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Frieda Belinfante May 31, 1994 RG-50.030*0019 PREFACE

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Frieda Belinfante May 31, 1994 RG-50.030*0019 PREFACE United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Interview with Frieda Belinfante May 31, 1994 RG-50.030*0019 PREFACE The following oral history testimony is the result of a videotaped interview with Frieda Belinfante, conducted by Klaus Müller on May 31, 1994 on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The interview took place in Santa Fe, NM and is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Rights to the interview are held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The interview may not be used for commercial or non- educational use without the express written permission of the interviewee or the executors of her estate. The reader should bear in mind that this is a verbatim transcript of spoken, rather than written prose. This transcript has been neither checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy, and therefore, it is possible that there are errors. As a result, nothing should be quoted or used from this transcript without first checking it against the taped interview. FRIEDA BELINFANTE May 31, 1994 Q: Would you tell us who you are, and where you come from, and where you were born? A: Do you want me to start? Q: Yes. A: Well, I was born in Amsterdam in a house that I don't remember because we didn't stay there very long. The house that I remember is the second house where we lived and that was on the __________ in Amsterdam. I am the third child in a group of four that were born to my father and my mother. Later on, I learned that I had a half brother, but I didn't know that when I grew up in the early days. I am number three. My oldest sister was named Dorthea. We called her Dolly. The second sister was Renee, and the third girl was I. I was told that I was in a hurry to be born. The fourth child, fortunately for my mother, was a boy. She had hoped for a boy when I was coming, but it didn't work out. I have a lot of qualities that could have been a boy, but I was a girl. The last child was named Robert Paul. I have only one name. Renee has only one name and Dolly has only one name, but my mother had two names for her favorite boy that was finally born. After that, no more children. I would like to talk about my parents first, because the family was quite an unusual family in a sense. My father was the oldest of a family of ten and my mother was the youngest of a family of about nine or ten. I don't even know. We had too many uncles and aunts to know much about them. But I know my parents pretty well. My father was destined to be a doctor by one of his uncles. I think the only rich uncle he had, and the uncle was going to pay for medical studies, so he was asked what he wanted to be, but he had to start medical studies, and he did. But when he was in the middle of it, he became, what we called in Holland, a major when you're 21. Then you could find for yourself what you wanted to be. He decided he was not going to be a doctor. He decided he was going to be a musician, which fit his nature, I think, very well, because he was very vain. He liked to show off. He liked to be admired, and he was admired in his life. Q: He was a musician; what instrument did he play? A: He studied the piano, and he was poor as poor can be because the uncle immediately withdrew his support because he had not followed his medical studies. When my mother grew up, she being the youngest, she was the last to get married and she was also a very beautiful woman. I think the reason they both married didn't promise happiness. I think it was to be expected, but I discovered later that they were not really happy with each other. Q: Why was it expected that they were going to marry? A: Well, because I think the motives were wrong. I don't think that they had the right idea about why they married. As I said, my mother was a beautiful woman, and she had several USHMM Archives RG-50.030*0019 2 boyfriends. She was not in love with my father. She didn't really meet him long enough, but there is another member of the family that I have to mention, and that was my favorite aunt. My mother's only unmarried sister. Her name was Aunt Wannett. We called her "Tante", which is Aunt, Nett, Tante Nett. She was a wonderful character, and she was a member of our family because she didn't have one of her own. She lived with my grandmother because she did not have a family, but she had adopted our family as her family. The reason why is that in those days a girl didn't find a husband fast enough, they would have to find an occupation, because they had to make money. They had to earn a living. So, what she did is she took piano lessons from my father when he was a piano teacher, and became very much in love with him, but he didn't with her, because she was not as beautiful as my mother. Probably the reason she wasn't married was because she was the least beautiful of the family. So, there was this unmarried aunt which I thought was a wonderful person. I was closer to her than I think I ever was to my mother. Q: When was she born? A: She was one of the older sisters. I don't know in a family of ten exactly where she fit, because I was rather neglectful of the rest of my aunts and uncles, having about 20 of them, it is hard to keep up. Q: Are both of your families, your father's family and your mother's family come from Amsterdam? A: Yes, they did. My father's family was full Jewish, and my mother's family was full Gentile. Actually, neither one was educated with religion forcefully. So, the families had no contact. The grandfathers and the grandmothers didn't have any. I never knew my grandfather from mother's side, but I knew my grandfather and grandmother from father's side. In the early days, my father and I would go there for dinner on Friday nights. The Jews were more or less of _________ dinner on Friday nights. So, but that's early memories, and I don't remember much of that. Q: How were you raised, more Jewish or more Christian or not religious at all? A: The marriage? Q: No. How were you raised, more Jewish or Christian? A: That comes next. We were raised without any particular religion. My mother had gone to church when she was a girl, but there was no church in our life designated to be ours. When I asked my father about religion, he said something about it, which I thought was very wise. He said, "There are lots of religions in the world, and you can read up on it. There is the Koran, there is the Jewish religion, and there is the Catholic religion and the Far East religion. When you grow up you will read what there is in the world, and if there is USHMM Archives RG-50.030*0019 3 something that appeals to you that you feel that you can believe in." In other words, he didn't impose anything, which I have appreciated all my life. He left that to our judgment, and I happen to haven't felt the need for a church. I thought the sky and whatever I don't see and whatever I don't know, I try to formulate it. So, I have no religion. Q: But, did you know when you were a child about Jewish culture or about Christian culture, or was there nothing --? A: Oh, yes, I read up gradually, because when I went to school and met other children and found out that really in Holland one was Catholic or Protestant or Jewish. Q: Which school did you go? A: I went to the __________ School. I went to -- the school situation was funny. All of the Belinfantes had children and my parents of course, too, were very brilliant students. You had to be the first in the class when you are a Belinfante because that was easy. Learning was easy for all four of us. I didn't do very much my best and neither did my older sister, but we got by with what time we spent to learn. I was very naughty. Q: In what sense, naughty? A: Oh, I was very hard to be disciplined because I knew -- the pace of learning was so slow, because you had to have the average possibility of the children and I did terrible learning. My sister has a memory, it's fantastic. I called her a bookshelf, because whatever she read, she knew. So, she never had to learn. I did have to learn, but I didn't always do it. I was usually distracted with other things. I was always interested in my school mates, and I got bored with the Temple that we learned in school.
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