neighborhood with Italian neighbors
• Parents' friends--landsmen from Vienna were primary friends but 2 hour subway ride away; mostly immigrants--surprised at mothers who didn't have accent--really felt split between those families; parents picked immigrants as friends--seemed to have derogatory attitude towards “American”--saw them as cold, went to beauty-parlor, rich and cool, disdainful of immigrants and self-seeking, lack of sensitivity
• Pressure as child to go to Jewish, Hebrew, or temple school; as teenager, pressure to be an “Alrightnick”--go to temple, youth group and dating middle-class Jewish boys--dressing nicely--obedient and traditional; must marry someone older--“what will happen to you?”
• Never any question that Evelyn would go to college at city school and live at home; field did not matter to parents
• Not conscious of limitations of being a woman, Jew, or poor--internalized and did not consider; majored in English and German; Masters in German program at Yale (husband was going also); Masters in teaching; no realistic picture of career but knew liked teaching
• Adolescence--threat of bodily injury if dated non-Jews; went to theater on Yom Kippur--thrown out of house; emotional reasons--implicit betrayal of tradition--background of six million Jews killed in Europe
• Holocaust--tension and worry--no concrete facts; remembers mother weeping over grandmother, crying over ships sinking--aunt in transit
• Intermarriage--parents--derision--totally irrational and emotional; mother's close friends In Vienna married non-Jews as contradiction; “he's very nice, but he's not Jewish”; illegitimate child--would have been hushed up--a “shanda” for the neighbor--biggest reason for not having sex
• Women in non-traditional roles--didn't know any; would have had admiration for any who made it; Mary McCarthy as role-model; mother not allowed to go to school (business) after 16--admiration for professional education; maybe would have sent Evelyn to University of Prague; mother may feel that it was a waste of life to not be educated
• Woman's movement--never worked after Masters; had baby and never entered mind to work with baby; was miserable; life opened between birth of two children--traveling and furthering husband' s career; Madison--up or out-- return to school against husband's judgement--grad student and TA; disapproval from University Houses neighbors; no guilt--clear that there was no other way; no trouble getting into grad programs and TA-ships--unaware of prejudice--but somewhat less money in Comp Lit, German; professor showed surprise that Evelyn planned to continue to work and teach; commuted to job because of not hired here; late hook-up with women's movement
• Women had to learn norms--dress and manner to succeed in graduate school--internalized; pressures are same but there is groundswell against powers that be, e.g., shown by criticisms of male colleagues
• Languages and comp lit have fair number of women but males still dominate--or women who accept male values
• Change--last place will be Wisconsin
• Yiddish literature--eliminated jobs--anti-semitism or too specialized; Wisconsin--students have been taking courses; now being viewed as more viable, e.g. Columbia program--and valid academically; American youth looking for roots and origins
• I. B. Singer--charming and pleasant, listening and willing to take criticism; 2 days a week--comfortable working with him; Rennebohm writer-in-residence; met him--Evelyn writing dissertation on Yiddish influence on theater and Kafka; Walter Rideout invited them on first day he came; Singer knew actor and wrote story on man in dissertation--“A Friend of Kafka”--Yitzak Levy; public lectures, 1967-68
• Translate--much work--more fun if working with author; Singer--would do first draft with Singer--keep changing--as a process; sometimes uses more than one translator
• Interests--Kafka scholar; women's literature and women in literature; Yiddish literature; translation; teaching--some experimentation
• Convergence of Yiddish in world community and position of women in world