Survivors/Connecticut/Sprung. Ita, 1988

Containers:

Box 2

Extent:

Typed letter (original)

Scope and content:

Folder contains letter written by Harriette Katz to Marsha Lotstein regarding the story of Holocaust survivor Ita Sprung.

Separated Materials:

Sept* 5, 1988

Marsha,

There is a Jewish widow (refugee from Poland) in West Hartford , 1179 Boulevard Mrs. Ita Sprung, whose story during the Holocaust should be taped by you. She is very emotional, she cries when she tells her story, so don't tape her story in front of an audience.

Her story is very unusual for several reasons (I think) maybe I'm wrong, because she posed as a shiksah, wore a cross on a chain and was harbored by nuns in a convent.

Her first husband was taken from her; her sister was cremated, her parents too, etc. But there is another aspect to her story (the same as the one I heard from a refugee from Austria) which I wonder if it has been documented* Are others aware of this gruesome aspect2 It is the resentment of certain Jews against other Jews. Am I the only one who hears this?

The one from Austria warned me (wishful thinking) that we Jews in America will experience some day what the Jews in Austria, Germany, Czech., Poland et al have all experienced. This resentment was triggered by the fact that she could not get visas for her son, his wife and their son to come to the U.S. I helped her write letters to Congressmen and Senators and others on a Mag Card machine at work. She had to join them in Israel and she didn't want to go there. She loved the U.S. with its Social Security. She was a furrier and was doing very well here financially. But she writes to me from Haifa and has adjusted very nicely in Israel. She said we are too smug*

The one from Poland is very bitter toward us Americans because she said we didnTt heIn buy up land in Palestine before Hitler and that's why the Jews were not able to escape from Poland, Germany, and the other countries in Europe. They had no place to go.

She is also hitter toward the refugees from Germany because she said they look down their noses at the Polish aid Russian Jews because the German Jews consider themselves to be intellectuals and superior to Polish Jews. She spoke to me in Yiddish so it is hard for me to repeat verbatim what she said. It goes something like this: The German Jews said: "Not our Hitler, he wouldn't mistreat us. He is our Feuhrer. We trust him." I think that was true of German Jews in the early 30's. Many industrial Jews contributed to Hitler's cause because they thought they were going against the Communists and they were capitalists. He pulled the wool over their eyes.

She complained that the Jews in the U.S. didn't want to get involved in WWII. I explained that the reason we got in late is because Joseph Kennedy sent false reports to Roosevelt from the Embassy in (5'eat Britain. Joseph had 5 sons and he didn't want them to get killed in the War. He was an isolationist like Lindbergh and he was buddy- buddy with Neville Chamberlain. But Roosevelt did help Great Britain for years before our Congress declared War against Germany. I have a newspaper clipping that explains that and I worked on Lend-Lease in the Treasury in Wash. D.C. 1937 - 1942 so I know that we were helping Great Britain long before we entered WWII. Not many people are aware of this fact. We supplied Great Britain with airplanes long before Sept. 1939 when we overcame the Isolationists in the U.S. and entered WWII.

I wonder if the historians of the Holocaust are aware of the resentment of Jews against Jews. It amazes me. I am shocked by it and can hardly believe it but I heard it with my own ears. They don't have much respect or gratitude toward us American- Jews. I resent that. Call me and tell me what you think of this subject.

Sincerely, *and think it will never happen to us. She was very bitter toward us. Harriette Katz

Extent:

Typed letter (original)

Subjects:

Holocaust survivors
Anti-Semitism

Names:

Lotstein, Marsha
Sprung, Ita, Poland

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