It's...
How should I spell it for you?
My name is Lucien Braugnard. Today is March 28, 1996. I will interview Clary Rosenblom, and we are in Stockholm, Sweden.
Clary, can you give us your first name and letter?
My name is Clary Rosenblom, and my first name is K-L-A-R-E.
Rosenblom, R-O-S-B-O-U. And L, what is it?
Good. Can you give us your girl's name?
My name is Hirsch, H-I-R-C-H.
Your date of birth?
1927, 15th of June.
Your age?
68.
Your birth city?
Pagnola, in Ången.
Can you tell us about when you were little, where you lived, and how you lived?
I remember when I was little, I had a little white dress, and I was five years old.
I remember that we had apple trees, and I was always dressed in white shoes.
And my mother was there, and I climbed into the mud.
I remember that, and my uncle was there at the same time, and he laughed.
How did the house look like?
I don't remember, but it was probably a stone house, with a garden.
I know that we had a lot of fruit trees.
But we moved from Pagnola to Tarpa, where my grandparents lived.
And there I grew up, until 1944.
Can you tell us about...
There we also had a house, with horses. We had a stable, so we had horses.
And even though my dad had bought a cow for my mom, she wanted us to have our own milk.
So we didn't have to go to others, because it wasn't as big as we lived.
It was 5-6 thousand inhabitants, and possibly 25 Jewish families.
It wasn't that small, it wasn't a society, it wasn't a small village.
It was a municipality.
How old were you when you moved from the little house?
This house with the garden? I moved from Pagnola when I was 5 years old.
Can you describe your family when you moved into the house?
We lived in two places in the house I grew up in.
But it was also a house.
I can describe exactly... I had a sister, she was born in 1935.
I remember it so well, because I was given a water cup, so I wasn't allowed to stay at home.
I was allowed to stay with my grandmother.
It was May, 1935.
There we also had fruit trees.
We lived very centrally, always there.
I lived very close to a circus.
There were circuses that walked around here.
I was very happy, because we also had a stable.
The circus people could rent our stable for their horses.
I was always allowed to go to a circus for free.
How many family members were there in your house?
Just us, no one else.
We had two buildings, a winter building and a summer building.
The climate there was very warm.
My father was a merchant.
He had always rented very large fruit trees.
They had packed them for export with paper, fruit and everything.
I was allowed to come with them, I remember that.
I was actually quite a spoiled child.
I didn't want to eat anything.
I always expected to be asked what I wanted.
If I wanted, I said no.
What did your mother do?
She was a housewife.
Sometimes we had an intruder.
We had a boy named Drenk who tried to steal wagons and horses.
Did you have a pet?
Yes, a dog.
What was the name of the dog?
I have a picture of the dog that I will show you later.
I had a child who was very dear to me.
I had grandparents in the same town.
When I started going to school, I knew that I didn't go home in the afternoons.
I went to my grandmother's house because I knew that my mother was there.
Did your parents go to the synagogue?
Yes, my father went to the synagogue every morning when he was home.
He traveled a lot.
He always went to the synagogue every morning when he was home.
We were not very religious, but my great-grandparents were very religious.
My great-grandparents also went to the synagogue every morning and evening.
Which friends and acquaintances did you have in school?
I had many different friends in school.
I had a bestie named Valeria.
She survived and now lives in Canada.
I had many, many friends.
It was not very social.
We were all around each other.
Was it a Jewish school?
No, we didn't have a Jewish school in this town.
We had a reformed school.
I went there, like everyone else.
There were Catholics and Protestants, but not Jews and Catholics.
Only Protestants were there.
But that was the school I went to, like everyone else.
Did you have Jewish and non-Jewish parents?
Yes, we did have Jewish parents.
But my father had many friends who were Christians.
He was very religious.
For example, I had a uncle who survived the war.
When we went to his town, they called for him.
They thought that my father had survived.
How did you know that you were Jewish?
It was very normal for us to be traditional Jews.
We had churches at home.
You know what that is.
I didn't know any Jewish family that didn't have one.
It was very obvious.
Did you celebrate the Jewish holidays?
Yes, a lot, a lot, a lot.
We celebrated them a lot.
My father was very careful when we celebrated.
Did you have...?
When my sister was 35, I was almost 8 years old.
Did you have any painful memories from that time?
No, I didn't just have that I was a bit jealous of my sister.
But it's quite natural to know now.
When I went somewhere, it was so obvious that she would follow me.
As usual.
But I have a very nice memory from 1939.
I was a teenager then.
I had a beautiful memory.
My mom and dad would look at me and say that I was beautiful.
They knew that my family was very important.
My parents were very loving towards the children.
Everything was first for the children, I remember that.
Because the roots, I think the home, are very important.
I also remember that my dad was very, very wonderful.
And my mom too, but she got sick when I was 12 or 13.
I had a brother-in-law after me.
He was six months old when he died.
I don't know why, I don't remember.
But I know that my mom didn't become the person I understand today.
Then you didn't understand it.
He was buried where I was born.
My grandparents lived in the same place where I was born.
So I always went there.
I wanted to go there, because I had cousins there.
I always wanted to be with my grandparents.
So I always went to the cemetery.
To my brother.
I remember that my sister didn't even live there.
There was a lot of love between me and my sister.
Because I was a little mom to her.
I didn't want to play anything and I didn't like the violin.
Everyone wanted to play it.
My sister did it.
What hobbies did you have at that time?
What hobbies? Singing and dancing.
I went to dance school when I was 13.
That was the last year with my dad.
Did you read any books?
Yes, love novels.
Did you have a radio at home?
We had a radio the last years.
But it didn't really work.
I remember that we had it, but it didn't work when the war started.
When did you start to have some problems?
No, I didn't have any.
The only time that I have experienced, two times,
was when I felt that I was different.
One time, someone who came from America said to me,
"What are you doing here, you Jews? Aren't you supposed to go to Palestine?"
I looked at him and wondered if he wasn't really smart.
"Palestine", you know?
It was as if it was so far away that you couldn't go there at that time.
I thought he wasn't really smart.
And then at school, I experienced that I wasn't allowed to write on Saturdays,
because we had a holiday on Shabbat.
But I was allowed to go to school anyway, without writing.
So we listened, because at that time you went to school on Saturdays.
But then they were always waiting for lunch. My dad went to the synagogue on Saturdays.
And it was so strange, because we didn't have food on Saturdays.
So they were always waiting outside.
I remember that so well.
I was supposed to come from school, and they were waiting for me with the Shabbat lunch.
And I came crying, you know.
And some boy spat on me.
And I wasn't used to this place where I lived,
because I had very good friends who were Christians.
So my dad ran after the boy and spat on him.
And he said, "Do you dare to do it one more time?"
They never did it. That's the only memory I have.
And then there was another memory from school that I told you about.
I went to the third grade, and I was actually very, very careful and pedantic.
She always picked me up at school and looked at my nails.
At that time, she looked at my nails to see if they were really washed or not.
So she always picked me up as an example.
But I have made a stain on my notebook with a pen.
And she was probably an anti-Semitic.
So she put the notebook on my back and let me go with two other non-Jews, Jewish children,
around all classes, maybe four, five, I don't know, many classes in that department.
Several floors.
And it took me to follow it all my life, until today.
What was written on the notebook?
Nothing. They just wanted to see how stained my notebook was.
Nothing else.
Because then you didn't know.
What happened next? Did you tell your father?
Yes, I told him at home.
And my father was a very good friend, you know, with the principal and so on.
Not only because I went to school, but also because he was a shopkeeper, so everyone knew him.
So I told him, and my father went up to that teacher and said,
"If you try to show it to her, because I was a student who didn't deserve it,
do it. If my father has said it, then you will have to do it with me."
Because how can an adult carry herself against a child?
She didn't want to make stains on her notebook.
It happened when you wrote with this ink.
So you always had to do it by hand.
And you were terrified. The more terrified you were, the worse it got.
What year was that?
I don't know how old I could have been.
I don't think I would have gone to third grade.
That's what I remember.
And after she was very scared, her two older sisters were not married.
So they also taught the teacher at this reformatory school.
And then she was so scared that it was very important to bring books home to them.
I don't know if you can imagine it.
It was a very important task for the teacher to carry their books home.
They did it just like children.
I think it was also a downgrade.
I can also tell you another episode about a downgrade.
We had a housemaid.
And my mom said that she was allowed to clean dad's shoes.
But not yours.
You were allowed to clean your own shoes.
That's why it's very downgraded if someone never takes someone else's shoes to clean.
I don't know if you have experienced it or heard about it from others.
I don't know.
But I had to clean my own shoes.
I had to clean my own coat.
And you know how it was when I was already 10 years old.
I didn't know how to clean my shoes.
I don't remember when I was a child.
Did you witness any incidents against Jews in the city?
I have witnessed nothing against Jews.
I have witnessed that all religious Jews went to our school at the same time.
They had a lot of children, maybe 8-10 children.
And they were very poor.
And maybe they weren't that good either.
So the housemaid picked them out and let them be humiliated.
She was the only housemaid who followed me all my life.
When did you and your family experience any problems?
When my father went to the military in 1939.
Everything was going in and out.
That's when I started to feel that my childhood had been destroyed.
I remember how we had it.
My uncle was in the military. Everyone was supposed to be in the military.
And since we had a farm and a single house,
they set up military guns at our house.
We didn't know if an airplane was coming.
It was a big event in my life that they set up guns at our house.
When I think about it, I was not more than 8-9 years old.
What was your father's job in the army?
He was a regular soldier.
At that time, you weren't allowed to have Jews.
How long did you live in that house?
When my sister was born, we moved from there.
We lived in that house until 1944.
What happened between 1939 and 1944 in the city that marked you?
It marked me that my father was in the military.
He wasn't able to run his business as well as he used to.
I noticed that.
I had a friend, Valeria, a Vestis, and her father was deaf.
So he couldn't go to the military.
But he didn't do anything either, so they had a very bad economy.
When my father was in the military, other friends were in the military as well.
At that age, many of our acquaintances were young.
My father was not more than 37-39 years old.
He was 40 when we came home.
In the house, you talked about anti-Semitism.
Did you get to know what was happening to other Jews in other countries?
Yes, we heard everything.
But I didn't hear it as a child.
The grown-ups would hear it on the radio, and they would always stand around and discuss it.
Then the news came several times a day.
But I wasn't involved in it.
I remember that my father was often in the military.
Of course, it affected me as an innocent child.
Maybe I didn't get a new coat or shoes until the fall.
So those memories were painful for me.
Because today, just like their fathers, other Jews were sent home.
I remember an episode that is very important in my life.
My father was in the military, and as I told you, every afternoon I went to see my grandmother.
Especially when my father wasn't home, my mother was always there.
So I went to see my grandmother, and she said, "Daddy has come home on leave."
It was a long time ago, but I still have it in front of my eyes.
My grandmother lived on one side of the city, and I lived on the other.
I ran and didn't stop breathing, I ran all the way.
I was so happy that my father came home, because it was the longest time he hadn't been home.
I remember that he had taken a bath, or something like that, while he was in bed.
When I came home, he was tired.
As I understand it today, it was a big day to be in the military.
It was tiring.
I remember so well that I came into the house and couldn't breathe.
I just fell on my father and cried.
I wasn't that old, and I cried.
He comforted me.
My mother had already told me that I couldn't wear a headscarf.
He thought that I was sad.
He said, "You know that Christmas is always around."
"You'll see that I'll be home soon, and then we'll go shopping."
It was a memory of my childhood.
For more UN videos visit: www.un.org/webcast
UN Video - U.S. Embassy in the Philippines