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Josef Herman Interviewed by Paul Thompson: Full Transcript of the Interview

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Josef Herman Interviewed by Paul Thompson: Full Transcript of the Interview NATIONAL LIFE STORIES ARTISTS’ LIVES Josef Herman Interviewed by Paul Thompson C466/04 This transcript is copyright of the British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] This transcript is accessible via the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings website. Visit http://sounds.bl.uk for further information about the interview. © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk IMPORTANT Access to this interview and transcript is for private research only. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators ( [email protected] ) © The British Library Board The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Sound Archive catalogue Digitised from cassette originals Ref no: C466/04/01-07 Collection title: Artists’ Lives Interviewee’s surname: Herman Title: Mr Interviewee’s forename: Josef Sex: Male Occupation: Date and place of birth: 01.03.1911 Dates of recording: 04.25.1991, 05.02.1991, 05.16.1991 Location of interview: interviewee's home Name of interviewer: Paul Thompson Type of recorder: Sony Professional Recording format: D60 Cassette F numbers of playback cassettes: F1411-1417 Total no. of digitised tracks: 14 Mono or stereo: Stereo Total Duration: Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: full clearance given Interviewer’s comments: © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Josef Herman Page 1 C466/04/01 [F1411] Side A F1411 side A The best point of starting might be about your family background. I mean perhaps we could start by talking about the oldest people in the family that you remember. Well unfortunately there were very few of the oldest people that I could remember from childhood. There was only my great-grandfather, an oldish Jew who arrived one day, nobody recognised him when he declared himself to be our great-grandfather, my mother's grandfather. And he was a lovely, a lovely old man you know. Though my mother knew nothing about him, she took him in, and he stayed with us. And the best I remember of him was an old old man who kept to children, closer to children than to adults. And practically twice or three times a week he would take me to the old Jewish cemetery; there he would sit, and he would become a bit philosophic about his life. He would say, `You know that [inaud] at the end I don't know what it was all about.' And I thought from a half literate person [inaud] a very profound observation, because we all [inaud] sooner or later. But he was an illiterate old man, you know, but a lovable, a lovable character, and the most moving thing which remained with me forever is his death. He used to go late afternoon to bed for a nap, and I would have said about four or five, and my mother sent me in to see how Great- grandfather was getting on because he should have been up. And I went in, touched him, no good[??]. And then, he used to have very red cheeks, a lovely kindish face with a beard, you know, and his face was completely white. So I was frightened, and ran back to my mother and told her this, and she came in. She said, `You go out, you go out, he's dead.' And this is the first time that I actually witnessed a death as[??] it should happen, terribly[??] you know. Because only a few weeks[??] [inaud] the life. [inaud], what is it? What has happened to him? And was there a Shivah after that then? Oh yes, there was the usual ceremonial bits about him, but I didn't take part in those things, because [inaud] they were overcrowded, family in one room, so children [inaud]. Really? So they were pushed out, at Shivah we were pushed out. But other festivities[??] we used to come and say prayers you know, etcetera, but we didn't take part in... And this is my greatest memory of this old man [inaud]. And what work had he done before then? © The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk Josef Herman Page 2 C466/04/01 [F1411] Side A Quite frankly I don't know, because he never lived with us, he as far away. He only arrived one day and declared himself [inaud], he had no money whatever. And, I mean your mother had been out of contact with him because he lived in a different town then, or...? Oh yes. Yes, you know, but it's an extraordinary thing, that Jewish families live very close together, but the ones who went away, they're away, you know. If you may not have seen them, you may not have seen them for years, but when they arrived and they declared themselves as your family, so they are your family, expecting...just taken for granted. Nobody questions, and nobody asks for documents or what, you know. In fact, he wasn't an influence on me, but it was a profound experience, you know, and my first meeting with death. Of course the later deaths are much more objective, because people die, and funerals, and I saw them, you know, but this one was very near; it was the first face which turned from red to white. How old were you then? About twelve or thirteen. So this was the first [inaud]. In fact I can't say much more, I can't say much more about him except that there was a close attachment, because I always feel he has hung[??] around me, when I went down to this old Jewish cemetery [inaud], you know. And it's a very funny thing, that even today I am not frightened of cemeteries, you know, no fear whatever. What I have begun to look later is at the various types of monoliths. The rich have very ostentatious ones, the poor have very low stones, and the poorest were buried somewhere near the...at the very end, near the wall you know, no money at all. I remember one day my grandmother took me out to the cemetery there, and she lay down and cried [inaud] her heart out [inaud] grieves and this. And [inaud] she know who was buried there, there was no sign whatever! Perhaps she didn't know, but she had to weep for somebody and she imagined that this is the place, this close relative of hers, and just prayed. This was your mother's mother. Yes. Who was called...? Feigold[ph]. © The British Library Board Josef Herman Page 3 C466/04/01 [F1411] Side A Feigold[ph], yes. Yes, so can you tell me more about her? Well she was a great...she was a very great kind of, a very strong-built woman, and as I described it in `Related Twilights', she was fascinated by gold [inaud]. She had none, she had nothing, but a gold watch was for her a supreme spectacle of visions! And my father you know...and she spent her days [inaud]. More than my mother, my mother didn't...my mother had had a very tragic love affair with a revolutionary [inaud], you know, and she never heard of him, but she was as a girl very much in love. She just waited for him to to come back, she was absolutely certain that he would come back. On every occasion she tells [inaud], you know. And waited for him, but he never came back, [inaud]. And she was forced by my grandmother to marry this man with the golden watch. Your father? Yes. You see, my father was [inaud]. Of recent I have better memories of him than I had some years ago, you know; because, it is very unfair, I told[??] myself very unfair to him in my `Related Twilights', I was very unfair, to abuse it you know, and to bring out only the negative side of his vulgarity, you know, [inaud]. They were true, but there was also another side to him, a very very caring side you see. And you must remember that the days of which I speak, the Twenties, were days of severe unemployment, and particularly the coming of Bata, the Czech term of making goods, had completely destroyed thousands of lives of poor little [inaud] you know. And you could see them walking around the street with little boxes [inaud], fighting over you to repair things on the spot, you know. And my father was very clumsy in these fights[??], because he usually gave in, you know. So he began to sell vegetables. Get out to the market about four o'clock in the morning, buy some vegetables, and then carry them from house to house in the better areas, sell them and come back with some bit of profit. He was a very very caring man, you know. This was after the shoe business? Oh yes. Didn't he have a factory at one point? No, he started, he started that; he had become very wealthy, he was the part-owner of a company, and being illiterate, I think he was one day [inaud] over by his partner Friedman, a document to sign, and all he had to do was make three crosses because he couldn't write, and © The British Library Board Josef Herman Page 4 C466/04/01 [F1411] Side A these three crosses, with these three crosses he signed off his part of the ownership.
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