Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Here. -Just a second.
Wait a second, we'll start everything.
You ready? -I'm rolling.
First of all, Eli, are we okay?
Okay, so...
Do you want to give a presentation?
Truth is, I didn't prepare the slate or anything.
Thank you.
Today, we're filming Zvi Zelniker.
This is our second time filming him.
This time, he's showing us,
we're filming him in the Old City.
He's showing us his place.
May 11th, 5 o'clock.
We're here with Yaron Weinstein, cameraman,
Eli Taragon, soundman,
Zippi Zelniker, his wife
and Alyona Bass, the producer, might join us later.
Zvi, go ahead.
This was actually our playground.
When we came home from school,
this is where we'd play.
There were two trees over there,
two water wells.
We'd pump water from here and take it home.
We didn't have faucets.
There was no water, nothing.
For water, either the Arab, Abu Ali, would bring cans of water
or we'd come here and pump water
with a small bucket.
We'd put a small weight at the edge, so it would fill up
and we'd pull a rope to bring the bucket up.
There was a garden here.
The garden belonged to Beit Rothschild.
This is Beit Rothschild.
On this side,
there was a building
whose entrance was in back.
Tell him to talk to me. -Always talk to me.
Sometimes I turn on purpose to see what you're talking about.
The guard of the field and park in front of Beit Rothschild was here.
He lived here.
Actually, all of these things
are new.
The old ones were destroyed...
so people won't know the heritage of what happened here.
That's what I think. -Who didn't want it known?
The government at the time. Ben Gurion, Teddy Kollek, everyone.
Why didn't they want to preserve it?
Because we were inferior.
The people who lived in Batei Mahse
were inferior residents who didn't go to university,
but only protected the Land of Israel.
That's the only thing we could do.
Wait a second.
Let's walk a bit.
Without talking.
Maybe this way?
He can talk this way, with the kids in the background.
I want to go back to that building, I have something to show you.
Okay, we're in the middle, we stopped because of the sound.
You said you felt that you were inferior.
We were inferior.
We were worthless.
We were supposed to be human shields in the Jewish Quarter
so people would be able to say: "Jews were slaughtered here."
We were supposed to be a symbol, but that didn't happen.
There were bombings, shots and all. People were killed,
but we stood our guard,
as opposed to what the leaders of the time wanted.
They weren't our leaders yet
because the State of Israel and the Knesset came later.
I want to go further up there
to show you the house where we lived.
We'd really like that,
but first I want to hear
a little bit more about this cool playground.
We played here.
There was no paving here, it was all sand and stones.
And here, we'd play tag.
We'd play marbles.
Little pencils, aiming at each other.
Hide and seek, all kinds of games, dodgeball.
Games that kids played back then.
But when we went downstairs to play
we took off our shoes at home so they don't get scuffed,
so we'd have shoes to wear to the Heder the next day.
That was life in this place.
Life was good.
I have no regrets about our lives.
I want to tell you
that there was a little hill here.
This building did not even exist.
There was a hill here and we'd climb it
and fly kites.
We called them Taya'arot.
Back then, we made kites with reeds
and those who didn't have any used a notebook,
a page from a notebook
and we'd fly everything in this direction.
When you walk around here and see what's going on,
what do you think? Look who's playing...
I'll tell you what I see.
I see that we fought here
and we did everything.
I was just a kid, 10, 11 years old,
and I was a signaller and I fought here.
I ran with the fighters, I'll show you the way.
And suddenly, I see different people,
people who did not help when we needed them.
Suddenly, when our guys
went in and conquered,
they were the heroes who conquered this place,
and every corner here was taken over.
And you can see, then you can see it clearly.
We continued to send our children
and grandchildren to the army
and when I come here, I find it hard to believe
because we are not repaid what is due to us.
We are not repaid.
It's... but I...
Something that I do want to say
is that I love my country
and nobody will take it away from me.
I will do anything to be in this country
along with my children and my grandchildren.
They are the next generation.
We love this country.
Leaders are a different story, they're not the country.
But the country? We love it.
So are you angry at these children?
What? -Are you mad at these children?
No, I love them.
I played with these children.
I'm not an enemy.
But I am mad at those who did not come to help
when there was someone injured at the post
and who did not help to evacuate him
and I, as a little kid,
would support him on my shoulder and walk with him.
I'll show you the hospital down there.
It's not a hospital, it's a room
with no operating room, no X-ray, nothing.
You'll show us.
Come, let's go on to...
Should I shoot him walking here a bit?
Yes, before he goes, don't forget,
he mentioned that there used to be a hill here.
There was a hill here.
We'd just like to get that shot
of where he played with kites.
All of this didn't exist.
Do you want him walking here without sound?
Yes, that's possible.
Walk here and look around. No talking.
Study the area.
I feel like crying.
It's become so small.
It used to be so big and impressive. Suddenly...
everything shrinks.
Maybe it changes with age, but...
it was a great here.
We'll go up there and I'll show you the gates.
You'll see.
There was a building here.
One floor.
Wait, you're too much in the shade.
Okay, better? -Yes.
I think there were three tenants who lived here.
There was a fence here
and it was all destroyed.
I'm sorry, what did you say?
I said that this building here was razed
and when we vacated the area,
and I'm sure it existed when it was conquered,
it was torn down in order to create this area.
You travel abroad
and you see people preserving every corner.
Here, every corner that could be preserved, was destroyed.
It hurts.
We'll go upstairs, to the house.
We've had enough of that, haven't we?
There was another house here.
This was actually the office
that bought this place.
It was called the "Committee".
It was an office with a clerk who sat here for two hours a day,
but actually, I'll show you,
my grandfather
was among the people who bought this place,
this lot.
We have a receipt for the payment
with my grandfather's signature.
It was signed and executed at the Austrian consulate.
I'll show you the document and you'll see
that this entire place is actually ours.
But it was taken from us.
We'll go down, we'll go up to my house for a minute.
The house that will always be mine.
This was a synagogue.
A small synagogue.
I don't remember its exact name.
But I remember that at Purim,
people would get really drunk here
and they'd give the kids cigarettes
so they'd feel like adults.
How old were you when you smoked on Purim?
I was 8 or so.
But I was actually downstairs,
that was my Heder.
I went there since I was 3.
But here, I see that they destroyed the stairs.
Perhaps we can go in from downstairs.
Because there were steps. We'll go down from here.
And now,
I'll tell you the story of this place.
We lived up here
but when the war started, or the bombing,
the war started long before the State was declared.
But when we were being bombed
for over two straight weeks, really straight,
it was like a barrage of rockets. They wanted to crush us
so they'd just waltz in.
There was a bomb shelter down here.
There was a storage room here.
This is where we'd store the planks of wood for Succot.
It was filthy
but they set it up for us (as a shelter).
Down there, where you see that plant,
that was a temporary hospital
after Misgav LaDach was vacated.
I mean, two weeks
prior to the surrender
it was vacated and there, where the plants are,
was a hospital.
Here, we go downstairs.
No, there was a well here, where you see...
that column? That was a well.
This was a little shack
and there was a signaller here
who'd communicate to the New City by telegraph.
I think her name was Yona,
as far as I remember.
One day before the surrender,
I was injured here.
A shell fell right here.
A shell fell here
and there was a woman next to me
who was completely crushed.
I flew this way, against this wall
and I stayed down, I couldn't get up
but I knew that I wouldn't be evacuated,
that there'd be no one to take me.
That's why I told you how annoyed I was
with people who stayed
in their houses and didn't come out to help.
Suddenly, after the surrender, everyone ran outside.
It was unbelievable how many people there were.
I crawled out from this place,
over the woman's body,
all the way to the hospital here.
I crawled down the steps
and they put a bandage wherever there was blood.
From here,
they took us up
and I want to tell you,
the man who lived here,
I don't remember his name, but he was a wine seller.
I'll show you his shop.
He was a deaf mute.
He was injured that day
and half of his bottom flew off.
He came into the hospital
and he couldn't cry, couldn't scream, nothing.
You can't imagine a man living
in such a situation.
He died, but...
Here, there were little shacks that were actually the kitchen.
There was no kitchen in these rooms.
Here, each house
had a little shack with a tin or tile roof,
depending on the means.
That's what it looked like the whole length of the building.
There were shacks upstairs too.
I'll show you what it was like.
We, after the war,
even during the war,
we couldn't live in our house.
We lived behind this door.
In this place.
What do I mean, lived?
My mother and a younger brother Gadi.
We weren't home.
I can't tell you
that I was home for even one minute.
I was outdoors all the time.
I'll show you the headquarters.
The place,
the route that we'd...
I led the fighters until Misgav LaDach Hospital.
Now, everything is locked up,
but I'll tell you what I can.
Zvi, I know that this story,
I can't even imagine how much it hurts.
But I have to go back
and talk about your lives. -Okay.
We don't know anything about Batei Mahse.
So first of all, can you tell us
where we are? Begin with where we are.
What house did you come from? What was your grandfather like?
We lived up here.
My grandfather lived in one of the rooms down here.
I'd go to the Heder,
down the steps.
There are steps that lead outside,
there was a small synagogue there
and a mikve too.
That's where I went to the Heder.
My rabbi's name was Reb Binyamin.
Rabbi Binyamin, Benyumin in Yiddish.
This is where I learned the Aleph Bet.
The Aleph Bet
was actually a cardboard sheet with the alphabet
and the vowels on it.
We didn't have a notebook or anything like that.
We didn't learn how to write.
We just learned how to say "Kametz Aleph Oh", "Kamatz Bet Bo"
we'd chant it a long with the Melamed
and that's how we learned the Aleph Bet.
Also, downstairs in the synagogue
there were youth studies.
Youth studies were provided by...
I remember Israel Lippel
who lived up here, I'll show you the house.
He was responsible, he organized the activity.
He organized the whole thing
and we later learned the Humash (Bible)
(We said:Genesis, and then translated into Yiddish. "Genesis..."
everything was in Yiddish
and whoever yelled louder
got a note: Excellent, very good, he'd give out...
and then we'd get prizes, some candy or something.
Zvi, what is Batei Mahse?
Explain to us where we are.
Look, Batei Mahse is a place
where Jews who came here and collected donations
and bought the land,
they let people who were poor live here.
That's how Batei Mahse came to be.
We didn't call this place Batei Mahse.
We called it: "Der Deutscher Platz."
This was the German Kollel,
actually Austrian, but Germans were just the same.
So how did you become the owners
if it was part of a Kollel (community organization)?
Look, the houses were handed out here
and part of my great-grandfather's job
was to organize charities.
It wasn't about people who wanted to get rich
or to establish their wealth.
It wasn't the same story
as you can see in Neve Sha'ananim
and all of those people.
We weren't the settlers,
we settled here to protect the land,
to defend the Holy Land and the Kotel.
That was one of the things.
Now, we actually...
Wait, excuse me. That's me.
From here,
we'd go on Shabbat.
On Shabbat, we'd go pray at...
We'll stop...
We'd go to school,
to the Hurva Synagogue, There was a Habad house there.
It was a Habad synagogue.
The shamash [caretaker] there was Israel De Milchiker,
the milkman.
He used to sell milk.
His story with the milk was that he'd carry
these jugs, he'd carry two jugs
and he'd stand in one place
and yell: "Ladies, milk, milk, milk."
And everyone would come out with a container
and ask for half a liter, a quarter of a liter.
It was a marked container.
But when he saw that there was too great a demand,
he'd step aside
and add some water to the milk.
But actually... everyone knew. How did we know?
There were no refrigerators,
nothing to cool the food.
So women cooked every day.
Now, in order for the milk not to go bad,
we'd boil it.
We'd light the Primus and heat it up.
But when there was no cream on top,
we knew that there was too much water.
That's part of our folklore.
Now...
Here, in this lot that I showed you earlier,
we'd celebrate Lag Ba'Omer, burning down Haman.
Burning water? -Haman, Haman, evil Haman.
We'd build a tower made of wood
and we'd go collect kerosene.
How did we light the fire? With a bit of kerosene.
Now, kerosene was expensive. People didn't have enough,
so we'd take our container from door to door
and every neighbor would pour in a drop of kerosene
until we had enough to light the fire.
In Purim, we'd get dressed up.
All kinds of characters... But we gave Mishloach Manot.
Mishloach Manot were taken from house to house.
Everyone gave them to everyone.
Everyone liked each other.
So describe that to me.
We'd go from house to house, all dressed up
with our eyes covered
and we'd ask
We'd gesture like this...
each neighbor gave one mil, half a mil, there were all kinds.
That was Purim.
People got drunk here at the synagogue.
It was... everyone drank.
And what did you do with... you said Mishloach Manot,
but you said that you got money, what kind of Mishloach Manot is that?
We didn't take money. -So?
My father went to work at Bikkur Holim Hospital.
People didn't get money here.
The money sent by the American Jews
was taken by the Jewish Agency and given to residents outside the city.
Wait, I'm talking about Purim. Just Purim.
Who did you...
I want you to describe the Mishloach Manot custom.
Everyone made Mishloach Manot,
baked Hamantaschen, the pastry,
it wasn't too rich.
But there were lots.
Why don't you show us the house? -I'll show you the house.
Wait, Zvi, let's pass him, we'll wait upstairs.
Can he? Can he? -Yes.
Zvi, come on.
Don't look at us. Don't look at us.
Was that okay? -Let me see.
This is where Israel Lippel lived.
Right here.
This is where the office was.
We'd walk through there.
But they tore it down, it's a shame.
Now, each house had a shack.
And this is where our neighbor Leah lived, Leike.
She worked for the police, as far as I can remember.
All of this was changed a bit...
but let's see if we can go in.
No.
It wasn't sealed like this before. -What was it like?
There was a shack here
and it was just a small door. That's it.
The kitchen was actually outside.
And what was there in the kitchen?
Here, you see?
This is the house that we lived in.
I'll show you a picture that I have out here.
We lived here, eight children.
It's open, this is the house we lived in.
This is it. There were eight children here
and another three orphans
from a family in Haifa
whose mother died in childbirth.
One day, he saw my father and told him.
So my father said: "Come live with us."
So they moved in with us
and the children grew up with us.
My parents' bed was here.
Unbelievable.
You see the size...
I remember that we had a small cabinet here,
this was a corner
and once a month we'd buy half a sack
of beans and flour.
If we had beans and flour and half a tin of olive oil...
no, no, no.
I'm sorry, we're shooting. Just a second.
I'm sorry, I didn't see.
Just a few more minutes.
If we had half a tin of olive oil
it was divine,
Mother would bake bread.
What did we eat? Bread and oil.
If there was a slightly bruised tomato
that we got for cheap,
then Father would bring it and Mother would make delicacies.
Look, it all looks so small today,
but this was the house.
My parents' bed was here.
There were seven of us, plus them, ten, and our parents,
and we had mats here
and we slept on the floor.
From here, you can see Kfar HaShiloah.
What an amazing view.
Let's see if... can you see it?
You can see the wall, Kfar HaShiloah,
down there...
This house, when the war started,
there was a post here. We gave over the house,
there were sacks of sand and snipers would shoot the Arabs.
Wait, we hear the music.
Look at the view.
What would've happened if they'd given...
Just a second.
Let's do that sentence again.
Please.
Where was your parents' bed?
Here, right here. -Tell us.
My parents' bed was here
and we'd take all of the mats and pile them here.
A few years before the surrender,
my parents built a little partition here,
they had a partition and...
Our story about the British,
I told it at... when there was curfew
and the British came searching and arrested my two brothers,
taking them from the house and out to the lot
that I showed you downstairs, to Batei Mahse.
When they came in, I was with my mother
and they came to search for weapons in the house.
We had weapons in the house.
We had a rifle.
And they started touching our stuff,
so my mother said: "I'll turn it over,"
so the one officer said to the other:
"Forget it, why should we touch those dirty Jews' blankets?
"Let her do it, it probably infested with fleas."
So she turned the blankets over, together with the rifle
and we were saved.
My brothers were downstairs.
If they'd have caught the rifle,
they'd probably be sentenced to death for it.
But when we stood here, there was a shot.
One of the British accidently discharged a bullet
and my mother, afraid that they were shooting her children,
I remember that she broke a tooth.
She had a broken tooth
and there was no money to fix it.
Now I'll tell you about Passover.
That's very interesting.
On Passover, we'd go out here,
take everything out of the house.
The mattresses were straw mattresses
and there were only two small beds,
those belonging to my parents.
After all, we were traditional, no double beds.
But how do you clean the bed for Passover?
The mattresses had fleas,
there's no way to avoid them
because the mattress was straw and straw attracts fleas.
We'd take the mattresses out and beat them out.
The entire neighborhood stood here. Everyone, for Passover.
The entire courtyard, I'll show you.
It was amazing.
There were metal strips in the bed and springs at the end.
They'd collect between the springs.
My father had a blacksmith's Primus
because my father also worked as a blacksmith.
He did anything that could bring in some money.
So we'd light the Primus,
heat the spring, to...
to burn anything that walked there.
That's how the place was prepared for Passover.
The flooring was, of course, Hebron marble.
Not marble, stone, textured,
but it was always clean, tidy.
How did your mother clean here?
Look, I had four sisters.
We'd get water from the cistern,
take some laundry soda,
some soap and we'd brush the floor.
But - it glowed!
Even though it was small, it was clean and tidy.
The ceiling in our house was hit by a rocket.
Be careful...
The rocket ruined the ceiling.
But by then, we already lived downstairs
because it was wartime
and this was actually a post.
How many arms were there? Maybe one British rifle
with five bullets, that's what we had.
The Sten gun didn't even get to Kfar HaShiloah.
We'd sit here, friends would come over,
from HaNoar HaOved,
on Shabbat. -Where did the friends sit?
On Shabbat, when my father was at the synagogue,
the table was set.
What do I mean?
Perhaps soup and a chicken wing or a drumstick.
That's what Mother used to make soup from.
Show me, we're in the house. Try to show me what Shabbat was like.
Look, we're outside,
outside there was a balcony.
All of our life was outside.
When friends came over, they'd place a table.
It was crowded anyway, there were no chairs.
There was a bench, a wooden bench.
It was already smooth because every Passover
it was cleaned to make it kosher.
We'd scrub it with a stone so there'd be no hametz.
So where was the table? Show me.
Right along here. This was where the table was.
Because there was no furniture.
There was no furniture in the house.
There was a small cabinet in this corner, no more.
Where was the table? -Right here
and we had a table outside.
But here, when my brothers' friends came by,
on Shabbat,
we'd all sit around the table
and my father would bless, make the Kiddush, yes.
And we ate what there was.
He'd give out bread to everyone.
He'd distribute the bread by size, to each one of us.
I got mine among the last because I was young.
But he'd give out bread, say the blessing
with some salt and... we ate what we had.
Some fried eggplant or something like that.
My mother knew how to make something good out of anything.
Even now, when I try to cook,
I can't come close to my mother's flavors.
But we'd sit around
and sing Shabbat hymns.
The entire neighborhood heard us
and we sang
songs of the Etzel. -At home.
We weren't scared because everyone,
and you saw that we talked to the guy
and he said: "Everyone knew we were Etzel."
People were always snitching on my brothers.
Actually, the story about my brothers,
they were taken to Latrun.
They were in jail.
The British took them to Latrun.
My sister was caught with posters
so she was held
at the Police Academy in Sheikh Jarrah.
She ended up there
and she was sentenced to prison.
But then the State was declared and they had to release her.
Zvi, you said that you sang Etzel songs at home.
Wasn't your family from the Old Settlement?
Weren't what?
Your family, where are they from?
This is it:
My great-grandfather came here from Austria.
I believe that the purchase was in 1859 or so.
He was a rabbinical judge in Berlin,
and he came here.
My grandfather was born in the Old City.
Were they religious? -And my father,
all of his brothers,
were born here in the Old City.
Was your family religious?
Look, my grandfather was, but he didn't wear black.
If I show you a picture, you'll see,
he was a handsome man, well-groomed.
They came from Germany and Austria,
they were well-groomed.
My grandfather was very scholarly.
He learned by himself.
He wrote a calendar for 400 years,
he wrote books.
My grandfather opened the first school for girls,
a crafts school in Jerusalem.
People talk about others
but they don't mention the things
that the first Zionists began.
Did you have sidelocks as a child?
Until I was... -Wait, wait.
Until I was... -Wait, wait.
Now.
I had sidelocks until I was about 8.
So wasn't your family considered Old Yishuv?
Yes, Old Yishuv, right.
So what were you?
We were people of charity.
I mean, look,
my father wasn't Haredi.
He was a hazan. He was a rabbi.
But he didn't preach to people,
he never reprimanded people.
My brothers' friends came without a hat,
so there was no hat. They were respected.
When they sat to eat, they'd wear a kippa (headcovering),
out of respect for my father.
That's the way it was.
After dinner, after the songs,
we'd get up and dance too.
I mean, we danced the Horah.
Look, everyone was Haredi.
For us, the Horah was...
We'd already crossed the line in that aspect.
But no one noticed.
That's what I'm asking.
Because there's some idea,
I know what I learned,
that the Old Yishuv was not part of the Etzel, Hagana or anything.
What do you say to that?
Look, the Old Yishuv ran the country,
until the New Establishment came along.
If you take a look,
the Jordanians invested over two weeks of shelling
to conquer this place.
They could've been bombing Jaffa St. during that time.
We stopped them.
With our lives, with our bodies.
That's the Old Yishuv.
And to preserve this place
and acquire this land,
where would we be today if they hadn't done that?
Tell me about the songs and the Horah that you danced.
Look, we'd sing,
my father came with Shabbat songs,
and I...
We'd sing:(verses from the Prophets) "(Israel) followed Me"
You know, my father had a wonderful voice.
He was a cantor, he'd go to the Kotel
and when he'd get a minyan, he didn't need anything else.
When everyone saw Reb Alexander,
they'd all stand up because you didn't need a siddur with him.
He prayed perfectly, word for word.
It wasn't just reciting and that's it.
Whoever wanted to listen to prayer,
not a dragged-out ceremony, but a real prayer service,
would come to my father's minyan. -And at home?
At home, my father went to work and came back.
Listen...
Can you wait another 3 minutes?
This was our house before 1948.
3 minutes? We thank you.
Look, in this house...
You're asking about my father, so I'll tell you.
We had a niche here to help the residents.
It's a memorial for my father, my grandfather.
So here, in one of the corners,
we had the small balcony that I told you about,
there was a cupboard, a thermometer,
an enema, which is this device with a tap.
Do you want to show us outside?
Yes, I'll show you the place. -But before we do that,
let's turn to the... before you...
No, I just want you to show us where it was
and how people walked up to it,
but in the house. Where were, you had...
ten children?
Where did all of the kids put their things?
In the corner, on the windowsill.
What did you put there?
How many clothes did we have?
When you ask that,
it's not the same as today,
where kids have 10 pairs of pants.
I had one pair of pants for Shabbat
and one pair for school.
If they tore, they were sewed.
And if there was a hole in our socks,
they were darned.
That's it. How many socks do you think we hand?
Shoes, we each had one pair
and we'd shine them a bit for Shabbat, that's all.
Where did you do the laundry?
I'll show you. Outside. -Wait, before we...
I want you to stay here, Zippi and I will leave
and you can do some visuals, we'll leave.
Just to give you some room,
to see upstairs, downstairs..
Whatever you want to do.
Have you been here since then?
Yes, I have.
I come to check my pain.
Were you here with your children?
I was here with my children, with friends.
I cannot resist talking about the past here,
about what they did to us,
eventually.
After all, what is it?
Zvi, show us the corner for helping the residents.
There was a small shack here, up to here
and this was the kitchen.
The kitchen didn't include a gas range.
It was a place
with a tabun oven
on which we'd place the cholent on Shabbat.
Now...
we didn't have a toilet in the house.
I remember that my brother Hayyim, who was a POW,
he had a bed out here.
It was like a sofa.
When he came around, this is where he'd sleep.
We'd sleep...
He was the eldest so this was his place.
Now the outhouse, there was no toilet and no tap.
We had a jug here.
We'd pump water from the cistern,
we'd strain it with a white sheet or something,
but we always saw worms
and things that kids wouldn't touch today.
Today you say "it's gone bad" and no one touches it.
We'd rinse the rag
and use it again.
Right here, in this spot, there was a bucket,
a tin bucket.
As children,
we woke up in the middle of the night to pee
so we'd pee in the bucket.
In the morning, my father would take it.
I'll show you where the outhouse was here.
All night you heard people using the outhouse,
pshhh...
constant noise.
In the morning, all of the neighbors came out with their buckets
to pour... into the toilet.
We'd see people carrying buckets all the way to the toilet.
I'll show you the rest of the...
Here,
there was a small barrel
and a Primus
and this is where we'd boil the laundry.
And Leike and Rochel stood here, and Sa'ada who lived here
and together
they did the laundry with a big bar of soap.
They had to get water to rinse the laundry
and sometimes it would drip
so the neighbor would yell: "It's dripping on me..."
There was no real place for hanging laundry.
So in the yard, each neighbor had a line.
There were these poles here,
we'd pull them and hang the laundry
so that it wouldn't touch the floor.
We each had a piece of wood to lift it up.
That's how we did laundry.
We didn't use laundromats at all.
What was your job at home?
I'd help my mother prepare for Shabbat.
I'd help her grind the fish, if there was any,
I'd help her grind the meat and make patties
made of meat and a lot of bread.
It was good.
My brother Yossef, who was killed in the war,
would help my mother with the frying.
We each had our own job.
Zvi, where was this aid cabinet?
I want you to show me.
Now here... There was a small cabinet,
in this wall, there was a small nook.
And here, there was an old cabinet.
It had a bedpan, thermometer and an enema,
things that... some pill,
when someone was constipated,
there was a pill called Ex-Lax.
But what I can tell you is...
Wait, did it belong to the family?
To Father, it was our purchase.
It wasn't a contribution.
There were many cases when an older woman would come by
and tell us that her husband is in bed, constipated
and that he needs something if we can help.
Father would go out with the bedpan, I'd go with him.
Believe me, if you tell this to a child today,
helping an old man with bed sores...
I couldn't tell my father
that I was repulsed by it.
I never said it.
It was always a mitzvah.
That's what we did.
Did you ever think
that you were giving things to others
while you didn't have enough food at home?
Look, I never thought that
because no one ever complained.
When there was bread at home, we thanked God.
I'll tell you a story that happened to my father.
My father, while searching for jobs
to support the family,
he worked at Bikkur Holim Hospital.
Outside of the walls.
He treated a man at night
and the family gave him some money for two nights.
He walked on the street
and met Isrulik, an old man.
He asked: "Isrulik, why are you sad?"
He said: "I have nothing to eat."
There was no welfare.
No Jewish Agency, nothing.
There were people who took the money to themselves.
So my father decided
to take half of his wages,
which was nothing... and give it to him.
He said: "If you have, I will have. Go."
He smiled.
And he came home
and Mother was expecting to be able to buy something.
So he told her the story.
She wasn't mad at him.
She said: "You know what? If he has, we'll have too."
Now I'll tell you...
Before we go on to something else...