![]() Ask your parents and grandparents whether these stories resonate with their own childhood memories. ![]() We loved California, and were forever grateful to have become American citizens!Īll of this may seem strange to my readers. In 1940, my family bought a home in Beverly Hills, where they remained until they passed away. We were lucky to be living in southern California when Paris fell. We were refugees none of us spoke English. We escaped from Paris on the last ship out of Genoa en route to Ellis Island and America. I was also 13 years old when my mother, father and six year-old brother fled from the Nazis. My mother was a refugee from the communists she was 13 when she and her family escaped from Moscow to Finland and then on to Berlin. My German friend also remembers getting oranges and a stick for Christmas. For Christmas I got a bag of oranges from Palestine and a stick to beat me with when I needed to be punished. I had never been to a synagogue until we moved to America, when I attended a friend’s Bar Mitzvah. By the time I was six, I was fluent in three languages my parents considered me to be educated.Īlthough we were Jewish, my mother sent me to the nearest school, which happened to be a Catholic elementary school run by nuns I was the only Jewish girl. My next governess was a German fraulein who spoke only German, followed by a French mademoiselle who spoke only French. ![]() Every Sunday I went to church with her I still love icons. My parents spoke only Russian at home I also had a Russian wet nurse who was Russian Orthodox. We enjoyed reading books my favorite was Babar, The Elephant. My brother had a little car he could sit in and pedal around. My toys consisted of a doll and a small miniature car. In the summer we vacationed on the beaches of Brittany. I had wooden skis with lace up leather boots. Every winter we stayed at a ski resort in the mountains of Switzerland. All the hotels in France had chamber pots in bedrooms with maybe a bathroom down a hall. We had chamber pots by our beds to use at night. We used a bidet to wash before going to bed. My mother used lemon juice to make my red hair shine. Both of our mothers collected rainwater to rinse our hair to make it soft. We had a bath once a week and our hair was washed once a month. Paris street balconies were strung with clothes flapping in the wind. I was very proud when I grew tall enough to stand on my toes and reach the chain by myself I must have been three or four years old.Ĭlothes were washed in a large tub and then rung out through two wooden rolls with a hand-turned ringer, and then hung out on the balcony to dry. We both remembered the toilets with a large container of water beneath the ceiling and a chain one had to pull to get the water to run into the toilet bowl. Breakfast consisted of a “petit pain” (a soft roll) with jam. ![]() We also had tea at 4 o’clock with a chocolate croissant. We called this afternoon meal “dinner.” The evening meal was called “souper.” This consisted of soup with bread and cheese, and some fruit. Children also came home from school to eat lunch, which was the main meal of the day. Our fathers always came home for lunch and took a nap before going back to work. Both of our mothers would remedy any stomach ailment with grated apples. We also had never heard of peanut butter. We never ate corn on the cobb because corn was only food for pigs. Neither one of us had ever seen a marshmallow before coming to America. We ate calves’ brains with black butter, unknown to our American friends. We were eating root vegetables together, a combination of carrots and turnips, which was a staple in both of our childhood kitchens. We were reminiscing about our European childhoods and the surprising similarities in our upbringing. A few nights ago, I was having dinner with Marianne, a close friend.
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