Chedwah Van Tijn Stein

Frankel: Good morning. I will ask you to begin by stating your full name, date and place of birth.
STEIN: Chedwah Van Tijn. Now my name is Stein; it was Van Tijn. I was born April 30th, 1921, in Amsterdam, Holland.

Frankel: Can you tell us a little bit about your family? Who lived in the house where you grew up?
STEIN: My father was a geologist, and so we traveled a lot. When I was six weeks old, my mother took me to South Africa, where my father already was. I lived in the Veldt in South Africa until I was about one and a half.

Frankel: Did you have siblings?
STEIN: I had a brother, but he was born in Mexico, later. He was younger than I was.

Frankel: Can you name the names of your parents?
STEIN: Gertrude Francesca — I think her name was Cohn [spells out] before she got married. My father’s name was Jacques Van Tijn [spells out].

Frankel: Did you know your grandparents?
STEIN: I knew my father’s parents, but not my mother’s.

Frankel: Where did they live?
STEIN: They lived in Bussem [spells out], Holland.

Frankel: How long had your family lived in Holland? How many generations?
STEIN: I don’t know, but it was quite a long time.

Frankel: What are your earliest memories? You said you were a year and a half when you left South Africa?
STEIN: About a year and a half or two, I’m not sure.

Frankel: Did you go back to Amsterdam?
STEIN: Yes, we went back to Holland, and then to Mexico.

Frankel: How old were you when you went to Mexico?
STEIN: I was two. We stayed in Mexico until I was four or five.

Frankel: What is your earliest memory?
STEIN: My earliest memory is in Mexico. There was shooting. My nurse and my mother had put all of our trunks  — in those days they traveled with big trunks — and my father was late for some reason, and they were shooting outside for something. It was a revolution or something. I remember it because I was always told to put my toys away before I could get a new toy, and then they were all so upset that I had all of my toys out. So I enjoyed that enormously. Then I remember my father spanking me with his hand because my brother was just born, and he was carried around and I refused to walk, and he spanked me [laughs]. But then he felt bad and he apologized.

Frankel: How old were you when your brother was born?
STEIN: I was two and a half.

Frankel: How long did you stay in Mexico?
STEIN: Because of the revolution, or whatever it was, we were sent home with our nurse. I think I must have been almost three. We went home on a tanker with our nurse. I remember that because I remember that there was a storm and the water came into the cabin and our nurse was seasick. So the captain, or the first mate, carried us around and gave us special treats. I remember that.

Frankel: You refer to your caretaker as a nurse. Was she a professional nurse?
STEIN: No, she was like a nanny.

Frankel: What languages were spoken at home?
STEIN: We spoke Dutch, but my mother had lived in England and she taught us English. But Dutch is our first language.

Frankel: When you say, “We went home with our nanny,” did that mean Amsterdam?
STEIN: No, I think we went to a city named Baarn [spells out].

Frankel: What was there? You were born in Amsterdam, yet you went back to Baarn?
STEIN: There was nothing there.

Frankel: Were there relatives?
STEIN: I don’t think so. I don’t know why they went there.

Frankel: And how much after you had arrived in Holland did your parents join you?
STEIN: I think it was about six months. I am just guessing because I don’t really know.

Frankel: You said your father was a geologist. What exactly did he do?
STEIN: In Mexico he was looking for oil deposits, and in South Africa, I think he was looking for some deposits of minerals, but I am not sure which. He was an exploration geologist.

Frankel: When did you start school? And where?
STEIN: I started school in Johannesburg.

Frankel: So you didn’t stay in Holland very long.
STEIN: No, we left again and went to Johannesburg.

Frankel: How long did you stay there?
STEIN: We were there for about four years, I think.

Frankel: Do you have memories of that period? 
STEIN: Yes, I do remember Johannesburg.

Frankel: Can you tell us a little bit about it? Did your family observe any Jewish traditions?
STEIN: Yes, they did. They were Zionists. We did observe Jewish holidays, sort of. We didn’t go to a synagogue there or anything like that, but on Yom Kippur we stayed home. I remember there is some festival — I think it is a harvest festival — and we would dress up. And we always had Hanukkah. So we did have some.

Frankel: Did you have cousins?
STEIN: My mother had two brothers in Germany  — her family was in Germany — and a brother in the United States. My father had a brother and a sister in Holland.

Frankel: So you went to regular public schools in Johannesburg?
STEIN: I don’t think it was a public school, but it was a regular school, as far as I know.

Frankel: In English?
STEIN: Yes, in English. Then my father taught me Dutch, only to read in Dutch.

Frankel: And after about four years in Johannesburg?
STEIN: We went to Holland for a short time. Then my father got a job in central Africa, in Uganda. He just went to Uganda by himself, and my mother and our nurse, we went to Holland for a visit and then we joined him. We met him in Mombasa, and then we went together to Uganda.

Frankel: How did you and your brother feel about traveling to so many places?
STEIN: It was all that we knew. It just seemed like life.

Frankel: What was your brother’s name?
STEIN: David.

Frankel: And you went to school in Uganda?
STEIN: We had our nanny. She could teach us, and so she taught us. My mother taught us English, and my father taught us math, and she taught us all of the other subjects.

Frankel: What kind of things did you do for entertainment?
STEIN: We weren’t allowed to play with black children. I did sometimes sneak off to play with them, but I couldn’t speak with them very well. There were a few white children, but we didn’t play much.

Frankel: Did your family employ Black servants?
STEIN: Twenty.

Frankel: Twenty servants you had in your household?
STEIN: Yes [laughs]. If we dropped something, there was a little boy stationed in the living room, or wherever we were, and he would pick it up for us.

Frankel: How did you relate to that way of living?
STEIN: We didn’t know anything else.

Frankel: But in Holland it wasn’t like that.
STEIN: Oh, no! But we were pretty young.

Frankel: And was it the same in Johannesburg?
STEIN: In Johannesburg we lived on a sort of estate. We also had about 20 servants.

Frankel: When you say estate, were you the only family living there?
STEIN: Yes. It was a big place with a big garden and a swimming pool and tennis court.

Frankel: Did your family entertain a lot?
STEIN: Yes, they did, but we had our nanny and children were “seen but not heard.”

Frankel: You said that both of your parents were involved in the Zionist movement. In what way?
STEIN: I think my mother sent packages to Russia. They had meetings. I don’t know what they did, but they were both Zionists. I don’t think it involved going to Israel.

Frankel: How long were you there in Uganda?
STEIN: We were there about two and half years, and by that time it was 1930; everybody in Holland was unemployed. I guess that was a part of the Great Depression. My father was also unemployed. So it must have been about 1930. Then we went to Holland.

Frankel: Were you then in Baarn or in Amsterdam?
STEIN: No, we were in Blaricun [spells out]. That is near Amsterdam.

Frankel: Like a suburb?
STEIN: Like a suburb.

Frankel: How come you moved around in Holland so often? Different cities, suburbs?
STEIN: Well, that time we settled in Holland. The other times we were just visiting.

Frankel: I see. So how old were you by then?
STEIN: I must have been about ten.

Frankel: Then did you go to the regular school?
STEIN: Yes, I did.

Frankel: Did you ever get any Jewish education?
STEIN: Yes, we had a man who came in and taught us Hebrew and Jewish history.

Frankel: Was that in Africa as well?
STEIN: No, only in Holland.

Frankel: Do you recall his name?
STEIN: No, not at all. I don’t remember anything about him.

Frankel: Did you enjoy those lessons?
STEIN: No, I didn’t [laughs]. My brother was very bright and he could learn faster than I could. I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Frankel: Did you ever go to a synagogue in Holland as a child?
STEIN: My father’s father was Orthodox, so when we visited him and his wife over a Saturday we would go, but the women had to sit in a separate spot, so all I remember is that they were talking all the time.

Frankel: The women?
STEIN: Yes, but that was all I knew because that is where I had to sit.

Frankel: Did you go to public school in Holland?
STEIN: Yes.

Frankel: What language did you feel more comfortable in when you moved back there at the age of ten?
STEIN: Actually, I was able to do the work for my grade and didn’t have any trouble. It was more that I wasn’t used to so many children. But as far as the work was concerned, I was up to grade.

Frankel: What activities did you do besides school?
STEIN: We got to play tennis, and we had swimming lessons. I remember, because we had been in Africa, where people didn’t wear clothes — the black people didn’t wear clothes — my brother ran around without clothes, and people in Holland were horrified [laughs].

Frankel: Did your brother have a bar mitzvah?
STEIN: Yes, but when we first moved back he was only eight. He was younger than I was.

Frankel: Did your parents have Jewish friends? Were you aware of Jewish, non-Jewish?
STEIN: They had Jewish friends, but I don’t think it was ever brought out that they were Jewish. They had some friends who were Zionists, but it wasn’t a big deal.

Frankel: Did you join any youth movement when you were in Holland?
STEIN: Much later, when I went to a different school, a boarding school, there were Jewish people training to go to Israel.

Frankel: Was it a Jewish boarding school?
STEIN: No, it was just a group of boys in the same city as the school, and I had some boyfriends among them.

Frankel: Did you become involved in the Zionist movement yourself?
STEIN: I was always interested. I thought that I would like to go to Israel. †hat was why I took the training that I did.

Frankel: Was this training to work on a kibbutz? Was it that kind of training?
STEIN: I didn’t think that far ahead. I wasn’t a very thoughtful person.

Frankel: What kind of training did you get?
STEIN: It was home economics training.

Frankel: When did you go to the boarding school, and where was it?
STEIN: It must have been in 1938, and it was in a city called [Datinture?].

Frankel: Why did your parents send you to boarding school?
STEIN: I flunked out of the HBS, which is the school after you go to grade school.

Frankel: High school.
STEIN: Yes. There are different kinds in Holland. There is HBS, which is more math and science, and the gymnasium, which is more languages and liberal arts and Greek. I went to the one that had more science, and I flunked out so they sent me to England. I went to horticultural college for a year. Then I went back and I went to this school in Datinture. The thought was that it was a school that trained people in home economics. I had thought then that I wanted to go to Israel.

Frankel: Now, you said that was in 1938 when you went. In 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany, were you aware of what was going on?
STEIN: Yes, in Holland many refugees streamed across the border, and my mother worked as one of the people in charge of the refugees, so I was very aware of it.

Frankel: Did your family talk about leaving?
STEIN: In Holland? No, they didn’t because it wasn’t until 1939 that Hitler invaded Holland.

Frankel: So you felt safe in Holland.
STEIN: I just didn’t think about it.

Frankel: Were you in contact with the refugees who were coming?
STEIN: Yes, my mother was very much in charge of the refugee work in Holland, so I was very aware of it.

Frankel: In school, were there new children who came?
STEIN: No, not in school. We lived in the suburbs, and there were no refugees there, but I was very aware of it. We also had my mother’s brother, his wife, and their three children in Germany. He was picked up on Kristallnacht, and so they came to Holland. [Later] they went to Australia. She was able to help them escape to Australia, so I was aware of that.

Frankel: When did you graduate from high school?
STEIN: I didn’t. The school was closed when Hitler invaded Holland. Then I went to Amsterdam, and the soldiers occupied our house in the suburbs. My father had escaped to England. My mother had sent my brother to the United States, but I refused to go, and so I was living in Amsterdam.

Frankel: Why did you refuse to go?
STEIN: I thought it was very exciting to see what was going on [laughs]. I was just a teenager who didn’t want to do what people told me to do.

Frankel: Where did you live in Amsterdam, and what did you do there?
STEIN: I first worked in a hospital as a Red Cross aid while the invasion was going on. Then I worked at the Jewish refugee center.

Frankel: Do you recall the day that the Germans entered Amsterdam, or Holland, in 1940?
STEIN: It was May of 1940. I think it was May 22, or was it earlier?

Frankel: May 9 and 10 is when they started, when they raided the airplanes overnight and then they walked in.
STEIN: You know the dates better than I do. Yes, I remember it. It was very scary because there were hundreds of people in the air coming down, parachuters. Holland had thought that it would inundate its land and then people couldn’t get through, but they hadn’t thought of people flying over. It was extremely scary.

Frankel: Were you still at home with your parents?
STEIN: No, my father had already left for England with his second wife. My father and mother were divorced.

Frankel: So where was your mother?
STEIN: My mother was working. She told me to get busy and get on my bicycle and warn people to leave Holland for England.

Frankel: But she didn’t leave?
STEIN: No, she stayed in Holland. So that’s what I did. I got on my bicycle and warned people to go to the coast and take a boat to England. Then they were burning the oil or something, and you had these great, enormous black clouds in the distance, and every few minutes there would be an air raid alarm and we had to go to the air raid shelter. I don’t remember too much more about it. 

Frankel: How did your brother get to the United States?
STEIN: My brother was sent to the United States earlier.

Frankel: He had no trouble getting a visa?
STEIN: My mother got the visa. I don’t know. I had a visa, too, but I didn’t use it at that time. I used it later.

Frankel: How long did you stay in Amsterdam? Were Jews able to walk around?
STEIN: In the beginning. It only took a few months before they had to wear the sign.

Frankel: Did you wear the yellow star?
STEIN: No, I didn’t. I don’t remember why I didn’t, but I didn’t. Then the Germans would come at night and take Jews away and send them. We didn’t know about the concentration camps.

Frankel: When the Jews had to register, did you register?
STEIN: I don’t know.

Frankel: On your identity card, was the letter “J” stamped on it?
STEIN: I didn’t have an identity card. I just didn’t do any of that stuff.

Frankel: When did you separate from your mother? Were you constantly in touch with her?
STEIN: My mother had rooms, and I stayed in them. I didn’t stay with her. Our house was closed because it was invaded by German soldiers. And anyway, we had to drive to Amsterdam. It was about 20 miles to Amsterdam. So she took rooms in Amsterdam, and she found a place for me to stay, rented rooms. Then I worked in this hospital, and after the invasion I worked in the Jewish refugee center.

Frankel: What did you do there?
STEIN: The Germans made us register everybody who had lost property when they bombed Amsterdam, and they said that they would get some money back. In retrospect, I think they just wanted to get the Jews listed, but we didn’t know that, so we were busy registering what everybody had lost. I don’t think they ever got it back. I think they probably ended up in concentration camps, but we didn’t know that.

Frankel: So how much longer did you stay?
STEIN: Then my mother got me an exit permit, and I traveled with a family that was [inaudible]. We went through Brussels and France and Spain to Lisbon. I was in Lisbon for about two weeks, and somebody got me a ticket on a boat to the United States.

Frankel: It sounds so easy the way you describe it. How did your mother succeed in getting you an exit visa?
STEIN: I don’t know. I really don’t know. There were a few exit visas, not very many.

Frankel: And were you concerned that your mother was staying behind?
STEIN: I was, but there was nothing I could do about it. She didn’t want to leave because she was working with refugees and helping them get to different countries. She felt that she needed to do that, so she did not want to leave.

Frankel: Did she survive the war?
STEIN: She was in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, but a group of people in Bergen-Belsen were exchanged to Israel — at that time Palestine — for a group of Germans. She was exchanged after she had been in Bergen-Belsen for quite a while. She was exchanged to Palestine and then eventually came to the United States.

Frankel: When did you arrive in the United States?
STEIN: It must have been March of 1940. 

Frankel: Did you join your brother in the United States?
STEIN: No, my brother had been sent earlier to the United States. He was in a boarding school. Cherry Lane, I believe, in New York. My father had remarried, and I didn’t want to live with them, so I stayed for a couple of weeks with somebody from the Joint [Distribution Committee of the B’nai B’rith]. My mother had put some money in there. Then I got a job with the Joint.

Frankel: In New York?
STEIN: In New York. Then my father got work, so he was able to support me. I went to live at the International House. I went back to school and got my bachelor’s degree and eventually my master’s degree.

Frankel: In what field?
STEIN: In nutrition.

Frankel: What school did you go to?
STEIN: To get my bachelor’s degree I went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. To get my master’s, I went to Columbia, to Teachers College.

Frankel: What can you tell us about your experiences? You said you had some relatives in the United States, too, besides your father. Didn’t you say you had an uncle?
STEIN: Oh, no. He had committed suicide much earlier. 

Frankel: So your father was your only relative.
STEIN: And my brother.

Frankel: Did you stay in touch with your brother? Did you see him a lot?
STEIN: Yes, I did. And when I went to college, I had a job as a kitchen person in a teacher’s home, and my brother visited.

Frankel: Did your brother live with your father?
STEIN: No, he was in school.

Frankel: But on weekends or during summer vacations . . .
STEIN: Yes. He did visit sometimes.

Frankel: What did you do for the Joint Distribution Committee? What was the job?
STEIN: I filed little cards [laughs] because I knew English. That was a big plus.

Frankel: After you got your degree, did you find work? Did you stay in New York?
STEIN: After I got my bachelor’s, I took an internship at Montefiore Hospital. Then I got a job with the New York City Health Department because I didn’t like hospital work very much. I preferred public health.

Frankel: What exactly did you do?
STEIN: I was a nutritionist. I had parts of New York. I had the Lower East Side and Staten Island, and another area where there were no Jews. We tried to get people to have healthy meals in school and trained the nurses to know modern nutrition, too. I had a radio program every morning. I gave a five-minute talk on nutrition, and I worked in a nutrition clinic where the children that had big nutrition problems were referred by the schools.

Frankel: Were you connected to the Jewish community in New York at all?
STEIN: No, not at all.

Frankel: What about the Zionist movement? Did you continue to be involved?
STEIN: No, I was not involved. 

Frankel: Do you recall when the State of Israel was established?
STEIN: Yes, I do! [laughs] That was so exciting. My mother had come to the United States, and I remember that we were in New York and we went out on the street. It was very exciting.

Frankel: How long did you live with your mother after she came to New York?
STEIN: She moved into my apartment, but I didn’t like it. I got a job in Oregon.

Frankel: When did you become aware that she had been deported to Bergen-Belsen?
STEIN: Much earlier.

Frankel: You were aware.
STEIN: Yes.

Frankel: So in 1948, is that when you got the job in Oregon? Did you apply for a job and then move?
STEIN: Yes, I lost my job at the New York City Health Department because people were coming back from the war and reclaimed their jobs. So then I had to look for a job. My mother lived with me. I didn’t like it very much, so I moved as far away as I could think of.

Frankel: Did your brother by then graduate from school?
STEIN: My brother was going to Bloomington, to Indiana University, and he was working on his Ph.D. in math.

Frankel: Did he stay with your mother on vacations? 
STEIN: Well, we would see each other on occasion.

Frankel: Did you know anybody in Oregon?
STEIN: No, I didn’t, but it seemed adventurous.

Frankel: Can you tell us about the trip and what you found when you got here?
STEIN: When I came here they had just had this terrible disaster in Vanport. There were a lot of people who had lost everything. When I came here somebody interviewed me on the street, and I said I was looking for an apartment, so then I got a lot of calls [laughs]. That was nice. And I got a room in a house on the Lower East Side.

Frankel: What do you call the Lower East Side here?
STEIN: Oh, you know there was a little [struggles to remember] . . .

Frankel: Was it near the river, the Willamette?
STEIN: No, it wasn’t.

Frankel: Was it on the east side?
STEIN: It was on the east side. It was an old house, and they had rented different rooms. There were quite a few people from Vanport staying in the house.

Frankel: After the flood.
STEIN: After the flood. There was a community kitchen where you could cook. There was only one bathroom, as far as I can remember.

Frankel: What was your job? Where did you work?
STEIN: I worked for Oregon State Health Division, as a nutrition consultant.

Frankel: Did you know anyone?
STEIN: No, but that didn’t really bother me very much.

Frankel: When did you get married, and . . .?
STEIN: Let’s see. I was working to get enrichment of bread and flour with different vitamins and minerals as a requirement for selling flour in Oregon. I met a man from the Wheat Commission, and he invited me to his home in Pendleton. So when I had to go to Pendleton for work — because I traveled all over the state — he invited me to have dinner with him. Then I met my husband. He was working for the newspaper in Pendleton. Pretty soon after that, he called me and asked me to find him a place to live in Portland because he had gotten a job in Portland. He used to work for the Portland Journal.

Frankel: What was his name?
STEIN: Bob Stein.

Frankel: What was the Portland community like? Where was the hub? Who was the mayor? Who was the governor at that time?
STEIN: I’d have to look it up.

Frankel: Did you become involved in any associations, politically or culturally?
STEIN: Tennis club. I wasn’t very political. I was politically interested. I had belonged to the Progressive Party in New York, but I didn’t get very involved in politics really. You weren’t allowed to when you worked for the state. So I didn’t get involved. But Bob was a journalist, so he was pretty aware of what was going on.

Frankel: Were you aware of the Jewish community in Portland? Did you seek it out?
STEIN: No, I never did. I don’t know why, but I didn’t. So I really know very little about the Jewish community.

Frankel: Then you had children?
STEIN: Yes, I had four children.

Frankel: Can you name them and when they were born?
STEIN: Vicky was born in 1952, Roberta was born in 1954, David in 1956, and Jennifer in 1958. You would think I planned it, but I didn’t. It just worked that way. 

Frankel: Where were you living after you got married?
STEIN: At first Bob had an apartment in Lake Oswego that he shared with another journalist also called Bob. He moved out and I moved in, so we lived in this apartment in Lake Oswego for about a year. Then we had Vicky and looked for a house. We found the house that’s at the end of the [inaudible word], and we moved in there. We rented it.

Frankel: Did your mother stay in New York?
STEIN: My mother got a job in Taos, New Mexico. She worked for the newspaper there. She also had a job in New York for a while, but she didn’t like it very much. She loved Taos.

Frankel: Was she a journalist?
STEIN: No, she was just a smart lady. Eventually she moved to Oregon where I was. I am trying to think when that was. It was when I had Jennifer, so it wasn’t until 1958.

Frankel: And your brother David?
STEIN: David got his Ph.D. at Indiana, and he stayed in Bloomington for a while. Then he worked for General Electric. He went to Ithaca [New York]. Then he went to Washington, DC, and had his own business.

Frankel: You said your children did go to the Neighborhood House preschool. Were your children involved Jewishly? Did you try to provide them?
STEIN: I’m trying to think. It wasn’t a Jewish neighborhood house; it was a regular one. No, I felt I should give my children  — you see, my husband was not Jewish, so for a while, while they were growing up, I took them to the Unitarian Church, but they didn’t like it. And I don’t believe in religion, and so we stopped. They were not brought up with any religion.

Frankel: Was your husband a practicing Christian?
STEIN: No, but I think his family was Methodist.

Frankel: Did you have a Christian wedding or a secular one?
STEIN: No, we just had a wedding someplace in Washington State where they have people who can marry you. I don’t know what they are called.

Frankel: Justices of the Peace.
STEIN: Right. We were married by a Justice of the Peace.

Frankel: Did your family come for the wedding?
STEIN: No, but later my father came. They liked Bob, but my mother was in China, I think. She worked for UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] for a while. I don’t know where they were. We just got married.

Frankel: Tell me about the community here. How has it changed since you arrived?
STEIN: Portland? Well, when I first came here it was a very innocent kind of community [laughs].

Frankel: In what way?
STEIN: They didn’t know much about the world. Now, I think because a lot of people joined the Peace Corps, that gave them more of an idea of what the world was like. A lot of people have moved into Oregon, and now it’s much more cosmopolitan than it used to be. It used to be very difficult for Black people. I remember a friend of mine from New York visited me. She was Black. We went to the Heathman, and they wouldn’t serve us.

Frankel: How did you react?
STEIN: I was mad. I told them what I thought of them, and we went somewhere else. What could you do? Also, when Bob was going to move to Portland, he asked me to find him a place to stay. I looked around and found a place. I told them his name, and they said they didn’t rent to Jews. So I said, “You may not rent to Jews, but I wouldn’t want anybody to live in your place.” I was so mad.

Frankel: Was your husband’s father Jewish?
STEIN: No, he wasn’t.

Frankel: So the name Stein is . . .

[END OF SIDE ONE]

Frankel: I was asking you whether people knew that you were Jewish at work or when you needed to find a place.
STEIN: I don’t think so. But I never — I don’t believe in religion, so religion didn’t really come up. They knew I had escaped from Hitler, so that made it pretty clear that I was Jewish.

Frankel: Did you ever experience any antisemitism?
STEIN: Personally? I did in New York when I was looking for a job; they didn’t take Jews. I’ve forgotten what it was. When I lived in New York, when my mother and I went to the concerts they have, there were a lot of hotels that didn’t take Jews.

Frankel: Yet your name, Van Tijn . . .
STEIN: Is not Jewish. But it said in the ad that they didn’t take Jews. If it said that in some way, then we wouldn’t go there. I suppose we could have gone, nobody would have known, but I don’t like people being so prejudiced. I don’t feel it personally, but I don’t like it, so I wouldn’t help them and give them money.

Frankel: Did your children?
STEIN: No, my children grew up non-religious, non-Jewish.

Frankel: But they knew of their Jewish background?
STEIN: Yes, they did because they knew of my background. And my mother lived near us, so they knew about her.

Frankel: Did they ever show any interest of wanting to go to services or synagogue or to celebrate anything?
STEIN: No, I don’t think so because — well, my husband wasn’t Jewish. I’m not against religion, but I am personally not religious, and so they weren’t brought up [inaudible].

Frankel: Who were their friends, for the most part?
STEIN: Just kids from school.

Frankel: Jewish and non-Jewish?
STEIN: Yes.

Frankel: What schools did they attend?
STEIN: They went to public schools here in Oak Grove. They went to high school [inaudible]. Two of them went to Reed College. One of them, she had a lot of problems. Anyway, she went to Mount Hood Community College, and eventually she got a bachelor’s degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove. Jennifer ran away from home. She went to Canada. She’s got a master’s degree now and is doing all right.

Frankel: Do you have grandchildren?
STEIN: Yes. I have five granddaughters.

Frankel: Do they live in town? Do you see them?
STEIN: One of them lives here with her significant other. And David has three children, and all of them are going to school.

Frankel: They live in Oregon?
STEIN: No, they live in Southern California. Jennifer has one child — well, she’s 30, so she is not a child — and she lives in Canada.

Frankel: Did your brother ever get married?
STEIN: Yes, he did get married, and then his wife died. He had one daughter. Then he got remarried. This one is still alive, but he died quite a while ago.

Frankel: Did he live a Jewish life?
STEIN: No. I think he even joined a Christian church.

Frankel: Going back to Portland. You said it became more cosmopolitan. How else? Urbanization? The city itself?
STEIN: There are just a lot more people.

Frankel: And in terms of you as a woman working, was it common? Did you have discrimination at work?
STEIN: Yes. I had one boss who used to [inaudible], but on the whole it wasn’t bad. No, it was more that people didn’t know about the world.

Frankel: Did you try to change things?
STEIN: No, I just tried to live with it.

Frankel: Is there anything else you’d like to add? I know you said that you weren’t involved in the Jewish community, but were you aware of the rabbis, the Jewish leaders in the community?
STEIN: I knew they existed, but I didn’t have any contact with them. My husband wasn’t Jewish, and I was not at all interested in religion. I sort of gave up being a Zionist. I don’t know why.

Frankel: Did you ever visit Israel?
STEIN: As a matter of fact, I did.

Frankel: At what stage in your life?
STEIN: I went about ten years ago, and I loved it. It’s a beautiful country. One of my cousins lived in Israel, and I stayed with her and her husband in Jerusalem.

Frankel: What compelled you to go so recently after all these years?
STEIN: I was always interested in Israel. I am still interested in how things are going. I had a cousin there I could stay with. I have traveled quite a lot.

Frankel: Did your husband go with you?
STEIN: He was dead.

Frankel: Did your children ever visit Israel?
STEIN: Yes, I think Nicky, my second daughter, is interested in Jewish things, and she did visit Israel.

Frankel: Anything else you’d like to add about life in Oregon or your personal experiences?
STEIN: No.

Frankel: Did you ever go back to Holland?
STEIN: Yes, we did. Just a couple of years ago, my youngest daughter, Jennifer, and I went back to Holland. I had been back a couple of years earlier, too. I still have a cousin that lives there, and we stayed with them.

Frankel: Anything else you’d like to say?
STEIN: No, I can’t think of anything. It is better if you ask me questions.

Frankel: So your father stayed in New York after you moved here. Did you stay in touch with him?
STEIN: Yes, we saw each other. I never stayed with them because he was married to his second wife, but we always saw each other.

Frankel: With all your traveling, did you keep in touch, did you have close relationships in all of the places where you had lived? Did you keep contact with anybody?
STEIN: Not so much.

Frankel: When you say people knew that you had escaped Hitler, was anybody interested in your story?
STEIN: I don’t think so. I didn’t ever tell them very much. If they asked me, I would answer it.

Frankel: What about your children? Did you tell them about the experiences you had?
STEIN: Not to my children, no. But I am writing my memoirs now. I’m trying, anyway. I don’t think they’re too interested, but at least I will have done my duty.

Frankel: When your mother traveled with your father all over the world, did she have interests? Did she do something? Like writing, maybe? At the end you said she was writing in Taos. Did she do a lot of writing?
STEIN: She did some writing. When we lived in Johannesburg, she raised a lot of roses and sold them on the market. And they went on safari quite a bit, and she would go along.

Frankel: Did you feel that you didn’t have much time to spend with your parents because they traveled so much and you were taken care of by a nanny?
STEIN: It was the English system. Children are seen but not heard. We always had a nanny until we moved to Holland, and by that time I was in school.

Frankel: Did that cause you and your brother to be very close?
STEIN: Yes, we were very close, but as life — we sort of drifted apart.

Frankel: Is there anyone who stands out as having had a great influence on your life?
STEIN: Maybe both my father and mother did influence my attitude towards life.

Frankel: What about teachers or bosses?
STEIN: I had one boss I hated. I always imagined him on the ceiling [laughs], as you do in a movie.
 
Frankel: How long did you work as a nutritionist? When you had your children, did you continue working?
STEIN: I worked. Of course, I couldn’t do public health anymore, but I went back to working as a dietitian. I worked off and on. I worked at [inaudible], which is closed now, I think, and I worked in Hood River at [inaudible]. Then I started my business.

Frankel: What business was that?
STEIN: It was a nutrition business. We used a computer program for generating [inaudible]. I did that for 25 years.

Frankel: When you say “we,” was it a family business?
STEIN: I mean “I.” It was the royal “we” [laughs].

Frankel: What exactly was the business?
STEIN: When I started, I did a lot of consultation in public health nutrition. I worked for the State of Washington quite a bit as a consultant. Then, slowly, I started computer analysis of menus and diets. 

Frankel: Did you go back to school to get training in computers?
STEIN: No, I just picked it up. Then the business started to change, and I did mainly [inaudible] and hired people to help.

Frankel: Was it out of your house?
STEIN: It was in the beginning, and then I moved to an office. Then, when my husband died, I moved back to the house.

Frankel: Did your husband continue to write for the Journal?
STEIN: No, the Journal folded. Then they had a small paper, the Reporter, and he was city editor there. Then it folded. Then he freelanced. He did work for Time and Life and Sports Illustrated, and we survived. That’s when I went back to work.

Frankel: Did you travel a lot?
STEIN: He traveled a lot. To California, to Washington.

Frankel: What was his field of interest in writing? Was it politics?
STEIN: Anything that paid! He was a journalist. I think he was most interested in politics, but you will write about whatever.

Frankel: So you have lived in this neighborhood for . . .?
STEIN: A long time. Almost 50 years.

Frankel: How has this neighborhood changed?
STEIN: There are a lot more houses. There used to be almost no houses at all where now there are four houses on the other side of the road. It used to be wild. The kids used to play there.

Frankel: You said your mother cultivated roses. Are you into gardening as well? I saw beautiful flowers.
STEIN: Oh, yes. I love gardening. That’s my hobby.

Frankel: I also noticed a vegetable garden. Is that part of your property?
STEIN: It is part of my property, but I am not growing vegetables. My granddaughter and her significant other are living here, and they are growing vegetables.

Frankel: When you came to this country, were you able to bring anything? Do you have any heirlooms of the family?
STEIN: No, I had one suitcase.

Frankel: You were only allowed to travel with one suitcase?
STEIN: Yes, because we had to go by train through Belgium and France, and soldiers were there. You had to be able to carry your own things.

Frankel: Was your father who left earlier able to take anything with him?
STEIN: No, they left the night of the invasion.

Frankel: So do you have any photos from life in Europe or South Africa?
STEIN: I will get what I have. It isn’t much.

Frankel: Let me ask you about your name. Chedvah. Yocheved is a very Jewish name, a Hebrew name. Were you named after someone?
STEIN: [loud noises as she is looking for the photographs] No, not that I know of. It means “joy,” doesn’t it? [Note: it means “God’s glory” and was the name of Moses’s mother.] What kind of pictures would you like?

Frankel: I meant pictures from your youth, when you were very young, in Holland or South Africa.
STEIN: Here is what I’ve done so far.

Frankel: Are these pictures that you brought with you in that one suitcase?
STEIN: My mother must have had these, or they were saved or something. I don’t know. But these are what I have.

Frankel: I want to look at them, but unless you have something to add, I think we will stop the taped interview here.